From 248d296234dc7ce76294c677bf2ca5e76c2f50d1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Fudgerboy <91767657+Fudgerboy@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2024 05:02:38 +0000 Subject: Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 10:02 PM -07:00 --- wk5/pset/speller/texts/holmes.txt | 115633 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 115633 insertions(+) create mode 100644 wk5/pset/speller/texts/holmes.txt (limited to 'wk5/pset/speller/texts/holmes.txt') diff --git a/wk5/pset/speller/texts/holmes.txt b/wk5/pset/speller/texts/holmes.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2859072 --- /dev/null +++ b/wk5/pset/speller/texts/holmes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,115633 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Sr., by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: The Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) + +Release Date: October 20, 2004 [EBook #3252] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PG WORKS OF O.W. HOLMES *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger and Several Other Project Gutenberg Volunteers + + + + + +THE ENTIRE PROJECT GUTENBERG WORKS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, SR. + +By Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. + + + +CONTENTS: + +The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table +The Professor at the Breakfast-table +The Poet at the Breakfast Table +Over the Teacups +Elsie Venner +The Guardian Angel +A Mortal Antipathy +Pages from an Old Volume of Life + Bread and the Newspaper + My Hunt after "The Captain" + The Inevitable Trial + Cinders from Ashes + The Pulpit and the Pew +Medical Essays + Homeopathy and its Kindred Delusions + The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever + Currents and Counter-currents in Medical Science + Border Lines of Knowledge in Some Provinces of Medical Science + Scholastic and Bedside Teaching + The Medical Profession in Massachusetts + The Young Practitioner + Medical Libraries + Some of My Early Teachers +A Memoir of John Lothrop Motley +A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson +Our Hundred Days in Europe + + + + + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE + + +THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY + + +The interruption referred to in the first sentence of the first of +these papers was just a quarter of a century in duration. + +Two articles entitled "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table" will be +found in the "New England Magazine," formerly published in Boston +by J. T. and E. Buckingham. The date of the first of these +articles is November 1831, and that of the second February 1832. +When "The Atlantic Monthly" was begun, twenty-five years +afterwards, and the author was asked to write for it, the +recollection of these crude products of his uncombed literary +boyhood suggested the thought that it would be a curious experiment +to shake the same bough again, and see if the ripe fruit were +better or worse than the early windfalls. + +So began this series of papers, which naturally brings those +earlier attempts to my own notice and that of some few friends who +were idle enough to read them at the time of their publication. +The man is father to the boy that was, and I am my own son, as it +seems to me, in those papers of the New England Magazine. If I +find it hard to pardon the boy's faults, others would find it +harder. They will not, therefore, be reprinted here, nor as I +hope, anywhere. + +But a sentence or two from them will perhaps bear reproducing, and +with these I trust the gentle reader, if that kind being still +breathes, will be contented. + + +--"It is a capital plan to carry a tablet with you, and, when you +find yourself felicitous, take notes of your own conversation."-- + +--"When I feel inclined to read poetry I take down my Dictionary. +The poetry of words is quite as beautiful as that of sentences. +The author may arrange the gems effectively, but their fhape and +luftre have been given by the attrition of ages. Bring me the +fineft fimile from the whole range of imaginative writing, and I +will fhow you a fingle word which conveys a more profound, a more +accurate, and a more eloquent analogy."-- + +--"Once on a time, a notion was ftarted, that if all the people in +the world would fhout at once, it might be heard in the moon. So +the projectors agreed it fhould be done in juft ten years. Some +thousand fhip-loads of chronometers were diftributed to the +selectmen and other great folks of all the different nations. For +a year beforehand, nothing else was talked about but the awful +noise that was to be made on the great occafion. When the time +came, everybody had their ears so wide open, to hear the universal +ejaculation of BOO,--the word agreed upon,--that nobody spoke +except a deaf man in one of the Fejee Islands, and a woman in +Pekin, so that the world was never so ftill fince the creation."-- + + +There was nothing better than these things and there was not a +little that was much worse. A young fellow of two or three and +twenty has as good a right to spoil a magazine-full of essays in +learning how to write, as an oculist like Wenzel had to spoil his +hat-full of eyes in learning how to operate for cataract, or an +ELEGANT like Brummel to point to an armful of failures in the +attempt to achieve a perfect tie. This son of mine, whom I have +not seen for these twenty-five years, generously counted, was a +self-willed youth, always too ready to utter his unchastised +fancies. He, like too many American young people, got the spur +when he should have had the rein. He therefore helped to fill the +market with that unripe fruit which his father says in one of these +papers abounds in the marts of his native country. All these +by-gone shortcomings he would hope are forgiven, did he not feel sure +that very few of his readers know anything about them. In taking +the old name for the new papers, he felt bound to say that he had +uttered unwise things under that title, and if it shall appear that +his unwisdom has not diminished by at least half while his years +have doubled, he promises not to repeat the experiment if he should +live to double them again and become his own grandfather. + +OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. +BOSTON. Nov. 1st 1858. + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +I was just going to say, when I was interrupted, that one of the +many ways of classifying minds is under the heads of arithmetical +and algebraical intellects. All economical and practical wisdom is +an extension or variation of the following arithmetical formula: +2+2=4. Every philosophical proposition has the more general +character of the expression a+b=c. We are mere operatives, +empirics, and egotists, until we learn to think in letters instead +of figures. + +They all stared. There is a divinity student lately come among us +to whom I commonly address remarks like the above, allowing him to +take a certain share in the conversation, so far as assent or +pertinent questions are involved. He abused his liberty on this +occasion by presuming to say that Leibnitz had the same +observation.--No, sir, I replied, he has not. But he said a mighty +good thing about mathematics, that sounds something like it, and +you found it, NOT IN THE ORIGINAL, but quoted by Dr. Thomas Reid. +I will tell the company what he did say, one of these days. + +--If I belong to a Society of Mutual Admiration?--I blush to say +that I do not at this present moment. I once did, however. It was +the first association to which I ever heard the term applied; a +body of scientific young men in a great foreign city who admired +their teacher, and to some extent each other. Many of them +deserved it; they have become famous since. It amuses me to hear +the talk of one of those beings described by Thackeray-- + + +"Letters four do form his name"-- + + +about a social development which belongs to the very noblest stage +of civilization. All generous companies of artists, authors, +philanthropists, men of science, are, or ought to be, Societies of +Mutual Admiration. A man of genius, or any kind of superiority, is +not debarred from admiring the same quality in another, nor the +other from returning his admiration. They may even associate +together and continue to think highly of each other. And so of a +dozen such men, if any one place is fortunate enough to hold so +many. The being referred to above assumes several false premises. +First, that men of talent necessarily hate each other. Secondly, +that intimate knowledge or habitual association destroys our +admiration of persons whom we esteemed highly at a distance. +Thirdly, that a circle of clever fellows, who meet together to dine +and have a good time, have signed a constitutional compact to +glorify themselves and to put down him and the fraction of the +human race not belonging to their number. Fourthly, that it is an +outrage that he is not asked to join them. + +Here the company laughed a good deal, and the old gentleman who +sits opposite said, "That's it! that's it!" + +I continued, for I was in the talking vein. As to clever people's +hating each other, I think a LITTLE extra talent does sometimes +make people jealous. They become irritated by perpetual attempts +and failures, and it hurts their tempers and dispositions. +Unpretending mediocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a weak +flavor of genius in an essentially common person is detestable. It +spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace character, as the +rinsings of an unwashed wineglass spoil a draught of fair water. +No wonder the poor fellow we spoke of, who always belongs to this +class of slightly flavored mediocrities, is puzzled and vexed by +the strange sight of a dozen men of capacity working and playing +together in harmony. He and his fellows are always fighting. With +them familiarity naturally breeds contempt. If they ever praise +each other's bad drawings, or broken-winded novels, or spavined +verses, nobody ever supposed it was from admiration; it was simply +a contract between themselves and a publisher or dealer. + +If the Mutuals have really nothing among them worth admiring, that +alters the question. But if they are men with noble powers and +qualities, let me tell you, that, next to youthful love and family +affections, there is no human sentiment better than that which +unites the Societies of Mutual Admiration. And what would +literature or art be without such associations? Who can tell what +we owe to the Mutual Admiration Society of which Shakspeare, and +Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher were members? Or to that of +which Addison and Steele formed the centre, and which gave us the +Spectator? Or to that where Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Burke, and +Reynolds, and Beauclerk, and Boswell, most admiring among all +admirers, met together? Was there any great harm in the fact that +the Irvings and Paulding wrote in company? or any unpardonable +cabal in the literary union of Verplanck and Bryant and Sands, and +as many more as they chose to associate with them? + +The poor creature does not know what he is talking about, when he +abuses this noblest of institutions. Let him inspect its mysteries +through the knot-hole he has secured, but not use that orifice as a +medium for his popgun. Such a society is the crown of a literary +metropolis; if a town has not material for it, and spirit and good +feeling enough to organize it, it is a mere caravansary, fit for a +man of genius to lodge in, but not to live in. Foolish people hate +and dread and envy such an association of men of varied powers and +influence, because it is lofty, serene, impregnable, and, by the +necessity of the case, exclusive. Wise ones are prouder of the +title M. S. M. A. than of all their other honors put together. + +--All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called +"facts." They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. +Who does not know fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact +or two which they lead after them into decent company like so many +bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenious suggestion, or +convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? I allow no "facts" +at this table. What! Because bread is good and wholesome and +necessary and nourishing, shall you thrust a crumb into my windpipe +while I am talking? Do not these muscles of mine represent a +hundred loaves of bread? and is not my thought the abstract of ten +thousand of these crumbs of truth with which you would choke off my +speech? + +[The above remark must be conditioned and qualified for the vulgar +mind. The reader will of course understand the precise amount of +seasoning which must be added to it before he adopts it as one of +the axioms of his life. The speaker disclaims all responsibility +for its abuse in incompetent hands.] + +This business of conversation is a very serious matter. There are +men that it weakens one to talk with an hour more than a day's +fasting would do. Mark this that I am going to say, for it is as +good as a working professional man's advice, and costs you nothing: +It is better to lose a pint of blood from your veins than to have a +nerve tapped. Nobody measures your nervous force as it runs away, +nor bandages your brain and marrow after the operation. + +There are men of esprit who are excessively exhausting to some +people. They are the talkers who have what may be called JERKY +minds. Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence. +They say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags +rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with one of these +jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords great relief. +It is like taking the cat in your lap after holding a squirrel. + +What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times! +A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring more solace to +our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds. + +"Do not dull people bore you?" said one of the lady-boarders,--the +same that sent me her autograph-book last week with a request for a +few original stanzas, not remembering that "The Pactolian" pays me +five dollars a line for every thing I write in its columns. + +"Madam," said I, (she and the century were in their teens +together,) "all men are bores, except when we want them. There +never was but one man whom I would trust with my latch-key." + +"Who might that favored person be?" + +"Zimmermann." + +--The men of genius that I fancy most have erectile heads like the +cobra-di-capello. You remember what they tell of William Pinkney, +the great pleader; how in his eloquent paroxysms the veins of his +neck would swell and his face flush and his eyes glitter, until he +seemed on the verge of apoplexy. The hydraulic arrangements for +supplying the brain with blood are only second in importance to its +own organization. The bulbous-headed fellows that steam well when +they are at work are the men that draw big audiences and give us +marrowy books and pictures. It is a good sign to have one's feet +grow cold when he is writing. A great writer and speaker once told +me that he often wrote with his feet in hot water; but for this, +ALL his blood would have run into his head, as the mercury +sometimes withdraws into the ball of a thermometer. + +--You don't suppose that my remarks made at this table are like so +many postage-stamps, do you,--each to be only once uttered? If you +do, you are mistaken. He must be a poor creature that does not +often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of +advice, "Know thyself," never alluding to that sentiment again +during the course of a protracted existence! Why, the truths a man +carries about with him are his tools; and do you think a carpenter +is bound to use the same plane but once to smooth a knotty board +with, or to hang up his hammer after it has driven its first nail? +I shall never repeat a conversation, but an idea often. I shall +use the same types when I like, but not commonly the same +stereotypes. A thought is often original, though you have uttered +it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new +and express train of associations. + +Sometimes, but rarely, one may be caught making the same speech +twice over, and yet be held blameless. Thus, a certain lecturer, +after performing in an inland city, where dwells a Litteratrice of +note, was invited to meet her and others over the social teacup. +She pleasantly referred to his many wanderings in his new +occupation. "Yes," he replied, "I am like the Huma, the bird that +never lights, being always in the cars, as he is always on the +wing."--Years elapsed. The lecturer visited the same place once +more for the same purpose. Another social cup after the lecture, +and a second meeting with the distinguished lady. "You are +constantly going from place to place," she said.--"Yes," he +answered, "I am like the Huma,"--and finished the sentence as +before. + +What horrors, when it flashed over him that he had made this fine +speech, word for word, twice over! Yet it was not true, as the +lady might perhaps have fairly inferred, that he had embellished +his conversation with the Huma daily during that whole interval of +years. On the contrary, he had never once thought of the odious +fowl until the recurrence of precisely the same circumstances +brought up precisely the same idea. He ought to have been proud of +the accuracy of his mental adjustments. Given certain factors, and +a sound brain should always evolve the same fixed product with the +certainty of Babbage's calculating machine. + +--What a satire, by the way, is that machine on the mere +mathematician! A Frankenstein-monster, a thing without brains and +without heart, too stupid to make a blunder; that turns out results +like a corn-sheller, and never grows any wiser or better, though it +grind a thousand bushels of them! + +I have an immense respect for a man of talents PLUS "the +mathematics." But the calculating power alone should seem to be +the least human of qualities, and to have the smallest amount of +reason in it; since a machine can be made to do the work of three +or four calculators, and better than any one of them. Sometimes I +have been troubled that I had not a deeper intuitive apprehension +of the relations of numbers. But the triumph of the ciphering +hand-organ has consoled me. I always fancy I can hear the wheels +clicking in a calculator's brain. The power of dealing with +numbers is a kind of "detached lever" arrangement, which may be put +into a mighty poor watch--I suppose it is about as common as the +power of moving the ears voluntarily, which is a moderately rare +endowment. + +--Little localized powers, and little narrow streaks of specialized +knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited about. +Nature is very wise; but for this encouraging principle how many +small talents and little accomplishments would be neglected! Talk +about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what +salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable. +Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's +plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and +the wave in which he dips. When one has had ALL his conceit taken +out of him, when he has lost ALL his illusions, his feathers will +soon soak through, and he will fly no more. + +"So you admire conceited people, do you?" said the young lady who +has come to the city to be finished off for--the duties of life. + +I am afraid you do not study logic at your school, my dear. It +does not follow that I wish to be pickled in brine because I like a +salt-water plunge at Nahant. I say that conceit is just as +natural a thing to human minds as a centre is to a circle. But +little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five +minutes' conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine +their whole curve. An arc in the movement of a large intellect +does not sensibly differ from a straight line. Even if it have the +third vowel as its centre, it does not soon betray it. The highest +thought, that is, is the most seemingly impersonal; it does not +obviously imply any individual centre. + +Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it, is always imposing. +What resplendent beauty that must have been which could have +authorized Phryne to "peel" in the way she did! What fine speeches +are those two: "Non omnis mortar," and "I have taken all knowledge +to be my province"! Even in common people, conceit has the virtue +of making them cheerful; the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his +house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is +almost sure to be a good-humored person, though liable to be +tedious at times. + +--What are the great faults of conversation? Want of ideas, want +of words, want of manners, are the principal ones, I suppose you +think. I don't doubt it, but I will tell you what I have found +spoil more good talks than anything else;--long arguments on +special points between people who differ on the fundamental +principles upon which these points depend. No men can have +satisfactory relations with each other until they have agreed on +certain ultimata of belief not to be disturbed in ordinary +conversation, and unless they have sense enough to trace the +secondary questions depending upon these ultimate beliefs to their +source. In short, just as a written constitution is essential to +the best social order, so a code of finalities is a necessary +condition of profitable talk between two persons. Talking is like +playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hand on the +strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out +their music. + +--Do you mean to say the pun-question is not clearly settled in +your minds? Let me lay down the law upon the subject. Life and +language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide--that is, +violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate +meaning, which is its life--are alike forbidden. Manslaughter, +which is the meaning of the one, is the same as man's laughter, +which is the end of the other. A pun is prima facie an insult to +the person you are talking with. It implies utter indifference to +or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter how serious. I +speak of total depravity, and one says all that is written on the +subject is deep raving. I have committed my self-respect by +talking with such a person. I should like to commit him, but +cannot, because he is a nuisance. Or I speak of geological +convulsions, and he asks me what was the cosine of Noah's ark; +also, whether the Deluge was not a deal huger than any modern +inundation. + +A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow +were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be +judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter +were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable +homicide. Thus, in a case lately decided before Miller, J., Doe +presented Roe a subscription paper, and urged the claims of +suffering humanity. Roe replied by asking, When charity was like a +top? It was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified silence. +Roe then said, "When it begins to hum." Doe then--and not till +then--struck Roe, and his head happening to hit a bound volume of +the Monthly Rag-bag and Stolen Miscellany, intense mortification +ensued, with a fatal result. The chief laid down his notions of +the law to his brother justices, who unanimously replied, "Jest +so." The chief rejoined, that no man should jest so without being +punished for it, and charged for the prisoner, who was acquitted, +and the pun ordered to be burned by the sheriff. The bound volume +was forfeited as a deodand, but not claimed. + +People that make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the +railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but +their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for +the sake of a battered witticism. + +I will thank you, B. F., to bring down two books, of which I will +mark the places on this slip of paper. (While he is gone, I may +say that this boy, our land-lady's youngest, is called BENJAMIN +FRANKLIN, after the celebrated philosopher of that name. A highly +merited compliment.) + +I wished to refer to two eminent authorities. Now be so good as to +listen. The great moralist says: "To trifle with the vocabulary +which is the vehicle of social intercourse is to tamper with the +currency of human intelligence. He who would violate the +sanctities of his mother tongue would invade the recesses of the +paternal till without remorse, and repeat the banquet of Saturn +without an indigestion." + +And, once more, listen to the historian. "The Puritans hated puns. +The Bishops were notoriously addicted to them. The Lords Temporal +carried them to the verge of license. Majesty itself must have its +Royal quibble. 'Ye be burly, my Lord of Burleigh,' said Queen +Elizabeth, 'but ye shall make less stir in our realm than my Lord +of Leicester.' The gravest wisdom and the highest breeding lent +their sanction to the practice. Lord Bacon playfully declared +himself a descendant of 'Og, the King of Bashan. Sir Philip +Sidney, with his last breath, reproached the soldier who brought +him water, for wasting a casque full upon a dying man. A courtier, +who saw Othello performed at the Globe Theatre, remarked, that the +blackamoor was a brute, and not a man. 'Thou hast reason,' replied +a great Lord, 'according to Plato his saying; for this be a +two-legged animal WITH feathers.' The fatal habit became universal. +The language was corrupted. The infection spread to the national +conscience. Political double-dealings naturally grew out of verbal +double meanings. The teeth of the new dragon were sown by the +Cadmus who introduced the alphabet of equivocation. What was +levity in the time of the Tudors grew to regicide and revolution in +the age of the Stuarts." + +Who was that boarder that just whispered something about the +Macaulay-flowers of literature?--There was a dead silence.--I said +calmly, I shall henceforth consider any interruption by a pun as a +hint to change my boarding-house. Do not plead my example. If _I_ +have used any such, it has been only as a Spartan father would show +up a drunken helot. We have done with them. + +--If a logical mind ever found out anything with its logic?--I +should say that its most frequent work was to build a pons asinorum +over chasms which shrewd people can bestride without such a +structure. You can hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer, to prove +anything that you want to prove. You can buy treatises to show +that Napoleon never lived, and that no battle of Bunker-hill was +ever fought. The great minds are those with a wide span, which +couple truths related to, but far removed from, each other. +Logicians carry the surveyor's chain over the track of which these +are the true explorers. I value a man mainly for his primary +relations with truth, as I understand truth,--not for any secondary +artifice in handling his ideas. Some of the sharpest men in +argument are notoriously unsound in judgment. I should not trust +the counsel of a smart debater, any more than that of a good +chess-player. Either may of course advise wisely, but not +necessarily because he wrangles or plays well. + +The old gentleman who sits opposite got his hand up, as a pointer +lifts his forefoot, at the expression, "his relations with truth, +as I understand truth," and when I had done, sniffed audibly, and +said I talked like a transcendentalist. For his part, common sense +was good enough for him. + +Precisely so, my dear sir, I replied; common sense, AS YOU +UNDERSTAND IT. We all have to assume a standard of judgment in our +own minds, either of things or persons. A man who is willing to +take another's opinion has to exercise his judgment in the choice +of whom to follow, which is often as nice a matter as to judge of +things for one's self. On the whole, I had rather judge men's +minds by comparing their thoughts with my own, than judge of +thoughts by knowing who utter them. I must do one or the other. +It does not follow, of course, that I may not recognize another +man's thoughts as broader and deeper than my own; but that does not +necessarily change my opinion, otherwise this would be at the mercy +of every superior mind that held a different one. How many of our +most cherished beliefs are like those drinking-glasses of the +ancient pattern, that serve us well so long as we keep them in our +hand, but spill all if we attempt to set them down! I have +sometimes compared conversation to the Italian game of mora, in +which one player lifts his hand with so many fingers extended, and +the other gives the number if he can. I show my thought, another +his; if they agree, well; if they differ, we find the largest +common factor, if we can, but at any rate avoid disputing about +remainders and fractions, which is to real talk what tuning an +instrument is to playing on it. + +--What if, instead of talking this morning, I should read you a +copy of verses, with critical remarks by the author? Any of the +company can retire that like. + + +ALBUM VERSES. + + +When Eve had led her lord away, +And Cain had killed his brother, +The stars and flowers, the poets say, +Agreed with one another + +To cheat the cunning tempter's art, +And teach the race its duty, +By keeping on its wicked heart +Their eyes of light and beauty. + +A million sleepless lids, they say, +Will be at least a warning; +And so the flowers would watch by day, +The stars from eve to morning. + +On hill and prairie, field and lawn, +Their dewy eyes upturning, +The flowers still watch from reddening dawn +Till western skies are burning. + +Alas! each hour of daylight tells +A tale of shame so crushing, +That some turn white as sea-bleached shells, +And some are always blushing. + +But when the patient stars look down +On all their light discovers, +The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown, +The lips of lying lovers, + +They try to shut their saddening eyes, +And in the vain endeavour +We see them twinkling in the skies, +And so they wink forever. + + +What do YOU think of these verses my friends?--Is that piece an +impromptu? said my landlady's daughter. (Aet. 19 +. Tender-eyed +blonde. Long ringlets. Cameo pin. Gold pencil-case on a chain. +Locket. Bracelet. Album. Autograph book. Accordeon. Reads +Byron, Tupper, and Sylvanus Cobb, junior, while her mother makes +the puddings. Says "Yes?" when you tell her anything.)--Oui et +non, ma petite,--Yes and no, my child. Five of the seven verses +were written off-hand; the other two took a week,--that is, were +hanging round the desk in a ragged, forlorn, unrhymed condition as +long as that. All poets will tell you just such stories. C'est le +DERNIER pas qui coute. Don't you know how hard it is for some +people to get out of a room after their visit is really over? They +want to be off, and you want to have them off, but they don't know +how to manage it. One would think they had been built in your +parlour or study, and were waiting to be launched. I have +contrived a sort of ceremonial inclined plane for such visitors, +which being lubricated with certain smooth phrases, I back them +down, metaphorically speaking, stern-foremost, into their "native +element," the great ocean of out-doors. Well, now, there are poems +as hard to get rid of as these rural visitors. They come in +glibly, use up all the serviceable rhymes, DAY, RAY, BEAUTY, DUTY, +SKIES, EYES, OTHER, BROTHER, MOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN, and the like; and +so they go on until you think it is time for the wind-up, and the +wind-up won't come on any terms. So they lie about until you get +sick of the sight of them, and end by thrusting some cold scrap of +a final couplet upon them, and turning them out of doors. I +suspect a good many "impromptus" could tell just such a story as +the above.--Here turning to our landlady, I used an illustration +which pleased the company much at the time, and has since been +highly commanded. "Madam," I said, "you can pour three gills and +three quarters of honey from that pint jug, if it is full, in less +than one minute; but, Madam, you could not empty that last quarter +of a gill, though you were turned into a marble Hebe, and held the +vessel upside down for a thousand years. + +One gets tired to death of the old, old rhymes, such as you see in +that copy of verses,--which I don't mean to abuse, or to praise +either. I always feel as if I were a cobbler, putting new +top-leathers to an old pair of boot-soles and bodies, when I am +fitting sentiments to these venerable jingles. + + . . . . youth +. . . . . morning +. . . . . truth +. . . . . warning + +Nine tenths of the "Juvenile Poems" written spring out of the above +musical and suggestive coincidences. + +"Yes?" said our landlady's daughter. + +I did not address the following remark to her, and I trust, from +her limited range of reading, she will never see it; I said it +softly to my next neighbour. + +When a young female wears a flat circular side--curl, gummed on +each temple,--when she walks with a male, not arm in arm, but his +arm against the back of hers,--and when she says "Yes?" with the +note of interrogation, you are generally safe in asking her what +wages she gets, and who the "feller" was you saw her with. + +"What were you whispering?" said the daughter of the house, +moistening her lips, as she spoke, in a very engaging manner. + +"I was only laying down a principle of social diagnosis." + +"Yes?" + +--It is curious to see how the same wants and tastes find the same +implements and modes of expression in all times and places. The +young ladies of Otaheite, as you may see in Cook's Voyages, had a +sort of crinoline arrangement fully equal in radius to the largest +spread of our own lady-baskets. When I fling a Bay-State shawl +over my shoulders, I am only taking a lesson from the climate that +the Indian had learned before me. A BLANKET-shawl we call it, and +not a plaid; and we wear it like the aborigines, and not like the +Highlanders. + +--We are the Romans of the modern world,--the great assimilating +people. Conflicts and conquests are of course necessary accidents +with us, as with our prototypes. And so we come to their style of +weapon. Our army sword is the short, stiff, pointed gladius of the +Romans; and the American bowie-knife is the same tool, modified to +meet the daily wants of civil society. I announce at this table an +axiom not to be found in Montesquieu or the journals of Congress:- + + +The race that shortens its weapons lengthens its boundaries. + + +Corollary. It was the Polish LANCE that left Poland at last with +nothing of her own to bound. + + +"Dropped from her nerveless grasp the SHATTERED SPEAR!" + + +What business had Sarmatia to be fighting for liberty with a +fifteen-foot pole between her and the breasts of her enemies? If +she had but clutched the old Roman and young American weapon, and +come to close quarters, there might have been a chance for her; but +it would have spoiled the best passage in "The Pleasures of Hope." + +--Self-made men?--Well, yes. Of course everybody likes and +respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to be made in +that way than not to be made at all. Are any of you younger people +old enough to remember that Irishman's house on the marsh at +Cambridgeport, which house he built from drain to chimney-top with +his own hands? It took him a good many years to build it, and one +could see that it was a little out of plumb, and a little wavy in +outline, and a little queer and uncertain in general aspect. A +regular hand could certainly have built a better house; but it was +a very good house for a "self-made" carpenter's house, and people +praised it, and said how remarkably well the Irishman had +succeeded. They never thought of praising the fine blocks of +houses a little farther on. + +Your self-made man, whittled into shape with his own jack-knife, +deserves more credit, if that is all, than the regular +engine-turned article, shaped by the most approved pattern, and +French-polished by society and travel. But as to saying that one is +every way the equal of the other, that is another matter. The right +of strict social discrimination of all things and persons, according +to their merits, native or acquired, is one of the most precious +republican privileges. I take the liberty to exercise it, when I say, +that, OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, in most relations of life I prefer a +man of family. + +What do I mean by a man of family?--O, I'll give you a general idea +of what I mean. Let us give him a first-rate fit out; it costs us +nothing. + +Four or five generations of gentlemen and gentlewomen; among them a +member of his Majesty's Council for the Province, a Governor or so, +one or two Doctors of Divinity, a member of Congress, not later +than the time of top-boots with tassels. + +Family portraits. The member of the Council, by Smibert. The +great merchant-uncle, by Copley, full length, sitting in his +arm-chair, in a velvet cap and flowered robe, with a globe by him, +to show the range of his commercial transactions, and letters with +large red seals lying round, one directed conspicuously to The +Honourable etc. etc. Great-grandmother, by the same artist; brown +satin, lace very fine, hands superlative; grand old lady, stiffish, +but imposing. Her mother, artist unknown; flat, angular, hanging +sleeves; parrot on fist. A pair of Stuarts, viz., 1. A superb +full-blown, mediaeval gentleman, with a fiery dash of Tory blood in +his veins, tempered down with that of a fine old rebel grandmother, +and warmed up with the best of old India Madeira; his face is one +flame of ruddy sunshine; his ruffled shirt rushes out of his bosom +with an impetuous generosity, as if it would drag his heart after +it; and his smile is good for twenty thousand dollars to the +Hospital, besides ample bequests to all relatives and dependants. +2. Lady of the same; remarkable cap; high waist, as in time of +Empire; bust a la Josephine; wisps of curls, like celery-tips, at +sides of forehead; complexion clear and warm, like rose-cordial. +As for the miniatures by Malbone, we don't count them in the +gallery. + +Books, too, with the names of old college-students in them,--family +names;--you will find them at the head of their respective classes +in the days when students took rank on the catalogue from their +parents' condition. Elzevirs, with the Latinized appellations of +youthful progenitors, and Hic liber est meus on the title-page. A +set of Hogarth's original plates. Pope, original edition, 15 +volumes, London, 1717. Barrow on the lower shelves, in folio. +Tillotson on the upper, in a little dark platoon of octo-decimos. + +Some family silver; a string of wedding and funeral rings; the arms +of the family curiously blazoned; the same in worsted, by a maiden +aunt. + +If the man of family has an old place to keep these things in, +furnished with claw-footed chairs and black mahogany tables, and +tall bevel-edged mirrors, and stately upright cabinets, his outfit +is complete. + +No, my friends, I go (always, other things being equal) for the man +who inherits family traditions and the cumulative humanities of at +least four or five generations. Above all things, as a child, he +should have tumbled about in a library. All men are afraid of +books, who have not handled them from infancy. Do you suppose our +dear didascalos over there ever read Poli Synopsis, or consulted +Castelli Lexicon, while he was growing up to their stature? Not +he; but virtue passed through the hem of their parchment and +leather garments whenever he touched them, as the precious drugs +sweated through the bat's handle in the Arabian story. I tell you +he is at home wherever he smells the invigorating fragrance of +Russia leather. No self-made man feels so. One may, it is true, +have all the antecedents I have spoken of, and yet be a boor or a +shabby fellow. One may have none of them, and yet be fit for +councils and courts. Then let them change places. Our social +arrangement has this great beauty, that its strata shift up and +down as they change specific gravity, without being clogged by +layers of prescription. But I still insist on my democratic +liberty of choice, and I go for the man with the gallery of family +portraits against the one with the twenty-five-cent daguerreotype, +unless I find out that the last is the better of the two. + +--I should have felt more nervous about the late comet, if I had +thought the world was ripe. But it is very green yet, if I am not +mistaken; and besides, there is a great deal of coal to use up, +which I cannot bring myself to think was made for nothing. If +certain things, which seem to me essential to a millennium, had +come to pass, I should have been frightened; but they haven't. +Perhaps you would like to hear my + + +LATTER-DAY WARNINGS. + + +When legislators keep the law, +When banks dispense with bolts and locks, +When berries, whortle--rasp--and straw-- +Grow bigger DOWNWARDS through the box,-- + +When he that selleth house or land +Shows leak in roof or flaw in right,-- +When haberdashers choose the stand +Whose window hath the broadest light,-- + +When preachers tell us all they think, +And party leaders all they mean,-- +When what we pay for, that we drink, +From real grape and coffee-bean,-- + +When lawyers take what they would give, +And doctors give what they would take,-- +When city fathers eat to live, +Save when they fast for conscience' sake,-- + +When one that hath a horse on sale +Shall bring his merit to the proof, +Without a lie for every nail +That holds the iron on the hoof,-- + +When in the usual place for rips +Our gloves are stitched with special care, +And guarded well the whalebone tips +Where first umbrellas need repair,-- + +When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot +The power of suction to resist, +And claret-bottles harber not +Such dimples as would hold your fist,-- + +When publishers no longer steal, +And pay for what they stole before,-- +When the first locomotive's wheel +Rolls through the Hoosac tunnel's bore;-- + +TILL then let Cumming a blaze away, +And Miller's saints blow up the globe; +But when you see that blessed day, +THEN order your ascension robe! + + +The company seemed to like the verses, and I promised them to read +others occasionally, if they had a mind to hear them. Of course +they would not expect it every morning. Neither must the reader +suppose that all these things I have reported were said at any one +breakfast-time. I have not taken the trouble to date them, as +Raspail, pere, used to date every proof he sent to the printer; but +they were scattered over several breakfasts; and I have said a good +many more things since, which I shall very possibly print some time +or other, if I am urged to do it by judicious friends. + +I finished off with reading some verses of my friend the Professor, +of whom you may perhaps hear more by and by. The Professor read +them, he told me, at a farewell meeting, where the youngest of our +great Historians met a few of his many friends at their invitation. + + +Yes, we knew we must lose him,--though friendship may claim +To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame; +Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, +'Tis the whisper of love when the bugle has blown. + +As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel,-- +As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel,-- +As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, +He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring. + +What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom +Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, +While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes +That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies! + +In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of time, +Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime, +There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, +There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue! + +Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed +From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed! +Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, +Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom! + +* * * * * + +The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake +On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, +To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine, +With incense they stole from the rose and the pine. + +So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed +When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed: +THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING,--the world holds him dear,-- +Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career! + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +I really believe some people save their bright thoughts, as being +too precious for conversation. What do you think an admiring +friend said the other day to one that was talking good things, +--good enough to print? "Why," said he, "you are wasting +mechantable literature, a cash article, at the rate, as nearly as I +can tell, of fifty dollars an hour." The talker took him to the +window and asked him to look out and tell what he saw. + +"Nothing but a very dusty street," he said, "and a man driving a +sprinkling-machine through it." + +"Why don't you tell the man he is wasting that water? What would +be the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive our +THOUGHT-SPRINKLERS through them with the valves open, sometimes? + +"Besides, there is another thing about this talking, which you +forget. It shapes our thoughts for us;--the waves of conversation +roll them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me +modify the image a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an +artist models in clay. Spoken language is so plastic,--you can pat +and coax, and spread and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick +on so easily when you work that soft material, that there is +nothing like it for modelling. Out of it come the shapes which you +turn into marble or bronze in your immortal books, if you happen to +write such. Or, to use another illustration, writing or printing +is like shooting with a rifle; you may hit your reader's mind, or +miss it;--but talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an +engine; if it is within reach, and you have time enough, you can't +help hitting it." + +The company agreed that this last illustration was of superior +excellence, or, in the phrase used by them, "Fust-rate." I +acknowledged the compliment, but gently rebuked the expression. +"Fust-rate," "prime," "a prime article," "a superior piece of +goods," "a handsome garment," "a gent in a flowered vest,"--all +such expressions are final. They blast the lineage of him or her +who utters them, for generations up and down. There is one other +phrase which will soon come to be decisive of a man's social +STATUS, if it is not already: "That tells the whole story." It +is an expression which vulgar and conceited people particularly +affect, and which well-meaning ones, who know better, catch from +them. It is intended to stop all debate, like the previous +question in the General Court. Only it doesn't; simply because +"that" does not usually tell the whole, nor one half of the whole +story. + +--It is an odd idea, that almost all our people have had a +professional education. To become a doctor a man must study some +three years and hear a thousand lectures, more or less. Just how +much study it takes to make a lawyer I cannot say, but probably not +more than this. Now most decent people hear one hundred lectures +or sermons (discourses) on theology every year,--and this, twenty, +thirty, fifty years together. They read a great many religious +books besides. The clergy, however, rarely hear any sermons except +what they preach themselves. A dull preacher might be conceived, +therefore, to lapse into a state of quasi heathenism, simply for +want of religious instruction. And on the other hand, an attentive +and intelligent hearer, listening to a succession of wise teachers, +might become actually better educated in theology than any one of +them. We are all theological students, and more of us qualified as +doctors of divinity than have received degrees at any of the +universities. + +It is not strange, therefore, that very good people should often +find it difficult, if not impossible, to keep their attention fixed +upon a sermon treating feebly a subject which they have thought +vigorously about for years, and heard able men discuss scores of +times. I have often noticed, however, that a hopelessly dull +discourse acts INDUCTIVELY, as electricians would say, in +developing strong mental currents. I am ashamed to think with what +accompaniments and variations and fioriture I have sometimes +followed the droning of a heavy speaker,--not willingly,--for my +habit is reverential,--but as a necessary result of a slight +continuous impression on the senses and the mind, which kept both +in action without furnishing the food they required to work upon. +If you ever saw a crow with a king-bird after him, you will get an +image of a dull speaker and a lively listener. The bird in sable +plumage flaps heavily along his straight-forward course, while the +other sails round him, over him, under him, leaves him, comes back +again, tweaks out a black feather, shoots away once more, never +losing sight of him, and finally reaches the crow's perch at the +same time the crow does, having cut a perfect labyrinth of loops +and knots and spirals while the slow fowl was painfully working +from one end of his straight line to the other. + +[I think these remarks were received rather coolly. A temporary +boarder from the country, consisting of a somewhat more than +middle-aged female, with a parchment forehead and a dry little +"frisette" shingling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold +beads, a black dress too rusty for recent grief and contours in +basso-rilievo, left the table prematurely, and was reported to have +been very virulent about what I said. So I went to my good old +minister, and repeated the remarks, as nearly as I could remember +them, to him. He laughed good-naturedly, and said there was +considerable truth in them. He thought he could tell when people's +minds were wandering, by their looks. In the earlier years of his +ministry he had sometimes noticed this, when he was preaching; +--very little of late years. Sometimes, when his colleague was +preaching, he observed this kind of inattention; but after all, it +was not so very unnatural. I will say, by the way, that it is a +rule I have long followed, to tell my worst thoughts to my +minister, and my best thoughts to the young people I talk with.] + +--I want to make a literary confession now, which I believe nobody +has made before me. You know very well that I write verses +sometimes, because I have read some of them at this table. (The +company assented,--two or three of them in a resigned sort of way, +as I thought, as if they supposed I had an epic in my pocket, and +was going to read half a dozen books or so for their benefit.)--I +continued. Of course I write some lines or passages which are +better than others; some which, compared with the others, might be +called relatively excellent. It is in the nature of things that I +should consider these relatively excellent lines or passages as +absolutely good. So much must be pardoned to humanity. Now I +never wrote a "good" line in my life, but the moment after it was +written it seemed a hundred years old. Very commonly I had a +sudden conviction that I had seen it somewhere. Possibly I may +have sometimes unconsciously stolen it, but I do not remember that +I ever once detected any historical truth in these sudden +convictions of the antiquity of my new thought or phrase. I have +learned utterly to distrust them, and never allow them to bully me +out of a thought or line. + +This is the philosophy of it. (Here the number of the company was +diminished by a small secession.) Any new formula which suddenly +emerges in our consciousness has its roots in long trains of +thought; it is virtually old when it first makes its appearance +among the recognized growths of our intellect. Any crystalline +group of musical words has had a long and still period to form in. +Here is one theory. + +But there is a larger law which perhaps comprehends these facts. +It is this. The rapidity with which ideas grow old in our memories +is in a direct ratio to the squares of their importance. Their +apparent age runs up miraculously, like the value of diamonds, as +they increase in magnitude. A great calamity, for instance, is as +old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened. It stains +backward through all the leaves we have turned over in the book of +life, before its blot of tears or of blood is dry on the page we +are turning. For this we seem to have lived; it was foreshadowed +in dreams that we leaped out of in the cold sweat of terror; in the +"dissolving views" of dark day-visions; all omens pointed to it; +all paths led to it. After the tossing half-forgetfulness of the +first sleep that follows such an event, it comes upon us afresh, as +a surprise, at waking; in a few moments it is old again,--old as +eternity. + +[I wish I had not said all this then and there. I might have known +better. The pale schoolmistress, in her mourning dress, was +looking at me, as I noticed, with a wild sort of expression. All +at once the blood dropped out of her cheeks as the mercury drops +from a broken barometer-tube, and she melted away from her seat +like an image of snow; a slung-shot could not have brought her down +better. God forgive me! + +After this little episode, I continued, to some few that remained +balancing teaspoons on the edges of cups, twirling knives, or +tilting upon the hind legs of their chairs until their heads +reached the wall, where they left gratuitous advertisements of +various popular cosmetics.] + +When a person is suddenly thrust into any strange, new position of +trial, he finds the place fits him as if he had been measured for +it. He has committed a great crime, for instance, and is sent to +the State Prison. The traditions, prescriptions, limitations, +privileges, all the sharp conditions of his new life, stamp +themselves upon his consciousness as the signet on soft wax;--a +single pressure is enough. Let me strengthen the image a little. +Did you ever happen to see that most soft-spoken and velvet-handed +steam-engine at the Mint? The smooth piston slides backward and +forward as a lady might slip her delicate finger in and out of a +ring. The engine lays one of ITS fingers calmly, but firmly, upon +a bit of metal; it is a coin now, and will remember that touch, and +tell a new race about it, when the date upon it is crusted over +with twenty centuries. So it is that a great silent-moving misery +puts a new stamp on us in an hour or a moment,--as sharp an +impression as if it had taken half a lifetime to engrave it. + +It is awful to be in the hands of the wholesale professional +dealers in misfortune; undertakers and jailers magnetize you in a +moment, and you pass out of the individual life you were living +into the rhythmical movements of their horrible machinery. Do the +worst thing you can, or suffer the worst that can be thought of, +you find yourself in a category of humanity that stretches back as +far as Cain, and with an expert at your elbow who has studied your +case all out beforehand, and is waiting for you with his implements +of hemp or mahogany. I believe, if a man were to be burned in any +of our cities tomorrow for heresy, there would be found a master of +ceremonies that knew just how many fagots were necessary, and the +best way of arranging the whole matter. + +--So we have not won the Goodwood cup; au contraire, we were a "bad +fifth," if not worse than that; and trying it again, and the third +time, has not yet bettered the matter. Now I am as patriotic as +any of my fellow-citizens,--too patriotic in fact, for I have got +into hot water by loving too much of my country; in short, if any +man, whose fighting weight is not more than eight stone four +pounds, disputes it, I am ready to discuss the point with him. I +should have gloried to see the stars and stripes in front at the +finish. I love my country, and I love horses. Stubbs's old +mezzotint of Eclipse hangs over my desk, and Herring's portrait of +Plenipotentiary,--whom I saw run at Epsom,--over my fireplace. Did +I not elope from school to see Revenge, and Prospect, and Little +John, and Peacemaker run over the race-course where now yon +suburban village flourishes, in the year eighteen hundred and +ever-so-few? Though I never owned a horse, have I not been the +proprietor of six equine females, of which one was the prettiest +little "Morgin" that ever stepped? Listen, then, to an opinion I +have often expressed long before this venture of ours in England. +Horse-RACING is not a republican institution; horse-TROTTING is. +Only very rich persons can keep race-horses, and everybody knows +they are kept mainly as gambling implements. All that matter about +blood and speed we won't discuss; we understand all that; useful, +very,--OF course,--great obligations to the Godolphin "Arabian," +and the rest. I say racing horses are essentially gambling +implements, as much as roulette tables. Now I am not preaching at +this moment; I may read you one of my sermons some other morning; +but I maintain that gambling, on the great scale, is not +republican. It belongs to two phases of society,--a cankered +over-civilization, such as exists in rich aristocracies, and the +reckless life of borderers and adventurers, or the semi-barbarism +of a civilization resolved into its primitive elements. Real +Republicanism is stern and severe; its essence is not in forms of +government, but in the omnipotence of public opinion which grows +out of it. This public opinion cannot prevent gambling with dice +or stocks, but it can and does compel it to keep comparatively +quiet. But horse-racing is the most public way of gambling, and +with all its immense attractions to the sense and the feelings,--to +which I plead very susceptible,--the disguise is too thin that +covers it, and everybody knows what it means. Its supporters are +the Southern gentry,--fine fellows, no doubt, but not republicans +exactly, as we understand the term,--a few Northern millionnaires +more or less thoroughly millioned, who do not represent the real +people, and the mob of sporting men, the best of whom are commonly +idlers, and the worst very bad neighbors to have near one in a +crowd, or to meet in a dark alley. In England, on the other hand, +with its aristocratic institutions, racing is a natural growth +enough; the passion for it spreads downwards through all classes, +from the Queen to the costermonger. London is like a shelled +corn-cob on the Derby day, and there is not a clerk who could raise +the money to hire a saddle with an old hack under it that can sit down +on his office-stool the next day without wincing. + +Now just compare the racer with the trotter for a moment. The +racer is incidentally useful, but essentially something to bet +upon, as much as the thimble-rigger's "little joker." The trotter +is essentially and daily useful, and only incidentally a tool for +sporting men. + +What better reason do you want for the fact that the racer is most +cultivated and reaches his greatest perfection in England, and that +the trotting horses of America beat the world? And why should we +have expected that the pick--if it was the pick--of our few and +far-between racing stables should beat the pick of England and +France? Throw over the fallacious time-test, and there was nothing +to show for it but a natural kind of patriotic feeling, which we +all have, with a thoroughly provincial conceit, which some of us +must plead guilty to. + +We may beat yet. As an American, I hope we shall. As a moralist +and occasional sermonizer, I am not so anxious about it. Wherever +the trotting horse goes, he carries in his train brisk omnibuses, +lively bakers' carts, and therefore hot rolls, the jolly butcher's +wagon, the cheerful gig, the wholesome afternoon drive with wife +and child,--all the forms of moral excellence, except truth, which +does not agree with any kind of horse-flesh. The racer brings with +him gambling, cursing, swearing, drinking, the eating of oysters, +and a distaste for mob-caps and the middle-aged virtues. + +And by the way, let me beg you not to call a TROTTING MATCH a RACE, +and not to speak of a "thoroughbred" as a "BLOODED" horse, unless +he has been recently phlebotomized. I consent to your saying +"blood horse," if you like. Also, if, next year, we send out +Posterior and Posterioress, the winners of the great national +four-mile race in 7 18.5, and they happen to get beaten, pay your +bets, and behave like men and gentlemen about it, if you know how. + +[I felt a great deal better after blowing off the ill-temper +condensed in the above paragraph. To brag little,--to show well, +--to crow gently, if in luck,--to pay up, to own up, and to shut up, +if beaten, are the virtues of a sporting man, and I can't say that +I think we have shown them in any great perfection of late.] + +--Apropos of horses. Do you know how important good jockeying is +to authors? Judicious management; letting the public see your +animal just enough, and not too much; holding him up hard when the +market is too full of him; letting him out at just the right buying +intervals; always gently feeling his mouth; never slacking and +never jerking the rein;--this is what I mean by jockeying. + +--When an author has a number of books out a cunning hand will keep +them all spinning, as Signor Blitz does his dinner-plates; fetching +each one up, as it begins to "wabble," by an advertisement, a puff, +or a quotation. + +--Whenever the extracts from a living writer begin to multiply fast +in the papers, without obvious reason, there is a new book or a new +edition coming. The extracts are GROUND-BAIT. + +--Literary life is fun of curious phenomena. I don't know that +there is anything more noticeable than what we may call +CONVENTIONAL REPUTATIONS. There is a tacit understanding in every +community of men of letters that they will not disturb the popular +fallacy respecting this or that electro-gilded celebrity. There +are various reasons for this forbearance: one is old; one is rich; +one is good-natured; one is such a favorite with the pit that it +would not be safe to hiss him from the manager's box. The +venerable augurs of the literary or scientific temple may smile +faintly when one of the tribe is mentioned; but the farce is in +general kept up as well as the Chinese comic scene of entreating +and imploring a man to stay with you with the implied compact +between you that he shall by no means think of doing it. A poor +wretch he must be who would wantonly sit down on one of these +bandbox reputations. A Prince-Rupert's-drop, which is a tear of +unannealed glass, lasts indefinitely, if you keep it from meddling +hands; but break its tail off, and it explodes and resolves itself +into powder. These celebrities I speak of are the Prince-Rupert's +drops of the learned and polite world. See how the papers treat +them! What an array of pleasant kaleidoscopic phrases, which can +be arranged in ever so many charming patterns, is at their service! +How kind the "Critical Notices"--where small authorship comes to +pick up chips of praise, fragrant, sugary, and sappy--always are to +them! Well, life would be nothing without paper-credit and other +fictions; so let them pass current. Don't steal their chips; don't +puncture their swimming-bladders; don't come down on their +pasteboard boxes; don't break the ends of their brittle and +unstable reputations, you fellows who all feel sure that your names +will be household words a thousand years from now. + +"A thousand years is a good while," said the old gentleman who sits +opposite, thoughtfully. + +--Where have I been for the last three or four days? Down at the +Island, deer-shooting.--How many did I bag? I brought home one +buck shot.--The Island is where? No matter. It is the most +splendid domain that any man looks upon in these latitudes. Blue +sea around it, and running up into its heart, so that the little +boat slumbers like a baby in lap, while the tall ships are +stripping naked to fight the hurricane outside, and storm-stay- +sails banging and flying in ribbons. Trees, in stretches of miles; +beeches, oaks, most numerous;--many of them hung with moss, looking +like bearded Druids; some coiled in the clasp of huge, dark-stemmed +grape-vines. Open patches where the sun gets in and goes to sleep, +and the winds come so finely sifted that they are as soft as +swan's down. Rocks scattered about,--Stonehenge-like monoliths. +Fresh-water lakes; one of them, Mary's lake, crystal-clear, full of +flashing pickerel lying under the lily-pads like tigers in the +jungle. Six pounds of ditto killed one morning for breakfast. +EGO fecit. + +The divinity-student looked as if he would like to question my +Latin. No, sir, I said,--you need not trouble yourself. There is +a higher law in grammar, not to be put down by Andrews and +Stoddard. Then I went on. + +Such hospitality as that island has seen there has not been the +like of in these our New England sovereignties. There is nothing +in the shape of kindness and courtesy that can make life beautiful, +which has not found its home in that ocean-principality. It has +welcomed all who were worthy of welcome, from the pale clergyman +who came to breathe the sea-air with its medicinal salt and iodine, +to the great statesman who turned his back on the affairs of +empire, and smoothed his Olympian forehead, and flashed his white +teeth in merriment over the long table, where his wit was the +keenest and his story the best. + +[I don't believe any man ever talked like that in this world. I +don't believe _I_ talked just so; but the fact is, in reporting +one's conversation, one cannot help BLAIR-ing it up more or less, +ironing out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping +and plaiting a little sometimes; it is as natural as prinking at +the looking-glass.] + +--How can a man help writing poetry in such a place? Everybody +does write poetry that goes there. In the state archives, kept in +the library of the Lord of the Isle, are whole volumes of +unpublished verse,--some by well-known hands, and others quite as +good, by the last people you would think of as versifiers,--men who +could pension off all the genuine poets in the country, and buy ten +acres of Boston common, if it was for sale, with what they had +left. Of course I had to write my little copy of verses with the +rest; here it is, if you will hear me read it. When the sun is in +the west, vessels sailing in an easterly direction look bright or +dark to one who observes them from the north or south, according to +the tack they are sailing upon. Watching them from one of the +windows of the great mansion, I saw these perpetual changes, and +moralized thus:- + + +SUN AND SHADOW. + + +As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green, +To the billows of foam-crested blue, +Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, +Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue: +Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray +As the chaff in the stroke of the flail; +Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way, +The sun gleaming bright on her sail. + +Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,-- +Of breakers that whiten and roar; +How little he cares, if in shadow or sun +They see him that gaze from the shore! +He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, +To the rock that is under his lee, +As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, +O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. + +Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves +Where life and its ventures are laid, +The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves +May see us in sunshine or shade; +Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark, +We'll trim our broad sail as before, +And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, +Nor ask how we look from the shore! + + +--Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good +mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if +anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or +reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough +to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. We +frequently see persons in insane hospitals, sent there in +consequence of what are called RELIGIOUS mental disturbances. I +confess that I think better of them than of many who hold the same +notions, and keep their wits and appear to enjoy life very well, +outside of the asylums. Any decent person ought to go mad, if he +really holds such or such opinions. It is very much to his +discredit in every point of view, if he does not. What is the use +of my saying what some of these opinions are? Perhaps more than +one of you hold such as I should think ought to send you straight +over to Somerville, if you have any logic in your heads or any +human feeling in your hearts. Anything that is brutal, cruel, +heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most of mankind and +perhaps for entire races,--anything that assumes the necessity of +the extermination of instincts which were given to be regulated, +--no matter by what name you call it,--no matter whether a fakir, or +a monk, or a deacon believes it,--if received, ought to produce +insanity in every well-regulated mind. That condition becomes a +normal one, under the circumstances. I am very much ashamed of +some people for retaining their reason, when they know perfectly +well that if they were not the most stupid or the most selfish of +human beings, they would become non-compotes at once. + +[Nobody understood this but the theological student and the +schoolmistress. They looked intelligently at each other; but +whether they were thinking about my paradox or not, I am not +clear.--It would be natural enough. Stranger things have happened. +Love and Death enter boarding-houses without asking the price of +board, or whether there is room for them. Alas, these young people +are poor and pallid! Love SHOULD be both rich and rosy, but MUST +be either rich or rosy. Talk about military duty! What is that to +the warfare of a married maid-of-all-work, with the title of +mistress, and an American female constitution, which collapses just +in the middle third of life, and comes out vulcanized India-rubber, +if it happen to live through the period when health and strength +are most wanted?] + +--Have I ever acted in private theatricals? Often. I have played +the part of the "Poor Gentleman," before a great many audiences, +--more, I trust, than I shall ever face again. I did not wear a +stage-costume, nor a wig, nor moustaches of burnt cork; but I was +placarded and announced as a public performer, and at the proper +hour I came forward with the ballet-dancer's smile upon my +countenance, and made my bow and acted my part. I have seen my +name stuck up in letters so big that I was ashamed to show myself +in the place by daylight. I have gone to a town with a sober +literary essay in my pocket, and seen myself everywhere announced +as the most desperate of buffos,--one who was obliged to restrain +himself in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential +considerations. I have been through as many hardships as Ulysses, +in the pursuit of my histrionic vocation. I have travelled in cars +until the conductors all knew me like a brother. I have run off +the rails, and stuck all night in snow-drifts, and sat behind +females that would have the window open when one could not wink +without his eyelids freezing together. Perhaps I shall give you +some of my experiences one of these days;--I will not now, for I +have something else for you. + +Private theatricals, as I have figured in them in country +lyceum-halls, are one thing,--and private theatricals, as they may be +seen in certain gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are +another. Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do +not think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, like most of +our stage heroes and heroines, in the characters which show off their +graces and talents; most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, +high bred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice, +acting in those love-dramas which make us young again to look upon, +when real youth and beauty will play them for us. + +--Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked to write. I did not +see the play, though. I knew there was a young lady in it, and +that somebody was in love with her, and she was in love with him, +and somebody (an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and, +very naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him. The play of +course ends charmingly; there is a general reconciliation, and all +concerned form a line and take each others' hands, as people always +do after they have made up their quarrels,--and then the curtain +falls,--if it does not stick, as it commonly does at private +theatrical exhibitions, in which case a boy is detailed to pull it +down, which he does, blushing violently. + +Now, then, for my prologue. I am not going to change my caesuras +and cadences for anybody; so if you do not like the heroic, or +iambic trimeter brachy-catalectic, you had better not wait to hear +it + + +THIS IS IT. + +A Prologue? Well, of course the ladies know;-- +I have my doubts. No matter,--here we go! +What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach: +Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech. +'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings, +The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings;-- +Prologues in metre are to other pros +As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. + +"The world's a stage," as Shakspeare said, one day; +The stage a world--was what he meant to say. +The outside world's a blunder, that is clear; +The real world that Nature meant is here. +Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; +Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa; +Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, +The cheats are taken in the traps they laid; +One after one the troubles all are past +Till the fifth act comes right side up at last, +When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all, +Join hands, SO happy at the curtain's fall. +--Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, +And black-browed ruffians always come to grief, +--When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, +And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, +Cries, "Help, kyind Heaven!" and drops upon her knees +On the green--baize,--beneath the (canvas) trees,-- +See to her side avenging Valor fly:- +"Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die!" +--When the poor hero flounders in despair, +Some dear lost uncle turns up millionnaire,-- +Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy, +Sobs on his neck, "MY BOY! MY BOY!! MY BOY!!!" + +Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night. +Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. +Ladies, attend! While woful cares and doubt +Wrong the soft passion in the world without, +Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere, +One thing is certain: Love will triumph here! + +Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,-- +The world's great masters, when you're out of school,-- +Learn the brief moral of our evening's play: +Man has his will,--but woman has her way! +While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire, +Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire,-- +The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves +Beats the black giant with his score of slaves. +All earthly powers confess your sovereign art +But that one rebel,--woman's wilful heart. +All foes you master; but a woman's wit +Lets daylight through you ere you know you're hit. +So, just to picture what her art can do, +Hear an old story made as good as new. + +Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, +Alike was famous for his arm and blade. +One day a prisoner Justice had to kill +Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. +Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, +Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. +His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam, +As the pike's armor flashes in the stream. +He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go; +The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. +"Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act," +The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) +"Friend I HAVE struck," the artist straight replied; +"Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." + +He held his snuff-box,--"Now then, if you please!" +The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze, +Off his head tumbled,--bowled along the floor,-- +Bounced down the steps;--the prisoner said no more! + +Woman! thy falchion is a glittering eye; +If death lurks in it, oh, how sweet to die! +Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head; +We die with love, and never dream we're dead! + + +The prologue went off very well, as I hear. No alterations were +suggested by the lady to whom it was sent, so far as I know. +Sometimes people criticize the poems one sends them, and suggest +all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly body that wanted +Burns to alter "Scots wha hae," so as to lengthen the last line, +thus + + +"EDWARD!" Chains and slavery! + + +Here is a little poem I sent a short time since to a committee for +a certain celebration. I understood that it was to be a festive +and convivial occasion, and ordered myself accordingly. It seems +the president of the day was what is called a "teetotaller." I +received a note from him in the following words, containing the +copy subjoined, with the emendations annexed to it. + +"Dear Sir,--your poem gives good satisfaction to the committee. +The sentiments expressed with reference to liquor are not, however, +those generally entertained by this community. I have therefore +consulted the clergyman of this place, who has made come slight +changes, which he thinks will remove all objections, and keep the +valuable portions of the poem. Please to inform me of your charge +for said poem. Our means are limited, etc., etc., etc. + +Yours with respect," + + +HERE IT IS--WITH THE SLIGHT ALTERATIONS! + +Come! fill a fresh bumper,--for why should we go +While the [nectar] [logwood] still reddens our cups as they flow? +Pour out the [rich juices] [decoction] still bright with the sun, +Till o'er the brimmed crystal the [rubies] [dye-stuff] shall run. + +The [purple glebed clusters] [half-ripened apples] their life-dews +have bled; +How sweet is the [breath] [taste] of the [fragrance they shed] +[sugar of lead]! +For summer's [last roses] [rank poisons] lie hid in the [wines] +[WINES!!!] +That were garnered by [maidens who laughed through the vines.] +[stable-boys smoking long-nines.] + +Then a [smile] [scowl], and a [glass] [howl], and a [toast] +[scoff], and a [cheer] [sneer], +For all [the good wine, and we've some of it here] [strychnine and +whiskey, and ratsbane and beer] +In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, +[Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all!] [Down, down, +with the tyrant that masters us all!] + + +The company said I had been shabbily treated, and advised me to +charge the committee double,--which I did. But as I never got my +pay, I don't know that it made much difference. I am a very +particular person about having all I write printed as I write it. +I require to see a proof, a revise, a re-revise, and a double +re-revise, or fourth-proof rectified impression of all my productions, +especially verse. A misprint kills a sensitive author. An +intentional change of his text murders him. No wonder so many poets +die young! + +I have nothing more to report at this time, except two pieces of +advice I gave to the young women at table. One relates to a +vulgarism of language, which I grieve to say is sometimes heard +even from female lips. The other is of more serious purport, and +applies to such as contemplate a change of condition,--matrimony, +in fact. + +--The woman who "calculates" is lost. + +--Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. + + + +CHAPTER III + + + +[The "Atlantic" obeys the moon, and its LUNIVERSARY has come round +again. I have gathered up some hasty notes of my remarks made +since the last high tides, which I respectfully submit. Please to +remember this is TALK; just as easy and just as formal as I choose +to make it.] + +--I never saw an author in my life--saving, perhaps, one--that did +not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (Felis Catus, +LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a skilful +hand. + +But let me give you a caution. Be very careful how you tell an +author he is DROLL. Ten to one he will hate you; and if he does, +be sure he can do you a mischief, and very probably will. Say you +CRIED over his romance or his verses, and he will love you and send +you a copy. You can laugh over that as much as you like--in +private. + +--Wonder why authors and actors are ashamed of being funny?--Why, +there are obvious reasons, and deep philosophical ones. The clown +knows very well that the women are not in love with him, but with +Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and plumed hat. Passion +never laughs. The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a +procession. + +If you want the deep underlying reason, I must take more time to +tell it. There is a perfect consciousness in every form of wit +--using that term in its general sense--that its essence consists in +a partial and incomplete view of whatever it touches. It throws a +single ray, separated from the rest,--red, yellow, blue, or any +intermediate shade,--upon an object; never white light; that is the +province of wisdom. We get beautiful effects from wit,--all the +prismatic colors,--but never the object as it is in fair daylight. +A pun, which is a kind if wit, is a different and much shallower +trick in mental optics throwing the SHADOWS of two objects so that +one overlies the other. Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special +effects, but always keeps its essential object in the purest white +light of truth.--Will you allow me to pursue this subject a little +further? + +[They didn't allow me at that time, for somebody happened to scrape +the floor with his chair just then; which accidental sound, as all +must have noticed, has the instantaneous effect that the cutting of +the yellow hair by Iris had upon infelix Dido. It broke the charm, +and that breakfast was over.] + +--Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say +disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer +you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact +and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, +leave your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies; they +are ready enough to tell them. Good-breeding NEVER forgets that +amour-propre is universal. When you read the story of the +Archbishop and Gil Blas, you may laugh, if you will, at the poor +old man's delusion; but don't forget that the youth was the greater +fool of the two, and that his master served such a booby rightly in +turning him out of doors. + +--You need not get up a rebellion against what I say, if you find +everything in my sayings is not exactly new. You can't possibly +mistake a man who means to be honest for a literary pickpocket. I +once read an introductory lecture that looked to me too learned for +its latitude. On examination, I found all its erudition was taken +ready-made from D'Israeli. If I had been ill-natured, I should +have shown up the little great man, who had once belabored me in +his feeble way. But one can generally tell these wholesale thieves +easily enough, and they are not worth the trouble of putting them +in the pillory. I doubt the entire novelty of my remarks just made +on telling unpleasant truths, yet I am not conscious of any +larceny. + +Neither make too much of flaws and occasional overstatements. Some +persons seem to think that absolute truth, in the form of rigidly +stated propositions, is all that conversation admits. This is +precisely as if a musician should insist on having nothing but +perfect chords and simple melodies,--no diminished fifths, no flat +sevenths, no flourishes, on any account. Now it is fair to say, +that, just as music must have all these, so conversation must have +its partial truths, its embellished truths, its exaggerated truths. +It is in its higher forms an artistic product, and admits the ideal +element as much as pictures or statues. One man who is a little +too literal can spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men of +esprit.--"Yes," you say, "but who wants to hear fanciful people's +nonsense? Put the facts to it, and then see where it is!" +--Certainly, if a man is too fond of paradox,--if he is flighty and +empty,--if, instead of striking those fifths and sevenths, those +harmonious discords, often so much better than the twinned octaves, +in the music of thought,--if, instead of striking these, he jangles +the chords, stick a fact into him like a stiletto. But remember +that talking is one of the fine arts,--the noblest, the most +important, and the most difficult,--and that its fluent harmonies +may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single harsh note. Therefore +conversation which is suggestive rather than argumentative, which +lets out the most of each talker's results of thought, is commonly +the pleasantest and the most profitable. It is not easy, at the +best, for two persons talking together to make the most of each +other's thoughts, there are so many of them. + +[The company looked as if they wanted an explanation.] + +When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking together, it is +natural enough that among the six there should be more or less +confusion and misapprehension. + +[Our landlady turned pale;--no doubt she thought there was a screw +loose in my intellects,--and that involved the probable loss of a +boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a +sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I +understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring +theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down +of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping voce di petto, to +Falstaff's nine men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe +the old gentleman opposite was afraid I should seize the +carving-knife; at any rate, he slid it to one side, as it were +carelessly.] + +I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin Franklin here, +that there are at least six personalities distinctly to be +recognized as taking part in that dialogue between John and Thomas. + +Three Johns. + +1. The real John; known only to his Maker. +2. John's ideal John; never the real one, and often very unlike +him. +3. Thomas's ideal John; never the real John, nor John's John, but +often very unlike either. + +Three Thomas. + +1. The real Thomas. +2. Thomas's ideal Thomas. +3. John's ideal Thomas. + + +Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a +platform-balance; but the other two are just as important in the +conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and +ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men +the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly +conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks +from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him +to be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he is, so far as +Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful +rogue, though really simple and stupid. The same conditions apply +to the three Thomases. It follows, that, until a man can be found +who knows himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as +others see him, there must be at least six persons engaged in every +dialogue between two. Of these, the least important, +philosophically speaking, is the one that we have called the real +person. No wonder two disputants often get angry, when there are +six of them talking and listening all at the same time. + +[A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made +by a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me +at table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little +known to boarding-houses, was on its way to me via this unlettered +Johannes. He appropriated the three that remained in the basket, +remarking that there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him +that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the +mean time he had eaten the peaches.] + +--The opinions of relatives as to a man's powers are very commonly +of little value; not merely because they sometimes overrate their +own flesh and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are +quite as likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the +habit of considering like themselves. The advent of genius is like +what florists style the BREAKING of a seedling tulip into what we +may call high-caste colors,--ten thousand dingy flowers, then one +with the divine streak; or, if you prefer it, like the coming up in +old Jacob's garden of that most gentlemanly little fruit, the +seckel pear, which I have sometimes seen in shop-windows. It is a +surprise,--there is nothing to account for it. All at once we find +that twice two make FIVE. Nature is fond of what are called +"gift-enterprises." This little book of life which she has given into +the hands of its joint possessors is commonly one of the old +story-books bound over again. Only once in a great while there is a +stately poem in it, or its leaves are illuminated with the glories of +art, or they enfold a draft for untold values signed by the +million-fold millionnaire old mother herself. But strangers are +commonly the first to find the "gift" that came with the little book. + +It may be questioned whether anything can be conscious of its own +flavor. Whether the musk-deer, or the civet-cat, or even a still +more eloquently silent animal that might be mentioned, is aware of +any personal peculiarity, may well be doubted. No man knows his +own voice; many men do not know their own profiles. Every one +remembers Carlyle's famous "Characteristics" article; allow for +exaggerations, and there is a great deal in his doctrine of the +self-unconsciousness of genius. It comes under the great law just +stated. This incapacity of knowing its own traits is often found +in the family as well as in the individual. So never mind what +your cousins, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and the rest, say +about that fine poem you have written, but send it (postage-paid) +to the editors, if there are any, of the "Atlantic,"--which, by the +way, is not so called because it is A NOTION, as some dull wits +wish they had said, but are too late. + +--Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has +mingled with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute, +peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them +are apt to get a bullying habit of mind;--not of manners, perhaps; +they may be soft and smooth, but the smile they carry has a quiet +assertion in it, such as the Champion of the Heavy Weights, +commonly the best-natured, but not the most diffident of men, wears +upon what he very inelegantly calls his "mug." Take the man, for +instance, who deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no +elasticity in a mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it +never yields a hair's breadth; everything must go to pieces that +comes in collision with it. What the mathematician knows being +absolute, unconditional, incapable of suffering question, it should +tend, in the nature of things, to breed a despotic way of thinking. +So of those who deal with the palpable and often unmistakable facts +of external nature; only in a less degree. Every probability--and +most of our common, working beliefs are probabilities--is provided +with BUFFERS at both ends, which break the force of opposite +opinions clashing against it; but scientific certainty has no +spring in it, no courtesy, no possibility of yielding. All this +must react on the minds which handle these forms of truth. + +--Oh, you need net tell me that Messrs. A. and B. are the most +gracious, unassuming people in the world, and yet preeminent in the +ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you. +But mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not +force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half +dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think +only in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once +visiting a certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to +express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman +who was an attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the +statement, and appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove +it. The rash man stuck to his hasty generalization, +notwithstanding. + +[--It is my desire to be useful to those with whom I am associated +in my daily relations. I not unfrequently practise the divine art +of music in company with our landlady's daughter, who, as I +mentioned before, is the owner of an accordion. Having myself a +well-marked barytone voice of more than half an octave in compass, +I sometimes add my vocal powers to her execution of + + +"Thou, thou reign'st in this bosom." + + +not, however, unless her mother or some other discreet female is +present, to prevent misinterpretation or remark. I have also taken +a good deal of interest in Benjamin Franklin, before referred to, +sometimes called B. F., or more frequently Frank, in imitation of +that felicitous abbreviation, combining dignity and convenience, +adopted by some of his betters. My acquaintance with the French +language is very imperfect, I having never studied it anywhere but +in Paris, which is awkward, as B. F. devotes himself to it with the +peculiar advantage of an Alsacian teacher. The boy, I think, is +doing well, between us, notwithstanding. The following is an +UNCORRECTED French exercise, written by this young gentleman. His +mother thinks it very creditable to his abilities; though, being +unacquainted with the French language, her judgment cannot be +considered final. + + +LE RAT DIES SALONS A LECTURE. + + +Ce rat ci est un animal fort singulier. Il a deux pattes de +derriere sur lesquelles il marche, et deux pattes de devant dont il +fait usage pour tenir les journaux. Cet animal a la peau noire +pour le plupart, et porte un cerele blanchatre autour de son cou. +On le trouve tous les jours aux dits salons, on il demeure, digere, +s'il y a do quoi dans son interieur, respire, tousse, eternue, +dort, et renfle quelquefois, ayant toujours le semblant de lire. +On ne sait pas s'il a une autre gite que cela. Il a l'air d'une +bete tres stupide, mais il est d'une sagacite et d'une vitesse +extraordinaire quand il s'agit de saisir un journal nouveau. On ne +sait pas pourquoi il lit, parcequ'il ne parait pas avoir des idees. +Il vocalise rarement, mais en revanche, il fait des bruits nasaux +divers. Il porte un crayon dans une de ses poches pectorales, avec +lequel il fait des marques sur les bords des journaux et des +livres, semblable aux suivans: !!!--Bah! Pooh! Il ne faut pas +cependant les prendre pour des signes d'intelligence. Il ne vole +pas, ordinairement; il fait rarement meme des echanges de +parapluie, et jamais de chapeau, parceque son chapeau a toujours un +caractere specifique. On ne sait pas au juste ce dont il se +nourrit. Feu Cuvier etait d'avis que c'etait de l'odeur du cuir +des reliures; ce qu'on dit d'etre une nourriture animale fort +saine, et peu chere. Il vit bien longtems. Enfin il meure, en +laissant a ses heritiers une carte du Salon a Lecture on il avait +existe pendant sa vie. On pretend qu'il revient toutes les nuits, +apres la mort, visiter le Salon. On peut le voir, dit on, a +minuit, dans sa place habituelle, tenant le journal du soir, et +ayant a sa main un crayon de charbon. Le lendemain on trouve des +caracteres inconnus sur les bords du journal. Ce qui prouve que le +spiritualisme est vrai, et que Messieurs les Professeurs de +Cambridge sont des imbeciles qui ne savent rien du tout, du tout. + + +I think this exercise, which I have not corrected, or allowed to be +touched in any way, is not discreditable to B. F. You observe that +he is acquiring a knowledge of zoology at the same time that he is +learning French. Fathers of families in moderate circumstances +will find it profitable to their children, and an economical mode +of instruction, to set them to revising and amending this boy's +exercise. The passage was originally taken from the "Histoire +Naturelle des Betes Ruminans et Rongeurs, Bipedes et Autres," +lately published in Paris. This was translated into English and +published in London. It was republished at Great Pedlington, with +notes and additions by the American editor. The notes consist of +an interrogation-mark on page 53d, and a reference (p. 127th) to +another book "edited" by the same hand. The additions consist of +the editor's name on the title-page and back, with a complete and +authentic list of said editor's honorary titles in the first of +these localities. Our boy translated the translation back into +French. This may be compared with the original, to be found on +Shelf 13, Division X, of the Public Library of this metropolis.] + +--Some of you boarders ask me from time to time why I don't write a +story, or a novel, or something of that kind. Instead of answering +each one of you separately, I will thank you to step up into the +wholesale department for a few moments, where I deal in answers by +the piece and by the bale. + +That every articulately-speaking human being has in him stuff for +ONE novel in three volumes duodecimo has long been with me a +cherished belief. It has been maintained, on the other hand, that +many persons cannot write more than one novel,--that all after that +are likely to be failures.--Life is so much more tremendous a thing +in its heights and depths than any transcript of it can be, that +all records of human experience are as so many bound herbaria to +the innumerable glowing, glistening, rustling, breathing, +fragrance-laden, poison-sucking, life-giving, death-distilling +leaves and flowers of the forest and the prairies. All we can do +with books of human experience is to make them alive again with +something borrowed from our own lives. We can make a book alive +for us just in proportion to its resemblance in essence or in form +to our own experience. Now an author's first novel is naturally +drawn, to a great extent, from his personal experiences; that is, +is a literal copy of nature under various slight disguises. But +the moment the author gets out of his personality, he must have the +creative power, as well as the narrative art and the sentiment, in +order to tell a living story; and this is rare. + +Besides, there is great danger that a man's first life-story shall +clean him out, so to speak, of his best thoughts. Most lives, +though their stream is loaded with sand and turbid with alluvial +waste, drop a few golden grains of wisdom as they flow along. +Oftentimes a single CRADLING gets them all, and after that the poor +man's labor is only rewarded by mud and worn pebbles. All which +proves that I, as an individual of the human family, could write +one novel or story at any rate, if I would. + +--Why don't I, then?--Well, there are several reasons against it. +In the first place, I should tell all my secrets, and I maintain +that verse is the proper medium for such revelations. Rhythm and +rhyme and the harmonies of musical language, the play of fancy, the +fire of imagination, the flashes of passion, so hide the nakedness +of a heart laid open, that hardly any confession, transfigured in +the luminous halo of poetry, is reproached as self-exposure. A +beauty shows herself under the chandeliers, protected by the +glitter of her diamonds, with such a broad snowdrift of white arms +and shoulders laid bare, that, were she unadorned and in plain +calico, she would be unendurable--in the opinion of the ladies. + +Again, I am terribly afraid I should show up all my friends. I +should like to know if all story-tellers do not do this? Now I am +afraid all my friends would not bear showing up very well; for they +have an average share of the common weakness of humanity, which I +am pretty certain would come out. Of all that have told stories +among us there is hardly one I can recall who has not drawn too +faithfully some living portrait that might better have been spared. + +Once more, I have sometimes thought it possible I might be too dull +to write such a story as I should wish to write. + +And finally, I think it very likely I SHALL write a story one of +these days. Don't be surprised at any time, if you see me coming +out with "The Schoolmistress," or "The Old Gentleman Opposite." +[OUR schoolmistress and OUR old gentleman that sits opposite had +left the table before I said this.] I want my glory for writing +the same discounted now, on the spot, if you please. I will write +when I get ready. How many people live on the reputation of the +reputation they might have made! + +--I saw you smiled when I spoke about the possibility of my being +too dull to write a good story. I don't pretend to know what you +meant by it, but I take occasion to make a remark which may +hereafter prove of value to some among you.--When one of us who has +been led by native vanity or senseless flattery to think himself or +herself possessed of talent arrives at the full and final +conclusion that he or she is really dull, it is one of the +most tranquillizing and blessed convictions that can enter a +mortal's mind. All our failures, our shortcomings, our strange +disappointments in the effect of our efforts are lifted from our +bruised shoulders, and fall, like Christian's pack, at the feet of +that Omnipotence which has seen fit to deny us the pleasant gift of +high intelligence,--with which one look may overflow us in some +wider sphere of being. + +--How sweetly and honestly one said to me the other day, "I hate +books!" A gentleman,--singularly free from affectations,--not +learned, of course, but of perfect breeding, which is often so much +better than learning,--by no means dull, in the sense of knowledge +of the world and society, but certainly not clever either in the +arts or sciences,--his company is pleasing to all who know him. I +did not recognize in him inferiority of literary taste half so +distinctly as I did simplicity of character and fearless +acknowledgment of his inaptitude for scholarship. In fact, I think +there are a great many gentlemen and others, who read with a mark +to keep their place, that really "hate books," but never had the +wit to find it out, or the manliness to own it. [Entre nous, I +always read with a mark.] + +We get into a way of thinking as if what we call an "intellectual +man" was, as a matter of course, made up of nine-tenths, or +thereabouts, of book-learning, and one-tenth himself. But even if +he is actually so compounded, he need not read much. Society is a +strong solution of books. It draws the virtue out of what is best +worth reading, as hot water draws the strength of tea-leaves. If +_I_ were a prince, I would hire or buy a private literary tea-pot, +in which I would steep all the leaves of new books that promised +well. The infusion would do for me without the vegetable fibre. +You understand me; I would have a person whose sole business should +be to read day and night, and talk to me whenever I wanted him to. +I know the man I would have: a quick-witted, out-spoken, incisive +fellow; knows history, or at any rate has a shelf full of books +about it, which he can use handily, and the same of all useful arts +and sciences; knows all the common plots of plays and novels, and +the stock company of characters that are continually coming on in +new costume; can give you a criticism of an octavo in an epithet +and a wink, and you can depend on it; cares for nobody except for +the virtue there is in what he says; delights in taking off big +wigs and professional gowns, and in the disembalming and +unbandaging of all literary mummies. Yet he is as tender and +reverential to all that bears the mark of genius,--that is, of a +new influx of truth or beauty,--as a nun over her missal. In +short, he is one of those men that know everything except how to +make a living. Him would I keep on the square next my own royal +compartment on life's chessboard. To him I would push up another +pawn, in the shape of a comely and wise young woman, whom he would +of course take--to wife. For all contingencies I would liberally +provide. In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive +phrase, "put him through" all the material part of life; see him +sheltered, warmed, fed, button-mended, and all that, just to be +able to lay on his talk when I liked,--with the privilege of +shutting it off at will. + +A Club is the next best thing to this, strung like a harp, with +about a dozen ringing intelligences, each answering to some chord +of the macrocosm. They do well to dine together once in a while. +A dinner-party made up of such elements is the last triumph of +civilization over barbarism. Nature and art combine to charm the +senses; the equatorial zone of the system is soothed by +well-studied artifices; the faculties are off duty, and fall into +their natural attitudes; you see wisdom in slippers and science in a +short jacket. + +The whole force of conversation depends on how much you can take +for granted. Vulgar chess-players have to play their game out; +nothing short of the brutality of an actual checkmate satisfies +their dull apprehensions. But look at two masters of that noble +game! White stands well enough, so far as you can see; but Red +says, Mate in six moves;--White looks,--nods;--the game is over. +Just so in talking with first-rate men; especially when they are +good-natured and expansive, as they are apt to be at table. That +blessed clairvoyance which sees into things without opening them, +--that glorious license, which, having shut the door and driven the +reporter from its key-hole, calls upon Truth, majestic virgin! to +get off from her pedestal and drop her academic poses, and take a +festive garland and the vacant place on the medius lectus,--that +carnival-shower of questions and replies and comments, large axioms +bowled over the mahogany like bomb-shells from professional +mortars, and explosive wit dropping its trains of many-colored +fire, and the mischief-making rain of bon-bons pelting everybody +that shows himself,--the picture of a truly intellectual banquet is +one which the old Divinities might well have attempted to reproduce +in their-- + +--"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the young fellow whom they call John,--"that +is from one of your lectures!" + +I know it, I replied,--I concede it, I confess it, I proclaim it. + + +"The trail of the serpent is over them all!" + + +All lecturers, all professors, all schoolmasters, have ruts and +grooves in their minds into which their conversation is perpetually +sliding. Did you never, in riding through the woods of a still +June evening, suddenly feel that you had passed into a warm stratum +of air, and in a minute or two strike the chill layer of atmosphere +beyond? Did you never, in cleaving the green waters of the Back +Bay,--where the Provincial blue-noses are in the habit of beating +the "Metropolitan" boat-clubs,--find yourself in a tepid streak, a +narrow, local gulf-stream, a gratuitous warm-bath a little +underdone, through which your glistening shoulders soon flashed, to +bring you back to the cold realities of full-sea temperature? Just +so, in talking with any of the characters above referred to, one +not unfrequently finds a sudden change in the style of the +conversation. The lack-lustre eye rayless as a Beacon-Street +door-plate in August, all at once fills with light; the face flings +itself wide open like the church-portals when the bride and +bridegroom enter; the little man grows in stature before your eyes, +like the small prisoner with hair on end, beloved yet dreaded of +early childhood; you were talking with a dwarf and an imbecile, +--you have a giant and a trumpet-tongued angel before you!--Nothing +but a streak out of a fifty-dollar lecture.--As when, at some +unlooked-for moment, the mighty fountain-column springs into the +air before the astonished passer-by,--silver-footed, diamond- +crowned, rainbow-scarfed,--from the bosom of that fair sheet, +sacred to the hymns of quiet batrachians at home, and the epigrams +of a less amiable and less elevated order of reptilia in other +latitudes. + +--Who was that person that was so abused some time since for saying +that in the conflict of two races our sympathies naturally go with +the higher? No matter who he was. Now look at what is going on in +India,--a white, superior "Caucasian" race, against a dark-skinned, +inferior, but still "Caucasian" race,--and where are English and +American sympathies? We can't stop to settle all the doubtful +questions; all we know is, that the brute nature is sure to come +out most strongly in the lower race, and it is the general law that +the human side of humanity should treat the brutal side as it does +the same nature in the inferior animals,--tame it or crush it. The +India mail brings stories of women and children outraged and +murdered; the royal stronghold is in the hands of the babe-killers. +England takes down the Map of the World, which she has girdled with +empire, and makes a correction thus: [DELPHI] Dele. The civilized +world says, Amen. + +--Do not think, because I talk to you of many subjects briefly, +that I should not find it much lazier work to take each one of them +and dilute it down to an essay. Borrow some of my old college +themes and water my remarks to suit yourselves, as the Homeric +heroes did with their melas oinos,--that black sweet, syrupy wine +(?) which they used to alloy with three parts or more of the +flowing stream. [Could it have been melasses, as Webster and his +provincials spell it,--or Molossa's, as dear old smattering, +chattering, would-be-College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in +the "Magnalia"? Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries who make +barn-door-fowl flights of learning in "Notes and Queries!"--ye +Historical Societies, in one of whose venerable triremes I, too, +ascend the stream of time, while other hands tug at the oars!--ye +Amines of parasitical literature, who pick up your grains of +native-grown food with a bodkin, having gorged upon less honest +fare, until, like the great minds Goethe speaks of, you have "made +a Golgotha" of your pages!--ponder thereon!] + +--Before you go, this morning, I want to read you a copy of verses. +You will understand by the title that they are written in an +imaginary character. I don't doubt they will fit some family-man +well enough. I send it forth as "Oak Hall" projects a coat, on a +priori grounds of conviction that it will suit somebody. There is +no loftier illustration of faith than this. It believes that a +soul has been clad in flesh; that tender parents have fed and +nurtured it; that its mysterious compages or frame-work has +survived its myriad exposures and reached the stature of maturity; +that the Man, now self-determining, has given in his adhesion to +the traditions and habits of the race in favor of artificial +clothing; that he will, having all the world to choose from, select +the very locality where this audacious generalization has been +acted upon. It builds a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, and +trusts that Nature will model a material shape to fit it. There is +a prophecy in every seam, and its pockets are full of inspiration. +--Now hear the verses. + + +THE OLD MAN DREAMS. + + +O for one hour of youthful joy! +Give back my twentieth spring! +I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy +Than reign a gray-beard king! + +Off with the wrinkled spoils of age! +Away with learning's crown! +Tear out life's wisdom-written page, +And dash its trophies down! + +One moment let my life-blood stream +From boyhood's fount of flame! +Give me one giddy, reeling dream +Of life all love and fame! + +--My listening angel heard the prayer, +And calmly smiling, said, +"If I but touch thy silvered hair, +Thy hasty wish hath sped. + +"But is there nothing in thy track +To bid thee fondly stay, +While the swift seasons hurry back +To find the wished-for day?" + +--Ah, truest soul of womankind! +Without thee, what were life? +One bliss I cannot leave behind: +I'll take--my--precious wife! + +--The angel took a sapphire pen +And wrote in rainbow dew, +"The man would be a boy again, +And be a husband too!" + +--"And is there nothing yet unsaid +Before the change appears? +Remember, all their gifts have fled +With those dissolving years!" + +Why, yes; for memory would recall +My fond paternal joys; +I could not bear to leave them all; +I'll take--my--girl--and--boys! + +The smiling angel dropped his pen,-- +"Why this will never do; +The man would be a boy again, +And be a father too!" + +And so I laughed,--my laughter woke +The household with its noise,-- +And wrote my dream, when morning broke, +To please the gray-haired boys. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +[I am so well pleased with my boarding-house that I intend to +remain there, perhaps for years. Of course I shall have a great +many conversations to report, and they will necessarily be of +different tone and on different subjects. The talks are like the +breakfasts,--sometimes dipped toast, and sometimes dry. You must +take them as they come. How can I do what all these letters ask me +to? No. 1. want serious and earnest thought. No. 2. (letter +smells of bad cigars) must have more jokes; wants me to tell a +"good storey" which he has copied out for me. (I suppose two +letters before the word "good" refer to some Doctor of Divinity who +told the story.) No. 3. (in female hand)--more poetry. No. 4. +wants something that would be of use to a practical man. +(Prahctical mahn he probably pronounces it.) No. 5. (gilt-edged, +sweet-scented)--"more sentiment,"--"heart's outpourings."-- + +My dear friends, one and all, I can do nothing but report such +remarks as I happen to have made at our breakfast-table. Their +character will depend on many accidents,--a good deal on the +particular persons in the company to whom they were addressed. It +so happens that those which follow were mainly intended for the +divinity-student and the school-mistress; though others, whom I +need not mention, saw to interfere, with more or less propriety, in +the conversation. This is one of my privileges as a talker; and of +course, if I was not talking for our whole company, I don't expect +all the readers of this periodical to be interested in my notes of +what was said. Still, I think there may be a few that will rather +like this vein,--possibly prefer it to a livelier one,--serious +young men, and young women generally, in life's roseate parenthesis +from--years of age to--inclusive. + +Another privilege of talking is to misquote.--Of course it wasn't +Proserpina that actually cut the yellow hair,--but Iris. (As I +have since told you) it was the former lady's regular business, but +Dido had used herself ungenteelly, and Madame d'Enfer stood firm on +the point of etiquette. So the bathycolpian Here--Juno, in Latin +--sent down Iris instead. But I was mightily pleased to see that one +of the gentlemen that do the heavy articles for the celebrated +"Oceanic Miscellany" misquoted Campbell's line without any excuse. +"Waft us HOME the MESSAGE" of course it ought to be. Will he be +duly grateful for the correction?] + +--The more we study the body and the mind, the more we find both to +be governed, not by, but ACCORDING TO laws, such as we observe in +the larger universe.--You think you know all about WALKING,--don't +you, now? Well, how do you suppose your lower limbs are held to +your body? They are sucked up by two cupping vessels, ("cotyloid" +--cup-like--cavities,) and held there as long as you live, and +longer. At any rate, you think you move them backward and forward +at such a rate as your will determines, don't you?--On the +contrary, they swing just as any other pendulums swing, at a fixed +rate, determined by their length. You can alter this by muscular +power, as you can take hold of the pendulum of a clock and make it +move faster or slower; but your ordinary gait is timed by the same +mechanism as the movements of the solar system. + +[My friend, the Professor, told me all this, referring me to +certain German physiologists by the name of Weber for proof of the +facts, which, however, he said he had often verified. I +appropriated it to my own use; what can one do better than this, +when one has a friend that tells him anything worth remembering? + +The Professor seems to think that man and the general powers of the +universe are in partnership. Some one was saying that it had cost +nearly half a million to move the Leviathan only so far as they had +got it already.--Why,--said the Professor,--they might have hired +an EARTHQUAKE for less money!] + +Just as we find a mathematical rule at the bottom of many of the +bodily movements, just so thought may be supposed to have its +regular cycles. Such or such a thought comes round periodically, +in its turn. Accidental suggestions, however, so far interfere +with the regular cycles, that we may find them practically beyond +our power of recognition. Take all this for what it is worth, but +at any rate you will agree that there are certain particular +thoughts that do not come up once a day, nor once a week, but that +a year would hardly go round without your having them pass through +your mind. Here is one which comes up at intervals in this way. +Some one speaks of it, and there is an instant and eager smile of +assent in the listener or listeners. Yes, indeed; they have often +been struck by it. + +ALL AT ONCE A CONVICTION FLASHES THROUGH US THAT WE HAVE BEEN IN +THE SAME PRECISE CIRCUMSTANCES AS AT THE PRESENT INSTANT, ONCE OR +MANY TIMES BEFORE. + +O, dear, yes!--said one of the company,--everybody has had that +feeling. + +The landlady didn't know anything about such notions; it was an +idee in folks' heads, she expected. + +The schoolmistress said, in a hesitating sort of way, that she knew +the feeling well, and didn't like to experience it; it made her +think she was a ghost, sometimes. + +The young fellow whom they call John said he knew all about it; he +had just lighted a cheroot the other day, when a tremendous +conviction all at once came over him that he had done just that +same thing ever so many times before. I looked severely at him, +and his countenance immediately fell--ON THE SIDE TOWARD ME; I +cannot answer for the other, for he can wink and laugh with either +half of his face without the other half's knowing it. + +--I have noticed--I went on to say--the following circumstances +connected with these sudden impressions. First, that the condition +which seems to be the duplicate of a former one is often very +trivial,--one that might have presented itself a hundred times. +Secondly, that the impression is very evanescent, and that it is +rarely, if ever, recalled by any voluntary effort, at least after +any time has elapsed. Thirdly, that there is a disinclination to +record the circumstances, and a sense of incapacity to reproduce +the state of mind in words. Fourthly, I have often felt that the +duplicate condition had not only occurred once before, but that it +was familiar and, as it seemed, habitual. Lastly, I have had the +same convictions in my dreams. + +How do I account for it?--Why, there are several ways that I can +mention, and you may take your choice. The first is that which the +young lady hinted at;--that these flashes are sudden recollections +of a previous existence. I don't believe that; for I remember a +poor student I used to know told me he had such a conviction one +day when he was blacking his boots, and I can't think he had ever +lived in another world where they use Day and Martin. + +Some think that Dr. Wigan's doctrine of the brain's being a double +organ, its hemispheres working together like the two eyes, accounts +for it. One of the hemispheres hangs fire, they suppose, and the +small interval between the perceptions of the nimble and the +sluggish half seems an indefinitely long period, and therefore the +second perception appears to be the copy of another, ever so old. +But even allowing the centre of perception to be double, I can see +no good reason for supposing this indefinite lengthening of the +time, nor any analogy that bears it out. It seems to me most +likely that the coincidence of circumstances is very partial, but +that we take this partial resemblance for identity, as we +occasionally do resemblances of persons. A momentary posture of +circumstances is so far like some preceding one that we accept it +as exactly the same, just as we accost a stranger occasionally, +mistaking him for a friend. The apparent similarity may be owing +perhaps, quite as much to the mental state at the time, as to the +outward circumstances. + +--Here is another of these curiously recurring remarks. I have +said it, and heard it many times, and occasionally met with +something like it in books,--somewhere in Bulwer's novels, I think, +and in one of the works of Mr. Olmsted, I know. + +MEMORY, IMAGINATION, OLD SENTIMENTS AND ASSOCIATIONS, ARE MORE +READILY REACHED THROUGH THE SENSE OF SMELL THAN BY ALMOST ANY OTHER +CHANNEL. + +Of course the particular odors which act upon each person's +susceptibilities differ.--O, yes! I will tell you some of mine. +The smell of PHOSPHORUS is one of them. During a year or two of +adolescence I used to be dabbling in chemistry a good deal, and as +about that time I had my little aspirations and passions like +another, some of these things got mixed up with each other: +orange-colored fumes of nitrous acid, and visions as bright and +transient; reddening litmus-paper, and blushing cheeks;--eheu! + + +"Soles occidere et redire possunt," + + +but there is no reagent that will redden the faded roses of +eighteen hundred and--spare them! But, as I was saying, phosphorus +fires this train of associations in an instant; its luminous vapors +with their penetrating odor throw me into a trance; it comes to me +in a double sense "trailing clouds of glory." Only the confounded +Vienna matches, ohne phosphor-geruch, have worn my sensibilities a +little. + +Then there is the MARIGOLD. When I was of smallest dimensions, and +wont to ride impacted between the knees of fond parental pair, we +would sometimes cross the bridge to the next village-town and stop +opposite a low, brown, "gambrel-roofed" cottage. Out of it would +come one Sally, sister of its swarthy tenant, swarthy herself, +shady-lipped, sad-voiced, and, bending over her flower-bed, would +gather a "posy," as she called it, for the little boy. Sally lies +in the churchyard with a slab of blue slate at her head, lichen- +crusted, and leaning a little within the last few years. Cottage, +garden-beds, posies, grenadier-like rows of seedling onions, +--stateliest of vegetables,--all are gone, but the breath of a +marigold brings them all back to me. + +Perhaps the herb EVERLASTING, the fragrant immortelle of our autumn +fields, has the most suggestive odor to me of all those that set me +dreaming. I can hardly describe the strange thoughts and emotions +that come to me as I inhale the aroma of its pale, dry, rustling +flowers. A something it has of sepulchral spicery, as if it had +been brought from the core of some great pyramid, where it had lain +on the breast of a mummied Pharaoh. Something, too, of immortality +in the sad, faint sweetness lingering so long in its lifeless +petals. Yet this does not tell why it fills my eyes with tears and +carries me in blissful thought to the banks of asphodel that border +the River of Life. + +--I should not have talked so much about these personal +susceptibilities, if I had not a remark to make about them which I +believe is a new one. It is this. There may be a physical reason +for the strange connection between the sense of smell and the mind. +The olfactory nerve--so my friend, the Professor, tells me--is the +only one directly connected with the hemispheres of the brain, the +parts in which, as we have every reason to believe, the +intellectual processes are performed. To speak more truly the +olfactory "nerve" is not a nerve at all, he says, but a part of the +brain, in intimate connection with its anterior lobes. Whether +this anatomical arrangement is at the bottom of the facts I have +mentioned, I will not decide, but it is curious enough to be worth +remembering. Contrast the sense of taste, as a source of +suggestive impressions, with that of smell. Now the Professor +assures me that you will find the nerve of taste has no immediate +connection with the brain proper, but only with the prolongation of +the spinal cord. + +[The old gentleman opposite did not pay much attention, I think, to +this hypothesis of mine. But while I was speaking about the sense +of smell he nestled about in his seat, and presently succeeded in +getting out a large red bandanna handkerchief. Then he lurched a +little to the other side, and after much tribulation at last +extricated an ample round snuff-box. I looked as he opened it and +felt for the wonted pugil. Moist rappee, and a Tonka-bean lying +therein. I made the manual sign understood of all mankind that use +the precious dust, and presently my brain, too, responded to the +long unused stimulus--O boys,--that were,--actual papas and +possible grandpapas,--some of you with crowns like billiard-balls, +--some in locks of sable silvered, and some of silver sabled,--do +you remember, as you doze over this, those after-dinners at the +Trois Freres when the Scotch-plaided snuff-box went round, and the +dry Lundy-Foot tickled its way along into our happy sensoria? Then +it was that the Chambertin or the Clos Vougeot came in, slumbering +in its straw cradle. And one among you,--do you remember how he +would have a bit of ice always in his Burgundy, and sit tinkling it +against the sides of the bubble-like glass, saying that he +was hearing the cow-bells as he used to hear them, when the +deep-breathing kine came home at twilight from the huckleberry +pasture, in the old home a thousand leagues towards the sunset?] + +Ah me! what strains and strophes of unwritten verse pulsate through +my soul when I open a certain closet in the ancient house where I +was born! On its shelves used to lie bundles of sweet-marjoram and +pennyroyal and lavender and mint and catnip; there apples were +stored until their seeds should grow black, which happy period +there were sharp little milk-teeth always ready to anticipate; +there peaches lay in the dark, thinking of the sunshine they had +lost, until, like the hearts of saints that dream of heaven in +their sorrow, they grew fragrant as the breath of angels. The +odorous echo of a score of dead summers lingers yet in those dim +recesses. + +--Do I remember Byron's line about "striking the electric chain"? +--To be sure I do. I sometimes think the less the hint that stirs +the automatic machinery of association, the more easily this moves +us. What can be more trivial than that old story of opening the +folio Shakspeare that used to lie in some ancient English hall and +finding the flakes of Christmas pastry between its leaves, shut up +in them perhaps a hundred years ago? And, lo! as one looks on +these poor relics of a bygone generation, the universe changes in +the twinkling of an eye; old George the Second is back again, and +the elder Pitt is coming into power, and General Wolfe is a fine, +promising young man, and over the Channel they are pulling the +Sieur Damiens to pieces with wild horses, and across the Atlantic +the Indians are tomahawking Hirams and Jonathans and Jonases at +Fort William Henry; all the dead people who have been in the dust +so long--even to the stout-armed cook that made the pastry--are +alive again; the planet unwinds a hundred of its luminous coils, +and the precession of the equinoxes is retraced on the dial of +heaven! And all this for a bit of pie-crust! + +--I will thank you for that pie,--said the provoking young fellow +whom I have named repeatedly. He looked at it for a moment, and +put his hands to his eyes as if moved.--I was thinking,--he said +indistinctly-- + +--How? What is't?--said our landlady. + +--I was thinking--said he--who was king of England when this old +pie was baked,--and it made me feel bad to think how long he must +have been dead. + +[Our landlady is a decent body, poor, and a widow, of course; cela +va sans dire. She told me her story once; it was as if a grain of +corn that had been ground and bolted had tried to individualize +itself by a special narrative. There was the wooing and the +wedding,--the start in life,--the disappointments,--the children +she had buried,--the struggle against fate,--the dismantling of +life, first of its small luxuries, and then of its comforts,--the +broken spirits,--the altered character of the one on whom she +leaned,--and at last the death that came and drew the black curtain +between her and all her earthly hopes. + +I never laughed at my landlady after she had told me her story, but +I often cried,--not those pattering tears that run off the eaves +upon our neighbors' grounds, the stillicidium of self-conscious +sentiment, but those which steal noiselessly through their conduits +until they reach the cisterns lying round about the heart; those +tears that we weep inwardly with unchanging features;--such I did +shed for her often when the imps of the boarding-house Inferno +tugged at her soul with their red-hot pincers.] + +Young man,--I said,--the pasty you speak lightly of is not old, but +courtesy to those who labor to serve us, especially if they are of +the weaker sex, is very old, and yet well worth retaining. May I +recommend to you the following caution, as a guide, whenever you +are dealing with a woman, or an artist, or a poet--if you are +handling an editor or politician, it is superfluous advice. I take +it from the back of one of those little French toys which contain +pasteboard figures moved by a small running stream of fine sand; +Benjamin Franklin will translate it for you: "Quoiqu'elle soit +tres solidement montee, il faut ne pas BRUTALISER la machine."--I +will thank you for the pie, if you please. + +[I took more of it than was good for me--as much as 85 degrees, I +should think,--and had an indigestion in consequence. While I was +suffering from it, I wrote some sadly desponding poems, and a +theological essay which took a very melancholy view of creation. +When I got better I labelled them all "Pie-crust," and laid them by +as scarecrows and solemn warnings. I have a number of books on my +shelves that I should like to label with some such title; but, as +they have great names on their title-pages,--Doctors of Divinity, +some of them,--it wouldn't do.] + +--My friend, the Professor, whom I have mentioned to you once or +twice, told me yesterday that somebody had been abusing him in some +of the journals of his calling. I told him that I didn't doubt he +deserved it; that I hoped he did deserve a little abuse +occasionally, and would for a number of years to come; that nobody +could do anything to make his neighbors wiser or better without +being liable to abuse for it; especially that people hated to have +their little mistakes made fun of, and perhaps he had been doing +something of the kind.--The Professor smiled.--Now, said I, hear +what I am going to say. It will not take many years to bring you +to the period of life when men, at least the majority of writing +and talking men, do nothing but praise. Men, like peaches and +pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay. I +don't know what it is,--whether a spontaneous change, mental or +bodily, or whether it is thorough experience of the thanklessness +of critical honesty,--but it is a fact, that most writers, except +sour and unsuccessful ones, get tired of finding fault at about the +time when they are beginning to grow old. As a general thing, I +would not give a great deal for the fair words of a critic, if he +is himself an author, over fifty years of age. At thirty we are +all trying to cut our names in big letters upon the walls of this +tenement of life; twenty years later we have carved it, or shut up +our jack-knives. Then we are ready to help others, and care less +to hinder any, because nobody's elbows are in our way. So I am +glad you have a little life left; you will be saccharine enough in +a few years. + +--Some of the softening effects of advancing age have struck me +very much in what I have heard or seen here and elsewhere. I just +now spoke of the sweetening process that authors undergo. Do you +know that in the gradual passage from maturity to helplessness the +harshest characters sometimes have a period in which they are +gentle and placid as young children? I have heard it said, but I +cannot be sponsor for its truth, that the famous chieftain, +Lochiel, was rocked in a cradle like a baby, in his old age. An +old man, whose studies had been of the severest scholastic kind, +used to love to hear little nursery-stories read over and over to +him. One who saw the Duke of Wellington in his last years +describes him as very gentle in his aspect and demeanor. I +remember a person of singularly stern and lofty bearing who became +remarkably gracious and easy in all his ways in the later period of +his life. + +And that leads me to say that men often remind me of pears in their +way of coming to maturity. Some are ripe at twenty, like human +Jargonelles, and must be made the most of, for their day is soon +over. Some come into their perfect condition late, like the autumn +kinds, and they last better than the summer fruit. And some, that, +like the Winter-Nelis, have been hard and uninviting until all the +rest have had their season, get their glow and perfume long after +the frost and snow have done their worst with the orchards. Beware +of rash criticisms; the rough and stringent fruit you condemn may +be an autumn or a winter pear, and that which you picked up beneath +the same bough in August may have been only its worm-eaten +windfalls. Milton was a Saint-Germain with a graft of the roseate +Early-Catherine. Rich, juicy, lively, fragrant, russet skinned old +Chaucer was an Easter-Beurre; the buds of a new summer were +swelling when he ripened. + +--There is no power I envy so much--said the divinity-student--as +that of seeing analogies and making comparisons. I don't +understand how it is that some minds are continually coupling +thoughts or objects that seem not in the least related to each +other, until all at once they are put in a certain light, and you +wonder that you did not always see that they were as like as a pair +of twins. It appears to me a sort of miraculous gift. + +[He is rather a nice young man, and I think has an appreciation of +the higher mental qualities remarkable for one of his years and +training. I try his head occasionally as housewives try eggs, +--give it an intellectual shake and hold it up to the light, so to +speak, to see if it has life in it, actual or potential, or only +contains lifeless albumen.] + +You call it MIRACULOUS,--I replied,--tossing the expression with my +facial eminence, a little smartly, I fear.--Two men are walking by +the polyphloesboean ocean, one of them having a small tin cup with +which he can scoop up a gill of sea-water when he will, and the +other nothing but his hands, which will hardly hold water at all, +--and you call the tin cup a miraculous possession! It is the ocean +that is the miracle, my infant apostle! Nothing is clearer than +that all things are in all things, and that just according to the +intensity and extension of our mental being we shall see the many +in the one and the one in the many. Did Sir Isaac think what he +was saying when he made HIS speech about the ocean,--the child and +the pebbles, you know? Did he mean to speak slightingly of a +pebble? Of a spherical solid which stood sentinel over its +compartment of space before the stone that became the pyramids had +grown solid, and has watched it until now! A body which knows all +the currents of force that traverse the globe; which holds by +invisible threads to the ring of Saturn and the belt of Orion! A +body from the contemplation of which an archangel could infer the +entire inorganic universe as the simplest of corollaries! A throne +of the all-pervading Deity, who has guided its every atom since the +rosary of heaven was strung with beaded stars! + +So,--to return to OUR walk by the ocean,--if all that poetry has +dreamed, all that insanity has raved, all that maddening narcotics +have driven through the brains of men, or smothered passion nursed +in the fancies of women,--if the dreams of colleges and convents +and boarding-schools,--if every human feeling that sighs, or +smiles, or curses, or shrieks, or groans, should bring all their +innumerable images, such as come with every hurried heart-beat, +--the epic which held them all, though its letters filled the zodiac, +would be but a cupful from the infinite ocean of similitudes and +analogies that rolls through the universe. + +[The divinity-student honored himself by the way in which he +received this. He did not swallow it at once, neither did he +reject it; but he took it as a pickerel takes the bait, and carried +it off with him to his hole (in the fourth story) to deal with at +his leisure.] + +--Here is another remark made for his especial benefit.--There is a +natural tendency in many persons to run their adjectives together +in TRIADS, as I have heard them called,--thus: He was honorable, +courteous, and brave; she was graceful, pleasing, and virtuous. +Dr. Johnson is famous for this; I think it was Bulwer who said you +could separate a paper in the "Rambler" into three distinct essays. +Many of our writers show the same tendency,--my friend, the +Professor, especially. Some think it is in humble imitation of +Johnson,--some that it is for the sake of the stately sound only. +I don't think they get to the bottom of it. It is, I suspect, an +instinctive and involuntary effort of the mind to present a thought +or image with the THREE DIMENSIONS that belong to every solid,--an +unconscious handling of an idea as if it had length, breadth, and +thickness. It is a great deal easier to say this than to prove it, +and a great deal easier to dispute it than to disprove it. But +mind this: the more we observe and study, the wider we find the +range of the automatic and instinctive principles in body, mind, +and morals, and the narrower the limits of the self-determining +conscious movement. + +--I have often seen piano-forte players and singers make such +strange motions over their instruments or song-books that I wanted +to laugh at them. "Where did our friends pick up all these fine +ecstatic airs?" I would say to myself. Then I would remember My +Lady in "Marriage a la Mode," and amuse myself with thinking how +affectation was the same thing in Hogarth's time and in our own. +But one day I bought me a Canary-bird and hung him up in a cage at +my window. By-and-by he found himself at home, and began to pipe +his little tunes; and there he was, sure enough, swimming and +waving about, with all the droopings and liftings and languishing +side-turnings of the head that I had laughed at. And now I should +like to ask, WHO taught him all this?--and me, through him, that +the foolish head was not the one swinging itself from side to side +and bowing and nodding over the music, but that other which was +passing its shallow and self-satisfied judgment on a creature made +of finer clay than the frame which carried that same head upon its +shoulders? + +--Do you want an image of the human will, or the self-determining +principle, as compared with its prearranged and impassable +restrictions? A drop of water, imprisoned in a crystal; you may +see such a one in any mineralogical collection. One little fluid +particle in the crystalline prism of the solid universe! + +--Weaken moral obligations?--No, not weaken, but define them. When +I preach that sermon I spoke of the other day, I shall have to lay +down some principles not fully recognized in some of your +text-books. + +I should have to begin with one most formidable preliminary. You +saw an article the other day in one of the journals, perhaps, in +which some old Doctor or other said quietly that patients were very +apt to be fools and cowards. But a great many of the clergyman's +patients are not only fools and cowards, but also liars. + +[Immense sensation at the table.--Sudden retirement of the angular +female in oxydated bombazine. Movement of adhesion--as they say in +the Chamber of Deputies--on the part of the young fellow they call +John. Falling of the old-gentleman-opposite's lower jaw +--(gravitation is beginning to get the better of him.) Our landlady +to Benjamin Franklin, briskly,--Go to school right off, there's a +good boy! Schoolmistress curious,--takes a quick glance at +divinity-student. Divinity-student slightly flushed draws his +shoulders back a little, as if a big falsehood--or truth--had hit +him in the forehead. Myself calm.] + +--I should not make such a speech as that, you know, without having +pretty substantial indorsers to fall back upon, in case my credit +should be disputed. Will you run up stairs, Benjamin Franklin, +(for B. F. had NOT gone right off, of course,) and bring down a +small volume from the left upper corner of the right-hand shelves? + +[Look at the precious little black, ribbed backed, clean-typed, +vellum-papered 32mo. "DESIDERII ERASMI COLLOQUIA. Amstelodami. +Typis Ludovici Elzevirii. 1650." Various names written on +title-page. Most conspicuous this: Gul. Cookeson E. Coll. Omn. +Anim. 1725. Oxon. + +--O William Cookeson, of All-Souls College, Oxford,--then writing +as I now write,--now in the dust, where I shall lie,--is this line +all that remains to thee of earthly remembrance? Thy name is at +least once more spoken by living men;--is it a pleasure to thee? +Thou shalt share with me my little draught of immortality,--its +week, its month, its year,--whatever it may be,--and then we will +go together into the solemn archives of Oblivion's Uncatalogued +Library!] + +--If you think I have used rather strong language, I shall have to +read something to you out of the book of this keen and witty +scholar,--the great Erasmus,--who "laid the egg of the Reformation +which Luther hatched." Oh, you never read his Naufragium, or +"Shipwreck," did you? Of course not; for, if you had, I don't +think you would have given me credit--or discredit--for entire +originality in that speech of mine. That men are cowards in the +contemplation of futurity he illustrates by the extraordinary +antics of many on board the sinking vessel; that they are fools, by +their praying to the sea, and making promises to bits of wood from +the true cross, and all manner of similar nonsense; that they are +fools, cowards, and liars all at once, by this story: I will put +it into rough English for you.--"I couldn't help laughing to hear +one fellow bawling out, so that he might be sure to be heard, a +promise to Saint Christopher of Paris--the monstrous statue in the +great church there--that he would give him a wax taper as big as +himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood +near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if +you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, you +donkey!' said the fellow,--but softly, so that Saint Christopher +should not hear him,--'do you think I'm in earnest? If I once get +my foot on dry ground, catch me giving him so much as a tallow +candle!'" + +Now, therefore, remembering that those who have been loudest in +their talk about the great subject of which we were speaking have +not necessarily been wise, brave, and true men, but, on the +contrary, have very often been wanting in one or two or all of the +qualities these words imply, I should expect to find a good many +doctrines current in the schools which I should be obliged to call +foolish, cowardly, and false. + +--So you would abuse other people's beliefs, Sir, and yet not tell +us your own creed!--said the divinity-student, coloring up with a +spirit for which I liked him all the better. + +--I have a creed,--I replied;--none better, and none shorter. It +is told in two words,--the two first of the Paternoster. And when +I say these words I mean them. And when I compared the human will +to a drop in a crystal, and said I meant to DEFINE moral +obligations, and not weaken them, this was what I intended to +express: that the fluent, self-determining power of human beings +is a very strictly limited agency in the universe. The chief +planes of its enclosing solid are, of course, organization, +education, condition. Organization may reduce the power of the +will to nothing, as in some idiots; and from this zero the scale +mounts upwards by slight gradations. Education is only second to +nature. Imagine all the infants born this year in Boston and +Timbuctoo to change places! Condition does less, but "Give me +neither poverty nor riches" was the prayer of Agur, and with good +reason. If there is any improvement in modern theology, it is in +getting out of the region of pure abstractions and taking these +every-day working forces into account. The great theological +question now heaving and throbbing in the minds of Christian men is +this:- + +No, I wont talk about these things now. My remarks might be +repeated, and it would give my friends pain to see with what +personal incivilities I should be visited. Besides, what business +has a mere boarder to be talking about such things at a breakfast- +table? Let him make puns. To be sure, he was brought up among the +Christian fathers, and learned his alphabet out of a quarto +"Concilium Tridentinum." He has also heard many thousand +theological lectures by men of various denominations; and it is not +at all to the credit of these teachers, if he is not fit by this +time to express an opinion on theological matters. + +I know well enough that there are some of you who had a great deal +rather see me stand on my head than use it for any purpose of +thought. Does not my friend, the Professor, receive at least two +letters a week, requesting him to. . . . ,--on the strength of some +youthful antic of his, which, no doubt, authorizes the intelligent +constituency of autograph-hunters to address him as a harlequin? + +--Well, I can't be savage with you for wanting to laugh, and I like +to make you laugh, well enough, when I can. But then observe this: +if the sense of the ridiculous is one side of an impressible +nature, it is very well; but if that is all there is in a man, he +had better have been an ape at once, and so have stood at the head +of his profession. Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels +of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the +other water-power; that is all. I have often heard the Professor +talk about hysterics as being Nature's cleverest illustration of +the reciprocal convertibility of the two states of which these acts +are the manifestations; But you may see it every day in children; +and if you want to choke with stifled tears at sight of the +transition, as it shows itself in older years, go and see Mr. Blake +play JESSE RURAL. + +It is a very dangerous thing for a literary man to indulge his love +for the ridiculous. People laugh WITH him just so long as he +amuses them; but if he attempts to be serious, they must still have +their laugh, and so they laugh AT him. There is in addition, +however, a deeper reason for this than would at first appear. Do +you know that you feel a little superior to every man who makes you +laugh, whether by making faces or verses? Are you aware that you +have a pleasant sense of patronizing him, when you condescend so +far as to let him turn somersets, literal or literary, for your +royal delight? Now if a man can only be allowed to stand on a +dais, or raised platform, and look down on his neighbor who is +exerting his talent for him, oh, it is all right!--first-rate +performance!--and all the rest of the fine phrases. But if all at +once the performer asks the gentleman to come upon the floor, and, +stepping upon the platform, begins to talk down at him,--ah, that +wasn't in the programme! + +I have never forgotten what happened when Sydney Smith--who, as +everybody knows, was an exceedingly sensible man, and a gentleman, +every inch of him--ventured to preach a sermon on the Duties of +Royalty. The "Quarterly," "so savage and tartarly," came down upon +him in the most contemptuous style, as "a joker of jokes," a +"diner-out of the first water," in one of his own phrases; sneering +at him, insulting him, as nothing but a toady of a court, sneaking +behind the anonymous, would ever have been mean enough to do to a +man of his position and genius, or to any decent person even.--If I +were giving advice to a young fellow of talent, with two or three +facets to his mind, I would tell him by all means to keep his wit +in the background until after he had made a reputation by his more +solid qualities. And so to an actor: Hamlet first, and Bob Logic +afterwards, if you like; but don't think, as they say poor Liston +used to, that people will be ready to allow that you can do +anything great with Macbeth's dagger after flourishing about with +Paul Pry's umbrella. Do you know, too, that the majority of men +look upon all who challenge their attention,--for a while, at +least,--as beggars, and nuisances? They always try to get off as +cheaply as they can; and the cheapest of all things they can give a +literary man--pardon the forlorn pleasantry!--is the FUNNY-bone. +That is all very well so far as it goes, but satisfies no man, and +makes a good many angry, as I told you on a former occasion. + +--Oh, indeed, no!--I am not ashamed to make you laugh, +occasionally. I think I could read you something I have in my desk +which would probably make you smile. Perhaps I will read it one of +these days, if you are patient with me when I am sentimental and +reflective; not just now. The ludicrous has its place in the +universe; it is not a human invention, but one of the Divine ideas, +illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys long +before Aristophanes or Shakspeare. How curious it is that we +always consider solemnity and the absence of all gay surprises and +encounter of wits as essential to the idea of the future life of +those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties and then call +BLESSED! There are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be +preparing themselves for that smileless eternity to which they look +forward, by banishing all gayety from their hearts and all +joyousness from their countenances. I meet one such in the street +not unfrequently, a person of intelligence and education, but who +gives me (and all that he passes) such a rayless and chilling look +of recognition,--something as if he were one of Heaven's assessors, +come down to "doom" every acquaintance he met,--that I have +sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot, and gone home with a violent +cold, dating from that instant. I don't doubt he would cut his +kitten's tail off, if he caught her playing with it. Please tell +me, who taught her to play with it? + +No, no!--give me a chance to talk to you, my fellow-boarders, and +you need not be afraid that I shall have any scruples about +entertaining you, if I can do it, as well as giving you some of my +serious thoughts, and perhaps my sadder fancies. I know nothing in +English or any other literature more admirable than that sentiment +of Sir Thomas Browne "EVERY MAN TRULY LIVES, SO LONG AS HE ACTS HIS +NATURE, OR SOME WAY MAKES GOOD THE FACULTIES OF HIMSELF." + +I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, +as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, +we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it,--but +we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. There is one very +sad thing in old friendships, to every mind that is really moving +onward. It is this: that one cannot help using his early friends +as the seaman uses the log, to mark his progress. Every now and +then we throw an old schoolmate over the stern with a string of +thought tied to him, and look--I am afraid with a kind of luxurious +and sanctimonious compassion--to see the rate at which the string +reels off, while he lies there bobbing up and down, poor fellow! +and we are dashing along with the white foam and bright sparkle at +our bows;--the ruffled bosom of prosperity and progress, with a +sprig of diamonds stuck in it! But this is only the sentimental +side of the matter; for grow we must, if we outgrow all that we +love. + +Don't misunderstand that metaphor of heaving the log, I beg you. +It is merely a smart way of saying that we cannot avoid measuring +our rate of movement by those with whom we have long been in the +habit of comparing ourselves; and when they once become stationary, +we can get our reckoning from them with painful accuracy. We see +just what we were when they were our peers, and can strike the +balance between that and whatever we may feel ourselves to be now. +No doubt we may sometimes be mistaken. If we change our last +simile to that very old and familiar one of a fleet leaving the +harbor and sailing in company for some distant region, we can get +what we want out of it. There is one of our companions;--her +streamers were torn into rags before she had got into the open sea, +then by and by her sails blew out of the ropes one after another, +the waves swept her deck, and as night came on we left her a +seeming wreck, as we flew under our pyramid of canvas. But lo! at +dawn she is still in sight,--it may be in advance of us. Some deep +ocean-current has been moving her on, strong, but silent,--yes, +stronger than these noisy winds that puff our sails until they are +swollen as the cheeks of jubilant cherubim. And when at last the +black steam-tug with the skeleton arms, which comes out of the mist +sooner or later and takes us all in tow, grapples her and goes off +panting and groaning with her, it is to that harbor where all +wrecks are refitted, and where, alas! we, towering in our pride, +may never come. + +So you will not think I mean to speak lightly of old friendships, +because we cannot help instituting comparisons between our present +and former selves by the aid of those who were what we were, but +are not what we are. Nothing strikes one more, in the race of +life, than to see how many give out in the first half of the +course. "Commencement day" always reminds me of the start for the +"Derby," when the beautiful high-bred three-year olds of the season +are brought up for trial. That day is the start, and life is the +race. Here we are at Cambridge, and a class is just "graduating." +Poor Harry! he was to have been there too, but he has paid forfeit; +step out here into the grass back of the church; ah! there it is:- + + +"HUNC LAPIDEM POSUERUNT +SOCII MOERENTES." + + +But this is the start, and here they are,--coats bright as silk, +and manes as smooth as eau lustrale can make them. Some of the +best of the colts are pranced round, a few minutes each, to show +their paces. What is that old gentleman crying about? and the old +lady by him, and the three girls, what are they all covering their +eyes for? Oh, that is THEIR colt which has just been trotted up on +the stage. Do they really think those little thin legs can do +anything in such a slashing sweepstakes as is coming off in these +next forty years? Oh, this terrible gift of second-sight that +comes to some of us when we begin to look through the silvered +rings of the arcus senilis! + +TEN YEARS GONE. First turn in the race. A few broken down; two or +three bolted. Several show in advance of the ruck. CASSOCK, a +black colt, seems to be ahead of the rest; those black colts +commonly get the start, I have noticed, of the others, in the first +quarter. METEOR has pulled up. + +TWENTY YEARS. Second corner turned. CASSOCK has dropped from the +front, and JUDEX, an iron-gray, has the lead. But look! how they +have thinned out! Down flat,--five,--six,--how many? They lie +still enough! they will not get up again in this race, be very +sure! And the rest of them, what a "tailing off"! Anybody can see +who is going to win,--perhaps. + +THIRTY YEARS. Third corner turned. DIVES, bright sorrel, ridden +by the fellow in a yellow jacket, begins to make play fast; is +getting to be the favourite with many. But who is that other one +that has been lengthening his stride from the first, and now shows +close up to the front? Don't you remember the quiet brown colt +ASTEROID, with the star in his forehead? That is he; he is one of +the sort that lasts; look out for him! The black "colt," as we +used to call him, is in the background, taking it easily in a +gentle trot. There is one they used to call THE FILLY, on account +of a certain feminine air he had; well up, you see; the Filly is +not to be despised my boy! + +FORTY YEARS. More dropping off,--but places much as before. + +FIFTY YEARS. Race over. All that are on the course are coming in +at a walk; no more running. Who is ahead? Ahead? What! and the +winning-post a slab of white or gray stone standing out from that +turf where there is no more jockeying or straining for victory! +Well, the world marks their places in its betting-book; but be sure +that these matter very little, if they have run as well as they +knew how! + +--Did I not say to you a little while ago that the universe swam in +an ocean of similitudes and analogies? I will not quote Cowley, or +Burns, or Wordsworth, just now, to show you what thoughts were +suggested to them by the simplest natural objects, such as a flower +or a leaf; but I will read you a few lines, if you do not object, +suggested by looking at a section of one of those chambered shells +to which is given the name of Pearly Nautilus. We need not trouble +ourselves about the distinction between this and the Paper +Nautilus, the Argonauta of the ancients. The name applied to both +shows that each has long been compared to a ship, as you may see +more fully in Webster's Dictionary, or the "Encyclopedia," to which +he refers. If you will look into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, you +will find a figure of one of these shells, and a section of it. +The last will show you the series of enlarging compartments +successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which +is built in a widening spiral. Can you find no lesson in this? + + +THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. + +This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, +Sails the unshadowed main,-- +The venturous bark that flings +On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings +In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, +And coral reefs lie bare, +Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair + +Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; +Wrecked is the ship of pearl! +And every clambered cell, +Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, +As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, +Before thee lies revealed,-- +Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! + +Year after year beheld the silent toil +That spread his lustrous coil; +Still, as the spiral grew, +He left the past year's dwelling for the new, +Stole with soft step its shining archway through, +Built up its idle door, +Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. + +Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, +Child of the wandering sea, +Cast from her lap forlorn! +From thy dead lips a clearer note is born +Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! +While on mine ear it rings, +Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:- + +Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, +As the swift seasons roll! +Leave thy low-vaulted past! +Let each new temple, nobler than the last, +Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, +Till thou at length art free, +Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! + + + +CHAPTER V + + + +A lyric conception--my friend, the Poet, said--hits me like a +bullet in the forehead. I have often had the blood drop from my +cheeks when it struck, and felt that I turned as white as death. +Then comes a creeping as of centipedes running down the spine, +--then a gasp and a great jump of the heart,--then a sudden flush and +a beating in the vessels of the head,--then a long sigh,--and the +poem is written. + +It is an impromptu, I suppose, then, if you write it so suddenly, +--I replied. + +No,--said he,--far from it. I said written, but I did not say +COPIED. Every such poem has a soul and a body, and it is the body +of it, or the copy, that men read and publishers pay for. The soul +of it is born in an instant in the poet's soul. It comes to him a +thought, tangled in the meshes of a few sweet words,--words that +have loved each other from the cradle of the language, but have +never been wedded until now. Whether it will ever fully embody +itself in a bridal train of a dozen stanzas or not is uncertain; +but it exists potentially from the instant that the poet turns pale +with it. It is enough to stun and scare anybody, to have a hot +thought come crashing into his brain, and ploughing up those +parallel ruts where the wagon trains of common ideas were jogging +along in their regular sequences of association. No wonder the +ancients made the poetical impulse wholly external. [Greek text +which cannot be reproduced]. Goddess,--Muse,--divine afflatus, +--something outside always. _I_ never wrote any verses worth +reading. I can't. I am too stupid. If I ever copied any that +were worth reading, I was only a medium. + +[I was talking all this time to our boarders, you understand, +--telling them what this poet told me. The company listened rather +attentively, I thought, considering the literary character of the +remarks.] + +The old gentleman opposite all at once asked me if I ever read +anything better than Pope's "Essay on Man"? Had I ever perused +McFingal? He was fond of poetry when he was a boy,--his mother +taught him to say many little pieces,--he remembered one beautiful +hymn;--and the old gentleman began, in a clear, loud voice, for his +years,-- + + +"The spacious firmament on high, +With all the blue ethereal sky, +And spangled heavens,"-- + + +He stopped, as if startled by our silence, and a faint flush ran up +beneath the thin white hairs that fell upon his cheek. As I looked +round, I was reminded of a show I once saw at the Museum,--the +Sleeping Beauty, I think they called it. The old man's sudden +breaking out in this way turned every face towards him, and each +kept his posture as if changed to stone. Our Celtic Bridget, or +Biddy, is not a foolish fat scullion to burst out crying for a +sentiment. She is of the serviceable, red-handed, broad-and-high- +shouldered type; one of those imported female servants who are +known in public by their amorphous style of person, their stoop +forwards, and a headlong and as it were precipitous walk,--the +waist plunging downwards into the rocking pelvis at every heavy +footfall. Bridget, constituted for action, not for emotion, was +about to deposit a plate heaped with something upon the table, when +I saw the coarse arm stretched by my shoulder arrested,--motionless +as the arm of a terra-cotta caryatid; she couldn't set the plate +down while the old gentleman was speaking! + +He was quite silent after this, still wearing the slight flush on +his cheek. Don't ever think the poetry is dead in an old man +because his forehead is wrinkled, or that his manhood has left him +when his hand trembles! If they ever WERE there, they ARE there +still! + +By and by we got talking again.--Does a poet love the verses +written through him, do you think, Sir?--said the divinity-student. + +So long as they are warm from his mind, carry any of his animal +heat about them, _I_ KNOW he loves them,--I answered. When they +have had time to cool, he is more indifferent. + +A good deal as it is with buckwheat cakes,--said the young fellow +whom they call John. + +The last words, only, reached the ear of the economically organized +female in black bombazine .--Buckwheat is skerce and high,--she +remarked. [Must be a poor relation sponging on our landlady,--pays +nothing,--so she must stand by the guns and be ready to repel +boarders.] + +I liked the turn the conversation had taken, for I had some things +I wanted to say, and so, after waiting a minute, I began again.--I +don't think the poems I read you sometimes can be fairly +appreciated, given to you as they are in the green state. + +--You don't know what I mean by the GREEN STATE? Well, then, I +will tell you. Certain things are good for nothing until they have +been kept a long while; and some are good for nothing until they +have been long kept and USED. Of the first, wine is the +illustrious and immortal example. Of those which must be kept and +used I will name three,--meerschaum pipes, violins, and poems. The +meerschaum is but a poor affair until it has burned a thousand +offerings to the cloud-compelling deities. It comes to us without +complexion or flavor,--born of the sea-foam, like Aphrodite, but +colorless as pallida Mors herself. The fire is lighted in its +central shrine, and gradually the juices which the broad leaves of +the Great Vegetable had sucked up from an acre and curdled into a +drachm are diffused through its thirsting pores. First a +discoloration, then a stain, and at last a rich, glowing, umber +tint spreading over the whole surface. Nature true to her old +brown autumnal hue, you see,--as true in the fire of the meerschaum +as in the sunshine of October! And then the cumulative wealth of +its fragrant reminiscences! he who inhales its vapors takes a +thousand whiffs in a single breath; and one cannot touch it without +awakening the old joys that hang around it as the smell of flowers +clings to the dresses of the daughters of the house of Farina! + +[Don't think I use a meerschaum myself, for _I_ DO NOT, though I +have owned a calumet since my childhood, which from a naked Pict +(of the Mohawk species) my grandsire won, together with a tomahawk +and beaded knife-sheath; paying for the lot with a bullet-mark on +his right check. On the maternal side I inherit the loveliest +silver-mounted tobacco-stopper you ever saw. It is a little +box-wood Triton, carved with charming liveliness and truth; I have +often compared it to a figure in Raphael's "Triumph of Galatea." +It came to me in an ancient shagreen case,--how old it is I do not +know,--but it must have been made since Sir Walter Raleigh's time. +If you are curious, you shall see it any day. Neither will I +pretend that I am so unused to the more perishable smoking +contrivance that a few whiffs would make me feel as if I lay in a +ground-swell on the Bay of Biscay. I am not unacquainted with that +fusiform, spiral-wound bundle of chopped stems and miscellaneous +incombustibles, the CIGAR, so called, of the shops,--which to +"draw" asks the suction-power of a nursling infant Hercules, and to +relish, the leathery palate of an old Silenus. I do not advise +you, young man, even if my illustration strike your fancy, to +consecrate the flower of your life to painting the bowl of a pipe, +for, let me assure you, the stain of a reverie-breeding narcotic +may strike deeper than you think for. I have seen the green leaf +of early promise grow brown before its time under such Nicotian +regimen, and thought the umbered meerschaum was dearly bought at +the cost of a brain enfeebled and a will enslaved.] + +Violins, too,--the sweet old Amati!--the divine Stradivarius! +Played on by ancient maestros until the bow-hand lost its power and +the flying fingers stiffened. Bequeathed to the passionate, young +enthusiast, who made it whisper his hidden love, and cry his +inarticulate longings, and scream his untold agonies, and wail his +monotonous despair. Passed from his dying hand to the cold +virtuoso, who let it slumber in its case for a generation, till, +when his hoard was broken up, it came forth once more and rode the +stormy symphonies of royal orchestras, beneath the rushing bow of +their lord and leader. Into lonely prisons with improvident +artists; into convents from which arose, day and night, the holy +hymns with which its tones were blended; and back again to orgies +in which it learned to howl and laugh as if a legion of devils were +shut up in it; then again to the gentle dilettante who calmed it +down with easy melodies until it answered him softly as in the days +of the old maestros. And so given into our hands, its pores all +full of music; stained, like the meerschaum, through and through, +with the concentrated hue and sweetness of all the harmonies which +have kindled and faded on its strings. + +Now I tell you a poem must be kept AND USED, like a meerschaum, or +a violin. A poem is just as porous as the meerschaum;--the more +porous it is, the better. I mean to say that a genuine poem is +capable of absorbing an indefinite amount of the essence of our own +humanity,--its tenderness, its heroism, its regrets, its +aspirations, so as to be gradually stained through with a divine +secondary color derived from ourselves. So you see it must take +time to bring the sentiment of a poem into harmony with our nature, +by staining ourselves through every thought and image our being can +penetrate. + +Then again as to the mere music of a new poem; why, who can expect +anything more from that than from the music of a violin fresh from +the maker's hands? Now you know very well that there are no less +than fifty-eight different pieces in a violin. These pieces are +strangers to each other, and it takes a century, more or less, to +make them thoroughly acquainted. At last they learn to vibrate in +harmony, and the instrument becomes an organic whole, as if it were +a great seed-capsule which had grown from a garden-bed in Cremona, +or elsewhere. Besides, the wood is juicy and full of sap for fifty +years or so, but at the end of fifty or a hundred more gets +tolerably dry and comparatively resonant. + +Don't you see that all this is just as true of a poem? Counting +each word as a piece, there are more pieces in an average copy of +verses than in a violin. The poet has forced all these words +together, and fastened them, and they don't understand it at first. +But let the poem be repeated aloud and murmured over in the mind's +muffled whisper often enough, and at length the parts become knit +together in such absolute solidarity that you could not change a +syllable without the whole world's crying out against you for +meddling with the harmonious fabric. Observe, too, how the drying +process takes place in the stuff of a poem just as in that of a +violin. Here is a Tyrolese fiddle that is just coming to its +hundredth birthday,--(Pedro Klauss, Tyroli, fecit, 1760,)--the sap +is pretty well out of it. And here is the song of an old poet whom +Neaera cheated.-- + + +"Nox erat, et coelo fulgebat Luna sereno +Inter minora sidera, +Cum tu magnorum numen laesura deorum +In verba jurabas mea." + + +Don't you perceive the sonorousness of these old dead Latin +phrases? Now I tell you that, every word fresh from the dictionary +brings with it a certain succulence; and though I cannot expect the +sheets of the "Pactolian," in which, as I told you, I sometimes +print my verses, to get so dry as the crisp papyrus that held those +words of Horatius Flaccus, yet you may be sure, that, while the +sheets are damp, and while the lines hold their sap, you can't +fairly judge of my performances, and that, if made of the true +stuff, they will ring better after a while. + +[There was silence for a brief space, after my somewhat elaborate +exposition of these self-evident analogies. Presently A PERSON +turned towards me--I do not choose to designate the individual--and +said that he rather expected my pieces had given pretty good +"sahtisfahction."--I had, up to this moment, considered this +complimentary phrase as sacred to the use of secretaries of +lyceums, and, as it has been usually accompanied by a small +pecuniary testimonial, have acquired a certain relish for this +moderately tepid and unstimulating expression of enthusiasm. But +as a reward for gratuitous services, I confess I thought it a +little below that blood-heat standard which a man's breath ought to +have, whether silent, or vocal and articulate. I waited for a +favorable opportunity, however, before making the remarks which +follow.] + +--There are single expressions, as I have told you already, that +fix a man's position for you before you have done shaking hands +with him. Allow me to expand a little. There are several things, +very slight in themselves, yet implying other things not so +unimportant. Thus, your French servant has devalise your premises +and got caught. Excusez, says the sergent-de-ville, as he politely +relieves him of his upper garments and displays his bust in the +full daylight. Good shoulders enough,--a little marked,--traces of +smallpox, perhaps,--but white. . . . . Crac! from the sergent-de- +ville's broad palm on the white shoulder! Now look! Vogue la +galere! Out comes the big red V--mark of the hot iron;--he had +blistered it out pretty nearly,--hadn't he?--the old rascal VOLEUR, +branded in the galleys at Marseilles! [Don't! What if he has got +something like this?--nobody supposes I INVENTED such a story.] + +My man John, who used to drive two of those six equine females +which I told you I had owned,--for, look you, my friends, simple +though I stand here, I am one that has been driven in his +"kerridge,"--not using that term, as liberal shepherds do, for any +battered old shabby-genteel go-cart which has more than one wheel, +but meaning thereby a four-wheeled vehicle WITH A POLE,--my man +John, I say, was a retired soldier. He retired unostentatiously, +as many of Her Majesty's modest servants have done before and +since. John told me, that when an officer thinks he recognizes one +of these retiring heroes, and would know if he has really been in +the service, that he may restore him, if possible, to a grateful +country, he comes suddenly upon him, and says, sharply, "Strap!" +If he has ever worn the shoulder-strap, he has learned the +reprimand for its ill adjustment. The old word of command flashes +through his muscles, and his hand goes up in an instant to the +place where the strap used to be. + +[I was all the time preparing for my grand coup, you understand; +but I saw they were not quite ready for it, and so continued, +--always in illustration of the general principle I had laid down.] + +Yes, odd things come out in ways that nobody thinks of. There was +a legend, that, when the Danish pirates made descents upon the +English coast, they caught a few Tartars occasionally, in the shape +of Saxons, who would not let them go,--on the contrary, insisted on +their staying, and, to make sure of it, treated them as Apollo +treated Marsyas, or an Bartholinus has treated a fellow-creature in +his title-page, and, having divested them of the one essential and +perfectly fitting garment, indispensable in the mildest climates, +nailed the same on the church-door as we do the banns of marriage, +in terrorem. + +[There was a laugh at this among some of the young folks; but as I +looked at our landlady, I saw that "the water stood in her eyes," +as it did in Christiana's when the interpreter asked her about the +spider, and I fancied, but wasn't quite sure that the +schoolmistress blushed, as Mercy did in the same conversation, as +you remember.] + +That sounds like a cock-and-bull-story,--said the young fellow whom +they call John. I abstained from making Hamlet's remark to +Horatio, and continued. + +Not long since, the church-wardens were repairing and beautifying +an old Saxon church in a certain English village, and among other +things thought the doors should be attended to. One of them +particularly, the front-door, looked very badly, crusted, as it +were, and as if it would be all the better for scraping. There +happened to be a microscopist in the village who had heard the old +pirate story, and he took it into his head to examine the crust on +this door. There was no mistake about it; it was a genuine +historical document, of the Ziska drum-head pattern,--a real cutis +humana, stripped from some old Scandinavian filibuster, and the +legend was true. + +My friend, the Professor, settled an important historical and +financial question once by the aid of an exceedingly minute +fragment of a similar document. Behind the pane of plate-glass +which bore his name and title burned a modest lamp, signifying to +the passers-by that at all hours of the night the slightest favors +(or fevers) were welcome. A youth who had freely partaken of the +cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, following a moth-like +impulse very natural under the circumstances, dashed his fist at +the light and quenched the meek luminary,--breaking through the +plate-glass, of course, to reach it. Now I don't want to go into +minutiae at table, you know, but a naked hand can no more go +through a pane of thick glass without leaving some of its cuticle, +to say the least, behind it, than a butterfly can go through a +sausage-machine without looking the worse for it. The Professor +gathered up the fragments of glass, and with them certain very +minute but entirely satisfactory documents which would have +identified and hanged any rogue in Christendom who had parted with +them.--The historical question, WHO DID IT? and the financial +question, WHO PAID FOR IT? were both settled before the new lamp +was lighted the next evening. + +You see, my friends, what immense conclusions, touching our lives, +our fortunes, and our sacred honor, may be reached by means of very +insignificant premises. This is eminently true of manners and +forms of speech; a movement or a phrase often tells you all you +want to know about a person. Thus, "How's your health?" (commonly +pronounced haalth)--instead of, How do you do? or, How are you? +Or calling your little dark entry a "hall," and your old rickety +one-horse wagon a "kerridge." Or telling a person who has been trying +to please you that he has given you pretty good "sahtisfahction." +Or saying that you "remember of" such a thing, or that you have +been "stoppin"' at Deacon Somebody's,--and other such expressions. +One of my friends had a little marble statuette of Cupid in the +parlor of his country-house,--bow, arrows, wings, and all complete. +A visitor, indigenous to the region, looking pensively at the +figure, asked the lady of the house "if that was a statoo of her +deceased infant?" What a delicious, though somewhat voluminous +biography, social, educational, and aesthetic in that brief +question! + +[Please observe with what Machiavellian astuteness I smuggled in +the particular offence which it was my object to hold up to my +fellow-boarders, without too personal an attack on the individual +at whose door it lay.] + +That was an exceedingly dull person who made the remark, Ex pede +Herculem. He might as well have said, "From a peck of apples you +may judge of the barrel." Ex PEDE, to be sure! Read, instead, Ex +ungue minimi digiti pedis, Herculem, ejusque patrem, matrem, avos +et proavos, filios, nepotes et pronepotes! Talk to me about your +[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]! Tell me about Cuvier's +getting up a megatherium from a tooth, or Agassiz's drawing a +portrait of an undiscovered fish from a single scale! As the "O" +revealed Giotto,--as the one word "moi" betrayed the Stratford +atte-Bowe-taught Anglais,--so all a man's antecedents and +possibilities are summed up in a single utterance which gives at +once the gauge of his education and his mental organization. + +Possibilities, Sir?--said the divinity-student; can't a man who +says Haow? arrive at distinction? + +Sir,--I replied,--in a republic all things are possible. But the +man WITH A FUTURE has almost of necessity sense enough to see that +any odious trick of speech or manners must be got rid of. Doesn't +Sydney Smith say that a public man in England never gets over a +false quantity uttered in early life? OUR public men are in little +danger of this fatal misstep, as few of them are in the habit of +introducing Latin into their speeches,--for good and sufficient +reasons. But they are bound to speak decent English,--unless, +indeed, they are rough old campaigners, like General Jackson or +General Taylor; in which case, a few scars on Priscian's head are +pardoned to old fellows who have quite as many on their own, and a +constituency of thirty empires is not at all particular, provided +they do not swear in their Presidential Messages. + +However, it is not for me to talk. I have made mistakes enough in +conversation and print. I never find them out until they are +stereotyped, and then I think they rarely escape me. I have no +doubt I shall make half a dozen slips before this breakfast is +over, and remember them all before another. How one does tremble +with rage at his own intense momentary stupidity about things he +knows perfectly well, and to think how he lays himself open to the +impertinences of the captatores verborum, those useful but humble +scavengers of the language, whose business it is to pick up what +might offend or injure, and remove it, hugging and feeding on it as +they go! I don't want to speak too slightingly of these verbal +critics;--how can I, who am so fond of talking about errors and +vulgarisms of speech? Only there is a difference between those +clerical blunders which almost every man commits, knowing better, +and that habitual grossness or meanness of speech which is +unendurable to educated persons, from anybody that wears silk or +broadcloth. + +[I write down the above remarks this morning, January 26th, making +this record of the date that nobody may think it was written in +wrath, on account of any particular grievance suffered from the +invasion of any individual scarabaeus grammaticus.] + +--I wonder if anybody ever finds fault with anything I say at this +table when it is repeated? I hope they do, I am sure. I should be +very certain that I had said nothing of much significance, if they +did not. + +Did you never, in walking in the fields, come across a large flat +stone, which had lain, nobody knows how long, just where you found +it, with the grass forming a little hedge, as it were, all round +it, close to its edges,--and have you not, in obedience to a kind +of feeling that told you it had been lying there long enough, +insinuated your stick or your foot or your fingers under its edge +and turned it over as a housewife turns a cake, when she says to +herself, "It's done brown enough by this time"? What an odd +revelation, and what an unforeseen and unpleasant surprise to a +small community, the very existence of which you had not suspected, +until the sudden dismay and scattering among its members produced +by your turning the old stone over! Blades of grass flattened +down, colorless, matted together, as if they had been bleached and +ironed; hideous crawling creatures, some of them coleopterous or +horny-shelled,--turtle-bugs one wants to call them; some of them +softer, but cunningly spread out and compressed like Lepine +watches; (Nature never loses a crack or a crevice, mind you, or a +joint in a tavern bedstead, but she always has one of her +flat-pattern five timekeepers to slide into it;) black, glossy +crickets, with their long filaments sticking out like the whips of +four-horse stage-coaches; motionless, slug-like creatures, young +larvae, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in +the infernal wriggle of maturity! But no sooner is the stone turned +and the wholesome light of day let upon this compressed and blinded +community of creeping things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury +of legs--and some of them have a good many--rush round wildly, +butting each other and everything in their way, and end in a general +stampede for underground retreats from the region poisoned by +sunshine. NEXT YEAR you will find the grass growing tall and green +where the stone lay; the ground-bird builds her nest where the beetle +had his hole; the dandelion and the buttercup are growing there, and +the broad fans of insect-angels open and shut over their golden +disks, as the rhythmic waves of blissful consciousness pulsate +through their glorified being. + +--The young fellow whom they call John saw fit to say, in his very +familiar way,--at which I do not choose to take offence, but which +I sometimes think it necessary to repress,--that I was coming it +rather strong on the butterflies. + +No, I replied; there is meaning in each of those images,--the +butterfly as well as the others. The stone is ancient error. The +grass is human nature borne down and bleached of all its colour by +it. The shapes which are found beneath are the crafty beings that +thrive in darkness, and the weaker organisms kept helpless by it. +He who turns the stone over is whosoever puts the staff of truth to +the old lying incubus, no matter whether he do it with a serious +face or a laughing one. The next year stands for the coming time. +Then shall the nature which had lain blanched and broken rise in +its full stature and native hues in the sunshine. Then shall God's +minstrels build their nests in the hearts of a new-born humanity. +Then shall beauty--Divinity taking outlines and color--light upon +the souls of men as the butterfly, image of the beatified spirit +rising from the dust, soars from the shell that held a poor grub, +which would never have found wings, had not the stone been lifted. + +You never need think you can turn over any old falsehood without a +terrible squirming and scattering of the horrid little population +that dwells under it. + +--Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of +somebody or other. As soon as his breath comes back, he very +probably begins to expend it in hard words. These are the best +evidence a man can have that he has said something it was time to +say. Dr. Johnson was disappointed in the effect of one of his +pamphlets. "I think I have not been attacked enough for it," he +said;--"attack is the reaction; I never think I have hit hard +unless it rebounds." + +--If a fellow attacked my opinions in print would I reply? Not I. +Do you think I don't understand what my friend, the Professor, long +ago called THE HYDROSTATIC PARADOX OF CONTROVERSY? + +Don't know what that means?--Well, I will tell you. You know, +that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which was of the size of a +pipe-stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would +stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy +equalizes fools and wise men in the same way,--AND THE FOOLS KNOW +IT. + +--No, but I often read what they say about other people. There are +about a dozen phrases which all come tumbling along together, like +the tongs, and the shovel, and the poker, and the brush, and the +bellows, in one of those domestic avalanches that everybody knows. +If you get one, you get the whole lot. + +What are they?--Oh, that depends a good deal on latitude and +longitude. Epithets follow the isothermal lines pretty accurately. +Grouping them in two families, one finds himself a clever, genial, +witty, wise, brilliant, sparkling, thoughtful, distinguished, +celebrated, illustrious scholar and perfect gentleman, and first +writer of the age; or a dull, foolish, wicked, pert, shallow, +ignorant, insolent, traitorous, black-hearted outcast, and disgrace +to civilization. + +What do I think determines the set of phrases a man gets?--Well, I +should say a set of influences something like these:---1st. +Relationships, political, religious, social, domestic. 2d. +Oyster, in the form of suppers given to gentlemen connected with +criticism. I believe in the school, the college, and the clergy; +but my sovereign logic, for regulating public opinion--which means +commonly the opinion of half a dozen of the critical gentry--is the +following MAJOR PROPOSITION. Oysters au naturel. Minor +proposition. The same "scalloped." Conclusion. That--(here +insert entertainer's name) is clever, witty, wise, brilliant,--and +the rest. + +--No, it isn't exactly bribery. One man has oysters, and another +epithets. It is an exchange of hospitalities; one gives a "spread" +on linen, and the other on paper,--that is all. Don't you think +you and I should be apt to do just so, if we were in the critical +line? I am sure I couldn't resist the softening influences of +hospitality. I don't like to dine out, you know,--I dine so well +at our own table, [our landlady looked radiant,] and the company is +so pleasant [a rustling movement of satisfaction among the +boarders]; but if I did partake of a man's salt, with such +additions as that article of food requires to make it palatable, I +could never abuse him, and if I had to speak of him, I suppose I +should hang my set of jingling epithets round him like a string of +sleigh-bells. Good feeling helps society to make liars of most of +us,--not absolute liars, but such careless handlers of truth that +its sharp corners get terribly rounded. I love truth as chiefest +among the virtues; I trust it runs in my blood; but I would never +be a critic, because I know I could not always tell it. I might +write a criticism of a book that happened to please me; that is +another matter. + +--Listen, Benjamin Franklin! This is for you, and such others of +tender age as you may tell it to. + +When we are as yet small children, long before the time when those +two grown ladies offer us the choice of Hercules, there comes up to +us a youthful angel, holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and +in his left spheres like marbles. The cubes are of stainless +ivory, and on each is written in letters of gold--TRUTH. The +spheres are veined and streaked and spotted beneath, with a dark +crimson flush above, where the light falls on them, and in a +certain aspect you can make out upon every one of them the three +letters L, I, E. The child to whom they are offered very probably +clutches at both. The spheres are the most convenient things in +the world; they roll with the least possible impulse just where the +child would have them. The cubes will not roll at all; they have a +great talent for standing still, and always keep right side up. +But very soon the young philosopher finds that things which roll so +easily are very apt to roll into the wrong corner, and to get out +of his way when he most wants them, while he always knows where to +find the others, which stay where they are left. Thus he learns +--thus we learn--to drop the streaked and speckled globes of +falsehood and to hold fast the white angular blocks of truth. But +then comes Timidity, and after her Good-nature, and last of all +Polite-behavior, all insisting that truth must ROLL, or nobody can +do anything with it; and so the first with her coarse rasp, and the +second with her broad file, and the third with her silken sleeve, +do so round off and smooth and polish the snow-white cubes of +truth, that, when they have got a little dingy by use, it becomes +hard to tell them from the rolling spheres of falsehood. + +The schoolmistress was polite enough to say that she was pleased +with this, and that she would read it to her little flock the next +day. But she should tell the children, she said, that there were +better reasons for truth than could be found in mere experience of +its convenience and the inconvenience of lying. + +Yes,--I said,--but education always begins through the senses, and +works up to the idea of absolute right and wrong. The first thing +the child has to learn about this matter is, that lying is +unprofitable,--afterwards, that it is against the peace and dignity +of the universe. + +--Do I think that the particular form of lying often seen in +newspapers, under the title, "From our Foreign Correspondent," does +any harm?--Why, no,--I don't know that it does. I suppose it +doesn't really deceive people any more than the "Arabian Nights" or +"Gulliver's Travels" do. Sometimes the writers compile TOO +carelessly, though, and mix up facts out of geographies, and +stories out of the penny papers, so as to mislead those who are +desirous of information. I cut a piece out of one of the papers, +the other day, which contains a number of improbabilities, and, I +suspect, misstatements. I will send up and get it for you, if you +would like to hear it.--Ah, this is it; it is headed + + +"OUR SUMATRA CORRESPONDENCE. + +"This island is now the property of the Stamford family,--having +been won, it is said, in a raffle, by Sir--Stamford, during the +stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme. The history of this +gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions +(unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and +Queries.' This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, which +here contains a large amount of saline substance, crystallizing in +cubes remarkable for their symmetry, and frequently displays on its +surface, during calm weather, the rainbow tints of the celebrated +South-Sea bubbles. The summers are oppressively hot, and the +winters very probably cold; but this fact cannot be ascertained +precisely, as, for some peculiar reason, the mercury in these +latitudes never shrinks, as in more northern regions, and thus the +thermometer is rendered useless in winter. + +"The principal vegetable productions of the island are the pepper +tree and the bread-fruit tree. Pepper being very abundantly +produced, a benevolent society was organized in London during the +last century for supplying the natives with vinegar and oysters, as +an addition to that delightful condiment. [Note received from Dr. +D. P.] It is said, however, that, as the oysters were of the kind +called NATIVES in England, the natives of Sumatra, in obedience to +a natural instinct, refused to touch them, and confined themselves +entirely to the crew of the vessel in which they were brought over. +This information was received from one of the oldest inhabitants, a +native himself, and exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is said +also to be very skilful in the CUISINE peculiar to the island. + +"During the season of gathering the pepper, the persons employed +are subject to various incommodities, the chief of which is violent +and long-continued sternutation, or sneezing. Such is the +vehemence of these attacks, that the unfortunate subjects of them +are often driven backwards for great distances at immense speed, on +the well-known principle of the aeolipile. Not being able to see +where they are going, these poor creatures dash themselves to +pieces against the rocks or are precipitated over the cliffs and +thus many valuable lives are lost annually. As, during the whole +pepper-harvest, they feed exclusively on this stimulant, they +become exceedingly irritable. The smallest injury is resented with +ungovernable rage. A young man suffering from the PEPPER-FEVER as +it is called, cudgelled another most severely for appropriating a +superannuated relative of trifling value, and was only pacified by +having a present made him of a pig of that peculiar species of +swine called the Peccavi by the Catholic Jews, who, it is well +known, abstain from swine's flesh in imitation of the Mahometan +Buddhists. + +"The bread-tree grows abundantly. Its branches are well known to +Europe and America under the familiar name of maccaroni. The +smaller twigs are called vermicelli. They have a decided animal +flavor, as may be observed in the soups containing them. +Maccaroni, being tubular, is the favorite habitat of a very +dangerous insect, which is rendered peculiarly ferocious by being +boiled. The government of the island, therefore, never allows a +stick of it to be exported without being accompanied by a piston +with which its cavity may at any time be thoroughly swept out. +These are commonly lost or stolen before the maccaroni arrives +among us. It therefore always contains many of these insects, +which, however, generally die of old age in the shops, so that +accidents from this source are comparatively rare. + +"The fruit of the bread-tree consists principally of hot rolls. +The buttered-muffin variety is supposed to be a hybrid with the +cocoa-nut palm, the cream found on the milk of the cocoa-nut +exuding from the hybrid in the shape of butter, just as the ripe +fruit is splitting, so as to fit it for the tea-table, where it is +commonly served up with cold"-- + +--There,--I don't want to read any more of it. You see that many +of these statements are highly improbable.--No, I shall not mention +the paper.--No, neither of them wrote it, though it reminds me of +the style of these popular writers. I think the fellow who wrote +it must have been reading some of their stories, and got them mixed +up with his history and geography. I don't suppose HE lies;--he +sells it to the editor, who knows how many squares off "Sumatra" +is. The editor, who sells it to the public--By the way, the papers +have been very civil haven't they?--to the--the what d'ye call it? +--"Northern Magazine,"--isn't it?--got up by some of those +Come-outers, down East, as an organ for their local peculiarities. + +--The Professor has been to see me. Came in, glorious, at about +twelve o'clock, last night. Said he had been with "the boys." On +inquiry, found that "the boys," were certain baldish and grayish +old gentlemen that one sees or hears of in various important +stations of society. The Professor is one of the same set, but he +always talks as if he had been out of college about ten years, +whereas. . . [Each of these dots was a little nod, which the +company understood, as the reader will, no doubt.] He calls them +sometimes "the boys," and sometimes "the old fellows." Call him by +the latter title, and see how he likes it.--Well, he came in last +night glorious, as I was saying. Of course I don't mean vinously +exalted; he drinks little wine on such occasions, and is well known +to all the Peters and Patricks as the gentleman who always has +indefinite quantities of black tea to kill any extra glass of red +claret he may have swallowed. But the Professor says he always +gets tipsy on old memories at these gatherings. He was, I forget +how many years old when he went to the meeting; just turned of +twenty now,--he said. He made various youthful proposals to me, +including a duet under the landlady's daughter's window. He had +just learned a trick, he said, of one of "the boys," of getting a +splendid bass out of a door-panel by rubbing it with the palm of +his hand. Offered to sing "The sky is bright," accompanying +himself on the front-door, if I would go down and help in the +chorus. Said there never was such a set of fellows as the old boys +of the set he has been with. Judges, mayors, Congress-men, Mr. +Speakers, leaders in science, clergymen better than famous, and +famous too, poets by the half-dozen, singers with voices like +angels, financiers, wits, three of the best laughers in the +Commonwealth, engineers, agriculturists,--all forms of talent and +knowledge he pretended were represented in that meeting. Then he +began to quote Byron about Santa Croce, and maintained that he +could "furnish out creation" in all its details from that set of +his. He would like to have the whole boodle of them, (I +remonstrated against this word, but the Professor said it was a +diabolish good word, and he would have no other,) with their wives +and children, shipwrecked on a remote island, just to see how +splendidly they would reorganize society. They could build a +city,--they have done it; make constitutions and laws; establish +churches and lyceums; teach and practise the healing art; instruct +in every department; found observatories; create commerce and +manufactures; write songs and hymns, and sing 'em, and make +instruments to accompany the songs with; lastly, publish a +journal almost as good as the "Northern Magazine," edited by the +Come-outers. There was nothing they were not up to, from a +christening to a hanging; the last, to be sure, could never be called +for, unless some stranger got in among them. + +--I let the Professor talk as long as he liked; it didn't make much +difference to me whether it was all truth, or partly made up of +pale Sherry and similar elements. All at once he jumped up and +said,-- + +Don't you want to hear what I just read to the boys? + +I have had questions of a similar character asked me before, +occasionally. A man of iron mould might perhaps say, No! I am not +a man of iron mould, and said that I should be delighted. + +The Professor then read--with that slightly sing-song cadence which +is observed to be common in poets reading their own verses--the +following stanzas; holding them at a focal distance of about two +feet and a half, with an occasional movement back or forward for +better adjustment, the appearance of which has been likened by some +impertinent young folks to that of the act of playing on the +trombone. His eyesight was never better; I have his word for it. + + +MARE RUBRUM. + + +Flash out a stream of blood-red wine!-- +For I would drink to other days; +And brighter shall their memory shine, +Seen flaming through its crimson blaze. +The roses die, the summers fade; +But every ghost of boyhood's dream +By Nature's magic power is laid +To sleep beneath this blood-red stream. + +It filled the purple grapes that lay +And drank the splendors of the sun +Where the long summer's cloudless day +Is mirrored in the broad Garonne; +It pictures still the bacchant shapes +That saw their hoarded sunlight shed,-- +The maidens dancing on the grapes,-- +Their milk-white ankles splashed with red. + +Beneath these waves of crimson lie, +In rosy fetters prisoned fast, +Those flitting shapes that never die, +The swift-winged visions of the past. +Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim, +Each shadow rends its flowery chain, +Springs in a bubble from its brim +And walks the chambers of the brain. + +Poor Beauty! time and fortune's wrong +No form nor feature may withstand,-- +Thy wrecks are scattered all along, +Like emptied sea-shells on the sand;-- +Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain, +The dust restores each blooming girl, +As if the sea-shells moved again +Their glistening lips of pink and pearl. + +Here lies the home of school-boy life, +With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, +And, scarred by many a truant knife, +Our old initials on the wall; +Here rest--their keen vibrations mute-- +The shout of voices known so well, +The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, +The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell. + +Here, clad in burning robes, are laid +Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed; +And here those cherished forms have strayed +We miss awhile, and call them dead. +What wizard fills the maddening glass +What soil the enchanted clusters grew? +That buried passions wake and pass +In beaded drops of fiery dew? + +Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine,-- +Our hearts can boast a warmer grow, +Filled from a vantage more divine,-- +Calmed, but not chilled by winter's snow! +To-night the palest wave we sip +Rich as the priceless draught shall be +That wet the bride of Cana's lip,-- +The wedding wine of Galilee! + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + +Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. + +--I think, Sir,--said the divinity-student,--you must intend that +for one of the sayings of the Seven Wise Men of Boston you were +speaking of the other day. + +I thank you, my young friend,--was my reply,--but I must say +something better than that, before I could pretend to fill out the +number. + +--The schoolmistress wanted to know how many of these sayings there +were on record, and what, and by whom said. + +--Why, let us see,--there is that one of Benjamin Franklin, "the +great Bostonian," after whom this lad was named. To be sure, he +said a great many wise things,--and I don't feel sure he didn't +borrow this,--he speaks as if it were old. But then he applied it +so neatly!-- + +"He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you +another than he whom you yourself have obliged." + +Then there is that glorious Epicurean paradox, uttered by my +friend, the Historian, in one of his flashing moments:- + +"Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its +necessaries." + +To these must certainly be added that other saying of one of the +wittiest of men:- + +"Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris."-- + +The divinity-student looked grave at this, but said nothing. + +The schoolmistress spoke out, and said she didn't think the wit +meant any irreverence. It was only another way of saying, Paris is +a heavenly place after New York or Boston. + +A jaunty-looking person, who had come in with the young fellow they +call John,--evidently a stranger,--said there was one more wise +man's saying that he had heard; it was about our place, but he +didn't know who said it.--A civil curiosity was manifested by the +company to hear the fourth wise saying. I heard him distinctly +whispering to the young fellow who brought him to dinner, SHALL I +TELL IT? To which the answer was, GO AHEAD!--Well,--he said,--this +was what I heard:- + +"Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't +pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation +straightened out for a crowbar." + +Sir,--said I,--I am gratified with your remark. It expresses with +pleasing vivacity that which I have sometimes heard uttered with +malignant dulness. The satire of the remark is essentially true of +Boston,--and of all other considerable--and inconsiderable--places +with which I have had the privilege of being acquainted. Cockneys +think London is the only place in the world. Frenchmen--you +remember the line about Paris, the Court, the World, etc.---I +recollect well, by the way, a sign in that city which ran thus: +"Hotel l'Univers et des Etats Unis"; and as Paris IS the universe +to a Frenchman, of course the United States are outside of it. +--"See Naples and then die."--It is quite as bad with smaller places. +I have been about, lecturing, you know, and have found the +following propositions to hold true of all of them. + +1. The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of +each and every town or city. + +2. If more than fifty years have passed since its foundation, it +is affectionately styled by the inhabitants the "GOOD OLD town of" +--(whatever its name may happen to be.) + +3. Every collection of its inhabitants that comes together to +listen to a stranger is invariably declared to be a "remarkably +intelligent audience." + +4. The climate of the place is particularly favorable to +longevity. + +5. It contains several persons of vast talent little known to the +world. (One or two of them, you may perhaps chance to remember, +sent short pieces to the "Pactolian" some time since, which were +"respectfully declined.") + +Boston is just like other places of its size;--only perhaps, +considering its excellent fish-market, paid fire-department, +superior monthly publications, and correct habit of spelling the +English language, it has some right to look down on the mob of +cities. I'll tell you, though, if you want to know it, what is the +real offence of Boston. It drains a large water-shed of its +intellect, and will not itself be drained. If it would only send +away its first-rate men, instead of its second-rate ones, (no +offence to the well-known exceptions, of which we are always +proud,) we should be spared such epigrammatic remarks as that which +the gentleman has quoted. There can never be a real metropolis in +this country, until the biggest centre can drain the lesser ones of +their talent and wealth.--I have observed, by the way, that the +people who really live in two great cities are by no means so +jealous of each other, as are those of smaller cities situated +within the intellectual basin, or suction-range, of one large one, +of the pretensions of any other. Don't you see why? Because their +promising young author and rising lawyer and large capitalist have +been drained off to the neighboring big city,--their prettiest girl +has been exported to the same market; all their ambition points +there, and all their thin gilding of glory comes from there. I +hate little toad-eating cities. + +--Would I be so good as to specify any particular example?--Oh,--an +example? Did you ever see a bear-trap? Never? Well, shouldn't +you like to see me put my foot into one? With sentiments of the +highest consideration I must beg leave to be excused. + +Besides, some of the smaller cities are charming. If they have an +old church or two, a few stately mansions of former grandees, here +and there an old dwelling with the second story projecting, (for +the convenience of shooting the Indians knocking at the front-door +with their tomahawks,)--if they have, scattered about, those mighty +square houses built something more than half a century ago, and +standing like architectural boulders dropped by the former diluvium +of wealth, whose refluent wave has left them as its monument,--if +they have gardens with elbowed apple-trees that push their branches +over the high board-fence and drop their fruit on the side-walk, +--if they have a little grass in the side-streets, enough to betoken +quiet without proclaiming decay,--I think I could go to pieces, +after my life's work were done, in one of those tranquil places, as +sweetly as in any cradle that an old man may be rocked to sleep in. +I visit such spots always with infinite delight. My friend, the +Poet, says, that rapidly growing towns are most unfavorable to the +imaginative and reflective faculties. Let a man live in one of +these old quiet places, he says, and the wine of his soul, which is +kept thick and turbid by the rattle of busy streets, settles, and, +as you hold it up, you may see the sun through it by day and the +stars by night. + +--Do I think that the little villages have the conceit of the great +towns?--I don't believe there is much difference. You know how +they read Pope's line in the smallest town in our State of +Massachusetts?--Well, they read it + + +"All are but parts of one stupendous HULL!" + + +--Every person's feelings have a front-door and a side-door by +which they may be entered. The front-door is on the street. Some +keep it always open; some keep it latched; some, locked; some, +bolted,--with a chain that will let you peep in, but not get in; +and some nail it up, so that nothing can pass its threshold. This +front-door leads into a passage which opens into an ante-room, and +this into the inferior apartments. The side-door opens at once +into the sacred chambers. + +There is almost always at least one key to this side-door. This is +carried for years hidden in a mother's bosom. Fathers, brothers, +sisters, and friends, often, but by no means so universally, have +duplicates of it. The wedding-ring conveys a right to one; alas, +if none is given with it! + +If nature or accident has put one of these keys into the hands of a +person who has the torturing instinct, I can only solemnly +pronounce the words that Justice utters over its doomed victim, +--THE LORD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL! You will probably go mad within +a reasonable time,--or, if you are a man, run off and die with your +head on a curb-stone, in Melbourne or San Francisco,--or, if you +are a woman, quarrel and break your heart, or turn into a pale, +jointed petrifaction that moves about as if it were alive, or play +some real life-tragedy or other. + +Be very careful to whom you trust one of these keys of the +side-door. The fact of possessing one renders those even who are +dear to you very terrible at times. You can keep the world out from +your front-door, or receive visitors only when you are ready for +them; but those of your own flesh and blood, or of certain grades of +intimacy, can come in at the side-door, if they will, at any hour and +in any mood. Some of them have a scale of your whole nervous system, +and can play all the gamut of your sensibilities in semitones, +--touching the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his +instrument. I am satisfied that there are as great masters of this +nerve-playing as Vieuxtemps or Thalberg in their lines of +performance. Married life is the school in which the most +accomplished artists in this department are found. A delicate woman +is the best instrument; she has such a magnificent compass of +sensibilities! From the deep inward moan which follows pressure on +the great nerves of right, to the sharp cry as the filaments of taste +are struck with a crashing sweep, is a range which no other +instrument possesses. A few exercises on it daily at home fit a man +wonderfully for his habitual labors, and refresh him immensely as he +returns from them. No stranger can get a great many notes of torture +out of a human soul; it takes one that knows it well,--parent, +child, brother, sister, intimate. Be very careful to whom you give a +side-door key; too many have them already. + +--You remember the old story of the tender-hearted man, who placed +a frozen viper in his bosom, and was stung by it when it became +thawed? If we take a cold-blooded creature into our bosom, better +that it should sting us and we should die than that its chill +should slowly steal into our hearts; warm it we never can! I have +seen faces of women that were fair to look upon, yet one could see +that the icicles were forming round these women's hearts. I knew +what freezing image lay on the white breasts beneath the laces! + +A very simple INTELLECTUAL mechanism answers the necessities of +friendship, and even of the most intimate relations of life. If a +watch tells us the hour and the minute, we can be content to carry +it about with us for a life-time, though it has no second-hand and +is not a repeater, nor a musical watch,--though it is not enamelled +nor jewelled,--in short, though it has little beyond the wheels +required for a trustworthy instrument, added to a good face and a +pair of useful hands. The more wheels there are in a watch or a +brain, the more trouble they are to take care of. The movements of +exaltation which belong to genius are egotistic by their very +nature. A calm, clear mind, not subject to the spasms and crises +which are so often met with in creative or intensely perceptive +natures, is the best basis for love or friendship.--Observe, I am +talking about MINDS. I won't say, the more intellect, the less +capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to the understanding +and reason;--but, on the other hand, that the brain often runs away +with the heart's best blood, which gives the world a few pages of +wisdom or sentiment or poetry, instead of making one other heart +happy, I have no question. + +If one's intimate in love or friendship cannot or does not share +all one's intellectual tastes or pursuits, that is a small matter. +Intellectual companions can be found easily in men and books. +After all, if we think of it, most of the world's loves and +friendships have been between people that could not read nor spell. + +But to radiate the heat of the affections into a clod which absorbs +all that is poured into it, but never warms beneath the sunshine of +smiles or the pressure of hand or lip,--this is the great martyrdom +of sensitive beings,--most of all in that perpetual auto da fe +where young womanhood is the sacrifice. + +--You noticed, perhaps, what I just said about the loves and +friendships of illiterate persons,--that is, of the human race, +with a few exceptions here and there. I like books,--I was born +and bred among them, and have the easy feeling, when I get into +their presence, that a stable-boy has among horses. I don't think +I undervalue them either as companions or as instructors. But I +can't help remembering that the world's great men have not commonly +been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men. The Hebrew +patriarchs had small libraries, I think, if any; yet they represent +to our imaginations a very complete idea of manhood, and, I think, +if we could ask in Abraham to dine with us men of letters next +Saturday, we should feel honored by his company. + +What I wanted to say about books is this: that there are times in +which every active mind feels itself above any and all human books. + +--I think a man must have a good opinion of himself, Sir,--said the +divinity-student,--who should feel himself above Shakspeare at any +time. + +My young friend,--I replied,--the man who is never conscious of a +state of feeling or of intellectual effort entirely beyond +expression by any form of words whatsoever is a mere creature of +language. I can hardly believe there are any such men. Why, think +for a moment of the power of music. The nerves that make us alive +to it spread out (so the Professor tells me) in the most sensitive +region of the marrow just where it is widening to run upwards into +the hemispheres. It has its seat in the region of sense rather +than of thought. Yet it produces a continuous and, as it were, +logical sequence of emotional and intellectual changes; but how +different from trains of thought proper! how entirely beyond the +reach of symbols!--Think of human passions as compared with all +phrases! Did you ever hear of a man's growing lean by the reading +of "Romeo and Juliet," or blowing his brains out because Desdemona +was maligned? There are a good many symbols, even, that are more +expressive than words. I remember a young wife who had to part +with her husband for a time. She did not write a mournful poem; +indeed, she was a silent person, and perhaps hardly said a word +about it; but she quietly turned of a deep orange color with +jaundice. A great many people in this world have but one form of +rhetoric for their profoundest experiences,--namely, to waste away +and die. When a man can READ, his paroxysm of feeling is passing. +When he can READ, his thought has slackened its hold.--You talk +about reading Shakspeare, using him as an expression for the +highest intellect, and you wonder that any common person should be +so presumptuous as to suppose his thought can rise above the text +which lies before him. But think a moment. A child's reading of +Shakspeare is one thing, and Coleridge's or Schlegel's reading of +him is another. The saturation-point of each mind differs from +that of every other. But I think it is as true for the small mind +which can only take up a little as for the great one which takes up +much, that the suggested trains of thought and feeling ought always +to rise above--not the author, but the reader's mental version of +the author, whoever he may be. + +I think most readers of Shakspeare sometimes find themselves thrown +into exalted mental conditions like those produced by music. Then +they may drop the book, to pass at once into the region of thought +without words. We may happen to be very dull folks, you and I, and +probably are, unless there is some particular reason to suppose the +contrary. But we get glimpses now and then of a sphere of +spiritual possibilities, where we, dull as we are now, may sail in +vast circles round the largest compass of earthly intelligences. + +--I confess there are times when I feel like the friend I mentioned +to you some time ago,--I hate the very sight of a book. Sometimes +it becomes almost a physical necessity to talk out what is in the +mind, before putting anything else into it. It is very bad to have +thoughts and feelings, which were meant to come out in talk, STRIKE +IN, as they say of some complaints that ought to show outwardly. + +I always believed in life rather than in books. I suppose every +day of earth, with its hundred thousand deaths and something more +of births,--with its loves and hates, its triumphs and defeats, its +pangs and blisses, has more of humanity in it than all the books +that were ever written, put together. I believe the flowers +growing at this moment send up more fragrance to heaven than was +ever exhaled from all the essences ever distilled. + +--Don't I read up various matters to talk about at this table or +elsewhere?--No, that is the last thing I would do. I will tell you +my rule. Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind, +and listen to what others say about subjects you have studied but +recently. Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used, till they +are seasoned. + +--Physiologists and metaphysicians have had their attention turned +a good deal of late to the automatic and involuntary actions of the +mind. Put an idea into your intelligence and leave it there an +hour, a day, a year, without ever having occasion to refer to it. +When, at last, you return to it, you do not find it as it was when +acquired. It has domiciliated itself, so to speak,--become at +home,--entered into relations with your other thoughts, and +integrated itself with the whole fabric of the mind.--Or take a +simple and familiar example; Dr. Carpenter has adduced it. You +forget a name, in conversation,--go on talking, without making any +effort to recall it,--and presently the mind evolves it by its own +involuntary and unconscious action, while you were pursuing another +train of thought, and the name rises of itself to your lips. + +There are some curious observations I should like to make about the +mental machinery, but I think we are getting rather didactic. + +--I should be gratified, if Benjamin Franklin would let me know +something of his progress in the French language. I rather liked +that exercise he read us the other day, though I must confess I +should hardly dare to translate it, for fear some people in a +remote city where I once lived might think I was drawing their +portraits. + +--Yes, Paris is a famous place for societies. I don't know whether +the piece I mentioned from the French author was intended simply as +Natural History, or whether there was not a little malice in his +description. At any rate, when I gave my translation to B. F. to +turn back again into French, one reason was that I thought it would +sound a little bald in English, and some people might think it was +meant to have some local bearing or other,--which the author, of +course, didn't mean, inasmuch as he could not be acquainted with +anything on this side of the water. + + [The above remarks were addressed to the school-mistress, to whom +I handed the paper after looking it over. The divinity-student +came and read over her shoulder,--very curious, apparently, but his +eyes wandered, I thought. Fancying that her breathing was somewhat +hurried and high, or thoracic, as my friend, the Professor, calls +it, I watched her a little more closely.--It is none of my +business.--After all, it is the imponderables that move the world, +--heat, electricity, love. Habet?] + +This is the piece that Benjamin Franklin made into boarding-school +French, such as you see here; don't expect too much;--the mistakes +give a relish to it, I think. + + +LES SOCIETES POLYPHYSIOPHILOSOPHIQUES. + +Ces Societes la sont une Institution pour suppleer aux besoins +d'esprit et de coeur de ces individus qui ont survecu a leurs +emotions a l'egard du beau sexe, et qui n'ont pas la distraction de +l'habitude de boire. + +Pour devenir membre d'une de ces Societes, on doit avoir le moins +de cheveux possible. S'il y en reste plusieurs qui resistent aux +depilatoires naturelles et autres, on doit avoir quelques +connaissances, n'importe dans quel genre. Des le moment qu'on +ouvre la porte de la Societe, on a un grand interet dans toutes les +choses dont on ne sait rien. Ainsi, un microscopiste demontre un +nouveau FLEXOR du TARSE d'un MELOLONTHA VULGARIS. Douze savans +improvises, portans des besicles, et qui ne connaissent rien des +insectes, si ce n'est les morsures du CULEX, se precipitent sur +l'instrument, et voient--une grande bulle d'air, dont ils +s'emerveillent avec effusion. Ce qui est un spectacle plein +d'instruction--pour ceux qui ne sont pas de ladite Societe. Tous +les membres regardent les chimistes en particulier avec un air +d'intelligence parfaite pendant qu'ils prouvent dans un discours +d'une demiheure que O6 N3 H5 C6 etc. font quelque chose qui n'est +bonne a rien, mais qui probablement a une odeur tres desagreable, +selon l'habitude des produits chimiques. Apres cela vient un +mathematicien qui vous bourre avec des a+b et vous rapporte enfin +un x+y, dont vous n'avex pas besoin et qui ne change nullement vos +relations avec la vie. Un naturaliste vous parle des formations +speciales des animaux excessivement inconnus, dont vous n'avez +jamais soupconne l'existence. Ainsi il vous decrit les FOLLICULES +de L'APPENDIX VERMIFORMIS d'un DZIGGUETAI. Vous ne savez pas ce +que c'est qu'un FOLLICULE. Vous ne savez pas ce que c'est qu'un +APPENDIX UERMIFORMIS. Vous n'avez jamais entendu parler du +DZIGGUETAI. Ainsi vous gagnez toutes ces connaisances a la fois, +qui s'attachent a votre esprit comme l'eau adhere aux plumes d'un +canard. On connait toutes les langues EX OFFICIO en devenant +membre d'une de ces Societes. Ainsi quand on entend lire un Essai +sur les dialectes Tchutchiens, on comprend tout cela de suite, et +s'instruit enormement. + +Il y a deux especes d'individus qu'on trouve toujours a ces +Societes: 1 (degree) Le membre a questions; 2 (degree) Le membre a +"Bylaws." + +La QUESTION est une specialite. Celui qui en fait metier ne fait +jamais des reponses. La question est une maniere tres commode de +dire les choses suivantes: "Me voila! Je ne suis pas fossil, +moi,--je respire encore! J'ai des idees,--voyez mon intelligence! +Vous ne croyiez pas, vous autres, que je savais quelque chose de +cela! Ah, nous avons un peu de sagacite, voyez vous! Nous ne +sommes nullement la bete qu'on pense!"--LE FAISEUR DE QUESTIONS +DONNE PEU D'ATTENTION AUX REPONSES QU'ON FAIT; CE N'EST PAS LA DANS +SA SPECIALITE. + +Le membre a "Bylaws" est le bouchon de toutes les emotions +mousseuses et genereuses qui se montrent dans la Societe. C'est un +empereur manque,--un tyran a la troiseme trituration. C'est un +esprit dur, borne, exact, grand dans les petitesses, petit dans les +grandeurs, selon le mot du grand Jefferson. On ne l'aime pas dans +la Societe, mais on le respecte et on le craint. Il n'y a qu'un +mot pour ce membre audessus de "Bylaws." Ce mot est pour lui ce +que l'Om est aux Hundous. C'est sa religion; il n'y a rien audela. +Ce mot la c'est la CONSTITUTION! + +Lesdites Societes publient des feuilletons de tems en tems. On les +trouve abandonnes a sa porte, nus comme des enfans nouveaunes, +faute de membrane cutanee, ou meme papyracee. Si on aime la +botanique, on y trouve une memoire sur les coquilles; si on fait +des etudes zoologiques, on square trouve un grand tas de q' [square +root of minus one], ce qui doit etre infiniment plus commode que +les encyclopedies. Ainsi il est clair comme la metaphysique qu'on +doit devenir membre d'une Societe telle que nous decrivons. + +Recette pour le Depilatoire Physiophilosophique +Chaux vive lb. ss. Eau bouillante Oj. +Depilez avec. Polissez ensuite. + + +I told the boy that his translation into French was creditable to +him; and some of the company wishing to hear what there was in the +piece that made me smile, I turned it into English for them, as +well as I could, on the spot. + +The landlady's daughter seemed to be much amused by the idea that a +depilatory could take the place of literary and scientific +accomplishments; she wanted me to print the piece, so that she +might send a copy of it to her cousin in Mizzourah; she didn't +think he'd have to do anything to the outside of his head to get +into any of the societies; he had to wear a wig once, when he +played a part in a tabullo. + +No,--said I,--I shouldn't think of printing that in English. I'll +tell you why. As soon as you get a few thousand people together in +a town, there is somebody that every sharp thing you say is sure to +hit. What if a thing was written in Paris or in Pekin?--that makes +no difference. Everybody in those cities, or almost everybody, has +his counterpart here, and in all large places.--You never studied +AVERAGES as I have had occasion to. + +I'll tell you how I came to know so much about averages. There was +one season when I was lecturing, commonly, five evenings in the +week, through most of the lecturing period. I soon found, as most +speakers do, that it was pleasanter to work one lecture than to +keep several in hand. + +--Don't you get sick to death of one lecture?--said the landlady's +daughter,--who had a new dress on that day, and was in spirits for +conversation. + +I was going to talk about averages,--I said,--but I have no +objection to telling you about lectures, to begin with. + +A new lecture always has a certain excitement connected with its +delivery. One thinks well of it, as of most things fresh from his +mind. After a few deliveries of it, one gets tired and then +disgusted with its repetition. Go on delivering it, and the +disgust passes off, until, after one has repeated it a hundred or a +hundred and fifty times, he rather enjoys the hundred and first or +hundred and fifty-first time, before a new audience. But this is +on one condition,--that he never lays the lecture down and lets it +cool. If he does, there comes on a loathing for it which is +intense, so that the sight of the old battered manuscript is as bad +as sea-sickness. + +A new lecture is just like any other new tool. We use it for a +while with pleasure. Then it blisters our hands, and we hate to +touch it. By-and-by our hands get callous, and then we have no +longer any sensitiveness about it. But if we give it up, the +calluses disappear; and if we meddle with it again, we miss the +novelty and get the blisters.--The story is often quoted of +Whitefield, that he said a sermon was good for nothing until it had +been preached forty times. A lecture doesn't begin to be old until +it has passed its hundredth delivery; and some, I think, have +doubled, if not quadrupled, that number. These old lectures are a +man's best, commonly; they improve by age, also,--like the pipes, +fiddles, and poems I told you of the other day. One learns to make +the most of their strong points and to carry off their weak ones, +--to take out the really good things which don't tell on the +audience, and put in cheaper things that do. All this degrades +him, of course, but it improves the lecture for general delivery. +A thoroughly popular lecture ought to have nothing in it which five +hundred people cannot all take in a flash, just as it is uttered. + +--No, indeed,--I should be very sorry to say anything disrespectful +of audiences. I have been kindly treated by a great many, and may +occasionally face one hereafter. But I tell you the AVERAGE +intellect of five hundred persons, taken as they come, is not very +high. It may be sound and safe, so far as it goes, but it is not +very rapid or profound. A lecture ought to be something which all +can understand, about something which interests everybody. I +think, that, if any experienced lecturer gives you a different +account from this, it will probably be one of those eloquent or +forcible speakers who hold an audience by the charm of their +manner, whatever they talk about,--even when they don't talk very +well. + +But an AVERAGE, which was what I meant to speak about, is one of +the most extraordinary subjects of observation and study. It is +awful in its uniformity, in its automatic necessity of action. Two +communities of ants or bees are exactly alike in all their actions, +so far as we can see. Two lyceum assemblies, of five hundred each, +are so nearly alike, that they are absolutely undistinguishable in +many cases by any definite mark, and there is nothing but the place +and time by which one can tell the "remarkably intelligent +audience" of a town in New York or Ohio from one in any New England +town of similar size. Of course, if any principle of selection has +come in, as in those special associations of young men which are +common in cities, it deranges the uniformity of the assemblage. +But let there be no such interfering circumstances, and one knows +pretty well even the look the audience will have, before he goes +in. Front seats: a few old folk,--shiny-headed,--slant up best +ear towards the speaker,--drop off asleep after a while, when the +air begins to get a little narcotic with carbonic acid. Bright +women's faces, young and middle-aged, a little behind these, but +toward the front--(pick out the best, and lecture mainly to that.) +Here and there a countenance, sharp and scholarlike, and a dozen +pretty female ones sprinkled about. An indefinite number of pairs +of young people,--happy, but not always very attentive. Boys, in +the background, more or less quiet. Dull faces here, there,--in +how many places! I don't say dull PEOPLE, but faces without a ray +of sympathy or a movement of expression. They are what kill the +lecturer. These negative faces with their vacuous eyes and stony +lineaments pump and suck the warm soul out of him;--that is the +chief reason why lecturers grow so pale before the season is over. +They render LATENT any amount of vital caloric; they act on our +minds as those cold-blooded creatures I was talking about act on +our hearts. + +Out of all these inevitable elements the audience is generated,--a +great compound vertebrate, as much like fifty others you have seen +as any two mammals of the same species are like each other. Each +audience laughs, and each cries, in just the same places of your +lecture; that is, if you make one laugh or cry, you make all. Even +those little indescribable movements which a lecturer takes +cognizance of, just as a driver notices his horse's cocking his +ears, are sure to come in exactly the same place of your lecture +always. I declare to you, that as the monk said about the picture +in the convent,--that he sometimes thought the living tenants were +the shadows, and the painted figures the realities,--I have +sometimes felt as if I were a wandering spirit, and this great +unchanging multivertebrate which I faced night after night was one +ever-listening animal, which writhed along after me wherever I +fled, and coiled at my feet every evening, turning up to me the +same sleepless eyes which I thought I had closed with my last +drowsy incantation! + +--Oh, yes! A thousand kindly and courteous acts,--a thousand faces +that melted individually out of my recollection as the April snow +melts, but only to steal away and find the beds of flowers whose +roots are memory, but which blossom in poetry and dreams. I am not +ungrateful, nor unconscious of all the good feeling and +intelligence everywhere to be met with through the vast parish to +which the lecturer ministers. But when I set forth, leading a +string of my mind's daughters to market, as the country-folk fetch +in their strings of horses--Pardon me, that was a coarse fellow who +sneered at the sympathy wasted on an unhappy lecturer, as if, +because he was decently paid for his services, he had therefore +sold his sensibilities.--Family men get dreadfully homesick. In +the remote and bleak village the heart returns to the red blaze of +the logs in one's fireplace at home. + + +"There are his young barbarians all at play,"-- + + +if he owns any youthful savages.--No, the world has a million +roosts for a man, but only one nest. + +--It is a fine thing to be an oracle to which an appeal is always +made in all discussions. The men of facts wait their turn in grim +silence, with that slight tension about the nostrils which the +consciousness of carrying a "settler" in the form of a fact or a +revolver gives the individual thus armed. When a person is really +full of information, and does not abuse it to crush conversation, +his part is to that of the real talkers what the instrumental +accompaniment is in a trio or quartette of vocalists. + +--What do I mean by the real talkers?--Why, the people with fresh +ideas, of course, and plenty of good warm words to dress them in. +Facts always yield the place of honor, in conversation, to thoughts +about facts; but if a false note is uttered, down comes the finger +on the key and the man of facts asserts his true dignity. I have +known three of these men of facts, at least, who were always +formidable,--and one of them was tyrannical. + +--Yes, a man sometimes makes a grand appearance on a particular +occasion; but these men knew something about almost everything, and +never made mistakes.--He? Veneers in first-rate style. The +mahogany scales off now and then in spots, and then you see the +cheap light stuff--I found--very fine in conversational +information, the other day when we were in company. The talk ran +upon mountains. He was wonderfully well acquainted with the +leading facts about the Andes, the Apennines, and the Appalachians; +he had nothing in particular to say about Ararat, Ben Nevis, and +various other mountains that were mentioned. By and by some +Revolutionary anecdote came up, and he showed singular familiarity +with the lives of the Adamses, and gave many details relating to +Major Andre. A point of Natural History being suggested, he gave +an excellent account of the air-bladder of fishes. He was very +full upon the subject of agriculture, but retired from the +conversation when horticulture was introduced in the discussion. +So he seemed well acquainted with the geology of anthracite, but +did not pretend to know anything of other kinds of coal. There was +something so odd about the extent and limitations of his knowledge, +that I suspected all at once what might be the meaning of it, and +waited till I got an opportunity.--Have you seen the "New American +Cyclopaedia?" said I.--I have, he replied; I received an early +copy.--How far does it go?--He turned red, and answered,--To +Araguay.--Oh, said I to myself,--not quite so far as Ararat;--that +is the reason he knew nothing about it; but he must have read all +the rest straight through, and, if he can remember what is in this +volume until he has read all those that are to come, he will know +more than I ever thought he would. + +Since I had this experience, I hear that somebody else has related +a similar story. I didn't borrow it, for all that.--I made a +comparison at table some time since, which has often been quoted +and received many compliments. It was that of the mind of a bigot +to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it +contracts. The simile is a very obvious, and, I suppose I may now +say, a happy one; for it has just been shown me that it occurs in a +Preface to certain Political Poems of Thomas Moore's published long +before my remark was repeated. When a person of fair character for +literary honesty uses an image, such as another has employed before +him, the presumption is, that he has struck upon it independently, +or unconsciously recalled it, supposing it his own. + +It is impossible to tell, in a great many cases, whether a +comparison which suddenly suggests itself is a new conception or a +recollection. I told you the other day that I never wrote a line +of verse that seemed to me comparatively good, but it appeared old +at once, and often as if it had been borrowed. But I confess I +never suspected the above comparison of being old, except from the +fact of its obviousness. It is proper, however, that I proceed by +a formal instrument to relinquish all claim to any property in an +idea given to the world at about the time when I had just joined +the class in which Master Thomas Moore was then a somewhat advanced +scholar. + +I, therefore, in full possession of my native honesty, but knowing +the liability of all men to be elected to public office, and for +that reason feeling uncertain how soon I may be in danger of losing +it, do hereby renounce all claim to being considered the FIRST +person who gave utterance to a certain simile or comparison +referred to in the accompanying documents, and relating to the +pupil of the eye on the one part and the mind of the bigot on the +other. I hereby relinquish all glory and profit, and especially +all claims to letters from autograph collectors, founded upon my +supposed property in the above comparison,--knowing well, that, +according to the laws of literature, they who speak first hold the +fee of the thing said. I do also agree that all Editors of +Cyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries, all Publishers of +Reviews and Papers, and all Critics writing therein, shall be at +liberty to retract or qualify any opinion predicated on the +supposition that I was the sole and undisputed author of the above +comparison. But, inasmuch as I do affirm that the comparison +aforesaid was uttered by me in the firm belief that it was new and +wholly my own, and as I have good reason to think that I had never +seen or heard it when first expressed by me, and as it is well +known that different persons may independently utter the same +idea,--as is evinced by that familiar line from Donatus,-- + +"Pereant illi qui ante nos nostra dixerunt,"-- + +now, therefore, I do request by this instrument that all +well-disposed persons will abstain from asserting or implying that I +am open to any accusation whatsoever touching the said comparison, +and, if they have so asserted or implied, that they will have the +manliness forthwith to retract the same assertion or insinuation. + + +I think few persons have a greater disgust for plagiarism than +myself. If I had even suspected that the idea in question was +borrowed, I should have disclaimed originality, or mentioned the +coincidence, as I once did in a case where I had happened to hit on +an idea of Swift's.--But what shall I do about these verses I was +going to read you? I am afraid that half mankind would accuse me +of stealing their thoughts, if I printed them. I am convinced that +several of you, especially if you are getting a little on in life, +will recognize some of these sentiments as having passed through +your consciousness at some time. I can't help it,--it is too late +now. The verses are written, and you must have them. Listen, +then, and you shall hear + + +WHAT WE ALL THINK. + +That age was older once than now, +In spite of locks untimely shed, +Or silvered on the youthful brow; +That babes make love and children wed. + +That sunshine had a heavenly glow, +Which faded with those "good old days," +When winters came with deeper snow, +And autumns with a softer haze. + +That--mother, sister, wife, or child-- +The "best of women" each has known. +Were schoolboys ever half so wild? +How young the grandpapas have grown, + +That BUT FOR THIS our souls were free, +And BUT FOR THAT our lives were blest; +That in some season yet to be +Our cares will leave us time to rest. + +Whene'er we groan with ache or pain, +Some common ailment of the race,-- +Though doctors think the matter plain,-- +That ours is "a peculiar case." + +That when like babes with fingers burned +We count one bitter maxim more, +Our lesson all the world has learned, +And men are wiser than before. + +That when we sob o'er fancied woes, +The angels hovering overhead +Count every pitying drop that flows +And love us for the tears we shed. + +That when we stand with tearless eye +And turn the beggar from our door, +They still approve us when we sigh, +"Ah, had I but ONE THOUSAND MORE!" + +That weakness smoothed the path of sin, +In half the slips our youth has known; +And whatsoe'er its blame has been, +That Mercy flowers on faults outgrown. + +Though temples crowd the crumbled brink +O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, +Their tablets bold with WHAT WE THINK, +Their echoes dumb to WHAT WE KNOW; + +That one unquestioned text we read, +All doubt beyond, all fear above, +Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed +Can burn or blot it: GOD IS LOVE! + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + +[This particular record is noteworthy principally for containing a +paper by my friend, the Professor, with a poem or two annexed or +intercalated. I would suggest to young persons that they should +pass over it for the present, and read, instead of it, that story +about the young man who was in love with the young lady, and in +great trouble for something like nine pages, but happily married on +the tenth page or thereabouts, which, I take it for granted, will +be contained in the periodical where this is found, unless it +differ from all other publications of the kind. Perhaps, if such +young people will lay the number aside, and take it up ten years, +or a little more, from the present time, they may find something in +it for their advantage. They can't possibly understand it all +now.] + +My friend, the Professor, began talking with me one day in a dreary +sort of way. I couldn't get at the difficulty for a good while, +but at last it turned out that somebody had been calling him an old +man.--He didn't mind his students calling him THE old man, he said. +That was a technical expression, and he thought that he remembered +hearing it applied to himself when he was about twenty-five. It +may be considered as a familiar and sometimes endearing +appellation. An Irishwoman calls her husband "the old man," and he +returns the caressing expression by speaking of her as "the old +woman." But now, said he, just suppose a case like one of these. +A young stranger is overheard talking of you as a very nice old +gentleman. A friendly and genial critic speaks of your green old +age as illustrating the truth of some axiom you had uttered with +reference to that period of life. What _I_ call an old man is a +person with a smooth, shining crown and a fringe of scattered white +hairs, seen in the streets on sunshiny days, stooping as he walks, +bearing a cane, moving cautiously and slowly; telling old stories, +smiling at present follies, living in a narrow world of dry habits; +one that remains waking when others have dropped asleep, and keeps +a little night-lamp-flame of life burning year after year, if the +lamp is not upset, and there is only a careful hand held round it +to prevent the puffs of wind from blowing the flame out. That's +what I call an old man. + +Now, said the Professor, you don't mean to tell me that I have got +to that yet? Why, bless you, I am several years short of the time +when--[I knew what was coming, and could hardly keep from laughing; +twenty years ago he used to quote it as one of those absurd +speeches men of genius will make, and now he is going to argue from +it]--several years short of the time when Balzac says that men are +--most--you know--dangerous to--the hearts of--in short, most to be +dreaded by duennas that have charge of susceptible females.--What +age is that? said I, statistically.--Fifty-two years, answered the +Professor.--Balzac ought to know, said I, if it is true that Goethe +said of him that each of his stories must have been dug out of a +woman's heart. But fifty-two is a high figure. + +Stand in the light of the window, Professor, said I.---The +Professor took up the desired position.--You have white hairs, I +said.--Had 'em any time these twenty years, said the Professor. +--And the crow's-foot,--pes anserinus, rather.--The Professor smiled, +as I wanted him to, and the folds radiated like the ridges of a +half-opened fan, from the outer corner of the eyes to the temples. +--And the calipers said I.--What are the calipers? he asked, +curiously.--Why, the parenthesis, said I.--Parenthesis? said the +Professor; what's that?--Why, look in the glass when you are +disposed to laugh, and see if your mouth isn't framed in a couple +of crescent lines,--so, my boy ( ).--It's all nonsense, said the +Professor; just look at my BICEPS;--and he began pulling off his +coat to show me his arm. Be careful, said I; you can't bear +exposure to the air, at your time of life, as you could once.--I +will box with you, said the Professor, row with you, walk with you, +ride with you, swim with you, or sit at table with you, for fifty +dollars a side.--Pluck survives stamina, I answered. + +The Professor went off a little out of humor. A few weeks +afterwards he came in, looking very good-natured, and brought me a +paper, which I have here, and from which I shall read you some +portions, if you don't object. He had been thinking the matter +over, he said,--had read Cicero "De Senectute," and made up his +mind to meet old age half way. These were some of his reflections +that he had written down; so here you have. + + +THE PROFESSOR'S PAPER. + + +There is no doubt when old age begins. The human body is a furnace +which keeps in blast three-score years and ten, more or less. It +burns about three hundred pounds of carbon a year, (besides other +fuel,) when in fair working order, according to a great chemist's +estimate. When the fire slackens, life declines; when it goes out, +we are dead. + +It has been shown by some noted French experimenters, that the +amount of combustion increases up to about the thirtieth year, +remains stationary to about forty-five, and then diminishes. This +last is the point where old age starts from. The great fact of +physical life is the perpetual commerce with the elements, and the +fire is the measure of it. + +About this time of life, if food is plenty where you live,--for +that, you know, regulates matrimony,--you may be expecting to find +yourself a grandfather some fine morning; a kind of domestic +felicity that gives one a cool shiver of delight to think of, as +among the not remotely possible events. + +I don't mind much those slipshod lines Dr. Johnson wrote to Thrale, +telling her about life's declining from THIRTY-FIVE; the furnace is +in full blast for ten years longer, as I have said. The Romans +came very near the mark; their age of enlistment reached from +seventeen to forty-six years. + +What is the use of fighting against the seasons, or the tides, or +the movements of the planetary bodies, or this ebb in the wave of +life that flows through us? We are old fellows from the moment the +fire begins to go out. Let us always behave like gentlemen when we +are introduced to new acquaintance. + + +Incipit Allegoria Senectutis. + + +Old Age, this is Mr. Professor; Mr. Professor, this is Old Age. + +Old Age.--Mr. Professor, I hope to see you well. I have known you +for some time, though I think you did not know me. Shall we walk +down the street together? + +Professor (drawing back a little).--We can talk more quietly, +perhaps, in my study. Will you tell me how it is you seem to be +acquainted with everybody you are introduced to, though he +evidently considers you an entire stranger? + +Old Age.--I make it a rule never to force myself upon a person's +recognition until I have known him at least FIVE YEARS. + +Professor.--Do you mean to say that you have known me so long as +that? + +Old Age. I do. I left my card on you longer ago than that, but I +am afraid you never read it; yet I see you have it with you. + +Professor.--Where? + +Old Age.--There, between your eyebrows,--three straight lines +running up and down; all the probate courts know that token,--"Old +Age, his mark." Put your forefinger on the inner end of one +eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of the other +eyebrow; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth out my +sign-manual; that's the way you used to look before I left my card +on you. + +Professor.--What message do people generally send back when you +first call on them? + +Old Age.--Not at home. Then I leave a card and go. Next year I +call; get the same answer; leave another card. So for five or +six,--sometimes ten years or more. At last, if they don't let me +in, I break in through the front door or the windows. + +We talked together in this way some time. Then Old Age said +again,--Come, let us walk down the street together,--and offered me +a cane, an eyeglass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes.--No, much +obliged to you, said I. I don't want those things, and I had a +little rather talk with you here, privately, in my study. So I +dressed myself up in a jaunty way and walked out alone;--got a +fall, caught a cold, was laid up with a lumbago, and had time to +think over this whole matter. + + +Explicit Allegoria Senectutis. + + +We have settled when old age begins. Like all Nature's processes, +it is gentle and gradual in its approaches, strewed with illusions, +and all its little griefs soothed by natural sedatives. But the +iron hand is not less irresistible because it wears the velvet +glove. The button-wood throws off its bark in large flakes, which +one may find lying at its foot, pushed out, and at last pushed off, +by that tranquil movement from beneath, which is too slow to be +seen, but too powerful to be arrested. One finds them always, but +one rarely sees them fall. So it is our youth drops from us, +--scales off, sapless and lifeless, and lays bare the tender and +immature fresh growth of old age. Looked at collectively, the +changes of old age appear as a series of personal insults and +indignities, terminating at last in death, which Sir Thomas Browne +has called "the very disgrace and ignominy of our nature." + + +My lady's cheek can boast no more +The cranberry white and pink it wore; +And where her shining locks divide, +The parting line is all too wide-- + + +No, no,--this will never do. Talk about men, if you will, but +spare the poor women. + +We have a brief description of seven stages of life by a remarkably +good observer. It is very presumptuous to attempt to add to it, +yet I have been struck with the fact that life admits of a natural +analysis into no less than fifteen distinct periods. Taking the +five primary divisions, infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old +age, each of these has its own three periods of immaturity, +complete development, and decline. I recognize on OLD baby at +once,--with its "pipe and mug," (a stick of candy and a +porringer,)--so does everybody; and an old child shedding its +milk-teeth is only a little prototype of the old man shedding his +permanent ones. Fifty or thereabouts is only the childhood, as it +were, of old age; the graybeard youngster must be weaned from his +late suppers now. So you will see that you have to make fifteen +stages at any rate, and that it would not be hard to make +twenty-five; five primary, each with five secondary divisions. + +The infancy and childhood of commencing old age have the same +ingenuous simplicity and delightful unconsciousness about them as +the first stage of the earlier periods of life shows. The great +delusion of mankind is in supposing that to be individual and +exceptional which is universal and according to law. A person is +always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man +for the first time. + +Nature gets us out of youth into manhood, as sailors are hurried on +board of vessels,--in a state of intoxication. We are hustled into +maturity reeling with our passions and imaginations, and we have +drifted far away from port before we awake out of our illusions. +But to carry us out of maturity into old age, without our knowing +where we are going, she drugs us with strong opiates, and so we +stagger along with wide open eyes that see nothing until snow +enough has fallen on our heads to rouse our comatose brains out of +their stupid trances. + +There is one mark of age that strikes me more than any of the +physical ones;--I mean the formation of Habits. An old man who +shrinks into himself falls into ways that become as positive and as +much beyond the reach of outside influences as if they were +governed by clock-work. The ANIMAL functions, as the physiologists +call them, in distinction from the ORGANIC, tend, in the process of +deterioration to which age and neglect united gradually lead them, +to assume the periodical or rhythmical type of movement. Every +man's HEART (this organ belongs, you know, to the organic system) +has a regular mode of action; but I know a great many men whose +BRAINS, and all their voluntary existence flowing from their +brains, have a systole and diastole as regular as that of the heart +itself. Habit is the approximation of the animal system to the +organic. It is a confession of failure in the highest function of +being, which involves a perpetual self-determination, in full view +of all existing circumstances. But habit, you see, is an action in +present circumstances from past motives. It is substituting a vis +a tergo for the evolution of living force. + +When a man, instead of burning up three hundred pounds of carbon a +year, has got down to two hundred and fifty, it is plain enough he +must economize force somewhere. Now habit is a labor-saving +invention which enables a man to get along with less fuel,--that is +all; for fuel is force, you know, just as much in the page I am +writing for you as in the locomotive or the legs that carry it to +you. Carbon is the same thing, whether you call it wood, or coal, +or bread and cheese. A reverend gentleman demurred to this +statement,--as if, because combustion is asserted to be the sine +qua non of thought, therefore thought is alleged to be a purely +chemical process. Facts of chemistry are one thing, I told him, +and facts of consciousness another. It can be proved to him, by a +very simple analysis of some of his spare elements, that every +Sunday, when he does his duty faithfully, he uses up more +phosphorus out of his brain and nerves than on ordinary days. But +then he had his choice whether to do his duty, or to neglect it, +and save his phosphorus and other combustibles. + +It follows from all this that THE FORMATION OF HABITS ought +naturally to be, as it is, the special characteristic of age. As +for the muscular powers, they pass their maximum long before the +time when the true decline of life begins, if we may judge by the +experience of the ring. A man is "stale," I think, in their +language, soon after thirty,--often, no doubt, much earlier, as +gentlemen of the pugilistic profession are exceedingly apt to keep +their vital fire burning WITH THE BLOWER UP. + +--So far without Tully. But in the mean time I have been reading +the treatise, "De Senectute." It is not long, but a leisurely +performance. The old gentleman was sixty-three years of age when +he addressed it to his friend T. Pomponius Atticus, Eq., a person +of distinction, some two or three years older. We read it when we +are schoolboys, forget all about it for thirty years, and then take +it up again by a natural instinct,--provided always that we read +Latin as we drink water, without stopping to taste it, as all of us +who ever learned it at school or college ought to do. + +Cato is the chief speaker in the dialogue. A good deal of it is +what would be called in vulgar phrase "slow." It unpacks and +unfolds incidental illustrations which a modern writer would look +at the back of, and toss each to its pigeon-hole. I think ancient +classics and ancient people are alike in the tendency to this kind +of expansion. + +An old doctor came to me once (this is literal fact) with some +contrivance or other for people with broken kneepans. As the +patient would be confined for a good while, he might find it dull +work to sit with his hands in his lap. Reading, the ingenious +inventor suggested, would be an agreeable mode of passing the time. +He mentioned, in his written account of his contrivance, various +works that might amuse the weary hour. I remember only three,--Don +Quixote, Tom Jones, and WATTS ON THE MIND. + +It is not generally understood that Cicero's essay was delivered as +a lyceum lecture, (concio popularis,) at the Temple of Mercury. +The journals (papyri) of the day ("Tempora Quotidiana,"--"Tribuinus +Quirinalis,"--"Praeco Romanus," and the rest) gave abstracts of it, +one of which I have translated and modernized, as being a +substitute for the analysis I intended to make. + +IV. Kal. Mart. . . . . + +The lecture at the Temple of Mercury, last evening, was well +attended by the elite of our great city. Two hundred thousand +sestertia were thought to have been represented in the house. The +doors were besieged by a mob of shabby fellows, (illotum vulgus,) +who were at length quieted after two or three had been somewhat +roughly handled (gladio jugulati). The speaker was the well-known +Mark Tully, Eq.,--the subject Old Age. Mr. T. has a lean and +scraggy person, with a very unpleasant excrescence upon his nasal +feature, from which his nickname of CHICK-PEA (Cicero) is said by +some to be derived. As a lecturer is public property, we may +remark, that his outer garment (toga) was of cheap stuff and +somewhat worn, and that his general style and appearance of dress +and manner (habitus, vestitusque) were somewhat provincial. + +The lecture consisted of an imaginary dialogue between Cato and +Laelius. We found the first portion rather heavy, and retired a +few moments for refreshment (pocula quaedam vini).--All want to +reach old age, says Cato, and grumble when they get it; therefore +they are donkeys.--The lecturer will allow us to say that he is the +donkey; we know we shall grumble at old age, but we want to live +through youth and manhood, IN SPITE of the troubles we shall groan +over.--There was considerable prosing as to what old age can do and +can't.--True, but not new. Certainly, old folks can't jump,--break +the necks of their thigh-bones, (femorum cervices,) if they do; +can't crack nuts with their teeth; can't climb a greased pole +(malum inunctum scandere non possunt); but they can tell old +stories and give you good advice; if they know what you have made +up your mind to do when you ask them.--All this is well enough, but +won't set the Tiber on fire (Tiberim accendere nequaquam potest.) + +There were some clever things enough, (dicta hand inepta,) a few of +which are worth reporting.--Old people are accused of being +forgetful; but they never forget where they have put their money. +--Nobody is so old he doesn't think he can live a year.--The lecturer +quoted an ancient maxim,--Grow old early, if you would be old +long,--but disputed it.--Authority, he thought, was the chief +privilege of age.--It is not great to have money, but fine to +govern those that have it.--Old age begins at FORTY-SIX years, +according to the common opinion.--It is not every kind of old age +or of wine that grows sour with time.--Some excellent remarks were +made on immortality, but mainly borrowed from and credited to +Plato.--Several pleasing anecdotes were told.--Old Milo, champion +of the heavy weights in his day, looked at his arms and whimpered, +"They are dead." Not so dead as you, you old fool,--says Cato; +--you never were good for anything but for your shoulders and +flanks.--Pisistratus asked Solon what made him dare to be so +obstinate. Old age, said Solon. + +The lecture was on the whole acceptable, and a credit to our +culture and civilization.--The reporter goes on to state that there +will be no lecture next week, on account of the expected combat +between the bear and the barbarian. Betting (sponsio) two to one +(duo ad unum) on the bear. + + +--After all, the most encouraging things I find in the treatise, +"De Senectute," are the stories of men who have found new +occupations when growing old, or kept up their common pursuits in +the extreme period of life. Cato learned Greek when he was old, +and speaks of wishing to learn the fiddle, or some such instrument, +(fidibus,) after the example of Socrates. Solon learned something +new, every day, in his old age, as he gloried to proclaim. Cyrus +pointed out with pride and pleasure the trees he had planted with +his own hand. [I remember a pillar on the Duke of Northumberland's +estate at Alnwick, with an inscription in similar words, if not the +same. That, like other country pleasures, never wears out. None +is too rich, none too poor, none too young, none too old to enjoy +it.] There is a New England story I have heard more to the point, +however, than any of Cicero's. A young farmer was urged to set out +some apple-trees.--No, said he, they are too long growing, and I +don't want to plant for other people. The young farmer's father +was spoken to about it, but he, with better reason, alleged that +apple-trees were slow and life was fleeting. At last some one +mentioned it to the old grandfather of the young farmer. He had +nothing else to do,--so he stuck in some trees. He lived long +enough to drink barrels of cider made from the apples that grew on +those trees. + +As for myself, after visiting a friend lately,--[Do remember all +the time that this is the Professor's paper.]--I satisfied myself +that I had better concede the fact that--my contemporaries are not +so young as they have been,--and that,--awkward as it is,--science +and history agree in telling me that I can claim the immunities and +must own the humiliations of the early stage of senility. Ah! but +we have all gone down the hill together. The dandies of my time +have split their waistbands and taken to high-low shoes. The +beauties of my recollections--where are they? They have run the +gantlet of the years as well as I. First the years pelted them +with red roses till their cheeks were all on fire. By and by they +began throwing white roses, and that morning flush passed away. At +last one of the years threw a snow-ball, and after that no year let +the poor girls pass without throwing snow-balls. And then came +rougher missiles,--ice and stones; and from time to time an arrow +whistled, and down went one of the poor girls. So there are but +few left; and we don't call those few GIRLS, but-- + +Ah, me! Here am I groaning just as the old Greek sighed Ai, ai! +and the old Roman, Eheu! I have no doubt we should die of shame +and grief at the indignities offered us by age, if it were not that +we see so many others as badly or worse off than ourselves. We +always compare ourselves with our contemporaries. + +[I was interrupted in my reading just here. Before I began at the +next breakfast, I read them these verses;--I hope you will like +them, and get a useful lesson from them.] + + +THE LAST BLOSSOM. + + +Though young no more, we still would dream +Of beauty's dear deluding wiles; +The leagues of life to graybeards seem +Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles. + +Who knows a woman's wild caprice? +It played with Goethe's silvered hair, +And many a Holy Father's "niece" +Has softly smoothed the papal chair. + +When sixty bids us sigh in vain +To melt the heart of sweet sixteen, +We think upon those ladies twain +Who loved so well the tough old Dean. + +We see the Patriarch's wintry face, +The maid of Egypt's dusky glow, +And dream that Youth and Age embrace, +As April violets fill with snow. + +Tranced in her Lord's Olympian smile +His lotus-loving Memphian lies,-- +The musky daughter of the Nile +With plaited hair and almond eyes. + +Might we but share one wild caress +Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall, +And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress +The long cold kiss that waits us all! + +My bosom heaves, remembering yet +The morning of that blissful day +When Rose, the flower of spring, I met, +And gave my raptured soul away. + +Flung from her eyes of purest blue, +A lasso, with its leaping chain +Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew +O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain. + +Thou com'st to cheer my waning age, +Sweet vision, waited for so long! +Dove that would seek the poet's cage +Lured by the magic breath of song! + +She blushes! Ah, reluctant maid, +Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told! +O'er girlhood's yielding barricade +Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold! + +Come to my arms!--love heeds not years +No frost the bud of passion knows.-- +Ha! what is this my frenzy hears? +A voice behind me uttered,--Rose! + +Sweet was her smile,--but not for me; +Alas, when woman looks TOO kind, +Just turn your foolish head and see,-- +Some youth is walking close behind! + + +As to GIVING UP because the almanac or the Family-Bible says that +it is about time to do it, I have no intention of doing any such +thing. I grant you that I burn less carbon than some years ago. I +see people of my standing really good for nothing, decrepit, +effete, la levre inferieure deja pendante, with what little life +they have left mainly concentrated in their epigastrium. But as +the disease of old age is epidemic, endemic, and sporadic, and +everybody that lives long enough is sure to catch it, I am going to +say, for the encouragement of such as need it, how I treat the +malady in my own case. + +First. As I feel, that, when I have anything to do, there is less +time for it than when I was younger, I find that I give my +attention more thoroughly, and use my time more economically than +ever before; so that I can learn anything twice as easily as in my +earlier days. I am not, therefore, afraid to attack a new study. +I took up a difficult language a very few years ago with good +success, and think of mathematics and metaphysics by-and-by. + +Secondly. I have opened my eyes to a good many neglected +privileges and pleasures within my reach, and requiring only a +little courage to enjoy them. You may well suppose it pleased me +to find that old Cato was thinking of learning to play the fiddle, +when I had deliberately taken it up in my old age, and satisfied +myself that I could get much comfort, if not much music, out of it. + +Thirdly. I have found that some of those active exercises, which +are commonly thought to belong to young folks only, may be enjoyed +at a much later period. + +A young friend has lately written an admirable article in one of +the journals, entitled, "Saints and their Bodies." Approving of +his general doctrines, and grateful for his records of personal +experience, I cannot refuse to add my own experimental confirmation +of his eulogy of one particular form of active exercise and +amusement, namely, BOATING. For the past nine years, I have rowed +about, during a good part of the summer, on fresh or salt water. +My present fleet on the river Charles consists of three row-boats. +1. A small flat-bottomed skiff of the shape of a flat-iron, kept +mainly to lend to boys. 2. A fancy "dory" for two pairs of sculls, +in which I sometimes go out with my young folks. 3. My own +particular water-sulky, a "skeleton" or "shell" race-boat, +twenty-two feet long, with huge outriggers, which boat I pull with +ten-foot sculls,--alone, of course, as it holds but one, and tips him +out, if he doesn't mind what he is about. In this I glide around +the Back Bay, down the stream, up the Charles to Cambridge and +Watertown, up the Mystic, round the wharves, in the wake of +steamboats which leave a swell after them delightful to rock upon; +I linger under the bridges,--those "caterpillar bridges," as my +brother professor so happily called them; rub against the black +sides of old wood-schooners; cool down under the overhanging stern +of some tall Indiaman; stretch across to the Navy-Yard, where the +sentinel warns me off from the Ohio,--just as if I should hurt her +by lying in her shadow; then strike out into the harbor, where the +water gets clear and the air smells of the ocean,--till all at once +I remember, that, if a west wind blows up of a sudden, I shall +drift along past the islands, out of sight of the dear old +State-house,--plate, tumbler, knife and fork all waiting at home, +but no chair drawn up at the table,--all the dear people waiting, +waiting, waiting, while the boat is sliding, sliding, sliding into +the great desert, where there is no tree and no fountain. As I don't +want my wreck to be washed up on one of the beaches in company with +devil's-aprons, bladder-weeds, dead horse-shoes, and bleached +crab-shells, I turn about and flap my long narrow wings for home. +When the tide is running out swiftly, I have a splendid fight to get +through the bridges, but always make it a rule to beat,--though I +have been jammed up into pretty tight places at times, and was caught +once between a vessel swinging round and the pier, until our bones +(the boat's, that is) cracked as if we had been in the jaws of +Behemoth. Then back to my moorings at the foot of the Common, off +with the rowing-dress, dash under the green translucent wave, return +to the garb of civilization, walk through my Garden, take a look at +my elms on the Common, and, reaching my habitat, in consideration of +my advanced period of life, indulge in the Elysian abandonment of a +huge recumbent chair. + +When I have established a pair of well-pronounced feathering- +calluses on my thumbs, when I am in training so that I can do my +fifteen miles at a stretch without coming to grief in any way, when +I can perform my mile in eight minutes or a little less, then I +feel as if I had old Time's head in chancery, and could give it to +him at my leisure. + +I do not deny the attraction of walking. I have bored this ancient +city through and through in my daily travels, until I know it as an +old inhabitant of a Cheshire knows his cheese. Why, it was I who, +in the course of these rambles, discovered that remarkable avenue +called Myrtle Street, stretching in one long line from east of the +Reservoir to a precipitous and rudely paved cliff which looks down +on the grim abode of Science, and beyond it to the far hills; a +promenade so delicious in its repose, so cheerfully varied with +glimpses down the northern slope into busy Cambridge Street with +its iron river of the horse-railroad, and wheeled barges gliding +back and forward over it,--so delightfully closing at its western +extremity in sunny courts and passages where I know peace, and +beauty, and virtue, and serene old age must be perpetual tenants, +--so alluring to all who desire to take their daily stroll, in the +words of Dr. Watts,-- + +"Alike unknowing and unknown,"-- + +that nothing but a sense of duty would have prompted me to reveal +the secret of its existence. I concede, therefore, that walking is +an immeasurably fine invention, of which old age ought constantly +to avail itself. + +Saddle-leather is in some respects even preferable to sole-leather. +The principal objection to it is of a financial character. But you +may be sure that Bacon and Sydenham did not recommend it for +nothing. One's hepar, or, in vulgar language, liver,--a ponderous +organ, weighing some three or four pounds,--goes up and down like +the dasher of a churn in the midst of the other vital arrangements, +at every step of a trotting horse. The brains also are shaken up +like coppers in a money-box. Riding is good, for those that are +born with a silver-mounted bridle in their hand, and can ride as +much and as often as they like, without thinking all the time they +hear that steady grinding sound as the horse's jaws triturate with +calm lateral movement the bank-bills and promises to pay upon which +it is notorious that the profligate animal in question feeds day +and night. + +Instead, however, of considering these kinds of exercise in this +empirical way, I will devote a brief space to an examination of +them in a more scientific form. + +The pleasure of exercise is due first to a purely physical +impression, and secondly to a sense of power in action. The first +source of pleasure varies of course with our condition and the +state of the surrounding circumstances; the second with the amount +and kind of power, and the extent and kind of action. In all forms +of active exercise there are three powers simultaneously in +action,--the will, the muscles, and the intellect. Each of these +predominates in different kinds of exercise. In walking, the will +and muscles are so accustomed to work together and perform their +task with so little expenditure of force, that the intellect is +left comparatively free. The mental pleasure in walking, as such, +is in the sense of power over all our moving machinery. But in +riding, I have the additional pleasure of governing another will, +and my muscles extend to the tips of the animal's ears and to his +four hoofs, instead of stopping at my hands and feet. Now in this +extension of my volition and my physical frame into another animal, +my tyrannical instincts and my desire for heroic strength are at +once gratified. When the horse ceases to have a will of his own +and his muscles require no special attention on your part, then you +may live on horseback as Wesley did, and write sermons or take +naps, as you like. But you will observe, that, in riding on +horseback, you always have a feeling, that, after all, it is not +you that do the work, but the animal, and this prevents the +satisfaction from being complete. + +Now let us look at the conditions of rowing. I won't suppose you +to be disgracing yourself in one of those miserable tubs, tugging +in which is to rowing the true boat what riding a cow is to +bestriding an Arab. You know the Esquimaux kayak, (if that is the +name of it,) don't you? Look at that model of one over my door. +Sharp, rather?--On the contrary, it is a lubber to the one you and +I must have; a Dutch fish-wife to Psyche, contrasted with what I +will tell you about.--Our boat, then, is something of the shape of +a pickerel, as you look down upon his back, he lying in the +sunshine just where the sharp edge of the water cuts in among the +lily-pads. It is a kind of a giant pod, as one may say,--tight +everywhere, except in a little place in the middle, where you sit. +Its length is from seven to ten yards, and as it is only from +sixteen to thirty inches wide in its widest part, you understand +why you want those "outriggers," or projecting iron frames with the +rowlocks in which the oars play. My rowlocks are five feet apart; +double the greatest width of the boat. + +Here you are, then, afloat with a body a rod and a half long, with +arms, or wings, as you may choose to call them, stretching more +than twenty feet from tip to tip; every volition of yours extending +as perfectly into them as if your spinal cord ran down the centre +strip of your boat, and the nerves of your arms tingled as far as +the broad blades of your oars,--oars of spruce, balanced, +leathered, and ringed under your own special direction. This, in +sober earnest, is the nearest approach to flying that man has ever +made or perhaps ever will make. As the hawk sails without flapping +his pinions, so you drift with the tide when you will, in the most +luxurious form of locomotion indulged to an embodied spirit. But +if your blood wants rousing, turn round that stake in the river, +which you see a mile from here; and when you come in in sixteen +minutes, (if you do, for we are old boys, and not champion +scullers, you remember,) then say if you begin to feel a little +warmed up or not! You can row easily and gently all day, and you +can row yourself blind and black in the face in ten minutes, just +as you like. It has been long agreed that there is no way in which +a man can accomplish so much labor with his muscles as in rowing. +It is in the boat, then, that man finds the largest extension of +his volitional and muscular existence; and yet he may tax both of +them so slightly, in that most delicious of exercises, that he +shall mentally write his sermon, or his poem, or recall the remarks +he has made in company and put them in form for the public, as well +as in his easy-chair. + +I dare not publicly name the rare joys, the infinite delights, that +intoxicate me on some sweet June morning, when the river and bay +are smooth as a sheet of beryl-green silk, and I run along ripping +it up with my knife-edged shell of a boat, the rent closing after +me like those wounds of angels which Milton tells of, but the seam +still shining for many a long rood behind me. To lie still over +the Flats, where the waters are shallow, and see the crabs crawling +and the sculpins gliding busily and silently beneath the boat,--to +rustle in through the long harsh grass that leads up some tranquil +creek,--to take shelter from the sunbeams under one of the +thousand-footed bridges, and look down its interminable colonnades, +crusted with green and oozy growths, studded with minute barnacles, +and belted with rings of dark muscles, while overhead streams and +thunders that other river whose every wave is a human soul flowing +to eternity as the river below flows to the ocean,--lying there +moored unseen, in loneliness so profound that the columns of Tadmor +in the Desert could not seem more remote from life,--the cool +breeze on one's forehead, the stream whispering against the +half-sunken pillars,--why should I tell of these things, that I +should live to see my beloved haunts invaded and the waves blackened +with boats as with a swarm of water-beetles? What a city of idiots +we must be not to have covered this glorious bay with gondolas and +wherries, as we have just learned to cover the ice in winter with +skaters! + +I am satisfied that such a set of black-coated, stiff-jointed, +soft-muscled, paste-complexioned youth as we can boast in our +Atlantic cities never before sprang from loins of Anglo-Saxon +lineage. Of the females that are the mates of these males I do not +here speak. I preached my sermon from the lay-pulpit on this +matter a good while ago. Of course, if you heard it, you know my +belief is that the total climatic influences here are getting up a +number of new patterns of humanity, some of which are not an +improvement on the old model. Clipper-built, sharp in the bows, +long in the spars, slender to look at, and fast to go, the ship, +which is the great organ of our national life of relation, is but a +reproduction of the typical form which the elements impress upon +its builder. All this we cannot help; but we can make the best of +these influences, such as they are. We have a few good boatmen, +--no good horsemen that I hear of,--I cannot speak for cricketing, +--but as for any great athletic feat performed by a gentleman in +these latitudes, society would drop a man who should run round the +Common in five minutes. Some of our amateur fencers, single-stick +players, and boxers, we have no reason to be ashamed of. Boxing is +rough play, but not too rough for a hearty young fellow. Anything +is better than this white-blooded degeneration to which we all +tend. + +I dropped into a gentlemen's sparring exhibition only last evening. +It did my heart good to see that there were a few young and +youngish youths left who could take care of their own heads in case +of emergency. It is a fine sight, that of a gentleman resolving +himself into the primitive constituents of his humanity. Here is a +delicate young man now, with an intellectual countenance, a slight +figure, a sub-pallid complexion, a most unassuming deportment, a +mild adolescent in fact, that any Hiram or Jonathan from between +the ploughtails would of course expect to handle with perfect ease. +Oh, he is taking off his gold-bowed spectacles! Ah, he is +divesting himself of his cravat! Why, he is stripping off his +coat! Well, here he is, sure enough, in a tight silk shirt, and +with two things that look like batter puddings in the place of his +fists. Now see that other fellow with another pair of batter +puddings,--the big one with the broad shoulders; he will certainly +knock the little man's head off, if he strikes him. Feinting, +dodging, stopping, hitting, countering,--little man's head not off +yet. You might as well try to jump upon your own shadow as to hit +the little man's intellectual features. He needn't have taken off +the gold-bowed spectacles at all. Quick, cautious, shifty, nimble, +cool, he catches all the fierce lunges or gets out of their reach, +till his turn comes, and then, whack goes one of the batter +puddings against the big one's ribs, and bang goes the other into +the big one's face, and, staggering, shuffling, slipping, tripping, +collapsing, sprawling, down goes the big one in a miscellaneous +bundle.--If my young friend, whose excellent article I have +referred to, could only introduce the manly art of self-defence +among the clergy, I am satisfied that we should have better sermons +and an infinitely less quarrelsome church-militant. A bout with +the gloves would let off the ill-nature, and cure the indigestion, +which, united, have embroiled their subject in a bitter +controversy. We should then often hear that a point of difference +between an infallible and a heretic, instead of being vehemently +discussed in a series of newspaper articles, had been settled by a +friendly contest in several rounds, at the close of which the +parties shook hands and appeared cordially reconciled. + +But boxing you and I are too old for, I am afraid. I was for a +moment tempted, by the contagion of muscular electricity last +evening, to try the gloves with the Benicia Boy, who looked in as a +friend to the noble art; but remembering that he had twice my +weight and half my age, besides the advantage of his training, I +sat still and said nothing. + +There is one other delicate point I wish to speak of with reference +to old age. I refer to the use of dioptric media which correct the +diminished refracting power of the humors of the eye,--in other +words, spectacles. I don't use them. All I ask is a large, fair +type, a strong daylight or gas-light, and one yard of focal +distance, and my eyes are as good as ever. But if YOUR eyes fail, +I can tell you something encouraging. There is now living in New +York State an old gentleman who, perceiving his sight to fail, +immediately took to exercising it on the finest print, and in this +way fairly bullied Nature out of her foolish habit of taking +liberties at five-and-forty, or thereabout. And now this old +gentleman performs the most extraordinary feats with his pen, +showing that his eyes must be a pair of microscopes. I should be +afraid to say to you how much he writes in the compass of a +half-dime,--whether the Psalms or the Gospels, or the Psalms +AND the Gospels, I won't be positive. + +But now let rue tell you this. If the time comes when you must lay +down the fiddle and the bow, because your fingers are too stiff, +and drop the ten-foot sculls, because your arms are too weak, and, +after dallying awhile with eye-glasses, come at last to the +undisguised reality of spectacles,--if the time comes when that +fire of life we spoke of has burned so low that where its flames +reverberated there is only the sombre stain of regret, and where +its coals glowed, only the white ashes that cover the embers of +memory,--don't let your heart grow cold, and you may carry +cheerfulness and love with you into the teens of your second +century, if you can last so long. As our friend, the Poet, once +said, in some of those old-fashioned heroics of his which he keeps +for his private reading,-- + +Call him not old, whose visionary brain +Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. +For him in vain the envious seasons roll +Who bears eternal summer in his soul. +If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, +Spring with her birds, or children with their play, +Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art +Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart,-- +Turn to the record where his years are told,-- +Count his gray hairs,--they cannot make him old! + +End of the Professor's paper. + + +[The above essay was not read at one time, but in several +instalments, and accompanied by various comments from different +persons at the table. The company were in the main attentive, with +the exception of a little somnolence on the part of the old +gentleman opposite at times, and a few sly, malicious questions +about the "old boys" on the part of that forward young fellow who +has figured occasionally, not always to his advantage, in these +reports. + +On Sunday mornings, in obedience to a feeling I am not ashamed of, +I have always tried to give a more appropriate character to our +conversation. I have never read them my sermon yet, and I don't +know that I shall, as some of them might take my convictions as a +personal indignity to themselves. But having read our company so +much of the Professor's talk about age and other subjects connected +with physical life, I took the next Sunday morning to repeat to +them the following poem of his, which I have had by me some time. +He calls it--I suppose, for his professional friends--THE +ANATOMIST'S HYMN, but I shall name it--] + + +THE LIVING TEMPLE. + +Not in the world of light alone, +Where God has built his blazing throne, +Nor yet alone in earth below, +With belted seas that come and go, +And endless isles of sunlit green, +Is all thy Maker's glory seen: +Look in upon thy wondrous frame,-- +Eternal wisdom still the same! + +The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves +Flows murmuring through its hidden caves +Whose streams of brightening purple rush +Fired with a new and livelier blush, +While all their burden of decay +The ebbing current steals away, +And red with Nature's flame they start +From the warm fountains of the heart. + +No rest that throbbing slave may ask, +Forever quivering o'er his task, +While far and wide a crimson jet +Leaps forth to fill the woven net +Which in unnumbered crossing tides +The flood of burning life divides, +Then kindling each decaying part +Creeps back to find the throbbing heart. + +But warmed with that uchanging flame +Behold the outward moving frame, +Its living marbles jointed strong +With glistening band and silvery thong, +And linked to reason's guiding reins +By myriad rings in trembling chains, +Each graven with the threaded zone +Which claims it as the master's own. + +See how yon beam of seeming white +Is braided out of seven-hued light, +Yet in those lucid globes no ray +By any chance shall break astray. +Hark how the rolling surge of sound, +Arches and spirals circling round, +Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear +With music it is heaven to hear. + +Then mark the cloven sphere that holds +All thought in its mysterious folds, +That feels sensation's faintest thrill +And flashes forth the sovereign will; +Think on the stormy world that dwells +Locked in its dim and clustering cells! +The lightning gleams of power it sheds +Along its hollow glassy threads! + +O Father! grant thy love divine +To make these mystic temples thine! +When wasting age and wearying strife +Have sapped the leaning walls of life, +When darkness gathers over all, +And the last tottering pillars fall, +Take the poor dust thy mercy warms +And mould it into heavenly forms! + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + +[Spring has come. You will find some verses to that effect at the +end of these notes. If you are an impatient reader, skip to them +at once. In reading aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and +seventh verses. These are parenthetical and digressive, and, +unless your audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse +them. Many people can ride on horseback who find it hard to get on +and to get off without assistance. One has to dismount from an +idea, and get into the saddle again, at every parenthesis.] + +--The old gentleman who sits opposite, finding that spring had +fairly come, mounted a white hat one day, and walked into the +street. It seems to have been a premature or otherwise +exceptionable exhibition, not unlike that commemorated by the late +Mr. Bayly. When the old gentleman came home, he looked very red in +the face, and complained that he had been "made sport of." By +sympathizing questions, I learned from him that a boy had called +him "old daddy," and asked him when he had his hat whitewashed. + +This incident led me to make some observations at table the next +morning, which I here repeat for the benefit of the readers of this +record. + +--The hat is the vulnerable point of the artificial integument. I +learned this in early boyhood. I was once equipped in a hat of +Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were +usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native +town which lies nearest to this metropolis. On my way I was met by +a "Port-chuck," as we used to call the young gentlemen of that +locality, and the following dialogue ensued. + +The Port-chuck. Hullo, You-sir, joo know th' wuz gon-to be a race +to-morrah? + +Myself. No. Who's gon-to run, 'n' wher's't gon-to be? + +The Port-chuck. Squire Mico 'n' Doctor Wiliams, round the brim o' +your hat. + +These two much-respected gentlemen being the oldest inhabitants at +that time, and the alleged race-course being out of the question, +the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his +cheek, I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has +been to make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of +dress ever since. Here is an axiom or two relating to it. + +A hat which has been POPPED, or exploded by being sat down upon, is +never itself again afterwards. + +It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe the +contrary. + +Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its hat. There +is always an unnatural calmness about its nap, and an unwholesome +gloss, suggestive of a wet brush. + +The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing its +dilapidated castor. The hat is the ULTIMUM MORIENS of +"respectability." + +--The old gentleman took all these remarks and maxims very +pleasantly, saying, however, that he had forgotten most of his +French except the word for potatoes,--pummies de tare.---Ultimum +moriens, I told him, is old Italian, and signifies LAST THING TO +DIE. With this explanation he was well contented, and looked quite +calm when I saw him afterwards in the entry with a black hat on his +head and the white one in his hand. + + +--I think myself fortunate in having the Poet and the Professor for +my intimates. We are so much together, that we no doubt think and +talk a good deal alike; yet our points of view are in many respects +individual and peculiar. You know me well enough by this time. I +have not talked with you so long for nothing and therefore I don't +think it necessary to draw my own portrait. But let me say a word +or two about my friends. + +The Professor considers himself, and I consider him, a very useful +and worthy kind of drudge. I think he has a pride in his small +technicalities. I know that he has a great idea of fidelity; and +though I suspect he laughs a little inwardly at times at the grand +airs "Science" puts on, as she stands marking time, but not getting +on, while the trumpets are blowing and the big drums beating,--yet +I am sure he has a liking for his specially, and a respect for its +cultivators. + +But I'll tell you what the Professor said to the Poet the other +day.--My boy, said he, I can work a great deal cheaper than you, +because I keep all my goods in the lower story. You have to hoist +yours into the upper chambers of the brain, and let them down again +to your customers. I take mine in at the level of the ground, and +send them off from my doorstep almost without lifting. I tell you, +the higher a man has to carry the raw material of thought before he +works it up, the more it costs him in blood, nerve, and muscle. +Coleridge knew all this very well when he advised every literary +man to have a profession. + +--Sometimes I like to talk with one of them, and sometimes with the +other. After a while I get tired of both. When a fit of +intellectual disgust comes over me, I will tell you what I have +found admirable as a diversion, in addition to boating and other +amusements which I have spoken of,--that is, working at my +carpenter's-bench. Some mechanical employment is the greatest +possible relief, after the purely intellectual faculties begin to +tire. When I was quarantined once at Marseilles, I got to work +immediately at carving a wooden wonder of loose rings on a stick, +and got so interested in it, that when we were set loose, I +"regained my freedom with a sigh," because my toy was unfinished. + +There are long seasons when I talk only with the Professor, and +others when I give myself wholly up to the Poet. Now that my +winter's work is over and spring is with us, I feel naturally drawn +to the Poet's company. I don't know anybody more alive to life +than he is. The passion of poetry seizes on him every spring, he +says,--yet oftentimes he complains, that, when he feels most, he +can sing least. + +Then a fit of despondency comes over him.--I feel ashamed, +sometimes,--said he, the other day,--to think how far my worst +songs fall below my best. It sometimes seems to me, as I know it +does to others who have told me so, that they ought to be ALL +BEST,--if not in actual execution, at least in plan and motive. I +am grateful--he continued--for all such criticisms. A man is +always pleased to have his most serious efforts praised, and the +highest aspect of his nature get the most sunshine. + +Yet I am sure, that, in the nature of things, many minds must +change their key now and then, on penalty of getting out of tune or +losing their voices. You know, I suppose,--he said,--what is meant +by complementary colors? You know the effect, too, which the +prolonged impression of any one color has on the retina. If you +close your eyes after looking steadily at a RED object, you see a +GREEN image. + +It is so with many minds,--I will not say with all. After looking +at one aspect of external nature, or of any form of beauty or +truth, when they turn away, the COMPLEMENTARY aspect of the same +object stamps itself irresistibly and automatically upon the mind. +Shall they give expression to this secondary mental state, or not? + +When I contemplate--said my friend, the Poet--the infinite +largeness of comprehension belonging to the Central Intelligence, +how remote the creative conception is from all scholastic and +ethical formulae, I am led to think that a healthy mind ought to +change its mood from time to time, and come down from its noblest +condition,--never, of course, to degrade itself by dwelling upon +what is itself debasing, but to let its lower faculties have a +chance to air and exercise themselves. After the first and second +floor have been out in the bright street dressed in all their +splendors, shall not our humble friends in the basement have their +holiday, and the cotton velvet and the thin-skinned jewelry--simple +adornments, but befitting the station of those who wear them--show +themselves to the crowd, who think them beautiful, as they ought +to, though the people up stairs know that they are cheap and +perishable? + +--I don't know that I may not bring the Poet here, some day or +other, and let him speak for himself. Still I think I can tell you +what he says quite as well as he could do it.--Oh,--he said to me, +one day,--I am but a hand-organ man,--say rather, a hand-organ. +Life turns the winch, and fancy or accident pulls out the stops. I +come under your windows, some fine spring morning, and play you one +of my adagio movements, and some of you say,--This is good,--play +us so always. But, dear friends, if I did not change the stop +sometimes, the machine would wear out in one part and rust in +another. How easily this or that tune flows!--you say,--there must +be no end of just such melodies in him.--I will open the poor +machine for you one moment, and you shall look.--Ah! Every note +marks where a spur of steel has been driven in. It is easy to +grind out the song, but to plant these bristling points which make +it was the painful task of time. + +I don't like to say it,--he continued,--but poets commonly have no +larger stock of tunes than hand-organs; and when you hear them +piping up under your window, you know pretty well what to expect. +The more stops, the better. Do let them all be pulled out in their +turn! + +So spoke my friend, the Poet, and read me one of his stateliest +songs, and after it a gay chanson, and then a string of epigrams. +All true,--he said,--all flowers of his soul; only one with the +corolla spread, and another with its disk half opened, and the +third with the heart-leaves covered up and only a petal or two +showing its tip through the calyx. The water-lily is the type of +the poet's soul,--he told me. + +--What do you think, Sir,--said the divinity-student,--opens the +souls of poets most fully? + +Why, there must be the internal force and the external stimulus. +Neither is enough by itself. A rose will not flower in the dark, +and a fern will not flower anywhere. + +What do I think is the true sunshine that opens the poet's +corolla?--I don't like to say. They spoil a good many, I am +afraid; or at least they shine on a good many that never come to +anything. + +Who are THEY?--said the schoolmistress. + +Women. Their love first inspires the poet, and their praise is his +best reward. + +The schoolmistress reddened a little, but looked pleased.--Did I +really think so?--I do think so; I never feel safe until I have +pleased them; I don't think they are the first to see one's +defects, but they are the first to catch the color and fragrance of +a true poem. Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a +bow-string,--to a woman and it is a harp-string. She is vibratile and +resonant all over, so she stirs with slighter musical tremblings of +the air about her.--Ah, me!--said my friend, the Poet, to me, the +other day,--what color would it not have given to my thoughts, and +what thrice-washed whiteness to my words, had I been fed on women's +praises! I should have grown like Marvell's fawn,-- + +"Lilies without; roses within!" + +But then,--he added,--we all think, IF so and so, we should have +been this or that, as you were saying the other day, in those +rhymes of yours. + +--I don't think there are many poets in the sense of creators; but +of those sensitive natures which reflect themselves naturally in +soft and melodious words, pleading for sympathy with their joys and +sorrows, every literature is full. Nature carves with her own +hands the brain which holds the creative imagination, but she casts +the over-sensitive creatures in scores from the same mould. + +There are two kinds of poets, just as there are two kinds of +blondes. [Movement of curiosity among our ladies at table.--Please +to tell us about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.] Why, +there are blondes who are such simply by deficiency of coloring +matter,--NEGATIVE or WASHED blondes, arrested by Nature on the way +to become albinesses. There are others that are shot through with +golden light, with tawny or fulvous tinges in various degree, +--POSITIVE or STAINED blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and as +unlike in their mode of being to the others as an orange is unlike +a snowball. The albino-style carries with it a wide pupil and a +sensitive retina. The other, or the leonine blonde, has an opaline +fire in her clear eye, which the brunette can hardly match with her +quick glittering glances. + +Just so we have the great sun-kindled, constructive imaginations, +and a far more numerous class of poets who have a certain kind of +moonlight-genius given them to compensate for their imperfection of +nature. Their want of mental coloring-matter makes them sensitive +to those impressions which stronger minds neglect or never feel at +all. Many of them die young, and all of them are tinged with +melancholy. There is no more beautiful illustration of the +principle of compensation which marks the Divine benevolence than +the fact that some of the holiest lives and some of the sweetest +songs are the growth of the infirmity which unfits its subject for +the rougher duties of life. When one reads the life of Cowper, or +of Keats, or of Lucretia and Margaret Davidson,--of so many gentle, +sweet natures, born to weakness, and mostly dying before their +time,--one cannot help thinking that the human race dies out +singing, like the swan in the old story. The French poet, Gilbert, +who died at the Hotel Dieu, at the age of twenty-nine,--(killed by +a key in his throat, which he had swallowed when delirious in +consequence of a fall,)--this poor fellow was a very good example +of the poet by excess of sensibility. I found, the other day, that +some of my literary friends had never heard of him, though I +suppose few educated Frenchmen do not know the lines which he +wrote, a week before his death, upon a mean bed in the great +hospital of Paris. + + +"Au banquet de la vie, infortune convive, +J'apparus un jour, et je meurs; +Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, ou lentement j'arrive, +Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs." + +At life's gay banquet placed, a poor unhappy guest, +One day I pass, then disappear; +I die, and on the tomb where I at length shall rest +No friend shall come to shed a tear. + + +You remember the same thing in other words some where in Kirke +White's poems. It is the burden of the plaintive songs of all +these sweet albino-poets. "I shall die and be forgotten, and the +world will go on just as if I had never been;--and yet how I have +loved! how I have longed! how I have aspired!" And so singing, +their eyes grow brighter and brighter, and their features thinner +and thinner, until at last the veil of flesh is threadbare, and, +still singing, they drop it and pass onward. + + +--Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them +up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the +hand of the Angel of the Resurrection. + +Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will cannot stop +them; they cannot stop themselves, sleep cannot still them; madness +only makes them go faster; death alone can break into the case, +and, seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, +silence at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have +carried so long beneath our wrinkled foreheads. + +If we could only get at them, as we lie on our pillows and count +the dead beats of thought after thought and image after image +jarring through the overtired organ! Will nobody block those +wheels, uncouple that pinion, cut the string that holds those +weights, blow up the infernal machine with gunpowder? What a +passion comes over us sometimes for silence and rest!--that this +dreadful mechanism, unwinding the endless tapestry of time, +embroidered with spectral figures of life and death, could have but +one brief holiday! Who can wonder that men swing themselves off +from beams in hempen lassos?--that they jump off from parapets into +the swift and gurgling waters beneath?--that they take counsel of +the grim friend who has but to utter his one peremptory +monosyllable and the restless machine is shivered as a vase that is +dashed upon a marble floor? Under that building which we pass +every day there are strong dungeons, where neither hook, nor bar, +nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which a sharp fragment may +be shattered, shall by any chance be seen. There is nothing for +it, when the brain is on fire with the whirling of its wheels, but +to spring against the stone wall and silence them with one crash. +Ah, they remembered that,--the kind city fathers,--and the walls +are nicely padded, so that one can take such exercise as he likes +without damaging himself on the very plain and serviceable +upholstery. If anybody would only contrive some kind of a lever +that one could thrust in among the works of this horrid automaton +and check them, or alter their rate of going, what would the world +give for the discovery? + +--From half a dime to a dime, according to the style of the place +and the quality of the liquor,--said the young fellow whom they +call John. + +You speak trivially, but not unwisely,--I said. Unless the will +maintain a certain control over these movements, which it cannot +stop, but can to some extent regulate, men are very apt to try to +get at the machine by some indirect system of leverage or other. +They clap on the brakes by means of opium; they change the +maddening monotony of the rhythm by means of fermented liquors. It +is because the brain is locked up and we cannot touch its movement +directly, that we thrust these coarse tools in through any crevice, +by which they may reach the interior, and so alter its rate of +going for a while, and at last spoil the machine. + +Men who exercise chiefly those faculties of the mind which work +independently of the will,--poets and artists, for instance, who +follow their imagination in their creative moments, instead of +keeping it in hand as your logicians and practical men do with +their reasoning faculty,--such men are too apt to call in the +mechanical appliances to help them govern their intellects. + +--He means they get drunk,--said the young fellow already alluded +to by name. + +Do you think men of true genius are apt to indulge in the use of +inebriating fluids? said the divinity-student. + +If you think you are strong enough to bear what I am going to say, +--I replied,--I will talk to you about this. But mind, now, these +are the things that some foolish people call DANGEROUS subjects, +--as if these vices which burrow into people's souls, as the +Guinea-worm burrows into the naked feet of West-Indian slaves, would +be more mischievous when seen than out of sight. Now the true way to +deal with those obstinate animals, which are a dozen feet long, some +of them, and no bigger than a horse hair, is to get a piece of silk +round their HEADS, and pull them out very cautiously. If you only +break them off, they grow worse than ever, and sometimes kill the +person who has the misfortune to harbor one of them. Whence it is +plain that the first thing to do is to find out where the head lies. + +Just so of all the vices, and particularly of this vice of +intemperance. What is the head of it, and where does it lie? For +you may depend upon it, there is not one of these vices that has +not a head of its own,--an intelligence,--a meaning,--a certain +virtue, I was going to say,--but that might, perhaps, sound +paradoxical. I have heard an immense number of moral physicians +lay down the treatment of moral Guinea-worms, and the vast majority +of them would always insist that the creature had no head at all, +but was all body and tail. So I have found a very common result of +their method to be that the string slipped, or that a piece only of +the creature was broken off, and the worm soon grew again, as bad +as ever. The truth is, if the Devil could only appear in church by +attorney, and make the best statement that the facts would bear him +out in doing on behalf of his special virtues, (what we commonly +call vices,) the influence of good teachers would be much greater +than it is. For the arguments by which the Devil prevails are +precisely the ones that the Devil-queller most rarely answers. The +way to argue down a vice is not to tell lies about it,--to say that +it has no attractions, when everybody knows that it has,--but +rather to let it make out its case just as it certainly will in the +moment of temptation, and then meet it with the weapons furnished +by the Divine armory. Ithuriel did not spit the toad on his spear, +you remember, but touched him with it, and the blasted angel took +the sad glories of his true shape. If he had shown fight then, the +fair spirits would have known how to deal with him. + +That all spasmodic cerebral action is an evil is not perfectly +clear. Men get fairly intoxicated with music, with poetry, with +religious excitement, oftenest with love. Ninon de l'Enclos said +she was so easily excited that her soup intoxicated her, and +convalescents have been made tipsy by a beef-steak. + +There are forms and stages of alcoholic exaltation which, in +themselves, and without regard to their consequences, might be +considered as positive improvements of the persons affected. When +the sluggish intellect is roused, the slow speech quickened, the +cold nature warmed, the latent sympathy developed, the flagging +spirit kindled,--before the trains of thought become confused or +the will perverted, or the muscles relaxed,--just at the moment +when the whole human zoophyte flowers out like a full-blown rose, +and is ripe for the subscription-paper or the contribution-box,--it +would be hard to say that a man was, at that very time, worse, or +less to be loved, than when driving a hard bargain with all his +meaner wits about him. The difficulty is, that the alcoholic +virtues don't wash; but until the water takes their colors out, the +tints are very much like those of the true celestial stuff. + +[Here I was interrupted by a question which I am very unwilling to +report, but have confidence enough in those friends who examine +these records to commit to their candor. + +A PERSON at table asked me whether I "went in for rum as a steady +drink?"--His manner made the question highly offensive, but I +restrained myself, and answered thus:-] + +Rum I take to be the name which unwashed moralists apply alike to +the product distilled from molasses and the noblest juices of the +vineyard. Burgundy "in all its sunset glow" is rum. Champagne, +"the foaming wine of Eastern France," in rum. Hock, which our +friend, the Poet, speaks of as + + +"The Rhine's breastmilk, gushing cold and bright, +Pale as the moon, and maddening as her light," + + +is rum. Sir, I repudiate the loathsome vulgarism as an insult to +the first miracle wrought by the Founder of our religion! I +address myself to the company.--I believe in temperance, nay, +almost in abstinence, as a rule for healthy people. I trust that I +practice both. But let me tell you, there are companies of men of +genius into which I sometimes go, where the atmosphere of intellect +and sentiment is so much more stimulating than alcohol, that, if I +thought fit to take wine, it would be to keep me sober. + +Among the gentlemen that I have known, few, if any, were ruined by +drinking. My few drunken acquaintances were generally ruined +before they became drunkards. The habit of drinking is often a +vice, no doubt,--sometimes a misfortune,--as when an almost +irresistible hereditary propensity exists to indulge in it,--but +oftenest of all a PUNISHMENT. + +Empty heads,--heads without ideas in wholesome variety and +sufficient number to furnish food for the mental clockwork, +--ill-regulated heads, where the faculties are not under the control +of the will,--these are the ones that hold the brains which their +owners are so apt to tamper with, by introducing the appliances we +have been talking about. Now, when a gentleman's brain is empty or +ill-regulated, it is, to a great extent, his own fault; and so it +is simple retribution, that, while he lies slothfully sleeping or +aimlessly dreaming, the fatal habit settles on him like a vampyre, +and sucks his blood, fanning him all the while with its hot wings +into deeper slumber or idler dreams! I am not such a hard-souled +being as to apply this to the neglected poor, who have had no +chance to fill their heads with wholesome ideas, and to be taught +the lesson of self-government. I trust the tariff of Heaven has an +ad valorem scale for them--and all of us. + +But to come back to poets and artists;--if they really are more +prone to the abuse of stimulants,--and I fear that this is true, +--the reason of it is only too clear. A man abandons himself to a +fine frenzy, and the power which flows through him, as I once +explained to you, makes him the medium of a great poem or a great +picture. The creative action is not voluntary at all, but +automatic; we can only put the mind into the proper attitude, and +wait for the wind, that blows where it listeth, to breathe over it. +Thus the true state of creative genius is allied to reverie, or +dreaming. If mind and body were both healthy and had food enough +and fair play, I doubt whether any men would be more temperate than +the imaginative classes. But body and mind often flag,--perhaps +they are ill-made to begin with, underfed with bread or ideas, +overworked, or abused in some way. The automatic action, by which +genius wrought its wonders, fails. There is only one thing which +can rouse the machine; not will,--that cannot reach it; nothing but +a ruinous agent, which hurries the wheels awhile and soon eats out +the heart of the mechanism. The dreaming faculties are always the +dangerous ones, because their mode of action can be imitated by +artificial excitement; the reasoning ones are safe, because they +imply continued voluntary effort. + +I think you will find it true, that, before any vice can fasten on +a man, body, mind, or moral nature must be debilitated. The mosses +and fungi gather on sickly trees, not thriving ones; and the odious +parasites which fasten on the human frame choose that which is +already enfeebled. Mr. Walker, the hygeian humorist, declared that +he had such a healthy skin it was impossible for any impurity to +stick to it, and maintained that it was an absurdity to wash a face +which was of necessity always clean. I don't know how much fancy +there was in this; but there is no fancy in saying that the +lassitude of tired-out operatives, and the languor of imaginative +natures in their periods of collapse, and the vacuity of minds +untrained to labor and discipline, fit the soul and body for the +germination of the seeds of intemperance. + +Whenever the wandering demon of Drunkenness finds a ship adrift, +--no steady wind in its sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its +course,--he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers straight for +the maelstrom. + + +--I wonder if you know the TERRIBLE SMILE? [The young fellow whom +they call John winked very hard, and made a jocular remark, the +sense of which seemed to depend on some double meaning of the word +SMILE. The company was curious to know what I meant.] + +There are persons--I said--who no sooner come within sight of you +than they begin to smile, with an uncertain movement of the mouth, +which conveys the idea that they are thinking about themselves, and +thinking, too, that you are thinking they are thinking about +themselves,--and so look at you with a wretched mixture of +self-consciousness, awkwardness, and attempts to carry off both, +which are betrayed by the cowardly behaviour of the eye and the +tell-tale weakness of the lips that characterize these unfortunate +beings. + +--Why do you call them unfortunate, Sir?--asked the divinity- +student. + +Because it is evident that the consciousness of some imbecility or +other is at the bottom of this extraordinary expression. I don't +think, however, that these persons are commonly fools. I have +known a number, and all of them were intelligent. I think nothing +conveys the idea of UNDERBREEDING more than this self-betraying +smile. Yet I think this peculiar habit as well as that of +MEANINGLESS BLUSHING may be fallen into by very good people who met +often, or sit opposite each other at table. A true gentleman's +face is infinitely removed from all such paltriness,--calm-eyed, +firm-mouthed. I think Titian understood the look of a gentleman as +well as anybody that ever lived. The portrait of a young man +holding a glove in his hand, in the Gallery of the Louvre, if any +of you have seen that collection, will remind you of what I mean. + +--Do I think these people know the peculiar look they have?--I +cannot say; I hope not; I am afraid they would never forgive me, if +they did. The worst of it is, the trick is catching; when one +meets one of these fellows, he feels a tendency to the same +manifestation. The Professor tells me there is a muscular slip, a +dependence of the platysma myoides, which is called the risorius +Santorini. + +--Say that once more,--exclaimed the young fellow mentioned above. + +The Professor says there is a little fleshy slip called Santorini's +laughing muscle. I would have it cut out of my face, if I were +born with one of those constitutional grins upon it. Perhaps I am +uncharitable in my judgment of those sour-looking people I told you +of the other day, and of these smiling folks. It may be that they +are born with these looks, as other people are with more generally +recognized deformities. Both are bad enough, but I had rather meet +three of the scowlers than one of the smilers. + +--There is another unfortunate way of looking, which is peculiar to +that amiable sex we do not like to find fault with. There are some +very pretty, but, unhappily, very ill-bred women, who don't +understand the law of the road with regard to handsome faces. +Nature and custom would, no doubt, agree in conceding to all males +the right of at least two distinct looks at every comely female +countenance, without any infraction of the rules of courtesy or the +sentiment of respect. The first look is necessary to define the +person of the individual one meets so as to avoid it in passing. +Any unusual attraction detected in a first glance is a sufficient +apology for a second,--not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but +an appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may +inoffensively yield to a passing image. It is astonishing how +morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties are to the slightest +demonstration of this kind. When a lady walks the streets, she +leaves her virtuous-indignation countenance at home; she knows well +enough that the street is a picture-gallery, where pretty faces +framed in pretty bonnets are meant to be seen, and everybody has a +right to see them. + +--When we observe how the same features and style of person and +character descend from generation to generation, we can believe +that some inherited weakness may account for these peculiarities. +Little snapping-turtles snap--so the great naturalist tells us +--before they are out of the egg-shell. I am satisfied, that, much +higher up in the scale of life, character is distinctly shown at +the age of--2 or--3 months. + +--My friend, the Professor, has been full of eggs lately. [This +remark excited a burst of hilarity which I did not allow to +interrupt the course of my observations.] He has been reading the +great book where he found the fact about the little snapping- +turtles mentioned above. Some of the things he has told me have +suggested several odd analogies enough. + +There are half a dozen men, or so, who carry in their brains the +OVARIAN EGGS of the next generation's or century's civilization. +These eggs are not ready to be laid in the form of books as yet; +some of them are hardly ready to be put into the form of talk. But +as rudimentary ideas or inchoate tendencies, there they are; and +these are what must form the future. A man's general notions are +not good for much, unless he has a crop of these intellectual +ovarian eggs in his own brain, or knows them as they exist in the +minds of others. One must be in the HABIT of talking with such +persons to get at these rudimentary germs of thought; for their +development is necessarily imperfect, and they are moulded on new +patterns, which must be long and closely studied. But these are +the men to talk with. No fresh truth ever gets into a book. + +--A good many fresh lies get in, anyhow,--said one of the company. + +I proceeded in spite of the interruption.--All uttered thought, my +friend, the Professor, says, is of the nature of an excretion. Its +materials have been taken in, and have acted upon the system, and +been reacted on by it; it has circulated and done its office in one +mind before it is given out for the benefit of others. It may be +milk or venom to other minds; but, in either case, it is something +which the producer has had the use of and can part with. A man +instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or in +print so soon as it is matured; but it is hard to get at it as it +lies imbedded, a mere potentiality, the germ of a germ, in his +intellect. + +--Where are the brains that are fullest of these ovarian eggs of +thought?--I decline mentioning individuals. The producers of +thought, who are few, the "jobbers" of thought, who are many, and +the retailers of thought, who are numberless, are so mixed up in +the popular apprehension, that it would be hopeless to try to +separate them before opinion has had time to settle. Follow the +course of opinion on the great subjects of human interest for a few +generations or centuries, get its parallax, map out a small arc of +its movement, see where it tends, and then see who is in advance of +it or even with it; the world calls him hard names, probably; but +if you would find the ova of the future, you must look into the +folds of his cerebral convolutions. + +[The divinity-student looked a little puzzled at this suggestion, +as if he did not see exactly where he was to come out, if he +computed his arc too nicely. I think it possible it might cut off +a few corners of his present belief, as it has cut off martyr- +burning and witch-hanging;--but time will show,--time will show, as +the old gentleman opposite says.] + +--Oh,--here is that copy of verses I told you about. + + +SPRING HAS COME. + +Intra Muros. + +The sunbeams, lost for half a year, +Slant through my pane their morning rays +For dry Northwesters cold and clear, +The East blows in its thin blue haze. + +And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, +Then close against the sheltering wall +The tulip's horn of dusky green, +The peony's dark unfolding ball. + +The golden-chaliced crocus burns; +The long narcissus-blades appear; +The cone-beaked hyacinth returns, +And lights her blue-flamed chandelier. + +The willow's whistling lashes, wrung +By the wild winds of gusty March, +With sallow leaflets lightly strung, +Are swaying by the tufted larch. + +The elms have robed their slender spray +With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; +Wide o'er the clasping arch of day +Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. + +--[See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, +That flames in glory for an hour,-- +Behold it withering,--then look up,-- +How meek the forest-monarch's flower!-- + +When wake the violets, Winter dies; +When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near; +When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, +"Bud, little roses! Spring is here!"] + +The windows blush with fresh bouquets, +Cut with the May-dew on their lips; +The radish all its bloom displays, +Pink as Aurora's finger-tips. + +Nor less the flood of light that showers +On beauty's changed corolla-shades,-- +The walks are gay as bridal bowers +With rows of many-petalled maids. + +The scarlet shell-fish click and clash +In the blue barrow where they slide; +The horseman, proud of streak and splash, +Creeps homeward from his morning ride. + +Here comes the dealer's awkward string, +With neck in rope and tail in knot,-- +Rough colts, with careless country-swing, +In lazy walk or slouching trot. + +--Wild filly from the mountain-side, +Doomed to the close and chafing thills, +Lend me thy long, untiring stride +To seek with thee thy western hills! + +I hear the whispering voice of Spring, +The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, +Like some poor bird with prisoned wing +That sits and sings, but longs to fly. + +Oh for one spot of living green,-- +One little spot where leaves can grow,-- +To love unblamed, to walk unseen, +To dream above, to sleep below! + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + +[Aqui esta encerrada el alma del licenciado Pedro Garcias. + +If I should ever make a little book out of these papers, which I +hope you are not getting tired of, I suppose I ought to save the +above sentence for a motto on the title-page. But I want it now, +and must use it. I need not say to you that the words are Spanish, +nor that they are to be found in the short Introduction to "Gil +Blas," nor that they mean, "Here lies buried the soul of the +licentiate Pedro Garcias." + +I warned all young people off the premises when I began my notes +referring to old age. I must be equally fair with old people now. +They are earnestly requested to leave this paper to young persons +from the age of twelve to that of fourscore years and ten, at which +latter period of life I am sure that I shall have at least one +youthful reader. You know well enough what I mean by youth and +age;--something in the soul, which has no more to do with the color +of the hair than the vein of gold in a rock has to do with the +grass a thousand feet above it. + +I am growing bolder as I write. I think it requires not only +youth, but genius, to read this paper. I don't mean to imply that +it required any whatsoever to talk what I have here written down. +It did demand a certain amount of memory, and such command of the +English tongue as is given by a common school education. So much I +do claim. But here I have related, at length, a string of +trivialities. You must have the imagination of a poet to +transfigure them. These little colored patches are stains upon the +windows of a human soul; stand on the outside, they are but dull +and meaningless spots of color; seen from within, they are +glorified shapes with empurpled wings and sunbright aureoles. + +My hand trembles when I offer you this. Many times I have come +bearing flowers such as my garden grew; but now I offer you this +poor, brown, homely growth, you may cast it away as worthless. +And yet--and yet--it is something better than flowers; it is a +SEED-CAPSULE. Many a gardener will cut you a bouquet of his choicest +blossoms for small fee, but he does not love to let the seeds of +his rarest varieties go out of his own hands. + +It is by little things that we know ourselves; a soul would very +probably mistake itself for another, when once disembodied, were it +not for individual experiences which differ from those of others +only in details seemingly trifling. All of us have been thirsty +thousands of times, and felt, with Pindar, that water was the best +of things. I alone, as I think, of all mankind, remember one +particular pailful of water, flavored with the white-pine of which +the pail was made, and the brown mug out of which one Edmund, a +red-faced and curly-haired boy, was averred to have bitten a +fragment in his haste to drink; it being then high summer, and +little full-blooded boys feeling very warm and porous in the +low-"studded" school-room where Dame Prentiss, dead and gone, ruled +over young children, many of whom are old ghosts now, and have +known Abraham for twenty or thirty years of our mortal time. + +Thirst belongs to humanity, everywhere, in all ages; but that +white-pine pail, and that brown mug belong to me in particular; and +just so of my special relationships with other things and with my +rice. One could never remember himself in eternity by the mere +fact of having loved or hated any more than by that of having +thirsted; love and hate have no more individuality in them than +single waves in the ocean;--but the accidents or trivial marks +which distinguished those whom we loved or hated make their memory +our own forever, and with it that of our own personality also. + +Therefore, my aged friend of five-and-twenty, or thereabouts, pause +at the threshold of this particular record, and ask yourself +seriously whether you are fit to read such revelations as are to +follow. For observe, you have here no splendid array of petals +such as poets offer you,--nothing but a dry shell, containing, if +you will get out what is in it, a few small seeds of poems. You +may laugh at them, if you like. I shall never tell you what I +think of you for so doing. But if you can read into the heart of +these things, in the light of other memories as slight, yet as dear +to your soul, then you are neither more nor less than a POET, and +can afford to write no more verses during the rest of your natural +life,--which abstinence I take to be one of the surest marks of +your meriting the divine name I have just bestowed upon you. + +May I beg of you who have begun this paper nobly trusting to your +own imagination and sensibilities to give it the significance which +it does not lay claim to without your kind assistance,--may I beg +of you, I say, to pay particular attention to the BRACKETS which +enclose certain paragraphs? I want my "asides," you see, to +whisper loud to you who read my notes, and sometimes I talk a page +or two to you without pretending that I said a word of it to our +boarders. You will find a very long "aside" to you almost as soon +as you begin to read. And so, dear young friend, fall to at once, +taking such things as I have provided for you; and if you turn +them, by the aid of your powerful imagination, into a fair banquet, +why, then, peace be with you, and a summer by the still waters of +some quiet river, or by some yellow beach, where, as my friend the +Professor, says, you can sit with Nature's wrist in your hand and +count her ocean-pulses.] + +I should like to make a few intimate revelations relating +especially to my early life, if I thought you would like to hear +them. + +[The schoolmistress turned a little in her chair, and sat with her +face directed partly towards me.--Half-mourning now;--purple +ribbon. That breastpin she wears has GRAY hair in it; her +mother's, no doubt;--I remember our landlady's daughter telling me, +soon after the schoolmistress came to board with us, that she had +lately "buried a payrent." That's what made her look so pale, +--kept the poor dying thing alive with her own blood. Ah! long +illness is the real vampyrism; think of living a year or two after +one is dead, by sucking the life-blood out of a frail young +creature at one's bedside! Well, souls grow white, as well as +cheeks, in these holy duties one that goes in a nurse may come out +an angel.--God bless all good women!--to their soft hands and +pitying hearts we must all come at last!--The schoolmistress has a +better color than when she came.--Too late! "It might have been." +--Amen!--How many thoughts go to a dozen heart-beats, sometimes! +There was no long pause after my remark addressed to the company, +but in that time I had the train of ideas and feelings I have just +given flash through my consciousness sudden and sharp as the +crooked red streak that springs out of its black sheath like the +creese of a Malay in his death-race, and stabs the earth right and +left in its blind rage. + +I don't deny that there was a pang in it,--yes, a stab; but there +was a prayer, too,--the "Amen" belonged to that.--Also, a vision of +a four-story brick house, nicely furnished,--I actually saw many +specific articles,--curtains, sofas, tables, and others, and could +draw the patterns of them at this moment,--a brick house, I say, +looking out on the water, with a fair parlor, and books and busts +and pots of flowers and bird-cages, all complete; and at the +window, looking on the water, two of us.--"Male and female created +He them."--These two were standing at the window, when a smaller +shape that was playing near them looked up at me with such a look +that I----poured out a glass of water, drank it all down, and then +continued.] + +I said I should like to tell you some things, such as people +commonly never tell, about my early recollections. Should you like +to hear them? + +Should we LIKE to hear them?--said the schoolmistress;--no, but we +should love to. + +[The voice was a sweet one, naturally, and had something very +pleasant in its tone, just then.--The four-story brick house, which +had gone out like a transparency when the light behind it is +quenched, glimmered again for a moment; parlor, books, busts, +flower-pots, bird-cages, all complete,--and the figures as before.] + +We are waiting with eagerness, Sir,--said the divinity-student. + +[The transparency went out as if a flash of black lightning had +struck it.] + +If you want to hear my confessions, the next thing--I said--is to +know whether I can trust you with them. It is only fair to say +that there are a great many people in the world that laugh at such +things. _I_ think they are fools, but perhaps you don't all agree +with me. + +Here are children of tender age talked to as if they were capable +of understanding Calvin's "Institutes," and nobody has honesty or +sense enough to tell the plain truth about the little wretches: +that they are as superstitious as naked savages, and such miserable +spiritual cowards--that is, if they have any imagination--that they +will believe anything which is taught them, and a great deal more +which they teach themselves. + +I was born and bred, as I have told you twenty times, among books +and those who knew what was in books. I was carefully instructed +in things temporal and spiritual. But up to a considerable +maturity of childhood I believed Raphael and Michael Angelo to have +been superhuman beings. The central doctrine of the prevalent +religious faith of Christendom was utterly confused and neutralized +in my mind for years by one of those too common stories of actual +life, which I overheard repeated in a whisper.--Why did I not ask? +you will say.--You don't remember the rosy pudency of sensitive +children. The first instinctive movement of the little creatures +is to make a cache, and bury in it beliefs, doubts, dreams, hopes, +and terrors. I am uncovering one of these CACHES. Do you think I +was necessarily a greater fool and coward than another? + +I was afraid of ships. Why, I could never tell. The masts looked +frightfully tall,--but they were not so tall as the steeple of our +old yellow meeting-house. At any rate I used to hide my eyes from +the sloops and schooners that were wont to lie at the end of the +bridge, and I confess that traces of this undefined terror lasted +very long.--One other source of alarm had a still more fearful +significance. There was a great wooden HAND,--a glove-maker's +sign, which used to swing and creak in the blast, as it hung from a +pillar before a certain shop a mile or two outside of the city. +Oh, the dreadful hand! Always hanging there ready to catch up a +little boy, who would come home to supper no more, nor yet to bed, +--whose porringer would be laid away empty thenceforth, and his +half-worn shoes wait until his small brother grew to fit them. + +As for all manner of superstitious observances, I used once to +think I must have been peculiar in having such a list of them, but +I now believe that half the children of the same age go through the +same experiences. No Roman soothsayer ever had such a catalogue of +OMENS as I found in the Sibylline leaves of my childhood. That +trick of throwing a stone at a tree and attaching some mighty issue +to hitting or missing, which you will find mentioned in one or more +biographies, I well remember. Stepping on or over certain +particular things or spots--Dr. Johnson's especial weakness I got +the habit of at a very early age.--I won't swear that I have not +some tendency to these not wise practices even at this present +date. [How many of you that read these notes can say the same +thing!] + +With these follies mingled sweet delusions, which I loved so well I +would not outgrow them, even when it required a voluntary effort to +put a momentary trust in them. Here is one which I cannot help +telling you. + +The firing of the great guns at the Navy-yard is easily heard at +the place where I was born and lived. "There is a ship of war come +in," they used to say, when they heard them. Of course, I supposed +that such vessels came in unexpectedly, after indefinite years of +absence,--suddenly as falling stones; and that the great guns +roared in their astonishment and delight at the sight of the old +war-ship splitting the bay with her cutwater. Now, the sloop-of- +war the Wasp, Captain Blakely, after gloriously capturing the +Reindeer and the Avon, had disappeared from the face of the ocean, +and was supposed to be lost. But there was no proof of it, and, of +course, for a time, hopes were entertained that she might be heard +from. Long after the last real chance had utterly vanished, I +pleased myself with the fond illusion that somewhere on the waste +of waters she was still floating, and there were YEARS during which +I never heard the sound of the great guns booming inland from the +Navy-yard without saying to myself, "The Wasp has come!" and almost +thinking I could see her, as she rolled in, crumpling the water +before her, weather-beaten, barnacled, with shattered spars and +threadbare canvas, welcomed by the shouts and tears of thousands. +This was one of those dreams that I nursed and never told. Let me +make a clean breast of it now, and say, that, so late as to have +outgrown childhood, perhaps to have got far on towards manhood, +when the roar of the cannon has struck suddenly on my ear, I have +started with a thrill of vague expectation and tremulous delight, +and the long-unspoken words have articulated themselves in the +mind's dumb whisper, THE WASP HAS COME! + +--Yes, children believe plenty of queer things. I suppose all of +you have had the pocket-book fever when you were little?--What do I +mean? Why, ripping up old pocket-books in the firm belief that +bank-bills to an immense amount were hidden in them.--So, too, you +must all remember some splendid unfulfilled promise of somebody or +other, which fed you with hopes perhaps for years, and which left a +blank in your life which nothing has ever filled up.--O. T. quitted +our household carrying with him the passionate regrets of the more +youthful members. He was an ingenious youngster; wrote wonderful +copies, and carved the two initials given above with great skill on +all available surfaces. I thought, by the way, they were all gone; +but the other day I found them on a certain door which I will show +you some time. How it surprised me to find them so near the +ground! I had thought the boy of no trivial dimensions. Well, O. +T., when he went, made a solemn promise to two of us. I was to +have a ship, and the other a marTIN-house (last syllable pronounced +as in the word TIN). Neither ever came; but, oh, how many and many +a time I have stolen to the corner,--the cars pass close by it at +this time,--and looked up that long avenue, thinking that he must +be coming now, almost sure, as I turned to look northward, that +there he would be, trudging toward me, the ship in one hand and the +marTIN-house in the other! + +[You must not suppose that all I am going to say, as well as all I +have said, was told to the whole company. The young fellow whom +they call John was in the yard, sitting on a barrel and smoking a +cheroot, the fumes of which came in, not ungrateful, through the +open window. The divinity-student disappeared in the midst of our +talk. The poor relation in black bombazine, who looked and moved +as if all her articulations were elbow-joints, had gone off to her +chamber, after waiting with a look of soul-subduing decorum at the +foot of the stairs until one of the male sort had passed her and +ascended into the upper regions. This is a famous point of +etiquette in our boarding-house; in fact, between ourselves, they +make such an awful fuss about it, that I, for one, had a great deal +rather have them simple enough not to think of such matters at all. +Our landlady's daughter said, the other evening, that she was going +to "retire"; whereupon the young fellow called John took up a lamp +and insisted on lighting her to the foot of the staircase. Nothing +would induce her to pass by him, until the schoolmistress, saying +in good plain English that it was her bed-time, walked straight by +them both, not seeming to trouble herself about either of them. + +I have been led away from what I meant the portion included in +these brackets to inform my readers about. I say, then, most of +the boarders had left the table about the time when I began telling +some of these secrets of mine,--all of them, in fact, but the old +gentleman opposite and the schoolmistress. I understand why a +young woman should like to hear these simple but genuine +experiences of early life, which are, as I have said, the little +brown seeds of what may yet grow to be poems with leaves of azure +and gold; but when the old gentleman pushed up his chair nearer to +me, and slanted round his best ear, and once, when I was speaking +of some trifling, tender reminiscence, drew a long breath, with +such a tremor in it that a little more and it would have been a +sob, why, then I felt there must be something of nature in them +which redeemed their seeming insignificance. Tell me, man or woman +with whom I am whispering, have you not a small store of +recollections, such as these I am uncovering, buried beneath the +dead leaves of many summers, perhaps under the unmelting snows of +fast-returning winters,--a few such recollections, which, if you +should write them all out, would be swept into some careless +editor's drawer, and might cost a scanty half-hour's lazy reading +to his subscribers,--and yet, if Death should cheat you of them, +you would not know yourself in eternity?] + +--I made three acquaintances at a very early period of life, my +introduction to whom was never forgotten. The first unequivocal +act of wrong that has left its trace in my memory was this: +refusing a small favor asked of me,--nothing more than telling what +had happened at school one morning. No matter who asked it; but +there were circumstances which saddened and awed me. I had no +heart to speak;--I faltered some miserable, perhaps petulant +excuse, stole away, and the first battle of life was lost. What +remorse followed I need not tell. Then and there, to the best of +my knowledge, I first consciously took Sin by the hand and turned +my back on Duty. Time has led me to look upon my offence more +leniently; I do not believe it or any other childish wrong is +infinite, as some have pretended, but infinitely finite. Yet, oh +if I had but won that battle! + +The great Destroyer, whose awful shadow it was that had silenced +me, came near me,--but never, so as to be distinctly seen and +remembered, during my tender years. There flits dimly before me +the image of a little girl, whose name even I have forgotten, a +schoolmate, whom we missed one day, and were told that she had +died. But what death was I never had any very distinct idea, until +one day I climbed the low stone wall of the old burial-ground and +mingled with a group that were looking into a very deep, long, +narrow hole, dug down through the green sod, down through the brown +loam, down through the yellow gravel, and there at the bottom was +an oblong red box, and a still, sharp, white face of a young man +seen through an opening at one end of it. When the lid was closed, +and the gravel and stones rattled down pell-mell, and the woman in +black, who was crying and wringing her hands, went off with the +other mourners, and left him, then I felt that I had seen Death, +and should never forget him. + +One other acquaintance I made at an earlier period of life than the +habit of romancers authorizes.--Love, of course.--She was a famous +beauty afterwards.--I am satisfied that many children rehearse +their parts in the drama of life before they have shed all their +milk-teeth.--I think I won't tell the story of the golden blonde. +--I suppose everybody has had his childish fancies; but sometimes +they are passionate impulses, which anticipate all the tremulous +emotions belonging to a later period. Most children remember +seeing and adoring an angel before they were a dozen years old. + +[The old gentleman had left his chair opposite and taken a seat by +the schoolmistress and myself, a little way from the table.--It's +true, it's true,--said the old gentleman.--He took hold of a steel +watch-chain, which carried a large, square gold key at one end and +was supposed to have some kind of time-keeper at the other. With +some trouble he dragged up an ancient-looking, thick, silver, +bull's-eye watch. He looked at it for a moment,--hesitated, +--touched the inner corner of his right eye with the pulp of his +middle finger,--looked at the face of the watch,--said it was +getting into the forenoon,--then opened the watch and handed me the +loose outside case without a word.--The watch-paper had been pink +once, and had a faint tinge still, as if all its tender life had +not yet quite faded out. Two little birds, a flower, and, in small +school-girl letters, a date,--17 . .--no matter.--Before I was +thirteen years old,--said the old gentleman.--I don't know what was +in that young schoolmistress's head, nor why she should have done +it; but she took out the watch-paper and put it softly to her lips, +as if she were kissing the poor thing that made it so long ago. +The old gentleman took the watch-paper carefully from her, replaced +it, turned away and walked out, holding the watch in his hand. I +saw him pass the window a moment after with that foolish white hat +on his head; he couldn't have been thinking what he was about when +he put it on. So the schoolmistress and I were left alone. I drew +my chair a shade nearer to her, and continued.] + +And since I am talking of early recollections, I don't know why I +shouldn't mention some others that still cling to me,--not that you +will attach any very particular meaning to these same images so +full of significance to me, but that you will find something +parallel to them in your own memory. You remember, perhaps, what I +said one day about smells. There were certain SOUNDS also which +had a mysterious suggestiveness to me,--not so intense, perhaps, as +that connected with the other sense, but yet peculiar, and never to +be forgotten. + +The first was the creaking of the wood-sleds, bringing their loads +of oak and walnut from the country, as the slow-swinging oxen +trailed them along over the complaining snow, in the cold, brown +light of early morning. Lying in bed and listening to their dreary +music had a pleasure in it akin to the Lucretian luxury, or that +which Byron speaks of as to be enjoyed in looking on at a battle by +one "who hath no friend, no brother there." + +There was another sound, in itself so sweet, and so connected with +one of those simple and curious superstitions of childhood of which +I have spoken, that I can never cease to cherish a sad sort of love +for it.--Let me tell the superstitious fancy first. The Puritan +"Sabbath," as everybody knows, began at "sundown" on Saturday +evening. To such observance of it I was born and bred. As the +large, round disk of day declined, a stillness, a solemnity, a +somewhat melancholy hush came over us all. It was time for work to +cease, and for playthings to be put away. The world of active life +passed into the shadow of an eclipse, not to emerge until the sun +should sink again beneath the horizon. + +It was in this stillness of the world without and of the soul +within that the pulsating lullaby of the evening crickets used to +make itself most distinctly heard,--so that I well remember I used +to think that the purring of these little creatures, which mingled +with the batrachian hymns from the neighboring swamp, WAS PECULIAR +TO SATURDAY EVENINGS. I don't know that anything could give a +clearer idea of the quieting and subduing effect of the old habit +of observance of what was considered holy time, than this strange, +childish fancy. + +Yes, and there was still another sound which mingled its solemn +cadences with the waking and sleeping dreams of my boyhood. It was +heard only at times,--a deep, muffled roar, which rose and fell, +not loud, but vast,--a whistling boy would have drowned it for his +next neighbor, but it must have been heard over the space of a +hundred square miles. I used to wonder what this might be. Could +it be the roar of the thousand wheels and the ten thousand +footsteps jarring and trampling along the stones of the neighboring +city? That would be continuous; but this, as I have said, rose and +fell in regular rhythm. I remember being told, and I suppose this +to have been the true solution, that it was the sound of the waves, +after a high wind, breaking on the long beaches many miles distant. +I should really like to know whether any observing people living +ten miles, more or less, inland from long beaches,--in such a town, +for instance, as Cantabridge, in the eastern part of the Territory +of the Massachusetts,--have ever observed any such sound, and +whether it was rightly accounted for as above. + +Mingling with these inarticulate sounds in the low murmur of +memory, are the echoes of certain voices I have heard at rare +intervals. I grieve to say it, but our people, I think, have not +generally agreeable voices. The marrowy organisms, with skins that +shed water like the backs of ducks, with smooth surfaces neatly +padded beneath, and velvet linings to their singing-pipes, are not +so common among us as that other pattern of humanity with angular +outlines and plane surfaces, and integuments, hair like the fibrous +covering of a cocoa-nut in gloss and suppleness as well as color, +and voices at once thin and strenuous,--acidulous enough to produce +effervescence with alkalis, and stridulous enough to sing duets +with the katydids. I think our conversational soprano, as +sometimes overheard in the cars, arising from a group of young +persons, who may have taken the train at one of our great +industrial centres, for instance,--young persons of the female sex, +we will say, who have bustled in full-dressed, engaged in loud +strident speech, and who, after free discussion, have fixed on two +or more double seats, which having secured, they proceed to eat +apples and hand round daguerreotypes,--I say, I think the +conversational soprano, heard under these circumstances, would not +be among the allurements the old Enemy would put in requisition, +were he getting up a new temptation of St. Anthony. + +There are sweet voices among us, we all know, and voices not +musical, it may be, to those who hear them for the first time, yet +sweeter to us than any we shall hear until we listen to some +warbling angel in the overture to that eternity of blissful +harmonies we hope to enjoy.--But why should I tell lies? If my +friends love me, it is because I try to tell the truth. I never +heard but two voices in my life that frightened me by their +sweetness. + +--Frightened you?--said the schoolmistress.--Yes, frightened me. +They made me feel as if there might be constituted a creature with +such a chord in her voice to some string in another's soul, that, +if she but spoke, he would leave all and follow her, though it were +into the jaws of Erebus. Our only chance to keep our wits is, that +there are so few natural chords between others' voices and this +string in our souls, and that those which at first may have jarred +a little by and by come into harmony with it.--But I tell you this +is no fiction. You may call the story of Ulysses and the Sirens a +fable, but what will you say to Mario and the poor lady who +followed him? + +--Whose were those two voices that bewitches me so?--They both +belonged to German women. One was a chambermaid, not otherwise +fascinating. The key of my room at a certain great hotel was +missing, and this Teutonic maiden was summoned to give information +respecting it. The simple soul was evidently not long from her +mother-land, and spoke with sweet uncertainty of dialect. But to +hear her wonder and lament and suggest, with soft, liquid +inflexions, and low, sad murmurs, in tones as full of serious +tenderness for the fate of the lost key as if it had been a child +that had strayed from its mother, was so winning, that, had her +features and figure been as delicious as her accents,--if she had +looked like the marble Clytie, for instance,--why, all can say is-- + +[The schoolmistress opened her eyes so wide, that I stopped short.] + +I was only going to say that I should have drowned myself. For +Lake Erie was close by, and it is so much better to accept +asphyxia, which takes only three minutes by the watch, than a +mesalliance, that lasts fifty years to begin with, and then passes +along down the line of descent, (breaking out in all manner of +boorish manifestations of feature and manner, which, if men were +only as short-lived as horses, could be readily traced back through +the square-roots and the cube-roots of the family stem on which you +have hung the armorial bearings of the De Champignons or the De la +Morues, until one came to beings that ate with knives and said +"Haow?") that no person of right feeling could have hesitated for a +single moment. + +The second of the ravishing voices I have heard was, as I have +said, that of another German woman.--I suppose I shall ruin myself +by saying that such a voice could not have come from any +Americanized human being. + +--What was there in it?--said the schoolmistress,--and, upon my +word, her tones were so very musical, that I almost wished I had +said three voices instead of two, and not made the unpatriotic +remark above reported.--Oh, I said, it had so much WOMAN in it, +--MULIEBRITY, as well as FEMINEITY;--no self-assertion, such as free +suffrage introduces into every word and movement; large, vigorous +nature, running back to those huge-limbed Germans of Tacitus, but +subdued by the reverential training and tuned by the kindly culture +of fifty generations. Sharp business habits, a lean soil, +independence, enterprise, and east winds, are not the best things +for the larynx. Still, you hear noble voices among us,--I have +known families famous for them,--but ask the first person you meet +a question, and ten to one there is a hard, sharp, metallic, +matter-of-business clink in the accents of the answer, that +produces the effect of one of those bells which small trades-people +connect with their shop-doors, and which spring upon your ear with +such vivacity, as you enter, that your first impulse is to retire +at once from the precincts. + +--Ah, but I must not forget that dear little child I saw and heard +in a French hospital. Between two and three years old. Fell out +of her chair and snapped both thigh-bones. Lying in bed, patient, +gentle. Rough students round her, some in white aprons, looking +fearfully business-like; but the child placid, perfectly still. I +spoke to her, and the blessed little creature answered me in a +voice of such heavenly sweetness, with that reedy thrill in it +which you have heard in the thrush's even-song, that I hear it at +this moment, while I am writing, so many, many years afterwards. +--C'est tout comme un serin, said the French student at my side. + +These are the voices which struck the key-note of my conceptions as +to what the sounds we are to hear in heaven will be, if we shall +enter through one of the twelve gates of pearl. There must be +other things besides aerolites that wander from their own spheres +to ours; and when we speak of celestial sweetness or beauty, we may +be nearer the literal truth than we dream. If mankind generally +are the shipwrecked survivors of some pre-Adamitic cataclysm, set +adrift in these little open boats of humanity to make one more +trial to reach the shore,--as some grave theologians have +maintained,--if, in plain English, men are the ghosts of dead +devils who have "died into life," (to borrow an expression from +Keats,) and walk the earth in a suit of living rags which lasts +three or four score summers,--why, there must have been a few good +spirits sent to keep them company, and these sweet voices I speak +of must belong to them. + +--I wish you could once hear my sister's voice,--said the +schoolmistress. + +If it is like yours, it must be a pleasant one,--said I. + +I never thought mine was anything,--said the schoolmistress. + +How should you know?--said I.--People never hear their own voices, +--any more than they see their own faces. There is not even a +looking-glass for the voice. Of course, there is something audible +to us when we speak; but that something is not our own voice as it +is known to all our acquaintances. I think, if an image spoke to +us in our own tones, we should not know them in the least.--How +pleasant it would be, if in another state of being we could have +shapes like our former selves for playthings,--we standing outside +or inside of them, as we liked, and they being to us just what we +used to be to others! + +--I wonder if there will be nothing like what we call "play," after +our earthly toys are broken,--said the schoolmistress. + +Hush,--said I,--what will the divinity-student say? + +[I thought she was hit, that time;--but the shot must have gone +over her, or on one side of her; she did not flinch.] + +Oh,--said the schoolmistress,--he must look out for my sister's +heresies; I am afraid he will be too busy with them to take care of +mine. + +Do you mean to say,--said I,--that it is YOUR SISTER whom that +student-- + +[The young fellow commonly known as John, who had been sitting on +the barrel, smoking, jumped off just then, kicked over the barrel, +gave it a push with his foot that set it rolling, and stuck his +saucy-looking face in at the window so as to cut my question off in +the middle; and the schoolmistress leaving the room a few minutes +afterwards, I did not have a chance to finish it. + +The young fellow came in and sat down in a chair, putting his heels +on the top of another. + +Pooty girl,--said he. + +A fine young lady,--I replied. + +Keeps a first-rate school, according to accounts,--said he, +--teaches all sorts of things,--Latin and Italian and music. Folks +rich once,--smashed up. She went right ahead as smart as if she'd +been born to work. That's the kind o' girl I go for. I'd marry +her, only two or three other girls would drown themselves, if I +did. + +I think the above is the longest speech of this young fellow's +which I have put on record. I do not like to change his peculiar +expressions, for this is one of those cases in which the style is +the man, as M. de Buffon says. The fact is, the young fellow is a +good-hearted creature enough, only too fond of his jokes,--and if +it were not for those heat-lightning winks on one side of his face, +I should not mind his fun much.] + + +[Some days after this, when the company were together again, I +talked a little.] + +--I don't think I have a genuine hatred for anybody. I am well +aware that I differ herein from the sturdy English moralist and the +stout American tragedian. I don't deny that I hate THE SIGHT of +certain people; but the qualities which make me tend to hate the +man himself are such as I am so much disposed to pity, that, except +under immediate aggravation, I feel kindly enough to the worst of +them. It is such a sad thing to be born a sneaking fellow, so much +worse than to inherit a hump-back or a couple of club-feet, that I +sometimes feel as if we ought to love the crippled souls, if I may +use this expression, with a certain tenderness which we need not +waste on noble natures. One who is born with such congenital +incapacity that nothing can make a gentleman of him is entitled, +not to our wrath, but to our profoundest sympathy. But as we +cannot help hating the sight of these people, just as we do that of +physical deformities, we gradually eliminate them from our +society,--we love them, but open the window and let them go. By +the time decent people reach middle age they have weeded their +circle pretty well of these unfortunates, unless they have a taste +for such animals; in which case, no matter what their position may +be, there is something, you may be sure, in their natures akin to +that of their wretched parasites. + +--The divinity-student wished to know what I thought of affinities, +as well as of antipathies; did I believe in love at first sight? + +Sir,--said I,--all men love all women. That is the prima-facie +aspect of the case. The Court of Nature assumes the law to be, +that all men do so; and the individual man is bound to show cause +why he does not love any particular woman. A man, says one of my +old black-letter law-books, may show divers good reasons, as thus: +He hath not seen the person named in the indictment; she is of +tender age, or the reverse of that; she hath certain personal +disqualifications,--as, for instance, she is a blackamoor, or hath +an ill-favored countenance; or, his capacity of loving being +limited, his affections are engrossed by a previous comer; and so +of other conditions. Not the less is it true that he is bound by +duty and inclined by nature to love each and every woman. +Therefore it is that each woman virtually summons every man to show +cause why he doth not love her. This is not by written document, +or direct speech, for the most part, but by certain signs of silk, +gold, and other materials, which say to all men,--Look on me and +love, as in duty bound. Then the man pleadeth his special +incapacity, whatsoever that may be,--as, for instance, +impecuniosity, or that he hath one or many wives in his household, +or that he is of mean figure, or small capacity; of which reasons +it may be noted, that the first is, according to late decisions, of +chiefest authority.--So far the old law-book. But there is a note +from an older authority, saying that every woman doth also love +each and every man, except there be some good reason to the +contrary; and a very observing friend of mine, a young unmarried +clergyman, tells me, that, so far as his experience goes, he has +reason to think the ancient author had fact to justify his +statement. + +I'll tell you how it is with the pictures of women we fall in love +with at first sight. + +--We a'n't talking about pictures,--said the landlady's daughter, +--we're talking about women. + +I understood that we were speaking of love at sight,--I remarked, +mildly.--Now, as all a man knows about a woman whom he looks at is +just what a picture as big as a copper, or a "nickel," rather, at +the bottom of his eye can teach him, I think I am right in saying +we are talking about the pictures of women.--Well, now, the reason +why a man is not desperately in love with ten thousand women at +once is just that which prevents all our portraits being distinctly +seen upon that wall. They all ARE painted there by reflection from +our faces, but because ALL of them are painted on each spot, and +each on the same surface, and many other objects at the same time, +no one is seen as a picture. But darken a chamber and let a single +pencil of rays in through a key-hole, then you have a picture on +the wall. We never fall in love with a woman in distinction from +women, until we can get an image of her through a pin-hole; and +then we can see nothing else, and nobody but ourselves can see the +image in our mental camera-obscura. + +--My friend, the Poet, tells me he has to leave town whenever the +anniversaries come round. + +What's the difficulty?--Why, they all want him to get up and make +speeches, or songs, or toasts; which is just the very thing he +doesn't want to do. He is an old story, he says, and hates to show +on these occasions. But they tease him, and coax him, and can't do +without him, and feel all over his poor weak head until they get +their fingers on the fontanelle, (the Professor will tell you what +this means,--he says the one at the top of the head always remains +open in poets,) until, by gentle pressure on that soft pulsating +spot, they stupefy him to the point of acquiescence. + +There are times, though, he says, when it is a pleasure, before +going to some agreeable meeting, to rush out into one's garden and +clutch up a handful of what grows there,--weeds and violets +together,--not cutting them off, but pulling them up by the roots +with the brown earth they grow in sticking to them. That's his +idea of a post-prandial performance. Look here, now. These verses +I am going to read you, he tells me, were pulled up by the roots +just in that way, the other day.--Beautiful entertainment,--names +there on the plates that flow from all English-speaking tongues as +familiarly as AND or THE; entertainers known wherever good poetry +and fair title-pages are held in esteem; guest a kind-hearted, +modest, genial, hopeful poet, who sings to the hearts of his +countrymen, the British people, the songs of good cheer which the +better days to come, as all honest souls trust and believe, will +turn into the prose of common life. My friend, the Poet, says you +must not read such a string of verses too literally. If he trimmed +it nicely below, you wouldn't see the roots, he says, and he likes +to keep them, and a little of the soil clinging to them. + +This is the farewell my friend, the Poet, read to his and our +friend, the Poet:- + + +A GOOD TIME GOING! + +Brave singer of the coming time, +Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, +Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, +The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, +Good-bye! Good-bye!--Our hearts and hands, +Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, +Cry, God be with him, till he stands +His feet among the English daisies! + +'Tis here we part;--for other eyes +The busy deck, the flattering streamer, +The dripping arms that plunge and rise, +The waves in foam, the ship in tremor, +The kerchiefs waving from the pier, +The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him, +The deep blue desert, lone and drear, +With heaven above and home before him! + +His home!--the Western giant smiles, +And twirls the spotty globe to find it;-- +This little speck the British Isles? +'Tis but a freckle,--never mind it!-- +He laughs, and all his prairies roll, +Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles, +And ridges stretched from pole to pole +Heave till they crack their iron knuckles! + +But memory blushes at the sneer, +And Honor turns with frown defiant, +And Freedom, leaning on her spear, +Laughs louder than the laughing giant:- +"An islet is a world," she said, +"When glory with its dust has blended, +And Britain kept her noble dead +Till earth and seas and skies are rended!" + +Beneath each swinging forest-bough +Some arm as stout in death reposes,-- +From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow +Her valor's life-blood runs in roses; +Nay, let our brothers of the West +Write smiling in their florid pages, +One-half her soil has walked the rest +In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages! + +Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp, +From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather, +The British oak with rooted grasp +Her slender handful holds together;-- +With cliffs of white and bowers of green, +And Ocean narrowing to caress her, +And hills and threaded streams between,-- +Our little mother isle, God bless her! + +In earth's broad temple where we stand, +Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us, +We hold the missal in our hand, +Bright with the lines our Mother taught us; +Where'er its blazoned page betrays +The glistening links of gilded fetters, +Behold, the half-turned leaf displays +Her rubric stained in crimson letters! + +Enough! To speed a parting friend +'Tis vain alike to speak and listen;-- +Yet stay,--these feeble accents blend +With rays of light from eyes that glisten. +Good-bye! once more,--and kindly tell +In words of peace the young world's story,-- +And say, besides,--we love too well +Our mother's soil, our father's glory! + +When my friend, the Professor, found that my friend, the Poet, had +been coming out in this full-blown style, he got a little excited, +as you may have seen a canary, sometimes, when another strikes up. +The Professor says he knows he can lecture, and thinks he can write +verses. At any rate, he has often tried, and now he was determined +to try again. So when some professional friends of his called him +up, one day, after a feast of reason and a regular "freshet" of +soul which had lasted two or three hours, he read them these +verses. He introduced them with a few remarks, he told me, of +which the only one he remembered was this: that he had rather +write a single line which one among them should think worth +remembering than set them all laughing with a string of epigrams. +It was all right, I don't doubt; at any rate, that was his fancy +then, and perhaps another time he may be obstinately hilarious; +however, it may be that he is growing graver, for time is a fact so +long as clocks and watches continue to go, and a cat can't be a +kitten always, as the old gentleman opposite said the other day. + +You must listen to this seriously, for I think the Professor was +very much in earnest when he wrote it. + + +THE TWO ARMIES. + +As Life's unending column pours, +Two marshalled hosts are seen,-- +Two armies on the trampled shores +That Death flows black between. + +One marches to the drum-beat's roll, +The wide-mouthed clarion's bray, +And bears upon a crimson scroll, +"Our glory is to slay." + +One moves in silence by the stream, +With sad, yet watchful eyes, +Calm as the patient planet's gleam +That walks the clouded skies. + +Along its front no sabres shine, +No blood-red pennons wave; +Its banner bears the single line, +"Our duty is to save." + +For those no death-bed's lingering shade; +At Honor's trumpet-call, +With knitted brow and lifted blade +In Glory's arms they fall. + +For these no clashing falchions bright, +No stirring battle-cry; +The bloodless stabber calls by night,-- +Each answers, "Here am I!" + +For those the sculptor's laurelled bust, +The builder's marble piles, +The anthems pealing o'er their dust +Through long cathedral aisles. + +For these the blossom-sprinkled turf +That floods the lonely graves, +When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf +In flowery-foaming waves. + +Two paths lead upward from below, +And angels wait above, +Who count each burning life-drop's flow, +Each falling tear of Love. + +Though from the Hero's bleeding breast +Her pulses Freedom drew, +Though the white lilies in her crest +Sprang from that scarlet dew,-- + +While Valor's haughty champions wait +Till all their scars are shown, +Love walks unchallenged through the gate, +To sit beside the Throne! + + + +CHAPTER X + + + +[The schoolmistress came down with a rose in her hair,--a fresh +June rose. She has been walking early; she has brought back two +others,--one on each cheek. + +I told her so, in some such pretty phrase as I could muster for the +occasion. Those two blush-roses I just spoke of turned into a +couple of damasks. I suppose all this went through my mind, for +this was what I went on to say:-] + +I love the damask rose best of all. The flowers our mothers and +sisters used to love and cherish, those which grow beneath our +eaves and by our doorstep, are the ones we always love best. If +the Houyhnhnms should ever catch me, and, finding me particularly +vicious and unmanageable, send a man-tamer to Rareyfy me, I'll tell +you what drugs he would have to take and how he would have to use +them. Imagine yourself reading a number of the Houyhnhnm Gazette, +giving an account of such an experiment. + +"MAN-TAMING EXTRAORDINARY. + +"THE soft-hoofed semi-quadruped recently captured was subjected to +the art of our distinguished man-tamer in presence of a numerous +assembly. The animal was led in by two stout ponies, closely +confined by straps to prevent his sudden and dangerous tricks of +shoulder-hitting and foot-striking. His countenance expressed the +utmost degree of ferocity and cunning. + +"The operator took a handful of BUDDING LILAC-LEAVES, and crushing +them slightly between his hoofs, so as to bring out their peculiar +fragrance, fastened them to the end of a long pole and held them +towards the creature. Its expression changed in an instant,--it +drew in their fragrance eagerly, and attempted to seize them with +its soft split hoofs. Having thus quieted his suspicious subject, +the operator proceeded to tie a BLUE HYACINTH to the end of the +pole and held it out towards the wild animal. The effect was +magical. Its eyes filled as if with raindrops, and its lips +trembled as it pressed them to the flower. After this it was +perfectly quiet, and brought a measure of corn to the man-tamer, +without showing the least disposition to strike with the feet or +hit from the shoulder." + + +That will do for the Houyhnhnm Gazette.--Do you ever wonder why +poets talk so much about flowers? Did you ever hear of a poet who +did not talk about them? Don't you think a poem, which, for the +sake of being original, should leave them out, would be like those +verses where the letter A or E or some other is omitted? No,--they +will bloom over and over again in poems as in the summer fields, to +the end of time, always old and always new. Why should we be more +shy of repeating ourselves than the spring be tired of blossoms or +the night of stars? Look at Nature. She never wearies of saying +over her floral pater-noster. In the crevices of Cyclopean walls, +--in the dust where men lie, dust also,--on the mounds that bury +huge cities, the wreck of Nineveh and the Babel-heap,--still that +same sweet prayer and benediction. The Amen! of Nature is always a +flower. + +Are you tired of my trivial personalities,--those splashes and +streaks of sentiment, sometimes perhaps of sentimentality, which +you may see when I show you my heart's corolla as if it were a +tulip? Pray, do not give yourself the trouble to fancy me an idiot +whose conceit it is to treat himself as an exceptional being. It +is because you are just like me that I talk and know that you will +listen. We are all splashed and streaked with sentiments,--not +with precisely the same tints, or in exactly the same patterns, but +by the same hand and from the same palette. + +I don't believe any of you happen to have just the same passion for +the blue hyacinth which I have,--very certainly not for the crushed +lilac-leaf-buds; many of you do not know how sweet they are. You +love the smell of the sweet-fern and the bayberry-leaves, I don't +doubt; but I hardly think that the last bewitches you with young +memories as it does me. For the same reason I come back to damask +roses, after having raised a good many of the rarer varieties. I +like to go to operas and concerts, but there are queer little old +homely sounds that are better than music to me. However, I suppose +it's foolish to tell such things. + +--It is pleasant to be foolish at the right time,--said the +divinity-student;--saying it, however, in one of the dead +languages, which I think are unpopular for summer-reading, and +therefore do not bear quotation as such. + +Well, now,--said I,--suppose a good, clean, wholesome-looking +countryman's cart stops opposite my door.--Do I want any +huckleberries?--If I do not, there are those that do. Thereupon my +soft-voiced handmaid bears out a large tin pan, and then the +wholesome countryman, heaping the peck-measure, spreads his broad +hands around its lower arc to confine the wild and frisky berries, +and so they run nimbly along the narrowing channel until they +tumble rustling down in a black cascade and tinkle on the +resounding metal beneath.--I won't say that this rushing +huckleberry hail-storm has not more music for me than the "Anvil +Chorus." + +--I wonder how my great trees are coming on this summer. + +--Where are your great trees, Sir?--said the divinity-student. + +Oh, all round about New England. I call all trees mine that I have +put my wedding-ring on, and I have as many tree-wives as Brigham +Young has human ones. + +--One set's as green as the other,--exclaimed a boarder, who has +never been identified. + +They're all Bloomers,--said the young fellow called John. + +[I should have rebuked this trifling with language, if our +landlady's daughter had not asked me just then what I meant by +putting my wedding-ring on a tree.] + +Why, measuring it with my thirty-foot tape, my dear,--said I,--I +have worn a tape almost out on the rough barks of our old New +England elms and other big trees.--Don't you want to hear me talk +trees a little now? That is one of my specialities. + +[So they all agreed that they should like to hear me talk about +trees.] + +I want you to understand, in the first place, that I have a most +intense, passionate fondness for trees in general, and have had +several romantic attachments to certain trees in particular. Now, +if you expect me to hold forth in a "scientific" way about my +tree-loves,--to talk, for instance, of the Ulmus Americana, and +describe the ciliated edges of its samara, and all that,--you are an +anserine individual, and I must refer you to a dull friend who will +discourse to you of such matters. What should you think of a lover +who should describe the idol of his heart in the language of +science, thus: Class, Mammalia; Order, Primates; Genus, Homo; +Species, Europeus; Variety, Brown; Individual, Ann Eliza; Dental +Formula + + 2-2 1-1 2-2 3-3 +i---c---p---m--- + 2-2 1-1 2-2 3-3' + +and so on? + +No, my friends, I shall speak of trees as we see them, love them, +adore them in the fields, where they are alive, holding their green +sun-shades over our heads, talking to us with their hundred +thousand whispering tongues, looking down on us with that sweet +meekness which belongs to huge, but limited organisms,--which one +sees in the brown eyes of oxen, but most in the patient posture, +the outstretched arms, and the heavy-drooping robes of these vast +beings endowed with life, but not with soul,--which outgrow us and +outlive us, but stand helpless,--poor things!--while Nature dresses +and undresses them, like so many full-sized, but under-witted +children. + +Did you ever read old Daddy Gilpin? Slowest of men, even of +English men; yet delicious in his slowness, as is the light of a +sleepy eye in woman. I always supposed "Dr. Syntax" was written to +make fun of him. I have a whole set of his works, and am very +proud of it, with its gray paper, and open type, and long ff, and +orange-juice landscapes. The Pere Gilpin had the kind of science I +like in the study of Nature,--a little less observation than White +of Selborne, but a little more poetry.--Just think of applying the +Linnaean system to an elm! Who cares how many stamens or pistils +that little brown flower, which comes out before the leaf, may have +to classify it by? What we want is the meaning, the character, the +expression of a tree, as a kind and as an individual. + +There is a mother-idea in each particular kind of tree, which, if +well marked, is probably embodied in the poetry of every language. +Take the oak, for instance, and we find it always standing as a +type of strength and endurance. I wonder if you ever thought of +the single mark of supremacy which distinguishes this tree from all +our other forest-trees? All the rest of them shirk the work of +resisting gravity; the oak alone defies it. It chooses the +horizontal direction for its limbs, so that their whole weight may +tell,--and then stretches them out fifty or sixty feet, so that the +strain may be mighty enough to be worth resisting. You will find, +that, in passing from the extreme downward droop of the branches of +the weeping-willow to the extreme upward inclination of those of +the poplar, they sweep nearly half a circle. At 90 degrees the oak +stops short; to slant upward another degree would mark infirmity of +purpose; to bend downwards, weakness of organization. The American +elm betrays something of both; yet sometimes, as we shall see, puts +on a certain resemblance to its sturdier neighbor. + +It won't do to be exclusive in our taste about trees. There is +hardly one of them which has not peculiar beauties in some fitting +place for it. I remember a tall poplar of monumental proportions +and aspect, a vast pillar of glossy green, placed on the summit of +a lofty hill, and a beacon to all the country round. A native of +that region saw fit to build his house very near it, and, having a +fancy that it might blow down some time or other, and exterminate +himself and any incidental relatives who might be "stopping" or +"tarrying" with him,--also laboring under the delusion that human +life is under all circumstances to be preferred to vegetable +existence,--had the great poplar cut down. It is so easy to say, +"It is only a poplar!" and so much harder to replace its living +cone than to build a granite obelisk! + +I must tell you about some of my tree-wives. I was at one period +of my life much devoted to the young lady-population of Rhode +Island, a small, but delightful State in the neighborhood of +Pawtucket. The number of inhabitants being not very large, I had +leisure, during my visits to the Providence Plantations, to inspect +the face of the country in the intervals of more fascinating +studies of physiognomy. I heard some talk of a great elm a short +distance from the locality just mentioned. "Let us see the great +elm,"--I said, and proceeded to find it,--knowing that it was on a +certain farm in a place called Johnston, if I remember rightly. I +shall never forget my ride and my introduction to the great +Johnston elm. + +I always tremble for a celebrated tree when I approach it for the +first time. Provincialism has no SCALE of excellence in man or +vegetable; it never knows a first-rate article of either kind when +it has it, and is constantly taking second and third rate ones for +Nature's best. I have often fancied the tree was afraid of me, and +that a sort of shiver came over it as over a betrothed maiden when +she first stands before the unknown to whom she has been plighted. +Before the measuring-tape the proudest tree of them all quails and +shrinks into itself. All those stories of four or five men +stretching their arms around it and not touching each other's +fingers, if one's pacing the shadow at noon and making it so many +hundred feet, die upon its leafy lips in the presence of the awful +ribbon which has strangled so many false pretensions. + +As I rode along the pleasant way, watching eagerly for the object +of my journey, the rounded tops of the elms rose from time to time +at the road-side. Wherever one looked taller and fuller than the +rest, I asked myself,--"Is this it?" But as I drew nearer, they +grew smaller,--or it proved, perhaps, that two standing in a line +had looked like one, and so deceived me. At last, all at once, +when I was not thinking of it,--I declare to you it makes my flesh +creep when I think of it now,--all at once I saw a great, green +cloud swelling in the horizon, so vast, so symmetrical, of such +Olympian majesty and imperial supremacy among the lesser +forest-growths, that my heart stopped short, then jumped at my ribs +as a hunter springs at a five-barred gate, and I felt all through me, +without need of uttering the words,--"This is it!" + +You will find this tree described, with many others, in the +excellent Report upon the Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts. The +author has given my friend the Professor credit for some of his +measurements, but measured this tree himself, carefully. It is a +grand elm for size of trunk, spread of limbs, and muscular +development,--one of the first, perhaps the first, of the first +class of New England elms. + +The largest actual girth I have ever found at five feet from the +ground is in the great elm lying a stone's throw or two north of +the main road (if my points of compass are right) in Springfield. +But this has much the appearance of having been formed by the union +of two trunks growing side by side. + +The West-Springfield elm and one upon Northampton meadows, belong +also to the first class of trees. + +There is a noble old wreck of an elm at Hatfield, which used to +spread its claws out over a circumference of thirty-five feet or +more before they covered the foot of its bole up with earth. This +is the American elm most like an oak of any I have ever seen. + +The Sheffield elm is equally remarkable for size and perfection of +form. I have seen nothing that comes near it in Berkshire County, +and few to compare with it anywhere. I am not sure that I remember +any other first-class elms in New England, but there may be many. + +--What makes a first-class elm?--Why, size, in the first place, and +chiefly. Anything over twenty feet of clear girth, five feet above +the ground, and with a spread of branches a hundred feet across, +may claim that title, according to my scale. All of them, with the +questionable exception of the Springfield tree above referred to, +stop, so far as my experience goes, at about twenty-two or +twenty-three feet of girth and a hundred and twenty of spread. + +Elms of the second class, generally ranging from fourteen to +eighteen feet, are comparatively common. The queen of them all is +that glorious tree near one of the churches in Springfield. +Beautiful and stately she is beyond all praise. The "great tree" +on Boston Common comes in the second rank, as does the one at +Cohasset, which used to have, and probably has still, a head as +round as an apple-tree, and that at Newburyport, with scores of +others which might be mentioned. These last two have perhaps been +over-celebrated. Both, however, are pleasing vegetables. The poor +old Pittsfield elm lives on its past reputation. A wig of false +leaves is indispensable to make it presentable. + +[I don't doubt there may be some monster-elm or other, vegetating +green, but inglorious, in some remote New England village, which +only wants a sacred singer to make it celebrated. Send us your +measurements,--(certified by the postmaster, to avoid possible +imposition,)--circumference five feet from soil, length of line +from bough-end to bough-end, and we will see what can be done for +you.] + +--I wish somebody would get us up the following work:- + + +SYLVA NOVANGLICA. + +Photographs of New England Elms and other Trees, taken upon the +Same Scale of Magnitude. With Letter-Press Descriptions, by a +Distinguished Literary Gentleman. Boston & Co. 185.. + + +The same camera should be used,--so far as possible,--at a fixed +distance. Our friend, who has given us so many interesting figures +in his "Trees of America," must not think this Prospectus invades +his province; a dozen portraits, with lively descriptions, would be +a pretty complement to his large work, which, so far as published, +I find excellent. If my plan were carried out, and another series +of a dozen English trees photographed on the same scale the +comparison would be charming. + +It has always been a favorite idea of mine to bring the life of the +Old and the New World face to face, by an accurate comparison of +their various types of organization. We should begin with man, of +course; institute a large and exact comparison between the +development of la pianta umana, as Alfieri called it, in different +sections of each country, in the different callings, at different +ages, estimating height, weigh, force by the dynamometer and the +spirometer, and finishing off with a series of typical photographs, +giving the principal national physiognomies. Mr. Hutchinson has +given us some excellent English data to begin with. + +Then I would follow this up by contrasting the various parallel +forms of life in the two continents. Our naturalists have often +referred to this incidentally or expressly; but the animus of +Nature in the two half globes of the planet is so momentous a point +of interest to our race, that it should be made a subject of +express and elaborate study. Go out with me into that walk which +we call THE MALL, and look at the English and American elms. The +American elm is tall, graceful, slender-sprayed, and drooping as if +from languor. The English elm is compact, robust, holds its +branches up, and carries its leaves for weeks longer than our own +native tree. + +Is this typical of the creative force on the two sides of the +ocean, or not? Nothing but a careful comparison through the whole +realm of life can answer this question. + +There is a parallelism without identity in the animal and vegetable +life of the two continents, which favors the task of comparison in +an extraordinary manner. Just as we have two trees alike in many +ways, yet not the same, both elms, yet easily distinguishable, just +so we have a complete flora and a fauna, which, parting from the +same ideal, embody it with various modifications. Inventive power +is the only quality of which the Creative Intelligence seems to be +economical; just as with our largest human minds, that is the +divinest of faculties, and the one that most exhausts the mind +which exercises it. As the same patterns have very commonly been +followed, we can see which is worked out in the largest spirit, and +determine the exact limitations under which the Creator places the +movement of life in all its manifestations in either locality. We +should find ourselves in a very false position, if it should prove +that Anglo-Saxons can't live here, but die out, if not kept up by +fresh supplies, as Dr. Knox and other more or less wise persons +have maintained. It may turn out the other way, as I have heard +one of our literary celebrities argue,--and though I took the other +side, I liked his best,--that the American is the Englishman +reinforced. + +--Will you walk out and look at those elms with me after +breakfast?--I said to the schoolmistress. + +[I am not going to tell lies about it, and say that she blushed, +--as I suppose she ought to have done, at such a tremendous piece of +gallantry as that was for our boarding-house. On the contrary, she +turned a little pale,--but smiled brightly and said,--Yes, with +pleasure, but she must walk towards her school.--She went for her +bonnet.--The old gentleman opposite followed her with his eyes, and +said he wished he was a young fellow. Presently she came down, +looking very pretty in her half-mourning bonnet, and carrying a +school-book in her hand.] + + +MY FIRST WALK WITH THE SCHOOLMISTRESS. + + +This is the shortest way,--she said, as we came to a corner.--Then +we won't take it,--said I.--The schoolmistress laughed a little, +and said she was ten minutes early, so she could go round. + +We walked under Mr. Paddock's row of English elms. The gray +squirrels were out looking for their breakfasts, and one of them +came toward us in light, soft, intermittent leaps, until he was +close to the rail of the burial-ground. He was on a grave with a +broad blue-slate-stone at its head, and a shrub growing on it. The +stone said this was the grave of a young man who was the son of an +Honorable gentleman, and who died a hundred years ago and more. +--Oh, yes, DIED,--with a small triangular mark in one breast, and +another smaller opposite, in his back, where another young man's +rapier had slid through his body; and so he lay down out there on +the Common, and was found cold the next morning, with the +night-dews and the death-dews mingled on his forehead. + +Let us have one look at poor Benjamin's grave,--said I.--His bones +lie where his body was laid so long ago, and where the stone says +they lie,--which is more than can be said of most of the tenants of +this and several other burial-grounds. + +[The most accursed act of Vandalism ever committed within my +knowledge was the uprooting of the ancient gravestones in three at +least of our city burialgrounds, and one at least just outside the +city, and planting them in rows to suit the taste for symmetry of +the perpetrators. Many years ago, when this disgraceful process +was going on under my eyes, I addressed an indignant remonstrance +to a leading journal. I suppose it was deficient in literary +elegance, or too warm in its language; for no notice was taken of +it, and the hyena-horror was allowed to complete itself in the face +of daylight. I have never got over it. The bones of my own +ancestors, being entombed, lie beneath their own tablet; but the +upright stones have been shuffled about like chessmen, and nothing +short of the Day of Judgment will tell whose dust lies beneath any +of those records, meant by affection to mark one small spot as +sacred to some cherished memory. Shame! shame! shame!--that is all +I can say. It was on public thoroughfares, under the eye of +authority, that this infamy was enacted. The red Indians would +have known better; the selectmen of an African kraal-village would +have had more respect for their ancestors. I should like to see +the gravestones which have been disturbed all removed, and the +ground levelled, leaving the flat tombstones; epitaphs were never +famous for truth, but the old reproach of "Here LIES" never had +such a wholesale illustration as in these outraged burial-places, +where the stone does lie above, and the bones do not lie beneath.] + +Stop before we turn away, and breathe a woman's sigh over poor +Benjamin's dust. Love killed him, I think. Twenty years old, and +out there fighting another young fellow on the Common, in the cool +of that old July evening;--yes, there must have been love at the +bottom of it. + +The schoolmistress dropped a rosebud she had in her hand, through +the rails, upon the grave of Benjamin Woodbridge. That was all her +comment upon what I told her.--How women love Love! said I;--but +she did not speak. + +We came opposite the head of a place or court running eastward from +the main street.--Look down there,--I said,--My friend the +Professor lived in that house at the left hand, next the further +corner, for years and years. He died out of it, the other day. +--Died?--said the schoolmistress.--Certainly,--said I.--We die out of +houses, just as we die out of our bodies. A commercial smash kills +a hundred men's houses for them, as a railroad crash kills their +mortal frames and drives out the immortal tenants. Men sicken of +houses until at last they quit them, as the soul leaves its body +when it is tired of its infirmities. The body has been called "the +house we live in"; the house is quite as much the body we live in. +Shall I tell you some things the Professor said the other day? +--Do!--said the schoolmistress. + +A man's body,--said the Professor,--is whatever is occupied by his +will and his sensibility. The small room down there, where I wrote +those papers you remember reading, was much more a portion of my +body than a paralytic's senseless and motionless arm or leg is of +his. + +The soul of a man has a series of concentric envelopes round it, +like the core of an onion, or the innermost of a nest of boxes. +First, he has his natural garment of flesh and blood. Then, his +artificial integuments, with their true skin of solid stuffs, their +cuticle of lighter tissues, and their variously-tinted pigments. +Thirdly, his domicile, be it a single chamber or a stately mansion. +And then, the whole visible world, in which Time buttons him up as +in a loose outside wrapper. + +You shall observe,--the Professor said,--for, like Mr. John Hunter +and other great men, he brings in that SHALL with great effect +sometimes,--you shall observe that a man's clothing or series of +envelopes does after a certain time mould itself upon his +individual nature. We know this of our hats, and are always +reminded of it when we happen to put them on wrong side foremost. +We soon find that the beaver is a hollow cast of the skull, with +all its irregular bumps and depressions. Just so all that clothes +a man, even to the blue sky which caps his head,--a little +loosely,--shapes itself to fit each particular being beneath it. +Farmers, sailors, astronomers, poets, lovers, condemned criminals, +all find it different, according to the eyes with which they +severally look. + +But our houses shape themselves palpably on our inner and outer +natures. See a householder breaking up and you will be sure of it. +There is a shell-fish which builds all manner of smaller shells +into the walls of its own. A house is never a home until we have +crusted it with the spoils of a hundred lives besides those of our +own past. See what these are and you can tell what the occupant +is. + +I had no idea,--said the Professor,--until I pulled up my domestic +establishment the other day, what an enormous quantity of roots I +had been making during the years I was planted there. Why, there +wasn't a nook or a corner that some fibre had not worked its way +into; and when I gave the last wrench, each of them seemed to +shriek like a mandrake, as it broke its hold and came away. + +There is nothing that happens, you know, which must not inevitably, +and which does not actually, photograph itself in every conceivable +aspect and in all dimensions. The infinite galleries of the Past +await but one brief process and all their pictures will be called +out and fixed forever. We had a curious illustration of the great +fact on a very humble scale. When a certain bookcase, long +standing in one place, for which it was built, was removed, there +was the exact image on the wall of the whole, and of many of its +portions. But in the midst of this picture was another,--the +precise outline of a map which had hung on the wall before the +bookcase was built. We had all forgotten everything about the map +until we saw its photograph on the wall. Then we remembered it, as +some day or other we may remember a sin which has been built over +and covered up, when this lower universe is pulled away from before +the wall of Infinity, where the wrong-doing stands self-recorded. + +The Professor lived in that house a long time,--not twenty years, +but pretty near it. When he entered that door, two shadows glided +over the threshold; five lingered in the doorway when he passed +through it for the last time,--and one of the shadows was claimed +by its owner to be longer than his own. What changes he saw in +that quiet place! Death rained through every roof but his; +children came into life, grew to maturity, wedded, faded away, +threw themselves away; the whole drama of life was played in that +stock-company's theatre of a dozen houses, one of which was his, +and no deep sorrow or severe calamity ever entered his dwelling. +Peace be to those walls, forever,--the Professor said,--for the +many pleasant years he has passed within them! + +The Professor has a friend, now living at a distance, who has been +with him in many of his changes of place, and who follows him in +imagination with tender interest wherever he goes.--In that little +court, where he lived in gay loneliness so long,-- + +--in his autumnal sojourn by the Connecticut, where it comes +loitering down from its mountain fastnesses like a great lord, +swallowing up the small proprietary rivulets very quietly as it +goes, until it gets proud and swollen and wantons in huge luxurious +oxbows about the fair Northampton meadows, and at last overflows +the oldest inhabitant's memory in profligate freshets at Hartford +and all along its lower shores,--up in that caravansary on the +banks of the stream where Ledyard launched his log canoe, and the +jovial old Colonel used to lead the Commencement processions, +--where blue Ascutney looked down from the far distance, and the +hills of Beulah, as the Professor always called them, rolled up the +opposite horizon in soft climbing masses, so suggestive of the +Pilgrim's Heavenward Path that he used to look through his old +"Dollond" to see if the Shining Ones were not within range of +sight,--sweet visions, sweetest in those Sunday walks which carried +them by the peaceful common, through the solemn village lying in +cataleptic stillness under the shadow of the rod of Moses, to the +terminus of their harmless stroll,--the patulous fage, in the +Professor's classic dialect,--the spreading beech, in more familiar +phrase,--[stop and breathe here a moment, for the sentence is not +done yet, and we have another long journey before us,]-- + +--and again once more up among those other hills that shut in the +amber-flowing Housatonic,--dark stream, but clear, like the lucid +orbs that shine beneath the lids of auburn-haired, sherry-wine-eyed +demi-blondes,--in the home overlooking the winding stream and the +smooth, flat meadow; looked down upon by wild hills, where the +tracks of bears and catamounts may yet sometimes be seen upon the +winter snow; facing the twin summits which rise in the far North, +the highest waves of the great land-storm in all this billowy +region,--suggestive to mad fancies of the breasts of a half-buried +Titaness, stretched out by a stray thunderbolt, and hastily hidden +away beneath the leaves of the forest,--in that home where seven +blessed summers were passed, which stand in memory like the seven +golden candlesticks in the beatific vision of the holy dreamer,-- + +--in that modest dwelling we were just looking at, not glorious, +yet not unlovely in the youth of its drab and mahogany,--full of +great and little boys' playthings from top to bottom,--in all these +summer or winter nests he was always at home and always welcome. + +This long articulated sigh of reminiscences,--this calenture which +shows me the maple-shadowed plains of Berkshire and the mountain- +circled green of Grafton beneath the salt waves which come feeling +their way along the wall at my feet, restless and soft-touching as +blind men's busy fingers,--is for that friend of mine who looks +into the waters of the Patapsco and sees beneath them the same +visions which paint themselves for me in the green depths of the +Charles. + +--Did I talk all this off to the schoolmistress?--Why, no,--of +course not. I have been talking with you, the reader, for the last +ten minutes. You don't think I should expect any woman to listen +to such a sentence as that long one, without giving her a chance to +put in a word? + +--What did I say to the schoolmistress?--Permit me one moment. I +don't doubt your delicacy and good-breeding; but in this particular +case, as I was allowed the privilege of walking alone with a very +interesting young woman, you must allow me to remark, in the +classic version of a familiar phrase, used by our Master Benjamin +Franklin, it is nullum tui negotii. + +When the schoolmistress and I reached the school-room door, the +damask roses I spoke of were so much heightened in color by +exercise that I felt sure it would be useful to her to take a +stroll like this every morning, and made up my mind I would ask her +to let me join her again. + + +EXTRACT FROM MY PRIVATE JOURNAL. +(To be burned unread.) + + +I am afraid I have been a fool; for I have told as much of myself +to this young person as if she were of that ripe and discreet age +which invites confidence and expansive utterance. I have been +low-spirited and listless, lately,--it is coffee, I think, +--(I observe that which is bought READY-GROUND never affects the +head,)--and I notice that I tell my secrets too easily when I am +downhearted. + +There are inscriptions on our hearts, which, like that on Dighton +Rock, are never to be seen except at dead-low tide. + +There is a woman's footstep on the sand at the side of my deepest +ocean-buried inscription! + +--Oh, no, no, no! a thousand times, no!--Yet what is this which has +been shaping itself in my soul?--Is it a thought?--is it a dream? +--is it a PASSION?--Then I know what comes next. + +--The Asylum stands on a bright and breezy hill; those glazed +corridors are pleasant to walk in, in bad weather. But there are +iron bars to all the windows. When it is fair, some of us can +stroll outside that very high fence. But I never see much life in +those groups I sometimes meet;--and then the careful man watches +them so closely! How I remember that sad company I used to pass on +fine mornings, when I was a schoolboy!--B., with his arms full of +yellow weeds,--ore from the gold mines which he discovered long +before we heard of California,--Y., born to millions, crazed by too +much plum-cake, (the boys said,) dogged, explosive,--made a +Polyphemus of my weak-eyed schoolmaster, by a vicious flirt with a +stick,--(the multi-millonnaires sent him a trifle, it was said, to +buy another eye with; but boys are jealous of rich folks, and I +don't doubt the good people made him easy for life,)--how I +remember them all! + +I recollect, as all do, the story of the Hall of Eblis, in +"Vathek," and how each shape, as it lifted its hand from its +breast, showed its heart,--a burning coal. The real Hall of Eblis +stands on yonder summit. Go there on the next visiting-day, and +ask that figure crouched in the corner, huddled up like those +Indian mummies and skeletons found buried in the sitting posture, +to lift its hand,--look upon its heart, and behold, not fire, but +ashes.--No, I must not think of such an ending! Dying would be a +much more gentlemanly way of meeting the difficulty. Make a will +and leave her a house or two and some stocks, and other little +financial conveniences, to take away her necessity for keeping +school.--I wonder what nice young man's feet would be in my French +slippers before six months were over! Well, what then? If a man +really loves a woman, of course he wouldn't marry her for the +world, if he were not quite sure that he was the best person she +could by any possibility marry. + +--It is odd enough to read over what I have just been writing.--It +is the merest fancy that ever was in the world. I shall never be +married. She will; and if she is as pleasant as she has been so +far, I will give her a silver tea-set, and go and take tea with her +and her husband, sometimes. No coffee, I hope, though,--it +depresses me sadly. I feel very miserably;--they must have been +grinding it at home.--Another morning walk will be good for me, and +I don't doubt the schoolmistress will be glad of a little fresh air +before school. + + +--The throbbing flushes of the poetical intermittent have been +coming over me from time to time of late. Did you ever see that +electrical experiment which consists in passing a flash through +letters of gold-leaf in a darkened room, whereupon some name or +legend springs out of the darkness in characters of fire? + +There are songs all written out in my soul, which I could read, if +the flash might pass through them,--but the fire must come down +from heaven. Ah! but what if the stormy nimbus of youthful passion +has blown by, and one asks for lightning from the ragged cirrus of +dissolving aspirations, or the silvered cumulus of sluggish +satiety? I will call on her whom the dead poets believed in, whom +living ones no longer worship,--the immortal maid, who, name her +what you will,--Goddess, Muse, Spirit of Beauty,--sits by the +pillow of every youthful poet, and bends over his pale forehead +until her tresses lie upon his cheek and rain their gold into his +dreams. + + +MUSA. + +O my lost Beauty!--hast thou folded quite +Thy wings of morning light +Beyond those iron gates +Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates, +And Age upon his mound of ashes waits +To chill our fiery dreams, +Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams? + +Leave me not fading in these weeds of care, +Whose flowers are silvered hair!-- +Have I not loved thee long, +Though my young lips have often done thee wrong +And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song? +Ah, wilt thou yet return, +Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn? + +Come to me!--I will flood thy silent shine +With my soul's sacred wine, +And heap thy marble floors +As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores +In leafy islands walled with madrepores +And lapped in Orient seas, +When all their feathery palm toss, plume-like, in the breeze. + +Come to me!--thou shalt feed on honied words, +Sweeter than song of birds;-- +No wailing bulbul's throat, +No melting dulcimer's melodious note, +When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float, +Thy ravished sense might soothe +With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth. + +Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen, +Sought in those bowers of green +Where loop the clustered vines +And the close-clinging dulcamara twines,-- +Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines, +And Summer's fruited gems, +And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems. + +Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves,-- +Or stretched by grass-grown graves, +Whose gray, high-shouldered stones, +Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns, +Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones +Still slumbering where they lay +While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away. + +Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing! +Still let me dream and sing,-- +Dream of that winding shore +Where scarlet cardinals bloom,--for me no more,-- +The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor, +And clustering nenuphars +Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars! + +Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed!-- +Come while the rose is red,-- +While blue-eyed Summer smiles +On the green ripples round you sunken piles +Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles, +And on the sultry air +The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer! + +Oh, for thy burning lips to fire my brain +With thrills of wild sweet pain!-- +On life's autumnal blast, +Like shrivelled leaves, youth's, passion-flowers are cast,-- +Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!-- +Behold thy new-decked shrine, +And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!" + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + +[The company looked a little flustered one morning when I came in, +--so much so, that I inquired of my neighbor, the divinity-student,) +what had been going on. It appears that the young fellow whom they +call John had taken advantage of my being a little late (I having +been rather longer than usual dressing that morning) to circulate +several questions involving a quibble or play upon words,--in +short, containing that indignity to the human understanding, +condemned in the passages from the distinguished moralist of the +last century and the illustrious historian of the present, which I +cited on a former occasion, and known as a PUN. After breakfast, +one of the boarders handed me a small roll of paper containing some +of the questions and their answers. I subjoin two or three of +them, to show what a tendency there is to frivolity and meaningless +talk in young persons of a certain sort, when not restrained by the +presence of more reflective natures.--It was asked, "Why tertian +and quartan fevers were like certain short-lived insects." Some +interesting physiological relation would be naturally suggested. +The inquirer blushes to find that the answer is in the paltry +equivocation, that they SKIP a day or two.--"Why an Englishman must +go to the Continent to weaken his grog or punch." The answer +proves to have no relation whatever to the temperance-movement, as +no better reason is given than that island--(or, as it is absurdly +written, ILE AND) water won't mix.--But when I came to the next +question and its answer, I felt that patience ceased to be a +virtue. "Why an onion is like a piano" is a query that a person of +sensibility would be slow to propose; but that in an educated +community an individual could be found to answer it in these +words,--"Because it smell odious," quasi, it's melodious,--is not +credible, but too true. I can show you the paper. + +Dear reader, I beg your pardon for repeating such things. I know +most conversations reported in books are altogether above such +trivial details, but folly will come up at every table as surely as +purslain and chickweed and sorrel will come up in gardens. This +young fellow ought to have talked philosophy, I know perfectly +well; but he didn't,--he made jokes.] + +I am willing,--I said,--to exercise your ingenuity in a rational +and contemplative manner.--No, I do not proscribe certain forms of +philosophical speculation which involve an approach to the absurd +or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio +of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous Disputations, +"De Sancto Matrimonio." I will therefore turn this levity of yours +to profit by reading you a rhymed problem, wrought out by my friend +the Professor. + + +THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE: +OR THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS-SHAY." +A LOGICAL STORY. + +Have you heard of the wonderful one-shay, +That was built in such a logical way +It ran a hundred years to a day, +And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay, +I'll tell you what happened without delay, +Scaring the parson into fits, +Frightening people out of their wits,-- +Have you ever heard of that, I say? + +Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. +Georgius Secundus was then alive,-- +Snuffy old drone from the German hive. +That was the year when Lisbon-town +Saw the earth open and gulp her down, +And Braddock's army was done so brown, +Left without a scalp to its crown. +It was on the terrible Earthquake-day +That the Deacon finished the one-hoss-shay. + +Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, +There is always SOMEWHERE a weakest spot,-- +In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, +In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, +In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still +Find it somewhere you must and will,-- +Above or below, or within or without,-- +And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, +A chaise BREASTS DOWN, but doesn't WEAR OUT. + +But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, +With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell YEOU,") +He would build one shay to beat the taown +'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun'; +It should be so built that it COULDN' break daown-- +--"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain +Thut the weakes' place mus' stan the strain; +'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, +Is only jest +T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." + +So the Deacon inquired of the village folk +Where he could find the strongest oak, +That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,-- +That was for spokes and floor and sills; +He sent for lancewood to make the thills; +The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees; +The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, +But lasts like iron for things like these; +The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"-- +Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em, +Never an axe had seen their chips, +And the wedges flew from between their lips, +Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; +Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, +Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, +Steel of the finest, bright and blue; +Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; +Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide +Found in the pit when the tanner died. +That was the way he "put her through."-- +"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew." + +Do! I tell you, I father guess +She was a wonder, and nothing less! +Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, +Deacon and deaconess dropped away, +Children and grand-children--where were they? +But there stood the stout old one-hoss-shay +As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day! + +EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;--it came and found +The Deacon's Masterpiece strong and sound. +Eighteen hundred increased by ten;-- +"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. +Eighteen hundred and twenty came;-- +Running as usual; much the same. +Thirty and forty at last arrive, +And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE. + +Little of all we value here +Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year +Without both feeling and looking queer. +In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, +So far as I know, but a tree and truth. +(This is a moral that runs at large; +Take it.--You're welcome.--No extra charge.) + +FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake-day.-- +There are traces of age in the one-hoss-shay. +A general flavor of mild decay, +But nothing local, as one may say. +There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art +Had made it so like in every part +That there wasn't a chance for one to start. +For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, +And the floor was just as strong as the sills, +And the panels just as strong as the floor, +And the whippletree neither less nor more, +And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, +And spring and axle and hub encore. +And yet, AS A WHOLE, it is past a doubt +In another hour it will be WORN OUT! + +First of November, 'Fifty-five! +This morning the parson takes a drive. +Now, small boys, get out of the way! +Here comes the wonderful one-horse-shay, +Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. +"Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they. + +The parson was working his Sunday's text,-- +Had got to FIFTHLY, and stopped perplexed +At what the--Moses--was coming next. +All at once the horse stood still, +Close by the meet'n-house on the hill. +--First a shiver, and then a thrill, +Then something decidedly like a spill,-- +And the parson was sitting upon a rock, +At half-past nine by the meet'n-house clock,-- +Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! +--What do you think the parson found, +When he got up and stared around? +The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, +As if it had been to the mill and ground! +You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, +How it went to pieces all at once,-- +All at once, and nothing first,-- +Just as bubbles do when they burst. + +End of the wonderful one-hoss-shay. +Logic is logic. That's all I say. + + +--I think there is one habit,--I said to our company a day or two +afterwards--worse than that of punning. It is the gradual +substitution of cant or flash terms for words which truly +characterize their objects. I have known several very genteel +idiots whose whole vocabulary had deliquesced into some half dozen +expressions. All things fell into one of two great categories, +--FAST or SLOW. Man's chief end was to be a BRICK. When the great +calamities of life overtook their friends, these last were spoken +of as being a GOOD DEAL CUT UP. Nine-tenths of human existence +were summed up in the single word, BORE. These expressions come to +be the algebraic symbols of minds which have grown too weak or +indolent to discriminate. They are the blank checks of +intellectual bankruptcy;--you may fill them up with what idea you +like; it makes no difference, for there are no funds in the +treasury upon which they are drawn. Colleges and good-for-nothing +smoking-clubs are the places where these conversational fungi +spring up most luxuriantly. Don't think I undervalue the proper +use and application of a cant word or phrase. It adds piquancy to +conversation, as a mushroom does to a sauce. But it is no better +than a toadstool, odious to the sense and poisonous to the +intellect, when it spawns itself all over the talk of men and +youths capable of talking, as it sometimes does. As we hear flash +phraseology, it is commonly the dishwater from the washings of +English dandyism, school-boy or full-grown, wrung out of a +three-volume novel which had sopped it up, or decanted from the +pictured urn of Mr. Verdant Green, and diluted to suit the provincial +climate. + +--The young fellow called John spoke up sharply and said, it was +"rum" to hear me "pitchin' into fellers" for "goin' it in the slang +line," when I used all the flash words myself just when I pleased. + +--I replied with my usual forbearance.--Certainly, to give up the +algebraic symbol, because A or B is often a cover for ideal +nihility, would be unwise. I have heard a child laboring to +express a certain condition, involving a hitherto undescribed +sensation (as it supposed,) all of which could have been +sufficiently explained by the participle--BORED. I have seen a +country-clergyman, with a one-story intellect and a one-horse +vocabulary, who has consumed his valuable time (and mine) freely, +in developing an opinion of a brother-minister's discourse which +would have been abundantly characterized by a peach-down-lipped +sophomore in the one word--SLOW. Let us discriminate, and be shy +of absolute proscription. I am omniverbivorous by nature and +training. Passing by such words as are poisonous, I can swallow +most others, and chew such as I cannot swallow. + +Dandies are not good for much, but they are good for something. +They invent or keep in circulation those conversational blank +checks or counters just spoken of, which intellectual capitalists +may sometimes find it worth their while to borrow of them. They +are useful, too, in keeping up the standard of dress, which, but +for them, would deteriorate, and become, what some old fools would +have it, a matter of convenience, and not of taste and art. Yes, I +like dandies well enough,--on one condition. + +--What is that, Sir?--said the divinity-student. + +--That they have pluck. I find that lies at the bottom of all true +dandyism. A little boy dressed up very fine, who puts his finger +in his mouth and takes to crying, if other boys make fun of him, +looks very silly. But if he turns red in the face and knotty in +the fists, and makes an example of the biggest of his assailants, +throwing off his fine Leghorn and his thickly-buttoned jacket, if +necessary, to consummate the act of justice, his small toggery +takes on the splendors of the crested helmet that frightened +Astyanax. You remember that the Duke said his dandy officers were +his best officers. The "Sunday blood," the super-superb sartorial +equestrian of our annual Fast-day, is not imposing or dangerous. +But such fellows as Brummel and D'Orsay and Byron are not to be +snubbed quite so easily. Look out for "la main de fer sous le gant +de velours," (which I printed in English the other day without +quotation-marks, thinking whether any scarabaeus criticus would add +this to his globe and roll in glory with it into the newspapers, +--which he didn't do it, in the charming pleonasm of the London +language, and therefore I claim the sole merit of exposing the +same.) A good many powerful and dangerous people have had a +decided dash of dandyism about them. There was Alcibiades, the +"curled son of Clinias," an accomplished young man, but what would +be called a "swell" in these days. There was Aristoteles, a very +distinguished writer, of whom you have heard,--a philosopher, in +short, whom it took centuries to learn, centuries to unlearn, and +is now going to take a generation or more to learn over again. +Regular dandy, he was. So was Marcus Antonius; and though he lost +his game, he played for big stakes, and it wasn't his dandyism that +spoiled his chance. Petrarca was not to be despised as a scholar +or a poet, but he was one of the same sort. So was Sir Humphrey +Davy; so was Lord Palmerston, formerly, if I am not forgetful. +Yes,--a dandy is good for something as such; and dandies such as I +was just speaking of have rocked this planet like a cradle,--aye, +and left it swinging to this day.--Still, if I were you, I wouldn't +go to the tailor's, on the strength of these remarks, and run up a +long bill which will render pockets a superfluity in your next +suit. Elegans "nascitur, non fit." A man is born a dandy, as he +is born a poet. There are heads that can't wear hats; there are +necks that can't fit cravats; there are jaws that can't fill out +collars--(Willis touched this last point in one of his earlier +ambrotypes, if I remember rightly); there are tournures nothing can +humanize, and movements nothing can subdue to the gracious suavity +or elegant languor or stately serenity which belong to different +styles of dandyism. + +We are forming an aristocracy, as you may observe, in this +country,--not a gratia-Dei, nor a juredivino one,--but a de-facto +upper stratum of being, which floats over the turbid waves of +common life like the iridescent film you may have seen spreading +over the water about our wharves,--very splendid, though its origin +may have been tar, tallow, train-oil, or other such unctuous +commodities. I say, then, we are forming an aristocracy; and, +transitory as its individual life often is, it maintains itself +tolerably, as a whole. Of course, money is its corner-stone. But +now observe this. Money kept for two or three generations +transforms a race,--I don't mean merely in manners and hereditary +culture, but in blood and bone. Money buys air and sunshine, in +which children grow up more kindly, of course, than in close, back +streets; it buys country-places to give them happy and healthy +summers, good nursing, good doctoring, and the best cuts of beef +and mutton. When the spring-chickens come to market--I beg your +pardon,--that is not what I was going to speak of. As the young +females of each successive season come on, the finest specimens +among them, other things being equal, are apt to attract those who +can afford the expensive luxury of beauty. The physical character +of the next generation rises in consequence. It is plain that +certain families have in this way acquired an elevated type of face +and figure, and that in a small circle of city-connections one may +sometimes find models of both sexes which one of the rural counties +would find it hard to match from all its townships put together. +Because there is a good deal of running down, of degeneration and +waste of life, among the richer classes, you must not overlook the +equally obvious fact I have just spoken of,--which in one or two +generations more will be, I think, much more patent than just now. + +The weak point in our chryso-aristocracy is the same I have alluded +to in connection with cheap dandyism. Its thorough manhood, its +high-caste gallantry, are not so manifest as the plate-glass of +its windows and the more or less legitimate heraldry of its +coach-panels. It is very curious to observe of how small account +military folks are held among our Northern people. Our young men +must gild their spurs, but they need not win them. The equal +division of property keeps the younger sons of rich people above +the necessity of military service. Thus the army loses an element +of refinement, and the moneyed upper class forgets what it is to +count heroism among its virtues. Still I don't believe in any +aristocracy without pluck as its backbone. Ours may show it when +the time comes, if it ever does come. + +--These United States furnish the greatest market for intellectual +GREEN FRUIT of all the places in the world. I think so, at any +rate. The demand for intellectual labor is so enormous and the +market so far from nice, that young talent is apt to fare like +unripe gooseberries,--get plucked to make a fool of. Think of a +country which buys eighty thousand copies of the "Proverbial +Philosophy," while the author's admiring countrymen have been +buying twelve thousand! How can one let his fruit hang in the sun +until it gets fully ripe, while there are eighty thousand such +hungry mouths ready to swallow it and proclaim its praises? +Consequently, there never was such a collection of crude pippins +and half-grown windfalls as our native literature displays among +its fruits. There are literary green-groceries at every corner, +which will buy anything, from a button-pear to a pine-apple. It +takes a long apprenticeship to train a whole people to reading and +writing. The temptation of money and fame is too great for young +people. Do I not remember that glorious moment when the late Mr.---- +we won't say who,--editor of the--we won't say what, offered me the +sum of fifty cents per double-columned quarto page for shaking my +young boughs over his foolscap apron? Was it not an intoxicating +vision of gold and glory? I should doubtless have revelled in its +wealth and splendor, but for learning that the FIFTY CENTS was to +be considered a rhetorical embellishment, and by no means a literal +expression of past fact or present intention. + +--Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative +virtues. It is good to abstain, and teach others to abstain, from +all that is sinful or hurtful. But making a business of it leads +to emaciation of character, unless one feeds largely also on the +more nutritious diet of active sympathetic benevolence. + +--I don't believe one word of what you are saying,--spoke up the +angular female in black bombazine. + +I am sorry you disbelieve it, Madam,--I said, and added softly to +my next neighbor,--but you prove it. + +The young fellow sitting near me winked; and the divinity-student +said, in an undertone,--Optime dictum. + +Your talking Latin,--said I,--reminds me of an odd trick of one of +my old tutors. He read so much of that language, that his English +half turned into it. He got caught in town, one hot summer, in +pretty close quarters, and wrote, or began to write, a series of +city pastorals. Eclogues he called them, and meant to have +published them by subscription. I remember some of his verses, if +you want to hear them.--You, Sir, (addressing myself to the +divinity-student,) and all such as have been through college, or, +what is the same thing, received an honorary degree, will +understand them without a dictionary. The old man had a great deal +to say about "aestivation," as he called it, in opposition, as one +might say, to hibernation. Intramural aestivation, or town-life in +summer, he would say, is a peculiar form of suspended existence, or +semi-asphyxia. One wakes up from it about the beginning of the +last week in September. This is what I remember of his poem:- + + +AESTIVATION. + +An Unpublished Poem, by my late Latin Tutor + +In candent ire the solar splendor flames; +The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames; +His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes, +And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes. + +How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes, +Dorm on the herb with none to supervise, +Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine, +And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine! + +To me, alas! no verdurous visions come, +Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum,-- +No concave vast repeats the tender hue +That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue! + +Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades +Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids! +Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,-- +Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump! + + +--I have lived by the sea-shore and by the mountains.--No, I am not +going to say which is best. The one where your place is is the +best for you. But this difference there is: you can domesticate +mountains, but the sea is ferae naturae. You may have a hut, or +know the owner of one, on the mountain-side; you see a light +half-way up its ascent in the evening, and you know there is a home, +and you might share it. You have noted certain trees, perhaps; you +know the particular zone where the hemlocks look so black in +October, when the maples and beeches have faded. All its reliefs +and intaglios have electrotyped themselves in the medallions that +hang round the walls of your memory's chamber.--The sea remembers +nothing. It is feline. It licks your feet,--its huge flanks purr +very pleasantly for you; but it will crack your bones and eat you, +for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws as if +nothing had happened. The mountains give their lost children +berries and water; the sea mocks their thirst and lets them die. +The mountains have a grand, stupid, lovable tranquillity; the sea +has a fascinating, treacherous intelligence. The mountains lie +about like huge ruminants, their broad backs awful to look upon, +but safe to handle. The sea smooths its silver scales until you +cannot see their joints,--but their shining is that of a snake's +belly, after all.--In deeper suggestiveness I find as great a +difference. The mountains dwarf mankind and foreshorten the +procession of its long generations. The sea drowns out humanity +and time; it has no sympathy with either; for it belongs to +eternity, and of that it sings its monotonous song forever and +ever. + +Yet I should love to have a little box by the seashore. I should +love to gaze out on the wild feline element from a front window of +my own, just as I should love to look on a caged panther, and see +it, stretch its shining length, and then curl over and lap its +smooth sides, and by-and-by begin to lash itself into rage and show +its white teeth and spring at its bars, and howl the cry of its +mad, but, to me, harmless fury.--And then,--to look at it with that +inward eye,--who does not love to shuffle off time and its +concerns, at intervals,--to forget who is President and who is +Governor, what race he belongs to, what language he speaks, which +golden-headed nail of the firmament his particular planetary system +is hung upon, and listen to the great liquid metronome as it beats +its solemn measure, steadily swinging when the solo or duet of +human life began, and to swing just as steadily after the human +chorus has died out and man is a fossil on its shores? + +--What should decide one, in choosing a summer residence? +--Constitution, first of all. How much snow could you melt in an +hour, if you were planted in a hogshead of it? Comfort is +essential to enjoyment. All sensitive people should remember that +persons in easy circumstances suffer much more cold in summer--that +is, the warm half of the year--than in winter, or the other half. +You must cut your climate to your constitution, as much as your +clothing to your shape. After this, consult your taste and +convenient. But if you would be happy in Berkshire, you must carry +mountains in your brain; and if you would enjoy Nahant, you must +have an ocean in your soul. Nature plays at dominos with you; you +must match her piece, or she will never give it up to you. + +--The schoolmistress said, in a rather mischievous way, that she +was afraid some minds or souls would be a little crowded, if they +took in the Rocky Mountains or the Atlantic. + +Have you ever read the little book called "The Stars and the +Earth?"--said I.--Have you seen the Declaration of Independence +photographed in a surface that a fly's foot would cover? The forms +or conditions of Time and Space, as Kant will tell you, are nothing +in themselves,--only our way of looking at things. You are right, +I think, however, in recognizing the category of Space as being +quite as applicable to minds as to the outer world. Every man of +reflection is vaguely conscious of an imperfectly-defined circle +which is drawn about his intellect. He has a perfectly clear sense +that the fragments of his intellectual circle include the curves of +many other minds of which he is cognizant. He often recognizes +these as manifestly concentric with his own, but of less radius. +On the other hand, when we find a portion of an are on the outside +of our own, we say it INTERSECTS ours, but are very slow to confess +or to see that it CIRCUMSCRIBES it. Every now and then a man's +mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks +back to its former dimensions. After looking at the Alps, I felt +that my mind had been stretched beyond the limits of its +elasticity, and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I +had to spread these to fit it. + +--If I thought I should ever see the Alps!--said the +schoolmistress. + +Perhaps you will, some time or other,--I said. + +It is not very likely,--she answered.--I have had one or two +opportunities, but I had rather be anything than governess in a +rich family. + +[Proud, too, you little soft-voiced woman! Well, I can't say I +like you any the worse for it. How long will school-keeping take +to kill you? Is it possible the poor thing works with her needle, +too? I don't like those marks on the side of her forefinger. + +Tableau. Chamouni. Mont Blanc in full view. Figures in the +foreground; two of them standing apart; one of them a gentleman +of--oh,--ah,--yes! the other a lady in a white cashmere, leaning on +his shoulder.--The ingenuous reader will understand that this was +an internal, private, personal, subjective diorama, seen for one +instant on the background of my own consciousness, and abolished +into black nonentity by the first question which recalled me to +actual life, as suddenly as if one of those iron shop-blinds (which +I always pass at dusk with a shiver, expecting to stumble over some +poor but honest shop-boy's head, just taken off by its sudden and +unexpected descent, and left outside upon the sidewalk) had come +down in front of it "by the run."] + +--Should you like to hear what moderate wishes life brings one to +at last? I used to be very ambitious,--wasteful, extravagant, and +luxurious in all my fancies. Read too much in the "Arabian +Nights." Must have the lamp,--couldn't do without the ring. +Exercise every morning on the brazen horse. Plump down into +castles as full of little milk-white princesses as a nest is of +young sparrows. All love me dearly at once.--Charming idea of +life, but too high-colored for the reality. I have outgrown all +this; my tastes have become exceedingly primitive,--almost, +perhaps, ascetic. We carry happiness into our condition, but must +not hope to find it there. I think you will be willing to hear +some lines which embody the subdued and limited desires of my +maturity. + + +CONTENTMENT. + +"Man wants but little here below." + +Little I ask, my wants are few; +I only wish a hut of stone, +(A VERY PLAIN brown stone will do,) +That I may call my own;-- +And close at hand is such a one, +In yonder street that fronts the sun. + +Plain food is quite enough for me; +Three courses are as good as ten;-- +If Nature can subsist on three, +Thank heaven for three. Amen! +I always thought cold victual nice;-- +My CHOICE would be vanilla-ice. + +I care not much for gold or land;-- +Give me a mortgage here and there,-- +Some good bank-stock,--some note of hand, +Or trifling railroad share;-- +I only ask that Fortune send +A LITTLE more than I shall spend. + +Honors are silly toys, I know, +And titles are but empty names;-- +I would, PERHAPS, be Plenipo,-- +But only near St. James;-- +I'm very sure I should not care +To fill our Gubernator's chair. + +Jewels are baubles; 'tis a sin +To care for such unfruitful things;-- +One good-sized diamond in a pin,-- +Some, NOT SO LARGE, in rings,-- +A ruby and a pearl, or so, +Will do for me;--I laugh at show. + +My dame should dress in cheap attire; +(Good, heavy silks are never dear;)-- +I own perhaps I MIGHT desire +Some shawls of true cashmere,-- +Some marrowy crapes of China silk, +Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk. + +I would not have the horse I drive +So fast that folks must stop and stare +An easy gait--two, forty-five-- +Suits me; I do not care;-- +Perhaps, for just a SINGLE SPURT, +Some seconds less would do no hurt. + +Of pictures, I should like to own +Titians and Raphaels three or four,-- +I love so much their style and tone,-- +One Turner, and no more,-- +(A landscape,--foreground golden dirt +The sunshine painted with a squirt.) + +Of books but few,--some fifty score +For daily use, and bound for wear; +The rest upon an upper floor;-- +Some LITTLE luxury THERE +Of red morocco's gilded gleam, +And vellum rich as country cream. + +Busts, cameos, gems,--such things as these, +Which others often show for pride, +_I_ value for their power to please, +And selfish churls deride;-- +ONE Stradivarius, I confess, +TWO Meerschaums, I would fain possess. + +Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, +Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;-- +Shall not carved tables serve my turn, +But ALL must be of buhl? +Give grasping pomp its double share,-- +I ask but ONE recumbent chair. + +Thus humble let me live and die, +Nor long for Midas' golden touch, +If Heaven more generous gifts deny, +I shall not miss them MUCH,-- +Too grateful for the blessing lent +Of simple tastes and mind content! + + +MY LAST WALK WITH THE SCHOOLMISTRESS. +(A Parenthesis.) + +I can't say just how many walks she and I had taken together before +this one. I found the effect of going out every morning was +decidedly favorable on her health. Two pleasing dimples, the +places for which were just marked when she came, played, shadowy, +in her freshening cheeks when she smiled and nodded good-morning to +me from the school-house-steps. + +I am afraid I did the greater part of the talking. At any rate, if +I should try to report all that I said during the first half-dozen +walks we took together, I fear that I might receive a gentle hint +from my friends the publishers, that a separate volume, at my own +risk and expense, would be the proper method of bringing them +before the public. + +--I would have a woman as true as Death. At the first real lie +which works from the heart outward, she should be tenderly +chloroformed into a better world, where she can have an angel for a +governess, and feed on strange fruits which will make her all over +again, even to her bones and marrow.--Whether gifted with the +accident of beauty or not, she should have been moulded in the +rose-red clay of Love, before the breath of life made a moving +mortal of her. Love-capacity is a congenital endowment; and I +think, after a while, one gets to know the warm-hued natures it +belongs to from the pretty pipe-clay counterfeits of them.--Proud +she may be, in the sense of respecting herself; but pride in the +sense of contemning others less gifted than herself, deserves the +two lowest circles of a vulgar woman's Inferno, where the +punishments are Smallpox and Bankruptcy.--She who nips off the end +of a brittle courtesy, as one breaks the tip of an icicle, to +bestow upon those whom she ought cordially and kindly to recognize, +proclaims the fact that she comes not merely of low blood, but of +bad blood. Consciousness of unquestioned position makes people +gracious in proper measure to all; but if a woman puts on airs with +her real equals, she has something about herself or her family she +is ashamed of, or ought to be. Middle, and more than middle-aged +people, who know family histories, generally see through it. An +official of standing was rude to me once. Oh, that is the maternal +grandfather,--said a wise old friend to me,--he was a boor.--Better +too few words, from the woman we love, than too many: while she is +silent, Nature is working for her; while she talks, she is working +for herself.--Love is sparingly soluble in the words of men; +therefore they speak much of it; but one syllable of woman's speech +can dissolve more of it than a man's heart can hold. + +--Whether I said any or all of these things to the schoolmistress, +or not,--whether I stole them out of Lord Bacon,--whether I cribbed +them from Balzac,--whether I dipped them from the ocean of +Tupperian wisdom,--or whether I have just found them in my head, +laid there by that solemn fowl, Experience, (who, according to my +observation, cackles oftener than she drops real live eggs,) I +cannot say. Wise men have said more foolish things,--and foolish +men, I don't doubt, have said as wise things. Anyhow, the +schoolmistress and I had pleasant walks and long talks, all of +which I do not feel bound to report. + +--You are a stranger to me, Ma'am.--I don't doubt you would like to +know all I said to the schoolmistress.--I sha'n't do it;--I had +rather get the publishers to return the money you have invested in +this. Besides, I have forgotten a good deal of it. I shall tell +only what I like of what I remember. + +--My idea was, in the first place, to search out the picturesque +spots which the city affords a sight of, to those who have eyes. I +know a good many, and it was a pleasure to look at them in company +with my young friend. There were the shrubs and flowers in the +Franklin-Place front-yards or borders; Commerce is just putting his +granite foot upon them. Then there are certain small seraglio- +gardens, into which one can get a peep through the crevices of high +fences,--one in Myrtle Street, or backing on it,--here and there +one at the North and South Ends. Then the great elms in Essex +Street. Then the stately horse-chestnuts in that vacant lot in +Chambers Street, which hold their outspread hands over your head, +(as I said in my poem the other day,) and look as if they were +whispering, "May grace, mercy, and peace be with you!"--and the +rest of that benediction. Nay, there are certain patches of +ground, which, having lain neglected for a time, Nature, who always +has her pockets full of seeds, and holes in all her pockets, has +covered with hungry plebeian growths, which fight for life with +each other, until some of them get broad-leaved and succulent, and +you have a coarse vegetable tapestry which Raphael would not have +disdained to spread over the foreground of his masterpiece. The +Professor pretends that he found such a one in Charles Street, +which, in its dare-devil impudence of rough-and-tumble vegetation, +beat the pretty-behaved flower-beds of the Public Garden as +ignominiously as a group of young tatterdemalions playing +pitch-and-toss beats a row of Sunday-school-boys with their +teacher at their head. + +But then the Professor has one of his burrows in that region, and +puts everything in high colors relating to it. That is his way +about everything. I hold any man cheap,--he said,--of whom nothing +stronger can be uttered than that all his geese are swans.--How is +that, Professor?--said I;--I should have set you down for one of +that sort.--Sir,--said he,--I am proud to say, that Nature has so +far enriched me, that I cannot own so much as a duck without seeing +in it as pretty a swan as ever swam the basin in the garden of the +Luxembourg. And the Professor showed the whites of his eyes +devoutly, like one returning thanks after a dinner of many courses. + +I don't know anything sweeter than this leaking in of Nature +through all the cracks in the walls and floors of cities. You heap +up a million tons of hewn rocks on a square mile or two of earth +which was green once. The trees look down from the hill-sides and +ask each other, as they stand on tiptoe,--"What are these people +about?" And the small herbs at their feet look up and whisper +back,--"We will go and see." So the small herbs pack themselves up +in the least possible bundles, and wait until the wind steals to +them at night and whispers, "Come with me." Then they go softly +with it into the great city,--one to a cleft in the pavement, one +to a spout on the roof, one to a seam in the marbles over a rich +gentleman's bones, and one to the grave without a stone where +nothing but a man is buried,--and there they grow, looking down on +the generations of men from mouldy roofs, looking up from between +the less-trodden pavements, looking out through iron cemetery- +railings. Listen to them, when there is only a light breath +stirring, and you will hear them saying to each other,--"Wait +awhile!" The words run along the telegraph of those narrow green +lines that border the roads leading from the city, until they reach +the slope of the hills, and the trees repeat in low murmurs to each +other,--"Wait awhile!" By-and-by the flow of life in the streets +ebbs, and the old leafy inhabitants--the smaller tribes always in +front--saunter in, one by one, very careless seemingly, but very +tenacious, until they swarm so that the great stones gape from each +other with the crowding of their roots, and the feldspar begins to +be picked out of the granite to find them food. At last the trees +take up their solemn line of march, and never rest until they have +encamped in the market-place. Wait long enough and you will find +an old doting oak hugging a huge worn block in its yellow +underground arms; that was the cornerstone of the State-House. Oh, +so patient she is, this imperturbable Nature! + +--Let us cry!-- + +But all this has nothing to do with my walks and talks with the +schoolmistress. I did not say that I would not tell you something +about them. Let me alone, and I shall talk to you more than I +ought to, probably. We never tell our secrets to people that pump +for them. + +Books we talked about, and education. It was her duty to know +something of these, and of course she did. Perhaps I was somewhat +more learned than she, but I found that the difference between her +reading and mine was like that of a man's and a woman's dusting a +library. The man flaps about with a bunch of feathers; the woman +goes to work softly with a cloth. She does not raise half the +dust, nor fill her own eyes and mouth with it,--but she goes into +all the corners, and attends to the leaves as much as the covers. +--Books are the NEGATIVE pictures of thought, and the more sensitive +the mind that receives their images, the more nicely the finest +lines are reproduced. A woman, (of the right kind,) reading after +a man, follows him as Ruth followed the reapers of Boaz, and her +gleanings are often the finest of the wheat. + +But it was in talking of Life that we came most clearly together. +I thought I knew something about that,--that I could speak or write +about it somewhat to the purpose. + +To take up this fluid earthly being of ours as a sponge sucks up +water,--to be steeped and soaked in its realities as a hide fills +its pores lying seven years in a tan-pit,--to have winnowed every +wave of it as a mill-wheel works up the stream that runs through +the flume upon its float-boards,--to have curled up in the keenest +spasms and flattened out in the laxest languors of this breathing- +sickness, which keeps certain parcels of matter uneasy for three or +four score years,--to have fought all the devils and clasped all +the angels of its delirium,--and then, just at the point when the +white-hot passions have cooled down to cherry-red, plunge our +experience into the ice-cold stream of some human language or +other, one might think would end in a rhapsody with something of +spring and temper in it. All this I thought my power and province. + +The schoolmistress had tried life, too. Once in a while one meets +with a single soul greater than all the living pageant which passes +before it. As the pale astronomer sits in his study with sunken +eyes and thin fingers, and weighs Uranus or Neptune as in a +balance, so there are meek, slight women who have weighed all which +this planetary life can offer, and hold it like a bauble in the +palm of their slender hands. This was one of them. Fortune had +left her, sorrow had baptized her; the routine of labor and the +loneliness of almost friendless city-life were before her. Yet, as +I looked upon her tranquil face, gradually regaining a cheerfulness +which was often sprightly, as she became interested in the various +matters we talked about and places we visited, I saw that eye and +lip and every shifting lineament were made for love,--unconscious +of their sweet office as yet, and meeting the cold aspect of Duty +with the natural graces which were meant for the reward of nothing +less than the Great Passion. + +--I never addressed one word of love to the schoolmistress in the +course of these pleasant walks. It seemed to me that we talked of +everything but love on that particular morning. There was, +perhaps, a little more timidity and hesitancy on my part than I +have commonly shown among our people at the boarding-house. In +fact, I considered myself the master at the breakfast-table; but, +somehow, I could not command myself just then so well as usual. +The truth is, I had secured a passage to Liverpool in the steamer +which was to leave at noon,--with the condition, however, of being +released in case circumstances occurred to detain me. The +schoolmistress knew nothing about all this, of course, as yet. + +It was on the Common that we were walking. The MALL, or boulevard +of our Common, you know, has various branches leading from it in +different directions. One of these runs down from opposite Joy +Street southward across the whole length of the Common to Boylston +Street. We called it the long path, and were fond of it. + +I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably robust habit) as we +came opposite the head of this path on that morning. I think I +tried to speak twice without making myself distinctly audible. At +last I got out the question,--Will you take the long path with me? +--Certainly,--said the schoolmistress,--with much pleasure.--Think, +--I said,--before you answer; if you take the long path with +me now, I shall interpret it that we are to part no more!--The +schoolmistress stepped back with a sudden movement, as if an arrow +had struck her. + +One of the long granite blocks used as seats was hard by,--the one +you may still see close by the Gingko-tree.--Pray, sit down,--I +said.--No, no, she answered, softly,--I will walk the LONG PATH +with you! + +--The old gentleman who sits opposite met us walking, arm in arm, +about the middle of the long path, and said, very charmingly, +--"Good morning, my dears!" + + + +CHAPTER XII + + + +[I did not think it probable that I should have a great many more +talks with our company, and therefore I was anxious to get as much +as I could into every conversation. That is the reason why you +will find some odd, miscellaneous facts here, which I wished to +tell at least once, as I should not have a chance to tell them +habitually at our breakfast-table.--We're very free and easy, you +know; we don't read what we don't like. Our parish is so large, +one can't pretend to preach to all the pews at once. One can't be +all the time trying to do the best of one's best if a company works +a steam fire-engine, the firemen needn't be straining themselves +all day to squirt over the top of the flagstaff. Let them wash +some of those lower-story windows a little. Besides, there is no +use in our quarrelling now, as you will find out when you get +through this paper.] + +--Travel, according to my experience, does not exactly correspond +to the idea one gets of it out of most books of travels. I am +thinking of travel as it was when I made the Grand Tour, especially +in Italy. Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes +it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it +without sticking. I can prove some facts about travelling by a +story or two. There are certain principles to be assumed,--such +as these:--He who is carried by horses must deal with rogues. +--To-day's dinner subtends a larger visual angle than yesterday's +revolution. A mote in my eye is bigger to me than the biggest of +Dr. Gould's private planets.--Every traveller is a self-taught +entomologist.--Old jokes are dynamometers of mental tension; an old +joke tells better among friends travelling than at home,--which +shows that their minds are in a state of diminished, rather than +increased vitality. There was a story about "strahps to your +pahnts," which was vastly funny to us fellows--on the road from +Milan to Venice.--Caelum, non animum,--travellers change their +guineas, but not their characters. The bore is the same, eating +dates under the cedars of Lebanon, as over a plate of baked beans +in Beacon Street.--Parties of travellers have a morbid instinct for +"establishing raws" upon each other.--A man shall sit down with his +friend at the foot of the Great Pyramid and they will take up the +question they had been talking about under "the great elm," and +forget all about Egypt. When I was crossing the Po, we were all +fighting about the propriety of one fellow's telling another that +his argument was absurd; one maintaining it to be a perfectly +admissible logical term, as proved by the phrase "reductio ad +absurdum;" the rest badgering him as a conversational bully. +Mighty little we troubled ourselves for Padus, the Po, "a river +broader and more rapid than the Rhone," and the times when Hannibal +led his grim Africans to its banks, and his elephants thrust their +trunks into the yellow waters over which that pendulum ferry-boat +was swinging back and forward every ten minutes! + +--Here are some of those reminiscences, with morals prefixed, or +annexed, or implied. + +Lively emotions very commonly do not strike us full in front, but +obliquely from the side; a scene or incident in UNDRESS often +affects us more than one in full costume. + + +"Is this the mighty ocean?--is this all?" + + +says the Princess in Gebir. The rush that should have flooded my +soul in the Coliseum did not come. But walking one day in the +fields about the city, I stumbled over a fragment of broken +masonry, and lo! the World's Mistress in her stone girdle--alta +maenia Romae--rose before me and whitened my cheek with her pale +shadow as never before or since. + +I used very often, when coming home from my morning's work at one +of the public institutions of Paris, to stop in at the dear old +church of St. Etienne du Mont. The tomb of St. Genevieve, +surrounded by burning candles and votive tablets, was there; the +mural tablet of Jacobus Benignus Winslow was there; there was a +noble organ with carved figures; the pulpit was borne on the oaken +shoulders of a stooping Samson; and there was a marvellous +staircase like a coil of lace. These things I mention from memory, +but not all of them together impressed me so much as an inscription +on a small slab of marble fixed in one of the walls. It told how +this church of St. Stephen was repaired and beautified in the year +16**, and how, during the celebration of its reopening, two girls +of the parish (filles de la paroisse) fell from the gallery, +carrying a part of the balustrade with them, to the pavement, but +by a miracle escaped uninjured. Two young girls, nameless, but +real presences to my imagination, as much as when they came +fluttering down on the tiles with a cry that outscreamed the +sharpest treble in the Te Deum. (Look at Carlyle's article on +Boswell, and see how he speaks of the poor young woman Johnson +talked with in the streets one evening.) All the crowd gone but +these two "filles de la paroisse,"--gone as utterly as the dresses +they wore, as the shoes that were on their feet, as the bread and +meat that were in the market on that day. + +Not the great historical events, but the personal incidents that +call up single sharp pictures of some human being in its pang or +struggle, reach us most nearly. I remember the platform at Berne, +over the parapet of which Theobald Weinzapfli's restive horse +sprung with him and landed him more than a hundred feet beneath in +the lower town, not dead, but sorely broken, and no longer a wild +youth, but God's servant from that day forward. I have forgotten +the famous bears, and all else.--I remember the Percy lion on the +bridge over the little river at Alnwick,--the leaden lion with his +tail stretched out straight like a pump-handle,--and why? Because +of the story of the village boy who must fain bestride the leaden +tail, standing out over the water,--which breaking, he dropped into +the stream far below, and was taken out an idiot for the rest of +his life. + +Arrow-heads must be brought to a sharp point, and the guillotine- +axe must have a slanting edge. Something intensely human, narrow, +and definate pierces to the seat of our sensibilities more readily +than huge occurrences and catastrophes. A nail will pick a lock +that defies hatchet and hammer. "The Royal George" went down with +all her crew, and Cowper wrote an exquisitely simple poem about it; +but the leaf which holds it is smooth, while that which bears the +lines on his mother's portrait is blistered with tears. + +My telling these recollections sets me thinking of others of the +same kind which strike the imagination, especially when one is +still young. You remember the monument in Devizes market to the +woman struck dead with a lie in her mouth. I never saw that, but +it is in the books. Here is one I never heard mentioned;--if any +of the "Note and Query" tribe can tell the story, I hope they will. +Where is this monument? I was riding on an English stage-coach +when we passed a handsome marble column (as I remember it) of +considerable size and pretensions.--What is that?--I said.--That, +--answered the coachman,--is THE HANGMAN'S PILLAR. Then he told me +how a man went out one night, many years ago, to steal sheep. He +caught one, tied its legs together, passed the rope over his head, +and started for home. In climbing a fence, the rope slipped, +caught him by the neck, and strangled him. Next morning he was +found hanging dead on one side of the fence and the sheep on the +other; in memory whereof the lord of the manor caused this monument +to be erected as a warning to all who love mutton better than +virtue. I will send a copy of this record to him or her who shall +first set me right about this column and its locality. + +And telling over these old stories reminds me that I have something +which may interest architects and perhaps some other persons. I +once ascended the spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which is the +highest, I think, in Europe. It is a shaft of stone filigree-work, +frightfully open, so that the guide puts his arms behind you to +keep you from falling. To climb it is a noonday nightmare, and to +think of having climbed it crisps all the fifty-six joints of one's +twenty digits. While I was on it, "pinnacled dim in the intense +inane," a strong wind was blowing, and I felt sure that the spire +was rocking. It swayed back and forward like a stalk of rye or a +cat-o'nine-tails (bulrush) with a bobolink on it. I mentioned it +to the guide, and he said that the spire did really swing back and +forward,--I think he said some feet. + +Keep any line of knowledge ten years and some other line will +intersect it. Long afterwards I was hunting out a paper of +Dumeril's in an old journal,--the "Magazin Encyclopedique" for l'an +troisieme, (1795,) when I stumbled upon a brief article on the +vibrations of the spire of Strasburg Cathedral. A man can shake it +so that the movement shall be shown in a vessel of water nearly +seventy feet below the summit, and higher up the vibration is like +that of an earthquake. I have seen one of those wretched wooden +spires with which we very shabbily finish some of our stone +churches (thinking that the lidless blue eye of heaven cannot tell +the counterfeit we try to pass on it,) swinging like a reed, in a +wind, but one would hardly think of such a thing's happening in a +stone spire. Does the Bunker-Hill Monument bend in the blast like +a blade of grass? I suppose so. + +You see, of course, that I am talking in a cheap way;--perhaps we +will have some philosophy by and by;--let me work out this thin +mechanical vein.--I have something more to say about trees. I have +brought down this slice of hemlock to show you. Tree blew down in +my woods (that were) in 1852. Twelve feet and a half round, fair +girth;--nine feet, where I got my section, higher up. This is a +wedge, going to the centre, of the general shape of a slice of +apple-pie in a large and not opulent family. Length, about +eighteen inches. I have studied the growth of this tree by its +rings, and it is curious. Three hundred and forty-two rings. +Started, therefore, about 1510. The thickness of the rings tells +the rate at which it grew. For five or six years the rate was +slow,--then rapid for twenty years. A little before the year 1550 +it began to grow very slowly, and so continued for about seventy +years. In 1620 it took a new start and grew fast until 1714 then +for the most part slowly until 1786, when it started again and grew +pretty well and uniformly until within the last dozen years, when +it seems to have got on sluggishly. + +Look here. Here are some human lives laid down against the periods +of its growth, to which they corresponded. This is Shakspeare's. +The tree was seven inches in diameter when he was born; ten inches +when he died. A little less than ten inches when Milton was born; +seventeen when he died. Then comes a long interval, and this +thread marks out Johnson's life, during which the tree increased +from twenty-two to twenty-nine inches in diameter. Here is the +span of Napoleon's career;--the tree doesn't seem to have minded +it. + +I never saw the man yet who was not startled at looking on this +section. I have seen many wooden preachers,--never one like this. +How much more striking would be the calendar counted on the rings +of one of those awful trees which were standing when Christ was on +earth, and where that brief mortal life is chronicled with the +stolid apathy of vegetable being, which remembers all human history +as a thing of yesterday in its own dateless existence! + +I have something more to say about elms. A relative tells me there +is one of great glory in Andover, near Bradford. I have some +recollections of the former place, pleasant and other. [I wonder +if the old Seminary clock strikes as slowly as it used to. My +room-mate thought, when he first came, it was the bell tolling +deaths, and people's ages, as they do in the country. He swore +--(ministers' sons get so familiar with good words that they are apt +to handle them carelessly)--that the children were dying by the +dozen, of all ages, from one to twelve, and ran off next day in +recess, when it began to strike eleven, but was caught before the +clock got through striking.] At the foot of "the hill," down in +town, is, or was, a tidy old elm, which was said to have been +hooped with iron to protect it from Indian tomahawks, (Credat +Hahnemannus,) and to have grown round its hoops and buried them in +its wood. Of course, this is not the tree my relative means. + +Also, I have a very pretty letter from Norwich, in Connecticut, +telling me of two noble elms which are to be seen in that town. +One hundred and twenty-seven feet from bough-end to bough-end! +What do you say to that? And gentle ladies beneath it, that love +it and celebrate its praises! And that in a town of such supreme, +audacious, Alpine loveliness as Norwich!--Only the dear people +there must learn to call it Norridge, and not be misled by the mere +accident of spelling. + +NorWICH. +PorCHmouth. +CincinnatAH. + +What a sad picture of our civilization! + +I did not speak to you of the great tree on what used to be the +Colman farm, in Deerfield, simply because I had not seen it for +many years, and did not like to trust my recollection. But I had +it in memory, and even noted down, as one of the finest trees in +symmetry and beauty I had ever seen. I have received a document, +signed by two citizens of a neighboring town, certified by the +postmaster and a selectman, and these again corroborated, +reinforced, and sworn to by a member of that extraordinary +college-class to which it is the good fortune of my friend the +Professor to belong, who, though he has FORMERLY been a member of +Congress, is, I believe, fully worthy of confidence. The tree +"girts" eighteen and a half feet, and spreads over a hundred, and is +a real beauty. I hope to meet my friend under its branches yet; if we +don't have "youth at the prow," we will have "pleasure at the 'elm." + +And just now, again, I have got a letter about some grand willows +in Maine, and another about an elm in Wayland, but too late for +anything but thanks. + +[And this leads me to say, that I have received a great many +communications, in prose and verse since I began printing these +notes. The last came this very morning, in the shape of a neat and +brief poem, from New Orleans. I could not make any of them public, +though sometimes requested to do so. Some of them have given me +great pleasure, and encouraged me to believe I had friends whose +faces I had never seen. If you are pleased with anything a writer +says, and doubt whether to tell him of it, do not hesitate; a +pleasant word is a cordial to one, who perhaps thinks he is tiring +you, and so becomes tired himself. I purr very loud over a good, +honest letter that says pretty things to me.] + +--Sometimes very young persons send communications which they want +forwarded to editors; and these young persons do not always seem to +have right conceptions of these same editors, and of the public, +and of themselves. Here is a letter I wrote to one of these young +folks, but, on the whole, thought it best not to send. It is not +fair to single out one for such sharp advice, where there are +hundreds that are in need of it. + + +Dear Sir,--You seem to be somewhat, but not a great deal, wiser +than I was at your age. I don't wish to be understood as saying +too much, for I think, without committing myself to any opinion on +my present state, that I was not a Solomon at that stage of +development. + +You long to "leap at a single bound into celebrity." Nothing is so +common-place as to wish to be remarkable. Fame usually comes to +those who are thinking about something else,--very rarely to those +who say to themselves, "Go to, now, let us be a celebrated +individual!" The struggle for fame, as such, commonly ends in +notoriety;--that ladder is easy to climb, but it leads to the +pillory which is crowded with fools who could not hold their +tongues and rogues who could not hide their tricks. + +If you have the consciousness of genius, do something to show it. +The world is pretty quick, nowadays, to catch the flavor of true +originality; if you write anything remarkable, the magazines and +newspapers will find you out, as the school-boys find out where the +ripe apples and pears are. Produce anything really good, and an +intelligent editor will jump at it. Don't flatter yourself that +any article of yours is rejected because you are unknown to fame. +Nothing pleases an editor more than to get anything worth having +from a new hand. There is always a dearth of really fine articles +for a first-rate journal; for, of a hundred pieces received, ninety +are at or below the sea-level; some have water enough, but no head; +some head enough, but no water; only two or three are from full +reservoirs, high up that hill which is so hard to climb. + +You may have genius. The contrary is of course probable, but it is +not demonstrated. If you have, the world wants you more than you +want it. It has not only a desire, but a passion, for every spark +of genius that shows itself among us; there is not a bull-calf in +our national pasture that can bleat a rhyme but it is ten to one, +among his friends, and no takers, that he is the real, genuine, +no-mistake Osiris. + +Qu'est ce qu'il a fait? What has he done? That was Napoleon's +test. What have you done? Turn up the faces of your picture- +cards, my boy! You need not make mouths at the public because it +has not accepted you at your own fancy-valuation. Do the prettiest +thing you can and wait your time. + +For the verses you send me, I will not say they are hopeless, and I +dare not affirm that they show promise. I am not an editor, but I +know the standard of some editors. You must not expect to "leap +with a single bound" into the society of those whom it is not +flattery to call your betters. When "The Pactolian" has paid you +for a copy of verses,--(I can furnish you a list of alliterative +signatures, beginning with Annie Aureole and ending with Zoe +Zenith,)--when "The Rag-bag" has stolen your piece, after carefully +scratching your name out,--when "The Nut-cracker" has thought you +worth shelling, and strung the kernel of your cleverest poem, +--then, and not till then, you may consider the presumption against +you, from the fact of your rhyming tendency, as called in question, +and let our friends hear from you, if you think it worth while. +You may possibly think me too candid, and even accuse me of +incivility; but let me assure you that I am not half so +plain-spoken as Nature, nor half so rude as Time. If you prefer the +long jolting of public opinion to the gentle touch of friendship, try +it like a man. Only remember this,--that, if a bushel of potatoes is +shaken in a market-cart without springs to it, the small potatoes +always get to the bottom. Believe me, etc., etc. + + +I always think of verse-writers, when I am in this vein; for these +are by far the most exacting, eager, self-weighing, restless, +querulous, unreasonable literary persons one is like to meet with. +Is a young man in the habit of writing verses? Then the +presumption is that he is an inferior person. For, look you, there +are at least nine chances in ten that he writes POOR verses. Now +the habit of chewing on rhymes without sense and soul to match them +is, like that of using any other narcotic, at once a proof of +feebleness and a debilitating agent. A young man can get rid of +the presumption against him afforded by his writing verses only by +convincing us that they are verses worth writing. + +All this sounds hard and rough, but, observe, it is not addressed +to any individual, and of course does not refer to any reader of +these pages. I would always treat any given young person passing +through the meteoric showers which rain down on the brief period of +adolescence with great tenderness. God forgive us if we ever speak +harshly to young creatures on the strength of these ugly truths, +and so sooner or later, smite some tender-souled poet or poetess on +the lips who might have sung the world into sweet trances, had we +not silenced the matin-song in its first low breathings! Just as +my heart yearns over the unloved, just so it sorrows for +the ungifted who are doomed to the pangs of an undeceived +self-estimate. I have always tried to be gentle with the most +hopeless cases. My experience, however, has not been encouraging. + +--X. Y., aet. 18, a cheaply-got-up youth, with narrow jaws, and +broad, bony, cold, red hands, having been laughed at by the girls +in his village, and "got the mitten" (pronounced mittIn) two or +three times, falls to souling and controlling, and youthing and +truthing, in the newspapers. Sends me some strings of verses, +candidates for the Orthopedic Infirmary, all of them, in which I +learn for the millionth time one of the following facts: either +that something about a chime is sublime, or that something about +time is sublime, or that something about a chime is concerned with +time, or that something about a rhyme is sublime or concerned with +time or with a chime. Wishes my opinion of the same, with advice +as to his future course. + +What shall I do about it? Tell him the whole truth, and send him a +ticket of admission to the Institution for Idiots and Feeble-minded +Youth? One doesn't like to be cruel,--and yet one hates to lie. +Therefore one softens down the ugly central fact of donkeyism, +--recommends study of good models,--that writing verse should be an +incidental occupation only, not interfering with the hoe, the +needle, the lapstone, or the ledger,--and, above all that there +should be no hurry in printing what is written. Not the least use +in all this. The poetaster who has tasted type is done for. He is +like the man who has once been a candidate for the Presidency. He +feeds on the madder of his delusion all his days, and his very +bones grow red with the glow of his foolish fancy. One of these +young brains is like a bunch of India crackers; once touch fire to +it and it is best to keep hands off until it has done popping,--if +it ever stops. I have two letters on file; one is a pattern of +adulation, the other of impertinence. My reply to the first, +containing the best advice I could give, conveyed in courteous +language, had brought out the second. There was some sport in +this, but Dulness is not commonly a game fish, and only sulks after +he is struck. You may set it down as a truth which admits of few +exceptions, that those who ask your OPINION really want your +PRAISE, and will be contented with nothing less. + +There is another kind of application to which editors, or those +supposed to have access to them, are liable, and which often proves +trying and painful. One is appealed to in behalf of some person in +needy circumstances who wishes to make a living by the pen. A +manuscript accompanying the letter is offered for publication. It +is not commonly brilliant, too often lamentably deficient. If +Rachel's saying is true, that "fortune is the measure of +intelligence," then poverty is evidence of limited capacity which +it too frequently proves to be, notwithstanding a noble exception +here and there. Now an editor is a person under a contract with +the public to furnish them with the best things he can afford for +his money. Charity shown by the publication of an inferior article +would be like the generosity of Claude Duval and the other +gentlemen highwaymen, who pitied the poor so much they robbed the +rich to have the means of relieving them. + +Though I am not and never was an editor, I know something of the +trials to which they are submitted. They have nothing to do but to +develope enormous calluses at every point of contact with +authorship. Their business is not a matter of sympathy, but of +intellect. They must reject the unfit productions of those whom +they long to befriend, because it would be a profligate charity to +accept them. One cannot burn his house down to warm the hands even +of the fatherless and the widow. + + +THE PROFESSOR UNDER CHLOROFORM. + +--You haven't heard about my friend the Professor's first +experiment in the use of anaesthetics, have you? + +He was mightily pleased with the reception of that poem of his +about the chaise. He spoke to me once or twice about another poem +of similar character he wanted to read me, which I told him I would +listen to and criticize. + +One day, after dinner, he came in with his face tied up, looking +very red in the cheeks and heavy about the eyes.--Hy'r'ye?--he +said, and made for an arm-chair, in which he placed first his hat +and then his person, going smack through the crown of the former as +neatly as they do the trick at the circus. The Professor jumped at +the explosion as if he had sat down on one of those small CALTHROPS +our grandfathers used to sow round in the grass when there were +Indians about,--iron stars, each ray a rusty thorn an inch and a +half long,--stick through moccasins into feet,--cripple 'em on the +spot, and give 'em lockjaw in a day or two. + +At the same time he let off one of those big words which lie at the +bottom of the best man's vocabulary, but perhaps never turn up in +his life,--just as every man's hair MAY stand on end, but in most +men it never does. + +After he had got calm, he pulled out a sheet or two of manuscript, +together with a smaller scrap, on which, as he said, he had just +been writing an introduction or prelude to the main performance. A +certain suspicion had come into my mind that the Professor was not +quite right, which was confirmed by the way he talked; but I let +him begin. This is the way he read it:- + +Prelude. + +I'm the fellah that tole one day +The tale of the won'erful one-hoss-shay. +Wan' to hear another? Say. +--Funny, wasn'it? Made ME laugh,-- +I'm too modest, I am, by half,-- +Made me laugh'S THOUGH I SH'D SPLIT,-- +Cahn' a fellah like fellah's own wit?-- +--Fellahs keep sayin',--"Well, now that's nice; +Did it once, but cahn' do it twice."-- +Don' you b'lieve the'z no more fat; +Lots in the kitch'n 'z good 'z that. +Fus'-rate throw, 'n' no mistake,-- +Han' us the props for another shake;-- +Know I'll try, 'n' guess I'll win; +Here sh' goes for hit 'm ag'in! + +Here I thought it necessary to interpose.--Professor,--I said,--you +are inebriated. The style of what you call your "Prelude" shows +that it was written under cerebral excitement. Your articulation +is confused. You have told me three times in succession, in +exactly the same words, that I was the only true friend you had in +the world that you would unbutton your heart to. You smell +distinctly and decidedly of spirits.--I spoke, and paused; tender, +but firm. + +Two large tears orbed themselves beneath the Professor's lids,--in +obedience to the principle of gravitation celebrated in that +delicious bit of bladdery bathos, "The very law that moulds a +tear," with which the "Edinburgh Review" attempted to put down +Master George Gordon when that young man was foolishly trying to +make himself conspicuous. + +One of these tears peeped over the edge of the lid until it lost +its balance,--slid an inch and waited for reinforcements,--swelled +again,--rolled down a little further,--stopped,--moved on,--and at +last fell on the back of the Professor's hand. He held it up for +me to look at, and lifted his eyes, brimful, till they met mine. + +I couldn't stand it,--I always break down when folks cry in my +face,--so I hugged him, and said he was a dear old boy, and asked +him kindly what was the matter with him, and what made him smell so +dreadfully strong of spirits. + +Upset his alcohol lamp,--he said,--and spilt the alcohol on his +legs. That was it.--But what had he been doing to get his head +into such a state?--had he really committed an excess? What was +the matter?--Then it came out that he had been taking chloroform to +have a tooth out, which had left him in a very queer state, in +which he had written the "Prelude" given above, and under the +influence of which he evidently was still. + +I took the manuscript from his hands and read the following +continuation of the lines he had begun to read me, while he made up +for two or three nights' lost sleep as he best might. + + +PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY: +OR THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR. +A MATHEMATICAL STORY. + +Facts respecting an old arm-chair. +At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there. +Seems but little the worse for wear. +That's remarkable when I say +It was old in President Holyoke's day. +(One of his boys, perhaps you know, +Died, AT ONE HUNDRED, years ago.) +HE took lodging for rain or shine +Under green bed-clothes in '69. + +Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.-- +Born there? Don't say so! I was, too. +(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,-- +Standing still, if you must have proof.-- +"Gambrel?--Gambrel?"--Let me beg +You'll look at a horse's hinder leg,-- +First great angle above the hoof,-- +That's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.) +--Nicest place that ever was seen,-- +Colleges red and Common green, +Sidewalks brownish with trees between. +Sweetest spot beneath the skies +When the canker-worms don't rise,-- +When the dust, that sometimes flies +Into your mouth and ears and eyes. +In a quiet slumber lies, +NOT in the shape of unbaked pies +Such as barefoot children prize. + +A kind of harber it seems to be, +Facing the flow of a boundless sea. +Rows of gray old Tutors stand +Ranged like rocks above the sand; +Rolling beneath them, soft and green, +Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,-- +One wave, two waves, three waves, four, +Sliding up the sparkling floor; +Then it ebbs to flow no more, +Wandering off from shore to shore +With its freight of golden ore! +--Pleasant place for boys to play;-- +Better keep your girls away; +Hearts get rolled as pebbles do +Which countless fingering waves pursue, +And every classic beach is strown +With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone. + +But this is neither here nor there;-- +I'm talking about an old arm-chair. +You've heard, no doubt, of PARSON TURELL? +Over at Medford he used to dwell; +Married one of the Mathers' folk; +Got with his wife a chair of oak,-- +Funny old chair, with seat like wedge, +Sharp behind and broad front edge,-- +One of the oddest of human things, +Turned all over with knobs and rings,-- +But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand,-- +Fit for the worthies of the land,-- +Chief-Justice Sewall a cause to try in, +Or Cotton Mather to sit--and lie--in. +--Parson Turell bequeathed the same +To a certain student,--SMITH by name; +These were the terms, as we are told: +"Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde; +When he doth graduate, then to passe +To ye oldest Youth in ye Senior Classe. +On Payment of"--(naming a certain sum)-- +"By him to whom ye Chaire shall come; +He to ye oldest Senior next, +And soe forever,"--(thus runs the text,)-- +"But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime, +That being his Debte for use of same." + +SMITH transferred it to one of the BROWNS, +And took his money,--five silver crowns. +BROWN delivered it up to MOORE, +Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. +MOORE made over the chair to LEE, +Who gave him crowns of silver three. +LEE conveyed it unto DREW, +And now the payment, of course, was two. +DREW gave up the chair to DUNN,-- +All he got, as you see, was one. +DUNN released the chair to HALL, +And got by the bargain no crown at all. +--And now it passed to a second BROWN, +Who took it, and likewise CLAIMED A CROWN. +When BROWN conveyed it unto WARE, +Having had one crown, to make it fair, +He paid him two crowns to take the chair; +And WARE, being honest, (as all Wares be,) +He paid one POTTER, who took it, three. +Four got ROBINSON; five got DIX; +JOHNSON primus demanded six; +And so the sum kept gathering still +Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill +--When paper money became so cheap, +Folks wouldn't count it, but said "a heap," + +A certain RICHARDS, the books declare, +(A. M. in '90? I've looked with care +Through the Triennial,--NAME NOT THERE.) +This person, Richards, was offered then +Eight score pounds, but would have ten; +Nine, I think, was the sum he took,-- +Not quite certain,--but see the book. +--By and by the wars were still, +But nothing had altered the Parson's will. +The old arm-chair was solid yet, +But saddled with such a monstrous debt! +Things grew quite too bad to bear, +Paying such sums to get rid of the chair! +But dead men's fingers hold awful tight, +And there was the will in black and white, +Plain enough for a child to spell. +What should be done no man could tell, +For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse, +And every season but made it worse. + +As a last resort, to clear the doubt, +They got old GOVERNOR HANCOCK out. +The Governor came, with his Light-horse Troop +And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop; +Halberds glittered and colors flew, +French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, +The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth +And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath; +So he rode with all his band, +Till the President met him, cap in hand. +--The Governor "hefted" the crowns, and said,-- +"A will is a will, and the Parson's dead." +The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he,-- +"There is your p'int. And here's my fee. +These are the terms you must fulfil,-- +On such conditions I BREAK THE WILL!" +The Governor mentioned what these should be. +(Just wait a minute and then you'll see.) +The President prayed. Then all was still, +And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL! +--"About those conditions?" Well, now you go +And do as I tell you, and then you'll know. +Once a year, on Commencement-day, +If you'll only take the pains to stay, +You'll see the President in the CHAIR, +Likewise the Governor sitting there. +The President rises; both old and young +May hear his speech in a foreign tongue, +The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, +Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair? +And then his Excellency bows, +As much as to say that he allows. +The Vice-Gub. next is called by name; +He bows like t'other, which means the same. +And all the officers round 'em bow, +As much as to say that THEY allow. +And a lot of parchments about the chair +Are handed to witnesses then and there, +And then the lawyers hold it clear +That the chair is safe for another year. + +God bless you, Gentlemen! Learn to give +Money to colleges while you live. +Don't be silly and think you'll try +To bother the colleges, when you die, +With codicil this, and codicil that, +That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat; +For there never was pitcher that wouldn't spill, +And there's always a flaw in a donkey's will! + + +--Hospitality is a good deal a matter of latitude, I suspect. The +shade of a palm-tree serves an African for a hut; his dwelling is +all door and no walls; everybody can come in. To make a morning +call on an Esquimaux acquaintance, one must creep through a long +tunnel; his house is all walls and no door, except such a one as an +apple with a worm-hole has. One might, very probably, trace a +regular gradation between these two extremes. In cities where the +evenings are generally hot, the people have porches at their doors, +where they sit, and this is, of course, a provocative to the +interchange of civilities. A good deal, which in colder regions is +ascribed to mean dispositions, belongs really to mean temperature. + +Once in a while, even in our Northern cities, at noon, in a very +hot summer's day, one may realize, by a sudden extension in his +sphere of consciousness, how closely he is shut up for the most +part.--Do you not remember something like this? July, between 1 +and 2, P. M., Fahrenheit 96 degrees, or thereabout. Windows all +gaping, like the mouths of panting dogs. Long, stinging cry of a +locust comes in from a tree, half a mile off; had forgotten there +was such a tree. Baby's screams from a house several blocks +distant;--never knew there were any babies in the neighborhood +before. Tinman pounding something that clatters dreadfully,--very +distinct, but don't remember any tinman's shop near by. Horses +stamping on pavement to get off flies. When you hear these four +sounds, you may set it down as a warm day. Then it is that one +would like to imitate the mode of life of the native at Sierra +Leone, as somebody has described it: stroll into the market in +natural costume,--buy a water-melon for a halfpenny,--split it, and +scoop out the middle,--sit down in one half of the empty rind, clap +the other on one's head, and feast upon the pulp. + +--I see some of the London journals have been attacking some of +their literary people for lecturing, on the ground of its being a +public exhibition of themselves for money. A popular author can +print his lecture; if he deliver it, it is a case of quaestum +corpore, or making profit of his person. None but "snobs" do that. +Ergo, etc. To this I reply,--Negatur minor. Her Most Gracious +Majesty, the Queen, exhibits herself to the public as a part of the +service for which she is paid. We do not consider it low-bred in +her to pronounce her own speech, and should prefer it so to hearing +it from any other person, or reading it. His Grace and his +Lordship exhibit themselves very often for popularity, and their +houses every day for money.--No, if a man shows himself other than +he is, if he belittles himself before an audience for hire, then he +acts unworthily. But a true word, fresh from the lips of a true +man, is worth paying for, at the rate of eight dollars a day, or +even of fifty dollars a lecture. The taunt must be an outbreak of +jealousy against the renowned authors who have the audacity to be +also orators. The sub-lieutenants (of the press) stick a too +popular writer and speaker with an epithet in England, instead of +with a rapier, as in France.--Poh! All England is one great +menagerie, and, all at once, the jackal, who admires the gilded +cage of the royal beast, must protest against the vulgarity of the +talking-bird's and the nightingale's being willing to become a part +of the exhibition! + + +THE LONG PATH. +(Last of the Parentheses.) + + +Yes, that was my last walk with the SCHOOLMISTRESS. It happened to +be the end of a term; and before the next began, a very nice young +woman, who had been her assistant, was announced as her successor, +and she was provided for elsewhere. So it was no longer the +schoolmistress that I walked with, but--Let us not be in unseemly +haste. I shall call her the schoolmistress still; some of you love +her under that name. + +When it became known among the boarders that two of their number +had joined hands to walk down the long path of life side by side, +there was, as you may suppose, no small sensation. I confess I +pitied our landlady. It took her all of a suddin,--she said. Had +not known that we was keepin company, and never mistrusted anything +particular. Ma'am was right to better herself. Didn't look very +rugged to take care of a femily, but could get hired haalp, she +calc'lated.--The great maternal instinct came crowding up in her +soul just then, and her eyes wandered until they settled on her +daughter. + +--No, poor, dear woman,--that could not have been. But I am +dropping one of my internal tears for you, with this pleasant smile +on my face all the time. + +The great mystery of God's providence is the permitted crushing out +of flowering instincts. Life is maintained by the respiration of +oxygen and of sentiments. In the long catalogue of scientific +cruelties there is hardly anything quite so painful to think of as +that experiment of putting an animal under the bell of an air-pump +and exhausting the air from it. [I never saw the accursed trick +performed. Laus Deo!] There comes a time when the souls of human +beings, women, perhaps, more even than men, begin to faint for the +atmosphere of the affections they were made to breathe. Then it is +that Society places its transparent bell-glass over the young woman +who is to be the subject of one of its fatal experiments. The +element by which only the heart lives is sucked out of her +crystalline prison. Watch her through its transparent walls;--her +bosom is heaving; but it is in a vacuum. Death is no riddle, +compared to this. I remember a poor girl's story in the "Book of +Martyrs." The "dry-pan and the gradual fire" were the images that +frightened her most. How many have withered and wasted under as +slow a torment in the walls of that larger Inquisition which we +call Civilization! + +Yes, my surface-thought laughs at you, you foolish, plain, +overdressed, mincing, cheaply-organized, self-saturated young +person, whoever you may be, now reading this,--little thinking you +are what I describe, and in blissful unconsciousness that you are +destined to the lingering asphyxia of soul which is the lot of such +multitudes worthier than yourself. But it is only my surface- +thought which laughs. For that great procession of the UNLOVED, +who not only wear the crown of thorns, but must hide it under the +locks of brown or gray,--under the snowy cap, under the chilling +turban,--hide it even from themselves,--perhaps never know they +wear it, though it kills them,--there is no depth of tenderness in +my nature that Pity has not sounded. Somewhere,--somewhere,--love +is in store for them,--the universe must not be allowed to +fool them so cruelly. What infinite pathos in the small, +half-unconscious artifices by which unattractive young persons seek +to recommend themselves to the favor of those towards whom our dear +sisters, the unloved, like the rest, are impelled by their God-given +instincts! + +Read what the singing-women--one to ten thousand of the suffering +women--tell us, and think of the griefs that die unspoken! Nature +is in earnest when she makes a woman; and there are women enough +lying in the next churchyard with very commonplace blue +slate-stones at their head and feet, for whom it was just as true +that "all sounds of life assumed one tone of love," as for Letitia +Landon, of whom Elizabeth Browning said it; but she could give words +to her grief, and they could not.--Will you hear a few stanzas of +mine? + + +THE VOICELESS. + +We count the broken lyres that rest +Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,-- +But o'er their silent sister's breast +The wild flowers who will stoop to number? +A few can touch the magic string, +And noisy Fame is proud to win them;-- +Alas for those that never sing, +But die with all their music in them! + +Nay, grieve not for the dead alone +Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,-- +Weep for the voiceless, who have known +The cross without the crown of glory! +Not where Leucadian breezes sweep +O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, +But where the glistening night-dews weep +On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + +O hearts that break and give no sign +Save whitening lip and fading tresses, +Till Death pours out his cordial wine +Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-- +If singing breath or echoing chord +To every hidden pang were given, +What endless melodies were poured, +As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven! + + +I hope that our landlady's daughter is not so badly off, after all. +That young man from another city who made the remark which you +remember about Boston State-house and Boston folks, has appeared at +our table repeatedly of late, and has seemed to me rather attentive +to this young lady. Only last evening I saw him leaning over her +while she was playing the accordion,--indeed, I undertook to join +them in a song, and got as far as "Come rest in this boo-oo," when, +my voice getting tremulous, I turned off, as one steps out of a +procession, and left the basso and soprano to finish it. I see no +reason why this young woman should not be a very proper match for a +man that laughs about Boston State-house. He can't be very +particular. + +The young fellow whom I have so often mentioned was a little free +in his remarks, but very good-natured.--Sorry to have you go,--he +said.--School-ma'am made a mistake not to wait for me. Haven't +taken anything but mournin' fruit at breakfast since I heard of +it.--MOURNING fruit,--said I,--what's that?--Huckleberries and +blackberries,--said he;--couldn't eat in colors, raspberries, +currants, and such, after a solemn thing like this happening.--The +conceit seemed to please the young fellow. If you will believe it, +when we came down to breakfast the next morning, he had carried it +out as follows. You know those odious little "saas-plates" that +figure so largely at boarding-houses, and especially at taverns, +into which a strenuous attendant female trowels little dabs, sombre +of tint and heterogeneous of composition, which it makes you feel +homesick to look at, and into which you poke the elastic coppery +tea-spoon with the air of a cat dipping her foot into a wash-tub, +--(not that I mean to say anything against them, for, when they are +of tinted porcelain or starry many-faceted crystal, and hold clean +bright berries, or pale virgin honey, or "lucent syrups tinct +with cinnamon," and the teaspoon is of white silver, with the +Tower-stamp, solid, but not brutally heavy,--as people in the green +stage of millionism will have them,--I can dally with their amber +semi-fluids or glossy spherules without a shiver,)--you know these +small, deep dishes, I say. When we came down the next morning, each +of these (two only excepted) was covered with a broad leaf. On +lifting this, each boarder found a small heap of solemn black +huckleberries. But one of those plates held red currants, and was +covered with a red rose; the other held white currants, and was +covered with a white rose. There was a laugh at this at first, and +then a short silence, and I noticed that her lip trembled, and the +old gentleman opposite was in trouble to get at his bandanna +handkerchief + +--"What was the use in waiting? We should be too late for +Switzerland, that season, if we waited much longer."--The hand I +held trembled in mine, and the eyes fell meekly, as Esther bowed +herself before the feet of Ahasuerus.--She had been reading that +chapter, for she looked up,--if there was a film of moisture over +her eyes there was also the faintest shadow of a distant smile +skirting her lips, but not enough to accent the dimples,--and said, +in her pretty, still way,--"If it please the king, and if I have +found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, +and I be pleasing in his eyes"-- + +I don't remember what King Ahasuerus did or said when Esther got +just to that point of her soft, humble words,--but I know what I +did. That quotation from Scripture was cut short, anyhow. We came +to a compromise on the great question, and the time was settled for +the last day of summer. + +In the mean time, I talked on with our boarders, much as usual, as +you may see by what I have reported. I must say, I was pleased +with a certain tenderness they all showed toward us, after the +first excitement of the news was over. It came out in trivial +matters,--but each one, in his or her way, manifested kindness. +Our landlady, for instance, when we had chickens, sent the LIVER +instead of the GIZZARD, with the wing, for the schoolmistress. +This was not an accident; the two are never mistaken, though some +landladies APPEAR as if they did not know the difference. The +whole of the company were even more respectfully attentive to my +remarks than usual. There was no idle punning, and very little +winking on the part of that lively young gentleman who, as the +reader may remember, occasionally interposed some playful question +or remark, which could hardly be considered relevant,--except when +the least allusion was made to matrimony, when he would look at the +landlady's daughter, and wink with both sides of his face, until +she would ask what he was pokin' his fun at her for, and if he +wasn't ashamed of himself. In fact, they all behaved very +handsomely, so that I really felt sorry at the thought of leaving +my boarding-house. + +I suppose you think, that, because I lived at a plain widow-woman's +plain table, I was of course more or less infirm in point of +worldly fortune. You may not be sorry to learn, that, though not +what GREAT MERCHANTS call very rich, I was comfortable, +--comfortable,--so that most of those moderate luxuries I described +in my verses on CONTENTMENT--MOST of them, I say--were within our +reach, if we chose to have them. But I found out that the +schoolmistress had a vein of charity about her, which had hitherto +been worked on a small silver and copper basis, which made her +think less, perhaps, of luxuries than even I did,--modestly as I +have expressed my wishes. + +It is a rather pleasant thing to tell a poor young woman, whom one +has contrived to win without showing his rent-roll, that she has +found what the world values so highly, in following the lead of her +affections. That was an enjoyment I was now ready for. + +I began abruptly:--Do you know that you are a rich young person? + +I know that I am very rich,--she said.--Heaven has given me more +than I ever asked; for I had not thought love was ever meant for +me. + +It was a woman's confession, and her voice fell to a whisper as it +threaded the last words. + +I don't mean that,--I said,--you blessed little saint and seraph! +--if there's an angel missing in the New Jerusalem, inquire for her +at this boarding house!--I don't mean that! I mean that I--that +is, you--am--are--confound it!--I mean that you'll be what most +people call a lady of fortune. And I looked full in her eyes for +the effect of the announcement. + +There wasn't any. She said she was thankful that I had what would +save me from drudgery, and that some other time I should tell her +about it.--I never made a greater failure in an attempt to produce +a sensation. + +So the last day of summer came. It was our choice to go to the +church, but we had a kind of reception at the boarding-house. The +presents were all arranged, and among them none gave more pleasure +than the modest tributes of our fellow-boarders,--for there was not +one, I believe, who did not send something. The landlady would +insist on making an elegant bride-cake, with her own hands; to +which Master Benjamin Franklin wished to add certain embellishments +out of his private funds,--namely, a Cupid in a mouse-trap, done in +white sugar, and two miniature flags with the stars and stripes, +which had a very pleasing effect, I assure you. The landlady's +daughter sent a richly bound copy of Tupper's Poems. On a blank +leaf was the following, written in a very delicate and careful +hand:- + + +Presented to . . . by . . . +On the eve ere her union in holy matrimony. +May sunshine ever beam o'er her! + + +Even the poor relative thought she must do something, and sent a +copy of "The Whole Duty of Man," bound in very attractive +variegated sheepskin, the edges nicely marbled. From the +divinity-student came the loveliest English edition of "Keble's +Christian Year." I opened it, when it came, to the FOURTH SUNDAY +IN LENT, and read that angelic poem, sweeter than anything I can +remember since Xavier's "My God, I love thee."--I am not a +Churchman,--I don't believe in planting oaks in flower-pots,--but +such a poem as "The Rosebud" makes one's heart a proselyte to the +culture it grows from. Talk about it as much as you like,--one's +breeding shows itself nowhere more than in his religion. A man +should be a gentleman in his hymns and prayers; the fondness for +"scenes," among vulgar saints, contrasts so meanly with that-- + + +"God only and good angels look +Behind the blissful scene,"- + + +and that other,-- + + +"He could not trust his melting soul +But in his Maker's sight,"-- + + +that I hope some of them will see this, and read the poem, and +profit by it. + +My laughing and winking young friend undertook to procure and +arrange the flowers for the table, and did it with immense zeal. I +never saw him look happier than when he came in, his hat saucily on +one side, and a cheroot in his mouth, with a huge bunch of +tea-roses, which he said were for "Madam." + +One of the last things that came was an old square box, smelling of +camphor, tied and sealed. It bore, in faded ink, the marks, +"Calcutta, 1805." On opening it, we found a white Cashmere shawl +with a very brief note from the dear old gentleman opposite, saying +that he had kept this some years, thinking he might want it, and +many more, not knowing what to do with it,--that he had never seen +it unfolded since he was a young supercargo,--and now, if she would +spread it on her shoulders, it would make him feel young to look at +it. + +Poor Bridget, or Biddy, our red-armed maid of all work! What must +she do but buy a small copper breast-pin and put it under +"Schoolma'am's" plate that morning, at breakfast? And Schoolma'am +would wear it,--though I made her cover it, as well as I could, +with a tea-rose. + +It was my last breakfast as a boarder, and I could not leave them +in utter silence. + +Good-by,--I said,--my dear friends, one and all of you! I have +been long with you, and I find it hard parting. I have to thank +you for a thousand courtesies, and above all for the patience and +indulgence with which you have listened to me when I have tried to +instruct or amuse you. My friend the Professor (who, as well as my +friend the Poet, is unavoidably absent on this interesting +occasion) has given me reason to suppose that he would occupy my +empty chair about the first of January next. If he comes among +you, be kind to him, as you have been to me. May the Lord bless +you all!--And we shook hands all round the table. + +Half an hour afterwards the breakfast things and the cloth were +gone. I looked up and down the length of the bare boards over +which I had so often uttered my sentiments and experiences--and +--Yes, I am a man, like another. + +All sadness vanished, as, in the midst of these old friends of +mine, whom you know, and others a little more up in the world, +perhaps, to whom I have not introduced you, I took the +schoolmistress before the altar from the hands of the old gentleman +who used to sit opposite, and who would insist on giving her away. + +And now we two are walking the long path in peace together. The +"schoolmistress" finds her skill in teaching called for again, +without going abroad to seek little scholars. Those visions of +mine have all come true. + +I hope you all love me none the less for anything I have told you. +Farewell! + + + + + + +THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE + +by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + + +PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. + +The reader of to-day will not forget, I trust, that it is nearly a +quarter of a century since these papers were written. Statements which +were true then are not necessarily true now. Thus, the speed of the +trotting horse has been so much developed that the record of the year +when the fastest time to that date was given must be very considerably +altered, as may be seen by referring to a note on page 49 of the +"Autocrat." No doubt many other statements and opinions might be more or +less modified if I were writing today instead of having written before +the war, when the world and I were both more than a score of years +younger. + +These papers followed close upon the track of the "Autocrat." They had +to endure the trial to which all second comers are subjected, which is a +formidable ordeal for the least as well as the greatest. Paradise +Regained and the Second Part of Faust are examples which are enough to +warn every one who has made a jingle fair hit with his arrow of the +danger of missing when he looses "his fellow of the selfsame flight." + +There is good reason why it should be so. The first juice that runs of +itself from the grapes comes from the heart of the fruit, and tastes of +the pulp only; when the grapes are squeezed in the press the flow betrays +the flavor of the skin. If there is any freshness in the original idea +of the work, if there is any individuality in the method or style of a +new author, or of an old author on a new track, it will have lost much of +its first effect when repeated. Still, there have not been wanting +readers who have preferred this second series of papers to the first. +The new papers were more aggressive than the earlier ones, and for that +reason found a heartier welcome in some quarters, and met with a sharper +antagonism in others. It amuses me to look back on some of the attacks +they called forth. Opinions which do not excite the faintest show of +temper at this time from those who do not accept them were treated as if +they were the utterances of a nihilist incendiary. It required the +exercise of some forbearance not to recriminate. + +How a stray sentence, a popular saying, the maxim of some wise man, a +line accidentally fallen upon and remembered, will sometimes help one +when he is all ready to be vexed or indignant! One day, in the time when +I was young or youngish, I happened to open a small copy of "Tom Jones," +and glance at the title-page. There was one of those little engravings +opposite, which bore the familiar name of "T. Uwins," as I remember it, +and under it the words "Mr. Partridge bore all this patiently." How many +times, when, after rough usage from ill-mannered critics, my own +vocabulary of vituperation was simmering in such a lively way that it +threatened to boil and lift its lid and so boil over, those words have +calmed the small internal effervescence! There is very little in them +and very little of them; and so there is not much in a linchpin +considered by itself, but it often keeps a wheel from coming off and +prevents what might be a catastrophe. The chief trouble in offering such +papers as these to the readers of to-day is that their heresies have +become so familiar among intelligent people that they have too +commonplace an aspect. All the lighthouses and land-marks of belief bear +so differently from the way in which they presented themselves when these +papers were written that it is hard to recognize that we and our +fellow-passengers are still in the same old vessel sailing the same +unfathomable sea and bound to the same as yet unseen harbor. + +But after all, there is not enough theology, good or bad, in these papers +to cause them to be inscribed on the Protestant Index Expurgatorius; and +if they are medicated with a few questionable dogmas or antidogmas, the +public has become used to so much rougher treatments, that what was once +an irritant may now act as an anodyne, and the reader may nod over pages +which, when they were first written, would have waked him into a paroxysm +of protest and denunciation. + +November, 1882. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION + +This book is one of those which, if it lives for a number of decades, and +if it requires any Preface at all, wants a new one every ten years. The +first Preface to a book is apt to be explanatory, perhaps apologetic, in +the expectation of attacks from various quarters. If the book is in some +points in advance of public opinion, it is natural that the writer should +try to smooth the way to the reception of his more or less aggressive +ideas. He wishes to convince, not to offend,--to obtain a hearing for +his thought, not to stir up angry opposition in those who do not accept +it. There is commonly an anxious look about a first Preface. The author +thinks he shall be misapprehended about this or that matter, that his +well-meant expressions will probably be invidiously interpreted by those +whom he looks upon as prejudiced critics, and if he deals with living +questions that he will be attacked as a destructive by the conservatives +and reproached for his timidity by the noisier radicals. The first +Preface, therefore, is likely to be the weakest part of a work containing +the thoughts of an honest writer. + +After a time the writer has cooled down from his excitement,--has got +over his apprehensions, is pleased to find that his book is still read, +and that he must write a new Preface. He comes smiling to his task. How +many things have explained themselves in the ten or twenty or thirty +years since he came before his untried public in those almost plaintive +paragraphs in which he introduced himself to his readers,--for the +Preface writer, no matter how fierce a combatant he may prove, comes on +to the stage with his shield on his right arm and his sword in his left +hand. + +The Professor at the Breakfast-Table came out in the "Atlantic Monthly" +and introduced itself without any formal Preface. A quarter of a century +later the Preface of 1882, which the reader has just had laid before him, +was written. There is no mark of worry, I think, in that. Old opponents +had come up and shaken hands with the author they had attacked or +denounced. Newspapers which had warned their subscribers against him +were glad to get him as a contributor to their columns. A great change +had come over the community with reference to their beliefs. Christian +believers were united as never before in the feeling that, after all, +their common object was to elevate the moral and religious standard of +humanity. But within the special compartments of the great Christian +fold the marks of division have pronounced themselves in the most +unmistakable manner. As an example we may take the lines of cleavage +which have shown themselves in the two great churches, the Congregational +and the Presbyterian, and the very distinct fissure which is manifest in +the transplanted Anglican church of this country. Recent circumstances +have brought out the fact of the great change in the dogmatic communities +which has been going on silently but surely. The licensing of a +missionary, the transfer of a Professor from one department to another, +the election of a Bishop,--each of these movements furnishes evidence +that there is no such thing as an air-tight reservoir of doctrinal +finalities. + +The folding-doors are wide open to every Protestant to enter all the +privileged precincts and private apartments of the various exclusive +religious organizations. We may demand the credentials of every creed +and catechise all the catechisms. So we may discuss the gravest +questions unblamed over our morning coffee-cups or our evening tea-cups. +There is no rest for the Protestant until he gives up his legendary +anthropology and all its dogmatic dependencies. + +It is only incidentally, however, that the Professor at the +Breakfast-Table handles matters which are the subjects of religious +controversy. The reader who is sensitive about having his fixed beliefs +dealt with as if they were open to question had better skip the pages +which look as if they would disturb his complacency. "Faith" is the most +precious of possessions, and it dislikes being meddled with. It means, +of course, self-trust,--that is, a belief in the value of our, own +opinion of a doctrine, of a church, of a religion, of a Being, a belief +quite independent of any evidence that we can bring to convince a jury of +our fellow beings. Its roots are thus inextricably entangled with those +of self-love and bleed as mandrakes were said to, when pulled up as +weeds. Some persons may even at this late day take offence at a few +opinions expressed in the following pages, but most of these passages +will be read without loss of temper by those who disagree with them, and +by-and-by they may be found too timid and conservative for intelligent +readers, if they are still read by any. + +BEVERLY FARM, MASS., June 18, 1891. +O. W. H. + + THE PROFESSOR + + AT THE + BREAKFAST-TABLE. + + What he said, what he heard, and what he saw. + + + + +I + +I intended to have signalized my first appearance by a certain large +statement, which I flatter myself is the nearest approach to a universal +formula, of life yet promulgated at this breakfast-table. It would have +had a grand effect. For this purpose I fixed my eyes on a certain +divinity-student, with the intention of exchanging a few phrases, and +then forcing my court-card, namely, The great end of being.--I will thank +you for the sugar,--I said.--Man is a dependent creature. + +It is a small favor to ask,--said the divinity-student,--and passed the +sugar to me. + +--Life is a great bundle of little things,--I said. + +The divinity-student smiled, as if that were the concluding epigram of +the sugar question. + +You smile,--I said.--Perhaps life seems to you a little bundle of great +things? + +The divinity-student started a laugh, but suddenly reined it back with a +pull, as one throws a horse on his haunches.--Life is a great bundle of +great things,--he said. + +(NOW, THEN!) The great end of being, after all, is.... + +Hold on!--said my neighbor, a young fellow whose name seems to be John, +and nothing else,--for that is what they all call him,--hold on! the +Sculpin is go'n' to say somethin'. + +Now the Sculpin (Cottus Virginianus) is a little water-beast which +pretends to consider itself a fish, and, under that pretext, hangs about +the piles upon which West-Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the bait and +hook intended for flounders. On being drawn from the water, it exposes +an immense head, a diminutive bony carcass, and a surface so full of +spines, ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists have not been +able to count them without quarrelling about the number, and that the +colored youth, whose sport they spoil, do not like to touch them, and +especially to tread on them, unless they happen to have shoes on, to +cover the thick white soles of their broad black feet. + +When, therefore, I heard the young fellow's exclamation, I looked round +the table with curiosity to see what it meant. At the further end of it +I saw a head, and a--a small portion of a little deformed body, mounted +on a high chair, which brought the occupant up to a fair level enough for +him to get at his food. His whole appearance was so grotesque, I felt +for a minute as if there was a showman behind him who would pull him down +presently and put up Judy, or the hangman, or the Devil, or some other +wooden personage of the famous spectacle. I contrived to lose the first +of his sentence, but what I heard began so: + +--by the Frog-Pond, when there were frogs in and the folks used to come +down from the tents on section and Independence days with their pails to +get water to make egg-pop with. Born in Boston; went to school in Boston +as long as the boys would let me.--The little man groaned, turned, as if +to look around, and went on.--Ran away from school one day to see +Phillips hung for killing Denegri with a logger-head. That was in flip +days, when there were always two three loggerheads in the fire. I'm a +Boston boy, I tell you,--born at North End, and mean to be buried on +Copp's Hill, with the good old underground people,--the Worthylakes, and +the rest of 'em. Yes,--up on the old hill, where they buried Captain +Daniel Malcolm in a stone grave, ten feet deep, to keep him safe from the +red-coats, in those old times when the world was frozen up tight and +there was n't but one spot open, and that was right over Faneuil +all,--and black enough it looked, I tell you! There 's where my bones +shall lie, Sir, and rattle away when the big guns go off at the Navy Yard +opposite! You can't make me ashamed of the old place! Full crooked +little streets;--I was born and used to run round in one of 'em-- + +--I should think so,--said that young man whom I hear them call +"John,"--softly, not meaning to be heard, nor to be cruel, but thinking +in a half-whisper, evidently.--I should think so; and got kinked up, +turnin' so many corners.--The little man did not hear what was said, but +went on,-- + +--full of crooked little streets; but I tell you Boston has opened, and +kept open, more turnpikes that lead straight to free thought and free +speech and free deeds than any other city of live men or dead men,--I +don't care how broad their streets are, nor how high their steeples! + +--How high is Bosting meet'n'-house?--said a person with black whiskers +and imperial, a velvet waistcoat, a guard-chain rather too massive, and a +diamond pin so very large that the most trusting nature might confess an +inward suggestion,--of course, nothing amounting to a suspicion. For +this is a gentleman from a great city, and sits next to the landlady's +daughter, who evidently believes in him, and is the object of his +especial attention. + +How high?--said the little man.--As high as the first step of the stairs +that lead to the New Jerusalem. Is n't that high enough? + +It is,--I said.--The great end of being is to harmonize man with the +order of things, and the church has been a good pitch-pipe, and may be so +still. But who shall tune the pitch-pipe? Quis cus-(On the whole, as +this quotation was not entirely new, and, being in a foreign language, +might not be familiar to all the boarders, I thought I would not finish +it.) + +--Go to the Bible!--said a sharp voice from a sharp-faced, sharp-eyed, +sharp-elbowed, strenuous-looking woman in a black dress, appearing as if +it began as a piece of mourning and perpetuated itself as a bit of +economy. + +You speak well, Madam,--I said;--yet there is room for a gloss or +commentary on what you say. "He who would bring back the wealth of the +Indies must carry out the wealth of the Indies." What you bring away +from the Bible depends to some extent on what you carry to it.--Benjamin +Franklin! Be so good as to step up to my chamber and bring me down the +small uncovered pamphlet of twenty pages which you will find lying under +the "Cruden's Concordance." [The boy took a large bite, which left a very +perfect crescent in the slice of bread-and-butter he held, and departed +on his errand, with the portable fraction of his breakfast to sustain him +on the way.] + +--Here it is. "Go to the Bible. A Dissertation, etc., etc. By J. J. +Flournoy. Athens, Georgia, 1858." + +Mr. Flournoy, Madam, has obeyed the precept which you have judiciously +delivered. You may be interested, Madam, to know what are the +conclusions at which Mr. J. J. Flournoy of Athens, Georgia, has arrived. +You shall hear, Madam. He has gone to the Bible, and he has come back +from the Bible, bringing a remedy for existing social evils, which, if it +is the real specific, as it professes to be, is of great interest to +humanity, and to the female part of humanity in particular. It is what +he calls TRIGAMY, Madam, or the marrying of three wives, so that "good +old men" may be solaced at once by the companionship of the wisdom of +maturity, and of those less perfected but hardly less engaging qualities +which are found at an earlier period of life. He has followed your +precept, Madam; I hope you accept his conclusions. + +The female boarder in black attire looked so puzzled, and, in fact, "all +abroad," after the delivery of this "counter" of mine, that I left her to +recover her wits, and went on with the conversation, which I was +beginning to get pretty well in hand. + +But in the mean time I kept my eye on the female boarder to see what +effect I had produced. First, she was a little stunned at having her +argument knocked over. Secondly, she was a little shocked at the +tremendous character of the triple matrimonial suggestion. Thirdly.--I +don't like to say what I thought. Something seemed to have pleased her +fancy. Whether it was, that, if trigamy should come into fashion, there +would be three times as many chances to enjoy the luxury of saying, "No!" +is more than I, can tell you. I may as well mention that B. F. came to +me after breakfast to borrow the pamphlet for "a lady,"--one of the +boarders, he said,--looking as if he had a secret he wished to be +relieved of. + +--I continued.--If a human soul is necessarily to be trained up in the +faith of those from whom it inherits its body, why, there is the end of +all reason. If, sooner or later, every soul is to look for truth with +its own eyes, the first thing is to recognize that no presumption in +favor of any particular belief arises from the fact of our inheriting it. +Otherwise you would not give the Mahometan a fair chance to become a +convert to a better religion. + +The second thing would be to depolarize every fixed religious idea in the +mind by changing the word which stands for it. + +--I don't know what you mean by "depolarizing" an idea,--said the +divinity-student. + +I will tell you,--I said.---When a given symbol which represents a +thought has lain for a certain length of time in the mind, it undergoes a +change like that which rest in a certain position gives to iron. It +becomes magnetic in its relations,--it is traversed by strange forces +which did not belong to it. The word, and consequently the idea it +represents, is polarized. + +The religious currency of mankind, in thought, in speech, and in print, +consists entirely of polarized words. Borrow one of these from another +language and religion, and you will find it leaves all its magnetism +behind it. Take that famous word, O'm, of the Hindoo mythology. Even a +priest cannot pronounce it without sin; and a holy Pundit would shut his +ears and run away from you in horror, if you should say it aloud. What +do you care for O'm? If you wanted to get the Pundit to look at his +religion fairly, you must first depolarize this and all similar words for +him. The argument for and against new translations of the Bible really +turns on this. Skepticism is afraid to trust its truths in depolarized +words, and so cries out against a new translation. I think, myself, if +every idea our Book contains could be shelled out of its old symbol and +put into a new, clean, unmagnetic word, we should have some chance of +reading it as philosophers, or wisdom-lovers, ought to read it,--which we +do not and cannot now any more than a Hindoo can read the "Gayatri" as a +fair man and lover of truth should do. When society has once fairly +dissolved the New Testament, which it never has done yet, it will perhaps +crystallize it over again in new forms of language. + +I did n't know you was a settled minister over this parish,--said the +young fellow near me. + +A sermon by a lay-preacher may be worth listening--I replied, calmly. +--It gives the parallax of thought and feeling as they appear to the +observers from two very different points of view. If you wish to get the +distance of a heavenly body, you know that you must take two observations +from remote points of the earth's orbit,--in midsummer and midwinter, for +instance. To get the parallax of heavenly truths, you must take an +observation from the position of the laity as well as of the clergy. +Teachers and students of theology get a certain look, certain +conventional tones of voice, a clerical gait, a professional neckcloth, +and habits of mind as professional as their externals. They are +scholarly men and read Bacon, and know well enough what the "idols of the +tribe" are. Of course they have their false gods, as all men that follow +one exclusive calling are prone to do.--The clergy have played the part +of the flywheel in our modern civilization. They have never suffered it +to stop. They have often carried on its movement, when other moving +powers failed, by the momentum stored in their vast body. Sometimes, +too, they have kept it back by their vis inertia, when its wheels were +like to grind the bones of some old canonized error into fertilizers for +the soil that yields the bread of life. But the mainspring of the +world's onward religious movement is not in them, nor in any one body of +men, let me tell you. It is the people that makes the clergy, and not +the clergy that makes the people. Of course, the profession reacts on +its source with variable energy.--But there never was a guild of dealers +or a company of craftsmen that did not need sharp looking after. + +Our old friend, Dr. Holyoke, whom we gave the dinner to some time since, +must have known many people that saw the great bonfire in Harvard College +yard. + +--Bonfire?--shrieked the little man.--The bonfire when Robert Calef's +book was burned? + +The same,--I said,--when Robert Calef the Boston merchant's book was +burned in the yard of Harvard College, by order of Increase Mather, +President of the College and Minister of the Gospel. You remember the +old witchcraft revival of '92, and how stout Master Robert Calef, trader +of Boston, had the pluck to tell the ministers and judges what a set of +fools and worse than fools they were-- + +Remember it?--said the little man.--I don't think I shall forget it, as +long as I can stretch this forefinger to point with, and see what it +wears. There was a ring on it. + +May I look at it?--I said. + +Where it is,--said the little man;--it will never come off, till it falls +off from the bone in the darkness and in the dust. + +He pushed the high chair on which he sat slightly back from the table, +and dropped himself, standing, to the floor,--his head being only a +little above the level of the table, as he stood. With pain and labor, +lifting one foot over the other, as a drummer handles his sticks, he took +a few steps from his place,--his motions and the deadbeat of the +misshapen boots announcing to my practised eye and ear the malformation +which is called in learned language talipes varus, or inverted club-foot. + +Stop! stop!--I said,--let me come to you. + +The little man hobbled back, and lifted himself by the left arm, with an +ease approaching to grace which surprised me, into his high chair. I +walked to his side, and he stretched out the forefinger of his right +hand, with the ring upon it. The ring had been put on long ago, and +could not pass the misshapen joint. It was one of those funeral rings +which used to be given to relatives and friends after the decease of +persons of any note or importance. Beneath a round fit of glass was a +death's head. Engraved on one side of this, "L. B. AEt. 22,"--on the +other, "Ob. 1692" + +My grandmother's grandmother,--said the little man.--Hanged for a witch. +It does n't seem a great while ago. I knew my grandmother, and loved +her. Her mother was daughter to the witch that Chief Justice Sewall +hanged and Cotton Mather delivered over to the Devil.--That was Salem, +though, and not Boston. No, not Boston. Robert Calef, the Boston +merchant, it was that blew them all to-- + +Never mind where he blew them to,--I said; for the little man was getting +red in the face, and I did n't know what might come next. + +This episode broke me up, as the jockeys say, out of my square +conversational trot; but I settled down to it again. + +--A man that knows men, in the street, at their work, human nature in its +shirt-sleeves, who makes bargains with deacons, instead of talking over +texts with them, a man who has found out that there are plenty of praying +rogues and swearing saints in the world,--above all, who has found out, +by living into the pith and core of life, that all of the Deity which can +be folded up between the sheets of any human book is to the Deity of the +firmament, of the strata, of the hot aortic flood of throbbing human +life, of this infinite, instantaneous consciousness in which the soul's +being consists,--an incandescent point in the filament connecting the +negative pole of a past eternity with the positive pole of an eternity +that is to come,--that all of the Deity which any human book can hold is +to this larger Deity of the working battery of the universe only as the +films in a book of gold-leaf are to the broad seams and curdled lumps of +ore that lie in unsunned mines and virgin placers,--Oh!--I was saying +that a man who lives out-of-doors, among live people, gets some things +into his head he might not find in the index of his "Body of Divinity." + +I tell you what,--the idea of the professions' digging a moat round their +close corporations, like that Japanese one at Jeddo, on the bottom of +which, if travellers do not lie, you could put Park Street Church and +look over the vane from its side, and try to stretch another such spire +across it without spanning the chasm,--that idea, I say, is pretty nearly +worn out. Now when a civilization or a civilized custom falls into +senile dementia, there is commonly a judgment ripe for it, and it comes +as plagues come, from a breath,--as fires come, from a spark. + +Here, look at medicine. Big wigs, gold-headed canes, Latin +prescriptions, shops full of abominations, recipes a yard long, "curing" +patients by drugging as sailors bring a wind by whistling, selling lies +at a guinea apiece,--a routine, in short, of giving unfortunate sick +people a mess of things either too odious to swallow or too acrid to +hold, or, if that were possible, both at once. + +--You don't know what I mean, indignant and not unintelligent +country-practitioner? Then you don't know the history of medicine,--and +that is not my fault. But don't expose yourself in any outbreak of +eloquence; for, by the mortar in which Anaxarchus was pounded! I did not +bring home Schenckius and Forestus and Hildanus, and all the old folios +in calf and vellum I will show you, to be bullied by the proprietor, of a +"Wood and Bache," and a shelf of peppered sheepskin reprints by +Philadelphia Editors. Besides, many of the profession and I know a +little something of each other, and you don't think I am such a simpleton +as to lose their good opinion by saying what the better heads among them +would condemn as unfair and untrue? Now mark how the great plague came +on the generation of drugging doctors, and in what form it fell. + +A scheming drug-vender, (inventive genius,) an utterly untrustworthy and +incompetent observer, (profound searcher of Nature,) a shallow dabbler in +erudition, (sagacious scholar,) started the monstrous fiction (founded +the immortal system) of Homoeopathy. I am very fair, you see,---you can +help yourself to either of these sets of phrases. + +All the reason in the world would not have had so rapid and general an +effect on the public mind to disabuse it of the idea that a drug is a +good thing in itself, instead of being, as it is, a bad thing, as was +produced by the trick (system) of this German charlatan (theorist). Not +that the wiser part of the profession needed him to teach them; but the +routinists and their employers, the "general practitioners," who lived by +selling pills and mixtures, and their drug-consuming customers, had to +recognize that people could get well, unpoisoned. These dumb cattle +would not learn it of themselves, and so the murrain of Homoeopathy fell +on them. + +--You don't know what plague has fallen on the practitioners of theology? +I will tell you, then. It is Spiritualism. While some are crying out +against it as a delusion of the Devil, and some are laughing at it as an +hysteric folly, and some are getting angry with it as a mere trick of +interested or mischievous persons, Spiritualism is quietly undermining +the traditional ideas of the future state which have been and are still +accepted,--not merely in those who believe in it, but in the general +sentiment of the community, to a larger extent than most good people seem +to be aware of. It need n't be true, to do this, any more than +Homoeopathy need, to do its work. The Spiritualists have some pretty +strong instincts to pry over, which no doubt have been roughly handled by +theologians at different times. And the Nemesis of the pulpit comes, in +a shape it little thought of, beginning with the snap of a toe-joint, and +ending with such a crack of old beliefs that the roar of it is heard in +all the ministers' studies of Christendom? Sir, you cannot have people +of cultivation, of pure character, sensible enough in common things, +large-hearted women, grave judges, shrewd business-men, men of science, +professing to be in communication with the spiritual world and keeping up +constant intercourse with it, without its gradually reacting on the whole +conception of that other life. It is the folly of the world, constantly, +which confounds its wisdom. Not only out of the mouths of babes and +sucklings, but out of the mouths of fools and cheats, we may often get +our truest lessons. For the fool's judgment is a dog-vane that turns +with a breath, and the cheat watches the clouds and sets his weathercock +by them,--so that one shall often see by their pointing which way the +winds of heaven are blowing, when the slow-wheeling arrows and feathers +of what we call the Temples of Wisdom are turning to all points of the +compass. + +--Amen!--said the young fellow called John--Ten minutes by the watch. +Those that are unanimous will please to signify by holding up their left +foot! + +I looked this young man steadily in the face for about thirty seconds. +His countenance was as calm as that of a reposing infant. I think it was +simplicity, rather than mischief, with perhaps a youthful playfulness, +that led him to this outbreak. I have often noticed that even quiet +horses, on a sharp November morning, when their coats are beginning to +get the winter roughness, will give little sportive demi-kicks, with +slight sudden elevation of the subsequent region of the body, and a sharp +short whinny,--by no means intending to put their heels through the +dasher, or to address the driver rudely, but feeling, to use a familiar +word, frisky. This, I think, is the physiological condition of the young +person, John. I noticed, however, what I should call a palpebral spasm, +affecting the eyelid and muscles of one side, which, if it were intended +for the facial gesture called a wink, might lead me to suspect a +disposition to be satirical on his part. + +--Resuming the conversation, I remarked,--I am, ex officio, as a +Professor, a conservative. For I don't know any fruit that clings to its +tree so faithfully, not even a "froze-'n'-thaw" winter-apple, as a +Professor to the bough of which his chair is made. You can't shake him +off, and it is as much as you can do to pull him off. Hence, by a chain +of induction I need not unwind, he tends to conservatism generally. + +But then, you know, if you are sailing the Atlantic, and all at once find +yourself in a current, and the sea covered with weeds, and drop your +Fahrenheit over the side and find it eight or ten degrees higher than in +the ocean generally, there is no use in flying in the face of facts and +swearing there is no such thing as a Gulf-Stream, when you are in it. + +You can't keep gas in a bladder, and you can't keep knowledge tight in a +profession. Hydrogen will leak out, and air will leak in, through +India-rubber; and special knowledge will leak out, and general knowledge +will leak in, though a profession were covered with twenty thicknesses of +sheepskin diplomas. + +By Jove, Sir, till common sense is well mixed up with medicine, and +common manhood with theology, and common honesty with law, We the people, +Sir, some of us with nut-crackers, and some of us with trip-hammers, and +some of us with pile-drivers, and some of us coming with a whish! like +air-stones out of a lunar volcano, will crash down on the lumps of +nonsense in all of them till we have made powder of them--like Aaron's +calf. + +If to be a conservative is to let all the drains of thought choke up and +keep all the soul's windows down,--to shut out the sun from the east and +the wind from the west,--to let the rats run free in the cellar, and the +moths feed their fill in the chambers, and the spiders weave their lace +before the mirrors, till the soul's typhus is bred out of our neglect, +and we begin to snore in its coma or rave in its delirium,--I, Sir, am a +bonnet-rouge, a red cap of the barricades, my friends, rather than a +conservative. + +--Were you born in Boston, Sir?--said the little man,--looking eager and +excited. + +I was not,--I replied. + +It's a pity,--it's a pity,--said the little man;--it 's the place to be +born in. But if you can't fix it so as to be born here, you can come and +live here. Old Ben Franklin, the father of American science and the +American Union, was n't ashamed to be born here. Jim Otis, the father of +American Independence, bothered about in the Cape Cod marshes awhile, but +he came to Boston as soon as he got big enough. Joe Warren, the first +bloody ruffed-shirt of the Revolution, was as good as born here. Parson +Charming strolled along this way from Newport, and stayed here. Pity old +Sam Hopkins hadn't come, too;--we'd have made a man of him,--poor, dear, +good old Christian heathen! There he lies, as peaceful as a young baby, +in the old burying-ground! I've stood on the slab many a time. Meant +well,--meant well. Juggernaut. Parson Charming put a little oil on one +linchpin, and slipped it out so softly, the first thing they knew about +it was the wheel of that side was down. T' other fellow's at work now, +but he makes more noise about it. When the linchpin comes out on his +side, there'll be a jerk, I tell you! Some think it will spoil the old +cart, and they pretend to say that there are valuable things in it which +may get hurt. Hope not,--hope not. But this is the great Macadamizing +place,--always cracking up something. + +Cracking up Boston folks,--said the gentleman with the diamond-pin, whom, +for convenience' sake, I shall hereafter call the Koh-i-noor. + +The little man turned round mechanically towards him, as Maelzel's Turk +used to turn, carrying his head slowly and horizontally, as if it went by +cogwheels.--Cracking up all sorts of things,--native and foreign vermin +included,--said the little man. + +This remark was thought by some of us to have a hidden personal +application, and to afford a fair opening for a lively rejoinder, if the +Koh-i-noor had been so disposed. The little man uttered it with the +distinct wooden calmness with which the ingenious Turk used to exclaim, +E-chec! so that it must have been heard. The party supposed to be +interested in the remark was, however, carrying a large knife-bladeful of +something to his mouth just then, which, no doubt, interfered with the +reply he would have made. + +--My friend who used to board here was accustomed sometimes, in a +pleasant way, to call himself the Autocrat of the table,--meaning, I +suppose, that he had it all his own way among the boarders. I think our +small boarder here is like to prove a refractory subject, if I undertake +to use the sceptre my friend meant to bequeath me, too magisterially. I +won't deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I have been in company +with gentlemen who preferred listening, I have been guilty of the same +kind of usurpation which my friend openly justified. But I maintain, +that I, the Professor, am a good listener. If a man can tell me a fact +which subtends an appreciable angle in the horizon of thought, I am as +receptive as the contribution-box in a congregation of colored brethren. +If, when I am exposing my intellectual dry-goods, a man will begin a good +story, I will have them all in, and my shutters up, before he has got to +the fifth "says he," and listen like a three-years' child, as the author +of the "Old Sailor" says. I had rather hear one of those grand elemental +laughs from either of our two Georges, (fictitious names, Sir or Madam,) +glisten to one of those old playbills of our College days, in which "Tom +and Jerry" ("Thomas and Jeremiah," as the old Greek Professor was said to +call it) was announced to be brought on the stage with whole force of the +Faculty, read by our Frederick, (no such person, of course,) than say the +best things I might by any chance find myself capable of saying. Of +course, if I come across a real thinker, a suggestive, acute, +illuminating, informing talker, I enjoy the luxury of sitting still for a +while as much as another. + +Nobody talks much that does n't say unwise things,--things he did not +mean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false note +sometimes. Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of +thought. I can't answer for what will turn up. If I could, it would n't +be talking, but "speaking my piece." Better, I think, the hearty +abandonment of one's self to the suggestions of the moment at the risk of +an occasional slip of the tongue, perceived the instant it escapes, but +just one syllable too late, than the royal reputation of never saying a +foolish thing. + +--What shall I do with this little man?--There is only one thing to +do,--and that is to let him talk when he will. The day of the +"Autocrat's" monologues is over. + +--My friend,--said I to the young fellow whom, as I have said, the +boarders call "John,"--My friend,--I said, one morning, after +breakfast,--can you give me any information respecting the deformed +person who sits at the other end of the table? + +What! the Sculpin?--said the young fellow. + +The diminutive person, with angular curvature of the spine,--I said, +--and double talipes varus,--I beg your pardon,--with two club-feet. + +Is that long word what you call it when a fellah walks so?--said the +young man, making his fists revolve round an imaginary axis, as you may +have seen youth of tender age and limited pugilistic knowledge, when they +show how they would punish an adversary, themselves protected by this +rotating guard,--the middle knuckle, meantime, thumb-supported, fiercely +prominent, death-threatening. + +It is,--said I.--But would you have the kindness to tell me if you know +anything about this deformed person? + +About the Sculpin?--said the young fellow. + +My good friend,--said I,--I am sure, by your countenance, you would not +hurt the feelings of one who has been hardly enough treated by Nature to +be spared by his fellows. Even in speaking of him to others, I could +wish that you might not employ a term which implies contempt for what +should inspire only pity. + +A fellah 's no business to be so crooked,--said the young man called +John. + +Yes, yes,--I said, thoughtfully,--the strong hate the weak. It's all +right. The arrangement has reference to the race, and not to the +individual. Infirmity must be kicked out, or the stock run down. +Wholesale moral arrangements are so different from retail!--I understand +the instinct, my friend,--it is cosmic,--it is planetary,--it is a +conservative principle in creation. + +The young fellow's face gradually lost its expression as I was speaking, +until it became as blank of vivid significance as the countenance of a +gingerbread rabbit with two currants in the place of eyes. He had not +taken my meaning. + +Presently the intelligence came back with a snap that made him wink, as +he answered,--Jest so. All right. A 1. Put her through. That's the +way to talk. Did you speak to me, Sir?--Here the young man struck up +that well-known song which I think they used to sing at Masonic +festivals, beginning, "Aldiborontiphoscophornio, Where left you +Chrononhotonthologos?" + +I beg your pardon,--I said;--all I meant was, that men, as temporary +occupants of a permanent abode called human life, which is improved or +injured by occupancy, according to the style of tenant, have a natural +dislike to those who, if they live the life of the race as well as of the +individual, will leave lasting injurious effects upon the abode spoken +of, which is to be occupied by countless future generations. This is the +final cause of the underlying brute instinct which we have in common with +the herds. + +--The gingerbread-rabbit expression was coming on so fast, that I thought +I must try again.--It's a pity that families are kept up, where there are +such hereditary infirmities. Still, let us treat this poor man fairly, +and not call him names. Do you know what his name is? + +I know what the rest of 'em call him,--said the young fellow.--They call +him Little Boston. There's no harm in that, is there? + +It is an honorable term,--I replied.--But why Little Boston, in a place +where most are Bostonians? + +Because nobody else is quite so Boston all over as he is,--said the young +fellow. + +"L. B. Ob. 1692."--Little Boston let him be, when we talk about him. The +ring he wears labels him well enough. There is stuff in the little man, +or he would n't stick so manfully by this crooked, crotchety old town. +Give him a chance.--You will drop the Sculpin, won't you?--I said to the +young fellow. + +Drop him?--he answered,--I ha'n't took him up yet. + +No, no,--the term,--I said,--the term. Don't call him so any more, if +you please. Call him Little Boston, if you like. + +All right,--said the young fellow.--I would n't be hard on the poor +little-- + +The word he used was objectionable in point of significance and of +grammar. It was a frequent termination of certain adjectives among the +Romans,--as of those designating a person following the sea, or given to +rural pursuits. It is classed by custom among the profane words; why, it +is hard to say,--but it is largely used in the street by those who speak +of their fellows in pity or in wrath. + +I never heard the young fellow apply the name of the odious pretended +fish to the little man from that day forward. + +--Here we are, then, at our boarding--house. First, myself, the +Professor, a little way from the head of the table, on the right, looking +down, where the "Autocrat" used to sit. At the further end sits the +Landlady. At the head of the table, just now, the Koh-i-noor, or the +gentleman with the diamond. Opposite me is a Venerable Gentleman with a +bland countenance, who as yet has spoken little. The Divinity Student is +my neighbor on the right,--and further down, that Young Fellow of whom I +have repeatedly spoken. The Landlady's Daughter sits near the +Koh-i-noor, as I said. The Poor Relation near the Landlady. At the +right upper corner is a fresh-looking youth of whose name and history I +have as yet learned nothing. Next the further left-hand corner, near the +lower end of the table, sits the deformed person. The chair at his side, +occupying that corner, is empty. I need not specially mention the other +boarders, with the exception of Benjamin Franklin, the landlady's son, +who sits near his mother. We are a tolerably assorted set,--difference +enough and likeness enough; but still it seems to me there is something +wanting. The Landlady's Daughter is the prima donna in the way of +feminine attractions. I am not quite satisfied with this young lady. +She wears more "jewelry," as certain young ladies call their trinkets, +than I care to see on a person in her position. Her voice is strident, +her laugh too much like a giggle, and she has that foolish way of dancing +and bobbing like a quill-float with a "minnum" biting the hook below it, +which one sees and weeps over sometimes in persons of more pretensions. +I can't help hoping we shall put something into that empty chair yet +which will add the missing string to our social harp. I hear talk of a +rare Miss who is expected. Something in the schoolgirl way, I believe. +We shall see. + +--My friend who calls himself The Autocrat has given me a caution which I +am going to repeat, with my comment upon it, for the benefit of all +concerned. + +Professor,--said he, one day,--don't you think your brain will run dry +before a year's out, if you don't get the pump to help the cow? Let me +tell you what happened to me once. I put a little money into a bank, and +bought a check-book, so that I might draw it as I wanted, in sums to +suit. Things went on nicely for a time; scratching with a pen was as +easy as rubbing Aladdin's Lamp; and my blank check-book seemed to be a +dictionary of possibilities, in which I could find all the synonymes of +happiness, and realize any one of them on the spot. A check came back to +me at last with these two words on it,--NO FUNDS. My check-book was a +volume of waste-paper. + +Now, Professor,--said he,--I have drawn something out of your bank, you +know; and just so sure as you keep drawing out your soul's currency +without making new deposits, the next thing will be, NO FUNDS,--and then +where will you be, my boy? These little bits of paper mean your gold and +your silver and your copper, Professor; and you will certainly break up +and go to pieces, if you don't hold on to your metallic basis. + +There is something in that,--said I.--Only I rather think life can coin +thought somewhat faster than I can count it off in words. What if one +shall go round and dry up with soft napkins all the dew that falls of a +June evening on the leaves of his garden? Shall there be no more dew on +those leaves thereafter? Marry, yea,--many drops, large and round and +full of moonlight as those thou shalt have absterged! + +Here am I, the Professor,--a man who has lived long enough to have +plucked the flowers of life and come to the berries,--which are not +always sad-colored, but sometimes golden-hued as the crocus of April, or +rosy-cheeked as the damask of June; a man who staggered against books as +a baby, and will totter against them, if he lives to decrepitude; with a +brain full of tingling thoughts, such as they are, as a limb which we +call "asleep," because it is so particularly awake, is of pricking points; +presenting a key-board of nerve-pulps, not as yet tanned or ossified, to +finger-touch of all outward agencies; knowing nothing of the filmy +threads of this web of life in which we insects buzz awhile, waiting for +the gray old spider to come along; contented enough with daily realities, +but twirling on his finger the key of a private Bedlam of ideals; in +knowledge feeding with the fox oftener than with the stork,--loving +better the breadth of a fertilizing inundation than the depth of narrow +artesian well; finding nothing too small for his contemplation in the +markings of the grammatophora subtilissima, and nothing too large in the +movement of the solar system towards the star Lambda of the constellation +Hercules;--and the question is, whether there is anything left for me, +the Professor, to suck out of creation, after my lively friend has had +his straw in the bung-hole of the Universe! + +A man's mental reactions with the atmosphere of life must go on, whether +he will or no, as between his blood and the air he breathes. As to +catching the residuum of the process, or what we call thought,--the +gaseous ashes of burned-out thinking,--the excretion of mental +respiration,--that will depend on many things, as, on having a favorable +intellectual temperature about one, and a fitting receptacle.--I sow more +thought-seeds in twenty-four hours' travel over the desert-sand along +which my lonely consciousness paces day and night, than I shall throw +into soil where it will germinate, in a year. All sorts of bodily and +mental perturbations come between us and the due projection of our +thought. The pulse-like "fits of easy and difficult transmission" seem +to reach even the transparent medium through which our souls are seen. +We know our humanity by its often intercepted rays, as we tell a +revolving light from a star or meteor by its constantly recurring +obscuration. + +An illustrious scholar once told me, that, in the first lecture he ever +delivered, he spoke but half his allotted time, and felt as if he had +told all he knew. Braham came forward once to sing one of his most +famous and familiar songs, and for his life could not recall the first +line of it;--he told his mishap to the audience, and they screamed it at +him in a chorus of a thousand voices. Milton could not write to suit +himself, except from the autumnal to the vernal equinox. One in the +clothing-business, who, there is reason to suspect, may have inherited, +by descent, the great poet's impressible temperament, let a customer slip +through his fingers one day without fitting him with a new garment. +"Ah!" said he to a friend of mine, who was standing by, "if it hadn't +been for that confounded headache of mine this morning, I'd have had a +coat on that man, in spite of himself, before he left-the store." A +passing throb, only,--but it deranged the nice mechanism required to +persuade the accidental human being, X, into a given piece of broadcloth, +A. + +We must take care not to confound this frequent difficulty of +transmission of our ideas with want of ideas. I suppose that a man's +mind does in time form a neutral salt with the elements in the universe +for which it has special elective affinities. In fact, I look upon a +library as a kind of mental chemist's shop filled with the crystals of +all forms and hues which have come from the union of individual thought +with local circumstances or universal principles. + +When a man has worked out his special affinities in this way, there is an +end of his genius as a real solvent. No more effervescence and hissing +tumult--as he pours his sharp thought on the world's biting alkaline +unbeliefs! No more corrosion of the old monumental tablets covered with +lies! No more taking up of dull earths, and turning them, first into +clear solutions, and then into lustrous prisms! + +I, the Professor, am very much like other men: I shall not find out when +I have used up my affinities. What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, +when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to +make critics out of the chips that were left! Painful as the task is, +they never fail to warn the author, in the most impressive manner, of the +probabilities of failure in what he has undertaken. Sad as the necessity +is to their delicate sensibilities, they never hesitate to advertise him +of the decline of his powers, and to press upon him the propriety of +retiring before he sinks into imbecility. Trusting to their kind +offices, I shall endeavor to fulfil-- + +--Bridget enters and begins clearing the table. + +--The following poem is my (The Professor's) only contribution to the +great department of Ocean-Cable literature. As all the poets of this +country will be engaged for the next six weeks in writing for the premium +offered by the Crystal-Palace Company for the Burns Centenary, (so +called, according to our Benjamin Franklin, because there will be nary a +cent for any of us,) poetry will be very scarce and dear. Consumers may, +consequently, be glad to take the present article, which, by the aid of a +Latin tutor--and a Professor of Chemistry, will be found intelligible to +the educated classes. + + + + DE SAUTY + + AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE. + + Professor. Blue-Nose. + + PROFESSOR. + + Tell me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal! + Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, + Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, + Holding talk with nations? + + Is there a De Sauty, ambulant on Tellus, + Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in night-cap, + Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature + Three times daily patent? + + Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal? + Or is he a mythus,--ancient word for "humbug," + --Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed + Romulus and Remus? + + Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty? + Or a living product of galvanic action, + Like the status bred in Crosses flint-solution? + Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal! + + + BLUE-NOSE. + + Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, + Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster! + Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, + Thou shalt hear them answered. + + When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, + At the polar focus of the wire electric + Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us + Called himself "DE SAUTY." + + As the small opossum held in pouch maternal + Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, + So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, + Sucking in the current. + + When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger, + Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy, + And from time to time, in sharp articulation, + Said, "All right! DE SAUTY." + + From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading + Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples + Till the land was filled with loud reverberations + Of "All right! DE SAUTY." + + When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stranger, + Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker, + Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odor + Of disintegration. + + Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, + Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, + Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended, + There was no De Sauty. + + Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, + C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, + Calc. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang.(?) Alumin.(?) Cuprum,(?) + Such as man is made of. + + Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished! + There is no De Sauty now there is no current! + Give us a new cable, then again we'll hear him + Cry, "All right! DE SAUTY." + + + + +II + +Back again!--A turtle--which means a tortoise--is fond of his shell; but +if you put a live coal on his back, he crawls out of it. So the boys +say. + +It is a libel on the turtle. He grows to his shell, and his shell is in +his body as much as his body is in his shell.--I don't think there is one +of our boarders quite so testudineous as I am. Nothing but a combination +of motives, more peremptory than the coal on the turtle's back, could +have got me to leave the shelter of my carapace; and after memorable +interviews, and kindest hospitalities, and grand sights, and huge influx +of patriotic pride,--for every American owns all America,-- + + "Creation's heir,--the world, the world is" + +his, if anybody's,--I come back with the feeling which a boned turkey +might experience, if, retaining his consciousness, he were allowed to +resume his skeleton. + +Welcome, O Fighting Gladiator, and Recumbent Cleopatra, and Dying +Warrior, whose classic outlines (reproduced in the calcined mineral of +Lutetia) crown my loaded shelves! Welcome, ye triumphs of pictorial art +(repeated by the magic graver) that look down upon me from the walls of +my sacred cell! Vesalius, as Titian drew him, high-fronted, still-eyed, +thick-bearded, with signet-ring, as beseems a gentleman, with book and +carelessly-held eyeglass, marking him a scholar; thou, too, Jan Kuyper, +commonly called Jan Praktiseer, old man of a century and seven years +besides, father of twenty sons and two daughters, cut in copper by +Houbraken, bought from a portfolio on one of the Paris quais; and ye +Three Trees of Rembrandt, black in shadow against the blaze of light; and +thou Rosy Cottager of Sir Joshua, roses hinted by the peppery burin of +Bartolozzi; ye, too, of lower grades in nature, yet not unlovely for +unrenowned, Young Bull of Paulus Potter, and sleeping Cat of Cornelius +Visscher; welcome once more to my eyes! The old books look out from the +shelves, and I seem to read on their backs something asides their +titles,--a kind of solemn greeting. The crimson carpet flushes warm +under my feet. The arm-chair hugs me; the swivel-chair spins round with +me, as if it were giddy with pleasure; the vast recumbent fauteuil +stretches itself out under my weight, as one joyous with food and wine +stretches in after-dinner laughter. + +The boarders were pleased to say that they were glad to get me back. One +of them ventured a compliment, namely,--that I talked as if I believed +what I said.--This was apparently considered something unusual, by its +being mentioned. + +One who means to talk with entire sincerity,--I said,--always feels +himself in danger of two things, namely,--an affectation of bluntness, +like that of which Cornwall accuses Kent in "Lear," and actual rudeness. +What a man wants to do, in talking with a stranger, is to get and to give +as much of the best and most real life that belongs to the two talkers as +the time will let him. Life is short, and conversation apt to run to +mere words. Mr. Hue I think it is, who tells us some very good stories +about the way in which two Chinese gentlemen contrive to keep up a long +talk without saying a word which has any meaning in it. Something like +this is occasionally heard on this side of the Great Wall. The best +Chinese talkers I know are some pretty women whom I meet from time to +time. Pleasant, airy, complimentary, the little flakes of flattery +glimmering in their talk like the bits of gold-leaf in eau-de-vie de +Dantzic; their accents flowing on in a soft ripple,--never a wave, and +never a calm; words nicely fitted, but never a colored phrase or a +highly-flavored epithet; they turn air into syllables so gracefully, that +we find meaning for the music they make as we find faces in the coals and +fairy palaces in the clouds. There is something very odd, though, about +this mechanical talk. + +You have sometimes been in a train on the railroad when the engine was +detached a long way from the station you were approaching? Well, you +have noticed how quietly and rapidly the cars kept on, just as if the +locomotive were drawing them? Indeed, you would not have suspected that +you were travelling on the strength of a dead fact, if you had not seen +the engine running away from you on a side-track. Upon my conscience, I +believe some of these pretty women detach their minds entirely, +sometimes, from their talk,--and, what is more, that we never know the +difference. Their lips let off the fluty syllables just as their fingers +would sprinkle the music-drops from their pianos; unconscious habit turns +the phrase of thought into words just as it does that of music into +notes.--Well, they govern the world for all that, these sweet-lipped +women,--because beauty is the index of a larger fact than wisdom. + +--The Bombazine wanted an explanation. + +Madam,--said I,--wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the +promise of the future. + +--All this, however, is not what I was going to say. Here am I, suppose, +seated--we will say at a dinner-table--alongside of an intelligent +Englishman. We look in each other's faces,--we exchange a dozen words. +One thing is settled: we mean not to offend each other,--to be perfectly +courteous,--more than courteous; for we are the entertainer and the +entertained, and cherish particularly amiable feelings, to each other. +The claret is good; and if our blood reddens a little with its warm +crimson, we are none the less kind for it. + +I don't think people that talk over their victuals are like to say +anything very great, especially if they get their heads muddled with +strong drink before they begin jabberin'. + +The Bombazine uttered this with a sugary sourness, as if the words had +been steeped in a solution of acetate of lead.--The boys of my time used +to call a hit like this a "side-winder." + +--I must finish this woman.-- + +Madam,--I said,--the Great Teacher seems to have been fond of talking as +he sat at meat. Because this was a good while ago, in a far-off place, +you forget what the true fact of it was,--that those were real dinners, +where people were hungry and thirsty, and where you met a very +miscellaneous company. Probably there was a great deal of loose talk +among the guests; at any rate, there was always wine, we may believe. + +Whatever may be the hygienic advantages or disadvantages of wine,--and I +for one, except for certain particular ends, believe in water, and, I +blush to say it, in black tea,--there is no doubt about its being the +grand specific against dull dinners. A score of people come together in +all moods of mind and body. The problem is, in the space of one hour, +more or less, to bring them all into the same condition of slightly +exalted life. Food alone is enough for one person, perhaps,--talk, +alone, for another; but the grand equalizer and fraternizer, which works +up the radiators to their maximum radiation, and the absorbents to their +maximum receptivity, is now just where it was when + + The conscious water saw its Lord and blushed, + +--when six great vessels containing water, the whole amounting to more +than a hogshead-full, were changed into the best of wine. I once wrote a +song about wine, in which I spoke so warmly of it, that I was afraid some +would think it was written inter pocula; whereas it was composed in the +bosom of my family, under the most tranquillizing domestic influences. + +--The divinity-student turned towards me, looking mischievous.--Can you +tell me,--he said,--who wrote a song for a temperance celebration once, +of which the following is a verse? + + Alas for the loved one, too gentle and fair + The joys of the banquet to chasten and share! + Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, + And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine! + +I did,--I answered.--What are you going to do about it?--I will tell you +another line I wrote long ago:-- + + Don't be "consistent,"--but be simply true. + +The longer I live, the more I am satisfied of two things: first, that the +truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many +facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about them; +secondly, that society is always trying in some way or other to grind us +down to a single flat surface. It is hard work to resist this +grinding-down action.--Now give me a chance. Better eternal and +universal abstinence than the brutalities of those days that made wives +and mothers and daughters and sisters blush for those whom they should +have honored, as they came reeling home from their debauches! Yet better +even excess than lying and hypocrisy; and if wine is upon all our tables, +let us praise it for its color and fragrance and social tendency, so far +as it deserves, and not hug a bottle in the closet and pretend not to +know the use of a wine-glass at a public dinner! I think you will find +that people who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves +much more rarely than those who try to be "consistent." But a great many +things we say can be made to appear contradictory, simply because they +are partial views of a truth, and may often look unlike at first, as a +front view of a face and its profile often do. + +Here is a distinguished divine, for whom I have great respect, for I owe +him a charming hour at one of our literary anniversaries, and he has +often spoken noble words; but he holds up a remark of my friend the +"Autocrat,"--which I grieve to say he twice misquotes, by omitting the +very word which gives it its significance,--the word fluid, intended to +typify the mobility of the restricted will,--holds it up, I say, as if it +attacked the reality of the self-determining principle, instead of +illustrating its limitations by an image. Now I will not explain any +farther, still less defend, and least of all attack, but simply quote a +few lines from one of my friend's poems, printed more than ten years ago, +and ask the distinguished gentleman where he has ever asserted more +strongly or absolutely the independent will of the "subcreative centre," +as my heretical friend has elsewhere called man. + + --Thought, conscience, will, to make them all thy own + He rent a pillar from the eternal throne! + --Made in His image, thou must nobly dare + The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. + --Think not too meanly of thy low estate; + Thou hast a choice; to choose is to create! + +If he will look a little closely, he will see that the profile and the +full-face views of the will are both true and perfectly consistent! + +Now let us come back, after this long digression, to the conversation +with the intelligent Englishman. We begin skirmishing with a few light +ideas,--testing for thoughts,--as our electro-chemical friend, De Sauty, +if there were such a person, would test for his current; trying a little +litmus-paper for acids, and then a slip of turmeric-paper for alkalies, +as chemists do with unknown compounds; flinging the lead, and looking at +the shells and sands it brings up to find out whether we are like to keep +in shallow water, or shall have to drop the deep-sea line;--in short, +seeing what we have to deal with. If the Englishman gets his H's pretty +well placed, he comes from one of the higher grades of the British social +order, and we shall find him a good companion. + +But, after all, here is a great fact between us. We belong to two +different civilizations, and, until we recognize what separates us, we +are talking like Pyramus and Thisbe, without any hole in the wall to talk +through. Therefore, on the whole, if he were a superior fellow, +incapable of mistaking it for personal conceit, I think I would let out +the fact of the real American feeling about Old-World folks. They are +children to us in certain points of view. They are playing with toys we +have done with for whole-generations. + +--------FOOTNOTE: +The more I have observed and reflected, the more limited seems to me the +field of action of the human will. Every act of choice involves a special +relation between the ego and the conditions before it. But no man knows +what forces are at work in the determination of his ego. The bias which +decides his choice between two or more motives may come from some +unsuspected ancestral source, of which he knows nothing at all. He is +automatic in virtue of that hidden spring of reflex action, all the time +having the feeling that he is self-determining. The Story of Elsie +Yenner, written-soon after this book was published, illustrates the +direction in which my thought was moving. 'The imaginary subject of the +story obeyed her will, but her will Obeyed the mysterious antenatal +poisoning influence. +-------- + +That silly little drum they are always beating on, and the trumpet and +the feather they make so much noise and cut such a figure with, we have +not quite outgrown, but play with much less seriously and constantly than +they do. Then there is a whole museum of wigs, and masks, and +lace-coats, and gold-sticks, and grimaces, and phrases, which we laugh at +honestly, without affectation, that are still used in the Old-World +puppet-shows. I don't think we on our part ever understand the +Englishman's concentrated loyalty and specialized reverence. But then we +do think more of a man, as such, (barring some little difficulties about +race and complexion which the Englishman will touch us on presently,) +than any people that ever lived did think of him. Our reverence is a +great deal wider, if it is less intense. We have caste among us, to some +extent; it is true; but there is never a collar on the American wolf-dog +such as you often see on the English mastiff, notwithstanding his robust, +hearty individuality. + +This confronting of two civilizations is always a grand sensation to me; +it is like cutting through the isthmus and letting the two oceans swim +into each other's laps. The trouble is, it is so difficult to let out +the whole American nature without its self-assertion seeming to take a +personal character. But I never enjoy the Englishman so much as when he +talks of church and king like Manco Capac among the Peruvians. Then you +get the real British flavor, which the cosmopolite Englishman loses. + +How much better this thorough interpenetration of ideas than a barren +interchange of courtesies, or a bush-fighting argument, in which each man +tries to cover as much of himself and expose as much of his opponent as +the tangled thicket of the disputed ground will let him! + +---My thoughts flow in layers or strata, at least three deep. I follow a +slow person's talk, and keep a perfectly clear under-current of my own +beneath it. Under both runs obscurely a consciousness belonging to a +third train of reflections, independent of the two others. I will try to +write out a Mental movement in three parts. + +A.---First voice, or Mental Soprano,--thought follows a woman talking. + +B.--Second voice, or Mental Barytone,--my running accompaniment. + +C.--Third voice, or Mental Basso,--low grumble of importunate +self-repeating idea. + +A.--White lace, three skirts, looped with flowers, wreath of +apple-blossoms, gold bracelets, diamond pin and ear-rings, the most +delicious berthe you ever saw, white satin slippers-- + +B.--Deuse take her! What a fool she is! Hear her chatter! (Look out of +window just here.--Two pages and a half of description, if it were all +written out, in one tenth of a second.)--Go ahead, old lady! (Eye catches +picture over fireplace.) There's that infernal family nose! Came over in +the "Mayflower" on the first old fool's face. Why don't they wear a ring +in it? + +C.--You 'll be late at lecture,--late at lecture,--late,--late-- + +I observe that a deep layer of thought sometimes makes itself felt +through the superincumbent strata, thus:--The usual single or double +currents shall flow on, but there shall be an influence blending with +them, disturbing them in an obscure way, until all at once I say,--Oh, +there! I knew there was something troubling me,--and the thought which +had been working through comes up to the surface clear, definite, and +articulates itself,--a disagreeable duty, perhaps, or an unpleasant +recollection. + +The inner world of thought and the outer world of events are alike in +this, that they are both brimful. There is no space between consecutive +thoughts, or between the never-ending series of actions. All pack tight, +and mould their surfaces against each other, so that in the long run +there is a wonderful average uniformity in the forms of both thoughts and +actions, just as you find that cylinders crowded all become hexagonal +prisms, and spheres pressed together are formed into regular polyhedra. + +Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no +man ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped by him. So, +to carry out, with another comparison, my remark about the layers of +thought, we may consider the mind as it moves among thoughts or events, +like a circus-rider whirling round with a great troop of horses. He can +mount a fact or an idea, and guide it more or less completely, but he +cannot stop it. So, as I said in another way at the beginning, he can +stride two or three thoughts at once, but not break their steady walk, +trot, or gallop. He can only take his foot from the saddle of one +thought and put it on that of another. + +--What is the saddle of a thought? Why, a word, of course.--Twenty years +after you have dismissed a thought, it suddenly wedges up to you through +the press, as if it had been steadily galloping round and round all that +time without a rider. + +The will does not act in the interspaces of thought, for there are no +such interspaces, but simply steps from the back of one moving thought +upon that of another. + +--I should like to ask,--said the divinity-student,--since we are getting +into metaphysics, how you can admit space, if all things are in contact, +and how you can admit time, if it is always now to something? + +--I thought it best not to hear this question. + +--I wonder if you know this class of philosophers in books or elsewhere. +One of them makes his bow to the public, and exhibits an unfortunate +truth bandaged up so that it cannot stir hand or foot,--as helpless, +apparently, and unable to take care of itself, as an Egyptian mummy. He +then proceeds, with the air and method of a master, to take off the +bandages. Nothing can be neater than the way in which he does it. But +as he takes off layer after layer, the truth seems to grow smaller and +smaller, and some of its outlines begin to look like something we have +seen before. At last, when he has got them all off, and the truth struts +out naked, we recognize it as a diminutive and familiar acquaintance whom +we have known in the streets all our lives. The fact is, the philosopher +has coaxed the truth into his study and put all those bandages on; or +course it is not very hard for him to take them off. Still, a great many +people like to watch the process,--he does it so neatly! + +Dear! dear! I am ashamed to write and talk, sometimes, when I see how +those functions of the large-brained, thumb-opposing plantigrade are +abused by my fellow-vertebrates,--perhaps by myself. How they spar for +wind, instead of hitting from the shoulder! + +--The young fellow called John arose and placed himself in a neat +fighting attitude.--Fetch on the fellah that makes them long words!--he +said,--and planted a straight hit with the right fist in the concave palm +of the left hand with a click like a cup and ball.--You small boy there, +hurry up that "Webster's Unabridged!" + +The little gentleman with the malformation, before described, shocked the +propriety of the breakfast-table by a loud utterance of three words, of +which the two last were "Webster's Unabridged," and the first was an +emphatic monosyllable.--Beg pardon,--he added,--forgot myself. But let +us have an English dictionary, if we are to have any. I don't believe in +clipping the coin of the realm, Sir! If I put a weathercock on my house, +Sir, I want it to tell which way the wind blows up aloft,--off from the +prairies to the ocean, or off from the ocean to the prairies, or any way +it wants to blow! I don't want a weathercock with a winch in an old +gentleman's study that he can take hold of and turn, so that the vane +shall point west when the great wind overhead is blowing east with all +its might, Sir! Wait till we give you a dictionary; Sir! It takes +Boston to do that thing, Sir! + +--Some folks think water can't run down-hill anywhere out of Boston, +--remarked the Koh-i-noor. + +I don't know what some folks think so well as I know what some fools +say,--rejoined the Little Gentleman.--If importing most dry goods made +the best scholars, I dare say you would know where to look for 'em.--Mr. +Webster could n't spell, Sir, or would n't spell, Sir,--at any rate, he +did n't spell; and the end of it was a fight between the owners of some +copyrights and the dignity of this noble language which we have inherited +from our English fathers. Language!--the blood of the soul, Sir! into +which our thoughts run and out of which they grow! We know what a word +is worth here in Boston. Young Sam Adams got up on the stage at +Commencement, out at Cambridge there, with his gown on, the Governor and +Council looking on in the name of his Majesty, King George the Second, +and the girls looking down out of the galleries, and taught people how to +spell a word that was n't in the Colonial dictionaries! R-e, re, s-i-s, +sis, t-a-n-c-e, tance, Resistance! That was in '43, and it was a good +many years before the Boston boys began spelling it with their +muskets;--but when they did begin, they spelt it so loud that the old +bedridden women in the English almshouses heard every syllable! Yes, +yes, yes,--it was a good while before those other two Boston boys got the +class so far along that it could spell those two hard words, Independence +and Union! I tell you what, Sir, there are a thousand lives, aye, +sometimes a million, go to get a new word into a language that is worth +speaking. We know what language means too well here in Boston to play +tricks with it. We never make a new word til we have made a new thing or +a new thought, Sir! then we shaped the new mould of this continent, we +had to make a few. When, by God's permission, we abrogated the primal +curse of maternity, we had to make a word or two. The cutwater of this +great Leviathan clipper, the OCCIDENTAL,--this thirty-wasted +wind-and-steam wave-crusher,--must throw a little spray over the human +vocabulary as it splits the waters of a new world's destiny! + +He rose as he spoke, until his stature seemed to swell into the fair +human proportions. His feet must have been on the upper round of his +high chair; that was the only way I could account for it. + +Puts her through fast-rate,--said the young fellow whom the boarders call +John. + +The venerable and kind-looking old gentleman who sits opposite said he +remembered Sam Adams as Governor. An old man in a brown coat. Saw him +take the Chair on Boston Common. Was a boy then, and remembers sitting +on the fence in front of the old Hancock house. Recollects he had a +glazed 'lectionbun, and sat eating it and looking down on to the Common. +Lalocks flowered late that year, and he got a great bunch off from the +bushes in the Hancock front-yard. + +Them 'lection-buns are no go,--said the young man John, so called.--I +know the trick. Give a fellah a fo'penny bun in the mornin', an' he +downs the whole of it. In about an hour it swells up in his stomach as +big as a football, and his feedin' 's spilt for that day. That's the way +to stop off a young one from eatin' up all the 'lection dinner. + +Salem! Salem! not Boston,--shouted the little man. + +But the Koh-i-noor laughed a great rasping laugh, and the boy Benjamin +Franklin looked sharp at his mother, as if he remembered the +bun-experiment as a part of his past personal history. + +The Little Gentleman was holding a fork in his left hand. He stabbed a +boulder of home-made bread with it, mechanically, and looked at it as if +it ought to shriek. It did not,--but he sat as if watching it. + +--Language is a solemn thing,--I said.--It grows out of life,--out of its +agonies and ecstasies, its wants and its weariness. Every language is a +temple, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined. Because +time softens its outlines and rounds the sharp angles of its cornices, +shall a fellow take a pickaxe to help time? Let me tell you what comes of +meddling with things that can take care of themselves.--A friend of mine +had a watch given him, when he was a boy,--a "bull's eye," with a loose +silver case that came off like an oyster-shell from its contents; you +know them,--the cases that you hang on your thumb, while the core, or the +real watch, lies in your hand as naked as a peeled apple. Well, he began +with taking off the case, and so on from one liberty to another, until he +got it fairly open, and there were the works, as good as if they were +alive,--crown-wheel, balance-wheel, and all the rest. All right except +one thing,--there was a confounded little hair had got tangled round the +balance-wheel. So my young Solomon got a pair of tweezers, and caught +hold of the hair very nicely, and pulled it right out, without touching +any of the wheels,--when,--buzzzZZZ! and the watch had done up +twenty-four hours in double magnetic-telegraph time!--The English +language was wound up to run some thousands of years, I trust; but if +everybody is to be pulling at everything he thinks is a hair, our +grandchildren will have to make the discovery that it is a hair-spring, +and the old Anglo-Norman soul's-timekeeper will run down, as so many +other dialects have done before it. I can't stand this meddling any +better than you, Sir. But we have a great deal to be proud of in the +lifelong labors of that old lexicographer, and we must n't be ungrateful. +Besides, don't let us deceive ourselves,--the war of the dictionaries is +only a disguised rivalry of cities, colleges, and especially of +publishers. After all, it is likely that the language will shape itself +by larger forces than phonography and dictionary-making. You may spade +up the ocean as much as you like, and harrow it afterwards, if you +can,--but the moon will still lead the tides, and the winds will form +their surface. + +--Do you know Richardson's Dictionary?--I said to my neighbor the +divinity-student. + +Haow?--said the divinity-student.--He colored, as he noticed on my face a +twitch in one of the muscles which tuck up the corner of the mouth, +(zygomaticus major,) and which I could not hold back from making a little +movement on its own account. + +It was too late.--A country-boy, lassoed when he was a half-grown colt. +Just as good as a city-boy, and in some ways, perhaps, better,--but +caught a little too old not to carry some marks of his earlier ways of +life. Foreigners, who have talked a strange tongue half their lives, +return to the language of their childhood in their dying hours. +Gentlemen in fine linen, and scholars in large libraries, taken by +surprise, or in a careless moment, will sometimes let slip a word they +knew as boys in homespun and have not spoken since that time,--but it lay +there under all their culture. That is one way you may know the +country-boys after they have grown rich or celebrated; another is by the +odd old family names, particularly those of the Hebrew prophets, which +the good old people have saddled them with. + +--Boston has enough of England about it to make a good English +dictionary,--said that fresh-looking youth whom I have mentioned as +sitting at the right upper corner of the table. + +I turned and looked him full in the face,--for the pure, manly +intonations arrested me. The voice was youthful, but full of +character.--I suppose some persons have a peculiar susceptibility in the +matter of voice.--Hear this. + +Not long after the American Revolution, a young lady was sitting in her +father's chaise in a street of this town of Boston. She overheard a +little girl talking or singing, and was mightily taken with the tones of +her voice. Nothing would satisfy her but she must have that little girl +come and live in her father's house. So the child came, being then nine +years old. Until her marriage she remained under the same roof with the +young lady. Her children became successively inmates of the lady's +dwelling; and now, seventy years, or thereabouts, since the young lady +heard the child singing, one of that child's children and one of her +grandchildren are with her in that home, where she, no longer young, +except in heart, passes her peaceful days.--Three generations linked +together by so light a breath of accident! + +I liked--the sound of this youth's voice, I said, and his look when I +came to observe him a little more closely. His complexion had something +better than the bloom and freshness which had first attracted me;--it had +that diffused tone which is a sure index of wholesome, lusty life. A +fine liberal style of nature seemed to be: hair crisped, moustache +springing thick and dark, head firmly planted, lips finished, as is +commonly sees them in gentlemen's families, a pupil well contracted, and +a mouth that opened frankly with a white flash of teeth that looked as if +they could serve him as they say Ethan Allen's used to serve their +owner,--to draw nails with. This is the kind of fellow to walk a +frigate's deck and bowl his broadsides into the "Gadlant Thudnder-bomb," +or any forty-port-holed adventurer who would like to exchange a few tons +of iron compliments.--I don't know what put this into my head, for it was +not till some time afterward I learned the young fellow had been in the +naval school at Annapolis. Something had happened to change his plan of +life, and he was now studying engineering and architecture in Boston. + +When the youth made the short remark which drew my attention to him, the +little deformed gentleman turned round and took a long look at him. + +Good for the Boston boy!--he said. + +I am not a Boston boy,--said the youth, smiling,--I am a Marylander. + +I don't care where you come from,--we'll make a Boston man of you,--said +the little gentleman. Pray, what part of Maryland did you come from, and +how shall I call you? + +The poor youth had to speak pretty loud, as he was at the right upper +corner of the table, and the little gentleman next the lower left-hand +corner. His face flushed a little, but he answered pleasantly, telling +who he was, as if the little man's infirmity gave him a right to ask any +questions he wanted to. + +Here is the place for you to sit,--said the little gentleman, pointing to +the vacant chair next his own, at the corner. + +You're go'n' to have a young lady next you, if you wait till +to-morrow,--said the landlady to him. + +He did not reply, but I had a fancy that he changed color. It can't be +that he has susceptibilities with reference to a contingent young lady! +It can't be that he has had experiences which make him sensitive! Nature +could not be quite so cruel as to set a heart throbbing in that poor +little cage of ribs! There is no use in wasting notes of admiration. I +must ask the landlady about him. + +These are some of the facts she furnished.--Has not been long with her. +Brought a sight of furniture,--could n't hardly get some of it upstairs. +Has n't seemed particularly attentive to the ladies. The Bombazine (whom +she calls Cousin something or other) has tried to enter into conversation +with him, but retired with the impression that he was indifferent to +ladies' society. Paid his bill the other day without saying a word about +it. Paid it in gold,--had a great heap of twenty-dollar pieces. Hires +her best room. Thinks he is a very nice little man, but lives dreadful +lonely up in his chamber. Wants the care of some capable nuss. Never +pitied anybody more in her life--never see a more interestin' person. + +--My intention was, when I began making these notes, to let them consist +principally of conversations between myself and the other boarders. So +they will, very probably; but my curiosity is excited about this little +boarder of ours, and my reader must not be disappointed, if I sometimes +interrupt a discussion to give an account of whatever fact or traits I +may discover about him. It so happens that his room is next to mine, and +I have the opportunity of observing many of his ways without any active +movements of curiosity. That his room contains heavy furniture, that he +is a restless little body and is apt to be up late, that he talks to +himself, and keeps mainly to himself, is nearly all I have yet found out. + +One curious circumstance happened lately which I mention without drawing +an absolute inference. Being at the studio of a sculptor with whom I am +acquainted, the other day, I saw a remarkable cast of a left arm. On my +asking where the model came from, he said it was taken direct from the +arm of a deformed person, who had employed one of the Italian moulders to +make the cast. It was a curious case, it should seem, of one beautiful +limb upon a frame otherwise singularly imperfect--I have repeatedly +noticed this little gentleman's use of his left arm. Can he have +furnished the model I saw at the sculptor's? + +--So we are to have a new boarder to-morrow. I hope there will be +something pretty and pleasing about her. A woman with a creamy voice, +and finished in alto rilievo, would be a variety in the +boarding-house,--a little more marrow and a little less sinew than our +landlady and her daughter and the bombazine-clad female, all of whom are +of the turkey-drumstick style of organization. I don't mean that these +are our only female companions; but the rest being conversational +non-combatants, mostly still, sad feeders, who take in their food as +locomotives take in wood and water, and then wither away from the table +like blossoms that never came to fruit, I have not yet referred to them +as individuals. + +I wonder what kind of young person we shall see in that empty chair +to-morrow! + +--I read this song to the boarders after breakfast the other morning. It +was written for our fellows;--you know who they are, of course. + + + + THE BOYS. + + Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? + If there has, take him out, without making a noise! + Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! + Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night! + + We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? + He's tipsy,--young jackanapes!--show him the door! + --"Gray temples at twenty?"--Yes! white, if we please; + Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze! + + Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! + Look close,--you will see not a sign of a flake; + We want some new garlands for those we have shed, + And these are white roses in place of the red! + + We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told. + Of talking (in public) as if we were old; + That boy we call Doctor, (1) and this we call Judge (2) + --It's a neat little fiction,--of course it's all fudge. + + That fellow's the Speaker, (3)--the one on the right; + Mr. Mayor, (4) my young one, how are you to-night? + That's our "Member of Congress,"(5) we say when we chaff; + There's the "Reverend" (6) What's his name?--don't make me laugh! + + That boy with the grave mathematical look(7) + Made believe he had written a wonderful book, + And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true! + So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too. + + There's a boy,--we pretend,--with a three-decker-brain + That could harness a team with a logical chain: + When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, + We called him "The Justice,"--but now he's "The Squire."(1) + + And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,(2) + Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith, + But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, + --Just read on his medal,--"My country,--of thee!" + + You hear that boy laughing?--you think he's all fun, + But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; + The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, + And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!(3) + + Yes, we're boys,--always playing with tongue or with pen, + --And I sometimes have asked,--Shall we ever be men? + Shall we always be youthful and laughing and gay, + Till the last dear companion drops smiling away? + + Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! + The stars of its Winter, the dews of its May! + And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, + Dear Father, take care of thy children, the Boys! + + 1 Francis Thomas. + 2 George Tyler Bigelow. + 3 Francis Boardman Crowninshield. + 4 G. W. Richardson. + 5 George Thomas Davis. + 6 James Freeman Clarke. + 7 Benjamin Peirce. + + + + +III + +[The Professor talks with the Reader. He tells a Young Girl's Story.] + +When the elements that went to the making of the first man, father of +mankind, had been withdrawn from the world of unconscious matter, the +balance of creation was disturbed. The materials that go to the making +of one woman were set free by the abstraction from inanimate nature of +one man's-worth of masculine constituents. These combined to make our +first mother, by a logical necessity involved in the previous creation of +our common father. All this, mythically, illustratively, and by no means +doctrinally or polemically. + +The man implies the woman, you will understand. The excellent gentleman +whom I had the pleasure of setting right in a trifling matter a few weeks +ago believes in the frequent occurrence of miracles at the present day. +So do I. I believe, if you could find an uninhabited coral-reef island, +in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with plenty of cocoa-palms and +bread-fruit on it, and put a handsome young fellow, like our Marylander, +ashore upon it, if you touched there a year afterwards, you would find +him walking under the palm-trees arm in arm with a pretty woman. + +Where would she come from? + +Oh, that 's the miracle! + +--I was just as certain, when I saw that fine, high-colored youth at the +upper right-hand corner of our table, that there would appear some +fitting feminine counterpart to him, as if I had been a clairvoyant, +seeing it all beforehand. + +--I have a fancy that those Marylanders are just about near enough to the +sun to ripen well.--How some of us fellows remember Joe and Harry, +Baltimoreans, both! Joe, with his cheeks like lady-apples, and his eyes +like black-heart cherries, and his teeth like the whiteness of the flesh +of cocoanuts, and his laugh that set the chandelier-drops rattling +overhead, as we sat at our sparkling banquets in those gay times! Harry, +champion, by acclamation, of the college heavy-weights, broad-shouldered, +bull-necked, square-jawed, six feet and trimmings, a little science, lots +of pluck, good-natured as a steer in peace, formidable as a red-eyed +bison in the crack of hand-to-hand battle! Who forgets the great +muster-day, and the collision of the classic with the democratic forces? +The huge butcher, fifteen stone,--two hundred and ten pounds,--good +weight,--steps out like Telamonian Ajax, defiant. No words from Harry, +the Baltimorean,--one of the quiet sort, who strike first; and do the +talking, if there is any, afterwards. No words, but, in the place +thereof, a clean, straight, hard hit, which took effect with a spank like +the explosion of a percussion-cap, knocking the slayer of beeves down a +sand-bank,--followed, alas! by the too impetuous youth, so that both +rolled down together, and the conflict terminated in one of those +inglorious and inevitable Yankee clinches, followed by a general melee, +which make our native fistic encounters so different from such +admirably-ordered contests as that which I once saw at an English fair, +where everything was done decently and in order; and the fight began and +ended with such grave propriety, that a sporting parson need hardly have +hesitated to open it with a devout petition, and, after it was over, +dismiss the ring with a benediction. + +I can't help telling one more story about this great field-day, though it +is the most wanton and irrelevant digression. But all of us have a +little speck of fight underneath our peace and good-will to men, just a +speck, for revolutions and great emergencies, you know,--so that we +should not submit to be trodden quite flat by the first heavy-heeled +aggressor that came along. You can tell a portrait from an ideal head, I +suppose, and a true story from one spun out of the writer's invention. +See whether this sounds true or not. + +Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin sent out two fine blood-horses, Barefoot and +Serab by name, to Massachusetts, something before the time I am talking +of. With them came a Yorkshire groom, a stocky little fellow, in velvet +breeches, who made that mysterious hissing noise, traditionary in English +stables, when he rubbed down the silken-skinned racers, in great +perfection. After the soldiers had come from the muster-field, and some +of the companies were on the village-common, there was still some +skirmishing between a few individuals who had not had the fight taken out +of them. The little Yorkshire groom thought he must serve out somebody. +So he threw himself into an approved scientific attitude, and, in brief, +emphatic language, expressed his urgent anxiety to accommodate any +classical young gentleman who chose to consider himself a candidate for +his attentions. I don't suppose there were many of the college boys that +would have been a match for him in the art which Englishmen know so much +more of than Americans, for the most part. However, one of the +Sophomores, a very quiet, peaceable fellow, just stepped out of the +crowd, and, running straight at the groom, as he stood there, sparring +away, struck him with the sole of his foot, a straight blow, as if it had +been with his fist, and knocked him heels over head and senseless, so +that he had to be carried off from the field. This ugly way of hitting +is the great trick of the French gavate, which is not commonly thought +able to stand its ground against English pugilistic science. These are +old recollections, with not much to recommend them, except, perhaps, a +dash of life, which may be worth a little something. + +The young Marylander brought them all up, you may remember. He recalled +to my mind those two splendid pieces of vitality I told you of. Both +have been long dead. How often we see these great red-flaring flambeaux +of life blown out, as it were, by a puff of wind,--and the little, +single-wicked night-lamp of being, which some white-faced and attenuated +invalid shades with trembling fingers, flickering on while they go out +one after another, until its glimmer is all that is left to us of the +generation to which it belonged! + +I told you that I was perfectly sure, beforehand, we should find some +pleasing girlish or womanly shape to fill the blank at our table and +match the dark-haired youth at the upper corner. + +There she sits, at the very opposite corner, just as far off as accident +could put her from this handsome fellow, by whose side she ought, of +course, to be sitting. One of the "positive" blondes, as my friend, you +may remember, used to call them. Tawny-haired, amber-eyed, +full-throated, skin as white as a blanched almond. Looks dreamy to me, +not self-conscious, though a black ribbon round her neck sets it off as a +Marie-Antoinette's diamond-necklace could not do. So in her dress, there +is a harmony of tints that looks as if an artist had run his eye over her +and given a hint or two like the finishing touch to a picture. I can't +help being struck with her, for she is at once rounded and fine in +feature, looks calm, as blondes are apt to, and as if she might run wild, +if she were trifled with. It is just as I knew it would be,--and anybody +can see that our young Marylander will be dead in love with her in a +week. + +Then if that little man would only turn out immensely rich and have the +good-nature to die and leave them all his money, it would be as nice as a +three-volume novel. + +The Little Gentleman is in a flurry, I suspect, with the excitement of +having such a charming neighbor next him. I judge so mainly by his +silence and by a certain rapt and serious look on his face, as if he were +thinking of something that had happened, or that might happen, or that +ought to happen,--or how beautiful her young life looked, or how hardly +Nature had dealt with him, or something which struck him silent, at any +rate. I made several conversational openings for him, but he did not +fire up as he often does. I even went so far as to indulge in, a fling +at the State House, which, as we all know, is in truth a very imposing +structure, covering less ground than St. Peter's, but of similar general +effect. The little man looked up, but did not reply to my taunt. He +said to the young lady, however, that the State House was the Parthenon +of our Acropolis, which seemed to please her, for she smiled, and he +reddened a little,--so I thought. I don't think it right to watch +persons who are the subjects of special infirmity,--but we all do it. + +I see that they have crowded the chairs a little at that end of the +table, to make room for another newcomer of the lady sort. A +well-mounted, middle-aged preparation, wearing her hair without a cap, +--pretty wide in the parting, though,--contours vaguely hinted, +--features very quiet,--says little as yet, but seems to keep her eye on +the young lady, as if having some responsibility for her My record is a +blank for some days after this. In the mean time I have contrived to +make out the person and the story of our young lady, who, according to +appearances, ought to furnish us a heroine for a boarding-house romance +before a year is out. It is very curious that she should prove connected +with a person many of us have heard of. Yet, curious as it is, I have +been a hundred times struck with the circumstance that the most remote +facts are constantly striking each other; just as vessels starting from +ports thousands of miles apart pass close to each other in the naked +breadth of the ocean, nay, sometimes even touch, in the dark, with a +crack of timbers, a gurgling of water, a cry of startled sleepers,--a cry +mysteriously echoed in warning dreams, as the wife of some Gloucester +fisherman, some coasting skipper, wakes with a shriek, calls the name of +her husband, and sinks back to uneasy slumbers upon her lonely pillow,--a +widow. + +Oh, these mysterious meetings! Leaving all the vague, waste, endless +spaces of the washing desert, the ocean-steamer and the fishing-smack +sail straight towards each other as if they ran in grooves ploughed for +them in the waters from the beginning of creation! Not only things and +events, but our own thoughts, are so full of these surprises, that, if +there were a reader in my parish who did not recognize the familiar +occurrence of what I am now going to mention, I should think it a case +for the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of Intelligence +among the Comfortable Classes. There are about as many twins in the +births of thought as of children. For the first time in your lives you +learn some fact or come across some idea. Within an hour, a day, a week, +that same fact or idea strikes you from another quarter. It seems as if +it had passed into space and bounded back upon you as an echo from the +blank wall that shuts in the world of thought. Yet no possible +connection exists between the two channels by which the thought or the +fact arrived. Let me give an infinitesimal illustration. + +One of the Boys mentioned, the other evening, in the course of a very +pleasant poem he read us, a little trick of the Commons-table boarders, +which I, nourished at the parental board, had never heard of. Young +fellows being always hungry--Allow me to stop dead-short, in order to +utter an aphorism which has been forming itself in one of the blank +interior spaces of my intelligence, like a crystal in the cavity of a +geode. + + Aphorism by the Professor. + +In order to know whether a human being is young or old, offer it food of +different kinds at short intervals. If young, it will eat anything at +any hour of the day or night. If old, it observes stated periods, and +you might as well attempt to regulate the time of highwater to suit a +fishing-party as to change these periods. The crucial experiment is this. +Offer a bulky and boggy bun to the suspected individual just ten minutes +before dinner. If this is eagerly accepted and devoured, the fact of +youth is established. If the subject of the question starts back and +expresses surprise and incredulity, as if you could not possibly be in +earnest, the fact of maturity is no less clear. + +--Excuse me,--I return to my story of the Commons-table.--Young fellows +being always hungry, and tea and dry toast being the meagre fare of the +evening meal, it was a trick of some of the Boys to impale a slice of +meat upon a fork, at dinner-time, and stick the fork holding it beneath +the table, so that they could get it at tea-time. The dragons that +guarded this table of the Hesperides found out the trick at last, and +kept a sharp look-out for missing forks;--they knew where to find one, +if it was not in its place.--Now the odd thing was, that, after waiting +so many years to hear of this college trick, I should hear it mentioned a +second time within the same twenty-four hours by a college youth of the +present generation. Strange, but true. And so it has happened to me and +to every person, often and often, to be hit in rapid succession by these +twinned facts or thoughts, as if they were linked like chain-shot. + +I was going to leave the simple reader to wonder over this, taking it as +an unexplained marvel. I think, however, I will turn over a furrow of +subsoil in it.--The explanation is, of course, that in a great many +thoughts there must be a few coincidences, and these instantly arrest our +attention. Now we shall probably never have the least idea of the +enormous number of impressions which pass through our consciousness, +until in some future life we see the photographic record of our thoughts +and the stereoscopic picture of our actions. There go more pieces to make +up a conscious life or a living body than you think for. Why, some of +you were surprised when a friend of mine told you there were fifty-eight +separate pieces in a fiddle. How many "swimming glands"--solid, +organized, regularly formed, rounded disks taking an active part in all +your vital processes, part and parcel, each one of them, of your +corporeal being--do you suppose are whirled along, like pebbles in a +stream, with the blood which warms your frame and colors your cheeks?--A +noted German physiologist spread out a minute drop of blood, under the +microscope, in narrow streaks, and counted the globules, and then made a +calculation. The counting by the micrometer took him a week.--You have, +my full-grown friend, of these little couriers in crimson or scarlet +livery, running on your vital errands day and night as long as you live, +sixty-five billions, five hundred and seventy thousand millions. Errors +excepted.--Did I hear some gentleman say, "Doubted? "--I am the +Professor. I sit in my chair with a petard under it that will blow me +through the skylight of my lecture-room, if I do not know what I am +talking about and whom I am quoting. + +Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands to your foreheads, and +saying to yourselves that you feel a little confused, as if you had been +waltzing until things began to whirl slightly round you, is it possible +that you do not clearly apprehend the exact connection of all that I have +been saying, and its bearing on what is now to come? Listen, then. The +number of these living elements in our bodies illustrates the +incalculable multitude of our thoughts; the number of our thoughts +accounts for those frequent coincidences spoken of; these coincidences in +the world of thought illustrate those which we constantly observe in the +world of outward events, of which the presence of the young girl now at +our table, and proving to be the daughter of an old acquaintance some of +us may remember, is the special example which led me through this +labyrinth of reflections, and finally lands me at the commencement of +this young girl's story, which, as I said, I have found the time and felt +the interest to learn something of, and which I think I can tell without +wronging the unconscious subject of my brief delineation. +IRIS. + +You remember, perhaps, in some papers published awhile ago, an odd poem +written by an old Latin tutor? He brought up at the verb amo, I love, as +all of us do, and by and by Nature opened her great living dictionary for +him at the word filia, a daughter. The poor man was greatly perplexed in +choosing a name for her. Lucretia and Virginia were the first that he +thought of; but then came up those pictured stories of Titus Livius, +which he could never read without crying, though he had read them a +hundred times. + +--Lucretia sending for her husband and her father, each to bring one +friend with him, and awaiting them in her chamber. To them her wrongs +briefly. Let them see to the wretch,--she will take care of herself. +Then the hidden knife flashes out and sinks into her heart. She slides +from her seat, and falls dying. "Her husband and her father cry +aloud."--No, not Lucretia. + +-Virginius,--a brown old soldier, father of a nice girl. She engaged to +a very promising young man. Decemvir Appius takes a violent fancy to +her,--must have her at any rate. Hires a lawyer to present the arguments +in favor of the view that she was another man's daughter. There used to +be lawyers in Rome that would do such things.--All right. There are two +sides to everything. Audi alteram partem. The legal gentleman has no +opinion,--he only states the evidence.--A doubtful case. Let the young +lady be under the protection of the Honorable Decemvir until it can be +looked up thoroughly.--Father thinks it best, on the whole, to give in. +Will explain the matter, if the young lady and her maid will step this +way. That is the explanation,--a stab with a butcher's knife, snatched +from a stall, meant for other lambs than this poor bleeding Virginia. + +The old man thought over the story. Then he must have one look at the +original. So he took down the first volume and read it over. When he +came to that part where it tells how the young gentleman she was engaged +to and a friend of his took up the poor girl's bloodless shape and +carried it through the street, and how all the women followed, wailing, +and asking if that was what their daughters were coming to,--if that was +what they were to get for being good girls,--he melted down into his +accustomed tears of pity and grief, and, through them all, of delight at +the charming Latin of the narrative. But it was impossible to call his +child Virginia. He could never look at her without thinking she had a +knife sticking in her bosom. + +Dido would be a good name, and a fresh one. She was a queen, and the +founder of a great city. Her story had been immortalized by the greatest +of poets,--for the old Latin tutor clove to "Virgilius Maro," as he +called him, as closely as ever Dante did in his memorable journey. So he +took down his Virgil, it was the smooth-leafed, open-lettered quarto of +Baskerville,--and began reading the loves and mishaps of Dido. It would +n't do. A lady who had not learned discretion by experience, and came to +an evil end. He shook his head, as he sadly repeated, + + "---misera ante diem, subitoque accensa furore;" + +but when he came to the lines, + + "Ergo Iris croceis per coelum roscida pennis + Mille trahens varios adverso Sole colores," + +he jumped up with a great exclamation, which the particular recording +angel who heard it pretended not to understand, or it might have gone +hard with the Latin tutor some time or other. + +"Iris shall be her name!"--he said. So her name was Iris. + +--The natural end of a tutor is to perish by starvation. It is only a +question of time, just as with the burning of college libraries. These +all burn up sooner or later, provided they are not housed in brick or +stone and iron. I don't mean that you will see in the registry of deaths +that this or that particular tutor died of well-marked, uncomplicated +starvation. They may, even, in extreme cases, be carried off by a thin, +watery kind of apoplexy, which sounds very well in the returns, but means +little to those who know that it is only debility settling on the head. +Generally, however, they fade and waste away under various +pretexts,--calling it dyspepsia, consumption, and so on, to put a decent +appearance upon the case and keep up the credit of the family and the +institution where they have passed through the successive stages of +inanition. + +In some cases it takes a great many years to kill a tutor by the process +in question. You see they do get food and clothes and fuel, in +appreciable quantities, such as they are. You will even notice rows of +books in their rooms, and a picture or two,--things that look as if they +had surplus money; but these superfluities are the water of +crystallization to scholars, and you can never get them away till the +poor fellows effloresce into dust. Do not be deceived. The tutor +breakfasts on coffee made of beans, edulcorated with milk watered to the +verge of transparency; his mutton is tough and elastic, up to the moment +when it becomes tired out and tasteless; his coal is a sullen, sulphurous +anthracite, which rusts into ashes, rather than burns, in the shallow +grate; his flimsy broadcloth is too thin for winter and too thick for +summer. The greedy lungs of fifty hot-blooded boys suck the oxygen from +the air he breathes in his recitation-room. In short, he undergoes a +process of gentle and gradual starvation. + +--The mother of little Iris was not called Electra, like hers of the old +story, neither was her grandfather Oceanus. Her blood-name, which she +gave away with her heart to the Latin tutor, was a plain old English one, +and her water-name was Hannah, beautiful as recalling the mother of +Samuel, and admirable as reading equally well from the initial letter +forwards and from the terminal letter backwards. The poor lady, seated +with her companion at the chessboard of matrimony, had but just pushed +forward her one little white pawn upon an empty square, when the Black +Knight, that cares nothing for castles or kings or queens, swooped down +upon her and swept her from the larger board of life. + +The old Latin tutor put a modest blue stone at the head of his late +companion, with her name and age and Eheu! upon it,--a smaller one at her +feet, with initials; and left her by herself, to be rained and snowed +on,--which is a hard thing to do for those whom we have cherished +tenderly. + +About the time that the lichens, falling on the stone, like drops of +water, had spread into fair, round rosettes, the tutor had starved into a +slight cough. Then he began to draw the buckle of his black trousers a +little tighter, and took in another reef in his never-ample waistcoat. +His temples got a little hollow, and the contrasts of color in his cheeks +more vivid than of old. After a while his walks fatigued him, and he was +tired, and breathed hard after going up a flight or two of stairs. Then +came on other marks of inward trouble and general waste, which he spoke +of to his physician as peculiar, and doubtless owing to accidental +causes; to all which the doctor listened with deference, as if it had not +been the old story that one in five or six of mankind in temperate +climates tells, or has told for him, as if it were something new. As the +doctor went out, he said to himself,--"On the rail at last. +Accommodation train. A good many stops, but will get to the station by +and by." So the doctor wrote a recipe with the astrological sign of +Jupiter before it, (just as your own physician does, inestimable reader, +as you will see, if you look at his next prescription,) and departed, +saying he would look in occasionally. After this, the Latin tutor began +the usual course of "getting better," until he got so much better that +his face was very sharp, and when he smiled, three crescent lines showed +at each side of his lips, and when he spoke; it was in a muffled whisper, +and the white of his eye glistened as pearly as the purest porcelain, +--so much better, that he hoped--by spring--he--might be +able--to--attend------to his class again.--But he was recommended not to +expose himself, and so kept his chamber, and occasionally, not having +anything to do, his bed. The unmarried sister with whom he lived took +care of him; and the child, now old enough to be manageable and even +useful in trifling offices, sat in the chamber, or played, about. + +Things could not go on so forever, of course. One morning his face was +sunken and his hands were very, very cold. He was "better," he +whispered, but sadly and faintly. After a while he grew restless and +seemed a little wandering. His mind ran on his classics, and fell back +on the Latin grammar. + +"Iris!" he said,--"filiola mea!"--The child knew this meant my dear +little daughter as well as if it had been English.--"Rainbow!" for he +would translate her name at times,--"come to me,--veni"--and his lips +went on automatically, and murmured, "vel venito!"--The child came and +sat by his bedside and took his hand, which she could not warm, but which +shot its rays of cold all through her slender frame. But there she sat, +looking steadily at him. Presently he opened his lips feebly, and +whispered, "Moribundus." She did not know what that meant, but she saw +that there was something new and sad. So she began to cry; but presently +remembering an old book that seemed to comfort him at times, got up and +brought a Bible in the Latin version, called the Vulgate. "Open it," he +said,--"I will read, segnius irritant,--don't put the light out,--ah! +hoeret lateri,--I am going,--vale, vale, vale, goodbye, good-bye,--the +Lord take care of my child! Domine, audi--vel audito!" His face whitened +suddenly, and he lay still, with open eyes and mouth. He had taken his +last degree. + +--Little Miss Iris could not be said to begin life with a very brilliant +rainbow over her, in a worldly point of view. A limited wardrobe of +man's attire, such as poor tutors wear,--a few good books, principally +classics,--a print or two, and a plaster model of the Pantheon, with some +pieces of furniture which had seen service,--these, and a child's heart +full of tearful recollections and strange doubts and questions, +alternating with the cheap pleasures which are the anodynes of childish +grief; such were the treasures she inherited.--No,--I forgot. With that +kindly sentiment which all of us feel for old men's first +children,--frost-flowers of the early winter season, the old tutor's +students had remembered him at a time when he was laughing and crying +with his new parental emotions, and running to the side of the plain crib +in which his alter egg, as he used to say, was swinging, to hang over the +little heap of stirring clothes, from which looked the minute, red, +downy, still, round face, with unfixed eyes and working lips,--in that +unearthly gravity which has never yet been broken by a smile, and which +gives to the earliest moon-year or two of an infant's life the character +of a first old age, to counterpoise that second childhood which there is +one chance in a dozen it may reach by and by. The boys had remembered +the old man and young father at that tender period of his hard, dry life. +There came to him a fair, silver goblet, embossed with classical figures, +and bearing on a shield the graver words, Ex dono pupillorum. The handle +on its side showed what use the boys had meant it for; and a kind letter +in it, written with the best of feeling, in the worst of Latin, pointed +delicately to its destination. Out of this silver vessel, after a long, +desperate, strangling cry, which marked her first great lesson in the +realities of life, the child took the blue milk, such as poor tutors and +their children get, tempered with water, and sweetened a little, so as to +bring it nearer the standard established by the touching indulgence and +partiality of Nature,--who had mingled an extra allowance of sugar in the +blameless food of the child at its mother's breast, as compared with that +of its infant brothers and sisters of the bovine race. + +But a willow will grow in baked sand wet with rainwater. An air-plant +will grow by feeding on the winds. Nay, those huge forests that +overspread great continents have built themselves up mainly from the +air-currents with which they are always battling. The oak is but a +foliated atmospheric crystal deposited from the aerial ocean that holds +the future vegetable world in solution. The storm that tears its leaves +has paid tribute to its strength, and it breasts the tornado clad in the +spoils of a hundred hurricanes. + +Poor little Iris! What had she in common with the great oak in the +shadow of which we are losing sight of her?--She lived and grew like +that,--this was all. The blue milk ran into her veins and filled them +with thin, pure blood. Her skin was fair, with a faint tinge, such as +the white rosebud shows before it opens. The doctor who had attended +her father was afraid her aunt would hardly be able to "raise" +her,--"delicate child,"--hoped she was not consumptive,--thought +there was a fair chance she would take after her father. + +A very forlorn-looking person, dressed in black, with a white neckcloth, +sent her a memoir of a child who died at the age of two years and eleven +months, after having fully indorsed all the doctrines of the particular +persuasion to which he not only belonged himself, but thought it very +shameful that everybody else did not belong. What with foreboding looks +and dreary death-bed stories, it was a wonder the child made out to live +through it. It saddened her early years, of course,--it distressed her +tender soul with thoughts which, as they cannot be fully taken in, should +be sparingly used as instruments of torture to break down the natural +cheerfulness of a healthy child, or, what is infinitely worse, to cheat a +dying one out of the kind illusions with which the Father of All has +strewed its downward path. + +The child would have died, no doubt, and, if properly managed, might have +added another to the long catalogue of wasting children who have been as +cruelly played upon by spiritual physiologists, often with the best +intentions, as ever the subject of a rare disease by the curious students +of science. + +Fortunately for her, however, a wise instinct had guided the late Latin +tutor in the selection of the partner of his life, and the future mother +of his child. The deceased tutoress was a tranquil, smooth woman, easily +nourished, as such people are,--a quality which is inestimable in a +tutor's wife,--and so it happened that the daughter inherited enough +vitality from the mother to live through childhood and infancy and fight +her way towards womanhood, in spite of the tendencies she derived from +her other parent. + +--Two and two do not always make four, in this matter of hereditary +descent of qualities. Sometimes they make three, and sometimes five. It +seems as if the parental traits at one time showed separate, at another +blended,--that occasionally, the force of two natures is represented in +the derivative one by a diagonal of greater value than either original +line of living movement,--that sometimes there is a loss of vitality +hardly to be accounted for, and again a forward impulse of variable +intensity in some new and unforeseen direction. + +So it was with this child. She had glanced off from her parental +probabilities at an unexpected angle. Instead of taking to classical +learning like her father, or sliding quietly into household duties like +her mother, she broke out early in efforts that pointed in the direction +of Art. As soon as she could hold a pencil she began to sketch outlines +of objects round her with a certain air and spirit. Very extraordinary +horses, but their legs looked as if they could move. Birds unknown to +Audubon, yet flying, as it were, with a rush. Men with impossible legs, +which did yet seem to have a vital connection with their most improbable +bodies. By-and-by the doctor, on his beast,--an old man with a face +looking as if Time had kneaded it like dough with his knuckles, with a +rhubarb tint and flavor pervading himself and his sorrel horse and all +their appurtenances. A dreadful old man! Be sure she did not forget +those saddle-bags that held the detestable bottles out of which he used +to shake those loathsome powders which, to virgin childish palates that +find heaven in strawberries and peaches, are--Well, I suppose I had +better stop. Only she wished she was dead sometimes when she heard him +coming. On the next leaf would figure the gentleman with the black coat +and white cravat, as he looked when he came and entertained her with +stories concerning the death of various little children about her age, to +encourage her, as that wicked Mr. Arouet said about shooting Admiral +Byng. Then she would take her pencil, and with a few scratches there +would be the outline of a child, in which you might notice how one sudden +sweep gave the chubby cheek, and two dots darted at the paper looked like +real eyes. + +By-and-by she went to school, and caricatured the schoolmaster on the +leaves of her grammars and geographies, and drew the faces of her +companions, and, from time to time, heads and figures from her fancy, +with large eyes, far apart, like those of Raffaelle's mothers and +children, sometimes with wild floating hair, and then with wings and +heads thrown back in ecstasy. This was at about twelve years old, as the +dates of these drawings show, and, therefore, three or four years before +she came among us. Soon after this time, the ideal figures began to take +the place of portraits and caricatures, and a new feature appeared in her +drawing-books in the form of fragments of verse and short poems. + +It was dull work, of course, for such a young girl to live with an old +spinster and go to a village school. Her books bore testimony to this; +for there was a look of sadness in the faces she drew, and a sense of +weariness and longing for some imaginary conditions of blessedness or +other, which began to be painful. She might have gone through this +flowering of the soul, and, casting her petals, subsided into a sober, +human berry, but for the intervention of friendly assistance and counsel. + +In the town where she lived was a lady of honorable condition, somewhat +past middle age, who was possessed of pretty ample means, of cultivated +tastes, of excellent principles, of exemplary character, and of more than +common accomplishments. The gentleman in black broadcloth and white +neckerchief only echoed the common voice about her, when he called her, +after enjoying, beneath her hospitable roof, an excellent cup of tea, +with certain elegancies and luxuries he was unaccustomed to, "The Model +of all the Virtues." + +She deserved this title as well as almost any woman. She did really +bristle with moral excellences. Mention any good thing she had not done; +I should like to see you try! There was no handle of weakness to take +hold of her by; she was as unseizable, except in her totality, as a +billiard-ball; and on the broad, green, terrestrial table, where she had +been knocked about, like all of us, by the cue of Fortune, she glanced +from every human contact, and "caromed" from one relation to another, and +rebounded from the stuffed cushion of temptation, with such exact and +perfect angular movements, that the Enemy's corps of Reporters had long +given up taking notes of her conduct, as there was no chance for their +master. + +What an admirable person for the patroness and directress of a slightly +self-willed child, with the lightning zigzag line of genius running like +a glittering vein through the marble whiteness of her virgin nature! One +of the lady-patroness's peculiar virtues was calmness. She was resolute +and strenuous, but still. You could depend on her for every duty; she +was as true as steel. She was kind-hearted and serviceable in all the +relations of life. She had more sense, more knowledge, more +conversation, as well as more goodness, than all the partners you have +waltzed with this winter put together. + +Yet no man was known to have loved her, or even to have offered himself +to her in marriage. It was a great wonder. I am very anxious to +vindicate my character as a philosopher and an observer of Nature by +accounting for this apparently extraordinary fact. + +You may remember certain persons who have the misfortune of presenting to +the friends whom they meet a cold, damp hand. There are states of mind +in which a contact of this kind has a depressing effect on the vital +powers that makes us insensible to all the virtues and graces of the +proprietor of one of these life-absorbing organs. When they touch us, +virtue passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had been +drained by a powerful negative battery, carried about by an overgrown +human torpedo. + +"The Model of all the Virtues" had a pair of searching eyes as clear as +Wenham ice; but they were slower to melt than that fickle jewelry. Her +features disordered themselves slightly at times in a surface-smile, but +never broke loose from their corners and indulged in the riotous tumult +of a laugh,--which, I take it, is the mob-law of the features;--and +propriety the magistrate who reads the riot-act. She carried the +brimming cup of her inestimable virtues with a cautious, steady hand, and +an eye always on them, to see that they did not spill. Then she was an +admirable judge of character. Her mind was a perfect laboratory of tests +and reagents; every syllable you put into breath went into her +intellectual eudiometer, and all your thoughts were recorded on +litmus-paper. I think there has rarely been a more admirable woman. +Of course, Miss Iris was immensely and passionately attached +to her.--Well,--these are two highly oxygenated adverbs, +--grateful,--suppose we say,--yes,--grateful, dutiful, obedient to her +wishes for the most part,--perhaps not quite up to the concert pitch of +such a perfect orchestra of the virtues. + +We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love it +much. People that do not laugh or cry, or take more of anything than is +good for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are admirable +subjects for biographies. But we don't always care most for those +flat-pattern flowers that press best in the herbarium. + +This immaculate woman,--why could n't she have a fault or two? Is n't +there any old whisper which will tarnish that wearisome aureole of +saintly perfection? Does n't she carry a lump of opium in her pocket? +Is n't her cologne-bottle replenished oftener than its legitimate use +would require? It would be such a comfort! + +Not for the world would a young creature like Iris have let such words +escape her, or such thoughts pass through her mind. Whether at the +bottom of her soul lies any uneasy consciousness of an oppressive +presence, it is hard to say, until we know more about her. Iris sits +between the Little Gentleman and the "Model of all the Virtues," as the +black-coated personage called her.--I will watch them all. + +--Here I stop for the present. What the Professor said has had to make +way this time for what he saw and heard. + +-And now you may read these lines, which were written for gentle souls +who love music, and read in even tones, and, perhaps, with something like +a smile upon the reader's lips, at a meeting where these musical friends +had gathered. Whether they were written with smiles or not, you can +guess better after you have read them. + + + THE OPENING OF THE PIANO. + + In the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen + With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, + At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, + Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night. + + Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came! + What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, + When the wondrous boa was opened that had come from over seas, + With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys! + + Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy, + For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy, + Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way, + But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now, Mary, play." + + For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm; + She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, + In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, + Or caroling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills. + + So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, + Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys. + Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, + As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn." + + --Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, + (Wedded since, and a widow,--something like ten years dead,) + Hearing a gush of music such as none before, + Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door. + + Just as the "Jubilate" in threaded whisper dies, + --"Open it! open it, lady!" the little maiden cries, + (For she thought 't was a singing creature caged in a box she heard,) + "Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the bird!" + + + + +IV + +I don't know whether our literary or professional people are more amiable +than they are in other places, but certainly quarrelling is out of +fashion among them. This could never be, if they were in the habit of +secret anonymous puffing of each other. That is the kind of underground +machinery which manufactures false reputations and genuine hatreds. On +the other hand, I should like to know if we are not at liberty to have a +good time together, and say the pleasantest things we can think of to +each other, when any of us reaches his thirtieth or fortieth or fiftieth +or eightieth birthday. + +We don't have "scenes," I warrant you, on these occasions. No "surprise" +parties! You understand these, of course. In the rural districts, where +scenic tragedy and melodrama cannot be had, as in the city, at the +expense of a quarter and a white pocket-handkerchief, emotional +excitement has to be sought in the dramas of real life. Christenings, +weddings, and funerals, especially the latter, are the main dependence; +but babies, brides, and deceased citizens cannot be had at a day's +notice. Now, then, for a surprise-party! + +A bag of flour, a barrel of potatoes, some strings of onions, a basket of +apples, a big cake and many little cakes, a jug of lemonade, a purse +stuffed with bills of the more modest denominations, may, perhaps, do +well enough for the properties in one of these private theatrical +exhibitions. The minister of the parish, a tender-hearted, quiet, +hard-working man, living on a small salary, with many children, sometimes +pinched to feed and clothe them, praying fervently every day to be blest +in his "basket and store," but sometimes fearing he asks amiss, to judge +by the small returns, has the first role,--not, however, by his own +choice, but forced upon him. The minister's wife, a sharp-eyed, +unsentimental body, is first lady; the remaining parts by the rest of the +family. If they only had a playbill, it would run thus: + + ON TUESDAY NEXT + WILL BE PRESENTED + THE AFFECTING SCENE + CALLED + + THE SURPRISE-PARTY + + OR + + THE OVERCOME FAMILY; + +WITH THE FOLLOWING STRONG CAST OF CHARACTERS. + + The Rev. Mr. Overcome, by the Clergyman of this Parish. + Mrs. Overcome, by his estimable lady. + Masters Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Overcome, + Misses Dorcas, Tabitha, Rachel, and Hannah, Overcome, by their + interesting children. + Peggy, by the female help. + +The poor man is really grateful;--it is a most welcome and unexpected +relief. He tries to express his thanks,--his voice falters,--he +chokes,--and bursts into tears. That is the great effect of the evening. +The sharp-sighted lady cries a little with one eye, and counts the +strings of onions, and the rest of the things, with the other. The +children stand ready for a spring at the apples. The female help weeps +after the noisy fashion of untutored handmaids. + +Now this is all very well as charity, but do let the kind visitors +remember they get their money's worth. If you pay a quarter for dry +crying, done by a second-rate actor, how much ought you to pay for real +hot, wet tears, out of the honest eyes of a gentleman who is not acting, +but sobbing in earnest? + +All I meant to say, when I began, was, that this was not a surprise-party +where I read these few lines that follow: + + We will not speak of years to-night; + For what have years to bring, + But larger floods of love and light + And sweeter songs to sing? + + We will not drown in wordy praise + The kindly thoughts that rise; + If friendship owns one tender phrase, + He reads it in our eyes. + + We need not waste our schoolboy art + To gild this notch of time; + Forgive me, if my wayward heart + Has throbbed in artless rhyme. + + Enough for him the silent grasp + That knits us hand in hand, + And he the bracelet's radiant clasp + That locks our circling band. + + Strength to his hours of manly toil! + Peace to his starlit dreams! + Who loves alike the furrowed soil, + The music-haunted streams! + + Sweet smiles to keep forever bright + The sunshine on his lips, + And faith, that sees the ring of light + Round Nature's last eclipse! + +--One of our boarders has been talking in such strong language that I am +almost afraid to report it. However, as he seems to be really honest and +is so very sincere in his local prejudices, I don't believe anybody will +be very angry with him. + +It is here, Sir! right here!--said the little deformed gentleman,--in +this old new city of Boston,--this remote provincial corner of a +provincial nation, that the Battle of the Standard is fighting, and was +fighting before we were born, and will be fighting when we are dead and +gone,--please God! The battle goes on everywhere throughout +civilization; but here, here, here is the broad white flag flying which +proclaims, first of all, peace and good-will to men, and, next to that, +the absolute, unconditional spiritual liberty of each individual immortal +soul! The three-hilled city against the seven-hilled city! That is it, +Sir,--nothing less than that; and if you know what that means, I don't +think you'll ask for anything more. I swear to you, Sir, I believe that +these two centres of civilization are just exactly the two points that +close the circuit in the battery of our planetary intelligence! And I +believe there are spiritual eyes looking out from Uranus and unseen +Neptune,--ay, Sir, from the systems of Sirius and Arcturus and Aldebaran, +and as far as that faint stain of sprinkled worlds confluent in the +distance that we call the nebula of Orion,--looking on, Sir, with what +organs I know not, to see which are going to melt in that fiery fusion, +the accidents and hindrances of humanity or man himself, Sir,--the +stupendous abortion, the illustrious failure that he is, if the +three-hilled city does not ride down and trample out the seven-hilled +city! + +--Steam 's up!--said the young man John, so called, in a low tone. +--Three hundred and sixty-five tons to the square inch. Let him blow her +off, or he'll bu'st his b'iler. + +The divinity-student took it calmly, only whispering that he thought +there was a little confusion of images between a galvanic battery and a +charge of cavalry. + +But the Koh-i-noor--the gentleman, you remember, with a very large +diamond in his shirt-front laughed his scornful laugh, and made as if to +speak. + +Sail in, Metropolis!--said that same young man John, by name. And then, +in a lower lane, not meaning to be heard,--Now, then, Ma'am Allen! + +But he was heard,--and the Koh-i-noor's face turned so white with rage, +that his blue-black moustache and beard looked fearful, seen against it. +He grinned with wrath, and caught at a tumbler, as if he would have +thrown it or its contents at the speaker. The young Marylander fixed his +clear, steady eye upon him, and laid his hand on his arm, carelessly +almost, but the Jewel found it was held so that he could not move it. It +was of no use. The youth was his master in muscle, and in that deadly +Indian hug in which men wrestle with their eyes;--over in five seconds, +but breaks one of their two backs, and is good for threescore years and +ten;--one trial enough,--settles the whole matter,--just as when two +feathered songsters of the barnyard, game and dunghill, come +together,-after a jump or two at each other, and a few sharp kicks, there +is the end of it; and it is, Apres vous, Monsieur, with the beaten party +in all the social relations for all the rest of his days. + +I cannot philosophically account for the Koh-i-noor's wrath. For though +a cosmetic is sold, bearing the name of the lady to whom reference was +made by the young person John, yet, as it is publicly asserted in +respectable prints that this cosmetic is not a dye, I see no reason why +he should have felt offended by any suggestion that he was indebted to it +or its authoress. + +I have no doubt that there are certain exceptional complexions to which +the purple tinge, above alluded to, is natural. Nature is fertile in +variety. I saw an albiness in London once, for sixpence, (including the +inspection of a stuffed boa-constrictor,) who looked as if she had been +boiled in milk. A young Hottentot of my acquaintance had his hair all in +little pellets of the size of marrow-fat peas. One of my own classmates +has undergone a singular change of late years,--his hair losing its +original tint, and getting a remarkable discolored look; and another has +ceased to cultivate any hair at all over the vertex or crown of the head. +So I am perfectly willing to believe that the purple-black of the +Koh-i-noor's moustache and whiskers is constitutional and not pigmentary. +But I can't think why he got so angry. + +The intelligent reader will understand that all this pantomime of the +threatened onslaught and its suppression passed so quickly that it was +all over by the time the other end of the table found out there was a +disturbance; just as a man chopping wood half a mile off may be seen +resting on his axe at the instant you hear the last blow he struck. So +you will please to observe that the Little Gentleman was not, interrupted +during the time implied by these ex-post-facto remarks of mine, but for +some ten or fifteen seconds only. + +He did not seem to mind the interruption at all, for he started again. +The "Sir" of his harangue was no doubt addressed to myself more than +anybody else, but he often uses it in discourse as if he were talking +with some imaginary opponent. + +--America, Sir,--he exclaimed,--is the only place where man is +full-grown! + +He straightened himself up, as he spoke, standing on the top round of his +high chair, I suppose, and so presented the larger part of his little +figure to the view of the boarders. + +It was next to impossible to keep from laughing. The commentary was so +strange an illustration of the text! I thought it was time to put in a +word; for I have lived in foreign parts, and am more or less +cosmopolitan. + +I doubt if we have more practical freedom in America than they have in +England,---I said.--An Englishman thinks as he likes in religion and +politics. Mr. Martineau speculates as freely as ever Dr. Channing did, +and Mr. Bright is as independent as Mr. Seward. + +Sir,--said he,--it is n't what a man thinks or says; but when and where +and to whom he thinks and says it. A man with a flint and steel striking +sparks over a wet blanket is one thing, and striking them over a +tinder-box is another. The free Englishman is born under protest; he +lives and dies under protest,--a tolerated, but not a welcome fact. Is +not freethinker a term of reproach in England? The same idea in the soul +of an Englishman who struggled up to it and still holds it +antagonistically, and in the soul of an American to whom it is congenital +and spontaneous, and often unrecognized, except as an element blended +with all his thoughts, a natural movement, like the drawing of his breath +or the beating of his heart, is a very different thing. You may teach a +quadruped to walk on his hind legs, but he is always wanting to be on all +fours. Nothing that can be taught a growing youth is like the +atmospheric knowledge he breathes from his infancy upwards. The American +baby sucks in freedom with the milk of the breast at which he hangs. + +--That's a good joke,--said the young fellow John,--considerin' it +commonly belongs to a female Paddy. + +I thought--I will not be certain--that the Little Gentleman winked, as if +he had been hit somewhere--as I have no doubt Dr. Darwin did when the +wooden-spoon suggestion upset his theory about why, etc. If he winked, +however, he did not dodge. + +A lively comment!--he said.--But Rome, in her great founder, sucked the +blood of empire out of the dugs of a brute, Sir! The Milesian wet-nurse +is only a convenient vessel through which the American infant gets the +life-blood of this virgin soil, Sir, that is making man over again, on +the sunset pattern! You don't think what we are doing and going to do +here. Why, Sir, while commentators are bothering themselves with +interpretation of prophecies, we have got the new heavens and the new +earth over us and under us! Was there ever anything in Italy, I should +like to know, like a Boston sunset? + +--This time there was a laugh, and the little man himself almost smiled. + +Yes,--Boston sunsets;--perhaps they're as good in some other places, but +I know 'em best here. Anyhow, the American skies are different from +anything they see in the Old World. Yes, and the rocks are different, +and the soil is different, and everything that comes out of the soil, +from grass up to Indians, is different. And now that the provisional +races are dying out-- + +--What do you mean by the provisional races, Sir?--said the +divinity-student, interrupting him. + +Why, the aboriginal bipeds, to be sure,--he answered,--the red-crayon +sketch of humanity laid on the canvas before the colors for the real +manhood were ready. + +I hope they will come to something yet,--said the divinity-student. + +Irreclaimable, Sir,--irreclaimable!--said the Little Gentleman.--Cheaper +to breed white men than domesticate a nation of red ones. When you can +get the bitter out of the partridge's thigh, you can make an enlightened +commonwealth of Indians. A provisional race, Sir,--nothing more. +Exhaled carbonic acid for the use of vegetation, kept down the bears and +catamounts, enjoyed themselves in scalping and being scalped, and then +passed away or are passing away, according to the programme. + +Well, Sir, these races dying out, the white man has to acclimate himself. +It takes him a good while; but he will come all right by-and-by, Sir,--as +sound as a woodchuck,--as sound as a musquash! + +A new nursery, Sir, with Lake Superior and Huron and all the rest of 'em +for wash-basins! A new race, and a whole new world for the new-born +human soul to work in! And Boston is the brain of it, and has been any +time these hundred years! That's all I claim for Boston,--that it is +the thinking centre of the continent, and therefore of the planet. + +--And the grand emporium of modesty,--said the divinity-student, a little +mischievously. + +Oh, don't talk to me of modesty!--answered the Little Gentleman,--I 'm +past that! There is n't a thing that was ever said or done in Boston, +from pitching the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie it tore +into tatters and flung into the dock, that was n't thought very +indelicate by some fool or tyrant or bigot, and all the entrails of +commercial and spiritual conservatism are twisted into colics as often as +this revolutionary brain of ours has a fit of thinking come over it.--No, +Sir,--show me any other place that is, or was since the megalosaurus has +died out, where wealth and social influence are so fairly divided between +the stationary and the progressive classes! Show me any other place +where every other drawing-room is not a chamber of the Inquisition, with +papas and mammas for inquisitors,--and the cold shoulder, instead of the +"dry pan and the gradual fire," the punishment of "heresy"! + +--We think Baltimore is a pretty civilized kind of a village,--said the +young Marylander, good-naturedly.--But I suppose you can't forgive it for +always keeping a little ahead of Boston in point of numbers,--tell the +truth now. Are we not the centre of something? + +Ah, indeed, to be sure you are. You are the gastronomic metropolis of +the Union. Why don't you put a canvas-back-duck on the top of the +Washington column? Why don't you get that lady off from Battle Monument +and plant a terrapin in her place? Why will you ask for other glories +when you have soft crabs? No, Sir,--you live too well to think as hard +as we do in Boston. Logic comes to us with the salt-fish of Cape Ann; +rhetoric is born of the beans of Beverly; but you--if you open your +mouths to speak, Nature stops them with a fat oyster, or offers a slice +of the breast of your divine bird, and silences all your aspirations. + +And what of Philadelphia?--said the Marylander. + +Oh, Philadelphia?--Waterworks,--killed by the Croton and Cochituate; +--Ben Franklin,--borrowed from Boston;--David Rittenhouse,--made an +orrery;--Benjamin Rush,--made a medical system;--both interesting to +antiquarians;--great Red-river raft of medical students,--spontaneous +generation of professors to match;--more widely known through the +Moyamensing hose-company, and the Wistar parties;-for geological section +of social strata, go to The Club.--Good place to live in,--first-rate +market,--tip-top peaches.--What do we know about Philadelphia, except +that the engine-companies are always shooting each other? + +And what do you say to New York?--asked the Koh-i-noor. + +A great city, Sir,--replied the Little Gentleman,--a very opulent, +splendid city. A point of transit of much that is remarkable, and of +permanence for much that is respectable. A great money-centre. San +Francisco with the mines above-ground,--and some of 'em under the +sidewalks. I have seen next to nothing grandiose, out of New York, in +all our cities. It makes 'em all look paltry and petty. Has many +elements of civilization. May stop where Venice did, though, for aught +we know.--The order of its development is just this:--Wealth; +architecture; upholstery; painting; sculpture. Printing, as a mechanical +art,--just as Nicholas Jepson and the Aldi, who were scholars too, made +Venice renowned for it. Journalism, which is the accident of business +and crowded populations, in great perfection. Venice got as far as Titian +and Paul Veronese and Tintoretto,--great colorists, mark you, magnificent +on the flesh-and-blood side of Art,--but look over to Florence and see +who lie in Santa Crocea, and ask out of whose loins Dante sprung! + +Oh, yes, to be sure, Venice built her Ducal Palace, and her Church of St. +Mark, and her Casa d' Or, and the rest of her golden houses; and Venice +had great pictures and good music; and Venice had a Golden Book, in which +all the large tax-payers had their names written;--but all that did not +make Venice the brain of Italy. + +I tell you what, Sir,--with all these magnificent appliances of +civilization, it is time we began to hear something from the djinnis +donee whose names are on the Golden Book of our sumptuous, splendid, +marble-placed Venice,--something in the higher walks of literature, +--something in the councils of the nation. Plenty of Art, I grant you, +Sir; now, then, for vast libraries, and for mighty scholars and thinkers +and statesmen,--five for every Boston one, as the population is to +ours,--ten to one more properly, in virtue of centralizing attraction as +the alleged metropolis, and not call our people provincials, and have to +come begging to us to write the lives of Hendrik Hudson and Gouverneur +Morris! + +--The Little Gentleman was on his hobby, exalting his own city at the +expense of every other place. I have my doubts if he had been in either +of the cities he had been talking about. I was just going to say +something to sober him down, if I could, when the young Marylander spoke +up. + +Come, now,--he said,--what's the use of these comparisons? Did n't I +hear this gentleman saying, the other day, that every American owns all +America? If you have really got more brains in Boston than other folks, +as you seem to think, who hates you for it, except a pack of scribbling +fools? If I like Broadway better than Washington Street, what then? I +own them both, as much as anybody owns either. I am an American,--and +wherever I look up and see the stars and stripes overhead, that is home +to me! + +He spoke, and looked up as if he heard the emblazoned folds crackling +over him in the breeze. We all looked up involuntarily, as if we should +see the national flag by so doing. The sight of the dingy ceiling and +the gas-fixture depending therefrom dispelled the illusion. + +Bravo! bravo!--said the venerable gentleman on the other side of the +table.--Those are the sentiments of Washington's Farewell Address. +Nothing better than that since the last chapter in Revelations. +Five-and-forty years ago there used to be Washington societies, and +little boys used to walk in processions, each little boy having a copy of +the Address, bound in red, hung round his neck by a ribbon. Why don't +they now? Why don't they now? I saw enough of hating each other in the +old Federal times; now let's love each other, I say,--let's love each +other, and not try to make it out that there is n't any place fit to live +in except the one we happen to be born in. + +It dwarfs the mind, I think,--said I,--to feed it on any localism. The +full stature of manhood is shrivelled-- + +The color burst up into my cheeks. What was I saying,--I, who would not +for the world have pained our unfortunate little boarder by an allusion? + +I will go,--he said,--and made a movement with his left arm to let +himself down from his high chair. + +No,--no,--he does n't mean it,--you must not go,--said a kind voice next +him; and a soft, white hand was laid upon his arm. + +Iris, my dear!--exclaimed another voice, as of a female, in accents that +might be considered a strong atmospheric solution of duty with very +little flavor of grace. + +She did not move for this address, and there was a tableau that lasted +some seconds. For the young girl, in the glory of half-blown womanhood, +and the dwarf, the cripple, the misshapen little creature covered with +Nature's insults, looked straight into each other's eyes. + +Perhaps no handsome young woman had ever looked at him so in his life. +Certainly the young girl never had looked into eyes that reached into her +soul as these did. It was not that they were in themselves +supernaturally bright,--but there was the sad fire in them that flames up +from the soul of one who looks on the beauty of woman without hope, but, +alas! not without emotion. To him it seemed as if those amber gates had +been translucent as the brown water of a mountain brook, and through them +he had seen dimly into a virgin wilderness, only waiting for the sunrise +of a great passion for all its buds to blow and all its bowers to ring +with melody. + +That is my image, of course,--not his. It was not a simile that was in +his mind, or is in anybody's at such a moment,--it was a pang of wordless +passion, and then a silent, inward moan. + +A lady's wish,--he said, with a certain gallantry of manner,--makes +slaves of us all.--And Nature, who is kind to all her children, and never +leaves the smallest and saddest of all her human failures without one +little comfit of self-love at the bottom of his poor ragged +pocket,--Nature suggested to him that he had turned his sentence well; +and he fell into a reverie, in which the old thoughts that were always +hovering dust outside the doors guarded by Common Sense, and watching for +a chance to squeeze in, knowing perfectly well they would be +ignominiously kicked out again as soon as Common Sense saw them, flocked +in pell-mell,--misty, fragmentary, vague, half-ashamed of themselves, but +still shouldering up against his inner consciousness till it warmed with +their contact:--John Wilkes's--the ugliest man's in England--saying, that +with half-an-hour's start he would cut out the handsomest man in all the +land in any woman's good graces; Cadenus--old and savage--leading captive +Stella and Vanessa; and then the stray line of a ballad, "And a winning +tongue had he,"--as much as to say, it is n't looks, after all, but +cunning words, that win our Eves over,--just as of old when it was the +worst-looking brute of the lot that got our grandmother to listen to his +stuff and so did the mischief. + +Ah, dear me! We rehearse the part of Hercules with his club, subjugating +man and woman in our fancy, the first by the weight of it, and the second +by our handling of it,--we rehearse it, I say, by our own hearth-stones, +with the cold poker as our club, and the exercise is easy. But when we +come to real life, the poker is in the fore, and, ten to one, if we would +grasp it, we find it too hot to hold;--lucky for us, if it is not +white-hot, and we do not have to leave the skin of our hands sticking to +it when we fling it down or drop it with a loud or silent cry! + +--I am frightened when I find into what a labyrinth of human character +and feeling I am winding. I meant to tell my thoughts, and to throw in a +few studies of manner and costume as they pictured themselves for me from +day to day. Chance has thrown together at the table with me a number of +persons who are worth studying, and I mean not only to look on them, but, +if I can, through them. You can get any man's or woman's secret, whose +sphere is circumscribed by your own, if you will only look patiently on +them long enough. Nature is always applying her reagents to character, +if you will take the pains to watch her. Our studies of character, to +change the image, are very much like the surveyor's triangulation of a +geographical province. We get a base-line in organization, always; then +we get an angle by sighting some distant object to which the passions or +aspirations of the subject of our observation are tending; then +another;--and so we construct our first triangle. Once fix a man's +ideals, and for the most part the rest is easy. A wants to die worth +half a million. Good. B (female) wants to catch him,--and outlive him. +All right. Minor details at our leisure. + +What is it, of all your experiences, of all your thoughts, of all your +misdoings, that lies at the very bottom of the great heap of acts of +consciousness which make up your past life? What should you most dislike +to tell your nearest friend?--Be so good as to pause for a brief space, +and shut the volume you hold with your finger between the pages.--Oh, +that is it! + +What a confessional I have been sitting at, with the inward ear of my +soul open, as the multitudinous whisper of my involuntary confidants came +back to me like the reduplicated echo of a cry among the craggy bills! + +At the house of a friend where I once passed the night was one of those +stately upright cabinet desks and cases of drawers which were not rare in +prosperous families during the last century. It had held the clothes and +the books and the papers of generation after generation. The hands that +opened its drawers had grown withered, shrivelled, and at last been +folded in death. The children that played with the lower handles had got +tall enough to open the desk, to reach the upper shelves behind the +folding-doors,--grown bent after a while,--and then followed those who +had gone before, and left the old cabinet to be ransacked by a new +generation. + +A boy of ten or twelve was looking at it a few years ago, and, being a +quick-witted fellow, saw that all the space was not accounted for by the +smaller drawers in the part beneath the lid of the desk. Prying about +with busy eyes and fingers, he at length came upon a spring, on pressing +which, a secret drawer flew from its hiding-place. It had never been +opened but by the maker. The mahogany shavings and dust were lying in it +as when the artisan closed it,--and when I saw it, it was as fresh as if +that day finished. + +Is there not one little drawer in your soul, my sweet reader, which no +hand but yours has ever opened, and which none that have known you seem +to have suspected? What does it hold?--A sin?--I hope not. What a +strange thing an old dead sin laid away in a secret drawer of the soul +is! Must it some time or other be moistened with tears, until it comes +to life again and begins to stir in our consciousness,--as the dry +wheel-animalcule, looking like a grain of dust, becomes alive, if it is +wet with a drop of water? + +Or is it a passion? There are plenty of withered men and women walking +about the streets who have the secret drawer in their hearts, which, if +it were opened, would show as fresh as it was when they were in the flush +of youth and its first trembling emotions. + +What it held will, perhaps, never be known, until they are dead and gone, +and same curious eye lights on an old yellow letter with the fossil +footprints of the extinct passion trodden thick all over it. + +There is not a boarder at our table, I firmly believe, excepting the +young girl, who has not a story of the heart to tell, if one could only +get the secret drawer open. Even this arid female, whose armor of black +bombazine looks stronger against the shafts of love than any cuirass of +triple brass, has had her sentimental history, if I am not mistaken. I +will tell you my reason for suspecting it. + +Like many other old women, she shows a great nervousness and restlessness +whenever I venture to express any opinion upon a class of subjects which +can hardly be said to belong to any man or set of men as their strictly +private property,--not even to the clergy, or the newspapers commonly +called "religious." Now, although it would be a great luxury to me to +obtain my opinions by contract, ready-made, from a professional man, and +although I have a constitutional kindly feeling to all sorts of good +people which would make me happy to agree with all their beliefs, if that +were possible, still I must have an idea, now and then, as to the meaning +of life; and though the only condition of peace in this world is to have +no ideas, or, at least, not to express them, with reference to such +subjects, I can't afford to pay quite so much as that even for peace. + +I find that there is a very prevalent opinion among the dwellers on the +shores of Sir Isaac Newton's Ocean of Truth, that salt, fish, which have +been taken from it a good while ago, split open, cured and dried, are the +only proper and allowable food for reasonable people. I maintain, on the +other hand, that there are a number of live fish still swimming in it, +and that every one of us has a right to see if he cannot catch some of +them. Sometimes I please myself with the idea that I have landed an +actual living fish, small, perhaps, but with rosy gills and silvery +scales. Then I find the consumers of nothing but the salted and dried +article insist that it is poisonous, simply because it is alive, and cry +out to people not to touch it. I have not found, however, that people +mind them much. + +The poor boarder in bombazine is my dynamometer. I try every +questionable proposition on her. If she winces, I must be prepared for +an outcry from the other old women. I frightened her, the other day, by +saying that faith, as an intellectual state, was self-reliance, which, if +you have a metaphysical turn, you will find is not so much of a paradox +as it sounds at first. So she sent me a book to read which was to cure +me of that error. It was an old book, and looked as if it had not been +opened for a long time. What should drop out of it, one day, but a small +heart-shaped paper, containing a lock of that straight, coarse, brown +hair which sets off the sharp faces of so many thin-flanked, large-handed +bumpkins! I read upon the paper the name "Hiram."--Love! love! +love!--everywhere! everywhere!--under diamonds and housemaids' +"jewelry,"--lifting the marrowy camel's-hair, and rustling even the black +bombazine!--No, no,--I think she never was pretty, but she was young +once, and wore bright ginghams, and, perhaps, gay merinos. We shall find +that the poor little crooked man has been in love, or is in love, or will +be in love before we have done with him, for aught that I know! + +Romance! Was there ever a boarding-house in the world where the +seemingly prosaic table had not a living fresco for its background, where +you could see, if you had eyes, the smoke and fire of some upheaving +sentiment, or the dreary craters of smouldering or burnt-out passions? +You look on the black bombazine and high-necked decorum of your neighbor, +and no more think of the real life that underlies this despoiled and +dismantled womanhood than you think of a stone trilobite as having once +been full of the juices and the nervous thrills of throbbing and +self-conscious being. There is a wild creature under that long yellow +pin which serves as brooch for the bombazine cuirass,--a wild creature, +which I venture to say would leap in his cage, if I should stir him, +quiet as you think him. A heart which has been domesticated by matrimony +and maternity is as tranquil as a tame bullfinch; but a wild heart which +has never been fairly broken in flutters fiercely long after you think +time has tamed it down,--like that purple finch I had the other day, +which could not be approached without such palpitations and frantic +flings against the bars of his cage, that I had to send him back and get +a little orthodox canary which had learned to be quiet and never mind the +wires or his keeper's handling. I will tell you my wicked, but half +involuntary experiment on the wild heart under the faded bombazine. + +Was there ever a person in the room with you, marked by any special +weakness or peculiarity, with whom you could be two hours and not touch +the infirm spot? I confess the most frightful tendency to do just this +thing. If a man has a brogue, I am sure to catch myself imitating it. +If another is lame, I follow him, or, worse than that, go before him, +limping. + +I could never meet an Irish gentleman--if it had been the Duke of +Wellington himself--without stumbling upon the word "Paddy,"--which I use +rarely in my common talk. + +I have been worried to know whether this was owing to some innate +depravity of disposition on my part, some malignant torturing instinct, +which, under different circumstances, might have made a Fijian +anthropophagus of me, or to some law of thought for which I was not +answerable. It is, I am convinced, a kind of physical fact like +endosmosis, with which some of you are acquainted. A thin film of +politeness separates the unspoken and unspeakable current of thought from +the stream of conversation. After a time one begins to soak through and +mingle with the other. + +We were talking about names, one day.--Was there ever anything,--I +said,--like the Yankee for inventing the most uncouth, pretentious, +detestable appellations,--inventing or finding them,--since the time of +Praise-God Barebones? I heard a country-boy once talking of another whom +he called Elpit, as I understood him. Elbridge is common enough, but +this sounded oddly. It seems the boy was christened Lord Pitt,--and +called for convenience, as above. I have heard a charming little girl, +belonging to an intelligent family in the country, called Anges +invariably; doubtless intended for Agnes. Names are cheap. How can a man +name an innocent new-born child, that never did him any harm, Hiram?--The +poor relation, or whatever she is, in bombazine, turned toward me, but I +was stupid, and went on.--To think of a man going through life saddled +with such an abominable name as that!--The poor relation grew very +uneasy.--I continued; for I never thought of all this till afterwards.--I +knew one young fellow, a good many years ago, by the name of +Hiram--What's got into you, Cousin,--said our landlady,--to look +so?--There! you 've upset your teacup! + +It suddenly occurred to me what I had been doing, and I saw the poor +woman had her hand at her throat; she was half-choking with the "hysteric +ball,"--a very odd symptom, as you know, which nervous women often +complain of. What business had I to be trying experiments on this +forlorn old soul? I had a great deal better be watching that young girl. + +Ah, the young girl! I am sure that she can hide nothing from me. Her +skin is so transparent that one can almost count her heart-beats by the +flushes they send into her cheeks. She does not seem to be shy, either. +I think she does not know enough of danger to be timid. She seems to me +like one of those birds that travellers tell of, found in remote, +uninhabited islands, who, having never received any wrong at the hand of +man, show no alarm at and hardly any particular consciousness of his +presence. + +The first thing will be to see how she and our little deformed gentleman +get along together; for, as I have told you, they sit side by side. The +next thing will be to keep an eye on the duenna,--the "Model" and so +forth, as the white-neck-cloth called her. The intention of that +estimable lady is, I understand, to launch her and leave her. I suppose +there is no help for it, and I don't doubt this young lady knows how to +take care of herself, but I do not like to see young girls turned loose +in boarding-houses. Look here now! There is that jewel of his race, whom +I have called for convenience the Koh-i-noor, (you understand it is quite +out of the question for me to use the family names of our boarders, +unless I want to get into trouble,)--I say, the gentleman with the +diamond is looking very often and very intently, it seems to me, down +toward the farther corner of the table, where sits our amber-eyed blonde. +The landlady's daughter does not look pleased, it seems to me, at this, +nor at those other attentions which the gentleman referred to has, as I +have learned, pressed upon the newly-arrived young person. The landlady +made a communication to me, within a few days after the arrival of Miss +Iris, which I will repeat to the best of my remembrance. + +He, (the person I have been speaking of,)--she said,--seemed to be kinder +hankerin' round after that young woman. It had hurt her daughter's +feelin's a good deal, that the gentleman she was a-keepin' company with +should be offerin' tickets and tryin' to send presents to them that he'd +never know'd till jest a little spell ago,--and he as good as merried, so +fur as solemn promises went, to as respectable a young lady, if she did +say so, as any there was round, whosomever they might be. + +Tickets! presents!--said I.--What tickets, what presents has he had the +impertinence to be offering to that young lady? + +Tickets to the Museum,--said the landlady. There is them that's glad +enough to go to the Museum, when tickets is given 'em; but some of 'em +ha'n't had a ticket sence Cenderilla was played,--and now he must be +offerin' 'em to this ridiculous young paintress, or whatever she is, +that's come to make more mischief than her board's worth. But it a'n't +her fault,--said the landlady, relenting;--and that aunt of hers, or +whatever she is, served him right enough. + +Why, what did she do? + +Do? Why, she took it up in the tongs and dropped it out o' winder. + +Dropped? dropped what?--I said. + +Why, the soap,--said the landlady. + +It appeared that the Koh-i-noor, to ingratiate himself, had sent an +elegant package of perfumed soap, directed to Miss Iris, as a delicate +expression of a lively sentiment of admiration, and that, after having +met with the unfortunate treatment referred to, it was picked up by +Master Benjamin Franklin, who appropriated it, rejoicing, and indulged in +most unheard-of and inordinate ablutions in consequence, so that his +hands were a frequent subject of maternal congratulation, and he smelt +like a civet-cat for weeks after his great acquisition. + +After watching daily for a time, I think I can see clearly into the +relation which is growing up between the little gentleman and the young +lady. She shows a tenderness to him that I can't help being interested +in. If he was her crippled child, instead of being more than old enough +to be her father, she could not treat him more kindly. The landlady's +daughter said, the other day, she believed that girl was settin' her cap +for the Little Gentleman. + +Some of them young folks is very artful,--said her mother,--and there is +them that would merry Lazarus, if he'd only picked up crumbs enough. I +don't think, though, this is one of that sort; she's kinder +childlike,--said the landlady,--and maybe never had any dolls to play +with; for they say her folks was poor before Ma'am undertook to see to +her teachin' and board her and clothe her. + +I could not help overhearing this conversation. "Board her and clothe +her!"--speaking of such a young creature! Oh, dear!--Yes,--she must be +fed,--just like Bridget, maid-of-all-work at this establishment. +Somebody must pay for it. Somebody has a right to watch her and see how +much it takes to "keep" her, and growl at her, if she has too good an +appetite. Somebody has a right to keep an eye on her and take care that +she does not dress too prettily. No mother to see her own youth over +again in these fresh features and rising reliefs of half-sculptured +womanhood, and, seeing its loveliness, forget her lessons of +neutral-tinted propriety, and open the cases that hold her own ornaments +to find for her a necklace or a bracelet or a pair of ear-rings,--those +golden lamps that light up the deep, shadowy dimples on the cheeks of +young beauties,--swinging in a semi-barbaric splendor that carries the +wild fancy to Abyssinian queens and musky Odalisques! I don't believe +any woman has utterly given up the great firm of Mundus & Co., so long as +she wears ear-rings. + +I think Iris loves to hear the Little Gentleman talk. She smiles +sometimes at his vehement statements, but never laughs at him. When he +speaks to her, she keeps her eye always steadily upon him. This may be +only natural good-breeding, so to speak, but it is worth noticing. I +have often observed that vulgar persons, and public audiences of inferior +collective intelligence, have this in common: the least thing draws off +their minds, when you are speaking to them. I love this young creature's +rapt attention to her diminutive neighbor while he is speaking. + +He is evidently pleased with it. For a day or two after she came, he was +silent and seemed nervous and excited. Now he is fond of getting the +talk into his own hands, and is obviously conscious that he has at least +one interested listener. Once or twice I have seen marks of special +attention to personal adornment, a ruffled shirt-bosom, one day, and a +diamond pin in it,--not so very large as the Koh-i-noor's, but more +lustrous. I mentioned the death's-head ring he wears on his right hand. +I was attracted by a very handsome red stone, a ruby or carbuncle or +something of the sort, to notice his left hand, the other day. It is a +handsome hand, and confirms my suspicion that the cast mentioned was +taken from his arm. After all, this is just what I should expect. It is +not very uncommon to see the upper limbs, or one of them, running away +with the whole strength, and, therefore, with the whole beauty, which we +should never have noticed, if it had been divided equally between all +four extremities. If it is so, of course he is proud of his one strong +and beautiful arm; that is human nature. I am afraid he can hardly help +betraying his favoritism, as people who have any one showy point are apt +to do,--especially dentists with handsome teeth, who always smile back to +their last molars. + +Sitting, as he does, next to the young girl, and next but one to the calm +lady who has her in charge, he cannot help seeing their relations to each +other. + +That is an admirable woman, Sir,--he said to me one day, as we sat alone +at the table after breakfast,--an admirable woman, Sir,--and I hate her. + +Of course, I begged an explanation. + +An admirable woman, Sir, because she does good things, and even kind +things,--takes care of this--this--young lady--we have here, talks like a +sensible person, and always looks as if she was doing her duty with all +her might. I hate her because her voice sounds as if it never trembled +and her eyes look as if she never knew what it was to cry. Besides, she +looks at me, Sir, stares at me, as if she wanted to get an image of me +for some gallery in her brain,--and we don't love to be looked at in this +way, we that have--I hate her,--I hate her,--her eyes kill me,--it is +like being stabbed with icicles to be looked at so,--the sooner she goes +home, the better. I don't want a woman to weigh me in a balance; there +are men enough for that sort of work. The judicial character is n't +captivating in females, Sir. A woman fascinates a man quite as often by +what she overlooks as by what she sees. Love prefers twilight to +daylight; and a man doesn't think much of, nor care much for, a woman +outside of his household, unless he can couple the idea of love, past, +present, or future, with her. I don't believe the Devil would give half +as much for the services of a sinner as he would for those of one of +these folks that are always doing virtuous acts in a way to make them +unpleasing.--That young girl wants a tender nature to cherish her and +give her a chance to put out her leaves,--sunshine, and not east winds. + +He was silent,--and sat looking at his handsome left hand with the red +stone ring upon it.--Is he going to fall in love with Iris? + +Here are some lines I read to the boarders the other day:-- + + THE CROOKED FOOTPATH + + Ah, here it is! the sliding rail + That marks the old remembered spot, + --The gap that struck our schoolboy trail, + --The crooked path across the lot. + + It left the road by school and church, + A pencilled shadow, nothing more, + That parted from the silver birch + And ended at the farmhouse door. + + No line or compass traced its plan; + With frequent bends to left or right, + In aimless, wayward curves it ran, + But always kept the door in sight. + + The gabled porch, with woodbine green, + --The broken millstone at the sill, + --Though many a rood might stretch between, + The truant child could see them still. + + No rocks, across the pathway lie, + --No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown, + --And yet it winds, we know not why, + And turns as if for tree or stone. + + Perhaps some lover trod the way + With shaking knees and leaping heart, + --And so it often runs astray + With sinuous sweep or sudden start. + + Or one, perchance, with clouded brain + From some unholy banquet reeled, + --And since, our devious steps maintain + His track across the trodden field. + + Nay, deem not thus,--no earthborn will + Could ever trace a faultless line; + Our truest steps are human still, + --To walk unswerving were divine! + + Truants from love, we dream of wrath; + --Oh, rather let us trust the more! + Through all the wanderings of the path, + We still can see our Father's door! + + + + +V + +The Professor finds a Fly in his Teacup. + +I have a long theological talk to relate, which must be dull reading to +some of my young and vivacious friends. I don't know, however, that any +of them have entered into a contract to read all that I write, or that I +have promised always to write to please them. What if I should sometimes +write to please myself? + +Now you must know that there are a great many things which interest me, +to some of which this or that particular class of readers may be totally +indifferent. I love Nature, and human nature, its thoughts, affections, +dreams, aspirations, delusions,--Art in all its forms,--virtu in all its +eccentricities,--old stories from black-letter volumes and yellow +manuscripts, and new projects out of hot brains not yet imbedded in the +snows of age. I love the generous impulses of the reformer; but not less +does my imagination feed itself upon the old litanies, so often warmed by +the human breath upon which they were wafted to Heaven that they glow +through our frames like our own heart's blood. I hope I love good men +and women; I know that they never speak a word to me, even if it be of +question or blame, that I do not take pleasantly, if it is expressed with +a reasonable amount of human kindness. + +I have before me at this time a beautiful and affecting letter, which I +have hesitated to answer, though the postmark upon it gave its direction, +and the name is one which is known to all, in some of its +representatives. It contains no reproach, only a delicately-hinted fear. +Speak gently, as this dear lady has spoken, and there is no heart so +insensible that it does not answer to the appeal, no intellect so virile +that it does not own a certain deference to the claims of age, of +childhood, of sensitive and timid natures, when they plead with it not to +look at those sacred things by the broad daylight which they see in +mystic shadow. How grateful would it be to make perpetual peace with +these pleading saints and their confessors, by the simple act that +silences all complainings! Sleep, sleep, sleep! says the +Arch-Enchantress of them all,--and pours her dark and potent anodyne, +distilled over the fires that consumed her foes,--its large, round drops +changing, as we look, into the beads of her convert's rosary! Silence! +the pride of reason! cries another, whose whole life is spent in +reasoning down reason. + +I hope I love good people, not for their sake, but for my own. And most +assuredly, if any deed of wrong or word of bitterness led me into an act +of disrespect towards that enlightened and excellent class of men who +make it their calling to teach goodness and their duty to practise it, I +should feel that I had done myself an injury rather than them. Go and +talk with any professional man holding any of the medieval creeds, +choosing one who wears upon his features the mark of inward and outward +health, who looks cheerful, intelligent, and kindly, and see how all your +prejudices melt away in his presence! It is impossible to come into +intimate relations with a large, sweet nature, such as you may often find +in this class, without longing to be at one with it in all its modes of +being and believing. But does it not occur to you that one may love +truth as he sees it, and his race as he views it, better than even the +sympathy and approbation of many good men whom he honors,--better than +sleeping to the sound of the Miserere or listening to the repetition of +an effete Confession of Faith? + +The three learned professions have but recently emerged from a state of +quasi-barbarism. None of them like too well to be told of it, but it +must be sounded in their ears whenever they put on airs. When a man has +taken an overdose of laudanum, the doctors tell us to place him between +two persons who shall make him walk up and down incessantly; and if he +still cannot be kept from going to sleep, they say that a lash or two +over his back is of great assistance. + +So we must keep the doctors awake by telling them that they have not yet +shaken off astrology and the doctrine of signatures, as is shown by the +form of their prescriptions, and their use of nitrate of silver, which +turns epileptics into Ethiopians. If that is not enough, they must be +given over to the scourgers, who like their task and get good fees for +it. A few score years ago, sick people were made to swallow burnt toads +and powdered earthworms and the expressed juice of wood-lice. The +physician of Charles I. and II. prescribed abominations not to be named. +Barbarism, as bad as that of Congo or Ashantee. Traces of this barbarism +linger even in the greatly improved medical science of our century. So +while the solemn farce of over-drugging is going on, the world over, the +harlequin pseudo-science jumps on to the stage, whip in hand, with +half-a-dozen somersets, and begins laying about him. + +In 1817, perhaps you remember, the law of wager by battle was unrepealed, +and the rascally murderous, and worse than murderous, clown, Abraham +Thornton, put on his gauntlet in open court and defied the appellant to +lift the other which he threw down. It was not until the reign of George +II. that the statutes against witchcraft were repealed. As for the +English Court of Chancery, we know that its antiquated abuses form one of +the staples of common proverbs and popular literature. So the laws and +the lawyers have to be watched perpetually by public opinion as much as +the doctors do. + +I don't think the other profession is an exception. When the Reverend +Mr. Cauvin and his associates burned my distinguished scientific +brother,--he was burned with green fagots, which made it rather slow and +painful,--it appears to me they were in a state of religious barbarism. +The dogmas of such people about the Father of Mankind and his creatures +are of no more account in my opinion than those of a council of Aztecs. +If a man picks your pocket, do you not consider him thereby disqualified +to pronounce any authoritative opinion on matters of ethics? If a man +hangs my ancient female relatives for sorcery, as they did in this +neighborhood a little while ago, or burns my instructor for not believing +as he does, I care no more for his religious edicts than I should for +those of any other barbarian. + +Of course, a barbarian may hold many true opinions; but when the ideas of +the healing art, of the administration of justice, of Christian love, +could not exclude systematic poisoning, judicial duelling, and murder for +opinion's sake, I do not see how we can trust the verdict of that time +relating to any subject which involves the primal instincts violated in +these abominations and absurdities.--What if we are even now in a state +of semi-barbarism? + +[This physician believes we "are even now in a state of semi-barbarism": +invasive procedures for the prolongation of death rather than +prolongation of life; "faith",as slimly based as medieval faith in minute +differences between control and treated groups; statistical manipulation +to prove a prejudice. Medicine has a good deal to answer for! D.W.] + +Perhaps some think we ought not to talk at table about such things.--I +am not so sure of that. Religion and government appear to me the two +subjects which of all others should belong to the common talk of people +who enjoy the blessings of freedom. Think, one moment. The earth is a +great factory-wheel, which, at every revolution on its axis, receives +fifty thousand raw souls and turns off nearly the same number worked up +more or less completely. There must be somewhere a population of two +hundred thousand million, perhaps ten or a hundred times as many, +earth-born intelligences. Life, as we call it, is nothing but the edge +of the boundless ocean of existence where it comes on soundings. In this +view, I do not see anything so fit to talk about, or half so interesting, +as that which relates to the innumerable majority of our +fellow-creatures, the dead-living, who are hundreds of thousands to one +of the live-living, and with whom we all potentially belong, though we +have got tangled for the present in some parcels of fibrine, albumen, and +phosphates, that keep us on the minority side of the house. In point of +fact, it is one of the many results of Spiritualism to make the permanent +destiny of the race a matter of common reflection and discourse, and a +vehicle for the prevailing disbelief of the Middle-Age doctrines on the +subject. I cannot help thinking, when I remember how many conversations +my friend and myself have sported, that it would be very extraordinary, +if there were no mention of that class of subjects which involves all +that we have and all that we hope, not merely for ourselves, but for the +dear people whom we love best,--noble men, pure and lovely women, +ingenuous children, about the destiny of nine tenths of whom you know the +opinions that would have been taught by those old man-roasting, +woman-strangling dogmatists.--However, I fought this matter with one of +our boarders the other day, and I am going to report the conversation. + +The divinity-student came down, one morning, looking rather more serious +than usual. He said little at breakfast-time, but lingered after the +others, so that I, who am apt to be long at the table, found myself alone +with him. + +When the rest were all gone, he turned his chair round towards mine, and +began. + +I am afraid,--he said,--you express yourself a little too freely on a +most important class of subjects. Is there not danger in introducing +discussions or allusions relating to matters of religion into common +discourse? + +Danger to what?--I asked. + +Danger to truth,--he replied, after a slight pause. + +I didn't know Truth was such an invalid,' I said.--How long is it since +she could only take the air in a close carriage, with a gentleman in a +black coat on the box? Let me tell you a story, adapted to young +persons, but which won't hurt older ones. + +--There was a very little boy who had one of those balloons you may have +seen, which are filled with light gas, and are held by a string to keep +them from running off in aeronautic voyages on their own account. This +little boy had a naughty brother, who said to him, one day,--Brother, +pull down your balloon, so that I can look at it and take hold of it. +Then the little boy pulled it down. Now the naughty brother had a sharp +pin in his hand, and he thrust it into the balloon, and all the gas oozed +out, so that there was nothing left but a shrivelled skin. + +One evening, the little boy's father called him to the window to see the +moon, which pleased him very much; but presently he said,--Father, do +not pull the string and bring down the moon, for my naughty brother will +prick it, and then it will all shrivel up and we shall not see it any +more. + +Then his father laughed, and told him how the moon had been shining a +good while, and would shine a good while longer, and that all we could do +was to keep our windows clean, never letting the dust get too thick on +them, and especially to keep our eyes open, but that we could not pull +the moon down with a string, nor prick it with a pin.--Mind you this, +too, the moon is no man's private property, but is seen from a good many +parlor-windows. + +--Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you +may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full +at evening. Does not Mr. Bryant say, that Truth gets well if she is run +over by a locomotive, while Error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her +finger? [Would that this was so:--error, superstition, mysticism, +authoritarianism, pseudo-science all have a tenacity that survives +inexplicably. D.W.] I never heard that a mathematician was alarmed for +the safety of a demonstrated proposition. I think, generally, that fear +of open discussion implies feebleness of inward conviction, and great +sensitiveness to the expression of individual opinion is a mark of +weakness. + +--I am not so much afraid for truth,--said the divinity-student,--as for +the conceptions of truth in the minds of persons not accustomed to judge +wisely the opinions uttered before them. + +Would you, then, banish all allusions to matters of this nature from the +society of people who come together habitually? + +I would be very careful in introducing them,--said the divinity-student. + +Yes, but friends of yours leave pamphlets in people's entries, to be +picked up by nervous misses and hysteric housemaids, full of doctrines +these people do not approve. Some of your friends stop little children +in the street, and give them books, which their parents, who have had +them baptized into the Christian fold and give them what they consider +proper religious instruction, do not think fit for them. One would say +it was fair enough to talk about matters thus forced upon people's +attention. + +The divinity-student could not deny that this was what might be called +opening the subject to the discussion of intelligent people. + +But,--he said,--the greatest objection is this, that persons who have not +made a professional study of theology are not competent to speak on such +subjects. Suppose a minister were to undertake to express opinions on +medical subjects, for instance, would you not think he was going beyond +his province? + +I laughed,--for I remembered John Wesley's "sulphur and supplication," +and so many other cases where ministers had meddled with +medicine,--sometimes well and sometimes ill, but, as a general rule, with +a tremendous lurch to quackery, owing to their very loose way of +admitting evidence,--that I could not help being amused. + +I beg your pardon,--I said,--I do not wish to be impolite, but I was +thinking of their certificates to patent medicines. Let us look at this +matter. + +If a minister had attended lectures on the theory and practice of +medicine, delivered by those who had studied it most deeply, for thirty +or forty years, at the rate of from fifty to one hundred a year,--if he +had been constantly reading and hearing read the most approved text-books +on the subject,--if he had seen medicine actually practised according to +different methods, daily, for the same length of time,--I should think, +that if a person of average understanding, he was entitled to express an +opinion on the subject of medicine, or else that his instructors were a +set of ignorant and incompetent charlatans. + +If, before a medical practitioner would allow me to enjoy the full +privileges of the healing art, he expected me to affirm my belief in a +considerable number of medical doctrines, drugs, and formulae, I should +think that he thereby implied my right to discuss the same, and my +ability to do so, if I knew how to express myself in English. + +Suppose, for instance, the Medical Society should refuse to give us an +opiate, or to set a broken limb, until we had signed our belief in a +certain number of propositions,--of which we will say this is the first: + +I. All men's teeth are naturally in a state of total decay or caries, +and, therefore, no man can bite until every one of them is extracted and +a new set is inserted according to the principles of dentistry adopted by +this Society. + +I, for one, should want to discuss that before signing my name to it, and +I should say this:--Why, no, that is n't true. There are a good many bad +teeth, we all know, but a great many more good ones. You must n't trust +the dentists; they are all the time looking at the people who have bad +teeth, and such as are suffering from toothache. The idea that you must +pull out every one of every nice young man and young woman's natural +teeth! Poh, poh! Nobody believes that. This tooth must be +straightened, that must be filled with gold, and this other perhaps +extracted, but it must be a very rare case, if they are all so bad as to +require extraction; and if they are, don't blame the poor soul for it! +Don't tell us, as some old dentists used to, that everybody not only +always has every tooth in his head good for nothing, but that he ought to +have his head cut off as a punishment for that misfortune! No, I can't +sign Number One. Give us Number Two. + +II. We hold that no man can be well who does not agree with our views of +the efficacy of calomel, and who does not take the doses of it prescribed +in our tables, as there directed. + +To which I demur, questioning why it should be so, and get for answer the +two following: + +III. Every man who does not take our prepared calomel, as prescribed by +us in our Constitution and By-Laws, is and must be a mass of disease from +head to foot; it being self-evident that he is simultaneously affected +with Apoplexy, Arthritis, Ascites, Asphyxia, and Atrophy; with +Borborygmus, Bronchitis, and Bulimia; with Cachexia, Carcinoma, and +Cretinismus; and so on through the alphabet, to Xerophthahnia and Zona, +with all possible and incompatible diseases which are necessary to make +up a totally morbid state; and he will certainly die, if he does not take +freely of our prepared calomel, to be obtained only of one of our +authorized agents. + +IV. No man shall be allowed to take our prepared calomel who does not +give in his solemn adhesion to each and all of the above-named and the +following propositions (from ten to a hundred) and show his mouth to +certain of our apothecaries, who have not studied dentistry, to examine +whether all his teeth have been extracted and a new set inserted +according to our regulations. + +Of course, the doctors have a right to say we sha'n't have any rhubarb, +if we don't sign their articles, and that, if, after signing them, we +express doubts (in public), about any of them, they will cut us off from +our jalap and squills,--but then to ask a fellow not to discuss the +propositions before he signs them is what I should call boiling it down a +little too strong! + +If we understand them, why can't we discuss them? If we can't understand +them, because we have n't taken a medical degree, what the Father of Lies +do they ask us to sign them for? + +Just so with the graver profession. Every now and then some of its +members seem to lose common sense and common humanity. The laymen have +to keep setting the divines right constantly. Science, for instance,--in +other words, knowledge,--is not the enemy of religion; for, if so, then +religion would mean ignorance: But it is often the antagonist of +school-divinity. + +Everybody knows the story of early astronomy and the school-divines. Come +down a little later, Archbishop Usher, a very learned Protestant prelate, +tells us that the world was created on Sunday, the twenty-third of +October, four thousand and four years before the birth of Christ. +Deluge, December 7th, two thousand three hundred and forty-eight years B. +C. Yes, and the earth stands on an elephant, and the elephant on a +tortoise. One statement is as near the truth as the other. + +Again, there is nothing so brutalizing to some natures as moral surgery. +I have often wondered that Hogarth did not add one more picture to his +four stages of Cruelty. Those wretched fools, reverend divines and +others, who were strangling men and women for imaginary crimes a little +more than a century ago among us, were set right by a layman, and very +angry it made them to have him meddle. + +The good people of Northampton had a very remarkable man for their +clergyman,--a man with a brain as nicely adjusted for certain mechanical +processes as Babbage's calculating machine. The commentary of the laymen +on the preaching and practising of Jonathan Edwards was, that, after +twenty-three years of endurance, they turned him out by a vote of twenty +to one, and passed a resolve that he should never preach for them again. +A man's logical and analytical adjustments are of little consequence, +compared to his primary relations with Nature and truth: and people have +sense enough to find it out in the long ran; they know what "logic" is +worth. + +In that miserable delusion referred to above, the reverend Aztecs and +Fijians argued rightly enough from their premises, no doubt, for many men +can do this. But common sense and common humanity were unfortunately +left out from their premises, and a layman had to supply them. A hundred +more years and many of the barbarisms still lingering among us will, of +course, have disappeared like witch-hanging. But people are sensitive +now, as they were then. You will see by this extract that the Rev. +Cotton Mather did not like intermeddling with his business very well. + +"Let the Levites of the Lord keep close to their Instructions," he says, +"and God will smite thro' the loins of those that rise up against them. +I will report unto you a Thing which many Hundreds among us know to be +true. The Godly Minister of a certain Town in Connecticut, when he had +occasion to be absent on a Lord's Day from his Flock, employ'd an honest +Neighbour of some small Talents for a Mechanick, to read a Sermon out of +some good Book unto 'em. This Honest, whom they ever counted also a +Pious Man, had so much conceit of his Talents, that instead of Reading a +Sermon appointed, he to the Surprize of the People, fell to preaching one +of his own. For his Text he took these Words, 'Despise not +Prophecyings'; and in his Preachment he betook himself to bewail the Envy +of the Clergy in the Land, in that they did not wish all the Lord's +People to be Prophets, and call forth Private Brethren publickly to +prophesie. While he was thus in the midst of his Exercise, God smote him +with horrible Madness; he was taken ravingly distracted; the People were +forc'd with violent Hands to carry him home. I will not mention his +Name: He was reputed a Pious Man."--This is one of Cotton Mather's +"Remarkable Judgments of God, on Several Sorts of Offenders,"--and the +next cases referred to are the Judgments on the "Abominable Sacrilege" of +not paying the Ministers' Salaries. + +This sort of thing does n't do here and now, you see, my young friend! +We talk about our free institutions;--they are nothing but a coarse +outside machinery to secure the freedom of individual thought. The +President of the United States is only the engine driver of our +broad-gauge mail-train; and every honest, independent thinker has a seat +in the first-class cars behind him. + +--There is something in what you say,--replied the divinity-student; +--and yet it seems to me there are places and times where disputed +doctrines of religion should not be introduced. You would not attack a +church dogma--say Total Depravity--in a lyceum-lecture, for instance? + +Certainly not; I should choose another place,--I answered.--But, mind +you, at this table I think it is very different. I shall express my +ideas on any subject I like. The laws of the lecture-room, to which my +friends and myself are always amenable, do not hold here. I shall not +often give arguments, but frequently opinions,--I trust with courtesy and +propriety, but, at any rate, with such natural forms of expression as it +has pleased the Almighty to bestow upon me. + +A man's opinions, look you, are generally of much more value than his +arguments. These last are made by his brain, and perhaps he does not +believe the proposition they tend to prove,--as is often the case with +paid lawyers; but opinions are formed by our whole nature,--brain, +heart, instinct, brute life, everything all our experience has shaped for +us by contact with the whole circle of our being. + +--There is one thing more,--said the divinity-student,--that I wished to +speak of; I mean that idea of yours, expressed some time since, of +depolarizing the text of sacred books in order to judge them fairly. May +I ask why you do not try the experiment yourself? + +Certainly,--I replied,--if it gives you any pleasure to ask foolish +questions. I think the ocean telegraph-wire ought to be laid and will be +laid, but I don't know that you have any right to ask me to go and lay +it. But, for that matter, I have heard a good deal of Scripture +depolarized in and out of the pulpit. I heard the Rev. Mr. F. once +depolarize the story of the Prodigal Son in Park-Street Church. Many +years afterwards, I heard him repeat the same or a similar depolarized +version in Rome, New York. I heard an admirable depolarization of the +story of the young man who "had great possessions" from the Rev. Mr. H. +in another pulpit, and felt that I had never half understood it before. +All paraphrases are more or less perfect depolarizations. But I tell you +this: the faith of our Christian community is not robust enough to bear +the turning of our most sacred language into its depolarized equivalents. +You have only to look back to Dr. Channing's famous Baltimore discourse +and remember the shrieks of blasphemy with which it was greeted, to +satisfy yourself on this point. Time, time only, can gradually wean us +from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the +thing signified. Man is an idolater or symbol-worshipper by nature, +which, of course, is no fault of his; but sooner or later all his local +and temporary symbols must be ground to powder, like the golden +calf,--word-images as well as metal and wooden ones. Rough work, +iconoclasm,--but the only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that +quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons for Sleepers," hath it, "no +doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie occupation; veritas +odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratcht face; he that will be +busie with voe vobis, let him looke shortly for coram nobas." + +The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think +what we like and say what we think. + +--Think what we like!--said the divinity-student;--think what we like! +What! against all human and divine authority? + +Against all human versions of its own or any other authority. At our own +peril always, if we do not like the right,--but not at the risk of being +hanged and quartered for political heresy, or broiled on green fagots for +ecclesiastical treason! Nay, we have got so far, that the very word +heresy has fallen into comparative disuse among us. + +And now, my young friend, let-us shake hands and stop our discussion, +which we will not make a quarrel. I trust you know, or will learn, a +great many things in your profession which we common scholars do not +know; but mark this: when the common people of New England stop talking +politics and theology, it will be because they have got an Emperor to +teach them the one, and a Pope to teach them the other! + +That was the end of my long conference with the divinity-student. The +next morning we got talking a little on the same subject, very +good-naturedly, as people return to a matter they have talked out. + +You must look to yourself,--said the divinity-student,--if your +democratic notions get into print. You will be fired into from all +quarters. + +If it were only a bullet, with the marksman's name on it!--I said.--I +can't stop to pick out the peep-shot of the anonymous scribblers. + +Right, Sir! right!--said the Little Gentleman. The scamps! I know the +fellows. They can't give fifty cents to one of the Antipodes, but they +must have it jingled along through everybody's palms all the way, till it +reaches him,--and forty cents of it gets spilt, like the water out of the +fire-buckets passed along a "lane" at a fire;--but when it comes to +anonymous defamation, putting lies into people's mouths, and then +advertising those people through the country as the authors of them,--oh, +then it is that they let not their left hand know what their right hand +doeth! + +I don't like Ehud's style of doing business, Sir. He comes along with a +very sanctimonious look, Sir, with his "secret errand unto thee," and his +"message from God unto thee," and then pulls out his hidden knife with +that unsuspected hand of his,---(the Little Gentleman lifted his clenched +left hand with the blood-red jewel on the ring-finger,)--and runs it, +blade and haft, into a man's stomach! Don't meddle with these fellows, +Sir. They are read mostly by persons whom you would not reach, if you +were to write ever so much. Let 'em alone. A man whose opinions are not +attacked is beneath contempt. + +I hope so,--I said.--I got three pamphlets and innumerable squibs flung +at my head for attacking one of the pseudo-sciences, in former years. +When, by the permission of Providence, I held up to the professional +public the damnable facts connected with the conveyance of poison from +one young mother's chamber to another's,--for doing which humble office I +desire to be thankful that I have lived, though nothing else good should +ever come of my life,--I had to bear the sneers of those whose position I +had assailed, and, as I believe, have at last demolished, so that nothing +but the ghosts of dead women stir among the ruins.--What would you do, if +the folks without names kept at you, trying to get a San Benito on to +your shoulders that would fit you?--Would you stand still in fly-time, or +would you give a kick now and then? + +Let 'em bite!--said the Little Gentleman,--let 'em bite! It makes 'em +hungry to shake 'em off, and they settle down again as thick as ever and +twice as savage. Do you know what meddling with the folks without names, +as you call 'em, is like?--It is like riding at the quintaan. You run +full tilt at the board, but the board is on a pivot, with a bag of sand +on an arm that balances it. The board gives way as soon as you touch it; +and before you have got by, the bag of sand comes round whack on the back +of your neck. "Ananias," for instance, pitches into your lecture, we +will say, in some paper taken by the people in your kitchen. Your +servants get saucy and negligent. If their newspaper calls you names, +they need not be so particular about shutting doors softly or boiling +potatoes. So you lose your temper, and come out in an article which you +think is going to finish "Ananias," proving him a booby who doesn't know +enough to understand even a lyceum-lecture, or else a person that tells +lies. Now you think you 've got him! Not so fast. "Ananias" keeps still +and winks to "Shimei," and "Shimei" comes out in the paper which they +take in your neighbor's kitchen, ten times worse than t'other fellow. If +you meddle with "Shimei," he steps out, and next week appears +"Rab-shakeh," an unsavory wretch; and now, at any rate, you find out what +good sense there was in Hezekiah's "Answer him not."--No, no,--keep your +temper.--So saying, the Little Gentleman doubled his left fist and looked +at it as if he should like to hit something or somebody a most pernicious +punch with it. + +Good!--said I.--Now let me give you some axioms I have arrived at, after +seeing something of a great many kinds of good folks. + +--Of a hundred people of each of the different leading religious sects, +about the same proportion will be safe and pleasant persons to deal and +to live with. + +--There are, at least, three real saints among the women to one among the +men, in every denomination. + +--The spiritual standard of different classes I would reckon thus: + + 1. The comfortably rich. + 2. The decently comfortable. + 3. The very rich, who are apt to be irreligious. + 4. The very poor, who are apt to be immoral. + +--The cut nails of machine-divinity may be driven in, but they won't +clinch. + +--The arguments which the greatest of our schoolmen could not refute were +two: the blood in men's veins, and the milk in women's breasts. + +--Humility is the first of the virtues--for other people. + +--Faith always implies the disbelief of a lesser fact in favor of a +greater. A little mind often sees the unbelief, without seeing the +belief of a large one. + +The Poor Relation had been fidgeting about and working her mouth while +all this was going on. She broke out in speech at this point. + +I hate to hear folks talk so. I don't see that you are any better than a +heathen. + +I wish I were half as good as many heathens have been,--I said.--Dying +for a principle seems to me a higher degree of virtue than scolding for +it; and the history of heathen races is full of instances where men have +laid down their lives for the love of their kind, of their country, of +truth, nay, even for simple manhood's sake, or to show their obedience or +fidelity. What would not such beings have done for the souls of men, for +the Christian commonwealth, for the King of Kings, if they had lived in +days of larger light? Which seems to you nearest heaven, Socrates +drinking his hemlock, Regulus going back to the enemy's camp, or that old +New England divine sitting comfortably in his study and chuckling over +his conceit of certain poor women, who had been burned to death in his +own town, going "roaring out of one fire into another"? + +I don't believe he said any such thing,--replied the Poor Relation. + +It is hard to believe,--said I,--but it is true for all that. In another +hundred years it will be as incredible that men talked as we sometimes +hear them now. + +Pectus est quod facit theologum. The heart makes the theologian. Every +race, every civilization, either has a new revelation of its own or a new +interpretation of an old one. Democratic America, has a different +humanity from feudal Europe, and so must have a new divinity. See, for +one moment, how intelligence reacts on our faiths. The Bible was a +divining-book to our ancestors, and is so still in the hands of some of +the vulgar. The Puritans went to the Old Testament for their laws; the +Mormons go to it for their patriarchal institution. Every generation +dissolves something new and precipitates something once held in solution +from that great storehouse of temporary and permanent truths. + +You may observe this: that the conversation of intelligent men of the +stricter sects is strangely in advance of the formula that belong to +their organizations. So true is this, that I have doubts whether a large +proportion of them would not have been rather pleased than offended, if +they could have overheard our, talk. For, look you, I think there is +hardly a professional teacher who will not in private conversation allow +a large part of what we have said, though it may frighten him in print; +and I know well what an under-current of secret sympathy gives vitality +to those poor words of mine which sometimes get a hearing. + +I don't mind the exclamation of any old stager who drinks Madeira worth +from two to six Bibles a bottle, and burns, according to his own +premises, a dozen souls a year in the cigars with which he muddles his +brains. But as for the good and true and intelligent men whom we see all +around us, laborious, self-denying, hopeful, helpful,--men who know that +the active mind of the century is tending more and more to the two poles, +Rome and Reason, the sovereign church or the free soul, authority or +personality, God in us or God in our masters, and that, though a man may +by accident stand half-way between these two points, he must look one way +or the other,--I don't believe they would take offence at anything I have +reported of our late conversation. + +But supposing any one do take offence at first sight, let him look over +these notes again, and see whether he is quite sure he does not agree +with most of these things that were said amongst us. If he agrees with +most of them, let him be patient with an opinion he does not accept, or +an expression or illustration a little too vivacious. I don't know that I +shall report any more conversations on these topics; but I do insist on +the right to express a civil opinion on this class of subjects without +giving offence, just when and where I please,---unless, as in the +lecture-room, there is an implied contract to keep clear of doubtful +matters. You did n't think a man could sit at a breakfast-table doing +nothing but making puns every morning for a year or two, and never give a +thought to the two thousand of his fellow-creatures who are passing into +another state during every hour that he sits talking and laughing. Of +course, the one matter that a real human being cares for is what is going +to become of them and of him. And the plain truth is, that a good many +people are saying one thing about it and believing another. + +--How do I know that? Why, I have known and loved to talk with good +people, all the way from Rome to Geneva in doctrine, as long as I can +remember. Besides, the real religion of the world comes from women much +more than from men,--from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our +souls in their bosoms. It is in their hearts that the "sentimental" +religion some people are so fond of sneering at has its source. The +sentiment of love, the sentiment of maternity, the sentiment of the +paramount obligation of the parent to the child as having called it into +existence, enhanced just in proportion to the power and knowledge of the +one and the weakness and ignorance of the other,--these are the +"sentiments" that have kept our soulless systems from driving men off to +die in holes like those that riddle the sides of the hill opposite the +Monastery of St. Saba, where the miserable victims of a +falsely-interpreted religion starved and withered in their delusion. + +I have looked on the face of a saintly woman this very day, whose creed +many dread and hate, but whose life is lovely and noble beyond all +praise. When I remember the bitter words I have heard spoken against her +faith, by men who have an Inquisition which excommunicates those who ask +to leave their communion in peace, and an Index Expurgatorius on which +this article may possibly have the honor of figuring,--and, far worse +than these, the reluctant, pharisaical confession, that it might perhaps +be possible that one who so believed should be accepted of the +Creator,--and then recall the sweet peace and love that show through all +her looks, the price of untold sacrifices and labors, and again recollect +how thousands of women, filled with the same spirit, die, without a +murmur, to earthly life, die to their own names even, that they may know +nothing but their holy duties,--while men are torturing and denouncing +their fellows, and while we can hear day and night the clinking of the +hammers that are trying, like the brute forces in the "Prometheus," to +rivet their adamantine wedges right through the breast of human +nature,--I have been ready to believe that we have even now a new +revelation, and the name of its Messiah is WOMAN! + +--I should be sorry,--I remarked, a day or two afterwards, to the +divinity-student,--if anything I said tended in any way to foster any +jealousy between the professions, or to throw disrespect upon that one on +whose counsel and sympathies almost all of us lean in our moments of +trial. But we are false to our new conditions of life, if we do not +resolutely maintain our religious as well as our political freedom, in +the face of any and all supposed monopolies. Certain men will, of +course, say two things, if we do not take their views: first, that we +don't know anything about these matters; and, secondly, that we are not +so good as they are. They have a polarized phraseology for saying these +things, but it comes to precisely that. To which it may be answered, in +the first place, that we have good authority for saying that even babes +and sucklings know something; and, in the second, that, if there is a +mote or so to be removed from our premises, the courts and councils of +the last few years have found beams enough in some other quarters to +build a church that would hold all the good people in Boston and have +sticks enough left to make a bonfire for all the heretics. + +As to that terrible depolarizing process of mine, of which we were +talking the other day, I will give you a specimen of one way of managing +it, if you like. I don't believe it will hurt you or anybody. Besides, +I had a great deal rather finish our talk with pleasant images and gentle +words than with sharp sayings, which will only afford a text, if anybody +repeats them, for endless relays of attacks from Messrs. Ananias, +Shimei, and Rabshakeh. + +[I must leave such gentry, if any of them show themselves, in the hands +of my clerical friends, many of whom are ready to stand up for the rights +of the laity,--and to those blessed souls, the good women, to whom this +version of the story of a mother's hidden hopes and tender anxieties is +dedicated by their peaceful and loving servant.] + + + + A MOTHER'S SECRET. + + How sweet the sacred legend--if unblamed + In my slight verse such holy things are named + --Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy, + Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy! + Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong + Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song! + + The choral host had closed the angel's strain + Sung to the midnight watch on Bethlehem's plain; + And now the shepherds, hastening on their way, + Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay. + They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled O'er, + They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor + Where Moab's daughter, homeless and forlorn, + Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn; + And some remembered how the holy scribe, + Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe, + Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son + To that fair alien, bravely wooed and won. + So fared they on to seek the promised sign + That marked the anointed heir of David's line. + + At last, by forms of earthly semblance led, + They found the crowded inn, the oxen's shed. + No pomp was there, no glory shone around + On the coarse straw that strewed the reeking ground; + One dim retreat a flickering torch betrayed, + In that poor cell the Lord of Life was laid! + + The wondering shepherds told their breathless tale + Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping vale; + Told how the skies with sudden glory flamed; + Told how the shining multitude proclaimed + "Joy, joy to earth! Behold the hallowed morn! + In David's city Christ the Lord is born! + 'Glory to God!' let angels shout on high, + 'Good-will to men!' the listening Earth reply!" + + They spoke with hurried words and accents wild; + Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. + No trembling word the mother's joy revealed, + One sigh of rapture, and her lips were sealed; + Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart, + But kept their words to ponder in her heart. + + Twelve years had passed; the boy was fair and tall, + Growing in wisdom, finding grace with all. + The maids of Nazareth, as they trooped to fill + Their balanced urns beside the mountain-rill, + The gathered matrons, as they sat and spun, + Spoke in soft words of Joseph's quiet son. + No voice had reached the Galilean vale + Of star-led kings or awe-struck shepherds' tale; + In the meek, studious child they only saw + The future Rabbi, learned in Israel's law. + + So grew the boy; and now the feast was near, + When at the holy place the tribes appear. + Scarce had the home-bred child of Nazareth seen + Beyond the hills that girt the village-green, + Save when at midnight, o'er the star-lit sands, + Snatched from the steel of Herod's murdering bands, + A babe, close-folded to his mother's breast, + Through Edom's wilds he sought the sheltering West. + + Then Joseph spake: "Thy boy hath largely grown; + Weave him fine raiment, fitting to be shown; + Fair robes beseem the pilgrim, as the priest + Goes he not with us to the holy feast?" + + And Mary culled the flaxen fibres white; + Till eve she spun; she spun till morning light. + The thread was twined; its parting meshes through + From hand to hand her restless shuttle flew, + Till the full web was wound upon the beam, + Love's curious toil,--a vest without a seam! + + They reach the holy place, fulfil the days + To solemn feasting given, and grateful praise. + At last they turn, and far Moriah's height + Melts in the southern sky and fades from sight. + All day the dusky caravan has flowed + In devious trails along the winding road, + (For many a step their homeward path attends, + And all the sons of Abraham are as friends.) + Evening has come,--the hour of rest and joy; + Hush! hush!--that whisper,-"Where is Mary's boy?" + + O weary hour! O aching days that passed + Filled with strange fears, each wilder than the last: + The soldier's lance,--the fierce centurion's sword, + The crushing wheels that whirl some Roman lord, + The midnight crypt that suck's the captive's breath, + The blistering sun on Hinnom's vale of death! + + Thrice on his cheek had rained the morning light, + Thrice on his lips the mildewed kiss of night, + Crouched by some porphyry column's shining plinth, + Or stretched beneath the odorous terebinth. + + At last, in desperate mood, they sought once more + The Temple's porches, searched in vain before; + They found him seated with the ancient men, + The grim old rufflers of the tongue and pen, + Their bald heads glistening as they clustered near; + Their gray beards slanting as they turned to hear, + Lost in half-envious wonder and surprise + That lips so fresh should utter words so wise. + + And Mary said,--as one who, tried too long, + Tells all her grief and half her sense of wrong, + "What is this thoughtless thing which thou hast done? + Lo, we have sought thee sorrowing, O my son!" + Few words he spake, and scarce of filial tone, + Strange words, their sense a mystery yet unknown; + Then turned with them and left the holy hill, + To all their mild commands obedient still. + + The tale was told to Nazareth's sober men, + And Nazareth's matrons told it oft again; + The maids retold it at the fountain's side; + The youthful shepherds doubted or denied; + It passed around among the listening friends, + With all that fancy adds and fiction fends, + Till newer marvels dimmed the young renown + Of Joseph's son, who talked the Rabbis down. + + But Mary, faithful to its lightest word, + Kept in her heart the sayings she had heard, + Till the dread morning rent the Temple's veil, + And shuddering Earth confirmed the wondrous tale. + + Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; + A mother's secret hope outlives them all. + + + + +VI + +You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back. +Bloated some, I expect. + +This was the cheerful and encouraging and elegant remark with which the +Poor Relation greeted the divinity-student one morning. + +Of course every good man considers it a great sacrifice on his part to +continue living in this transitory, unsatisfactory, and particularly +unpleasant world. This is so much a matter of course, that I was +surprised to see the divinity-student change color. He took a look at a +small and uncertain-minded glass which hung slanting forward over the +chapped sideboard. The image it returned to him had the color of a very +young pea somewhat overboiled. The scenery of a long tragic drama +flashed through his mind as the lightning-express-train whishes by a +station: the gradual dismantling process of disease; friends looking on, +sympathetic, but secretly chuckling over their own stomachs of iron and +lungs of caoutchouc; nurses attentive, but calculating their crop, and +thinking how soon it will be ripe, so that they can go to your neighbor, +who is good for a year or so longer; doctors assiduous, but giving +themselves a mental shake, as they go out of your door, which throws off +your particular grief as a duck sheds a raindrop from his oily feathers; +undertakers solemn, but happy; then the great subsoil cultivator, who +plants, but never looks for fruit in his garden; then the stone-cutter, +who puts your name on the slab which has been waiting for you ever since +the birds or beasts made their tracks on the new red sandstone; then the +grass and the dandelions and the buttercups,----Earth saying to the +mortal body, with her sweet symbolism, "You have scarred my bosom, but +you are forgiven"; then a glimpse of the soul as a floating consciousness +without very definite form or place, but dimly conceived of as an upright +column of vapor or mist several times larger than life-size, so far as it +could be said to have any size at all, wandering about and living a thin +and half-awake life for want of good old-fashioned solid matter to come +down upon with foot and fist,--in fact, having neither foot nor fist, nor +conveniences for taking the sitting posture. + +And yet the divinity-student was a good Christian, and those heathen +images which remind one of the childlike fancies of the dying Adrian were +only the efforts of his imagination to give shape to the formless and +position to the placeless. Neither did his thoughts spread themselves +out and link themselves as I have displayed them. They came confusedly +into his mind like a heap of broken mosaics,--sometimes a part of the +picture complete in itself, sometimes connected fragments, and sometimes +only single severed stones. + +They did not diffuse a light of celestial joy over his countenance. On +the contrary, the Poor Relation's remark turned him pale, as I have said; +and when the terrible wrinkled and jaundiced looking-glass turned him +green in addition, and he saw himself in it, it seemed to him as if it +were all settled, and his book of life were to be shut not yet half-read, +and go back to the dust of the under-ground archives. He coughed a mild +short cough, as if to point the direction in which his downward path was +tending. It was an honest little cough enough, so far as appearances +went. But coughs are ungrateful things. You find one out in the cold, +take it up and nurse it and make everything of it, dress it up warm, give +it all sorts of balsams and other food it likes, and carry it round in +your bosom as if it were a miniature lapdog. And by-and-by its little +bark grows sharp and savage, and--confound the thing!--you find it is a +wolf's whelp that you have got there, and he is gnawing in the breast +where he has been nestling so long.--The Poor Relation said that +somebody's surrup was good for folks that were gettin' into a bad +way.--The landlady had heard of desperate cases cured by +cherry-pictorial. + +Whiskey's the fellah,--said the young man John.--Make it into punch, cold +at dinner-time 'n' hot at bed-time. I'll come up 'n' show you how to mix +it. Have n't any of you seen the wonderful fat man exhibitin' down in +Hanover Street? + +Master Benjamin Franklin rushed into the dialogue with a breezy +exclamation, that he had seen a great picter outside of the place where +the fat man was exhibitin'. Tried to get in at half-price, but the man +at the door looked at his teeth and said he was more'n ten year old. + +It is n't two years,--said the young man John, since that fat fellah was +exhibitin' here as the Livin' Skeleton. Whiskey--that's what did +it,--real Burbon's the stuff. Hot water, sugar, 'n' jest a little +shavin' of lemon-skin in it,--skin, mind you, none o' your juice; take it +off thin,--shape of one of them flat curls the factory-girls wear on the +sides of their foreheads. + +But I am a teetotaller,--said the divinity-student in a subdued +tone;--not noticing the enormous length of the bow-string the young +fellow had just drawn. + +He took up his hat and went out. + +I think you have worried that young man more than you meant,--I said.--I +don't believe he will jump off one of the bridges, for he has too much +principle; but I mean to follow him and see where he goes, for he looks +as if his mind were made up to something. + +I followed him at a reasonable distance. He walked doggedly along, +looking neither to the right nor the left, turned into State Street, and +made for a well-known Life-Insurance Office. Luckily, the doctor was +there and overhauled him on the spot. There was nothing the matter with +him, he said, and he could have his life insured as a sound one. He came +out in good spirits, and told me this soon after. + +This led me to make some remarks the next morning on the manners of +well-bred and ill-bred people. + +I began,--The whole essence of true gentle-breeding (one does not like to +say gentility) lies in the wish and the art to be agreeable. +Good-breeding is surface-Christianity. Every look, movement, tone, +expression, subject of discourse, that may give pain to another is +habitually excluded from conversational intercourse. This is the reason +why rich people are apt to be so much more agreeable than others. + +--I thought you were a great champion of equality,--said the discreet and +severe lady who had accompanied our young friend, the Latin Tutor's +daughter. + +I go politically for equality,--I said,--and socially for the quality. + +Who are the "quality,"--said the Model, etc., in a community like ours? + +I confess I find this question a little difficult to answer,--I said. +--Nothing is better known than the distinction of social ranks which +exists in every community, and nothing is harder to define. The great +gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords and masters and +mistresses; they are the quality, whether in a monarchy or a republic; +mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents are +nothing to them. How well we know this, and how seldom it finds a +distinct expression! Now I tell you truly, I believe in man as man, and +I disbelieve in all distinctions except such as follow the natural lines +of cleavage in a society which has crystallized according to its own true +laws. But the essence of equality is to be able to say the truth; and +there is nothing more curious than these truths relating to the +stratification of society. + +Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality, +there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as this of +social position,--as you see by the circumstances that the core of all +the great social orders the world has seen has been, and is still, for +the most part, a privileged class of gentlemen and ladies arranged in a +regular scale of precedence among themselves, but superior as a body to +all else. + +Nothing but an ideal Christian equality, which we have been getting +farther away from since the days of the Primitive Church, can prevent +this subdivision of society into classes from taking place +everywhere,--in the great centres of our republic as much as in old +European monarchies. Only there position is more absolutely +hereditary,--here it is more completely elective. + +--Where is the election held? and what are the qualifications? and who +are the electors?--said the Model. + +Nobody ever sees when the vote is taken; there never is a formal vote. +The women settle it mostly; and they know wonderfully well what is +presentable, and what can't stand the blaze of the chandeliers and the +critical eye and ear of people trained to know a staring shade in a +ribbon, a false light in a jewel, an ill-bred tone, an angular movement, +everything that betrays a coarse fibre and cheap training. As a general +thing, you do not get elegance short of two or three removes from the +soil, out of which our best blood doubtless comes,--quite as good, no +doubt, as if it came from those old prize-fighters with iron pots on +their heads, to whom some great people are so fond of tracing their +descent through a line of small artisans and petty shopkeepers whose +veins have held "base" fluid enough to fill the Cloaca Maxima! + +Does not money go everywhere?--said the Model. + +Almost. And with good reason. For though there are numerous exceptions, +rich people are, as I said, commonly altogether the most agreeable +companions. The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, good +libraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above all, a position +so secure that one becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmony and +refinement to the character and manners which we feel, if we cannot +explain their charm. Yet we can get at the reason of it by thinking a +little. + +All these appliances are to shield the sensibility from disagreeable +contacts, and to soothe it by varied natural and artificial influences. +In this way the mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just as the +hands grow white and soft when saved from toil and incased in soft +gloves. The whole nature becomes subdued into suavity. I confess I like +the quality ladies better than the common kind even of literary ones. +They have n't read the last book, perhaps, but they attend better to you +when you are talking to them. If they are never learned, they make up for +it in tact and elegance. Besides, I think, on the whole, there is less +self-assertion in diamonds than in dogmas. I don't know where you will +find a sweeter portrait of humility than in Esther, the poor play-girl of +King Ahasuerus; yet Esther put on her royal apparel when she went before +her lord. I have no doubt she was a more gracious and agreeable person +than Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the story of Sisera. The +wisest woman you talk with is ignorant of something that you know, but an +elegant woman never forgets her elegance. + +Dowdyism is clearly an expression of imperfect vitality. The highest +fashion is intensely alive,--not alive necessarily to the truest and best +things, but with its blood tingling, as it were, in all its extremities +and to the farthest point of its surface, so that the feather in its +bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a fighting-cock, and the rosette on +its slipper as clean-cut and pimpant (pronounce it English fashion,--it +is a good word) as a dahlia. As a general rule, that society where +flattery is acted is much more agreeable than that where it is spoken. +Don't you see why? Attention and deference don't require you to make +fine speeches expressing your sense of unworthiness (lies) and returning +all the compliments paid you. This is one reason. + +--A woman of sense ought to be above flattering any man,--said the Model. + +[My reflection. Oh! oh! no wonder you did n't get married. Served you +right.] My remark. Surely, Madam,--if you mean by flattery telling +people boldly to their faces that they are this or that, which they are +not. But a woman who does not carry about with her wherever she goes a +halo of good feeling and desire to make everybody contented,--an +atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six feet radius, which +wraps every human being upon whom she voluntarily bestows her presence, +and so flatters him with the comfortable thought that she is rather glad +he is alive than otherwise, isn't worth the trouble of talking to, as a +woman; she may do well enough to hold discussions with. + +--I don't think the Model exactly liked this. She said,--a little +spitefully, I thought,--that a sensible man might stand a little praise, +but would of course soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit of +getting much. + +Oh, yes,--I replied,--just as men get sick of tobacco. It is notorious +how apt they are to get tired of that vegetable. + +--That 's so!--said the young fellow John,--I've got tired of my cigars +and burnt 'em all up. + +I am heartily glad to hear it,--said the Model,--I wish they were all +disposed of in the same way. + +So do I,--said the young fellow John. + +Can't you get your friends to unite with you in committing those odious +instruments of debauchery to the flames in which you have consumed your +own? + +I wish I could,--said the young fellow John. + +It would be a noble sacrifice,--said the Model, and every American woman +would be grateful to you. Let us burn them all in a heap out in the +yard. + +That a'n't my way,--said the young fellow John;--I burn 'em one 't' +time,--little end in my mouth and big end outside. + +--I watched for the effect of this sudden change of programme, when it +should reach the calm stillness of the Model's interior apprehension, as +a boy watches for the splash of a stone which he has dropped into a well. +But before it had fairly reached the water, poor Iris, who had followed +the conversation with a certain interest until it turned this sharp +corner, (for she seems rather to fancy the young fellow John,) laughed +out such a clear, loud laugh, that it started us all off, as the +locust-cry of some full-throated soprano drags a multitudinous chorus +after it. It was plain that some dam or other had broken in the soul of +this young girl, and she was squaring up old scores of laughter, out of +which she had been cheated, with a grand flood of merriment that swept +all before it. So we had a great laugh all round, in which the +Model--who, if she had as many virtues as there are spokes to a wheel, +all compacted with a personality as round and complete as its tire, yet +wanted that one little addition of grace, which seems so small, and is as +important as the linchpin in trundling over the rough ways of life--had +not the tact to join. She seemed to be "stuffy" about it, as the young +fellow John said. In fact, I was afraid the joke would have cost us both +our new lady-boarders. It had no effect, however, except, perhaps, to +hasten the departure of the elder of the two, who could, on the whole, be +spared. + +--I had meant to make this note of our conversation a text for a few +axioms on the matter of breeding. But it so happened, that, exactly at +this point of my record, a very distinguished philosopher, whom several +of our boarders and myself go to hear, and whom no doubt many of my +readers follow habitually, treated this matter of manners. Up to this +point, if I have been so fortunate as to coincide with him in opinion, +and so unfortunate as to try to express what he has more felicitously +said, nobody is to blame; for what has been given thus far was all +written before the lecture was delivered. But what shall I do now? He +told us it was childish to lay down rules for deportment,--but he could +not help laying down a few. + +Thus,--Nothing so vulgar as to be in a hurry. True, but hard of +application. People with short legs step quickly, because legs are +pendulums, and swing more times in a minute the shorter they are. +Generally a natural rhythm runs through the whole organization: quick +pulse, fast breathing, hasty speech, rapid trains of thought, excitable +temper. Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks +of good-breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or, at least, they +must work their limbs or features. + +Talking of one's own ails and grievances.--Bad enough, but not so bad as +insulting the person you talk with by remarking on his ill-looks, or +appealing to notice any of his personal peculiarities. + +Apologizing.--A very desperate habit,--one that is rarely cured. Apology +is only egotism wrong side out. Nine times out of ten, the first thing a +man's companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apology. It is +mighty presumptuous on your part to suppose your small failures of so +much consequence that you must make a talk about them. + +Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips that can wait, and +eyes that do not wander,--shyness of personalities, except in certain +intimate communions,--to be light in hand in conversation, to have ideas, +but to be able to make talk, if necessary, without them,--to belong to +the company you are in, and not to yourself,--to have nothing in your +dress or furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil it and get +another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies, throughout your person +and--dwelling: I should say that this was a fair capital of manners to +begin with. + +Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an +overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our +generic humanity. It is just here that the very highest society asserts +its superior breeding. Among truly elegant people of the highest ton, +you will find more real equality in social intercourse than in a country +village. As nuns drop their birth-names and become Sister Margaret and +Sister Mary, so high-bred people drop their personal distinctions and +become brothers and sisters of conversational charity. Nor are +fashionable people without their heroism. I believe there are men who +have shown as much self-devotion in carrying a lone wall-flower down to +the supper-table as ever saint or martyr in the act that has canonized +his name. There are Florence Nightingales of the ballroom, whom nothing +can hold back from their errands of mercy. They find out the red-handed, +gloveless undergraduate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms in his +corner, and distill their soft words upon him like dew upon the green +herb. They reach even the poor relation, whose dreary apparition saddens +the perfumed atmosphere of the sumptuous drawing-room. I have known one +of these angels ask, of her own accord, that a desolate middle-aged man, +whom nobody seemed to know, should be presented to her by the hostess. +He wore no shirt-collar,--he had on black gloves,--and was flourishing a +red bandanna handkerchief! Match me this, ye proud children of poverty, +who boast of your paltry sacrifices for each other! Virtue in humble +life! What is that to the glorious self-renunciation of a martyr in +pearls and diamonds? As I saw this noble woman bending gracefully before +the social mendicant,--the white billows of her beauty heaving under the +foam of the traitorous laces that half revealed them,--I should have wept +with sympathetic emotion, but that tears, except as a private +demonstration, are an ill-disguised expression of self-consciousness and +vanity, which is inadmissible in good society. + +I have sometimes thought, with a pang, of the position in which political +chance or contrivance might hereafter place some one of our +fellow-citizens. It has happened hitherto, so far as my limited +knowledge goes, that the President of the United States has always been +what might be called in general terms a gentleman. But what if at some +future time the choice of the people should fall upon one on whom that +lofty title could not, by any stretch of charity, be bestowed? This may +happen,--how soon the future only knows. Think of this miserable man of +coming political possibilities,--an unpresentable boor sucked into office +by one of those eddies in the flow of popular sentiment which carry +straws and chips into the public harbor, while the prostrate trunks of +the monarchs of the forest hurry down on the senseless stream to the gulf +of political oblivion! Think of him, I say, and of the concentrated gaze +of good society through its thousand eyes, all confluent, as it were, in +one great burning-glass of ice that shrivels its wretched object in fiery +torture, itself cold as the glacier of an unsunned cavern! No,--there +will be angels of good-breeding then as now, to shield the victim of free +institutions from himself and from his torturers. I can fancy a lovely +woman playfully withdrawing the knife which he would abuse by making it +an instrument for the conveyance of food,--or, failing in this kind +artifice, sacrificing herself by imitating his use of that implement; how +much harder than to plunge it into her bosom, like Lucretia! I can see +her studying in his provincial dialect until she becomes the Champollion +of New England or Western or Southern barbarisms. She has learned that +haow means what; that think-in' is the same thing as thinking, or she has +found out the meaning of that extraordinary mono syllable, which no +single-tongued phonographer can make legible, prevailing on the banks of +the Hudson and at its embouchure, and elsewhere,--what they say when they +think they say first, (fe-eest,--fe as in the French le),--or that cheer +means chair,--or that urritation means irritation,--and so of other +enormities. Nothing surprises her. The highest breeding, you know, +comes round to the Indian standard,--to take everything coolly,--nil +admirari,--if you happen to be learned and like the Roman phrase for the +same thing. + +If you like the company of people that stare at you from head to foot to +see if there is a hole in your coat, or if you have not grown a little +older, or if your eyes are not yellow with jaundice, or if your +complexion is not a little faded, and so on, and then convey the fact to +you, in the style in which the Poor Relation addressed the +divinity-student,--go with them as much as you like. I hate the sight of +the wretches. Don't for mercy's sake think I hate them; the distinction +is one my friend or I drew long ago. No matter where you find such +people; they are clowns. + +The rich woman who looks and talks in this way is not half so much a lady +as her Irish servant, whose pretty "saving your presence," when she has +to say something which offends her natural sense of good manners, has a +hint in it of the breeding of courts, and the blood of old Milesian +kings, which very likely runs in her veins,--thinned by two hundred years +of potato, which, being an underground fruit, tends to drag down the +generations that are made of it to the earth from which it came, and, +filling their veins with starch, turn them into a kind of human +vegetable. + +I say, if you like such people, go with them. But I am going to make a +practical application of the example at the beginning of this particular +record, which some young people who are going to choose professional +advisers by-and-by may remember and thank me for. If you are making +choice of a physician, be sure you get one, if possible, with a cheerful +and serene countenance. A physician is not--at least, ought not to +be--an executioner; and a sentence of death on his face is as bad as a +warrant for execution signed by the Governor. As a general rule, no man +has a right to tell another by word or look that he is going to die. It +may be necessary in some extreme cases; but as a rule, it is the last +extreme of impertinence which one human being can offer to another. "You +have killed me," said a patient once to a physician who had rashly told +him he was incurable. He ought to have lived six months, but he was dead +in six' weeks. If we will only let Nature and the God of Nature alone, +persons will commonly learn their condition as early as they ought to +know it, and not be cheated out of their natural birthright of hope of +recovery, which is intended to accompany sick people as long as life is +comfortable, and is graciously replaced by the hope of heaven, or at +least of rest, when life has become a burden which the bearer is ready to +let fall. + +Underbred people tease their sick and dying friends to death. The chance +of a gentleman or lady with a given mortal ailment to live a certain time +is as good again as that of the common sort of coarse people. As you go +down the social scale, you reach a point at length where the common talk +in sick rooms is of churchyards and sepulchres, and a kind of perpetual +vivisection is forever carried on, upon the person of the miserable +sufferer. + +And so, in choosing your clergyman, other things being equal, prefer the +one of a wholesome and cheerful habit of mind and body. If you can get +along with people who carry a certificate in their faces that their +goodness is so great as to make them very miserable, your children +cannot. And whatever offends one of these little ones cannot be right in +the eyes of Him who loved them so well. + +After all, as you are a gentleman or a lady, you will probably select +gentlemen for your bodily and spiritual advisers, and then all will be +right. + +This repetition of the above words,--gentleman and lady,--which could not +be conveniently avoided, reminds me what strange uses are made of them by +those who ought to know what they mean. Thus, at a marriage ceremony, +once, of two very excellent persons who had been at service, instead of, +Do you take this man, etc.? and, Do you take this woman? how do you think +the officiating clergyman put the questions? It was, Do you, Miss So and +So, take this GENTLEMAN? and, Do you, Mr. This or That, take this LADY?! +What would any English duchess, ay, or the Queen of England herself, have +thought, if the Archbishop of Canterbury had called her and her +bridegroom anything but plain woman and man at such a time? + +I don't doubt the Poor Relation thought it was all very fine, if she +happened to be in the church; but if the worthy man who uttered these +monstrous words--monstrous in such a connection--had known the ludicrous +surprise, the convulsion of inward disgust and contempt, that seized upon +many of the persons who were present,--had guessed what a sudden flash of +light it threw on the Dutch gilding, the pinchbeck, the shabby, perking +pretension belonging to certain social layers,--so inherent in their +whole mode of being, that the holiest offices of religion cannot exclude +its impertinences,--the good man would have given his marriage-fee twice +over to recall that superb and full-blown vulgarism. Any persons whom it +could please could have no better notion of what the words referred to +signify than of the meaning of apsides and asymptotes. + +MAN! Sir! WOMAN! Sir! Gentility is a fine thing, not to be +undervalued, as I have been trying to explain; but humanity comes before +that. + + "When Adam delved and Eve span, + Who was then the gentleman?" + +The beauty of that plainness of speech and manners which comes from the +finest training is not to be understood by those whose habitat is below a +certain level. Just as the exquisite sea-anemones and all the graceful +ocean-flowers die out at some fathoms below the surface, the elegances +and suavities of life die out one by one as we sink through the social +scale. Fortunately, the virtues are more tenacious of life, and last +pretty well until we get down to the mud of absolute pauperism, where +they do not flourish greatly. + +--I had almost forgotten about our boarders. As the Model of all the +Virtues is about to leave us, I find myself wondering what is the reason +we are not all very sorry. Surely we all like good persons. She is a +good person. Therefore we like her.--Only we don't. + +This brief syllogism, and its briefer negative, involving the principle +which some English conveyancer borrowed from a French wit and embodied in +the lines by which Dr. Fell is made unamiably immortal, this syllogism, I +say, is one that most persons have had occasion to construct and +demolish, respecting somebody or other, as I have done for the Model. +"Pious and painefull." Why has that excellent old phrase gone out of +use? Simply because these good painefull or painstaking persons proved +to be such nuisances in the long run, that the word "painefull" came, +before people thought of it, to mean pain-giving instead of painstaking. + +--So, the old fellah's off to-morrah,--said the young man John. + +Old fellow?--said I,--whom do you mean? + +Why, the one that came with our little beauty, the old fellah in +petticoats. + +--Now that means something,--said I to myself.--These rough young rascals +very often hit the nail on the head, if they do strike with their eyes +shut. A real woman does a great many things without knowing why she does +them; but these pattern machines mix up their intellects with everything +they do, just like men. They can't help it, no doubt; but we can't help +getting sick of them, either. Intellect is to a woman's nature what her +watch-spring skirt is to her dress; it ought to underlie her silks and +embroideries, but not to show itself too staringly on the outside.---You +don't know, perhaps, but I will tell you; the brain is the palest of all +the internal organs, and the heart the reddest. Whatever comes from the +brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from +the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace. + +The young man John did not hear my soliloquy, of course, but sent up one +more bubble from our sinking conversation, in the form of a statement, +that she was at liberty to go to a personage who receives no visits, as +is commonly supposed, from virtuous people. + +Why, I ask again, (of my reader,) should a person who never did anybody +any wrong, but, on the contrary, is an estimable and intelligent, nay, a +particularly enlightened and exemplary member of society, fail to inspire +interest, love, and devotion? Because of the reversed current in the +flow of thought and emotion. The red heart sends all its instincts up to +the white brain to be analyzed, chilled, blanched, and so become pure +reason, which is just exactly what we do not want of woman as woman. The +current should run the other-way. The nice, calm, cold thought, which in +women shapes itself so rapidly that they hardly know it as thought, +should always travel to the lips via the heart. It does so in those +women whom all love and admire. It travels the wrong way in the Model. +That is the reason why the Little Gentleman said "I hate her, I hate +her." That is the reason why the young man John called her the "old +fellah," and banished her to the company of the great Unpresentable. That +is the reason why I, the Professor, am picking her to pieces with scalpel +and forceps. That is the reason why the young girl whom she has +befriended repays her kindness with gratitude and respect, rather than +with the devotion and passionate fondness which lie sleeping beneath the +calmness of her amber eyes. I can see her, as she sits between this +estimable and most correct of personages and the misshapen, crotchety, +often violent and explosive little man on the other side of her, leaning +and swaying towards him as she speaks, and looking into his sad eyes as +if she found some fountain in them at which her soul could quiet its +thirst. + +Women like the Model are a natural product of a chilly climate and high +culture. It is not + + "The frolic wind that breathes the spring, + Zephyr with Aurora playing," + +when the two meet + + "---on beds of violets blue, + And fresh-blown roses washed in dew," + +that claim such women as their offspring. It is rather the east wind, as +it blows out of the fogs of Newfoundland, and clasps a clear-eyed wintry +noon on the chill bridal couch of a New England ice-quarry.--Don't throw +up your cap now, and hurrah as if this were giving up everything, and +turning against the best growth of our latitudes,--the daughters of the +soil. The brain-women never interest us like the heart women; white +roses please less than red. But our Northern seasons have a narrow green +streak of spring, as well as a broad white zone of winter,--they have a +glowing band of summer and a golden stripe of autumn in their +many-colored wardrobe; and women are born to us that wear all these hues +of earth and heaven in their souls. Our ice-eyed brain-women are really +admirable, if we only ask of them just what they can give, and no more. +Only compare them, talking or writing, with one of those babbling, +chattering dolls, of warmer latitudes, who do not know enough even to +keep out of print, and who are interesting to us only as specimens of +arrest of development for our psychological cabinets. + +Good-bye, Model of all the Virtues! We can spare you now. A little +clear perfection, undiluted with human weakness, goes a great way. Go! be +useful, be honorable and honored, be just, be charitable, talk pure +reason, and help to disenchant the world by the light of an achromatic +understanding. Goodbye! Where is my Beranger? I must read a verse or +two of "Fretillon." + +Fair play for all. But don't claim incompatible qualities for anybody. +Justice is a very rare virtue in our community. Everything that public +sentiment cares about is put into a Papin's digester, and boiled under +high pressure till all is turned into one homogeneous pulp, and the very +bones give up their jelly. What are all the strongest epithets of our +dictionary to us now? The critics and politicians, and especially the +philanthropists, have chewed them, till they are mere wads of +syllable-fibre, without a suggestion of their old pungency and power. + +Justice! A good man respects the rights even of brute matter and +arbitrary symbols. If he writes the same word twice in succession, by +accident, he always erases the one that stands second; has not the +first-comer the prior right? This act of abstract justice, which I trust +many of my readers, like myself, have often performed, is a curious +anti-illustration, by the way, of the absolute wickedness of human +dispositions. Why doesn't a man always strike out the first of the two +words, to gratify his diabolical love of injustice? + +So, I say, we owe a genuine, substantial tribute of respect to these +filtered intellects which have left their womanhood on the strainer. They +are so clear that it is a pleasure at times to look at the world of +thought through them. But the rose and purple tints of richer natures +they cannot give us, and it is not just to them to ask it. + +Fashionable society gets at these rich natures very often in a way one +would hardly at first think of. It loves vitality above all things, +sometimes disguised by affected languor, always well kept under by the +laws of good-breeding,--but still it loves abundant life, opulent and +showy organizations,--the spherical rather than the plane trigonometry of +female architecture,--plenty of red blood, flashing eyes, tropical +voices, and forms that bear the splendors of dress without growing pale +beneath their lustre. Among these you will find the most delicious women +you will ever meet,--women whom dress and flattery and the round of city +gayeties cannot spoil,--talking with whom, you forget their diamonds and +laces,--and around whom all the nice details of elegance, which the +cold-blooded beauty next them is scanning so nicely, blend in one +harmonious whole, too perfect to be disturbed by the petulant sparkle of +a jewel, or the yellow glare of a bangle, or the gay toss of a feather. + +There are many things that I, personally, love better than fashion or +wealth. Not to speak of those highest objects of our love and loyalty, I +think I love ease and independence better than the golden slavery of +perpetual matinees and soirees, or the pleasures of accumulation. + +But fashion and wealth are two very solemn realities, which the frivolous +class of moralists have talked a great deal of silly stuff about. +Fashion is only the attempt to realize Art in living forms and social +intercourse. What business has a man who knows nothing about the +beautiful, and cannot pronounce the word view, to talk about fashion to a +set of people who, if one of the quality left a card at their doors, +would contrive to keep it on the very top of their heap of the names of +their two-story acquaintances, till it was as yellow as the Codex +Vaticanus? + +Wealth, too,--what an endless repetition of the same foolish trivialities +about it! Take the single fact of its alleged uncertain tenure and +transitory character. In old times, when men were all the time fighting +and robbing each other,--in those tropical countries where the Sabeans +and the Chaldeans stole all a man's cattle and camels, and there were +frightful tornadoes and rains of fire from heaven, it was true enough +that riches took wings to themselves not unfrequently in a very +unexpected way. But, with common prudence in investments, it is not so +now. In fact, there is nothing earthly that lasts so well, on the whole, +as money. A man's learning dies with him; even his virtues fade out of +remembrance, but the dividends on the stocks he bequeaths to his children +live and keep his memory green. + +I do not think there is much courage or originality in giving utterance +to truths that everybody knows, but which get overlaid by conventional +trumpery. The only distinction which it is necessary to point out to +feeble-minded folk is this: that, in asserting the breadth and depth of +that significance which gives to fashion and fortune their tremendous +power, we do not indorse the extravagances which often disgrace the one, +nor the meanness which often degrades the other. + +A remark which seems to contradict a universally current opinion is not +generally to be taken "neat," but watered with the ideas of common-sense +and commonplace people. So, if any of my young friends should be tempted +to waste their substance on white kids and "all-rounds," or to insist on +becoming millionaires at once, by anything I have said, I will give them +references to some of the class referred to, well known to the public as +providers of literary diluents, who will weaken any truth so that there +is not an old woman in the land who cannot take it with perfect impunity. + +I am afraid some of the blessed saints in diamonds will think I mean to +flatter them. I hope not;--if I do, set it down as a weakness. But there +is so much foolish talk about wealth and fashion, (which, of course, draw +a good many heartless and essentially vulgar people into the glare of +their candelabra, but which have a real respectability and meaning, if we +will only look at them stereoscopically, with both eyes instead of one,) +that I thought it a duty to speak a few words for them. Why can't +somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, +and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks? + +Lest my parish should suppose we have forgotten graver matters in +these lesser topics, I beg them to drop these trifles and read the +following lesson for the day. + + THE TWO STREAMS. + + Behold the rocky wall + That down its sloping sides + Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, + In rushing river-tides! + + Yon stream, whose sources run + Turned by a pebble's edge, + Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun + Through the cleft mountain-ledge. + + The slender rill had strayed, + But for the slanting stone, + To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid + Of foam-flecked Oregon. + + So from the heights of Will + Life's parting stream descends, + And, as a moment turns its slender rill, + Each widening torrent bends, + + From the same cradle's side, + From the same mother's knee, + --One to long darkness and the frozen tide, + One to the Peaceful Sea! + + + + +VII + +Our landlady's daughter is a young lady of some pretensions to gentility. +She wears her bonnet well back on her head, which is known by all to be a +mark of high breeding. She wears her trains very long, as the great +ladies do in Europe. To be sure, their dresses are so made only to sweep +the tapestried floors of chateaux and palaces; as those odious +aristocrats of the other side do not go draggling through the mud in +silks and satins, but, forsooth, must ride in coaches when they are in +full dress. It is true, that, considering various habits of the American +people, also the little accidents which the best-kept sidewalks are +liable to, a lady who has swept a mile of them is not exactly in such a +condition that one would care to be her neighbor. But then there is no +need of being so hard on these slight weaknesses of the poor, dear women +as our little deformed gentleman was the other day. + +--There are no such women as the Boston women, Sir,--he said. Forty-two +degrees, north latitude, Rome, Sir, Boston, Sir! They had grand women in +old Rome, Sir,--and the women bore such men--children as never the world +saw before. And so it was here, Sir. I tell you, the revolution the +Boston boys started had to run in woman's milk before it ran in man's +blood, Sir! + +But confound the make-believe women we have turned loose in our +streets!--where do they come from? Not out of Boston parlors, I trust. +Why, there is n't a beast or a bird that would drag its tail through the +dirt in the way these creatures do their dresses. Because a queen or a +duchess wears long robes on great occasions, a maid-of-all-work or a +factory-girl thinks she must make herself a nuisance by trailing through +the street, picking up and carrying about with her pah!--that's what I +call getting vulgarity into your bones and marrow. Making believe be +what you are not is the essence of vulgarity. Show over dirt is the one +attribute of vulgar people. If any man can walk behind one of these women +and see what she rakes up as she goes, and not feel squeamish, he has got +a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one of 'em into my room without serving +'em as David served Saul at the cave in the wilderness,--cut off his +skirts, Sir! cut off his skirts! + +I suggested, that I had seen some pretty stylish ladies who offended in +the way he condemned. + +Stylish women, I don't doubt,--said the Little Gentleman.--Don't tell me +that a true lady ever sacrifices the duty of keeping all about her sweet +and clean to the wish of making a vulgar show. I won't believe it of a +lady. There are some things that no fashion has any right to touch, and +cleanliness is one of those things. If a woman wishes to show that her +husband or her father has got money, which she wants and means to spend, +but doesn't know how, let her buy a yard or two of silk and pin it to her +dress when she goes out to walk, but let her unpin it before she goes +into the house;--there may be poor women that will think it worth +disinfecting. It is an insult to a respectable laundress to carry such +things into a house for her to deal with. I don't like the Bloomers any +too well,--in fact, I never saw but one, and she--or he, or it--had a mob +of boys after her, or whatever you call the creature, as if she had been +a----- + +The Little Gentleman stopped short,--flushed somewhat, and looked round +with that involuntary, suspicious glance which the subjects of any bodily +misfortune are very apt to cast round them. His eye wandered over the +company, none of whom, excepting myself and one other, had, probably, +noticed the movement. They fell at last on Iris,--his next neighbor, you +remember. + +--We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at a person, if that person's +eyes have been fixed on us. + +Sometimes we are conscious of it before we turn so as to see the person. +Strange secrets of curiosity, of impertinence, of malice, of love, leak +out in this way. There is no need of Mrs. Felix Lorraine's reflection in +the mirror, to tell us that she is plotting evil for us behind our backs. +We know it, as we know by the ominous stillness of a child that some +mischief or other is going-on. A young girl betrays, in a moment, that +her eyes have been feeding on the face where you find them fixed, and +not merely brushing over it with their pencils of blue or brown light. + +A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, you may also observe, to +that upon which we look. Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops to +gather them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow. When we +look at a vast landscape, our chests expand as if we would enlarge to +fill it. When we examine a minute object, we naturally contract, not +only our foreheads, but all our dimensions. If I see two men wrestling, I +wrestle too, with my limbs and features. When a country-fellow comes +upon the stage, you will see twenty faces in the boxes putting on the +bumpkin expression. There is no need of multiplying instances to reach +this generalization; every person and thing we look upon puts its special +mark upon us. If this is repeated often enough, we get a permanent +resemblance to it, or, at least, a fixed aspect which we took from it. +Husband and wife come to look alike at last, as has often been noticed. +It is a common saying of a jockey, that he is "all horse"; and I have +often fancied that milkmen get a stiff, upright carriage, and an angular +movement of the arm, that remind one of a pump and the working of its +handle. + +All this came in by accident, just because I happened to mention that the +Little Gentleman found that Iris had been looking at him with her soul in +her eyes, when his glance rested on her after wandering round the +company. What he thought, it is hard to say; but the shadow of suspicion +faded off from his face, and he looked calmly into the amber eyes, +resting his cheek upon the hand that wore the red jewel. + +--If it were a possible thing,--women are such strange creatures! Is +there any trick that love and their own fancies do not play them? Just +see how they marry! A woman that gets hold of a bit of manhood is like +one of those Chinese wood-carvers who work on any odd, fantastic root +that comes to hand, and, if it is only bulbous above and bifurcated +below, will always contrive to make a man--such as he is--out of it. I +should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a Gorilla, +that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. + +--A child,--yes, if you choose to call her so, but such a child! Do you +know how Art brings all ages together? There is no age to the angels and +ideal human forms among which the artist lives, and he shares their youth +until his hand trembles and his eye grows dim. The youthful painter talks +of white-bearded Leonardo as if he were a brother, and the veteran +forgets that Raphael died at an age to which his own is of patriarchal +antiquity. + +But why this lover of the beautiful should be so drawn to one whom Nature +has wronged so deeply seems hard to explain. Pity, I suppose. They say +that leads to love. + +--I thought this matter over until I became excited and curious, and +determined to set myself more seriously at work to find out what was +going on in these wild hearts and where their passionate lives were +drifting. I say wild hearts and passionate lives, because I think I can +look through this seeming calmness of youth and this apparent feebleness +of organization, and see that Nature, whom it is very hard to cheat, is +only waiting as the sapper waits in his mine, knowing that all is in +readiness and the slow-match burning quietly down to the powder. He will +leave it by-and-by, and then it will take care of itself. + +One need not wait to see the smoke coming through the roof of a house and +the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is on +fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, but +very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. +There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting +shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings +one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on.--Oh,--oh,--oh! do +you know what has got hold of you? It is the great red dragon that is +born of the little red eggs we call sparks, with his hundred blowing red +manes, and his thousand lashing red tails, and his multitudinous red eyes +glaring at every crack and key-hole, and his countless red tongues +lapping the beams he is going to crunch presently, and his hot breath +warping the panels and cracking the glass and making old timber sweat +that had forgotten it was ever alive with sap. Run for your life! leap! +or you will be a cinder in five minutes, that nothing but a coroner would +take for the wreck of a human being! + +If any gentleman will have the kindness to stop this run-away comparison, +I shall be much obliged to him. All I intended to say was, that we need +not wait for hearts to break out in flames to know that they are full of +combustibles and that a spark has got among them. I don't pretend to say +or know what it is that brings these two persons together;--and when I +say together, I only mean that there is an evident affinity of some kind +or other which makes their commonest intercourse strangely significant, +as that each seems to understand a look or a word of the other. When the +young girl laid her hand on the Little Gentleman's arm,--which so greatly +shocked the Model, you may remember,--I saw that she had learned the +lion-tamer's secret. She masters him, and yet I can see she has a kind +of awe of him, as the man who goes into the cage has of the monster that +he makes a baby of. + +One of two things must happen. The first is love, downright love, on the +part of this young girl, for the poor little misshapen man. You may +laugh, if you like. But women are apt to love the men who they think +have the largest capacity of loving;--and who can love like one that has +thirsted all his life long for the smile of youth and beauty, and seen it +fly his presence as the wave ebbed from the parched lips of him whose +fabled punishment is the perpetual type of human longing and +disappointment? What would become of him, if this fresh soul should +stoop upon him in her first young passion, as the flamingo drops out of +the sky upon some lonely and dark lagoon in the marshes of Cagliari, with +a flutter of scarlet feathers and a kindling of strange fires in the +shadowy waters that hold her burning image? + +--Marry her, of course?--Why, no, not of course. I should think the +chance less, on the whole, that he would be willing to marry her than she +to marry him. + +There is one other thing that might happen. If the interest he awakes in +her gets to be a deep one, and yet has nothing of love in it, she will +glance off from him into some great passion or other. All excitements run +to love in women of a certain--let us not say age, but youth. An +electrical current passing through a coil of wire makes a magnet of a bar +of iron lying within it, but not touching it. So a woman is turned into +a love-magnet by a tingling current of life running round her. I should +like to see one of them balanced on a pivot properly adjusted, and watch +if she did not turn so as to point north and south,--as she would, if the +love-currents are like those of the earth our mother. + +Pray, do you happen to remember Wordsworth's "Boy of Windermere"? This +boy used to put his hands to his mouth, and shout aloud, mimicking the +hooting of the owls, who would answer him + + "with quivering peals, + And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud + Redoubled and redoubled." + +When they failed to answer him, and he hung listening intently for their +voices, he would sometimes catch the faint sound of far distant +waterfalls, or the whole scene around him would imprint itself with new +force upon his perceptions.--Read the sonnet, if you please;--it is +Wordsworth all over,--trivial in subject, solemn in style, vivid in +description, prolix in detail, true metaphysically, but immensely +suggestive of "imagination," to use a mild term, when related as an +actual fact of a sprightly youngster. All I want of it is to enforce the +principle, that, when the door of the soul is once opened to a guest, +there is no knowing who will come in next. + +--Our young girl keeps up her early habit of sketching heads and +characters. Nobody is, I should think, more faithful and exact in the +drawing of the academical figures given her as lessons, but there is a +perpetual arabesque of fancies that runs round the margin of her +drawings, and there is one book which I know she keeps to run riot in, +where, if anywhere, a shrewd eye would be most likely to read her +thoughts. This book of hers I mean to see, if I can get at it honorably. + +I have never yet crossed the threshold of the Little Gentleman's chamber. +How he lives, when he once gets within it, I can only guess. His hours +are late, as I have said; often, on waking late in the night, I see the +light through cracks in his window-shutters on the wall of the house +opposite. If the times of witchcraft were not over, I should be afraid +to be so close a neighbor to a place from which there come such strange +noises. Sometimes it is the dragging of something heavy over the floor, +that makes me shiver to hear it,--it sounds so like what people that +kill other people have to do now and then. Occasionally I hear very +sweet strains of music,--whether of a wind or stringed instrument, or a +human voice, strange as it may seem, I have often tried to find out, but +through the partition I could not be quite sure. If I have not heard a +woman cry and moan, and then again laugh as though she would die +laughing, I have heard sounds so like them that--I am a fool to confess +it--I have covered my head with the bedclothes; for I have had a fancy in +my dreams, that I could hardly shake off when I woke up, about that +so-called witch that was his great-grandmother, or whatever it was,--a +sort of fancy that she visited the Little Gentleman,--a young woman in +old-fashioned dress, with a red ring round her white neck,--not a +neck-lace, but a dull-stain. + +Of course you don't suppose that I have any foolish superstitions about +the matter,--I, the Professor, who have seen enough to take all that +nonsense out of any man's head! It is not our beliefs that frighten us +half so much as our fancies. A man not only believes, but knows he runs +a risk, whenever he steps into a railroad car; but it does n't worry him +much. On the other hand, carry that man across a pasture a little way +from some dreary country-village, and show him an old house where there +were strange deaths a good many years ago, and there are rumors of ugly +spots on the walls,--the old man hung himself in the garret, that is +certain, and ever since the country-people have called it "the haunted +house,"--the owners have n't been able to let it since the last tenants +left on account of the noises,--so it has fallen into sad decay, and the +moss grows on the rotten shingles of the roof, and the clapboards have +turned black, and the windows rattle like teeth that chatter with fear, +and the walls of the house begin to lean as if its knees were shaking, +--take the man who did n't mind the real risk of the cars to that old +house, on some dreary November evening, and ask him to sleep there +alone,--how do you think he will like it? He doesn't believe one word of +ghosts,--but then he knows, that, whether waking or sleeping, his +imagination will people the haunted chambers with ghostly images. It is +not what we believe, as I said before, that frightens us commonly, but +what we conceive. A principle that reaches a good way if I am not +mistaken. I say, then, that, if these odd sounds coming from the Little +Gentleman's chamber sometimes make me nervous, so that I cannot get to +sleep, it is not because I suppose he is engaged in any unlawful or +mysterious way. The only wicked suggestion that ever came into my head +was one that was founded on the landlady's story of his having a pile of +gold; it was a ridiculous fancy; besides, I suspect the story of sweating +gold was only one of the many fables got up to make the Jews odious and +afford a pretext for plundering them. As for the sound like a woman +laughing and crying, I never said it was a woman's voice; for, in the +first place, I could only hear indistinctly; and, secondly, he may have +an organ, or some queer instrument or other, with what they call the vox +humana stop. If he moves his bed round to get away from the window, or +for any such reason, there is nothing very frightful in that simple +operation. Most of our foolish conceits explain themselves in some such +simple way. And, yet, for all that, I confess, that, when I woke up the +other evening, and heard, first a sweet complaining cry, and then +footsteps, and then the dragging sound,--nothing but his bed, I am quite +sure,--I felt a stirring in the roots of my hair as the feasters did in +Keats's terrible poem of "Lamia." + +There is nothing very odd in my feeling nervous when I happen to lie +awake and get listening for sounds. Just keep your ears open any time +after midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic of a dark +night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, unaccountable noises you will +hear! The stillness of night is a vulgar error. All the dead things +seem to be alive. Crack! That is the old chest of drawers; you never +hear it crack in the daytime. Creak! There's a door ajar; you know you +shut them all. + +Where can that latch be that rattles so? Is anybody trying it softly? +or, worse than any body, is----? (Cold shiver.) Then a sudden gust that +jars all the windows;--very strange!--there does not seem to be any wind +about that it belongs to. When it stops, you hear the worms boring in +the powdery beams overhead. Then steps outside,--a stray animal, no +doubt. All right,--but a gentle moisture breaks out all over you; and +then something like a whistle or a cry,--another gust of wind, perhaps; +that accounts for the rustling that just made your heart roll over and +tumble about, so that it felt more like a live rat under your ribs than a +part of your own body; then a crash of something that has fallen,--blown +over, very likely----Pater noster, qui es in coelis! for you are damp and +cold, and sitting bolt upright, and the bed trembling so that the +death-watch is frightened and has stopped ticking! + +No,--night is an awful time for strange noises and secret doings. Who +ever dreamed, till one of our sleepless neighbors told us of it, of that +Walpurgis gathering of birds and beasts of prey,--foxes, and owls, and +crows, and eagles, that come from all the country round on moonshiny +nights to crunch the clams and muscles, and pick out the eyes of dead +fishes that the storm has thrown on Chelsea Beach? Our old mother Nature +has pleasant and cheery tones enough for us when she comes in her dress +of blue and gold over the eastern hill-tops; but when she follows us +up-stairs to our beds in her suit of black velvet and diamonds, every +creak of her sandals and every whisper of her lips is full of mystery and +fear. + +You understand, then, distinctly, that I do not believe there is anything +about this singular little neighbor of mine which is as it should not be. +Probably a visit to his room would clear up all that has puzzled me, and +make me laugh at the notions which began, I suppose, in nightmares, and +ended by keeping my imagination at work so as almost to make me +uncomfortable at times. But it is not so easy to visit him as some of +our other boarders, for various reasons which I will not stop to mention. +I think some of them are rather pleased to get "the Professor" under +their ceilings. + +The young man John, for instance, asked me to come up one day and try +some "old Burbon," which he said was A 1. On asking him what was the +number of his room, he answered, that it was forty-'leven, sky-parlor +floor, but that I shouldn't find it, if he did n't go ahead to show me +the way. I followed him to his habitat, being very willing to see in +what kind of warren he burrowed, and thinking I might pick up something +about the boarders who had excited my curiosity. + +Mighty close quarters they were where the young man John bestowed himself +and his furniture; this last consisting of a bed, a chair, a bureau, a +trunk, and numerous pegs with coats and "pants" and "vests,"--as he was +in the habit of calling waist-coats and pantaloons or trousers,--hanging +up as if the owner had melted out of them. Several prints were pinned up +unframed,--among them that grand national portrait-piece, "Barnum +presenting Ossian E. Dodge to Jenny Lind," and a picture of a famous +trot, in which I admired anew the cabalistic air of that imposing array +of expressions, and especially the Italicized word, "Dan Mace names b. h. +Major Slocum," and "Hiram Woodruff names g. m. Lady Smith." "Best three +in five. Time: 2.40, 2.46, 2.50." + +That set me thinking how very odd this matter of trotting horses is, as +an index of the mathematical exactness of the laws of living mechanism. +I saw Lady Suffolk trot a mile in 2.26. Flora Temple has trotted close +down to 2.20; and Ethan Allen in 2.25, or less. Many horses have trotted +their mile under 2.30; none that I remember in public as low down as +2.20. From five to ten seconds, then, in about a hundred and sixty is +the whole range of the maxima of the present race of trotting horses. +The same thing is seen in the running of men. Many can run a mile in +five minutes; but when one comes to the fractions below, they taper down +until somewhere about 4.30 the maximum is reached. Averages of masses +have been studied more than averages of maxima and minima. We know from +the Registrar-General's Reports, that a certain number of children--say +from one to two dozen--die every year in England from drinking hot water +out of spouts of teakettles. We know, that, among suicides, women and +men past a certain age almost never use fire-arms. A woman who has made +up her mind to die is still afraid of a pistol or a gun. Or is it that +the explosion would derange her costume? + +I say, averages of masses we have, but our tables of maxima we owe to the +sporting men more than to the philosophers. The lesson their experience +teaches is, that Nature makes no leaps,--does nothing per saltum. The +greatest brain that ever lived, no doubt, was only a small fraction of an +idea ahead of the second best. Just look at the chess-players. Leaving +out the phenomenal exceptions, the nice shades that separate the skilful +ones show how closely their brains approximate,--almost as closely as +chronometers. Such a person is a "knight-player,"--he must have that +piece given him. Another must have two pawns. Another, "pawn and two," +or one pawn and two moves. Then we find one who claims "pawn and move," +holding himself, with this fractional advantage, a match for one who +would be pretty sure to beat him playing even.--So much are minds alike; +and you and I think we are "peculiar,"--that Nature broke her jelly-mould +after shaping our cerebral convolutions. So I reflected, standing and +looking at the picture. + +--I say, Governor,--broke in the young man John,--them bosses '11 stay +jest as well, if you'll only set down. I've had 'em this year, and they +haven't stirred.--He spoke, and handed the chair towards me,--seating +himself, at the same time, on the end of the bed. + +You have lived in this house some time?--I said,--with a note of +interrogation at the end of the statement. + +Do I look as if I'd lost much flesh--said he, answering my question by +another. + +No,--said I;--for that matter, I think you do credit to "the bountifully +furnished table of the excellent lady who provides so liberally for the +company that meets around her hospitable board." + +[The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of those disinterested +editorials in small type, which I suspect to have been furnished by a +friend of the landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. This +impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the establishment and +its head attracted a number of applicants for admission, and a couple of +new boarders made a brief appearance at the table. One of them was of +the class of people who grumble if they don't get canvas-backs and +woodcocks every day, for three-fifty per week. The other was subject to +somnambulism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have been asleep +in his bed. In this state he walked into several of the boarders' +chambers, his eyes wide open, as is usual with somnambulists, and, from +some odd instinct or other, wishing to know what the hour was, got +together a number of their watches, for the purpose of comparing them, as +it would seem. Among them was a repeater, belonging to our young +Marylander. He happened to wake up while the somnambulist was in his +chamber, and, not knowing his infirmity, caught hold of him and gave him +a dreadful shaking, after which he tied his hands and feet, and so left +him till morning, when he introduced him to a gentleman used to taking +care of such cases of somnambulism.] + +If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, over this parenthesis, +you will come to our conversation, which it has interrupted. + +It a'n't the feed,--said the young man John,--it's the old woman's looks +when a fellah lays it in too strong. The feed's well enough. After geese +have got tough, 'n' turkeys have got strong, 'n' lamb's got old, 'n' +veal's pretty nigh beef, 'n' sparragrass 's growin' tall 'n' slim 'n' +scattery about the head, 'n' green peas are gettin' so big 'n' hard +they'd be dangerous if you fired 'em out of a revolver, we get hold of +all them delicacies of the season. But it's too much like feedin' on +live folks and devourin' widdah's substance, to lay yourself out in the +eatin' way, when a fellah 's as hungry as the chap that said a turkey was +too much for one 'n' not enough for two. I can't help lookin' at the old +woman. Corned-beef-days she's tolerable calm. Roastin'-days she worries +some, 'n' keeps a sharp eye on the chap that carves. But when there's +anything in the poultry line, it seems to hurt her feelin's so to see the +knife goin' into the breast and joints comin' to pieces, that there's no +comfort in eatin'. When I cut up an old fowl and help the boarders, I +always feel as if I ought to say, Won't you have a slice of +widdah?--instead of chicken. + +The young man John fell into a train of reflections which ended in his +producing a Bologna sausage, a plate of "crackers," as we Boston folks +call certain biscuits, and the bottle of whiskey described as being A 1. + +Under the influence of the crackers and sausage, he grew cordial and +communicative. + +It was time, I thought, to sound him as to those of our boarders who had +excited my curiosity. + +What do you think of our young Iris?--I began. + +Fust-rate little filly;-he said.--Pootiest and nicest little chap I've +seen since the schoolma'am left. Schoolma'am was a brown-haired +one,--eyes coffee-color. This one has got wine-colored eyes,--'n' that +'s the reason they turn a fellah's head, I suppose. + +This is a splendid blonde,--I said,--the other was a brunette. Which +style do you like best? + +Which do I like best, boiled mutton or roast mutton?--said the young man +John. Like 'em both,--it a'n't the color of 'em makes the goodness. I +'ve been kind of lonely since schoolma'am went away. Used to like to look +at her. I never said anything particular to her, that I remember, but-- + +I don't know whether it was the cracker and sausage, or that the young +fellow's feet were treading on the hot ashes of some longing that had not +had time to cool, but his eye glistened as he stopped. + +I suppose she wouldn't have looked at a fellah like me,--he said,--but I +come pretty near tryin'. If she had said, Yes, though, I shouldn't have +known what to have done with her. Can't marry a woman now-a-days till +you're so deaf you have to cock your head like a parrot to hear what she +says, and so longsighted you can't see what she looks like nearer than +arm's-length. + +Here is another chance for you,--I said.--What do you want nicer than +such a young lady as Iris? + +It's no use,--he answered.--I look at them girls and feel as the fellah +did when he missed catchin' the trout.--'To'od 'a' cost more butter to +cook him 'n' he's worth,--says the fellah.--Takes a whole piece o' goods +to cover a girl up now-a-days. I'd as lief undertake to keep a span of +elephants,--and take an ostrich to board, too,--as to marry one of 'em. +What's the use? Clerks and counter-jumpers ain't anything. Sparragrass +and green peas a'n't for them,--not while they're young and tender. +Hossback-ridin' a'n't for them,--except once a year, on Fast-day. And +marryin' a'n't for them. Sometimes a fellah feels lonely, and would like +to have a nice young woman, to tell her how lonely he feels. And +sometimes a fellah,--here the young man John looked very confidential, +and, perhaps, as if a little ashamed of his weakness,--sometimes a fellah +would like to have one o' them small young ones to trot on his knee and +push about in a little wagon,--a kind of a little Johnny, you know;--it's +odd enough, but, it seems to me, nobody can afford them little articles, +except the folks that are so rich they can buy everything, and the folks +that are so poor they don't want anything. It makes nice boys of us +young fellahs, no doubt! And it's pleasant to see fine young girls +sittin', like shopkeepers behind their goods, waitin', and waitin', and +waitin', 'n' no customers,--and the men lingerin' round and lookin' at +the goods, like folks that want to be customers, but have n't the money! + +Do you think the deformed gentleman means to make love to Iris?--I said. + +What! Little Boston ask that girl to marry him! Well, now, that's +cumin' of it a little too strong. Yes, I guess she will marry him and +carry him round in a basket, like a lame bantam: Look here!--he said, +mysteriously;--one of the boarders swears there's a woman comes to see +him, and that he has heard her singin' and screechin'. I should like to +know what he's about in that den of his. He lays low 'n' keeps +dark,--and, I tell you, there's a good many of the boarders would like to +get into his chamber, but he don't seem to want 'em. Biddy could tell +somethin' about what she's seen when she 's been to put his room to +rights. She's a Paddy 'n' a fool, but she knows enough to keep her +tongue still. All I know is, I saw her crossin' herself one day when she +came out of that room. She looked pale enough, 'n' I heard her mutterin' +somethin' or other about the Blessed Virgin. If it had n't been for the +double doors to that chamber of his, I'd have had a squint inside before +this; but, somehow or other, it never seems to happen that they're both +open at once. + +What do you think he employs himself about? said I. + +The young man John winked. + +I waited patiently for the thought, of which this wink was the blossom, +to come to fruit in words. + +I don't believe in witches,--said the young man John. + +Nor I. + +We were both silent for a few minutes. + +--Did you ever see the young girl's drawing-books,--I said, presently. + +All but one,--he answered;--she keeps a lock on that, and won't show it. +Ma'am Allen, (the young rogue sticks to that name, in speaking of the +gentleman with the diamond,) Ma'am Allen tried to peek into it one day +when she left it on the sideboard. "If you please," says she,--'n' took +it from him, 'n' gave him a look that made him curl up like a caterpillar +on a hot shovel. I only wished he had n't, and had jest given her a +little sass, for I've been takin' boxin'-lessons, 'n' I 've got a new way +of counterin' I want to try on to somebody. + +--The end of all this was, that I came away from the young fellow's room, +feeling that there were two principal things that I had to live for, for +the next six weeks or six months, if it should take so long. These were, +to get a sight of the young girl's drawing-book, which I suspected had +her heart shut up in it, and to get a look into the Little Gentleman's +room. + +I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I should trouble myself +about these matters. You tell me, with some show of reason, that all I +shall find in the young girl's--book will be some outlines of angels with +immense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, and caricatures, +among which I shall probably have the pleasure of seeing my own features +figuring. Very likely. But I'll tell you what I think I shall find. If +this child has idealized the strange little bit of humanity over which +she seems to have spread her wings like a brooding dove,--if, in one of +those wild vagaries that passionate natures are so liable to, she has +fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, as the sea-flowers fold +about the first stray shell-fish that brushes their outspread tentacles, +depend upon it, I shall find the marks of it in this drawing-book of +hers,--if I can ever get a look at it,--fairly, of course, for I would +not play tricks to satisfy my curiosity. + +Then, if I can get into this Little Gentleman's room under any fair +pretext, I shall, no doubt, satisfy myself in five minutes that he is +just like other people, and that there is no particular mystery about +him. + +The night after my visit to the young man John, I made all these and many +more reflections. It was about two o'clock in the morning,--bright +starlight,--so light that I could make out the time on my +alarm-clock,--when I woke up trembling and very moist. It was the heavy +dragging sound, as I had often heard it before that waked me. Presently a +window was softly closed. I had just begun to get over the agitation +with which we always awake from nightmare dreams, when I heard the sound +which seemed to me as of a woman's voice,--the clearest, purest soprano +which one could well conceive of. It was not loud, and I could not +distinguish a word, if it was a woman's voice; but there were recurring +phrases of sound and snatches of rhythm that reached me, which suggested +the idea of complaint, and sometimes, I thought, of passionate grief and +despair. It died away at last,--and then I heard the opening of a door, +followed by a low, monotonous sound, as of one talking,--and then the +closing of a door,--and presently the light on the opposite wall +disappeared and all was still for the night. + +By George! this gets interesting,--I said, as I got out of bed for a +change of night-clothes. + +I had this in my pocket the other day, but thought I would n't read +it at our celebration. So I read it to the boarders instead, and +print it to finish off this record with. + + + ROBINSON OF LEYDEN. + + He sleeps not here; in hope and prayer + His wandering flock had gone before, + But he, the shepherd, might not share + Their sorrows on the wintry shore. + + Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, + Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, + While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, + The pastor spake, and thus he said:-- + + "Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! + God calls you hence from over sea; + Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, + Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. + + "Ye go to bear the saving word + To tribes unnamed and shores untrod: + Heed well the lessons ye have heard + From those old teachers taught of God. + + "Yet think not unto them was lent + All light for all the coming days, + And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent + In making straight the ancient ways. + + "The living fountain overflows + For every flock, for every lamb, + Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose + With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." + + He spake; with lingering, long embrace, + With tears of love and partings fond, + They floated down the creeping Maas, + Along the isle of Ysselmond. + + They passed the frowning towers of Briel, + The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand, + And grated soon with lifting keel + The sullen shores of Fatherland. + + No home for these!--too well they knew + The mitred king behind the throne; + The sails were set, the pennons flew, + And westward ho! for worlds unknown. + + --And these were they who gave us birth, + The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, + Who won for us this virgin earth, + And freedom with the soil they gave. + + The pastor slumbers by the Rhine, + --In alien earth the exiles lie, + --Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, + His words our noblest battle-cry! + + Still cry them, and the world shall hear, + Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! + Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, + Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee! + + + + +VIII + +There has been a sort of stillness in the atmosphere of our +boarding-house since my last record, as if something or other were going +on. There is no particular change that I can think of in the aspect of +things; yet I have a feeling as if some game of life were quietly playing +and strange forces were at work, underneath this smooth surface of +every-day boardinghouse life, which would show themselves some fine +morning or other in events, if not in catastrophes. I have been +watchful, as I said I should be, but have little to tell as yet. You may +laugh at me, and very likely think me foolishly fanciful to trouble +myself about what is going on in a middling-class household like ours. +Do as you like. But here is that terrible fact to begin with,--a +beautiful young girl, with the blood and the nerve-fibre that belong to +Nature's women, turned loose among live men. + +-Terrible fact? + +Very terrible. Nothing more so. Do you forget the angels who lost +heaven for the daughters of men? Do you forget Helen, and the fair women +who made mischief and set nations by the ears before Helen was born? If +jealousies that gnaw men's hearts out of their bodies,--if pangs that +waste men to shadows and drive them into raving madness or moping +melancholy,--if assassination and suicide are dreadful possibilities, +then there is always something frightful about a lovely young woman.--I +love to look at this "Rainbow," as her father used sometimes to call her, +of ours. Handsome creature that she is in forms and colors,--the very +picture, as it seems to me, of that "golden blonde" my friend whose book +you read last year fell in love with when he was a boy, (as you remember, +no doubt,)--handsome as she is, fit for a sea-king's bride, it is not her +beauty alone that holds my eyes upon her. Let me tell you one of my +fancies, and then you will understand the strange sort of fascination she +has for me. + +It is in the hearts of many men and women--let me add children--that +there is a Great Secret waiting for them,--a secret of which they get +hints now and then, perhaps oftener in early than in later years. These +hints come sometimes in dreams, sometimes in sudden startling +flashes,--second wakings, as it were,--a waking out of the waking state, +which last is very apt to be a half-sleep. I have many times stopped +short and held my breath, and felt the blood leaving my cheeks, in one of +these sudden clairvoyant flashes. Of course I cannot tell what kind of a +secret this is, but I think of it as a disclosure of certain relations of +our personal being to time and space, to other intelligences, to the +procession of events, and to their First Great Cause. This secret seems +to be broken up, as it were, into fragments, so that we find here a word +and there a syllable, and then again only a letter of it; but it never is +written out for most of us as a complete sentence, in this life. I do +not think it could be; for I am disposed to consider our beliefs about +such a possible disclosure rather as a kind of premonition of an +enlargement of our faculties in some future state than as an expectation +to be fulfilled for most of us in this life. Persons, however, have +fallen into trances,--as did the Reverend William Tennent, among many +others,--and learned some things which they could not tell in our human +words. + +Now among the visible objects which hint to us fragments of this infinite +secret for which our souls are waiting, the faces of women are those that +carry the most legible hieroglyphics of the great mystery. There are +women's faces, some real, some ideal, which contain something in them +that becomes a positive element in our creed, so direct and palpable a +revelation is it of the infinite purity and love. I remember two faces +of women with wings, such as they call angels, of Fra Angelico,--and I +just now came across a print of Raphael's Santa Apollina, with something +of the same quality,--which I was sure had their prototypes in the world +above ours. No wonder the Catholics pay their vows to the Queen of +Heaven! The unpoetical side of Protestantism is, that it has no women to +be worshipped. + +But mind you, it is not every beautiful face that hints the Great Secret +to us, nor is it only in beautiful faces that we find traces of it. +Sometimes it looks out from a sweet sad eye, the only beauty of a plain +countenance; sometimes there is so much meaning in the lips of a woman, +not otherwise fascinating, that we know they have a message for us, and +wait almost with awe to hear their accents. But this young girl has at +once the beauty of feature and the unspoken mystery of expression. Can +she tell me anything? + +Is her life a complement of mine, with the missing element in it which I +have been groping after through so many friendships that I have tired of, +and through--Hush! Is the door fast? Talking loud is a bad trick in +these curious boarding-houses. + +You must have sometimes noted this fact that I am going to remind you of +and to use for a special illustration. Riding along over a rocky road, +suddenly the slow monotonous grinding of the crushing gravel changes to a +deep heavy rumble. There is a great hollow under your feet,--a huge +unsunned cavern. Deep, deep beneath you in the core of the living rock, +it arches its awful vault, and far away it stretches its winding +galleries, their roofs dripping into streams where fishes have been +swimming and spawning in the dark until their scales are white as milk +and their eyes have withered out, obsolete and useless. + +So it is in life. We jog quietly along, meeting the same faces, grinding +over the same thoughts, the gravel of the soul's highway,--now and then +jarred against an obstacle we cannot crush, but must ride over or round +as we best may, sometimes bringing short up against a disappointment, but +still working along with the creaking and rattling and grating and +jerking that belong to the journey of life, even in the smoothest-rolling +vehicle. Suddenly we hear the deep underground reverberation that +reveals the unsuspected depth of some abyss of thought or passion beneath +us. + +I wish the girl would go. I don't like to look at her so much, and yet I +cannot help it. Always that same expression of something that I ought to +know,--something that she was made to tell and I to hear,--lying there +ready to fall off from her lips, ready to leap out of her eyes and make a +saint of me, or a devil or a lunatic, or perhaps a prophet to tell the +truth and be hated of men, or a poet whose words shall flash upon the dry +stubble-field of worn-out thoughts and burn over an age of lies in an +hour of passion. + +It suddenly occurs to me that I may have put you on the wrong track. The +Great Secret that I refer to has nothing to do with the Three Words. Set +your mind at ease about that,--there are reasons I could give you which +settle all that matter. I don't wonder, however, that you confounded the +Great Secret with the Three Words. + +I LOVE YOU is all the secret that many, nay, most women have to tell. +When that is said, they are like China-crackers on the morning of the +fifth of July. And just as that little patriotic implement is made with +a slender train which leads to the magazine in its interior, so a sharp +eye can almost always see the train leading from a young girl's eye or +lip to the "I love you" in her heart. But the Three Words are not the +Great Secret I mean. No, women's faces are only one of the tablets on +which that is written in its partial, fragmentary symbols. It lies +deeper than Love, though very probably Love is a part of it. Some, I +think,--Wordsworth might be one of them,--spell out a portion of it from +certain beautiful natural objects, landscapes, flowers, and others. I can +mention several poems of his that have shadowy hints which seem to me to +come near the region where I think it lies. I have known two persons who +pursued it with the passion of the old alchemists,--all wrong evidently, +but infatuated, and never giving up the daily search for it until they +got tremulous and feeble, and their dreams changed to visions of things +that ran and crawled about their floor and ceilings, and so they died. +The vulgar called them drunkards. + +I told you that I would let you know the mystery of the effect this young +girl's face produces on me. It is akin to those influences a friend of +mine has described, you may remember, as coming from certain voices. I +cannot translate it into words,--only into feelings; and these I have +attempted to shadow by showing that her face hinted that revelation of +something we are close to knowing, which all imaginative persons are +looking for either in this world or on the very threshold of the next. + +You shake your head at the vagueness and fanciful incomprehensibleness of +my description of the expression in a young girl's face. You forget what +a miserable surface-matter this language is in which we try to reproduce +our interior state of being. Articulation is a shallow trick. From the +light Poh! which we toss off from our lips as we fling a nameless +scribbler's impertinence into our waste-baskets, to the gravest +utterances which comes from our throats in our moments of deepest need, +is only a space of some three or four inches. Words, which are a set of +clickings, hissings, lispings, and so on, mean very little, compared to +tones and expression of the features. I give it up; I thought I could +shadow forth in some feeble way, by their aid, the effect this young +girl's face produces on my imagination; but it is of no use. No doubt +your head aches, trying to make something of my description. If there is +here and there one that can make anything intelligible out of my talk +about the Great Secret, and who has spelt out a syllable or two of it on +some woman's face, dead or living, that is all I can expect. One should +see the person with whom he converses about such matters. There are +dreamy-eyed people to whom I should say all these things with a certainty +of being understood;-- + + That moment that his face I see, + I know the man that must hear me + To him my tale I teach. + +--I am afraid some of them have not got a spare quarter of a dollar for +this August number, so that they will never see it. + +--Let us start again, just as if we had not made this ambitious attempt, +which may go for nothing, and you can have your money refunded, if you +will make the change. + +This young girl, about whom I have talked so unintelligibly, is the +unconscious centre of attraction to the whole solar system of our +breakfast-table. The Little Gentleman leans towards her, and she again +seems to be swayed as by some invisible gentle force towards him. That +slight inclination of two persons with a strong affinity towards each +other, throwing them a little out of plumb when they sit side by side, is +a physical fact I have often noticed. Then there is a tendency in all +the men's eyes to converge on her; and I do firmly believe, that, if all +their chairs were examined, they would be found a little obliquely +placed, so as to favor the direction in which their occupants love to +look. + +That bland, quiet old gentleman, of whom I have spoken as sitting +opposite to me, is no exception to the rule. She brought down some +mignonette one morning, which she had grown in her chamber. She gave a +sprig to her little neighbor, and one to the landlady, and sent another +by the hand of Bridget to this old gentleman. + +--Sarvant, Ma'am I Much obleeged,--he said, and put it gallantly in his +button-hole.--After breakfast he must see some of her drawings. Very fine +performances,--very fine!--truly elegant productions, truly elegant!--Had +seen Miss Linwood's needlework in London, in the year (eighteen hundred +and little or nothing, I think he said,)--patronized by the nobility and +gentry, and Her Majesty,--elegant, truly elegant productions, very fine +performances; these drawings reminded him of them;--wonderful resemblance +to Nature; an extraordinary art, painting; Mr. Copley made some very fine +pictures that he remembered seeing when he was a boy. Used to remember +some lines about a portrait Written by Mr. Cowper, beginning, + + "Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd + With me but roughly since I heard thee last." + +And with this the old gentleman fell to thinking about a dead mother of +his that he remembered ever so much younger than he now was, and looking, +not as his mother, but as his daughter should look. The dead young +mother was looking at the old man, her child, as she used to look at him +so many, many years ago. He stood still as if in a waking dream, his +eyes fixed on the drawings till their outlines grew indistinct and they +ran into each other, and a pale, sweet face shaped itself out of the +glimmering light through which he saw them.--What is there quite so +profoundly human as an old man's memory of a mother who died in his +earlier years? Mother she remains till manhood, and by-and-by she grows +to be as a sister; and at last, when, wrinkled and bowed and broken, he +looks back upon her in her fair youth, he sees in the sweet image he +caresses, not his parent, but, as it were, his child. + +If I had not seen all this in the old gentleman's face, the words with +which he broke his silence would have betrayed his train of thought. + +--If they had only taken pictures then as they do now!--he said.--All +gone! all gone! nothing but her face as she leaned on the arms of her +great chair; and I would give a hundred pound for the poorest little +picture of her, such as you can buy for a shilling of anybody that you +don't want to see.--The old gentleman put his hand to his forehead so as +to shade his eyes. I saw he was looking at the dim photograph of memory, +and turned from him to Iris. + +How many drawing-books have you filled,--I said,--since you began to take +lessons?--This was the first,--she answered,--since she was here; and it +was not full, but there were many separate sheets of large size she had +covered with drawings. + +I turned over the leaves of the book before us. Academic studies, +principally of the human figure. Heads of sibyls, prophets, and so +forth. Limbs from statues. Hands and feet from Nature. What a superb +drawing of an arm! I don't remember it among the figures from Michel +Angelo, which seem to have been her patterns mainly. From Nature, I +think, or after a cast from Nature.--Oh! + +--Your smaller studies are in this, I suppose,--I said, taking up the +drawing-book with a lock on it,--Yes,--she said.--I should like to see +her style of working on a small scale.--There was nothing in it worth +showing,--she said; and presently I saw her try the lock, which proved to +be fast. We are all caricatured in it, I haven't the least doubt. I +think, though, I could tell by her way of dealing with us what her +fancies were about us boarders. Some of them act as if they were +bewitched with her, but she does not seem to notice it much. Her +thoughts seem to be on her little neighbor more than on anybody else. +The young fellow John appears to stand second in her good graces. I +think he has once or twice sent her what the landlady's daughter calls +bo-kays of flowers,--somebody has, at any rate.--I saw a book she had, +which must have come from the divinity-student. It had a dreary +title-page, which she had enlivened with a fancy portrait of the +author,--a face from memory, apparently,--one of those faces that small +children loathe without knowing why, and which give them that inward +disgust for heaven so many of the little wretches betray, when they hear +that these are "good men," and that heaven is full of such.--The +gentleman with the diamond--the Koh-i-noor, so called by us--was not +encouraged, I think, by the reception of his packet of perfumed soap. He +pulls his purple moustache and looks appreciatingly at Iris, who never +sees him, as it should seem. The young Marylander, who I thought would +have been in love with her before this time, sometimes looks from his +corner across the long diagonal of the table, as much as to say, I wish +you were up here by me, or I were down there by you,--which would, +perhaps, be a more natural arrangement than the present one. But nothing +comes of all this,--and nothing has come of my sagacious idea of finding +out the girl's fancies by looking into her locked drawing-book. + +Not to give up all the questions I was determined to solve, I made an +attempt also to work into the Little Gentleman's chamber. For this +purpose, I kept him in conversation, one morning, until he was just ready +to go up-stairs, and then, as if to continue the talk, followed him as he +toiled back to his room. He rested on the landing and faced round toward +me. There was something in his eye which said, Stop there! So we +finished our conversation on the landing. The next day, I mustered +assurance enough to knock at his door, having a pretext ready.--No +answer.--Knock again. A door, as if of a cabinet, was shut softly and +locked, and presently I heard the peculiar dead beat of his thick-soled, +misshapen boots. The bolts and the lock of the inner door were +unfastened,--with unnecessary noise, I thought,--and he came into the +passage. He pulled the inner door after him and opened the outer one at +which I stood. He had on a flowered silk dressing-gown, such as "Mr. +Copley" used to paint his old-fashioned merchant-princes in; and a +quaint-looking key in his hand. Our conversation was short, but long +enough to convince me that the Little Gentleman did not want my company +in his chamber, and did not mean to have it. + +I have been making a great fuss about what is no mystery at all,--a +schoolgirl's secrets and a whimsical man's habits. I mean to give up +such nonsense and mind my own business.--Hark! What the deuse is that +odd noise in his chamber? + +--I think I am a little superstitious. There were two things, when I was +a boy, that diabolized my imagination,--I mean, that gave me a distinct +apprehension of a formidable bodily shape which prowled round the +neighborhood where I was born and bred. The first was a series of marks +called the "Devil's footsteps." These were patches of sand in the +pastures, where no grass grew, where the low-bush blackberry, the +"dewberry," as our Southern neighbors call it, in prettier and more +Shakspearian language, did not spread its clinging creepers,--where even +the pale, dry, sadly-sweet "everlasting" could not grow, but all was bare +and blasted. The second was a mark in one of the public buildings near +my home,--the college dormitory named after a Colonial Governor. I do +not think many persons are aware of the existence of this mark,--little +having been said about the story in print, as it was considered very +desirable, for the sake of the Institution, to hush it up. In the +northwest corner, and on the level of the third or fourth story, there +are signs of a breach in the walls, mended pretty well, but not to be +mistaken. A considerable portion of that corner must have been carried +away, from within outward. It was an unpleasant affair; and I do not +care to repeat the particulars; but some young men had been using sacred +things in a profane and unlawful way, when the occurrence, which was +variously explained, took place. The story of the Appearance in the +chamber was, I suppose, invented afterwards; but of the injury to the +building there could be no question; and the zig-zag line, where the +mortar is a little thicker than before, is still distinctly visible. The +queer burnt spots, called the "Devil's footsteps," had never attracted +attention before this time, though there is no evidence that they had not +existed previously, except that of the late Miss M., a "Goody," so +called, or sweeper, who was positive on the subject, but had a strange +horror of referring to an affair of which she was thought to know +something.--I tell you it was not so pleasant for a little boy of +impressible nature to go up to bed in an old gambrel-roofed house, with +untenanted, locked upper-chambers, and a most ghostly garret,--with the +"Devil's footsteps" in the fields behind the house and in front of it the +patched dormitory where the unexplained occurrence had taken place which +startled those godless youths at their mock devotions, so that one of +them was epileptic from that day forward, and another, after a dreadful +season of mental conflict, took holy orders and became renowned for his +ascetic sanctity. + +There were other circumstances that kept up the impression produced by +these two singular facts I have just mentioned. There was a dark +storeroom, on looking through the key-hole of which, I could dimly see a +heap of chairs and tables, and other four-footed things, which seemed to +me to have rushed in there, frightened, and in their fright to have +huddled together and climbed up on each other's backs,--as the people did +in that awful crush where so many were killed, at the execution of +Holloway and Haggerty. Then the Lady's portrait, up-stairs, with the +sword-thrusts through it,--marks of the British officers' rapiers,--and +the tall mirror in which they used to look at their red coats,--confound +them for smashing its mate?--and the deep, cunningly wrought arm-chair in +which Lord Percy used to sit while his hair was dressing;--he was a +gentleman, and always had it covered with a large peignoir, to save the +silk covering my grandmother embroidered. Then the little room +downstairs from which went the orders to throw up a bank of earth on the +hill yonder, where you may now observe a granite obelisk,--"the study" in +my father's time, but in those days the council-chamber of armed +men,--sometimes filled with soldiers; come with me, and I will show you +the "dents" left by the butts of their muskets all over the floor. With +all these suggestive objects round me, aided by the wild stories those +awful country-boys that came to live in our service brought with +them;--of contracts written in blood and left out over night, not to be +found the next morning, (removed by the Evil One, who takes his nightly +round among our dwellings, and filed away for future use,)--of dreams +coming true,--of death-signs,--of apparitions, no wonder that my +imagination got excited, and I was liable to superstitious fancies. + +Jeremy Bentham's logic, by which he proved that he couldn't possibly see +a ghost is all very well-in the day-time. All the reason in the world +will never get those impressions of childhood, created by just such +circumstances as I have been telling, out of a man's head. That is the +only excuse I have to give for the nervous kind of curiosity with which I +watch my little neighbor, and the obstinacy with which I lie awake +whenever I hear anything going on in his chamber after midnight. + +But whatever further observations I may have made must be deferred for +the present. You will see in what way it happened that my thoughts were +turned from spiritual matters to bodily ones, and how I got my fancy full +of material images,--faces, heads, figures, muscles, and so forth,--in +such a way that I should have no chance in this number to gratify any +curiosity you may feel, if I had the means of so doing. + +Indeed, I have come pretty near omitting my periodical record this time. +It was all the work of a friend of mine, who would have it that I should +sit to him for my portrait. When a soul draws a body in the great +lottery of life, where every one is sure of a prize, such as it is, the +said soul inspects the said body with the same curious interest with +which one who has ventured into a "gift enterprise" examines the "massive +silver pencil-case" with the coppery smell and impressible tube, or the +"splendid gold ring" with the questionable specific gravity, which it has +been his fortune to obtain in addition to his purchase. + +The soul, having studied the article of which it finds itself proprietor, +thinks, after a time, it knows it pretty well. But there is this +difference between its view and that of a person looking at us:--we look +from within, and see nothing but the mould formed by the elements in +which we are incased; other observers look from without, and see us as +living statues. To be sure, by the aid of mirrors, we get a few glimpses +of our outside aspect; but this occasional impression is always modified +by that look of the soul from within outward which none but ourselves can +take. A portrait is apt, therefore, to be a surprise to us. The artist +looks only from without. He sees us, too, with a hundred aspects on our +faces we are never likely to see. No genuine expression can be studied +by the subject of it in the looking-glass. + +More than this; he sees us in a way in which many of our friends or +acquaintances never see us. Without wearing any mask we are conscious +of, we have a special face for each friend. For, in the first place, +each puts a special reflection of himself upon us, on the principle of +assimilation you found referred to in my last record, if you happened to +read that document. And secondly, each of our friends is capable of +seeing just so far, and no farther, into our face, and each sees in it +the particular thing that he looks for. Now the artist, if he is truly +an artist, does not take any one of these special views. Suppose he +should copy you as you appear to the man who wants your name to a +subscription-list, you could hardly expect a friend who entertains you to +recognize the likeness to the smiling face which sheds its radiance at +his board. Even within your own family, I am afraid there is a face which +the rich uncle knows, that is not so familiar to the poor relation. The +artist must take one or the other, or something compounded of the two, or +something different from either. What the daguerreotype and photograph +do is to give the features and one particular look, the very look which +kills all expression, that of self-consciousness. The artist throws you +off your guard, watches you in movement and in repose, puts your face +through its exercises, observes its transitions, and so gets the whole +range of its expression. Out of all this he forms an ideal portrait, +which is not a copy of your exact look at any one time or to any +particular person. Such a portrait cannot be to everybody what the +ungloved call "as nat'ral as life." Every good picture, therefore, must +be considered wanting in resemblance by many persons. + +There is one strange revelation which comes out, as the artist shapes +your features from his outline. It is that you resemble so many +relatives to whom you yourself never had noticed any particular likeness +in your countenance. + +He is at work at me now, when I catch some of these resemblances, thus: + +There! that is just the look my father used to have sometimes; I never +thought I had a sign of it. The mother's eyebrow and grayish-blue eye, +those I knew I had. But there is a something which recalls a smile that +faded away from my sister's lips--how many years ago! I thought it so +pleasant in her, that I love myself better for having a trace of it. + +Are we not young? Are we not fresh and blooming? Wait, a bit. The +artist takes a mean little brush and draws three fine lines, diverging +outwards from the eye over the temple. Five years.--The artist draws one +tolerably distinct and two faint lines, perpendicularly between the +eyebrows. Ten years.--The artist breaks up the contours round the mouth, +so that they look a little as a hat does that has been sat upon and +recovered itself, ready, as one would say, to crumple up again in the +same creases, on smiling or other change of feature.--Hold on! Stop +that! Give a young fellow a chance! Are we not whole years short of +that interesting period of life when Mr. Balzac says that a man, etc., +etc., etc.? + +There now! That is ourself, as we look after finishing an article, +getting a three-mile pull with the ten-foot sculls, redressing the wrongs +of the toilet, and standing with the light of hope in our eye and the +reflection of a red curtain on our cheek. Is he not a POET that painted +us? + + "Blest be the art that can immortalize!" + COWPER. + +--Young folks look on a face as a unit; children who go to school with +any given little John Smith see in his name a distinctive appellation, +and in his features as special and definite an expression of his sole +individuality as if he were the first created of his race: As soon as we +are old enough to get the range of three or four generations well in +hand, and to take in large family histories, we never see an individual +in a face of any stock we know, but a mosaic copy of a pattern, with +fragmentary tints from this and that ancestor. The analysis of a face +into its ancestral elements requires that it should be examined in the +very earliest infancy, before it has lost that ancient and solemn look it +brings with it out of the past eternity; and again in that brief space +when Life, the mighty sculptor, has done his work, and Death, his silent +servant, lifts the veil and lets us look at the marble lines he has +wrought so faithfully; and lastly, while a painter who can seize all the +traits of a countenance is building it up, feature after feature, from +the slight outline to the finished portrait. + +--I am satisfied, that, as we grow older, we learn to look upon our +bodies more and more as a temporary possession and less and less as +identified with ourselves. In early years, while the child "feels its +life in every limb," it lives in the body and for the body to a very +great extent. It ought to be so. There have been many very interesting +children who have shown a wonderful indifference to the things of earth +and an extraordinary development of the spiritual nature. There is a +perfect literature of their biographies, all alike in their essentials; +the same "disinclination to the usual amusements of childhood "; the same +remarkable sensibility; the same docility; the same conscientiousness; in +short, an almost uniform character, marked by beautiful traits, which we +look at with a painful admiration. It will be found that most of these +children are the subjects of some constitutional unfitness for living, +the most frequent of which I need not mention. They are like the +beautiful, blushing, half-grown fruit that falls before its time because +its core is gnawed out. They have their meaning,--they do not-live in +vain,--but they are windfalls. I am convinced that many healthy children +are injured morally by being forced to read too much about these little +meek sufferers and their spiritual exercises. Here is a boy that loves +to run, swim, kick football, turn somersets, make faces, whittle, fish, +tear his clothes, coast, skate, fire crackers, blow squash "tooters," cut +his name on fences, read about Robinson Crusoe and Sinbad the Sailor, eat +the widest-angled slices of pie and untold cakes and candies, crack nuts +with his back teeth and bite out the better part of another boy's apple +with his front ones, turn up coppers, "stick" knives, call names, throw +stones, knock off hats, set mousetraps, chalk doorsteps, "cut behind" +anything on wheels or runners, whistle through his teeth, "holler" Fire! +on slight evidence, run after soldiers, patronize an engine-company, or, +in his own words, "blow for tub No. 11," or whatever it may be;--isn't +that a pretty nice sort of a boy, though he has not got anything the +matter with him that takes the taste of this world out? Now, when you +put into such a hot-blooded, hard-fisted, round-cheeked little rogue's +hand a sad-looking volume or pamphlet, with the portrait of a thin, +white-faced child, whose life is really as much a training for death as +the last month of a condemned criminal's existence, what does he find in +common between his own overflowing and exulting sense of vitality and the +experiences of the doomed offspring of invalid parents? The time comes +when we have learned to understand the music of sorrow, the beauty of +resigned suffering, the holy light that plays over the pillow of those +who die before their time, in humble hope and trust. But it is not until +he has worked his way through the period of honest hearty animal +existence, which every robust child should make the most of,--not until +he has learned the use of his various faculties, which is his first +duty,--that a boy of courage and animal vigor is in a proper state to +read these tearful records of premature decay. I have no doubt that +disgust is implanted in the minds of many healthy children by early +surfeits of pathological piety. I do verily believe that He who took +children in His arms and blessed them loved the healthiest and most +playful of them just as well as those who were richest in the tuberculous +virtues. I know what I am talking about, and there are more parents in +this country who will be willing to listen to what I say than there are +fools to pick a quarrel with me. In the sensibility and the sanctity +which often accompany premature decay I see one of the most beautiful +instances of the principle of compensation which marks the Divine +benevolence. But to get the spiritual hygiene of robust natures out of +the exceptional regimen of invalids is just simply what we Professors +call "bad practice"; and I know by experience that there are worthy +people who not only try it on their own children, but actually force it +on those of their neighbors. + +--Having been photographed, and stereographed, and chromatographed, or +done in colors, it only remained to be phrenologized. A polite note from +Messrs. Bumpus and Crane, requesting our attendance at their +Physiological Emporium, was too tempting to be resisted. We repaired to +that scientific Golgotha. + +Messrs. Bumpus and Crane are arranged on the plan of the man and the +woman in the toy called a "weather-house," both on the same wooden arm +suspended on a pivot,--so that when one comes to the door, the other +retires backwards, and vice versa. The more particular speciality of one +is to lubricate your entrance and exit,--that of the other to polish you +off phrenologically in the recesses of the establishment. Suppose +yourself in a room full of casts and pictures, before a counterful of +books with taking titles. I wonder if the picture of the brain is there, +"approved" by a noted Phrenologist, which was copied from my, the +Professor's, folio plate, in the work of Gall and Spurzheim. An extra +convolution, No. 9, Destructiveness, according to the list beneath, which +was not to be seen in the plate, itself a copy of Nature, was very +liberally supplied by the artist, to meet the wants of the catalogue of +"organs." Professor Bumpus is seated in front of a row of women, +--horn-combers and gold-beaders, or somewhere about that range of +life,--looking so credulous, that, if any Second-Advent Miller or Joe +Smith should come along, he could string the whole lot of them on his +cheapest lie, as a boy strings a dozen "shiners" on a stripped twig of +willow. + +The Professor (meaning ourselves) is in a hurry, as usual; let the +horn-combers wait,--he shall be bumped without inspecting the +antechamber. + +Tape round the head,--22 inches. (Come on, old 23 inches, if you think +you are the better man!) + +Feels thorax and arm, and nuzzles round among muscles as those horrid old +women poke their fingers into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls at +the Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or other. +Victuality, (organ at epigastrium,) some other number equally +significant. + +Mild champooing of head now commences. 'Extraordinary revelations! +Cupidiphilous, 6! Hymeniphilous, 6 +! Paediphilous, 5! Deipniphilous, +6! Gelasmiphilous, 6! Musikiphilous, 5! Uraniphilous, 5! +Glossiphilous, 8!! and so on. Meant for a linguist.--Invaluable +information. Will invest in grammars and dictionaries immediately.--I +have nothing against the grand total of my phrenological endowments. + +I never set great store by my head, and did not think Messrs. Bumpus and +Crane would give me so good a lot of organs as they did, especially +considering that I was a dead-head on that occasion. Much obliged to them +for their politeness. They have been useful in their way by calling +attention to important physiological facts. (This concession is due to +our immense bump of Candor.) + +A short Lecture on Phrenology, read to the Boarders at our +Breakfast-Table. + +I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a Pseudo-science. A +Pseudo-science consists of a nomenclature, with a self-adjusting +arrangement, by which all positive evidence, or such as favors its +doctrines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tells +against it, is excluded. It is invariably connected with some lucrative +practical application. Its professors and practitioners are usually +shrewd people; they are very serious with the public, but wink and laugh +a good deal among themselves. The believing multitude consists of women +of both sexes, feeble minded inquirers, poetical optimists, people who +always get cheated in buying horses, philanthropists who insist on +hurrying up the millennium, and others of this class, with here and there +a clergyman, less frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician, and +almost never a horse-jockey or a member of the detective police.--I do +not say that Phrenology was one of the Pseudo-sciences. + +A Pseudo-science does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It may +contain many truths, and even valuable ones. The rottenest bank starts +with a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay on the +strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very commonly a good one. +The practitioners of the Pseudo-sciences know that common minds, after +they have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump at the merest +rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When we have one fact found us, +we are very apt to supply the next out of our own imagination. (How many +persons can read Judges xv. 16 correctly the first time?) The +Pseudo-sciences take advantage of this.--I did not say that it was so +with Phrenology. + +I have rarely met a sensible man who would not allow that there was +something in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is commonly agreed, +promises intellect; one that is "villanous low" and has a huge hind-head +back of it, is wont to mark an animal nature. I have as rarely met an +unbiassed and sensible man who really believed in the bumps. It is +observed, however, that persons with what the Phrenologists call "good +heads" are more prone than others toward plenary belief in the doctrine. + +It is so hard to prove a negative, that, if a man should assert that the +moon was in truth a green cheese, formed by the coagulable substance of +the Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary, I might be +puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar cheese, I call +on him to prove the truth of the Gaseous nature of our satellite, before +I purchase. + +It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological statement. +It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved, and cannot be, +by the common course of argument. The walls of the head are double, with +a great air-chamber between them, over the smallest and most closely +crowded "organs." Can you tell how much money there is in a safe, which +also has thick double walls, by kneading its knobs with your fingers? So +when a man fumbles about my forehead, and talks about the organs of +Individuality, Size, etc., I trust him as much as I should if he felt of +the outside of my strong-box and told me that there was a five-dollar or +a ten-dollar-bill under this or that particular rivet. Perhaps there is; +only he does n't know anything about at. But this is a point that I, the +Professor, understand, my friends, or ought to, certainly, better than +you do. The next argument you will all appreciate. + +I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism of +Phrenology, which is very similar to that of the Pseudo-sciences. An +example will show it most conveniently. + +A. is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and find a +good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology. +Casts and drawings of A. are multiplied, and the bump does not lose in +the act of copying.--I did not say it gained.--What do you look so for? +(to the boarders.) + +Presently B. turns up, a bigger thief than A. But B. has no bump at all +over Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology.--Not a +bit of it. Don't you see how small Conscientiousness is? That's the +reason B. stole. + +And then comes C., ten times as much a thief as either A. or B.,--used +to steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own pockets and +put its contents in another, if he could find no other way of committing +petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a hollow, instead of a bump, over +Acquisitiveness. Ah, but just look and see what a bump of +Alimentiveness! Did not C. buy nuts and gingerbread, when a boy, with +the money he stole? Of course you see why he is a thief, and how his +example confirms our noble science. + +At last comes along a case which is apparently a settler, for there is a +little brain with vast and varied powers,--a case like that of Byron, for +instance. Then comes out the grand reserve-reason which covers +everything and renders it simply impossible ever to corner a +Phrenologist. "It is not the size alone, but the quality of an organ, +which determines its degree of power." + +Oh! oh! I see.--The argument may be briefly stated thus by the +Phrenologist: "Heads I win, tails you lose." Well, that's convenient. + +It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance to the +Pseudo-sciences. I did not say it was a Pseudo-science. + +I have often met persons who have been altogether struck up and amazed at +the accuracy with which some wandering Professor of Phrenology had read +their characters written upon their skulls. Of course the Professor +acquires his information solely through his cranial inspections and +manipulations.--What are you laughing at? (to the boarders.)--But let us +just suppose, for a moment, that a tolerably cunning fellow, who did not +know or care anything about Phrenology, should open a shop and undertake +to read off people's characters at fifty cents or a dollar apiece. Let +us see how well he could get along without the "organs." + +I will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I would invest one hundred +dollars, more or less, in casts of brains, skulls, charts, and other +matters that would make the most show for the money. That would do to +begin with. I would then advertise myself as the celebrated Professor +Brainey, or whatever name I might choose, and wait for my first customer. +My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at him,--ask him a +question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the hang of him, +I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull, dictating as +follows: SCALE FROM 1 TO 10. + + +LIST OF FACULTIES FOR PRIVATE NOTES FOR MY PUPIL. + CUSTOMER. + Each to be accompanied with a wink. + +Amativeness, 7. Most men love the conflicting sex, and all + men love to be told they do. + +Alimentiveness, 8. Don't you see that he has burst off his + lowest waistcoat-button with feeding,--hey + +Acquisitiveness, 8. Of course. A middle-aged Yankee. + +Approbativeness 7+. Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. Mark the + effect of that plus sign. + +Self-Esteem 6. His face shows that. + +Benevolence 9. That'll please him. + +Conscientiousness 8 1/2 That fraction looks first-rate. + +Mirthfulness 7 Has laughed twice since he came in. + +Ideality 9 That sounds well. + +Form, Size, Weight, 4 to 6. Average everything that Color, Locality, + cannot be guessed. Eventuality, etc. etc. + + And so of the other faculties. + + +Of course, you know, that isn't the way the Phrenologists do. They go +only by the bumps.--What do you keep laughing so for? (to the boarders.) +I only said that is the way I should practise "Phrenology" for a living. + + End of my Lecture. + + +--The Reformers have good heads, generally. Their faces are commonly +serene enough, and they are lambs in private intercourse, even though +their voices may be like + + The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore, + +when heard from the platform. Their greatest spiritual danger is from +the perpetual flattery of abuse to which they are exposed. These lines +are meant to caution them. + + + SAINT ANTHONY THE REFORMER. + + HIS TEMPTATION. + + No fear lest praise should make us proud! + We know how cheaply that is won; + The idle homage of the crowd + Is proof of tasks as idly done. + + A surface-smile may pay the toil + That follows still the conquering Right, + With soft, white hands to dress the spoil + That sunbrowned valor clutched in fight. + + Sing the sweet song of other days, + Serenely placid, safely true, + And o'er the present's parching ways + Thy verse distils like evening dew. + + But speak in words of living power, + --They fall like drops of scalding rain + That plashed before the burning shower + Swept o'er the cities of the plain! + + Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale, + --Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring, + And, smitten through their leprous mail, + Strike right and left in hope to sting. + + If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath, + Thy feet on earth, thy heart above, + Canst walk in peace thy kingly path, + Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,-- + + Too kind for bitter words to grieve, + Too firm for clamor to dismay, + When Faith forbids thee to believe, + And Meekness calls to disobey,-- + + Ah, then beware of mortal pride! + The smiling pride that calmly scorns + Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed + In laboring on thy crown of thorns! + + + + +IX + +One of our boarders--perhaps more than one was concerned in it--sent in +some questions to me, the other day, which, trivial as some of them are, +I felt bound to answer. + +1.--Whether a lady was ever known to write a letter covering only a +single page? + +To this I answered, that there was a case on record where a lady had but +half a sheet of paper and no envelope; and being obliged to send through +the post-office, she covered only one side of the paper (crosswise, +lengthwise, and diagonally). + +2.--What constitutes a man a gentleman? + +To this I gave several answers, adapted to particular classes of +questioners. + +a. Not trying to be a gentleman. + +b. Self-respect underlying courtesy. + +c. Knowledge and observance of the fitness of things in social +intercourse. + +d. f. s. d. (as many suppose.) + +3.--Whether face or figure is most attractive in the female sex? + +Answered in the following epigram, by a young man about town: + + Quoth Tom, "Though fair her features be, + It is her figure pleases me." + "What may her figure be?" I cried. + "One hundred thousand!" he replied. + +When this was read to the boarders, the young man John said he should +like a chance to "step up" to a figger of that kind, if the girl was one +of the right sort. + +The landlady said them that merried for money didn't deserve the blessin' +of a good wife. Money was a great thing when them that had it made a +good use of it. She had seen better days herself, and knew what it was +never to want for anything. One of her cousins merried a very rich old +gentleman, and she had heerd that he said he lived ten year longer than +if he'd staid by himself without anybody to take care of him. There was +nothin' like a wife for nussin' sick folks and them that couldn't take +care of themselves. + +The young man John got off a little wink, and pointed slyly with his +thumb in the direction of our diminutive friend, for whom he seemed to +think this speech was intended. + +If it was meant for him, he did n't appear to know that it was. Indeed, +he seems somewhat listless of late, except when the conversation falls +upon one of those larger topics that specially interest him, and then he +grows excited, speaks loud and fast, sometimes almost savagely,--and, I +have noticed once or twice, presses his left hand to his right side, as +if there were something that ached, or weighed, or throbbed in that +region. + +While he speaks in this way, the general conversation is interrupted, and +we all listen to him. Iris looks steadily in his face, and then he will +turn as if magnetized and meet the amber eyes with his own melancholy +gaze. I do believe that they have some kind of understanding together, +that they meet elsewhere than at our table, and that there is a mystery, +which is going to break upon us all of a sudden, involving the relations +of these two persons. From the very first, they have taken to each +other. The one thing they have in common is the heroic will. In him, it +shows itself in thinking his way straightforward, in doing battle for +"free trade and no right of search" on the high seas of religious +controversy, and especially in fighting the battles of his crooked old +city. In her, it is standing up for her little friend with the most +queenly disregard of the code of boarding-house etiquette. People may +say or look what they like,--she will have her way about this sentiment +of hers. + +The Poor Relation is in a dreadful fidget whenever the Little Gentleman +says anything that interferes with her own infallibility. She seems to +think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she had the +toothache,--and that if she opens her mouth to the quarter the wind blows +from, she will catch her "death o' cold." + +The landlady herself came to him one day, as I have found out, and tried +to persuade him to hold his tongue.--The boarders was gettin' +uneasy,--she said,--and some of 'em would go, she mistrusted, if he +talked any more about things that belonged to the ministers to settle. +She was a poor woman, that had known better days, but all her livin' +depended on her boarders, and she was sure there was n't any of 'em she +set so much by as she did by him; but there was them that never liked to +hear about sech things, except on Sundays. + +The Little Gentleman looked very smiling at the landlady, who smiled even +more cordially in return, and adjusted her cap-ribbon with an unconscious +movement,--a reminiscence of the long-past pairing-time, when she had +smoothed her locks and softened her voice, and won her mate by these and +other bird-like graces.--My dear Madam,--he said,--I will remember your +interests, and speak only of matters to which I am totally +indifferent.--I don't doubt he meant this; but a day or two after, +something stirred him up, and I heard his voice uttering itself aloud, +thus: + +-It must be done, Sir!--he was saying,--it must be done! Our religion +has been Judaized, it has been Romanized, it has been Orientalized, it +has been Anglicized, and the time is at hand when it must be +AMERICANIZED! Now, Sir, you see what Americanizing is in politics;--it +means that a man shall have a vote because he is a man,--and shall vote +for whom he pleases, without his neighbor's interference. If he chooses +to vote for the Devil, that is his lookout;--perhaps he thinks the Devil +is better than the other candidates; and I don't doubt he's often right, +Sir. Just so a man's soul has a vote in the spiritual community; and it +doesn't do, Sir, or it won't do long, to call him "schismatic" and +"heretic" and those other wicked names that the old murderous Inquisitors +have left us to help along "peace and goodwill to men"! + +As long as you could catch a man and drop him into an oubliette, or pull +him out a few inches longer by machinery, or put a hot iron through his +tongue, or make him climb up a ladder and sit on a board at the top of a +stake so that he should be slowly broiled by the fire kindled round it, +there was some sense in these words; they led to something. But since we +have done with those tools, we had better give up those words. I should +like to see a Yankee advertisement like this!--(the Little Gentleman +laughed fiercely as he uttered the words,--) + +--Patent thumb-screws,--will crush the bone in three turns. + +--The cast-iron boot, with wedge and mallet, only five dollars! + +--The celebrated extension-rack, warranted to stretch a man six inches in +twenty minutes,--money returned, if it proves unsatisfactory. + +I should like to see such an advertisement, I say, Sir! Now, what's the +use of using the words that belonged with the thumb-screws, and the +Blessed Virgin with the knives under her petticoats and sleeves and +bodice, and the dry pan and gradual fire, if we can't have the things +themselves, Sir? What's the use of painting the fire round a poor +fellow, when you think it won't do to kindle one under him,--as they did +at Valencia or Valladolid, or wherever it was? + +--What story is that?--I said. + +Why,--he answered,--at the last auto-da-fe, in 1824 or '5, or somewhere +there,--it's a traveller's story, but a mighty knowing traveller he +is,--they had a "heretic" to use up according to the statutes provided +for the crime of private opinion. They could n't quite make up their +minds to burn him, so they only hung him in a hogshead painted all over +with flames! + +No, Sir! when a man calls you names because you go to the ballot-box and +vote for your candidate, or because you say this or that is your opinion, +he forgets in which half of the world he was born, Sir! It won't be +long, Sir, before we have Americanized religion as we have Americanized +government; and then, Sir, every soul God sends into the world will be +good in the face of all men for just so much of His "inspiration" as +"giveth him understanding"!--None of my words, Sir! none of my words! + +--If Iris does not love this Little Gentleman, what does love look like +when one sees it? She follows him with her eyes, she leans over toward +him when he speaks, her face changes with the changes of his speech, so +that one might think it was with her as with Christabel,-- + + That all her features were resigned + To this sole image in her mind. + +But she never looks at him with such intensity of devotion as when he +says anything about the soul and the soul's atmosphere, religion. + +Women are twice as religious as men;--all the world knows that. Whether +they are any better, in the eyes of Absolute Justice, might be +questioned; for the additional religious element supplied by sex hardly +seems to be a matter of praise or blame. But in all common aspects they +are so much above us that we get most of our religion from them,--from +their teachings, from their example,--above all, from their pure +affections. + +Now this poor little Iris had been talked to strangely in her childhood. +Especially she had been told that she hated all good things,--which every +sensible parent knows well enough is not true of a great many children, +to say the least. I have sometimes questioned whether many libels on +human nature had not been a natural consequence of the celibacy of the +clergy, which was enforced for so long a period. + +The child had met this and some other equally encouraging statements as +to her spiritual conditions, early in life, and fought the battle of +spiritual independence prematurely, as many children do. If all she did +was hateful to God, what was the meaning of the approving or else the +disapproving conscience, when she had done "right" or "wrong"? No +"shoulder-striker" hits out straighter than a child with its logic. Why, +I can remember lying in my bed in the nursery and settling questions +which all that I have heard since and got out of books has never been +able to raise again. If a child does not assert itself in this way in +good season, it becomes just what its parents or teachers were, and is no +better than a plastic image.--How old was I at the time?--I suppose +about 5823 years old,--that is, counting from Archbishop Usher's date of +the Creation, and adding the life of the race, whose accumulated +intelligence is a part of my inheritance, to my own. A good deal older +than Plato, you see, and much more experienced than my Lord Bacon and +most of the world's teachers.--Old books, as you well know, are books of +the world's youth, and new books are fruits of its age. How many of all +these ancient folios round me are like so many old cupels! The gold has +passed out of them long ago, but their pores are full of the dross with +which it was mingled. + +And so Iris--having thrown off that first lasso which not only fetters, +but chokes those whom it can hold, so that they give themselves up +trembling and breathless to the great soul-subduer, who has them by the +windpipe had settled a brief creed for herself, in which love of the +neighbor, whom we have seen, was the first article, and love of the +Creator, whom we have not seen, grew out of this as its natural +development, being necessarily second in order of time to the first +unselfish emotions which we feel for the fellow-creatures who surround us +in our early years. + +The child must have some place of worship. What would a young girl be +who never mingled her voice with the songs and prayers that rose all +around her with every returning day of rest? And Iris was free to +choose. Sometimes one and sometimes another would offer to carry her to +this or that place of worship; and when the doors were hospitably opened, +she would often go meekly in by herself. It was a curious fact, that two +churches as remote from each other in doctrine as could well be divided +her affections. + +The Church of Saint Polycarp had very much the look of a Roman Catholic +chapel. I do not wish to run the risk of giving names to the +ecclesiastical furniture which gave it such a Romish aspect; but there +were pictures, and inscriptions in antiquated characters, and there were +reading-stands, and flowers on the altar, and other elegant arrangements. +Then there were boys to sing alternately in choirs responsive to each +other, and there was much bowing, with very loud responding, and a long +service and a short sermon, and a bag, such as Judas used to hold in the +old pictures, was carried round to receive contributions. Everything was +done not only "decently and in order," but, perhaps one might say, with a +certain air of magnifying their office on the part of the dignified +clergymen, often two or three in number. The music and the free welcome +were grateful to Iris, and she forgot her prejudices at the door of the +chapel. For this was a church with open doors, with seats for all +classes and all colors alike,--a church of zealous worshippers after +their faith, of charitable and serviceable men and women, one that took +care of its children and never forgot its poor, and whose people were +much more occupied in looking out for their own souls than in attacking +the faith of their neighbors. In its mode of worship there was a union +of two qualities,--the taste and refinement, which the educated require +just as much in their churches as elsewhere, and the air of stateliness, +almost of pomp, which impresses the common worshipper, and is often not +without its effect upon those who think they hold outward forms as of +little value. Under the half-Romish aspect of the Church of Saint +Polycarp, the young girl found a devout and loving and singularly +cheerful religious spirit. The artistic sense, which betrayed itself in +the dramatic proprieties of its ritual, harmonized with her taste. The +mingled murmur of the loud responses, in those rhythmic phrases, so +simple, yet so fervent, almost as if every tenth heart-beat, instead of +its dull tic-tac, articulated itself as "Good Lord, deliver us! "--the +sweet alternation of the two choirs, as their holy song floated from side +to side, the keen young voices rising like a flight of singing-birds that +passes from one grove to another, carrying its music with it back and +forward,--why should she not love these gracious outward signs of those +inner harmonies which none could deny made beautiful the lives of many of +her fellow-worshippers in the humble, yet not inelegant Chapel of Saint +Polycarp? + +The young Marylander, who was born and bred to that mode of worship, had +introduced her to the chapel, for which he did the honors for such of our +boarders as were not otherwise provided for. I saw them looking over the +same prayer-book one Sunday, and I could not help thinking that two such +young and handsome persons could hardly worship together in safety for a +great while. But they seemed to mind nothing but their prayer-book. +By-and-by the silken bag was handed round.--I don't believe she will; so +awkward, you know;--besides, she only came by invitation. There she is, +with her hand in her pocket, though,--and sure enough, her little bit of +silver tinkled as it struck the coin beneath. God bless her! she has n't +much to give; but her eye glistens when she gives it, and that is all +Heaven asks.--That was the first time I noticed these young people +together, and I am sure they behaved with the most charming +propriety,--in fact, there was one of our silent lady-boarders with them, +whose eyes would have kept Cupid and Psyche to their good behavior. A +day or two after this I noticed that the young gentleman had left his +seat, which you may remember was at the corner diagonal to that of Iris, +so that they have been as far removed from each other as they could be at +the table. His new seat is three or four places farther down the table. +Of course I made a romance out of this, at once. So stupid not to see +it! How could it be otherwise?--Did you speak, Madam? I beg your +pardon. (To my lady-reader.) + +I never saw anything like the tenderness with which this young girl +treats her little deformed neighbor. If he were in the way of going to +church, I know she would follow him. But his worship, if any, is not +with the throng of men and women and staring children. + +I, the Professor, on the other hand, am a regular church-goer. I should +go for various reasons if I did not love it; but I am happy enough to +find great pleasure in the midst of devout multitudes, whether I can +accept all their creeds or not. One place of worship comes nearer than +the rest to my ideal standard, and to this it was that I carried our +young girl. + +The Church of the Galileans, as it is called, is even humbler in outside +pretensions than the Church of Saint Polycarp. Like that, it is open to +all comers. The stranger who approaches it looks down a quiet street and +sees the plainest of chapels,--a kind of wooden tent, that owes whatever +grace it has to its pointed windows and the high, sharp roofs--traces, +both, of that upward movement of ecclesiastical architecture which soared +aloft in cathedral-spires, shooting into the sky as the spike of a +flowering aloe from the cluster of broad, sharp-wedged leaves below. +This suggestion of medieval symbolism, aided by a minute turret in which +a hand-bell might have hung and found just room enough to turn over, was +all of outward show the small edifice could boast. Within there was very +little that pretended to be attractive. A small organ at one side, and a +plain pulpit, showed that the building was a church; but it was a church +reduced to its simplest expression: + +Yet when the great and wise monarch of the East sat upon his throne, in +all the golden blaze of the spoils of Ophir and the freights of the navy +of Tarshish, his glory was not like that of this simple chapel in its +Sunday garniture. For the lilies of the field, in their season, and the +fairest flowers of the year, in due succession, were clustered every +Sunday morning over the preacher's desk. Slight, thin-tissued blossoms +of pink and blue and virgin white in early spring, then the full-breasted +and deep-hearted roses of summer, then the velvet-robed crimson and +yellow flowers of autumn, and in the winter delicate exotics that grew +under skies of glass in the false summers of our crystal palaces without +knowing that it was the dreadful winter of New England which was rattling +the doors and frosting the panes,--in their language the whole year told +its history of life and growth and beauty from that simple desk. There +was always at least one good sermon,--this floral homily. There was at +least one good prayer,--that brief space when all were silent, after the +manner of the Friends at their devotions. + +Here, too, Iris found an atmosphere of peace and love. The same gentle, +thoughtful faces, the same cheerful but reverential spirit, the same +quiet, the same life of active benevolence. But in all else how +different from the Church of Saint Polycarp! No clerical costume, no +ceremonial forms, no carefully trained choirs. A liturgy they have, to +be sure, which does not scruple to borrow from the time-honored manuals +of devotion, but also does not hesitate to change its expressions to its +own liking. + +Perhaps the good people seem a little easy with each other;--they are apt +to nod familiarly, and have even been known to whisper before the +minister came in. But it is a relief to get rid of that old +Sunday--no,--Sabbath face, which suggests the idea that the first day of +the week is commemorative of some most mournful event. The truth is, +these brethren and sisters meet very much as a family does for its +devotions, not putting off their humanity in the least, considering it on +the whole quite a delightful matter to come together for prayer and song +and good counsel from kind and wise lips. And if they are freer in their +demeanor than some very precise congregations, they have not the air of a +worldly set of people. Clearly they have not come to advertise their +tailors and milliners, nor for the sake of exchanging criticisms on the +literary character of the sermon they may hear. There is no +restlessness and no restraint among these quiet, cheerful worshippers. +One thing that keeps them calm and happy during the season so evidently +trying to many congregations is, that they join very generally in the +singing. In this way they get rid of that accumulated nervous force +which escapes in all sorts of fidgety movements, so that a minister +trying to keep his congregation still reminds one of a boy with his hand +over the nose of a pump which another boy is working,--this spirting +impatience of the people is so like the jets that find their way through +his fingers, and the grand rush out at the final Amen! has such a +wonderful likeness to the gush that takes place when the boy pulls his +hand away, with immense relief, as it seems, to both the pump and the +officiating youngster. + +How sweet is this blending of all voices and all hearts in one common +song of praise! Some will sing a little loud, perhaps,--and now and then +an impatient chorister will get a syllable or two in advance, or an +enchanted singer so lose all thought of time and place in the luxury of a +closing cadence that he holds on to the last semi-breve upon his private +responsibility; but how much more of the spirit of the old Psalmist in +the music of these imperfectly trained voices than in the academic +niceties of the paid performers who take our musical worship out of our +hands! + +I am of the opinion that the creed of the Church of the Galileans is not +laid down in as many details as that of the Church of Saint Polycarp. +Yet I suspect, if one of the good people from each of those churches had +met over the bed of a suffering fellow-creature, or for the promotion of +any charitable object, they would have found they had more in common than +all the special beliefs or want of beliefs that separated them would +amount to. There are always many who believe that the fruits of a tree +afford a better test of its condition than a statement of the composts +with which it is dressed, though the last has its meaning and importance, +no doubt. + +Between these two churches, then, our young Iris divides her affections. +But I doubt if she listens to the preacher at either with more devotion +than she does to her little neighbor when he talks of these matters. + +What does he believe? In the first place, there is some deep-rooted +disquiet lying at the bottom of his soul, which makes him very bitter +against all kinds of usurpation over the right of private judgment. Over +this seems to lie a certain tenderness for humanity in general, bred out +of life-long trial, I should say, but sharply streaked with fiery lines +of wrath at various individual acts of wrong, especially if they come in +an ecclesiastical shape, and recall to him the days when his mother's +great-grandmother was strangled on Witch Hill, with a text from the Old +Testament for her halter. With all this, he has a boundless belief in +the future of this experimental hemisphere, and especially in the destiny +of the free thought of its northeastern metropolis. + +--A man can see further, Sir,--he said one day,--from the top of Boston +State House, and see more that is worth seeing, than from all the +pyramids and turrets and steeples in all the places in the world! No +smoke, Sir; no fog, Sir; and a clean sweep from the Outer Light and the +sea beyond it to the New Hampshire mountains! Yes, Sir,--and there are +great truths that are higher than mountains and broader than seas, that +people are looking for from the tops of these hills of ours;--such as the +world never saw, though it might have seen them at Jerusalem, if its eyes +had been open!--Where do they have most crazy people? Tell me that, Sir! + +I answered, that I had heard it said there were more in New England than +in most countries, perhaps more than in any part of the world. + +Very good, Sir,--he answered.--When have there been most people killed +and wounded in the course of this century? + +During the wars of the French Empire, no doubt,--I said. + +That's it! that's it!--said the Little Gentleman;--where the battle of +intelligence is fought, there are most minds bruised and broken! We're +battling for a faith here, Sir. + +The divinity-student remarked, that it was rather late in the world's +history for men to be looking out for a new faith. + +I did n't say a new faith,--said the Little Gentleman;--old or new, it +can't help being different here in this American mind of ours from +anything that ever was before; the people are new, Sir, and that makes +the difference. One load of corn goes to the sty, and makes the fat of +swine,--another goes to the farm-house, and becomes the muscle that +clothes the right arms of heroes. It is n't where a pawn stands on the +board that makes the difference, but what the game round it is when it is +on this or that square. + +Can any man look round and see what Christian countries are now doing, +and how they are governed, and what is the general condition of society, +without seeing that Christianity is the flag under which the world sails, +and not the rudder that steers its course? No, Sir! There was a great +raft built about two thousand years ago,--call it an ark, rather,--the +world's great ark! big enough to hold all mankind, and made to be +launched right out into the open waves of life,--and here it has been +lying, one end on the shore and one end bobbing up and down in the water, +men fighting all the time as to who should be captain and who should have +the state-rooms, and throwing each other over the side because they could +not agree about the points of compass, but the great vessel never getting +afloat with its freight of nations and their rulers;--and now, Sir, there +is and has been for this long time a fleet of "heretic" lighters sailing +out of Boston Bay, and they have been saying, and they say now, and they +mean to keep saying, "Pump out your bilge-water, shovel over your loads +of idle ballast, get out your old rotten cargo, and we will carry it out +into deep waters and sink it where it will never be seen again; so shall +the ark of the world's hope float on the ocean, instead of sticking in +the dock-mud where it is lying!" + +It's a slow business, this of getting the ark launched. The Jordan was +n't deep enough, and the Tiber was n't deep enough, and the Rhone was n't +deep enough, and the Thames was n't deep enough, and perhaps the Charles +is n't deep enough; but I don't feel sure of that, Sir, and I love to +hear the workmen knocking at the old blocks of tradition and making the +ways smooth with the oil of the Good Samaritan. I don't know, Sir,--but +I do think she stirs a little,--I do believe she slides;--and when I +think of what a work that is for the dear old three-breasted mother of +American liberty, I would not take all the glory of all the greatest +cities in the world for my birthright in the soil of little Boston! + +--Some of us could not help smiling at this burst of local patriotism, +especially when it finished with the last two words. + +And Iris smiled, too. But it was the radiant smile of pleasure which +always lights up her face when her little neighbor gets excited on the +great topics of progress in freedom and religion, and especially on the +part which, as he pleases himself with believing, his own city is to take +in that consummation of human development to which he looks forward. + +Presently she looked into his face with a changed expression,--the +anxiety of a mother that sees her child suffering. + +You are not well,--she said. + +I am never well,--he answered.--His eyes fell mechanically on the +death's-head ring he wore on his right hand. She took his hand as if it +had been a baby's, and turned the grim device so that it should be out of +sight. One slight, sad, slow movement of the head seemed to say, "The +death-symbol is still there!" + +A very odd personage, to be sure! Seems to know what is going on, +--reads books, old and new,--has many recent publications sent him, they +tell me, but, what is more curious, keeps up with the everyday affairs of +the world, too. Whether he hears everything that is said with +preternatural acuteness, or whether some confidential friend visits him +in a quiet way, is more than I can tell. I can make nothing more of the +noises I hear in his room than my old conjectures. The movements I +mention are less frequent, but I often hear the plaintive cry,--I observe +that it is rarely laughing of late;--I never have detected one articulate +word, but I never heard such tones from anything but a human voice. + +There has been, of late, a deference approaching to tenderness, on the +part of the boarders generally so far as he is concerned. This is +doubtless owing to the air of suffering which seems to have saddened his +look of late. Either some passion is gnawing at him inwardly, or some +hidden disease is at work upon him. + +--What 's the matter with Little Boston?--said the young man John to me +one day.--There a'n't much of him, anyhow; but 't seems to me he looks +peakeder than ever. The old woman says he's in a bad way, 'n' wants a +puss to take care of him. Them pusses that take care of old rich folks +marry 'em sometimes,--'n' they don't commonly live a great while after +that. No, Sir! I don't see what he wants to die for, after he's taken +so much trouble to live in such poor accommodations as that crooked body +of his. I should like to know how his soul crawled into it, 'n' how it's +goin' to get out. What business has he to die, I should like to know? +Let Ma'am Allen (the gentleman with the diamond) die, if he likes, and be +(this is a family-magazine); but we a'n't goin' to have him dyin'. Not +by a great sight. Can't do without him anyhow. A'n't it fun to hear him +blow off his steam? + +I believe the young fellow would take it as a personal insult, if the +Little Gentleman should show any symptoms of quitting our table for a +better world. + +--In the mean time, what with going to church in company with our young +lady, and taking every chance I could get to talk with her, I have found +myself becoming, I will not say intimate, but well acquainted with Miss +Iris. There is a certain frankness and directness about her that perhaps +belong to her artist nature. For, you see, the one thing that marks the +true artist is a clear perception and a firm, bold hand, in distinction +from that imperfect mental vision and uncertain touch which give us the +feeble pictures and the lumpy statues of the mere artisans on canvas or +in stone. A true artist, therefore, can hardly fail to have a sharp, +well-defined mental physiognomy. Besides this, many young girls have a +strange audacity blended with their instinctive delicacy. Even in +physical daring many of them are a match for boys; whereas you will find +few among mature women, and especially if they are mothers, who do not +confess, and not unfrequently proclaim, their timidity. One of these +young girls, as many of us hereabouts remember, climbed to the top of a +jagged, slippery rock lying out in the waves,--an ugly height to get up, +and a worse one to get down, even for a bold young fellow of sixteen. +Another was in the way of climbing tall trees for crows' nests,--and +crows generally know about how far boys can "shin up," and set their +household establishments above that high-water mark. Still another of +these young ladies I saw for the first time in an open boat, tossing on +the ocean ground-swell, a mile or two from shore, off a lonely island. +She lost all her daring, after she had some girls of her own to look out +for. + +Many blondes are very gentle, yielding in character, impressible, +unelastic. But the positive blondes, with the golden tint running +through them, are often full of character. They come, probably enough, +from those deep-bosomed German women that Tacitus portrayed in such +strong colors. The negative blondes, or those women whose tints have +faded out as their line of descent has become impoverished, are of +various blood, and in them the soul has often become pale with that +blanching of the hair and loss of color in the eyes which makes them +approach the character of Albinesses. + +I see in this young girl that union of strength and sensibility which, +when directed and impelled by the strong instinct so apt to accompany +this combination of active and passive capacity, we call genius. She is +not an accomplished artist, certainly, as yet; but there is always an air +in every careless figure she draws, as it were of upward aspiration,--the +elan of John of Bologna's Mercury,--a lift to them, as if they had on +winged sandals, like the herald of the Gods. I hear her singing +sometimes; and though she evidently is not trained, yet is there a wild +sweetness in her fitful and sometimes fantastic melodies,--such as can +come only from the inspiration of the moment,--strangely enough, +reminding me of those long passages I have heard from my little +neighbor's room, yet of different tone, and by no means to be mistaken +for those weird harmonies. + +I cannot pretend to deny that I am interested in the girl. Alone, +unprotected, as I have seen so many young girls left in boarding-houses, +the centre of all the men's eyes that surround the table, watched with +jealous sharpness by every woman, most of all by that poor relation of +our landlady, who belongs to the class of women that like to catch others +in mischief when they themselves are too mature for indiscretions, (as +one sees old rogues turn to thief-catchers,) one of Nature's gendarmerie, +clad in a complete suit of wrinkles, the cheapest coat-of-mail against +the shafts of the great little enemy,--so surrounded, Iris spans this +commonplace household-life of ours with her arch of beauty, as the +rainbow, whose name she borrows, looks down on a dreary pasture with its +feeding flocks and herds of indifferent animals. + +These young girls that live in boarding-houses can do pretty much as they +will. The female gendarmes are off guard occasionally. The sitting-room +has its solitary moments, when any two boarders who wish to meet may come +together accidentally, (accidentally, I said, Madam, and I had not the +slightest intention of Italicizing the word,) and discuss the social or +political questions of the day, or any other subject that may prove +interesting. Many charming conversations take place at the foot of the +stairs, or while one of the parties is holding the latch of a door,--in +the shadow of porticoes, and especially on those outside balconies which +some of our Southern neighbors call "stoops," the most charming places in +the world when the moon is just right and the roses and honeysuckles are +in full blow,--as we used to think in eighteen hundred and never mention +it. + +On such a balcony or "stoop," one evening, I walked with Iris. We were +on pretty good terms now, and I had coaxed her arm under mine,--my left +arm, of course. That leaves one's right arm free to defend the lovely +creature, if the rival--odious wretch! attempt, to ravish her from your +side. Likewise if one's heart should happen to beat a little, its mute +language will not be without its meaning, as you will perceive when the +arm you hold begins to tremble, a circumstance like to occur, if you +happen to be a good-looking young fellow, and you two have the "stoop" to +yourselves. + +We had it to ourselves that evening. The Koh-inoor, as we called him, +was in a corner with our landlady's daughter. The young fellow John was +smoking out in the yard. The gendarme was afraid of the evening air, and +kept inside, The young Marylander came to the door, looked out and saw us +walking together, gave his hat a pull over his forehead and stalked off. +I felt a slight spasm, as it were, in the arm I held, and saw the girl's +head turn over her shoulder for a second. What a kind creature this is! +She has no special interest in this youth, but she does not like to see a +young fellow going off because he feels as if he were not wanted. + +She had her locked drawing-book under her arm.--Let me take it,--I said. + +She gave it to me to carry. + +This is full of caricatures of all of us, I am sure,--said I. + +She laughed, and said,--No,--not all of you. + +I was there, of course? + +Why, no,--she had never taken so much pains with me. + +Then she would let me see the inside of it? + +She would think of it. + +Just as we parted, she took a little key from her pocket and handed it to +me. This unlocks my naughty book,--she said,--you shall see it. I am +not afraid of you. + +I don't know whether the last words exactly pleased me. At any rate, I +took the book and hurried with it to my room. I opened it, and saw, in a +few glances, that I held the heart of Iris in my hand. + +--I have no verses for you this month, except these few lines suggested +by the season. + + + MIDSUMMER. + + Here! sweep these foolish leaves away, + I will not crush my brains to-day! + Look! are the southern curtains drawn? + Fetch me a fan, and so begone! + + Not that,--the palm-tree's rustling leaf + Brought from a parching coral-reef! + Its breath is heated;--I would swing + The broad gray plumes,--the eagle's wing. + + I hate these roses' feverish blood! + Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, + A long-stemmed lily from the lake, + Cold as a coiling water-snake. + + Rain me sweet odors on the air, + And wheel me up my Indian chair, + And spread some book not overwise + Flat out before my sleepy eyes. + + --Who knows it not,--this dead recoil + Of weary fibres stretched with toil, + The pulse that flutters faint and low + When Summer's seething breezes blow? + + O Nature! bare thy loving breast + And give thy child one hour of rest, + One little hour to lie unseen + Beneath thy scarf of leafy green! + + So, curtained by a singing pine, + Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, + Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay + In sweeter music dies away. + + + +X + + IRIS, HER BOOK + + I pray thee by the soul of her that bore thee, + By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee, + Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee! + + For Iris had no mother to infold her, + Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder, + Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her. + + She had not learned the mystery of awaking + Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's aching, + Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were breaking. + + Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token! + Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken, + Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken? + + She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies, + Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances, + And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances. + + Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing, + Sometimes a flashing falcon in her daring, + Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing. + + Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her? + What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her? + Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor. + + And then all tears and anguish: Queen of Heaven, + Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven, + Save me! oh, save me! Shall I die forgiven? + + And then--Ah, God! But nay, it little matters + Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters, + The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters! + + If she had--Well! She longed, and knew not wherefore + Had the world nothing she might live to care for? + No second self to say her evening prayer for? + + She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming, + Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses streaming + Showed not unlovely to her simple seeming. + + Vain? Let it be so! Nature was her teacher. + What if a lonely and unsistered creature + Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature, + + Saying, unsaddened,--This shall soon be faded, + And double-hued the shining tresses braided, + And all the sunlight of the morning shaded? + + --This her poor book is full of saddest follies, + Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies, + With summer roses twined and wintry hollies. + + In the strange crossing of uncertain chances, + Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances + May fall her little book of dreams and fancies. + + Sweet sister! Iris, who shall never name thee, + Trembling for fear her open heart may shame thee, + Speaks from this vision-haunted page to claim thee. + + Spare her, I pray thee! If the maid is sleeping, + Peace with her! she has had her hour of weeping. + No more! She leaves her memory in thy keeping. + +These verses were written in the first leaves of the locked volume. As I +turned the pages, I hesitated for a moment. Is it quite fair to take +advantage of a generous, trusting impulse to read the unsunned depths of +a young girl's nature, which I can look through, as the balloon-voyagers +tell us they see from their hanging-baskets through the translucent +waters which the keenest eye of such as sail over them in ships might +strive to pierce in vain? Why has the child trusted me with such artless +confessions,--self-revelations, which might be whispered by trembling +lips, under the veil of twilight, in sacred confessionals, but which I +cannot look at in the light of day without a feeling of wronging a sacred +confidence? + +To all this the answer seemed plain enough after a little thought. She +did not know how fearfully she had disclosed herself; she was too +profoundly innocent. Her soul was no more ashamed than the fair shapes +that walked in Eden without a thought of over-liberal loveliness. Having +nobody to tell her story to,--having, as she said in her verses, no +musical instrument to laugh and cry with her,--nothing, in short, but the +language of pen and pencil,--all the veinings of her nature were +impressed on these pages as those of a fresh leaf are transferred to the +blank sheets which inclose it. It was the same thing which I remember +seeing beautifully shown in a child of some four or five years we had one +day at our boarding-house. The child was a deaf mute. But its soul had +the inner sense that answers to hearing, and the shaping capacity which +through natural organs realizes itself in words. Only it had to talk +with its face alone; and such speaking eyes, such rapid alternations of +feeling and shifting expressions of thought as flitted over its face, I +have never seen in any other human countenance. + +I wonder if something of spiritual transparency is not typified in the +golden-blonde organization. There are a great many little +creatures,--many small fishes, for instance,--which are literally +transparent, with the exception of some of the internal organs. The +heart can be seen beating as if in a case of clouded crystal. The +central nervous column with its sheath runs as a dark stripe through the +whole length of the diaphanous muscles of the body. Other little +creatures are so darkened with pigment that we can see only their +surface. Conspirators and poisoners are painted with black, beady-eyes +and swarthy hue; Judas, in Leonardo's picture, is the model of them all. + +However this may be, I should say there never had been a book like this +of Iris,--so full of the heart's silent language, so transparent that the +heart itself could be seen beating through it. I should say there never +could have been such a book, but for one recollection, which is not +peculiar to myself, but is shared by a certain number of my former +townsmen. If you think I over-color this matter of the young girl's +book, hear this, which there are others, as I just said, besides myself, +will tell you is strictly true. + + +THE BOOK OF THE THREE MAIDEN SISTERS. + +In the town called Cantabridge, now a city, water-veined and gas +windpiped, in the street running down to the Bridge, beyond which dwelt +Sally, told of in a book of a friend of mine, was of old a house +inhabited by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I believe; +whether they did or not, I have no ill to speak of them; for they lived +and died in all good report and maidenly credit. The house they lived in +was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of +Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen. +The lower story was fitted up as a shop. Specially was it provided with +one of those half-doors now so rarely met with, which are to whole doors +as spencers worn by old folk are to coats. They speak of limited +commerce united with a social or observing disposition--on the part of +the shopkeeper,--allowing, as they do, talk with passers-by, yet keeping +off such as have not the excuse of business to cross the threshold. On +the door-posts, at either side, above the half-door, hung certain +perennial articles of merchandise, of which my memory still has hanging +among its faded photographs a kind of netted scarf and some pairs of +thick woollen stockings. More articles, but not very many, were stored +inside; and there was one drawer, containing children's books, out of +which I once was treated to a minute quarto ornamented with handsome +cuts. This was the only purchase I ever knew to be made at the shop kept +by the three maiden ladies, though it is probable there were others. So +long as I remember the shop, the same scarf and, I should say, the same +stockings hung on the door-posts.--You think I am exaggerating again, and +that shopkeepers would not keep the same article exposed for years. Come +to me, the Professor, and I will take you in five minutes to a shop in +this city where I will show you an article hanging now in the very place +where more than thirty years ago I myself inquired the price of it of the +present head of the establishment. [ This was a glass alembic, which hung +up in Daniel Henchman's apothecary shop, corner of Cambridge and Chambers +streets.] + +The three maidens were of comely presence, and one of them had had claims +to be considered a Beauty. When I saw them in the old meeting-house on +Sundays, as they rustled in through the aisles in silks and satins, not +gay, but more than decent, as I remember them, I thought of My Lady +Bountiful in the history of "Little King Pippin," and of the Madam Blaize +of Goldsmith (who, by the way, must have taken the hint of it from a +pleasant poem, "Monsieur de la Palisse," attributed to De la Monnoye, in +the collection of French songs before me). There was some story of an +old romance in which the Beauty had played her part. Perhaps they all +had had lovers; for, as I said, they were shapely and seemly personages, +as I remember them; but their lives were out of the flower and in the +berry at the time of my first recollections. + +One after another they all three dropped away, objects of kindly +attention to the good people round, leaving little or almost nothing, and +nobody to inherit it. Not absolutely nothing, of course. There must +have been a few old dresses--perhaps some bits of furniture, a Bible, and +the spectacles the good old souls read it through, and little keepsakes, +such as make us cry to look at, when we find them in old drawers;--such +relics there must have been. But there was more. There was a manuscript +of some hundred pages, closely written, in which the poor things had +chronicled for many years the incidents of their daily life. After their +death it was passed round somewhat freely, and fell into my hands. How I +have cried and laughed and colored over it! There was nothing in it to +be ashamed of, perhaps there was nothing in it to laugh at, but such a +picture of the mode of being of poor simple good old women I do believe +was never drawn before. And there were all the smallest incidents +recorded, such as do really make up humble life, but which die out of all +mere literary memoirs, as the houses where the Egyptians or the Athenians +lived crumble and leave only their temples standing. I know, for +instance, that on a given day of a certain year, a kindly woman, herself +a poor widow, now, I trust, not without special mercies in heaven for her +good deeds,--for I read her name on a proper tablet in the churchyard a +week ago,--sent a fractional pudding from her own table to the Maiden +Sisters, who, I fear, from the warmth and detail of their description, +were fasting, or at least on short allowance, about that time. I know +who sent them the segment of melon, which in her riotous fancy one of +them compared to those huge barges to which we give the ungracious name +of mudscows. But why should I illustrate further what it seems almost a +breach of confidence to speak of? Some kind friend, who could challenge +a nearer interest than the curious strangers into whose hands the book +might fall, at last claimed it, and I was glad that it should be +henceforth sealed to common eyes. I learned from it that every good and, +alas! every evil act we do may slumber unforgotten even in some earthly +record. I got a new lesson in that humanity which our sharp race finds +it so hard to learn. The poor widow, fighting hard to feed and clothe +and educate her children, had not forgotten the poorer ancient maidens. I +remembered it the other day, as I stood by her place of rest, and I felt +sure that it was remembered elsewhere. I know there are prettier words +than pudding, but I can't help it,--the pudding went upon the record, I +feel sure, with the mite which was cast into the treasury by that other +poor widow whose deed the world shall remember forever, and with the +coats and garments which the good women cried over, when Tabitha, called +by interpretation Dorcas, lay dead in the upper chamber, with her +charitable needlework strewed around her. + +--Such was the Book of the Maiden Sisters. You will believe me more +readily now when I tell you that I found the soul of Iris in the one that +lay open before me. Sometimes it was a poem that held it, sometimes a +drawing, angel, arabesque, caricature, or a mere hieroglyphic symbol of +which I could make nothing. A rag of cloud on one page, as I remember, +with a streak of red zigzagging out of it across the paper as naturally +as a crack runs through a China bowl. On the next page a dead +bird,--some little favorite, I suppose; for it was worked out with a +special love, and I saw on the leaf that sign with which once or twice in +my life I have had a letter sealed,--a round spot where the paper is +slightly corrugated, and, if there is writing there, the letters are +somewhat faint and blurred. Most of the pages were surrounded with +emblematic traceries. It was strange to me at first to see how often she +introduced those homelier wild-flowers which we call weeds,--for it +seemed there was none of them too humble for her to love, and none too +little cared for by Nature to be without its beauty for her artist eye +and pencil. By the side of the garden-flowers,--of Spring's curled +darlings, the hyacinths, of rosebuds, dear to sketching maidens, of +flower-de-luces and morning-glories, nay, oftener than these, and more +tenderly caressed by the colored brush that rendered them,--were those +common growths which fling themselves to be crushed under our feet and +our wheels, making themselves so cheap in this perpetual martyrdom that +we forget each of them is a ray of the Divine beauty. + +Yellow japanned buttercups and star-disked dandelions,--just as we see +them lying in the grass, like sparks that have leaped from the kindling +sun of summer; the profuse daisy-like flower which whitens the fields, to +the great disgust of liberal shepherds, yet seems fair to loving eyes, +with its button-like mound of gold set round with milk-white rays; the +tall-stemmed succory, setting its pale blue flowers aflame, one after +another, sparingly, as the lights are kindled in the candelabra of +decaying palaces where the heirs of dethroned monarchs are dying out; the +red and white clovers, the broad, flat leaves of the plantain,--"the +white man's foot," as the Indians called it,--the wiry, jointed stems of +that iron creeping plant which we call "knot-grass," and which loves its +life so dearly that it is next to impossible to murder it with a hoe, as +it clings to the cracks of the pavement;--all these plants, and many +more, she wove into her fanciful garlands and borders.--On one of the +pages were some musical notes. I touched them from curiosity on a piano +belonging to one of our boarders. Strange! There are passages that I +have heard before, plaintive, full of some hidden meaning, as if they +were gasping for words to interpret them. She must have heard the +strains that have so excited my curiosity, coming from my neighbor's +chamber. The illuminated border she had traced round the page that held +these notes took the place of the words they seemed to be aching for. +Above, a long monotonous sweep of waves, leaden-hued, anxious and jaded +and sullen, if you can imagine such an expression in water. On one side +an Alpine needle, as it were, of black basalt, girdled with snow. On the +other a threaded waterfall. The red morning-tint that shone in the drops +had a strange look,--one would say the cliff was bleeding;--perhaps she +did not mean it. Below, a stretch of sand, and a solitary bird of prey, +with his wings spread over some unseen object.--And on the very next page +a procession wound along, after the fashion of that on the title-page of +Fuller's "Holy War," in which I recognized without difficulty every +boarder at our table in all the glory of the most resplendent +caricature--three only excepted,--the Little Gentleman, myself, and one +other. + +I confess I did expect to see something that would remind me of the +girl's little deformed neighbor, if not portraits of him.--There is a +left arm again, though;--no,--that is from the "Fighting Gladiator," the +"Jeune Heros combattant" of the Louvre;--there is the broad ring of the +shield. From a cast, doubtless. [The separate casts of the +"Gladiator's" arm look immense; but in its place the limb looks light, +almost slender,--such is the perfection of that miraculous marble. I +never felt as if I touched the life of the old Greeks until I looked on +that statue.]--Here is something very odd, to be sure. An Eden of all +the humped and crooked creatures! What could have been in her head when +she worked out such a fantasy? She has contrived to give them all beauty +or dignity or melancholy grace. A Bactrian camel lying under a palm. A +dromedary flashing up the sands,--spray of the dry ocean sailed by the +"ship of the desert." A herd of buffaloes, uncouth, shaggy-maned, heavy +in the forehand, light in the hind-quarter. [The buffalo is the lion of +the ruminants.] And there is a Norman horse, with his huge, rough collar, +echoing, as it were, the natural form of the other beast. And here are +twisted serpents; and stately swans, with answering curves in their bowed +necks, as if they had snake's blood under their white feathers; and +grave, high-shouldered herons standing on one foot like cripples, and +looking at life round them with the cold stare of monumental effigies.--A +very odd page indeed! Not a creature in it without a curve or a twist, +and not one of them a mean figure to look at. You can make your own +comment; I am fanciful, you know. I believe she is trying to idealize +what we vulgarly call deformity, which she strives to look at in the +light of one of Nature's eccentric curves, belonging to her system of +beauty, as the hyperbola, and parabola belong to the conic sections, +though we cannot see them as symmetrical and entire figures, like the +circle and ellipse. At any rate, I cannot help referring this paradise +of twisted spines to some idea floating in her head connected with her +friend whom Nature has warped in the moulding.--That is nothing to +another transcendental fancy of mine. I believe her soul thinks itself +in his little crooked body at times,--if it does not really get freed or +half freed from her own. Did you ever see a case of catalepsy? You know +what I mean,--transient loss of sense, will, and motion; body and limbs +taking any position in which they are put, as if they belonged to a +lay-figure. She had been talking with him and listening to him one day +when the boarders moved from the table nearly all at once. But she sat +as before, her cheek resting on her hand, her amber eyes wide open and +still. I went to her, she was breathing as usual, and her heart was +beating naturally enough,--but she did not answer. I bent her arm; it +was as plastic as softened wax, and kept the place I gave it.--This will +never do, though, and I sprinkled a few drops of water on her forehead. +She started and looked round.--I have been in a dream,--she said;--I +feel as if all my strength were in this arm;--give me your hand!--She +took my right hand in her left, which looked soft and white enough, +but--Good Heaven! I believe she will crack my bones! All the nervous +power in her body must have flashed through those muscles; as when a +crazy lady snaps her iron window-bars,--she who could hardly glove +herself when in her common health. Iris turned pale, and the tears came +to her eyes;--she saw she had given pain. Then she trembled, and might +have fallen but for me;--the poor little soul had been in one of those +trances that belong to the spiritual pathology of higher natures, mostly +those of women. + +To come back to this wondrous book of Iris. Two pages faced each other +which I took for symbolical expressions of two states of mind. On the +left hand, a bright blue sky washed over the page, specked with a single +bird. No trace of earth, but still the winged creature seemed to be +soaring upward and upward. Facing it, one of those black dungeons such +as Piranesi alone of all men has pictured. I am sure she must have seen +those awful prisons of his, out of which the Opium-Eater got his +nightmare vision, described by another as "cemeteries of departed +greatness, where monstrous and forbidden things are crawling and twining +their slimy convolutions among mouldering bones, broken sculpture, and +mutilated inscriptions." Such a black dungeon faced the page that held +the blue sky and the single bird; at the bottom of it something was +coiled,--what, and whether meant for dead or alive, my eyes could not +make out. + +I told you the young girl's soul was in this book. As I turned over the +last leaves I could not help starting. There were all sorts of faces +among the arabesques which laughed and scowled in the borders that ran +round the pages. They had mostly the outline of childish or womanly or +manly beauty, without very distinct individuality. But at last it seemed +to me that some of them were taking on a look not wholly unfamiliar to +me; there were features that did not seem new.--Can it be so? Was there +ever such innocence in a creature so full of life? She tells her heart's +secrets as a three-years-old child betrays itself without need of being +questioned! This was no common miss, such as are turned out in scores +from the young-lady-factories, with parchments warranting them +accomplished and virtuous,--in case anybody should question the fact. I +began to understand her;--and what is so charming as to read the secret +of a real femme incomprise?--for such there are, though they are not the +ones who think themselves uncomprehended women. + +Poets are never young, in one sense. Their delicate ear hears the +far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards for +scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. A moment's +insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. I have frequently seen +children, long exercised by pain and exhaustion, whose features had a +strange look of advanced age. Too often one meets such in our charitable +institutions. Their faces are saddened and wrinkled, as if their few +summers were threescore years and ten. + +And so, many youthful poets have written as if their hearts were old +before their time; their pensive morning twilight has been as cool and +saddening as that of evening in more common lives. The profound +melancholy of those lines of Shelley, + + "I could lie down like a tired child + And weep away the life of care + Which I have borne and yet must bear." + +came from a heart, as he says, "too soon grown old,"--at twenty-six +years, as dull people count time, even when they talk of poets. + +I know enough to be prepared for an exceptional nature,--only this gift +of the hand in rendering every thought in form and color, as well as in +words, gives a richness to this young girl's alphabet of feeling and +imagery that takes me by surprise. And then besides, and most of all, I +am puzzled at her sudden and seemingly easy confidence in me. Perhaps I +owe it to my--Well, no matter! How one must love the editor who first +calls him the venerable So-and-So! + +--I locked the book and sighed as I laid it down. The world is always +ready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know what +to do with genius. Talent is a docile creature. It bows its head meekly +while the world slips the collar over it. It backs into the shafts like +a lamb. It draws its load cheerfully, and is patient of the bit and of +the whip. But genius is always impatient of its harness; its wild blood +makes it hard to train. + +Talent seems, at first, in one sense, higher than genius,--namely, that +it is more uniformly and absolutely submitted to the will, and therefore +more distinctly human in its character. Genius, on the other hand, is +much more like those instincts which govern the admirable movements of +the lower creatures, and therefore seems to have something of the lower +or animal character. A goose flies by a chart which the Royal +Geographical Society could not mend. A poet, like the goose, sails +without visible landmarks to unexplored regions of truth, which +philosophy has yet to lay down on its atlas. The philosopher gets his +track by observation; the poet trusts to his inner sense, and makes the +straighter and swifter line. + +And yet, to look at it in another light, is not even the lowest instinct +more truly divine than any voluntary human act done by the suggestion of +reason? What is a bee's architecture but an unobstructed divine +thought?--what is a builder's approximative rule but an obstructed +thought of the Creator, a mutilated and imperfect copy of some absolute +rule Divine Wisdom has established, transmitted through a human soul as +an image through clouded glass? + +Talent is a very common family-trait; genius belongs rather to +individuals;--just as you find one giant or one dwarf in a family, but +rarely a whole brood of either. Talent is often to be envied, and genius +very commonly to be pitied. It stands twice the chance of the other of +dying in hospital, in jail, in debt, in bad repute. It is a perpetual +insult to mediocrity; its every word is a trespass against somebody's +vested ideas,--blasphemy against somebody's O'm, or intangible private +truth. + +--What is the use of my weighing out antitheses in this way, like a +rhetorical grocer?--You know twenty men of talent, who are making their +way in the world; you may, perhaps, know one man of genius, and very +likely do not want to know any more. For a divine instinct, such as +drives the goose southward and the poet heavenward, is a hard thing to +manage, and proves too strong for many whom it possesses. It must have +been a terrible thing to have a friend like Chatterton or Burns. And +here is a being who certainly has more than talent, at once poet and +artist in tendency, if not yet fairly developed,--a woman, too;--and +genius grafted on womanhood is like to overgrow it and break its stem, as +you may see a grafted fruit-tree spreading over the stock which cannot +keep pace with its evolution. + +I think now you know something of this young person. She wants nothing +but an atmosphere to expand in. Now and then one meets with a nature for +which our hard, practical New England life is obviously utterly +incompetent. It comes up, as a Southern seed, dropped by accident in one +of our gardens, finds itself trying to grow and blow into flower among +the homely roots and the hardy shrubs that surround it. There is no +question that certain persons who are born among us find themselves many +degrees too far north. Tropical by organization, they cannot fight for +life with our eastern and northwestern breezes without losing the color +and fragrance into which their lives would have blossomed in the latitude +of myrtles and oranges. Strange effects are produced by suffering any +living thing to be developed under conditions such as Nature had not +intended for it. A French physiologist confined some tadpoles under +water in the dark. Removed from the natural stimulus of light, they did +not develop legs and arms at the proper period of their growth, and so +become frogs; they swelled and spread into gigantic tadpoles. I have seen +a hundred colossal human tadpoles, overgrown Zarvce or embryos; nay, I am +afraid we Protestants should look on a considerable proportion of the +Holy Father's one hundred and thirty-nine millions as spiritual larvae, +sculling about in the dark by the aid of their caudal extremities, +instead of standing on their legs, and breathing by gills, instead of +taking the free air of heaven into the lungs made to receive it. Of +course we never try to keep young souls in the tadpole state, for fear +they should get a pair or two of legs by-and-by and jump out of the pool +where they have been bred and fed! Never! Never. Never? + +Now to go back to our plant. You may know, that, for the earlier stages +of development of almost any vegetable, you only want air, water, light, +and warmth. But by-and-by, if it is to have special complex principles +as a part of its organization, they must be supplied by the soil;--your +pears will crack, if the root of the tree gets no iron,--your +asparagus-bed wants salt as much as you do. Just at the period of +adolescence, the mind often suddenly begins to come into flower and to +set its fruit. Then it is that many young natures, having exhausted the +spiritual soil round them of all it contains of the elements they demand, +wither away, undeveloped and uncolored, unless they are transplanted. + +Pray for these dear young souls! This is the second natural birth;--for +I do not speak of those peculiar religious experiences which form the +point of transition in many lives between the consciousness of a general +relation to the Divine nature and a special personal relation. The +litany should count a prayer for them in the list of its supplications; +masses should be said for them as for souls in purgatory; all good +Christians should remember them as they remember those in peril through +travel or sickness or in warfare. + +I would transport this child to Rome at once, if I had my will. She +should ripen under an Italian sun. She should walk under the frescoed +vaults of palaces, until her colors deepened to those of Venetian +beauties, and her forms were perfected into rivalry with the Greek +marbles, and the east wind was out of her soil. Has she not exhausted +this lean soil of the elements her growing nature requires? + +I do not know. The magnolia grows and comes into full flower on Cape +Ann, many degrees out of its proper region. I was riding once along that +delicious road between the hills and the sea, when we passed a thicket +where there seemed to be a chance of finding it. In five minutes I had +fallen on the trees in full blossom, and filled my arms with the sweet, +resplendent flowers. I could not believe I was in our cold, northern +Essex, which, in the dreary season when I pass its slate-colored, +unpainted farm-houses, and huge, square, windy, 'squire-built "mansions," +looks as brown and unvegetating as an old rug with its patterns all +trodden out and the colored fringe worn from all its border. + +If the magnolia can bloom in northern New England, why should not a poet +or a painter come to his full growth here just as well? Yes, but if the +gorgeous tree-flower is rare, and only as if by a freak of Nature springs +up in a single spot among the beeches and alders, is there not as much +reason to think the perfumed flower of imaginative genius will find it +hard to be born and harder to spread its leaves in the clear, cold +atmosphere of our ultra-temperate zone of humanity? + +Take the poet. On the one hand, I believe that a person with the +poetical faculty finds material everywhere. The grandest objects of +sense and thought are common to all climates and civilizations. The sky, +the woods, the waters, the storms, life, death love, the hope and vision +of eternity,--these are images that write themselves in poetry in every +soul which has anything of the divine gift. + +On the other hand, there is such a thing as a lean, impoverished life, in +distinction from a rich and suggestive one. Which our common New England +life might be considered, I will not decide. But there are some things I +think the poet misses in our western Eden. I trust it is not unpatriotic +to mention them in this point of view as they come before us in so many +other aspects. + +There is no sufficient flavor of humanity in the soil out of which we +grow. At Cantabridge, near the sea, I have once or twice picked up an +Indian arrowhead in a fresh furrow. At Canoe Meadow, in the Berkshire +Mountains, I have found Indian arrowheads. So everywhere Indian +arrowheads. Whether a hundred or a thousand years old, who knows? who +cares? There is no history to the red race,--there is hardly an +individual in it;--a few instincts on legs and holding a tomahawk--there +is the Indian of all time. The story of one red ant is the story of all +red ants. So, the poet, in trying to wing his way back through the life +that has kindled, flitted, and faded along our watercourses and on our +southern hillsides for unknown generations, finds nothing to breathe or +fly in; he meets + + "A vast vacuity! all unawares, + Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops + Ten thousand fathom deep." + +But think of the Old World,--that part of it which is the seat of ancient +civilization! The stakes of the Britons' stockades are still standing in +the bed of the Thames. The ploughman turns up an old Saxon's bones, and +beneath them is a tessellated pavement of the time of the Caesars. In +Italy, the works of mediaeval Art seem to be of yesterday,--Rome, under +her kings, is but an intruding newcomer, as we contemplate her in the +shadow of the Cyclopean walls of Fiesole or Volterra. It makes a man +human to live on these old humanized soils. He cannot help marching in +step with his kind in the rear of such a procession. They say a dead +man's hand cures swellings, if laid on them. There is nothing like the +dead cold hand of the Past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us +into the solemn flow of the life of our race. Rousseau came out of one +of his sad self-torturing fits, as he cast his eye on the arches of the +old Roman aqueduct, the Pont du Gard. + +I am far from denying that there is an attraction in a thriving railroad +village. The new "depot," the smartly-painted pine houses, the spacious +brick hotel, the white meeting-house, and the row of youthful and leggy +trees before it, are exhilarating. They speak of progress, and the time +when there shall be a city, with a His Honor the Mayor, in the place of +their trim but transient architectural growths. Pardon me, if I prefer +the pyramids. They seem to me crystals formed from a stronger solution +of humanity than the steeple of the new meeting-house. I may be wrong, +but the Tiber has a voice for me, as it whispers to the piers of the Pons +Alius, even more full of meaning than my well-beloved Charles eddying +round the piles of West Boston Bridge. + +Then, again, we Yankees are a kind of gypsies,--a mechanical and +migratory race. A poet wants a home. He can dispense with an +apple-parer and a reaping-machine. I feel this more for others than for +myself, for the home of my birth and childhood has been as yet exempted +from the change which has invaded almost everything around it. + +--Pardon me a short digression. To what small things our memory and our +affections attach themselves! I remember, when I was a child, that one +of the girls planted some Star-of-Bethlehem bulbs in the southwest corner +of our front-yard. Well, I left the paternal roof and wandered in other +lands, and learned to think in the words of strange people. But after +many years, as I looked on the little front-yard again, it occurred to me +that there used to be some Star-of-Bethlehems in the southwest corner. +The grass was tall there, and the blade of the plant is very much like +grass, only thicker and glossier. Even as Tully parted the briers and +brambles when he hunted for the sphere-containing cylinder that marked +the grave of Archimedes, so did I comb the grass with my fingers for my +monumental memorial-flower. Nature had stored my keepsake tenderly in +her bosom; the glossy, faintly streaked blades were there; they are there +still, though they never flower, darkened as they are by the shade of the +elms and rooted in the matted turf. + +Our hearts are held down to our homes by innumerable fibres, trivial as +that I have just recalled; but Gulliver was fixed to the soil, you +remember, by pinning his head a hair at a time. Even a stone with a +whitish band crossing it, belonging to the pavement of the back-yard, +insisted on becoming one of the talismans of memory. This intussusception +of the ideas of inanimate objects, and their faithful storing away among +the sentiments, are curiously prefigured in the material structure of the +thinking centre itself. In the very core of the brain, in the part where +Des Cartes placed the soul, is a small mineral deposit, consisting, as I +have seen it in the microscope, of grape-like masses of crystalline +matter. + +But the plants that come up every year in the same place, like the +Star-of-Bethlehems, of all the lesser objects, give me the liveliest +home-feeling. Close to our ancient gambrel-roofed house is the dwelling +of pleasant old Neighbor Walrus. I remember the sweet honeysuckle that I +saw in flower against the wall of his house a few months ago, as long as +I remember the sky and stars. That clump of peonies, butting their +purple heads through the soil every spring in just the same circle, and +by-and-by unpacking their hard balls of buds in flowers big enough to +make a double handful of leaves, has come up in just that place, Neighbor +Walrus tells me, for more years than I have passed on this planet. It is +a rare privilege in our nomadic state to find the home of one's childhood +and its immediate neighborhood thus unchanged. Many born poets, I am +afraid, flower poorly in song, or not at all, because they have been too +often transplanted. + +Then a good many of our race are very hard and unimaginative;--their +voices have nothing caressing; their movements are as of machinery +without elasticity or oil. I wish it were fair to print a letter a young +girl, about the age of our Iris, wrote a short time since. "I am *** *** +***," she says, and tells her whole name outright. Ah!--said I, when I +read that first frank declaration,--you are one of the right sort!--She +was. A winged creature among close-clipped barn door fowl. How tired +the poor girl was of the dull life about her,--the old woman's "skeleton +hand" at the window opposite, drawing her curtains,--"Ma'am shooing away +the hens,"--the vacuous country eyes staring at her as only country eyes +can stare,--a routine of mechanical duties, and the soul's +half-articulated cry for sympathy, without an answer! Yes,--pray for +her, and for all such! Faith often cures their longings; but it is so +hard to give a soul to heaven that has not first been trained in the +fullest and sweetest human affections! Too often they fling their hearts +away on unworthy objects. Too often they pine in a secret discontent, +which spreads its leaden cloud over the morning of their youth. The +immeasurable distance between one of these delicate natures and the +average youths among whom is like to be her only choice makes one's heart +ache. How many women are born too finely organized in sense and soul for +the highway they must walk with feet unshod! Life is adjusted to the +wants of the stronger sex. There are plenty of torrents to be crossed in +its journey; but their stepping-stones are measured by the stride of man, +and not of woman. + +Women are more subject than men to atrophy of the heart. So says the +great medical authority, Laennec. Incurable cases of this kind used to +find their hospitals in convents. We have the disease in New +England,--but not the hospitals. I don't like to think of it. I will not +believe our young Iris is going to die out in this way. Providence will +find her some great happiness, or affliction, or duty,--and which would +be best for her, I cannot tell. One thing is sure: the interest she +takes in her little neighbor is getting to be more engrossing than ever. +Something is the matter with him, and she knows it, and I think worries +herself about it. + +I wonder sometimes how so fragile and distorted a frame has kept the +fiery spirit that inhabits it so long its tenant. He accounts for it in +his own way. + +The air of the Old World is good for nothing, he said, one day.--Used +up, Sir,--breathed over and over again. You must come to this side, Sir, +for an atmosphere fit to breathe nowadays. Did not worthy Mr. Higginson +say that a breath of New England's air is better than a sup of Old +England's ale? I ought to have died when I was a boy, Sir; but I could +n't die in this Boston air,--and I think I shall have to go to New York +one of these days, when it's time for me to drop this bundle,--or to New +Orleans, where they have the yellow fever,--or to Philadelphia, where +they have so many doctors. + +This was some time ago; but of late he has seemed, as I have before said, +to be ailing. An experienced eye, such as I think I may call mine, can +tell commonly whether a man is going to die, or not, long before he or +his friends are alarmed about him. I don't like it. + +Iris has told me that the Scottish gift of second-sight runs in her +family, and that she is afraid she has it. Those who are so endowed look +upon a well man and see a shroud wrapt about him. According to the +degree to which it covers him, his death will be near or more remote. It +is an awful faculty; but science gives one too much like it. Luckily for +our friends, most of us who have the scientific second-sight school +ourselves not to betray our knowledge by word or look. + +Day by day, as the Little Gentleman comes to the table, it seems to me +that the shadow of some approaching change falls darker and darker over +his countenance. Nature is struggling with something, and I am afraid +she is under in the wrestling-match. You do not care much, perhaps, for +my particular conjectures as to the nature of his difficulty. I should +say, however, from the sudden flushes to which he is subject, and certain +other marks which, as an expert, I know how to interpret, that his heart +was in trouble; but then he presses his hand to the right side, as if +there were the centre of his uneasiness. + +When I say difficulty about the heart, I do not mean any of those +sentimental maladies of that organ which figure more largely in romances +than on the returns which furnish our Bills of Mortality. I mean some +actual change in the organ itself, which may carry him off by slow and +painful degrees, or strike him down with one huge pang and only time for +a single shriek,--as when the shot broke through the brave Captain +Nolan's breast, at the head of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, and with a +loud cry he dropped dead from his saddle. + +I thought it only fair to say something of what I apprehended to some who +were entitled to be warned. The landlady's face fell when I mentioned my +fears. + +Poor man!--she said.--And will leave the best room empty! Has n't he got +any sisters or nieces or anybody to see to his things, if he should be +took away? Such a sight of cases, full of everything! Never thought of +his failin' so suddin. A complication of diseases, she expected. +Liver-complaint one of 'em? + +After this first involuntary expression of the too natural selfish +feelings, (which we must not judge very harshly, unless we happen to be +poor widows ourselves, with children to keep filled, covered, and +taught,--rents high,--beef eighteen to twenty cents per pound,)--after +this first squeak of selfishness, followed by a brief movement of +curiosity, so invariable in mature females, as to the nature of the +complaint which threatens the life of a friend or any person who may +happen to be mentioned as ill,--the worthy soul's better feelings +struggled up to the surface, and she grieved for the doomed invalid, +until a tear or two came forth and found their way down a channel worn +for them since the early days of her widowhood. + +Oh, this dreadful, dreadful business of being the prophet of evil! Of all +the trials which those who take charge of others' health and lives have +to undergo, this is the most painful. It is all so plain to the +practised eye!--and there is the poor wife, the doting mother, who has +never suspected anything, or at least has clung always to the hope which +you are just going to wrench away from her!--I must tell Iris that I +think her poor friend is in a precarious state. She seems nearer to him +than anybody. + +I did tell her. Whatever emotion it produced, she kept a still face, +except, perhaps, a little trembling of the lip.--Could I be certain that +there was any mortal complaint?--Why, no, I could not be certain; but it +looked alarming to me.--He shall have some of my life,--she said. + +I suppose this to have been a fancy of hers, or a kind of magnetic power +she could give out;--at any rate, I cannot help thinking she wills her +strength away from herself, for she has lost vigor and color from that +day. I have sometimes thought he gained the force she lost; but this may +have been a whim, very probably. + +One day she came suddenly to me, looking deadly pale. Her lips moved, as +if she were speaking; but I could not at first hear a word. Her hair +looked strangely, as if lifting itself, and her eyes were full of wild +light. She sunk upon a chair, and I thought was falling into one of her +trances. Something had frozen her blood with fear; I thought, from what +she said, half audibly, that she believed she had seen a shrouded figure. + +That night, at about eleven o'clock, I was sent for to see the Little +Gentleman, who was taken suddenly ill. Bridget, the servant, went before +me with a light. The doors were both unfastened, and I found myself +ushered, without hindrance, into the dim light of the mysterious +apartment I had so longed to enter. + +I found these stanzas in the young girl's book among many others. I give +them as characterizing the tone of her sadder moments. + + + UNDER THE VIOLETS. + + Her hands are cold; her face is white; + No more her pulses come and go; + Her eyes are shut to life and light; + Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, + And lay her where the violets blow. + + But not beneath a graven stone, + To plead for tears with alien eyes; + A slender cross of wood alone + Shall say, that here a maiden lies + In peace beneath the peaceful skies. + + And gray old trees of hugest limb + Shall wheel their circling shadows round + To make the scorching sunlight dim + That drinks the greenness from the ground, + And drop their dead leaves on her mound. + + When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, + And through their leaves the robins call, + And, ripening in the autumn sun, + The acorns and the chestnuts fall, + Doubt not that she will heed them all. + + For her the morning choir shall sing + Its matins from the branches high, + And every minstrel voice of spring, + That trills beneath the April sky, + Shall greet her with its earliest cry. + + When, turning round their dial-track, + Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, + Her little mourners, clad in black, + The crickets, sliding through the grass, + Shall pipe for her an evening mass. + + At last the rootlets of the trees + Shall find the prison where she lies, + And bear the buried dust they seize + In leaves and blossoms to the skies. + So may the soul that warmed it rise! + + If any, born of kindlier blood, + Should ask, What maiden lies below? + Say only this: A tender bud, + That tried to blossom in the snow, + Lies withered where the violets blow. + + + + +XI + +You will know, perhaps, in the course of half an hour's reading, what has +been haunting my hours of sleep and waking for months. I cannot tell, of +course, whether you are a nervous person or not. If, however, you are +such a person,--if it is late at night,--if all the rest of the household +have gone off to bed,--if the wind is shaking your windows as if a human +hand were rattling the sashes,--if your candle or lamp is low and will +soon burn out,--let me advise you to take up some good quiet sleepy +volume, or attack the "Critical Notices" of the last Quarterly and leave +this to be read by daylight, with cheerful voices round, and people near +by who would hear you, if you slid from your chair and came down in a +lump on the floor. + +I do not say that your heart will beat as mine did, I am willing to +confess, when I entered the dim chamber. Did I not tell you that I was +sensitive and imaginative, and that I had lain awake with thinking what +were the strange movements and sounds which I heard late at night in my +little neighbor's apartment? It had come to that pass that I was truly +unable to separate what I had really heard from what I had dreamed in +those nightmares to which I have been subject, as before mentioned. So, +when I walked into the room, and Bridget, turning back, closed the door +and left me alone with its tenant, I do believe you could have grated a +nutmeg on my skin, such a "goose-flesh" shiver ran over it. It was not +fear, but what I call nervousness,--unreasoning, but irresistible; as +when, for instance, one looking at the sun going down says, "I will count +fifty before it disappears"; and as he goes on and it becomes doubtful +whether he will reach the number, he gets strangely flurried, and his +imagination pictures life and death and heaven and hell as the issues +depending on the completion or non-completion of the fifty he is +counting. Extreme curiosity will excite some people as much as fear, or +what resembles fear, acts on some other less impressible natures. + +I may find myself in the midst of strange facts in this little conjurer's +room. Or, again, there may be nothing in this poor invalid's chamber but +some old furniture, such as they say came over in the Mayflower. All +this is just what I mean to, find out while I am looking at the Little +Gentleman, who has suddenly become my patient. The simplest things turn +out to be unfathomable mysteries; the most mysterious appearances prove +to be the most commonplace objects in disguise. + +I wonder whether the boys who live in Roxbury and Dorchester are ever +moved to tears or filled with silent awe as they look upon the rocks and +fragments of "puddingstone" abounding in those localities. I have my +suspicions that those boys "heave a stone" or "fire a brickbat," composed +of the conglomerate just mentioned, without any more tearful or +philosophical contemplations than boys of less favored regions expend on +the same performance. Yet a lump of puddingstone is a thing to look at, +to think about, to study over, to dream upon, to go crazy with, to beat +one's brains out against. Look at that pebble in it. From what cliff was +it broken? On what beach rolled by the waves of what ocean? How and +when imbedded in soft ooze, which itself became stone, and by-and-by was +lifted into bald summits and steep cliffs, such as you may see on +Meetinghouse-Hill any day--yes, and mark the scratches on their faces +left when the boulder-carrying glaciers planed the surface of the +continent with such rough tools that the storms have not worn the marks +out of it with all the polishing of ever so many thousand years? + +Or as you pass a roadside ditch or pool in springtime, take from it any +bit of stick or straw which has lain undisturbed for a time. Some little +worm-shaped masses of clear jelly containing specks are fastened to the +stick: eggs of a small snail-like shell-fish. One of these specks +magnified proves to be a crystalline sphere with an opaque mass in its +centre. And while you are looking, the opaque mass begins to stir, and +by-and-by slowly to turn upon its axis like a forming planet,--life +beginning in the microcosm, as in the great worlds of the firmament, with +the revolution that turns the surface in ceaseless round to the source of +life and light. + +A pebble and the spawn of a mollusk! Before you have solved their +mysteries, this earth where you first saw them may be a vitrified slag, +or a vapor diffused through the planetary spaces. Mysteries are common +enough, at any rate, whatever the boys in Roxbury and Dorchester think of +"brickbats" and the spawn of creatures that live in roadside puddles. + +But then a great many seeming mysteries are relatively perfectly plain, +when we can get at them so as to turn them over. How many ghosts that +"thick men's blood with cold" prove to be shirts hung out to dry! How +many mermaids have been made out of seals! How many times have +horse-mackerels been taken for the sea-serpent! + +--Let me take the whole matter coolly, while I see what is the matter +with the patient. That is what I say to myself, as I draw a chair to the +bedside. The bed is an old-fashioned, dark mahogany four-poster. It was +never that which made the noise of something moving. It is too heavy to +be pushed about the room.--The Little Gentleman was sitting, bolstered up +by pillows, with his hands clasped and their united palms resting on the +back of the head, one of the three or four positions specially affected +by persons whose breathing is difficult from disease of the heart or +other causes. + +Sit down, Sir,--he said,--sit down! I have come to the hill Difficulty, +Sir, and am fighting my way up.--His speech was laborious and +interrupted. + +Don't talk,--I said,--except to answer my questions.--And I proceeded to +"prospect" for the marks of some local mischief, which you know is at the +bottom of all these attacks, though we do not always find it. I suppose +I go to work pretty much like other professional folks of my temperament. +Thus: + +Wrist, if you please.--I was on his right side, but he presented his left +wrist, crossing it over the other.--I begin to count, holding watch in +left hand. One, two, three, four,--What a handsome hand! wonder if that +splendid stone is a carbuncle.--One, two, three, four, five, six, +seven,--Can't see much, it is so dark, except one white object.--One, +two, three, four,--Hang it! eighty or ninety in the minute, I +guess.--Tongue, if you please.--Tongue is put out. Forget to look at it, +or, rather, to take any particular notice of it;--but what is that white +object, with the long arm stretching up as if pointing to the sky, just +as Vesalius and Spigelius and those old fellows used to put their +skeletons? I don't think anything of such objects, you know; but what +should he have it in his chamber for? As I had found his pulse irregular +and intermittent, I took out a stethoscope, which is a pocket-spyglass +for looking into people's chests with your ears, and laid it over the +place where the heart beats. I missed the usual beat of the organ.--How +is this?--I said,--where is your heart gone to?--He took the stethoscope +and shifted it across to the right side; there was a displacement of the +organ.--I am ill-packed,--he said;--there was no room for my heart in its +place as it is with other men.--God help him! + +It is hard to draw the line between scientific curiosity and the desire +for the patient's sake to learn all the details of his condition. I must +look at this patient's chest, and thump it and listen to it. For this is +a case of ectopia cordis, my boy,--displacement of the heart; and it is +n't every day you get a chance to overhaul such an interesting +malformation. And so I managed to do my duty and satisfy my curiosity at +the same time. The torso was slight and deformed; the right arm +attenuated,--the left full, round, and of perfect symmetry. It had run +away with the life of the other limbs,--a common trick enough of +Nature's, as I told you before. If you see a man with legs withered from +childhood, keep out of the way of his arms, if you have a quarrel with +him. He has the strength of four limbs in two; and if he strikes you, it +is an arm-blow plus a kick administered from the shoulder instead of the +haunch, where it should have started from. + +Still examining him as a patient, I kept my eyes about me to search all +parts of the chamber and went on with the double process, as +before.--Heart hits as hard as a fist,--bellows-sound over mitral valves +(professional terms you need not attend to).--What the deuse is that long +case for? Got his witch grandmother mummied in it? And three big +mahogany presses,--hey?--A diabolical suspicion came over me which I had +had once before,--that he might be one of our modern alchemists,--you +understand, make gold, you know, or what looks like it, sometimes with +the head of a king or queen or of Liberty to embellish one side of the +piece.--Don't I remember hearing him shut a door and lock it once? What +do you think was kept under that lock? Let's have another look at his +hand, to see if there are any calluses. + +One can tell a man's business, if it is a handicraft, very often by just +taking a look at his open hand. Ah! Four calluses at the end of the +fingers of the right hand. None on those of the left. Ah, ha! What do +those mean? + +All this seems longer in the telling, of course, than it was in fact. +While I was making these observations of the objects around me, I was +also forming my opinion as to the kind of case with which I had to deal. + +There are three wicks, you know, to the lamp of a man's life: brain, +blood, and breath. Press the brain a little, its light goes out, +followed by both the others. Stop the heart a minute and out go all +three of the wicks. Choke the air out of the lungs, and presently the +fluid ceases to supply the other centres of flame, and all is soon +stagnation, cold, and darkness. The "tripod of life" a French +physiologist called these three organs. It is all clear enough which leg +of the tripod is going to break down here. I could tell you exactly what +the difficulty is;--which would be as intelligible and amusing as a +watchmaker's description of a diseased timekeeper to a ploughman. It is +enough to say, that I found just what I expected to, and that I think +this attack is only the prelude of more serious consequences,--which +expression means you very well know what. + +And now the secrets of this life hanging on a thread must surely come +out. If I have made a mystery where there was none, my suspicions will +be shamed, as they have often been before. If there is anything strange, +my visits will clear it up. + +I sat an hour or two by the side of the Little Gentleman's bed, after +giving him some henbane to quiet his brain, and some foxglove, which an +imaginative French professor has called the "Opium of the Heart." Under +their influence he gradually fell into an uneasy, half-waking slumber, +the body fighting hard for every breath, and the mind wandering off in +strange fancies and old recollections, which escaped from his lips in +broken sentences. + +--The last of 'em,--he said,--the last of 'em all,--thank God! And the +grave he lies in will look just as well as if he had been straight. Dig +it deep, old Martin, dig it deep,--and let it be as long as other folks' +graves. And mind you get the sods flat, old man,--flat as ever a +straight-backed young fellow was laid under. And then, with a good tall +slab at the head, and a foot-stone six foot away from it, it'll look just +as if there was a man underneath. + +A man! Who said he was a man? No more men of that pattern to bear his +name!--Used to be a good-looking set enough.--Where 's all the manhood +and womanhood gone to since his great-grandfather was the strongest man +that sailed out of the town of Boston, and poor Leah there the handsomest +woman in Essex, if she was a witch? + +--Give me some light,--he said,--more light. I want to see the picture. + +He had started either from a dream or a wandering reverie. I was not +unwilling to have more light in the apartment, and presently had lighted +an astral lamp that stood on a table.--He pointed to a portrait hanging +against the wall.--Look at her,--he said,--look at her! Wasn't that a +pretty neck to slip a hangman's noose over? + +The portrait was of a young woman, something more than twenty years old, +perhaps. There were few pictures of any merit painted in New England +before the time of Smibert, and I am at a loss to know what artist could +have taken this half-length, which was evidently from life. It was +somewhat stiff and flat, but the grace of the figure and the sweetness of +the expression reminded me of the angels of the early Florentine +painters. She must have been of some consideration, for she was dressed +in paduasoy and lace with hanging sleeves, and the old carved frame +showed how the picture had been prized by its former owners. A proud eye +she had, with all her sweetness.--I think it was that which hanged her, +as his strong arm hanged Minister George Burroughs;--but it may have been +a little mole on one cheek, which the artist had just hinted as a beauty +rather than a deformity. You know, I suppose, that nursling imps addict +themselves, after the fashion of young opossums, to these little +excrescences. "Witch-marks" were good evidence that a young woman was +one of the Devil's wet-nurses;--I should like to have seen you make fun +of them in those days!--Then she had a brooch in her bodice, that might +have been taken for some devilish amulet or other; and she wore a ring +upon one of her fingers, with a red stone in it, that flamed as if the +painter had dipped his pencil in fire;--who knows but that it was given +her by a midnight suitor fresh from that fierce element, and licensed for +a season to leave his couch of flame to tempt the unsanctified hearts of +earthly maidens and brand their cheeks with the print of his scorching +kisses? + +She and I,--he said, as he looked steadfastly at the canvas,--she and I +are the last of 'em.--She will stay, and I shall go. They never painted +me,--except when the boys used to make pictures of me with chalk on the +board-fences. They said the doctors would want my skeleton when I was +dead.--You are my friend, if you are a doctor,--a'n't you? + +I just gave him my hand. I had not the heart to speak. + +I want to lie still,--he said,--after I am put to bed upon the hill +yonder. Can't you have a great stone laid over me, as they did over the +first settlers in the old burying-ground at Dorchester, so as to keep the +wolves from digging them up? I never slept easy over the sod;--I should +like to lie quiet under it. And besides,--he said, in a kind of scared +whisper,--I don't want to have my bones stared at, as my body has been. +I don't doubt I was a remarkable case; but, for God's sake, oh, for God's +sake, don't let 'em make a show of the cage I have been shut up in and +looked through the bars of for so many years. + +I have heard it said that the art of healing makes men hard-hearted and +indifferent to human suffering. I am willing to own that there is often +a professional hardness in surgeons, just as there is in +theologians,--only much less in degree than in these last. It does not +commonly improve the sympathies of a man to be in the habit of thrusting +knives into his fellow-creatures and burning them with red-hot irons, any +more than it improves them to hold the blinding-white cantery of Gehenna +by its cool handle and score and crisp young souls with it until they are +scorched into the belief of--Transubstantiation or the Immaculate +Conception. And, to say the plain truth, I think there are a good many +coarse people in both callings. A delicate nature will not commonly +choose a pursuit which implies the habitual infliction of suffering, so +readily as some gentler office. Yet, while I am writing this paragraph, +there passes by my window, on his daily errand of duty, not seeing me, +though I catch a glimpse of his manly features through the oval glass of +his chaise, as he drives by, a surgeon of skill and standing, so +friendly, so modest, so tenderhearted in all his ways, that, if he had +not approved himself at once adroit and firm, one would have said he was +of too kindly a mould to be the minister of pain, even if he were saving +pain. + +You may be sure that some men, even among those who have chosen the task +of pruning their fellow-creatures, grow more and more thoughtful and +truly compassionate in the midst of their cruel experience. They become +less nervous, but more sympathetic. They have a truer sensibility for +others' pain, the more they study pain and disease in the light of +science. I have said this without claiming any special growth in +humanity for myself, though I do hope I grow tenderer in my feelings as I +grow older. At any rate, this was not a time in which professional +habits could keep down certain instincts of older date than these. + +This poor little man's appeal to my humanity against the supposed +rapacity of Science, which he feared would have her "specimen," if his +ghost should walk restlessly a thousand years, waiting for his bones to +be laid in the dust, touched my heart. But I felt bound to speak +cheerily. + +--We won't die yet awhile, if we can help it,--I said,--and I trust we +can help it. But don't be afraid; if I live longest, I will see that +your resting place is kept sacred till the dandelions and buttercups blow +over you. + +He seemed to have got his wits together by this time, and to have a vague +consciousness that he might have been saying more than he meant for +anybody's ears.--I have been talking a little wild, Sir, eh? he +said.--There is a great buzzing in my head with those drops of yours, and +I doubt if my tongue has not been a little looser than I would have it, +Sir. But I don't much want to live, Sir; that's the truth of the matter, +and it does rather please me to think that fifty years from now nobody +will know that the place where I lie does n't hold as stout and straight +a man as the best of 'em that stretch out as if they were proud of the +room they take. You may get me well, if you can, Sir, if you think it +worth while to try; but I tell you there has been no time for this many a +year when the smell of fresh earth was not sweeter to me than all the +flowers that grow out of it. There's no anodyne like your good clean +gravel, Sir. But if you can keep me about awhile, and it amuses you to +try, you may show your skill upon me, if you like. There is a pleasure +or two that I love the daylight for, and I think the night is not far +off, at best.--I believe I shall sleep now; you may leave me, and come, +if you like, in the morning. + +Before I passed out, I took one more glance round the apartment. The +beautiful face of the portrait looked at me, as portraits often do, with +a frightful kind of intelligence in its eyes. The drapery fluttered on +the still outstretched arm of the tall object near the window;--a crack +of this was open, no doubt, and some breath of wind stirred the hanging +folds. In my excited state, I seemed to see something ominous in that +arm pointing to the heavens. I thought of the figures in the Dance of +Death at Basle, and that other on the panels of the covered Bridge at +Lucerne, and it seemed to me that the grim mask who mingles with every +crowd and glides over every threshold was pointing the sick man to his +far home, and would soon stretch out his bony hand and lead him or drag +him on the unmeasured journey towards it. + +The fancy had possession of me, and I shivered again as when I first +entered the chamber. The picture and the shrouded shape; I saw only +these two objects. They were enough. The house was deadly still, and +the night-wind, blowing through an open window, struck me as from a field +of ice, at the moment I passed into the creaking corridor. As I turned +into the common passage, a white figure, holding a lamp, stood full +before me. I thought at first it was one of those images made to stand +in niches and hold a light in their hands. But the illusion was +momentary, and my eyes speedily recovered from the shock of the bright +flame and snowy drapery to see that the figure was a breathing one. It +was Iris, in one of her statue-trances. She had come down, whether +sleeping or waking, I knew not at first, led by an instinct that told her +she was wanted,--or, possibly, having overheard and interpreted the +sound of our movements,--or, it may be, having learned from the servant +that there was trouble which might ask for a woman's hand. I sometimes +think women have a sixth sense, which tells them that others, whom they +cannot see or hear, are in suffering. How surely we find them at the +bedside of the dying! How strongly does Nature plead for them, that we +should draw our first breath in their arms, as we sigh away our last upon +their faithful breasts! + +With white, bare feet, her hair loosely knotted, clad as the starlight +knew her, and the morning when she rose from slumber, save that she had +twisted a scarf round her long dress, she stood still as a stone before +me, holding in one hand a lighted coil of waxtaper, and in the other a +silver goblet. I held my own lamp close to her, as if she had been a +figure of marble, and she did not stir. There was no breach of propriety +then, to scare the Poor Relation with and breed scandal out of. She had +been "warned in a dream," doubtless suggested by her waking knowledge and +the sounds which had reached her exalted sense. There was nothing more +natural than that she should have risen and girdled her waist, and +lighted her taper, and found the silver goblet with "Ex dono pupillorum" +on it, from which she had taken her milk and possets through all her +childish years, and so gone blindly out to find her place at the +bedside,--a Sister of Charity without the cap and rosary; nay, unknowing +whither her feet were leading her, and with wide blank eyes seeing +nothing but the vision that beckoned her along.--Well, I must wake her +from her slumber or trance.--I called her name, but she did not heed my +voice. + +The Devil put it into my head that I would kiss one handsome young girl +before I died, and now was my chance. She never would know it, and I +should carry the remembrance of it with me into the grave, and a rose +perhaps grow out of my dust, as a brier did out of Lord Lovers, in memory +of that immortal moment! Would it wake her from her trance? and would +she see me in the flush of my stolen triumph, and hate and despise me +ever after? Or should I carry off my trophy undetected, and always from +that time say to myself, when I looked upon her in the glory of youth and +the splendor of beauty, "My lips have touched those roses and made their +sweetness mine forever"? You think my cheek was flushed, perhaps, and my +eyes were glittering with this midnight flash of opportunity. On the +contrary, I believe I was pale, very pale, and I know that I trembled. +Ah, it is the pale passions that are the fiercest,--it is the violence of +the chill that gives the measure of the fever! The fighting-boy of our +school always turned white when he went out to a pitched battle with the +bully of some neighboring village; but we knew what his bloodless cheeks +meant,--the blood was all in his stout heart,--he was a slight boy, and +there was not enough to redden his face and fill his heart both at once. + +Perhaps it is making a good deal of a slight matter, to tell the internal +conflicts in the heart of a quiet person something more than juvenile and +something less than senile, as to whether he should be guilty of an +impropriety, and, if he were, whether he would get caught in his +indiscretion. And yet the memory of the kiss that Margaret of Scotland +gave to Alain Chartier has lasted four hundred years, and put it into the +head of many an ill-favored poet, whether Victoria, or Eugenie, would do +as much by him, if she happened to pass him when he was asleep. And have +we ever forgotten that the fresh cheek of the young John Milton tingled +under the lips of some high-born Italian beauty, who, I believe, did not +think to leave her card by the side of the slumbering youth, but has +bequeathed the memory of her pretty deed to all coming time? The sound +of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal +longer. + +There is one disadvantage which the man of philosophical habits of mind +suffers, as compared with the man of action. While he is taking an +enlarged and rational view of the matter before him, he lets his chance +slip through his fingers. Iris woke up, of her own accord, before I had +made up my mind what I was going to do about it. + +When I remember how charmingly she looked, I don't blame myself at all +for being tempted; but if I had been fool enough to yield to the impulse, +I should certainly have been ashamed to tell of it. She did not know +what to make of it, finding herself there alone, in such guise, and me +staring at her. She looked down at her white robe and bare feet, and +colored,--then at the goblet she held in her hand, then at the taper; and +at last her thoughts seemed to clear up. + +I know it all,--she said.--He is going to die, and I must go and sit by +him. Nobody will care for him as I shall, and I have nobody else to care +for. + +I assured her that nothing was needed for him that night but rest, and +persuaded her that the excitement of her presence could only do harm. +Let him sleep, and he would very probably awake better in the morning. +There was nothing to be said, for I spoke with authority; and the young +girl glided away with noiseless step and sought her own chamber. + +The tremor passed away from my limbs, and the blood began to burn in my +cheeks. The beautiful image which had so bewitched me faded gradually +from my imagination, and I returned to the still perplexing mysteries of +my little neighbor's chamber. + +All was still there now. No plaintive sounds, no monotonous murmurs, no +shutting of windows and doors at strange hours, as if something or +somebody were coming in or going out, or there was something to be hidden +in those dark mahogany presses. Is there an inner apartment that I have +not seen? The way in which the house is built might admit of it. As I +thought it over, I at once imagined a Bluebeard's chamber. Suppose, for +instance, that the narrow bookshelves to the right are really only a +masked door, such as we remember leading to the private study of one of +our most distinguished townsmen, who loved to steal away from his stately +library to that little silent cell. If this were lighted from above, a +person or persons might pass their days there without attracting +attention from the household, and wander where they pleased at night,--to +Copp's-Hill burial-ground, if they liked,--I said to myself, laughing, +and pulling the bed-clothes over my head. There is no logic in +superstitious-fancies any more than in dreams. A she-ghost wouldn't want +an inner chamber to herself. A live woman, with a valuable soprano +voice, wouldn't start off at night to sprain her ankles over the old +graves of the North-End cemetery. + +It is all very easy for you, middle-aged reader, sitting over this page +in the broad daylight, to call me by all manner of asinine and anserine +unchristian names, because I had these fancies running through my head. +I don't care much for your abuse. The question is not, what it is +reasonable for a man to think about, but what he actually does think +about, in the dark, and when he is alone, and his whole body seems but +one great nerve of hearing, and he sees the phosphorescent flashes of his +own eyeballs as they turn suddenly in the direction of the last strange +noise,--what he actually does think about, as he lies and recalls all the +wild stories his head is full of, his fancy hinting the most alarming +conjectures to account for the simplest facts about him, his common-sense +laughing them to scorn the next minute, but his mind still returning to +them, under one shape or another, until he gets very nervous and foolish, +and remembers how pleasant it used to be to have his mother come and tuck +him up and go and sit within call, so that she could hear him at any +minute, if he got very much scared and wanted her. Old babies that we +are! + +Daylight will clear up all that lamp-light has left doubtful. I longed +for the morning to come, for I was more curious than ever. So, between my +fancies and anticipations, I had but a poor night of it, and came down +tired to the breakfast-table. My visit was not to be made until after +this morning hour; there was nothing urgent, so the servant was ordered +to tell me. + +It was the first breakfast at which the high chair at the side of Iris +had been unoccupied.--You might jest as well take away that chair,--said +our landlady,--he'll never want it again. He acts like a man that 's +struck with death, 'n' I don't believe he 'll ever come out of his +chamber till he 's laid out and brought down a corpse.--These good women +do put things so plainly! There were two or three words in her short +remark that always sober people, and suggest silence or brief moral +reflections. + +--Life is dreadful uncerting,--said the Poor Relation,--and pulled in her +social tentacles to concentrate her thoughts on this fact of human +history. + +--If there was anything a fellah could do,--said the young man John, so +called,--a fellah 'd like the chance o' helpin' a little cripple like +that. He looks as if he couldn't turn over any handier than a turtle +that's laid on his back; and I guess there a'n't many people that know +how to lift better than I do. Ask him if he don't want any watchers. I +don't mind settin' up any more 'n a cat-owl. I was up all night twice +last month. + +[My private opinion is, that there was no small amount of punch absorbed +on those two occasions, which I think I heard of at the time];--but the +offer is a kind one, and it is n't fair to question how he would like +sitting up without the punch and the company and the songs and smoking. +He means what he says, and it would be a more considerable achievement +for him to sit quietly all night by a sick man than for a good many other +people. I tell you this odd thing: there are a good many persons, who, +through the habit of making other folks uncomfortable, by finding fault +with all their cheerful enjoyments, at last get up a kind of hostility to +comfort in general, even in their own persons. The correlative to loving +our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors. +Look at old misers; first they starve their dependants, and then +themselves. So I think it more for a lively young fellow to be ready to +play nurse than for one of those useful but forlorn martyrs who have +taken a spite against themselves and love to gratify it by fasting and +watching. + +--The time came at last for me to make my visit. I found Iris sitting by +the Little Gentleman's pillow. To my disappointment, the room was +darkened. He did not like the light, and would have the shutters kept +nearly closed. It was good enough for me; what business had I to be +indulging my curiosity, when I had nothing to do but to exercise such +skill as I possessed for the benefit of my patient? There was not much +to be said or done in such a case; but I spoke as encouragingly as I +could, as I think we are always bound to do. He did not seem to pay any +very anxious attention, but the poor girl listened as if her own life and +more than her own life were depending on the words I uttered. She +followed me out of the room, when I had got through my visit. + +How long?--she said. + +Uncertain. Any time; to-day,--next week, next month,--I answered.--One +of those cases where the issue is not doubtful, but may be sudden or +slow. + +The women of the house were kind, as women always are in trouble. But +Iris pretended that nobody could spare the time as well as she, and kept +her place, hour after hour, until the landlady insisted that she'd be +killin' herself, if she begun at that rate, 'n' haf to give up, if she +didn't want to be clean beat out in less 'n a week. + +At the table we were graver than common. The high chair was set back +against the wall, and a gap left between that of the young girl and her +nearest neighbor's on the right. But the next morning, to our great +surprise, that good-looking young Marylander had very quietly moved his +own chair to the vacant place. I thought he was creeping down that way, +but I was not prepared for a leap spanning such a tremendous parenthesis +of boarders as this change of position included. There was no denying +that the youth and maiden were a handsome pair, as they sat side by side. +But whatever the young girl may have thought of her new neighbor she +never seemed for a moment to forget the poor little friend who had been +taken from her side. There are women, and even girls, with whom it is of +no use to talk. One might as well reason with a bee as to the form of +his cell, or with an oriole as to the construction of his swinging nest, +as try to stir these creatures from their own way of doing their own +work. It was not a question with Iris, whether she was entitled by any +special relation or by the fitness of things to play the part of a nurse. +She was a wilful creature that must have her way in this matter. And it +so proved that it called for much patience and long endurance to carry +through the duties, say rather the kind offices, the painful pleasures, +which she had chosen as her share in the household where accident had +thrown her. She had that genius of ministration which is the special +province of certain women, marked even among their helpful sisters by a +soft, low voice, a quiet footfall, a light hand, a cheering smile, and a +ready self-surrender to the objects of their care, which such trifles as +their own food, sleep, or habits of any kind never presume to interfere +with. Day after day, and too often through the long watches of the night, +she kept her place by the pillow. + +That girl will kill herself over me, Sir,--said the poor Little Gentleman +to me, one day,--she will kill herself, Sir, if you don't call in all the +resources of your art to get me off as soon as may be. I shall wear her +out, Sir, with sitting in this close chamber and watching when she ought +to be sleeping, if you leave me to the care of Nature without dosing me. + +This was rather strange pleasantry, under the circumstances. But there +are certain persons whose existence is so out of parallel with the larger +laws in the midst of which it is moving, that life becomes to them as +death and death as life.--How am I getting along?--he said, another +morning. He lifted his shrivelled hand, with the death's-head ring on +it, and looked at it with a sad sort of complacency. By this one +movement, which I have seen repeatedly of late, I know that his thoughts +have gone before to another condition, and that he is, as it were, +looking back on the infirmities of the body as accidents of the past. +For, when he was well, one might see him often looking at the handsome +hand with the flaming jewel on one of its fingers. The single +well-shaped limb was the source of that pleasure which in some form or +other Nature almost always grants to her least richly endowed children. +Handsome hair, eyes, complexion, feature, form, hand, foot, pleasant +voice, strength, grace, agility, intelligence,--how few there are that +have not just enough of one at least of these gifts to show them that the +good Mother, busy with her millions of children, has not quite forgotten +them! But now he was thinking of that other state, where, free from all +mortal impediments, the memory of his sorrowful burden should be only as +that of the case he has shed to the insect whose "deep-damasked wings" +beat off the golden dust of the lily-anthers, as he flutters in the +ecstasy of his new life over their full-blown summer glories. + +No human being can rest for any time in a state of equilibrium, where the +desire to live and that to depart just balance each other. If one has a +house, which he has lived and always means to live in, he pleases himself +with the thought of all the conveniences it offers him, and thinks little +of its wants and imperfections. But once having made up his mind to move +to a better, every incommodity starts out upon him, until the very +ground-plan of it seems to have changed in his mind, and his thoughts and +affections, each one of them packing up its little bundle of +circumstances, have quitted their several chambers and nooks and migrated +to the new home, long before its apartments are ready to receive their +coming tenant. It is so with the body. Most persons have died before +they expire,--died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is +only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted +mansion. The fact of the tranquillity with which the great majority of +dying persons await this locking of those gates of life through which its +airy angels have been going and coming, from the moment of the first cry, +is familiar to those who have been often called upon to witness the last +period of life. Almost always there is a preparation made by Nature for +unearthing a soul, just as on the smaller scale there is for the removal +of a milktooth. The roots which hold human life to earth are absorbed +before it is lifted from its place. Some of the dying are weary and want +rest, the idea of which is almost inseparable in the universal mind from +death. Some are in pain, and want to be rid of it, even though the +anodyne be dropped, as in the legend, from the sword of the Death-Angel. +Some are stupid, mercifully narcotized that they may go to sleep without +long tossing about. And some are strong in faith and hope, so that, as +they draw near the next world, they would fair hurry toward it, as the +caravan moves faster over the sands when the foremost travellers send +word along the file that water is in sight. Though each little party +that follows in a foot-track of its own will have it that the water to +which others think they are hastening is a mirage, not the less has it +been true in all ages and for human beings of every creed which +recognized a future, that those who have fallen worn out by their march +through the Desert have dreamed at least of a River of Life, and thought +they heard its murmurs as they lay dying. + +The change from the clinging to the present to the welcoming of the +future comes very soon, for the most part, after all hope of life is +extinguished, provided this be left in good degree to Nature, and not +insolently and cruelly forced upon those who are attacked by illness, on +the strength of that odious foreknowledge often imparted by science, +before the white fruit whose core is ashes, and which we call death, has +set beneath the pallid and drooping flower of sickness. There is a +singular sagacity very often shown in a patient's estimate of his own +vital force. His physician knows the state of his material frame well +enough, perhaps,--that this or that organ is more or less impaired or +disintegrated; but the patient has a sense that he can hold out so much +longer,--sometimes that he must and will live for a while, though by the +logic of disease he ought to die without any delay. + +The Little Gentleman continued to fail, until it became plain that his +remaining days were few. I told the household what to expect. There was +a good deal of kind feeling expressed among the boarders, in various +modes, according to their characters and style of sympathy. The landlady +was urgent that he should try a certain nostrum which had saved +somebody's life in jest sech a case. The Poor Relation wanted me to +carry, as from her, a copy of "Allein's Alarm," etc. I objected to the +title, reminding her that it offended people of old, so that more than +twice as many of the book were sold when they changed the name to "A Sure +Guide to Heaven." The good old gentleman whom I have mentioned before has +come to the time of life when many old men cry easily, and forget their +tears as children do.--He was a worthy gentleman,--he said,--a very +worthy gentleman, but unfortunate,--very unfortunate. Sadly deformed +about the spine and the feet. Had an impression that the late Lord Byron +had some malformation of this kind. Had heerd there was something the +matter with the ankle-j'ints of that nobleman, but he was a man of +talents. This gentleman seemed to be a man of talents. Could not always +agree with his statements,--thought he was a little over-partial to this +city, and had some free opinions; but was sorry to lose him,--and +if--there was anything--he--could--. In the midst of these kind +expressions, the gentleman with the diamond, the Koh-i-noor, as we called +him, asked, in a very unpleasant sort of way, how the old boy was likely +to cut up,--meaning what money our friend was going to leave behind. + +The young fellow John spoke up, to the effect that this was a diabolish +snobby question, when a man was dying and not dead.--To this the +Koh-i-noor replied, by asking if the other meant to insult him. Whereto +the young man John rejoined that he had no particul'r intentions one way +or t'other.-The Kohi-noor then suggested the young man's stepping out +into the yard, that he, the speaker, might "slap his chops."--Let 'em +alone, said young Maryland,--it 'll soon be over, and they won't hurt +each other much.--So they went out. + +The Koh-i-noor entertained the very common idea, that, when one quarrels +with another, the simple thing to do is to knock the man down, and there +is the end of it. Now those who have watched such encounters are aware +of two things: first, that it is not so easy to knock a man down as it is +to talk about it; secondly, that, if you do happen to knock a man down, +there is a very good chance that he will be angry, and get up and give +you a thrashing. + +So the Koh-i-noor thought he would begin, as soon as they got into the +yard, by knocking his man down, and with this intention swung his arm +round after the fashion of rustics and those unskilled in the noble art, +expecting the young fellow John to drop when his fist, having completed a +quarter of a circle, should come in contact with the side of that young +man's head. Unfortunately for this theory, it happens that a blow struck +out straight is as much shorter, and therefore as much quicker than the +rustic's swinging blow, as the radius is shorter than the quarter of a +circle. The mathematical and mechanical corollary was, that the +Koh-i-noor felt something hard bring up suddenly against his right eye, +which something he could have sworn was a paving-stone, judging by his +sensations; and as this threw his person somewhat backwards, and the +young man John jerked his own head back a little, the swinging blow had +nothing to stop it; and as the Jewel staggered between the hit he got and +the blow he missed, he tripped and "went to grass," so far as the +back-yard of our boardinghouse was provided with that vegetable. It was +a signal illustration of that fatal mistake, so frequent in young and +ardent natures with inconspicuous calves and negative pectorals, that +they can settle most little quarrels on the spot by "knocking the man +down." + +We are in the habit of handling our faces so carefully, that a heavy +blow, taking effect on that portion of the surface, produces a most +unpleasant surprise, which is accompanied with odd sensations, as of +seeing sparks, and a kind of electrical or ozone-like odor, +half-sulphurous in character, and which has given rise to a very vulgar +and profane threat sometimes heard from the lips of bullies. A person +not used to pugilistic gestures does not instantly recover from this +surprise. The Koh-i-noor exasperated by his failure, and still a little +confused by the smart hit he had received, but furious, and confident of +victory over a young fellow a good deal lighter than himself, made a +desperate rush to bear down all before him and finish the contest at +once. That is the way all angry greenhorns and incompetent persons +attempt to settle matters. It does n't do, if the other fellow is only +cool, moderately quick, and has a very little science. It didn't do this +time; for, as the assailant rushed in with his arms flying everywhere, +like the vans of a windmill, he ran a prominent feature of his face +against a fist which was travelling in the other direction, and +immediately after struck the knuckles of the young man's other fist a +severe blow with the part of his person known as the epigastrium to one +branch of science and the bread-basket to another. This second round +closed the battle. The Koh-i-noor had got enough, which in such cases is +more than as good as a feast. The young fellow asked him if he was +satisfied, and held out his hand. But the other sulked, and muttered +something about revenge.--Jest as ye like,--said the young man +John.--Clap a slice o' raw beefsteak on to that mouse o' yours 'n' 't'll +take down the swellin'. (Mouse is a technical term for a bluish, oblong, +rounded elevation occasioned by running one's forehead or eyebrow against +another's knuckles.) The young fellow was particularly pleased that he +had had an opportunity of trying his proficiency in the art of +self-defence without the gloves. The Koh-i-noor did not favor us with +his company for a day or two, being confined to his chamber, it was said, +by a slight feverish, attack. He was chop-fallen always after this, and +got negligent in his person. The impression must have been a deep one; +for it was observed, that, when he came down again, his moustache and +whiskers had turned visibly white about the roots. In short, it +disgraced him, and rendered still more conspicuous a tendency to +drinking, of which he had been for some time suspected. This, and the +disgust which a young lady naturally feels at hearing that her lover has +been "licked by a fellah not half his size," induced the landlady's +daughter to take that decided step which produced a change in the +programme of her career I may hereafter allude to. + +I never thought he would come to good, when I heard him attempting to +sneer at an unoffending city so respectable as Boston. After a man +begins to attack the State-House, when he gets bitter about the +Frog-Pond, you may be sure there is not much left of him. Poor Edgar Poe +died in the hospital soon after he got into this way of talking; and so +sure as you find an unfortunate fellow reduced to this pass, you had +better begin praying for him, and stop lending him money, for he is on +his last legs. Remember poor Edgar! He is dead and gone; but the +State-House has its cupola fresh-gilded, and the Frog-Pond has got a +fountain that squirts up a hundred feet into the air and glorifies that +humble sheet with a fine display of provincial rainbows. + +--I cannot fulfil my promise in this number. I expected to gratify your +curiosity, if you have become at all interested in these puzzles, doubts, +fancies, whims, or whatever you choose to call them, of mine. Next month +you shall hear all about it. + +--It was evening, and I was going to the sick-chamber. As I paused +at the door before entering, I heard a sweet voice singing. It was +not the wild melody I had sometimes heard at midnight:--no, this was +the voice of Iris, and I could distinguish every word. I had seen +the verses in her book; the melody was new to me. Let me finish my +page with them. + + + HYMN OF TRUST. + + O Love Divine, that stooped to share + Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, + On Thee we cast each earthborn care, + We smile at pain while Thou art near! + + Though long the weary way we tread, + And sorrow crown each lingering year, + No path we shun, no darkness dread, + Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near! + + When drooping pleasure turns to grief, + And trembling faith is changed to fear, + The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf + Shall softly tell us, Thou art near! + + On Thee we fling our burdening woe, + O Love Divine, forever dear, + Content to suffer, while we know, + Living and dying, Thou art near! + + + + +XII + +A young fellow, born of good stock, in one of the more thoroughly +civilized portions of these United States of America, bred in good +principles, inheriting a social position which makes him at his ease +everywhere, means sufficient to educate him thoroughly without taking +away the stimulus to vigorous exertion, and with a good opening in some +honorable path of labor, is the finest sight our private satellite has +had the opportunity of inspecting on the planet to which she belongs. In +some respects it was better to be a young Greek. If we may trust the old +marbles, my friend with his arm stretched over my head, above there, (in +plaster of Paris,) or the discobolus, whom one may see at the principal +sculpture gallery of this metropolis,--those Greek young men were of +supreme beauty. Their close curls, their elegantly set heads, column-like +necks, straight noses, short, curled lips, firm chins, deep chests, light +flanks, large muscles, small joints, were finer than anything we ever +see. It may well be questioned whether the human shape will ever present +itself again in a race of such perfect symmetry. But the life of the +youthful Greek was local, not planetary, like that of the young American. +He had a string of legends, in place of our Gospels. He had no printed +books, no newspaper, no steam caravans, no forks, no soap, none of the +thousand cheap conveniences which have become matters of necessity to our +modern civilization. Above all things, if he aspired to know as well as +to enjoy, he found knowledge not diffused everywhere about him, so that a +day's labor would buy him more wisdom than a year could master, but held +in private hands, hoarded in precious manuscripts, to be sought for only +as gold is sought in narrow fissures, and in the beds of brawling +streams. Never, since man came into this atmosphere of oxygen and azote, +was there anything like the condition of the young American of the +nineteenth century. Having in possession or in prospect the best part of +half a world, with all its climates and soils to choose from; equipped +with wings of fire and smoke than fly with him day and night, so that he +counts his journey not in miles, but in degrees, and sees the seasons +change as the wild fowl sees them in his annual flights; with huge +leviathans always ready to take him on their broad backs and push behind +them with their pectoral or caudal fins the waters that seam the +continent or separate the hemispheres; heir of all old civilizations, +founder of that new one which, if all the prophecies of the human heart +are not lies, is to be the noblest, as it is the last; isolated in space +from the races that are governed by dynasties whose divine right grows +out of human wrong, yet knit into the most absolute solidarity with +mankind of all times and places by the one great thought he inherits as +his national birthright; free to form and express his opinions on almost +every subject, and assured that he will soon acquire the last franchise +which men withhold from man,--that of stating the laws of his spiritual +being and the beliefs he accepts without hindrance except from clearer +views of truth,--he seems to want nothing for a large, wholesome, noble, +beneficent life. In fact, the chief danger is that he will think the +whole planet is made for him, and forget that there are some +possibilities left in the debris of the old-world civilization which +deserve a certain respectful consideration at his hands. + +The combing and clipping of this shaggy wild continent are in some +measure done for him by those who have gone before. Society has +subdivided itself enough to have a place for every form of talent. Thus, +if a man show the least sign of ability as a sculptor or a painter, for +instance, he finds the means of education and a demand for his services. +Even a man who knows nothing but science will be provided for, if he does +not think it necessary to hang about his birthplace all his days,--which +is a most unAmerican weakness. The apron-strings of an American mother +are made of India-rubber. Her boy belongs where he is wanted; and that +young Marylander of ours spoke for all our young men, when he said that +his home was wherever the stars and stripes blew over his head. + +And that leads me to say a few words of this young gentleman, who made +that audacious movement lately which I chronicled in my last +record,--jumping over the seats of I don't know how many boarders to put +himself in the place which the Little Gentleman's absence had left vacant +at the side of Iris. When a young man is found habitually at the side of +any one given young lady,--when he lingers where she stays, and hastens +when she leaves,--when his eyes follow her as she moves and rest upon her +when she is still,--when he begins to grow a little timid, he who was so +bold, and a little pensive, he who was so gay, whenever accident finds +them alone,--when he thinks very often of the given young lady, and +names her very seldom,-- + +What do you say about it, my charming young expert in that sweet science +in which, perhaps, a long experience is not the first of qualifications? + +--But we don't know anything about this young man, except that he is +good-looking, and somewhat high-spirited, and strong-limbed, and has a +generous style of nature,--all very promising, but by no means proving +that he is a proper lover for Iris, whose heart we turned inside out when +we opened that sealed book of hers. + +Ah, my dear young friend! When your mamma then, if you will believe it, +a very slight young lady, with very pretty hair and figure--came and told +her mamma that your papa had--had--asked No, no, no! she could n't say +it; but her mother--oh the depth of maternal sagacity!--guessed it all +without another word!--When your mother, I say, came and told her mother +she was engaged, and your grandmother told your grandfather, how much did +they know of the intimate nature of the young gentleman to whom she had +pledged her existence? I will not be so hard as to ask how much your +respected mamma knew at that time of the intimate nature of your +respected papa, though, if we should compare a young girl's +man-as-she-thinks-him with a forty-summered matron's man-as-she-finds-him, +I have my doubts as to whether the second would be a facsimile of the +first in most cases. + +The idea that in this world each young person is to wait until he or she +finds that precise counterpart who alone of all creation was meant for +him or her, and then fall instantly in love with it, is pretty enough, +only it is not Nature's way. It is not at all essential that all pairs +of human beings should be, as we sometimes say of particular couples, +"born for each other." Sometimes a man or a woman is made a great deal +better and happier in the end for having had to conquer the faults of the +one beloved, and make the fitness not found at first, by gradual +assimilation. There is a class of good women who have no right to marry +perfectly good men, because they have the power of saving those who would +go to ruin but for the guiding providence of a good wife. I have known +many such cases. It is the most momentous question a woman is ever +called upon to decide, whether the faults of the man she loves are beyond +remedy and will drag her down, or whether she is competent to be his +earthly redeemer and lift him to her own level. + +A person of genius should marry a person of character. Genius does not +herd with genius. The musk-deer and the civet-cat are never found in +company. They don't care for strange scents,--they like plain animals +better than perfumed ones. Nay, if you will have the kindness to notice, +Nature has not gifted my lady musk-deer with the personal peculiarity by +which her lord is so widely known. + +Now when genius allies itself with character, the world is very apt to +think character has the best of the bargain. A brilliant woman marries a +plain, manly fellow, with a simple intellectual mechanism;--we have all +seen such cases. The world often stares a good deal and wonders. She +should have taken that other, with a far more complex mental machinery. +She might have had a watch with the philosophical compensation-balance, +with the metaphysical index which can split a second into tenths, with +the musical chime which can turn every quarter of an hour into melody. +She has chosen a plain one, that keeps good time, and that is all. + +Let her alone! She knows what she is about. Genius has an infinitely +deeper reverence for character than character can have for genius. To be +sure, genius gets the world's praise, because its work is a tangible +product, to be bought, or had for nothing. It bribes the common voice to +praise it by presents of speeches, poems, statues, pictures, or whatever +it can please with. Character evolves its best products for home +consumption; but, mind you, it takes a deal more to feed a family for +thirty years than to make a holiday feast for our neighbors once or twice +in our lives. You talk of the fire of genius. Many a blessed woman, who +dies unsung and unremembered, has given out more of the real vital heat +that keeps the life in human souls, without a spark flitting through her +humble chimney to tell the world about it, than would set a dozen +theories smoking, or a hundred odes simmering, in the brains of so many +men of genius. It is in latent caloric, if I may borrow a philosophical +expression, that many of the noblest hearts give out the life that warms +them. Cornelia's lips grow white, and her pulse hardly warms her thin +fingers,--but she has melted all the ice out of the hearts of those young +Gracchi, and her lost heat is in the blood of her youthful heroes. We +are always valuing the soul's temperature by the thermometer of public +deed or word. Yet the great sun himself, when he pours his noonday beams +upon some vast hyaline boulder, rent from the eternal ice-quarries, and +floating toward the tropics, never warms it a fraction above the +thirty-two degrees of Fahrenheit that marked the moment when the first +drop trickled down its side. + +How we all like the spirting up of a fountain, seemingly against the law +that makes water everywhere slide, roll, leap, tumble headlong, to get as +low as the earth will let it! That is genius. But what is this +transient upward movement, which gives us the glitter and the rainbow, to +that unsleeping, all-present force of gravity, the same yesterday, +to-day, and forever, (if the universe be eternal,)--the great outspread +hand of God himself, forcing all things down into their places, and +keeping them there? Such, in smaller proportion, is the force of +character to the fitful movements of genius, as they are or have been +linked to each other in many a household, where one name was historic, +and the other, let me say the nobler, unknown, save by some faint +reflected ray, borrowed from its lustrous companion. + +Oftentimes, as I have lain swinging on the water, in the swell of the +Chelsea ferry-boats, in that long, sharp-pointed, black cradle in which I +love to let the great mother rock me, I have seen a tall ship glide by +against the tide, as if drawn by some invisible towline, with a hundred +strong arms pulling it. Her sails hung unfilled, her streamers were +drooping, she had neither side-wheel nor stern-wheel; still she moved on, +stately, in serene triumph, as if with her own life. But I knew that on +the other side of the ship, hidden beneath the great hulk that swam so +majestically, there was a little toiling steam-tug, with heart of fire +and arms of iron, that was hugging it close and dragging it bravely on; +and I knew, that, if the little steam-tug untwined her arms and left the +tall ship, it would wallow and roll about, and drift hither and thither, +and go off with the refluent tide, no man knows whither. And so I have +known more than one genius, high-decked, full-freighted, wide-sailed, +gay-pennoned, that, but for the bare toiling arms, and brave, warm, +beating heart of the faithful little wife, that nestled close in his +shadow, and clung to him, so that no wind or wave could part them, and +dragged him on against all the tide of circumstance, would soon have gone +down the stream and been heard of no more.--No, I am too much a lover of +genius, I sometimes think, and too often get impatient with dull people, +so that, in their weak talk, where nothing is taken for granted, I look +forward to some future possible state of development, when a gesture +passing between a beatified human soul and an archangel shall signify as +much as the complete history of a planet, from the time when it curdled +to the time when its sun was burned out. And yet, when a strong brain is +weighed with a true heart, it seems to me like balancing a bubble against +a wedge of gold. + +--It takes a very true man to be a fitting companion for a woman of +genius, but not a very great one. I am not sure that she will not +embroider her ideal better on a plain ground than on one with a brilliant +pattern already worked in its texture. But as the very essence of genius +is truthfulness, contact with realities, (which are always ideas behind +shows of form or language,) nothing is so contemptible as falsehood and +pretence in its eyes. Now it is not easy to find a perfectly true woman, +and it is very hard to find a perfectly true man. And a woman of genius, +who has the sagacity to choose such a one as her companion, shows more of +the divine gift in so doing than in her finest talk or her most brilliant +work of letters or of art. + +I have been a good while coming at a secret, for which I wished to +prepare you before telling it. I think there is a kindly feeling growing +up between Iris and our young Marylander. Not that I suppose there is +any distinct understanding between them, but that the affinity which has +drawn him from the remote corner where he sat to the side of the young +girl is quietly bringing their two natures together. Just now she is all +given up to another; but when he no longer calls upon her daily thoughts +and cares, I warn you not to be surprised, if this bud of friendship open +like the evening primrose, with a sound as of a sudden stolen kiss, and +lo! the flower of full-blown love lies unfolded before you. + +And now the days had come for our little friend, whose whims and +weaknesses had interested us, perhaps, as much as his better traits, to +make ready for that long journey which is easier to the cripple than to +the strong man, and on which none enters so willingly as he who has borne +the life-long load of infirmity during his earthly pilgrimage. At this +point, under most circumstances, I would close the doors and draw the +veil of privacy before the chamber where the birth which we call death, +out of life into the unknown world, is working its mystery. But this +friend of ours stood alone in the world, and, as the last act of his life +was mainly in harmony with the rest of its drama, I do not here feel the +force of the objection commonly lying against that death-bed literature +which forms the staple of a certain portion of the press. Let me explain +what I mean, so that my readers may think for themselves a little, before +they accuse me of hasty expressions. + +The Roman Catholic Church has certain formulas for its dying children, to +which almost all of them attach the greatest importance. There is hardly +a criminal so abandoned that he is not anxious to receive the +"consolations of religion" in his last hours. Even if he be senseless, +but still living, I think that the form is gone through with, just as +baptism is administered to the unconscious new-born child. Now we do not +quarrel with these forms. We look with reverence and affection upon all +symbols which give peace and comfort to our fellow-creatures. But the +value of the new-born child's passive consent to the ceremony is null, as +testimony to the truth of a doctrine. The automatic closing of a dying +man's lips on the consecrated wafer proves nothing in favor of the Real +Presence, or any other dogma. And, speaking generally, the evidence of +dying men in favor of any belief is to be received with great caution. + +They commonly tell the truth about their present feelings, no doubt. A +dying man's deposition about anything he knows is good evidence. But it +is of much less consequence what a man thinks and says when he is changed +by pain, weakness, apprehension, than what he thinks when he is truly and +wholly himself. Most murderers die in a very pious frame of mind, +expecting to go to glory at once; yet no man believes he shall meet a +larger average of pirates and cut-throats in the streets of the New +Jerusalem than of honest folks that died in their beds. + +Unfortunately, there has been a very great tendency to make capital of +various kinds out of dying men's speeches. The lies that have been put +into their mouths for this purpose are endless. The prime minister, +whose last breath was spent in scolding his nurse, dies with a +magnificent apothegm on his lips, manufactured by a reporter. Addison +gets up a tableau and utters an admirable sentiment,--or somebody makes +the posthumous dying epigram for him. The incoherent babble of green +fields is translated into the language of stately sentiment. One would +think, all that dying men had to do was to say the prettiest thing they +could,--to make their rhetorical point,--and then bow themselves +politely out of the world. + +Worse than this is the torturing of dying people to get their evidence in +favor of this or that favorite belief. The camp-followers of proselyting +sects have come in at the close of every life where they could get in, to +strip the languishing soul of its thoughts, and carry them off as spoils. +The Roman Catholic or other priest who insists on the reception of his +formula means kindly, we trust, and very commonly succeeds in getting the +acquiescence of the subject of his spiritual surgery, but do not let us +take the testimony of people who are in the worst condition to form +opinions as evidence of the truth or falsehood of that which they accept. +A lame man's opinion of dancing is not good for much. A poor fellow who +can neither eat nor drink, who is sleepless and full of pains, whose +flesh has wasted from him, whose blood is like water, who is gasping for +breath, is not in a condition to judge fairly of human life, which in all +its main adjustments is intended for men in a normal, healthy condition. +It is a remark I have heard from the wise Patriarch of the Medical +Profession among us, that the moral condition of patients with disease +above the great breathing-muscle, the diaphragm, is much more hopeful +than that of patients with disease below it, in the digestive organs. +Many an honest ignorant man has given us pathology when he thought he was +giving us psychology. With this preliminary caution I shall proceed to +the story of the Little Gentleman's leaving us. + +When the divinity-student found that our fellow-boarder was not likely to +remain long with us, he, being a young man of tender conscience and +kindly nature, was not a little exercised on his behalf. It was +undeniable that on several occasions the Little Gentleman had expressed +himself with a good deal of freedom on a class of subjects which, +according to the divinity-student, he had no right to form an opinion +upon. He therefore considered his future welfare in jeopardy. + +The Muggletonian sect have a very odd way of dealing with people. If I, +the Professor, will only give in to the Muggletonian doctrine, there +shall be no question through all that persuasion that I am competent to +judge of that doctrine; nay, I shall be quoted as evidence of its truth, +while I live, and cited, after I am dead, as testimony in its behalf. +But if I utter any ever so slight Anti-Muggletonian sentiment, then I +become incompetent to form any opinion on the matter. This, you cannot +fail to observe, is exactly the way the pseudo-sciences go to work, as +explained in my Lecture on Phrenology. Now I hold that he whose +testimony would be accepted in behalf of the Muggletonian doctrine has a +right to be heard against it. Whoso offers me any article of belief for +my signature implies that I am competent to form an opinion upon it; and +if my positive testimony in its favor is of any value, then my negative +testimony against it is also of value. + +I thought my young friend's attitude was a little too much like that of +the Muggletonians. I also remarked a singular timidity on his part lest +somebody should "unsettle" somebody's faith,--as if faith did not require +exercise as much as any other living thing, and were not all the better +for a shaking up now and then. I don't mean that it would be fair to +bother Bridget, the wild Irish girl, or Joice Heth, the centenarian, or +any other intellectual non-combatant; but all persons who proclaim a +belief which passes judgment on their neighbors must be ready to have it +"unsettled," that is, questioned, at all times and by anybody,--just as +those who set up bars across a thoroughfare must expect to have them +taken down by every one who wants to pass, if he is strong enough. + +Besides, to think of trying to water-proof the American mind against the +questions that Heaven rains down upon it shows a misapprehension of our +new conditions. If to question everything be unlawful and dangerous, we +had better undeclare our independence at once; for what the Declaration +means is the right to question everything, even the truth of its own +fundamental proposition. + +The old-world order of things is an arrangement of locks and canals, +where everything depends on keeping the gates shut, and so holding the +upper waters at their level; but the system under which the young +republican American is born trusts the whole unimpeded tide of life to +the great elemental influences, as the vast rivers of the continent +settle their own level in obedience to the laws that govern the planet +and the spheres that surround it. + +The divinity-student was not quite up to the idea of the commonwealth, as +our young friend the Marylander, for instance, understood it. He could +not get rid of that notion of private property in truth, with the right +to fence it in, and put up a sign-board, thus: + + ALL TRESPASSERS ARE WARNED OFF THESE + GROUNDS! + +He took the young Marylander to task for going to the Church of the +Galileans, where he had several times accompanied Iris of late. + +I am a Churchman,--the young man said,--by education and habit. I love +my old Church for many reasons, but most of all because I think it has +educated me out of its own forms into the spirit of its highest +teachings. I think I belong to the "Broad Church," if any of you can +tell what that means. + +I had the rashness to attempt to answer the question myself.--Some say +the Broad Church means the collective mass of good people of all +denominations. Others say that such a definition is nonsense; that a +church is an organization, and the scattered good folks are no +organization at all. They think that men will eventually come together +on the basis of one or two or more common articles of belief, and form a +great unity. Do they see what this amounts to? It means an equal +division of intellect! It is mental agrarianism! a thing that never was +and never will be until national and individual idiosyncrasies have +ceased to exist. The man of thirty-nine beliefs holds the man of one +belief a pauper; he is not going to give up thirty-eight of them for the +sake of fraternizing with the other in the temple which bears on its +front, "Deo erexit Voltaire." A church is a garden, I have heard it +said, and the illustration was neatly handled. Yes, and there is no such +thing as a broad garden. It must be fenced in, and whatever is fenced in +is narrow. You cannot have arctic and tropical plants growing together +in it, except by the forcing system, which is a mighty narrow piece of +business. You can't make a village or a parish or a family think alike, +yet you suppose that you can make a world pinch its beliefs or pad them +to a single pattern! Why, the very life of an ecclesiastical +organization is a life of induction, a state of perpetually disturbed +equilibrium kept up by another charged body in the neighborhood. If the +two bodies touch and share their respective charges, down goes the index +of the electrometer! + +Do you know that every man has a religious belief peculiar to himself? +Smith is always a Smithite. He takes in exactly Smith's-worth of +knowledge, Smith's-worth of truth, of beauty, of divinity. And Brown has +from time immemorial been trying to burn him, to excommunicate him, to +anonymous-article him, because he did not take in Brown's-worth of +knowledge, truth, beauty, divinity. He cannot do it, any more than a +pint-pot can hold a quart, or a quart-pot be filled by a pint. Iron is +essentially the same everywhere and always; but the sulphate of iron is +never the same as the carbonate of iron. Truth is invariable; but the +Smithate of truth must always differ from the Brownate of truth. + +The wider the intellect, the larger and simpler the expressions in which +its knowledge is embodied. The inferior race, the degraded and enslaved +people, the small-minded individual, live in the details which to larger +minds and more advanced tribes of men reduce themselves to axioms and +laws. As races and individual minds must always differ just as sulphates +and carbonates do, I cannot see ground for expecting the Broad Church to +be founded on any fusion of intellectual beliefs, which of course implies +that those who hold the larger number of doctrines as essential shall +come down to those who hold the smaller number. These doctrines are to +the negative aristocracy what the quarterings of their coats are to the +positive orders of nobility. + +The Broad Church, I think, will never be based on anything that requires +the use of language. Freemasonry gives an idea of such a church, and a +brother is known and cared for in a strange land where no word of his can +be understood. The apostle of this church may be a deaf mute carrying a +cup of cold water to a thirsting fellow-creature. The cup of cold water +does not require to be translated for a foreigner to understand it. I am +afraid the only Broad Church possible is one that has its creed in the +heart, and not in the head,--that we shall know its members by their +fruits, and not by their words. If you say this communion of well-doers +is no church, I can only answer, that all organized bodies have their +limits of size, and that when we find a man a hundred feet high and +thirty feet broad across the shoulders, we will look out for an +organization that shall include all Christendom. + +Some of us do practically recognize a Broad Church and a Narrow Church, +however. The Narrow Church may be seen in the ship's boats of humanity, +in the long boat, in the jolly boat, in the captain's gig, lying off the +poor old vessel, thanking God that they are safe, and reckoning how soon +the hulk containing the mass of their fellow-creatures will go down. The +Broad Church is on board, working hard at the pumps, and very slow to +believe that the ship will be swallowed up with so many poor people in +it, fastened down under the hatches ever since it floated. + +--All this, of course, was nothing but my poor notion about these +matters. I am simply an "outsider," you know; only it doesn't do very +well for a nest of Hingham boxes to talk too much about outsiders and +insiders! + +After this talk of ours, I think these two young people went pretty +regularly to the Church of the Galileans. Still they could not keep away +from the sweet harmonies and rhythmic litanies of Saint Polycarp on the +great Church festival-days; so that, between the two, they were so much +together, that the boarders began to make remarks, and our landlady said +to me, one day, that, though it was noon of her business, them that had +eyes couldn't help seein' that there was somethin' goin', on between them +two young people; she thought the young man was a very likely young man, +though jest what his prospecs was was unbeknown to her; but she thought +he must be doing well, and rather guessed he would be able to take care +of a femily, if he didn't go to takin' a house; for a gentleman and his +wife could board a great deal cheaper than they could keep house;--but +then that girl was nothin' but a child, and wouldn't think of bein' +married this five year. They was good boarders, both of 'em, paid +regular, and was as pooty a couple as she ever laid eyes on. + +--To come back to what I began to speak of before,--the divinity-student +was exercised in his mind about the Little Gentleman, and, in the +kindness of his heart,--for he was a good young man,--and in the strength +of his convictions,--for he took it for granted that he and his crowd +were right, and other folks and their crowd were wrong,--he determined to +bring the Little Gentleman round to his faith before he died, if he +could. So he sent word to the sick man, that he should be pleased to +visit him and have some conversation with him; and received for answer +that he would be welcome. + +The divinity-student made him a visit, therefore and had a somewhat +remarkable interview with him, which I shall briefly relate, without +attempting to justify the positions taken by the Little Gentleman. He +found him weak, but calm. Iris sat silent by his pillow. + +After the usual preliminaries, the divinity-student said; in a kind way, +that he was sorry to find him in failing health, that he felt concerned +for his soul, and was anxious to assist him in making preparations for +the great change awaiting him. + +I thank you, Sir,--said the Little Gentleman, permit me to ask you, what +makes you think I am not ready for it, Sir, and that you can do anything +to help me, Sir? + +I address you only as a fellow-man,--said the divinity-student,--and +therefore a fellow-sinner. + +I am not a man, Sir!--said the Little Gentleman.--I was born into this +world the wreck of a man, and I shall not be judged with a race to which +I do not belong. Look at this!--he said, and held up his withered +arm.--See there!--and he pointed to his misshapen extremities.--Lay your +hand here!--and he laid his own on the region of his misplaced heart.--I +have known nothing of the life of your race. When I first came to my +consciousness, I found myself an object of pity, or a sight to show. The +first strange child I ever remember hid its face and would not come near +me. I was a broken-hearted as well as broken-bodied boy. I grew into +the emotions of ripening youth, and all that I could have loved shrank +from my presence. I became a man in years, and had nothing in common +with manhood but its longings. My life is the dying pang of a worn-out +race, and I shall go down alone into the dust, out of this world of men +and women, without ever knowing the fellowship of the one or the love of +the other. I will not die with a lie rattling in my throat. If another +state of being has anything worse in store for me, I have had a long +apprenticeship to give me strength that I may bear it. I don't believe +it, Sir! I have too much faith for that. God has not left me wholly +without comfort, even here. I love this old place where I was born;--the +heart of the world beats under the three hills of Boston, Sir! I love +this great land, with so many tall men in it, and so many good, noble +women.--His eyes turned to the silent figure by his pillow.--I have +learned to accept meekly what has been allotted to me, but I cannot +honestly say that I think my sin has been greater than my suffering. I +bear the ignorance and the evil-doing of whole generations in my single +person. I never drew a breath of air nor took a step that was not a +punishment for another's fault. I may have had many wrong thoughts, but +I cannot have done many wrong deeds,--for my cage has been a narrow one, +and I have paced it alone. I have looked through the bars and seen the +great world of men busy and happy, but I had no part in their doings. I +have known what it was to dream of the great passions; but since my +mother kissed me before she died, no woman's lips have pressed my +cheek,--nor ever will. + +--The young girl's eyes glittered with a sudden film, and almost without +a thought, but with a warm human instinct that rushed up into her face +with her heart's blood, she bent over and kissed him. It was the +sacrament that washed out the memory of long years of bitterness, and I +should hold it an unworthy thought to defend her. The Little Gentleman +repaid her with the only tear any of us ever saw him shed. + +The divinity-student rose from his place, and, turning away from the sick +man, walked to the other side of the room, where he bowed his head and +was still. All the questions he had meant to ask had faded from his +memory. The tests he had prepared by which to judge of his +fellow-creature's fitness for heaven seemed to have lost their virtue. +He could trust the crippled child of sorrow to the Infinite Parent. The +kiss of the fair-haired girl had been like a sign from heaven, that +angels watched over him whom he was presuming but a moment before to +summon before the tribunal of his private judgment. Shall I pray with +you?--he said, after a pause. A little before he would have said, Shall +I pray for you?--The Christian religion, as taught by its Founder, is +full of sentiment. So we must not blame the divinity-student, if he was +overcome by those yearnings of human sympathy which predominate so much +more in the sermons of the Master than in the writings of his successors, +and which have made the parable of the Prodigal Son the consolation of +mankind, as it has been the stumbling-block of all exclusive doctrines. + +Pray!--said the Little Gentleman. + +The divinity-student prayed, in low, tender tones, + +Iris and the Little Gentleman that God would look on his servant lying +helpless at the feet of his mercy; that He would remember his long years +of bondage in the flesh; that He would deal gently with the bruised reed. +Thou hast visited the sins of the fathers upon this their child. Oh, +turn away from him the penalties of his own transgressions! Thou hast +laid upon him, from infancy, the cross which thy stronger children are +called upon to take up; and now that he is fainting under it, be Thou his +stay, and do Thou succor him that is tempted! Let his manifold +infirmities come between him and Thy judgment; in wrath remember mercy! +If his eyes are not opened to all Thy truth, let Thy compassion lighten +the darkness that rests upon him, even as it came through the word of thy +Son to blind Bartimeus, who sat by the wayside, begging! + +Many more petitions he uttered, but all in the same subdued tone of +tenderness. In the presence of helpless suffering, and in the +fast-darkening shadow of the Destroyer, he forgot all but his Christian +humanity, and cared more about consoling his fellow-man than making a +proselyte of him. + +This was the last prayer to which the Little Gentleman ever listened. +Some change was rapidly coming over him during this last hour of which I +have been speaking. The excitement of pleading his cause before his +self-elected spiritual adviser,--the emotion which overcame him, when the +young girl obeyed the sudden impulse of her feelings and pressed her lips +to his cheek,--the thoughts that mastered him while the divinity-student +poured out his soul for him in prayer, might well hurry on the inevitable +moment. When the divinity-student had uttered his last petition, +commending him to the Father through his Son's intercession, he turned to +look upon him before leaving his chamber. His face was changed.--There +is a language of the human countenance which we all understand without an +interpreter, though the lineaments belong to the rudest savage that ever +stammered in an unknown barbaric dialect. By the stillness of the +sharpened features, by the blankness of the tearless eyes, by the +fixedness of the smileless mouth, by the deadening tints, by the +contracted brow, by the dilating nostril, we know that the soul is soon +to leave its mortal tenement, and is already closing up its windows and +putting out its fires.--Such was the aspect of the face upon which the +divinity-student looked, after the brief silence which followed his +prayer. The change had been rapid, though not that abrupt one which is +liable to happen at any moment in these cases.--The sick man looked +towards him.--Farewell,--he said,--I thank you. Leave me alone with her. + +When the divinity-student had gone, and the Little Gentleman found +himself alone with Iris, he lifted his hand to his neck, and took from +it, suspended by a slender chain, a quaint, antique-looking key,--the +same key I had once seen him holding. He gave this to her, and pointed +to a carved cabinet opposite his bed, one of those that had so attracted +my curious eyes and set me wondering as to what it might contain. + +Open it,--he said,--and light the lamp.--The young girl walked to the +cabinet and unlocked the door. A deep recess appeared, lined with black +velvet, against which stood in white relief an ivory crucifix. A silver +lamp hung over it. She lighted the lamp and came back to the bedside. +The dying man fixed his eyes upon the figure of the dying Saviour.--Give +me your hand, he said; and Iris placed her right hand in his left. So +they remained, until presently his eyes lost their meaning, though they +still remained vacantly fixed upon the white image. Yet he held the +young girl's hand firmly, as if it were leading him through some +deep-shadowed valley and it was all he could cling to. But presently an +involuntary muscular contraction stole over him, and his terrible dying +grasp held the poor girl as if she were wedged in an engine of torture. +She pressed her lips together and sat still. The inexorable hand held +her tighter and tighter, until she felt as if her own slender fingers +would be crushed in its gripe. It was one of the tortures of the +Inquisition she was suffering, and she could not stir from her place. +Then, in her great anguish, she, too, cast her eyes upon that dying +figure, and, looking upon its pierced hands and feet and side and +lacerated forehead, she felt that she also must suffer uncomplaining. In +the moment of her sharpest pain she did not forget the duties of her +under office, but dried the dying man's moist forehead with her +handkerchief, even while the dews of agony were glistening on her own. +How long this lasted she never could tell. Time and thirst are two +things you and I talk about; but the victims whom holy men and righteous +judges used to stretch on their engines knew better what they meant than +you or I!--What is that great bucket of water for? said the Marchioness +de Brinvilliers, before she was placed on the rack.--For you to +drink,--said the torturer to the little woman.--She could not think that +it would take such a flood to quench the fire in her and so keep her +alive for her confession. The torturer knew better than she. + +After a time not to be counted in minutes, as the clock measures, +--without any warning,--there came a swift change of his features; his +face turned white, as the waters whiten when a sudden breath passes over +their still surface; the muscles instantly relaxed, and Iris, released at +once from her care for the sufferer and from his unconscious grasp, fell +senseless, with a feeble cry,--the only utterance of her long agony. + +Perhaps you sometimes wander in through the iron gates of the Copp's Hill +burial-ground. You love to stroll round among the graves that crowd each +other in the thickly peopled soil of that breezy summit. You love to lean +on the freestone slab which lies over the bones of the Mathers,--to read +the epitaph of stout William Clark, "Despiser of Sorry Persons and little +Actions,"--to stand by the stone grave of sturdy Daniel Malcolm and look +upon the splintered slab that tells the old rebel's story,--to kneel by +the triple stone that says how the three Worthylakes, father, mother, and +young daughter, died on the same day and lie buried there; a mystery; the +subject of a moving ballad, by the late BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, as may be seen +in his autobiography, which will explain the secret of the triple +gravestone; though the old philosopher has made a mistake, unless the +stone is wrong. + +Not very far from that you will find a fair mound, of dimensions fit to +hold a well-grown man. I will not tell you the inscription upon the +stone which stands at its head; for I do not wish you to be sure of the +resting-place of one who could not bear to think that he should be known +as a cripple among the dead, after being pointed at so long among the +living. There is one sign, it is true, by which, if you have been a +sagacious reader of these papers, you will at once know it; but I fear +you read carelessly, and must study them more diligently before you will +detect the hint to which I allude. + +The Little Gentleman lies where he longed to lie, among the old names and +the old bones of the old Boston people. At the foot of his resting-place +is the river, alive with the wings and antennae of its colossal +water-insects; over opposite are the great war-ships, and the heavy guns, +which, when they roar, shake the soil in which he lies; and in the +steeple of Christ Church, hard by, are the sweet chimes which are the +Boston boy's Ranz des Vaches, whose echoes follow him all the world over. + + In Pace! + +I, told you a good while ago that the Little Gentleman could not do a +better thing than to leave all his money, whatever it might be, to the +young girl who has since that established such a claim upon him. He did +not, however. A considerable bequest to one of our public institutions +keeps his name in grateful remembrance. The telescope through which he +was fond of watching the heavenly bodies, and the movements of which had +been the source of such odd fancies on my part, is now the property of a +Western College. You smile as you think of my taking it for a fleshless +human figure, when I saw its tube pointing to the sky, and thought it was +an arm, under the white drapery thrown over it for protection. So do I +smile now; I belong to the numerous class who are prophets after the +fact, and hold my nightmares very cheap by daylight. + +I have received many letters of inquiry as to the sound resembling a +woman's voice, which occasioned me so many perplexities. Some thought +there was no question that he had a second apartment, in which he had +made an asylum for a deranged female relative. Others were of opinion +that he was, as I once suggested, a "Bluebeard" with patriarchal +tendencies, and I have even been censured for introducing so Oriental an +element into my record of boarding-house experience. + +Come in and see me, the Professor, some evening when I have nothing else +to do, and ask me to play you Tartini's Devil's Sonata on that +extraordinary instrument in my possession, well known to amateurs as one +of the masterpieces of Joseph Guarnerius. The vox humana of the great +Haerlem organ is very lifelike, and the same stop in the organ of the +Cambridge chapel might be mistaken in some of its tones for a human +voice; but I think you never heard anything come so near the cry of a +prima donna as the A string and the E string of this instrument. A +single fact will illustrate the resemblance. I was executing some tours +de force upon it one evening, when the policeman of our district rang the +bell sharply, and asked what was the matter in the house. He had heard a +woman's screams,--he was sure of it. I had to make the instrument sing +before his eyes before he could be satisfied that he had not heard the +cries of a woman. The instrument was bequeathed to me by the Little +Gentleman. Whether it had anything to do with the sounds I heard coming +from his chamber, you can form your own opinion;--I have no other +conjecture to offer. It is not true that a second apartment with a +secret entrance was found; and the story of the veiled lady is the +invention of one of the Reporters. + +Bridget, the housemaid, always insisted that he died a Catholic. She had +seen the crucifix, and believed that he prayed on his knees before it. +The last circumstance is very probably true; indeed, there was a spot +worn on the carpet just before this cabinet which might be thus accounted +for. Why he, whose whole life was a crucifixion, should not love to look +on that divine image of blameless suffering, I cannot see; on the +contrary, it seems to me the most natural thing in the world that he +should. But there are those who want to make private property of +everything, and can't make up their minds that people who don't think as +they do should claim any interest in that infinite compassion expressed +in the central figure of the Christendom which includes us all. + +The divinity-student expressed a hope before the boarders that he should +meet him in heaven.--The question is, whether he'll meet you,--said the +young fellow John, rather smartly. The divinity-student had n't thought +of that. + +However, he is a worthy young man, and I trust I have shown him in a +kindly and respectful light. He will get a parish by-and-by; and, as he +is about to marry the sister of an old friend,--the Schoolmistress, whom +some of us remember,--and as all sorts of expensive accidents happen to +young married ministers, he will be under bonds to the amount of his +salary, which means starvation, if they are forfeited, to think all his +days as he thought when he was settled,--unless the majority of his +people change with him or in advance of him. A hard ease, to which +nothing could reconcile a man, except that the faithful discharge of +daily duties in his personal relations with his parishioners will make +him useful enough in his way, though as a thinker he may cease to exist +before he has reached middle age. + +--Iris went into mourning for the Little Gentleman. Although, as I have +said, he left the bulk of his property, by will, to a public institution, +he added a codicil, by which he disposed of various pieces of property as +tokens of kind remembrance. It was in this way I became the possessor of +the wonderful instrument I have spoken of, which had been purchased for +him out of an Italian convent. The landlady was comforted with a small +legacy. The following extract relates to Iris: "in consideration of her +manifold acts of kindness, but only in token of grateful remembrance, and +by no means as a reward for services which cannot be compensated, a +certain messuage, with all the land thereto appertaining, situated in +______ Street, at the North End, so called, of Boston, aforesaid, the +same being the house in which I was born, but now inhabited by several +families, and known as 'The Rookery.'" Iris had also the crucifix, the +portrait, and the red-jewelled ring. The funeral or death's-head ring +was buried with him. + +It was a good while, after the Little Gentleman was gone, before our +boarding-house recovered its wonted cheerfulness. There was a flavor in +his whims and local prejudices that we liked, even while we smiled at +them. It was hard to see the tall chair thrust away among useless +lumber, to dismantle his room, to take down the picture of Leah, the +handsome Witch of Essex, to move away the massive shelves that held the +books he loved, to pack up the tube through which he used to study the +silent stars, looking down at him like the eyes of dumb creatures, with a +kind of stupid half-consciousness that did not worry him as did the eyes +of men and women,--and hardest of all to displace that sacred figure to +which his heart had always turned and found refuge, in the feelings it +inspired, from all the perplexities of his busy brain. It was hard, but +it had to be done. + +And by-and-by we grew cheerful again, and the breakfast-table wore +something of its old look. The Koh-i-noor, as we named the gentleman +with the diamond, left us, however, soon after that "little mill," as the +young fellow John called it, where he came off second best. His +departure was no doubt hastened by a note from the landlady's daughter, +inclosing a lock of purple hair which she "had valued as a pledge of +affection, ere she knew the hollowness of the vows he had breathed," +speedily followed by another, inclosing the landlady's bill. The next +morning he was missing, as were his limited wardrobe and the trunk that +held it. Three empty bottles of Mrs. Allen's celebrated preparation, +each of them asserting, on its word of honor as a bottle, that its former +contents were "not a dye," were all that was left to us of the +Koh-i-noor. + +From this time forward, the landlady's daughter manifested a decided +improvement in her style of carrying herself before the boarders. She +abolished the odious little flat, gummy side-curl. She left off various +articles of "jewelry." She began to help her mother in some of her +household duties. She became a regular attendant on the ministrations of +a very worthy clergyman, having been attracted to his meetin' by +witnessing a marriage ceremony in which he called a man and a woman a +"gentleman" and a "lady,"--a stroke of gentility which quite overcame +her. She even took a part in what she called a Sabbath school, though it +was held on Sunday, and by no means on Saturday, as the name she intended +to utter implied. All this, which was very sincere, as I believe, on her +part, and attended with a great improvement in her character, ended in +her bringing home a young man, with straight, sandy hair, brushed so as +to stand up steeply above his forehead, wearing a pair of green +spectacles, and dressed in black broadcloth. His personal aspect, and a +certain solemnity of countenance, led me to think he must be a clergyman; +and as Master Benjamin Franklin blurted out before several of us +boarders, one day, that "Sis had got a beau," I was pleased at the +prospect of her becoming a minister's wife. On inquiry, however, I found +that the somewhat solemn look which I had noticed was indeed a +professional one, but not clerical. He was a young undertaker, who had +just succeeded to a thriving business. Things, I believe, are going on +well at this time of writing, and I am glad for the landlady's daughter +and her mother. Sextons and undertakers are the cheerfullest people in +the world at home, as comedians and circus-clowns are the most melancholy +in their domestic circle. + +As our old boarding-house is still in existence, I do not feel at liberty +to give too minute a statement of the present condition of each and all +of its inmates. I am happy to say, however, that they are all alive and +well, up to this time. That amiable old gentleman who sat opposite to me +is growing older, as old men will, but still smiles benignantly on all +the boarders, and has come to be a kind of father to all of them,--so +that on his birthday there is always something like a family festival. +The Poor Relation, even, has warmed into a filial feeling towards him, +and on his last birthday made him a beautiful present, namely, a very +handsomely bound copy of Blair's celebrated poem, "The Grave." + +The young man John is still, as he says, "in fustrate fettle." I saw him +spar, not long since, at a private exhibition, and do himself great +credit in a set-to with Henry Finnegass, Esq., a professional gentleman +of celebrity. I am pleased to say that he has been promoted to an upper +clerkship, and, in consequence of his rise in office, has taken an +apartment somewhat lower down than number "forty-'leven," as he +facetiously called his attic. Whether there is any truth, or not, in the +story of his attachment to, and favorable reception by, the daughter of +the head of an extensive wholesale grocer's establishment, I will not +venture an opinion; I may say, however, that I have met him repeatedly in +company with a very well-nourished and high-colored young lady, who, I +understand, is the daughter of the house in question. + +Some of the boarders were of opinion that Iris did not return the +undisguised attentions of the handsome young Marylander. Instead of +fixing her eyes steadily on him, as she used to look upon the Little +Gentleman, she would turn them away, as if to avoid his own. They often +went to church together, it is true; but nobody, of course, supposes +there is any relation between religious sympathy and those wretched +"sentimental" movements of the human heart upon which it is commonly +agreed that nothing better is based than society, civilization, +friendship, the relation of husband and wife, and of parent and child, +and which many people must think were singularly overrated by the Teacher +of Nazareth, whose whole life, as I said before, was full of sentiment, +loving this or that young man, pardoning this or that sinner, weeping +over the dead, mourning for the doomed city, blessing, and perhaps +kissing, the little children, so that the Gospels are still cried over +almost as often as the last work of fiction! + +But one fine June morning there rumbled up to the door of our +boarding-house a hack containing a lady inside and a trunk on the +outside. It was our friend the lady-patroness of Miss Iris, the same who +had been called by her admiring pastor "The Model of all the Virtues." +Once a week she had written a letter, in a rather formal hand, but full +of good advice, to her young charge. And now she had come to carry her +away, thinking that she had learned all she was likely to learn under her +present course of teaching. The Model, however, was to stay awhile,--a +week, or more,--before they should leave together. + +Iris was obedient, as she was bound to be. She was respectful, grateful, +as a child is with a just, but not tender parent. Yet something was +wrong. She had one of her trances, and became statue-like, as before, +only the day after the Model's arrival. She was wan and silent, tasted +nothing at table, smiled as if by a forced effort, and often looked +vaguely away from those who were looking at her, her eyes just glazed +with the shining moisture of a tear that must not be allowed to gather +and fall. Was it grief at parting from the place where her strange +friendship had grown up with the Little Gentleman? Yet she seemed to +have become reconciled to his loss, and rather to have a deep feeling of +gratitude that she had been permitted to care for him in his last weary +days. + +The Sunday after the Model's arrival, that lady had an attack of +headache, and was obliged to shut herself up in a darkened room alone. +Our two young friends took the opportunity to go together to the Church +of the Galileans. They said but little going,--"collecting their +thoughts" for the service, I devoutly hope. My kind good friend the +pastor preached that day one of his sermons that make us all feel like +brothers and sisters, and his text was that affectionate one from John, +"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in +deed and in truth." When Iris and her friend came out of church, they +were both pale, and walked a space without speaking. + +At last the young man said,--You and I are not little children, Iris! + +She looked in his face an instant, as if startled, for there was +something strange in the tone of his voice. She smiled faintly, but +spoke never a word. + +In deed and in truth, Iris,---- + +What shall a poor girl say or do, when a strong man falters in his speech +before her, and can do nothing better than hold out his hand to finish +his broken sentence? + +The poor girl said nothing, but quietly laid her ungloved hand in +his,--the little soft white hand which had ministered so tenderly and +suffered so patiently. + +The blood came back to the young man's cheeks, as he lifted it to his +lips, even as they walked there in the street, touched it gently with +them, and said, "It is mine!" + +Iris did not contradict him. + +The seasons pass by so rapidly, that I am startled to think how much has +happened since these events I was describing. Those two young people +would insist on having their own way about their own affairs, +notwithstanding the good lady, so justly called the Model, insisted that +the age of twenty-five years was as early as any discreet young lady +should think of incurring the responsibilities, etc., etc. Long before +Iris had reached that age, she was the wife of a young Maryland engineer, +directing some of the vast constructions of his native State,--where he +was growing rich fast enough to be able to decline that famous Russian +offer which would have made him a kind of nabob in a few years. Iris +does not write verse often, nowadays, but she sometimes draws. The last +sketch of hers I have seen in my Southern visits was of two children, a +boy and girl, the youngest holding a silver goblet, like the one she held +that evening when I--I was so struck with her statue-like beauty. If in +the later, summer months you find the grass marked with footsteps around +that grave on Copp's Hill I told you of, and flowers scattered over it, +you may be sure that Iris is here on her annual visit to the home of her +childhood and that excellent lady whose only fault was, that Nature had +written out her list of virtues an ruled paper, and forgotten to rub out +the lines. + +One thing more I must mention. Being on the Common, last Sunday, I was +attracted by the cheerful spectacle of a well-dressed and somewhat +youthful papa wheeling a very elegant little carriage containing a stout +baby. A buxom young lady watched them from one of the stone seats, with +an interest which could be nothing less than maternal. I at once +recognized my old friend, the young fellow whom we called John. He was +delighted to see me, introduced me to "Madam," and would have the lusty +infant out of the carriage, and hold him up for me to look at. + +Now, then,--he said to the two-year-old,--show the gentleman how you hit +from the shoulder. Whereupon the little imp pushed his fat fist straight +into my eye, to his father's intense satisfaction. + +Fust-rate little chap,--said the papa.--Chip of the old block. Regl'r +little Johnny, you know. + +I was so much pleased to find the young fellow settled in life, and +pushing about one of "them little articles" he had seemed to want so +much, that I took my "punishment" at the hands of the infant pugilist +with great equanimity.--And how is the old boarding-house?--I asked. + +A 1,--he answered.--Painted and papered as good as new. Gabs in all the +rooms up to the skyparlors. Old woman's layin' up money, they say. +Means to send Ben Franklin to college. Just then the first bell rang for +church, and my friend, who, I understand, has become a most exemplary +member of society, said he must be off to get ready for meetin', and told +the young one to "shake dada," which he did with his closed fist, in a +somewhat menacing manner. And so the young man John, as we used to call +him, took the pole of the miniature carriage, and pushed the small +pugilist before him homewards, followed, in a somewhat leisurely way, by +his pleasant-looking lady-companion, and I sent a sigh and a smile after +him. + +That evening, as soon as it was dark, I could not help going round by the +old boarding-house. The "gahs" was lighted, but the curtains, or more +properly, the painted shades; were not down. And so I stood there and +looked in along the table where the boarders sat at the evening +meal,--our old breakfast-table, which some of us feel as if we knew so +well. There were new faces at it, but also old and familiar ones.--The +landlady, in a wonderfully smart cap, looking young, comparatively +speaking, and as if half the wrinkles had been ironed out of her +forehead.--Her daughter, in rather dressy half-mourning, with a vast +brooch of jet, got up, apparently, to match the gentleman next her, who +was in black costume and sandy hair,--the last rising straight from his +forehead, like the marble flame one sometimes sees at the top of a +funeral urn.--The Poor Relation, not in absolute black, but in a stuff +with specks of white; as much as to say, that, if there were any more +Hirams left to sigh for her, there were pin-holes in the night of her +despair, through which a ray of hope might find its way to an adorer. +--Master Benjamin Franklin, grown taller of late, was in the act of +splitting his face open with a wedge of pie, so that his features were +seen to disadvantage for the moment.--The good old gentleman was sitting +still and thoughtful. All at once he turned his face toward the window +where I stood, and, just as if he had seen me, smiled his benignant +smile. It was a recollection of some past pleasant moment; but it fell +upon me like the blessing of a father. + +I kissed my hand to them all, unseen as I stood in the outer darkness; +and as I turned and went my way, the table and all around it faded into +the realm of twilight shadows and of midnight dreams. + + --------------------- + +And so my year's record is finished. The Professor has talked less than +his predecessor, but he has heard and seen more. Thanks to all those +friends who from time to time have sent their messages of kindly +recognition and fellow-feeling! Peace to all such as may have been vexed +in spirit by any utterance these pages have repeated! They will, +doubtless, forget for the moment the difference in the hues of truth we +look at through our human prisms, and join in singing (inwardly) this +hymn to the Source of the light we all need to lead us, and the warmth +which alone can make us all brothers. + + + A SUN-DAY HYMN. + + Lord of all being! throned afar, + Thy glory flames from sun and star, + Centre and soul of every sphere, + Yet to each loving heart how near! + + Sun of our life, thy quickening ray + Sheds on our path the glow of day; + Star of our hope, thy softened light + Cheers the long watches of the night. + + Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn; + Our noontide is thy gracious dawn; + Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign; + All, save the clouds of sin, are thine! + + Lord of all life, below, above, + Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, + Before thy ever-blazing throne + We ask no lustre of our own. + + Grant us thy truth to make us free, + And kindling hearts that burn for thee, + Till all thy living altars claim + One holy light, one heavenly flame. + One holy light, one heavenly flame. + + + + + + +THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE + +by Oliver Wendell Holmes + + + +PREFACE. + +In this, the third series of Breakfast-Table conversations, a slight +dramatic background shows off a few talkers and writers, aided by certain +silent supernumeraries. The machinery is much like that of the two +preceding series. Some of the characters must seem like old +acquaintances to those who have read the former papers. As I read these +over for the first time for a number of years, I notice one character; +presenting a class of beings who have greatly multiplied during the +interval which separates the earlier and later Breakfast-Table papers,--I +mean the scientific specialists. The entomologist, who confines himself +rigidly to the study of the coleoptera, is intended to typify this class. +The subdivision of labor, which, as we used to be told, required fourteen +different workmen to make a single pin, has reached all branches of +knowledge. We find new terms in all the Professions, implying that +special provinces have been marked off, each having its own school of +students. In theology we have many curious subdivisions; among the rest +eschatology, that is to say, the geography, geology, etc., of the +"undiscovered country;" in medicine, if the surgeon who deals with +dislocations of the right shoulder declines to meddle with a displacement +on the other side, we are not surprised, but ring the bell of the +practitioner who devotes himself to injuries of the left shoulder. + +On the other hand, we have had or have the encyclopaedic intelligences +like Cuvier, Buckle, and more emphatically Herbert Spencer, who take all +knowledge, or large fields of it, to be their province. The author of +"Thoughts on the Universe" has something in common with these, but he +appears also to have a good deal about him of what we call the humorist; +that is, an individual with a somewhat heterogeneous personality, in +which various distinctly human elements are mixed together, so as to form +a kind of coherent and sometimes pleasing whole, which is to a +symmetrical character as a breccia is to a mosaic. + +As for the Young Astronomer, his rhythmical discourse may be taken as +expressing the reaction of what some would call "the natural man" against +the unnatural beliefs which he found in that lower world to which he +descended by day from his midnight home in the firmament. + +I have endeavored to give fair play to the protest of gentle and +reverential conservatism in the letter of the Lady, which was not copied +from, but suggested by, one which I received long ago from a lady bearing +an honored name, and which I read thoughtfully and with profound respect. + +December, 1882. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. + +It is now nearly twenty years since this book was published. Being the +third of the Breakfast-Table series, it could hardly be expected to +attract so much attention as the earlier volumes. Still, I had no reason +to be disappointed with its reception. It took its place with the +others, and was in some points a clearer exposition of my views and +feelings than either of the other books, its predecessors. The poems +"Homesick in Heaven" and the longer group of passages coming from the +midnight reveries of the Young Astronomer have thoughts in them not so +fully expressed elsewhere in my writings. + +The first of these two poems is at war with our common modes of thought. +In looking forward to rejoining in a future state those whom we have +loved on earth,--as most of us hope and many of us believe we shall,--we +are apt to forget that the same individuality is remembered by one +relative as a babe, by another as an adult in the strength of maturity, +and by a third as a wreck with little left except its infirmities and its +affections. The main thought of this poem is a painful one to some +persons. They have so closely associated life with its accidents that +they expect to see their departed friends in the costume of the time in +which they best remember them, and feel as if they should meet the spirit +of their grandfather with his wig and cane, as they habitually recall him +to memory. + +The process of scientific specialization referred to and illustrated in +this record has been going on more actively than ever during these last +twenty years. We have only to look over the lists of the Faculties and +teachers of our Universities to see the subdivision of labor carried out +as never before. The movement is irresistible; it brings with it +exactness, exhaustive knowledge, a narrow but complete self-satisfaction, +with such accompanying faults as pedantry, triviality, and the kind of +partial blindness which belong to intellectual myopia. The specialist is +idealized almost into sublimity in Browning's "Burial of the Grammarian." +We never need fear that he will undervalue himself. To be the supreme +authority on anything is a satisfaction to self-love next door to the +precious delusions of dementia. I have never pictured a character more +contented with himself than the "Scarabee" of this story. + +BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August 1, 1891. +O. W. H. + + THE POET + + AT THE + + BREAKFAST-TABLE. +I + +The idea of a man's "interviewing" himself is rather odd, to be sure. But +then that is what we are all of us doing every day. I talk half the time +to find out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets inside out +to see what is in them. One brings to light all sorts of personal +property he had forgotten in his inventory. + +--You don't know what your thoughts are going to be beforehand? said the +"Member of the Haouse," as he calls himself. + +--Why, of course I don't. Bless your honest legislative soul, I suppose +I have as many bound volumes of notions of one kind and another in my +head as you have in your Representatives' library up there at the State +House. I have to tumble them over and over, and open them in a hundred +places, and sometimes cut the leaves here and there, to find what I think +about this and that. And a good many people who flatter themselves they +are talking wisdom to me, are only helping me to get at the shelf and the +book and the page where I shall find my own opinion about the matter in +question. + +--The Member's eyes began to look heavy. + +--It 's a very queer place, that receptacle a man fetches his talk out +of. The library comparison does n't exactly hit it. You stow away some +idea and don't want it, say for ten years. When it turns up at last it +has got so jammed and crushed out of shape by the other ideas packed with +it, that it is no more like what it was than a raisin is like a grape on +the vine, or a fig from a drum like one hanging on the tree. Then, +again, some kinds of thoughts breed in the dark of one's mind like the +blind fishes in the Mammoth Cave. We can't see them and they can't see +us; but sooner or later the daylight gets in and we find that some cold, +fishy little negative has been spawning all over our beliefs, and the +brood of blind questions it has given birth to are burrowing round and +under and butting their blunt noses against the pillars of faith we +thought the whole world might lean on. And then, again, some of our old +beliefs are dying out every year, and others feed on them and grow fat, +or get poisoned as the case may be. And so, you see, you can't tell what +the thoughts are that you have got salted down, as one may say, till you +run a streak of talk through them, as the market people run a butterscoop +through a firkin. + +Don't talk, thinking you are going to find out your neighbor, for you +won't do it, but talk to find out yourself. There is more of you--and +less of you, in spots, very likely--than you know. + +--The Member gave a slight but unequivocal start just here. It does seem +as if perpetual somnolence was the price of listening to other people's +wisdom. This was one of those transient nightmares that one may have in +a doze of twenty seconds. He thought a certain imaginary Committee of +Safety of a certain imaginary Legislature was proceeding to burn down his +haystack, in accordance with an Act, entitled an Act to make the Poor +Richer by making the Rich Poorer. And the chairman of the committee was +instituting a forcible exchange of hats with him, to his manifest +disadvantage, for he had just bought him a new beaver. He told this +dream afterwards to one of the boarders. + +There was nothing very surprising, therefore, in his asking a question +not very closely related to what had gone before. + +--Do you think they mean business? + +--I beg your pardon, but it would be of material assistance to me in +answering your question if I knew who "they" might happen to be. + +--Why, those chaps that are setting folks on to burn us all up in our +beds. Political firebugs we call 'em up our way. Want to substitoot the +match-box for the ballot-box. Scare all our old women half to death. + +--Oh--ah--yes--to be sure. I don't believe they say what the papers put +in their mouths any more than that a friend of mine wrote the letter +about Worcester's and Webster's Dictionaries, that he had to disown the +other day. These newspaper fellows are half asleep when they make up +their reports at two or three o'clock in the morning, and fill out the +speeches to suit themselves. I do remember some things that sounded +pretty bad,--about as bad as nitro-glycerine, for that matter. But I +don't believe they ever said 'em, when they spoke their pieces, or if +they said 'em I know they did n't mean 'em. Something like this, wasn't +it? If the majority didn't do something the minority wanted 'em to, then +the people were to burn up our cities, and knock us down and jump on our +stomachs. That was about the kind of talk, as the papers had it; I don't +wonder it scared the old women. + +--The Member was wide awake by this time. + +--I don't seem to remember of them partickler phrases, he said. + +--Dear me, no; only levelling everything smack, and trampling us under +foot, as the reporters made it out. That means FIRE, I take it, and +knocking you down and stamping on you, whichever side of your person +happens to be uppermost. Sounded like a threat; meant, of course, for a +warning. But I don't believe it was in the piece as they spoke +it,--could n't have been. Then, again, Paris wasn't to blame,--as much +as to say--so the old women thought--that New York or Boston would n't be +to blame if it did the same thing. I've heard of political gatherings +where they barbecued an ox, but I can't think there 's a party in this +country that wants to barbecue a city. But it is n't quite fair to +frighten the old women. I don't doubt there are a great many people +wiser than I am that would n't be hurt by a hint I am going to give them. +It's no matter what you say when you talk to yourself, but when you talk +to other people, your business is to use words with reference to the way +in which those other people are like to understand them. These pretended +inflammatory speeches, so reported as to seem full of combustibles, even +if they were as threatening as they have been represented, would do no +harm if read or declaimed in a man's study to his books, or by the +sea-shore to the waves. But they are not so wholesome moral +entertainment for the dangerous classes. Boys must not touch off their +squibs and crackers too near the powder-magazine. This kind of speech +does n't help on the millennium much. + +--It ain't jest the thing to grease your ex with ile o' vitrul, said the +Member. + +--No, the wheel of progress will soon stick fast if you do. You can't +keep a dead level long, if you burn everything down flat to make it. +Why, bless your soul, if all the cities of the world were reduced ashes, +you'd have a new set of millionnaires in a couple of years or so, out of +the trade in potash. In the mean time, what is the use of setting the +man with the silver watch against the man with the gold watch, and the +man without any watch against them both? + +--You can't go agin human natur', said the Member + +--You speak truly. Here we are travelling through desert together like +the children of Israel. Some pick up more manna and catch more quails +than others and ought to help their hungry neighbors more than they do; +that will always be so until we come back to primitive Christianity, the +road to which does not seem to be via Paris, just now; but we don't want +the incendiary's pillar of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night +to lead us in the march to civilization, and we don't want a Moses who +will smite rock, not to bring out water for our thirst, but petroleum to +burn us all up with. + +--It is n't quite fair to run an opposition to the other funny speaker, +Rev. Petroleum V. What 's-his-name,--spoke up an anonymous boarder. + +--You may have been thinking, perhaps, that it was I,--I, the Poet, who +was the chief talker in the one-sided dialogue to which you have been +listening. If so, you were mistaken. It was the old man in the +spectacles with large round glasses and the iron-gray hair. He does a +good deal of the talking at our table, and, to tell the truth, I rather +like to hear him. He stirs me up, and finds me occupation in various +ways, and especially, because he has good solid prejudices, that one can +rub against, and so get up and let off a superficial intellectual +irritation, just as the cattle rub their backs against a rail (you +remember Sydney Smith's contrivance in his pasture) or their sides +against an apple-tree (I don't know why they take to these so +particularly, but you will often find the trunk of an apple-tree as brown +and smooth as an old saddle at the height of a cow's ribs). I think they +begin rubbing in cold blood, and then, you know, l'appetit vient en +mangeant, the more they rub the more they want to. That is the way to use +your friend's prejudices. This is a sturdy-looking personage of a good +deal more than middle age, his face marked with strong manly furrows, +records of hard thinking and square stand-up fights with life and all its +devils. There is a slight touch of satire in his discourse now and then, +and an odd way of answering one that makes it hard to guess how much more +or less he means than he seems to say. But he is honest, and always has +a twinkle in his eye to put you on your guard when he does not mean to be +taken quite literally. I think old Ben Franklin had just that look. I +know his great-grandson (in pace!) had it, and I don't doubt he took it +in the straight line of descent, as he did his grand intellect. + +The Member of the Haouse evidently comes from one of the lesser inland +centres of civilization, where the flora is rich in checkerberries and +similar bounties of nature, and the fauna lively with squirrels, +wood-chucks, and the like; where the leading sportsmen snare patridges, +as they are called, and "hunt" foxes with guns; where rabbits are +entrapped in "figgery fours," and trout captured with the unpretentious +earth-worm, instead of the gorgeous fly; where they bet prizes for butter +and cheese, and rag-carpets executed by ladies more than seventy years of +age; where whey wear dress-coats before dinner, and cock their hats on +one side when they feel conspicuous and distinshed; where they say--Sir +to you in their common talk and have other Arcadian and bucolic ways +which are highly unobjectionable, but are not so much admired in cities, +where the people are said to be not half so virtuous. + +There is with us a boy of modest dimensions, not otherwise especially +entitled to the epithet, who ought be six or seven years old, to judge by +the gap left by his front milk teeth, these having resigned in favor of +their successors, who have not yet presented their credentials. He is +rather old for an enfant terrible, and quite too young to have grown into +the bashfulness of adolescence; but he has some of the qualities of both +these engaging periods of development, The member of the Haouse calls him +"Bub," invariably, such term I take to be an abbreviation of "Beelzeb," +as "bus" is the short form of "omnibus." Many eminently genteel persons, +whose manners make them at home anywhere, being evidently unaware of true +derivation of this word, are in the habit of addressing all unknown +children by one of the two terms, "bub" and "sis," which they consider +endears them greatly to the young people, and recommends them to the +acquaintance of their honored parents, if these happen to accompany them. +The other boarders commonly call our diminutive companion That Boy. He +is a sort of expletive at the table, serving to stop gaps, taking the +same place a washer does that makes a loose screw fit, and contriving to +get driven in like a wedge between any two chairs where there is a +crevice. I shall not call that boy by the monosyllable referred to, +because, though he has many impish traits at present, he may become +civilized and humanized by being in good company. Besides, it is a term +which I understand is considered vulgar by the nobility and gentry of the +Mother Country, and it is not to be found in Mr. Worcester's Dictionary, +on which, as is well known, the literary men of this metropolis are by +special statute allowed to be sworn in place of the Bible. I know one, +certainly, who never takes his oath on any other dictionary, any +advertising fiction to the contrary, notwithstanding. + +I wanted to write out my account of some of the other boarders, but a +domestic occurrence--a somewhat prolonged visit from the landlady, who is +rather too anxious that I should be comfortable broke in upon the +continuity of my thoughts, and occasioned--in short, I gave up writing +for that day. + +--I wonder if anything like this ever happened. Author writing, jacks?" + + "To be, or not to be: that is the question + Whether 't is nobl--" + +--"William, shall we have pudding to-day, or flapjacks?" + +--"Flapjacks, an' it please thee, Anne, or a pudding, for that matter; or +what thou wilt, good woman, so thou come not betwixt me and my thought." + +--Exit Mistress Anne, with strongly accented closing of the door and +murmurs to the effect: "Ay, marry, 't is well for thee to talk as if thou +hadst no stomach to fill. We poor wives must swink for our masters, +while they sit in their arm-chairs growing as great in the girth through +laziness as that ill-mannered fat man William hath writ of in his books +of players' stuff. One had as well meddle with a porkpen, which hath +thorns all over him, as try to deal with William when his eyes be rolling +in that mad way." + +William--writing once more--after an exclamation in strong English of the +older pattern,-- + + "Whether 't is nobler--nobler--nobler--" + +To do what? O these women! these women! to have puddings or flapjacks! +Oh!-- + + "Whether 't is nobler--in the mind--to suffer + The slings--and arrows--of--" + +Oh! Oh! these women! I will e'en step over to the parson's and have a +cup of sack with His Reverence for methinks Master Hamlet hath forgot +that which was just now on his lips to speak. + +So I shall have to put off making my friends acquainted with the other +boarders, some of whom seem to me worth studying and describing. I have +something else of a graver character for my readers. I am talking, you +know, as a poet; I do not say I deserve the name, but I have taken it, +and if you consider me at all it must be in that aspect. You will, +therefore, be willing to run your eyes over a few pages read, of course +by request, to a select party of the boarders. + + THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE AND ITS OUTLOOK. + + A PANORAMA, WITH SIDE-SHOWS. + +My birthplace, the home of my childhood and earlier and later boyhood, +has within a few months passed out of the ownership of my family into the +hands of that venerable Alma Mater who seems to have renewed her youth, +and has certainly repainted her dormitories. In truth, when I last +revisited that familiar scene and looked upon the flammantia mania of the +old halls, "Massachusetts" with the dummy clock-dial, "Harvard" with the +garrulous belfry, little "Holden" with the sculptured unpunishable cherub +over its portal, and the rest of my early brick-and-mortar acquaintances, +I could not help saying to myself that I had lived to see the peaceable +establishment of the Red Republic of Letters. + +Many of the things I shall put down I have no doubt told before in a +fragmentary way, how many I cannot be quite sure, as I do not very often +read my own prose works. But when a man dies a great deal is said of him +which has often been said in other forms, and now this dear old house is +dead to me in one sense, and I want to gather up my recollections and +wind a string of narrative round them, tying them up like a nosegay for +the last tribute: the same blossoms in it I have often laid on its +threshold while it was still living for me. + +We Americans are all cuckoos,--we make our homes in the nests of other +birds. I have read somewhere that the lineal descendants of the man who +carted off the body of William Rufus, with Walter Tyrrel's arrow sticking +in it, have driven a cart (not absolutely the same one, I suppose) in the +New Forest, from that day to this. I don't quite understand Mr. Ruskin's +saying (if he said it) that he couldn't get along in a country where +there were no castles, but I do think we lose a great deal in living +where there are so few permanent homes. You will see how much I parted +with which was not reckoned in the price paid for the old homestead. + +I shall say many things which an uncharitable reader might find fault +with as personal. I should not dare to call myself a poet if I did not; +for if there is anything that gives one a title to that name, it is that +his inner nature is naked and is not ashamed. But there are many such +things I shall put in words, not because they are personal, but because +they are human, and are born of just such experiences as those who hear +or read what I say are like to have had in greater or less measure. I +find myself so much like other people that I often wonder at the +coincidence. It was only the other day that I sent out a copy of verses +about my great-grandmother's picture, and I was surprised to find how +many other people had portraits of their great-grandmothers or other +progenitors, about which they felt as I did about mine, and for whom I +had spoken, thinking I was speaking for myself only. And so I am not +afraid to talk very freely with you, my precious reader or listener. You +too, Beloved, were born somewhere and remember your birthplace or your +early home; for you some house is haunted by recollections; to some roof +you have bid farewell. Your hand is upon mine, then, as I guide my pen. +Your heart frames the responses to the litany of my remembrance. For +myself it is a tribute of affection I am rendering, and I should put it +on record for my own satisfaction, were there none to read or to listen. + +I hope you will not say that I have built a pillared portico of +introduction to a humble structure of narrative. For when you look at +the old gambrel-roofed house, you will see an unpretending mansion, such +as very possibly you were born in yourself, or at any rate such a place +of residence as your minister or some of your well-to-do country cousins +find good enough, but not at all too grand for them. We have stately old +Colonial palaces in our ancient village, now a city, and a thriving +one,--square-fronted edifices that stand back from the vulgar highway, +with folded arms, as it were; social fortresses of the time when the +twilight lustre of the throne reached as far as our half-cleared +settlement, with a glacis before them in the shape of a long broad +gravel-walk, so that in King George's time they looked as formidably to +any but the silk-stocking gentry as Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein to a +visitor without the password. We forget all this in the kindly welcome +they give us to-day; for some of them are still standing and doubly +famous, as we all know. But the gambrel-roofed house, though stately +enough for college dignitaries and scholarly clergymen, was not one of +those old Tory, Episcopal-church-goer's strongholds. One of its doors +opens directly upon the green, always called the Common; the other, +facing the south, a few steps from it, over a paved foot-walk, on the +other side of which is the miniature front yard, bordered with lilacs and +syringas. The honest mansion makes no pretensions. Accessible, +companionable, holding its hand out to all, comfortable, respectable, and +even in its way dignified, but not imposing, not a house for his +Majesty's Counsellor, or the Right Reverend successor of Him who had not +where to lay his head, for something like a hundred and fifty years it +has stood in its lot, and seen the generations of men come and go like +the leaves of the forest. I passed some pleasant hours, a few years +since, in the Registry of Deeds and the Town Records, looking up the +history of the old house. How those dear friends of mine, the +antiquarians, for whose grave councils I compose my features on the too +rare Thursdays when I am at liberty to meet them, in whose human +herbarium the leaves and blossoms of past generations are so carefully +spread out and pressed and laid away, would listen to an expansion of the +following brief details into an Historical Memoir! + +The estate was the third lot of the eighth "Squadron" (whatever that +might be), and in the year 1707 was allotted in the distribution of +undivided lands to "Mr. ffox," the Reverend Jabez Fox of Woburn, it may +be supposed, as it passed from his heirs to the first Jonathan Hastings; +from him to his son, the long remembered College Steward; from him in the +year 1792 to the Reverend Eliphalet Pearson, Professor of Hebrew and +other Oriental languages in Harvard College, whose large personality swam +into my ken when I was looking forward to my teens; from him the +progenitors of my unborn self. + +I wonder if there are any such beings nowadays as the great Eliphalet, +with his large features and conversational basso profundo, seemed to me. +His very name had something elephantine about it, and it seemed to me +that the house shook from cellar to garret at his footfall. Some have +pretended that he had Olympian aspirations, and wanted to sit in the seat +of Jove and bear the academic thunderbolt and the aegis inscribed Christo +et Ecclesiae. It is a common weakness enough to wish to find one's self +in an empty saddle; Cotton Mather was miserable all his days, I am +afraid, after that entry in his Diary: "This Day Dr. Sewall was chosen +President, for his Piety." + +There is no doubt that the men of the older generation look bigger and +more formidable to the boys whose eyes are turned up at their venerable +countenances than the race which succeeds them, to the same boys grown +older. Everything is twice as large, measured on a three-year-olds +three-foot scale as on a thirty-year-olds six-foot scale; but age +magnifies and aggravates persons out of due proportion. Old people are a +kind of monsters to little folks; mild manifestations of the terrible, it +may be, but still, with their white locks and ridged and grooved +features, which those horrid little eyes exhaust of their details, like +so many microscopes not exactly what human beings ought to be. The +middle-aged and young men have left comparatively faint impressions in my +memory, but how grandly the procession of the old clergymen who filled +our pulpit from time to time, and passed the day under our roof, marches +before my closed eyes! At their head the most venerable David Osgood, +the majestic minister of Medford, with massive front and shaggy +over-shadowing eyebrows; following in the train, mild-eyed John Foster of +Brighton, with the lambent aurora of a smile about his pleasant mouth, +which not even the "Sabbath" could subdue to the true Levitical aspect; +and bulky Charles Steams of Lincoln, author of "The Ladies' Philosophy of +Love. A Poem. 1797" (how I stared at him! he was the first living +person ever pointed out to me as a poet); and Thaddeus Mason Harris of +Dorchester (the same who, a poor youth, trudging along, staff in hand, +being then in a stress of sore need, found all at once that somewhat was +adhering to the end of his stick, which somewhat proved to be a gold ring +of price, bearing the words, "God speed thee, Friend!"), already in +decadence as I remember him, with head slanting forward and downward as +if looking for a place to rest in after his learned labors; and that +other Thaddeus, the old man of West Cambridge, who outwatched the rest so +long after they had gone to sleep in their own churchyards, that it +almost seemed as if he meant to sit up until the morning of the +resurrection; and bringing up the rear, attenuated but vivacious little +Jonathan Homer of Newton, who was, to look upon, a kind of expurgated, +reduced and Americanized copy of Voltaire, but very unlike him in +wickedness or wit. The good-humored junior member of our family always +loved to make him happy by setting him chirruping about Miles Coverdale's +Version, and the Bishop's Bible, and how he wrote to his friend Sir Isaac +(Coffin) about something or other, and how Sir Isaac wrote back that he +was very much pleased with the contents of his letter, and so on about +Sir Isaac, ad libitum,--for the admiral was his old friend, and he was +proud of him. The kindly little old gentleman was a collector of Bibles, +and made himself believe he thought he should publish a learned +Commentary some day or other; but his friends looked for it only in the +Greek Calends,--say on the 31st of April, when that should come round, if +you would modernize the phrase. I recall also one or two exceptional and +infrequent visitors with perfect distinctness: cheerful Elijah Kellogg, a +lively missionary from the region of the Quoddy Indians, with much +hopeful talk about Sock Bason and his tribe; also poor old +Poor-house-Parson Isaac Smith, his head going like a China mandarin, as +he discussed the possibilities of the escape of that distinguished +captive whom he spoke of under the name, if I can reproduce phonetically +its vibrating nasalities of "General Mmbongaparty,"--a name suggestive to +my young imagination of a dangerous, loose-jointed skeleton, threatening +us all like the armed figure of Death in my little New England Primer. + +I have mentioned only the names of those whose images come up pleasantly +before me, and I do not mean to say anything which any descendant might +not read smilingly. But there were some of the black-coated gentry whose +aspect was not so agreeable to me. It is very curious to me to look back +on my early likes and dislikes, and see how as a child I was attracted or +repelled by such and such ministers, a good deal, as I found out long +afterwards, according to their theological beliefs. On the whole, I +think the old-fashioned New England divine softening down into +Arminianism was about as agreeable as any of them. And here I may +remark, that a mellowing rigorist is always a much pleasanter object to +contemplate than a tightening liberal, as a cold day warming up to 32 +Fahrenheit is much more agreeable than a warm one chilling down to the +same temperature. The least pleasing change is that kind of mental +hemiplegia which now and then attacks the rational side of a man at about +the same period of life when one side of the body is liable to be +palsied, and in fact is, very probably, the same thing as palsy, in +another form. The worst of it is that the subjects of it never seem to +suspect that they are intellectual invalids, stammerers and cripples at +best, but are all the time hitting out at their old friends with the well +arm, and calling them hard names out of their twisted mouths. + +It was a real delight to have one of those good, hearty, happy, benignant +old clergymen pass the Sunday, with us, and I can remember some whose +advent made the day feel almost like "Thanksgiving." But now and then +would come along a clerical visitor with a sad face and a wailing voice, +which sounded exactly as if somebody must be lying dead up stairs, who +took no interest in us children, except a painful one, as being in a bad +way with our cheery looks, and did more to unchristianize us with his +woebegone ways than all his sermons were like to accomplish in the other +direction. I remember one in particular, who twitted me so with my +blessings as a Christian child, and whined so to me about the naked black +children who, like the "Little Vulgar Boy," "had n't got no supper and +hadn't got no ma," and hadn't got no Catechism, (how I wished for the +moment I was a little black boy!) that he did more in that one day to +make me a heathen than he had ever done in a month to make a Christian +out of an infant Hottentot. What a debt we owe to our friends of the +left centre, the Brooklyn and the Park Street and the Summer street +ministers; good, wholesome, sound-bodied, one-minded, cheerful-spirited +men, who have taken the place of those wailing poitrinaires with the +bandanna handkerchiefs round their meagre throats and a funeral service +in their forlorn physiognomies! I might have been a minister myself, for +aught I know, if this clergyman had not looked and talked so like an +undertaker. + +All this belongs to one of the side-shows, to which I promised those who +would take tickets to the main exhibition should have entrance gratis. +If I were writing a poem you would expect, as a matter of course, that +there would be a digression now and then. + +To come back to the old house and its former tenant, the Professor of +Hebrew and other Oriental languages. Fifteen years he lived with his +family under its roof. I never found the slightest trace of him +until a few years ago, when I cleaned and brightened with pious hands +the brass lock of "the study," which had for many years been covered +with a thick coat of paint. On that I found scratched; as with a +nail or fork, the following inscription: + E PE + +Only that and nothing more, but the story told itself. Master Edward +Pearson, then about as high as the lock, was disposed to immortalize +himself in monumental brass, and had got so far towards it, when a sudden +interruption, probably a smart box on the ear, cheated him of his fame, +except so far as this poor record may rescue it. Dead long ago. I +remember him well, a grown man, as a visitor at a later period; and, for +some reason, I recall him in the attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, +standing full before a generous wood-fire, not facing it, but quite the +contrary, a perfect picture of the content afforded by a blazing hearth +contemplated from that point of view, and, as the heat stole through his +person and kindled his emphatic features, seeming to me a pattern of +manly beauty. What a statue gallery of posturing friends we all have in +our memory! The old Professor himself sometimes visited the house after +it had changed hands. Of course, my recollections are not to be wholly +trusted, but I always think I see his likeness in a profile face to be +found among the illustrations of Rees's Cyclopaedia. (See Plates, Vol. +IV., Plate 2, Painting, Diversities of the Human Face, Fig. 4.) + +And now let us return to our chief picture. In the days of my earliest +remembrance, a row of tall Lombardy poplars mounted guard on the western +side of the old mansion. Whether, like the cypress, these trees suggest +the idea of the funeral torch or the monumental spire, whether their +tremulous leaves make wits afraid by sympathy with their nervous thrills, +whether the faint balsamic smell of their foliage and their closely +swathed limbs have in them vague hints of dead Pharaohs stiffened in +their cerements, I will guess; but they always seemed to me to give an of +sepulchral sadness to the house before which stood sentries. Not so with +the row of elms which you may see leading up towards the western +entrance. I think the patriarch of them all went over in the great gale +of 1815; I know I used to shake the youngest of them with my hands, stout +as it is now, with a trunk that would defy the bully of Crotona, or the +strong man whose liaison with the Lady Delilah proved so disastrous. + +The College plain would be nothing without its elms. As the long hair of +a woman is a glory to her, are these green tresses that bank themselves +against sky in thick clustered masses the ornament and the pride of the +classic green. You know the "Washington elm," or if you do not, you had +better rekindle our patriotism by reading the inscription, which tells +you that under its shadow the great leader first drew his sword at the +head of an American army. In a line with that you may see two others: +the coral fan, as I always called it from its resemblance in form to that +beautiful marine growth, and a third a little farther along. I have +heard it said that all three were planted at the same time, and that the +difference of their growth is due to the slope of the ground,--the +Washington elm being lower than either of the others. There is a row of +elms just in front of the old house on the south. When I was a child the +one at the southwest corner was struck by lightning, and one of its limbs +and a long ribbon of bark torn away. The tree never fully recovered its +symmetry and vigor, and forty years and more afterwards a second +thunderbolt crashed upon it and set its heart on fire, like those of the +lost souls in the Hall of Eblis. Heaven had twice blasted it, and the +axe finished what the lightning had begun. + +The soil of the University town is divided into patches of sandy and of +clayey ground. The Common and the College green, near which the old +house stands, are on one of the sandy patches. Four curses are the local +inheritance: droughts, dust, mud, and canker-worms. I cannot but think +that all the characters of a region help to modify the children born in +it. I am fond of making apologies for human nature, and I think I could +find an excuse for myself if I, too, were dry and barren and muddy-witted +and "cantankerous,"--disposed to get my back up, like those other natives +of the soil. + +I know this, that the way Mother Earth treats a boy shapes out a kind of +natural theology for him. I fell into Manichean ways of thinking from +the teaching of my garden experiences. Like other boys in the country, I +had my patch of ground, to which, in the spring-time, I entrusted the +seeds furnished me, with a confident trust in their resurrection and +glorification in the better world of summer. But I soon found that my +lines had fallen in a place where a vegetable growth had to run the +gauntlet of as many foes and dials as a Christian pilgrim. Flowers would +not Blow; daffodils perished like criminals in their cone demned caps, +without their petals ever seeing daylight; roses were disfigured with +monstrous protrusions through their very centres,--something that looked +like a second bud pushing through the middle of the corolla; lettuces and +cabbages would not head; radishes knotted themselves until they looked +like centenerians' fingers; and on every stem, on every leaf, and both +sides of it, and at the root of everything that dew, was a professional +specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, +whose business it was to devour that particular part, and help order the +whole attempt at vegetation. Such experiences must influence a child +born to them. A sandy soil, where nothing flourishes but weeds and evil +beasts of small dimensions, must breed different qualities in its human +offspring from one of those fat and fertile spots which the wit whom I +have once before noted described so happily that, if I quoted the +passage, its brilliancy would spoil one of my pages, as a diamond +breastpin sometimes kills the social effect of the wearer, who might have +passed for a gentleman without it. Your arid patch of earth should seem +to the natural birthplace of the leaner virtues and the abler vices,--of +temperance and the domestic proprieties on the one hand, with a tendency +to light weights in groceries and provisions, and to clandestine +abstraction from the person on the other, as opposed to the free +hospitality, the broadly planned burglaries, and the largely conceived +homicides of our rich Western alluvial regions. Yet Nature is never +wholly unkind. Economical as she was in my unparadised Eden, hard as it +was to make some of my floral houris unveil, still the damask roses +sweetened the June breezes, the bladed and plumed flower-de-luces +unfolded their close-wrapped cones, and larkspurs and lupins, lady's +delights,--plebeian manifestations of the pansy,--self-sowing marigolds, +hollyhocks, the forest flowers of two seasons, and the perennial lilacs +and syringas,--all whispered to' the winds blowing over them that some +caressing presence was around me. + +Beyond the garden was "the field," a vast domain of four acres or +thereabout, by the measurement of after years, bordered to the north by a +fathomless chasm,--the ditch the base-ball players of the present era +jump over; on the east by unexplored territory; on the south by a barren +enclosure, where the red sorrel proclaimed liberty and equality under its +drapeau rouge, and succeeded in establishing a vegetable commune where +all were alike, poor, mean, sour, and uninteresting; and on the west by +the Common, not then disgraced by jealous enclosures, which make it look +like a cattle-market. Beyond, as I looked round, were the Colleges, the +meeting-house, the little square market-house, long vanished; the +burial-ground where the dead Presidents stretched their weary bones under +epitaphs stretched out at as full length as their subjects; the pretty +church where the gouty Tories used to kneel on their hassocks; the +district schoolhouse, and hard by it Ma'am Hancock's cottage, never so +called in those days, but rather "tenfooter"; then houses scattered near +and far, open spaces, the shadowy elms, round hilltops in the distance, +and over all the great bowl of the sky. Mind you, this was the WORLD, as +I first knew it; terra veteribus cognita, as Mr. Arrowsmith would have +called it, if he had mapped the universe of my infancy: + +But I am forgetting the old house again in the landscape. The worst of a +modern stylish mansion is, that it has no place for ghosts. I watched +one building not long since. It had no proper garret, to begin with, +only a sealed interval between the roof and attics, where a spirit could +not be accommodated, unless it were flattened out like Ravel, Brother, +after the millstone had fallen on him. There was not a nook or a corner +in the whole horse fit to lodge any respectable ghost, for every part was +as open to observation as a literary man's character and condition, his +figure and estate, his coat and his countenance, are to his (or her) +Bohemian Majesty on a tour of inspection through his (or her) subjects' +keyholes. + +Now the old house had wainscots, behind which the mice were always +scampering and squeaking and rattling down the plaster, and enacting +family scenes and parlor theatricals. It had a cellar where the cold +slug clung to the walls, and the misanthropic spider withdrew from the +garish day; where the green mould loved to grow, and the long white +potato-shoots went feeling along the floor, if haply they might find the +daylight; it had great brick pillars, always in a cold sweat with holding +up the burden they had been aching under day and night far a century and +more; it had sepulchral arches closed by rough doors that hung on hinges +rotten with rust, behind which doors, if there was not a heap of bones +connected with a mysterious disappearance of long ago, there well might +have been, for it was just the place to look for them. It had a garret; +very nearly such a one as it seems to me one of us has described in one +of his books; but let us look at this one as I can reproduce it from +memory. It has a flooring of laths with ridges of mortar squeezed up +between them, which if you tread on you will go to--the Lord have mercy +on you! where will you go to?--the same being crossed by narrow bridges +of boards, on which you may put your feet, but with fear and trembling. +Above you and around you are beams and joists, on some of which you may +see, when the light is let in, the marks of the conchoidal clippings of +the broadaxe, showing the rude way in which the timber was shaped as it +came, full of sap, from the neighboring forest. It is a realm of +darkness and thick dust, and shroud-like cobwebs and dead things they +wrap in their gray folds. For a garret is like a seashore, where wrecks +are thrown up and slowly go to pieces. There is the cradle which the old +man you just remember was rocked in; there is the ruin of the bedstead he +died on; that ugly slanting contrivance used to be put under his pillow +in the days when his breath came hard; there is his old chair with both +arms gone, symbol of the desolate time when he had nothing earthly left +to lean on; there is the large wooden reel which the blear-eyed old +deacon sent the minister's lady, who thanked him graciously, and twirled +it smilingly, and in fitting season bowed it out decently to the limbo of +troublesome conveniences. And there are old leather portmanteaus, like +stranded porpoises, their mouths gaping in gaunt hunger for the food with +which they used to be gorged to bulging repletion; and old brass +andirons, waiting until time shall revenge them on their paltry +substitutes, and they shall have their own again, and bring with them the +fore-stick and the back-log of ancient days; and the empty churn, with +its idle dasher, which the Nancys and Phoebes, who have left their +comfortable places to the Bridgets and Norahs, used to handle to good +purpose; and the brown, shaky old spinning-wheel, which was running, it +may be, in the days when they were hinging the Salem witches. + +Under the dark and haunted garret were attic chambers which themselves +had histories. On a pane in the northeastern chamber may be read these +names: + +"John Tracy," "Robert Roberts," "Thomas Prince;" "Stultus" another hand +had added. When I found these names a few years ago (wrong side up, for +the window had been reversed), I looked at once in the Triennial to find +them, for the epithet showed that they were probably students. I found +them all under the years 1771 and 1773. Does it please their thin ghosts +thus to be dragged to the light of day? Has "Stultus" forgiven the +indignity of being thus characterized? + +The southeast chamber was the Library Hospital. Every scholar should +have a book infirmary attached his library. There should find a +peaceable refuge the many books, invalids from their birth, which are +sent "with the best regards of the Author"; the respected, but +unpresentable cripples which have lost cover; the odd volumes of honored +sets which go mourning all their days for their lost brother; the +school-books which have been so often the subjects of assault and +battery, that they look as if the police must know them by heart; these +and still more the pictured story-books, beginning with Mother Goose +(which a dear old friend of mine has just been amusing his philosophic +leisure with turning most ingeniously and happily into the tongues of +Virgil and Homer), will be precious mementos by and by, when children and +grandchildren come along. What would I not give for that dear little +paper-bound quarto, in large and most legible type, on certain pages of +which the tender hand that was the shield of my infancy had crossed out +with deep black marks something awful, probably about BEARS, such as once +tare two-and-forty of us little folks for making faces, and the very name +of which made us hide our heads under the bedclothes. + +I made strange acquaintances in that book infirmary up in the southeast +attic. The "Negro Plot" at New York helped to implant a feeling in me +which it took Mr. Garrison a good many years to root out. "Thinks I to +Myself," an old novel, which has been attributed to a famous statesman, +introduced me to a world of fiction which was not represented on the +shelves of the library proper, unless perhaps by Coelebs in Search of a +Wife, or allegories of the bitter tonic class, as the young doctor that +sits on the other side of the table would probably call them. I always, +from an early age, had a keen eye for a story with a moral sticking out +of it, and gave it a wide berth, though in my later years I have myself +written a couple of "medicated novels," as one of my dearest and +pleasantest old friends wickedly called them, when somebody asked her if +she had read the last of my printed performances. I forgave the satire +for the charming esprit of the epithet. Besides the works I have +mentioned, there was an old, old Latin alchemy book, with the manuscript +annotations of some ancient Rosicrucian, in the pages of which I had a +vague notion that I might find the mighty secret of the Lapis +Philosophorum, otherwise called Chaos, the Dragon, the Green Lion, the +Quinta Essentia, the Soap of Sages, the Vinegar of Philosophers, the Dew +of Heavenly Grace, the Egg, the Old Man, the Sun, the Moon, and by all +manner of odd aliases, as I am assured by the plethoric little book +before me, in parchment covers browned like a meerschaum with the smoke +of furnaces and the thumbing of dead gold seekers, and the fingering of +bony-handed book-misers, and the long intervals of dusty slumber on the +shelves of the bouquiniste; for next year it will be three centuries old, +and it had already seen nine generations of men when I caught its eye +(Alchemiae Doctrina) and recognized it at pistol-shot distance as a +prize, among the breviaries and Heures and trumpery volumes of the old +open-air dealer who exposed his treasures under the shadow of St. +Sulpice. I have never lost my taste for alchemy since I first got hold +of the Palladium Spagyricum of Peter John Faber, and sought--in vain, it +is true--through its pages for a clear, intelligible, and practical +statement of how I could turn my lead sinkers and the weights of tall +kitchen clock into good yellow gold, specific gravity 19.2, and +exchangeable for whatever I then wanted, and for many more things than I +was then aware of. One of the greatest pleasures of childhood found in +the mysteries which it hides from the skepticism of the elders, and works +up into small mythologies of its own. I have seen all this played over +again in adult life,--the same delightful bewilderment semi-emotional +belief in listening to the gaseous praises of this or that fantastic +system, that I found in the pleasing mirages conjured up for me by the +ragged old volume I used to pore over in the southeast attic-chamber. + +The rooms of the second story, the chambers of birth and death, are +sacred to silent memories. + +Let us go down to the ground-floor. I should have begun with this, but +that the historical reminiscences of the old house have been recently +told in a most interesting memoir by a distinguished student of our local +history. I retain my doubts about those "dents" on the floor of the +right-hand room, "the study" of successive occupants, said to have been +made by the butts of the Continental militia's firelocks, but this was +the cause to which the story told me in childhood laid them. That +military consultations were held in that room when the house was General +Ward's headquarters, that the Provincial generals and colonels and other +men of war there planned the movement which ended in the fortifying of +Bunker's Hill, that Warren slept in the house the night before the +battle, that President Langdon went forth from the western door and +prayed for God's blessing on the men just setting forth on their bloody +expedition,--all these things have been told, and perhaps none of them +need be doubted. + +But now for fifty years and more that room has been a meeting-ground for +the platoons and companies which range themselves at the scholar's word +of command. Pleasant it is to think that the retreating host of books is +to give place to a still larger army of volumes, which have seen service +under the eye of a great commander. For here the noble collection of him +so freshly remembered as our silver-tongued orator, our erudite scholar, +our honored College President, our accomplished statesman, our courtly +ambassador, are to be reverently gathered by the heir of his name, +himself not unworthy to be surrounded by that august assembly of the wise +of all ages and of various lands and languages. + +Could such a many-chambered edifice have stood a century and a half and +not have had its passages of romance to bequeath their lingering legends +to the after-time? There are other names on some of the small +window-panes, which must have had young flesh-and-blood owners, and there +is one of early date which elderly persons have whispered was borne by a +fair woman, whose graces made the house beautiful in the eyes of the +youth of that time. One especially--you will find the name of Fortescue +Vernon, of the class of 1780, in the Triennial Catalogue--was a favored +visitor to the old mansion; but he went over seas, I think they told me, +and died still young, and the name of the maiden which is scratched on +the windowpane was never changed. I am telling the story honestly, as I +remember it, but I may have colored it unconsciously, and the legendary +pane may be broken before this for aught I know. At least, I have named +no names except the beautiful one of the supposed hero of the romantic +story. + +It was a great happiness to have been born in an old house haunted by +such recollections, with harmless ghosts walking its corridors, with +fields of waving grass and trees and singing birds, and that vast +territory of four or five acres around it to give a child the sense that +he was born to a noble principality. It has been a great pleasure to +retain a certain hold upon it for so many years; and since in the natural +course of things it must at length pass into other hands, it is a +gratification to see the old place making itself tidy for a new tenant, +like some venerable dame who is getting ready to entertain a neighbor of +condition. Not long since a new cap of shingles adorned this ancient +mother among the village--now city--mansions. She has dressed herself +in brighter colors than she has hitherto worn, so they tell me, within +the last few days. She has modernized her aspects in several ways; she +has rubbed bright the glasses through which she looks at the Common and +the Colleges; and as the sunsets shine upon her through the flickering +leaves or the wiry spray of the elms I remember from my childhood, they +will glorify her into the aspect she wore when President Holyoke, father +of our long since dead centenarian, looked upon her in her youthful +comeliness. + +The quiet corner formed by this and the neighboring residences has +changed less than any place I can remember. Our kindly, polite, shrewd, +and humorous old neighbor, who in former days has served the town as +constable and auctioneer, and who bids fair to become the oldest +inhabitant of the city, was there when I was born, and is living there +to-day. By and by the stony foot of the great University will plant +itself on this whole territory, and the private recollections which clung +so tenaciously and fondly to the place and its habitations will have died +with those who cherished them. + +Shall they ever live again in the memory of those who loved them here +below? What is this life without the poor accidents which made it our +own, and by which we identify ourselves? Ah me! I might like to be a +winged chorister, but still it seems to me I should hardly be quite happy +if I could not recall at will the Old House with the Long Entry, and the +White Chamber (where I wrote the first verses that made me known, with a +pencil, stans pede in uno, pretty, nearly), and the Little Parlor, and +the Study, and the old books in uniforms as varied as those of the +Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company used to be, if my memory serves +me right, and the front yard with the Star-of-Bethlehems growing, +flowerless, among the grass, and the dear faces to be seen no more there +or anywhere on this earthly place of farewells. + +I have told my story. I do not know what special gifts have been granted +or denied me; but this I know, that I am like so many others of my +fellow-creatures, that when I smile, I feel as if they must; when I cry, +I think their eyes fill; and it always seems to me that when I am most +truly myself I come nearest to them and am surest of being listened to by +the brothers and sisters of the larger family into which I was born so +long ago. I have often feared they might be tired of me and what I tell +them. But then, perhaps, would come a letter from some quiet body in +some out-of-the-way place, which showed me that I had said something +which another had often felt but never said, or told the secret of +another's heart in unburdening my own. Such evidences that one is in the +highway of human experience and feeling lighten the footsteps +wonderfully. So it is that one is encouraged to go on writing as long as +the world has anything that interests him, for he never knows how many of +his fellow-beings he may please or profit, and in how many places his +name will be spoken as that of a friend. + +In the mood suggested by my story I have ventured on the poem that +follows. Most people love this world more than they are willing to +confess, and it is hard to conceive ourselves weaned from it so as to +feel no emotion at the thought of its most sacred recollections, even +after a sojourn of years, as we should count the lapse of earthly +time,--in the realm where, sooner or later, all tears shall be wiped +away. I hope, therefore, the title of my lines will not frighten those +who are little accustomed to think of men and women as human beings in +any state but the present. + + HOMESICK IN HEAVEN. + + THE DIVINE VOICE. + + Go seek thine earth-born sisters,--thus the Voice + That all obey,--the sad and silent three; + These only, while the hosts of heaven rejoice, + Smile never: ask them what their sorrows be: + + And when the secret of their griefs they tell, + Look on them with thy mild, half-human eyes; + Say what thou wast on earth; thou knowest well; + So shall they cease from unavailing sighs. + + THE ANGEL. + + --Why thus, apart,--the swift-winged herald spake, + --Sit ye with silent lips and unstrung lyres + While the trisagion's blending chords awake + In shouts of joy from all the heavenly choirs? + + THE FIRST SPIRIT. + + --Chide not thy sisters,--thus the answer came; + --Children of earth, our half-weaned nature clings + To earth's fond memories, and her whispered name + Untunes our quivering lips, our saddened strings; + + For there we loved, and where we love is home, + Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts, + Though o'er us shine the jasper-lighted dome:-- + + The chain may lengthen, but it never parts! + + Sometimes a sunlit sphere comes rolling by, + And then we softly whisper,--can it be? + And leaning toward the silvery orb, we try + To hear the music of its murmuring sea; + + To catch, perchance, some flashing glimpse of green, + Or breathe some wild-wood fragrance, wafted through + The opening gates of pearl, that fold between + The blinding splendors and the changeless blue. + + THE ANGEL. + + --Nay, sister, nay! a single healing leaf + Plucked from the bough of yon twelve-fruited tree, + Would soothe such anguish,--deeper stabbing grief + Has pierced thy throbbing heart-- + + THE FIRST SPIRIT. + + ---Ah, woe is me! + I from my clinging babe was rudely torn; + His tender lips a loveless bosom pressed + Can I forget him in my life new born? + O that my darling lay upon my breast! + + THE ANGEL. + + --And thou? + + THE SECOND SPIRIT. + + I was a fair and youthful bride, + + The kiss of love still burns upon my cheek, + He whom I worshipped, ever at my side, + --Him through the spirit realm in vain I seek. + + Sweet faces turn their beaming eyes on mine; + Ah! not in these the wished-for look I read; + Still for that one dear human smile I pine; + Thou and none other!--is the lover's creed. + + THE ANGEL. + + --And whence thy sadness in a world of bliss + Where never parting comes, nor mourner's tear? + Art thou, too, dreaming of a mortal's kiss + Amid the seraphs of the heavenly sphere? + + THE THIRD SPIRIT. + + --Nay, tax not me with passion's wasting fire; + When the swift message set my spirit free, + Blind, helpless, lone, I left my gray-haired sire; + My friends were many, he had none save me. + + I left him, orphaned, in the starless night; + Alas, for him no cheerful morning's dawn! + I wear the ransomed spirit's robe of white, + Yet still I hear him moaning, She is gone! + + THE ANGEL. + + --Ye know me not, sweet sisters?--All in vain + Ye seek your lost ones in the shapes they wore; + The flower once opened may not bud again, + The fruit once fallen finds the stem no more. + + Child, lover, sire,--yea, all things loved below, + Fair pictures damasked on a vapor's fold, + Fade like the roseate flush, the golden glow, + When the bright curtain of the day is rolled. + + I was the babe that slumbered on thy breast. + --And, sister, mine the lips that called thee bride. + --Mine were the silvered locks thy hand caressed, + That faithful hand, my faltering footstep's guide! + + Each changing form, frail vesture of decay, + The soul unclad forgets it once hath worn, + Stained with the travel of the weary day, + And shamed with rents from every wayside thorn. + + To lie, an infant, in thy fond embrace, + To come with love's warm kisses back to thee, + To show thine eyes thy gray-haired father's face, + Not Heaven itself could grant; this may not be! + + Then spread your folded wings, and leave to earth + The dust once breathing ye have mourned so long, + Till Love, new risen, owns his heavenly birth, + And sorrow's discords sweeten into song! + + + + +II + +I am going to take it for granted now and henceforth, in my report of +what was said and what was to be seen at our table, that I have secured +one good, faithful, loving reader, who never finds fault, who never gets +sleepy over my pages, whom no critic can bully out of a liking for me, +and to whom I am always safe in addressing myself. My one elect may be +man or woman, old or young, gentle or simple, living in the next block or +on a slope of Nevada, my fellow-countryman or an alien; but one such +reader I shall assume to exist and have always in my thought when I am +writing. + +A writer is so like a lover! And a talk with the right listener is so +like an arm-in-arm walk in the moonlight with the soft heartbeat just +felt through the folds of muslin and broadcloth! But it takes very +little to spoil everything for writer, talker, lover. There are a great +many cruel things besides poverty that freeze the genial current of the +soul, as the poet of the Elegy calls it. Fire can stand any wind, but is +easily blown out, and then come smouldering and smoke, and profitless, +slow combustion without the cheerful blaze which sheds light all round +it. The one Reader's hand may shelter the flame; the one blessed +ministering spirit with the vessel of oil may keep it bright in spite of +the stream of cold water on the other side doing its best to put it out. + +I suppose, if any writer, of any distinguishable individuality, could +look into the hearts of all his readers, he might very probably find one +in his parish of a thousand or a million who honestly preferred him to +any other of his kind. I have no doubt we have each one of us, +somewhere, our exact facsimile, so like us in all things except the +accidents of condition, that we should love each other like a pair of +twins, if our natures could once fairly meet. I know I have my +counterpart in some State of this Union. I feel sure that there is an +Englishman somewhere precisely like myself. (I hope he does not drop his +h's, for it does not seem to me possible that the Royal Dane could have +remained faithful to his love for Ophelia, if she had addressed him as +'Amlet.) There is also a certain Monsieur, to me at this moment unknown, +and likewise a Herr Von Something, each of whom is essentially my double. +An Arab is at this moment eating dates, a mandarin is just sipping his +tea, and a South-Sea-Islander (with undeveloped possibilities) drinking +the milk of a cocoa-nut, each one of whom, if he had been born in the +gambrel-roofed house, and cultivated my little sand-patch, and grown up +in "the study" from the height of Walton's Polyglot Bible to that of the +shelf which held the Elzevir Tacitus and Casaubon's Polybius, with all +the complex influences about him that surrounded me, would have been so +nearly what I am that I should have loved him like a brother,--always +provided that I did not hate him for his resemblance to me, on the same +principle as that which makes bodies in the same electric condition repel +each other. + +For, perhaps after all, my One Reader is quite as likely to be not the +person most resembling myself, but the one to whom my nature is +complementary. Just as a particular soil wants some one element to +fertilize it, just as the body in some conditions has a kind of +famine--for one special food, so the mind has its wants, which do not +always call for what is best, but which know themselves and are as +peremptory as the salt-sick sailor's call for a lemon or a raw potato, +or, if you will, as those capricious "longings," which have a certain +meaning, we may suppose, and which at any rate we think it reasonable to +satisfy if we can. + +I was going to say something about our boarders the other day when I got +run away with by my local reminiscences. I wish you to understand that +we have a rather select company at the table of our boarding-house. + +Our Landlady is a most respectable person, who has seen better days, of +course,--all landladies have,--but has also, I feel sure, seen a good +deal worse ones. For she wears a very handsome silk dress on state +occasions, with a breastpin set, as I honestly believe, with genuine +pearls, and appears habitually with a very smart cap, from under which +her gray curls come out with an unmistakable expression, conveyed in the +hieratic language of the feminine priesthood, to the effect that while +there is life there is hope. And when I come to reflect on the many +circumstances which go to the making of matrimonial happiness, I cannot +help thinking that a personage of her present able exterior, thoroughly +experienced in all the domestic arts which render life comfortable, might +make the later years of some hitherto companionless bachelor very +endurable, not to say pleasant. + +The condition of the Landlady's family is, from what I learn, such as to +make the connection I have alluded to, I hope with delicacy, desirable +for incidental as well as direct reasons, provided a fitting match could +be found. I was startled at hearing her address by the familiar name of +Benjamin the young physician I have referred to, until I found on +inquiry, what I might have guessed by the size of his slices of pie and +other little marks of favoritism, that he was her son. He has recently +come back from Europe, where he has topped off his home training with a +first-class foreign finish. As the Landlady could never have educated +him in this way out of the profits of keeping boarders, I was not +surprised when I was told that she had received a pretty little property +in the form of a bequest from a former boarder, a very kind-hearted, +worthy old gentleman who had been long with her and seen how hard she +worked for food and clothes for herself and this son of hers, Benjamin +Franklin by his baptismal name. Her daughter had also married well, to a +member of what we may call the post-medical profession, that, namely, +which deals with the mortal frame after the practitioners of the healing +art have done with it and taken their leave. So thriving had this +son-in-law of hers been in his business, that his wife drove about in her +own carriage, drawn by a pair of jet-black horses of most dignified +demeanor, whose only fault was a tendency to relapse at once into a walk +after every application of a stimulus that quickened their pace to a +trot; which application always caused them to look round upon the driver +with a surprised and offended air, as if he had been guilty of a grave +indecorum. + +The Landlady's daughter had been blessed with a number of children, of +great sobriety of outward aspect, but remarkably cheerful in their inward +habit of mind, more especially on the occasion of the death of a doll, +which was an almost daily occurrence, and gave them immense delight in +getting up a funeral, for which they had a complete miniature outfit. +How happy they were under their solemn aspect! For the head mourner, a +child of remarkable gifts, could actually make the tears run down her +cheeks,--as real ones as if she had been a grown person following a rich +relative, who had not forgotten his connections, to his last unfurnished +lodgings. + +So this was a most desirable family connection for the right man to step +into,--a thriving, thrifty mother-in-law, who knew what was good for the +sustenance of the body, and had no doubt taught it to her daughter; a +medical artist at hand in case the luxuries of the table should happen to +disturb the physiological harmonies; and in the worst event, a sweet +consciousness that the last sad offices would be attended to with +affectionate zeal, and probably a large discount from the usual charges. + +It seems as if I could hardly be at this table for a year, if I should +stay so long, without seeing some romance or other work itself out under +my eyes; and I cannot help thinking that the Landlady is to be the +heroine of the love-history like to unfold itself. I think I see the +little cloud in the horizon, with a silvery lining to it, which may end +in a rain of cards tied round with white ribbons. Extremes meet, and who +so like to be the other party as the elderly gentleman at the other end +of the table, as far from her now as the length of the board permits? I +may be mistaken, but I think this is to be the romantic episode of the +year before me. Only it seems so natural it is improbable, for you never +find your dropped money just where you look for it, and so it is with +these a priori matches. + +This gentleman is a tight, tidy, wiry little man, with a small, brisk +head, close-cropped white hair, a good wholesome complexion, a quiet, +rather kindly face, quick in his movements, neat in his dress, but fond +of wearing a short jacket over his coat, which gives him the look of a +pickled or preserved schoolboy. He has retired, they say, from a +thriving business, with a snug property, suspected by some to be rather +more than snug, and entitling him to be called a capitalist, except that +this word seems to be equivalent to highway robber in the new gospel of +Saint Petroleum. That he is economical in his habits cannot be denied, +for he saws and splits his own wood, for exercise, he says,--and makes +his own fires, brushes his own shoes, and, it is whispered, darns a hole +in a stocking now and then,--all for exercise, I suppose. Every summer +he goes out of town for a few weeks. On a given day of the month a wagon +stops at the door and takes up, not his trunks, for he does not indulge +in any such extravagance, but the stout brown linen bags in which he +packs the few conveniences he carries with him. + +I do not think this worthy and economical personage will have much to do +or to say, unless he marries the Landlady. If he does that, he will play +a part of some importance,--but I don't feel sure at all. His talk is +little in amount, and generally ends in some compact formula condensing +much wisdom in few words, as that a man, should not put all his eggs in +one basket; that there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of +it; and one in particular, which he surprised me by saying in pretty good +French one day, to the effect that the inheritance of the world belongs +to the phlegmatic people, which seems to me to have a good deal of truth +in it. + +The other elderly personage, the old man with iron-gray hair and large +round spectacles, sits at my right at table. He is a retired college +officer, a man of books and observation, and himself an author. Magister +Artium is one of his titles on the College Catalogue, and I like best to +speak of him as the Master, because he has a certain air of authority +which none of us feel inclined to dispute. He has given me a copy of a +work of his which seems to me not wanting in suggestiveness, and which I +hope I shall be able to make some use of in my records by and by. I said +the other day that he had good solid prejudices, which is true, and I +like him none the worse for it; but he has also opinions more or less +original, valuable, probable, fanciful; fantastic, or whimsical, perhaps, +now and then; which he promulgates at table somewhat in the tone of +imperial edicts. Another thing I like about him is, that he takes a +certain intelligent interest in pretty much everything that interests +other people. I asked him the other day what he thought most about in +his wide range of studies. + +--Sir,--said he,--I take stock in everything that concerns anybody. +Humani nihil,--you know the rest. But if you ask me what is my +specialty, I should say, I applied myself more particularly to the +contemplation of the Order of Things. + +--A pretty wide subject,--I ventured to suggest. + +--Not wide enough, sir,--not wide enough to satisfy the desire of a mind +which wants to get at absolute truth, without reference to the empirical +arrangements of our particular planet and its environments. I want to +subject the formal conditions of space and time to a new analysis, and +project a possible universe outside of the Order of Things. But I have +narrowed myself by studying the actual facts of being. By and by--by and +by--perhaps--perhaps. I hope to do some sound thinking in heaven--if I +ever get there,--he said seriously, and it seemed to me not irreverently. + +--I rather like that,--I said. I think your telescopic people are, on +the whole, more satisfactory than your microscopic ones. + +--My left-hand neighbor fidgeted about a little in his chair as I said +this. But the young man sitting not far from the Landlady, to whom my +attention had been attracted by the expression of his eyes, which seemed +as if they saw nothing before him, but looked beyond everything, smiled a +sort of faint starlight smile, that touched me strangely; for until that +moment he had appeared as if his thoughts were far away, and I had been +questioning whether he had lost friends lately, or perhaps had never had +them, he seemed so remote from our boarding-house life. I will inquire +about him, for he interests me, and I thought he seemed interested as I +went on talking. + +--No,--I continued,--I don't want to have the territory of a man's mind +fenced in. I don't want to shut out the mystery of the stars and the +awful hollow that holds them. We have done with those hypaethral +temples, that were open above to the heavens, but we can have attics and +skylights to them. Minds with skylights,--yes,--stop, let us see if we +can't get something out of that. + +One-story intellects, two--story intellects, three story intellects with +skylights. All fact--collectors, who have no aim beyond their facts, are +one-story men. Two-story men compare, reason, generalize, using the +labors of the fact-collectors as well as their own. Three-story men +idealize, imagine, predict; their best illumination comes from above, +through the skylight. There are minds with large ground floors, that can +store an infinite amount of knowledge; some librarians, for instance, who +know enough of books to help other people, without being able to make +much other use of their knowledge, have intellects of this class. Your +great working lawyer has two spacious stories; his mind is clear, because +his mental floors are large, and he has room to arrange his thoughts so +that he can get at them,--facts below, principles above, and all in +ordered series; poets are often narrow below, incapable of clear +statement, and with small power of consecutive reasoning, but full of +light, if sometimes rather bare of furniture, in the attics. + +--The old Master smiled. I think he suspects himself of a three-story +intellect, and I don't feel sure that he is n't right. + +--Is it dark meat or white meat you will be helped to?--said the +Landlady, addressing the Master. + +--Dark meat for me, always,--he answered. Then turning to me, he began +one of those monologues of his, such as that which put the Member of the +Haouse asleep the other day. + +--It 's pretty much the same in men and women and in books and +everything, that it is in turkeys and chickens. Why, take your poets, +now, say Browning and Tennyson. Don't you think you can say which is the +dark-meat and which is the white-meat poet? And so of the people you +know; can't you pick out the full-flavored, coarse-fibred characters from +the delicate, fine-fibred ones? And in the same person, don't you know +the same two shades in different parts of the character that you find in +the wing and thigh of a partridge? I suppose you poets may like white +meat best, very probably; you had rather have a wing than a drumstick, I +dare say. + +--Why, yes,--said I,--I suppose some of us do. Perhaps it is because a +bird flies with his white-fleshed limbs and walks with the dark-fleshed +ones. Besides, the wing-muscles are nearer the heart than the +leg-muscles. + +I thought that sounded mighty pretty, and paused a moment to pat myself +on the back, as is my wont when I say something that I think of superior +quality. So I lost my innings; for the Master is apt to strike in at the +end of a bar, instead of waiting for a rest, if I may borrow a musical +phrase. No matter, just at this moment, what he said; but he talked the +Member of the Haouse asleep again. + +They have a new term nowadays (I am speaking to you, the Reader) for +people that do a good deal of talking; they call them "conversationists," +or "conversationalists "; talkists, I suppose, would do just as well. It +is rather dangerous to get the name of being one of these phenomenal +manifestations, as one is expected to say something remarkable every time +one opens one's mouth in company. It seems hard not to be able to ask for +a piece of bread or a tumbler of water, without a sensation running round +the table, as if one were an electric eel or a torpedo, and couldn't be +touched without giving a shock. A fellow is n't all battery, is he? The +idea that a Gymnotus can't swallow his worm without a coruscation of +animal lightning is hard on that brilliant but sensational being. Good +talk is not a matter of will at all; it depends--you know we are all +half-materialists nowadays--on a certain amount of active congestion of +the brain, and that comes when it is ready, and not before. I saw a man +get up the other day in a pleasant company, and talk away for about five +minutes, evidently by a pure effort of will. His person was good, his +voice was pleasant, but anybody could see that it was all mechanical +labor; he was sparring for wind, as the Hon. John Morrissey, M. C., would +express himself. Presently,-- + +Do you,--Beloved, I am afraid you are not old enough,--but do you +remember the days of the tin tinder-box, the flint, and steel? Click! +click! click!--Al-h-h! knuckles that time! click! click! CLICK! a spark +has taken, and is eating into the black tinder, as a six-year-old eats +into a sheet of gingerbread. + +Presently, after hammering away for his five minutes with mere words, the +spark of a happy expression took somewhere among the mental combustibles, +and then for ten minutes we had a pretty, wandering, scintillating play +of eloquent thought, that enlivened, if it did not kindle, all around it. +If you want the real philosophy of it, I will give it to you. The chance +thought or expression struck the nervous centre of consciousness, as the +rowel of a spur stings the flank of a racer. Away through all the +telegraphic radiations of the nervous cords flashed the intelligence that +the brain was kindling, and must be fed with something or other, or it +would burn itself to ashes. + +And all the great hydraulic engines poured in their scarlet blood, and +the fire kindled, and the flame rose; for the blood is a stream that, +like burning rock-oil, at once kindles, and is itself the fuel. You can't +order these organic processes, any more than a milliner can make a rose. +She can make something that looks like a rose, more or less, but it takes +all the forces of the universe to finish and sweeten that blossom in your +button-hole; and you may be sure that when the orator's brain is in a +flame, when the poet's heart is in a tumult, it is something mightier +than he and his will that is dealing with him! As I have looked from one +of the northern windows of the street which commands our noble +estuary,--the view through which is a picture on an illimitable canvas +and a poem in innumerable cantos,--I have sometimes seen a pleasure-boat +drifting along, her sail flapping, and she seeming as if she had neither +will nor aim. At her stern a man was laboring to bring her head round +with an oar, to little purpose, as it seemed to those who watched him +pulling and tugging. But all at once the wind of heaven, which had +wandered all the way from Florida or from Labrador, it may be, struck +full upon the sail, and it swelled and rounded itself, like a white bosom +that had burst its bodice, and-- + +--You are right; it is too true! but how I love these pretty phrases! I +am afraid I am becoming an epicure in words, which is a bad thing to be, +unless it is dominated by something infinitely better than itself. But +there is a fascination in the mere sound of articulated breath; of +consonants that resist with the firmness of a maid of honor, or half or +wholly yield to the wooing lips; of vowels that flow and murmur, each +after its kind; the peremptory b and p, the brittle k, the vibrating r, +the insinuating s, the feathery f, the velvety v, the bell-voiced m, the +tranquil broad a, the penetrating e, the cooing u, the emotional o, and +the beautiful combinations of alternate rock and stream, as it were, that +they give to the rippling flow of speech,--there is a fascination in the +skilful handling of these, which the great poets and even prose-writers +have not disdained to acknowledge and use to recommend their thought. +What do you say to this line of Homer as a piece of poetical full-band +music? I know you read the Greek characters with perfect ease, but +permit me, just for my own satisfaction, to put it into English +letters:-- + + Aigle pamphanoosa di' aitheros ouranon ike! + +as if he should have spoken in our poorer phrase of + + Splendor far shining through ether to heaven ascending. + +That Greek line, which I do not remember having heard mention of as +remarkable, has nearly every consonantal and vowel sound in the language. +Try it by the Greek and by the English alphabet; it is a curiosity. Tell +me that old Homer did not roll his sightless eyeballs about with delight, +as he thundered out these ringing syllables! It seems hard to think of +his going round like a hand-organ man, with such music and such thought +as his to earn his bread with. One can't help wishing that Mr. Pugh +could have got at him for a single lecture, at least, of the "Star +Course," or that he could have appeared in the Music Hall, "for this +night only." + +--I know I have rambled, but I hope you see that this is a delicate way +of letting you into the nature of the individual who is, officially, the +principal personage at our table. It would hardly do to describe him +directly, you know. But you must not think, because the lightning +zigzags, it does not know where to strike. + +I shall try to go through the rest of my description of our boarders with +as little of digression as is consistent with my nature. I think we have +a somewhat exceptional company. Since our Landlady has got up in the +world, her board has been decidedly a favorite with persons a little +above the average in point of intelligence and education. In fact, ever +since a boarder of hers, not wholly unknown to the reading public, +brought her establishment into notice, it has attracted a considerable +number of literary and scientific people, and now and then a politician, +like the Member of the House of Representatives, otherwise called the +Great and General Court of the State of Massachusetts. The consequence +is, that there is more individuality of character than in a good many +similar boardinghouses, where all are business-men, engrossed in the same +pursuit of money-making, or all are engaged in politics, and so deeply +occupied with the welfare of the community that they can think and talk +of little else. + +At my left hand sits as singular-looking a human being as I remember +seeing outside of a regular museum or tent-show. His black coat shines +as if it had been polished; and it has been polished on the wearer's +back, no doubt, for the arms and other points of maximum attrition are +particularly smooth and bright. Round shoulders,--stooping over some +minute labor, I suppose. Very slender limbs, with bends like a +grasshopper's; sits a great deal, I presume; looks as if he might +straighten them out all of a sudden, and jump instead of walking. Wears +goggles very commonly; says it rests his eyes, which he strains in +looking at very small objects. Voice has a dry creak, as if made by some +small piece of mechanism that wanted oiling. I don't think he is a +botanist, for he does not smell of dried herbs, but carries a camphorated +atmosphere about with him, as if to keep the moths from attacking him. I +must find out what is his particular interest. One ought to know +something about his immediate neighbors at the table. This is what I +said to myself, before opening a conversation with him. Everybody in our +ward of the city was in a great stir about a certain election, and I +thought I might as well begin with that as anything. + +--How do you think the vote is likely to go tomorrow?--I said. + +--It isn't to-morrow,--he answered,--it 's next month. + +--Next month!--said I.---Why, what election do you mean? + +--I mean the election to the Presidency of the Entomological Society, +sir,--he creaked, with an air of surprise, as if nobody could by any +possibility have been thinking of any other. Great competition, sir, +between the dipterists and the lepidopterists as to which shall get in +their candidate. Several close ballotings already; adjourned for a +fortnight. Poor concerns, both of 'em. Wait till our turn comes. + +--I suppose you are an entomologist?--I said with a note of +interrogation. + +-Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on +the individual entitled to that name! A society may call itself an +Entomological Society, but the man who arrogates such a broad title as +that to himself, in the present state of science, is a pretender, sir, a +dilettante, an impostor! No man can be truly called an entomologist, +sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp. + +--May I venture to ask,--I said, a little awed by his statement and +manner,--what is your special province of study? + +I am often spoken of as a Coleopterist,--he said,--but I have no right to +so comprehensive a name. The genus Scarabaeus is what I have chiefly +confined myself to, and ought to have studied exclusively. The beetles +proper are quite enough for the labor of one man's life. Call me a +Scarabaeist if you will; if I can prove myself worthy of that name, my +highest ambition will be more than satisfied. + +I think, by way of compromise and convenience, I shall call him the +Scarabee. He has come to look wonderfully like those creatures,--the +beetles, I mean,---by being so much among them. His room is hung round +with cases of them, each impaled on a pin driven through him, something +as they used to bury suicides. These cases take the place for him of +pictures and all other ornaments. That Boy steals into his room +sometimes, and stares at them with great admiration, and has himself +undertaken to form a rival cabinet, chiefly consisting of flies, so far, +arranged in ranks superintended by an occasional spider. + +The old Master, who is a bachelor, has a kindly feeling for this little +monkey, and those of his kind. + +--I like children,--he said to me one day at table,--I like 'em, and I +respect 'em. Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the +world is done by them. Do you know they play the part in the household +which the king's jester, who very often had a mighty long head under his +cap and bells, used to play for a monarch? There 's no radical club like +a nest of little folks in a nursery. Did you ever watch a baby's +fingers? I have, often enough, though I never knew what it was to own +one.---The Master paused half a minute or so,--sighed,--perhaps at +thinking what he had missed in life,--looked up at me a little vacantly. +I saw what was the matter; he had lost the thread of his talk. + +--Baby's fingers,--I intercalated. + +-Yes, yes; did you ever see how they will poke those wonderful little +fingers of theirs into every fold and crack and crevice they can get at? +That is their first education, feeling their way into the solid facts of +the material world. When they begin to talk it is the same thing over +again in another shape. If there is a crack or a flaw in your answer to +their confounded shoulder-hitting questions, they will poke and poke +until they have got it gaping just as the baby's fingers have made a rent +out of that atom of a hole in his pinafore that your old eyes never took +notice of. Then they make such fools of us by copying on a small scale +what we do in the grand manner. I wonder if it ever occurs to our +dried-up neighbor there to ask himself whether That Boy's collection of +flies is n't about as significant in the Order of Things as his own +Museum of Beetles? + +--I couldn't help thinking that perhaps That Boy's questions about the +simpler mysteries of life might have a good deal of the same kind of +significance as the Master's inquiries into the Order of Things. + +--On my left, beyond my next neighbor the Scarabee, at the end of the +table, sits a person of whom we know little, except that he carries about +him more palpable reminiscences of tobacco and the allied sources of +comfort than a very sensitive organization might find acceptable. The +Master does not seem to like him much, for some reason or other,--perhaps +he has a special aversion to the odor of tobacco. As his forefinger +shows a little too distinctly that he uses a pen, I shall compliment him +by calling him the Man of Letters, until I find out more about him. + +--The Young Girl who sits on my right, next beyond the Master, can hardly +be more than nineteen or twenty years old. I wish I could paint her so +as to interest others as much as she does me. But she has not a +profusion of sunny tresses wreathing a neck of alabaster, and a cheek +where the rose and the lily are trying to settle their old quarrel with +alternating victory. Her hair is brown, her cheek is delicately pallid, +her forehead is too ample for a ball-room beauty's. A single faint line +between the eyebrows is the record of long--continued anxious efforts to +please in the task she has chosen, or rather which has been forced upon +her. It is the same line of anxious and conscientious effort which I saw +not long since on the forehead of one of the sweetest and truest singers +who has visited us; the same which is so striking on the masks of singing +women painted upon the facade of our Great Organ,--that Himalayan home of +harmony which you are to see and then die, if you don't live where you +can see and hear it often. Many deaths have happened in a neighboring +large city from that well-known complaint, Icterus Invidiosorum, after +returning from a visit to the Music Hall. The invariable symptom of a +fatal attack is the Risus Sardonicus.--But the Young Girl. She gets her +living by writing stories for a newspaper. Every week she furnishes a +new story. If her head aches or her heart is heavy, so that she does not +come to time with her story, she falls behindhand and has to live on +credit. It sounds well enough to say that "she supports herself by her +pen," but her lot is a trying one; it repeats the doom of the Danaides. +The "Weekly Bucket" has no bottom, and it is her business to help fill +it. Imagine for one moment what it is to tell a tale that must flow on, +flow ever, without pausing; the lover miserable and happy this week, to +begin miserable again next week and end as before; the villain scowling, +plotting, punished; to scowl, plot, and get punished again in our next; +an endless series of woes and busses, into each paragraph of which the +forlorn artist has to throw all the liveliness, all the emotion, all the +graces of style she is mistress of, for the wages of a maid of all work, +and no more recognition or thanks from anybody than the apprentice who +sets the types for the paper that prints her ever-ending and +ever-beginning stories. And yet she has a pretty talent, sensibility, a +natural way of writing, an ear for the music of verse, in which she +sometimes indulges to vary the dead monotony of everlasting narrative, +and a sufficient amount of invention to make her stories readable. I +have found my eyes dimmed over them oftener than once, more with thinking +about her, perhaps, than about her heroes and heroines. Poor little +body! Poor little mind! Poor little soul! She is one of that great +company of delicate, intelligent, emotional young creatures, who are +waiting, like that sail I spoke of, for some breath of heaven to fill +their white bosoms,--love, the right of every woman; religious emotion, +sister of love, with the same passionate eyes, but cold, thin, bloodless +hands,--some enthusiasm of humanity or divinity; and find that life +offers them, instead, a seat on a wooden bench, a chain to fasten them to +it, and a heavy oar to pull day and night. We read the Arabian tales and +pity the doomed lady who must amuse her lord and master from day to day +or have her head cut off; how much better is a mouth without bread to +fill it than no mouth at all to fill, because no head? We have all round +us a weary-eyed company of Scheherezades! This is one of them, and I may +call her by that name when it pleases me to do so. + +The next boarder I have to mention is the one who sits between the Young +Girl and the Landlady. In a little chamber into which a small thread of +sunshine finds its way for half an hour or so every day during a month or +six weeks of the spring or autumn, at all other times obliged to content +itself with ungilded daylight, lives this boarder, whom, without wronging +any others of our company, I may call, as she is very generally called in +the household, The Lady. In giving her this name it is not meant that +there are no other ladies at our table, or that the handmaids who serve +us are not ladies, or to deny the general proposition that everybody who +wears the unbifurcated garment is entitled to that appellation. Only +this lady has a look and manner which there is no mistaking as belonging +to a person always accustomed to refined and elegant society. Her style +is perhaps a little more courtly and gracious than some would like. The +language and manner which betray the habitual desire of pleasing, and +which add a charm to intercourse in the higher social circles, are liable +to be construed by sensitive beings unused to such amenities as an odious +condescension when addressed to persons of less consideration than the +accused, and as a still more odious--you know the word--when directed to +those who are esteemed by the world as considerable person ages. But of +all this the accused are fortunately wholly unconscious, for there is +nothing so entirely natural and unaffected as the highest breeding. + +From an aspect of dignified but undisguised economy which showed itself +in her dress as well as in her limited quarters, I suspected a story of +shipwrecked fortune, and determined to question our Landlady. That +worthy woman was delighted to tell the history of her most distinguished +boarder. She was, as I had supposed, a gentlewoman whom a change of +circumstances had brought down from her high estate. + +--Did I know the Goldenrod family?--Of course I did.---Well, the Lady, +was first cousin to Mrs. Midas Goldenrod. She had been here in her +carriage to call upon her,--not very often.---Were her rich relations +kind and helpful to her?--Well, yes; at least they made her presents now +and then. Three or four years ago they sent her a silver waiter, and +every Christmas they sent her a boquet,--it must cost as much as five +dollars, the Landlady thought. + +--And how did the Lady receive these valuable and useful gifts? + +--Every Christmas she got out the silver waiter and borrowed a glass +tumbler and filled it with water, and put the boquet in it and set it on +the waiter. It smelt sweet enough and looked pretty for a day or two, +but the Landlady thought it wouldn't have hurt 'em if they'd sent a piece +of goods for a dress, or at least a pocket-handkercher or two, or +something or other that she could 'a' made some kind of use of; but +beggars must n't be choosers; not that she was a beggar, for she'd sooner +die than do that if she was in want of a meal of victuals. There was a +lady I remember, and she had a little boy and she was a widow, and after +she'd buried her husband she was dreadful poor, and she was ashamed to +let her little boy go out in his old shoes, and copper-toed shoes they +was too, because his poor little ten--toes--was a coming out of 'em; and +what do you think my husband's rich uncle,--well, there now, it was me +and my little Benjamin, as he was then, there's no use in hiding of +it,--and what do you think my husband's uncle sent me but a plaster of +Paris image of a young woman, that was,--well, her appearance wasn't +respectable, and I had to take and wrap her up in a towel and poke her +right into my closet, and there she stayed till she got her head broke +and served her right, for she was n't fit to show folks. You need n't +say anything about what I told you, but the fact is I was desperate poor +before I began to support myself taking boarders, and a lone woman +without her--her-- + +The sentence plunged into the gulf of her great remembered sorrow, and +was lost to the records of humanity. + +--Presently she continued in answer to my questions: The Lady was not +very sociable; kept mostly to herself. The Young Girl (our Scheherezade) +used to visit her sometimes, and they seemed to like each other, but the +Young Girl had not many spare hours for visiting. The Lady never found +fault, but she was very nice in her tastes, and kept everything about her +looking as neat and pleasant as she could. + +---What did she do?--Why, she read, and she drew pictures, and she did +needlework patterns, and played on an old harp she had; the gilt was +mostly off, but it sounded very sweet, and she sung to it sometimes, +those old songs that used to be in fashion twenty or thirty years ago, +with words to 'em that folks could understand. + +Did she do anything to help support herself?--The Landlady couldn't say +she did, but she thought there was rich people enough that ought to buy +the flowers and things she worked and painted. + +All this points to the fact that she was bred to be an ornamental rather +than what is called a useful member of society. This is all very well so +long as fortune favors those who are chosen to be the ornamental +personages; but if the golden tide recedes and leaves them stranded, they +are more to be pitied than almost any other class. "I cannot dig, to beg +I am ashamed." + +I think it is unpopular in this country to talk much about gentlemen and +gentlewomen. People are touchy about social distinctions, which no doubt +are often invidious and quite arbitrary and accidental, but which it is +impossible to avoid recognizing as facts of natural history. Society +stratifies itself everywhere, and the stratum which is generally +recognized as the uppermost will be apt to have the advantage in easy +grace of manner and in unassuming confidence, and consequently be more +agreeable in the superficial relations of life. To compare these +advantages with the virtues and utilities would be foolish. Much of the +noblest work in life is done by ill-dressed, awkward, ungainly persons; +but that is no more reason for undervaluing good manners and what we call +high-breeding, than the fact that the best part of the sturdy labor of +the world is done by men with exceptionable hands is to be urged against +the use of Brown Windsor as a preliminary to appearance in cultivated +society. + +I mean to stand up for this poor lady, whose usefulness in the world is +apparently problematical. She seems to me like a picture which has +fallen from its gilded frame and lies, face downward, on the dusty floor. +The picture never was as needful as a window or a door, but it was +pleasant to see it in its place, and it would be pleasant to see it there +again, and I, for one, should be thankful to have the Lady restored by +some turn of fortune to the position from which she has been so cruelly +cast down. + +--I have asked the Landlady about the young man sitting near her, the +same who attracted my attention the other day while I was talking, as I +mentioned. He passes most of his time in a private observatory, it +appears; a watcher of the stars. That I suppose gives the peculiar look +to his lustrous eyes. The Master knows him and was pleased to tell me +something about him. + +You call yourself a Poet,--he said,--and we call you so, too, and so you +are; I read your verses and like 'em. But that young man lives in a +world beyond the imagination of poets, let me tell you. The daily home +of his thought is in illimitable space, hovering between the two +eternities. In his contemplations the divisions of time run together, as +in the thought of his Maker. With him also,--I say it not +profanely,--one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one +day. + +This account of his occupation increased the interest his look had +excited in me, and I have observed him more particularly and found out +more about him. Sometimes, after a long night's watching, he looks so +pale and worn, that one would think the cold moonlight had stricken him +with some malign effluence such as it is fabled to send upon those who +sleep in it. At such times he seems more like one who has come from a +planet farther away from the sun than our earth, than like one of us +terrestrial creatures. His home is truly in the heavens, and he +practises an asceticism in the cause of science almost comparable to that +of Saint Simeon Stylites. Yet they tell me he might live in luxury if he +spent on himself what he spends on science. His knowledge is of that +strange, remote character, that it seems sometimes almost superhuman. He +knows the ridges and chasms of the moon as a surveyor knows a garden-plot +he has measured. He watches the snows that gather around the poles of +Mars; he is on the lookout for the expected comet at the moment when its +faint stain of diffused light first shows itself; he analyzes the ray +that comes from the sun's photosphere; he measures the rings of Saturn; +he counts his asteroids to see that none are missing, as the shepherd +counts the sheep in his flock. A strange unearthly being; lonely, +dwelling far apart from the thoughts and cares of the planet on which he +lives,--an enthusiast who gives his life to knowledge; a student of +antiquity, to whom the records of the geologist are modern pages in the +great volume of being, and the pyramids a memorandum of yesterday, as the +eclipse or occultation that is to take place thousands of years hence is +an event of to-morrow in the diary without beginning and without end +where he enters the aspect of the passing moment as it is read on the +celestial dial. + +In very marked contrast with this young man is the something more than +middle-aged Register of Deeds, a rusty, sallow, smoke-dried looking +personage, who belongs to this earth as exclusively as the other belongs +to the firmament. His movements are as mechanical as those of a +pendulum,--to the office, where he changes his coat and plunges into +messuages and building-lots; then, after changing his coat again, back to +our table, and so, day by day, the dust of years gradually gathering +around him as it does on the old folios that fill the shelves all round +the great cemetery of past transactions of which he is the sexton. + +Of the Salesman who sits next him, nothing need be said except that he is +good-looking, rosy, well-dressed, and of very polite manners, only a +little more brisk than the approved style of carriage permits, as one in +the habit of springing with a certain alacrity at the call of a customer. + +You would like to see, I don't doubt, how we sit at the table, and I will +help you by means of a diagram which shows the present arrangement of our +seats. + + 4 3 2 1 14 13 + ---------------------------------- + | O O O O O O | + | | + 5 | O Breakfast-Table O |12 + | | + | O O O O O O | + ---------------------------------- + 6 7 8 9 10 11 + + 1. The Poet. + 2. The Master Of Arts. + 3. The Young Girl (Scheherezade). + 4. The Lady. + 5. The Landlady. + 6. Dr. B. Franklin. + 7. That Boy. + 8. The Astronomer. + 9. The Member of the Haouse. + 10. The Register of Deeds. + 11. The Salesman. + 12. The Capitalist. + 13. The Man of Letters(?). + 14. The Scarabee. + +Our young Scheherezade varies her prose stories now and then, as I told +you, with compositions in verse, one or two of which she has let me look +over. Here is one of them, which she allowed me to copy. It is from a +story of hers, "The Sun-Worshipper's Daughter," which you may find in the +periodical before mentioned, to which she is a contributor, if your can +lay your hand upon a file of it. I think our Scheherezade has never had +a lover in human shape, or she would not play so lightly with the +firebrands of the great passion. + + FANTASIA. + + Kiss mine eyelids, beauteous Morn, + Blushing into life new-born! + Lend me violets for my hair, + And thy russet robe to wear, + And thy ring of rosiest hue + Set in drops of diamond dew! + + Kiss my cheek, thou noontide ray, + From my Love so far away! + Let thy splendor streaming down + Turn its pallid lilies brown, + Till its darkening shades reveal + Where his passion pressed its seal! + + Kiss my lips, thou Lord of light, + Kiss my lips a soft good night! + Westward sinks thy golden car; + Leave me but the evening star, + And my solace that shall be, + Borrowing all its light from thee! + + + + +III + +The old Master was talking about a concert he had been to hear.--I don't +like your chopped music anyway. That woman--she had more sense in her +little finger than forty medical societies--Florence Nightingale--says +that the music you pour out is good for sick folks, and the music you +pound out isn't. Not that exactly, but something like it. I have been +to hear some music-pounding. It was a young woman, with as many white +muslin flounces round her as the planet Saturn has rings, that did it. +She--gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a +whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if +she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her +wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her +fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the +key-board, from the growling end to the little squeaky one. Then those +two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of +tigers coming down on a flock of black and white sheep, and the piano +gave a great howl as if its tail had been trod on. Dead stop,--so still +you could hear your hair growing. Then another jump, and another howl, +as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both of 'em at once, +and, then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, +back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and +mice more than like anything I call music. I like to hear a woman sing, +and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of +their wood and ivory anvils--don't talk to me, I know the difference +between a bullfrog and a woodthrush and-- + +Pop! went a small piece of artillery such as is made of a stick of elder +and carries a pellet of very moderate consistency. That Boy was in his +seat and looking demure enough, but there could be no question that he +was the artillery-man who had discharged the missile. The aim was not a +bad one, for it took the Master full in the forehead, and had the effect +of checking the flow of his eloquence. How the little monkey had learned +to time his interruptions I do not know, but I have observed more than +once before this, that the popgun would go off just at the moment when +some one of the company was getting too energetic or prolix. The Boy +isn't old enough to judge for himself when to intervene to change the +order of conversation; no, of course he isn't. Somebody must give him a +hint. Somebody.--Who is it? I suspect Dr. B. Franklin. He looks too +knowing. There is certainly a trick somewhere. Why, a day or two ago I +was myself discoursing, with considerable effect, as I thought, on some +of the new aspects of humanity, when I was struck full on the cheek by +one of these little pellets, and there was such a confounded laugh that I +had to wind up and leave off with a preposition instead of a good +mouthful of polysyllables. I have watched our young Doctor, however, and +have been entirely unable to detect any signs of communication between +him and this audacious child, who is like to become a power among us, for +that popgun is fatal to any talker who is hit by its pellet. I have +suspected a foot under the table as the prompter, but I have been unable +to detect the slightest movement or look as if he were making one, on the +part of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. I cannot help thinking of the flappers in +Swift's Laputa, only they gave one a hint when to speak and another a +hint to listen, whereas the popgun says unmistakably, "Shut up!" + +--I should be sorry to lose my confidence in Dr. B. Franklin, who seems +very much devoted to his business, and whom I mean to consult about some +small symptoms I have had lately. Perhaps it is coming to a new +boarding-house. The young people who come into Paris from the provinces +are very apt--so I have been told by one that knows--to have an attack of +typhoid fever a few weeks or months after their arrival. I have not been +long enough at this table to get well acclimated; perhaps that is it. +Boarding-House Fever. Something like horse-ail, very likely,--horses get +it, you know, when they are brought to city stables. A little "off my +feed," as Hiram Woodruff would say. A queer discoloration about my +forehead. Query, a bump? Cannot remember any. Might have got it against +bedpost or something while asleep. Very unpleasant to look so. I wonder +how my portrait would look, if anybody should take it now! I hope not +quite so badly as one I saw the other day, which I took for the end man +of the Ethiopian Serenaders, or some traveller who had been exploring the +sources of the Niger, until I read the name at the bottom and found it +was a face I knew as well as my own. + +I must consult somebody, and it is nothing more than fair to give our +young Doctor a chance. Here goes for Dr. Benjamin Franklin. + +The young Doctor has a very small office and a very large sign, with a +transparency at night big enough for an oyster-shop. These young doctors +are particularly strong, as I understand, on what they call +diagnosis,--an excellent branch of the healing art, full of satisfaction +to the curious practitioner, who likes to give the right Latin name to +one's complaint; not quite so satisfactory to the patient, as it is not +so very much pleasanter to be bitten by a dog with a collar round his +neck telling you that he is called Snap or Teaser, than by a dog without +a collar. Sometimes, in fact, one would a little rather not know the +exact name of his complaint, as if he does he is pretty sure to look it +out in a medical dictionary, and then if he reads, This terrible disease +is attended with vast suffering and is inevitably mortal, or any such +statement, it is apt to affect him unpleasantly. + +I confess to a little shakiness when I knocked at Dr. Benjamin's office +door. "Come in!" exclaimed Dr. B. F. in tones that sounded ominous and +sepulchral. And I went in. + +I don't believe the chambers of the Inquisition ever presented a more +alarming array of implements for extracting a confession, than our young +Doctor's office did of instruments to make nature tell what was the +matter with a poor body. + +There were Ophthalmoscopes and Rhinoscopes and Otoscopes and +Laryngoscopes and Stethoscopes; and Thermometers and Spirometers and +Dynamometers and Sphygmometers and Pleximeters; and Probes and Probangs +and all sorts of frightful inquisitive exploring contrivances; and scales +to weigh you in, and tests and balances and pumps and electro-magnets and +magneto-electric machines; in short, apparatus for doing everything but +turn you inside out. + +Dr. Benjamin set me down before his one window and began looking at me +with such a superhuman air of sagacity, that I felt like one of those +open-breasted clocks which make no secret of their inside arrangements, +and almost thought he could see through me as one sees through a shrimp +or a jelly-fish. First he looked at the place inculpated, which had a +sort of greenish-brown color, with his naked eyes, with much corrugation +of forehead and fearful concentration of attention; then through a +pocket-glass which he carried. Then he drew back a space, for a +perspective view. Then he made me put out my tongue and laid a slip of +blue paper on it, which turned red and scared me a little. Next he took +my wrist; but instead of counting my pulse in the old-fashioned way, he +fastened a machine to it that marked all the beats on a sheet of +paper,--for all the world like a scale of the heights of mountains, say +from Mount Tom up to Chimborazo and then down again, and up again, and so +on. In the mean time he asked me all sorts of questions about myself and +all my relatives, whether we had been subject to this and that malady, +until I felt as if we must some of us have had more or less of them, and +could not feel quite sure whether Elephantiasis and Beriberi and +Progressive Locomotor Ataxy did not run in the family. + +After all this overhauling of myself and my history, he paused and looked +puzzled. Something was suggested about what he called an "exploratory +puncture." This I at once declined, with thanks. Suddenly a thought +struck him. He looked still more closely at the discoloration I have +spoken of. + +--Looks like--I declare it reminds me of--very rare! very curious! It +would be strange if my first case--of this kind--should be one of our +boarders! + +What kind of a case do you call it?--I said, with a sort of feeling that +he could inflict a severe or a light malady on me, as if he were a judge +passing sentence. + +--The color reminds me,--said Dr. B. Franklin,--of what I have seen in a +case of Addison's Disease, Morbus Addisonii. + +--But my habits are quite regular,--I said; for I remembered that the +distinguished essayist was too fond of his brandy and water, and I +confess that the thought was not pleasant to me of following Dr. +Johnson's advice, with the slight variation of giving my days and my +nights to trying on the favorite maladies of Addison. + +--Temperance people are subject to it!--exclaimed Dr. Benjamin, almost +exultingly, I thought. + +--But I had the impression that the author of the Spectator was afflicted +with a dropsy, or some such inflated malady, to which persons of +sedentary and bibacious habits are liable. [A literary swell,--I thought +to myself, but I did not say it. I felt too serious.] + +--The author of the Spectator!--cried out Dr. Benjamin,--I mean the +celebrated Dr. Addison, inventor, I would say discoverer, of the +wonderful new disease called after him. + +---And what may this valuable invention or discovery consist in?--I +asked, for I was curious to know the nature of the gift which this +benefactor of the race had bestowed upon us. + +--A most interesting affection, and rare, too. Allow me to look closely +at that discoloration once more for a moment. Cutis cenea, bronze skin, +they call it sometimes--extraordinary pigmentation--a little more to the +light, if you please--ah! now I get the bronze coloring admirably, +beautifully! Would you have any objection to showing your case to the +Societies of Medical Improvement and Medical Observation? + +[--My case! O dear!] May I ask if any vital organ is commonly involved +in this interesting complaint?--I said, faintly. + +--Well, sir,--the young Doctor replied,--there is an organ which is +--sometimes--a little touched, I may say; a very curious and ingenious +little organ or pair of organs. Did you ever hear of the Capsulae, +Suprarenales? + +--No,--said I,--is it a mortal complaint?--I ought to have known better +than to ask such a question, but I was getting nervous and thinking about +all sorts of horrid maladies people are liable to, with horrid names to +match. + +--It is n't a complaint,--I mean they are not a complaint,--they are two +small organs, as I said, inside of you, and nobody knows what is the use +of them. The most curious thing is that when anything is the matter with +them you turn of the color of bronze. After all, I didn't mean to say I +believed it was Morbus Addisonii; I only thought of that when I saw the +discoloration. + +So he gave me a recipe, which I took care to put where it could do no +hurt to anybody, and I paid him his fee (which he took with the air of a +man in the receipt of a great income) and said Good-morning. + +--What in the name of a thousand diablos is the reason these confounded +doctors will mention their guesses about "a case," as they call it, and +all its conceivable possibilities, out loud before their patients? I +don't suppose there is anything in all this nonsense about "Addison's +Disease," but I wish he hadn't spoken of that very interesting ailment, +and I should feel a little easier if that discoloration would leave my +forehead. I will ask the Landlady about it,--these old women often know +more than the young doctors just come home with long names for everything +they don't know how to cure. But the name of this complaint sets me +thinking. Bronzed skin! What an odd idea! Wonder if it spreads all +over one. That would be picturesque and pleasant, now, wouldn't it? To +be made a living statue of,--nothing to do but strike an attitude. Arm +up--so--like the one in the Garden. John of Bologna's Mercury--thus on +one foot. Needy knife-grinder in the Tribune at Florence. No, not +"needy," come to think of it. Marcus Aurelius on horseback. Query. Are +horses subject to the Morbus Addisonii? Advertise for a bronzed living +horse--Lyceum invitations and engagements--bronze versus brass.---What 's +the use in being frightened? Bet it was a bump. Pretty certain I bumped +my forehead against something. Never heard of a bronzed man before. +Have seen white men, black men, red men, yellow men, two or three blue +men, stained with doctor's stuff; some green ones, from the country; but +never a bronzed man. Poh, poh! Sure it was a bump. Ask Landlady to look +at it. + +--Landlady did look at it. Said it was a bump, and no mistake. +Recommended a piece of brown paper dipped in vinegar. Made the house +smell as if it were in quarantine for the plague from Smyrna, but +discoloration soon disappeared,--so I did not become a bronzed man after +all,--hope I never shall while I am alive. Should n't mind being done in +bronze after I was dead. On second thoughts not so clear about it, +remembering how some of them look that we have got stuck up in public; +think I had rather go down to posterity in an Ethiopian Minstrel +portrait, like our friend's the other day. + +--You were kind enough to say, I remarked to the Master, that you read my +poems and liked them. Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what +it is you like about them? + +The Master harpooned a breakfast-roll and held it up before me.--Will you +tell me,--he said,--why you like that breakfast-roll?--I suppose he +thought that would stop my mouth in two senses. But he was mistaken. + +--To be sure I will,--said I.---First, I like its mechanical consistency; +brittle externally,--that is for the teeth, which want resistance to be +overcome; soft, spongy, well tempered and flavored internally, that is +for the organ of taste; wholesome, nutritious,--that is for the internal +surfaces and the system generally. + +--Good,--said the Master, and laughed a hearty terrestrial laugh. + +I hope he will carry that faculty of an honest laugh with him wherever he +goes,--why shouldn't he? The "order of things," as he calls it, from +which hilarity was excluded, would be crippled and one-sided enough. I +don't believe the human gamut will be cheated of a single note after men +have done breathing this fatal atmospheric mixture and die into the ether +of immortality! + +I did n't say all that; if I had said it, it would have brought a pellet +from the popgun, I feel quite certain. + +The Master went on after he had had out his laugh.--There is one thing I +am His Imperial Majesty about, and that is my likes and dislikes. What +if I do like your verses,--you can't help yourself. I don't doubt +somebody or other hates 'em and hates you and everything you do, or ever +did, or ever can do. He is all right; there is nothing you or I like +that somebody does n't hate. Was there ever anything wholesome that was +not poison to somebody? If you hate honey or cheese, or the products of +the dairy,--I know a family a good many of whose members can't touch +milk, butter, cheese, and the like, why, say so, but don't find fault +with the bees and the cows. Some are afraid of roses, and I have known +those who thought a pond-lily a disagreeable neighbor. That Boy will +give you the metaphysics of likes and dislikes. Look here,--you young +philosopher over there,--do you like candy? + +That Boy.---You bet! Give me a stick and see if I don't. + +And can you tell me why you like candy? + +That Boy.--Because I do. + +--There, now, that is the whole matter in a nutshell. Why do your teeth +like crackling crust, and your organs of taste like spongy crumb, and +your digestive contrivances take kindly to bread rather than toadstools-- + +That Boy (thinking he was still being catechised).--Because they do. + +Whereupon the Landlady said, Sh! and the Young Girl laughed, and the Lady +smiled; and Dr. Ben Franklin kicked him, moderately, under the table, and +the Astronomer looked up at the ceiling to see what had happened, and the +Member of the Haouse cried, Order! Order! and the Salesman said, Shut +up, cash-boy! and the rest of the boarders kept on feeding; except the +Master, who looked very hard but half approvingly at the small intruder, +who had come about as nearly right as most professors would have done. + +--You poets,--the Master said after this excitement had calmed down, +--you poets have one thing about you that is odd. You talk about +everything as if you knew more about it than the people whose business it +is to know all about it. I suppose you do a little of what we teachers +used to call "cramming" now and then? + +--If you like your breakfast you must n't ask the cook too many +questions,--I answered. + +--Oh, come now, don't be afraid of letting out your secrets. I have a +notion I can tell a poet that gets himself up just as I can tell a +make-believe old man on the stage by the line where the gray skullcap +joins the smooth forehead of the young fellow of seventy. You'll confess +to a rhyming dictionary anyhow, won't you? + +--I would as lief use that as any other dictionary, but I don't want it. +When a word comes up fit to end a line with I can feel all the rhymes in +the language that are fit to go with it without naming them. I have +tried them all so many times, I know all the polygamous words and all the +monogamous ones, and all the unmarrying ones,--the whole lot that have no +mates,--as soon as I hear their names called. Sometimes I run over a +string of rhymes, but generally speaking it is strange what a short list +it is of those that are good for anything. That is the pitiful side of +all rhymed verse. Take two such words as home and world. What can you +do with chrome or loam or gnome or tome? You have dome, foam, and roam, +and not much more to use in your pome, as some of our fellow-countrymen +call it. As for world, you know that in all human probability somebody +or something will be hurled into it or out of it; its clouds may be +furled or its grass impearled; possibly something may be whirled, or +curled, or have swirled, one of Leigh Hunt's words, which with lush, one +of Keats's, is an important part of the stock in trade of some dealers in +rhyme. + +--And how much do you versifiers know of all those arts and sciences you +refer to as if you were as familiar with them as a cobbler is with his +wax and lapstone? + +--Enough not to make too many mistakes. The best way is to ask some +expert before one risks himself very far in illustrations from a branch +he does not know much about. Suppose, for instance, I wanted to use the +double star to illustrate anything, say the relation of two human souls +to each other, what would I--do? Why, I would ask our young friend there +to let me look at one of those loving celestial pairs through his +telescope, and I don't doubt he'd let me do so, and tell me their names +and all I wanted to know about them. + +--I should be most happy to show any of the double stars or whatever else +there might be to see in the heavens to any of our friends at this +table,--the young man said, so cordially and kindly that it was a real +invitation. + +--Show us the man in the moon,--said That Boy.---I should so like to see +a double star!--said Scheherezade, with a very pretty air of smiling +modesty. + +--Will you go, if we make up a party?--I asked the Master. + +--A cold in the head lasts me from three to five days,--answered the +Master.--I am not so very fond of being out in the dew like +Nebuchadnezzar: that will do for you young folks. + +--I suppose I must be one of the young folks, not so young as our +Scheherezade, nor so old as the Capitalist,--young enough at any rate to +want to be of the party. So we agreed that on some fair night when the +Astronomer should tell us that there was to be a fine show in the skies, +we would make up a party and go to the Observatory. I asked the Scarabee +whether he would not like to make one of us. + +--Out of the question, sir, out of the question. I am altogether too +much occupied with an important scientific investigation to devote any +considerable part of an evening to star-gazing. + +--Oh, indeed,--said I,--and may I venture to ask on what particular point +you are engaged just at present? + +-Certainly, sir, you may. It is, I suppose, as difficult and important a +matter to be investigated as often comes before a student of natural +history. I wish to settle the point once for all whether the Pediculus +Mellitae is or is not the larva of Meloe. + +[--Now is n't this the drollest world to live in that one could imagine, +short of being in a fit of delirium tremens? Here is a fellow-creature +of mine and yours who is asked to see all the glories of the firmament +brought close to him, and he is too busy with a little unmentionable +parasite that infests the bristly surface of a bee to spare an hour or +two of a single evening for the splendors of the universe! I must get a +peep through that microscope of his and see the pediculus which occupies +a larger space in his mental vision than the midnight march of the solar +systems.---The creature, the human one, I mean, interests me.] + +--I am very curious,--I said,--about that pediculus melittae,--(just as +if I knew a good deal about the little wretch and wanted to know more, +whereas I had never heard him spoken of before, to my knowledge,)--could +you let me have a sight of him in your microscope? + +--You ought to have seen the way in which the poor dried-up little +Scarabee turned towards me. His eyes took on a really human look, and I +almost thought those antennae-like arms of his would have stretched +themselves out and embraced me. I don't believe any of the boarders had +ever shown any interest in--him, except the little monkey of a Boy, since +he had been in the house. It is not strange; he had not seemed to me +much like a human being, until all at once I touched the one point where +his vitality had concentrated itself, and he stood revealed a man and a +brother. + +--Come in,--said he,--come in, right after breakfast, and you shall see +the animal that has convulsed the entomological world with questions as +to his nature and origin. + +--So I went into the Scarabee's parlor, lodging-room, study, laboratory, +and museum,--a--single apartment applied to these various uses, you +understand. + +--I wish I had time to have you show me all your treasures,--I said, +--but I am afraid I shall hardly be able to do more than look at the +bee-parasite. But what a superb butterfly you have in that case! + +--Oh, yes, yes, well enough,--came from South America with the beetle +there; look at him! These Lepidoptera are for children to play with, +pretty to look at, so some think. Give me the Coleoptera, and the kings +of the Coleoptera are the beetles! Lepidoptera and Neuroptera for little +folks; Coleopteras for men, sir! + +--The particular beetle he showed me in the case with the magnificent +butterfly was an odious black wretch that one would say, Ugh! at, and +kick out of his path, if he did not serve him worse than that. But he +looked at it as a coin-collector would look at a Pescennius Niger, if the +coins of that Emperor are as scarce as they used to be when I was +collecting half-penny tokens and pine-tree shillings and battered bits of +Roman brass with the head of Gallienus or some such old fellow on them. + +--A beauty!--he exclaimed,--and the only specimen of the kind in this +country, to the best of my belief. A unique, sir, and there is a +pleasure in exclusive possession. Not another beetle like that short of +South America, sir. + +--I was glad to hear that there were no more like it in this +neighborhood, the present supply of cockroaches answering every purpose, +so far as I am concerned, that such an animal as this would be likely to +serve. + +--Here are my bee-parasites,--said the Scarabee, showing me a box full of +glass slides, each with a specimen ready mounted for the microscope. I +was most struck with one little beast flattened out like a turtle, +semi-transparent, six-legged, as I remember him, and every leg terminated +by a single claw hooked like a lion's and as formidable for the size of +the creature as that of the royal beast. + +--Lives on a bumblebee, does he?--I said. That's the way I call it. +Bumblebee or bumblybee and huckleberry. Humblebee and whortleberry for +people that say Woos-ses-ter and Nor-wich. + +--The Scarabee did not smile; he took no interest in trivial matters like +this. + +--Lives on a bumblebee. When you come to think of it, he must lead a +pleasant kind of life. Sails through the air without the trouble of +flying. Free pass everywhere that the bee goes. No fear of being +dislodged; look at those six grappling-hooks. Helps himself to such +juices of the bee as he likes best; the bee feeds on the choicest +vegetable nectars, and he feeds on the bee. Lives either in the air or +in the perfumed pavilion of the fairest and sweetest flowers. Think what +tents the hollyhocks and the great lilies spread for him! And wherever he +travels a band of music goes with him, for this hum which wanders by us +is doubtless to him a vast and inspiring strain of melody.--I thought all +this, while the Scarabee supposed I was studying the minute characters of +the enigmatical specimen. + +--I know what I consider your pediculus melittae, I said at length. + +Do you think it really the larva of meloe? + +--Oh, I don't know much about that, but I think he is the best cared for, +on the whole, of any animal that I know of; and if I wasn't a man I +believe I had rather be that little sybarite than anything that feasts at +the board of nature. + +--The question is, whether he is the larva of meloe,--the Scarabee said, +as if he had not heard a word of what I had just been saying.----If I +live a few years longer it shall be settled, sir; and if my epitaph can +say honestly that I settled it, I shall be willing to trust my posthumous +fame to that achievement. + +I said good morning to the specialist, and went off feeling not only +kindly, but respectfully towards him. He is an enthusiast, at any rate, +as "earnest" a man as any philanthropic reformer who, having passed his +life in worrying people out of their misdoings into good behavior, comes +at last to a state in which he is never contented except when he is +making somebody uncomfortable. He does certainly know one thing well, +very likely better than anybody in the world. + +I find myself somewhat singularly placed at our table between a minute +philosopher who has concentrated all his faculties on a single subject, +and my friend who finds the present universe too restricted for his +intelligence. I would not give much to hear what the Scarabee says about +the old Master, for he does not pretend to form a judgment of anything +but beetles, but I should like to hear what the Master has to say about +the Scarabee. I waited after breakfast until he had gone, and then asked +the Master what he could make of our dried-up friend. + +--Well,--he said,--I am hospitable enough in my feelings to him and all +his tribe. These specialists are the coral-insects that build up a reef. +By and by it will be an island, and for aught we know may grow into a +continent. But I don't want to be a coral-insect myself. I had rather be +a voyager that visits all the reefs and islands the creatures build, and +sails over the seas where they have as yet built up nothing. I am a +little afraid that science is breeding us down too fast into +coral-insects. A man like Newton or Leibnitz or Haller used to paint a +picture of outward or inward nature with a free hand, and stand back and +look at it as a whole and feel like an archangel; but nowadays you have a +Society, and they come together and make a great mosaic, each man +bringing his little bit and sticking it in its place, but so taken up +with his petty fragment that he never thinks of looking at the picture +the little bits make when they are put together. You can't get any talk +out of these specialists away from their own subjects, any more than you +can get help from a policeman outside of his own beat. + +--Yes,--said I,--but why should n't we always set a man talking about the +thing he knows best? + +--No doubt, no doubt, if you meet him once; but what are you going to do +with him if you meet him every day? I travel with a man and we want to +make change very often in paying bills. But every time I ask him to +change a pistareen, or give me two fo'pencehappennies for a ninepence, or +help me to make out two and thrippence (mark the old Master's archaisms +about the currency), what does the fellow do but put his hand in his +pocket and pull out an old Roman coin; I have no change, says he, but +this assarion of Diocletian. Mighty deal of good that'll do me! + +--It isn't quite so handy as a few specimens of the modern currency would +be, but you can pump him on numismatics. + +--To be sure, to be sure. I've pumped a thousand men of all they could +teach me, or at least all I could learn from 'em; and if it comes to +that, I never saw the man that couldn't teach me something. I can get +along with everybody in his place, though I think the place of some of my +friends is over there among the feeble-minded pupils, and I don't believe +there's one of them, I couldn't go to school to for half an hour and be +the wiser for it. But people you talk with every day have got to have +feeders for their minds, as much as the stream that turns a millwheel +has. It isn't one little rill that's going to keep the float-boards +turning round. Take a dozen of the brightest men you can find in the +brightest city, wherever that may be,--perhaps you and I think we +know,--and let 'em come together once a month, and you'll find out in the +course of a year or two the ones that have feeders from all the +hillsides. Your common talkers, that exchange the gossip of the day, +have no wheel in particular to turn, and the wash of the rain as it runs +down the street is enough for them. + +--Do you mean you can always see the sources from which a man fills his +mind,--his feeders, as you call them? + +-I don't go quite so far as that,--the Master said.---I've seen men whose +minds were always overflowing, and yet they did n't read much nor go much +into the world. Sometimes you'll find a bit of a pond-hole in a pasture, +and you'll plunge your walking-stick into it and think you are going to +touch bottom. But you find you are mistaken. Some of these little +stagnant pond-holes are a good deal deeper than you think; you may tie a +stone to a bed-cord and not get soundings in some of 'em. The country +boys will tell you they have no bottom, but that only means that they are +mighty deep; and so a good many stagnant, stupid-seeming people are a +great deal deeper than the length of your intellectual walking-stick, I +can tell you. There are hidden springs that keep the little pond-holes +full when the mountain brooks are all dried up. You poets ought to know +that. + +--I can't help thinking you are more tolerant towards the specialists +than I thought at first, by the way you seemed to look at our dried-up +neighbor and his small pursuits. + +--I don't like the word tolerant,--the Master said.---As long as the Lord +can tolerate me I think I can stand my fellow-creatures. Philosophically, +I love 'em all; empirically, I don't think I am very fond of all of 'em. +It depends on how you look at a man or a woman. Come here, Youngster, +will you? he said to That Boy. + +The Boy was trying to catch a blue-bottle to add to his collection, and +was indisposed to give up the chase; but he presently saw that the Master +had taken out a small coin and laid it on the table, and felt himself +drawn in that direction. + +Read that,--said the Master. + +U-n-i-ni United States of America 5 cents. + +The Master turned the coin over. Now read that. + +In God is our t-r-u-s-t--trust. 1869. + +--Is that the same piece of money as the other one? + +--There ain't any other one,--said the Boy, there ain't but one, but it's +got two sides to it with different reading. + +--That 's it, that 's it,--said the Master,--two sides to everybody, as +there are to that piece of money. I've seen an old woman that wouldn't +fetch five cents if you should put her up for sale at public auction; and +yet come to read the other side of her, she had a trust in God Almighty +that was like the bow anchor of a three-decker. It's faith in something +and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at. I don't +think your ant-eating specialist, with his sharp nose and pin-head eyes, +is the best every-day companion; but any man who knows one thing well is +worth listening to for once; and if you are of the large-brained variety +of the race, and want to fill out your programme of the Order of Things +in a systematic and exhaustive way, and get all the half-notes and flats +and sharps of humanity into your scale, you'd a great deal better shut +your front door and open your two side ones when you come across a fellow +that has made a real business of doing anything. + +--That Boy stood all this time looking hard at the five-cent piece. + +--Take it,--said the Master, with a good-natured smile. + +--The Boy made a snatch at it and was off for the purpose of investing +it. + +--A child naturally snaps at a thing as a dog does at his meat,--said the +Master.---If you think of it, we've all been quadrupeds. A child that +can only crawl has all the instincts of a four-footed beast. It carries +things in its mouth just as cats and dogs do. I've seen the little +brutes do it over and over again. I suppose a good many children would +stay quadrupeds all their lives, if they didn't learn the trick of +walking on their hind legs from seeing all the grown people walking in +that way. + +--Do you accept Mr. Darwin's notions about the origin of the race?--said +I. + +The Master looked at me with that twinkle in his eye which means that he +is going to parry a question. + +--Better stick to Blair's Chronology; that settles it. Adam and Eve, +created Friday, October 28th, B. C. 4004. You've been in a ship for a +good while, and here comes Mr. Darwin on deck with an armful of sticks +and says, "Let's build a raft, and trust ourselves to that." + +If your ship springs a leak, what would you do? + +He looked me straight in the eyes for about half a minute.---If I heard +the pumps going, I'd look and see whether they were gaining on the leak +or not. If they were gaining I'd stay where I was.---Go and find out +what's the matter with that young woman. + +I had noticed that the Young Girl--the storywriter, our Scheherezade, as +I called her--looked as if she had been crying or lying awake half the +night. I found on asking her,--for she is an honest little body and is +disposed to be confidential with me for some reason or other,--that she +had been doing both. + +--And what was the matter now, I questioned her in a semi-paternal kind +of way, as soon as I got a chance for a few quiet words with her. + +She was engaged to write a serial story, it seems, and had only got as +far as the second number, and some critic had been jumping upon it, she +said, and grinding his heel into it, till she couldn't bear to look at +it. He said she did not write half so well as half a dozen other young +women. She did n't write half so well as she used to write herself. She +hadn't any characters and she had n't any incidents. Then he went to +work to show how her story was coming out, trying to anticipate +everything she could make of it, so that her readers should have nothing +to look forward to, and he should have credit for his sagacity in +guessing, which was nothing so very wonderful, she seemed to think. +Things she had merely hinted and left the reader to infer, he told right +out in the bluntest and coarsest way. It had taken all the life out of +her, she said. It was just as if at a dinner-party one of the guests +should take a spoonful of soup and get up and say to the company, "Poor +stuff, poor stuff; you won't get anything better; let's go somewhere else +where things are fit to eat." + +What do you read such things for, my dear? said I. + +The film glistened in her eyes at the strange sound of those two soft +words; she had not heard such very often, I am afraid. + +--I know I am a foolish creature to read them, she answered,--but I can't +help it; somebody always sends me everything that will make me wretched +to read, and so I sit down and read it, and ache all over for my pains, +and lie awake all night. + +--She smiled faintly as she said this, for she saw the sub-ridiculous +side of it, but the film glittered still in her eyes. There are a good +many real miseries in life that we cannot help smiling at, but they are +the smiles that make wrinkles and not dimples. "Somebody always sends +her everything that will make her wretched." Who can those creatures be +who cut out the offensive paragraph and send it anonymously to us, who +mail the newspaper which has the article we had much better not have +seen, who take care that we shall know everything which can, by any +possibility, help to make us discontented with ourselves and a little +less light-hearted than we were before we had been fools enough to open +their incendiary packages? I don't like to say it to myself, but I +cannot help suspecting, in this instance, the doubtful-looking personage +who sits on my left, beyond the Scarabee. I have some reason to think +that he has made advances to the Young Girl which were not favorably +received, to state the case in moderate terms, and it may be that he is +taking his revenge in cutting up the poor girl's story. I know this very +well, that some personal pique or favoritism is at the bottom of half the +praise and dispraise which pretend to be so very ingenuous and +discriminating. (Of course I have been thinking all this time and +telling you what I thought.) + +--What you want is encouragement, my dear, said I,--I know that as well, +as you. I don't think the fellows that write such criticisms as you tell +me of want to correct your faults. I don't mean to say that you can +learn nothing from them, because they are not all fools by any means, and +they will often pick out your weak points with a malignant sagacity, as a +pettifogging lawyer will frequently find a real flaw in trying to get at +everything he can quibble about. But is there nobody who will praise you +generously when you do well,--nobody that will lend you a hand now while +you want it,--or must they all wait until you have made yourself a name +among strangers, and then all at once find out that you have something in +you? Oh,--said the girl, and the bright film gathered too fast for her +young eyes to hold much longer,--I ought not to be ungrateful! I have +found the kindest friend in the world. Have you ever heard the Lady--the +one that I sit next to at the table--say anything about me? + +I have not really made her acquaintance, I said. She seems to me a +little distant in her manners and I have respected her pretty evident +liking for keeping mostly to herself. + +--Oh, but when you once do know her! I don't believe I could write +stories all the time as I do, if she didn't ask me up to her chamber, and +let me read them to her. Do you know, I can make her laugh and cry, +reading my poor stories? And sometimes, when I feel as if I had written +out all there is in me, and want to lie down and go to sleep and never +wake up except in a world where there are no weekly papers,--when +everything goes wrong, like a car off the track,--she takes hold and sets +me on the rails again all right. + +--How does she go to work to help you? + +--Why, she listens to my stories, to begin with, as if she really liked +to hear them. And then you know I am dreadfully troubled now and then +with some of my characters, and can't think how to get rid of them. And +she'll say, perhaps, Don't shoot your villain this time, you've shot +three or four already in the last six weeks; let his mare stumble and +throw him and break his neck. Or she'll give me a hint about some new +way for my lover to make a declaration. She must have had a good many +offers, it's my belief, for she has told me a dozen different ways for me +to use in my stories. And whenever I read a story to her, she always +laughs and cries in the right places; and that's such a comfort, for +there are some people that think everything pitiable is so funny, and +will burst out laughing when poor Rip Van Winkle--you've seen Mr. +Jefferson, haven't you?--is breaking your heart for you if you have one. +Sometimes she takes a poem I have written and reads it to me so +beautifully, that I fall in love with it, and sometimes she sets my +verses to music and sings them to me. + +--You have a laugh together sometimes, do you? + +--Indeed we do. I write for what they call the "Comic Department" of the +paper now and then. If I did not get so tired of story-telling, I +suppose I should be gayer than I am; but as it is, we two get a little +fun out of my comic pieces. I begin them half-crying sometimes, but +after they are done they amuse me. I don't suppose my comic pieces are +very laughable; at any rate the man who makes a business of writing me +down says the last one I wrote is very melancholy reading, and that if it +was only a little better perhaps some bereaved person might pick out a +line or two that would do to put on a gravestone. + +--Well, that is hard, I must confess. Do let me see those lines which +excite such sad emotions. + +--Will you read them very good-naturedly? If you will, I will get the +paper that has "Aunt Tabitha." That is the one the fault-finder said +produced such deep depression of feeling. It was written for the "Comic +Department." Perhaps it will make you cry, but it was n't meant to. + +--I will finish my report this time with our Scheherezade's poem, hoping +that--any critic who deals with it will treat it with the courtesy due to +all a young lady's literary efforts. + + AUNT TABITHA. + + Whatever I do, and whatever I say, + Aunt Tabitha tells me that isn't the way; + When she was a girl (forty summers ago) + Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so. + + Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice! + But I like my own way, and I find it so nice! + And besides, I forget half the things I am told; + But they all will come back to me--when I am old. + + If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt, + He may chance to look in as I chance to look out; + She would never endure an impertinent stare, + It is horrid, she says, and I mustn't sit there. + + A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own, + But it is n't quite safe to be walking alone; + So I take a lad's arm,--just for safety, you know, + But Aunt Tabitha tells me they didn't do so. + + How wicked we are, and how good they were then! + They kept at arm's length those detestable men; + What an era of virtue she lived in!--But stay + Were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day? + + If the men were so wicked, I'll ask my papa + How he dared to propose to my darling mamma; + Was he like the rest of them? Goodness! Who knows + And what shall I say if a wretch should propose? + + I am thinking if aunt knew so little of sin, + What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been! + And her grand-aunt--it scares me--how shockingly sad. + That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad! + + A martyr will save us, and nothing else can; + Let me perish--to rescue some wretched young man! + Though when to the altar a victim I go, + Aunt Tabitha'll tell me she never did so! + + + + +IV + +The old Master has developed one quality of late for which I am afraid I +hardly gave him credit. He has turned out to be an excellent listener. + +--I love to talk,--he said,--as a goose loves to swim. Sometimes I think +it is because I am a goose. For I never talked much at any one time in +my life without saying something or other I was sorry for. + +--You too!--said I--Now that is very odd, for it is an experience I have +habitually. I thought you were rather too much of a philosopher to +trouble yourself about such small matters as to whether you had said just +what you meant to or not; especially as you know that the person you talk +to does not remember a word of what you said the next morning, but is +thinking, it is much more likely, of what she said, or how her new dress +looked, or some other body's new dress which made--hers look as if it had +been patched together from the leaves of last November. That's what +she's probably thinking about. + +--She!--said the Master, with a look which it would take at least half a +page to explain to the entire satisfaction of thoughtful readers of both +sexes. + +--I paid the respect due to that most significant monosyllable, which, as +the old Rabbi spoke it, with its targum of tone and expression, was not +to be answered flippantly, but soberly, advisedly, and after a pause long +enough for it to unfold its meaning in the listener's mind. For there +are short single words (all the world remembers Rachel's Helas!) which +are like those Japanese toys that look like nothing of any significance +as you throw them on the water, but which after a little time open out +into various strange and unexpected figures, and then you find that each +little shred had a complicated story to tell of itself. + +-Yes,--said I, at the close of this silent interval, during which the +monosyllable had been opening out its meanings,--She. When I think of +talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an +inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness; +and where will you find this but in woman? + +The Master laughed a pleasant little laugh,--not a harsh, sarcastic one, +but playful, and tempered by so kind a look that it seemed as if every +wrinkled line about his old eyes repeated, "God bless you," as the +tracings on the walls of the Alhambra repeat a sentence of the Koran. + +I said nothing, but looked the question, What are you laughing at? + +--Why, I laughed because I couldn't help saying to myself that a woman +whose mind was taken up with thinking how she looked, and how her pretty +neighbor looked, wouldn't have a great deal of thought to spare for all +your fine discourse. + +--Come, now,--said I,--a man who contradicts himself in the course of two +minutes must have a screw loose in his mental machinery. I never feel +afraid that such a thing can happen to me, though it happens often enough +when I turn a thought over suddenly, as you did that five-cent piece the +other day, that it reads differently on its two sides. What I meant to +say is something like this. A woman, notwithstanding she is the best of +listeners, knows her business, and it is a woman's business to please. I +don't say that it is not her business to vote, but I do say that a woman +who does not please is a false note in the harmonies of nature. She may +not have youth, or beauty, or even manner; but she must have something in +her voice or expression, or both, which it makes you feel better disposed +towards your race to look at or listen to. She knows that as well as we +do; and her first question after you have been talking your soul into her +consciousness is, Did I please? A woman never forgets her sex. She +would rather talk with a man than an angel, any day. + +--This frightful speech of mine reached the ear of our Scheherezade, who +said that it was perfectly shocking and that I deserved to be shown up as +the outlaw in one of her bandit stories. + +Hush, my dear,--said the Lady,--you will have to bring John Milton into +your story with our friend there, if you punish everybody who says +naughty things like that. Send the little boy up to my chamber for +Paradise Lost, if you please. He will find it lying on my table. The +little old volume,--he can't mistake it. + +So the girl called That Boy round and gave him the message; I don't know +why she should give it, but she did, and the Lady helped her out with a +word or two. + +The little volume--its cover protected with soft white leather from a +long kid glove, evidently suggesting the brilliant assemblies of the days +when friends and fortune smiled-came presently and the Lady opened +it.---You may read that, if you like, she said,--it may show you that our +friend is to be pilloried in good company. + +The Young Girl ran her eye along the passage the Lady pointed out, +blushed, laughed, and slapped the book down as though she would have +liked to box the ears of Mr. John Milton, if he had been a contemporary +and fellow-contributor to the "Weekly Bucket."--I won't touch the +thing,--she said.---He was a horrid man to talk so: and he had as many +wives as Blue-Beard. + +--Fair play,--said the Master.---Bring me the book, my little fractional +superfluity,--I mean you, my nursling,--my boy, if that suits your small +Highness better. + +The Boy brought the book. + +The old Master, not unfamiliar with the great epic opened pretty nearly +to the place, and very soon found the passage: He read, aloud with grand +scholastic intonation and in a deep voice that silenced the table as if a +prophet had just uttered Thus saith the Lord:-- + + "So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed + Entering on studious thoughts abstruse; which Eve + Perceiving--" + +went to water her geraniums, to make a short story of it, and left the +two "conversationists," to wit, the angel Raphael and the +gentleman,--there was but one gentleman in society then, you know,--to +talk it out. + + "Yet went she not, as not with such discourse + Delighted, or not capable her ear + Of what was high; such pleasure she reserved, + Adam relating, she sole auditress; + Her husband the relater she preferred + Before the angel, and of him to ask + Chose rather; he she knew would intermix + Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute + With conjugal caresses: from his lips + Not words alone pleased her." + +Everybody laughed, except the Capitalist, who was a little hard of +hearing, and the Scarabee, whose life was too earnest for demonstrations +of that kind. He had his eyes fixed on the volume, however, with eager +interest. + +--The p'int 's carried,--said the Member of the Haouse. + +Will you let me look at that book a single minute?--said the Scarabee. I +passed it to him, wondering what in the world he wanted of Paradise Lost. + +Dermestes lardarius,--he said, pointing to a place where the edge of one +side of the outer cover had been slightly tasted by some insect.--Very +fond of leather while they 're in the larva state. + +--Damage the goods as bad as mice,--said the Salesman. + +--Eat half the binding off Folio 67,--said the Register of Deeds. +Something did, anyhow, and it was n't mice. Found the shelf covered with +little hairy cases belonging to something or other that had no business +there. + +Skins of the Dermestes lardaraus,--said the Scarabee,--you can always +tell them by those brown hairy coats. That 's the name to give them. + +--What good does it do to give 'em a name after they 've eat the binding +off my folios?--asked the Register of Deeds. + +The Scarabee had too much respect for science to answer such a question +as that; and the book, having served its purposes, was passed back to the +Lady. + +I return to the previous question,--said I,--if our friend the Member of +the House of Representatives will allow me to borrow the phrase. Womanly +women are very kindly critics, except to themselves and now and then to +their own sex. The less there is of sex about a woman, the more she is +to be dreaded. But take a real woman at her best moment,--well dressed +enough to be pleased with herself, not so resplendent as to be a show and +a sensation, with those varied outside influences which set vibrating the +harmonic notes of her nature stirring in the air about her, and what has +social life to compare with one of those vital interchanges of thought +and feeling with her that make an hour memorable? What can equal her +tact, her delicacy, her subtlety of apprehension, her quickness to feel +the changes of temperature as the warm and cool currents of talk blow by +turns? At one moment she is microscopically intellectual, critical, +scrupulous in judgment as an analyst's balance, and the next as +sympathetic as the open rose that sweetens the wind from whatever quarter +it finds its way to her bosom. It is in the hospitable soul of a woman +that a man forgets he is a stranger, and so becomes natural and truthful, +at the same time that he is mesmerized by all those divine differences +which make her a mystery and a bewilderment to-- + +If you fire your popgun at me, you little chimpanzee, I will stick a pin +right through the middle of you and put you into one of this gentleman's +beetle-cases! + +I caught the imp that time, but what started him was more than I could +guess. It is rather hard that this spoiled child should spoil such a +sentence as that was going to be; but the wind shifted all at once, and +the talk had to come round on another tack, or at least fall off a point +or two from its course. + +--I'll tell you who I think are the best talkers in all probability, +--said I to the Master, who, as I mentioned, was developing interesting +talent as a listener,--poets who never write verses. And there are a +good many more of these than it would seem at first sight. I think you +may say every young lover is a poet, to begin with. I don't mean either +that all young lovers are good talkers,--they have an eloquence all +their own when they are with the beloved object, no doubt, emphasized +after the fashion the solemn bard of Paradise refers to with such +delicious humor in the passage we just heard,--but a little talk goes a +good way in most of these cooing matches, and it wouldn't do to report +them too literally. What I mean is, that a man with the gift of musical +and impassioned phrase (and love often deeds that to a young person for a +while), who "wreaks" it, to borrow Byron's word, on conversation as the +natural outlet of his sensibilities and spiritual activities, is likely +to talk better than the poet, who plays on the instrument of verse. A +great pianist or violinist is rarely a great singer. To write a poem is +to expend the vital force which would have made one brilliant for an hour +or two, and to expend it on an instrument with more pipes, reeds, keys, +stops, and pedals than the Great Organ that shakes New England every time +it is played in full blast. + +Do you mean that it is hard work to write a poem?--said the old +Master.---I had an idea that a poem wrote itself, as it were, very often; +that it came by influx, without voluntary effort; indeed, you have spoken +of it as an inspiration rather than a result of volition. + +--Did you ever see a great ballet-dancer?--I asked him. + +--I have seen Taglioni,--he answered.---She used to take her steps rather +prettily. I have seen the woman that danced the capstone on to Bunker +Hill Monument, as Orpheus moved the rocks by music, the Elssler +woman,--Fanny Elssler. She would dance you a rigadoon or cut a pigeon's +wing for you very respectably. + +(Confound this old college book-worm,----he has seen everything!) + +Well, did these two ladies dance as if it was hard work to them? + +--Why no, I should say they danced as if they liked it and couldn't help +dancing; they looked as if they felt so "corky" it was hard to keep them +down. + +--And yet they had been through such work to get their limbs strong and +flexible and obedient, that a cart-horse lives an easy life compared to +theirs while they were in training. + +--The Master cut in just here--I had sprung the trap of a reminiscence. + +--When I was a boy,--he said,--some of the mothers in our small town, who +meant that their children should know what was what as well as other +people's children, laid their heads together and got a dancing-master to +come out from the city and give instruction at a few dollars a quarter to +the young folks of condition in the village. Some of their husbands were +ministers and some were deacons, but the mothers knew what they were +about, and they did n't see any reason why ministers' and deacons' wives' +children shouldn't have as easy manners as the sons and daughters of +Belial. So, as I tell you, they got a dancing-master to come out to our +place,--a man of good repute, a most respectable man,--madam (to the +Landlady), you must remember the worthy old citizen, in his advanced age, +going about the streets, a most gentlemanly bundle of infirmities,--only +he always cocked his hat a little too much on one side, as they do here +and there along the Connecticut River, and sometimes on our city +sidewalks, when they've got a new beaver; they got him, I say, to give us +boys and girls lessons in dancing and deportment. He was as gray and as +lively as a squirrel, as I remember him, and used to spring up in the air +and "cross his feet," as we called it, three times before he came down. +Well, at the end of each term there was what they called an "exhibition +ball," in which the scholars danced cotillons and country-dances; also +something called a "gavotte," and I think one or more walked a minuet. +But all this is not what--I wanted to say. At this exhibition ball he +used to bring out a number of hoops wreathed with roses, of the perennial +kind, by the aid of which a number of amazingly complicated and startling +evolutions were exhibited; and also his two daughters, who figured +largely in these evolutions, and whose wonderful performances to us, who +had not seen Miss Taglioni or Miss Elssler, were something quite +bewildering, in fact, surpassing the natural possibilities of human +beings. Their extraordinary powers were, however, accounted for by the +following explanation, which was accepted in the school as entirely +satisfactory. A certain little bone in the ankles of each of these young +girls had been broken intentionally, secundum artem, at a very early age, +and thus they had been fitted to accomplish these surprising feats which +threw the achievements of the children who were left in the condition of +the natural man into ignominious shadow. + +--Thank you,--said I,--you have helped out my illustration so as to make +it better than I expected. Let me begin again. Every poem that is +worthy of the name, no matter how easily it seems to be written, +represents a great amount of vital force expended at some time or other. +When you find a beach strewed with the shells and other spoils that +belonged once to the deep sea, you know the tide has been there, and that +the winds and waves have wrestled over its naked sands. And so, if I +find a poem stranded in my soul and have nothing to do but seize it as a +wrecker carries off the treasure he finds cast ashore, I know I have paid +at some time for that poem with some inward commotion, were it only an +excess of enjoyment, which has used up just so much of my vital capital. +But besides all the impressions that furnished the stuff of the poem, +there has been hard work to get the management of that wonderful +instrument I spoke of,---the great organ, language. An artist who works +in marble or colors has them all to himself and his tribe, but the man +who moulds his thought in verse has to employ the materials vulgarized by +everybody's use, and glorify them by his handling. I don't know that you +must break any bones in a poet's mechanism before his thought can dance +in rhythm, but read your Milton and see what training, what patient +labor, it took before he could shape our common speech into his majestic +harmonies. + +It is rather singular, but the same kind of thing has happened to me not +very rarely before, as I suppose it has to most persons, that just when I +happened to be thinking about poets and their conditions, this very +morning, I saw a paragraph or two from a foreign paper which is apt to be +sharp, if not cynical, relating to the same matter. I can't help it; I +want to have my talk about it, and if I say the same things that writer +did, somebody else can have the satisfaction of saying I stole them all. + +[I thought the person whom I have called hypothetically the Man of +Letters changed color a little and betrayed a certain awkward +consciousness that some of us were looking at him or thinking of him; but +I am a little suspicious about him and may do him wrong.] + +That poets are treated as privileged persons by their admirers and the +educated public can hardly be disputed. That they consider themselves so +there is no doubt whatever. On the whole, I do not know so easy a way of +shirking all the civic and social and domestic duties, as to settle it in +one's mind that one is a poet. I have, therefore, taken great pains to +advise other persons laboring under the impression that they were gifted +beings, destined to soar in the atmosphere of song above the vulgar +realities of earth, not to neglect any homely duty under the influence of +that impression. The number of these persons is so great that if they +were suffered to indulge their prejudice against every-day duties and +labors, it would be a serious loss to the productive industry of the +country. My skirts are clear (so far as other people are concerned) of +countenancing that form of intellectual opium-eating in which rhyme takes +the place of the narcotic. But what are you going to do when you find +John Keats an apprentice to a surgeon or apothecary? Is n't it rather +better to get another boy to sweep out the shop and shake out the powders +and stir up the mixtures, and leave him undisturbed to write his Ode on a +Grecian Urn or to a Nightingale? Oh yes, the critic I have referred to +would say, if he is John Keats; but not if he is of a much lower grade, +even though he be genuine, what there is of him. But the trouble is, the +sensitive persons who belong to the lower grades of the poetical +hierarchy do not--know their own poetical limitations, while they do feel +a natural unfitness and disinclination for many pursuits which young +persons of the average balance of faculties take to pleasantly enough. +What is forgotten is this, that every real poet, even of the humblest +grade, is an artist. Now I venture to say that any painter or sculptor of +real genius, though he may do nothing more than paint flowers and fruit, +or carve cameos, is considered a privileged person. It is recognized +perfectly that to get his best work he must be insured the freedom from +disturbances which the creative power absolutely demands, more absolutely +perhaps in these slighter artists than in the great masters. His nerves +must be steady for him to finish a rose-leaf or the fold of a nymph's +drapery in his best manner; and they will be unsteadied if he has to +perform the honest drudgery which another can do for him quite as well. +And it is just so with the poet, though he were only finishing an +epigram; you must no more meddle roughly with him than you would shake a +bottle of Chambertin and expect the "sunset glow" to redden your glass +unclouded. On the other hand, it may be said that poetry is not an +article of prime necessity, and potatoes are. There is a disposition in +many persons just now to deny the poet his benefit of clergy, and to hold +him no better than other people. Perhaps he is not, perhaps he is not so +good, half the time; but he is a luxury, and if you want him you must pay +for him, by not trying to make a drudge of him while he is all his +lifetime struggling with the chills and heats of his artistic +intermittent fever. + +There may have been some lesser interruptions during the talk I have +reported as if it was a set speech, but this was the drift of what I said +and should have said if the other man, in the Review I referred to, had +not seen fit to meddle with the subject, as some fellow always does, just +about the time when I am going to say something about it. The old Master +listened beautifully, except for cutting in once, as I told you he did. +But now he had held in as long as it was in his nature to contain +himself, and must have his say or go off in an apoplexy, or explode in +some way.--I think you're right about the poets,--he said.--They are to +common folks what repeaters are to ordinary watches. They carry music in +their inside arrangements, but they want to be handled carefully or you +put them out of order. And perhaps you must n't expect them to be quite +as good timekeepers as the professional chronometer watches that make a +specialty of being exact within a few seconds a month. They think too +much of themselves. So does everybody that considers himself as having a +right to fall back on what he calls his idiosyncrasy. Yet a man has such +a right, and it is no easy thing to adjust the private claim to the fair +public demand on him. Suppose you are subject to tic douloureux, for +instance. Every now and then a tiger that nobody can see catches one +side of your face between his jaws and holds on till he is tired and lets +go. Some concession must be made to you on that score, as everybody can +see. It is fair to give you a seat that is not in the draught, and your +friends ought not to find fault with you if you do not care to join a +party that is going on a sleigh-ride. Now take a poet like Cowper. He +had a mental neuralgia, a great deal worse in many respects than tic +douloureux confined to the face. It was well that he was sheltered and +relieved, by the cares of kind friends, especially those good women, from +as many of the burdens of life as they could lift off from him. I am +fair to the poets,--don't you agree that I am? + +Why, yes,--I said,--you have stated the case fairly enough, a good deal +as I should have put it myself. + +Now, then,--the Master continued,--I 'll tell you what is necessary to +all these artistic idiosyncrasies to bring them into good square human +relations outside of the special province where their ways differ from +those of other people. I am going to illustrate what I mean by a +comparison. I don't know, by the way, but you would be disposed to think +and perhaps call me a wine-bibber on the strength of the freedom with +which I deal with that fluid for the purposes of illustration. But I +make mighty little use of it, except as it furnishes me an image now and +then, as it did, for that matter, to the Disciples and their Master. In +my younger days they used to bring up the famous old wines, the +White-top, the Juno, the Eclipse, the Essex Junior, and the rest, in +their old cobwebbed, dusty bottles. The resurrection of one of these old +sepulchred dignitaries had something of solemnity about it; it was like +the disinterment of a king; the bringing to light of the Royal Martyr +King Charles I., for instance, that Sir Henry Halford gave such an +interesting account of. And the bottle seemed to inspire a personal +respect; it was wrapped in a napkin and borne tenderly and reverently +round to the guests, and sometimes a dead silence went before the first +gush of its amber flood, and + + "The boldest held his breath + For a time." + +But nowadays the precious juice of a long-dead vintage is transferred +carefully into a cut-glass decanter, and stands side by side with the +sherry from a corner grocery, which looks just as bright and apparently +thinks just as well of itself. The old historic Madeiras, which have +warmed the periods of our famous rhetoricians of the past and burned in +the impassioned eloquence of our earlier political demigods, have nothing +to mark them externally but a bit of thread, it may be, round the neck of +the decanter, or a slip of ribbon, pink on one of them and blue on +another. + +Go to a London club,--perhaps I might find something nearer home that +would serve my turn,--but go to a London club, and there you will see the +celebrities all looking alike modern, all decanted off from their +historic antecedents and their costume of circumstance into the every-day +aspect of the gentleman of common cultivated society. That is Sir Coeur +de Lion Plantagenet in the mutton-chop whiskers and the plain gray suit; +there is the Laureate in a frockcoat like your own, and the leader of the +House of Commons in a necktie you do not envy. That is the kind of thing +you want to take the nonsense out of you. If you are not decanted off +from yourself every few days or weeks, you will think it sacrilege to +brush a cobweb from your cork by and by. O little fool, that has +published a little book full of little poems or other sputtering tokens +of an uneasy condition, how I love you for the one soft nerve of special +sensibility that runs through your exiguous organism, and the one +phosphorescent particle in your unilluminated intelligence! But if you +don't leave your spun-sugar confectionery business once in a while, and +come out among lusty men,--the bristly, pachydermatous fellows that hew +out the highways for the material progress of society, and the +broad-shouldered, out-of-door men that fight for the great prizes of +life,--you will come to think that the spun-sugar business is the chief +end of man, and begin to feel and look as if you believed yourself as +much above common people as that personage of whom Tourgueneff says that +"he had the air of his own statue erected by national subscription." + +--The Master paused and fell into a deep thinking fit, as he does +sometimes. He had had his own say, it is true, but he had established +his character as a listener to my own perfect satisfaction, for I, too, +was conscious of having preached with a certain prolixity. + +--I am always troubled when I think of my very limited mathematical +capacities. It seems as if every well-organized mind should be able to +handle numbers and quantities through their symbols to an indefinite +extent; and yet, I am puzzled by what seems to a clever boy with a turn +for calculation as plain as counting his fingers. I don't think any man +feels well grounded in knowledge unless he has a good basis of +mathematical certainties, and knows how to deal with them and apply them +to every branch of knowledge where they can come in to advantage. + +Our Young Astronomer is known for his mathematical ability, and I asked +him what he thought was the difficulty in the minds that are weak in that +particular direction, while they may be of remarkable force in other +provinces of thought, as is notoriously the case with some men of great +distinction in science. + +The young man smiled and wrote a few letters and symbols on a piece of +paper.---Can you see through that at once?--he said. + +I puzzled over it for some minutes and gave it up. + +--He said, as I returned it to him, You have heard military men say that +such a person had an eye for country, have n't you? One man will note +all the landmarks, keep the points of compass in his head, observe how +the streams run, in short, carry a map in his brain of any region that he +has marched or galloped through. Another man takes no note of any of +these things; always follows somebody else's lead when he can, and gets +lost if he is left to himself; a mere owl in daylight. Just so some men +have an eye for an equation, and would read at sight the one that you +puzzled over. It is told of Sir Isaac Newton that he required no +demonstration of the propositions in Euclid's Geometry, but as soon as he +had read the enunciation the solution or answer was plain at once. The +power may be cultivated, but I think it is to a great degree a natural +gift, as is the eye for color, as is the ear for music. + +--I think I could read equations readily enough,--I said,--if I could +only keep my attention fixed on them; and I think I could keep my +attention on them if I were imprisoned in a thinking-cell, such as the +Creative Intelligence shapes for its studio when at its divinest work. + +The young man's lustrous eyes opened very widely as he asked me to +explain what I meant. + +--What is the Creator's divinest work?--I asked. + +--Is there anything more divine than the sun; than a sun with its planets +revolving about it, warming them, lighting them, and giving conscious +life to the beings that move on them? + +--You agree, then, that conscious life is the grand aim and end of all +this vast mechanism. Without life that could feel and enjoy, the +splendors and creative energy would all be thrown away. You know +Harvey's saying, omnia animalia ex ovo,--all animals come from an egg. +You ought to know it, for the great controversy going on about +spontaneous generation has brought it into special prominence lately. +Well, then, the ovum, the egg, is, to speak in human phrase, the +Creator's more private and sacred studio, for his magnum opus. Now, look +at a hen's egg, which is a convenient one to study, because it is large +enough and built solidly enough to look at and handle easily. That would +be the form I would choose for my thinking-cell. Build me an oval with +smooth, translucent walls, and put me in the centre of it with Newton's +"Principia" or Kant's "Kritik," and I think I shall develop "an eye for +an equation," as you call it, and a capacity for an abstraction. + +But do tell me,--said the Astronomer, a little incredulously,--what there +is in that particular form which is going to help you to be a +mathematician or a metaphysician? + +--It is n't help I want, it is removing hindrances. I don't want to see +anything to draw off my attention. I don't want a cornice, or an angle, +or anything but a containing curve. I want diffused light and no single +luminous centre to fix my eye, and so distract my mind from its one +object of contemplation. The metaphysics of attention have hardly been +sounded to their depths. The mere fixing the look on any single object +for a long time may produce very strange effects. Gibbon's well-known +story of the monks of Mount Athos and their contemplative practice is +often laughed over, but it has a meaning. They were to shut the door of +the cell, recline the beard and chin on the breast, and contemplate the +abdominal centre. + +"At first all will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and +night, you will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul +discovered the place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and +ethereal light." And Mr. Braid produces absolute anaesthesia, so that +surgical operations can be performed without suffering to the patient, +only by making him fix his eyes and his mind on a single object; and +Newton is said to have said, as you remember, "I keep the subject +constantly before me, and wait till the first dawnings open slowly by +little and little into a full and clear light." These are different, but +certainly very wonderful, instances of what can be done by attention. +But now suppose that your mind is in its nature discursive, erratic, +subject to electric attractions and repulsions, volage; it may be +impossible for you to compel your attention except by taking away all +external disturbances. I think the poets have an advantage and a +disadvantage as compared with the steadier-going people. Life is so +vivid to the poet, that he is too eager to seize and exhaust its +multitudinous impressions. Like Sindbad in the valley of precious +stones, he wants to fill his pockets with diamonds, but, lo! there is a +great ruby like a setting sun in its glory, and a sapphire that, like +Bryant's blue gentian, seems to have dropped from the cerulean walls of +heaven, and a nest of pearls that look as if they might be unhatched +angel's eggs, and so he hardly knows what to seize, and tries for too +many, and comes out of the enchanted valley with more gems than he can +carry, and those that he lets fall by the wayside we call his poems. You +may change the image a thousand ways to show you how hard it is to make a +mathematician or a logician out of a poet. He carries the tropics with +him wherever he goes; he is in the true sense felius naturae, and Nature +tempts him, as she tempts a child walking through a garden where all the +finest fruits are hanging over him and dropping round him, where + + The luscious clusters of the vine + Upon (his) mouth do crush their wine, + The nectarine and curious peach, + Into (his) hands themselves do reach; + +and he takes a bite out of the sunny side of this and the other, and, +ever stimulated and never satisfied, is hurried through the garden, and, +before he knows it, finds himself at an iron gate which opens outward, +and leaves the place he knows and loves-- + +--For one he will perhaps soon learn to love and know better,--said the +Master.---But I can help you out with another comparison, not quite so +poetical as yours. Why did not you think of a railway-station, where the +cars stop five minutes for refreshments? Is n't that a picture of the +poet's hungry and hurried feast at the banquet of life? The traveller +flings himself on the bewildering miscellany of delicacies spread before +him, the various tempting forms of ambrosia and seducing draughts of +nectar, with the same eager hurry and restless ardor that you describe in +the poet. Dear me! If it wasn't for All aboard! that summons of the +deaf conductor which tears one away from his half-finished sponge-cake +and coffee, how I, who do not call myself a poet, but only a questioner, +should have enjoyed a good long stop--say a couple of thousand years--at +this way-station on the great railroad leading to the unknown terminus! + +--You say you are not a poet,--I said, after a little pause, in which I +suppose both of us were thinking where the great railroad would land us +after carrying us into the dark tunnel, the farther end of which no man +has seen and taken a return train to bring us news about it,--you say you +are not a poet, and yet it seems to me you have some of the elements +which go to make one. + +--I don't think you mean to flatter me,--the Master answered,--and, what +is more, for I am not afraid to be honest with you, I don't think you do +flatter me. I have taken the inventory of my faculties as calmly as if I +were an appraiser. I have some of the qualities, perhaps I may say many +of the qualities, that make a man a poet, and yet I am not one. And in +the course of a pretty wide experience of men--and women--(the Master +sighed, I thought, but perhaps I was mistaken)--I have met a good many +poets who were not rhymesters and a good many rhymesters who were not +poets. So I am only one of the Voiceless, that I remember one of you +singers had some verses about. I think there is a little music in me, but +it has not found a voice, and it never will. If I should confess the +truth, there is no mere earthly immortality that I envy so much as the +poet's. If your name is to live at all, it is so much more to have it +live in people's hearts than only in their brains! I don't know that +one's eyes fill with tears when he thinks of the famous inventor of +logarithms, but song of Burns's or a hymn of Charles Wesley's goes +straight to your heart, and you can't help loving both of them, the +sinner as well as the saint. The works of other men live, but their +personality dies out of their labors; the poet, who reproduces himself in +his creation, as no other artist does or can, goes down to posterity with +all his personality blended with whatever is imperishable in his song. +We see nothing of the bees that built the honeycomb and stored it with +its sweets, but we can trace the veining in the wings of insects that +flitted through the forests which are now coal-beds, kept unchanging in +the amber that holds them; and so the passion of Sappho, the tenderness +of Simonides, the purity of holy George Herbert, the lofty +contemplativeness of James Shirley, are before us to-day as if they were +living, in a few tears of amber verse. It seems, when one reads, + + "Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright," + +or, + + "The glories of our birth and state," + +as if it were not a very difficult matter to gain immortality,--such an +immortality at least as a perishable language can give. A single lyric +is enough, if one can only find in his soul and finish in his intellect +one of those jewels fit to sparkle "on the stretched forefinger of all +time." A coin, a ring, a string of verses. These last, and hardly +anything else does. Every century is an overloaded ship that must sink +at last with most of its cargo. The small portion of its crew that get +on board the new vessel which takes them off don't pretend to save a +great many of the bulky articles. But they must not and will not leave +behind the hereditary jewels of the race; and if you have found and cut a +diamond, were it only a spark with a single polished facet, it will stand +a better chance of being saved from the wreck than anything, no matter +what, that wants much room for stowage. + +The pyramids last, it is true, but most of them have forgotten their +builders' names. But the ring of Thothmes III., who reigned some +fourteen hundred years before our era, before Homer sang, before the +Argonauts sailed, before Troy was built, is in the possession of Lord +Ashburnham, and proclaims the name of the monarch who wore it more than +three thousand years ago. The gold coins with the head of Alexander the +Great are some of them so fresh one might think they were newer than much +of the silver currency we were lately handling. As we have been quoting +from the poets this morning, I will follow the precedent, and give some +lines from an epistle of Pope to Addison after the latter had written, +but not yet published, his Dialogue on Medals. Some of these lines have +been lingering in my memory for a great many years, but I looked at the +original the other day and was so pleased with them that I got them by +heart. I think you will say they are singularly pointed and elegant. + + "Ambition sighed; she found it vain to trust + The faithless column and the crumbling bust; + Huge moles, whose shadows stretched from shore to shore, + Their ruins perished, and their place no more! + Convinced, she now contracts her vast design, + And all her triumphs shrink into a coin. + A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps, + Beneath her palm here sad Judaea weeps; + Now scantier limits the proud arch confine, + And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine; + A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled, + And little eagles wave their wings in gold." + +It is the same thing in literature. Write half a dozen folios full of +other people's ideas (as all folios are pretty sure to be), and you serve +as ballast to the lower shelves of a library, about as like to be +disturbed as the kentledge in the hold of a ship. Write a story, or a +dozen stories, and your book will be in demand like an oyster while it is +freshly opened, and after tha--. The highways of literature are spread +over with the shells of dead novels, each of which has been swallowed at +a mouthful by the public, and is done with. But write a volume of poems. +No matter if they are all bad but one, if that one is very good. It will +carry your name down to posterity like the ring of Thothmes, like the +coin of Alexander. I don't suppose one would care a great deal about it +a hundred or a thousand years after he is dead, but I don't feel quite +sure. It seems as if, even in heaven, King David might remember "The +Lord is my Shepherd" with a certain twinge of earthly pleasure. But we +don't know, we don't know. + +--What in the world can have become of That Boy and his popgun while all +this somewhat extended sermonizing was going on? I don't wonder you ask, +beloved Reader, and I suppose I must tell you how we got on so long +without interruption. Well, the plain truth is, the youngster was +contemplating his gastric centre, like the monks of Mount Athos, but in a +less happy state of mind than those tranquil recluses, in consequence of +indulgence in the heterogeneous assortment of luxuries procured with the +five-cent piece given him by the kind-hearted old Master. But you need +not think I am going to tell you every time his popgun goes off, making a +Selah of him whenever I want to change the subject. Occasionally he was +ill-timed in his artillery practice and ignominiously rebuked, sometimes +he was harmlessly playful and nobody minded him, but every now and then +he came in so apropos that I am morally certain he gets a hint from +somebody who watches the course of the conversation, and means through +him to have a hand in it and stop any of us when we are getting prosy. +But in consequence of That Boy's indiscretion, we were without a check +upon our expansiveness, and ran on in the way you have observed and may +be disposed to find fault with. + +One other thing the Master said before we left the table, after our long +talk of that day. + +--I have been tempted sometimes,--said he, to envy the immediate triumphs +of the singer. He enjoys all that praise can do for him and at the very +moment of exerting his talent. And the singing women! Once in a while, +in the course of my life, I have found myself in the midst of a tulip-bed +of full-dressed, handsome women in all their glory, and when some one +among them has shaken her gauzy wings, and sat down before the piano, and +then, only giving the keys a soft touch now and then to support her +voice, has warbled some sweet, sad melody intertwined with the longings +or regrets of some tender-hearted poet, it has seemed to me that so to +hush the rustling of the silks and silence the babble of the buds, as +they call the chicks of a new season, and light up the flame of romance +in cold hearts, in desolate ones, in old burnt-out ones,--like mine, I +was going to say, but I won't, for it isn't so, and you may laugh to hear +me say it isn't so, if you like,--was perhaps better than to be +remembered a few hundred years by a few perfect stanzas, when your +gravestone is standing aslant, and your name is covered over with a +lichen as big as a militia colonel's cockade, and nobody knows or cares +enough about you to scrape it off and set the tipsy old slate-stone +upright again. + +--I said nothing in reply to this, for I was thinking of a sweet singer +to whose voice I had listened in its first freshness, and which is now +only an echo in my memory. If any reader of the periodical in which +these conversations are recorded can remember so far back as the first +year of its publication, he will find among the papers contributed by a +friend not yet wholly forgotten a few verses, lively enough in their way, +headed "The Boys." The sweet singer was one of this company of college +classmates, the constancy of whose friendship deserves a better tribute +than the annual offerings, kindly meant, as they are, which for many +years have not been wanting at their social gatherings. The small +company counts many noted personages on its list, as is well known to +those who are interested in such local matters, but it is not known that +every fifth man of the whole number now living is more or less of a +poet,--using that word with a generous breadth of significance. But it +should seem that the divine gift it implies is more freely dispensed than +some others, for while there are (or were, for one has taken his Last +Degree) eight musical quills, there was but one pair of lips which could +claim any special consecration to vocal melody. Not that one that should +undervalue the half-recitative of doubtful barytones, or the brilliant +escapades of slightly unmanageable falsettos, or the concentrated efforts +of the proprietors of two or three effective notes, who may be observed +lying in wait for them, and coming down on them with all their might, and +the look on their countenances of "I too am a singer." But the voice +that led all, and that all loved to listen to, the voice that was at once +full, rich, sweet, penetrating, expressive, whose ample overflow drowned +all the imperfections and made up for all the shortcomings of the others, +is silent henceforth forevermore for all earthly listeners. + +And these were the lines that one of "The Boys," as they have always +called themselves for ever so many years, read at the first meeting after +the voice which had never failed them was hushed in the stillness of +death. + + J. A. + + 1871. + + One memory trembles on our lips + It throbs in every breast; + In tear-dimmed eyes, in mirth's eclipse, + The shadow stands confessed. + + O silent voice, that cheered so long + Our manhood's marching day, + Without thy breath of heavenly song, + How weary seems the way! + + Vain every pictured phrase to tell + Our sorrowing hearts' desire; + The shattered harp, the broken shell, + The silent unstrung lyre; + + For youth was round us while he sang; + It glowed in every tone; + With bridal chimes the echoes rang, + And made the past our own. + + O blissful dream! Our nursery joys + We know must have an end, + But love and friendships broken toys + May God's good angels mend! + + The cheering smile, the voice of mirth + And laughter's gay surprise + That please the children born of earth, + Why deem that Heaven denies? + + Methinks in that refulgent sphere + That knows not sun or moon, + An earth-born saint might long to hear + One verse of "Bonny Doon"; + + Or walking through the streets of gold + In Heaven's unclouded light, + His lips recall the song of old + And hum "The sky is bright." + + And can we smile when thou art dead? + Ah, brothers, even so! + The rose of summer will be red, + In spite of winter's snow. + + Thou wouldst not leave us all in gloom + Because thy song is still, + Nor blight the banquet-garland's bloom + With grief's untimely chill. + + The sighing wintry winds complain, + The singing bird has flown, + --Hark! heard I not that ringing strain, + That clear celestial tone? + + How poor these pallid phrases seem, + How weak this tinkling line, + As warbles through my waking dream + That angel voice of thine! + + Thy requiem asks a sweeter lay; + It falters on my tongue; + For all we vainly strive to say, + Thou shouldst thyself have sung! + + + + +V + +I fear that I have done injustice in my conversation and my report of it +to a most worthy and promising young man whom I should be very sorry to +injure in any way. Dr. Benjamin Franklin got hold of my account of my +visit to him, and complained that I had made too much of the expression +he used. He did not mean to say that he thought I was suffering from the +rare disease he mentioned, but only that the color reminded him of it. +It was true that he had shown me various instruments, among them one for +exploring the state of a part by means of a puncture, but he did not +propose to make use of it upon my person. In short, I had colored the +story so as to make him look ridiculous. + +--I am afraid I did,--I said,--but was n't I colored myself so as to look +ridiculous? I've heard it said that people with the jaundice see +everything yellow; perhaps I saw things looking a little queerly, with +that black and blue spot I could n't account for threatening to make a +colored man and brother of me. But I am sorry if I have done you any +wrong. I hope you won't lose any patients by my making a little fun of +your meters and scopes and contrivances. They seem so odd to us outside +people. Then the idea of being bronzed all over was such an alarming +suggestion. But I did not mean to damage your business, which I trust is +now considerable, and I shall certainly come to you again if I have need +of the services of a physician. Only don't mention the names of any +diseases in English or Latin before me next time. I dreamed about cutis +oenea half the night after I came to see you. + +Dr. Benjamin took my apology very pleasantly. He did not want to be +touchy about it, he said, but he had his way to make in the world, and +found it a little hard at first, as most young men did. People were +afraid to trust them, no matter how much they knew. One of the old +doctors asked him to come in and examine a patient's heart for him the +other day. He went with him accordingly, and when they stood by the +bedside, he offered his stethoscope to the old doctor. The old doctor +took it and put the wrong end to his ear and the other to the patient's +chest, and kept it there about two minutes, looking all the time as wise +as an old owl. Then he, Dr. Benjamin, took it and applied it properly, +and made out where the trouble was in no time at all. But what was the +use of a young man's pretending to know anything in the presence of an +old owl? I saw by their looks, he said, that they all thought I used +the, stethoscope wrong end up, and was nothing but a 'prentice hand to +the old doctor. + +--I am much pleased to say that since Dr. Benjamin has had charge of a +dispensary district, and been visiting forty or fifty patients a day, I +have reason to think he has grown a great deal more practical than when I +made my visit to his office. I think I was probably one of his first +patients, and that he naturally made the most of me. But my second trial +was much more satisfactory. I got an ugly cut from the carving-knife in +an affair with a goose of iron constitution in which I came off second +best. I at once adjourned with Dr. Benjamin to his small office, and put +myself in his hands. It was astonishing to see what a little experience +of miscellaneous practice had done for him. He did not ask me anymore +questions about my hereditary predispositions on the paternal and +maternal sides. He did not examine me with the stethoscope or the +laryngoscope. He only strapped up my cut, and informed me that it would +speedily get well by the "first intention,"--an odd phrase enough, but +sounding much less formidable than cutis oenea. + +I am afraid I have had something of the French prejudice which embodies +itself in the maxim "young surgeon, old physician." But a young +physician who has been taught by great masters of the profession, in +ample hospitals, starts in his profession knowing more than some old +doctors have learned in a lifetime. Give him a little time to get the +use of his wits in emergencies, and to know the little arts that do so +much for a patient's comfort,--just as you give a young sailor time to +get his sea-legs on and teach his stomach to behave itself,--and he will +do well enough. + +The old Master knows ten times more about this matter and about all the +professions, as he does about everything else, than I do. My opinion is +that he has studied two, if not three, of these professions in a regular +course. I don't know that he has ever preached, except as Charles Lamb +said Coleridge always did, for when he gets the bit in his teeth he runs +away with the conversation, and if he only took a text his talk would be +a sermon; but if he has not preached, he has made a study of theology, as +many laymen do. I know he has some shelves of medical books in his +library, and has ideas on the subject of the healing art. He confesses +to having attended law lectures and having had much intercourse with +lawyers. So he has something to say on almost any subject that happens +to come up. I told him my story about my visit to the young doctor, and +asked him what he thought of youthful practitioners in general and of Dr. +Benjamin in particular. + +I 'll tell you what,--the Master said,--I know something about these +young fellows that come home with their heads full of "science," as they +call it, and stick up their signs to tell people they know how to cure +their headaches and stomach-aches. Science is a first-rate piece of +furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the +ground-floor. But if a man has n't got plenty of good common sense, the +more science he has the worse for his patient. + +--I don't know that I see exactly how it is worse for the patient,--I +said. + +--Well, I'll tell you, and you'll find it's a mighty simple matter. When +a person is sick, there is always something to be done for him, and done +at once. If it is only to open or shut a window, if it is only to tell +him to keep on doing just what he is doing already, it wants a man to +bring his mind right down to the fact of the present case and its +immediate needs. Now the present case, as the doctor sees it, is just +exactly such a collection of paltry individual facts as never was +before,--a snarl and tangle of special conditions which it is his +business to wind as much thread out of as he can. It is a good deal as +when a painter goes to take the portrait of any sitter who happens to +send for him. He has seen just such noses and just such eyes and just +such mouths, but he never saw exactly such a face before, and his +business is with that and no other person's,--with the features of the +worthy father of a family before him, and not with the portraits he has +seen in galleries or books, or Mr. Copley's grand pictures of the fine +old Tories, or the Apollos and Jupiters of Greek sculpture. It is the +same thing with the patient. His disease has features of its own; there +never was and never will be another case in all respects exactly like it. +If a doctor has science without common sense, he treats a fever, but not +this man's fever. If he has common sense without science, he treats this +man's fever without knowing the general laws that govern all fevers and +all vital movements. I 'll tell you what saves these last fellows. They +go for weakness whenever they see it, with stimulants and strengtheners, +and they go for overaction, heat, and high pulse, and the rest, with +cooling and reducing remedies. That is three quarters of medical +practice. The other quarter wants science and common sense too. But the +men that have science only, begin too far back, and, before they get as +far as the case in hand, the patient has very likely gone to visit his +deceased relatives. You remember Thomas Prince's "Chronological History +of New England," I suppose? He begins, you recollect, with Adam, and has +to work down five thousand six hundred and twenty-four years before he +gets to the Pilgrim fathers and the Mayflower. It was all very well, +only it did n't belong there, but got in the way of something else. So +it is with "science" out of place. By far the larger part of the facts +of structure and function you find in the books of anatomy and physiology +have no immediate application to the daily duties of the practitioner. +You must learn systematically, for all that; it is the easiest way and +the only way that takes hold of the memory, except mere empirical +repetition, like that of the handicraftsman. Did you ever see one of +those Japanese figures with the points for acupuncture marked upon it? + +--I had to own that my schooling had left out that piece of information. + +Well, I 'll tell you about it. You see they have a way of pushing long, +slender needles into you for the cure of rheumatism and other complaints, +and it seems there is a choice of spots for the operation, though it is +very strange how little mischief it does in a good many places one would +think unsafe to meddle with. So they had a doll made, and marked the +spots where they had put in needles without doing any harm. They must +have had accidents from sticking the needles into the wrong places now +and then, but I suppose they did n't say a great deal about those. After +a time, say a few centuries of experience, they had their doll all +spotted over with safe places for sticking in the needles. That is their +way of registering practical knowledge: We, on the other hand, study the +structure of the body as a whole, systematically, and have no difficulty +at all in remembering the track of the great vessels and nerves, and +knowing just what tracks will be safe and what unsafe. It is just the +same thing with the geologists. Here is a man close by us boring for +water through one of our ledges, because somebody else got water +somewhere else in that way; and a person who knows geology or ought to +know it, because he has given his life to it, tells me he might as well +bore there for lager-beer as for water. + +--I thought we had had enough of this particular matter, and that I +should like to hear what the Master had to say about the three +professions he knew something about, each compared with the others. + +What is your general estimate of doctors, lawyers, and ministers?--said +I. + +--Wait a minute, till I have got through with your first question,--said +the Master.---One thing at a time. You asked me about the young doctors, +and about our young doctor. They come home tres biens chausses, as a +Frenchman would say, mighty well shod with professional knowledge. But +when they begin walking round among their poor patients, they don't +commonly start with millionnaires,--they find that their new shoes of +scientific acquirements have got to be broken in just like a pair of +boots or brogans. I don't know that I have put it quite strong enough. +Let me try again. You've seen those fellows at the circus that get up on +horseback so big that you wonder how they could climb into the saddle. +But pretty soon they throw off their outside coat, and the next minute +another one, and then the one under that, and so they keep peeling off +one garment after another till people begin to look queer and think they +are going too far for strict propriety. Well, that is the way a fellow +with a real practical turn serves a good many of his scientific wrappers, +flings 'em off for other people to pick up, and goes right at the work of +curing stomach-aches and all the other little mean unscientific +complaints that make up the larger part of every doctor's business. I +think our Dr. Benjamin is a worthy young man, and if you are in need of a +doctor at any time I hope you will go to him; and if you come off without +harm, I will recommend some other friend to try him. + +--I thought he was going to say he would try him in his own person, but +the Master is not fond of committing himself. + +Now, I will answer your other question, he said. The lawyers are the +cleverest men, the ministers are the most learned, and the doctors are +the most sensible. + +The lawyers are a picked lot, "first scholars" and the like, but their +business is as unsympathetic as Jack Ketch's. There is nothing +humanizing in their relations with their fellow-creatures. They go for +the side that retains them. They defend the man they know to be a rogue, +and not very rarely throw suspicion on the man they know to be innocent. +Mind you, I am not finding fault with them; every side of a case has a +right to the best statement it admits of; but I say it does not tend to +make them sympathetic. Suppose in a case of Fever vs. Patient, the +doctor should side with either party according to whether the old miser +or his expectant heir was his employer. Suppose the minister should side +with the Lord or the Devil, according to the salary offered and other +incidental advantages, where the soul of a sinner was in question. You +can see what a piece of work it would make of their sympathies. But the +lawyers are quicker witted than either of the other professions, and +abler men generally. They are good-natured, or, if they quarrel, their +quarrels are above-board. I don't think they are as accomplished as the +ministers, but they have a way of cramming with special knowledge for a +case which leaves a certain shallow sediment of intelligence in their +memories about a good many things. They are apt to talk law in mixed +company, and they have a way of looking round when they make a point, as +if they were addressing a jury, that is mighty aggravating, as I once had +occasion to see when one of 'em, and a pretty famous one, put me on the +witness-stand at a dinner-party once. + +The ministers come next in point of talent. They are far more curious +and widely interested outside of their own calling than either of the +other professions. I like to talk with 'em. They are interesting men, +full of good feelings, hard workers, always foremost in good deeds, and +on the whole the most efficient civilizing class, working downwards from +knowledge to ignorance, that is,--not so much upwards, perhaps,--that we +have. The trouble is, that so many of 'em work in harness, and it is +pretty sure to chafe somewhere. They feed us on canned meats mostly. +They cripple our instincts and reason, and give us a crutch of doctrine. +I have talked with a great many of 'em of all sorts of belief, and I +don't think they are quite so easy in their minds, the greater number of +them; nor so clear in their convictions, as one would think to hear 'em +lay down the law in the pulpit. They used to lead the intelligence of +their parishes; now they do pretty well if they keep up with it, and they +are very apt to lag behind it. Then they must have a colleague. The old +minister thinks he can hold to his old course, sailing right into the +wind's eye of human nature, as straight as that famous old skipper John +Bunyan; the young minister falls off three or four points and catches the +breeze that left the old man's sails all shivering. By and by the +congregation will get ahead of him, and then it must, have another new +skipper. The priest holds his own pretty well; the minister is coming +down every generation nearer and nearer to the common level of the useful +citizen,--no oracle at all, but a man of more than average moral +instincts, who, if he knows anything, knows how little he knows. The +ministers are good talkers, only the struggle between nature and grace +makes some of 'em a little awkward occasionally. The women do their best +to spoil 'em, as they do the poets; you find it very pleasant to be +spoiled, no doubt; so do they. Now and then one of 'em goes over the dam; +no wonder, they're always in the rapids. + +By this time our three ladies had their faces all turned toward the +speaker, like the weathercocks in a northeaster, and I thought it best to +switch off the talk on to another rail. + +How about the doctors?--I said. + +--Theirs is the least learned of the professions, in this country at +least. They have not half the general culture of the lawyers, nor a +quarter of that of the ministers. I rather think, though, they are more +agreeable to the common run of people than the men with black coats or +the men with green bags. People can swear before 'em if they want to, +and they can't very well before ministers. I don't care whether they +want to swear or not, they don't want to be on their good behavior. +Besides, the minister has a little smack of the sexton about him; he +comes when people are in extremis, but they don't send for him every time +they make a slight moral slip, tell a lie for instance, or smuggle a silk +dress through the customhouse; but they call in the doctor when a child +is cutting a tooth or gets a splinter in its finger. So it does n't mean +much to send for him, only a pleasant chat about the news of the day; for +putting the baby to rights does n't take long. Besides, everybody does +n't like to talk about the next world; people are modest in their +desires, and find this world as good as they deserve; but everybody loves +to talk physic. Everybody loves to hear of strange cases; people are +eager to tell the doctor of the wonderful cures they have heard of; they +want to know what is the matter with somebody or other who is said to be +suffering from "a complication of diseases," and above all to get a hard +name, Greek or Latin, for some complaint which sounds altogether too +commonplace in plain English. If you will only call a headache a +Cephalgia, it acquires dignity at once, and a patient becomes rather +proud of it. So I think doctors are generally welcome in most companies. + +In old times, when people were more afraid of the Devil and of witches +than they are now, they liked to have a priest or a minister somewhere +near to scare 'em off; but nowadays, if you could find an old woman that +would ride round the room on a broomstick, Barnum would build an +amphitheatre to exhibit her in; and if he could come across a young imp, +with hoofs, tail, and budding horns, a lineal descendant of one of those +"daemons" which the good people of Gloucester fired at, and were fired at +by "for the best part of a month together" in the year 1692, the, great +showman would have him at any cost for his museum or menagerie. Men are +cowards, sir, and are driven by fear as the sovereign motive. Men are +idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw +themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you +don't make it of wood, you must make it of words, which are just as much +used for idols as promissory notes are used for values. The ministers +have a hard time of it without bell and book and holy water; they are +dismounted men in armor since Luther cut their saddle-girths, and you can +see they are quietly taking off one piece of iron after another until +some of the best of 'em are fighting the devil (not the zoological Devil +with the big D) with the sword of the Spirit, and precious little else in +the way of weapons of offence or defence. But we couldn't get on without +the spiritual brotherhood, whatever became of our special creeds. There +is a genius for religion, just as there is for painting or sculpture. It +is half-sister to the genius for music, and has some of the features +which remind us of earthly love. But it lifts us all by its mere +presence. To see a good man and hear his voice once a week would be +reason enough for building churches and pulpits. The Master stopped all +at once, and after about half a minute laughed his pleasant laugh. + +What is it?--I asked him. + +I was thinking of the great coach and team that is carrying us fast +enough, I don't know but too fast, somewhere or other. The D. D.'s used +to be the leaders, but now they are the wheel-horses. It's pretty hard +to tell how much they pull, but we know they can hold back like the---- + +--When we're going down hill,--I said, as neatly as if I had been a +High-Church curate trained to snap at the last word of the response, so +that you couldn't wedge in the tail of a comma between the end of the +congregation's closing syllable and the beginning of the next petition. +They do it well, but it always spoils my devotion. To save my life, I +can't help watching them, as I watch to see a duck dive at the flash of a +gun, and that is not what I go to church for. It is a juggler's trick, +and there is no more religion in it than in catching a ball on the fly. + +I was looking at our Scheherezade the other day, and thinking what a pity +it was that she had never had fair play in the world. I wish I knew more +of her history. There is one way of learning it,--making love to her. I +wonder whether she would let me and like it. It is an absurd thing, and +I ought not to confess, but I tell you and you only, Beloved, my heart +gave a perceptible jump when it heard the whisper of that possibility +overhead! Every day has its ebb and flow, but such a thought as that is +like one of those tidal waves they talk about, that rolls in like a great +wall and overtops and drowns out all your landmarks, and you, too, if you +don't mind what you are about and stand ready to run or climb or swim. +Not quite so bad as that, though, this time. I take an interest in our +Scheherezade. I am glad she did n't smile on the pipe and the +Bohemian-looking fellow that finds the best part of his life in sucking +at it. A fine thing, isn't it; for a young woman to marry a man who will +hold her + + "Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse," + +but not quite so good as his meerschaum? It is n't for me to throw +stones, though, who have been a Nicotian a good deal more than half my +days. Cigar-stump out now, and consequently have become very bitter on +more persevering sinners. I say I take an interest in our Scheherezade, +but I rather think it is more paternal than anything else, though my +heart did give that jump. It has jumped a good many times without +anything very remarkable coming of it. + +This visit to the Observatory is going to bring us all, or most of us, +together in a new way, and it wouldn't be very odd if some of us should +become better acquainted than we ever have been. There is a chance for +the elective affinities. What tremendous forces they are, if two +subjects of them come within range! There lies a bit of iron. All the +dynamic agencies of the universe are pledged to hold it just in that +position, and there it will lie until it becomes a heap of red-brown +rust. But see, I hold a magnet to it,--it looks to you like just such a +bit of iron as the other,--and lo! it leaves them all,--the tugging of +the mighty earth; of the ghostly moon that walks in white, trailing the +snaky waves of the ocean after her; of the awful sun, twice as large as a +sphere that the whole orbit of the moon would but just girdle,--it leaves +the wrestling of all their forces, which are at a dead lock with each +other, all fighting for it, and springs straight to the magnet. What a +lucky thing it is for well-conducted persons that the maddening elective +affinities don't come into play in full force very often! + +I suppose I am making a good deal more of our prospective visit than it +deserves. It must be because I have got it into my head that we are +bound to have some kind of sentimental outbreak amongst us, and that this +will give a chance for advances on the part of anybody disposed in that +direction. A little change of circumstance often hastens on a movement +that has been long in preparation. A chemist will show you a flask +containing a clear liquid; he will give it a shake or two, and the whole +contents of the flask will become solid in an instant. Or you may lay a +little heap of iron-filings on a sheet of paper with a magnet beneath it, +and they will be quiet enough as they are, but give the paper a slight +jar and the specks of metal will suddenly find their way to the north or +the south pole of the magnet and take a definite shape not unpleasing to +contemplate, and curiously illustrating the laws of attraction, +antagonism, and average, by which the worlds, conscious and unconscious, +are alike governed. So with our little party, with any little party of +persons who have got used to each other; leave them undisturbed and they +might remain in a state of equilibrium forever; but let anything give +them a shake or a jar, and the long-striving but hindered affinities come +all at once into play and finish the work of a year in five minutes. + +We were all a good deal excited by the anticipation of this visit. The +Capitalist, who for the most part keeps entirely to himself, seemed to +take an interest in it and joined the group in the parlor who were making +arrangements as to the details of the eventful expedition, which was very +soon to take place. The Young Girl was full of enthusiasm; she is one of +those young persons, I think, who are impressible, and of necessity +depressible when their nervous systems are overtasked, but elastic, +recovering easily from mental worries and fatigues, and only wanting a +little change of their conditions to get back their bloom and +cheerfulness. I could not help being pleased to see how much of the +child was left in her, after all the drudgery she had been through. What +is there that youth will not endure and triumph over? Here she was; her +story for the week was done in good season; she had got rid of her +villain by a new and original catastrophe; she had received a sum of +money for an extra string of verses,--painfully small, it is true, but it +would buy her a certain ribbon she wanted for the great excursion; and +now her eyes sparkled so that I forgot how tired and hollow they +sometimes looked when she had been sitting up half the night over her +endless manuscript. + +The morning of the day we had looked forward to--promised as good an +evening as we could wish. The Capitalist, whose courteous and bland +demeanor would never have suggested the thought that he was a robber and +an enemy of his race, who was to be trampled underfoot by the beneficent +regenerators of the social order as preliminary to the universal reign of +peace on earth and good-will to men, astonished us all with a proposal to +escort the three ladies and procure a carriage for their conveyance. The +Lady thanked him in a very cordial way, but said she thought nothing of +the walk. The Landlady looked disappointed at this answer. For her part +she was on her legs all day and should be glad enough to ride, if so be +he was going to have a carriage at any rate. It would be a sight +pleasanter than to trudge afoot, but she would n't have him go to the +expense on her account. Don't mention it, madam,--r--said the +Capitalist, in a generous glow of enthusiasm. As for the Young Girl, she +did not often get a chance for a drive, and liked the idea of it for its +own sake, as children do, and she insisted that the Lady should go in the +carriage with her. So it was settled that the Capitalist should take the +three ladies in a carriage, and the rest of us go on foot. + +The evening behaved as it was bound to do on so momentous an occasion. +The Capitalist was dressed with almost suspicious nicety. We pedestrians +could not help waiting to see them off, and I thought he handed the +ladies into the carriage with the air of a French marquis. + +I walked with Dr. Benjamin and That Boy, and we had to keep the little +imp on the trot a good deal of the way in order not to be too long behind +the carriage party. The Member of the Haouse walked with our two +dummies,--I beg their pardon, I mean the Register of Deeds and the +Salesman. + +The Man of Letters, hypothetically so called, walked by himself, smoking +a short pipe which was very far from suggesting the spicy breezes that +blow soft from Ceylon's isle. + +I suppose everybody who reads this paper has visited one or more +observatories, and of course knows all about them. But as it may +hereafter be translated into some foreign tongue and circulated among +barbarous, but rapidly improving people, people who have as yet no +astronomers among them, it may be well to give a little notion of what +kind of place an observatory is. + +To begin then: a deep and solid stone foundation is laid in the earth, +and a massive pier of masonry is built up on it. A heavy block of +granite forms the summit of this pier, and on this block rests the +equatorial telescope. Around this structure a circular tower is built, +with two or more floors which come close up to the pier, but do not touch +it at any point. It is crowned with a hemispherical dome, which, I may +remark, half realizes the idea of my egg-shell studio. This dome is +cleft from its base to its summit by a narrow, ribbon-like opening, +through which is seen the naked sky. It revolves on cannon-balls, so +easily that a single hand can move it, and thus the opening may be turned +towards any point of the compass. As the telescope can be raised or +depressed so as to be directed to any elevation from the horizon to the +zenith, and turned around the entire circle with the dome, it can be +pointed to any part of the heavens. But as the star or other celestial +object is always apparently moving, in consequence of the real rotatory +movement of the earth, the telescope is made to follow it automatically +by an ingenious clock-work arrangement. No place, short of the temple of +the living God, can be more solemn. The jars of the restless life around +it do not disturb the serene intelligence of the half-reasoning +apparatus. Nothing can stir the massive pier but the shocks that shake +the solid earth itself. When an earthquake thrills the planet, the +massive turret shudders with the shuddering rocks on which it rests, but +it pays no heed to the wildest tempest, and while the heavens are +convulsed and shut from the eye of the far-seeing instrument it waits +without a tremor for the blue sky to come back. It is the type of the +true and steadfast man of the Roman poet, whose soul remains unmoved +while the firmament cracks and tumbles about him. It is the material +image of the Christian; his heart resting on the Rock of Ages, his eye +fixed on the brighter world above. + +I did not say all this while we were looking round among these wonders, +quite new to many of us. People don't talk in straight-off sentences +like that. They stumble and stop, or get interrupted, change a word, +begin again, miss connections of verbs and nouns, and so on, till they +blunder out their meaning. But I did let fall a word or two, showing the +impression the celestial laboratory produced upon me. I rather think I +must own to the "Rock of Ages" comparison. Thereupon the "Man of +Letters," so called, took his pipe from his mouth, and said that he did +n't go in "for sentiment and that sort of thing. Gush was played out." + +The Member of the Haouse, who, as I think, is not wanting in that homely +good sense which one often finds in plain people from the huckleberry +districts, but who evidently supposes the last speaker to be what he +calls "a tahlented mahn," looked a little puzzled. My remark seemed +natural and harmless enough to him, I suppose, but I had been distinctly +snubbed, and the Member of the Haouse thought I must defend myself, as is +customary in the deliberative body to which he belongs, when one +gentleman accuses another gentleman of mental weakness or obliquity. I +could not make up my mind to oblige him at that moment by showing fight. +I suppose that would have pleased my assailant, as I don't think he has a +great deal to lose, and might have made a little capital out of me if he +could have got a laugh out of the Member or either of the dummies,--I beg +their pardon again, I mean the two undemonstrative boarders. But I will +tell you, Beloved, just what I think about this matter. + +We poets, you know, are much given to indulging in sentiment, which is a +mode of consciousness at a discount just now with the new generation of +analysts who are throwing everything into their crucibles. Now we must +not claim too much for sentiment. It does not go a great way in deciding +questions of arithmetic, or algebra, or geometry. Two and two will +undoubtedly make four, irrespective of the emotions or other +idiosyncrasies of the calculator; and the three angles of a triangle +insist on being equal to two right angles, in the face of the most +impassioned rhetoric or the most inspired verse. But inasmuch as religion +and law and the whole social order of civilized society, to say nothing +of literature and art, are so founded on and pervaded by sentiment that +they would all go to pieces without it, it is a word not to be used too +lightly in passing judgment, as if it were an element to be thrown out or +treated with small consideration. Reason may be the lever, but sentiment +gives you the fulcrum and the place to stand on if you want to move the +world. Even "sentimentality," which is sentiment overdone, is better +than that affectation of superiority to human weakness which is only +tolerable as one of the stage properties of full-blown dandyism, and is, +at best, but half-blown cynicism; which participle and noun you can +translate, if you happen to remember the derivation of the last of them, +by a single familiar word. There is a great deal of false sentiment in +the world, as there is of bad logic and erroneous doctrine; but--it is +very much less disagreeable to hear a young poet overdo his emotions, or +even deceive himself about them, than to hear a caustic-epithet flinger +repeating such words as "sentimentality" and "entusymusy,"--one of the +least admirable of Lord Byron's bequests to our language,--for the +purpose of ridiculing him into silence. An overdressed woman is not so +pleasing as she might be, but at any rate she is better than the oil of +vitriol squirter, whose profession it is to teach young ladies to avoid +vanity by spoiling their showy silks and satins. + +The Lady was the first of our party who was invited to look through the +equatorial. Perhaps this world had proved so hard to her that she was +pained to think that other worlds existed, to be homes of suffering and +sorrow. Perhaps she was thinking it would be a happy change when she +should leave this dark planet for one of those brighter spheres. She +sighed, at any rate, but thanked the Young Astronomer for the beautiful +sights he had shown her, and gave way to the next comer, who was That +Boy, now in a state of irrepressible enthusiasm to see the Man in the +Moon. He was greatly disappointed at not making out a colossal human +figure moving round among the shining summits and shadowy ravines of the +"spotty globe." + +The Landlady came next and wished to see the moon also, in preference to +any other object. She was astonished at the revelations of the powerful +telescope. Was there any live creatures to be seen on the moon? she +asked. The Young Astronomer shook his head, smiling a little at the +question.--Was there any meet'n'-houses? There was no evidence, he said, +that the moon was inhabited. As there did not seem to be either air or +water on its surface, the inhabitants would have a rather hard time of +it, and if they went to meeting the sermons would be apt to be rather +dry. If there were a building on it as big as York minster, as big as +the Boston Coliseum, the great telescopes like Lord Rosse's would make it +out. But it seemed to be a forlorn place; those who had studied it most +agreed in considering it a "cold, crude, silent, and desolate" ruin of +nature, without the possibility, if life were on it, of articulate +speech, of music, even of sound. Sometimes a greenish tint was seen upon +its surface, which might have been taken for vegetation, but it was +thought not improbably to be a reflection from the vast forests of South +America. The ancients had a fancy, some of them, that the face of the +moon was a mirror in which the seas and shores of the earth were imaged. +Now we know the geography of the side toward us about as well as that of +Asia, better than that of Africa. The Astronomer showed them one of the +common small photographs of the moon. He assured them that he had +received letters inquiring in all seriousness if these alleged lunar +photographs were not really taken from a peeled orange. People had got +angry with him for laughing at them for asking such a question. Then he +gave them an account of the famous moon-hoax which came out, he believed, +in 1835. It was full of the most bare-faced absurdities, yet people +swallowed it all, and even Arago is said to have treated it seriously as +a thing that could not well be true, for Mr. Herschel would have +certainly notified him of these marvellous discoveries. The writer of it +had not troubled himself to invent probabilities, but had borrowed his +scenery from the Arabian Nights and his lunar inhabitants from Peter +Wilkins. + +After this lecture the Capitalist stepped forward and applied his eye to +the lens. I suspect it to have been shut most of the time, for I observe +a good many elderly people adjust the organ of vision to any optical +instrument in that way. I suppose it is from the instinct of protection +to the eye, the same instinct as that which makes the raw militia-man +close it when he pulls the, trigger of his musket the first time. He +expressed himself highly gratified, however, with what he saw, and +retired from the instrument to make room for the Young Girl. + +She threw her hair back and took her position at the instrument. Saint +Simeon Stylites the Younger explained the wonders of the moon to +her,--Tycho and the grooves radiating from it, Kepler and Copernicus with +their craters and ridges, and all the most brilliant shows of this +wonderful little world. I thought he was more diffuse and more +enthusiastic in his descriptions than he had been with the older members +of the party. I don't doubt the old gentleman who lived so long on the +top of his pillar would have kept a pretty sinner (if he could have had +an elevator to hoist her up to him) longer than he would have kept her +grandmother. These young people are so ignorant, you know. As for our +Scheherezade, her delight was unbounded, and her curiosity insatiable. +If there were any living creatures there, what odd things they must be. +They could n't have any lungs, nor any hearts. What a pity! Did they +ever die? How could they expire if they didn't breathe? Burn up? No +air to burn in. Tumble into some of those horrid pits, perhaps, and +break all to bits. She wondered how the young people there liked it, or +whether there were any young people there; perhaps nobody was young and +nobody was old, but they were like mummies all of them--what an idea +--two mummies making love to each other! So she went on in a rattling, +giddy kind of way, for she was excited by the strange scene in which she +found herself, and quite astonished the Young Astronomer with her +vivacity. All at once she turned to him. + +Will you show me the double star you said I should see? + +With the greatest pleasure,--he said, and proceeded to wheel the +ponderous dome, and then to adjust the instrument, I think to the one in +Andromeda, or that in Cygnus, but I should not know one of them from the +other. + +How beautiful!--she said as she looked at the wonderful object.---One is +orange red and one is emerald green. + +The young man made an explanation in which he said something about +complementary colors. + +Goodness!--exclaimed the Landlady.---What! complimentary to our party? + +Her wits must have been a good deal confused by the strange sights of the +evening. She had seen tickets marked complimentary, she remembered, but +she could not for the life of her understand why our party should be +particularly favored at a celestial exhibition like this. On the whole, +she questioned inwardly whether it might not be some subtle pleasantry, +and smiled, experimentally, with a note of interrogation in the smile, +but, finding no encouragement, allowed her features to subside gradually +as if nothing had happened. I saw all this as plainly as if it had all +been printed in great-primer type, instead of working itself out in her +features. I like to see other people muddled now and then, because my +own occasional dulness is relieved by a good solid background of +stupidity in my neighbors. + +--And the two revolve round each other?--said the Young Girl. + +--Yes,--he answered,--two suns, a greater and a less, each shining, but +with a different light, for the other. + +--How charming! It must be so much pleasanter than to be alone in such a +great empty space! I should think one would hardly care to shine if its +light wasted itself in the monstrous solitude of the sky. Does not a +single star seem very lonely to you up there? + +--Not more lonely than I am myself,--answered the Young Astronomer. + +--I don't know what there was in those few words, but I noticed that for +a minute or two after they, were uttered I heard the ticking of the +clock-work that moved the telescope as clearly as if we had all been +holding our breath, and listening for the music of the spheres. + +The Young Girl kept her eye closely applied to the eye-piece of the +telescope a very long time, it seemed to me. Those double stars +interested her a good deal, no doubt. When she looked off from the glass +I thought both her eyes appeared very much as if they had been a little +strained, for they were suffused and glistening. It may be that she +pitied the lonely young man. + +I know nothing in the world tenderer than the pity that a kind-hearted +young girl has for a young man who feels lonely. It is true that these +dear creatures are all compassion for every form of human woe, and +anxious to alleviate all human misfortunes. They will go to +Sunday-schools through storms their brothers are afraid of, to teach the +most unpleasant and intractable classes of little children the age of +Methuselah and the dimensions of Og the King of Bashan's bedstead. They +will stand behind a table at a fair all day until they are ready to drop, +dressed in their prettiest clothes and their sweetest smiles, and lay +hands upon you, like--so many Lady Potiphars,--perfectly correct ones, of +course,--to make you buy what you do not want, at prices which you cannot +afford; all this as cheerfully as if it were not martyrdom to them as +well as to you. Such is their love for all good objects, such their +eagerness to sympathize with all their suffering fellow-creatures! But +there is nothing they pity as they pity a lonely young man. + +I am sure, I sympathize with her in this instance. To see a pale student +burning away, like his own midnight lamp, with only dead men's hands to +hold, stretched out to him from the sepulchres of books, and dead men's +souls imploring him from their tablets to warm them over again just for a +little while in a human consciousness, when all this time there are soft, +warm, living hands that would ask nothing better than to bring the blood +back into those cold thin fingers, and gently caressing natures that +would wind all their tendrils about the unawakened heart which knows so +little of itself, is pitiable enough and would be sadder still if we did +not have the feeling that sooner or later the pale student will be pretty +sure to feel the breath of a young girl against his cheek as she looks +over his shoulder; and that he will come all at once to an illuminated +page in his book that never writer traced in characters, and never +printer set up in type, and never binder enclosed within his covers! But +our young man seems farther away from life than any student whose head is +bent downwards over his books. His eyes are turned away from all human +things. How cold the moonlight is that falls upon his forehead, and how +white he looks in it! Will not the rays strike through to his brain at +last, and send him to a narrower cell than this egg-shell dome which is +his workshop and his prison? + +I cannot say that the Young Astronomer seemed particularly impressed with +a sense of his miserable condition. He said he was lonely, it is true, +but he said it in a manly tone, and not as if he were repining at the +inevitable condition of his devoting himself to that particular branch of +science. Of course, he is lonely, the most lonely being that lives in +the midst of our breathing world. If he would only stay a little longer +with us when we get talking; but he is busy almost always either in +observation or with his calculations and studies, and when the nights are +fair loses so much sleep that he must make it up by day. He wants +contact with human beings. I wish he would change his seat and come +round and sit by our Scheherezade! + +The rest of the visit went off well enough, except that the "Man of +Letters," so called, rather snubbed some of the heavenly bodies as not +quite up to his standard of brilliancy. I thought myself that the +double-star episode was the best part of it. + +I have an unexpected revelation to make to the reader. Not long after +our visit to the Observatory, the Young Astronomer put a package into my +hands, a manuscript, evidently, which he said he would like to have me +glance over. I found something in it which interested me, and told him +the next day that I should like to read it with some care. He seemed +rather pleased at this, and said that he wished I would criticise it as +roughly as I liked, and if I saw anything in it which might be dressed to +better advantage to treat it freely, just as if it were my own +production. It had often happened to him, he went on to say, to be +interrupted in his observations by clouds covering the objects he was +examining for a longer or shorter time. In these idle moments he had put +down many thoughts, unskilfully he feared, but just as they came into his +mind. His blank verse he suspected was often faulty. His thoughts he +knew must be crude, many of them. It would please him to have me amuse +myself by putting them into shape. He was kind enough to say that I was +an artist in words, but he held himself as an unskilled apprentice. + +I confess I was appalled when I cast my eye upon the title of the +manuscript, "Cirri and Nebulae." + +--Oh! oh!--I said,--that will never do. People don't know what Cirri +are, at least not one out of fifty readers. "Wind-Clouds and +Star-Drifts" will do better than that. + +--Anything you like,--he answered,--what difference does it make how you +christen a foundling? These are not my legitimate scientific offspring, +and you may consider them left on your doorstep. + +--I will not attempt to say just how much of the diction of these lines +belongs to him, and how much to me. He said he would never claim them, +after I read them to him in my version. I, on my part, do not wish to be +held responsible for some of his more daring thoughts, if I should see +fit to reproduce them hereafter. At this time I shall give only the +first part of the series of poetical outbreaks for which the young +devotee of science must claim his share of the responsibility. I may put +some more passages into shape by and by. + + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. + + I + + Another clouded night; the stars are hid, + The orb that waits my search is hid with them. + Patience! Why grudge an hour, a month, a year, + To plant my ladder and to gain the round + That leads my footsteps to the heaven of fame, + Where waits the wreath my sleepless midnights won? + Not the stained laurel such as heroes wear + That withers when some stronger conqueror's heel + Treads down their shrivelling trophies in the dust; + But the fair garland whose undying green + Not time can change, nor wrath of gods or men! + + With quickened heart-beats I shall hear the tongues + That speak my praise; but better far the sense + That in the unshaped ages, buried deep + In the dark mines of unaccomplished time + Yet to be stamped with morning's royal die + And coined in golden days,--in those dim years + I shall be reckoned with the undying dead, + My name emblazoned on the fiery arch, + Unfading till the stars themselves shall fade. + Then, as they call the roll of shining worlds, + Sages of race unborn in accents new + Shall count me with the Olympian ones of old, + Whose glories kindle through the midnight sky + Here glows the God of Battles; this recalls + The Lord of Ocean, and yon far-off sphere + The Sire of Him who gave his ancient name + To the dim planet with the wondrous rings; + Here flames the Queen of Beauty's silver lamp, + And there the moon-girt orb of mighty Jove; + But this, unseen through all earth's aeons past, + A youth who watched beneath the western star + Sought in the darkness, found, and showed to men; + Linked with his name thenceforth and evermore! + So shall that name be syllabled anew + In all the tongues of all the tribes of men: + I that have been through immemorial years + Dust in the dust of my forgotten time + Shall live in accents shaped of blood-warm breath, + Yea, rise in mortal semblance, newly born + In shining stone, in undecaying bronze, + And stand on high, and look serenely down + On the new race that calls the earth its own. + + Is this a cloud, that, blown athwart my soul, + Wears a false seeming of the pearly stain + Where worlds beyond the world their mingling rays + Blend in soft white,--a cloud that, born of earth, + Would cheat the soul that looks for light from heaven? + Must every coral-insect leave his sign + On each poor grain he lent to build the reef, + As Babel's builders stamped their sunburnt clay, + Or deem his patient service all in vain? + What if another sit beneath the shade + Of the broad elm I planted by the way, + --What if another heed the beacon light + I set upon the rock that wrecked my keel, + Have I not done my task and served my kind? + Nay, rather act thy part, unnamed, unknown, + And let Fame blow her trumpet through the world + With noisy wind to swell a fool's renown, + Joined with some truth be stumbled blindly o'er, + Or coupled with some single shining deed + That in the great account of all his days + Will stand alone upon the bankrupt sheet + His pitying angel shows the clerk of Heaven. + The noblest service comes from nameless hands, + And the best servant does his work unseen. + Who found the seeds of fire and made them shoot, + Fed by his breath, in buds and flowers of flame? + Who forged in roaring flames the ponderous stone, + And shaped the moulded metal to his need? + Who gave the dragging car its rolling wheel, + And tamed the steed that whirls its circling round? + All these have left their work and not their names, + Why should I murmur at a fate like theirs? + This is the heavenly light; the pearly stain + Was but a wind-cloud drifting oer the stars! + + + + +VI + +I find I have so many things in common with the old Master of Arts, that +I do not always know whether a thought was originally his or mine. That +is what always happens where two persons of a similar cast of mind talk +much together. And both of them often gain by the interchange. Many +ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one +where they sprang up. That which was a weed in one intelligence becomes +a flower in the other. A flower, on the other hand, may dwindle down to +a mere weed by the same change. Healthy growths may become poisonous by +falling upon the wrong mental soil, and what seemed a night-shade in one +mind unfold as a morning-glory in the other. + +--I thank God,--the Master said,--that a great many people believe a +great deal more than I do. I think, when it comes to serious matters, I +like those who believe more than I do better than those who believe less. + +--Why,--said I,--you have got hold of one of my own working axioms. I +should like to hear you develop it. + +The Member of the Haouse said he should be glad to listen to the debate. +The gentleman had the floor. The Scarabee rose from his chair and +departed;--I thought his joints creaked as he straightened himself. + +The Young Girl made a slight movement; it was a purely accidental +coincidence, no doubt, but I saw That Boy put his hand in his pocket and +pull out his popgun, and begin loading it. It cannot be that our +Scheherezade, who looks so quiet and proper at the table, can make use of +That Boy and his catapult to control the course of conversation and +change it to suit herself! She certainly looks innocent enough; but what +does a blush prove, and what does its absence prove, on one of these +innocent faces? There is nothing in all this world that can lie and +cheat like the face and the tongue of a young girl. Just give her a +little touch of hysteria,--I don't mean enough of it to make her friends +call the doctor in, but a slight hint of it in the nervous system,--and +"Machiavel the waiting-maid" might take lessons of her. But I cannot +think our Scheherezade is one of that kind, and I am ashamed of myself +for noting such a trifling coincidence as that which excited my +suspicion. + +--I say,--the Master continued,--that I had rather be in the company of +those who believe more than I do, in spiritual matters at least, than of +those who doubt what I accept as a part of my belief. + +--To tell the truth,--said I,--I find that difficulty sometimes in +talking with you. You have not quite so many hesitations as I have in +following out your logical conclusions. I suppose you would bring some +things out into daylight questioning that I had rather leave in that +twilight of half-belief peopled with shadows--if they are only +shadows--more sacred to me than many realities. + +There is nothing I do not question,--said the Master;--I not only begin +with the precept of Descartes, but I hold all my opinions involving any +chain of reasoning always open to revision. + +--I confess that I smiled internally to hear him say that. The old +Master thinks he is open to conviction on all subjects; but if you meddle +with some of his notions and don't get tossed on his horns as if a bull +had hold of you, I should call you lucky. + +--You don't mean you doubt everything?--I said. + +--What do you think I question everything for, the Master replied,--if I +never get any answers? You've seen a blind man with a stick, feeling his +way along? Well, I am a blind man with a stick, and I find the world +pretty full of men just as blind as I am, but without any stick. I try +the ground to find out whether it is firm or not before I rest my weight +on it; but after it has borne my weight, that question at least is +answered. It very certainly was strong enough once; the presumption is +that it is strong enough now. Still the soil may have been undermined, +or I may have grown heavier. Make as much of that as you will. I say I +question everything; but if I find Bunker Hill Monument standing as +straight as when I leaned against it a year or ten years ago, I am not +very much afraid that Bunker Hill will cave in if I trust myself again on +the soil of it. + +I glanced off, as one often does in talk. + +The Monument is an awful place to visit,--I said.---The waves of time are +like the waves of the ocean; the only thing they beat against without +destroying it is a rock; and they destroy that at last. But it takes a +good while. There is a stone now standing in very good order that was as +old as a monument of Louis XIV. and Queen Anne's day is now when Joseph +went down into Egypt. Think of the shaft on Bunker Hill standing in the +sunshine on the morning of January 1st in the year 5872! + +It won't be standing,--the Master said.---We are poor bunglers compared +to those old Egyptians. There are no joints in one of their obelisks. +They are our masters in more ways than we know of, and in more ways than +some of us are willing to know. That old Lawgiver wasn't learned in all +the wisdom of the Egyptians for nothing. It scared people well a couple +of hundred years ago when Sir John Marsham and Dr. John Spencer ventured +to tell their stories about the sacred ceremonies of the Egyptian +priesthood. People are beginning to find out now that you can't study +any religion by itself to any good purpose. You must have comparative +theology as you have comparative anatomy. What would you make of a cat's +foolish little good-for-nothing collar-bone, if you did not know how the +same bone means a good deal in other creatures,--in yourself, for +instance, as you 'll find out if you break it? You can't know too much +of your race and its beliefs, if you want to know anything about your +Maker. I never found but one sect large enough to hold the whole of me. + +--And may I ask what that was?--I said. + +--The Human sect,--the Master answered. That has about room enough for +me,--at present, I mean to say. + +--Including cannibals and all?--said I. + +-Oh, as to that, the eating of one's kind is a matter of taste, but the +roasting of them has been rather more a specialty of our own particular +belief than of any other I am acquainted with. If you broil a saint, I +don't see why, if you have a mind, you shouldn't serve him up at your-- + +Pop! went the little piece of artillery. Don't tell me it was accident. +I know better. You can't suppose for one minute that a boy like that one +would time his interruptions so cleverly. Now it so happened that at +that particular moment Dr. B. Franklin was not at the table. You may +draw your own conclusions. I say nothing, but I think a good deal. + +--I came back to the Bunker Hill Monument.---I often think--I said--of +the dynasty which is to reign in its shadow for some thousands of years, +it may be. + +The "Man of Letters," so called, asked me, in a tone I did not exactly +like, whether I expected to live long enough to see a monarchy take the +place of a republic in this country. + +--No,--said I,--I was thinking of something very different. I was +indulging a fancy of mine about the Man who is to sit at the foot of the +monument for one, or it may be two or three thousand years. As long as +the monument stands and there is a city near it, there will always be a +man to take the names of visitors and extract some small tribute from +their pockets, I suppose. I sometimes get thinking of the long, unbroken +succession of these men, until they come to look like one Man; continuous +in being, unchanging as the stone he watches, looking upon the successive +generations of human beings as they come and go, and outliving all the +dynasties of the world in all probability. It has come to such a pass +that I never speak to the Man of the Monument without wanting to take my +hat off and feeling as if I were looking down a vista of twenty or thirty +centuries. + +The "Man of Letters," so called, said, in a rather contemptuous way, I +thought, that he had n't got so far as that. He was n't quite up to +moral reflections on toll-men and ticket-takers. Sentiment was n't his +tap. + +He looked round triumphantly for a response: but the Capitalist was a +little hard of hearing just then; the Register of Deeds was browsing on +his food in the calm bovine abstraction of a quadruped, and paid no +attention; the Salesman had bolted his breakfast, and whisked himself +away with that peculiar alacrity which belongs to the retail dealer's +assistant; and the Member of the Haouse, who had sometimes seemed to be +impressed with his "tahlented mahn's" air of superiority to the rest of +us, looked as if he thought the speaker was not exactly parliamentary. +So he failed to make his point, and reddened a little, and was not in the +best humor, I thought, when he left the table. I hope he will not let +off any of his irritation on our poor little Scheherezade; but the truth +is, the first person a man of this sort (if he is what I think him) +meets, when he is out of humor, has to be made a victim of, and I only +hope our Young Girl will not have to play Jephthah's daughter. + +And that leads me to say, I cannot help thinking that the kind of +criticism to which this Young Girl has been subjected from some person or +other, who is willing to be smart at her expense, is hurtful and not +wholesome. The question is a delicate one. So many foolish persons are +rushing into print, that it requires a kind of literary police to hold +them back and keep them in order. Where there are mice there must be +cats, and where there are rats we may think it worth our while to keep a +terrier, who will give them a shake and let them drop, with all the +mischief taken out of them. But the process is a rude and cruel one at +best, and it too often breeds a love of destructiveness for its own sake +in those who get their living by it. A poor poem or essay does not do +much harm after all; nobody reads it who is like to be seriously hurt by +it. But a sharp criticism with a drop of witty venom in it stings a +young author almost to death, and makes an old one uncomfortable to no +purpose. If it were my business to sit in judgment on my neighbors, I +would try to be courteous, at least, to those who had done any good +service, but, above all, I would handle tenderly those young authors who +are coming before the public in the flutter of their first or early +appearance, and are in the trembling delirium of stage-fright already. +Before you write that brilliant notice of some alliterative Angelina's +book of verses, I wish you would try this experiment. + +Take half a sheet of paper and copy upon it any of Angelina's +stanzas,--the ones you were going to make fun of, if you will. Now go to +your window, if it is a still day, open it, and let the half-sheet of +paper drop on the outside. How gently it falls through the soft air, +always tending downwards, but sliding softly, from side to side, +wavering, hesitating, balancing, until it settles as noiselessly as a +snow-flake upon the all-receiving bosom of the earth! Just such would +have been the fate of poor Angelina's fluttering effort, if you had left +it to itself. It would have slanted downward into oblivion so sweetly +and softly that she would have never known when it reached that harmless +consummation. + +Our epizoic literature is becoming so extensive that nobody is safe from +its ad infinitum progeny. A man writes a book of criticisms. A +Quarterly Review criticises the critic. A Monthly Magazine takes up the +critic's critic. A Weekly Journal criticises the critic of the critic's +critic, and a daily paper favors us with some critical remarks on the +performance of the writer in the Weekly, who has criticised the critical +notice in the Monthly of the critical essay in the Quarterly on the +critical work we started with. And thus we see that as each flea "has +smaller fleas that on him prey," even the critic himself cannot escape +the common lot of being bitten. Whether all this is a blessing or a +curse, like that one which made Pharaoh and all his household run to +their toilet-tables, is a question about which opinions might differ. +The physiologists of the time of Moses--if there were vivisectors other +than priests in those days--would probably have considered that other +plague, of the frogs, as a fortunate opportunity for science, as this +poor little beast has been the souffre-douleur of experimenters and +schoolboys from time immemorial. + +But there is a form of criticism to which none will object. It is +impossible to come before a public so alive with sensibilities as this we +live in, with the smallest evidence of a sympathetic disposition, without +making friends in a very unexpected way. Everywhere there are minds +tossing on the unquiet waves of doubt. If you confess to the same +perplexities and uncertainties that torture them, they are grateful for +your companionship. If you have groped your way out of the wilderness in +which you were once wandering with them, they will follow your footsteps, +it may be, and bless you as their deliverer. So, all at once, a writer +finds he has a parish of devout listeners, scattered, it is true, beyond +the reach of any summons but that of a trumpet like the archangel's, to +whom his slight discourse may be of more value than the exhortations they +hear from the pulpit, if these last do not happen to suit their special +needs. Young men with more ambition and intelligence than force of +character, who have missed their first steps in life and are stumbling +irresolute amidst vague aims and changing purposes, hold out their hands, +imploring to be led into, or at least pointed towards, some path where +they can find a firm foothold. Young women born into a chilling +atmosphere of circumstance which keeps all the buds of their nature +unopened and always striving to get to a ray of sunshine, if one finds +its way to their neighborhood, tell their stories, sometimes simply and +touchingly, sometimes in a more or less affected and rhetorical way, but +still stories of defeated and disappointed instincts which ought to make +any moderately impressible person feel very tenderly toward them. + +In speaking privately to these young persons, many of whom have literary +aspirations, one should be very considerate of their human feelings. But +addressing them collectively a few plain truths will not give any one of +them much pain. Indeed, almost every individual among them will feel +sure that he or she is an exception to those generalities which apply so +well to the rest. + +If I were a literary Pope sending out an Encyclical, I would tell these +inexperienced persons that nothing is so frequent as to mistake an +ordinary human gift for a special and extraordinary endowment. The +mechanism of breathing and that of swallowing are very wonderful, and if +one had seen and studied them in his own person only, he might well think +himself a prodigy. Everybody knows these and other bodily faculties are +common gifts; but nobody except editors and school-teachers and here and +there a literary than knows how common is the capacity of rhyming and +prattling in readable prose, especially among young women of a certain +degree of education. In my character of Pontiff, I should tell these +young persons that most of them labored under a delusion. It is very +hard to believe it; one feels so full of intelligence and so decidedly +superior to one's dull relations and schoolmates; one writes so easily +and the lines sound so prettily to one's self; there are such felicities +of expression, just like those we hear quoted from the great poets; and +besides one has been told by so many friends that all one had to do was +to print and be famous! Delusion, my poor dear, delusion at least +nineteen times out of twenty, yes, ninety-nine times in a hundred. + +But as private father confessor, I always allow as much as I can for the +one chance in the hundred. I try not to take away all hope, unless the +case is clearly desperate, and then to direct the activities into some +other channel. + +Using kind language, I can talk pretty freely. I have counselled more +than one aspirant after literary fame to go back to his tailor's board or +his lapstone. I have advised the dilettanti, whose foolish friends +praised their verses or their stories, to give up all their deceptive +dreams of making a name by their genius, and go to work in the study of a +profession which asked only for the diligent use of average; ordinary +talents. It is a very grave responsibility which these unknown +correspondents throw upon their chosen counsellors. One whom you have +never seen, who lives in a community of which you know nothing, sends you +specimens more or less painfully voluminous of his writings, which he +asks you to read over, think over, and pray over, and send back an answer +informing him whether fame and fortune are awaiting him as the possessor +of the wonderful gifts his writings manifest, and whether you advise him +to leave all,--the shop he sweeps out every morning, the ledger he posts, +the mortar in which he pounds, the bench at which he urges the reluctant +plane,--and follow his genius whithersoever it may lead him. The next +correspondent wants you to mark out a whole course of life for him, and +the means of judgment he gives you are about as adequate as the brick +which the simpleton of old carried round as an advertisement of the house +he had to sell. My advice to all the young men that write to me depends +somewhat on the handwriting and spelling. If these are of a certain +character, and they have reached a mature age, I recommend some honest +manual calling, such as they have very probably been bred to, and which +will, at least, give them a chance of becoming President of the United +States by and by, if that is any object to them. What would you have +done with the young person who called on me a good many years ago, so +many that he has probably forgotten his literary effort,--and read as +specimens of his literary workmanship lines like those which I will favor +you with presently? He was an able-bodied, grown-up young person, whose +ingenuousness interested me; and I am sure if I thought he would ever be +pained to see his maiden effort in print, I would deny myself the +pleasure of submitting it to the reader. The following is an exact +transcript of the lines he showed me, and which I took down on the spot: + + "Are you in the vein for cider? + Are you in the tune for pork? + Hist! for Betty's cleared the larder + And turned the pork to soap." + +Do not judge too hastily this sincere effort of a maiden muse. Here was +a sense of rhythm, and an effort in the direction of rhyme; here was an +honest transcript of an occurrence of daily life, told with a certain +idealizing expression, recognizing the existence of impulses, mysterious +instincts, impelling us even in the selection of our bodily sustenance. +But I had to tell him that it wanted dignity of incident and grace of +narrative, that there was no atmosphere to it, nothing of the light that +never was and so forth. I did not say this in these very words, but I +gave him to understand, without being too hard upon him, that he had +better not desert his honest toil in pursuit of the poet's bays. This, +it must be confessed, was a rather discouraging case. A young person +like this may pierce, as the Frenchmen say, by and by, but the chances +are all the other way. + +I advise aimless young men to choose some profession without needless +delay, and so get into a good strong current of human affairs, and find +themselves bound up in interests with a compact body of their fellow-men. + +I advise young women who write to me for counsel,--perhaps I do not +advise them at all, only sympathize a little with them, and listen to +what they have to say (eight closely written pages on the average, which +I always read from beginning to end, thinking of the widow's cruse and +myself in the character of Elijah) and--and--come now, I don't believe +Methuselah would tell you what he said in his letters to young ladies, +written when he was in his nine hundred and sixty-ninth year. + +But, dear me! how much work all this private criticism involves! An +editor has only to say "respectfully declined," and there is the end of +it. But the confidential adviser is expected to give the reasons of his +likes and dislikes in detail, and sometimes to enter into an argument for +their support. That is more than any martyr can stand, but what trials +he must go through, as it is! Great bundles of manuscripts, verse or +prose, which the recipient is expected to read, perhaps to recommend to a +publisher, at any rate to express a well-digested and agreeably flavored +opinion about; which opinion, nine times out of ten, disguise it as we +may, has to be a bitter draught; every form of egotism, conceit, false +sentiment, hunger for notoriety, and eagerness for display of anserine +plumage before the admiring public;--all these come in by mail or +express, covered with postage-stamps of so much more cost than the value +of the waste words they overlie, that one comes at last to groan and +change color at the very sight of a package, and to dread the postman's +knock as if it were that of the other visitor whose naked knuckles rap at +every door. + +Still there are experiences which go far towards repaying all these +inflictions. My last young man's case looked desperate enough; some of +his sails had blown from the rigging, some were backing in the wind, and +some were flapping and shivering, but I told him which way to head, and +to my surprise he promised to do just as I directed, and I do not doubt +is under full sail at this moment. + +What if I should tell my last, my very recent experience with the other +sex? I received a paper containing the inner history of a young woman's +life, the evolution of her consciousness from its earliest record of +itself, written so thoughtfully, so sincerely, with so much firmness and +yet so much delicacy, with such truth of detail and such grace in the +manner of telling, that I finished the long manuscript almost at a +sitting, with a pleasure rarely, almost never experienced in voluminous +communications which one has to spell out of handwriting. This was from +a correspondent who made my acquaintance by letter when she was little +more than a child, some years ago. How easy at that early period to have +silenced her by indifference, to have wounded her by a careless epithet, +perhaps even to have crushed her as one puts his heel on a weed! A very +little encouragement kept her from despondency, and brought back one of +those overflows of gratitude which make one more ashamed of himself for +being so overpaid than he would be for having committed any of the lesser +sins. But what pleased me most in the paper lately received was to see +how far the writer had outgrown the need of any encouragement of mine; +that she had strengthened out of her tremulous questionings into a +self-reliance and self-poise which I had hardly dared to anticipate for +her. Some of my readers who are also writers have very probably had more +numerous experiences of this kind than I can lay claim to; +self-revelations from unknown and sometimes nameless friends, who write +from strange corners where the winds have wafted some stray words of +theirs which have lighted in the minds and reached the hearts of those to +whom they were as the angel that stirred the pool of Bethesda. Perhaps +this is the best reward authorship brings; it may not imply much talent +or literary excellence, but it means that your way of thinking and +feeling is just what some one of your fellow-creatures needed. + +--I have been putting into shape, according to his request, some further +passages from the Young Astronomer's manuscript, some of which the reader +will have a chance to read if he is so disposed. The conflict in the +young man's mind between the desire for fame and the sense of its +emptiness as compared with nobler aims has set me thinking about the +subject from a somewhat humbler point of view. As I am in the habit of +telling you, Beloved, many of my thoughts, as well as of repeating what +was said at our table, you may read what follows as if it were addressed +to you in the course of an ordinary conversation, where I claimed rather +more than my share, as I am afraid I am a little in the habit of doing. + +I suppose we all, those of us who write in verse or prose, have the +habitual feeling that we should like to be remembered. It is to be awake +when all of those who were round us have been long wrapped in slumber. +It is a pleasant thought enough that the name by which we have been +called shall be familiar on the lips of those who come after us, and the +thoughts that wrought themselves out in our intelligence, the emotions +that trembled through our frames, shall live themselves over again in the +minds and hearts of others. + +But is there not something of rest, of calm, in the thought of gently and +gradually fading away out of human remembrance? What line have we +written that was on a level with our conceptions? What page of ours that +does not betray some weakness we would fain have left unrecorded? To +become a classic and share the life of a language is to be ever open to +criticisms, to comparisons, to the caprices of successive generations, to +be called into court and stand a trial before a new jury, once or more +than once in every century. To be forgotten is to sleep in peace with +the undisturbed myriads, no longer subject to the chills and heats, the +blasts, the sleet, the dust, which assail in endless succession that +shadow of a man which we call his reputation. The line which dying we +could wish to blot has been blotted out for us by a hand so tender, so +patient, so used to its kindly task, that the page looks as fair as if it +had never borne the record of our infirmity or our transgression. And +then so few would be wholly content with their legacy of fame. You +remember poor Monsieur Jacques's complaint of the favoritism shown to +Monsieur Berthier,--it is in that exquisite "Week in a French +Country-House." "Have you seen his room? Have you seen how large it is? +Twice as large as mine! He has two jugs, a large one and a little one. +I have only one small one. And a tea-service and a gilt Cupid on the top +of his looking-glass." The famous survivor of himself has had his +features preserved in a medallion, and the slice of his countenance seems +clouded with the thought that it does not belong to a bust; the bust +ought to look happy in its niche, but the statue opposite makes it feel +as if it had been cheated out of half its personality, and the statue +looks uneasy because another stands on a loftier pedestal. But "Ignotus" +and "Miserrimus" are of the great majority in that vast assembly, that +House of Commons whose members are all peers, where to be forgotten is +the standing rule. The dignity of a silent memory is not to be +undervalued. Fame is after all a kind of rude handling, and a name that +is often on vulgar lips seems to borrow something not to be desired, as +the paper money that passes from hand to hand gains somewhat which is a +loss thereby. O sweet, tranquil refuge of oblivion, so far as earth is +concerned, for us poor blundering, stammering, misbehaving creatures who +cannot turn over a leaf of our life's diary without feeling thankful that +its failure can no longer stare us in the face! Not unwelcome shall be +the baptism of dust which hides forever the name that was given in the +baptism of water! We shall have good company whose names are left +unspoken by posterity. "Who knows whether the best of men be known, or +whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand +remembered in the known account of time? The greater part must be +content to be as though they had not been; to be found in the register of +God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first +story before the flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one +living century." + +I have my moods about such things as the Young Astronomer has, as we all +have. There are times when the thought of becoming utterly nothing to +the world we knew so well and loved so much is painful and oppressive; we +gasp as if in a vacuum, missing the atmosphere of life we have so long +been in the habit of breathing. Not the less are there moments when the +aching need of repose comes over us and the requiescat in pace, heathen +benediction as it is, sounds more sweetly in our ears than all the +promises that Fame can hold out to us. + +I wonder whether it ever occurred to you to reflect upon another horror +there must be in leaving a name behind you. Think what a horrid piece of +work the biographers make of a man's private history! Just imagine the +subject of one of those extraordinary fictions called biographies coming +back and reading the life of himself, written very probably by somebody +or other who thought he could turn a penny by doing it, and having the +pleasure of seeing + + "His little bark attendant sail, + Pursue the triumph and partake the gale." + +The ghost of the person condemned to walk the earth in a biography glides +into a public library, and goes to the shelf where his mummied life lies +in its paper cerements. I can see the pale shadow glancing through the +pages and hear the comments that shape themselves in the bodiless +intelligence as if they were made vocal by living lips. + +"Born in July, 1776!" And my honored father killed at the battle of +Bunker Hill! Atrocious libeller! to slander one's family at the start +after such a fashion! + +"The death of his parents left him in charge of his Aunt Nancy, whose +tender care took the place of those parental attentions which should have +guided and protected his infant years, and consoled him for the severity +of another relative." + +--Aunt Nancy! It was Aunt Betsey, you fool! Aunt Nancy used to--she has +been dead these eighty years, so there is no use in mincing matters--she +used to keep a bottle and a stick, and when she had been tasting a drop +out of the bottle the stick used to come off the shelf and I had to taste +that. And here she is made a saint of, and poor Aunt Betsey, that did +everything for me, is slandered by implication as a horrid tyrant. + +"The subject of this commemorative history was remarkable for a +precocious development of intelligence. An old nurse who saw him at the +very earliest period of his existence is said to have spoken of him as +one of the most promising infants she had seen in her long experience. +At school he was equally remarkable, and at a tender age he received a +paper adorned with a cut, inscribed REWARD OF MERIT." + +--I don't doubt the nurse said that,--there were several promising +children born about that time. As for cuts, I got more from the +schoolmaster's rattan than in any other shape. Didn't one of my teachers +split a Gunter's scale into three pieces over the palm of my hand? And +didn't I grin when I saw the pieces fly? No humbug, now, about my +boyhood! + +"His personal appearance was not singularly prepossessing. Inconspicuous +in stature and unattractive in features" + +--You misbegotten son of an ourang and grandson of an ascidian (ghosts +keep up with science, you observe), what business have you to be holding +up my person to the contempt of my posterity? Haven't I been sleeping +for this many a year in quiet, and don't the dandelions and buttercups +look as yellow over me as over the best-looking neighbor I have in the +dormitory? Why do you want to people the minds of everybody that reads +your good-for-nothing libel which you call a "biography" with your +impudent caricatures of a man who was a better-looking fellow than +yourself, I 'll bet you ten to one, a man whom his Latin tutor called +fommosus puer when he was only a freshman? If that's what it means to +make a reputation,--to leave your character and your person, and the good +name of your sainted relatives, and all you were, and all you had and +thought and felt, so far as can be gathered by digging you out of your +most private records, to be manipulated and bandied about and cheapened +in the literary market as a chicken or a turkey or a goose is handled and +bargained over at a provision stall, is n't it better to be content with +the honest blue slate-stone and its inscription informing posterity that +you were a worthy citizen and a respected father of a family? + +--I should like to see any man's biography with corrections and +emendations by his ghost. We don't know each other's secrets quite so +well as we flatter ourselves we do. We don't always know our own secrets +as well as we might. You have seen a tree with different grafts upon it, +an apple or a pear tree we will say. In the late summer months the fruit +on one bough will ripen; I remember just such a tree, and the early +ripening fruit was the Jargonelle. By and by the fruit of another bough +will begin to come into condition; the lovely Saint Michael, as I +remember, grew on the same stock as the Jargonelle in the tree I am +thinking of; and then, when these have all fallen or been gathered, +another, we will say the Winter Nelis, has its turn, and so out of the +same juices have come in succession fruits of the most varied aspects and +flavors. It is the same thing with ourselves, but it takes us a long +while to find it out. The various inherited instincts ripen in +succession. You may be nine tenths paternal at one period of your life, +and nine tenths maternal at another. All at once the traits of some +immediate ancestor may come to maturity unexpectedly on one of the +branches of your character, just as your features at different periods of +your life betray different resemblances to your nearer or more remote +relatives. + +But I want you to let me go back to the Bunker Hill Monument and the +dynasty of twenty or thirty centuries whose successive representatives +are to sit in the gate, like the Jewish monarchs, while the people shall +come by hundreds and by thousands to visit the memorial shaft until the +story of Bunker's Hill is as old as that of Marathon. + +Would not one like to attend twenty consecutive soirees, at each one of +which the lion of the party should be the Man of the Monument, at the +beginning of each century, all the way, we will say, from Anno Domini +2000 to Ann. Dom. 4000,--or, if you think the style of dating will be +changed, say to Ann. Darwinii (we can keep A. D. you see) 1872? Will +the Man be of the Indian type, as President Samuel Stanhope Smith and +others have supposed the transplanted European will become by and by? +Will he have shortened down to four feet and a little more, like the +Esquimaux, or will he have been bred up to seven feet by the use of new +chemical diets, ozonized and otherwise improved atmospheres, and animal +fertilizers? Let us summon him in imagination and ask him a few +questions. + +Is n't it like splitting a toad out of a rock to think of this man of +nineteen or twenty centuries hence coming out from his stony +dwelling-place and speaking with us? What are the questions we should +ask him? He has but a few minutes to stay. Make out your own list; I +will set down a few that come up to me as I write. + +--What is the prevalent religious creed of civilization? + +--Has the planet met with any accident of importance? + +--How general is the republican form of government? + +--Do men fly yet? + +--Has the universal language come into use? + +--Is there a new fuel since the English coal-mines have given out? + +--Is the euthanasia a recognized branch of medical science? + +--Is the oldest inhabitant still living? + +--Is the Daily Advertiser still published? + +--And the Evening Transcript? + +--Is there much inquiry for the works of a writer of the nineteenth +century (Old Style) by--the name of--of-- + +My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. I cannot imagine the putting +of that question without feeling the tremors which shake a wooer as he +falters out the words the answer to which will make him happy or +wretched. + +Whose works was I going to question him about, do you ask me? Oh, the +writings of a friend of mine, much esteemed by his relatives and others. +But it's of no consequence, after all; I think he says he does not care +much for posthumous reputation. + +I find something of the same interest in thinking about one of the +boarders at our table that I find in my waking dreams concerning the Man +of the Monument. This personage is the Register of Deeds. He is an +unemotional character, living in his business almost as exclusively as +the Scarabee, but without any of that eagerness and enthusiasm which +belong to our scientific specialist. His work is largely, principally, I +may say, mechanical. He has developed, however, a certain amount of +taste for the antiquities of his department, and once in a while brings +out some curious result of his investigations into ancient documents. He +too belongs to a dynasty which will last as long as there is such a thing +as property in land and dwellings. When that is done away with, and we +return to the state of villanage, holding our tenement-houses, all to be +of the same pattern, of the State, that is to say, of the Tammany Ring +which is to take the place of the feudal lord,--the office of Register of +Deeds will, I presume, become useless, and the dynasty will be deposed. + +As we grow older we think more and more of old persons and of old things +and places. As to old persons, it seems as if we never know how much +they have to tell until we are old ourselves and they have been gone +twenty or thirty years. Once in a while we come upon some survivor of +his or her generation that we have overlooked, and feel as if we had +recovered one of the lost books of Livy or fished up the golden +candlestick from the ooze of the Tiber. So it was the other day after my +reminiscences of the old gambrel-roofed house and its visitors. They +found an echo in the recollections of one of the brightest and liveliest +of my suburban friends, whose memory is exact about everything except her +own age, which, there can be no doubt, she makes out a score or two of +years more than it really is. Still she was old enough to touch some +lights--and a shadow or two--into the portraits I had drawn, which made +me wish that she and not I had been the artist who sketched the pictures. +Among the lesser regrets that mingle with graver sorrows for the friends +of an earlier generation we have lost, are our omissions to ask them so +many questions they could have answered easily enough, and would have +been pleased to be asked. There! I say to myself sometimes, in an +absent mood, I must ask her about that. But she of whom I am now +thinking has long been beyond the reach of any earthly questioning, and I +sigh to think how easily I could have learned some fact which I should +have been happy to have transmitted with pious care to those who are to +come after me. How many times I have heard her quote the line about +blessings brightening as they take their flight, and how true it proves +in many little ways that one never thinks of until it is too late. + +The Register of Deeds is not himself advanced in years. But he borrows +an air of antiquity from the ancient records which are stored in his +sepulchral archives. I love to go to his ossuary of dead transactions, +as I would visit the catacombs of Rome or Paris. It is like wandering up +the Nile to stray among the shelves of his monumental folios. Here +stands a series of volumes, extending over a considerable number of +years, all of which volumes are in his handwriting. But as you go +backward there is a break, and you come upon the writing of another +person, who was getting old apparently, for it is beginning to be a +little shaky, and then you know that you have gone back as far as the +last days of his predecessor. Thirty or forty years more carry you to +the time when this incumbent began the duties of his office; his hand was +steady then; and the next volume beyond it in date betrays the work of a +still different writer. All this interests me, but I do not see how it +is going to interest my reader. I do not feel very happy about the +Register of Deeds. What can I do with him? Of what use is he going to +be in my record of what I have seen and heard at the breakfast-table? +The fact of his being one of the boarders was not so important that I was +obliged to speak of him, and I might just as well have drawn on my +imagination and not allowed this dummy to take up the room which another +guest might have profitably filled at our breakfast-table. + +I suppose he will prove a superfluity, but I have got him on my hands, +and I mean that he shall be as little in the way as possible. One always +comes across people in actual life who have no particular business to be +where we find them, and whose right to be at all is somewhat +questionable. + +I am not going to get rid of the Register of Deeds by putting him out of +the way; but I confess I do not see of what service he is going to be to +me in my record. I have often found, however, that the Disposer of men +and things understands much better than we do how to place his pawns and +other pieces on the chess-board of life. A fish more or less in the +ocean does not seem to amount to much. It is not extravagant to say that +any one fish may be considered a supernumerary. But when Captain Coram's +ship sprung a leak and the carpenter could not stop it, and the +passengers had made up their minds that it was all over with them, all at +once, without any apparent reason, the pumps began gaining on the leak, +and the sinking ship to lift herself out of the abyss which was +swallowing her up. And what do you think it was that saved the ship, and +Captain Coram, and so in due time gave to London that Foundling Hospital +which he endowed, and under the floor of which he lies buried? Why, it +was that very supernumerary fish, which we held of so little account, but +which had wedged itself into the rent of the yawning planks, and served +to keep out the water until the leak was finally stopped. + +I am very sure it was Captain Coram, but I almost hope it was somebody +else, in order to give some poor fellow who is lying in wait for the +periodicals a chance to correct me. That will make him happy for a +month, and besides, he will not want to pick a quarrel about anything +else if he has that splendid triumph. You remember Alcibiades and his +dog's tail. + +Here you have the extracts I spoke of from the manuscript placed in my +hands for revision and emendation. I can understand these alternations +of feeling in a young person who has been long absorbed in a single +pursuit, and in whom the human instincts which have been long silent are +now beginning to find expression. I know well what he wants; a great +deal better, I think, than he knows himself. + + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. + + II + + Brief glimpses of the bright celestial spheres, + False lights, false shadows, vague, uncertain gleams, + Pale vaporous mists, wan streaks of lurid flame, + The climbing of the upward-sailing cloud, + The sinking of the downward-falling star, + All these are pictures of the changing moods + Borne through the midnight stillness of my soul. + + Here am I, bound upon this pillared rock, + Prey to the vulture of a vast desire + That feeds upon my life. I burst my bands + And steal a moment's freedom from the beak, + The clinging talons and the shadowing plumes; + Then comes the false enchantress, with her song; + "Thou wouldst not lay thy forehead in the dust + Like the base herd that feeds and breeds and dies! + Lo, the fair garlands that I weave for thee, + Unchanging as the belt Orion wears, + Bright as the jewels of the seven-starred Crown, + The spangled stream of Berenice's hair!" + And so she twines the fetters with the flowers + Around my yielding limbs, and the fierce bird + Stoops to his quarry,--then to feed his rage + Of ravening hunger I must drain my blood + And let the dew-drenched, poison-breeding night + Steal all the freshness from my fading cheek, + And leave its shadows round my caverned eyes. + All for a line in some unheeded scroll; + All for a stone that tells to gaping clowns, + "Here lies a restless wretch beneath a clod + Where squats the jealous nightmare men call Fame!" + + I marvel not at him who scorns his kind + And thinks not sadly of the time foretold + When the old hulk we tread shall be a wreck, + A slag, a cinder drifting through the sky + Without its crew of fools! We live too long + And even so are not content to die, + But load the mould that covers up our bones + With stones that stand like beggars by the road + And show death's grievous wound and ask for tears; + Write our great books to teach men who we are, + Sing our fine songs that tell in artful phrase + The secrets of our lives, and plead and pray + For alms of memory with the after time, + Those few swift seasons while the earth shall wear + Its leafy summers, ere its core grows cold + And the moist life of all that breathes shall die; + Or as the new-born seer, perchance more wise, + Would have us deem, before its growing mass, + Pelted with stardust, atoned with meteor-balls, + Heats like a hammered anvil, till at last Man + and his works and all that stirred itself + Of its own motion, in the fiery glow + Turns to a flaming vapor, and our orb + Shines a new sun for earths that shall be born. + + I am as old as Egypt to myself, + Brother to them that squared the pyramids + By the same stars I watch. I read the page + Where every letter is a glittering world, + With them who looked from Shinar's clay-built towers, + Ere yet the wanderer of the Midland sea + Had missed the fallen sister of the seven. + I dwell in spaces vague, remote, unknown, + Save to the silent few, who, leaving earth, + Quit all communion with their living time. + I lose myself in that ethereal void, + Till I have tired my wings and long to fill + My breast with denser air, to stand, to walk + With eyes not raised above my fellow-men. + Sick of my unwalled, solitary realm, + I ask to change the myriad lifeless worlds + I visit as mine own for one poor patch + Of this dull spheroid and a little breath + To shape in word or deed to serve my kind. + + Was ever giant's dungeon dug so deep, + Was ever tyrant's fetter forged so strong, + Was e'er such deadly poison in the draught + The false wife mingles for the trusting fool, + As he whose willing victim is himself, + Digs, forges, mingles, for his captive soul? + + + + +VII + +I was very sure that the old Master was hard at work about something,--he +is always very busy with something,--but I mean something particular. + +Whether it was a question of history or of cosmogony, or whether he was +handling a test-tube or a blow-pipe; what he was about I did not feel +sure; but I took it for granted that it was some crucial question or +other he was at work on, some point bearing on the thought of the time. +For the Master, I have observed, is pretty sagacious in striking for the +points where his work will be like to tell. We all know that class of +scientific laborers to whom all facts are alike nourishing mental food, +and who seem to exercise no choice whatever, provided only they can get +hold of these same indiscriminate facts in quantity sufficient. They +browse on them, as the animal to which they would not like to be compared +browses on his thistles. But the Master knows the movement of the age he +belongs to; and if he seems to be busy with what looks like a small piece +of trivial experimenting, one may feel pretty sure that he knows what he +is about, and that his minute operations are looking to a result that +will help him towards attaining his great end in life,--an insight, so +far as his faculties and opportunities will allow, into that order of +things which he believes he can study with some prospect of taking in its +significance. + +I became so anxious to know what particular matter he was busy with, that +I had to call upon him to satisfy my curiosity. It was with a little +trepidation that I knocked at his door. I felt a good deal as one might +have felt on disturbing an alchemist at his work, at the very moment, it +might be, when he was about to make projection. + +--Come in!--said the Master in his grave, massive tones. + +I passed through the library with him into a little room evidently +devoted to his experiments. + +--You have come just at the right moment,--he said.--Your eyes are better +than mine. I have been looking at this flask, and I should like to have +you look at it. + +It was a small matrass, as one of the elder chemists would have called +it, containing a fluid, and hermetically sealed. He held it up at the +window; perhaps you remember the physician holding a flask to the light +in Gerard Douw's "Femme hydropique"; I thought of that fine figure as I +looked at him. Look!--said he,--is it clear or cloudy? + +--You need not ask me that,--I answered. It is very plainly turbid. I +should think that some sediment had been shaken up in it. What is it, +Elixir Vitae or Aurum potabile? + +--Something that means more than alchemy ever did! Boiled just three +hours, and as clear as a bell until within the last few days; since then +has been clouding up. + +--I began to form a pretty shrewd guess at the meaning of all this, and +to think I knew very nearly what was coming next. I was right in my +conjecture. The Master broke off the sealed end of his little flask, +took out a small portion of the fluid on a glass rod, and placed it on a +slip of glass in the usual way for a microscopic examination. + +--One thousand diameters,--he said, as he placed it on the stage of the +microscope.---We shall find signs of life, of course.--He bent over the +instrument and looked but an instant. + +--There they are!--he exclaimed,--look in. + +I looked in and saw some objects: + +The straight linear bodies were darting backward and forward in every +direction. The wavy ones were wriggling about like eels or water-snakes. +The round ones were spinning on their axes and rolling in every +direction. All of them were in a state of incessant activity, as if +perpetually seeking something and never finding it. + +They are tough, the germs of these little bodies, said the Master. +---Three hours' boiling has n't killed 'em. Now, then, let us see what +has been the effect of six hours' boiling. + +He took up another flask just like the first, containing fluid and +hermetically sealed in the same way. + +--Boiled just three hours longer than the other, he said,--six hours in +all. This is the experimentum crucis. Do you see any cloudiness in it? + +--Not a sign of it; it is as clear as crystal, except that there may be a +little sediment at the bottom. + +--That is nothing. The liquid is clear. We shall find no signs of +life.---He put a minute drop of the liquid under the microscope as +before. Nothing stirred. Nothing to be seen but a clear circle of +light. We looked at it again and again, but with the same result. + +--Six hours kill 'em all, according to this experiment,--said the +Master.---Good as far as it goes. One more negative result. Do you know +what would have happened if that liquid had been clouded, and we had +found life in the sealed flask? Sir, if that liquid had held life in it +the Vatican would have trembled to hear it, and there would have been +anxious questionings and ominous whisperings in the halls of Lambeth +palace! The accepted cosmogonies on trial, sir! + +Traditions, sanctities, creeds, ecclesiastical establishments, all +shaking to know whether my little sixpenny flask of fluid looks muddy or +not! I don't know whether to laugh or shudder. The thought of an +oecumenical council having its leading feature dislocated by my trifling +experiment! The thought, again, of the mighty revolution in human +beliefs and affairs that might grow out of the same insignificant little +phenomenon. A wine-glassful of clear liquid growing muddy. If we had +found a wriggle, or a zigzag, or a shoot from one side to the other, in +this last flask, what a scare there would have been, to be sure, in the +schools of the prophets! Talk about your megatherium and your +megalosaurus,--what are these to the bacterium and the vibrio? These are +the dreadful monsters of today. If they show themselves where they have +no business, the little rascals frighten honest folks worse than ever +people were frightened by the Dragon of Rhodes! + +The Master gets going sometimes, there is no denying it, until his +imagination runs away with him. He had been trying, as the reader sees, +one of those curious experiments in spontaneous generation, as it is +called, which have been so often instituted of late years, and by none +more thoroughly than by that eminent American student of nature +(Professor Jeffries Wyman) whose process he had imitated with a result +like his. + +We got talking over these matters among us the next morning at the +breakfast-table. + +We must agree they couldn't stand six hours' boiling,--I said. + +--Good for the Pope of Rome!--exclaimed the Master. + +--The Landlady drew back with a certain expression of dismay in her +countenance. She hoped he did n't want the Pope to make any more +converts in this country. She had heard a sermon only last Sabbath, and +the minister had made it out, she thought, as plain as could be, that the +Pope was the Man of Sin and that the Church of Rome was--Well, there was +very strong names applied to her in Scripture. + +What was good for the Pope was good for your minister, too, my dear +madam,--said the Master. Good for everybody that is afraid of what +people call "science." If it should prove that dead things come to life +of themselves, it would be awkward, you know, because then somebody will +get up and say if one dead thing made itself alive another might, and so +perhaps the earth peopled itself without any help. Possibly the +difficulty wouldn't be so great as many people suppose. We might perhaps +find room for a Creator after all, as we do now, though we see a little +brown seed grow till it sucks up the juices of half an acre of ground, +apparently all by its own inherent power. That does not stagger us; I am +not sure that it would if Mr. Crosses or Mr. Weekes's acarus should show +himself all of a sudden, as they said he did, in certain mineral mixtures +acted on by electricity. + +The Landlady was off soundings, and looking vacant enough by this time. + +The Master turned to me.---Don't think too much of the result of our one +experiment. It means something, because it confirms those other +experiments of which it was a copy; but we must remember that a hundred +negatives don't settle such a question. Life does get into the world +somehow. You don't suppose Adam had the cutaneous unpleasantness +politely called psora, do you? + +--Hardly,--I answered.---He must have been a walking hospital if he +carried all the maladies about him which have plagued his descendants. + +--Well, then, how did the little beast which is peculiar to that special +complaint intrude himself into the Order of Things? You don't suppose +there was a special act of creation for the express purpose of bestowing +that little wretch on humanity, do you? + +I thought, on the whole, I would n't answer that question. + +--You and I are at work on the same problem, said the Young Astronomer to +the Master.---I have looked into a microscope now and then, and I have +seen that perpetual dancing about of minute atoms in a fluid, which you +call molecular motion. Just so, when I look through my telescope I see +the star-dust whirling about in the infinite expanse of ether; or if I do +not see its motion, I know that it is only on account of its immeasurable +distance. Matter and motion everywhere; void and rest nowhere. You ask +why your restless microscopic atoms may not come together and become +self-conscious and self-moving organisms. I ask why my telescopic +star-dust may not come together and grow and organize into habitable +worlds,--the ripened fruit on the branches of the tree Yggdrasil, if I +may borrow from our friend the Poet's province. It frightens people, +though, to hear the suggestion that worlds shape themselves from +star-mist. It does not trouble them at all to see the watery spheres +that round themselves into being out of the vapors floating over us; they +are nothing but raindrops. But if a planet can grow as a rain-drop +grows, why then--It was a great comfort to these timid folk when Lord +Rosse's telescope resolved certain nebula into star-clusters. Sir John +Herschel would have told them that this made little difference in +accounting for the formation of worlds by aggregation, but at any rate it +was a comfort to them. + +--These people have always been afraid of the astronomers,--said the +Master.--They were shy, you know, of the Copernican system, for a long +while; well they might be with an oubliette waiting for them if they +ventured to think that the earth moved round the sun. Science settled +that point finally for them, at length, and then it was all right,--when +there was no use in disputing the fact any longer. By and by geology +began turning up fossils that told extraordinary stories about the +duration of life upon our planet. What subterfuges were not used to get +rid of their evidence! Think of a man seeing the fossilized skeleton of +an animal split out of a quarry, his teeth worn down by mastication, and +the remains of food still visible in his interior, and, in order to get +rid of a piece of evidence contrary to the traditions he holds to, +seriously maintaining that this skeleton never belonged to a living +creature, but was created with just these appearances; a make-believe, a +sham, a Barnum's-mermaid contrivance to amuse its Creator and impose upon +his intelligent children! And now people talk about geological epochs +and hundreds of millions of years in the planet's history as calmly as if +they were discussing the age of their deceased great-grandmothers. Ten +or a dozen years ago people said Sh! Sh! if you ventured to meddle with +any question supposed to involve a doubt of the generally accepted Hebrew +traditions. To-day such questions are recognized as perfectly fair +subjects for general conversation; not in the basement story, perhaps, or +among the rank and file of the curbstone congregations, but among +intelligent and educated persons. You may preach about them in your +pulpit, you may lecture about them, you may talk about them with the +first sensible-looking person you happen to meet, you may write magazine +articles about them, and the editor need not expect to receive +remonstrances from angry subscribers and withdrawals of subscriptions, as +he would have been sure to not a great many years ago. Why, you may go +to a tea-party where the clergyman's wife shows her best cap and his +daughters display their shining ringlets, and you will hear the company +discussing the Darwinian theory of the origin of the human race as if it +were as harmless a question as that of the lineage of a spinster's +lapdog. You may see a fine lady who is as particular in her +genuflections as any Buddhist or Mahometan saint in his manifestations of +reverence, who will talk over the anthropoid ape, the supposed founder of +the family to which we belong, and even go back with you to the +acephalous mollusk, first cousin to the clams and mussels, whose +rudimental spine was the hinted prophecy of humanity; all this time never +dreaming, apparently, that what she takes for a matter of curious +speculation involves the whole future of human progress and destiny. + +I can't help thinking that if we had talked as freely as we can and do +now in the days of the first boarder at this table,--I mean the one who +introduced it to the public,--it would have sounded a good deal more +aggressively than it does now.--The old Master got rather warm in +talking; perhaps the consciousness of having a number of listeners had +something to do with it. + +--This whole business is an open question,--he said,--and there is no use +in saying, "Hush! don't talk about such things!" People do talk about +'em everywhere; and if they don't talk about 'em they think about 'em, +and that is worse,--if there is anything bad about such questions, that +is. If for the Fall of man, science comes to substitute the RISE of man, +sir, it means the utter disintegration of all the spiritual pessimisms +which have been like a spasm in the heart and a cramp in the intellect of +men for so many centuries. And yet who dares to say that it is not a +perfectly legitimate and proper question to be discussed, without the +slightest regard to the fears or the threats of Pope or prelate? + +Sir, I believe,--the Master rose from his chair as he spoke, and said in +a deep and solemn tone, but without any declamatory vehemence,--sir, I +believe that we are at this moment in what will be recognized not many +centuries hence as one of the late watches in the night of the dark ages. +There is a twilight ray, beyond question. We know something of the +universe, a very little, and, strangely enough, we know most of what is +farthest from us. We have weighed the planets and analyzed the flames of +the--sun and stars. We predict their movements as if they were machines +we ourselves had made and regulated. We know a good deal about the earth +on which we live. But the study of man has been so completely subjected +to our preconceived opinions, that we have got to begin all over again. +We have studied anthropology through theology; we have now to begin the +study of theology through anthropology. Until we have exhausted the +human element in every form of belief, and that can only be done by what +we may call comparative spiritual anatomy, we cannot begin to deal with +the alleged extra-human elements without blundering into all imaginable +puerilities. If you think for one moment that there is not a single +religion in the world which does not come to us through the medium of a +preexisting language; and if you remember that this language embodies +absolutely nothing but human conceptions and human passions, you will see +at once that every religion presupposes its own elements as already +existing in those to whom it is addressed. I once went to a church in +London and heard the famous Edward Irving preach, and heard some of his +congregation speak in the strange words characteristic of their +miraculous gift of tongues. I had a respect for the logical basis of +this singular phenomenon. I have always thought it was natural that any +celestial message should demand a language of its own, only to be +understood by divine illumination. All human words tend, of course, to +stop short in human meaning. And the more I hear the most sacred terms +employed, the more I am satisfied that they have entirely and radically +different meanings in the minds of those who use them. Yet they deal +with them as if they were as definite as mathematical quantities or +geometrical figures. What would become of arithmetic if the figure 2 +meant three for one man and five for another and twenty for a third, and +all the other numerals were in the same way variable quantities? Mighty +intelligent correspondence business men would have with each other! But +how is this any worse than the difference of opinion which led a famous +clergyman to say to a brother theologian, "Oh, I see, my dear sir, your +God is my Devil." + +Man has been studied proudly, contemptuously, rather, from the point of +view supposed to be authoritatively settled. The self-sufficiency of +egotistic natures was never more fully shown than in the expositions of +the worthlessness and wretchedness of their fellow-creatures given by the +dogmatists who have "gone back," as the vulgar phrase is, on their race, +their own flesh and blood. Did you ever read what Mr. Bancroft says +about Calvin in his article on Jonathan Edwards?--and mighty well said it +is too, in my judgment. Let me remind you of it, whether you have read +it or not. "Setting himself up over against the privileged classes, he, +with a loftier pride than theirs, revealed the power of a yet higher +order of nobility, not of a registered ancestry of fifteen generations, +but one absolutely spotless in its escutcheon, preordained in the council +chamber of eternity." I think you'll find I have got that sentence +right, word for word, and there 's a great deal more in it than many good +folks who call themselves after the reformer seem to be aware of. The +Pope put his foot on the neck of kings, but Calvin and his cohort crushed +the whole human race under their heels in the name of the Lord of Hosts. +Now, you see, the point that people don't understand is the absolute and +utter humility of science, in opposition to this doctrinal +self-sufficiency. I don't doubt this may sound a little paradoxical at +first, but I think you will find it is all right. You remember the +courtier and the monarch,--Louis the Fourteenth, wasn't it?--never mind, +give the poor fellows that live by setting you right a chance. "What +o'clock is it?" says the king. "Just whatever o'clock your Majesty +pleases," says the courtier. I venture to say the monarch was a great +deal more humble than the follower, who pretended that his master was +superior to such trifling facts as the revolution of the planet. It was +the same thing, you remember, with King Canute and the tide on the +sea-shore. The king accepted the scientific fact of the tide's rising. +The loyal hangers-on, who believed in divine right, were too proud of the +company they found themselves in to make any such humiliating admission. +But there are people, and plenty of them, to-day, who will dispute facts +just as clear to those who have taken the pains to learn what is known +about them, as that of the tide's rising. They don't like to admit these +facts, because they throw doubt upon some of their cherished opinions. +We are getting on towards the last part of this nineteenth century. What +we have gained is not so much in positive knowledge, though that is a +good deal, as it is in the freedom of discussion of every subject that +comes within the range of observation and inference. How long is it +since Mrs. Piozzi wrote,--"Let me hope that you will not pursue geology +till it leads you into doubts destructive of all comfort in this world +and all happiness in the next"? + +The Master paused and I remained silent, for I was thinking things I +could not say. + +--It is well always to have a woman near by when one is talking on this +class of subjects. Whether there will be three or four women to one man +in heaven is a question which I must leave to those who talk as if they +knew all about the future condition of the race to answer. But very +certainly there is much more of hearty faith, much more of spiritual +life, among women than among men, in this world. They need faith to +support them more than men do, for they have a great deal less to call +them out of themselves, and it comes easier to them, for their habitual +state of dependence teaches them to trust in others. When they become +voters, if they ever do, it may be feared that the pews will lose what +the ward-rooms gain. Relax a woman's hold on man, and her knee-joints +will soon begin to stiffen. Self-assertion brings out many fine +qualities, but it does not promote devotional habits. + +I remember some such thoughts as this were passing through my mind while +the Master was talking. I noticed that the Lady was listening to the +conversation with a look of more than usual interest. We men have the +talk mostly to ourselves at this table; the Master, as you have found +out, is fond of monologues, and I myself--well, I suppose I must own to a +certain love for the reverberated music of my own accents; at any rate, +the Master and I do most of the talking. But others help us do the +listening. I think I can show that they listen to some purpose. I am +going to surprise my reader with a letter which I received very shortly +after the conversation took place which I have just reported. It is of +course by a special license, such as belongs to the supreme prerogative +of an author, that I am enabled to present it to him. He need ask no +questions: it is not his affair how I obtained the right to give +publicity to a private communication. I have become somewhat more +intimately acquainted with the writer of it than in the earlier period of +my connection with this establishment, and I think I may say have gained +her confidence to a very considerable degree. + +MY DEAR SIR: The conversations I have had with you, limited as they have +been, have convinced me that I am quite safe in addressing you with +freedom on a subject which interests me, and others more than myself. We +at our end of the table have been listening, more or less intelligently, +to the discussions going on between two or three of you gentlemen on +matters of solemn import to us all. This is nothing very new to me. I +have been used, from an early period of my life, to hear the discussion +of grave questions, both in politics and religion. I have seen gentlemen +at my father's table get as warm over a theological point of dispute as +in talking over their political differences. I rather think it has +always been very much so, in bad as well as in good company; for you +remember how Milton's fallen angels amused themselves with disputing on +"providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate," and it was the same thing in +that club Goldsmith writes so pleasantly about. Indeed, why should not +people very often come, in the course of conversation, to the one subject +which lies beneath all else about which our thoughts are occupied? And +what more natural than that one should be inquiring about what another +has accepted and ceased to have any doubts concerning? It seems to me +all right that at the proper time, in the proper place, those who are +less easily convinced than their neighbors should have the fullest +liberty of calling to account all the opinions which others receive +without question. Somebody must stand sentry at the outposts of belief, +and it is a sentry's business, I believe, to challenge every one who +comes near him, friend or foe. + +I want you to understand fully that I am not one of those poor nervous +creatures who are frightened out of their wits when any question is +started that implies the disturbance of their old beliefs. I manage to +see some of the periodicals, and now and then dip a little way into a new +book which deals with these curious questions you were talking about, and +others like them. You know they find their way almost everywhere. They +do not worry me in the least. When I was a little girl, they used to say +that if you put a horsehair into a tub of water it would turn into a +snake in the course of a few days. That did not seem to me so very much +stranger than it was that an egg should turn into a chicken. What can I +say to that? Only that it is the Lord's doings, and marvellous in my +eyes; and if our philosophical friend should find some little live +creatures, or what seem to be live creatures, in any of his messes, I +should say as much, and no more. You do not think I would shut up my +Bible and Prayer-Book because there is one more thing I do not understand +in a world where I understand so very little of all the wonders that +surround me? + +It may be very wrong to pay any attention to those speculations about the +origin of mankind which seem to conflict with the Sacred Record. But +perhaps there is some way of reconciling them, as there is of making the +seven days of creation harmonize with modern geology. At least, these +speculations are curious enough in themselves; and I have seen so many +good and handsome children come of parents who were anything but virtuous +and comely, that I can believe in almost any amount of improvement taking +place in a tribe of living beings, if time and opportunity favor it. I +have read in books of natural history that dogs came originally from +wolves. When I remember my little Flora, who, as I used to think, could +do everything but talk, it does not seem to me that she was much nearer +her savage ancestors than some of the horrid cannibal wretches are to +their neighbors the great apes. + +You see that I am tolerably liberal in my habit of looking at all these +questions. We women drift along with the current of the times, +listening, in our quiet way, to the discussions going on round us in +books and in conversation, and shift the phrases in which we think and +talk with something of the same ease as that with which we change our +style of dress from year to year. I doubt if you of the other sex know +what an effect this habit of accommodating our tastes to changing +standards has upon us. Nothing is fixed in them, as you know; the very +law of fashion is change. I suspect we learn from our dressmakers to +shift the costume of our minds, and slip on the new fashions of thinking +all the more easily because we have been accustomed to new styles of +dressing every season. + +It frightens me to see how much I have written without having yet said a +word of what I began this letter on purpose to say. I have taken so much +space in "defining my position," to borrow the politicians' phrase, that +I begin to fear you will be out of patience before you come to the part +of my letter I care most about your reading. + +What I want to say is this. When these matters are talked about before +persons of different ages and various shades of intelligence, I think one +ought to be very careful that his use of language does not injure the +sensibilities, perhaps blunt the reverential feelings, of those who are +listening to him. You of the sterner sex say that we women have +intuitions, but not logic, as our birthright. I shall not commit my sex +by conceding this to be true as a whole, but I will accept the first half +of it, and I will go so far as to say that we do not always care to +follow out a train of thought until it ends in a blind cul de sac, as +some of what are called the logical people are fond of doing. + +Now I want to remind you that religion is not a matter of intellectual +luxury to those of us who are interested in it, but something very +different. It is our life, and more than our life; for that is measured +by pulse-beats, but our religious consciousness partakes of the Infinite, +towards which it is constantly yearning. It is very possible that a +hundred or five hundred years from now the forms of religious belief may +be so altered that we should hardly know them. But the sense of +dependence on Divine influence and the need of communion with the unseen +and eternal will be then just what they are now. It is not the +geologist's hammer, or the astronomer's telescope, or the naturalist's +microscope, that is going to take away the need of the human soul for +that Rock to rest upon which is higher than itself, that Star which never +sets, that all-pervading Presence which gives life to all the least +moving atoms of the immeasurable universe. + +I have no fears for myself, and listen very quietly to all your debates. +I go from your philosophical discussions to the reading of Jeremy +Taylor's "Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying" without feeling that I have +unfitted myself in the least degree for its solemn reflections. And, as +I have mentioned his name, I cannot help saying that I do not believe +that good man himself would have ever shown the bitterness to those who +seem to be at variance with the received doctrines which one may see in +some of the newspapers that call themselves "religious." I have kept a +few old books from my honored father's library, and among them is another +of his which I always thought had more true Christianity in its title +than there is in a good many whole volumes. I am going to take the book +down, or up,--for it is not a little one,--and write out the title, +which, I dare say, you remember, and very likely you have the book. +"Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying, showing the Unreasonableness of +prescribing to other Men's Faith, and the Iniquity of persecuting +Different Opinions." + +Now, my dear sir, I am sure you believe that I want to be liberal and +reasonable, and not to act like those weak alarmists who, whenever the +silly sheep begin to skip as if something was after them, and huddle +together in their fright, are sure there must be a bear or a lion coming +to eat them up. But for all that, I want to beg you to handle some of +these points, which are so involved in the creed of a good many +well-intentioned persons that you cannot separate them from it without +picking their whole belief to pieces, with more thought for them than you +might think at first they were entitled to. I have no doubt you +gentlemen are as wise as serpents, and I want you to be as harmless as +doves. + +The Young Girl who sits by me has, I know, strong religious instincts. +Instead of setting her out to ask all sorts of questions, I would rather, +if I had my way, encourage her to form a habit of attending to religious +duties, and make the most of the simple faith in which she was bred. I +think there are a good many questions young persons may safely postpone +to a more convenient season; and as this young creature is overworked, I +hate to have her excited by the fever of doubt which it cannot be denied +is largely prevailing in our time. + +I know you must have looked on our other young friend, who has devoted +himself to the sublimest of the sciences, with as much interest as I do. +When I was a little girl I used to write out a line of Young's as a copy +in my writing-book, + + "An undevout astronomer is mad"; + +but I do not now feel quite so sure that the contemplation of all the +multitude of remote worlds does not tend to weaken the idea of a personal +Deity. It is not so much that nebular theory which worries me, when I +think about this subject, as a kind of bewilderment when I try to +conceive of a consciousness filling all those frightful blanks of space +they talk about. I sometimes doubt whether that young man worships +anything but the stars. They tell me that many young students of science +like him never see the inside of a church. I cannot help wishing they +did. It humanizes people, quite apart from any higher influence it +exerts upon them. One reason, perhaps, why they do not care to go to +places of worship is that they are liable to hear the questions they know +something about handled in sermons by those who know very much less about +them. And so they lose a great deal. Almost every human being, however +vague his notions of the Power addressed, is capable of being lifted and +solemnized by the exercise of public prayer. When I was a young girl we +travelled in Europe, and I visited Ferney with my parents; and I remember +we all stopped before a chapel, and I read upon its front, I knew Latin +enough to understand it, I am pleased to say,--Deo erexit Voltaire. I +never forgot it; and knowing what a sad scoffer he was at most sacred +things, I could not but be impressed with the fact that even he was not +satisfied with himself, until he had shown his devotion in a public and +lasting form. + +We all want religion sooner or later. I am afraid there are some who +have no natural turn for it, as there are persons without an ear for +music, to which, if I remember right, I heard one of you comparing what +you called religious genius. But sorrow and misery bring even these to +know what it means, in a great many instances. May I not say to you, my +friend, that I am one who has learned the secret of the inner life by the +discipline of trials in the life of outward circumstance? I can remember +the time when I thought more about the shade of color in a ribbon, +whether it matched my complexion or not, than I did about my spiritual +interests in this world or the next. It was needful that I should learn +the meaning of that text, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." + +Since I have been taught in the school of trial I have felt, as I never +could before, how precious an inheritance is the smallest patrimony of +faith. When everything seemed gone from me, I found I had still one +possession. The bruised reed that I had never leaned on became my staff. +The smoking flax which had been a worry to my eyes burst into flame, and +I lighted the taper at it which has since guided all my footsteps. And I +am but one of the thousands who have had the same experience. They have +been through the depths of affliction, and know the needs of the human +soul. It will find its God in the unseen,--Father, Saviour, Divine +Spirit, Virgin Mother, it must and will breathe its longings and its +griefs into the heart of a Being capable of understanding all its +necessities and sympathizing with all its woes. + +I am jealous, yes, I own I am jealous of any word, spoken or written, +that would tend to impair that birthright of reverence which becomes for +so many in after years the basis of a deeper religious sentiment. And +yet, as I have said, I cannot and will not shut my eyes to the problems +which may seriously affect our modes of conceiving the eternal truths on +which, and by which, our souls must live. What a fearful time is this +into which we poor sensitive and timid creatures are born! I suppose the +life of every century has more or less special resemblance to that of +some particular Apostle. I cannot help thinking this century has Thomas +for its model. How do you suppose the other Apostles felt when that +experimental philosopher explored the wounds of the Being who to them was +divine with his inquisitive forefinger? In our time that finger has +multiplied itself into ten thousand thousand implements of research, +challenging all mysteries, weighing the world as in a balance, and +sifting through its prisms and spectroscopes the light that comes from +the throne of the Eternal. + +Pity us, dear Lord, pity us! The peace in believing which belonged to +other ages is not for us. Again Thy wounds are opened that we may know +whether it is the blood of one like ourselves which flows from them, or +whether it is a Divinity that is bleeding for His creatures. Wilt Thou +not take the doubt of Thy children whom the time commands to try all +things in the place of the unquestioning faith of earlier and +simpler-hearted generations? We too have need of Thee. Thy martyrs in +other ages were cast into the flames, but no fire could touch their +immortal and indestructible faith. We sit in safety and in peace, so far +as these poor bodies are concerned; but our cherished beliefs, the hopes, +the trust that stayed the hearts of those we loved who have gone before +us, are cast into the fiery furnace of an age which is fast turning to +dross the certainties and the sanctities once prized as our most precious +inheritance. You will understand me, my dear sir, and all my solicitudes +and apprehensions. Had I never been assailed by the questions that meet +all thinking persons in our time, I might not have thought so anxiously +about the risk of perplexing others. I know as well as you must that +there are many articles of belief clinging to the skirts of our time +which are the bequests of the ages of ignorance that God winked at. But +for all that I would train a child in the nurture and admonition of the +Lord, according to the simplest and best creed I could disentangle from +those barbarisms, and I would in every way try to keep up in young +persons that standard of reverence for all sacred subjects which may, +without any violent transition, grow and ripen into the devotion of later +years. Believe me, + +Very sincerely yours, + +I have thought a good deal about this letter and the writer of it lately. +She seemed at first removed to a distance from all of us, but here I find +myself in somewhat near relations with her. What has surprised me more +than that, however, is to find that she is becoming so much acquainted +with the Register of Deeds. Of all persons in the world, I should least +have thought of him as like to be interested in her, and still less, if +possible, of her fancying him. I can only say they have been in pretty +close conversation several times of late, and, if I dared to think it of +so very calm and dignified a personage, I should say that her color was a +little heightened after one or more of these interviews. No! that would +be too absurd! But I begin to think nothing is absurd in the matter of +the relations of the two sexes; and if this high-bred woman fancies the +attentions of a piece of human machinery like this elderly individual, it +is none of my business. + +I have been at work on some more of the Young Astronomer's lines. I find +less occasion for meddling with them as he grows more used to +versification. I think I could analyze the processes going on in his +mind, and the conflict of instincts which he cannot in the nature of +things understand. But it is as well to give the reader a chance to find +out for himself what is going on in the young man's heart and intellect. + + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. + + III + + The snows that glittered on the disk of Mars + Have melted, and the planet's fiery orb + Rolls in the crimson summer of its year; + But what to me the summer or the snow + Of worlds that throb with life in forms unknown, + If life indeed be theirs; I heed not these. + My heart is simply human; all my care + For them whose dust is fashioned like mine own; + These ache with cold and hunger, live in pain, + And shake with fear of worlds more full of woe; + There may be others worthier of my love, + But such I know not save through these I know. + + There are two veils of language, hid beneath + Whose sheltering folds, we dare to be ourselves; + And not that other self which nods and smiles + And babbles in our name; the one is Prayer, + Lending its licensed freedom to the tongue + That tells our sorrows and our sins to Heaven; + The other, Verse, that throws its spangled web + Around our naked speech and makes it bold. + I, whose best prayer is silence; sitting dumb + In the great temple where I nightly serve + Him who is throned in light, have dared to claim + The poet's franchise, though I may not hope + To wear his garland; hear me while I tell + My story in such form as poets use, + But breathed in fitful whispers, as the wind + Sighs and then slumbers, wakes and sighs again. + + Thou Vision, floating in the breathless air + Between me and the fairest of the stars, + I tell my lonely thoughts as unto thee. + Look not for marvels of the scholar's pen + In my rude measure; I can only show + A slender-margined, unillumined page, + And trust its meaning to the flattering eye + That reads it in the gracious light of love. + Ah, wouldst thou clothe thyself in breathing shape + And nestle at my side, my voice should lend + Whate'er my verse may lack of tender rhythm + To make thee listen. + + I have stood entranced + When, with her fingers wandering o'er the keys, + The white enchantress with the golden hair + Breathed all her soul through some unvalued rhyme; + Some flower of song that long had lost its bloom; + Lo! its dead summer kindled as she sang! + The sweet contralto, like the ringdove's coo, + Thrilled it with brooding, fond, caressing tones, + And the pale minstrel's passion lived again, + Tearful and trembling as a dewy rose + The wind has shaken till it fills the air + With light and fragrance. Such the wondrous charm + A song can borrow when the bosom throbs + That lends it breath. + + So from the poet's lips + His verse sounds doubly sweet, for none like him + Feels every cadence of its wave-like flow; + He lives the passion over, while he reads, + That shook him as he sang his lofty strain, + And pours his life through each resounding line, + As ocean, when the stormy winds are hushed, + Still rolls and thunders through his billowy caves. + + Let me retrace the record of the years + That made me what I am. A man most wise, + But overworn with toil and bent with age, + Sought me to be his scholar,--me, run wild + From books and teachers,--kindled in my soul + The love of knowledge; led me to his tower, + Showed me the wonders of the midnight realm + His hollow sceptre ruled, or seemed to rule, + Taught me the mighty secrets of the spheres, + Trained me to find the glimmering specks of light + Beyond the unaided sense, and on my chart + To string them one by one, in order due, + As on a rosary a saint his beads. + + I was his only scholar; I became + The echo to his thought; whate'er he knew + Was mine for asking; so from year to year + We wrought together, till there came a time + When I, the learner, was the master half + Of the twinned being in the dome-crowned tower. + + Minds roll in paths like planets; they revolve + This in a larger, that a narrower ring, + But round they come at last to that same phase, + That self-same light and shade they showed before. + I learned his annual and his monthly tale, + His weekly axiom and his daily phrase, + I felt them coming in the laden air, + And watched them laboring up to vocal breath, + Even as the first-born at his father's board + Knows ere he speaks the too familiar jest + Is on its way, by some mysterious sign + Forewarned, the click before the striking bell. + + He shrivelled as I spread my growing leaves, + Till trust and reverence changed to pitying care; + He lived for me in what he once had been, + But I for him, a shadow, a defence, + The guardian of his fame, his guide, his staff, + Leaned on so long he fell if left alone. + I was his eye, his ear, his cunning hand, + Love was my spur and longing after fame, + But his the goading thorn of sleepless age + That sees its shortening span, its lengthening shades, + That clutches what it may with eager grasp, + And drops at last with empty, outstretched hands. + + All this he dreamed not. He would sit him down + Thinking to work his problems as of old, + And find the star he thought so plain a blur, + The columned figures labyrinthine wilds + Without my comment, blind and senseless scrawls + That vexed him with their riddles; he would strive + And struggle for a while, and then his eye + Would lose its light, and over all his mind + The cold gray mist would settle; and erelong + The darkness fell, and I was left alone. + + Alone! no climber of an Alpine cliff, + No Arctic venturer on the waveless sea, + Feels the dread stillness round him as it chills + The heart of him who leaves the slumbering earth + To watch the silent worlds that crowd the sky. + + Alone! And as the shepherd leaves his flock + To feed upon the hillside, he meanwhile + Finds converse in the warblings of the pipe + Himself has fashioned for his vacant hour, + So have I grown companion to myself, + And to the wandering spirits of the air + That smile and whisper round us in our dreams. + Thus have I learned to search if I may know + The whence and why of all beneath the stars + And all beyond them, and to weigh my life + As in a balance, poising good and ill + Against each other,-asking of the Power + That flung me forth among the whirling worlds, + If I am heir to any inborn right, + Or only as an atom of the dust + That every wind may blow where'er it will. + + I am not humble; I was shown my place, + Clad in such robes as Nature had at hand; + Took what she gave, not chose; I know no shame, + No fear for being simply what I am. + I am not proud, I hold my every breath + At Nature's mercy. I am as a babe + Borne in a giant's arms, he knows not where; + Each several heart-beat, counted like the coin + A miser reckons, is a special gift + As from an unseen hand; if that withhold + Its bounty for a moment, I am left + A clod upon the earth to which I fall. + + Something I find in me that well might claim + The love of beings in a sphere above + This doubtful twilight world of right and wrong; + Something that shows me of the self-same clay + That creeps or swims or flies in humblest form. + Had I been asked, before I left my bed + Of shapeless dust, what clothing I would wear, + I would have said, More angel and less worm; + But for their sake who are even such as I, + Of the same mingled blood, I would not choose + To hate that meaner portion of myself + Which makes me brother to the least of men. + + I dare not be a coward with my lips + Who dare to question all things in my soul; + Some men may find their wisdom on their knees, + Some prone and grovelling in the dust like slaves; + Let the meek glow-worm glisten in the dew; + I ask to lift my taper to the sky + As they who hold their lamps above their heads, + Trusting the larger currents up aloft, + Rather than crossing eddies round their breast, + Threatening with every puff the flickering blaze. + + My life shall be a challenge, not a truce! + This is my homage to the mightier powers, + To ask my boldest question, undismayed + By muttered threats that some hysteric sense + Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne + Where wisdom reigns supreme; and if I err, + They all must err who have to feel their way + As bats that fly at noon; for what are we + But creatures of the night, dragged forth by day, + Who needs must stumble, and with stammering steps + Spell out their paths in syllables of pain? + + Thou wilt not hold in scorn the child who dares + Look up to Thee, the Father,--dares to ask + More than Thy wisdom answers. From Thy hand + The worlds were cast; yet every leaflet claims + From that same hand its little shining sphere + Of star-lit dew; thine image, the great sun, + Girt with his mantle of tempestuous flame, + + Glares in mid-heaven; but to his noontide blaze + The slender violet lifts its lidless eye, + And from his splendor steals its fairest hue, + Its sweetest perfume from his scorching fire. + +I may just as well stop here as anywhere, for there is more of the +manuscript to come, and I can only give it in instalments. + +The Young Astronomer had told me I might read any portions of his +manuscript I saw fit to certain friends. I tried this last extract on +the old Master. + +It's the same story we all have to tell,--said he, when I had done +reading.---We are all asking questions nowadays. I should like to hear +him read some of his verses himself, and I think some of the other +boarders would like to. I wonder if he wouldn't do it, if we asked him! +Poets read their own compositions in a singsong sort of way; but they do +seem to love 'em so, that I always enjoy it. It makes me laugh a little +inwardly to see how they dandle their poetical babies, but I don't let +them know it. We must get up a select party of the boarders to hear him +read. We'll send him a regular invitation. I will put my name at the +head of it, and you shall write it. + +--That was neatly done. How I hate writing such things! But I suppose I +must do it. + + + + +VIII + +The Master and I had been thinking for some time of trying to get the +Young Astronomer round to our side of the table. There are many subjects +on which both of us like to talk with him, and it would be convenient to +have him nearer to us. How to manage it was not quite so clear as it +might have been. The Scarabee wanted to sit with his back to the light, +as it was in his present position. He used his eyes so much in studying +minute objects, that he wished to spare them all fatigue, and did not +like facing a window. Neither of us cared to ask the Man of Letters, so +called, to change his place, and of course we could not think of making +such a request of the Young Girl or the Lady. So we were at a stand with +reference to this project of ours. + +But while we were proposing, Fate or Providence disposed everything for +us. The Man of Letters, so called, was missing one morning, having +folded his tent--that is, packed his carpet-bag--with the silence of the +Arabs, and encamped--that is, taken lodgings--in some locality which he +had forgotten to indicate. + +The Landlady bore this sudden bereavement remarkably well. Her remarks +and reflections; though borrowing the aid of homely imagery and doing +occasional violence to the nicer usages of speech, were not without +philosophical discrimination. + +--I like a gentleman that is a gentleman. But there's a difference in +what folks call gentlemen as there is in what you put on table. There is +cabbages and there is cauliflowers. There is clams and there is oysters. +There is mackerel and there is salmon. And there is some that knows the +difference and some that doos n't. I had a little account with that +boarder that he forgot to settle before he went off, so all of a suddin. +I sha'n't say anything about it. I've seen the time when I should have +felt bad about losing what he owed me, but it was no great matter; and if +he 'll only stay away now he 's gone, I can stand losing it, and not cry +my eyes out nor lay awake all night neither. I never had ought to have +took him. Where he come from and where he's gone to is unbeknown to me. +If he'd only smoked good tobacco, I wouldn't have said a word; but it was +such dreadful stuff, it 'll take a week to get his chamber sweet enough +to show them that asks for rooms. It doos smell like all possest. + +--Left any goods?--asked the Salesman. + +--Or dockermunts?--added the Member of the Haouse. + +The Landlady answered with a faded smile, which implied that there was no +hope in that direction. Dr. Benjamin, with a sudden recurrence of +youthful feeling, made a fan with the fingers of his right hand, the +second phalanx of the thumb resting on the tip of the nose, and the +remaining digits diverging from each other, in the plane of the median +line of the face,--I suppose this is the way he would have described the +gesture, which is almost a specialty of the Parisian gamin. That Boy +immediately copied it, and added greatly to its effect by extending the +fingers of the other hand in a line with those of the first, and +vigorously agitating those of the two hands,--a gesture which acts like +a puncture on the distended self-esteem of one to whom it is addressed, +and cheapens the memory of the absent to a very low figure. + +I wish the reader to observe that I treasure up with interest all the +words uttered by the Salesman. It must have been noticed that he very +rarely speaks. Perhaps he has an inner life, with its own deep +emotional, and lofty contemplative elements, but as we see him, he is the +boarder reduced to the simplest expression of that term. Yet, like most +human creatures, he has generic and specific characters not unworthy of +being studied. I notice particularly a certain electrical briskness of +movement, such as one may see in a squirrel, which clearly belongs to his +calling. The dry-goodsman's life behind his counter is a succession of +sudden, snappy perceptions and brief series of coordinate spasms; as +thus: + +"Purple calico, three quarters wide, six yards." + +Up goes the arm; bang! tumbles out the flat roll and turns half a dozen +somersets, as if for the fun of the thing; the six yards of calico hurry +over the measuring nails, hunching their backs up, like six cankerworms; +out jump the scissors; snip, clip, rip; the stuff is wisped up, +brown--papered, tied, labelled, delivered, and the man is himself again, +like a child just come out of a convulsion-fit. Think of a man's having +some hundreds of these semi-epileptic seizures every day, and you need +not wonder that he does not say much; these fits take the talk all out of +him. + +But because he, or any other man, does not say much, it does not follow +that he may not have, as I have said, an exalted and intense inner life. +I have known a number of cases where a man who seemed thoroughly +commonplace and unemotional has all at once surprised everybody by +telling the story of his hidden life far more pointedly and dramatically +than any playwright or novelist or poet could have told it for him. I +will not insult your intelligence, Beloved, by saying how he has told it. + +--We had been talking over the subjects touched upon in the Lady's +letter. + +--I suppose one man in a dozen--said the Master--ought to be born a +skeptic. That was the proportion among the Apostles, at any rate. + +--So there was one Judas among them,--I remarked. + +--Well,--said the Master,--they 've been whitewashing Judas of late. But +never mind him. I did not say there was not one rogue on the average +among a dozen men. I don't see how that would interfere with my +proposition. If I say that among a dozen men you ought to find one that +weighs over a hundred and fifty pounds, and you tell me that there were +twelve men in your club, and one of 'em had red hair, I don't see that +you have materially damaged my statement. + +--I thought it best to let the old Master have his easy victory, which +was more apparent than real, very evidently, and he went on. + +--When the Lord sends out a batch of human beings, say a hundred--Did you +ever read my book, the new edition of it, I mean? + +It is rather awkward to answer such a question in the negative, but I +said, with the best grace I could, "No, not the last edition." + +--Well, I must give you a copy of it. My book and I are pretty much the +same thing. Sometimes I steal from my book in my talk without mentioning +it, and then I say to myself, "Oh, that won't do; everybody has read my +book and knows it by heart." And then the other I says,--you know there +are two of us, right and left, like a pair of shoes,--the other I says, +"You're a--something or other--fool. They have n't read your confounded +old book; besides, if they have, they have forgotten all about it." +Another time, I say, thinking I will be very honest, "I have said +something about that in my book"; and then the other I says, "What a +Balaam's quadruped you are to tell 'em it's in your book; they don't care +whether it is or not, if it's anything worth saying; and if it isn't +worth saying, what are you braying for?" That is a rather sensible +fellow, that other chap we talk with, but an impudent whelp. I never got +such abuse from any blackguard in my life as I have from that No. 2 of +me, the one that answers the other's questions and makes the comments, +and does what in demotic phrase is called the "sarsing." + +--I laughed at that. I have just such a fellow always with me, as wise +as Solomon, if I would only heed him; but as insolent as Shimei, cursing, +and throwing stones and dirt, and behaving as if he had the traditions of +the "ape-like human being" born with him rather than civilized instincts. +One does not have to be a king to know what it is to keep a king's +jester. + +--I mentioned my book,--the Master said, because I have something in it +on the subject we were talking about. I should like to read you a +passage here and there out of it, where I have expressed myself a little +more freely on some of those matters we handle in conversation. If you +don't quarrel with it, I must give you a copy of the book. It's a rather +serious thing to get a copy of a book from the writer of it. It has made +my adjectives sweat pretty hard, I know, to put together an answer +returning thanks and not lying beyond the twilight of veracity, if one +may use a figure. Let me try a little of my book on you, in divided +doses, as my friends the doctors say. + +-Fiat experimentum in corpore vili,--I said, laughing at my own expense. +I don't doubt the medicament is quite as good as the patient deserves, +and probably a great deal better,--I added, reinforcing my feeble +compliment. + +[When you pay a compliment to an author, don't qualify it in the next +sentence so as to take all the goodness out of it. Now I am thinking of +it, I will give you one or two pieces of advice. Be careful to assure +yourself that the person you are talking with wrote the article or book +you praise. It is not very pleasant to be told, "Well, there, now! I +always liked your writings, but you never did anything half so good as +this last piece," and then to have to tell the blunderer that this last +piece is n't yours, but t' other man's. Take care that the phrase or +sentence you commend is not one that is in quotation-marks. "The best +thing in your piece, I think, is a line I do not remember meeting before; +it struck me as very true and well expressed: + +"'An honest man's the noblest work of God.' + +"But, my dear lady, that line is one which is to be found in a writer of +the last century, and not original with me." One ought not to have +undeceived her, perhaps, but one is naturally honest, and cannot bear to +be credited with what is not his own. The lady blushes, of course, and +says she has not read much ancient literature, or some such thing. The +pearl upon the Ethiop's arm is very pretty in verse, but one does not +care to furnish the dark background for other persons' jewelry.] + +I adjourned from the table in company with the old Master to his +apartments. He was evidently in easy circumstances, for he had the best +accommodations the house afforded. We passed through a reception room to +his library, where everything showed that he had ample means for +indulging the modest tastes of a scholar. + +--The first thing, naturally, when one enters a scholar's study or +library, is to look at his books. One gets a notion very speedily of his +tastes and the range of his pursuits by a glance round his bookshelves. + +Of course, you know there are many fine houses where the library is a +part of the upholstery, so to speak. Books in handsome binding kept +locked under plate-glass in showy dwarf bookcases are as important to +stylish establishments as servants in livery; who sit with folded arms, +are to stylish equipages. I suppose those wonderful statues with the +folded arms do sometimes change their attitude, and I suppose those books +with the gilded backs do sometimes get opened, but it is nobody's +business whether they do or not, and it is not best to ask too many +questions. + +This sort of thing is common enough, but there is another case that may +prove deceptive if you undertake to judge from appearances. Once in a +while you will come on a house where you will find a family of readers +and almost no library. Some of the most indefatigable devourers of +literature have very few books. They belong to book clubs, they haunt +the public libraries, they borrow of friends, and somehow or other get +hold of everything they want, scoop out all it holds for them, and have +done with it. When I want a book, it is as a tiger wants a sheep. I +must have it with one spring, and, if I miss it, go away defeated and +hungry. And my experience with public libraries is that the first volume +of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, +when that is out. + +--I was pretty well prepared to understand the Master's library and his +account of it. We seated ourselves in two very comfortable chairs, and I +began the conversation. + +-I see you have a large and rather miscellaneous collection of books. Did +you get them together by accident or according to some preconceived plan? + +--Both, sir, both,--the Master answered. When Providence throws a good +book in my way, I bow to its decree and purchase it as an act of piety, +if it is reasonably or unreasonably cheap. I adopt a certain number of +books every year, out of a love for the foundlings and stray children of +other people's brains that nobody seems to care for. Look here. + +He took down a Greek Lexicon finely bound in calf, and spread it open. + +Do you see that Hedericus? I had Greek dictionaries enough and to spare, +but I saw that noble quarto lying in the midst of an ignoble crowd of +cheap books, and marked with a price which I felt to be an insult to +scholarship, to the memory of Homer, sir, and the awful shade of +AEschylus. I paid the mean price asked for it, and I wanted to double +it, but I suppose it would have been a foolish sacrifice of coin to +sentiment: I love that book for its looks and behavior. None of your +"half-calf" economies in that volume, sir! And see how it lies open +anywhere! There is n't a book in my library that has such a generous way +of laying its treasures before you. From Alpha to Omega, calm, assured +rest at any page that your choice or accident may light on. No lifting +of a rebellious leaf like an upstart servant that does not know his place +and can never be taught manners, but tranquil, well-bred repose. A book +may be a perfect gentleman in its aspect and demeanor, and this book +would be good company for personages like Roger Ascham and his pupils the +Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Jane Grey. + +The Master was evidently riding a hobby, and what I wanted to know was +the plan on which he had formed his library. So I brought him back to +the point by asking him the question in so many words. + +Yes,--he said,--I have a kind of notion of the way in which a library +ought to be put together--no, I don't mean that, I mean ought to grow. I +don't pretend to say that mine is a model, but it serves my turn well +enough, and it represents me pretty accurately. A scholar must shape his +own shell, secrete it one might almost say, for secretion is only +separation, you know, of certain elements derived from the materials of +the world about us. And a scholar's study, with the books lining its +walls, is his shell. It is n't a mollusk's shell, either; it 's a +caddice-worm's shell. You know about the caddice-worm? + +--More or less; less rather than more,--was my humble reply. + +Well, sir, the caddice-worm is the larva of a fly, and he makes a case +for himself out of all sorts of bits of everything that happen to suit +his particular fancy, dead or alive, sticks and stones and small shells +with their owners in 'em, living as comfortable as ever. Every one of +these caddice-worms has his special fancy as to what he will pick up and +glue together, with a kind of natural cement he provides himself, to make +his case out of. In it he lives, sticking his head and shoulders out +once in a while, that is all. Don't you see that a student in his +library is a caddice-worm in his case? I've told you that I take an +interest in pretty much everything, and don't mean to fence out any human +interests from the private grounds of my intelligence. Then, again, +there is a subject, perhaps I may say there is more than one, that I want +to exhaust, to know to the very bottom. And besides, of course I must +have my literary harem, my pare aux cerfs, where my favorites await my +moments of leisure and pleasure,--my scarce and precious editions, my +luxurious typographical masterpieces; my Delilahs, that take my head in +their lap: the pleasant story-tellers and the like; the books I love +because they are fair to look upon, prized by collectors, endeared by old +associations, secret treasures that nobody else knows anything about; +books, in short, that I like for insufficient reasons it may be, but +peremptorily, and mean to like and to love and to cherish till death us +do part. + +Don't you see I have given you a key to the way my library is made up, so +that you can apriorize the plan according to which I have filled my +bookcases? I will tell you how it is carried out. + +In the first place, you see, I have four extensive cyclopaedias. Out of +these I can get information enough to serve my immediate purpose on +almost any subject. These, of course, are supplemented by geographical, +biographical, bibliographical, and other dictionaries, including of +course lexicons to all the languages I ever meddle with. Next to these +come the works relating to my one or two specialties, and these +collections I make as perfect as I can. Every library should try to be +complete on something, if it were only on the history of pin-heads. I +don't mean that I buy all the trashy compilations on my special subjects, +but I try to have all the works of any real importance relating to them, +old as well as new. In the following compartment you will find the great +authors in all the languages I have mastered, from Homer and Hesiod +downward to the last great English name. + +This division, you see, you can make almost as extensive or as limited as +you choose. You can crowd the great representative writers into a small +compass; or you can make a library consisting only of the different +editions of Horace, if you have space and money enough. Then comes the +Harem, the shelf or the bookcase of Delilahs, that you have paid wicked +prices for, that you love without pretending to be reasonable about it, +and would bag in case of fire before all the rest, just as Mr. Townley +took the Clytie to his carriage when the anti-Catholic mob threatened his +house in 1780. As for the foundlings like my Hedericus, they go among +their peers; it is a pleasure to take them, from the dusty stall where +they were elbowed by plebeian school-books and battered odd volumes, and +give them Alduses and Elzevirs for companions. + +Nothing remains but the Infirmary. The most painful subjects are the +unfortunates that have lost a cover. Bound a hundred years ago, perhaps, +and one of the rich old browned covers gone--what a pity! Do you know +what to do about it? I 'll tell you,--no, I 'll show you. Look at this +volume. M. T. Ciceronis Opera,--a dozen of 'em,--one of 'em minus half +his cover, a poor one-legged cripple, six months ago,--now see him. + +--He looked very respectably indeed, both covers dark, ancient, very +decently matched; one would hardly notice the fact that they were not +twins. + +-I 'll tell you what I did. You poor devil, said I, you are a disgrace +to your family. We must send you to a surgeon and have some kind of a +Taliacotian operation performed on you. (You remember the operation as +described in Hudibras, of course.) The first thing was to find a subject +of similar age and aspect ready to part with one of his members. So I +went to Quidlibet's,--you know Quidlibet and that hieroglyphic sign of +his with the omniscient-looking eye as its most prominent feature,--and +laid my case before him. I want you, said I, to look up an old book of +mighty little value,--one of your ten-cent vagabonds would be the sort of +thing,--but an old beggar, with a cover like this, and lay it by for me. + +And Quidlibet, who is a pleasant body to deal with,--only he has insulted +one or two gentlemanly books by selling them to me at very low-bred and +shamefully insufficient prices,--Quidlibet, I say, laid by three old +books for me to help myself from, and did n't take the trouble even to +make me pay the thirty cents for 'em. Well, said I to myself, let us +look at our three books that have undergone the last insult short of the +trunkmaker's or the paper-mills, and see what they are. There may be +something worth looking at in one or the other of 'em. + +Now do you know it was with a kind of a tremor that I untied the package +and looked at these three unfortunates, too humble for the companionable +dime to recognize as its equal in value. The same sort of feeling you +know if you ever tried the Bible-and-key, or the Sortes Virgiliance. I +think you will like to know what the three books were which had been +bestowed upon me gratis, that I might tear away one of the covers of the +one that best matched my Cicero, and give it to the binder to cobble my +crippled volume with. + +The Master took the three books from a cupboard and continued. + +No. I. An odd volume of The Adventurer. It has many interesting things +enough, but is made precious by containing Simon Browne's famous +Dedication to the Queen of his Answer to Tindal's "Christianity as old as +the Creation." Simon Browne was the Man without a Soul. An excellent +person, a most worthy dissenting minister, but lying under a strange +delusion. + +Here is a paragraph from his Dedication: + +"He was once a man; and of some little name; but of no worth, as his +present unparalleled case makes but too manifest; for by the immediate +hand of an avenging GOD, his very thinking substance has, for more than +seven years, been continually wasting away, till it is wholly perished +out of him, if it be not utterly come to nothing. None, no, not the least +remembrance of its very ruins, remains, not the shadow of an idea is +left, nor any sense that so much as one single one, perfect or imperfect, +whole or diminished, ever did appear to a mind within him, or was +perceived by it." + +Think of this as the Dedication of a book "universally allowed to be the +best which that controversy produced," and what a flood of light it pours +on the insanities of those self-analyzing diarists whose morbid reveries +have been so often mistaken for piety! No. I. had something for me, +then, besides the cover, which was all it claimed to have worth offering. + +No. II. was "A View of Society and Manners in Italy." Vol. III. By John +Moore, M. D. (Zeluco Moore.) You know his pleasant book. In this +particular volume what interested me most, perhaps, was the very spirited +and intelligent account of the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood +of Saint Januarius, but it gave me an hour's mighty agreeable reading. +So much for Number Two. + +No. III. was "An ESSAY On the Great EFFECTS of Even Languid and Unheeded +LOCAL MOTION." By the Hon. Robert Boyle. Published in 1685, and, as +appears from other sources, "received with great and general applause." +I confess I was a little startled to find how near this earlier +philosopher had come to the modern doctrines, such as are illustrated in +Tyndall's "Heat considered as a Mode of Motion." He speaks of "Us, who +endeavor to resolve the Phenomena of Nature into Matter and Local +motion." That sounds like the nineteenth century, but what shall we say +to this? "As when a bar of iron or silver, having been well hammered, is +newly taken off of the anvil; though the eye can discern no motion in it, +yet the touch will readily perceive it to be very hot, and if you spit +upon it, the brisk agitation of the insensible parts will become visible +in that which they will produce in the liquor." He takes a bar of tin, +and tries whether by bending it to and fro two or three times he cannot +"procure a considerable internal commotion among the parts "; and having +by this means broken or cracked it in the middle, finds, as he expected, +that the middle parts had considerably heated each other. There are many +other curious and interesting observations in the volume which I should +like to tell you of, but these will serve my purpose. + +--Which book furnished you the old cover you wanted?--said I. + +--Did he kill the owl?--said the Master, laughing. [I suppose you, the +reader, know the owl story.]--It was Number Two that lent me one of his +covers. Poor wretch! He was one of three, and had lost his two +brothers. From him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath. +The Scripture had to be fulfilled in his case. But I couldn't help +saying to myself, What do you keep writing books for, when the stalls are +covered all over with 'em, good books, too, that nobody will give ten +cents apiece for, lying there like so many dead beasts of burden, of no +account except to strip off their hides? What is the use, I say? I have +made a book or two in my time, and I am making another that perhaps will +see the light one of these days. But if I had my life to live over again, +I think I should go in for silence, and get as near to Nirvana as I +could. This language is such a paltry tool! The handle of it cuts and +the blade doesn't. You muddle yourself by not knowing what you mean by a +word, and send out your unanswered riddles and rebuses to clear up other +people's difficulties. It always seems to me that talk is a ripple and +thought is a ground swell. A string of words, that mean pretty much +anything, helps you in a certain sense to get hold of a thought, just as +a string of syllables that mean nothing helps you to a word; but it's a +poor business, it's a poor business, and the more you study definition +the more you find out how poor it is. Do you know I sometimes think our +little entomological neighbor is doing a sounder business than we people +that make books about ourselves and our slippery abstractions? A man can +see the spots on a bug and count 'em, and tell what their color is, and +put another bug alongside of him and see whether the two are alike or +different. And when he uses a word he knows just what he means. There +is no mistake as to the meaning and identity of pulex irritans, confound +him! + +--What if we should look in, some day, on the Scarabeeist, as he calls +himself?--said I.---The fact is the Master had got agoing at such a rate +that I was willing to give a little turn to the conversation. + +--Oh, very well,--said the Master,--I had some more things to say, but I +don't doubt they'll keep. And besides, I take an interest in entomology, +and have my own opinion on the meloe question. + +--You don't mean to say you have studied insects as well as solar systems +and the order of things generally? + +--He looked pleased. All philosophers look pleased when people say to +them virtually, "Ye are gods." The Master says he is vain +constitutionally, and thanks God that he is. I don't think he has enough +vanity to make a fool of himself with it, but the simple truth is he +cannot help knowing that he has a wide and lively intelligence, and it +pleases him to know it, and to be reminded of it, especially in an +oblique and tangential sort of way, so as not to look like downright +flattery. + +Yes, yes, I have amused a summer or two with insects, among other things. +I described a new tabanus,--horsefly, you know,--which, I think, had +escaped notice. I felt as grand when I showed up my new discovery as if +I had created the beast. I don't doubt Herschel felt as if he had made a +planet when he first showed the astronomers Georgium Sidus, as he called +it. And that reminds me of something. I was riding on the outside of a +stagecoach from London to Windsor in the year--never mind the year, but +it must have been in June, I suppose, for I bought some strawberries. +England owes me a sixpence with interest from date, for I gave the woman +a shilling, and the coach contrived to start or the woman timed it so +that I just missed getting my change. What an odd thing memory is, to be +sure, to have kept such a triviality, and have lost so much that was +invaluable! She is a crazy wench, that Mnemosyne; she throws her jewels +out of the window and locks up straws and old rags in her strong box. + +[De profundis! said I to myself, the bottom of the bushel has dropped +out! Sancta--Maria, ora pro nobis!] + +--But as I was saying, I was riding on the outside of a stage-coach from +London to Windsor, when all at once a picture familiar to me from my New +England village childhood came upon me like a reminiscence rather than a +revelation. It was a mighty bewilderment of slanted masts and spars and +ladders and ropes, from the midst of which a vast tube, looking as if it +might be a piece of ordnance such as the revolted angels battered the +walls of Heaven with, according to Milton, lifted its muzzle defiantly +towards the sky. Why, you blessed old rattletrap, said I to myself, I +know you as well as I know my father's spectacles and snuff-box! And +that same crazy witch of a Memory, so divinely wise and foolish, travels +thirty-five hundred miles or so in a single pulse-beat, makes straight +for an old house and an old library and an old corner of it, and whisks +out a volume of an old cyclopaedia, and there is the picture of which +this is the original. Sir William Herschel's great telescope! It was +just about as big, as it stood there by the roadside, as it was in the +picture, not much different any way. Why should it be? The pupil of +your eye is only a gimlet-hole, not so very much bigger than the eye of a +sail-needle, and a camel has to go through it before you can see him. +You look into a stereoscope and think you see a miniature of a building +or a mountain; you don't, you 're made a fool of by your lying +intelligence, as you call it; you see the building and the mountain just +as large as with your naked eye looking straight at the real objects. +Doubt it, do you? Perhaps you'd like to doubt it to the music of a +couple of gold five-dollar pieces. If you would, say the word, and man +and money, as Messrs. Heenan and Morrissey have it, shall be forthcoming; +for I will make you look at a real landscape with your right eye, and a +stereoscopic view of it with your left eye, both at once, and you can +slide one over the other by a little management and see how exactly the +picture overlies the true landscape. We won't try it now, because I want +to read you something out of my book. + +--I have noticed that the Master very rarely fails to come back to his +original proposition, though he, like myself, is fond of zigzagging in +order to reach it. Men's minds are like the pieces on a chess-board in +their way of moving. One mind creeps from the square it is on to the +next, straight forward, like the pawns. Another sticks close to its own +line of thought and follows it as far as it goes, with no heed for +others' opinions, as the bishop sweeps the board in the line of his own +color. And another class of minds break through everything that lies +before them, ride over argument and opposition, and go to the end of the +board, like the castle. But there is still another sort of intellect +which is very apt to jump over the thought that stands next and come down +in the unexpected way of the knight. But that same knight, as the chess +manuals will show you, will contrive to get on to every square of the +board in a pretty series of moves that looks like a pattern of +embroidery, and so these zigzagging minds like the Master's, and I +suppose my own is something like it, will sooner or later get back to the +square next the one they started from. + +The Master took down a volume from one of the shelves. I could not help +noticing that it was a shelf near his hand as he sat, and that the volume +looked as if he had made frequent use of it. I saw, too, that he handled +it in a loving sort of way; the tenderness he would have bestowed on a +wife and children had to find a channel somewhere, and what more natural +than that he should look fondly on the volume which held the thoughts +that had rolled themselves smooth and round in his mind like pebbles on a +beach, the dreams which, under cover of the simple artifices such as all +writers use, told the little world of readers his secret hopes and +aspirations, the fancies which had pleased him and which he could not +bear to let die without trying to please others with them? I have a +great sympathy with authors, most of all with unsuccessful ones. If one +had a dozen lives or so, it would all be very well, but to have only a +single ticket in the great lottery, and have that drawn a blank, is a +rather sad sort of thing. So I was pleased to see the affectionate kind +of pride with which the Master handled his book; it was a success, in its +way, and he looked on it with a cheerful sense that he had a right to be +proud of it. The Master opened the volume, and, putting on his large +round glasses, began reading, as authors love to read that love their +books. + +--The only good reason for believing in the stability of the moral order +of things is to be found in the tolerable steadiness of human averages. +Out of a hundred human beings fifty-one will be found in the long run on +the side of the right, so far as they know it, and against the wrong. +They will be organizers rather than disorganizers, helpers and not +hinderers in the upward movement of the race. This is the main fact we +have to depend on. The right hand of the great organism is a little +stronger than the left, that is all. + +Now and then we come across a left-handed man. So now and then we find a +tribe or a generation, the subject of what we may call moral +left-handedness, but that need not trouble us about our formula. All we +have to do is to spread the average over a wider territory or a longer +period of time. Any race or period that insists on being left-handed +must go under if it comes in contact with a right-handed one. If there +were, as a general rule, fifty-one rogues in the hundred instead of +forty-nine, all other qualities of mind and body being equally +distributed between the two sections, the order of things would sooner or +later end in universal disorder. It is the question between the leak and +the pumps. + +It does not seem very likely that the Creator of all things is taken by +surprise at witnessing anything any of his creatures do or think. Men +have sought out many inventions, but they can have contrived nothing +which did not exist as an idea in the omniscient consciousness to which +past, present, and future are alike Now. + +We read what travellers tell us about the King of Dahomey, or the Fejee +Island people, or the short and simple annals of the celebrities recorded +in the Newgate Calendar, and do not know just what to make of these +brothers and sisters of the race; but I do not suppose an intelligence +even as high as the angelic beings, to stop short there, would see +anything very peculiar or wonderful about them, except as everything is +wonderful and unlike everything else. + +It is very curious to see how science, that is, looking at and arranging +the facts of a case with our own eyes and our own intelligence, without +minding what somebody else has said, or how some old majority vote went +in a pack of intriguing ecclesiastics,--I say it is very curious to see +how science is catching up with one superstition after another. + +There is a recognized branch of science familiar to all those who know +anything of the studies relating to life, under the name of Teratology. +It deals with all sorts of monstrosities which are to be met with in +living beings, and more especially in animals. It is found that what +used to be called lusus naturae, or freaks of nature, are just as much +subject to laws as the naturally developed forms of living creatures. + +The rustic looks at the Siamese twins, and thinks he is contemplating an +unheard-of anomaly; but there are plenty of cases like theirs in the +books of scholars, and though they are not quite so common as double +cherries, the mechanism of their formation is not a whit more mysterious +than that of the twinned fruits. Such cases do not disturb the average +arrangement; we have Changs and Engs at one pole, and Cains and Abels at +the other. One child is born with six fingers on each hand, and another +falls short by one or more fingers of his due allowance; but the glover +puts his faith in the great law of averages, and makes his gloves with +five fingers apiece, trusting nature for their counterparts. + +Thinking people are not going to be scared out of explaining or at least +trying to explain things by the shrieks of persons whose beliefs are +disturbed thereby. Comets were portents to Increase Mather, President of +Harvard College; "preachers of Divine wrath, heralds and messengers of +evil tidings to the world." It is not so very long since Professor +Winthrop was teaching at the same institution. I can remember two of his +boys very well, old boys, it is true, they were, and one of them wore a +three-cornered cocked hat; but the father of these boys, whom, as I say, +I can remember, had to defend himself against the minister of the Old +South Church for the impiety of trying to account for earthquakes on +natural principles. And his ancestor, Governor Winthrop, would probably +have shaken his head over his descendant's dangerous audacity, if one may +judge by the solemn way in which he mentions poor Mrs. Hutchinson's +unpleasant experience, which so grievously disappointed her maternal +expectations. But people used always to be terribly frightened by those +irregular vital products which we now call "interesting specimens" and +carefully preserve in jars of alcohol. It took next to nothing to make a +panic; a child was born a few centuries ago with six teeth in its head, +and about that time the Turks began gaining great advantages over the +Christians. Of course there was an intimate connection between the +prodigy and the calamity. So said the wise men of that day. + +--All these out-of-the-way cases are studied connectedly now, and are +found to obey very exact rules. With a little management one can even +manufacture living monstrosities. Malformed salmon and other fish can be +supplied in quantity, if anybody happens to want them. Now, what all I +have said is tending to is exactly this, namely, that just as the +celestial movements are regulated by fixed laws, just as bodily +monstrosities are produced according to rule, and with as good reason as +normal shapes, so obliquities of character are to be accounted for on +perfectly natural principles; they are just as capable of classification +as the bodily ones, and they all diverge from a certain average or middle +term which is the type of its kind. If life had been a little longer I +would have written a number of essays for which, as it is, I cannot +expect to have time. I have set down the titles of a hundred or more, +and I have often been tempted to publish these, for according to my idea, +the title of a book very often renders the rest of it unnecessary. +"Moral Teratology," for instance, which is marked No. 67 on my list of +"Essays Potential, not Actual," suggests sufficiently well what I should +be like to say in the pages it would preface. People hold up their hands +at a moral monster as if there was no reason for his existence but his +own choice. That was a fine specimen we read of in the papers a few +years ago, the Frenchman, it may be remembered, who used to waylay and +murder young women, and after appropriating their effects, bury their +bodies in a private cemetery he kept for that purpose. It is very +natural, and I do not say it is not very proper, to hang such eccentric +persons as this; but it is not clear whether his vagaries produce any +more sensation at Headquarters than the meek enterprises of the mildest +of city missionaries. For the study of Moral Teratology will teach you +that you do not get such a malformed character as that without a long +chain of causes to account for it; and if you only knew those causes, you +would know perfectly well what to expect. + +You may feel pretty sure that our friend of the private cemetery was not +the child of pious and intelligent parents; that he was not nurtured by +the best of mothers, and educated by the most judicious teachers; and +that he did not come of a lineage long known and honored for its +intellectual and moral qualities. Suppose that one should go to the +worst quarter of the city and pick out the worst-looking child of the +worst couple he could find, and then train him up successively at the +School for Infant Rogues, the Academy for Young Scamps, and the College +for Complete Criminal Education, would it be reasonable to expect a +Francois Xavier or a Henry Martyn to be the result of such a training? +The traditionists, in whose presumptuous hands the science of +anthropology has been trusted from time immemorial, have insisted on +eliminating cause and effect from the domain of morals. When they have +come across a moral monster they have seemed to think that he put himself +together, having a free choice of all the constituents which make up +manhood, and that consequently no punishment could be too bad for him. + +I say, hang him and welcome, if that is the best thing for society; hate +him, in a certain sense, as you hate a rattlesnake, but, if you pretend +to be a philosopher, recognize the fact that what you hate in him is +chiefly misfortune, and that if you had been born with his villanous low +forehead and poisoned instincts, and bred among creatures of the Races +Maudites whose natural history has to be studied like that of beasts of +prey and vermin, you would not have been sitting there in your gold-bowed +spectacles and passing judgment on the peccadilloes of your +fellow-creatures. + +I have seen men and women so disinterested and noble, and devoted to the +best works, that it appeared to me if any good and faithful servant was +entitled to enter into the joys of his Lord, such as these might be. But +I do not know that I ever met with a human being who seemed to me to have +a stronger claim on the pitying consideration and kindness of his Maker +than a wretched, puny, crippled, stunted child that I saw in Newgate, who +was pointed out as one of the most notorious and inveterate little +thieves in London. I have no doubt that some of those who were looking +at this pitiable morbid secretion of the diseased social organism thought +they were very virtuous for hating him so heartily. + +It is natural, and in one sense is all right enough. I want to catch a +thief and put the extinguisher on an incendiary as much as my neighbors +do; but I have two sides to my consciousness as I have two sides to my +heart, one carrying dark, impure blood, and the other the bright stream +which has been purified and vivified by the great source of life and +death,--the oxygen of the air which gives all things their vital heat, +and burns all things at last to ashes. + +One side of me loves and hates; the other side of me judges, say rather +pleads and suspends judgment. I think, if I were left to myself, I +should hang a rogue and then write his apology and subscribe to a neat +monument, commemorating, not his virtues, but his misfortunes. I should, +perhaps, adorn the marble with emblems, as is the custom with regard to +the more regular and normally constituted members of society. It would +not be proper to put the image of a lamb upon the stone which marked the +resting-place of him of the private cemetery. But I would not hesitate +to place the effigy of a wolf or a hyena upon the monument. I do not +judge these animals, I only kill them or shut them up. I presume they +stand just as well with their Maker as lambs and kids, and the existence +of such beings is a perpetual plea for God Almighty's poor, yelling, +scalping Indians, his weasand-stopping Thugs, his despised felons, his +murdering miscreants, and all the unfortunates whom we, picked +individuals of a picked class of a picked race, scrubbed, combed, and +catechized from our cradles upward, undertake to find accommodations for +in another state of being where it is to be hoped they will have a better +chance than they had in this. + +The Master paused, and took off his great round spectacles. I could not +help thinking that he looked benevolent enough to pardon Judas Iscariot +just at that moment, though his features can knot themselves up pretty, +formidably on occasion. + +--You are somewhat of a phrenologist, I judge, by the way you talk of +instinctive and inherited tendencies--I said. + +--They tell me I ought to be,--he answered, parrying my question, as I +thought.---I have had a famous chart made out of my cerebral organs, +according to which I ought to have been--something more than a poor +Magister Artaum. + +--I thought a shade of regret deepened the lines on his broad, +antique-looking forehead, and I began talking about all the sights I had +seen in the way of monstrosities, of which I had a considerable list, as +you will see when I tell you my weakness in that direction. This, you +understand, Beloved, is private and confidential. + +I pay my quarter of a dollar and go into all the side-shows that follow +the caravans and circuses round the country. I have made friends of all +the giants and all the dwarfs. I became acquainted with Monsieur Bihin, +le plus bel homme du monde, and one of the biggest, a great many years +ago, and have kept up my agreeable relations with him ever since. He is +a most interesting giant, with a softness of voice and tenderness of +feeling which I find very engaging. I was on friendly terms with Mr. +Charles Freeman, a very superior giant of American birth, seven feet +four, I think, in height, "double-jointed," of mylodon muscularity, the +same who in a British prize-ring tossed the Tipton Slasher from one side +of the rope to the other, and now lies stretched, poor fellow! in a +mighty grave in the same soil which holds the sacred ashes of Cribb, and +the honored dust of Burke,--not the one "commonly called the sublime," +but that other Burke to whom Nature had denied the sense of hearing lest +he should be spoiled by listening to the praises of the admiring circles +which looked on his dear-bought triumphs. Nor have I despised those +little ones whom that devout worshipper of Nature in her exceptional +forms, the distinguished Barnum, has introduced to the notice of mankind. +The General touches his chapeau to me, and the Commodore gives me a +sailor's greeting. I have had confidential interviews with the +double-headed daughter of Africa,--so far, at least, as her twofold +personality admitted of private confidences. I have listened to the +touching experiences of the Bearded Lady, whose rough cheeks belie her +susceptible heart. Miss Jane Campbell has allowed me to question her on +the delicate subject of avoirdupois equivalents; and the armless fair +one, whose embrace no monarch could hope to win, has wrought me a +watch-paper with those despised digits which have been degraded from +gloves to boots in our evolution from the condition of quadrumana. + +I hope you have read my experiences as good-naturedly as the old Master +listened to them. He seemed to be pleased with my whim, and promised to +go with me to see all the side-shows of the next caravan. Before I left +him he wrote my name in a copy of the new edition of his book, telling me +that it would not all be new to me by a great deal, for he often talked +what he had printed to make up for having printed a good deal of what he +had talked. + +Here is the passage of his Poem the Young Astronomer read to us. + + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. + + IV + + From my lone turret as I look around + O'er the green meadows to the ring of blue, + From slope, from summit, and from half-hid vale + The sky is stabbed with dagger-pointed spires, + Their gilded symbols whirling in the wind, + Their brazen tongues proclaiming to the world, + Here truth is sold, the only genuine ware; + See that it has our trade-mark! + You will buy Poison instead of food across the way, + The lies of--this or that, each several name + The standard's blazon and the battle-cry + Of some true-gospel faction, and again + The token of the Beast to all beside. + And grouped round each I see a huddling crowd + Alike in all things save the words they use; + In love, in longing, hate and fear the same. + + Whom do we trust and serve? We speak of one + And bow to many; Athens still would find + The shrines of all she worshipped safe within + Our tall barbarian temples, and the thrones + That crowned Olympus mighty as of old. + The god of music rules the Sabbath choir; + The lyric muse must leave the sacred nine + To help us please the dilettante's ear; + Plutus limps homeward with us, as we leave + The portals of the temple where we knelt + And listened while the god of eloquence + (Hermes of ancient days, but now disguised + In sable vestments) with that other god + Somnus, the son of Erebus and Nog, + Fights in unequal contest for our souls; + The dreadful sovereign of the under world + Still shakes his sceptre at us, and we hear + The baying of the triple-throated hound; + Eros-is young as ever, and as fair + The lovely Goddess born of ocean's foam. + + These be thy gods, O Israel! Who is he, + The one ye name and tell us that ye serve, + Whom ye would call me from my lonely tower + To worship with the many-headed throng? + Is it the God that walked in Eden's grove + In the cool hour to seek our guilty sire? + The God who dealt with Abraham as the sons + Of that old patriarch deal with other men? + The jealous God of Moses, one who feels + An image as an insult, and is wroth + With him who made it and his child unborn? + The God who plagued his people for the sin + Of their adulterous king, beloved of him, + The same who offers to a chosen few + The right to praise him in eternal song + While a vast shrieking world of endless woe + Blends its dread chorus with their rapturous hymn? + Is this the God ye mean, or is it he + Who heeds the sparrow's fall, whose loving heart + Is as the pitying father's to his child, + Whose lesson to his children is, "Forgive," + Whose plea for all, "They know not what they do" + + I claim the right of knowing whom I serve, + Else is my service idle; He that asks + My homage asks it from a reasoning soul. + To crawl is not to worship; we have learned + A drill of eyelids, bended neck and knee, + Hanging our prayers on binges, till we ape + The flexures of the many-jointed worm. + Asia has taught her Aliabs and salaams + To the world's children,--we have grown to men! + We who have rolled the sphere beneath our feet + To find a virgin forest, as we lay + The beams of our rude temple, first of all + Must frame its doorway high enough for man + To pass unstooping; knowing as we do + That He who shaped us last of living forms + Has long enough been served by creeping things, + Reptiles that left their foot-prints in the sand + Of old sea-margins that have turned to stone, + And men who learned their ritual; we demand + To know him first, then trust him and then love + When we have found him worthy of our love, + Tried by our own poor hearts and not before; + He must be truer than the truest friend, + He must be tenderer than a woman's love, + A father better than the best of sires; + Kinder than she who bore us, though we sin + Oftener than did the brother we are told, + We-poor ill-tempered mortals-must forgive, + Though seven times sinning threescore times and ten. + + This is the new world's gospel: Be ye men! + Try well the legends of the children's time; + Ye are the chosen people, God has led + Your steps across the desert of the deep + As now across the desert of the shore; + Mountains are cleft before you as the sea + Before the wandering tribe of Israel's sons; + Still onward rolls the thunderous caravan, + Its coming printed on the western sky, + A cloud by day, by night a pillared flame; + Your prophets are a hundred unto one + Of them of old who cried, "Thus saith the Lord"; + They told of cities that should fall in heaps, + But yours of mightier cities that shall rise + Where yet the lonely fishers spread their nets, + Where hides the fox and hoots the midnight owl; + The tree of knowledge in your garden grows + Not single, but at every humble door; + Its branches lend you their immortal food, + That fills you with the sense of what ye are, + No servants of an altar hewed and carved + From senseless stone by craft of human hands, + Rabbi, or dervish, Brahmin, bishop, bonze, + But masters of the charm with which they work + To keep your hands from that forbidden tree! + + Ye that have tasted that divinest fruit, + Look on this world of yours with opened eyes! + Ye are as gods! Nay, makers of your gods, + Each day ye break an image in your shrine + And plant a fairer image where it stood + Where is the Moloch of your fathers' creed, + Whose fires of torment burned for span-long babes? + Fit object for a tender mother's love! + Why not? It was a bargain duly made + For these same infants through the surety's act + Intrusted with their all for earth and heaven, + By Him who chose their guardian, knowing well + His fitness for the task,--this, even this, + Was the true doctrine only yesterday + As thoughts are reckoned,--and to-day you hear + In words that sound as if from human tongues + Those monstrous, uncouth horrors of the past + That blot the blue of heaven and shame the earth + As would the saurians of the age of slime, + Awaking from their stony sepulchres + And wallowing hateful in the eye of day! + +Four of us listened to these lines as the young man read them,--the +Master and myself and our two ladies. This was the little party we got +up to hear him read. I do not think much of it was very new to the +Master or myself. At any rate, he said to me when we were alone, That is +the kind of talk the "natural man," as the theologians call him, is apt +to fall into. + +--I thought it was the Apostle Paul, and not the theologians, that used +the term "natural man", I ventured to suggest. + +--I should like to know where the Apostle Paul learned English?--said the +Master, with the look of one who does not mean to be tripped up if he can +help himself.---But at any rate,--he continued,--the "natural man," so +called, is worth listening to now and then, for he didn't make his +nature, and the Devil did n't make it; and if the Almighty made it, I +never saw or heard of anything he made that wasn't worth attending to. + +The young man begged the Lady to pardon anything that might sound harshly +in these crude thoughts of his. He had been taught strange things, he +said, from old theologies, when he was a child, and had thought his way +out of many of his early superstitions. As for the Young Girl, our +Scheherezade, he said to her that she must have got dreadfully tired (at +which she colored up and said it was no such thing), and he promised +that, to pay for her goodness in listening, he would give her a lesson in +astronomy the next fair evening, if she would be his scholar, at which +she blushed deeper than before, and said something which certainly was +not No. + + + + +IX + +There was no sooner a vacancy on our side of the table, than the Master +proposed a change of seats which would bring the Young Astronomer into +our immediate neighborhood. The Scarabee was to move into the place of +our late unlamented associate, the Man of Letters, so called. I was to +take his place, the Master to take mine, and the young man that which had +been occupied by the Master. The advantages of this change were obvious. +The old Master likes an audience, plainly enough; and with myself on one +side of him, and the young student of science, whose speculative turn is +sufficiently shown in the passages from his poem, on the other side, he +may feel quite sure of being listened to. There is only one trouble in +the arrangement, and that is that it brings this young man not only close +to us, but also next to our Scheherezade. + +I am obliged to confess that he has shown occasional marks of inattention +even while the Master was discoursing in a way that I found agreeable +enough. I am quite sure it is no intentional disrespect to the old +Master. It seems to me rather that he has become interested in the +astronomical lessons he has been giving the Young Girl. He has studied +so much alone, that it is naturally a pleasure to him to impart some of +his knowledge. As for his young pupil, she has often thought of being a +teacher herself, so that she is of course very glad to acquire any +accomplishment that may be useful to her in that capacity. I do not see +any reason why some of the boarders should have made such remarks as they +have done. One cannot teach astronomy to advantage, without going out of +doors, though I confess that when two young people go out by daylight to +study the stars, as these young folks have done once or twice, I do not +so much wonder at a remark or suggestion from those who have nothing +better to do than study their neighbors. + +I ought to have told the reader before this that I found, as I suspected, +that our innocent-looking Scheherezade was at the bottom of the popgun +business. I watched her very closely, and one day, when the little +monkey made us all laugh by stopping the Member of the Haouse in the +middle of a speech he was repeating to us,--it was his great effort of +the season on a bill for the protection of horn-pout in Little Muddy +River,--I caught her making the signs that set him going. At a slight +tap of her knife against her plate, he got all ready, and presently I saw +her cross her knife and fork upon her plate, and as she did so, pop! went +the small piece of artillery. The Member of the Haouse was just saying +that this bill hit his constitooents in their most vital--when a pellet +hit him in the feature of his countenance most exposed to aggressions and +least tolerant of liberties. The Member resented this unparliamentary +treatment by jumping up from his chair and giving the small aggressor a +good shaking, at the same time seizing the implement which had caused his +wrath and breaking it into splinters. The Boy blubbered, the Young Girl +changed color, and looked as if she would cry, and that was the last of +these interruptions. + +I must own that I have sometimes wished we had the popgun back, for it +answered all the purpose of "the previous question" in a deliberative +assembly. No doubt the Young Girl was capricious in setting the little +engine at work, but she cut short a good many disquisitions that +threatened to be tedious. I find myself often wishing for her and her +small fellow-conspirator's intervention, in company where I am supposed +to be enjoying myself. When my friend the politician gets too far into +the personal details of the quorum pars magna fui, I find myself all at +once exclaiming in mental articulation, Popgun! When my friend the +story-teller begins that protracted narrative which has often emptied me +of all my voluntary laughter for the evening, he has got but a very +little way when I say to myself, What wouldn't I give for a pellet from +that popgun! In short, so useful has that trivial implement proved as a +jaw-stopper and a boricide, that I never go to a club or a dinner-party, +without wishing the company included our Scheherezade and That Boy with +his popgun. + +How clearly I see now into the mechanism of the Young Girl's audacious +contrivance for regulating our table-talk! Her brain is tired half the +time, and she is too nervous to listen patiently to what a quieter person +would like well enough, or at least would not be annoyed by. It amused +her to invent a scheme for managing the headstrong talkers, and also let +off a certain spirit of mischief which in some of these nervous girls +shows itself in much more questionable forms. How cunning these +half-hysteric young persons are, to be sure! I had to watch a long time +before I detected the telegraphic communication between the two +conspirators. I have no doubt she had sedulously schooled the little +monkey to his business, and found great delight in the task of +instruction. + +But now that our Scheherezade has become a scholar instead of a teacher, +she seems to be undergoing a remarkable transformation. Astronomy is +indeed a noble science. It may well kindle the enthusiasm of a youthful +nature. I fancy at times that I see something of that starry light which +I noticed in the young man's eyes gradually kindling in hers. But can it +be astronomy alone that does it? Her color comes and goes more readily +than when the old Master sat next her on the left. It is having this +young man at her side, I suppose. Of course it is. I watch her with +great, I may say tender interest. If he would only fall in love with +her, seize upon her wandering affections and fancies as the Romans seized +the Sabine virgins, lift her out of herself and her listless and weary +drudgeries, stop the outflow of this young life which is draining itself +away in forced literary labor--dear me, dear me--if, if, if-- + + "If I were God + An' ye were Martin Elginbrod!" + +I am afraid all this may never be. I fear that he is too much given to +lonely study, to self-companionship, to all sorts of questionings, to +looking at life as at a solemn show where he is only a spectator. I dare +not build up a romance on what I have yet seen. My reader may, but I +will answer for nothing. I shall wait and see. + +The old Master and I have at last made that visit to the Scarabee which +we had so long promised ourselves. + +When we knocked at his door he came and opened it, instead of saying, +Come in. He was surprised, I have no doubt, at the sound of our +footsteps; for he rarely has a visitor, except the little monkey of a +boy, and he may have thought a troop of marauders were coming to rob him +of his treasures. Collectors feel so rich in the possession of their +rarer specimens, that they forget how cheap their precious things seem to +common eyes, and are as afraid of being robbed as if they were dealers in +diamonds. They have the name of stealing from each other now and then, +it is true, but many of their priceless possessions would hardly tempt a +beggar. Values are artificial: you will not be able to get ten cents of +the year 1799 for a dime. + +The Scarabee was reassured as soon as he saw our faces, and he welcomed +us not ungraciously into his small apartment. It was hard to find a +place to sit down, for all the chairs were already occupied by cases and +boxes full of his favorites. I began, therefore, looking round the room. +Bugs of every size and aspect met my eyes wherever they turned. I felt +for the moment as I suppose a man may feel in a fit of delirium tremens. +Presently my attention was drawn towards a very odd-looking insect on the +mantelpiece. This animal was incessantly raising its arms as if towards +heaven and clasping them together, as though it were wrestling in prayer. + +Do look at this creature,--I said to the Master, he seems to be very hard +at work at his devotions. + +Mantas religiosa,--said the Master,--I know the praying rogue. Mighty +devout and mighty cruel; crushes everything he can master, or impales it +on his spiny shanks and feeds upon it, like a gluttonous wretch as he is. +I have seen the Mantis religiosa on a larger scale than this, now and +then. A sacred insect, sir,--sacred to many tribes of men; to the +Hottentots, to the Turks, yes, sir, and to the Frenchmen, who call the +rascal prie dieu, and believe him to have special charge of children that +have lost their way. + +Doesn't it seem as if there was a vein of satire as well as of fun that +ran through the solemn manifestations of creative wisdom? And of +deception too--do you see how nearly those dried leaves resemble an +insect? + +They do, indeed,--I answered,--but not so closely as to deceive me. They +remind me of an insect, but I could not mistake them for one. + +--Oh, you couldn't mistake those dried leaves for an insect, hey? Well, +how can you mistake that insect for dried leaves? That is the question; +for insect it is,--phyllum siccifolium, the "walking leaf," as some have +called it.--The Master had a hearty laugh at my expense. + +The Scarabee did not seem to be amused at the Master's remarks or at my +blunder. Science is always perfectly serious to him; and he would no +more laugh over anything connected with his study, than a clergyman would +laugh at a funeral. + +They send me all sorts of trumpery,--he said, Orthoptera and Lepidoptera; +as if a coleopterist--a scarabeeist--cared for such things. This +business is no boy's play to me. The insect population of the world is +not even catalogued yet, and a lifetime given to the scarabees is a small +contribution enough to their study. I like your men of general +intelligence well enough,--your Linnwuses and your Buffons and your +Cuviers; but Cuvier had to go to Latreille for his insects, and if +Latreille had been able to consult me,--yes, me, gentlemen!--he would n't +have made the blunders he did about some of the coleoptera. + +The old Master, as I think you must have found out by this time,--you, +Beloved, I mean, who read every word,--has a reasonably good opinion, as +perhaps he has a right to have, of his own intelligence and acquirements. +The Scarabee's exultation and glow as he spoke of the errors of the great +entomologist which he himself could have corrected, had the effect on the +old Master which a lusty crow has upon the feathered champion of the +neighboring barnyard. He too knew something about insects. Had he not +discovered a, new tabanus? Had he not made preparations of the very +coleoptera the Scarabee studied so exclusively,--preparations which the +illustrious Swammerdam would not have been ashamed of, and dissected a +melolontha as exquisitely as Strauss Durckheim himself ever did it? So +the Master, recalling these studies of his and certain difficult and +disputed points at which he had labored in one of his entomological +paroxysms, put a question which there can be little doubt was intended to +puzzle the Scarabee, and perhaps,--for the best of us is human (I am +beginning to love the old Master, but he has his little weaknesses, thank +Heaven, like the rest of us),--I say perhaps, was meant to show that some +folks knew as much about some things as some other folks. + +The little dried-up specialist did not dilate into fighting dimensions +as--perhaps, again--the Master may have thought he would. He looked a +mild surprise, but remained as quiet as one of his own beetles when you +touch him and he makes believe he is dead. The blank silence became +oppressive. Was the Scarabee crushed, as so many of his namesakes are +crushed, under the heel of this trampling omniscient? + +At last the Scarabee creaked out very slowly, "Did I understand you to +ask the following question, to wit?" and so forth; for I was quite out of +my depth, and only know that he repeated the Master's somewhat complex +inquiry, word for word. + +--That was exactly my question,--said the Master,--and I hope it is not +uncivil to ask one which seems to me to be a puzzler. + +Not uncivil in the least,--said the Scarabee, with something as much like +a look of triumph as his dry face permitted,--not uncivil at all, but a +rather extraordinary question to ask at this date of entomological +history. I settled that question some years ago, by a series of +dissections, six-and-thirty in number, reported in an essay I can show +you and would give you a copy of, but that I am a little restricted in my +revenue, and our Society has to be economical, so I have but this one. +You see, sir,--and he went on with elytra and antennae and tarsi and +metatarsi and tracheae and stomata and wing-muscles and leg-muscles and +ganglions,--all plain enough, I do not doubt, to those accustomed to +handling dor-bugs and squash-bugs and such undesirable objects of +affection to all but naturalists. + +He paused when he got through, not for an answer, for there evidently was +none, but to see how the Master would take it. The Scarabee had had it +all his own way. + +The Master was loyal to his own generous nature. He felt as a peaceful +citizen might feel who had squared off at a stranger for some supposed +wrong, and suddenly discovered that he was undertaking to chastise Mr. +Dick Curtis, "the pet of the Fancy," or Mr. Joshua Hudson; "the John Bull +fighter." + +He felt the absurdity of his discomfiture, for he turned to me +good-naturedly, and said, + + "Poor Johnny Raw! What madness could impel + So rum a flat to face so prime a swell?" + +To tell the truth, I rather think the Master enjoyed his own defeat. The +Scarabee had a right to his victory; a man does not give his life to the +study of a single limited subject for nothing, and the moment we come +across a first-class expert we begin to take a pride in his superiority. +It cannot offend us, who have no right at all to be his match on his own +ground. Besides, there is a very curious sense of satisfaction in +getting a fair chance to sneer at ourselves and scoff at our own +pretensions. The first person of our dual consciousness has been +smirking and rubbing his hands and felicitating himself on his +innumerable superiorities, until we have grown a little tired of him. +Then, when the other fellow, the critic, the cynic, the Shimei, who has +been quiet, letting self-love and self-glorification have their perfect +work, opens fire upon the first half of our personality and overwhelms it +with that wonderful vocabulary of abuse of which he is the unrivalled +master, there is no denying that he enjoys it immensely; and as he is +ourself for the moment, or at least the chief portion of ourself (the +other half-self retiring into a dim corner of semiconsciousness and +cowering under the storm of sneers and contumely,--you follow me +perfectly, Beloved,--the way is as plain as the path of the babe to the +maternal fount), as, I say, the abusive fellow is the chief part of us +for the time, and he likes to exercise his slanderous vocabulary, we on +the whole enjoy a brief season of self-depreciation and self-scolding +very heartily. + +It is quite certain that both of us, the Master and myself, conceived on +the instant a respect for the Scarabee which we had not before felt. He +had grappled with one difficulty at any rate and mastered it. He had +settled one thing, at least, so it appeared, in such a way that it was +not to be brought up again. And now he was determined, if it cost him +the effort of all his remaining days, to close another discussion and put +forever to rest the anxious doubts about the larva of meloe. + +--Your thirty-six dissections must have cost you a deal of time and +labor,--the Master said. + +--What have I to do with time, but to fill it up with labor?--answered +the Scarabee.---It is my meat and drink to work over my beetles. My +holidays are when I get a rare specimen. My rest is to watch the habits +of insects, those that I do not pretend to study. Here is my muscarium, +my home for house-flies; very interesting creatures; here they breed and +buzz and feed and enjoy themselves, and die in a good old age of a few +months. My favorite insect lives in this other case; she is at home, but +in her private-chamber; you shall see her. + +He tapped on the glass lightly, and a large, gray, hairy spider came +forth from the hollow of a funnel-like web. + +--And this is all the friend you have to love? said the Master, with a +tenderness in his voice which made the question very significant. + +--Nothing else loves me better than she does, that I know of,--he +answered. + +--To think of it! Not even a dog to lick his hand, or a cat to purr and +rub her fur against him! Oh, these boarding-houses, these +boarding-houses! What forlorn people one sees stranded on their desolate +shores! Decayed gentlewomen with the poor wrecks of what once made their +households beautiful, disposed around them in narrow chambers as they +best may be, coming down day after day, poor souls! to sit at the board +with strangers; their hearts full of sad memories which have no language +but a sigh, no record but the lines of sorrow on their features; orphans, +creatures with growing tendrils and nothing to cling to; lonely rich men, +casting about them what to do with the wealth they never knew how to +enjoy, when they shall no longer worry over keeping and increasing it; +young men and young women, left to their instincts, unguarded, unwatched, +save by malicious eyes, which are sure to be found and to find occupation +in these miscellaneous collections of human beings; and now and then a +shred of humanity like this little adust specialist, with just the +resources needed to keep the "radical moisture" from entirely exhaling +from his attenuated organism, and busying himself over a point of +science, or compiling a hymn-book, or editing a grammar or a +dictionary;--such are the tenants of boarding-houses whom we cannot think +of without feeling how sad it is when the wind is not tempered to the +shorn lamb; when the solitary, whose hearts are shrivelling, are not set +in families! + +The Master was greatly interested in the Scarabee's Muscarium. + +--I don't remember,--he said,--that I have heard of such a thing as that +before. Mighty curious creatures, these same house-flies! Talk about +miracles! Was there ever anything more miraculous, so far as our common +observation goes, than the coming and the going of these creatures? Why +didn't Job ask where the flies come from and where they go to? I did not +say that you and I don't know, but how many people do know anything about +it? Where are the cradles of the young flies? Where are the cemeteries +of the dead ones, or do they die at all except when we kill them? You +think all the flies of the year are dead and gone, and there comes a warm +day and all at once there is a general resurrection of 'em; they had been +taking a nap, that is all. + +--I suppose you do not trust your spider in the Muscarium?--said I, +addressing the Scarabee. + +--Not exactly,--he answered,--she is a terrible creature. She loves me, +I think, but she is a killer and a cannibal among other insects. I wanted +to pair her with a male spider, but it wouldn't do. + +-Wouldn't do?--said I,--why not? Don't spiders have their mates as well +as other folks? + +-Oh yes, sometimes; but the females are apt to be particular, and if they +don't like the mate you offer them they fall upon him and kill him and +eat him up. You see they are a great deal bigger and stronger than the +males, and they are always hungry and not always particularly anxious to +have one of the other sex bothering round. + +--Woman's rights!--said I,--there you have it! Why don't those talking +ladies take a spider as their emblem? Let them form arachnoid +associations, spinsters and spiders would be a good motto. + +--The Master smiled. I think it was an eleemosynary smile, for my +pleasantry seems to me a particularly basso rilievo, as I look upon it in +cold blood. But conversation at the best is only a thin sprinkling of +occasional felicities set in platitudes and commonplaces. I never heard +people talk like the characters in the "School for Scandal,"--I should +very much like to.---I say the Master smiled. But the Scarabee did not +relax a muscle of his countenance. + +--There are persons whom the very mildest of faecetiae sets off into such +convulsions of laughter, that one is afraid lest they should injure +themselves. Even when a jest misses fire completely, so that it is no +jest at all, but only a jocular intention, they laugh just as heartily. +Leave out the point of your story, get the word wrong on the duplicity of +which the pun that was to excite hilarity depended, and they still honor +your abortive attempt with the most lusty and vociferous merriment. + +There is a very opposite class of persons whom anything in the nature of +a joke perplexes, troubles, and even sometimes irritates, seeming to make +them think they are trifled with, if not insulted. If you are fortunate +enough to set the whole table laughing, one of this class of persons will +look inquiringly round, as if something had happened, and, seeing +everybody apparently amused but himself, feel as if he was being laughed +at, or at any rate as if something had been said which he was not to +hear. Often, however, it does not go so far as this, and there is +nothing more than mere insensibility to the cause of other people's +laughter, a sort of joke-blindness, comparable to the well-known +color-blindness with which many persons are afflicted as a congenital +incapacity. + +I have never seen the Scarabee smile. I have seen him take off his +goggles,--he breakfasts in these occasionally,--I suppose when he has +been tiring his poor old eyes out over night gazing through his +microscope,--I have seen him take his goggles off, I say, and stare about +him, when the rest of us were laughing at something which amused us, but +his features betrayed nothing more than a certain bewilderment, as if we +had been foreigners talking in an unknown tongue. I do not think it was +a mere fancy of mine that he bears a kind of resemblance to the tribe of +insects he gives his life to studying. His shiny black coat; his rounded +back, convex with years of stooping over his minute work; his angular +movements, made natural to him by his habitual style of manipulation; the +aridity of his organism, with which his voice is in perfect keeping;--all +these marks of his special sedentary occupation are so nearly what might +be expected, and indeed so much, in accordance with the more general fact +that a man's aspect is subdued to the look of what he works in, that I do +not feel disposed to accuse myself of exaggeration in my account of the +Scarabee's appearance. But I think he has learned something else of his +coleopterous friends. The beetles never smile. Their physiognomy is not +adapted to the display of the emotions; the lateral movement of their +jaws being effective for alimentary purposes, but very limited in its +gamut of expression. It is with these unemotional beings that the +Scarabee passes his life. He has but one object, and that is perfectly +serious, to his mind, in fact, of absorbing interest and importance. In +one aspect of the matter he is quite right, for if the Creator has taken +the trouble to make one of His creatures in just such a way and not +otherwise, from the beginning of its existence on our planet in ages of +unknown remoteness to the present time, the man who first explains His +idea to us is charged with a revelation. It is by no means impossible +that there may be angels in the celestial hierarchy to whom it would be +new and interesting. I have often thought that spirits of a higher order +than man might be willing to learn something from a human mind like that +of Newton, and I see no reason why an angelic being might not be glad to +hear a lecture from Mr. Huxley, or Mr. Tyndall, or one of our friends at +Cambridge. + +I have been sinuous as the Links of Forth seen from Stirling Castle, or +as that other river which threads the Berkshire valley and runs, a +perennial stream, through my memory,--from which I please myself with +thinking that I have learned to wind without fretting against the shore, +or forgetting cohere I am flowing,--sinuous, I say, but not jerky,--no, +not jerky nor hard to follow for a reader of the right sort, in the prime +of life and full possession of his or her faculties. + +--All this last page or so, you readily understand, has been my private +talk with you, the Reader. The cue of the conversation which I +interrupted by this digression is to be found in the words "a good +motto;" from which I begin my account of the visit again. + +--Do you receive many visitors,--I mean vertebrates, not articulates? +--said the Master. + +I thought this question might perhaps bring il disiato riso, the +long-wished-for smile, but the Scarabee interpreted it in the simplest +zoological sense, and neglected its hint of playfulness with the most +absolute unconsciousness, apparently, of anything not entirely serious +and literal. + +--You mean friends, I suppose,--he answered.--I have correspondents, but +I have no friends except this spider. I live alone, except when I go to +my subsection meetings; I get a box of insects now and then, and send a +few beetles to coleopterists in other entomological districts; but +science is exacting, and a man that wants to leave his record has not +much time for friendship. There is no great chance either for making +friends among naturalists. People that are at work on different things +do not care a great deal for each other's specialties, and people that +work on the same thing are always afraid lest one should get ahead of the +other, or steal some of his ideas before he has made them public. There +are none too many people you can trust in your laboratory. I thought I +had a friend once, but he watched me at work and stole the discovery of a +new species from me, and, what is more, had it named after himself. +Since that time I have liked spiders better than men. They are hungry +and savage, but at any rate they spin their own webs out of their own +insides. I like very well to talk with gentlemen that play with my +branch of entomology; I do not doubt it amused you, and if you want to +see anything I can show you, I shall have no scruple in letting you see +it. I have never had any complaint to make of amatoors. + +--Upon my honor,--I would hold my right hand up and take my Bible-oath, +if it was not busy with the pen at this moment,--I do not believe the +Scarabee had the least idea in the world of the satire on the student of +the Order of Things implied in his invitation to the "amatoor." As for +the Master, he stood fire perfectly, as he always does; but the idea that +he, who had worked a considerable part of several seasons at examining +and preparing insects, who believed himself to have given a new tabanus +to the catalogue of native diptera, the idea that he was playing with +science, and might be trusted anywhere as a harmless amateur, from whom +no expert could possibly fear any anticipation of his unpublished +discoveries, went beyond anything set down in that book of his which +contained so much of the strainings of his wisdom. + +The poor little Scarabee began fidgeting round about this time, and +uttering some half-audible words, apologetical, partly, and involving an +allusion to refreshments. As he spoke, he opened a small cupboard, and +as he did so out bolted an uninvited tenant of the same, long in person, +sable in hue, and swift of movement, on seeing which the Scarabee simply +said, without emotion, blatta, but I, forgetting what was due to good +manners, exclaimed cockroach! + +We could not make up our minds to tax the Scarabee's hospitality, already +levied upon by the voracious articulate. So we both alleged a state of +utter repletion, and did not solve the mystery of the contents of the +cupboard,--not too luxurious, it may be conjectured, and yet kindly +offered, so that we felt there was a moist filament of the social +instinct running like a nerve through that exsiccated and almost +anhydrous organism. + +We left him with professions of esteem and respect which were real. We +had gone, not to scoff, but very probably to smile, and I will not say we +did not. But the Master was more thoughtful than usual. + +--If I had not solemnly dedicated myself to the study of the Order of +Things,--he said,--I do verily believe I would give what remains to me of +life to the investigation of some single point I could utterly eviscerate +and leave finally settled for the instruction and, it may be, the +admiration of all coming time. The keel ploughs ten thousand leagues of +ocean and leaves no trace of its deep-graven furrows. The chisel scars +only a few inches on the face of a rock, but the story it has traced is +read by a hundred generations. The eagle leaves no track of his path, no +memory of the place where he built his nest; but a patient mollusk has +bored a little hole in a marble column of the temple of Serapis, and the +monument of his labor outlasts the altar and the statue of the divinity. + +--Whew!--said I to myself,--that sounds a little like what we college +boys used to call a "squirt."--The Master guessed my thought and said, +smiling, + +--That is from one of my old lectures. A man's tongue wags along quietly +enough, but his pen begins prancing as soon as it touches paper. I know +what you are thinking--you're thinking this is a squirt. That word has +taken the nonsense out of a good many high-stepping fellows. But it did +a good deal of harm too, and it was a vulgar lot that applied it +oftenest. + +I am at last perfectly satisfied that our Landlady has no designs on the +Capitalist, and as well convinced that any fancy of mine that he was like +to make love to her was a mistake. The good woman is too much absorbed +in her children, and more especially in "the Doctor," as she delights to +call her son, to be the prey of any foolish desire of changing her +condition. She is doing very well as it is, and if the young man +succeeds, as I have little question that he will, I think it probable +enough that she will retire from her position as the head of a +boarding-house. We have all liked the good woman who have lived with +her,--I mean we three friends who have put ourselves on record. Her +talk, I must confess, is a little diffuse and not always absolutely +correct, according to the standard of the great Worcester; she is subject +to lachrymose cataclysms and semiconvulsive upheavals when she reverts in +memory to her past trials, and especially when she recalls the virtues of +her deceased spouse, who was, I suspect, an adjunct such as one finds not +rarely annexed to a capable matron in charge of an establishment like +hers; that is to say, an easy-going, harmless, fetch-and-carry, +carve-and-help, get-out-of-the-way kind of neuter, who comes up three +times (as they say drowning people do) every day, namely, at breakfast, +dinner, and tea, and disappears, submerged beneath the waves of life, +during the intervals of these events. + +It is a source of genuine delight to me, who am of a kindly nature +enough, according to my own reckoning, to watch the good woman, and see +what looks of pride and affection she bestows upon her Benjamin, and how, +in spite of herself, the maternal feeling betrays its influence in her +dispensations of those delicacies which are the exceptional element in +our entertainments. I will not say that Benjamin's mess, like his +Scripture namesake's, is five times as large as that of any of the +others, for this would imply either an economical distribution to the +guests in general or heaping the poor young man's plate in a way that +would spoil the appetite of an Esquimau, but you may be sure he fares +well if anybody does; and I would have you understand that our Landlady +knows what is what as well as who is who. + +I begin really to entertain very sanguine expectations of young Doctor +Benjamin Franklin. He has lately been treating a patient of whose +good-will may prove of great importance to him. The Capitalist hurt one +of his fingers somehow or other, and requested our young doctor to take a +look at it. The young doctor asked nothing better than to take charge of +the case, which proved more serious than might have been at first +expected, and kept him in attendance more than a week. There was one +very odd thing about it. The Capitalist seemed to have an idea that he +was like to be ruined in the matter of bandages,--small strips of worn +linen which any old woman could have spared him from her rag-bag, but +which, with that strange perversity which long habits of economy give to +a good many elderly people, he seemed to think were as precious as if +they had been turned into paper and stamped with promises to pay in +thousands, from the national treasury. It was impossible to get this +whim out of him, and the young doctor had tact enough to humor him in it. +All this did not look very promising for the state of mind in which the +patient was like to receive his bill for attendance when that should be +presented. Doctor Benjamin was man enough, however, to come up to the +mark, and sent him in such an account as it was becoming to send a man of +ample means who had been diligently and skilfully cared for. He looked +forward with some uncertainty as to how it would be received. Perhaps +his patient would try to beat him down, and Doctor Benjamin made up his +mind to have the whole or nothing. Perhaps he would pay the whole +amount, but with a look, and possibly a word, that would make every +dollar of it burn like a blister. + +Doctor Benjamin's conjectures were not unnatural, but quite remote from +the actual fact. As soon as his patient had got entirely well, the young +physician sent in his bill. The Capitalist requested him to step into +his room with him, and paid the full charge in the handsomest and most +gratifying way, thanking him for his skill and attention, and assuring +him that he had had great satisfaction in submitting himself to such +competent hands, and should certainly apply to him again in case he +should have any occasion for a medical adviser. We must not be too +sagacious in judging people by the little excrescences of their +character. Ex pede Herculem may often prove safe enough, but ex verruca +Tullium is liable to mislead a hasty judge of his fellow-men. + +I have studied the people called misers and thought a good deal about +them. In former years I used to keep a little gold by me in order to +ascertain for myself exactly the amount of pleasure to be got out of +handling it; this being the traditional delight of the old-fashioned +miser. It is by no means to be despised. Three or four hundred dollars +in double-eagles will do very well to experiment on. There is something +very agreeable in the yellow gleam, very musical in the metallic clink, +very satisfying in the singular weight, and very stimulating in the +feeling that all the world over these same yellow disks are the +master-keys that let one in wherever he wants to go, the servants that +bring him pretty nearly everything he wants, except virtue,--and a good +deal of what passes for that. I confess, then, to an honest liking for +the splendors and the specific gravity and the manifold potentiality of +the royal metal, and I understand, after a certain imperfect fashion, the +delight that an old ragged wretch, starving himself in a crazy hovel, +takes in stuffing guineas into old stockings and filling earthen pots +with sovereigns, and every now and then visiting his hoards and fingering +the fat pieces, and thinking ever all that they represent of earthly and +angelic and diabolic energy. A miser pouring out his guineas into his +palm and bathing his shrivelled and trembling hands in the yellow heaps +before him, is not the prosaic being we are in the habit of thinking him. +He is a dreamer, almost a poet. You and I read a novel or a poem to help +our imaginations to build up palaces, and transport us into the emotional +states and the felicitous conditions of the ideal characters pictured in +the book we are reading. But think of him and the significance of the +symbols he is handling as compared with the empty syllables and words we +are using to build our aerial edifices with! In this hand he holds the +smile of beauty and in that the dagger of revenge. The contents of that +old glove will buy him the willing service of many an adroit sinner, and +with what that coarse sack contains he can purchase the prayers of holy +men for all succeeding time. In this chest is a castle in Spain, a real +one, and not only in Spain, but anywhere he will choose to have it. If +he would know what is the liberality of judgment of any of the straiter +sects, he has only to hand over that box of rouleaux to the trustees of +one of its educational institutions for the endowment of two or three +professorships. If he would dream of being remembered by coming +generations, what monument so enduring as a college building that shall +bear his name, and even when its solid masonry shall crumble give place +to another still charged with the same sacred duty of perpetuating his +remembrance. Who was Sir Matthew Holworthy, that his name is a household +word on the lips of thousands of scholars, and will be centuries hence, +as that of Walter de Merton, dead six hundred years ago, is to-day at +Oxford? Who was Mistress Holden, that she should be blessed among women +by having her name spoken gratefully and the little edifice she caused to +be erected preserved as her monument from generation to generation? All +these possibilities, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the +pride of life; the tears of grateful orphans by the gallon; the prayers +of Westminster Assembly's Catechism divines by the thousand; the masses +of priests by the century;--all these things, and more if more there be +that the imagination of a lover of gold is likely to range over, the +miser hears and sees and feels and hugs and enjoys as he paddles with his +lean hands among the sliding, shining, ringing, innocent-looking bits of +yellow metal, toying with them as the lion-tamer handles the great +carnivorous monster, whose might and whose terrors are child's play to +the latent forces and power of harm-doing of the glittering counters +played with in the great game between angels and devils. + +I have seen a good deal of misers, and I think I understand them as well +as most persons do. But the Capitalist's economy in rags and his +liberality to the young doctor are very oddly contrasted with each other. +I should not be surprised at any time to hear that he had endowed a +scholarship or professorship or built a college dormitory, in spite of +his curious parsimony in old linen. + +I do not know where our Young Astronomer got the notions that he +expresses so freely in the lines that follow. I think the statement is +true, however, which I see in one of the most popular Cyclopaedias, that +"the non-clerical mind in all ages is disposed to look favorably upon the +doctrine of the universal restoration to holiness and happiness of all +fallen intelligences, whether human or angelic." Certainly, most of the +poets who have reached the heart of men, since Burns dropped the tear for +poor "auld Nickie-ben" that softened the stony-hearted theology of +Scotland, have had "non-clerical" minds, and I suppose our young friend +is in his humble way an optimist like them. What he says in verse is +very much the same thing as what is said in prose in all companies, and +thought by a great many who are thankful to anybody that will say it for +them,--not a few clerical as wall as "non-clerical" persons among them. + + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. + + V + + What am I but the creature Thou hast made? + What have I save the blessings Thou hast lent? + What hope I but Thy mercy and Thy love? + Who but myself shall cloud my soul with fear? + Whose hand protect me from myself but Thine? + + I claim the rights of weakness, I, the babe, + Call on my sire to shield me from the ills + That still beset my path, not trying me + With snares beyond my wisdom or my strength, + He knowing I shall use them to my harm, + And find a tenfold misery in the sense + That in my childlike folly I have sprung + The trap upon myself as vermin use + Drawn by the cunning bait to certain doom. + Who wrought the wondrous charm that leads us on + To sweet perdition, but the self-same power + That set the fearful engine to destroy + His wretched offspring (as the Rabbis tell), + And hid its yawning jaws and treacherous springs + In such a show of innocent sweet flowers + It lured the sinless angels and they fell? + + Ah! He who prayed the prayer of all mankind + Summed in those few brief words the mightiest plea + For erring souls before the courts of heaven, + Save us from being tempted,--lest we fall! + If we are only as the potter's clay + Made to be fashioned as the artist wills, + And broken into shards if we offend + The eye of Him who made us, it is well; + Such love as the insensate lump of clay + That spins upon the swift-revolving wheel + Bears to the hand that shapes its growing form, + --Such love, no more, will be our hearts' return + To the great Master-workman for his care, + Or would be, save that this, our breathing clay, + Is intertwined with fine innumerous threads + That make it conscious in its framer's hand; + And this He must remember who has filled + These vessels with the deadly draught of life, + Life, that means death to all it claims. Our love + Must kindle in the ray that streams from heaven, + A faint reflection of the light divine; + The sun must warm the earth before the rose + Can show her inmost heart-leaves to the sun. + + He yields some fraction of the Maker's right + Who gives the quivering nerve its sense of pain; + Is there not something in the pleading eye + Of the poor brute that suffers, which arraigns + The law that bids it suffer? Has it not + A claim for some remembrance in the book + That fills its pages with the idle words + Spoken of men? Or is it only clay, + Bleeding and aching in the potter's hand, + Yet all his own to treat it as he will + And when he will to cast it at his feet, + Shattered, dishonored, lost forevermore? + My dog loves me, but could he look beyond + His earthly master, would his love extend + To Him who--Hush! I will not doubt that He + Is better than our fears, and will not wrong + The least, the meanest of created things! + + He would not trust me with the smallest orb + That circles through the sky; he would not give + A meteor to my guidance; would not leave + The coloring of a cloudlet to my hand; + He locks my beating heart beneath its bars + And keeps the key himself; he measures out + The draughts of vital breath that warm my blood, + Winds up the springs of instinct which uncoil, + Each in its season; ties me to my home, + My race, my time, my nation, and my creed + So closely that if I but slip my wrist + Out of the band that cuts it to the bone, + Men say, "He hath a devil"; he has lent + All that I hold in trust, as unto one + By reason of his weakness and his years + Not fit to hold the smallest shred in fee + Of those most common things he calls his own + And yet--my Rabbi tells me--he has left + The care of that to which a million worlds. + Filled with unconscious life were less than naught, + Has left that mighty universe, the Soul, + To the weak guidance of our baby hands, + Turned us adrift with our immortal charge, + Let the foul fiends have access at their will, + Taking the shape of angels, to our hearts, + Our hearts already poisoned through and through + With the fierce virus of ancestral sin. + If what my Rabbi tells me is the truth, + Why did the choir of angels sing for joy? + Heaven must be compassed in a narrow space, + And offer more than room enough for all + That pass its portals; but the underworld, + The godless realm, the place where demons forge + Their fiery darts and adamantine chains, + Must swarm with ghosts that for a little while + Had worn the garb of flesh, and being heirs + Of all the dulness of their stolid sires, + And all the erring instincts of their tribe, + Nature's own teaching, rudiments of "sin," + Fell headlong in the snare that could not fail + To trap the wretched creatures shaped of clay + And cursed with sense enough to lose their souls! + + Brother, thy heart is troubled at my word; + Sister, I see the cloud is on thy brow. + He will not blame me, He who sends not peace, + But sends a sword, and bids us strike amain + At Error's gilded crest, where in the van + Of earth's great army, mingling with the best + And bravest of its leaders, shouting loud + The battle-cries that yesterday have led + The host of Truth to victory, but to-day + Are watchwords of the laggard and the slave, + He leads his dazzled cohorts. God has made + This world a strife of atoms and of spheres; + With every breath I sigh myself away + And take my tribute from the wandering wind + To fan the flame of life's consuming fire; + So, while my thought has life, it needs must burn, + And burning, set the stubble-fields ablaze, + Where all the harvest long ago was reaped + And safely garnered in the ancient barns, + But still the gleaners, groping for their food, + Go blindly feeling through the close-shorn straw, + While the young reapers flash their glittering steel + Where later suns have ripened nobler grain! + +We listened to these lines in silence. They were evidently written +honestly, and with feeling, and no doubt meant to be reverential. I +thought, however, the Lady looked rather serious as he finished reading. +The Young Girl's cheeks were flushed, but she was not in the mood for +criticism. + +As we came away the Master said to me--The stubble-fields are mighty slow +to take fire. These young fellows catch up with the world's ideas one +after another,--they have been tamed a long while, but they find them +running loose in their minds, and think they are ferae naturae. They +remind me of young sportsmen who fire at the first feathers they see, and +bring down a barnyard fowl. But the chicken may be worth bagging for all +that, he said, good-humoredly. + + + + +X + +Caveat Lector. Let the reader look out for himself. The old Master, +whose words I have so frequently quoted and shall quote more of, is a +dogmatist who lays down the law, ex cathedra, from the chair of his own +personality. I do not deny that he has the ambition of knowing something +about a greater number of subjects than any one man ought to meddle with, +except in a very humble and modest way. And that is not his way. There +was no doubt something of, humorous bravado in his saying that the actual +"order of things" did not offer a field sufficiently ample for his +intelligence. But if I found fault with him, which would be easy enough, +I should say that he holds and expresses definite opinions about matters +that he could afford to leave open questions, or ask the judgment of +others about. But I do not want to find fault with him. If he does not +settle all the points he speaks of so authoritatively, he sets me +thinking about them, and I like a man as a companion who is not afraid of +a half-truth. I know he says some things peremptorily that he may +inwardly debate with himself. There are two ways of dealing with +assertions of this kind. One may attack them on the false side and +perhaps gain a conversational victory. But I like better to take them up +on the true side and see how much can be made of that aspect of the +dogmatic assertion. It is the only comfortable way of dealing with +persons like the old Master. + +There have been three famous talkers in Great Britain, either of whom +would illustrate what I say about dogmatists well enough for my purpose. +You cannot doubt to what three I refer: Samuel the First, Samuel the +Second, and Thomas, last of the Dynasty. (I mean the living Thomas and +not Thomas B.) + +I say the last of the Dynasty, for the conversational dogmatist on the +imperial scale becomes every year more and more an impossibility. If he +is in intelligent company he will be almost sure to find some one who +knows more about some of the subjects he generalizes upon than any +wholesale thinker who handles knowledge by the cargo is like to know. I +find myself, at certain intervals, in the society of a number of experts +in science, literature, and art, who cover a pretty wide range, taking +them all together, of human knowledge. I have not the least doubt that +if the great Dr. Samuel Johnson should come in and sit with this company +at one of their Saturday dinners, he would be listened to, as he always +was, with respect and attention. But there are subjects upon which the +great talker could speak magisterially in his time and at his club, upon +which so wise a man would express himself guardedly at the meeting where +I have supposed him a guest. We have a scientific man or two among us, +for instance, who would be entitled to smile at the good Doctor's +estimate of their labors, as I give it here: + +"Of those that spin out life in trifles and die without a memorial, many +flatter themselves with high opinion of their own importance and imagine +that they are every day adding some improvement to human life."--"Some +turn the wheel of electricity, some suspend rings to a loadstone, and +find that what they did yesterday they can do again to-day. Some +register the changes of the wind, and die fully convinced that the wind +is changeable. + +"There are men yet more profound, who have heard that two colorless +liquors may produce a color by union, and that two cold bodies will grow +hot if they are mingled; they mingle them, and produce the effect +expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again." + +I cannot transcribe this extract without an intense inward delight in its +wit and a full recognition of its thorough half-truthfulness. Yet if +while the great moralist is indulging in these vivacities, he can be +imagined as receiving a message from Mr. Boswell or Mrs. Thrale flashed +through the depths of the ocean, we can suppose he might be tempted to +indulge in another oracular utterance, something like this:----A wise +man recognizes the convenience of a general statement, but he bows to the +authority of a particular fact. He who would bound the possibilities of +human knowledge by the limitations of present acquirements would take the +dimensions of the infant in ordering the habiliments of the adult. It is +the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to +listen. Will the Professor have the kindness to inform me by what steps +of gradual development the ring and the loadstone, which were but +yesterday the toys of children and idlers, have become the means of +approximating the intelligences of remote continents, and wafting +emotions unchilled through the abysses of the no longer unfathomable +deep? + +--This, you understand, Beloved, is only a conventional imitation of the +Doctor's style of talking. He wrote in grand balanced phrases, but his +conversation was good, lusty, off-hand familiar talk. He used very often +to have it all his own way. If he came back to us we must remember that +to treat him fairly we must suppose him on a level with the knowledge of +our own time. But that knowledge is more specialized, a great deal, than +knowledge was in his day. Men cannot talk about things they have seen +from the outside with the same magisterial authority the talking dynasty +pretended to. The sturdy old moralist felt grand enough, no doubt, when +he said, "He that is growing great and happy by electrifying a bottle +wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war or +peace." Benjamin Franklin was one of these idlers who were electrifying +bottles, but he also found time to engage in the trifling prattle about +war and peace going on in those times. The talking Doctor hits him very +hard in "Taxation no Tyranny": "Those who wrote the Address (of the +American Congress in 1775), though they have shown no great extent or +profundity of mind, are yet probably wiser than to believe it: but they +have been taught by some master of mischief how to put in motion the +engine of political electricity; to attract by the sounds of Liberty and +Property, to repel by those of Popery and Slavery; and to give the great +stroke by the name of Boston." The talking dynasty has always been hard +upon us Americans. King Samuel II. says: "It is, I believe, a fact +verified beyond doubt, that some years ago it was impossible to obtain a +copy of the Newgate Calendar, as they had all been bought up by the +Americans, whether to suppress the blazon of their forefathers or to +assist in their genealogical researches I could never learn +satisfactorily." As for King Thomas, the last of the monological +succession, he made such a piece of work with his prophecies and his +sarcasms about our little trouble with some of the Southern States, that +we came rather to pity him for his whims and crotchets than to get angry +with him for calling us bores and other unamiable names. + +I do not think we believe things because considerable people say them, on +personal authority, that is, as intelligent listeners very commonly did a +century ago. The newspapers have lied that belief out of us. Any man +who has a pretty gift of talk may hold his company a little while when +there is nothing better stirring. Every now and then a man who may be +dull enough prevailingly has a passion of talk come over him which makes +him eloquent and silences the rest. I have a great respect for these +divine paroxysms, these half-inspired moments of influx when they seize +one whom we had not counted among the luminaries of the social sphere. +But the man who can--give us a fresh experience on anything that +interests us overrides everybody else. A great peril escaped makes a +great story-teller of a common person enough. I remember when a certain +vessel was wrecked long ago, that one of the survivors told the story as +well as Defoe could have told it. Never a word from him before; never a +word from him since. But when it comes to talking one's common +thoughts,--those that come and go as the breath does; those that tread +the mental areas and corridors with steady, even foot-fall, an +interminable procession of every hue and garb,--there are few, indeed, +that can dare to lift the curtain which hangs before the window in the +breast and throw open the window, and let us look and listen. We are all +loyal enough to our sovereign when he shows himself, but sovereigns are +scarce. I never saw the absolute homage of listeners but once, that I +remember, to a man's common talk, and that was to the conversation of an +old man, illustrious by his lineage and the exalted honors he had won, +whose experience had lessons for the wisest, and whose eloquence had made +the boldest tremble. + +All this because I told you to look out for yourselves and not take for +absolute truth everything the old Master of our table, or anybody else at +it sees fit to utter. At the same time I do not think that he, or any of +us whose conversation I think worth reporting, says anything for the mere +sake of saying it and without thinking that it holds some truth, even if +it is not unqualifiedly true. + +I suppose a certain number of my readers wish very heartily that the +Young Astronomer whose poetical speculations I am recording would stop +trying by searching to find out the Almighty, and sign the thirty-nine +articles, or the Westminster Confession of Faith, at any rate slip his +neck into some collar or other, and pull quietly in the harness, whether +it galled him or not. I say, rather, let him have his talk out; if +nobody else asks the questions he asks, some will be glad to hear them, +but if you, the reader, find the same questions in your own mind, you +need not be afraid to see how they shape themselves in another's +intelligence. Do you recognize the fact that we are living in a new +time? Knowledge--it excites prejudices to call it science--is advancing +as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in +upon the shore. The courtiers of King Canute (I am not afraid of the old +comparison), represented by the adherents of the traditional beliefs of +the period, move his chair back an inch at a time, but not until his feet +are pretty damp, not to say wet. The rock on which he sat securely +awhile ago is completely under water. And now people are walking up and +down the beach and judging for themselves how far inland the chair of +King Canute is like to be moved while they and their children are looking +on, at the rate in which it is edging backward. And it is quite too late +to go into hysterics about it. + +The shore, solid, substantial, a great deal more than eighteen hundred +years old, is natural humanity. The beach which the ocean of +knowledge--you may call it science if you like--is flowing over, is +theological humanity. Somewhere between the Sermon on the Mount and the +teachings of Saint Augustine sin was made a transferable chattel. (I +leave the interval wide for others to make narrow.) + +The doctrine of heritable guilt, with its mechanical consequences, has +done for our moral nature what the doctrine of demoniac possession has +done in barbarous times and still does among barbarous tribes for +disease. Out of that black cloud came the lightning which struck the +compass of humanity. Conscience, which from the dawn of moral being had +pointed to the poles of right and wrong only as the great current of will +flowed through the soul, was demagnetized, paralyzed, and knew henceforth +no fixed meridian, but stayed where the priest or the council placed it. +There is nothing to be done but to polarize the needle over again. And +for this purpose we must study the lines of direction of all the forces +which traverse our human nature. + +We must study man as we have studied stars and rocks. We need not go, we +are told, to our sacred books for astronomy or geology or other +scientific knowledge. Do not stop there! Pull Canute's chair back fifty +rods at once, and do not wait until he is wet to the knees! Say now, +bravely, as you will sooner or later have to say, that we need not go to +any ancient records for our anthropology. Do we not all hold, at least, +that the doctrine of man's being a blighted abortion, a miserable +disappointment to his Creator, and hostile and hateful to him from his +birth, may give way to the belief that he is the latest terrestrial +manifestation of an ever upward-striving movement of divine power? If +there lives a man who does not want to disbelieve the popular notions +about the condition and destiny of the bulk of his race, I should like to +have him look me in the face and tell me so. + +I am not writing for the basement story or the nursery, and I do not +pretend to be, but I say nothing in these pages which would not be said +without fear of offence in any intelligent circle, such as clergymen of +the higher castes are in the habit of frequenting. There are teachers in +type for our grandmothers and our grandchildren who vaccinate the two +childhoods with wholesome doctrine, transmitted harmlessly from one +infant to another. But we three men at our table have taken the disease +of thinking in the natural way. It is an epidemic in these times, and +those who are afraid of it must shut themselves up close or they will +catch it. + +I hope none of us are wanting in reverence. One at least of us is a +regular church-goer, and believes a man may be devout and yet very free +in the expression of his opinions on the gravest subjects. There may be +some good people who think that our young friend who puts his thoughts in +verse is going sounding over perilous depths, and are frightened every +time he throws the lead. There is nothing to be frightened at. This is +a manly world we live in. Our reverence is good for nothing if it does +not begin with self-respect. Occidental manhood springs from that as its +basis; Oriental manhood finds the greatest satisfaction in +self-abasement. There is no use in trying to graft the tropical palm +upon the Northern pine. The same divine forces underlie the growth of +both, but leaf and flower and fruit must follow the law of race, of soil, +of climate. Whether the questions which assail my young friend have +risen in my reader's mind or not, he knows perfectly well that nobody can +keep such questions from springing up in every young mind of any force or +honesty. As for the excellent little wretches who grow up in what they +are taught, with never a scruple or a query, Protestant or Catholic, Jew +or Mormon, Mahometan or Buddhist, they signify nothing in the +intellectual life of the race. If the world had been wholly peopled with +such half-vitalized mental negatives, there never would have been a creed +like that of Christendom. + +I entirely agree with the spirit of the verses I have looked over, in +this point at least, that a true man's allegiance is given to that which +is highest in his own nature. He reverences truth, he loves kindness, he +respects justice. The two first qualities he understands well enough. +But the last, justice, at least as between the Infinite and the finite, +has been so utterly dehumanized, disintegrated, decomposed, and +diabolized in passing through the minds of the half-civilized banditti +who have peopled and unpeopled the world for some scores of generations, +that it has become a mere algebraic x, and has no fixed value whatever as +a human conception. + +As for power, we are outgrowing all superstition about that. We have not +the slightest respect for it as such, and it is just as well to remember +this in all our spiritual adjustments. We fear power when we cannot +master it; but just as far as we can master it, we make a slave and a +beast of burden of it without hesitation. We cannot change the ebb and +flow of the tides, or the course of the seasons, but we come as near it +as we can. We dam out the ocean, we make roses bloom in winter and water +freeze in summer. We have no more reverence for the sun than we have for +a fish-tail gas-burner; we stare into his face with telescopes as at a +ballet-dancer with opera-glasses; we pick his rays to pieces with prisms +as if they were so many skeins of colored yarn; we tell him we do not +want his company and shut him out like a troublesome vagrant. The gods +of the old heathen are the servants of to-day. Neptune, Vulcan, Aolus, +and the bearer of the thunderbolt himself have stepped down from their +pedestals and put on our livery. We cannot always master them, neither +can we always master our servant, the horse, but we have put a bridle on +the wildest natural agencies. The mob of elemental forces is as noisy +and turbulent as ever, but the standing army of civilization keeps it +well under, except for an occasional outbreak. + +When I read the Lady's letter printed some time since, I could not help +honoring the feeling which prompted her in writing it. But while I +respect the innocent incapacity of tender age and the limitations of the +comparatively uninstructed classes, it is quite out of the question to +act as if matters of common intelligence and universal interest were the +private property of a secret society, only to be meddled with by those +who know the grip and the password. + +We must get over the habit of transferring the limitations of the nervous +temperament and of hectic constitutions to the great Source of all the +mighty forces of nature, animate and inanimate. We may confidently trust +that we have over us a Being thoroughly robust and grandly magnanimous, +in distinction from the Infinite Invalid bred in the studies of sickly +monomaniacs, who corresponds to a very common human type, but makes us +blush for him when we contrast him with a truly noble man, such as most +of us have had the privilege of knowing both in public and in private +life. + +I was not a little pleased to find that the Lady, in spite of her letter, +sat through the young man's reading of portions of his poem with a good +deal of complacency. I think I can guess what is in her mind. She +believes, as so many women do, in that great remedy for discontent, and +doubts about humanity, and questionings of Providence, and all sorts of +youthful vagaries,--I mean the love-cure. And she thinks, not without +some reason, that these astronomical lessons, and these readings of +poetry and daily proximity at the table, and the need of two young hearts +that have been long feeling lonely, and youth and nature and "all +impulses of soul and sense," as Coleridge has it, will bring these two +young people into closer relations than they perhaps have yet thought of; +and so that sweet lesson of loving the neighbor whom he has seen may lead +him into deeper and more trusting communion with the Friend and Father +whom he has not seen. + +The Young Girl evidently did not intend that her accomplice should be a +loser by the summary act of the Member of the Haouse: I took occasion to +ask That Boy what had become of all the popguns. He gave me to +understand that popguns were played out, but that he had got a squirt and +a whip, and considered himself better off than before. + +This great world is full of mysteries. I can comprehend the pleasure to +be got out of the hydraulic engine; but what can be the fascination of a +whip, when one has nothing to flagellate but the calves of his own legs, +I could never understand. Yet a small riding-whip is the most popular +article with the miscellaneous New-Englander at all great +gatherings,--cattle-shows and Fourth-of-July celebrations. If Democritus +and Heraclitus could walk arm in arm through one of these crowds, the +first would be in a broad laugh to see the multitude of young persons who +were rejoicing in the possession of one of these useless and worthless +little commodities; happy himself to see how easily others could purchase +happiness. But the second would weep bitter tears to think what a +rayless and barren life that must be which could extract enjoyment from +the miserable flimsy wand that has such magic attraction for sauntering +youths and simpering maidens. What a dynamometer of happiness are these +paltry toys, and what a rudimentary vertebrate must be the freckled +adolescent whose yearning for the infinite can be stayed even for a +single hour by so trifling a boon from the venal hands of the finite! + +Pardon these polysyllabic reflections, Beloved, but I never contemplate +these dear fellow-creatures of ours without a delicious sense of +superiority to them and to all arrested embryos of intelligence, in which +I have no doubt you heartily sympathize with me. It is not merely when I +look at the vacuous countenances of the mastigophori, the whip-holders, +that I enjoy this luxury (though I would not miss that holiday spectacle +for a pretty sum of money, and advise you by all means to make sure of it +next Fourth of July, if you missed it this), but I get the same pleasure +from many similar manifestations. + +I delight in Regalia, so called, of the kind not worn by kings, nor +obtaining their diamonds from the mines of Golconda. I have a passion +for those resplendent titles which are not conferred by a sovereign and +would not be the open sesame to the courts of royalty, yet which are as +opulent in impressive adjectives as any Knight of the Garter's list of +dignities. When I have recognized in the every-day name of His Very +Worthy High Eminence of some cabalistic association, the inconspicuous +individual whose trifling indebtedness to me for value received remains +in a quiescent state and is likely long to continue so, I confess to +having experienced a thrill of pleasure. I have smiled to think how +grand his magnificent titular appendages sounded in his own ears and what +a feeble tintinnabulation they made in mine. The crimson sash, the broad +diagonal belt of the mounted marshal of a great procession, so cheap in +themselves, yet so entirely satisfactory to the wearer, tickle my heart's +root. + +Perhaps I should have enjoyed all these weaknesses of my infantile +fellow-creatures without an afterthought, except that on a certain +literary anniversary when I tie the narrow blue and pink ribbons in my +button-hole and show my decorated bosom to the admiring public, I am +conscious of a certain sense of distinction and superiority in virtue of +that trifling addition to my personal adornments which reminds me that I +too have some embryonic fibres in my tolerably well-matured organism. + +I hope I have not hurt your feelings, if you happen to be a High and +Mighty Grand Functionary in any illustrious Fraternity. When I tell you +that a bit of ribbon in my button-hole sets my vanity prancing, I think +you cannot be grievously offended that I smile at the resonant titles +which make you something more than human in your own eyes. I would not +for the world be mistaken for one of those literary roughs whose brass +knuckles leave their mark on the foreheads of so many inoffensive people. + +There is a human sub-species characterized by the coarseness of its fibre +and the acrid nature of its intellectual secretions. It is to a certain +extent penetrative, as all creatures are which are provided with stings. +It has an instinct which guides it to the vulnerable parts of the victim +on which it fastens. These two qualities give it a certain degree of +power which is not to be despised. It might perhaps be less mischievous, +but for the fact that the wound where it leaves its poison opens the +fountain from which it draws its nourishment. + +Beings of this kind can be useful if they will only find their +appropriate sphere, which is not literature, but that circle of +rough-and-tumble political life where the fine-fibred men are at a +discount, where epithets find their subjects poison-proof, and the sting +which would be fatal to a literary debutant only wakes the eloquence of +the pachydermatous ward-room politician to a fiercer shriek of +declamation. + +The Master got talking the other day about the difference between races +and families. I am reminded of what he said by what I have just been +saying myself about coarse-fibred and fine-fibred people. + +--We talk about a Yankee, a New-Englander,---he said,-as if all of 'em +were just the same kind of animal. "There is knowledge and knowledge," +said John Bunyan. There are Yankees and Yankees. Do you know two native +trees called pitch pine and white pine respectively? Of course you know +'em. Well, there are pitch-pine Yankees and white-pine Yankees. We +don't talk about the inherited differences of men quite as freely, +perhaps, as they do in the Old World, but republicanism doesn't alter the +laws of physiology. We have a native aristocracy, a superior race, just +as plainly marked by nature as of a higher and finer grade than the +common run of people as the white pine is marked in its form, its +stature, its bark, its delicate foliage, as belonging to the nobility of +the forest; and the pitch pine, stubbed, rough, coarse-haired, as of the +plebeian order. Only the strange thing is to see in what a capricious +way our natural nobility is distributed. The last born nobleman I have +seen, I saw this morning; he was pulling a rope that was fastened to a +Maine schooner loaded with lumber. I should say he was about twenty +years old, as fine a figure of a young man as you would ask to see, and +with a regular Greek outline of countenance, waving hair, that fell as if +a sculptor had massed it to copy, and a complexion as rich as a red +sunset. I have a notion that the State of Maine breeds the natural +nobility in a larger proportion than some other States, but they spring +up in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. The young fellow I saw this +morning had on an old flannel shirt, a pair of trowsers that meant hard +work, and a cheap cloth cap pushed back on his head so as to let the +large waves of hair straggle out over his forehead; he was tugging at his +rope with the other sailors, but upon my word I don't think I have seen a +young English nobleman of all those whom I have looked upon that answered +to the notion of "blood" so well as this young fellow did. I suppose if +I made such a levelling confession as this in public, people would think +I was looking towards being the labor-reform candidate for President. +But I should go on and spoil my prospects by saying that I don't think +the white-pine Yankee is the more generally prevailing growth, but rather +the pitch-pine Yankee. + +--The Member of the Haouse seemed to have been getting a dim idea that +all this was not exactly flattering to the huckleberry districts. His +features betrayed the growth of this suspicion so clearly that the Master +replied to his look as if it had been a remark. [I need hardly say that +this particular member of the General Court was a pitch-pine Yankee of +the most thoroughly characterized aspect and flavor.] + +--Yes, Sir,--the Master continued,--Sir being anybody that listened, +--there is neither flattery nor offence in the views which a +physiological observer takes of the forms of life around him. It won't +do to draw individual portraits, but the differences of natural groups of +human beings are as proper subjects of remark as those of different +breeds of horses, and if horses were Houyhnhnms I don't think they would +quarrel with us because we made a distinction between a "Morgan" and a +"Messenger." The truth is, Sir, the lean sandy soil and the droughts and +the long winters and the east-winds and the cold storms, and all sorts of +unknown local influences that we can't make out quite so plainly as +these, have a tendency to roughen the human organization and make it +coarse, something as it is with the tree I mentioned. Some spots and +some strains of blood fight against these influences, but if I should say +right out what I think, it would be that the finest human fruit, on the +whole; and especially the finest women that we get in New England are +raised under glass. + +--Good gracious!--exclaimed the Landlady, under glass! + +--Give me cowcumbers raised in the open air, said the Capitalist, who was +a little hard of hearing. + +--Perhaps,--I remarked,--it might be as well if you would explain this +last expression of yours. Raising human beings under glass I take to be +a metaphorical rather than a literal statement of your meaning. + +--No, Sir!--replied the Master, with energy,--I mean just what I say, +Sir. Under glass, and with a south exposure. During the hard season, of +course,--for in the heats of summer the tenderest hot-house plants are +not afraid of the open air. Protection is what the transplanted Aryan +requires in this New England climate. Keep him, and especially keep her, +in a wide street of a well-built city eight months of the year; good +solid brick walls behind her, good sheets of plate-glass, with the sun +shining warm through them, in front of her, and you have put her in the +condition of the pine-apple, from the land of which, and not from that of +the other kind of pine, her race started on its travels. People don't +know what a gain there is to health by living in cities, the best parts +of them of course, for we know too well what the worst parts are. In the +first place you get rid of the noxious emanations which poison so many +country localities with typhoid fever and dysentery, not wholly rid of +them, of course, but to a surprising degree. Let me tell you a doctor's +story. I was visiting a Western city a good many years ago; it was in +the autumn, the time when all sorts of malarious diseases are about. The +doctor I was speaking of took me to see the cemetery just outside the +town, I don't know how much he had done to fill it, for he didn't tell +me, but I'll tell you what he did say. + +"Look round," said the doctor. "There isn't a house in all the ten-mile +circuit of country you can see over, where there isn't one person, at +least, shaking with fever and ague. And yet you need n't be afraid of +carrying it away with you, for as long as your home is on a paved street +you are safe." + +--I think it likely--the Master went on to say--that my friend the doctor +put it pretty strongly, but there is no doubt at all that while all the +country round was suffering from intermittent fever, the paved part of +the city was comparatively exempted. What do you do when you build a +house on a damp soil, and there are damp soils pretty much everywhere? +Why you floor the cellar with cement, don't you? Well, the soil of a +city is cemented all over, one may say, with certain qualifications of +course. A first-rate city house is a regular sanatorium. The only +trouble is, that the little good-for-nothings that come of utterly +used-up and worn-out stock, and ought to die, can't die, to save their +lives. So they grow up to dilute the vigor of the race with skim-milk +vitality. They would have died, like good children, in most average +country places; but eight months of shelter in a regulated temperature, +in a well-sunned house, in a duly moistened air, with good sidewalks to +go about on in all weather, and four months of the cream of summer and +the fresh milk of Jersey cows, make the little sham organizations--the +worm-eaten wind-falls, for that 's what they look like--hang on to the +boughs of life like "froze-n-thaws"; regular struldbrugs they come to be, +a good many of 'em. + +--The Scarabee's ear was caught by that queer word of Swift's, and he +asked very innocently what kind of bugs he was speaking of, whereupon +That Boy shouted out, Straddlebugs! to his own immense amusement and the +great bewilderment of the Scarabee, who only saw that there was one of +those unintelligible breaks in the conversation which made other people +laugh, and drew back his antennae as usual, perplexed, but not amused. + +I do not believe the Master had said all he was going to say on this +subject, and of course all these statements of his are more or less +one-sided. But that some invalids do much better in cities than in the +country is indisputable, and that the frightful dysenteries and fevers +which have raged like pestilences in many of our country towns are almost +unknown in the better built sections of some of our large cities is +getting to be more generally understood since our well-to-do people have +annually emigrated in such numbers from the cemented surface of the city +to the steaming soil of some of the dangerous rural districts. If one +should contrast the healthiest country residences with the worst city +ones the result would be all the other way, of course, so that there are +two sides to the question, which we must let the doctors pound in their +great mortar, infuse and strain, hoping that they will present us with +the clear solution when they have got through these processes. One of +our chief wants is a complete sanitary map of every State in the Union. + +The balance of our table, as the reader has no doubt observed, has been +deranged by the withdrawal of the Man of Letters, so called, and only the +side of the deficiency changed by the removal of the Young Astronomer +into our neighborhood. The fact that there was a vacant chair on the +side opposite us had by no means escaped the notice of That Boy. He had +taken advantage of his opportunity and invited in a schoolmate whom he +evidently looked upon as a great personage. This boy or youth was a good +deal older than himself and stood to him apparently in the light of a +patron and instructor in the ways of life. A very jaunty, knowing young +gentleman he was, good-looking, smartly dressed, smooth-checked as yet, +curly-haired, with a roguish eye, a sagacious wink, a ready tongue, as I +soon found out; and as I learned could catch a ball on the fly with any +boy of his age; not quarrelsome, but, if he had to strike, hit from the +shoulder; the pride of his father (who was a man of property and a civic +dignitary), and answering to the name of Johnny. + +I was a little surprised at the liberty That Boy had taken in introducing +an extra peptic element at our table, reflecting as I did that a certain +number of avoirdupois ounces of nutriment which the visitor would dispose +of corresponded to a very appreciable pecuniary amount, so that he was +levying a contribution upon our Landlady which she might be inclined to +complain of. For the Caput mortuum (or deadhead, in vulgar phrase) is +apt to be furnished with a Venter vivus, or, as we may say, a lively +appetite. But the Landlady welcomed the new-comer very heartily. + +--Why! how--do--you--do Johnny?! with the notes of interrogation and of +admiration both together, as here represented. + +Johnny signified that he was doing about as well as could be expected +under the circumstances, having just had a little difference with a young +person whom he spoke of as "Pewter-jaw" (I suppose he had worn a +dentist's tooth-straightening contrivance during his second dentition), +which youth he had finished off, as he said, in good shape, but at the +expense of a slight epistaxis, we will translate his vernacular +expression. + +--The three ladies all looked sympathetic, but there did not seem to be +any great occasion for it, as the boy had come out all right, and seemed +to be in the best of spirits. + +-And how is your father and your mother? asked the Landlady. + +-Oh, the Governor and the Head Centre? A 1, both of 'em. Prime order +for shipping,--warranted to stand any climate. The Governor says he +weighs a hunderd and seventy-five pounds. Got a chin-tuft just like +Ed'in Forrest. D'd y' ever see Ed'in Forrest play Metamora? Bully, I +tell you! My old gentleman means to be Mayor or Governor or President or +something or other before he goes off the handle, you'd better b'lieve. +He's smart,--and I've heard folks say I take after him. + +--Somehow or other I felt as if I had seen this boy before, or known +something about him. Where did he get those expressions "A 1" and +"prime" and so on? They must have come from somebody who has been in the +retail dry-goods business, or something of that nature. I have certain +vague reminiscences that carry me back to the early times of this +boardinghouse.---Johnny.---Landlady knows his father well. + +---Boarded with her, no doubt.---There was somebody by the name of John, +I remember perfectly well, lived with her. I remember both my friends +mentioned him, one of them very often. I wonder if this boy isn't a son +of his! I asked the Landlady after breakfast whether this was not, as I +had suspected, the son of that former boarder. + +--To be sure he is,--she answered,--and jest such a good-natur'd sort of +creatur' as his father was. I always liked John, as we used to call his +father. He did love fun, but he was a good soul, and stood by me when I +was in trouble, always. He went into business on his own account after a +while, and got merried, and settled down into a family man. They tell me +he is an amazing smart business man,--grown wealthy, and his wife's +father left her money. But I can't help calling him John,--law, we never +thought of calling him anything else, and he always laughs and says, +"That's right." This is his oldest son, and everybody calls him Johnny. +That Boy of ours goes to the same school with his boy, and thinks there +never was anybody like him,--you see there was a boy undertook to impose +on our boy, and Johnny gave the other boy a good licking, and ever since +that he is always wanting to have Johnny round with him and bring him +here with him,--and when those two boys get together, there never was +boys that was so chock full of fun and sometimes mischief, but not very +bad mischief, as those two boys be. But I like to have him come once in +a while when there is room at the table, as there is now, for it puts me +in mind of the old times, when my old boarders was all round me, that I +used to think so much of,--not that my boarders that I have now a'nt very +nice people, but I did think a dreadful sight of the gentleman that made +that first book; it helped me on in the world more than ever he knew +of,--for it was as good as one of them Brandreth's pills advertisements, +and did n't cost me a cent, and that young lady he merried too, she was +nothing but a poor young schoolma'am when she come to my house, and +now--and she deserved it all too; for she was always just the same, rich +or poor, and she is n't a bit prouder now she wears a camel's-hair shawl, +than she was when I used to lend her a woollen one to keep her poor dear +little shoulders warm when she had to go out and it was storming,--and +then there was that old gentleman,--I can't speak about him, for I never +knew how good he was till his will was opened, and then it was too late +to thank him.... + +I respected the feeling which caused the interval of silence, and found +my own eyes moistened as I remembered how long it was since that friend +of ours was sitting in the chair where I now sit, and what a tidal wave +of change has swept over the world and more especially over this great +land of ours, since he opened his lips and found so many kind listeners. + +The Young Astronomer has read us another extract from his manuscript. I +ran my eye over it, and so far as I have noticed it is correct enough in +its versification. I suppose we are getting gradually over our +hemispherical provincialism, which allowed a set of monks to pull their +hoods over our eyes and tell us there was no meaning in any religious +symbolism but our own. If I am mistaken about this advance I am very +glad to print the young man's somewhat outspoken lines to help us in that +direction. + + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. + + VI + + The time is racked with birth-pangs; every hour + Brings forth some gasping truth, and truth new-born + Looks a misshapen and untimely growth, + The terror of the household and its shame, + A monster coiling in its nurse's lap + That some would strangle, some would only starve; + But still it breathes, and passed from hand to hand, + And suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts, + Comes slowly to its stature and its form, + Calms the rough ridges of its dragon-scales, + Changes to shining locks its snaky hair, + And moves transfigured into angel guise, + Welcomed by all that cursed its hour of birth, + And folded in the same encircling arms + That cast it like a serpent from their hold! + + If thou wouldst live in honor, die in peace, + Have the fine words the marble-workers learn + To carve so well, upon thy funeral-stone, + And earn a fair obituary, dressed + In all the many-colored robes of praise, + Be deafer than the adder to the cry + Of that same foundling truth, until it grows + To seemly favor, and at length has won + The smiles of hard-mouthed men and light-upped dames, + Then snatch it from its meagre nurse's breast, + Fold it in silk and give it food from gold; + So shalt thou share its glory when at last + It drops its mortal vesture, and revealed + In all the splendor of its heavenly form, + Spreads on the startled air its mighty wings! + + Alas! how much that seemed immortal truth + That heroes fought for, martyrs died to save, + Reveals its earth-born lineage, growing old + And limping in its march, its wings unplumed, + Its heavenly semblance faded like a dream! + + Here in this painted casket, just unsealed, + Lies what was once a breathing shape like thine, + Once loved as thou art loved; there beamed the eyes + That looked on Memphis in its hour of pride, + That saw the walls of hundred-gated Thebes, + And all the mirrored glories of the Nile. + See how they toiled that all-consuming time + Might leave the frame immortal in its tomb; + Filled it with fragrant balms and odorous gums + That still diffuse their sweetness through the air, + And wound and wound with patient fold on fold + The flaxen bands thy hand has rudely torn! + Perchance thou yet canst see the faded stain + Of the sad mourner's tear. + + But what is this? + The sacred beetle, bound upon the breast + Of the blind heathen! Snatch the curious prize, + Give it a place among thy treasured spoils + Fossil and relic,--corals, encrinites, + The fly in amber and the fish in stone, + The twisted circlet of Etruscan gold, + Medal, intaglio, poniard, poison-ring, + --Place for the Memphian beetle with thine hoard! + + Ah! longer than thy creed has blest the world + This toy, thus ravished from thy brother's breast, + Was to the heart of Mizraim as divine, + As holy, as the symbol that we lay + On the still bosom of our white-robed dead, + And raise above their dust that all may know + Here sleeps an heir of glory. Loving friends, + With tears of trembling faith and choking sobs, + And prayers to those who judge of mortal deeds, + Wrapped this poor image in the cerement's fold + That Isis and Osiris, friends of man, + Might know their own and claim the ransomed soul + + An idol? Man was born to worship such! + An idol is an image of his thought; + Sometimes he carves it out of gleaming stone, + And sometimes moulds it out of glittering gold, + Or rounds it in a mighty frescoed dome, + Or lifts it heavenward in a lofty spire, + Or shapes it in a cunning frame of words, + Or pays his priest to make it day by day; + For sense must have its god as well as soul; + A new-born Dian calls for silver shrines, + And Egypt's holiest symbol is our own, + The sign we worship as did they of old + When Isis and Osiris ruled the world. + + Let us be true to our most subtle selves, + We long to have our idols like the rest. + Think! when the men of Israel had their God + Encamped among them, talking with their chief, + Leading them in the pillar of the cloud + And watching o'er them in the shaft of fire, + They still must have an image; still they longed + For somewhat of substantial, solid form + Whereon to hang their garlands, and to fix + Their wandering thoughts, and gain a stronger hold + For their uncertain faith, not yet assured + If those same meteors of the day and night + Were not mere exhalations of the soil. + + Are we less earthly than the chosen race? + Are we more neighbors of the living God + Than they who gathered manna every morn, + Reaping where none had sown, and heard the voice + Of him who met the Highest in the mount, + And brought them tables, graven with His hand? + Yet these must have their idol, brought their gold, + That star-browed Apis might be god again; + Yea, from their ears the women brake the rings + That lent such splendors to the gypsy brown + Of sunburnt cheeks,--what more could woman do + To show her pious zeal? They went astray, + But nature led them as it leads us all. + + We too, who mock at Israel's golden calf + And scoff at Egypt's sacred scarabee, + Would have our amulets to clasp and kiss, + And flood with rapturous tears, and bear with us + To be our dear companions in the dust, + Such magic works an image in our souls! + + Man is an embryo; see at twenty years + His bones, the columns that uphold his frame + Not yet cemented, shaft and capital, + Mere fragments of the temple incomplete. + At twoscore, threescore, is he then full grown? + Nay, still a child, and as the little maids + Dress and undress their puppets, so he tries + To dress a lifeless creed, as if it lived, + And change its raiment when the world cries shame! + We smile to see our little ones at play + So grave, so thoughtful, with maternal care + Nursing the wisps of rags they call their babes; + Does He not smile who sees us with the toys + We call by sacred names, and idly feign + To be what we have called them? + He is still The Father of this helpless nursery-brood, + Whose second childhood joins so close its first, + That in the crowding, hurrying years between + We scarce have trained our senses to their task + Before the gathering mist has dimmed our eyes, + And with our hollowed palm we help our ear, + And trace with trembling hand our wrinkled names, + And then begin to tell our stories o'er, + And see--not hear-the whispering lips that say, + "You know--? Your father knew him.--This is he, + Tottering and leaning on the hireling's arm,--" + And so, at length, disrobed of all that clad + The simple life we share with weed and worm, + Go to our cradles, naked as we came. + + + + +XI + +I suppose there would have been even more remarks upon the growing +intimacy of the Young Astronomer and his pupil, if the curiosity of the +boarders had not in the mean time been so much excited at the apparently +close relation which had sprung up between the Register of Deeds and the +Lady. It was really hard to tell what to make of it. The Register +appeared at the table in a new coat. Suspicious. The Lady was evidently +deeply interested in him, if we could judge by the frequency and the +length of their interviews. On at least one occasion he has brought a +lawyer with him, which naturally suggested the idea that there were some +property arrangements to be attended to, in case, as seems probable +against all reasons to the contrary, these two estimable persons, so +utterly unfitted, as one would say, to each other, contemplated an +alliance. It is no pleasure to me to record an arrangement of this kind. +I frankly confess I do not know what to make of it. With her tastes and +breeding, it is the last thing that I should have thought of,--her +uniting herself with this most commonplace and mechanical person, who +cannot even offer her the elegances and luxuries to which she might seem +entitled on changing her condition. + +While I was thus interested and puzzled I received an unexpected visit +from our Landlady. She was evidently excited, and by some event which +was of a happy nature, for her countenance was beaming and she seemed +impatient to communicate what she had to tell. Impatient or not, she must +wait a moment, while I say a word about her. Our Landlady is as good a +creature as ever lived. She is a little negligent of grammar at times, +and will get a wrong word now and then; she is garrulous, circumstantial, +associates facts by their accidental cohesion rather than by their vital +affinities, is given to choking and tears on slight occasions, but she +has a warm heart, and feels to her boarders as if they were her +blood-relations. She began her conversation abruptly.--I expect I'm a +going to lose one of my boarders,--she said. + +--You don't seem very unhappy about it, madam,--I answered.---We all took +it easily when the person who sat on our side of the table quitted us in +such a hurry, but I do not think there is anybody left that either you or +the boarders want to get rid of--unless it is myself,--I added modestly. + +--You! said the Landlady--you! No indeed. When I have a quiet boarder +that 's a small eater, I don't want to lose him. You don't make trouble, +you don't find fault with your vit--[Dr. Benjamin had schooled his parent +on this point and she altered the word] with your food, and you know when +you 've had enough. + +--I really felt proud of this eulogy, which embraces the most desirable +excellences of a human being in the capacity of boarder. + +The Landlady began again.--I'm going to lose--at least, I suppose I +shall--one of the best boarders I ever had,--that Lady that's been with +me so long. + +--I thought there was something going on between her and the Register,--I +said. + +--Something! I should think there was! About three months ago he began +making her acquaintance. I thought there was something particular. I +did n't quite like to watch 'em very close; but I could n't help +overbearing some of the things he said to her, for, you see, he used to +follow her up into the parlor, they talked pretty low, but I could catch +a word now and then. I heard him say something to her one day about +"bettering her condition," and she seemed to be thinking very hard about +it, and turning of it over in her mind, and I said to myself, She does +n't want to take up with him, but she feels dreadful poor, and perhaps he +has been saving and has got money in the bank, and she does n't want to +throw away a chance of bettering herself without thinking it over. But +dear me,--says I to myself,--to think of her walking up the broad aisle +into meeting alongside of such a homely, rusty-looking creatur' as that! +But there 's no telling what folks will do when poverty has got hold of +'em. + +--Well, so I thought she was waiting to make up her mind, and he was +hanging on in hopes she'd come round at last, as women do half the time, +for they don't know their own minds and the wind blows both ways at once +with 'em as the smoke blows out of the tall chimlies,--east out of this +one and west out of that,--so it's no use looking at 'em to know what the +weather is. + +--But yesterday she comes up to me after breakfast, and asks me to go up +with her into her little room. Now, says I to myself, I shall hear all +about it. I saw she looked as if she'd got some of her trouble off her +mind, and I guessed that it was settled, and so, says I to myself, I must +wish her joy and hope it's all for the best, whatever I think about it. + +--Well, she asked me to set down, and then she begun. She said that she +was expecting to have a change in her condition of life, and had asked me +up so that I might' have the first news of it. I am sure--says I--I +wish you both joy. Merriage is a blessed thing when folks is well +sorted, and it is an honorable thing, and the first meracle was at the +merriage in Canaan. It brings a great sight of happiness with it, as +I've had a chance of knowing, for my hus-- + +The Landlady showed her usual tendency to "break" from the conversational +pace just at this point, but managed to rein in the rebellious diaphragm, +and resumed her narrative. + +--Merriage!--says she,--pray who has said anything about merriage?--I +beg your pardon, ma'am,--says I,--I thought you had spoke of changing +your condition and I--She looked so I stopped right short. + +-Don't say another word, says she, but jest listen to what I am going to +tell you. + +--My friend, says she, that you have seen with me so often lately, was +hunting among his old Record books, when all at once he come across an +old deed that was made by somebody that had my family name. He took it +into his head to read it over, and he found there was some kind of a +condition that if it was n't kept, the property would all go back to them +that was the heirs of the one that gave the deed, and that he found out +was me. Something or other put it into his head, says she, that the +company that owned the property--it was ever so rich a company and owned +land all round everywhere--hadn't kept to the conditions. So he went to +work, says she, and hunted through his books and he inquired all round, +and he found out pretty much all about it, and at last he come to me--it +'s my boarder, you know, that says all this--and says he, Ma'am, says he, +if you have any kind of fancy for being a rich woman you've only got to +say so. I didn't know what he meant, and I began to think, says she, he +must be crazy. But he explained it all to me, how I'd nothing to do but +go to court and I could get a sight of property back. Well, so she went +on telling me--there was ever so much more that I suppose was all plain +enough, but I don't remember it all--only I know my boarder was a good +deal worried at first at the thought of taking money that other people +thought was theirs, and the Register he had to talk to her, and he +brought a lawyer and he talked to her, and her friends they talked to +her, and the upshot of it all was that the company agreed to settle the +business by paying her, well, I don't know just how much, but enough to +make her one of the rich folks again. + +I may as well add here that, as I have since learned, this is one of the +most important cases of releasing right of reentry for condition broken +which has been settled by arbitration for a considerable period. If I am +not mistaken the Register of Deeds will get something more than a new +coat out of this business, for the Lady very justly attributes her change +of fortunes to his sagacity and his activity in following up the hint he +had come across by mere accident. + +So my supernumerary fellow-boarder, whom I would have dispensed with as a +cumberer of the table, has proved a ministering angel to one of the +personages whom I most cared for. + +One would have thought that the most scrupulous person need not have +hesitated in asserting an unquestioned legal and equitable claim simply +because it had lain a certain number of years in abeyance. But before the +Lady could make up her mind to accept her good fortune she had been kept +awake many nights in doubt and inward debate whether she should avail +herself of her rights. If it had been private property, so that another +person must be made poor that she should become rich, she would have +lived and died in want rather than claim her own. I do not think any of +us would like to turn out the possessor of a fine estate enjoyed for two +or three generations on the faith of unquestioned ownership by making use +of some old forgotten instrument, which accident had thrown in our way. + +But it was all nonsense to indulge in any sentiment in a case like this, +where it was not only a right, but a duty which she owed herself and +others in relation with her, to accept what Providence, as it appeared, +had thrust upon her, and when no suffering would be occasioned to +anybody. Common sense told her not to refuse it. So did several of her +rich friends, who remembered about this time that they had not called +upon her for a good while, and among them Mrs. Midas Goldenrod. + +Never had that lady's carriage stood before the door of our +boarding-house so long, never had it stopped so often, as since the +revelation which had come from the Registry of Deeds. Mrs. Midas +Goldenrod was not a bad woman, but she loved and hated in too exclusive +and fastidious a way to allow us to consider her as representing the +highest ideal of womanhood. She hated narrow ill-ventilated courts, +where there was nothing to see if one looked out of the window but old +men in dressing-gowns and old women in caps; she hated little dark rooms +with air-tight stoves in them; she hated rusty bombazine gowns and last +year's bonnets; she hated gloves that were not as fresh as new-laid eggs, +and shoes that had grown bulgy and wrinkled in service; she hated common +crockeryware and teaspoons of slight constitution; she hated second +appearances on the dinner-table; she hated coarse napkins and +table-cloths; she hated to ride in the horsecars; she hated to walk +except for short distances, when she was tired of sitting in her +carriage. She loved with sincere and undisguised affection a spacious +city mansion and a charming country villa, with a seaside cottage for a +couple of months or so; she loved a perfectly appointed household, a cook +who was up to all kinds of salmis and vol-au-vents, a French maid, and a +stylish-looking coachman, and the rest of the people necessary to help +one live in a decent manner; she loved pictures that other people said +were first-rate, and which had at least cost first-rate prices; she loved +books with handsome backs, in showy cases; she loved heavy and richly +wought plate; fine linen and plenty of it; dresses from Paris frequently, +and as many as could be got in without troubling the customhouse; Russia +sables and Venetian point-lace; diamonds, and good big ones; and, +speaking generally, she loved dear things in distinction from cheap ones, +the real article and not the economical substitute. + +For the life of me I cannot see anything Satanic in all this. Tell me, +Beloved, only between ourselves, if some of these things are not +desirable enough in their way, and if you and I could not make up our +minds to put up with some of the least objectionable of them without any +great inward struggle? Even in the matter of ornaments there is +something to be said. Why should we be told that the New Jerusalem is +paved with gold, and that its twelve gates are each of them a pearl, and +that its foundations are garnished with sapphires and emeralds and all +manner of precious stones, if these are not among the most desirable of +objects? And is there anything very strange in the fact that many a +daughter of earth finds it a sweet foretaste of heaven to wear about her +frail earthly tabernacle these glittering reminders of the celestial +city? + +Mrs. Midas Goldenrod was not so entirely peculiar and anomalous in her +likes and dislikes; the only trouble was that she mixed up these +accidents of life too much with life itself, which is so often serenely +or actively noble and happy without reference to them. She valued +persons chiefly according to their external conditions, and of course the +very moment her relative, the Lady of our breakfast-table, began to find +herself in a streak of sunshine she came forward with a lighted candle to +show her which way her path lay before her. + +The Lady saw all this, how plainly, how painfully! yet she exercised a +true charity for the weakness of her relative. Sensible people have as +much consideration for the frailties of the rich as for those of the +poor. There is a good deal of excuse for them. Even you and I, +philosophers and philanthropists as we may think ourselves, have a +dislike for the enforced economies, proper and honorable though they +certainly are, of those who are two or three degrees below us in the +scale of agreeable living. + +--These are very worthy persons you have been living with, my dear, +--said Mrs. Midas--[the "My dear" was an expression which had flowered +out more luxuriantly than ever before in the new streak of sunshine] +--eminently respectable parties, I have no question, but then we shall +want you to move as soon as possible to our quarter of the town, where we +can see more of you than we have been able to in this queer place. + +It was not very pleasant to listen to this kind of talk, but the Lady +remembered her annual bouquet, and her occasional visits from the rich +lady, and restrained the inclination to remind her of the humble sphere +from which she herself, the rich and patronizing personage, had worked +her way up (if it was up) into that world which she seemed to think was +the only one where a human being could find life worth having. Her cheek +flushed a little, however, as she said to Mrs. Midas that she felt +attached to the place where she had been living so long. She doubted, +she was pleased to say, whether she should find better company in any +circle she was like to move in than she left behind her at our +boarding-house. I give the old Master the credit of this compliment. If +one does not agree with half of what he says, at any rate he always has +something to say, and entertains and lets out opinions and whims and +notions of one kind and another that one can quarrel with if he is out of +humor, or carry away to think about if he happens to be in the receptive +mood. + +But the Lady expressed still more strongly the regret she should feel at +leaving her young friend, our Scheherezade. I cannot wonder at this. +The Young Girl has lost what little playfulness she had in the earlier +months of my acquaintance with her. I often read her stories partly from +my interest in her, and partly because I find merit enough in them to +deserve something, better than the rough handling they got from her +coarse-fibred critic, whoever he was. I see evidence that her thoughts +are wandering from her task, that she has fits of melancholy, and bursts +of tremulous excitement, and that she has as much as she can do to keep +herself at all to her stated, inevitable, and sometimes almost despairing +literary labor. I have had some acquaintance with vital phenomena of +this kind, and know something of the nervous nature of young women and +its "magnetic storms," if I may borrow an expression from the physicists, +to indicate the perturbations to which they are liable. She is more in +need of friendship and counsel now than ever before, it seems to me, and +I cannot bear to think that the Lady, who has become like a mother to +her, is to leave her to her own guidance. + +It is plain enough what is at the bottom of this disturbance. The +astronomical lessons she has been taking have become interesting enough +to absorb too much of her thoughts, and she finds them wandering to the +stars or elsewhere, when they should be working quietly in the editor's +harness. + +The Landlady has her own views on this matter which she communicated to +me something as follows: + +--I don't quite like to tell folks what a lucky place my boarding-house +is, for fear I should have all sorts of people crowding in to be my +boarders for the sake of their chances. Folks come here poor and they go +away rich. Young women come here without a friend in the world, and the +next thing that happens is a gentleman steps up to 'em and says, "If +you'll take me for your pardner for life, I'll give you a good home and +love you ever so much besides"; and off goes my young lady-boarder into a +fine three-story house, as grand as the governor's wife, with everything +to make her comfortable, and a husband to care for her into the bargain. +That's the way it is with the young ladies that comes to board with me, +ever since the gentleman that wrote the first book that advertised my +establishment (and never charged me a cent for it neither) merried the +Schoolma'am. And I think but that's between you and me--that it 's going +to be the same thing right over again between that young gentleman and +this young girl here--if she doos n't kill herself with writing for them +news papers,--it 's too bad they don't pay her more for writing her +stories, for I read one of 'em that made me cry so the Doctor--my Doctor +Benjamin--said, "Ma, what makes your eyes look so?" and wanted to rig a +machine up and look at 'em, but I told him what the matter was, and that +he needn't fix up his peeking contrivances on my account,--anyhow she's a +nice young woman as ever lived, and as industrious with that pen of hers +as if she was at work with a sewing-machine,--and there ain't much +difference, for that matter, between sewing on shirts and writing on +stories,--one way you work with your foot, and the other way you work +with your fingers, but I rather guess there's more headache in the +stories than there is in the stitches, because you don't have to think +quite so hard while your foot's going as you do when your fingers is at +work, scratch, scratch, scratch, scribble, scribble, scribble. + +It occurred to me that this last suggestion of the Landlady was worth +considering by the soft-handed, broadcloth-clad spouters to the laboring +classes,--so called in distinction from the idle people who only contrive +the machinery and discover the processes and lay out the work and draw +the charts and organize the various movements which keep the world going +and make it tolerable. The organ-blower works harder with his muscles, +for that matter, than the organ player, and may perhaps be exasperated +into thinking himself a downtrodden martyr because he does not receive +the same pay for his services. + +I will not pretend that it needed the Landlady's sagacious guess about +the Young Astronomer and his pupil to open my eyes to certain +possibilities, if not probabilities, in that direction. Our Scheherezade +kept on writing her stories according to agreement, so many pages for so +many dollars, but some of her readers began to complain that they could +not always follow her quite so well as in her earlier efforts. It seemed +as if she must have fits of absence. In one instance her heroine began as +a blonde and finished as a brunette; not in consequence of the use of any +cosmetic, but through simple inadvertence. At last it happened in one of +her stories that a prominent character who had been killed in an early +page, not equivocally, but mortally, definitively killed, done for, and +disposed of, reappeared as if nothing had happened towards the close of +her narrative. Her mind was on something else, and she had got two +stories mixed up and sent her manuscript without having looked it over. +She told this mishap to the Lady, as something she was dreadfully ashamed +of and could not possibly account for. It had cost her a sharp note from +the publisher, and would be as good as a dinner to some half-starved +Bohemian of the critical press. + +The Lady listened to all this very thoughtfully, looking at her with +great tenderness, and said, "My poor child!" Not another word then, but +her silence meant a good deal. + +When a man holds his tongue it does not signify much. But when a woman +dispenses with the office of that mighty member, when she sheathes her +natural weapon at a trying moment, it means that she trusts to still more +formidable enginery; to tears it may be, a solvent more powerful than +that with which Hannibal softened the Alpine rocks, or to the heaving +bosom, the sight of which has subdued so many stout natures, or, it may +be, to a sympathizing, quieting look which says "Peace, be still!" to the +winds and waves of the little inland ocean, in a language that means more +than speech. + +While these matters were going on the Master and I had many talks on many +subjects. He had found me a pretty good listener, for I had learned that +the best way of getting at what was worth having from him was to wind him +up with a question and let him run down all of himself. It is easy to +turn a good talker into an insufferable bore by contradicting him, and +putting questions for him to stumble over,--that is, if he is not a bore +already, as "good talkers" are apt to be, except now and then. + +We had been discussing some knotty points one morning when he said all at +once: + +--Come into my library with me. I want to read you some new passages +from an interleaved copy of my book. You haven't read the printed part +yet. I gave you a copy of it, but nobody reads a book that is given to +him. Of course not. Nobody but a fool expects him to. He reads a +little in it here and there, perhaps, and he cuts all the leaves if he +cares enough about the writer, who will be sure to call on him some day, +and if he is left alone in his library for five minutes will have hunted +every corner of it until he has found the book he sent,--if it is to be +found at all, which does n't always happen, if there's a penal colony +anywhere in a garret or closet for typographical offenders and vagrants. + +--What do you do when you receive a book you don't want, from the +author?--said I. + +--Give him a good-natured adjective or two if I can, and thank him, and +tell him I am lying under a sense of obligation to him. + +--That is as good an excuse for lying as almost any,--I said. + +--Yes, but look out for the fellows that send you a copy of their book to +trap you into writing a bookseller's advertisement for it. I got caught +so once, and never heard the end of it and never shall hear it.---He took +down an elegantly bound volume, on opening which appeared a flourishing +and eminently flattering dedication to himself.---There,--said he, what +could I do less than acknowledge such a compliment in polite terms, and +hope and expect the book would prove successful, and so forth and so +forth? Well, I get a letter every few months from some new locality +where the man that made that book is covering the fences with his +placards, asking me whether I wrote that letter which he keeps in +stereotype and has kept so any time these dozen or fifteen years. Animus +tuus oculus, as the freshmen used to say. If her Majesty, the Queen of +England, sends you a copy of her "Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in +the Highlands," be sure you mark your letter of thanks for it Private! + +We had got comfortably seated in his library in the mean time, and the +Master had taken up his book. I noticed that every other page was left +blank, and that he had written in a good deal of new matter. + +--I tell you what,--he said,--there 's so much intelligence about +nowadays in books and newspapers and talk that it's mighty hard to write +without getting something or other worth listening to into your essay or +your volume. The foolishest book is a kind of leaky boat on a sea of +wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in anyhow. Every now and then I find +something in my book that seems so good to me, I can't help thinking it +must have leaked in. I suppose other people discover that it came +through a leak, full as soon as I do. You must write a book or two to +find out how much and how little you know and have to say. Then you must +read some notices of it by somebody that loves you and one or two by +somebody that hates you. You 'll find yourself a very odd piece of +property after you 've been through these experiences. They 're trying +to the constitution; I'm always glad to hear that a friend is as well as +can be expected after he 's had a book. + +You must n't think there are no better things in these pages of mine than +the ones I'm going to read you, but you may come across something here +that I forgot to say when we were talking over these matters. + +He began, reading from the manuscript portion of his book: + +--We find it hard to get and to keep any private property in thought. +Other people are all the time saying the same things we are hoarding to +say when we get ready. [He looked up from his book just here and said, +"Don't be afraid, I am not going to quote Pereant."] One of our old +boarders--the one that called himself "The Professor" I think it +was--said some pretty audacious things about what he called "pathological +piety," as I remember, in one of his papers. And here comes along Mr. +Galton, and shows in detail from religious biographies that "there is a +frequent correlation between an unusually devout disposition and a weak +constitution." Neither of them appeared to know that John Bunyan had got +at the same fact long before them. He tells us, "The more healthy the +lusty man is, the more prone he is unto evil." If the converse is true, +no wonder that good people, according to Bunyan, are always in trouble +and terror, for he says, + + "A Christian man is never long at ease; + When one fright is gone, another doth him seize." + +If invalidism and the nervous timidity which is apt to go with it are +elements of spiritual superiority, it follows that pathology and +toxicology should form a most important part of a theological education, +so that a divine might know how to keep a parish in a state of chronic +bad health in order that it might be virtuous. + +It is a great mistake to think that a man's religion is going to rid him +of his natural qualities. "Bishop Hall" (as you may remember to have +seen quoted elsewhere) "prefers Nature before Grace in the Election of a +wife, because, saith he, it will be a hard Task, where the Nature is +peevish and froward, for Grace to make an entire conquest while Life +lasteth." + +"Nature" and "Grace" have been contrasted with each other in a way not +very respectful to the Divine omnipotence. Kings and queens reign "by +the Grace of God," but a sweet, docile, pious disposition, such as is +born in some children and grows up with them,--that congenital gift which +good Bishop Hall would look for in a wife,--is attributed to "Nature." +In fact "Nature" and "Grace," as handled by the scholastics, are nothing +more nor less than two hostile Divinities in the Pantheon of +post-classical polytheism. + +What is the secret of the profound interest which "Darwinism" has excited +in the minds and hearts of more persons than dare to confess their doubts +and hopes? It is because it restores "Nature" to its place as a true +divine manifestation. It is that it removes the traditional curse from +that helpless infant lying in its mother's arms. It is that it lifts +from the shoulders of man the responsibility for the fact of death. It +is that, if it is true, woman can no longer be taunted with having +brought down on herself the pangs which make her sex a martyrdom. If +development upward is the general law of the race; if we have grown by +natural evolution out of the cave-man, and even less human forms of life, +we have everything to hope from the future. That the question can be +discussed without offence shows that we are entering on a new era, a +Revival greater than that of Letters, the Revival of Humanity. + +The prevalent view of "Nature" has been akin to that which long reigned +with reference to disease. This used to be considered as a distinct +entity apart from the processes of life, of which it is one of the +manifestations. It was a kind of demon to be attacked with things of +odious taste and smell; to be fumigated out of the system as the evil +spirit was driven from the bridal-chamber in the story of Tobit. The +Doctor of earlier days, even as I can remember him, used to exorcise the +demon of disease with recipes of odor as potent as that of the angel's +diabolifuge,--the smoke from a fish's heart and liver, duly burned,--"the +which smell when the evil spirit had smelled he fled into the uttermost +parts of Egypt." The very moment that disease passes into the category +of vital processes, and is recognized as an occurrence absolutely +necessary, inevitable, and as one may say, normal under certain given +conditions of constitution and circumstance, the medicine-man loses his +half-miraculous endowments. The mythical serpent is untwined from the +staff of Esculapius, which thenceforth becomes a useful walking-stick, +and does not pretend to be anything more. + +Sin, like disease, is a vital process. It is a function, and not an +entity. It must be studied as a section of anthropology. No +preconceived idea must be allowed to interfere with our investigation of +the deranged spiritual function, any more than the old ideas of +demoniacal possession must be allowed to interfere with our study of +epilepsy. Spiritual pathology is a proper subject for direct observation +and analysis, like any other subject involving a series of living +actions. + +In these living actions everything is progressive. There are sudden +changes of character in what is called "conversion" which, at first, +hardly seem to come into line with the common laws of evolution. But +these changes have been long preparing, and it is just as much in the +order of nature that certain characters should burst all at once from the +rule of evil propensities, as it is that the evening primrose should +explode, as it were, into bloom with audible sound, as you may read in +Keats's Endymion, or observe in your own garden. + +There is a continual tendency in men to fence in themselves and a few of +their neighbors who agree with them in their ideas, as if they were an +exception to their race. We must not allow any creed or religion +whatsoever to confiscate to its own private use and benefit the virtues +which belong to our common humanity. The Good Samaritan helped his +wounded neighbor simply because he was a suffering fellow-creature. Do +you think your charitable act is more acceptable than the Good +Samaritan's, because you do it in the name of Him who made the memory of +that kind man immortal? Do you mean that you would not give the cup of +cold water for the sake simply and solely of the poor, suffering +fellow-mortal, as willingly as you now do, professing to give it for the +sake of Him who is not thirsty or in need of any help of yours? We must +ask questions like this, if we are to claim for our common nature what +belongs to it. + +The scientific study of man is the most difficult of all branches of +knowledge. It requires, in the first place, an entire new terminology to +get rid of that enormous load of prejudices with which every term applied +to the malformations, the functional disturbances, and the organic +diseases of the moral nature is at present burdened. Take that one word +Sin, for instance: all those who have studied the subject from nature and +not from books know perfectly well that a certain fraction of what is so +called is nothing more or less than a symptom of hysteria; that another +fraction is the index of a limited degree of insanity; that still another +is the result of a congenital tendency which removes the act we sit in +judgment upon from the sphere of self-determination, if not entirely, at +least to such an extent that the subject of the tendency cannot be judged +by any normal standard. + +To study nature without fear is possible, but without reproach, +impossible. The man who worships in the temple of knowledge must carry +his arms with him as our Puritan fathers had to do when they gathered in +their first rude meeting-houses. It is a fearful thing to meddle with +the ark which holds the mysteries of creation. I remember that when I +was a child the tradition was whispered round among us little folks that +if we tried to count the stars we should drop down dead. Nevertheless, +the stars have been counted and the astronomer has survived. This +nursery legend is the child's version of those superstitions which would +have strangled in their cradles the young sciences now adolescent and +able to take care of themselves, and which, no longer daring to attack +these, are watching with hostile aspect the rapid growth of the +comparatively new science of man. + +The real difficulty of the student of nature at this time is to reconcile +absolute freedom and perfect fearlessness with that respect for the past, +that reverence, for the spirit of reverence wherever we find it, that +tenderness for the weakest fibres by which the hearts of our +fellow-creatures hold to their religious convictions, which will make the +transition from old belief to a larger light and liberty an interstitial +change and not a violent mutilation. + +I remember once going into a little church in a small village some miles +from a great European capital. The special object of adoration in this +humblest of places of worship was a bambino, a holy infant, done in wax, +and covered with cheap ornaments such as a little girl would like to +beautify her doll with. Many a good Protestant of the old Puritan type +would have felt a strong impulse to seize this "idolatrous" figure and +dash it to pieces on the stone floor of the little church. But one must +have lived awhile among simple-minded pious Catholics to know what this +poor waxen image and the whole baby-house of bambinos mean for a humble, +unlettered, unimaginative peasantry. He will find that the true office +of this eidolon is to fix the mind of the worshipper, and that in virtue +of the devotional thoughts it has called forth so often for so many years +in the mind of that poor old woman who is kneeling before it, it is no +longer a wax doll for her, but has undergone a transubstantiation quite +as real as that of the Eucharist. The moral is that we must not roughly +smash other people's idols because we know, or think we know, that they +are of cheap human manufacture. + +--Do you think cheap manufactures encourage idleness?--said I. + +The Master stared. Well he might, for I had been getting a little +drowsy, and wishing to show that I had been awake and attentive, asked a +question suggested by some words I had caught, but which showed that I +had not been taking the slightest idea from what he was reading me. He +stared, shook his head slowly, smiled good-humoredly, took off his great +round spectacles, and shut up his book. + +--Sat prates biberunt,--he said. A sick man that gets talking about +himself, a woman that gets talking about her baby, and an author that +begins reading out of his own book, never know when to stop. You'll +think of some of these things you've been getting half asleep over by and +by. I don't want you to believe anything I say; I only want you to try +to see what makes me believe it. + +My young friend, the Astronomer, has, I suspect, been making some +addition to his manuscript. At any rate some of the lines he read us in +the afternoon of this same day had never enjoyed the benefit of my +revision, and I think they had but just been written. I noticed that his +manner was somewhat more excited than usual, and his voice just towards +the close a little tremulous. Perhaps I may attribute his improvement to +the effect of my criticisms, but whatever the reason, I think these lines +are very nearly as correct as they would have been if I had looked them +over. + + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. + + VII + + What if a soul redeemed, a spirit that loved + While yet on earth and was beloved in turn, + And still remembered every look and tone + Of that dear earthly sister who was left + Among the unwise virgins at the gate, + Itself admitted with the bridegroom's train, + What if this spirit redeemed, amid the host + Of chanting angels, in some transient lull + Of the eternal anthem, heard the cry + Of its lost darling, whom in evil hour + Some wilder pulse of nature led astray + And left an outcast in a world of fire, + Condemned to be the sport of cruel fiends, + Sleepless, unpitying, masters of the skill + To wring the maddest ecstasies of pain + From worn-out souls that only ask to die, + Would it not long to leave the bliss of Heaven, + Bearing a little water in its hand + To moisten those poor lips that plead in vain + With Him we call our Father? Or is all + So changed in such as taste celestial joy + They hear unmoved the endless wail of woe, + The daughter in the same dear tones that hushed + Her cradled slumbers; she who once had held + A babe upon her bosom from its voice + Hoarse with its cry of anguish, yet the same? + + No! not in ages when the Dreadful Bird + Stamped his huge footprints, and the Fearful Beast + Strode with the flesh about those fossil bones + We build to mimic life with pygmy hands, + Not in those earliest days when men ran wild + And gashed each other with their knives of stone, + When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows + And their flat hands were callous in the palm + With walking in the fashion of their sires, + Grope as they might to find a cruel god + To work their will on such as human wrath + Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left + With rage unsated, white and stark and cold, + Could hate have shaped a demon more malign + Than him the dead men mummied in their creed + And taught their trembling children to adore! + Made in his image! Sweet and gracious souls + Dear to my heart by nature's fondest names, + Is not your memory still the precious mould + That lends its form to Him who hears my prayer? + Thus only I behold him, like to them, + Long-suffering, gentle, ever slow to wrath, + If wrath it be that only wounds to heal, + Ready to meet the wanderer ere he reach + The door he seeks, forgetful of his sin, + Longing to clasp him in a father's arms, + And seal his pardon with a pitying tear! + + Four gospels tell their story to mankind, + And none so full of soft, caressing words + That bring the Maid of Bethlehem and her Babe + Before our tear-dimmed eyes, as his who learned + In the meek service of his gracious art + The tones which like the medicinal balms + That calm the sufferer's anguish, soothe our souls. + --Oh that the loving woman, she who sat + So long a listener at her Master's feet, + Had left us Mary's Gospel,--all she heard + Too sweet, too subtle for the ear of man! + Mark how the tender-hearted mothers read + The messages of love between the lines + Of the same page that loads the bitter tongue + Of him who deals in terror as his trade + With threatening words of wrath that scorch like flame! + They tell of angels whispering round the bed + Of the sweet infant smiling in its dream, + Of lambs enfolded in the Shepherd's arms, + Of Him who blessed the children; of the land + Where crystal rivers feed unfading flowers, + Of cities golden-paved with streets of pearl, + Of the white robes the winged creatures wear, + The crowns and harps from whose melodious strings + One long, sweet anthem flows forevermore! + + --We too bad human mothers, even as Thou, + Whom we have learned to worship as remote + From mortal kindred, wast a cradled babe. + The milk of woman filled our branching veins, + She lulled us with her tender nursery-song, + And folded round us her untiring arms, + While the first unremembered twilight year + Shaped us to conscious being; still we feel + Her pulses in our own,--too faintly feel; + Would that the heart of woman warmed our creeds! + + Not from the sad-eyed hermit's lonely cell, + Not from the conclave where the holy men + Glare on each other, as with angry eyes + They battle for God's glory and their own, + Till, sick of wordy strife, a show of hands + Fixes the faith of ages yet unborn, + Ah, not from these the listening soul can hear + The Father's voice that speaks itself divine! + Love must be still our Master; till we learn + What he can teach us of a woman's heart, + We know not His, whose love embraces all. + +There are certain nervous conditions peculiar to women in which the +common effects of poetry and of music upon their sensibilities are +strangely exaggerated. It was not perhaps to be wondered at that Octavia +fainted when Virgil in reading from his great poem came to the line +beginning Tu Marcellus eris: It is not hard to believe the story told of +one of the two Davidson sisters, that the singing of some of Moore's +plaintive melodies would so impress her as almost to take away the +faculties of sense and motion. But there must have been some special +cause for the singular nervous state into which this reading threw the +young girl, our Scheherezade. She was doubtless tired with overwork and +troubled with the thought that she was not doing herself justice, and +that she was doomed to be the helpless prey of some of those corbies who +not only pick out corbies' eyes, but find no other diet so nutritious and +agreeable. + +Whatever the cause may have been, her heart heaved tumultuously, her +color came and went, and though she managed to avoid a scene by the +exercise of all her self-control, I watched her very anxiously, for I was +afraid she would have had a hysteric turn, or in one of her pallid +moments that she would have fainted and fallen like one dead before us. + +I was very glad, therefore, when evening came, to find that she was going +out for a lesson on the stars. I knew the open air was what she needed, +and I thought the walk would do her good, whether she made any new +astronomical acquisitions or not. + +It was now late in the autumn, and the trees were pretty nearly stripped +of their leaves.--There was no place so favorable as the Common for the +study of the heavens. The skies were brilliant with stars, and the air +was just keen enough to remind our young friends that the cold season was +at hand. They wandered round for a while, and at last found themselves +under the Great Elm, drawn thither, no doubt, by the magnetism it is so +well known to exert over the natives of its own soil and those who have +often been under the shadow of its outstretched arms. The venerable +survivor of its contemporaries that flourished in the days when +Blackstone rode beneath it on his bull was now a good deal broken by age, +yet not without marks of lusty vitality. It had been wrenched and +twisted and battered by so many scores of winters that some of its limbs +were crippled and many of its joints were shaky, and but for the support +of the iron braces that lent their strong sinews to its more infirm +members it would have gone to pieces in the first strenuous northeaster +or the first sudden and violent gale from the southwest. But there it +stood, and there it stands as yet,--though its obituary was long ago +written after one of the terrible storms that tore its branches,--leafing +out hopefully in April as if it were trying in its dumb language to lisp +"Our Father," and dropping its slender burden of foliage in October as +softly as if it were whispering Amen! + +Not far from the ancient and monumental tree lay a small sheet of water, +once agile with life and vocal with evening melodies, but now stirred +only by the swallow as he dips his wing, or by the morning bath of the +English sparrows, those high-headed, thick-bodied, full-feeding, +hot-tempered little John Bulls that keep up such a swashing and swabbing +and spattering round all the water basins, one might think from the fuss +they make about it that a bird never took a bath here before, and that +they were the missionaries of ablution to the unwashed Western world. + +There are those who speak lightly of this small aqueous expanse, the eye +of the sacred enclosure, which has looked unwinking on the happy faces of +so many natives and the curious features of so many strangers. The music +of its twilight minstrels has long ceased, but their memory lingers like +an echo in the name it bears. Cherish it, inhabitants of the two-hilled +city, once three-hilled; ye who have said to the mountain, "Remove +hence," and turned the sea into dry land! May no contractor fill his +pockets by undertaking to fill thee, thou granite girdled lakelet, or +drain the civic purse by drawing off thy waters! For art thou not the +Palladium of our Troy? Didst thou not, like the Divine image which was +the safeguard of Ilium, fall from the skies, and if the Trojan could look +with pride upon the heaven-descended form of the Goddess of Wisdom, +cannot he who dwells by thy shining oval look in that mirror and +contemplate Himself,--the Native of Boston. + +There must be some fatality which carries our young men and maidens in +the direction of the Common when they have anything very particular to +exchange their views about. At any rate I remember two of our young +friends brought up here a good many years ago, and I understand that +there is one path across the enclosure which a young man must not ask a +young woman to take with him unless he means business, for an action will +hold--for breach of promise, if she consents to accompany him, and he +chooses to forget his obligations: + +Our two young people stood at the western edge of the little pool, +studying astronomy in the reflected firmament. The Pleiades were +trembling in the wave before them, and the three great stars of +Orion,--for these constellations were both glittering in the eastern sky. + +"There is no place too humble for the glories of heaven to shine in," she +said. + +"And their splendor makes even this little pool beautiful and noble," he +answered. "Where is the light to come from that is to do as much for our +poor human lives?" + +A simple question enough, but the young girl felt her color change as she +answered, "From friendship, I think." + +--Grazing only as-yet,--not striking full, hardly hitting at all,--but +there are questions and answers that come so very near, the wind of them +alone almost takes the breath away. + +There was an interval of silence. Two young persons can stand looking at +water for a long time without feeling the necessity of speaking. +Especially when the water is alive with stars and the young persons are +thoughtful and impressible. The water seems to do half the thinking +while one is looking at it; its movements are felt in the brain very much +like thought. When I was in full training as a flaneur, I could stand on +the Pont Neuf with the other experts in the great science of passive +cerebration and look at the river for half an hour with so little mental +articulation that when I moved on it seemed as if my thinking-marrow had +been asleep and was just waking up refreshed after its nap. + +So the reader can easily account for the interval of silence. It is hard +to tell how long it would have lasted, but just then a lubberly intrusive +boy threw a great stone, which convulsed the firmament, the one at their +feet, I mean. The six Pleiads disappeared as if in search of their lost +sister; the belt of Orion was broken asunder, and a hundred worlds +dissolved back into chaos. They turned away and strayed off into one of +the more open paths, where the view of the sky over them was +unobstructed. For some reason or other the astronomical lesson did not +get on very fast this evening. + +Presently the young man asked his pupil: + +--Do you know what the constellation directly over our heads is? + +--Is it not Cassiopea?--she asked a little hesitatingly. + +--No, it is Andromeda. You ought not to have forgotten her, for I +remember showing you a double star, the one in her right foot, through +the equatorial telescope. You have not forgotten the double star,--the +two that shone for each other and made a little world by themselves? + +--No, indeed,--she answered, and blushed, and felt ashamed because she +had said indeed, as if it had been an emotional recollection. + +The double-star allusion struck another dead silence. She would have +given a week's pay to any invisible attendant that would have cut her +stay-lace. + +At last: Do you know the story of Andromeda? he said. + +--Perhaps I did once, but suppose I don't remember it. + +He told her the story of the unfortunate maiden chained to a rock and +waiting for a sea-beast that was coming to devour her, and how Perseus +came and set her free, and won her love with her life. And then he began +something about a young man chained to his rock, which was a star-gazer's +tower, a prey by turns to ambition, and lonely self-contempt and +unwholesome scorn of the life he looked down upon after the serenity of +the firmament, and endless questionings that led him nowhere,--and now he +had only one more question to ask. He loved her. Would she break his +chain?--He held both his hands out towards her, the palms together, as if +they were fettered at the wrists. She took hold of them very gently; +parted them a little; then wider--wider--and found herself all at once +folded, unresisting, in her lover's arms. + +So there was a new double-star in the living firmament. The +constellations seemed to kindle with new splendors as the student and the +story-teller walked homeward in their light; Alioth and Algol looked down +on them as on the first pair of lovers they shone over, and the autumn +air seemed full of harmonies as when the morning stars sang together. + + + + +XII + +The old Master had asked us, the Young Astronomer and myself, into his +library, to hear him read some passages from his interleaved book. We +three had formed a kind of little club without knowing it from the time +when the young man began reading those extracts from his poetical +reveries which I have reproduced in these pages. Perhaps we agreed in too +many things,--I suppose if we could have had a good hard-headed, +old-fashioned New England divine to meet with us it might have acted as a +wholesome corrective. For we had it all our own way; the Lady's kindly +remonstrance was taken in good part, but did not keep us from talking +pretty freely, and as for the Young Girl, she listened with the +tranquillity and fearlessness which a very simple trusting creed +naturally gives those who hold it. The fewer outworks to the citadel of +belief, the fewer points there are to be threatened and endangered. + +The reader must not suppose that I even attempt to reproduce everything +exactly as it took place in our conversations, or when we met to listen +to the Master's prose or to the Young Astronomer's verse. I do not +pretend to give all the pauses and interruptions by question or +otherwise. I could not always do it if I tried, but I do not want to, +for oftentimes it is better to let the speaker or reader go on +continuously, although there may have been many breaks in the course of +the conversation or reading. When, for instance, I by and by reproduce +what the Landlady said to us, I shall give it almost without any hint +that it was arrested in its flow from time to time by various expressions +on the part of the hearers. + +I can hardly say what the reason of it was, but it is very certain that I +had a vague sense of some impending event as we took our seats in the +Master's library. He seemed particularly anxious that we should be +comfortably seated, and shook up the cushions of the arm-chairs himself, +and got them into the right places. + +Now go to sleep--he said--or listen,--just which you like best. But I am +going to begin by telling you both a secret. + +Liberavi animam meam. That is the meaning of my book and of my literary +life, if I may give such a name to that party-colored shred of human +existence. I have unburdened myself in this book, and in some other +pages, of what I was born to say. Many things that I have said in my +ripe days have been aching in my soul since I was a mere child. I say +aching, because they conflicted with many of my inherited beliefs, or +rather traditions. I did not know then that two strains of blood were +striving in me for the mastery,--two! twenty, perhaps,--twenty thousand, +for aught I know,--but represented to me by two,--paternal and maternal. +Blind forces in themselves; shaping thoughts as they shaped features and +battled for the moulding of constitution and the mingling of temperament. + +Philosophy and poetry came--to me before I knew their names. + + Je fis mes premiers vers, sans savoir les ecrire. + +Not verses so much as the stuff that verses are made of. I don't suppose +that the thoughts which came up of themselves in my mind were so mighty +different from what come up in the minds of other young folks. And that +'s the best reason I could give for telling 'em. I don't believe +anything I've written is as good as it seemed to me when I wrote it,--he +stopped, for he was afraid he was lying,--not much that I 've written, at +any rate,--he said--with a smile at the honesty which made him qualify +his statement. But I do know this: I have struck a good many chords, +first and last, in the consciousness of other people. I confess to a +tender feeling for my little brood of thoughts. When they have been +welcomed and praised it has pleased me, and if at any time they have been +rudely handled and despitefully entreated it has cost me a little worry. +I don't despise reputation, and I should like to be remembered as having +said something worth lasting well enough to last. + +But all that is nothing to the main comfort I feel as a writer. I have +got rid of something my mind could not keep to itself and rise as it was +meant to into higher regions. I saw the aeronauts the other day emptying +from the bags some of the sand that served as ballast. It glistened a +moment in the sunlight as a slender shower, and then was lost and seen no +more as it scattered itself unnoticed. But the airship rose higher as the +sand was poured out, and so it seems to me I have felt myself getting +above the mists and clouds whenever I have lightened myself of some +portion of the mental ballast I have carried with me. Why should I hope +or fear when I send out my book? I have had my reward, for I have +wrought out my thought, I have said my say, I have freed my soul. I can +afford to be forgotten. + +Look here!--he said. I keep oblivion always before me.---He pointed to a +singularly perfect and beautiful trilobite which was lying on a pile of +manuscripts.---Each time I fill a sheet of paper with what I am writing, +I lay it beneath this relic of a dead world, and project my thought +forward into eternity as far as this extinct crustacean carries it +backward. When my heart beats too lustily with vain hopes of being +remembered, I press the cold fossil against it and it grows calm. I +touch my forehead with it, and its anxious furrows grow smooth. Our +world, too, with all its breathing life, is but a leaf to be folded with +the other strata, and if I am only patient, by and by I shall be just as +famous as imperious Caesar himself, embedded with me in a conglomerate. + +He began reading:--"There is no new thing under the sun," said the +Preacher. He would not say so now, if he should come to life for a +little while, and have his photograph taken, and go up in a balloon, and +take a trip by railroad and a voyage by steamship, and get a message from +General Grant by the cable, and see a man's leg cut off without its +hurting him. If it did not take his breath away and lay him out as flat +as the Queen of Sheba was knocked over by the splendors of his court, he +must have rivalled our Indians in the nil admarari line. + +For all that, it is a strange thing to see what numbers of new things are +really old. There are many modern contrivances that are of as early date +as the first man, if not thousands of centuries older. Everybody knows +how all the arrangements of our telescopes and microscopes are +anticipated in the eye, and how our best musical instruments are +surpassed by the larynx. But there are some very odd things any +anatomist can tell, showing how our recent contrivances are anticipated +in the human body. In the alimentary canal are certain pointed eminences +called villi, and certain ridges called valvuloe conniventes. The makers +of heating apparatus have exactly reproduced the first in the "pot" of +their furnaces, and the second in many of the radiators to be seen in our +public buildings. The object in the body and the heating apparatus is +the same; to increase the extent of surface.--We mix hair with plaster +(as the Egyptians mixed straw with clay to make bricks) so that it shall +hold more firmly. But before man had any artificial dwelling the same +contrivance of mixing fibrous threads with a cohesive substance had been +employed in the jointed fabric of his own spinal column. India-rubber is +modern, but the yellow animal substance which is elastic like that, and +serves the same purpose in the animal economy which that serves in our +mechanical contrivances, is as old as the mammalia. The dome, the round +and the Gothic arch, the groined roof, the flying buttress, are all +familiar to those who have studied the bony frame of man. All forms of +the lever and all the principal kinds of hinges are to be met with in our +own frames. The valvular arrangements of the blood-vessels are +unapproached by any artificial apparatus, and the arrangements for +preventing friction are so perfect that two surfaces will play on each +other for fourscore years or more and never once trouble their owner by +catching or rubbing so as to be felt or heard. + +But stranger than these repetitions are the coincidences one finds in the +manners and speech of antiquity and our own time. In the days when Flood +Ireson was drawn in the cart by the Maenads of Marblehead, that fishing +town had the name of nurturing a young population not over fond of +strangers. It used to be said that if an unknown landsman showed himself +in the streets, the boys would follow after him, crying, "Rock him! Rock +him! He's got a long-tailed coat on!" + +Now if one opens the Odyssey, he will find that the Phaeacians, three +thousand years ago, were wonderfully like these youthful Marbleheaders. +The blue-eyed Goddess who convoys Ulysses, under the disguise of a young +maiden of the place, gives him some excellent advice. "Hold your +tongue," she says, "and don't look at anybody or ask any questions, for +these are seafaring people, and don't like to have strangers round or +anybody that does not belong here." + +Who would have thought that the saucy question, "Does your mother know +you're out?" was the very same that Horace addressed to the bore who +attacked him in the Via Sacra? + + Interpellandi locus hic erat; Est tibi mater? + Cognati, queis te salvo est opus? + +And think of the London cockney's prefix of the letter h to innocent +words beginning with a vowel having its prototype in the speech of the +vulgar Roman, as may be seen in the verses of Catullus: + + Chommoda dicebat, siquando commoda vellet + Dicere, et hinsidias Arrius insidias. + Et tum mirifice sperabat se esse locutum, + Cum quantum poterat, dixerat hinsidias... + + Hoc misso in Syriam, requierant omnibus aures... + Cum subito affertur nuncius horribilis; + Ionios fluctus, postquam illue Arrius isset, + Jam non Ionios esse, sed Hionios. + +--Our neighbors of Manhattan have an excellent jest about our crooked +streets which, if they were a little more familiar with a native author +of unquestionable veracity, they would strike out from the letter of "Our +Boston Correspondent," where it is a source of perennial hilarity. It is +worth while to reprint, for the benefit of whom it may concern, a +paragraph from the authentic history of the venerable Diedrich +Knickerbocker: + +"The sage council, as has been mentioned in a preceding chapter, not +being able to determine upon any plan for the building of their +city,--the cows, in a laudable fit of patriotism, took it under their +peculiar charge, and as they went to and from pasture, established paths +through the bushes, on each side of which the good folks built their +houses; which is one cause of the rambling and picturesque turns and +labyrinths, which distinguish certain streets of New York at this very +day." + +--When I was a little boy there came to stay with us for a while a young +lady with a singularly white complexion. Now I had often seen the masons +slacking lime, and I thought it was the whitest thing I had ever looked +upon. So I always called this fair visitor of ours Slacked Lime. I +think she is still living in a neighboring State, and I am sure she has +never forgotten the fanciful name I gave her. But within ten or a dozen +years I have seen this very same comparison going the round of the +papers, and credited to a Welsh poet, David Ap Gwyllym, or something like +that, by name. + +--I turned a pretty sentence enough in one of my lectures about finding +poppies springing up amidst the corn; as if it had been foreseen by +nature that wherever there should be hunger that asked for food, there +would be pain that needed relief,--and many years afterwards. I had the +pleasure of finding that Mistress Piozzi had been beforehand with me in +suggesting the same moral reflection. + +--I should like to carry some of my friends to see a giant bee-hive I +have discovered. Its hum can be heard half a mile, and the great white +swarm counts its tens of thousands. They pretend to call it a +planing-mill, but if it is not a bee-hive it is so like one that if a +hundred people have not said so before me, it is very singular that they +have not. If I wrote verses I would try to bring it in, and I suppose +people would start up in a dozen places, and say, "Oh, that bee-hive +simile is mine,--and besides, did not Mr. Bayard Taylor call the +snowflakes 'white bees'?" + +I think the old Master had chosen these trivialities on purpose to amuse +the Young Astronomer and myself, if possible, and so make sure of our +keeping awake while he went on reading, as follows: + +--How the sweet souls of all time strike the same note, the same because +it is in unison with the divine voice that sings to them! I read in the +Zend Avesta, "No earthly man with a hundred-fold strength speaks so much +evil as Mithra with heavenly strength speaks good. No earthly man with a +hundred-fold strength does so much evil as Mithra with heavenly strength +does good." + +And now leave Persia and Zoroaster, and come down with me to our own New +England and one of our old Puritan preachers. It was in the dreadful +days of the Salem Witchcraft delusion that one Jonathan Singletary, being +then in the prison at Ipswich, gave his testimony as to certain fearful +occurrences,--a great noise, as of many cats climbing, skipping, and +jumping, of throwing about of furniture, and of men walking in the +chambers, with crackling and shaking as if the house would fall upon him. + +"I was at present," he says, "something affrighted; yet considering what +I had lately heard made out by Mr. Mitchel at Cambridge, that there is +more good in God than there is evil in sin, and that although God is the +greatest good and sin the greatest evil, yet the first Being of evil +cannot weave the scales or overpower the first Being of good: so +considering that the authour of good was of greater power than the +authour of evil, God was pleased of his goodness to keep me from being +out of measure frighted." + +I shall always bless the memory of this poor, timid creature for saving +that dear remembrance of "Matchless Mitchel." How many, like him, have +thought they were preaching a new gospel, when they were only reaffirming +the principles which underlie the Magna Charta of humanity, and are +common to the noblest utterances of all the nobler creeds! But spoken by +those solemn lips to those stern, simpleminded hearers, the words I have +cited seem to me to have a fragrance like the precious ointment of +spikenard with which Mary anointed her Master's feet. I can see the +little bare meeting-house, with the godly deacons, and the grave matrons, +and the comely maidens, and the sober manhood of the village, with the +small group of college students sitting by themselves under the shadow of +the awful Presidential Presence, all listening to that preaching, which +was, as Cotton Mather says, "as a very lovely song of one that hath a +pleasant voice"; and as the holy pastor utters those blessed words, which +are not of any one church or age, but of all time, the humble place of +worship is filled with their perfume, as the house where Mary knelt was +filled with the odor of the precious ointment. + +--The Master rose, as he finished reading this sentence, and, walking to +the window, adjusted a curtain which he seemed to find a good deal of +trouble in getting to hang just as he wanted it. + +He came back to his arm-chair, and began reading again + +--If men would only open their eyes to the fact which stares them in the +face from history, and is made clear enough by the slightest glance at +the condition of mankind, that humanity is of immeasurably greater +importance than their own or any other particular belief, they would no +more attempt to make private property of the grace of God than to fence +in the sunshine for their own special use and enjoyment. + +We are all tattoed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the +record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a +man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in +his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he +will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n'y crois pas, +mais je les crains,--"I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them, +nevertheless." + +--As people grow older they come at length to live so much in memory that +they often think with a kind of pleasure of losing their dearest +blessings. Nothing can be so perfect while we possess it as it will seem +when remembered. The friend we love best may sometimes weary us by his +presence or vex us by his infirmities. How sweet to think of him as he +will be to us after we have outlived him ten or a dozen years! Then we +can recall him in his best moments, bid him stay with us as long as we +want his company, and send him away when we wish to be alone again. One +might alter Shenstone's well-known epitaph to suit such a case:-- + + Hen! quanto minus est cum to vivo versari + + Quam erit (vel esset) tui mortui reminisse! + + "Alas! how much less the delight of thy living presence + Than will (or would) be that of remembering thee when thou hast + left us!" + +I want to stop here--I the Poet--and put in a few reflections of my own, +suggested by what I have been giving the reader from the Master's Book, +and in a similar vein. + +--How few things there are that do not change their whole aspect in the +course of a single generation! The landscape around us is wholly +different. Even the outlines of the hills that surround us are changed +by the creeping of the villages with their spires and school-houses up +their sides. The sky remains the same, and the ocean. A few old +churchyards look very much as they used to, except, of course, in Boston, +where the gravestones have been rooted up and planted in rows with walks +between them, to the utter disgrace and ruin of our most venerated +cemeteries. The Registry of Deeds and the Probate Office show us the +same old folios, where we can read our grandfather's title to his estate +(if we had a grandfather and he happened to own anything) and see how +many pots and kettles there were in his kitchen by the inventory of his +personal property. + +Among living people none remain so long unchanged as the actors. I can +see the same Othello to-day, if I choose, that when I was a boy I saw +smothering Mrs. Duff-Desdemona with the pillow, under the instigations of +Mr. Cooper-Iago. A few stone heavier than he was then, no doubt, but the +same truculent blackamoor that took by the thr-r-r-oat the circumcised +dog in Aleppo, and told us about it in the old Boston Theatre. In the +course of a fortnight, if I care to cross the water, I can see +Mademoiselle Dejazet in the same parts I saw her in under Louis Philippe, +and be charmed by the same grace and vivacity which delighted my +grandmother (if she was in Paris, and went to see her in the part of +Fanchon toute seule at the Theatre des Capucines) in the days when the +great Napoleon was still only First Consul. + +The graveyard and the stage are pretty much the only places where you can +expect to find your friends--as you left them, five and twenty or fifty +years ago. I have noticed, I may add, that old theatre-goers bring back +the past with their stories more vividly than men with any other +experiences. There were two old New-Yorkers that I used to love to sit +talking with about the stage. One was a scholar and a writer of note; a +pleasant old gentleman, with the fresh cheek of an octogenarian Cupid. +The other not less noted in his way, deep in local lore, large-brained, +full-blooded, of somewhat perturbing and tumultuous presence. It was +good to hear them talk of George Frederic Cooke, of Kean, and the lesser +stars of those earlier constellations. Better still to breakfast with +old Samuel Rogers, as some of my readers have done more than once, and +hear him answer to the question who was the best actor he remembered, "I +think, on the whole, Garrick." + +If we did but know how to question these charming old people before it is +too late! About ten years, more or less, after the generation in advance +of our own has all died off, it occurs to us all at once, "There! I can +ask my old friend what he knows of that picture, which must be a Copley; +of that house and its legends about which there is such a mystery. He +(or she) must know all about that." Too late! Too late! + +Still, now and then one saves a reminiscence that means a good deal by +means of a casual question. I asked the first of those two old +New-Yorkers the following question: "Who, on the whole, seemed to you the +most considerable person you ever met?" + +Now it must be remembered that this was a man who had lived in a city +that calls itself the metropolis, one who had been a member of the State +and the National Legislature, who had come in contact with men of +letters and men of business, with politicians and members of all the +professions, during a long and distinguished public career. I paused for +his answer with no little curiosity. Would it be one of the great +Ex-Presidents whose names were known to, all the world? Would it be the +silver-tongued orator of Kentucky or the "God-like" champion of the +Constitution, our New-England Jupiter Capitolinus? Who would it be? + +"Take it altogether," he answered, very deliberately, "I should say +Colonel Elisha Williams was the most notable personage that I have met +with." + +--Colonel Elisha Williams! And who might he be, forsooth? A gentleman +of singular distinction, you may be well assured, even though you are not +familiar with his name; but as I am not writing a biographical +dictionary, I shall leave it to my reader to find out who and what he +was. + +--One would like to live long enough to witness certain things which will +no doubt come to pass by and by. I remember that when one of our good +kindhearted old millionnaires was growing very infirm, his limbs failing +him, and his trunk getting packed with the infirmities which mean that +one is bound on a long journey, he said very simply and sweetly, "I don't +care about living a great deal longer, but I should like to live long +enough to find out how much old (a many-millioned fellow-citizen) is +worth." And without committing myself on the longevity-question, I +confess I should like to live long enough to see a few things happen that +are like to come, sooner or later. + +I want to hold the skull of Abraham in my hand. They will go through the +cave of Machpelah at Hebron, I feel sure, in the course of a few +generations at the furthest, and as Dr. Robinson knows of nothing which +should lead us to question the correctness of the tradition which regards +this as the place of sepulture of Abraham and the other patriarchs, there +is no reason why we may not find his mummied body in perfect +preservation, if he was embalmed after the Egyptian fashion. I suppose +the tomb of David will be explored by a commission in due time, and I +should like to see the phrenological developments of that great king and +divine singer and warm-blooded man. If, as seems probable, the +anthropological section of society manages to get round the curse that +protects the bones of Shakespeare, I should like to see the dome which +rounded itself over his imperial brain. Not that I am what is called a +phrenologist, but I am curious as to the physical developments of these +fellow-mortals of mine, and a little in want of a sensation. + +I should like to live long enough to see the course of the Tiber turned, +and the bottom of the river thoroughly dredged. I wonder if they would +find the seven-branched golden candlestick brought from Jerusalem by +Titus, and said to have been dropped from the Milvian bridge. I have +often thought of going fishing for it some year when I wanted a vacation, +as some of my friends used to go to Ireland to fish for salmon. There +was an attempt of that kind, I think, a few years ago. + +We all know how it looks well enough, from the figure of it on the Arch +of Titus, but I should like to "heft" it in my own hand, and carry it +home and shine it up (excuse my colloquialisms), and sit down and look at +it, and think and think and think until the Temple of Solomon built up +its walls of hewn stone and its roofs of cedar around me as noiselessly +as when it rose, and "there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of +iron heard in the house while it was in building." + +All this, you will remember, Beloved, is a digression on my own account, +and I return to the old Master whom I left smiling at his own alteration +of Shenstone's celebrated inscription. He now begin reading again: + +--I want it to be understood that I consider that a certain number of +persons are at liberty to dislike me peremptorily, without showing cause, +and that they give no offence whatever in so doing. + +If I did not cheerfully acquiesce in this sentiment towards myself on the +part of others, I should not feel at liberty to indulge my own aversions. +I try to cultivate a Christian feeling to all my fellow-creatures, but +inasmuch as I must also respect truth and honesty, I confess to myself a +certain number of inalienable dislikes and prejudices, some of which may +possibly be shared by others. Some of these are purely instinctive, for +others I can assign a reason. Our likes and dislikes play so important a +part in the Order of Things that it is well to see on what they are +founded. + +There are persons I meet occasionally who are too intelligent by half for +my liking. They know my thoughts beforehand, and tell me what I was +going to say. Of course they are masters of all my knowledge, and a good +deal besides; have read all the books I have read, and in later editions; +have had all the experiences I have been through, and more-too. In my +private opinion every mother's son of them will lie at any time rather +than confess ignorance. + +--I have a kind of dread, rather than hatred, of persons with a large +excess of vitality; great feeders, great laughers, great story-tellers, +who come sweeping over their company with a huge tidal wave of animal +spirits and boisterous merriment. I have pretty good spirits myself, and +enjoy a little mild pleasantry, but I am oppressed and extinguished by +these great lusty, noisy creatures,--and feel as if I were a mute at a +funeral when they get into full blast. + +--I cannot get along much better with those drooping, languid people, +whose vitality falls short as much as that of the others is in excess. I +have not life enough for two; I wish I had. It is not very enlivening to +meet a fellow-creature whose expression and accents say, "You are the +hair that breaks the camel's back of my endurance, you are the last drop +that makes my cup of woe run over"; persons whose heads drop on one side +like those of toothless infants, whose voices recall the tones in which +our old snuffling choir used to wail out the verses of: + + "Life is the time to serve the Lord." + +--There is another style which does not captivate me. I recognize an +attempt at the grand manner now and then, in persons who are well enough +in their way, but of no particular importance, socially or otherwise. +Some family tradition of wealth or distinction is apt to be at the bottom +of it, and it survives all the advantages that used to set it off. I +like family pride as well as my neighbors, and respect the high-born +fellow-citizen whose progenitors have not worked in their shirt-sleeves +for the last two generations full as much as I ought to. But grand pere +oblige; a person with a known grandfather is too distinguished to find it +necessary to put on airs. The few Royal Princes I have happened to know +were very easy people to get along with, and had not half the social +knee-action I have often seen in the collapsed dowagers who lifted their +eyebrows at me in my earlier years. + +--My heart does not warm as it should do towards the persons, not +intimates, who are always too glad to see me when we meet by accident, +and discover all at once that they have a vast deal to unbosom themselves +of to me. + +--There is one blameless person whom I cannot love and have no excuse for +hating. It is the innocent fellow-creature, otherwise inoffensive to me, +whom I find I have involuntarily joined on turning a corner. I suppose +the Mississippi, which was flowing quietly along, minding its own +business, hates the Missouri for coming into it all at once with its +muddy stream. I suppose the Missouri in like manner hates the +Mississippi for diluting with its limpid, but insipid current the rich +reminiscences of the varied soils through which its own stream has +wandered. I will not compare myself, to the clear or the turbid current, +but I will own that my heart sinks when I find all of a sudden I am in +for a corner confluence, and I cease loving my neighbor as myself until I +can get away from him. + +--These antipathies are at least weaknesses; they may be sins in the eye +of the Recording Angel. I often reproach myself with my wrong-doings. I +should like sometimes to thank Heaven for saving me from some kinds of +transgression, and even for granting me some qualities that if I dared I +should be disposed to call virtues. I should do so, I suppose, if I did +not remember the story of the Pharisee. That ought not to hinder me. +The parable was told to illustrate a single virtue, humility, and the +most unwarranted inferences have been drawn from it as to the whole +character of the two parties. It seems not at all unlikely, but rather +probable, that the Pharisee was a fairer dealer, a better husband, and a +more charitable person than the Publican, whose name has come down to us +"linked with one virtue," but who may have been guilty, for aught that +appears to the contrary, of "a thousand crimes." Remember how we limit +the application of other parables. The lord, it will be recollected, +commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely. His shrewdness +was held up as an example, but after all he was a miserable swindler, and +deserved the state-prison as much as many of our financial operators. The +parable of the Pharisee and the Publican is a perpetual warning against +spiritual pride. But it must not frighten any one of us out of being +thankful that he is not, like this or that neighbor, under bondage to +strong drink or opium, that he is not an Erie-Railroad Manager, and that +his head rests in virtuous calm on his own pillow. If he prays in the +morning to be kept out of temptation as well as for his daily bread, +shall he not return thanks at night that he has not fallen into sin as +well as that his stomach has been filled? I do not think the poor +Pharisee has ever had fair play, and I am afraid a good many people sin +with the comforting, half-latent intention of smiting their breasts +afterwards and repeating the prayer of the Publican. + + (Sensation.) + +This little movement which I have thus indicated seemed to give the +Master new confidence in his audience. He turned over several pages +until he came to a part of the interleaved volume where we could all see +he had written in a passage of new matter in red ink as of special +interest. + +--I told you, he said, in Latin, and I repeat it in English, that I have +freed my soul in these pages,--I have spoken my mind. I have read you a +few extracts, most of them of rather slight texture, and some of them, +you perhaps thought, whimsical. But I meant, if I thought you were in +the right mood for listening to it, to read you some paragraphs which +give in small compass the pith, the marrow, of all that my experience has +taught me. Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one. +I took it early, as we all do, and have treated it all along with the +best palliatives I could get hold of, inasmuch as I could find no radical +cure for its evils, and have so far managed to keep pretty comfortable +under it. + +It is a great thing for a man to put the whole meaning of his life into a +few paragraphs, if he does it so that others can make anything out of it. +If he conveys his wisdom after the fashion of the old alchemists, he may +as well let it alone. He must talk in very plain words, and that is what +I have done. You want to know what a certain number of scores of years +have taught me that I think best worth telling. If I had half a dozen +square inches of paper, and one penful of ink, and five minutes to use +them in for the instruction of those who come after me, what should I put +down in writing? That is the question. + +Perhaps I should be wiser if I refused to attempt any such brief +statement of the most valuable lesson that life has taught me. I am by +no means sure that I had not better draw my pen through the page that +holds the quintessence of my vital experiences, and leave those who wish +to know what it is to distil to themselves from my many printed pages. +But I have excited your curiosity, and I see that you are impatient to +hear what the wisdom, or the folly, it may be, of a life shows for, when +it is crowded into a few lines as the fragrance of a gardenful of roses +is concentrated in a few drops of perfume. + +--By this time I confess I was myself a little excited. What was he +going to tell us? The Young Astronomer looked upon him with an eye as +clear and steady and brilliant as the evening star, but I could see that +he too was a little nervous, wondering what would come next. + +The old Master adjusted his large round spectacles, and began: + +--It has cost me fifty years to find my place in the Order of Things. I +had explored all the sciences; I had studied the literature of all ages; +I had travelled in many lands; I had learned how to follow the working of +thought in men and of sentiment and instinct in women. I had examined +for myself all the religions that could make out any claim for +themselves. I had fasted and prayed with the monks of a lonely convent; +I had mingled with the crowds that shouted glory at camp-meetings; I had +listened to the threats of Calvinists and the promises of Universalists; +I had been a devout attendant on a Jewish Synagogue; I was in +correspondence with an intelligent Buddhist; and I met frequently with +the inner circle of Rationalists, who believed in the persistence of +Force, and the identity of alimentary substances with virtue, and were +reconstructing the universe on this basis, with absolute exclusion of all +Supernumeraries. In these pursuits I had passed the larger part of my +half-century of existence, as yet with little satisfaction. It was on +the morning of my fiftieth birthday that the solution of the great +problem I had sought so long came to me as a simple formula, with a few +grand but obvious inferences. I will repeat the substance of this final +intuition: + +The one central fact an the Order of Things which solves all questions +is: + +At this moment we were interrupted by a knock at the Master's door. It +was most inopportune, for he was on the point of the great disclosure, +but common politeness compelled him to answer it, and as the step which +we had heard was that of one of the softer-footed sex, he chose to rise +from his chair and admit his visitor. + +This visitor was our Landlady. She was dressed with more than usual +nicety, and her countenance showed clearly that she came charged with an +important communication. + +--I did n't low there was company with you, said the Landlady,--but it's +jest as well. I've got something to tell my boarders that I don't want +to tell them, and if I must do it, I may as well tell you all at once as +one to a time. I 'm agoing to give up keeping boarders at the end of +this year,--I mean come the end of December. + +She took out a white handkerchief, at hand in expectation of what was to +happen, and pressed it to her eyes. There was an interval of silence. +The Master closed his book and laid it on the table. The Young +Astronomer did not look as much surprised as I should have expected. I +was completely taken aback,--I had not thought of such a sudden breaking +up of our little circle. + +When the Landlady had recovered her composure, she began again: + +The Lady that's been so long with me is going to a house of her own, +--one she has bought back again, for it used to belong to her folks. It's +a beautiful house, and the sun shines in at the front windows all day +long. She's going to be wealthy again, but it doos n't make any +difference in her ways. I've had boarders complain when I was doing as +well as I knowed how for them, but I never heerd a word from her that +wasn't as pleasant as if she'd been talking to the Governor's lady. I've +knowed what it was to have women-boarders that find fault,--there's some +of 'em would quarrel with me and everybody at my table; they would +quarrel with the Angel Gabriel if he lived in the house with 'em, and +scold at him and tell him he was always dropping his feathers round, if +they could n't find anything else to bring up against him. + +Two other boarders of mine has given me notice that they was expecting to +leave come the first of January. I could fill up their places easy +enough, for ever since that first book was wrote that called people's +attention to my boarding-house, I've had more wanting to come than I +wanted to keep. + +But I'm getting along in life, and I ain't quite so rugged as I used to +be. My daughter is well settled and my son is making his own living. +I've done a good deal of hard work in my time, and I feel as if I had a +right to a little rest. There's nobody knows what a woman that has the +charge of a family goes through, but God Almighty that made her. I've +done my best for them that I loved, and for them that was under my roof. +My husband and my children was well cared for when they lived, and he and +them little ones that I buried has white marble head-stones and +foot-stones, and an iron fence round the lot, and a place left for me +betwixt him and the.... + +Some has always been good to me,--some has made it a little of a strain +to me to get along. When a woman's back aches with overworking herself +to keep her house in shape, and a dozen mouths are opening at her three +times a day, like them little young birds that split their heads open so +you can a'most see into their empty stomachs, and one wants this and +another wants that, and provisions is dear and rent is high, and nobody +to look to,--then a sharp word cuts, I tell you, and a hard look goes +right to your heart. I've seen a boarder make a face at what I set +before him, when I had tried to suit him jest as well as I knew how, and +I haven't cared to eat a thing myself all the rest of that day, and I've +laid awake without a wink of sleep all night. And then when you come +down the next morning all the boarders stare at you and wonder what makes +you so low-spirited, and why you don't look as happy and talk as cheerful +as one of them rich ladies that has dinner-parties, where they've nothing +to do but give a few orders, and somebody comes and cooks their dinner, +and somebody else comes and puts flowers on the table, and a lot of men +dressed up like ministers come and wait on everybody, as attentive as +undertakers at a funeral. + +And that reminds me to tell you that I'm agoing to live with my daughter. +Her husband's a very nice man, and when he isn't following a corpse, he's +as good company as if he was a member of the city council. My son, he's +agoing into business with the old Doctor he studied with, and he's agoing +to board with me at my daughter's for a while,--I suppose he'll be +getting a wife before long. [This with a pointed look at our young +friend, the Astronomer.] + +It is n't but a little while longer that we are going to be together, and +I want to say to you gentlemen, as I mean to say to the others and as I +have said to our two ladies, that I feel more obligated to, you for the +way you 've treated me than I know very well how to put into words. +Boarders sometimes expect too much of the ladies that provides for them. +Some days the meals are better than other days; it can't help being so. +Sometimes the provision-market is n't well supplied, sometimes the fire +in the cooking-stove does n't burn so well as it does other days; +sometimes the cook is n't so lucky as she might be. And there is +boarders who is always laying in wait for the days when the meals is not +quite so good as they commonly be, to pick a quarrel with the one that is +trying to serve them so as that they shall be satisfied. But you've all +been good and kind to me. I suppose I'm not quite so spry and +quick-sighted as I was a dozen years ago, when my boarder wrote that +first book so many have asked me about. But--now I'm going to stop +taking boarders. I don't believe you'll think much about what I did n't +do,--because I couldn't,--but remember that at any rate I tried honestly +to serve you. I hope God will bless all that set at my table, old and +young, rich and poor, merried and single, and single that hopes soon to +be merried. My husband that's dead and gone always believed that we all +get to heaven sooner or later,--and sence I've grown older and buried so +many that I've loved I've come to feel that perhaps I should meet all of +them that I've known here--or at least as many of 'em as I wanted to--in +a better world. And though I don't calculate there is any +boarding-houses in heaven, I hope I shall some time or other meet them +that has set round my table one year after another, all together, where +there is no fault-finding with the food and no occasion for it,--and if I +do meet them and you there--or anywhere,--if there is anything I can do +for you.... + +....Poor dear soul! Her ideas had got a little mixed, and her heart was +overflowing, and the white handkerchief closed the scene with its timely +and greatly needed service. + +--What a pity, I have often thought, that she came in just at that +precise moment! For the old Master was on the point of telling us, and +through one of us the reading world,--I mean that fraction of it which +has reached this point of the record,--at any rate, of telling you, +Beloved, through my pen, his solution of a great problem we all have to +deal with. We were some weeks longer together, but he never offered to +continue his reading. At length I ventured to give him a hint that our +young friend and myself would both of us be greatly gratified if he would +begin reading from his unpublished page where he had left off. + +--No, sir,--he said,--better not, better not. That which means so much +to me, the writer, might be a disappointment, or at least a puzzle, to +you, the listener. Besides, if you'll take my printed book and be at the +trouble of thinking over what it says, and put that with what you've +heard me say, and then make those comments and reflections which will be +suggested to a mind in so many respects like mine as is your own,--excuse +my good opinion of myself, + +(It is a high compliment to me, I replied) you will perhaps find you have +the elements of the formula and its consequences which I was about to +read you. It's quite as well to crack your own filberts as to borrow the +use of other people's teeth. I think we will wait awhile before we pour +out the Elixir Vitae. + +--To tell the honest truth, I suspect the Master has found out that his +formula does not hold water quite so perfectly as he was thinking, so +long as he kept it to himself, and never thought of imparting it to +anybody else. The very minute a thought is threatened with publicity it +seems to shrink towards mediocrity, as. I have noticed that a great +pumpkin, the wonder of a village, seemed to lose at least a third of its +dimensions between the field where it grew and the cattle-show +fair-table, where it took its place with other enormous pumpkins from +other wondering villages. But however that maybe, I shall always regret +that I had not the opportunity of judging for myself how completely the +Master's formula, which, for him, at least, seemed to have solved the +great problem, would have accomplished that desirable end for me. + +The Landlady's announcement of her intention to give up keeping boarders +was heard with regret by all who met around her table. The Member of the +Haouse inquired of me whether I could tell him if the Lamb Tahvern was +kept well abaout these times. He knew that members from his place used +to stop there, but he hadn't heerd much abaout it of late years. I had +to inform him that that fold of rural innocence had long ceased offering +its hospitalities to the legislative, flock. He found refuge at last, I +have learned, in a great public house in the northern section of the +city, where, as he said, the folks all went up stairs in a rat-trap, and +the last I heard of him was looking out of his somewhat elevated +attic-window in a northwesterly direction in hopes that he might perhaps +get a sight of the Grand Monadnock, a mountain in New Hampshire which I +have myself seen from the top of Bunker Hill Monument. + +The Member of the Haouse seems to have been more in a hurry to find a new +resting-place than the other boarders. By the first of January, however, +our whole company was scattered, never to meet again around the board +where we had been so long together. + +The Lady moved to the house where she had passed many of her prosperous +years. It had been occupied by a rich family who had taken it nearly as +it stood, and as the pictures had been dusted regularly, and the books +had never been handled, she found everything in many respects as she had +left it, and in some points improved, for the rich people did not know +what else to do, and so they spent money without stint on their house and +its adornments, by all of which she could not help profiting. I do not +choose to give the street and number of the house where she lives, but +a-great many poor people know very well where it is, and as a matter of +course the rich ones roll up to her door in their carriages by the dozen +every fine Monday while anybody is in town. + +It is whispered that our two young folks are to be married before another +season, and that the Lady has asked them to come and stay with her for a +while. Our Scheherezade is to write no more stories. It is astonishing +to see what a change for the better in her aspect a few weeks of +brain-rest and heart's ease have wrought in her. I doubt very much +whether she ever returns to literary labor. The work itself was almost +heart-breaking, but the effect upon her of the sneers and cynical +insolences of the literary rough who came at her in mask and brass +knuckles was to give her what I fear will be a lifelong disgust against +any writing for the public, especially in any of the periodicals. I am +not sorry that she should stop writing, but I am sorry that she should +have been silenced in such a rude way. I doubt, too, whether the Young +Astronomer will pass the rest of his life in hunting for comets and +planets. I think he has found an attraction that will call him down from +the celestial luminaries to a light not less pure and far less remote. +And I am inclined to believe that the best answer to many of those +questions which have haunted him and found expression in his verse will +be reached by a very different channel from that of lonely contemplation, +the duties, the cares, the responsible realities of a life drawn out of +itself by the power of newly awakened instincts and affections. The +double star was prophetic,--I thought it would be. + +The Register of Deeds is understood to have been very handsomely treated +by the boarder who owes her good fortune to his sagacity and activity. +He has engaged apartments at a very genteel boarding-house not far from +the one where we have all been living. The Salesman found it a simple +matter to transfer himself to an establishment over the way; he had very +little to move, and required very small accommodations. + +The Capitalist, however, seems to have felt it impossible to move without +ridding himself of a part at--least of his encumbrances. The community +was startled by the announcement that a citizen who did not wish his name +to be known had made a free gift of a large sum of money--it was in tens +of thousands--to an institution of long standing and high character in +the city of which he was a quiet resident. The source of such a gift +could not long be kept secret. It, was our economical, not to say +parsimonious Capitalist who had done this noble act, and the poor man had +to skulk through back streets and keep out of sight, as if he were a show +character in a travelling caravan, to avoid the acknowledgments of his +liberality, which met him on every hand and put him fairly out of +countenance. + +That Boy has gone, in virtue of a special invitation, to make a visit of +indefinite length at the house of the father of the older boy, whom we +know by the name of Johnny. Of course he is having a good time, for +Johnny's father is full of fun, and tells first-rate stories, and if +neither of the boys gets his brains kicked out by the pony, or blows +himself up with gunpowder, or breaks through the ice and gets drowned, +they will have a fine time of it this winter. + +The Scarabee could not bear to remove his collections, and the old Master +was equally unwilling to disturb his books. It was arranged, therefore, +that they should keep their apartments until the new tenant should come +into the house, when, if they were satisfied with her management, they +would continue as her boarders. + +The last time I saw the Scarabee he was still at work on the meloe +question. He expressed himself very pleasantly towards all of us, his +fellow-boarders, and spoke of the kindness and consideration with which +the Landlady had treated him when he had been straitened at times for +want of means. Especially he seemed to be interested in our young couple +who were soon to be united. His tired old eyes glistened as he asked +about them,--could it be that their little romance recalled some early +vision of his own? However that may be, he got up presently and went to +a little box in which, as he said, he kept some choice specimens. He +brought to me in his hand something which glittered. It was an exquisite +diamond beetle. + +--If you could get that to her,--he said,--they tell me that ladies +sometimes wear them in their hair. If they are out of fashion, she can +keep it till after they're married, and then perhaps after a while there +may be--you know--you know what I mean--there may be larvae, that 's what +I 'm thinking there may be, and they 'll like to look at it. + +--As he got out the word larvae, a faint sense of the ridiculous seemed +to take hold of the Scarabee, and for the first and only time during my +acquaintance with him a slight attempt at a smile showed itself on his +features. It was barely perceptible and gone almost as soon as seen, yet +I am pleased to put it on record that on one occasion at least in his +life the Scarabee smiled. + +The old Master keeps adding notes and reflections and new suggestions to +his interleaved volume, but I doubt if he ever gives them to the public. +The study he has proposed to himself does not grow easier the longer it +is pursued. The whole Order of Things can hardly be completely +unravelled in any single person's lifetime, and I suspect he will have to +adjourn the final stage of his investigations to that more luminous realm +where the Landlady hopes to rejoin the company of boarders who are +nevermore to meet around her cheerful and well-ordered table. + +The curtain has now fallen, and I show myself a moment before it to thank +my audience and say farewell. The second comer is commonly less welcome +than the first, and the third makes but a rash venture. I hope I have not +wholly disappointed those who have been so kind to my predecessors. + +To you, Beloved, who have never failed to cut the leaves which hold my +record, who have never nodded over its pages, who have never hesitated in +your allegiance, who have greeted me with unfailing smiles and part from +me with unfeigned regrets, to you I look my last adieu as I bow myself +out of sight, trusting my poor efforts to your always kind remembrance. + + EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES + + AUTOCRAT--PROFESSOR--POET. + + AT A BOOKSTORE. + + Anno Domini 1972. + + A crazy bookcase, placed before + A low-price dealer's open door; + Therein arrayed in broken rows + A ragged crew of rhyme and prose, + The homeless vagrants, waifs and strays + Whose low estate this line betrays + (Set forth the lesser birds to lime) + YOUR CHOICE AMONG THESE BOOKS, 1 DIME! + + Ho! dealer; for its motto's sake + This scarecrow from the shelf I take; + Three starveling volumes bound in one, + Its covers warping in the sun. + Methinks it hath a musty smell, + I like its flavor none too well, + But Yorick's brain was far from dull, + Though Hamlet pah!'d, and dropped his skull. + + Why, here comes rain! The sky grows dark, + --Was that the roll of thunder? Hark! + The shop affords a safe retreat, + A chair extends its welcome seat, + The tradesman has a civil look + (I've paid, impromptu, for my book), + The clouds portend a sudden shower, + I'll read my purchase for an hour. + + .............. + + What have I rescued from the shelf? + A Boswell, writing out himself! + For though he changes dress and name, + The man beneath is still the same, + Laughing or sad, by fits and starts, + One actor in a dozen parts, + And whatsoe'er the mask may be, + The voice assures us, This is he. + + I say not this to cry him clown; + I find my Shakespeare in his clown, + His rogues the self-same parent own; + Nay! Satan talks in Milton's tone! + Where'er the ocean inlet strays, + The salt sea wave its source betrays, + Where'er the queen of summer blows, + She tells the zephyr, "I'm the rose!" + + And his is not the playwright's page; + His table does not ape the stage; + What matter if the figures seen + Are only shadows on a screen, + He finds in them his lurking thought, + And on their lips the words he sought, + Like one who sits before the keys + And plays a tune himself to please. + + And was he noted in his day? + Read, flattered, honored? Who shall say? + Poor wreck of time the wave has cast + To find a peaceful shore at last, + Once glorying in thy gilded name + And freighted deep with hopes of fame, + Thy leaf is moistened with a tear, + The first for many a long, long year! + + For be it more or less of art + That veils the lowliest human heart + Where passion throbs, where friendship glows, + Where pity's tender tribute flows, + Where love has lit its fragrant fire, + And sorrow quenched its vain desire, + For me the altar is divine, + Its flame, its ashes,--all are mine! + + And thou, my brother, as I look + And see thee pictured in thy book, + Thy years on every page confessed + In shadows lengthening from the west, + Thy glance that wanders, as it sought + Some freshly opening flower of thought, + Thy hopeful nature, light and free, + I start to find myself in thee! + + Come, vagrant, outcast, wretch forlorn + In leather jerkin stained and torn, + Whose talk has filled my idle hour + And made me half forget the shower, + I'll do at least as much for you, + Your coat I'll patch, your gilt renew, + Read you,--perhaps,--some other time. + Not bad, my bargain! Price one dime! + Not bad, my bargain! Price one dime! + + + + + + +OVER THE TEACUPS + +by Oliver W. Holmes + + + +PREFACE. + + +The kind way in which this series of papers has been received has been a +pleasure greater than I dared to anticipate. I felt that I was a late +comer in the midst of a crowd of ardent and eager candidates for public +attention, that I had already had my day, and that if, like the +unfortunate Frenchman we used read about, I had "come again," I ought not +to surprised if I received the welcome of "Monsieur Tonson." + +It has not proved so. My old readers have come forward in the +pleasantest possible way and assured me that they were glad to see me +again. There is no need, therefore, of apologies or explanations. I +thought I had something left to say and I have found listeners. In +writing these papers I have had occupation and kept myself in relation +with my fellow-beings. New sympathies, new sources of encouragement, if +not of inspiration, have opened themselves before me and cheated the +least promising season of life of much that seemed to render it dreary +and depressing. What particularly pleased me has been the freedom of +criticisms which I have seen from disadvantageous comparisons of my later +with my earlier writings. + +I should like a little rest from literary work before the requiescat +ensures my repose from earthly labors, but I will not be rash enough to +promise that I will not even once again greet my old and new readers if +the impulse becomes irresistible to renew a companionship which has been +to me such a source of happiness. + +BEVERLY FARM, Mass., August, 1891. + +O. W. H. + + + + +OVER THE TEACUPS. + + + +I + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +This series of papers was begun in March, 1888. A single number was +printed, when it was interrupted the course of events, and not resumed +until nearly years later, in January, 1890. The plan of the series was +not formed in my mind when I wrote the number. In returning to my task I +found that my original plan had shaped itself in the underground +laboratory of my thought so that some changes had to be made in what I +had written. As I proceeded, the slight story which formed a part of my +programme eloped itself without any need of much contrivance on my, part. +Given certain characters in a writer's conception, if they are real to +him, as they ought to be they will act in such or such a way, according +to the law of their nature. It was pretty safe to assume that intimate +relations would spring up between some members of our mixed company; and +it was not rash conjecture that some of these intimacies might end in +such attachment as would furnish us hints, at least, of a love-story. + +As to the course of the conversations which would take place, very little +could be guessed beforehand. Various subjects of interest would be +likely to present themselves, without definite order, oftentimes abruptly +and, as it would seem, capriciously. Conversation in such a mixed company +as that of "The Teacups" is likely to be suggestive rather than +exhaustive. Continuous discourse is better adapted to the lecture-room +than to the tea-table. There is quite enough of it, I fear too much,--in +these pages. But the reader must take the reports of our talks as they +were jotted down. A patchwork quilt is not like a piece of Gobelin +tapestry; but it has its place and its use. + +Some will feel a temptation to compare these conversations with those +earlier ones, and remark unamiably upon their difference. This is hardly +fair, and is certainly not wise. They are produced under very different +conditions, and betray that fact in every line. It is better to take +them by themselves; and, if my reader finds anything to please or profit +from, I shall be contented, and he, I feel sure, will not be ungrateful. + +The readers who take up this volume may recollect a series of +conversations held many years ago over the breakfast-table, and reported +for their more or less profitable entertainment. Those were not very +early breakfasts at which the talks took place, but at any rate the sun +was rising, and the guests had not as yet tired themselves with the +labors of the day. The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about +it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea +cannot be expected to reproduce. The toils of the forenoon, the heats of +midday, in the warm season, the slanting light of the descending sun, or +the sobered translucency of twilight have subdued the vivacity of the +early day. Yet under the influence of the benign stimulant many trains +of thought which will bear recalling, may suggest themselves to some of +our quiet circle and prove not uninteresting to a certain number of +readers. + +How early many of my old breakfast companions went off to bed! I am +thinking not merely of those who sat round our table, but of that larger +company of friends who listened to our conversations as reported. Dear +girl with the silken ringlets, dear boy with the down-shadowed cheek, +your grandfather, your grandmother, turned over the freshly printed +leaves that told the story of those earlier meetings around the plain +board where so many things were said and sung, not all of which have +quite faded from memory of this overburdened and forgetful time. Your +father, your mother, found the scattered leaves gathered in a volume, and +smiled upon them as not uncompanionable acquaintances. My tea-table +makes no promises. There is no programme of exercises to studied +beforehand. What if I should content myself with a single report of what +was said and done over our teacups? Perhaps my young reader would be +glad to let me off, for there are talkers enough who have not yet left +their breakfast-tables; and nobody can blame the young people for +preferring the thoughts and the language of their own generation, with +all its future before it, to those of their grandfathers contemporaries. + +My reader, young or old, will please to observe that I have left myself +entire freedom as to the sources of what may be said over the teacups. I +have not told how many cups are commonly on the board, but by using the +plural I have implied that there is at least one other talker or listener +beside myself, and for all that appears there may be a dozen. There will +be no regulation length to my reports,--no attempt to make out a certain +number of pages. I have no contract to fill so many columns, no pledge +to contribute so many numbers. I can stop on this first page if I do not +care to say anything more, and let this article stand by itself if so +minded. What a sense of freedom it gives not to write by the yard or the +column! + +When one writes for an English review or magazine at so many guineas a +sheet, the temptation is very great to make one's contribution cover as +many sheets as possible. We all know the metallic taste of articles +written under this powerful stimulus. If Bacon's Essays had been +furnished by a modern hand to the "Quarterly Review" at fifty guineas a +sheet, what a great book it would have taken to hold them! + +The first thing which suggests itself to me, as I contemplate my slight +project, is the liability of repeating in the evening what I may have +said in the morning in one form or another, and printed in these or other +pages. When it suddenly flashes into the consciousness of a writer who +had been long before the public, "Why, I have said all that once or +oftener in my books or essays, and here it is again; the same old +thought, the same old image, the same old story!" it irritates him, and +is likely to stir up the monosyllables of his unsanctified vocabulary. +He sees in imagination a thousand readers, smiling or yawning as they say +to themselves, "We have had all that before," and turn to another +writer's performance for something not quite so stale and superfluous. +This is what the writer says to himself about the reader. + +The idiot! Does the simpleton really think that everybody has read all +he has written? Does he really believe that everybody remembers all of +his, writer's, words he may happen to have read? At one of those famous +dinners of the Phi Beta Kappa Society; where no reporter was ever +admitted, and which nothing ever leaks out about what is said and done, +Mr. Edward Everett, in his after-dinner speech, quoted these lines from +the AEneid, giving a liberal English version of them, which he applied to +the Oration just delivered by Mr. Emerson: + + Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae + Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri. + +His nephew, the ingenious, inventive, and inexhaustible. Edward Everett +Hale, tells the story of this quotation, and of the various uses to which +it might plied in after-dinner speeches. How often he ventured to repeat +it at the Phi Beta Kappa dinners I am not sure; but as he reproduced it +with his lively embellishments and fresh versions and artful +circumlocutions, not one person in ten remembered that he had listened to +those same words in those same accents only a twelvemonth ago. The poor +deluded creatures who take it for granted that all the world remembers +what they have said, and laugh at them when they say it over again, may +profit by this recollection. But what if one does say the same +things,--of course in a little different form each time,--over her? If +he has anything to say worth saying, that is just what he ought to do. +Whether he ought to or not, it is very certain that this is what all who +write much or speak much necessarily must and will do. Think of the +clergyman who preaches fifty or a hundred or more sermons every year for +fifty years! Think of the stump speaker who shouts before a hundred +audiences during the same political campaign, always using the same +arguments, illustrations, and catchwords! Think of the editor, as +Carlyle has pictured him, threshing the same straw every morning, until +we know what is coming when we see the first line, as we do when we read +the large capitals at the head of a thrilling story, which ends in an +advertisement of an all-cleansing soap or an all-curing remedy! + +The latch-key which opens into the inner chambers of my consciousness +fits, as I have sufficient reason to believe, the private apartments of a +good many other people's thoughts. The longer we live, the more we find +we are like other persons. When I meet with any facts in my own mental +experience, I feel almost sure that I shall find them repeated or +anticipated in the writings or the conversation of others. This feeling +gives one a freedom in telling his own personal history he could not have +enjoyed without it. My story belongs to you as much as to me. De te +fabula narratur. Change the personal pronoun,--that is all. It gives +many readers a singular pleasure to find a writer telling them something +they have long known or felt, but which they have never before found any +one to put in words for them. An author does not always know when he is +doing the service of the angel who stirred the waters of the pool of +Bethesda. Many a reader is delighted to find his solitary thought has a +companion, and is grateful to the benefactor who has strengthened him. +This is the advantage of the humble reader over the ambitious and +self-worshipping writer. It is not with him pereant illi, but beati sunt +illi qui pro nobis nostra dixerunt,-Blessed are those who have said our +good things for us. + +What I have been saying of repetitions leads me into a train of +reflections like which I think many readers will find something in their +own mental history. The area of consciousness is covered by layers of +habitual thoughts, as a sea-beach is covered with wave-worn, rounded +pebbles, shaped, smoothed, and polished by long attrition against each +other. These thoughts remain very much the same from day to day, from +week to week; and as we grow older, from month to month, and from year to +year. The tides of wakening consciousness roll in upon them daily as we +unclose our eyelids, and keep up the gentle movement and murmur of +ordinary mental respiration until we close them again in slumber. When +we think we are thinking, we are for the most part only listening to +sound of attrition between these inert elements of intelligence. They +shift their places a little, they change their relations to each other, +they roll over and turn up new surfaces. Now and then a new fragment is +cast in among them, to be worn and rounded and takes its place with the +others, but the pebbled floor of consciousness is almost as stationary as +the pavement of a city thoroughfare. + +It so happens that at this particular tine I have something to tell which +I am quite sure is not one of rolled pebbles which my reader has seen +before in any of my pages, or, as I feel confident, in those of any other +writer. + +If my reader asks why I do not send the statement I am going to make to +some one of the special periodicals that deal with such subjects, my +answer is, that I like to tell my own stories at my own time, in own +chosen columns, where they will be read by a class of readers with whom I +like to talk. + +All men of letters or of science, all writers well known to the public, +are constantly tampered with, in these days, by a class of predaceous and +hungry fellow-laborers who may be collectively spoken of as the +brain-tappers. They want an author's ideas on the subjects which +interest them, the inquirers, from the gravest religious and moral +questions to the most trivial matters of his habits and his whims and +fancies. Some of their questions he cannot answer; some he does not +choose to answer; some he is not yet ready to answer, and when he is +ready he prefers to select his own organ of publication. I do not find +fault with all the brain-tappers. Some of them are doing excellent +service by accumulating facts which could not otherwise be attained. Rut +one gets tired of the strings of questions sent him, to which he is +expected to return an answer, plucked, ripe or unripe, from his private +tree of knowledge. The brain-tappers are like the owner of the goose that +laid the golden eggs. They would have the embryos and germs of one's +thoughts out of the mental oviducts, and cannot wait for their +spontaneous evolution and extrusion. + +The story I have promised is, on the whole, the most remarkable of a +series which I may have told in part at some previous date, but which, if +I have not told, may be worth recalling at a future time. + +Some few of my readers may remember that in a former paper I suggested +the possibility of the existence of an idiotic area in the human mind, +corresponding to the blind spot in the human retina. I trust that I +shall not be thought to have let my wits go wandering in that region of +my own intellectual domain, when I relate a singular coincidence which +very lately occurred in my experience, and add a few remarks made by one +of our company on the delicate and difficult but fascinating subject +which it forces upon our attention. I will first copy the memorandum +made at the time: + +"Remarkable coincidence. On Monday, April 18th, being at table from 6.30 +P. M. to 7.30, with ________and ________ the two ladies of my +household, I told them of the case of 'trial by battel' offered by +Abraham Thornton in 1817. I mentioned his throwing down his glove, which +was not taken up by the brother of his victim, and so he had to be let +off, for the old law was still in force. I mentioned that Abraham +Thornton was said to have come to this country, 'and [I added] he may be +living near us, for aught that I know." I rose from the table, and found +an English letter waiting for me, left while I sat at dinner. A copy the +first portion of this letter: + +'20 ALFRED PLACE, West (near Museum) South Kensington, LONDON, S. W. +April 7, 1887. +DR. O. W. HOLMES: + +DEAR SIR,--In travelling, the other day, I met with a reprint of the very +interesting case of Thornton for murder, 1817. The prisoner pleaded +successfully the old Wager of Battel. I thought you would like to read +the account, and send it with this.... + +Yours faithfully, +FRED. RATHBONE.' + +Mr. Rathbone is a well-known dealer in old Wedgwood and +eighteenth-century art. As a friend of my hospitable entertainer, Mr. +Willett, he had shown me many attentions in England, but I was not +expecting any communication from him; and when, fresh from my +conversation, I found this letter just arrived by mail, and left while I +was at table, and on breaking the seal read what I had a few moments +before been; telling, I was greatly surprised, and immediately made a +note of the occurrence, as given above. + +I had long been familiar with all the details of this celebrated case, +but had not referred to it, so far as I can remember, for months or +years. I know of no train of thought which led me to speak of it on that +particular day. I had never alluded to it before in that company, nor +had I ever spoken of it with Mr. Rathbone. + +I told this story over our teacups. Among the company at the table is a +young English girl. She seemed to be amused by the story. "Fancy!" she +said,--"how very very odd!" "It was a striking and curious coincidence," +said the professor who was with us at the table. "As remarkable as two +teaspoons in one saucer," was the comment of a college youth who happened +to be one of the company. But the member of our circle whom the reader +will hereafter know as Number Seven, began stirring his tea in a nervous +sort of way, and I knew that he was getting ready to say something about +the case. An ingenious man he is, with a brain like a tinder-box, its +contents catching at any spark that is flying about. I always like to +hear what he says when his tinder brain has a spark fall into it. It +does not follow that because he is often wrong he may not sometimes be +right, for he is no fool. He treated my narrative very seriously. + +The reader need not be startled at the new terms he introduces. Indeed, I +am not quite sure that some thinking people will not adopt his view of +the matter, which seems to have a degree of plausibility as he states and +illustrates it. + +"The impulse which led you to tell that story passed directly from the +letter, which came charged from the cells of the cerebral battery of your +correspondent. The distance at which the action took place [the letter +was left on a shelf twenty-four feet from the place where I was sitting] +shows this charge to have been of notable intensity. + +"Brain action through space without material symbolism, such as speech, +expression, etc., is analogous to electrical induction. Charge the prime +conductor of an electrical machine, and a gold-leaf electrometer, far off +from it, will at once be disturbed. Electricity, as we all know, can be +stored and transported as if it were a measurable fluid. + +"Your incident is a typical example of cerebral induction from a source +containing stored cerebricity. I use this word, not to be found in my +dictionaries, as expressing the brain-cell power corresponding to +electricity. Think how long it was before we had attained any real +conception of the laws that govern the wonderful agent, which now works +in harness with the other trained and subdued forces! It is natural that +cerebricity should be the last of the unweighable agencies to be +understood. The human eye had seen heaven and earth and all that in them +is before it saw itself as our instruments enable us to see it. This +fact of yours, which seems so strange to you, belongs to a great series +of similar facts familiarly known now to many persons, and before long to +be recognized as generally as those relating to the electric telegraph +and the slaving `dynamo.' + +"What! you cannot conceive of a charge of cerebricity fastening itself on +a letter-sheet and clinging to it for weeks, while it was shuffling about +in mail-bags, rolling over the ocean, and shaken up in railroad cars? +And yet the odor of a grain of musk will hang round a note or a dress for +a lifetime. Do you not remember what Professor Silliman says, in that +pleasant journal of his, about the little ebony cabinet which Mary, Queen +of Scots, brought with her from France,--how 'its drawers still exhale +the sweetest perfumes'? If they could hold their sweetness for more than +two hundred years, why should not a written page retain for a week or a +month the equally mysterious effluence poured over it from the thinking +marrow, and diffuse its vibrations to another excitable nervous centre?" + +I have said that although our imaginative friend is given to wild +speculations, he is not always necessarily wrong. We know too little +about the laws of brain-force to be dogmatic with reference to it. I am, +myself, therefore, fully in sympathy with the psychological +investigators. When it comes to the various pretended sciences by which +men and women make large profits, attempts at investigation are very apt +to be used as lucrative advertisements for the charlatans. But a series +of investigations of the significance of certain popular beliefs and +superstitions, a careful study of the relations of certain facts to each +other,--whether that of cause and effect, or merely of coincidence,--is a +task not unworthy of sober-minded and well-trained students of nature. +Such a series of investigations has been recently instituted, and was +reported at a late meeting held in the rooms of the Boston Natural +History Society. The results were, mostly negative, and in one sense a +disappointment. A single case, related by Professor Royce, attracted a +good deal of attention. It was reported in the next morning's +newspapers, and will be given at full length, doubtless, in the next +number of the Psychological Journal. The leading facts were, briefly, +these: A lady in Hamburg, Germany, wrote, on the 22d of June last, that +she had what she supposed to be nightmare on the night of the 17th, five +days before. "It seemed," she wrote, "to belong to you; to be a horrid +pain in your head, as if it were being forcibly jammed into an iron +casque, or some such pleasant instrument of torture." It proved that on +that same 17th of June her sister was undergoing a painful operation at +the hands of a dentist. "No single case," adds Professor Royce, "proves, +or even makes probable, the existence of telepathic toothaches; but if +there are any more cases of this sort, we want to hear of them, and that +all the more because no folk-lore and no supernatural horrors have as yet +mingled with the natural and well-known impressions that people associate +with the dentist's chair." + +The case I have given is, I am confident, absolutely free from every +source of error. I do not remember that Mr. Rathbone had communicated +with me since he sent me a plentiful supply of mistletoe a year ago last +Christmas. The account I received from him was cut out of "The Sporting +Times" of March 5, 1887. My own knowledge of the case came from "Kirby's +Wonderful Museum," a work presented to me at least thirty years ago. I +had not looked at the account, spoken of it, nor thought of it for a long +time, when it came to me by a kind of spontaneous generation, as it +seemed, having no connection with any previous train of thought that I +was aware of. I consider the evidence of entire independence, apart from +possible "telepathic" causation, completely water-proof, airtight, +incombustible, and unassailable. + +I referred, when first reporting this curious case of coincidence, with +suggestive circumstances, to two others, one of which I said was the most +picturesque and the other the most unlikely, as it would seem, to happen. +This is the first of those two cases:-- + +Grenville Tudor Phillips was a younger brother of George Phillips, my +college classmate, and of Wendell Phillips, the great orator. He lived +in Europe a large part of his life, but at last returned, and, in the +year 1863, died at the house of his brother George. I read his death in +the paper; but, having seen and heard very little of him during his life, +should not have been much impressed by the fact, but for the following +occurrence: between the time of Grenville Phillips's death and his +burial, I was looking in upon my brother, then living in the house in +which we were both born. Some books which had been my father's were +stored in shelves in the room I used to occupy when at Cambridge. +Passing my eye over them, an old dark quarto attracted my attention. It +must be a Bible, I said to myself, perhaps a rare one,--the "Breeches" +Bible or some other interesting specimen. I took it from the shelves, +and, as I did so, an old slip of paper fell out and fluttered to the +floor. On lifting it I read these words: + +The name is Grenville Tudor. + +What was the meaning of this slip of paper coming to light at this time, +after reposing undisturbed so long? There was only one way of explaining +its presence in my father's old Bible;--a copy of the Scriptures which I +did not remember ever having handled or looked into before. In +christening a child the minister is liable to forget the name, just at +the moment when he ought to remember it. My father preached occasionally +at the Brattle Street Church. I take this for granted, for I remember +going with him on one occasion when he did so. Nothing was more likely +than that he should be asked to officiate at the baptism of the younger +son of his wife's first cousin, Judge Phillips. This slip was handed him +to remind him of the name: He brought it home, put it in that old Bible, +and there it lay quietly for nearly half a century, when, as if it had +just heard of Mr. Phillips's decease, it flew from its hiding-place and +startled the eyes of those who had just read his name in the daily column +of deaths. It would be hard to find anything more than a mere +coincidence here; but it seems curious enough to be worth telling. + +The second of these two last stories must be told in prosaic detail to +show its whole value as a coincidence. + +One evening while I was living in Charles Street, I received a call from +Dr. S., a well-known and highly respected Boston physician, a particular +friend of the late Alexander H. Stephens, vice-president of the Southern +Confederacy. It was with reference to a work which Mr. Stephens was +about to publish that Dr. S. called upon me. After talking that matter +over we got conversing on other subjects, among the rest a family +relationship existing between us,--not a very near one, but one which I +think I had seen mentioned in genealogical accounts. Mary S. (the last +name being the same as that of my visitant), it appeared, was the +great-great-grandmother of Mrs. H. and myself. After cordially +recognizing our forgotten relationship, now for the first time called to +mind, we parted, my guest leaving me for his own home. We had been +sitting in my library on the lower floor. On going up-stairs where Mrs. +H. was sitting alone, just as I entered the room she pushed a paper +across the table towards me, saying that perhaps it might interest me. +It was one of a number of old family papers which she had brought from +the house of her mother, recently deceased. + +I opened the paper, which was an old-looking document, and found that it +was a copy, perhaps made in this century, of the will of that same Mary +S. about whom we had been talking down-stairs. + +If there is such a thing as a purely accidental coincidence this must be +considered an instance of it. + +All one can say about it is that it seems very unlikely that such a +coincidence should occur, but it did. + +I have not tried to keep my own personality out of these stories. But +after all, how little difference it makes whether or not a writer appears +with a mask on which everybody can take off,--whether he bolts his door +or not, when everybody can look in at his windows, and all his entrances +are at the mercy of the critic's skeleton key and the jimmy of any +ill-disposed assailant! + +The company have been silent listeners for the most part; but the reader +will have a chance to become better acquainted with some cf them by and +by. + + + + +II + +TO THE READER. + +I know that it is a hazardous experiment to address myself again to a +public which in days long past has given me a generous welcome. But my +readers have been, and are, a very faithful constituency. I think there +are many among them who would rather listen to an old voice they are used +to than to a new one of better quality, even if the "childish treble" +should betray itself now and then in the tones of the overtired organ. +But there must be others,--I am afraid many others,--who will exclaim: +"He has had his day, and why can't he be content? We don't want literary +revenants, superfluous veterans, writers who have worn out their welcome +and still insist on being attended to. Give us something fresh, +something that belongs to our day and generation. Your morning draught +was well enough, but we don't care for your evening slip-slop. You are +not in relation with us, with our time, our ideas, our aims, our +aspirations." + +Alas, alas! my friend,--my young friend, for your hair is not yet +whitened,--I am afraid you are too nearly right. No doubt,--no doubt. +Teacups are not coffee-cups. They do not hold so much. Their pallid +infusion is but a feeble stimulant compared with the black decoction +served at the morning board. And so, perhaps, if wisdom like yours were +compatible with years like mine, I should drop my pen and make no further +attempts upon your patience. + +But suppose that a writer who has reached and passed the natural limit of +serviceable years feels that he has some things which he would like to +say, and which may have an interest for a limited class of readers,--is +he not right in trying his powers and calmly taking the risk of failure? +Does it not seem rather lazy and cowardly, because he cannot "beat his +record," or even come up to the level of what he has done in his prime, +to shrink from exerting his talent, such as it is, now that he has +outlived the period of his greatest vigor? A singer who is no longer +equal to the trials of opera on the stage may yet please at a chamber +concert or in the drawing-room. There is one gratification an old author +can afford a certain class of critics: that, namely, of comparing him as +he is with what he was. It is a pleasure to mediocrity to have its +superiors brought within range, so to speak; and if the ablest of them +will only live long enough, and keep on writing, there is no pop-gun that +cannot reach him. But I fear that this is an unamiable reflection, and I +am at this time in a very amiable mood. + +I confess that there is something agreeable to me in renewing my +relations with the reading public. Were it but a single appearance, it +would give me a pleasant glimpse of the time when I was known as a +frequent literary visitor. Many of my readers--if I can lure any from +the pages of younger writers will prove to be the children, or the +grandchildren, of those whose acquaintance I made something more than a +whole generation ago. I could depend on a kind welcome from my +contemporaries,--my coevals. But where are those contemporaries? Ay de +mi! as Carlyle used to exclaim,--Ah, dear me! as our old women say,--I +look round for them, and see only their vacant places. The old vine +cannot unwind its tendrils. The branch falls with the decay of its +support, and must cling to the new growths around it, if it would not lie +helpless in the dust. This paper is a new tendril, feeling its way, as +it best may, to whatever it can wind around. The thought of finding here +and there an old friend, and making, it may be, once in a while a new +one, is very grateful to me. The chief drawback to the pleasure is the +feeling that I am submitting to that inevitable exposure which is the +penalty of authorship in every form. A writer must make up his mind to +the possible rough treatment of the critics, who swarm like bacteria +whenever there is any literary material on which they can feed. I have +had as little to complain of as most writers, yet I think it is always +with reluctance that one encounters the promiscuous handling which the +products of the mind have to put up with, as much as the fruit and +provisions in the market-stalls. I had rather be criticised, however, +than criticise; that is, express my opinions in the public prints of +other writers' work, if they are living, and can suffer, as I should +often have to make them. There are enough, thank Heaven, without me. We +are literary cannibals, and our writers live on each other and each +other's productions to a fearful extent. What the mulberry leaf is to +the silk-worm, the author's book, treatise, essay, poem, is to the +critical larva; that feed upon it. It furnishes them with food and +clothing. The process may not be agreeable to the mulberry leaf or to +the printed page; but without it the leaf would not have become the silk +that covers the empress's shoulders, and but for the critic the author's +book might never have reached the scholar's table. Scribblers will feed +on each other, and if we insist on being scribblers we must consent to be +fed on. We must try to endure philosophically what we cannot help, and +ought not, I suppose, to wish to help. + +It is the custom at our table to vary the usual talk, by the reading of +short papers, in prose or verse, by one or more of The Teacups, as we are +in the habit of calling those who make up our company. Thirty years ago, +one of our present circle--"Teacup Number Two," The Professor,--read a +paper on Old Age, at a certain Breakfast-table, where he was in the habit +of appearing. That paper was published at the time, and has since seen +the light in other forms. He did not know so much about old age then as +he does now, and would doubtless write somewhat differently if he took +the subject up again. But I found that it was the general wish that +another of our company should let us hear what he had to say about it. I +received a polite note, requesting me to discourse about old age, +inasmuch as I was particularly well qualified by my experience to write +in an authoritative way concerning it. The fact is that I,--for it is +myself who am speaking,--have recently arrived at the age of threescore +years and twenty,--fourscore years we may otherwise call it. In the +arrangement of our table, I am Teacup Number One, and I may as well say +that I am often spoken of as The Dictator. There is nothing invidious in +this, as I am the oldest of the company, and no claim is less likely to +excite jealousy than that of priority of birth. + +I received congratulations on reaching my eightieth birthday, not only +from our circle of Teacups, but from friends, near and distant, in large +numbers. I tried to acknowledge these kindly missives with the aid of a +most intelligent secretary; but I fear that there were gifts not thanked +for, and tokens of good-will not recognized. Let any neglected +correspondent be assured that it was not intentionally that he or she was +slighted. I was grateful for every such mark of esteem; even for the +telegram from an unknown friend in a distant land, for which I cheerfully +paid the considerable charge which the sender doubtless knew it would +give me pleasure to disburse for such an expression of friendly feeling. + +I will not detain the reader any longer from the essay I have promised. + +This is the paper read to The Teacups. + +It is in A Song of Moses that we find the words, made very familiar to us +by the Episcopal Burial Service, which place the natural limit on life at +threescore years and ten, with an extra ten years for some of a stronger +constitution than the average. Yet we are told that Moses himself lived +to be a hundred and twenty years old, and that his eye was not dim nor +his natural strength abated. This is hard to accept literally, but we +need not doubt that he was very old, and in remarkably good condition for +a man of his age. Among his followers was a stout old captain, Caleb, +the son of Jephunneh. This ancient warrior speaks of himself in these +brave terms: "Lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet, I +am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me; as my +strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out +and to come in." It is not likely that anybody believed his brag about +his being as good a man for active service at eighty-five as he was at +forty, when Moses sent him out to spy the land of Canaan. But he was, no +doubt, lusty and vigorous for his years, and ready to smite the +Canaanites hip and thigh, and drive them out, and take possession of +their land, as he did forthwith, when Moses gave him leave. + +Grand old men there were, three thousand years ago! But not all +octogenarians were like Caleb, the son of Jephunneh. Listen to poor old +Barzillai, and hear him piping: "I am this day fourscore years old; and +can I discern between good and evil? Can thy servant taste what I eat or +what I drink? Can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing +women? Wherefore, then, should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord +the king?" And poor King David was worse off than this, as you all +remember, at the early age of seventy. + +Thirty centuries do not seem to have made any very great difference in +the extreme limits of life. Without pretending to rival the alleged +cases of life prolonged beyond the middle of its second century, such as +those of Henry Jenkins and Thomas Parr, we can make a good showing of +centenarians and nonagenarians. I myself remember Dr. Holyoke, of Salem, +son of a president of Harvard College, who answered a toast proposed in +his honor at a dinner given to him on his hundredth birthday. + +"Father Cleveland," our venerated city missionary, was born June 21, +1772, and died June 5, 1872, within a little more than a fortnight of his +hundredth birthday. Colonel Perkins, of Connecticut, died recently after +celebrating his centennial anniversary. + +Among nonagenarians, three whose names are well known to Bostonians, Lord +Lyndhurst, Josiah Quincy, and Sidney Bartlett, were remarkable for +retaining their faculties in their extreme age. That patriarch of our +American literature, the illustrious historian of his country, is still +with us, his birth dating in 1800. + +Ranke, the great German historian, died at the age of ninety-one, and +Chevreul, the eminent chemist, at that of a hundred and two. + +Some English sporting characters have furnished striking examples of +robust longevity. In Gilpin's "Forest Scenery" there is the story of one +of these horseback heroes. Henry Hastings was the name of this old +gentleman, who lived in the time of Charles the First. It would be hard +to find a better portrait of a hunting squire than that which the Earl of +Shaftesbury has the credit of having drawn of this very peculiar +personage. His description ends by saying, "He lived to be an hundred, +and never lost his eyesight nor used spectacles. He got on horseback +without help, and rode to the death of the stag till he was past +fourscore." + +Everything depends on habit. Old people can do, of course, more or less +well, what they have been doing all their lives; but try to teach them +any new tricks, and the truth of the old adage will very soon show +itself. Mr. Henry Hastings had done nothing but hunt all his days, and +his record would seem to have been a good deal like that of Philippus +Zaehdarm in that untranslatable epitaph which may be found in "Sartor +Resartus." Judged by its products, it was a very short life of a hundred +useless twelve months. + +It is something to have climbed the white summit, the Mont Blanc of +fourscore. A small number only of mankind ever see their eightieth +anniversary. I might go to the statistical tables of the annuity and +life insurance offices for extended and exact information, but I prefer +to take the facts which have impressed themselves upon me in my own +career. + +The class of 1829 at Harvard College, of which I am a member, graduated, +according to the triennial, fifty-nine in number. It is sixty years, +then, since that time; and as they were, on an average, about twenty +years old, those who survive must have reached fourscore years. Of the +fifty-nine graduates ten only are living, or were at the last accounts; +one in six, very nearly. In the first ten years after graduation, our +third decade, when we were between twenty and thirty years old, we lost +three members,--about one in twenty; between the ages of thirty and +forty, eight died,--one in seven of those the decade began with; from +forty to fifty, only two,--or one in twenty-four; from fifty to sixty, +eight,--or one in six; from sixty to seventy, fifteen,--or two out of +every five; from seventy to eighty, twelve,--or one in two. The greatly +increased mortality which began with our seventh decade went on steadily +increasing. At sixty we come "within range of the rifle-pits," to borrow +an expression from my friend Weir Mitchell. + +Our eminent classmate, the late Professor Benjamin Peirce, showed by +numerical comparison that the men of superior ability outlasted the +average of their fellow-graduates. He himself lived a little beyond his +threescore and ten years. James Freeman Clarke almost reached the age of +eighty. The eighth decade brought the fatal year for Benjamin Robbins +Curtis, the great lawyer, who was one of the judges of the Supreme Court +of the United States; for the very able chief justice of Massachusetts, +George Tyler Bigelow; and for that famous wit and electric centre of +social life, George T. Davis. At the last annual dinner every effort was +made to bring all the survivors of the class together. Six of the ten +living members were there, six old men in the place of the thirty or +forty classmates who surrounded the long, oval table in 1859, when I +asked, "Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?"--11 boys whose +tongues were as the vibrating leaves of the forest; whose talk was like +the voice of many waters; whose laugh was as the breaking of mighty waves +upon the seashore. Among the six at our late dinner was our first +scholar, the thorough-bred and accomplished engineer who held the city of +Lawrence in his brain before it spread itself out along the banks of the +Merrimac. There, too, was the poet whose National Hymn, "My Country, 't +is of thee," is known to more millions, and dearer to many of them, than +all the other songs written since the Psalms of David. Four of our six +were clergymen; the engineer and the present writer completed the list. +Were we melancholy? Did we talk of graveyards and epitaphs? No,--we +remembered our dead tenderly, serenely, feeling deeply what we had lost +in those who but a little while ago were with us. How could we forget +James Freeman Clarke, that man of noble thought and vigorous action, who +pervaded this community with his spirit, and was felt through all its +channels as are the light and the strength that radiate through the wires +which stretch above us? It was a pride and a happiness to have such +classmates as he was to remember. We were not the moping, complaining +graybeards that many might suppose we must have been. We had been +favored with the blessing of long life. We had seen the drama well into +its fifth act. The sun still warmed us, the air was still grateful and +life-giving. But there was another underlying source of our cheerful +equanimity, which we could not conceal from ourselves if we had wished to +do it. Nature's kindly anodyne is telling upon us more and more with +every year. Our old doctors used to give an opiate which they called +"the black drop." It was stronger than laudanum, and, in fact, a +dangerously powerful narcotic. Something like this is that potent drug +in Nature's pharmacopoeia which she reserves for the time of need,--the +later stages of life. She commonly begins administering it at about the +time of the "grand climacteric," the ninth septennial period, the +sixty-third year. More and more freely she gives it, as the years go on, +to her grey-haired children, until, if they last long enough, every +faculty is benumbed, and they drop off quietly into sleep under its +benign influence. + +Do you say that old age is unfeeling? It has not vital energy enough to +supply the waste of the more exhausting emotions. Old Men's Tears, which +furnished the mournful title to Joshua Scottow's Lamentations, do not +suggest the deepest grief conceivable. A little breath of wind brings +down the raindrops which have gathered on the leaves of the tremulous +poplars. A very slight suggestion brings the tears from Marlborough's +eyes, but they are soon over, and he is smiling again as an allusion +carries him back to the days of Blenheim and Malplaquet. Envy not the +old man the tranquillity of his existence, nor yet blame him if it +sometimes looks like apathy. Time, the inexorable, does not threaten him +with the scythe so often as with the sand-bag. He does not cut, but he +stuns and stupefies. One's fellow-mortals can afford to be as considerate +and tender with him as Time and Nature. + +There was not much boasting among us of our present or our past, as we +sat together in the little room at the great hotel. A certain amount of +self-deception is quite possible at threescore years and ten, but at +three score years and twenty Nature has shown most of those who live to +that age that she is earnest, and means to dismantle and have done with +them in a very little while. As for boasting of our past, the laudator +temporis acti makes but a poor figure in our time. Old people used to +talk of their youth as if there were giants in those days. We knew some +tall men when we were young, but we can see a man taller than any one +among them at the nearest dime museum. We had handsome women among us, +of high local reputation, but nowadays we have professional beauties who +challenge the world to criticise them as boldly as Phryne ever challenged +her Athenian admirers. We had fast horses,--did not "Old Blue" trot a +mile in three minutes? True, but there is a three-year-old colt just put +on the track who has done it in a little more than two thirds of that +time. It seems as if the material world had been made over again since +we were boys. It is but a short time since we were counting up the +miracles we had lived to witness. The list is familiar enough: the +railroad, the ocean steamer, photography, the spectroscope, the +telegraph, telephone, phonograph, anesthetics, electric +illumination,--with such lesser wonders as the friction match, the sewing +machine, and the bicycle. And now, we said, we must have come to the end +of these unparalleled developments of the forces of nature. We must rest +on our achievements. The nineteenth century is not likely to add to +them; we must wait for the twentieth century. Many of us, perhaps most +of us, felt in that way. We had seen our planet furnished by the art of +man with a complete nervous system: a spinal cord beneath the ocean, +secondary centres,--ganglions,--in all the chief places where men are +gathered together, and ramifications extending throughout civilization. +All at once, by the side of this talking and light-giving apparatus, we +see another wire stretched over our heads, carrying force to a vast +metallic muscular system,--a slender cord conveying the strength of a +hundred men, of a score of horses, of a team of elephants. The lightning +is tamed and harnessed, the thunderbolt has become a common carrier. No +more surprises in this century! A voice whispers, What next? + +It will not do for us to boast about our young days and what they had to +show. It is a great deal better to boast of what they could not show, +and, strange as it may seem, there is a certain satisfaction in it. In +these days of electric lighting, when you have only to touch a button and +your parlor or bedroom is instantly flooded with light, it is a pleasure +to revert to the era of the tinder-box, the flint and steel, and the +brimstone match. It gives me an almost proud satisfaction to tell how we +used, when those implements were not at hand or not employed, to light +our whale-oil lamp by blowing a live coal held against the wick, often +swelling our cheeks and reddening our faces until we were on the verge of +apoplexy. I love to tell of our stage-coach experiences, of our +sailing-packet voyages, of the semi-barbarous destitution of all modern +comforts and conveniences through which we bravely lived and came out the +estimable personages you find us. + +Think of it! All my boyish shooting was done with a flint-lock gun; the +percussion lock came to me as one of those new-fangled notions people had +just got hold of. We ancients can make a grand display of minus +quantities in our reminiscences, and the figures look almost as well as +if they had the plus sign before them. + +I am afraid that old people found life rather a dull business in the time +of King David and his rich old subject and friend, Barzillai, who, poor +man, could not have read a wicked novel, nor enjoyed a symphony concert, +if they had had those luxuries in his day. There were no pleasant +firesides, for there were no chimneys. There were no daily newspapers +for the old man to read, and he could not read them if there were, with +his dimmed eyes, nor hear them read, very probably, with his dulled ears. +There was no tobacco, a soothing drug, which in its various forms is a +great solace to many old men and to some old women, Carlyle and his +mother used to smoke their pipes together, you remember. + +Old age is infinitely more cheerful, for intelligent people at least, +than it was two or three thousand years ago. It is our duty, so far as +we can, to keep it so. There will always be enough about it that is +solemn, and more than enough, alas! that is saddening. But how much +there is in our times to lighten its burdens! If they that look out at +the windows be darkened, the optician is happy to supply them with +eye-glasses for use before the public, and spectacles for their hours of +privacy. If the grinders cease because they are few, they can be made +many again by a third dentition, which brings no toothache in its train. +By temperance and good Habits of life, proper clothing, well-warmed, +well-drained, and well-ventilated dwellings, and sufficient, not too much +exercise, the old man of our time may keep his muscular strength in very +good condition. I doubt if Mr. Gladstone, who is fast nearing his +eightieth birthday, would boast, in the style of Caleb, that he was as +good a man with his axe as he was when he was forty, but I would back +him,--if the match were possible, for a hundred shekels, against that +over-confident old Israelite, to cut down and chop up a cedar of Lebanon. +I know a most excellent clergyman, not far from my own time of life, whom +I would pit against any old Hebrew rabbi or Greek philosopher of his +years and weight, if they could return to the flesh, to run a quarter of +a mile on a good, level track. + +We must not make too much of such exceptional cases of prolonged +activity. I often reproached my dear friend and classmate, Tames Freeman +Clarke, that his ceaseless labors made it impossible for his coevals to +enjoy the luxury of that repose which their years demanded. A wise old +man, the late Dr. James Walker, president of Harvard University, said +that the great privilege of old age was the getting rid of +responsibilities. These hard-working veterans will not let one get rid +of them until he drops in his harness, and so gets rid of them and his +life together. How often has many a tired old man envied the +superannuated family cat, stretched upon the rug before the fire, letting +the genial warmth tranquilly diffuse itself through all her internal +arrangements! No more watching for mice in dark, damp cellars, no more +awaiting the savage gray rat at the mouth of his den, no more scurrying +up trees and lamp-posts to avoid the neighbor's cur who wishes to make +her acquaintance! It is very grand to "die in harness," but it is very +pleasant to have the tight straps unbuckled and the heavy collar lifted +from the neck and shoulders. + +It is natural enough to cling to life. We are used to atmospheric +existence, and can hardly conceive of ourselves except as breathing +creatures. We have never tried any other mode of being, or, if we have, +we have forgotten all about it, whatever Wordsworth's grand ode may tell +us we remember. Heaven itself must be an experiment to every human soul +which shall find itself there. It may take time for an earthborn saint +to become acclimated to the celestial ether,--that is, if time can be +said to exist for a disembodied spirit. We are all sentenced to capital +punishment for the crime of living, and though the condemned cell of our +earthly existence is but a narrow and bare dwelling-place, we have +adjusted ourselves to it, and made it tolerably comfortable for the +little while we are to be confined in it. The prisoner of Chillon + + "regained [his] freedom with a sigh," + +and a tender-hearted mortal might be pardoned for looking back, like the +poor lady who was driven from her dwelling-place by fire and brimstone, +at the home he was leaving for the "undiscovered country." + +On the other hand, a good many persons, not suicidal in their tendencies, +get more of life than they want. One of our wealthy citizens said, on +hearing that a friend had dropped off from apoplexy, that it made his +mouth water to hear of such a case. It was an odd expression, but I have +no doubt that the fine old gentleman to whom it was attributed made use +of it. He had had enough of his gout and other infirmities. Swift's +account of the Struldbrugs is not very amusing reading for old people, +but some may find it a consolation to reflect on the probable miseries +they escape in not being doomed to an undying earthly existence. + +There are strange diversities in the way in which different old persons +look upon their prospects. A millionaire whom I well remember confessed +that he should like to live long enough to learn how much a certain +fellow-citizen, a multimillionaire, was worth. One of the, three +nonagenarians before referred to expressed himself as having a great +curiosity about the new sphere of existence to which he was looking +forward. + +The feeling must of necessity come to many aged persons that they have +outlived their usefulness; that they are no longer wanted, but rather in +the way, drags on the wheels rather than helping them forward. But let +them remember the often-quoted line of Milton, + + "They also serve who only stand and wait." + +This is peculiarly true of them. They are helping others without always +being aware of it. They are the shields, the breakwaters, of those who +come after them. Every decade is a defence of the one next behind it. +At thirty the youth has sobered into manhood, but the strong men of forty +rise in almost unbroken rank between him and the approaches of old age as +they show in the men of fifty. At forty he looks with a sense of +security at the strong men of fifty, and sees behind them the row of +sturdy sexagenarians. When fifty is reached, somehow sixty does not look +so old as it once used to, and seventy is still afar off. After sixty +the stern sentence of the burial service seems to have a meaning that one +did not notice in former years. There begins to be something personal +about it. But if one lives to seventy he soon gets used to the text with +the threescore years and ten in it, and begins to count himself among +those who by reason of strength are destined to reach fourscore, of whom +he can see a number still in reasonably good condition. The octogenarian +loves to read about people of ninety and over. He peers among the +asterisks of the triennial catalogue of the University for the names of +graduates who have been seventy years out of college and remain still +unstarred. He is curious about the biographies of centenarians. Such +escapades as those of that terrible old sinner and ancestor of great men, +the Reverend Stephen Bachelder, interest him as they never did before. +But he cannot deceive himself much longer. See him walking on a level +surface, and he steps off almost as well as ever; but watch him coming +down a flight of stairs, and the family record could not tell his years +more faithfully. He cut you dead, you say? Did it occur to you that he +could not see you clearly enough to know you from any other son or +daughter of Adam? He said he was very glad to hear it, did he, when you +told him that your beloved grandmother had just deceased? Did you happen +to remember that though he does not allow that he is deaf, he will not +deny that he does not hear quite so well as he used to? No matter about +his failings; the longer he holds on to life, the longer he makes life +seem to all the living who follow him, and thus he is their constant +benefactor. + +Every stage of existence has its special trials and its special +consolations. Habits are the crutches of old age; by the aid of these we +manage to hobble along after the mental joints are stiff and the muscles +rheumatic, to speak metaphorically,--that is to say, when every act of +self-determination costs an effort and a pang. We become more and more +automatic as we grow older, and if we lived long enough we should come to +be pieces of creaking machinery like Maelzel's chess player,--or what +that seemed to be. + +Emerson was sixty-three years old, the year I have referred to as that of +the grand climacteric, when he read to his son the poem he called +"Terminus," beginning: + + "It is time to be old, + To take in sail. + The God of bounds, + Who sets to seas a shore, + Came to me in his fatal rounds + And said, 'No more!'" + +It was early in life to feel that the productive stage was over, but he +had received warning from within, and did not wish to wait for outside +advices. There is all the difference in the world in the mental as in +the bodily constitution of different individuals. Some must "take in +sail" sooner, some later. We can get a useful lesson from the American +and the English elms on our Common. The American elms are quite bare, +and have been so for weeks. They know very well that they are going to +have storms to wrestle with; they have not forgotten the gales of +September and the tempests of the late autumn and early winter. It is a +hard fight they are going to have, and they strip their coats off and +roll up their shirt-sleeves, and show themselves bare-armed and ready for +the contest. The English elms are of a more robust build, and stand +defiant, with all their summer clothing about their sturdy frames. They +may yet have to learn a lesson of their American cousins, for +notwithstanding their compact and solid structure they go to pieces in +the great winds just as ours do. We must drop much of our foliage before +winter is upon us. We must take in sail and throw over cargo, if that is +necessary, to keep us afloat. We have to decide between our duties and +our instinctive demand of rest. I can believe that some have welcomed +the decay of their active powers because it furnished them with +peremptory reasons for sparing themselves during the few years that were +left them. + +Age brings other obvious changes besides the loss of active power. The +sensibilities are less keen, the intelligence is less lively, as we might +expect under the influence of that narcotic which Nature administers. +But there is another effect of her "black drop" which is not so commonly +recognized. Old age is like an opium-dream. Nothing seems real except +what is unreal. I am sure that the pictures painted by the +imagination,--the faded frescos on the walls of memory,--come out in +clearer and brighter colors than belonged to them many years earlier. +Nature has her special favors for her children of every age, and this is +one which she reserves for our second childhood. + +No man can reach an advanced age without thinking of that great change to +which, in the course of nature, he must be so near. It has been remarked +that the sterner beliefs of rigid theologians are apt to soften in their +later years. All reflecting persons, even those whose minds have been +half palsied by the deadly dogmas which have done all they could to +disorganize their thinking powers,--all reflecting persons, I say, must +recognize, in looking back over a long life, how largely their creeds, +their course of life, their wisdom and unwisdom, their whole characters, +were shaped by the conditions which surrounded them. Little children +they came from the hands of the Father of all; little children in their +helplessness, their ignorance, they are going back to Him. They cannot +help feeling that they are to be transferred from the rude embrace of the +boisterous elements to arms that will receive them tenderly. Poor +planetary foundlings, they have known hard treatment at the hands of the +brute forces of nature, from the control of which they are soon to be set +free. There are some old pessimists, it is true, who believe that they +and a few others are on a raft, and that the ship which they have +quitted, holding the rest of mankind, is going down with all on board. +It is no wonder that there should be such when we remember what have been +the teachings of the priesthood through long series of ignorant +centuries. Every age has to shape the Divine image it worships over +again,--the present age and our own country are busily engaged in the +task at this time. We unmake Presidents and make new ones. This is an +apprenticeship for a higher task. Our doctrinal teachers are unmaking +the Deity of the Westminster Catechism and trying to model a new one, +with more of modern humanity and less of ancient barbarism in his +composition. If Jonathan Edwards had lived long enough, I have no doubt +his creed would have softened into a kindly, humanized belief. + +Some twenty or thirty years ago, I said to Longfellow that certain +statistical tables I had seen went to show that poets were not a +long-lived race. He doubted whether there was anything to prove they +were particularly short-lived. Soon after this, he handed me a list he +had drawn up. I cannot lay my hand upon it at this moment, but I +remember that Metastasio was the oldest of them all. He died at the age +of eighty-four. I have had some tables made out, which I have every +reason to believe are correct so far as they go. From these, it appears +that twenty English poets lived to the average age of fifty-six years and +a little over. The eight American poets on the list averaged +seventy-three and a half, nearly, and they are not all dead yet. The +list including Greek, Latin, Italian, and German poets, with American and +English, gave an average of a little over sixty-two years. Our young +poets need not be alarmed. They can remember that Bryant lived to be +eighty-three years old, that Longfellow reached seventy-five and Halleck +seventy-seven, while Whittier is living at the age of nearly eighty-two. +Tennyson is still writing at eighty, and Browning reached the age of +seventy-seven. + +Shall a man who in his younger days has written poetry, or what passed +for it, continue to attempt it in his later years? Certainly, if it +amuses or interests him, no one would object to his writing in verse as +much as he likes. Whether he should continue to write for the public is +another question. Poetry is a good deal a matter of heart-beats, and the +circulation is more languid in the later period of life. The joints are +less supple; the arteries are more or less "ossified." Something like +these changes has taken place in the mind. It has lost the flexibility, +the plastic docility, which it had in youth and early manhood, when the +gristle had but just become hardened into bone. It is the nature of +poetry to writhe itself along through the tangled growths of the +vocabulary, as a snake winds through the grass, in sinuous, complex, and +unexpected curves, which crack every joint that is not supple as +india-rubber. + +I had a poem that I wanted to print just here. But after what I have +this moment said, I hesitated, thinking that I might provoke the obvious +remark that I exemplified the unfitness of which I had been speaking. I +remembered the advice I had given to a poetical aspirant not long since, +which I think deserves a paragraph to itself. + +My friend, I said, I hope you will not write in verse. When you write in +prose you say what you mean. When you write in rhyme you say what you +must. + +Should I send this poem to the publishers, or not? + + "Some said, 'John, print it;' others said, 'Not so.'" + +I did not ask "some" or "others." Perhaps I should have thought it best +to keep my poem to myself and the few friends for whom it was written. +All at once, my daimon--that other Me over whom I button my waistcoat +when I button it over my own person--put it into my head to look up the +story of Madame Saqui. She was a famous danseuse, who danced Napoleon in +and out, and several other dynasties besides. Her last appearance was at +the age of seventy-six, which is rather late in life for the tight rope, +one of her specialties. Jules Janin mummified her when she died in 1866, +at the age of eighty. He spiced her up in his eulogy as if she had been +the queen of a modern Pharaoh. His foamy and flowery rhetoric put me +into such a state of good-nature that I said, I will print my poem, and +let the critical Gil Blas handle it as he did the archbishop's sermon, or +would have done, if he had been a writer for the "Salamanca Weekly." + +It must be premised that a very beautiful loving cup was presented to me +on my recent birthday, by eleven ladies of my acquaintance. This was the +most costly and notable of all the many tributes I received, and for +which in different forms I expressed my gratitude. + + TO THE ELEVEN LADIES + + WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP ON THE + TWENTY-NINTH OF AUGUST, M DCCC LXXXIX. + + "Who gave this cup?" The secret thou wouldst steal + Its brimming flood forbids it to reveal: + No mortal's eye shall read it till he first + Cool the red throat of thirst. + + If on the golden floor one draught remain, + Trust me, thy careful search will be in vain; + Not till the bowl is emptied shalt thou know + The names enrolled below. + + Deeper than Truth lies buried in her well + Those modest names the graven letters spell + Hide from the sight; but, wait, and thou shalt see + Who the good angels be + + Whose bounty glistens in the beauteous gift + That friendly hands to loving lips shall lift: + Turn the fair goblet when its floor is dry, + Their names shall meet thine eye. + + Count thou their number on the beads of Heaven, + Alas! the clustered Pleiads are but seven; + Nay, the nine sister Muses are too few, + --The Graces must add two. + + "For whom this gift?" For one who all too long + Clings to his bough among the groves of song; + Autumn's last leaf, that spreads its faded wing + To greet a second spring. + + Dear friends, kind friends, whate'er the cup may hold, + Bathing its burnished depths, will change to gold + Its last bright drop let thirsty Maenads drain, + Its fragrance will remain. + + Better love's perfume in the empty bowl + Than wine's nepenthe for the aching soul + Sweeter than song that ever poet sung, + It makes an old heart young! + + + +III + +After the reading of the paper which was reported in the preceding number +of this record, the company fell into talk upon the subject with which it +dealt. + +The Mistress. "I could have wished you had said more about the religious +attitude of old age as such. Surely the thoughts of aged persons must be +very much taken up with the question of what is to become of them. I +should like to have The Dictator explain himself a little more fully on +this point." + +My dear madam, I said, it is a delicate matter to talk about. You +remember Mr. Calhoun's response to the advances of an over-zealous +young clergyman who wished to examine him as to his outfit for the +long journey. I think the relations between man and his Maker grow +more intimate, more confidential, if I may say so, with advancing +years. The old man is less disposed to argue about special matters +of belief, and more ready to sympathize with spiritually minded +persons without anxious questioning as to the fold to which they +belong. That kindly judgment which he exercises with regard to +others he will, naturally enough, apply to himself. The caressing +tone in which the Emperor Hadrian addresses his soul is very much +like that of an old person talking with a grandchild or some other +pet: + + "Animula, vagula, blandula, + Hospes comesque corporis." + + "Dear little, flitting, pleasing sprite, + The body's comrade and its guest." + +How like the language of Catullus to Lesbia's sparrow! + +More and more the old man finds his pleasures in memory, as the present +becomes unreal and dreamlike, and the vista of his earthly future narrows +and closes in upon him. At last, if he live long enough, life comes to +be little more than a gentle and peaceful delirium of pleasing +recollections. To say, as Dante says, that there is no greater grief +than to remember past happiness in the hour of misery is not giving the +whole truth. In the midst of the misery, as many would call it, of +extreme old age, there is often a divine consolation in recalling the +happy moments and days and years of times long past. So beautiful are +the visions of bygone delight that one could hardly wish them to become +real, lest they should lose their ineffable charm. I can almost conceive +of a dozing and dreamy centenarian saying to one he loves, "Go, darling, +go! Spread your wings and leave me. So shall you enter that world of +memory where all is lovely. I shall not hear the sound of your footsteps +any more, but you will float before me, an aerial presence. I shall not +hear any word from your lips, but I shall have a deeper sense of your +nearness to me than speech can give. I shall feel, in my still solitude, +as the Ancient Mariner felt when the seraph band gathered before him: + + "'No voice did they impart + No voice; but oh! the silence sank + Like music on my heart.'" + +I said that the lenient way in which the old look at the failings of +others naturally leads them to judge themselves more charitably. They +find an apology for their short-comings and wrong-doings in another +consideration. They know very well that they are not the same persons as +the middle-aged individuals, the young men, the boys, the children, that +bore their names, and whose lives were continuous with theirs. Here is +an old man who can remember the first time he was allowed to go shooting. +What a remorseless young destroyer he was, to be sure! Wherever he saw a +feather, wherever a poor little squirrel showed his bushy tail, bang! +went the old "king's arm," and the feathers or the fur were set flying +like so much chaff. Now that same old man,--the mortal that was called +by his name and has passed for the same person for some scores of +years,--is considered absurdly sentimental by kind-hearted women, because +he opens the fly-trap and sets all its captives free,--out-of-doors, of +course, but the dear souls all insisting, meanwhile, that the flies will, +every one of them, be back again in the house before the day is over. Do +you suppose that venerable sinner expects to be rigorously called to +account for the want of feeling he showed in those early years, when the +instinct of destruction, derived from his forest-roaming ancestors, led +him to acts which he now looks upon with pain and aversion? + +"Senex" has seen three generations grow up, the son repeating the virtues +and the failings of the father, the grandson showing the same +characteristics as the father and grandfather. He knows that if such or +such a young fellow had lived to the next stage of life he would very +probably have caught up with his mother's virtues, which, like a graft of +a late fruit on an early apple or pear tree, do not ripen in her children +until late in the season. He has seen the successive ripening of one +quality after another on the boughs of his own life, and he finds it hard +to condemn himself for faults which only needed time to fall off and be +succeeded by better fruitage. I cannot help thinking that the recording +angel not only drops a tear upon many a human failing, which blots it out +forever, but that he hands many an old record-book to the imp that does +his bidding, and orders him to throw that into the fire instead of the +sinner for whom the little wretch had kindled it. + +"And pitched him in after it, I hope," said Number Seven, who is in some +points as much of an optimist as any one among us, in spite of the squint +in his brain,--or in virtue of it, if you choose to have it so. + +"I like Wordsworth's 'Matthew,'" said Number Five, "as well as any +picture of old age I remember." + +"Can you repeat it to us?" asked one of The Teacups. + +"I can recall two verses of it," said Number Five, and she recited the +two following ones. Number Five has a very sweet voice. The moment she +speaks all the faces turn toward her. I don't know what its secret is, +but it is a voice that makes friends of everybody. + + "'The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs + Of one tired out with fun and madness; + The tears which came to Matthew's eyes + Were tears of light, the dew of gladness. + + "'Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup + Of still and serious thought went round, + It seemed as if he drank it up, + He felt with spirit so profound:' + +"This was the way in which Wordsworth paid his tribute to a + + "'Soul of God's best earthly mould.'" + +The sweet voice left a trance-like silence after it, which may have +lasted twenty heart-beats. Then I said, We all thank you for your +charming quotation. How much more wholesome a picture of humanity than +such stuff as the author of the "Night Thoughts" has left us: + + "Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but Himself + That hideous sight, a naked human heart." + +Or the author of "Don Juan," telling us to look into + + "Man's heart, and view the hell that's there!" + +I hope I am quoting correctly, but I am more of a scholar in Wordsworth +than in Byron. Was Parson Young's own heart such a hideous spectacle to +himself? + +If it was, he had better have stripped off his surplice. No,--it was +nothing but the cant of his calling. In Byron it was a mood, and he +might have said just the opposite thing the next day, as he did in his +two descriptions of the Venus de' Medici. That picture of old Matthew +abides in the memory, and makes one think better of his kind. What nobler +tasks has the poet than to exalt the idea of manhood, and to make the +world we live in more beautiful? + +We have two or three young people with us who stand a fair chance of +furnishing us the element without which life and tea-tables alike are +wanting in interest. We are all, of course, watching them, and curious +to know whether we are to have a romance or not. Here is one of them; +others will show themselves presently. + +I cannot say just how old the Tutor is, but I do not detect a gray hair +in his head. My sight is not so good as it was, however, and he may have +turned the sharp corner of thirty, and even have left it a year or two +behind him. More probably he is still in the twenties,--say twenty-eight +or twenty-nine. He seems young, at any rate, excitable, enthusiastic, +imaginative, but at the same time reserved. I am afraid that he is a +poet. When I say "I am afraid," you wonder what I mean by the +expression. I may take another opportunity to explain and justify it; I +will only say now that I consider the Muse the most dangerous of sirens +to a young man who has his way to make in the world. Now this young man, +the Tutor, has, I believe, a future before him. He was born for a +philosopher,--so I read his horoscope,--but he has a great liking for +poetry and can write well in verse. We have had a number of poems +offered for our entertainment, which I have commonly been requested to +read. There has been some little mystery about their authorship, but it +is evident that they are not all from the same hand. Poetry is as +contagious as measles, and if a single case of it break out in any social +circle, or in a school, there are certain to be a number of similar +cases, some slight, some serious, and now and then one so malignant that +the subject of it should be put on a spare diet of stationery, say from +two to three penfuls of ink and a half sheet of notepaper per diem. If +any of our poetical contributions are presentable, the reader shall have +a chance to see them. + +It must be understood that our company is not invariably made up of the +same persons. The Mistress, as we call her, is expected to be always in +her place. I make it a rule to be present. The Professor is almost as +sure to be at the table as I am. We should hardly know what to do +without Number Five. It takes a good deal of tact to handle such a +little assembly as ours, which is a republic on a small scale, for all +that they give me the title of Dictator, and Number Five is a great help +in every social emergency. She sees when a discussion tends to become +personal, and heads off the threatening antagonists. She knows when a +subject has been knocking about long enough and dexterously shifts the +talk to another track. It is true that I am the one most frequently +appealed to as the highest tribunal in doubtful cases, but I often care +more for Number Five's opinion than I do for my own. Who is this Number +Five, so fascinating, so wise, so full of knowledge, and so ready to +learn? She is suspected of being the anonymous author of a book which +produced a sensation when published, not very long ago, and which those +who read are very apt to read a second time, and to leave on their tables +for frequent reference. But we have never asked her. I do not think she +wants to be famous. How she comes to be unmarried is a mystery to me; it +must be that she has found nobody worth caring enough for. I wish she +would furnish us with the romance which, as I said, our tea-table needs +to make it interesting. Perhaps the new-comer will make love to her,--I +should think it possible she might fancy him. + +And who is the new-comer? He is a Counsellor and a Politician. Has a +good war record. Is about forty-five years old, I conjecture. Is +engaged in a great law case just now. Said to be very eloquent. Has an +intellectual head, and the bearing of one who has commanded a regiment or +perhaps a brigade. Altogether an attractive person, scholarly, refined +has some accomplishments not so common as they might be in the class we +call gentlemen, with an accent on the word. + +There is also a young Doctor, waiting for his bald spot to come, so that +he may get into practice. + +We have two young ladies at the table,--the English girl referred to in a +former number, and an American girl of about her own age. Both of them +are students in one of those institutions--I am not sure whether they +call it an "annex" or not; but at any rate one of those schools where +they teach the incomprehensible sort of mathematics and other bewildering +branches of knowledge above the common level of high-school education. +They seem to be good friends, and form a very pleasing pair when they +walk in arm in arm; nearly enough alike to seem to belong together, +different enough to form an agreeable contrast. + +Of course we were bound to have a Musician at our table, and we have one +who sings admirably, and accompanies himself, or one or more of our +ladies, very frequently. + +Such is our company when the table is full. But sometimes only half a +dozen, or it may be only three or four, are present. At other times we +have a visitor or two, either in the place of one of our habitual number, +or in addition to it. We have the elements, we think, of a pleasant +social gathering,--different sexes, ages, pursuits, and tastes,--all that +is required for a "symphony concert" of conversation. One of the curious +questions which might well be asked by those who had been with us on +different occasions would be, "How many poets are there among you?" +Nobody can answer this question. It is a point of etiquette with us not +to press our inquiries about these anonymous poems too sharply, +especially if any of them betray sentiments which would not bear rough +handling. + +I don't doubt that the different personalities at our table will get +mixed up in the reader's mind if he is not particularly clear-headed. +That happens very often, much oftener than all would be willing to +confess, in reading novels and plays. I am afraid we should get a good +deal confused even in reading our Shakespeare if we did not look back now +and then at the dramatis personae. I am sure that I am very apt to +confound the characters in a moderately interesting novel; indeed, I +suspect that the writer is often no better off than the reader in the +dreary middle of the story, when his characters have all made their +appearance, and before they have reached near enough to the denoument to +have fixed their individuality by the position they have arrived at in +the chain of the narrative. + +My reader might be a little puzzled when he read that Number Five did or +said such or such a thing, and ask, "Whom do you mean by that title? I +am not quite sure that I remember." Just associate her with that line of +Emerson, + + "Why nature loves the number five," + +and that will remind you that she is the favorite of our table. + +You cannot forget who Number Seven is if I inform you that he specially +prides himself on being a seventh son of a seventh son. The fact of such +a descent is supposed to carry wonderful endowments with it. Number +Seven passes for a natural healer. He is looked upon as a kind of +wizard, and is lucky in living in the nineteenth century instead of the +sixteenth or earlier. How much confidence he feels in himself as the +possessor of half-supernatural gifts I cannot say. I think his peculiar +birthright gives him a certain confidence in his whims and fancies which +but for that he would hardly feel. After this explanation, when I speak +of Number Five or Number Seven, you will know to whom I refer. + +The company are very frank in their criticisms of each other. "I did not +like that expression of yours, planetary foundlings," said the Mistress. +"It seems to me that it is too like atheism for a good Christian like you +to use." + +Ah, my dear madam, I answered, I was thinking of the elements and the +natural forces to which man was born an almost helpless subject in the +rudimentary stages of his existence, and from which he has only partially +got free after ages upon ages of warfare with their tyranny. Think what +hunger forced the caveman to do! Think of the surly indifference of the +storms that swept the forest and the waters, the earthquake chasms that +engulfed him, the inundations that drowned him out of his miserable +hiding-places, the pestilences that lay in wait for him, the unequal +strife with ferocious animals! I need not sum up all the wretchedness +that goes to constitute the "martyrdom of man." When our forefathers +came to this wilderness as it then was, and found everywhere the bones of +the poor natives who had perished in the great plague (which our Doctor +there thinks was probably the small-pox), they considered this +destructive malady as a special mark of providential favor for them. How +about the miserable Indians? Were they anything but planetary +foundlings? No! Civilization is a great foundling hospital, and +fortunate are all those who get safely into the creche before the frost +or the malaria has killed them, the wild beasts or the venomous reptiles +worked out their deadly appetites and instincts upon them. The very idea +of humanity seems to be that it shall take care of itself and develop its +powers in the "struggle for life." Whether we approve it or not, if we +can judge by the material record, man was born a foundling, and fought +his way as he best might to that kind of existence which we call +civilized,--one which a considerable part of the inhabitants of our +planet have reached. + +If you do not like the expression planetary foundlings, I have no +objection to your considering the race as put out to nurse. And what a +nurse Nature is! She gives her charge a hole in the rocks to live in, +ice for his pillow and snow for his blanket, in one part of the world; +the jungle for his bedroom in another, with the tiger for his watch-dog, +and the cobra as his playfellow. + +Well, I said, there may be other parts of the universe where there are no +tigers and no cobras. It is not quite certain that such realms of +creation are better off, on the whole, than this earthly residence of +ours, which has fought its way up to the development of such centres of +civilization as Athens and Rome, to such personalities as Socrates, as +Washington. + +"One of our company has been on an excursion among the celestial bodies +of our system, I understand," said the Professor. + +Number Five colored. "Nothing but a dream," she said. "The truth is, I +had taken ether in the evening for a touch of neuralgia, and it set my +imagination at work in a way quite unusual with me. I had been reading a +number of books about an ideal condition of society,--Sir Thomas Mores +'Utopia,' Lord Bacon's 'New Atlantis,' and another of more recent date. +I went to bed with my brain a good deal excited, and fell into a deep +slumber, in which I passed through some experiences so singular that, on +awaking, I put them down on paper. I don't know that there is anything +very original about the experiences I have recorded, but I thought them +worth preserving. Perhaps you would not agree with me in that belief." + +"If Number Five will give us a chance to form our own judgment about her +dream or vision, I think we shall enjoy it," said the Mistress. "She +knows what will please The Teacups in the way of reading as well as I do +how many lumps of sugar the Professor wants in his tea and how many I +want in mine." + +The company was so urgent that Number Five sent up-stairs for her paper. + +Number Five reads the story of her dream. + +It cost me a great effort to set down the words of the manuscript from +which I am reading. My dreams for the most part fade away so soon after +their occurrence that I cannot recall them at all. But in this case my +ideas held together with remarkable tenacity. By keeping my mind +steadily upon the work, I gradually unfolded the narrative which follows, +as the famous Italian antiquary opened one of those fragile carbonized +manuscripts found in the ruins of Herculaneum or Pompeii. + +The first thing I remember about it is that I was floating upward, +without any sense of effort on my part. The feeling was that of flying, +which I have often had in dreams, as have many other persons. It was the +most natural thing in the world,--a semi-materialized volition, if I may +use such an expression. + +At the first moment of my new consciousness,--for I seemed to have just +emerged from a deep slumber, I was aware that there was a companion at my +side. Nothing could be more gracious than the way in which this being +accosted me. I will speak of it as she, because there was a delicacy, a +sweetness, a divine purity, about its aspect that recalled my ideal of +the loveliest womanhood. + +"I am your companion and your guide," this being made me understand, as +she looked at me. Some faculty of which I had never before been +conscious had awakened in me, and I needed no interpreter to explain the +unspoken language of my celestial attendant. + +"You are not yet outside of space and time," she said, "and I am going +with you through some parts of the phenomenal or apparent universe,--what +you call the material world. We have plenty of what you call time before +us, and we will take our voyage leisurely, looking at such objects of +interest as may attract our attention as we pass. The first thing you +will naturally wish to look at will be the earth you have just left. +This is about the right distance," she said, and we paused in our flight. + +The great globe we had left was rolling beneath us. No eye of one in the +flesh could see it as I saw or seemed to see it. No ear of any mortal +being could bear the sounds that came from it as I heard or seemed to +hear them. The broad oceans unrolled themselves before me. I could +recognize the calm Pacific and the stormy Atlantic,--the ships that +dotted them, the white lines where the waves broke on the shore,--frills +on the robes of the continents,--so they looked to my woman's perception; +the--vast South American forests; the glittering icebergs about the +poles; the snowy mountain ranges, here and there a summit sending up fire +and smoke; mighty rivers, dividing provinces within sight of each other, +and making neighbors of realms thousands of miles apart; cities; +light-houses to insure the safety of sea-going vessels, and war-ships to +knock them to pieces and sink them. All this, and infinitely more, +showed itself to me during a single revolution of the sphere: twenty-four +hours it would have been, if reckoned by earthly measurements of time. I +have not spoken of the sounds I heard while the earth was revolving under +us. The howl of storms, the roar and clash of waves, the crack and crash +of the falling thunderbolt,--these of course made themselves heard as +they do to mortal ears. But there were other sounds which enchained my +attention more than these voices of nature. As the skilled leader of an +orchestra hears every single sound from each member of the mob of +stringed and wind instruments, and above all the screech of the straining +soprano, so my sharpened perceptions made what would have been for common +mortals a confused murmur audible to me as compounded of innumerable +easily distinguished sounds. Above them all arose one continued, +unbroken, agonizing cry. It was the voice of suffering womanhood, a +sound that goes up day and night, one long chorus of tortured victims. + +"Let us get out of reach of this," I said; and we left our planet, with +its blank, desolate moon staring at it, as if it had turned pale at the +sights and sounds it had to witness. + +Presently the gilded dome of the State House, which marked our +starting-point, came into view for the second time, and I knew that this +side-show was over. I bade farewell to the Common with its Cogswell +fountain, and the Garden with its last awe-inspiring monument. + +"Oh, if I could sometimes revisit these beloved scenes!" I exclaimed. + +"There is nothing to hinder that I know of," said my companion. "Memory +and imagination as you know them in the flesh are two winged creatures +with strings tied to their legs, and anchored to a bodily weight of a +hundred and fifty pounds, more or less. When the string is cut you can +be where you wish to be,--not merely a part of you, leaving the rest +behind, but the whole of you. Why shouldn't you want to revisit your old +home sometimes?" + +I was astonished at the human way in which my guide conversed with me. +It was always on the basis of my earthly habits, experiences, and +limitations. "Your solar system," she said, "is a very small part of the +universe, but you naturally feel a curiosity about the bodies which +constitute it and about their inhabitants. There is your moon: a bare +and desolate-looking place it is, and well it may be, for it has no +respirable atmosphere, and no occasion for one. The Lunites do not +breathe; they live without waste and without supply. You look as if you +do not understand this. Yet your people have, as you well know, what +they call incandescent lights everywhere. You would have said there can +be no lamp without oil or gas, or other combustible substance, to feed +it; and yet you see a filament which sheds a light like that of noon all +around it, and does not waste at all. So the Lunites live by influx of +divine energy, just as the incandescent lamp glows,--glows, and is not +consumed; receiving its life, if we may call it so, from the central +power, which wears the unpleasant name of 'dynamo.'" + +The Lunites appeared to me as pale phosphorescent figures of ill-defined +outline, lost in their own halos, as it were. I could not help thinking +of Shelley's + + "maiden + With white fire laden." + +But as the Lunites were after all but provincials, as are the tenants of +all the satellites, I did not care to contemplate them for any great +length of time. + +I do not remember much about the two planets that came next to our own, +except the beautiful rosy atmosphere of one and the huge bulk of the +other. Presently, we found ourselves within hailing distance of another +celestial body, which I recognized at once, by the rings which girdled +it, as the planet Saturn. A dingy, dull-looking sphere it was in its +appearance. "We will tie up here for a while," said my attendant. The +easy, familiar way in which she spoke surprised and pleased me. + +Why, said I,--The Dictator,--what is there to prevent beings of another +order from being as cheerful, as social, as good companions, as the very +liveliest of God's creatures whom we have known in the flesh? Is it +impossible for an archangel to smile? Is such a phenomenon as a laugh +never heard except in our little sinful corner of the universe? Do you +suppose, that when the disciples heard from the lips of their Master the +play of words on the name of Peter, there was no smile of appreciation on +the bearded faces of those holy men? From any other lips we should have +called this pleasantry a-- + +Number Five shook her head very slightly, and gave me a look that seemed +to say, "Don't frighten the other Teacups. We don't call things by the +names that belong to them when we deal with celestial subjects." + +We tied up, as my attendant playfully called our resting, so near the +planet that I could know--I will not say see and hear, but apprehend--all +that was going on in that remote sphere; remote, as we who live in what +we have been used to consider the centre of the rational universe regard +it. What struck me at once was the deadness of everything I looked upon. +Dead, uniform color of surface and surrounding atmosphere. Dead +complexion of all the inhabitants. Dead-looking trees, dead-looking +grass, no flowers to be seen anywhere. + +"What is the meaning of all this?" I said to my guide. + +She smiled good-naturedly, and replied, "It is a forlorn home for +anything above a lichen or a toadstool; but that is no wonder, when you +know what the air is which they breathe. It is pure nitrogen." + +The Professor spoke up. "That can't be, madam," he said. "The +spectroscope shows the atmosphere of Saturn to be--no matter, I have +forgotten what; but it was not pure nitrogen, at any rate." + +Number Five is never disconcerted. "Will you tell me," she said, "where +you have found any account of the bands and lines in the spectrum of +dream-nitrogen? I should be so pleased to become acquainted with them." + +The Professor winced a little, and asked Delilah, the handmaiden, to pass +a plate of muffins to him. The dream had carried him away, and he +thought for the moment that he was listening to a scientific paper. + +Of course, my companion went on to say, the bodily constitution of the +Saturnians is wholly different from that of air-breathing, that is +oxygen-breathing, human beings. They are the dullest, slowest, most +torpid of mortal creatures. + +All this is not to be wondered at when you remember the inert +characteristics of nitrogen. There are in some localities natural +springs which give out slender streams of oxygen. You will learn by and +by what use the Saturnians make of this dangerous gas, which, as you +recollect, constitutes about one fifth of your own atmosphere. Saturn has +large lead mines, but no other metal is found on this planet. The +inhabitants have nothing else to make tools of, except stones and shells. +The mechanical arts have therefore made no great progress among them. +Chopping down a tree with a leaden axe is necessarily a slow process. + +So far as the Saturnians can be said to have any pride in anything, it is +in the absolute level which characterizes their political and social +order. They profess to be the only true republicans in the solar system. +The fundamental articles of their Constitution are these: + +All Saturnians are born equal, live equal, and die equal. + +All Saturnians are born free,--free, that is, to obey the rules laid down +for the regulation of their conduct, pursuits, and opinions, free to be +married to the person selected for them by the physiological section of +the government, and free to die at such proper period of life as may best +suit the convenience and general welfare of the community. + +The one great industrial product of Saturn is the bread-root. The +Saturnians find this wholesome and palatable enough; and it is well they +do, as they have no other vegetable. It is what I should call a most +uninteresting kind of eatable, but it serves as food and drink, having +juice enough, so that they get along without water. They have a tough, +dry grass, which, matted together, furnishes them with clothes +sufficiently warm for their cold-blooded constitutions, and more than +sufficiently ugly. + +A piece of ground large enough to furnish bread-root for ten persons is +allotted to each head of a household, allowance being made for the +possible increase of families. This, however, is not a very important +consideration, as the Saturnians are not a prolific race. The great +object of life being the product of the largest possible quantity of +bread-roots, and women not being so capable in the fields as the stronger +sex, females are considered an undesirable addition to society. The one +thing the Saturnians dread and abhor is inequality. The whole object of +their laws and customs is to maintain the strictest equality in +everything,--social relations, property, so far as they can be said to +have anything which can be so called, mode of living, dress, and all +other matters. It is their boast that nobody ever starved under their +government. Nobody goes in rags, for the coarse-fibred grass from which +they fabricate their clothes is very durable. (I confess I wondered how +a woman could live in Saturn. They have no looking-glasses. There is no +such article as a ribbon known among them. All their clothes are of one +pattern. I noticed that there were no pockets in any of their garments, +and learned that a pocket would be considered prima facie evidence of +theft, as no honest person would have use for such a secret receptacle.) +Before the revolution which established the great law of absolute and +lifelong equality, the inhabitants used to feed at their own private +tables. Since the regeneration of society all meals are taken in common. +The last relic of barbarism was the use of plates,--one or even more to +each individual. This "odious relic of an effete civilization," as they +called it, has long been superseded by oblong hollow receptacles, one of +which is allotted to each twelve persons. A great riot took place when +an attempt was made by some fastidious and exclusive egotists to +introduce partitions which should partially divide one portion of these +receptacles into individual compartments. The Saturnians boast that they +have no paupers, no thieves, none of those fictitious values called +money,--all which things, they hear, are known in that small Saturn +nearer the sun than the great planet which is their dwelling-place. + +"I suppose that now they have levelled everything they are quiet and +contented. Have they any of those uneasy people called reformers?" + +"Indeed they have," said my attendant. "There are the Orthobrachians, +who declaim against the shameful abuse of the left arm and hand, and +insist on restoring their perfect equality with the right. Then there +are Isopodic societies, which insist on bringing back the original +equality of the upper and lower limbs. If you can believe it, they +actually practise going on all fours,--generally in a private way, a few +of them together, but hoping to bring the world round to them in the near +future." + +Here I had to stop and laugh. + +"I should think life might be a little dull in Saturn," I said. + +"It is liable to that accusation," she answered. "Do you notice how many +people you meet with their mouths stretched wide open?" + +"Yes," I said, "and I do not know what to make of it. I should think +every fourth or fifth person had his mouth open in that way." + +"They are suffering from the endemic disease of their planet, prolonged +and inveterate gaping or yawning, which has ended in dislocation of the +lower jaw. After a time this becomes fixed, and requires a difficult +surgical operation to restore it to its place." + +It struck me that, in spite of their boast that they have no paupers, no +thieves, no money, they were a melancholy-looking set of beings. + +"What are their amusements?" I asked. + +"Intoxication and suicide are their chief recreations. They have a way +of mixing the oxygen which issues in small jets from certain natural +springs with their atmospheric nitrogen in the proportion of about twenty +per cent, which makes very nearly the same thing as the air of your +planet. But to the Saturnians the mixture is highly intoxicating, and is +therefore a relief to the monotony of their every-day life. This mixture +is greatly sought after, but hard to obtain, as the sources of oxygen are +few and scanty. It shortens the lives of those who have recourse to it; +but if it takes too long, they have other ways of escaping from a life +which cuts and dries everything for its miserable subjects, defeats all +the natural instincts, confounds all individual characteristics, and +makes existence such a colossal bore, as your worldly people say, that +self-destruction becomes a luxury." + +Number Five stopped here. + +Your imaginary wholesale Shakerdom is all very fine, said I. Your +Utopia, your New Atlantis, and the rest are pretty to look at. But your +philosophers are treating the world of living souls as if they were, each +of them, playing a game of solitaire,--all the pegs and all the holes +alike. Life is a very different sort of game. It is a game of chess, +and not of solitaire, nor even of checkers. The men are not all pawns, +but you have your knights, bishops, rooks,--yes, your king and queen,--to +be provided for. Not with these names, of course, but all looking for +their proper places, and having their own laws and modes of action. You +can play solitaire with the members of your own family for pegs, if you +like, and if none of them rebel. You can play checkers with a little +community of meek, like-minded people. But when it comes to the handling +of a great state, you will find that nature has emptied a box of chessmen +before you, and you must play with them so as to give each its proper +move, or sweep them off the board, and come back to the homely game such +as I used to see played with beans and kernels of corn on squares marked +upon the back of the kitchen bellows. + +It was curious to see how differently Number Five's narrative was +received by the different listeners in our circle. Number Five herself +said she supposed she ought to be ashamed of its absurdities, but she did +not know that it was much sillier than dreams often are, and she thought +it might amuse the company. She was herself always interested by these +ideal pictures of society. But it seemed to her that life must be dull +in any of them, and with that idea in her head her dreaming fancy had +drawn these pictures. + +The Professor was interested in her conception of the existence of the +Lunites without waste, and the death in life of the nitrogen-breathing +Saturnians. Dream-chemistry was a new subject to him. Perhaps Number +Five would give him some lessons in it. + +At this she smiled, and said she was afraid she could not teach him +anything, but if he would answer a few questions in matter-of-fact +chemistry which had puzzled her she would be vastly obliged to him. + +"You must come to my laboratory," said the Professor. + +"I will come to-morrow," said Number Five. + +Oh, yes! Much laboratory work they will do! Play of mutual affinities. +Amalgamates. No freezing mixtures, I'll warrant! + +Why shouldn't we get a romance out of all this, hey? + +But Number Five looks as innocent as a lamb, and as brave as a lion. She +does not care a copper for the looks that are going round The Teacups. + +Our Doctor was curious about those cases of anchylosis, as he called it, +of the lower jaw. He thought it a quite possible occurrence. Both the +young girls thought the dream gave a very hard view of the optimists, who +look forward to a reorganization of society which shall rid mankind of +the terrible evils of over-crowding and competition. + +Number Seven was quite excited about the matter. He had himself drawn up +a plan for a new social arrangement. He had shown it to the legal +gentleman who has lately joined us. This gentleman thought it +well-intended, but that it would take one constable to every three +inhabitants to enforce its provisions. + +I said the dream could do no harm; it was too outrageously improbable to +come home to anybody's feelings. Dreams were like broken mosaics,--the +separated stones might here and there make parts of pictures. If one +found a caricature of himself made out of the pieces which had +accidentally come together, he would smile at it, knowing that it was an +accidental effect with no malice in it. If any of you really believe in +a working Utopia, why not join the Shakers, and convert the world to this +mode of life? Celibacy alone would cure a great many of the evils you +complain of. + +I thought this suggestion seemed to act rather unfavorably upon the +ladies of our circle. The two Annexes looked inquiringly at each other. +Number Five looked smilingly at them. She evidently thought it was time +to change the subject of conversation, for she turned to me and said, +"You promised to read us the poem you read before your old classmates the +other evening." + +I will fulfill my promise, I said. We felt that this might probably be +our last meeting as a Class. The personal reference is to our greatly +beloved and honored classmate, James Freeman Clarke. + + AFTER THE CURFEW. + + The Play is over. While the light + Yet lingers in the darkening hall, + + I come to say a last Good-night + Before the final Exeunt all. + + We gathered once, a joyous throng: + The jovial toasts went gayly round; + With jest, and laugh, and shout, and song + we made the floors and walls resound. + + We come with feeble steps and slow, + A little band of four or five, + Left from the wrecks of long ago, + Still pleased to find ourselves alive. + + Alive! How living, too, are they + whose memories it is ours to share! + Spread the long table's full array, + There sits a ghost in every chair! + + One breathing form no more, alas! + Amid our slender group we see; + With him we still remained "The Class," + without his presence what are we? + + The hand we ever loved to clasp, + That tireless hand which knew no rest, + Loosed from affection's clinging grasp, + Lies nerveless on the peaceful breast. + + The beaming eye, the cheering voice, + That lent to life a generous glow, + whose every meaning said "Rejoice," + we see, we hear, no more below. + + The air seems darkened by his loss, + Earth's shadowed features look less fair, + And heavier weighs the daily cross + His willing shoulders helped as bear. + + Why mourn that we, the favored few + + Whom grasping Time so long has spared + Life's sweet illusions to pursue, + The common lot of age have shared? + + In every pulse of Friendship's heart + There breeds unfelt a throb of pain, + One hour must rend its links apart, + Though years on years have forged the chain. + + So ends "The Boys,"--a lifelong play. + We too must hear the Prompter's call + To fairer scenes and brighter day + Farewell! I let the curtain fall. + + + + +IV + +If the reader thinks that all these talking Teacups came together by mere +accident, as people meet at a boarding-house, I may as well tell him at +once that he is mistaken. If he thinks I am going to explain how it is +that he finds them thus brought together, whether they form a secret +association, whether they are the editors of this or that periodical, +whether they are connected with some institution, and so on,--I must +disappoint him. It is enough that he finds them in each other's company, +a very mixed assembly, of different sexes, ages, and pursuits; and if +there is a certain mystery surrounds their meetings, he must not be +surprised. Does he suppose we want to be known and talked about in +public as "Teacups"? No; so far as we give to the community some records +of the talks at our table our thoughts become public property, but the +sacred personality of every Teacup must be properly respected. If any +wonder at the presence of one of our number, whose eccentricities might +seem to render him an undesirable associate of the company, he should +remember that some people may have relatives whom they feel bound to keep +their eye on; besides the cracked Teacup brings out the ring of the sound +ones as nothing else does. Remember also that soundest teacup does not +always hold the best tea, or the cracked teacup the worst. + +This is a hint to the reader, who is not expected to be too curious about +the individual Teacups constituting our unorganized association. + +The Dictator Discourses. + +I have been reading Balzac's Peau de Chagrin. You have all read the +story, I hope, for it is the first of his wonderful romances which fixed +the eyes of the reading world upon him, and is a most fascinating if +somewhat fantastic tale. A young man becomes the possessor of a certain +magic skin, the peculiarity of which is that, while it gratifies every +wish formed by its possessor, it shrinks in all its dimensions each time +that a wish is gratified. The young man makes every effort to ascertain +the cause of its shrinking; invokes the aid of the physicist, the +chemist, the student of natural history, but all in vain. He draws a red +line around it. That same day he indulges a longing for a certain +object. The next morning there is a little interval between the red line +and the skin, close to which it was traced. So always, so inevitably. +As he lives on, satisfying one desire, one passion, after another, the +process of shrinking continues. A mortal disease sets in, which keeps +pace with the shrinking skin, and his life and his talisman come to an +end together. + +One would say that such a piece of integument was hardly a desirable +possession. And yet, how many of us have at this very moment a peau de +chagrin of our own, diminishing with every costly wish indulged, and +incapable, like the magical one of the story, of being arrested in its +progress. + +Need I say that I refer to those coupon bonds, issued in the days of +eight and ten per cent interest, and gradually narrowing as they drop +their semiannual slips of paper, which represent wishes to be realized, +as the roses let fall their leaves in July, as the icicles melt away in +the thaw of January? + +How beautiful was the coupon bond, arrayed in its golden raiment of +promises to pay at certain stated intervals, for a goodly number of +coming years! What annual the horticulturist can show will bear +comparison with this product of auricultural industry, which has flowered +in midsummer and midwinter for twenty successive seasons? And now the +last of its blossoms is to be plucked, and the bare stem, stripped of its +ever maturing and always welcome appendages, is reduced to the narrowest +conditions of reproductive existence. Such is the fate of the financial +peau de chagrin. Pity the poor fractional capitalist, who has just +managed to live on the eight per cent of his coupon bonds. The shears of +Atropos were not more fatal to human life than the long scissors which +cut the last coupon to the lean proprietor, whose slice of dry toast it +served to flatter with oleomargarine. Do you wonder that my thoughts +took the poetical form, in the contemplation of these changes and their +melancholy consequences? If the entire poem, of several hundred lines, +was "declined with thanks" by an unfeeling editor, that is no reason why +you should not hear a verse or two of it. + + THE PEAU DE CHAGRIN OF STATE STREET. + + How beauteous is the bond + In the manifold array + Of its promises to pay, + While the eight per cent it gives + And the rate at which one lives + Correspond! + + But at last the bough is bare + Where the coupons one by one + Through their ripening days have run, + And the bond, a beggar now, + Seeks investment anyhow, + Anywhere! + +The Mistress commonly contents herself with the general supervision of +the company, only now and then taking an active part in the conversation. +She started a question the other evening which set some of us thinking. + +"Why is it," she said, "that there is so common and so intense a desire +for poetical reputation? It seems to me that, if I were a man, I had +rather have done something worth telling of than make verses about what +other people had done." + +"You agree with Alexander the Great," said the Professor. "You would +prefer the fame of Achilles to that of Homer, who told the story of his +wrath and its direful consequences. I am afraid that I should hardly +agree with you. Achilles was little better than a Choctaw brave. I +won't quote Horace's line which characterizes him so admirably, for I +will take it for granted that you all know it. He was a gentleman,--so +is a first-class Indian,--a very noble gentleman in point of courage, +lofty bearing, courtesy, but an unsoaped, ill-clad, turbulent, +high-tempered young fellow, looked up to by his crowd very much as the +champion of the heavy weights is looked up to by his gang of blackguards. +Alexander himself was not much better,--a foolish, fiery young madcap. +How often is he mentioned except as a warning? His best record is that +he served to point a moral as 'Macedonian's madman.' He made a figure, +it is true, in Dryden's great Ode, but what kind of a figure? He got +drunk,--in very bad company, too,--and then turned fire-bug. He had one +redeeming point,--he did value his Homer, and slept with the Iliad under +his pillow. A poet like Homer seems to me worth a dozen such fellows as +Achilles and Alexander." + +"Homer is all very well far those that can read him," said Number Seven, +"but the fellows that tag verses together nowadays are mostly fools. +That's my opinion. I wrote some verses once myself, but I had been sick +and was very weak; hadn't strength enough to write in prose, I suppose." + +This aggressive remark caused a little stir at our tea-table. For you +must know, if I have not told you already, there are suspicions that we +have more than one "poet" at our table. I have already confessed that I +do myself indulge in verse now and then, and have given my readers a +specimen of my work in that line. But there is so much difference of +character in the verses which are produced at our table, without any +signature, that I feel quite sure there are at least two or three other +contributors besides myself. There is a tall, old-fashioned silver urn, +a sugar-bowl of the period of the Empire, in which the poems sent to be +read are placed by unseen hands. When the proper moment arrives, I lift +the cover of the urn and take out any manuscript it may contain. If +conversation is going on and the company are in a talking mood, I replace +the manuscript or manuscripts, clap on the cover, and wait until there is +a moment's quiet before taking it off again. I might guess the writers +sometimes by the handwriting, but there is more trouble taken to disguise +the chirography than I choose to take to identify it as that of any +particular member of our company. + +The turn the conversation took, especially the slashing onslaught of +Number Seven on the writers of verse, set me thinking and talking about +the matter. Number Five turned on the stream of my discourse by a +question. + +"You receive a good many volumes of verse, do you not?" she said, with a +look which implied that she knew I did. + +I certainly do, I answered. My table aches with them. My shelves groan +with them. Think of what a fuss Pope made about his trials, when he +complained that + + "All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out"! + +What were the numbers of the + + "Mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease" + +to that great multitude of contributors to our magazines, and authors of +little volumes--sometimes, alas! big ones--of verse, which pour out of +the press, not weekly, but daily, and at such a rate of increase that it +seems as if before long every hour would bring a book, or at least an +article which is to grow into a book by and by? + +I thanked Heaven, the other day, that I was not a critic. These +attenuated volumes of poetry in fancy bindings open their covers at one +like so many little unfledged birds, and one does so long to drop a worm +in,--a worm in the shape of a kind word for the poor fledgling! But what +a desperate business it is to deal with this army of candidates for +immortality! I have often had something to say about them, and I may be +saying over the same things; but if I do not remember what I have said, +it is not very likely that my reader will; if he does, he will find, I am +very sure, that I say it a little differently. + +What astonishes me is that this enormous mass of commonplace verse, which +burdens the postman who brings it, which it is a serious task only to get +out of its wrappers and open in two or three places, is on the whole of +so good an average quality. The dead level of mediocrity is in these +days a table-land, a good deal above the old sea-level of laboring +incapacity. Sixty years ago verses made a local reputation, which +verses, if offered today to any of our first-class magazines, would go +straight into the waste-basket. To write "poetry" was an art and mystery +in which only a few noted men and a woman or two were experts. + +When "Potter the ventriloquist," the predecessor of the well-remembered +Signor Blitz, went round giving his entertainments, there was something +unexplained, uncanny, almost awful, and beyond dispute marvellous, in his +performances. Those watches that disappeared and came back to their +owners, those endless supplies of treasures from empty hats, and +especially those crawling eggs that travelled all over the magician's +person, sent many a child home thinking that Mr. Potter must have ghostly +assistants, and raised grave doubts in the minds of "professors," that is +members of the church, whether they had not compromised their characters +by being seen at such an unhallowed exhibition. Nowadays, a clever boy +who has made a study of parlor magic can do many of those tricks almost +as well as the great sorcerer himself. How simple it all seems when we +have seen the mechanism of the deception! + +It is just so with writing in verse. It was not understood that +everybody can learn to make poetry, just as they can learn the more +difficult tricks of juggling. M. Jourdain's discovery that he had been +speaking and writing prose all his life is nothing to that of the man who +finds out in middle life, or even later, that he might have been writing +poetry all his days, if he had only known how perfectly easy and simple +it is. Not everybody, it is true, has a sufficiently good ear, a +sufficient knowledge of rhymes and capacity for handling them, to be what +is called a poet. I doubt whether more than nine out of ten, in the +average, have that combination of gifts required for the writing of +readable verse. + +This last expression of opinion created a sensation among The Teacups. +They looked puzzled for a minute. One whispered to the next Teacup, +"More than nine out of ten! I should think that was a pretty liberal +allowance." + +Yes, I continued; perhaps ninety-nine in a hundred would come nearer to +the mark. I have sometimes thought I might consider it worth while to +set up a school for instruction in the art. "Poetry taught in twelve +lessons." Congenital idiocy is no disqualification. Anybody can write +"poetry." It is a most unenviable distinction to leave published a thin +volume of verse, which nobody wanted, nobody buys, nobody reads, nobody +cares for except the author, who cries over its pathos, poor fellow, and +revels in its beauties, which he has all to himself. Come! who will be +my pupils in a Course,--Poetry taught in twelve lessons? That made a +laugh, in which most of The Teacups, myself included, joined heartily. +Through it all I heard the sweet tones of Number Five's caressing voice; +not because it was more penetrating or louder than the others, for it was +low and soft, but it was so different from the others, there was so much +more life,--the life of sweet womanhood,--dissolved in it. + +(Of course he will fall in love with her. "He? Who?" Why, the +newcomer, the Counsellor. Did I not see his eyes turn toward her as the +silvery notes rippled from her throat? Did they not follow her in her +movements, as she turned her tread this or that way? + +--What nonsense for me to be arranging matters between two people +strangers to each other before to-day!) + +"A fellow writes in verse when he has nothing to say, and feels too dull +and silly to say it in prose," said Number Seven. + +This made us laugh again, good-naturedly. I was pleased with a kind of +truth which it seemed to me to wrap up in its rather startling +affirmation. I gave a piece of advice the other day which I said I +thought deserved a paragraph to itself. It was from a letter I wrote not +long ago to an unknown young correspondent, who had a longing for seeing +himself in verse but was not hopelessly infatuated with the idea that he +was born a "poet." "When you write in prose," I said, "you say what you +mean. When you write in verse you say what you must." I was thinking +more especially of rhymed verse. Rhythm alone is a tether, and not a +very long one. But rhymes are iron fetters; it is dragging a chain and +ball to march under their incumbrance; it is a clog-dance you are +figuring in, when you execute your metrical pas seul. Consider under +what a disadvantage your thinking powers are laboring when you are +handicapped by the inexorable demands of our scanty English rhyming +vocabulary! You want to say something about the heavenly bodies, and you +have a beautiful line ending with the word stars. Were you writing in +prose, your imagination, your fancy, your rhetoric, your musical ear for +the harmonies of language, would all have full play. But there is your +rhyme fastening you by the leg, and you must either reject the line which +pleases you, or you must whip your hobbling fancy and all your limping +thoughts into the traces which are hitched to one of three or four or +half a dozen serviceable words. You cannot make any use of cars, I will +suppose; you have no occasion to talk about scars; "the red planet Mars" +has been used already; Dibdin has said enough about the gallant tars; +what is there left for you but bars? So you give up your trains of +thought, capitulate to necessity, and manage to lug in some kind of +allusion, in place or out of place, which will allow you to make use of +bars. Can there be imagined a more certain process for breaking up all +continuity of thought, for taking out all the vigor, all the virility, +which belongs to natural prose as the vehicle of strong, graceful, +spontaneous thought, than this miserable subjugation of intellect to +the-clink of well or ill matched syllables? I think you will smile if I +tell you of an idea I have had about teaching the art of writing "poems" +to the half-witted children at the Idiot Asylum. The trick of rhyming +cannot be more usefully employed than in furnishing a pleasant amusement +to the poor feeble-minded children. I should feel that I was well +employed in getting up a Primer for the pupils of the Asylum, and other +young persons who are incapable of serious thought and connected +expression. I would start in the simplest way; thus:-- + + When darkness veils the evening.... + I love to close my weary.... + +The pupil begins by supplying the missing words, which most children who +are able to keep out of fire and water can accomplish after a certain +number of trials. When the poet that is to be has got so as to perform +this task easily, a skeleton verse, in which two or three words of each +line are omitted, is given the child to fill up. By and by the more +difficult forms of metre are outlined, until at length a feebleminded +child can make out a sonnet, completely equipped with its four pairs of +rhymes in the first section and its three pairs in the second part. + +Number Seven interrupted my discourse somewhat abruptly, as is his wont; +for we grant him a license, in virtue of his eccentricity, which we +should hardly expect to be claimed by a perfectly sound Teacup. + +"That's the way,--that 's the way!" exclaimed he. "It's just the same +thing as my plan for teaching drawing." + +Some curiosity was shown among The Teacups to know what the queer +creature had got into his mind, and Number Five asked him, in her +irresistible tones, if he wouldn't oblige us by telling us all about it. + +He looked at her a moment without speaking. I suppose he has often been +made fun of,--slighted in conversation, taken as a butt for people who +thought themselves witty, made to feel as we may suppose a cracked piece +of china-ware feels when it is clinked in the company of sound bits of +porcelain. I never saw him when he was carelessly dealt with in +conversation,--for it would sometimes happen, even at our table,--without +recalling some lines of Emerson which always struck me as of wonderful +force and almost terrible truthfulness:-- + + "Alas! that one is born in blight, + Victim of perpetual slight + When thou lookest in his face + Thy heart saith, 'Brother, go thy ways + None shall ask thee what thou doest, + Or care a rush for what thou knowest, + Or listen when thou repliest, + Or remember where thou liest, + Or how thy supper is sodden;' + And another is born + To make the sun forgotten." + +Poor fellow! Number Seven has to bear a good deal in the way of neglect +and ridicule, I do not doubt. Happily, he is protected by an amount of +belief in himself which shields him from many assailants who would +torture a more sensitive nature. But the sweet voice of Number Five and +her sincere way of addressing him seemed to touch his feelings. That was +the meaning of his momentary silence, in which I saw that his eyes +glistened and a faint flush rose on his cheeks. In a moment, however, as +soon as he was on his hobby, he was all right, and explained his new and +ingenious system as follows: + +"A man at a certain distance appears as a dark spot,--nothing more. Good. +Anybody, man, woman, or child, can make a dot, say a period, such as we +use in writing. Lesson No. 1. Make a dot; that is, draw your man, a +mile off, if that is far enough. Now make him come a little nearer, a +few rods, say. The dot is an oblong figure now. Good. Let your scholar +draw the oblong figure. It is as easy as it is to make a note of +admiration. Your man comes nearer, and now some hint of a bulbous +enlargement at one end, and perhaps of lateral appendages and a +bifurcation, begins to show itself. The pupil sets down with his pencil +just what he sees,--no more. So by degrees the man who serves as model +approaches. A bright pupil will learn to get the outline of a human +figure in ten lessons, the model coming five hundred feet nearer each +time. A dull one may require fifty, the model beginning a mile off, or +more, and coming a hundred feet nearer at each move." + +The company were amused by all this, but could not help seeing that there +was a certain practical possibility about the scheme. Our two Annexes, +as we call then, appeared to be interested in the project, or fancy, or +whim, or whatever the older heads might consider it. "I guess I'll try +it," said the American Annex. "Quite so," answered the English Annex. +Why the first girl "guessed" about her own intentions it is hard to say. +What "quite so" referred to it would not be easy to determine. But these +two expressions would decide the nationality of our two young ladies if +we met them on the top of the great Pyramid. + +I was very glad that Number Seven had interrupted me. In fact, it is a +good thing once in a while to break in upon the monotony of a steady +talker at a dinner-table, tea-table, or any other place of social +converse. The best talker is liable to become the most formidable of +bores. It is a peculiarity of the bore that he is the last person to +find himself out. Many a terebrant I have known who, in that capacity, +to borrow a line from Coleridge, + + "Was great, nor knew how great he was." + +A line, by the way, which, as I have remarked, has in it a germ like that +famous "He builded better than he knew" of Emerson. + +There was a slight lull in the conversation. The Mistress, who keeps an +eye on the course of things, and feared that one of those panic silences +was impending, in which everybody wants to say something and does not +know just what to say, begged me to go on with my remarks about the +"manufacture" of "poetry." + +You use the right term, madam, I said. The manufacture of that article +has become an extensive and therefore an important branch of industry. +One must be an editor, which I am not, or a literary confidant of a wide +circle of correspondents, which I am, to have any idea of the enormous +output of verse which is characteristic of our time. There are many +curious facts connected with this phenomenon. Educated people--yes, and +many who are not educated--have discovered that rhymes are not the +private property of a few noted writers who, having squatted on that part +of the literary domain some twenty or forty or sixty years ago, have, as +it were, fenced it in with their touchy, barbed-wire reputations, and +have come to regard it and cause it to be regarded as their private +property. The discovery having been made that rhyme is not a paddock for +this or that race-horse, but a common, where every colt, pony, and donkey +can range at will; a vast irruption into that once-privileged inclosure +has taken place. The study of the great invasion is interesting. + +Poetry is commonly thought to be the language of emotion. On the +contrary, most of what is so called proves the absence of all passionate +excitement. It is a cold-blooded, haggard, anxious, worrying hunt after +rhymes which can be made serviceable, after images which will be +effective, after phrases which are sonorous; all this under limitations +which restrict the natural movements of fancy and imagination. There is +a secondary excitement in overcoming the difficulties of rhythm and +rhyme, no doubt, but this is not the emotional heat excited by the +subject of the "poet's" treatment. True poetry, the best of it, is but +the ashes of a burnt-out passion. The flame was in the eye and in the +cheek, the coals may be still burning in the heart, but when we come to +the words it leaves behind it, a little warmth, a cinder or two just +glimmering under the dead gray ashes,--that is all we can look for. When +it comes to the manufactured article, one is surprised to find how well +the metrical artisans have learned to imitate the real thing. They catch +all the phrases of the true poet. They imitate his metrical forms as a +mimic copies the gait of the person he is representing. + +Now I am not going to abuse "these same metre ballad-mongers," for the +obvious reason that, as all The Teacups know, I myself belong to the +fraternity. I don't think that this reason should hinder my having my +say about the ballad-mongering business. For the last thirty years I +have been in the habit of receiving a volume of poems or a poem, printed +or manuscript--I will not say daily, though I sometimes receive more than +one in a day, but at very short intervals. I have been consulted by +hundreds of writers of verse as to the merit of their performances, and +have often advised the writers to the best of my ability. Of late I have +found it impossible to attempt to read critically all the literary +productions, in verse and in prose, which have heaped themselves on every +exposed surface of my library, like snowdrifts along the railroad +tracks,--blocking my literary pathway, so that I can hardly find my daily +papers. + +What is the meaning of this rush into rhyming of such a multitude of +people, of all ages, from the infant phenomenon to the oldest inhabitant? + +Many of my young correspondents have told me in so many words, "I want to +be famous." Now it is true that of all the short cuts to fame, in time +of peace, there is none shorter than the road paved with rhymes. Byron +woke up one morning and found himself famous. Still more notably did +Rouget de l'Isle fill the air of France, nay, the whole atmosphere of +freedom all the world over, with his name wafted on the wings of the +Marseillaise, the work of a single night. But if by fame the aspirant +means having his name brought before and kept before the public, there is +a much cheaper way of acquiring that kind of notoriety. Have your +portrait taken as a "Wonderful Cure of a Desperate Disease given up by +all the Doctors." You will get a fair likeness of yourself and a partial +biographical notice, and have the satisfaction, if not of promoting the +welfare of the community, at least that of advancing the financial +interests of the benefactor whose enterprise has given you your coveted +notoriety. If a man wants to be famous, he had much better try the +advertising doctor than the terrible editor, whose waste-basket is a maw +which is as insatiable as the temporary stomach of Jack the Giant-killer. + +"You must not talk so," said Number Five. "I know you don't mean any +wrong to the true poets, but you might be thought to hold them cheap, +whereas you value the gift in others,--in yourself too, I rather think. +There are a great many women,--and some men,--who write in verse from a +natural instinct which leads them to that form of expression. If you +could peep into the portfolio of all the cultivated women among your +acquaintances, you would be surprised, I believe, to see how many of them +trust their thoughts and feelings to verse which they never think of +publishing, and much of which never meets any eyes but their own. Don't +be cruel to the sensitive natures who find a music in the harmonies of +rhythm and rhyme which soothes their own souls, if it reaches no +farther." + +I was glad that Number Five spoke up as she did. Her generous instinct +came to the rescue of the poor poets just at the right moment. Not that +I meant to deal roughly with them, but the "poets" I have been forced +into relation with have impressed me with certain convictions which are +not flattering to the fraternity, and if my judgments are not accompanied +by my own qualifications, distinctions, and exceptions, they may seem +harsh to many readers. + +Let me draw a picture which many a young man and woman, and some no +longer young, will recognize as the story of their own experiences. + +--He is sitting alone with his own thoughts and memories. What is that +book he is holding? Something precious, evidently, for it is bound in +"tree calf," and there is gilding enough about it for a birthday present. +The reader seems to be deeply absorbed in its contents, and at times +greatly excited by what he reads; for his face is flushed, his eyes +glitter, and--there rolls a large tear down his cheek. Listen to him; he +is reading aloud in impassioned tones: + + And have I coined my soul in words for naught? + And must I, with the dim, forgotten throng + Of silent ghosts that left no earthly trace + To show they once had breathed this vital air, + Die out, of mortal memories? + +His voice is choked by his emotion. "How is it possible," he says to +himself, "that any one can read my 'Gaspings for Immortality' without +being impressed by their freshness, their passion, their beauty, their +originality?" Tears come to his relief freely,--so freely that he has +to push the precious volume out of the range of their blistering shower. +Six years ago "Gaspings for Immortality" was published, advertised, +praised by the professionals whose business it is to boost their +publishers' authors. A week and more it was seen on the counters of the +booksellers and at the stalls in the railroad stations. Then it +disappeared from public view. A few copies still kept their place on the +shelves of friends,--presentation copies, of course, as there is no +evidence that any were disposed of by sale; and now, one might as well +ask for the lost books of Livy as inquire at a bookstore for "Gaspings +for Immortality." + +The authors of these poems are all round us, men and women, and no one +with a fair amount of human sympathy in his disposition would treat them +otherwise than tenderly. Perhaps they do not need tender treatment. How +do you know that posterity may not resuscitate these seemingly dead +poems, and give their author the immortality for which he longed and +labored? It is not every poet who is at once appreciated. Some will +tell you that the best poets never are. Who can say that you, dear +unappreciated brother or sister, are not one of those whom it is left for +after times to discover among the wrecks of the past, and hold up to the +admiration of the world? + +I have not thought it necessary to put in all the interpellations, as the +French call them, which broke the course of this somewhat extended series +of remarks; but the comments of some of The Teacups helped me to shape +certain additional observations, and may seem to the reader as of more +significance than what I had been saying. + +Number Seven saw nothing but the folly and weakness of the "rhyming +cranks," as he called them. He thought the fellow that I had described +as blubbering over his still-born poems would have been better occupied +in earning his living in some honest way or other. He knew one chap that +published a volume of verses, and let his wife bring up the wood for the +fire by which he was writing. A fellow says, "I am a poet!" and he +thinks himself different from common folks. He ought to be excused from +military service. He might be killed, and the world would lose the +inestimable products of his genius. "I believe some of 'em think," said +Number Seven, "that they ought not to be called upon to pay their taxes +and their bills for household expenses, like the rest of us." + +"If they would only study and take to heart Horace's 'Ars Poetica,'" said +the Professor, "it would be a great benefit to them and to the world at +large. I would not advise you to follow him too literally, of course, +for, as you will see, the changes that have taken place since his time +would make some of his precepts useless and some dangerous, but the +spirit of them is always instructive. This is the way, somewhat +modernized and accompanied by my running commentary, in which he counsels +a young poet: + +"'Don't try to write poetry, my boy, when you are not in the mood for +doing it,--when it goes against the grain. You are a fellow of +sense,--you understand all that. + +"'If you have written anything which you think well of, show it to +Mr.______ , the well-known critic; to "the governor," as you call +him,--your honored father; and to me, your friend.' + +"To the critic is well enough, if you like to be overhauled and put out +of conceit with yourself,--it may do you good; but I wouldn't go to 'the +governor' with my verses, if I were you. For either he will think what +you have written is something wonderful, almost as good as he could have +written himself,--in fact, he always did believe in hereditary +genius,--or he will pooh-pooh the whole rhyming nonsense, and tell you +that you had a great deal better stick to your business, and leave all +the word-jingling to Mother Goose and her followers. + +"'Show me your verses,' says Horace. Very good it was in him, and mighty +encouraging the first counsel he gives! 'Keep your poem to yourself for +some eight or ten years; you will have time to look it over, to correct +it and make it fit to present to the public.' + +"'Much obliged for your advice,' says the poor poet, thirsting for a +draught of fame, and offered a handful of dust. And off he hurries to +the printer, to be sure that his poem comes out in the next number of the +magazine he writes for." + +"Is not poetry the natural language of lovers?" + +It was the Tutor who asked this question, and I thought he looked in the +direction of Number Five, as if she might answer his question. But Number +Five stirred her tea devotedly; there was a lump of sugar, I suppose, +that acted like a piece of marble. So there was a silence while the lump +was slowly dissolving, and it was anybody's chance who saw fit to take up +the conversation. + +The voice that broke the silence was not the sweet, winsome one we were +listening for, but it instantly arrested the attention of the company. +It was the grave, manly voice of one used to speaking, and accustomed to +be listened to with deference. This was the first time that the company +as a whole had heard it, for the speaker was the new-comer who has been +repeatedly alluded to,--the one of whom I spoke as "the Counsellor." + +"I think I can tell you something about that," said the Counsellor. "I +suppose you will wonder how a man of my profession can know or interest +himself about a question so remote from his arid pursuits. And yet there +is hardly one man in a thousand who knows from actual experience a +fraction of what I have learned of the lovers' vocabulary in my +professional experience. I have, I am sorry to say, had to take an +important part in a great number of divorce cases. These have brought +before me scores and hundreds of letters, in which every shade of the +great passion has been represented. What has most struck me in these +amatory correspondences has been their remarkable sameness. It seems as +if writing love-letters reduced all sorts of people to the same level. I +don't remember whether Lord Bacon has left us anything in that +line,--unless, indeed, he wrote Romeo and Juliet' and the 'Sonnets;' but +if he has, I don't believe they differ so very much from those of his +valet or his groom to their respective lady-loves. It is always, My +darling! my darling! The words of endearment are the only ones the lover +wants to employ, and he finds the vocabulary too limited for his vast +desires. So his letters are apt to be rather tedious except to the +personage to whom they are addressed. As to poetry, it is very common to +find it in love-letters, especially in those that have no love in them. +The letters of bigamists and polygamists are rich in poetical extracts. +Occasionally, an original spurt in rhyme adds variety to an otherwise +monotonous performance. I don't think there is much passion in men's +poetry addressed to women. I agree with The Dictator that poetry is +little more than the ashes of passion; still it may show that the flame +has had its sweep where you find it, unless, indeed, it is shoveled in +from another man's fireplace." + +"What do you say to the love poetry of women?" asked the Professor. "Did +ever passion heat words to incandescence as it did those of Sappho?" + +The Counsellor turned,--not to Number Five, as he ought to have done, +according to my programme, but to the Mistress. + +"Madam," he said, "your sex is adorable in many ways, but in the abandon +of a genuine love-letter it is incomparable. I have seen a string of +women's love-letters, in which the creature enlaced herself about the +object of her worship as that South American parasite which clasps the +tree to which it has attached itself, begins with a slender succulent +network, feeds on the trunk, spreads its fingers out to hold firmly to +one branch after another, thickens, hardens, stretches in every +direction, following the boughs,--and at length gets strong enough to +hold in its murderous arms, high up in air, the stump and shaft of the +once sturdy growth that was its support and subsistence." + +The Counsellor did not say all this quite so formally as I have set it +down here, but in a much easier way. In fact, it is impossible to smooth +out a conversation from memory without stiffening it; you can't have a +dress shirt look quite right without starching the bosom. + +Some of us would have liked to hear more about those letters in the +divorce cases, but the Counsellor had to leave the table. He promised to +show us some pictures he has of the South American parasite. I have seen +them, and I can assure you they are very curious. + +The following verses were found in the urn, or sugar-bowl. + + CACOETHES SCRIBENDI. + + If all the trees in all the woods were men, + And each and every blade of grass a pen; + If every leaf on every shrub and tree + Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea + Were changed to ink, and all earth's living tribes + Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, + And for ten thousand ages, day and night, + The human race should write, and write, and write, + Till all the pens and paper were used up, + And the huge inkstand was an empty cup, + Still would the scribblers clustered round its brim + Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink. + + + + +V + +"Dolce, ma non troppo dolce," said the Professor to the Mistress, who was +sweetening his tea. She always sweetens his and mine for us. He has +been attending a series of concerts, and borrowed the form of the +directions to the orchestra. "Sweet, but not too sweet," he said, +translating the Italian for the benefit of any of the company who might +not be linguists or musical experts. + +"Do you go to those musical hullabaloos?" called out Number Seven. There +was something very much like rudeness in this question and the tone in +which it was asked. But we are used to the outbursts, and extravagances, +and oddities of Number Seven, and do not take offence at his rough +speeches as we should if any other of the company uttered them. + +"If you mean the concerts that have been going on this season, yes, I +do," said the Professor, in a bland, good-humored way. + +"And do you take real pleasure in the din of all those screeching and +banging and growling instruments?" + +"Yes," he answered, modestly, "I enjoy the brouhaha, if you choose to +consider it such, of all this quarrelsome menagerie of noise-making +machines, brought into order and harmony by the presiding genius, the +leader, who has made a happy family of these snarling stringed +instruments and whining wind instruments, so that although + + "Linguae centum sent, oraque centum, + +"notwithstanding there are a hundred vibrating tongues and a hundred +bellowing mouths, their one grand blended and harmonized uproar sets all +my fibres tingling with a not unpleasing tremor." + +"Do you understand it? Do you take any idea from it? Do you know what +it all means?" said Number Seven. + +The Professor was long-suffering under this series of somewhat peremptory +questions. He replied very placidly, "I am afraid I have but a +superficial outside acquaintance with the secrets, the unfathomable +mysteries, of music. I can no more conceive of the working conditions of +the great composer, + + "'Untwisting all the chains that tie + The hidden soul of harmony,' + +"than a child of three years can follow the reasonings of Newton's +'Principia.' I do not even pretend that I can appreciate the work of a +great master as a born and trained musician does. Still, I do love a +great crash of harmonies, and the oftener I listen to these musical +tempests the higher my soul seems to ride upon them, as the wild fowl I +see through my window soar more freely and fearlessly the fiercer the +storm with which they battle." + +"That's all very well," said Number Seven, "but I wish we could get the +old-time music back again. You ought to have heard,--no, I won't mention +her, dead, poor girl,--dead and singing with the saints in heaven,--but +the S_____ girls. If you could have heard them as I did when I was a +boy, you would have cried, as we all used to. Do you cry at those great +musical smashes? How can you cry when you don't know what it is all +about? We used to think the words meant something,--we fancied that +Burns and Moore said some things very prettily. I suppose you've +outgrown all that." + +No one can handle Number Seven in one of his tantrums half so well as +Number Five can do it. She can pick out what threads of sense may be +wound off from the tangle of his ideas when they are crowded and +confused, as they are apt to be at times. She can soften the occasional +expression of half-concealed ridicule with which the poor old fellow's +sallies are liable to be welcomed--or unwelcomed. She knows that the +edge of a broken teacup may be sharper, very possibly, than that of a +philosopher's jackknife. A mind a little off its balance, one which has +a slightly squinting brain as its organ; will often prove fertile in +suggestions. Vulgar, cynical, contemptuous listeners fly at all its +weaknesses, and please themselves with making light of its often futile +ingenuities, when a wiser audience would gladly accept a hint which +perhaps could be developed in some profitable direction, or so interpret +an erratic thought that it should prove good sense in disguise. That is +the way Number Five was in the habit of dealing with the explosions of +Number Seven. Do you think she did not see the ridiculous element in a +silly speech, or the absurdity of an outrageously extravagant assertion? +Then you never heard her laugh when she could give way to her sense of +the ludicrous without wounding the feelings of any other person. But her +kind heart never would forget itself, and so Number Seven had a champion +who was always ready to see that his flashes of intelligence, fitful as +they were, and liable to be streaked with half-crazy fancies, always +found one willing recipient of what light there was in them. + +Number Five, I have found, is a true lover of music, and has a right to +claim a real knowledge of its higher and deeper mysteries. But she +accepted very cordially what our light-headed companion said about the +songs he used to listen to. + +"There is no doubt," she remarked, "that the tears which used to be shed +over 'Oft in the sully night,' or 'Auld Robin Gray,' or 'A place in thy +memory, dearest,' were honest tears, coming from the true sources of +emotion. There was no affectation about them; those songs came home to +the sensibilities of young people,--of all who had any sensibilities to +be acted upon. And on the other hand, there is a great amount of +affectation in the apparent enthusiasm of many persons in admiring and +applauding music of which they have not the least real appreciation. +They do not know whether it is good or bad, the work of a first-rate or a +fifth-rate composer; whether there are coherent elements in it, or +whether it is nothing more than 'a concourse of sweet sounds' with no +organic connections. One must be educated, no doubt, to understand the +more complex and difficult kinds of musical composition. Go to the great +concerts where you know that the music is good, and that you ought to +like it whether you do or not. Take a music-bath once or twice a week +for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the +water-bath is to the body. I wouldn't trouble myself about the +affectations of people who go to this or that series of concerts chiefly +because it is fashionable. Some of these people whom we think so silly +and hold so cheap will perhaps find, sooner or later, that they have a +dormant faculty which is at last waking up,--and that they who came +because others came, and began by staring at the audience, are listening +with a newly found delight. Every one of us has a harp under bodice or +waistcoat, and if it can only once get properly strung and tuned it will +respond to all outside harmonies." + +The Professor has some ideas about music, which I believe he has given to +the world in one form or another; but the world is growing old and +forgetful, and needs to be reminded now and then of what one has formerly +told it. + +"I have had glimpses," the Professor said, "of the conditions into which +music is capable of bringing a sensitive nature. Glimpses, I say, +because I cannot pretend that I am capable of sounding all the depths or +reaching all the heights to which music may transport our mortal +consciousness. Let me remind you of a curious fact with reference to the +seat of the musical sense. Far down below the great masses of thinking +marrow and its secondary agents, just as the brain is about to merge in +the spinal cord, the roots of the nerve of hearing spread their white +filaments out into the sentient matter, where they report what the +external organs of hearing tell them. This sentient matter is in remote +connection only with the mental organs, far more remote than the centres +of the sense of vision and that of smell. In a word, the musical faculty +might be said to have a little brain of its own. It has a special world +and a private language all to itself. How can one explain its +significance to those whose musical faculties are in a rudimentary state +of development, or who have never had them trained? Can you describe in +intelligible language the smell of a rose as compared with that of a +violet? No,--music can be translated only by music. Just so far as it +suggests worded thought, it falls short of its highest office. Pure +emotional movements of the spiritual nature,--that is what I ask of +music. Music will be the universal language,--the Volapuk of spiritual +being." + +"Angels sit down with their harps and play at each other, I suppose," +said Number Seven. "Must have an atmosphere up there if they have harps, +or they wouldn't get any music. Wonder if angels breathe like mortals? +If they do, they must have lungs and air passages, of course. Think of +an angel with the influenza, and nothing but a cloud for a handkerchief!" + +--This is a good instance of the way in which Number Seven's squinting +brain works. You will now and then meet just such brains in heads you +know very well. Their owners are much given to asking unanswerable +questions. A physicist may settle it for us whether there is an +atmosphere about a planet or not, but it takes a brain with an extra +fissure in it to ask these unexpected questions,--questions which the +natural philosopher cannot answer, and which the theologian never thinks +of asking. + +The company at our table do not keep always in the same places. The +first thing I noticed, the other evening, was that the Tutor was sitting +between the two Annexes, and the Counsellor was next to Number Five. +Something ought to come of this arrangement. One of those two young +ladies must certainly captivate and perhaps capture the Tutor. They are +just the age to be falling in love and to be fallen in love with. The +Tutor is good looking, intellectual, suspected of writing poetry, but a +little shy, it appears to me. I am glad to see him between the two girls. +If there were only one, she might be shy too, and then there would be +less chance for a romance such as I am on the lookout for; but these +young persons lend courage to each other, and between them, if he does +not wake up like Cymon at the sight of Iphigenia, I shall be +disappointed. As for the Counsellor and Number Five, they will soon find +each other out. Yes, it is all pretty clear in my mind,--except that +there is always an x in a problem where sentiments are involved. No, not +so clear about the Tutor. Predestined, I venture my guess, to one or the +other, but to which? I will suspend my opinion for the present. + +I have found out that the Counsellor is a childless widower. I am told +that the Tutor is unmarried, and so far as known not engaged. There is no +use in denying it,--a company without the possibility of a love-match +between two of its circle is like a champagne bottle with the cork out +for some hours as compared to one with its pop yet in reserve. However, +if there should be any love-making, it need not break up our +conversations. Most of it will be carried on away from our tea-table. + +Some of us have been attending certain lectures on Egypt and its +antiquities. I have never been on the Nile. If in any future state +there shall be vacations in which we may have liberty to revisit our old +home, equipped with a complete brand-new set of mortal senses as our +travelling outfit, I think one of the first places I should go to, after +my birthplace, the old gambrel-roofed house,--the place where it stood, +rather,--would be that mighty, awe-inspiring river. I do not suppose we +shall ever know half of what we owe to the wise and wonderful people who +confront us with the overpowering monuments of a past which flows out of +the unfathomable darkness as the great river streams from sources even as +yet but imperfectly explored. + +I have thought a good deal about Egypt, lately, with reference to our +historical monuments. How did the great unknown mastery who fixed the +two leading forms of their monumental records arrive at those admirable +and eternal types, the pyramid and the obelisk? How did they get their +model of the pyramid? + +Here is an hour-glass, not inappropriately filled with sand from the +great Egyptian desert. I turn it, and watch the sand as it accumulates +in the lower half of the glass. How symmetrically, how beautifully, how +inevitably, the little particles pile up the cone, which is ever building +and unbuilding itself, always aiming at the stability which is found only +at a certain fixed angle! The Egyptian children playing in the sand must +have noticed this as they let the grains fall from their hands, and the +sloping sides of the miniature pyramid must have been among the familiar +sights to the little boys and girls for whom the sand furnished their +earliest playthings. Nature taught her children through the working of +the laws of gravitation how to build so that her forces should act in +harmony with art, to preserve the integrity of a structure meant to reach +a far-off posterity. The pyramid is only the cone in which Nature +arranges her heaped and sliding fragments; the cone with flattened +Surfaces, as it is prefigured in certain well-known crystalline forms. +The obelisk is from another of Nature's patterns; it is only a gigantic +acicular crystal. + +The Egyptians knew what a monument should be, simple, noble, durable. It +seems to me that we Americans might take a lesson from those early +architects. Our cemeteries are crowded with monuments which are very far +from simple, anything but noble, and stand a small chance of being +permanent. The pyramid is rarely seen, perhaps because it takes up so +much room; and when built on a small scale seems insignificant as we +think of it, dwarfed by the vast structures of antiquity. The obelisk is +very common, and when in just proportions and of respectable dimensions +is unobjectionable. + +But the gigantic obelisks like that on Bunker Hill, and especially the +Washington monument at the national capital, are open to critical +animadversion. Let us contrast the last mentioned of these great piles +with the obelisk as the Egyptian conceived and executed it. The new +Pharaoh ordered a memorial of some important personage or event. In the +first place, a mighty stone was dislodged from its connections, and +lifted, unbroken, from the quarry. This was a feat from which our modern +stone-workers shrink dismayed. The Egyptians appear to have handled +these huge monoliths as our artisans handle hearthstones and doorsteps, +for the land actually bristled with such giant columns. They were shaped +and finished as nicely as if they were breastpins for the Titans to wear, +and on their polished surfaces were engraved in imperishable characters +the records they were erected to preserve. + +Europe and America borrow these noble productions of African art and +power, and find them hard enough to handle after they have succeeded in +transporting them to Rome, or London, or New York. Their simplicity, +grandeur, imperishability, speaking symbolism, shame all the pretentious +and fragile works of human art around them. The obelisk has no joints +for the destructive agencies of nature to attack; the pyramid has no +masses hanging in unstable equilibrium, and threatening to fall by their +own weight in the course of a thousand or two years. + +America says the Father of his Country must have a monument worthy of his +exalted place in history. What shall it be? A temple such as Athens +might have been proud to rear upon her Acropolis? An obelisk such as +Thebes might have pointed out with pride to the strangers who found +admission through her hundred gates? After long meditation and the +rejection of the hybrid monstrosities with which the nation was menaced, +an obelisk is at last decided upon. How can it be made grand and +dignified enough to be equal to the office assigned it? We dare not +attempt to carve a single stone from the living rock,--all our modern +appliances fail to make the task as easy to us as it seems to have been +to the early Egyptians. No artistic skill is required in giving a +four-square tapering figure to a stone column. If we cannot shape a +solid obelisk of the proper dimensions, we can build one of separate +blocks. How can we give it the distinction we demand for it? The nation +which can brag that it has "the biggest show on earth" cannot boast a +great deal in the way of architecture, but it can do one thing,--it can +build an obelisk that shall be taller than any structure now standing +which the hand of man has raised. Build an obelisk! How different the +idea of such a structure from that of the unbroken, unjointed prismatic +shaft, one perfect whole, as complete in itself, as fitly shaped and +consolidated to defy the elements, as the towering palm or the tapering +pine! Well, we had the satisfaction for a time of claiming the tallest +structure in the world; and now that the new Tower of Babel which has +sprung up in Paris has killed that pretention, I think we shall feel and +speak more modestly about our stone hyperbole, our materialization of the +American love of the superlative. We have the higher civilization among +us, and we must try to keep down the forth-putting instincts of the +lower. We do not want to see our national monument placarded as "the +greatest show on earth,"--perhaps it is well that it is taken down from +that bad eminence. + +I do not think that this speech of mine was very well received. It +appeared to jar somewhat on the nerves of the American Annex. There was +a smile on the lips of the other Annex,--the English girl,--which she +tried to keep quiet, but it was too plain that she enjoyed my diatribe. + +It must be remembered that I and the other Teacups, in common with the +rest of our fellow-citizens, have had our sensibilities greatly worked +upon, our patriotism chilled, our local pride outraged, by the +monstrosities which have been allowed to deform our beautiful public +grounds. We have to be very careful in conducting a visitor, say from +his marble-fronted hotel to the City Hall.--Keep pretty straight along +after entering the Garden,--you will not care to inspect the little +figure of the military gentleman to your right.--Yes, the Cochituate +water is drinkable, but I think I would not turn aside to visit that +small fabric which makes believe it is a temple, and is a weak-eyed +fountain feebly weeping over its own insignificance. About that other +stone misfortune, cruelly reminding us of the "Boston Massacre," we will +not discourse; it is not imposing, and is rarely spoken of. + +What a mortification to the inhabitants of a city with some hereditary +and contemporary claims to cultivation; which has noble edifices, grand +libraries, educational institutions of the highest grade, an art-gallery +filled with the finest models and rich in paintings and statuary,--a +stately city that stretches both arms across the Charles to clasp the +hands of Harvard, her twin-sister, each lending lustre to the other like +double stars,--what a pity that she should be so disfigured by crude +attempts to adorn her and commemorate her past that her most loving +children blush for her artificial deformities amidst the wealth of her +natural beauties! One hardly knows which to groan over most sadly,--the +tearing down of old monuments, the shelling of the Parthenon, the +overthrow of the pillared temples of Rome, and in a humbler way the +destruction of the old Hancock house, or the erection of monuments which +are to be a perpetual eyesore to ourselves and our descendants. + +We got talking on the subject of realism, of which so much has been said +of late. + +It seems to me, I said, that the great additions which have been made by +realism to the territory of literature consist largely in swampy, +malarious, ill-smelling patches of soil which had previously been left to +reptiles and vermin. It is perfectly easy to be original by violating +the laws of decency and the canons of good taste. The general consent of +civilized people was supposed to have banished certain subjects from the +conversation of well-bred people and the pages of respectable literature. +There is no subject, or hardly any, which may not be treated of at the +proper time, in the proper place, by the fitting person, for the right +kind of listener or reader. But when the poet or the story-teller +invades the province of the man of science, he is on dangerous ground. I +need say nothing of the blunders he is pretty sure to make. The +imaginative writer is after effects. The scientific man is after truth. +Science is decent, modest; does not try to startle, but to instruct. The +same scenes and objects which outrage every sense of delicacy in the +story teller's highly colored paragraphs can be read without giving +offence in the chaste language of the physiologist or the physician. + +There is a very celebrated novel, "Madame Bovary," the work of M. +Flaubert, which is noted for having been the subject of prosecution as an +immoral work. That it has a serious lesson there is no doubt, if one +will drink down to the bottom of the cup. But the honey of sensuous +description is spread so deeply over the surface of the goblet that a +large proportion of its readers never think of its holding anything else. +All the phases of unhallowed passion are described in full detail. That +is what the book is bought and read for, by the great majority of its +purchasers, as all but simpletons very well know. That is what makes it +sell and brought it into the courts of justice. This book is famous for +its realism; in fact, it is recognized as one of the earliest and most +brilliant examples of that modern style of novel which, beginning where +Balzac left off, attempted to do for literature what the photograph has +done for art. For those who take the trouble to drink out of the cup +below the rim of honey, there is a scene where realism is carried to its +extreme,--surpassed in horror by no writer, unless it be the one whose +name must be looked for at the bottom of the alphabet, as if its natural +place were as low down in the dregs of realism as it could find itself. +This is the death-bed scene, where Madame Bovary expires in convulsions. +The author must have visited the hospitals for the purpose of watching +the terrible agonies he was to depict, tramping from one bed to another +until he reached the one where the cries and contortions were the most +frightful. Such a scene he has reproduced. No hospital physician would +have pictured the straggle in such colors. In the same way, that other +realist, M. Zola, has painted a patient suffering from delirium tremens, +the disease known to common speech as "the horrors." In describing this +case he does all that language can do to make it more horrible than the +reality. He gives us, not realism, but super-realism, if such a term +does not contradict itself. + +In this matter of the literal reproduction of sights and scenes which our +natural instinct and our better informed taste and judgment teach us to +avoid, art has been far in advance of literature. It is three hundred +years since Joseph Ribera, more commonly known as Spagnoletto, was born +in the province Valencia, in Spain. We had the misfortune of seeing a +painting of his in a collection belonging to one of the French princes, +and exhibited at the Art Museum. It was that of a man performing upon +himself the operation known to the Japanese as hararkiri. Many persons +who looked upon this revolting picture will never get rid of its +remembrance, and will regret the day when their eyes fell upon it. I +should share the offence of the painter if I ventured to describe it. +Ribera was fond of depicting just such odious and frightful subjects. +"Saint Lawrence writhing on his gridiron, Saint Sebastian full of arrows, +were equally a source of delight to him. Even in subjects which had no +such elements of horror he finds the materials for the delectation of his +ferocious pencil; he makes up for the defect by rendering with a brutal +realism deformity and ugliness." + +The first great mistake made by the ultra-realists; like Flaubert and +Zola, is, as I have said, their ignoring the line of distinction between +imaginative art and science. We can find realism enough in books of +anatomy, surgery, and medicine. In studying the human figure, we want to +see it clothed with its natural integuments. It is well for the artist +to study the ecorche in the dissecting-room, but we do not want the +Apollo or the Venus to leave their skins behind them when they go into +the gallery for exhibition. Lancisi's figures show us how the great +statues look when divested of their natural covering. It is instructive, +but useful chiefly as a means to aid in the true artistic reproduction of +nature. When the, hospitals are invaded by the novelist, he should learn +something from the physician as well as from the patients. Science +delineates in monochrome. She never uses high tints and strontian lights +to astonish lookers-on. Such scenes as Flaubert and Zola describe would +be reproduced in their essential characters, but not dressed up in +picturesque phrases. That is the first stumbling-block in the way of the +reader of such realistic stories as those to which I have referred. +There are subjects which must be investigated by scientific men which +most educated persons would be glad to know nothing about. When a +realistic writer like Zola surprises his reader into a kind of knowledge +he never thought of wishing for, he sometimes harms him more than he has +any idea of doing. He wants to produce a sensation, and he leaves a +permanent disgust not to be got rid of. Who does not remember odious +images that can never be washed out from the consciousness which they +have stained? A man's vocabulary is terribly retentive of evil words, +and the images they present cling to his memory and will not loose their +hold. One who has had the mischance to soil his mind by reading certain +poems of Swift will never cleanse it to its original whiteness. +Expressions and thoughts of a certain character stain the fibre of the +thinking organ, and in some degree affect the hue of every idea that +passes through the discolored tissues. + +This is the gravest accusation to bring against realism, old or recent, +whether in the brutal paintings of Spagnoletto or in the unclean +revelations of Zola. Leave the description of the drains and cesspools +to the hygienic specialist, the painful facts of disease to the +physician, the details of the laundry to the washerwoman. If we are to +have realism in its tedious descriptions of unimportant particulars, let +it be of particulars which do not excite disgust. Such is the description +of the vegetables in Zola's "Ventre de Paris," where, if one wishes to +see the apotheosis of turnips, beets, and cabbages, he can find them +glorified as supremely as if they had been symbols of so many deities; +their forms, their colors, their expression, worked upon until they seem +as if they were made to be looked at and worshipped rather than to be +boiled and eaten. + +I am pleased to find a French critic of M. Flaubert expressing ideas with +which many of my own entirely coincide. "The great mistake of the +realists," he says, "is that they profess to tell the truth because they +tell everything. This puerile hunting after details, this cold and +cynical inventory of all the wretched conditions in the midst of which +poor humanity vegetates, not only do not help us to understand it better, +but, on the contrary, the effect on the spectators is a kind of dazzled +confusion mingled with fatigue and disgust. The material truthfulness to +which the school of M. Flaubert more especially pretends misses its aim +in going beyond it. Truth is lost in its own excess." + +I return to my thoughts on the relations of imaginative art in all its +forms with science. The subject which in the hands of the scientific +student is handled decorously,--reverently, we might almost say,--becomes +repulsive, shameful, and debasing in the unscrupulous manipulations of +the low-bred man of letters. + +I confess that I am a little jealous of certain tendencies in our own +American literature, which led one of the severest and most outspoken of +our satirical fellow-countrymen, no longer living to be called to account +for it, to say; in a moment of bitterness, that the mission of America +was to vulgarize mankind. I myself have sometimes wondered at the +pleasure some Old World critics have professed to find in the most +lawless freaks of New World literature. I have questioned whether their +delight was not like that of the Spartans in the drunken antics of their +Helots. But I suppose I belong to another age, and must not attempt to +judge the present by my old-fashioned standards. + +The company listened very civilly to these remarks, whether they agreed +with them or not. I am not sure that I want all the young people to +think just as I do in matters of critical judgment. New wine does not go +well into old bottles, but if an old cask has held good wine, it may +improve a crude juice to stand awhile upon the lees of that which once +filled it. + +I thought the company had had about enough of this disquisition. They +listened very decorously, and the Professor, who agrees very well with +me, as I happen to know, in my views on this business of realism, thanked +me for giving them the benefit of my opinion. + +The silence that followed was broken by Number Seven's suddenly +exclaiming,-- + +"I should like to boss creation for a week!" + +This expression was an outbreak suggested by some train of thought which +Number Seven had been following while I was discoursing. I do not think +one of the company looked as if he or she were shocked by it as an +irreligious or even profane speech. It is a better way always, in +dealing with one of those squinting brains, to let it follow out its own +thought. It will keep to it for a while; then it will quit the rail, so +to speak, and run to any side-track which may present itself. + +"What is the first thing you would do?" asked Number Five in a pleasant, +easy way. + +"The first thing? Pick out a few thousand of the best specimens of the +best races, and drown the rest like so many blind puppies." + +"Why," said she, "that was tried once, and does not seem to have worked +very well." + +"Very likely. You mean Noah's flood, I suppose. More people nowadays, +and a better lot to pick from than Noah had." + +"Do tell us whom you would take with you," said Number Five. + +"You, if you would go," he answered, and I thought I saw a slight flush +on his cheek. "But I didn't say that I should go aboard the new ark +myself. I am not sure that I should. No, I am pretty sure that I +shouldn't. I don't believe, on the whole, it would pay me to save +myself. I ain't of much account. But I could pick out some that were." + +And just now he was saying that he should like to boss the universe! All +this has nothing very wonderful about it. Every one of us is subject to +alternations of overvaluation and undervaluation of ourselves. Do you +not remember soliloquies something like this? "Was there ever such a +senseless, stupid creature as I am? How have I managed to keep so long +out of the idiot asylum? Undertook to write a poem, and stuck fast at +the first verse. Had a call from a friend who had just been round the +world. Did n't ask him one word about what he had seen or heard, but +gave him full details of my private history, I having never been off my +own hearth-rug for more than an hour or two at a time, while he was +circumnavigating and circumrailroading the globe. Yes, if anybody can +claim the title, I am certainly the prize idiot." I am afraid that we +all say such things as this to ourselves at times. Do we not use more +emphatic words than these in our self-depreciation? I cannot say how it +is with others, but my vocabulary of self-reproach and humiliation is so +rich in energetic expressions that I should be sorry to have an +interviewer present at an outburst of one of its raging geysers, its +savage soliloquies. A man is a kind of inverted thermometer, the bulb +uppermost, and the column of self-valuation is all the time going up and +down. Number Seven is very much like other people in this respect,--very +much like you and me. + +This train of reflections must not carry me away from Number Seven. + +"If I can't get a chance to boss this planet for a week or so," he began +again, "I think I could write its history,--yes, the history of the +world, in less compass than any one who has tried it so far." + +"You know Sir Walter Raleigh's 'History of the World,' of course?" said +the Professor. + +"More or less,--more or less," said Number Seven prudently. "But I don't +care who has written it before me. I will agree to write the story of +two worlds, this and the next, in such a compact way that you can commit +them both to memory in less time than you can learn the answer to the +first question in the Catechism." + +What he had got into his head we could not guess, but there was no little +curiosity to discover the particular bee which was buzzing in his bonnet. +He evidently enjoyed our curiosity, and meant to keep us waiting awhile +before revealing the great secret. + +"How many words do you think I shall want?" + +It is a formula, I suppose, I said, and I will grant you a hundred words. + +"Twenty," said the Professor. "That was more than the wise men of Greece +wanted for their grand utterances." + +The two Annexes whispered together, and the American Annex gave their +joint result. One thousand was the number they had fixed on. They were +used to hearing lectures, and could hardly conceive that any subject +could be treated without taking up a good part of an hour. + +"Less than ten," said Number Five. "If there are to be more than ten, I +don't believe that Number Seven would think the surprise would be up to +our expectations." + +"Guess as much as you like," said Number Seven. + +"The answer will keep. I don't mean to say what it is until we are ready +to leave the table." He took a blank card from his pocket-book, wrote +something on it, or appeared, at any rate, to write, and handed it, face +down, to the Mistress. What was on the card will be found near the end +of this paper. I wonder if anybody will be curious enough to look +further along to find out what it was before she reads the next +paragraph? + +In the mean time there is a train of thought suggested by Number Seven +and his whims. If you want to know how to account for yourself, study +the characters of your relations. All of our brains squint more or less. +There is not one in a hundred, certainly, that does not sometimes see +things distorted by double refraction, out of plumb or out of focus, or +with colors which do not belong to it, or in some way betraying that the +two halves of the brain are not acting in harmony with each other. You +wonder at the eccentricities of this or that connection of your own. +Watch yourself, and you will find impulses which, but for the restraints +you put upon them, would make you do the same foolish things which you +laugh at in that cousin of yours. I once lived in the same house with +the near relative of a very distinguished person, whose name is still +honored and revered among us. His brain was an active one, like that of +his famous relative, but it was full of random ideas, unconnected trains +of thought, whims, crotchets, erratic suggestions. Knowing him, I could +interpret the mental characteristics of the whole family connection in +the light of its exaggerated peculiarities as exhibited in my odd +fellow-boarder. Squinting brains are a great deal more common than we +should at first sight believe. Here is a great book, a solid octavo of +five hundred pages, full of the vagaries of this class of organizations. +I hope to refer to this work hereafter, but just now I will only say +that, after reading till one is tired the strange fancies of the squarers +of the circle, the inventors of perpetual motion, and the rest of the +moonstruck dreamers, most persons will confess to themselves that they +have had notions as wild, conceptions as extravagant, theories as +baseless, as the least rational of those which are here recorded. + +Some day I want to talk about my library. It is such a curious +collection of old and new books, such a mosaic of learning and fancies +and follies, that a glance over it would interest the company. Perhaps I +may hereafter give you a talk abut books, but while I am saying a few +passing words upon the subject the greatest bibliographical event that +ever happened in the book-market of the New World is taking place under +our eyes. Here is Mr. Bernard Quaritch just come from his well-known +habitat, No. 15 Piccadilly, with such a collection of rare, beautiful, +and somewhat expensive volumes as the Western Continent never saw before +on the shelves of a bibliopole. + +We bookworms are all of us now and then betrayed into an extravagance. +The keen tradesmen who tempt us are like the fishermen who dangle a +minnow, a frog, or a worm before the perch or pickerel who may be on the +lookout for his breakfast. But Mr. Quaritch comes among us like that +formidable angler of whom it is said, + + His hook he baited with a dragon's tail, + And sat upon a rock and bobbed for whale. + +The two catalogues which herald his coming are themselves interesting +literary documents. One can go out with a few shillings in his pocket, +and venture among the books of the first of these catalogues without +being ashamed to show himself with no larger furnishing of the means for +indulging his tastes,--he will find books enough at comparatively modest +prices. But if one feels very rich, so rich that it requires a good deal +to frighten him, let him take the other catalogue and see how many books +he proposes to add to his library at the prices affixed. Here is a Latin +Psalter with the Canticles, from the press of Fust and Schoeffer, the +second book issued from their press, the second book printed with a date, +that date being 1459. There are only eight copies of this work known to +exist; you can have one of them, if so disposed, and if you have change +enough in your pocket. Twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty dollars +will make you the happy owner of this precious volume. If this is more +than you want to pay, you can have the Gold Gospels of Henry VIII., on +purple vellum, for about half the money. There are pages on pages of +titles of works any one of which would be a snug little property if +turned into money at its catalogue price. + +Why will not our multimillionaires look over this catalogue of Mr. +Quaritch, and detain some of its treasures on this side of the Atlantic +for some of our public libraries? We decant the choicest wines of Europe +into our cellars; we ought to be always decanting the precious treasures +of her libraries and galleries into our own, as we have opportunity and +means. As to the means, there are so many rich people who hardly know +what to do with their money that it is well to suggest to them any new +useful end to which their superfluity may contribute. I am not in +alliance with Mr. Quaritch; in fact, I am afraid of him, for if I stayed +a single hour in his library, where I never was but once, and then for +fifteen minutes only, I should leave it so much poorer than I entered it +that I should be reminded of the picture in the titlepage of Fuller's +'Historie of the Holy Warre,' "We went out full. We returned empty." + +--After the teacups were all emptied, the card containing Number Seven's +abridged history of two worlds, this and the next, was handed round. + +This was all it held: + +After all had looked at it, it was passed back to me. "Let The Dictator +interpret it," they all said. + +This is what I announced as my interpretation: + +Two worlds, the higher and the lower, separated by the thinnest of +partitions. The lower world is that of questions; the upper world is +that of answers. Endless doubt and unrest here below; wondering, +admiring, adoring certainty above.--Am I not right? + +"You are right," answered Number Seven solemnly. "That is my +revelation." + +The following poem was found in the sugar-bowl. + +I read it to the company. There was much whispering and there were many +conjectures as to its authorship, but every Teacup looked innocent, and +we separated each with his or her private conviction. I had mine, but I +will not mention it. + + THE ROSE AND THE FERN. + + Lady, life's sweetest lesson wouldst thou learn, + Come thou with me to Love's enchanted bower: + High overhead the trellised roses burn; + Beneath thy feet behold the feathery fern, + A leaf without a flower. + + What though the rose leaves fall? They still are sweet, + And have been lovely in their beauteous prime, + While the bare frond seems ever to repeat, + "For us no bud, no blossom, wakes to greet + The joyous flowering time!" + + Heed thou the lesson. Life has leaves to tread + And flowers to cherish; summer round thee glows; + Wait not till autumn's fading robes are shed, + But while its petals still are burning red + Gather life's full-blown rose! + + + + +VI + +Of course the reading of the poem at the end of the last paper has left a +deep impression. I strongly suspect that something very much like +love-making is going on at our table. A peep under the lid of the +sugar-bowl has shown me that there is another poem ready for the company. +That receptacle is looked upon with an almost tremulous excitement by +more than one of The Teacups. The two Annexes turn towards the mystic +urn as if the lots which were to determine their destiny were shut up in +it. Number Five, quieter, and not betraying more curiosity than belongs +to the sex at all ages, glances at the sugarbowl now and then; looking so +like a clairvoyant, that sometimes I cannot help thinking she must be +one. There is a sly look about that young Doctor's eyes, which might +imply that he knows something about what the silver vessel holds, or is +going to hold. The Tutor naturally falls under suspicion, as he is known +to have written and published poems. I suppose the Professor and myself +have hardly been suspected of writing love-poems; but there is no +telling,--there is no telling. Why may not some one of the lady Teacups +have played the part of a masculine lover? George Sand, George Eliot, +Charles Egbert Craddock, made pretty good men in print. The authoress of +"Jane Eyre" was taken for a man by many persons. Can Number Five be +masquerading in verse? Or is one of the two Annexes the make believe +lover? Or did these girls lay their heads together, and send the poem we +had at our last sitting to puzzle the company? It is certain that the +Mistress did not write the poem. It is evident that Number Seven, who is +so severe in his talk about rhymesters, would not, if he could, make such +a fool of himself as to set up for a "poet." Why should not the +Counsellor fall in love and write verses? A good many lawyers have been +"poets." + +Perhaps the next poem, which may be looked for in its proper place, may +help us to form a judgment. We may have several verse-writers among us, +and if so there will be a good opportunity for the exercise of judgment +in distributing their productions among the legitimate claimants. In the +mean time, we must not let the love-making and the song-writing interfere +with the more serious matters which these papers are expected to contain. + +Number Seven's compendious and comprehensive symbolism proved suggestive, +as his whimsical notions often do. It always pleases me to take some +hint from anything he says when I can, and carry it out in a direction +not unlike that of his own remark. I reminded the company of his +enigmatical symbol. + +You can divide mankind in the same way, I said. Two words, each of two +letters, will serve to distinguish two classes of human beings who +constitute the principal divisions of mankind. Can any of you tell what +those two words are? + +"Give me five letters," cried Number Seven, "and I can solve your +problem! F-o-o-l-s,--those five letters will give you the first and +largest half. For the other fraction"-- + +Oh, but, said I, I restrict you absolutely to two letters. If you are +going to take five, you may as well take twenty or a hundred. + +After a few attempts, the company gave it up. The nearest approach to +the correct answer was Number Five's guess of Oh and Ah: Oh signifying +eternal striving after an ideal, which belongs to one kind of nature; and +Ah the satisfaction of the other kind of nature, which rests at ease in +what it has attained. + +Good! I said to Number Five, but not the answer I am after. The great +division between human beings is into the Ifs and the Ases. + +"Is the last word to be spelt with one or two s's?" asked the young +Doctor. + +The company laughed feebly at this question. I answered it soberly. With +one s. There are more foolish people among the Ifs than there are among +the Ases. + +The company looked puzzled, and asked for an explanation. + +This is the meaning of those two words as I interpret them: If it +were,--if it might be,--if it could be,--if it had been. One portion of +mankind go through life always regretting, always whining, always +imagining. These are the people whose backbones remain cartilaginous all +their lives long, as do those of certain other vertebrate animals,--the +sturgeons, for instance. A good many poets must be classed with this +group of vertebrates. + +As it is,--this is the way in which the other class of people look at the +conditions in which they find themselves. They may be optimists or +pessimists, they are very largely optimists,--but, taking things just as +they find them, they adjust the facts to their wishes if they can; and if +they cannot, then they adjust themselves to the facts. I venture to say +that if one should count the Ifs and the Ases in the conversation of his +acquaintances, he would find the more able and important persons among +them--statesmen, generals, men of business--among the Ases, and the +majority of the conspicuous failures among the Ifs. I don't know but +this would be as good a test as that of Gideon,--lapping the water or +taking it up in the hand. I have a poetical friend whose conversation is +starred as thick with ifs as a boiled ham is with cloves. But another +friend of mine, a business man, whom I trust in making my investments, +would not let me meddle with a certain stock which I fancied, because, as +he said, "there are too many ifs in it. As it looks now, I would n't +touch it." + +I noticed, the other evening, that some private conversation was going on +between the Counsellor and the two Annexes. There was a mischievous look +about the little group, and I thought they were hatching some plot among +them. I did not hear what the English Annex said, but the American +girl's voice was sharper, and I overheard what sounded to me like, "It is +time to stir up that young Doctor." The Counsellor looked very knowing, +and said that he would find a chance before long. I was rather amused to +see how readily he entered into the project of the young people. The +fact is, the Counsellor is young for his time of life; for he already +betrays some signs of the change referred to in that once familiar street +song, which my friend, the great American surgeon, inquired for at the +music-shops under the title, as he got it from the Italian minstrel, + + "Silva tredi mondi goo." + +I saw, soon after this, that the Counsellor was watching his chance to +"stir up the young Doctor." + +It does not follow, because our young Doctor's bald spot is slower in +coming than he could have wished, that he has not had time to form many +sound conclusions in the calling to which he has devoted himself +Vesalius, the father of modern descriptive anatomy, published his great +work on that subject before he was thirty. Bichat, the great anatomist +and physiologist, who died near the beginning of this century, published +his treatise, which made a revolution in anatomy and pathology, at about +the same age; dying soon after he had reached the age of thirty. So, +possibly the Counsellor may find that he has "stirred up" a young man +who, can take care of his own head, in case of aggressive movements in +its direction. + +"Well, Doctor," the Counsellor began, "how are stocks in the measles +market about these times? Any corner in bronchitis? Any syndicate in +the vaccination business?" All this playfully. + +"I can't say how it is with other people's patients; most of my families +are doing very well without my help, at this time." + +"Do tell me, Doctor, how many families you own. I have heard it said +that some of our fellow-citizens have two distinct families, but you +speak as if you had a dozen." + +"I have, but not so large a number as I should like. I could take care +of fifteen or twenty more without: having to work too hard." + +"Why, Doctor, you are as bad as a Mormon. What do you mean by calling +certain families yours?" + +"Don't you speak about my client? Don't your clients call you their +lawyer? Does n't your baker, does n't your butcher, speak of the +families he supplies as his families?" + +To be sure, yes, of course they do; but I had a notion that a man had as +many doctors as he had organs to be doctored." + +"Well, there is some truth in that; but did you think the old-fashioned +family doctor was extinct, a fossil like the megatherium?" + +"Why, yes, after the recent experience of a friend of mine, I did begin +to think that there would soon be no such personage left as that same +old-fashioned family doctor. Shall I tell you what that experience was?" + +The young Doctor said he should be mightily pleased to hear it. He was +going to be one of those old-fogy practitioners himself. + +"I don't know," the Counsellor said, "whether my friend got all the +professional terms of his story correctly, nor whether I have got them +from him without making any mistakes; but if I do make blunders in some +of the queer names, you can correct me. This is my friend's story: + +"My family doctor," he said, "was a very sensible man, educated at a +school where they professed to teach all the specialties, but not +confining himself to any one branch of medical practice. Surgical +practice he did not profess to meddle with, and there were some classes +of patients whom he was willing to leave to the female physician. But +throughout the range of diseases not requiring exceptionally skilled +manual interference, his education had authorized him to consider +himself, and he did consider himself, qualified to undertake the +treatment of all ordinary cases--It so happened that my young wife was +one of those uneasy persons who are never long contented with their +habitual comforts and blessings, but always trying to find something a +little better, something newer, at any rate. I was getting to be near +fifty years old, and it happened to me, as it not rarely does to people +at about that time of life, that my hair began to fall out. I spoke of +it to my doctor, who smiled, said it was a part of the process of +reversed evolution, but might be retarded a little, and gave me a +prescription. I did not find any great effect from it, and my wife would +have me go to a noted dermatologist. The distinguished specialist +examined my denuded scalp with great care. He looked at it through a +strong magnifier. He examined the bulb of a fallen hair in a powerful +microscope. He deliberated for a while, and then said, "This is a case +of alopecia. It may perhaps be partially remedied. I will give you a +prescription." Which he did, and told me to call again in a fortnight. +At the end of three months I had called six times, and each time got a +new recipe, and detected no difference in the course of my "alopecia." +After I had got through my treatment, I showed my recipes to my family +physician; and we found that three of them were the same he had used, +familiar, old-fashioned remedies, and the others were taken from a list +of new and little-tried prescriptions mentioned in one of the last +medical journals, which was lying on the old doctor's table. I might as +well have got no better under his charge, and should have got off much +cheaper. + +"The next trouble I had was a little redness of the eyes, for which my +doctor gave me a wash; but my wife would have it that I must see an +oculist. So I made four visits to an oculist, and at the last visit the +redness was nearly gone,--as it ought to have been by that time. The +specialist called my complaint conjunctivitis, but that did not make it +feel any better nor get well any quicker. If I had had a cataract or any +grave disease of the eye, requiring a nice operation on that delicate +organ, of course I should have properly sought the aid of an expert, +whose eye, hand, and judgment were trained to that special business; but +in this case I don't doubt that my family doctor would have done just as +well as the expert. However, I had to obey orders, and my wife would have +it that I should entrust my precious person only to the most skilful +specialist in each department of medical practice. + +"In the course of the year I experienced a variety of slight +indispositions. For these I was auriscoped by an aurist, laryngoscoped +by a laryngologist, ausculted by a stethoscopist, and so on, until a +complete inventory of my organs was made out, and I found that if I +believed all these searching inquirers professed to have detected in my +unfortunate person, I could repeat with too literal truth the words of +the General Confession, "And there is no health in us." I never heard so +many hard names in all my life. I proved to be the subject of a long +catalogue of diseases, and what maladies I was not manifestly guilty of I +was at least suspected of harboring. I was handed along all the way from +alopecia, which used to be called baldness, to zoster, which used to be +known as shingles. I was the patient of more than a dozen specialists. +Very pleasant persons, many of them, but what a fuss they made about my +trifling incommodities! 'Please look at that photograph. See if there is +a minute elevation under one eye.' + +"'On which side?' I asked him, for I could not be sure there was anything +different on one side from what I saw on the other. + +"'Under the left eye. I called it a pimple; the specialist called it +acne. Now look at this photograph. It was taken after my acne had been +three months under treatment. It shows a little more distinctly than in +the first photograph, does n't it?' + +"'I think it does,' I answered. 'It does n't seem to me that you gained +a great deal by leaving your customary adviser for the specialist.' + +"'Well,' my friend continued, 'following my wife's urgent counsel, I kept +on, as I told you, for a whole year with my specialists, going from head +to foot, and tapering off with a chiropodist. I got a deal of amusement +out of their contrivances and experiments. Some of them lighted up my +internal surfaces with electrical or other illuminating apparatus. +Thermometers, dynamometers, exploring-tubes, little mirrors that went +half-way down to my stomach, tuning-forks, ophthalmoscopes, +percussion-hammers, single and double stethoscopes, speculums, +sphygmometers,--such a battery of detective instruments I had never +imagined. All useful, I don't doubt; but at the end of the year I began +to question whether I should n't have done about as well to stick to my +long tried practitioner. When the bills for "professional services" came +in, and the new carpet had to be given up, and the old bonnet trimmed +over again, and the sealskin sack remained a vision, we both agreed, my +wife and I, that we would try to get along without consulting +specialists, except in such cases as our family physician considered to +be beyond his skill.'" + +The Counsellor's story of his friend's experiences seemed to please the +young Doctor very much. It "stirred him up," but in an agreeable way; +for, as he said, he meant to devote himself to family practice, and not +to adopt any limited class of cases as a specialty. I liked his views so +well that I should have been ready to adopt them as my own, if they had +been challenged. + + The young Doctor discourses. + +"I am very glad," he said, "that we have a number of practitioners among +us who confine themselves to the care of single organs and their +functions. I want to be able to consult an oculist who has done nothing +but attend to eyes long enough to know all that is known about their +diseases and their treatment,--skilful enough to be trusted with the +manipulation of that delicate and most precious organ. I want an aurist +who knows all about the ear and what can be done for its disorders. The +maladies of the larynx are very ticklish things to handle, and nobody +should be trusted to go behind the epiglottis who has not the tactus +eruditus. And so of certain other particular classes of complaints. A +great city must have a limited number of experts, each a final authority, +to be appealed to in cases where the family physician finds himself in +doubt. There are operations which no surgeon should be willing to +undertake unless he has paid a particular, if not an exclusive, attention +to the cases demanding such operations. All this I willingly grant. + +"But it must not be supposed that we can return to the methods of the old +Egyptians--who, if my memory serves me correctly, had a special physician +for every part of the body--without falling into certain errors and +incurring certain liabilities. + +"The specialist is much like other people engaged in lucrative business. +He is apt to magnify his calling, to make much of any symptom which will +bring a patient within range of his battery of remedies. I found a case +in one of our medical journals, a couple of years ago, which illustrates +what I mean. Dr. ___________ of Philadelphia, had a female patient with +a crooked nose,--deviated septum, if our young scholars like that better. +She was suffering from what the doctor called reflex headache. She had +been to an oculist, who found that the trouble was in her eyes. She went +from him to a gynecologist, who considered her headache as owing to +causes for which his specialty had the remedies. How many more +specialists would have appropriated her, if she had gone the rounds of +them all, I dare not guess; but you remember the old story of the siege, +in which each artisan proposed means of defence which he himself was +ready to furnish. Then a shoemaker said, 'Hang your walls with new +boots.' + +"Human nature is the same with medical specialists as it was with ancient +cordwainers, and it is too possible that a hungry practitioner may be +warped by his interest in fastening on a patient who, as he persuades +himself, comes under his medical jurisdiction. The specialist has but one +fang with which to seize and bold his prey, but that fang is a fearfully +long and sharp canine. Being confined to a narrow field of observation +and practice, he is apt to give much of his time to curious study, which +may be magnifique, but is not exactly la guerre against the patient's +malady. He divides and subdivides, and gets many varieties of diseases, +in most respects similar. These he equips with new names, and thus we +have those terrific nomenclatures which are enough to frighten the +medical student, to say nothing of the sufferers staggering under this +long catalogue of local infirmities. The 'old-fogy' doctor, who knows +the family tendencies of his patient, who 'understands his constitution,' +will often treat him better than the famous specialist, who sees him for +the first time, and has to guess at many things 'the old doctor' knows +from his previous experience with the same patient and the family to +which he belongs. + +"It is a great luxury to practise as a specialist in almost any class of +diseases. The special practitioner has his own hours, hardly needs a +night-bell, can have his residence out of the town in which he exercises +his calling, in short, lives like a gentleman; while the hard-worked +general practitioner submits to a servitude more exacting than that of +the man who is employed in his stable or in his kitchen. That is the kind +of life I have made up my mind to." + +The teaspoons tinkled all round the table. This was the usual sign of +approbation, instead of the clapping of hands. + +The young Doctor paused, and looked round among The Teacups. "I beg your +pardon," he said, "for taking up so much of your time with medicine. It +is a subject that a good many persons, especially ladies, take an +interest in and have a curiosity about, but I have no right to turn this +tea-table into a lecture platform." + +"We should like to hear you talk longer about it," said the English +Annex. "One of us has thought of devoting herself to the practice of +medicine. Would you lecture to us; if you were a professor in one of the +great medical schools?" + +"Lecture to students of your sex? Why not, I should like to know? I +don't think it is the calling for which the average woman is especially +adapted, but my teacher got a part of his medical education from a lady, +Madame Lachapelle; and I don't see why, if one can learn from a woman, he +may not teach a woman, if he knows enough." + +"We all like a little medical talk now and then," said Number Five, "and +we are much obliged to you for your discourse. You are specialist enough +to take care of a sprained ankle, I suppose, are you not?" + +"I hope I should be equal to that emergency," answered the young Doctor; +"but I trust you are not suffering from any such accident?" + +"No," said Number Five, "but there is no telling what may happen. I +might slip, and get a sprain or break a sinew, or something, and I should +like to know that there is a practitioner at hand to take care of my +injury. I think I would risk myself in your bands, although you are not +a specialist. Would you venture to take charge of the case?" + +"Ah, my dear lady," he answered gallantly, "the risk would be in the +other direction. I am afraid it would be safer for your doctor if he +were an older man than I am." + +This is the first clearly, indisputably sentimental outbreak which has +happened in conversation at our table. I tremble to think what will come +of it; for we have several inflammable elements in our circle, and a +spark like this is liable to light on any one or two of them. + +I was not sorry that this medical episode came in to vary the usual +course of talk at our table. I like to have one--of an intelligent +company, who knows anything thoroughly, hold the floor for a time, and +discourse upon the subject which chiefly engages his daily thoughts and +furnishes his habitual occupation. It is a privilege to meet such a +person now and then, and let him have his full swing. But because there +are "professionals" to whom we are willing to listen as oracles, I do not +want to see everybody who is not a "professional" silenced or snubbed, if +he ventures into any field of knowledge which he has not made especially +his own. I like to read Montaigne's remarks about doctors, though he +never took a medical degree. I can even enjoy the truth in the sharp +satire of Voltaire on the medical profession. I frequently prefer the +remarks I hear from the pew after the sermon to those I have just been +hearing from the pulpit. There are a great many things which I never +expect to comprehend, but which I desire very much to apprehend. Suppose +that our circle of Teacups were made up of specialists,--experts in +various departments. I should be very willing that each one should have +his innings at the proper time, when the company were ready for him. But +the time is coming when everybody will know something about every thing. +How can one have the illustrated magazines, the "Popular Science +Monthly," the Psychological journals, the theological periodicals, books +on all subjects, forced on his attention, in their own persons, so to +speak, or in the reviews which analyze and pass judgment upon them, +without getting some ideas which belong to many provinces of human +intelligence? The air we breathe is made up of four elements, at least: +oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid gas, and knowledge. There is something +quite delightful to witness in the absorption and devotion of a genuine +specialist. There is a certain sublimity in that picture of the dying +scholar in Browning's "A Grammarian's Funeral:"-- + + "So with the throttling hands of death at strife, + Ground he at grammar; + Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife; + While he could stammer + He settled Hoti's business--let it be-- + Properly based Oun + Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, + Dead from the waist down." + +A genuine enthusiasm, which will never be satisfied until it has pumped +the well dry at the bottom of which truth is lying, always excites our +interest, if not our admiration. + +One of the pleasantest of our American writers, whom we all remember as +Ik Marvel, and greet in his more recent appearance as Donald Grant +Mitchell, speaks of the awkwardness which he feels in offering to the +public a "panoramic view of British writers in these days of +specialists,--when students devote half a lifetime to the analysis of the +works of a single author, and to the proper study of a single period." + +He need not have feared that his connected sketches of "English Lands, +Letters and Kings" would be any less welcome because they do not pretend +to fill up all the details or cover all the incidents they hint in vivid +outline. How many of us ever read or ever will read Drayton's +"Poly-Olbion?" Twenty thousand long Alexandrines are filled with +admirable descriptions of scenery, natural productions, and historical +events, but how many of us in these days have time to read and inwardly +digest twenty thousand Alexandrine verses? I fear that the specialist is +apt to hold his intelligent reader or hearer too cheap. So far as I have +observed in medical specialties, what he knows in addition to the +knowledge of the well-taught general practitioner is very largely curious +rather than important. Having exhausted all that is practical, the +specialist is naturally tempted to amuse himself with the natural history +of the organ or function he deals with; to feel as a writing-master does +when he sets a copy,--not content to shape the letters properly, but he +must add flourishes and fancy figures, to let off his spare energy. + +I am beginning to be frightened. When I began these papers, my idea was +a very simple and innocent one. Here was a mixed company, of various +conditions, as I have already told my readers, who came together +regularly, and before they were aware of it formed something like a club +or association. As I was the patriarch among them, they gave me the name +some of you may need to be reminded of; for as these reports are +published at intervals, you may not remember the fact that I am what The +Teacups have seen fit to call The Dictator. + +Now, what did I expect when I began these papers, and what is it that has +begun to frighten me? + +I expected to report grave conversations and light colloquial passages of +arms among the members of the circle. I expected to hear, perhaps to +read, a paper now and then. I expected to have, from time to time, a +poem from some one of The Teacups, for I felt sure there must be among +them one or more poets,--Teacups of the finer and rarer translucent kind +of porcelain, to speak metaphorically. + +Out of these conversations and written contributions I thought I might +make up a readable series of papers; a not wholly unwelcome string of +recollections, anticipations, suggestions, too often perhaps repetitions, +that would be to the twilight what my earlier series had been to the +morning. + +I hoped also that I should come into personal relations with my old +constituency, if I may call my nearer friends, and those more distant +ones who belong to my reading parish, by that name. It is time that I +should. I received this blessed morning--I am telling the literal +truth--a highly flattering obituary of myself in the shape of an extract +from "Le National" of the 10th of February last. This is a bi-weekly +newspaper, published in French, in the city of Plattsburg, Clinton +County, New York. I am occasionally reminded by my unknown friends that +I must hurry up their autograph, or make haste to copy that poem they +wish to have in the author's own handwriting, or it will be too late; but +I have never before been huddled out of the world in this way. I take +this rather premature obituary as a hint that, unless I come to some +arrangement with my well-meaning but insatiable correspondents, it would +be as well to leave it in type, for I cannot bear much longer the load +they lay upon me. I will explain myself on this point after I have told +my readers what has frightened me. + +I am beginning to think this room where we take our tea is more like a +tinder-box than a quiet and safe place for "a party in a parlor." It is +true that there are at least two or three incombustibles at our table, +but it looks to me as if the company might pair off before the season is +over, like the crew of Her Majesty's ship the Mantelpiece,--three or four +weddings clear our whole table of all but one or two of the impregnables. +The poem we found in the sugar-bowl last week first opened my eyes to the +probable state of things. Now, the idea of having to tell a +love-story,--perhaps two or three love-stories,--when I set out with the +intention of repeating instructive, useful, or entertaining discussions, +naturally alarms me. It is quite true that many things which look to me +suspicious may be simply playful. Young people (and we have several such +among The Teacups) are fond of make-believe courting when they cannot +have the real thing,--"flirting," as it used to be practised in the days +of Arcadian innocence, not the more modern and more questionable +recreation which has reached us from the home of the cicisbeo. Whatever +comes of it, I shall tell what I see, and take the consequences. + +But I am at this moment going to talk in my own proper person to my own +particular public, which, as I find by my correspondence, is a very +considerable one, and with which I consider myself in exceptionally +pleasant relations. + +I have read recently that Mr. Gladstone receives six hundred letters a +day. Perhaps he does not receive six hundred letters every day, but if +he gets anything like half that number daily, what can he do with them? +There was a time when he was said to answer all his correspondents. It +is understood, I think, that he has given up doing so in these later +days. + +I do not pretend that I receive six hundred or even sixty letters a day, +but I do receive a good many, and have told the public of the fact from +time to time, under the pressure of their constantly increasing +exertions. As it is extremely onerous, and is soon going to be +impossible, for me to keep up the wide range of correspondence which has +become a large part of my occupation, and tends to absorb all the vital +force which is left me, I wish to enter into a final explanation with the +well-meaning but merciless taskmasters who have now for many years been +levying their daily tax upon me. I have preserved thousands of their +letters, and destroyed a very large number, after answering most of them. +A few interesting chapters might be made out of the letters I have +kept,--not only such as are signed by the names of well-known personages, +but many from unknown friends, of whom I had never heard before and have +never heard since. A great deal of the best writing the languages of the +world have ever known has been committed to leaves that withered out of +sight before a second sunlight had fallen upon them. I have had many +letters I should have liked to give the public, had their nature admitted +of their being offered to the world. What straggles of young ambition, +finding no place for its energies, or feeling its incapacity to reach the +ideal towards which it was striving! What longings of disappointed, +defeated fellow-mortals, trying to find a new home for themselves in the +heart of one whom they have amiably idealized! And oh, what hopeless +efforts of mediocrities and inferiorities, believing in themselves as +superiorities, and stumbling on through limping disappointments to +prostrate failure! Poverty comes pleading, not for charity, for the most +part, but imploring us to find a purchaser for its unmarketable wares. +The unreadable author particularly requests us to make a critical +examination of his book, and report to him whatever may be our +verdict,--as if he wanted anything but our praise, and that very often to +be used in his publisher's advertisements. + +But what does not one have to submit to who has become the martyr--the +Saint Sebastian--of a literary correspondence! I will not dwell on the +possible impression produced on a sensitive nature by reading one's own +premature obituary, as I have told you has been my recent experience. I +will not stop to think whether the urgent request for an autograph by +return post, in view of the possible contingencies which might render it +the last one was ever to write, is pleasing or not. At threescore and +twenty one must expect such hints of what is like to happen before long. +I suppose, if some near friend were to watch one who was looking over +such a pressing letter, he might possibly see a slight shadow flit over +the reader's features, and some such dialogue might follow as that +between Othello and Iago, after "this honest creature" has been giving +breath to his suspicions about Desdemona: + + "I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits. + Not a jot, not a jot. + ............. + "My lord, I see you're moved." + +And a little later the reader might, like Othello, complain, + + "I have a pain upon my forehead here." + +Nothing more likely. But, for myself, I have grown callous to all such +allusions. The repetition of the Scriptural phrase for the natural term +of life is so frequent that it wears out one's sensibilities. + +But how many charming and refreshing letters I have received! How often +I have felt their encouragement in moments of doubt and depression, such +as the happiest temperaments must sometimes experience! + +If the time comes when to answer all my kind unknown friends, even by +dictation, is impossible, or more than I feel equal to, I wish to refer +any of those who may feel disappointed at not receiving an answer to the +following general acknowledgments: + +I. I am always grateful for any attention which shows me that I am +kindly remembered.--II. Your pleasant message has been read to me, and +has been thankfully listened to.--III. Your book (your essay) (your +poem) has reached me safely, and has received all the respectful +attention to which it seemed entitled. It would take more than all the +time I have at my disposal to read all the printed matter and all the +manuscripts which are sent to me, and you would not ask me to attempt the +impossible. You will not, therefore, expect me to express a critical +opinion of your work.--IV. I am deeply sensible to your expressions of +personal attachment to me as the author of certain writings which have +brought me very near to you, in virtue of some affinity in our ways of +thought and moods of feeling. Although I cannot keep up correspondences +with many of my readers who seem to be thoroughly congenial with myself, +let them be assured that their letters have been read or heard with +peculiar gratification, and are preserved as precious treasures. + +I trust that after this notice no correspondent will be surprised to find +his or her letter thus answered by anticipation; and that if one of the +above formulae is the only answer he receives, the unknown friend will +remember that he or she is one of a great many whose incessant demands +have entirely outrun my power of answering them as fully as the +applicants might wish and perhaps expect. + +I could make a very interesting volume of the letters I have received +from correspondents unknown to the world of authorship, but writing from +an instinctive impulse, which many of them say they have long felt and +resisted. One must not allow himself to be flattered into an +overestimate of his powers because he gets many letters expressing a +peculiar attraction towards his books, and a preference of them to those +with which he would not have dared to compare his own. Still, if the +homo unius libri--the man of one book--choose to select one of our own +writing as his favorite volume, it means something,--not much, perhaps; +but if one has unlocked the door to the secret entrance of one heart, it +is not unlikely that his key may fit the locks of others. What if nature +has lent him a master key? He has found the wards and slid back the bolt +of one lock; perhaps he may have learned the secret of others. One +success is an encouragement to try again. Let the writer of a truly +loving letter, such as greets one from time to time, remember that, +though he never hears a word from it, it may prove one of the best +rewards of an anxious and laborious past, and the stimulus of a still +aspiring future. + +Among the letters I have recently received, none is more interesting than +the following. The story of Helen Keller, who wrote it, is told in the +well-known illustrated magazine called "The Wide Awake," in the number +for July, 1888. For the account of this little girl, now between nine +and ten years old, and other letters of her writing, I must refer to the +article I have mentioned. It is enough to say that she is deaf and dumb +and totally blind. She was seven years old when her teacher, Miss +Sullivan, under the direction of Mr. Anagnos, at the Blind Asylum at +South Boston, began her education. A child fuller of life and happiness +it would be hard to find. It seems as if her soul was flooded with light +and filled with music that had found entrance to it through avenues +closed to other mortals. It is hard to understand how she has learned to +deal with abstract ideas, and so far to supplement the blanks left by the +senses of sight and hearing that one would hardly think of her as wanting +in any human faculty. Remember Milton's pathetic picture of himself, +suffering from only one of poor little Helen's deprivations: + + "Not to me returns + Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, + Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, + Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; + But cloud instead, and ever-during dark + Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men + Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair + Presented with a universal blank + Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased, + And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." + +Surely for this loving and lovely child does + + "the celestial Light + Shine inward." + +Anthropologist, metaphysician, most of all theologian, here is a lesson +which can teach you much that you will not find in your primers and +catechisms. Why should I call her "poor little Helen"? Where can you +find a happier child? + +SOUTH BOSTON, MASS., March 1, 1890. + +DEAR KIND POET,--I have thought of you many times since that bright +Sunday when I bade you goodbye, and I am going to write you a letter +because I love you. I am sorry that you have no little children to play +with sometimes, but I think you are very happy with your books, and your +many, many friends. On Washington's Birthday a great many people came +here to see the little blind children, and I read for them from your +poems, and showed them some beautiful shells which came from a little +island near Palos. I am reading a very sad story called "Little Jakey." +Jakey was the sweetest little fellow you can imagine, but he was poor and +blind. I used to think, when I was small and before I could read, that +everybody was always happy, and at first it made me very sad to know +about pain and great sorrow; but now I know that we could never learn to +be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world. I am studying +about insects in Zoology, and I have learned many things about +butterflies. They do not make honey for us, like the bees, but many of +them are as beautiful as the flowers they light upon, and they always +delight the hearts of little children. They live a gay life, flitting +from flower to flower, sipping the drops of honey-dew, without a thought +for the morrow. They are just like little boys and girls when they +forget books and studies, and run away to the woods and the fields to +gather wild-flowers, or wade in the ponds for fragrant lilies, happy in +the bright sunshine. If my little sister comes to Boston next June, will +you let me bring her to see you? She is a lovely baby and I am sure you +will love [her]. Now I must tell my gentle poet good-bye, for I have a +letter to write home before I go to bed. From your loving little friend, +HELEN A. KELLER. + +The reading of this letter made many eyes glisten, and a dead silence +hushed the whole circle. All at once Delilah, our pretty table-maid, +forgot her place,--what business had she to be listening to our +conversation and reading?--and began sobbing, just as if she had been a +lady. She could n't help it, she explained afterwards,--she had a little +blind sister at the asylum, who had told her about Helen's reading to the +children. + +It was very awkward, this breaking-down of our pretty Delilah, for one +girl crying will sometimes set off a whole row of others,--it is as +hazardous as lighting one cracker in a bunch. The two Annexes hurried +out their pocket-handkerchiefs, and I almost expected a semi-hysteric +cataclysm. At this critical moment Number Five called Delilah to her, +looked into her face with those calm eyes of hers, and spoke a few soft +words. Was Number Five forgetful, too? Did she not remember the +difference of their position? I suppose so. But she quieted the poor +handmaiden as simply and easily as a nursing mother quiets her unweaned +baby. Why are we not all in love with Number Five? Perhaps we are. At +any rate, I suspect the Professor. When we all get quiet, I will touch +him up about that visit she promised to make to his laboratory. + +I got a chance at last to speak privately with him. + +"Did Number Five go to meet you in your laboratory, as she talked of +doing?" + +"Oh, yes, of course she did,--why, she said she would!" + +"Oh, to be sure. Do tell me what she wanted in your laboratory." + +"She wanted me to burn a diamond for her." + +"Burn a diamond! What was that for? Because Cleopatra swallowed a +pearl?" + +"No, nothing of that kind. It was a small stone, and had a flaw in it. +Number Five said she did n't want a diamond with a flaw in it, and that +she did want to see how a diamond would burn." + +"Was that all that happened?" + +"That was all. She brought the two Annexes with her, and I gave my three +visitors a lecture on carbon, which they seemed to enjoy very much." + +I looked steadily in the Professor's face during the reading of the +following poem. I saw no questionable look upon it,--but he has a +remarkable command of his features. Number Five read it with a certain +archness of expression, as if she saw all its meaning, which I think some +of the company did not quite take in. They said they must read it slowly +and carefully. Somehow, "I like you" and "I love you" got a little +mixed, as they heard it. It was not Number Five's fault, for she read it +beautifully, as we all agreed, and as I knew she would when I handed it +to her. + + I LIKE YOU AND I LOVE YOU. + + I LIKE YOU met I LOVE YOU, face to face; + The path was narrow, and they could not pass. + I LIKE YOU smiled; I LOVE YOU cried, Alas! + And so they halted for a little space. + + "Turn thou and go before," I LOVE YOU said, + "Down the green pathway, bright with many a flower + Deep in the valley, lo! my bridal bower + Awaits thee." But I LIKE YOU shook his head. + + Then while they lingered on the span-wide shelf + That shaped a pathway round the rocky ledge, + I LIKE YOU bared his icy dagger's edge, + And first he slew I LOVE YOU,--then himself. + + + + +VII + +There is no use in burdening my table with those letters of inquiry as to +where our meetings are held, and what are the names of the persons +designated by numbers, or spoken of under the titles of the Professor, +the Tutor, and so forth. It is enough that you are aware who I am, and +that I am known at the tea-table as The Dictator. Theatrical "asides" are +apt to be whispered in a pretty loud voice, and the persons who ought not +to have any idea of what is said are expected to be reasonably hard of +bearing. If I named all The Teacups, some of them might be offended. If +any of my readers happen to be able to identify any one Teacup by some +accidental circumstance,--say, for instance, Number Five, by the incident +of her burning the diamond,--I hope they will keep quiet about it. +Number Five does n't want to be pointed out in the street as the +extravagant person who makes use of such expensive fuel, for the story +would soon grow to a statement that she always uses diamonds, instead of +cheaper forms of carbon, to heat her coffee with. So with other members +of the circle. The "Cracked Teacup," Number Seven, would not, perhaps, +be pleased to recognize himself under that title. I repeat it, +therefore, Do not try to identify the individual Teacups. You will not +get them right; or, if you do, you may too probably make trouble. How is +it possible that I can keep up my freedom of intercourse with you all if +you insist on bellowing my "asides" through a speaking-trumpet? Besides, +you cannot have failed to see that there are strong symptoms of the +springing up of delicate relations between some of our number. I told +you how it would be. It did not require a prophet to foresee that the +saucy intruder who, as Mr. Willis wrote, and the dear dead girls used to +sing, in our young days, + + "Taketh every form of air, + And every shape of earth, + And comes unbidden everywhere, + Like thought's mysterious birth," + +would pop his little curly head up between one or more pairs of Teacups. +If you will stop these questions, then, I will go on with my reports of +what was said and done at our meetings over the teacups. + +Of all things beautiful in this fair world, there is nothing so +enchanting to look upon, to dream about, as the first opening of the +flower of young love. How closely the calyx has hidden the glowing +leaves in its quiet green mantle! Side by side, two buds have been +tossing jauntily in the breeze, often brought very near to each other, +sometimes touching for a moment, with a secret thrill in their +close-folded heart-leaves, it may be, but still the cool green sepals +shutting tight over the burning secret within. All at once a morning ray +touches one of the two buds, and the point of a blushing petal betrays +the imprisoned and swelling blossom. + +--Oh, no, I did not promise a love-story. There may be a little +sentiment now and then, but these papers are devoted chiefly to the +opinions, prejudices, fancies, whims, of myself, The Dictator, and others +of The Teacups who have talked or written for the general benefit of the +company. + +Here are some of the remarks I made the other evening on the subject of +Intellectual Over-Feeding and its consequence, Mental Dyspepsia. There is +something positively appalling in the amount of printed matter yearly, +monthly, weekly, daily, secreted by that great gland of the civilized +organism, the press. I need not dilate upon this point, for it is +brought home to every one of you who ever looks into a bookstore or a +public library. So large is the variety of literary products continually +coming forward, forced upon the attention of the reader by stimulating +and suggestive titles, commended to his notice by famous names, recasting +old subjects and developing and illustrating new ones, that the mind is +liable to be urged into a kind of unnatural hunger, leading to a +repletion which is often followed by disgust and disturbed nervous +conditions as its natural consequence. + +It has long been a favorite rule with me, a rule which I have never lost +sight of, however imperfectly I have carried it out: Try to know enough +of a wide range of subjects to profit by the conversation of intelligent +persons of different callings and various intellectual gifts and +acquisitions. The cynic will paraphrase this into a shorter formula: Get +a smattering in every sort of knowledge. I must therefore add a second +piece of advice: Learn to hold as of small account the comments of the +cynic. He is often amusing, sometimes really witty, occasionally, +without meaning it, instructive; but his talk is to profitable +conversation what the stone is to the pulp of the peach, what the cob is +to the kernels on an ear of Indian corn. Once more: Do not be bullied out +of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant, with +all his knowledge and valuable qualities, and will "cavil on the ninth +part of a hair," if it will give him a chance to show off his idle +erudition. + +I saw attributed to me, the other day, the saying, "Know something about +everything, and everything about something." I am afraid it does not +belong to me, but I will treat it as I used to treat a stray boat which +came through my meadow, floating down the Housatonic,--get hold of it and +draw it ashore, and hold on to it until the owner turns up. If this +precept is used discreetly, it is very serviceable; but it is as well to +recognize the fact that you cannot know something about everything in +days like these of intellectual activity, of literary and scientific +production. We all feel this. It makes us nervous to see the shelves of +new books, many of which we feel as if we ought to read, and some among +them to study. We must adopt some principle of selection among the books +outside of any particular branch which we may have selected for study. I +have often been asked what books I would recommend for a course of +reading. I have always answered that I had a great deal rather take +advice than give it. Fortunately, a number of scholars have furnished +lists of books to which the inquirer may be directed. But the worst of +it is that each student is in need of a little library specially adapted +to his wants. Here is a young man writing to me from a Western college, +and wants me to send him a list of the books which I think would be most +useful to him. He does not send me his intellectual measurements, and he +might as well have sent to a Boston tailor for a coat, without any hint +of his dimensions in length, breadth, and thickness. + +But instead of laying down rules for reading, and furnishing lists of the +books which should be read in order, I will undertake the much humbler +task of giving a little quasi-medical advice to persons, young or old, +suffering from book-hunger, book-surfeit, book-nervousness, +book-indigestion, book-nausea, and all other maladies which, directly or +indirectly, may be traced to books, and to which I could give Greek or +Latin names if I thought it worth while. + +I have a picture hanging in my library, a lithograph, of which many of my +readers may have seen copies. It represents a gray-haired old book-lover +at the top of a long flight of steps. He finds himself in clover, so to +speak, among rare old editions, books he has longed to look upon and +never seen before, rarities, precious old volumes, incunabula, +cradle-books, printed while the art was in its infancy,--its glorious +infancy, for it was born a giant. The old bookworm is so intoxicated +with the sight and handling of the priceless treasures that he cannot +bear to put one of the volumes back after he has taken it from the shelf. +So there he stands,--one book open in his hands, a volume under each arm, +and one or more between his legs,--loaded with as many as he can possibly +hold at the same time. + +Now, that is just the way in which the extreme form of book-hunger shows +itself in the reader whose appetite has become over-developed. He wants +to read so many books that he over-crams himself with the crude materials +of knowledge, which become knowledge only when the mental digestion has +time to assimilate them. I never can go into that famous "Corner +Bookstore" and look over the new books in the row before me, as I enter +the door, without seeing half a dozen which I want to read, or at least +to know something about. I cannot empty my purse of its contents, and +crowd my bookshelves with all those volumes. The titles of many of them +interest me. I look into one or two, perhaps. I have sometimes picked +up a line or a sentence, in these momentary glances between the uncut +leaves of a new book, which I have never forgotten. As a trivial but +bona fide example, one day I opened a book on duelling. I remember only +these words: "Conservons-la, cette noble institution." I had never +before seen duelling called a noble institution, and I wish I had taken +the name of the book. Book-tasting is not necessarily profitless, but it +is very stimulating, and makes one hungry for more than he needs for the +nourishment of his thinking-marrow. To feed this insatiable hunger, the +abstracts, the reviews, do their best. But these, again, have grown so +numerous and so crowded with matter that it is hard to find time to +master their contents. We are accustomed, therefore, to look for +analyses of these periodicals, and at last we have placed before us a +formidable-looking monthly, "The Review of Reviews." After the analyses +comes the newspaper notice; and there is still room for the epigram, +which sometimes makes short work with all that has gone before on the +same subject. + +It is just as well to recognize the fact that if one should read day and +night, confining himself to his own language, he could not pretend to +keep up with the press. He might as well try to race with a locomotive. +The first discipline, therefore, is that of despair. If you could stick +to your reading day and night for fifty years, what a learned idiot you +would become long before the half-century was over! Well, then, there is +no use in gorging one's self with knowledge, and no need of self-reproach +because one is content to remain more or less ignorant of many things +which interest his fellow-creatures. We gain a good deal of knowledge +through the atmosphere; we learn a great deal by accidental hearsay, +provided we have the mordant in our own consciousness which makes the +wise remark, the significant fact, the instructive incident, take hold +upon it. After the stage of despair comes the period of consolation. We +soon find that we are not so much worse off than most of our neighbors as +we supposed. The fractional value of the wisest shows a small numerator +divided by an infinite denominator of knowledge. + +I made some explanations to The Teacups, the other evening, which they +received very intelligently and graciously, as I have no doubt the +readers of these reports of mine will receive them. If the reader will +turn back to the end of the fourth number of these papers, he will find +certain lines entitled, "Cacoethes Scribendi." They were said to have +been taken from the usual receptacle of the verses which are contributed +by The Teacups, and, though the fact was not mentioned, were of my own +composition. I found them in manuscript in my drawer, and as my subject +had naturally suggested the train of thought they carried out into +extravagance, I printed them. At the same time they sounded very +natural, as we say, and I felt as if I had published them somewhere or +other before; but I could find no evidence of it, and so I ventured to +have them put in type. + +And here I wish to take breath for a short, separate paragraph. I have +often felt, after writing a line which pleased me more than common, that +it was not new, and perhaps was not my own. I have very rarely, however, +found such a coincidence in ideas or expression as would be enough to +justify an accusation of unconscious plagiarism,--conscious plagiarism is +not my particular failing. I therefore say my say, set down my thought, +print my line, and do not heed the suspicion that I may not be as +original as I supposed, in the passage I have been writing. My +experience may be worth something to a modest young writer, and so I have +interrupted what I was about to say by intercalating this paragraph. + +In this instance my telltale suspicion had not been at fault. I had +printed those same lines, years ago, in "The Contributors' Club," to +which I have rarely sent any of my prose or verse. Nobody but the editor +has noticed the fact, so far as I know. This is consoling, or +mortifying, I hardly know which. I suppose one has a right to plagiarize +from himself, but he does not want to present his work as fresh from the +workshop when it has been long standing in his neighbor's shop-window. + +But I have just received a letter from a brother of the late Henry Howard +Brownell, the poet of the Bay Fight and the River Fight, in which he +quotes a passage from an old book, "A Heroine, Adventures of Cherubina," +which might well have suggested my own lines, if I had ever seen it. I +have not the slightest recollection of the book or the passage. I think +its liveliness and "local color" will make it please the reader, as it +pleases me, more than my own more prosaic extravagances: + + LINES TO A PRETTY LITTLE MAID OF MAMMA'S. + + "If Black Sea, Red Sea, White Sea, ran + One tide of ink to Ispahan, + If all the geese in Lincoln fens + Produced spontaneous well-made pens, + If Holland old and Holland new + One wondrous sheet of paper grew, + And could I sing but half the grace + Of half a freckle in thy face, + Each syllable I wrote would reach + From Inverness to Bognor's beach, + Each hair-stroke be a river Rhine, + Each verse an equinoctial line!" + +"The immediate dismissal of the 'little maid' was the consequence." + +I may as well say that our Delilah was not in the room when the last +sentence was read. + +Readers must be either very good-natured or very careless. I have laid +myself open to criticism by more than one piece of negligence, which has +been passed over without invidious comment by the readers of my papers. +How could I, for instance, have written in my original "copy" for the +printer about the fisherman baiting his hook with a giant's tail instead +of a dragon's? It is the automatic fellow,--Me--Number-Two of our dual +personality,--who does these things, who forgets the message +Me--Number--One sends down to him from the cerebral convolutions, and +substitutes a wrong word for the right one. I suppose Me--Number--Two +will "sass back," and swear that "giant's" was the message which came +down from headquarters. He is always doing the wrong thing and excusing +himself. Who blows out the gas instead of shutting it off? Who puts the +key in the desk and fastens it tight with the spring lock? Do you mean +to say that the upper Me, the Me of the true thinking-marrow, the +convolutions of the brain, does not know better? Of course he does, and +Me-Number-Two is a careless servant, who remembers some old direction, +and follows that instead of the one just given. + +Number Seven demurred to this, and I am not sure that he is wrong in so +doing. He maintains that the automatic fellow always does just what he +is told to do. Number Five is disposed to agree with him. We will talk +over the question. + +But come, now, why should not a giant have a tail as well as a dragon? +Linnaeus admitted the homo caudatus into his anthropological catalogue. +The human embryo has a very well marked caudal appendage; that is, the +vertebral column appears prolonged, just as it is in a young quadruped. +During the late session of the Medical Congress at Washington, my friend +Dr. Priestley, a distinguished London physician, of the highest character +and standing, showed me the photograph of a small boy, some three or four +years old, who had a very respectable little tail, which would have +passed muster on a pig, and would have made a frog or a toad ashamed of +himself. I have never heard what became of the little boy, nor have I +looked in the books or journals to find out if there are similar cases on +record, but I have no doubt that there are others. And if boys may have +this additional ornament to their vertebral columns, why not men? And if +men, why not giants? So I may not have made a very bad blunder, after +all, and my reader has learned something about the homo caudatus as +spoken of by Linnxus, and as shown me in photograph by Dr. Priestley. +This child is a candidate for the vacant place of Missing Link. + +In accounting for the blunders, and even gross blunders, which, sooner or +later, one who writes much is pretty sure to commit, I must not forget +the part played by the blind spot or idiotic area in the brain, which I +have already described. + +The most knowing persons we meet with are sometimes at fault. Nova +onania possumus omnes is not a new nor profound axiom, but it is well to +remember it as a counterpoise to that other truly American saying of the +late Mr. Samuel Patch, "Some things can be done as well as others." Yes, +some things, but not all things. We all know men and women who hate to +admit their ignorance of anything. Like Talkative in "Pilgrim's +Progress," they are ready to converse of "things heavenly or things +earthly; things moral or things evangelical; things sacred or things +profane; things past or things to come; things foreign or things at home; +things more essential or things circumstantial." + +Talkative is apt to be a shallow fellow, and to say foolish things about +matters he only half understands, and yet he has his place in society. +The specialists would grow to be intolerable, were they not counterpoised +to some degree by the people of general intelligence. The man who knows +too much about one particular subject is liable to become a terrible +social infliction. Some of the worst bores (to use plain language) we +ever meet with are recognized as experts of high grade in their +respective departments. Beware of making so much as a pinhole in the dam +that holds back their knowledge. They ride their hobbies without bit or +bridle. A poet on Pegasus, reciting his own verses, is hardly more to be +dreaded than a mounted specialist. + +One of the best offices which women perform for men is that of tasting +books for them. They may or may not be profound students,--some of them +are; but we do not expect to meet women like Mrs. Somerville, or Caroline +Herschel, or Maria Mitchell at every dinner-table or afternoon tea. But +give your elect lady a pile of books to look over for you, and she will +tell you what they have for her and for you in less time than you would +have wasted in stupefying yourself over a single volume. + +One of the encouraging signs of the times is the condensed and +abbreviated form in which knowledge is presented to the general reader. +The short biographies of historic personages, of which within the past +few years many have been published, have been a great relief to the large +class of readers who want to know something, but not too much, about +them. + +What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling +that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only +long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred? Many readers remember +what old Rogers, the poet, said: + +"When I hear a new book talked about or have it pressed upon me, I read +an old one." + +Happy the man who finds his rest in the pages of some favorite classic! +I know no reader more to be envied than that friend of mine who for many +years has given his days and nights to the loving study of Horace. After +a certain period in life, it is always with an effort that we admit a new +author into the inner circle of our intimates. The Parisian omnibuses, +as I remember them half a century ago,--they may still keep to the same +habit, for aught that I know,--used to put up the sign "Complet" as soon +as they were full. Our public conveyances are never full until the +natural atmospheric pressure of sixteen pounds to the square inch is +doubled, in the close packing of the human sardines that fill the +all-accommodating vehicles. A new-comer, however well mannered and well +dressed, is not very welcome under these circumstances. In the same way, +our tables are full of books half-read and books we feel that we must +read. And here come in two thick volumes, with uncut leaves, in small +type, with many pages, and many lines to a page,--a book that must be +read and ought to be read at once. What a relief to hand it over to the +lovely keeper of your literary conscience, who will tell you all that you +will most care to know about it, and leave you free to plunge into your +beloved volume, in which you are ever finding new beauties, and from +which you rise refreshed, as if you had just come from the cool waters of +Hippocrene! The stream of modern literature represented by the books and +periodicals on the crowded counters is a turbulent and clamorous torrent, +dashing along among the rocks of criticism, over the pebbles of the +world's daily events; trying to make itself seen and heard amidst the +hoarse cries of the politicians and the rumbling wheels of traffic. The +classic is a still lakelet, a mountain tarn, fed by springs that never +fail, its surface never ruffled by storms,--always the same, always +smiling a welcome to its visitor. Such is Horace to my friend. To his +eye "Lydia, dic per omnes" is as familiar as "Pater noster qui es in +caelis" to that of a pious Catholic. "Integer vitae," which he has put +into manly English, his Horace opens to as Watt's hymn-book opens to +"From all that dwell below the skies." The more he reads, the more he +studies his author, the richer are the treasures he finds. And what +Horace is to him, Homer, or Virgil, or Dante is to many a quiet reader, +sick to death of the unending train of bookmakers. + +I have some curious books in my library, a few of which I should like to +say something about to The Teacups, when they have no more immediately +pressing subjects before them. A library of a few thousand volumes ought +always to have some books in it which the owner almost never opens, yet +with whose backs he is so well acquainted that he feels as if he knew +something of their contents. They are like those persons whom we meet in +our daily walks, with whose faces and figures, whose summer and winter +garments, whose walking-sticks and umbrellas even, we feel acquainted, +and yet whose names, whose business, whose residences, we know nothing +about. Some of these books are so formidable in their dimensions, so +rusty and crabbed in their aspect, that it takes a considerable amount of +courage to attack them. + +I will ask Delilah to bring down from my library a very thick, stout +volume, bound in parchment, and standing on the lower shelf, next the +fireplace. The pretty handmaid knows my books almost as if she were my +librarian, and I don't doubt she would have found it if I had given only +the name on the back. + +Delilah returned presently, with the heavy quarto in her arms. It was a +pleasing sight,--the old book in the embrace of the fresh young damsel. +I felt, on looking at them, as I did when I followed the slip of a girl +who conducted us in the Temple, that ancient building in the heart of +London. The long-enduring monuments of the dead do so mock the fleeting +presence of the living! + +Is n't this book enough to scare any of you? I said, as Delilah dumped +it down upon the table. The teacups jumped from their saucers as it +thumped on the board. Danielis Georgii Morhofii Polyhistor, Literarius, +Philosophicus et Poeticus. Lubecae MDCCXXXIII. Perhaps I should not +have ventured to ask you to look at this old volume, if it had not been +for the fact that Dr. Johnson mentions Morohof as the author to whom he +was specially indebted.--more, I think, than to any other. It is a grand +old encyclopaedic summary of all the author knew about pretty nearly +everything, full of curious interest, but so strangely mediaeval, so +utterly antiquated in most departments of knowledge, that it is hard to +believe the volume came from the press at a time when persons whom I well +remember were living. Is it possible that the books which have been for +me what Morhof was for Dr. Johnson can look like that to the student of +the year 1990? + +Morhof was a believer in magic and the transmutation of metals. There was +always something fascinating to me in the old books of alchemy. I have +felt that the poetry of science lost its wings when the last powder of +projection had been cast into the crucible, and the fire of the last +transmutation furnace went out. Perhaps I am wrong in implying that +alchemy is an extinct folly. It existed in New England's early days, as +we learn from the Winthrop papers, and I see no reason why gold-making +should not have its votaries as well as other popular delusions. + +Among the essays of Morhof is one on the "Paradoxes of the Senses." That +title brought to mind the recollection of another work I have been +meaning to say something about, at some time when you were in the +listening mood. The book I refer to is "A Budget of Paradoxes," by +Augustus De Morgan. De Morgan is well remembered as a very distinguished +mathematician, whose works have kept his name in high honor to the +present time. The book I am speaking of was published by his widow, and +is largely made up of letters received by him and his comments upon them. +Few persons ever read it through. Few intelligent readers ever took it +up and laid it down without taking a long draught of its singular and +interesting contents. The letters are mostly from that class of persons +whom we call "cranks," in our familiar language. + +At this point Number Seven interrupted me by calling out, "Give us some +of those cranks' letters. A crank is a man who does his own thinking. I +had a relation who was called a crank. I believe I have been spoken of +as one myself. That is what you have to expect if you invent anything +that puts an old machine out of fashion, or solve a problem that has +puzzled all the world up to your time. There never was a religion +founded but its Messiah was called a crank. There never was an idea +started that woke up men out of their stupid indifference but its +originator was spoken of as a crank. Do you want to know why that name +is given to the men who do most for the world's progress? I will tell +you. It is because cranks make all the wheels in all the machinery of +the world go round. What would a steam-engine be without a crank? I +suppose the first fool that looked on the first crank that was ever made +asked what that crooked, queer-looking thing was good for. When the +wheels got moving he found out. Tell us something about that book which +has so much to say concerning cranks." + +Hereupon I requested Delilah to carry back Morhof, and replace him in the +wide gap he had left in the bookshelf. She was then to find and bring +down the volume I had been speaking of. + +Delilah took the wisdom of the seventeenth century in her arms, and +departed on her errand. The book she brought down was given me some +years ago by a gentleman who had sagaciously foreseen that it was just +one of those works which I might hesitate about buying, but should be +well pleased to own. He guessed well; the book has been a great source +of instruction and entertainment to me. I wonder that so much time and +cost should have been expended upon a work which might have borne a title +like the Encomium Moriae of Erasmus; and yet it is such a wonderful +museum of the productions of the squinting brains belonging to the class +of persons commonly known as cranks that we could hardly spare one of its +five hundred octavo pages. + +Those of us who are in the habit of receiving letters from all sorts of +would-be-literary people--letters of inquiry, many of them with reference +to matters we are supposed to understand--can readily see how it was that +Mr. De Morgan, never too busy to be good-natured with the people who +pestered--or amused-him with their queer fancies, received such a number +of letters from persons who thought they had made great discoveries, from +those who felt that they and their inventions and contrivances had been +overlooked, and who sought in his large charity of disposition and great +receptiveness a balm for their wounded feelings and a ray of hope for +their darkened prospects. + +The book before us is made up from papers published in "The Athenaeum," +with additions by the author. Soon after opening it we come to names +with which we are familiar, the first of these, that of Cornelius +Agrippa, being connected with the occult and mystic doctrines dealt with +by many of De Morgan's correspondents. But the name most likely to +arrest us is that of Giordano Bruno, the same philosopher, heretic, and +martyr whose statue has recently been erected in Rome, to the great +horror of the Pope and his prelates in the Old World and in the New. De +Morgan's pithy account of him will interest the company: "Giordano Bruno +was all paradox. He was, as has been said, a vorticist before Descartes, +an optimist before Leibnitz, a Copernican before Galileo. It would be +easy to collect a hundred strange opinions of his. He was born about +1550, and was roasted alive at Rome, February 17, 1600, for the +maintenance and defence of the Holy Church, and the rights and liberties +of the same." + +Number Seven could not contain himself when the reading had reached this +point. He rose from his chair, and tinkled his spoon against the side of +his teacup. It may have been a fancy, but I thought it returned a sound +which Mr. Richard Briggs would have recognized as implying an organic +defect. But Number Seven did not seem to notice it, or, if he did, to +mind it. + +"Why did n't we all have a chance to help erect that statue?" he cried. +"A murdered heretic at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a hero +of knowledge in the nineteenth,--I drink to the memory of the roasted +crank, Giordano Bruno!" + +Number Seven lifted his teacup to his lips, and most of us followed his +example. + +After this outburst of emotion and eloquence had subsided, and the +teaspoons lay quietly in their saucers, I went on with my extract from +the book I had in hand. + +I think, I said, that the passage which follows will be new and +instructive to most of the company. De Morgan's interpretation of the +cabalistic sentence, made up as you will find it, is about as ingenious a +piece of fanciful exposition as you will be likely to meet with anywhere +in any book, new or old. I am the more willing to mention it as it +suggests a puzzle which some of the company may like to work upon. +Observe the character and position of the two distinguished philosophers +who did not think their time thrown away in laboring at this seemingly +puerile task. + +"There is a kind of Cabbala Alphabetica which the investigators of the +numerals in words would do well to take up; it is the formation of +sentences which contain all the letters of the alphabet, and each only +once. No one has done it with v and j treated as consonants; but you and +I can do it. Dr. Whewell and I amused ourselves some years ago with +attempts. He could not make sense, though he joined words he gave me +Phiz, styx, wrong, buck, flame, quiz. + +"I gave him the following, which he agreed was 'admirable sense,'--I +certainly think the words would never have come together except in this +way: I quartz pyx who fling muck beds. I long thought that no human +being could say this under any circumstances. At last I happened to be +reading a religious writer,--as he thought himself,--who threw aspersions +on his opponents thick and threefold. Heyday came into my head; this +fellow flings muck beds; he must be a quartz pyx. And then I remembered +that a pyx is a sacred vessel, and quartz is a hard stone, as hard as the +heart of a religious foe-curser. So that the line is the motto of the +ferocious sectarian who turns his religious vessels into mud-holders, for +the benefit of those who will not see what he sees." + +"There are several other sentences given, in which all the letters +(except v and j as consonants) are employed, of which the following is +the best: Get nymph; quiz sad brow; fix luck,--which in more sober +English would be, Marry; be cheerful; watch your business. There is more +edification, more religion, in this than in all the 666 interpretations +put together." + +There is something very pleasant in the thought of these two sages +playing at jackstraws with the letters of the alphabet. The task which +De Morgan and Dr. Whewell, "the omniscient," set themselves would not be +unworthy of our own ingenious scholars, and it might be worth while for +some one of our popular periodicals to offer a prize for the best +sentence using up the whole alphabet, under the same conditions as those +submitted to by our two philosophers. + +This whole book of De Morgan's seems to me full of instruction. There is +too much of it, no doubt; yet one can put up with the redundancy for the +sake of the multiplicity of shades of credulity and self-deception it +displays in broad daylight. I suspect many of us are conscious of a +second personality in our complex nature, which has many traits +resembling those found in the writers of the letters addressed to Mr. De +Horgan. + +I have not ventured very often nor very deeply into the field of +metaphysics, but if I were disposed to make any claim in that direction, +it would be the recognition of the squinting brain, the introduction of +the term "cerebricity" corresponding to electricity, the idiotic area in +the brain or thinking-marrow, and my studies of the second member in the +partnership of I-My-Self & Co. I add the Co. with especial reference to +a very interesting article in a late Scribner, by my friend Mr. William +James. In this article the reader will find a full exposition of the +doctrine of plural personality illustrated by striking cases. I have +long ago noticed and referred to the fact of the stratification of the +currents of thought in three layers, one over the other. I have +recognized that where there are two individuals talking together there +are really six personalities engaged in the conversation. But the +distinct, separable, independent individualities, taking up conscious +life one after the other, are brought out by Mr. James and the +authorities to which he refers as I have not elsewhere seen them +developed. + +Whether we shall ever find the exact position of the idiotic centre or +area in the brain (if such a spot exists) is uncertain. We know exactly +where the blind spot of the eye is situated, and can demonstrate it +anatomically and physiologically. But we have only analogy to lead us to +infer the possible or even probable existence of an insensible spot in +the thinking-centre. If there is a focal point where consciousness is at +its highest development, it would not be strange if near by there should +prove to be an anaesthetic district or limited space where no report from +the senses was intelligently interpreted. But all this is mere +hypothesis. + +Notwithstanding the fact that I am nominally the head personage of the +circle of Teacups, I do not pretend or wish to deny that we all look to +Number Five as our chief adviser in all the literary questions that come +before us. She reads more and better than any of us. She is always +ready to welcome the first sign of genius, or of talent which approaches +genius. She makes short work with all the pretenders whose only excuse +for appealing to the public is that they "want to be famous." She is one +of the very few persons to whom I am willing to read any one of my own +productions while it is yet in manuscript, unpublished. I know she is +disposed to make more of it than it deserves; but, on the other hand, +there are degrees in her scale of judgment, and I can distinguish very +easily what delights her from what pleases only, or is, except for her +kindly feeling to the writer, indifferent, or open to severe comment. +What is curious is that she seems to have no literary aspirations, no +desire to be known as a writer. Yet Number Five has more esprit, more +sparkle, more sense in her talk, than many a famous authoress from whom +we should expect brilliant conversation. + +There are mysteries about Number Five. I am not going to describe her +personally. Whether she belongs naturally among the bright young people, +or in the company of the maturer persons, who have had a good deal of +experience of the world, and have reached the wisdom of the riper decades +without losing the graces of the earlier ones, it would be hard to say. +The men and women, young and old, who throng about her forget their own +ages. "There is no such thing as time in her presence," said the +Professor, the other day, in speaking of her. Whether the Professor is in +love with her or not is more than I can say, but I am sure that he goes +to her for literary sympathy and counsel, just as I do. The reader may +remember what Number Five said about the possibility of her getting a +sprained ankle, and her asking the young Doctor whether he felt equal to +taking charge of her if she did. I would not for the world insinuate +that he wishes she would slip and twist her foot a little,--just a +little, you know, but so that it would have to be laid on a pillow in a +chair, and inspected, and bandaged, and delicately manipulated. There +was a banana-skin which she might naturally have trodden on, in her way +to the tea-table. Nobody can suppose that it was there except by the +most innocent of accidents. There are people who will suspect everybody. +The idea of the Doctor's putting that banana-skin there! People love to +talk in that silly way about doctors. + +Number Five had promised to read us a narrative which she thought would +interest some of the company. Who wrote it she did not tell us, but I +inferred from various circumstances that she had known the writer. She +read the story most effectively in her rich, musical voice. I noticed +that when it came to the sounds of the striking clock, the ringing of the +notes was so like that which reaches us from some far-off cathedral tower +that we wanted to bow our heads, as if we had just heard a summons to the +Angelus. This was the short story that Number Five read to The +Teacups:-- + +I have somewhere read this anecdote. Louis the Fourteenth was looking +out, one day, from, a window of his palace of Saint-Germain. It was a +beautiful landscape which spread out before him, and the monarch, +exulting in health, strength, and the splendors of his exalted position, +felt his bosom swell with emotions of pride and happiness: Presently he +noticed the towers of a church in the distance, above the treetops. +"What building is that?" he asked. "May it please your Majesty, that is +the Church of St. Denis, where your royal ancestors have been buried for +many generations." The answer did not "please his Royal Majesty." +There, then, was the place where he too was to lie and moulder in the +dust. He turned, sick at heart, from the window, and was uneasy until he +had built him another palace, from which he could never be appalled by +that fatal prospect. + +Something like the experience of Louis the Fourteenth was that of the +owner of + + THE TERRIBLE CLOCK. + +I give the story as transcribed from the original manuscript:-- + +The clock was bequeathed to me by an old friend who had recently died. +His mind had been a good deal disordered in the later period of his life. +This clock, I am told; seemed to have a strange fascination for him. His +eyes were fastened on it during the last hours of his life. He died just +at midnight. The clock struck twelve, the nurse told me, as he drew his +last breath, and then, without any known cause, stopped, with both hands +upon the hour. + +It is a complex and costly piece of mechanism. The escapement is in +front, so that every tooth is seen as it frees itself. It shows the +phases of the moon, the month of the year, the day of the month, and the +day of the week, as well as the hour and minute of the day. + +I had not owned it a week before I began to perceive the same kind of +fascination as that which its former owner had experienced. This +gradually grew upon me, and presently led to trains of thought which +became at first unwelcome, then worrying, and at last unendurable. I +began by taking offence at the moon. I did not like to see that +"something large and smooth and round," so like the skull which little +Peterkin picked up on the field of Blenheim. "How many times," I kept +saying to myself, "is that wicked old moon coming up to stare at me?" I +could not stand it. I stopped a part of the machinery, and the moon went +into permanent eclipse. By and by the sounds of the infernal machine +began to trouble and pursue me. They talked to me; more and more their +language became that of articulately speaking men. They twitted me with +the rapid flight of time. They hurried me, as if I had not a moment to +lose. Quick! Quick! Quick! as each tooth released itself from the +escapement. And as I looked and listened there could not be any mistake +about it. I heard Quick! Quick! Quick! as plainly, at least, as I ever +heard a word from the phonograph. I stood watching the dial one day,--it +was near one o'clock,--and a strange attraction held me fastened to the +spot. Presently something appeared to trip or stumble inside of the +infernal mechanism. I waited for the sound I knew was to follow. How +nervous I got! It seemed to me that it would never strike. At last the +minute-hand reached the highest point of the dial. Then there was a +little stir among the works, as there is in a congregation as it rises to +receive the benediction. It was no form of blessing which rung out those +deep, almost sepulchral tones. But the word they uttered could not be +mistaken. I can hear its prolonged, solemn vibrations as if I were +standing before the clock at this moment. + +Gone! Yes, I said to myself, gone,--its record made up to be opened in +eternity. + +I stood still, staring vaguely at the dial as in a trance. And as the +next hour creeps stealthily up, it starts all at once, and cries aloud, +Gone!--Gone! The sun sinks lower, the hour-hand creeps downward with it, +until I hear the thrice-repeated monosyllable, Gone!--Gone!--Gone! Soon +through the darkening hours, until at the dead of night the long roll is +called, and with the last Gone! the latest of the long procession that +filled the day follows its ghostly companions into the stillness and +darkness of the past. + +I silenced the striking part of the works. Still, the escapement kept +repeating, Quick! Quick! Quick! Still the long minute-hand, like the +dart in the grasp of Death, as we see it in Roubiliac's monument to Mrs. +Nightingale, among the tombs of Westminster Abbey, stretched itself out, +ready to transfix each hour as it passed, and make it my last. I sat by +the clock to watch the leap from one day of the week to the next. Then +would come, in natural order, the long stride from one month to the +following one. + +I could endure it no longer. "Take that clock away!" I said. They took +it away. They took me away, too,--they thought I needed country air. +The sounds and motions still pursued me in imagination. I was very +nervous when I came here. The walks are pleasant, but the walls seem to +me unnecessarily high. The boarders are numerous; a little +miscellaneous, I think. But we have the Queen, and the President of the +United States, and several other distinguished persons, if we may trust +what they tell about themselves. + +After we had listened to Number Five's story, I was requested to read a +couple of verses written by me when the guest of my friends, whose name +is hinted by the title prefixed to my lines. + + LA MAISON D'OR. + + BAR HARBOR. + + From this fair home behold on either side + The restful mountains or the restless sea: + So the warm sheltering walls of life divide + Time and its tides from still eternity. + + Look on the waves: their stormy voices teach + That not on earth may toil and struggle cease. + Look on the mountains: better far than speech + Their silent promise of eternal peace. + + + + +VIII. + +I had intended to devote this particular report to an account of my +replies to certain questions which have been addressed to me,--questions +which I have a right to suppose interest the public, and which, +therefore, I was justified in bringing before The Teacups, and presenting +to the readers of these articles. + +Some may care for one of these questions, and some for another. A good +many young people think nothing about life as it presents itself in the +far horizon, bounded by the snowy ridges of threescore and the dim peaks +beyond that remote barrier. Again, there are numbers of persons who know +nothing at all about the Jews; while, on the other hand, there are those +who can, or think they can, detect the Israelitish blood in many of their +acquaintances who believe themselves of the purest Japhetic origin, and +are full of prejudices about the Semitic race. + +I do not mean to be cheated out of my intentions. I propose to answer my +questioners on the two points just referred to, but I find myself so much +interested in the personal affairs of The Teacups that I must deal with +them before attacking those less exciting subjects. There is no use, let +me say here, in addressing to me letters marked "personal," "private," +"confidential," and so forth, asking me how I came to know what happened +in certain conversations of which I shall give a partial account. If +there is a very sensitive phonograph lying about here and there in +unsuspected corners, that might account for some part of my revelations. +If Delilah, whose hearing is of almost supernatural delicacy, reports to +me what she overhears, it might explain a part of the mystery. I do not +want to accuse Delilah, but a young person who assures me she can hear my +watch ticking in my pocket, when I am in the next room, might undoubtedly +tell many secrets, if so disposed. Number Five is pretty nearly +omniscient, and she and I are on the best terms with each other. These +are all the hints I shall give you at present. + +The Teacups of whom the least has been heard at our table are the Tutor +and the Musician. The Tutor is a modest young man, kept down a little, I +think, by the presence of older persons, like the Professor and myself. +I have met him several times, of late, walking with different lady +Teacups: once with the American Annex; twice with the English Annex; once +with the two Annexes together; once with Number Five. + +I have mentioned the fact that the Tutor is a poet as among his claims to +our attention. I must add that I do not think any the worse of him for +expressing his emotions and experiences in verse. For though rhyming is +often a bad sign in a young man, especially if he is already out of his +teens, there are those to whom it is as natural, one might almost say as +necessary, as it is to a young bird to fly. One does not care to see +barnyard fowls tumbling about in trying to use their wings. They have a +pair of good, stout drumsticks, and had better keep to them, for the most +part. But that feeling does not apply to young eagles, or even to young +swallows and sparrows. The Tutor is by no means one of those ignorant, +silly, conceited phrase-tinklers, who live on the music of their own +jingling syllables and the flattery of their foolish friends. I think +Number Five must appreciate him. He is sincere, warmhearted,--his poetry +shows that,--not in haste to be famous, and he looks to me as if he only +wanted love to steady him. With one of those two young girls he ought +certainly to be captivated, if he is not already. Twice walking with the +English Annex, I met him, and they were so deeply absorbed in +conversation they hardly noticed me. He has been talking over the matter +with Number Five, who is just the kind of person for a confidante. + +"I know I feel very lonely," he was saying, "and I only wish I felt sure +that I could make another person happy. My life would be transfigured if +I could find such a one, whom I could love well enough to give my life to +her,--for her, if that were needful, and who felt an affinity for me, if +any one could." + +"And why not your English maiden?" said Number Five. + +"What makes you think I care more for her than for her American friend?" +said the Tutor. + +"Why, have n't I met you walking with her, and did n't you both seem +greatly interested in the subject you were discussing? I thought, of +course, it was something more or less sentimental that you were talking +about." + +"I was explaining that 'enclitic de' in Browning's Grammarian's Funeral. +I don't think there was anything very sentimental about that. She is an +inquisitive creature, that English girl. She is very fond of asking me +questions,--in fact, both of them are. There is one curious difference +between them: the English girl settles down into her answers and is +quiet; the American girl is never satisfied with yesterday's conclusions; +she is always reopening old questions in the light of some new fact or +some novel idea. I suppose that people bred from childhood to lean their +backs against the wall of the Creed and the church catechism find it hard +to sit up straight on the republican stool, which obliges them to stiffen +their own backs. Which of these two girls would be the safest choice for +a young man? I should really like to hear what answer you would make if I +consulted you seriously, with a view to my own choice,--on the +supposition that there was a fair chance that either of them might be +won." + +"The one you are in love with," answered Number Five. + +"But what if it were a case of 'How happy could I be with either'? Which +offers the best chance of happiness,--a marriage between two persons of +the same country, or a marriage where one of the parties is of foreign +birth? Everything else being equal, which is best for an American to +marry, an American or an English girl? We need not confine the question +to those two young persons, but put it more generally." + +"There are reasons on both sides," answered Number Five. "I have often +talked this matter over with The Dictator. This is the way he speaks +about it. English blood is apt to tell well on the stock upon which it +is engrafted. Over and over again he has noticed finely grown specimens +of human beings, and on inquiry has found that one or both of the parents +or grandparents were of British origin. The chances are that the +descendants of the imported stock will be of a richer organization, more +florid, more muscular, with mellower voices, than the native whose blood +has been unmingled with that of new emigrants since the earlier colonial +times.--So talks The Dictator.--I myself think the American will find his +English wife concentrates herself more readily and more exclusively on +her husband,--for the obvious reason that she is obliged to live mainly +in him. I remember hearing an old friend of my early days say, 'A woman +does not bear transplanting.' It does not do to trust these old sayings, +and yet they almost always have some foundation in the experience of +mankind, which has repeated them from generation to generation. Happy is +the married woman of foreign birth who can say to her husband, as +Andromache said to Hector, after enumerating all the dear relatives she +had lost, + + "'Yet while my hector still survives, + I see My father, mother, brethren, all in thee!' + +"How many a sorrowing wife, exiled from her native country, dreams of the +mother she shall see no more! How many a widow, in a strange land, +wishes that her poor, worn-out body could be laid among her kinsfolk, in +the little churchyard where she used to gather daisies in her childhood! +It takes a great deal of love to keep down the 'climbing sorrow' that +swells up in a woman's throat when such memories seize upon her, in her +moments of desolation. But if a foreign-born woman does willingly give +up all for a man, and never looks backward, like Lot's wife, she is a +prize that it is worth running a risk to gain,--that is, if she has the +making of a good woman in her; and a few years will go far towards +naturalizing her." + +The Tutor listened to Number Five with much apparent interest. "And +now," he said, "what do you think of her companion?" + +"A charming girl for a man of a quiet, easy temperament. The great +trouble is with her voice. It is pitched a full note too high. It is +aggressive, disturbing, and would wear out a nervous man without his ever +knowing what was the matter with him. A good many crazy Northern people +would recover their reason if they could live for a year or two among the +blacks of the Southern States. But the penetrating, perturbing quality +of the voices of many of our Northern women has a great deal to answer +for in the way of determining love and friendship. You remember that +dear friend of ours who left us not long since? If there were more +voices like hers, the world would be a different place to live in. I do +not believe any man or woman ever came within the range of those sweet, +tranquil tones without being hushed, captivated, entranced I might almost +say, by their calming, soothing influence. Can you not imagine the tones +in which those words, 'Peace, be still,' were spoken? Such was the +effect of the voice to which but a few weeks ago we were listening. It +is hard to believe that it has died out of human consciousness. Can such +a voice be spared from that world of happiness to which we fondly look +forward, where we love to dream, if we do not believe with assured +conviction, that whatever is loveliest in this our mortal condition shall +be with us again as an undying possession? Your English friend has a +very agreeable voice, round, mellow, cheery, and her articulation is +charming. Other things being equal, I think you, who are, perhaps, +oversensitive, would live from two to three years longer with her than +with the other. I suppose a man who lived within hearing of a murmuring +brook would find his life shortened if a sawmill were set up within +earshot of his dwelling." + +"And so you advise me to make love to the English girl, do you?" asked +the Tutor. + +Number Five laughed. It was not a loud laugh, she never laughed noisily; +it was not a very hearty laugh; the idea did not seem to amuse her much. + +"No," she said, "I won't take the responsibility. Perhaps this is a case +in which the true reading of Gay's line would be-- + + "How happy could I be with neither. + +"There are several young women in the world besides our two Annexes." + +I question whether the Tutor had asked those questions very seriously, +and I doubt if Number Five thought he was very much in earnest. + +One of The Teacups reminded me that I had promised to say something of my +answers to certain questions. So I began at once: + +I have given the name of brain-tappers to the literary operatives who +address persons whose names are well known to the public, asking their +opinions or their experiences on subjects which are at the time of +general interest. They expect a literary man or a scientific expert to +furnish them materials for symposia and similar articles, to be used by +them for their own special purposes. Sometimes they expect to pay for +the information furnished them; at other times, the honor of being +included in a list of noted personages who have received similar requests +is thought sufficient compensation. The object with which the +brain-tapper puts his questions may be a purely benevolent and entirely +disinterested one. Such was the object of some of those questions which +I have received and answered. There are other cases, in which the +brain-tapper is acting much as those persons do who stop a physician in +the street to talk with him about their livers or stomachs, or other +internal arrangements, instead of going to his office and consulting him, +expecting to pay for his advice. Others are more like those busy women +who, having the generous intention of making a handsome present to their +pastor, at as little expense as may be, send to all their neighbors and +acquaintances for scraps of various materials, out of which the imposing +"bedspread" or counterpane is to be elaborated. + +That is all very well so long as old pieces of stuff are all they call +for, but it is a different matter to ask for clippings out of new and +uncut rolls of cloth. So it is one thing to ask an author for liberty to +use extracts from his published writings, and it is a very different +thing to expect him to write expressly for the editor's or compiler's +piece of literary patchwork. + +I have received many questions within the last year or two, some of which +I am willing to answer, but prefer to answer at my own time, in my own +way, through my customary channel of communication with the public. I +hope I shall not be misunderstood as implying any reproach against the +inquirers who, in order to get at facts which ought to be known, apply to +all whom they can reach for information. Their inquisitiveness is not +always agreeable or welcome, but we ought to be glad that there are +mousing fact-hunters to worry us with queries to which, for the sake of +the public, we are bound to give our attention. Let me begin with my +brain-tappers. + +And first, as the papers have given publicity to the fact that I, The +Dictator of this tea-table, have reached the age of threescore years and +twenty, I am requested to give information as to how I managed to do it, +and to explain just how they can go and do likewise. I think I can lay +down a few rules that will help them to the desired result. There is no +certainty in these biological problems, but there are reasonable +probabilities upon which it is safe to act. + +The first thing to be done is, some years before birth, to advertise for +a couple of parents both belonging to long-lived families. Especially let +the mother come of a race in which octogenarians and nonagenarians are +very common phenomena. There are practical difficulties in following out +this suggestion, but possibly the forethought of your progenitors, or +that concurrence of circumstances which we call accident, may have +arranged this for you. + +Do not think that a robust organization is any warrant of long life, nor +that a frail and slight bodily constitution necessarily means scanty +length of days. Many a strong-limbed young man and many a blooming young +woman have I seen failing and dropping away in or before middle life, and +many a delicate and slightly constituted person outliving the athletes +and the beauties of their generation. Whether the excessive development +of the muscular system is compatible with the best condition of general +health is, I think, more than doubtful. The muscles are great sponges +that suck up and make use of large quantities of blood, and the other +organs must be liable to suffer for want of their share. + +One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece boiled his wisdom down into two +words,--NOTHING TOO MUCH. It is a rule which will apply to food, +exercise, labor, sleep, and, in short, to every part of life. This is +not so very difficult a matter if one begins in good season and forms +regular habits. But what if I should lay down the rule, Be cheerful; +take all the troubles and trials of life with perfect equanimity and a +smiling countenance? Admirable directions! Your friend, the +curly-haired blonde, with florid complexion, round cheeks, the best +possible digestion and respiration, the stomach of an ostrich and the +lungs of a pearl-diver, finds it perfectly easy to carry them into +practice. You, of leaden complexion, with black and lank hair, lean, +hollow-eyed, dyspeptic, nervous, find it not so easy to be always +hilarious and happy. The truth is that the persons of that buoyant +disposition which comes always heralded by a smile, as a yacht driven by +a favoring breeze carries a wreath of sparkling foam before her, are born +with their happiness ready made. They cannot help being cheerful any +more than their saturnine fellow-mortal can help seeing everything +through the cloud he carries with him. I give you the precept, then, Be +cheerful, for just what it is worth, as I would recommend to you to be +six feet, or at least five feet ten, in stature. You cannot settle that +matter for yourself, but you can stand up straight, and give your five +feet five its--full value. You can help along a little by wearing +high-heeled shoes. So you can do something to encourage yourself in +serenity of aspect and demeanor, keeping your infirmities and troubles in +the background instead of making them the staple of your conversation. +This piece of advice, if followed, may be worth from three to five years +of the fourscore which you hope to attain. + +If, on the other hand, instead of going about cheerily in society, making +the best of everything and as far as possible forgetting your troubles, +you can make up your mind to economize all your stores of vital energy, +to hoard your life as a miser hoards his money, you will stand a fair +chance of living until you are tired of life,--fortunate if everybody is +not tired of you. + +One of my prescriptions for longevity may startle you somewhat. It is +this: Become the subject of a mortal disease. Let half a dozen doctors +thump you, and knead you, and test you in every possible way, and render +their verdict that you have an internal complaint; they don't know +exactly what it is, but it will certainly kill you by and by. Then bid +farewell to the world and shut yourself up for an invalid. If you are +threescore years old when you begin this mode of life, you may very +probably last twenty years, and there you are,--an octogenarian. In the +mean time, your friends outside have been dropping off, one after +another, until you find yourself almost alone, nursing your mortal +complaint as if it were your baby, hugging it and kept alive by it,--if +to exist is to live. Who has not seen cases like this,--a man or a woman +shutting himself or herself up, visited by a doctor or a succession of +doctors (I remember that once, in my earlier experience, I was the +twenty-seventh physician who had been consulted), always taking medicine, +until everybody was reminded of that impatient speech of a relative of +one of these invalid vampires who live on the blood of tired-out +attendants, "I do wish she would get well--or something"? Persons who +are shut up in that way, confined to their chambers, sometimes to their +beds, have a very small amount of vital expenditure, and wear out very +little of their living substance. They are like lamps with half their +wicks picked down, and will continue to burn when other lamps have used +up all their oil. An insurance office might make money by taking no +risks except on lives of persons suffering from mortal disease. It is on +this principle of economizing the powers of life that a very eminent +American physician,--Dr. Weir Mitchell, a man of genius,--has founded his +treatment of certain cases of nervous exhaustion. + +What have I got to say about temperance, the use of animal food, and so +forth? These are questions asked me. Nature has proved a wise teacher, +as I think, in my own case. The older I grow, the less use I make of +alcoholic stimulants. In fact, I hardly meddle with them at all, except +a glass or two of champagne occasionally. I find that by far the best +borne of all drinks containing alcohol. I do not suppose my experience +can be the foundation of a universal rule. Dr. Holyoke, who lived to be +a hundred, used habitually, in moderate quantities, a mixture of cider, +water, and rum. I think, as one grows older, less food, especially less +animal food, is required. But old people have a right to be epicures, if +they can afford it. The pleasures of the palate are among the last +gratifications of the senses allowed them. We begin life as little +cannibals,--feeding on the flesh and blood of our mothers. We range +through all the vegetable and animal products, of nature, and I suppose, +if the second childhood could return to the food of the first, it might +prove a wholesome diet. + +What do I say to smoking? I cannot grudge an old man his pipe, but I +think tobacco often does a good deal of harm to the health,--to the eyes +especially, to the nervous system generally, producing headache, +palpitation, and trembling. I myself gave it up many years ago. +Philosophically speaking, I think self-narcotization and +self-alcoholization are rather ignoble substitutes for undisturbed +self-consciousness and unfettered self-control. + +Here is another of those brain-tapping letters, of similar character, +which I have no objection to answering at my own time and in the place +which best suits me. As the questions must be supposed to be asked with +a purely scientific and philanthropic purpose, it can make little +difference when and where they are answered. For myself, I prefer our +own tea-table to the symposia to which I am often invited. I do not +quarrel with those who invite their friends to a banquet to which many +strangers are expected to contribute. It is a very easy and pleasant way +of giving an entertainment at little cost and with no responsibility. +Somebody has been writing to me about "Oatmeal and Literature," and +somebody else wants to know whether I have found character influenced by +diet; also whether, in my opinion, oatmeal is preferable to pie as an +American national food. + +In answer to these questions, I should say that I have my beliefs and +prejudices; but if I were pressed hard for my proofs of their +correctness, I should make but a poor show in the witness-box. Most +assuredly I do believe that body and mind are much influenced by the kind +of food habitually depended upon. I am persuaded that a too exclusively +porcine diet gives a bristly character to the beard and hair, which is +borrowed from the animal whose tissues these stiff-bearded compatriots of +ours have too largely assimilated. I can never stray among the village +people of our windy capes without now and then coming upon a human being +who looks as if he had been split, salted, and dried, like the salt-fish +which has built up his arid organism. If the body is modified by the +food which nourishes it, the mind and character very certainly will be +modified by it also. We know enough of their close connection with each +other to be sure of that, without any statistical observations to prove +it. + +Do you really want to know "whether oatmeal is preferable to pie as an +American national food"? I suppose the best answer I can give to your +question is to tell you what is my own practice. Oatmeal in the morning, +as an architect lays a bed of concrete to form a base for his +superstructure. Pie when I can get it; that is, of the genuine sort, for +I am not patriotic enough to think very highly of the article named after +the Father of his Country, who was first in war, first in peace,--not +first in pies, according to my standard. + +There is a very odd prejudice against pie as an article of diet. It is +common to hear every form of bodily degeneracy and infirmity attributed +to this particular favorite food. I see no reason or sense in it. Mr. +Emerson believed in pie, and was almost indignant when a fellow-traveller +refused the slice he offered him. "Why, Mr.________," said be, "what is +pie made for!" If every Green Mountain boy has not eaten a thousand +times his weight in apple, pumpkin, squash, and mince pie, call me a +dumpling. And Colonel Ethan Allen was one of them,--Ethan Allen, who, as +they used to say, could wrench off the head of a wrought nail with his +teeth. + +If you mean to keep as well as possible, the less you think about your +health the better. You know enough not to eat or drink what you have +found does not agree with you. You ought to know enough not to expose +yourself needlessly to draughts. If you take a "constitutional," walk +with the wind when you can, and take a closed car against it if you can +get one. Walking against the wind is one of the most dangerous kinds of +exposure, if you are sensitive to cold. But except a few simple rules +such as I have just given, let your health take care of itself so long as +it behaves decently. If you want to be sure not to reach threescore and +twenty, get a little box of homoeopathic pellets and a little book of +homeopathic prescriptions. I had a poor friend who fell into that way, +and became at last a regular Hahnemaniac. He left a box of his little +jokers, which at last came into my hands. The poor fellow had cultivated +symptoms as other people cultivate roses or chrysanthemums. What a +luxury of choice his imagination presented to him! When one watches for +symptoms, every organ in the body is ready to put in its claim. By and +by a real illness attacked him, and the box of little pellets was shut +up, to minister to his fancied evils no longer. + +Let me tell you one thing. I think if patients and physicians were in +the habit of recognizing the fact I am going to mention, both would be +gainers. The law I refer to must be familiar to all observing +physicians, and to all intelligent persons who have observed their own +bodily and mental conditions. This is the curve of health. It is a +mistake to suppose that the normal state of health is represented by a +straight horizontal line. Independently of the well-known causes which +raise or depress the standard of vitality, there seems to be,--I think I +may venture to say there is,--a rhythmic undulation in the flow of the +vital force. The "dynamo" which furnishes the working powers of +consciousness and action has its annual, its monthly, its diurnal waves, +even its momentary ripples, in the current it furnishes. There are +greater and lesser curves in the movement of every day's life,--a series +of ascending and descending movements, a periodicity depending on the +very nature of the force at work in the living organism. Thus we have +our good seasons and our bad seasons, our good days and our bad days, +life climbing and descending in long or short undulations, which I have +called the curve of health. + +From this fact spring a great proportion of the errors of medical +practice. On it are based the delusions of the various shadowy systems +which impose themselves on the ignorant and half-learned public as +branches or "schools" of science. A remedy taken at the time of the +ascent in the curve of health is found successful. The same remedy taken +while the curve is in its downward movement proves a failure. + +So long as this biological law exists, so long the charlatan will keep +his hold on the ignorant public. So long as it exists, the wisest +practitioner will be liable to deceive himself about the effect of what +he calls and loves to think are his remedies. Long-continued and +sagacious observation will to some extent undeceive him; but were it not +for the happy illusion that his useless or even deleterious drugs were +doing good service, many a practitioner would give up his calling for one +in which he could be more certain that he was really being useful to the +subjects of his professional dealings. For myself, I should prefer a +physician of a sanguine temperament, who had a firm belief in himself and +his methods. I do not wonder at all that the public support a whole +community of pretenders who show the portraits of the patients they have +"cured." The best physicians will tell you that, though many patients +get well under their treatment, they rarely cure anybody. If you are +told also that the best physician has many more patients die on his hands +than the worst of his fellow-practitioners, you may add these two +statements to your bundle of paradoxes, and if they puzzle you I will +explain them at some future time. + +[I take this opportunity of correcting a statement now going the rounds +of the medical and probably other periodicals. In "The Journal of the +American Medical Association," dated April 26,1890, published at Chicago, +I am reported, in quotation marks, as saying, "Give me opium, wine, and +milk, and I will cure all diseases to which flesh is heir." + +In the first place, I never said I will cure, or can cure, or would or +could cure, or had cured any disease. My venerated instructor, Dr. James +Jackson, taught me never to use that expression. Curo means, I take care +of, he used to say, and in that sense, if you mean nothing more, it is +properly employed. So, in the amphitheatre of the Ecole de Medecine, I +used to read the words of Ambroise Pare, "Je le pansay, Dieu le guarist." +(I dressed his wound, and God cured him.) Next, I am not in the habit of +talking about "the diseases to which flesh is heir." The expression has +become rather too familiar for repetition, and belongs to the rhetoric of +other latitudes. And, lastly, I have said some plain things, perhaps +some sharp ones, about the abuse of drugs and the limited number of +vitally important remedies, but I am not so ignorantly presumptuous as to +make the foolish statement falsely attributed to me.] + +I paused a minute or two, and as no one spoke out; I put a question to +the Counsellor. + +Are you quite sure that you wish to live to be threescore and twenty +years old? + +"Most certainly I do. Don't they say that Theophrastus lived to his +hundred and seventh year, and did n't he complain of the shortness of +life? At eighty a man has had just about time to get warmly settled in +his nest. Do you suppose he doesn't enjoy the quiet of that +resting-place? No more haggard responsibility to keep him awake +nights,--unless he prefers to retain his hold on offices and duties from +which he can be excused if he chooses. No more goading ambitions,--he +knows he has done his best. No more jealousies, if he were weak enough +to feel such ignoble stirrings in his more active season. An +octogenarian with a good record, and free from annoying or distressing +infirmities, ought to be the happiest of men. Everybody treats him with +deference. Everybody wants to help him. He is the ward of the +generations that have grown up since he was in the vigor of maturity. +Yes, let me live to be fourscore years, and then I will tell you whether +I should like a few more years or not." + +You carry the feelings of middle age, I said, in imagination, over into +the period of senility, and then reason and dream about it as if its +whole mode of being were like that of the earlier period of life. But how +many things there are in old age which you must live into if you would +expect to have any "realizing sense" of their significance! In the first +place, you have no coevals, or next to none. At fifty, your vessel is +stanch, and you are on deck with the rest, in all weathers. At sixty, +the vessel still floats, and you are in the cabin. At seventy, you, with +a few fellow-passengers, are on a raft. At eighty, you are on a spars to +which, possibly, one, or two, or three friends of about your own age are +still clinging. After that, you must expect soon to find yourself alone, +if you are still floating, with only a life-preserver to keep your old +white-bearded chin above the water. + +Kindness? Yes, pitying kindness, which is a bitter sweet in which the +amiable ingredient can hardly be said to predominate. How pleasant do +you think it is to have an arm offered to you when you are walking on a +level surface, where there is no chance to trip? How agreeable do you +suppose it is to have your well-meaning friends shout and screech at you, +as if you were deaf as an adder, instead of only being, as you insist, +somewhat hard of hearing? I was a little over twenty years old when I +wrote the lines which some of you may have met with, for they have been +often reprinted: + + The mossy marbles rest + On the lips that he has prest + In their bloom, + And the names he loved to hear + Have been carved for many a year + On the tomb. + +The world was a garden to me then; it is a churchyard now. + +"I thought you were one of those who looked upon old age cheerfully, and +welcomed it as a season of peace and contented enjoyment." + +I am one of those who so regard it. Those are not bitter or scalding +tears that fall from my eyes upon "the mossy marbles." The young who +left my side early in my life's journey are still with me in the +unchanged freshness and beauty of youth. Those who have long kept +company with me live on after their seeming departure, were it only by +the mere force of habit; their images are all around me, as if every +surface had been a sensitive film that photographed them; their voices +echo about me, as if they had been recorded on those unforgetting +cylinders which bring back to us the tones and accents that have +imprinted them, as the hardened sands show us the tracks of extinct +animals. The melancholy of old age has a divine tenderness in it, which +only the sad experiences of life can lend a human soul. But there is a +lower level,--that of tranquil contentment and easy acquiescence in the +conditions in which we find ourselves; a lower level, in which old age +trudges patiently when it is not using its wings. I say its wings, for +no period of life is so imaginative as that which looks to younger people +the most prosaic. The atmosphere of memory is one in which imagination +flies more easily and feels itself more at home than in the thinner ether +of youthful anticipation. I have told you some of the drawbacks of age; +I would not have you forget its privileges. When it comes down from its +aerial excursions, it has much left to enjoy on the humble plane of +being. And so you think you would like to become an octogenarian? "I +should," said the Counsellor, now a man in the high noon of bodily and +mental vigor. "Four more--yes, five more--decades would not be too much, +I think. And how much I should live to see in that time! I am glad you +have laid down some rules by which a man may reasonably expect to leap +the eight barred gate. I won't promise to obey them all, though." + +Among the questions addressed to me, as to a large number of other +persons, are the following. I take them from "The American Hebrew" of +April 4, 1890. I cannot pretend to answer them all, but I can say +something about one or two of them. + +"I. Can you, of your own personal experience, find any justification +whatever for the entertainment of prejudice towards individuals solely +because they are Jews? + +"II. Is this prejudice not due largely to the religious instruction that +is given by the church acid Sunday-school? For instance, the teachings +that the Jews crucified Jesus; that they rejected him, and can only +secure salvation by belief in him, and similar matters that are +calculated to excite in the impressionable mind of the child an aversion, +if not a loathing, for members of 'the despised race.' + +"III. Have you observed in the social or business life of the Jew, so +far as your personal experience has gone, any different standard of +conduct than prevails among Christians of the same social status? + +"IV. Can you suggest what should be done to dispel the existing +prejudice?" + +As to the first question, I have had very slight acquaintance with the +children of Israel. I shared more or less the prevailing prejudices +against the persecuted race. I used to read in my hymn-book,--I hope I +quote correctly,-- + + "See what a living stone + The builders did refuse! + Yet God has built his church thereon, + In spite of envious Jews." + +I grew up inheriting the traditional idea that they were a race lying +under a curse for their obstinacy in refusing the gospel. Like other +children of New England birth, I walked in the narrow path of Puritan +exclusiveness. The great historical church of Christendom was presented +to me as Bunyan depicted it: one of the two giants sitting at the door of +their caves, with the bones, of pilgrims scattered about them, and +grinning at the travellers whom they could no longer devour. In the +nurseries of old-fashioned Orthodoxy there was one religion in the +world,--one religion, and a multitude of detestable, literally damnable +impositions, believed in by uncounted millions, who were doomed to +perdition for so believing. The Jews were the believers in one of these +false religions. It had been true once, but was now a pernicious and +abominable lie. The principal use of the Jews seemed to be to lend +money, and to fulfil the predictions of the old prophets of their race. + +No doubt the individual sons of Abraham whom we found in our ill-favored +and ill-flavored streets were apt to be unpleasing specimens of the race. +It was against the most adverse influences of legislation, of religious +feeling, of social repugnance, that the great names of Jewish origin made +themselves illustrious; that the philosophers, the musicians, the +financiers, the statesmen, of the last centuries forced the world to +recognize and accept them. Benjamin, the son of Isaac, a son of Israel, +as his family name makes obvious, has shown how largely Jewish blood has +been represented in the great men and women of modern days. + +There are two virtues which Christians have found it very hard to +exemplify in practice. These are modesty and civility. The Founder of +the Christian religion appeared among a people accustomed to look for a +Messiah, a special ambassador from heaven, with an authoritative message. +They were intimately acquainted with every expression having reference to +this divine messenger. They had a religion of their own, about which +Christianity agrees with Judaism in asserting that it was of divine +origin. It is a serious fact, to which we do not give all the attention +it deserves, that this divinely instructed people were not satisfied with +the evidence that the young Rabbi who came to overthrow their ancient +church and found a new one was a supernatural being. "We think he was a +great Doctor," said a Jewish companion with whom I was conversing. He +meant a great Teacher, I presume, though healing the sick was one of his +special offices. Instead of remembering that they were entitled to form +their own judgment of the new Teacher, as they had judged of Hillel and +other great instructors, Christians, as they called themselves, have +insulted, calumniated, oppressed, abased, outraged, "the chosen race" +during the long succession of centuries since the Jewish contemporaries +of the Founder of Christianity made up their minds that he did not meet +the conditions required by the subject of the predictions of their +Scriptures. The course of the argument against them is very briefly and +effectively stated by Mr. Emerson: + +"This was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will kill you if you say he +was a man." + +It seems as if there should be certain laws of etiquette regulating the +relation of different religions to each other. It is not civil for a +follower of Mahomet to call his neighbor of another creed a "Christian +dog." Still more, there should be something like politeness in the +bearing of Christian sects toward each other, and of believers in the new +dispensation toward those who still adhere to the old. We are in the +habit of allowing a certain arrogant assumption to our Roman Catholic +brethren. We have got used to their pretensions. They may call us +"heretics," if they like. They may speak of us as "infidels," if they +choose, especially if they say it in Latin. So long as there is no +inquisition, so long as there is no auto da fe, we do not mind the hard +words much; and we have as good phrases to give them back: the Man of Sin +and the Scarlet Woman will serve for examples. But it is better to be +civil to each other all round. I doubt if a convert to the religion of +Mahomet was ever made by calling a man a Christian dog. I doubt if a +Hebrew ever became a good Christian if the baptismal rite was performed +by spitting on his Jewish gabardine. I have often thought of the advance +in comity and true charity shown in the title of my late honored friend +James Freeman Clarke's book, "The Ten Great Religions." If the creeds of +mankind try to understand each other before attempting mutual +extermination, they will be sure to find a meaning in beliefs which are +different from their own. The old Calvinistic spirit was almost savagely +exclusive. While the author of the "Ten Great Religions" was growing up +in Boston under the benignant, large-minded teachings of the Rev. James +Freeman, the famous Dr. John M. Mason, at New York, was fiercely +attacking the noble humanity of "The Universal Prayer." "In preaching," +says his biographer, "he once quoted Pope's lines as to God's being +adored alike 'by saint, by savage, and by sage,' and pronounced it (in +his deepest guttural) 'the most damnable lie.'" + +What could the Hebrew expect when a Christian preacher could use such +language about a petition breathing the very soul of humanity? Happily, +the true human spirit is encroaching on that arrogant and narrow-minded +form of selfishness which called itself Christianity. + +The golden rule should govern us in dealing with those whom we call +unbelievers, with heathen, and with all who do not accept our religious +views. The Jews are with us as a perpetual lesson to teach us modesty +and civility. The religion we profess is not self-evident. It did not +convince the people to whom it was sent. We have no claim to take it for +granted that we are all right, and they are all wrong. And, therefore, +in the midst of all the triumphs of Christianity, it is well that the +stately synagogue should lift its walls by the side of the aspiring +cathedral, a perpetual reminder that there are many mansions in the +Father's earthly house as well as in the heavenly one; that civilized +humanity, longer in time and broader in space than any historical form of +belief, is mightier than any one institution or organization it includes. + +Many years ago I argued with myself the proposition which my Hebrew +correspondent has suggested. Recognizing the fact that I was born to a +birthright of national and social prejudices against "the chosen +people,"--chosen as the object of contumely and abuse by the rest of the +world,--I pictured my own inherited feelings of aversion in all their +intensity, and the strain of thought under the influence of which those +prejudices gave way to a more human, a more truly Christian feeling of +brotherhood. I must ask your indulgence while I quote a few verses from +a poem of my own, printed long ago under the title "At the Pantomime." + +I was crowded between two children of Israel, and gave free inward +expression to my feelings. All at once I happened to look more closely +at one of my neighbors, and saw that the youth was the very ideal of the +Son of Mary. + + A fresh young cheek whose olive hue + The mantling blood shows faintly through; + Locks dark as midnight, that divide + And shade the neck on either side; + Soft, gentle, loving eyes that gleam + Clear as a starlit mountain stream; + So looked that other child of Shem, + The Maiden's Boy of Bethlehem! + + --And thou couldst scorn the peerless blood + That flows unmingled from the Flood, + Thy scutcheon spotted with the stains + Of Norman thieves and pirate Danes! + The New World's foundling, in thy pride + Scowl on the Hebrew at thy side, + And lo! the very semblance there + The Lord of Glory deigned to wear! + + I see that radiant image rise, + The flowing hair, the pitying eyes, + The faintly crimsoned cheek that shows + The blush of Sharon's opening rose, + Thy hands would clasp his hallowed feet + Whose brethren soil thy Christian seat, + Thy lips would press his garment's hem + That curl in wrathful scorn for them! + + A sudden mist, a watery screen, + Dropped like a veil before the scene; + The shadow floated from my soul, + And to my lips a whisper stole: + --Thy prophets caught the Spirit's flame, + From thee the Son of Mary came, + With thee the Father deigned to dwell, + Peace be upon thee, Israel! + +It is not to be expected that intimate relations will be established +between Jewish and Christian communities until both become so far +rationalized and humanized that their differences are comparatively +unimportant. But already there is an evident approximation in the +extreme left of what is called liberal Christianity and the +representatives of modern Judaism. The life of a man like the late Sir +Moses Montefiore reads a lesson from the Old Testament which might well +have been inspired by the noblest teachings of the Christian Gospels. + + Delilah, and how she got her name. + +Est-elle bien gentille, cette petite? I said one day to Number Five, as +our pretty Delilah put her arm between us with a bunch of those tender +early radishes that so recall the rosy-fingered morning of Homer. The +little hand which held the radishes would not have shamed Aurora. That +hand has never known drudgery, I feel sure. + +When I spoke those French words our little Delilah gave a slight, +seemingly involuntary start, and her cheeks grew of as bright a red as +her radishes. Ah, said I to myself; does that young girl understand +French? It may be worth while to be careful what one says before her. + +There is a mystery about this girl. She seems to know her place +perfectly,--except, perhaps, when she burst out crying, the other day, +which was against all the rules of table-maiden's etiquette,--and yet she +looks as if she had been born to be waited on, and not to perform that +humble service for others. We know that once in a while girls with +education and well connected take it into their heads to go into service +for a few weeks or months. Sometimes it is from economic motives,--to +procure means for their education, or to help members of their families +who need assistance. At any rate, they undertake the lighter menial +duties of some household where they are not known, and, having +stooped--if stooping it is to be considered--to lowly offices, no born +and bred servants are more faithful to all their obligations. You must +not suppose she was christened Delilah. Any of our ministers would +hesitate to give such a heathen name to a Christian child. + +The way she came to get it was this: The Professor was going to give a +lecture before an occasional audience, one evening. When he took his +seat with the other Teacups, the American Annex whispered to the other +Annex, "His hair wants cutting,--it looks like fury." "Quite so," said +the English Annex. "I wish you would tell him so,--I do, awfully." +"I'll fix it," said the American girl. So, after the teacups were +emptied and the company had left the table, she went up to the Professor. +"You read this lecture, don't you, Professor?" she said. "I do," he +answered. "I should think that lock of hair which falls down over your +forehead would trouble you," she said. "It does sometimes," replied the +Professor. "Let our little maid trim it for you. You're equal to that, +aren't you?" turning to the handmaiden. "I always used to cut my father's +hair," she answered. She brought a pair of glittering shears, and before +she would let the Professor go she had trimmed his hair and beard as they +had not been dealt with for many a day. Everybody said the Professor +looked ten years younger. After that our little handmaiden was always +called Delilah, among the talking Teacups. + +The Mistress keeps a watchful eye on this young girl. I should not be +surprised to find that she was carrying out some ideal, some fancy or +whim,--possibly nothing more, but springing from some generous, youthful +impulse. Perhaps she is working for that little sister at the Blind +Asylum. Where did she learn French? She did certainly blush, and +betrayed every sign of understanding the words spoken about her in that +language. Sometimes she sings while at her work, and we have all been +struck with the pure, musical character of her voice. It is just such a +voice as ought to come from that round white throat. We made a discovery +about it the other evening. + +The Mistress keeps a piano in her room, and we have sometimes had music +in the evening. One of The Teacups, to whom I have slightly referred, is +an accomplished pianist, and the two Annexes sing very sweetly +together,--the American girl having a clear soprano voice, the English +girl a mellow contralto. They had sung several tunes, when the Mistress +rang for Avis,--for that is our Delilah's real name. She whispered to +the young girl, who blushed and trembled. "Don't be frightened," said the +Mistress encouragingly. "I have heard you singing 'Too Young for Love,' +and I will get our pianist to play it. The young ladies both know it, +and you must join in." + +The two voices, with the accompaniment, had hardly finished the first +line when a pure, ringing, almost childlike voice joined the vocal duet. +The sound of her own voice seemed to make her forget her fears, and she +warbled as naturally and freely as any young bird of a May morning. +Number Five came in while she was singing, and when she got through +caught her in her arms and kissed her, as if she were her sister, and not +Delilah, our table-maid. Number Five is apt to forget herself and those +social differences to which some of us attach so much importance. This +is the song in which the little maid took part: + + TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE. + + Too young for love? + Ah, say not so! + Tell reddening rose-buds not to blow! + Wait not for spring to pass away, + --Love's summer months begin with May! + Too young for love? + Ah, say not so! + Too young? Too young? + Ah, no! no! no! + + Too young for love? + Ah, say not so, + While daisies bloom and tulips glow! + June soon will come with lengthened day + To practise all love learned in May. + Too young for love? + Ah, say not so! + Too young? Too young? + Ah, no! no! no! + + + + +IX + +I often wish that our Number Seven could have known and corresponded with +the author of "The Budget of Paradoxes." I think Mr. De Morgan would +have found some of his vagaries and fancies not undeserving of a place in +his wonderful collection of eccentricities, absurdities, +ingenuities,--mental freaks of all sorts. But I think he would have now +and then recognized a sound idea, a just comparison, a suggestive hint, a +practical notion, which redeemed a page of extravagances and crotchety +whims. I confess that I am often pleased with fancies of his, and should +be willing to adopt them as my own. I think he has, in the midst of his +erratic and tangled conceptions, some perfectly clear and consistent +trains of thought. + +So when Number Seven spoke of sending us a paper, I welcomed the +suggestion. I asked him whether he had any objection to my looking it +over before he read it. My proposal rather pleased him, I thought, for, +as was observed on a former occasion, he has in connection with a belief +in himself another side,--a curious self-distrust. I have no question +that he has an obscure sense of some mental deficiency. Thus you may +expect from him first a dogma, and presently a doubt. If you fight his +dogma, he will do battle for it stoutly; if you let him alone, he will +very probably explain its extravagances, if it has any, and tame it into +reasonable limits. Sometimes he is in one mood, sometimes in another. + +The first portion of what we listened to shows him at his best; in the +latter part I am afraid you will think he gets a little wild. + +I proceed to lay before you the paper which Number Seven read to The +Teacups. There was something very pleasing in the deference which was +shown him. We all feel that there is a crack in the teacup, and are +disposed to handle it carefully. I have left out a few things which he +said, feeling that they might give offence to some of the company. There +were sentences so involved and obscure that I was sure they would not be +understood, if indeed he understood them himself. But there are other +passages so entirely sane, and as it seems to me so just, that if any +reader attributes them to me I shall not think myself wronged by the +supposition. You must remember that Number Seven has had a fair +education, that he has been a wide reader in many directions, and that he +belongs to a family of remarkable intellectual gifts. So it was not +surprising that he said some things which pleased the company, as in fact +they did. The reader will not be startled to see a certain abruptness in +the transition from one subject to another,--it is a characteristic of +the squinting brain wherever you find it. Another curious mark rarely +wanting in the subjects of mental strabismus is an irregular and often +sprawling and deformed handwriting. Many and many a time I have said, +after glancing at the back of a letter, "This comes from an insane +asylum, or from an eccentric who might well be a candidate for such an +institution." Number Seven's manuscript, which showed marks of my +corrections here and there, furnished good examples of the chirography of +persons with ill-mated cerebral hemispheres. But the earlier portions of +the manuscript are of perfectly normal appearance. + +Conticuere omnes, as Virgil says. We were all silent as Number Seven +began the reading of his paper. + + Number Seven reads. + +I am the seventh son of a seventh son, as I suppose you all know. It is +commonly believed that some extraordinary gifts belong to the fortunate +individuals born under these exceptional conditions. However this may be, +a peculiar virtue was supposed to dwell in me from my earliest years. My +touch was believed to have the influence formerly attributed to that of +the kings and queens of England. You may remember that the great Dr. +Samuel Johnson, when a child, was carried to be touched by her Majesty +Queen Anne for the "king's evil," as scrofula used to be called. Our +honored friend The Dictator will tell you that the brother of one of his +Andover schoolmates was taken to one of these gifted persons, who touched +him, and hung a small bright silver coin, either a "fourpence ha'penny" +or a "ninepence," about his neck, which, strange to say, after being worn +a certain time, became tarnished, and finally black,--a proof of the +poisonous matters which had become eliminated from the system and +gathered upon the coin. I remember that at one time I used to carry +fourpence ha'pennies with holes bored through them, which I furnished to +children or to their mothers, under pledges of secrecy,--receiving a +piece of silver of larger dimensions in exchange. I never felt quite +sure about any extraordinary endowment being a part of my inheritance in +virtue of my special conditions of birth. A phrenologist, who examined +my head when I was a boy, said the two sides were unlike. My hatter's +measurement told me the same thing; but in looking over more than a +bushel of the small cardboard hat-patterns which give the exact shape of +the head, I have found this is not uncommon. The phrenologist made all +sorts of predictions of what I should be and do, which proved about as +near the truth as those recorded in Miss Edith Thomas's charming little +poem, "Augury," which some of us were reading the other day. + +I have never been through college, but I had a relative who was famous as +a teacher of rhetoric in one of our universities, and especially for +taking the nonsense out of sophomorical young fellows who could not say +anything without rigging it up in showy and sounding phrases. I think I +learned from him to express myself in good old-fashioned English, and +without making as much fuss about it as our Fourth of July orators and +political haranguers were in the habit of making. + +I read a good many stories during my boyhood, one of which left a lasting +impression upon me, and which I have always commended to young people. +It is too late, generally, to try to teach old people, yet one may profit +by it at any period of life before the sight has become too dim to be of +any use. The story I refer to is in "Evenings at Home," and is called +"Eyes and No Eyes." I ought to have it by me, but it is constantly +happening that the best old things get overlaid by the newest trash; and +though I have never seen anything of the kind half so good, my table and +shelves are cracking with the weight of involuntary accessions to my +library. + +This is the story as I remember it: Two children walk out, and are +questioned when they come home. One has found nothing to observe, +nothing to admire, nothing to describe, nothing to ask questions about. +The other has found everywhere objects of curiosity and interest. I +advise you, if you are a child anywhere under forty-five, and do not yet +wear glasses, to send at once for "Evenings at Home" and read that story. +For myself, I am always grateful to the writer of it for calling my +attention to common things. How many people have been waked to a quicker +consciousness of life by Wordsworth's simple lines about the daffodils, +and what he says of the thoughts suggested to him by "the meanest flower +that blows"! + +I was driving with a friend, the other day, through a somewhat dreary +stretch of country, where there seemed to be very little to attract +notice or deserve remark. Still, the old spirit infused by "Eyes and No +Eyes" was upon me, and I looked for something to fasten my thought upon, +and treat as an artist treats a study for a picture. The first object to +which my eyes were drawn was an old-fashioned well-sweep. It did not take +much imaginative sensibility to be stirred by the sight of this most +useful, most ancient, most picturesque, of domestic conveniences. I know +something of the shadoof of Egypt,--the same arrangement by which the +sacred waters of the Nile have been lifted, from the days of the Pharaohs +to those of the Khedives. That long forefinger pointing to heaven was a +symbol which spoke to the Puritan exile as it spoke of old to the +enslaved Israelite. Was there ever any such water as that which we used +to draw from the deep, cold well, in "the old oaken bucket"? What +memories gather about the well in all ages! What love-matches have been +made at its margin, from the times of Jacob and, Rachel downward! What +fairy legends hover over it, what fearful mysteries has it hidden! The +beautiful well-sweep! It is too rarely that we see it, and as it dies +out and gives place to the odiously convenient pump, with the last patent +on its cast-iron uninterestingness, does it not seem as if the farmyard +aspect had lost half its attraction? So long as the dairy farm exists, +doubtless there must be every facility for getting water in abundance; +but the loss of the well-sweep cannot be made up to us even if our milk +were diluted to twice its present attenuation. + +The well-sweep had served its turn, and my companion and I relapsed into +silence. After a while we passed another farmyard, with nothing which +seemed deserving of remark except the wreck of an old wagon. + +"Look," I said, "if you want to see one of the greatest of all the +triumphs of human ingenuity, one of the most beautiful, as it is one of +the most useful, of all the mechanisms which the intelligence of +successive ages has called into being." + +"I see nothing," my companion answered, "but an old broken-down wagon. +Why they leave such a piece of lumbering trash about their place, where +people can see it as they pass, is more than I can account for." + +"And yet," said I, "there is one of the most extraordinary products of +human genius and skill,--an object which combines the useful and the +beautiful to an extent which hardly any simple form of mechanism can +pretend to rival. Do you notice how, while everything else has gone to +smash, that wheel remains sound and fit for service? Look at it merely +for its beauty. + +"See the perfect circles, the outer and the inner. A circle is in itself +a consummate wonder of geometrical symmetry. It is the line in which the +omnipotent energy delights to move. There is no fault in it to be +amended. The first drawn circle and the last both embody the same +complete fulfillment of a perfect design. Then look at the rays which +pass from the inner to the outer circle. How beautifully they bring the +greater and lesser circles into connection with each other! The flowers +know that secret,--the marguerite in the meadow displays it as clearly as +the great sun in heaven. How beautiful is this flower of wood and iron, +which we were ready to pass by without wasting a look upon it! But its +beauty is only the beginning of its wonderful claim upon us for our +admiration. Look at that field of flowering grass, the triticum +vulgare,--see how its waves follow the breeze in satiny alternations of +light and shadow. You admire it for its lovely aspect; but when you +remember that this flowering grass is wheat, the finest food of the +highest human races, it gains a dignity, a glory, that its beauty alone +could not give it. + +"Now look at that exquisite structure lying neglected and disgraced, but +essentially unchanged in its perfection, before you. That slight and +delicate-looking fabric has stood such a trial as hardly any slender +contrivance, excepting always the valves of the heart, was ever subjected +to. It has rattled for years over the cobble-stones of a rough city +pavement. It has climbed over all the accidental obstructions it met in +the highway, and dropped into all the holes and deep ruts that made the +heavy farmer sitting over it use his Sunday vocabulary in a week-day form +of speech. At one time or another, almost every part of that old wagon +has given way. It has had two new pairs of shafts. Twice the axle has +broken off close to the hub, or nave. The seat broke when Zekle and +Huldy were having what they called 'a ride' together. The front was +kicked in by a vicious mare. The springs gave way and the floor bumped +on the axle. Every portion of the wagon became a prey of its special +accident, except that most fragile looking of all its parts, the wheel. +Who can help admiring the exact distribution of the power of resistance +at the least possible expenditure of material which is manifested in this +wondrous triumph of human genius and skill? The spokes are planted in +the solid hub as strongly as the jaw-teeth of a lion in their deep-sunken +sockets. Each spoke has its own territory in the circumference, for +which it is responsible. According to the load the vehicle is expected +to carry, they are few or many, stout or slender, but they share their +joint labor with absolute justice,--not one does more, not one does less, +than its just proportion. The outer end of the spokes is received into +the deep mortise of the wooden fellies, and the structure appears to be +complete. But how long would it take to turn that circle into a polygon, +unless some mighty counteracting force should prevent it? See the iron +tire brought hot from the furnace and laid around the smoking +circumference. Once in place, the workman cools the hot iron; and as it +shrinks with a force that seems like a hand-grasp of the Omnipotent, it +clasps the fitted fragments of the structure, and compresses them into a +single inseparable whole. + +"Was it not worth our while to stop a moment before passing that old +broken wagon, and see whether we could not find as much in it as Swift +found in his 'Meditations on a Broomstick'? I have been laughed at for +making so much of such a common thing as a wheel. Idiots! Solomon's +court fool would have scoffed at the thought of the young Galilean who +dared compare the lilies of the field to his august master. Nil admirari +is very well for a North American Indian and his degenerate successor, +who has grown too grand to admire anything but himself, and takes a +cynical pride in his stolid indifference to everything worth reverencing +or honoring." + +After calling my companion's attention to the wheel, and discoursing upon +it until I thought he was getting sleepy, we jogged along until we came +to a running stream. It was crossed by a stone bridge of a single arch. +There are very few stone arches over the streams in New England country +towns, and I always delighted in this one. It was built in the last +century, amidst the doubting predictions of staring rustics, and stands +to-day as strong as ever, and seemingly good for centuries to come. + +"See there!" said I,--"there is another of my 'Eyes and No Eyes' subjects +to meditate upon. Next to the wheel, the arch is the noblest of those +elementary mechanical composites, corresponding to the proximate +principles of chemistry. The beauty of the arch consists first in its +curve, commonly a part of the circle, of the perfection of which I have +spoken. But the mind derives another distinct pleasure from the +admirable manner in which the several parts, each different from all the +others, contribute to a single harmonious effect. It is a typical +example of the piu nel uno. An arch cut out or a single stone would not +be so beautiful as one of which each individual stone was shaped for its +exact position. Its completion by the locking of the keystone is a +delight to witness and to contemplate. And how the arch endures, when +its lateral thrust is met by solid masses of resistance! In one of the +great temples of Baalbec a keystone has slipped, but how rare is that +occurrence! One will hardly find another such example among all the +ruins of antiquity. Yes, I never get tired of arches. They are noble +when shaped of solid marble blocks, each carefully beveled for its +position. They are beautiful when constructed with the large thin tiles +the Romans were so fond of using. I noticed some arches built in this +way in the wall of one of the grand houses just going up on the bank of +the river. They were over the capstones of the windows,--to take off the +pressure from them, no doubt, for now and then a capstone will crack +under the weight of the superincumbent mass. How close they fit, and how +striking the effect of their long radiations!" + +The company listened very well up to this point. When he began the +strain of thoughts which follows, a curious look went round The Teacups. + +What a strange underground life is that which is led by the organisms we +call trees! These great fluttering masses of leaves, stems, boughs, +trunks, are not the real trees. They live underground, and what we see +are nothing more nor less than their tails. + +The Mistress dropped her teaspoon. Number Five looked at the Doctor, +whose face was very still and sober. The two Annexes giggled, or came +very near it. + +Yes, a tree is an underground creature, with its tail in the air. All its +intelligence is in its roots. All the senses it has are in its roots. +Think what sagacity it shows in its search after food and drink! Somehow +or other, the rootlets, which are its tentacles, find out that there is a +brook at a moderate distance from the trunk of the tree, and they make +for it with all their might. They find every crack in the rocks where +there are a few grains of the nourishing substance they care for, and +insinuate themselves into its deepest recesses. When spring and summer +come, they let their tails grow, and delight in whisking them about in +the wind, or letting them be whisked about by it; for these tails are +poor passive things, with very little will of their own, and bend in +whatever direction the wind chooses to make them. The leaves make a deal +of noise whispering. I have sometimes thought I could understand them, +as they talk with each other, and that they seemed to think they made the +wind as they wagged forward and back. Remember what I say. The next +time you see a tree waving in the wind, recollect that it is the tail of +a great underground, many-armed, polypus-like creature, which is as proud +of its caudal appendage, especially in summer-time, as a peacock of his +gorgeous expanse of plumage. + +Do you think there is anything so very odd about this idea? Once get it +well into your heads, and you will find it renders the landscape +wonderfully interesting. There are as many kinds of tree-tails as there +are of tails to dogs and other quadrupeds. Study them as Daddy Gilpin +studied them in his "Forest Scenery," but don't forget that they are only +the appendage of the underground vegetable polypus, the true organism to +which they belong. + +He paused at this point, and we all drew long breaths, wondering what was +coming next. There was no denying it, the "cracked Teacup" was clinking +a little false,--so it seemed to the company. Yet, after all, the fancy +was not delirious,--the mind could follow it well enough; let him go on. + +What do you say to this? You have heard all sorts of things said in +prose and verse about Niagara. Ask our young Doctor there what it +reminds him of. Is n't it a giant putting his tongue out? How can you +fail to see the resemblance? The continent is a great giant, and the +northern half holds the head and shoulders. You can count the pulse of +the giant wherever the tide runs up a creek; but if you want to look at +the giant's tongue, you must go to Niagara. If there were such a thing +as a cosmic physician, I believe he could tell the state of the country's +health, and the prospects of the mortality for the coming season, by +careful inspection of the great tongue, which Niagara is putting out for +him, and has been showing to mankind ever since the first flint-shapers +chipped their arrow-heads. You don't think the idea adds to the +sublimity and associations of the cataract? I am sorry for that, but I +can't help the suggestion. It is just as manifestly a tongue put out for +inspection as if it had Nature's own label to that effect hung over it. +I don't know whether you can see these things as clearly as I do. There +are some people that never see anything, if it is as plain as a hole in a +grindstone, until it is pointed out to them; and some that can't see it +then, and won't believe there is any hole till they've poked their finger +through it. I've got a great many things to thank God for, but perhaps +most of all that I can find something to admire, to wonder at, to set my +fancy going, and to wind up my enthusiasm pretty much everywhere. + +Look here! There are crowds of people whirled through our streets on +these new-fashioned cars, with their witch-broomsticks overhead,--if they +don't come from Salem, they ought to,--and not more than one in a dozen +of these fish-eyed bipeds thinks or cares a nickel's worth about the +miracle which is wrought for their convenience. They know that without +hands or feet, without horses, without steam, so far as they can see, +they are transported from place to place, and that there is nothing to +account for it except the witch-broomstick and the iron or copper cobweb +which they see stretched above them. What do they know or care about +this last revelation of the omnipresent spirit of the material universe? +We ought to go down on our knees when one of these mighty caravans, car +after car, spins by us, under the mystic impulse which seems to know not +whether its train is loaded or empty. We are used to force in the +muscles of horses, in the expansive potency of steam, but here we have +force stripped stark naked,--nothing but a filament to cover its +nudity,--and yet showing its might in efforts that would task the +working-beam of a ponderous steam-engine. I am thankful that in an age +of cynicism I have not lost my reverence. Perhaps you would wonder to +see how some very common sights impress me. I always take off my hat if +I stop to speak to a stone-cutter at his work. "Why?" do you ask me? +Because I know that his is the only labor that is likely to endure. A +score of centuries has not effaced the marks of the Greek's or the +Roman's chisel on his block of marble. And now, before this new +manifestation of that form of cosmic vitality which we call electricity, +I feel like taking the posture of the peasants listening to the Angelus. +How near the mystic effluence of mechanical energy brings us to the +divine source of all power and motion! In the old mythology, the right +hand of Jove held and sent forth the lightning. So, in the record of the +Hebrew prophets, did the right hand of Jehovah cast forth and direct it. +Was Nahum thinking of our far-off time when he wrote, "The chariots shall +rage in the streets, they shall justle one against another in the broad +ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings"? + +Number Seven had finished reading his paper. Two bright spots in his +cheeks showed that he had felt a good deal in writing it, and the flush +returned as he listened to his own thoughts. Poor old fellow! The +"cracked Teacup" of our younger wits,--not yet come to their full human +sensibilities,--the "crank" of vulgar tongues, the eccentric, the seventh +son of a seventh son, too often made the butt of thoughtless pleasantry, +was, after all, a fellow-creature, with flesh and blood like the rest of +us. The wild freaks of his fancy did not hurt us, nor did they prevent +him from seeing many things justly, and perhaps sometimes more vividly +and acutely than if he were as sound as the dullest of us. + +The teaspoons tinkled loudly all round the table, as he finished reading. +The Mistress caught her breath. I was afraid she was going to sob, but +she took it out in vigorous stirring of her tea. Will you believe that I +saw Number Five, with a sweet, approving smile on her face all the time, +brush her cheek with her hand-kerchief? There must have been a tear +stealing from beneath its eyelid. I hope Number Seven saw it. He is one +of the two men at our table who most need the tender looks and tones of a +woman. The Professor and I are hors de combat; the Counsellor is busy +with his cases and his ambitions; the Doctor is probably in love with a +microscope, and flirting with pathological specimens; but Number Seven +and the Tutor are, I fear, both suffering from that worst of all famines, +heart-hunger. + +Do you remember that Number Seven said he never wrote a line of "poetry" +in his life, except once when he was suffering from temporary weakness of +body and mind? That is because he is a poet. If he had not been one, he +would very certainly have taken to tinkling rhymes. What should you +think of the probable musical genius of a young man who was particularly +fond of jingling a set of sleigh-bells? Should you expect him to turn +out a Mozart or a Beethoven? Now, I think I recognize the poetical +instinct in Number Seven, however imperfect may be its expression, and +however he may be run away with at times by fantastic notions that come +into his head. If fate had allotted him a helpful companion in the shape +of a loving and intelligent wife, he might have been half cured of his +eccentricities, and we should not have had to say, in speaking of him, +"Poor fellow!" But since this cannot be, I am pleased that he should +have been so kindly treated on the occasion of the reading of his paper. +If he saw Number Five's tear, he will certainly fall in love with her. +No matter if he does Number Five is a kind of Circe who does not turn the +victims of her enchantment into swine, but into lambs. I want to see +Number Seven one of her little flock. I say "little." I suspect it is +larger than most of us know. Anyhow, she can spare him sympathy and +kindness and encouragement enough to keep him contented with himself and +with her, and never miss the pulses of her loving life she lends him. It +seems to be the errand of some women to give many people as much +happiness as they have any right to in this world. If they concentrated +their affection on one, they would give him more than any mortal could +claim as his share. I saw Number Five watering her flowers, the other +day. The watering-pot had one of those perforated heads, through which +the water runs in many small streams. Every plant got its share: the +proudest lily bent beneath the gentle shower; the lowliest daisy held its +little face up for baptism. All were refreshed, none was flooded. +Presently she took the perforated head, or "rose," from the neck of the +watering-pot, and the full stream poured out in a round, solid column. +It was almost too much for the poor geranium on which it fell, and it +looked at one minute as if the roots would be laid bare, and perhaps the +whole plant be washed out of the soil in which it was planted. What if +Number Five should take off the "rose" that sprinkles her affections on +so many, and pour them all on one? Can that ever be? If it can, life is +worth living for him on whom her love may be lavished. + +One of my neighbors, a thorough American, is much concerned about the +growth of what he calls the "hard-handed aristocracy." He tells the +following story:-- + +"I was putting up a fence about my yard, and employed a man of whom I +knew something,--that he was industrious, temperate, and that he had a +wife and children to support,--a worthy man, a native New Englander. I +engaged him, I say, to dig some post-holes. My employee bought a new +spade and scoop on purpose, and came to my place at the appointed time, +and began digging. While he was at work, two men came over from a +drinking-saloon, to which my residence is nearer than I could desire. +One of them I had known as Mike Fagan, the other as Hans Schleimer. They +looked at Hiram, my New Hampshire man, in a contemptuous and threatening +way for a minute or so, when Fagan addressed him: + +"'And how much does the man pay yez by the hour?' + +"'The gentleman does n't pay me by the hour,' said Hiram. + +"'How mosh does he bay you by der veeks?' said Hans. + +"'I don' know as that's any of your business,' answered Hiram. + +"'Faith, we'll make it our business,' said Mike Fagan. 'We're Knoights +of Labor, we'd have yez to know, and ye can't make yer bargains jist as +ye loikes. We manes to know how mony hours ye worrks, and how much ye +gets for it.' + +"'Knights of Labor!' said I. 'Why, that is a kind of title of nobility, +is n't it? I thought the laws of our country did n't allow titles of +that kind. But if you have a right to be called knights, I suppose I +ought to address you as such. Sir Michael, I congratulate you on the +dignity you have attained. I hope Lady Fagan is getting on well with my +shirts. Sir Hans, I pay my respects to your title. I trust that Lady +Schleixner has got through that little difficulty between her ladyship +and yourself in which the police court thought it necessary to +intervene.' + +"The two men looked at me. I weigh about a hundred and eighty pounds, +and am well put together. Hiram was noted in his village as a +'rahstler.' But my face is rather pallid and peaked, and Hiram had +something of the greenhorn look. The two men, who had been drinking, +hardly knew what ground to take. They rather liked the sound of Sir +Michael and, Sir Hans. They did not know very well what to make of their +wives as 'ladies.' They looked doubtful whether to take what had been +said as a casus belli or not, but they wanted a pretext of some kind or +other. Presently one of them saw a label on the scoop, or longhandled, +spoon-like shovel, with which Hiram had been working. + +"'Arrah, be jabers!' exclaimed Mike Fagan, 'but has n't he been a-tradin' +wid Brown, the hardware fellah, that we boycotted! Grab it, Hans, and +we'll carry it off and show it to the brotherhood.' + +"The men made a move toward the implement. + +"'You let that are scoop-shovel alone,' said Hiram. + +"I stepped to his side. The Knights were combative, as their noble +predecessors with the same title always were, and it was necessary to +come to a voie de fait. My straight blow from the shoulder did for Sir +Michael. Hiram treated Sir Hans to what is technically known as a +cross-buttock. + +"'Naow, Dutchman,' said Hiram, 'if you don't want to be planted in that +are post-hole, y'd better take y'rself out o' this here piece of private +property. "Dangerous passin," as the sign-posts say, abaout these +times.' + +"Sir Michael went down half stunned by my expressive gesture; Sir Hans +did not know whether his hip was out of joint or he had got a bad sprain; +but they were both out of condition for further hostilities. Perhaps it +was hardly fair to take advantage of their misfortunes to inflict a +discourse upon them, but they had brought it on themselves, and we each +of us gave them a piece of our mind. + +"'I tell you what it is,' said Hiram, 'I'm a free and independent +American citizen, and I an't a-gon' to hev no man tyrannize over me, if +he doos call himself by one o' them noblemen's titles. Ef I can't work +jes' as I choose, fur folks that wants me to work fur 'em and that I want +to work fur, I might jes' as well go to Sibery and done with it. My +gran'f'ther fit in Bunker Hill battle. I guess if our folks in them days +did n't care no great abaout Lord Percy and Sir William Haowe, we an't +a-gon' to be scart by Sir Michael Fagan and Sir Hans What 's-his-name, +nor no other fellahs that undertakes to be noblemen, and tells us common +folks what we shall dew an' what we sha'n't. No, sir!' + +"I took the opportunity to explain to Sir Michael and Sir Hans what it +was our fathers fought for, and what is the meaning of liberty. If these +noblemen did not like the country, they could go elsewhere. If they did +n't like the laws, they had the ballot-box, and could choose new +legislators. But as long as the laws existed they must obey them. I +could not admit that, because they called themselves by the titles the +Old World nobility thought so much of, they had a right to interfere in +the agreements I entered into with my neighbor. I told Sir Michael that +if he would go home and help Lady Fagan to saw and split the wood for her +fire, he would be better employed than in meddling with my domestic +arrangements. I advised Sir Hans to ask Lady Schleimer for her bottle of +spirits to use as an embrocation for his lame hip. And so my two +visitors with the aristocratic titles staggered off, and left us plain, +untitled citizens, Hiram and myself, to set our posts, and consider the +question whether we lived in a free country or under the authority of a +self-constituted order of quasi-nobility." + +It is a very curious fact that, with all our boasted "free and equal" +superiority over the communities of the Old World, our people have the +most enormous appetite for Old World titles of distinction. Sir Michael +and Sir Hans belong to one of the most extended of the aristocratic +orders. But we have also "Knights and Ladies of Honor," and, what is +still grander, "Royal Conclave of Knights and Ladies," "Royal Arcanum," +and "Royal Society of Good Fellows," "Supreme Council," "Imperial +Court," "Grand Protector," and "Grand Dictator," and so on. Nothing +less than "Grand" and "Supreme" is good enough for the dignitaries of our +associations of citizens. Where does all this ambition for names without +realities come from? Because a Knight of the Garter wears a golden star, +why does the worthy cordwainer, who mends the shoes of his +fellow-citizens, want to wear a tin star, and take a name that had a +meaning as used by the representatives of ancient families, or the men +who had made themselves illustrious by their achievements? + +It appears to be a peculiarly American weakness. The French republicans +of the earlier period thought the term citizen was good enough for +anybody. At a later period, "Roi Citoyen"--the citizen king was a common +title given to Louis Philippe. But nothing is too grand for the +American, in the way of titles. The proudest of them all signify +absolutely nothing. They do not stand for ability, for public service, +for social importance, for large possessions; but, on the contrary, are +oftenest found in connection with personalities to which they are +supremely inapplicable. We can hardly afford to quarrel with a national +habit which, if lightly handled, may involve us in serious domestic +difficulties. The "Right Worshipful" functionary whose equipage stops at +my back gate, and whose services are indispensable to the health and +comfort of my household, is a dignitary whom I must not offend. I must +speak with proper deference to the lady who is scrubbing my floors, when +I remember that her husband, who saws my wood, carries a string of +high-sounding titles which would satisfy a Spanish nobleman. + +After all, every people must have its own forms of ostentation, pretence, +and vulgarity. The ancient Romans had theirs, the English and the French +have theirs as well,--why should not we Americans have ours? Educated +and refined persons must recognize frequent internal conflicts between +the "Homo sum" of Terence and the "Odi profanum vulgus" of Horace. The +nobler sentiment should be that of every true American, and it is in that +direction that our best civilization is constantly tending. + +We were waited on by a new girl, the other evening. Our pretty maiden +had left us for a visit to some relative,--so the Mistress said. I do +sincerely hope she will soon come back, for we all like to see her +flitting round the table. + +I don't know what to make of it. I had it all laid out in my mind. With +such a company there must be a love-story. Perhaps there will be, but +there may be new combinations of the elements which are to make it up, +and here is a bud among the full-blown flowers to which I must devote a +little space. + + Delilah. + +I must call her by the name we gave her after she had trimmed the Samson +locks of our Professor. Delilah is a puzzle to most of us. A pretty +creature, dangerously pretty to be in a station not guarded by all the +protective arrangements which surround the maidens of a higher social +order. It takes a strong cage to keep in a tiger or a grizzly bear, but +what iron bars, what barbed wires, can keep out the smooth and subtle +enemy that finds out the cage where beauty is imprisoned? Our young +Doctor is evidently attracted by the charming maiden who serves him and +us so modestly and so gracefully. Fortunately, the Mistress never loses +sight of her. If she were her own daughter, she could not be more +watchful of all her movements. And yet I do not believe that Delilah +needs all this overlooking. If I am not mistaken, she knows how to take +care of herself, and could be trusted anywhere, in any company, without a +duenna. She has a history,--I feel sure of it. She has been trained and +taught as young persons of higher position in life are brought up, and +does not belong in the humble station in which we find her. But inasmuch +as the Mistress says nothing about her antecedents, we do not like to be +too inquisitive. The two Annexes are, it is plain, very curious about +her. I cannot wonder. They are both good-looking girls, but Delilah is +prettier than either of them. My sight is not so good as it was, but I +can see the way in which the eyes of the young people follow each other +about plainly enough to set me thinking as to what is going on in the +thinking marrow behind them. The young Doctor's follow Delilah as she +glides round the table,--they look into hers whenever they get a chance; +but the girl's never betray any consciousness of it, so far as I can see. +There is no mistaking the interest with which the two, Annexes watch all +this. Why shouldn't they, I should like to know? The Doctor is a bright +young fellow, and wants nothing but a bald spot and a wife to find +himself in a comfortable family practice. One of the Annexes, as I have +said, has had thoughts of becoming a doctress. I don't think the Doctor +would want his wife to practise medicine, for reasons which I will not +stop to mention. Such a partnership sometimes works wonderfully well, as +in one well-known instance where husband and wife are both eminent in the +profession; but our young Doctor has said to me that he had rather see +his wife,--if he ever should have one,--at the piano than at the +dissecting-table. Of course the Annexes know nothing about this, and +they may think, as he professed himself willing to lecture on medicine to +women, he might like to take one of his pupils as a helpmeet. + +If it were not for our Delilah's humble position, I don't see why she +would not be a good match for any young man. But then it is so hard to +take a young woman from so very lowly a condition as that of a "waitress" +that it would require a deal of courage to venture on such a step. If we +could only find out that she is a princess in disguise, so to +speak,--that is, a young person of presentable connections as well as +pleasing looks and manners; that she has had an education of some kind, +as we suspected when she blushed on hearing herself spoken of as a +"gentille petite," why, then everything would be all right, the young +Doctor would have plain sailing,--that is, if he is in love with her, and +if she fancies him,--and I should find my love-story,--the one I +expected, but not between the parties I had thought would be mating with +each other. + +Dear little Delilah! Lily of the valley, growing in the shade +now,--perhaps better there until her petals drop; and yet if she is all I +often fancy she is, how her youthful presence would illuminate and +sweeten a household! There is not one of us who does not feel interested +in her,--not one of us who would not be delighted at some Cinderella +transformation which would show her in the setting Nature meant for her +favorite. + +The fancy of Number Seven about the witches' broomsticks suggested to one +of us the following poem: + + THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; + OR, THE RETURN OF THE WITCHES. + + Lookout! Look out, boys! Clear the track! + The witches are here! They've all come back! + They hanged them high,--No use! No use! + What cares a witch for a hangman's noose? + They buried them deep, but they would n't lie, still, + For cats and witches are hard to kill; + They swore they shouldn't and wouldn't die, + Books said they did, but they lie! they lie! + + --A couple of hundred years, or so, + They had knocked about in the world below, + When an Essex Deacon dropped in to call, + And a homesick feeling seized them all; + For he came from a place they knew full well, + And many a tale he had to tell. + They long to visit the haunts of men, + To see the old dwellings they knew again, + And ride on their broomsticks all around + Their wide domain of unhallowed ground. + + In Essex county there's many a roof + Well known to him of the cloven hoof; + The small square windows are full in view + Which the midnight hags went sailing through, + On their well-trained broomsticks mounted high, + Seen like shadows against the sky; + Crossing the track of owls and bats, + Hugging before them their coal-black cats. + + Well did they know, those gray old wives, + The sights we see in our daily drives + Shimmer of lake and shine of sea, + Brown's bare hill with its lonely tree, + (It wasn't then as we see it now, + With one scant scalp-lock to shade its brow;) + Dusky nooks in the Essex woods, + Dark, dim, Dante-like solitudes, + Where the tree-toad watches the sinuous snake + Glide through his forests of fern and brake; + Ipswich River; its old stone bridge; + Far off Andover's Indian Ridge, + And many a scene where history tells + Some shadow of bygone terror dwells, + Of "Norman's Woe" with its tale of dread, + Of the Screeching Woman of Marblehead, + (The fearful story that turns men pale + Don't bid me tell it,--my speech would fail.) + + Who would not, will not, if he can, + Bathe in the breezes of fair Cape Ann, + Rest in the bowers her bays enfold, + Loved by the sachems and squaws of old? + Home where the white magnolias bloom, + Sweet with the bayberry's chaste perfume, + Hugged by the woods and kissed by the seal + Where is the Eden like to thee? + + For that "couple of hundred years, or so," + There had been no peace in the world below; + The witches still grumbling, "It is n't fair; + Come, give us a taste of the upper air! + We've had enough of your sulphur springs, + And the evil odor that round them clings; + We long for a drink that is cool and nice, + Great buckets of water with Wenham ice; + We've served you well up-stairs, you know; + You're a good old-fellow--come, let us go!" + + I don't feel sure of his being good, + But he happened to be in a pleasant mood, + As fiends with their skins full sometimes are, + (He'd been drinking with "roughs" at a Boston bar.) + So what does he do but up and shout + To a graybeard turnkey, "Let 'em out!" + + To mind his orders was all he knew; + The gates swung open, and out they flew. + "Where are our broomsticks?" the beldams cried. + "Here are your broomsticks," an imp replied. + "They've been in--the place you know--so long + They smell of brimstone uncommon strong; + But they've gained by being left alone, + Just look, and you'll see how tall they've grown." + --And where is my cat? "a vixen squalled. + Yes, where are our cats?" the witches bawled, + And began to call them all by name: + As fast as they called the cats, they came + There was bob-tailed Tommy and long-tailed Tim, + And wall-eyed Jacky and green-eyed Jim, + And splay-foot Benny and slim-legged Beau, + And Skinny and Squally, and Jerry and Joe, + + And many another that came at call, + It would take too long to count them all. + All black,--one could hardly tell which was which, + But every cat knew his own old witch; + And she knew hers as hers knew her, + Ah, did n't they curl their tails and purr! + + No sooner the withered hags were free + Than out they swarmed for a midnight spree; + I could n't tell all they did in rhymes, + But the Essex people had dreadful times. + The Swampscott fishermen still relate + How a strange sea-monster stole thair bait; + How their nets were tangled in loops and knots, + And they found dead crabs in their lobster-pots. + Poor Danvers grieved for her blasted crops, + And Wilmington mourned over mildewed hops. + A blight played havoc with Beverly beans, + It was all the work of those hateful queans! + A dreadful panic began at "Pride's," + Where the witches stopped in their midnight rides, + And there rose strange rumors and vague alarms + 'Mid the peaceful dwellers at Beverly Farms. + + Now when the Boss of the Beldams found + That without his leave they were ramping round, + He called,--they could hear him twenty miles, + From Chelsea beach to the Misery Isles; + The deafest old granny knew his tone + Without the trick of the telephone. + "Come here, you witches! Come here!" says he, + --"At your games of old, without asking me + I'll give you a little job to do + That will keep you stirring, you godless crew!" + + They came, of course, at their master's call, + The witches, the broomsticks, the cats, and all; + He led the hags to a railway train + The horses were trying to drag in vain. + "Now, then," says he, "you've had your fun, + And here are the cars you've got to run. + + "The driver may just unhitch his team, + We don't want horses, we don't want steam; + You may keep your old black cats to hug, + But the loaded train you've got to lug." + + Since then on many a car you'll see + A broomstick plain as plain can be; + On every stick there's a witch astride, + The string you see to her leg is tied. + She will do a mischief if she can, + But the string is held by a careful man, + And whenever the evil-minded witch + Would cut come caper, he gives a twitch. + As for the hag, you can't see her, + But hark! you can hear her black cat's purr, + And now and then, as a car goes by, + You may catch a gleam from her wicked eye. + + Often you've looked on a rushing train, + But just what moved it was not so plain. + It couldn't be those wires above, + For they could neither pull nor shove; + Where was the motor that made it go + You couldn't guess, but now you know. + + Remember my rhymes when you ride again + On the rattling rail by the broomstick train! + + + + +X + +In my last report of our talks over the teacups I had something to say of +the fondness of our people for titles. Where did the anti-republican, +anti-democratic passion for swelling names come from, and how long has it +been naturalized among us? + +A striking instance of it occurred at about the end of the last century. +It was at that time there appeared among us one of the most original and +singular personages to whom America has given birth. Many of our +company,--many of my readers,--all well acquainted with his name, and not +wholly ignorant of his history. They will not object to my giving some +particulars relating to him, which, if not new to them, will be new to +others into whose hands these pages may fall. + +Timothy Dexter, the first claimant of a title of nobility among the +people of the United States of America, was born in the town of Malden, +near Boston. He served an apprenticeship as a leather-dresser, saved +some money, got some more with his wife, began trading and speculating, +and became at last rich, for those days. His most famous business +enterprise was that of sending an invoice of warming-pans to the West +Indies. A few tons of ice would have seemed to promise a better return; +but in point of fact, he tells us, the warming-pans were found useful in +the manufacture of sugar, and brought him in a handsome profit. His +ambition rose with his fortune. He purchased a large and stately house +in Newburyport, and proceeded to embellish and furnish it according to +the dictates of his taste and fancy. In the grounds about his house, he +caused to be erected between forty and fifty wooden statues of great men +and allegorical figures, together with four lions and one lamb. Among +these images were two statues of Dexter himself, one of which held a +label with a characteristic inscription. His house was ornamented with +minarets, adorned with golden balls, and surmounted by a large gilt +eagle. He equipped it with costly furniture, with paintings, and a +library. He went so far as to procure the services of a poet laureate, +whose business it seems to have been to sing his praises. Surrounded with +splendors like these, the plain title of "Mr." Dexter would have been +infinitely too mean and common. He therefore boldly took the step of +self-ennobling, and gave himself forth--as he said, obeying "the voice of +the people at large"--as "Lord Timothy Dexter," by which appellation he +has ever since been known to the American public. + +If to be the pioneer in the introduction of Old World titles into +republican America can confer a claim to be remembered by posterity, Lord +Timothy Dexter has a right to historic immortality. If the true American +spirit shows itself most clearly in boundless self-assertion, Timothy +Dexter is the great original American egotist. If to throw off the +shackles of Old World pedantry, and defy the paltry rules and examples of +grammarians and rhetoricians, is the special province and the chartered +privilege of the American writer, Timothy Dexter is the founder of a new +school, which tramples under foot the conventionalities that hampered and +subjugated the faculties of the poets, the dramatists, the historians, +essayists, story-tellers, orators, of the worn-out races which have +preceded the great American people. + +The material traces of the first American nobleman's existence have +nearly disappeared. The house is still standing, but the statues, the +minarets, the arches, and the memory of the great Lord Timothy Dexter +live chiefly in tradition, and in the work which he bequeathed to +posterity, and of which I shall say a few words. It is unquestionably a +thoroughly original production, and I fear that some readers may think I +am trifling with them when I am quoting it literally. I am going to make +a strong claim for Lord Timothy as against other candidates for a certain +elevated position. + +Thomas Jefferson is commonly recognized as the first to proclaim before +the world the political independence of America. It is not so generally +agreed upon as to who was the first to announce the literary emancipation +of our country. + +One of Mr. Emerson's biographers has claimed that his Phi Beta Kappa +Oration was our Declaration of Literary Independence. But Mr. Emerson +did not cut himself loose from all the traditions of Old World +scholarship. He spelled his words correctly, he constructed his +sentences grammatically. He adhered to the slavish rules of propriety, +and observed the reticences which a traditional delicacy has considered +inviolable in decent society, European and Oriental alike. When he wrote +poetry, he commonly selected subjects which seemed adapted to poetical +treatment,--apparently thinking that all things were not equally +calculated to inspire the true poet's genius. Once, indeed, he ventured +to refer to "the meal in the firkin, the milk in the pan," but he chiefly +restricted himself to subjects such as a fastidious conventionalism would +approve as having a certain fitness for poetical treatment. He was not +always so careful as he might have been in the rhythm and rhyme of his +verse, but in the main he recognized the old established laws which have +been accepted as regulating both. In short, with all his originality, he +worked in Old World harness, and cannot be considered as the creator of a +truly American, self-governed, self-centred, absolutely independent style +of thinking and writing, knowing no law but its own sovereign will and +pleasure. + +A stronger claim might be urged for Mr. Whitman. He takes into his +hospitable vocabulary words which no English dictionary recognizes as +belonging to the language,--words which will be looked for in vain +outside of his own pages. He accepts as poetical subjects all things +alike, common and unclean, without discrimination, miscellaneous as the +contents of the great sheet which Peter saw let down from heaven. He +carries the principle of republicanism through the whole world of created +objects. He will "thread a thread through [his] poems," he tells us, +"that no one thing in the universe is inferior to another thing." No man +has ever asserted the surpassing dignity and importance of the American +citizen so boldly and freely as Mr. Whitman. He calls himself "teacher +of the unquenchable creed, namely, egotism." He begins one of his +chants, "I celebrate myself," but he takes us all in as partners in his +self-glorification. He believes in America as the new Eden. + +"A world primal again,--vistas of glory incessant and branching, A new +race dominating previous ones and grander far, New politics--new +literature and religions--new inventions and arts." + +Of the new literature be himself has furnished specimens which certainly +have all the originality he can claim for them. So far as egotism is +concerned, he was clearly anticipated by the titled personage to whom I +have referred, who says of himself, "I am the first in the East, the +first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western world." +But while Mr. Whitman divests himself of a part of his baptismal name, +the distinguished New Englander thus announces his proud position: "Ime +the first Lord in the younited States of A mercary Now of Newburyport. +it is the voice of the peopel and I cant Help it." This extract is from +his famous little book called "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones." As an +inventor of a new American style he goes far beyond Mr. Whitman, who, to +be sure, cares little for the dictionary, and makes his own rules of +rhythm, so far as there is any rhythm in his sentences. But Lord Timothy +spells to suit himself, and in place of employing punctuation as it is +commonly used, prints a separate page of periods, colons, semicolons, +commas, notes of interrogation and of admiration, with which the reader +is requested to "peper and soolt" the book as he pleases. + +I am afraid that Mr. Emerson and Mr. Whitman must yield the claim of +declaring American literary independence to Lord Timothy Dexter, who not +only taught his countrymen that they need not go to the Heralds' College +to authenticate their titles of nobility, but also that they were at +perfect liberty to spell just as they liked, and to write without +troubling themselves about stops of any kind. In writing what I suppose +he intended for poetry, he did not even take the pains to break up his +lines into lengths to make them look like verse, as may be seen by the +following specimen: + + WONDER OF WONDERS! + +How great the soul is! Do not you all wonder and admire to see and +behold and hear? Can you all believe half the truth, and admire to hear +the wonders how great the soul is--only behold--past finding out! Only +see how large the soul is! that if a man is drowned in the sea what a +great bubble comes up out of the top of the water... The bubble is the +soul. + +I confess that I am not in sympathy with some of the movements that +accompany the manifestations of American social and literary +independence. I do not like the assumption of titles of Lords and +Knights by plain citizens of a country which prides itself on recognizing +simple manhood and womanhood as sufficiently entitled to respect without +these unnecessary additions. I do not like any better the familiar, and +as it seems to me rude, way of speaking of our fellow-citizens who are +entitled to the common courtesies of civilized society. I never thought +it dignified or even proper for a President of the United States to call +himself, or to be called by others, "Frank" Pierce. In the first place I +had to look in a biographical dictionary to find out whether his +baptismal name was Franklin, or Francis, or simply Frank, for I think +children are sometimes christened with this abbreviated name. But it is +too much in the style of Cowper's unpleasant acquaintance: + + "The man who hails you Tom or Jack, + And proves by thumping on your back + How he esteems your merit." + +I should not like to hear our past chief magistrates spoken of as Jack +Adams or Jim Madison, and it would have been only as a political partisan +that I should have reconciled myself to "Tom" Jefferson. So, in spite of +"Ben" Jonson, "Tom" Moore, and "Jack" Sheppard, I prefer to speak of a +fellow-citizen already venerable by his years, entitled to respect by +useful services to his country, and recognized by many as the prophet of +a new poetical dispensation, with the customary title of adults rather +than by the free and easy school-boy abbreviation with which he +introduced himself many years ago to the public. As for his rhapsodies, +Number Seven, our "cracked Teacup," says they sound to him like "fugues +played on a big organ which has been struck by lightning." So far as +concerns literary independence, if we understand by that term the getting +rid of our subjection to British criticism, such as it was in the days +when the question was asked, "Who reads an American book?" we may +consider it pretty well established. If it means dispensing with +punctuation, coining words at will, self-revelation unrestrained by a +sense of what is decorous, declamations in which everything is glorified +without being idealized, "poetry" in which the reader must make the +rhythms which the poet has not made for him, then I think we had better +continue literary colonists. I shrink from a lawless independence to +which all the virile energy and trampling audacity of Mr. Whitman fail to +reconcile me. But there is room for everybody and everything in our huge +hemisphere. Young America is like a three-year-old colt with his saddle +and bridle just taken off. The first thing he wants to do is to roll. +He is a droll object, sprawling in the grass with his four hoofs in the +air; but he likes it, and it won't harm us. So let him roll,--let him +roll. + +Of all The Teacups around our table, Number Five is the one who is the +object of the greatest interest. Everybody wants to be her friend, and +she has room enough in her hospitable nature to find a place for every +one who is worthy of the privilege. The difficulty is that it is so hard +to be her friend without becoming her lover. I have said before that she +turns the subjects of her Circe-like enchantment, not into swine, but +into lambs. The Professor and I move round among her lambs, the docile +and amiable flock that come and go at her bidding, that follow her +footsteps, and are content to live in the sunshine of her smile and +within reach of the music of her voice. I like to get her away from +their amiable bleatings; I love to talk with her about life, of which she +has seen a great deal, for she knows what it is to be an idol in society +and the centre of her social circle. It might be a question whether +women or men most admire and love her. With her own sex she is always +helpful, sympathizing, tender, charitable, sharing their griefs as well +as taking part in their pleasures. With men it has seemed to make little +difference whether they were young or old: all have found her the same +sweet, generous, unaffected companion; fresh enough in feeling for the +youngest, deep enough in the wisdom of the heart for the oldest. She +does not pretend to be youthful, nor does she trouble herself that she +has seen the roses of more Junes than many of--the younger women who +gather round her. She has not had to say, + + Comme je regrette + Mon bras si dodu, + +for her arm has never lost its roundness, and her face is one of those +that cannot be cheated of their charm even if they live long enough to +look upon the grown up grandchildren of their coevals. + +It is a wonder how Number Five can find the time to be so much to so many +friends of both sexes, in spite of the fact that she is one of the most +insatiable of readers. She not only reads, but she remembers; she not +only remembers, but she records, for her own use and pleasure, and for +the delight and profit of those who are privileged to look over her +note-books. Number Five, as I think I have said before, has not the +ambition to figure as an authoress. That she could write most agreeably +is certain. I have seen letters of hers to friends which prove that +clearly enough. Whether she would find prose or verse the most natural +mode of expression I cannot say, but I know she is passionately fond of +poetry, and I should not be surprised if, laid away among the pressed +pansies and roses of past summers, there were poems, songs, perhaps, of +her own, which she sings to herself with her fingers touching the piano; +for to that she tells her secrets in tones sweet as the ring-dove's call +to her mate. + +I am afraid it may be suggested that I am drawing Number Five's portrait +too nearly after some model who is unconsciously sitting for it; but have +n't I told you that you must not look for flesh and blood personalities +behind or beneath my Teacups? I am not going to make these so lifelike +that you will be saying, This is Mr. or Miss, or Mrs. So-and-So. My +readers must remember that there are very many pretty, sweet, amiable +girls and women sitting at their pianos, and finding chords to the music +of their heart-strings. If I have pictured Number Five as one of her +lambs might do it, I have succeeded in what I wanted to accomplish. Why +don't I describe her person? If I do, some gossip or other will be sure +to say, "Oh, he means her, of course," and find a name to match the +pronoun. + +It is strange to see how we are all coming to depend upon the friendly +aid of Number Five in our various perplexities. The Counsellor asked her +opinion in one of those cases where a divorce was too probable, but a +reconciliation was possible. It takes a woman to sound a woman's heart, +and she found there was still love enough under the ruffled waters to +warrant the hope of peace and tranquillity. The young Doctor went to her +for counsel in the case of a hysteric girl possessed with the idea that +she was a born poetess, and covering whole pages of foolscap with +senseless outbursts, which she wrote in paroxysms of wild excitement, and +read with a rapture of self-admiration which there was nothing in her +verses to justify or account for. How sweetly Number Five dealt with +that poor deluded sister in her talk with the Doctor! "Yes," she said to +him, "nothing can be fuller of vanity, self-worship, and self-deception. +But we must be very gentle with her. I knew a young girl tormented with +aspirations, and possessed by a belief that she was meant for a higher +place than that which fate had assigned her, who needed wholesome advice, +just as this poor young thing does. She did not ask for it, and it was +not offered. Alas, alas! 'no man cared for her soul,'--no man nor woman +either. She was in her early teens, and the thought of her earthly +future, as it stretched out before her, was more than she could bear, and +she sought the presence of her Maker to ask the meaning of her abortive +existence.--We will talk it over. I will help you take care of this +child." + +The Doctor was thankful to have her assistance in a case with which he +would have found it difficult to deal if he had been left to, his unaided +judgment, and between them the young girl was safely piloted through the +perilous straits in which she came near shipwreck. + +I know that it is commonly said of her that every male friend of hers +must become her lover unless he is already lassoed by another. Il fait +passer par l'a. The young Doctor is, I think, safe, for I am convinced +that he is bewitched with Delilah. Since she has left us, he has seemed +rather dejected; I feel sure that he misses her. We all do, but he more +seriously than the rest of us. I have said that I cannot tell whether +the Counsellor is to be counted as one of Number Five's lambs or not, but +he evidently admires her, and if he is not fascinated, looks as if he +were very near that condition. + +It was a more delicate matter about which the Tutor talked with her. +Something which she had pleasantly said to him about the two Annexes led +him to ask her, more or less seriously, it may be remembered, about the +fitness of either of them to be the wife of a young man in his position. +She talked so sensibly, as it seemed to him, about it that he continued +the conversation, and, shy as he was, became quite easy and confidential +in her company. The Tutor is not only a poet, but is a great reader of +the poetry of many languages. It so happened that Number Five was +puzzled, one day, in reading a sonnet of Petrarch, and had recourse to +the Tutor to explain the difficult passage. She found him so thoroughly +instructed, so clear, so much interested, so ready to impart knowledge, +and so happy in his way of doing it, that she asked him if he would not +allow her the privilege of reading an Italian author under his guidance, +now and then. + +The Tutor found Number Five an apt scholar, and something more than that; +for while, as a linguist, he was, of course, her master, her intelligent +comments brought out the beauties of an author in a way to make the text +seem like a different version. They did not always confine themselves to +the book they were reading. Number Five showed some curiosity about the +Tutor's relations with the two Annexes. She suggested whether it would +not be well to ask one or both of them in to take part in their readings. +The Tutor blushed and hesitated. "Perhaps you would like to ask one of +them," said Number Five. "Which one shall it be?" "It makes no +difference to me which," he answered, "but I do not see that we need +either." Number Five did not press the matter further. So the young +Tutor and Number Five read together pretty regularly, and came to depend +upon their meeting over a book as one of their stated seasons of +enjoyment. He is so many years younger than she is that I do not suppose +he will have to pass par la, as most of her male friends have done. I +tell her sometimes that she reminds me of my Alma Mater, always young, +always fresh in her attractions, with her scholars all round her, many of +them graduates, or to graduate sooner or later. + +What do I mean by graduates? Why, that they have made love to her, and +would be entitled to her diploma, if she gave a parchment to each one of +them who had had the courage to face the inevitable. About the +Counsellor I am, as I have said, in doubt. Who wrote that "I Like You +and I Love You," which we found in the sugar-bowl the other day? Was it +a graduate who had felt the "icy dagger," or only a candidate for +graduation who was afraid of it? So completely does she subjugate those +who come under her influence that I believe she looks upon it as a matter +of course that the fateful question will certainly come, often after a +brief acquaintance. She confessed as much to me, who am in her +confidence, and not a candidate for graduation from her academy. Her +graduates--her lambs I called them--are commonly faithful to her, and +though now and then one may have gone off and sulked in solitude, most of +them feel kindly to her, and to those who have shared the common fate of +her suitors. I do really believe that some of them would be glad to see +her captured by any one, if such there can be, who is worthy of her. She +is the best of friends, they say, but can she love anybody, as so many +other women do, or seem to? Why shouldn't our Musician, who is evidently +fond of her company, and sings and plays duets with her, steal her heart +as Piozzi stole that of the pretty and bright Mrs. Thrale, as so many +music-teachers have run away with their pupils' hearts? At present she +seems to be getting along very placidly and contentedly with her young +friend the Tutor. There is something quite charming in their relations +with each other. He knows many things she does not, for he is reckoned +one of the most learned in his literary specialty of all the young men of +his time; and it can be a question of only a few years when some +first-class professorship will be offered him. She, on the other hand, +has so much more experience, so much more practical wisdom, than he has +that he consults her on many every-day questions, as he did, or made +believe do, about that of making love to one of the two Annexes. I had +thought, when we first sat round the tea-table, that she was good for the +bit of romance I wanted; but since she has undertaken to be a kind of +half-maternal friend to the young Tutor, I am afraid I shall have to give +her up as the heroine of a romantic episode. It would be a pity if there +were nothing to commend these papers to those who take up this periodical +but essays, more or less significant, on subjects more or less +interesting to the jaded and impatient readers of the numberless stories +and entertaining articles which crowd the magazines of this prolific +period. A whole year of a tea-table as large as ours without a single +love passage in it would be discreditable to the company. We must find +one, or make one, before the tea-things are taken away and the table is +no longer spread. + + The Dictator turns preacher. + +We have so many light and playful talks over the teacups that some +readers may be surprised to find us taking up the most serious and solemn +subject which can occupy a human intelligence. The sudden appearance +among our New England Protestants of the doctrine of purgatory as a +possibility, or even probability, has startled the descendants of the +Puritans. It has naturally led to a reconsideration of the doctrine of +eternal punishment. It is on that subject that Number Five and I have +talked together. I love to listen to her, for she talks from the +promptings of a true woman's heart. I love to talk to her, for I learn +my own thoughts better in that way than in any other "L'appetit vient en +mangeant," the French saying has it. "L'esprit vient en causant;" that +is, if one can find the right persons to talk with. + +The subject which has specially interested Number Five and myself, of +late, was suggested to me in the following way. + +Some two years ago I received a letter from a clergyman who bears by +inheritance one of the most distinguished names which has done honor to +the American "Orthodox" pulpit. This letter requested of me "a +contribution to a proposed work which was to present in their own +language the views of 'many men of many minds' on the subject of future +punishment. It was in my mind to let the public hear not only from +professional theologians, but from other professions, as from jurists on +the alleged but disputed value of the hangman's whip overhanging the +witness-box, and from physicians on the working of beliefs about the +future life in the minds of the dangerously sick. And I could not help +thinking what a good thing it would be to draw out the present writer +upon his favorite borderland between the spiritual and the material." +The communication came to me, as the writer reminds me in a recent +letter, at a "painfully inopportune time," and though it was courteously +answered, was not made the subject of a special reply. + +This request confers upon me a certain right to express my opinion on +this weighty subject without fear and without reproach even from those +who might be ready to take offence at one of the laity for meddling with +pulpit questions. It shows also that this is not a dead issue in our +community, as some of the younger generation seem to think. There are +some, there may be many, who would like to hear what impressions one has +received on the subject referred to, after a long life in which he has +heard and read a great deal about the matter. There is a certain gravity +in the position of one who is, in the order of nature very near the +undiscovered country. A man who has passed his eighth decade feels as if +he were already in the antechamber of the apartments which he may be +called to occupy in the house of many mansions. His convictions +regarding the future of our race are likely to be serious, and his +expressions not lightly uttered. The question my correspondent suggests +is a tremendous one. No other interest compares for one moment with that +belonging to it. It is not only ourselves that it concerns, but all whom +we love or ever have loved, all our human brotherhood, as well as our +whole idea of the Being who made us and the relation in which He stands +to his creatures. In attempting to answer my correspondent's question, I +shall no doubt repeat many things I have said before in different forms, +on different occasions. This is no more than every clergyman does +habitually, and it would be hard if I could not have the same license +which the professional preacher enjoys so fully. + +Number Five and I have occasionally talked on religious questions, and +discovered many points of agreement in our views. Both of us grew up +under the old "Orthodox" or Calvinistic system of belief. Both of us +accepted it in our early years as a part of our education. Our experience +is a common one. William Cullen Bryant says of himself, "The Calvinistic +system of divinity I adopted of course, as I heard nothing else taught +from the pulpit, and supposed it to be the accepted belief of the +religious world." But it was not the "five points" which remained in the +young poet's memory and shaped his higher life. It was the influence of +his mother that left its permanent impression after the questions and +answers of the Assembly's Catechism had faded out, or remained in memory +only as fossil survivors of an extinct or fast-disappearing theological +formation. The important point for him, as for so many other children of +Puritan descent, was not his father's creed, but his mother's character, +precepts, and example. "She was a person," he says, "of excellent +practical sense, of a quick and sensitive moral judgment, and had no +patience with any form of deceit or duplicity. Her prompt condemnation of +injustice, even in those instances in which it is tolerated by the world, +made a strong impression upon me in early life; and if, in the discussion +of public questions, I have in my riper age endeavored to keep in view +the great rule of right without much regard to persons, it has been owing +in a great degree to the force of her example, which taught me never to +countenance a wrong because others did." + +I have quoted this passage because it was an experience not wholly unlike +my own, and in certain respects like that of Number Five. To grow up in +a narrow creed and to grow out of it is a tremendous trial of one's +nature. There is always a bond of fellowship between those who have been +through such an ordeal. + +The experiences we have had in common naturally lead us to talk over the +theological questions which at this time are constantly presenting +themselves to the public, not only in the books and papers expressly +devoted to that class of subjects, but in many of the newspapers and +popular periodicals, from the weeklies to the quarterlies. The pulpit +used to lay down the law to the pews; at the present time, it is of more +consequence what the pews think than what the minister does, for the +obvious reason that the pews can change their minister, and often do, +whereas the minister cannot change the pews, or can do so only to a very +limited extent. The preacher's garment is cut according to the pattern +of that of the hearers, for the most part. Thirty years ago, when I was +writing on theological subjects, I came in for a very pretty share of +abuse, such as it was the fashion of that day, at least in certain +quarters, to bestow upon those who were outside of the high-walled +enclosures in which many persons; not naturally unamiable or exclusive, +found themselves imprisoned. Since that time what changes have taken +place! Who will believe that a well-behaved and reputable citizen could +have been denounced as a "moral parricide," because he attacked some of +the doctrines in which he was supposed to have been brought up? A single +thought should have prevented the masked theologian who abused his +incognito from using such libellous language. + +Much, and in many families most, of the religious teaching of children is +committed to the mother. The experience of William Cullen Bryant, which +I have related in his own words, is that of many New England children. +Now, the sternest dogmas that ever came from a soul cramped or palsied by +an obsolete creed become wonderfully softened in passing between the lips +of a mother. The cruel doctrine at which all but case-hardened +"professionals" shudder cones out, as she teaches and illustrates it, as +unlike its original as the milk which a peasant mother gives her babe is +unlike the coarse food which furnishes her nourishment. The virus of a +cursing creed is rendered comparatively harmless by the time it reaches +the young sinner in the nursery. Its effects fall as far short of what +might have been expected from its virulence as the pearly vaccine vesicle +falls short of the terrors of the confluent small-pox. Controversialists +should therefore be careful (for their own sakes, for they hurt nobody so +much as themselves) how they use such terms as "parricide" as +characterizing those who do not agree in all points with the fathers whom +or whose memory they honor and venerate. They might with as much +propriety call them matricides, if they did not agree with the milder +teachings of their mothers. I can imagine Jonathan Edwards in the +nursery with his three-year-old child upon his knee. The child looks up +to his face and says to him,--"Papa, nurse tells me that you say God +hates me worse than He hates one of those horrid ugly snakes that crawl +all round. Does God hate me so?" + +"Alas! my child, it is but too true. So long as you are out of Christ +you are as a viper, and worse than a viper, in his sight." + +By and by, Mrs. Edwards, one of the loveliest of women and sweetest of +mothers, comes into the nursery. The child is crying. + +"What is the matter, my darling?" + +"Papa has been telling me that God hates me worse than a snake." + +Poor, gentle, poetical, sensitive, spiritual, almost celestial Mrs. +Jonathan Edwards! On the one hand the terrible sentence conceived, +written down, given to the press, by the child's father; on the other +side the trusting child looking up at her, and all the mother pleading in +her heart against the frightful dogma of her revered husband. Do you +suppose she left that poison to rankle in the tender soul of her darling? +Would it have been moral parricide for a son of the great divine to have +repudiated the doctrine which degraded his blameless infancy to the +condition and below the condition of the reptile? Was it parricide in +the second or third degree when his descendant struck out that venomous +sentence from the page in which it stood as a monument to what depth +Christian heathenism could sink under the teaching of the great master of +logic and spiritual inhumanity? It is too late to be angry about the +abuse a well--meaning writer received thirty years ago. The whole +atmosphere has changed since then. It is mere childishness to expect men +to believe as their fathers did; that is, if they have any minds of their +own. The world is a whole generation older and wiser than when the father +was of his son's age. + +So far as I have observed persons nearing the end of life, the Roman +Catholics understand the business of dying better than Protestants. They +have an expert by them, armed with spiritual specifics, in which they +both, patient and priestly ministrant, place implicit trust. Confession, +the Eucharist, Extreme Unction,--these all inspire a confidence which +without this symbolism is too apt to be wanting in over-sensitive +natures. They have been peopled in earlier years with ghastly spectres +of avenging fiends, moving in a sleepless world of devouring flames and +smothering exhalations; where nothing lives but the sinner, the fiends, +and the reptiles who help to make life an unending torture. It is no +wonder that these images sometimes return to the enfeebled intelligence. +To exorcise them, the old Church of Christendom has her mystic formulae, +of which no rationalistic prescription can take the place. If Cowper had +been a good Roman Catholic, instead of having his conscience handled by a +Protestant like John Newton, he would not have died despairing, looking +upon himself as a castaway. I have seen a good many Roman Catholics on +their dying beds, and it always appeared to me that they accepted the +inevitable with a composure which showed that their belief, whether or +not the best to live by, was a better one to die by than most of the +harder creeds which have replaced it. + +In the more intelligent circles of American society one may question +anything and everything, if he will only do it civilly. We may talk +about eschatology, the science of last things,--or, if you will, the +natural history of the undiscovered country, without offence before +anybody except young children and very old women of both sexes. In our +New England the great Andover discussion and the heretical missionary +question have benumbed all sensibility on this subject as entirely, as +completely, as the new local anaesthetic, cocaine, deadens the +sensibility of the part to which it is applied, so that the eye may have +its mote or beam plucked out without feeling it,--as the novels of Zola +and Maupassant have hardened the delicate nerve-centres of the women who +have fed their imaginations on the food they have furnished. + +The generally professed belief of the Protestant world as embodied in +their published creeds is that the great mass of mankind are destined to +an eternity of suffering. That this eternity is to be one of bodily +pain--of "torment "--is the literal teaching of Scripture, which has been +literally interpreted by the theologians, the poets, and the artists of +many long ages which followed the acceptance of the recorded legends of +the church as infallible. The doctrine has always been recognized, as it +is now, as a very terrible one. It has found a support in the story of +the fall of man, and the view taken of the relation of man to his Maker +since that event. The hatred of God to mankind in virtue of their "first +disobedience" and inherited depravity is at the bottom of it. The extent +to which that idea was carried is well shown in the expressions I have +borrowed from Jonathan Edwards. According to his teaching,--and he was a +reasoner who knew what he was talking about, what was involved in the +premises of the faith he accepted,--man inherits the curse of God as his +principal birthright. + +What shall we say to the doctrine of the fall of man as the ground of +inflicting endless misery on the human race? A man to be punished for +what he could not help! He was expected to be called to account for +Adam's sin. It is singular to notice that the reasoning of the wolf with +the lamb should be transferred to the dealings of the Creator with his +creatures. "You stirred the brook up and made my drinking-place muddy." +"But, please your wolfship, I couldn't do that, for I stirred the water +far down the stream,--below your drinking-place." "Well, anyhow, your +father troubled it a year or two ago, and that is the same thing." So +the wolf falls upon the lamb and makes a meal of him. That is wolf +logic,--and theological reasoning. + +How shall we characterize the doctrine of endless torture as the destiny +of most of those who have lived, and are living, on this planet? I +prefer to let another writer speak of it. Mr. John Morley uses the +following words: "The horrors of what is perhaps the most frightful idea +that has ever corroded human character,--the idea of eternal punishment." +Sismondi, the great historian, heard a sermon on eternal punishment, and +vowed never again to enter another church holding the same creed. +Romanism he considered a religion of mercy and peace by the side of what +the English call the Reformation.--I mention these protests because I +happen to find them among my notes, but it would be easy to accumulate +examples of the same kind. When Cowper, at about the end of the last +century, said satirically of the minister he was attacking, + + "He never mentioned hell to ears polite," + +he was giving unconscious evidence that the sense of the barbarism of the +idea was finding its way into the pulpit. When Burns, in the midst of +the sulphurous orthodoxy of Scotland, dared to say, + + "The fear o' hell 's a hangman's whip + To haud the wretch in order," + +he was only appealing to the common sense and common humanity of his +fellow-countrymen. + +All the reasoning in the world, all the proof-texts in old manuscripts, +cannot reconcile this supposition of a world of sleepless and endless +torment with the declaration that "God is love." + +Where did this "frightful idea" come from? We are surprised, as we grow +older, to find that the legendary hell of the church is nothing more nor +less than the Tartarus of the old heathen world. It has every mark of +coming from the cruel heart of a barbarous despot. Some malignant and +vindictive Sheik, some brutal Mezentius, must have sat for many pictures +of the Divinity. It was not enough to kill his captive enemy, after +torturing him as much as ingenuity could contrive to do it. He escaped +at last by death, but his conqueror could not give him up so easily, and +so his vengeance followed him into the unseen and unknown world. How the +doctrine got in among, the legends of the church we are no more bound to +show than we are to account for the intercalation of the "three +witnesses" text, or the false insertion, or false omission, whichever it +may be, of the last twelve verses of the Gospel of St Mark. We do not +hang our grandmothers now, as our ancestors did theirs, on the strength +of the positive command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." + +The simple truth is that civilization has outgrown witchcraft, and is +outgrowing the Christian Tartarus. The pulpit no longer troubles itself +about witches and their evil doings. All the legends in the world could +not arrest the decay of that superstition and all the edicts that grew +out of it. All the stories that can be found in old manuscripts will +never prevent the going out of the fires of the legendary Inferno. It is +not much talked about nowadays to ears polite or impolite. Humanity is +shocked and repelled by it. The heart of woman is in unconquerable +rebellion against it. The more humane sects tear it from their "Bodies +of Divinity" as if it were the flaming shirt of Nessus. A few doctrines +with which it was bound up have dropped or are dropping away from it: the +primal curse; consequential damages to give infinite extension to every +transgression of the law of God; inverting the natural order of relative +obligations; stretching the smallest of finite offenses to the +proportions of the infinite; making the babe in arms the responsible +being, and not the parent who gave it birth and determined its conditions +of existence. + +After a doctrine like "the hangman's whip" has served its purpose,--if it +ever had any useful purpose,--after a doctrine like that of witchcraft +has hanged old women enough, civilization contrives to get rid of it. +When we say that civilization crowds out the old superstitious legends, +we recognize two chief causes. The first is the naked individual +protest; the voice of the inspiration which giveth man understanding. +This shows itself conspicuously in the modern poets. Burns in Scotland, +Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, in America, preached a new gospel to the +successors of men like Thomas Boston and Jonathan Edwards. In due +season, the growth of knowledge, chiefly under the form of that part of +knowledge called science, so changes the views of the universe that many +of its long-unchallenged legends become no more than nursery tales. The +text-books of astronomy and geology work their way in between the +questions and answers of the time-honored catechisms. The doctrine of +evolution, so far as it is accepted, changes the whole relations of man +to the creative power. It substitutes infinite hope in the place of +infinite despair for the vast majority of mankind. Instead of a +shipwreck, from which a few cabin passengers and others are to be saved +in the long-boat, it gives mankind a vessel built to endure the tempests, +and at last to reach a port where at the worst the passengers can find +rest, and where they may hope for a home better than any which they ever +had in their old country. It is all very well to say that men and women +had their choice whether they would reach the safe harbor or not. + + "Go to it grandam, child; + Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will + Give it a plum, a cherry and a fig." + +We know what the child will take. So which course we shall take depends +very much on the way the choice is presented to us, and on what the +chooser is by nature. What he is by nature is not determined by himself, +but by his parentage. "They know not what they do." In one sense this +is true of every human being. The agent does not know, never can know, +what makes him that which he is. What we most want to ask of our Maker +is an unfolding of the divine purpose in putting human beings into +conditions in which such numbers of them would be sure to go wrong. We +want an advocate of helpless humanity whose task it shall be, in the +words of Milton, + + "To justify the ways of God to man." + +We have heard Milton's argument, but for the realization of his vision of +the time + + "When Hell itself shall pass away, + And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day," + +our suffering race must wait in patience. + +The greater part of the discourse the reader has had before him was +delivered over the teacups one Sunday afternoon. The Mistress looked +rather grave, as if doubtful whether she ought not to signify her +disapprobation of what seemed to her dangerous doctrine. + +However, as she knew that I was a good church-goer and was on the best +terms with her minister, she said nothing to show that she had taken the +alarm. Number Five listened approvingly. We had talked the question +over well, and were perfectly agreed on the main point. How could it be +otherwise? Do you suppose that any intellectual, spiritual woman, with a +heart under her bodice, can for a moment seriously believe that the +greater number of the high-minded men, the noble and lovely women, the +ingenuous and affectionate children, whom she knows and honors or loves, +are to be handed over to the experts in a great torture-chamber, in +company with the vilest creatures that have once worn human shape? + +"If there is such a world as used to be talked about from the pulpit, you +may depend upon it," she said to me once, "there will soon be organized a +Humane Society in heaven, and a mission established among 'the spirits in +prison.'" + +Number Five is a regular church-goer, as I am. I do not believe either +of us would darken the doors of a church if we were likely to hear any of +the "old-fashioned" sermons, such as I used to listen to in former years +from a noted clergyman, whose specialty was the doctrine of eternal +punishment. But you may go to the churches of almost any of our +Protestant denominations, and hear sermons by which you can profit, +because the ministers are generally good men, whose moral and spiritual +natures are above the average, and who know that the harsh preaching of +two or three generations ago would offend and alienate a large part of +their audience. So neither Number Five nor I are hypocrites in attending +church or "going to meeting." I am afraid it does not make a great deal +of difference to either of us what may be the established creed of the +worshipping assembly. That is a matter of great interest, perhaps of +great importance, to them, but of much less, comparatively, to us. +Companionship in worship, and sitting quiet for an hour while a trained +speaker, presumably somewhat better than we are, stirs up our spiritual +nature,--these are reasons enough to Number Five, as to me, for regular +attendance on divine worship. + +Number Seven is of a different way of thinking and feeling. He insists +upon it that the churches keep in their confessions of faith statements +which they do not believe, and that it is notorious that they are afraid +to meddle with them. The Anglo-American church has dropped the +Athanasian Creed from its service; the English mother church is afraid +to. There are plenty of Universalists, Number Seven says, in the +Episcopalian and other Protestant churches, but they do not avow their +belief in any frank and candid fashion. The churches know very well, he +maintains, that the fear of everlasting punishment more than any or all +other motives is the source of their power and the support of their +organizations. Not only are the fears of mankind the whip to scourge and +the bridle to restrain them, but they are the basis of an almost +incalculable material interest. "Talk about giving up the doctrine of +endless punishment by fire!" exclaimed Number Seven; "there is more +capital embarked in the subterranean fire-chambers than in all the +iron-furnaces on the face of the earth. To think what an army of +clerical beggars would be turned loose on the world, if once those raging +flames were allowed to go out or to calm down! Who can wonder that the +old conservatives draw back startled and almost frightened at the thought +that there may be a possible escape for some victims whom the Devil was +thought to have secured? How many more generations will pass before +Milton's alarming prophecy will find itself realized in the belief of +civilized mankind?" + +Remember that Number Seven is called a "crank" by many persons, and take +his remarks for just what they are worth, and no more. + +Out of the preceding conversation must have originated the following +poem, which was found in the common receptacle of these versified +contributions: + + TARTARUS. + + While in my simple gospel creed + That "God is Love" so plain I read, + Shall dreams of heathen birth affright + My pathway through the coming night? + Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale + Fill with their threats the shadowy vale, + With Thee my faltering steps to aid, + How can I dare to be afraid? + + Shall mouldering page or fading scroll + Outface the charter of the soul? + Shall priesthood's palsied arm protect + The wrong our human hearts reject, + And smite the lips whose shuddering cry + Proclaims a cruel creed a lie? + The wizard's rope we disallow + Was justice once,--is murder now! + + Is there a world of blank despair, + And dwells the Omnipresent there? + Does He behold with smile serene + The shows of that unending scene, + Where sleepless, hopeless anguish lies, + And, ever dying, never dies? + + Say, does He hear the sufferer's groan, + And is that child of wrath his own? + O mortal, wavering in thy trust, + Lift thy pale forehead from the dust + The mists that cloud thy darkened eyes + Fade ere they reach the o'erarching skies! + When the blind heralds of despair + Would bid thee doubt a Father's care, + Look up from earth, and read above + On heaven's blue tablet, GOD IS LOVE! + + + + +XI + + The tea is sweetened. + +We have been going on very pleasantly of late, each of us pretty well +occupied with his or her special business. The Counsellor has been +pleading in a great case, and several of The Teacups were in the +court-room. I thought, but I will not be certain, that some of his +arguments were addressed to Number Five rather than to the jury,--the +more eloquent passages especially. + +Our young Doctor seems to me to be gradually getting known in the +neighborhood and beyond it. A member of one of the more influential +families, whose regular physician has gone to Europe, has sent for him to +come and see her, and as the patient is a nervous lady, who has nothing +in particular the matter with her, he is probably in for a good many +visits and a long bill by and by. He has even had a call at a distance +of some miles from home,--at least he has had to hire a conveyance +frequently of late, for he has not yet set up his own horse and chaise. +We do not like to ask him about who his patient may be, but he or she is +probably a person of some consequence, as he is absent several hours on +these out-of-town visits. He may get a good practice before his bald +spot makes its appearance, for I have looked for it many times without as +yet seeing a sign of it. I am sure he must feel encouraged, for he has +been very bright and cheerful of late; and if he sometimes looks at our +new handmaid as if he wished she were Delilah, I do not think he is +breaking his heart about her absence. Perhaps he finds consolation in +the company of the two Annexes, or one of them,--but which, I cannot make +out. He is in consultations occasionally with Number Five, too, but +whether professionally or not I have no means of knowing. I cannot for +the life of me see what Number Five wants of a doctor for herself, so +perhaps it is another difficult case in which her womanly sagacity is +called upon to help him. + +In the mean time she and the Tutor continue their readings. In fact, it +seems as if these readings were growing more frequent, and lasted longer +than they did at first. There is a little arbor in the grounds connected +with our place of meeting, and sometimes they have gone there for their +readings. Some of The Teacups have listened outside once in a while, for +the Tutor reads well, and his clear voice must be heard in the more +emphatic passages, whether one is expressly listening or not. But +besides the reading there is now and then some talking, and persons +talking in an arbor do not always remember that latticework, no matter +how closely the vines cover it, is not impenetrable to the sound of the +human voice. There was a listener one day,--it was not one of The +Teacups, I am happy to say,--who heard and reported some fragments of a +conversation which reached his ear. Nothing but the profound intimacy +which exists between myself and the individual reader whose eyes are on +this page would induce me to reveal what I was told of this conversation. +The first words seem to have been in reply to some question. + +"Why, my dear friend, how can you think of such a thing? Do you know--I +am--old enough to be your--[I think she must have been on the point of +saying mother, but that was more than any woman could be expected to +say]--old enough to be your aunt?" + +"To be sure you are," answered the Tutor, "and what of it? I have two +aunts, both younger than I am. Your years may be more than mine, but +your life is fuller of youthful vitality than mine is. I never feel so +young as when I have been with you. I don't believe in settling +affinities by the almanac. You know what I have told you more than once; +you have n't 'bared the ice-cold dagger's edge' upon me yet; may I not +cherish the".... + +What a pity that the listener did not hear the rest of the sentence and +the reply to it, if there was one! The readings went on the same as +before, but I thought that Number Five was rather more silent and more +pensive than she had been. + +I was much pleased when the American Annex came to me one day and told me +that she and the English Annex were meditating an expedition, in which +they wanted the other Teacups to join. About a dozen miles from us is an +educational institution of the higher grade, where a large number of +young ladies are trained in literature, art, and science, very much as +their brothers are trained in the colleges. Our two young ladies have +already been through courses of this kind in different schools, and are +now busy with those more advanced studies which are ventured upon by only +a limited number of "graduates." They have heard a good deal about this +institution, but have never visited it. + +Every year, as the successive classes finish their course, there is a +grand reunion of the former students, with an "exhibition," as it is +called, in which the graduates of the year have an opportunity of showing +their proficiency in the various branches taught. On that occasion +prizes are awarded for excellence in different departments. It would be +hard to find a more interesting ceremony. These girls, now recognized as +young ladies, are going forth as missionaries of civilization among our +busy people. They are many of them to be teachers, and those who have +seen what opportunities they have to learn will understand their fitness +for that exalted office. Many are to be the wives and mothers of the +generation next coming upon the stage. Young and beautiful, "youth is +always beautiful," said old Samuel Rogers,--their countenances radiant +with developed intelligence, their complexions, their figures, their +movements, all showing that they have had plenty of outdoor as well as +indoor exercise, and have lived well in all respects, one would like to +read on the wall of the hall where they are assembled,-- + + Siste, viator! + Si uxorem requiris, circumspice! + +This proposed expedition was a great event in our comparatively quiet +circle. The Mistress, who was interested in the school, undertook to be +the matron of the party. The young Doctor, who knew the roads better +than any of us, was to be our pilot. He arranged it so that he should +have the two Annexes under his more immediate charge. We were all on the +lookout to see which of the two was to be the favored one, for it was +pretty well settled among The Teacups that a wife he must have, whether +the bald spot came or not; he was getting into business, and he could not +achieve a complete success as a bachelor. + +Number Five and the Tutor seemed to come together as a matter of course. +I confess that I could not help regretting that our pretty Delilah was +not to be one of the party. She always looked so young, so fresh,--she +would have enjoyed the excursion so much, that if she had been still with +us I would have told the Mistress that she must put on her best dress; +and if she had n't one nice enough, I would give her one myself. I +thought, too, that our young Doctor would have liked to have her with us; +but he appeared to be getting along very well with the Annexes, one of +whom it seems likely that he will annex to himself and his fortunes, if +she fancies him, which is not improbable. + +The organizing of this expedition was naturally a cause of great +excitement among The Teacups. The party had to be arranged in such a way +as to suit all concerned, which was a delicate matter. It was finally +managed in this way: The Mistress was to go with a bodyguard, consisting +of myself, the Professor, and Number Seven, who was good company, with +all his oddities. The young Doctor was to take the two Annexes in a +wagon, and the Tutor was to drive Number Five in a good old-fashioned +chaise drawn by a well-conducted family horse. As for the Musician, he +had gone over early, by special invitation, to take a part in certain +musical exercises which were to have a place in the exhibition. This +arrangement appeared to be in every respect satisfactory. The Doctor was +in high spirits, apparently delighted, and devoting himself with great +gallantry to his two fair companions. The only question which intruded +itself was, whether he might not have preferred the company of one to +that of two. But both looked very attractive in their best dresses: the +English Annex, the rosier and heartier of the two; the American girl, +more delicate in features, more mobile and excitable, but suggesting the +thought that she would tire out before the other. Which of these did he +most favor? It was hard to say. He seemed to look most at the English +girl, and yet he talked more with the American girl. In short, he +behaved particularly well, and neither of the young ladies could complain +that she was not attended to. As to the Tutor and Number Five, their +going together caused no special comment. Their intimacy was accepted as +an established fact, and nothing but the difference in their ages +prevented the conclusion that it was love, and not mere friendship, which +brought them together. There was, no doubt, a strong feeling among many +people that Number Five's affections were a kind of Gibraltar or +Ehrenbreitstein, say rather a high table-land in the region of perpetual, +unmelting snow. It was hard for these people to believe that any man of +mortal mould could find a foothold in that impregnable fortress,--could +climb to that height and find the flower of love among its glaciers. The +Tutor and Number Five were both quiet, thoughtful: he, evidently +captivated; she, what was the meaning of her manner to him? Say that she +seemed fond of him, as she might be were he her nephew,--one for whom she +had a special liking. If she had a warmer feeling than this, she could +hardly know how to manage it; for she was so used to having love made to +her without returning it that she would naturally be awkward in dealing +with the new experience. + +The Doctor drove a lively five-year-old horse, and took the lead. The +Tutor followed with a quiet, steady-going nag; if he had driven the +five-year-old, I would not have answered for the necks of the pair in the +chaise, for he was too much taken up with the subject they were talking +of, to be very careful about his driving. The Mistress and her escort +brought up the rear,--I holding the reins, the Professor at my side, and +Number Seven sitting with the Mistress. + +We arrived at the institution a little later than we had expected to, and +the students were flocking into the hall, where the Commencement +exercises were to take place, and the medal-scholars were to receive the +tokens of their excellence in the various departments. From our seats we +could see the greater part of the assembly,--not quite all, however of +the pupils. A pleasing sight it was to look upon, this array of young +ladies dressed in white, with their class badges, and with the ribbon of +the shade of blue affected by the scholars of the institution. If +Solomon in all his glory was not to be compared to a lily, a whole bed of +lilies could not be compared to this garden-bed of youthful womanhood. + +The performances were very much the same as most of us have seen at the +academies and collegiate schools. Some of the graduating class read +their "compositions," one of which was a poem,--an echo of the prevailing +American echoes, of course, but prettily worded and intelligently read. +Then there was a song sung by a choir of the pupils, led by their +instructor, who was assisted by the Musician whom we count among The +Teacups.--There was something in one of the voices that reminded me of +one I had heard before. Where could it have been? I am sure I cannot +remember. There are some good voices in our village choir, but none so +pure and bird-like as this. A sudden thought came into my head, but I +kept it to myself. I heard a tremulous catching of the breath, something +like a sob, close by me. It was the Mistress,--she was crying. What was +she crying for? It was impressive, certainly, to listen to these young +voices, many of them blending for the last time,--for the scholars were +soon to be scattered all over the country, and some of them beyond its +boundaries,--but why the Mistress was so carried away, I did not know. +She must be more impressible than most of us; yet I thought Number Five +also looked as if she were having a struggle with herself to keep down +some rebellious signs of emotion. + +The exercises went on very pleasingly until they came to the awarding of +the gold medal of the year and the valedictory, which was to be delivered +by the young lady to whom it was to be presented. The name was called; +it was one not unfamiliar to our ears, and the bearer of it--the Delilah +of our tea-table, Avis as she was known in the school and elsewhere--rose +in her place and came forward, so that for the first time on that day, we +looked upon her. It was a sensation for The Teacups. Our modest, quiet +waiting-girl was the best scholar of her year. We had talked French +before her, and we learned that she was the best French scholar the +teacher had ever had in the school. We had never thought of her except as +a pleasing and well-trained handmaiden, and here she was an accomplished +young lady. + +Avis went through her part very naturally and gracefully, and when it was +finished, and she stood before us with the medal glittering on her +breast, we did not know whether to smile or to cry,--some of us did one, +and some the other.--We all had an opportunity to see her and +congratulate her before we left the institution. The mystery of her six +weeks' serving at our table was easily solved. She had been studying too +hard and too long, and required some change of scene and occupation. She +had a fancy for trying to see if she could support herself as so many +young women are obliged to, and found a place with us, the Mistress only +knowing her secret. + +"She is to be our young Doctor's wife!" the Mistress whispered to me, and +did some more crying, not for grief, certainly. + +Whether our young Doctor's long visits to a neighboring town had anything +to do with the fact that Avis was at that institution, whether she was +the patient he visited or not, may be left in doubt. At all events, he +had always driven off in the direction which would carry him to the place +where she was at school. + +I have attended a large number of celebrations, commencements, banquets, +soirees, and so forth, and done my best to help on a good many of them. +In fact, I have become rather too well known in connection with +"occasions," and it has cost me no little trouble. I believe there is no +kind of occurrence for which I have not been requested to contribute +something in prose or verse. It is sometimes very hard to say no to the +requests. If one is in the right mood when he or she writes an +occasional poem, it seems as if nothing could have been easier. "Why, +that piece run off jest like ile. I don't bullieve," the unlettered +applicant says to himself, "I don't bullieve it took him ten minutes to +write them verses." The good people have no suspicion of how much a +single line, a single expression, may cost its author. The wits used to +say that Ropers,--the poet once before referred to, old Samuel Ropers, +author of the Pleasures of Memory and giver of famous breakfasts,--was +accustomed to have straw laid before the house whenever he had just given +birth to a couplet. It is not quite so bad as that with most of us who +are called upon to furnish a poem, a song, a hymn, an ode for some grand +meeting, but it is safe to say that many a trifling performance has had +more good honest work put into it than the minister's sermon of that week +had cost him. If a vessel glides off the ways smoothly and easily at her +launching, it does not mean that no great pains have been taken to secure +the result. Because a poem is an "occasional" one, it does not follow +that it has not taken as much time and skill as if it had been written +without immediate, accidental, temporary motive. Pindar's great odes +were occasional poems, just as much as our Commencement and Phi Beta +Kappa poems are, and yet they have come down among the most precious +bequests of antiquity to modern times. + +The mystery of the young Doctor's long visits to the neighboring town was +satisfactorily explained by what we saw and heard of his relations with +our charming "Delilah,"--for Delilah we could hardly help calling her. +Our little handmaid, the Cinderella of the teacups, now the princess, or, +what was better, the pride of the school to which she had belonged, fit +for any position to which she might be called, was to be the wife of our +young Doctor. It would not have been the right thing to proclaim the +fact while she was a pupil, but now that she had finished her course of +instruction there was no need of making a secret of the engagement. + +So we have got our romance, our love-story out of our Teacups, as I hoped +and expected that we should, but not exactly in the quarter where it +might have been looked for. + +What did our two Annexes say to this unexpected turn of events? They +were good-hearted girls as ever lived, but they were human, like the rest +of us, and women, like some of the rest of us. They behaved perfectly. +They congratulated the Doctor, and hoped he would bring the young lady to +the tea-table where she had played her part so becomingly. It is safe to +say that each of the Annexes world have liked to be asked the lover's +last question by the very nice young man who had been a pleasant +companion at the table and elsewhere to each of them. That same question +is the highest compliment a man can pay a woman, and a woman does not +mind having a dozen or more such compliments to string on the rosary of +her remembrances. Whether either of them was glad, on the whole, that he +had not offered himself to the other in preference to herself would be a +mean, shabby question, and I think altogether too well of you who are +reading this paper to suppose that you would entertain the idea of asking +it. + +It was a very pleasant occasion when the Doctor brought Avis over to sit +with us at the table where she used to stand and wait upon us. We +wondered how we could for a moment have questioned that she was one to be +waited upon, and not made for the humble office which nevertheless she +performed so cheerfully and so well. + + Commencements and other Celebrations, American and English. + +The social habits of our people have undergone an immense change within +the past half century, largely in consequence of the vast development of +the means of intercourse between different neighborhoods. + +Commencements, college gatherings of all kinds, church assemblages, +school anniversaries, town centennials,--all possible occasions for +getting crowds together are made the most of. "'T is sixty years +since,"--and a good many years over,--the time to which my memory +extends. The great days of the year were, Election,--General Election on +Wednesday, and Artillery Election on the Monday following, at which time +lilacs were in bloom and 'lection buns were in order; Fourth of July, +when strawberries were just going out; and Commencement, a grand time of +feasting, fiddling, dancing, jollity, not to mention drunkenness and +fighting, on the classic green of Cambridge. This was the season of +melons and peaches. That is the way our boyhood chronicles events. It +was odd that the literary festival should be turned into a Donnybrook +fair, but so it was when I was a boy, and the tents and the shows and the +crowds on the Common were to the promiscuous many the essential parts of +the great occasion. They had been so for generations, and it was only +gradually that the Cambridge Saturnalia were replaced by the decencies +and solemnities of the present sober anniversary. + +Nowadays our celebrations smack of the Sunday-school more than of the +dancing-hall. The aroma of the punch-bowl has given way to the milder +flavor of lemonade and the cooling virtues of ice-cream. A strawberry +festival is about as far as the dissipation of our social gatherings +ventures. There was much that was objectionable in those swearing, +drinking, fighting times, but they had a certain excitement for us boys +of the years when the century was in its teens, which comes back to us +not without its fascinations. The days of total abstinence are a great +improvement over those of unlicensed license, but there was a picturesque +element about the rowdyism of our old Commencement days, which had a +charm for the eye of boyhood. My dear old friend,--book-friend, I +mean,--whom I always called Daddy Gilpin (as I find Fitzgerald called +Wordsworth, Daddy Wordsworth),--my old friend Gilpin, I say, considered +the donkey more picturesque in a landscape than the horse. So a village +fete as depicted by Teniers is more picturesque than a teetotal picnic or +a Sabbath-school strawberry festival. Let us be thankful that the +vicious picturesque is only a remembrance, and the virtuous commonplace a +reality of to-day. + +What put all this into my head is something which the English Annex has +been showing me. Most of my readers are somewhat acquainted with our own +church and village celebrations. They know how they are organized; the +women always being the chief motors, and the machinery very much the same +in one case as in another. Perhaps they would like to hear how such +things are managed in England; and that is just what they may learn from +the pamphlet which was shown me by the English Annex, and of which I will +give them a brief account. + +Some of us remember the Rev. Mr. Haweis, his lectures and his violin, +which interested and amused us here in Boston a few years ago. Now Mr. +Haweis, assisted by his intelligent and spirited wife, has charge of the +parish of St. James, Westmoreland Street, Marylebone, London. On entering +upon the twenty-fifth year of his incumbency in Marylebone, and the +twenty-eighth of his ministry in the diocese of London, it was thought a +good idea to have an "Evening Conversazione and Fete." We can imagine +just how such a meeting would be organized in one of our towns. +Ministers, deacons, perhaps a member of Congress, possibly a Senator, and +even, conceivably, his Excellency the Governor, and a long list of ladies +lend their names to give lustre to the occasion. It is all very +pleasant, unpretending, unceremonious, cheerful, well ordered, +commendable, but not imposing. + +Now look at our Marylebone parish celebration, and hold your breath while +the procession of great names passes before you. You learn at the outset +that it is held UNDER ROYAL PATRONAGE, and read the names of two royal +highnesses, one highness, a prince, and a princess. Then comes a list +before which if you do not turn pale, you must certainly be in the habit +of rouging: three earls, seven lords, three bishops, two generals (one of +them Lord Wolseley), one admiral, four baronets, nine knights, a crowd of +right honorable and honorable ladies (many of them peeresses), and a mob +of other personages, among whom I find Mr. Howells, Bret Harte, and +myself. + +Perhaps we are disposed to smile at seeing so much made of titles; but +after what we have learned of Lord Timothy Dexter and the high-sounding +names appropriated by many of our own compatriots, who have no more claim +to them than we plain Misters and Misseses, we may feel to them something +as our late friend Mr. Appleton felt to the real green turtle soup set +before him, when he said that it was almost as good as mock. + +The entertainment on this occasion was of the most varied character. The +programme makes the following announcement: + + Friday, 4 July, 18-. + + At 8 P. M. the Doors will Open. + Mr. Haweis will receive his Friends. + The Royal Handbell Ringers will Ring. + The Fish-pond will be Fished. + The Stalls will be Visited. + The Phonograph will Utter. + +Refreshments will be called for, and they will come,--Tea, Coffee, and +Cooling Drinks. Spirits will not be called for, from the Vasty Deep or +anywhere else,--nor would they come if they were. + +At 9.30 Mrs. Haweis will join the assembly. + +I am particularly delighted with this last feature in the preliminary +announcement. It is a proof of the high regard in which the estimable +and gifted lady who shares her husband's labors is held by the people of +their congregation, and the friends who share in their feelings. It is +such a master stroke of policy, too, to keep back the principal +attraction until the guests must have grown eager for her appearance: I +can well imagine how great a saving it must have been to the good lady's +nerves, which were probably pretty well tried already by the fatigues and +responsibilities of the busy evening. I have a right to say this, for I +myself had the honor of attending a meeting at Mr. Haweis's house, where +I was a principal guest, as I suppose, from the fact of the great number +of persons who were presented to me. The minister must be very popular, +for the meeting was a regular jam,--not quite so tremendous as that +greater one, where but for the aid of Mr. Smalley, who kept open a +breathing-space round us, my companion and myself thought we should have +been asphyxiated. + +The company was interested, as some of my readers maybe, to know what +were the attractions offered to the visitors besides that of meeting the +courteous entertainers and their distinguished guests. I cannot give +these at length, for each part of the show is introduced in the programme +with apt quotations and pleasantries, which enlivened the catalogue. +There were eleven stalls, "conducted on the cooperative principle of +division of profits and interest; they retain the profits, and you take a +good deal of interest, we hope, in their success." + +Stall No. 1. Edisoniana, or the Phonograph. Alluded to by the Roman +Poet as Vox, et praeterea nihil. + +Stall No. 2. Money-changing. + +Stall No. 3. Programmes and General Enquiries. + +Stall No. 4. Roses. + +A rose by any other name, etc. Get one. You can't expect to smell one +without buying it, but you may buy one without smelling it. + +Stall No. 5. Lasenby Liberty Stall. (I cannot explain this. Probably +articles from Liberty's famous establishment.) + +Stall No. 6. Historical Costumes and Ceramics. + +Stall No. 7. The Fish-pond. + +Stall No. 8. Varieties. + +Stall No. 9. Bookstall. (Books) "highly recommended for insomnia; +friends we never speak to, and always cut if we want to know them well." + +Stall No. 10. Icelandic. + +Stall No. 11. Call Office. "Mrs. Magnusson, who is devoted to the North +Pole and all its works, will thaw your sympathies, enlighten your minds," +etc., etc. + +All you buy may be left at the stalls, ticketed. A duplicate ticket will +be handed to you on leaving. Present your duplicate at the Call Office. + +At 9.45, First Concert. + +At 10.45, An Address of Welcome by Rev. H. R. Haweis. + +At 11 P. M., Bird-warbling Interlude by Miss Mabel Stephenson, U. S. A. + +At 11.20, Second Concert. + + NOTICE! + +Three Great Pictures. + +LORD TENNYSON. G. F. Watts, R. A. JOHN STUART MILL G. F. Watts, R. A. +JOSEPH GARIBALDI Sig. Rondi. + + NOTICE! + +A Famous Violin. + +A world-famed Stradivarius Violin, for which Mr. Hill, of Bond Street, +gave L 1000, etc., etc. + + REFRESHMENTS. + +Tickets for Tea, Coffee, Sandwiches, Iced Drinks, or Ices, Sixpence each, +etc., etc. + +I hope my American reader is pleased and interested by this glimpse of +the way in which they do these things in London. + +There is something very pleasant about all this, but what specially +strikes me is a curious flavor of city provincialism. There are little +centres in the heart of great cities, just as there are small fresh-water +ponds in great islands with the salt sea roaring all round them, and bays +and creeks penetrating them as briny as the ocean itself. Irving has +given a charming picture of such a quasi-provincial centre in one of his +papers in the Sketch-Book,--the one with the title "Little Britain." +London is a nation of itself, and contains provinces, districts, foreign +communities, villages, parishes,--innumerable lesser centres, with their +own distinguishing characteristics, habits, pursuit, languages, social +laws, as much isolated from each other as if "mountains interposed" made +the separation between them. One of these lesser centres is that over +which my friend Mr. Haweis presides as spiritual director. Chelsea has +been made famous as the home of many authors and artists,--above all, as +the residence of Carlyle during the greater part of his life. Its +population, like that of most respectable suburbs, must belong mainly to +the kind of citizens which resembles in many ways the better class,--as +we sometimes dare to call it,--of one of our thriving New England towns. +How many John Gilpins there must be in this population,--citizens of +"famous London town," but living with the simplicity of the inhabitants +of our inland villages! In the mighty metropolis where the wealth of the +world displays itself they practise their snug economies, enjoy their +simple pleasures, and look upon ice-cream as a luxury, just as if they +were living on the banks of the Connecticut or the Housatonic, in regions +where the summer locusts of the great cities have not yet settled on the +verdure of the native inhabitants. It is delightful to realize the fact +that while the West End of London is flaunting its splendors and the East +End in struggling with its miseries, these great middle-class communities +are living as comfortable, unpretending lives as if they were in one of +our thriving townships in the huckleberry-districts. Human beings are +wonderfully alike when they are placed in similar conditions. + +We were sitting together in a very quiet way over our teacups. The young +Doctor, who was in the best of spirits, had been laughing and chatting +with the two Annexes. The Tutor, who always sits next to Number Five of +late, had been conversing with her in rather low tones. The rest of us +had been soberly sipping our tea, and when the Doctor and the Annexes +stopped talking there was one of those dead silences which are sometimes +so hard to break in upon, and so awkward while they last. All at once +Number Seven exploded in a loud laugh, which startled everybody at the +table. + +What is it that sets you laughing so? said I. + +"I was thinking," Number Seven replied, "of what you said the other day +of poetry being only the ashes of emotion. I believe that some people +are disposed to dispute the proposition. I have been putting your +doctrine to the test. In doing it I made some rhymes,--the first and +only ones I ever made. I will suppose a case of very exciting emotion, +and see whether it would probably take the form of poetry or prose. You +are suddenly informed that your house is on fire, and have to scramble +out of it, without stopping to tie your neck-cloth neatly or to put a +flower in your buttonhole. Do you think a poet turning out in his +night-dress, and looking on while the flames were swallowing his home and +all its contents, would express himself in this style? + + "My house is on fire! + Bring me my lyre! + Like the flames that rise heavenward my song shall aspire! + +"He would n't do any such thing, and you know he wouldn't. He would yell +Fire! Fire! with all his might. Not much rhyming for him just yet! +Wait until the fire is put out, and he has had time to look at the +charred timbers and the ashes of his home, and in the course of a week he +may possibly spin a few rhymes about it. Or suppose he was making an +offer of his hand and heart, do you think he would declaim a versified +proposal to his Amanda, or perhaps write an impromptu on the back of his +hat while he knelt before her? + + "My beloved, to you + I will always be true. + Oh, pray make me happy, my love, do! do! do! + +"What would Amanda think of a suitor who courted her with a rhyming +dictionary in his pocket to help him make love?" + +You are right, said I,--there's nothing in the world like rhymes to cool +off a man's passion. You look at a blacksmith working on a bit of iron +or steel. Bright enough it looked while it was on the hearth, in the +midst of the sea-coal, the great bellows blowing away, and the rod or the +horse-shoe as red or as white as the burning coals. How it fizzes as it +goes into the trough of water, and how suddenly all the glow is gone! It +looks black and cold enough now. Just so with your passionate +incandescence. It is all well while it burns and scintillates in your +emotional centres, without articulate and connected expression; but the +minute you plunge it into the rhyme-trough it cools down, and becomes as +dead and dull as the cold horse-shoe. It is true that if you lay it cold +on the anvil and hammer away on it for a while it warms up somewhat. +Just so with the rhyming fellow,--he pounds away on his verses and they +warm up a little. But don't let him think that this afterglow of +composition is the same thing as the original passion. That found +expression in a few oh, oh's, eheu's, helas, helas's, and when the +passion had burned itself out you got the rhymed verses, which, as I have +said, are its ashes. + +I thanked Number Seven for his poetical illustration of my thesis. There +is great good to be got out of a squinting brain, if one only knows how +to profit by it. We see only one side of the moon, you know, but a +fellow with a squinting brain seems now and then to get a peep at the +other side. I speak metaphorically. He takes new and startling views of +things we have always looked at in one particular aspect. There is a +rule invariably to be observed with one of this class of intelligences: +Never contradict a man with a squinting brain. I say a man, because I do +not think that squinting brains are nearly so common in women as they are +in men. The "eccentrics" are, I think, for the most part of the male +sex. + +That leads me to say that persons with a strong instinctive tendency to +contradiction are apt to become unprofitable companions. Our thoughts +are plants that never flourish in inhospitable soils or chilling +atmospheres. They are all started under glass, so to speak; that is, +sheltered and fostered in our own warm and sunny consciousness. They +must expect some rough treatment when we lift the sash from the frame and +let the outside elements in upon them. They can bear the rain and the +breezes, and be all the better for them; but perpetual contradiction is a +pelting hailstorm, which spoils their growth and tends to kill them out +altogether. + +Now stop and consider a moment. Are not almost all brains a little +wanting in bilateral symmetry? Do you not find in persons whom you love, +whom you esteem, and even admire, some marks of obliquity in mental +vision? Are there not some subjects in looking at which it seems to you +impossible that they should ever see straight? Are there not moods in +which it seems to you that they are disposed to see all things out of +plumb and in false relations with each other? If you answer these +questions in the affirmative, then you will be glad of a hint as to the +method of dealing with your friends who have a touch of cerebral +strabismus, or are liable to occasional paroxysms of perversity. Let +them have their head. Get them talking on subjects that interest them. +As a rule, nothing is more likely to serve this purpose than letting them +talk about themselves; if authors, about their writings; if artists, +about their pictures or statues; and generally on whatever they have most +pride in and think most of their own relations with. + +Perhaps you will not at first sight agree with me in thinking that slight +mental obliquity is as common as I suppose. An analogy may have some +influence on your belief in this matter. Will you take the trouble to +ask your tailor how many persons have their two shoulders of the same +height? I think he will tell you that the majority of his customers show +a distinct difference of height on the two sides. Will you ask a +portrait-painter how many of those who sit to hint have both sides of +their faces exactly alike? I believe he will tell you that one side is +always a little better than the other. What will your hatter say about +the two sides of the head? Do you see equally well with both eyes, and +hear equally well with both ears? Few persons past middle age will +pretend that they do. Why should the two halves of a brain not show a +natural difference, leading to confusion of thought, and very possibly to +that instinct of contradiction of which I was speaking? A great deal of +time is lost in profitless conversation, and a good deal of ill temper +frequently caused, by not considering these organic and practically +insuperable conditions. In dealing with them, acquiescence is the best +of palliations and silence the sovereign specific. + +I have been the reporter, as you have seen, of my own conversation and +that of the other Teacups. I have told some of the circumstances of +their personal history, and interested, as I hope, here and there a +reader in the fate of different members of our company. Here are our +pretty Delilah and our Doctor provided for. We may take it for granted +that it will not be very long that the young couple will have to wait; +for, as I have told you all, the Doctor is certainly getting into +business, and bids fair to have a thriving practice before he saddles his +nose with an eyeglass and begins to think of a pair of spectacles. So +that part of our little domestic drama is over, and we can only wish the +pair that is to be all manner of blessings consistent with a reasonable +amount of health in the community on whose ailings must depend their +prosperity. + +All our thoughts are now concentrated on the relation existing between +Number Five and the Tutor. That there is some profound instinctive +impulse which is drawing them closer together no one who watches them can +for a moment doubt. There are two principles of attraction which bring +different natures together: that in which the two natures closely +resemble each other, and that in which one is complementary of the other. +In the first case, they coalesce, as do two drops of water or of mercury, +and become intimately blended as soon as they touch; in the other, they +rush together as an acid and an alkali unite, predestined from eternity +to find all they most needed in each other. What is the condition of +things in the growing intimacy of Number Five and the Tutor? He is many +years her junior, as we know. Both of them look that fact squarely in the +face. The presumption is against the union of two persons under these +circumstances. Presumptions are strong obstacles against any result we +wish to attain, but half our work in life is to overcome them. A great +many results look in the distance like six-foot walls, and when we get +nearer prove to be only five-foot hurdles, to be leaped over or knocked +down. Twenty years from now she may be a vigorous and active old woman, +and he a middle-aged, half-worn-out invalid, like so many overworked +scholars. Everything depends on the number of drops of the elixir vitae +which Nature mingled in the nourishment she administered to the embryo +before it tasted its mother's milk. Think of Cleopatra, the bewitching +old mischief-maker; think of Ninon de L'Enclos, whose own son fell +desperately in love with her, not knowing the relation in which she stood +to him; think of Dr. Johnson's friend, Mrs. Thrale, afterward Mrs. +Piozzi, who at the age of eighty was full enough of life to be making +love ardently and persistently to Conway, the handsome young actor. I +can readily believe that Number Five will outlive the Tutor, even if he +is fortunate enough rather in winning his way into the fortress through +gates that open to him of their own accord. If he fails in his siege, I +do really believe he will die early; not of a broken heart, exactly, but +of a heart starved, with the food it was craving close to it, but +unattainable. I have, therefore, a deep interest in knowing how Number +Five and the Tutor are getting along together. Is there any danger of +one or the other growing tired of the intimacy, and becoming willing to +get rid of it, like a garment which has shrunk and grown too tight? Is +it likely that some other attraction may come into disturb the existing +relation? The problem is to my mind not only interesting, but +exceptionally curious. You remember the story of Cymon and Iphigenia as +Dryden tells it. The poor youth has the capacity of loving, but it lies +hidden in his undeveloped nature. All at once he comes upon the sleeping +beauty, and is awakened by her charms to a hitherto unfelt consciousness. +With the advent of the new passion all his dormant faculties start into +life, and the seeming simpleton becomes the bright and intelligent lover. +The case of Number Five is as different from that of Cymon as it could +well be. All her faculties are wide awake, but one emotional side of her +nature has never been called into active exercise. Why has she never +been in love with any one of her suitors? Because she liked too many of +them. Do you happen to remember a poem printed among these papers, +entitled "I Like You and I Love You" + +No one of the poems which have been placed in the urn,--that is, in the +silver sugar-bowl,--has had any name attached to it; but you could guess +pretty nearly who was the author of some of them, certainly of the one +just, referred to. Number Five was attracted to the Tutor from the first +time he spoke to her. She dreamed about him that night, and nothing +idealizes and renders fascinating one in whom we have already an interest +like dreaming of him or of her. Many a calm suitor has been made +passionate by a dream; many a passionate lover has been made wild and +half beside himself by a dream; and now and then an infatuated but +hapless lover, waking from a dream of bliss to a cold reality of +wretchedness, has helped himself to eternity before he was summoned to +the table. + +Since Number Five had dreamed about the Tutor, he had been more in her +waking thoughts than she was willing to acknowledge. These thoughts were +vague, it is true,--emotions, perhaps, rather than worded trains of +ideas; but she was conscious of a pleasing excitement as his name or his +image floated across her consciousness; she sometimes sighed as she +looked over the last passage they had read from the same book, and +sometimes when they were together they were silent too long,--too long! +What were they thinking of? + +And so it was all as plain sailing for Number Five and the young Tutor as +it had been for Delilah and the young Doctor, was it? Do you think so? +Then you do not understand Number Five. Many a woman has as many +atmospheric rings about her as the planet Saturn. Three are easily to be +recognized. First, there is the wide ring of attraction which draws into +itself all that once cross its outer border. These revolve about her +without ever coming any nearer. Next is the inner ring of attraction. +Those who come within its irresistible influence are drawn so close that +it seems as if they must become one with her sooner or later. But within +this ring is another,--an atmospheric girdle, one of repulsion, which +love, no matter how enterprising, no matter how prevailing or how +insinuating, has never passed, and, if we judge of what is to be by what +has been, never will. Perhaps Nature loved Number Five so well that she +grudged her to any mortal man, and gave her this inner girdle of +repulsion to guard her from all who would know her too nearly and love +her too well. Sometimes two vessels at sea keep each other company for a +long distance, it may be daring a whole voyage. Very pleasant it is to +each to have a companion to exchange signals with from time to time; to +came near enough, when the winds are light, to hold converse in ordinary +tones from deck to deck; to know that, in case of need, there's help at +hand. It is good for them to be near each other, but not good to be too +near. Woe is to them if they touch! The wreck of one or both is likely +to be the consequence. And so two well-equipped and heavily freighted +natures may be the best of companions to each other, and yet must never +attempt to come into closer union. Is this the condition of affairs +between Number Five and the Tutor? I hope not, for I want them to be +joined together in that dearest of intimacies, which, if founded in true +affinity, is the nearest approach to happiness to be looked for in our +mortal, experience. We mast wait. The Teacups will meet once more +before the circle is broken, and we may, perhaps, find the solution of +the question we have raised. + +In the mean time, our young Doctor is playing truant oftener than ever. +He has brought Avis,--if we must call her so, and not Delilah,--several +times to take tea with us. It means something, in these days, to +graduate from one of our first-class academies or collegiate schools. I +shall never forget my first visit to one of these institutions. How much +its pupils know, I said, which I was never taught, and have never +learned! I was fairly frightened to see what a teaching apparatus was +provided for them. I should think the first thing to be done with most +of the husbands, they are likely to get would be to put them through a +course of instruction. The young wives must find their lords wofully +ignorant, in a large proportion of cases. When the wife has educated the +husband to such a point that she can invite him to work out a problem in +the higher mathematics or to perform a difficult chemical analysis with +her as his collaborator, as less instructed dames ask their husbands to +play a game of checkers or backgammon, they can have delightful and +instructive evenings together. I hope our young Doctor will take kindly +to his wife's (that is to be) teachings. + +When the following verses were taken out of the urn, the Mistress asked +me to hand the manuscript to the young Doctor to read. I noticed that he +did not keep his eyes very closely fixed on the paper. It seemed as if +he could have recited the lines without referring to the manuscript at +all. + + AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD. + + The glory has passed from the goldenrod's plume, + The purple-hued asters still linger in bloom; + The birch is bright yellow, the sumachs are red, + The maples like torches aflame overhead. + + But what if the joy of the summer is past, + And winter's wild herald is blowing his blast? + For me dull November is sweeter than May, + For my love is its sunshine,--she meets me to-day! + + Will she come? Will the ring-dove return to her nest? + Will the needle swing back from the east or the west? + At the stroke of the hour she will be at her gate; + A friend may prove laggard,--love never comes late. + + Do I see her afar in the distance? Not yet. + Too early! Too early! She could not forget! + When I cross the old bridge where the brook overflowed, + She will flash full in sight at the turn of the road. + + I pass the low wall where the ivy entwines; + I tread the brown pathway that leads through the pines; + I haste by the boulder that lies in the field, + Where her promise at parting was lovingly sealed. + + Will she come by the hillside or round through the wood? + Will she wear her brown dress or her mantle and hood? + The minute draws near,--but her watch may go wrong; + My heart will be asking, What keeps her so long? + + Why doubt for a moment? More shame if I do! + Why question? Why tremble? Are angels more true? + She would come to the lover who calls her his own + Though she trod in the track of a whirling cyclone! + + --I crossed the old bridge ere the minute had passed. + I looked: lo! my Love stood before me at last. + Her eyes, how they sparkled, her cheeks, how they glowed, + As we met, face to face, at the turn of the road! + + + + +XII + +There was a great tinkling of teaspoons the other evening, when I took my +seat at the table, where all The Teacups were gathered before my +entrance. The whole company arose, and the Mistress, speaking for them, +expressed the usual sentiment appropriate to such occasions. "Many happy +returns" is the customary formula. No matter if the object of this kind +wish is a centenarian, it is quite safe to assume that he is ready and +very willing to accept as many more years as the disposing powers may see +fit to allow him. + +The meaning of it all was that this was my birthday. My friends, near +and distant, had seen fit to remember it, and to let me know in various +pleasant ways that they had not forgotten it. The tables were adorned +with flowers. Gifts of pretty and pleasing objects were displayed on a +side table. A great green wreath, which must have cost the parent oak a +large fraction of its foliage, was an object of special admiration. +Baskets of flowers which had half unpeopled greenhouses, large bouquets +of roses, fragrant bunches of pinks, and many beautiful blossoms I am not +botanist enough to name had been coming in upon me all day long. Many of +these offerings were brought by the givers in person; many came with +notes as fragrant with good wishes as the flowers they accompanied with +their natural perfumes. + +How old was I, The Dictator, once known by another equally audacious +title,--I, the recipient of all these favors and honors? I had cleared +the eight-barred gate, which few come in sight of, and fewer, far fewer, +go over, a year before. I was a trespasser on the domain belonging to +another generation. The children of my coevals were fast getting gray +and bald, and their children beginning to look upon the world as +belonging to them, and not to their sires and grandsires. After that +leap over the tall barrier, it looks like a kind of impropriety to keep +on as if one were still of a reasonable age. Sometimes it seems to me +almost of the nature of a misdemeanor to be wandering about in the +preserve which the fleshless gamekeeper guards so jealously. But, on the +other hand, I remember that men of science have maintained that the +natural life of man is nearer fivescore than threescore years and ten. I +always think of a familiar experience which I bring from the French +cafes, well known to me in my early manhood. One of the illustrated +papers of my Parisian days tells it pleasantly enough. + +A guest of the establishment is sitting at his little table. He has just +had his coffee, and the waiter is serving him with his petit verre. Most +of my readers know very well what a petit verre is, but there may be here +and there a virtuous abstainer from alcoholic fluids, living among the +bayberries and the sweet ferns, who is not aware that the words, as +commonly used, signify a small glass--a very small glass--of spirit, +commonly brandy, taken as a chasse-cafe, or coffee-chaser. This drinking +of brandy, "neat," I may remark by the way, is not quite so bad as it +looks. Whiskey or rum taken unmixed from a tumbler is a knock-down blow +to temperance, but the little thimbleful of brandy, or Chartreuse, or +Maraschino, is only, as it were, tweaking the nose of teetotalism. + +Well,--to go back behind our brackets,--the guest is calling to the +waiter, "Garcon! et le bain de pieds!" Waiter! and the foot-bath!--The +little glass stands in a small tin saucer or shallow dish, and the custom +is to more than fill the glass, so that some extra brandy rung over into +this tin saucer or cup-plate, to the manifest gain of the consumer. + +Life is a petit verre of a very peculiar kind of spirit. At seventy +years it used to be said that the little glass was full. We should be +more apt to put it at eighty in our day, while Gladstone and Tennyson and +our own Whittier are breathing, moving, thinking, writing, speaking, in +the green preserve belonging to their children and grandchildren, and +Bancroft is keeping watch of the gamekeeper in the distance. But, +returning resolutely to the petit verre, I am willing to concede that all +after fourscore is the bain de pieds,--the slopping over, so to speak, of +the full measure of life. I remember that one who was very near and dear +to me, and who lived to a great age, so that the ten-barred gate of the +century did not look very far off, would sometimes apologize in a very +sweet, natural way for lingering so long to be a care and perhaps a +burden to her children, themselves getting well into years. It is not +hard to understand the feeling, never less called for than it was in the +case of that beloved nonagenarian. I have known few persons, young or +old, more sincerely and justly regretted than the gentle lady whose +memory comes up before me as I write. + +Oh, if we could all go out of flower as gracefully, as pleasingly, as we +come into blossom! I always think of the morning-glory as the loveliest +example of a graceful yielding to the inevitable. It is beautiful before +its twisted corolla opens; it is comely as it folds its petals inward, +when its brief hours of perfection are over. Women find it easier than +men to grow old in a becoming way. A very old lady who has kept +something, it may be a great deal, of her youthful feelings, who is +daintily cared for, who is grateful for the attentions bestowed upon her, +and enters into the spirit of the young lives that surround her, is as +precious to those who love her as a gem in an antique setting, the +fashion of which has long gone by, but which leaves the jewel the color +and brightness which are its inalienable qualities. With old men it is +too often different. They do not belong so much indoors as women do. +They have no pretty little manual occupations. The old lady knits or +stitches so long as her eyes and fingers will let her. The old man +smokes his pipe, but does not know what to do with his fingers, unless he +plays upon some instrument, or has a mechanical turn which finds business +for them. + +But the old writer, I said to The Teacups, as I say to you, my readers, +labors under one special difficulty, which I am thinking of and +exemplifying at this moment. He is constantly tending to reflect upon +and discourse about his own particular stage of life. He feels that he +must apologize for his intrusion upon the time and thoughts of a +generation which he naturally supposes must be tired of him, if they ever +had any considerable regard for him. Now, if the world of readers hates +anything it sees in print, it is apology. If what one has to say is +worth saying, he need not beg pardon fur saying it. If it is not worth +saying I will not finish the sentence. But it is so hard to resist the +temptation, notwithstanding that the terrible line beginning "Superfluous +lags the veteran" is always repeating itself in his dull ear! + +What kind of audience or reading parish is a man who secured his +constituency in middle life, or before that period, to expect when he has +reached the age of threescore and twenty? His coevals have dropped away +by scores and tens, and he sees only a few units scattered about here and +there, like the few beads above the water after a ship has gone to +pieces. Does he write and publish for those of his own time of life? He +need not print a large edition. Does he hope to secure a hearing from +those who have come into the reading world since his coevals? They have +found fresher fields and greener pastures. Their interests are in the +out-door, active world. Some of them are circumnavigating the planet +while he is hitching his rocking chair about his hearth-rug. Some are +gazing upon the pyramids while he is staring at his andirons. Some are +settling the tariff and fixing the laws of suffrage and taxation while he +is dozing over the weather bulletin, and going to sleep over the +obituaries in his morning or evening paper. + +Nature is wiser than we give her credit for being; never wiser than in +her dealings with the old. She has no idea of mortifying them by sudden +and wholly unexpected failure of the chief servants of consciousness. +The sight, for instance, begins to lose something of its perfection long +before its deficiency calls the owner's special attention to it. Very +probably, the first hint we have of the change is that a friend makes the +pleasing remark that we are "playing the trombone," as he calls it; that +is, moving a book we are holding backward and forward, to get the right +focal distance. Or it may be we find fault with the lamp or the +gas-burner for not giving so much light as it used to. At last, +somewhere between forty and fifty, we begin to dangle a jaunty pair of +eye-glasses, half plaything and half necessity. In due time a pair of +sober, business-like spectacles bestrides the nose. Old age leaps upon +it as his saddle, and rides triumphant, unchallenged, until the darkness +comes which no glasses can penetrate. Nature is pitiless in carrying out +the universal sentence, but very pitiful in her mode of dealing with the +condemned on his way to the final scene. The man who is to be hanged +always has a good breakfast provided for him. + +Do not think that the old look upon themselves as the helpless, hopeless, +forlorn creatures which they seem to young people. Do these young folks +suppose that all vanity dies out of the natures of old men and old women? +A dentist of olden time told me that a good-looking young man once said +to him, "Keep that incisor presentable, if you can, till I am fifty, and +then I sha'n't care how I look." I venture to say that that gentleman +was as particular about his personal appearance and as proud of his good +looks at fifty, and many years after fifty, as he was in the twenties, +when he made that speech to the dentist. + +My dear friends around the teacups, and at that wider board where I am +now entertaining, or trying to entertain, my company, is it not as plain +to you as it is to me that I had better leave such tasks as that which I +am just finishing to those who live in a more interesting period of life +than one which, in the order of nature, is next door to decrepitude? +Ought I not to regret having undertaken to report the doings and sayings +of the members of the circle which you have known as The Teacups? + +Dear, faithful reader, whose patient eyes have followed my reports +through these long months, you and I are about parting company. Perhaps +you are one of those who have known me under another name, in those +far-off days separated from these by the red sea of the great national +conflict. When you first heard the tinkle of the teaspoons, as the table +was being made ready for its guests, you trembled for me, in the kindness +of your hearts. I do not wonder that you did,--I trembled for myself. +But I remembered the story of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who was seen all of +a tremor just as he was going into action. "How is this?" said a brother +officer to him. "Surely you are not afraid?" "No," he answered, "but my +flesh trembles at the thought of the dangers into which my intrepid +spirit will carry me." I knew the risk of undertaking to carry through a +series of connected papers. And yet I thought it was better to run that +risk, more manly, more sensible, than to give way to the fears which made +my flesh tremble as did Sir Cloudesley Shovel's. For myself the labor +has been a distraction, and one which came at a time when it was needed. +Sometimes, as in one of those poems recently published,--the reader will +easily guess which,--the youthful spirit has come over me with such a +rush that it made me feel just as I did when I wrote the history of the +"One-hoss Shay" thirty years ago. To repeat one of my comparisons, it +was as if an early fruit had ripened on a graft upon an old, steady-going +tree, to the astonishment of all its later-maturing products. I should +hardly dare to say so much as this if I had not heard a similar opinion +expressed by others. + +Once committed to my undertaking, there was no turning back. It is true +that I had said I might stop at any moment, but after one or two numbers +it seemed as if there were an informal pledge to carry the series on, as +in former cases, until I had completed my dozen instalments. + +Writers and speakers have their idiosyncrasies, their habits, their +tricks, if you had rather call them so, as to their ways of writing and +speaking. There is a very old and familiar story, accompanied by a +feeble jest, which most of my readers may probably enough have met with +in Joe Miller or elsewhere. It is that of a lawyer who could never make +an argument without having a piece of thread to work upon with his +fingers while he was pleading. Some one stole it from him one day, and +he could not get on at all with his speech,--he had lost the thread of +his discourse, as the story had it. Now this is what I myself once saw. +It was at a meeting where certain grave matters were debated in an +assembly of professional men. A speaker, whom I never heard before or +since, got up and made a long and forcible argument. I do not think he +was a lawyer, but he spoke as if he had been trained to talk to juries. +He held a long string in one hand, which he drew through the other band +incessantly, as he spoke, just as a shoe maker performs the motion of +waxing his thread. He appeared to be dependent on this motion. The +physiological significance of the fact I suppose to be that the flow of +what we call the nervous current from the thinking centre to the organs +of speech was rendered freer and easier by the establishment of a +simultaneous collateral nervous current to the set of muscles concerned +in the action I have described. + +I do not use a string to help me write or speak, but I must have its +equivalent. I must have my paper and pen or pencil before me to set my +thoughts flowing in such form that they can be written continuously. +There have been lawyers who could think out their whole argument in +connected order without a single note. There are authors,--and I think +there are many,--who can compose and finish off a poem or a story without +writing a word of it until, when the proper time comes, they copy what +they carry in their heads. I have been told that Sir Edwin Arnold +thought out his beautiful "Light of Asia" in this way. + +I find the great charm of writing consists in its surprises. When one is +in the receptive attitude of mind, the thoughts which are sprung upon +him, the images which flash through his--consciousness, are a delight and +an excitement. I am impatient of every hindrance in setting down my +thoughts,--of a pen that will not write, of ink that will not flow, of +paper that will not receive the ink. And here let me pay the tribute +which I owe to one of the humblest but most serviceable of my assistants, +especially in poetical composition. Nothing seems more prosaic than the +stylographic pen. It deprives the handwriting of its beauty, and to some +extent of its individual character. The brutal communism of the letters +it forms covers the page it fills with the most uniformly uninteresting +characters. But, abuse it as much as you choose, there is nothing like +it for the poet, for the imaginative writer. Many a fine flow of thought +has been checked, perhaps arrested, by the ill behavior of a goose-quill. +Many an idea has escaped while the author was dipping his pen in the +inkstand. But with the stylographic pen, in the hands of one who knows +how to care for it and how to use it, unbroken rhythms and harmonious +cadences are the natural products of the unimpeded flow of the fluid +which is the vehicle of the author's thoughts and fancies. So much for my +debt of gratitude to the humble stylographic pen. It does not furnish +the proper medium for the correspondence of intimates, who wish to see as +much of their friends' personality as their handwriting can hold,--still +less for the impassioned interchange of sentiments between lovers; but in +writing for the press its use is open to no objection. Its movement over +the paper is like the flight of a swallow, while the quill pen and the +steel pen and the gold pen are all taking short, laborious journeys, and +stopping to drink every few minutes. + +A chief pleasure which the author of novels and stories experiences is +that of becoming acquainted with the characters be draws. It is +perfectly true that his characters must, in the nature of things, have +more or less of himself in their composition. If I should seek an +exemplification of this in the person of any of my Teacups, I should find +it most readily in the one whom I have called Number Seven, the one with +the squinting brain. I think that not only I, the writer, but many of my +readers, recognize in our own mental constitution an occasional obliquity +of perception, not always detected at the time, but plain enough when +looked back upon. What extravagant fancies you and I have seriously +entertained at one time or another! What superstitious notions have got +into our heads and taken possession of its empty chambers,--or, in the +language of science, seized on the groups of nerve-cells in some of the +idle cerebral convolutions! + +The writer, I say, becomes acquainted with his characters as he goes on. +They are at first mere embryos, outlines of distinct personalities. By +and by, if they have any organic cohesion, they begin to assert +themselves. They can say and do such and such things; such and such +other things they cannot and must not say or do. The story-writer's and +play-writer's danger is that they will get their characters mixed, and +make A say what B ought to have said. The stronger his imaginative +faculty, the less liable will the writer be to this fault; but not even +Shakespeare's power of throwing himself into his characters prevents many +of his different personages from talking philosophy in the same strain +and in a style common to them all. + +You will often observe that authors fall in love with the imaginary +persons they describe, and that they bestow affectionate epithets upon +them which it may happen the reader does not consider in any way called +for. This is a pleasure to which they have a right. Every author of a +story is surrounded by a little family of ideal children, as dear to him, +it may be, as are flesh-and-blood children to their parents. You may +forget all about the circle of Teacups to which I have introduced +you,--on the supposition that you have followed me with some degree of +interest; but do you suppose that Number Five does not continue as a +presence with me, and that my pretty Delilah has left me forever because +she is going to be married? + +No, my dear friend, our circle will break apart, and its different +members will soon be to you as if they had never been. But do you think +that I can forget them? Do you suppose that I shall cease to follow the +love (or the loves; which do you think is the true word, the singular or +the plural?) of Number Five and the young Tutor who is so constantly +found in her company? Do you suppose that I do not continue my relations +with the "Cracked Teacup,"--the poor old fellow with whom I have so much +in common, whose counterpart, perhaps, you may find in your own complex +personality? + +I take from the top shelf of the hospital department of my library--the +section devoted to literary cripples, imbeciles, failures, foolish +rhymesters, and silly eccentrics--one of the least conspicuous and most +hopelessly feeble of the weak-minded population of that intellectual +almshouse. I open it and look through its pages. It is a story. I have +looked into it once before,--on its first reception as a gift from the +author. I try to recall some of the names I see there: they mean nothing +to me, but I venture to say the author cherishes them all, and cries over +them as he did when he was writing their history. I put the book back +among its dusty companions, and, sitting down in my reflective +rocking-chair, think how others must forget, and how I shall remember, +the company that gathered about this table. + +Shall I ever meet any one of them again, in these pages or in any other? +Will the cracked Teacup hold together, or will he go to pieces, and find +himself in that retreat where the owner of the terrible clock which drove +him crazy is walking under the shelter of the high walls? Has the young +Doctor's crown yet received the seal which is Nature's warrant of wisdom +and proof of professional competency? And Number Five and her young +friend the Tutor,--have they kept on in their dangerous intimacy? Did +they get through the tutto tremante passage, reading from the same old +large edition of Dante which the Tutor recommended as the best, and in +reading from which their heads were necessarily brought perilously near +to each other? + +It would be very pleasant if I could, consistently with the present state +of affairs, bring these two young people together. I say two young +people, for the one who counts most years seems to me to be really the +younger of the pair. That Number Five foresaw from the first that any +tenderer feeling than that of friendship would intrude itself between +them I do not believe. As for the Tutor, he soon found where he was +drifting. It was his first experience in matters concerning the heart, +and absorbed his whole nature as a thing of course. Did he tell her he +loved her? Perhaps he did, fifty times; perhaps he never had the courage +to say so outright. But sometimes they looked each other straight in the +eyes, and strange messages seemed to pass from one consciousness to the +other. Will the Tutor ask Number Five to be his wife; and if he does, +will she yield to the dictates of nature, and lower the flag of that +fortress so long thought impregnable? Will he go on writing such poems +to her as "The Rose and the Fern" or "I Like You and I Love You," and be +content with the pursuit of that which he never can attain? That is all +very well, on the "Grecian Urn" of Keats,--beautiful, but not love such +as mortals demand. Still, that may be all, for aught that we have yet +seen. + + "Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave + Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; + Bold lover, never, never, canst thou kiss, + Though winning near the goal,--yet do not grieve; + She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, + Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair! + + ......................... + + "More happy love! more happy, happy love! + Forever warm, and still to be enjoyed, + Forever panting and forever young!" + +And so, good-bye, young people, whom we part with here. Shadows you have +been and are to my readers; very real you have been and are to me,--as +real as the memories of many friends whom I shall see no more. + +As I am not in the habit of indulging in late suppers, the reader need +not think that I shall spread another board and invite him to listen to +the conversations which take place around it. If, from time to time, he +finds a slight refection awaiting him on the sideboard, I hope he may +welcome it as pleasantly as he has accepted what I have offered him from +the board now just being cleared. + + .......................... + +It is a good rule for the actor who manages the popular street drama of +Punch not to let the audience or spectators see his legs. It is very +hard for the writer of papers like these, which are now coming to their +conclusion, to keep his personality from showing itself too conspicuously +through the thin disguises of his various characters. As the show is now +over, as the curtain has fallen, I appear before it in my proper person, +to address a few words to the friends who have assisted, as the French +say, by their presence, and as we use the word, by the kind way in which +they have received my attempts at their entertainment. + +This series of papers is the fourth of its kind which I have offered to +my readers. I may be allowed to look back upon the succession of serial +articles which was commenced more than thirty years ago, in 1857. "The +Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table" was the first of the series. It was +begun without the least idea what was to be its course and its outcome. +Its characters shaped themselves gradually as the manuscript grew under +my hand. I jotted down on the sheet of blotting paper before me the +thoughts and fancies which came into my head. A very odd-looking object +was this page of memoranda. Many of the hints were worked up into formal +shape, many were rejected. Sometimes I recorded a story, a jest, or a pun +for consideration, and made use of it or let it alone as my second +thought decided. I remember a curious coincidence, which, if I have ever +told in print,--I am not sure whether I have or not,--I will tell over +again. I mention it, not for the pun, which I rejected as not very +edifying and perhaps not new, though I did not recollect having seen it. + +Mulier, Latin for woman; why apply that name to one of the gentle but +occasionally obstinate sex? The answer was that a woman is (sometimes) +more mulish than a mule. Please observe that I did not like the poor pun +very well, and thought it rather rude and inelegant. So I left it on the +blotter, where it was standing when one of the next numbers of "Punch" +came out and contained that very same pun, which must have been hit upon +by some English contributor at just about the same time I fell upon it on +this side of the Atlantic. This fact may be added to the chapter of +coincidences which belongs to the first number of this series of papers. + +The "Autocrat" had the attraction of novelty, which of course was wanting +in the succeeding papers of similar character. The criticisms upon the +successive numbers as they came out were various, but generally +encouraging. Some were more than encouraging; very high-colored in their +phrases of commendation. When the papers were brought together in a +volume their success was beyond my expectations. Up to the present time +the "Autocrat" has maintained its position. An immortality of a whole +generation is more than most writers are entitled to expect. I venture +to think, from the letters I receive from the children and grandchildren +of my first set of readers, that for some little time longer, at least, +it will continue to be read, and even to be a favorite with some of its +readers. Non omnis moriar is a pleasant thought to one who has loved his +poor little planet, and will, I trust, retain kindly recollections of it +through whatever wilderness of worlds he may be called to wander in his +future pilgrimages. I say "poor little planet." Ever since I had a ten +cent look at the transit of Venus, a few years ago, through the telescope +in the Mall, the earth has been wholly different to me from what it used +to be. I knew from books what a speck it is in the universe, but nothing +ever brought the fact home like the sight of the sister planet sailing +across the sun's disk, about large enough for a buckshot, not large +enough for a full-sized bullet. Yes, I love the little globule where I +have spent more than fourscore years, and I like to think that some of my +thoughts and some of my emotions may live themselves over again when I am +sleeping. I cannot thank all the kind readers of the "Autocrat" who are +constantly sending me their acknowledgments. If they see this printed +page, let them be assured that a writer is always rendered happier by +being told that he has made a fellow-being wiser or better, or even +contributed to his harmless entertainment. This a correspondent may take +for granted, even if his letter of grateful recognition receives no +reply. It becomes more and more difficult for me to keep up with my +correspondents, and I must soon give it up as impossible. + +"The Professor at the Breakfast Table" followed immediately on the heels +of the "Autocrat." The Professor was the alter ego of the first +personage. In the earlier series he had played a secondary part, and in +this second series no great effort was made to create a character wholly +unlike the first. The Professor was more outspoken, however, on +religious subjects, and brought down a good deal of hard language on +himself and the author to whom he owed his existence. I suppose he may +have used some irritating expressions, unconsciously, but not +unconscientiously, I am sure. There is nothing harder to forgive than +the sting of an epigram. Some of the old doctors, I fear, never pardoned +me for saying that if a ship, loaded with an assorted cargo of the drugs +which used to be considered the natural food of sick people, went to the +bottom of the sea, it would be "all the better for mankind and all the +worse for the fishes." If I had not put that snapper on the end of my +whip-lash, I might have got off without the ill temper which my +antithesis provoked. Thirty years set that all right, and the same +thirty years have so changed the theological atmosphere that such abusive +words as "heretic" and "infidel," applied to persons who differ from the +old standards of faith, are chiefly interesting as a test of breeding, +being seldom used by any people above the social half-caste line. I am +speaking of Protestants; how it may be among Roman Catholics I do not +know, but I suspect that with them also it is a good deal a matter of +breeding. There were not wanting some who liked the Professor better +than the Autocrat. I confess that I prefer my champagne in its first +burst of gaseous enthusiasm; but if my guest likes it better after it has +stood awhile, I am pleased to accommodate him. The first of my series +came from my mind almost with an explosion, like the champagne cork; it +startled me a little to see what I had written, and to hear what people +said about it. After that first explosion the flow was more sober, and I +looked upon the product of my wine-press more coolly. Continuations +almost always sag a little. I will not say that of my own second effort, +but if others said it, I should not be disposed to wonder at or to +dispute them. + +"The Poet at the Breakfast Table" came some years later. This series of +papers was not so much a continuation as a resurrection. It was a doubly +hazardous attempt, made without any extravagant expectations, and was +received as well as I had any right to anticipate. It differed from the +other two series in containing a poem of considerable length, published +in successive portions. This poem holds a good deal of self-communing, +and gave me the opportunity of expressing some thoughts and feelings not +to be found elsewhere in my writings. I had occasion to read the whole +volume, not long since, in preparation for a new edition, and was rather +more pleased with it than I had expected to be. An old author is +constantly rediscovering himself in the more or less fossilized productions +of his earlier years. It is a long time since I have read the +"Autocrat," but I take it up now and then and read in it for a few +minutes, not always without some degree of edification. + +These three series of papers, "Autocrat," "Professor," "Poet," are all +studies of life from somewhat different points of view. They are largely +made up of sober reflections, and appeared to me to require some lively +human interest to save them from wearisome didactic dulness. What could +be more natural than that love should find its way among the young people +who helped to make up the circle gathered around the table? Nothing is +older than the story of young love. Nothing is newer than that same old +story. A bit of gilding here and there has a wonderful effect in +enlivening a landscape or an apartment. Napoleon consoled the Parisians +in their year of defeat by gilding the dome of the Invalides. Boston has +glorified her State House and herself at the expense of a few sheets of +gold leaf laid on the dome, which shines like a sun in the eyes of her +citizens, and like a star in those of the approaching traveller. I think +the gilding of a love-story helped all three of these earlier papers. The +same need I felt in the series of papers just closed. The slight +incident of Delilah's appearance and disappearance served my purpose to +some extent. But what should I do with Number Five? The reader must +follow out her career for himself. For myself, I think that she and the +Tutor have both utterly forgotten the difference of their years in the +fascination of intimate intercourse. I do not believe that a nature so +large, so rich in affection, as Number Five's is going to fall defeated +of its best inheritance of life, like a vine which finds no support for +its tendrils to twine around, and so creeps along the ground from which +nature meant that love should lift it. I feel as if I ought to follow +these two personages of my sermonizing story until they come together or +separate, to fade, to wither,--perhaps to die, at last, of something like +what the doctors call heart-failure, but which might more truly be called +heart-starvation. When I say die, I do not mean necessarily the death +that goes into the obituary column. It may come to that, in one or both; +but I think that, if they are never united, Number Five will outlive the +Tutor, who will fall into melancholy ways, and pine and waste, while she +lives along, feeling all the time that she has cheated herself of +happiness. I hope that is not going to be their fortune, or misfortune. +Vieille fille fait jeune mariee. What a youthful bride Number Five would +be, if she could only make up her mind to matrimony! In the mean time +she must be left with her lambs all around her. May heaven temper the +winds to them, for they have been shorn very close, every one of them, of +their golden fleece of aspirations and anticipations. + +I must avail myself of this opportunity to say a few words to my distant +friends who take interest enough in my writings, early or recent, to wish +to enter into communication with me by letter, or to keep up a +communication already begun. I have given notice in print that the +letters, books, and manuscripts which I receive by mail are so numerous +that if I undertook to read and answer them all I should have little time +for anything else. I have for some years depended on the assistance of a +secretary, but our joint efforts have proved unable, of late, to keep +down the accumulations which come in with every mail. So many of the +letters I receive are of a pleasant character that it is hard to let them +go unacknowledged. The extreme friendliness which pervades many of them +gives them a value which I rate very highly. When large numbers of +strangers insist on claiming one as a friend, on the strength of what he +has written, it tends to make him think of himself somewhat indulgently. +It is the most natural thing in the world to want to give expression to +the feeling the loving messages from far-off unknown friends must excite. +Many a day has had its best working hours broken into, spoiled for all +literary work, by the labor of answering correspondents whose good +opinion it is gratifying to have called forth, but who were unconsciously +laying a new burden on shoulders already aching. I know too well that +what I say will not reach the eyes of many who might possibly take a hint +from it. Still I must keep repeating it before breaking off suddenly and +leaving whole piles of letters unanswered. I have been very heavily +handicapped for many years. It is partly my own fault. From what my +correspondents tell me, I must infer that I have established a dangerous +reputation for willingness to answer all sorts of letters. They come +with such insinuating humility,--they cannot bear to intrude upon my +time, they know that I have a great many calls upon it,--and +incontinently proceed to lay their additional weight on the load which is +breaking my back. + +The hypocrisy of kind-hearted people is one of the most painful +exhibitions of human weakness. It has occurred to me that it might be +profitable to reproduce some of my unwritten answers to correspondents. +If those which were actually written and sent were to be printed in +parallel columns with those mentally formed but not written out responses +and comments, the reader would get some idea of the internal conflicts an +honest and not unamiable person has to go through, when he finds himself +driven to the wall by a correspondence which is draining his vocabulary +to find expressions that sound as agreeably, and signify as little, as +the phrases used by a diplomatist in closing an official communication. + +No. 1. Want my autograph, do you? And don't know how to spell my name. +An a for an e in my middle name. Leave out the l in my last name. Do +you know how people hate to have their names misspelled? What do you +suppose are the sentiments entertained by the Thompsons with a p towards +those who address them in writing as Thomson? + +No. 2. Think the lines you mention are by far the best I ever wrote, +hey? Well, I didn't write those lines. What is more, I think they are +as detestable a string of rhymes as I could wish my worst enemy had +written. A very pleasant frame of mind I am in for writing a letter, +after reading yours! + +No. 3. I am glad to hear that my namesake, whom I never saw and never +expect to see, has cut another tooth; but why write four pages on the +strength of that domestic occurrence? + +No. 4. You wish to correct an error in my Broomstick poem, do you? You +give me to understand that Wilmington is not in Essex County, but in +Middlesex. Very well; but are they separated by running water? Because +if they are not, what could hinder a witch from crossing the line that +separates Wilmington from Andover, I should like to know? I never meant +to imply that the witches made no excursions beyond the district which +was more especially their seat of operations. + +As I come towards the end of this task which I had set myself, I wish, of +course, that I could have performed it more to my own satisfaction and +that of my readers. This is a feeling which almost every one must have +at the conclusion of any work he has undertaken. A common and very simple +reason for this disappointment is that most of us overrate our capacity. +We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to, in virtue of our +endowments. The figurative descriptions of the last Grand Assize must no +more be taken literally than the golden crowns, which we do not expect or +want to wear on our heads, or the golden harps, which we do not want or +expect to hold in our hands. Is it not too true that many religious +sectaries think of the last tribunal complacently, as the scene in which +they are to have the satisfaction of saying to the believers of a creed +different from their own, "I told you so"? Are not others oppressed with +the thought of the great returns which will be expected of them as the +product of their great gifts, the very limited amount of which they do +not suspect, and will be very glad to learn, even at the expense of their +self-love, when they are called to their account? If the ways of the +Supreme Being are ever really to be "justified to men," to use Milton's +expression, every human being may expect an exhaustive explanation of +himself. No man is capable of being his own counsel, and I cannot help +hoping that the ablest of the, archangels will be retained for the +defence of the worst of sinners. He himself is unconscious of the +agencies which made him what he is. Self-determining he may be, if you +will, but who determines the self which is the proximate source of the +determination? Why was the A self like his good uncle in bodily aspect +and mental and moral qualities, and the B self like the bad uncle in look +and character? Has not a man a right to ask this question in the here or +in the hereafter,--in this world or in any world in which he may find +himself? If the All-wise wishes to satisfy his reasonable and reasoning +creatures, it will not be by a display of elemental convulsions, but by +the still small voice, which treats with him as a dependent entitled to +know the meaning of his existence, and if there was anything wrong in his +adjustment to the moral and spiritual conditions of the world around him +to have full allowance made for it. No melodramatic display of warring +elements, such as the white-robed Second Adventist imagines, can meet the +need of the human heart. The thunders and lightnings of Sinai terrified +and impressed the more timid souls of the idolatrous and rebellious +caravan which the great leader was conducting, but a far nobler +manifestation of divinity was that when "the Lord spake unto Moses face +to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." + +I find the burden and restrictions of rhyme more and more troublesome as +I grow older. There are times when it seems natural enough to employ +that form of expression, but it is only occasionally; and the use of it +as the vehicle of the commonplace is so prevalent that one is not much +tempted to select it as the medium for his thoughts and emotions. The +art of rhyming has almost become a part of a high-school education, and +its practice is far from being an evidence of intellectual distinction. +Mediocrity is as much forbidden to the poet in our days as it was in +those of Horace, and the immense majority of the verses written are +stamped with hopeless mediocrity. + +When one of the ancient poets found he was trying to grind out verses +which came unwillingly, he said he was writing-- + + INVITA MINERVA. + + Vex not the Muse with idle prayers, + --She will not hear thy call; + She steals upon thee unawares, + Or seeks thee not at all. + + Soft as the moonbeams when they sought + Endymion's fragrant bower, + She parts the whispering leaves of thought + To show her full-blown flower. + + For thee her wooing hour has passed, + The singing birds have flown, + And winter comes with icy blast + To chill thy buds unblown. + + Yet, though the woods no longer thrill + As once their arches rung, + Sweet echoes hover round thee still + Of songs thy summer sung. + + Live in thy past; await no more + The rush of heaven-sent wings; + Earth still has music left in store + While Memory sighs and sings. + +I hope my special Minerva may not always be unwilling, but she must not +be called upon as she has been in times past. Now that the teacups have +left the table, an occasional evening call is all that my readers must +look for. Thanking them for their kind companionship, and hoping that I +may yet meet them in the now and then in the future, I bid them goodbye +for the immediate present, then in the future, I bid them goodbye for the +immediate present. + + + + + + +ELSIE VENNER + +By Oliver Wendell Holmes + + + +PREFACE. + +This tale was published in successive parts in the "Atlantic Monthly," +under the name of "The Professor's Story," the first number having +appeared in the third week of December, 1859. The critic who is curious +in coincidences must refer to the Magazine for the date of publication of +the chapter he is examining. + +In calling this narrative a "romance," the Author wishes to make sure of +being indulged in the common privileges of the poetic license. Through +all the disguise of fiction a grave scientific doctrine may be detected +lying beneath some of the delineations of character. He has used this +doctrine as a part of the machinery of his story without pledging his +absolute belief in it to the extent to which it is asserted or implied. +It was adopted as a convenient medium of truth rather than as an accepted +scientific conclusion. The reader must judge for himself what is the +value of various stories cited from old authors. He must decide how much +of what has been told he can accept either as having actually happened, +or as possible and more or less probable. The Author must be permitted, +however, to say here, in his personal character, and as responsible to +the students of the human mind and body, that since this story has been +in progress he has received the most startling confirmation of the +possibility of the existence of a character like that which he had drawn +as a purely imaginary conception in Elsie Venner. + +BOSTON, January, 1861. + + + + +A SECOND PREFACE. + +This is the story which a dear old lady, my very good friend, spoke of as +"a medicated novel," and quite properly refused to read. I was always +pleased with her discriminating criticism. It is a medicated novel, and +if she wished to read for mere amusement and helpful recreation there was +no need of troubling herself with a story written with a different end in +view. + +This story has called forth so many curious inquiries that it seems worth +while to answer the more important questions which have occurred to its +readers. + +In the first place, it is not based on any well-ascertained physiological +fact. There are old fables about patients who have barked like dogs or +crowed like cocks, after being bitten or wounded by those animals. There +is nothing impossible in the idea that Romulus and Remus may have imbibed +wolfish traits of character from the wet nurse the legend assigned them, +but the legend is not sound history, and the supposition is nothing more +than a speculative fancy. Still, there is a limbo of curious evidence +bearing on the subject of pre-natal influences sufficient to form the +starting-point of an imaginative composition. + +The real aim, of the story was to test the doctrine of "original sin" and +human responsibility for the disordered volition coming under that +technical denomination. Was Elsie Venner, poisoned by the venom of a +crotalus before she was born, morally responsible for the "volitional" +aberrations, which translated into acts become what is known as sin, and, +it may be, what is punished as crime? If, on presentation of the +evidence, she becomes by the verdict of the human conscience a proper +object of divine pity and not of divine wrath, as a subject of moral +poisoning, wherein lies the difference between her position at the bar of +judgment, human or divine, and that of the unfortunate victim who +received a moral poison from a remote ancestor before he drew his first +breath? + +It might be supposed that the character of Elsie Veneer was suggested by +some of the fabulous personages of classical or mediaeval story. I +remember that a French critic spoke of her as cette pauvre Melusine. I +ought to have been ashamed, perhaps, but I had, not the slightest idea +who Melusina was until I hunted up the story, and found that she was a +fairy, who for some offence was changed every Saturday to a serpent from +her waist downward. I was of course familiar with Keats's Lamia, another +imaginary being, the subject of magical transformation into a serpent. +My story was well advanced before Hawthorne's wonderful "Marble Faun," +which might be thought to have furnished me with the hint of a mixed +nature,--human, with an alien element,--was published or known to me. So +that my poor heroine found her origin, not in fable or romance, but in a +physiological conception fertilized by a theological dogma. + +I had the dissatisfaction of enjoying from a quiet corner a well-meant +effort to dramatize "Elsie Veneer." Unfortunately, a physiological +romance, as I knew beforehand, is hardly adapted for the melodramatic +efforts of stage representation. I can therefore say, with perfect +truth, that I was not disappointed. It is to the mind, and not to the +senses, that such a story must appeal, and all attempts to render the +character and events objective on the stage, or to make them real by +artistic illustrations, are almost of necessity failures. The story has +won the attention and enjoyed the favor of a limited class of readers, +and if it still continues to interest others of the same tastes and +habits of thought I can ask nothing more of it. + +January 23, 1883. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. + +I have nothing of importance to add to the two preceding Prefaces. The +continued call for this story, which was not written for popularity, but +with a very serious purpose, has somewhat surprised and, I need not add, +gratified me. I can only restate the motive idea of the tale in a little +different language. Believing, as I do, that our prevailing theologies +are founded upon an utterly false view of the relation of man to his +Creator, I attempted to illustrate the doctrine of inherited moral +responsibility for other people's misbehavior. I tried to make out a +case for my poor Elsie, whom the most hardened theologian would find it +hard to blame for her inherited ophidian tastes and tendencies. How, +then, is he to blame mankind for inheriting "sinfulness" from their first +parents? May not the serpent have bitten Eve before the birth of Cain, +her first-born? That would have made an excuse for Cain's children, as +Elsie's ante-natal misfortune made an excuse for her. But what +difference does it make in the child's responsibility whether his +inherited tendencies come from a snake-bite or some other source which he +knew nothing about and could not have prevented from acting? All this is +plain enough, and the only use of the story is to bring the dogma of +inherited guilt and its consequences into a clearer point of view. + +But, after all, the tale must have proved readable as a story to account +for the large number of editions which it has reached. + +Some readers have been curious about the locality the writer was thought +to have in view. No particular place was intended. Some of the +characters may have been thought to have been drawn from life; but the +personages mentioned are mostly composites, like Mr. Galton's compound +photographic likenesses, and are not calculated to provoke scandal or +suits for libel. + +O. W. H. + +BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August 3, 1891. + + + + +ELSIE VENNER. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE BRAHMIN CASTE OF NEW ENGLAND. + +There is nothing in New England corresponding at all to the feudal +aristocracies of the Old World. Whether it be owing to the stock from +which we were derived, or to the practical working of our institutions, +or to the abrogation of the technical "law of honor," which draws a sharp +line between the personally responsible class of "gentlemen" and the +unnamed multitude of those who are not expected to risk their lives for +an abstraction,--whatever be the cause, we have no such aristocracy here +as that which grew up out of the military systems of the Middle Ages. + +What we mean by "aristocracy" is merely the richer part of the community, +that live in the tallest houses, drive real carriages, (not "kerridges,") +kidglove their hands, and French-bonnet their ladies' heads, give parties +where the persons who call them by the above title are not invited, and +have a provokingly easy way of dressing, walking, talking, and nodding to +people, as if they felt entirely at home, and would not be embarrassed in +the least, if they met the Governor, or even the President of the United +States, face to face. Some of these great folks are really well-bred, +some of them are only purse-proud and assuming,--but they form a class, +and are named as above in the common speech. + +It is in the nature of large fortunes to diminish rapidly, when +subdivided and distributed. A million is the unit of wealth, now and +here in America. It splits into four handsome properties; each of these +into four good inheritances; these, again, into scanty competences for +four ancient maidens,--with whom it is best the family should die out, +unless it can begin again as its great-grandfather did. Now a million is +a kind of golden cheese, which represents in a compendious form the +summer's growth of a fat meadow of craft or commerce; and as this kind of +meadow rarely bears more than one crop, it is pretty certain that sons +and grandsons will not get another golden cheese out of it, whether they +milk the same cows or turn in new ones. In other words, the +millionocracy, considered in a large way, is not at all an affair of +persons and families, but a perpetual fact of money with a variable human +element, which a philosopher might leave out of consideration without +falling into serious error. Of course, this trivial and, fugitive fact +of personal wealth does not create a permanent class, unless some special +means are taken to arrest the process of disintegration in the third +generation. This is so rarely done, at least successfully, that one need +not live a very long life to see most of the rich families he knew in +childhood more or less reduced, and the millions shifted into the hands +of the country-boys who were sweeping stores and carrying parcels when +the now decayed gentry were driving their chariots, eating their venison +over silver chafing-dishes, drinking Madeira chilled in embossed coolers, +wearing their hair in powder, and casing their legs in long boots with +silken tassels. + +There is, however, in New England, an aristocracy, if you choose to call +it so, which has a far greater character of permanence. It has grown to +be a caste,--not in any odious sense;--but, by the repetition of the same +influences, generation after generation, it has acquired a distinct +organization and physiognomy, which not to recognize is mere stupidity, +and not to be willing to describe would show a distrust of the +good-nature and intelligence of our readers, who like to have us see all +we can and tell all we see. + +If you will look carefully at any class of students in one of our +colleges, you will have no difficulty in selecting specimens of two +different aspects of youthful manhood. Of course I shall choose extreme +cases to illustrate the contrast between them. In the first, the figure +is perhaps robust, but often otherwise,--inelegant, partly from careless +attitudes, partly from ill-dressing,--the face is uncouth in feature, or +at least common,--the mouth coarse and unformed,--the eye unsympathetic, +even if bright,--the movements of the face are clumsy, like those of the +limbs,--the voice is unmusical,--and the enunciation as if the words were +coarse castings, instead of fine carvings. The youth of the other aspect +is commonly slender, his face is smooth, and apt to be pallid,--his +features are regular and of a certain delicacy,--his eye is bright and +quick,--his lips play over the thought he utters as a pianist's fingers +dance over their music, and his whole air, though it may be timid, and +even awkward, has nothing clownish. If you are a teacher, you know what +to expect from each of these young men. With equal willingness, the +first will be slow at learning; the second will take to his books as a +pointer or a setter to his field-work. + +The first youth is the common country-boy, whose race has been bred to +bodily labor. Nature has adapted the family organization to the kind of +life it has lived. The hands and feet by constant use have got more than +their share of development,--the organs of thought and expression less +than their share. The finer instincts are latent and must be developed. +A youth of this kind is raw material in its first stage of elaboration. +You must not expect too much of any such. Many of them have force of will +and character, and become distinguished in practical life; but very few +of them ever become great scholars. A scholar is, in a large proportion +of cases, the son of scholars or scholarly persons. + +That is exactly what the other young man is. He comes of the Brahmin +caste of New England. This is the harmless, inoffensive, untitled +aristocracy referred to, and which many readers will at once acknowledge. +There are races of scholars among us, in which aptitude for learning, and +all these marks of it I have spoken of, are congenital and hereditary. +Their names are always on some college catalogue or other. They break +out every generation or two in some learned labor which calls them up +after they seem to have died out. At last some newer name takes their +place, it maybe,--but you inquire a little and you find it is the blood +of the Edwardses or the Chauncys or the Ellerys or some of the old +historic scholars, disguised under the altered name of a female +descendant. + +There probably is not an experienced instructor anywhere in our Northern +States who will not recognize at once the truth of this general +distinction. But the reader who has never been a teacher will very +probably object, that some of our most illustrious public men have come +direct from the homespun-clad class of the people,--and he may, perhaps, +even find a noted scholar or two whose parents were masters of the +English alphabet, but of no other. + +It is not fair to pit a few chosen families against the great multitude +of those who are continually working their way up into the intellectual +classes. The results which are habitually reached by hereditary training +are occasionally brought about without it. There are natural filters as +well as artificial ones; and though the great rivers are commonly more or +less turbid, if you will look long enough, you may find a spring that +sparkles as no water does which drips through your apparatus of sands and +sponges. So there are families which refine themselves into intellectual +aptitude without having had much opportunity for intellectual +acquirements. A series of felicitous crosses develops an improved strain +of blood, and reaches its maximum perfection at last in the large +uncombed youth who goes to college and startles the hereditary +class-leaders by striding past them all. That is Nature's republicanism; +thank God for it, but do not let it make you illogical. The race of the +hereditary scholar has exchanged a certain portion of its animal vigor +for its new instincts, and it is hard to lead men without a good deal of +animal vigor. The scholar who comes by Nature's special grace from an +unworn stock of broad-chested sires and deep-bosomed mothers must always +overmatch an equal intelligence with a compromised and lowered vitality. +A man's breathing and digestive apparatus (one is tempted to add +muscular) are just as important to him on the floor of the Senate as his +thinking organs. You broke down in your great speech, did you? Yes, +your grandfather had an attack of dyspepsia in '82, after working too +hard on his famous Election Sermon. All this does not touch the main +fact: our scholars come chiefly from a privileged order, just as our best +fruits come from well-known grafts, though now and then a seedling apple, +like the Northern Spy, or a seedling pear, like the Seckel, springs from +a nameless ancestry and grows to be the pride of all the gardens in the +land. + +Let me introduce you to a young man who belongs to the Brahmin caste of +New England. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE STUDENT AND HIS CERTIFICATE. + +Bernard C. Langdon, a young man attending Medical Lectures at the school +connected with one of our principal colleges, remained after the Lecture +one day and wished to speak with the Professor. He was a student of +mark,--first favorite of his year, as they say of the Derby colts. There +are in every class half a dozen bright faces to which the teacher +naturally, directs his discourse, and by the intermediation of whose +attention he seems to hold that of the mass of listeners. Among these +some one is pretty sure to take the lead, by virtue of a personal +magnetism, or some peculiarity of expression, which places the face in +quick sympathetic relations with the lecturer. This was a young man with +such a face; and I found,--for you have guessed that I was the +"Professor" above-mentioned,--that, when there was anything difficult to +be explained, or when I was bringing out some favorite illustration of a +nice point, (as, for instance; when I compared the cell-growth, by which +Nature builds up a plant or an animal, to the glassblower's similar mode +of beginning,--always with a hollow sphere, or vesicle, whatever he is +going to make,) I naturally looked in his face and gauged my success by +its expression. + +It was a handsome face,--a little too pale, perhaps, and would have borne +something more of fulness without becoming heavy. I put the organization +to which it belongs in Section B of Class 1 of my Anglo-American +Anthropology (unpublished). The jaw in this section is but slightly +narrowed,--just enough to make the width of the forehead tell more +decidedly. The moustache often grows vigorously, but the whiskers are +thin. The skin is like that of Jacob, rather than like Esau's. One +string of the animal nature has been taken away, but this gives only a +greater predominance to the intellectual chords. To see just how the +vital energy has been toned down, you must contrast one of this section +with a specimen of Section A of the same class,--say, for instance, one +of the old-fashioned, full-whiskered, red-faced, roaring, big Commodores +of the last generation, whom you remember, at least by their portraits, +in ruffled shirts, looking as hearty as butchers and as plucky as +bull-terriers, with their hair combed straight up from their foreheads, +which were not commonly very high or broad. The special form of physical +life I have been describing gives you a right to expect more delicate +perceptions and a more reflective, nature than you commonly find in +shaggy-throated men, clad in heavy suits of muscles. + +The student lingered in the lecture-room, looking all the time as if he +wanted to say something in private, and waiting for two or three others, +who were still hanging about, to be gone. + +Something is wrong!--I said to myself, when I noticed his +expression.--Well, Mr. Langdon,--I said to him, when we were alone,--can +I do anything for you to-day? + +You can, Sir,--he said.--I am going to leave the class, for the present, +and keep school. + +Why, that 's a pity, and you so near graduating! You'd better stay and +finish this course and take your degree in the spring, rather than break +up your whole plan of study. + +I can't help myself, Sir,--the young man answered.--There 's trouble at +home, and they cannot keep me here as they have done. So I must look out +for myself for a while. It's what I've done before, and am ready to do +again. I came to ask you for a certificate of my fitness to teach a +common school, or a high school, if you think I am up to that. Are you +willing to give it to me? + +Willing? Yes, to be sure,--but I don't want you to go. Stay; we'll make +it easy for you. There's a fund will do something for you, perhaps. +Then you can take both the annual prizes, if you like,--and claim them in +money, if you want that more than medals. + +I have thought it all over,--he answered,--and have pretty much made up +my mind to go. + +A perfectly gentlemanly young man, of courteous address and mild +utterance, but means at least as much as he says. There are some people +whose rhetoric consists of a slight habitual under-statement. I often +tell Mrs. Professor that one of her "I think it's sos" is worth the +Bible-oath of all the rest of the household that they "know it's so." +When you find a person a little better than his word, a little more +liberal than his promise, a little more than borne out in his statement +by his facts, a little larger in deed than in speech, you recognize a +kind of eloquence in that person's utterance not laid down in Blair or +Campbell. + +This was a proud fellow, self-trusting, sensitive, with +family-recollections that made him unwilling to accept the kind of aid +which many students would have thankfully welcomed. I knew him too well +to urge him, after the few words which implied that he was determined to +go. Besides, I have great confidence in young men who believe in +themselves, and are accustomed to rely on their own resources from an +early period. When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, +the World, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to +find it come off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away +timid adventurers. I have seen young men more than once, who came to a +great city without a single friend, support themselves and pay for their +education, lay up money in a few years, grow rich enough to travel, and +establish themselves in life, without ever asking a dollar of any person +which they had not earned. But these are exceptional cases. There are +horse-tamers, born so,--as we all know; there are woman-tamers, who +bewitch the sex as the pied piper bedeviled the children of Hamelin; and +there are world-tamers, who can make any community, even a Yankee one, +get down and let them jump on its back as easily as Mr. Rarey saddled +Cruiser. + +Whether Langdon was of this sort or not I could not say positively; but +he had spirit, and, as I have said, a family-pride which would not let +him be dependent. The New England Brahmin caste often gets blended with +connections of political influence or commercial distinction. It is a +charming thing for the scholar, when his fortune carries him in this way +into some of the "old families" who have fine old houses, and city-lots +that have risen in the market, and names written in all the stock-books +of all the dividend-paying companies. His narrow study expands into a +stately library, his books are counted by thousands instead of hundreds, +and his favorites are dressed in gilded calf in place of plebeian +sheepskin or its pauper substitutes of cloth and paper. + +The Reverend Jedediah Langdon, grandfather of our young gentleman, had +made an advantageous alliance of this kind. Miss Dorothea Wentworth had +read one of his sermons which had been printed "by request," and became +deeply interested in the young author, whom she had never seen. Out of +this circumstance grew a correspondence, an interview, a declaration, a +matrimonial alliance, and a family of half a dozen children. Wentworth +Langdon, Esquire, was the oldest of these, and lived in the old +family-mansion. Unfortunately, that principle of the diminution of +estates by division, to which I have referred, rendered it somewhat +difficult to maintain the establishment upon the fractional income which +the proprietor received from his share of the property. Wentworth +Langdon, Esq., represented a certain intermediate condition of life not +at all infrequent in our old families. He was the connecting link +between the generation which lived in ease, and even a kind of state, +upon its own resources, and the new brood, which must live mainly by its +wits or industry, and make itself rich, or shabbily subside into that +lower stratum known to social geologists by a deposit of Kidderminster +carpets and the peculiar aspect of the fossils constituting the family +furniture and wardrobe. This slack-water period of a race, which comes +before the rapid ebb of its prosperity, is familiar to all who live in +cities. There are no more quiet, inoffensive people than these children +of rich families, just above the necessity of active employment, yet not +in a condition to place their own children advantageously, if they happen +to have families. Many of them are content to live unmarried. Some mend +their broken fortunes by prudent alliances, and some leave a numerous +progeny to pass into the obscurity from which their ancestors emerged; so +that you may see on handcarts and cobblers' stalls names which, a few +generations back, were upon parchments with broad seals, and tombstones +with armorial bearings. + +In a large city, this class of citizens is familiar to us in the streets. +They are very courteous in their salutations; they have time enough to +bow and take their hats off,--which, of course, no businessman can afford +to do. Their beavers are smoothly brushed, and their boots well +polished; all their appointments are tidy; they look the respectable +walking gentleman to perfection. They are prone to habits,--they +frequent reading-rooms,--insurance-offices,--they walk the same streets +at the same hours,--so that one becomes familiar with their faces and +persons, as a part of the street-furniture. + +There is one curious circumstance, that all city-people must have +noticed, which is often illustrated in our experience of the slack-water +gentry. We shall know a certain person by his looks, familiarly, for +years, but never have learned his name. About this person we shall have +accumulated no little circumstantial knowledge;--thus, his face, figure, +gait, his mode of dressing, of saluting, perhaps even of speaking, may be +familiar to us; yet who he is we know not. In another department of our +consciousness, there is a very familiar name, which we have never found +the person to match. We have heard it so often, that it has idealized +itself, and become one of that multitude of permanent shapes which walk +the chambers of the brain in velvet slippers in the company of Falstaff +and Hamlet and General Washington and Mr. Pickwick. Sometimes the person +dies, but the name lives on indefinitely. But now and then it happens, +perhaps after years of this independent existence of the name and its +shadowy image in the brain, on the one part, and the person and all its +real attributes, as we see them daily, on the other, that some accident +reveals their relation, and we find the name we have carried so long in +our memory belongs to the person we have known so long as a +fellow-citizen. Now the slack--water gentry are among the persons most +likely to be the subjects of this curious divorce of title and +reality,--for the reason, that, playing no important part in the +community, there is nothing to tie the floating name to the actual +individual, as is the case with the men who belong in any way to the +public, while yet their names have a certain historical currency, and we +cannot help meeting them, either in their haunts, or going to and from +them. + +To this class belonged Wentworth Langdon, Esq. He had been "dead-headed" +into the world some fifty years ago, and had sat with his hands in his +pockets staring at the show ever since. I shall not tell you, for +reasons before hinted, the whole name of the place in which he lived. I +will only point you in the right direction, by saying that there are +three towns lying in a line with each other, as you go "down East," each +of them with a Port in its name, and each of them having a peculiar +interest which gives it individuality, in addition to the Oriental +character they have in common. I need not tell you that these towns are +Newburyport, Portsmouth, and Portland. The Oriental character they have +in common consists in their large, square, palatial mansions, with sunny +gardens round them. The two first have seen better days. They are in +perfect harmony with the condition of weakened, but not impoverished, +gentility. Each of them is a "paradise of demi-fortunes." Each of them +is of that intermediate size between a village and a city which any place +has outgrown when the presence of a well-dressed stranger walking up and +down the main street ceases to be a matter of public curiosity and +private speculation, as frequently happens, during the busier months of +the year, in considerable commercial centres like Salem. They both have +grand old recollections to fall back upon,--times when they looked +forward to commercial greatness, and when the portly gentlemen in cocked +hats, who built their now decaying wharves and sent out their ships all +over the world, dreamed that their fast-growing port was to be the Tyre +or the Carthage of the rich British Colony. Great houses, like that once +lived in by Lord Timothy Dexter, in Newburyport, remain as evidence of +the fortunes amassed in these places of old. Other mansions--like the +Rockingham House in Portsmouth (look at the white horse's tail before you +mount the broad staircase)--show that there was not only wealth, but +style and state, in these quiet old towns during the last century. It is +not with any thought of pity or depreciation that we speak of them as in +a certain sense decayed towns; they did not fulfil their early promise of +expansion, but they remain incomparably the most interesting places of +their size in any of the three northernmost New England States. They have +even now prosperity enough to keep them in good condition, and offer the +most attractive residences for quiet families, which, if they had been +English, would have lived in a palazzo at Genoa or Pisa, or some other +Continental Newburyport or Portsmouth. + +As for the last of the three Ports, or Portland, it is getting too +prosperous to be as attractive as its less northerly neighbors. Meant for +a fine old town, to ripen like a Cheshire cheese within its walls of +ancient rind, burrowed by crooked alleys and mottled with venerable +mould, it seems likely to sacrifice its mellow future to a vulgar +material prosperity. Still it remains invested with many of its old +charms, as yet, and will forfeit its place among this admirable trio only +when it gets a hotel with unequivocal marks of having been built and +organized in the present century. + +--It was one of the old square palaces of the North, in which Bernard +Langdon, the son of Wentworth, was born. If he had had the luck to be an +only child, he might have lived as his father had done, letting his +meagre competence smoulder on almost without consuming, like the fuel in +an air-tight stove. But after Master Bernard came Miss Dorothea +Elizabeth Wentworth Langdon, and then Master William Pepperell Langdon, +and others, equally well named,--a string of them, looking, when they +stood in a row in prayer-time, as if they would fit a set of Pandean +pipes, of from three feet upward in dimensions. The door of the air-tight +stove has to be opened, under such circumstances, you may well suppose! +So it happened that our young man had been obliged, from an early period, +to do something to support himself, and found himself stopped short in +his studies by the inability of the good people at home to furnish him +the present means of support as a student. + +You will understand now why the young man wanted me to give him a +certificate of his fitness to teach, and why I did not choose to urge him +to accept the aid which a meek country-boy from a family without +ante-Revolutionary recollections would have thankfully received. Go he +must,--that was plain enough. He would not be content otherwise. He was +not, however, to give up his studies; and as it is customary to allow +half-time to students engaged in school-keeping,--that is, to count a +year, so employed, if the student also keep on with his professional +studies, as equal to six months of the three years he is expected to be +under an instructor before applying for his degree,--he would not +necessarily lose more than a few months of time. He had a small library +of professional books, which he could take with him. + +So he left my teaching and that of my estimable colleagues, carrying with +him my certificate, that Mr. Bernard C. Langdon was a young gentleman of +excellent moral character, of high intelligence and good education, and +that his services would be of great value in any school, academy, or +other institution, where young persons of-either sex were to be +instructed. + +I confess, that expression, "either sex," ran a little thick, as I may +say, from my pen. For, although the young man bore a very fair +character, and there was no special cause for doubting his discretion, I +considered him altogether too good-looking, in the first place, to be let +loose in a roomful of young girls. I didn't want him to fall in love +just then--and if half a dozen girls fell in love with him, as they most +assuredly would, if brought into too near relations with him, why, there +was no telling what gratitude and natural sensibility might bring about. + +Certificates are, for the most part, like ostrich-eggs; the giver never +knows what is hatched out of them. But once in a thousand times they act +as curses are said to,--come home to roost. Give them often enough, +until it gets to be a mechanical business, and, some day or other, you +will get caught warranting somebody's ice not to melt in any climate, or +somebody's razors to be safe in the hands of the youngest children. + +I had an uneasy feeling, after giving this certificate. It might be all +right enough; but if it happened to end badly, I should always reproach +myself. There was a chance, certainly, that it would lead him or others +into danger or wretchedness. Any one who looked at this young man could +not fail to see that he was capable of fascinating and being fascinated. +Those large, dark eyes of his would sink into the white soul of a young +girl as the black cloth sunk into the snow in Franklin's famous +experiment. Or, on the other hand, if the rays of a passionate nature +should ever be concentrated on them, they would be absorbed into the very +depths of his nature, and then his blood would turn to flame and burn his +life out of him, until his cheeks grew as white as the ashes that cover a +burning coal. + +I wish I had not said either sex in my certificate. An academy for young +gentlemen, now; that sounds cool and unimaginative. A boys' school, that +would be a very good place for him;--some of them are pretty rough, but +there is nerve enough in that old Wentworth strain of blood; he can give +any country fellow, of the common stock, twenty pounds, and hit him out +of time in ten minutes. But to send such a young fellow as that out a +girl's-nesting! to give this falcon a free pass into all the dove-cotes! +I was a fool,--that's all. + +I brooded over the mischief which might come out of these two words until +it seemed to me that they were charged with destiny. I could hardly +sleep for thinking what a train I might have been laying, which might +take a spark any day, and blow up nobody knows whose peace or prospects. +What I dreaded most was one of those miserable matrimonial misalliances +where a young fellow who does not know himself as yet flings his +magnificent future into the checked apron-lap of some fresh-faced, +half-bred country-girl, no more fit to be mated with him than her +father's horse to go in double harness with Flora Temple. To think of +the eagle's wings, being clipped so that he shall never lift himself over +the farm-yard fence! Such things happen, and always must,--because, as +one of us said awhile ago, a man always loves, a woman, and a woman a +man, unless some good reason exists to the contrary. You think yourself +a very fastidious young man, my friend; but there are probably at least +five-thousand young women in these United States, any one of whom you +would certainly marry, if you were thrown much into her company, and +nobody more attractive were near, and she had no objection. And you, my +dear young lady, justly pride yourself on your discerning delicacy; but +if I should say that there are twenty thousand young men, any one of +whom, if he offered his hand and heart under favorable circumstances, you +would + + "First endure, then pity, then embrace," + +I should be much more imprudent than I mean to be, and you would, no +doubt, throw down a story in which I hope to interest you. + +I had settled it in my mind that this young fellow had a career marked +out for him. He should begin in the natural way, by taking care of poor +patients in one of the public charities, and work his way up to a better +kind of practice,--better, that is, in the vulgar, worldly sense. The +great and good Boerhaave used to say, as I remember very well, that the +poor were his best patients; for God was their paymaster. But everybody +is not as patient as Boerhaave, nor as deserving; so that the rich, +though not, perhaps, the best patients, are good enough for common +practitioners. I suppose Boerhaave put up with them when he could not +get poor ones, as he left his daughter two millions of florins when he +died. + +Now if this young man once got into the wide streets, he would sweep them +clear of his rivals of the same standing; and as I was getting +indifferent to business, and old Dr. Kilham was growing careless, and had +once or twice prescribed morphine when he meant quinine, there would soon +be an opening into the Doctor's Paradise,--the streets with only one side +to them. Then I would have him strike a bold stroke,--set up a nice +little coach, and be driven round like a first-class London doctor, +instead of coasting about in a shabby one-horse concern and casting +anchor opposite his patients' doors like a Cape Ann fishing-smack. By +the time he was thirty, he would have knocked the social pawns out of his +way, and be ready to challenge a wife from the row of great pieces in the +background. I would not have a man marry above his level, so as to +become the appendage of a powerful family-connection; but I would not +have him marry until he knew his level,--that is, again, looking at the +matter in a purely worldly point of view, and not taking the sentiments +at all into consideration. But remember, that a young man, using large +endowments wisely and fortunately, may put himself on a level with the +highest in the land in ten brilliant years of spirited, unflagging labor. +And to stand at the very top of your calling in a great city is something +in itself,--that is, if you like money, and influence, and a seat on the +platform at public lectures, and gratuitous tickets to all sorts of +places where you don't want to go, and, what is a good deal better than +any of these things, a sense of power, limited, it may be, but absolute +in its range, so that all the Caesars and Napoleons would have to stand +aside, if they came between you and the exercise of your special +vocation. + +That is what I thought this young fellow might have come to; and now I +have let him go off into the country with my certificate, that he is fit +to teach in a school for either sex! Ten to one he will run like a moth +into a candle, right into one of those girls'-nests, and get tangled up +in some sentimental folly or other, and there will be the end of him. +Oh, yes! country doctor,--half a dollar a visit,--drive, drive, drive +all day,--get up at night and harness your own horse,--drive again ten +miles in a snow-storm, shake powders out of two phials, (pulv. +glycyrrhiz., pulv. gum. acac. as partes equates,)--drive back again, +if you don't happen to get stuck in a drift, no home, no peace, no +continuous meals, no unbroken sleep, no Sunday, no holiday, no social +intercourse, but one eternal jog, jog, jog, in a sulky, until you feel +like the mummy of an Indian who had been buried in the sitting posture, +and was dug up a hundred years afterwards! Why did n't I warn him about +love and all that nonsense? Why didn't I tell him he had nothing to do +with it, yet awhile? Why did n't I hold up to him those awful examples I +could have cited, where poor young fellows who could just keep themselves +afloat have hung a matrimonial millstone round their necks, taking it for +a life-preserver? All this of two words in a certificate! + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. BERNARD TRIES HIS HAND. + +Whether the Student advertised for a school, or whether he fell in with +the advertisement of a school-committee, is not certain. At any rate, it +was not long before he found himself the head of a large district, or, as +it was called by the inhabitants, "deestric" school, in the flourishing +inland village of Pequawkett, or, as it is commonly spelt, Pigwacket +Centre. The natives of this place would be surprised, if they should +hear that any of the readers of a work published in Boston were +unacquainted with so remarkable a locality. As, however, some copies of +it may be read at a distance from this distinguished metropolis, it may +be well to give a few particulars respecting the place, taken from the +Universal Gazetteer. + +"PIGWACKET, sometimes spelt Pequawkett. A post-village and township in +_________ Co., State of _________,situated in a fine agricultural region, +2 thriving villages, Pigwacket Centre and Smithville, 3 churches, several +school houses, and many handsome private residences. Mink River runs +through the town, navigable for small boats after heavy rains. Muddy +Pond at N. E. section, well stocked with horn pouts, eels, and shiners. +Products, beef, pork, butter, cheese. Manufactures, shoe-pegs, +clothes-pins, and tin-ware. Pop. 1373." + +The reader may think there is nothing very remarkable implied in this +description. If, however he had read the town-history, by the Rev. Jabez +Grubb, he would have learned, that, like the celebrated Little +Pedlington, it was distinguished by many very remarkable advantages. +Thus: + +"The situation of Pigwacket is eminently beautiful, looking down the +lovely valley of Mink River, a tributary of the Musquash. The air is +salubrious, and many of the inhabitants have attained great age, several +having passed the allotted period of 'three-score years and ten' before +succumbing to any of the various 'ills that flesh is heir to.' Widow +Comfort Leevins died in 1836 AEt. LXXXVII. years. Venus, an African, +died in 1841, supposed to be C. years old. The people are distinguished +for intelligence, as has been frequently remarked by eminent +lyceum-lecturers, who have invariably spoken in the highest terms of a +Pigwacket audience. There is a public library, containing nearly a +hundred volumes, free to all subscribers. The preached word is well +attended, there is a flourishing temperance society, and the schools are +excellent. It is a residence admirably adapted to refined families who +relish the beauties of Nature and the charms of society. The Honorable +John Smith, formerly a member of the State Senate, was a native of this +town." + +That is the way they all talk. After all, it is probably pretty much +like other inland New England towns in point of "salubrity,"--that is, +gives people their choice of dysentery or fever every autumn, with a +season-ticket for consumption, good all the year round. And so of the +other pretences. "Pigwacket audience," forsooth! Was there ever an +audience anywhere, though there wasn't a pair of eyes in it brighter than +pickled oysters, that did n't think it was "distinguished for +intelligence"?--"The preached word"! That means the Rev. Jabez Grubb's +sermons. "Temperance society"! "Excellent schools"! Ah, that is just +what we were talking about. + +The truth was, that District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, had had a good deal +of trouble of late with its schoolmasters. The committee had done their +best, but there were a number of well-grown and pretty rough young +fellows who had got the upper-hand of the masters, and meant to keep it. +Two dynasties had fallen before the uprising of this fierce democracy. +This was a thing that used to be not very uncommon; but in so +"intelligent" a community as that of Pigwacket Centre, in an era of +public libraries and lyceum-lectures, it was portentous and alarming. + +The rebellion began under the ferule of Master Weeks, a slender youth +from a country college, underfed, thin-blooded, sloping-shouldered, +knock-kneed, straight-haired, weak-bearded, pale-eyed, wide-pupilled, +half-colored; a common type enough in in-door races, not rich enough to +pick and choose in their alliances. Nature kills off a good many of this +sort in the first teething-time, a few in later childhood, a good many +again in early adolescence; but every now and then one runs the gauntlet +of her various diseases, or rather forms of one disease, and grows up, as +Master Weeks had done. + +It was a very foolish thing for him to try to inflict personal punishment +on such a lusty young fellow as Abner Briggs, Junior, one of the "hardest +customers" in the way of a rough-and-tumble fight that there were +anywhere round. No doubt he had been insolent, but it would have been +better to overlook it. It pains me to report the events which took place +when the master made his rash attempt to maintain his authority. Abner +Briggs, Junior, was a great, hulking fellow, who had been bred to +butchering, but urged by his parents to attend school, in order to learn +the elegant accomplishments of reading and writing, in which he was sadly +deficient. He was in the habit of talking and laughing pretty loud in +school-hours, of throwing wads of paper reduced to a pulp by a natural +and easy process, of occasional insolence and general negligence. One of +the soft, but unpleasant missiles just alluded to flew by the master's +head one morning, and flattened itself against the wall, where it adhered +in the form of a convex mass in alto rilievo. The master looked round +and saw the young butcher's arm in an attitude which pointed to it +unequivocally as the source from which the projectile had taken its +flight. + +Master Weeks turned pale. He must "lick" Abner Briggs, Junior, or +abdicate. So he determined to lick Abner Briggs, Junior. + +"Come here, Sir!" he said; "you have insulted me and outraged the decency +of the schoolroom often enough! Hold out your hand!" + +The young fellow grinned and held it out. The master struck at it with +his black ruler, with a will in the blow and a snapping of the eyes, as +much as to say that he meant to make him smart this time. The young +fellow pulled his hand back as the ruler came down, and the master hit +himself a vicious blow with it on the right knee. There are things no +man can stand. The master caught the refractory youth by the collar and +began shaking him, or rather shaking himself against him. + +"Le' go o' that are coat, naow," said the fellow, "or I 'll make ye! 'T +'ll take tew on yet' handle me, I tell ye, 'n' then ye caant dew +it!"--and the young pupil returned the master's attention by catching +hold of his collar. + +When it comes to that, the best man, not exactly in the moral sense, but +rather in the material, and more especially the muscular point of view, +is very apt to have the best of it, irrespectively of the merits of the +case. So it happened now. The unfortunate schoolmaster found himself +taking the measure of the sanded floor, amidst the general uproar of the +school. From that moment his ferule was broken, and the school-committee +very soon had a vacancy to fill. + +Master Pigeon, the successor of Master Weeks, was of better stature, but +loosely put together, and slender-limbed. A dreadfully nervous kind of +man he was, walked on tiptoe, started at sudden noises, was distressed +when he heard a whisper, had a quick, suspicious look, and was always +saying, "Hush?" and putting his hands to his ears. The boys were not +long in finding out this nervous weakness, of course. In less than a week +a regular system of torments was inaugurated, full of the most diabolical +malice and ingenuity. The exercises of the conspirators varied from day +to day, but consisted mainly of foot-scraping, solos on the slate-pencil, +(making it screech on the slate,) falling of heavy books, attacks of +coughing, banging of desk-lids, boot-creaking, with sounds as of drawing +a cork from time to time, followed by suppressed chuckles. + +Master Pigeon grew worse and worse under these inflictions. The rascally +boys always had an excuse for any one trick they were caught at. "Could +n' help coughin', Sir." "Slipped out o' m' han', Sir." "Did n' go to, +Sir." "Did n' dew't o' purpose, Sir." And so on,--always the best of +reasons for the most outrageous of behavior. The master weighed himself +at the grocer's on a platform balance, some ten days after he began +keeping the school. At the end of a week he weighed himself again. He +had lost two pounds. At the end of another week he had lost five. He +made a little calculation, based on these data, from which he learned +that in a certain number of months, going on at this rate, he should come +to weigh precisely nothing at all; and as this was a sum in subtraction +he did not care to work out in practice, Master Pigeon took to himself +wings and left the school-committee in possession of a letter of +resignation and a vacant place to fill once more. + +This was the school to which Mr. Bernard Langdon found himself appointed +as master. He accepted the place conditionally, with the understanding +that he should leave it at the end of a month, if he were tired of it. + +The advent of Master Langdon to Pigwacket Centre created a much more +lively sensation than had attended that of either of his predecessors. +Looks go a good way all the world over, and though there were several +good-looking people in the place, and Major Bush was what the natives of +the town called a "hahnsome mahn," that is, big, fat, and red, yet the +sight of a really elegant young fellow, with the natural air which grows +up with carefully-bred young persons, was a novelty. The Brahmin blood +which came from his grandfather as well as from his mother, a direct +descendant of the old Flynt family, well known by the famous tutor, Henry +Flynt, (see Cat. Harv. Anno 1693,) had been enlivened and enriched by +that of the Wentworths, which had had a good deal of ripe old Madeira and +other generous elements mingled with it, so that it ran to gout sometimes +in the old folks and to high spirit, warm complexion, and curly hair in +some of the younger ones. The soft curling hair Mr. Bernard had +inherited,--something, perhaps, of the high spirit; but that we shall +have a chance of finding out by and by. But the long sermons and the +frugal board of his Brahmin ancestry, with his own habits of study, had +told upon his color, which was subdued to something more of delicacy than +one would care to see in a young fellow with rough work before him. +This, however, made him look more interesting, or, as the young ladies at +Major Bush's said, "interestin'." + +When Mr. Bernard showed himself at meeting, on the first Sunday after his +arrival, it may be supposed that a good many eyes were turned upon the +young schoolmaster. There was something heroic in his coming forward so +readily to take a place which called for a strong hand, and a prompt, +steady will to guide it. In fact, his position was that of a military +chieftain on the eve of a battle. Everybody knew everything in Pigwacket +Centre; and it was an understood thing that the young rebels meant to put +down the new master, if they could. It was natural that the two +prettiest girls in the village, called in the local dialect, as nearly as +our limited alphabet will represent it, Alminy Cutterr, and Arvilly +Braowne, should feel and express an interest in the good-looking +stranger, and that, when their flattering comments were repeated in the +hearing of their indigenous admirers, among whom were some of the older +"boys" of the school, it should not add to the amiable dispositions of +the turbulent youth. + +Monday came, and the new schoolmaster was in his chair at the upper end +of the schoolhouse, on the raised platform. The rustics looked at his +handsome face, thoughtful, peaceful, pleasant, cheerful, but sharply cut +round the lips and proudly lighted about the eyes. The ringleader of the +mischief-makers, the young butcher who has before figured in this +narrative, looked at him stealthily, whenever he got a chance to study +him unobserved; for the truth was, he felt uncomfortable, whenever he +found the large, dark eyes fixed on his own little, sharp, deep-set, gray +ones. But he managed to study him pretty well,--first his face, then his +neck and shoulders, the set of his arms, the narrowing at the loins, the +make of his legs, and the way he moved. In short, he examined him as he +would have examined a steer, to see what he could do and how he would cut +up. If he could only have gone to him and felt of his muscles, he would +have been entirely satisfied. He was not a very wise youth, but he did +know well enough, that, though big arms and legs are very good things, +there is something besides size that goes to make a man; and he had heard +stories of a fighting-man, called "The Spider," from his attenuated +proportions, who was yet a terrible hitter in the ring, and had whipped +many a big-limbed fellow, in and out of the roped arena. + +Nothing could be smoother than the way in which everything went on for +the first day or two. The new master was so kind and courteous, he +seemed to take everything in such a natural, easy way, that there was no +chance to pick a quarrel with him. He in the mean time thought it best +to watch the boys and young men for a day or two with as little show of +authority as possible. It was easy enough to see that he would have +occasion for it before long. + +The schoolhouse was a grim, old, red, one-story building, perched on a +bare rock at the top of a hill,--partly because this was a conspicuous +site for the temple of learning, and partly because land is cheap where +there is no chance even for rye or buckwheat, and the very sheep find +nothing to nibble. About the little porch were carved initials and +dates, at various heights, from the stature of nine to that of eighteen. +Inside were old unpainted desks,--unpainted, but browned with the umber +of human contact,--and hacked by innumerable jack-knives. It was long +since the walls had been whitewashed, as might be conjectured by the +various traces left upon them, wherever idle hands or sleepy heads could +reach them. A curious appearance was noticeable on various higher parts +of the wall: namely, a wart-like eruption, as one would be tempted to +call it, being in reality a crop of the soft missiles before mentioned, +which, adhering in considerable numbers, and hardening after the usual +fashion of papier-mache, formed at last permanent ornaments of the +edifice. + +The young master's quick eye soon noticed that a particular part of the +wall was most favored with these ornamental appendages. Their position +pointed sufficiently clearly to the part of the room they came from. In +fact, there was a nest of young mutineers just there, which must be +broken up by a coup d'etat. This was easily effected by redistributing +the seats and arranging the scholars according to classes, so that a +mischievous fellow, charged full of the rebellious imponderable, should +find himself between two non-conductors, in the shape of small boys of +studious habits. It was managed quietly enough, in such a plausible sort +of way that its motive was not thought of. But its effects were soon +felt; and then began a system of correspondence by signs, and the +throwing of little scrawls done up in pellets, and announced by +preliminary a'h'ms! to call the attention of the distant youth addressed. +Some of these were incendiary documents, devoting the schoolmaster to the +lower divinities, as "a stuck-up dandy," as "a purse-proud aristocrat," +as "a sight too big for his, etc.," and holding him up in a variety of +equally forcible phrases to the indignation of the youthful community of +School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre. + +Presently the draughtsman of the school set a caricature in circulation, +labelled, to prevent mistakes, with the schoolmaster's name. An immense +bell-crowned hat, and a long, pointed, swallow-tailed coat showed that +the artist had in his mind the conventional dandy, as shown in prints of +thirty or forty years ago, rather than any actual human aspect of the +time. But it was passed round among the boys and made its laugh, helping +of course to undermine the master's authority, as "Punch" or the +"Charivari" takes the dignity out of an obnoxious minister. One morning, +on going to the schoolroom, Master Langdon found an enlarged copy of this +sketch, with its label, pinned on the door. He took it down, smiled a +little, put it into his pocket, and entered the schoolroom. An insidious +silence prevailed, which looked as if some plot were brewing. The boys +were ripe for mischief, but afraid. They had really no fault to find +with the master, except that he was dressed like a gentleman, which a +certain class of fellows always consider a personal insult to themselves. +But the older ones were evidently plotting, and more than once the +warning a'h'm! was heard, and a dirty little scrap of paper rolled into a +wad shot from one seat to another. One of these happened to strike the +stove-funnel, and lodged on the master's desk. He was cool enough not to +seem to notice it. He secured it, however, and found an opportunity to +look at it, without being observed by the boys. It required no immediate +notice. + +He who should have enjoyed the privilege of looking upon Mr. Bernard +Langdon the next morning, when his toilet was about half finished, would +have had a very pleasant gratuitous exhibition. First he buckled the +strap of his trousers pretty tightly. Then he took up a pair of heavy +dumb-bells, and swung them for a few minutes; then two great "Indian +clubs," with which he enacted all sorts of impossible-looking feats. His +limbs were not very large, nor his shoulders remarkably broad; but if you +knew as much of the muscles as all persons who look at statues and +pictures with a critical eye ought to have learned,--if you knew the +trapezius, lying diamond-shaped over the back and shoulders like a monk's +cowl,--or the deltoid, which caps the shoulder like an epaulette,--or the +triceps, which furnishes the calf of the upper arm,--or the hard-knotted +biceps,--any of the great sculptural landmarks, in fact,--you would have +said there was a pretty show of them, beneath the white satiny skin of +Mr. Bernard Langdon. And if you had seen him, when he had laid down the +Indian clubs, catch hold of a leather strap that hung from the beam of +the old-fashioned ceiling,--and lift and lower himself over and over +again by his left hand alone, you might have thought it a very simple and +easy thing to do, until you tried to do it yourself. Mr. Bernard looked +at himself with the eye of an expert. "Pretty well!" he said;--"not so +much fallen off as I expected." Then he set up his bolster in a very +knowing sort of way, and delivered two or three blows straight as rulers +and swift as winks. "That will do," he said. Then, as if determined to +make a certainty of his condition, he took a dynamometer from one of the +drawers in his old veneered bureau. First he squeezed it with his two +hands. Then he placed it on the floor and lifted, steadily, strongly. +The springs creaked and cracked; the index swept with a great stride far +up into the high figures of the scale; it was a good lift. He was +satisfied. He sat down on the edge of his bed and looked at his +cleanly-shaped arms. "If I strike one of those boobies, I am afraid I +shall spoil him," he said. Yet this young man, when weighed with his +class at the college, could barely turn one hundred and forty-two pounds +in the scale,--not a heavy weight, surely; but some of the middle +weights, as the present English champion, for instance, seem to be of a +far finer quality of muscle than the bulkier fellows. + +The master took his breakfast with a good appetite that morning, but was +perhaps rather more quiet than usual. After breakfast he went up-stairs +and put, on a light loose frock, instead of that which he commonly wore, +which was a close-fitting and rather stylish one. On his way to school +he met Alminy Cutterr, who happened to be walking in the other direction. +"Good-morning, Miss Cutter," he said; for she and another young lady had +been introduced to him, on a former occasion, in the usual phrase of +polite society in presenting ladies to gentlemen,--"Mr. Langdon, let me +make y' acquainted with Miss Cutterr;--let me make y' acquainted with +Miss Braowne." So he said, "Good-morning"; to which she replied, +"Good-mornin', Mr. Langdon. Haow's your haalth?" The answer to this +question ought naturally to have been the end of the talk; but Alminy +Cutterr lingered and looked as if she had something more on her mind. + +A young fellow does not require a great experience to read a simple +country-girl's face as if it were a sign-board. Alminy was a good soul, +with red cheeks and bright eyes, kind-hearted as she could be, and it was +out of the question for her to hide her thoughts or feelings like a fine +lady. Her bright eyes were moist and her red cheeks paler than their +wont, as she said, with her lips quivering, "Oh, Mr. Langdon, them boys +'ll be the death of ye, if ye don't take caar!" + +"Why, what's the matter, my dear?" said Mr. Bernard.--Don't think there +was anything very odd in that "my dear," at the second interview with a +village belle;--some of these woman-tamers call a girl "My dear," after +five minutes' acquaintance, and it sounds all right as they say it. But +you had better not try it at a venture. + +It sounded all right to Alminy, as Mr. Bernard said it.--"I 'll tell ye +what's the mahtterr," she said, in a frightened voice. "Ahbner 's go'n' +to car' his dog, 'n' he'll set him on ye'z sure 'z y' 'r' alive. 'T's +the same cretur that haaf eat up Eben Squires's little Jo, a year come +nex' Faast day." + +Now this last statement was undoubtedly overcolored; as little Jo Squires +was running about the village,--with an ugly scar on his arm, it is true, +where the beast had caught him with his teeth, on the occasion of the +child's taking liberties with him, as he had been accustomed to do with a +good-tempered Newfoundland dog, who seemed to like being pulled and +hauled round by children. After this the creature was commonly muzzled, +and, as he was fed on raw meat chiefly, was always ready for a fight, +which he was occasionally indulged in, when anything stout enough to +match him could be found in any of the neighboring villages. + +Tiger, or, more briefly, Tige, the property of Abner Briggs, Junior, +belonged to a species not distinctly named in scientific books, but well +known to our country-folks under the name "Yallah dog." They do not use +this expression as they would say black dog or white dog, but with almost +as definite a meaning as when they speak of a terrier or a spaniel. A +"yallah dog" is a large canine brute, of a dingy old-flannel color, of no +particular breed except his own, who hangs round a tavern or a butcher's +shop, or trots alongside of a team, looking as if he were disgusted with +the world, and the world with him. Our inland population, while they +tolerate him, speak of him with contempt. Old ______, of Meredith +Bridge, used to twit the sun for not shining on cloudy days, swearing, +that, if he hung up his "yallah dog," he would make a better show of +daylight. A country fellow, abusing a horse of his neighbor's, vowed, +that, "if he had such a hoss, he'd swap him for a `yallah dog,'--and then +shoot the dog." + +Tige was an ill-conditioned brute by nature, and art had not improved him +by cropping his ears and tail and investing him with a spiked collar. He +bore on his person, also, various not ornamental scars, marks of old +battles; for Tige had fight in him, as was said before, and as might be +guessed by a certain bluntness about the muzzle, with a projection of the +lower jaw, which looked as if there might be a bull-dog stripe among the +numerous bar-sinisters of his lineage. + +It was hardly fair, however, to leave Alminy Cutterr waiting while this +piece of natural history was telling.--As she spoke of little Jo, who had +been "haaf eat up" by Tige, she could not contain her sympathies, and +began to cry. + +"Why, my dear little soul," said Mr. Bernard, "what are you worried +about? I used to play with a bear when I was a boy; and the bear used to +hug me, and I used to kiss him,--so!" + +It was too bad of Mr. Bernard, only the second time he had seen Alminy; +but her kind feelings had touched him, and that seemed the most natural +way of expressing his gratitude. Ahniny looked round to see if anybody +was near; she saw nobody, so of course it would do no good to "holler." +She saw nobody; but a stout young fellow, leading a yellow dog, muzzled, +saw her through a crack in a picket fence, not a great way off the road. +Many a year he had been "hangin' 'raoun'" Alminy, and never did he see +any encouraging look, or hear any "Behave, naow!" or "Come, naow, a'n't +ye 'shamed?" or other forbidding phrase of acquiescence, such as village +belles under stand as well as ever did the nymph who fled to the willows +in the eclogue we all remember. + +No wonder he was furious, when he saw the school master, who had never +seen the girl until within a week, touching with his lips those rosy +cheeks which he had never dared to approach. But that was all; it was a +sudden impulse; and the master turned away from the young girl, laughing, +and telling her not to fret herself about him,--he would take care of +himself. + +So Master Langdon walked on toward his school-house, not displeased, +perhaps, with his little adventure, nor immensely elated by it; for he +was one of the natural class of the sex-subduers, and had had many a +smile without asking, which had been denied to the feeble youth who try +to win favor by pleading their passion in rhyme, and even to the more +formidable approaches of young officers in volunteer companies, +considered by many to be quite irresistible to the fair who have once +beheld them from their windows in the epaulettes and plumes and sashes of +the "Pigwacket Invincibles," or the "Hackmatack Rangers." + +Master Langdon took his seat and began the exercises of his school. The +smaller boys recited their lessons well enough, but some of the larger +ones were negligent and surly. He noticed one or two of them looking +toward the door, as if expecting somebody or something in that direction. +At half past nine o'clock, Abner Briggs, Junior, who had not yet shown +himself, made his appearance. He was followed by his "yallah dog," +without his muzzle, who squatted down very grimly near the door, and gave +a wolfish look round the room, as if he were considering which was the +plumpest boy to begin with. The young butcher, meanwhile, went to his +seat, looking somewhat flushed, except round the lips, which were hardly +as red as common, and set pretty sharply. + +"Put out that dog, Abner Briggs!"--The master spoke as the captain speaks +to the helmsman, when there are rocks foaming at the lips, right under +his lee. + +Abner Briggs answered as the helmsman answers, when he knows he has a +mutinous crew round him that mean to run the ship on the reef, and is one +of the mutineers himself. "Put him aout y'rself, 'f ye a'n't afeard on +him!" + +The master stepped into the aisle: The great cur showed his teeth,--and +the devilish instincts of his old wolf-ancestry looked out of his eyes, +and flashed from his sharp tusks, and yawned in his wide mouth and deep +red gullet. + +The movements of animals are so much quicker than those of human beings +commonly are, that they avoid blows as easily as one of us steps out of +the way of an ox-cart. It must be a very stupid dog that lets himself be +run over by a fast driver in his gig; he can jump out of the wheel's way +after the tire has already touched him. So, while one is lifting a stick +to strike or drawing back his foot to kick, the beast makes his spring, +and the blow or the kick comes too late. + +It was not so this time. The master was a fencer, and something of a +boxer; he had played at singlestick, and was used to watching an +adversary's eye and coming down on him without any of those premonitory +symptoms by which unpractised persons show long beforehand what mischief +they meditate. + +"Out with you!" he said, fiercely,--and explained what he meant by a +sudden flash of his foot that clashed the yellow dog's white teeth +together like the springing of a bear-trap. The cur knew he had found +his master at the first word and glance, as low animals on four legs, or +a smaller number, always do; and the blow took him so by surprise, that +it curled him up in an instant, and he went bundling out of the open +schoolhouse-door with a most pitiable yelp, and his stump of a tail shut +down as close as his owner ever shut the short, stubbed blade of his +jack-knife. + +It was time for the other cur to find who his master. + +"Follow your dog, Abner Briggs!" said Master Langdon. + +The stout butcher-youth looked round, but the rebels were all cowed and +sat still. + +"I'll go when I'm ready," he said,--"'n' I guess I won't go afore I'm +ready." + +"You're ready now," said Master Langdon, turning up his cuffs so that the +little boys noticed the yellow gleam of a pair of gold sleeve-buttons, +once worn by Colonel Percy Wentworth, famous in the Old French War. + +Abner Briggs, Junior, did not apparently think he was ready, at any rate; +for he rose up in his place, and stood with clenched fists, defiant, as +the master strode towards him. The master knew the fellow was really +frightened, for all his looks, and that he must have no time to rally. +So he caught him suddenly by the collar, and, with one great pull, had +him out over his desk and on the open floor. He gave him a sharp fling +backwards and stood looking at him. + +The rough-and-tumble fighters all clinch, as everybody knows; and Abner +Briggs, Junior, was one of that kind. He remembered how he had floored +Master Weeks, and he had just "spunk" enough left in him to try to repeat +his former successful experiment an the new master. He sprang at him, +open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to strike,--once, but very +hard, and just in the place to tell. No doubt, the authority that doth +hedge a schoolmaster added to the effect of the blow; but the blow was +itself a neat one, and did not require to be repeated. + +"Now go home," said the master, "and don't let me see you or your dog +here again." And he turned his cuffs down over the gold sleeve-buttons. + +This finished the great Pigwacket Centre School rebellion. What could be +done with a master who was so pleasant as long as the boys behaved +decently, and such a terrible fellow when he got "riled," as they called +it? In a week's time everything was reduced to order, and the +school-committee were delighted. The master, however, had received a +proposition so much more agreeable and advantageous, that he informed the +committee he should leave at the end of his month, having in his eye a +sensible and energetic young college-graduate who would be willing and +fully competent to take his place. + +So, at the expiration of the appointed time, Bernard Langdon, late master +of the School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, took his departure from +that place for another locality, whither we shall follow him, carrying +with him the regrets of the committee, of most of the scholars, and of +several young ladies; also two locks of hair, sent unbeknown to payrents, +one dark and one warmish auburn, inscribed with the respective initials +of Alminy Cutterr and Arvilly Braowne. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MOTH FLIES INTO THE CANDLE. + +The invitation which Mr. Bernard Langdon had accepted came from the Board +of Trustees of the "Apollinean Female Institute," a school for the +education of young ladies, situated in the flourishing town of Rockland. +This was an establishment on a considerable scale, in which a hundred +scholars or thereabouts were taught the ordinary English branches, +several of the modern languages, something of Latin, if desired, with a +little natural philosophy, metaphysics, and rhetoric, to finish off with +in the last year, and music at any time when they would pay for it. At +the close of their career in the Institute, they were submitted to a +grand public examination, and received diplomas tied in blue ribbons, +which proclaimed them with a great flourish of capitals to be graduates +of the Apollinean Female Institute. + +Rockland was a town of no inconsiderable pretensions. It was ennobled by +lying at the foot of a mountain,--called by the working-folks of the +place "the Maounting,"--which sufficiently showed that it was the +principal high land of the district in which it was situated. It lay to +the south of this, and basked in the sunshine as Italy stretches herself +before the Alps. To pass from the town of Tamarack on the north of the +mountain to Rockland on the south was like crossing from Coire to +Chiavenna. + +There is nothing gives glory and grandeur and romance and mystery to a +place like the impending presence of a high mountain. Our beautiful +Northampton with its fair meadows and noble stream is lovely enough, but +owes its surpassing attraction to those twin summits which brood over it +like living presences, looking down into its streets as if they were its +tutelary divinities, dressing and undressing their green shrines, robing +themselves in jubilant sunshine or in sorrowing clouds, and doing penance +in the snowy shroud of winter, as if they had living hearts under their +rocky ribs and changed their mood like the children of the soil at their +feet, who grow up under their almost parental smiles and frowns. Happy +is the child whose first dreams of heaven are blended with the evening +glories of Mount Holyoke, when the sun is firing its treetops, and +gilding the white walls that mark its one human dwelling! If the other +and the wilder of the two summits has a scowl of terror in its +overhanging brows, yet is it a pleasing fear to look upon its savage +solitudes through the barred nursery-windows in the heart of the sweet, +companionable village.--And how the mountains love their children! The +sea is of a facile virtue, and will run to kiss the first comer in any +port he visits; but the chaste mountains sit apart, and show their faces +only in the midst of their own families. + +The Mountain which kept watch to the north of Rockland lay waste and +almost inviolate through much of its domain. The catamount still glared +from the branches of its old hemlocks on the lesser beasts that strayed +beneath him. It was not long since a wolf had wandered down, famished in +the winter's dearth, and left a few bones and some tufts of wool of what +had been a lamb in the morning. Nay, there were broad-footed tracks in +the snow only two years previously, which could not be mistaken;--the +black bear alone could have set that plantigrade seal, and little +children must come home early from school and play, for he is an +indiscriminate feeder when he is hungry, and a little child would not +come amiss when other game was wanting. + +But these occasional visitors may have been mere wanderers, which, +straying along in the woods by day, and perhaps stalking through the +streets of still villages by night, had worked their way along down from +the ragged mountain-spurs of higher latitudes. The one feature of The +Mountain that shed the brownest horror on its woods was the existence of +the terrible region known as Rattlesnake Ledge, and still tenanted by +those damnable reptiles, which distil a fiercer venom under our cold +northern sky than the cobra himself in the land of tropical spices and +poisons. + +From the earliest settlement of the place, this fact had been, next to +the Indians, the reigning nightmare of the inhabitants. It was easy +enough, after a time, to drive away the savages; for "a screeching Indian +Divell," as our fathers called him, could not crawl into the crack of a +rock to escape from his pursuers. But the venomous population of +Rattlesnake Ledge had a Gibraltar for their fortress that might have +defied the siege-train dragged to the walls of Sebastopol. In its deep +embrasures and its impregnable easemates they reared their families, they +met in love or wrath, they twined together in family knots, they hissed +defiance in hostile clans, they fed, slept, hibernated, and in due time +died in peace. Many a foray had the towns-people made, and many a +stuffed skin was shown as a trophy,--nay, there were families where the +children's first toy was made from the warning appendage that once +vibrated to the wrath of one of these "cruel serpents." Sometimes one of +them, coaxed out by a warm sun, would writhe himself down the hillside +into the roads, up the walks that led to houses,--worse than this, into +the long grass, where the barefooted mowers would soon pass with their +swinging scythes,--more rarely into houses, and on one memorable +occasion, early in the last century, into the meeting-house, where he +took a position on the pulpit-stairs,--as is narrated in the "Account of +Some Remarkable Providences," etc., where it is suggested that a strong +tendency of the Rev. Didymus Bean, the Minister at that time, towards the +Arminian Heresy may have had something to do with it, and that the +Serpent supposed to have been killed on the Pulpit-Stairs was a false +show of the Daemon's Contrivance, he having come in to listen to a +Discourse which was a sweet Savour in his Nostrils, and, of course, not +being capable of being killed Himself. Others said, however, that, +though there was good Reason to think it was a Damon, yet he did come +with Intent to bite the Heel of that faithful Servant,--etc. + +One Gilson is said to have died of the bite of a rattlesnake in this town +early in the present century. After this there was a great snake-hunt, +in which very many of these venomous beasts were killed,--one in +particular, said to have been as big round as a stout man's arm, and to +have had no less than forty joints to his rattle,--indicating, according +to some, that he had lived forty years, but, if we might put any faith in +the Indian tradition, that he had killed forty human beings,--an idle +fancy, clearly. This hunt, however, had no permanent effect in keeping +down the serpent population. Viviparous, creatures are a kind of +specie-paying lot, but oviparous ones only give their notes, as it were, +for a future brood,--an egg being, so to speak, a promise to pay a young +one by and by, if nothing happen. Now the domestic habits of the +rattlesnake are not studied very closely, for obvious reasons; but it is, +no doubt, to all intents and purposes oviparous. Consequently it has +large families, and is not easy to kill out. + +In the year 184-, a melancholy proof was afforded to the inhabitants of +Rockland, that the brood which infested The Mountain was not extirpated. +A very interesting young married woman, detained at home at the time by +the state of her health, was bitten in the entry of her own house by a +rattlesnake which had found its way down from The Mountain. Owing to the +almost instant employment of powerful remedies, the bite did not prove +immediately fatal; but she died within a few months of the time when she +was bitten. + +All this seemed to throw a lurid kind of shadow over The Mountain. Yet, +as many years passed without any accident, people grew comparatively +careless, and it might rather be said to add a fearful kind of interest +to the romantic hillside, that the banded reptiles, which had been the +terror of the red men for nobody knows how many thousand years, were +there still, with the same poison-bags and spring-teeth at the white +men's service, if they meddled with them. + +The other natural features of Rockland were such as many of our pleasant +country-towns can boast of. A brook came tumbling down the mountain-side +and skirted the most thickly settled portion of the village. In the +parts of its course where it ran through the woods, the water looked +almost as brown as coffee flowing from its urn,--to say like smoky quartz +would perhaps give a better idea,--but in the open plain it sparkled over +the pebbles white as a queen's diamonds. There were huckleberry-pastures +on the lower flanks of The Mountain, with plenty of the sweet-scented +bayberry mingled with the other bushes. In other fields grew great store +of high-bush blackberries. Along the roadside were bayberry-bushes, hung +all over with bright red coral pendants in autumn and far into the +winter. Then there were swamps set thick with dingy alders, where the +three-leaved arum and the skunk's-cabbage grew broad and succulent, +shelving down into black boggy pools here and there at the edge of which +the green frog, stupidest of his tribe, sat waiting to be victimized by +boy or snapping-turtle long after the shy and agile leopard-frog had +taken the six-foot spring that plumped him into the middle of the pool. +And on the neighboring banks the maiden-hair spread its flat disk of +embroidered fronds on the wire-like stem that glistened polished and +brown as the darkest tortoise-shell, and pale violets, cheated by the +cold skies of their hues and perfume, sunned themselves like +white-cheeked invalids. Over these rose the old forest-trees,--the +maple, scarred with the wounds which had drained away its sweet +life-blood,--the beech, its smooth gray bark mottled so as to look like +the body of one of those great snakes of old that used to frighten +armies, always the mark of lovers' knives, as in the days of Musidora and +her swain,--the yellow birch, rough as the breast of Silenus in old +marbles,--the wild cherry, its little bitter fruit lying unheeded at its +foot,--and, soaring over all, the huge, coarse-barked, splintery-limbed, +dark-mantled hemlock, in the depth of whose aerial solitudes the crow +brooded on her nest unscared, and the gray squirrel lived unharmed till +his incisors grew to look like ram's-horns. + +Rockland would have been but half a town without its pond; Guinnepeg Pond +was the name of it, but the young ladies of the Apollinean Institute were +very anxious that it should be called Crystalline Lake. It was here that +the young folks used to sail in summer and skate in winter; here, too, +those queer, old, rum-scented good-for-nothing, lazy, story-telling, +half-vagabonds, who sawed a little wood or dug a few potatoes now and +then under the pretence of working for their living, used to go and fish +through the ice for pickerel every winter. And here those three young +people were drowned, a few summers ago, by the upsetting of a sail-boat +in a sudden flaw of wind. There is not one of these smiling ponds which +has not devoured more youths and maidens than any of those monsters the +ancients used to tell such lies about. But it was a pretty pond, and +never looked more innocent--so the native "bard" of Rockland said in his +elegy--than on the morning when they found Sarah Jane and Ellen Maria +floating among the lily-pads. + +The Apollinean Institute, or Institoot, as it was more commonly called, +was, in the language of its Prospectus, a "first-class Educational +Establishment." It employed a considerable corps of instructors to rough +out and finish the hundred young lady scholars it sheltered beneath its +roof. First, Mr. and Mrs. Peckham, the Principal and the Matron of the +school. Silas Peckham was a thorough Yankee, born on a windy part of the +coast, and reared chiefly on salt-fish. Everybody knows the type of +Yankee produced by this climate and diet: thin, as if he had been split +and dried; with an ashen kind of complexion, like the tint of the food he +is made of; and about as sharp, tough, juiceless, and biting to deal with +as the other is to the taste. Silas Peckham kept a young ladies' school +exactly as he would have kept a hundred head of cattle,--for the simple, +unadorned purpose of making just as much money in just as few years as +could be safely done. Mr. Peckham gave very little personal attention to +the department of instruction, but was always busy with contracts for +flour and potatoes, beef and pork, and other nutritive staples, the +amount of which required for such an establishment was enough to frighten +a quartermaster. Mrs. Peckham was from the West, raised on Indian corn +and pork, which give a fuller outline and a more humid temperament, but +may perhaps be thought to render people a little coarse-fibred. Her +specialty was to look after the feathering, cackling, roosting, rising, +and general behavior of these hundred chicks. An honest, ignorant woman, +she could not have passed an examination in the youngest class. So this +distinguished institution was under the charge of a commissary and a +housekeeper, and its real business was making money by taking young girls +in as boarders. + +Connected with this, however, was the incidental fact, which the public +took for the principal one, namely, the business of instruction. Mr. +Peckham knew well enough that it was just as well to have good +instructors as bad ones, so far as cost was concerned, and a great deal +better for the reputation of his feeding-establishment. He tried to get +the best he could without paying too much, and, having got them, to screw +all the work out of them that could possibly be extracted. + +There was a master for the English branches, with a young lady assistant. +There was another young lady who taught French, of the ahvaung and +baundahng style, which does not exactly smack of the asphalt of the +Boulevards. There was also a German teacher of music, who sometimes +helped in French of the ahfaung and bauntaung style,--so that, between +the two, the young ladies could hardly have been mistaken for Parisians, +by a Committee of the French Academy. The German teacher also taught a +Latin class after his fashion,--benna, a ben, gahboot, ahead, and so +forth. + +The master for the English branches had lately left the school for +private reasons, which need not be here mentioned,--but he had gone, at +any rate, and it was his place which had been offered to Mr. Bernard +Langdon. The offer came just in season,--as, for various causes, he was +willing to leave the place where he had begun his new experience. + +It was on a fine morning that Mr. Bernard, ushered in by Mr. Peckham, +made his appearance in the great schoolroom of the Apollinean Institute. +A general rustle ran all round the seats when the handsome young man was +introduced. The principal carried him to the desk of the young lady +English assistant, Miss Darley by name, and introduced him to her. + +There was not a great deal of study done that day. The young lady +assistant had to point out to the new master the whole routine in which +the classes were engaged when their late teacher left, and which had gone +on as well as it could since. Then Master Langdon had a great many +questions to ask, some relating to his new duties, and some, perhaps, +implying a degree of curiosity not very unnatural under the +circumstances. The truth is, the general effect of the schoolroom, with +its scores of young girls, all their eyes naturally centring on him with +fixed or furtive glances, was enough to bewilder and confuse a young man +like Master Langdon, though he was not destitute of self-possession, as +we have already seen. + +You cannot get together a hundred girls, taking them as they come, from +the comfortable and affluent classes, probably anywhere, certainly not in +New England, without seeing a good deal of beauty. In fact, we very +commonly mean by beauty the way young girls look when there is nothing to +hinder their looking as Nature meant them to. And the great schoolroom +of the Apollinean Institute did really make so pretty a show on the +morning when Master Langdon entered it, that he might be pardoned for +asking Miss Darley more questions about his scholars than about their +lessons. + +There were girls of all ages: little creatures, some pallid and +delicate-looking, the offspring of invalid parents,--much given to books, +not much to mischief, commonly spoken of as particularly good children, +and contrasted with another sort, girls of more vigorous organization, +who were disposed to laughing and play, and required a strong hand to +manage them; then young growing misses of every shade of Saxon +complexion, and here and there one of more Southern hue: blondes, some of +them so translucent-looking that it seemed as if you could see the souls +in their bodies, like bubbles in glass, if souls were objects of sight; +brunettes, some with rose-red colors, and some with that swarthy hue +which often carries with it a heavily-shaded lip, and which, with pure +outlines and outspoken reliefs, gives us some of our handsomest +women,--the women whom ornaments of plain gold adorn more than any other +parures; and again, but only here and there, one with dark hair and gray +or blue eyes, a Celtic type, perhaps, but found in our native stock +occasionally; rarest of all, a light-haired girl with dark eyes, hazel, +brown, or of the color of that mountain-brook spoken of in this chapter, +where it ran through shadowy woodlands. With these were to be seen at +intervals some of maturer years, full-blown flowers among the opening +buds, with that conscious look upon their faces which so many women wear +during the period when they never meet a single man without having his +monosyllable ready for him,--tied as they are, poor things! on the rock +of expectation, each of them an Andromeda waiting for her Perseus. + +"Who is that girl in ringlets,--the fourth in the third row on the +right?" said Master Langdon. + +"Charlotte Ann Wood," said Miss Darley; "writes very pretty poems." + +"Oh!--And the pink one, three seats from her? Looks bright; anything in +her?" + +"Emma Dean,--day-scholar,--Squire Dean's daughter,--nice girl,--second +medal last year." + +The master asked these two questions in a careless kind of way, and did +not seem to pay any too much attention to the answers. + +"And who and what is that," he said,--"sitting a little apart +there,--that strange, wild-looking girl?" + +This time he put the real question he wanted answered;--the other two +were asked at random, as masks for the third. + +The lady-teacher's face changed;--one would have said she was frightened +or troubled. She looked at the girl doubtfully, as if she might hear the +master's question and its answer. But the girl did not look up;--she was +winding a gold chain about her wrist, and then uncoiling it, as if in a +kind of reverie. + +Miss Darley drew close to the master and placed her hand so as to hide +her lips. "Don't look at her as if we were talking about her," she +whispered softly; "that is Elsie Venner." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +AN OLD-FASHIONED DESCRIPTIVE CHAPTER. + +It was a comfort to get to a place with something like society, with +residences which had pretensions to elegance, with people of some +breeding, with a newspaper, and "stores" to advertise in it, and with two +or three churches to keep each other alive by wholesome agitation. +Rockland was such a place. + +Some of the natural features of the town have been described already. The +Mountain, of course, was what gave it its character, and redeemed it from +wearing the commonplace expression which belongs to ordinary +country-villages. Beautiful, wild, invested with the mystery which +belongs to untrodden spaces, and with enough of terror to give it +dignity, it had yet closer relations with the town over which it brooded +than the passing stranger knew of. Thus, it made a local climate by +cutting off the northern winds and holding the sun's heat like a +garden-wall. Peachtrees, which, on the northern side of the mountain, +hardly ever came to fruit, ripened abundant crops in Rockland. + +But there was still another relation between the mountain and the town at +its foot, which strangers were not likely to hear alluded to, and which +was oftener thought of than spoken of by its inhabitants. Those +high-impending forests,--"hangers," as White of Selborne would have +called them,--sloping far upward and backward into the distance, had +always an air of menace blended with their wild beauty. It seemed as if +some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shaggy robe over the bare, +precipitous flanks of the rocky summit, and it might at any moment slide +like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest chance-support, and, so +sliding, crush the village out of being, as the Rossberg when it tumbled +over on the valley of Goldau. + +Persons have been known to remove from the place, after a short residence +in it, because they were haunted day and night by the thought of this +awful green wall, piled up into the air over their heads. They would lie +awake of nights, thinking they heard the muffed snapping of roots, as if +a thousand acres of the mountain-side were tugging to break away, like +the snow from a house-roof, and a hundred thousand trees were clinging +with all their fibres to hold back the soil just ready to peel away and +crash down with all its rocks and forest-growths. And yet, by one of +those strange contradictions we are constantly finding in human nature, +there were natives of the town who would come back thirty or forty years +after leaving it, just to nestle under this same threatening +mountainside, as old men sun themselves against southward-facing walls. +The old dreams and legends of danger added to the attraction. If the +mountain should ever slide, they had a kind of feeling as if they ought +to be there. It was a fascination like that which the rattlesnake is +said to exert. + +This comparison naturally suggests the recollection of that other source +of danger which was an element in the every-day life of the Rockland +people. The folks in some of the neighboring towns had a joke against +them, that a Rocklander could n't hear a beanpod rattle without saying, +"The Lord have mercy on us!" It is very true, that many a nervous old +lady has had a terrible start, caused by some mischievous young rogue's +giving a sudden shake to one of these noisy vegetable products in her +immediate vicinity. Yet, strangely enough, many persons missed the +excitement of the possibility of a fatal bite in other regions, where +there were nothing but black and green and striped snakes, mean +ophidians, having the spite of the nobler serpent without his +venom,--poor crawling creatures, whom Nature would not trust with a +poison-bag. Many natives of Rockland did unquestionably experience a +certain gratification in this infinitesimal sense of danger. It was +noted that the old people retained their hearing longer than in other +places. Some said it was the softened climate, but others believed it +was owing to the habit of keeping their ears open whenever they were +walking through the grass or in the woods. At any rate, a slight sense +of danger is often an agreeable stimulus. People sip their creme de +noyau with a peculiar tremulous pleasure, because there is a bare +possibility that it may contain prussic acid enough to knock them over; +in which case they will lie as dead as if a thunder-cloud had emptied +itself into the earth through their brain and marrow. + +But Rockland had other features which helped to give it a special +character. First of all, there was one grand street which was its chief +glory. Elm Street it was called, naturally enough, for its elms made a +long, pointed-arched gallery of it through most of its extent. No +natural Gothic arch compares, for a moment, with that formed by two +American elms, where their lofty jets of foliage shoot across each +other's ascending curves, to intermingle their showery flakes of green. +When one looks through a long double row of these, as in that lovely +avenue which the poets of Yale remember so well, + + "Oh, could the vista of my life but now as bright appear + As when I first through Temple Street looked down thine espalier!" + +he beholds a temple not built with hands, fairer than any minster, with +all its clustered stems and flowering capitals, that ever grew in stone. + +Nobody knows New England who is not on terms of intimacy with one of its +elms. The elm comes nearer to having a soul than any other vegetable +creature among us. It loves man as man loves it. It is modest and +patient. It has a small flake of a seed which blows in everywhere and +makes arrangements for coming up by and by. So, in spring, one finds a +crop of baby-elms among his carrots and parsnips, very weak and small +compared to those succulent vegetables. The baby-elms die, most of them, +slain, unrecognized or unheeded, by hand or hoe, as meekly as Herod's +innocents. One of them gets overlooked, perhaps, until it has +established a kind of right to stay. Three generations of carrot and +parsnip consumers have passed away, yourself among them, and now let your +great-grandson look for the baby-elm. Twenty-two feet of clean girth, +three hundred and sixty feet in the line that bounds its leafy circle, it +covers the boy with such a canopy as neither glossy-leafed oak nor +insect-haunted linden ever lifted into the summer skies. + +Elm Street was the pride of Rockland, but not only on account of its +Gothic-arched vista. In this street were most of the great houses, or +"mansion-houses," as it was usual to call them. Along this street, also, +the more nicely kept and neatly painted dwellings were chiefly +congregated. It was the correct thing for a Rockland dignitary to have a +house in Elm Street. A New England "mansion-house" is naturally square, +with dormer windows projecting from the roof, which has a balustrade with +turned posts round it. It shows a good breadth of front-yard before its +door, as its owner shows a respectable expanse of a clean shirt-front. +It has a lateral margin beyond its stables and offices, as its master +wears his white wrist bands showing beyond his coat-cuffs. It may not +have what can properly be called grounds, but it must have elbow-room, at +any rate. Without it, it is like a man who is always tight-buttoned for +want of any linen to show. The mansion-house which has had to "button +itself up tight in fences, for want of green or gravel margin," will be +advertising for boarders presently. The old English pattern of the New +England mansion-house, only on a somewhat grander scale, is Sir Thomas +Abney's place, where dear, good Dr. Watts said prayers for the family, +and wrote those blessed hymns of his that sing us into consciousness in +our cradles, and come back to us in sweet, single verses, between the +moments of wandering and of stupor, when we lie dying, and sound over us +when we can no longer hear them, bringing grateful tears to the hot, +aching eyes beneath the thick, black veils, and carrying the holy calm +with them which filled the good man's heart, as he prayed and sung under +the shelter of the old English mansion-house. Next to the +mansion-houses, came the two-story trim, white-painted, "genteel" houses, +which, being more gossipy and less nicely bred, crowded close up to the +street, instead of standing back from it with arms akimbo, like the +mansion-houses. Their little front-yards were very commonly full of lilac +and syringa and other bushes, which were allowed to smother the lower +story almost to the exclusion of light and airy so that, what with small +windows and small windowpanes, and the darkness made by these choking +growths of shrubbery, the front parlors of some of these houses were the +most tomb-like, melancholy places that could be found anywhere among the +abodes of the living. Their garnishing was apt to assist this +impression. Large-patterned carpets, which always look discontented in +little rooms, haircloth furniture, black and shiny as beetles' wing +cases, and centre-tables, with a sullen oil-lamp of the kind called +astral by our imaginative ancestors, in the centre,--these things were +inevitable. In set piles round the lamp was ranged the current +literature of the day, in the form of Temperance Documents, unbound +numbers of one of the Unknown Public's Magazines with worn-out steel +engravings and high-colored fashion-plates, the Poems of a distinguished +British author whom it is unnecessary to mention, a volume of sermons, or +a novel or two, or both, according to the tastes of the family, and the +Good Book, which is always Itself in the cheapest and commonest company. +The father of the family with his hand in the breast of his coat, the +mother of the same in a wide-bordered cap, sometimes a print of the Last +Supper, by no means Morghen's, or the Father of his Country, or the old +General, or the Defender of the Constitution, or an unknown clergyman +with an open book before him,--these were the usual ornaments of the +walls, the first two a matter of rigor, the others according to politics +and other tendencies. + +This intermediate class of houses, wherever one finds them in New England +towns, are very apt to be cheerless and unsatisfactory. They have +neither the luxury of the mansion-house nor the comfort of the +farm-house. They are rarely kept at an agreeable temperature. The +mansion-house has large fireplaces and generous chimneys, and is open to +the sunshine. The farm-house makes no pretensions, but it has a good +warm kitchen, at any rate, and one can be comfortable there with the rest +of the family, without fear and without reproach. These lesser +country-houses of genteel aspirations are much given to patent +subterfuges of one kind and another to get heat without combustion. The +chilly parlor and the slippery hair-cloth seat take the life out of the +warmest welcome. If one would make these places wholesome, happy, and +cheerful, the first precept would be,--The dearest fuel, plenty of it, +and let half the heat go up the chimney. If you can't afford this, don't +try to live in a "genteel" fashion, but stick to the ways of the honest +farm-house. + +There were a good many comfortable farm-houses scattered about Rockland. +The best of them were something of the following pattern, which is too +often superseded of late by a more pretentious, but infinitely less +pleasing kind of rustic architecture. A little back from the road, +seated directly on the green sod, rose a plain wooden building, two +stories in front, with a long roof sloping backwards to within a few feet +of the ground. This, like the "mansion-house," is copied from an old +English pattern. Cottages of this model may be seen in Lancashire, for +instance, always with the same honest, homely look, as if their roofs +acknowledged their relationship to the soil out of which they sprung. +The walls were unpainted, but turned by the slow action of sun and air +and rain to a quiet dove or slate color. An old broken millstone at the +door,--a well-sweep pointing like a finger to the heavens, which the +shining round of water beneath looked up at like a dark unsleeping +eye,--a single large elm a little at one side,--a barn twice as big as +the house,--a cattle-yard, with + + "The white horns tossing above the wall,"-- + +some fields, in pasture or in crops, with low stone walls round them,--a +row of beehives,--a garden-patch, with roots, and currant-bushes, and +many-hued hollyhocks, and swollen-stemmed, globe-headed, seedling onions, +and marigolds and flower-de-luces, and lady's-delights, and peonies, +crowding in together, with southernwood in the borders, and woodbine and +hops and morning-glories climbing as they got a chance,--these were the +features by which the Rockland-born children remembered the farm-house, +when they had grown to be men. Such are the recollections that come over +poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling yards to reef topsails as their +vessels stagger round the stormy Cape; and such are the flitting images +that make the eyes of old country-born merchants look dim and dreamy, as +they sit in their city palaces, warm with the after-dinner flush of the +red wave out of which Memory arises, as Aphrodite arose from the green +waves of the ocean. + +Two meeting-houses stood on two eminences, facing each other, and looking +like a couple of fighting-cocks with their necks straight up in the +air,--as if they would flap their roofs, the next thing, and crow out of +their upstretched steeples, and peck at each other's glass eyes with +their sharp-pointed weathercocks. + +The first was a good pattern of the real old-fashioned New England +meeting-house. It was a large barn with windows, fronted by a square +tower crowned with a kind of wooden bell inverted and raised on legs, out +of which rose a slender spire with the sharp-billed weathercock at its +summit. Inside, tall, square pews with flapping seats, and a gallery +running round three sides of the building. On the fourth side the +pulpit, with a huge, dusty sounding-board hanging over it. Here preached +the Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D. D., successor, after a number of +generations, to the office and the parsonage of the Reverend Didymus +Bean, before mentioned, but not suspected of any of his alleged heresies. +He held to the old faith of the Puritans, and occasionally delivered a +discourse which was considered by the hard-headed theologians of his +parish to have settled the whole matter fully and finally, so that now +there was a good logical basis laid down for the Millennium, which might +begin at once upon the platform of his demonstrations. Yet the Reverend +Dr. Honeywood was fonder of preaching plain, practical sermons about the +duties of life, and showing his Christianity in abundant good works among +his people. It was noticed by some few of his flock, not without +comment, that the great majority of his texts came from the Gospels, and +this more and more as he became interested in various benevolent +enterprises which brought him into relations with-ministers and +kindhearted laymen of other denominations. He was in fact a man of a +very warm, open, and exceedingly human disposition, and, although bred by +a clerical father, whose motto was "Sit anima mea cum Puritanis," he +exercised his human faculties in the harness of his ancient faith with +such freedom that the straps of it got so loose they did not interfere +greatly with the circulation of the warm blood through his system. Once +in a while he seemed to think it necessary to come out with a grand +doctrinal sermon, and them he would lapse away for a while into preaching +on men's duties to each other and to society, and hit hard, perhaps, at +some of the actual vices of the time and place, and insist with such +tenderness and eloquence on the great depth and breadth of true Christian +love and charity, that his oldest deacon shook his head, and wished he +had shown as much interest when he was preaching, three Sabbaths back, on +Predestination, or in his discourse against the Sabellians. But he was +sound in the faith; no doubt of that. Did he not preside at the council +held in the town of Tamarack, on the other side of the mountain, which +expelled its clergyman for maintaining heretical doctrines? As presiding +officer, he did not vote, of course, but there was no doubt that he was +all right; he had some of the Edwards blood in him, and that couldn't +very well let him go wrong. + +The meeting-house on the other and opposite summit was of a more modern +style, considered by many a great improvement on the old New England +model, so that it is not uncommon for a country parish to pull down its +old meeting-house, which has been preached in for a hundred years or so, +and put up one of these more elegant edifices. The new building was in +what may be called the florid shingle-Gothic manner. Its pinnacles and +crockets and other ornaments were, like the body of the building, all of +pine wood,--an admirable material, as it is very soft and easily worked, +and can be painted of any color desired. Inside, the walls were stuccoed +in imitation of stone,--first a dark brown square, then two light brown +squares, then another dark brown square, and so on, to represent the +accidental differences of shade always noticeable in the real stones of +which walls are built. To be sure, the architect could not help getting +his party-colored squares in almost as regular rhythmical order as those +of a chess-board; but nobody can avoid doing things in a systematic and +serial way; indeed, people who wish to plant trees in natural chimps know +very well that they cannot keep from making regular lines and symmetrical +figures, unless by some trick or other, as that one of throwing a peck of +potatoes up into the air and sticking in a tree wherever a potato happens +to fall. The pews of this meeting-house were the usual oblong ones, +where people sit close together, with a ledge before them to support +their hymn-books, liable only to occasional contact with the back of the +next pew's heads or bonnets, and a place running under the seat of that +pew where hats could be deposited,--always at the risk of the owner, in +case of injury by boots or crickets. + +In this meeting-house preached the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, a divine +of the "Liberal" school, as it is commonly called, bred at that famous +college which used to be thought, twenty or thirty years ago, to have the +monopoly of training young men in the milder forms of heresy. His +ministrations were attended with decency, but not followed with +enthusiasm. "The beauty of virtue" got to be an old story at last. "The +moral dignity of human nature" ceased to excite a thrill of satisfaction, +after some hundred repetitions. It grew to be a dull business, this +preaching against stealing and intemperance, while he knew very well that +the thieves were prowling round orchards and empty houses, instead of +being there to hear the sermon, and that the drunkards, being rarely +church-goers, get little good by the statistics and eloquent appeals of +the preacher. Every now and then, however, the Reverend Mr. Fairweather +let off a polemic discourse against his neighbor opposite, which waked +his people up a little; but it was a languid congregation, at best,--very +apt to stay away from meeting in the afternoon, and not at all given to +extra evening services. The minister, unlike his rival of the other side +of the way, was a down-hearted and timid kind of man. He went on +preaching as he had been taught to preach, but he had misgivings at +times. There was a little Roman Catholic church at the foot of the hill +where his own was placed, which he always had to pass on Sundays. He +could never look on the thronging multitudes that crowded its pews and +aisles or knelt bare-headed on its steps, without a longing to get in +among them and go down on his knees and enjoy that luxury of devotional +contact which makes a worshipping throng as different from the same +numbers praying apart as a bed of coals is from a trail of scattered +cinders. + +"Oh, if I could but huddle in with those poor laborers and working-women!" +he would say to himself. "If I could but breathe that atmosphere, +stifling though it be, yet made holy by ancient litanies, and cloudy with +the smoke of hallowed incense, for one hour, instead of droning over +these moral precepts to my half-sleeping congregation!" The intellectual +isolation of his sect preyed upon him; for, of all terrible things to +natures like his, the most terrible is to belong to a minority. No +person that looked at his thin and sallow cheek, his sunken and sad eye, +his tremulous lip, his contracted forehead, or who heard his querulous, +though not unmusical voice, could fail to see that his life was an uneasy +one, that he was engaged in some inward conflict. His dark, melancholic +aspect contrasted with his seemingly cheerful creed, and was all the more +striking, as the worthy Dr. Honeywood, professing a belief which made him +a passenger on board a shipwrecked planet, was yet a most good-humored +and companionable gentleman, whose laugh on week-days did one as much +good to listen to as the best sermon he ever delivered on a Sunday. + +A mile or two from the centre of Rockland was a pretty little Episcopal +church, with a roof like a wedge of cheese, a square tower, a stained +window, and a trained rector, who read the service with such ventral +depth of utterance and rrreduplication of the rrresonant letter, that his +own mother would not have known him for her son, if the good woman had +not ironed his surplice and put it on with her own hands. + +There were two public-houses in the place: one dignified with the name of +the Mountain House, somewhat frequented by city people in the summer +months, large-fronted, three-storied, balconied, boasting a distinct +ladies'-drawing-room, and spreading a table d'hote of some pretensions; +the other, "Pollard's Tahvern," in the common speech,--a two-story +building, with a bar-room, once famous, where there was a great smell of +hay and boots and pipes and all other bucolic-flavored elements,--where +games of checkers were played on the back of the bellows with red and +white kernels of corn, or with beans and coffee, where a man slept in a +box-settle at night, to wake up early passengers,--where teamsters came +in, with wooden-handled whips and coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic +flavor of the atmosphere, and middle-aged male gossips, sometimes +including the squire of the neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange +a question or two about the news, and then fall into that solemn state of +suspended animation which the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce +in human beings, as the Grotta del Cane does in dogs in the well-known +experiments related by travellers. This bar-room used to be famous for +drinking and storytelling, and sometimes fighting, in old times. That was +when there were rows of decanters on the shelf behind the bar, and a +hissing vessel of hot water ready, to make punch, and three or four +loggerheads (long irons clubbed at the end) were always lying in the fire +in the cold season, waiting to be plunged into sputtering and foaming +mugs of flip,--a goodly compound; speaking according to the flesh, made +with beer and sugar, and a certain suspicion of strong waters, over which +a little nutmeg being grated, and in it the hot iron being then allowed +to sizzle, there results a peculiar singed aroma, which the wise regard +as a warning to remove themselves at once out of the reach of temptation. + +But the bar of Pollard's Tahvern no longer presented its old attractions, +and the loggerheads had long disappeared from the fire. In place of the +decanters, were boxes containing "lozengers," as they were commonly +called, sticks of candy in jars, cigars in tumblers, a few lemons, grown +hard-skinned and marvellously shrunken by long exposure, but still feebly +suggestive of possible lemonade,--the whole ornamented by festoons of +yellow and blue cut flypaper. On the front shelf of the bar stood a +large German-silver pitcher of water, and scattered about were +ill-conditioned lamps, with wicks that always wanted picking, which +burned red and smoked a good deal, and were apt to go out without any +obvious cause, leaving strong reminiscences of the whale-fishery in the +circumambient air. + +The common schoolhouses of Rockland were dwarfed by the grandeur of the +Apollinean Institute. The master passed one of them, in a walk he was +taking, soon after his arrival at Rockland. He looked in at the rows of +desks, and recalled his late experiences. He could not help laughing, as +he thought how neatly he had knocked the young butcher off his pins. + +"A little science is a dangerous thing, 'as well as a little 'learning,'" +he said to himself; "only it's dangerous to the fellow you' try it on." +And he cut him a good stick, and began climbing the side of The Mountain +to get a look at that famous Rattlesnake Ledge. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW. + +The virtue of the world is not mainly in its leaders. In the midst of +the multitude which follows there is often something better than in the +one that goes before. Old generals wanted to take Toulon, but one of +their young colonels showed them how. The junior counsel has been known +not unfrequently to make a better argument than his senior fellow,--if, +indeed, he did not make both their arguments. Good ministers will tell +you they have parishioners who beat them in the practice of the virtues. +A great establishment, got up on commercial principles, like the +Apollinean Institute, might yet be well carried on, if it happened to get +good teachers. And when Master Langdon came to see its management, he +recognized that there must be fidelity and intelligence somewhere among +the instructors. It was only necessary to look for a moment at the fair, +open forehead, the still, tranquil eye of gentle, habitual authority, the +sweet gravity that lay upon the lips, to hear the clear answers to the +pupils' questions, to notice how every request had the force without the +form of a command, and the young man could not doubt that the good genius +of the school stood before him in the person of Helen barley. + +It was the old story. A poor country-clergyman dies, and leaves a widow +and a daughter. In Old England the daughter would have eaten the bitter +bread of a governess in some rich family. In New England she must keep a +school. So, rising from one sphere to another, she at length finds +herself the prima donna in the department of instruction in Mr. Silas +Peckham's educational establishment. + +What a miserable thing it is to be poor. She was dependent, frail, +sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping, +thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor cared +for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant to have +his money's worth out of her brains, and as much more than his money's +worth as he could get. She was consequently, in plain English, +overworked, and an overworked woman is always a sad sight,--sadder a +great deal than an overworked man, because she is so much more fertile in +capacities of suffering than a man. She has so many varieties of +headache,--sometimes as if Jael were driving the nail that killed Sisera +into her temples,--sometimes letting her work with half her brain while +the other half throbs as if it would go to pieces,--sometimes tightening +round the brows as if her cap-band were a ring of iron,--and then her +neuralgias, and her backaches, and her fits of depression, in which she +thinks she is nothing and less than nothing, and those paroxysms which +men speak slightingly of as hysterical,--convulsions, that is all, only +not commonly fatal ones,--so many trials which belong to her fine and +mobile structure,--that she is always entitled to pity, when she is +placed in conditions which develop her nervous tendencies. + +The poor young lady's work had, of course, been doubled since the +departure of Master Langdon's predecessor. Nobody knows what the +weariness of instruction is, as soon as the teacher's faculties begin to +be overtasked, but those who have tried it. The relays of fresh pupils, +each new set with its exhausting powers in full action, coming one after +another, take out all the reserved forces and faculties of resistance +from the subject of their draining process. + +The day's work was over, and it was late in the evening, when she sat +down, tired and faint, with a great bundle of girls' themes or +compositions to read over before she could rest her weary head on the +pillow of her narrow trundle-bed, and forget for a while the treadmill +stair of labor she was daily climbing. + +How she dreaded this most forlorn of all a teacher's tasks! She was +conscientious in her duties, and would insist on reading every +sentence,--there was no saying where she might find faults of grammar or +bad spelling. There might have been twenty or thirty of these themes in +the bundle before her. Of course she knew pretty well the leading +sentiments they could contain: that beauty was subject to the accidents +of time; that wealth was inconstant, and existence uncertain; that virtue +was its own reward; that youth exhaled, like the dewdrop from the flower, +ere the sun had reached its meridian; that life was o'ershadowed with +trials; that the lessons of virtue instilled by our beloved teachers were +to be our guides through all our future career. The imagery employed +consisted principally of roses, lilies, birds, clouds, and brooks, with +the celebrated comparison of wayward genius to meteor. Who does not know +the small, slanted, Italian hand of these girls'-compositions, their +stringing together of the good old traditional copy-book phrases; their +occasional gushes of sentiment, their profound estimates of the world, +sounding to the old folks that read them as the experience of a bantam +pullet's last-hatched young one with the chips of its shell on its head +would sound to a Mother Cary's chicken, who knew the great ocean with all +its typhoons and tornadoes? Yet every now and then one is liable to be +surprised with strange clairvoyant flashes, that can hardly be explained, +except by the mysterious inspiration which every now and then seizes a +young girl and exalts her intelligence, just as hysteria in other +instances exalts the sensibility,--a little something of that which made +Joan of Arc, and the Burney girl who prophesied "Evelina," and the +Davidson sisters. In the midst of these commonplace exercises which Miss +Darley read over so carefully were two or three that had something of +individual flavor about them, and here and there there was an image or an +epithet which showed the footprint of a passionate nature, as a fallen +scarlet feather marks the path the wild flamingo has trodden. + +The young lady-teacher read them with a certain indifference of manner, +as one reads proofs--noting defects of detail, but not commonly arrested +by the matters treated of. Even Miss Charlotte Ann Wood's poem, +beginning-- + + "How sweet at evening's balmy hour," + +did not excite her. She marked the inevitable false rhyme of Cockney and +Yankee beginners, morn and dawn, and tossed the verses on the pile of +papers she had finished. She was looking over some of the last of them +in a rather listless way,--for the poor thing was getting sleepy in spite +of herself,--when she came to one which seemed to rouse her attention, +and lifted her drooping lids. She looked at it a moment before she would +touch it. Then she took hold of it by one corner and slid it off from +the rest. One would have said she was afraid of it, or had some +undefined antipathy which made it hateful to her. Such odd fancies are +common enough in young persons in her nervous state. Many of these young +people will jump up twenty times a day and run to dabble the tips of +their fingers in water, after touching the most inoffensive objects. + +This composition was written in a singular, sharp-pointed, long, slender +hand, on a kind of wavy, ribbed paper. There was something strangely +suggestive about the look of it, but exactly of what, Miss barley either +could not or did not try to think. The subject of the paper was The +Mountain,--the composition being a sort of descriptive rhapsody. It +showed a startling familiarity with some of the savage scenery of the +region. One would have said that the writer must have threaded its +wildest solitudes by the light of the moon and stars as well as by day. +As the teacher read on, her color changed, and a kind of tremulous +agitation came over her. There were hints in this strange paper she did +not know what to make of. There was something in its descriptions and +imagery that recalled,--Miss Darley could not say what,--but it made her +frightfully nervous. Still she could not help reading, till she came to +one passage which so agitated her, that the tired and over-wearied girl's +self-control left her entirely. She sobbed once or twice, then laughed +convulsively; and flung herself on the bed, where she worked out a set +hysteric spasm as she best might, without anybody to rub her hands and +see that she did not hurt herself. + +By and by she got quiet, rose and went to her bookcase, took down a +volume of Coleridge, and read a short time, and so to bed, to sleep and +wake from time to time with a sudden start out of uneasy dreams. + +Perhaps it is of no great consequence what it was in the composition +which set her off into this nervous paroxysm. She was in such a state +that almost any slight agitation would have brought on the attack, and it +was the accident of her transient excitability, very probably, which made +a trifling cause the seeming occasion of so much disturbance. The theme +was signed, in the same peculiar, sharp, slender hand, E. Venner, and +was, of course, written by that wild-looking girl who had excited the +master's curiosity and prompted his question, as before mentioned. The +next morning the lady-teacher looked pale and wearied, naturally enough, +but she was in her place at the usual hour, and Master Langdon in his +own. + +The girls had not yet entered the school room. + +"You have been ill, I am afraid," said Mr. Bernard. + +"I was not well yesterday," she, answered. "I had a worry and a kind of +fright. It is so dreadful to have the charge of all these young souls +and bodies. Every young girl ought to walk locked close, arm in arm, +between two guardian angels. Sometimes I faint almost with the thought +of all that I ought to do, and of my own weakness and wants.--Tell me, +are there not natures born so out of parallel with the lines of natural +law that nothing short of a miracle can bring them right?" + +Mr. Bernard had speculated somewhat, as all thoughtful persons of his +profession are forced to do, on the innate organic tendencies with which +individuals, families, and races are born. He replied, therefore, with a +smile, as one to whom the question suggested a very familiar class of +facts. + +"Why, of course. Each of us is only the footing-up of a double column of +figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit tells,--and some of +them are plus, and some minus. If the columns don't add up right, it is +commonly because we can't make out all the figures. I don't mean to say +that something may not be added by Nature to make up for losses and keep +the race to its average, but we are mainly nothing but the answer to a +long sum in addition and subtraction. No doubt there are people born +with impulses at every possible angle to the parallels of Nature, as you +call them. If they happen to cut these at right angles, of course they +are beyond the reach of common influences. Slight obliquities are what +we have most to do with in education. Penitentiaries and insane asylums +take care of most of the right-angle cases.--I am afraid I have put it +too much like a professor, and I am only a student, you know. Pray, what +set you to asking me this? Any strange cases among the scholars?" + +The meek teacher's blue eyes met the luminous glance that came with the +question. She, too, was of gentle blood,--not meaning by that that she +was of any noted lineage, but that she came of a cultivated stock, never +rich, but long trained to intellectual callings. A thousand decencies, +amenities, reticences, graces, which no one thinks of until he misses +them, are the traditional right of those who spring from such families. +And when two persons of this exceptional breeding meet in the midst of +the common multitude, they seek each other's company at once by the +natural law of elective affinity. It is wonderful how men and women know +their peers. If two stranger queens, sole survivors of two shipwrecked +vessels, were cast, half-naked, on a rock together, each would at once +address the other as "Our Royal Sister." + +Helen Darley looked into the dark eyes of Bernard Langdon glittering with +the light which flashed from them with his question. Not as those +foolish, innocent country-girls of the small village did she look into +them, to be fascinated and bewildered, but to sound them with a calm, +steadfast purpose. "A gentleman," she said to herself, as she read his +expression and his features with a woman's rapid, but exhausting glance. +"A lady," he said to himself, as he met her questioning look,--so brief, +so quiet, yet so assured, as of one whom necessity had taught to read +faces quickly without offence, as children read the faces of parents, as +wives read the faces of hard-souled husbands. All this was but a few +seconds' work, and yet the main point was settled. If there had been any +vulgar curiosity or coarseness of any kind lurking in his expression, she +would have detected it. If she had not lifted her eyes to his face so +softly and kept them there so calmly and withdrawn them so quietly, he +would not have said to himself, "She is a LADY," for that word meant a +good deal to the descendant of the courtly Wentworths and the scholarly +Langdons. + +"There are strange people everywhere, Mr. Langdon," she said, "and I +don't think our schoolroom is an exception. I am glad you believe in the +force of transmitted tendencies. It would break my heart, if I did not +think that there are faults beyond the reach of everything but God's +special grace. I should die, if I thought that my negligence or +incapacity was alone responsible for the errors and sins of those I have +charge of. Yet there are mysteries I do not know how to account for." +She looked all round the schoolroom, and then said, in a whisper, "Mr. +Langdon, we had a girl that stole, in the school, not long ago. Worse +than that, we had a girl who tried to set us on fire. Children of good +people, both of them. And we have a girl now that frightens me so"-- + +The door opened, and three misses came in to take their seats: three +types, as it happened, of certain classes, into which it would not have +been difficult to distribute the greater number of the girls in the +school.--Hannah Martin. Fourteen years and three months old. +Short-necked, thick-waisted, round-cheeked, smooth, vacant forehead, +large, dull eyes. Looks good-natured, with little other expression. +Three buns in her bag, and a large apple. Has a habit of attacking her +provisions in school-hours.--Rosa Milburn. Sixteen. Brunette, with a +rare-ripe flush in her cheeks. Color comes and goes easily. Eyes +wandering, apt to be downcast. Moody at times. Said to be passionate, +if irritated. Finished in high relief. Carries shoulders well back and +walks well, as if proud of her woman's life, with a slight rocking +movement, being one of the wide-flanged pattern, but seems restless,--a +hard girl to look after. Has a romance in her pocket, which she means to +read in school-time.--Charlotte Ann Wood. Fifteen. The poetess before +mentioned. Long, light ringlets, pallid complexion, blue eyes. Delicate +child, half unfolded. Gentle, but languid and despondent. Does not go +much with the other girls, but reads a good deal, especially poetry, +underscoring favorite passages. Writes a great many verses, very fast, +not very correctly; full of the usual human sentiments, expressed in the +accustomed phrases. Under-vitalized. Sensibilities not covered with +their normal integuments. A negative condition, often confounded with +genius, and sometimes running into it. Young people who fall out of line +through weakness of the active faculties are often confounded with those +who step out of it through strength of the intellectual ones. + +The girls kept coming in, one after another, or in pairs or groups, until +the schoolroom was nearly full. Then there was a little pause, and a +light step was heard in the passage. The lady-teacher's eyes turned to +the door, and the master's followed them in the same direction. + +A girl of about seventeen entered. She was tall and slender, but +rounded, with a peculiar undulation of movement, such as one sometimes +sees in perfectly untutored country-girls, whom Nature, the queen of +graces, has taken in hand, but more commonly in connection with the very +highest breeding of the most thoroughly trained society. She was a +splendid scowling beauty, black-browed, with a flash of white teeth which +was always like a surprise when her lips parted. She wore a checkered +dress, of a curious pattern, and a camel's-hair scarf twisted a little +fantastically about her. She went to her seat, which she had moved a +short distance apart from the rest, and, sitting down, began playing +listlessly with her gold chain, as was a common habit with her, coiling +it and uncoiling it about her slender wrist, and braiding it in with her +long, delicate fingers. Presently she looked up. Black, piercing eyes, +not large,--a low forehead, as low as that of Clytie in the Townley +bust,--black hair, twisted in heavy braids,--a face that one could not +help looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from for +something in its expression, and could not for those diamond eyes. They +were fixed on the lady-teacher now. The latter turned her own away, and +let them wander over the other scholars. But they could not help coming +back again for a single glance at the wild beauty. The diamond eyes were +on her still. She turned the leaves of several of her books, as if in +search of some passage, and, when she thought she had waited long enough +to be safe, once more stole a quick look at the dark girl. The diamond +eyes were still upon her. She put her kerchief to her forehead, which +had grown slightly moist; she sighed once, almost shivered, for she felt +cold; then, following some ill-defined impulse, which she could not +resist, she left her place and went to the young girl's desk. + +"What do you want of me, Elsie Venner?" It was a strange question to +put, for the girl had not signified that she wished the teacher to come +to her. + +"Nothing," she said. "I thought I could make you come." The girl spoke +in a low tone, a kind of half-whisper. She did not lisp, yet her +articulation of one or two consonants was not absolutely perfect. + +"Where did you get that flower, Elsie?" said Miss Darley. It was a rare +alpine flower, which was found only in one spot among the rocks of The +Mountain. + +"Where it grew," said Elsie Veneer. "Take it." The teacher could not +refuse her. The girl's finger tips touched hers as she took it. How +cold they were for a girl of such an organization! + +The teacher went back to her seat. She made an excuse for quitting the +schoolroom soon afterwards. The first thing she did was to fling the +flower into her fireplace and rake the ashes over it. The second was to +wash the tips of her fingers, as if she had been another Lady Macbeth. A +poor, over-tasked, nervous creature,--we must not think too much of her +fancies. + +After school was done, she finished the talk with the master which had +been so suddenly interrupted. There were things spoken of which may +prove interesting by and by, but there are other matters we must first +attend to. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE EVENT OF THE SEASON. + +"Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's compliments to Mr. Langdon and requests +the pleasure of his company at a social entertainment on Wednesday +evening next. + "Elm St. Monday." + +On paper of a pinkish color and musky smell, with a large "S" at the top, +and an embossed border. Envelop adherent, not sealed. Addressed + + LANGDON ESQ. + Present. + +Brought by H. Frederic Sprowle, youngest son of the Colonel,--the H. of +course standing for the paternal Hezekiah, put in to please the father, +and reduced to its initial to please the mother, she having a marked +preference for Frederic. Boy directed to wait for an answer. + +"Mr. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's +polite invitation for Wednesday evening." + +On plain paper, sealed with an initial. + +In walking along the main street, Mr. Bernard had noticed a large house +of some pretensions to architectural display, namely, unnecessarily +projecting eaves, giving it a mushroomy aspect, wooden mouldings at +various available points, and a grandiose arched portico. It looked a +little swaggering by the side of one or two of the mansion-houses that +were not far from it, was painted too bright for Mr. Bernard's taste, had +rather too fanciful a fence before it, and had some fruit-trees planted +in the front-yard, which to this fastidious young gentleman implied a +defective sense of the fitness of things, not promising in people who +lived in so large a house, with a mushroom roof and a triumphal arch for +its entrance. + +This place was known as "Colonel Sprowle's villa," (genteel friends,)--as +"the elegant residence of our distinguished fellow-citizen, Colonel +Sprowle," (Rockland Weekly Universe,)--as "the neew haouse," (old +settlers,)--as "Spraowle's Folly," (disaffected and possibly envious +neighbors,)--and in common discourse, as "the Colonel's." + +Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle of the Commonwealth's Militia, +was a retired "merchant." An India merchant he might, perhaps, have been +properly called; for he used to deal in West India goods, such as coffee, +sugar, and molasses, not to speak of rum,--also in tea, salt fish, +butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried fruit, agricultural "p'doose" +generally, industrial products, such as boots and shoes, and various +kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at one end of the establishment in +calicoes and other stuffs,--to say nothing of miscellaneous objects of +the most varied nature, from sticks of candy, which tempted in the +smaller youth with coppers in their fists, up to ornamental articles of +apparel, pocket-books, breast-pins, gilt-edged Bibles, stationery, in +short, everything which was like to prove seductive to the rural +population. The Colonel had made money in trade, and also by matrimony. +He had married Sarah, daughter and heiress of the late Tekel Jordan, +Esq., an old miser, who gave the town-clock, which carries his name to +posterity in large gilt letters as a generous benefactor of his native +place. In due time the Colonel reaped the reward of well-placed +affections. When his wife's inheritance fell in, he thought he had money +enough to give up trade, and therefore sold out his "store," called in +some dialects of the English language shop, and his business. + +Life became pretty hard work to him, of course, as soon as he had nothing +particular to do. Country people with money enough not to have to work +are in much more danger than city people in the same condition. They get +a specific look and character, which are the same in all the villages +where one studies them. They very commonly fall into a routine, the +basis of which is going to some lounging-place or other, a bar-room, a +reading-room, or something of the kind. They grow slovenly in dress, and +wear the same hat forever. They have a feeble curiosity for news +perhaps, which they take daily as a man takes his bitters, and then fall +silent and think they are thinking. But the mind goes out under this +regimen, like a fire without a draught; and it is not very strange, if +the instinct of mental self-preservation drives them to brandy-and-water, +which makes the hoarse whisper of memory musical for a few brief moments, +and puts a weak leer of promise on the features of the hollow-eyed +future. The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet by his wife, and +though it had happened to him once or twice to come home rather late at +night with a curious tendency to say the same thing twice and even three +times over, it had always been in very cold weather,--and everybody knows +that no one is safe to drink a couple of glasses of wine in a warm room +and go suddenly out into the cold air. + +Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the house, had reached the age at +which young ladies are supposed in technical language to have come out, +and thereafter are considered to be in company. + +"There's one piece o' goods," said the Colonel to his wife, "that we +ha'n't disposed of, nor got a customer for yet. That 's Matildy. I +don't mean to set HER up at vaandoo. I guess she can have her pick of a +dozen." + +"She 's never seen anybody yet," said Mrs. Sprowle, who had had a certain +project for some time, but had kept quiet about it. "Let's have a party, +and give her a chance to show herself and see some of the young folks." + +The Colonel was not very clear-headed, and he thought, naturally enough, +that the party was his own suggestion, because his remark led to the +first starting of the idea. He entered into the plan, therefore, with a +feeling of pride as well as pleasure, and the great project was resolved +upon in a family council without a dissentient voice. This was the +party, then, to which Mr. Bernard was going. The town had been full of it +for a week. "Everybody was asked." So everybody said that was invited. +But how in respect of those who were not asked? If it had been one of +the old mansion-houses that was giving a party, the boundary between the +favored and the slighted families would have been known pretty well +beforehand, and there would have been no great amount of grumbling. But +the Colonel, for all his title, had a forest of poor relations and a +brushwood swamp of shabby friends, for he had scrambled up to fortune, +and now the time was come when he must define his new social position. + +This is always an awkward business in town or country. An exclusive +alliance between two powers is often the same thing as a declaration of +war against a third. Rockland was soon split into a triumphant minority, +invited to Mrs. Sprowle's party, and a great majority, uninvited, of +which the fraction just on the border line between recognized "gentility" +and the level of the ungloved masses was in an active state of excitement +and indignation. + +"Who is she, I should like to know?" said Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's +wife. "There was plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally +Jordan was, if she had managed to pick up a merchant. Other folks could +have married merchants, if their families was n't as wealthy as them old +skinflints that willed her their money," etc., etc. Mrs. Saymore +expressed the feeling of many beside herself. She had, however, a +special right to be proud of the name she bore. Her husband was own +cousin to the Saymores of Freestone Avenue (who write the name Seymour, +and claim to be of the Duke of Somerset's family, showing a clear descent +from the Protector to Edward Seymour, (1630,)--then a jump that would +break a herald's neck to one Seth Saymore,(1783,)--from whom to the head +of the present family the line is clear again). Mrs. Saymore, the +tailor's wife, was not invited, because her husband mended clothes. If +he had confined himself strictly to making them, it would have put a +different face upon the matter. + +The landlord of the Mountain House and his lady were invited to Mrs. +Sprowle's party. Not so the landlord of Pollard's Tahvern and his lady. +Whereupon the latter vowed that they would have a party at their house +too, and made arrangements for a dance of twenty or thirty couples, to be +followed by an entertainment. Tickets to this "Social Ball" were soon +circulated, and, being accessible to all at a moderate price, admission +to the "Elegant Supper" included, this second festival promised to be as +merry, if not as select, as the great party. + +Wednesday came. Such doings had never been heard of in Rockland as went +on that day at the "villa." The carpet had been taken up in the long +room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss Matilda's piano +had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player engaged to +make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in requisition, and even +colored wax-candles figured on the mantel-pieces. The costumes of the +family had been tried on the day before: the Colonel's black suit fitted +exceedingly well; his lady's velvet dress displayed her contours to +advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered silk was considered superb; the eldest +son of the family, Mr. T. Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately and +elegantly "Geordie," voted himself "stunnin'"; and even the small youth +who had borne Mr. Bernard's invitation was effective in a new jacket and +trousers, buttony in front, and baggy in the reverse aspect, as is wont +to be the case with the home-made garments of inland youngsters. + +Great preparations had been made for the refection which was to be part +of the entertainment. There was much clinking of borrowed spoons, which +were to be carefully counted, and much clicking of borrowed china, which +was to be tenderly handled, for nobody in the country keeps those vast +closets full of such things which one may see in rich city-houses. Not a +great deal could be done in the way of flowers, for there were no +greenhouses, and few plants were out as yet; but there were paper +ornaments for the candlesticks, and colored mats for the lamps, and all +the tassels of the curtains and bells were taken out of those brown linen +bags, in which, for reasons hitherto undiscovered, they are habitually +concealed in some households. In the remoter apartments every imaginable +operation was going on at once,--roasting, boiling, baking, beating, +rolling, pounding in mortars, frying, freezing; for there was to be +ice-cream to-night of domestic manufacture;--and in the midst of all +these labors, Mrs. Sprowle and Miss Matilda were moving about, directing +and helping as they best might, all day long. When the evening came, it +might be feared they would not be in just the state of mind and body to +entertain company. + +--One would like to give a party now and then, if one could be a +billionnaire.--"Antoine, I am going to have twenty people to dine +to-day." "Biens, Madame." Not a word or thought more about it, but get +home in season to dress, and come down to your own table, one of your own +guests.--"Giuseppe, we are to have a party a week from to-night,--five +hundred invitations--there is the list." The day comes. "Madam, do you +remember you have your party tonight?" "Why, so I have! Everything +right? supper and all?" "All as it should be, Madam." + +"Send up Victorine." "Victorine, full toilet for this evening,--pink, +diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur at seven. Allez."--Billionism, or +even millionism, must be a blessed kind of state, with health and clear +conscience and youth and good looks,--but most blessed is this, that it +takes off all the mean cares which give people the three wrinkles between +the eyebrows, and leaves them free to have a good time and make others +have a good time, all the way along from the charity that tips up +unexpected loads of wood before widows' houses, and leaves foundling +turkeys upon poor men's door-steps, and sets lean clergymen crying at the +sight of anonymous fifty-dollar bills, to the taste which orders a +perfect banquet in such sweet accord with every sense that everybody's +nature flowers out full--blown in its golden--glowing, fragrant +atmosphere. + +--A great party given by the smaller gentry of the interior is a kind of +solemnity, so to speak. It involves so much labor and anxiety,--its +spasmodic splendors are so violently contrasted with the homeliness of +every-day family-life,--it is such a formidable matter to break in the +raw subordinates to the manege of the cloak-room and the table,--there is +such a terrible uncertainty in the results of unfamiliar culinary +operations,--so many feuds are involved in drawing that fatal line which +divides the invited from the uninvited fraction of the local +universe,--that, if the notes requested the pleasure of the guests' +company on "this solemn occasion," they would pretty nearly express the +true state of things. + +The Colonel himself had been pressed into the service. He had pounded +something in the great mortar. He had agitated a quantity of sweetened +and thickened milk in what was called a cream-freezer. At eleven +o'clock, A. M., he retired for a space. On returning, his color was +noted to be somewhat heightened, and he showed a disposition to be +jocular with the female help,--which tendency, displaying itself in +livelier demonstrations than were approved at head-quarters, led to his +being detailed to out-of-door duties, such as raking gravel, arranging +places for horses to be hitched to, and assisting in the construction of +an arch of wintergreen at the porch of the mansion. + +A whiff from Mr. Geordie's cigar refreshed the toiling females from time +to time; for the windows had to be opened occasionally, while all these +operations were going on, and the youth amused himself with inspecting +the interior, encouraging the operatives now and then in the phrases +commonly employed by genteel young men,--for he had perused an odd volume +of "Verdant Green," and was acquainted with a Sophomore from one of the +fresh-water colleges. "Go it on the feed!" exclaimed this spirited young +man. "Nothin' like a good spread. Grub enough and good liquor, that's +the ticket. Guv'nor'll do the heavy polite, and let me alone for +polishin' off the young charmers." And Mr. Geordie looked expressively at +a handmaid who was rolling gingerbread, as if he were rehearsing for "Don +Giovanni." + +Evening came at last, and the ladies were forced to leave the scene of +their labors to array themselves for the coming festivities. The tables +had been set in a back room, the meats were ready, the pickles were +displayed, the cake was baked, the blanc-mange had stiffened, and the +ice-cream had frozen. + +At half past seven o'clock, the Colonel, in costume, came into the front +parlor, and proceeded to light the lamps. Some were good-humored enough +and took the hint of a lighted match at once. Others were as vicious as +they could be,--would not light on any terms, any more than if they were +filled with water, or lighted and smoked one side of the chimney, or +spattered a few sparks and sulked themselves out, or kept up a faint show +of burning, so that their ground glasses looked as feebly phosphorescent +as so many invalid fireflies. With much coaxing and screwing and +pricking, a tolerable illumination was at last achieved. At eight there +was a grand rustling of silks, and Mrs. and Miss Sprowle descended from +their respective bowers or boudoirs. Of course they were pretty well +tired by this time, and very glad to sit down,--having the prospect +before them of being obliged to stand for hours. The Colonel walked +about the parlor, inspecting his regiment of lamps. By and by Mr. +Geordie entered. + +"Mph! mph!" he sniffed, as he came in. "You smell of lamp-smoke here." + +That always galls people,--to have a new-comer accuse them of smoke or +close air, which they have got used to and do not perceive. The Colonel +raged at the thought of his lamps' smoking, and tongued a few anathemas +inside of his shut teeth, but turned down two or three wicks that burned +higher than the rest. + +Master H. Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks upon +his fingers and countenance. Had been tampering with something brown and +sticky. His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by the baggy +reverse of his more essential garment. + +"Hush!" said Mrs. Sprowle,--"there 's the bell!" + +Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and +altogether at ease.--False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons,--"loaned," +as the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor. + +"Better late than never!" said the Colonel, "let me heft them spoons." + +Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had been +bewitched out of her. + +"I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready," said she, "before any of the folks +has come." + +They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival. How nervous they +got! and how their senses were sharpened! + +"Hark!" said Miss Matilda,--"what 's that rumblin'?" + +It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any +other time they would not have heard. After this there was a lull, and +poor Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently a crackling and +grinding of gravel;--how much that means, when we are waiting for those +whom we long or dread to see! Then a change in the tone of the +gravel-crackling. + +"Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're comin'! Mother! mother!" + +Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. Bell rings. Enter the first +set of visitors. The Event of the Season has begun. + +"Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I do believe Mahala 's come in +that old green de-laine she wore at the Surprise Party!" + +Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of the door and made this +observation and the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude of +attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters conversing in +the attiring-room, up one flight. + +"How fine everything is in the great house!" said Mrs. Crane,--"jest +look at the picters!" + +"Matildy Sprowle's drawin's," said Ada Azuba, the eldest daughter. + +"I should think so," said Mahala Crane, her younger sister,--a wide-awake +girl, who had n't been to school for nothing, and performed a little on +the lead pencil herself. "I should like to know whether that's a +hay-cock or a mountain!" + +Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome, +executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into mellow +harmony,--the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, and the +kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one hour. +Parents and other very near relatives are sometimes gratified with these +productions, and cause them to be framed and hung up, as in the present +instance. + +"I guess we won't go down jest yet," said Mrs. Crane, "as folks don't +seem to have come." + +So she began a systematic inspection of the dressing-room and its +conveniences. + +"Mahogany four-poster;--come from the Jordans', I cal'la,te. Marseilles +quilt. Ruffles all round the piller. Chintz curtings,--jest put +up,--o' purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar.--What a nice +washbowl!" (Taps it with a white knuckle belonging to a red finger.) +"Stone chaney.--Here's a bran'-new brush and comb,--and here's a +scent-bottle. Come here, girls, and fix yourselves in the glass, and +scent your pocket-handkerchers." + +And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief with some of the eau de Cologne +of native manufacture,--said on its label to be much superior to the +German article. + +It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes when the bell rang and the +next guests were admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper,--Deacon Soper of the +Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and his lady. Mrs. Deacon Soper was +directed, of course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her husband to the +other apartment, where gentlemen were to leave their outside coats and +hats. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the three Miss Spinneys, +then Silas Peckham, Head of the Apollinean Institute, and Mrs. Peckham, +and more after them, until at last the ladies' dressing-room got so full +that one might have thought it was a trap none of them could get out of. +In truth, they all felt a little awkwardly. Nobody wanted to be first to +venture down-stairs. At last Mr. Silas Peckham thought it was time to +make a move for the parlor, and for this purpose presented himself at the +door of the ladies' dressing-room. + +"Lorindy, my dear!" he exclaimed to Mrs. Peckham,--"I think there can be +no impropriety in our joining the family down-stairs." + +Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the sharp angle made by the +black sleeve which held the bony limb her husband offered, and the two +took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The ice was broken, and +the dressing-room began to empty itself into the spacious, lighted +apartments below. + +Mr. Silas Peckham slid into the room with Mrs. Peckham alongside, like a +shad convoying a jelly-fish. + +"Good-evenin', Mrs. Sprowle! I hope I see you well this evenin'. How 's +your haalth, Colonel Sprowle?" + +"Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you and your good lady are well. +Much pleased to see you. Hope you'll enjoy yourselves. We've laid out +to have everything in good shape,--spared no trouble nor ex"-- + +"pence,"--said Silas Peckham. + +Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember, was a Jordan, had nipped the +Colonel's statement in the middle of the word Mr. Peckham finished, with +a look that jerked him like one of those sharp twitches women keep giving +a horse when they get a chance to drive one. + +Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and Miss Mahala Crane made their +entrance. There had been a discussion about the necessity and propriety +of inviting this family, the head of which kept a small shop for hats and +boots and shoes. The Colonel's casting vote had carried it in the +affirmative.--How terribly the poor old green de-laine did cut up in the +blaze of so many lamps and candles. + +--Deluded little wretch, male or female, in town or country, going to +your first great party, how little you know the nature of the ceremony in +which you are to bear the part of victim! What! are not these garlands +and gauzy mists and many-colored streamers which adorn you, is not this +music which welcomes you, this radiance that glows about you, meant +solely for your enjoyment, young miss of seventeen or eighteen summers, +now for the first time swimming unto the frothy, chatoyant, sparkling, +undulating sea of laces and silks and satins, and white-armed, +flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves beneath the lustres that +make the false summer of the drawing-room? + +Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judgment you are entering; the +court is in session; and if you move five steps forward, you will be at +its bar. + +There was a tribunal once in France, as you may remember, called the +Chambre Ardente, the Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with lamps, +and hence its name. The burning chamber for the trial of young maidens +is the blazing ball-room. What have they full-dressed you, or rather +half-dressed you for, do you think? To make you look pretty, of course! +Why have they hung a chandelier above you, flickering all over with +flames, so that it searches you like the noonday sun, and your deepest +dimple cannot hold a shadow? To give brilliancy to the gay scene, no +doubt!--No, my clear! Society is inspecting you, and it finds +undisguised surfaces and strong lights a convenience in the process. The +dance answers the purpose of the revolving pedestal upon which the "White +Captive" turns, to show us the soft, kneaded marble, which looks as if it +had never been hard, in all its manifold aspects of living loveliness. +No mercy for you, my love! Justice, strict justice, you shall certainly +have,--neither more nor less. For, look you, there are dozens, scores, +hundreds, with whom you must be weighed in the balance; and you have got +to learn that the "struggle for life" Mr. Charles Darwin talks about +reaches to vertebrates clad in crinoline, as well as to mollusks in +shells, or articulates in jointed scales, or anything that fights for +breathing-room and food and love in any coat of fur or feather! Happy +they who can flash defiance from bright eyes and snowy shoulders back +into the pendants of the insolent lustres! + +--Miss Mahala Crane did not have these reflections; and no young girl +ever did, or ever will, thank Heaven! Her keen eyes sparkled under her +plainly parted hair and the green de-laine moulded itself in those +unmistakable lines of natural symmetry in which Nature indulges a small +shopkeeper's daughter occasionally as well as a wholesale dealer's young +ladies. She would have liked a new dress as much as any other girl, but +she meant to go and have a good time at any rate. + +The guests were now arriving in the drawing-room pretty fast, and the +Colonel's hand began to burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes which +many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which had begun like a +summer-shower, in scattering drops, was fast becoming continuous, and +occasionally rising into gusty swells, with now and then a broad-chested +laugh from some Captain or Major or other military personage,--for it may +be noted that all large and loud men in the unpaved districts bear +military titles. + +Deacon Soper came up presently, and entered into conversation with +Colonel Sprowle. + +"I hope to see our pastor present this evenin'," said the Deacon. + +"I don't feel quite sure," the Colonel answered. "His dyspepsy has been +bad on him lately. He wrote to say, that, Providence permittin', it +would be agreeable to him to take a part in the exercises of the evenin'; +but I mistrusted he did n't mean to come. To tell the truth, Deacon +Soper, I rather guess he don't like the idee of dancin', and some of the +other little arrangements." + +"Well," said the Deacon, "I know there's some condemns dancin'. I've +heerd a good deal of talk about it among the folks round. Some have it +that it never brings a blessin' on a house to have dancin' in it. Judge +Tileston died, you remember, within a month after he had his great ball, +twelve year ago, and some thought it was in the natur' of a judgment. I +don't believe in any of them notions. If a man happened to be struck +dead the night after he'd been givin' a ball," (the Colonel loosened his +black stock a little, and winked and swallowed two or three times,) "I +should n't call it a judgment,--I should call it a coincidence. But I 'm +a little afraid our pastor won't come. Somethin' or other's the matter +with Mr. Fairweather. I should sooner expect to see the old Doctor come +over out of the Orthodox parsonage-house." + +"I've asked him," said the Colonel. + +"Well?" said Deacon Soper. + +"He said he should like to come, but he did n't know what his people +would say. For his part, he loved to see young folks havin' their sports +together, and very often felt as if he should like to be one of 'em +himself. 'But,' says I, 'Doctor, I don't say there won't be a little +dancin'.' 'Don't!' says he, 'for I want Letty to go,' (she's his +granddaughter that's been stayin' with him,) 'and Letty 's mighty fond of +dancin'. You know,' says the Doctor, 'it is n't my business to settle +whether other people's children should dance or not.' And the Doctor +looked as if he should like to rigadoon and sashy across as well as the +young one he was talkin' about. He 's got blood in him, the old Doctor +has. I wish our little man and him would swop pulpits." + +Deacon Soper started and looked up into the Colonel's face, as if to see +whether he was in earnest. + +Mr. Silas Peckham and his lady joined the group. + +"Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs. Sprowle?" asked Mr. Silas +Peckham. + +Mrs. Sprowle replied, "that there would be lemonade and srub for those +that preferred such drinks, but that the Colonel had given folks to +understand that he did n't mean to set in judgment on the marriage in +Canaan, and that those that didn't like srub and such things would find +somethin' that would suit them better." + +Deacon Soper's countenance assumed a certain air of restrained +cheerfulness. The conversation rose into one of its gusty paroxysms just +then. Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began performing the +experiment of stopping and unstopping his ears in rapid alternation, +greatly rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed conversation chopped +very small, like the contents of a mince-pie, or meat-pie, as it is more +forcibly called in the deep-rutted villages lying along the unsalted +streams. All at once it grew silent just round the door, where it had +been loudest,--and the silence spread itself like a stain, till it hushed +everything but a few corner-duets. A dark, sad-looking, middle-aged +gentleman entered the parlor, with a young lady on his arm,--his +daughter, as it seemed, for she was not wholly unlike him in feature, and +of the same dark complexion. + +"Dudley Venner," exclaimed a dozen people, in startled, but +half-suppressed tones. + +"What can have brought Dudley out to-night?" said Jefferson Buck, a young +fellow, who had been interrupted in one of the corner-duets which he was +executing in concert with Miss Susy Pettingill. + +"How do I know, Jeff?" was Miss Susy's answer. Then, after a +pause,--"Elsie made him come, I guess. Go ask Dr. Kittredge; he knows +all about 'em both, they say." + +Dr. Kittredge, the leading physician of Rockland, was a shrewd old man, +who looked pretty keenly into his patients through his spectacles, and +pretty widely at men, women, and things in general over them. +Sixty-three years old,--just the year of the grand climacteric. A bald +crown, as every doctor should have. A consulting practitioner's mouth; +that is, movable round the corners while the case is under examination, +but both corners well drawn down and kept so when the final opinion is +made up. In fact, the Doctor was often sent for to act as "caounsel," +all over the county, and beyond it. He kept three or four horses, +sometimes riding in the saddle, commonly driving in a sulky, pretty fast, +and looking straight before him, so that people got out of the way of +bowing to him as he passed on the road. There was some talk about his +not being so long-sighted as other folks, but his old patients laughed +and looked knowing when this was spoken of. + +The Doctor knew a good many things besides how to drop tinctures and +shake out powders. Thus, he knew a horse, and, what is harder to +understand, a horse-dealer, and was a match for him. He knew what a +nervous woman is, and how to manage her. He could tell at a glance when +she is in that condition of unstable equilibrium in which a rough word is +like a blow to her, and the touch of unmagnetized fingers reverses all +her nervous currents. It is not everybody that enters into the soul of +Mozart's or Beethoven's harmonies; and there are vital symphonies in B +flat, and other low, sad keys, which a doctor may know as little of as a +hurdy-gurdy player of the essence of those divine musical mysteries. The +Doctor knew the difference between what men say and what they mean as +well as most people. When he was listening to common talk, he was in the +habit of looking over his spectacles; if he lifted his head so as to look +through them at the person talking, he was busier with that person's +thoughts than with his words. + +Jefferson Buck was not bold enough to confront the Doctor with Miss +Susy's question, for he did not look as if he were in the mood to answer +queries put by curious young people. His eyes were fixed steadily on the +dark girl, every movement of whom he seemed to follow. + +She was, indeed, an apparition of wild beauty, so unlike the girls about +her that it seemed nothing more than natural, that, when she moved, the +groups should part to let her pass through them, and that she should +carry the centre of all looks and thoughts with her. She was dressed to +please her own fancy, evidently, with small regard to the modes declared +correct by the Rockland milliners and mantua-makers. Her heavy black +hair lay in a braided coil, with a long gold pin shat through it like a +javelin. Round her neck was a golden torque, a round, cord-like chain, +such as the Gaols used to wear; the "Dying Gladiator" has it. Her dress +was a grayish watered silk; her collar was pinned with a flashing diamond +brooch, the stones looking as fresh as morning dew-drops, but the silver +setting of the past generation; her arms were bare, round, but slender +rather than large, in keeping with her lithe round figure. On her wrists +she wore bracelets: one was a circlet of enamelled scales; the other +looked as if it might have been Cleopatra's asp, with its body turned to +gold and its, eyes to emeralds. + +Her father--for Dudley Venner was her father--looked like a man of +culture and breeding, but melancholy and with a distracted air, as one +whose life had met some fatal cross or blight. He saluted hardly anybody +except his entertainers and the Doctor. One would have said, to look at +him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was natural enough to +think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a freak of the dark +girl's which brought him there, for he had the air of a shy and +sad-hearted recluse. + +It was hard to say what could have brought Elsie Venner to the party. +Hardly anybody seemed to know her, and she seemed not at all disposed to +make acquaintances. Here and there was one of the older girls from the +Institute, but she appeared to have nothing in common with them. Even in +the schoolroom, it may be remembered, she sat apart by her own choice, +and now in the midst of the crowd she made a circle of isolation round +herself. Drawing her arm out of her father's, she stood against the +wall, and looked, with a strange, cold glitter in her eyes, at the crowd +which moved and babbled before her. + +The old Doctor came up to her by and by. + +"Well, Elsie, I am quite surprised to find you here. Do tell me how you +happened to do such a good-natured thing as to let us see you at such a +great party." + +"It's been dull at the mansion-house," she said, "and I wanted to get out +of it. It's too lonely there,--there's nobody to hate since Dick's +gone." + +The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, as if this were an amusing bit of +pleasantry,--but he lifted his head and dropped his eyes a little, so as +to see her through his spectacles. She narrowed her lids slightly, as +one often sees a sleepy cat narrow hers,--somewhat as you may remember +our famous Margaret used to, if you remember her at all,--so that her +eyes looked very small, but bright as the diamonds on her breast. The +old Doctor felt very oddly as she looked at him; be did not like the +feeling, so he dropped his head and lifted his eyes and looked at her +over his spectacles again. + +"And how have you all been at the mansion house?" said the Doctor. + +"Oh, well enough. But Dick's gone, and there's nobody left but Dudley +and I and the people. I'm tired of it. What kills anybody quickest, +Doctor?" Then, in a whisper, "I ran away again the other day, you know." + +"Where did you go?" The Doctor spoke in a low, serious tone. + +"Oh, to the old place. Here, I brought this for you." + +The Doctor started as she handed him a flower of the Atragene Americana, +for he knew that there was only one spot where it grew, and that not one +where any rash foot, least of all a thin-shod woman's foot, should +venture. + +"How long were you gone?" said the Doctor. + +"Only one night. You should have heard the horns blowing and the guns +firing. Dudley was frightened out of his wits. Old Sophy told him she'd +had a dream, and that I should be found in Dead-Man's Hollow, with a +great rock lying on me. They hunted all over it, but they did n't find +me,--I was farther up." + +Doctor Kittredge looked cloudy and worried while she was speaking, but +forced a pleasant professional smile, as he said cheerily, and as if +wishing to change the subject, + +"Have a good dance this evening, Elsie. The fiddlers are tuning up. +Where 's the young master? has he come yet? or is he going to be late, +with the other great folks?" + +The girl turned away without answering, and looked toward the door. + +The "great folks," meaning the mansion-house gentry, were just beginning +to come; Dudley Venner and his daughter had been the first of them. +Judge Thornton, white-headed, fresh-faced, as good at sixty as he was at +forty, with a youngish second wife, and one noble daughter, Arabella, +who, they said, knew as much law as her father, a stately, Portia like +girl, fit for a premier's wife, not like to find her match even in the +great cities she sometimes visited; the Trecothicks, the family of a +merchant, (in the larger sense,) who, having made himself rich enough by +the time he had reached middle life, threw down his ledger as Sylla did +his dagger, and retired to make a little paradise around him in one of +the stateliest residences of the town, a family inheritance; the +Vaughans, an old Rockland race, descended from its first settlers, +Toryish in tendency in Revolutionary times, and barely escaping +confiscation or worse; the Dunhams, a new family, dating its gentility +only as far back as the Honorable Washington Dunham, M. C., but turning +out a clever boy or two that went to college; and some showy girls with +white necks and fat arms who had picked up professional husbands: these +were the principal mansion-house people. All of them had made it a point +to come; and as each of them entered, it seemed to Colonel and Mrs. +Sprowle that the lamps burned up with a more cheerful light, and that the +fiddles which sounded from the uncarpeted room were all half a tone +higher and half a beat quicker. + +Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them; he had been busy with his new +duties. He looked well and that is saying a good deal; for nothing but a +gentleman is endurable in full dress. Hair that masses well, a head set +on with an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an easy, practised hand, +close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped and well covered,--these +advantages can make us forgive the odious sable broadcloth suit, which +appears to have been adopted by society on the same principle that +condemned all the Venetian gondolas to perpetual and uniform blackness. +Mr. Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made his bow to the Colonel and +his lady and to Miss Matilda, from whom he got a particularly gracious +curtsy, and then began looking about him for acquaintances. He found two +or three faces he knew,--many more strangers. There was Silas +Peckham,--there was no mistaking him; there was the inelastic amplitude +of Mrs. Peckham; few of the Apollinean girls, of course, they not being +recognized members of society,--but there is one with the flame in her +cheeks and the fire in her eyes, the girl of vigorous tints and emphatic +outlines, whom we saw entering the schoolroom the other day. Old Judge +Thornton has his eyes on her, and the Colonel steals a look every now and +then at the red brooch which lifts itself so superbly into the light, as +if he thought it a wonderfully becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself +was not displeased with the general effect of the rich-blooded +schoolgirl, as she stood under the bright lamps, fanning herself in the +warm, languid air, fixed in a kind of passionate surprise at the new life +which seemed to be flowering out in her consciousness. Perhaps he looked +at her somewhat steadily, as some others had done; at any rate, she +seemed to feel that she was looked at, as people often do, and, turning +her eyes suddenly on him, caught his own on her face, gave him a +half-bashful smile, and threw in a blush involuntarily which made it more +charming. + +"What can I do better," he said to himself, "than have a dance with Rosa +Milburn?" So he carried his handsome pupil into the next room and took +his place with her in a cotillon. Whether the breath of the Goddess of +Love could intoxicate like the cup of Circe,--whether a woman is ever +phosphorescent with the luminous vapor of life that she exhales,--these +and other questions which relate to occult influences exercised by +certain women we will not now discuss. It is enough that Mr. Bernard was +sensible of a strange fascination, not wholly new to him, nor +unprecedented in the history of human experience, but always a revelation +when it comes over us for the first or the hundredth time, so pale is the +most recent memory by the side of the passing moment with the flush of +any new-born passion on its cheek. Remember that Nature makes every man +love all women, and trusts the trivial matter of special choice to the +commonest accident. + +If Mr. Bernard had had nothing to distract his attention, he might have +thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home and +dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up thinking of +her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her studies, and so +on, through the whole syllogism which ends in Nature's supreme quod erat +demonstrandum. What was there to distract him or disturb him? He did +not know,--but there was something. This sumptuous creature, this Eve +just within the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the ways of the +world, but on tiptoe to reach the fruit of the tree of knowledge,--alive +to the moist vitality of that warm atmosphere palpitating with voices and +music, as the flower of some dioecious plant which has grown in a lone +corner and suddenly unfolding its corolla on some hot-breathing June +evening, feels that the air is perfumed with strange odors and loaded +with golden dust wafted from those other blossoms with which its double +life is shared,--this almost over-womanized woman might well have +bewitched him, but that he had a vague sense of a counter-charm. It was, +perhaps, only the same consciousness that some one was looking at him +which he himself had just given occasion to in his partner. Presently, in +one of the turns of the dance, he felt his eyes drawn to a figure he had +not distinctly recognized, though he had dimly felt its presence, and saw +that Elsie Venner was looking at him as if she saw nothing else but him. +He was not a nervous person, like the poor lady-teacher, yet the glitter +of the diamond eyes affected him strangely. It seemed to disenchant the +air, so full a moment before of strange attractions. He became silent, +and dreamy, as it were. The round-limbed beauty at his side crushed her +gauzy draperies against him, as they trod the figure of the dance +together, but it was no more to him than if an old nurse had laid her +hand on his sleeve. The young girl chafed at his seeming neglect, and +her imperious blood mounted into her cheeks; but he appeared unconscious +of it. + +"There is one of our young ladies I must speak to," he said,--and was +just leaving his partner's side. + +"Four hands all round?" shouted the first violin,--and Mr. Bernard found +himself seized and whirled in a circle out of which he could not escape, +and then forced to "cross over," and then to "dozy do," as the maestro +had it,--and when, on getting back to his place, he looked for Elsie +Venner, she was gone. + +The dancing went on briskly. Some of the old folks looked on, others +conversed in groups and pairs, and so the evening wore along, until a +little after ten o'clock. About this time there was noticed an increased +bustle in the passages, with a considerable opening and shutting of +doors. Presently it began to be whispered about that they were going to +have supper. Many, who had never been to any large party before, held +their breath for a moment at this announcement. It was rather with a +tremulous interest than with open hilarity that the rumor was generally +received. + +One point the Colonel had entirely forgotten to settle. It was a point +involving not merely propriety, but perhaps principle also, or at least +the good report of the house,--and he had never thought to arrange it. +He took Judge Thornton aside and whispered the important question to +him,--in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets and taking out his +bandanna instead of his white handkerchief to wipe his forehead. + +"Judge," he said, "do you think, that, before we commence refreshing +ourselves at the tables, it would be the proper thing to--crave a--to +request Deacon Soper or some other elderly person--to ask a blessing?" + +The Judge looked as grave as if he were about giving the opinion of the +Court in the great India-rubber case. + +"On the whole," he answered, after a pause, "I should think it might, +perhaps, be dispensed with on this occasion. Young folks are noisy, and +it is awkward to have talking and laughing going on while blessing is +being asked. Unless a clergyman is present and makes a point of it, I +think it will hardly be expected." + +The Colonel was infinitely relieved. "Judge, will you take Mrs. Sprowle +in to supper?" And the Colonel returned the compliment by offering his +arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton. + +The door of the supper-room was now open, and the company, following the +lead of the host and hostess, began to stream into it, until it was +pretty well filled. + +There was an awful kind of pause. Many were beginning to drop their +heads and shut their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition before a +meal; some expected the music to strike up,--others, that an oration +would now be delivered by the Colonel. + +"Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen," said the Colonel; "good +things were made to eat, and you're welcome to all you see before you." + +So saying he attacked a huge turkey which stood at the head of the table; +and his example being followed first by the bold, then by the doubtful, +and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon made the circuit of the tables. +Some were shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared they would be, at +the want of the customary invocation. Widow Leech, a kind of relation, +who had to be invited, and who came with her old, back-country-looking +string of gold beads round her neck, seemed to feel very serious about +it. + +"If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch cravin' a blessin' over +sech a heap o' provisions, she'd rather ha' staid t' home. It was a bad +sign, when folks was n't grateful for the baounties of Providence." + +The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it, at +the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently +appropriated with great refinement of manner,--taking it between her +thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little +finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, and +a queer little sound in her throat, as of an M that wanted to get out and +perished in the attempt. + +The tables now presented an animated spectacle. Young fellows of the +more dashing sort, with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows to +their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by cutting up fowls and +offering portions thereof to the buxom girls these knowing ones had +commonly selected. + +"A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the--under limb?" + +The first laugh broke out at this, but it was premature, a sporadic +laugh, as Dr. Kittredge would have said, which did not become epidemic. +People were very solemn as yet, many of them being new to such splendid +scenes, and crushed, as it were, in the presence of so much crockery and +so many silver spoons, and such a variety of unusual viands and +beverages. When the laugh rose around Roxy and her saucy beau, several +looked in that direction with an anxious expression, as if something had +happened, a lady fainted, for instance, or a couple of lively fellows +come to high words. + +"Young folks will be young folks," said Deacon Soper. "No harm done. +Least said soonest mended." + +"Have some of these shell-oysters?" said the Colonel to Mrs. Trecothick. + +A delicate emphasis on the word shell implied that the Colonel knew what +was what. To the New England inland native, beyond the reach of the east +winds, the oyster unconditioned, the oyster absolute, without a +qualifying adjective, is the pickled oyster. Mrs. Trecothick, who knew +very well that an oyster long out of his shell (as is apt to be the case +with the rural bivalve) gets homesick and loses his sprightliness, +replied, with the pleasantest smile in the world, that the chicken she +had been helped to was too delicate to be given up even for the greater +rarity. But the word "shell-oysters" had been overheard; and there was a +perceptible crowding movement towards their newly discovered habitat, a +large soup-tureen. + +Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon another locality of these recent +mollusks. He said nothing, but helped himself freely, and made a sign to +Mrs. Peckham. + +"Lorindy," he whispered, "shell-oysters" + +And ladled them out to her largely, without betraying any emotion, just +as if they had been the natural inland or pickled article. + +After the more solid portion of the banquet had been duly honored, the +cakes and sweet preparations of various kinds began to get their share of +attention. There were great cakes and little cakes, cakes with raisins +in them, cakes with currants, and cakes without either; there were brown +cakes and yellow cakes, frosted cakes, glazed cakes, hearts and rounds, +and jumbles, which playful youth slip over the forefinger before spoiling +their annular outline. There were mounds of blo'monje, of the arrowroot +variety,--that being undistinguishable from such as is made with Russia +isinglass. There were jellies, which had been shaking, all the time the +young folks were dancing in the next room, as if they were balancing to +partners. There were built-up fabrics, called Charlottes, caky +externally, pulpy within; there were also marangs, and likewise +custards,--some of the indolent-fluid sort, others firm, in which every +stroke of the teaspoon left a smooth, conchoidal surface like the +fracture of chalcedony, with here and there a little eye like what one +sees in cheeses. Nor was that most wonderful object of domestic art +called trifle wanting, with its charming confusion of cream and cake and +almonds and jam and jelly and wine and cinnamon and froth; nor yet the +marvellous floating-island,--name suggestive of all that is romantic in +the imaginations of youthful palates. + +"It must have cost you a sight of work, to say nothin' of money, to get +all this beautiful confectionery made for the party," said Mrs. Crane to +Mrs. Sprowle. + +"Well, it cost some consid'able labor, no doubt," said Mrs. Sprowle. +"Matilda and our girls and I made 'most all the cake with our own hands, +and we all feel some tired; but if folks get what suits 'em, we don't +begrudge the time nor the work. But I do feel thirsty," said the poor +lady, "and I think a glass of srub would do my throat good; it's dreadful +dry. Mr. Peckham, would you be so polite as to pass me a glass of srub?" + +Silas Peckham bowed with great alacrity, and took from the table a small +glass cup, containing a fluid reddish in hue and subacid in taste. This +was srub, a beverage in local repute, of questionable nature, but +suspected of owing its tint and sharpness to some kind of syrup derived +from the maroon-colored fruit of the sumac. There were similar small +cups on the table filled with lemonade, and here and there a decanter of +Madeira wine, of the Marsala kind, which some prefer to, and many more +cannot distinguish from, that which comes from the Atlantic island. + +"Take a glass of wine, Judge," said, the Colonel; "here is an article +that I rather think 'll suit you." + +The Judge knew something of wines, and could tell all the famous old +Madeiras from each other, "Eclipse," "Juno," the almost fabulously scarce +and precious "White-top," and the rest. He struck the nativity of the +Mediterranean Madeira before it had fairly moistened his lip. + +"A sound wine, Colonel, and I should think of a genuine vintage. Your +very good health." + +"Deacon Soper," said the Colonel, "here is some Madary Judge Thornton +recommends. Let me fill you a glass of it." + +The Deacon's eyes glistened. He was one of those consistent Christians +who stick firmly by the first miracle and Paul's advice to Timothy. + +"A little good wine won't hurt anybody," said the Deacon. "Plenty, +--plenty,--plenty. There!" He had not withdrawn his glass, while the +Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill, and now it was running +over. + +--It is very odd how all a man's philosophy and theology are at the mercy +of a few drops of a fluid which the chemists say consists of nothing but +C4, O2, H6. The Deacon's theology fell off several points towards +latitudinarianism in the course of the next ten minutes. He had a deep +inward sense that everything was as it should be, human nature included. +The little accidents of humanity, known collectively to moralists as sin, +looked very venial to his growing sense of universal brotherhood and +benevolence. + +"It will all come right," the Deacon said to himself,--"I feel a joyful +conviction that everything is for the best. I am favored with a blessed +peace of mind, and a very precious season of good feelin' toward my +fellow-creturs." + +A lusty young fellow happened to make a quick step backward just at that +instant, and put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon the +Deacon's toes. + +"Aigh! What the d' d' didos are y' abaout with them great huffs o' +yourn?" said the Deacon, with an expression upon his features not exactly +that of peace and good-will to men. The lusty young fellow apologized; +but the Deacon's face did not come right, and his theology backed round +several points in the direction of total depravity. + +Some of the dashing young men in stand-up collars and extensive neckties, +encouraged by Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the "Ma,dary," and even +induced some of the more stylish girls--not of the mansion-house set, but +of the tip-top two-story families--to taste a little. Most of these +young ladies made faces at it, and declared it was "perfectly horrid," +with that aspect of veracity peculiar to their age and sex. + +About this time a movement was made on the part of some of the +mansion-house people to leave the supper-table. Miss Jane Trecothick had +quietly hinted to her mother that she had had enough of it. Miss +Arabella Thornton had whispered to her father that he had better adjourn +this court to the next room. There were signs of migration,--a +loosening of people in their places,--a looking about for arms to hitch +on to. + +"Stop!" said the Colonel. "There's something coming yet.--Ice-cream!" + +The great folks saw that the play was not over yet, and that it was only +polite to stay and see it out. The word "ice-cream" was no sooner +whispered than it passed from one to another all down the tables. The +effect was what might have been anticipated. Many of the guests had +never seen this celebrated product of human skill, and to all the +two-story population of Rockland it was the last expression of the art of +pleasing and astonishing the human palate. Its appearance had been +deferred for several reasons: first, because everybody would have +attacked it, if it had come in with the other luxuries; secondly, because +undue apprehensions were entertained (owing to want of experience) of its +tendency to deliquesce and resolve itself with alarming rapidity into +puddles of creamy fluid; and, thirdly, because the surprise would make a +grand climax to finish off the banquet. + +There is something so audacious in the conception of ice-cream, that it +is not strange that a population undebauched by the luxury of great +cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and speaks of it with a certain +emotion. This defiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do her work of +congelation in the face of her sultriest noon, might well inspire a timid +mind with fear lest human art were revolting against the Higher Powers, +and raise the same scruples which resisted the use of ether and +chloroform in certain contingencies. Whatever may be the cause, it is +well known that the announcement at any private rural entertainment that +there is to be ice-cream produces an immediate and profound impression. +It may be remarked, as aiding this impression, that exaggerated ideas are +entertained as to the dangerous effects this congealed food may produce +on persons not in the most robust health. + +There was silence as the pyramids of ice were placed on the table, +everybody looking on in admiration. The Colonel took a knife and +assailed the one at the head of the table. When he tried to cut off a +slice, it didn't seem to understand it, however, and only tipped, as if +it wanted to upset. The Colonel attacked it on the other side, and it +tipped just as badly the other way. It was awkward for the Colonel. +"Permit me," said the Judge,--and he took the knife and struck a sharp +slanting stroke which sliced off a piece just of the right size, and +offered it to Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity was much admired by +the company. + +The tables were all alive again. + +"Lorindy, here's a plate of ice-cream," said Silas Peckham. + +"Come, Mahaly," said a fresh-looking young-fellow with a saucerful in +each hand, "here's your ice-cream;--let's go in the corner and have a +celebration, us two." And the old green de-lame, with the young curves +under it to make it sit well, moved off as pleased apparently as if it +had been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it. + +"Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe to put that cold stuff into +your stomick?" said the Widow Leech to a young married lady, who, finding +the air rather warm, thought a little ice would cool her down very +nicely. "It's jest like eatin' snowballs. You don't look very rugged; +and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was you." + +"Carrie," said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard this,--"how well +you're looking this evening! But you must be tired and heated;--sit down +here, and let me give you a good slice of ice-cream. How you young folks +do grow up, to be sure! I don't feel quite certain whether it's you or +your older sister, but I know it 's somebody I call Carrie, and that I +'ve known ever since." + +A sound something between a howl and an oath startled the company and +broke off the Doctor's sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the +direction from which it came. A group instantly gathered round the +person who had uttered it, who was no other than Deacon Soper. + +"He's chokin'! he's chokin'!" was the first exclamation,--"slap him on +the back!" + +Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his spine that the Deacon felt +as if at least one of his vertebrae would come up. + +"He's black in the face," said Widow Leech, "he 's swallered somethin' +the wrong way. Where's the Doctor?--let the Doctor get to him, can't +ye?" + +"If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I can," said Doctor Kittredge, +in a calm tone of voice. "He's not choking, my friends," the Doctor +added immediately, when he got sight of him. + +"It 's apoplexy,--I told you so,--don't you see how red he is in the +face?" said old Mrs. Peake, a famous woman for "nussin" sick folks, +--determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor. + +"It's not apoplexy," said Dr. Kittredge. + +"What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die? Is he dead?--Here's his +poor wife, the Widow Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready" + +"Do be quiet, my good woman," said Dr. Kittredge.--"Nothing serious, I +think, Mrs. Soper. Deacon!" + +The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun with the extraordinary sound +mentioned above. His features had immediately assumed an expression of +intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, clapping his hands to his +face, he had rocked his head backward and forward in speechless agony. + +At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head. + +"It's all right," said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. "The +Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That 's all. Very severe, +but not at all dangerous." + +The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the change +in iris waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had looked +through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened. The Deacon, +not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the congealed state, +had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare species, and, to make +sure of doing himself justice in its distribution, had taken a large +mouthful of it without the least precaution. The consequence was a +sensation as if a dentist were killing the nerves of twenty-five teeth at +once with hot irons, or cold ones, which would hurt rather worse. + +The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic effort, and recovered +pretty soon and received the congratulations of his friends. There were +different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset of his +complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a breach of +propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man in an attack +of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that applied to other +folks. + +The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The +mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon +followed. Mr. Bernard had stayed an hour or two, and left soon after he +found that Elsie Venner and her father had disappeared. As he passed by +the dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glimmering from one of its +upper rooms, where the lady-teacher was still waking. His heart ached, +when he remembered, that, through all these hours of gayety, or what was +meant for it, the patient girl had been at work in her little chamber; +and he looked up at the silent stars, as if to see that they were +watching over her. The planet Mars was burning like a red coal; the +northern constellation was slanting downward about its central point of +flame; and while he looked, a falling star slid from the zenith and was +lost. + +He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming over the Event of the +Season. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE MORNING AFTER. + +Colonel Sprowle's family arose late the next morning. The fatigues and +excitements of the evening and the preparation for it were followed by a +natural collapse, of which somnolence was a leading symptom. The sun +shone into the window at a pretty well opened angle when the Colonel +first found himself sufficiently awake to address his yet slumbering +spouse. + +"Sally!" said the Colonel, in a voice that was a little husky,--for he +had finished off the evening with an extra glass or two of "Madary," and +had a somewhat rusty and headachy sense of renewed existence, on greeting +the rather advanced dawn,--"Sally!" + +"Take care o' them custard-cups! There they go!" + +Poor Mrs. Sprowle was fighting the party over in her dream; and as the +visionary custard-cups crashed down through one lobe of her brain into +another, she gave a start as if an inch of lightning from a quart Leyden +jar had jumped into one of her knuckles with its sudden and lively poonk! + +"Sally!" said the Colonel,--"wake up, wake up. What 'r' y' dreamin' +abaout?" + +Mrs. Sprowle raised herself, by a sort of spasm, sur son seant, as they +say in France,--up on end, as we have it in New England. She looked +first to the left, then to the right, then straight before her, +apparently without seeing anything, and at last slowly settled down, with +her two eyes, blank of any particular meaning, directed upon the Colonel. + +"What time is 't?" she said. + +"Ten o'clock. What y' been dreamin' abaout? Y' giv a jump like a +hopper-grass. Wake up, wake UP! Th' party 's over, and y' been asleep +all the mornin'. The party's over, I tell ye! Wake up!" + +"Over!" said Mrs. Sprowle, who began to define her position at +last,--"over! I should think 't was time 't was over! It's lasted a +hundud year. I've been workin' for that party longer 'n Methuselah's +lifetime, sence I been asleep. The pies would n' bake, and the blo'monje +would n' set, and the ice-cream would n' freeze, and all the folks kep' +comin' 'n' comin' 'n' comin',--everybody I ever knew in all my +life,--some of 'em 's been dead this twenty year 'n' more,--'n' nothin' +for 'em to eat nor drink. The fire would n' burn to cook anything, all +we could do. We blowed with the belluses, 'n' we stuffed in paper 'n' +pitch-pine kindlin's, but nothin' could make that fire burn; 'n' all the +time the folks kep' comin', as if they'd never stop,--'n' nothin' for 'em +but empty dishes, 'n' all the borrowed chaney slippin' round on the +waiters 'n' chippin' 'n' crackin',--I would n' go through what I been +through t'-night for all th' money in th' Bank,--I do believe it's harder +t' have a party than t'"-- + +Mrs. Sprowle stated the case strongly. + +The Colonel said he did n't know how that might be. She was a better +judge than he was. It was bother enough, anyhow, and he was glad that it +was over. After this, the worthy pair commenced preparations for +rejoining the waking world, and in due time proceeded downstairs. + +Everybody was late that morning, and nothing had got put to rights. The +house looked as if a small army had been quartered in it over night. The +tables were of course in huge disorder, after the protracted assault they +had undergone. There had been a great battle evidently, and it had gone +against the provisions. Some points had been stormed, and all their +defences annihilated, but here and there were centres of resistance which +had held out against all attacks,--large rounds of beef, and solid +loaves of cake, against which the inexperienced had wasted their energies +in the enthusiasm of youth or uninformed maturity, while the +longer-headed guests were making discoveries of "shell-oysters" and +"patridges" and similar delicacies. + +The breakfast was naturally of a somewhat fragmentary character. A +chicken that had lost his legs in the service of the preceding campaign +was once more put on duty. A great ham stuck with cloves, as Saint +Sebastian was with arrows, was again offered for martyrdom. It would have +been a pleasant sight for a medical man of a speculative turn to have +seen the prospect before the Colonel's family of the next week's +breakfasts, dinners, and suppers. The trail that one of these great +rural parties leaves after it is one of its most formidable +considerations. Every door-handle in the house is suggestive of +sweetmeats for the next week, at least. The most unnatural articles of +diet displace the frugal but nutritious food of unconvulsed periods of +existence. If there is a walking infant about the house, it will +certainly have a more or less fatal fit from overmuch of some +indigestible delicacy. Before the week is out, everybody will be tired +to death of sugary forms of nourishment and long to see the last of the +remnants of the festival. + +The family had not yet arrived at this condition. On the contrary, the +first inspection of the tables suggested the prospect of days of +unstinted luxury; and the younger portion of the household, especially, +were in a state of great excitement as the account of stock was taken +with reference to future internal investments. Some curious facts came +to light during these researches. + +"Where's all the oranges gone to?" said Mrs. Sprowle. "I expected +there'd be ever so many of 'em left. I did n't see many of the folks +eatin' oranges. Where's the skins of 'em? There ought to be six dozen +orange-skins round on the plates, and there a'n't one dozen. And all the +small cakes, too, and all the sugar things that was stuck on the big +cakes. Has anybody counted the spoons? Some of 'em got swallered, +perhaps. I hope they was plated ones, if they did!" + +The failure of the morning's orange-crop and the deficit in other +expected residual delicacies were not very difficult to account for. In +many of the two-story Rockland families, and in those favored households +of the neighboring villages whose members had been invited to the great +party, there was a very general excitement among the younger people on +the morning after the great event. "Did y' bring home somethin' from the +party? What is it? What is it? Is it frut-cake? Is it nuts and +oranges and apples? Give me some! Give me some!" Such a concert of +treble voices uttering accents like these had not been heard since the +great Temperance Festival with the celebrated "colation" in the open air +under the trees of the Parnassian Grove,--as the place was christened by +the young ladies of the Institute. The cry of the children was not in +vain. From the pockets of demure fathers, from the bags of sharp-eyed +spinsters, from the folded handkerchiefs of light-fingered sisters, from +the tall hats of sly-winking brothers, there was a resurrection of the +missing oranges and cakes and sugar-things in many a rejoicing +family-circle, enough to astonish the most hardened "caterer" that ever +contracted to feed a thousand people under canvas. + +The tender recollections of those dear little ones whom extreme youth or +other pressing considerations detain from scenes of festivity--a trait of +affection by no means uncommon among our thoughtful people--dignifies +those social meetings where it is manifested, and sheds a ray of sunshine +on our common nature. It is "an oasis in the desert,"--to use the +striking expression of the last year's "Valedictorian" of the Apollinean +Institute. In the midst of so much that is purely selfish, it is +delightful to meet such disinterested care for others. When a large +family of children are expecting a parent's return from an entertainment, +it will often require great exertions on his part to freight himself so +as to meet their reasonable expectations. A few rules are worth +remembering by all who attend anniversary dinners in Faneuil Hall or +elsewhere. Thus: Lobsters' claws are always acceptable to children of +all ages. Oranges and apples are to be taken one at a time, until the +coat-pockets begin to become inconveniently heavy. Cakes are injured by +sitting upon them; it is, therefore, well to carry a stout tin box of a +size to hold as many pieces as there are children in the domestic circle. +A very pleasant amusement, at the close of one of these banquets, is +grabbing for the flowers with which the table is embellished. These will +please the ladies at home very greatly, and, if the children are at the +same time abundantly supplied with fruits, nuts, cakes, and any little +ornamental articles of confectionery which are of a nature to be +unostentatiously removed, the kind-hearted parent will make a whole +household happy, without any additional expense beyond the outlay for his +ticket. + +There were fragmentary delicacies enough left, of one kind and another, +at any rate, to make all the Colonel's family uncomfortable for the next +week. It bid fair to take as long to get rid of the remains of the great +party as it had taken to make ready for it. + +In the mean time Mr. Bernard had been dreaming, as young men dream, of +gliding shapes with bright eyes and burning cheeks, strangely blended +with red planets and hissing meteors, and, shining over all, the white, +un-wandering star of the North, girt with its tethered constellations. + +After breakfast he walked into the parlor, where he found Miss Darley. +She was alone, and, holding a school-book in her hand, was at work with +one of the morning's lessons. She hardly noticed him as he entered, +being very busy with her book,--and he paused a moment before speaking, +and looked at her with a kind of reverence. It would not have been +strictly true to call her beautiful. For years,--since her earliest +womanhood,--those slender hands had taken the bread which repaid the toil +of heart and brain from the coarse palms which offered it in the world's +rude market. It was not for herself alone that she had bartered away the +life of her youth, that she had breathed the hot air of schoolrooms, that +she had forced her intelligence to posture before her will, as the +exigencies of her place required,--waking to mental labor,--sleeping to +dream of problems,--rolling up the stone of education for an endless +twelvemonth's term, to find it at the bottom of the hill again when +another year called her to its renewed duties, schooling her temper in +unending inward and outward conflicts, until neither dulness nor +obstinacy nor ingratitude nor insolence could reach her serene +self-possession. Not for herself alone. Poorly as her prodigal labors +were repaid in proportion to the waste of life they cost, her value was +too well established to leave her without what, under other +circumstances, would have been a more than sufficient compensation. But +there were others who looked to her in their need, and so the modest +fountain which might have been filled to its brim was continually drained +through silent-flowing, hidden sluices. + +Out of such a life, inherited from a race which had lived in conditions +not unlike her own, beauty, in the common sense of the term, could hardly +find leisure to develop and shape itself. For it must be remembered, +that symmetry and elegance of features and figure, like perfectly formed +crystals in the mineral world, are reached only by insuring a certain +necessary repose to individuals and to generations. Human beauty is an +agricultural product in the country, growing up in men and women as in +corn and cattle, where the soil is good. It is a luxury almost +monopolized by the rich in cities, bred under glass like their forced +pine-apples and peaches. Both in city and country, the evolution of the +physical harmonies which make music to our eyes requires a combination of +favorable circumstances, of which alternations of unburdened tranquillity +with intervals of varied excitement of mind and body are among the most +important. Where sufficient excitement is wanting, as often happens in +the country, the features, however rich in red and white, get heavy, and +the movements sluggish; where excitement is furnished in excess, as is +frequently the case in cities, the contours and colors are impoverished, +and the nerves begin to make their existence known to the consciousness, +as the face very soon informs us. + +Helen Darley could not, in the nature of things, have possessed the kind +of beauty which pleases the common taste. Her eye was calm, sad-looking, +her features very still, except when her pleasant smile changed them for +a moment, all her outlines were delicate, her voice was very gentle, but +somewhat subdued by years of thoughtful labor, and on her smooth forehead +one little hinted line whispered already that Care was beginning to mark +the trace which Time sooner or later would make a furrow. She could not +be a beauty; if she had been, it would have been much harder for many +persons to be interested in her. For, although in the abstract we all +love beauty, and although, if we were sent naked souls into some +ultramundane warehouse of soulless bodies and told to select one to our +liking, we should each choose a handsome one, and never think of the +consequences,--it is quite certain that beauty carries an atmosphere of +repulsion as well as of attraction with it, alike in both sexes. We may +be well assured that there are many persons who no more think of +specializing their love of the other sex upon one endowed with signal +beauty, than they think of wanting great diamonds or thousand-dollar +horses. No man or woman can appropriate beauty without paying for +it,--in endowments, in fortune, in position, in self-surrender, or other +valuable stock; and there are a great many who are too poor, too +ordinary, too humble, too busy, too proud, to pay any of these prices for +it. So the unbeautiful get many more lovers than the beauties; only, as +there are more of them, their lovers are spread thinner and do not make +so much show. + +The young master stood looking at Helen Darley with a kind of tender +admiration. She was such a picture of the martyr by the slow social +combustive process, that it almost seemed to him he could see a pale +lambent nimbus round her head. + +"I did not see you at the great party last evening," he said, presently. + +She looked up and answered, "No. I have not much taste for such large +companies. Besides, I do not feel as if my time belonged to me after it +has been paid for. There is always something to do, some lesson or +exercise,--and it so happened, I was very busy last night with the new +problems in geometry. I hope you had a good time." + +"Very. Two or three of our girls were there. Rosa Milburn. What a +beauty she is! I wonder what she feeds on! Wine and musk and chloroform +and coals of fire, I believe; I didn't think there was such color and +flavor in a woman outside the tropics." + +Miss Darley smiled rather faintly; the imagery was not just to her taste: +femineity often finds it very hard to accept the fact of muliebrity. + +"Was"--? + +She stopped short; but her question had asked itself. + +"Elsie there? She was, for an hour or so. She looked frightfully +handsome. I meant to have spoken to her, but she slipped away before I +knew it." + +"I thought she meant to go to the party," said Miss Darley. "Did she +look at you?" + +"She did. Why?" + +"And you did not speak to her?" + +"No. I should have spoken to her, but she was gone when I looked for +her. A strange creature! Is n't there an odd sort of fascination about +her? You have not explained all the mystery about the girl. What does +she come to this school for? She seems to do pretty much as she likes +about studying." + +Miss Darley answered in very low tones. "It was a fancy of hers to come, +and they let her have her way. I don't know what there is about her, +except that she seems to take my life out of me when she looks at me. I +don't like to ask other people about our girls. She says very little to +anybody, and studies, or makes believe to study, almost what she likes. +I don't know what she is," (Miss Darley laid her hand, trembling, on the +young master's sleeve,) "but I can tell when she is in the room without +seeing or hearing her. Oh, Mr. Langdon, I am weak and nervous, and no +doubt foolish,--but--if there were women now, as in the days of our +Saviour, possessed of devils, I should think there was something not +human looking out of Elsie Venner's eyes!" + +The poor girl's breast rose and fell tumultuously as she spoke, and her +voice labored, as if some obstruction were rising in her throat. + +A scene might possibly have come of it, but the door opened. Mr. Silas +Peckham. Miss Darley got away as soon as she well could. + +"Why did not Miss Darley go to the party last evening?" said Mr. Bernard. + +"Well, the fact is," answered Mr. Silas Peckham, "Miss Darley, she's +pooty much took up with the school. She's an industris young. +woman,--yis, she is industris,--but perhaps she a'n't quite so spry a +worker as some. Maybe, considerin' she's paid for her time, she is n't +fur out o' the way in occoopyin' herself evenin's,--that--is, if so be +she a'n't smart enough to finish up all her work in the daytime. +Edoocation is the great business of the Institoot. Amoosements are +objec's of a secondary natur', accordin' to my v'oo." [The unspellable +pronunciation of this word is the touchstone of New England Brahminism.] + +Mr. Bernard drew a deep breath, his thin nostrils dilating, as if the air +did not rush in fast enough to cool his blood, while Silas Peckham was +speaking. The Head of the Apollinean Institute delivered himself of +these judicious sentiments in that peculiar acid, penetrating tone, +thickened with a nasal twang, which not rarely becomes hereditary after +three or four generations raised upon east winds, salt fish, and large, +white-bellied, pickled cucumbers. He spoke deliberately, as if weighing +his words well, so that, during his few remarks, Mr. Bernard had time for +a mental accompaniment with variations, accented by certain bodily +changes, which escaped Mr. Peckham's observation. First there was a +feeling of disgust and shame at hearing Helen Darley spoken of like a +dumb working animal. That sent the blood up into his cheeks. Then the +slur upon her probable want of force--her incapacity, who made the +character of the school and left this man to pocket its profits--sent a +thrill of the old Wentworth fire through him, so that his muscles +hardened, his hands closed, and he took the measure of Mr. Silas Peckham, +to see if his head would strike the wall in case he went over backwards +all of a sudden. This would not do, of course, and so the thrill passed +off and the muscles softened again. Then came that state of tenderness +in the heart, overlying wrath in the stomach, in which the eyes grow +moist like a woman's, and there is also a great boiling-up of +objectionable terms out of the deep-water vocabulary, so that Prudence +and Propriety and all the other pious P's have to jump upon the lid of +speech to keep them from boiling over into fierce articulation. All this +was internal, chiefly, and of course not recognized by Mr. Silas Peckham. +The idea, that any full-grown, sensible man should have any other notion +than that of getting the most work for the least money out of his +assistants, had never suggested itself to him. + +Mr. Bernard had gone through this paroxysm, and cooled down, in the +period while Mr. Peckham was uttering these words in his thin, shallow +whine, twanging up into the frontal sinuses. What was the use of losing +his temper and throwing away his place, and so, among the consequences +which would necessarily follow, leaving the poor lady-teacher without a +friend to stand by her ready to lay his hand on the grand-inquisitor +before the windlass of his rack had taken one turn too many? + +"No doubt, Mr. Peckham," he said, in a grave, calm voice, "there is a +great deal of work to be done in the school; but perhaps we can +distribute the duties a little more evenly after a time. I shall look +over the girls' themes myself, after this week. Perhaps there will be +some other parts of her labor that I can take on myself. We can arrange +a new programme of studies and recitations." + +"We can do that," said Mr. Silas Peckham. "But I don't propose mater'lly +alterin' Miss Darley's dooties. I don't think she works to hurt herself. +Some of the Trustees have proposed interdoosin' new branches of study, +and I expect you will be pooty much occoopied with the dooties that +belong to your place. On the Sahbath you will be able to attend divine +service three times, which is expected of our teachers. I shall continoo +myself to give Sahbath Scriptur' readin's to the young ladies. That is a +solemn dooty I can't make up my mind to commit to other people. My +teachers enjoy the Lord's day as a day of rest. In it they do no manner +of work, except in cases of necessity or mercy, such as fillin' out +diplomas, or when we git crowded jest at the end of a term, or when there +is an extry number of p'oopils, or other Providential call to dispense +with the ordinance." + +Mr. Bernard had a fine glow in his cheeks by this time,--doubtless +kindled by the thought of the kind consideration Mr. Peckham showed for +his subordinates in allowing them the between meeting-time on Sundays +except for some special reason. But the morning was wearing away; so he +went to the schoolroom, taking leave very properly of his respected +principal, who soon took his hat and departed. + +Mr. Peckham visited certain "stores" or shops, where he made inquiries +after various articles in the provision-line, and effected a purchase or +two. Two or three barrels of potatoes, which had sprouted in a promising +way, he secured at a bargain. A side of feminine beef was also obtained +at a low figure. He was entirely satisfied with a couple of barrels of +flour, which, being invoiced "slightly damaged," were to be had at a +reasonable price. + +After this, Silas Peckham felt in good spirits. He had done a pretty +stroke of business. It came into his head whether he might not follow it +up with a still more brilliant speculation. So he turned his steps in +the direction of Colonel Sprowle's. + +It was now eleven o'clock, and the battle-field of last evening was as we +left it. Mr. Peckham's visit was unexpected, perhaps not very well +timed, but the Colonel received him civilly. + +"Beautifully lighted,--these rooms last night!" said Mr. Peckham. +"Winter-strained?" + +The Colonel nodded. + +"How much do you pay for your winter-strained?" + +The Colonel told him the price. + +"Very hahnsome supper,--very hahnsome. Nothin' ever seen like it in +Rockland. Must have been a great heap of things leftover." + +The compliment was not ungrateful, and the Colonel acknowledged it by +smiling and saying, "I should think the' was a trifle? Come and look." + +When Silas Peckham saw how many delicacies had survived the evening's +conflict, his commercial spirit rose at once to the point of a proposal. + +"Colonel Sprowle," said he, "there's 'meat and cakes and pies and pickles +enough on that table to spread a hahnsome colation. If you'd like to +trade reasonable, I think perhaps I should be willin' to take 'em off +your hands. There's been a talk about our havin' a celebration in the +Parnassian Grove, and I think I could work in what your folks don't want +and make myself whole by chargin' a small sum for tickets. Broken meats, +of course, a'n't of the same valoo as fresh provisions; so I think you +might be willin' to trade reasonable." + +Mr. Peckham paused and rested on his proposal. It would not, perhaps, +have been very extraordinary, if Colonel Sprowle had entertained the +proposition. There is no telling beforehand how such things will strike +people. It didn't happen to strike the Colonel favorably. He had a +little red-blooded manhood in him. + +"Sell you them things to make a colation out of?" the Colonel replied. +"Walk up to that table, Mr. Peckham, and help yourself! Fill your +pockets; Mr. Peckham! Fetch a basket, and our hired folks shall fill it +full for ye! Send a cart, if y' like, 'n' carry off them leavin's to +make a celebration for your pupils with! Only let me tell ye this:--as +sure 's my name's Hezekiah Spraowle, you 'll be known through the taown +'n' through the caounty, from that day forrard, as the Principal of the +Broken-Victuals Institoot!" + +Even provincial human-nature sometimes has a touch of sublimity about it. +Mr. Silas Peckham had gone a little deeper than he meant, and come upon +the "hard pan," as the well-diggers call it, of the Colonel's character, +before he thought of it. A militia-colonel standing on his sentiments is +not to be despised. That was shown pretty well in New England two or +three generations ago. There were a good many plain officers that talked +about their "rigiment" and their "caounty" who knew very well how to say +"Make ready!" "Take aim!" "Fire!"--in the face of a line of grenadiers +with bullets in their guns and bayonets on them. And though a rustic +uniform is not always unexceptionable in its cut and trimmings, yet there +was many an ill-made coat in those old times that was good enough to be +shown to the enemy's front rank too often to be left on the field with a +round hole in its left lapel that matched another going right through the +brave heart of the plain country captain or major or colonel who was +buried in it under the crimson turf. + +Mr. Silas Peckham said little or nothing. His sensibilities were not +acute, but he perceived that he had made a miscalculation. He hoped that +there was no offence,--thought it might have been mutooally agreeable, +conclooded he would give up the idee of a colation, and backed himself +out as if unwilling to expose the less guarded aspect of his person to +the risk of accelerating impulses. + +The Colonel shut the door,--cast his eye on the toe of his right boot, as +if it had had a strong temptation,--looked at his watch, then round the +room, and, going to a cupboard, swallowed a glass of deep-red brandy and +water to compose his feelings. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE DOCTOR ORDERS THE BEST SULKY. (With a Digression on "Hired Help.") + +"ABEL! Slip Cassia into the new sulky, and fetch her round." + +Abel was Dr. Kittredge's hired man. He was born in New Hampshire, a +queer sort of State, with fat streaks of soil and population where they +breed giants in mind and body, and lean streaks which export imperfectly +nourished young men with promising but neglected appetites, who may be +found in great numbers in all the large towns, or could be until of late +years, when they have been half driven out of their favorite +basement-stories by foreigners, and half coaxed away from them by +California. New Hampshire is in more than one sense the Switzerland of +New England. The "Granite State" being naturally enough deficient in +pudding-stone, its children are apt to wander southward in search of that +deposit,--in the unpetrified condition. + +Abel Stebbins was a good specimen of that extraordinary hybrid or mule +between democracy and chrysocracy, a native-born New-England serving-man. +The Old World has nothing at all like him. He is at once an emperor and +a subordinate. In one hand he holds one five-millionth part (be the same +more or less) of the power that sways the destinies of the Great +Republic. His other hand is in your boot, which he is about to polish. +It is impossible to turn a fellow citizen whose vote may make his +master--say, rather, employer--Governor or President, or who may be one +or both himself, into a flunky. That article must be imported ready-made +from other centres of civilization. When a New Englander has lost his +self-respect as a citizen and as a man, he is demoralized, and cannot be +trusted with the money to pay for a dinner. + +It may be supposed, therefore, that this fractional emperor, this +continent-shaper, finds his position awkward when he goes into service, +and that his employer is apt to find it still more embarrassing. It is +always under protest that the hired man does his duty. Every act of +service is subject to the drawback, "I am as good as you are." This is +so common, at least, as almost to be the rule, and partly accounts for +the rapid disappearance of the indigenous "domestic" from the basements +above mentioned. Paleontologists will by and by be examining the floors +of our kitchens for tracks of the extinct native species of serving-man. +The female of the same race is fast dying out; indeed, the time is not +far distant when all the varieties of young woman will have vanished from +New England, as the dodo has perished in the Mauritius. The young lady +is all that we shall have left, and the mop and duster of the last Ahnira +or Loizy will be stared at by generations of Bridgets and Noras as that +famous head and foot of the lost bird are stared at in the Ashmolean +Museum. + +Abel Stebbins, the Doctor's man, took the true American view of his +difficult position. He sold his time to the Doctor, and, having sold it, +he took care to fulfil his half of the bargain. The Doctor, on his part, +treated him, not like a gentleman, because one does not order a gentleman +to bring up his horse or run his errands, but he treated him like a man. +Every order was given in courteous terms. His reasonable privileges were +respected as much as if they had been guaranteed under hand and seal. +The Doctor lent him books from his own library, and gave him all friendly +counsel, as if he were a son or a younger brother. + +Abel had Revolutionary blood in his veins, and though he saw fit to "hire +out," he could never stand the word "servant," or consider himself the +inferior one of the two high contracting parties. When he came to live +with the Doctor, he made up his mind he would dismiss the old gentleman, +if he did not behave according to his notions of propriety. But he soon +found that the Doctor was one of the right sort, and so determined to +keep him. The Doctor soon found, on his side, that he had a trustworthy, +intelligent fellow, who would be invaluable to him, if he only let him +have his own way of doing what was to be done. + +The Doctor's hired man had not the manners of a French valet. He was +grave and taciturn for the most part, he never bowed and rarely smiled, +but was always at work in the daytime, and always reading in the evening. +He was hostler, and did all the housework that a man could properly do, +would go to the door or "tend table," bought the provisions for the +family,--in short, did almost everything for them but get their clothing. +There was no office in a perfectly appointed household, from that of +steward down to that of stable-boy, which he did not cheerfully assume. +His round of work not consuming all his energies, he must needs cultivate +the Doctor's garden, which he kept in one perpetual bloom, from the +blowing of the first crocus to the fading of the last dahlia. + +This garden was Abel's poem. Its half-dozen beds were so many cantos. +Nature crowded them for him with imagery such as no Laureate could copy +in the cold mosaic of language. The rhythm of alternating dawn and +sunset, the strophe and antistrophe still perceptible through all the +sudden shifts of our dithyrambic seasons and echoed in corresponding +floral harmonies, made melody in the soul of Abel, the plain serving-man. +It softened his whole otherwise rigid aspect. He worshipped God according +to the strict way of his fathers; but a florist's Puritanism is always +colored by the petals of his flowers,--and Nature never shows him a +black corolla. + +He may or may not figure again in this narrative; but as there must be +some who confound the New England hired man, native-born, with the +servant of foreign birth, and as there is the difference of two +continents and two civilizations between them, it did not seem fair to +let Abel bring round the Doctor's mare and sulky without touching his +features in half-shadow into our background. + +The Doctor's mare, Cassia, was so called by her master from her cinnamon +color, cassia being one of the professional names for that spice or drug. +She was of the shade we call sorrel, or, as an Englishman would perhaps +say, chestnut,--a genuine "Morgan" mare, with a low forehand, as is +common in this breed, but with strong quarters and flat hocks, well +ribbed up, with a good eye and a pair of lively ears,--a first-rate +doctor's beast, would stand until her harness dropped off her back at the +door of a tedious case, and trot over hill and dale thirty miles in three +hours, if there was a child in the next county with a bean in its +windpipe and the Doctor gave her a hint of the fact. Cassia was not +large, but she had a good deal of action, and was the Doctor's +show-horse. There were two other animals in his stable: Quassia or +Quashy, the black horse, and Caustic, the old bay, with whom he jogged +round the village. + +"A long ride to-day?" said Abel, as he brought up the equipage. + +"Just out of the village,--that 's all.--There 's a kink in her +mane,--pull it out, will you?" + +"Goin' to visit some of the great folks," Abel said to himself. "Wonder +who it is."--Then to the Doctor,--"Anybody get sick at Sprowles's? They +say Deacon Soper had a fit, after eatin' some o' their frozen victuals." + +The Doctor smiled. He guessed the Deacon would do well enough. He was +only going to ride over to the Dudley mansion-house. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE DOCTOR CALLS ON ELSIE VENNER. + +If that primitive physician, Chiron, M. D., appears as a Centaur, as we +look at him through the lapse of thirty centuries, the modern +country-doctor, if he could be seen about thirty miles off, could not be +distinguished from a wheel-animalcule. He inhabits a wheel-carriage. He +thinks of stationary dwellings as Long Tom Coffin did of land in general; +a house may be well enough for incidental purposes, but for a "stiddy" +residence give him a "kerridge." If he is classified in the Linnaean +scale, he must be set down thus: Genus Homo; Species Rotifer infusorius, +the wheel-animal of infusions. + +The Dudley mansion was not a mile from the Doctor's; but it never +occurred to him to think of walking to see any of his patients' families, +if he had any professional object in his visit. Whenever the narrow +sulky turned in at a gate, the rustic who was digging potatoes, or hoeing +corn, or swishing through the grass with his scythe, in wave-like +crescents, or stepping short behind a loaded wheelbarrow, or trudging +lazily by the side of the swinging, loose-throated, short-legged oxen, +rocking along the road as if they had just been landed after a +three-months' voyage, the toiling native, whatever he was doing, stopped +and looked up at the house the Doctor was visiting. + +"Somebody sick over there t' Haynes's. Guess th' old man's ailin' ag'in. +Winder's half-way open in the chamber,--should n' wonder 'f he was dead +and laid aout. Docterin' a'n't no use, when y' see th' winders open like +that. Wahl, money a'n't much to speak of to th' old man naow! He don' +want but tew cents,--'n' old Widah Peake, she knows what he wants them +for!" + +Or again,-- + +"Measles raound pooty thick. Briggs's folks buried two children with 'em +lass' week. Th' of Doctor, he'd h' ker'd 'em threugh. Struck in 'n' +p'dooced mo't'f'cation,--so they say." + +This is only meant as a sample of the kind of way they used to think or +talk, when the narrow sulky turned in at the gate of some house where +there was a visit to be made. + +Oh, that narrow sulky! What hopes, what fears, what comfort, what +anguish, what despair, in the roll of its coming or its parting wheels! +In the spring, when the old people get the coughs which give them a few +shakes and their lives drop in pieces like the ashes of a burned thread +which have kept the threadlike shape until they were stirred,--in the hot +summer noons, when the strong man comes in from the fields, like the son +of the Shunamite, crying, "My head, my head,"--in the dying autumn days, +when youth and maiden lie fever-stricken in many a household, +still-faced, dull-eyed, dark-flushed, dry-lipped, low-muttering in their +daylight dreams, their fingers moving singly like those of slumbering +harpers,--in the dead winter, when the white plague of the North has +caged its wasted victims, shuddering as they think of the frozen soil +which must be quarried like rock to receive them, if their perpetual +convalescence should happen to be interfered with by any untoward +accident,--at every season, the narrow sulky rolled round freighted with +unmeasured burdens of joy and woe. + +The Doctor drove along the southern foot of The Mountain. The "Dudley +Mansion" was near the eastern edge of this declivity, where it rose +steepest, with baldest cliffs and densest patches of overhanging wood. +It seemed almost too steep to climb, but a practised eye could see from a +distance the zigzag lines of the sheep-paths which scaled it like +miniature Alpine roads. A few hundred feet up The Mountain's side was a +dark deep dell, unwooded, save for a few spindling, crazy-looking +hackmatacks or native larches, with pallid green tufts sticking out +fantastically all over them. It shelved so deeply, that, while the +hemlock-tassels were swinging on the trees around its border, all would +be still at its springy bottom, save that perhaps a single fern would +wave slowly backward and forward like a sabre with a twist as of a +feathered oar,--and this when not a breath could be felt, and every other +stem and blade were motionless. There was an old story of one having +perished here in the winter of '86, and his body having been found in the +spring,--whence its common name of "Dead-Man's Hollow." Higher up there +were huge cliffs with chasms, and, it was thought, concealed caves, where +in old times they said that Tories lay hid,--some hinted not without +occasional aid and comfort from the Dudleys then living in the +mansion-house. Still higher and farther west lay the accursed +ledge,--shunned by all, unless it were now and then a daring youth, or a +wandering naturalist who ventured to its edge in the hope of securing +some infantile Crotalus durissus, who had not yet cut his poison teeth. + +Long, long ago, in old Colonial times, the Honorable Thomas Dudley, +Esquire, a man of note and name and great resources, allied by descent to +the family of "Tom Dudley," as the early Governor is sometimes +irreverently called by our most venerable, but still youthful +antiquary,--and to the other public Dudleys, of course,--of all of whom +he made small account, as being himself an English gentleman, with little +taste for the splendors of provincial office, early in the last century, +Thomas Dudley had built this mansion. For several generations it had +been dwelt in by descendants of the same name, but soon after the +Revolution it passed by marriage into the hands of the Venners, by whom +it had ever since been held and tenanted. + +As the doctor turned an angle in the road, all at once the stately old +house rose before him. It was a skilfully managed effect, as it well +might be, for it was no vulgar English architect who had planned the +mansion and arranged its position and approach. The old house rose +before the Doctor, crowning a terraced garden, flanked at the left by an +avenue of tall elms. The flower-beds were edged with box, which diffused +around it that dreamy balsamic odor, full of ante-natal reminiscences of +a lost Paradise, dimly fragrant as might be the bdellium of ancient +Havilah, the land compassed by the river Pison that went out of Eden. +The garden was somewhat neglected, but not in disgrace,--and in the time +of tulips and hyacinths, of roses, of "snowballs," of honeysuckles, of +lilacs, of syringas, it was rich with blossoms. + +From the front-windows of the mansion the eye reached a far blue +mountain-summit,--no rounded heap, such as often shuts in a +village-landscape, but a sharp peak, clean-angled as Ascutney from the +Dartmouth green. A wide gap through miles of woods had opened this +distant view, and showed more, perhaps, than all the labors of the +architect and the landscape-gardener the large style of the early +Dudleys. + +The great stone-chimney of the mansion-house was the centre from which +all the artificial features of the scene appeared to flow. The roofs, +the gables, the dormer-windows, the porches, the clustered offices in the +rear, all seemed to crowd about the great chimney. To this central +pillar the paths all converged. The single poplar behind the +house,--Nature is jealous of proud chimneys, and always loves to put a +poplar near one, so that it may fling a leaf or two down its black throat +every autumn,--the one tall poplar behind the house seemed to nod and +whisper to the grave square column, the elms to sway their branches +towards it. And when the blue smoke rose from its summit, it seemed to +be wafted away to join the azure haze which hung around the peak in the +far distance, so that both should bathe in a common atmosphere. + +Behind the house were clumps of lilacs with a century's growth upon them, +and looking more like trees than like shrubs. Shaded by a group of these +was the ancient well, of huge circuit, and with a low arch opening out of +its wall about ten feet below the surface,--whether the door of a crypt +for the concealment of treasure, or of a subterranean passage, or merely +of a vault for keeping provisions cool in hot weather, opinions differed. + +On looking at the house, it was plain that it was built with Old-World +notions of strength and durability, and, so far as might be, with +Old-World materials. The hinges of the doors stretched out like arms, +instead of like hands, as we make them. The bolts were massive enough +for a donjon-keep. The small window-panes were actually inclosed in the +wood of the sashes instead of being stuck to them with putty, as in our +modern windows. The broad staircase was of easy ascent, and was guarded +by quaintly turned and twisted balusters. The ceilings of the two rooms +of state were moulded with medallion-portraits and rustic figures, such +as may have been seen by many readers in the famous old Philipse +house,--Washington's head-quarters,--in the town of Yorkers. The +fire-places, worthy of the wide-throated central chimney, were bordered +by pictured tiles, some of them with Scripture stories, some with +Watteau-like figures,--tall damsels in slim waists and with spread enough +of skirt for a modern ballroom, with bowing, reclining, or musical swains +of what everybody calls the "conventional" sort,--that is, the swain +adapted to genteel society rather than to a literal sheep-compelling +existence. + +The house was furnished, soon after it was completed, with many heavy +articles made in London from a rare wood just then come into fashion, not +so rare now, and commonly known as mahogany. Time had turned it very +dark, and the stately bedsteads and tall cabinets and claw-footed chairs +and tables were in keeping with the sober dignity of the ancient mansion. +The old "hangings" were yet preserved in the chambers, faded, but still +showing their rich patterns,--properly entitled to their name, for they +were literally hung upon flat wooden frames like trellis-work, which +again were secured to the naked partitions. + +There were portraits of different date on the walls of the various +apartments, old painted coats-of-arms, bevel-edged mirrors, and in one +sleeping-room a glass case of wax-work flowers and spangly symbols, with +a legend signifying that E. M. (supposed to be Elizabeth Mascarene) +wished not to be "forgot" + + "When I am dead and lay'd in dust + And all my bones are"-- + +Poor E. M.! Poor everybody that sighs for earthly remembrance in a +planet with a core of fire and a crust of fossils! + +Such was the Dudley mansion-house,--for it kept its ancient name in spite +of the change in the line of descent. Its spacious apartments looked +dreary and desolate; for here Dudley Venner and his daughter dwelt by +themselves, with such servants only as their quiet mode of life required. +He almost lived in his library, the western room on the ground-floor. +Its window looked upon a small plat of green, in the midst of which was a +single grave marked by a plain marble slab. Except this room, and the +chamber where he slept, and the servants' wing, the rest of the house was +all Elsie's. She was always a restless, wandering child from her early +years, and would have her little bed moved from one chamber to +another,--flitting round as the fancy took her. Sometimes she would drag +a mat and a pillow into one of the great empty rooms, and, wrapping +herself in a shawl, coil up and go to sleep in a corner. Nothing +frightened her; the "haunted" chamber, with the torn hangings that +flapped like wings when there was air stirring, was one of her favorite +retreats. She had been a very hard creature to manage. Her father could +influence, but not govern her. Old Sophy, born of a slave mother in the +house, could do more with her than anybody, knowing her by long +instinctive study. The other servants were afraid of her. Her father had +sent for governesses, but none of them ever stayed long. She made them +nervous; one of them had a strange fit of sickness; not one of them ever +came back to the house to see her. A young Spanish woman who taught her +dancing succeeded best with her, for she had a passion for that exercise, +and had mastered some of the most difficult dances. Long before this +period, she had manifested some most extraordinary singularities of taste +or instinct. The extreme sensitiveness of her father on this point +prevented any allusion to them; but there were stories floating round, +some of them even getting into the papers,--without her name, of +course,--which were of a kind to excite intense curiosity, if not more +anxious feelings. This thing was certain, that at the age of twelve she +was missed one night, and was found sleeping in the open air under a +tree, like a wild creature. Very often she would wander off by day, +always without a companion, bringing home with her a nest, a flower, or +even a more questionable trophy of her ramble, such as showed that there +was no place where she was afraid to venture. Once in a while she had +stayed out over night, in which case the alarm was spread, and men went +in search of her, but never successfully,--so--that some said she hid +herself in trees, and others that she had found one of the old Tory +caves. + +Some, of course, said she was a crazy girl, and ought to be sent to an +Asylum. But old Dr. Kittredge had shaken his head, and told them to bear +with her, and let her have her way as much as they could, but watch her, +as far as possible, without making her suspicious of them. He visited her +now and then, under the pretext of seeing her father on business, or of +only making a friendly call. + +The Doctor fastened his horse outside the gate, and walked up the +garden-alley. He stopped suddenly with a start. A strange sound had +jarred upon his ear. It was a sharp prolonged rattle, continuous, but +rising and falling as if in rhythmical cadence. He moved softly towards +the open window from which the sound seemed to proceed. + +Elsie was alone in the room, dancing one of those wild Moorish fandangos, +such as a matador hot from the Plaza de Toros of Seville or Madrid might +love to lie and gaze at. She was a figure to look upon in silence. The +dancing frenzy must have seized upon her while she was dressing; for she +was in her bodice, bare-armed, her hair floating unbound far below the +waist of her barred or banded skirt. She had caught up her castanets, and +rattled them as she danced with a kind of passionate fierceness, her +lithe body undulating with flexuous grace, her diamond eyes glittering, +her round arms wreathing and unwinding, alive and vibrant to the tips of +the slender fingers. Some passion seemed to exhaust itself in this +dancing paroxysm; for all at once she reeled from the middle of the +floor, and flung herself, as it were in a careless coil, upon a great +tiger's-skin which was spread out in one corner of the apartment. + +The old Doctor stood motionless, looking at her as she lay panting on the +tawny, black-lined robe of the dead monster which stretched out beneath +her, its rude flattened outline recalling the Terror of the Jungle as he +crouched for his fatal spring. In a few moments her head drooped upon +her arm, and her glittering eyes closed,--she was sleeping. He stood +looking at her still, steadily, thoughtfully, tenderly. Presently he +lifted his hand to his forehead, as if recalling some fading remembrance +of other years. + +"Poor Catalina!" + +This was all he said. He shook his head,--implying that his visit would +be in vain to-day,--returned to his sulky, and rode away, as if in a +dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +COUSIN RICHARD'S VISIT. + +The Doctor was roused from his revery by the clatter of approaching +hoofs. He looked forward and saw a young fellow galloping rapidly +towards him. + +A common New-England rider with his toes turned out, his elbows jerking +and the daylight showing under him at every step, bestriding a cantering +beast of the plebeian breed, thick at every point where he should be +thin, and thin at every point where he should be thick, is not one of +those noble objects that bewitch the world. The best horsemen outside of +the cities are the unshod countryboys, who ride "bareback," with only a +halter round the horse's neck, digging their brown heels into his ribs, +and slanting over backwards, but sticking on like leeches, and taking the +hardest trot as if they loved it.--This was a different sight on which +the Doctor was looking. The streaming mane and tail of the unshorn, +savage-looking, black horse, the dashing grace with which the young +fellow in the shadowy sombrero, and armed with the huge spurs, sat in his +high-peaked saddle, could belong only to the mustang of the Pampas and +his master. This bold rider was a young man whose sudden apparition in +the quiet inland town had reminded some of the good people of a bright, +curly-haired boy they had known some eight or ten years before as little +Dick Venner. + +This boy had passed several of his early years at the Dudley mansion, the +playmate of Elsie, being her cousin, two or three years older than +herself, the son of Captain Richard Venner, a South American trader, who, +as he changed his residence often, was glad to leave the boy in his +brother's charge. The Captain's wife, this boy's mother, was a lady of +Buenos Ayres, of Spanish descent, and had died while the child was in his +cradle. These two motherless children were as strange a pair as one roof +could well cover. Both handsome, wild, impetuous, unmanageable, they +played and fought together like two young leopards, beautiful, but +dangerous, their lawless instincts showing through all their graceful +movements. + +The boy was little else than a young Gaucho when he first came to +Rockland; for he had learned to ride almost as soon as to walk, and could +jump on his pony and trip up a runaway pig with the bolas or noose him +with his miniature lasso at an age when some city-children would hardly +be trusted out of sight of a nursery-maid. It makes men imperious to sit +a horse; no man governs his fellows so well as from this living throne. +And so, from Marcus Aurelius in Roman bronze, down to the "man on +horseback" in General Cushing's prophetic speech, the saddle has always +been the true seat of empire. The absolute tyranny of the human will +over a noble and powerful beast develops the instinct of personal +prevalence and dominion; so that horse-subduer and hero were almost +synonymous in simpler times, and are closely related still. An ancestry +of wild riders naturally enough bequeaths also those other tendencies +which we see in the Tartars, the Cossacks, and our own Indian Centaurs, +and as well, perhaps, in the old-fashioned fox-hunting squire as in any +of these. Sharp alternations of violent action and self-indulgent +repose; a hard run, and a long revel after it; this is what over-much +horse tends to animalize a man into. Such antecedents may have helped to +make little Dick Venner a self-willed, capricious boy, and a rough +playmate for Elsie. + +Elsie was the wilder of the two. Old Sophy, who used to watch them with +those quick, animal-looking eyes of hers,--she was said to be the +granddaughter of a cannibal chief, and inherited the keen senses +belonging to all creatures which are hunted as game, Old Sophy, who +watched them in their play and their quarrels, always seemed to be more +afraid for the boy than the girl. "Masse Dick! Masse Dick! don' you be +too rough wi' dat gal! She scratch you las' week, 'n' some day she bite +you; 'n' if she bite you, Masse Dick!" Old Sophy nodded her head +ominously, as if she could say a great deal more; while, in grateful +acknowledgment of her caution, Master Dick put his two little fingers in +the angles of his mouth, and his forefingers on his lower eyelids, +drawing upon these features until his expression reminded her of +something she vaguely recollected in her infancy,--the face of a +favorite deity executed in wood by an African artist for her grandfather, +brought over by her mother, and burned when she became a Christian. + +These two wild children had much in common. They loved to ramble +together, to build huts, to climb trees for nests, to ride the colts, to +dance, to race, and to play at boys' rude games as if both were boys. +But wherever two natures have a great deal in common, the conditions of a +first-rate quarrel are furnished ready-made. Relations are very apt to +hate each other just because they are too much alike. It is so frightful +to be in an atmosphere of family idiosyncrasies; to see all the +hereditary uncomeliness or infirmity of body, all the defects of speech, +all the failings of temper, intensified by concentration, so that every +fault of our own finds itself multiplied by reflections, like our images +in a saloon lined with mirrors! Nature knows what she is about. The +centrifugal principle which grows out of the antipathy of like to like is +only the repetition in character of the arrangement we see expressed +materially in certain seed-capsules, which burst and throw the seed to +all points of the compass. A house is a large pod with a human germ or +two in each of its cells or chambers; it opens by dehiscence of the +front-door by and by, and projects one of its germs to Kansas, another to +San Francisco, another to Chicago, and so on; and this that Smith may not +be Smithed to death and Brown may not be Browned into a mad-house, but +mix in with the world again and struggle back to average humanity. + +Elsie's father, whose fault was to indulge her in everything, found that +it would never do to let these children grow up together. They would +either love each other as they got older, and pair like wild creatures, +or take some fierce antipathy, which might end nobody could tell where. +It was not safe to try. The boy must be sent away. A sharper quarrel +than common decided this point. Master Dick forgot Old Sophy's caution, +and vexed the girl into a paroxysm of wrath, in which she sprang at him +and bit his arm. Perhaps they made too much of it; for they sent for the +old Doctor, who came at once when he heard what had happened. He had a +good deal to say about the danger there was from the teeth of animals or +human beings when enraged; and as he emphasized his remarks by the +application of a pencil of lunar caustic to each of the marks left by the +sharp white teeth, they were like to be remembered by at least one of his +hearers. + +So Master Dick went off on his travels, which led him into strange places +and stranger company. Elsie was half pleased and half sorry to have him +go; the children had a kind of mingled liking and hate for each other, +just such as is very common among relations. Whether the girl had most +satisfaction in the plays they shared, or in teasing him, or taking her +small revenge upon him for teasing her, it would have been hard to say. +At any rate, she was lonely without him. She had more fondness for the +old black woman than anybody; but Sophy could not follow her far beyond +her own old rocking-chair. As for her father, she had made him afraid of +her, not for his sake, but for her own. Sometimes she would seem to be +fond of him, and the parent's heart would yearn within him as she twined +her supple arms about him; and then some look she gave him, some +half-articulated expression, would turn his cheek pale and almost make +him shiver, and he would say kindly, "Now go, Elsie, dear," and smile +upon her as she went, and close and lock the door softly after her. Then +his forehead would knot and furrow itself, and the drops of anguish stand +thick upon it. He would go to the western window of his study and look +at the solitary mound with the marble slab for its head-stone. After his +grief had had its way, he would kneel down and pray for his child as one +who has no hope save in that special grace which can bring the most +rebellious spirit into sweet subjection. All this might seem like +weakness in a parent having the charge of one sole daughter of his house +and heart; but he had tried authority and tenderness by turns so long +without any good effect, that he had become sore perplexed, and, +surrounding her with cautious watchfulness as he best might, left her in +the main to her own guidance and the merciful influences which Heaven +might send down to direct her footsteps. + +Meantime the boy grew up to youth and early manhood through a strange +succession of adventures. He had been at school at Buenos Ayres,--had +quarrelled with his mother's relatives,--had run off to the Pampas, and +lived with the Gauchos;--had made friends with the Indians, and ridden +with them, it was rumored, in some of their savage forays,--had returned +and made up his quarrel,--had got money by inheritance or otherwise,--had +troubled the peace of certain magistrates,--had found it convenient to +leave the City of Wholesome Breezes for a time, and had galloped off on a +fast horse of his, (so it was said,) with some officers riding after him, +who took good care (but this was only the popular story) not to catch +him. A few days after this he was taking his ice on the Alameda of +Mendoza, and a week or two later sailed from Valparaiso for New York, +carrying with him the horse with which he had scampered over the Plains, +a trunk or two with his newly purchased outfit of, clothing and other +conveniences, and a belt heavy with gold and with a few Brazilian +diamonds sewed in it, enough in value to serve him for a long journey. + +Dick Venner had seen life enough to wear out the earlier sensibilities of +adolescence. He was tired of worshipping or tyrannizing over the bistred +or umbered beauties of mingled blood among whom he had been living. Even +that piquant exhibition which the Rio de Mendoza presents to the amateur +of breathing sculpture failed to interest him. He was thinking of a +far-off village on the other side of the equator, and of the wild girl +with whom he used to play and quarrel, a creature of a different race +from these degenerate mongrels. + +"A game little devil she was, sure enough!"--And as Dick spoke, he bared +his wrist to look for the marks she had left on it: two small white +scars, where the two small sharp upper teeth had struck when she flashed +at him with her eyes sparkling as bright as those glittering stones sewed +up in the belt he wore. "That's a filly worth noosing!" said Dick to +himself, as he looked in admiration at the sign of her spirit and +passion. "I wonder if she will bite at eighteen as she did at eight! +She shall have a chance to try, at any rate!" + +Such was the self-sacrificing disposition with which Richard Venner, +Esq., a passenger by the Condor from Valparaiso, set foot upon his native +shore, and turned his face in the direction of Rockland, The Mountain, +and the mansion-house. He had heard something, from time to time, of his +New-England relatives, and knew that they were living together as he left +them. And so he heralded himself to "My dear Uncle" by a letter signed +"Your loving nephew, Richard Venner," in which letter he told a very +frank story of travel and mercantile adventure, expressed much gratitude +for the excellent counsel and example which had helped to form his +character and preserve him in the midst of temptation, inquired +affectionately after his uncle's health, was much interested to know +whether his lively cousin who used to be his playmate had grown up as +handsome as she promised to be, and announced his intention of paying his +respects to them both at Rockland. Not long after this came the trunks +marked R. V. which he had sent before him, forerunners of his advent: he +was not going to wait for a reply or an invitation. + +What a sound that is,--the banging down of the preliminary trunk, without +its claimant to give it the life which is borrowed by all personal +appendages, so long as the owner's hand or eye is on them! If it announce +the coming of one loved and longed for, how we delight to look at it, to +sit down on it, to caress it in our fancies, as a lone exile walking out +on a windy pier yearns towards the merchantman lying alongside, with the +colors of his own native land at her peak, and the name of the port he +sailed from long ago upon her stern! But if it tell the near approach of +the undesired, inevitable guest, what sound short of the muffled noises +made by the undertakers as they turn the corners in the dim-lighted +house, with low shuffle of feet and whispered cautions, carries such a +sense of knocking-kneed collapse with it as the thumping down in the +front entry of the heavy portmanteau, rammed with the changes of +uncounted coming weeks? + +Whether the R. V. portmanteaus brought one or the other of these emotions +to the tenants of the Dudley mansion, it might not be easy to settle. +Elsie professed to be pleased with the thought of having an adventurous +young stranger, with stories to tell, an inmate of their quiet, not to +say dull, family. Under almost any other circumstances, her father would +have been unwilling to take a young fellow of whom he knew so little +under his roof; but this was his nephew, and anything that seemed like to +amuse or please Elsie was agreeable to him. He had grown almost +desperate, and felt as if any change in the current of her life and +feelings might save her from some strange paroxysm of dangerous mental +exaltation or sullen perversion of disposition, from which some fearful +calamity might come to herself or others. + +Dick had been several weeks at the Dudley mansion. A few days before, he +had made a sudden dash for the nearest large city,--and when the Doctor +met him, he was just returning from his visit. + +It had been a curious meeting between the two young persons, who had +parted so young and after such strange relations with each other. When +Dick first presented himself at the mansion, not one in the house would +have known him for the boy who had left them all so suddenly years ago. +He was so dark, partly from his descent, partly from long habits of +exposure, that Elsie looked almost fair beside him. He had something of +the family beauty which belonged to his cousin, but his eye had a fierce +passion in it, very unlike the cold glitter of Elsie's. Like many people +of strong and imperious temper, he was soft-voiced and very gentle in his +address, when he had no special reason for being otherwise. He soon +found reasons enough to be as amiable as he could force himself to be +with his uncle and his cousin. Elsie was to his fancy. She had a +strange attraction for him, quite unlike anything he had ever known in +other women. There was something, too, in early associations: when those +who parted as children meet as man and woman, there is always a renewal +of that early experience which followed the taste of the forbidden +fruit,--a natural blush of consciousness, not without its charm. + +Nothing could be more becoming than the behavior of "Richard Venner, +Esquire, the guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his noble mansion," as +he was announced in the Court column of the "Rockland Weekly Universe." +He was pleased to find himself treated with kindness and attention as a +relative. He made himself very agreeable by abundant details concerning +the religious, political, social, commercial, and educational progress of +the South American cities and states. He was himself much interested in +everything that was going on about the Dudley mansion, walked all over +it, noticed its valuable wood-lots with special approbation, was +delighted with the grand old house and its furniture, and would not be +easy until he had seen all the family silver and heard its history. In +return, he had much to tell of his father, now dead,--the only one of the +Venners, beside themselves, in whose fate his uncle was interested. With +Elsie, he was subdued and almost tender in his manner; with the few +visitors whom they saw, shy and silent,--perhaps a little watchful, if +any young man happened to be among them. + +Young fellows placed on their good behavior are apt to get restless and +nervous, all ready to fly off into some mischief or other. Dick Venner +had his half-tamed horse with him to work off his suppressed life with. +When the savage passion of his young blood came over him, he would fetch +out the mustang, screaming and kicking as these amiable beasts are wont +to do, strap the Spanish saddle tight to his back, vault into it, and, +after getting away from the village, strike the long spurs into his sides +and whirl away in a wild gallop, until the black horse was flecked with +white foam, and the cruel steel points were red with his blood. When +horse and rider were alike fired, he would fling the bridle on his neck +and saunter homeward, always contriving to get to the stable in a quiet +way, and coming into the house as calm as a bishop after a sober trot on +his steady-going cob. + +After a few weeks of this kind of life, he began to want some more fierce +excitement. He had tried making downright love to Elsie, with no great +success as yet, in his own opinion. The girl was capricious in her +treatment of him, sometimes scowling and repellent, sometimes familiar, +very often, as she used to be of old, teasing and malicious. All this, +perhaps, made her more interesting to a young man who was tired of easy +conquests. There was a strange fascination in her eyes, too, which at +times was quite irresistible, so that he would feel himself drawn to her +by a power which seemed to take away his will for the moment. It may +have been nothing but the common charm of bright eyes; but he had never +before experienced the same kind of attraction. + +Perhaps she was not so very different from what she had been as a child, +after all. At any rate, so it seemed to Dick Venner, who, as was said +before, had tried making love to her. They were sitting alone in the +study one day; Elsie had round her neck that somewhat peculiar ornament, +the golden torque, which she had worn to the great party. Youth is +adventurous and very curious about necklaces, brooches, chains, and other +such adornments, so long as they are worn by young persons of the female +sex. Dick was seized with a great passion for examining this curious +chain, and, after some preliminary questions, was rash enough to lean +towards her and put out his hand toward the neck that lay in the golden +coil. + +She threw her head back, her eyes narrowing and her forehead drawing down +so that Dick thought her head actually flattened itself. He started +involuntarily; for she looked so like the little girl who had struck him +with those sharp flashing teeth, that the whole scene came back, and he +felt the stroke again as if it had just been given, and the two white +scars began to sting as they did after the old Doctor had burned them +with that stick of gray caustic, which looked so like a slate pencil, and +felt so much like the end of a red-hot poker. + +It took something more than a gallop to set him right after this. The +next day he mentioned having received a letter from a mercantile agent +with whom he had dealings. What his business was is, perhaps, none of +our business. At any rate, it required him to go at once to the city +where his correspondent resided. + +Independently of this "business" which called him, there may have been +other motives, such as have been hinted at. People who have been living +for a long time in dreary country-places, without any emotion beyond such +as are occasioned by a trivial pleasure or annoyance, often get crazy at +last for a vital paroxysm of some kind or other. In this state they rush +to the great cities for a plunge into their turbid life-baths, with a +frantic thirst for every exciting pleasure, which makes them the willing +and easy victims of all those who sell the Devil's wares on commission. +The less intelligent and instructed class of unfortunates, who venture +with their ignorance and their instincts into what is sometimes called +the "life" of great cities, are put through a rapid course of instruction +which entitles them very commonly to a diploma from the police court. But +they only illustrate the working of the same tendency in mankind at large +which has been occasionally noticed in the sons of ministers and other +eminently worthy people, by many ascribed to that intense congenital +hatred for goodness which distinguishes human nature from that of the +brute, but perhaps as readily accounted for by considering it as the +yawning and stretching of a young soul cramped too long in one moral +posture. + +Richard Veneer was a young man of remarkable experience for his years. +He ran less risk, therefore, in exposing himself to the temptations and +dangers of a great city than many older men, who, seeking the livelier +scenes of excitement to be found in large towns as a relaxation after the +monotonous routine of family life, are too often taken advantage of and +made the victims of their sentiments or their generous confidence in +their fellow-creatures. Such was not his destiny. There was something +about him which looked as if he would not take bullying kindly. He had +also the advantage of being acquainted with most of those ingenious +devices by which the proverbial inconstancy of fortune is steadied to +something more nearly approaching fixed laws, and the dangerous risks +which have so often led young men to ruin and suicide are practically +reduced to somewhat less than nothing. So that Mr. Richard Veneer worked +off his nervous energies without any troublesome adventure, and was ready +to return to Rockland in less than a week, without having lightened the +money-belt he wore round his body, or tarnished the long glittering knife +he carried in his boot. + +Dick had sent his trunk to the nearest town through which the railroad +leading to the city passed. He rode off on his black horse and left him +at the place where he took the cars. On arriving at the city station, he +took a coach and drove to one of the great hotels. Thither drove also a +sagacious-looking, middle-aged man, who entered his name as "W. Thompson" +in the book at the office immediately after that of "R. Venner." Mr. +"Thompson" kept a carelessly observant eye upon Mr. Venner during his +stay at the hotel, and followed him to the cars when he left, looking +over his shoulder when he bought his ticket at the station, and seeing +him fairly off without obtruding himself in any offensive way upon his +attention. Mr. Thompson, known in other quarters as Detective Policeman +Terry, got very little by his trouble. Richard Venner did not turn out +to be the wife-poisoner, the defaulting cashier, the river-pirate, or the +great counterfeiter. He paid his hotel-bill as a gentleman should always +do, if he has the money and can spare it. The detective had probably +overrated his own sagacity when he ventured to suspect Mr. Venner. He +reported to his chief that there was a knowing-looking fellow he had been +round after, but he rather guessed he was nothing more than "one o' them +Southern sportsmen." + +The poor fellows at the stable where Dick had left his horse had had +trouble enough with him. One of the ostlers was limping about with a +lame leg, and another had lost a mouthful of his coat, which came very +near carrying a piece of his shoulder with it. When Mr. Venner came back +for his beast, he was as wild as if he had just been lassoed, screaming, +kicking, rolling over to get rid of his saddle, and when his rider was at +last mounted, jumping about in a way to dislodge any common horseman. To +all this Dick replied by sticking his long spurs deeper and deeper into +his flanks, until the creature found he was mastered, and dashed off as +if all the thistles of the Pampas were pricking him. + +"One more gallop, Juan?" This was in the last mile of the road before he +came to the town which brought him in sight of the mansion-house. It was +in this last gallop that the fiery mustang and his rider flashed by the +old Doctor. Cassia pointed her sharp ears and shied to let them pass. +The Doctor turned and looked through the little round glass in the back +of his sulky. + +"Dick Turpin, there, will find more than his match!" said the Doctor. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE APOLLINEAN INSTITUTE. (With Extracts from the "Report of the +committee.") + +The readers of this narrative will hardly expect any elaborate details of +the educational management of the Apollinean Institute. They cannot be +supposed to take the same interest in its affairs as was shown by the +Annual Committees who reported upon its condition and prospects. As +these Committees were, however, an important part of the mechanism of the +establishment, some general account of their organization and a few +extracts from the Report of the one last appointed may not be out of +place. + +Whether Mr. Silas Peckham had some contrivance for packing his +Committees, whether they happened always to be made up of optimists by +nature, whether they were cajoled into good-humor by polite attentions, +or whether they were always really delighted with the wonderful +acquirements of the pupils and the admirable order of the school, it is +certain that their Annual Reports were couched in language which might +warm the heart of the most cold-blooded and calculating father that ever +had a family of daughters to educate. In fact, these Annual Reports were +considered by Mr. Peckham as his most effective advertisements. + +The first thing, therefore, was to see that the Committee was made up of +persons known to the public. + +Some worn-out politician, in that leisurely and amiable transition-state +which comes between official extinction and the paralysis which will +finish him as soon as his brain gets a little softer, made an admirable +Chairman for Mr. Peckham, when he had the luck to pick up such an +article. Old reputations, like old fashions, are more prized in the +grassy than in the stony districts. An effete celebrity, who would never +be heard of again in the great places until the funeral sermon waked up +his memory for one parting spasm, finds himself in full flavor of renown +a little farther back from the changing winds of the sea-coast. If such +a public character was not to be had, so that there was no chance of +heading the Report with the name of the Honorable Mr. Somebody, the next +best thing was to get the Reverend Dr. Somebody to take that conspicuous +position. Then would follow two or three local worthies with Esquire +after their names. If any stray literary personage from one of the great +cities happened to be within reach, he was pounced upon by Mr. Silas +Peckham. It was a hard case for the poor man, who had travelled a +hundred miles or two to the outside suburbs after peace and unwatered +milk, to be pumped for a speech in this unexpected way. It was harder +still, if he had been induced to venture a few tremulous remarks, to be +obliged to write them out for the "Rockland Weekly Universe," with the +chance of seeing them used as an advertising certificate as long as he +lived, if he lived as long as the late Dr. Waterhouse did after giving +his certificate in favor of Whitwell's celebrated Cephalic Snuff. + +The Report of the last Committee had been signed by the Honorable, +___________late __________ of ____________, as Chairman. (It is with +reluctance that the name and titles are left in blank; but our public +characters are so familiarly known to the whole community that this +reserve becomes necessary.) The other members of the Committee were the +Reverend Mr. Butters, of a neighboring town, who was to make the prayer +before the Exercises of the Exhibition, and two or three notabilities of +Rockland, with geoponic eyes, and glabrous, bumpless foreheads. A few +extracts from the Report are subjoined: + +"The Committee have great pleasure in recording their unanimous opinion, +that the Institution was never in so flourishing a condition.... + +"The health of the pupils is excellent; the admirable quality of food +supplied shows itself in their appearance; their blooming aspect excited +the admiration of the Committee, and bears testimony to the assiduity of +the excellent Matron. + +"......moral and religious condition most encouraging, which they cannot +but attribute to the personal efforts and instruction of the faithful +Principal, who considers religious instruction a solemn duty which he +cannot commit to other people. + +"......great progress in their studies, under the intelligent +superintendence of the accomplished Principal, assisted by Mr. Badger, +[Mr. Langdon's predecessor,] Miss Darley, the lady who superintends the +English branches, Miss Crabs, her assistant and teacher of Modern +Languages, and Mr. Schneider, teacher of French, German, Latin, and +Music.... + +"Education is the great business of the Institute. Amusements are +objects of a secondary nature; but these are by no means neglected.... + +"......English compositions of great originality and beauty, creditable +alike to the head and heart of their accomplished authors.... several +poems of a very high order of merit, which would do honor to the +literature of any age or country.... life-like drawings, showing great +proficiency.... Many converse fluently in various modern languages.... +perform the most difficult airs with the skill of professional +musicians.... + +"......advantages unsurpassed, if equalled by those of any Institution in +the country, and reflecting the highest honor on the distinguished Head +of the Establishment, SILAS PECKHAM, Esquire, and his admirable Lady, the +MATRON, with their worthy assistants...." + +The perusal of this Report did Mr. Bernard more good than a week's +vacation would have done: It gave him such a laugh as he had not had for +a month. The way in which Silas Peckham had made his Committee say what +he wanted them to--for he recognized a number of expressions in the +Report as coming directly from the lips of his principal, and could not +help thinking how cleverly he had forced his phrases, as jugglers do the +particular card they wish their dupe to take--struck him as particularly +neat and pleasing. + +He had passed through the sympathetic and emotional stages in his new +experience, and had arrived at the philosophical and practical state, +which takes things coolly, and goes to work to set them right. He had +breadth enough of view to see that there was nothing so very exceptional +in this educational trader's dealings with his subordinates, but he had +also manly feeling enough to attack the particular individual instance of +wrong before him. There are plenty of dealer's in morals, as in ordinary +traffic, who confine themselves to wholesale business. They leave the +small necessity of their next-door neighbor to the retailers, who are +poorer in statistics and general facts, but richer in the every-day +charities. Mr. Bernard felt, at first, as one does who sees a gray rat +steal out of a drain and begin gnawing at the bark of some tree loaded +with fruit or blossoms, which he will soon girdle, if he is let alone. +The first impulse is to murder him with the nearest ragged stone. Then +one remembers that he is a rodent, acting after the law of his kind, and +cools down and is contented to drive him off and guard the tree against +his teeth for the future. As soon as this is done, one can watch his +attempts at mischief with a certain amusement. + +This was the kind of process Mr. Bernard had gone through. First, the +indignant surprise of a generous nature, when it comes unexpectedly into +relations with a mean one. Then the impulse of extermination,--a divine +instinct, intended to keep down vermin of all classes to their working +averages in the economy of Nature. Then a return of cheerful +tolerance,--a feeling, that, if the Deity could bear with rats and +sharpers, he could; with a confident trust, that, in the long run, +terriers and honest men would have the upperhand, and a grateful +consciousness that he had been sent just at the right time to come +between a patient victim and the master who held her in peonage. + +Having once made up his mind what to do, Mr. Bernard was as good-natured +and hopeful as ever. He had the great advantage, from his professional +training, of knowing how to recognize and deal with the nervous +disturbances to which overtasked women are so liable. He saw well enough +that Helen Darley would certainly kill herself or lose her wits, if he +could not lighten her labors and lift off a large part of her weight of +cares. The worst of it was, that she was one of those women who +naturally overwork themselves, like those horses who will go at the top +of their pace until they drop. Such women are dreadfully unmanageable. +It is as hard reasoning with them as it would have been reasoning with +Io, when she was flying over land and sea, driven by the sting of the +never-sleeping gadfly. + +This was a delicate, interesting game that he played. Under one innocent +pretext or another, he invaded this or that special province she had made +her own. He would collect the themes and have them all read and marked, +answer all the puzzling questions in mathematics, make the other teachers +come to him for directions, and in this way gradually took upon himself +not only all the general superintendence that belonged to his office, but +stole away so many of the special duties which might fairly have belonged +to his assistant, that, before she knew it, she was looking better and +feeling more cheerful than for many and many a month before. + +When the nervous energy is depressed by any bodily cause, or exhausted by +overworking, there follow effects which have often been misinterpreted by +moralists, and especially by theologians. The conscience itself becomes +neuralgic, sometimes actually inflamed, so that the least touch is agony. +Of all liars and false accusers, a sick conscience is the most inventive +and indefatigable. The devoted daughter, wife, mother, whose life has +been given to unselfish labors, who has filled a place which it seems to +others only an angel would make good, reproaches herself with +incompetence and neglect of duty. The humble Christian, who has been a +model to others, calls himself a worm of the dust on one page of his +diary, and arraigns himself on the next for coming short of the +perfection of an archangel. + +Conscience itself requires a conscience, or nothing can be more +unscrupulous. It told Saul that he did well in persecuting the +Christians. It has goaded countless multitudes of various creeds to +endless forms of self-torture. The cities of India are full of cripples +it has made. The hill-sides of Syria are riddled with holes, where +miserable hermits, whose lives it had palsied, lived and died like the +vermin they harbored. Our libraries are crammed with books written by +spiritual hypochondriacs, who inspected all their moral secretions a +dozen times a day. They are full of interest, but they should be +transferred from the shelf of the theologian to that of the medical man +who makes a study of insanity. + +This was the state into which too much work and too much responsibility +were bringing Helen Darley, when the new master came and lifted so much +of the burden that was crushing her as must be removed before she could +have a chance to recover her natural elasticity and buoyancy. Many of +the noblest women, suffering like her, but less fortunate in being +relieved at the right moment, die worried out of life by the perpetual +teasing of this inflamed, neuralgic conscience. So subtile is the line +which separates the true and almost angelic sensibility of a healthy, but +exalted nature, from the soreness of a soul which is sympathizing with a +morbid state of the body that it is no wonder they are often confounded. +And thus many good women are suffered to perish by that form of +spontaneous combustion in which the victim goes on toiling day and night +with the hidden fire consuming her, until all at once her cheek whitens, +and, as we look upon her, she drops away, a heap of ashes. The more they +overwork themselves, the more exacting becomes the sense of duty,--as the +draught of the locomotive's furnace blows stronger and makes the fire +burn more fiercely, the faster it spins along the track. + +It is not very likely, as was said at the beginning of this chapter, that +we shall trouble ourselves a great deal about the internal affairs of the +Apollinean Institute. These schools are, in the nature of things, not so +very unlike each other as to require a minute description for each +particular one among them. They have all very much the same general +features, pleasing and displeasing. All feeding-establishments have +something odious about them,--from the wretched country-houses where +paupers are farmed out to the lowest bidder, up to the commons-tables at +colleges and even the fashionable boarding-house. A person's appetite +should be at war with no other purse than his own. Young people, +especially, who have a bone-factory at work in them, and have to feed the +living looms of innumerable growing tissues, should be provided for, if +possible, by those who love them like their own flesh and blood. +Elsewhere their appetites will be sure to make them enemies, or, what are +almost as bad, friends whose interests are at variance with the claims of +their exacting necessities and demands. + +Besides, all commercial transactions in regard to the most sacred +interests of life are hateful even to those who profit by them. The +clergyman, the physician, the teacher, must be paid; but each of them, if +his duty be performed in the true spirit, can hardly help a shiver of +disgust when money is counted out to him for administering the +consolations of religion, for saving some precious life, for sowing the +seeds of Christian civilization in young ingenuous souls. + +And yet all these schools, with their provincial French and their +mechanical accomplishments, with their cheap parade of diplomas and +commencements and other public honors, have an ever fresh interest to all +who see the task they are performing in our new social order. These girls +are not being educated for governesses, or to be exported, with other +manufactured articles, to colonies where there happens to be a surplus of +males. Most of them will be wives, and every American-born husband is a +possible President of these United States. Any one of these girls may be +a four-years' queen. There is no sphere of human activity so exalted +that she may not be called upon to fill it. + +But there is another consideration of far higher interest. The education +of our community to all that is beautiful is flowing in mainly through +its women, and that to a considerable extent by the aid of these large +establishments, the least perfect of which do something to stimulate the +higher tastes and partially instruct them. Sometimes there is, perhaps, +reason to fear that girls will be too highly educated for their own +happiness, if they are lifted by their culture out of the range of the +practical and every-day working youth by whom they are surrounded. But +this is a risk we must take. Our young men come into active life so +early, that, if our girls were not educated to something beyond mere +practical duties, our material prosperity would outstrip our culture; as +it often does in large places where money is made too rapidly. This is +the meaning, therefore, of that somewhat ambitious programme common to +most of these large institutions, at which we sometimes smile, perhaps +unwisely or uncharitably. + +We shall take it for granted that the routine of instruction went on at +the Apollinean Institute much as it does in other schools of the same +class. People, young or old, are wonderfully different, if we contrast +extremes in pairs. They approach much nearer, if we take them in groups +of twenty. Take two separate hundreds as they come, without choosing, +and you get the gamut of human character in both so completely that you +can strike many chords in each which shall be in perfect unison with +corresponding ones in the other. If we go a step farther, and compare +the population of two villages of the same race and region, there is such +a regularly graduated distribution and parallelism of character, that it +seems as if Nature must turn out human beings in sets like chessmen. + +It must be confessed that the position in which Mr. Bernard now found +himself had a pleasing danger about it which might well justify all the +fears entertained on his account by more experienced friends, when they +learned that he was engaged in a Young Ladies' Seminary. The school never +went on more smoothly than during the first period of his administration, +after he had arranged its duties, and taken his share, and even more than +his share, upon himself. But human nature does not wait for the diploma +of the Apollinean Institute to claim the exercise of it, instincts and +faculties. These young girls saw but little of the youth of the +neighborhood. The mansion-house young men were off at college or in the +cities, or making love to each other's sisters, or at any rate +unavailable for some reason or other. There were a few "clerks,"--that +is, young men who attended shops, commonly called "stores,"--who were +fond of walking by the Institute, when they were off duty, for the sake +of exchanging a word or a glance with any one of the young ladies they +might happen to know, if any such were stirring abroad: crude young men, +mostly, with a great many "Sirs" and "Ma'ams" in their speech, and with +that style of address sometimes acquired in the retail business, as if +the salesman were recommending himself to a customer, "First-rate family +article, Ma'am; warranted to wear a lifetime; just one yard and three +quarters in this pattern, Ma'am; sha'n't I have the pleasure?" and so +forth. If there had been ever so many of them, and if they had been ever +so fascinating, the quarantine of the Institute was too rigorous to allow +any romantic infection to be introduced from without. + +Anybody might see what would happen, with a good-looking, well-dressed, +well-bred young man, who had the authority of a master, it is true, but +the manners of a friend and equal, moving about among these young girls +day after day, his eyes meeting theirs, his breath mingling with theirs, +his voice growing familiar to them, never in any harsh tones, often +soothing, encouraging, always sympathetic, with its male depth and +breadth of sound among the chorus of trebles, as if it were a river in +which a hundred of these little piping streamlets-might lose themselves; +anybody might see what would happen. Young girls wrote home to their +parents that they enjoyed themselves much, this term, at the Institute, +and thought they were making rapid progress in their studies. There was +a great enthusiasm for the young master's reading-classes in English +poetry. Some of the poor little things began to adorn themselves with an +extra ribbon, or a bit of such jewelry as they had before kept for great +occasions. Dear souls! they only half knew what they were doing it for. +Does the bird know why its feathers grow more brilliant and its voice +becomes musical in the pairing season? + +And so, in the midst of this quiet inland town, where a mere accident had +placed Mr. Bernard Langdon, there was a concentration of explosive +materials which might at any time change its Arcadian and academic repose +into a scene of dangerous commotion. What said Helen Darley, when she +saw with her woman's glance that more than one girl, when she should be +looking at her book, was looking over it toward the master's desk? Was +her own heart warmed by any livelier feeling than gratitude, as its life +began to flow with fuller pulses, and the morning sky again looked bright +and the flowers recovered their lost fragrance? Was there any strange, +mysterious affinity between the master and the dark girl who sat by +herself? Could she call him at will by looking at him? Could it be +that--? It made her shiver to think of it.--And who was that strange +horseman who passed Mr. Bernard at dusk the other evening, looking so +like Mephistopheles galloping hard to be in season at the witches' +Sabbath-gathering? That must be the cousin of Elsie's who wants to marry +her, they say. A dangerous-looking fellow for a rival, if one took a +fancy to the dark girl! And who is she, and what?--by what demon is she +haunted, by what taint is she blighted, by what curse is she followed, by +what destiny is she marked, that her strange beauty has such a terror in +it, and that hardly one shall dare to love her, and her eye glitters +always, but warms for none? + +Some of these questions are ours. Some were Helen Darley's. Some of +them mingled with the dreams of Bernard Langdon, as he slept the night +after meeting the strange horseman. In the morning he happened to be a +little late in entering the schoolroom. There was something between the +leaves of the Virgil which lay upon his desk. He opened it and saw a +freshly gathered mountain-flower. He looked at Elsie, instinctively, +involuntarily. She had another such flower on her breast. + +A young girl's graceful compliment,--that is all,--no doubt,--no doubt. +It was odd that the flower should have happened to be laid between the +leaves of the Fourth Book of the "AEneid," and at this line, + + "Incipit effari, mediaque in voce resistit." + +A remembrance of an ancient superstition flashed through the master's +mind, and he determined to try the Sortes Virgilianae. He shut the +volume, and opened it again at a venture.--The story of Laocoon! + +He read with a strange feeling of unwilling fascination, from "Horresco +referees" to "Bis medium amplexi," and flung the book from him, as if its +leaves had been steeped in the subtle poisons that princes die of. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +CURIOSITY. + +People will talk. 'Ciascun lo dice' is a tune that is played oftener +than the national air of this country or any other. + +"That 's what they say. Means to marry her, if she is his cousin. Got +money himself,--that 's the story,--but wants to come and live in the old +place, and get the Dudley property by and by." "Mother's folks was +wealthy."--"Twenty-three to twenty-five year old."--"He a'n't more 'n +twenty, or twenty-one at the outside."--"Looks as if he knew too much to +be only twenty year old."--"Guess he's been through the mill,--don't look +so green, anyhow, hey? Did y' ever mind that cut over his left eyebrow?" + +So they gossiped in Rockland. The young fellows could make nothing of +Dick Venner. He was shy and proud with the few who made advances to him. +The young ladies called him handsome and romantic, but he looked at them +like a many-tailed pacha who was in the habit of, ordering his wives by +the dozen. + +"What do you think of the young man over there at the Veneers'?" said +Miss Arabella Thornton to her father. + +"Handsome," said the Judge, "but dangerous-looking. His face is +indictable at common law. Do you know, my dear, I think there is a blank +at the Sheriff's office, with a place for his name in it?" + +The Judge paused and looked grave, as if he had just listened to the +verdict of the jury and was going to pronounce sentence. + +"Have you heard anything against him?" said the Judge's daughter. + +"Nothing. But I don't like these mixed bloods and half-told stories. +Besides, I have seen a good many desperate fellows at the bar, and I have +a fancy they all have a look belonging to them. The worst one I ever +sentenced looked a good deal like this fellow. A wicked mouth. All our +other features are made for us; but a man makes his own mouth." + +"Who was the person you sentenced?" + +"He was a young fellow that undertook to garrote a man who had won his +money at cards. The same slender shape, the same cunning, fierce look, +smoothed over with a plausible air. Depend upon it, there is an +expression in all the sort of people who live by their wits when they +can, and by worse weapons when their wits fail them, that we old +law-doctors know just as well as the medical counsellors know the marks +of disease in a man's face. Dr. Kittredge looks at a man and says he is +going to die; I look at another man and say he is going to be hanged, if +nothing happens. I don't say so of this one, but I don't like his looks. +I wonder Dudley Veneer takes to him so kindly." + +"It's all for Elsie's sake," said Miss Thornton. "I feel quite sure of +that. He never does anything that is not meant for her in some way. I +suppose it amuses her to have her cousin about the house. She rides a +good deal since he has been here. Have you seen them galloping about +together? He looks like my idea of a Spanish bandit on that wild horse +of his." + +"Possibly he has been one,--or is one," said the Judge,--smiling as men +smile whose lips have often been freighted with the life and death of +their fellow-creatures. "I met them riding the other day. Perhaps Dudley +is right, if it pleases her to have a companion. What will happen, +though, if he makes love to her? Will Elsie be easily taken with such a +fellow? You young folks are supposed to know more about these matters +than we middle-aged people." + +"Nobody can tell. Elsie is not like anybody else. The girls who have +seen most of her think she hates men, all but 'Dudley,' as she calls her +father. Some of them doubt whether she loves him. They doubt whether +she can love anything human, except perhaps the old black woman who has +taken care of her since she was a baby. The village people have the +strangest stories about her; you know what they call her?" + +She whispered three words in her father's ear. The Judge changed color +as she spoke, sighed deeply, and was silent as if lost in thought for a +moment. + +"I remember her mother," he said, "so well! A sweeter creature never +lived. Elsie has something of her in her look, but those are not her +mother's eyes. They were dark, but soft, as in all I ever saw of her +race. Her father's are dark too, but mild, and even tender, I should +say. I don't know what there is about Elsie's,--but do you know, my +dear, I find myself curiously influenced by them? I have had to face a +good many sharp eyes and hard ones,--murderers' eyes and pirates',--men +who had to be watched in the bar, where they stood on trial, for fear +they should spring on the prosecuting officers like tigers,--but I never +saw such eyes as Elsie's; and yet they have a kind of drawing virtue or +power about them,--I don't know what else to call it: have you never +observed this?" + +His daughter smiled in her turn. + +"Never observed it? Why, of course, nobody could be with Elsie Venner +and not observe it. There are a good many other strange things about +her: did you ever notice how she dresses?" + +"Why, handsomely enough, I should think," the Judge answered. "I suppose +she dresses as she likes, and sends to the city for what she wants. What +do you mean in particular? We men notice effects in dress, but not much +in detail." + +"You never noticed the colors and patterns of her dresses? You never +remarked anything curious about her ornaments? Well! I don't believe +you men know, half the time, whether a lady wears a nine-penny collar or +a thread-lace cape worth a thousand dollars. I don't believe you know a +silk dress from a bombazine one. I don't believe you can tell whether a +woman is in black or in colors, unless you happen to know she is a widow. +Elsie Venner has a strange taste in dress, let me tell you. She sends +for the oddest patterns of stuffs, and picks out the most curious things +at the jeweller's, whenever she goes to town with her father. They say +the old Doctor tells him to let her have her way about such matters. +Afraid of her mind, if she is contradicted, I suppose. You've heard +about her going to school at that place,--the 'Institoot,' as those +people call it? They say she's bright enough in her way,--has studied at +home, you know, with her father a good deal, knows some modern languages +and Latin, I believe: at any rate, she would have it so,--she must go to +the 'Institoot.' They have a very good female teacher there, I hear; and +the new master, that young Mr. Langdon, looks and talks like a +well-educated young man. I wonder what they 'll make of Elsie, between +them!" + +So they talked at the Judge's, in the calm, judicial-looking +mansion-house, in the grave, still library, with the troops of wan-hued +law-books staring blindly out of their titles at them as they talked, +like the ghosts of dead attorneys fixed motionless and speechless, each +with a thin, golden film over his unwinking eyes. + +In the mean time, everything went on quietly enough after Cousin +Richard's return. A man of sense,--that is, a man who knows perfectly +well that a cool head is worth a dozen warm hearts in carrying the +fortress of a woman's affections, (not yours, "Astarte," nor yours, +"Viola,")--who knows that men are rejected by women every day because +they, the men, love them, and are accepted every day because they do not, +and therefore can study the arts of pleasing,--a man of sense, when he +finds he has established his second parallel too soon, retires quietly to +his first, and begins working on his covered ways again. The whole art +of love may be read in any Encyclopaedia under the title Fortification, +where the terms just used are explained. After the little adventure of +the necklace, Dick retreated at once to his first parallel. Elsie loved +riding,--and would go off with him on a gallop now and then. He was a +master of all those strange Indian horseback-feats which shame the tricks +of the circus-riders, and used to astonish and almost amuse her sometimes +by disappearing from his saddle, like a phantom horseman lying flat +against the side of the bounding creature that bore him, as if he were a +hunting leopard with his claws in the horse's flank and flattening +himself out against his heaving ribs. Elsie knew a little Spanish too, +which she had learned from the young person who had taught her dancing, +and Dick enlarged her vocabulary with a few soft phrases, and would sing +her a song sometimes, touching the air upon an ancient-looking guitar +they had found with the ghostly things in the garret,--a quaint old +instrument, marked E. M. on the back, and supposed to have belonged to a +certain Elizabeth Mascarene, before mentioned in connection with a work +of art,--a fair, dowerless lady, who smiled and sung and faded away, +unwedded, a hundred years ago, as dowerless ladies, not a few, are +smiling and singing and fading now,--God grant each of them His +love,--and one human heart as its interpreter! + +As for school, Elsie went or stayed away as she liked. Sometimes, when +they thought she was at her desk in the great schoolroom, she would be on +The Mountain,--alone always. Dick wanted to go with her, but she would +never let him. Once, when she had followed the zigzag path a little way +up, she looked back and caught a glimpse of him following her. She +turned and passed him without a word, but giving him a look which seemed +to make the scars on his wrist tingle, went to her room, where she locked +herself up, and did not come out again till evening, Old Sophy having +brought her food, and set it down, not speaking, but looking into her +eyes inquiringly, like a dumb beast trying to feel out his master's will +in his face. The evening was clear and the moon shining. As Dick sat at +his chamber-window, looking at the mountain-side, he saw a gray-dressed +figure flit between the trees and steal along the narrow path which led +upward. Elsie's pillow was unpressed that night, but she had not been +missed by the household,--for Dick knew enough to keep his own counsel. +The next morning she avoided him and went off early to school. It was +the same morning that the young master found the flower between the +leaves of his Virgil. + +The girl got over her angry fit, and was pleasant enough with her cousin +for a few days after this; but she shunned rather than sought him. She +had taken a new interest in her books, and especially in certain poetical +readings which the master conducted with the elder scholars. This gave +Master Langdon a good chance to study her ways when her eye was on her +book, to notice the inflections of her voice, to watch for any expression +of her sentiments; for, to tell the truth, he had a kind of fear that the +girl had taken a fancy to him, and, though she interested him, he did not +wish to study her heart from the inside. + +The more he saw her, the more the sadness of her beauty wrought upon him. +She looked as if she might hate, but could not love. She hardly smiled +at anything, spoke rarely, but seemed to feel that her natural power of +expression lay all in her bright eyes, the force of which so many had +felt, but none perhaps had tried to explain to themselves. A person +accustomed to watch the faces of those who were ailing in body or mind, +and to search in every line and tint for some underlying source of +disorder, could hardly help analyzing the impression such a face produced +upon him. The light of those beautiful eyes was like the lustre of ice; +in all her features there was nothing of that human warmth which shows +that sympathy has reached the soul beneath the mask of flesh it wears. +The look was that of remoteness, of utter isolation. There was in its +stony apathy, it seemed to him, the pathos which we find in the blind who +show no film or speck over the organs of sight; for Nature had meant her +to be lovely, and left out nothing but love. And yet the master could +not help feeling that some instinct was working in this girl which was in +some way leading her to seek his presence. She did not lift her +glittering eyes upon him as at first. It seemed strange that she did +not, for they were surely her natural weapons of conquest. Her color did +not come and go like that of young girls under excitement. She had a +clear brunette complexion, a little sun-touched, it may be,--for the +master noticed once, when her necklace was slightly displaced, that a +faint ring or band of a little lighter shade than the rest of the surface +encircled her neck. What was the slight peculiarity of her enunciation, +when she read? Not a lisp, certainly, but the least possible +imperfection in articulating some of the lingual sounds,--just enough to +be noticed at first, and quite forgotten after being a few times heard. + +Not a word about the flower on either side. It was not uncommon for the +schoolgirls to leave a rose or pink or wild flower on the teacher's desk. +Finding it in the Virgil was nothing, after all; it was a little delicate +flower, which looked as if it were made to press, and it was probably +shut in by accident at the particular place where he found it. He took +it into his head to examine it in a botanical point of view. He found it +was not common,--that it grew only in certain localities,--and that one +of these was among the rocks of the eastern spur of The Mountain. + +It happened to come into his head how the Swiss youth climb the sides of +the Alps to find the flower called the Edelweiss for the maidens whom +they wish to please. It is a pretty fancy, that of scaling some +dangerous height before the dawn, so as to gather the flower in its +freshness, that the favored maiden may wear it to church on Sunday +morning, a proof at once of her lover's devotion and his courage. Mr. +Bernard determined to explore the region where this flower was said to +grow, that he might see where the wild girl sought the blossoms of which +Nature was so jealous. + +It was on a warm, fair Saturday afternoon that he undertook his +land-voyage of discovery. He had more curiosity, it may be, than he +would have owned; for he had heard of the girl's wandering habits, and +the guesses about her sylvan haunts, and was thinking what the chances +were that he should meet her in some strange place, or come upon traces +of her which would tell secrets she would not care to have known. + +The woods are all alive to one who walks through them with his mind in an +excited state, and his eyes and ears wide open. The trees are always +talking, not merely whispering with their leaves, (for every tree talks +to itself in that way, even when it stands alone in the middle of a +pasture,) but grating their boughs against each other, as old horn-handed +farmers press their dry, rustling palms together, dropping a nut or a +leaf or a twig, clicking to the tap of a woodpecker, or rustling as a +squirrel flashes along a branch. It was now the season of singing-birds, +and the woods were haunted with mysterious, tender music. The voices of +the birds which love the deeper shades of the forest are sadder than +those of the open fields: these are the nuns who have taken the veil, the +hermits that have hidden themselves away from the world and tell their +griefs to the infinite listening Silences of the wilderness,--for the one +deep inner silence that Nature breaks with her fitful superficial sounds +becomes multiplied as the image of a star in ruffled waters. Strange! +The woods at first convey the impression of profound repose, and yet, if +you watch their ways with open ear, you find the life which is in them is +restless and nervous as that of a woman: the little twigs are crossing +and twining and separating like slender fingers that cannot be still; the +stray leaf is to be flattened into its place like a truant curl; the +limbs sway and twist, impatient of their constrained attitude; and the +rounded masses of foliage swell upward and subside from time to time with +long soft sighs, and, it may be, the falling of a few rain-drops which +had lain hidden among the deeper shadows. I pray you, notice, in the +sweet summer days which will soon see you among the mountains, this +inward tranquillity that belongs to the heart of the woodland, with this +nervousness, for I do not know what else to call it, of outer movement. +One would say, that Nature, like untrained persons, could not sit still +without nestling about or doing something with her limbs or features, and +that high breeding was only to be looked for in trim gardens, where the +soul of the trees is ill at ease perhaps, but their manners are +unexceptionable, and a rustling branch or leaf falling out of season is +an indecorum. The real forest is hardly still except in the Indian +summer; then there is death in the house, and they are waiting for the +sharp shrunken months to come with white raiment for the summer's burial. + +There were many hemlocks in this neighborhood, the grandest and most +solemn of all the forest-trees in the mountain regions. Up to a certain +period of growth they are eminently beautiful, their boughs disposed in +the most graceful pagoda-like series of close terraces, thick and dark +with green crystalline leaflets. In spring the tender shoots come out of +a paler green, finger-like, as if they were pointing to the violets at +their feet. But when the trees have grown old, and their rough boles +measure a yard and more through their diameter, they are no longer +beautiful, but they have a sad solemnity all their own, too full of +meaning to require the heart's comment to be framed in words. Below, all +their earthward-looking branches are sapless and shattered, splintered by +the weight of many winters' snows; above, they are still green and full +of life, but their summits overtop all the deciduous trees around them, +and in their companionship with heaven they are alone. On these the +lightning loves to fall. One such Mr. Bernard saw,--or rather, what had +been one such; for the bolt had torn the tree like an explosion from +within, and the ground was strewed all around the broken stump with +flakes of rough bark and strips and chips of shivered wood, into which +the old tree had been rent by the bursting rocket from the thunder-cloud. + +--The master had struck up The Mountain obliquely from the western side +of the Dudley mansion-house. In this way he ascended until he reached a +point many hundred feet above the level of the plain, and commanding all +the country beneath and around. Almost at his feet he saw the +mansion-house, the chimney standing out of the middle of the roof, or +rather, like a black square hole in it,--the trees almost directly over +their stems, the fences as lines, the whole nearly as an architect would +draw a ground-plan of the house and the inclosures round it. It +frightened him to see how the huge masses of rock and old forest-growths +hung over the home below. As he descended a little and drew near the +ledge of evil name, he was struck with the appearance of a long narrow +fissure that ran parallel with it and above it for many rods, not +seemingly of very old standing,--for there were many fibres of roots +which had evidently been snapped asunder when the rent took place, and +some of which were still succulent in both separated portions. + +Mr. Bernard had made up his mind, when he set forth, not to come back +before he had examined the dreaded ledge. He had half persuaded himself +that it was scientific curiosity. He wished to examine the rocks, to see +what flowers grew there, and perhaps to pick up an adventure in the +zoological line; for he had on a pair of high, stout boots, and he +carried a stick in his hand, which was forked at one extremity, so as to +be very convenient to hold down a crotalus with, if he should happen to +encounter one. He knew the aspect of the ledge from a distance; for its +bald and leprous-looking declivities stood out in their nakedness from +the wooded sides of The Mountain, when this was viewed from certain +points of the village. But the nearer aspect of the blasted region had +something frightful in it. The cliffs were water-worn, as if they had +been gnawed for thousands of years by hungry waves. In some places they +overhung their base so as to look like leaning towers which might topple +over at any minute. In other parts they were scooped into niches or +caverns. Here and there they were cracked in deep fissures, some of them +of such width that one might enter them, if he cared to run the risk of +meeting the regular tenants, who might treat him as an intruder. + +Parts of the ledge were cloven perpendicularly, with nothing but cracks +or slightly projecting edges in which or on which a foot could find hold. +High up on one of these precipitous walls of rock he saw some tufts of +flowers, and knew them at once for the same that he had found between the +leaves of his Virgil. Not there, surely! No woman would have clung +against that steep, rough parapet to gather an idle blossom. And yet the +master looked round everywhere, and even up the side of that rock, to see +if there were no signs of a woman's footstep. He peered about curiously, +as if his eye might fall on some of those fragments of dress which women +leave after them, whenever they run against each other or against +anything else,--in crowded ballrooms, in the brushwood after picnics, on +the fences after rambles, scattered round over every place which has +witnessed an act of violence, where rude hands have been laid upon them. +Nothing--Stop, though, one moment. That stone is smooth and polished, +as if it had been somewhat worn by the pressure of human feet. There is +one twig broken among the stems of that clump of shrubs. He put his foot +upon the stone and took hold of the close-clinging shrub. In this way he +turned a sharp angle of the rock and found himself on a natural platform, +which lay in front of one of the wider fissures,--whether the mouth of a +cavern or not he could not yet tell. A flat stone made an easy seat, +upon which he sat down, as he was very glad to do, and looked +mechanically about him. A small fragment splintered from the rock was at +his feet. He took it and threw it down the declivity a little below +where he sat. He looked about for a stem or a straw of some kind to bite +upon,--a country-instinct,--relic, no doubt, of the old +vegetable-feeding habits of Eden. Is that a stem or a straw? He picked +it up. It was a hair-pin. + +To say that Mr. Langdon had a strange sort of thrill shoot through him at +the sight of this harmless little implement would be a statement not at +variance with the fact of the case. That smooth stone had been often +trodden, and by what foot he could not doubt. He rose up from his seat to +look round for other signs of a woman's visits. What if there is a +cavern here, where she has a retreat, fitted up, perhaps, as anchorites +fitted their cells,--nay, it may be, carpeted and mirrored, and with one +of those tiger-skins for a couch, such as they, say the girl loves to lie +on? Let us look, at any rate. + +Mr. Bernard walked to the mouth of the cavern or fissure and looked into +it. His look was met by the glitter of two diamond eyes, small, sharp, +cold, shining out of the darkness, but gliding with a smooth, steady +motion towards the light, and himself. He stood fixed, struck dumb, +staring back into them with dilating pupils and sudden numbness of fear +that cannot move, as in the terror of dreams. The two sparks of light +came forward until they grew to circles of flame, and all at once lifted +themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the first time thrilled +in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes, be +it man or brute, can hear unmoved,--the long, loud, stinging whirr, as +the huge, thick bodied reptile shook his many-jointed rattle and adjusted +his loops for the fatal stroke. His eyes were drawn as with magnets +toward the circles of flame. His ears rung as in the overture to the +swooning dream of chloroform. Nature was before man with her +anaesthetics: the cat's first shake stupefies the mouse; the lion's first +shake deadens the man's fear and feeling; and the crotalus paralyzes +before he strikes. He waited as in a trance,--waited as one that longs +to have the blow fall, and all over, as the man who shall be in two +pieces in a second waits for the axe to drop. But while he looked +straight into the flaming eyes, it seemed to him that they were losing +their light and terror, that they were growing tame and dull; the charm +was dissolving, the numbness was passing away, he could move once more. +He heard a light breathing close to his ear, and, half turning, saw the +face of Elsie Venner, looking motionless into the reptile's eyes, which +had shrunk and faded under the stronger enchantment of her own. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +FAMILY SECRETS. + +It was commonly understood in the town of Rockland that Dudley Venner had +had a great deal of trouble with that daughter of his, so handsome, yet +so peculiar, about whom there were so many strange stories. There was no +end to the tales which were told of her extraordinary doings. Yet her +name was never coupled with that of any youth or man, until this cousin +had provoked remark by his visit; and even then it was oftener in the +shape of wondering conjectures whether he would dare to make love to her, +than in any pretended knowledge of their relations to each other, that +the public tongue exercised its village-prerogative of tattle. + +The more common version of the trouble at the mansion-house was this: +Elsie was not exactly in her right mind. Her temper was singular, her +tastes were anomalous, her habits were lawless, her antipathies were many +and intense, and she was liable to explosions of ungovernable anger. +Some said that was not the worst of it. At nearly fifteen years old, +when she was growing fast, and in an irritable state of mind and body, +she had had a governess placed over her for whom she had conceived an +aversion. It was whispered among a few who knew more of the family +secrets than others, that, worried and exasperated by the presence and +jealous oversight of this person, Elsie had attempted to get finally rid +of her by unlawful means, such as young girls have been known to employ +in their straits, and to which the sex at all ages has a certain +instinctive tendency, in preference to more palpable instruments for the +righting of its wrongs. At any rate, this governess had been taken +suddenly ill, and the Doctor had been sent for at midnight. Old Sophy +had taken her master into a room apart, and said a few words to him which +turned him as white as a sheet. As soon as he recovered himself, he sent +Sophy out, called in the old Doctor, and gave him some few hints, on +which he acted at once, and had the satisfaction of seeing his patient +out of danger before he left in the morning. It is proper to say, that, +during the following days, the most thorough search was made in every +nook and cranny of those parts of the house which Elsie chiefly haunted, +but nothing was found which might be accused of having been the +intentional cause of the probably accidental sudden illness of the +governess. From this time forward her father was never easy. Should he +keep her apart, or shut her up, for fear of risk to others, and so lose +every chance of restoring her mind to its healthy tone by kindly +influences and intercourse with wholesome natures? There was no proof, +only presumption, as to the agency of Elsie in the matter referred to. +But the doubt was worse, perhaps, than certainty would have been,--for +then he would have known what to do. + +He took the old Doctor as his adviser. The shrewd old man listened to +the father's story, his explanations of possibilities, of probabilities, +of dangers, of hopes. When he had got through, the Doctor looked him in +the face steadily, as if he were saying, Is that all? + +The father's eyes fell. This was not all. There was something at the +bottom of his soul which he could not bear to speak of,--nay, which, as +often as it reared itself through the dark waves of unworded +consciousness into the breathing air of thought, he trod down as the +ruined angels tread down a lost soul, trying to come up out of the +seething sea of torture. Only this one daughter! No! God never would +have ordained such a thing. There was nothing ever heard of like it; it +could not be; she was ill,--she would outgrow all these singularities; he +had had an aunt who was peculiar; he had heard that hysteric girls showed +the strangest forms of moral obliquity for a time, but came right at +last. She would change all at once, when her health got more firmly +settled in the course of her growth. Are there not rough buds that open +into sweet flowers? Are there not fruits, which, while unripe, are not +to be tasted or endured, which mature into the richest taste and +fragrance? In God's good time she would come to her true nature; her +eyes would lose that frightful, cold glitter; her lips would not feel so +cold when she pressed them against his cheek; and that faint birth-mark, +her mother swooned when she first saw, would fade wholly out,--it was +less marked, surely, now than it used to be! + +So Dudley Venner felt, and would have thought, if he had let his thoughts +breathe the air of his soul. But the Doctor read through words and +thoughts and all into the father's consciousness. There are states of +mind which may be shared by two persons in presence of each other, which +remain not only unworded, but unthoughted, if such a word may be coined +for our special need. Such a mutually interpenetrative consciousness +there was between the father and the old physician. By a common impulse, +both of them rose in a mechanical way and went to the western window, +where each started, as he saw the other's look directed towards the white +stone which stood in the midst of the small plot of green turf. + +The Doctor had, for a moment, forgotten himself but he looked up at the +clouds, which were angry, and said, as if speaking of the weather, "It is +dark now, but we hope it will clear up by and by. There are a great many +more clouds than rains, and more rains than strokes of lightning, and +more strokes of lightning than there are people killed. We must let this +girl of ours have her way, as far as it is safe. Send away this woman +she hates, quietly. Get her a foreigner for a governess, if you +can,--one that can dance and sing and will teach her. In the house old +Sophy will watch her best. Out of it you must trust her, I am +afraid,--for she will not be followed round, and she is in less danger +than you think. If she wanders at night, find her, if you can; the woods +are not absolutely safe. If she will be friendly with any young people, +have them to see her,--young men especially. She will not love any one +easily, perhaps not at all; yet love would be more like to bring her +right than anything else. If any young person seems in danger of falling +in love with her, send him to me for counsel." + +Dry, hard advice, but given from a kind hewn, with a moist eye, and in +tones which tried to be cheerful and were full of sympathy. This advice +was the key to the more than indulgent treatment which, as we have seen, +the girl had received from her father and all about her. The old Doctor +often came in, in the kindest, most natural sort of way, got into +pleasant relations with Elsie by always treating her in the same easy +manner as at the great party, encouraging all her harmless fancies, and +rarely reminding her that he was a professional adviser, except when she +came out of her own accord, as in the talk they had at the party, telling +him of some wild trick she had been playing. + +"Let her go to the girls' school, by all means," said the Doctor, when +she had begun to talk about it. "Possibly she may take to some of the +girls or of the teachers. Anything to interest her. Friendship, love, +religion, whatever will set her nature at work. We must have headway on, +or there will be no piloting her. Action first of all, and then we will +see what to do with it." + +So, when Cousin Richard came along, the Doctor, though he did not like +his looks any too well, told her father to encourage his staying for a +time. If she liked him, it was good; if she only tolerated him, it was +better than nothing. + +"You know something about that nephew of yours, during these last years, +I suppose?" the Doctor said. "Looks as if he had seen life. Has a scar +that was made by a sword-cut, and a white spot on the side of his neck +that looks like a bullet-mark. I think he has been what folks call a +'hard customer.'" + +Dudley Venner owned that he had heard little or nothing of him of late +years. He had invited himself, and of course it would not be decent not +to receive him as a relative. He thought Elsie rather liked having him +about the house for a while. She was very capricious,--acted as if she +fancied him one day and disliked him the next. He did not know,--but +sometimes thought that this nephew of his might take a serious liking to +Elsie. What should he do about it, if it turned out so? + +The Doctor lifted his eyebrows a little. He thought there was no fear. +Elsie was naturally what they call a man-hater, and there was very little +danger of any sudden passion springing up between two such young persons. +Let him stay awhile; it gives her something to think about. So he stayed +awhile, as we have seen. + +The more Mr. Richard became acquainted with the family,--that is, with +the two persons of whom it consisted,--the more favorably the idea of a +permanent residence in the mansion-house seemed to impress him. The +estate was large,--hundreds of acres, with woodlands and meadows of great +value. The father and daughter had been living quietly, and there could +not be a doubt that the property which came through the Dudleys must have +largely increased of late years. It was evident enough that they had an +abundant income, from the way in which Elsie's caprices were indulged. +She had horses and carriages to suit herself; she sent to the great city +for everything she wanted in the way of dress. Even her diamonds--and +the young man knew something about these gems--must be of considerable +value; and yet she wore them carelessly, as it pleased her fancy. She +had precious old laces, too, almost worth their weight in diamonds; laces +which had been snatched from altars in ancient Spanish cathedrals during +the wars, and which it would not be safe to leave a duchess alone with +for ten minutes. The old house was fat with the deposits of rich +generations which had gone before. The famous "golden" fire-set was a +purchase of one of the family who had been in France during the +Revolution, and must have come from a princely palace, if not from one of +the royal residences. As for silver, the iron closet which had been made +in the dining-room wall was running over with it: tea-kettles, +coffee-pots, heavy-lidded tankards, chafing-dishes, punch-bowls, all that +all the Dudleys had ever used, from the caudle-cup which used to be +handed round the young mother's chamber, and the porringer from which +children scooped their bread-and-milk with spoons as solid as ingots, to +that ominous vessel, on the upper shelf, far back in the dark, with a +spout like a slender italic S, out of which the sick and dying, all along +the last century, and since, had taken the last drops that passed their +lips. Without being much of a scholar, Dick could see well enough, too, +that the books in the library had been ordered from the great London +houses, whose imprint they bore, by persons who knew what was best and +meant to have it. A man does not require much learning to feel pretty +sure, when he takes one of those solid, smooth, velvet-leaved quartos, +say a Baskerville Addison, for instance, bound in red morocco, with a +margin of gold as rich as the embroidery of a prince's collar, as Vandyck +drew it,--he need not know much to feel pretty sure that a score or two +of shelves full of such books mean that it took a long purse, as well as +a literary taste, to bring them together. + +To all these attractions the mind of this thoughtful young gentleman may +be said to have been fully open. He did not disguise from himself, +however, that there were a number of drawbacks in the way of his becoming +established as the heir of the Dudley mansion-house and fortune. In the +first place, Cousin Elsie was, unquestionably, very piquant, very +handsome, game as a hawk, and hard to please, which made her worth trying +for. But then there was something about Cousin Elsie,--(the small, white +scars began stinging, as he said this to himself, and he pushed his +sleeve up to look at them)--there was something about Cousin Elsie he +couldn't make out. What was the matter with her eyes, that they sucked +your life out of you in that strange way? What did she always wear a +necklace for? Had she some such love-token on her neck as the old Don's +revolver had left on his? How safe would anybody feel to live with her? +Besides, her father would last forever, if he was left to himself. And +he may take it into his head to marry again. That would be pleasant! + +So talked Cousin Richard to himself, in the calm of the night and in the +tranquillity of his own soul. There was much to be said on both sides. +It was a balance to be struck after the two columns were added up. He +struck the balance, and came to the conclusion that he would fall in love +with Elsie Venner. + +The intelligent reader will not confound this matured and serious +intention of falling in love with the young lady with that mere impulse +of the moment before mentioned as an instance of making love. On the +contrary, the moment Mr. Richard had made up his mind that he should fall +in love with Elsie, he began to be more reserved with her, and to try to +make friends in other quarters. Sensible men, you know, care very little +what a girl's present fancy is. The question is: Who manages her, and +how can you get at that person or those persons? Her foolish little +sentiments are all very well in their way; but business is business, and +we can't stop for such trifles. The old political wire-pullers never go +near the man they want to gain, if they can help it; they find out who +his intimates and managers are, and work through them. Always handle any +positively electrical body, whether it is charged with passion or power, +with some non-conductor between you and it, not with your naked hands. +--The above were some of the young gentleman's working axioms; and he +proceeded to act in accordance with them. + +He began by paying his court more assiduously to his uncle. It was not +very hard to ingratiate himself in that quarter; for his manners were +insinuating, and his precocious experience of life made him entertaining. +The old neglected billiard--room was soon put in order, and Dick, who was +a magnificent player, had a series of games with his uncle, in which, +singularly enough, he was beaten, though his antagonist had been out of +play for years. He evinced a profound interest in the family history, +insisted on having the details of its early alliances, and professed a +great pride in it, which he had inherited from his father, who, though he +had allied himself with the daughter of an alien race, had yet chosen one +with the real azure blood in her veins, as proud as if she had Castile +and Aragon for her dower and the Cid for her grand-papa. He also asked a +great deal of advice, such as inexperienced young persons are in need of, +and listened to it with due reverence. + +It is not very strange that uncle Dudley took a kinder view of his nephew +than the Judge, who thought he could read a questionable history in his +face,--or the old Doctor, who knew men's temperaments and organizations +pretty well, and had his prejudices about races, and could tell an old +sword-cut and a ballet-mark in two seconds from a scar got by falling +against the fender, or a mark left by king's evil. He could not be +expected to share our own prejudices; for he had heard nothing of the +wild youth's adventures, or his scamper over the Pampas at short notice. +So, then, "Richard Venner, Esquire, guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at +his elegant mansion," prolonged his visit until his presence became +something like a matter of habit, and the neighbors began to think that +the fine old house would be illuminated before long for a grand marriage. + +He had done pretty well with the father: the next thing was to gain over +the nurse. Old Sophy was as cunning as a red fox or a gray woodchuck. +She had nothing in the world to do but to watch Elsie; she had nothing to +care for but this girl and her father. She had never liked Dick too +well; for he used to make faces at her and tease her when he was a boy, +and now he was a man there was something about him--she could not tell +what--that made her suspicious of him. It was no small matter to get her +over to his side. + +The jet-black Africans know that gold never looks so well as on the foil +of their dark skins. Dick found in his trunk a string of gold beads, +such as are manufactured in some of our cities, which he had brought from +the gold region of Chili,--so he said,--for the express purpose of giving +them to old Sophy. These Africans, too, have a perfect passion for +gay-colored clothing; being condemned by Nature, as it were, to a +perpetual mourning-suit, they love to enliven it with all sorts of +variegated stuffs of sprightly patterns, aflame with red and yellow. The +considerate young man had remembered this, too, and brought home for +Sophy some handkerchiefs of rainbow hues, which had been strangely +overlooked till now, at the bottom of one of his trunks. Old Sophy took +his gifts, but kept her black eyes open and watched every movement of the +young people all the more closely. It was through her that the father had +always known most of the actions and tendencies of his daughter. + +In the mean time the strange adventure on The Mountain had brought the +young master into new relations with Elsie. She had led him out of, +danger; perhaps saved him from death by the strange power she exerted. +He was grateful, and yet shuddered at the recollection of the whole +scene. In his dreams he was pursued by the glare of cold glittering +eyes, whether they were in the head of a woman or of a reptile he could +not always tell, the images had so run together. But he could not help +seeing that the eyes of the young girl had been often, very often, turned +upon him when he had been looking away, and fell as his own glance met +them. Helen Darley told him very plainly that this girl was thinking +about him more than about her book. Dick Venner found she was getting +more constant in her attendance at school. He learned, on inquiry, that +there was a new master, a handsome young man. The handsome young man +would not have liked the look that, came over Dick's face when he heard +this fact mentioned. + +In short, everything was getting tangled up together, and there would be +no chance of disentangling the threads in this chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +PHYSIOLOGICAL. + +If Master Bernard felt a natural gratitude to his young pupil for saving +him from an imminent peril, he was in a state of infinite perplexity to +know why he should have needed such aid. He, an active, muscular, +courageous, adventurous young fellow, with--a stick in his hand, ready to +hold down the Old Serpent himself, if he had come in his way, to stand +still, staring into those two eyes, until they came up close to him, and +the strange, terrible sound seemed to freeze him stiff where he +stood,--what was the meaning of it? Again, what was the influence this +girl had seemingly exerted, under which the venomous creature had +collapsed in such a sudden way? Whether he had been awake or dreaming he +did not feel quite sure. He knew he had gone up The Mountain, at any +rate; he knew he had come down The Mountain with the girl walking just +before him;--there was no forgetting her figure, as she walked on in +silence, her braided locks falling a little, for want of the lost +hairpin, perhaps, and looking like a wreathing coil of--Shame on such +fancies!--to wrong that supreme crowning gift of abounding Nature, a rush +of shining black hair, which, shaken loose, would cloud her all round, +like Godiva, from brow to instep! He was sure he had sat down before the +fissure or cave. He was sure that he was led softly away from the place, +and that it was Elsie who had led him. There was the hair-pin to show +that so far it was not a dream. But between these recollections came a +strange confusion; and the more the master thought, the more he was +perplexed to know whether she had waked him, sleeping, as he sat on the +stone, from some frightful dream, such as may come in a very brief +slumber, or whether she had bewitched him into a trance with those +strange eyes of hers, or whether it was all true, and he must solve its +problem as he best might. + +There was another recollection connected with this mountain adventure. +As they approached the mansion-house, they met a young man, whom Mr. +Bernard remembered having seen once at least before, and whom he had +heard of as a cousin of the young girl. As Cousin Richard Venner, the +person in question, passed them, he took the measure, so to speak, of Mr. +Bernard, with a look so piercing, so exhausting, so practised, so +profoundly suspicious, that the young master felt in an instant that he +had an enemy in this handsome youth,--an enemy, too, who was like to be +subtle and dangerous. + +Mr. Bernard had made up his mind, that, come what might, enemy or no +enemy, live or die, he would solve the mystery of Elsie Venner, sooner or +later. He was not a man to be frightened out of his resolution by a +scowl, or a stiletto, or any unknown means of mischief, of which a whole +armory was hinted at in that passing look Dick Venner had given him. +Indeed, like most adventurous young persons, he found a kind of charm in +feeling that there might be some dangers in the way of his +investigations. Some rumors which had reached him about the supposed +suitor of Elsie Venner, who was thought to be a desperate kind of fellow, +and whom some believed to be an unscrupulous adventurer, added a curious, +romantic kind of interest to the course of physiological and +psychological inquiries he was about instituting. + +The afternoon on The Mountain was still upper-most in his mind. Of +course he knew the common stories--about fascination. He had once been +himself an eyewitness of the charming of a small bird by one of our +common harmless serpents. Whether a human being could be reached by this +subtile agency, he had been skeptical, notwithstanding the mysterious +relation generally felt to exist between man and this creature, "cursed +above all cattle and above every beast of the field,"--a relation which +some interpret as the fruit of the curse, and others hold to be so +instinctive that this animal has been for that reason adopted as the +natural symbol of evil. There was another solution, however, supplied +him by his professional reading. The curious work of Mr. Braid of +Manchester had made him familiar with the phenomena of a state allied to +that produced by animal magnetism, and called by that writer by the name +of hypnotism. He found, by referring to his note-book, the statement +was, that, by fixing the eyes on a bright object so placed as to produce +a strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and to maintain a steady fixed stare, +there comes on in a few seconds a very singular condition, characterized +by muscular rigidity and inability to move, with a strange exaltation of +most of the senses, and generally a closure of the eyelids,--this +condition being followed by torpor. + +Now this statement of Mr. Braid's, well known to the scientific world, +and the truth of which had been confirmed by Mr. Bernard in certain +experiments he had instituted, as it has been by many other +experimenters, went far to explain the strange impressions, of which, +waking or dreaming, he had certainly been the subject. His nervous +system had been in a high state of exaltation at the time. He remembered +how the little noises that made rings of sound in the silence of the +woods, like pebbles dropped in still waters, had reached his inner +consciousness. He remembered that singular sensation in the roots of the +hair, when he came on the traces of the girl's presence, reminding him of +a line in a certain poem which he had read lately with a new and peculiar +interest. He even recalled a curious evidence of exalted sensibility and +irritability, in the twitching of the minute muscles of the internal ear +at every unexpected sound, producing an odd little snap in the middle of +the head, which proved to him that he was getting very nervous. + +The next thing was to find out whether it were possible that the venomous +creature's eyes should have served the purpose of Mr. Braid's "bright +object" held very close to the person experimented on, or whether they +had any special power which could be made the subject of exact +observation. + +For this purpose Mr. Bernard considered it necessary to get a live +crotalus or two into his possession, if this were possible. On inquiry, +he found that there was a certain family living far up the mountainside, +not a mile from the ledge, the members of which were said to have taken +these creatures occasionally, and not to be in any danger, or at least in +any fear, of being injured by them. He applied to these people, and +offered a reward sufficient to set them at work to capture some of these +animals, if such a thing were possible. + +A few days after this, a dark, gypsy-looking woman presented herself at +his door. She held up her apron as if it contained something precious in +the bag she made with it. + +"Y' wanted some rattlers," said the woman. "Here they be." + +She opened her apron and showed a coil of rattlesnakes lying very +peaceably in its fold. They lifted their heads up, as if they wanted to +see what was going on, but showed no sign of anger. + +"Are you crazy?" said Mr. Bernard. "You're dead in an hour, if one of +those creatures strikes you!" + +He drew back a little, as he spoke; it might be simple disgust; it might +be fear; it might be what we call antipathy, which is different from +either, and which will sometimes show itself in paleness, and even +faintness, produced by objects perfectly harmless and not in themselves +offensive to any sense. + +"Lord bless you," said the woman, "rattlers never touches our folks. I'd +jest 'z lieves handle them creaturs as so many striped snakes." + +So saying, she put their heads down with her hand, and packed them +together in her apron as if they had been bits of cart-rope. + +Mr. Bernard had never heard of the power, or, at least, the belief in the +possession of a power by certain persons, which enables them to handle +these frightful reptiles with perfect impunity. The fact, however, is +well known to others, and more especially to a very distinguished +Professor in one of the leading institutions of the great city of the +land, whose experiences in the neighborhood of Graylock, as he will +doubtless inform the curious, were very much like those of the young +master. + +Mr. Bernard had a wired cage ready for his formidable captives, and +studied their habits and expression with a strange sort of interest. What +did the Creator mean to signify, when he made such shapes of horror, and, +as if he had doubly cursed this envenomed wretch, had set a mark upon him +and sent him forth the Cain of the brotherhood of serpents? It was a +very curious fact that the first train of thoughts Mr. Bernard's small +menagerie suggested to him was the grave, though somewhat worn, subject +of the origin of evil. There is now to be seen in a tall glass jar, in +the Museum of Comparative Anatomy at Cantabridge in the territory of the +Massachusetts, a huge crotalus, of a species which grows to more +frightful dimensions than our own, under the hotter skies of South +America. Look at it, ye who would know what is the tolerance, the +freedom from prejudice, which can suffer such an incarnation of all that +is devilish to lie unharmed in the cradle of Nature! Learn, too, that +there are many things in this world which we are warned to shun, and are +even suffered to slay, if need be, but which we must not hate, unless we +would hate what God loves and cares for. + +Whatever fascination the creature might exercise in his native haunts, +Mr. Bernard found himself not in the least nervous or affected in any way +while looking at his caged reptiles. When their cage was shaken, they +would lift their heads and spring their rattles; but the sound was by no +means so formidable to listen to as when it reverberated among the chasms +of the echoing rocks. The expression of the creatures was watchful, +still, grave, passionless, fate-like, suggesting a cold malignity which +seemed to be waiting for its opportunity. Their awful, deep-cut mouths +were sternly closed over the long hollow fangs which rested their roots +against the swollen poison-gland, where the venom had been hoarding up +ever since the last stroke had emptied it. They never winked, for +ophidians have no movable eyelids, but kept up that awful fixed stare +which made the two unwinking gladiators the survivors of twenty pairs +matched by one of the Roman Emperors, as Pliny tells us, in his "Natural +History." Their eyes did not flash, but shone with a cold still light. +They were of a pale-golden or straw color, horrible to look into, with +their stony calmness, their pitiless indifference, hardly enlivened by +the almost imperceptible vertical slit of the pupil, through which Death +seemed to be looking out like the archer behind the long narrow loop-hole +in a blank turret-wall. On the whole, the caged reptiles, horrid as they +were, hardly matched his recollections of what he had seen or dreamed he +save at the cavern. These looked dangerous enough, but yet quiet. A +treacherous stillness, however,--as the unfortunate New York physician +found, when he put his foot out to wake up the torpid creature, and +instantly the fang flashed through his boot, carrying the poison into his +blood, and death with it. + +Mr. Bernard kept these strange creatures, and watched all their habits +with a natural curiosity. In any collection of animals the venomous +beasts are looked at with the greatest interest, just as the greatest +villains are most run after by the unknown public. Nobody troubles +himself for a common striped snake or a petty thief, but a cobra or a +wife-killer is a centre of attraction to all eyes. These captives did +very little to earn their living, but, on the other hand, their living +was not expensive, their diet being nothing but air, au naturel. Months +and months these creatures will live and seem to thrive well enough, as +any showman who has then in his menagerie will testify, though they never +touch anything to eat or drink. + +In the mean time Mr. Bernard had become very curious about a class of +subjects not treated of in any detail in those text-books accessible in +most country-towns, to the exclusion of the more special treatises, and +especially of the rare and ancient works found on the shelves of the +larger city-libraries. He was on a visit to old Dr. Kittredge one day, +having been asked by him to call in for a few moments as soon as +convenient. The Doctor smiled good-humoredly when he asked him if he had +an extensive collection of medical works. + +"Why, no," said the old Doctor, "I haven't got a great many printed +books; and what I have I don't read quite as often as I might, I'm +afraid. I read and studied in the time of it, when I was in the midst of +the young men who were all at work with their books; but it's a mighty +hard matter, when you go off alone into the country, to keep up with all +that's going on in the Societies and the Colleges. I'll tell you, though, +Mr. Langdon, when a man that's once started right lives among sick folks +for five-and-thirty years, as I've done, if he has n't got a library of +five-and-thirty volumes bound up in his head at the end of that time, +he'd better stop driving round and sell his horse and sulky. I know the +bigger part of the families within a dozen miles' ride. I know the +families that have a way of living through everything, and I know the +other set that have the trick of dying without any kind of reason for it. +I know the years when the fevers and dysenteries are in earnest, and when +they're only making believe. I know the folks that think they're dying +as soon as they're sick, and the folks that never find out they 're sick +till they're dead. I don't want to undervalue your science, Mr. Langdon. +There are things I never learned, because they came in after my day, and +I am very glad to send my patients to those that do know them, when I am +at fault; but I know these people about here, fathers and mothers, and +children and grandchildren, so as all the science in the world can't know +them, without it takes time about it, and sees them grow up and grow old, +and how the wear and tear of life comes to them. You can't tell a horse +by driving him once, Mr. Langdon, nor a patient by talking half an hour +with him." + +"Do you know much about the Veneer family?" said Mr. Bernard, in a +natural way enough, the Doctor's talk having suggested the question. + +The Doctor lifted his head with his accustomed movement, so as to command +the young man through his spectacles. + +"I know all the families of this place and its neighborhood," he +answered. + +"We have the young lady studying with us at the Institute," said Mr. +Bernard. + +"I know it," the Doctor answered. "Is she a good scholar?" + +All this time the Doctor's eyes were fixed steadily on Mr. Bernard, +looking through the glasses. + +"She is a good scholar enough, but I don't know what to make of her. +Sometimes I think she is a little out of her head. Her father, I +believe, is sensible enough;--what sort of a woman was her mother, +Doctor?--I suppose, of course, you remember all about her?" + +"Yes, I knew her mother. She was a very lovely young woman."--The Doctor +put his hand to his forehead and drew a long breath.--"What is there you +notice out of the way about Elsie Venner?" + +"A good many things," the master answered. "She shuns all the other +girls. She is getting a strange influence over my fellow-teacher, a +young lady,--you know Miss Helen Darley, perhaps? I am afraid this girl +will kill her. I never saw or heard of anything like it, in prose at +least;--do you remember much of Coleridge's Poems, Doctor?" + +The good old Doctor had to plead a negative. + +"Well, no matter. Elsie would have been burned for a witch in old times. +I have seen the girl look at Miss Darley when she had not the least idea +of it, and all at once I would see her grow pale and moist, and sigh, and +move round uneasily, and turn towards Elsie, and perhaps get up and go to +her, or else have slight spasmodic movements that looked like +hysterics;--do you believe in the evil eye, Doctor?" + +"Mr. Langdon," the Doctor said, solemnly, "there are strange things about +Elsie Veneer,--very strange things. This was what I wanted to speak to +you about. Let me advise you all to be very patient with the girl, but +also very careful. Her love is not to be desired, and "--he spoke in a +lower tone--"her hate is to be dreaded. Do you think she has any special +fancy for anybody else in the school besides Miss Darley?" + +Mr. Bernard could not stand the old Doctor's spectacled eyes without +betraying a little of the feeling natural to a young man to whom a home +question involving a possible sentiment is put suddenly. + +"I have suspected," he said,--"I have had a kind of feeling--that +she--Well, come, Doctor,--I don't know that there 's any use in +disguising the matter,--I have thought Elsie Veneer had rather a fancy +for somebody else,--I mean myself." + +There was something so becoming in the blush with which the young man +made this confession, and so manly, too, in the tone with which he spoke, +so remote from any shallow vanity, such as young men who are incapable of +love are apt to feel, when some loose tendril of a woman's fancy which a +chance wind has blown against them twines about them for the want of +anything better, that the old Doctor looked at him admiringly, and could +not help thinking that it was no wonder any young girl should be pleased +with him. + +"You are a man of nerve, Mr. Langdon?" said the Doctor. + +"I thought so till very lately," he replied. "I am not easily +frightened, but I don't know but I might be bewitched or magnetized, or +whatever it is when one is tied up and cannot move. I think I can find +nerve enough, however, if there is any special use you want to put it +to." + +"Let me ask you one more question, Mr. Langdon. Do you find yourself +disposed to take a special interest in Elsie,--to fall in love with her, +in a word? Pardon me, for I do not ask from curiosity, but a much more +serious motive." + +"Elsie interests me," said the young man, "interests me strangely. She +has a wild flavor in her character which is wholly different from that of +any human creature I ever saw. She has marks of genius, poetic or +dramatic,--I hardly know which. She read a passage from Keats's 'Lamia' +the other day, in the schoolroom, in such a way that I declare to you I +thought some of the girls would faint or go into fits. Miss Darley got +up and left the room, trembling all over. Then, I pity her, she is so +lonely. The girls are afraid of her, and she seems to have either a +dislike or a fear of them. They have all sorts of painful stories about +her. They give her a name which no human creature ought to bear. They +say she hides a mark on her neck by always wearing a necklace. She is +very graceful, you know, and they will have it that she can twist herself +into all sorts of shapes, or tie herself in a knot, if she wants to. +There is not one of them that will look her in the eyes. I pity the poor +girl; but, Doctor, I do not love her. I would risk my life for her, if +it would do her any good, but it would be in cold blood. If her hand +touches mine, it is not a thrill of passion I feel running through me, +but a very different emotion. Oh, Doctor! there must be something in +that creature's blood which has killed the humanity in her. God only +knows the cause that has blighted such a soul in so beautiful a body! No, +Doctor, I do not love the girl." + +"Mr. Langdon," said the Doctor, "you are young, and I am old. Let me +talk to you with an old man's privilege, as an adviser. You have come to +this country-town without suspicion, and you are moving in the midst of +perils. There are things which I must not tell you now; but I may warn +you. Keep your eyes open and your heart shut. If, through pitying that +girl, you ever come to love her, you are lost. If you deal carelessly +with her, beware! This is not all. There are other eyes on you beside +Elsie Venner's. Do you go armed?" + +"I do!" said Mr. Bernard,--and he "put his hands up" in the shape of +fists, in such a way as to show that he was master of the natural weapons +at any rate. + +The Doctor could not help smiling. But his face fell in an instant. + +"You may want something more than those tools to work with. Come with me +into my sanctum." + +The Doctor led Mr. Bernard into a small room opening out of the study. +It was a place such as anybody but a medical man would shiver to enter. +There was the usual tall box with its bleached, rattling tenant; there +were jars in rows where "interesting cases" outlived the grief of widows +and heirs in alcoholic immortality,--for your "preparation-jar" is the +true "monumentum aere perennius;" there were various semi-possibilities +of minute dimensions and unpromising developments; there were shining +instruments of evil aspect, and grim plates on the walls, and on one +shelf by itself, accursed and apart, coiled in a long cylinder of spirit, +a huge crotalus, rough-scaled, flatheaded, variegated with dull bands, +one of which partially encircled the neck like a collar,--an awful wretch +to look upon, with murder written all over him in horrid hieroglyphics. +Mr. Bernard's look was riveted on this creature,--not fascinated +certainly, for its eyes looked like white beads, being clouded by the +action of the spirits in which it had been long kept,--but fixed by some +indefinite sense of the renewal of a previous impression;--everybody +knows the feeling, with its suggestion of some past state of existence. +There was a scrap of paper on the jar, with something written on it. He +was reaching up to read it when the Doctor touched him lightly. + +"Look here, Mr. Langdon!" he said, with a certain vivacity of manner, as +if wishing to call away his attention,--"this is my armory." + +The Doctor threw open the door of a small cabinet, where were disposed in +artistic patterns various weapons of offence and defence,--for he was a +virtuoso in his way, and by the side of the implements of the art of +healing had pleased himself with displaying a collection of those other +instruments, the use of which renders the first necessary. + +"See which of these weapons you would like best to carry about you," said +the Doctor. + +Mr. Bernard laughed, and looked at the Doctor as if he half doubted +whether he was in earnest. + +"This looks dangerous enough," he said,--"for the man who carries it, at +least." + +He took down one of the prohibited Spanish daggers or knives which a +traveller may, occasionally get hold of and smuggle out of the country. +The blade was broad, trowel-like, but the point drawn out several inches, +so as to look like a skewer. + +"This must be a jealous bull-fighter's weapon," he said, and put it back +in its place. + +Then he took down an ancient-looking broad-bladed dagger, with a complex +aspect about it, as if it had some kind of mechanism connected with it. + +"Take care!" said the Doctor; "there is a trick to that dagger." + +He took it and touched a spring. The dagger split suddenly into three +blades, as when one separates the forefinger and the ring-finger from the +middle one. The outside blades were sharp on their outer edge. The stab +was to be made with the dagger shut, then the spring touched and the +split blades withdrawn. + +Mr. Bernard replaced it, saying, that it would have served for sidearm to +old Suwarrow, who told his men to work their bayonets back and forward +when they pinned a Turk, but to wriggle them about in the wound when they +stabbed a Frenchman. + +"Here," said the Doctor, "this is the thing you want." + +He took down a much more modern and familiar implement,--a small, +beautifully finished revolver. + +"I want you to carry this," he said; "and more than that, I want you to +practise with it often, as for amusement, but so that it maybe seen and +understood that you are apt to have a pistol about you. Pistol-shooting +is pleasant sport enough, and there is no reason why you should not +practise it like other young fellows. And now," the Doctor said, "I have +one other, weapon to give you." + +He took a small piece of parchment and shook a white powder into it from +one of his medicine-jars. The jar was marked with the name of a mineral +salt, of a nature to have been serviceable in case of sudden illness in +the time of the Borgias. The Doctor folded the parchment carefully, and +marked the Latin name of the powder upon it. + +"Here," he said, handing it to Mr. Bernard, "you see what it is, and you +know what service it can render. Keep these two protectors about your +person day and night; they will not harm you, and you may want one or the +other or both before you think of it." + +Mr. Bernard thought it was very odd, and not very old-gentlemanlike, to +be fitting him out for treason, stratagem, and spoils, in this way. +There was no harm, however, in carrying a doctor's powder in his pocket, +or in amusing himself with shooting at a mark, as he had often done +before. If the old gentleman had these fancies, it was as well to humor +him. + +So he thanked old Doctor Kittredge, and shook his hand warmly as he left +him. + +"The fellow's hand did not tremble, nor his color change," the Doctor +said, as he watched him walking away. "He is one of the right sort." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +EPISTOLARY. + +Mr. Langdon to the Professor. + +MY DEAR PROFESSOR, You were kind enough to promise me that you would +assist me in any professional or scientific investigations in which I +might become engaged. I have of late become deeply interested in a class +of subjects which present peculiar difficulty, and I must exercise the +privilege of questioning you on some points upon which I desire +information I cannot otherwise obtain. I would not trouble you, if I +could find any person or books competent to enlighten me on some of these +singular matters which have so excited me. The leading doctor here is a +shrewd, sensible man, but not versed in the curiosities of medical +literature. + +I proceed, with your leave, to ask a considerable number of +questions,--hoping to get answers to some of them, at least. + +Is there any evidence that human beings can be infected or wrought upon +by poisons, or otherwise, so that they shall manifest any of the +peculiarities belonging to beings of a lower nature? Can such +peculiarities--be transmitted by inheritance? Is there anything to +countenance the stories, long and widely current, about the "evil eye"? +or is it a mere fancy that such a power belongs to any human being? Have +you any personal experience as to the power of fascination said to be +exercised by certain animals? What can you make of those circumstantial +statements we have seen in the papers, of children forming mysterious +friendships with ophidians of different species, sharing their food with +them, and seeming to be under some subtile influence exercised by those +creatures? Have you read, critically, Coleridge's poem of "Christabel," +and Keats's "Lamia"?--If so, can you understand them, or find any +physiological foundation for the story of either? + +There is another set of questions of a different nature I should like to +ask, but it is hardly fair to put so many on a single sheet. There is +one, however, you must answer. Do you think there may be +predispositions, inherited or ingrafted, but at any rate constitutional, +which shall take out certain apparently voluntary determinations from the +control of the will, and leave them as free from moral responsibility as +the instincts of the lower animals? Do you not think there may be a +crime which is not a sin? + +Pardon me, my dear Sir, for troubling you with such a list of notes of +interrogation. There are some very strange things going on here in this +place, country-town as it is. Country-life is apt to be dull; but when +it once gets going, it beats the city hollow, because it gives its whole +mind to what it is about. These rural sinners make terrible work with +the middle of the Decalogue, when they get started. However, I hope I +shall live through my year's school-keeping without catastrophes, though +there are queer doings about me which puzzle me and might scare some +people. If anything should happen, you will be one of the first to hear +of it, no doubt. But I trust not to help out the editors of the +"Rockland Weekly Universe" with an obituary of the late lamented, who +signed himself in life-- + +Your friend and pupil, +BERNARD C. LANGDON. + + +The Professor to Mr. Langdon. + +MY DEAR MR. LANGDON, I do not wonder that you find no answer from your +country friends to the curious questions you put. They belong to that +middle region between science and poetry which sensible men, as they are +called, are very shy of meddling with. Some people think that truth and +gold are always to be washed for; but the wiser sort are of opinion, +that, unless there are so many grains to the peck of sand or nonsense +respectively, it does not pay to wash for either, so long as one can find +anything else to do. I don't doubt there is some truth in the phenomena +of animal magnetism, for instance; but when you ask me to cradle for it, +I tell you that the hysteric girls cheat so, and the professionals are +such a set of pickpockets, that I can do something better than hunt for +the grains of truth among their tricks and lies. Do you remember what I +used to say in my lectures?--or were you asleep just then, or cutting +your initials on the rail? (You see I can ask questions, my young +friend.) Leverage is everything,--was what I used to say;--don't begin to +pry till you have got the long arm on your side. + +To please you, and satisfy your doubts as far as possible, I have looked +into the old books,--into Schenckius and Turner and Kenelm. Digby and the +rest, where I have found plenty of curious stories which you must take +for what they are worth. + +Your first question I can answer in the affirmative upon pretty good +authority. Mizaldus tells, in his "Memorabilia," the well-known story of +the girl fed on poisons, who was sent by the king of the Indies to +Alexander the Great. "When Aristotle saw her eyes sparkling and snapping +like those of serpents, he said, 'Look out for yourself, Alexander! this +is a dangerous companion for you!'"--and sure enough, the young lady +proved to be a very unsafe person to her friends. Cardanus gets a story +from Avicenna, of a certain man bit by a serpent, who recovered of his +bite, the snake dying therefrom. This man afterwards had a daughter whom +venomous serpents could not harm, though she had a fatal power over them. + +I suppose you may remember the statements of old authors about +Zycanthropy, the disease in which men took on the nature and aspect of +wolves. Actius and Paulus, both men of authority, describe it. Altomaris +gives a horrid case; and Fincelius mentions one occurring as late as +1541, the subject of which was captured, still insisting that he was a +wolf, only that the hair of his hide was turned in! Versipelles, it may +be remembered, was the Latin name for these "were-wolves." + +As for the cases where rabid persons have barked and bit like dogs, there +are plenty of such on record. + +More singular, or at least more rare, is the account given by Andreas +Baccius, of a man who was struck in the hand by a cock, with his beak, +and who died on the third day thereafter, looking for all the world like +a fighting-cock, to the great horror of the spectators. + +As to impressions transmitted at a very early period of existence, every +one knows the story of King James's fear of a naked sword, and the way it +is accounted for. Sir Kenelm Digby says,--"I remember when he dubbed me +Knight, in the ceremony of putting the point of a naked sword upon my +shoulder, he could not endure to look upon it, but turned his face +another way, insomuch, that, in lieu of touching my shoulder, he had +almost thrust the point into my eyes, had not the Duke of Buckingham +guided his hand aright." It is he, too, who tells the story of the +mulberry mark upon the neck of a certain lady of high condition, which +"every year, to mulberry season, did swell, grow big, and itch." And +Gaffarel mentions the case of a girl born with the figure of a fish on +one of her limbs, of which the wonder was, that, when the girl did eat +fish, this mark put her to sensible pain. But there is no end to cases +of this kind, and I could give some of recent date, if necessary, lending +a certain plausibility at least to the doctrine of transmitted +impressions. + +I never saw a distinct case of evil eye, though I have seen eyes so bad +that they might produce strange effects on very sensitive natures. But +the belief in it under various names, fascination, jettcztura, etc., is +so permanent and universal, from Egypt to Italy, and from the days of +Solomon to those of Ferdinand of Naples, that there must be some +peculiarity, to say the least, on which the opinion is based. There is +very strong evidence that some such power is exercised by certain of the +lower animals. Thus, it is stated on good authority that "almost every +animal becomes panic-struck at the sight of the rattlesnake, and seems at +once deprived of the power of motion, or the exercise of its usual +instinct of self-preservation." Other serpents seem to share this power +of fascination, as the Cobra and the Buccephalus Capensis. + +Some think that it is nothing but fright; others attribute it to the + + "strange powers that lie + Within the magic circle of the eye,"-- + +as Churchill said, speaking of Garrick. + +You ask me about those mysterious and frightful intimacies between +children and serpents, of which so many instances have been recorded. I +am sure I cannot tell what to make of them. I have seen several such +accounts in recent papers, but here is one published in the seventeenth +century, which is as striking as any of the more modern ones: + +"Mr. Herbert Tones of Monmouth, when he was a little Boy, was used to eat +his Milk in a Garden in the Morning, and was no sooner there, but a large +Snake always came, and eat out of the Dish with him, and did so for a +considerable time, till one Morning, he striking the Snake on the Head, +it hissed at him. Upon which he told his Mother that the Baby (for so he +call'd it) cry'd Hiss at him. His Mother had it kill'd, which occasioned +him a great Fit of Sickness, and 'twas thought would have dy'd, but did +recover." + +There was likewise one "William Writtle, condemned at Maidston Assizes +for a double murder, told a Minister that was with him after he was +condemned, that his mother told him, that when he was a Child, there +crept always to him a Snake, wherever she laid him. Sometimes she would +convey him up Stairs, and leave him never so little, she should be sure +to find a Snake in the Cradle with him, but never perceived it did him +any harm." + +One of the most striking alleged facts connected with the mysterious +relation existing between the serpent and-the human species is the +influence which the poison of the Crotulus, taken internally, seemed to +produce over the moral faculties, in the experiments instituted by Dr. +Hering at Surinam. There is something frightful in the disposition of +certain ophidians, as the whipsnake, which darts at the eyes of cattle +without any apparent provocation or other motive. It is natural enough +that the evil principle should have been represented in the form of a +serpent, but it is strange to think of introducing it into a human being +like cow-pox by vaccination. + +You know all about the Psylli, or ancient serpent tamers, I suppose. +Savary gives an account of the modern serpent-tamers in his "Letters on +Egypt." These modern jugglers are in the habit of making the venomous +Naja counterfeit death, lying out straight and stiff, changing it into a +rod, as the ancient magicians did with their serpents, (probably the same +animal,) in the time of Moses. + +I am afraid I cannot throw much light on "Christabel" or "Lamia" by any +criticism I can offer. Geraldine, in the former, seems to be simply a +malignant witch-woman with the evil eye, but with no absolute ophidian +relationship. Lamia is a serpent transformed by magic into a woman. The +idea of both is mythological, and not in any sense physiological. Some +women unquestionably suggest the image of serpents; men rarely or never. +I have been struck, like many others, with the ophidian head and eye of +the famous Rachel. + +Your question about inherited predispositions, as limiting the sphere of +the will, and, consequently, of moral accountability, opens a very wide +range of speculation. I can give you only a brief abstract of my own +opinions on this delicate and difficult subject. Crime and sin, being +the preserves of two great organized interests, have been guarded against +all reforming poachers with as great jealousy as the Royal Forests. It +is so easy to hang a troublesome fellow! It is so much simpler to +consign a soul to perdition, or say masses, for money, to save it, than +to take the blame on ourselves for letting it grow up in neglect and run +to ruin for want of humanizing influences! They hung poor, crazy +Bellingham for shooting Mr. Perceval. The ordinary of Newgate preached +to women who were to swing at Tyburn for a petty theft as if they were +worse than other people,--just as though he would not have been a +pickpocket or shoplifter, himself, if he had been born in a den of +thieves and bred up to steal or starve! The English law never began to +get hold of the idea that a crime was not necessarily a sin, till +Hadfield, who thought he was the Saviour of mankind, was tried for +shooting at George the Third;--lucky for him that he did not hit his +Majesty! + +It is very singular that we recognize all the bodily defects that unfit a +man for military service, and all the intellectual ones that limit his +range of thought, but always talk at him as if all his moral powers were +perfect. I suppose we must punish evil-doers as we extirpate vermin; but +I don't know that we have any more right to judge them than we have to +judge rats and mice, which are just as good as cats and weasels, though +we think it necessary to treat them as criminals. + +The limitations of human responsibility have never been properly studied, +unless it be by the phrenologists. You know from my lectures that I +consider phrenology, as taught, a pseudo-science, and not a branch of +positive knowledge; but, for all that, we owe it an immense debt. It has +melted the world's conscience in its crucible, and cast it in a new +mould, with features less like those of Moloch and more like those of +humanity. If it has failed to demonstrate its system of special +correspondences, it has proved that there are fixed relations between +organization and mind and character. It has brought out that great +doctrine of moral insanity, which has done more to make men charitable +and soften legal and theological barbarism than any one doctrine that I +can think of since the message of peace and good-will to men. + +Automatic action in the moral world; the reflex movement which seems to +be self-determination, and has been hanged and howled at as such +(metaphorically) for nobody knows how many centuries: until somebody +shall study this as Marshall Hall has studied reflex nervous action in +the bodily system, I would not give much for men's judgments of each +others' characters. Shut up the robber and the defaulter, we must. But +what if your oldest boy had been stolen from his cradle and bred in a +North-Street cellar? What if you are drinking a little too much wine and +smoking a little too much tobacco, and your son takes after you, and so +your poor grandson's brain being a little injured in physical texture, he +loses the fine moral sense on which you pride yourself, and doesn't see +the difference between signing another man's name to a draft and his own? + +I suppose the study of automatic action in the moral world (you see what +I mean through the apparent contradiction of terms) may be a dangerous +one in the view of many people. It is liable to abuse, no doubt. People +are always glad to, get hold of anything which limits their +responsibility. But remember that our moral estimates come down to us +from ancestors who hanged children for stealing forty shillings' worth, +and sent their souls to perdition for the sin of being born,--who +punished the unfortunate families of suicides, and in their eagerness for +justice executed one innocent person every three years, on the average, +as Sir James Mackintosh tells us. + +I do not know in what shape the practical question may present itself to +you; but I will tell you my rule in life, and I think you will find it a +good one. Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane. They are +in-sane, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds, +is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless administered with the +greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid collision with them, so far +as you honorably can; keep your temper, if you can,--for one angry man is +as good as another; restrain them from violence, promptly, completely, +and with the least possible injury, just as in the case of maniacs,--and +when you have got rid of them, or got them tied hand and foot so that +they can do no mischief, sit down and contemplate them charitably, +remembering that nine tenths of their' perversity comes from outside +influences, drunken ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company, from +which you have happily been preserved, and for some of which you, as a +member of society, may be fractionally responsible. I think also that +there are special influences which work in the brood lake ferments, and I +have a suspicion that some of those curious old stories I cited may have +more recent parallels. Have you ever met with any cases which admitted +of a solution like that which I have mentioned? + +Yours very truly, +_____________ _____________ + + Bernard Langdon to Philip Staples. +MY DEAR PHILIP,-- + +I have been for some months established in this place, turning the main +crank of the machinery for the manufactory of accomplishments +superintended by, or rather worked to the profit of, a certain Mr. Silas +Peckham. He is a poor wretch, with a little thin fishy blood in his +body, lean and flat, long-armed and large-handed, thick-jointed and +thin-muscled,--you know those unwholesome, weak-eyed, half-fed creatures, +that look not fit to be round among live folks, and yet not quite dead +enough to bury. If you ever hear of my being in court to answer to a +charge of assault and battery, you may guess that I have been giving him +a thrashing to settle off old scores; for he is a tyrant, and has come +pretty near killing his principal lady-assistant with overworking her and +keeping her out of all decent privileges. + +Helen Darley is this lady's name,--twenty two or three years old, I +should think,--a very sweet, pale woman,--daughter of the usual +country-clergyman,--thrown on her own resources from an early age, and +the rest: a common story, but an uncommon person,--very. All conscience +and sensibility, I should say,--a cruel worker,--no kind of regard for +herself, seems as fragile and supple as a young willow-shoot, but try her +and you find she has the spring in her of a steel cross-bow. I am glad I +happened to come to this place, if it were only for her sake. I have +saved that girl's life; I am as sure of it as if I had pulled her out of +the fire or water. + +Of course I'm in love with her, you say,--we always love those whom we +have benefited; "saved her life,--her love was the reward of his +devotion," etc., etc., as in a regular set novel. In love, Philip? Well, +about that,--I love Helen Darley--very much: there is hardly anybody I +love so well. What a noble creature she is! One of those that just go +right on, do their own work and everybody else's, killing themselves inch +by inch without ever thinking about it,--singing and dancing at their +toil when they begin, worn and saddened after a while, but pressing +steadily on, tottering by and by, and catching at the rail by the +way-side to help them lift one foot before the other, and at last +falling, face down, arms stretched forward. + +Philip, my boy, do you know I am the sort of man that locks his door +sometimes and cries his heart out of his eyes,--that can sob like a woman +and not be ashamed of it? I come of fighting-blood on one side, you +know; I think I could be savage on occasion. But I am tender,--more and +more tender as I come into my fulness of manhood. I don't like to strike +a man, (laugh, if you like,--I know I hit hard when I do strike,)--but +what I can't stand is the sight of these poor, patient, toiling women, +who never find out in this life how good they are, and never know what it +is to be told they are angels while they still wear the pleasing +incumbrances of humanity. I don't know what to make of these cases. To +think that a woman is never to be a woman again, whatever she may come to +as an unsexed angel,--and that she should die unloved! Why does not +somebody come and carry off this noble woman, waiting here all ready to +make a man happy? Philip, do you know the pathos there is in the eyes of +unsought women, oppressed with the burden of an inner life unshared? I +can see into them now as I could not in those 'earlier days. I sometimes +think their pupils dilate on purpose to let my consciousness glide +through them; indeed, I dread them, I come so close to the nerve of the +soul itself in these momentary intimacies. You used to tell me I was a +Turk,--that my heart was full of pigeon-holes, with accommodations inside +for a whole flock of doves. I don't know but I am still as Youngish as +ever in my ways,--Brigham-Youngish, I mean; at any rate, T. always want +to give a little love to all the poor things that cannot have a whole man +to themselves. If they would only be contented with a little! + +Here now are two girls in this school where I am teaching. One of them, +Rosa M., is not more than sixteen years old, I think they say; but Nature +has forced her into a tropical luxuriance of beauty, as if it were July +with her, instead of May. I suppose it is all natural enough that this +girl should like a young man's attention, even if he were a grave +schoolmaster; but the eloquence of this young thing's look is +unmistakable,--and yet she does not know the language it is +talking,--they none of them do; and there is where a good many poor +creatures of our good-for-nothing sex are mistaken. There is no danger +of my being rash, but I think this girl will cost somebody his life yet. +She is one of those women men make a quarrel about and fight to the death +for,--the old feral instinct, you know. + +Pray, don't think I am lost in conceit, but there is another girl here +who I begin to think looks with a certain kindness on me. Her name is +Elsie V., and she is the only daughter and heiress of an old family in +this place. She is a portentous and almost fearful creature. If I +should tell you all I know and half of what I fancy about her, you would +tell me to get my life insured at once. Yet she is the most painfully +interesting being,--so handsome! so lonely!--for she has no friends +among the girls, and sits apart from them,--with black hair like the +flow of a mountain-brook after a thaw, with a low-browed, scowling beauty +of face, and such eyes as were never seen before, I really believe, in +any human creature. + +Philip, I don't know what to say about this Elsie. There is something +about her I have not fathomed. I have conjectures which I could not +utter to any living soul. I dare not even hint the possibilities which +have suggested themselves to me. This I will say, that I do take the +most intense interest in this young person, an interest much more like +pity than love in its common sense. If what I guess at is true, of all +the tragedies of existence I ever knew this is the saddest, and yet so +full of meaning! Do not ask me any questions,--I have said more than I +meant to already; but I am involved in strange doubts and +perplexities,--in dangers too, very possibly,--and it is a relief just to +speak ever so guardedly of them to an early and faithful friend. + +Yours ever, BERNARD. + +P. S. I remember you had a copy of Fortunius Licetus' "De Monstris" +among your old books. Can't you lend it to me for a while? I am +curious, and it will amuse me. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +OLD SOPHY CALLS ON THE REVEREND DOCTOR. + +The two meeting-houses which faced each other like a pair of +fighting-cocks had not flapped their wings or crowed at each other for a +considerable time. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather had been dyspeptic and +low-spirited of late, and was too languid for controversy. The Reverend +Doctor Honeywood had been very busy with his benevolent associations, and +had discoursed chiefly on practical matters, to the neglect of special +doctrinal subjects. His senior deacon ventured to say to him that some +of his people required to be reminded of the great fundamental doctrine +of the worthlessness of all human efforts and motives. Some of them were +altogether too much pleased with the success of the Temperance Society +and the Association for the Relief of the Poor. There was a pestilent +heresy about, concerning the satisfaction to be derived from a good +conscience, as if, anybody ever did anything which was not to be hated, +loathed, despised, and condemned. + +The old minister listened gravely, with an inward smile, and told his +deacon that he would attend to his suggestion. After the deacon had +gone, he tumbled over his manuscripts, until at length he came upon his +first-rate old sermon on "Human Nature." He had read a great deal of +hard theology, and had at last reached that curious state which is so +common in good ministers,--that, namely, in which they contrive to switch +off their logical faculties on the narrow sidetrack of their technical +dogmas, while the great freight-train of their substantial human +qualities keeps in the main highway of common-sense, in which kindly +souls are always found by all who approach them by their human side. + +The Doctor read his sermon with a pleasant, paternal interest: it was +well argued from his premises. Here and there he dashed his pen through +a harsh expression. Now and then he added an explanation or qualified +abroad statement. But his mind was on the logical side-track, and he +followed the chain of reasoning without fairly perceiving where it would +lead him, if he carried it into real life. + +He was just touching up the final proposition, when his granddaughter, +Letty, once before referred to, came into the room with her smiling face +and lively movement. Miss Letty or Letitia Forrester was a city-bred +girl of some fifteen or sixteen years old, who was passing the summer +with her grandfather for the sake of country air and quiet. It was a +sensible arrangement; for, having the promise of figuring as a belle by +and by, and being a little given to dancing, and having a voice which +drew a pretty dense circle around the piano when she sat down to play and +sing, it was hard to keep her from being carried into society before her +time, by the mere force of mutual attraction. Fortunately, she had some +quiet as well as some social tastes, and was willing enough to pass two +or three of the summer months in the country, where she was much better +bestowed than she would have been at one of those watering-places where +so many half-formed girls get prematurely hardened in the vice of +self-consciousness. + +Miss Letty was altogether too wholesome, hearty, and high-strung a young +girl to be a model, according to the flat-chested and cachectic pattern +which is the classical type of certain excellent young females, often the +subjects of biographical memoirs. But the old minister was proud of his +granddaughter for all that. She was so full of life, so graceful, so +generous, so vivacious, so ready always to do all she could for him and +for everybody, so perfectly frank in her avowed delight in the pleasures +which this miserable world offered her in the shape of natural beauty, of +poetry, of music, of companionship, of books, of cheerful cooperation in +the tasks of those about her, that the Reverend Doctor could not find it +in his heart to condemn her because she was deficient in those particular +graces and that signal other-worldliness he had sometimes noticed in +feeble young persons suffering from various chronic diseases which +impaired their vivacity and removed them from the range of temptation. + +When Letty, therefore, came bounding into the old minister's study, he +glanced up from his manuscript, and, as his eye fell upon her, it flashed +across him that there was nothing so very monstrous and unnatural about +the specimen of congenital perversion he was looking at, with his +features opening into their pleasantest sunshine. Technically, according +to the fifth proposition of the sermon on Human Nature, very bad, no +doubt. Practically, according to the fact before him, a very pretty +piece of the Creator's handiwork, body and soul. Was it not a +conceivable thing that the divine grace might show itself in different +forms in a fresh young girl like Letitia, and in that poor thing he had +visited yesterday, half-grown, half-colored, in bed for the last year +with hip-disease? + +Was it to be supposed that this healthy young girl, with life throbbing +all over her, could, without a miracle, be good according to the invalid +pattern and formula? + +And yet there were mysteries in human nature which pointed to some +tremendous perversion of its tendencies,--to some profound, radical vice +of moral constitution, native or transmitted, as you will have it, but +positive, at any rate, as the leprosy, breaking out in the blood of +races, guard them ever so carefully. Did he not know the case of a young +lady in Rockland, daughter of one of the first families in the place, a +very beautiful and noble creature to look at, for whose bringing up +nothing had been spared,--a girl who had had governesses to teach her at +the house, who had been indulged almost too kindly,--a girl whose father +had given himself, up to her, he being himself a pure and high-souled +man?--and yet this girl was accused in whispers of having been on the +very verge of committing a fatal crime; she was an object of fear to all +who knew the dark hints which had been let fall about her, and there were +some that believed--Why, what was this but an instance of the total +obliquity and degeneration of the moral principle? and to what could it +be owing, but to an innate organic tendency? + +"Busy, grandpapa?" said Letty, and without waiting for an answer kissed +his cheek with a pair of lips made on purpose for that little +function,--fine, but richly turned out, the corners tucked in with a +finish of pretty dimples, the rose-bud lips of girlhood's June. + +The old gentleman looked at his granddaughter. Nature swelled up from +his heart in a wave that sent a glow to his cheek and a sparkle to his +eye. But it is very hard to be interrupted just as we are winding up a +string of propositions with the grand conclusion which is the statement +in brief of all that has gone before: our own starting-point, into which +we have been trying to back our reader or listener as one backs a, horse +into the shafts. + +"Video meliora, proboque,--I see the better, and approve it; deteriora +sequor, I follow after the worse; 't is that natural dislike to what is +good, pure, holy, and true, that inrooted selfishness, totally insensible +to the claims of"-- + +Here the worthy man was interrupted by Miss Letty. + +"Do come, if you can, grandpapa," said the young girl; "here is a poor +old black woman wants to see you so much!" + +The good minister was as kind-hearted as if he had never groped in the +dust and ashes of those cruel old abstractions which have killed out so +much of the world's life and happiness. "With the heart man believeth +unto righteousness;" a man's love is the measure of his fitness for good +or bad company here or elsewhere. Men are tattooed with their special +beliefs like so many South-Sea Islanders; but a real human heart, with +Divine love in it, beats with the same glow under all, the patterns of +all earth's thousand tribes! + +The Doctor sighed, and folded the sermon, and laid the Quarto Cruden on +it. He rose from his desk, and, looking once more at the young girl's +face, forgot his logical conclusions, and said to himself that she was a +little angel,--which was in violent contradiction to the leading doctrine +of his sermon on Human Nature. And so he followed her out of the study +into the wide entry of the old-fashioned country-house. + +An old black woman sat on the plain oaken settle which humble visitors +waiting to see the minister were wont to occupy. She was old, but how +old it would be very hard to guess. She might be seventy. She might be +ninety. One could not swear she was not a hundred. Black women remain +at a stationary age (to the eyes of white people, at least) for thirty +years. They do not appear to change during this period any more than so +many Trenton trilobites. Bent up, wrinkled, yellow-eyed, with long +upper-lip, projecting jaws, retreating chin, still meek features, long +arms, large flat hands with uncolored palms and slightly webbed fingers, +it was impossible not to see in this old creature a hint of the +gradations by which life climbs up through the lower natures to the +highest human developments. We cannot tell such old women's ages because +we do not understand the physiognomy of a race so unlike our own. No +doubt they see a great deal in each other's faces that we +cannot,--changes of color and expression as real as our own, blushes and +sudden betrayals of feeling,--just as these two canaries know what their +single notes and short sentences and full song with this or that +variation mean, though it is a mystery to us unplumed mortals. + +This particular old black woman was a striking specimen of her class. Old +as she looked, her eye was bright and knowing. She wore a red-and-yellow +turban, which set off her complexion well, and hoops of gold in her ears, +and beads of gold about her neck, and an old funeral ring upon her +finger. She had that touching stillness about her which belongs to +animals that wait to be spoken to and then look up with a kind of sad +humility. + +"Why, Sophy!" said the good minister, "is this you?" + +She looked up with the still expression on her face. "It's ol' Sophy," +she said. + +"Why," said the Doctor, "I did not believe you could walk so far as this +to save the Union. Bring Sophy a glass of wine, Letty. Wine's good for +old folks like Sophy and me, after walking a good way, or preaching a +good while." + +The young girl stepped into the back-parlor, where she found the great +pewter flagon in which the wine that was left after each +communion-service was brought to the minister's house. With much toil +she managed to tip it so as to get a couple of glasses filled. The +minister tasted his, and made old Sophy finish hers. + +"I wan' to see you 'n' talk wi' you all alone," she said presently. + +The minister got up and led the way towards his study. "To be sure," he +said; he had only waited for her to rest a moment before he asked her +into the library. The young girl took her gently by the arm, and helped +her feeble steps along the passage. When they reached the study, she +smoothed the cushion of a rocking-chair, and made the old woman sit down +in it. Then she tripped lightly away, and left her alone with the +minister. + +Old Sophy was a member of the Reverend Doctor Honeywood's church. She had +been put through the necessary confessions in a tolerably satisfactory +manner. To be sure, as her grandfather had been a cannibal chief, +according to the common story, and, at any rate, a terrible wild savage, +and as her mother retained to the last some of the prejudices of her +early education, there was a heathen flavor in her Christianity which had +often scandalized the elder of the minister's two deacons. But, the good +minister had smoothed matters over: had explained that allowances were to +be made for those who had been long sitting without the gate of +Zion,--that, no doubt, a part of the curse which descended to the +children of Ham consisted in "having the understanding darkened," as well +as the skin,--and so had brought his suspicious senior deacon to tolerate +old Sophy as one of the communion of fellow-sinners. + +--Poor things! How little we know the simple notions with which these +rudiments of souls are nourished by the Divine Goodness! Did not Mrs. +Professor come home this very blessed morning with a story of one of her +old black women? + +"And how do you feel to-day, Mrs. Robinson?" + +"Oh, my dear, I have this singing in my head all the time." (What +doctors call tinnitus aurium.) + +"She 's got a cold in the head," said old Mrs. Rider. + +"Oh, no, my dear! Whatever I'm thinking about, it's all this singing, +this music. When I'm thinking of the dear Redeemer, it all turns into +this singing and music. When the clark came to see me, I asked him if he +couldn't cure me, and he said, No,--it was the Holy Spirit in me, singing +to me; and all the time I hear this beautiful music, and it's the Holy +Spirit a-singing to me." + +The good man waited for Sophy to speak; but she did not open her lips as +yet. + +"I hope you are not troubled in mind or body," he said to her at length, +finding she did not speak. + +The poor old woman took out a white handkerchief, and lifted it--to her +black face. She could not say a word for her tears and sobs. + +The minister would have consoled her; he was used to tears, and could in +most cases withstand their contagion manfully; but something choked his +voice suddenly, and when he called upon it, he got no answer, but a +tremulous movement of the muscles, which was worse than silence. + +At last she spoke. + +"Oh, no, no, no! It's my poor girl, my darling, my beauty, my baby, that +'s grown up to be a woman; she will come to a bad end; she will do +something that will make them kill her or shut her up all her life. Or, +Doctor, Doctor, save her, pray for her! It a'n't her fault. It a'n't +her fault. If they knew all that I know, they would n' blame that poor +child. I must tell you, Doctor: if I should die, perhaps nobody else +would tell you. Massa Veneer can't talk about it. Doctor Kittredge +won't talk about it. Nobody but old Sophy to tell you, Doctor; and old +Sophy can't die without telling you." + +The kind minister soothed the poor old soul with those gentle, quieting +tones which had carried peace and comfort to so many chambers of sickness +and sorrow, to so many hearts overburdened by the trials laid upon them. + +Old Sophy became quiet in a few minutes, and proceeded to tell her story. +She told it in the low half-whisper which is the natural voice of lips +oppressed wish grief and fears; with quick glances around the apartment +from time to time, as if she dreaded lest the dim portraits on the walls +and the dark folios on the shelves might overhear her words. + +It was not one of those conversations which a third person can report +minutely, unless by that miracle of clairvoyance known to the readers of +stories made out of authors' brains. Yet its main character can be +imparted in a much briefer space than the old black woman took to give +all its details. + +She went far back to the time when Dudley Venner was born,--she being +then a middle-aged woman. The heir and hope of a family which had been +narrowing down as if doomed to extinction, he had been surrounded with +every care and trained by the best education he could have in New +England. He had left college, and was studying the profession which +gentlemen of leisure most affect, when he fell in love with a young girl +left in the world almost alone, as he was. The old woman told the story +of his young love and his joyous bridal with a tenderness which had +something more, even, than her family sympathies to account for it. Had +she not hanging over her bed a paper-cutting of a profile,--jet black, +but not blacker than the face it represented--of one who would have been +her own husband in the small years of this century, if the vessel in +which he went to sea, like Jamie in the ballad, had not sailed away and +never come back to land? Had she not her bits of furniture stowed away +which had been got ready for her own wedding,--two rocking-chairs, one +worn with long use, one kept for him so long that it had grown a +superstition with her never to sit in it,--and might he not come back +yet, after all? Had she not her chest of linen ready for her humble +house-keeping with store of serviceable huckaback and piles of neatly +folded kerchiefs, wherefrom this one that showed so white against her +black face was taken, for that she knew her eyes would betray her in "the +presence"? + +All the first part of the story the old woman told tenderly, and yet +dwelling upon every incident with a loving pleasure. How happy this +young couple had been, what plans and projects of improvement they had +formed, how they lived in each other, always together, so young and fresh +and beautiful as she remembered them in that one early summer when they +walked arm in arm through the wilderness of roses that ran riot in the +garden,--she told of this as loath to leave it and come to the woe that +lay beneath. + +She told the whole story;-shall I repeat it? Not now. If, in the course +of relating the incidents I have undertaken to report, it tells itself, +perhaps this will be better than to run the risk of producing a painful +impression on some of those susceptible readers whom it would be +ill-advised to disturb or excite, when they rather require to be amused +and soothed. In our pictures of life, we must show the flowering-out of +terrible growths which have their roots deep, deep underground. Just how +far we shall lay bare the unseemly roots themselves is a matter of +discretion and taste, and which none of us are infallible. + +The old woman told the whole story of Elsie, of her birth, of her +peculiarities of person and disposition, of the passionate fears and +hopes with which her father had watched the course of her development. +She recounted all her strange ways, from the hour when she first tried to +crawl across the carpet, and her father's look as she worked her way +towards him. With the memory of Juliet's nurse she told the story of her +teething, and how, the woman to whose breast she had clung dying suddenly +about that time, they had to struggle hard with the child before she +would learn the accomplishment of feeding with a spoon. And so of her +fierce plays and fiercer disputes with that boy who had been her +companion, and the whole scene of the quarrel when she struck him with +those sharp white teeth, frightening her, old Sophy, almost to death; +for, as she said, the boy would have died, if it hadn't been for the old +Doctor's galloping over as fast as he could gallop and burning the places +right out of his arm. Then came the story of that other incident, +sufficiently alluded to already, which had produced such an ecstasy of +fright and left such a nightmare of apprehension in the household. And so +the old woman came down to this present time. That boy she never loved +nor trusted was grown to a dark, dangerous-looking man, and he was under +their roof. He wanted to marry our poor Elsie, and Elsie hated him, and +sometimes she would look at him over her shoulder just as she used to +look at that woman she hated; and she, old Sophy, couldn't sleep for +thinking she should hear a scream from the white chamber some night and +find him in spasms such as that woman came so near dying with. And then +there was something about Elsie she did not know what to make of: she +would sit and hang her head sometimes, and look as if she were dreaming; +and she brought home books they said a young gentleman up at the great +school lent her; and once she heard her whisper in her sleep, and she +talked as young girls do to themselves when they're thinking about +somebody they have a liking for and think nobody knows it. + +She finished her long story at last. The minister had listened to it in +perfect silence. He sat still even when she had done speaking,--still, +and lost in thought. It was a very awkward matter for him to have a hand +in. Old Sophy was his parishioner, but the Veneers had a pew in the +Reverend Mr. Fairweather's meeting-house. It would seem that he, Mr. +Fairweather, was the natural adviser of the parties most interested. Had +he sense and spirit enough to deal with such people? Was there enough +capital of humanity in his somewhat limited nature to furnish sympathy +and unshrinking service for his friends in an emergency? or was he too +busy with his own attacks of spiritual neuralgia, and too much occupied +with taking account of stock of his own thin-blooded offences, to forget +himself and his personal interests on the small scale and the large, and +run a risk of his life, if need were, at any rate give himself up without +reserve to the dangerous task of guiding and counselling these distressed +and imperilled fellow-creatures? + +The good minister thought the best thing to do would be to call and talk +over some of these matters with Brother Fairweather,--for so he would +call him at times, especially if his senior deacon were not within +earshot. Having settled this point, he comforted Sophy with a few words +of counsel and a promise of coming to see her very soon. He then called +his man to put the old white horse into the chaise and drive Sophy back +to the mansion-house. + +When the Doctor sat down to his sermon again, it looked very differently +from the way it had looked at the moment he left it. When he came to +think of it, he did not feel quite so sure practically about that matter +of the utter natural selfishness of everybody. There was Letty, now, +seemed to take a very unselfish interest in that old black woman, and +indeed in poor people generally; perhaps it would not be too much to say +that she was always thinking of other people. He thought he had seen +other young persons naturally unselfish, thoughtful for others; it seemed +to be a family trait in some he had known. + +But most of all he was exercised about this poor girl whose story Sophy +had been telling. If what the old woman believed was true,--and it had +too much semblance of probability,--what became of his theory of +ingrained moral obliquity applied to such a case? If by the visitation +of God a person receives any injury which impairs the intellect or the +moral perceptions, is it not monstrous to judge such a person by our +common working standards of right and wrong? Certainly, everybody will +answer, in cases where there is a palpable organic change brought about, +as when a blow on the head produces insanity. Fools! How long will it +be before we shall learn that for every wound which betrays itself to the +sight by a scar, there are a thousand unseen mutilations that cripple, +each of them, some one or more of our highest faculties? If what Sophy +told and believed was the real truth, what prayers could be agonizing +enough, what tenderness could be deep enough, for this poor, lost, +blighted, hapless, blameless child of misfortune, struck by such a doom +as perhaps no living creature in all the sisterhood of humanity shared +with her? + +The minister thought these matters over until his mind was bewildered +with doubts and tossed to and fro on that stormy deep of thought heaving +forever beneath the conflict of windy dogmas. He laid by his old sermon. +He put back a pile of old commentators with their eyes and mouths and +hearts full of the dust of the schools. Then he opened the book of +Genesis at the eighteenth chapter and read that remarkable argument of +Abraham's with his Maker in which he boldly appeals to first principles. +He took as his text, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" and +began to write his sermon, afterwards so famous, "On the Obligations of +an Infinite Creator to a Finite Creature." + +It astonished the good people, who had been accustomed so long to repeat +mechanically their Oriental hyperboles of self-abasement, to hear their +worthy minister maintaining that the dignified attitude of the old +Patriarch, insisting on what was reasonable and fair with reference to +his fellow-creatures, was really much more respectful to his Maker, and a +great deal manlier and more to his credit, than if he had yielded the +whole matter, and pretended that men had not rights as well as duties. +The same logic which had carried him to certain conclusions with +reference to human nature, this same irresistible logic carried him +straight on from his text until he arrived at those other results, which +not only astonished his people, as was said, but surprised himself. He +went so far in defence of the rights of man, that he put his foot into +several heresies, for which men had been burned so often, it was time, if +ever it could be, to acknowledge the demonstration of the argumentum ad +ignem. He did not believe in the responsibility of idiots. He did not +believe a new-born infant was morally answerable for other people's acts. +He thought a man with a crooked spine would never be called to account +for not walking erect. He thought if the crook was in his brain, instead +of his back, he could not fairly be blamed for any consequence of this +natural defect, whatever lawyers or divines might call it. He argued, +that, if a person inherited a perfect mind, body, and disposition, and +had perfect teaching from infancy, that person could do nothing more than +keep the moral law perfectly. But supposing that the Creator allows a +person to be born with an hereditary or ingrafted organic tendency, and +then puts this person into the hands of teachers incompetent or +positively bad, is not what is called sin or transgression of the law +necessarily involved in the premises? Is not a Creator bound to guard +his children against the ruin which inherited ignorance might entail on +them? Would it be fair for a parent to put into a child's hands the +title-deeds to all its future possessions, and a bunch of matches? And +are not men children, nay, babes, in the eye of Omniscience?--The +minister grew bold in his questions. Had not he as good right to ask +questions as Abraham? + +This was the dangerous vein of speculation in which the Reverend Doctor +Honeywood found himself involved, as a consequence of the suggestions +forced upon him by old Sophy's communication. The truth was, the good +man had got so humanized by mixing up with other people in various +benevolent schemes, that, the very moment he could escape from his old +scholastic abstractions, he took the side of humanity instinctively, just +as the Father of the Faithful did,--all honor be to the noble old +Patriarch for insisting on the worth of an honest man, and making the +best terms he could for a very ill-conditioned metropolis, which might +possibly, however, have contained ten righteous people, for whose sake it +should be spared! + +The consequence of all this was, that he was in a singular and seemingly +self-contradictory state of mind when he took his hat and cane and went +forth to call on his heretical brother. The old minister took it for +granted that the Reverend Mr. Fairweather knew the private history of his +parishioner's family. He did not reflect that there are griefs men never +put into words,--that there are fears which must not be spoken,--intimate +matters of consciousness which must be carried, as bullets which have +been driven deep into the living tissues are sometimes carried, for a +whole lifetime,--encysted griefs, if we may borrow the chirurgeon's term, +never to be reached, never to be seen, never to be thrown out, but to go +into the dust with the frame that bore them about with it, during long +years of anguish, known only to the sufferer and his Maker. Dudley +Venner had talked with his minister about this child of his. But he had +talked cautiously, feeling his way for sympathy, looking out for those +indications of tact and judgment which would warrant him in some partial +communication, at least, of the origin of his doubts and fears, and never +finding them. + +There was something about the Reverend Mr. Fairweather which repressed +all attempts at confidential intercourse. What this something was, +Dudley Venner could hardly say; but he felt it distinctly, and it sealed +his lips. He never got beyond certain generalities connected with +education and religious instruction. The minister could not help +discovering, however, that there were difficulties connected with this +girl's management, and he heard enough outside of the family to convince +him that she had manifested tendencies, from an early age, at variance +with the theoretical opinions he was in the habit of preaching, and in a +dim way of holding for truth, as to the natural dispositions of the human +being. + +About this terrible fact of congenital obliquity his new beliefs began to +cluster as a centre, and to take form as a crystal around its nucleus. +Still, he might perhaps have struggled against them, had it not been for +the little Roman Catholic chapel he passed every Sunday, on his way to +the meeting-house. Such a crowd of worshippers, swarming into the pews +like bees, filling all the aisles, running over at the door like berries +heaped too full in the measure,--some kneeling on the steps, some +standing on the sidewalk, hats off, heads down, lips moving, some looking +on devoutly from the other side of the street! Oh, could he have +followed his own Bridget, maid of all work, into the heart of that +steaming throng, and bowed his head while the priests intoned their Latin +prayers! could he have snuffed up the cloud of frankincense, and felt +that he was in the great ark which holds the better half of the Christian +world, while all around it are wretched creatures, some struggling +against the waves in leaky boats, and some on ill-connected rafts, and +some with their heads just above water, thinking to ride out the flood +which is to sweep the earth clean of sinners, upon their own private, +individual life-preservers! + +Such was the present state of mind of the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, +when his clerical brother called upon him to talk over the questions to +which old Sophy had called his attention. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE REVEREND DOCTOR CALLS ON BROTHER FAIRWEATHER. + +For the last few months, while all these various matters were going on in +Rockland, the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had been busy with the records +of ancient councils and the writings of the early fathers. The more he +read, the more discontented he became with the platform upon which he and +his people were standing. They and he were clearly in a minority, and +his deep inward longing to be with the majority was growing into an +engrossing passion. He yearned especially towards the good old +unquestioning, authoritative Mother Church, with her articles of faith +which took away the necessity for private judgment, with her traditional +forms and ceremonies, and her whole apparatus of stimulants and anodynes. + +About this time he procured a breviary and kept it in his desk under the +loose papers. He sent to a Catholic bookstore and obtained a small +crucifix suspended from a string of beads. He ordered his new coat to be +cut very narrow in the collar and to be made single-breasted. He began +an informal series of religious conversations with Miss O'Brien, the +young person of Irish extraction already referred to as Bridget, maid of +all work. These not proving very satisfactory, he managed to fall in +with Father McShane, the Catholic priest of the Rockland church. + +Father McShane encouraged his nibble very scientifically. It would be +such a fine thing to bring over one of those Protestant heretics, and a +"liberal" one too!--not that there was any real difference between them, +but it sounded better, to say that one of these rationalizing +free-and-equal religionists had been made a convert than any of those +half-way Protestants who were the slaves of catechisms instead of +councils, and of commentators instead of popes. The subtle priest played +his disciple with his finest tackle. It was hardly necessary: when +anything or anybody wishes to be caught, a bare hook and a coarse line +are all that is needed. + +If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty, +if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him. And +the temptation is to some natures a very great one. Liberty is often a +heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity for perpetual choice +which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. In common life we +shirk it by forming habits, which take the place of self-determination. +In politics party-organization saves us the pains of much thinking before +deciding how to cast our vote. In religious matters there are great +multitudes watching us perpetually, each propagandist ready with his +bundle of finalities, which having accepted we may be at peace. The more +absolute the submission demanded, the stronger the temptation becomes to +those who have been long tossed among doubts and conflicts. + +So it is that in all the quiet bays which indent the shores of the great +ocean of thought, at every sinking wharf, we see moored the hulks and the +razees of enslaved or half-enslaved intelligences. They rock peacefully +as children in their cradles on the subdued swell which comes feebly in +over the bar at the harbor's mouth, slowly crusting with barnacles, +pulling at their iron cables as if they really wanted to be free; but +better contented to remain bound as they are. For these no more the +round unwalled horizon of the open sea, the joyous breeze aloft, the +furrow, the foam, the sparkle, that track the rushing keel! They have +escaped the dangers of the wave, and lie still henceforth, evermore. +Happiest of souls, if lethargy is bliss, and palsy the chief beatitude! + +America owes its political freedom to religious Protestantism. But +political freedom is reacting on religious prescription with still +mightier force. We wonder, therefore, when we find a soul which was born +to a full sense of individual liberty, an unchallenged right of +self-determination on every new alleged truth offered to its +intelligence, voluntarily surrendering any portion of its liberty to a +spiritual dictatorship which always proves to rest, in the last analysis, +on a majority vote, nothing more nor less, commonly an old one, passed in +those barbarous times when men cursed and murdered each other for +differences of opinion, and of course were not in a condition to settle +the beliefs of a comparatively civilized community. + +In our disgust, we are liable to be intolerant. We forget that weakness +is not in itself a sin. We forget that even cowardice may call for our +most lenient judgment, if it spring from innate infirmity, Who of us does +not look with great tenderness on the young chieftain in the "Fair Maid +of Perth," when he confesses his want of courage? All of us love +companionship and sympathy; some of us may love them too much. All of us +are more or less imaginative in our theology. + +Some of us may find the aid of material symbols a comfort, if not a +necessity. The boldest thinker may have his moments of languor and +discouragement, when he feels as if he could willingly exchange faiths +with the old beldame crossing herself at the cathedral-door,--nay, that, +if he could drop all coherent thought, and lie in the flowery meadow with +the brown-eyed solemnly unthinking cattle, looking up to the sky, and all +their simple consciousness staining itself blue, then down to the grass, +and life turning to a mere greenness, blended with confused scents of +herbs,--no individual mind-movement such as men are teased with, but the +great calm cattle-sense of all time and all places that know the milky +smell of herds,--if he could be like these, he would be content to be +driven home by the cow-boy, and share the grassy banquet of the king of +ancient Babylon. Let us be very generous, then, in our judgment of those +who leave the front ranks of thought for the company of the meek +non-combatants who follow with the baggage and provisions. Age, illness, +too much wear and tear, a half-formed paralysis, may bring any of us to +this pass. But while we can think and maintain the rights of our own +individuality against every human combination, let us not forget to +caution all who are disposed to waver that there is a cowardice which is +criminal, and a longing for rest which it is baseness to indulge. God +help him, over whose dead soul in his living body must be uttered the sad +supplication, Requiescat in pace! + +A knock at the Reverend Mr. Fairweather's study door called his eyes from +the book on which they were intent. He looked up, as if expecting a +welcome guest. + +The Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D. D., entered the study of the +Reverend Chauncy Fairweather. He was not the expected guest. Mr. +Fairweather slipped the book he was reading into a half-open drawer, and +pushed in the drawer. He slid something which rattled under a paper +lying on the table. He rose with a slight change of color, and welcomed, +a little awkwardly, his unusual visitor. + +"Good-evening, Brother Fairweather!" said the Reverend Doctor, in a very +cordial, good-humored way. "I hope I am not spoiling one of those +eloquent sermons I never have a chance to hear." + +"Not at all, not at all," the younger clergyman answered, in a languid +tone, with a kind of habitual half-querulousness which belonged to +it,--the vocal expression which we meet with now and then, and which says +as plainly as so many words could say it, "I am a suffering individual. +I am persistently undervalued, wronged, and imposed upon by mankind and +the powers of the universe generally. But I endure all. I endure you. +Speak. I listen. It is a burden to me, but I even approve. I sacrifice +myself. Behold this movement of my lips! It is a smile." + +The Reverend Doctor knew this forlorn way of Mr. Fairweather's, and was +not troubled by it. He proceeded to relate the circumstances of his +visit from the old black woman, and the fear she was in about the young +girl, who being a parishioner of Mr. Fairweather's, he had thought it +best to come over and speak to him about old Sophy's fears and fancies. + +In telling the old woman's story, he alluded only vaguely to those +peculiar circumstances to which she had attributed so much importance, +taking it for granted that the other minister must be familiar with the +whole series of incidents she had related. The old minister was +mistaken, as we have before seen. Mr. Fairweather had been settled in +the place only about ten years, and, if he had heard a strange hint now +and then about Elsie, had never considered it as anything more than idle +and ignorant, if not malicious, village-gossip. All that he fully +understood was that this had been a perverse and unmanageable child, and +that the extraordinary care which had been bestowed on her had been so +far thrown away that she was a dangerous, self-willed girl, whom all +feared and almost all shunned, as if she carried with her some malignant +influence. + +He replied, therefore, after hearing the story, that Elsie had always +given trouble. There seemed to be a kind of natural obliquity about her. +Perfectly unaccountable. A very dark case. Never amenable to good +influences. Had sent her good books from the Sunday-school library. +Remembered that she tore out the frontispiece of one of them, and kept +it, and flung the book out of the window. It was a picture of Eve's +temptation; and he recollected her saying that Eve was a good woman,--and +she'd have done just so, if she'd been there. A very sad child, very sad; +bad from infancy. He had talked himself bold, and said all at once, +"Doctor, do you know I am almost ready to accept your doctrine of the +congenital sinfulness of human nature? I am afraid that is the only thing +which goes to the bottom of the difficulty." + +The old minister's face did not open so approvingly as Mr. Fairweather +had expected. + +"Why, yes,--well,--many find comfort in it,--I believe;--there is much to +be said,--there are many bad people,--and bad children,--I can't be so +sure about bad babies,--though they cry very malignantly at +times,--especially if they have the stomach-ache. But I really don't know +how to condemn this poor Elsie; she may have impulses that act in her +like instincts in the lower animals, and so not come under the bearing of +our ordinary rules of judgment." + +"But this depraved tendency, Doctor,--this unaccountable perverseness. +My dear Sir, I am afraid your school is in the right about human nature. +Oh, those words of the Psalmist, 'shapen in iniquity,' and the rest! +What are we to do with them,--we who teach that the soul of a child is an +unstained white tablet?" + +"King David was very subject to fits of humility, and much given to +self-reproaches," said the Doctor, in a rather dry way. "We owe you and +your friends a good deal for calling attention to the natural graces, +which, after all, may, perhaps, be considered as another form of +manifestation of the divine influence. Some of our writers have pressed +rather too hard on the tendencies of the human soul toward evil as such. +It maybe questioned whether these views have not interfered with the +sound training of certain young persons, sons of clergymen and others. I +am nearer of your mind about the possibility of educating children so +that they shall become good Christians without any violent transition. +That is what I should hope for from bringing them up 'in the nurture and +admonition of the Lord.'" + +The younger minister looked puzzled, but presently answered, "Possibly we +may have called attention to some neglected truths; but, after all, I +fear we must go to the old school, if we want to get at the root of the +matter. I know there is an outward amiability about many young persons, +some young girls especially, that seems like genuine goodness; but I have +been disposed of late to lean toward your view, that these human +affections, as we see them in our children,--ours, I say, though I have +not the fearful responsibility of training any of my own,--are only a +kind of disguised and sinful selfishness." + +The old minister groaned in spirit. His heart had been softened by the +sweet influences of children and grandchildren. He thought of a +half-sized grave in the burial-ground, and the fine, brave, noble-hearted +boy he laid in it thirty years before,--the sweet, cheerful child who had +made his home all sunshine until the day when he was brought into it, his +long curls dripping, his fresh lips purpled in death,--foolish dear +little blessed creature to throw himself into the deep water to save the +drowning boy, who clung about him and carried him under! Disguised +selfishness! And his granddaughter too, whose disguised selfishness was +the light of his household! + +"Don't call it my view!" he said. "Abstractly, perhaps, all natures may +be considered vitiated; but practically, as I see it in life, the divine +grace keeps pace with the perverted instincts from infancy in many +natures. Besides, this perversion itself may often be disease, bad +habits transmitted, like drunkenness, or some hereditary misfortune, as +with this Elsie we were talking about." + +The younger minister was completely mystified. At every step he made +towards the Doctor's recognized theological position, the Doctor took +just one step towards his. They would cross each other soon at this +rate, and might as well exchange pulpits,--as Colonel Sprowle once wished +they would, it may be remembered. + +The Doctor, though a much clearer-headed man, was almost equally puzzled. +He turned the conversation again upon Elsie, and endeavored to make her +minister feel the importance of bringing every friendly influence to bear +upon her at this critical period of her life. His sympathies did not +seem so lively as the Doctor could have wished. Perhaps he had vastly +more important objects of solicitude in his own spiritual interests. + +A knock at the door interrupted them. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather rose +and went towards it. As he passed the table, his coat caught something, +which came rattling to the floor. It was a crucifix with a string of +beads attached. As he opened the door, the Milesian features of Father +McShane presented themselves, and from their centre proceeded the +clerical benediction in Irish-sounding Latin, Pax vobiscum! + +The Reverend Doctor Honeywood rose and left the priest and his disciple +together. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD. + +There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsie, except her father, who had +learned to let her have her own way so as not to disturb such relations +as they had together, and the old black woman, who had a real, though +limited influence over the girl. Perhaps she did not need counsel. To +look upon her, one might well suppose that she was competent to defend +herself against any enemy she was like to have. That glittering, piercing +eye was not to be softened by a few smooth words spoken in low tones, +charged with the common sentiments which win their way to maidens' +hearts. That round, lithe, sinuous figure was as full of dangerous life +as ever lay under the slender flanks and clean-shaped limbs of a panther. + +There were particular times when Elsie was in such a mood that it must +have been a bold person who would have intruded upon her with reproof or +counsel. "This is one of her days," old Sophy would say quietly to her +father, and he would, as far as possible, leave her to herself. These +days were more frequent, as old Sophy's keen, concentrated watchfulness +had taught her, at certain periods of the year. It was in the heats of +summer that they were most common and most strongly characterized. In +winter, on the other hand, she was less excitable, and even at times +heavy and as if chilled and dulled in her sensibilities. It was a +strange, paroxysmal kind of life that belonged to her. It seemed to come +and go with the sunlight. All winter long she would be comparatively +quiet, easy to manage, listless, slow in her motions; her eye would lose +something of its strange lustre; and the old nurse would feel so little +anxiety, that her whole expression and aspect would show the change, and +people would say to her, "Why, Sophy, how young you're looking!" + +As the spring came on, Elsie would leave the fireside, have her +tiger-skin spread in the empty southern chamber next the wall, and lie +there basking for whole hours in the sunshine. As the season warmed, the +light would kindle afresh in her eyes, and the old woman's sleep would +grow restless again,--for she knew, that, so long as the glitter was +fierce in the girl's eyes, there was no trusting her impulses or +movements. + +At last, when the veins of the summer were hot and swollen, and the +juices of all the poison-plants and the blood of all the creatures that +feed upon them had grown thick and strong,--about the time when the +second mowing was in hand, and the brown, wet-faced men were following up +the scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass, (falling as the +waves fall on sickle-curved beaches; the foam-flowers dropping as the +grass-flowers drop,--with sharp semivowel consonantal sounds,--frsh,--for +that is the way the sea talks, and leaves all pure vowel-sounds for the +winds to breathe over it, and all mutes to the unyielding earth,)--about +this time of over-ripe midsummer, the life of Elsie seemed fullest of its +malign and restless instincts. This was the period of the year when the +Rockland people were most cautious of wandering in the leafier coverts +which skirted the base of The Mountain, and the farmers liked to wear +thick, long boots, whenever they went into the bushes. But Elsie was +never so much given to roaming over The Mountain as at this season; and +as she had grown more absolute and uncontrollable, she was as like to +take the night as the day for her rambles. + +At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in dress and ornament came +out in a more striking way than at other times. She was never so superb +as then, and never so threatening in her scowling beauty. The barred +skirts she always fancied showed sharply beneath her diaphanous muslins; +the diamonds often glittered on her breast as if for her own pleasure +rather than to dazzle others; the asp-like bracelet hardly left her arm. +She was never seen without some necklace,--either the golden cord she +wore at the great party, or a chain of mosaics, or simply a ring of +golden scales. Some said that Elsie always slept in a necklace, and that +when she died she was to be buried in one. It was a fancy of hers,--but +many thought there was a reason for it. + +Nobody watched Elsie with a more searching eye than her cousin, Dick +Venner. He had kept more out of her way of late, it is true, but there +was not a movement she made which he did not carefully observe just so +far as he could without exciting her suspicion. It was plain enough to +him that the road to fortune was before him, and that the first thing was +to marry Elsie. What course he should take with her, or with others +interested, after marrying her, need not be decided in a hurry. + +He had now done all he could expect to do at present in the way of +conciliating the other members of the household. The girl's father +tolerated him, if he did not even like him. Whether he suspected his +project or not Dick did not feel sure; but it was something to have got a +foothold in the house, and to have overcome any prepossession against him +which his uncle might have entertained. To be a good listener and a bad +billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice to effect this object. +Then old Sophy could hardly help feeling well-disposed towards him, after +the gifts he had bestowed on her and the court he had paid her. These +were the only persons on the place of much importance to gain over. The +people employed about the house and farm-lands had little to do with +Elsie, except to obey her without questioning her commands. + +Mr. Richard began to think of reopening his second parallel. But he had +lost something of the coolness with which he had begun his system of +operations. The more he had reflected upon the matter, the more he had +convinced himself that this was his one great chance in life. If he +suffered this girl to escape him, such an opportunity could hardly, in +the nature of things, present itself a second time. Only one life +between Elsie and her fortune,--and lives are so uncertain! The girl +might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to find out after +he had got her. In short, he must have the property, and Elsie Venner, +as she was to go with it,--and then, if he found it convenient and +agreeable to, lead a virtuous life, he would settle down and raise +children and vegetables; but if he found it inconvenient and +disagreeable, so much the worse for those who made it so. Like many +other persons, he was not principled against virtue, provided virtue were +a better investment than its opposite; but he knew that there might be +contingencies in which the property would be better without its +incumbrances, and he contemplated this conceivable problem in the light +of all its possible solutions. + +One thing Mr. Richard could not conceal from himself: Elsie had some new +cause of indifference, at least, if not of aversion to him. With the +acuteness which persons who make a sole business of their own interest +gain by practice, so that fortune-hunters are often shrewd where real +lovers are terribly simple, he fixed at once on the young man up at the +school where the girl had been going of late, as probably at the bottom +of it. + +"Cousin Elsie in love!" so he communed with himself upon his lonely +pillow. "In love with a Yankee schoolmaster! What else can it be? Let +him look out for himself! He'll stand but a bad chance between us. What +makes you think she's in love with him? Met her walking with him. Don't +like her looks and ways;--she's thinking about something, anyhow. Where +does she get those books she is reading so often? Not out of our +library, that 's certain. If I could have ten minutes' peep into her +chamber now, I would find out where she got them, and what mischief she +was up to." + +At that instant, as if some tributary demon had heard his wish, a shape +which could be none but Elsie's flitted through a gleam of moonlight into +the shadow of the trees. She was setting out on one of her midnight +rambles. + +Dick felt his heart stir in its place, and presently his cheeks flushed +with the old longing for an adventure. It was not much to invade a young +girl's deserted chamber, but it would amuse a wakeful hour, and tell him +some little matters he wanted to know. The chamber he slept in was over +the room which Elsie chiefly occupied at this season. There was no great +risk of his being seen or heard, if he ventured down-stairs to her +apartment. + +Mr. Richard Venner, in the pursuit of his interesting project, arose and +lighted a lamp. He wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust his +feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole carefully down the stair, +and arrived safely at the door of Elsie's room. + +The young lady had taken the natural precaution to leave it fastened, +carrying the key with her, no doubt,--unless; indeed, she had got out by +the window, which was not far from the ground. Dick could get in at this +window easily enough, but he did not like the idea of leaving his +footprints in the flower-bed just under it. He returned to his own +chamber, and held a council of war with himself. + +He put his head out of his own window and looked at that beneath. It was +open. He then went to one of his trunks, which he unlocked, and began +carefully removing its contents. What these were we need not stop to +mention,--only remarking that there were dresses of various patterns, +which might afford an agreeable series of changes, and in certain +contingencies prove eminently useful. After removing a few of these, he +thrust his hand to the very bottom of the remaining pile and drew out a +coiled strip of leather many yards in length, ending in a noose,--a +tough, well-seasoned lasso, looking as if it had seen service and was +none the worse for it. He uncoiled a few yards of this and fastened it +to the knob of a door. Then he threw the loose end out of the window so +that it should hang by the open casement of Elsie's room. By this he let +himself down opposite her window, and with a slight effort swung himself +inside the room. He lighted a match, found a candle, and, having lighted +that, looked curiously about him, as Clodius might have done when he +smuggled himself in among the Vestals. + +Elsie's room was almost as peculiar as her dress and ornaments. It was a +kind of museum of objects, such as the woods are full of to those who +have eyes to see them, but many of them such as only few could hope to +reach, even if they knew where to look for them. Crows' nests, which are +never found but in the tall trees, commonly enough in the forks of +ancient hemlocks, eggs of rare birds, which must have taken a quick eye +and a hard climb to find and get hold of, mosses and ferns of unusual +aspect, and quaint monstrosities of vegetable growth, such as Nature +delights in, showed that Elsie had her tastes and fancies like any +naturalist or poet. + +Nature, when left to her own freaks in the forest, is grotesque and +fanciful to the verge of license, and beyond it. The foliage of trees +does not always require clipping to make it look like an image of life. +From those windows at Canoe Meadow, among the mountains, we could see all +summer long a lion rampant, a Shanghai chicken, and General Jackson on +horseback, done by Nature in green leaves, each with a single tree. But +to Nature's tricks with boughs and roots and smaller vegetable growths +there is no end. Her fancy is infinite, and her humor not always +refined. There is a perpetual reminiscence of animal life in her rude +caricatures, which sometimes actually reach the point of imitating the +complete human figure, as in that extraordinary specimen which nobody +will believe to be genuine, except the men of science, and of which the +discreet reader may have a glimpse by application in the proper quarter. + +Elsie had gathered so many of these sculpture-like monstrosities, that +one might have thought she had robbed old Sophy's grandfather of his +fetishes. They helped to give her room a kind of enchanted look, as if a +witch had her home in it. Over the fireplace was a long, staff-like +branch, strangled in the spiral coils of one of those vines which strain +the smaller trees in their clinging embraces, sinking into the bark until +the parasite becomes almost identified with its support. With these +sylvan curiosities were blended objects of art, some of them not less +singular, but others showing a love for the beautiful in form and color, +such as a girl of fine organization and nice culture might naturally be +expected to feel and to indulge, in adorning her apartment. + +All these objects, pictures, bronzes, vases, and the rest, did not detain +Mr. Richard Veneer very long, whatever may have been his sensibilities to +art. He was more curious about books and papers. A copy of Keats lay on +the table. He opened it and read the name of Bernard C. Langdon on the +blank leaf. An envelope was on the table with Elsie's name written in a +similar hand; but the envelope was empty, and he could not find the note +it contained. Her desk was locked, and it would not be safe to tamper +with it. He had seen enough; the girl received books and notes from this +fellow up at the school, this usher, this Yankee quill-driver;--he was +aspiring to become the lord of the Dudley domain, then, was he? + +Elsie had been reasonably careful. She had locked up her papers, +whatever they might be. There was little else that promised to reward +his curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything. There was a +clasp-Bible among her books. Dick wondered if she ever unclasped it. +There was a book of hymns; it had her name in it, and looked as if it +might have been often read;--what the diablo had Elsie to do with hymns? + +Mr. Richard Venner was in an observing and analytical state of mind, it +will be noticed, or he might perhaps have been touched with the innocent +betrayals of the poor girl's chamber. Had she, after all, some human +tenderness in her heart? That was not the way he put the question,--but +whether she would take seriously to this schoolmaster, and if she did, +what would be the neatest and surest and quickest way of putting a stop +to all that nonsense. All this, however, he could think over more safely +in his own quarters. So he stole softly to the window, and, catching the +end of the leathern thong, regained his own chamber and drew in the +lasso. + +It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on who is doubtful in love +or wooing, or to make him take hold of his courting in earnest. As soon +as Dick had satisfied himself that the young schoolmaster was his rival +in Elsie's good graces, his whole thoughts concentrated themselves more +than ever on accomplishing his great design of securing her for himself. +There was no time to be lost. He must come into closer relations with +her, so as to withdraw her thoughts from this fellow, and to find out +more exactly what was the state of her affections, if she had any. So he +began to court her company again, to propose riding with her, to sing to +her, to join her whenever she was strolling about the grounds, to make +himself agreeable, according to the ordinary understanding of that +phrase, in every way which seemed to promise a chance for succeeding in +that amiable effort. + +The girl treated him more capriciously than ever. She would be sullen +and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless word or +gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in such a +strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick swore to +himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for the moment. +Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, and sometimes +seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her power upon him. This he +soon found out, and humored her in the fancy that she could exercise a +kind of fascination over him, though there were times in which he +actually felt an influence he could not understand, an effect of some +peculiar expression about her, perhaps, but still centring in those +diamond eyes of hers which it made one feel so curiously to look into. + +Whether Elsie saw into his object or not was more than he could tell. His +idea was, after having conciliated the good-will of all about her as far +as possible, to make himself first a habit and then a necessity with the +girl,--not to spring any trap of a declaration upon her until tolerance +had grown into such a degree of inclination as her nature was like to +admit. He had succeeded in the first part of his plan. He was at +liberty to prolong his visit at his own pleasure. This was not strange; +these three persons, Dudley Venner, his daughter, and his nephew, +represented all that remained of an old and honorable family. Had Elsie +been like other girls, her father might have been less willing to +entertain a young fellow like Dick as an inmate; but he had long outgrown +all the slighter apprehensions which he might have had in common with all +parents, and followed rather than led the imperious instincts of his +daughter. It was not a question of sentiment, but of life and death, or +more than that,--some dark ending, perhaps, which would close the +history of his race with disaster and evil report upon the lips of all +coming generations. + +As to the thought of his nephew's making love to his daughter, it had +almost passed from his mind. He had been so long in the habit of looking +at Elsie as outside of all common influences and exceptional in the law +of her nature, that it was difficult for him to think of her as a girl to +be fallen in love with. Many persons are surprised, when others court +their female relatives; they know them as good young or old women +enough,--aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters, whatever they may be,--but +never think of anybody's falling in love with them, any more than of +their being struck by lightning. But in this case there were special +reasons, in addition to the common family delusion,--reasons which seemed +to make it impossible that she should attract a suitor. Who would dare +to marry Elsie? No, let her have the pleasure, if it was one, at any +rate the wholesome excitement, of companionship; it might save her from +lapsing into melancholy or a worse form of madness. Dudley Venner had a +kind of superstition, too, that, if Elsie could only outlive three +septenaries, twenty-one years, so that, according to the prevalent idea, +her whole frame would have been thrice made over, counting from her +birth, she would revert to the natural standard of health of mind and +feelings from which she had been so long perverted. The thought of any +other motive than love being sufficient to induce Richard to become her +suitor had not occurred to him. He had married early, at that happy +period when interested motives are least apt to influence the choice; and +his single idea of marriage was, that it was the union of persons +naturally drawn towards each other by some mutual attraction. Very +simple, perhaps; but he had lived lonely for many years since his wife's +death, and judged the hearts of others, most of all of his brother's son, +by his own. He had often thought whether, in case of Elsie's dying or +being necessarily doomed to seclusion, he might not adopt this nephew and +make him his heir; but it had not occurred to him that Richard might wish +to become his son-in-law for the sake of his property. + +It is very easy to criticise other people's modes of dealing with their +children. Outside observers see results; parents see processes. They +notice the trivial movements and accents which betray the blood of this +or that ancestor; they can detect the irrepressible movement of +hereditary impulse in looks and acts which mean nothing to the common +observer. To be a parent is almost to be a fatalist. This boy sits with +legs crossed, just as his uncle used to whom he never saw; his +grandfathers both died before he was born, but he has the movement of the +eyebrows which we remember in one of them, and the gusty temper of three +different generations, can tell pretty nearly the range of possibilities +and the limitations of a child, actual or potential, of a given +stock,--errors excepted always, because children of the same stock are +not bred just alike, because the traits of some less known ancestor are +liable to break out at any time, and because each human being has, after +all, a small fraction of individuality about him which gives him a +flavor, so that he is distinguishable from others by his friends or in a +court of justice, and which occasionally makes a genius or a saint or a +criminal of him. It is well that young persons cannot read these fatal +oracles of Nature. Blind impulse is her highest wisdom, after all. We +make our great jump, and then she takes the bandage off our eyes. That +is the way the broad sea-level of average is maintained, and the +physiological democracy is enabled to fight against the principle of +selection which would disinherit all the weaker children. The +magnificent constituency of mediocrities of which the world is made +up,--the people without biographies, whose lives have made a clear +solution in the fluid menstruum of time, instead of being precipitated in +the opaque sediment of history-- + +But this is a narrative, and not a disquisition. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +FROM WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN. + +There were not wanting people who accused Dudley VENNER of weakness and +bad judgment in his treatment of his daughter. Some were of opinion that +the great mistake was in not "breaking her will" when she was a little +child. There was nothing the matter with her, they said, but that she +had been spoiled by indulgence. If they had had the charge of her, +they'd have brought her down. She'd got the upperhand of her father now; +but if he'd only taken hold of her in season! There are people who think +that everything may be done, if the doer, be he educator or physician, be +only called "in season." No doubt,--but in season would often be a +hundred or two years before the child was born; and people never send so +early as that. + +The father of Elsie Veneer knew his duties and his difficulties too well +to trouble himself about anything others might think or say. So soon as +he found that he could not govern his child, he gave his life up to +following her and protecting her as far as he could. It was a stern and +terrible trial for a man of acute sensibility, and not without force of +intellect and will, and the manly ambition for himself and his +family-name which belonged to his endowments and his position. Passive +endurance is the hardest trial to persons of such a nature. + +What made it still more a long martyrdom was the necessity for bearing +his cross in utter loneliness. He could not tell his griefs. He could +not talk of them even with those who knew their secret spring. His +minister had the unsympathetic nature which is common in the meaner sort +of devotees,--persons who mistake spiritual selfishness for sanctity, and +grab at the infinite prize of the great Future and Elsewhere with the +egotism they excommunicate in its hardly more odious forms of avarice and +self-indulgence. How could he speak with the old physician and the old +black woman about a sorrow and a terror which but to name was to strike +dumb the lips of Consolation? + +In the dawn of his manhood he had found that second consciousness for +which young men and young women go about looking into each other's faces, +with their sweet, artless aim playing in every feature, and making them +beautiful to each other, as to all of us. He had found his other self +early, before he had grown weary in the search and wasted his freshness +in vain longings: the lot of many, perhaps we may say of most, who +infringe the patent of our social order by intruding themselves into a +life already upon half allowance of the necessary luxuries of existence. +The life he had led for a brief space was not only beautiful in outward +circumstance, as old Sophy had described it to the Reverend Doctor. It +was that delicious process of the tuning of two souls to each other, +string by string, not without little half-pleasing discords now and then +when some chord in one or the other proves to be overstrained or +over-lax, but always approaching nearer and nearer to harmony, until they +become at last as two instruments with a single voice. Something more +than a year of this blissful doubled consciousness had passed over him +when he found himself once more alone,--alone, save for the little +diamond-eyed child lying in the old black woman's arms, with the coral +necklace round--her throat and the rattle in her hand. + +He would not die by his own act. It was not the way in his family. There +may have been other, perhaps better reasons, but this was enough; he did +not come of suicidal stock. He must live for this child's sake, at any +rate; and yet,--oh, yet, who could tell with what thoughts he looked upon +her? Sometimes her little features would look placid, and something like +a smile would steal over them; then all his tender feelings would rush +up, into his eyes, and he would put his arms out to take her from the old +woman,--but all at once her eyes would narrow and she would throw her +head back, and a shudder would seize him as he stooped over his +child,--he could not look upon her,--he could not touch his lips to her +cheek; nay, there would sometimes come into his soul such frightful +suggestions that he would hurry from the room lest the hinted thought +should become a momentary madness and he should lift his hand against the +hapless infant which owed him life. + +In those miserable days he used to wander all over The Mountain in his +restless endeavor to seek some relief for inward suffering in outward +action. He had no thought of throwing himself from the summit of any of +the broken cliffs, but he clambered over them recklessly, as having no +particular care for his life. Sometimes he would go into the accursed +district where the venomous reptiles were always to be dreaded, and court +their worst haunts, and kill all he could come near with a kind of blind +fury which was strange in a person of his gentle nature. + +One overhanging cliff was a favorite haunt of his. It frowned upon his +home beneath in a very menacing way; he noticed slight seams and fissures +that looked ominous;--what would happen, if it broke off some time or +other and came crashing down on the fields and roofs below? He thought +of such a possible catastrophe with a singular indifference, in fact with +a feeling almost like pleasure. It would be such a swift and thorough +solution of this great problem of life he was working out in +ever-recurring daily anguish! The remote possibility of such a +catastrophe had frightened some timid dwellers beneath The Mountain to +other places of residence; here the danger was most imminent, and yet he +loved to dwell upon the chances of its occurrence. Danger is often the +best counterirritant in cases of mental suffering; he found a solace in +careless exposure of his life, and learned to endure the trials of each +day better by dwelling in imagination on the possibility that it might be +the last for him and the home that was his. + +Time, the great consoler, helped these influences, and he gradually fell +into more easy and less dangerous habits of life. He ceased from his +more perilous rambles. He thought less of the danger from the great +overhanging rocks and forests; they had hung there for centuries; it was +not very likely they would crash or slide in his time. He became +accustomed to all Elsie's strange looks and ways. Old Sophy dressed her +with ruffles round her neck, and hunted up the red coral branch with +silver bells which the little toothless Dudleys had bitten upon for a +hundred years. By an infinite effort, her father forced himself to +become the companion of this child, for whom he had such a mingled +feeling, but whose presence was always a trial to him, and often a +terror. + +At a cost which no human being could estimate, he had done his duty, and +in some degree reaped his reward. Elsie grew up with a kind of filial +feeling for him, such as her nature was capable of. She never would obey +him; that was not to be looked for. Commands, threats, punishments, were +out of the question with her; the mere physical effects of crossing her +will betrayed themselves in such changes of expression and manner that it +would have been senseless to attempt to govern her in any such way. +Leaving her mainly to herself, she could be to some extent indirectly +influenced,--not otherwise. She called her father "Dudley," as if he had +been her brother. She ordered everybody and would be ordered by none. + +Who could know all these things, except the few people of the household? +What wonder, therefore, that ignorant and shallow persons laid the blame +on her father of those peculiarities which were freely talked about,--of +those darker tendencies which were hinted of in whispers? To all this +talk, so far as it reached him, he was supremely indifferent, not only +with the indifference which all gentlemen feel to the gossip of their +inferiors, but with a charitable calmness which did not wonder or blame. +He knew that his position was not simply a difficult, but an impossible +one, and schooled himself to bear his destiny as well as he might, and +report himself only at Headquarters. + +He had grown gentle under this discipline. His hair was just beginning +to be touched with silver, and his expression was that of habitual +sadness and anxiety. He had no counsellor, as we have seen, to turn to, +who did not know either too much or too little. He had no heart to rest +upon and into which he might unburden himself of the secrets and the +sorrows that were aching in his own breast. Yet he had not allowed +himself to run to waste in the long time since he was left alone to his +trials and fears. He had resisted the seductions which always beset +solitary men with restless brains overwrought by depressing agencies. He +disguised no misery to himself with the lying delusion of wine. He +sought no sleep from narcotics, though he lay with throbbing, wide-open +eyes through all the weary hours of the night. + +It was understood between Dudley Veneer and old Doctor Kittredge that +Elsie was a subject of occasional medical observation, on account of +certain mental peculiarities which might end in a permanent affection of +her reason. Beyond this nothing was said, whatever may have been in the +mind of either. But Dudley Veneer had studied Elsie's case in the light +of all the books he could find which might do anything towards explaining +it. As in all cases where men meddle with medical science for a special +purpose, having no previous acquaintance with it, his imagination found +what it wanted in the books he read, and adjusted it to the facts before +him. So it was he came to cherish those two fancies before alluded to +that the ominous birthmark she had carried from infancy might fade and +become obliterated, and that the age of complete maturity might be +signalized by an entire change in her physical and mental state. He held +these vague hopes as all of us nurse our only half-believed illusions. +Not for the world would he have questioned his sagacious old medical +friend as to the probability or possibility of their being true. We are +very shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy with one +word the hopes we live on. + +In this life of comparative seclusion to which the father had doomed +himself for the sake of his child, he had found time for large and varied +reading. The learned Judge Thornton confessed himself surprised at the +extent of Dudley Veneer's information. Doctor Kittredge found that he +was in advance of him in the knowledge of recent physiological +discoveries. He had taken pains to become acquainted with agricultural +chemistry; and the neighboring farmers owed him some useful hints about +the management of their land. He renewed his old acquaintance with the +classic authors. He loved to warm his pulses with Homer and calm them +down with Horace. He received all manner of new books and periodicals, +and gradually gained an interest in the events of the passing time. Yet +he remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing to see his +neighbors, nor even churlish towards them, but on the other hand not +cultivating any intimate relations with them. + +He had retired from the world a young man, little more than a youth, +indeed, with sentiments and aspirations all of them suddenly +extinguished. The first had bequeathed him a single huge sorrow, the +second a single trying duty. In due time the anguish had lost something +of its poignancy, the light of earlier and happier memories had begun to +struggle with and to soften its thick darkness, and even that duty which +he had confronted with such an effort had become an endurable habit. + +At a period of life when many have been living on the capital of their +acquired knowledge and their youthful stock of sensibilities until their +intellects are really shallower and their hearts emptier than they were +at twenty, Dudley Veneer was stronger in thought and tenderer in soul +than in the first freshness of his youth, when he counted but half his +present years. He had entered that period which marks the decline of men +who have ceased growing in knowledge and strength: from forty to fifty a +man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life +will carry him rapidly downward. At this time his inward: nature was +richer and deeper than in any earlier period of his life. If he could +only be summoned to action, he was capable of noble service. If his +sympathies could only find an outlet, he was never so capable of love as +now; for his natural affections had been gathering in the course of all +these years, and the traces of that ineffaceable calamity of his life +were softened and partially hidden by new growths of thought and feeling, +as the wreck left by a mountainslide is covered over by the gentle +intrusion of the soft-stemmed herbs which will prepare it for the +stronger vegetation that will bring it once more into harmony with the +peaceful slopes around it. + +Perhaps Dudley Veneer had not gained so much in worldly wisdom as if he +had been more in society and less in his study. The indulgence with +which he treated his nephew was, no doubt, imprudent. A man more in the +habit of dealing with men would have been more guarded with a person with +Dick's questionable story and unquestionable physiognomy. But he was +singularly unsuspicious, and his natural kindness was an additional +motive to the wish for introducing some variety into the routine of +Elsie's life. + +If Dudley Veneer did not know just what he wanted at this period of his +life, there were a great many people in the town of Rockland who thought +they did know. He had been a widower long enough, "--nigh twenty year, +wa'n't it? He'd been aout to Spraowles's party,--there wa'n't anything +to hender him why he shouldn't stir raound l'k other folks. What was the +reason he did n't go abaout to taown-meetin's 'n' Sahbath-meetin's, 'n' +lyceums, 'n' school 'xaminations, 'n' s'prise-parties, 'n' funerals,--and +other entertainments where the still-faced two-story folks were in the +habit of looking round to see if any of the mansion-house gentry were +present?--Fac' was, he was livin' too lonesome daown there at the +mansion-haouse. Why shouldn't he make up to the Jedge's daughter? She +was genteel enough for him, and--let's see, haow old was she? +Seven-'n'itwenty,--no, six-'n'-twenty,--born the same year we buried our +little Anny Marl". + +There was no possible objection to this arrangement, if the parties +interested had seen fit to make it or even to think of it. But "Portia," +as some of the mansion-house people called her, did not happen to awaken +the elective affinities of the lonely widower. He met her once in a +while, and said to himself that she was a good specimen of the grand +style of woman; and then the image came back to him of a woman not quite +so large, not quite so imperial in her port, not quite so incisive in her +speech, not quite so judicial in her opinions, but with two or three more +joints in her frame, and two or three soft inflections in her voice, +which for some absurd reason or other drew him to her side and so +bewitched him that he told her half his secrets and looked into her eyes +all that he could not tell, in less time than it would have takes him to +discuss the champion paper of the last Quarterly with the admirable +"Portia." Heu, quanto minus! How much more was that lost image to him +than all it left on earth! + +The study of love is very much like that of meteorology. We know that +just about so much rain will fall in a season; but on what particular day +it will shower is more than we can tell. We know that just about so much +love will be made every year in a given population; but who will rain his +young affections upon the heart of whom is not known except to the +astrologers and fortune-tellers. And why rain falls as it does and why +love is made just as it is are equally puzzling questions. + +The woman a man loves is always his own daughter, far more his daughter +than the female children born to him by the common law of life. It is +not the outside woman, who takes his name, that he loves: before her +image has reached the centre of his consciousness, it has passed through +fifty many-layered nerve-strainers, been churned over by ten thousand +pulse-beats, and reacted upon by millions of lateral impulses which bandy +it about through the mental spaces as a reflection is sent back and +forward in a saloon lined with mirrors. With this altered image of the +woman before him, his preexisting ideal becomes blended. The object of +his love is in part the offspring of her legal parents, but more of her +lover's brain. The difference between the real and the ideal objects of +love must not exceed a fixed maximum. The heart's vision cannot unite +them stereoscopically into a single image, if the divergence passes +certain limits. A formidable analogy, much in the nature of a proof, +with very serious consequences, which moralists and match-makers would do +well to remember! Double vision with the eyes of the heart is a +dangerous physiological state, and may lead to missteps and serious +falls. + +Whether Dudley Veneer would ever find a breathing image near enough to +his ideal one, to fill the desolate chamber of his heart, or not, was +very doubtful. Some gracious and gentle woman, whose influence would +steal upon him as the first low words of prayer after that interval of +silent mental supplication known to one of our simpler forms of public +worship, gliding into his consciousness without hurting its old griefs, +herself knowing the chastening of sorrow, and subdued into sweet +acquiescence with the Divine will,--some such woman as this, if Heaven +should send him such, might call him back to the world of happiness, from +which he seemed forever exiled. He could never again be the young lover +who walked through the garden-alleys all red with roses in the old dead +and buried June of long ago. He could never forget the bride of his +youth, whose image, growing phantomlike with the lapse of years, hovered +over him like a dream while waking and like a reality in dreams. But if +it might be in God's good providence that this desolate life should come +under the influence of human affections once more, what an ecstasy of +renewed existence was in store for him! His life had not all been buried +under that narrow ridge of turf with the white stone at its head. It +seemed so for a while; but it was not and could not and ought not to be +so. His first passion had been a true and pure one; there was no spot or +stain upon it. With all his grief there blended no cruel recollection of +any word or look he would have wished to forget. All those little +differences, such as young married people with any individual flavor in +their characters must have, if they are tolerably mated, had only added +to the music of existence, as the lesser discords admitted into some +perfect symphony, fitly resolved, add richness and strength to the whole +harmonious movement. It was a deep wound that Fate had inflicted on him; +nay, it seemed like a mortal one; but the weapon was clean, and its edge +was smooth. Such wounds must heal with time in healthy natures, whatever +a false sentiment may say, by the wise and beneficent law of our being. +The recollection of a deep and true affection is rather a divine +nourishment for a life to grow strong upon than a poison to destroy it. + +Dudley Venner's habitual sadness could not be laid wholly to his early +bereavement. It was partly the result of the long struggle between +natural affection and duty, on one side, and the involuntary tendencies +these had to overcome, on the other,--between hope and fear, so long in +conflict that despair itself would have been like an anodyne, and he +would have slept upon some final catastrophe with the heavy sleep of a +bankrupt after his failure is proclaimed. Alas! some new affection might +perhaps rekindle the fires of youth in his heart; but what power could +calm that haggard terror of the parent which rose with every morning's +sun and watched with every evening star,--what power save alone that of +him who comes bearing the inverted torch, and leaving after him only the +ashes printed with his footsteps? + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE WIDOW ROWENS GIVES A TEA-PARTY. + +There was a good deal of interest felt, as has been said, in the lonely +condition of Dudley Venner in that fine mansion-house of his, and with +that strange daughter, who would never be married, as many people +thought, in spite of all the stories. The feelings expressed by the good +folks who dated from the time when they "buried aour little Anny Mari'," +and others of that homespun stripe, were founded in reason, after all. +And so it was natural enough that they should be shared by various +ladies, who, having conjugated the verb to live as far as the +preterpluperfect tense, were ready to change one of its vowels and begin +with it in the present indicative. Unfortunately, there was very little +chance of showing sympathy in its active form for a gentleman who kept +himself so much out of the way as the master of the Dudley Mansion. + +Various attempts had been made, from time to time, of late years, to get +him out of his study, which had, for the most part, proved failures. It +was a surprise, therefore, when he was seen at the Great Party at the +Colonel's. But it was an encouragement to try him again, and the +consequence had been that he had received a number of notes inviting him +to various smaller entertainments, which, as neither he nor Elsie had any +fancy for them, he had politely declined. + +Such was the state of things when he received an invitation to take tea +sociably, with a few friends, at Hyacinth Cottage, the residence of the +Widow Rowens, relict of the late Beeri Rowens, Esquire, better known as +Major Rowens. Major Rowens was at the time of his decease a promising +officer in the militia, in the direct line of promotion, as his waistband +was getting tighter every year; and, as all the world knows, the +militia-officer who splits off most buttons and fills the largest +sword-belt stands the best chance of rising, or, perhaps we might say, +spreading, to be General. + +Major Rowens united in his person certain other traits which help a man +to eminence in the branch of public service referred to. He ran to high +colors, to wide whiskers, to open pores; he had the saddle-leather skin +common in Englishmen, rarer in Americans,--never found in the Brahmin +caste, oftener in the military and the commodores: observing people know +what is meant; blow the seed-arrows from the white-kid-looking button +which holds them on a dandelion-stalk, and the pricked-pincushion surface +shows you what to look for. He had the loud gruff voice which implies +the right to command. He had the thick hand, stubbed fingers, with +bristled pads between their joints, square, broad thumb-nails, and sturdy +limbs, which mark a constitution made to use in rough out-door work. He +had the never-failing predilection for showy switch-tailed horses that +step high, and sidle about, and act as if they were going to do something +fearful the next minute, in the face of awed and admiring multitudes +gathered at mighty musters or imposing cattle-shows. He had no +objection, either, to holding the reins in a wagon behind another kind of +horse,--a slouching, listless beast, with a strong slant to his shoulder; +and a notable depth to his quarter and an emphatic angle at the hock, who +commonly walked or lounged along in a lazy trot of five or six miles an +hour; but, if a lively colt happened to come rattling up alongside, or a +brandy-faced old horse-jockey took the road to show off a fast nag, and +threw his dust into the Major's face, would pick his legs up all at once, +and straighten his body out, and swing off into a three-minute gait, in a +way that "Old Blue" himself need not have been ashamed of. + +For some reason which must be left to the next generation of professors +to find out, the men who are knowing in horse-flesh have an eye also for, +let a long dash separate the brute creation from the angelic being now to +be named,--for lovely woman. Of this fact there can be no possible +doubt; and therefore you shall notice, that, if a fast horse trots before +two, one of the twain is apt to be a pretty bit of muliebrity, with +shapes to her, and eyes flying about in all directions. + +Major Rowens, at that time Lieutenant of the Rockland Fusileers, had +driven and "traded" horses not a few before he turned his acquired skill +as a judge of physical advantages in another direction. He knew a neat, +snug hoof, a delicate pastern, a broad haunch, a deep chest, a close +ribbed-up barrel, as well as any other man in the town. He was not to be +taken in by your thick-jointed, heavy-headed cattle, without any go to +them, that suit a country-parson, nor yet by the "gaanted-up," +long-legged animals, with all their constitutions bred out of them, such +as rich greenhorns buy and cover up with their plated trappings. + +Whether his equine experience was of any use to him in the selection of +the mate with whom he was to go in double harness so long as they both +should live, we need not stop to question. At any rate, nobody could +find fault with the points of Miss Marilla Van Deusen, to whom he offered +the privilege of becoming Mrs. Rowens. The Van must have been crossed +out of her blood, for she was an out-and-out brunette, with hair and eyes +black enough for a Mohawk's daughter. A fine style of woman, with very +striking tints and outlines,--an excellent match for the Lieutenant, +except for one thing. She was marked by Nature for a widow. She was +evidently got up for mourning, and never looked so well as in deep black, +with jet ornaments. + +The man who should dare to marry her would doom himself; for how could +she become the widow she was bound to be, unless he could retire and give +her a chance? The Lieutenant lived, however, as we have seen, to become +Captain and then Major, with prospects of further advancement. But Mrs. +Rowens often said she should never look well in colors. At last her +destiny fulfilled itself, and the justice of Nature was vindicated. +Major Rowens got overheated galloping about the field on the day of the +Great Muster, and had a rush of blood to the head, according to the +common report,--at any rate, something which stopped him short in his +career of expansion and promotion, and established Mrs. Rowens in her +normal condition of widowhood. + +The Widow Rowens was now in the full bloom of ornamental sorrow. A very +shallow crape bonnet, frilled and froth-like, allowed the parted raven +hair to show its glossy smoothness. A jet pin heaved upon her bosom with +every sigh of memory, or emotion of unknown origin. Jet bracelets shone +with every movement of her slender hands, cased in close-fitting black +gloves. Her sable dress was ridged with manifold flounces, from beneath +which a small foot showed itself from time to time, clad in the same hue +of mourning. Everything about her was dark, except the whites of her +eyes and the enamel of her teeth. The effect was complete. Gray's Elegy +was not a more perfect composition. + +Much as the Widow was pleased with the costume belonging to her +condition, she did not disguise from herself that under certain +circumstances she might be willing to change her name again. Thus, for +instance, if a gentleman not too far gone in maturity, of dignified +exterior, with an ample fortune, and of unexceptionable character, should +happen to set his heart upon her, and the only way to make him happy was +to give up her weeds and go into those unbecoming colors again for his +sake,--why, she felt that it was in her nature to make the sacrifice. By +a singular coincidence it happened that a gentleman was now living in +Rockland who united in himself all these advantages. Who he was, the +sagacious reader may very probably have divined. Just to see how it +looked, one day, having bolted her door, and drawn the curtains close, +and glanced under the sofa, and listened at the keyhole to be sure there +was nobody in the entry,--just to see how it looked, she had taken out an +envelope and written on the back of it Mrs. Manilla Veneer. It made her +head swim and her knees tremble. What if she should faint, or die, or +have a stroke of palsy, and they should break into the room and find that +name written! How she caught it up and tore it into little shreds, and +then could not be easy until she had burned the small heap of pieces-- + +But these are things which every honorable reader will consider imparted +in strict confidence. + +The Widow Rowens, though not of the mansion house set, was among the most +genteel of the two-story circle, and was in the habit of visiting some of +the great people. In one of these visits she met a dashing young fellow +with an olive complexion at the house of a professional gentleman who had +married one of the white necks and pairs of fat arms from a distinguished +family before referred to. The professional gentleman himself was out, +but the lady introduced the olive-complexioned young man as Mr. Richard +Venner. + +The Widow was particularly pleased with this accidental meeting. Had +heard Mr. Venner's name frequently mentioned. Hoped his uncle was well, +and his charming cousin,--was she as original as ever? Had often admired +that charming creature he rode: we had had some fine horses. Had never +got over her taste for riding, but could find nobody that liked a good +long gallop since--well--she could n't help wishing she was alongside of +him, the other day, when she saw him dashing by, just at twilight. + +The Widow paused; lifted a flimsy handkerchief with a very deep black +border so as to play the jet bracelet; pushed the tip of her slender foot +beyond the lowest of her black flounces; looked up; looked down; looked +at Mr. Richard, the very picture of artless simplicity,--as represented +in well-played genteel comedy. + +"A good bit of stuff," Dick said to himself, "and something of it left +yet; caramba!" The Major had not studied points for nothing, and the +Widow was one of the right sort. The young man had been a little +restless of late, and was willing to vary his routine by picking up an +acquaintance here and there. So he took the Widow's hint. He should +like to have a scamper of half a dozen miles with her some fine morning. + +The Widow was infinitely obliged; was not sure that she could find any +horse in the village to suit her; but it was so kind in him! Would he not +call at Hyacinth Cottage, and let her thank him again there? + +Thus began an acquaintance which the Widow made the most of, and on the +strength of which she determined to give a tea-party and invite a number +of persons of whom we know something already. She took a half-sheet of +note-paper and made out her list as carefully as a country "merchant's +clerk" adds up two and threepence (New-England nomenclature) and twelve +and a half cents, figure by figure, and fraction by fraction, before he +can be sure they will make half a dollar, without cheating somebody. +After much consideration the list reduced itself to the following names: +Mr. Richard Venner and Mrs. Blanche Creamer, the lady at whose house she +had met him,--mansion-house breed,--but will come,--soft on Dick; Dudley +Venner,--take care of him herself; Elsie,--Dick will see to her,--won't +it fidget the Creamer woman to see him round her? the old Doctor,--he 's +always handy; and there's that young master there, up at the +school,--know him well enough to ask him,--oh, yes, he'll come. One, +two, three, four, five, six,--seven; not room enough, without the leaf in +the table; one place empty, if the leaf's in. Let's see,--Helen Darley, +--she 'll do well enough to fill it up,--why, yes, just the thing, +--light brown hair, blue eyes,--won't my pattern show off well against +her? Put her down,--she 's worth her tea and toast ten times over, +--nobody knows what a "thunder-and-lightning woman," as poor Major used +to have it, is, till she gets alongside of one of those old-maidish +girls, with hair the color of brown sugar, and eyes like the blue of a +teacup. + +The Widow smiled with a feeling of triumph at having overcome her +difficulties and arranged her party,--arose and stood before her glass, +three-quarters front, one-quarter profile, so as to show the whites of +the eyes and the down of the upper lip. "Splendid!" said the Widow--and +to tell the truth, she was not far out of the way, and with Helen Darley +as a foil anybody would know she must be foudroyant and pyramidal,--if +these French adjectives may be naturalized for this one particular +exigency. + +So the Widow sent out her notes. The black grief which had filled her +heart and had overflowed in surges of crape around her person had left a +deposit half an inch wide at the margin of her note-paper. Her seal was a +small youth with an inverted torch, the same on which Mrs. Blanche +Creamer made her spiteful remark, that she expected to see that boy of +the Widow's standing on his head yet; meaning, as Dick supposed, that she +would get the torch right-side up as soon as she had a chance. That was +after Dick had made the Widow's acquaintance, and Mrs. Creamer had got it +into her foolish head that she would marry that young fellow, if she +could catch him. How could he ever come to fancy such a quadroon-looking +thing as that, she should like to know? + +It is easy enough to ask seven people to a party; but whether they will +come or not is an open question, as it was in the case of the spirits of +the vasty deep. If the note issues from a three-story mansion-house, and +goes to two-story acquaintances, they will all be in an excellent state +of health, and have much pleasure in accepting this very polite +invitation. If the note is from the lady of a two-story family to +three-story ones, the former highly respectable person will very probably +find that an endemic complaint is prevalent, not represented in the +weekly bills of mortality, which occasions numerous regrets in the bosoms +of eminently desirable parties that they cannot have the pleasure of +and-so-forthing. + +In this case there was room for doubt,--mainly as to whether Elsie would +take a fancy to come or not. If she should come, her father would +certainly be with her. Dick had promised, and thought he could bring +Elsie. Of course the young schoolmaster will come, and that poor +tired-out looking Helen, if only to get out of sight of those horrid +Peckham wretches. They don't get such invitations every day. The others +she felt sure of,--all but the old Doctor,--he might have some horrid +patient or other to visit; tell him Elsie Venner's going to be there,--he +always likes to have an eye on her, they say,--oh, he'd come fast enough, +without any more coaxing. + +She wanted the Doctor, particularly. It was odd, but she was afraid of +Elsie. She felt as if she should be safe enough, if the old Doctor were +there to see to the girl; and then she should have leisure to devote +herself more freely to the young lady's father, for whom all her +sympathies were in a state of lively excitement. + +It was a long time since the Widow had seen so many persons round her +table as she had now invited. Better have the plates set and see how +they will fill it up with the leaf in.--A little too scattering with only +eight plates set: if she could find two more people, now, that would +bring the chairs a little closer,--snug, you know,--which makes the +company sociable. The Widow thought over her acquaintances. Why how +stupid! there was her good minister, the same who had married her, and +might--might--bury her for aught she anew, and his granddaughter staying +with him,--nice little girl, pretty, and not old enough to be +dangerous;--for the Widow had no notion of making a tea-party and asking +people to it that would be like to stand between her and any little +project she might happen to have on anybody's heart,--not she! It was +all right now; Blanche was married and so forth; Letty was a child; Elsie +was his daughter; Helen Darley was a nice, worthy drudge,--poor +thing!--faded, faded,--colors wouldn't wash, just what she wanted to show +off against. Now, if the Dudley mansion-house people would only +come,--that was the great point. + +"Here's a note for us, Elsie," said her father, as they sat round the +breakfast-table. "Mrs. Rowens wants us all to come to tea." + +It was one of "Elsie's days," as old Sophy called them. The light in her +eyes was still, but very bright. She looked up so full of perverse and +wilful impulses, that Dick knew he could make her go with him and her +father. He had his own motives for bringing her to this +determination,--and his own way of setting about it. + +"I don't want to go," he said. "What do you say, uncle?" + +"To tell the truth, Richard, I don't mach fancy the Major's widow. I +don't like to see her weeds flowering out quite so strong. I suppose you +don't care about going, Elsie?" + +Elsie looked up in her father's face with an expression which he knew but +too well. She was just in the state which the plain sort of people call +"contrary," when they have to deal with it in animals. She would insist +on going to that tea-party; he knew it just as well before she spoke as +after she had spoken. If Dick had said he wanted to go and her father +had seconded his wishes, she would have insisted on staying at home. It +was no great matter, her father said to himself, after all; very likely +it would amuse her; the Widow was a lively woman enough,--perhaps a +little comme il ne faut pas socially, compared with the Thorntons and +some other families; but what did he care for these petty village +distinctions? + +Elsie spoke. + +"I mean to go. You must go with me, Dudley. You may do as you like, +Dick." + +That settled the Dudley-mansion business, of course. They all three +accepted, as fortunately did all the others who had been invited. + +Hyacinth Cottage was a pretty place enough, a little too much choked +round with bushes, and too much overrun with climbing-roses, which, in +the season of slugs and rose-bugs, were apt to show so brown about the +leaves and so coleopterous about the flowers, that it might be questioned +whether their buds and blossoms made up for these unpleasant animal +combinations,--especially as the smell of whale-oil soap was very +commonly in the ascendant over that of the roses. It had its patch of +grass called "the lawn," and its glazed closet known as "the +conservatory," according to that system of harmless fictions +characteristic of the rural imagination and shown in the names applied to +many familiar objects. The interior of the cottage was more tasteful and +ambitious than that of the ordinary two-story dwellings. In place of the +prevailing hair-cloth covered furniture, the visitor had the satisfaction +of seating himself upon a chair covered with some of the Widow's +embroidery, or a sofa luxurious with soft caressing plush. The sporting +tastes of the late Major showed in various prints on the wall: Herring's +"Plenipotentiary," the "red bullock" of the '34 Derby; "Cadland" and "The +Colonel;" "Crucifix;" "West-Australian," fastest of modern racers; and +among native celebrities, ugly, game old "Boston," with his straight neck +and ragged hips; and gray "Lady Suffolk," queen, in her day, not of the +turf but of the track, "extending" herself till she measured a rod, more +or less, skimming along within a yard of the ground, her legs opening and +shutting under her with a snap, like the four blades of a compound +jack-knife. + +These pictures were much more refreshing than those dreary fancy +death-bed scenes, common in two-story country-houses, in which Washington +and other distinguished personages are represented as obligingly devoting +their last moments to taking a prominent part in a tableau, in which +weeping relatives, attached servants, professional assistants, and +celebrated personages who might by a stretch of imagination be supposed +present, are grouped in the most approved style of arrangement about the +chief actor's pillow. + +A single glazed bookcase held the family library, which was hidden from +vulgar eyes by green silk curtains behind the glass. It would have been +instructive to get a look at it, as it always is to peep into one's +neighbor's book-shelves. From other sources and opportunities a partial +idea of it has been obtained. The Widow had inherited some books from +her mother, who was something of a reader: Young's "Night-Thoughts;" "The +Preceptor;" "The Task, a Poem," by William Cowper; Hervey's +"Meditations;" "Alonzo and Melissa;" "Buccaneers of America;" "The +Triumphs of Temper;" "La Belle Assemblee;" Thomson's "Seasons;" and a few +others. The Major had brought in "Tom Jones" and "Peregrine Pickle;" +various works by Mr. Pierce Egan; "Boxiana," "The Racing Calendar;" and a +"Book of Lively Songs and Jests." The Widow had added the Poems of Lord +Byron and T. Moore; "Eugene Aram;" "The Tower of London," by Harrison +Ainsworth; some of Scott's Novels; "The Pickwick Papers;" a volume of +Plays, by W. Shakespeare; "Proverbial Philosophy;" "Pilgrim's Progress;" +"The Whole Duty of Man" (a present when she was married); with two +celebrated religious works, one by William Law and the other by Philip +Doddridge, which were sent her after her husband's death, and which she +had tried to read, but found that they did not agree with her. Of course +the bookcase held a few school manuals and compendiums, and one of Mr. +Webster's Dictionaries. But the gilt-edged Bible always lay on the +centre-table, next to the magazine with the fashion-plates and the +scrap-book with pictures from old annuals and illustrated papers. + +The reader need not apprehend the recital, at full length, of such +formidable preparations for the Widow's tea-party as were required in the +case of Colonel Sprowle's Social Entertainment. A tea-party, even in the +country, is a comparatively simple and economical piece of business. As +soon as the Widow found that all her company were coming, she set to +work, with the aid of her "smart" maid-servant and a daughter of her own, +who was beginning to stretch and spread at a fearful rate, but whom she +treated as a small child, to make the necessary preparations. The silver +had to be rubbed; also the grand plated urn,--her mother's before +hers,--style of the Empire,--looking as if it might have been made to +hold the Major's ashes. Then came the making and baking of cake and +gingerbread, the smell whereof reached even as far as the sidewalk in +front of the cottage, so that small boys returning from school snuffed it +in the breeze, and discoursed with each other on its suggestions; so that +the Widow Leech, who happened to pass, remembered she had n't called on +Marilly Raowens for a consid'ble spell, and turned in at the gate and +rang three times with long intervals,--but all in vain, the inside Widow +having "spotted" the outside one through the blinds, and whispered to her +aides-de-camp to let the old thing ring away till she pulled the bell out +by the roots, but not to stir to open the door. + +Widow Rowens was what they called a real smart, capable woman, not very +great on books, perhaps, but knew what was what and who was who as well +as another,--knew how to make the little cottage look pretty, how to set +out a tea-table, and, what a good many women never can find out, knew her +own style and "got herself up tip-top," as our young friend Master +Geordie, Colonel Sprowle's heir-apparent, remarked to his friend from one +of the fresh-water colleges. Flowers were abundant now, and she had +dressed her rooms tastefully with them. The centre-table had two or +three gilt-edged books lying carelessly about on it, and some prints and +a stereoscope with stereographs to match, chiefly groups of picnics, +weddings, etc., in which the same somewhat fatigued looking ladies of +fashion and brides received the attentions of the same unpleasant-looking +young men, easily identified under their different disguises, consisting +of fashionable raiment such as gentlemen are supposed to wear habitually. +With these, however, were some pretty English scenes,--pretty except for +the old fellow with the hanging under-lip who infests every one of that +interesting series; and a statue or two, especially that famous one +commonly called the Lahcoon, so as to rhyme with moon and spoon, and +representing an old man with his two sons in the embraces of two +monstrous serpents. + +There is no denying that it was a very dashing achievement of the Widow's +to bring together so considerable a number of desirable guests. She felt +proud of her feat; but as to the triumph of getting Dudley Venner to come +out for a visit to Hyacinth Cottage, she was surprised and almost +frightened at her own success. So much might depend on the impressions +of that evening! + +The next thing was to be sure that everybody should be in the right place +at the tea-table, and this the Widow thought she could manage by a few +words to the older guests and a little shuffling about and shifting when +they got to the table. To settle everything the Widow made out a +diagram, which the reader should have a chance of inspecting in an +authentic copy, if these pages were allowed under any circumstances to be +the vehicle of illustrations. If, however, he or she really wishes to +see the way the pieces stood as they were placed at the beginning of the +game, (the Widow's gambit,) he or she had better at once take a sheet of +paper, draw an oval, and arrange the characters according to the +following schedule. + +At the head of the table, the Hostess, Widow Marilla Rowens. Opposite +her, at the other end, Rev. Dr. Honeywood. At the right of the Hostess, +Dudley Veneer, next him Helen Darley, next her Dr. Kittredge, next him +Mrs. Blanche Creamer, then the Reverend Doctor. At the left of the +Hostess, Bernard Langdon, next him Letty Forrester, next Letty Mr. +Richard Veneer, next him Elsie, and so to the Reverend Doctor again. + +The company came together a little before the early hour at which it was +customary to take tea in Rockland. The Widow knew everybody, of course: +who was there in Rockland she did not know? But some of them had to be +introduced: Mr. Richard Veneer to Mr. Bernard, Mr. Bernard to Miss Letty, +Dudley Veneer to Miss Helen Darley, and so on. The two young men looked +each other straight in the eyes, both full of youthful life, but one of +frank and fearless aspect, the other with a dangerous feline beauty alien +to the New England half of his blood. + +The guests talked, turned over the prints, looked at the flowers, opened +the "Proverbial Philosophy" with gilt edges, and the volume of Plays by +W. Shakespeare, examined the horse-pictures on the walls, and so passed +away the time until tea was announced, when they paired off for the room +where it was in readiness. The Widow had managed it well; everything was +just as she wanted it. Dudley Veneer was between herself and the poor +tired-looking schoolmistress with her faded colors. Blanche Creamer, a +lax, tumble-to-pieces, Greuze-ish looking blonde, whom the Widow hated +because the men took to her, was purgatoried between the two old Doctors, +and could see all the looks that passed between Dick Venner and his +cousin. The young schoolmaster could talk to Miss Letty: it was his +business to know how to talk to schoolgirls. Dick would amuse himself +with his cousin Elsie. The old Doctors only wanted to be well fed and +they would do well enough. + +It would be very pleasant to describe the tea-table; but in reality, it +did not pretend to offer a plethoric banquet to the guests. The Widow +had not visited the mansion-houses for nothing, and she had learned there +that an overloaded tea-table may do well enough for farm-hands when they +come in at evening from their work and sit down unwashed in their +shirtsleeves, but that for decently bred people such an insult to the +memory of a dinner not yet half-assimilated is wholly inadmissible. +Everything was delicate, and almost everything of fair complexion: white +bread and biscuits, frosted and sponge cake, cream, honey, straw-colored +butter; only a shadow here and there, where the fire had crisped and +browned the surfaces of a stack of dry toast, or where a preserve had +brought away some of the red sunshine of the last year's summer. The +Widow shall have the credit of her well-ordered tea-table, also of her +bountiful cream-pitchers; for it is well known that city-people find +cream a very scarce luxury in a good many country-houses of more +pretensions than Hyacinth Cottage. There are no better maims for ladies +who give tea-parties than these: + +Cream is thicker than water. Large heart never loved little cream pot. + +There is a common feeling in genteel families that the third meal of the +day is not so essential a part of the daily bread as to require any +especial acknowledgment to the Providence which bestows it. Very devout +people, who would never sit down to a breakfast or a dinner without the +grace before meat which honors the Giver of it, feel as if they thanked +Heaven enough for their tea and toast by partaking of them cheerfully +without audible petition or ascription. But the Widow was not exactly +mansion-house-bred, and so thought it necessary to give the Reverend +Doctor a peculiar look which he understood at once as inviting his +professional services. He, therefore, uttered a few simple words of +gratitude, very quietly,--much to the satisfaction of some of the guests, +who had expected one of those elaborate effusions, with rolling up of the +eyes and rhetorical accents, so frequent with eloquent divines when they +address their Maker in genteel company. + +Everybody began talking with the person sitting next at hand. Mr. +Bernard naturally enough turned his attention first to the Widow; but +somehow or other the right side of the Widow seemed to be more wide awake +than the left side, next him, and he resigned her to the courtesies of +Mr. Dudley Venner, directing himself, not very unwillingly, to the young +girl next him on the other side. Miss Letty Forrester, the granddaughter +of the Reverend Doctor, was city-bred, as anybody might see, and +city-dressed, as any woman would know at sight; a man might only feel the +general effect of clear, well-matched colors, of harmonious proportions, +of the cut which makes everything cling like a bather's sleeve where a +natural outline is to be kept, and ruffle itself up like the hackle of a +pitted fighting-cock where art has a right to luxuriate in silken +exuberance. How this citybred and city-dressed girl came to be in +Rockland Mr. Bernard did not know, but he knew at any rate that she was +his next neighbor and entitled to his courtesies. She was handsome, too, +when he came to look, very handsome when he came to look again,--endowed +with that city beauty which is like the beauty of wall-fruit, something +finer in certain respects than can be reared off the pavement. + +The miserable routinists who keep repeating invidiously Cowper's + + "God made the country and man made the town," + +as if the town were a place to kill out the race in, do not know what +they are talking about. Where could they raise such Saint-Michael pears, +such Saint-Germains, such Brown-Beurres, as we had until within a few +years growing within the walls of our old city-gardens? Is the dark and +damp cavern where a ragged beggar hides himself better than a +town-mansion which fronts the sunshine and backs on its own cool shadow, +with gas and water and all appliances to suit all needs? God made the +cavern and man made the house! What then? + +There is no doubt that the pavement keeps a deal of mischief from coming +up out of the earth, and, with a dash off of it in summer, just to cool +the soles of the feet when it gets too hot, is the best place for many +constitutions, as some few practical people have already discovered. And +just so these beauties that grow and ripen against the city-walls, these +young fellows with cheeks like peaches and young girls with cheeks like +nectarines, show that the most perfect forms of artificial life can do as +much for the human product as garden-culture for strawberries and +blackberries. + +If Mr. Bernard had philosophized or prosed in this way, with so pretty, +nay, so lovely a neighbor as Miss Letty Forrester waiting for him to +speak to her, he would have to be dropped from this narrative as a person +unworthy of his good-fortune, and not deserving the kind reader's further +notice. On the contrary, he no sooner set his eyes fairly on her than he +said to himself that she was charming, and that he wished she were one of +his scholars at the Institute. So he began talking with her in an easy +way; for he knew something of young girls by this time, and, of course, +could adapt himself to a young lady who looked as if she might be not +more than fifteen or sixteen years old, and therefore could hardly be a +match in intellectual resources for the seventeen and eighteen year-old +first-class scholars of the Apollinean Institute. But city-wall-fruit +ripens early, and he soon found that this girl's training had so +sharpened her wits and stored her memory, that he need not be at the +trouble to stoop painfully in order to come down to her level. + +The beauty of good-breeding is that it adjusts itself to all relations +without effort, true to itself always however the manners of those around +it may change. Self-respect and respect for others,--the sensitive +consciousness poises itself in these as the compass in the ship's +binnacle balances itself and maintains its true level within the two +concentric rings which suspend it on their pivots. This thorough-bred +school-girl quite enchanted Mr. Bernard. He could not understand where +she got her style, her way of dress, her enunciation, her easy manners. +The minister was a most worthy gentleman, but this was not the Rockland +native-born manner; some new element had come in between the good, plain, +worthy man and this young girl, fit to be a Crown Prince's partner where +there were a thousand to choose from. + +He looked across to Helen Darley, for he knew she would understand the +glance of admiration with which he called her attention to the young +beauty at his side; and Helen knew what a young girl could be, as +compared with what too many a one is, as well as anybody. + +This poor, dear Helen of ours! How admirable the contrast between her +and the Widow on the other side of Dudley Venner! But, what was very +odd, that gentleman apparently thought the contrast was to the advantage +of this poor, dear Helen. At any rate, instead of devoting himself +solely to the Widow, he happened to be just at that moment talking in a +very interested and, apparently, not uninteresting way to his right-hand +neighbor, who, on her part, never looked more charmingly,--as Mr. Bernard +could not help saying to himself,--but, to be sure, he had just been +looking at the young girl next him, so that his eyes were brimful of +beauty, and may have spilled some of it on the first comer: for you know +M. Becquerel has been showing us lately how everything is phosphorescent; +that it soaks itself with light in an instant's exposure, so that it is +wet with liquid sunbeams, or, if you will, tremulous with luminous +vibrations, when first plunged into the negative bath of darkness, and +betrays itself by the light which escapes from its surface. + +Whatever were the reason, this poor, dear Helen never looked so sweetly. +Her plainly parted brown hair, her meek, blue eyes, her cheek just a +little tinged with color, the almost sad simplicity of her dress, and +that look he knew so well,--so full of cheerful patience, so sincere, +that he had trusted her from the first moment as the believers of the +larger half of Christendom trust the Blessed Virgin,--Mr. Bernard took +this all in at a glance, and felt as pleased as if it had been his own +sister Dorothea Elizabeth that he was looking at. As for Dudley Veneer, +Mr. Bernard could not help being struck by the animated expression of his +countenance. It certainly showed great kindness, on his part, to pay so +much attention to this quiet girl, when he had the thunder-and-lightning +Widow on the other side of him. + +Mrs. Marilla Rowens did not know what to make of it. She had made her +tea-party expressly for Mr. Dudley Veneer. She had placed him just as +she wanted, between herself and a meek, delicate woman who dressed in +gray, wore a plain breastpin with hair in it, who taught a pack of girls +up there at the school, and looked as if she were born for a +teacher,--the very best foil that she could have chosen; and here was +this man, polite enough to herself, to be sure, but turning round to that +very undistinguished young person as if he rather preferred her +conversation of the two! + +The truth was that Dudley Veneer and Helen Darley met as two travellers +might meet in the desert, wearied, both of them, with their long journey, +one having food, but no water, the other water, but no food. Each saw +that the other had been in long conflict with some trial; for their +voices were low and tender, as patiently borne sorrow and humbly uttered +prayers make every human voice. Through these tones, more than by what +they said, they came into natural sympathetic relations with each other. +Nothing could be more unstudied. As for Dudley Venner, no beauty in all +the world could have so soothed and magnetized him as the very repose and +subdued gentleness which the Widow had thought would make the best +possible background for her own more salient and effective attractions. +No doubt, Helen, on her side, was almost too readily pleased with the +confidence this new acquaintance she was making seemed to show her from +the very first. She knew so few men of any condition! Mr. Silas +Peckham: he was her employer, and she ought to think of him as well as +she could; but every time she thought of him it was with a shiver of +disgust. Mr. Bernard Langdon: a noble young man, a true friend, like a +brother to her,--God bless him, and send him some young heart as fresh as +his own! But this gentleman produced a new impression upon her, quite +different from any to which she was accustomed. His rich, low tones had +the strangest significance to her; she felt sure he must have lived +through long experiences, sorrowful like her own. Elsie's father! She +looked into his dark eyes, as she listened to him, to see if they had any +glimmer of that peculiar light, diamond-bright, but cold and still, which +she knew so well in Elsie's. Anything but that! Never was there more +tenderness, it seemed to her, than in the whole look and expression of +Elsie's father. She must have been a great trial to him; yet his face +was that of one who had been saddened, not soured, by his discipline. +Knowing what Elsie must be to him, how hard she must make any parent's +life, Helen could not but be struck with the interest Mr. Dudley Venner +showed in her as his daughter's instructress. He was too kind to her; +again and again she meekly turned from him, so as to leave him free to +talk to the showy lady at his other side, who was looking all the while + + "like the night + Of cloudless realms and starry skies;" + +but still Mr. Dudley Venner, after a few courteous words, came back to +the blue eyes and brown hair; still he kept his look fixed upon her, and +his tones grew sweeter and lower as he became more interested in talk, +until this poor, dear Helen, what with surprise, and the bashfulness +natural to one who had seen little of the gay world, and the stirring of +deep, confused sympathies with this suffering father, whose heart seemed +so full of kindness, felt her cheeks glowing with unwonted flame, and +betrayed the pleasing trouble of her situation by looking so sweetly as +to arrest Mr. Bernard's eye for a moment, when he looked away from the +young beauty sitting next him. + +Elsie meantime had been silent, with that singular, still, watchful look +which those who knew her well had learned to fear. Her head just a +little inclined on one side, perfectly motionless for whole minutes, her +eyes seeming to, grow small and bright, as always when she was under her +evil influence, she was looking obliquely at the young girl on the other +side of her cousin Dick and next to Bernard Langdon. As for Dick +himself, she seemed to be paying very little attention to him. Sometimes +her eyes would wander off to Mr. Bernard, and their expression, as old +Dr. Kittredge, who watched her for a while pretty keenly, noticed, would +change perceptibly. One would have said that she looked with a kind of +dull hatred at the girl, but with a half-relenting reproachful anger at +Mr. Bernard. + +Miss Letty Forrester, at whom Elsie had been looking from time to time in +this fixed way, was conscious meanwhile of some unusual influence. First +it was a feeling of constraint,--then, as it were, a diminished power +over the muscles, as if an invisible elastic cobweb were spinning round +her,--then a tendency to turn away from Mr. Bernard, who was making +himself very agreeable, and look straight into those eyes which would not +leave her, and which seemed to be drawing her towards them, while at the +same time they chilled the blood in all her veins. + +Mr. Bernard saw this influence coming over her. All at once he noticed +that she sighed, and that some little points of moisture began to glisten +on her forehead. But she did not grow pale perceptibly; she had no +involuntary or hysteric movements; she still listened to him and smiled +naturally enough. Perhaps she was only nervous at being stared at. At +any rate, she was coming under some unpleasant influence or other, and +Mr. Bernard had seen enough of the strange impression Elsie sometimes +produced to wish this young girl to be relieved from it, whatever it was. +He turned toward Elsie and looked at her in such a way as to draw her +eyes upon him. Then he looked steadily and calmly into them. It was a +great effort, for some perfectly inexplicable reason. At one instant he +thought he could not sit where he was; he must go and speak to Elsie. +Then he wanted to take his eyes away from hers; there was something +intolerable in the light that came from them. But he was determined to +look her down, and he believed he could do it, for he had seen her +countenance change more than once when he had caught her gaze steadily +fixed on him. All this took not minutes, but seconds. Presently she +changed color slightly,--lifted her head, which was inclined a little to +one side,--shut and opened her eyes two or three times, as if they had +been pained or wearied,--and turned away baffled, and shamed, as it would +seem, and shorn for the time of her singular and formidable or at least +evil-natured power of swaying the impulses of those around her. + +It takes too long to describe these scenes where a good deal of life is +concentrated into a few silent seconds. Mr. Richard Veneer had sat +quietly through it all, although this short pantomime had taken place +literally before his face. He saw what was going on well enough, and +understood it all perfectly well. Of course the schoolmaster had been +trying to make Elsie jealous, and had succeeded. The little schoolgirl +was a decoy-duck,--that was all. Estates like the Dudley property were +not to be had every day, and no doubt the Yankee usher was willing to +take some pains to make sure of Elsie. Does n't Elsie look savage? Dick +involuntarily moved his chair a little away from her, and thought he felt +a pricking in the small white scars on his wrist. A dare-devil fellow, +but somehow or other this girl had taken strange hold of his imagination, +and he often swore to himself, that, when he married her, he would carry +a loaded revolver with him to his bridal chamber. + +Mrs. Blanche Creamer raged inwardly at first to find herself between the +two old gentlemen of the party. It very soon gave her great comfort, +however, to see that Marilla, Rowens had just missed it in her +calculations, and she chuckled immensely to find Dudley Veneer devoting +himself chiefly to Helen Darley. If the Rowens woman should hook Dudley, +she felt as if she should gnaw all her nails off for spite. To think of +seeing her barouching about Rockland behind a pair of long-tailed bays +and a coachman with a band on his hat, while she, Blanche Creamer, was +driving herself about in a one-horse "carriage"! Recovering her spirits +by degrees, she began playing her surfaces off at the two old Doctors, +just by way of practice. First she heaved up a glaring white shoulder, +the right one, so that the Reverend Doctor should be stunned by it, if +such a thing might be. The Reverend Doctor was human, as the Apostle was +not ashamed to confess himself. Half-devoutly and half-mischievously he +repeated inwardly, "Resist the Devil and he will flee from you." As the +Reverend Doctor did not show any lively susceptibility, she thought she +would try the left shoulder on old Dr. Kittredge. That worthy and +experienced student of science was not at all displeased with the +manoeuvre, and lifted his head so as to command the exhibition through +his glasses. "Blanche is good for half a dozen years or so, if she is +careful," the Doctor said to himself, "and then she must take to her +prayer-book." After this spasmodic failure of Mrs. Blanche Creamer's to +stir up the old Doctors, she returned again to the pleasing task of +watching the Widow in her evident discomfiture. But dark as the Widow +looked in her half-concealed pet, she was but as a pale shadow, compared +to Elsie in her silent concentration of shame and anger. + +"Well, there is one good thing," said Mrs. Blanche Creamer; "Dick doesn't +get much out of that cousin of his this evening! Does n't he look +handsome, though?" + +So Mrs. Blanche, being now a good deal taken up with her observations of +those friends of hers and ours, began to be rather careless of her two +old Doctors, who naturally enough fell into conversation with each other +across the white surfaces of that lady, perhaps not very politely, but, +under the, circumstances, almost as a matter of necessity. + +When a minister and a doctor get talking together, they always have a +great deal to say; and so it happened that the company left the table +just as the two Doctors were beginning to get at each other's ideas about +various interesting matters. If we follow them into the other parlor, we +can, perhaps, pick up something of their conversation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +WHY DOCTORS DIFFER. + +The company rearranged itself with some changes after leaving the +tea-table. Dudley Veneer was very polite to the Widow; but that lady +having been called off for a few moments for some domestic arrangement, +he slid back to the side of Helen Darley, his daughter's faithful +teacher. Elsie had got away by herself, and was taken up in studying the +stereoscopic Laocoon. Dick, being thus set free, had been seized upon by +Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had diffused herself over three-quarters of a +sofa and beckoned him to the remaining fourth. Mr. Bernard and Miss +Letty were having a snug fete-'a-fete in the recess of a bay-window. The +two Doctors had taken two arm-chairs and sat squared off against each +other. Their conversation is perhaps as well worth reporting as that of +the rest of the company, and, as it was carried on in a louder tone, was +of course more easy to gather and put on record. + +It was a curious sight enough to see those two representatives of two +great professions brought face to face to talk over the subjects they had +been looking at all their lives from such different points of view. Both +were old; old enough to have been moulded by their habits of thought and +life; old enough to have all their beliefs "fretted in," as vintners +say,--thoroughly worked up with their characters. Each of them looked his +calling. The Reverend Doctor had lived a good deal among books in his +study; the Doctor, as we will call the medical gentleman, had been riding +about the country for between thirty and forty years. His face looked +tough and weather-worn; while the Reverend Doctor's, hearty as it +appeared, was of finer texture. The Doctor's was the graver of the two; +there was something of grimness about it, partly owing to the +northeasters he had faced for so many years, partly to long companionship +with that stern personage who never deals in sentiment or pleasantry. +His speech was apt to be brief and peremptory; it was a way he had got by +ordering patients; but he could discourse somewhat, on occasion, as the +reader may find out. The Reverend Doctor had an open, smiling +expression, a cheery voice, a hearty laugh, and a cordial way with him +which some thought too lively for his cloth, but which children, who are +good judges of such matters, delighted in, so that he was the favorite of +all the little rogues about town. But he had the clerical art of +sobering down in a moment, when asked to say grace while somebody was in +the middle of some particularly funny story; and though his voice was so +cheery in common talk, in the pulpit, like almost all preachers, he had a +wholly different and peculiar way of speaking, supposed to be more +acceptable to the Creator than the natural manner. In point of fact, +most of our anti-papal and anti-prelatical clergymen do really intone +their prayers, without suspecting in the least that they have fallen into +such a Romish practice. + +This is the way the conversation between the Doctor of Divinity and the +Doctor of Medicine was going on at the point where these notes take it +up. + +"Obi tres medici, duo athei, you know, Doctor. Your profession has +always had the credit of being lax in doctrine,--though pretty stringent +in practice, ha! ha!" + +"Some priest said that," the Doctor answered, dryly. "They always talked +Latin when they had a bigger lie than common to get rid of." + +"Good!" said the Reverend Doctor; "I'm afraid they would lie a little +sometimes. But isn't there some truth in it, Doctor? Don't you think +your profession is apt to see 'Nature' in the place of the God of +Nature,--to lose sight of the great First Cause in their daily study of +secondary causes?" + +"I've thought about that," the Doctor answered, "and I've talked about it +and read about it, and I've come to the conclusion that nobody believes +in God and trusts in God quite so much as the doctors; only it is n't +just the sort of Deity that some of your profession have wanted them to +take up with. There was a student of mine wrote a dissertation on the +Natural Theology of Health and Disease, and took that old lying proverb +for his motto. He knew a good deal more about books than ever I did, and +had studied in other countries. I'll tell you what he said about it. He +said the old Heathen Doctor, Galen, praised God for his handiwork in the +human body, just as if he had been a Christian, or the Psalmist himself. +He said they had this sentence set up in large letters in the great +lecture-room in Paris where he attended: I dressed his wound and God +healed him. That was an old surgeon's saying. And he gave a long list +of doctors who were not only Christians, but famous ones. I grant you, +though, ministers and doctors are very apt to see differently in +spiritual matters." + +"That's it," said the Reverend Doctor; "you are apt to see 'Nature' where +we see God, and appeal to 'Science' where we are contented with +Revelation." + +"We don't separate God and Nature, perhaps, as you do," the Doctor +answered. "When we say that God is omnipresent and omnipotent and +omniscient, we are a little more apt to mean it than your folks are. We +think, when a wound heals, that God's presence and power and knowledge +are there, healing it, just as that old surgeon did. We think a good +many theologians, working among their books, don't see the facts of the +world they live in. When we tell 'em of these facts, they are apt to +call us materialists and atheists and infidels, and all that. We can't +help seeing the facts, and we don't think it's wicked to mention 'em." + +"Do tell me," the Reverend Doctor said, "some of these facts we are in +the habit of overlooking, and which your profession thinks it can see and +understand." + +"That's very easy," the Doctor replied. "For instance: you don't +understand or don't allow for idiosyncrasies as we learn to. We know +that food and physic act differently with different people; but you think +the same kind of truth is going to suit, or ought to suit, all minds. We +don't fight with a patient because he can't take magnesia or opium; but +you are all the time quarrelling over your beliefs, as if belief did not +depend very much on race and constitution, to say nothing of early +training." + +"Do you mean to say that every man is not absolutely free to choose his +beliefs?" + +"The men you write about in your studies are, but not the men we see in +the real world. There is some apparently congenital defect in the +Indians, for instance, that keeps them from choosing civilization and +Christianity. So with the Gypsies, very likely. Everybody knows that +Catholicism or Protestantism is a good deal a matter of race. +Constitution has more to do with belief than people think for. I went to +a Universalist church, when I was in the city one day, to hear a famous +man whom all the world knows, and I never saw such pews-full of broad +shoulders and florid faces, and substantial, wholesome-looking persons, +male and female, in all my life. Why, it was astonishing. Either their +creed made them healthy, or they chose it because they were healthy. +Your folks have never got the hang of human nature." + +"I am afraid this would be considered a degrading and dangerous view of +human beliefs and responsibility for them," the Reverend Doctor replied. +"Prove to a man that his will is governed by something outside of +himself, and you have lost all hold on his moral and religious nature. +There is nothing bad men want to believe so much as that they are +governed by necessity. Now that which is at once degrading and dangerous +cannot be true." + +"No doubt," the Doctor replied, "all large views of mankind limit our +estimate of the absolute freedom of the will. But I don't think it +degrades or endangers us, for this reason, that, while it makes us +charitable to the rest of mankind, our own sense of freedom, whatever it +is, is never affected by argument. Conscience won't be reasoned with. +We feel that we can practically do this of that, and if we choose the +wrong, we know we are responsible; but observation teaches us that this +or that other race or individual has not the same practical freedom of +choice. I don't see how we can avoid this conclusion in the instance of +the American Indians. The science of Ethnology has upset a good many +theoretical notions about human nature." + +"Science!" said the Reverend Doctor, "science! that was a word the +Apostle Paul did not seem to think much of, if we may judge by the +Epistle to Timothy: 'Oppositions of science falsely so called.' I own +that I am jealous of that word and the pretensions that go with it. +Science has seemed to me to be very often only the handmaid of +skepticism." + +"Doctor!" the physician said, emphatically, "science is knowledge. +Nothing that is not known properly belongs to science. Whenever +knowledge obliges us to doubt, we are always safe in doubting. +Astronomers foretell eclipses, say how long comets are to stay with us, +point out where a new planet is to be found. We see they know what they +assert, and the poor old Roman Catholic Church has at last to knock +under. So Geology proves a certain succession of events, and the best +Christian in the world must make the earth's history square with it. +Besides, I don't think you remember what great revelations of himself the +Creator has made in the minds of the men who have built up science. You +seem to me to hold his human masterpieces very cheap. Don't you think +the 'inspiration of the Almighty' gave Newton and Cuvier +'understanding'?" + +The Reverend Doctor was not arguing for victory. In fact, what he wanted +was to call out the opinions of the old physician by a show of +opposition, being already predisposed to agree with many of them. He was +rather trying the common arguments, as one tries tricks of fence merely +to learn the way of parrying. But just here he saw a tempting opening, +and could not resist giving a home-thrust. + +"Yes; but you surely would not consider it inspiration of the same kind +as that of the writers of the Old Testament?" + +That cornered the Doctor, and he paused a moment before he replied. Then +he raised his head, so as to command the Reverend Doctor's face through +his spectacles, and said, + +"I did not say that. You are clear, I suppose, that the Omniscient spoke +through Solomon, but that Shakespeare wrote without his help?" + +The Reverend Doctor looked very grave. It was a bold, blunt way of +putting the question. He turned it aside with the remark, that +Shakespeare seemed to him at times to come as near inspiration as any +human being not included among the sacred writers. + +"Doctor," the physician began, as from a sudden suggestion, "you won't +quarrel with me, if I tell you some of my real thoughts, will you?" + +"Say on, my dear Sir, say on," the minister answered, with his most +genial smile; "your real thoughts are just what I want to get at. A +man's real thoughts are a great rarity. If I don't agree with you, I +shall like to hear you." + +The Doctor began; and in order to give his thoughts more connectedly, we +will omit the conversational breaks, the questions and comments of the +clergyman, and all accidental interruptions. + +"When the old ecclesiastics said that where there were three doctors +there were two atheists, they lied, of course. They called everybody who +differed from them atheists, until they found out that not believing in +God was n't nearly so ugly a crime as not believing in some particular +dogma; then they called them heretics, until so many good people had been +burned under that name that it began to smell too strong of roasting +flesh,--and after that infidels, which properly means people without +faith, of whom there are not a great many in any place or time. But +then, of course, there was some reason why doctors shouldn't think about +religion exactly as ministers did, or they never would have made that +proverb. It 's very likely that something of the same kind is true now; +whether it is so or not, I am going to tell you the reasons why it would +not be strange, if doctors should take rather different views from +clergymen about some matters of belief. I don't, of course, mean all +doctors nor all clergymen. Some doctors go as far as any old New England +divine, and some clergymen agree very well with the doctors that think +least according to rule. + +"To begin with their ideas of the Creator himself. They always see him +trying to help his creatures out of their troubles. A man no sooner gets +a cut, than the Great Physician, whose agency we often call Nature, goes +to work, first to stop the blood, and then to heal the wound, and then to +make the scar as small as possible. If a man's pain exceeds a certain +amount, he faints, and so gets relief. If it lasts too long, habit comes +in to make it tolerable. If it is altogether too bad, he dies. That is +the best thing to be done under the circumstances. So you see, the +doctor is constantly in presence of a benevolent agency working against a +settled order of things, of which pain and disease are the accidents, so +to speak. Well, no doubt they find it harder than clergymen to believe +that there can be any world or state from which this benevolent agency is +wholly excluded. This may be very wrong; but it is not unnatural. + +"They can hardly conceive of a permanent state of being in which cuts +would never try to heal, nor habit render suffering endurable. This is +one effect of their training. + +"Then, again, their attention is very much called to human limitations. +Ministers work out the machinery of responsibility in an abstract kind of +way; they have a sort of algebra of human nature, in which friction and +strength (or weakness) of material are left out. You see, a doctor is in +the way of studying children from the moment of birth upwards. For the +first year or so he sees that they are just as much pupils of their Maker +as the young of any other animals. Well, their Maker trains them to pure +selfishness. Why? In order that they may be sure to take care of +themselves. So you see, when a child comes to be, we will say a year and +a day old, and makes his first choice between right and wrong, he is at a +disadvantage; for he, has that vis a tergo, as we doctors call it, that +force from behind, of a whole year's life of selfishness, for which he is +no more to blame than a calf is to blame for having lived in the same +way, purely to gratify his natural appetites. Then we see that baby grow +up to a child, and, if he is fat and stout and red and lively, we expect +to find him troublesome and noisy, and, perhaps, sometimes disobedient +more or less; that's the way each new generation breaks its egg-shell; +but if he is very weak and thin, and is one of the kind that may be +expected to die early, he will very likely sit in the house all day and +read good books about other little sharp-faced children just like +himself, who died early, having always been perfectly indifferent to all +the out-door amusements of the wicked little red-cheeked children. + +"Some of the little folks we watch grow up to be young women, and +occasionally one of them gets nervous, what we call hysterical, and then +that girl will begin to play all sorts of pranks,--to lie and cheat, +perhaps, in the most unaccountable way, so that she might seem to a +minister a good example of total depravity. We don't see her in that +light. We give her iron and valerian, and get her on horseback, if we +can, and so expect to make her will come all right again. By and by we +are called in to see an old baby, threescore years and ten or more old. +We find this old baby has never got rid of that first year's teaching +which led him to fill his stomach with all he could pump into it, and +his hands with everything he could grab. People call him a miser. We +are sorry for him; but we can't help remembering his first year's +training, and the natural effect of money on the great majority of those +that have it. So while the ministers say he 'shall hardly enter into the +kingdom of heaven,' we like to remind them that 'with God all things are +possible.' + +"Once more, we see all kinds of monomania and insanity. We learn from +them to recognize all sorts of queer tendencies in minds supposed to be +sane, so that we have nothing but compassion for a large class of persons +condemned as sinners by theologians, but considered by us as invalids. +We have constant reasons for noticing the transmission of qualities from +parents to offspring, and we find it hard to hold a child accountable in +any moral point of view for inherited bad temper or tendency to +drunkenness,--as hard as we should to blame him for inheriting gout or +asthma. I suppose we are more lenient with human nature than theologians +generally are. We know that the spirits of men and their views of the +present and the future go up and down with the barometer, and that a +permanent depression of one inch in the mercurial column would affect the +whole theology of Christendom. + +"Ministers talk about the human will as if it stood on a high look-out, +with plenty of light, and elbowroom reaching to the horizon. Doctors are +constantly noticing how it is tied up and darkened by inferior +organization, by disease, and all sorts of crowding interferences, until +they get to look upon Hottentots and Indians--and a good many of their +own race as a kind of self-conscious blood-clocks with very limited power +of self-determination. That's the tendency, I say, of a doctor's +experience. But the people to whom they address their statements of the +results of their observation belong to the thinking class of the highest +races, and they are conscious of a great deal of liberty of will. So in +the face of the fact that civilization with all it offers has proved a +dead failure with the aboriginal races of this country,--on the whole, I +say, a dead failure,--they talk as if they knew from their own will all +about that of a Digger Indian! We are more apt to go by observation of +the facts in the case. We are constantly seeing weakness where you see +depravity. I don't say we're right; I only tell what you must often find +to be the fact, right or wrong, in talking with doctors. You see, too, +our notions of bodily and moral disease, or sin, are apt to go together. +We used to be as hard on sickness as you were on sin. We know better +now. We don't look at sickness as we used to, and try to poison it with +everything that is offensive, burnt toads and earth-worms and +viper-broth, and worse things than these. We know that disease has +something back of it which the body isn't to blame for, at least in most +cases, and which very often it is trying to get rid of. Just so with +sin. I will agree to take a hundred new-born babes of a certain stock +and return seventy-five of them in a dozen years true and honest, if not +'pious' children. And I will take another hundred, of a different stock, +and put them in the hands of certain Ann-Street or Five-Points teachers, +and seventy-five of them will be thieves and liars at the end of the same +dozen years. I have heard of an old character, Colonel Jaques, I believe +it was, a famous cattle-breeder, who used to say he could breed to pretty +much any pattern he wanted to. Well, we doctors see so much of families, +how the tricks of the blood keep breaking out, just as much in character +as they do in looks, that we can't help feeling as if a great many people +hadn't a fair chance to be what is called 'good,' and that there isn't a +text in the Bible better worth keeping always in mind than that one, +'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' + +"As for our getting any quarter at the hands of theologians, we don't +expect it, and have no right to. You don't give each other any quarter. +I have had two religious books sent me by friends within a week or two. +One is Mr. Brownson's; he is as fair and square as Euclid; a real honest, +strong thinker, and one that knows what he is talking about,--for he has +tried all sorts of religions, pretty much. He tells us that the Roman +Catholic Church is the one 'through which alone we can hope for heaven.' +The other is by a worthy Episcopal rector, who appears to write as if he +were in earnest, and he calls the Papacy the 'Devil's Masterpiece,' and +talks about the 'Satanic scheme' of that very Church 'through which +alone,' as Mr. Brownson tells us, 'we can hope for heaven' + +"What's the use in our caring about hard words after this,--'atheists,' +heretics, infidels, and the like? They're, after all, only the cinders +picked up out of those heaps of ashes round the stumps of the old stakes +where they used to burn men, women, and children for not thinking just +like other folks. They 'll 'crock' your fingers, but they can't burn us. + +"Doctors are the best-natured people in the world, except when they get +fighting with each other. And they have some advantages over you. You +inherit your notions from a set of priests that had no wives and no +children, or none to speak of, and so let their humanity die out of them. +It did n't seem much to them to condemn a few thousand millions of people +to purgatory or worse for a mistake of judgment. They didn't know what +it was to have a child look up in their faces and say 'Father!' It will +take you a hundred or two more years to get decently humanized, after so +many centuries of de-humanizing celibacy. + +"Besides, though our libraries are, perhaps, not commonly quite so big as +yours, God opens one book to physicians that a good many of you don't +know much about,--the Book of Life. That is none of your dusty folios +with black letters between pasteboard and leather, but it is printed in +bright red type, and the binding of it is warm and tender to every touch. +They reverence that book as one of the Almighty's infallible revelations. +They will insist on reading you lessons out of it, whether you call them +names or not. These will always be lessons of charity. No doubt, +nothing can be more provoking to listen to. But do beg your folks to +remember that the Smithfield fires are all out, and that the cinders are +very dirty and not in the least dangerous. They'd a great deal better be +civil, and not be throwing old proverbs in the doctors' faces, when they +say that the man of the old monkish notions is one thing and the man they +watch from his cradle to his coffin is something very different." + +It has cost a good deal of trouble to work the Doctor's talk up into this +formal shape. Some of his sentences have been rounded off for him, and +the whole brought into a more rhetorical form than it could have +pretended to, if taken as it fell from his lips. But the exact course of +his remarks has been followed, and as far as possible his expressions +have been retained. Though given in the form of a discourse, it must be +remembered that this was a conversation, much more fragmentary and +colloquial than it seems as just read. + +The Reverend Doctor was very far from taking offence at the old +physician's freedom of speech. He knew him to be honest, kind, +charitable, self-denying, wherever any sorrow was to be alleviated, +always reverential, with a cheerful trust in the great Father of all +mankind. To be sure, his senior deacon, old Deacon Shearer,--who seemed +to have got his Scripture-teachings out of the "Vinegar Bible," (the one +where Vineyard is misprinted Vinegar; which a good many people seem to +have adopted as the true reading,)--his senior deacon had called Dr. +Kittredge an "infidel." But the Reverend Doctor could not help feeling, +that, unless the text, "By their fruits ye shall know them," were an +interpolation, the Doctor was the better Christian of the two. Whatever +his senior deacon might think about it, he said to himself that he +shouldn't be surprised if he met the Doctor in heaven yet, inquiring +anxiously after old Deacon Shearer. + +He was on the point of expressing himself very frankly to the Doctor, +with that benevolent smile on his face which had sometimes come near +giving offence to the readers of the "Vinegar" edition, but he saw that +the physician's attention had been arrested by Elsie. He looked in the +same direction himself, and could not help being struck by her attitude +and expression. There was something singularly graceful in the curves of +her neck and the rest of her figure, but she was so perfectly still that +it seemed as if she were hardly breathing. Her eyes were fixed on the +young girl with whom Mr. Bernard was talking. He had often noticed their +brilliancy, but now it seemed to him that they appeared dull, and the +look on her features was as of some passion which had missed its stroke. +Mr. Bernard's companion seemed unconscious that she was the object of +this attention, and was listening to the young master as if he had +succeeded in making himself very agreeable. + +Of course Dick Veneer had not mistaken the game that was going on. The +schoolmaster meant to make Elsie jealous,--and he had done it. That 's +it: get her savage first, and then come wheedling round her,--a sure +trick, if he isn't headed off somehow. But Dick saw well enough that he +had better let Elsie alone just now, and thought the best way of killing +the evening would be to amuse himself in a little lively talk with Mrs. +Blanche Creamer, and incidentally to show Elsie that he could make +himself acceptable to other women, if not to herself. + +The Doctor presently went up to Elsie, determined to engage her in +conversation and get her out of her thoughts, which he saw, by her look, +were dangerous. Her father had been on the point of leaving Helen Darley +to go to her, but felt easy enough when he saw the old Doctor at her +side, and so went on talking. The Reverend Doctor, being now left alone, +engaged the Widow Rowens, who put the best face on her vexation she +could, but was devoting herself to all the underground deities for having +been such a fool as to ask that pale-faced thing from the Institute to +fill up her party. + +There is no space left to report the rest of the conversation. If there +was anything of any significance in it, it will turn up by and by, no +doubt. At ten o'clock the Reverend Doctor called Miss Letty, who had no +idea it was so late; Mr. Bernard gave his arm to Helen; Mr. Richard saw +to Mrs. Blanche Creamer; the Doctor gave Elsie a cautioning look, and +went off alone, thoughtful; Dudley Venner and his daughter got into their +carriage and were whirled away. The Widow's gambit was played, and she +had not won the game. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE WILD HUNTSMAN. + +The young master had not forgotten the old Doctor's cautions. Without +attributing any great importance to the warning he had given him, Mr. +Bernard had so far complied with his advice that he was becoming a pretty +good shot with the pistol. It was an amusement as good as many others to +practise, and he had taken a fancy to it after the first few days. + +The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the backyard of the Institute was +a phenomenon more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked about in +Rockland. The viscous intelligence of a country-village is not easily +stirred by the winds which ripple the fluent thought of great cities, but +it holds every straw and entangles every insect that lights upon it. It +soon became rumored in the town that the young master was a wonderful +shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit a fo'pence-ha'penny at +three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single ball; +some, that he snuffed a candle five times out of six at ten paces, and +that he could hit any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In other +words, as in all such cases, all the common feats were ascribed to him, +as the current jokes of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit, +however innocent he may be of them. + +In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this time +made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of the +population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go out for +want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there at the +Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they say he can +snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer's version,) +and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in the eye, as far as he +could see the white of it. + +Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without believing +more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee schoolmaster +too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a mark was pleasant +work enough; he had no particular objection to it himself. Only he did +not care so much for those little popgun affairs that a man carries in +his pocket, and with which you could n't shoot a fellow,--a robber, +say,--without getting the muzzle under his nose. Pistols for boys; +long-range rifles for men. There was such a gun lying in a closet with +the fowling-pieces. He would go out into the fields and see what he +could do as a marksman. + +The nature of the mark which Dick chose for experimenting upon was +singular. He had found some panes of glass which had been removed from +an old sash, and he placed these successively before his target, +arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go +through the glass without glancing or having its force materially abated. +It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of some practical +significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up to render these +out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a quiet way in one of +the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. He was very thoughtful +in taking the precaution to get so far away; rifle-bullets are apt to +glance and come whizzing about people's ears, if they are fired in the +neighborhood of houses. Dick satisfied himself that he could be +tolerably sure of hitting a pane of glass at a distance of thirty rods, +more or less, and that, if there happened to be anything behind it, the +glass would not materially alter the force or direction of the bullet. + +About this time it occurred to him also that there was an old +accomplishment of his which he would be in danger of losing for want of +practice, if he did not take some opportunity to try his hand and regain +its cunning, if it had begun to be diminished by disuse. For his first +trial, he chose an evening when the moon was shining, and after the hour +when the Rockland people were like to be stirring abroad. He was so far +established now that he could do much as he pleased without exciting +remark. + +The prairie horse he rode, the mustang of the Pampas, wild as he was, had +been trained to take part in at least one exercise. This was the +accomplishment in which Mr. Richard now proposed to try himself. For +this purpose he sought the implement of which, as it may be remembered, +he had once made an incidental use,--the lasso, or long strip of hide +with a slip-noose at the end of it. He had been accustomed to playing +with such a thong from his boyhood, and had become expert in its use in +capturing wild cattle in the course of his adventures. Unfortunately, +there were no wild bulls likely to be met with in the neighborhood, to +become the subjects of his skill. A stray cow in the road, an ox or a +horse in a pasture, must serve his turn,--dull beasts, but moving marks +to aim at, at any rate. + +Never, since he had galloped in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick +Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long +spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with the +lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the +silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving +a wound behind it,--sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the telltale +explosion,--is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm +the hand of man. The old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest +with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet, and shield, was the almost +naked retiarius, with his net in one hand and his three-pronged javelin +in the other. Once get a net over a man's head, or a cord round his +neck, or, what is more frequently done nowadays, bonnet him by knocking +his hat down over his eyes, and he is at the mercy of his opponent. Our +soldiers who served against the Mexicans found this out too well. Many a +poor fellow has been lassoed by the fierce riders from the plains, and +fallen an easy victim to the captor who had snared him in the fatal +noose. + +But, imposing as the sight of the wild huntsmen of the Pampas might have +been, Dick could not help laughing at the mock sublimity of his +situation, as he tried his first experiment on an unhappy milky mother +who had strayed from her herd and was wandering disconsolately along the +road, laying the dust, as slue went, with thready streams from her +swollen, swinging udders. "Here goes the Don at the windmill!" said +Dick, and tilted full speed at her, whirling the lasso round his head as +he rode. The creature swerved to one side of the way, as the wild horse +and his rider came rushing down upon her, and presently turned and ran, +as only cows and it would n't be safe to say it--can run. Just before he +passed,--at twenty or thirty feet from her,--the lasso shot from his +hand, uncoiling as it flew, and in an instant its loop was round her +horns. "Well cast!" said Dick, as he galloped up to her side and +dexterously disengaged the lasso. "Now for a horse on the run!" + +He had the good luck to find one, presently, grazing in a pasture at the +road-side. Taking down the rails of the fence at one point, he drove the +horse into the road and gave chase. It was a lively young animal enough, +and was easily roused to a pretty fast pace. As his gallop grew more and +more rapid, Dick gave the reins to the mustang, until the two horses +stretched themselves out in their longest strides. If the first feat +looked like play, the one he was now to attempt had a good deal the +appearance of real work. He touched the mustang with the spur, and in a +few fierce leaps found himself nearly abreast of the frightened animal he +was chasing. Once more he whirled the lasso round and round over his +head, and then shot it forth, as the rattlesnake shoots his head from the +loops against which it rests. The noose was round the horse's neck, and +in another instant was tightened so as almost to stop his breath. The +prairie horse knew the trick of the cord, and leaned away from the +captive, so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and +the peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no +use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to tremble +and stagger,--blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as of a +thousand battle-trumpets,--at any rate, subdued and helpless. That was +enough. Dick loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it like a pet +snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, turned his horse, and rode slowly +along towards the mansion-house. + +The place had never looked more stately and beautiful to him than as he +now saw it in the moonlight. The undulations of the land,--the grand +mountain screen which sheltered the mansion from the northern blasts, +rising with all its hanging forests and parapets of naked rock high +towards the heavens,--the ancient mansion, with its square chimneys, and +bodyguard of old trees, and cincture of low walls with marble-pillared +gateways,--the fields, with their various coverings,--the beds of +flowers,--the plots of turf, one with a gray column in its centre bearing +a sundial on which the rays of the moon were idly shining, another with a +white stone and a narrow ridge of turf,--over all these objects, +harmonized with all their infinite details into one fair whole by the +moonlight, the prospective heir, as he deemed himself, looked with +admiring eyes. + +But while he looked, the thought rose up in his mind like waters from a +poisoned fountain, that there was a deep plot laid to cheat him of the +inheritance which by a double claim he meant to call his own. Every day +this ice-cold beauty, this dangerous, handsome cousin of his, went up to +that place,--that usher's girl-trap. Everyday,--regularly now,--it used +to be different. Did she go only to get out of his, her cousin's, reach? +Was she not rather becoming more and more involved in the toils of this +plotting Yankee? + +If Mr. Bernard had shown himself at that moment a few rods in advance, +the chances are that in less than one minute he would have found himself +with a noose round his neck, at the heels of a mounted horseman. +Providence spared him for the present. Mr. Richard rode his horse +quietly round to the stable, put him up, and proceeded towards the house. +He got to his bed without disturbing the family, but could not sleep. +The idea had fully taken possession of his mind that a deep intrigue was +going on which would end by bringing Elsie and the schoolmaster into +relations fatal to all his own hopes. With that ingenuity which always +accompanies jealousy, he tortured every circumstance of the last few +weeks so as to make it square with this belief. From this vein of +thought he naturally passed to a consideration of every possible method +by which the issue he feared might be avoided. + +Mr. Richard talked very plain language with himself in all these inward +colloquies. Supposing it came to the worst, what could be done then? +First, an accident might happen to the schoolmaster which should put a +complete and final check upon his projects and contrivances. The +particular accident which might interrupt his career must, evidently, be +determined by circumstances; but it must be of a nature to explain itself +without the necessity of any particular person's becoming involved in the +matter. It would be unpleasant to go into particulars; but everybody +knows well enough that men sometimes get in the way of a stray bullet, +and that young persons occasionally do violence to themselves in various +modes,--by firearms, suspension, and other means,--in consequence of +disappointment in love, perhaps, oftener than from other motives. There +was still another kind of accident which might serve his purpose. If +anything should happen to Elsie, it would be the most natural thing in +the world that his uncle should adopt him, his nephew and only near +relation, as his heir. Unless, indeed, uncle Dudley should take it into +his head to marry again. In that case, where would he, Dick, be? This +was the most detestable complication which he could conceive of. And yet +he had noticed--he could not help noticing--that his uncle had been very +attentive to, and, as it seemed, very much pleased with, that young woman +from the school. What did that mean? Was it possible that he was going +to take a fancy to her? + +It made him wild to think of all the several contingencies which might +defraud him of that good-fortune which seemed but just now within his +grasp. He glared in the darkness at imaginary faces: sometimes at that +of the handsome, treacherous schoolmaster; sometimes at that of the +meek-looking, but no doubt, scheming, lady-teacher; sometimes at that of +the dark girl whom he was ready to make his wife; sometimes at that of +his much respected uncle, who, of course, could not be allowed to peril +the fortunes of his relatives by forming a new connection. It was a +frightful perplexity in which he found himself, because there was no one +single life an accident to which would be sufficient to insure the +fitting and natural course of descent to the great Dudley property. If +it had been a simple question of helping forward a casualty to any one +person, there was nothing in Dick's habits of thought and living to make +that a serious difficulty. He had been so much with lawless people, that +a life between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to be +removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble. But if +there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered the +case. + +His Southern blood was getting impatient. There was enough of the +New-Englander about him to make him calculate his chances before he +struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated at any moment by a +passionate impulse such as the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and +their descendants are liable to. He lay in his bed, sometimes arranging +plans to meet the various difficulties already mentioned, sometimes +getting into a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity of considering +what object he should select as the one most clearly in his way. On the +whole, there could be no doubt where the most threatening of all his +embarrassments lay. It was in the probable growing relation between +Elsie and the schoolmaster. If it should prove, as it seemed likely, +that there was springing up a serious attachment tending to a union +between them, he knew what he should do, if he was not quite so sure how +he should do it. + +There was one thing at least which might favor his projects, and which, +at any rate, would serve to amuse him. He could, by a little quiet +observation, find out what were the schoolmaster's habits of life: +whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and under what +circumstances a strictly private interview of a few minutes with him +might be reckoned on, in case it should be desirable. He could also very +probably learn some facts about Elsie. whether the young man was in the +habit of attending her on her way home from school; whether she stayed +about the schoolroom after the other girls had gone; and any incidental +matters of interest which might present themselves. + +He was getting more and more restless for want of some excitement. A mad +gallop, a visit to Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had taken such a fancy to +him, or a chat with the Widow Rowens, who was very lively in her talk, +for all her sombre colors, and reminded him a good deal of same of his +earlier friends, the senoritas,--all these were distractions, to be sure, +but not enough to keep his fiery spirit from fretting itself in longings +for more dangerous excitements. The thought of getting a knowledge of +all Mr. Bernard's ways, so that he would be in his power at any moment, +was a happy one. + +For some days after this he followed Elsie at a long distance behind, to +watch her until she got to the schoolhouse. One day he saw Mr. Bernard +join her: a mere accident, very probably, for it was only once this +happened. She came on her homeward way alone,--quite apart from the +groups of girls who strolled out of the schoolhouse yard in company. +Sometimes she was behind them all,--which was suggestive. Could she have +stayed to meet the schoolmaster? + +If he could have smuggled himself into the school, he would have liked to +watch her there, and see if there was not some understanding between her +and the master which betrayed itself by look or word. But this was beyond +the limits of his audacity, and he had to content himself with such +cautious observations as could be made at a distance. With the aid of a +pocket-glass he could make out persons without the risk of being observed +himself. + +Mr. Silos Peckham's corps of instructors was not expected to be off duty +or to stand at ease for any considerable length of time. Sometimes Mr. +Bernard, who had more freedom than the rest, would go out for a ramble in +the daytime, but more frequently it would be in the evening, after the +hour of "retiring," as bedtime was elegantly termed by the young ladies +of the Apollinean Institute. He would then not unfrequently walk out +alone in the common roads, or climb up the sides of The Mountain, which +seemed to be one of his favorite resorts. Here, of course, it was +impossible to follow him with the eye at a distance. Dick had a hideous, +gnawing suspicion that somewhere in these deep shades the schoolmaster +might meet Elsie, whose evening wanderings he knew so well. But of this +he was not able to assure himself. Secrecy was necessary to his present +plans, and he could not compromise himself by over-eager curiosity. One +thing he learned with certainty. The master returned, after his walk one +evening, and entered the building where his room was situated. Presently +a light betrayed the window of his apartment. From a wooded bank, some +thirty or forty rods from this building, Dick Venner could see the +interior of the chamber, and watch the master as he sat at his desk, the +light falling strongly upon his face, intent upon the book or manuscript +before him. Dick contemplated him very long in this attitude. The sense +of watching his every motion, himself meanwhile utterly unseen, was +delicious. How little the master was thinking what eyes were on him! + +Well,--there were two things quite certain. One was, that, if he chose, +he could meet the schoolmaster alone, either in the road or in a more +solitary place, if he preferred to watch his chance for an evening or +two. The other was, that he commanded his position, as he sat at his +desk in the evening, in such a way that there would be very little +difficulty,--so far as that went; of course, however, silence is always +preferable to noise, and there is a great difference in the marks left by +different casualties. Very likely nothing would come of all this +espionage; but, at any rate, the first thing to be done with a man you +want to have in your power is to learn his habits. + +Since the tea-party at the Widow Rowens's, Elsie had been more fitful and +moody than ever. Dick understood all this well enough, you know. It was +the working of her jealousy against that young schoolgirl to whom the +master had devoted himself for the sake of piquing the heiress of the +Dudley mansion. Was it possible, in any way, to exasperate her irritable +nature against him, and in this way to render her more accessible to his +own advances? It was difficult to influence her at all. She endured his +company without seeming to enjoy it. She watched him with that strange +look of hers, sometimes as if she were on her guard against him, +sometimes as if she would like to strike at him as in that fit of +childish passion. She ordered him about with a haughty indifference +which reminded him of his own way with the dark-eyed women whom he had +known so well of old. All this added a secret pleasure to the other +motives he had for worrying her with jealous suspicions. He knew she +brooded silently on any grief that poisoned her comfort,--that she fed on +it, as it were, until it ran with every drop of blood in her veins,--and +that, except in some paroxysm of rage, of which he himself was not likely +the second time to be the object, or in some deadly vengeance wrought +secretly, against which he would keep a sharp lookout, so far as he was +concerned, she had no outlet for her dangerous, smouldering passions. + +Beware of the woman who cannot find free utterance for all her stormy +inner life either in words or song! So long as a woman can talk, there +is nothing she cannot bear. If she cannot have a companion to listen to +her woes, and has no musical utterance, vocal or instrumental,--then, if +she is of the real woman sort, and has a few heartfuls of wild blood in +her, and you have done her a wrong,--double-bolt the door which she may +enter on noiseless slipper at midnight,--look twice before you taste of +any cup whose draught the shadow of her hand may have darkened! + +But let her talk, and, above all, cry, or, if she is one of the +coarser-grained tribe, give her the run of all the red-hot expletives in +the language, and let her blister her lips with them until she is tired, +she will sleep like a lamb after it, and you may take a cup of coffee +from her without stirring it up to look for its sediment. + +So, if she can sing, or play on any musical instrument, all her +wickedness will run off through her throat or the tips of her fingers. +How many tragedies find their peaceful catastrophe in fierce roulades and +strenuous bravuras! How many murders are executed in double-quick time +upon the keys which stab the air with their dagger-strokes of sound! +What would our civilization be without the piano? Are not Erard and +Broadwood and Chickering the true humanizers of our time? Therefore do I +love to hear the all-pervading tum tum jarring the walls of little +parlors in houses with double door-plates on their portals, looking out +on streets and courts which to know is to be unknown, and where to exist +is not to live, according to any true definition of living. Therefore +complain I not of modern degeneracy, when, even from the open window of +the small unlovely farmhouse, tenanted by the hard-handed man of bovine +flavors and the flat-patterned woman of broken-down countenance, issue +the same familiar sounds. For who knows that Almira, but for these keys, +which throb away her wild impulses in harmless discords would not have +been floating, dead, in the brown stream which slides through the meadows +by her father's door,--or living, with that other current which runs +beneath the gas-lights over the slimy pavement, choking with wretched +weeds that were once in spotless flower? + +Poor Elsie! She never sang nor played. She never shaped her inner life +in words: such utterance was as much denied to her nature as common +articulate speech to the deaf mute. Her only language must be in action. +Watch her well by day and by night, old Sophy! watch her well! or the +long line of her honored name may close in shame, and the stately mansion +of the Dudleys remain a hissing and a reproach till its roof is buried in +its cellar! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +ON HIS TRACKS. + +"Able!" said the old Doctor, one morning, "after you've harnessed +Caustic, come into the study a few minutes, will you?" + +Abel nodded. He was a man of few words, and he knew that the "will you" +did not require an answer, being the true New-England way of rounding the +corners of an employer's order,--a tribute to the personal independence +of an American citizen. + +The hired man came into the study in the course of a few minutes. His +face was perfectly still, and he waited to be spoken to; but the Doctor's +eye detected a certain meaning in his expression, which looked as if he +had something to communicate. + +"Well?" said the Doctor. + +"He's up to mischief o' some kind, I guess," said Abel. "I jest happened +daown by the mansion-haouse last night, 'n' he come aout o' the gate on +that queer-lookin' creator' o' his. I watched him, 'n' he rid, very +slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he was spyin' abaout. +He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to do some kind of ill-turn +to somebody. I should n't like to have him raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a +pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep'n within reach. He may be +all right; but I don't like his looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' +raoun' the Institoot for, after folks is abed." + +"Have you watched him pretty close for the last few days?" said the +Doctor. + +"W'll, yes,--I've had my eye on him consid'ble o' the time. I haf to be +pooty shy abaout it, or he'll find aout th't I'm on his tracks. I don' +want him to get a spite ag'inst me, 'f I c'n help it; he looks to me like +one o' them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, 'n' hits ye on +the side o' th' head with 'em so suddin y' never know what hurts ye." + +"Why," said the Doctor, sharply,--"have you ever seen him with any such +weapon about him?" + +"W'll, no,--I caan't say that I hev," Abel answered. "On'y he looks kin' +o' dangerous. Maybe he's all jest 'z he ought to be,--I caan't say that +he a'n't,--but he's aout late nights, 'n' lurkin' raonn' jest 'z ef he +was spyin' somebody, 'n' somehaow I caan't help mistrustin' them +Portagee-lookin' fellahs. I caan't keep the run o' this chap all the +time; but I've a notion that old black woman daown 't the mansion-haouse +knows 'z much abaout him 'z anybody." + +The Doctor paused a moment, after hearing this report from his private +detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's head in the +direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious of Dick from the +first. He did not like his mixed blood, nor his looks, nor his ways. He +had formed a conjecture about his projects early. He had made a shrewd +guess as to the probable jealousy Dick would feel of the schoolmaster, +had found out something of his movements, and had cautioned Mr. +Bernard,--as we have seen. He felt an interest in the young man,--a +student of his own profession, an intelligent and ingenuously +unsuspecting young fellow, who had been thrown by accident into the +companionship or the neighborhood of two persons, one of whom he knew to +be dangerous, and the other he believed instinctively might be capable of +crime. + +The Doctor rode down to the Dudley mansion solely for the sake of seeing +old Sophy. He was lucky enough to find her alone in her kitchen. He +began taking with her as a physician; he wanted to know how her +rheumatism had been. The shrewd old woman saw through all that with her +little beady black eyes. It was something quite different he had come +for, and old Sophy answered very briefly for her aches and ails. + +"Old folks' bones a'n't like young folks'," she said. "It's the Lord's +doin's, 'n' 't a'n't much matter. I sha'n' be long roan' this kitchen. +It's the young Missis, Doctor,--it 's our Elsie,--it 's the baby, as we +use' t' call her,--don' you remember, Doctor? Seventeen year ago, 'n' +her poor mother cryin' for her,--'Where is she? where is she? Let me see +her! '--'n' how I run up-stairs,--I could run then,--'n' got the coral +necklace 'n' put it round her little neck, 'n' then showed her to her +mother,--'n' how her mother looked at her, 'n' looked, 'n' then put out +her poor thin fingers 'n' lifted the necklace,--'n' fell right back on +her piller, as white as though she was laid out to bury?" + +The Doctor answered her by silence and a look of grave assent. He had +never chosen to let old Sophy dwell upon these matters, for obvious +reasons. The girl must not grow up haunted by perpetual fears and +prophecies, if it were possible to prevent it. + +"Well, how has Elsie seemed of late?" he said, after this brief pause. + +The old woman shook her head. Then she looked up at the Doctor so +steadily and searchingly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could +hardly have pierced more deeply. + +The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual movement, and met the old +woman's look with his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by the +glasses through which he now saw her. + +Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if telling a vision. + +"We shall be havin' trouble before long. The' 's somethin' comin' from +the Lord. I've had dreams, Doctor. It's many a year I've been +a-dreamin', but now they're comin' over 'n' over the same thing. Three +times I've dreamed one thing, Doctor,--one thing!" + +"And what was that?" the Doctor said, with that shade of curiosity in his +tone which a metaphysician would probably say is an index of a certain +tendency to belief in the superstition to which the question refers. + +"I ca'n' jestly tell y' what it was, Doctor," the old woman answered, as +if bewildered and trying to clear up her recollections; "but it was +somethin' fearful, with a great noise 'n' a great cryin' o' people,--like +the Las' Day, Doctor! The Lord have mercy on my poor chil', 'n' take +care of her, if anything happens! But I's feared she'll never live to +see the Las' Day, 'f 't don' come pooty quick." + +Poor Sophy, only the third generation from cannibalism, was, not +unnaturally, somewhat confused in her theological notions. Some of the +Second-Advent preachers had been about, and circulated their predictions +among the kitchen--population of Rockland. This was the way in which it +happened that she mingled her fears in such a strange manner with their +doctrines. + +The Doctor answered solemnly, that of the day and hour we knew not, but +it became us to be always ready.--"Is there anything going on in the +household different from common?" + +Old Sophy's wrinkled face looked as full of life and intelligence, when +she turned it full upon the Doctor, as if she had slipped off her +infirmities and years like an outer garment. All those fine instincts of +observation which came straight to her from her savage grandfather looked +out of her little eyes. She had a kind of faith that the Doctor was a +mighty conjurer, who, if he would, could bewitch any of them. She had +relieved her feelings by her long talk with the minister, but the Doctor +was the immediate adviser of the family, and had watched them through all +their troubles. Perhaps he could tell them what to do. She had but one +real object of affection in the world,--this child that she had tended +from infancy to womanhood. Troubles were gathering thick round her; how +soon they would break upon her, and blight or destroy her, no one could +tell; but there was nothing in all the catalogue of terrors which might +not come upon the household at any moment. Her own wits had sharpened +themselves in keeping watch by day and night, and her face had forgotten +its age in the excitement which gave life to its features. + +"Doctor," old Sophy said, "there's strange things goin' on here by night +and by day. I don' like that man,--that Dick,--I never liked him. He +giv' me some o' these things I' got on; I take 'em 'cos I know it make +him mad, if I no take 'em; I wear 'em, so that he need n' feel as if I +did n' like him; but, Doctor, I hate him,--jes' as much as a member of +the church has the Lord's leave to hate anybody." + +Her eyes sparkled with the old savage light, as if her ill-will to Mr. +Richard Veneer might perhaps go a little farther than the Christian limit +she had assigned. But remember that her grandfather was in the habit of +inviting his friends to dine with him upon the last enemy he had bagged, +and that her grandmother's teeth were filed down to points, so that they +were as sharp as a shark's. + +"What is that you have seen about Mr. Richard Veneer that gives you such +a spite against him, Sophy?" asked the Doctor. + +"What I' seen 'bout Dick Veneer?" she replied, fiercely. "I'll tell y' +what I' seen. Dick wan's to marry our Elsie,--that 's what he wan's; 'n' +he don' love her, Doctor,--he hates her, Doctor, as bad as I hate him! +He wan's to marry our Elsie, In' live here in the big house, 'n' have +nothin' to do but jes' lay still 'n' watch Massa Venner 'n' see how +long 't Ill take him to die, 'n' 'f he don' die fas' 'puff, help him some +way t' die fasser!--Come close up t' me, Doctor! I wan' t' tell you +somethin' I tol' th' minister t' other day. Th' minister, he come down +'n' prayed 'n' talked good,--he's a good man, that Doctor Honeywood, 'n' +I tol' him all 'bout our Elsie, but he did n' tell nobody what to do to +stop all what I' been dreamin' about happenin'. Come close up to me, +Doctor!" + +The Doctor drew his chair close up to that of the old woman. + +"Doctor, nobody mus'n' never marry our Elsie 's longs she lives! Nobody +mus' n' never live with Elsie but ol Sophy; 'n' ol Sophy won't never die +'s long 's Elsie 's alive to be took care of. But I's feared, Doctor, +I's greatly feared Elsie wan' to marry somebody. The' 's a young +gen'l'm'n up at that school where she go,--so some of 'em tells me, 'n' +she loves t' see him 'n' talk wi' him, 'n' she talks about him when she +'s asleep sometimes. She mus 'n' never marry nobody, Doctor! If she do, +he die, certain!" + +"If she has a fancy for the young man up at the school there," the Doctor +said, "I shouldn't think there would be much danger from Dick." + +"Doctor, nobody know nothin' 'bout Elsie but of Sophy. She no like any +other creator' th't ever drawed the bref o' life. If she ca'n' marry one +man 'cos she love him, she marry another man 'cos she hate him." + +"Marry a man because she hates him, Sophy? No woman ever did such a +thing as that, or ever will do it." + +"Who tol' you Elsie was a woman, Doctor?" said old Sophy, with a flash +of strange intelligence in her eyes. + +The Doctor's face showed that he was startled. The old woman could not +know much about Elsie that he did not know; but what strange superstition +had got into her head, he was puzzled to guess. He had better follow +Sophy's lead and find out what she meant. + +"I should call Elsie a woman, and a very handsome one," he said. "You +don't mean that she has any mark about her, except--you know--under the +necklace?" + +The old woman resented the thought of any deformity about her darling. + +"I did n' say she had nothin'--but jes' that--you know. My beauty have +anything ugly? She's the beautifullest-shaped lady that ever had a +shinin' silk gown drawed over her shoulders. On'y she a'n't like no +other woman in none of her ways. She don't cry 'n' laugh like other +women. An' she ha'n' got the same kind o' feelin's as other women.--Do +you know that young gen'l'm'n up at the school, Doctor?" + +"Yes, Sophy, I've met him sometimes. He's a very nice sort of young man, +handsome, too, and I don't much wonder Elsie takes to him. Tell me, +Sophy, what do you think would happen, if he should chance to fall in +love with Elsie, and she with him, and he should marry her?" + +"Put your ear close to my lips, Doctor, dear!" She whispered a little to +the Doctor, then added aloud, "He die,--that's all." + +"But surely, Sophy, you a'n't afraid to have Dick marry her, if she would +have him for any reason, are you? He can take care of himself, if +anybody can." + +"Doctor!" Sophy answered, "nobody can take care of hisself that live wi' +Elsie! Nobody never in all this worl' mus' live wi' Elsie but of Sophy, +I tell you. You don' think I care for Dick? What do I care, if Dick +Venner die? He wan's to marry our Elsie so 's to live in the big house +'n' get all the money 'n' all the silver things 'n' all the chists full +o' linen 'n' beautiful clothes. That's what Dick wan's. An' he hates +Elsie 'cos she don' like him. But if he marry Elsie, she 'll make him +die some wrong way or other, 'n' they'll take her 'n' hang her, or he'll +get mad with her 'n' choke her.--Oh, I know his chokin' tricks!--he don' +leave his keys roun' for nothin'" + +"What's that you say, Sophy? Tell me what you mean by all that." + +So poor Sophy had to explain certain facts not in all respects to her +credit. She had taken the opportunity of his absence to look about his +chamber, and, having found a key in one of his drawers, had applied it to +a trunk, and, finding that it opened the trunk, had made a kind of +inspection for contraband articles, and, seeing the end of a leather +thong, had followed it up until she saw that it finished with a noose, +which, from certain appearances, she inferred to have seen service of at +least doubtful nature. An unauthorized search; but old Sophy considered +that a game of life and death was going on in the household, and that she +was bound to look out for her darling. + +The Doctor paused a moment to think over this odd piece of information. +Without sharing Sophy's belief as to the kind of use this +mischievous-looking piece of property had been put to, it was certainly +very odd that Dick should have such a thing at the bottom of his trunk. +The Doctor remembered reading or hearing something about the lasso and +the lariat and the bolas, and had an indistinct idea that they had been +sometimes used as weapons of warfare or private revenge; but they were +essentially a huntsman's implements, after all, and it was not very +strange that this young man had brought one of them with him. Not +strange, perhaps, but worth noting. + +"Do you really think Dick means mischief to anybody, that he has such +dangerous-looking things?" the Doctor said, presently. + +"I tell you, Doctor. Dick means to have Elsie. If he ca'n' get her, he +never let nobody else have her! Oh, Dick 's a dark man, Doctor! I know +him! I 'member him when he was little boy,--he always cunin'. I think he +mean mischief to somebody. He come home late nights,--come in +softly,--oh, I hear him! I lay awake, 'n' got sharp ears,--I hear the +cats walkin' over the roofs,--'n' I hear Dick Veneer, when he comes up in +his stockin'-feet as still as a cat. I think he mean' mischief to +somebody. I no like his looks these las' days.--Is that a very pooty +gen'l'm'n up at the schoolhouse, Doctor?" + +"I told you he was good-looking. What if he is?" + +"I should like to see him, Doctor,--I should like to see the pooty +gen'l'm'n that my poor Elsie loves. She mus 'n' never marry nobody, +--but, oh, Doctor, I should like to see him, 'n' jes' think a little how +it would ha' been, if the Lord had n' been so hard on Elsie." + +She wept and wrung her hands. The kind Doctor was touched, and left her +a moment to her thoughts. + +"And how does Mr. Dudley Veneer take all this?" he said, by way of +changing the subject a little. + +"Oh, Massa Veneer, he good man, but he don' know nothin' 'bout Elsie, as +of Sophy do. I keep close by her; I help her when she go to bed, 'n' set +by her sometime when she--'sleep; I come to her in th' mornin' 'n' help +her put on her things."--Then, in a whisper;--"Doctor, Elsie lets of +Sophy take off that necklace for her. What you think she do, 'f anybody +else tech it?" + +"I don't know, I'm sure, Sophy,--strike the person, perhaps." + +"Oh, yes, strike 'em! but not with her han's, Doctor!"--The old woman's +significant pantomime must be guessed at. + +"But you haven't told me, Sophy, what Mr. Dudley Veneer thinks of his +nephew, nor whether he has any notion that Dick wants to marry Elsie." + +"I tell you. Massa Venner, he good man, but he no see nothin' 'bout what +goes on here in the house. He sort o' broken-hearted, you know,--sort o' +giv up,--don' know what to do wi' Elsie, 'xcep' say 'Yes, yes.' Dick +always look smilin' 'n' behave well before him. One time I thought Massa +Veneer b'lieve Dick was goin' to take to Elsie; but now he don' seem to +take much notice,--he kin' o' stupid-' like 'bout sech things. It's +trouble, Doctor; 'cos Massa Veneer bright man naterally,--'n' he's got a +great heap o' books. I don' think Massa Veneer never been jes' heself +sence Elsie 's born. He done all he know how,--but, Doctor, that wa'n' a +great deal. You men-folks don' know nothin' 'bout these young gals; 'n' +'f you knowed all the young gals that ever lived, y' would n' know +nothin' 'bout our Elsie." + +"No,--but, Sophy, what I want to know is, whether you think Mr. Veneer +has any kind of suspicion about his nephew,--whether he has any notion +that he's a dangerous sort of fellow,--or whether he feels safe to have +him about, or has even taken a sort of fancy to him." + +"Lar' bless you, Doctor, Massa Veneer no more idee 'f any mischief 'bout +Dick than he has 'bout you or me. Y' see, he very fond o' the +Cap'n,--that Dick's father,--'n' he live so long alone here, 'long wi' +us, that he kin' o' like to see mos' anybody 't 's got any o' th' of +family-blood in 'em. He ha'n't got no more suspicions 'n a baby,--y' +never see sech a man 'n y'r life. I kin' o' think he don' care for +nothin' in this world 'xcep' jes' t' do what Elsie wan's him to. The fus' +year after young Madam die he do nothin' but jes' set at the window 'n' +look out at her grave, 'n' then come up 'n' look at the baby's neck 'n' +say, 'It's fadin', Sophy, a'n't it? 'n' then go down in the study 'n' +walk 'n' walk, 'n' them kneel down 'n' pray. Doctor, there was two places +in the old carpet that was all threadbare, where his knees had worn 'em. +An' sometimes, you remember 'bout all that,--he'd go off up into The +Mountain, 'n' be gone all day, 'n' kill all the Ugly Things he could find +up there.--Oh, Doctor, I don' like to think o' them days!--An' by 'n' +by he grew kin' o' still, 'n' begun to read a little, 'n' 't las' he got +'s quiet's a lamb, 'n' that's the way he is now. I think he's got +religion, Doctor; but he a'n't so bright about what's goin' on, 'n' I +don' believe he never suspec' nothin' till somethin' happens; for the' 's +somethin' goin' to happen, Doctor, if the Las' Day does n' come to stop +it; 'n' you mus' tell us what to do, 'n' save my poor Elsie, my baby that +the Lord has n' took care of like all his other childer." + +The Doctor assured the old woman that he was thinking a great deal about +them all, and that there were other eyes on Dick besides her own. Let +her watch him closely about the house, and he would keep a look-out +elsewhere. If there was anything new, she must let him know at once. +Send up one of the menservants, and he would come down at a moment's +warning. + +There was really nothing definite against this young man; but the Doctor +was sure that he was meditating some evil design or other. He rode +straight up to the Institute. There he saw Mr. Bernard, and had a brief +conversation with him, principally on matters relating to his personal +interests. + +That evening, for some unknown reason, Mr. Bernard changed the place of +his desk and drew down the shades of his windows. Late that night Mr. +Richard Venner drew the charge of a rifle, and put the gun back among the +fowling-pieces, swearing that a leather halter was worth a dozen of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE PERILOUS HOUR. + +Up to this time Dick Venner had not decided on the particular mode and +the precise period of relieving himself from the unwarrantable +interference which threatened to defeat his plans. The luxury of feeling +that he had his man in his power was its own reward. One who watches in +the dark, outside, while his enemy, in utter unconsciousness, is +illuminating his apartment and himself so that every movement of his head +and every button on his coat can be seen and counted, experiences a +peculiar kind of pleasure, if he holds a loaded rifle in his hand, which +he naturally hates to bring to its climax by testing his skill as a +marksman upon the object of his attention. + +Besides, Dick had two sides in his nature, almost as distinct as we +sometimes observe in those persons who are the subjects of the condition +known as double consciousness. On his New England side he was cunning +and calculating, always cautious, measuring his distance before he risked +his stroke, as nicely as if he were throwing his lasso. But he was +liable to intercurrent fits of jealousy and rage, such as the light-hued +races are hardly capable of conceiving, blinding paroxysms of passion, +which for the time overmastered him, and which, if they found no ready +outlet, transformed themselves into the more dangerous forces that worked +through the instrumentality of his cool craftiness. + +He had failed as yet in getting any positive evidence that there was any +relation between Elsie and the schoolmaster other than such as might +exist unsuspected and unblamed between a teacher and his pupil. A book, +or a note, even, did not prove the existence of any sentiment. At one +time he would be devoured by suspicions, at another he would try to laugh +himself out of them. And in the mean while he followed Elsie's tastes as +closely as he could, determined to make some impression upon her,--to +become a habit, a convenience, a necessity,--whatever might aid him in +the attainment of the one end which was now the aim of his life. + +It was to humor one of her tastes already known to the reader, that he +said to her one morning,--"Come, Elsie, take your castanets, and let us +have a dance." + +He had struck the right vein in the girl's fancy, for she was in the mood +for this exercise, and very willingly led the way into one of the more +empty apartments. What there was in this particular kind of dance which +excited her it might not be easy to guess; but those who looked in with +the old Doctor, on a former occasion, and saw her, will remember that she +was strangely carried away by it, and became almost fearful in the +vehemence of her passion. The sound of the castanets seemed to make her +alive all over. Dick knew well enough what the exhibition would be, and +was almost afraid of her at these moments; for it was like the dancing +mania of Eastern devotees, more than the ordinary light amusement of +joyous youth,--a convulsion of the body and the mind, rather than a +series of voluntary modulated motions. + +Elsie rattled out the triple measure of a saraband. Her eyes began to +glitter more brilliantly, and her shape to undulate in freer curves. +Presently she noticed that Dick's look was fixed upon her necklace. His +face betrayed his curiosity; he was intent on solving the question, why +she always wore something about her neck. The chain of mosaics she had +on at that moment displaced itself at every step, and he was peering with +malignant, searching eagerness to see if an unsunned ring of fairer hue +than the rest of the surface, or any less easily explained peculiarity, +were hidden by her ornaments. + +She stopped suddenly, caught the chain of mosaics and settled it hastily +in its place, flung down her castanets, drew herself back, and stood +looking at him, with her head a little on one side, and her eyes +narrowing in the way he had known so long and well. + +"What is the matter, Cousin Elsie? What do you stop for?" he said. + +Elsie did not answer, but kept her eyes on him, full of malicious light. +The jealousy which lay covered up under his surface-thoughts took this +opportunity to break out. + +"You would n't act so, if you were dancing with Mr. Langdon,--would you, +Elsie?" he asked. + +It was with some effort that he looked steadily at her to see the effect +of his question. + +Elsie colored,--not much, but still perceptibly. Dick could not remember +that he had ever seen her show this mark of emotion before, in all his +experience of her fitful changes of mood. It had a singular depth of +significance, therefore, for him; he knew how hardly her color came. +Blushing means nothing, in some persons; in others, it betrays a profound +inward agitation,--a perturbation of the feelings far more trying than +the passions which with many easily moved persons break forth in tears. +All who have observed much are aware that some men, who have seen a good +deal of life in its less chastened aspects and are anything but modest, +will blush often and easily, while there are delicate and sensitive women +who can faint, or go into fits, if necessary, but are very rarely seen to +betray their feelings in their cheeks, even when their expression shows +that their inmost soul is blushing scarlet. Presently she answered, +abruptly and scornfully, "Mr. Langdon is a gentleman, and would not vex +me as you do." + +"A gentleman!" Dick answered, with the most insulting accent,--"a +gentleman! Come, Elsie, you 've got the Dudley blood in your veins, and +it does n't do for you to call this poor, sneaking schoolmaster a +gentleman!" + +He stopped short. Elsie's bosom was heaving, the faint flush on her +cheek was becoming a vivid glow. Whether it were shame or wrath, he saw +that he had reached some deep-lying centre of emotion. There was no +longer any doubt in his mind. With another girl these signs of confusion +might mean little or nothing; with her they were decisive and final. +Elsie Venner loved Bernard Langdon. + +The sudden conviction, absolute, overwhelming, which rushed upon him, had +well-nigh led to an explosion of wrath, and perhaps some terrible scene +which might have fulfilled some of old Sophy's predictions. This, +however, would never do. Dick's face whitened with his thoughts, but he +kept still until he could speak calmly. + +"I've nothing against the young fellow," he said; "only I don't think +there's anything quite good enough to keep the company of people that +have the Dudley blood in them. You a'n't as proud as I am. I can't +quite make up my mind to call a schoolmaster a gentleman, though this one +may be well enough. I 've nothing against him, at any rate." + +Elsie made no answer, but glided out of the room and slid away to her own +apartment. She bolted the door and drew her curtains close. Then she +threw herself on the floor, and fell into a dull, slow ache of passion, +without tears, without words, almost without thoughts. So she remained, +perhaps, for a half-hour, at the end of which time it seemed that her +passion had become a sullen purpose. She arose, and, looking cautiously +round, went to the hearth, which was ornamented with curious old Dutch +tiles, with pictures of Scripture subjects. One of these represented the +lifting of the brazen serpent. She took a hair-pin from one of her +braids, and, insinuating its points under the edge of the tile, raised it +from its place. A small leaden box lay under the tile, which she opened, +and, taking from it a little white powder, which she folded in a scrap of +paper, replaced the box and the tile over it. + +Whether Dick had by any means got a knowledge of this proceeding, or +whether he only suspected some unmentionable design on her part, there is +no sufficient means of determining. At any rate, when they met, an hour +or two after these occurrences, he could not help noticing how easily she +seemed to have got over her excitement. She was very pleasant with +him,--too pleasant, Dick thought. It was not Elsie's way to come out of +a fit of anger so easily as that. She had contrived some way of letting +off her spite; that was certain. Dick was pretty cunning, as old Sophy +had said, and, whether or not he had any means of knowing Elsie's private +intentions, watched her closely, and was on his guard against accidents. + +For the first time, he took certain precautions with reference to his +diet, such as were quite alien to his common habits. On coming to the +dinner-table, that day, he complained of headache, took but little food, +and refused the cup of coffee which Elsie offered him, saying that it did +not agree with him when he had these attacks. + +Here was a new complication. Obviously enough, he could not live in this +way, suspecting everything but plain bread and water, and hardly feeling +safe in meddling with them. Not only had this school-keeping wretch come +between him and the scheme by which he was to secure his future fortune, +but his image had so infected his cousin's mind that she was ready to try +on him some of those tricks which, as he had heard hinted in the village, +she had once before put in practice upon a person who had become odious +to her. + +Something must be done, and at once, to meet the double necessities of +this case. Every day, while the young girl was in these relations with +the young man, was only making matters worse. They could exchange words +and looks, they could arrange private interviews, they would be stooping +together over the same book, her hair touching his cheek, her breath +mingling with his, all the magnetic attractions drawing them together +with strange, invisible effluences. As her passion for the schoolmaster +increased, her dislike to him, her cousin, would grow with it, and all +his dangers would be multiplied. It was a fearful point he had, reached. +He was tempted at one moment to give up all his plans and to disappear +suddenly from the place, leaving with the schoolmaster, who had come +between him and his object, an anonymous token of his personal sentiments +which would be remembered a good while in the history of the town of +Rockland. This was but a momentary thought; the great Dudley property +could not be given up in that way. + +Something must happen at once to break up all this order of things. He +could think of but one Providential event adequate to the emergency,--an +event foreshadowed by various recent circumstances, but hitherto floating +in his mind only as a possibility. Its occurrence would at once change +the course of Elsie's feelings, providing her with something to think of +besides mischief, and remove the accursed obstacle which was thwarting +all his own projects. Every possible motive, then,--his interest, his +jealousy, his longing for revenge, and now his fears for his own +safety,--urged him to regard the happening of a certain casualty as a +matter of simple necessity. This was the self-destruction of Mr. Bernard +Langdon. + +Such an event, though it might be surprising to many people, would not be +incredible, nor without many parallel cases. He was poor, a miserable +fag, under the control of that mean wretch up there at the school, who +looked as if he had sour buttermilk in his veins instead of blood. He +was in love with a girl above his station, rich, and of old family, but +strange in all her ways, and it was conceivable that he should become +suddenly jealous of her. Or she might have frightened him with some +display of her peculiarities which had filled him with a sudden +repugnance in the place of love. Any of these things were credible, and +would make a probable story enough,--so thought Dick over to himself +with the New-England half of his mind. + +Unfortunately, men will not always take themselves out of the way when, +so far as their neighbors are concerned, it would be altogether the most +appropriate and graceful and acceptable service they could render. There +was at this particular moment no special reason for believing that the +schoolmaster meditated any violence to his own person. On the contrary, +there was good evidence that he was taking some care of himself. He was +looking well and in good spirits, and in the habit of amusing himself and +exercising, as if to keep up his standard of health, especially of taking +certain evening-walks, before referred to, at an hour when most of the +Rockland people had "retired," or, in vulgar language, "gone to bed." + +Dick Veneer settled it, however, in his own mind, that Mr. Bernard +Langdon must lay violent hands upon himself. He even went so far as to +determine the precise hour, and the method in which the "rash act," as it +would undoubtedly be called in the next issue of "The Rockland Weekly +Universe," should be committed. Time,--this evening. Method, asphyxia, +by suspension. It was, unquestionably, taking a great liberty with a man +to decide that he should become felo de se without his own consent. +Such, however, was the decision of Mr. Richard Veneer with regard to Mr. +Bernard Langdon. + +If everything went right, then, there would be a coroner's inquest +to-morrow upon what remained of that gentleman, found suspended to the +branch of a tree somewhere within a mile of the Apollinean Institute. +The "Weekly Universe" would have a startling paragraph announcing a "SAD +EVENT!!!" which had "thrown the town into an intense state of excitement. +Mr. Barnard Langden, a well-known teacher at the Appolinian Institute, +was found, etc., etc. The vital spark was extinct. The motive to the +rash act can only be conjectured, but is supposed to be disappointed +affection. The name of an accomplished young lady of the highest +respectability and great beauty is mentioned in connection with this +melancholy occurrence." + +Dick Venner was at the tea-table that evening, as usual.--No, he would +take green tea, if she pleased,--the same that her father drank. It +would suit his headache better.--Nothing,--he was much obliged to her. +He would help himself,--which he did in a little different way from +common, naturally enough, on account of his headache. He noticed that +Elsie seemed a little nervous while she was rinsing some of the teacups +before their removal. + +"There's something going on in that witch's head," he said to himself. +"I know her,--she 'd be savage now, if she had n't got some trick in +hand. Let 's see how she looks to-morrow!" + +Dick announced that he should go to bed early that evening, on account of +this confounded headache which had been troubling him so much. In fact, +he went up early, and locked his door after him, with as much noise as he +could make. He then changed some part of his dress, so that it should be +dark throughout, slipped off his boots, drew the lasso out from the +bottom of the contents of his trunk, and, carrying that and his boots in +his hand, opened his door softly, locked it after him, and stole down the +back-stairs, so as to get out of the house unnoticed. He went straight +to the stable and saddled the mustang. He took a rope from the stable +with him, mounted his horse, and set forth in the direction of the +Institute. + +Mr. Bernard, as we have seen, had not been very profoundly impressed by +the old Doctor's cautions,--enough, however, to follow out some of his +hints which were not troublesome to attend to. He laughed at the idea of +carrying a loaded pistol about with him; but still it seemed only fair, +as the old Doctor thought so much of the matter, to humor him about it. +As for not going about when and where he liked, for fear he might have +some lurking enemy, that was a thing not to be listened to nor thought +of. There was nothing to be ashamed of or troubled about in any of his +relations with the school-girls. Elsie, no doubt, showed a kind of +attraction towards him, as did perhaps some others; but he had been +perfectly discreet, and no father or brother or lover had any just cause +of quarrel with him. To be sure, that dark young man at the Dudley +mansion-house looked as if he were his enemy, when he had met him; but +certainly there was nothing in their relations to each other, or in his +own to Elsie, that would be like to stir such malice in his mind as would +lead him to play any of his wild Southern tricks at his, Mr. Bernard's, +expense. Yet he had a vague feeling that this young man was dangerous, +and he had been given to understand that one of the risks he ran was from +that quarter. + +On this particular evening, he had a strange, unusual sense of some +impending peril. His recent interview with the Doctor, certain remarks +which had been dropped in his hearing, but above all an unaccountable +impression upon his spirits, all combined to fill his mind with a +foreboding conviction that he was very near some overshadowing danger. +It was as the chill of the ice-mountain toward which the ship is steering +under full sail. He felt a strong impulse to see Helen Darley and talk +with her. She was in the common parlor, and, fortunately, alone. + +"Helen," he said,--for they were almost like brother and sister now,--"I +have been thinking what you would do, if I should have to leave the +school at short notice, or be taken away suddenly by any accident." + +"Do?" she said, her cheek growing paler than its natural delicate +hue,--"why, I do not know how I could possibly consent to live here, if +you left us. Since you came, my life has been almost easy; before, it +was getting intolerable. You must not talk about going, my dear friend; +you have spoiled me for my place. Who is there here that I can have any +true society with, but you? You would not leave us for another school, +would you?" + +"No, no, my dear Helen," Mr. Bernard said, "if it depends on myself, I +shall stay out my full time, and enjoy your company and friendship. But +everything is uncertain in this world. I have been thinking that I might +be wanted elsewhere, and called when I did not think of it;--it was a +fancy, perhaps,--but I can't keep it out of my mind this evening. If any +of my fancies should come true, Helen, there are two or three messages I +want to leave with you. I have marked a book or two with a cross in +pencil on the fly-leaf;--these are for you. There is a little hymn-book I +should like to have you give to Elsie from me;--it may be a kind of +comfort to the poor girl." + +Helen's eyes glistened as she interrupted him,-- + +"What do you mean? You must not talk so, Mr. Langdon. Why, you never +looked better in your life. Tell me now, you are not in earnest, are +you, but only trying a little sentiment on me?" + +Mr. Bernard smiled, but rather sadly. + +"About half in earnest," he said. "I have had some fancies in my +head,--superstitions, I suppose,--at any rate, it does no harm to tell +you what I should like to have done, if anything should happen,--very +likely nothing ever will. Send the rest of the books home, if you +please, and write a letter to my mother. And, Helen, you will find one +small volume in my desk enveloped and directed, you will see to +whom;--give this with your own hands; it is a keepsake." + +The tears gathered in her eyes; she could not speak at first. Presently, +"Why, Bernard, my dear friend, my brother, it cannot be that you are in +danger? Tell me what it is, and, if I can share it with you, or counsel +you in any way, it will only be paying back the great debt I owe you. +No, no,--it can't be true,--you are tired and worried, and your spirits +have got depressed. I know what that is;--I was sure, one winter, that +I should die before spring; but I lived to see the dandelions and +buttercups go to seed. Come, tell me it was nothing but your +imagination." + +She felt a tear upon her cheek, but would not turn her face away from +him; it was the tear of a sister. + +"I am really in earnest, Helen," he said. "I don't know that there is +the least reason in the world for these fancies. If they all go off and +nothing comes of them, you may laugh at me, if you like. But if there +should be any occasion, remember my requests. You don't believe in +presentiments, do you?" + +"Oh, don't ask-me, I beg you," Helen answered. "I have had a good many +frights for every one real misfortune I have suffered. Sometimes I have +thought I was warned beforehand of coming trouble, just as many people +are of changes in the weather, by some unaccountable feeling,--but not +often, and I don't like to talk about such things. I wouldn't think +about these fancies of yours. I don't believe you have exercised +enough;--don't you think it's confinement in the school has made you +nervous?" + +"Perhaps it has; but it happens that I have thought more of exercise +lately, and have taken regular evening walks, besides playing my old +gymnastic tricks every day." + +They talked on many subjects, but through all he said Helen perceived a +pervading tone of sadness, and an expression as of a dreamy foreboding of +unknown evil. They parted at the usual hour, and went to their several +rooms. The sadness of Mr. Bernard had sunk into the heart of Helen, and +she mingled many tears with her prayers that evening, earnestly +entreating that he might be comforted in his days of trial and protected +in his hour of danger. + +Mr. Bernard stayed in his room a short time before setting out for his +evening walk. His eye fell upon the Bible his mother had given him when +he left home, and he opened it in the New Testament at a venture. It +happened that the first words he read were these,--"Lest, coming +suddenly, he find you sleeping." In the state of mind in which he was at +the moment, the text startled him. It was like a supernatural warning. +He was not going to expose himself to any particular danger this evening; +a walk in a quiet village was as free from risk as Helen Darley or his +own mother could ask; yet he had an unaccountable feeling of +apprehension, without any definite object. At this moment he remembered +the old Doctor's counsel, which he had sometimes neglected, and, blushing +at the feeling which led him to do it, he took the pistol his suspicious +old friend had forced upon him, which he had put away loaded, and, +thrusting it into his pocket, set out upon his walk. + +The moon was shining at intervals, for the night was partially clouded. +There seemed to be nobody stirring, though his attention was unusually +awake, and he could hear the whirr of the bats overhead, and the +pulsating croak of the frogs in the distant pools and marshes. Presently +he detected the sound of hoofs at some distance, and, looking forward, +saw a horseman coming in his direction. The moon was under a cloud at +the moment, and he could only observe that the horse and his rider looked +like a single dark object, and that they were moving along at an easy +pace. Mr. Bernard was really ashamed of himself, when he found his hand +on the butt of his pistol. When the horseman was within a hundred and +fifty yards of him, the moon shone out suddenly and revealed each of them +to the other. The rider paused for a moment, as if carefully surveying +the pedestrian, then suddenly put his horse to the full gallop, and +dashed towards him, rising at the same instant in his stirrups and +swinging something round his head, what, Mr. Bernard could not make out. +It was a strange manoeuvre,--so strange and threatening in aspect that +the young man forgot his nervousness in an instant, cocked his pistol, +and waited to see what mischief all this meant. He did not wait long. As +the rider came rushing towards him, he made a rapid motion and something +leaped five-and-twenty feet through the air, in Mr. Bernard's direction. +In an instant he felt a ring, as of a rope or thong, settle upon his +shoulders. There was no time to think, he would be lost in another +second. He raised his pistol and fired,--not at the rider, but at the +horse. His aim was true; the mustang gave one bound and fell lifeless, +shot through the head. The lasso was fastened to his saddle, and his +last bound threw Mr. Bernard violently to the earth, where he lay +motionless, as if stunned. + +In the mean time, Dick Venner, who had been dashed down with his horse, +was trying to extricate himself,--one of his legs being held fast under +the animal, the long spur on his boot having caught in the saddle-cloth. +He found, however, that he could do nothing with his right arm, his +shoulder having been in some way injured in his fall. But his Southern +blood was up, and, as he saw Mr. Bernard move as if he were coming to his +senses, he struggled violently to free himself. + +"I 'll have the dog, yet," he said,--"only let me get at him with the +knife!" + +He had just succeeded in extricating his imprisoned leg, and was ready to +spring to his feet, when he was caught firmly by the throat, and looking +up, saw a clumsy barbed weapon, commonly known as a hay fork, within an +inch of his breast. + +"Hold on there! What 'n thunder 'r' y' abaout, y' darned Portagee?" said +a voice, with a decided nasal tone in it, but sharp and resolute. + +Dick looked from the weapon to the person who held it, and saw a sturdy, +plain man standing over him, with his teeth clinched, and his aspect that +of one all ready for mischief. + +"Lay still, naow!" said Abel Stebbins, the Doctor's man; "'f y' don't, +I'll stick ye, 'z sure 'z y' 'r' alive! I been arfter ye f'r a week, 'n' +I got y' naow! I knowed I'd ketch ye at some darned trick or 'nother +'fore I'd done 'ith ye!" + +Dick lay perfectly still, feeling that he was crippled and helpless, +thinking all the time with the Yankee half of his mind what to do about +it. He saw Mr. Bernard lift his head and look around him. He would get +his senses again in a few minutes, very probably, and then he, Mr. +Richard Venner, would be done for. + +"Let me up! let me up!" he cried, in a low, hurried voice,--"I 'll give +you a hundred dollars in gold to let me go. The man a'n't hurt,--don't +you see him stirring? He'll come to himself in two minutes. Let me up! +I'll give you a hundred and fifty dollars in gold, now, here on the +spot,--and the watch out of my pocket; take it yourself, with your own +hands!" + +"I'll see y' darned fust! Ketch me lett'n' go!" was Abel's emphatic +answer. "Yeou lay still, 'n' wait t'll that man comes tew." + +He kept the hay-fork ready for action at the slightest sign of +resistance. + +Mr. Bernard, in the mean time, had been getting, first his senses, and +then some few of his scattered wits, a little together. + +"What is it?"--he said. "Who'shurt? What's happened?" + +"Come along here 'z quick 'z y' ken," Abel answered, "'n' haalp me fix +this fellah. Y' been hurt, y'rself, 'n' the' 's murder come pooty nigh +happenin'." + +Mr. Bernard heard the answer, but presently stared about and asked again, +"Who's hurt? What's happened?" + +"Y' 'r' hurt, y'rself, I tell ye," said Abel; "'n' the' 's been a murder, +pooty nigh." + +Mr. Bernard felt something about his neck, and, putting his hands up, +found the loop of the lasso, which he loosened, but did not think to slip +over his head, in the confusion of his perceptions and thoughts. It was a +wonder that it had not choked him, but he had fallen forward so as to +slacken it. + +By this time he was getting some notion of what he was about, and +presently began looking round for his pistol, which had fallen. He found +it lying near him, cocked it mechanically, and walked, somewhat +unsteadily, towards the two men, who were keeping their position as still +as if they were performing in a tableau. + +"Quick, naow!" said Abel, who had heard the click of cocking the pistol, +and saw that he held it in his hand, as he came towards him. "Gi' me that +pistil, and yeou fetch that 'ere rope layin' there. I 'll have this here +fella,h fixed 'n less 'n two minutes." + +Mr. Bernard did as Abel said,--stupidly and mechanically, for he was but +half right as yet. Abel pointed the pistol at Dick's head. + +"Naow hold up y'r hands, yeou fellah," he said, "'n' keep 'em up, while +this man puts the rope mound y'r wrists." + +Dick felt himself helpless, and, rather than have his disabled arm +roughly dealt with, held up his hands. Mr. Bernard did as Abel said; he +was in a purely passive state, and obeyed orders like a child. Abel then +secured the rope in a most thorough and satisfactory complication of +twists and knots. + +"Naow get up, will ye?" he said; and the unfortunate Dick rose to his +feet. + +"Who's hurt? What's happened?" asked poor Mr. Bernard again, his memory +having been completely jarred out of him for the time. + +"Come, look here naow, yeou, don' Stan' askin' questions over 'n' +over;--'t beats all! ha'n't I tol' y' a dozen times?" + +As Abel spoke, he turned and looked at Mr. Bernard. + +"Hullo! What 'n thunder's that 'ere raoun' y'r neck? Ketched ye 'ith a +slippernoose, hey? Wal, if that a'n't the craowner! Hol' on a minute, +Cap'n, 'n' I'll show ye what that 'ere halter's good for." + +Abel slipped the noose over Mr. Bernard's head, and put it round the neck +of the miserable Dick Veneer, who made no sign of resistance,--whether +on account of the pain he was in, or from mere helplessness, or because +he was waiting for some unguarded moment to escape,--since resistance +seemed of no use. + +"I 'm go'n' to kerry y' home," said Abel; "'T' th' ol Doctor, he's got a +gre't cur'osity t' see ye. Jes' step along naow,--off that way, will +ye?--'n' I Ill hol' on t' th' bridle, f' fear y' sh'd run away." + +He took hold of the leather thong, but found that it was fastened at the +other end to the saddle. This was too much for Abel. + +"Wal, naow, yeou be a pooty chap to hev raound! A fellah's neck in a +slippernoose at one eend of a halter, 'n' a hors on th' full spring at t' +other eend!" + +He looked at him from' head to foot as a naturalist inspects a new +specimen. His clothes had suffered in his fall, especially on the leg +which had been caught under the horse. + +"Hullo! look o' there, naow! What's that 'ere stickin' aout o' y'r +boot?" + +It was nothing but the handle of an ugly knife, which Abel instantly +relieved him of. + +The party now took up the line of march for old Doctor Kittredge's house, +Abel carrying the pistol and knife, and Mr. Bernard walking in silence, +still half-stunned, holding the hay-fork, which Abel had thrust into his +hand. It was all a dream to him as yet. He remembered the horseman +riding at him, and his firing the pistol; but whether he was alive, and +these walls around him belonged to the village of Rockland, or whether he +had passed the dark river, and was in a suburb of the New Jerusalem, he +could not as yet have told. + +They were in the street where the Doctor's house was situated. + +"I guess I'll fire off one o' these here berrils," said Abel. + +He fired. + +Presently there was a noise of opening windows, and the nocturnal +head-dresses of Rockland flowered out of them like so many developments +of the Nightblooming Cereus. White cotton caps and red bandanna +handkerchiefs were the prevailing forms of efflorescence. The main point +was that the village was waked up. The old Doctor always waked easily, +from long habit, and was the first among those who looked out to see what +had happened. + +"Why, Abel!" he called out, "what have you got there? and what 's all +this noise about?" + +"We've ketched the Portagee!" Abel answered, as laconically as the hero +of Lake Erie, in his famous dispatch. "Go in there, you fellah!" + +The prisoner was marched into the house, and the Doctor, who had +bewitched his clothes upon him in a way that would have been miraculous +in anybody but a physician, was down in presentable form as soon as if it +had been a child in a fit that he was sent for. + +"Richard Veneer!" the Doctor exclaimed. "What is the meaning of all +this? Mr. Langdon, has anything happened to you?" + +Mr. Bernard put his hand to his head. + +"My mind is confused," he said. "I've had a fall.--Oh, yes!--wait a +minute and it will all come back to me." + +"Sit down, sit down," the Doctor said. "Abel will tell me about it. +Slight concussion of the brain. Can't remember very well for an hour or +two,--will come right by to-morrow." + +"Been stunded," Abel said. "He can't tell nothin'." + +Abel then proceeded to give a Napoleonic bulletin of the recent combat of +cavalry and infantry and its results,--none slain, one captured. + +The Doctor looked at the prisoner through his spectacles. + +"What 's the matter with your shoulder, Venner?" + +Dick answered sullenly, that he didn't know, fell on it when his horse +came down. The Doctor examined it as carefully as he could through his +clothes. + +"Out of joint. Untie his hands, Abel" + +By this time a small alarm had spread among the neighbors, and there was +a circle around Dick, who glared about on the assembled honest people +like a hawk with a broken wing. + +When the Doctor said, "Untie his hands," the circle widened perceptibly. + +"Isn't it a leetle rash to give him the use of his hands? I see there's +females and children standin' near." + +This was the remark of our old friend, Deacon Soper, who retired from the +front row, as he spoke, behind a respectable-looking, but somewhat +hastily dressed person of the defenceless sex, the female help of a +neighboring household, accompanied by a boy, whose unsmoothed shock of +hair looked like a last year's crow's-nest. + +But Abel untied his hands, in spite of the Deacon's considerate +remonstrance. + +"Now," said the Doctor, "the first thing is to put the joint back." + +"Stop," said Deacon Soper,--"stop a minute. Don't you think it will be +safer--for the women-folks--jest to wait till mornin', afore you put that +j'int into the socket?" + +Colonel Sprowle, who had been called by a special messenger, spoke up at +this moment. + +"Let the women-folks and the deacons go home, if they're scared, and put +the fellah's j'int in as quick as you like. I 'll resk him, j'int in or +out." + +"I want one of you to go straight down to Dudley Venner's with a +message," the Doctor said. "I will have the young man's shoulder in +quick enough." + +"Don't send that message!" said Dick, in a hoarse voice;--"do what you +like with my arm, but don't send that message! Let me go,--I can walk, +and I'll be off from this place. There's nobody hurt but myself. Damn +the shoulder!--let me go! You shall never hear of me again!" + +Mr. Bernard came forward. + +"My friends," he said, "I am not injured,--seriously, at least. Nobody +need complain against this man, if I don't. The Doctor will treat him +like a human being, at any rate; and then, if he will go, let him. There +are too many witnesses against him here for him to want to stay." + +The Doctor, in the mean time, without saying a word to all this, had got +a towel round the shoulder and chest and another round the arm, and had +the bone replaced in a very few minutes. + +"Abel, put Cassia into the new chaise," he said, quietly. "My friends +and neighbors, leave this young man to me." + +"Colonel Sprowle, you're a justice of the peace," said Deacon Soper, "and +you know what the law says in cases like this. It a'n't so clear that it +won't have to come afore the Grand Jury, whether we will or no." + +"I guess we'll set that j'int to-morrow mornin'," said Colonel +Sprowle,--which made a laugh at the Deacon's expense, and virtually +settled the question. + +"Now trust this young man in my care," said the old Doctor, "and go home +and finish your naps. I knew him when he was a boy and I'll answer for +it, he won't trouble you any more. The Dudley blood makes folks proud, I +can tell you, whatever else they are." + +The good people so respected and believed in the Doctor that they left +the prisoner with him. + +Presently, Cassia, the fast Morgan mare, came up to the front-door, with +the wheels of the new, light chaise flashing behind her in the moonlight. +The Doctor drove Dick forty miles at a stretch that night, out of the +limits of the State. + +"Do you want money?" he said, before he left him. + +Dick told him the secret of his golden belt. + +"Where shall I send your trunk after you from your uncle's?" + +Dick gave him a direction to a seaport town to which he himself was +going, to take passage for a port in South America. + +"Good-bye, Richard," said the Doctor. "Try to learn something from +to-night's lesson." + +The Southern impulses in Dick's wild blood overcame him, and he kissed +the old Doctor on both cheeks, crying as only the children of the sun can +cry, after the first hours in the dewy morning of life. So Dick Venner +disappears from this story. An hour after dawn, Cassia pointed her fine +ears homeward, and struck into her square, honest trot, as if she had not +been doing anything more than her duty during her four hours' stretch of +the last night. + +Abel was not in the habit of questioning the Doctor's decisions. + +"It's all right," he said to Mr. Bernard. "The fellah 's Squire Venner's +relation, anyhaow. Don't you want to wait here, jest a little while, +till I come back? The's a consid'able nice saddle 'n' bridle on a dead +boss that's layin' daown there in the road 'n' I guess the' a'n't no use +in lettin' on 'em spite,--so I'll jest step aout 'n' fetch 'em along. I +kind o' calc'late 't won't pay to take the cretur's shoes 'n' hide off +to-night,--'n' the' won't be much iron on that hose's huffs an haour +after daylight, I'll bate ye a quarter." + +"I'll walk along with you," said Mr. Bernard; "I feel as if I could get +along well enough now." + +So they set off together. There was a little crowd round the dead +mustang already, principally consisting of neighbors who had adjourned +from the Doctor's house to see the scene of the late adventure. In +addition to these, however, the assembly was honored by the presence of +Mr. Principal Silas Peckham, who had been called from his slumbers by a +message that Master Langdon was shot through the head by a +highway-robber, but had learned a true version of the story by this time. +His voice was at that moment heard above the rest,--sharp, but thin, like +bad cider-vinegar. + +"I take charge of that property, I say. Master Langdon 's actin' under +my orders, and I claim that hoss and all that's on him. Hiram! jest slip +off that saddle and bridle, and carry 'em up to the Institoot, and bring +down a pair of pinchers and a file,--and--stop--fetch a pair of shears, +too; there's hosshair enough in that mane and tail to stuff a bolster +with." + +"You let that hoss alone!" spoke up Colonel Sprowle. "When a fellah goes +out huntin' and shoots a squirrel, do you think he's go'n' to let another +fellah pick him up and kerry him off? Not if he's got a double-berril +gun, and t'other berril ha'n't been fired off yet! I should like to see +the mahn that'll take off that seddle 'n' bridle, excep' the one th't hez +a fair right to the whole concern!" + +Hiram was from one of the lean streaks in New Hampshire, and, not being +overfed in Mr. Silas Peckham's kitchen, was somewhat wanting in stamina, +as well as in stomach, for so doubtful an enterprise, as undertaking to +carry out his employer's orders in the face of the Colonel's defiance. + +Just then Mr. Bernard and Abel came up together. "Here they be," said +the Colonel. "Stan' beck, gentlemen!" + +Mr. Bernard, who was pale and still a little confused, but gradually +becoming more like himself, stood and looked in silence for a moment. + +All his thoughts seemed to be clearing themselves in this interval. He +took in the whole series of incidents: his own frightful risk; the +strange, instinctive, nay, Providential impulse, which had led him so +suddenly to do the one only thing which could possibly have saved him; +the sudden appearance of the Doctor's man, but for which he might yet +have been lost; and the discomfiture and capture of his dangerous enemy. + +It was all past now, and a feeling of pity rose in Mr. Bernard's heart. + +"He loved that horse, no doubt," he said,--"and no wonder. A beautiful, +wild--looking creature! Take off those things that are on him, Abel, and +have them carried to Mr. Dudley Veneer's. If he does not want them, you +may keep them yourself, for all that I have to say. One thing more. I +hope nobody will lift his hand against this noble creature to mutilate +him in any way. After you have taken off the saddle and bridle, Abel, +bury him just as he is. Under that old beech-tree will be a good place. +You'll see to it,--won't you, Abel?" + +Abel nodded assent, and Mr. Bernard returned to the Institute, threw +himself in his clothes on the bed, and slept like one who is heavy with +wine. + +Following Mr. Bernard's wishes, Abel at once took off the high-peaked +saddle and the richly ornamented bridle from the mustang. Then, with the +aid of two or three others, he removed him to the place indicated. +Spades and shovels were soon procured, and before the moon had set, the +wild horse of the Pampas was at rest under the turf at the wayside, in +the far village among the hills of New England. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE NEWS REACHES THE DUDLEY MANSION. + +Early the next morning Abel Stebbins made his appearance at Dudley +Veneer's, and requested to see the maan o' the haouse abaout somethin' o' +consequence. Mr. Veneer sent word that the messenger should wait below, +and presently appeared in the study, where Abel was making himself at +home, as is the wont of the republican citizen, when he hides the purple +of empire beneath the apron of domestic service. + +"Good mornin', Squire!" said Abel, as Mr. Venner entered. "My name's +Stebbins, 'n' I'm stoppin' f'r a spell 'ith of Doctor Kittredge." + +"Well, Stebbins," said Mr. Dudley Veneer, "have you brought any special +message from the Doctor?" + +"Y' ha'n't heerd nothin' abaout it, Squire, d' ye mean t' say?" said +Abel,--beginning to suspect that he was the first to bring the news of +last evening's events. + +"About what?" asked Mr. Veneer, with some interest. + +"Dew tell, naow! Waal, that beats all! Why, that 'ere Portagee relation +o' yourn 'z been tryin' t' ketch a fellah 'n a slippernoose, 'n' got +ketched himself,--that's all. Y' ha'n't heerd noth'n' abaout it?" + +"Sit down," said Mr. Dudley Veneer, calmly, "and tell me all you have to +say." + +So Abel sat down and gave him an account of the events of the last +evening. It was a strange and terrible surprise to Dudley Veneer to find +that his nephew, who had been an inmate of his house and the companion of +his daughter, was to all intents and purposes guilty of the gravest of +crimes. But the first shock was no sooner over than he began to think +what effect the news would have on Elsie. He imagined that there was a +kind of friendly feeling between them, and he feared some crisis would be +provoked in his daughter's mental condition by the discovery. He would +wait, however, until she came from her chamber, before disturbing her +with the evil tidings. + +Abel did not forget his message with reference to the equipments of the +dead mustang. + +"The' was some things on the hoss, Squire, that the man he ketched said +he did n' care no gre't abaout; but perhaps you'd like to have 'em +fetched to the mansion-haouse. Ef y' did n' care abaout 'em, though, I +should n' min' keepin' on 'em; they might come handy some time or +'nother; they say, holt on t' anything for ten year 'n' there 'll be some +kin' o' use for 't." + +"Keep everything," said Dudley Veneer. "I don't want to see anything +belonging to that young man." + +So Abel nodded to Mr. Veneer, and left the study to find some of the men +about the stable to tell and talk over with them the events of the last +evening. He presently came upon Elbridge, chief of the equine +department, and driver of the family-coach. + +"Good mornin', Abe," said Elbridge. "What's fetched y' daown here so +all-fired airly?" + +"You're a darned pooty lot daown here, you be!" + +Abel answered. "Better keep your Portagees t' home nex' time, ketchin' +folks 'ith slippernooses raoun' their necks, 'n' kerryin' knives 'n their +boots!" + +"What 'r' you jawin' abaout?" Elbridge said, looking up to see if he was +in earnest, and what he meant. + +"Jawin' abaout? You'll find aout'z soon 'z y' go into that 'ere stable +o' yourn! Y' won't curry that 'ere long-tailed black hoss no more; 'n' +y' won't set y'r eyes on the fellah that rid him, ag'in, in a hurry!" + +Elbridge walked straight to the stable, without saying a word, found the +door unlocked, and went in. + +"Th' critter's gone, sure enough!" he said. "Glad on 't! The darndest, +kickin'est, bitin'est beast th't ever I see, 'r ever wan' t' see ag'in! +Good reddance! Don' wan' no snappin'-turkles in my stable! Whar's the +man gone th't brought the critter?" + +"Whar he's gone? Guess y' better go 'n ask my ol man; he kerried him off +lass' night; 'n' when he comes back, mebbe he 'll tell ye whar he's gone +tew!" + +By this time Elbridge had found out that Abel was in earnest, and had +something to tell. He looked at the litter in the mustang's stall, then +at the crib. + +"Ha'n't eat b't haalf his feed. Ha'n't been daown on his straw. Must ha' +been took aout somewhere abaout ten 'r 'levee o'clock. I know that 'ere +critter's ways. The fellah's had him aout nights afore; b't I never +thought nothin' o' no mischief. He 's a kin' o' haalf Injin. What is 't +the chap's been a-doin' on? Tell 's all abaout it." + +Abel sat down on a meal-chest, picked up a straw and put it into his +mouth. Elbridge sat down at the other end, pulled out his jack-knife, +opened the penknife-blade, and began sticking it into the lid of the +meal-chest. The Doctor's man had a story to tell, and he meant to get +all the enjoyment out of it. So he told it with every luxury of +circumstance. Mr. Veneer's man heard it all with open mouth. No +listener in the gardens of Stamboul could have found more rapture in a +tale heard amidst the perfume of roses and the voices of birds and +tinkling of fountains than Elbridge in following Abel's narrative, as +they sat there in the aromatic ammoniacal atmosphere of the stable, the +grinding of the horses' jaws keeping evenly on through it all, with now +and then the interruption of a stamping hoof, and at intervals a ringing +crow from the barn-yard. + +Elbridge stopped a minute to think, after Abel had finished. + +"Who's took care o' them things that was on the hoss?" he said, gravely. + +"Waal, Langden, he seemed to kin 'o' think I'd ought to have 'em,--'n' +the Squire; he did n' seem to have no 'bjection; 'n' so,--waal, I +calc'late I sh'll jes' holt on to 'em myself; they a'n't good f 'r much, +but they're cur'ous t' keep t' look at." + +Mr. Veneer's man did not appear much gratified by this arrangement, +especially as he had a shrewd suspicion that some of the ornaments of the +bridle were of precious metal, having made occasional examinations of +them with the edge of a file. But he did not see exactly what to do +about it, except to get them from Abel in the way of bargain. + +"Waal, no,--they a'n't good for much 'xcep' to look at. 'F y' ever rid +on that seddle once, y' would n' try it ag'in, very spry,--not 'f y' c'd +haalp y'rsaalf. + +"I tried it,--darned 'f I sot daown f'r th' nex' week,--eat all my +victuals stan'in'. I sh'd like t' hev them things wal enough to heng up +'n the stable; 'f y' want t' trade some day, fetch 'em along daown." + +Abel rather expected that Elbridge would have laid claim to the saddle +and bridle on the strength of some promise or other presumptive title, +and thought himself lucky to get off with only offering to think abaout +tradin'. + +When Elbridge returned to the house, he found the family in a state of +great excitement. Mr. Venner had told Old Sophy, and she had informed +the other servants. Everybody knew what had happened, excepting Elsie. +Her father had charged them all to say nothing about it to her; he would +tell her, when she came down. + +He heard her step at last,--alight, gliding step,--so light that her +coming was often unheard, except by those who perceived the faint rustle +that went with it. She was paler than common this morning, as she came +into her father's study. + +After a few words of salutation, he said quietly, "Elsie, my dear, your +cousin Richard has left us." + +She grew still paler, as she asked, + +"Is he dead?" + +Dudley Venner started to see the expression with which Elsie put this +question. + +"He is living,--but dead to us from this day forward," said her father. + +He proceeded to tell her, in a general way, the story he had just heard +from Abel. There could be no doubting it;--he remembered him as the +Doctor's man; and as Abel had seen all with his own eyes, as Dick's +chamber, when unlocked with a spare key, was found empty, and his bed had +not been slept in, he accepted the whole account as true. + +When he told of Dick's attempt on the young schoolmaster, ("You know Mr. +Langdon very well, Elsie,--a perfectly inoffensive young man, as I +understand,") Elsie turned her face away and slid along by the wall to +the window which looked out oh the little grass-plot with the white stone +standing in it. Her father could not see her face, but he knew by her +movements that her dangerous mood was on her. When she heard the sequel +of the story, the discomfiture and capture of Dick, she turned round for +an instant, with a look of contempt and of something like triumph upon +her face. Her father saw that her cousin had become odious to her: He +knew well, by every change of her countenance, by her movements, by every +varying curve of her graceful figure, the transitions front passion to +repose, from fierce excitement to the dull languor which often succeeded +her threatening paroxysms. + +She remained looking out at the window. A group of white fan-tailed +pigeons had lighted on the green plot before it and clustered about one +of their companions who lay on his back, fluttering in a strange way, +with outspread wings and twitching feet. Elsie uttered a faint cry; +these were her special favorites and often fed from her hand. She threw +open the long window, sprang out, caught up the white fantail, and held +it to her bosom. The bird stretched himself out, and then lay still, +with open eyes, lifeless. She looked at him a moment, and, sliding in +through the open window and through the study, sought her own apartment, +where she locked herself in, and began to sob and moan like those that +weep. But the gracious solace of tears seemed to be denied her, and her +grief, like her anger, was a dull ache, longing, like that, to finish +itself with a fierce paroxysm, but wanting its natural outlet. + +This seemingly trifling incident of the death of her favorite appeared to +change all the current of her thought. Whether it were the sight of the +dying bird, or the thought that her own agency might have beep concerned +in it, or some deeper grief, which took this occasion to declare +itself,--some dark remorse or hopeless longing,--whatever it might be, +there was an unwonted tumult in her soul. To whom should she go in her +vague misery? Only to Him who knows all His creatures' sorrows, and +listens to the faintest human cry. She knelt, as she had been taught to +kneel from her childhood, and tried to pray. But her thoughts refused to +flow in the language of supplication. She could not plead for herself as +other women plead in their hours of anguish. She rose like one who +should stoop to drink, and find dust in the place of water. Partly from +restlessness, partly from an attraction she hardly avowed to herself, she +followed her usual habit and strolled listlessly along to the school. + +Of course everybody at the Institute was full of the terrible adventure +of the preceding evening. Mr. Bernard felt poorly enough; but he had +made it a point to show himself the next morning, as if nothing had +happened. Helen Darley knew nothing of it all until she hard risen, when +the gossipy matron of the establishment made her acquainted with all its +details, embellished with such additional ornamental appendages as it had +caught up in transmission from lip to lip. She did not love to betray +her sensibilities, but she was pale and tremulous and very nearly tearful +when Mr. Bernard entered the sitting-room, showing on his features traces +of the violent shock he had received and the heavy slumber from which he +had risen with throbbing brows. What the poor girl's impulse was, on +seeing him, we need not inquire too curiously. If he had been her own +brother, she would have kissed him and cried on his neck; but something +held her back. There is no galvanism in kiss-your-brother; it is copper +against copper: but alien bloods develop strange currents, when they flow +close to each other, with only the films that cover lip and cheek between +them. Mr. Bernard, as some of us may remember, violated the proprieties +and laid himself open to reproach by his enterprise with a bouncing +village-girl, to whose rosy cheek an honest smack was not probably an +absolute novelty. He made it all up by his discretion and good behavior +now. He saw by Helen's moist eye and trembling lip that her woman's +heart was off its guard, and he knew, by the infallible instinct of sex, +that he should be forgiven, if he thanked her for her sisterly sympathies +in the most natural way,--expressive, and at the same time economical of +breath and utterance. He would not give a false look to their friendship +by any such demonstration. Helen was a little older than himself, but +the aureole of young womanhood had not yet begun to fade from around her. +She was surrounded by that enchanted atmosphere into which the girl walks +with dreamy eyes, and out of which the woman passes with a story written +on her forehead. Some people think very little of these refinements; +they have not studied magnetism and the law of the square of the +distance. + +So Mr. Bernard thanked Helen for her interest without the aid of the +twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet,--the love labial,--the limping +consonant which it takes two to speak plain. Indeed, he scarcely let her +say a word, at first; for he saw that it was hard for her to conceal her +emotion. No wonder; he had come within a hair's-breadth of losing his +life, and he had been a very kind friend and a very dear companion to +her. + +There were some curious spiritual experiences connected with his last +evening's adventure which were working very strongly in his mind. It was +borne in upon him irresistibly that he had been dead since he had seen +Helen,--as dead as the son of the Widow of Nain before the bier was +touched and he sat up and began to speak. There was an interval between +two conscious moments which appeared to him like a temporary +annihilation, and the thoughts it suggested were worrying him with +strange perplexities. + +He remembered seeing the dark figure on horseback rise in the saddle and +something leap from its hand. He remembered the thrill he felt as the +coil settled on his shoulders, and the sudden impulse which led him to +fire as he did. With the report of the pistol all became blank, until he +found himself in a strange, bewildered state, groping about for the +weapon, which he had a vague consciousness of having dropped. But, +according to Abel's account, there must have been an interval of some +minutes between these recollections, and he could not help asking, Where +was the mind, the soul, the thinking principle, all this time? + +A man is stunned by a blow with a stick on the head. He becomes +unconscious. Another man gets a harder blow on the head from a bigger +stick, and it kills him. Does he become unconscious, too? If so, when +does he come to his consciousness? The man who has had a slight or +moderate blow comes to himself when the immediate shock passes off and +the organs begin to work again, or when a bit of the skull is pried up, +if that happens to be broken. Suppose the blow is hard enough to spoil +the brain and stop the play of the organs, what happens them? + +A British captain was struck by a cannon-ball on the head, just as he was +giving an order, at the Battle of the Nile. Fifteen months afterwards he +was trephined at Greenwich Hospital, having been insensible all that +time. Immediately after the operation his consciousness returned, and he +at once began carrying out the order he was giving when the shot struck +him. Suppose he had never been trephined, when would his consciousness +have returned? When his breath ceased and his heart stopped beating? + +When Mr. Bernard said to Helen, "I have been dead since I saw you," it +startled her not a little; for his expression was that of perfect good +faith, and she feared that his mind was disordered. When he explained, +not as has been done just now, at length, but in a hurried, imperfect +way, the meaning of his strange assertion, and the fearful Sadduceeisms +which it had suggested to his mind, she looked troubled at first, and +then thoughtful. She did not feel able to answer all the difficulties he +raised, but she met them with that faith which is the strength as well as +the weakness of women,--which makes them weak in the hands of man, but +strong in the presence of the Unseen. + +"It is a strange experience," she said; "but I once had something like +it. I fainted, and lost some five or ten minutes out of my life, as much +as if I had been dead. But when I came to myself, I was the same person +every way, in my recollections and character. So I suppose that loss of +consciousness is not death. And if I was born out of unconsciousness +into infancy with many family-traits of mind and body, I can believe, +from my own reason, even without help from Revelation, that I shall be +born again out of the unconsciousness of death with my individual traits +of mind and body. If death is, as it should seem to be, a loss of +consciousness, that does not shake my faith; for I have been put into a +body once already to fit me for living here, and I hope to be in some way +fitted after this life to enjoy a better one. But it is all trust in God +and in his Word. These are enough for me; I hope they are for you." + +Helen was a minister's daughter, and familiar from her childhood with +this class of questions, especially with all the doubts and perplexities +which are sure to assail every thinking child bred in any inorganic or +not thoroughly vitalized faith,--as is too often the case with the +children of professional theologians. The kind of discipline they are +subjected to is like that of the Flat-Head Indian pappooses. At five or +ten or fifteen years old they put their hands up to their foreheads and +ask, What are they strapping down my brains in this way for? So they +tear off the sacred bandages of the great Flat-Head tribe, and there +follows a mighty rush of blood to the long-compressed region. This +accounts, in the most lucid manner, for those sudden freaks with which +certain children of this class astonish their worthy parents at the +period of life when they are growing fast, and, the frontal pressure +beginning to be felt as something intolerable, they tear off the holy +compresses. + +The hour for school came, and they went to the great hall for study. It +would not have occurred to Mr. Silas Peckham to ask his assistant whether +he felt well enough to attend to his duties; and Mr. Bernard chose to be +at his post. A little headache and confusion were all that remained of +his symptoms. + +Later, in the course of the forenoon, Elsie Venner came and took her +place. The girls all stared at her--naturally enough; for it was hardly +to have been expected that she would show herself, after such an event in +the household to which she belonged. Her expression was somewhat +peculiar, and, of course, was attributed to the shock her feelings had +undergone on hearing of the crime attempted by her cousin and daily +companion. When she was looking on her book, or on any indifferent +object, her countenance betrayed some inward disturbance, which knitted +her dark brows, and seemed to throw a deeper shadow over her features. +But, from time to time, she would lift her eyes toward Mr. Bernard, and +let them rest upon him, without a thought, seemingly, that she herself +was the subject of observation or remark. Then they seemed to lose their +cold glitter, and soften into a strange, dreamy tenderness. The deep +instincts of womanhood were striving to grope their way to the surface of +her being through all the alien influences which overlaid them. She +could be secret and cunning in working out any of her dangerous impulses, +but she did not know how to mask the unwonted feeling which fixed her +eyes and her thoughts upon the only person who had ever reached the +spring of her hidden sympathies. + +The girls all looked at Elsie, whenever they could steal a glance +unperceived, and many of them were struck with this singular expression +her features wore. They had long whispered it around among each other +that she had a liking for the master; but there were too many of them of +whom something like this could be said, to make it very remarkable. Now, +however, when so many little hearts were fluttering at the thought of the +peril through which the handsome young master had so recently passed, +they were more alive than ever to the supposed relation between him and +the dark school-girl. Some had supposed there was a mutual attachment +between them; there was a story that they were secretly betrothed, in +accordance with the rumor which had been current in the village. At any +rate, some conflict was going on in that still, remote, clouded soul, and +all the girls who looked upon her face were impressed and awed as they +had never been before by the shadows that passed over it. + +One of these girls was more strongly arrested by Elsie's look than the +others. This was a delicate, pallid creature, with a high forehead, and +wide-open pupils, which looked as if they could take in all the shapes +that flit in what, to common eyes, is darkness,--a girl said to be +clairvoyant under certain influences. In the recess, as it was called, +or interval of suspended studies in the middle of the forenoon, this girl +carried her autograph-book,--for she had one of those indispensable +appendages of the boarding-school miss of every degree,--and asked Elsie +to write her name in it. She had an irresistible feeling, that, sooner +or later, and perhaps very soon, there would attach an unusual interest +to this autograph. Elsie took the pen and wrote, in her sharp Italian +hand, + +Elsie Venner, Infelix. + +It was a remembrance, doubtless, of the forlorn queen of the "AEneid"; +but its coming to her thought in this way confirmed the sensitive +school-girl in her fears for Elsie, and she let fall a tear upon the page +before she closed it. + +Of course, the keen and practised observation of Helen Darley could not +fail to notice the change of Elsie's manner and expression. She had long +seen that she was attracted to the young master, and had thought, as the +old Doctor did, that any impression which acted upon her affections might +be the means of awakening a new life in her singularly isolated nature. +Now, however, the concentration of the poor girl's thoughts upon the one +object which had had power to reach her deeper sensibilities was so +painfully revealed in her features, that Helen began to fear once more, +lest Mr. Bernard, in escaping the treacherous violence of an assassin, +had been left to the equally dangerous consequences of a violent, +engrossing passion in the breast of a young creature whose love it would +be ruin to admit and might be deadly to reject. She knew her own heart +too well to fear that any jealousy might mingle with her new +apprehensions. It was understood between Bernard and Helen that they +were too good friends to tamper with the silences and edging proximities +of lovemaking. She knew, too, the simply human, not masculine, interest +which Mr. Bernard took in Elsie; he had been frank with Helen, and more +than satisfied her that with all the pity and sympathy which overflowed +his soul, when he thought of the stricken girl, there mingled not one +drop of such love as a youth may feel for a maiden. + +It may help the reader to gain some understanding of the anomalous nature +of Elsie Veneer, if we look with Helen into Mr. Bernard's opinions and +feelings with reference to her, as they had shaped themselves in his +consciousness at the period of which we are speaking. + +At first he had been impressed by her wild beauty, and the contrast of +all her looks and ways with those of the girls around her. Presently a +sense of some ill-defined personal element, which half-attracted and +half-repelled those who looked upon her, and especially those on whom she +looked, began to make itself obvious to him, as he soon found it was +painfully sensible to his more susceptible companion, the lady-teacher. +It was not merely in the cold light of her diamond eyes, but in all her +movements, in her graceful postures as she sat, in her costume, and, he +sometimes thought, even in her speech, that this obscure and exceptional +character betrayed itself. When Helen had said, that, if they were living +in times when human beings were subject to possession, she should have +thought there was something not human about Elsie, it struck an +unsuspected vein of thought in his own mind, which he hated to put in +words, but which was continually trying to articulate itself among the +dumb thoughts which lie under the perpetual stream of mental whispers. + +Mr. Bernard's professional training had made him slow to accept +marvellous stories and many forms of superstition. Yet, as a man of +science, he well knew that just on the verge of the demonstrable facts of +physics and physiology there is a nebulous border-land which what is +called "common sense" perhaps does wisely not to enter, but which +uncommon sense, or the fine apprehension of privileged intelligences, may +cautiously explore, and in so doing find itself behind the scenes which +make up for the gazing world the show which is called Nature. + +It was with something of this finer perception, perhaps with some degree +of imaginative exaltation, that he set himself to solving the problem of +Elsie's influence to attract and repel those around her. His letter +already submitted to the reader hints in what direction his thoughts were +disposed to turn. Here was a magnificent organization, superb in +vigorous womanhood, with a beauty such as never comes but after +generations of culture; yet through all this rich nature there ran some +alien current of influence, sinuous and dark, as when a clouded streak +seams the white marble of a perfect statue. + +It would be needless to repeat the particular suggestions which had come +into his mind, as they must probably have come into that of the reader +who has noted the singularities of Elsie's tastes and personal traits. +The images which certain poets had dreamed of seemed to have become a +reality before his own eyes. Then came that unexplained adventure of The +Mountain,--almost like a dream in recollection, yet assuredly real in +some of its main incidents,--with all that it revealed or hinted. This +girl did not fear to visit the dreaded region, where danger lurked in +every nook and beneath every tuft of leaves. Did the tenants of the +fatal ledge recognize some mysterious affinity which made them tributary +to the cold glitter of her diamond eyes? Was she from her birth one of +those frightful children, such as he had read about, and the Professor +had told him of, who form unnatural friendships with cold, writhing +ophidians? There was no need of so unwelcome a thought as this; she had +drawn him away from the dark opening in the rock at the moment when he +seemed to be threatened by one of its malignant denizens; that was all he +could be sure of; the counter-fascination might have been a dream, a +fancy, a coincidence. All wonderful things soon grow doubtful in our own +minds, as do even common events, if great interests prove suddenly to +attach to their truth or falsehood. + +--I, who am telling of these occurrences, saw a friend in the great city, +on the morning of a most memorable disaster, hours after the time when +the train which carried its victims to their doom had left. I talked with +him, and was for some minutes, at least, in his company. When I reached +home, I found that the story had gone before that he was among the lost, +and I alone could contradict it to his weeping friends and relatives. I +did contradict it; but, alas! I began soon to doubt myself, penetrated +by the contagion of their solicitude; my recollection began to question +itself; the order of events became dislocated; and when I heard that he +had reached home in safety, the relief was almost as great to me as to +those who had expected to see their own brother's face no more. + +Mr. Bernard was disposed, then, not to accept the thought of any odious +personal relationship of the kind which had suggested itself to him when +he wrote the letter referred to. That the girl had something of the +feral nature, her wild, lawless rambles in forbidden and blasted regions +of The Mountain at all hours, her familiarity with the lonely haunts +where any other human foot was so rarely seen, proved clearly enough. +But the more he thought of all her strange instincts and modes of being, +the more he became convinced that whatever alien impulse swayed her will +and modulated or diverted or displaced her affections came from some +impression that reached far back into the past, before the days when the +faithful Old Sophy had rocked her in the cradle. He believed that she +had brought her ruling tendency, whatever it was, into the world with +her. + +When the school was over and the girls had all gone, Helen lingered in +the schoolroom to speak with Mr. Bernard. + +"Did you remark Elsie's ways this forenoon?" she said. + +"No, not particularly; I have not noticed anything as sharply as I +commonly do; my head has been a little queer, and I have been thinking +over what we were talking about, and how near I came to solving the great +problem which every day makes clear to such multitudes of people. What +about Elsie?" + +"Bernard, her liking for you is growing into a passion. I have studied +girls for a long while, and I know the difference between their passing +fancies and their real emotions. I told you, you remember, that Rosa +would have to leave us; we barely missed a scene, I think, if not a whole +tragedy, by her going at the right moment. But Elsie is infinitely more +dangerous to herself and others. Women's love is fierce enough, if it +once gets the mastery of them, always; but this poor girl does not know +what to do with a passion." + +Mr. Bernard had never told Helen the story of the flower in his Virgil, +or that other adventure--which he would have felt awkwardly to refer to; +but it had been perfectly understood between them that Elsie showed in +her own singular way a well-marked partiality for the young master. + +"Why don't they take her away from the school, if she is in such a +strange, excitable state?" said Mr. Bernard. + +"I believe they are afraid of her," Helen answered. "It is just one of +those cases that are ten thousand thousand times worse than insanity. I +don't think from what I hear, that her father has ever given up hoping +that she will outgrow her peculiarities. Oh, these peculiar children for +whom parents go on hoping every morning and despairing every night! If I +could tell you half that mothers have told me, you would feel that the +worst of all diseases of the moral sense and the will are those which all +the Bedlams turn away from their doors as not being cases of insanity!" + +"Do you think her father has treated her judiciously?" said Mr. Bernard. + +"I think," said Helen, with a little hesitation, which Mr. Bernard did +not happen to notice,--"I think he has been very kind and indulgent, and +I do not know that he could have treated her otherwise with a better +chance of success." + +"He must of course be fond of her," Mr. Bernard said; "there is nothing +else in the world for him to love." + +Helen dropped a book she held in her hand, and, stooping to pick it up, +the blood rushed into her cheeks. + +"It is getting late," she said; "you must not stay any longer in this +close schoolroom. Pray, go and get a little fresh air before +dinner-time." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +A SOUL IN DISTRESS. + +The events told in the last two chapters had taken place toward the close +of the week. On Saturday evening the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather +received a note which was left at his door by an unknown person who +departed without saying a word. Its words were these: "One who is in +distress of mind requests the prayers of this congregation that God would +be pleased to look in mercy upon the soul that he has afflicted." + +There was nothing to show from whom the note came, or the sex or age or +special source of spiritual discomfort or anxiety of the writer. The +handwriting was delicate and might well be a woman's. The clergyman was +not aware of any particular affliction among his parishioners which was +likely to be made the subject of a request of this kind. Surely neither +of the Venners would advertise the attempted crime of their relative in +this way. But who else was there? The more he thought about it, the +more it puzzled him, and as he did not like to pray in the dark, without +knowing for whom he was praying, he could think of nothing better than to +step into old Doctor Kittredge's and see what he had to say about it. + +The old Doctor was sitting alone in his study when the Reverend Mr. +Fairweather was ushered in. He received his visitor very pleasantly, +expecting, as a matter of course, that he would begin with some new +grievance, dyspeptic, neuralgic, bronchitic, or other. The minister, +however, began with questioning the old Doctor about the sequel of the +other night's adventure; for he was already getting a little Jesuitical, +and kept back the object of his visit until it should come up as if +accidentally in the course of conversation. + +"It was a pretty bold thing to go off alone with that reprobate, as you +did," said the minister. + +"I don't know what there was bold about it," the Doctor answered. "All he +wanted was to get away. He was not quite a reprobate, you see; he didn't +like the thought of disgracing his family or facing his uncle. I think +he was ashamed to see his cousin, too, after what he had done." + +"Did he talk with you on the way?" + +"Not much. For half an hour or so he did n't speak a word. Then he +asked where I was driving him. I told him, and he seemed to be surprised +into a sort of grateful feeling. Bad enough, no doubt, but might be +worse. Has some humanity left in him yet. Let him go. God can judge +him,--I can't." + +"You are too charitable, Doctor," the minister said. "I condemn him just +as if he had carried out his project, which, they say, was to make it +appear as if the schoolmaster had committed suicide. That's what people +think the rope found by him was for. He has saved his neck,--but his +soul is a lost one, I am afraid, beyond question." + +"I can't judge men's souls," the Doctor said. "I can judge their acts, +and hold them responsible for those,--but I don't know much about their +souls. If you or I had found our soul in a half-breed body; and been +turned loose to run among the Indians, we might have been playing just +such tricks as this fellow has been trying. What if you or I had +inherited all the tendencies that were born with his cousin Elsie?" + +"Oh, that reminds me,"--the minister said, in a sudden way,--"I have +received a note, which I am requested to read from the pulpit tomorrow. +I wish you would just have the kindness to look at it and see where you +think it came from." + +The Doctor examined it carefully. It was a woman's or girl's note, he +thought. Might come from one of the school-girls who was anxious about +her spiritual condition. Handwriting was disguised; looked a little like +Elsie Veneer's, but not characteristic enough to make it certain. It +would be a new thing, if she had asked public prayers for herself, and a +very favorable indication of a change in her singular moral nature. It +was just possible Elsie might have sent that note. Nobody could foretell +her actions. It would be well to see the girl and find out whether any +unusual impression had been produced on her mind by the recent occurrence +or by any other cause. + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather folded the note and put it into his pocket. + +"I have been a good deal exercised in mind lately, myself," he said. + +The old Doctor looked at him through his spectacles, and said, in his +usual professional tone, + +"Put out your tongue." + +The minister obeyed him in that feeble way common with persons of weak +character,--for people differ as much in their mode of performing this +trifling act as Gideon's soldiers in their way of drinking at the brook. +The Doctor took his hand and placed a finger mechanically on his wrist. + +"It is more spiritual, I think, than bodily," said the Reverend Mr. +Fairweather. + +"Is your appetite as good as usual?" the Doctor asked. + +"Pretty good," the minister answered; "but my sleep, my sleep, Doctor,--I +am greatly troubled at night with lying awake and thinking of my future, +I am not at ease in mind." + +He looked round at all the doors, to be sure they were shut, and moved +his chair up close to the Doctor's. + +"You do not know the mental trials I have been going through for the last +few months." + +"I think I do," the old Doctor said. "You want to get out of the new +church into the old one, don't you?" + +The minister blushed deeply; he thought he had been going on in a very +quiet way, and that nobody suspected his secret. As the old Doctor was +his counsellor in sickness, and almost everybody's confidant in trouble, +he had intended to impart cautiously to him some hints of the change of +sentiments through which he had been passing. He was too late with his +information, it appeared, and there was nothing to be done but to throw +himself on the Doctor's good sense and kindness, which everybody knew, +and get what hints he could from him as to the practical course he should +pursue. He began, after an awkward pause, + +"You would not have me stay in a communion which I feel to be alien to +the true church, would you?" + +"Have you stay, my friend?" said the Doctor, with a pleasant, friendly +look,--"have you stay? Not a month, nor a week, nor a day, if I could +help it. You have got into the wrong pulpit, and I have known it from +the first. The sooner you go where you belong, the better. And I'm very +glad you don't mean to stop half-way. Don't you know you've always come +to me when you've been dyspeptic or sick anyhow, and wanted to put +yourself wholly into my hands, so that I might order you like a child +just what to do and what to take? That 's exactly what you want in +religion. I don't blame you for it. You never liked to take the +responsibility of your own body; I don't see why you should want to have +the charge of your own soul. But I'm glad you're going to the Old Mother +of all. You wouldn't have been contented short of that." + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather breathed with more freedom. The Doctor saw +into his soul through those awful spectacles of his,--into it and beyond +it, as one sees through a thin fog. But it was with a real human +kindness, after all. He felt like a child before a strong man; but the +strong man looked on him with a father's indulgence. Many and many a +time, when he had come desponding and bemoaning himself on account of +some contemptible bodily infirmity, the old Doctor had looked at him +through his spectacles, listened patiently while he told his ailments, +and then, in his large parental way, given him a few words of wholesome +advice, and cheered him up so that he went off with a light heart, +thinking that the heaven he was so much afraid of was not so very near, +after all. It was the same thing now. He felt, as feeble natures always +do in the presence of strong ones, overmastered, circumscribed, shut in, +humbled; but yet it seemed as if the old Doctor did not despise him any +more for what he considered weakness of mind than he used to despise him +when he complained of his nerves or his digestion. + +Men who see into their neighbors are very apt to be contemptuous; but men +who see through them find something lying behind every human soul which +it is not for them to sit in judgment on, or to attempt to sneer out of +the order of God's manifold universe. + +Little as the Doctor had said out of which comfort could be extracted, +his genial manner had something grateful in it. A film of gratitude came +over the poor man's cloudy, uncertain eye, and a look of tremulous relief +and satisfaction played about his weak mouth. He was gravitating to the +majority, where he hoped to find "rest"; but he was dreadfully sensitive +to the opinions of the minority he was on the point of leaving. + +The old Doctor saw plainly enough what was going on in his mind. + +"I sha'n't quarrel with you," he said,--"you know that very well; but you +mustn't quarrel with me, if I talk honestly with you; it isn't everybody +that will take the trouble. You flatter yourself that you will make a +good many enemies by leaving your old communion. Not so many as you +think. This is the way the common sort of people will talk:--'You have +got your ticket to the feast of life, as much as any other man that ever +lived. Protestantism says,--"Help yourself; here's a clean plate, and a +knife and fork of your own, and plenty of fresh dishes to choose from." +The Old Mother says,--"Give me your ticket, my dear, and I'll feed you +with my gold spoon off these beautiful old wooden trenchers. Such nice +bits as those good old gentlemen have left for you!" There is no +quarrelling with a man who prefers broken victuals. That's what the +rougher sort will say; and then, where one scolds, ten will laugh. But, +mind you, I don't either scold or laugh. I don't feel sure that you +could very well have helped doing what you will soon do. You know you +were never easy without some medicine to take when you felt ill in body. +I'm afraid I've given you trashy stuff sometimes, just to keep you quiet. +Now, let me tell you, there is just the same difference in spiritual +patients that there is in bodily ones. One set believes in wholesome +ways of living, and another must have a great list of specifics for all +the soul's complaints. You belong with the last, and got accidentally +shuffled in with the others." + +The minister smiled faintly, but did not reply. Of course, he considered +that way of talking as the result of the Doctor's professional training. +It would not have been worth while to take offence at his plain speech, +if he had been so disposed; for he might wish to consult him the next day +as to "what he should take" for his dyspepsia or his neuralgia. + +He left the Doctor with a hollow feeling at the bottom of his soul, as if +a good piece of his manhood had been scooped out of him. His hollow +aching did not explain itself in words, but it grumbled and worried down +among the unshaped thoughts which lie beneath them. He knew that he had +been trying to reason himself out of his birthright of reason. He knew +that the inspiration which gave him understanding was losing its throne +in his intelligence, and the almighty Majority-Vote was proclaiming +itself in its stead. He knew that the great primal truths, which each +successive revelation only confirmed, were fast becoming hidden beneath +the mechanical forms of thought, which, as with all new converts, +engrossed so large a share of his attention. The "peace," the "rest," +which he had purchased were dearly bought to one who had been trained to +the arms of thought, and whose noble privilege it might have been to live +in perpetual warfare for the advancing truth which the next generation +will claim as the legacy of the present. + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather was getting careless about his sermons. He +must wait the fitting moment to declare himself; and in the mean time he +was preaching to heretics. It did not matter much what he preached, +under such circumstances. He pulled out two old yellow sermons from a +heap of such, and began looking over that for the forenoon. Naturally +enough, he fell asleep over it, and, sleeping, he began to dream. + +He dreamed that he was under the high arches of an old cathedral, amidst +a throng of worshippers. The light streamed in through vast windows, +dark with the purple robes of royal saints, or blazing with yellow +glories around the heads of earthly martyrs and heavenly messengers. The +billows of the great organ roared among the clustered columns, as the sea +breaks amidst the basaltic pillars which crowd the stormy cavern of the +Hebrides. The voice of the alternate choirs of singing boys swung back +and forward, as the silver censer swung in the hands of the white-robed +children. The sweet cloud of incense rose in soft, fleecy mists, full of +penetrating suggestions of the East and its perfumed altars. The knees +of twenty generations had worn the pavement; their feet had hollowed the +steps; their shoulders had smoothed the columns. Dead bishops and abbots +lay under the marble of the floor in their crumbled vestments; dead +warriors, in rusted armor, were stretched beneath their sculptured +effigies. And all at once all the buried multitudes who had ever +worshipped there came thronging in through the aisles. They choked every +space, they swarmed into all the chapels, they hung in clusters over the +parapets of the galleries, they clung to the images in every niche, and +still the vast throng kept flowing and flowing in, until the living were +lost in the rush of the returning dead who had reclaimed their own. +Then, as his dream became more fantastic, the huge cathedral itself +seemed to change into the wreck of some mighty antediluvian vertebrate; +its flying-buttresses arched round like ribs, its piers shaped themselves +into limbs, and the sound of the organ-blast changed to the wind +whistling through its thousand-jointed skeleton. + +And presently the sound lulled, and softened and softened, until it was +as the murmur of a distant swarm of bees. A procession of monks wound +along through an old street, chanting, as they walked. In his dream he +glided in among them and bore his part in the burden of their song. He +entered with the long train under a low arch, and presently he was +kneeling in a narrow cell before an image of the Blessed Maiden holding +the Divine Child in her arms, and his lips seemed to whisper, + + Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis! + +He turned to the crucifix, and, prostrating himself before the spare, +agonizing shape of the Holy Sufferer, fell into a long passion of tears +and broken prayers. He rose and flung himself, worn-out, upon his hard +pallet, and, seeming to slumber, dreamed again within his dream. Once +more in the vast cathedral, with throngs of the living choking its +aisles, amidst jubilant peals from the cavernous depths of the great +organ, and choral melodies ringing from the fluty throats of the singing +boys. A day of great rejoicings,--for a prelate was to be consecrated, +and the bones of the mighty skeleton-minster were shaking with anthems, +as if there were life of its own within its buttressed ribs. He looked +down at his feet; the folds of the sacred robe were flowing about them: +he put his hand to his head; it was crowned with the holy mitre. A long +sigh, as of perfect content in the consummation of all his earthly hopes, +breathed through the dreamer's lips, and shaped itself, as it escaped, +into the blissful murmur, + + Ego sum Episcopus! + +One grinning gargoyle looked in from beneath the roof through an opening +in a stained window. It was the face of a mocking fiend, such as the old +builders loved to place under the eaves to spout the rain through their +open mouths. It looked at him, as he sat in his mitred chair, with its +hideous grin growing broader and broader, until it laughed out aloud, +such a hard, stony, mocking laugh, that he awoke out of his second dream +through his first into his common consciousness, and shivered, as he +turned to the two yellow sermons which he was to pick over and weed of +the little thought they might contain, for the next day's service. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather was too much taken up with his own +bodily and spiritual condition to be deeply mindful of others. He +carried the note requesting the prayers of the congregation in his pocket +all day; and the soul in distress, which a single tender petition might +have soothed, and perhaps have saved from despair or fatal error, found +no voice in the temple to plead for it before the Throne of Mercy! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE SECRET IS WHISPERED. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather's congregation was not large, but +select. The lines of social cleavage run through religious creeds as if +they were of a piece with position and fortune. It is expected of +persons of a certain breeding, in some parts of New England, that they +shall be either Episcopalians or Unitarians. The mansion-house gentry of +Rockland were pretty fairly divided between the little chapel, with the +stained window and the trained rector, and the meeting-house where the +Reverend Mr. Fairweather officiated. + +It was in the latter that Dudley Venner worshipped, when he attended +service anywhere,--which depended very much on the caprice of Elsie. He +saw plainly enough that a generous and liberally cultivated nature might +find a refuge and congenial souls in either of these two persuasions, but +he objected to some points of the formal creed of the older church, and +especially to the mechanism which renders it hard to get free from its +outworn and offensive formulae,--remembering how Archbishop Tillotson +wished in vain that it could be "well rid of" the Athanasian Creed. +This, and the fact that the meeting-house was nearer than the chapel, +determined him, when the new rector, who was not quite up to his mark in +education, was appointed, to take a pew in the "liberal" worshippers' +edifice. + +Elsie was very uncertain in her feeling about going to church. In +summer, she loved rather to stroll over The Mountain, on Sundays. There +was even a story, that she had one of the caves before mentioned fitted +up as an oratory, and that she had her own wild way of worshipping the +God whom she sought in the dark chasms of the dreaded cliffs. Mere +fables, doubtless; but they showed the common belief, that Elsie, with +all her strange and dangerous elements of character, had yet strong +religious feeling mingled with them. The hymn-book which Dick had found, +in his midnight invasion of her chamber, opened to favorite hymns, +especially some of the Methodist and Quietist character. Many had +noticed, that certain tunes, as sung by the choir, seemed to impress her +deeply; and some said, that at such times her whole expression would +change, and her stormy look would soften so as to remind them of her +poor, sweet mother. + +On the Sunday morning after the talk recorded in the last chapter, Elsie +made herself ready to go to meeting. She was dressed much as usual, +excepting that she wore a thick veil, turned aside, but ready to conceal +her features. It was natural enough that she should not wish to be +looked in the face by curious persons who would be staring to see what +effect the occurrence of the past week had had on her spirits. Her +father attended her willingly; and they took their seats in the pew, +somewhat to the surprise of many, who had hardly expected to see them, +after so humiliating a family development as the attempted crime of their +kinsman had just been furnishing for the astonishment of the public. + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather was now in his coldest mood. He had passed +through the period of feverish excitement which marks a change of +religious opinion. At first, when he had began to doubt his own +theological positions, he had defended them against himself with more +ingenuity and interest, perhaps, than he could have done against another; +because men rarely take the trouble to understand anybody's difficulties +in a question but their own. After this, as he began to draw off from +different points of his old belief, the cautious disentangling of himself +from one mesh after another gave sharpness to his intellect, and the +tremulous eagerness with which he seized upon the doctrine which, piece +by piece, under various pretexts and with various disguises, he was +appropriating, gave interest and something like passion to his words. +But when he had gradually accustomed his people to his new phraseology, +and was really adjusting his sermons and his service to disguise his +thoughts, he lost at once all his intellectual acuteness and all his +spiritual fervor. + +Elsie sat quietly through the first part of the service, which was +conducted in the cold, mechanical way to be expected. Her face was +hidden by her veil; but her father knew her state of feeling, as well by +her movements and attitudes as by the expression of her features. The +hymn had been sung, the short prayer offered, the Bible read, and the +long prayer was about to begin. This was the time at which the "notes" +of any who were in affliction from loss of friends, the sick who were +doubtful of recovery, those who had cause to be grateful for preservation +of life or other signal blessing, were wont to be read. + +Just then it was that Dudley Veneer noticed that his daughter was +trembling,--a thing so rare, so unaccountable, indeed, under the +circumstances, that he watched her closely, and began to fear that some +nervous paroxysm, or other malady, might have just begun to show itself +in this way upon her. + +The minister had in his pocket two notes. One, in the handwriting of +Deacon Soper, was from a member of this congregation, returning thanks +for his preservation through a season of great peril, supposed to be the +exposure which he had shared with others, when standing in the circle +around Dick Veneer. The other was the anonymous one, in a female hand, +which he had received the evening before. He forgot them both. His +thoughts were altogether too much taken up with more important matters. +He prayed through all the frozen petitions of his expurgated form of +supplication, and not a single heart was soothed or lifted, or reminded +that its sorrows were struggling their way up to heaven, borne on the +breath from a human soul that was warm with love. + +The people sat down as if relieved when the dreary prayer was finished. +Elsie alone remained standing until her father touched her. Then she sat +down, lifted her veil, and looked at him with a blank, sad look, as if +she had suffered some pain or wrong, but could not give any name or +expression to her vague trouble. She did not tremble any longer, but +remained ominously still, as if she had been frozen where she sat. + +--Can a man love his own soul too well? Who, on the whole, constitute +the nobler class of human beings? those who have lived mainly to make +sure of their own personal welfare in another and future condition of +existence, or they who have worked with all their might for their race, +for their country, for the advancement of the kingdom of God, and left +all personal arrangements concerning themselves to the sole charge of Him +who made them and is responsible to himself for their safe-keeping? Is +an anchorite who has worn the stone floor of his cell into basins with +his knees bent in prayer, more acceptable than the soldier who gives his +life for the maintenance of any sacred right or truth, without thinking +what will specially become of him in a world where there are two or three +million colonists a month, from this one planet, to be cared for? These +are grave questions, which must suggest themselves to those who know that +there are many profoundly selfish persons who are sincerely devout and +perpetually occupied with their own future, while there are others who +are perfectly ready to sacrifice themselves for any worthy object in this +world, but are really too little occupied with their exclusive +personality to think so much as many do about what is to become of them +in another. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather did not, most certainly, belong to this +latter class. There are several kinds of believers, whose history we +find among the early converts to Christianity. + +There was the magistrate, whose social position was such that he +preferred a private interview in the evening with the Teacher to +following him--with the street-crowd. He had seen extraordinary facts +which had satisfied him that the young Galilean had a divine commission. +But still he cross-questioned the Teacher himself. He was not ready to +accept statements without explanation. That was the right kind of man. +See how he stood up for the legal rights of his Master, when the people +were for laying hands on him! + +And again, there was the government official, intrusted with public +money, which, in those days, implied that he was supposed to be honest. +A single look of that heavenly countenance, and two words of gentle +command, were enough for him. Neither of these men, the early disciple, +nor the evangelist, seems to have been thinking primarily about his own +personal safety. + +But now look at the poor, miserable turnkey, whose occupation shows what +he was like to be, and who had just been thrusting two respectable +strangers, taken from the hands of a mob, covered with stripes and +stripped of clothing, into the inner prison, and making their feet fast +in the stocks. His thought, in the moment of terror, is for himself: +first, suicide; then, what he shall do,--not to save his household,--not +to fulfil his duty to his office,--not to repair the outrage he has been +committing,--but to secure his own personal safety. Truly, character +shows itself as much in a man's way of becoming a Christian as in any +other! + +--Elsie sat, statue-like, through the sermon. It would not be fair to +the reader to give an abstract of that. When a man who has been bred to +free thought and free speech suddenly finds himself stepping about, like +a dancer amidst his eggs, among the old addled majority-votes which he +must not tread upon, he is a spectacle for men and angels. Submission to +intellectual precedent and authority does very well for those who have +been bred to it; we know that the underground courses of their minds are +laid in the Roman cement of tradition, and that stately and splendid +structures may be reared on such a foundation. But to see one laying a +platform over heretical quicksands, thirty or forty or fifty years deep, +and then beginning to build upon it, is a sorry sight. A new convert +from the reformed to the ancient faith may be very strong in the arms, +but he will always have weak legs and shaky knees. He may use his hands +well, and hit hard with his fists, but he will never stand on his legs in +the way the man does who inherits his belief. + +The services were over at last, and Dudley Venner and his daughter walked +home together in silence. He always respected her moods, and saw clearly +enough that some inward trouble was weighing upon her. There was nothing +to be said in such cases, for Elsie could never talk of her griefs. An +hour, or a day, or a week of brooding, with perhaps a sudden flash of +violence: this was the way in which the impressions which make other +women weep, and tell their griefs by word or letter, showed their effects +in her mind and acts. + +She wandered off up into the remoter parts of The Mountain, that day, +after their return. No one saw just where she went,--indeed, no one knew +its forest-recesses and rocky fastnesses as she did. She was gone until +late at night; and when Old Sophy, who had watched for her, bound up her +long hair for her sleep, it was damp with the cold dews. + +The old black woman looked at her without speaking, but questioning her +with every feature as to the sorrow that was weighing on her. + +Suddenly she turned to Old Sophy. + +"You want to know what there is troubling me;" she said. "Nobody loves +me. I cannot love anybody. What is love, Sophy?" + +"It's what poor Ol' Sophy's got for her Elsie," the old woman answered. +"Tell me, darlin',--don' you love somebody?--don' you love? you +know,--oh, tell me, darlin', don' you love to see the gen'l'man that +keeps up at the school where you go? They say he's the pootiest +gen'l'man that was ever in the town here. Don' be 'fraid of poor Ol' +Sophy, darlin',--she loved a man once,--see here! Oh, I've showed you +this often enough!" + +She took from her pocket a half of one of the old Spanish silver coins, +such as were current in the earlier part of this century. The other half +of it had been lying in the deep sea-sand for more than fifty years. + +Elsie looked her in the face, but did not answer in words. What strange +intelligence was that which passed between them through the diamond eyes +and the little beady black ones?--what subtile intercommunication, +penetrating so much deeper than articulate speech? This was the nearest +approach to sympathetic relations that Elsie ever had: a kind of dumb +intercourse of feeling, such as one sees in the eyes of brute mothers +looking on their young. But, subtile as it was, it was narrow and +individual; whereas an emotion which can shape itself in language opens +the gate for itself into the great community of human affections; for +every word we speak is the medal of a dead thought or feeling, struck in +the die of some human experience, worn smooth by innumerable contacts, +and always transferred warm from one to another. By words we share the +common consciousness of the race, which has shaped itself in these +symbols. By music we reach those special states of consciousness which, +being without form, cannot be shaped with the mosaics of the vocabulary. +The language of the eyes runs deeper into the personal nature, but it is +purely individual, and perishes in the expression. + +If we consider them all as growing out of the consciousness as their +root, language is the leaf, music is the flower; but when the eyes meet +and search each other, it is the uncovering of the blanched stem through +which the whole life runs, but which has never taken color or form from +the sunlight. + +For three days Elsie did not return to the school. Much of the time she +was among the woods and rocks. The season was now beginning to wane, and +the forest to put on its autumnal glory. The dreamy haze was beginning +to soften the landscape, and the mast delicious days of the year were +lending their attraction to the scenery of The Mountain. It was not very +singular that Elsie should be lingering in her old haunts, from which the +change of season must soon drive her. But Old Sophy saw clearly enough +that some internal conflict was going on, and knew very well that it must +have its own way and work itself out as it best could. As much as looks +could tell Elsie had told her. She had said in words, to be sure, that +she could not love. Something warped and thwarted the emotion which +would have been love in another, no doubt; but that such an emotion was +striving with her against all malign influences which interfered with it +the old woman had a perfect certainty in her own mind. + +Everybody who has observed the working of emotions in persons of various +temperaments knows well enough that they have periods of incubation, +which differ with the individual, and with the particular cause and +degree of excitement, yet evidently go through a strictly self-limited +series of evolutions, at the end of which, their result--an act of +violence, a paroxysm of tears, a gradual subsidence into repose, or +whatever it may be--declares itself, like the last stage of an attack of +fever and ague. No one can observe children without noticing that there +is a personal equation, to use the astronomer's language, in their +tempers, so that one sulks an hour over an offence which makes another a +fury for five minutes, and leaves him or her an angel when it is over. + +At the end of three days, Elsie braided her long, glossy, black hair, and +shot a golden arrow through it. She dressed herself with more than usual +care, and came down in the morning superb in her stormy beauty. The +brooding paroxysm was over, or at least her passion had changed its +phase. Her father saw it with great relief; he had always many fears for +her in her hours and days of gloom, but, for reasons before assigned, had +felt that she must be trusted to herself, without appealing to actual +restraint, or any other supervision than such as Old Sophy could exercise +without offence. + +She went off at the accustomed hour to the school. All the girls had +their eyes on her. None so keen as these young misses to know an inward +movement by an outward sign of adornment: if they have not as many +signals as the ships that sail the great seas, there is not an end of +ribbon or a turn of a ringlet which is not a hieroglyphic with a hidden +meaning to these little cruisers over the ocean of sentiment. + +The girls all looked at Elsie with a new thought; for she was more +sumptuously arrayed than perhaps ever before at the school; and they said +to themselves that she had come meaning to draw the young master's eyes +upon her. That was it; what else could it be? The beautiful cold girl +with the diamond eyes meant to dazzle the handsome young gentleman. He +would be afraid to love her; it couldn't be true, that which some people +had said in the village; she was n't the kind of young lady to make Mr. +Langdon happy. Those dark people are never safe: so one of the young +blondes said to herself. Elsie was not literary enough for such a +scholar: so thought Miss Charlotte Ann Wood, the young poetess. She +couldn't have a good temper, with those scowling eyebrows: this was the +opinion of several broad-faced, smiling girls, who thought, each in her +own snug little mental sanctum, that, if, etc., etc., she could make him +so happy! + +Elsie had none of the still, wicked light in her eyes, that morning. She +looked gentle, but dreamy; played with her books; did not trouble herself +with any of the exercises,--which in itself was not very remarkable, as +she was always allowed, under some pretext or other, to have her own way. + +The school-hours were over at length. The girls went out, but she +lingered to the last. She then came up to Mr. Bernard, with a book in +her hand, as if to ask a question. + +"Will you walk towards my home with me today?" she said, in a very low +voice, little more than a whisper. + +Mr. Bernard was startled by the request, put in such a way. He had a +presentiment of some painful scene or other. But there was nothing to be +done but to assure her that it would give him great pleasure. + +So they walked along together on their way toward the Dudley mansion. + +"I have no friend," Elsie said, all at once. "Nothing loves me but one +old woman. I cannot love anybody. They tell me there is something in my +eyes that draws people to me and makes them faint: Look into them, will +you?" + +She turned her face toward him. It was very pale, and the diamond eyes +were glittering with a film, such as beneath other lids would have +rounded into a tear. + +"Beautiful eyes, Elsie," he said,--"sometimes very piercing,--but soft +now, and looking as if there were something beneath them that friendship +might draw out. I am your friend, Elsie. Tell me what I can do to +render your life happier." + +"Love me!" said Elsie Venner. + +What shall a man do, when a woman makes such a demand, involving such an +avowal? It was the tenderest, cruellest, humblest moment of Mr. +Bernard's life. He turned pale, he trembled almost, as if he had been a +woman listening to her lover's declaration. + +"Elsie," he said, presently, "I so long to be of some use to you, to have +your confidence and sympathy, that I must not let you say or do anything +to put us in false relations. I do love you, Elsie, as a suffering +sister with sorrows of her own,--as one whom I would save at the risk of +my happiness and life,--as one who needs a true friend more than--any of +all the young girls I have known. More than this you would not ask me to +say. You have been through excitement and trouble lately, and it has +made you feel such a need more than ever. Give me your hand, dear Elsie, +and trust me that I will be as true a friend to you as if we were +children of the same mother." + +Elsie gave him her hand mechanically. It seemed to him that a cold aura +shot from it along his arm and chilled the blood running through his +heart. He pressed it gently, looked at her with a face full of grave +kindness and sad interest, then softly relinquished it. + +It was all over with poor Elsie. They walked almost in silence the rest +of the way. Mr. Bernard left her at the gate of the mansion-house, and +returned with sad forebodings. Elsie went at once to her own room, and +did not come from it at the usual hours. At last Old Sophy began to be +alarmed about her, went to her apartment, and, finding the door unlocked, +entered cautiously. She found Elsie lying on her bed, her brows strongly +contracted, her eyes dull, her whole look that of great suffering. Her +first thought was that she had been doing herself a harm by some deadly +means or other. But Elsie, saw her fear, and reassured her. + +"No," she said, "there is nothing wrong, such as you are thinking of; I +am not dying. You may send for the Doctor; perhaps he can take the pain +from my head. That is all I want him to do. There is no use in the +pain, that I know of; if he can stop it, let him." + +So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not long before the solid trot +of Caustic, the old bay horse, and the crashing of the gravel under the +wheels, gave notice that the physician was driving up the avenue. + +The old Doctor was a model for visiting practitioners. He always came +into the sick-room with a quiet, cheerful look, as if he had a +consciousness that he was bringing some sure relief with him. The way a +patient snatches his first look at his doctor's face, to see whether he +is doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is unconditionally +pardoned, has really something terrible about it. It is only to be met +by an imperturbable mask of serenity, proof against anything and +everything in a patient's aspect. The physician whose face reflects his +patient's condition like a mirror may do well enough to examine people +for a life-insurance office, but does not belong to the sickroom. The +old Doctor did not keep people waiting in dread suspense, while he stayed +talking about the case,--the patient all the time thinking that he and +the friends are discussing some alarming symptom or formidable operation +which he himself is by-and-by--to hear of. + +He was in Elsie's room almost before she knew he was in the house. He +came to her bedside in such a natural, quiet way, that it seemed as if he +were only a friend who had dropped in for a moment to say a pleasant +word. Yet he was very uneasy about Elsie until he had seen her; he never +knew what might happen to her or those about her, and came prepared for +the worst. + +"Sick, my child?" he said, in a very soft, low voice. + +Elsie nodded, without speaking. + +The Doctor took her hand,--whether with professional views, or only in a +friendly way, it would have been hard to tell. So he sat a few minutes, +looking at her all the time with a kind of fatherly interest, but with it +all noting how she lay, how she breathed, her color, her expression, all +that teaches the practised eye so much without a single question being +asked. He saw she was in suffering, and said presently, + +"You have pain somewhere; where is it?" + +She put her hand to her head. + +As she was not disposed to talk, he watched her for a while, questioned +Old Sophy shrewdly a few minutes, and so made up his mind as to the +probable cause of disturbance and the proper remedies to be used. + +Some very silly people thought the old Doctor did not believe in +medicine, because he gave less than certain poor half-taught creatures in +the smaller neighboring towns, who took advantage of people's sickness to +disgust and disturb them with all manner of ill-smelling and ill-behaving +drugs. In truth, he hated to give anything noxious or loathsome to those +who were uncomfortable enough already, unless he was very sure it would +do good,--in which case, he never played with drugs, but gave good, +honest, efficient doses. Sometimes he lost a family of the more boorish +sort, because they did not think they got their money's worth out of him, +unless they had something more than a taste of everything he carried in +his saddlebags. + +He ordered some remedies which he thought would relieve Elsie, and left +her, saying he would call the next day, hoping to find her better. But +the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie was on her bed, +feverish, restless, wakeful, silent. At night she tossed about and +wandered, and it became at length apparent that there was a settled +attack, something like what they called, formerly, a "nervous fever." + +On the fourth day she was more restless than common. One of the women of +the house came in to help to take care of her; but she showed an aversion +to her presence. + +"Send me Helen Darley," she said, at last. + +The old Doctor told them, that, if possible, they must indulge this fancy +of hers. The caprices of sick people were never to be despised, least of +all of such persons as Elsie, when rendered irritable and exacting by +pain and weakness. + +So a message was sent to Mr. Silas Peckham at the Apollinean Institute, +to know if he could not spare Miss Helen Darley for a few days, if +required, to give her attention to a young lady who attended his school +and who was now lying ill,--no other person than the daughter of Dudley +Venner. + +A mean man never agrees to anything without deliberately turning it over, +so that he may see its dirty side, and, if he can, sweating the coin he +pays for it. If an archangel should offer to save his soul for sixpence, +he would try to find a sixpence with a hole in it. A gentleman says yes +to a great many things without stopping to think: a shabby fellow is +known by his caution in answering questions, for fear of, compromising +his pocket or himself. + +Mr. Silas Peckham looked very grave at the request. The dooties of Miss +Darley at the Institoot were important, very important. He paid her +large sums of money for her time,--more than she could expect to get in +any other institootion for the edoocation of female youth. A deduction +from her selary would be necessary, in case she should retire from the +sphere of her dooties for a season. He should be put to extry expense, +and have to perform additional labors himself. He would consider of the +matter. If any arrangement could be made, he would send word to Squire +Venner's folks. + +"Miss Darley," said Silas Peckham, "the' 's a message from Squire +Venner's that his daughter wants you down at the mansion-house to see +her. She's got a fever, so they inform me. If it's any kind of ketchin' +fever, of course you won't think of goin' near the mansion-house. If +Doctor Kittredge says it's safe, perfec'ly safe, I can't object to your +goin', on sech conditions as seem to be fair to all' concerned. You will +give up your pay for the whole time you are absent,--portions of days to +be caounted as whole days. You will be charged with board the same as if +you eat your victuals with the household. The victuals are of no use +after they're cooked but to be eat, and your bein' away is no savin' to +our folks. I shall charge you a reasonable compensation for the demage +to the school by the absence of a teacher. If Miss Crabs undertakes any +dooties belongin' to your department of instruction, she will look to you +for sech pecooniary considerations as you may agree upon between you. On +these conditions I am willin' to give my consent to your temporary +absence from the post of dooty. I will step down to Doctor Kittredge's +myself, and make inquiries as to the natur' of the complaint." + +Mr. Peckham took up a rusty and very narrow-brimmed hat, which he cocked +upon one side of his head, with an air peculiar to the rural gentry. It +was the hour when the Doctor expected to be in his office, unless he had +some special call which kept him from home. + +He found the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather just taking leave of the +Doctor. His hand was on the pit of his stomach, and his countenance was +expressive of inward uneasiness. + +"Shake it before using," said the Doctor; "and the sooner you make up +your mind to speak right out, the better it will be for your digestion." + +"Oh, Mr. Peckham! Walk in, Mr. Peckham! Nobody sick up at the school, I +hope?" + +"The haalth of the school is fust-rate," replied Mr. Peckham. "The +sitooation is uncommonly favorable to saloobrity." (These last words +were from the Annual Report of the past year.) "Providence has spared our +female youth in a remarkable measure. I've come with reference to +another consideration. Dr. Kittredge, is there any ketchin' complaint +goin' about in the village?" + +"Well, yes," said the Doctor, "I should say there was something of that +sort. Measles. Mumps. And Sin,--that's always catching." + +The old Doctor's eye twinkled; once in a while he had his little touch of +humor. + +Silas Peckham slanted his eye up suspiciously at the Doctor, as if he was +getting some kind of advantage over him. That is the way people of his +constitution are apt to take a bit of pleasantry. + +"I don't mean sech things, Doctor; I mean fevers. Is there any ketchin' +fevers--bilious, or nervous, or typus, or whatever you call 'em--now +goin' round this village? That's what I want to ascertain, if there's no +impropriety." + +The old Doctor looked at Silas through his spectacles. + +"Hard and sour as a green cider-apple," he thought to himself. "No,"; he +said,--"I don't know any such cases." + +"What's the matter with Elsie Venner?" asked Silas, sharply, as if he +expected to have him this time. + +"A mild feverish attack, I should call it in anybody else; but she has a +peculiar constitution, and I never feel so safe about her as I should +about most people." + +"Anything ketchin' about it?" Silas asked, cunningly. + +"No, indeed!" said the Doctor,--"catching? no,--what put that into your +head, Mr. Peckham?" + +"Well, Doctor," the conscientious Principal answered, "I naterally feel a +graat responsibility, a very graaat responsibility, for the noomerous and +lovely young ladies committed to my charge. It has been a question, +whether one of my assistants should go, accordin' to request, to stop +with Miss Venner for a season. Nothin' restrains my givin' my full and +free consent to her goin' but the fear lest contagious maladies should be +introdooced among those lovely female youth. I shall abide by your +opinion,--I understan' you to say distinc'ly, her complaint is not +ketchin'?--and urge upon Miss Darley to fulfil her dooties to a +sufferin' fellow-creature at any cost to myself and my establishment. We +shall miss her very much; but it is a good cause, and she shall go,--and +I shall trust that Providence will enable us to spare her without +permanent demage to the interests of the Institootion." + +Saying this, the excellent Principal departed, with his rusty +narrow-brimmed hat leaning over, as if it had a six-knot breeze abeam, +and its gunwale (so to speak) was dipping into his coat-collar. He +announced the result of his inquiries to Helen, who had received a brief +note in the mean time from a poor relation of Elsie's mother, then at the +mansion-house, informing her of the critical situation of Elsie and of +her urgent desire that Helen should be with her. She could not hesitate. +She blushed as she thought of the comments that might be made; but what +were such considerations in a matter of life and death? She could not +stop to make terms with Silas Peckham. She must go. He might fleece +her, if he would; she would not complain,--not even to Bernard, who, she +knew, would bring the Principal to terms, if she gave the least hint of +his intended extortions. + +So Helen made up her bundle of clothes to be sent after her, took a book +or two with her to help her pass the time, and departed for the Dudley +mansion. It was with a great inward effort that she undertook the +sisterly task which was thus forced upon her. She had a kind of terror +of Elsie; and the thought of having charge of her, of being alone with +her, of coming under the full influence of those diamond eyes,--if, +indeed, their light were not dimmed by suffering and weariness,--was one +she shrank from. But what could she do? It might be a turning-point in +the life of the poor girl; and she must overcome all her fears, all her +repugnance, and go to her rescue. + +"Is Helen come?" said Elsie, when she heard, with her fine sense +quickened by the irritability of sickness, a light footfall on the stair, +with a cadence unlike that of any inmate of the house. + +"It's a strange woman's step," said Old Sophy, who, with her exclusive +love for Elsie, was naturally disposed to jealousy of a new-comer. "Let +Ol' Sophy set at 'th' foot o' th' bed, if th' young missis sets by th' +piller,--won' y', darlin'? The' 's nobody that's white can love y' as +th' of black woman does;--don' sen' her away, now, there 's a dear soul!" + +Elsie motioned her to sit in the place she had pointed to, and Helen at +that moment entered the room. Dudley Venner followed her. + +"She is your patient," he said, "except while the Doctor is here. She has +been longing to have you with her, and we shall expect you to make her +well in a few days." + +So Helen Darley found herself established in the most unexpected manner +as an inmate of the Dudley mansion. She sat with Elsie most of the time, +by day and by night, soothing her, and trying to enter into her +confidence and affections, if it should prove that this strange creature +was really capable of truly sympathetic emotions. + +What was this unexplained something which came between her soul and that +of every other human being with whom she was in relations? Helen +perceived, or rather felt, that she had, folded up in the depths of her +being, a true womanly nature. Through the cloud that darkened her +aspect, now and then a ray would steal forth, which, like the smile of +stern and solemn people, was all the more impressive from its contrast +with the expression she wore habitually. It might well be that pain and +fatigue had changed her aspect; but, at any rate, Helen looked into her +eyes without that nervous agitation which their cold glitter had produced +on her when they were full of their natural light. She felt sure that +her mother must have been a lovely, gentle woman. There were gleams of a +beautiful nature shining through some ill-defined medium which disturbed +and made them flicker and waver, as distant images do when seen through +the rippling upward currents of heated air. She loved, in her own way, +the old black woman, and seemed to keep up a kind of silent communication +with her, as if they did not require the use of speech. She appeared to +be tranquillized by the presence of Helen, and loved to have her seated +at the bedside. Yet something, whatever it was, prevented her from +opening her heart to her kind companion; and even now there were times +when she would lie looking at her, with such a still, watchful, almost +dangerous expression, that Helen would sigh, and change her place, as +persons do whose breath some cunning orator had been sucking out of them +with his spongy eloquence, so that, when he stops, they must get some air +and stir about, or they feel as if they should be half smothered and +palsied. + +It was too much to keep guessing what was the meaning of all this. Helen +determined to ask Old Sophy some questions which might probably throw +light upon her doubts. She took the opportunity one evening when Elsie +was lying asleep and they were both sitting at some distance from her +bed. + +"Tell me, Sophy," she said, "was Elsie always as shy as she seems to be +now, in talking with those to whom she is friendly?" + +"Alway jes' so, Miss Darlin', ever sense she was little chil'. When she +was five, six year old, she lisp some,--call me Thophy; that make her +kin' o' 'shamed, perhaps: after she grow up, she never lisp, but she kin' +o' got the way o' not talkin' much. Fac' is, she don' like talkin' as +common gals do, 'xcep' jes' once in a while wi' some partic'lar +folks,--'n' then not much." + +"How old is Elsie?" + +"Eighteen year this las' September." + +"How long ago did her mother die?" Helen asked, with a little trembling +in her voice. + +"Eighteen year ago this October," said Old Sophy. + +Helen was silent for a moment. Then she whispered, almost +inaudibly,--for her voice appeared to fail her, + +"What did her mother die of, Sophy?" + +The old woman's small eyes dilated until a ring of white showed round +their beady centres. She caught Helen by the hand and clung to it, as if +in fear. She looked round at Elsie, who lay sleeping, as of she might be +listening. Then she drew Helen towards her and led her softly out of the +room. + +"'Sh!--'sh!" she said, as soon as they were outside the door. "Don' +never speak in this house 'bout what Elsie's mother died of!" she said. +"Nobody never says nothin' 'bout it. Oh, God has made Ugly Things wi' +death in their mouths, Miss Darlin', an' He knows what they're for; but +my poor Elsie!--to have her blood changed in her before--It was in July +Mistress got her death, but she liv' till three week after my poor Elsie +was born." + +She could speak no more. She had said enough. Helen remembered the +stories she had heard on coming to the village, and among them one +referred to in an early chapter of this narrative. All the unaccountable +looks and tastes and ways of Elsie came back to her in the light of an +ante-natal impression which had mingled an alien element in her nature. +She knew the secret of the fascination which looked out of her cold, +glittering eyes. She knew the significance of the strange repulsion +which she felt in her own intimate consciousness underlying the +inexplicable attraction which drew her towards the young girl in spite of +this repugnance. She began to look with new feelings on the +contradictions in her moral nature,--the longing for sympathy, as shown +by her wishing for Helen's company, and the impossibility of passing +beyond the cold circle of isolation within which she had her being. The +fearful truth of that instinctive feeling of hers, that there was +something not human looking out of Elsie's eyes, came upon her with a +sudden flash of penetrating conviction. There were two warring +principles in that superb organization and proud soul. One made her a +woman, with all a woman's powers and longings. The other chilled all the +currents of outlet for her emotions. It made her tearless and mute, when +another woman would have wept and pleaded. And it infused into her soul +something--it was cruel now to call it malice--which was still and +watchful and dangerous, which waited its opportunity, and then shot like +an arrow from its bow out of the coil of brooding premeditation. Even +those who had never seen the white scars on Dick Venner's wrist, or heard +the half-told story of her supposed attempt to do a graver mischief, knew +well enough by looking at her that she was one of the creatures not to be +tampered with,--silent in anger and swift in vengeance. + +Helen could not return to the bedside at once after this communication. +It was with altered eyes that she must look on the poor girl, the victim +of such an unheard-of fatality. All was explained to her now. But it +opened such depths of solemn thought in her awakened consciousness, that +it seemed as if the whole mystery of human life were coming up again +before her for trial and judgment. "Oh," she thought, "if, while the will +lies sealed in its fountain, it may be poisoned at its very source, so +that it shall flow dark and deadly through its whole course, who are we +that we should judge our fellow-creatures by ourselves?" Then came the +terrible question, how far the elements themselves are capable of +perverting the moral nature: if valor, and justice, and truth, the +strength of man and the virtue of woman, may not be poisoned out of a +race by the food of the Australian in his forest, by the foul air and +darkness of the Christians cooped up in the "tenement-houses" close by +those who live in the palaces of the great cities? + +She walked out into the garden, lost in thought upon these dark and deep +matters. Presently she heard a step behind her, and Elsie's father came +up and joined her. Since his introduction to Helen at the distinguished +tea-party given by the Widow Rowens, and before her coming to sit with +Elsie, Mr. Dudley Venner had in the most accidental way in the world met +her on several occasions: once after church, when she happened to be +caught in a slight shower and he insisted on holding his umbrella over +her on her way home;--once at a small party at one of the mansion-houses, +where the quick-eyed lady of the house had a wonderful knack of bringing +people together who liked to see each other;--perhaps at other times and +places; but of this there is no certain evidence. + +They naturally spoke of Elsie, her illness, and the aspect it had taken. +But Helen noticed in all that Dudley Venner said about his daughter a +morbid sensitiveness, as it seemed to her, an aversion to saying much +about her physical condition or her peculiarities,--a wish to feel and +speak as a parent should, and yet a shrinking, as if there were something +about Elsie which he could not bear to dwell upon. She thought she saw +through all this, and she could interpret it all charitably. There were +circumstances about his daughter which recalled the great sorrow of his +life; it was not strange that this perpetual reminder should in some +degree have modified his feelings as a father. But what a life he must +have been leading for so many years, with this perpetual source of +distress which he could not name! Helen knew well enough, now, the +meaning of the sadness which had left such traces in his features and +tones, and it made her feel very kindly and compassionate towards him. + +So they walked over the crackling leaves in the garden, between the lines +of box breathing its fragrance of eternity;--for this is one of the odors +which carry us out of time into the abysses of the unbeginning past; if +we ever lived on another ball of stone than this, it must be that there +was box growing on it. So they walked, finding their way softly to each +other's sorrows and sympathies, each matching some counterpart to the +other's experience of life, and startled to see how the different, yet +parallel, lessons they had been taught by suffering had led them step by +step to the same serene acquiescence in the orderings of that Supreme +Wisdom which they both devoutly recognized. + +Old Sophy was at the window and saw them walking up and down the +garden-alleys. She watched them as her grandfather the savage watched +the figures that moved among the trees when a hostile tribe was lurking +about his mountain. + +"There'll be a weddin' in the ol house," she said, "before there's roses +on them bushes ag'in. But it won' be my poor Elsie's weddin', 'n' ol' +Sophy won' be there." + +When Helen prayed in the silence of her soul that evening, it was not +that Elsie's life might be spared. She dared not ask that as a favor of +Heaven. What could life be to her but a perpetual anguish, and to those +about her but an ever-present terror? Might she but be so influenced by +divine grace, that what in her was most truly human, most purely +woman-like, should overcome the dark, cold, unmentionable instinct which +had pervaded her being like a subtile poison that was all she could ask, +and the rest she left to a higher wisdom and tenderer love than her own. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE WHITE ASH. + +When Helen returned to Elsie's bedside, it was with a new and still +deeper feeling of sympathy, such as the story told by Old Sophy might +well awaken. She understood, as never before, the singular fascination +and as singular repulsion which she had long felt in Elsie's presence. +It had not been without a great effort that she had forced herself to +become the almost constant attendant of the sick girl; and now she was +learning, but not for the first time, the blessed truth which so many +good women have found out for themselves, that the hardest duty bravely +performed soon becomes a habit, and tends in due time to transform itself +into a pleasure. + +The old Doctor was beginning to look graver, in spite of himself. The +fever, if such it was, went gently forward, wasting the young girl's +powers of resistance from day to day; yet she showed no disposition to +take nourishment, and seemed literally to be living on air. It was +remarkable that with all this her look was almost natural, and her +features were hardly sharpened so as to suggest that her life was burning +away. He did not like this, nor various other unobtrusive signs of +danger which his practised eye detected. A very small matter might turn +the balance which held life and death poised against each other. He +surrounded her with precautions, that Nature might have every opportunity +of cunningly shifting the weights from the scale of death to the scale of +life, as she will often do if not rudely disturbed or interfered with. + +Little tokens of good-will and kind remembrance were constantly coming to +her from the girls in the school and the good people in the village. Some +of the mansion-house people obtained rare flowers which they sent her, +and her table was covered with fruits which tempted her in vain. Several +of the school-girls wished to make her a basket of their own handiwork, +and, filling it with autumnal flowers, to send it as a joint offering. +Mr. Bernard found out their project accidentally, and, wishing to have +his share in it, brought home from one of his long walks some boughs full +of variously tinted leaves, such as were still clinging to the stricken +trees. With these he brought also some of the already fallen leaflets of +the white ash, remarkable for their rich olive-purple color, forming a +beautiful contrast with some of the lighter-hued leaves. It so happened +that this particular tree, the white ash, did not grow upon The Mountain, +and the leaflets were more welcome for their comparative rarity. So the +girls made their basket, and the floor of it they covered with the rich +olive-purple leaflets. Such late flowers as they could lay their hands +upon served to fill it, and with many kindly messages they sent it to +Miss Elsie Venner at the Dudley mansion-house. + +Elsie was sitting up in her bed when it came, languid, but tranquil, and +Helen was by her, as usual, holding her hand, which was strangely cold, +Helen thought, for one who was said to have some kind of fever. The +school-girls' basket was brought in with its messages of love and hopes +for speedy recovery. Old Sophy was delighted to see that it pleased +Elsie, and laid it on the bed before her. Elsie began looking at the +flowers, and taking them from the basket, that she might see the leaves. +All at once she appeared to be agitated; she looked at the basket, then +around, as if there were some fearful presence about her which she was +searching for with her eager glances. She took out the flowers, one by +one, her breathing growing hurried, her eyes staring, her hands +trembling,--till, as she came near the bottom of the basket, she flung +out all the rest with a hasty movement, looked upon the olive-purple +leaflets as if paralyzed for a moment, shrunk up, as it were, into +herself in a curdling terror, dashed the basket from her, and fell back +senseless, with a faint cry which chilled the blood of the startled +listeners at her bedside. + +"Take it away!--take it away!--quick!" said Old Sophy, as she hastened +to her mistress's pillow. "It 's the leaves of the tree that was always +death to her,--take it away! She can't live wi' it in the room!" + +The poor old woman began chafing Elsie's hands, and Helen to try to rouse +her with hartshorn, while a third frightened attendant gathered up the +flowers and the basket and carried them out of the apartment, She came to +herself after a time, but exhausted and then wandering. In her delirium +she talked constantly as if she were in a cave, with such exactness of +circumstance that Helen could not doubt at all that she had some such +retreat among the rocks of The Mountain, probably fitted up in her own +fantastic way, where she sometimes hid herself from all human eyes, and +of the entrance to which she alone possessed the secret. + +All this passed away, and left her, of course, weaker than before. But +this was not the only influence the unexplained paroxysm had left behind +it. From this time forward there was a change in her whole expression +and her manner. The shadows ceased flitting over her features, and the +old woman, who watched her from day to day and from hour to hour as a +mother watches her child, saw the likeness she bore to her mother coming +forth more and more, as the cold glitter died out of the diamond eyes, +and the stormy scowl disappeared from the dark brows and low forehead. + +With all the kindness and indulgence her father had bestowed upon her, +Elsie had never felt that he loved her. The reader knows well enough +what fatal recollections and associations had frozen up the springs of +natural affection in his breast. There was nothing in the world he would +not do for Elsie. He had sacrificed his whole life to her. His very +seeming carelessness about restraining her was all calculated; he knew +that restraint would produce nothing but utter alienation. Just so far +as she allowed him, he shared her studies, her few pleasures, her +thoughts; but she was essentially solitary and uncommunicative. No +person, as was said long ago, could judge him, because his task was not +merely difficult, but simply impracticable to human powers. A nature +like Elsie's had necessarily to be studied by itself, and to be followed +in its laws where it could not be led. + +Every day, at different hours, during the whole of his daughter's +illness, Dudley Venner had sat by her, doing all he could to soothe and +please her. Always the same thin film of some emotional non-conductor +between them; always that kind of habitual regard and family-interest, +mingled with the deepest pity on one side and a sort of respect on the +other, which never warmed into outward evidences of affection. + +It was after this occasion, when she had been so profoundly agitated by a +seemingly insignificant cause, that her father and Old Sophy were +sitting, one at one side of her bed and one at the other. She had fallen +into a light slumber. As they were looking at her, the same thought came +into both their minds at the same moment. Old Sophy spoke for both, as +she said, in a low voice, + +"It 's her mother's look,--it 's her mother's own face right over +again,--she never look' so before, the Lord's hand is on her! His will +be done!" + +When Elsie woke and lifted her languid eyes upon her father's face, she +saw in it a tenderness, a depth of affection, such as she remembered at +rare moments of her childhood, when she had won him to her by some +unusual gleam of sunshine in her fitful temper. + +"Elsie, dear," he said, "we were thinking how much your expression was +sometimes like that of your sweet mother. If you could but have seen +her, so as to remember her!" + +The tender look and tone, the yearning of the daughter's heart for the +mother she had never seen, save only with the unfixed, undistinguishing +eyes of earliest infancy, perhaps the under-thought that she might soon +rejoin her in another state of being,--all came upon her with a sudden +overflow of feeling which broke through all the barriers between her +heart and her eyes, and Elsie wept. It seemed to her father as if the +malign influence--evil spirit it might almost be called--which had +pervaded her being, had at last been driven forth or exorcised, and that +these tears were at once the sign and the pledge of her redeemed nature. +But now she was to be soothed, and not excited. After her tears she +slept again, and the look her face wore was peaceful as never before. + +Old Sophy met the Doctor at the door and told him all the circumstances +connected with the extraordinary attack from which Elsie had suffered. +It was the purple leaves, she said. She remembered that Dick once +brought home a branch of a tree with some of the same leaves on it, and +Elsie screamed and almost fainted then. She, Sophy, had asked her, after +she had got quiet, what it was in the leaves that made her feel so bad. +Elsie could n't tell her,--did n't like to speak about it,--shuddered +whenever Sophy mentioned it. + +This did not sound so strangely to the old Doctor as it does to some who +listen to his narrative. He had known some curious examples of +antipathies, and remembered reading of others still more singular. He had +known those who could not bear the presence of a cat, and recollected the +story, often told, of a person's hiding one in a chest when one of these +sensitive individuals came into the room, so as not to disturb him; but +he presently began to sweat and turn pale, and cried out that there must +be a cat hid somewhere. He knew people who were poisoned by +strawberries, by honey, by different meats, many who could not endure +cheese,--some who could not bear the smell of roses. If he had known all +the stories in the old books, he would have found that some have swooned +and become as dead men at the smell of a rose,--that a stout soldier has +been known to turn and run at the sight or smell of rue,--that cassia and +even olive-oil have produced deadly faintings in certain. +individuals,--in short, that almost everything has seemed to be a poison +to somebody. + +"Bring me that basket, Sophy," said the old Doctor, "if you can find it." + +Sophy brought it to him,--for he had not yet entered Elsie's apartment. + +"These purple leaves are from the white ash," he said. "You don't know +the notion that people commonly have about that tree, Sophy?" + +"I know they say the Ugly Things never go where the white ash grows," +Sophy answered. "Oh, Doctor dear, what I'm thinkin' of a'n't true, is +it?" + +The Doctor smiled sadly, but did not answer. He went directly to Elsie's +room. Nobody would have known by his manner that he saw any special +change in his patient. He spoke with her as usual, made some slight +alteration in his prescriptions, and left the room with a kind, cheerful +look. He met her father on the stairs. + +"Is it as I thought?" said Dudley Veneer. + +"There is everything to fear," the Doctor said, "and not much, I am +afraid, to hope. Does not her face recall to you one that you remember, +as never before?" + +"Yes," her father answered,--"oh, yes! What is the meaning of this +change which has come over her features, and her voice, her temper, her +whole being? Tell me, oh, tell me, what is it? Can it be that the curse +is passing away, and my daughter is to be restored to me,--such as her +mother would have had her,--such as her mother was?" + +"Walk out with me into the garden," the Doctor said, "and I will tell you +all I know and all I think about this great mystery of Elsie's life." + +They walked out together, and the Doctor began: "She has lived a double +being, as it were,--the consequence of the blight which fell upon her in +the dim period before consciousness. You can see what she might have +been but for this. You know that for these eighteen years her whole +existence has taken its character from that influence which we need not +name. But you will remember that few of the lower forms of life last as +human beings do; and thus it might have been hoped and trusted with some +show of reason, as I have always suspected you hoped and trusted, perhaps +more confidently than myself, that the lower nature which had become +engrafted on the higher would die out and leave the real woman's life she +inherited to outlive this accidental principle which had so poisoned her +childhood and youth. I believe it is so dying out; but I am +afraid,--yes, I must say it, I fear it has involved the centres of life +in its own decay. There is hardly any pulse at Elsie's wrist; no +stimulants seem to rouse her; and it looks as if life were slowly +retreating inwards, so that by-and-by she will sleep as those who lie +down in the cold and never wake." + +Strange as it may seem, her father heard all this not without deep +sorrow, and such marks of it as his thoughtful and tranquil nature, long +schooled by suffering, claimed or permitted, but with a resignation +itself the measure of his past trials. Dear as his daughter might become +to him, all he dared to ask of Heaven was that she might be restored to +that truer self which lay beneath her false and adventitious being. If +he could once see that the icy lustre in her eyes had become a soft, calm +light,--that her soul was at peace with all about her and with Him; +above,--this crumb from the children's table was enough for him, as it +was for the Syro-Phoenician woman who asked that the dark spirit might go +out from her daughter. + +There was little change the next day, until all at once she said in a +clear voice that she should like to see her master at the school, Mr. +Langdon. He came accordingly, and took the place of Helen at her +bedside. It seemed as if Elsie had forgotten the last scene with him. +Might it be that pride had come in, and she had sent for him only to show +how superior she had grown to the weakness which had betrayed her into +that extraordinary request, so contrary to the instincts and usages of +her sex? Or was it that the singular change which had come over her had +involved her passionate fancy for him and swept it away with her other +habits of thought and feeling? Or could it be that she felt that all +earthly interests were becoming of little account to her, and wished to +place herself right with one to whom she had displayed a wayward movement +of her unbalanced imagination? She welcomed Mr. Bernard as quietly as +she had received Helen Darley. He colored at the recollection of that +last scene, when he came into her presence; but she smiled with perfect +tranquillity. She did not speak to him of any apprehension; but he saw +that she looked upon herself as doomed. So friendly, yet so calm did she +seem through all their interview, that Mr. Bernard could only look back +upon her manifestation of feeling towards him on their walk from the +school as a vagary of a mind laboring under some unnatural excitement, +and wholly at variance with the true character of Elsie Venner as he saw +her before him in her subdued, yet singular beauty. He looked with almost +scientific closeness of observation into the diamond eyes; but that +peculiar light which he knew so well was not there. She was the same in +one sense as on that first day when he had seen her coiling and uncoiling +her golden chain; yet how different in every aspect which revealed her +state of mind and emotion! Something of tenderness there was, perhaps, +in her tone towards him; she would not have sent for him, had she not +felt more than an ordinary interest in him. But through the whole of his +visit she never lost her gracious self-possession. The Dudley race might +well be proud of the last of its daughters, as she lay dying, but +unconquered by the feeling of the present or the fear of the future. + +As for Mr. Bernard, he found it very hard to look upon her, and listen to +her unmoved. There was nothing that reminded him of the stormy--browed, +almost savage girl he remembered in her fierce loveliness,--nothing of +all her singularities of air and of costume. Nothing? Yes, one thing. +Weak and suffering as she was, she had never parted with one particular +ornament, such as a sick person would naturally, as it might be supposed, +get rid of at once. The golden cord which she wore round her neck at the +great party was still there. A bracelet was lying by her pillow; she had +unclasped it from her wrist. + +Before Mr. Bernard left her, she said, + +"I shall never see you again. Some time or other, perhaps, you will +mention my name to one whom you love. Give her this from your scholar +and friend Elsie." + +He took the bracelet, raised her hand to his lips, then turned his face +away; in that moment he was the weaker of the two. + +"Good-bye," she said; "thank you for coming." + +His voice died away in his throat, as he tried to answer her. She +followed him with her eyes as he passed from her sight through the door, +and when it closed after him sobbed tremulously once or twice, but +stilled herself, and met Helen, as she entered, with a composed +countenance. + +"I have had a very pleasant visit from Mr. Langdon," Elsie said. "Sit by +me, Helen, awhile without speaking; I should like to sleep, if I +can,--and to dream." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE GOLDEN CORD IS LOOSED. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, hearing that his parishioner's +daughter, Elsie, was very ill, could do nothing less than come to the +mansion-house and tender such consolations as he was master of. It was +rather remarkable that the old Doctor did not exactly approve of his +visit. He thought that company of every sort might be injurious in her +weak state. He was of opinion that Mr. Fairweather, though greatly +interested in religious matters, was not the most sympathetic person that +could be found; in fact, the old Doctor thought he was too much taken up +with his own interests for eternity to give himself quite 'so heartily to +the need of other people as some persons got up on a rather more generous +scale (our good neighbor Dr. Honeywood, for instance) could do. However, +all these things had better be arranged to suit her wants; if she would +like to talk with a clergyman, she had a great deal better see one as +often as she liked, and run the risk of the excitement, than have a +hidden wish for such a visit and perhaps find herself too weak to see him +by-and-by. + +The old Doctor knew by sad experience that dreadful mistake against which +all medical practitioners should be warned. His experience may well be a +guide for others. Do not overlook the desire for spiritual advice and +consolation which patients sometimes feel, and, with the frightful +mauvaise honte peculiar to Protestantism, alone among all human beliefs, +are ashamed to tell. As a part of medical treatment, it is the +physician's business to detect the hidden longing for the food of the +soul, as much as for any form of bodily nourishment. Especially in the +higher walks of society, where this unutterably miserable false shame of +Protestantism acts in proportion to the general acuteness of the +cultivated sensibilities, let no unwillingness to suggest the sick +person's real need suffer him to languish between his want and his morbid +sensitiveness. What an infinite advantage the Mussulmans and the +Catholics have over many of our more exclusively spiritual sects in the +way they keep their religion always by them and never blush for it! And +besides this spiritual longing, we should never forget that + + "On some fond breast the parting soul relies," + +and the minister of religion, in addition to the sympathetic nature which +we have a right to demand in him, has trained himself to the art of +entering into the feelings of others. + +The reader must pardon this digression, which introduces the visit of the +Reverend Chauncy Fairweather to Elsie Veneer. It was mentioned to her +that he would like to call and see how she was, and she consented,--not +with much apparent interest, for she had reasons of her own for not +feeling any very deep conviction of his sympathy for persons in sorrow. +But he came, and worked the conversation round to religion, and confused +her with his hybrid notions, half made up of what he had been believing +and teaching all his life, and half of the new doctrines which he had +veneered upon the surface of his old belief. He got so far as to make a +prayer with her,--a cool, well-guarded prayer, which compromised his +faith as little as possible, and which, if devotion were a game played +against Providence, might have been considered a cautious and sagacious +move. + +When he had gone, Elsie called Old Sophy to her. + +"Sophy," she said, "don't let them send that cold hearted man to me any +more. If your old minister comes--to see you, I should like to hear him +talk. He looks as if he cared for everybody, and would care for me. +And, Sophy, if I should die one of these days, I should like to have that +old minister come and say whatever is to be said over me. It would +comfort Dudley more, I know, than to have that hard man here, when you're +in trouble, for some of you will be sorry when I'm gone,--won't you, +Sophy?" + +The poor old black woman could not stand this question. The cold +minister had frozen Elsie until she felt as if nobody cared for her or +would regret her,--and her question had betrayed this momentary feeling. + +"Don' talk so! don' talk so, darlin'!" she cried, passionately. "When you +go, Ol' Sophy'll go; 'n' where you go, Ol' Sophy'll go: 'n' we'll both go +t' th' place where th' Lord takes care of all his children, whether their +faces are white or black. Oh, darlin', darlin'! if th' Lord should let +me die firs', you shall fin' all ready for you when you come after me. +On'y don' go 'n' leave poor Ol' Sophy all 'lone in th' world!" + +Helen came in at this moment and quieted the old woman with a look. Such +scenes were just what were most dangerous, in the state in which Elsie +was lying: but that is one of the ways in which an affectionate friend +sometimes unconsciously wears out the life which a hired nurse, thinking +of nothing but her regular duties and her wages, would have spared from +all emotional fatigue. + +The change which had come over Elsie's disposition was itself the cause +of new excitements. How was it possible that her father could keep away +from her, now that she was coming back to the nature and the very look of +her mother, the bride of his youth? How was it possible to refuse her, +when she said to Old Sophy, that she should like to have her minister +come in and sit by her, even though his presence might perhaps prove a +new source of excitement? + +But the Reverend Doctor did come and sit by her, and spoke such soothing +words to her, words of such peace and consolation, that from that hour +she was tranquil as never before. All true hearts are alike in the hour +of need; the Catholic has a reserved fund of faith for his +fellow-creature's trying moment, and the Calvinist reveals those springs +of human brotherhood and charity in his soul which are only covered over +by the iron tables inscribed with the harder dogmas of his creed. It was +enough that the Reverend Doctor knew all Elsie's history. He could not +judge her by any formula, like those which have been moulded by past ages +out of their ignorance. He did not talk with her as if she were an +outside sinner worse than himself. He found a bruised and languishing +soul, and bound up its wounds. A blessed office,--one which is confined +to no sect or creed, but which good men in all times, under various names +and with varying ministries, to suit the need of each age, of each race, +of each individual soul, have come forward to discharge for their +suffering fellow-creatures. + +After this there was little change in Elsie, except that her heart beat +more feebly every day,--so that the old Doctor himself, with all his +experience, could see nothing to account for the gradual failing of the +powers of life, and yet could find no remedy which seemed to arrest its +progress in the smallest degree. + +"Be very careful," he said, "that she is not allowed to make any muscular +exertion. Any such effort, when a person is so enfeebled, may stop the +heart in a moment; and if it stops, it will never move again." + +Helen enforced this rule with the greatest care. Elsie was hardly +allowed to move her hand or to speak above a whisper. It seemed to be +mainly the question now, whether this trembling flame of life would be +blown out by some light breath of air, or whether it could be so nursed +and sheltered by the hollow of these watchful hands that it would have a +chance to kindle to its natural brightness. + +--Her father came in to sit with her in the evening. He had never talked +so freely with her as during the hour he had passed at her bedside, +telling her little circumstances of her mother's life, living over with +her all that was pleasant in the past, and trying to encourage her with +some cheerful gleams of hope for the future. A faint smile played over +her face, but she did not answer his encouraging suggestions. The hour +came for him to leave her with those who watched by her. + +"Good-night, my dear child," he said, and stooping down, kissed her +cheek. + +Elsie rose by a sudden effort, threw her arms round his neck, kissed him, +and said, "Good-night, my dear father!" + +The suddenness of her movement had taken him by surprise, or he would +have checked so dangerous an effort. It was too late now. Her arms slid +away from him like lifeless weights,--her head fell back upon her +pillow,--along sigh breathed through her lips. + +"She is faint," said Helen, doubtfully; "bring me the hartshorn, Sophy." + +The old woman had started from her place, and was now leaning over her, +looking in her face, and listening for the sound of her breathing. + +"She 's dead! Elsie 's dead! My darlin 's dead!" she cried aloud, +filling the room with her utterance of anguish. + +Dudley Venner drew her away and silenced her with a voice of authority, +while Helen and an assistant plied their restoratives. It was all in +vain. + +The solemn tidings passed from the chamber of death through the family. +The daughter, the hope of that old and honored house, was dead in the +freshness of her youth, and the home of its solitary representative was +hereafter doubly desolate. + +A messenger rode hastily out of the avenue. A little after this the +people of the village and the outlying farm-houses were startled by the +sound of a bell. + +One,--two,--three,--four, + +They stopped in every house, as far as the wavering vibrations reached, +and listened-- + +five,--six,--seven,-- + +It was not the little child which had been lying so long at the point of +death; that could not be more than three or four years old-- + +eight,--nine,--ten,--and so on to fifteen, sixteen,--seventeen, +--eighteen-- + +The pulsations seemed to keep on,--but it was the brain, and not the +bell, that was throbbing now. + +"Elsie 's dead!" was the exclamation at a hundred firesides. + +"Eighteen year old," said old Widow Peake, rising from her chair. +"Eighteen year ago I laid two gold eagles on her mother's eyes,--he +wouldn't have anything but gold touch her eyelids,--and now Elsie's to be +straightened,--the Lord have mercy on her poor sinful soul!" + +Dudley Venner prayed that night that he might be forgiven, if he had +failed in any act of duty or kindness to this unfortunate child of his, +now freed from all the woes born with her and so long poisoning her soul. +He thanked God for the brief interval of peace which had been granted +her, for the sweet communion they had enjoyed in these last days, and for +the hope of meeting her with that other lost friend in a better world. + +Helen mingled a few broken thanks and petitions with her tears: thanks +that she had been permitted to share the last days and hours of this poor +sister in sorrow; petitions that the grief of bereavement might be +lightened to the lonely parent and the faithful old servant. + +Old Sophy said almost nothing, but sat day and night by her dead darling. +But sometimes her anguish would find an outlet in strange sounds, +something between a cry and a musical note,--such as noise had ever heard +her utter before. These were old remembrances surging up from her +childish days, coming through her mother from the cannibal chief, her +grandfather,--death-wails, such as they sing in the mountains of Western +Africa, when they see the fires on distant hill-sides and know that their +own wives and children are undergoing the fate of captives. + +The time came when Elsie was to be laid by her mother in the small square +marked by the white stone. + +It was not unwillingly that the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had +relinquished the duty of conducting the service to the Reverend Doctor +Honeywood, in accordance with Elsie's request. He could not, by any +reasoning, reconcile his present way of thinking with a hope for the +future of his unfortunate parishioner. Any good old Roman Catholic +priest, born and bred to his faith and his business, would have found a +loophole into some kind of heaven for her, by virtue of his doctrine of +"invincible ignorance," or other special proviso; but a recent convert +cannot enter into the working conditions of his new creed. Beliefs must +be lived in for a good while, before they accommodate themselves to the +soul's wants, and wear loose enough to be comfortable. + +The Reverend Doctor had no such scruples. Like thousands of those who +are classed nominally with the despairing believers, he had never prayed +over a departed brother or sister without feeling and expressing a +guarded hope that there was mercy in store for the poor sinner, whom +parents, wives, children, brothers and sisters could not bear to give up +to utter ruin without a word,--and would not, as he knew full well, in +virtue of that human love and sympathy which nothing can ever extinguish. +And in this poor Elsie's history he could read nothing which the tears of +the recording angel might not wash away. As the good physician of the +place knew the diseases that assailed the bodies of men and women, so he +had learned the mysteries of the sickness of the soul. + +So many wished to look upon Elsie's face once more, that her father would +not deny them; nay, he was pleased that those who remembered her living +should see her in the still beauty of death. Helen and those with her +arrayed her for this farewell-view. All was ready for the sad or curious +eyes which were to look upon her. There 'was no painful change to be +concealed by any artifice. Even her round neck was left uncovered, that +she might be more like one who slept. Only the golden cord was left in +its place: some searching eye might detect a trace of that birthmark +which it was whispered she had always worn a necklace to conceal. + +At the last moment, when all the preparations were completed, Old Sophy +stooped over her, and, with trembling hand, loosed the golden cord. She +looked intently; for some little space: there was no shade nor blemish +where the ring of gold had encircled her throat. She took it gently away +and laid it in the casket which held her ornaments. + +"The Lord be praised!" the old woman cried, aloud. "He has taken away +the mark that was on her; she's fit to meet his holy angels now!" + +So Elsie lay for hours in the great room, in a kind of state, with +flowers all about her,--her black hair braided as in life,--her brows +smooth, as if they had never known the scowl of passion,--and on her lips +the faint smile with which she had uttered her last "Good--night." The +young girls from the school looked at her, one after another, and passed +on, sobbing, carrying in their hearts the picture that would be with them +all their days. The great people of the place were all there with their +silent sympathy. The lesser kind of gentry, and many of the plainer folk +of the village, half-pleased to find themselves passing beneath the +stately portico of the ancient mansion-house, crowded in, until the ample +rooms were overflowing. All the friends whose acquaintance we have made +were there, and many from remoter villages and towns. + +There was a deep silence at last. The hour had come for the parting +words to be spoken over the dead. The good old minister's voice rose out +of the stillness, subdued and tremulous at first, but growing firmer and +clearer as he went on, until it reached the ears of the visitors who were +in the far, desolate chambers, looking at the pictured hangings and the +old dusty portraits. He did not tell her story in his prayer. He only +spoke of our dear departed sister as one of many whom Providence in its +wisdom has seen fit to bring under bondage from their cradles. It was +not for us to judge them by any standard of our own. He who made the +heart alone knew the infirmities it inherited or acquired. For all that +our dear sister had presented that was interesting and attractive in her +character we were to be grateful; for whatever was dark or inexplicable +we must trust that the deep shadow which rested on the twilight dawn of +her being might render a reason before the bar of Omniscience; for the +grace which had lightened her last days we should pour out our hearts in +thankful acknowledgment. From the life and the death of this our dear +sister we should learn a lesson of patience with our fellow-creatures in +their inborn peculiarities, of charity in judging what seem to us wilful +faults of character, of hope and trust, that, by sickness or affliction, +or such inevitable discipline as life must always bring with it, if by no +gentler means, the soul which had been left by Nature to wander into the +path of error and of suffering might be reclaimed and restored to its +true aim, and so led on by divine grace to its eternal welfare. He +closed his prayer by commending each member of the afflicted family to +the divine blessing. + +Then all at once rose the clear sound of the girls' voices, in the sweet, +sad melody of a funeral hymn,--one of those which Elsie had marked, as if +prophetically, among her own favorites. + +And so they laid her in the earth, and showered down flowers upon her, +and filled her grave, and covered it with green sods. By the side of it +was another oblong ridge, with a white stone standing at its head. Mr. +Bernard looked upon it, as he came close to the place where Elsie was +laid, and read the inscription, + + CATALINA + + WIFE TO DUDLEY VENNER + + DIED + OCTOBER 13TH 1840 + + AGED XX YEARS + +A gentle rain fell on the turf after it was laid. This was the beginning +of a long and dreary autumnal storm, a deferred "equinoctial," as many +considered it. The mountain streams were all swollen and turbulent, and +the steep declivities were furrowed in every direction by new channels. +It made the house seem doubly desolate to hear the wind howling and the +rain beating upon the roofs. The poor relation who was staying at the +house would insist on Helen's remaining a few days: Old Sophy was in such +a condition, that it kept her in continual anxiety, and there were many +cares which Helen could take off from her. + +The old black woman's life was buried in her darling's grave. She did +nothing but moan and lament for her. At night she was restless, and +would get up and wander to Elsie's apartment and look for her and call +her by name. At other times she would lie awake and listen to the wind +and the rain,--sometimes with such a wild look upon her face, and with +such sudden starts and exclamations, that it seemed as if she heard +spirit-voices and were answering the whispers of unseen visitants. With +all this were mingled hints of her old superstition,--forebodings of +something fearful about to happen,--perhaps the great final catastrophe +of all things, according to the prediction current in the kitchens of +Rockland. + +"Hark!" Old Sophy would say,--"don' you hear th' crackin' 'n' th' +snappin' up in Th' Mountain, 'n' th' rollin' o' th' big stones? The' 's +somethin' stirrin' among th' rocks; I hear th' soun' of it in th' night, +when th' wind has stopped blowin'. Oh, stay by me a little while, Miss +Darlin'! stay by me! for it's th' Las' Day, maybe, that's close on us, +'n' I feel as if I could n' meet th' Lord all alone!" + +It was curious,--but Helen did certainly recognize sounds, during the +lull of the storm, which were not of falling rain or running +streams,--short snapping sounds, as of tense cords breaking,--long uneven +sounds, as of masses rolling down steep declivities. But the morning +came as usual; and as the others said nothing of these singular noises, +Helen did not think it necessary to speak of them. All day long she and +the humble relative of Elsie's mother, who had appeared as poor relations +are wont to in the great prises of life, were busy in arranging the +disordered house, and looking over the various objects which Elsie's +singular tastes had brought together, to dispose of them as her father +might direct. They all met together at the usual hour for tea. One of +the servants came in, looking very blank, and said to the poor relation, + +"The well is gone dry; we have nothing but rainwater." + +Dudley Venner's countenance changed; he sprang to, his feet and went +to--assure himself of the fact, and, if he could, of the reason of it. +For a well to dry up during such a rain-storm was extraordinary,--it was +ominous. + +He came back, looking very anxious. + +"Did any of you notice any remarkable sounds last night," he said,--"or +this morning? Hark! do you hear anything now?" + +They listened in perfect silence for a few moments. Then there came a +short cracking sound, and two or three snaps, as of parting cords. + +Dudley Venner called all his household together. + +"We are in danger here, as I think, to-night," he said,--"not very great +danger, perhaps, but it is a risk I do not wish you to run. These heavy +rains have loosed some of the rocks above, and they may come down and +endanger the house. Harness the horses, Elbridge, and take all the +family away. Miss Darley will go to the Institute; the others will pass +the night at the Mountain House. I shall stay here, myself: it is not at +all likely that anything will come of these warnings; but if there +should, I choose to be there and take my chance." + +It needs little, generally, to frighten servants, and they were all ready +enough to go. The poor relation was one of the timid sort, and was +terribly uneasy to be got out of the house. This left no alternative, of +course, for Helen, but to go also. They all urged upon Dudley Veneer to +go with them: if there was danger, why should he remain to risk it, when +he sent away the others? + +Old Sophy said nothing until the time came for her to go with the second +of Elbridge's carriage-loads. + +"Come, Sophy," said Dudley Veneer, "get your things and go. They will +take good care of you at the Mountain House; and when we have made sure +that there is no real danger, you shall come back at once." + +"No, Masse!" Sophy answered. "I've seen Elsie into th' ground, 'n' I +a'n't goin' away to come back 'n' fin' Masse Veneer buried under th' +rocks. My darlin' 's gone; 'n' now, if Masse goes, 'n' th' of place +goes, it's time for Ol' Sophy to go, too. No, Masse Veneer, we'll both +stay in th' of mansion 'n' wait for th' Lord!" + +Nothing could change the old woman's determination; and her master, who +only feared, but did not really expect the long-deferred catastrophe, was +obliged to consent to her staying. The sudden drying of the well at such +a time was the most alarming sign; for he remembered that the same thing +had been observed just before great mountain-slides. This long rain, +too, was just the kind of cause which was likely to loosen the strata of +rock piled up in the ledges; if the dreaded event should ever come to +pass, it would be at such a time. + +He paced his chamber uneasily until long past midnight. If the morning +came without accident, he meant to have a careful examination made of all +the rents and fissures above, of their direction and extent, and +especially whether, in case of a mountain-slide, the huge masses would be +like to reach so far to the east and so low down the declivity as the +mansion. + +At two o'clock in the morning he was dozing in his chair. Old Sophy had +lain down on her bed, and was muttering in troubled dreams. + +All at once a loud crash seemed to rend the very heavens above them: a +crack as of the thunder that follows close upon the bolt,--a rending and +crashing as of a forest snapped through all its stems, torn, twisted, +splintered, dragged with all its ragged boughs into one chaotic ruin. +The ground trembled under them as in an earthquake; the old mansion +shuddered so that all its windows chattered in their casements; the great +chimney shook off its heavy cap-stones, which came down on the roof with +resounding concussions; and the echoes of The Mountain roared and +bellowed in long reduplication, as if its whole foundations were rent, +and this were the terrible voice of its dissolution. + +Dudley Venner rose from his chair, folded his arms, and awaited his fate. +There was no knowing where to look for safety; and he remembered too well +the story of the family that was lost by rushing out of the house, and so +hurrying into the very jaws of death. + +He had stood thus but for a moment, when he heard the voice of Old Sophy +in a wild cry of terror: + +"It's th' Las' Day! It's th' Las' Day! The Lord is comin' to take us +all!" + +"Sophy!" he called; but she did not hear him or heed him, and rushed out +of the house. + +The worst danger was over. If they were to be destroyed, it would +necessarily be in a few seconds from the first thrill of the terrible +convulsion. He waited in awful suspense, but calm. Not more than one or +two minutes could have passed before the frightful tumult and all its +sounding echoes had ceased. He called Old Sophy; but she did not answer. +He went to the western window and looked forth into the darkness. He +could not distinguish the outlines of the landscape, but the white stone +was clearly visible, and by its side the new-made mound. Nay, what was +that which obscured its outline, in shape like a human figure? He flung +open the window and sprang through. It was all that there was left of +poor Old Sophy, stretched out lifeless, upon her darling's grave. + +He had scarcely composed her limbs and drawn the sheet over her, when the +neighbors began to arrive from all directions. Each was expecting to +hear of houses overwhelmed and families destroyed; but each came with the +story that his own household was safe. It was not until the morning +dawned that the true nature and extent of the sudden movement was +ascertained. A great seam had opened above the long cliff, and the +terrible Rattlesnake Ledge, with all its envenomed reptiles, its dark +fissures and black caverns, was buried forever beneath a mighty incumbent +mass of ruin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +MR. SILAS PECKHAM RENDERS HIS ACCOUNT. + +The morning rose clear and bright. The long storm was over, and the calm +autumnal sunshine was now to return, with all its infinite repose and +sweetness. With the earliest dawn exploring parties were out in every +direction along the southern slope of The Mountain, tracing the ravages +of the great slide and the track it had followed. It proved to be not so +much a slide as the breaking off and falling of a vast line of cliff, +including the dreaded Ledge. It had folded over like the leaves of a +half-opened book when they close, crushing the trees below, piling its +ruins in a glacis at the foot of what had been the overhanging wall of +the cliff, and filling up that deep cavity above the mansion-house which +bore the ill-omened name of Dead Man's Hollow. This it was which had +saved the Dudley mansion. The falling masses, or huge fragments breaking +off from them, would have swept the house and all around it to +destruction but for this deep shelving dell, into which the stream of +ruin was happily directed. It was, indeed, one of Nature's conservative +revolutions; for the fallen masses made a kind oz shelf, which interposed +a level break between the inclined planes above and below it, so that the +nightmare-fancies of the dwellers in the Dudley mansion, and in many +other residences under the shadow of The Mountain, need not keep them +lying awake hereafter to listen for the snapping of roots and the +splitting of the rocks above them. + +Twenty-four hours after the falling of the cliff, it seemed as if it had +happened ages ago. The new fact had fitted itself in with all the old +predictions, forebodings, fears, and acquired the solidarity belonging to +all events which have slipped out of the fingers of Time and dissolved in +the antecedent eternity. + +Old Sophy was lying dead in the Dudley mansion. If there were tears shed +for her, they could not be bitter ones; for she had lived out her full +measure of days, and gone--who could help fondly believing it?--to rejoin +her beloved mistress. They made a place for her at the foot of the two +mounds. It was thus she would have chosen to sleep, and not to have +wronged her humble devotion in life by asking to lie at the side of those +whom she had served so long and faithfully. There were very few present +at the simple ceremony. Helen Darley was one of these few. The old black +woman had been her companion in all the kind offices of which she had +been the ministering angel to Elsie. + +After it was all over, Helen was leaving with the rest, when Dudley +Veneer begged her to stay a little, and he would send her back: it was a +long walk; besides, he wished to say some things to her, which he had not +had the opportunity of speaking. Of course Helen could not refuse him; +there must be many thoughts coming into his mind which he would wish to +share with her who had known his daughter so long and been with filer in +her last days. + +She returned into the great parlor with the wrought cornices and the +medallion-portraits on the ceiling. + +"I am now alone in the world," Dudley Veneer said. + +Helen must have known that before he spoke. But the tone in which he +said it had so much meaning, that she could not find a word to answer him +with. They sat in silence, which the old tall clock counted out in long +seconds; but it was silence which meant more than any words they had ever +spoken. + +"Alone in the world. Helen, the freshness of my life is gone, and there +is little left of the few graces which in my younger days might have +fitted me to win the love of women. Listen to me,--kindly, if you can; +forgive me, at least. Half my life has been passed in constant fear and +anguish, without any near friend to share my trials. My task is done +now; my fears have ceased to prey upon me; the sharpness of early sorrows +has yielded something of its edge to time. You have bound me to you by +gratitude in the tender care you have taken of my poor child. More than +this. I must tell you all now, out of the depth of this trouble through +which I am passing. I have loved you from the moment we first met; and +if my life has anything left worth accepting, it is yours. Will you take +the offered gift?" + +Helen looked in his face, surprised, bewildered. + +"This is not for me,--not for me," she said. "I am but a poor faded +flower, not worth the gathering, of such a one as you. No, no,--I have +been bred to humble toil all my days, and I could not be to you what you +ought to ask. I am accustomed to a kind of loneliness and +self-dependence. I have seen nothing, almost, of the world, such as you +were born to move in. Leave me to my obscure place and duties; I shall +at least have peace;--and you--you will surely find in due time some one +better fitted by Nature and training to make you happy." + +"No, Miss Darley!" Dudley Venner said, almost sternly. "You must not +speak to a man, who has lived through my experiences, of looking about +for a new choice after his heart has once chosen. Say that you can never +love me; say that I have lived too long to share your young life; say +that sorrow has left nothing in me for Love to find his pleasure in; but +do not mock me with the hope of a new affection for some unknown object. +The first look of yours brought me to your side. The first tone of your +voice sunk into my heart. From this moment my life must wither out or +bloom anew. My home is desolate. Come under my roof and make it bright +once more,--share my life with me,--or I shall give the halls of the old +mansion to the bats and the owls, and wander forth alone without a hope +or a friend!" + +To find herself with a man's future at the disposal of a single word of +hers!--a man like this, too, with a fascination for her against which +she had tried to shut her heart, feeling that he lived in another sphere +than hers, working as she was for her bread a poor operative in the +factory of a hard master and jealous overseer, the salaried drudge of Mr. +Silas Peckham! Why, she had thought he was grateful to her as a friend +of his daughter; she had even pleased herself with the feeling that he +liked her, in her humble place, as a woman of some cultivation and many +sympathetic points of relation with himself; but that he loved her,--that +this deep, fine nature, in a man so far removed from her in outward +circumstance, should have found its counterpart in one whom life had +treated so coldly as herself,--that Dudley Venner should stake his +happiness on a breath of hers,--poor Helen Darley's,--it was all a +surprise, a confusion, a kind of fear not wholly fearful. Ah, me! women +know what it is, that mist over the eyes, that trembling in the limbs, +that faltering of the voice, that sweet, shame-faced, unspoken confession +of weakness which does not wish to be strong, that sudden overflow in the +soul where thoughts loose their hold on each other and swim single and +helpless in the flood of emotion,--women know what it is! + +No doubt she was a little frightened and a good deal bewildered, and that +her sympathies were warmly excited for a friend to whom she had been +brought so near, and whose loneliness she saw and pitied. She lost that +calm self-possession she had hoped to maintain. + +"If I thought that I could make you happy,--if I should speak from my +heart, and not my reason,--I am but a weak woman,--yet if I can be to +you--What can I say?" + +What more could this poor, dear Helen say? + +"Elbridge, harness the horses and take Miss Darley back to the school." + +What conversation had taken place since Helen's rhetorical failure is not +recorded in the minutes from which this narrative is constructed. But +when the man who had been summoned had gone to get the carriage ready, +Helen resumed something she had been speaking of. + +"Not for the world. Everything must go on just as it has gone on, for +the present. There are proprieties to be consulted. I cannot be hard +with you, that out of your very affliction has sprung this--this +well--you must name it for me,--but the world will never listen to +explanations. I am to be Helen Darley, lady assistant in Mr. Silas +Peckham's school, as long as I see fit to hold my office. And I mean to +attend to my scholars just as before; so that I shall have very little +time for visiting or seeing company. I believe, though, you are one of +the Trustees and a Member of the Examining Committee; so that, if you +should happen to visit the school, I shall try to be civil to you." + +Every lady sees, of course, that Helen was quite right; but perhaps here +and there one will think that Dudley Venner was all wrong,--that he was +too hasty,--that he should have been too full of his recent grief for +such a confession as he has just made, and the passion from which it +sprung. Perhaps they do not understand the sudden recoil of a strong +nature long compressed. Perhaps they have not studied the mystery of +allotropism in the emotions of the human heart. Go to the nearest +chemist and ask him to show you some of the dark-red phosphorus which +will not burn without fierce heating, but at 500 deg. Fahrenheit, changes +back again to the inflammable substance we know so well. Grief seems +more like ashes than like fire; but as grief has been love once, so it +may become love again. This is emotional allotropism. + +Helen rode back to the Institute and inquired for Mr. Peckham. She had +not seen him during the brief interval between her departure from the +mansion-house and her return to Old Sophy's funeral. There were various +questions about the school she wished to ask. + +"Oh, how's your haalth, Miss Darley?" Silas began. "We've missed you +consid'able. Glad to see you back at the post of dooty. Hope the Squire +treated you hahnsomely,--liberal pecooniary compensation,--hey? A'n't +much of a loser, I guess, by acceptin' his propositions?" + +Helen blushed at this last question, as if Silas had meant something by +it beyond asking what money she had received; but his own double-meaning +expression and her blush were too nice points for him to have taken +cognizance of. He was engaged in a mental calculation as to the amount +of the deduction he should make under the head of "demage to the +institootion,"--this depending somewhat on that of the "pecooniary +compensation" she might have received for her services as the friend of +Elsie Venner. + +So Helen slid back at once into her routine, the same faithful, patient +creature she had always been. But what was this new light which seemed +to have kindled in her eyes? What was this look of peace, which nothing +could disturb, which smiled serenely through all the little meannesses +with which the daily life of the educational factory surrounded her, +which not only made her seem resigned, but overflowed all her features +with a thoughtful, subdued happiness? Mr. Bernard did not know,--perhaps +he did not guess. The inmates of the Dudley mansion were not scandalized +by any mysterious visits of a veiled or unveiled lady. The vibrating +tongues of the "female youth" of the Institute were not set in motion by +the standing of an equipage at the gate, waiting for their lady-teacher. +The servants at the mansion did not convey numerous letters with +superscriptions in a bold, manly hand, sealed with the arms of a +well-known house, and directed to Miss Helen Darley; nor, on the other +hand, did Hiram, the man from the lean streak in New Hampshire, carry +sweet-smelling, rose-hued, many-layered, criss-crossed, +fine-stitch-lettered packages of note-paper directed to Dudley Venner, +Esq., and all too scanty to hold that incredible expansion of the famous +three words which a woman was born to say,--that perpetual miracle which +astonishes all the go-betweens who wear their shoes out in carrying a +woman's infinite variations on the theme-- + + "I love you." + +But the reader must remember that there are walks in country-towns where +people are liable to meet by accident, and that the hollow of an old tree +has served the purpose of a post-office sometimes; so that he has her +choice (to divide the pronouns impartially) of various hypotheses to +account for the new glory of happiness which seemed to have irradiated +our poor Helen's features, as if her dreary life were awakening in the +dawn of a blessed future. + +With all the alleviations which have been hinted at, Mr. Dudley Venner +thought that the days and the weeks had never moved so slowly as through +the last period of the autumn that was passing. Elsie had been a +perpetual source of anxiety to him, but still she had been a companion. +He could not mourn for her; for he felt that she was safer with her +mother, in that world where there are no more sorrows and dangers, than +she could have been with him. But as he sat at his window and looked at +the three mounds, the loneliness of the great house made it seem more +like the sepulchre than these narrow dwellings where his beloved and her +daughter lay close to each other, side by side,--Catalina, the bride of +his youth, and Elsie, the child whom he had nurtured, with poor Old +Sophy, who had followed them like a black shadow, at their feet, under +the same soft turf, sprinkled with the brown autumnal leaves. It was not +good for him to be thus alone. How should he ever live through the long +months of November and December? + +The months of November and December did, in some way or other, get rid of +themselves at last, bringing with them the usual events of village-life +and a few unusual ones. Some of the geologists had been up to look at +the great slide, of which they gave those prolix accounts which everybody +remembers who read the scientific journals of the time. The engineers +reported that there was little probability of any further convulsion +along the line of rocks which overhung the more thickly settled part of +the town. The naturalists drew up a paper on the "Probable Extinction +of the Crotalus Durissus in the Township of Rockland." The engagement +of the Widow Rowens to a Little Millionville merchant was +announced,--"Sudding 'n' onexpected," Widow Leech said,--"waalthy, or she +wouldn't ha' looked at him,--fifty year old, if he is a day, 'n' hu'n't +got a white hair in his head." The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had +publicly announced that he was going to join the Roman Catholic +communion,--not so much to the surprise or consternation of the +religious world as he had supposed. Several old ladies forthwith +proclaimed their intention of following him; but, as one or two of them +were deaf, and another had been threatened with an attack of that mild, +but obstinate complaint, dementia senilis, many thought it was not so +much the force of his arguments as a kind of tendency to jump as the +bellwether jumps, well known in flocks not included in the Christian +fold. His bereaved congregation immediately began pulling candidates on +and off, like new boots, on trial. Some pinched in tender places; some +were too loose; some were too square-toed; some were too coarse, and did +n't please; some were too thin, and would n't last;--in short, they could +n't possibly find a fit. At last, people began to drop in to hear old +Doctor Honeywood. They were quite surprised to find what a human old +gentleman he was, and went back and told the others, that, instead of +being a case of confluent sectarianism, as they supposed, the good old +minister had been so well vaccinated with charitable virus that he was +now a true, open-souled Christian of the mildest type. The end of all +which was, that the liberal people went over to the old minister almost +in a body, just at the time that Deacon Shearer and the "Vinegar-Bible" +party split off, and that not long afterwards they sold their own +meeting-house to the malecontents, so that Deacon Soper used often to +remind Colonel Sprowle of his wish that "our little man and him [the +Reverend Doctor] would swop pulpits," and tell him it had "pooty nigh +come trew."--But this is anticipating the course of events, which were +much longer in coming about; for we have but just got through that +terrible long month, as Mr. Dudley Venner found it, of December. + +On the first of January, Mr. Silas Peckham was in the habit of settling +his quarterly accounts, and making such new arrangements as his +convenience or interest dictated. New Year was a holiday at the +Institute. No doubt this accounted for Helen's being dressed so +charmingly,--always, to be sure in, her own simple way, but yet with such +a true lady's air, that she looked fit to be the mistress of any mansion +in the land. + +She was in the parlor alone, a little before noon, when Mr. Peckham came +in. + +"I'm ready to settle my accaount with you now, Miss Darley," said Silas. + +"As you please, Mr. Peckham," Helen answered, very graciously. + +"Before payin' you your selary," the Principal continued, "I wish to come +to an understandin' as to the futur'. I consider that I've been payin' +high, very high, for the work you do. Women's wages can't be expected to +do more than feed and clothe 'em, as a gineral thing, with a little +savin', in case of sickness, and to bury 'em, if they break daown, as all +of 'em are liable to do at any time. If I a'n't misinformed, you not +only support yourself out of my establishment, but likewise relatives of +yours, who I don't know that I'm called upon to feed and clothe. There +is a young woman, not burdened with destitute relatives, has signified +that she would be glad to take your dooties for less pecooniary +compensation, by a consid'able amaount, than you now receive. I shall be +willin', however, to retain your services at sech redooced rate as we +shall fix upon,--provided sech redooced rate be as low or lower than the +same services can be obtained elsewhere." + +"As you please, Mr. Peckham," Helen answered, with a smile so sweet that +the Principal (who of course had trumped up this opposition-teacher for +the occasion) said to himself she would stand being cut down a quarter, +perhaps a half, of her salary. + +"Here is your accaount, Miss Darley, and the balance doo you," said Silas +Peckham, handing her a paper and a small roll of infectious-flavored +bills wrapping six poisonous coppers of the old coinage. + +She took the paper and began looking at it. She could not quite make up +her mind to touch the feverish bills with the cankering coppers in them, +and left them airing themselves on the table. + +The document she held ran as follows: + +Silas Peckham, Esq., Principal of the Apollinean Institute, In Account +with Helen Darley, Assist. Teacher. + + Dr. Cr. + +To salary for quarter By Deduction for absence +ending Jan 1st @ $75 per 1 week 3 days ...........$10.00 +quarter ................ $75.00 + "Board, lodging, etc for + 10 days @ 75 cts per day.. 7.50 + + "Damage to Institution by + absence of teacher from + duties, say ............. 25.00 + + "Stationary furnished ..... .43 + + "Postage-stamp ............ .01 + + "Balance due Helen Darley. 32.06 + ------ -------- + $75.00 $75.00 + +ROCKLAND, Jan. 1st, 1859. + + +Now Helen had her own private reasons for wishing to receive the small +sum which was due her at this time without any unfair deduction,--reasons +which we need not inquire into too particularly, as we may be very sure +that they were right and womanly. So, when she looked over this account +of Mr. Silas Peckham's, and saw that he had contrived to pare down her +salary to something less than half its stipulated amount, the look which +her countenance wore was as near to that of righteous indignation as her +gentle features and soft blue eyes would admit of its being. + +"Why, Mr. Peckham," she said, "do you mean this? If I am of so much +value to you that you must take off twenty-five dollars for ten days' +absence, how is it that my salary is to be cut down to less than +seventy-five dollars a quarter, if I remain here?" + +"I gave you fair notice," said Silas. "I have a minute of it I took down +immed'ately after the intervoo." + +He lugged out his large pocket-book with the strap going all round it, +and took from it a slip of paper which confirmed his statement. + +"Besides," he added, slyly, "I presoom you have received a liberal +pecooniary compensation from Squire Venner for nussin' his daughter." + +Helen was looking over the bill while he was speaking. + +"Board and lodging for ten days, Mr. Peckham,--whose board and lodging, +pray?" + +The door opened before Silas Peckham could answer, and Mr. Bernard walked +into the parlor. Helen was holding the bill in her hand, looking as any +woman ought to look who has been at once wronged and insulted. + +"The last turn of the thumbscrew!" said Mr. Bernard to himself. + +"What is it, Helen? You look troubled." + +She handed him the account. + +He looked at the footing of it. Then he looked at the items. Then he +looked at Silas Peckham. + +At this moment Silas was sublime. He was so transcendently unconscious +of the emotions going on in Mr. Bernard's mind at the moment, that he had +only a single thought. + +"The accaount's correc'ly cast, I presoom;--if the' 's any mistake of +figgers or addin' 'em up, it'll be made all right. Everything's +accordin' to agreement. The minute written immed'ately after the +intervoo is here in my possession." + +Mr. Bernard looked at Helen. Just what would have happened to Silas +Peckham, as he stood then and there, but for the interposition of a +merciful Providence, nobody knows or ever will know; for at that moment +steps were heard upon the stairs, and Hiram threw open the parlor-door +for Mr. Dudley Venner to enter. + +He saluted them all gracefully with the good-wishes of the season, and +each of them returned his compliment,--Helen blushing fearfully, of +course, but not particularly noticed in her embarrassment by more than +one. + +Silas Peckham reckoned with perfect confidence on his Trustees, who had +always said what he told them to, and done what he wanted. It was a good +chance now to show off his power, and, by letting his instructors know +the unstable tenure of their offices, make it easier to settle his +accounts and arrange his salaries. There was nothing very strange in Mr. +Venner's calling; he was one of the Trustees, and this was New Year's +Day. But he had called just at the lucky moment for Mr. Peckham's +object. + +"I have thought some of makin' changes in the department of instruction," +he began. "Several accomplished teachers have applied to me, who would +be glad of sitooations. I understand that there never have been so many +fust-rate teachers, male and female, out of employment as doorin' the +present season. If I can make sahtisfahctory arrangements with my +present corpse of teachers, I shall be glad to do so; otherwise I shell, +with the permission of the Trustees, make sech noo arrangements as +circumstahnces compel." + +"You may make arrangements for a new assistant in my department, Mr. +Peckham," said Mr. Bernard, "at once,--this day,--this hour. I am not +safe to be trusted with your person five minutes out of this lady's +presence,--of whom I beg pardon for this strong language. Mr. Venner, I +must beg you, as one of the Trustees of this Institution, to look at the +manner in which its Principal has attempted to swindle this faithful +teacher whose toils and sacrifices and self-devotion to the school have +made it all that it is, in spite of this miserable trader's incompetence. +Will you look at the paper I hold?" + +Dudley Venner took the account and read it through, without changing a +feature. Then he turned to Silas Peckham. + +"You may make arrangements for a new assistant in the branches this lady +has taught. Miss Helen Darley is to be my wife. I had hoped to have +announced this news in a less abrupt and ungraceful manner. But I came +to tell you with my own lips what you would have learned before evening +from my friends in the village." + +Mr. Bernard went to Helen, who stood silent, with downcast eyes, and took +her hand warmly, hoping she might find all the happiness she deserved. +Then he turned to Dudley Venner, and said, "She is a queen, but has never +found it out. The world has nothing nobler than this dear woman, whom +you have discovered in the disguise of a teacher. God bless her and +you!" + +Dudley Venner returned his friendly grasp, without answering a word in +articulate speech. + +Silas remained dumb and aghast for a brief space. Coming to himself a +little, he thought there might have been some mistake about the +items,--would like to have Miss barley's bill returned,--would make it +all right,--had no idee that Squire Venner had a special int'rest in Miss +barley,--was sorry he had given offence,--if he might take that bill and +look it over-- + +"No. Mr. Peckham," said Mr. Dudley Venner, "there will be a full meeting +of the Board next week, and the bill, and such evidence with reference to +the management of the Institution and the treatment of its instructors as +Mr. Langdon sees fit to bring forward will be laid before them." + +Miss Helen Darley became that very day the guest of Miss Arabella +Thornton, the Judge's daughter. Mr. Bernard made his appearance a week +or two later at the Lectures, where the Professor first introduced him to +the reader. + +He stayed after the class had left the room. + +"Ah, Mr. Langdon! how do you do? Very glad to see you back again. How +have you been since our correspondence on Fascination and other curious +scientific questions?" + +It was the Professor who spoke,--whom the reader will recognize as +myself, the teller of this story. + +"I have been well," Mr. Bernard answered, with a serious look which +invited a further question. + +"I hope you have had none of those painful or dangerous experiences you +seemed to be thinking of when you wrote; at any rate, you have escaped +having your obituary written." + +"I have seen some things worth remembering. Shall I call on you this +evening and tell you about them?" + +"I shall be most happy to see you." + +This was the way in which I, the Professor, became acquainted with some +of the leading events of this story. They interested me sufficiently to +lead me to avail myself of all those other extraordinary methods of +obtaining information well known to writers of narrative. + +Mr. Langdon seemed to me to have gained in seriousness and strength of +character by his late experiences. He threw his whole energies into his +studies with an effect which distanced all his previous efforts. +Remembering my former hint, he employed his spare hours in writing for +the annual prizes, both of which he took by a unanimous vote of the +judges. Those who heard him read his Thesis at the Medical Commencement +will not soon forget the impression made by his fine personal appearance +and manners, nor the universal interest excited in the audience, as he +read, with his beautiful enunciation, that striking paper entitled +"Unresolved Nebulae in Vital Science." It was a general remark of the +Faculty,--and old Doctor Kittredge, who had come down on purpose to hear +Mr. Langdon, heartily agreed to it,--that there had never been a diploma +filled up, since the institution which conferred upon him the degree of +Doctor Medicdnce was founded, which carried with it more of promise to +the profession than that which bore the name of + + BERNARDUS CARYL LANGDON + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + + + +CONCLUSION. + +Mr. Bernard Langdon had no sooner taken his degree, than, in accordance +with the advice of one of his teachers whom he frequently consulted, he +took an office in the heart of the city where he had studied. He had +thought of beginning in a suburb or some remoter district of the city +proper. + +"No," said his teacher,--to wit, myself,--"don't do any such thing. You +are made for the best kind of practice; don't hamper yourself with an +outside constituency, such as belongs to a practitioner of the second +class. When a fellow like you chooses his beat, he must look ahead a +little. Take care of all the poor that apply to you, but leave the +half-pay classes to a different style of doctor,--the people who spend +one half their time in taking care of their patients, and the other half +in squeezing out their money. Go for the swell-fronts and south-exposure +houses; the folks inside are just as good as other people, and the +pleasantest, on the whole, to take care of. They must have somebody, and +they like a gentleman best. Don't throw yourself away. You have a good +presence and pleasing manners. You wear white linen by inherited +instinct. You can pronounce the word view. You have all the elements of +success; go and take it. Be polite and generous, but don't undervalue +yourself. You will be useful, at any rate; you may just as well be happy, +while you are about it. The highest social class furnishes incomparably +the best patients, taking them by and large. Besides, when they won't +get well and bore you to death, you can send 'em off to travel. Mind me +now, and take the tops of your sparrowgrass. Somebody must have +'em,--why shouldn't you? If you don't take your chance, you'll get the +butt-ends as a matter of course." + +Mr. Bernard talked like a young man full of noble sentiments. He wanted +to be useful to his fellow-beings. Their social differences were nothing +to him. He would never court the rich,--he would go where he was called. +He would rather save the life of a poor mother of a family than that of +half a dozen old gouty millionnaires whose heirs had been yawning and +stretching these ten years to get rid of them. + +"Generous emotions!" I exclaimed. "Cherish 'em; cling to 'em till you +are fifty, till you are seventy, till you are ninety! But do as I tell +you,--strike for the best circle of practice, and you 'll be sure to get +it!" + +Mr. Langdon did as I told him,--took a genteel office, furnished it +neatly, dressed with a certain elegance, soon made a pleasant circle of +acquaintances, and began to work his way into the right kind of business. +I missed him, however, for some days, not long after he had opened his +office. On his return, he told me he had been up at Rockland, by special +invitation, to attend the wedding of Mr. Dudley Venner and Miss Helen +Darley. He gave me a full account of the ceremony, which I regret that I +cannot relate in full. "Helen looked like an angel,"--that, I am sure, +was one of his expressions. As for her dress, I should like to give the +details, but am afraid of committing blunders, as men always do, when +they undertake to describe such matters. White dress, anyhow,--that I am +sure of,--with orange-flowers, and the most wonderful lace veil that was +ever seen or heard of. The Reverend Doctor Honeywood performed the +ceremony, of course. The good people seemed to have forgotten they ever +had had any other minister, except Deacon Shearer and his set of +malcontents, who were doing a dull business in the meeting-house lately +occupied by the Reverend Mr. Fairweather. + +"Who was at the wedding?" + +"Everybody, pretty much. They wanted to keep it quiet, but it was of no +use. Married at church. Front pews, old Dr. Kittredge and all the +mansionhouse people and distinguished strangers,--Colonel Sprowle and +family, including Matilda's young gentleman, a graduate of one of the +fresh-water colleges,--Mrs. Pickins (late Widow Rowens) and +husband,--Deacon Soper and numerous parishioners. A little nearer the +door, Abel, the Doctor's man, and Elbridge, who drove them to church in +the family-coach. Father Fairweather, as they all call him now, came in +late with Father McShane." + +"And Silas Peckham?" + +"Oh, Silas had left The School and Rockland. Cut up altogether too badly +in the examination instituted by the Trustees. Had removed over to +Tamarack, and thought of renting a large house and 'farming' the +town-poor." + +Some time after this, as I was walking with a young friend along by the +swell-fronts and south-exposures, whom should I see but Mr. Bernard +Langdon, looking remarkably happy, and keeping step by the side of a very +handsome and singularly well-dressed young lady? He bowed and lifted his +hat as we passed. + +"Who is that pretty girl my young doctor has got there?" I said to my +companion. + +"Who is that?" he answered. "You don't know? Why, that is neither more +nor less than Miss Letitia Forrester, daughter of--of--why, the great +banking firm, you know, Bilyuns Brothers & Forrester. Got acquainted +with her in the country, they say. There 's a story that they're +engaged, or like to be, if the firm consents." + +"Oh" I said. + +I did not like the look of it in the least. Too young,--too young. Has +not taken any position yet. No right to ask for the hand of Bilyuns +Brothers & Co.'s daughter. Besides, it will spoil him for practice, if +he marries a rich girl before he has formed habits of work. + +I looked in at his office the other day. A box of white kids was lying +open on the table. A three-cornered note, directed in a very delicate +lady's-hand, was distinguishable among a heap of papers. I was just +going to call him to account for his proceedings, when he pushed the +three-cornered note aside and took up a letter with a great +corporation-seal upon it. He had received the offer of a professor's +chair in an ancient and distinguished institution. + +"Pretty well for three-and-twenty, my boy," I said. "I suppose you'll +think you must be married one of these days, if you accept this office." + +Mr. Langdon blushed.--There had been stories about him, he knew. His name +had been mentioned in connection with that of a very charming young lady. +The current reports were not true. He had met this young lady, and been +much pleased with her, in the country, at the house of her grandfather, +the Reverend Doctor Honeywood,--you remember Miss Letitia Forrester, whom +I have mentioned repeatedly? On coming to town, he found his +country-acquaintance in a social position which seemed to discourage his +continued intimacy. He had discovered, however; that he was a not +unwelcome visitor, and had kept up friendly relations with her. But +there was no truth in the current reports,--none at all.' + +Some months had passed, after this visit, when I happened one evening to +stroll into a box in one of the principal theatres of the city. A small +party sat on the seats before me: a middle-aged gentleman and his lady, +in front, and directly behind them my young doctor and the same very +handsome young lady I had seen him walking with on the sidewalk before +the swell-fronts and south-exposures. As Professor Langdon seemed to be +very much taken up with his companion, and both of them looked as if they +were enjoying themselves, I determined not to make my presence known to +my young friend, and to withdraw quietly after feasting my eyes with the +sight of them for a few minutes. + +"It looks as if something might come of it," I said to myself. At that +moment the young lady lifted her arm accidentally in such a way that the +light fell upon the clasp of a chain which encircled her wrist. My eyes +filled with tears as I read upon the clasp, in sharp-cut Italic letters, +E. Y. They were tears at once of sad remembrance and of joyous +anticipation; for the ornament on which I looked was the double pledge of +a dead sorrow and a living affection. It was the golden bracelet,--the +parting-gift of Elsie Venner. the golden bracelet,--the parting-gift of +Elsie Venner. + + + + + + +THE GUARDIAN ANGEL + +by Oliver Wendell Holmes + + + +TO MY READERS. + +"A new Preface" is, I find, promised with my story. If there are any +among my readers who loved Aesop's Fables chiefly on account of the Moral +appended, they will perhaps be pleased to turn backward and learn what I +have to say here. + +This tale forms a natural sequence to a former one, which some may +remember, entitled "Elsie Venner." Like that,--it is intended for two +classes of readers, of which the smaller one includes the readers of the +"Morals" in Aesop and of this Preface. + +The first of the two stories based itself upon an experiment which some +thought cruel, even on paper. It imagined an alien element introduced +into the blood of a human being before that being saw the light. It +showed a human nature developing itself in conflict with the ophidian +characteristics and instincts impressed upon it during the pre-natal +period. Whether anything like this ever happened, or was possible, +mattered little: it enabled me, at any rate, to suggest the limitations +of human responsibility in a simple and effective way. + +The story which follows comes more nearly within the range of common +experience. The successive development of inherited bodily aspects and +habitudes is well known to all who have lived long enough to see families +grow up under their own eyes. The same thing happens, but less obviously +to common observation, in the mental and moral nature. There is something +frightful in the way in which not only characteristic qualities, but +particular manifestations of them, are repeated from generation to +generation. Jonathan Edwards the younger tells the story of a brutal +wretch in New Haven who was abusing his father, when the old man cried +out, "Don't drag me any further, for I did n't drag my father beyond this +tree." [The original version of this often-repeated story may be found +in Aristotle's Ethics, Book 7th, Chapter 7th.] I have attempted to show +the successive evolution of some inherited qualities in the character of +Myrtle Hazard, not so obtrusively as to disturb the narrative, but +plainly enough to be kept in sight by the small class of preface-readers. + +If I called these two stories Studies of the Reflex Function in its +higher sphere, I should frighten away all but the professors and the +learned ladies. If I should proclaim that they were protests against the +scholastic tendency to shift the total responsibility of all human action +from the Infinite to the finite, I might alarm the jealousy of the +cabinet-keepers of our doctrinal museums. By saying nothing about it, +the large majority of those whom my book reaches, not being +preface-readers, will never suspect anything to harm them beyond the +simple facts of the narrative. + +Should any professional alarmist choose to confound the doctrine of +limited responsibility with that which denies the existence of any +self-determining power, he may be presumed to belong to the class of +intellectual half-breeds, of which we have many representatives in our +new country, wearing the garb of civilization, and even the gown of +scholarship. If we cannot follow the automatic machinery of nature into +the mental and moral world, where it plays its part as much as in the +bodily functions, without being accused of laying "all that we are evil +in to a divine thrusting on," we had better return at once to our old +demonology, and reinstate the Leader of the Lower House in his +time-honored prerogatives. + +As fiction sometimes seems stranger than truth, a few words may be needed +here to make some of my characters and statements appear probable. The +long-pending question involving a property which had become in the mean +time of immense value finds its parallel in the great De Haro land-case, +decided in the Supreme Court while this story was in progress (May 14th, +1867). The experiment of breaking the child's will by imprisonment and +fasting is borrowed from a famous incident, happening long before the +case lately before one of the courts of a neighboring Commonwealth, where +a little girl was beaten to death because she would not say her prayers. +The mental state involving utter confusion of different generations in a +person yet capable of forming a correct judgment on other matters, is +almost a direct transcript from nature. I should not have ventured to +repeat the questions of the daughters of the millionaires to Myrtle +Hazard about her family conditions, and their comments, had not a lady of +fortune and position mentioned to me a similar circumstance in the school +history of one of her own children. Perhaps I should have hesitated in +reproducing Myrtle Hazard's "Vision," but for a singular experience of +his own related to me by the late Mr. Forceythe Willson. + +Gifted Hopkins (under various alliasis) has been a frequent correspondent +of mine. I have also received a good many communications, signed with +various names, which must have been from near female relatives of that +young gentleman. I once sent a kind of encyclical letter to the whole +family connection; but as the delusion under which they labor is still +common, and often leads to the wasting of time, the contempt of honest +study or humble labor, and the misapplication of intelligence not so far +below mediocrity as to be incapable of affording a respectable return +when employed in the proper direction, I thought this picture from life +might also be of service. When I say that no genuine young poet will +apply it to himself, I think I have so far removed the sting that few or +none will complain of being wounded. + +It is lamentable to be forced to add that the Reverend Joseph Bellamy +Stoker is only a softened copy of too many originals to whom, as a +regular attendant upon divine worship from my childhood to the present +time, I have respectfully listened, while they dealt with me and mine and +the bulk of their fellow-creatures after the manner of their sect. If, +in the interval between his first showing himself in my story and its +publication in a separate volume, anything had occurred to make me +question the justice or expediency of drawing and exhibiting such a +portrait, I should have reconsidered it, with the view of retouching its +sharper features. But its essential truthfulness has been illustrated +every month or two, since my story has been in the course of publication, +by a fresh example from real life, stamped in darker colors than any with +which I should have thought of staining my pages. + +There are a great many good clergymen to one bad one, but a writer finds +it hard to keep to the true proportion of good and bad persons in telling +a story. The three or four good ministers I have introduced in this +narrative must stand for many whom I have known and loved, and some of +whom I count to-day among my most valued friends. I hope the best and +wisest of them will like this story and approve it. If they cannot all +do this, I know they will recognize it as having been written with a +right and honest purpose. +BOSTON, 1867. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. + +It is a quarter of a century since the foregoing Preface was written, and +that is long enough to allow a story to be forgotten by the public, and +very possibly by the writer of it also. I will not pretend that I have +forgotten all about "The Guardian Angel," but it is long since I have +read it, and many of its characters and incidents are far from being +distinct in my memory. There are, however, a few points which hold their +place among my recollections. The revolt of Myrtle Hazard from the +tyranny of that dogmatic dynasty now breaking up in all directions has +found new illustrations since this tale was written. I need only refer +to two instances of many. The first is from real life. Mr. Robert C. +Adams's work, "Travels in Faith from Tradition to Reason," is the outcome +of the teachings of one of the most intransigeant of our New England +Calvinists, the late Reverend Nehemiah Adams. For an example in +fiction,--fiction which bears all the marks of being copied from real +life,--I will refer to "The Story of an African Farm." The boy's honest, +but terrible outburst, "I hate God," was, I doubt not, more acceptable in +the view of his Maker than the lying praise of many a hypocrite who, +having enthroned a demon as Lord of the Universe, thinks to conciliate +his favor by using the phrases which the slaves of Eastern despots are in +the habit of addressing to their masters. I have had many private +letters showing the same revolt of reasoning natures against doctrines +which shock the more highly civilized part of mankind in this nineteenth +century and are leading to those dissensions which have long shown as +cracks, and are fast becoming lines of cleavage in some of the largest +communions of Protestantism. + +The principle of heredity has been largely studied since this story was +written. This tale, like "Elsie Venner," depends for its deeper +significance on the ante-natal history of its subject. But the story was +meant to be readable for those who did not care for its underlying +philosophy. If it fails to interest the reader who ventures upon it, it +may find a place on an unfrequented bookshelf in common with other +"medicated novels." + +Perhaps I have been too hard with Gifted Hopkins and the tribe of +rhymesters to which he belongs. I ought not to forget that I too +introduced myself to the reading world in a thin volume of verses; many +of which had better not have been written, and would not be reprinted +now, but for the fact that they have established a right to a place among +my poems in virtue of long occupancy. Besides, although the writing of +verses is often a mark of mental weakness, I cannot forget that Joseph +Story and George Bancroft each published his little book, of rhymes, and +that John Quincy Adams has left many poems on record, the writing of +which did not interfere with the vast and important labors of his +illustrious career. + +BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August 7, 1891. +O. W. H. + + THE GUARDIAN ANGEL + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +AN ADVERTISEMENT. + +On Saturday, the 18th day of June, 1859, the "State Banner and Delphian +Oracle," published weekly at Oxbow Village, one of the principal centres +in a thriving river-town of New England, contained an advertisement which +involved the story of a young life, and stained the emotions of a small +community. Such faces of dismay, such shaking of heads, such gatherings +at corners, such halts of complaining, rheumatic wagons, and dried-up, +chirruping chaises, for colloquy of their still-faced tenants, had not +been known since the rainy November Friday, when old Malachi Withers was +found hanging in his garret up there at the lonely house behind the +poplars. + +The number of the "Banner and Oracle" which contained this advertisement +was a fair specimen enough of the kind of newspaper to which it belonged. +Some extracts from a stray copy of the issue of the date referred to will +show the reader what kind of entertainment the paper was accustomed to +furnish its patrons, and also serve some incidental purposes of the +writer in bringing into notice a few personages who are to figure in this +narrative. + +The copy in question was addressed to one of its regular +subscribers,--"B. Gridley, Esq." The sarcastic annotations at various +points, enclosed in brackets and italicised that they may be +distinguished from any other comments, were taken from the pencilled +remarks of that gentleman, intended for the improvement of a member of +the family in which he resided, and are by no means to be attributed to +the harmless pen which reproduces them. + +Byles Gridley, A. M., as he would have been styled by persons acquainted +with scholarly dignities, was a bachelor, who had been a schoolmaster, a +college tutor, and afterwards for many years professor,--a man of +learning, of habits, of whims and crotchets, such as are hardly to be +found, except in old, unmarried students,--the double flowers of college +culture, their stamina all turned to petals, their stock in the life of +the race all funded in the individual. Being a man of letters, Byles +Gridley naturally rather undervalued the literary acquirements of the +good people of the rural district where he resided, and, having known +much of college and something of city life, was apt to smile at the +importance they attached to their little local concerns. He was, of +course, quite as much an object of rough satire to the natural observers +and humorists, who are never wanting in a New England village,--perhaps +not in any village where a score or two of families are brought +together,--enough of them, at any rate, to furnish the ordinary +characters of a real-life stock company. + +The old Master of Arts was a permanent boarder in the house of a very +worthy woman, relict of the late Ammi Hopkins, by courtesy Esquire, whose +handsome monument--in a finished and carefully colored lithograph, +representing a finely shaped urn under a very nicely groomed willow--hung +in her small, well-darkened, and, as it were, monumental parlor. Her +household consisted of herself, her son, nineteen years of age, of whom +more hereafter, and of two small children, twins, left upon her doorstep +when little more than mere marsupial possibilities, taken in for the +night, kept for a week, and always thereafter cherished by the good soul +as her own; also of Miss Susan Posey, aged eighteen, at school at the +"Academy" in another part of the same town, a distant relative, boarding +with her. + +What the old scholar took the village paper for it would be hard to +guess, unless for a reason like that which carried him very regularly to +hear the preaching of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker, colleague of the +old minister of the village parish; namely, because he did not believe a +word of his favorite doctrines, and liked to go there so as to growl to +himself through the sermon, and go home scolding all the way about it. + +The leading article of the "Banner and Oracle" for June 18th must have +been of superior excellence, for, as Mr. Gridley remarked, several of the +"metropolitan" journals of the date of June 15th and thereabout had +evidently conversed with the writer and borrowed some of his ideas before +he gave them to the public. The Foreign News by the Europa at Halifax, +15th, was spread out in the amplest dimensions the type of the office +could supply. More battles! The Allies victorious! The King and +General Cialdini beat the Austrians at Palestro! 400 Austrians drowned +in a canal! Anti-French feeling in Germany! Allgermine Zeiturg talks of +conquest of Allsatia and Loraine and the occupation of Paris! [Vicious +digs with a pencil through the above proper names.] Race for the Derby +won by Sir Joseph Hawley's Musjid! [That's what England cares for! +Hooray for the Darby! Italy be deedeed!] Visit of Prince Alfred to the +Holy Land. Letter from our, own Correspondent. [Oh! Oh! A West +Minkville?] Cotton advanced. Breadstuffs declining.--Deacon Rumrill's +barn burned down on Saturday night. A pig missing; supposed to have +"fallen a prey to the devouring element." [Got roasted.] A yellow +mineral had been discovered on the Doolittle farm, which, by the report +of those who had seen it, bore a strong resemblance to California gold +ore. Much excitement in the neighborhood in consequence [Idiots! Iron +pyrites!] A hen at Four Corners had just laid an egg measuring 7 by 8 +inches. Fetch on your biddies! [Editorial wit!] A man had shot an eagle +measuring six feet and a half from tip to tip of his wings.--Crops +suffering for want of rain [Always just so. "Dry times, Father Noah!"] +The editors had received a liberal portion of cake from the happy couple +whose matrimonial union was recorded in the column dedicated to Hymen. +Also a superior article of [article of! bah!] steel pen from the +enterprising merchant [shopkeeper] whose advertisement was to be found on +the third page of this paper.--An interesting Surprise Party [cheap +theatricals] had transpired [bah!] on Thursday evening last at the house +of the Rev. Mr. Stoker. The parishioners had donated [donated! GIVE is +a good word enough for the Lord's Prayer. DONATE our daily bread!] a bag +of meal, a bushel of beans, a keg of pickles, and a quintal of salt-fish. +The worthy pastor was much affected, etc., etc. [Of course. Call'em. +SENSATION parties and done with it!] The Rev. Dr. Pemberton and the +venerable Dr. Hurlbut honored the occasion with their presence.--We learn +that the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth, rector of St. Bartholomew's Chapel, has +returned from his journey, and will officiate to-morrow. + +Then came strings of advertisements, with a luxuriant vegetation of +capitals and notes of admiration. More of those PRIME GOODS! Full +Assortments of every Article in our line! [Except the one thing you +want!] Auction Sale. Old furniture, feather-beds, bed-spreads [spreads! +ugh!], setts [setts!] crockery-ware, odd vols., ullage bbls. of this and +that, with other household goods, etc., etc., etc.,--the etceteras +meaning all sorts of insane movables, such as come out of their +bedlam-holes when an antiquated domestic establishment disintegrates +itself at a country "vandoo."--Several announcements of "Feed," whatever +that may be,--not restaurant dinners, anyhow,--also of "Shorts,"--terms +mysterious to city ears as jute and cudbear and gunnybags to such as +drive oxen in the remote interior districts.--Then the marriage column +above alluded to, by the fortunate recipients of the cake. Right +opposite, as if for matrimonial ground-bait, a Notice that Whereas my +wife, Lucretia Babb, has left my bed and board, I will not be +responsible, etc., etc., from this date.--Jacob Penhallow (of the late +firm Wibird and Penhallow) had taken Mr. William Murray Bradshaw into +partnership, and the business of the office would be carried on as usual +under the title Penhallow and Bradshaw, Attorneys at Law. Then came the +standing professional card of Dr. Lemuel Hurlbut and Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut, +the medical patriarch of the town and his son. Following this, hideous +quack advertisements, some of them with the certificates of Honorables, +Esquires, and Clergymen.--Then a cow, strayed or stolen from the +subscriber.--Then the advertisement referred to in our first paragraph: + +MYRTLE HAZARD has been missing from her home in this place since Thursday +morning, June 16th. She is fifteen years old, tall and womanly for her +age, has dark hair and eyes, fresh complexion, regular features, pleasant +smile and voice, but shy with strangers. Her common dress was a black and +white gingham check, straw hat, trimmed with green ribbon. It is feared +she may have come to harm in some way, or be wandering at large in a +state of temporary mental alienation. Any information relating to the +missing child will be gratefully received and properly rewarded by her +afflicted aunt, + +MISS SILENCE WITHERS, Residing at the Withers Homestead, otherwise known +as "The Poplars," in this village. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +GREAT EXCITEMENT + +The publication of the advertisement in the paper brought the village +fever of the last two days to its height. Myrtle Hazard's disappearance +had been pretty well talked round through the immediate neighborhood, but +now that forty-eight hours of search and inquiry had not found her, and +the alarm was so great that the young girl's friends were willing to +advertise her in a public journal, it was clear that the gravest +apprehensions were felt and justified. The paper carried the tidings to +many who had not heard it. Some of the farmers who had been busy all the +week with their fields came into the village in their wagons on Saturday, +and there first learned the news, and saw the paper, and the placards +which were posted up, and listened, open-mouthed, to the whole story. + +Saturday was therefore a day of much agitation in Oxbow Village, and some +stir in the neighboring settlements. Of course there was a great variety +of comment, its character depending very much on the sense, knowledge, +and disposition of the citizens, gossips, and young people who talked +over the painful and mysterious occurrence. + +The Withers Homestead was naturally the chief centre of interest. Nurse +Byloe, an ancient and voluminous woman, who had known the girl when she +was a little bright-eyed child, handed over "the baby" she was holding to +another attendant, and got on her things to go straight up to The +Poplars. She had been holding "the baby" these forty years and more, but +somehow it never got to be more than a month or six weeks old. She +reached The Poplars after much toil and travail. Mistress Fagan, Irish, +house-servant, opened the door, at which Nurse Byloe knocked softly, as +she was in the habit of doing at the doors of those who sent for her. + +"Have you heerd anything yet, Kitty Fagan?" asked Nurse Byloe. + +"Niver a blissed word," said she. "Miss Withers is upstairs with Miss +Bathsheby, a cryin' and a lamentin'. Miss Badlam's in the parlor. The +men has been draggin' the pond. They have n't found not one thing, but +only jest two, and that was the old coffeepot and the gray cat,--it's +them nigger boys hanged her with a string they tied round her neck and +then drownded her." [P. Fagan, Jr., Aet. 14, had a snarl of similar +string in his pocket.] + +Mistress Fagan opened the door of the best parlor. A woman was sitting +there alone, rocking back and forward, and fanning herself with the +blackest of black fans. + +"Nuss Byloe, is that you? Well, to be sure, I'm glad to see you, though +we 're all in trouble. Set right down, Nuss, do. Oh, it's dreadful +times!" + +A handkerchief which was in readiness for any emotional overflow was here +called on for its function. + +Nurse Byloe let herself drop into a flaccid squab chair with one of those +soft cushions, filled with slippery feathers, which feel so fearfully +like a very young infant, or a nest of little kittens, as they flatten +under the subsiding person. + +The woman in the rocking-chair was Miss Cynthia Badlam, second-cousin of +Miss Silence Withers, with whom she had been living as a companion at +intervals for some years. She appeared to be thirty-five years old, more +or less, and looked not badly for that stage of youth, though of course +she might have been handsomer at twenty, as is often the case with women. +She wore a not unbecoming cap; frequent headaches had thinned her locks +somewhat of late years. Features a little too sharp, a keen, gray eye, a +quick and restless glance, which rather avoided being met, gave the +impression that she was a wide-awake, cautious, suspicious, and, very +possibly, crafty person. + +"I could n't help comin'," said Nurse Byloe, "we do so love our +babies,--how can we help it, Miss Badlam?" + +The spinster colored up at the nurse's odd way of using the possessive +pronoun, and dropped her eyes, as was natural on hearing such a speech. + +"I never tended children as you have, Nuss," she said. "But I 've known +Myrtle Hazard ever since she was three years old, and to think she should +have come to such an end,--'The heart is deceitful above all things and +desperately wicked,'"--and she wept. + +"Why, Cynthy Badlam, what do y' mean?" said Nurse Byloe. "Y' don't think +anything dreadful has come o' that child's wild nater, do ye?" + +"Child!" said Cynthia Badlam,--"child enough to wear this very gown I +have got on and not find it too big for her neither." [It would have +pinched Myrtle here and there pretty shrewdly.] + +The two women looked each other in the eyes with subtle interchange of +intelligence, such as belongs to their sex in virtue of its specialty. +Talk without words is half their conversation, just as it is all the +conversation of the lower animals. Only the dull senses of men are dead +to it as to the music of the spheres. + +Their minds travelled along, as if they had been yoked together, through +whole fields of suggestive speculation, until the dumb growths of thought +ripened in both their souls into articulate speech, consentingly, as the +movement comes after the long stillness of a Quaker meeting. + +Their lips opened at the same moment. "You don't mean"--began Nurse +Byloe, but stopped as she heard Miss Badlam also speaking. + +"They need n't drag the pond," she said. "They need n't go beating the +woods as if they were hunting a patridge,--though for that matter Myrtle +Hazard was always more like a patridge than she was like a pullet. +Nothing ever took hold of that girl,--not catechising, nor advising, nor +punishing. It's that dreadful will of hers never was broke. I've always +been afraid that she would turn out a child of wrath. Did y' ever watch +her at meetin' playing with posies and looking round all the time of the +long prayer? That's what I've seen her do many and many a time. I'm +afraid--Oh dear! Miss Byloe, I'm afraid to say--what I'm afraid of. Men +are so wicked, and young girls are full of deceit and so ready to listen +to all sorts of artful creturs that take advantage of their ignorance and +tender years." She wept once more, this time with sobs that seemed +irrepressible. + +"Dear suz!" said the nurse, "I won't believe no sech thing as wickedness +about Myrtle Hazard. You mean she's gone an' run off with some +good-for-nothin' man or other? If that ain't what y' mean, what do y' +mean? It can't be so, Miss Badlam: she's one o' my babies. At any rate, +I handled her when she fust come to this village,--and none o' my babies +never did sech a thing. Fifteen year old, and be bringin' a whole family +into disgrace! If she was thirty year old, or five-an'-thirty or more, +and never'd had a chance to be married, and if one o' them artful creturs +you was talkin' of got hold of her, then, to be sure,--why, dear +me!--law! I never thought, Miss Badlam!--but then of course you could +have had your pickin' and choosin' in the time of it; and I don't mean to +say it's too late now if you felt called that way, for you're better +lookin' now than some that's younger, and there's no accountin' for +tastes." + +A sort of hysteric twitching that went through the frame of Cynthia +Badlam dimly suggested to the old nurse that she was not making her +slightly indiscreet personality much better by her explanations. She +stopped short, and surveyed the not uncomely person of the maiden lady +sitting before her with her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, and one +hand clenching the arm of the reeking-chair, as if some spasm had clamped +it there. The nurse looked at her with a certain growing interest she +had never felt before. It was the first time for some years that she had +had such a chance, partly because Miss Cynthia had often been away for +long periods,--partly because she herself had been busy professionally. +There was no occasion for her services, of course, in the family at The +Poplars; and she was always following round from place to place after +that everlasting migratory six-weeks or less old baby. + +There was not a more knowing pair of eyes, in their way, in a circle of +fifty miles, than those kindly tranquil orbs that Nurse Byloe fixed on +Cynthia Badlam. The silver threads in the side fold of hair, the +delicate lines at the corner of the eye, the slight drawing down at the +angle of the mouth,--almost imperceptible, but the nurse dwelt upon +it,--a certain moulding of the features as of an artist's clay model +worked by delicate touches with the fingers, showing that time or pain or +grief had had a hand in shaping them, the contours, the adjustment of +every fold of the dress, the attitude, the very way of breathing, were +all passed through the searching inspection of the ancient expert, +trained to know all the changes wrought by time and circumstance. It +took not so long as it takes to describe it, but it was an analysis of +imponderables, equal to any of Bunsen's with the spectroscope. + +Miss Badlam removed her handkerchief and looked in a furtive, questioning +way, in her turn, upon the nurse. + +"It's dreadful close here,--I'm 'most smothered," Nurse Byloe said; and, +putting her hand to her throat, unclasped the catch of the necklace of +gold beads she had worn since she was a baby,--a bead having been added +from time to time as she thickened. It lay in a deep groove of her large +neck, and had not troubled her in breathing before, since the day when +her husband was run over by an ox-team. + +At this moment Miss Silence Withers entered, followed by Bathsheba +Stoker, daughter of Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker. + +She was the friend of Myrtle, and had come to comfort Miss Silence, and +consult with her as to what further search they should institute. The +two, Myrtle's aunt and her friend, were as unlike as they could well be. +Silence Withers was something more than forty years old, a shadowy, +pinched, sallow, dispirited, bloodless woman, with the habitual look of +the people in the funeral carriage which follows next to the hearse, and +the tone in speaking that may be noticed in a household where one of its +members is lying white and still in a cool, darkened chamber overhead. +Bathsheba Stoker was not called handsome; but she had her mother's +youthful smile, which was so fresh and full of sweetness that she seemed +like a beauty while she was speaking or listening; and she could never be +plain so long as any expression gave life to her features. In perfect +repose, her face, a little prematurely touched by sad experiences,--for +she was but seventeen years old,--had the character and decision stamped +in its outlines which any young man who wanted a companion to warn, to +comfort, and command him, might have depended on as warranting the +courage, the sympathy, and the sense demanded for such a responsibility. +She had been trying her powers of consolation on Miss Silence. It was a +sudden freak of Myrtle's. She had gone off on some foolish but innocent +excursion. Besides, she was a girl that would take care of herself; for +she was afraid of nothing, and nimbler than any boy of her age, and +almost as strong as any. As for thinking any bad thoughts about her, +that was a shame; she cared for none of the young fellows that were round +her. Cyprian Eveleth was the one she thought most of; but Cyprian was as +true as his sister Olive, and who else was there? + +To all this Miss Silence answered only by sighing and moaning, For two +whole days she had been kept in constant fear and worry, afraid every +minute of some tragical message, perplexed by the conflicting advice of +all manner of officious friends, sleepless of course through the two +nights, and now utterly broken down and collapsed. + +Bathsheba had said all she could in the way of consolation, and hastened +back to her mother's bedside, which she hardly left, except for the +briefest of visits. + +"It's a great trial, Miss Withers, that's laid on you," said Nurse Byloe. + +"If I only knew that she was dead, and had died in the Lord," Miss +Silence answered,--"if I only knew that but if she is living in sin, or +dead in wrong--doing, what is to become of me?--Oh, what is to become of +me when 'He maketh inquisition far blood'?" + +"Cousin Silence," said Miss Cynthia, "it is n't your fault, if that young +girl has taken to evil ways. If going to meeting three times every +Sabbath day, and knowing the catechism by heart, and reading of good +books, and the best of daily advice, and all needful discipline, could +have corrected her sinful nature, she would never have run away from a +home where she enjoyed all these privileges. It's that Indian blood, +Cousin Silence. It's a great mercy you and I have n't got any of it in +our veins! What can you expect of children that come from heathens and +savages? You can't lay it to yourself, Cousin Silence, if Myrtle Hazard +goes wrong"-- + +"The Lord will lay it to me,--the Lord will lay it to me," she moaned. +"Did n't he say to Cain, 'Where is Abel, thy brother?'" + +Nurse Byloe was getting very red in the face. She had had about enough +of this talk between the two women. "I hope the Lard 'll take care of +Myrtle Hazard fust, if she's in trouble, 'n' wants help," she said; "'n' +then look out for them that comes next. Y' 're too suspicious, Miss +Badlam; y' 're too easy to believe stories. Myrtle Hazard was as pretty +a child and as good a child as ever I see, if you did n't rile her; 'n' +d' d y' ever see one o' them hearty lively children, that had n't a +sperrit of its own? For my part, I'd rather handle one of 'em than a +dozen o' them little waxy, weak-eyed, slim-necked creturs that always do +what they tell 'em to, and die afore they're a dozen year old; and never +was the time when I've seen Myrtle Hazard, sence she was my baby, but +what it's always been, 'Good mornin', Miss Byloe,' and 'How do you do, +Miss Byloe? I'm so glad to see you.' The handsomest young woman, too, +as all the old folks will agree in tellin' you, s'ence the time o' Judith +Pride that was,--the Pride of the County they used to call her, for her +beauty. Her great-grandma, y' know, Miss Cynthy, married old King David +Withers. What I want to know is, whether anything has been heerd, and +jest what's been done about findin' the poor thing. How d' ye know she +has n't fell into the river? Have they fired cannon? They say that +busts the gall of drownded folks, and makes the corpse rise. Have they +looked in the woods everywhere? Don't believe no wrong of nobody, not +till y' must,--least of all of them that come o' the same folks, partly, +and has lived with yo all their days. I tell y', Myrtle Hazard's jest as +innocent of all what y' 've been thinkin' about,--bless the poor child; +she's got a soul that's as clean and sweet-well, as a pond-lily when it +fust opens of a mornin', without a speck on it no more than on the fust +pond-lily God Almighty ever made!" + +That gave a turn to the two women's thoughts, and their handkerchiefs +went up to their faces. Nurse Byloe turned her eyes quickly on Cynthia +Badlam, and repeated her close inspection of every outline and every +light and shadow in her figure. She did not announce any opinion as to +the age or good looks or general aspect or special points of Miss +Cynthia; but she made a sound which the books write humph! but which real +folks make with closed lips, thus: m'!--a sort of half-suppressed +labio-palato-nasal utterance, implying that there is a good deal which +might be said, and all the vocal organs want to have a chance at it, if +there is to be any talking. + +Friends and neighbors were coming in and out; and the next person that +came was the old minister, of whom, and of his colleague, the Rev. Joseph +Bellamy Stoker, some account may here be introduced. + +The Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton Father Pemberton as brother ministers called +him, Priest Pemberton as he was commonly styled by the country +people--would have seemed very old, if the medical patriarch of the +village had not been so much older. A man over ninety is a great comfort +to all his elderly neighbors: he is a picket-guard at the extreme +outpost; and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy +must get by him before he can come near their camp. Dr. Hurlbut, at +ninety-two, made Priest Pemberton seem comparatively little advanced; but +the college catalogue showed that he must be seventy-five years old, if, +as we may suppose, he was twenty at the time of his graduation. + +He was a man of noble presence always, and now, in the grandeur of his +flowing silver hair and with the gray shaggy brows overhanging his serene +and solemn eyes, with the slow gravity of motion and the measured dignity +of speech which gave him the air of an old pontiff, he was an imposing +personage to look upon, and could be awful, if the occasion demanded it. +His creed was of the sternest: he was looked up to as a bulwark against +all the laxities which threatened New England theology. But it was a +creed rather of the study and of the pulpit than of every-day application +among his neighbors. He dealt too much in the lofty abstractions which +had always such fascinations for the higher class of New England divines, +to busy himself as much as he might have done with the spiritual +condition of individuals. He had also a good deal in him of what he used +to call the Old Man, which, as he confessed, he had never succeeded in +putting off,--meaning thereby certain qualities belonging to humanity, as +much as the natural gifts of the dumb creatures belong to them, and +tending to make a man beloved by his weak and erring fellow-mortals. + +In the olden time he would have lived and died king of his parish, +monarch, by Divine right, as the noblest, grandest, wisest of all that +made up the little nation within hearing of his meeting-house bell. But +Young Calvinism has less reverence and more love of novelty than its +forefathers. It wants change, and it loves young blood. Polyandry is +getting to be the normal condition of the Church; and about the time a +man is becoming a little overripe for the livelier human sentiments, he +may be pretty sure the women are looking round to find him a colleague. +In this way it was that the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker became the +colleague of the Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton. + +If one could have dived deep below all the Christian graces--the charity, +the sweetness of disposition, the humility--of Father Pemberton, he would +have found a small remnant of the "Old Man," as the good clergyman would +have called it, which was never in harmony with the Rev. Mr. Stoker. The +younger divine felt his importance, and made his venerable colleague feel +that he felt it. Father Pemberton had a fair chance at rainy Sundays and +hot summer-afternoon services; but the junior pushed him aside without +ceremony whenever he thought there was like to be a good show in the +pews. As for those courtesies which the old need, to soften the sense of +declining faculties and failing attractions, the younger pastor bestowed +them in public, but was negligent of them, to say the least, when not on +exhibition. + +Good old Father Pemberton could not love this man, but he would not hate +him, and he never complained to him or of him. It would have been of no +use if he had: the women of the parish had taken up the Rev. Mr. Stoker; +and when the women run after a minister or a doctor, what do the men +signify? + +Why the women ran after him, some thought it was not hard to guess. He +was not ill-looking, according to the village standard, parted his hair +smoothly, tied his white cravat carefully, was fluent, plausible, had a +gift in prayer, was considered eloquent, was fond of listening to their +spiritual experiences, and had a sickly wife. This is what Byles Gridley +said; but he was apt to be caustic at times. + +Father Pemberton visited his people but rarely. Like Jonathan Edwards, +like David Osgood, he felt his call to be to study-work, and was +impatient of the egotisms and spiritual megrims, in listening to which, +especially from the younger females of his flock, his colleague had won +the hearts of so many of his parishioners. His presence had a wonderful +effect in restoring the despondent Miss Silence to her equanimity; for +not all the hard divinity he had preached for half a century had spoiled +his kindly nature; and not the gentle Melanchthon himself, ready to +welcome death as a refuge from the rage and bitterness of theologians, +was more in contrast with the disputants with whom he mingled, than the +old minister, in the hour of trial, with the stern dogmatist in his +study, forging thunderbolts to smite down sinners. + +It was well that there were no tithing-men about on that next day, +Sunday; for it shone no Sabbath day for the young men within half a dozen +miles of the village. They were out on Bear Hill the whole day, beating +up the bushes as if for game, scaring old crows out of their ragged +nests, and in one dark glen startling a fierce-eyed, growling, bobtailed +catamount, who sat spitting and looking all ready to spring at them, on +the tall tree where he clung with his claws unsheathed, until a young +fellow came up with a gun and shot him dead. They went through and +through the swamp at Musquash Hollow; but found nothing better than a +wicked old snapping-turtle, evil to behold, with his snaky head and +alligator tail, but worse to meddle with, if his horny jaws were near +enough to spring their man-trap on the curious experimenter. At Wood-End +there were some Indians, ill-conditioned savages in a dirty tent, making +baskets, the miracle of which was that they were so clean. They had seen +a young lady answering the description, about a week ago. She had bought +a basket. Asked them if they had a canoe they wanted to sell.--Eyes like +hers (pointing to a squaw with a man's hat on). + +At Pocasset the young men explored all the thick woods,--some who ought +to have known better taking their guns, which made a talk, as one might +well suppose it would. Hunting on a Sabbath day! They did n't mean to +shoot Myrtle Hazard, did they? it was keenly asked. A good many said it +was all nonsense, and a mere excuse to get away from meeting and have a +sort of frolic on pretence that it was a work of necessity and mercy, one +or both. + +While they were scattering themselves about in this way, some in earnest, +some rejoicing in the unwonted license, lifting off for a little while +that enormous Sabbath-day pressure which weighs like forty atmospheres on +every true-born Puritan, two young men had been since Friday in search of +the lost girl, each following a clue of his own, and determined to find +her if she was among the living. + +Cyprian Eveleth made for the village of Mapleton, where his sister Olive +was staying, trusting that, with her aid, he might get a clue to the +mystery of Myrtle's disappearance. + +William Murray Bradshaw struck for a railroad train going to the great +seaport, at a station where it stops for wood and water. + +In the mean time, a third young man, Gifted Hopkins by name, son of the +good woman already mentioned, sat down, with tears in his eyes, and wrote +those touching stanzas, "The Lost Myrtle," which were printed in the next +"Banner and Oracle," and much admired by many who read them. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ANTECEDENTS. + +The Withers Homestead was the oldest mansion in town. It was built on +the east bank of the river, a little above the curve which gave the name +to Oxbow Village. It stood on an elevation, its west gable close to the +river's edge, an old orchard and a small pond at the foot of the slope +behind it, woods at the east, open to the south, with a great row of +Lombardy poplars standing guard in front of the house. The Hon. Selah +Withers, Esq., a descendant of one of the first colonists, built it for +his own residence, in the early part of the last century. Deeply +impressed with his importance in the order of things, he had chosen to +place it a little removed from the cluster of smaller dwellings about the +Oxbow; and with some vague fancy in his mind of the castles that overlook +the Rhine and the Danube, he had selected this eminence on which to place +his substantial gambrel roofed dwelling-house. Long afterwards a +bay-window, almost a little room of itself, had been thrown out of the +second story on the west side, so that it looked directly down on the +river running beneath it. The chamber, thus half suspended in the air, +had been for years the special apartment of Myrtle Hazard; and as the +boys paddling about on the river would often catch glimpses, through the +window, of the little girl dressed in the scarlet jacket she fancied in +those days, one of them, Cyprian Eveleth had given it a name which became +current among the young people, and indeed furnished to Gifted Hopkins +the subject of one of his earliest poems, to wit, "The Fire-hang-bird's +Nest." + +If we would know anything about the persons now living at the Withers +Homestead, or The Poplars, as it was more commonly called of late years, +we must take a brief inventory of some of their vital antecedents. It is +by no means certain that our individual personality is the single +inhabitant of these our corporeal frames. Nay, there is recorded an +experience of one of the living persons mentioned in this narrative,--to +be given in full in its proper place, which, so far as it is received in +evidence, tends to show that some, at least, who have long been dead, may +enjoy a kind of secondary and imperfect, yet self-conscious life, in +these bodily tenements which we are in the habit of considering +exclusively our own. There are many circumstances, familiar to common +observers, which favor this belief to a certain extent. Thus, at one +moment we detect the look, at another the tone of voice, at another some +characteristic movement of this or that ancestor, in our relations or +others. There are times when our friends do not act like themselves, but +apparently in obedience to some other law than that of their own proper +nature. We all do things both awake and asleep which surprise us. +Perhaps we have cotenants in this house we live in. No less than eight +distinct personalities are said to have coexisted in a single female +mentioned by an ancient physician of unimpeachable authority. In this +light we may perhaps see the meaning of a sentence, from a work which +will be repeatedly referred to in this narrative, viz.: "This body in +which we journey across the isthmus between the two oceans is not a +private carriage, but an omnibus." + +The ancestry of the Withers family had counted a martyr to their faith +before they were known as Puritans. The record was obscure in some +points; but the portrait, marked "Ann Holyoake, burned by ye bloudy +Papists, ano 15.." (figures illegible), was still hanging against the +panel over the fireplace in the west parlor at The Poplars. The +following words were yet legible on the canvas: "Thou hast made a +covenant O Lord with mee and my Children forever." + +The story had come down, that Ann Holyoake spoke these words in a prayer +she offered up at the stake, after the fagots were kindled. There had +always been a secret feeling in the family, that none of her descendants +could finally fall from grace, in virtue of this solemn "covenant." + +There had been also a legend in the family, that the martyred woman's +spirit exercised a kind of supervision over her descendants; that she +either manifested herself to them, or in some way impressed them, from +time to time; as in the case of the first pilgrim before he cast his lot +with the emigrants,--of one Mrs. Winslow, a descendant in the third +generation, when the Indians were about to attack the settlement where +she lived,--and of another, just before he was killed at Quebec. + +There was a remarkable resemblance between the features of Ann Holyoake, +as shown in the portrait, and the miniature likeness of Myrtle's mother. +Myrtle adopted the nearly obsolete superstition more readily on this +account, and loved to cherish the fancy that the guardian spirit which +had watched over her ancestors was often near her, and would be with her +in her time of need. + +The wife of Selah Withers was accused of sorcery in the evil days of that +delusion. A careless expression in one of her letters, that "ye Parson +was as lyke to bee in league with ye Divell as anie of em," had got +abroad, and given great offence to godly people. There was no doubt that +some odd "manifestations," as they would be called nowadays, had taken +place in the household when she was a girl, and that she presented many +of the conditions belonging to what are at the present day called +mediums. + +Major Gideon Withers, her son, was of the very common type of hearty, +loud, portly men, who like to show themselves at militia trainings, and +to hear themselves shout orders at musters, or declaim patriotic +sentiments at town-meetings and in the General Court. He loved to wear a +crimson sash and a military cap with a large red feather, in which the +village folk used to say he looked as "hahnsome as a piny,"--meaning a +favorite flower of his, which is better spelt peony, and to which it was +not unnatural that his admirers should compare him. + +If he had married a wife like himself, there might probably enough have +sprung from the alliance a family of moon-faced children, who would have +dropped into their places like posts into their holes, asking no +questions of life, contented, like so many other honest folks, with the +part of supernumeraries in the drama of being, their wardrobe of flesh +and bones being furnished them gratis, and nothing to do but to walk +across the stage wearing it. But Major Gideon Withers, for some reason +or other, married a slender, sensitive, nervous, romantic woman, which +accounted for the fact that his son David, "King David," as he was called +in his time, had a very different set of tastes from his father, showing +a turn for literature and sentiment in his youth, reading Young's "Night +Thoughts," and Thomson's "Seasons," and sometimes in those early days +writing verses himself to Celia or to Chloe, which sounded just as fine +to him as Effie and Minnie sound to young people now, as Musidora, as +Saccharissa, as Lesbia, as Helena, as Adah and Zillah, have all sounded +to young people in their time,--ashes of roses as they are to us now, and +as our endearing Scotch diminutives will be to others by and by. + +King David Withers, who got his royal prefix partly because he was rich, +and partly because he wrote hymns occasionally, when he grew too old to +write love-poems, married the famous beauty before mentioned, Miss Judith +Pride, and the race came up again in vigor. Their son, Jeremy, took for +his first wife a delicate, melancholic girl, who matured into a sad-eyed +woman, and bore him two children, Malachi and Silence. + +When she died, he mourned for her bitterly almost a year, and then put on +a ruffled shirt and went across the river to tell his grief to Miss +Virginia Wild, there residing. This lady was said to have a few drops of +genuine aboriginal blood in her veins; and it is certain that her cheek +had a little of the russet tinge which a Seckel pear shows on its warmest +cheek when it blushes.--Love shuts itself up in sympathy like a +knife-blade in its handle, and opens as easily. All the rest followed in +due order according to Nature's kindly programme. + +Captain Charles Hazard, of the ship Orient Pearl, fell desperately in +love with the daughter of this second wife, married her, and carried her +to India, where their first and only child was born, and received the +name of Myrtle, as fitting her cradle in the tropics. So her earliest +impressions,--it would not be exact to call them recollections,--besides +the smiles of her father and mother, were of dusky faces, of loose white +raiment, of waving fans, of breezes perfumed with the sweet exhalations +of sandal-wood, of gorgeous flowers and glowing fruit, of shady verandas, +of gliding palanquins, and all the languid luxury of the South. The +pestilence which has its natural home in India, but has journeyed so far +from its birth place in these later years, took her father and mother +away, suddenly, in the very freshness of their early maturity. A +relation of Myrtle's father, wife of another captain, was returning to +America on a visit, and the child was sent back, under her care, while +still a mere infant, to her relatives at the old homestead. During the +long voyage, the strange mystery of the ocean was wrought into her +consciousness so deeply, that it seemed to have become a part of her +being. The waves rocked her, as if the sea had been her mother; and, +looking over the vessel's side from the arms that held her with tender +care, she used to watch the play of the waters, until the rhythm of their +movement became a part of her, almost as much as her own pulse and +breath. + +The instincts and qualities belonging to the ancestral traits which +predominated in the conflict of mingled lives lay in this child in +embryo, waiting to come to maturity. It was as when several grafts, +bearing fruit that ripens at different times, are growing upon the same +stock. Her earlier impulses may have been derived directly from her +father and mother, but all the ancestors who have been mentioned, and +more or less obscurely many others, came uppermost in their time, before +the absolute and total result of their several forces had found its +equilibrium in the character by which she was to be known as an +individual. These inherited impulses were therefore many, conflicting, +some of them dangerous. The World, the Flesh, and the Devil held +mortgages on her life before its deed was put in her hands; but sweet and +gracious influences were also born with her; and the battle of life was +to be fought between them, God helping her in her need, and her own free +choice siding with one or the other. The formal statement of this +succession of ripening characteristics need not be repeated, but the fact +must be borne in mind. + +This was the child who was delivered into the hands of Miss Silence +Withers, her mother's half--sister, keeping house with her brother +Malachi, a bachelor, already called Old Malachi, though hardly entitled +by his years to such a venerable prefix. Both these persons had +inherited the predominant traits of their sad-eyed mother. Malachi, the +chief heir of the family property, was rich, but felt very poor. He +owned this fine old estate of some hundreds of acres. He had moneys in +the bank, shares in various companies, wood-lots in the town; and a large +tract of Western land, the subject of a lawsuit which seemed as if it +would never be settled, and kept him always uneasy. + +Some said he hoarded gold somewhere about the old house, but nobody knew +this for a certainty. In spite of his abundant means, he talked much of +poverty, and kept the household on the narrowest footing of economy. One +Irishwoman, with a little aid from her husband now and then, did all +their work; and the only company they saw was Miss Cynthia Badlam, who, +as a relative, claimed a home with them whenever she was so disposed. + +The "little Indian," as Malachi called her, was an awkward accession to +the family. Silence Withers knew no more about children and their ways +and wants than if she had been a female ostrich. Thus it was that she +found it necessary to send for a woman well known in the place as the +first friend whose acquaintance many of the little people of the town had +made in this vale of tears. + +Thirty years of practice had taught Nurse Byloe the art of handling the +young of her species with the soft firmness which one may notice in cats +with their kittens,--more grandly in a tawny lioness mouthing her cubs. +Myrtle did not know she was held; she only felt she was lifted, and borne +up, as a cherub may feel upon a white-woolly cloud, and smiled +accordingly at the nurse, as if quite at home in her arms. + +"As fine a child as ever breathed the breath of life. But where did them +black eyes come from? Born in Injy,--that 's it, ain't it? No, it's her +poor mother's eyes to be sure. Does n't it seem as if there was a kind +of Injin look to 'em? She'll be a lively one to manage, if I know +anything about childun. See her clinchin' them little fists!" + +This was when Miss Silence came near her and brought her rather severe +countenance close to the child for inspection of its features. The +ungracious aspect of the woman and the defiant attitude of the child +prefigured in one brief instant the history of many long coming years. + +It was not a great while before the two parties in that wearing conflict +of alien lives, which is often called education, began to measure their +strength against each other. The child was bright, observing, of +restless activity, inquisitively curious, very hard to frighten, and with +a will which seemed made for mastery, not submission. + +The stern spinster to whose care this vigorous life was committed was +disposed to discharge her duty to the girl faithfully and +conscientiously; but there were two points in her character and belief +which had a most important bearing on the manner in which she carried out +her laudable intentions. First, she was one of that class of human +beings whose one single engrossing thought is their own welfare,--in the +next world, it is true, but still their own personal welfare. The Roman +Church recognizes this class, and provides every form of specific to meet +their spiritual condition. But in so far as Protestantism has thrown out +works as a means of insuring future safety, these unfortunates are as +badly off as nervous patients who have no drops, pills, potions, no +doctors' rules, to follow. Only tell a poor creature what to do, and he +or she will do it, and be made easy, were it a pilgrimage of a thousand +miles, with shoes full of split peas instead of boiled ones; but if once +assured that doing does no good, the drooping Little-faiths are left at +leisure to worry about their souls, as the other class of weaklings worry +about their bodies. The effect on character does not seem to be very +different in the two classes. Metaphysicians may discuss the nature of +selfishness at their leisure; if to have all her thoughts centring on the +one point of her own well-being by and by was selfishness, then Silence +Withers was supremely selfish; and if we are offended with that form of +egotism, it is no more than ten of the twelve Apostles were, as the +reader may see by turning to the Gospel of St. Matthew, the twentieth +chapter and the twenty-fourth verse. + +The next practical difficulty was, that she attempted to carry out a +theory which, whatever might be its success in other cases, did not work +kindly in the case of Myrtle Hazard, but, on the contrary, developed a +mighty spirit of antagonism in her nature, which threatened to end in +utter lawlessness. Miss Silence started from the approved doctrine, that +all children are radically and utterly wrong in all their motives, +feelings, thoughts, and deeds, so long as they remain subject to their +natural instincts. It was by the eradication, and not the education, of +these instincts, that the character of the human being she was moulding +was to be determined. The first great preliminary process, so soon as the +child manifested any evidence of intelligent and persistent +self-determination, was to break her will. + +There is no doubt that this was a legitimate conclusion from the teaching +of Priest Pemberton, but it required a colder and harder nature than his +own to carry out many of his dogmas to their practical application. He +wrought in the pure mathematics, so to speak, of theology, and left the +working rules to the good sense and good feeling of his people. + +Miss Silence had been waiting for her opportunity to apply the great +doctrine, and it came at last in a very trivial way. + +"Myrtle does n't want brown bread. Myrtle won't have brown bread. Myrtle +will have white bread." + +"Myrtle is a wicked child. She will have what Aunt Silence says she +shall have. She won't have anything but brown bread." + +Thereupon the bright red lip protruded, the hot blood mounted to her +face, the child untied her little "tire," got down from the table, took +up her one forlorn, featureless doll, and went to bed without her supper. +The next morning the worthy woman thought that hunger and reflection +would have subdued the rebellious spirit. So there stood yesterday's +untouched supper waiting for her breakfast. She would not taste it, and +it became necessary to enforce that extreme penalty of the law which had +been threatened, but never yet put in execution. Miss Silence, in +obedience to what she felt to be a painful duty, without any passion, but +filled with high, inexorable purpose, carried the child up to the garret, +and, fastening her so that she could not wander about and hurt herself, +left her to her repentant thoughts, awaiting the moment when a plaintive +entreaty for liberty and food should announce that the evil nature had +yielded and the obdurate will was broken. + +The garret was an awful place. All the skeleton-like ribs of the roof +showed in the dim light, naked overhead, and the only floor to be trusted +consisted of the few boards which bridged the lath and plaster. A great, +mysterious brick tower climbed up through it,--it was the chimney, but it +looked like a horrible cell to put criminals into. The whole place was +festooned with cobwebs,--not light films, such as the housewife's broom +sweeps away before they have become a permanent residence, but vast gray +draperies, loaded with dust, sprinkled with yellow powder from the beams +where the worms were gnawing day and night, the home of old, hairy +spiders who had, lived there since they were eggs and would leave it for +unborn spiders who would grow old and huge like themselves in it, long +after the human tenants had left the mansion for a narrower home. Here +this little criminal was imprisoned, six, twelve,--tell it not to +mothers,--eighteen dreadful hours, hungry until she was ready to gnaw her +hands, a prey to all childish imaginations; and here at her stern +guardian's last visit she sat, pallid, chilled, almost fainting, but +sullen and unsubdued. The Irishwoman, poor stupid Kitty Fagan, who had +no theory of human nature, saw her over the lean shoulders of the +spinster, and, forgetting all differences of condition and questions of +authority, rushed to her with a cry of maternal tenderness, and, with a +tempest of passionate tears and kisses, bore her off to her own humble +realm, where the little victorious martyr was fed from the best stores of +the house, until there was as much danger from repletion as there had +been from famine. How the experiment might have ended but for this +empirical and most unphilosophical interference, there is no saying; but +it settled the point that the rebellious nature was not to be subjugated +in a brief conflict. + +The untamed disposition manifested itself in greater enormities as she +grew older. At the age of four years she was detected in making a +cat's-cradle at meeting, during sermon-time, and, on being reprimanded +for so doing, laughed out loud, so as to be heard by Father Pemberton, +who thereupon bent his threatening, shaggy brows upon the child, and, to +his shame be it spoken, had such a sudden uprising of weak, foolish, +grandfatherly feelings, that a mist came over his eyes, and he left out +his "ninthly" altogether, thereby spoiling the logical sequence of +propositions which had kept his large forehead knotty for a week. + +At eight years old she fell in love with the high-colored picture of +Major Gideon Withers in the crimson sash and the red feather of his +exalted military office. It was then for the first time that her aunt +Silence remarked a shade of resemblance between the child and the +portrait. She had always, up to this time, been dressed in sad colors, +as was fitting, doubtless, for a forlorn orphan; but happening one day to +see a small negro girl peacocking round in a flaming scarlet petticoat, +she struck for bright colors in her own apparel, and carried her point at +last. It was as if a ground-sparrow had changed her gray feathers for +the burning plumage of some tropical wanderer; and it was natural enough +that Cyprian Eveleth should have called her the fire-hang-bird, and her +little chamber the fire-hang-bird's nest,--using the country boy's +synonyme for the Baltimore oriole. + +At ten years old she had one of those great experiences which give new +meaning to the life of a child. + +Her uncle Malachi had seemed to have a strong liking for her at one time, +but of late years his delusions had gained upon him, and under their +influence he seemed to regard her as an encumbrance and an extravagance. +He was growing more and more solitary in his habits, more and more +negligent of his appearance. He was up late at night, wandering about +the house from the cellar to the garret, so that, his light being seen +flitting from window to window, the story got about that the old house +was haunted. + +One dreary, rainy Friday in November, Myrtle was left alone in the house. +Her uncle had been gone since the day before. The two women were both +away at the village. At such times the child took a strange delight in +exploring all the hiding-places of the old mansion. She had the +mysterious dwelling-place of so many of the dead and the living all to +herself. What a fearful kind of pleasure in its silence and loneliness! +The old clock that Marmaduke Storr made in London more than a hundred +years ago was clicking the steady pulse-beats of its second century. The +featured moon on its dial had lifted one eye, as if to watch the child, +as it had watched so many generations of children, while the swinging +pendulum ticked them along into youth, maturity, gray hairs, +deathbeds,--ticking through the prayer at the funeral, ticking without +grief through all the still or noisy woe of mourning,--ticking without +joy when the smiles and gayety of comforted heirs had come back again. +She looked at herself in the tall, bevelled mirror in the best chamber. +She pulled aside the curtains of the stately bedstead whereon the heads +of the house had slept until they died and were stretched out upon it, +and the sheet shaped itself to them in vague, awful breadth of outline, +like a block of monumental marble the sculptor leaves just hinted by the +chisel. + +She groped her way up to the dim garret, the scene of her memorable +punishment. A rusty hook projected from one of the joists a little +higher than a man's head. Something was hanging from it,--an old +garment, was it? She went bravely up and touched--a cold hand. She did +what most children of that age would do,--uttered a cry and ran +downstairs with all her might. She rushed out of the door and called to +the man Patrick, who was doing some work about the place. What could be +done was done, but it was too late. + +Uncle Malachi had made away with himself. That was plain on the face of +thing. In due time the coroner's verdict settled it. It was not so +strange as it seemed; but it made a great talk in the village and all the +country round about. Everybody knew he had money enough, and yet he had +hanged himself for fear of starving to death. + +For all that, he was found to have left a will, dated some years before, +leaving his property to his sister Silence, with the exception of a +certain moderate legacy to be paid in money to Myrtle Hazard when she +should arrive at the age of twenty years. + +The household seemed more chilly than ever after this tragical event. Its +depressing influence followed the child to school, where she learned the +common branches of knowledge. It followed her to the Sabbath-day +catechisings, where she repeated the answers about the federal headship +of Adam, and her consequent personal responsibilities, and other +technicalities which are hardly milk for babes, perhaps as well as other +children, but without any very profound remorse for what she could not +help, so far as she understood the matter, any more than her sex or +stature, and with no very clear comprehension of the phrases which the +New England followers of the Westminster divines made a part of the +elementary instruction of young people. + +At twelve years old she had grown tall and womanly enough to attract the +eyes of the youth and older boys, several of whom made advances towards +her acquaintance. But the dreary discipline of the household had sunk +into her soul, and she had been shaping an internal life for herself, +which it was hard for friendship to penetrate. Bathsheba Stoker was +chained to the bedside of an invalid mother. Olive Eveleth, a kind, +true-hearted girl, belonged to another religious communion; and this +tended to render their meetings less frequent, though Olive was still her +nearest friend. Cyprian was himself a little shy, and rather held to +Myrtle through his sister than by any true intimacy directly with +herself. Of the other young men of the village Gifted Hopkins was +perhaps the most fervent of her admirers, as he had repeatedly shown by +effusions in verse, of which, under the thinnest of disguises, she was +the object. + +William Murray Bradshaw, ten years older than herself, a young man of +striking aspect and claims to exceptional ability, had kept his eye on +her of late; but it was generally supposed that he would find a wife in +the city, where he was in the habit of going to visit a fashionable +relative, Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, of 24 Carat Place. She, at any rate, +understood very well that he meant, to use his own phrase, "to go in for +a corner lot,"--understanding thereby a young lady with possessions and +without encumbrances. If the old man had only given his money to Myrtle, +William Murray Bradshaw would have made sure of her; but she was not +likely ever to get much of it. Miss Silence Withers, it was understood, +would probably leave her money as the Rev. Mr. Stoker, her spiritual +director, should indicate, and it seemed likely that most of it would go +to a rising educational institution where certain given doctrines were to +be taught through all time, whether disproved or not, and whether those +who taught them believed them or not, provided only they would say they +believed them. + +Nobody had promised to say masses for her soul if she made this +disposition of her property, or pledged the word of the Church that she +should have plenary absolution. But she felt that she would be making +friends in Influential Quarters by thus laying up her treasure, and that +she would be safe if she had the good-will of the ministers of her sect. + +Myrtle Hazard had nearly reached the age of fourteen, and, though not +like to inherit much of the family property, was fast growing into a +large dower of hereditary beauty. Always handsome, her features shaped +themselves in a finer symmetry, her color grew richer, her figure +promised a perfect womanly development, and her movements had the grace +which high-breeding gives the daughter of a queen, and which Nature now +and then teaches the humblest of village maidens. She could not long +escape the notice of the lovers and flatterers of beauty, and the time of +danger was drawing near. + +At this period of her life she made two discoveries which changed the +whole course of her thoughts, and opened for her a new world of ideas and +possibilities. + +Ever since the dreadful event of November, 1854, the garret had been a +fearful place to think of, and still more to visit. The stories that the +house was haunted gained in frequency of repetition and detail of +circumstance. But Myrtle was bold and inquisitive, and explored its +recesses at such times as she could creep among them undisturbed. Hid +away close under the eaves she found an old trunk covered with dust and +cobwebs. The mice had gnawed through its leather hinges, and, as it had +been hastily stuffed full, the cover had risen, and two or three volumes +had fallen to the floor. This trunk held the papers and books which her +great-grandmother, the famous beauty, had left behind her, records of the +romantic days when she was the belle of the county,--storybooks, memoirs, +novels, and poems, and not a few love-letters,--a strange collection, +which, as so often happens with such deposits in old families, nobody had +cared to meddle with, and nobody had been willing to destroy, until at +last they had passed out of mind, and waited for a new generation to +bring them into light again. + +The other discovery was of a small hoard of coin. Under one of the +boards which formed the imperfect flooring of the garret was hidden an +old leather mitten. Instead of a hand, it had a fat fist of silver +dollars, and a thumb of gold half-eagles. + +Thus knowledge and power found their way to the simple and secluded +maiden. The books were hers to read as much as any other's; the gold and +silver were only a part of that small provision which would be hers by +and by, and if she borrowed it, it was borrowing of herself. The tree of +the knowledge of good and evil had shaken its fruit into her lap, and, +without any serpent to tempt her, she took thereof and did eat. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +BYLES GRIDLEY, A. M. + +The old Master of Arts was as notable a man in his outside presentment as +one will find among five hundred college alumni as they file in +procession. His strong, squared features, his formidable scowl, his +solid-looking head, his iron-gray hair, his positive and as it were +categorical stride, his slow, precise way of putting a statement, the +strange union of trampling radicalism in some directions and +high-stepping conservatism in others, which made it impossible to +calculate on his unexpressed opinions, his testy ways and his generous +impulses, his hard judgments and kindly actions, were characteristics +that gave him a very decided individuality. + +He had all the aspects of a man of books. His study, which was the best +room in Mrs. Hopkins's house, was filled with a miscellaneous-looking +collection of volumes, which his curious literary taste had got together +from the shelves of all the libraries that had been broken up during his +long life as a scholar. Classics, theology, especially of the +controversial sort, statistics, politics, law, medicine, science, occult +and overt, general literature,--almost every branch of knowledge was +represented. His learning was very various, and of course mixed up, +useful and useless, new and ancient, dogmatic and rational,--like his +library, in short; for a library gathered like his is a looking-glass in +which the owner's mind is reflected. + +The common people about the village did not know what to make of such a +phenomenon. He did not preach, marry, christen, or bury, like the +ministers, nor jog around with medicines for sick folks, nor carry cases +into court for quarrelsome neighbors. What was he good for? Not a great +deal, some of the wiseacres thought,--had "all sorts of sense but common +sense,"--"smart mahn, but not prahctical." There were others who read +him more shrewdly. He knowed more, they said, than all the ministers put +together, and if he'd stan' for Ripresentative they 'd like to vote for +him,--they hed n't hed a smart mahn in the Gineral Court sence Squire +Wibird was thar. + +They may have overdone the matter in comparing his knowledge with that of +all the ministers together, for Priest Pemberton was a real scholar in +his special line of study,--as all D. D.'s are supposed to be, or they +would not have been honored with that distinguished title. But Mr. Byles +Gridley not only had more learning than the deep-sea line of the bucolic +intelligence could fathom; he had more wisdom also than they gave him +credit for, even those among them who thought most of his abilities. + +In his capacity of schoolmaster he had sharpened his wits against those +of the lively city boys he had in charge, and made such a reputation as +"Master" Gridley, that he kept that title even after he had become a +college tutor and professor. As a tutor he had to deal with many of +these same boys, and others like them, in the still more vivacious period +of their early college life. He got rid of his police duties when he +became a professor, but he still studied the pupils as carefully as he +used once to watch them, and learned to read character with a skill which +might have fitted him for governing men instead of adolescents. But he +loved quiet and he dreaded mingling with the brawlers of the +market-place, whose stock in trade is a voice and a vocabulary. So it +was that he had passed his life in the patient mechanical labor of +instruction, leaving too many of his instincts and faculties in abeyance. + +The alluvium of all this experience bore a nearer resemblance to worldly +wisdom than might have been conjectured; much nearer, indeed, than it +does in many old instructors, whose eyes get fish-like as their blood +grows cold, and who are not fit to be trusted with anything more +practical than a gerund or a cosine. Master Gridley not only knew a good +deal of human nature, but he knew how to keep his knowledge to himself +upon occasion. He understood singularly well the ways and tendencies of +young people. He was shrewd in the detection of trickery, and very +confident in those who had once passed the ordeal of his well-schooled +observing powers. He had no particular tendency to meddle with the +personal relations of those about him; but if they were forced upon him +in any way, he was like to see into them at least as quickly as any of +his neighbors who thought themselves most endowed with practical skill. + +In leaving the duties of his office he considered himself, as he said a +little despondently, like an old horse unharnessed and turned out to +pasture. He felt that he had separated himself from human interests, and +was henceforth to live in his books with the dead, until he should be +numbered with them himself. He had chosen this quiet village as a place +where he might pass his days undisturbed, and find a peaceful +resting-place in its churchyard, where the gravel was dry, and the sun +lay warm, and the glowing woods of autumn would spread their many-colored +counterpane over the bed where he would be taking his rest. It sometimes +came over him painfully that he was never more to be of any importance to +his fellow-creatures. There was nobody living to whom he was connected +by any very near ties. He felt kindly enough to the good woman in whose +house he lived; he sometimes gave a few words of counsel to her son; he +was not unamiable with the few people he met; he bowed with great +consideration to the Rev. Dr. Pemberton; and he studied with no small +interest the physiognomy of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker, to whose +sermons he listened, with a black scowl now and then, and a nostril +dilating with ominous intensity of meaning. But he said sadly to +himself, that his life had been a failure,--that he had nothing to show +for it, and his one talent was ready in its napkin to give back to his +Lord. + +He owed something of this sadness, perhaps, to a cause which many would +hold of small significance. Though he had mourned for no lost love, at +least so far as was known, though he had never suffered the pang of +parting with a child, though he seemed isolated from those joys and +griefs which come with the ties of family, he too had his private urn +filled with the ashes of extinguished hopes. He was the father of a dead +book. + +Why "Thoughts on the Universe, by Byles Gridley, A. M.," had not met with +an eager welcome and a permanent demand from the discriminating public, +it would take us too long to inquire in detail. Indeed; he himself was +never able to account satisfactorily for the state of things which his +bookseller's account made evident to him. He had read and re-read his +work; and the more familiar he became with it, the less was he able to +understand the singular want of popular appreciation of what he could not +help recognizing as its excellences. He had a special copy of his work, +printed on large paper and sumptuously bound. He loved to read in this, +as people read over the letters of friends who have long been dead; and +it might have awakened a feeling of something far removed from the +ludicrous, if his comments on his own production could have been heard. +"That's a thought, now, for you!--See Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay's +Essay printed six years after thus book." "A felicitous image! and so +everybody would have said if only Mr. Thomas Carlyle had hit upon it." +"If this is not genuine pathos, where will you find it, I should like to +know? And nobody to open the book where it stands written but one poor +old man--in this generation, at least--in this generation!" It may be +doubted whether he would ever have loved his book with such jealous +fondness if it had gone through a dozen editions, and everybody was +quoting it to his face. But now it lived only for him; and to him it was +wife and child, parent, friend, all in one, as Hector was all in all to +his spouse. He never tired of it, and in his more sanguine moods he +looked forward to the time when the world would acknowledge its merits, +and his genius would find full recognition. Perhaps he was right: more +than one book which seemed dead and was dead for contemporary readers has +had a resurrection when the rivals who triumphed over it lived only in +the tombstone memory of antiquaries. Comfort for some of us, dear +fellow-writer. + +It followed from the way in which he lived that he must have some means +of support upon which he could depend. He was economical, if not over +frugal in some of his habits; but he bought books, and took newspapers +and reviews, and had money when money was needed; the fact being, though +it was not generally known, that a distant relative had not long before +died, leaving him a very comfortable property. + +His money matters had led him to have occasional dealings with the late +legal firm of Wibird and Penhallow, which had naturally passed into the +hands of the new partnership, Penhallow and Bradshaw. He had entire +confidence in the senior partner, but not so much in the young man who +had been recently associated in the business. + +Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, commonly called by his last two names, was +the son of a lawyer of some note for his acuteness, who marked out his +calling for him in having him named after the great Lord Mansfield. +Murray Bradshaw was about twenty-five years old, by common consent +good-looking, with a finely formed head, a searching eye, and a sharp-cut +mouth, which smiled at his bidding without the slightest reference to the +real condition of his feeling at the moment. This was a great +convenience; for it gave him an appearance of good-nature at the small +expense of a slight muscular movement which was as easy as winking, and +deceived everybody but those who had studied him long and carefully +enough to find that this play of his features was what a watch maker +would call a detached movement. + +He had been a good scholar in college, not so much by hard study as by +skilful veneering, and had taken great pains to stand well with the +Faculty, at least one of whom, Byles Gridley, A. M., had watched him with +no little interest as a man with a promising future, provided he were not +so astute as to outwit and overreach himself in his excess of +contrivance. His classmates could not help liking him; as to loving him, +none of them would have thought of that. He was so shrewd, so keen, so +full of practical sense, and so good-humored as long as things went on to +his liking, that few could resist his fascination. He had a way of +talking with people about what they were interested in, as if it were the +one matter in the world nearest to his heart. But he was commonly trying +to find out something, or to produce some impression, as a juggler is +working at his miracle while he keeps people's attention by his voluble +discourse and make-believe movements. In his lightest talk he was almost +always edging towards a practical object, and it was an interesting and +instructive amusement to watch for the moment at which he would ship the +belt of his colloquial machinery on to the tight pulley. It was done so +easily and naturally that there was hardly a sign of it. Master Gridley +could usually detect the shifting action, but the young man's features +and voice never betrayed him. + +He was a favorite with the other sex, who love poetry and romance, as he +well knew, for which reason he often used the phrases of both, and in +such a way as to answer his purpose with most of those whom he wished to +please. He had one great advantage in the sweepstakes of life: he was +not handicapped with any burdensome ideals. He took everything at its +marked value. He accepted the standard of the street as a final fact for +to-day, like the broker's list of prices. + +His whole plan of life was laid out. He knew that law was the best +introduction to political life, and he meant to use it for this end. He +chose to begin his career in the country, so as to feel his way more +surely and gradually to its ultimate aim; but he had no intention of +burning his shining talents in a grazing district, however tall its grass +might grow. His business was not with these stiff-jointed, slow-witted +graziers, but with the supple, dangerous, far-seeing men who sit scheming +by the gas-light in the great cities, after all the lamps and candles are +out from the Merrimac to the Housatonic. Every strong and every weak +point of those who might probably be his rivals were laid down on his +charts, as winds and currents and rocks are marked on those of a +navigator. All the young girls in the country, and not a few in the +city, with which, as mentioned, he had frequent relations, were on his +list of possible availabilities in the matrimonial line of speculation, +provided always that their position and prospects were such as would make +them proper matches for so considerable a person as the future Hon. +William Murray Bradshaw. + +Master Gridley had made a careful study of his old pupil since they had +resided in the same village. The old professor could not help admiring +him, notwithstanding certain suspicious elements in his character; for +after muddy village talk, a clear stream of intelligent conversation was +a great luxury to the hard-headed scholar. The more he saw of him, the +more he learned to watch his movements, and to be on his guard in talking +with him. The old man could be crafty, with all his simplicity, and he +had found out that under his good-natured manner there often lurked some +design more or less worth noting, and which might involve other interests +deserving protection. + +For some reason or other the old Master of Arts had of late experienced a +certain degree of relenting with regard to himself, probably brought +about by the expressions of gratitude from worthy Mrs. Hopkins for acts +of kindness to which he himself attached no great value. He had been +kind to her son Gifted; he had been fatherly with Susan Posey, her +relative and boarder; and he had shown himself singularly and +unexpectedly amiable with the little twins who had been adopted by the +good woman into her household. In fact, ever since these little +creatures had begun to toddle about and explode their first consonants, +he had looked through his great round spectacles upon them with a decided +interest; and from that time it seemed as if some of the human and social +sentiments which had never leafed or flowered in him, for want of their +natural sunshine, had begun growing up from roots which had never lost +their life. His liking for the twins may have been an illustration of +that singular law which old Dr. Hurlbut used to lay down, namely, that at +a certain period of life, say from fifty to sixty and upward, the +grand-paternal instinct awakens in bachelors, the rhythms of Nature +reaching them in spite of her defeated intentions; so that when men marry +late they love their autumn child with a twofold affection,--father's and +grandfather's both in one. + +However this may be, there is no doubt that Mr. Byles Gridley was +beginning to take a part in his neighbors' welfare and misfortunes, such +as could hardly have been expected of a man so long lost in his books and +his scholastic duties. And among others, Myrtle Hazard had come in for a +share of his interest. He had met her now and then in her walks to and +from school and meeting, and had been taken with her beauty and her +apparent unconsciousness of it, which he attributed to the forlorn kind +of household in which she had grown up. He had got so far as to talk +with her now and then, and found himself puzzled, as well he might be, in +talking with a girl who had been growing into her early maturity in +antagonism with every influence that surrounded her. + +"Love will reach her by and by," he said, "in spite of the dragons up at +the den yonder. + + "'Centum fronte oculos, centum cervice gerebat + Argus, et hos unus saepe fefellit amor.'" + +But there was something about Myrtle,--he hardly knew whether to call it +dignity, or pride, or reserve, or the mere habit of holding back brought +about by the system of repression under which she had been +educated,--which kept even the old Master of Arts at his distance. Yet he +was strongly drawn to her, and had a sort of presentiment that he might +be able to help her some day, and that very probably she would want his +help; for she was alone in the world, except for the dragons, and sure to +be assailed by foes from without and from within. + +He noticed that her name was apt to come up in his conversations with +Murray Bradshaw; and, as he himself never introduced it, of course the +young man must have forced it, as conjurers force a card, and with some +special object. This set him thinking hard; and, as a result of it, he +determined the next time Mr. Bradshaw brought her name up to set him +talking. + +So he talked, not suspecting how carefully the old man listened. + +"It was a demonish hard case," he said, "that old Malachi had left his +money as he did. Myrtle Hazard was going to be the handsomest girl +about, when she came to her beauty, and she was coming to it mighty fast. +If they could only break that will, but it was no use trying. The +doctors said he was of sound mind for at least two years after making it. +If Silence Withers got the land claim, there'd be a pile, sure enough. +Myrtle Hazard ought to have it. If the girl had only inherited that +property--whew? She'd have been a match for any fellow. That old +Silence Withers would do just as her minister told her,--even chance +whether she gives it to the Parson-factory, or marries Bellamy Stoker, +and gives it to him after his wife's dead. He'd take it if he had to take +her with it. Earn his money, hey, Master Gridley?" + +"Why, you don't seem to think very well of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy +Stoker?" said Mr. Gridley, smiling. + +"Think well of him? Too fond of using the Devil's pitchfork for my +fancy! Forks over pretty much all the world but himself and his lot +into--the bad place, you know; and toasts his own cheese with it with +very much the same kind of comfort that other folks seem to take in that +business. Besides, he has a weakness for pretty saints--and sinners. +That's an odd name he has. More belle amie than Joseph about him, I +rather guess!" + +The old professor smiled again. "So you don't think he believes all the +mediaeval doctrines he is in the habit of preaching, Mr. Bradshaw?" + +"No, sir; I think he belongs to the class I have seen described +somewhere. 'There are those who hold the opinion that truth is only safe +when diluted,--about one fifth to four fifths lies,--as the oxygen of the +air is with its nitrogen. Else it would burn us all up.'" + +Byles Gridley colored and started a little. This was one of his own +sayings in "Thoughts on the Universe." But the young man quoted it +without seeming to suspect its authorship. + +"Where did you pick up that saying, Mr. Bradshaw?" + +"I don't remember. Some paper, I rather think. It's one of those good +things that get about without anybody's knowing who says 'em. Sounds like +Coleridge." + +"That's what I call a compliment worth having," said Byles Gridley to +himself, when he got home. "Let me look at that passage." + +He took down "Thoughts on the Universe," and got so much interested, +reading on page after page, that he did not hear the little tea-bell, and +Susan Posey volunteered to run up to his study and call him down to tea. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE TWINS. + +Miss Suzan Posey knocked timidly at his door and informed him that tea +was waiting. He rather liked Susan Posey. She was a pretty creature, +slight, blonde, a little too light, a village beauty of the second or +third grade, effective at picnics and by moonlight,--the kind of girl +that very young men are apt to remember as their first love. She had a +taste for poetry, and an admiration of poets; but, what was better, she +was modest and simple, and a perfect sister and mother and grandmother to +the two little forlorn twins who had been stranded on the Widow Hopkins's +doorstep. + +These little twins, a boy and girl, were now between two and three years +old. A few words will make us acquainted with them. Nothing had ever +been known of their origin. The sharp eyes of all the spinsters had been +through every household in the village and neighborhood, and not a +suspicion fixed itself on any one. It was a dark night when they were +left; and it was probable that they had been brought from another town, +as the sound of wheels had been heard close to the door where they were +found, had stopped for a moment, then been heard again, and lost in the +distance. + +How the good woman of the house took them in and kept them has been +briefly mentioned. At first nobody thought they would live a day, such +little absurd attempts at humanity did they seem. But the young doctor +came and the old doctor came, and the infants were laid in cotton-wool, +and the room heated up to keep them warm, and baby-teaspoonfuls of milk +given them, and after being kept alive in this way, like the young of +opossums and kangaroos, they came to a conclusion about which they did +not seem to have made up their thinking-pulps for some weeks, namely, to +go on trying to cross the sea of life by tugging at the four-and-twenty +oars which must be pulled day and night until the unknown shore is +reached, and the oars lie at rest under the folded hands. + +As it was not very likely that the parents who left their offspring round +on doorsteps were of saintly life, they were not presented for baptism +like the children of church-members. Still, they must have names to be +known by, and Mrs. Hopkins was much exercised in the matter. Like many +New England parents, she had a decided taste for names that were +significant and sonorous. That which she had chosen for her oldest +child, the young poet, was either a remarkable prophecy, or it had +brought with it the endowments it promised. She had lost, or, in her own +more pictorial language, she had buried, a daughter to whom she had given +the names, at once of cheerful omen and melodious effect, Wealthy +Amadora. + +As for them poor little creturs, she said, she believed they was rained +down out o' the skies, jest as they say toads and tadpoles come. She +meant to be a mother to 'em for all that, and give 'em jest as good names +as if they was the governor's children, or the minister's. If Mr. +Gridley would be so good as to find her some kind of a real handsome +Chris'n name for 'em, she'd provide 'em with the other one. Hopkinses +they shall be bred and taught, and Hopkinses they shall be called. Ef +their father and mother was ashamed to own 'em, she was n't. Couldn't +Mr. Gridley pick out some pooty sounding names from some of them great +books of his. It's jest as well to have 'em pooty as long as they don't +cost any more than if they was Tom and Sally. + +A grim smile passed over the rugged features of Byles Gridley. "Nothing +is easier than that, Mrs. Hopkins," he said. "I will give you two very +pretty names that I think will please you and other folks. They're new +names, too. If they shouldn't like to keep them, they can change them +before they're christened, if they ever are. Isosceles will be just the +name for the boy, and I'm sure you won't find a prettier name for the +girl in a hurry than Helminthia." + +Mrs. Hopkins was delighted with the dignity and novelty of these two +names, which were forthwith adopted. As they were rather long for common +use in the family, they were shortened into the easier forms of Sossy and +Minthy, under which designation the babes began very soon to thrive +mightily, turning bread and milk into the substance of little sinners at +a great rate, and growing as if they were put out at compound interest. + +This short episode shows us the family conditions surrounding Byles +Gridley, who, as we were saying, had just been called down to tea by Miss +Susan Posey. + +"I am coming, my dear," he said,--which expression quite touched Miss +Susan, who did not know that it was a kind of transferred caress from the +delicious page he was reading. It was not the living child that was +kissed, but the dead one lying under the snow, if we may make a trivial +use of a very sweet and tender thought we all remember. + +Not long after this, happening to call in at the lawyer's office, his eye +was caught by the corner of a book lying covered up by a pile of papers. +Somehow or other it seemed to look very natural to him. Could that be a +copy of "Thoughts on the Universe"? He watched his opportunity, and got +a hurried sight of the volume. His own treatise, sure enough! Leaves +Uncut. Opened of itself to the one hundred and twentieth page. The +axiom Murray Bradshaw had quoted--he did not remember from +what,--"sounded like Coleridge"--was staring him in the face from that +very page. When he remembered how he had pleased himself with that +compliment the other day, he blushed like a school-girl; and then, +thinking out the whole trick,--to hunt up his forgotten book, pick out a +phrase or two from it, and play on his weakness with it, to win his good +opinion,--for what purpose he did not know, but doubtless to use him in +some way,--he grinned with a contempt about equally divided between +himself and the young schemer. + +"Ah ha!" he muttered scornfully. "Sounds like Coleridge, hey? Niccolo +Macchiavelli Bradshaw!" + +From this day forward he looked on all the young lawyer's doings with +even more suspicion than before. Yet he would not forego his company and +conversation; for he was very agreeable and amusing to study; and this +trick he had played him was, after all, only a diplomatist's way of +flattering his brother plenipotentiary. Who could say? Some time or +other he might cajole England or France or Russia into a treaty with just +such a trick. Shallower men than he had gone out as ministers of the +great Republic. At any rate, the fellow was worth watching. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE USE OF SPECTACLES. + +The old Master of Arts had a great reputation in the house where he lived +for knowing everything that was going on. He rather enjoyed it; and +sometimes amused himself with surprising his simple-hearted landlady and +her boarders with the unaccountable results of his sagacity. One thing +was quite beyond her comprehension. She was perfectly sure that Mr. +Gridley could see out of the back of his head, just as other people see +with their natural organs. Time and again he had told her what she was +doing when his back was turned to her, just as if he had been sitting +squarely in front of her. Some laughed at this foolish notion; but +others, who knew more of the nebulous sciences, told her it was like's +not jes' so. Folks had read letters laid ag'in' the pits o' their +stomachs, 'n' why should n't they see out o' the backs o' their heads? + +Now there was a certain fact at the bottom of this belief of Mrs. +Hopkins; and as it world be a very small thing to make a mystery of so +simple a matter, the reader shall have the whole benefit of knowing all +there is in it,--not quite yet, however, of knowing all that came of it. +It was not the mirror trick, of course, which Mrs. Felix Lorraine and +other dangerous historical personages have so long made use of. It was +nothing but this: Mr. Byles Gridley wore a pair of formidable spectacles +with large round glasses. He had often noticed the reflection of objects +behind him when they caught their images at certain angles, and had got +the habit of very often looking at the reflecting surface of one or the +other of the glasses, when he seemed to be looking through them. It put +a singular power into his possession, which might possibly hereafter lead +to something more significant than the mystification of the Widow +Hopkins. + +A short time before Myrtle Hazard's disappearance, Mr. Byles Gridley had +occasion to call again at the office of Penhallow and Bradshaw on some +small matter of business of his own. There were papers to look over, and +he put on his great round-glassed spectacles. He and Mr. Penhallow sat +down at the table, and Mr. Bradshaw was at a desk behind them. After +sitting for a while, Mr. Penhallow seemed to remember something he had +meant to attend to, for he said all at once: "Excuse me, Mr. Gridley. +Mr. Bradshaw, if you are not busy, I wish you would look over this bundle +of papers. They look like old receipted bills and memoranda of no +particular use; but they came from the garret of the Withers place, and +might possibly have something that would be of value. Look them over, +will you, and see whether there is anything there worth saving." + +The young man took the papers, and Mr. Penhallow sat down again at the +table with Mr. Byles Gridley. + +This last-named gentleman felt just then a strong impulse to observe the +operations of Murray Bradshaw. He could not have given any very good +reason for it, any more than any of us can for half of what we do. + +"I should like to examine that conveyance we were speaking of once more," +said he. "Please to look at this one in the mean time, will you, Mr. +Penhallow?" + +Master Gridley held the document up before him. He did not seem to find +it quite legible, and adjusted his spectacles carefully, until they were +just as he wanted them. When he had got them to suit himself, sitting +there with his back to Murray Bradshaw, he could see him and all his +movements, the desk at which he was standing, and the books in the +shelves before him,--all this time appearing as if he were intent upon +his own reading. + +The young man began in a rather indifferent way to look over the papers. +He loosened the band round them, and took them up one by one, gave a +careless glance at them, and laid them together to tie up again when he +had gone through them. Master Gridley saw all this process, thinking +what a fool he was all the time to be watching such a simple proceeding. +Presently he noticed a more sudden movement: the young man had found +something which arrested his attention, and turned his head to see if he +was observed. The senior partner and his client were both apparently +deep in their own affairs. In his hand Mr. Bradshaw held a paper folded +like the others, the back of which he read, holding it in such a way that +Master Gridley saw very distinctly three large spots of ink upon it, and +noticed their position. Murray Bradshaw took another hurried glance at +the two gentlemen, and then quickly opened the paper. He ran it over +with a flash of his eye, folded it again, and laid it by itself. With +another quick turn of his head, as if to see whether he were observed or +like to be, he reached his hand out and took a volume down from the +shelves. In this volume he shut the document, whatever it was, which he +had just taken out of the bundle, and placed the book in a very silent +and as it were stealthy way back in its place. He then gave a look at +each of the other papers, and said to his partner: "Old bills, old +leases, and insurance policies that have run out. Malachi seems to have +kept every scrap of paper that had a signature to it." + +"That 's the way with the old misers, always," said Mr. Penhallow. + +Byles Gridley had got through reading the document he held,--or +pretending to read it. He took off his spectacles. + +"We all grow timid and cautious as we get old, Mr. Penhallow." Then +turning round to the young man, he slowly repeated the lines, + + "'Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda, vel quod + Quaerit et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti; + Vel quod res omnes timide, gelideque ministrat' + +"You remember the passage, Mr. Bradshaw?" + +While he was reciting these words from Horace, which he spoke slowly as +if he relished every syllable, he kept his eyes on the young man +steadily, but with out betraying any suspicion. His old habits as a +teacher made that easy. + +Murray Bradshaw's face was calm as usual, but there was a flush on his +cheek, and Master Gridley saw the slight but unequivocal signs of +excitement. + +"Something is going on inside there," the old man said to himself. He +waited patiently, on the pretext of business, until Mr. Bradshaw got up +and left the office. As soon as he and the senior partner were alone, +Master Gridley took a lazy look at some of the books in his library. +There stood in the book-shelves a copy of the Corpus Juris Civilis,--the +fine Elzevir edition of 1664. It was bound in parchment, and thus +readily distinguishable at a glance from all the books round it. Now Mr. +Penhallow was not much of a Latin scholar, and knew and cared very little +about the civil law. He had fallen in with this book at an auction, and +bought it to place in his shelves with the other "properties" of the +office, because it would look respectable. Anything shut up in one of +those two octavos might stay there a lifetime without Mr. Penhallow's +disturbing it; that Master Gridley knew, and of course the young man knew +it too. + +We often move to the objects of supreme curiosity or desire, not in the +lines of castle or bishop on the chess-board, but with the knight's +zigzag, at first in the wrong direction, making believe to ourselves we +are not after the thing coveted. Put a lump of sugar in a canary-bird's +cage, and the small creature will illustrate the instinct for the benefit +of inquirers or sceptics. Byles Gridley went to the other side of the +room and took a volume of Reports from the shelves. He put it back and +took a copy of "Fearne on Contingent Remainders," and looked at that for +a moment in an idling way, as if from a sense of having nothing to do. +Then he drew the back of his forefinger along the books on the shelf, as +if nothing interested him in them, and strolled to the shelf in front of +the desk at which Murray Bradshaw had stood. He took down the second +volume of the Corpus Juris Civilis, turned the leaves over mechanically, +as if in search of some title, and replaced it. + +He looked round for a moment. Mr. Penhallow was writing hard at his +table, not thinking of him, it was plain enough. He laid his hand on the +FIRST volume of the Corpus Juris Civilis. There was a document shut up +in it. His hand was on the book, whether taking it out or putting it +back was not evident, when the door opened and Mr. William Murray +Bradshaw entered. + +"Ah, Mr. Gridley," he said, "you are not studying the civil law, are +you?" He strode towards him as he spoke, his face white, his eyes fixed +fiercely on him. + +"It always interests me, Mr. Bradshaw," he answered, "and this is a fine +edition of it. One may find a great many valuable things in the Corpus +Juris Civilis." + +He looked impenetrable, and whether or not he had seen more than Mr. +Bradshaw wished him to see, that gentleman could not tell. But there +stood the two books in their place, and when, after Master Gridley had +gone, he looked in the first volume, there was the document he had shut +up in it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MYRTLE'S LETTER--THE YOUNG MEN'S PURSUIT. + +"You know all about it, Olive?" Cyprian Eveleth said to his sister, after +a brief word of greeting. + +"Know of what, Cyprian?" + +"Why, sister, don't you know that Myrtle Hazard is missing,--gone!--gone +nobody knows where, and that we are looking in all directions to find +her?" + +Olive turned very pale and was silent for a moment. At the end of that +moment the story seemed almost old to her. It was a natural ending of +the prison-life which had been round Myrtle since her earliest years. +When she got large and strong enough, she broke out of jail,--that was +all. The nursery-bar is always climbed sooner or later, whether it is a +wooden or an iron one. Olive felt as if she had dimly foreseen just such +a finishing to the tragedy of the poor girl's home bringing-up. Why +could not she have done something to prevent it? Well,--what shall we do +now, and as it is?--that is the question. + +"Has she left no letter,--no explanation of her leaving in this way?" + +"Not a word, so far as anybody in the village knows." + +"Come over to the post-office with me; perhaps we may find a letter. I +think we shall." + +Olive's sagacity and knowledge of her friend's character had not misled +her. She found a letter from Myrtle to herself, which she opened and +read as here follows: + +MY DEAREST OLIVE:--Think no evil of me for what I have done. The +fire-hang-bird's nest, as Cyprian called it, is empty, and the poor bird +is flown. + +I can live as I have lived no longer. This place is chilling all the +life out of me, and I must find another home. It is far, far away, and +you will not hear from me again until I am there. Then I will write to +you. + +You know where I was born,--under a hot sun and in the midst of strange, +lovely scenes that I seem still to remember. I must visit them again: my +heart always yearns for them. And I must cross the sea to get +there,--the beautiful great sea that I have always longed for and that my +river has been whispering about to me ever so many years. My life is +pinched and starved here. I feel as old as aunt Silence, and I am only +fifteen,--a child she has called me within a few days. If this is to be +a child, what is it to be a woman? + +I love you dearly,--and your brother is almost to me as if he were mine. +I love our sweet, patient Bathsheba,--yes, and the old man that has +spoken so kindly with me, good Master Gridley; I hate to give you +pain,--to leave you all,--but my way of life is killing me, and I am too +young to die. I cannot take the comfort with you, my dear friends, that +I would; for it seems as if I carried a lump of ice in my heart, and all +the warmth I find in you cannot thaw it out. + +I have had a strange warning to leave this place, Olive. Do you remember +how the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and told him to flee into +Egypt? I have had a dream like that, Olive. There is an old belief in +our family that the spirit of one who died many generations ago watches +over some of her descendants. They say it led our first ancestor to come +over here when it was a wilderness. I believe it has appeared to others +of the family in times of trouble. I have had a strange dream at any +rate, and the one I saw, or thought I saw, told me to leave this place. +Perhaps I should have stayed if it had not been for that, but it seemed +like an angel's warning. + +Nobody will know how I have gone, or which way I have taken. On Monday, +you may show this letter to my friends, not before. I do not think they +will be in danger of breaking their hearts for me at our house. Aunt +Silence cares for nothing but her own soul, and the other woman hates me, +I always thought. Kitty Fagan will cry hard. Tell her perhaps I shall +come back by and by. There is a little box in my room, with some +keepsakes marked,--one is for poor Kitty. You can give them to the right +ones. Yours is with them. + +Good-by, dearest. Keep my secret, as I told you, till Monday. And if +you never see me again, remember how much I loved you. Never think +hardly of me, for you have grown up in a happy home, and do not know how +much misery can be crowded into fifteen years of a young girl's life. +God be with you! + +MYRTLE HAZARD. + + +Olive could not restrain her tears, as she handed the letter to Cyprian. +"Her secret is as safe with you as with me," she said. "But this is +madness, Cyprian, and we must keep her from doing herself a wrong. + +"What she means to do, is to get to Boston, in some way or other, and +sail for India. It is strange that they have not tracked her. There is +no time to be lost. She shall not go out into the world in this way, +child that she is. No; she shall come back, and make her home with us, +if she cannot be happy with these people. Ours is a happy and a cheerful +home, and she shall be to me as a younger sister, and your sister too, +Cyprian. But you must see her; you must leave this very hour; and you +may find her. Go to your cousin Edward, in Boston, at once; tell him +your errand, and get him to help you find our poor dear sister. Then +give her the note I will write, and say I know your heart, Cyprian, and I +can trust that to tell you what to say." + +In a very short time Cyprian Eveleth was on his way to Boston. But +another, keener even in pursuit than he, was there before him. + +Ever since the day when Master Gridley had made that over-curious +observation of the young lawyer's proceedings at the office, Murray +Bradshaw had shown a far livelier interest than before in the conditions +and feelings of Myrtle Hazard. He had called frequently at The Poplars +to talk over business matters, which seemed of late to require a deal of +talking. He had been very deferential to Miss Silence, and had wound +himself into the confidence of Miss Badlam. He found it harder to +establish any very near relations with Myrtle, who had never seemed to +care much for any young man but Cyprian Eveleth, and to care for him +quite as much as Olive's brother as for any personal reason. But he +carefully studied Myrtle's tastes and ways of thinking and of life, so +that, by and by, when she should look upon herself as a young woman, and +not as a girl, he would have a great advantage in making her more +intimate acquaintance. + +Thus, she corresponded with a friend of her mother's in India. She +talked at times as if it were her ideal home, and showed many tastes +which might well be vestiges of early Oriental impressions. She made +herself a rude hammock,--such as are often used in hot climates,--and +swung it between two elms. Here she would lie in the hot summer days, +and fan herself with the sandal-wood fan her friend in India had sent +her,--the perfume of which, the women said, seemed to throw her into +day-dreams, which were almost like trances. + +These circumstances gave a general direction to his ideas, which were +presently fixed more exactly by two circumstances which he learned for +himself and kept to himself; for he had no idea of making a hue and cry, +and yet he did not mean that Myrtle Hazard should get away if he could +help it. + +The first fact was this. He found among the copies of the city newspaper +they took at The Poplars a recent number from which a square had been cut +out. He procured another copy of this paper of the same date, and found +that the piece cut out was an advertisement to the effect that the A 1 +Ship Swordfish, Captain Hawkins, was to sail from Boston for Calcutta, on +the 20th of June. + +The second fact was the following. On the window-sill of her little +hanging chamber, which the women allowed him to inspect, he found some +threads of long, black, glossy hair caught by a splinter in the wood. +They were Myrtle's of course. A simpleton might have constructed a +tragedy out of this trivial circumstance,--how she had cast herself from +the window into the waters beneath it,--how she had been thrust out after +a struggle, of which this shred from her tresses was the dreadful +witness,--and so on. Murray Bradshaw did not stop to guess and wonder. +He said nothing about it, but wound the shining threads on his finger, +and, as soon as he got home, examined them with a magnifier. They had +been cut off smoothly, as with a pair of scissors. This was part of a +mass of hair, then, which had been shorn and thrown from the window. +Nobody would do that but she herself. What would she do it for? To +disguise her sex, of course. The other inferences were plain enough. + +The wily young man put all these facts and hints together, and concluded +that he would let the rustics drag the ponds and the river, and scour the +woods and swamps, while he himself went to the seaport town from which +she would without doubt sail if she had formed the project he thought on +the whole most probable. + +Thus it was that we found him hurrying to the nearest station to catch +the train to Boston, while they were all looking for traces of the +missing girl nearer home. In the cars he made the most suggestive +inquiries he could frame, to stir up the gentlemanly conductor's memory. +Had any young fellow been on the train within a day or two, who had +attracted his notice? Smooth, handsome face, black eyes, short black +hair, new clothes, not fitting very well, looked away when he paid his +fare, had a soft voice like a woman's,--had he seen anybody answering to +some such description as this? The gentlemanly conductor had not +noticed,--was always taking up and setting down way-passengers,--might +have had such a young man aboard,--there was two or three students one +day in the car singing college songs,--he did n't care how folks looked +if they had their tickets ready,--and minded their own business,--and, so +saying, he poked a young man upon whose shoulder a ringleted head was +reclining with that delightful abandon which the railroad train seems to +provoke in lovely woman,--"Fare!" + +It is a fine thing to be set down in a great, overcrowded hotel, where +they do not know you, looking dusty, and for the moment shabby, with +nothing but a carpet-bag in your hand, feeling tired, and anything but +clean, and hungry, and worried, and every way miserable and mean, and to +undergo the appraising process of the gentleman in the office, who, while +he shoves the book round to you for your name, is making a hasty +calculation as to how high up he can venture to doom you. But Murray +Bradshaw's plain dress and carpet-bag were more than made up for by the +air and tone which imply the habit of being attended to. The clerk saw +that in a glance, and, as he looked at the name and address in the book, +spoke sharply in the explosive dialect of his tribe,-- + +"Jun! ta'tha'genlm'n'scarpetbag'n'showhimupt'thirtyone!" + +When Cyprian Eveleth reached the same hotel late at night, he appeared in +his best clothes and with a new valise; but his amiable countenance and +gentle voice and modest manner sent him up two stories higher, where he +found himself in a room not much better than a garret, feeling lonely +enough, for he did not know he had an acquaintance in the same house. +The two young men were in and out so irregularly that it was not very +strange that they did not happen to meet each other. + +The young lawyer was far more likely to find Myrtle if she were in the +city than the other, even with the help of his cousin Edward. He was not +only older, but sharper, better acquainted with the city and its ways, +and, whatever might be the strength of Cyprian's motives, his own were of +such intensity that he thought of nothing else by day, and dreamed of +nothing else by night. He went to work, therefore, in the most +systematic manner. He first visited the ship Swordfish, lying at her +wharf, saw her captain, and satisfied himself that as yet nobody at all +corresponding to the description of Myrtle Hazard had been seen by any +person on board. He visited all the wharves, inquiring on every vessel +where it seemed possible she might have been looking about. Hotels, +thoroughfares, every place where he might hear of her or meet her, were +all searched. He took some of the police into his confidence, and had +half a dozen pairs of eyes besides his own opened pretty widely, to +discover the lost girl. + +On Sunday, the 19th, he got the first hint which encouraged him to think +he was on the trail of his fugitive. He had gone down again to the wharf +where the Swordfish, advertised to sail the next day, was lying. The +captain was not on board, but one of the mates was there, and he +addressed his questions to him, not with any great hope of hearing +anything important, but determined to lose no chance, however small. He +was startled with a piece of information which gave him such an exquisite +pang of delight that he could hardly keep the usual quiet of his +demeanor. A youth corresponding to his description of Myrtle Hazard in +her probable disguise had been that morning on board the Swordfish, +making many inquires as to the hour at which she was to sail, and who +were to be the passengers, and remained some time on board, going all +over the vessel, examining her cabin accommodations, and saying he should +return to-morrow before she sailed,--doubtless intending to take passage +in her, as there was plenty of room on board. There could be little +question, from the description, who this young person was. It was a +rather delicate--looking, dark--haired youth, smooth-faced, somewhat shy +and bashful in his ways, and evidently excited and nervous. He had +apparently been to look about him, and would come back at the last +moment, just as the vessel was ready to sail, and in an hour or two be +beyond the reach of inquiry. + +Murray Bradshaw returned to his hotel, and, going to his chamber, +summoned all his faculties in state council to determine what course he +should follow, now that he had the object of his search certainly within +reaching distance. There was no danger now of her eluding him; but the +grave question arose, what was he to do when he stood face to face with +her. She must not go,--that was fixed. If she once got off in that +ship, she might be safe enough; but what would become of certain projects +in which he was interested,--that was the question. But again, she was +no child, to be turned away from her adventure by cajolery, or by any +such threats as common truants would find sufficient to scare them back +to their duty. He could tell the facts of her disguise and the manner of +her leaving home to the captain of the vessel, and induce him to send her +ashore as a stray girl, to be returned to her relatives. But this would +only make her furious with him; and he must not alienate her from +himself, at any rate. He might plead with her in the name of duty, for +the sake of her friends, for the good name of the family. She had +thought all these things over before she ran away. What if he should +address her as a lover, throw himself at her feet, implore her to pity +him and give up her rash scheme, and, if things came to the very worst, +offer to follow her wherever she went, if she would accept him in the +only relation that would render it possible. Fifteen years old,--he +nearly ten years older,--but such things had happened before, and this +was no time to stand on trifles. + +He worked out the hypothesis of the matrimonial offer as he would have +reasoned out the probabilities in a law case he was undertaking. + +1. He would rather risk that than lose all hold upon her. The girl was +handsome enough for his ambitious future, wherever it might carry him. +She came of an honorable family, and had the great advantage of being +free from a tribe of disagreeable relatives, which is such a drawback on +many otherwise eligible parties. To these considerations were to be +joined other circumstances which we need not here mention, of a nature to +add greatly to their force, and which would go far of themselves to +determine his action. + +2. How was it likely she would look on such an extraordinary +proposition? At first, no doubt, as Lady Anne looked upon the advances +of Richard. She would be startled, perhaps shocked. What then? She +could not help feeling flattered at such an offer from him,--him, William +Murray Bradshaw, the rising young man of his county, at her feet, his +eyes melting with the love he would throw into them, his tones subdued to +their most sympathetic quality, and all those phrases on his lips which +every day beguile women older and more discreet than this romantic, +long-imprisoned girl, whose rash and adventurous enterprise was an +assertion of her womanhood and her right to dispose of herself as she +chose. He had not lived to be twenty-five years old without knowing his +power with women. He believed in himself so thoroughly, that his very +confidence was a strong promise of success. + +3. In case all his entreaties, arguments, and offers made no impression, +should he make use of that supreme resource, not to be employed save in +extreme need, but which was of a nature, in his opinion, to shake a +resolution stronger than this young girl was like to oppose to it? That +would be like Christian's coming to his weapon called All-prayer, he said +to himself, with a smile that his early readings of Bunyan should have +furnished him an image for so different an occasion. The question was +one he could not settle till the time came,--he must leave it to the +instinct of the moment. + +The next morning found him early waking after a night of feverish dreams. +He dressed himself with more than usual care, and walked down to the +wharf where the Swordfish was moored. The ship had left the wharf, and +was lying out in the stream: A small boat had just reached her, and a +slender youth, as he appeared at that distance, climbed, not +over-adroitly, up the vessel's side. + +Murray Bradshaw called to a boatman near by and ordered the man to row +him over as fast as he could to the vessel lying in the stream. He had no +sooner reached the deck of the Swordfish than he asked for the young +person who had just been put on board. + +"He is in the cabin, sir, just gone down with the captain," was the +reply. + +His heart beat, in spite of his cool temperament, as he went down the +steps leading to the cabin. The young person was talking earnestly with +the captain, and, on his turning round, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw had +the pleasure of recognizing his young friend, Mr. Cyprian Eveleth. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +DOWN THE RIVER. + +Look at the flower of a morning-glory the evening before the dawn which +is to see it unfold. The delicate petals are twisted into a spiral, +which at the appointed hour, when the sunlight touches the hidden springs +of its life, will uncoil itself and let the day into the chamber of its +virgin heart. But the spiral must unwind by its own law, and the hand +that shall try to hasten the process will only spoil the blossom which +would have expanded in symmetrical beauty under the rosy fingers of +morning. + +We may take a hint from Nature's handling of the flower in dealing with +young souls, and especially with the souls of young girls, which, from +their organization and conditions, require more careful treatment than +those of their tougher-fibred brothers. Many parents reproach themselves +for not having enforced their own convictions on their children in the +face of every inborn antagonism they encountered. Let them not be too +severe in their self-condemnation. A want of judgment in this matter has +sent many a young person to Bedlam, whose nature would have opened kindly +enough if it had only been trusted to the sweet influences of morning +sunshine. In such cases it may be that the state we call insanity is not +always an unalloyed evil. It may take the place of something worse, the +wretchedness of a mind not yet dethroned, but subject to the perpetual +interferences of another mind governed by laws alien and hostile to its +own. Insanity may perhaps be the only palliative left to Nature in this +extremity. But before she comes to that, she has many expedients. The +mind does not know what diet it can feed on until it has been brought to +the starvation point. Its experience is like that of those who have been +long drifting about on rafts or in long-boats. There is nothing out of +which it will not contrive to get some sustenance. A person of note, +long held captive for a political offence, is said to have owed the +preservation of his reason to a pin, out of which he contrived to get +exercise and excitement by throwing it down carelessly on the dark floor +of his dungeon, and then hunting for it in a series of systematic +explorations until he had found it. + +Perhaps the most natural thing Myrtle Hazard could have done would have +been to go crazy, and be sent to the nearest asylum, if Providence, which +in its wisdom makes use of the most unexpected agencies, had not made a +special provision for her mental welfare. She was in that arid household +as the prophet in the land where there was no dew nor rain for these long +years. But as he had the brook Cherith, and the bread and flesh in the +morning and the bread and flesh in the evening which the ravens brought +him, so she had the river and her secret store of books. + +The river was light and life and music and companionship to her. She +learned to row herself about upon it, to swim boldly in it, for it had +sheltered nooks but a little way above The Poplars. But there was more +than that in it,--it was infinitely sympathetic. A river is strangely +like a human soul. It has its dark and bright days, its troubles from +within, and its disturbances from without. It often runs over ragged +rocks with a smooth surface, and is vexed with ripples as it slides over +sands that are level as a floor. It betrays its various moods by aspects +which are the commonplaces of poetry, as smiles and dimples and wrinkles +and frowns. Its face is full of winking eyes, when the scattering +rain-drops first fall upon it, and it scowls back at the storm-cloud, as +with knitted brows, when the winds are let loose. It talks, too, in its +own simple dialect, murmuring, as it were, with busy lips all the way to +the ocean, as children seeking the mother's breast and impatient of +delay. Prisoners who know what a flower or an insect has been to them in +their solitary cell, invalids who have employed their vacant minds in +studying the patterns of paper-hangings on the walls of their +sick-chambers, can tell what the river was to the lonely, imaginative +creature who used to sit looking into its depths, hour after hour, from +the airy height of the Fire-hang-bird's Nest. + +Of late a thought had mingled with her fancies which had given to the +river the aspect of something more than a friend and a companion. It +appeared all at once as a Deliverer. Did not its waters lead, after long +wanderings, to the great highway of the world, and open to her the gates +of those cities from which she could take her departure unchallenged +towards the lands of the morning or of the sunset? Often, after a +freshet, she had seen a child's miniature boat floating down on its side +past her window, and traced it in imagination back to some crystal brook +flowing by the door of a cottage far up a blue mountain in the distance. +So she now began to follow down the stream the airy shallop that held her +bright fancies. These dreams of hers were colored by the rainbows of an +enchanted fountain,--the books of adventure, the romances, the stories +which fortune had placed in her hands,--the same over which the heart of +the Pride of the County had throbbed in the last century, and on the +pages of some of which the traces of her tears might still be seen. + +The literature which was furnished for Myrtle's improvement was chiefly +of a religious character, and, however interesting and valuable to those +to whom it was adapted, had not been chosen with any wise regard to its +fitness for her special conditions. Of what use was it to offer books +like the "Saint's Rest" to a child whose idea of happiness was in +perpetual activity? She read "Pilgrim's Progress," it is true, with +great delight. She liked the idea of travelling with a pack on one's +back, the odd shows at the House of the interpreter, the fighting, the +adventures, the pleasing young ladies at the palace the name of which was +Beautiful, and their very interesting museum of curiosities. As for the +allegorical meaning, it went through her consciousness like a peck of +wheat through a bushel measure with the bottom out, without touching. + +But the very first book she got hold of out of the hidden treasury threw +the "Pilgrim's Progress" quite into the shade. It was the story of a +youth who ran away and lived on an island,--one Crusoe,--a homely +narrative, but evidently true, though full of remarkable adventures. +There too was the history, coming much nearer home, of Deborah Sampson, +the young woman who served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War, with a +portrait of her in man's attire, looking intrepid rather than lovely. A +virtuous young female she was, and married well, as she deserved to, and +raised a family with as good a name as wife and mother as the best of +them. But perhaps not one of these books and stories took such hold of +her imagination as the tale of Rasselas, which most young persons find +less entertaining than the "Vicar of Wakefield," with which it is +nowadays so commonly bound up. It was the prince's discontent in the +Happy Valley, the iron gate opening to the sound of music, and closing +forever on those it admitted, the rocky boundaries of the imprisoning +valley, the visions of the world beyond, the projects of escape, and the +long toil which ended in their accomplishment, which haunted her sleeping +and waking. She too was a prisoner, but it was not in the Happy Valley. +Of the romances and the love-letters we must take it for granted that she +selected wisely, and read discreetly; at least we know nothing to the +contrary. + +There were mysterious reminiscences and hints of her past coming over her +constantly. It was in the course of the long, weary spring before her +disappearance, that a dangerous chord was struck which added to her +growing restlessness. In an old closet were some seashells and +coral-fans, and dried star-fishes and sea, horses, and a natural mummy of +a rough-skinned dogfish. She had not thought of them for years, but now +she felt impelled to look after them. The dim sea odors which still +clung to them penetrated to the very inmost haunts of memory, and called +up that longing for the ocean breeze which those who have once breathed +and salted their blood with it never get over, and which makes the +sweetest inland airs seem to them at last tame and tasteless. She held a +tigershell to her ear, and listened to that low, sleepy murmur, whether +in the sense or in the soul we hardly know, like that which had so often +been her lullaby,--a memory of the sea, as Landor and Wordsworth have +sung. + +"You are getting to look like your father," Aunt Silence said one day; "I +never saw it before. I always thought you took after old Major Gideon +Withers. Well, I hope you won't come to an early grave like poor +Charles,--or at any rate, that you may be prepared." + +It did not seem very likely that the girl was going out of the world at +present, but she looked Miss Silence in the face very seriously, and +said, "Why not an early grave, Aunt, if this world is such a bad place as +you say it is?" + +"I'm afraid you are not fit for a better." + +She wondered if Silence Withers and Cynthia Badlam were just ripe for +heaven. + +For some months Miss Cynthia Badlam, who, as was said, had been an +habitual visitor at The Poplars, had lived there as a permanent resident. +Between her and Silence Withers, Myrtle Hazard found no rest for her +soul. Each of them was for untwisting the morning-glory without waiting +for the sunshine to do it. Each had her own wrenches and pincers to use +for that purpose. All this promised little for the nurture and +admonition of the young girl, who, if her will could not be broken by +imprisonment and starvation at three years old, was not likely to be +over-tractable to any but gentle and reasonable treatment at fifteen. + +Aunt Silence's engine was responsibility,--her own responsibility, and +the dreadful consequences which would follow to her, Silence, if Myrtle +should in any way go wrong. Ever since her failure in that moral coup +d'etat by which the sinful dynasty of the natural self-determining power +was to be dethroned, her attempts in the way of education had been a +series of feeble efforts followed by plaintive wails over their utter +want of success. The face she turned upon the young girl in her solemn +expostulations looked as if it were inscribed with the epitaphs of hope +and virtue. Her utterances were pitched in such a forlorn tone, that the +little bird in his cage, who always began twittering at the sound of +Myrtle's voice, would stop in his song, and cock his head with a look of +inquiry full of pathos, as if he wanted to know what was the matter, and +whether he could do anything to help. + +The specialty of Cynthia Badlam was to point out all the dangerous and +unpardonable trangressions into which young people generally, and this +young person in particular, were likely to run, to hold up examples of +those who had fallen into evil ways and come to an evil end, to present +the most exalted standard of ascetic virtue to the lively girl's +apprehension, leading her naturally to the conclusion that a bright +example of excellence stood before her in the irreproachable relative who +addressed her. Especially with regard to the allurements which the world +offers to the young and inexperienced female, Miss Cynthia Badlam was +severe and eloquent. Sometimes poor Myrtle would stare, not seeing the +meaning of her wise caution, sometimes look at Miss Cynthia with a +feeling that there was something about her that was false and forced, +that she had nothing in common with young people, that she had no pity +for them, only hatred of their sins, whatever these might be,--a hatred +which seemed to extend to those sources of frequent temptation, youth and +beauty, as if they were in themselves objectionable. + +Both the lone women at The Poplars were gifted with a thin vein of music. +They gave it expression in psalmody, of course, in which Myrtle, who was +a natural singer, was expected to bear her part. This would have been +pleasantry if the airs most frequently selected had been cheerful or +soothing, and if the favorite hymns had been of a sort to inspire a love +for what was lovely in this life, and to give some faint foretaste of the +harmonies of a better world to come. But there is a fondness for minor +keys and wailing cadences common to the monotonous chants of cannibals +and savages generally, to such war-songs as the wild, implacable +"Marseillaise," and to the favorite tunes of low--spirited Christian +pessimists. That mournful "China," which one of our most agreeable +story-tellers has justly singled out as the cry of despair itself, was +often sung at The Poplars, sending such a sense of utter misery through +the house, that poor Kitty Fagan would cross herself, and wring her +hands, and think of funerals, and wonder who was going to die,--for she +fancied she heard the Banshee's warning in those most dismal ululations. + +On the first Saturday of June, a fortnight before her disappearance, +Myrtle strolled off by the river shore, along its lonely banks, and came +dome with her hands full of leaves and blossoms. Silence Withers looked +at them as if they were a kind of melancholy manifestation of frivolity +on the part of the wicked old earth. Not that she did not inhale their +faint fragrance with a certain pleasure, and feel their beauty as none +whose souls are not wholly shriveled and hardened can help doing, but the +world was, in her estimate, a vale of tears, and it was only by a +momentary forgetfulness that she could be moved to smile at anything. + +Miss Cynthia, a sharper-edged woman, had formed the habit of crushing +everything for its moral, until it lost its sweetness and grew almost +odious, as flower-de-luces do when handled roughly. "There's a worm in +that leaf, Myrtle. He has rolled it all round him, and hidden himself +from sight; but there is a horrid worm in it, for all it is so young and +fresh. There is a worm in every young soul, Myrtle." + +"But there is not a worm in every leaf, Miss Cynthia. Look," she said," +all these are open, and you can see all over and under them, and there is +nothing there. Are there never any worms in the leaves after they get +old and yellow, Miss Cynthia?" + +That was a pretty fair hit for a simple creature of fifteen, but perhaps +she was not so absolutely simple as one might have thought. + +It was on the evening of this same day that they were sitting together. +The sweet season was opening, and it seemed as if the whispering of the +leaves, the voices of the birds, the softness of the air, the young life +stirring in everything, called on all creatures to join the universal +chorus of praise that was going up around them. + +"What shall we sing this evening?" said Miss Silence. + +"Give me one of the books, if you please, Cousin Silence," said Miss +Cynthia. "It is Saturday evening. Holy time has begun. Let us prepare +our minds for the solemnities of the Sabbath." + +She took the book, one well known to the schools and churches of this +nineteenth century. + +"Book Second. Hymn 44. Long metre. I guess 'Putney' will be as good a +tune as any to sing it to." + +The trio began,-- + + "With holy fear, and humble song," + +and got through the first verse together pretty well. Then came the +second verse: + + "Far in the deep where darkness dwells, + The land of horror and despair, + Justice has built a dismal hell, + And laid her stores of vengeance there." + +Myrtle's voice trembled a little in singing this verse, and she hardly +kept up her part with proper spirit. + +"Sing out, Myrtle," said Miss Cynthia, and she struck up the third verse: + + "Eternal plagues and heavy chains, + Tormenting racks and fiery coals, + And darts t' inflict immortal pains, + Dyed in the blood of damned souls." + +This last verse was a duet, and not a trio. Myrtle closed her lips while +it was singing, and when it was done threw down the book with a look of +anger and disgust. The hunted soul was at bay. + +"I won't sing such words," she said, "and I won't stay here to hear them +sung. The boys in the streets say just such words as that, and I am not +going to sing them. You can't scare me into being good with your cruel +hymn-book!" + +She could not swear: she was not a boy. She would not cry: she felt +proud, obdurate, scornful, outraged. All these images, borrowed from the +holy Inquisition, were meant to frighten her--and had simply irritated +her. The blow of a weapon that glances off, stinging, but not +penetrating, only enrages. It was a moment of fearful danger to her +character, to her life itself. + +Without heeding the cries of the two women, she sprang up-stairs to her +hanging chamber. She threw open the window and looked down into the +stream. For one moment her head swam with the sudden, overwhelming, +almost maddening thought that came over her,--the impulse to fling +herself headlong into those running waters and dare the worst these +dreadful women had threatened her with. Something she often thought +afterwards it was an invisible hand held her back during that brief +moment, and the paroxysm--just such a paroxysm as throws many a young +girl into the Thames or the Seine--passed away. She remained looking, in +a misty dream, into the water far below. Its murmur recalled the whisper +of the ocean waves. And through the depths it seemed as if she saw into +that strange, half--remembered world of palm-trees and white robes and +dusky faces, and amidst them, looking upon her with ineffable love and +tenderness, until all else faded from her sight, the face of a fair +woman,--was it hers, so long, long dead, or that dear young mother's who +was to her less a recollection than a dream? + +Could it have been this vision that soothed her, so that she unclasped +her hands and lifted her bowed head as if she had heard a voice +whispering to her from that unknown world where she felt there was a +spirit watching over her? At any rate, her face was never more serene +than when she went to meeting with the two maiden ladies on the following +day, Sunday, and heard the Rev. Mr. Stoker preach a sermon from Luke vii. +48, which made both the women shed tears, but especially so excited Miss +Cynthia that she was in a kind of half-hysteric condition all the rest of +the day. + +After that Myrtle was quieter and more docile than ever before. Could it +be, Miss Silence thought, that the Rev. Mr. Stoker's sermon had touched +her hard heart? However that was, she did not once wear the stormy look +with which she had often met the complaining remonstrances Miss Silence +constantly directed against all the spontaneous movements of the youthful +and naturally vivacious subject of her discipline. + +June is an uncertain month, as everybody knows, and there were frosts in +many parts of New England in the June of 1859. But there were also +beautiful days and nights, and the sun was warm enough to be fast +ripening the strawberries,--also certain plans which had been in flower +some little time. Some preparations had been going on in a quiet way, so +that at the right moment a decisive movement could be made. Myrtle knew +how to use her needle, and always had a dexterous way of shaping any +article of dress or ornament,--a natural gift not very rare, but +sometimes very needful, as it was now. + +On the morning of the 15th of June she was wandering by the shores of the +river, some distance above The Poplars, when a boat came drifting along +by her, evidently broken loose from its fastenings farther up the stream. +It was common for such waifs to show themselves after heavy rains had +swollen the river. They might have run the gauntlet of nobody could tell +how many farms, and perhaps passed by half a dozen towns and villages in +the night, so that, if of common, cheap make, they were retained without +scruple, by any who might find them, until the owner called for them, if +he cared to take the trouble. + +Myrtle took a knife from her pocket, cut down a long, slender sapling, +and coaxed the boat to the side of the bank. A pair of old oars lay in +the bottom of the boat; she took one of these and paddled it into a +little cove, where it could lie hid among the thick alders. Then she went +home and busied herself about various little matters more interesting to +her than to us. + +She was never more amiable and gracious than on this day. But she looked +often at the clock, as they remembered afterwards, and studied over a +copy of the Farmer's Almanac which was lying in the kitchen, with a +somewhat singular interest. The days were nearly at their longest, the +weather was mild, the night promised to be clear and bright. + +The household was, to all appearance, asleep at the usual early hour. +When all seemed quiet, Myrtle lighted her lamp, stood before her mirror, +and untied the string that bound her long and beautiful dark hair, which +fell in its abundance over her shoulders and below her girdle. + +She lifted its heavy masses with one hand, and severed it with a strong +pair of scissors, with remorseless exaction of every wandering curl, +until she stood so changed by the loss of that outward glory of her +womanhood, that she felt as if she had lost herself and found a brother +she had never seen before. + +"Good-by, Myrtle!" she said, and, opening her window very gently, she +flung the shining tresses upon the running water, and watched them for a +few moments as they floated down the stream. Then she dressed herself in +the character of her imaginary brother, took up the carpet-bag in which +she had placed what she chose to carry with her, stole softly +down-stairs, and let herself out of a window on the lower floor, shutting +it very carefully so as to be sure that nobody should be disturbed. + +She glided along, looking all about her, fearing she might be seen by +some curious wanderer, and reached the cove where the boat she had +concealed was lying. She got into it, and, taking the rude oars, pulled +herself into the middle of the swollen stream. Her heart beat so that it +seemed to her as if she could hear it between the strokes of the oar. +The lights were not all out in the village, and she trembled lest she +should see the figure of some watcher looking from the windows in sight +of which she would have to pass, and that a glimpse of this boat stealing +along at so late an hour might give the clue to the secret of her +disappearance, with which the whole region was to be busied in the course +of the next day. + +Presently she came abreast of The Poplars. The house lay so still, so +peaceful,--it would wake to such dismay! The boat slid along beneath her +own overhanging chamber. + +"No song to-morrow from the Fire-hang-bird's Nest!" she said. So she +floated by the slumbering village, the flow of the river carrying her +steadily on, and the careful strokes of the oars adding swiftness to her +flight. + +At last she came to the "Broad Meadows," and knew that she was alone, and +felt confident that she had got away unseen. There was nothing, +absolutely nothing, to point out which way she had gone. Her boat came +from nobody knew where, her disguise had been got together at different +times in such a manner as to lead to no suspicion, and not a human being +ever had the slightest hint that she had planned and meant to carry out +the enterprise which she had now so fortunately begun. + +Not till the last straggling house had been long past, not till the +meadows were stretched out behind her as well as before her, spreading +far off into the distance on each side, did she give way to the sense of +wild exultation which was coming fast over her. But then, at last, she +drew a long, long breath, and, standing up in the boat, looked all around +her. The stars were shining over her head and deep down beneath her. +The cool wind came fresh upon her cheek over the long grassy reaches. No +living thing moved in all the wide level circle which lay about her. She +had passed the Red Sea, and was alone in the Desert. + +She threw down her oars, lifted her hands like a priestess, and her +strong, sweet voice burst into song,--the song of the Jewish maiden when +she went out before the chorus of, women and sang that grand solo, which +we all remember in its ancient words, and in their modern paraphrase, + + "Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! + Jehovah hath triumphed, his people are free!" + +The poor child's repertory was limited to songs of the religious sort +mainly, but there was a choice among these. Her aunt's favorites, beside +"China," already mentioned, were "Bangor," which the worthy old New +England clergyman so admired that he actually had the down-east city +called after it, and "Windsor," and "Funeral Hymn." But Myrtle was in no +mood for these. She let off her ecstasy in "Balerma," and "Arlington," +and "Silver Street," and at last in that most riotous of devotional +hymns, which sounds as if it had been composed by a saint who had a +cellar under his chapel,--"Jordan." So she let her wild spirits run +loose; and then a tenderer feeling stole over her, and she sang herself +into a more tranquil mood with the gentle music of "Dundee." And again +she pulled quietly and steadily at her oars, until she reached the wooded +region through which the river winds after leaving the "Broad Meadows." + +The tumult in her blood was calmed, yet every sense and faculty was awake +to the manifold delicious, mysterious impressions of that wonderful June +night, The stars were shining between the tall trees, as if all the +jewels of heaven had been set in one belt of midnight sky. The voices of +the wind, as they sighed through the pines, seemed like the breath of a +sleeping child, and then, as they lisped from the soft, tender leaves of +beeches and maples, like the half-articulate whisper of the mother +hushing all the intrusive sounds that might awaken it. Then came the +pulsating monotone of the frogs from a far-off pool, the harsh cry of an +owl from an old tree that overhung it, the splash of a mink or musquash, +and nearer by, the light step of a woodchuck, as he cantered off in his +quiet way to his hole in the nearest bank. The laurels were just coming +into bloom,--the yellow lilies, earlier than their fairer sisters, +pushing their golden cups through the water, not content, like those, to +float on the surface of the stream that fed them, emblems of showy +wealth, and, like that, drawing all manner of insects to feed upon them. +The miniature forests of ferns came down to the edge of the stream, their +tall, bending plumes swaying in the night breeze. Sweet odors from +oozing pines, from dewy flowers, from spicy leaves, stole out of the +tangled thickets, and made the whole scene more dream-like with their +faint, mingled suggestions. + +By and by the banks of the river grew lower and marshy, and in place of +the larger forest-trees which had covered them stood slender tamaracks, +sickly, mossy, looking as if they had been moon-struck and were out of +their wits, their tufts of leaves staring off every way from their +spindling branches. The winds came cool and damp out of the +hiding-places among their dark recesses. The country people about here +called this region the "Witches' Hollow," and had many stories about the +strange things that happened there. The Indians used to hold their +"powwows," or magical incantations, upon a broad mound which rose out of +the common level, and where some old hemlocks and beeches formed a dark +grove, which served them as a temple for their demon-worship. There were +many legends of more recent date connected with this spot, some of them +hard to account for, and no superstitious or highly imaginative person +would have cared to pass through it alone in the dead of the night, as +this young girl was doing. + +She knew nothing of all these fables and fancies. Her own singular +experiences in this enchanted region were certainly not suggested by +anything she had heard, and may be considered psychologically curious by +those who would not think of attributing any mystical meaning to them. +We are at liberty to report many things without attempting to explain +them, or committing ourselves to anything beyond the fact that so they +were told us. The reader will find Myrtle's "Vision," as written out at +a later period from her recollections, at the end of this chapter. + +The night was passing, and she meant to be as far away as possible from +the village she had left, before morning. But the boat, like all craft +on country rivers, was leaky, and she had to work until tired, bailing it +out, before she was ready for another long effort. The old tin measure, +which was all she had to bail with, leaked as badly as the boat, and her +task was a tedious one. At last she got it in good trim, and sat down to +her oars with the determination to pull steadily as long as her strength +would hold out. + +Hour after hour she kept at her work, sweeping round the long bends where +the river was hollowing out one bank and building new shore on the +opposite one, so as gradually to shift its channel; by clipper-shaped +islands, sharp at the bows looking up stream, sharp too at the stern, +looking down,--their shape solving the navigator's problem of least +resistance, as a certain young artist had pointed out; by slumbering +villages; by outlying farm-houses; between cornfields where the young +plants were springing up in little thready fountains; in the midst of +stumps where the forest had just been felled; through patches, where the +fire of the last great autumnal drought had turned all the green beauty +of the woods into brown desolation; and again amidst broad expanses of +open meadow stretching as far as the eye could reach in the uncertain +light. A faint yellow tinge was beginning to stain the eastern horizon. +Her boat was floating quietly along, for she had at last taken in her +oars, and she was now almost tired out with toil and excitement. She +rested her head upon her hands, and felt her eyelids closing in spite of +herself. And now there stole upon her ear a low, gentle, distant murmur, +so soft that it seemed almost to mingle with the sound of her own +breathing, but so steady, so uniform, that it soothed her to sleep, as if +it were the old cradle-song the ocean used to sing to her, or the lullaby +of her fair young mother. + +So she glided along, slowly, slowly, down the course of the winding +river, and the flushing dawn kindled around her as she slumbered, and the +low, gentle murmur grew louder and louder, but still she slept, dreaming +of the murmuring ocean. + + + + +APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII. + +MYRTLE HAZARD'S STATEMENT. + +"A Vision seen by me, Myrtle Hazard, aged fifteen, on the night of June +15, 1859. Written out at the request of a friend from my recollections. + +"The place where I saw these sights is called, as I have been told since, +Witches' Hollow. I had never been there before, and did not know that it +was called so, or anything about it. + +"The first strange thing that I noticed was on coming near a kind of hill +or mound that rose out of the low meadows. I saw a burning cross lying +on the slope of that mound. It burned with a pale greenish light, and +did not waste, though I watched it for a long time, as the boat I was in +moved slowly with the current and I had stopped rowing. + +"I know that my eyes were open, and I was awake while I was looking at +this cross. I think my eyes were open when I saw these other +appearances, but I felt just as if I were dreaming while awake. + +"I heard a faint rustling sound, and on looking up I saw many figures +moving around me, and I seemed to see myself among them as if I were +outside of myself. + +"The figures did not walk, but slid or glided with an even movement, as +if without any effort. They made many gestures, and seemed to speak, but +I cannot tell whether I heard what they said, or knew its meaning in some +other way. + +"I knew the faces of some of these figures. They were the same I have +seen in portraits, as long as I can remember, at the old house where I +was brought up, called The Poplars. I saw my father and my mother as +they look in the two small pictures; also my grandmother, and her father +and mother and grandfather, and one other person, who lived a great while +ago. All of these have been long dead, and the longer they had been dead +the less like substance they looked and the more like shadows, so that +the oldest was like one's breath of a frosty morning, but shaped like the +living figure. + +"There was no motion of their breasts, and their lips seemed to be moving +as if they were saying, Breath! Breath! Breath! I thought they wanted +to breathe the air of this world again in my shape, which I seemed to see +as it were empty of myself and of these other selves, like a sponge that +has water pressed out of it. + +"Presently it seemed to me that I returned to myself, and then those +others became part of me by being taken up, one by one, and so lost in my +own life. + +"My father and mother came up, hand in hand, looking more real than any +of the rest. Their figures vanished, and they seemed to have become a +part of me; for I felt all at once the longing to live over the life they +had led, on the sea and in strange countries. + +"Another figure was just like the one we called the Major, who was a very +strong, hearty-looking man, and who is said to have drank hard sometimes, +though there is nothing about it on his tombstone, which I used to read +in the graveyard. It seemed to me that there was something about his +life that I did not want to make a part of mine, but that there was some +right he had in me through my being of his blood, and so his health and +his strength went all through me, and I was always to have what was left +of his life in that shadow-like shape, forming a portion of mine. + +"So in the same way with the shape answering to the portrait of that +famous beauty who was the wife of my great-grandfather, and used to be +called the Pride of the County. + +"And so too with another figure which had the face of that portrait +marked on the back, Ruth Bradford, who married one of my ancestors, and +was before the court, as I have heard, in the time of the witchcraft +trials. + +"There was with the rest a dark, wild-looking woman, with a head-dress of +feathers. She kept as it were in shadow, but I saw something of my own +features in her face. + +"It was on my mind very strongly that the shape of that woman of our +blood who was burned long ago by the Papists came very close to me, and +was in some way made one with mine, and that I feel her presence with me +since, as if she lived again in me; but not always,--only at times,--and +then I feel borne up as if I could do anything in the world. I had a +feeling as if she were my guardian and protector. + +"It seems to me that these, and more, whom I have not mentioned, do +really live over some part of their past lives in my life. I do not +understand it all, and perhaps it can be accounted for in some way I have +not thought of. I write it down as nearly as I can give it from memory, +by request, and if it is printed at this time had rather have all the +real names withheld. + +"MYRTLE HAZARD." + + +NOTE BY THE FRIEND. + +"This statement must be accounted for in some way, or pass into the +category of the supernatural. Probably it was one of those intuitions, +with objective projection, which sometimes come to imaginative young +persons, especially girls, in certain exalted nervous conditions. The +study of the portraits, with the knowledge of some parts of the history +of the persons they represented, and the consciousness of instincts +inherited in all probability from these same ancestors, formed the basis +of Myrtle's 'Vision.' The lives of our progenitors are, as we know, +reproduced in different proportions in ourselves. Whether they as +individuals have any consciousness of it, is another matter. It is +possible that they do get a second as it were fractional life in us. It +might seem that many of those whose blood flows in our veins struggle for +the mastery, and by and by one or more get the predominance, so that we +grow to be like father, or mother, or remoter ancestor, or two or more +are blended in us, not to the exclusion, however, it must be understood, +of a special personality of our own, about which these others are +grouped. Independently of any possible scientific value, this 'Vision' +serves to illustrate the above-mentioned fact of common experience, which +is not sufficiently weighed by most moralists. + +"How much it may be granted to certain young persons to see, not in +virtue of their intellectual gifts, but through those direct channels +which worldly wisdom may possibly close to the luminous influx, each +reader must determine for himself by his own standards of faith and +evidence. + +"One statement of the narrative admits of a simple natural explanation, +which does not allow the lovers of the marvellous to class it with the +quasi-miraculous appearance seen by Colonel Gardiner, and given in full +by Dr. Doddridge in his Life of that remarkable Christian soldier. +Decaying wood is often phosphorescent, as many readers must have seen for +themselves. The country people are familiar with the sight of it in wild +timber-land, and have given it the name of 'Fox-fire.' Two trunks of +trees in this state, lying across each other, will account for the fact +observed, and vindicate the truth of the young girl's story without +requiring us to suppose any exceptional occurrence outside of natural +laws." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +MR. CLEMENT LINDSAY RECEIVES A LETTER, AND BEGINS HIS ANSWER. + +It was already morning when a young man living in the town of Alderbank, +after lying awake for an hour thinking the unutterable thoughts that +nineteen years of life bring to the sleeping and waking dreams of young +people, rose from his bed, and, half dressing himself, sat down at his +desk, from which he took a letter, which he opened and read. It was +written in a delicate, though hardly formed female hand, and crossed like +a checker-board, as is usual with these redundant manuscripts. The +letter was as follows: + +OXBOW VILLAGE, June 13, 1859. + +MY DEAREST CLEMENT,--You was so good to write me such a sweet little bit +of a letter,--only, dear, you never seem to be in quite so good spirits +as you used to be. I wish your Susie was with you to cheer you up; but +no, she must be patient, and you must be patient too, for you are so +ambitious! I have heard you say so many times that nobody could be a +great artist without passing years and years at work, and growing pale +and lean with thinking so hard. You won't grow pale and lean, I hope; +for I do so love to see that pretty color in your cheeks you have always +had ever since I have known you; and besides, I do not believe you will +have to work so very hard to do something great,--you have so much +genius, and people of genius do such beautiful things with so little +trouble. You remember those beautiful lines out of our newspaper I sent +you? Well, Mr. Hopkins told me he wrote those lines in one evening +without stopping! I wish you could see Mr. Hopkins,--he is a very +talented person. I cut out this little piece about him from the paper on +purpose to show you,--for genius loves genius,--and you would like to +hear him read his own poetry,--he reads it beautifully. Please send this +piece from the paper back, as I want to put it in my scrapbook, under his +autograph:-- + +"Our young townsman, Mr. Gifted Hopkins, has proved himself worthy of the +name he bears. His poetical effusions are equally creditable to his head +and his heart, displaying the highest order of genius and powers of +imagination and fancy hardly second to any writer of the age. He is +destined to make a great sensation in the world of letters." + +Mrs. Hopkins is the same good soul she always was. She is very proud of +her son, as is natural, and keeps a copy of everything he writes. I +believe she cries over them every time she reads them. You don't know +how I take to little Sossy and Minthy, those two twins I have written to +you about before. Poor little creatures,--what a cruel thing it was in +their father and mother not to take care of them! What do you think? Old +bachelor Gridley lets them come up into his room, and builds forts and +castles for them with his big books! "The world's coming to an end," +Mrs. Hopkins said the first time he did so. He looks so savage with that +scowl of his, and talks so gruff when he is scolding at things in +general, that nobody would have believed he would have let such little +things come anywhere near him. But he seems to be growing kind to all of +us and everybody. I saw him talking to the Fire-hang-bird the other day. +You know who the Fire-hang-bird is, don't you? Myrtle Hazard her name +is. I wish you could see her. I don't know as I do, though. You would +want to make a statue of her, or a painting, I know. She is so handsome +that all the young men stand round to see her come out of meeting. Some +say that Lawyer Bradshaw is after her; but my! he is ten years older than +she is. She is nothing but a girl, though she looks as if she was +eighteen. She lives up at a place called The Poplars, with an old woman +that is her aunt or something, and nobody seems to be much acquainted +with her except Olive Eveleth, who is the minister's daughter at Saint +Bartholomew's Church. She never has beauxs round her, as some young +girls do--they say that she is not happy with her aunt and another woman +that stays with her, and that is the reason she keeps so much to herself. +The minister came to see me the other day,--Mr. Stoker his name is. I +was all alone, and it frightened me, for he looks, oh, so solemn on +Sundays! But he called me "My dear," and did n't say anything horrid, +you know, about my being such a dreadful, dreadful sinner, as I have +heard of his saying to some people,--but he looked very kindly at me, and +took my hand, and laid his hand on my shoulder like a brother, and hoped +I would come and see him in his study. I suppose I must go, but I don't +want to. I don't seem to like him exactly. + +I hope you love me as well as ever you did. I can't help feeling +sometimes as if you was growing away from me,--you know what I +mean,--getting to be too great a person for such a small person as I am. + +I know I can't always understand you when you talk about art, and that +you know a great deal too much for such a simple girl as I am. Oh, if I +thought I could never make you happy!... There, now! I am almost +ashamed to send this paper so spotted. Gifted Hopkins wrote some +beautiful verses one day on "A Maiden Weeping." He compared the tears +falling from her eyes to the drops of dew which one often sees upon the +flowers in the morning. Is n't it a pretty thought? + +I wish I loved art as well as I do poetry; but I am afraid I have not so +much taste as some girls have. You remember how I liked that picture in +the illustrated magazine, and you said it was horrid. I have been afraid +since to like almost anything, for fear you should tell me some time or +other it was horrid. Don't you think I shall ever learn to know what is +nice from what is n't? + +Oh, dear Clement, I wish you would do one thing to please me. Don't say +no, for you can do everything you try to,--I am sure you can. I want you +to write me some poetry,--just three or four little verses TO SUZIE. Oh, +I should feel so proud to have some lines written all on purpose for me. +Mr. Hopkins wrote some the other day, and printed them in the paper, "To +M---e." I believe he meant them for Myrtle,--the first and last letter +of her name, you see, "M" and "e." + +Your letter was a dear one, only so short! I wish you would tell me all +about what you are doing at Alderbank. Have you made that model of +Innocence that is to have my forehead, and hair parted like mine! Make it +pretty, do, that is a darling. + +Now don't make a face at my letter. It is n't a very good one, I know; +but your poor little Susie does the best she can, and she loves you so +much! + +Now do be nice and write me one little bit of a mite of a poem,--it will +make me just as happy! + +I am very well, and as happy as I can be when you are away. + +Your affectionate SUSIE. + +(Directed to Mr. Clement Lindsay, Alderbank.) + +The envelope of this letter was unbroken, as was before said, when the +young man took it from his desk. He did not tear it with the hot +impatience of some lovers, but cut it open neatly, slowly, one would say +sadly. He read it with an air of singular effort, and yet with a certain +tenderness. When he had finished it, the drops were thick on his +forehead; he groaned and put his hands to his face, which was burning +red. + +This was what the impulse of boyhood, years ago, had brought him to! He +was a stately youth, of noble bearing, of high purpose, of fastidious +taste; and, if his broad forehead, his clear, large blue eyes, his +commanding features, his lips, firm, yet plastic to every change of +thought and feeling, were not an empty mask, might not improbably claim +that Promethean quality of which the girl's letter had spoken,--the +strange, divine, dread gift of genius. + +This poor, simple, innocent, trusting creature, so utterly incapable of +coming into any true relation with his aspiring mind, his large and +strong emotions,--this mere child, all simplicity and goodness, but +trivial and shallow as the little babbling brooklet that ran by his +window to the river, to lose its insignificant being in the swift torrent +he heard rushing over the rocks,--this pretty idol for a weak and kindly +and easily satisfied worshipper, was to be enthroned as the queen of his +affections, to be adopted as the companion of his labors! The boy, led +by the commonest instinct, the mere attraction of biped to its female, +which accident had favored, had thrown away the dearest possession of +manhood,--liberty,--and this bauble was to be his lifelong reward! And +yet not a bauble either, for a pleasing person and a gentle and sweet +nature, which had once made her seem to him the very paragon of +loveliness, were still hers. Alas! her simple words were true,--he had +grown away from her. Her only fault was that she had not grown with him, +and surely he could not reproach her with that. + +"No," he said to himself, "I will never leave her so long as her heart +clings to me. I have been rash, but she shall not pay the forfeit. And +if I may think of myself, my life need not be wretched because she cannot +share all my being with me. The common human qualities are more than all +exceptional gifts. She has a woman's heart; and what talent of mine is +to be named by the love a true woman can offer in exchange for these +divided and cold affections? If it had pleased God to mate me with one +more equal in other ways, who could share my thoughts, who could kindle +my inspiration, who had wings to rise into the air with me as well as +feet to creep by my side upon the earth,--what cannot such a woman do for +a man! + +"What! cast away the flower I took in the bud because it does not show as +I hoped it would when it opened? I will stand by my word; I will be all +as a man that I promised as a boy. Thank God, she is true and pure and +sweet. My nest will be a peaceful one; but I must take wing +alone,--alone." + +He drew one long sigh, and the cloud passed from his countenance. He +must answer that letter now, at once. There were reasons, he thought, +which made it important. And so, with the cheerfulness which it was kind +and becoming to show, so far as possible, and yet with a little +excitement on one particular point, which was the cause of his writing so +promptly, he began his answer. + +ALDERBANK, Thursday morning, June 16, 1859. + +MY DEAR SUSIE,--I have just been reading your pleasant letter; and if I +do not send you the poem you ask for so eloquently, I will give you a +little bit of advice, which will do just as well,--won't it, my dear? I +was interested in your account of various things going on at Oxbow +Village. I am very glad you find young Mr. Hopkins so agreeable a +friend. His poetry is better than some which I see printed in the +village papers, and seems generally unexceptionable in its subjects and +tone. I do not believe he is a dangerous companion, though the habit of +writing verse does not always improve the character. I think I have seen +it make more than one of my acquaintances idle, conceited, sentimental, +and frivolous,--perhaps it found them so already. Don't make too much of +his talent, and particularly don't let him think that because he can +write verses he has nothing else to do in this world. That is for his +benefit, dear, and you must skilfully apply it. + +Now about yourself. My dear Susie, there was something in your letter +that did not please me. You speak of a visit from the Rev. Mr. Stoker, +and of his kind, brotherly treatment, his cordiality of behavior, and his +asking you to visit him in his study. I am very glad to hear you say +that you "don't seem to like him." He is very familiar, it seems to me, +for so new an acquaintance. What business had he to be laying his hand +on your shoulder? I should like to see him try these free-and-easy ways +in my presence! He would not have taken that liberty, my dear! No, he +was alone with you, and thought it safe to be disrespectfully familiar. +I want you to maintain your dignity always with such persons, and I beg +you not to go to the study of this clergyman, unless some older friend +goes with you on every occasion, and sits through the visit. I must +speak plainly to you, my dear, as I have a right to. If the minister has +anything of importance to say, let it come through the lips of some +mature person. It may lose something of the fervor with which it would +have been delivered at first hand, but the great rules of Christian life +are not so dependent on the particular individual who speaks them, that +you must go to this or that young man to find out what they are. If to +any man, I should prefer the old gentleman whom you have mentioned in +your letters, Father Pemberton. You understand me, my dear girl, and the +subject is not grateful. You know how truly I am interested in all that +relates to you,--that I regard you with an affection which-- + + HELP! HELP! HELP! + +A cry as of a young person's voice was heard faintly, coming from the +direction of the river. Something in the tone of it struck to his heart, +and he sprang as if he had been stabbed. He flung open his chamber +window and leaped from it to the ground. He ran straight to the bank of +the river by the side of which the village of Alderbank was built, a +little farther down the stream than the house in which he was living. + +Everybody that travels in that region knows the beautiful falls which +break the course of the river just above the village; narrow and swift, +and surrounded by rocks of such picturesque forms that they are sought +and admired by tourists. The stream was now swollen, and rushed in a +deep and rapid current over the ledges, through the rocky straits, +plunging at last in tumult and foam, with loud, continuous roar, into the +depths below the cliff from which it tumbled. + +A short distance above the fall there projected from the water a rock +which had, by parsimonious saving during a long course of years, hoarded +a little soil, out of which a small tuft of bushes struggled to support +a decent vegetable existence. The high waters had nearly submerged it, +but a few slender twigs were seen above their surface. + +A skiff was lying close to this rock, between it and the brink of the +fall, which was but a few rods farther down. In the skiff was a youth of +fourteen or fifteen years, holding by the slender twigs, the boat +dragging at them all the time, and threatening to tear them away and go +over the fall. It was not likely that the boy would come to shore alive +if it did. There were stories, it is true, that the Indians used to +shoot the fall in their canoes with safety; but everybody knew that at +least three persons had been lost by going over it since the town was +settled; and more than one dead body had been found floating far down the +river, with bruises and fractured bones, as if it had taken the same +fatal plunge. + +There was no time to lose. Clement ran a little way up the river-bank, +flung off his shoes, and sprang from the bank as far as he could leap +into the water. The current swept him toward the fall, but he worked +nearer and nearer the middle of the stream. He was making for the rock, +thinking he could plant his feet upon it and at the worst hold the boat +until he could summon other help by shouting. He had barely got his feet +upon the rock, when the twigs by which the boy was holding gave way. He +seized the boat, but it dragged him from his uncertain footing, and with +a desperate effort he clambered over its side and found himself its +second doomed passenger. + +There was but an instant for thought. + +"Sit still," he said, "and, just as we go over, put your arms round me +under mine, and don't let go for your life!" + +He caught up the single oar, and with a few sharp paddle-strokes brought +the skiff into the blackest centre of the current, where it was deepest, +and would plunge them into the deepest pool. + +"Hold your breath! God save us! Now!" + +They rose, as if with one will, and stood for an instant, the arms of the +younger closely embracing the other as he had directed. + +A sliding away from beneath them of the floor on which they stood, as the +drop fails under the feet of a felon. A great rush of air, and a mighty, +awful, stunning roar,--an involuntary gasp, a choking flood of water that +came bellowing after them, and hammered them down into the black depths +so far that the young man, though used to diving and swimming long +distances underwater, had well-nigh yielded to the fearful need of air, +and sucked in his death in so doing. + +The boat came up to the surface, broken in twain, splintered, a load of +firewood for those who raked the river lower down. It had turned +crosswise, and struck the rocks. A cap rose to the surface, such a one +as boys wear,--the same that boy had on. And then--after how many +seconds by the watch cannot be known, but after a time long enough, as +the young man remembered it, to live his whole life over in +memory--Clement Lindsay felt the blessed air against his face, and, +taking a great breath, came to his full consciousness. The arms of the +boy were still locked around him as in the embrace of death. A few +strokes brought him to the shore, dragging his senseless burden with him. + +He unclasped the arms that held him so closely encircled, and laid the +slender form of the youth he had almost died to save gently upon the +grass. It was as if dead. He loosed the ribbon that was round the neck, +he tore open the checked shirt-- + +The story of Myrtle Hazard's sex was told; but she was deaf to his cry of +surprise, and no blush came to her cold cheek. Not too late, perhaps, to +save her,--not too late to try to save her, at least! + +He placed his lips to hers, and filled her breast with the air from his +own panting chest. Again and again he renewed these efforts, hoping, +doubting, despairing,--once more hoping, and at last, when he had almost +ceased to hope, she gasped, she breathed, she moaned, and rolled her eyes +wildly round her, she was born again into this mortal life. + +He caught her up in his arms, bore her to the house, laid her on a sofa, +and, having spent his strength in this last effort, reeled and fell, and +lay as one over whom have just been whispered the words, + +"He is gone." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +MR. CLEMENT LINDSAY FINISHES HIS LETTER--WHAT CAME OF IT. + +The first thing Clement Lindsay did, when he was fairly himself again, +was to finish his letter to Susan Posey. He took it up where it left +off, "with an affection which----" and drew a long dash, as above. It was +with great effort he wrote the lines which follow, for he had got an ugly +blow on the forehead, and his eyes were "in mourning," as the gentlemen +of the ring say, with unbecoming levity. + +"An adventure! Just as I was writing these last words, I heard the cry +of a young person, as it sounded, for help. I ran to the river and +jumped in, and had the pleasure of saving a life. I got some bruises +which have laid me up for a day or two; but I am getting over them very +well now, and you need not worry about me at all. I will write again +soon; so pray do not fret yourself, for I have had no hurt that will +trouble me for any time." + +Of course, poor Susan Posey burst out crying, and cried as if her heart +would break. Oh dear! Oh dear! what should she do! He was almost +killed, she knew he was, or he had broken some of his bones. Oh dear! Oh +dear! She would go and see him, there!--she must and would. He would +die, she knew he would,--and so on. + +It was a singular testimony to the evident presence of a human element in +Mr. Bytes Gridley that the poor girl, on her extreme trouble, should +think of him as a counsellor. But the wonderful relenting kind of look +on his grave features as he watched the little twins tumbling about his +great books, and certain marks of real sympathy he had sometimes shown +for her in her lesser woes, encouraged her, and she went straight to his +study, letter in hand. She gave a timid knock at the door of that awful +sanctuary. + +"Come in, Susan Posey," was its answer, in a pleasant tone. The old +master knew her light step and the maidenly touch of her small hand on +the panel. + +What a sight! 'there were Sossy and Minthy intrenched in a Sebastopol +which must have cost a good half-hour's engineering, and the terrible +Bytes Gridley besieging the fortress with hostile manifestations of the +most singular character. He was actually discharging a large sugar-plum +at the postern gate, which having been left unclosed, the missile would +certainly have reached one of the garrison, when he paused as the door +opened, and the great round spectacles and four wide, staring infants' +eyes were levelled at Miss Susan Posey. + +She almost forgot her errand, grave as it was, in astonishment at this +manifestation. The old man had emptied his shelves of half their folios +to build up the fort, in the midst of which he had seated the two +delighted and uproarious babes. There was his Cave's "Historia +Literaria," and Sir Walter Raleigh's "History of the World," and a whole +array of Christian Fathers, and Plato, and Aristotle, and Stanley's book +of Philosophers, with Effigies, and the Junta Galen, and the Hippocrates +of Foesius, and Walton's Polyglot, supported by Father Sanchez on one +side and Fox's "Acts and Monuments" on the other,--an odd collection, as +folios from lower shelves are apt to be. + +The besieger discharged his sugar-plum, which was so well aimed that it +fell directly into the lap of Minthy, who acted with it as if the +garrison had been on short rations for some time. + +He saw at once, on looking up, that there was trouble. "What now, Susan +Posey, my dear?" + +"O Mr. Gridley, I am in such trouble! What shall I do? What shall I +do?" + +She turned back the name and the bottom of the letter in such a way that +Mr. Gridley could read nothing but the few lines relating their +adventure. + +"So Mr. Clement Lindsay has been saving a life, has he, and got some hard +knocks doing it, hey, Susan Posey? Well, well, Clement Lindsay is a +brave fellow, and there is no need of hiding his name, my child. Let me +take the letter again a moment, Susan Posey. What is the date of it? +June 16th. Yes,--yes,--yes!" + +He read the paragraph over again, and the signature too, if he wanted to; +for poor Susan had found that her secret was hardly opaque to those round +spectacles and the eyes behind them, and, with a not unbecoming blush, +opened the fold of the letter before she handed it back. + +"No, no, Susan Posey. He will come all right. His writing is steady, +and if he had broken any bones he would have mentioned it. It's a thing +his wife will be proud of, if he is ever married, Susan Posey," +(blushes,) "and his children too," (more blushes running up to her back +hair,) "and there 's nothing to be worried about. But I'll tell you +what, my dear, I've got a little business that calls me down the river +tomorrow, and I shouldn't mind stopping an hour at Alderbank and seeing +how our young friend Clement Lindsay is; and then, if he was going to +have a long time of it, why we could manage it somehow that any friend +who had any special interest in him could visit him, just to while away +the tiresomeness of being sick. That's it, exactly. I'll stop at +Alderbank, Susan Posey. Just clear up these two children for me, will +you, my dear? Isosceles, come now,--that 's a good child. Helminthia, +carry these sugar-plums down--stairs for me, and take good care of them, +mind!" + +It was a case of gross bribery and corruption, for the fortress was +immediately, evacuated on the receipt of a large paper of red and white +comfits, and the garrison marched down--stairs much like conquerors, +under the lead of the young lady, who was greatly eased in mind by the +kind words and the promise of Mr. Byles Gridley. + +But he, in the mean time, was busy with thoughts she did not suspect. "A +young person," he said to himself,--"why a young person? Why not say a +boy, if it was a boy? What if this should be our handsome truant?--'June +16th, Thursday morning!'--About time to get to Alderbank by the river, I +should think. None of the boats missing? What then? She may have made a +raft, or picked up some stray skiff. Who knows? And then got +shipwrecked, very likely. There are rapids and falls farther along the +river. It will do no harm to go down there and look about, at any rate." + +On Saturday morning, therefore, Mr. Byles Gridley set forth to procure a +conveyance to make a visit, as he said, dawn the river, and perhaps be +gone a day or two. He went to a stable in the village, and asked if they +could let him have a horse. + +The man looked at him with that air of native superiority which the +companionship of the generous steed confers on all his associates, down +to the lightest weight among the jockeys. + +"Wal, I hain't got nothin' in the shape of a h'oss, Mr. Gridley. I've got +a mare I s'pose I could let y' have." + +"Oh, very well," said the old master, with a twinkle in his eye as sly as +the other's wink,--he had parried a few jokes in his time,--"they charge +half-price for mares always, I believe." + +That was a new view of the subject. It rather took the wind out of the +stable-keeper, and set a most ammoniacal fellow, who stood playing with a +currycomb, grinning at his expense. But he rallied presently. + +"Wal, I b'lieve they do for some mares, when they let 'em to some folks; +but this here ain't one o' them mares, and you ain't one o' them folks. +All my cattle's out but this critter, 'n' I don't jestly want to have +nobody drive her that ain't pretty car'ful,--she's faast, I tell +ye,--don't want no whip.--How fur d' d y' want t' go?" + +Mr. Gridley was quite serious now, and let the man know that he wanted +the mare and a light covered wagon, at once, to be gone for one or two +days, and would waive the question of sex in the matter of payment. + +Alderbank was about twenty miles down the river by the road. On arriving +there, he inquired for the house where a Mr. Lindsay lived. There was +only one Lindsay family in town,--he must mean Dr. William Lindsay. His +house was up there a little way above the village, lying a few rods back +from the river. + +He found the house without difficulty, and knocked at the door. A +motherly-looking woman opened it immediately, and held her hand up as if +to ask him to speak and move softly. + +"Does Mr. Clement Lindsay live here?" + +"He is staying here for the present. He is a nephew of ours. He is in +his bed from an injury." + +"Nothing very serious, I hope?" + +"A bruise on his head,--not very bad, but the doctor was afraid of +erysipelas. Seems to be doing well enough now." + +"Is there a young person here, a stranger?" + +"There is such a young person here. Do you come with any authority to +make inquiries?" + +"I do. A young friend of mine is missing, and I thought it possible I +might learn something here about it. Can I see this young person?" + +The matron came nearer to Byles Gridley, and said: "This person is a +young woman disguised as a boy. She was rescued by my nephew at the risk +of his life, and she has been delirious ever since she has recovered her +consciousness. She was almost too far gone to be resuscitated, but +Clement put his mouth to hers and kept her breathing until her own breath +returned and she gradually came to." + +"Is she violent in her delirium?" + +"Not now. No; she is quiet enough, but wandering,--wants to know where +she is, and whose the strange faces are,--mine and my husband's,--that 's +Dr. Lindsay,--and one of my daughters, who has watched with her." + +"If that is so, I think I had better see her. If she is the person I +suspect her to be, she will know me; and a familiar face may bring back +her recollections and put a stop to her wanderings. If she does not know +me, I will not stay talking with her. I think she will, if she is the +one I am seeking after. There is no harm in trying." + +Mrs. Lindsay took a good long look at the old man. There was no +mistaking his grave, honest, sturdy, wrinkled, scholarly face. His voice +was assured and sincere in its tones. His decent black coat was just +what a scholar's should be,--old, not untidy, a little shiny at the +elbows with much leaning on his study-table, but neatly bound at the +cuffs, where worthy Mrs. Hopkins had detected signs of fatigue and come +to the rescue. His very hat looked honest as it lay on the table. It +had moulded itself to a broad, noble head, that held nothing but what was +true and fair, with a few harmless crotchets just to fill in with, and it +seemed to know it. + +The good woman gave him her confidence at once. "Is the person you are +seeking a niece or other relative of yours?" + +(Why did not she ask if the girl was his daughter? What is that look of +paternity and of maternity which observing and experienced mothers and +old nurses know so well in men and in women?) + +"No, she is not a relative. But I am acting for those who are." + +"Wait a moment and I will go and see that the room is all right." + +She returned presently. "Follow me softly, if you please. She is +asleep,--so beautiful,--so innocent!" + +Byles Gridley, Master of Arts, retired professor, more than sixty years +old, childless, loveless, stranded in a lonely study strewed with wrecks +of the world's thought, his work in life finished, his one literary +venture gone down with all it held, with nobody to care for him but +accidental acquaintances, moved gently to the side of the bed and looked +upon the pallid, still features of Myrtle Hazard. He strove hard against +a strange feeling that was taking hold of him, that was making his face +act rebelliously, and troubling his eyes with sudden films. He made a +brief stand against this invasion. "A weakness,--a weakness!" he said to +himself. "What does all this mean? Never such a thing for these twenty +years! Poor child! poor child!--Excuse me, madam," he said, after a +little interval, but for what offence he did not mention. A great deal +might be forgiven, even to a man as old as Byles Gridley, looking upon +such a face,--so lovely, yet so marked with the traces of recent +suffering, and even now showing by its changes that she was struggling in +some fearful dream. Her forehead contracted, she started with a slight +convulsive movement, and then her lips parted, and the cry escaped from +them,--how heart-breaking when there is none to answer it,--"Mother!" + +Gone back again through all the weary, chilling years of her girlhood to +that hardly remembered morning of her life when the cry she uttered was +answered by the light of loving eyes, the kiss of clinging lips, the +embrace of caressing arms! + +"It is better to wake her," Mrs. Lindsay said; "she is having a troubled +dream. Wake up, my child, here is a friend waiting to see you." + +She laid her hand very gently on Myrtle's forehead. Myrtle opened her +eyes, but they were vacant as yet. + +"Are we dead?" she said. "Where am I? This is n't heaven--there are no +angels--Oh, no, no, no! don't send me to the other place--fifteen +years,--only fifteen years old--no father, no mother--nobody loved me. +Was it wicked in me to live?" Her whole theological training was +condensed in that last brief question. + +The, old man took her hand and looked her in the face, with a wonderful +tenderness in his squared features. "Wicked to live, my dear? No +indeed! Here! look at me, my child; don't you know your old friend Byles +Gridley?" + +She was awake now. The sight of a familiar countenance brought back a +natural train of thought. But her recollection passed over everything +that had happened since Thursday morning. + +"Where is the boat I was in?" she said. "I have just been in the water, +and I was dreaming that I was drowned. Oh! Mr. Gridley, is that you? +Did you pull me out of the water?" + +"No, my dear, but you are out of it, and safe and sound: that is the main +point. How do you feel now you are awake?" + +She yawned, and stretched her arms and looked round, but did not answer +at first. This was all natural, and a sign that she was coming right. +She looked down at her dress. It was not inappropriate to her sex, being +a loose gown that belonged to one of the girls in the house. + +"I feel pretty well," she answered, "but a little confused. My boat will +be gone, if you don't run and stop it now. How did you get me into dry +clothes so quick?" + +Master Byles Gridley found himself suddenly possessed by a large and +luminous idea of the state of things, and made up his mind in a moment as +to what he must do. There was no time to be lost. Every day, every +hour, of Myrtle's absence was not only a source of anxiety and a cause of +useless searching but it gave room for inventive fancies to imagine evil. +It was better to run some risk of injury to health, than to have her +absence prolonged another day. + +"Has this adventure been told about in the village, Mrs. Lindsay?" + +"No, we thought it best to wait until she could tell her own story, +expecting her return to consciousness every hour, and thinking there +might be some reason for her disguise which it would be kinder to keep +quiet about." + +"You know nothing about her, then?" + +"Not a word. It was a great question whether to tell the story and make +inquiries; but she was safe, and could hardly bear disturbance, and, my +dear sir, it seemed too probable that there was some sad story behind +this escape in disguise, and that the poor child might need shelter and +retirement. We meant to do as well as we could for her." + +"All right, Mrs. Lindsay. You do not know who she is, then?" + +"No, sir, and perhaps it is as well that I should not know. Then I shall +not have to answer any questions about it." + +"Very good, madam,--just as it should be. And your family, are they as +discreet as yourself?" + +"Not one word of the whole story has been or will be told by any one of +us. That was agreed upon among us." + +"Now then, madam. My name, as you heard me say, is Byles Gridley. Your +husband will know it, perhaps; at any rate I will wait until he comes +back. This child is of good family and of good name. I know her well, +and mean, with your kind help, to save her from the consequences which +her foolish adventure might have brought upon her. Before the bells ring +for meeting to-morrow morning this girl must be in her bed at her home, +at Oxbow Village, and we must keep her story to ourselves as far as may +be. It will all blow over, if we do. The gossips will only know that +she was upset in the river and cared for by some good people,--good +people and sensible people too, Mrs. Lindsay. And now I want to see the +young man that rescued my friend here,--Clement Lindsay, I have heard his +name before." + +Clement was not a beauty for the moment, but Master Gridley saw well +enough that he was a young man of the right kind. He knew them at sight, +fellows with lime enough in their bones and iron enough in their blood to +begin with,--shapely, large-nerved, firm-fibred and fine-fibred, with +well-spread bases to their heads for the ground-floor of the faculties, +and well-vaulted arches for the upper range of apprehensions and +combinations. "Plenty of basements," he used to say, "without attics and +skylights. Plenty of skylights without rooms enough and space enough +below." But here was "a three-story brain," he said to himself as he +looked at it, and this was the youth who was to find his complement in +our pretty little Susan Posey! His judgment may seem to have been hasty, +but he took the measure of young men of twenty at sight from long and +sagacious observation, as Nurse Byloe knew the "heft" of a baby the +moment she fixed her old eyes on it. + +Clement was well acquainted with Byles Gridley, though he had never seen +him, for Susan's letters had had a good deal to say about him of late. +It was agreed between them that the story should be kept as quiet as +possible, and that the young girl should not know the name of her +deliverer,--it might save awkward complications. It was not likely that +she would be disposed to talk of her adventure, which had ended so +disastrously, and thus the whole story would soon die out. + +The effect of the violent shock she had experienced was to change the +whole nature of Myrtle for the time. Her mind was unsettled: she could +hardly recall anything except the plunge over the fall. She was +perfectly docile and plastic,--was ready to go anywhere Mr. Gridley +wanted her to go, without any sign of reluctance. And so it was agreed +that he should carry her back in his covered wagon that very night. All +possible arrangements were made to render her journey comfortable. The +fast mare had to trot very gently, and the old master would stop and +adjust the pillows from time to time, and administer the restoratives +which the physician had got ready, all as naturally and easily as if he +had been bred a nurse, vastly to his own surprise, and with not a little +gain to his self-appreciation. He was a serviceable kind of body on +occasion, after all, was he not, hey, Mr. Byles Gridley? he said to +himself. + +At half past four o'clock on Sunday morning the shepherd brought the +stray lamb into the paved yard at The Poplars, and roused the slumbering +household to receive back the wanderer. + +It was the Irishwoman, Kitty Fagan, huddled together in such amorphous +guise, that she looked as if she had been fitted in a tempest of +petticoats and a whirlwind of old shawls, who presented herself at the +door. + +But there was a very warm heart somewhere in that queer-looking bundle of +clothes, and it was not one of those that can throb or break in silence. +When she saw the long covered wagon, and the grave face of the old +master, she thought it was all over with the poor girl she loved, and +that this was the undertaker's wagon bringing back only what had once +been Myrtle Hazard. She screamed aloud,--so wildly that Myrtle lifted +her head from the pillow against which she had rested it, and started +forward. + +The Irishwoman looked at her for a moment to assure herself that it was +the girl she loved, and not her ghost. Then it all came over her,--she +had been stolen by thieves, who had carried her off by night, and been +rescued by the brave old man who had brought her back. What crying and +kisses and prayers and blessings were poured forth, in a confusion of +which her bodily costume was a fitting type, those who know the +vocabulary and the enthusiasm of her eloquent race may imagine better +than we could describe it. + +The welcome of the two other women was far less demonstrative. There +were awful questions to be answered before the kind of reception she was +to have could be settled. What they were, it is needless to suggest; but +while Miss Silence was weeping, first with joy that her "responsibility" +was removed, then with a fair share of pity and kindness, and other +lukewarm emotions,--while Miss Badlam waited for an explanation before +giving way to her feelings,--Mr. Gridley put the essential facts before +them in a few words. She had gone down the river some miles in her boat, +which was upset by a rush of the current, and she had come very near +being drowned. She was got out, however, by a person living near by, and +cared for by some kind women in a house near the river, where he had been +fortunate enough to discover her.--Who cut her hair off? Perhaps those +good people,--she had been out of her head. She was alive and unharmed, +at any rate, wanting only a few days' rest. They might be very thankful +to get her back, and leave her to tell the rest of her story when she had +got her strength and memory, for she was not quite herself yet, and might +not be for some days. + +And so there she was at last laid in her own bed, listening again to the +ripple of the waters beneath her, Miss Silence sitting on one side +looking as sympathetic as her insufficient nature allowed her to look; +the Irishwoman uncertain between delight at Myrtle's return and sorrow +for her condition; and Miss Cynthia Badlam occupying herself about +house-matters, not unwilling to avoid the necessity of displaying her +conflicting emotions. + +Before he left the house, Mr. Gridley repeated the statement is the most +precise manner,--some miles down the river--upset and nearly +drowned--rescued almost dead--brought to and cared for by kind women in +the house where he, Byles Gridley, found her. These were the facts, and +nothing more than this was to be told at present. They had better be +made known at once, and the shortest and best way would be to have it +announced by the minister at meeting that forenoon. With their +permission, he would himself write the note for Mr. Stoker to read, and +tell the other ministers that they might announce it to their people. + +The bells rang for meeting, but the little household at The Poplars did +not add to the congregation that day. In the mean time Kitty Fagan had +gone down with Mr. Byles Gridley's note, to carry it to the Rev. Mr. +Stoker. But, on her way, she stopped at the house of one Mrs. Finnegan, +a particular friend of hers; and the great event of the morning +furnishing matter for large discourse, and various social allurements +adding to the fascination of having a story to tell, Kitty Fagan forgot +her note until meeting had begun and the minister had read the text of +his sermon. "Bless my soul! and sure I 've forgot ahl about the letter!" +she cried all at once, and away she tramped for the meeting-house. The +sexton took the note, which was folded, and said he would hand it up to +the pulpit after the sermon,--it would not do to interrupt the preacher. + +The Rev. Mr. Stoker had, as was said, a somewhat remarkable gift in +prayer,--an endowment by no means confined to profoundly spiritual +persons,--in fact, not rarely owing much of its force to a strong animal +nature underlying the higher attributes. The sweet singer of Israel +would never have written such petitions and such hymns if his manhood had +been less complete; the flavor of remembered frailties could not help +giving a character to his most devout exercises, or they would not have +come quite home to our common humanity. But there is no gift more +dangerous to the humility and sincerity of a minister. While his spirit +ought to be on its knees before the throne of grace, it is too apt to be +on tiptoe, following with admiring look the flight of its own rhetoric. +The essentially intellectual character of an extemporaneous composition +spoken to the Creator with the consciousness that many of his creatures +are listening to criticise or to admire, is the great argument for set +forms of prayer. + +The congregation on this particular Sunday was made up chiefly of women +and old men. The young men were hunting after Myrtle Hazard. Mr. Byles +Gridley was in his place, wondering why the minister did not read his +notice before the prayer. This prayer, was never reported, as is the +questionable custom with regard to some of these performances, but it was +wrought up with a good deal of rasping force and broad pathos. When he +came to pray for "our youthful sister, missing from her pious home, +perhaps nevermore to return to her afflicted relatives," and the women +and old men began crying, Byles Gridley was on the very point of getting +up and cutting short the whole matter by stating the simple fact that she +had got back, all right, and suggesting that he had better pray for some +of the older and tougher sinners before him. But on the whole it would +be more decorous to wait, and perhaps he was willing to hear what the +object of his favorite antipathy had to say about it. So he waited +through the prayer. He waited through the hymn, "Life is the time"--He +waited to hear the sermon. + +The minister gave out his text from the Book of Esther, second chapter, +seventh verse: "For she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was +fair and beautiful." It was to be expected that the reverend gentleman, +who loved to produce a sensation, would avail himself of the excitable +state of his audience to sweep the key-board of their emotions, while, as +we may, say, all the stops were drawn out. His sermon was from notes; +for, though absolutely extemporaneous composition may be acceptable to +one's Maker, it is not considered quite the thing in speaking to one's +fellow-mortals. He discoursed for a time on the loss of parents, and on +the dangers to which the unfortunate orphan is exposed. Then he spoke of +the peculiar risks of the tender female child, left without its natural +guardians. Warming with his subject, he dilated with wonderful unction +on the temptations springing from personal attractions. He pictured the +"fair and beautiful" women of Holy Writ, lingering over their names with +lover-like devotion. He brought Esther before his audience, bathed and +perfumed for the royal presence of Ahasuerus. He showed them the sweet +young Ruth, lying down in her innocence at the feet of the lord of the +manor. He dwelt with special luxury on the charms which seduced the +royal psalmist,--the soldier's wife for whom he broke the commands of the +decalogue, and the maiden for whose attentions, in his cooler years, he +violated the dictates of prudence and propriety. All this time Byles +Gridley had his stern eyes on him. And while he kindled into passionate +eloquence on these inspiring themes, poor Bathsheba, whom her mother had +sent to church that she might get a little respite from her home duties, +felt her blood growing cold in her veins, as the pallid image of the +invalid wife, lying on her bed of suffering, rose in the midst of the +glowing pictures which borrowed such warmth from her husband's +imagination. + +The sermon, with its hinted application to the event of the past week, +was over at last. The shoulders of the nervous women were twitching with +sobs. The old men were crying in their vacant way. But all the while the +face of Byles Gridley, firm as a rock in the midst of this lachrymal +inundation, was kept steadily on the preacher, who had often felt the +look that came through the two round glasses searching into the very +marrow of his bones. + +As the sermon was finished, the sexton marched up through the broad aisle +and handed the note over the door of the pulpit to the clergyman, who was +wiping his face after the exertion of delivering his discourse. Mr. +Stoker looked at it, started, changed color,--his vision of "The Dangers +of Beauty, a Sermon printed by Request," had vanished,--and passed the +note to Father Pemberton, who sat by him in the pulpit. With much pains +he deciphered its contents, for his eyes were dim with years, and, having +read it, bowed his head upon his hands in silent thanksgiving. Then he +rose in the beauty of his tranquil and noble old age, so touched with the +message he had to proclaim to his people, that the three deep furrows on +his forehead, which some said he owed to the three dogmas of original +sin, predestination, and endless torment, seemed smoothed for the moment, +and his face was as that of an angel while he spoke. + +"Sisters and Brethren,--Rejoice with us, for we have found our lamb which +had strayed from the fold. This our daughter was dead and is alive +again; she was lost and is found. Myrtle Hazard, rescued from great +peril of the waters, and cared for by good Samaritans, is now in her +home. Thou, O Lord, who didst let the water-flood overflow her, didst +not let the deep swallow her up, nor the pit shut its mouth upon her. +Let us return our thanks to the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God +of Jacob, who is our God and Father, and who hath wrought this great +deliverance." + +After his prayer, which it tried him sorely to utter in unbroken tones, +he gave out the hymn, + + "Lord, thou hast heard thy servant cry, + And rescued from the grave;" + +but it was hardly begun when the leading female voice trembled and +stopped,--and another,--and then a third,--and Father Pemberton, seeing +that they were all overcome, arose and stretched out his arms, and +breathed over them his holy benediction. + +The village was soon alive with the news. The sexton forgot the +solemnity of the Sabbath, and the bell acted as if it was crazy, tumbling +heels over head at such a rate, and with such a clamor, that a good many +thought there was a fire, and, rushing out from every quarter, instantly +caught the great news with which the air was ablaze. + +A few of the young men who had come back went even further in their +demonstrations. They got a small cannon in readiness, and without +waiting for the going down of the sun, began firing rapidly, upon which +the Rev. Mr. Stoker sallied forth to put a stop to this violation of the +Sabbath. But in the mean time it was heard on all the hills, far and +near. Some said they were firing in the hope of raising the corpse; but +many who heard the bells ringing their crazy peals guessed what had +happened. Before night the parties were all in, one detachment bearing +the body of the bob-tailed catamount swung over a pole, like the mighty +cluster of grapes from Eshcol, and another conveying with wise precaution +that monstrous snapping-turtle which those of our friends who wish to see +will find among the specimens marked Chelydra, Serpentine in the great +collection at Cantabridge. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +VEXED WITH A DEVIL. + +It was necessary at once to summon a physician to advise as to the +treatment of Myrtle, who had received a shock, bodily and mental, not +lightly to be got rid of, and very probably to be followed by serious and +varied disturbances. Her very tranquillity was suspicious, for there +must be something of exhaustion in it, and the reaction must come sooner +or later. + +Old Dr. Lemuel Hurlbut, at the age of ninety-two, very deaf, very nearly +blind, very feeble, liable to odd lapses of memory, was yet a wise +counsellor in doubtful and difficult cases, and on rare occasions was +still called upon to exercise his ancient skill. Here was a case in +which a few words from him might soothe the patient and give confidence +to all who were interested in her. Miss Silence Withers went herself to +see him. + +"Miss Withers, father, wants to talk with you about her niece, Miss +Hazard," said Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut. + +"Miss Withers, Miss Withers?--Oh, Silence Withers,--lives up at The +Poplars. How's the Deacon, Miss Withers?" [Ob. 1810.] + +"My grandfather is not living, Dr. Hurlbut," she screamed into his ear. + +"Dead, is he? Well, it isn't long since he was with us; and they come +and go,--they come and go. I remember his father, Major Gideon Withers. +He had a great red feather on training-days,--that was what made me +remember him. Who did you say was sick and wanted to see me, Fordyce?" + +"Myrtle Hazard, father,--she has had a narrow escape from drowning, and +it has left her in a rather nervous state. They would like to have you +go up to The Poplars and take a look at her. You remember Myrtle Hazard? +She is the great-granddaughter of your old friend the Deacon." + +He had to wait a minute before his thoughts would come to order; with a +little time, the proper answer would be evolved by the slow automatic +movement of the rusted mental machinery. + +After the silent moment: "Myrtle Hazard, Myrtle Hazard,--yes, yes, to be +sure! The old Withers stock,--good constitutions,--a little apt to be +nervous, one or two of 'em. I've given 'em a good deal of valerian and +assafoetida,--not quite so much since the new blood came in. There is +n't the change in folks people think,--same thing over and over again. +I've seen six fingers on a child that had a six-fingered great-uncle, and +I've seen that child's grandchild born with six fingers. Does this girl +like to have her own way pretty well, like the rest of the family?" + +"A little too well, I suspect, father. You will remember all about her +when you come to see her and talk with her. She would like to talk with +you, and her aunt wants to see you too; they think there's nobody like +the 'old Doctor'." + +He was not too old to be pleased with this preference, and said he was +willing to go when they were ready. With no small labor of preparation +he was at last got to the house, and crept with his son's aid up to the +little room over the water, where his patient was still lying. + +There was a little too much color in Myrtle's cheeks and a glistening +lustre in her eyes that told of unnatural excitement. It gave a strange +brilliancy to her beauty, and might have deceived an unpractised +observer. The old man looked at her long and curiously, his imperfect +sight excusing the closeness of his scrutiny. + +He laid his trembling hand upon her forehead, and then felt her pulse +with his shriveled fingers. He asked her various questions about +herself, which she answered with a tone not quite so calm as natural, but +willingly and intelligently. They thought she seemed to the old Doctor +to be doing very well, for he spoke cheerfully to her, and treated her in +such a way that neither she nor any of those around her could be alarmed. +The younger physician was disposed to think she was only suffering from +temporary excitement, and that it would soon pass off. + +They left the room to talk it over. + +"It does not amount to much, I suppose, father," said Dr. Fordyce +Hurlbut. "You made the pulse about ninety,--a little hard,--did n't you; +as I did? Rest, and low diet for a day or two, and all will be right, +won't it?" + +Was it the feeling of sympathy, or was it the pride of superior sagacity, +that changed the look of the old man's wrinkled features? "Not so +fast,--not so fast, Fordyce," he said. "I've seen that look on another +face of the same blood,--it 's a great many years ago, and she was dead +before you were born, my boy,--but I've seen that look, and it meant +trouble then, and I'm afraid it means trouble now. I see some danger of +a brain fever. And if she doesn't have that, then look out for some +hysteric fits that will make mischief. Take that handkerchief off of her +head, and cut her hair close, and keep her temples cool, and put some +drawing plasters to the soles of her feet, and give her some of my +pilulae compositae, and follow them with some doses of sal polychrest. +I've been through it all before--in that same house. Live folks are only +dead folks warmed over. I can see 'em all in that girl's face, Handsome +Judith, to begin with. And that queer woman, the Deacon's mother,--there +'s where she gets that hystericky look. Yes, and the black-eyed woman +with the Indian blood in her,--look out for that,--look out for that. +And--and--my son, do you remember Major Gideon Withers?" [Ob. 1780.] + +"Why no, father, I can't say that I remember the Major; but I know the +picture very well. Does she remind you of him?" + +He paused again, until the thoughts came slowly straggling, up to the +point where the question left him. He shook his head solemnly, and +turned his dim eyes on his son's face. + +Four generations--four generations; man and wife,--yes, five generations, +for old Selah Withers took me in his arms when I was a child, and called +me 'little gal,' for I was in girl's clothes,--five generations before +this Hazard child I 've looked on with these old eyes. And it seems to +me that I can see something of almost every one of 'em in this child's +face, it's the forehead of this one, and it's the eyes of that one, and +it's that other's mouth, and the look that I remember in another, and +when she speaks, why, I've heard that same voice before--yes, yes as long +ago as when I was first married; for I remember Rachel used to think I +praised Handsome Judith's voice more than it deserved,--and her face too, +for that matter. You remember Rachel, my first wife,--don't you, +Fordyce?" + +"No, father, I don't remember her, but I know her portrait." (As he was +the son of the old Doctor's second wife, he could hardly be expected to +remember her predecessor.) + +The old Doctor's sagacity was not in fault about the somewhat threatening +aspect of Myrtle's condition. His directions were followed implicitly; +for with the exception of the fact of sluggishness rather than loss of +memory, and of that confusion of dates which in slighter degrees is often +felt as early as middle-life, and increases in most persons from year to +year, his mind was still penetrating, and his advice almost as +trustworthy, as in his best days. + +It was very fortunate that the old Doctor ordered Myrtle's hair to be +cut, and Miss Silence took the scissors and trimmed it at once. So, +whenever she got well and was seen about, there would be no mystery about +the loss of her locks,--the Doctor had been afraid of brain fever, and +ordered them to cut her hair. + +Many things are uncertain in this world, and among them the effect of a +large proportion of the remedies prescribed by physicians. Whether it +was by the use of the means ordered by the old Doctor, or by the efforts +of nature, or by both together, at any rate the first danger was averted, +and the immediate risk from brain fever soon passed over. But the +impression upon her mind and body had been too profound to be dissipated +by a few days' rest. The hysteric stage which the wise old man had +apprehended began to manifest itself by its usual signs, if anything can +be called usual in a condition the natural order of which is disorder and +anomaly. + +And now the reader, if such there be, who believes in the absolute +independence and self-determination of the will, and the consequent total +responsibility of every human being for every irregular nervous action +and ill-governed muscular contraction, may as well lay down this +narrative, or he may lose all faith in poor Myrtle Hazard, and all +patience with the writer who tells her story. + +The mental excitement so long sustained, followed by a violent shock to +the system, coming just at the period of rapid development, gave rise to +that morbid condition, accompanied with a series of mental and moral +perversions, which in ignorant ages and communities is attributed to the +influence of evil spirits, but for the better-instructed is the malady +which they call hysteria. Few households have ripened a growth of +womanhood without witnessing some of its manifestations, and its +phenomena are largely traded in by scientific pretenders and religious +fanatics. Into this cloud, with all its risks and all its humiliations, +Myrtle Hazard is about to enter. Will she pass through it unharmed, or +wander from her path, and fall over one of those fearful precipices which +lie before her? + +After the ancient physician had settled the general plan of treatment, +its details and practical application were left to the care of his son. +Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut was a widower, not yet forty years old, a man of a +fine masculine aspect and a vigorous nature. He was a favorite with his +female patients,--perhaps many of them would have said because he was +good-looking and pleasant in his manners, but some thought in virtue of a +special magnetic power to which certain temperaments were impressible, +though there was no explaining it. But he himself never claimed any such +personal gift, and never attempted any of the exploits which some thought +were in his power if he chose to exercise his faculty in that direction. +This girl was, as it were, a child to him, for he had seen her grow up +from infancy, and had often held her on his knee in her early years. The +first thing he did was to get her a nurse, for he saw that neither of the +two women about her exercised a quieting influence upon her nerves. So +he got her old friend, Nurse Byloe, to come and take care of her. + +The old nurse looked calm enough at one or two of his first visits, but +the next morning her face showed that something had been going wrong. +"Well, what has been the trouble, Nurse?" the Doctor said, as soon as he +could get her out of the room. + +"She's been attackted, Doctor, sence you been here, dreadful. It's them +high stirricks, Doctor, 'n' I never see 'em higher, nor more of 'em. +Laughin' as ef she would bust. Cryin' as ef she'd lost all her friends, +'n' was a follerin' their corpse to their graves. And spassums,--sech +spassums! And ketchin' at her throat, 'n' sayin' there was a great ball +a risin' into it from her stommick. One time she had a kind o' lockjaw +like. And one time she stretched herself out 'n' laid jest as stiff as +ef she was dead. And she says now that her head feels as ef a nail had +been driv' into it,--into the left temple, she says, and that's what +makes her look so distressed now." + +The Doctor came once more to her bedside. He saw that her forehead was +contracted, and that she was evidently suffering from severe pain +somewhere. + +"Where is your uneasiness, Myrtle?" he asked. + +She moved her hand very slowly, and pressed it on her left temple. He +laid his hand upon the same spot, kept it there a moment, and then +removed it. She took it gently with her own, and placed it on her temple +again. As he sat watching her, he saw that her features were growing +easier, and in a short time her deep, even breathing showed that she was +asleep. + +"It beats all," the old nurse said. "Why, she's been a complainin' ever +sence daylight, and she hain't slep' not a wink afore, sence twelve +o'clock las' night! It's j es' like them magnetizers,--I never heerd you +was one o' them kind, Dr. Hurlbut." + +"I can't say how it is, Nurse,--I have heard people say my hand was +magnetic, but I never thought of its quieting her so quickly. No sleep +since twelve o'clock last night, you say?" + +"Not a wink, 'n' actin' as ef she was possessed a good deal o' the time. +You read your Bible, Doctor, don't you? You're pious? Do you remember +about that woman in Scriptur' out of whom the Lord cast seven devils? +Well, I should ha' thought there was seventy devils in that gal last +night, from the way she carr'd on. And now she lays there jest as +peaceful as a new-born babe,--that is, accordin' to the sayin' about 'em; +for as to peaceful new-born babes, I never see one that come t' anything, +that did n't screech as ef the haouse was afire 'n' it wanted to call all +the fire-ingines within ten mild." + +The Doctor smiled, but he became thoughtful in a moment. Did he possess +a hitherto unexercised personal power, which put the key of this young +girl's nervous system into his hands? The remarkable tranquillizing +effect of the contact of his hand with her forehead looked like an +immediate physical action. + +It might have been a mere coincidence, however. He would not form an +opinion until his next visit. + +At that next visit it did seem as if some of Nurse Byloe's seventy devils +had possession of the girl. All the strange spasmodic movements, the +chokings, the odd sounds, the wild talk, the laughing and crying, were in +full blast. All the remedies which had been ordered seemed to have been +of no avail. The Doctor could hardly refuse trying his quasi magnetic +influence, and placed the tips of his fingers on her forehead. The +result was the same that had followed the similar proceeding the day +before,--the storm was soon calmed, and after a little time she fell into +a quiet sleep, as in the first instance. + +Here was an awkward affair for the physician, to be sure! He held this +power in his hands, which no remedy and no other person seemed to +possess. How long would he be chained to her; and she to him, and what +would be the consequence of the mysterious relation which must +necessarily spring up between a man like him, in the plenitude of vital +force, of strongly attractive personality, and a young girl organized for +victory over the calmest blood and the steadiest resistance? + +Every day after this made matters worse. There was something almost +partaking of the miraculous in the influence he was acquiring over her. +His "Peace, be still!" was obeyed by the stormy elements of this young +soul, as if it had been a supernatural command. How could he resist the +dictate of humanity which called him to make his visits more frequent, +that her intervals of rest might be more numerous? How could he refuse to +sit at her bedside for a while in the evening, that she might be quieted, +instead of beginning the night sleepless and agitated? + +The Doctor was a man of refined feeling as well as of principle, and he +had besides a sacred memory in the deepest heart of his affections. It +was the common belief in the village that he would never marry again, but +that his first and only love was buried in the grave of the wife of his +youth. It did not easily occur to him to suspect himself of any weakness +with regard to this patient of his, little more than a child in years. +It did not at once suggest itself to him that she, in her strange, +excited condition, might fasten her wandering thoughts upon him, too far +removed by his age, as it seemed, to strike the fancy of a young girl +under almost any conceivable conditions. + +Thus it was that many of those beautiful summer evenings found him +sitting by his patient, the river rippling and singing beneath them, the +moon shining over them, sweet odors from the thickets on the banks of the +stream stealing in on the soft air that came through the open window, and +every time they were thus together, the subtile influence which bound +them to each other bringing them more and more into inexplicable +harmonies and almost spiritual identity. + +But all this did not hinder the development of new and strange conditions +in Myrtle Hazard. Her will was losing its power. "I cannot help +it"--the hysteric motto--was her constant reply. It is not pleasant to +confess the truth, but she was rapidly undergoing a singular change of +her moral nature. She had been a truthful child. If she had kept her +secret about what she had found in the garret, she thought she was +exercising her rights, and she had never been obliged to tell any lies +about it. + +But now she seemed to have lost the healthy instincts for veracity and +honesty. She feigned all sorts of odd symptoms, and showed a wonderful +degree of cunning in giving an appearance of truth to them. It became +next to impossible to tell what was real and what was simulated. At one +time she could not be touched ever so lightly without shrinking and +crying out. At another time she would squint, and again she would be +half paralyzed for a time. She would pretend to fast for days, living on +food she had concealed and took secretly in the night. + +The nurse was getting worn out. Kitty Fagan would have had the priest +come to the house and sprinkle it with holy water. The two women were +beginning to get nervous themselves. The Rev. Mr. Stoker said in +confidence to Miss Silence, that there was reason to fear she might have +been given over for a time to the buffetings of Satan, and that perhaps +his (Mr. Stoker's) personal attentions might be useful in that case. And +so it appeared that the "young doctor" was the only being left with whom +she had any complete relations and absolute sympathy. She had become so +passive in his hands that it seemed as if her only healthy life was, as +it were, transmitted through him, and that she depended on the transfer +of his nervous power, as the plant upon the light for its essential +living processes. + +The two young men who had met in so unexpected a manner on board the ship +Swordfish had been reasonably discreet in relating their adventures. +Myrtle Hazard may or may not have had the plan they attributed to her; +however that was, they had looked rather foolish when they met, and had +not thought it worth while to be very communicative about the matter when +they returned. It had at least given them a chance to become a little +better acquainted with each other, and it was an opportunity which the +elder and more artful of the two meant to turn to advantage. + +Of all Myrtle's few friends only one was in the habit of seeing her often +during this period, namely, Olive Eveleth, a girl so quiet and sensible +that she, if anybody, could be trusted with her. But Myrtle's whole +character seemed to have changed, and Olive soon found that she was in +some mystic way absorbed into another nature. Except when the +physician's will was exerted upon her, she was drifting without any +self-directing power, and then any one of those manifold impulses which +would in some former ages have been counted as separate manifestations on +the part of distinct demoniacal beings might take possession of her. +Olive did little, therefore, but visit Myrtle from time to time to learn +if any change had occurred in her condition. All this she reported to +Cyprian, and all this was got out of him by Mr. William Murray Bradshaw. + +That gentleman was far from being pleased with the look of things as they +were represented. What if the Doctor, who was after all in the prime of +life and younger-looking than some who were born half a dozen years after +him, should get a hold on this young woman,--girl now, if you will, but +in a very few years certain to come within possible, nay, not very +improbable, matrimonial range of him? That would be pleasant, wouldn't +it? It had happened sometimes, as he knew, that these magnetizing tricks +had led to infatuation on the part of the subjects of the wonderful +influence. So he concluded to be ill and consult the younger Dr. +Hurlbut, and incidentally find out how the land lay. + +The next question was, what to be ill with. Some not ungentlemanly +malady, not hereditary, not incurable, not requiring any obvious change +in habits of life. Dyspepsia would answer the purpose well enough: so +Mr. Murray Bradshaw picked up a medical book and read ten minutes or more +for that complaint. At the end of this time he was an accomplished +dyspeptic; for lawyers half learn a thing quicker than the members of any +other profession. + +He presented himself with a somewhat forlorn countenance to Dr. Fordyce +Hurlbut, as suffering from some of the less formidable symptoms of that +affection. He got into a very interesting conversation with him, +especially about some nervous feelings which had accompanied his attack +of indigestion. Thence to nervous complaints in general. Thence to the +case of the young lady at The Poplars whom he was attending. The Doctor +talked with a certain reserve, as became his professional relations with +his patient; but it was plain enough that, if this kind of intercourse +went on much longer, it would be liable to end in some emotional +explosion or other, and there was no saying how it would at last turn +out. + +Murray Bradshaw was afraid to meddle directly. He knew something more +about the history of Myrtle's adventure than any of his neighbors, and, +among other things, that it had given Mr. Byles Gridley a peculiar +interest in her, of which he could take advantage. He therefore artfully +hinted his fears to the old man, and left his hint to work itself out. + +However suspicious Master Gridley was of him and his motives, he thought +it worth while to call up at The Poplars and inquire for himself of the +nurse what was this new relation growing up between the physician and his +young patient. + +She imparted her opinion to him in a private conversation with great +freedom. "Sech doin's! sech doin's! The gal's jest as much bewitched as +ever any gal was sence them that was possessed in Scriptur'. And every +day it 's wus and wus. Ef that Doctor don't stop comin', she won't +breathe without his helpin' her to before long. And, Mr. Gridley, I +don't like to say so,--but I can't help thinkin' he's gettin' a little +bewitched too. I don't believe he means to take no kind of advantage of +her; but, Mr. Gridley, you've seen them millers fly round and round a +candle, and you know how it ginerally comes out. Men is men and gals is +gals. I would n't trust no man, not ef he was much under a hundred year +old,--and as for a gal--!" + +"Mulieri ne mortuae quidem credendum est," said Mr. Gridley. "You +wouldn't trust a woman even if she was dead, hey, Nurse?" + +"Not till she was buried, 'n' the grass growin' a foot high over her," +said Nurse Byloe, "unless I'd know'd her sence she was a baby. I've +know'd this one sence she was two or three year old; but this gal ain't +Myrtle Hazard no longer,--she's bewitched into somethin' different. I'll +tell ye what, Mr. Gridley; you get old Dr. Hurlbut to come and see her +once a day for a week, and get the young doctor to stay away. I'll resk +it. She 'll have some dreadful tantrums at fust, but she'll come to it +in two or three, days." + +Master Byles Gridley groaned in spirit. He had come to this village to +end his days in peace, and here he was just going to make a martyr of +himself for the sake of a young person to whom he was under no +obligation, except that he had saved her from the consequences of her own +foolish act, at the expense of a great overturn of all his domestic +habits. There was no help for it. The nurse was right, and he must +perform the disagreeable duty of letting the Doctor know that he was +getting into a track which might very probably lead to mischief, and that +he must back out as fast as he could. + +At 2 P. M. Gifted Hopkins presented the following note at the Doctor's +door: + +"Mr. Byles Gridley would be much obliged to Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut if he +would call at his study this evening." + +"Odd, is n't it, father, the old man's asking me to come and see him? +Those old stub-twist constitutions never want patching." + +"Old man! old man! Who's that you call old,--not Byles Gridley, hey? +Old! old! Sixty year, more or less! How old was Floyer when he died, +Fordyce? Ninety-odd, was n't it? Had the asthma though, or he'd have +lived to be as old as Dr. Holyoke,--a hundred year and over. That's old. +But men live to be a good deal more than that sometimes. What does Byles +Gridley want of you, did you say?" + +"I'm sure I can't tell, father; I'll go and find out." So he went over +to Mrs. Hopkins's in the evening, and was shown up into the study. + +Master Gridley treated the Doctor to a cup of such tea as bachelors +sometimes keep hid away in mysterious caddies. He presently began asking +certain questions about the grand climacteric, which eventful period of +life he was fast approaching. Then he discoursed of medicine, ancient +and modern, tasking the Doctor's knowledge not a little, and evincing a +good deal of acquaintance with old doctrines and authors. + +He had a few curious old medical books in his library, which he said he +should like to show Dr. Hurlbut. + +"There, now! What do you say to this copy of Joannes de Ketam, Venice, +1522? Look at these woodcuts,--the first anatomical pictures ever +printed, Doctor, unless these others of Jacobus Berengarius are older! +See this scene of the plague-patient, the doctor smelling at his +pouncet-box, the old nurse standing square at the bedside, the young +nurse with the bowl, holding back and turning her head away, and the old +burial-hag behind her, shoving her forward, a very curious book, Doctor, +and has the first phrenological picture in it ever made. Take a look, +too, at my Vesalius,--not the Leyden edition, Doctor, but the one with +the grand old original figures,--so good that they laid them to Titian. +And look here, Doctor, I could n't help getting this great folio Albinus, +1747,--and the nineteenth century can't touch it, Doctor,--can't touch it +for completeness and magnificence, so all the learned professors tell me! +Brave old fellows, Doctor, and put their lives into their books as you +gentlemen don't pretend to do nowadays. And good old fellows, +Doctor,--high-minded, scrupulous, conscientious, punctilious,--remembered +their duties to man and to woman, and felt all the responsibilities of +their confidential relation to families. Did you ever read the oldest of +medical documents,--the Oath of Hippocrates?" + +The Doctor thought he had read it, but did not remember much about it. + +"It 's worth reading, Doctor,--it's worth remembering; and, old as it is, +it is just as good to-day as it was when it was laid down as a rule of +conduct four hundred years before the Sermon on the Mount was delivered. +Let me read it to you, Dr. Hurlbut." + +There was something in Master Gridley's look that made the Doctor feel a +little nervous; he did not know just what was coming. + +Master Gridley took out his great Hippocrates, the edition of Foesius, +and opened to the place. He turned so as to face the Doctor, and read +the famous Oath aloud, Englishing it as he went along. When he came to +these words which follow, he pronounced them very slowly and with special +emphasis. + +"My life shall be pure and holy." + +"Into whatever house I enter, I will go for the good of the patient: + +"I will abstain from inflicting any voluntary injury, and from leading +away any, whether man or woman, bond or free." + +The Doctor changed color as he listened, and the moisture broke out on +his forehead. + +Master Gridley saw it, and followed up his advantage. "Dr. Fordyce +Hurlbut, are you not in danger of violating the sanctities of your +honorable calling, and leading astray a young person committed to your +sacred keeping?" + +While saying these words, Master Gridley looked full upon him, with a +face so charged with grave meaning, so impressed with the gravity of his +warning accents, that the Doctor felt as if he were before some dread +tribunal, and remained silent. He was a member of the Rev. Mr. Stoker's +church, and the words he had just listened to were those of a sinful old +heathen who had never heard a sermon in his life; but they stung him, for +all that, as the parable of the prophet stung the royal transgressor. + +He spoke at length, for the plain honest words had touched the right +spring of consciousness at the right moment; not too early, for he now +saw whither he was tending,--not too late, for he was not yet in the +inner spirals of the passion which whirls men and women to their doom in +ever-narrowing coils, that will not unwind at the command of God or man. + +He spoke as one who is humbled by self-accusation, yet in a manly way, as +became his honorable and truthful character. + +"Master Gridley," he said, "I stand convicted before you. I know too +well what you are thinking of. It is true, I cannot continue my +attendance on Myrtle--on Miss Hazard, for you mean her--without peril to +both of us. She is not herself. God forbid that I should cease to be +myself! I have been thinking of a summer tour, and I will at once set +out upon it, and leave this patient in my father's hands. I think he +will find strength to visit her under the circumstances." + +The Doctor went off the next morning without saying a word to Myrtle +Hazard, and his father made the customary visit in his place. + +That night the spirit tare her, as may well be supposed, and so the +second night. But there was no help for it: her doctor was gone, and the +old physician, with great effort, came instead, sat by her, spoke kindly +to her, left wise directions to her attendants, and above all assured +them that, if they would have a little patience, they would see all this +storm blow over. + +On the third night after his visit, the spirit rent her sore, and came +out of her, or, in the phrase of to-day, she had a fierce paroxysm, after +which the violence of the conflict ceased, and she might be called +convalescent so far as that was concerned. + +But all this series of nervous disturbances left her in a very +impressible and excitable condition. This was just the state to invite +the spiritual manipulations of one of those theological practitioners who +consider that the treatment of all morbid states of mind short of raving +madness belongs to them and not to the doctors. This same condition was +equally favorable for the operations of any professional experimenter who +would use the flame of religious excitement to light the torch of an +earthly passion. So many fingers that begin on the black keys stray to +the white ones before the tune is played out! + +If Myrtle Hazard was in charge of any angelic guardian, the time was at +hand when she would need all celestial influences; for the Rev. Joseph +Bellamy Stoker was about to take a deep interest in her spiritual +welfare.' + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +SKIRMISHING. + +"So the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker has called upon you, Susan Posey, has +he? And wants you to come and talk religion with him in his study, Susan +Posey, does he? Religion is a good thing, my dear, the best thing in the +world, and never better than when we are young, and no young people need +it more than young girls. There are temptations to all, and to them as +often as to any, Susan Posey. And temptations come to them in places +where they don't look for them, and from persons they never thought of as +tempters. So I am very glad to have your thoughts called to the subject +of religion. 'Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.' + +"But Susan Posey, my dear, I think you hard better not break in upon the +pious meditations of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker in his private study. +A monk's cell and a minister's library are hardly the places for young +ladies. They distract the attention of these good men from their +devotions and their sermons. If you think you must go, you had better +take Mrs. Hopkins with you. She likes religious conversation, and it +will do her good too, and save a great deal of time for the minister, +conversing with two at once. She is of discreet age, and will tell you +when it is time to come away,--you might stay too long, you know. I've +known young persons stay a good deal too long at these interviews,--a +great deal too long, Susan Posey!" + +Such was the fatherly counsel of Master Byles Gridley. + +Susan was not very quick of apprehension, but she could not help seeing +the justice of Master Gridley's remark, that for a young person to go and +break in on the hours that a minister requires for his studies, without +being accompanied by a mature friend who would remind her when it was +time to go, would be taking an unfair advantage of his kindness in asking +her to call upon him. She promised, therefore, that she would never go +without having Mrs. Hopkins as her companion, and with this assurance her +old friend rested satisfied. + +It is altogether likely that he had some deeper reason for his advice +than those with which he satisfied the simple nature of Susan Posey. Of +that it will be easier to judge after a glance at the conditions and +character of the minister and his household. + +The Rev. Mr. Stoker had, in addition to the personal advantages already +alluded to, some other qualities which might prove attractive to many +women. He had, in particular, that art of sliding into easy intimacy +with them which implies some knowledge of the female nature, and, above +all, confidence in one's powers. There was little doubt, the gossips +maintained, that many of the younger women of his parish would have been +willing, in certain contingencies, to lift for him that other end of his +yoke under which poor Mrs. Stoker was fainting, unequal to the burden. + +That lady must have been some years older than her husband,--how many we +need not inquire too curiously,--but in vitality she had long passed the +prime in which he was still flourishing. She had borne him five +children, and cried her eyes hollow over the graves of three of them. +Household cares had dragged upon her; the routine of village life wearied +her; the parishioners expected too much of her as the minister's wife; +she had wanted more fresh air and more cheerful companionship; and her +thoughts had fed too much on death and sin,--good bitter tonics to +increase the appetite for virtue, but not good as food and drink for the +spirit. + +But there was another grief which lay hidden far beneath these obvious +depressing influences. She felt that she was no longer to her husband +what she had been to him, and felt it with something of +self-reproach,--which was a wrong to herself, for she had been a true and +tender wife. Deeper than all the rest was still another feeling, which +had hardly risen into the region of inwardly articulated thought, but lay +unshaped beneath all the syllabled trains of sleeping or waking +consciousness. + +The minister was often consulted by his parishioners upon spiritual +matters, and was in the habit of receiving in his study visitors who came +with such intent. Sometimes it was old weak-eyed Deacon Rumrill, in +great iron-bowed spectacles, with hanging nether lip and tremulous voice, +who had got his brain onto a muddle about the beast with two horns, or +the woman that fled into the wilderness, or other points not settled to +his mind in Scott's Commentary. The minister was always very busy at +such times, and made short work of his deacon's doubts. Or it might be +that an ancient woman, a mother or a grandmother in Israel, came with her +questions and her perplexities to her pastor; and it was pretty certain +that just at that moment he was very deep in his next sermon, or had a +pressing visit to make. + +But it would also happen occasionally that one of the tenderer ewe-lambs +of the flock needed comfort from the presence of the shepherd. Poor Mrs. +Stoker noticed, or thought she noticed, that the good man had more +leisure for the youthful and blooming sister than for the more discreet +and venerable matron or spinster. The sitting was apt to be longer; and +the worthy pastor would often linger awhile about the door, to speed the +parting guest, perhaps, but a little too much after the fashion of young +people who are not displeased with each other, and who often find it as +hard to cross a threshold single as a witch finds it to get over a +running stream. More than once, the pallid, faded wife had made an +errand to the study, and, after a keen look at the bright young cheeks, +flushed with the excitement of intimate spiritual communion, had gone +back to her chamber with her hand pressed against her heart, and the +bitterness of death in her soul. + +The end of all these bodily and mental trials was, that the minister's +wife had fallen into a state of habitual invalidism, such as only women, +who feel all the nerves which in men are as insensible as +telegraph-wires, can experience. + +The doctor did not know what to make of her case,--whether she would live +or die,--whether she would languish for years, or, all at once, roused by +some strong impression, or in obedience to some unexplained movement of +the vital forces, take up her bed and walk. For her bed had become her +home, where she lived as if it belonged to her organism. There she lay, +a not unpleasing invalid to contemplate, always looking resigned, +patient, serene, except when the one deeper grief was stirred, always +arrayed with simple neatness, and surrounded with little tokens that +showed the constant presence with her of tasteful and thoughtful +affection. She did not know, nobody could know, how steadily, how +silently all this artificial life was draining the veins and blanching +the cheek of her daughter Bathsheba, one of the everyday, air-breathing +angels without nimbus or aureole who belong to every story which lets us +into a few households, as much as the stars and the flowers belong to +everybody's verses. + +Bathsheba's devotion to her mother brought its own reward, but it was not +in the shape of outward commendation. Some of the more censorious +members of her father's congregation were severe in their remarks upon +her absorption in the supreme object of her care. It seems that this had +prevented her from attending to other duties which they considered more +imperative. They did n't see why she shouldn't keep a Sabbath-school as +well as the rest, and as to her not comin' to meetin' three times on +Sabbath day like other folks, they couldn't account for it, except +because she calculated that she could get along without the means of +grace, bein' a minister's daughter. Some went so far as to doubt if she +had ever experienced religion, for all she was a professor. There was a +good many indulged a false hope. To this, others objected her life of +utter self-denial and entire surrender to her duties towards her mother +as some evidence of Christian character. But old Deacon Rumrill put down +that heresy by showing conclusively from Scott's Commentary on Romans xi. +1-6, that this was altogether against her chance of being called, and +that the better her disposition to perform good works, the more unlikely +she was to be the subject of saving grace. Some of these severe critics +were good people enough themselves, but they loved active work and +stirring companionship, and would have found their real cross if they had +been called to sit at an invalid's bedside. + +As for the Rev. Mr. Stoker, his duties did not allow him to give so much +time to his suffering wife as his feelings would undoubtedly have +prompted. He therefore relinquished the care of her (with great +reluctance we may naturally suppose) to Bathsheba, who had inherited not +only her mother's youthful smile, but that self-forgetfulness which, born +with some of God's creatures, is, if not "grace," at least a +manifestation of native depravity which might well be mistaken for it. + +The intimacy of mother and daughter was complete, except on a single +point. There was one subject on which no word ever passed between them. +The excuse of duties to others was by a tacit understanding a mantle to +cover all short-comings in the way of attention from the husband and +father, and no word ever passed between them implying a suspicion of the +loyalty of his affections. Bathsheba came at last so to fill with her +tenderness the space left empty in the neglected heart, that her mother +only spoke her habitual feeling when she said, "I should think you were +in love with me, my darling, if you were not my daughter." + +This was a dangerous state of things for the minister. Strange +suggestions and unsafe speculations began to mingle with his dreams and +reveries. The thought once admitted that another's life is becoming +superfluous and a burden, feeds like a ravenous vulture on the soul. Woe +to the man or woman whose days are passed in watching the hour-glass +through which the sands run too slowly for longings that are like a +skulking procession of bloodless murders! Without affirming such horrors +of the Rev. Mr. Stoker, it would not be libellous to say that his fancy +was tampering with future possibilities, as it constantly happens with +those who are getting themselves into training for some act of folly, or +some crime, it may be, which will in its own time evolve itself as an +idea in the consciousness, and by and by ripen into fact. + +It must not be taken for granted that he was actually on the road to some +fearful deed, or that he was an utterly lost soul. He was ready to yield +to temptation if it came in his way; he would even court it, but he did +not shape out any plan very definitely in his mind, as a more desperate +sinner would have done. He liked the pleasurable excitement of emotional +relations with his pretty lambs, and enjoyed it under the name of +religious communion. There is a border land where one can stand on the +territory of legitimate instincts and affections, and yet be so near, the +pleasant garden of the Adversary, that his dangerous fruits and flowers +are within easy reach. Once tasted, the next step is like to be the +scaling of the wall. The Rev. Mr. Stoker was very fond of this border +land. His imagination was wandering over it too often when his pen was +travelling almost of itself along the weary parallels of the page before +him. All at once a blinding flash would come over him the lines of his +sermon would run together, the fresh manuscript would shrivel like a dead +leaf, and the rows of hard-hearted theology on the shelves before him, +and the broken-backed Concordance, and the Holy Book itself, would fade +away as he gave himself up to the enchantment of his delirious dream. + +The reader will probably consider it a discreet arrangement that pretty +Susan Posey should seek her pastor in grave company. Mrs. Hopkins +willingly consented to the arrangement which had been proposed, and +agreed to go with the young lady on her visit to the Rev. Mr. Stoker's +study. They were both arrayed in their field-day splendors on this +occasion. Susan was lovely in her light curls and blue ribbons, and the +becoming dress which could not help betraying the modestly emphasized +crescendos and gently graded diminuendos of her figure. She was as round +as if she had been turned in a lathe, and as delicately finished as if +she had been modelled for a Flora. She had naturally an airy toss of the +head and a springy movement of the joints, such as some girls study in +the glass (and make dreadful work of it), so that she danced all over +without knowing it, like a little lively bobolink on a bulrush. In +short, she looked fit to spoil a homily for Saint Anthony himself. + +Mrs. Hopkins was not less perfect in her somewhat different style. She +might be called impressive and imposing in her grand-costume, which she +wore for this visit. It was a black silk dress, with a crape shawl, a +firmly defensive bonnet, and an alpaca umbrella with a stern-looking and +decided knob presiding as its handle. The dried-leaf rustle of her silk +dress was suggestive of the ripe autumn of life, bringing with it those +golden fruits of wisdom and experience which the grave teachers of +mankind so justly prefer to the idle blossoms of adolescence. + +It is needless to say that the visit was conducted with the most perfect +propriety in all respects. Mrs. Hopkins was disposed to take upon +herself a large share of the conversation. The minister, on the other +hand, would have devoted himself more particularly to Miss Susan, but, +with a very natural make-believe obtuseness, the good woman drew his fire +so constantly that few of his remarks, and hardly any of his insinuating +looks, reached the tender object at which they were aimed. It is +probable that his features or tones betrayed some impatience at having +thus been foiled of his purpose, for Mrs. Hopkins thought he looked all +the time as if he wanted to get rid of her. The three parted, therefore, +not in the best humor all round. Mrs. Hopkins declared she'd see the +minister in Jericho before she'd fix herself up as if she was goin' to a +weddin' to go and see him again. Why, he did n't make any more of her +than if she'd been a tabby-cat. She believed some of these ministers +thought women's souls dried up like peas in a pod by the time they was +forty year old; anyhow, they did n't seem to care any great about 'em, +except while they was green and tender. It was all Miss Se-usan, Miss +Se-usan, Miss Se-usan, my dear! but as for her, she might jest as well +have gone with her apron on, for any notice he took of her. She did n't +care, she was n't goin' to be left out when there was talkin' goin' on, +anyhow. + +Susan Posey, on her part, said she did n't like him a bit. He looked so +sweet at her, and held his head on one side,--law! just as if he had been +a young beau! And,--don't tell,--but he whispered that he wished the +next time I came I wouldn't bring that Hopkins woman! + +It would not be fair to repeat what the minister said to himself; but we +may own as much as this, that, if worthy Mrs. Hopkins had heard it, she +would have treated him to a string of adjectives which would have greatly +enlarged his conceptions of the female vocabulary. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +BATTLE. + +In tracing the history of a human soul through its commonplace nervous +perturbations, still more through its spiritual humiliations, there is +danger that we shall feel a certain contempt for the subject of such +weakness. It is easy to laugh at the erring impulses of a young girl; +but you who remember when_______ _________, only fifteen years old, +untouched by passion, unsullied in name, was found in the shallow brook +where she had sternly and surely sought her death,--(too true! too +true!--ejus animae Jesu miserere!--but a generation has passed since +then,)--will not smile so scornfully. + +Myrtle Hazard no longer required the physician's visits, but her mind was +very far from being poised in the just balance of its faculties. She was +of a good natural constitution and a fine temperament; but she had been +overwrought by all that she had passed through, and, though happening to +have been born in another land, she was of American descent. Now, it has +long been noticed that there is something in the influences, climatic or +other, here prevailing, which predisposes to morbid religious excitement. +The graver reader will not object to seeing the exact statement of a +competent witness belonging to a by-gone century, confirmed as it is by +all that we see about us. + +"There is no Experienced Minister of the Gospel who hath not in the Cases +of Tempted Souls often had this Experience, that the ill Cases of their +distempered Bodies are the frequent Occasion and Original of their +Temptations." "The Vitiated Humours in many Persons, yield the Steams +whereinto Satan does insinuate himself, till he has gained a sort of +Possession in them, or at least an Opportunity to shoot into the Mind as +many Fiery Darts as may cause a sad Life unto them; yea, 't is well if +Self-Murder be not the sad end into which these hurried. People are +thus precipitated. New England, a country where Splenetic Maladies are +prevailing and pernicious, perhaps above any other, hath afforded +Numberless Instances, of even pious People, who have contracted these +Melancholy Indispositions which have unhinged them from all Service or +Comfort; yea, not a few Persons have been hurried thereby to lay Violent +Hands upon themselves at the last. These are among the unsearchable +Judgments of God!" + +Such are the words of the Rev. Cotton Mather. + +The minister had hardly recovered from his vexatious defeat in the +skirmish where the Widow Hopkins was his principal opponent, when he +received a note from Miss Silence Withers, which promised another and +more important field of conflict. It contained a request that he would +visit Myrtle Hazard, who seemed to be in a very excitable and impressible +condition, and who might perhaps be easily brought under those influences +which she had resisted from her early years, through inborn perversity of +character. + +When the Rev. Mr. Stoker received this note, he turned very pale,--which +was a bad sign. Then he drew a long breath or two, and presently a flush +tingled up to his cheek, where it remained a fixed burning glow. This +may have been from the deep interest he felt in Myrtle's spiritual +welfare; but he had often been sent for by aged sinners in more immediate +peril, apparently, without any such disturbance of the circulation. + +To know whether a minister, young or still in flower; is in safe or +dangerous paths, there are two psychometers, a comparison between which +will give as infallible a return as the dry and wet bulbs of the +ingenious "Hygrodeik." The first is the black broadcloth forming the +knees of his pantaloons; the second, the patch of carpet before his +mirror. If the first is unworn and the second is frayed and threadbare, +pray for him. If the first is worn and shiny, while the second keeps its +pattern and texture, get him to pray for you. + +The Rev. Mr. Stoker should have gone down on his knees then and there, +and sought fervently for the grace which he was like to need in the +dangerous path just opening before him. He did not do this; but he stood +up before his looking-glass and parted his hair as carefully as if he had +been separating the saints of his congregation from the sinners, to send +the list to the statistical columns of a religious newspaper. He +selected a professional neckcloth, as spotlessly pure as if it had been +washed in innocency, and adjusted it in a tie which was like the white +rose of Sharon. Myrtle Hazard was, he thought, on the whole, the +handsomest girl he had ever seen; Susan Posey was to her as a buttercup +from the meadow is to a tiger-lily. He, knew the nature of the nervous +disturbances through which she had been passing, and that she must be in +a singularly impressible condition. He felt sure that he could establish +intimate spiritual relations with her by drawing out her repressed +sympathies, by feeding the fires of her religious imagination, by +exercising all those lesser arts of fascination which are so familiar to +the Don Giovannis, and not always unknown to the San Giovannis. + +As for the hard doctrines which he used to produce sensations with in the +pulpit, it would have been a great pity to worry so lovely a girl, in +such a nervous state, with them. He remembered a savory text about being +made all things to all men, which would bear application particularly +well to the case of this young woman. He knew how to weaken his +divinity, on occasion, as well as an old housewife to weaken her tea, +lest it should keep people awake. + +The Rev. Mr. Stoker was a man of emotions. He loved to feel his heart +beat; he loved all the forms of non-alcoholic drunkenness, which are so +much better than the vinous, because they taste themselves so keenly, +whereas the other (according to the statement of experts who are familiar +with its curious phenomena) has a certain sense of unreality connected +with it. He delighted in the reflex stimulus of the excitement he +produced in others by working on their feelings. A powerful preacher is +open to the same sense of enjoyment--an awful, tremulous, goose-flesh +sort of state, but still enjoyment--that a great tragedian feels when he +curdles the blood of his audience. + +Mr. Stoker was noted for the vividness of his descriptions of the future +which was in store for the great bulk of his fellow-townsmen and +fellow-worlds-men. He had three sermons on this subject, known to all +the country round as the sweating sermon, the fainting sermon, and the +convulsion-fit sermon, from the various effects said to have been +produced by them when delivered before large audiences. It might be +supposed that his reputation as a terrorist would have interfered with +his attempts to ingratiate himself with his young favorites. But the +tragedian who is fearful as Richard or as Iago finds that no hindrance to +his success in the part of Romeo. Indeed, women rather take to terrible +people; prize-fighters, pirates, highwaymen, rebel generals, Grand Turks, +and Bluebeards generally have a fascination for the sex; your virgin has +a natural instinct to saddle your lion. The fact, therefore, that the +young girl had sat under his tremendous pulpitings, through the sweating +sermon, the fainting sermon, and the convulsion-fit sermon, did not +secure her against the influence of his milder approaches. + +Myrtle was naturally surprised at receiving a visit from him; but she was +in just that unbalanced state in which almost any impression is welcome. +He showed so much interest, first in her health, then in her thoughts and +feelings, always following her lead in the conversation, that before he +left her she felt as if she had made a great discovery; namely, that this +man, so formidable behind the guns of his wooden bastion, was a most +tenderhearted and sympathizing person when he came out of it unarmed. +How delightful he was as he sat talking in the twilight in low and tender +tones, with respectful pauses of listening, in which he looked as if he +too had just made a discovery,--of an angel, to wit, to whom he could not +help unbosoming his tenderest emotions, as to a being from another +sphere! + +It was a new experience to Myrtle. She was all ready for the spiritual +manipulations of an expert. The excitability which had been showing +itself in spasms and strange paroxysms had been transferred to those +nervous centres, whatever they may be, cerebral or ganglionic, which are +concerned in the emotional movements of the religious nature. It was +taking her at an unfair disadvantage, no doubt. In the old communion, +some priest might have wrought upon her while in this condition, and we +might have had at this very moment among us another Saint Theresa or +Jacqueline Pascal. She found but a dangerous substitute in the spiritual +companionship of a saint like the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker. + +People think the confessional is unknown in our Protestant churches. It +is a great mistake. The principal change is, that there is no screen +between the penitent and the father confessor. The minister knew his +rights, and very soon asserted them. He gave aunt Silence to understand +that he could talk more at ease if he and his young disciple were left +alone together. Cynthia Badlam did not like this arrangement. She was +afraid to speak about it; but she glared at them aslant, with the look of +a biting horse when his eyes follow one sideways until they are all white +but one little vicious spark of pupil. + +It was not very long before the Rev. Mr. Stoker had established pretty +intimate relations with the household at The Poplars. He had reason to +think, he assured Miss Silence, that Myrtle was in a state of mind which +promised a complete transformation of her character. He used the phrases +of his sect, of course, in talking with the elderly lady; but the +language which he employed with the young girl was free from those +mechanical expressions which would have been like to offend or disgust +her. + +As to his rougher formulae, he knew better than to apply them to a +creature of her fine texture. If he had been disposed to do so, her +simple questions and answers to his inquiries would have made it +difficult. But it was in her bright and beautiful eyes, in her handsome +features, and her winning voice, that he found his chief obstacle. How +could he look upon her face in its loveliness, and talk to her as if she +must be under the wrath and curse of God for the mere fact of her +existence? It seemed more natural and it certainly was more +entertaining, to question her in such a way as to find out what kind of +theology had grown up in her mind as the result of her training in the +complex scheme of his doctrinal school. And as he knew that the merest +child, so soon as it begins to think at all, works out for itself +something like a theory of human nature, he pretty soon began sounding +Myrtle's thoughts on this matter. + +What was her own idea; he would be pleased to know, about her natural +condition as one born of a sinful race, and her inherited liabilities on +that account? + +Myrtle smiled like a little heathen, as she was, according to the +standard of her earlier teachings. That kind of talk used to worry her +when she was a child, sometimes. Yes, she remembered its coming back to +her in a dream she had, when--when--(She did not finish her sentence.) +Did he think she hated every kind of goodness and loved every kind of +evil? Did he think she was hateful to the Being who made her? + +The minister looked straight into the bright, brave, tender eyes, and +answered, "Nothing in heaven or on earth could help loving you, Myrtle!" + +Pretty well for a beginning! + +Myrtle saw nothing but pious fervor in this florid sentiment. But as she +was honest and clear-sighted, she could not accept a statement which +seemed so plainly in contradiction with his common teachings, without +bringing his flattering assertion to the test of another question. + +Did he suppose, she asked, that any persons could be Christians, who +could not tell the day or the year of their change from children of +darkness to children of light. + +The shrewd clergyman, whose creed could be lax enough on occasion, had +provided himself with authorities of all kinds to meet these awkward +questions in casuistical divinity. He had hunted up recipes for +spiritual neuralgia, spasms, indigestion, psora, hypochondriasis, just as +doctors do for their bodily counterparts. + +To be sure they could. Why, what did the great Richard Baxter say in his +book on Infant Baptism? That at a meeting of many eminent Christians, +some of them very famous ministers, when it was desired that every one +should give an account of the time and manner of his conversion, there +was but one of them all could do it. And as for himself, Mr. Baxter +said, he could not remember the day or the year when he began to be +sincere, as he called it. Why, did n't President Wheelock say to a young +man who consulted him, that some persons might be true Christians without +suspecting it? + +All this was so very different from the uncompromising way in which +religious doctrines used to be presented to the young girl from the +pulpit, that it naturally opened her heart and warmed her affections. +Remember, if she needs excuse, that the defeated instincts of a strong +nature were rushing in upon her, clamorous for their rights, and that she +was not yet mature enough to understand and manage them. The paths of +love and religion are at the fork of a road which every maiden travels. +If some young hand does not open the turnpike gate of the first, she is +pretty sure to try the other, which has no toll-bar. It is also very +commonly noticed that these two paths, after diverging awhile, run into +each other. True love leads many wandering souls into the better way. +Nor is it rare to see those who started in company for the gates of pearl +seated together on the banks that border the avenue to that other portal, +gathering the roses for which it is so famous. + +It was with the most curious interest that the minister listened to the +various heresies into which her reflections had led her. Somehow or +other they did not sound so dangerous coming from her lips as when they +were uttered by the coarser people of the less rigorous denominations, or +preached in the sermons of heretical clergymen. He found it impossible +to think of her in connection with those denunciations of sinners for +which his discourses had been noted. Some of the sharp old church-members +began to complain that his exhortations were losing their pungency. The +truth was, he was preaching for Myrtle Hazard. He was getting bewitched +and driven beside himself by the intoxication of his relations with her. + +All this time she was utterly unconscious of any charm that she was +exercising, or of being herself subject to any personal fascination. She +loved to read the books of ecstatic contemplation which he furnished her. +She loved to sing the languishing hymns which he selected for her. She +loved to listen to his devotional rhapsodies, hardly knowing sometimes +whether she were in the body, or out of the body, while he lifted her +upon the wings of his passion-kindled rhetoric. The time came when she +had learned to listen for his step, when her eyes glistened at meeting +him, when the words he uttered were treasured as from something more than +a common mortal, and the book he had touched was like a saintly relic. +It never suggested itself to her for an instant that this was anything +more than such a friendship as Mercy might have cultivated with +Great-Heart. She gave her confidence simply because she was very young +and innocent. The green tendrils of the growing vine must wind round +something. + +The seasons had been changing their scenery while the events we have told +were occurring, and the loveliest days of autumn were now shining. To +those who know the "Indian summer" of our Northern States, it is needless +to describe the influence it exerts on the senses and the soul. The +stillness of the landscape in that beautiful time is as if the planet +were sleeping, like a top, before it begins to rock with the storms of +autumn. All natures seem to find themselves more truly in its light; +love grows more tender, religion more spiritual, memory sees farther back +into the past, grief revisits its mossy marbles, the poet harvests the +ripe thoughts which he will tie in sheaves of verses by his winter +fireside. + +The minister had got into the way of taking frequent walks with Myrtle, +whose health had seemed to require the open air, and who was fast +regaining her natural look. Under the canopy of the scarlet, orange, and +crimson leaved maples, of the purple and violet clad oaks, of the birches +in their robes of sunshine, and the beeches in their clinging drapery of +sober brown, they walked together while he discoursed of the joys of +heaven, the sweet communion of kindred souls, the ineffable bliss of a +world where love would be immortal and beauty should never know decay. +And while she listened, the strange light of the leaves irradiated the +youthful figure of Myrtle, as when the stained window let in its colors +on Madeline, the rose-bloom and the amethyst and the glory. + +"Yes! we shall be angels together," exclaimed the Rev. Mr. Stoker. "Our +souls were made for immortal union. I know it; I feel it in every throb +of my heart. Even in this world you are as an angel to me, lifting me +into the heaven where I shall meet you again, or it will not be heaven. +Oh, if on earth our communion could have been such as it must be +hereafter! O Myrtle, Myrtle!" + +He stretched out his hands as if to clasp hers between them in the +rapture of his devotion. Was it the light reflected from the glossy +leaves of the poison sumach which overhung the path that made his cheek +look so pale? Was he going to kneel to her? + +Myrtle turned her dark eyes on him with a simple wonder that saw an +excess of saintly ardor in these demonstrations, and drew back from it. + +"I think of heaven always as the place where I shall meet my mother," she +said calmly. + +These words recalled the man to himself for a moment and he was silent. +Presently he seated himself on a stone. His lips were tremulous as he +said, in a low tone, "Sit down by me, Myrtle." + +"No," she answered, with something which chilled him in her voice, "we +will not stay here any longer; it is time to go home." + +"Full time!" muttered Cynthia Badlam, whose watchful eyes had been upon +them, peering through a screen of yellow leaves, that turned her face +pace as if with deadly passion. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +FLANK MOVEMENT. + +Miss Cynthia Badlam was in the habit of occasionally visiting the Widow +Hopkins. Some said but then people will talk, especially in the country, +where they have not much else to do, except in haying-time. She had +always known the widow, long before Mr. Gridley came there to board, or +any other special event happened in her family. No matter what people +said. + +Miss Badlam called to see Mrs. Hopkins, then, and the two had a long talk +together, of which only a portion is on record. Here are such fragments +as have been preserved. + +"What would I do about it? Why, I'd put a stop to such carry'n's on, +mighty quick, if I had to tie the girl to the bedpost, and have a bulldog +that world take the seat out of any pair of black pantaloons that come +within forty rod of her,--that's what I'd do about it! He undertook to +be mighty sweet with our Susan one while, but ever sence he's been +talkin' religion with Myrtle Hazard he's let us alone. Do as I did when +he asked our Susan to come to his study,--stick close to your girl and +you 'll put a stop to all this business. He won't make love to two at +once, unless they 're both pretty young, I 'll warrant. Follow her +round, Miss Cynthy, and keep your eyes on her." + +"I have watched her like a cat, Mrs. Hopkins, but I can't follow her +everywhere,--she won't stand what Susan Posey 'll stand. There's no use +our talking to her,--we 've done with that at our house. You never know +what that Indian blood of hers will make her do. She's too high-strung +for us to bit and bridle. I don't want to see her name in the paper +again, alongside of that" (She did not finish the sentence.) "I'd rather +have her fished dead out of the river, or find her where she found her +uncle Malachi!" + +"You don't think, Miss Cynthy, that the man means to inveigle the girl +with the notion of marryin' her by and by, after poor Mrs. Stoker's dead +and gone?" + +"The Lord in heaven forbid!" exclaimed Miss Cynthia, throwing up her +hands. "A child of fifteen years old, if she is a woman to look at!" + +"It's too bad,--it's too bad to think of, Miss Cynthy; and there's that +poor woman dyin' by inches, and Miss Bathsheby settin' with her day and +night, she has n't got a bit of her father in her, it's all her +mother,--and that man, instead of bein' with her to comfort her as any +man ought to be with his wife, in sickness and in health, that's what he +promised. I 'm sure when my poor husband was sick.... To think of that +man goin' about to talk religion to all the prettiest girls he can find +in the parish, and his wife at home like to leave him so soon,--it's a +shame,--so it is, come now! Miss Cynthy, there's one of the best men and +one of the learnedest men that ever lived that's a real friend of Myrtle +Hazard, and a better friend to her than she knows of,--for ever sence he +brought her home, he feels jest like a father to her,--and that man is +Mr. Gridley, that lives in this house. It's him I 'll speak to about the +minister's carry'in's on. He knows about his talking sweet to our Susan, +and he'll put things to rights! He's a master hand when he does once +take hold of anything, I tell you that! Jest get him to shet up them +books of his, and take hold of anybody's troubles, and you'll see how he +'ll straighten 'em out." + +There was a pattering of little feet on the stairs, and the two small +twins, "Sossy" and "Minthy," in the home dialect, came hand in hand into +the room, Miss Susan leaving them at the threshold, not wishing to +interrupt the two ladies, and being much interested also in listening to +Mr. Gifted Hopkins, who was reading some of his last poems to her, with +great delight to both of them. + +The good woman rose to take them from Susan, and guide their uncertain +steps. "My babies, I call 'em, Miss Cynthy. Ain't they nice children? +Come to go to bed, little dears? Only a few minutes, Miss Cynthy." + +She took them into the bedroom on the same floor, where they slept, and, +leaving the door open, began undressing them. Cynthia turned her +rocking-chair round so as to face the open door. She looked on while the +little creatures were being undressed; she heard the few words they +lisped as their infant prayer, she saw them laid in their beds, and heard +their pretty good-night. + +A lone woman to whom all the sweet cares of maternity have been denied +cannot look upon a sight like this without feeling the void in her own +heart where a mother's affection should have nestled. Cynthia sat +perfectly still, without rocking, and watched kind Mrs. Hopkins at her +quasi parental task. A tear stole down her rigid face as she saw the +rounded limbs of the children bared in their white beauty, and their +little heads laid on the pillow. They were sleeping quietly when Mrs. +Hopkins left the room for a moment on some errand of her own. Cynthia +rose softly from her chair, stole swiftly to the bedside, and printed a +long, burning kiss on each of their foreheads. + +When Mrs. Hopkins came back, she found the maiden lady sitting in her +place just as she left her, but rocking in her chair and sobbing as one +in sudden pangs of grief. + +"It is a great trouble, Miss Cynthy," she said,--"a great trouble to have +such a child as Myrtle to think of and to care for. If she was like our +Susan Posey, now!--but we must do the best we can; and if Mr. Gridley +once sets himself to it, you may depend upon it he 'll make it all come +right. I wouldn't take on about it if I was you. You let me speak to our +Mr. Gridley. We all have our troubles. It is n't everybody that can +ride to heaven in a C-spring shay, as my poor husband used to say; and +life 's a road that 's got a good many thank-you-ma'ams to go bumpin' +over, says he." + +Miss Badlam acquiesced in the philosophical reflections of the late Mr. +Ammi Hopkins, and left it to his widow to carry out her own suggestion in +reference to consulting Master Gridley. The good woman took the first +opportunity she had to introduce the matter, a little diffusely, as is +often the way of widows who keep boarders. + +"There's something going on I don't like, Mr. Gridley. They tell me that +Minister Stoker is following round after Myrtle Hazard, talking religion +at her jest about the same way he'd have liked to with our Susan, I +calculate. If he wants to talk religion to me or Silence Withers,--well, +no, I don't feel sure about Silence,--she ain't as young as she used to +be, but then ag'in she ain't so fur gone as some, and she's got +money,--but if he wants to talk religion with me, he may come and +welcome. But as for Myrtle Hazard, she's been sick, and it's left her a +little flighty by what they say, and to have a minister round her all the +time ravin' about the next world as if he had a latch-key to the front +door of it, is no way to make her come to herself again. I 've seen more +than one young girl sent off to the asylum by that sort of work, when, if +I'd only had 'em, I'd have made 'em sweep the stairs, and mix the +puddin's, and tend the babies, and milk the cow, and keep 'em too busy +all day to be thinkin' about themselves, and have 'em dress up nice +evenin's and see some young folks and have a good time, and go to meetin' +Sundays, and then have done with the minister, unless it was old Father +Pemberton. He knows forty times as much about heaven as that Stoker man +does, or ever 's like to,--why don't they run after him, I should like to +know? Ministers are men, come now; and I don't want to say anything +against women, Mr. Gridley, but women are women, that's the fact of it, +and half of 'em are hystericky when they're young; and I've heard old Dr. +Hurlbut say many a time that he had to lay in an extra stock of valerian +and assafaetida whenever there was a young minister round,--for there's +plenty of religious ravin', says he, that's nothin' but hysterics." + +[Mr. Fronde thinks that was the trouble with Bloody Queen Mary, but the +old physician did not get the idea from him.] + +"Well, and what do you propose to do about the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker +and his young proselyte, Miss Myrtle Hazard?" said Mr. Gridley, when Mrs. +Hopkins at last gave him a chance to speak. + +"Mr. Gridley,"--Mrs. Hopkins looked full upon him as she spoke,--"people +used to say that you was a good man and a great man and one of the +learnedest men alive, but that you didn't know much nor care for much +except books. I know you used to live pretty much to yourself when you +first came to board in this house. But you've been very good to my son; +...and if Gifted lives till you ...till you are in ...your grave, ...he +will write a poem--I know he will--that will tell your goodness to babes +unborn." + +[Here Master Gridley groaned, and repeated to himself silently, + + "Scindentur vestes gemmae frangentur et aurum, + Carmina quam tribuent fama perennis erit." + +All this inwardly, and without interrupting the worthy woman's talk.] + +"And if ever Gifted makes a book,--don't say anything about it, Mr. +Gridley, for goodness' sake, for he wouldn't have anybody know it, only I +can't help thinking that some time or other he will print a book,--and if +he does, I know whose name he'll put at the head of it,--'Dedicated to B. +G., with the gratitude and respect--' There, now, I had n't any business +to say a word about it, and it's only jest in case he does, you know. +I'm sure you deserve it all. You've helped him with the best of advice. +And you've been kind to me when I was in trouble. And you've been like a +grandfather" [Master Gridley winced,--why could n't the woman have said +father?--that grand struck his ear like a spade going into the gravel] +"to those babes, poor little souls! left on my door-step like a couple of +breakfast rolls,--only you know it's the baker left then. I believe in +you, Mr. Gridley, as I believe in my Maker and in Father Pemberton,--but, +poor man, he's old, and you won't be old these twenty years yet." + +[Master Gridley shook his head as if to say that was n't so, but felt +comforted and refreshed.] + +"You've got to help Myrtle Hazard again. You brought her home when she +come so nigh drowning. You got the old doctor to go and see her when she +come so nigh being bewitched with the magnetism and nonsense, whatever +they call it, and the young doctor was so nigh bein' crazy, too. I know, +for Nurse Byloe told me all about it. And now Myrtle's gettin' run away +with by that pesky Minister Stoker. Cynthy Badlam was here yesterday +crying and sobbing as if her heart would break about it. For my part, I +did n't think Cynthy cared so much for the girl as all that, but I saw +her takin' on dreadfully with my own eyes. That man's like a hen-hawk +among the chickens, first he picks up one, and then he picks up another. +I should like to know if nobody but young folks has souls to be saved, +and specially young women!" + +"Tell me all you know about Myrtle Hazard and Joseph Bellamy Stoker," +said Master Gridley. + +Thereupon that good lady related all that Miss Badlam had imparted to +her, of which the reader knows the worst, being the interview of which +the keen spinster had been a witness, having followed them for the +express purpose of knowing, in her own phrase, what the minister was up +to. + +It is not to be supposed that Myrtle had forgotten the discreet kindness +of Master Gridley in bringing her back and making the best of her +adventure. He, on his part, had acquired a kind of right to consider +himself her adviser, and had begun to take a pleasure in the thought that +he, the worn-out and useless old pedant, as he had been in the way of +considering himself, might perhaps do something even more important than +his previous achievement to save this young girl from the dangers that +surrounded her. He loved his classics and his old books; he took an +interest, too, in the newspapers and periodicals that brought the +fermenting thought and the electric life of the great world into his +lonely study; but these things just about him were getting strong hold on +him, and most of all the fortunes of this beautiful young woman. How +strange! For a whole generation he had lived in no nearer relation to +his fellow-creatures than that of a half-fossilized teacher; and all at +once he found himself face to face with the very most intense form of +life, the counsellor of threatened innocence, the champion of imperilled +loveliness. What business was it of his? growled the lower nature, of +which he had said in "Thoughts on the Universe,"--"Every man leads or is +led by something that goes on four legs." + +Then he remembered the grand line of the African freedman, that makes all +human interests everybody's business, and had a sudden sense of +dilatation and evolution, as it were, in all his dimensions, as if he +were a head taller, and a foot bigger round the chest, and took in an +extra gallon of air at every breath, Then--you who have written a book +that holds your heart-leaves between its pages will understand the +movement--he took down "Thoughts on the Universe" for a refreshing +draught from his own wellspring. He opened as chance ordered it, and his +eyes fell on the following passage: + +"The true American formula was well phrased by the late Samuel Patch, the +Western Empedocles, 'Some things can be done as well as others.' A homely +utterance, but it has virtue to overthrow all dynasties and hierarchies. +These were all built up on the Old-World dogma that some things can NOT +be done as well as others." + +"There, now!" he said, talking to himself in his usual way, "is n't that +good? It always seems to me that I find something to the point when I +open that book. 'Some things can be done as well as others,' can they? +Suppose I should try what I can do by visiting Miss Myrtle Hazard? I +think I may say I am old and incombustible enough to be trusted. She +does not seem to be a safe neighbor to very inflammable bodies?" + +Myrtle was sitting in the room long known as the Study, or the Library, +when Master Byles Gridley called at The Poplars to see her. Miss Cynthia, +who received him, led him to this apartment and left him alone with +Myrtle. She welcomed him very cordially, but colored as she did so,--his +visit was a surprise. She was at work on a piece of embroidery. Her +first instinctive movement was to thrust it out of sight with the thought +of concealment; but she checked this, and before the blush of detection +had reached her cheek, the blush of ingenuous shame for her weakness had +caught and passed it, and was in full possession. She sat with her +worsted pattern held bravely in sight, and her cheek as bright as its +liveliest crimson. + +"Miss Cynthia has let me in upon you," he said, "or I should not have +ventured to disturb you in this way. A work of art, is it, Miss Myrtle +Hazard?" + +"Only a pair of slippers, Mr. Gridley,--for my pastor." + +"Oh! oh! That is well. A good old man. I have a great regard for the +Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton. I wish all ministers were as good and simple +and pure-hearted as the Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton. And I wish all the +young people thought as much about their elders as you do, Miss Myrtle +Hazard. We that are old love little acts of kindness. You gave me more +pleasure than you knew of, my dear, when you worked that handsome cushion +for me. The old minister will be greatly pleased,--poor old man!" + +"But, Mr. Gridley, I must not let you think these are for Father +Pemberton. They are for--Mr. Stoker." + +"The Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker! He is not an old man, the Rev. Joseph +Bellamy Stoker. He may perhaps be a widower before a great while.--Does +he know that you are working those slippers for him?" + +"Dear me! no, Mr. Gridley. I meant them for a surprise to him. He has +been so kind to me, and understands me so much better than I thought +anybody did. He is so different from what I thought; he makes religion +so perfectly simple, it seems as if everybody would agree with him, if +they could only hear him talk." + +"Greatly interested in the souls of his people, is n't he?" + +"Too much, almost, I am afraid. He says he has been too hard in his +sermons sometimes, but it was for fear he should not impress his hearers +enough." + +"Don't you think he worries himself about the souls of young women rather +more than for those of old ones, Myrtle?" + +There was something in the tone of this question that helped its slightly +sarcastic expression. Myrtle's jealousy for her minister's sincerity was +roused. + +"How can you ask that, Mr. Gridley? I am sure I wish you or anybody +could have heard him talk as I have. There is no age in souls, he says; +and I am sure that it would do anybody good to hear him, old or young." + +"No age in souls,--no age in souls. Souls of forty as young as souls of +fifteen; that 's it." Master Gridley did not say this loud. But he did +speak as follows: "I am glad to hear what you say of the Rev. Joseph +Bellamy Stoker's love of being useful to people of all ages. You have had +comfort in his companionship, and there are others who might be very glad +to profit by it. I know a very excellent person who has had trials, and +is greatly interested in religious conversation. Do you think he would +be willing to let this friend of mine share in the privileges of +spiritual intercourse which you enjoy?" + +There was but one answer possible. Of course he would. + +"I hope it is so, my dear young lady. But listen to me one moment. I +love you, my dear child, do you know, as if I were your +own--grandfather." (There was moral heroism in that word.) "I love you +as if you were of my own blood; and so long as you trust me, and suffer +me, I mean to keep watch against all dangers that threaten you in mind, +body, or estate. You may wonder at me, you may sometimes doubt me; but +until you say you distrust me, when any trouble comes near you, you will +find me there. Now, my dear child, you ought to know that the Rev. +Joseph Bellamy Stoker has the reputation of being too fond of prosecuting +religious inquiries with young and handsome women." + +Myrtle's eyes fell,--a new suspicion seemed to have suggested itself. + +"He wanted to get up a spiritual intimacy with our Susan Posey,--a very +pretty girl, as you know." + +Myrtle tossed her head almost imperceptibly, and bit her lip. + +"I suppose there are a dozen young people that have been talked about +with him. He preaches cruel sermons in his pulpit, cruel as death, and +cold-blooded enough to freeze any mother's blood if nature did not tell +her he lied, and then smooths it all over with the first good-looking +young woman he can get to listen to him." + +Myrtle had dropped the slipper she was working on. + +"Tell me, my dear, would you be willing to give up meeting this man +alone, and gratify my friend, and avoid all occasion of reproach?" + +"Of course I would," said Myrtle, her eyes flashing, for her doubts, her +shame, her pride, were all excited. "Who is your friend, Mr. Gridley?" + +"An excellent woman,--Mrs. Hopkins. You know her, Gifted Hopkins's +mother, with whom I am residing. Shall the minister be given to +understand that you will see him hereafter in her company?" + +Myrtle came pretty near a turn of her old nervous perturbations. "As you +say," she answered. "Is there nobody that I can trust, or is everybody +hunting me like a bird?" She hid her face in her hands. + +"You can trust me, my dear," said Byles Gridley. "Take your needle, my +child, and work at your pattern,--it will come out a rose by and by. +Life is like that, Myrtle, one stitch at a time, taken patiently, and the +pattern will come out all right like the embroidery. You can trust me. +Good-by, my dear." + +"Let her finish the slippers," the old man said to himself as he trudged +home, "and make 'em big enough for Father Pemberton. He shall have his +feet in 'em yet, or my name is n't Byles Gridley!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +ARRIVAL OF REINFORCEMENTS. + +Myrtle Hazard waited until the steps of Master Byles Gridley had ceased +to be heard, as he walked in his emphatic way through the long entry of +the old mansion. Then she went to her little chamber and sat down in a +sort of revery. She could not doubt his sincerity, and there was +something in her own consciousness which responded to the suspicions he +had expressed with regard to the questionable impulses of the Rev. Joseph +Bellamy Stoker. + +It is not in the words that others say to us, but in those other words +which these make us say to ourselves, that we find our gravest lessons +and our sharpest rebukes. The hint another gives us finds whole trains +of thought which have been getting themselves ready to be shaped in +inwardly articulated words, and only awaited the touch of a burning +syllable, as the mottoes of a pyrotechnist only wait for a spark to +become letters of fire. + +The artist who takes your photograph must carry you with him into his +"developing" room, and he will give you a more exact illustration of the +truth just mentioned. There is nothing to be seen on the glass just +taken from the camera. But there is a potential, though invisible, +picture hid in the creamy film which covers it. Watch him as he pours a +wash over it, and you will see that miracle wrought which is at once a +surprise and a charm,--the sudden appearance of your own features where a +moment before was a blank without a vestige of intelligence or beauty. + +In some such way the grave warnings of Master Byles Gridley had called up +a fully shaped, but hitherto unworded, train of thought in the +consciousness of Myrtle Hazard. It was not merely their significance, it +was mainly because they were spoken at the fitting time. If they had +been uttered a few weeks earlier, when Myrtle was taking the first stitch +on the embroidered slippers, they would have been as useless as the +artist's developing solution on a plate which had never been exposed in +the camera. But she had been of late in training for her lesson in ways +that neither she nor anybody else dreamed of. The reader who has +shrugged his (or her) shoulders over the last illustration will perhaps +hear this one which follows more cheerfully. The physician in the +Arabian Nights made his patient play at ball with a bat, the hollow +handle of which contained drugs of marvellous efficacy. Whether it was +the drugs that made the sick man get well, or the exercise, is not of so +much consequence as the fact that he did at any rate get well. + +These walks which Myrtle had taken with her reverend counsellor had given +her a new taste for the open air, which was what she needed just now more +than confessions of faith or spiritual paroxysms. And so it happened +that, while he had been stimulating all those imaginative and emotional +elements of her nature which responded to the keys he loved to play upon, +the restoring influences of the sweet autumnal air, the mellow sunshine, +the soothing aspects of the woods and fields and sky, had been quietly +doing their work. The color was fast returning to her cheek, and the +discords of her feelings and her thoughts gradually resolving themselves +into the harmonious and cheerful rhythms of bodily and mental health. It +needed but the timely word from the fitting lips to change the whole +programme of her daily mode of being. The word had been spoken. She saw +its truth; but how hard it is to tear away a cherished illusion, to cast +out an unworthy intimate! How hard for any!--but for a girl so young, +and who had as yet found so little to love and trust, how cruelly hard! + +She sat, still and stony, like an Egyptian statue. Her eyes were fixed +on a vacant chair opposite the one on which she was sitting. It was a +very singular and fantastic old chair, said to have been brought over by +the first emigrant of her race. The legs and arms were curiously turned +in spirals, the suggestions of which were half pleasing and half +repulsive. Instead of the claw-feet common in furniture of a later date, +each of its legs rested on a misshapen reptile, which it seemed to +flatten by its weight, as if it were squeezing the breath out of the ugly +creature. Over this chair hung the portrait of her beautiful ancestress, +her neck and arms, the specialty of her beauty, bare, except for a +bracelet on the left wrist, and her shapely figure set off by the ample +folds of a rich crimson brocade. Over Myrtle's bed hung that other +portrait, which was to her almost as the pictures of the Mater Dolorosa +to trustful souls of the Roman faith. She had longed for these pictures +while she was in her strange hysteric condition, and they had been hung +up in her chamber. + +The night was far gone, as she knew by the declining of the +constellations which she bad seen shining brightly almost overhead in the +early evening, when she awoke, and found herself still sitting in the +very attitude in which she was sitting hours before. Her lamp had burned +out, and the starlight but dimly illuminated her chamber. She started to +find herself sitting there, chilled and stiffened by long remaining in +one posture; and as her consciousness returned, a great fear seized her, +and she sprang for a match. It broke with the quick movement she made to +kindle it, and she snatched another as if a fiend were after her. It +flashed and went out. Oh the terror, the terror! The darkness seemed +alive with fearful presences. The lurid glare of her own eyeballs +flashed backwards into her brain. She tried one more match; it kindled +as it should, and she lighted another lamp. Her first impulse was to +assure herself that nothing was changed in the familiar objects around +her. She held the lamp up to the picture of Judith Pride. The beauty +looked at her, it seemed as if with a kind of lofty recognition in her +eyes; but there she was, as always. She turned the light upon the pale +face of the martyr-portrait. It looked troubled and faded, as it seemed +to Myrtle, but still it was the same face she remembered from her +childhood. Then she threw the light on the old chair, and, shuddering, +caught up a shawl and flung it over the spiral-wound arms and legs, and +the flattened reptiles on which it stood. + +In those dead hours of the night which had passed over her sitting there, +still and stony, as it should seem, she had had strange visitors. Two +women had been with her, as real as any that breathed the breath of +life,--so it appeared to her,--yet both had long been what is called, in +our poor language, dead. One came in all the glory of her ripened +beauty, bare-necked, bare-armed, full dressed by nature in that splendid +animal equipment which in its day had captivated the eyes of all the +lusty lovers of complete muliebrity. The other,--how delicate, how +translucent, how aerial she seemed! yet real and true to the lineaments +of her whom the young girl looked upon as her hereditary protector. + +The beautiful woman turned, and, with a face full of loathing and scorn, +pointed to one of the reptiles beneath the feet of the chair. And while +Myrtle's eyes followed hers, the flattened and half-crushed creature +seemed to swell and spread like his relative in the old fable, like the +black dog in Faust, until he became of tenfold size, and at last of +colossal proportions. And, fearful to relate, the batrachian features +humanized themselves as the monster grew, and, shaping themselves more +and more into a remembered similitude, Myrtle saw in them a hideous +likeness of--No! no! it was too horrible, was that the face which had +been so close to hers but yesterday? were those the lips, the breath from +which had stirred her growing curls as he leaned over her while they read +together some passionate stanza from a hymn that was as much like a +love-song as it dared to be in godly company? A shadow of disgust--the +natural repugnance of loveliness for deformity-ran all through her, and +she shrieked, as she thought, and threw herself at the feet of that other +figure. She felt herself lifted from the floor, and then a cold thin +hand seemed to take hers. The warm life went out of her, and she was to +herself as a dimly conscious shadow that glided with passive acquiescence +wherever it was led. Presently she found herself in a half-lighted +apartment, where there were books on the shelves around, and a desk with +loose manuscripts lying on it, and a little mirror with a worn bit of +carpet before it. And while she looked, a great serpent writhed in +through the half-open door, and made the circuit of the room, laying one +huge ring all round it, and then, going round again, laid another ring +over the first, and so on until he was wound all round the room like the +spiral of a mighty cable, leaving a hollow in the centre; and then the +serpent seemed to arch his neck in the air, and bring his head close down +to Myrtle's face; and the features were not those of a serpent, but of a +man, and it hissed out the words she had read that very day in a little +note which said, "Come to my study to-morrow, and we will read hymns +together." + +Again she was back in her little chamber, she did not know how, and the +two women were looking into her eyes with strange meaning in their own. +Something in them seemed to plead with her to yield to their influence, +and her choice wavered which of them to follow, for each would have led +her her own way,--whither she knew not. It was the strife of her +"Vision," only in another form,--the contest of two lives her blood +inherited for the mastery of her soul. The might of beauty conquered. +Myrtle resigned herself to the guidance of the lovely phantom, which +seemed so much fuller of the unextinguished fire of life, and so like +herself as she would grow to be when noon should have ripened her into +maturity. + +Doors opened softly before them; they climbed stairs, and threaded +corridors, and penetrated crypts, strange yet familiar to her eyes, which +seemed to her as if they could see, as it were, in darkness. Then came a +confused sense of eager search for something that she knew was hidden, +whether in the cleft of a rock, or under the boards of a floor, or in +some hiding-place among the skeleton rafters, or in a forgotten drawer, +or in a heap of rubbish, she could not tell; but somewhere there was +something which she was to find, and which, once found, was to be her +talisman. She was in the midst of this eager search when she awoke. + +The impression was left so strongly on her mind that with all her fears +she could not resist the desire to make an effort to find what meaning +there was in this frightfully real dream. Her courage came back as her +senses assured her that all around her was natural, as when she left it. +She determined to follow the lead of the strange hint her nightmare had +given her. + +In one of the upper chambers of the old mansion there stood a tall, +upright desk of the ancient pattern, with folding doors above and large +drawers below. "That desk is yours, Myrtle," her uncle Malachi had once +said to her; "and there is a trick or two about it that it will pay you +to study." Many a time Myrtle had puzzled herself about the mystery of +the old desk. All the little drawers, of which there were a considerable +number, she had pulled out, and every crevice, as she thought, she had +carefully examined. She determined to make one more trial. It was the +dead of the night, and this was a fearful old place to be wandering +about; but she was possessed with an urgent feeling which would not let +her wait until daylight. + +She stole like a ghost from her chamber. She glided along the narrow +entries as she had seemed to move in her dream. She opened the folding +doors of the great upright desk. She had always before examined it by +daylight, and though she had so often pulled all the little drawers out, +she had never thoroughly explored the recesses which received them. But +in her new-born passion of search, she held her light so as to illuminate +all these deeper spaces. At once she thought she saw the marks of +pressure with a finger. She pressed her own finger on this place, and, +as it yielded with a slight click, a small mahogany pilaster sprang +forward, revealing its well-kept secret that it was the mask of a tall, +deep, very narrow drawer. There was something heavy in it, and, as Myrtle +turned it over, a golden bracelet fell into her hand. She recognized it +at once as that which had been long ago the ornament of the fair woman +whose portrait hung in her chamber. She clasped it upon her wrist, and +from that moment she felt as if she were the captive of the lovely +phantom who had been with her in her dream. + +"The old man walked last night, God save us!" said Kitty Fagan to Biddy +Finnegan, the day after Myrtle's nightmare and her curious discovery. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +VICTORY. + +It seems probable enough that Myrtle's whole spiritual adventure was an +unconscious dramatization of a few simple facts which her imagination +tangled together into a kind of vital coherence. The philosopher who +goes to the bottom of things will remark that all the elements of her +fantastic melodrama had been furnished her while waking. Master Byles +Gridley's penetrating and stinging caution was the text, and the +grotesque carvings and the portraits furnished the "properties" with +which her own mind had wrought up this scenic show. + +The philosopher who goes to the bottom of things might not find it so +easy to account for the change which came over Myrtle Hazard from the +hour when she clasped the bracelet of Judith Pride upon her wrist. She +felt a sudden loathing of the man whom she had idealized as a saint. A +young girl's caprice? Possibly. A return of the natural instincts of +girlhood with returning health? Perhaps so. An impression produced by +her dream? An effect of an influx from another sphere of being? The +working of Master Byles Gridley's emphatic warning? The magic of her new +talisman? + +We may safely leave these questions for the present. As we have to tell, +not what Myrtle Hazard ought to have done, and why she should have done +it, but what she did do, our task is a simpler one than it would be to +lay bare all the springs of her action. Until this period, she had +hardly thought of herself as a born beauty. The flatteries she had +received from time to time were like the chips and splinters under the +green wood, when the chill women pretended to make a fire in the best +parlor at The Poplars, which had a way of burning themselves out, hardly +warming, much less kindling, the fore-stick and the back-log. + +Myrtle had a tinge of what some call superstition, and she began to look +upon her strange acquisition as a kind of amulet. Its suggestions +betrayed themselves in one of her first movements. Nothing could be +soberer than the cut of the dresses which the propriety of the severe +household had established as the rule of her costume. But the girl was +no sooner out of bed than a passion came over her to see herself in that +less jealous arrangement of drapery which the Beauty of the last century +had insisted on as presenting her most fittingly to the artist. She +rolled up the sleeves of her dress, she turned down its prim collar and +neck, and glanced from her glass to the portrait, from the portrait back +to the glass. Myrtle was not blind nor dull, though young, and in many +things untaught. She did not say in so many words, "I too am a beauty," +but she could mot help seeing that she had many of the attractions of +feature and form which had made the original of the picture before her +famous. The same stately carriage of the head, the same full-rounded +neck, the same more than hinted outlines of figure, the same finely +shaped arms and hands, and something very like the same features startled +her by their identity in the permanent image of the canvas and the +fleeting one of the mirror. + +The world was hers then,--for she had not read romances and love-letters +without finding that beauty governs it in all times and places. Who was +this middle-aged minister that had been hanging round her and talking to +her about heaven, when there was not a single joy of earth that she had +as yet tasted? A man that had been saying all his fine things to Miss +Susan Posey, too, had he, before he had bestowed his attentions on her? +And to a dozen other girls, too, nobody knows who! + +The revulsion was a very sadden one. Such changes of feeling are apt to +be sudden in young people whose nerves have been tampered with, and +Myrtle was not of a temperament or an age to act with much deliberation +where a pique came in to the aid of a resolve. Master Gridley guessed +sagaciously what would be the effect of his revelation, when he told her +of the particular attentions the minister had paid to pretty Susan Posey +and various other young women. + +The Rev. Mr. Stoker had parted his hair wonderfully that morning, and +made himself as captivating as his professional costume allowed. He had +drawn down the shades of his windows so as to let in that subdued light +which is merciful to crow's-feet and similar embellishments, and wheeled +up his sofa so that two could sit at the table and read from the same +book. + +At eleven o'clock he was pacing the room with a certain feverish +impatience, casting a glance now and then at the mirror as he passed it. +At last the bell rang, and he himself went to answer it, his heart +throbbing with expectation of meeting his lovely visitor. + +Myrtle Hazard appeared by an envoy extraordinary, the bearer of sealed +despatches. Mistress Kitty Fagan was the young lady's substitute, and +she delivered into the hand of the astonished clergyman the following +missive: + +TO THE REV. MR. STOKER. + +Reverend Sir,--I shall not come to your study this day. I do not feel +that I have any more need of religious counsel at this time, and I am +told by a friend that there are others who will be glad to hear you talk +on this subject. I hear that Mrs. Hopkins is interested in religious +subjects, and would have been glad to see you in my company. As I cannot +go with her, perhaps Miss Susan Posey will take my place. I thank you +for all the good things you have said to me, and that you have given me +so much of your company. I hope we shall sing hymns together in heaven +some time, if we are good enough, but I want to wait for that awhile, for +I do not feel quite ready. I am not going to see you any more alone, +reverend sir. I think this is best, and I have good advice. I want to +see more of young people of my own age, and I have a friend, Mr. Gridley, +who I think is older than you are, that takes an interest in me; and as +you have many others that you must be interested in, he can take the +place of a father better than you can do. I return to you the hymn-book, +I read one of those you marked, and do not care to read any more. + +Respectfully yours, + +MYRTLE HAZARD. + + +The Rev. Mr. Stoker uttered a cry of rage as he finished this awkwardly +written, but tolerably intelligible letter. What could he do about it? +It would hardly do to stab Myrtle Hazard, and shoot Byles Gridley, and +strangle Mrs. Hopkins, every one of which homicides he felt at the moment +that he could have committed. And here he was in a frantic paroxysm, and +the next day was Sunday, and his morning's discourse was unwritten. His +savage mediaeval theology came to his relief, and he clutched out of a +heap of yellow manuscripts his well-worn "convulsion-fit" sermon. He +preached it the next day as if it did his heart good, but Myrtle Hazard +did not hear it, for she had gone to St. Bartholomew's with Olive +Eveleth. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +SAINT AND SINNER + +It happened a little after this time that the minister's invalid wife +improved--somewhat unexpectedly in health, and, as Bathsheba was +beginning to suffer from imprisonment in her sick-chamber, the physician +advised very strongly that she should vary the monotony of her life by +going out of the house daily for fresh air and cheerful companionship. +She was therefore frequently at the house of Olive Eveleth; and as Myrtle +wanted to see young people, and had her own way now as never before, the +three girls often met at the parsonage. Thus they became more and more +intimate, and grew more and more into each other's affections. + +These girls presented three types of spiritual character which are to be +found in all our towns and villages. Olive had been carefully trained, +and at the proper age confirmed. Bathsheba had been prayed for, and in +due time startled and converted. Myrtle was a simple daughter of Eve, +with many impulses like those of the other two girls, and some that +required more watching. She was not so safe, perhaps, as either of the +other girls, for this world or the next; but she was on some accounts +more interesting, as being a more genuine representative of that +inexperienced and too easily deluded, yet always cherished, mother of our +race, whom we must after all accept as embodying the creative idea of +woman, and who might have been alive and happy now (though at a great +age) but for a single fatal error. + +The Rev. Ambrose Eveleth, Rector of Saint Bartholomew's, Olive's father, +was one of a class numerous in the Anglican Church, a cultivated man, +with pure tastes, with simple habits, a good reader, a neat writer, a +safe thinker, with a snug and well-fenced mental pasturage, which his +sermons kept cropped moderately close without any exhausting demand upon +the soil. Olive had grown insensibly into her religious maturity, as +into her bodily and intellectual developments, which one might suppose +was the natural order of things in a well-regulated Christian--household, +where the children are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the +Lord. + +Bathsheba had been worried over and perplexed and depressed with vague +apprehensions about her condition, conveyed in mysterious phrases and +graveyard expressions of countenance, until about the age of fourteen +years, when she had one of those emotional paroxysms very commonly +considered in some Protestant sects as essential to the formation of +religious character. It began with a shivering sense of enormous guilt, +inherited and practised from her earliest infancy. Just as every breath +she ever drew had been malignantly poisoning the air with carbonic acid, +so her every thought and feeling had been tainting the universe with sin. +This spiritual chill or rigor had in due order been followed by the +fever-flush of hope, and that in its turn had ushered in the last stage, +the free opening of all the spiritual pores in the peaceful relaxation of +self-surrender. + +Good Christians are made by many very different processes. Bathsheba had +taken her religion after the fashion of her sect; but it was genuine, in +spite of the cavils of the formalists, who could not understand that the +spirit which kept her at her mother's bedside was the same as that which +poured the tears of Mary of Magdala on the feet of her Lord, and led her +forth at early dawn with the other Mary to visit his sepulchre. + +Myrtle was a child of nature, and of course, according to the out-worn +formulae which still shame the distorted religion of humanity, hateful to +the Father in Heaven who made her. She had grown up in antagonism with +all that surrounded her. She had been talked to about her corrupt nature +and her sinful heart, until the words had become an offence and an +insult. Bathsheba knew her father's fondness for young company too well +to suppose that his intercourse with Myrtle had gone beyond the +sentimental and poetical stage, and was not displeased when she found +that there was some breach between them. Myrtle herself did not profess +to have passed through the technical stages of the customary spiritual +paroxysm. Still, the gentle daughter of the terrible preacher loved her +and judged her kindly. She was modest enough to think that perhaps the +natural state of some girls might be at least as good as her own after +the spiritual change of which she had been the subject. A manifest +heresy, but not new, nor unamiable, nor inexplicable. + +The excellent Bishop Joseph Hall, a painful preacher and solid divine of +Puritan tendencies, declares that he prefers good-nature before grace in +the election of a wife; because, saith he, "it will be a hard Task, where +the Nature is peevish and froward, for Grace to make an entire Conquest +whilst Life lasteth." An opinion apparently entertained by many modern +ecclesiastics, and one which may be considered very encouraging to those +young ladies of the politer circles who have a fancy for marrying bishops +and other fashionable clergymen. Not of course that "grace" is so rare a +gift among the young ladies of the upper social sphere; but they are in +the habit of using the word with a somewhat different meaning from that +which the good Bishop attached to it. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +VILLAGE POET. + +It was impossible for Myrtle to be frequently at Olive's without often +meeting Olive's brother, and her reappearance with the bloom on her cheek +was a signal which her other admirers were not likely to overlook as a +hint to recommence their flattering demonstrations; and so it was that +she found herself all at once the centre of attraction to three young men +with whom we have made some acquaintance, namely, Cyprian Eveleth, Gifted +Hopkins, and Murray Bradshaw. + +When the three girls were together at the house of Olive, it gave Cyprian +a chance to see something of Myrtle in the most natural way. Indeed, they +all became used to meeting him in a brotherly sort of relation; only, as +he was not the brother of two of them, it gave him the inside track, as +the sporting men say, with reference to any rivals for the good-will of +either of these. Of course neither Bathsheba nor Myrtle thought of him +in any other light than as Olive's brother, and would have been surprised +with the manifestation on his part of any other feeling, if it existed. +So he became very nearly as intimate with them as Olive was, and hardly +thought of his intimacy as anything more than friendship, until one day +Myrtle sang some hymns so sweetly that Cyprian dreamed about her that +night; and what young person does not know that the woman or the man once +idealized and glorified in the exalted state of the imagination belonging +to sleep becomes dangerous to the sensibilities in the waking hours that +follow? Yet something drew Cyprian to the gentler and more subdued +nature of Bathsheba, so that he often thought, like a gayer personage +than himself, whose divided affections are famous in song, that he could +have been blessed to share her faithful heart, if Myrtle had not +bewitched him with her unconscious and innocent sorceries. As for poor, +modest Bathsheba, she thought nothing of herself, but was almost as much +fascinated by Myrtle as if she had been one of the sex she was born to +make in love with her. + +The first rival Cyprian was to encounter in his admiration of Myrtle +Hazard was Mr. Gifted Hopkins. This young gentleman had the enormous +advantage of that all-subduing accomplishment, the poetical endowment. +No woman, it is pretty generally understood, can resist the youth or man +who addresses her in verse. The thought that she is the object of a +poet's love is one which fills a woman's ambition more completely than +all that wealth or office or social eminence can offer. Do the young +millionnaires and the members of the General Court get letters from +unknown ladies, every day, asking for their autographs and photographs? +Well, then! + +Mr. Gifted Hopkins, being a poet, felt that it was so, to the very depth +of his soul. Could he not confer that immortality so dear to the human +heart? Not quite yet, perhaps,--though the "Banner and Oracle" gave him +already "an elevated niche in the Temple of Fame," to quote its own +words,--but in that glorious summer of his genius, of which these spring +blossoms were the promise. It was a most formidable battery, then, which +Cyprian's first rival opened upon the fortress of Myrtle's affections. + +His second rival, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, had made a half-playful +bet with his fair relative, Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, that he would bag a girl +within twelve months of date who should unite three desirable qualities, +specified in the bet, in a higher degree than any one of the five who +were on the matrimonial programme which she had laid out for him,--and +Myrtle was the girl with whom he meant to win the bet. When a young +fellow like him, cool and clever, makes up his mind to bring down his +bird, it is no joke, but a very serious and a tolerably certain piece of +business. Not being made a fool of by any boyish nonsense,--passion and +all that,--he has a great advantage. Many a woman rejects a man because +he is in love with her, and accepts another because he is not. The first +is thinking too much of himself and his emotions,--the other makes a +study of her and her friends, and learns what ropes to pull. But then it +must be remembered that Murray Bradshaw had a poet for his rival, to say +nothing of the brother of a bosom friend. + +The qualities of a young poet are so exceptional, and such interesting +objects of study, that a narrative like this can well afford to linger +awhile in the delineation of this most envied of all the forms of genius. +And by contrasting the powers and limitations of two such young persons +as Gifted Hopkins and Cyprian Eveleth, we may better appreciate the +nature of that divine inspiration which gives to poetry the superiority +it claims over every other form of human expression. + +Gifted Hopkins had shown an ear for rhythm, and for the simpler forms of +music, from his earliest childhood. He began beating with his heels the +accents of the psalm tunes sung at meeting at a very tender age,--a +habit, indeed, of which he had afterwards to correct himself, as, though +it shows a sensibility to rhythmical impulses like that which is +beautifully illustrated when a circle join hands and emphasize by +vigorous downward movements the leading syllables in the tune of Auld +Lang Syne, yet it is apt to be too expressive when a large number of +boots join in the performance. He showed a remarkable talent for playing +on one of the less complex musical instruments, too limited in compass to +satisfy exacting ears, but affording excellent discipline to those who +wish to write in the simpler metrical forms,--the same which summons the +hero from his repose and stirs his blood in battle. + +By the time he was twelve years old he was struck with the pleasing +resemblance of certain vocal sounds which, without being the same, yet +had a curious relation which made them agree marvellously well in +couples; as eyes with skies; as heart with art, also with part and smart; +and so of numerous others, twenty or thirty pairs, perhaps, which number +he considerably increased as he grew older, until he may have had fifty +or more such pairs at his command. + +The union of so extensive a catalogue of words which matched each other, +and of an ear so nice that it could tell if there were nine or eleven +syllables in an heroic line, instead of the legitimate ten, constituted a +rare combination of talents in the opinion of those upon whose judgment +he relied. He was naturally led to try his powers in the expression of +some just thought or natural sentiment in the shape of verse, that +wonderful medium of imparting thought and feeling to his fellow-creatures +which a bountiful Providence had made his rare and inestimable endowment. + +It was at about this period of his life, that is to say, when he was of +the age of thirteen, or we may perhaps say fourteen years, for we do not +wish to overstate his precocity, that he experienced a sensation so +entirely novel, that, to the best of his belief, it was such as no other +young person had ever known, at least in anything like the same degree. +This extraordinary emotion was brought on by the sight of Myrtle Hazard, +with whom he had never before had any near relations, as they had been at +different schools, and Myrtle was too reserved to be very generally known +among the young people of his age. + +Then it was that he broke forth in his virgin effort, "Lines to M----e," +which were published in the village paper, and were claimed by all +possible girls but the right one; namely, by two Mary Annes, one Minnie, +one Mehitable, and one Marthie, as she saw fit to spell the name borrowed +from her who was troubled about many things. + +The success of these lines, which were in that form of verse known to the +hymn-books as "common metre," was such as to convince the youth that, +whatever occupation he might be compelled to follow for a time to obtain +a livelihood or to assist his worthy parent, his true destiny was the +glorious career of a poet. It was a most pleasing circumstance, that his +mother, while she fully recognized the propriety of his being diligent in +the prosaic line of business to which circumstances had called him, was +yet as much convinced as he himself that he was destined to achieve +literary fame. She had read Watts and Select Hymns all through, she +said, and she did n't see but what Gifted could make the verses come out +jest as slick, and the sound of the rhymes jest as pooty, as Izik Watts +or the Selectmen, whoever they was,--she was sure they couldn't be the +selectmen of this town, wherever they belonged. It is pleasant to say +that the young man, though favored by nature with this rarest of talents, +did not forget the humbler duties that Heaven, which dresses few +singing-birds in the golden plumes of fortune, had laid upon him. After +having received a moderate amount of instruction at one of the less +ambitious educational institutions of the town, supplemented, it is true, +by the judicious and gratuitous hints of Master Gridley, the young poet, +in obedience to a feeling which did him the highest credit, relinquished, +at least for the time, the Groves of Academus, and offered his youth at +the shrine of Plutus, that is, left off studying and took to business. +He became what they call a "clerk" in what they call a "store" up in the +huckleberry districts, and kept such accounts as were required by the +business of the establishment. His principal occupation was, however, to +attend to the details of commerce as it was transacted over the counter. +This industry enabled him, to his great praise be it spoken, to assist +his excellent parent, to clothe himself in a becoming manner, so that he +made a really handsome figure on Sundays and was always of presentable +aspect, likewise to purchase a book now and then, and to subscribe for +that leading periodical which furnishes the best models to the youth of +the country in the various modes of composition. + +Though Master Gridley was very kind to the young man, he was rather +disposed to check the exuberance of his poetical aspirations. The truth +was, that the old classical scholar did not care a great deal for modern +English poetry. Give him an Ode of Horace, or a scrap from the Greek +Anthology, and he would recite it with great inflation of spirits; but he +did not think very much of "your Keatses, and your Tennysons, and the +whole Hasheesh crazy lot," as he called the dreamily sensuous idealists +who belong to the same century that brought in ether and chloroform. He +rather shook his head at Gifted Hopkins for indulging so largely in +metrical composition. + +"Better stick to your ciphering, my young friend," he said to him, one +day. "Figures of speech are all very well, in their way; but if you +undertake to deal much in them, you'll figure down your prospects into a +mighty small sum. There's some danger that it will take all the sense +out of you, if you keep writing verses at this rate. You young +scribblers think any kind of nonsense will do for the public, if it only +has a string of rhymes tacked to it. Cut off the bobs of your kite, +Gifted Hopkins, and see if it does n't pitch, and stagger, and come down +head-foremost. Don't write any stuff with rhyming tails to it that won't +make a decent show for itself after you've chopped all the rhyming tails +off. That's my advice, Gifted Hopkins. Is there any book you would like +to have out of my library? Have you ever read Spenser's Faery Queen?" + +He had tried, the young man answered, on the recommendation of Cyprian +Eveleth, but had found it rather hard reading. + +Master Gridley lifted his eyebrows very slightly, remembering that some +had called Spenser the poet's poet. "What a pity," he said to himself, +"that this Gifted Hopkins has n't got the brains of that William Murray +Bradshaw! What's the reason, I wonder, that all the little earthen pots +blow their covers off and froth over in rhymes at such a great rate, +while the big iron pots keep their lids on, and do all their simmering +inside?" + +That is the way these old pedants will talk, after all their youth and +all their poetry, if they ever had any, are gone. The smiles of woman, +in the mean time, encouraged the young poet to smite the lyre. Fame +beckoned him upward from her templed steep. The rhymes which rose before +him unbidden were as the rounds of Jacob's ladder, on which he would +climb to a heaven of-glory. + +Master Gridley threw cold water on the young man's too sanguine +anticipations of success. "All up with the boy, if he's going to take to +rhyming when he ought to be doing up papers of brown sugar and weighing +out pounds of tea. Poor-house,--that 's what it'll end in. Poets, to be +sure! Sausage-makers! Empty skins of old phrases,--stuff 'em with odds +and ends of old thoughts that never were good for anything,--cut 'em up +in lengths and sell'em to fools! + +"And if they ain't big fools enough to buy 'em, give'em away; and if you +can't do that, pay folks to take'em. Bah! what a fine style of genius +common-sense is! There's a passage in the book that would fit half these +addle-headed rhymesters. What is that saying of mine about I squinting +brains?" + +He took down "Thoughts on the Universe," and read:-- + + "Of Squinting Brains. + +"Where there is one man who squints with his eyes, there are a dozen who +squint with their brains. It is an infirmity in one of the eyes, making +the two unequal in power, that makes men squint. Just so it is an +inequality in the two halves of the brain that makes some men idiots and +others rascals. I knows a fellow whose right half is a genius, but his +other hemisphere belongs to a fool; and I had a friend perfectly honest +on one side, but who was sent to jail because the other had an inveterate +tendency in the direction of picking pockets and appropriating aes +alienum." + +All this, talking and reading to himself in his usual fashion. + +The poetical faculty which was so freely developed in Gifted Hopkins had +never manifested itself in Cyprian Eveleth, whose look and voice might, +to a stranger, have seemed more likely to imply an imaginative nature. +Cyprian was dark, slender, sensitive, contemplative, a lover of lonely +walks,--one who listened for the whispers of Nature and watched her +shadows, and was alive to the symbolisms she writes over everything. But +Cyprian had never shown the talent or the inclination for writing in +verse. + +He was on the pleasantest terms with the young poet, and being somewhat +older, and having had the advantage of academic and college culture, +often gave him useful hints as to the cultivation of his powers, such as +genius frequently requires at the hands of humbler intelligences. +Cyprian was incapable of jealousy; and although the name of Gifted +Hopkins was getting to be known beyond the immediate neighborhood, and +his autograph had been requested by more than one young lady living in +another county, he never thought of envying the young poet's spreading +popularity. + +That the poet himself was flattered by these marks of public favor may be +inferred from the growing confidence with which he expressed himself in +his conversations with Cyprian, more especially in one which was held at +the "store" where he officiated as "clerk." + +"I become more and more assured, Cyprian," he said, leaning over the +counter, "that I was born to be a poet. I feel it in my marrow. I must +succeed. I must win the laurel of fame. I must taste the sweets of"-- + +"Molasses," said a bareheaded girl of ten who entered at that moment, +bearing in her hand a cracked pitcher, "ma wants three gills of +molasses." + +Gifted Hopkins dropped his subject and took up a tin measure. He served +the little maid with a benignity quite charming to witness, made an entry +on a slate of .08, and resumed the conversation. + +"Yes, I am sure of it, Cyprian. The very last piece I wrote was copied +in two papers. It was 'Contemplations in Autumn,' and--don't think I am +too vain--one young lady has told me that it reminded her of Pollok. You +never wrote in verse, did you, Cyprian?" + +"I never wrote at all, Gifted, except school and college exercises, and a +letter now and then. Do you find it an easy and pleasant exercise to +make rhymes?" + +Pleasant! Poetry is to me a delight and a passion. I never know what I +am going to write when I sit down. And presently the rhymes begin +pounding in my brain,--it seems as if there were a hundred couples of +them, paired like so many dancers,--and then these rhymes seem to take +possession of me, like a surprise party, and bring in all sorts of +beautiful thoughts, and I write and write, and the verses run measuring +themselves out like"-- + +"Ribbins,--any narrer blue ribbins, Mr. Hopkins? Five eighths of a yard, +if you please, Mr. Hopkins. How's your folks?" Then, in a lower tone, +"Those last verses of yours in the Bannernoracle were sweet pooty." + +Gifted Hopkins meted out the five eighths of blue ribbon by the aid of +certain brass nails on the counter. He gave good measure, not prodigal, +for he was loyal to his employer, but putting a very moderate strain on +the ribbon, and letting the thumb-nail slide with a contempt of +infinitesimals which betokened a large soul in its genial mood. + +The young lady departed, after casting upon him one of those bewitching +glances which the young poet--let us rather say the poet, without making +odious distinctions--is in the confirmed habit of receiving from dear +woman. + +Mr. Gifted Hopkins resumed: "I do not know where this talent, as my +friends call it, of mine, comes from. My father used to carry a chain +for a surveyor sometimes, and there is a ten-foot pole in the house he +used to measure land with. I don't see why that should make me a poet. +My mother was always fond of Dr. Watts's hymns; but so are other young +men's mothers, and yet they don't show poetical genius. But wherever I +got it, it comes as easy to me to write in verse as to write in prose, +almost. Don't you ever feel a longing to send your thoughts forth in +verse, Cyprian?" + +"I wish I had a greater facility of expression very often," Cyprian +answered; "but when I have my best thoughts I do not find that I have +words that seem fitting to clothe them. I have imagined a great many +poems, Gifted, but I never wrote a rhyming verse, or verse of any kind. +Did you ever hear Olive play 'Songs without Words'? If you have ever +heard her, you will know what I mean by unrhymed and unversed poetry." + +"I am sure I don't know what you mean, Cyprian, by poetry without rhyme +or verse, any more than I should if you talked about pictures that were +painted on nothing, or statues that were made out of nothing. How can +you tell that anything is poetry, I should like to know, if there is +neither a regular line with just so many syllables, nor a rhyme? Of +course you can't. I never have any thoughts too beautiful to put in +verse: nothing can be too beautiful for it." + +Cyprian left the conversation at this point. It was getting more +suggestive than interpenetrating, and he thought he might talk the matter +over better with Olive. Just then a little boy came in, and bargained +with Gifted for a Jews-harp, which, having obtained, he placed against +his teeth, and began playing upon it with a pleasure almost equal to that +of the young poet reciting his own verses. + +"A little too much like my friend Gifted Hopkins's poetry," Cyprian said, +as he left the "store." "All in one note, pretty much. Not a great many +tunes, 'Hi Betty Martin,' 'Yankee Doodle,' and one or two more like them. +But many people seem to like them, and I don't doubt it is as exciting to +Gifted to write them as it is to a great genius to express itself in a +poem." + +Cyprian was, perhaps, too exacting. He loved too well the sweet +intricacies of Spenser, the majestic and subtly interwoven harmonies of +Milton. These made him impatient of the simpler strains of Gifted +Hopkins. + +Though he himself never wrote verses, he had some qualities which his +friend the poet may have undervalued in comparison with the talent of +modelling the symmetries of verse and adjusting the correspondences of +rhyme. He had kept in a singular degree all the sensibilities of +childhood, its simplicity, its reverence. It seemed as if nothing of all +that he met in his daily life was common or unclean to him, for there was +no mordant in his nature for what was coarse or vile, and all else he +could not help idealizing into its own conception of itself, so to speak. +He loved the leaf after its kind as well as the flower, and the root as +well as the leaf, and did not exhaust his capacity of affection or +admiration on the blossom or bud upon which his friend the poet lavished +the wealth of his verse. Thus Nature took him into her confidence. She +loves the men of science well, and tells them all her family +secrets,--who is the father of this or that member of the group, who is +brother, sister, cousin, and so on, through all the circle of +relationship. But there are others to whom she tells her dreams; not +what species or genus her lily belongs to, but what vague thought it has +when it dresses in white, or what memory of its birthplace that is which +we call its fragrance. Cyprian was one of these. Yet he was not a +complete nature. He required another and a wholly different one to be +the complement of his own. Olive came as near it as a sister could, +but--we must borrow an old image--moonlight is no more than a cold and +vacant glimmer on the sun-dial, which only answers to the great flaming +orb of day. If Cyprian could but find some true, sweet-tempered, +well-balanced woman, richer in feeling than in those special imaginative +gifts which made the outward world at times unreal to him in the intense +reality of his own inner life, how he could enrich and adorn her +existence,--how she could direct and chasten and elevate the character of +all his thoughts and actions! + +"Bathsheba," said Olive, "it seems to me that Cyprian is getting more and +more fascinated with Myrtle Hazard. He has never got over the fancy he +took to her when he first saw her in her red jacket, and called her the +fire-hang-bird. Wouldn't they suit each other by and by, after Myrtle +has come to herself and grown into a beautiful and noble woman, as I feel +sure she will in due time?" + +"Myrtle is very lovely," Bathsheba answered, "but is n't she a little +too--flighty--for one like your brother? Cyprian isn't more like other +young men than Myrtle is like other young girls. I have thought +sometimes--I wondered whether out-of-the-way people and common ones do +not get along best together. Does n't Cyprian want some more every-day +kind of girl to keep him straight? Myrtle is beautiful, +beautiful,--fascinates everybody. Has Mr. Bradshaw been following after +her lately? He is taken with her too. Didn't you ever think she would +have to give in to Murray Bradshaw at last? He looks to me like a man +that would hold on desperately as a lover." + +If Myrtle Hazard, instead of being a half-finished school-girl, hardly +sixteen years old, had been a young woman of eighteen or nineteen, it +would have been plain sailing enough for Murray Bradshaw. But he knew +what a distance their ages seemed just now to put between them,--a +distance which would grow practically less and less with every year, and +he did not wish to risk anything so long as there was no danger of +interference. He rather encouraged Gifted Hopkins to write poetry to +Myrtle. "Go in, Gifted," he said, "there's no telling what may come of +it," and Gifted did go in at a great rate. + +Murray Bradshaw did not write poetry himself, but he read poetry with a +good deal of effect, and he would sometimes take a hint from one of +Gifted Hopkins's last productions to recite a passionate lyric of Byron +or Moore, into which he would artfully throw so much meaning that Myrtle +was almost as much puzzled, in her simplicity, to know what it meant, as +she had been by the religious fervors of the Rev. Mr. Stoker. + +He spoke well of Cyprian Eveleth. A good young man,--limited, but +exemplary. Would succeed well as rector of a small parish. That +required little talent, but a good deal of the humbler sort of virtue. +As for himself, he confessed to ambition,--yes, a great deal of ambition. +A failing, he supposed, but not the worst of failings. He felt the +instinct to handle the larger interests of society. The village would +perhaps lose sight of him for a time; but he meant to emerge sooner or +later in the higher spheres of government or diplomacy. Myrtle must keep +his secret. Nobody else knew it. He could not help making a confidant +of her,--a thing he had never done before with any other person as to his +plans in life. Perhaps she might watch his career with more interest +from her acquaintance with him. He loved to think that there was one +woman at least who would be pleased to hear of his success if he +succeeded, as with life and health he would,--who would share his +disappointment if fate should not favor him.--So he wound and wreathed +himself into her thoughts. + +It was not very long before Myrtle began to accept the idea that she was +the one person in the world whose peculiar duty it was to sympathize with +the aspiring young man whose humble beginnings she had the honor of +witnessing. And it is not very far from being the solitary confidant, +and the single source of inspiration, to the growth of a livelier +interest, where a young man and a young woman are in question. + +Myrtle was at this time her own mistress as never before. The three +young men had access to her as she walked to and from meeting and in her +frequent rambles, besides the opportunities Cyprian had of meeting her in +his sister's company, and the convenient visits which, in connection with +the great lawsuit, Murray Bradshaw could make, without question, at The +Poplars. + +It was not long before Cyprian perceived that he could never pass a +certain boundary of intimacy with Myrtle. Very pleasant and sisterly +always she was with him; but she never looked as if she might mean more +than she said, and cherished a little spark of sensibility which might be +fanned into the flame of love. Cyprian felt this so certainly that he +was on the point of telling his grief to Bathsheba, who looked to him as +if she would sympathize as heartily with him as his own sister, and whose +sympathy would have a certain flavor in it,--something which one cannot +find in the heart of the dearest sister that ever lived. But Bathsheba +was herself sensitive, and changed color when Cyprian ventured a hint or +two in the direction of his thought, so that he never got so fax as to +unburden his heart to her about Myrtle, whom she admired so sincerely +that she could not have helped feeling a great interest in his passion +towards her. + +As for Gifted Hopkins, the roses that were beginning to bloom fresher and +fresher every day in Myrtle's cheeks unfolded themselves more and more +freely, to speak metaphorically, in his song. Every week she would +receive a delicately tinted note with lines to "Myrtle awaking," or to +"Myrtle retiring," (one string of verses a little too Musidora-ish, and +which soon found itself in the condition of a cinder, perhaps reduced to +that state by spontaneous combustion,) or to "The Flower of the Tropics," +or to the "Nymph of the River-side," or other poetical alias, such as +bards affect in their sieges of the female heart. + +Gifted Hopkins was of a sanguine temperament. As he read and re-read his +verses it certainly seemed to him that they must reach the heart of the +angelic being to whom they were addressed. That she was slow in +confessing the impression they made upon her, was a favorable sign; so +many girls called his poems "sweet pooty," that those charming words, +though soothing, no longer stirred him deeply. Myrtle's silence showed +that the impression his verses had made was deep. Time would develop her +sentiments; they were both young; his position was humble as yet; but +when he had become famous through the land-oh blissful thought!--the bard +of Oxbow Village would bear a name that any woman would be proud to +assume, and the M. H. which her delicate hands had wrought on the +kerchiefs she wore would yet perhaps be read, not Myrtle Hazard, but +Myrtle Hopkins. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +SUSAN'S YOUNG MAN. + +There seems no reasonable doubt that Myrtle Hazard might have made a +safe thing of it with Gifted Hopkins, (if so inclined,) provided that she +had only been secured against interference. But the constant habit of +reading his verses to Susan Posey was not without its risk to so +excitable a nature as that of the young poet. Poets were always capable +of divided affections, and Cowley's "Chronicle" is a confession that +would fit the whole tribe of them. It is true that Gifted had no right +to regard Susan's heart as open to the wiles of any new-comer. He knew +that she considered herself, and was considered by another, as pledged +and plighted. Yet she was such a devoted listener, her sympathies were +so easily roused, her blue eyes glistened so tenderly at the least +poetical hint, such as "Never, oh never," "My aching heart," "Go, let me +weep,"--any of those touching phrases out of the long catalogue which +readily suggests itself, that her influence was getting to be such that +Myrtle (if really anxious to secure him) might look upon it with +apprehension, and the owner of Susan's heart (if of a jealous +disposition) might have thought it worth while to make a visit to Oxbow +Village to see after his property. + +It may seem not impossible that some friend had suggested as much as this +to the young lady's lover. + +The caution would have been unnecessary, or at least premature. Susan was +loyal as ever to her absent friend. Gifted Hopkins had never yet +presumed upon the familiar relations existing between them to attempt to +shake her allegiance. It is quite as likely, after all, that the young +gentleman about to make his appearance in Oxbow Village visited the place +of his own accord, without a hint from anybody. But the fact concerns us +more than the reason of it, just now. + +"Who do you think is coming, Mr. Gridley? Who do you think is coming?" +said Susan Posey, her face covered with a carnation such as the first +season may see in a city belle, but not the second. + +"Well, Susan Posey, I suppose I must guess, though I am rather slow at +that business. Perhaps the Governor. No, I don't think it can be the +Governor, for you would n't look so happy if it was only his Excellency. +It must be the President, Susan Posey,--President James Buchanan. Have +n't I guessed right, now, tell me, my dear?" + +"O Mr. Gridley, you are too bad,--what do I care for governors and +presidents? I know somebody that's worth fifty million thousand +presidents,--and he 's coming,--my Clement is coming," said Susan, who +had by this time learned to consider the awful Byles Gridley as her next +friend and faithful counsellor. + +Susan could not stay long in the house after she got her note informing +her that her friend was soon to be with her. Everybody told everything +to Olive Eveleth, and Susan must run over to the parsonage to tell her +that there was a young gentleman coming to Oxbow Village; upon which +Olive asked who it was, exactly as if she did not know; whereupon Susan +dropped her eyes and said, "Clement,--I mean Mr. Lindsay." + +That was a fair piece of news now, and Olive had her bonnet on five +minutes after Susan was gone, and was on her way to Bathsheba's,--it was +too bad that the poor girl who lived so out of the world shouldn't know +anything of what was going on in it. Bathsheba had been in all the +morning, and the Doctor had said she must take the air every day; so +Bathsheba had on her bonnet a little after Olive had gone, and walked +straight up to The Poplars to tell Myrtle Hazard that a certain young +gentleman, Clement Lindsay, was coming to Oxbow Village. + +It was perhaps fortunate that there was no special significance to Myrtle +in the name of Clement Lindsay. Since the adventure which had brought +these two young persons together, and, after coming so near a disaster, +had ended in a mere humiliation and disappointment, and but for Master +Gridley's discreet kindness might have led to foolish scandal, Myrtle had +never referred to it in any way. Nobody really knew what her plans had +been except Olive and Cyprian, who had observed a very kind silence about +the whole matter. The common version of the story was harmless, and near +enough to the truth,--down the river,--boat upset,--pulled out,--taken +care of by some women in a house farther down,--sick, brain +fever,--pretty near it, anyhow,--old Dr. Hurlbut called in,--had her hair +cut,--hystericky, etc., etc. + +Myrtle was contented with this statement, and asked no questions, and it +was a perfectly understood thing that nobody alluded to the subject in +her presence. It followed from all this that the name of Clement Lindsay +had no peculiar meaning for her. Nor was she like to recognize him as +the youth in whose company she had gone through her mortal peril, for all +her recollections were confused and dreamlike from the moment when she +awoke and found herself in the foaming rapids just above the fall, until +that when her senses returned, and she saw Master Byles Gridley standing +over her with that look of tenderness in his square features which had +lingered in her recollection, and made her feel towards him as if she +were his daughter. + +Now this had its advantage; for as Clement was Susan's young man, and had +been so for two or three years, it would have been a great pity to have +any such curious relations established between him and Myrtle Hazard as a +consciousness on both sides of what had happened would naturally suggest. + +"Who is this Clement Lindsay, Bathsheba?" Myrtle asked. + +Why, Myrtle, don't you remember about Susan Posey's is-to-be,--the young +man that has been well, I don't know, but I suppose engaged to her ever +since they were children almost?" + +"Yes, yes, I remember now. Oh dear! I have forgotten so many things, I +should think I had been dead and was coming back to life again. Do you +know anything about him, Bathsheba? Did n't somebody say he was very +handsome? I wonder if he is really in love with Susan Posey. Such a +simple thing? I want to see him. I have seen so few young men." + +As Myrtle said these words, she lifted the sleeve a little on her left +arm, by a half-instinctive and half-voluntary movement. The glimmering +gold of Judith Pride's bracelet flashed out the yellow gleam which has +been the reddening of so many hands and the blackening of so, many souls +since that innocent sin-breeder was first picked up in the land of +Havilah. There came a sudden light into her eye, such as Bathsheba had +never seen there before. It looked to her as if Myrtle were saying +unconsciously to herself that she had the power of beauty, and would like +to try its influence on the handsome young man whom she was soon to meet, +even at the risk of unseating poor little Susan in his affections. This +pained the gentle and humble-minded girl, who, without having tasted the +world's pleasures, had meekly consecrated herself to the lowly duties +which lay nearest to her. For Bathsheba's phrasing of life was in the +monosyllables of a rigid faith. Her conceptions of the human soul were +all simplicity and purity, but elementary. She could not conceive the +vast license the creative energy allows itself in mingling the instincts +which, after long conflict, may come into harmonious adjustment. The +flash which Myrtle's eye had caught from the gleam of the golden bracelet +filled Bathsheba with a sudden fear that she was like to be led away by +the vanities of that world lying in wickedness of which the minister's +daughter had heard so much and seen so little. + +Not that Bathsheba made any fine moral speeches, to herself. She only +felt a slight shock, such as a word or a look from one we love too often +gives us,--such as a child's trivial gesture or movement makes a parent +feel,--that impalpable something which in the slightest possible +inflection of a syllable or gradation of a tone will sometimes leave a +sting behind it, even in a trusting heart. This was all. But it was true +that what she saw meant a great deal. It meant the dawning in Myrtle +Hazard of one of her as yet unlived secondary lives. Bathsheba's virgin +perceptions had caught a faint early ray of its glimmering twilight. + +She answered, after a very slight pause, which this explanation has made +seem so long, that she had never seen the young gentleman, and that she +did not know about Susan's sentiments. Only, as they had kept so long to +each other, she supposed there must be love between them. + +Myrtle fell into a revery, with certain tableaux glowing along its +perspectives which poor little Susan Posey would have shivered to look +upon, if they could have been transferred from the purple clouds of +Myrtle's imagination to the pale silvery mists of Susan's pretty fancies. +She sat in her day-dream long after Bathsheba had left her, her eyes +fixed, not on the faded portrait of her beatified ancestress, but on that +other canvas where the dead Beauty seemed to live in all the splendors of +her full-blown womanhood. + +The young man whose name had set her thoughts roving was handsome, as the +glance at him already given might have foreshadowed. But his features +had a graver impress than his age seemed to account for, and the sober +tone of his letter to Susan implied that something had given him a +maturity beyond his years. The story was not an uncommon one. At +sixteen he had dreamed-and told his dream. At eighteen he had awoke, and +found, as he believed, that a young heart had grown to his so that its +life was dependent on his own. Whether it would have perished if its +filaments had been gently disentangled from the object to which they had +attached themselves, experienced judges of such matters may perhaps +question. To justify Clement in his estimate of the danger of such an +experiment, we must remember that to young people in their teens a first +passion is a portentous and unprecedented phenomenon. The young man may +have been mistaken in thinking that Susan would die if he left her, and +may have done more than his duty in sacrificing himself; but if so, it +was the mistake of a generous youth, who estimated the depth of another's +feelings by his own. He measured the depth of his own rather by what he +felt they might be, than by that of any abysses they had yet sounded. + +Clement was called a "genius" by those who knew him, and was consequently +in danger of being spoiled early. The risk is great enough anywhere, but +greatest in a new country, where there is an almost universal want of +fixed standards of excellence. + +He was by nature an artist; a shaper with the pencil or the chisel, a +planner, a contriver capable of turning his hand to almost any work of +eye and hand. It would not have been strange if he thought he could do +everything, having gifts which were capable of various application,--and +being an American citizen. But though he was a good draughtsman, and had +made some reliefs and modelled some figures, he called himself only an +architect. He had given himself up to his art, not merely from a love +of it and talent for it, but with a kind of heroic devotion, because he +thought his country wanted a race of builders to clothe the new forms of +religious, social, and national life afresh from the forest, the quarry, +and the mine. Some thought he would succeed, others that he would be a +brilliant failure. + +"Grand notions,--grand notions," the master with whom he studied said. +"Large ground plan of life,--splendid elevation. A little wild in some +of his fancies, perhaps, but he's only a boy, and he's the kind of boy +that sometimes grows to be a pretty big man. Wait and see,--wait and +see. He works days, and we can let him dream nights. There's a good +deal of him, anyhow." His fellow-students were puzzled. Those who +thought of their calling as a trade, and looked forward to the time when +they should be embodying the ideals of municipal authorities in brick and +stone, or making contracts with wealthy citizens, doubted whether Clement +would have a sharp eye enough for business. "Too many whims, you know. +All sorts of queer ideas in his head,--as if a boy like him were going to +make things all over again!". + +No doubt there was something of youthful extravagance in his plans and +expectations. But it was the untamed enthusiasm which is the source of +all great thoughts and deeds,--a beautiful delirium which age commonly +tames down, and for which the cold shower-bath the world furnishes gratis +proves a pretty certain cure. + +Creation is always preceded by chaos. The youthful architect's mind was +confused by the multitude of suggestions which were crowding in upon it, +and which he had not yet had time or developed mature strength sufficient +to reduce to order. The young American of any freshness of intellect is +stimulated to dangerous excess by the conditions of life into which he is +born. There is a double proportion of oxygen in the New World air. The +chemists have not found it out yet, but human brains and breathing-organs +have long since made the discovery. + +Clement knew that his hasty entanglement had limited his possibilities of +happiness in one direction, and he felt that there was a certain grandeur +in the recompense of working out his defeated instincts through the +ambitious medium of his noble art. Had not Pharaohs chosen it to +proclaim their longings for immortality, Caesars their passion for pomp +and luxury, and priests to symbolize their conceptions of the heavenly +mansions? His dreams were on a grand scale; such, after all, are the +best possessions of youth. Had he but been free, or mated with a nature +akin to his own, he would have felt himself as truly the heir of creation +as any young man that lived. But his lot was cast, and his youth had all +the serious aspect to himself of thoughtful manhood. In the region of +his art alone he hoped always to find freedom and a companionship which +his home life could never give him. + +Clement meant to have visited his beloved before he left Alderbank, +but was called unexpectedly back to the city. Happily Susan was not +exacting; she looked up to him with too great a feeling of distance +between them to dare to question his actions. Perhaps she found a +partial consolation in the company of Mr. Gifted Hopkins, who tried +his new poems on her, which was the next best thing to addressing +them to her. "Would that you were with us at this delightful +season," she wrote in the autumn; "but no, your Susan must not +repine. Yet, in the beautiful words of our native poet, + + "Oh would, oh would that thou wast here, + For absence makes thee doubly dear; + Ah! what is life while thou 'rt away? + 'T is night without the orb of day!'" + +The poet referred to, it need hardly be said, was our young and promising +friend G. H., as he sometimes modestly signed himself. The letter, it is +unnecessary to state, was voluminous,--for a woman can tell her love, or +other matter of interest, over and over again in as many forms as another +poet, not G. H., found for his grief in ringing the musical changes of +"In Memoriam." + +The answers to Susan's letters were kind, but not very long. They +convinced her that it was a simple impossibility that Clement could come +to Oxbow Village, on account of the great pressure of the work he had to +keep him in the city, and the plans he must finish at any rate. But at +last the work was partially got rid of, and Clement was coming; yes, it +was so nice, and, oh dear! should n't she be real happy to see him? + +To Susan he appeared as a kind of divinity, almost too grand for human +nature's daily food. Yet, if the simple-hearted girl could have told +herself the whole truth in plain words, she would have confessed to +certain doubts which from time to time, and oftener of late, cast a +shadow on her seemingly bright future. With all the pleasure that the +thought of meeting Clement gave her, she felt a little tremor, a certain +degree of awe, in contemplating his visit. If she could have clothed her +self-humiliation in the gold and purple of the "Portuguese Sonnets," it +would have been another matter; but the trouble with the most common +sources of disquiet is that they have no wardrobe of flaming phraseology +to air themselves in; the inward burning goes on without the relief and +gratifying display of the crater. + +"A friend of mine is coming to the village," she said to Mr. Gifted +Hopkins. "I want you to see him. He is a genius,--as some other young +men are." (This was obviously personal, and the youthful poet blushed +with ingenuous delight.) "I have known him for ever so many years. He +and I are very good friends." The poet knew that this meant an exclusive +relation between them; and though the fact was no surprise to him, his +countenance fell a little. The truth was, that his admiration was +divided between Myrtle, who seemed to him divine and adorable, but +distant, and Susan, who listened to his frequent poems, whom he was in +the habit of seeing in artless domestic costumes, and whose attractions +had been gaining upon him of late in the enforced absence of his +divinity. + +He retired pensive from this interview, and, flinging himself at his +desk, attempted wreaking his thoughts upon expression, to borrow the +language of one of his brother bards, in a passionate lyric which he +began thus-- + + "ANOTHER'S! + + "Another's! Oh the pang, the smart! + Fate owes to Love a deathless grudge, + --The barbed fang has rent a heart + Which--which + +"judge--judge,--no, not judge. Budge, drudge, fudge--What a disgusting +language English is! Nothing fit to couple with such a word as grudge! +And the gush of an impassioned moment arrested in full flow, stopped +short, corked up, for want of a paltry rhyme! + +Judge,--budge,--drudge,--nudge, oh!--smudge,--misery!--fudge. In +vain,--futile,--no use,--all up for to-night!" + +While the poet, headed off in this way by the poverty of his native +tongue, sought inspiration by retiring into the world of dreams,--went to +bed, in short, his more fortunate rival was just entering the village, +where he was to make his brief residence at the house of Deacon Rumrill, +who, having been a loser by the devouring element, was glad to receive a +stray boarder when any such were looking about for quarters. + +For some reason or other he was restless that evening, and took out a +volume he had brought with him to beguile the earlier hours of the night. +It was too late when he arrived to disturb the quiet of Mrs. Hopkins's +household, and whatever may have been Clement's impatience, he held it in +check, and sat tranquilly until midnight over the pages of the book with +which he had prudently provided himself. + +"Hope you slept well last night," said the old Deacon, when Mr. Clement +came down to breakfast the next morning. + +"Very well, thank you,--that is, after I got to bed. But I sat up pretty +late reading my favorite Scott. I am apt to forget how the hours pass +when I have one of his books in my hand." + +The worthy Deacon looked at Mr. Clement with a sudden accession of +interest. + +"You couldn't find better reading, young man. Scott is my favorite +author. A great man. I have got his likeness in a gilt-frame hanging up +in the other room. I have read him all through three times." + +The young man's countenance brightened. He had not expected to find so +much taste for elegant literature in an old village deacon. + +"What are your favorites among his writings, Deacon? I suppose you have +your particular likings, as the rest of us have." + +The Deacon was flattered by the question. "Well," he answered, "I can +hardly tell you. I like pretty much everything Scott ever wrote. +Sometimes I think it is one thing, and sometimes another. Great on +Paul's Epistles,--don't you think so?" + +The honest fact was, that Clement remembered very little about "Paul's +Letters to his Kinsfolk,"--a book of Sir Walter's less famous than many +of his others; but he signified his polite assent to the Deacon's +statement, rather wondering at his choice of a favorite, and smiling at +his queer way of talking about the Letters as Epistles. + +"I am afraid Scott is not so much read now-a-days as he once was, and as +he ought to be," said Mr. Clement: "Such character, such nature and so +much grace." + +"That's it,--that's it, young man," the Deacon broke in,--"Natur' and +Grace,--Natur' and Grace. Nobody ever knew better what those two words +meant than Scott did, and I'm very glad to see--you've chosen such good +wholesome reading. You can't set up too late, young man, to read Scott. +If I had twenty children, they should all begin reading Scott as soon as +they were old enough to spell sin,--and that's the first word my little +ones learned, next to 'pa' and I 'ma.' Nothing like beginning the lessons +of life in good season." + +"What a grim old satirist!" Clement said to himself. "I wonder if the +old man reads other novelists.--Do tell me, Deacon, if you have read +Thackeray's last story? " + +"Thackeray's story? Published by the American Tract Society?" + +"Not exactly," Clement answered, smiling, and quite delighted to find +such an unexpected vein of grave pleasantry about the demure-looking +church-dignitary; for the Deacon asked his question without moving a +muscle, and took no cognizance whatever of the young man's tone and +smile. First-class humorists are, as is well known, remarkable for the +immovable solemnity of their features. Clement promised himself not a +little amusement from the curiously sedate drollery of the venerable +Deacon, who, it was plain from his conversation, had cultivated a +literary taste which would make him a more agreeable companion than the +common ecclesiastics of his grade in country villages. + +After breakfast, Mr. Clement walked forth in the direction of Mrs. +Hopkins's house, thinking as he went of the pleasant surprise his visit +would bring to his longing and doubtless pensive Susan; for though she +knew he was coming, she did not know that he was at that moment in Oxbow +Village. + +As he drew near the house, the first thing he saw was Susan Posey, almost +running against her just as he turned a corner. She looked wonderfully +lively and rosy, for the weather was getting keen and the frosts had +begun to bite. A young gentleman was walking at her side, and reading to +her from a paper he held in his hand. Both looked deeply interested,--so +much so that Clement felt half ashamed of himself for intruding upon them +so abruptly. + +But lovers are lovers, and Clement could not help joining them. The +first thing, of course, was the utterance of two simultaneous +exclamations, "Why, Clement!" "Why, Susan!" What might have come next +in the programme, but for the presence of a third party, is matter of +conjecture; but what did come next was a mighty awkward look on the part +of Susan Posey, and the following short speech: "Mr. Lindsay, let me +introduce Mr. Hopkins, my friend, the poet I 've written to you about. +He was just reading two of his poems to me. Some other time, Gifted--Mr. +Hopkins." + +"Oh no, Mr. Hopkins,--pray go on," said Clement. "I 'm very fond of +poetry." + +The poet did not require much urging, and began at once reciting over +again the stanzas which were afterwards so much admired in the "Banner +and Oracle,"--the first verse being, as the readers of that paper will +remember, + + "She moves in splendor, like the ray + That flashes from unclouded skies, + And all the charms of night and day + Are mingled in her hair and eyes." + +Clement, who must have been in an agony of impatience to be alone with +his beloved, commanded his feelings admirably. He signified his +approbation of the poem by saying that the lines were smooth and the +rhymes absolutely without blemish. The stanzas reminded him forcibly of +one of the greatest poets of the century. + +Gifted flushed hot with pleasure. He had tasted the blood of his own +rhymes; and when a poet gets as far as that, it is like wringing the bag +of exhilarating gas from the lips of a fellow sucking at it, to drag his +piece away from him. + +"Perhaps you will like these lines still better," he said; "the style is +more modern:-- + + "'O daughter of the spiced South, + Her bubbly grapes have spilled the wine + That staineth with its hue divine + The red flower of thy perfect mouth.'" + +And so on, through a series of stanzas like these, with the pulp of two +rhymes between the upper and lower crust of two others. + +Clement was cornered. It was necessary to say something for the poet's +sake,--perhaps for Susan's; for she was in a certain sense responsible +for the poems of a youth of genius, of whom she had spoken so often and +so enthusiastically. + +"Very good, Mr. Hopkins, and a form of verse little used, I should think, +until of late years. You modelled this piece on the style of a famous +living English poet, did you not?" + +"Indeed I did not, Mr. Lindsay,--I never imitate. Originality is, if I +may be allowed to say so much for myself, my peculiar forte. Why, the +critics allow as much as that. See here, Mr. Lindsay." + +Mr. Gifted Hopkins pulled out his pocket-book, and, taking therefrom a +cutting from a newspaper,--which dropped helplessly open of itself, as if +tired of the process, being very tender in the joints or creases, by +reason of having been often folded and unfolded read aloud as follows: + +"The bard of Oxbow Pillage--our valued correspondent who writes over the +signature of G. H.--is, in our opinion, more remarkable for his +originality than for any other of his numerous gifts." + +Clement was apparently silenced by this, and the poet a little elated +with a sense of triumph. Susan could not help sharing his feeling of +satisfaction, and without meaning it in the least, nay, without knowing +it, for she was as simple and pure as new milk, edged a little bit--the +merest infinitesimal atom--nearer to Gifted Hopkins, who was on one side +of her, while Clement walked on the other. Women love the conquering +party,--it is the way of their sex. And poets, as we have seen, are +well-nigh irresistible when they exert their dangerous power of +fascination upon the female heart. But Clement was above jealousy; and, +if he perceived anything of this movement, took no notice of it. + +He saw a good deal of his pretty Susan that day. She was tender in her +expressions and manners as usual, but there was a little something in her +looks and language from time to time that Clement did not know exactly +what to make of. She colored once or twice when the young poet's name +was mentioned. She was not so full of her little plans for the future as +she had sometimes been, "everything was so uncertain," she said. Clement +asked himself whether she felt quite as sure that her attachment would +last as she once did. But there were no reproaches, not even any +explanations, which are about as bad between lovers. There was nothing +but an undefined feeling on his side that she did not cling quite so +closely to him, perhaps, as he had once thought, and that, if he had +happened to have been drowned that day when he went down with the +beautiful young woman, it was just conceivable that Susan, who would have +cried dreadfully, no doubt, would in time have listened to consolation +from some other young man,--possibly from the young poet whose verses he +had been admiring. Easy-crying widows take new husbands soonest; there +is nothing like wet weather for transplanting, as Master Gridley used to +say. Susan had a fluent natural gift for tears, as Clement well knew, +after the exercise of which she used to brighten up like the rose which +had been washed, just washed in a shower, mentioned by Cowper. + +As for the poet, he learned more of his own sentiments during this visit +of Clement's than he had ever before known. He wandered about with a +dreadfully disconsolate look upon his countenance. He showed a +falling-off in his appetite at tea-time, which surprised and disturbed +his mother, for she had filled the house with fragrant suggestions of +good things coming, in honor of Mr. Lindsay, who was to be her guest at +tea. And chiefly the genteel form of doughnut called in the native +dialect cymbal (Qu. Symbol? B. G.) which graced the board with its +plastic forms, suggestive of the most pleasing objects,--the spiral +ringlets pendent from the brow of beauty; the magic circlet, which is the +pledge of plighted affection,--the indissoluble knot, which typifies the +union of hearts, which organs were also largely represented; this +exceptional delicacy would at any other time have claimed his special +notice. But his mother remarked that he paid little attention to these, +and his, "No, I thank you," when it came to the preserved "damsels," as +some call them, carried a pang with it to the maternal bosom. The most +touching evidence of his unhappiness--whether intentional or the result +of accident was not evident was a broken heart, which he left upon his +plate, the meaning of which was as plain as anything in the language of +flowers. His thoughts were gloomy during that day, running a good deal +on the more picturesque and impressive methods of bidding a voluntary +farewell to a world which had allured him with visions of beauty only to +snatch them from his impassioned gaze. His mother saw something of this, +and got from him a few disjointed words, which led her to lock up the +clothes-line and hide her late husband's razors,--an affectionate, yet +perhaps unnecessary precaution, for self-elimination contemplated from +this point of view by those who have the natural outlet of verse to +relieve them is rarely followed by a casualty. It may rather be +considered as implying a more than average chance for longevity; as those +who meditate an--imposing finish naturally save themselves for it, and +are therefore careful of their health until the time comes, and this is +apt to be indefinitely postponed so long as there is a poem to write or a +proof to be corrected. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE SECOND MEETING. + +Miss Eveleth requests the pleasure of Mr. Lindsay's company to meet a few +friends on the evening of the Feast of St. Ambrose, December 7th, +Wednesday. + +THE PARSONAGE, December 6th. + +It was the luckiest thing in the world. They always made a little +festival of that evening at the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth's, in honor of his +canonized namesake, and because they liked to have a good time. It came +this year just at the right moment, for here was a distinguished stranger +visiting in the place. Oxbow Village seemed to be running over with its +one extra young man,--as may be seen sometimes in larger villages, and +even in cities of moderate dimensions. + +Mr. William Murray Bradshaw had called on Clement the day after his +arrival. He had already met the Deacon in the street, and asked some +questions about his transient boarder. + +A very interesting young man, the Deacon said, much given to the reading +of pious books. Up late at night after he came, reading Scott's +Commentary. Appeared to be as fond of serious works as other young folks +were of their novels and romances and other immoral publications. He, +the Deacon, thought of having a few religious friends to meet the young +gentleman, if he felt so disposed; and should like to have him, Mr. +Bradshaw, come in and take a part in the exercises.--Mr. Bradshaw was +unfortunately engaged. He thought the young gentleman could hardly find +time for such a meeting during his brief visit. + +Mr. Bradshaw expected naturally to see a youth of imperfect constitution, +and cachectic or dyspeptic tendencies, who was in training to furnish one +of those biographies beginning with the statement that, from his infancy, +the subject of it showed no inclination for boyish amusements, and so on, +until he dies out, for the simple reason that there was not enough of him +to live. Very interesting, no doubt, Master Byles Gridley would have +said, but had no more to do with good, hearty, sound life than the +history of those very little people to be seen in museums preserved in +jars of alcohol, like brandy peaches. + +When Mr. Clement Lindsay presented himself, Mr. Bradshaw was a good deal +surprised to see a young fellow of such a mould. He pleased himself with +the idea that he knew a man of mark at sight, and he set down Clement in +that category at his first glance. The young man met his penetrating and +questioning look with a frank, ingenuous, open aspect, before which he +felt himself disarmed, as it were, and thrown upon other means of +analysis. He would try him a little in talk. + +"I hope you like these people you are with. What sort of a man do you +find my old friend the Deacon?" + +Clement laughed. "A very queer old character. Loves his joke as well, +and is as sly in making it, as if he had studied Joe Miller instead of +the Catechism." + +Mr. Bradshaw looked at the young man to know what he meant. Mr. Lindsay +talked in a very easy way for a serious young person. He was puzzled. +He did not see to the bottom of this description of the Deacon. With a +lawyer's instinct, he kept his doubts to himself and tried his witness +with a new question. + +"Did you talk about books at all with the old man?" + +"To be sure I did. Would you believe it,--that aged saint is a great +novel-reader. So he tells me. What is more, he brings up his children +to that sort of reading, from the time when they first begin to spell. +If anybody else had told me such a story about an old country deacon, I +wouldn't have believed it; but he said so himself, to me, at breakfast +this morning." + +Mr. Bradshaw felt as if either he or Mr. Lindsay must certainly be in the +first stage of mild insanity, and he did not think that he himself could +be out of his wits. He must try one more question. He had become so +mystified that he forgot himself, and began putting his interrogation in +legal form. + +"Will you state, if you please--I beg your pardon--may I ask who is your +own favorite author?" + +"I think just now I like to read Scott better than almost anybody." + +"Do you mean the Rev. Thomas Scott, author of the Commentary?" + +Clement stared at Mr. Bradshaw, and wondered whether he was trying to +make a fool of him. The young lawyer hardly looked as if he could be a +fool himself. + +"I mean Sir Walter Scott," he said, dryly. + +"Oh!" said Mr. Bradshaw. He saw that there had been a slight +misunderstanding between the young man and his worthy host, but it was +none of his business, and there were other subjects of interest to talk +about. + +"You know one of our charming young ladies very well, I believe, Mr. +Lindsay. I think you are an old acquaintance of Miss Posey, whom we all +consider so pretty." + +Poor Clement! The question pierced to the very marrow of his soul, but +it was put with the utmost suavity and courtesy, and honeyed with a +compliment to the young lady, too, so that there was no avoiding a direct +and pleasant answer to it. + +"Yes," he said, "I have known the young lady you speak of for a long +time, and very well,--in fact, as you must have heard, we are something +more than friends. My visit here is principally on her account." + +"You must give the rest of us a chance to see something of you during +your visit, Mr. Lindsay. I hope you are invited to Miss Eveleth's +to-morrow evening?" + +"Yes, I got a note this morning. Tell me, Mr. Bradshaw, who is there +that I shall meet if I go? I have no doubt there are girls here in the +village I should like to see, and perhaps some young fellows that I +should like to talk with. You know all that's prettiest and pleasantest, +of course." + +"Oh, we're a little place, Mr. Lindsay. A few nice people, the rest +comme Va, you know. High-bush blackberries and low-bush +black-berries,--you understand,--just so everywhere,--high-bush here and +there, low-bush plenty. You must see the two parsons' daughters,--Saint +Ambrose's and Saint Joseph's,--and another girl I want particularly to +introduce you to. You shall form your own opinion of her. I call her +handsome and stylish, but you have got spoiled, you know. Our young +poet, too, one we raised in this place, Mr. Lindsay, and a superior +article of poet, as we think,--that is, some of us, for the rest of us +are jealous of him, because the girls are all dying for him and want his +autograph. And Cyp,--yes, you must talk to Cyp,--he has ideas. But +don't forget to get hold of old Byles Master Gridley I mean--before you +go. Big head. Brains enough for a cabinet minister, and fit out a +college faculty with what was left over. Be sure you see old Byles. Set +him talking about his book, 'Thoughts on the Universe.' Did n't sell +much, but has got knowing things in it. I'll show you a copy, and then +you can tell him you know it, and he will take to you. Come in and get +your dinner with me to-morrow. We will dine late, as the city folks do, +and after that we will go over to the Rector's. I should like to show +you some of our village people." + +Mr. Bradshaw liked the thought of showing the young man to some of his +friends there. As Clement was already "done for," or "bowled out," as +the young lawyer would have expressed the fact of his being pledged in +the matrimonial direction, there was nothing to be apprehended on the +score of rivalry. And although Clement was particularly good-looking, +and would have been called a distinguishable youth anywhere, Mr. Bradshaw +considered himself far more than his match, in all probability, in social +accomplishments. He expected, therefore, a certain amount of reflex +credit for bringing such a fine young fellow in his company, and a second +instalment of reputation from outshining him in conversation. This was +rather nice calculating, but Murray Bradshaw always calculated. With most +men life is like backgammon, half skill, and half luck, but with him it +was like chess. He never pushed a pawn without reckoning the cost, and +when his mind was least busy it was sure to be half a dozen moves ahead +of the game as it was standing. + +Mr. Bradshaw gave Clement a pretty dinner enough for such a place as +Oxbow Village. He offered him some good wine, and would have made him +talk so as to show his lining, to use one of his own expressions, but +Clement had apparently been through that trifling experience, and could +not be coaxed into saying more than he meant to say. Murray Bradshaw was +very curious to find out how it was that he had become the victim of such +a rudimentary miss as Susan Posey. Could she be an heiress in disguise? +Why no, of course not; had not he made all proper inquiries about that +when Susan came to town? A small inheritance from an aunt or uncle, or +some such relative, enough to make her a desirable party in the eyes of +certain villagers perhaps, but nothing to allure a man like this, whose +face and figure as marketable possessions were worth say a hundred +thousand in the girl's own right, as Mr. Bradshaw put it roughly, with +another hundred thousand if his talent is what some say, and if his +connection is a desirable one, a fancy price,--anything he would fetch. +Of course not. Must have got caught when he was a child. Why the diavolo +didn't he break it off, then? + +There was no fault to find with the modest entertainment at the +Parsonage. A splendid banquet in a great house is an admirable thing, +provided always its getting up did not cost the entertainer an inward +conflict, nor its recollection a twinge of economical regret, nor its +bills a cramp of anxiety. A simple evening party in the smallest village +is just as admirable in its degree, when the parlor is cheerfully +lighted, and the board prettily spread, and the guests are made to feel +comfortable without being reminded that anybody is making a painful +effort. + +We know several of the young people who were there, and need not trouble +ourselves for the others. Myrtle Hazard had promised to come. She had +her own way of late as never before; in fact, the women were afraid of +her. Miss Silence felt that she could not be responsible for her any +longer. She had hopes for a time that Myrtle would go through the +customary spiritual paroxysm under the influence of the Rev. Mr. Stoker's +assiduous exhortations; but since she had broken off with him, Miss +Silence had looked upon her as little better than a backslider. And now +that the girl was beginning to show the tendencies which seemed to come +straight down to her from the belle of the last century, (whose rich +physical developments seemed to the under-vitalized spinster as in +themselves a kind of offence against propriety,) the forlorn woman folded +her thin hands and looked on hopelessly, hardly venturing a remonstrance +for fear of some new explosion. As for Cynthia, she was comparatively +easy since she had, through Mr. Byles Gridley, upset the minister's +questionable arrangement of religious intimacy. She had, in fact, in a +quiet way, given Mr. Bradshaw to understand that he would probably meet +Myrtle at the Parsonage if he dropped in at their small gathering. +Clement walked over to Mrs. Hopkins's after his dinner with the young +lawyer, and asked if Susan was ready to go with him. At the sound of his +voice, Gifted Hopkins smote his forehead, and called himself, in subdued +tones, a miserable being. His imagination wavered uncertain for a while +between pictures of various modes of ridding himself of existence, and +fearful deeds involving the life of others. He had no fell purpose of +actually doing either, but there was a gloomy pleasure in contemplating +them as possibilities, and in mentally sketching the "Lines written in +Despair" which would be found in what was but an hour before the pocket +of the youthful bard, G. H., victim of a hopeless passion. All this +emotion was in the nature of a surprise to the young man. He had fully +believed himself desperately in love with Myrtle Hazard; and it was not +until Clement came into the family circle with the right of eminent +domain over the realm of Susan's affections, that this unfortunate +discovered that Susan's pretty ways and morning dress and love of poetry +and liking for his company had been too much for him, and that he was +henceforth to be wretched during the remainder of his natural life, +except so far as he could unburden himself in song. + +Mr. William Murray Bradshaw had asked the privilege of waiting upon +Myrtle to the little party at the Eveleths. Myrtle was not insensible to +the attractions of the young lawyer, though she had never thought of +herself except as a child in her relations with any of these older +persons. But she was not the same girl that she had been but a few +months before. She had achieved her independence by her audacious and +most dangerous enterprise. She had gone through strange nervous trials +and spiritual experiences which had matured her more rapidly than years +of common life would have done. She had got back her health, bringing +with it a riper wealth of womanhood. She had found her destiny in the +consciousness that she inherited the beauty belonging to her blood, and +which, after sleeping for a generation or two as if to rest from the +glare of the pageant that follows beauty through its long career of +triumph, had come to the light again in her life, and was to repeat the +legends of the olden time in her own history. + +Myrtle's wardrobe had very little of ornament, such as the modistes of +the town would have thought essential to render a young girl like her +presentable. There were a few heirlooms of old date, however, which she +had kept as curiosities until now, and which she looked over until she +found some lace and other convertible material, with which she enlivened +her costume a little for the evening. As she clasped the antique +bracelet around her wrist, she felt as if it were an amulet that gave her +the power of charming which had been so long obsolete in her lineage. At +the bottom of her heart she cherished a secret longing to try her +fascinations on the young lawyer. Who could blame her? It was not an +inwardly expressed intention,--it was the simple instinctive movement to +subjugate the strongest of the other sex who had come in her way, which, +as already said, is as natural to a woman as it is to a man to be +captivated by the loveliest of those to whom he dares to aspire. + +Before William Murray Bradshaw and Myrtle Hazard had reached the +Parsonage, the girl's cheeks were flushed and her dark eyes were flashing +with a new excitement. The young man had not made love to her directly, +but he had interested her in herself by a delicate and tender flattery of +manner, and so set her fancies working that she was taken with him as +never before, and wishing that the Parsonage had been a mile farther from +The Poplars. It was impossible for a young girl like Myrtle to conceal +the pleasure she received from listening to her seductive admirer, who +was trying all his trained skill upon his artless companion. Murray +Bradshaw felt sure that the game was in his hands if he played it with +only common prudence. There was no need of hurrying this child,--it might +startle her to make downright love abruptly; and now that he had an ally +in her own household, and was to have access to her with a freedom he had +never before enjoyed, there was a refined pleasure in playing his +fish,--this gamest of golden-scaled creatures,--which had risen to his +fly, and which he wished to hook, but not to land, until he was sure it +would be worth his while. + +They entered the little parlor at the Parsonage looking so beaming, that +Olive and Bathsheba exchanged glances which implied so much that it would +take a full page to tell it with all the potentialities involved. + +"How magnificent Myrtle is this evening, Bathsheba!" said Cyprian +Eveleth, pensively. + +"What a handsome pair they are, Cyprian!" said Bathsheba cheerfully. + +Cyprian sighed. "She always fascinates me whenever I look upon her. Is +n't she the very picture of what a poet's love should be,--a poem +herself,--a glorious lyric,--all light and music! See what a smile the +creature has! And her voice! When did you ever hear such tones? And +when was it ever so full of life before." + +Bathsheba sighed. "I do not know any poets but Gifted Hopkins. Does not +Myrtle look more in her place by the side of Murray Bradshaw than she +would with Gifted hitched on her arm?" + +Just then the poet made his appearance. He looked depressed, as if it +had cost him an effort to come. He was, however, charged with a message +which he must deliver to the hostess of the evening. + +"They 're coming presently," he said. "That young man and Susan. Wants +you to introduce him, Mr. Bradshaw." + +The bell rang presently, and Murray Bradshaw slipped out into the entry +to meet the two lovers. + +"How are you, my fortunate friend?" he said, as he met them at the door. +"Of course you're well and happy as mortal man can be in this vale of +tears. Charming, ravishing, quite delicious, that way of dressing your +hair, Miss Posey! Nice girls here this evening, Mr. Lindsay. Looked +lovely when I came out of the parlor. Can't say how they will show after +this young lady puts in an appearance." In reply to which florid +speeches Susan blushed, not knowing what else to do, and Clement smiled +as naturally as if he had been sitting for his photograph. + +He felt, in a vague way, that he and Susan were being patronized, which +is not a pleasant feeling to persons with a certain pride of character. +There was no expression of contempt about Mr. Bradshaw's manner or +language at which he could take offence. Only he had the air of a man +who praises his neighbor without stint, with a calm consciousness that he +himself is out of reach of comparison in the possessions or qualities +which he is admiring in the other. Clement was right in his obscure +perception of Mr. Bradshaw's feeling while he was making his phrases. +That gentleman was, in another moment, to have the tingling delight of +showing the grand creature he had just begun to tame. He was going to +extinguish the pallid light of Susan's prettiness in the brightness of +Myrtle's beauty. He would bring this young man, neutralized and rendered +entirely harmless by his irrevocable pledge to a slight girl, face to +face with a masterpiece of young womanhood, and say to him, not in words, +but as plainly as speech could have told him, "Behold my captive!" + +It was a proud moment for Murray Bradshaw. He had seen, or thought that +he had seen, the assured evidence of a speedy triumph over all the +obstacles of Myrtle's youth and his own present seeming slight excess of +maturity. Unless he were very greatly mistaken, he could now walk the +course; the plate was his, no matter what might be the entries. And this +youth, this handsome, spirited-looking, noble-aired young fellow, whose +artist-eye could not miss a line of Myrtle's proud and almost defiant +beauty, was to be the witness of his power, and to look in admiration +upon his prize! He introduced him to the others, reserving her for the +last. She was at that moment talking with the worthy Rector, and turned +when Mr. Bradshaw spoke to her. + +"Miss Hazard, will you allow me to present to you my friend, Mr. Clement +Lindsay?" + +They looked full upon each other, and spoke the common words of +salutation. It was a strange meeting; but we who profess to tell the +truth must tell strange things, or we shall be liars. + +In poor little Susan's letter there was some allusion to a bust of +Innocence which the young artist had begun, but of which he had said +nothing in his answer to her. He had roughed out a block of marble for +that impersonation; sculpture was a delight to him, though secondary to +his main pursuit. After his memorable adventure, the image of the girl +he had rescued so haunted him that the pale ideal which was to work +itself out in the bust faded away in its perpetual presence, and--alas, +poor Susan! in obedience to the impulse that he could not control, he +left Innocence sleeping in the marble, and began modelling a figure of +proud and noble and imperious beauty, to which he gave the name of +Liberty. + +The original which had inspired his conception was before him. These +were the lips to which his own had clung when he brought her back from +the land of shadows. The hyacinthine curl of her lengthening locks had +added something to her beauty; but it was the same face which had haunted +him. This was the form he had borne seemingly lifeless in his arms, and +the bosom which heaved so visibly before him was that which his eyes they +were the calm eyes of a sculptor, but of a sculptor hardly twenty years +old. + +Yes,--her bosom was heaving. She had an unexplained feeling of +suffocation, and drew great breaths,--she could not have said why,--but +she could not help it; and presently she became giddy, and had a great +noise in her ears, and rolled her eyes about, and was on the point of +going into an hysteric spasm. They called Dr. Hurlbut, who was making +himself agreeable to Olive just then, to come and see what was the matter +with Myrtle. + +"A little nervous turn,--that is all," he said. + +"Open the window. Loose the ribbon round her neck. Rub her hands. +Sprinkle some water on her forehead. + +"A few drops of cologne. Room too warm for her,--that 's all, I think." + +Myrtle came to herself after a time without anything like a regular +paroxysm. But she was excitable, and whatever the cause of the +disturbance may have been, it seemed prudent that she should go home +early; and the excellent Rector insisted on caring for her, much to the +discontent of Mr. William Murray Bradshaw. + +"Demonish odd," said this gentleman, "was n't it, Mr. Lindsay, that Miss +Hazard should go off in that way. Did you ever see her before?" + +"I--I--have seen that young lady before," Clement answered. + +"Where did you meet her?" Mr. Bradshaw asked, with eager interest. + +"I met her in the Valley of the Shadow of Death," Clement answered, very +solemnly.--"I leave this place to-morrow morning. Have you any commands +for the city?" + +"Knows how to shut a fellow up pretty well for a young one, doesn't he?" +Mr. Bradshaw thought to himself. + +"Thank you, no," he answered, recovering himself. "Rather a melancholy +place to make acquaintance in, I should think, that Valley you spoke of. +I should like to know about it." + +Mr. Clement had the power of looking steadily into another person's eyes +in a way that was by no means encouraging to curiosity or favorable to +the process of cross-examination. Mr. Bradshaw was not disposed to press +his question in the face of the calm, repressive look the young man gave +him. + +"If he was n't bagged, I shouldn't like the shape of things any too +well," he said to himself. + +The conversation between Mr. Clement Lindsay and Miss Susan Posey, as +they walked home together, was not very brilliant. "I am going to-morrow +morning," he said, "and I must bid you good-by tonight." Perhaps it is as +well to leave two lovers to themselves, under these circumstances. + +Before he went he spoke to his worthy host, whose moderate demands he had +to satisfy, and with whom he wished to exchange a few words. + +"And by the way, Deacon, I have no use for this book, and as it is in a +good type, perhaps you would like it. Your favorite, Scott, and one of +his greatest works. I have another edition of it at home, and don't care +for this volume." + +"Thank you, thank you, Mr. Lindsay, much obleeged. I shall read that +copy for your sake, the best of books next to the Bible itself." + +After Mr. Lindsay had gone, the Deacon looked at the back of the book. +"Scott's Works, Vol. IX." He opened it at hazard, and happened to fall +on a well-known page, from which he began reading aloud, slowly, + + "When Izrul, of the Lord beloved, + Out of the land of bondage came." + +The whole hymn pleased the grave Deacon. He had never seen this work of +the author of the Commentary. No matter; anything that such a good man +wrote must be good reading, and he would save it up for Sunday. The +consequence of this was, that, when the Rev. Mr. Stoker stopped in on his +way to meeting on the "Sabbath," he turned white with horror at the +spectacle of the senior Deacon of his church sitting, open-mouthed and +wide-eyed, absorbed in the pages of "Ivanhoe," which he found enormously +interesting; but, so far as he had yet read, not occupied with religious +matters so much as he had expected. + +Myrtle had no explanation to give of her nervous attack. Mr. Bradshaw +called the day after the party, but did not see her. He met her walking, +and thought she seemed a little more distant than common. That would +never do. He called again at The Poplars a few days afterwards, and was +met in the entry by Miss Cynthia, with whom he had a long conversation on +matters involving Myrtle's interests and their own. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +MADNESS? + +Mr. Clement Lindsay returned to the city and his usual labors in a state +of strange mental agitation. He had received an impression for which he +was unprepared. He had seen for the second time a young girl whom, for +the peace of his own mind, and for the happiness of others, he should +never again have looked upon until Time had taught their young hearts the +lesson which all hearts must learn, sooner or later. + +What shall the unfortunate person do who has met with one of those +disappointments, or been betrayed into one of those positions, which do +violence to all the tenderest feelings, blighting the happiness of youth, +and the prospects of after years? + +If the person is a young man, he has various resources. He can take to +the philosophic meerschaum, and nicotine himself at brief intervals into +a kind of buzzing and blurry insensibility, until he begins to "color" at +last like the bowl of his own pipe, and even his mind gets the tobacco +flavor. Or he can have recourse to the more suggestive stimulants, which +will dress his future up for him in shining possibilities that glitter +like Masonic regalia, until the morning light and the waking headache +reveal his illusion. Some kind of spiritual anaesthetic he must have, if +he holds his grief fast tied to his heartstrings. But as grief must be +fed with thought, or starve to death, it is the best plan to keep the +mind so busy in other ways that it has no time to attend to the wants of +that ravening passion. To sit down and passively endure it, is apt to +end in putting all the mental machinery into disorder. + +Clement Lindsay had thought that his battle of life was already fought, +and that he had conquered. He believed that he had subdued himself +completely, and that he was ready, without betraying a shadow of +disappointment, to take the insufficient nature which destiny had +assigned him in his companion, and share with it all of his own larger +being it was capable, not of comprehending, but of apprehending. + +He had deceived himself. The battle was not fought and won. There had +been a struggle, and what seemed to be a victory, but the +enemy--intrenched in the very citadel of life--had rallied, and would +make another desperate attempt to retrieve his defeat. + +The haste with which the young man had quitted the village was only a +proof that he felt his danger. He believed that, if he came into the +presence of Myrtle Hazard for the third time, he should be no longer +master of his feelings. Some explanation must take place between them, +and how was it possible that it should be without emotion? and in what do +all emotions shared by a young man with such a young girl as this tend to +find their last expression? + +Clement determined to stun his sensibilities by work. He would give +himself no leisure to indulge in idle dreams of what might have been. His +plans were never so carefully finished, and his studies were never so +continuous as now. But the passion still wrought within him, and, if he +drove it from his waking thoughts, haunted his sleep until he could +endure it no longer, and must give it some manifestation. He had covered +up the bust of Liberty so closely, that not an outline betrayed itself +through the heavy folds of drapery in which it was wrapped. His thoughts +recurred to his unfinished marble, as offering the one mode in which he +could find a silent outlet to the feelings and thoughts which it was +torture to keep imprisoned in his soul. The cold stone would tell them, +but without passion; and having got the image which possessed him out of +himself into a lifeless form, it seemed as if he might be delivered from +a presence which, lovely as it was, stood between him and all that made +him seem honorable and worthy to himself. + +He uncovered the bust which he had but half shaped, and struck the first +flake from the glittering marble. The toil, once begun, fascinated him +strangely, and after the day's work was done, and at every interval he +could snatch from his duties, he wrought at his secret task. + +"Clement is graver than ever," the young men said at the office. "What's +the matter, do you suppose? Turned off by the girl they say he means to +marry by and by? How pale he looks too! Must have something worrying +him: he used to look as fresh as a clove pink." + +The master with whom he studied saw that he was losing color, and looking +very much worn; and determined to find out, if he could, whether he was +not overworking himself. He soon discovered that his light was seen +burning late into the night, that he was neglecting his natural rest, and +always busy with some unknown task, not called for in his routine of duty +or legitimate study. + +"Something is wearing on you, Clement," he said. "You are killing +yourself with undertaking too much. Will you let me know what keeps you +so busy when you ought to be asleep, or taking your ease and comfort in +some way or other?" + +Nobody but himself had ever seen his marble or its model. He had now +almost finished it, laboring at it with such sleepless devotion, and he +was willing to let his master have a sight of his first effort of the +kind,--for he was not a sculptor, it must be remembered, though he had +modelled in clay, not without some success, from time to time. + +"Come with me," he said. + +The master climbed the stairs with him up to his modest chamber. A +closely shrouded bust stood on its pedestal in the light of the solitary +window. + +"That is my ideal personage," Clement said. "Wait one moment, and you +shall see how far I have caught the character of our uncrowned queen." + +The master expected, very naturally, to see the conventional young woman +with classical wreath or feather headdress, whom we have placed upon our +smallest coin, so that our children may all grow up loving Liberty. + +As Clement withdrew the drapery that covered his work, the master stared +at it in amazement. He looked at it long and earnestly, and at length +turned his eyes, a little moistened by some feeling which thus betrayed +itself, upon his scholar. + +"This is no ideal, Clement. It is the portrait of a very young but very +beautiful woman. No common feeling could have guided your hand in +shaping such a portrait from memory. This must be that friend of yours +of whom I have often heard as an amiable young person. Pardon me, for +you know that nobody cares more for you than I do,--I hope that you are +happy in all your relations with this young friend of yours. How could +one be otherwise?" + +It was hard to bear, very hard. He forced a smile. "You are partly +right," he said. "There is a resemblance, I trust, to a living person, +for I had one in my mind." + +"Did n't you tell me once, Clement, that you were attempting a bust of +Innocence? I do not see any block in your room but this. Is that done?" + +"Done with!" Clement answered; and, as he said it, the thought stung +through him that this was the very stone which was to have worn the +pleasant blandness of pretty Susan's guileless countenance. How the new +features had effaced the recollection of the others! + +In a few days more Clement had finished his bust. His hours were again +vacant to his thick-coming fancies. While he had been busy with his +marble, his hands had required his attention, and he must think closely +of every detail upon which he was at work. But at length his task was +done, and he could contemplate what he had made of it. It was a triumph +for one so little exercised in sculpture. The master had told him so, and +his own eye could not deceive him. He might never succeed in any +repetition of his effort, but this once he most certainly had succeeded. +He could not disguise from himself the source of this extraordinary good +fortune in so doubtful and difficult an attempt. Nor could he resist the +desire of contemplating the portrait bust, which--it was foolish to talk +about ideals--was not Liberty, but Myrtle Hazard. + +It was too nearly like the story of the ancient sculptor; his own work +was an over-match for its artist. Clement had made a mistake in +supposing that by giving his dream a material form he should drive it +from the possession of his mind. The image in which he had fixed his +recollection of its original served only to keep her living presence +before him. He thought of her as she clasped her arms around him, and +they were swallowed up in the rushing waters, coming so near to passing +into the unknown world together. He thought of her as he stretched her +lifeless form upon the bank, and looked for one brief moment on her +unsunned loveliness,--"a sight to dream of, not to tell." He thought of +her as his last fleeting glimpse had shown her, beautiful, not with the +blossomy prettiness that passes away with the spring sunshine, but with a +rich vitality of which noble outlines and winning expression were only +the natural accidents. And that singular impression which the sight of +him had produced upon her,--how strange! How could she but have listened +to him,--to him, who was, as it were, a second creator to her, for he had +bought her back from the gates of the unseen realm,--if he had recalled +to her the dread moments they had passed in each other's arms, with +death, not love, in all their thoughts. And if then he had told her how +her image had remained with him, how it had colored all his visions, and +mingled with all his conceptions, would not those dark eyes have melted +as they were turned upon him? Nay, how could he keep the thought away, +that she would not have been insensible to his passion, if he could have +suffered its flame to kindle in his heart? Did it not seem as if Death +had spared them for Love, and that Love should lead them together through +life's long journey to the gates of Death? + +Never! never! never! Their fates were fixed. For him, poor insect as he +was, a solitary flight by day, and a return at evening to his wingless +mate! For her--he thought he saw her doom. + +Could he give her up to the cold embraces of that passionless egotist, +who, as he perceived plainly enough, was casting his shining net all +around her? Clement read Murray Bradshaw correctly. He could not +perhaps have spread his character out in set words, as we must do for +him, for it takes a long apprenticeship to learn to describe analytically +what we know as soon as we see it; but he felt in his inner consciousness +all that we must tell for him. Fascinating, agreeable, artful, knowing, +capable of winning a woman infinitely above himself, incapable of +understanding her,--oh, if he could but touch him with the angel's spear, +and bid him take his true shape before her whom he was gradually +enveloping in the silken meshes of his subtle web! He would make a place +for her in the world,--oh yes, doubtless. He would be proud of her in +company, would dress her handsomely, and show her off in the best lights. +But from the very hour that he felt his power over her firmly +established, he would begin to remodel her after his own worldly pattern. +He would dismantle her of her womanly ideals, and give her in their place +his table of market-values. He would teach her to submit her +sensibilities to her selfish interest, and her tastes to the fashion of +the moment, no matter which world or half-world it came from. "As the +husband is, the wife is,"--he would subdue her to what he worked in. + +All this Clement saw, as in apocalyptic vision, stored up for the wife of +Murray Bradshaw, if he read him rightly, as he felt sure he did, from the +few times he had seen him. He would be rich by and by, very probably. +He looked like one of those young men who are sharp, and hard enough to +come to fortune. Then she would have to take her place in the great +social exhibition where the gilded cages are daily opened that the +animals may be seen, feeding on the sight of stereotyped toilets and the +sound of impoverished tattle. O misery of semi-provincial fashionable +life, where wealth is at its wit's end to avoid being tired of an +existence which has all the labor of keeping up appearances, without the +piquant profligacy which saves it at least from being utterly vapid! How +many fashionable women at the end of a long season would be ready to +welcome heaven itself as a relief from the desperate monotony of +dressing, dawdling, and driving! + +This could not go on so forever. Clement had placed a red curtain so as +to throw a rose-bloom on his marble, and give it an aspect which his +fancy turned to the semblance of life. He would sit and look at the +features his own hand had so faithfully wrought, until it seemed as if +the lips moved, sometimes as if they were smiling, sometimes as if they +were ready to speak to him. His companions began to whisper strange +things of him in the studio,--that his eye was getting an unnatural +light,--that he talked as if to imaginary listeners,--in short, that +there was a look as if something were going wrong with his brain, which +it might be feared would spoil his fine intelligence. It was the +undecided battle, and the enemy, as in his noblest moments he had +considered the growing passion, was getting the better of him. + +He was sitting one afternoon before the fatal bust which had smiled and +whispered away his peace, when the post-man brought him a letter. It was +from the simple girl to whom he had given his promise. We know how she +used to prattle in her harmless way about her innocent feelings, and the +trifling matters that were going on in her little village world. But now +she wrote in sadness. Something, she did not too clearly explain what, +had grieved her, and she gave free expression to her feelings. "I have +no one that loves me but you," she said; "and if you leave me I must +droop and die. Are you true to me, dearest Clement,--true as when we +promised each other that we would love while life lasted? Or have you +forgotten one who will never cease to remember that she was once your own +Susan?" + +Clement dropped the letter from his hand, and sat a long hour looking at +the exquisitely wrought features of her who had come between him and +honor and his plighted word. + +At length he arose, and, lifting the bust tenderly from its pedestal, +laid it upon the cloth with which it had been covered. He wrapped it +closely, fold upon fold, as the mother whom man condemns and God pities +wraps the child she loves before she lifts her hand against its life. +Then he took a heavy hammer and shattered his lovely idol into shapeless +fragments. The strife was over. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +A CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. + +Mr. William Murray Bradshaw was in pretty intimate relations with Miss +Cynthia Badlam. It was well understood between them that it might be of +very great advantage to both of them if he should in due time become the +accepted lover of Myrtle Hazard. So long as he could be reasonably +secure against interference, he did not wish to hurry her in making her +decision. Two things he did wish to be sure of, if possible, before +asking her the great question;--first, that she would answer it in the +affirmative; and secondly, that certain contingencies, the turning of +which was not as yet absolutely capable of being predicted, should happen +as he expected. Cynthia had the power of furthering his wishes in many +direct and indirect ways, and he felt sure of her cooperation. She had +some reason to fear his enmity if she displeased him, and he had taken +good care to make her understand that her interests would be greatly +promoted by the success of the plan which he had formed, and which was +confided to her alone. + +He kept the most careful eye on every possible source of disturbance to +this quietly maturing plan. He had no objection to have Gifted Hopkins +about Myrtle as much as she would endure to have him. The youthful bard +entertained her very innocently with his bursts of poetry, but she was in +no danger from a young person so intimately associated with the +yard-stick, the blunt scissors, and the brown-paper parcel. There was +Cyprian too, about whom he did not feel any very particular solicitude. +Myrtle had evidently found out that she was handsome and stylish and all +that, and it was not very likely she would take up with such a bashful, +humble, country youth as this. He could expect nothing beyond a possible +rectorate in the remote distance, with one of those little pony chapels +to preach in, which, if it were set up on a stout pole, would pass for a +good-sized martin-house. Cyprian might do to practise on, but there was +no danger of her looking at him in a serious way. As for that youth, +Clement Lindsay, if he had not taken himself off as he did, Murray +Bradshaw confessed to himself that he should have felt uneasy. He was +too good-looking, and too clever a young fellow to have knocking about +among fragile susceptibilities. But on reflection he saw there could be +no danger. + +"All up with him,--poor diavolo! Can't understand it--such a little +sixpenny miss--pretty enough boiled parsnip blonde, if one likes that +sort of thing--pleases some of the old boys, apparently. Look out, Mr. +L. remember Susanna and the Elders. Good! + +"Safe enough if something new doesn't turn up. Youngish. Sixteen's a +little early. Seventeen will do. Marry a girl while she's in the +gristle, and you can shape her bones for her. Splendid creature without +her trimmings. Wants training. Must learn to dance, and sing something +besides psalm-tunes." + +Mr. Bradshaw began humming the hymn, "When I can read my title clear," +adding some variations of his own. "That 's the solo for my prima +donna!" + +In the mean time Myrtle seemed to be showing some new developments. One +would have said that the instincts of the coquette, or at least of the +city belle, were coming uppermost in her nature. Her little nervous +attack passed away, and she gained strength and beauty every day. She +was becoming conscious of her gifts of fascination, and seemed to please +herself with the homage of her rustic admirers. Why was it that no one +of them had the look and bearing of that young man she had seen but a +moment the other evening? To think that he should have taken up with +such a weakling as Susan Posey! She sighed, and not so much thought as +felt how kind it would have been in Heaven to have made her such a man. +But the image of the delicate blonde stood between her and all serious +thought of Clement Lindsay. She saw the wedding in the distance, and +very foolishly thought to herself that she could not and would not go to +it. + +But Clement Lindsay was gone, and she must content herself with such +worshippers as the village afforded. Murray Bradshaw was surprised and +confounded at the easy way in which she received his compliments, and +played with his advances, after the fashion of the trained ball-room +belles, who know how to be almost caressing in manner, and yet are really +as far off from the deluded victim of their suavities as the topmost +statue of the Milan cathedral from the peasant that kneels on its floor. +He admired her all the more for this, and yet he saw that she would be a +harder prize to win than he had once thought. If he made up his mind +that he would have her, he must go armed with all implements, from the +red hackle to the harpoon. + +The change which surprised Murray Bradshaw could not fail to be noticed +by all those about her. Miss Silence had long ago come to pantomime, +rolling up of eyes, clasping of hands, making of sad mouths, and the +rest,--but left her to her own way, as already the property of that great +firm of World & Co. which drives such sharp bargains for young souls with +the better angels. Cynthia studied her for her own purposes, but had +never gained her confidence. The Irish servant saw that some change had +come over her, and thought of the great ladies she had sometimes looked +upon in the old country. They all had a kind of superstitious feeling +about Myrtle's bracelet, of which she had told them the story, but which +Kitty half believed was put in the drawer by the fairies, who brought her +ribbons and partridge feathers, and other slight adornments with which +she contrived to set off her simple costume, so as to produce those +effects which an eye for color and cunning fingers can bring out of +almost nothing. + +Gifted Hopkins was now in a sad, vacillating condition, between the two +great attractions to which he was exposed. Myrtle looked so immensely +handsome ere Sunday when he saw her going to church, not to meeting, for +she world not go, except when she knew Father Pemberton was going to be +the preacher, that the young poet was on the point of going down on his +knees to her, and telling her that his heart was hers and hers alone. +But he suddenly remembered that he had on his best trousers, and the idea +of carrying the marks of his devotion in the shape of two dusty +impressions on his most valued article of apparel turned the scale +against the demonstration. It happened the next morning, that Susan +Posey wore the most becoming ribbon she had displayed for a long time, +and Gifted was so taken with her pretty looks that he might very probably +have made the same speech to her that he had been on the point of making +to Myrtle the day before, but that he remembered her plighted affections, +and thought what he should have to say for himself when Clement Lindsay, +in a frenzy of rage and jealousy, stood before him, probably armed with +as many deadly instruments as a lawyer mentions by name in an indictment +for murder. + +Cyprian Eveleth looked very differently on the new manifestations Myrtle +was making of her tastes and inclinations. He had always felt dazzled, +as well as attracted, by her; but now there was something in her +expression and manner which made him feel still more strongly that they +were intended for different spheres of life. He could not but own that +she was born for a brilliant destiny,--that no ball-room would throw a +light from its chandeliers too strong for her,--that no circle would be +too brilliant for her to illuminate by her presence. Love does not +thrive without hope, and Cyprian was beginning to see that it was idle in +him to think of folding these wide wings of Myrtle's so that they would +be shut up in any cage he could ever offer her. He began to doubt +whether, after all, he might not find a meeker and humbler nature better +adapted to his own. And so it happened that one evening after the three +girls, Olive, Myrtle, and Bathsheba, had been together at the Parsonage, +and Cyprian, availing himself of a brother's privilege, had joined them, +he found he had been talking most of the evening with the gentle girl +whose voice had grown so soft and sweet, during her long ministry in the +sick-chamber, that it seemed to him more like music than speech. It +would not be fair to say that Myrtle was piqued to see that Cyprian was +devoting himself to Bathsheba. Her ambition was already reaching beyond +her little village circle, and she had an inward sense that Cyprian found +a form of sympathy in the minister's simple-minded daughter which he +could not ask from a young woman of her own aspirations. + +Such was the state of affairs when Master Byles Gridley was one morning +surprised by an early call from Myrtle. He had a volume of Walton's +Polyglot open before him, and was reading Job in the original, when she +entered. + +"Why, bless me, is that my young friend Miss Myrtle Hazard?" he +exclaimed. "I might call you Keren-Happuch, which is Hebrew for Child of +Beauty, and not be very far out of the way, Job's youngest daughter, my +dear. And what brings my young friend out in such good season this +morning? Nothing going wrong up at our ancient mansion, The Poplars, I +trust?" + +"I want to talk with you, dear Master Gridley," she answered. She looked +as if she did not know just how to begin. + +"Anything that interests you, Myrtle, interests me. I think you have +some project in that young head of yours, my child. Let us have it, in +all its dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness. I think I can guess, +Myrtle, that we have a little plan of some kind or other. We don't visit +Papa Job quite so early as this without some special cause,--do we, Miss +Keren-Happuch?" + +"I want to go to the city--to school," Myrtle said, with the directness +which belonged to her nature. + +"That is precisely what I want you to do myself, Miss Myrtle Hazard. I +don't like to lose you from the village, but I think we must spare you +for a while." + +"You're the best and dearest man that ever lived. What could have made +you think of such a thing for me, Mr. Gridley?" + +"Because you are ignorant, my child,--partly I want to see you fitted to +take a look at the world without feeling like a little country miss. Has +your aunt Silence promised to bear your expenses while you are in the +city? It will cost a good deal of money." + +"I have not said a word to her about it. I am sure I don't know what she +would say. But I have some money, Mr. Gridley." + +She showed him a purse with gold, telling him how she came by it. "There +is some silver besides. Will it be enough?" + +"No, no, my child, we must not meddle with that. Your aunt will let me +put it in the bank for you, I think, where it will be safe. But that +shall not make any difference. I have got a little money lying idle, +which you may just as well have the use of as not. You can pay it back +perhaps some time or other; if you did not, it would not make much +difference. I am pretty much alone in the world, and except a book now +and then--Aut liberos aut libros, as our valiant heretic has it,--you +ought to know a little Latin, Myrtle, but never mind--I have not much +occasion for money. You shall go to the best school that any of our +cities can offer, Myrtle, and you shall stay there until we agree that +you are fitted to come back to us an ornament to Oxbow Village, and to +larger places than this if you are called there. We have had some talk +about it, your aunt Silence and I, and it is all settled. Your aunt does +not feel very rich just now, or perhaps she would do more for you. She +has many pious and poor friends, and it keeps her funds low. Never mind, +my child, we will have it all arranged for you, and you shall begin the +year 1860 in Madam Delacoste's institution for young ladies. Too many +rich girls and fashionable ones there, I fear, but you must see some of +all kinds, and there are very good instructors in the school,--I know +one,--he was a college boy with me,--and you will find pleasant and good +companions there, so he tells me; only don't be in a hurry to choose your +friends, for the least desirable young persons are very apt to cluster +about a new-comer." + +Myrtle was bewildered with the suddenness of the prospect thus held out +to her. It is a wonder that she did not bestow an embrace upon the +worthy old master. Perhaps she had too much tact. It is a pretty way +enough of telling one that he belongs to a past generation, but it does +tell him that not over-pleasing fact. Like the title of Emeritus +Professor, it is a tribute to be accepted, hardly to be longed for. + +When the curtain rises again, it will show Miss Hazard in a new +character, and surrounded by a new world. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +MYRTLE HAZARD AT THE CITY SCHOOL. + +Mr. Bradshaw was obliged to leave town for a week or two on business +connected with the great land-claim. On his return, feeling in pretty +good spirits, as the prospects looked favorable, he went to make a call +at The Poplars. He asked first for Miss Hazard. + +"Bliss your soul, Mr. Bridshaw," answered Mistress Kitty Fagan, "she's +been gahn nigh a wake. It's to the city, to the big school, they've sint +her." + +This announcement seemed to make a deep impression on Murray Bradshaw, +for his feelings found utterance in one of the most energetic forms of +language to which ears polite or impolite are accustomed. He next asked +for Miss Silence, who soon presented herself. Mr. Bradshaw asked, in a +rather excited way, "Is it possible, Miss Withers, that your niece has +quitted you to go to a city school?" + +Miss Silence answered, with her chief--mourner expression, and her +death-chamber tone: "Yes, she has left us for a season. I trust it may +not be her destruction. I had hoped in former years that she would +become a missionary, but I have given up all expectation of that now. +Two whole years, from the age of four to that of six, I had prevailed +upon her to give up sugar,--the money so saved to go to a graduate of our +institution--who was afterwards----he labored among the +cannibal-islanders. I thought she seemed to take pleasure in this small +act of self-denial, but I have since suspected that Kitty gave her secret +lumps. It was by Mr. Gridley's advice that she went, and by his +pecuniary assistance. What could I do? She was bent on going, and I was +afraid she would have fits, or do something dreadful, if I did not let +her have her way. I am afraid she will come back to us spoiled. She has +seemed so fond of dress lately, and once she spoke of learning--yes, Mr. +Bradshaw, of learning to--dance! I wept when I heard of it. Yes, I +wept." + +That was such a tremendous thing to think of, and especially to speak of +in Mr. Bradshaw's presence, for the most pathetic image in the world to +many women is that of themselves in tears,--that it brought a return of +the same overflow, which served as a substitute for conversation until +Miss Badlam entered the apartment. + +Miss Cynthia followed the same general course of remark. They could not +help Myrtle's going if they tried. She had always maintained that, if +they had only once broke her will when she was little, they would have +kept the upper hand of her; but her will never was broke. They came +pretty near it once, but the child would n't give in. + +Miss Cynthia went to the door with Mr. Bradshaw, and the conversation +immediately became short and informal. + +"Demonish pretty business! All up for a year or more,--hey?" + +Don't blame me,--I couldn't stop her." + +"Give me her address,--I 'll write to her. Any young men teach in the +school?" + +"Can't tell you. She'll write to Olive and Bathsheba, and I'll find out +all about it." + +Murray Bradshaw went home and wrote a long letter to Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, +of 24 Carat Place, containing many interesting remarks and inquiries, +some of the latter relating to Madam Delacoste's institution for the +education of young ladies. + +While this was going on at Oxbow Village, Myrtle was establishing herself +at the rather fashionable school to which Mr. Gridley had recommended +her. Mrs. or Madam Delacoste's boarding-school had a name which on the +whole it deserved pretty well. She had some very good instructors for +girls who wished to get up useful knowledge in case they might marry +professors or ministers. They had a chance to learn music, dancing, +drawing, and the way of behaving in company. There was a chance, too, to +pick up available acquaintances, for many rich people sent their +daughters to the school, and it was something to have been bred in their +company. + +There was the usual division of the scholars into a first and second set, +according to the social position, mainly depending upon the fortune, of +the families to which they belonged. The wholesale dealer's daughter +very naturally considered herself as belonging to a different order from +the retail dealer's daughter. The keeper of a great hotel and the editor +of a widely circulated newspaper were considered as ranking with the +wholesale dealers, and their daughters belonged also to the untitled +nobility which has the dollar for its armorial bearing. The second set +had most of the good scholars, and some of the prettiest girls; but +nobody knew anything about their families, who lived off the great +streets and avenues, or vegetated in country towns. + +Myrtle Hazard's advent made something like a sensation. They did not +know exactly what to make of her. Hazard? Hazard? No great firm of +that name. No leading hotel kept by any Hazard, was there? No newspaper +of note edited by anybody called Hazard, was there? Came from where? +Oxbow Village. Oh, rural district. Yes.--Still they could not help +owning that she was handsome, a concession which of course had to be made +with reservations. + +"Don't you think she's vuiry good-lookin'?" said a Boston girl to a New +York girl. "I think she's real pooty." + +"I dew, indeed. I didn't think she was haaf so handsome the feeest time +I saw her," answered the New York girl. + +"What a pity she had n't been bawn in Bawston!" + +"Yes, and moved very young to Ne Yock!" + +"And married a sarsaparilla man, and lived in Fiff Avenoo, and moved in +the fust society." + +"Better dew that than be strong-mainded, and dew your own cook'n, and +live in your own kitch'n." + +"Don't forgit to send your card when you are Mrs. Old Dr. Jacob!" + +"Indeed I shaan't. What's the name of the alley, and which bell?" The +New York girl took out a memorandum-book as if to put it down. + +"Had n't you better let me write it for you, dear?" said the Boston girl. +"It is as well to have it legible, you know." + +"Take it," said the New York girl. "There 's tew York shill'ns in it +when I hand it to you." + +"Your whole quarter's allowance, I bullieve,--ain't it?" said the Boston +girl. + +"Elegant manners, correct deportment, and propriety of language will be +strictly attended to in this institution. The most correct standards of +pronunciation will be inculcated by precept and example. It will be the +special aim of the teachers to educate their pupils out of all +provincialisms, so that they may be recognized as well-bred English +scholars wherever the language is spoken in its purity."--Extract from +the Prospectus of Madam Delacoste's Boarding-school. + +Myrtle Hazard was a puzzle to all the girls. Striking, they all agreed, +but then the criticisms began. Many of the girls chattered a little +broken French, and one of them, Miss Euphrosyne De Lacy, had been half +educated in Paris, so that she had all the phrases which are to social +operators what his cutting instruments are to the surgeon. Her face she +allowed was handsome; but her style, according to this oracle, was a +little bourgeoise, and her air not exactly comme il faut. More +specifically, she was guilty of contours fortement prononces,--corsage de +paysanne,--quelque chose de sauvage, etc., etc. This girl prided herself +on her figure. + +Miss Bella Pool, (La Belle Poule as the demi-Parisian girl had christened +her,) the beauty of the school, did not think so much of Myrtle's face, +but considered her figure as better than the De Lacy girl's. + +The two sets, first and second, fought over her as the Greeks and Trojans +over a dead hero, or the Yale College societies over a live freshman. +She was nobody by her connections, it is true, so far as they could find +out, but then, on the other hand, she had the walk of a queen, and she +looked as if a few stylish dresses and a season or two would make her a +belle of the first water. She had that air of indifference to their +little looks and whispered comments which is surest to disarm all the +critics of a small tattling community. On the other hand, she came to +this school to learn, and not to play; and the modest and more plainly +dressed girls, whose fathers did not sell by the cargo, or keep +victualling establishments for some hundreds of people, considered her as +rather in sympathy with them than with the daughters of the +rough-and-tumble millionnaires who were grappling and rolling over each +other in the golden dust of the great city markets. + +She did not mean to belong exclusively to either of their sets. She came +with that sense of manifold deficiencies, and eager ambition to supply +them, which carries any learner upward, as if on wings, over the heads of +the mechanical plodders and the indifferent routinists. She learned, +therefore, in a way to surprise the experienced instructors. Her +somewhat rude sketching soon began to show something of the artist's +touch. Her voice, which had only been taught to warble the simplest +melodies, after a little training began to show its force and sweetness +and flexibility in the airs that enchant drawing-room audiences. She +caught with great readiness the manner of the easiest girls, +unconsciously, for she inherited old social instincts which became nature +with the briefest exercise. Not much license of dress was allowed in the +educational establishment of Madam Delacoste, but every girl had an +opportunity to show her taste within the conventional limits prescribed. +And Myrtle soon began to challenge remark by a certain air she contrived +to give her dresses, and the skill with which she blended their colors. + +"Tell you what, girls," said Miss Berengaria Topping, female +representative of the great dynasty that ruled over the world-famous +Planet Hotel, "she's got style, lots of it. I call her perfectly +splendid, when she's got up in her swell clothes. That oriole's wing she +wears in her bonnet makes her look gorgeous, she'll be a stunning +Pocahontas for the next tableau." + +Miss Rose Bugbee, whose family opulence grew out of the only merchantable +article a Hebrew is never known to seek profit from, thought she could be +made presentable in the first circles if taken in hand in good season. +So it came about that, before many weeks had passed over her as a scholar +in the great educational establishment, she might be considered as on the +whole the most popular girl in the whole bevy of them. The studious ones +admired her for her facility of learning, and her extraordinary appetite +for every form of instruction, and the showy girls, who were only +enduring school as the purgatory that opened into the celestial world of +society, recognized in her a very handsome young person, who would be +like to make a sensation sooner or later. + +There were, however, it must be confessed, a few who considered +themselves the thickest of the cream of the school-girls, who submitted +her to a more trying ordeal than any she had yet passed. + +"How many horses does your papa keep?" asked Miss Florence Smythe. "We +keep nine, and a pony for Edgar." + +Myrtle had to explain that she had no papa, and that they did not keep +any horses. Thereupon Miss Florence Smythe lost her desire to form an +acquaintance, and wrote home to her mother (who was an ex-bonnet-maker) +that the school was getting common, she was afraid,--they were letting in +persons one knew nothing about. + +Miss Clare Browne had a similar curiosity about the amount of plate used +in the household from which Myrtle came. Her father had just bought a +complete silver service. Myrtle had to own that they used a good deal of +china at her own home,--old china, which had been a hundred years in the +family, some of it. + +"A hundred years old!" exclaimed Miss Clare Browne. "What queer-looking +stuff it must be! Why, everything in our house is just as new and +bright! Papaa had all our pictures painted on purpose for us. Have you +got any handsome pictures in your house?" + +"We have a good many portraits of members of the family," she said, "some +of them older than the china." + +"How very very odd! What do the dear old things look like?" + +"One was a great beauty in her time." + +"How jolly!" + +"Another was a young woman who was put to death for her religion,--burned +to ashes at the stake in Queen Mary's time." + +"How very very wicked! It was n't nice a bit, was it? Ain't you telling +me stories? Was that a hundred years ago?--But you 've got some new +pictures and things, have n't you? Who furnished your parlors?" + +"My great-grandfather, or his father, I believe." + +"Stuff and nonsense. I don't believe it. What color are your +carriage-horses?" + +"Our woman, Kitty Fagan, told somebody once we didn't keep any horse but +a cow." + +"Not keep any horses! Do for pity's sake let me look at your feet." + +Myrtle put out as neat a little foot as a shoemaker ever fitted with a +pair of number two. What she would have been tempted to do with it, if +she had been a boy, we will not stop to guess. After all, the questions +amused her quite as much as the answers instructed Miss Clara Browne. Of +that young lady's ancestral claims to distinction there is no need of +discoursing. Her "papaa" commonly said sir in talking with a gentleman, +and her "mammaa" would once in a while forget, and go down the area steps +instead of entering at the proper door; but they lived behind a brown +stone front, which veneers everybody's antecedents with a facing of +respectability. + +Miss Clara Browne wrote home to her mother in the same terms as Miss +Florence Smythe,--that the school was getting dreadful common, and they +were letting in very queer folks. + +Still another trial awaited Myrtle, and one which not one girl in a +thousand would have been so unprepared to meet. She knew absolutely +nothing of certain things with which the vast majority of young persons +were quite familiar. + +There were literary young ladies, who had read everything of Dickens and +Thackeray, and something at least of Sir Walter, and occasionally, +perhaps, a French novel, which they had better have let alone. One of +the talking young ladies of this set began upon Myrtle one day. + +"Oh, is n't 'Pickwick' nice?" she asked. + +"I don't know," Myrtle replied; "I never tasted any." + +The girl stared at her as if she were a crazy creature. "Tasted any! +Why, I mean the 'Pickwick Papers,' Dickens's story. Don't you think +they're nice." + +Poor Myrtle had to confess that she had never read them, and did n't know +anything about them. + +"What! did you never read any novels?" said the young lady. + +"Oh, to be sure I have," said Myrtle, blushing as she thought of the +great trunk and its contents. "I have read 'Caleb Williams,' and +'Evelina,' and 'Tristram Shandy'" (naughty girl!), "and the 'Castle of +Otranto,' and the 'Mysteries of Udolpho,' and the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' +and 'Don Quixote'--" + +The young lady burst out laughing. "Stop! stop! for mercy's sake," she +cried. "You must be somebody that's been dead and buried and come back +to life again. Why you're Rip Van Winkle in a petticoat! You ought to +powder your hair and wear patches." + +"We've got the oddest girl here," this young lady wrote home. "She has +n't read any book that is n't a thousand years old. One of the girls +says she wears a trilobite for a breastpin; some horrid old stone, I +believe that is, that was a bug ever so long ago. Her name, she says, is +Myrtle Hazard, but I call her Rip Van Myrtle." + +Notwithstanding the quiet life which these young girls were compelled to +lead, they did once in a while have their gatherings, at which a few +young gentlemen were admitted. One of these took place about a month +after Myrtle had joined the school. The girls were all in their best, +and by and by they were to have a tableau. Myrtle came out in all her +force. She dressed herself as nearly as she dared like the handsome +woman of the past generation whom she resembled. The very spirit of the +dead beauty seemed to animate every feature and every movement of the +young girl whose position in the school was assured from that moment. +She had a good solid foundation to build upon in the jealousy of two or +three of the leading girls of the style of pretensions illustrated by +some of their talk which has been given. There is no possible success +without some opposition as a fulcrum: force is always aggressive, and +crowds something or other, if it does not hit or trample on it. + +The cruelest cut of all was the remark attributed to Mr. Livingston +Jerkins, who was what the opposition girls just referred to called the +great "swell" among the privileged young gentlemen who were present at +the gathering. + +"Rip Van Myrtle, you call that handsome girl, do you, Miss Clara? By +Jove, she's the stylishest of the whole lot, to say nothing of being a +first-class beauty. Of course you know I except one, Miss Clara. If a +girl can go to sleep and wake up after twenty years looking like that, I +know a good many who had better begin their nap without waiting. If I +were Florence Smythe, I'd try it, and begin now,--eh, Clara?" + +Miss Browne felt the praise of Myrtle to be slightly alleviated by the +depreciation of Miss Smythe, who had long been a rival of her own. A +little later in the evening Miss Smythe enjoyed almost precisely the same +sensation, produced in a very economical way by Mr. Livingston Jenkins's +repeating pretty nearly the same sentiments to her, only with a change in +the arrangement of the proper names. The two young ladies were left +feeling comparatively comfortable with regard to each other, each +intending to repeat Mr. Livingston Jenkins's remark about her friend to +such of her other friends as enjoyed clever sayings, but not at all +comfortable with reference to Myrtle Hazard, who was evidently considered +by the leading "swell" of their circle as the most noticeable personage +of the assembly. The individual exception in each case did very well as +a matter of politeness, but they knew well enough what he meant. + +It seemed to Myrtle Hazard, that evening, that she felt the bracelet on +her wrist glow with a strange, unaccustomed warmth. It was as if it had +just been unclasped from the arm of a yohng woman full of red blood and +tingling all over with swift nerve-currents. Life had never looked to +her as it did that evening. It was the swan's first breasting the +water,--bred on the desert sand, with vague dreams of lake and river, and +strange longings as the mirage came and dissolved, and at length afloat +upon the sparkling wave. She felt as if she had for the first time found +her destiny. It was to please, and so to command, to rule with gentle +sway in virtue of the royal gift of beauty,--to enchant with the +commonest exercise of speech, through the rare quality of a voice which +could not help being always gracious and winning, of a manner which came +to her as an inheritance of which she had just found the title. She read +in the eyes of all that she was more than any other the centre of +admiration. Blame her who may, the world was a very splendid vision as +it opened before her eyes in its long vista of pleasures and of triumphs. +How different the light of these bright saloons from the glimmer of the +dim chamber at The Poplars! Silence Withers was at that very moment +looking at the portraits of Anne Holyoake and of Judith Pride. "The old +picture seems to me to be fading faster than ever," she was thinking. +But when she held her lamp before the other, it seemed to her that the +picture never was so fresh before, and that the proud smile upon its lips +was more full of conscious triumph than she remembered it. A reflex, +doubtless, of her own thoughts, for she believed that the martyr was +weeping even in heaven over her lost descendant, and that the beauty, +changed to the nature of the malignant spiritual company with which she +had long consorted in the under-world, was pleasing herself with the +thought that Myrtle was in due time to bring her news from the Satanic +province overhead, where she herself had so long indulged in the +profligacy of embonpoint and loveliness. + +The evening at the school-party was to terminate with some tableaux. The +girl who had suggested that Myrtle would look "stunning" or "gorgeous" or +"jolly," or whatever the expression was, as Pocahontas, was not far out +of the way, and it was so evident to the managing heads that she would +make a fine appearance in that character, that the "Rescue of Captain +John Smith" was specially got up to show her off. + +Myrtle had sufficient reason to believe that there was a hint of Indian +blood in her veins. It was one of those family legends which some of the +members are a little proud of, and others are willing to leave +uninvestigated. But with Myrtle it was a fixed belief that she felt +perfectly distinct currents of her ancestral blood at intervals, and she +had sometimes thought there were instincts and vague recollections which +must have come from the old warriors and hunters and their dusky brides. +The Indians who visited the neighborhood recognized something of their +own race in her dark eyes, as the reader may remember they told the +persons who were searching after her. It had almost frightened her +sometimes to find how like a wild creature she felt when alone in the +woods. Her senses had much of that delicacy for which the red people are +noted, and she often thought she could follow the trail of an enemy, if +she wished to track one through the forest, as unerringly as if she were +a Pequot or a Mohegan. + +It was a strange feeling that came over Myrtle, as they dressed her for +the part she was to take. Had she never worn that painted robe before? +Was it the first time that these strings of wampum had ever rattled upon +her neck and arms? And could it be that the plume of eagle's feathers +with which they crowned her dark, fast-lengthening locks had never +shadowed her forehead until now? She felt herself carried back into the +dim ages when the wilderness was yet untrodden save by the feet of its +native lords. Think of her wild fancy as we may, she felt as if that +dusky woman of her midnight vision on the river were breathing for one +hour through her lips. If this belief had lasted, it is plain enough +where it would have carried her. But it came into her imagination and +vivifying consciousness with the putting on of her unwonted costume, and +might well leave her when she put it off. It is not for us, who tell +only what happened, to solve these mysteries of the seeming admission of +unhoused souls into the fleshly tenements belonging to air-breathing +personalities. A very little more, and from that evening forward the +question would have been treated in full in all the works on medical +jurisprudence published throughout the limits of Christendom. The story +must be told or we should not be honest with the reader. + +TABLEAU 1. Captain John Smith (Miss Euphrosyne de Lacy) was to be +represented prostrate and bound, ready for execution; Powhatan (Miss +Florence Smythe) sitting upon a log; savages with clubs (Misses Clara +Browne, A. Van Boodle, E. Van Boodle, Heister, Booster, etc., etc.) +standing around; Pocahontas holding the knife in her hand, ready to cut +the cords with which Captain John Smith is bound.--Curtain. + +TABLEAU 2. Captain John Smith released and kneeling before Pocahontas, +whose hand is extended in the act of raising him and presenting him to +her father. Savages in various attitudes of surprise. Clubs fallen from +their hands. Strontian flame to be kindled.--Curtain. + +This was a portion of the programme for the evening, as arranged behind +the scenes. The first part went off with wonderful eclat, and at its +close there were loud cries for Pocahontas. She appeared for a moment. +Bouquets were flung to her; and a wreath, which one of the young ladies +had expected for herself in another part, was tossed upon the stage, and +laid at her feet. The curtain fell. + +"Put the wreath on her for the next tableau," some of them whispered, +just as the curtain was going to rise, and one of the girls hastened to +place it upon her head. + +The disappointed young lady could not endure it, and, in a spasm of +jealous passion, sprang at Myrtle, snatched it from her head, and +trampled it under her feet at the very instant the curtain was rising. +With a cry which some said had the blood-chilling tone of an Indian's +battle-shriek, Myrtle caught the knife up, and raised her arm against the +girl who had thus rudely assailed her. The girl sank to the ground, +covering her eyes in her terror. Myrtle, with her arm still lifted, and +the blade glistening in her hand, stood over her, rigid as if she had +been suddenly changed to stone. Many of those looking on thought all +this was a part of the show, and were thrilled with the wonderful acting. +Before those immediately around her had had time to recover from the +palsy of their fright Myrtle had flung the knife away from her, and was +kneeling, her head bowed and her hands crossed upon her breast. The +audience went into a rapture of applause as the curtain came suddenly +down; but Myrtle had forgotten all but the dread peril she had just +passed, and was thanking God that his angel--her own protecting spirit, +as it seemed to her had stayed the arm which a passion such as her nature +had never known, such as she believed was alien to her truest self, had +lifted with deadliest purpose. She alone knew how extreme the danger had +been. "She meant to scare her,--that 's all," they said. But Myrtle tore +the eagle's feathers from her hair, and stripped off her colored beads, +and threw off her painted robe. The metempsychosis was far too real for +her to let her wear the semblance of the savage from whom, as she +believed, had come the lawless impulse at the thought of which her soul +recoiled in horror. + +"Pocahontas has got a horrid headache," the managing young ladies gave it +out, "and can't come to time for the last tableau." So this all passed +over, not only without loss of credit to Myrtle, but with no small +addition to her local fame,--for it must have been acting; "and was n't +it stunning to see her with that knife, looking as if she was going to +stab Bells, or to scalp her, or something?" + +As Master Gridley had predicted, and as is the case commonly with +new-comers at colleges and schools, Myrtle had come first in contact with +those who were least agreeable to meet. The low-bred youth who amuse +themselves with scurvy tricks on freshmen, and the vulgar girls who try +to show off their gentility to those whom they think less important than +themselves, are exceptions in every institution; but they make themselves +odiously prominent before the quiet and modest young people have had time +to gain the new scholar's confidence. Myrtle found friends in due time, +some of them daughters of rich people, some poor girls, who came with the +same sincerity of purpose as herself. But not one was her match in the +facility of acquiring knowledge. Not one promised to make such a mark in +society, if she found an opening into its loftier circles. She was by no +means ignorant of her natural gifts, and she cultivated them with the +ambition which would not let her rest. + +During her stay at the great school, she made but one visit to Oxbow +Village. She did not try to startle the good people with her +accomplishments, but they were surprised at the change which had taken +place in her. Her dress was hardly more showy, for she was but a +school-girl, but it fitted her more gracefully. She had gained a +softness of expression, and an ease in conversation, which produced their +effect on all with whom she came in contact. Her aunt's voice lost +something of its plaintiveness in talking with her. Miss Cynthia +listened with involuntary interest to her stories of school and +school-mates. Master Byles Gridley accepted her as the great success of +his life, and determined to make her his chief heiress, if there was any +occasion for so doing. Cyprian told Bathsheba that Myrtle must come to +be a great lady. Gifted Hopkins confessed to Susan Posey that he was +afraid of her, since she had been to the great city school. She knew too +much and looked too much like a queen, for a village boy to talk with. + +Mr. William Murray Bradshaw tried all his fascinations upon her, but she +parried compliments so well, and put off all his nearer advances so +dexterously, that he could not advance beyond the region of florid +courtesy, and never got a chance, if so disposed, to risk a question +which he would not ask rashly, believing that, if Myrtle once said No, +there would be little chance of her ever saying Yes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +MUSTERING OF FORCES. + +Not long after the tableau performance had made Myrtle Hazard's name +famous in the school and among the friends of the scholars, she received +the very flattering attention of a call from Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, of 24 +Carat Place. This was in consequence of a suggestion from Mr. Livingston +Jenkins, a particular friend of the family. + +"They've got a demonish splendid school-girl over there," he said to that +lady, "made the stunningest looking Pocahontas at the show there the +other day. Demonish plucky looking filly as ever you saw. Had a row with +another girl,--gave the war-whoop, and went at her with a knife. +Festive,--hey? Say she only meant to scare her,--looked as if she meant +to stick her, anyhow. Splendid style. Why can't you go over to the shop +and make 'em trot her out?" + +The lady promised Mr. Livingston Jenkins that she certainly would, just +as soon as she could find a moment's leisure,--which, as she had nothing +in the world to do, was not likely to be very soon. Myrtle in the mean +time was busy with her studies, little dreaming what an extraordinary +honor was awaiting her. + +That rare accident in the lives of people who have nothing to do, a +leisure morning, did at last occur. An elegant carriage, with a coachman +in a wonderful cape, seated on a box lofty as a throne, and wearing a +hat-band as brilliant as a coronet, stopped at the portal of Madam +Delacoste's establishment. A card was sent in bearing the open sesame +of Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, the great lady of 24 Carat Place. Miss Myrtle +Hazard was summoned as a matter of course, and the fashionable woman and +the young girl sat half an hour together in lively conversation. + +Myrtle was fascinated by her visitor, who had that flattering manner +which, to those not experienced in the world's ways, seems to imply +unfathomable depths of disinterested devotion. Then it was so delightful +to look upon a perfectly appointed woman,--one who was as artistically +composed as a poem or an opera,--in whose costume a kind of various +rhythm undulated in one fluent harmony, from the spray that nodded on her +bonnet to the rosette that blossomed on her sandal. As for the lady, she +was captivated with Myrtle. There is nothing that your fashionable +woman, who has ground and polished her own spark of life into as many and +as glittering social facets as it will bear, has a greater passion for +than a large rough diamond, which knows nothing of the sea of light it +imprisons, and which it will be her pride to have cut into a brilliant +under her own eye, and to show the world for its admiration and her own +reflected glory. Mrs. Clymer Ketchum had taken the entire inventory of +Myrtle's natural endowments before the interview was over. She had no +marriageable children, and she was thinking what a killing bait Myrtle +would be at one of her stylish parties. + +She soon got another letter from Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, which +explained the interest he had taken in Madam Delacoste's school,--all +which she knew pretty nearly beforehand, for she had found out a good +part of Myrtle's history in the half-hour they had spent in company. + +"I had a particular reason for my inquiries about the school," he wrote. +"There is a young girl there I take an interest in. She is handsome and +interesting; and--though it is a shame to mention such a thing has +possibilities in the way of fortune not to be undervalued. Why can't you +make her acquaintance and be civil to her? A country girl, but fine old +stock, and will make a figure some time or other, I tell you. Myrtle +Hazard,--that's her name. A mere schoolgirl. Don't be malicious and +badger me about her, but be polite to her. Some of these country girls +have got 'blue blood' in them, let me tell you, and show it plain +enough." + +("In huckleberry season!") said Mrs. Ciymer Ketchum, in a +parenthesis,--and went on reading. + +"Don't think I'm one of your love-in-a-cottage sort, to have my head +turned by a village beauty. I've got a career before me, Mrs. K., and I +know it. But this is one of my pets, and I want you to keep an eye on +her. Perhaps when she leaves school you wouldn't mind asking her to come +and stay with you a little while. Possibly I may come and see how she is +getting on if you do,--won't that tempt you, Mrs. C. K.?" + +Mrs. Clymer Ketchum wrote back to her relative how she had already made +the young lady's acquaintance. + +"Livingston Jerkins (you remember him) picked her out of the whole lot of +girls as the 'prettiest filly in the stable.' That's his horrid way of +talking. But your young milkmaid is really charming, and will come into +form like a Derby three-year-old. There, now, I've caught that odious +creature's horse-talk, myself. You're dead in love with this girl, +Murray, you know you are. + +"After all, I don't know but you're right. You would make a good country +lawyer enough, I don't doubt. I used to think you had your ambitions, +but never mind. If you choose to risk yourself on 'possibilities,' it is +not my affair, and she's a beauty, there's no mistake about that. + +"There are some desirable partis at the school with your dulcinea. There +'s Rose Bugbee. That last name is a good one to be married from. Rose +is a nice girl,--there are only two of them. The estate will cut up like +one of the animals it was made out of, you know,--the sandwich-quadruped. +Then there 's Berengaria. Old Topping owns the Planet Hotel among other +things,--so big, they say, there's always a bell ringing from somebody's +room day and night the year round. Only child--unit and six +ciphers carries diamonds loose in her pocket--that's the story +--good-looking--lively--a little slangy called Livingston Jerkins +'Living Jingo' to his face one day. I want you to see my lot before you +do anything serious. You owe something to the family, Mr. William Murray +Bradshaw! But you must suit yourself, after all: if you are contented +with a humble position in life, it is nobody's business that I know of. +Only I know what life is, Murray B. Getting married is jumping +overboard, any way you look at it, and if you must save some woman from +drowning an old maid, try to find one with a cork jacket, or she 'll +carry you down with her." + +Murray Bradshaw was calculating enough, but he shook his head over this +letter. It was too demonish cold-blooded for him, he said to himself. +(Men cannot pardon women for saying aloud what they do not hesitate to +think in silence themselves.) Never mind,--he must have Mrs. Clymer +Ketchum's house and influence for his own purposes. Myrtle Hazard must +become her guest, and then if circumstances were favorable, he was +certain obtaining her aid in his project. + +The opportunity to invite Myrtle to the great mansion presented itself +unexpectedly. Early in the spring of 1861 there were some cases of +sickness in Madam Delacoste's establishment, which led to closing the +school for a while. Mrs. Clymer Ketchum took advantage of the dispersion +of the scholars to ask Myrtle to come and spend some weeks with her. +There were reasons why this was more agreeable to the young girl than +returning to Oxbow Village, and she very gladly accepted the invitation. + +It was very remarkable that a man living as Master Byles Gridley had +lived for so long a time should all at once display such liberality as he +showed to a young woman who had no claim upon him, except that he had +rescued her from the consequences of her own imprudence and warned her +against impending dangers. Perhaps he cared more for her than if the +obligation had been the other way,--students of human nature say it is +commonly so. At any rate, either he had ampler resources than it was +commonly supposed, or he was imprudently giving way to his generous +impulses, or he thought he was making advances which would in due time be +returned to him. Whatever the reason was, he furnished her with means, +not only for her necessary expenses, but sufficient to afford her many of +the elegances which she would be like to want in the fashionable society +with which she was for a short time to mingle. + +Mrs. Clymer Ketchum was so well pleased with the young lady she was +entertaining, that she thought it worth while to give a party while +Myrtle was staying with her. She had her jealousies and rivalries, as +women of the world will, sometimes, and these may have had their share in +leading her to take the trouble a large party involved. She was tired of +the airs of Mrs. Pinnikle, who was of the great Apex family, and her +terribly accomplished daughter Rhadamartha, and wanted to crush the young +lady, and jaundice her mother, with a girl twice as brilliant and ten +times handsomer. She was very willing, also, to take the nonsense out of +the Capsheaf girls, who thought themselves the most stylish personages of +their city world, and would bite their lips well to see themselves +distanced by a country miss. + +In the mean time circumstances were promising to bring into Myrtle's +neighborhood several of her old friends and admirers. Mrs. Clymer +Ketchum had written to Murray Bradshaw that she had asked his pretty +milkmaid to come and stay awhile with her, but he had been away on +business, and only arrived in the city a day or two before the party. But +other young fellows had found out the attractions of the girl who was +"hanging out at the Clymer Ketchum concern," and callers were plenty, +reducing tete-a-tetes in a corresponding ratio. He did get one +opportunity, however, and used it well. They had so many things to talk +about in common, that she could not help finding him good company. She +might well be pleased, for he was an adept in the curious art of being +agreeable, as other people are in chess or billiards, and had made a +special study of her tastes, as a physician studies a patient's +constitution. What he wanted was to get her thoroughly interested in +himself, and to maintain her in a receptive condition until such time as +he should be ready for a final move. Any day might furnish the decisive +motive; in the mean time he wished only to hold her as against all +others. + +It was well for her, perhaps, that others had flattered her into a +certain consciousness of her own value. She felt her veins full of the +same rich blood as that which had flushed the cheeks of handsome Judith +in the long summer of her triumph. Whether it was vanity, or pride, or +only the instinctive sense of inherited force and attraction, it was the +best of defences. The golden bracelet on her wrist seemed to have +brought as much protection with it as if it had been a shield over her +heart. + +But far away in Oxbow Village other events were in preparation. The +"fugitive pieces" of Mr. Gifted Hopkins had now reached a number so +considerable, that, if collected and printed in large type, with plenty +of what the unpleasant printers call "fat,"--meaning thereby blank +spaces,--upon a good, substantial, not to say thick paper, they might +perhaps make a volume which would have substance enough to bear the +title, printed lengthwise along the back, "Hopkins's Poems." Such a +volume that author had in contemplation. It was to be the literary event +of the year 1861. + +He could not mature such a project, one which he had been for some time +contemplating, without consulting Mr. Byles Gridley, who, though he had +not unfrequently repressed the young poet's too ardent ambition, had yet +always been kind and helpful. + +Mr. Gridley was seated in his large arm-chair, indulging himself in the +perusal of a page or two of his own work before repeatedly referred to. +His eye was glistening, for it had dust rested on the following passage: + +"There is infinite pathos in unsuccessful authorship. The book that +perishes unread is the deaf mute of literature. The great asylum of +Oblivion is full of such, making inaudible signs to each other in leaky +garrets and unattainable dusty upper shelves." + +He shut the book, for the page grew a little dim as he finished this +elegiac sentence, and sighed to think how much more keenly he felt its +truth than when it was written,--than on that memorable morning when he +saw the advertisement in all the papers, "This day published, 'Thoughts +on the Universe.' By Byles Gridley, A. M." + +At that moment he heard a knock at his door. He closed his eyelids +forcibly for ten seconds, opened them, and said cheerfully, "Come in!" + +Gifted Hopkins entered. He had a collection of manuscripts in his hands +which it seemed to him would fill a vast number of pages. He did not +know that manuscript is to type what fresh dandelions are to the dish of +greens that comes to table, of which last Nurse Byloe, who considered +them very wholesome spring grazing for her patients, used to say that +they "biled down dreadful." + +"I have brought the autographs of my poems, Master Gridley, to consult +you about making arrangements for publication. They have been so well +received by the public and the leading critics of this part of the State, +that I think of having them printed in a volume. I am going to the city +for that purpose. My mother has given her consent. I wish to ask you +several business questions. Shall I part with the copyright for a +downright sum of money, which I understand some prefer doing, or publish +on shares, or take a percentage on the sales? These, I believe, are the +different ways taken by authors." + +Mr. Gridley was altogether too considerate to reply with the words which +would most naturally have come to his lips. He waited as if he were +gravely pondering the important questions just put to him, all the while +looking at Gifted with a tenderness which no one who had not buried one +of his soul's children could have felt for a young author trying to get +clothing for his new-born intellectual offspring. + +"I think," he said presently, "you had better talk with an intelligent +and liberal publisher, and be guided by his advice. I can put you in +correspondence with such a person, and you had better trust him than me a +great deal. Why don't you send your manuscript by mail?" + +"What, Mr. Gridley? Trust my poems, some of which are unpublished, to +the post-office? No, sir, I could never make up my mind to such a risk. +I mean to go to the city myself, and read them to some of the leading +publishers. I don't want to pledge myself to any one of them. I should +like to set them bidding against each other for the copyright, if I sell +it at all." + +Mr. Gridley gazed upon the innocent youth with a sweet wonder in his eyes +that made him look like an angel, a little damaged in the features by +time, but full of celestial feelings. + +"It will cost you something to make this trip, Gifted. Have you the +means to pay for your journey and your stay at a city hotel?" + +Gifted blushed. "My mother has laid by a small sum for me," he said. +"She knows some of my poems by heart, and she wants to see them all in +print." + +Master Gridley closed his eyes very firmly again, as if thinking, and +opened them as soon as the foolish film had left them. He had read many +a page of "Thoughts on the Universe" to his own old mother, long, long +years ago, and she had often listened with tears of modest pride that +Heaven had favored her with a son so full of genius. + +"I 'll tell you what, Gifted," he said. "I have been thinking for a good +while that I would make a visit to the city, and if you have made up your +mind to try what you can do with the publishers, I will take you with me +as a companion. It will be a saving to you and your good mother, for I +shall bear the expenses of the expedition." + +Gifted Hopkins came very near going down on his knees. He was so +overcome with gratitude that it seemed as if his very coattails wagged +with his emotion. + +"Take it quietly," said Master Gridley. "Don't make a fool of yourself. +Tell your mother to have some clean shirts and things ready for you, and +we will be off day after to-morrow morning." + +Gifted hastened to impart the joyful news to his mother, and to break the +fact to Susan Posey that he was about to leave them for a while, and rush +into the deliriums and dangers of the great city. + +Susan smiled. Gifted hardly knew whether to be pleased with her +sympathy, or vexed that she did not take his leaving more to heart. The +smile held out bravely for about a quarter of a minute. Then there came +on a little twitching at the corners of the mouth. Then. the blue eyes +began to shine with a kind of veiled glimmer. Then the blood came up +into her cheeks with a great rush, as if the heart had sent up a herald +with a red flag from the citadel to know what was going on at the +outworks. The message that went back was of discomfiture and +capitulation. Poor Susan was overcome, and gave herself up to weeping +and sobbing. + +The sight was too much for the young poet. In a wild burst of passion he +seized her hand, and pressed it to his lips, exclaiming, "Would that you +could be mine forever!" and Susan forgot all that she ought to have +remembered, and, looking half reproachfully but half tenderly through her +tears, said, in tones of infinite sweetness, "O Gifted!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE POET AND THE PUBLISHER. + +It was settled that Master Byles Gridley and Mr. Gifted Hopkins should +leave early in the morning of the day appointed, to take the nearest +train to the city. Mrs. Hopkins labored hard to get them ready, so that +they might make a genteel appearance among the great people whom they +would meet in society. She brushed up Mr. Gridley's best black suit, and +bound the cuffs of his dress-coat, which were getting a little worried. +She held his honest-looking hat to the fire, and smoothed it while it was +warm, until one would have thought it had just been ironed by the hatter +himself. She had his boots and shoes brought into a more brilliant +condition than they had ever known: if Gifted helped, it was to his +credit as much as if he had shown his gratitude by polishing off a copy +of verses in praise of his benefactor. + +When she had got Mr. Gridley's encumbrances in readiness for the journey, +she devoted herself to fitting out her son Gifted. First, she had down +from the garret a capacious trunk, of solid wood, but covered with +leather, and adorned with brass-headed nails, by the cunning disposition +of which, also, the paternal initials stood out on the rounded lid, in +the most conspicuous manner. It was his father's trunk, and the first +thing that went into it, as the widow lifted the cover, and the +smothering shut-up smell struck an old chord of associations, was a +single tear-drop. How well she remembered the time when she first +unpacked it for her young husband, and the white shirt bosoms showed +their snowy plaits! O dear, dear! + +But women decant their affection, sweet and sound, out of the old bottles +into the new ones,--off from the lees of the past generation, clear and +bright, into the clean vessels just made ready to receive it. Gifted +Hopkins was his mother's idol, and no wonder. She had not only the +common attachment of a parent for him, as her offspring, but she felt +that her race was to be rendered illustrious by his genius, and thought +proudly of the time when some future biographer would mention her own +humble name, to be held in lasting remembrance as that of the mother of +Hopkins. + +So she took great pains to equip this brilliant but inexperienced young +man with everything he could by any possibility need during his absence. +The great trunk filled itself until it bulged with its contents like a +boa-constrictor who has swallowed his blanket. Best clothes and common +clothes, thick clothes and thin clothes, flannels and linens, socks and +collars, with handkerchiefs enough to keep the pickpockets busy for a +week, with a paper of gingerbread and some lozenges for gastralgia, and +"hot drops," and ruled paper to write letters on, and a little Bible, and +a phial with hiera picra, and another with paregoric, and another with +"camphire" for sprains and bruises, + +--Gifted went forth equipped for every climate from the tropic to the +pole, and armed against every malady from Ague to Zoster. He carried +also the paternal watch, a solid silver bull's-eye, and a large +pocketbook, tied round with a long tape, and, by way of precaution, +pinned into his breast-pocket. He talked about having a pistol, in case +he were attacked by any of the ruffians who are so numerous in the city, +but Mr. Gridley told him, No! he would certainly shoot himself, and he +shouldn't think of letting him take a pistol. + +They went forth, Mentor and Telemachus, at the appointed time, to dare +the perils of the railroad and the snares of the city. Mrs. Hopkins was +firm up to near the last moment, when a little quiver in her voice set +her eyes off, and her face broke up all at once, so that she had to hide +it behind her handkerchief. Susan Posey showed the truthfulness of her +character in her words to Gifted at parting. "Farewell," she said, "and +think of me sometimes while absent. My heart is another's, but my +friendship, Gifted--my friendship--" + +Both were deeply affected. He took her hand and would have raised it to +his lips; but she did not forget herself, and gently withdrew it, +exclaiming, "O Gifted!" this time with a tone of tender reproach which +made him feel like a profligate. He tore himself away, and when at a +safe distance flung her a kiss, which she rewarded with a tearful smile. + +Master Byles Gridley must have had some good dividends from some of his +property of late. There is no other way of accounting for the handsome +style in which he did things on their arrival in the city. He went to a +tailor's and ordered a new suit to be sent home as soon as possible, for +he knew his wardrobe was a little rusty. He looked Gifted over from head +to foot, and suggested such improvements as would recommend him to the +fastidious eyes of the selecter sort of people, and put him in his own +tailor's hands, at the same time saying that all bills were to be sent to +him, B. Gridley, Esq., parlor No. 6, at the Planet Hotel. Thus it came +to pass that in three days from their arrival they were both in an +eminently presentable condition. In the mean time the prudent Mr. +Gridley had been keeping the young man busy, and amusing himself by +showing him such of the sights of the city and its suburbs as he thought +would combine instruction with entertainment. + +When they were both properly equipped and ready for the best company, Mr. +Gridley said to the young poet, who had found it very hard to contain his +impatience, that they would now call together on the publisher to whom he +wished to introduce him, and they set out accordingly. + +"My name is Gridley," he said with modest gravity, as he entered the +publisher's private room. "I have a note of introduction here from one +of your authors, as I think he called himself, a very popular writer for +whom you publish." + +The publisher rose and came forward in the most cordial and respectful +manner. "Mr. Gridley? Professor Byles Gridley,--author of 'Thoughts on +the Universe'?" + +The brave-hearted old man colored as if he had been a young girl. His +dead book rose before him like an apparition. He groped in modest +confusion for an answer. "A child I buried long ago, my dear sir," he +said. "Its title-page was its tombstone. I have brought this young +friend with me,--this is Mr. Gifted Hopkins of Oxbow Village,--who wishes +to converse with you about--" + +"I have come, sir--" the young poet began, interrupting him. + +"Let me look at your manuscript, if you please, Mr. Popkins," said the +publisher, interrupting in his turn. + +"Hopkins, if you please, sir," Gifted suggested mildly, proceeding to +extract the manuscript, which had got wedged into his pocket, and seemed +to be holding on with all its might. He was wondering all the time over +the extraordinary clairvoyance of the publisher, who had looked through +so many thick folds, broadcloth, lining, brown paper, and seen his poems +lying hidden in his breast-pocket. The idea that a young person coming +on such an errand should have to explain his intentions would have seemed +very odd to the publisher. He knew the look which belongs to this class +of enthusiasts just as a horse-dealer knows the look of a green purchaser +with the equine fever raging in his veins. If a young author had come to +him with a scrap of manuscript hidden in his boots, like Major Andre's +papers, the publisher would have taken one glance at him and said, "Out +with it!" + +While he was battling for the refractory scroll with his pocket, which +turned half wrong side out, and acted as things always do when people are +nervous and in a hurry, the publisher directed his conversation again to +Master Byles Gridley. + +"A remarkable book, that of yours, Mr. Gridley, would have a great run if +it were well handled. Came out twenty years too soon,--that was the +trouble. One of our leading scholars was speaking of it to me the other +day. 'We must have a new edition,' he said; people are just ripe for +that book.' Did you ever think of that? Change the form of it a little, +and give it a new title, and it will be a popular book. Five thousand or +more, very likely." + +Mr. Gridley felt as if he had been rapidly struck on the forehead with a +dozen distinct blows from a hammer not quite big enough to stun him. He +sat still without saying a word. He had forgotten for the moment all +about poor Gifted Hopkins, who had got out his manuscript at last, and +was calming the disturbed corners of it. Coming to himself a little, he +took a large and beautiful silk handkerchief, one of his new purchases, +from his pocket, and applied it to his face, for the weather seemed to +have grown very warm all at once. Then he remembered the errand on which +he had come, and thought of this youth, who had got to receive his first +hard lesson in life, and whom he had brought to this kind man that it +should be gently administered. + +"You surprise me," he said,--"you surprise me. Dead and buried. Dead and +buried. I had sometimes thought that--at some future period, after I was +gone, it might--but I hardly know what to say about your suggestions. +But here is my young friend, Mr. Hopkins, who would like to talk with +you, and I will leave him in your hands. I am at the Planet Hotel, if you +should care to call upon me. Good morning. Mr. Hopkins will explain +everything to you more at his ease, without me, I am confident." + +Master Gridley could not quite make up his mind to stay through the +interview between the young poet and the publisher. The flush of hope +was bright in Gifted's eye and cheek, and the good man knew that young +hearts are apt to be over-sanguine, and that one who enters a shower-bath +often feels very differently from the same person when he has pulled the +string. + +"I have brought you my Poems in the original autographs, sir," said Mr. +Gifted Hopkins. + +He laid the manuscript on the table, caressing the leaves still with one +hand, as loath to let it go. + +"What disposition had you thought of making of them?" the publisher +asked, in a pleasant tone. He was as kind a man as lived, though he +worked the chief engine in a chamber of torture. + +"I wish to read you a few specimens of the poems," he said, "with +reference to their proposed publication in a volume." + +"By all means," said the kind publisher, who determined to be very +patient with the protege of the hitherto little-known, but remarkable +writer, Professor Gridley. At the same time he extended his foot in an +accidental sort of way, and pressed it on the right hand knob of three +which were arranged in a line beneath the table. A little bell in a +distant apartment--the little bell marked C--gave one slight note; loud +enough to start a small boy up, who looked at the clock, and knew that he +was to go and call the publisher in just twenty-five minutes. "A, five +minutes; B, ten minutes; C, twenty-five minutes ";--that was the +youngster's working formula. Mr. Hopkins was treated to the full +allowance of time, as being introduced by Professor Gridley. + +The young man laid open the manuscript so that the title-page, written +out very handsomely in his own hand, should win the eye of the publisher. + + BLOSSOMS OF THE SOUL. + A WREATH OF VERSE; Original. + + BY GIFTED HOPKINS. + + "a youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown."--Gray. + +"Shall I read you some of the rhymed pieces first, or some of the +blank-verse poems, sir?" Gifted asked. + +"Read what you think is best,--a specimen of your first-class style of +composition." + +"I will read you the very last poem I have written," he said, and he +began: + + "THE TRIUMPH OF SONG. + + "I met that gold-haired maiden, all too dear; + And I to her: Lo! thou art very fair, + Fairer than all the ladies in the world + That fan the sweetened air with scented fans, + And I am scorched with exceeding love, + Yea, crisped till my bones are dry as straw. + Look not away with that high-arched brow, + But turn its whiteness that I may behold, + And lift thy great eyes till they blaze on mine, + And lay thy finger on thy perfect mouth, + And let thy lucent ears of careen pearl + Drink in the murmured music of my soul, + As the lush grass drinks in the globed dew; + For I have many scrolls of sweetest rhyme + I will unroll and make thee glad to hear. + + "Then she: O shaper of the marvellous phrase + That openeth woman's heart as Both a key, + I dare not hear thee--lest the bolt should slide + That locks another's heart within my own. + Go, leave me,--and she let her eyelids fall, + And the great tears rolled from her large blue eyes. + + "Then I: If thou not hear me, I shall die, + Yea, in my desperate mood may lift my hand + And do myself a hurt no leach can mend; + For poets ever were of dark resolve, + And swift stern deed + + "That maiden heard no more, + But spike: Alas! my heart is very weak, + And but for--Stay! And if some dreadful morn, + After great search and shouting thorough the wold, + We found thee missing,--strangled,--drowned i' the mere, + Then should I go distraught and be clean mad! + + "O poet, read! read all thy wondrous scrolls. + Yea, read the verse that maketh glad to hear! + Then I began and read two sweet, brief hours, + And she forgot all love save only mine!" + +"Is all this from real life?" asked the publisher. + +"It--no, sir--not exactly from real life--that is, the leading female +person is not wholly fictitious--and the incident is one which might have +happened. Shall I read you the poems referred to in the one you have +just heard, sir?" + +"Allow me, one moment. Two hours' reading, I think, you said. I fear I +shall hardly be able to spare quite time to hear them all. Let me ask +what you intend doing with these productions, Mr.---rr Poplins." + +"Hopkins, if you please, sir, not Poplins," said Gifted, plaintively. He +expressed his willingness to dispose of the copyright, to publish on +shares, or perhaps to receive a certain percentage on the profits. + +"Suppose we take a glass of wine together, Mr.--Hopkins, before we talk +business," the publisher said, opening a little cupboard and taking +therefrom a decanter and two glasses. He saw the young man was looking +nervous. He waited a few minutes, until the wine had comforted his +epigastrium, and diffused its gentle glow through his unspoiled and +consequently susceptible organisation. + +"Come with me," he said. + +Gifted followed him into a dingy apartment in the attic, where one sat at +a great table heaped and piled with manuscripts. By him was a huge +basket, ha'f full of manuscripts also. As they entered he dropped +another manuscript into the basket and looked up. + +"Tell me," said Gifted, "what are these papers, and who is he that looks +upon them and drops them into the basket?" + +"These are the manuscript poems that we receive, and the one sitting at +the table is commonly spoken of among us as 'The Butcher'. The poems he +drops into the basket are those rejected as of no account" + +"But does he not read the poems before he rejects them?" + +"He tastes them. Do you eat a cheese before you buy it?" + +"And what becomes of all those that he drops into the basket?" + +"If they are not claimed by their author in proper season, they go to the +devil." + +"What!" said Gifted, with his eyes stretched very round. + +"To the paper factory, where they have a horrid machine they call the +devil, that tears everything to bits,--as the critics treat our authors, +sometimes, sometimes, Mr. Hopkins." + +Gifted devoted a moment to silent reflection. + +After this instructive sight they returned together to the publisher's +private room. The wine had now warmed the youthful poet's praecordia, so +that he began to feel a renewed confidence in his genius and his +fortunes. + +"I should like to know what that critic of yours would say to my +manuscript," he said boldly. + +"You can try it if you want to," the publisher replied, with an ominous +dryness of manner which the sanguine youth did not perceive, or, +perceiving, did not heed. + +"How can we manage to get an impartial judgment?" + +"Oh, I'll arrange that. He always goes to his luncheon about this time. +Raw meat and vitriol punch,--that 's what the authors say. Wait till we +hear him go, and then I will lay your manuscript so that he will come to +it among the first after he gets back. You shall see with your own eyes +what treatment it gets. I hope it may please him, but you shall see." + +They went back to the publisher's private room and talked awhile. Then +the little office-boy came up with some vague message about a +gentleman--business--wants to see you, sir, etc., according to the +established programme; all in a vacant, mechanical sort of way, as if he +were a talking-machine just running down. + +The publisher told the boy that he was engaged, and the gentleman must +wait. Very soon they heard The Butcher's heavy footstep as he went out +to get his raw meat and vitriol punch. + +"Now, then," said the publisher, and led forth the confiding literary lamb +once more, to enter the fatal door of the critical shambles. + +"Hand me your manuscript, if you please, Mr. Hopkins. I will lay it so +that it shall be the third of these that are coming to hand. Our friend +here is a pretty good judge of verse, and knows a merchantable article +about as quick as any man in his line of business. If he forms a +favorable opinion of your poems, we will talk over your propositions." + +Gifted was conscious of a very slight tremor as he saw his precious +manuscript deposited on the table, under two others, and over a pile of +similar productions. Still he could not help feeling that the critic +would be struck by his title. The quotation from Gray must touch his +feelings. The very first piece in the collection could not fail to +arrest him. He looked a little excited, but he was in good spirits. + +"We will be looking about here when our friend comes back," the publisher +said. " He is a very methodical person, and will sit down and go right to +work just as if we were not here. We can watch him, and if he should +express any particular interest in your poems, I will, if you say so, +carry you up to him and reveal the fact that you are the author of the +works that please him." + +They waited patiently until The Butcher returned, apparently refreshed by +his ferocious refection, and sat down at his table. He looked comforted, +and not in ill humor. The publisher and the poet talked in low tones, as +if on business of their own, and watched him as he returned to his labor. + +The Butcher took the first manuscript that came to hand, read a stanza +here and there, turned over the leaves, turned back and tried +again,--shook his head--held it for an instant over the basket, as if +doubtful,--and let it softly drop. He took up the second manuscript, +opened it in several places, seemed rather pleased with what he read, and +laid it aside for further examination. + +He took up the third. "Blossoms of the Soul," etc. He glared at it in a +dreadfully ogreish way. Both the lockers-on held their breath. Gifted +Hopkins felt as if half a glass more of that warm sherry would not hurt +him. There was a sinking at the pit of his stomach, as if he was in a +swing, as high as he could go, close up to the swallows' nests and +spiders' webs. The Butcher opened the manuscript at random, read ten +seconds, and gave a short low grunt. He opened again, read ten seconds, +and gave another grunt, this time a little longer and louder. He opened +once more, read five seconds, and, with something that sounded like the +snort of a dangerous animal, cast it impatiently into the basket, and +took up the manuscript that came next in order. + +Gifted Hopkins stood as if paralyzed for a moment. + +"Safe, perfectly safe," the publisher said to him in a whisper. "I'll get +it for you presently. Come in and take another glass of wine," he said, +leading him back to his own office. + +"No, I thank you," he said faintly, "I can bear it. But this is +dreadful, sir. Is this the way that genius is welcomed to the world of +letters?" + +The publisher explained to him, in the kindest manner, that there was an +enormous over-production of verse, and that it took a great part of one +man's time simply to overhaul the cart-loads of it that were trying to +get themselves into print with the imprimatur of his famous house. "You +are young, Mr. Hopkins. I advise you not to try to force your article of +poetry on the market. The B----, our friend, there, that is, knows a +thing that will sell as soon as he sees it. You are in independent +circumstances, perhaps? If so, you can print--at your own +expense--whatever you choose. May I take the liberty to ask +your--profession?" + +Gifted explained that he was "clerk" in a "store," where they sold dry +goods and West India goods, and goods promiscuous. + +"Oh, well, then," the publisher said, "you will understand me. Do you +know a good article of brown sagas when you see it?" + +Gifted Hopkins rather thought he did. He knew at sight whether it was a +fair, salable article or not. + +"Just so. Now our friend, there, knows verses that are salable and +unsalable as well as you do brown sugar.--Keep quiet now, and I will go +and get your manuscript for you. + +"There, Mr. Hopkins, take your poems,--they will give you a reputation in +your village, I don't doubt, which, is pleasant, but it will cost you a +good deal of money to print them in a volume. You are very young: you +can afford to wait. Your genius is not ripe yet, I am confident, Mr. +Hopkins. These verses are very well for a beginning, but a man of +promise like you, Mr. Hopkins, must n't throw away his chance by +premature publication! I should like to make you a present of a few of +the books we publish. By and by, perhaps, we can work you into our +series of poets; but the best pears ripen slowly, and so with +genius.--Where shall I send the volumes?" + +Gifted answered, to parlor No. 6, Planet Hotel, where he soon presented +himself to Master Gridley, who could guess pretty well what was coming. +But he let him tell his story. + +"Shall I try the other publishers?" said the disconsolate youth. + +"I would n't, my young friend, I would n't. You have seen the best one +of them--all. He is right about it, quite right: you are young, and had +better wait. Look here, Gifted, here is something to please you. We are +going to visit the gay world together. See what has been left here this +forenoon." + +He showed him two elegant notes of invitation requesting the pleasure of +Professor Byles Gridley's and of Mr. Gifted Hopkins's company on Thursday +evening, as the guests of Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, of 24 Carat Place. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +MRS. CLYMER KETCHUM'S PARTY. + +Myrtle Hazard had flowered out as beyond question the handsomest girl of +the season, There were hints from different quarters that she might +possibly be an heiress. Vague stories were about of some contingency +which might possibly throw a fortune into her lap. The young men about +town talked of her at the clubs in their free-and-easy way, but all +agreed that she was the girl of the new crop,--"best filly this grass," +as Livingston Jenkins put it. The general understanding seemed to be +that the young lawyer who had followed her to the city was going to +capture her. She seemed to favor him certainly as much as anybody. But +Myrtle saw many young men now, and it was not so easy as it would once +have been to make out who was an especial favorite. + +There had been times when Murray Bradshaw would have offered his heart +and hand to Myrtle at once, if he had felt sure that she would accept +him. But he preferred playing the safe game now, and only wanted to feel +sure of her. He had done his best to be agreeable, and could hardly +doubt that he had made an impression. He dressed well when in the +city,--even elegantly,--he had many of the lesser social accomplishments, +was a good dancer, and compared favorably in all such matters with the +more dashing young fellows in society. He was a better talker than most +of them, and he knew more about the girl he was dealing with than they +could know. "You have only got to say the word, Murray," Mrs. Clymer +Ketchum said to her relative, "and you can have her. But don't be rash. +I believe you can get Berengaria if you try; and there 's something +better there than possibilities." Murray Bradshaw laughed, and told Mrs. +Clymer Ketchum not to worry about him; he knew what he was doing. + +It so happened that Myrtle met Master Byles Gridley walking with Mr. +Gifted Hopkins the day before the party. She longed to have a talk with +her old friend, and was glad to have a chance of pleasing her poetical +admirer. She therefore begged her hostess to invite them both to her +party to please her, which she promised to do at once. Thus the two +elegant notes were accounted for. + +Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, though her acquaintances were chiefly in the world +of fortune and of fashion, had yet a certain weakness for what she called +clever people. She therefore always variegated her parties with a streak +of young artists and writers, and a literary lady or two; and, if she +could lay hands on a first-class celebrity, was as happy as an Amazon who +had captured a Centaur. + +"There's a demonish clever young fellow by the name of Lindsay," Mr. +Livingston Jenkins said to her a little before the day of the party. +"Better ask him. They say he 's the rising talent in his line, +architecture mainly, but has done some remarkable things in the way of +sculpture. There's some story about a bust he made that was quite +wonderful. I'll find his address for you." So Mr. Clement Lindsay got +his invitation, and thus Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's party promised to bring +together a number of persons with whom we are acquainted, and who were +acquainted with each other. + +Mrs. Clymer Ketchum knew how to give a party. Let her only have carte +blanche for flowers, music, and champagne, she used to tell her lord, and +she would see to the rest,--lighting the rooms, tables, and toilet. He +needn't be afraid: all he had to do was to keep out of the way. + +Subdivision of labor is one of the triumphs of modern civilization. Labor +was beautifully subdivided in this lady's household. It was old +Ketchum's business to make money, and he understood it. It was Mrs. K.'s +business to spend money, and she knew how to do it. The rooms blazed +with light like a conflagration; the flowers burned like lamps of +many-colored flame; the music throbbed into the hearts of the promenaders +and tingled through all the muscles of the dancers. + +Mrs. Clymer Ketchum was in her glory. Her point d'Alenyon must have +spoiled ever so many French girls' eyes. Her bosom heaved beneath a kind +of breastplate glittering with a heavy dew of diamonds. She glistened +and sparkled with every movement, so that the admirer forgot to question +too closely whether the eyes matched the brilliants, or the cheeks glowed +like the roses. Not far from the great lady stood Myrtle Hazard. She +was dressed as the fashion of the day demanded, but she had added certain +audacious touches of her own, reminiscences of the time when the dead +beauty had flourished, and which first provoked the question and then the +admiration of the young people who had a natural eye for effect. Over +the long white glove on her left arm was clasped a rich bracelet, of so +quaint an antique pattern that nobody had seen anything like it, and as +some one whispered that it was "the last thing out," it was greatly +admired by the fashion-plate multitude, as well as by the few who had a +taste of their own. If the soul of Judith Pride, long divorced from its +once beautifully moulded dust, ever lived in dim consciousness through +any of those who inherited her blood, it was then and there that she +breathed through the lips of Myrtle Hazard. The young girl almost +trembled with the ecstasy of this new mode of being, soliciting every +sense with light, with perfume, with melody,--all that could make her +feel the wonderful complex music of a fresh life when all its chords +first vibrate together in harmony. Miss Rhadamantha Pinnikle, whose +mother was an Apex (of whose race it was said that they always made an +obeisance when the family name was mentioned, and had all their portraits +painted with halos round their heads), found herself extinguished in this +new radiance. Miss Victoria Capsheaf stuck to the wall as if she had +been a fresco on it. The fifty-year-old dynasties were dismayed and +dismounted. Myrtle fossilized them as suddenly as if she had been a +Gorgon instead of a beauty. + +The guests in whom we may have some interest were in the mean time making +ready for the party, which was expected to be a brilliant one; for 24 +Carat Place was well known for the handsome style of its entertainments. + +Clement Lindsay was a little surprised by his invitation. He had, +however, been made a lion of several times of late, and was very willing +to amuse himself once in a while with a peep into the great world. + +It was but an empty show to him at best, for his lot was cast, and he +expected to lead a quiet domestic life after his student days were over. + +Master Byles Gridley had known what society was in his earlier time, and +understood very well that all a gentleman of his age had to do was to +dress himself in his usual plain way, only taking a little more care in +his arrangements than was needed in the latitude of Oxbow Village. But +Gifted must be looked after, that he should not provoke the unamiable +comments of the city youth by any defect or extravagance of costume. The +young gentleman had bought a light sky-blue neckerchief, and a very large +breast-pin containing a gem which he was assured by the vender was a +genuine stone. He considered that both these would be eminently +effective articles of dress, and Mr. Gridley had some trouble to convince +him that a white tie and plain shirt-buttons would be more fitted to the +occasion. + +On the morning of the day of the great party Mr. William Murray Bradshaw +received a brief telegram, which seemed to cause him great emotion, as he +changed color, uttered a forcible exclamation, and began walking up and +down his room in a very nervous kind of way. It was a foreshadowing of a +certain event now pretty sure to happen. Whatever bearing this telegram +may have had upon his plans, he made up his mind that he would contrive +an opportunity somehow that very evening to propose himself as a suitor +to Myrtle Hazard. He could not say that he felt as absolutely certain of +getting the right answer as he had felt at some previous periods. Myrtle +knew her price, he said to himself, a great deal better than when she was +a simple country girl. The flatteries with which she had been +surrounded, and the effect of all the new appliances of beauty, which had +set her off so that she could not help seeing her own attractions, +rendered her harder to please and to satisfy. A little experience in +society teaches a young girl the arts and the phrases which all the +Lotharios have in common. Murray Bradshaw was ready to land his fish +now, but he was not quite sure that she was yet hooked, and he had a +feeling that by this time she knew every fly in his book. However, as he +had made up his mind not to wait another day, he addressed himself to the +trial before him with a determination to succeed, if any means at his +command would insure success. He arrayed himself with faultless +elegance: nothing must be neglected on such an occasion. He went forth +firm and grave as a general going into a battle where all is to be lost +or won. He entered the blazing saloon with the unfailing smile upon his +lips, to which he set them as he set his watch to a particular hour and +minute. + +The rooms were pretty well filled when he arrived and made his bow before +the blazing, rustling, glistening, waving, blushing appearance under +which palpitated, with the pleasing excitement of the magic scene over +which its owner presided, the heart of Mrs. Clymer Ketchum. He turned to +Myrtle Hazard, and if he had ever doubted which way his inclinations led +him, he could doubt no longer. How much dress and how much light can a +woman bear? That is the way to measure her beauty. A plain girl in a +simple dress, if she has only a pleasant voice, may seem almost a beauty +in the rosy twilight. The nearer she comes to being handsome, the more +ornament she will bear, and the more she may defy the sunshine or the +chandelier. + +Murray Bradshaw was fairly dazzled with the brilliant effect of Myrtle in +full dress. He did not know before what handsome arms she had,--Judith +Pride's famous arms--which the high-colored young men in top-boots used +to swear were the handsomest pair in New England--right over again. He +did not know before with what defiant effect she would light up, standing +as she did directly under a huge lustre, in full flower of flame, like a +burning azalea. He was not a man who intended to let his sentiments +carry him away from the serious interests of his future, yet, as he +looked upon Myrtle Hazard, his heart gave one throb which made him feel +in every pulse that this way a woman who in her own right, simply as a +woman, could challenge the homage of the proudest young man of her time. +He hardly knew till this moment how much of passion mingled with other +and calmer motives of admiration. He could say I love you as truly as +such a man could ever speak these words, meaning that he admired her, +that he was attracted to her, that he should be proud of her as his wife, +that he should value himself always as the proprietor of so rare a +person, that no appendage to his existence would take so high a place in +his thoughts. This implied also, what is of great consequence to a young +woman's happiness in the married state, that she would be treated with +uniform politeness, with satisfactory evidences of affection, and with a +degree of confidence quite equal to what a reasonable woman should expect +from a very superior man, her husband. + +If Myrtle could have looked through the window in the breast against +which only authors are privileged to flatten their features, it is for +the reader to judge how far the programme would have satisfied her. + +Less than this, a great deal less, does appear to satisfy many young +women; and it may be that the interior just drawn, fairly judged, belongs +to a model lover and husband. Whether it does or not, Myrtle did not see +this picture. There was a beautifully embroidered shirt-bosom in front +of that window through which we have just looked, that intercepted all +sight of what was going on within. She only saw a man, young, handsome, +courtly, with a winning tongue, with an ambitious spirit, whose every +look and tone implied his admiration of herself, and who was associated +with her past life in such a way that they alone appeared like old +friends in the midst of that cold alien throng. It seemed as if he could +not have chosen a more auspicious hour than this; for she never looked so +captivating, and her presence must inspire his lips with the eloquence of +love. And she--was not this delirious atmosphere of light and music just +the influence to which he would wish to subject her before trying the +last experiment of all which can stir the soul of a woman? He knew the +mechanism of that impressionable state which served Coleridge so +excellently well,-- + + "All impulses of soul and sense + Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve + The music, and the doleful tale, + The rich and balmy eve,"-- + +though he hardly expected such startling results as happened in that +case,--which might be taken as an awful warning not to sing moving +ballads to young ladies of susceptible feelings, unless one is prepared +for very serious consequences. Without expecting that Myrtle would rush +into his arms, he did think that she could not help listening to him in +the intervals of the delicious music, in some recess where the roses and +jasmines and heliotropes made the air heavy with sweetness, and the +crimson curtains drooped in heavy folds that half hid their forms from +the curious eyes all round them. Her heart would swell like Genevieve's +as he told her in simple phrase that she was his life, his love, his +all,--for in some two or three words like these he meant to put his +appeal, and not in fine poetical phrases: that would do for Gifted +Hopkins and rhyming tom-tits of that feather. + +Full of his purpose, involving the plans of his whole life, implying, as +he saw clearly, a brilliant future or a disastrous disappointment, with a +great unexploded mine of consequences under his feet, and the spark ready +to fall into it, he walked about the gilded saloon with a smile upon his +lips so perfectly natural and pleasant, that one would have said he was +as vacant of any aim, except a sort of superficial good-matured +disposition to be amused, as the blankest-eyed simpleton who had tied +himself up in a white cravat and come to bore and be bored. + +Yet under this pleasant smile his mind was so busy with its thoughts that +he had forgotten all about the guests from Oxbow Village who, as Myrtle +had told him, were to come this evening. His eye was all at once caught +by a familiar figure, and he recognized Master Byles Gridley, accompanied +by Mr. Gifted Hopkins, at the door of the saloon. He stepped forward at +once to meet, and to present them. + +Mr. Gridley in evening costume made an eminently dignified and +respectable appearance. There was an unusual lock of benignity upon his +firmly moulded features, and an air of ease which rather surprised Mr. +Bradshaw, who did not know all the social experiences which had formed a +part of the old Master's history. The greeting between them was +courteous, but somewhat formal, as Mr. Bradshaw was acting as one of the +masters of ceremony. He nodded to Gifted in an easy way, and led them +both into the immediate Presence. + +"This is my friend Professor Gridley, Mrs. Ketchum, whom I have the honor +of introducing to you,--a very distinguished scholar, as I have no doubt +you are well aware. And this is my friend Mr. Gifted Hopkins, a young +poet of distinction, whose fame will reach you by and by, if it has not +come to your ears already." + +The two gentlemen went through the usual forms, the poet a little crushed +by the Presence, but doing his best. While the lady was making polite +speeches to them, Myrtle Hazard came forward. She was greatly delighted +to meet her old friend, and even looked upon the young poet with a degree +of pleasure she would hardly have expected to receive from his company. +They both brought with them so many reminiscences of familiar scenes and +events, that it was like going back for the moment to Oxbow Village. But +Myrtle did not belong to herself that evening, and had no opportunity to +enter into conversation just then with either of them. There was to be +dancing by and by, and the younger people were getting impatient that it +should begin. At last the music sounded the well-known summons, and the +floors began to ring to the tread of the dancers. As usual on such +occasions there were a large number of noncombatants, who stood as +spectators around those who were engaged in the campaign of the evening. +Mr. Byles Gridley looked on gravely, thinking of the minuets and the +gavots of his younger days. Mr. Gifted Hopkins, who had never acquired +the desirable accomplishment of dancing, gazed with dazzled and admiring +eyes at the wonderful evolutions of the graceful performers. The music +stirred him a good deal; he had also been introduced to one or two young +persons as Mr. Hopkins, the poet, and he began to feel a kind of +excitement, such as was often the prelude of a lyric burst from his pen. +Others might have wealth and beauty, he thought to himself, but what were +these to the gift of genius? In fifty years the wealth of these people +would have passed into other hands. In fifty years all these beauties +would be dead, or wrinkled and double-wrinkled great-grandmothers. And +when they were all gone and forgotten, the name of Hopkins would be still +fresh in the world's memory. Inspiring thought! A smile of triumph rose +to his lips; he felt that the village boy who could look forward to fame +as his inheritance was richer than all the millionnaires, and that the +words he should set in verse would have an enduring lustre to which the +whiteness of pearls was cloudy, and the sparkle of diamonds dull. + +He raised his eyes, which had been cast down in reflection, to look upon +these less favored children of Fortune, to whom she had given nothing but +perishable inheritances. Two or three pairs of eyes, he observed, were +fastened upon him. His mouth perhaps betrayed a little +self-consciousness, but he tried to show his features in an aspect of +dignified self-possession. There seemed to be remarks and questionings +going on, which he supposed to be something like the following:-- + +Which is it? Which is it?--Why, that one, there,--that young +fellow,--don't you see?--What young fellow are you two looking at? Who is +he? What is he?--Why, that is Hopkins, the poet.--Hopkins, the poet! +Let me see him! Let me see him! Hopkins? What! Gifted Hopkins? etc., +etc. + +Gifted Hopkins did not hear these words except in fancy, but he did +unquestionably find a considerable number of eyes concentrated upon him, +which he very naturally interpreted as an evidence that he had already +begun to enjoy a foretaste of the fame of which he should hereafter have +his full allowance. Some seemed to be glancing furtively, some appeared +as if they wished to speak, and all the time the number of those looking +at him seemed to be increasing. A vision came through his fancy of +himself as standing on a platform, and having persons who wished to look +upon him and shake hands with him presented, as he had heard was the way +with great people when going about the country. But this was only a +suggestion, and by no means a serious thought, for that would have +implied infatuation. + +Gifted Hopkins was quite right in believing that he attracted many eyes. +At last those of Myrtle Hazard were called to him, and she perceived that +an accident was making him unenviably conspicuous. The bow of his rather +large white neck-tie had slid round and got beneath his left ear. A not +very good-natured or well-bred young fellow had pointed out the subject +of this slight misfortune to one or two others of not much better taste +or breeding, and thus the unusual attention the youthful poet was +receiving explained itself. Myrtle no sooner saw the little accident of +which her rural friend was the victim than she left her place in the +dance with a simple courage which did her credit. + +"I want to speak to you a minute," she said. "Come into this alcove." + +And the courageous young lady not only told Gifted what had happened to +him, but found a pin somehow, as women always do on a pinch, and had him +in presentable condition again almost before the bewildered young man +knew what was the matter. On reflection it occurred to him, as it has to +other provincial young persons going to great cities, that he might +perhaps have been hasty in thinking himself an object of general +curiosity as yet. There had hardly been time for his name to have become +very widely known. Still, the feeling had been pleasant for the moment, +and had given him an idea of what the rapture would be, when, wherever he +went, the monster digit (to hint a classical phrase) of the collective +admiring public would be lifted to point him out, and the whisper would +pass from one to another, "That's him! That's Hopkins!" + +Mr. Murray Bradshaw had been watching the opportunity for carrying out +his intentions, with his pleasant smile covering up all that was passing +in his mind, and Master Byles Gridley, looking equally unconcerned, had +been watching him. The young man's time came at last. Some were at the +supper-table, some were promenading, some were talking, when he managed +to get Myrtle a little apart from the rest, and led her towards one of +the recesses in the apartment, where two chairs were invitingly placed. +Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were sparkling,--the influences to +which he had trusted had not been thrown away upon her. He had no idea +of letting his purpose be seen until he was fully ready. It required all +his self-mastery to avoid betraying himself by look or tone, but he was +so natural that Myrtle was thrown wholly off her guard. He meant to make +her pleased with herself at the outset, and that not by point-blank +flattery, of which she had had more than enough of late, but rather by +suggestion and inference, so that she should find herself feeling happy +without knowing how. It would be easy to glide from that to the +impression she had produced upon him, and get the two feelings more or +less mingled in her mind. And so the simple confession he meant to make +would at length evolve itself logically, and hold by a natural connection +to the first agreeable train of thought which he had called up. Not the +way, certainly, that most young men would arrange their great trial +scene; but Murray Bradshaw was a lawyer in love as much as in business, +and considered himself as pleading a cause before a jury of Myrtle +Hazard's conflicting motives. What would any lawyer do in a jury case +but begin by giving the twelve honest men and true to understand, in the +first place, that their intelligence and virtue were conceded by all, and +that he himself had perfect confidence in them, and leave them to shape +their verdict in accordance with these propositions and his own side of +the case? + +Myrtle had, perhaps, never so seriously inclined her ear to the honeyed +accents of the young pleader. He flattered her with so much tact, that +she thought she heard an unconscious echo through his lips of an +admiration which he only shared with all around him. But in him he made +it seem discriminating, deliberate, not blind, but very real. This it +evidently was which had led him to trust her with his ambitions and his +plans,--they might be delusions, but he could never keep them from her, +and she was the one woman in the world to whom he thought he could safely +give his confidence. + +The dread moment was close at hand. Myrtle was listening with an +instinctive premonition of what was coming,--ten thousand mothers and +grandmothers and great-grandmothers, and so on, had passed through it all +in preceding generations until time reached backwards to the sturdy +savage who asked no questions of any kind, but knocked down the primeval +great-grandmother of all, and carried her off to his hole in the rock, or +into the tree where he had made his nest. Why should not the coming +question announce itself by stirring in the pulses and thrilling in the +nerves of the descendant of all these grandmothers? + +She was leaning imperceptibly towards him, drawn by the mere blind +elemental force, as the plummet was attracted to the side of Schehallion. +Her lips were parted, and she breathed a little faster than so healthy a +girl ought to breathe in a state of repose. The steady nerves of William +Murray Bradshaw felt unwonted thrills and tremors tingling through them, +as he came nearer and nearer the few simple words with which he was to +make Myrtle Hazard the mistress of his destiny. His tones were becoming +lower and more serious; there were slight breaks once or twice in the +conversation; Myrtle had cast down her eyes. + +"There is but one word more to add," he murmured softly, as he bent +towards her-- + +A grave voice interrupted him. "Excuse me, Mr. Bradshaw," said Master +Bytes Gridley, "I wish to present a young gentleman to my friend here. I +promised to show him the most charming young person I have the honor to +be acquainted with, and I must redeem my pledge. Miss Hazard, I have the +pleasure of introducing to your acquaintance my distinguished young +friend, Mr. Clement Lindsay." + +Once mere, for the third time, these two young persons stood face to +face. Myrtle was no longer liable to those nervous seizures which any +sudden impression was liable to produce when she was in her half-hysteric +state of mind and body. She turned to the new-comer, who found himself +unexpectedly submitted to a test which he would never have risked of his +own will. He must go through it, cruel as it was, with the easy +self-command which belongs to a gentleman in the most trying social +exigencies. He addressed her, therefore, in the usual terms of courtesy, +and then turned and greeted Mr. Bradshaw, whom he had never met since +their coming together at Oxbow Village. Myrtle was conscious, the +instant she looked upon Clement Lindsay, of the existence of some +peculiar relation between them; but what, she could not tell. Whatever +it was, it broke the charm which had been weaving between her and Murray +Bradshaw. He was not foolish enough to make a scene. What fault could +he find with Clement Lindsay, who had only done as any gentleman would do +with a lady to whom he had just been introduced, addressed a few polite +words to her? After saying those words, Clement had turned very +courteously to him, and they had spoken with each other. But Murray +Bradshaw could not help seeing that Myrtle had transferred her attention, +at least for the moment, from him to the new-comer. He folded his arms +and waited,--but he waited in vain. The hidden attraction which drew +Clement to the young girl with whom he had passed into the Valley of the +Shadow of Death overmastered all other feelings, and he gave himself up +to the fascination of her presence. + +The inward rage of Murray Bradshaw at being interrupted just at the +moment when he was, as he thought, about to cry checkmate and finish the +first great game he had ever played may well be imagined. But it could +not be helped. Myrtle had exercised the customary privilege of young +ladies at parties, and had turned from talking with one to talking with +another,--that was all. Fortunately, for him the young man who had been +introduced at such a most critical moment was not one from whom he need +apprehend any serious interference. He felt grateful beyond measure to +pretty Susan Posey, who, as he had good reason for believing, retained +her hold upon her early lover, and was looking forward with bashful +interest to the time when she should become Mrs. Lindsay. It was better +to put up quietly with his disappointment; and, if he could get no +favorable opportunity that evening to resume his conversation at the +interesting point where he left it off, he would call the next day and +bring matters to a conclusion. + +He called accordingly the next morning, but was disappointed in not +seeing Myrtle. She had hardly slept that night, and was suffering from a +bad headache, which last reason was her excuse for not seeing company. + +He called again, the following day, and learned that Miss Hazard had just +left the city, and gone on a visit to Oxbow Village: + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +MINE AND COUNTERMINE. + +What the nature of the telegram was which had produced such an effect on +the feelings and plans of Mr. William Murray Bradshaw nobody especially +interested knew but himself. We may conjecture that it announced some +fact, which had leaked out a little prematurely, relating to the issue of +the great land-case in which the firm was interested. However that might +be, Mr. Bradshaw no sooner heard that Myrtle had suddenly left the city +for Oxbow Village,--for what reason he puzzled himself to guess,--than he +determined to follow her at once, and take up the conversation he had +begun at the party where it left off. And as the young poet had received +his quietus for the present at the publisher's, and as Master Gridley had +nothing specially to detain him, they too returned at about the same +time, and so our old acquaintances were once more together within the +familiar precincts where we have been accustomed to see them. + +Master Gridley did not like playing the part of a spy, but it must be +remembered that he was an old college officer, and had something of the +detective's sagacity, and a certain cunning derived from the habit of +keeping an eye on mischievous students. If any underhand contrivance was +at work, involving the welfare of any one in whom he was interested, he +was a dangerous person for the plotters, for he had plenty of time to +attend to them, and would be apt to take a kind of pleasure in matching +his wits against another crafty person's,--such a one, for instance, as +Mr. Macchiavelli Bradshaw. + +Perhaps he caught some words of that gentleman's conversation at the +party; at any rate, he could not fail to observe his manner. When he +found that the young man had followed Myrtle back to the village, he +suspected something more than a coincidence. When he learned that he was +assiduously visiting The Poplars, and that he was in close communication +with Miss Cynthia Badlam, he felt sure that he was pressing the siege of +Myrtle's heart. But that there was some difficulty in the way was +equally clear to him, for he ascertained, through channels which the +attentive reader will soon have means of conjecturing, that Myrtle had +seen him but once in the week following his return, and that in the +presence of her dragons. She had various excuses when he +called,--headaches, perhaps, among the rest, as these are staple articles +on such occasions. But Master Gridley knew his man too well to think +that slight obstacles would prevent his going forward to effect his +purpose. + +"I think he will get her; if he holds on," the old man said to himself, +"and he won't let go in a hurry, if there were any real love about +it--but surely he is incapable of such a human weakness as the tender +passion. What does all this sudden concentration upon the girl mean? He +knows something about her that we don't know,--that must be it. What did +he hide that paper for, a year ago and more? Could that have anything to +do with his pursuit of Myrtle Hazard today?" + +Master Gridley paused as he asked this question of himself, for a +luminous idea had struck him. Consulting daily with Cynthia Badlam, was +he? Could there be a conspiracy between these two persons to conceal +some important fact, or to keep something back until it would be for +their common interest to have it made known? + +Now Mistress Kitty Fagan was devoted, heart and soul, to Myrtle Hazard, +and ever since she had received the young girl from Mr. Gridley's hands, +when he brought her back safe and sound after her memorable adventure, +had considered him as Myrtle's best friend and natural protector. These +simple creatures, whose thoughts are not taken up, like those of educated +people, with the care of a great museum of dead phrases, are very quick +to see the live facts which are going on about them. Mr. Gridley had met +her, more or less accidentally, several times of late, and inquired very +particularly about Myrtle, and how she got along at the house since her +return, and whether she was getting over her headaches, and how they +treated her in the family. + +"Bliss your heart, Mr. Gridley," Kitty said to him on one of these +occasions, "it's ahltogither changed intirely. Sure Miss Myrtle does +jist iverythin' she likes, an' Miss Withers niver middles with her at +ahl, excip' jist to roll up her eyes an' look as if she was the +hid-moorner at a funeril whiniver Miss Myrtle says she wants to do this +or that, or to go here or there. It's Miss Badlam that's ahlwiz after +her, an' a-watchin' her,--she thinks she's cunnin'er than a cat, but +there 's other folks that's got eyes an' ears as good as hers. It's that +Mr. Bridshaw that's a puttin' his head together with Miss Badlam for +somethin' or other, an' I don't believe there's no good in it, for what +does the fox an' the cat be a whisperin' about, as if they was thaves an' +incind'ries, if there ain't no mischief hatchin'?" + +"Why, Kitty," he said, "what mischief do you think is going on, and who +is to be harmed?" + +"O Mr. Gridley," she answered, "if there ain't somebody to be chated +somehow, then I don't know an honest man and woman from two rogues. An' +have n't I heard Miss Myrtle's name whispered as if there was somethin' +goin' on agin' her, an' they was afraid the tahk would go out through the +doors, an' up through the chimbley? I don't want to tell no tales, Mr. +Gridley, nor to hurt no honest body, for I'm a poor woman, Mr. Gridley, +but I comes of dacent folks, an' I vallies my repitation an' character as +much as if I was dressed in silks and satins instead of this mane old +gown, savin' your presence, which is the best I 've got, an' niver a +dollar to buy another. But if I iver I hears a word, Mr. Gridley, that +manes any kind of a mischief to Miss Myrtle,--the Lard bliss her soul an' +keep ahl the divils away from her!--I'll be runnin' straight down here to +tell ye ahl about it,--be right sure o' that, Mr. Gridley." + +"Nothing must happen to Myrtle," he said, "that we can help. If you see +anything more that looks wrong, you had better come down here at once and +let me know, as you say you will. At once, you understand. And, Kitty, I +am a little particular about the dress of people who come to see me, so +that if you would just take the trouble to get you a tidy pattern of +gingham or calico, or whatever you like of that sort for a gown, you +would please me; and perhaps this little trifle will be a convenience to +you when you come to pay for it." + +Kitty thanked him with all the national accompaniments, and trotted off +to the store, where Mr. Gifted Hopkins displayed the native amiability of +his temper by fumbling down everything in the shape of ginghams and +calicoes they had on the shelves, without a murmur at the taste of his +customer, who found it hard to get a pattern sufficiently emphatic for +her taste. She succeeded at last, and laid down a five-dollar bill as if +she were as used to the pleasing figure on its face as to the sight of +her own five digits. + +Master Byles Gridley had struck a spade deeper than he knew into his +first countermine, for Kitty had none of those delicate scruples about +the means of obtaining information which might have embarrassed a +diplomatist of higher degree. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +MR. BRADSHAW CALLS ON MISS BADLAM + +"Is Miss Hazard in, Kitty?" + +"Indade she's in, Mr. Bridshaw, but she won't see nobody." + +"What's the meaning of that, Kitty? Here is the third time within three +days you've told me I could n't see her. She saw Mr. Gridley yesterday, +I know; why won't she see me to-day?" + +"Y' must ask Miss Myrtle what the rason is, it's none o' my business, Mr. +Bridshaw. That's the order she give me." + +"Is Miss Badlam in?" + +Indade she's in, Mr. Bridshaw, an' I 'll go cahl her." + +"Bedad," said Kitty Fagan to herself, "the cat an' the fox is goin' to +have another o' thim big tahks togither, an' sure the old hole for the +stove-pipe has niver been stopped up yet." + +Mr. Bradshaw and Miss Cynthia went into the parlor together, and Mistress +Kitty retired to her kitchen. There was a deep closet belonging to this +apartment, separated by a partition from the parlor. There was a round +hole high up in this partition through which a stove-pipe had once +passed. Mistress Kitty placed a stool just under this opening, upon +which, as on a, pedestal, she posed herself with great precaution in the +attitude of the goddess of other people's secrets, that is to say, with +her head a little on one side, so as to bring her liveliest ear close to +the opening. The conversation which took place in the hearing of the +invisible third party began in a singularly free-and-easy manner on Mr. +Bradshaw's part. + +"What the d---is the reason I can't see Myrtle, Cynthia?" + +"That's more than I can tell you, Mr. Bradshaw. I can watch her goings +on, but I can't account for her tantrums." + +"You say she has had some of her old nervous whims,--has the doctor been +to see her?" + +"No indeed. She has kept to herself a good deal, but I don't think +there's anything in particular the matter with her. She looks +well enough, only she seems a little queer,--as girls do that +have taken a fancy into their heads that they're in love, you +know,--absent-minded,--does n't seem to be interested in things +as you would expect after being away so long." + +Mr. Bradshaw looked as if this did not please him particularly. If he +was the object of her thoughts she would not avoid him, surely. + +"Have you kept your eye on her steadily?" + +"I don't believe there is an hour we can't account for,--Kitty and I +between us." + +"Are you sure you can depend on Kitty?" + +["Depind on Kitty, is it? Oh, an' to be sure ye can depind on Kitty to +kape watch at the stove-pipe hole, an' to tell all y'r plottin's an' +contrivin's to them that'll get the cheese out o' y'r mousetrap for ye +before ye catch any poor cratur in it." This was the inaudible comment +of the unseen third party.] + +"Of course I can depend on her as far as I trust her. All she knows is +that she must look out for the girl to see that she does not run away or +do herself a mischief. The Biddies don't know much, but they know enough +to keep a watch on the--" + +"Chickens." Mr. Bradshaw playfully finished the sentence for Miss +Cynthia. + +["An' on the foxes, an' the cats, an' the wazels, an' the hen-hahks, an' +ahl the other bastes," added the invisible witness, in unheard +soliloquy.] + +"I ain't sure whether she's quite as stupid as she looks," said the +suspicious young lawyer. "There's a little cunning twinkle in her eye +sometimes that makes me think she might be up to a trick on occasion. +Does she ever listen about to hear what people are saying?" + +"Don't trouble yourself about Kitty Fagan,' for pity's sake, Mr. +Bradshaw. The Biddies are all alike, and they're all as stupid as owls, +except when you tell 'em just what to do, and how to do it. A pack of +priest-ridden fools!" + +The hot Celtic blood in Kitty Fagan's heart gave a leap. The stout +muscles gave an involuntary jerk. The substantial frame felt the thrill +all through, and the rickety stool on which she was standing creaked +sharply under its burden. + +Murray Bradshaw started. He got up and opened softly all the doors +leading from the room, one after another, and looked out. + +"I thought I heard a noise as if somebody was moving, Cynthia. It's just +as well to keep our own matters to ourselves." + +"If you wait till this old house keeps still, Mr. Bradshaw, you might as +well wait till the river has run by. It's as full of rats and mice as an +old cheese is of mites. There's a hundred old rats in this house, and +that's what you hear." + +["An' one old cat; that's what I hear." Third party.] + +"I told you, Cynthia, I must be off on this business to-morrow. I want +to know that everything is safe before I go. And, besides, I have got +something to say to you that's important, very important, mind you." + +He got up once more and opened every door softly and looked out. He +fixed his eye suspiciously on a large sofa at the other side of the room, +and went, looking half ashamed of his extreme precaution, and peeped +under it, to see if there was any one hidden thereto listen. Then he came +back and drew his chair close up to the table at which Miss Badlam had +seated herself. The conversation which followed was in a low tone, and a +portion of it must be given in another place in the words of the third +party. The beginning of it we are able to supply in this connection. + +"Look here, Cynthia; you know what I am going for. It's all right, I +feel sure, for I have had private means of finding out. It's a sure +thing; but I must go once more to see that the other fellows don't try +any trick on us. You understand what is for my advantage is for yours, +and, if I go wrong, you go overboard with me. Now I must leave the--you +know--behind me. I can't leave it in the house or the office: they might +burn up. I won't have it about me when I am travelling. Draw your chair +a little more this way. Now listen." + +["Indade I will," said the third party to herself. The reader will find +out in due time whether she listened to any purpose or not.] + +In the mean time Myrtle, who for some reason was rather nervous and +restless, had found a pair of half-finished slippers which she had left +behind her. The color came into her cheeks when she remembered the state +of mind she was in when she was working on them for the Rev. Mr. Stoker. +She recollected Master Gridley's mistake about their destination, and +determined to follow the hint he had given. It would please him better if +she sent them to good Father Pemberton, she felt sure, than if he should +get them himself. So she enlarged them somewhat, (for the old man did +not pinch his feet, as the younger clergyman was in the habit of doing, +and was, besides, of portly dimensions, as the old orthodox three-deckers +were apt to be,) and worked E. P. very handsomely into the pattern, and +sent them to him with her love and respect, to his great delight; for old +ministers do not have quite so many tokens of affection from fair hands +as younger ones. + +What made Myrtle nervous and restless? Why had she quitted the city so +abruptly, and fled to her old home, leaving all the gayeties behind her +which had so attracted and dazzled her? + +She had not betrayed herself at the third meeting with the young man who +stood in such an extraordinary relation to her,--who had actually given +her life from his own breath,--as when she met him for the second time. +Whether his introduction to her at the party, just at the instant when +Murray Bradshaw was about to make a declaration, saved her from being in +another moment the promised bride of that young gentleman, or not, we +will not be so rash as to say. It looked, certainly, as if he was in a +fair way to carry his point; but perhaps she would have hesitated, or +shrunk back, when the great question came to stare her in the face. + +She was excited, at any rate, by the conversation, so that, when Clement +was presented to her, her thoughts could not at once be all called away +from her other admirer, and she was saved from all danger of that sudden +disturbance which had followed their second meeting. Whatever impression +he made upon her developed itself gradually,--still, she felt strangely +drawn towards him. It was not simply in his good looks, in his good +manners, in his conversation, that she found this attraction, but there +was a singular fascination which she felt might be dangerous to her +peace, without explaining it to herself in words. She could hardly be in +love with this young artist; she knew that his affections were plighted +to another, a fact which keeps most young women from indulging unruly +fancies; yet her mind was possessed by his image to such an extent that +it left little room for that of Mr. William Murray Bradshaw. + +Myrtle Hazard had been just ready to enter on a career of worldly vanity +and ambition. It is hard to blame her, for we know how she came by the +tendency. She had every quality, too, which fitted her to shine in the +gay world; and the general law is, that those who have the power have the +instinct to use it. We do not suppose that the bracelet on her arm was +an amulet, but it was a symbol. It reminded her of her descent; it kept +alive the desire to live over the joys and excitements of a bygone +generation. If she had accepted Murray Bradshaw, she would have pledged +herself to a worldly life. If she had refused him, it would perhaps have +given her a taste of power that might have turned her into a coquette. + +This new impression saved her for the time. She had come back to her +nest in the village like a frightened bird; her heart was throbbing, her +nerves were thrilling, her dreams were agitated; she wanted to be quiet, +and could not listen to the flatteries or entreaties of her old lover. + +It was a strong will and a subtle intellect that had arrayed their force +and skill against the ill-defended citadel of Myrtle's heart. Murray +Bradshaw was perfectly determined, and not to be kept back by any trivial +hindrances, such as her present unwillingness to accept him, or even her +repugnance to him, if a freak of the moment had carried her so far. It +was a settled thing: Myrtle Hazard must become Mrs. Bradshaw; and nobody +could deny that, if he gave her his name, they had a chance, at least, +for a brilliant future. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +MISTRESS KITTY FAGAN CALLS ON MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY. + +"I 'd like to go down to the store this mornin', Miss Withers, plase. +Sure I've niver a shoe to my fut, only jist these two that I've got on, +an' one other pair, and thim is so full of holes that whin I 'm standin' +in 'em I'm outside of 'em intirely." + +"You can go, Kitty," Miss Silence answered, funereally. + +Thereupon Kitty Fagan proceeded to array herself in her most tidy +apparel, including a pair of shoes not exactly answering to her +description, and set out straight for the house of the Widow Hopkins. +Arrived at that respectable mansion, she inquired for Mr. Gridley, and +was informed that he was at home. Had a message for him,--could she see +him in his study? She could if she would wait a little while. Mr. +Gridley was busy just at this minute. Sit down, Kitty, and warm yourself +at the cooking-stove. + +Mistress Kitty accepted Mrs. Hopkins's hospitable offer, and presently +began orienting herself, and getting ready to make herself agreeable. +The kindhearted Mrs. Hopkins had gathered about her several other +pensioners besides the twins. These two little people, it may be here +mentioned, were just taking a morning airing in charge of Susan Posey, +who strolled along in company with Gifted Hopkins on his way to the +store. + +Mistress Kitty soon began the conversational blandishments so natural to +her good-humored race. "It's a little blarney that'll jist suit th' old +lady," she said to herself, as she made her first conciliatory advance. + +"An' sure an' it's a beautiful kitten you've got there, Mrs. Hopkins. An' +it's a splendid mouser she is, I'll be bound. Does n't she look as if +she'd clans the house out o'them little bastes, bad luck to em." + +Mrs. Hopkins looked benignantly upon the more than middle-aged tabby, +slumbering as if she had never known an enemy, and turned smiling to +Mistress Kitty. "Why, bless your heart, Kitty, our old puss would n't +know a mouse by sight, if you showed her one. If I was a mouse, I'd as +lieves have a nest in one of that old cat's ears as anywhere else. You +couldn't find a safer place for one." + +"Indade, an' to be sure she's too big an' too handsome a pussy to be +after wastin' her time on them little bastes. It's that little tarrier +dog of yours, Mrs. Hopkins, that will be after worryin' the mice an' the +rats, an' the thaves too, I 'll warrant. Is n't he a fust-rate-lookin' +watch-dog, an' a rig'ler rat-hound?" + +Mrs. Hopkins looked at the little short-legged and short-winded animal of +miscellaneous extraction with an expression of contempt and affection, +mingled about half and half. "Worry 'em! If they wanted to sleep, I +rather guess he would worry 'em! If barkin' would do their job for 'em, +nary a mouse nor rat would board free gratis in my house as they do now. +Noisy little good-for-nothing tike,--ain't you, Fret?" + +Mistress Kitty was put back a little by two such signal failures. There +was another chance, however, to make her point, which she presently +availed herself of,--feeling pretty sure this time that she should effect +a lodgement. Mrs. Hopkins's parrot had been observing Kitty, first with +one eye and then with the other, evidently preparing to make a remark, +but awkward with a stranger. "That 's a beautiful part y 've got there," +Kitty said, buoyant with the certainty that she was on safe ground this +time; "and tahks like a book, I 'll be bound. Poll! Poll! Poor Poll!" + +She put forth her hand to caress the intelligent and affable bird, which, +instead of responding as expected, "squawked," as our phonetic language +has it, and, opening a beak imitated from a tooth-drawing instrument of +the good old days, made a shrewd nip at Kitty's forefinger. She drew it +back with a jerk. + +"An' is that the way your part tahks, Mrs. Hopkins?" + +"Talks, bless you, Kitty! why, that parrot hasn't said a word this ten +year. He used to say Poor Poll! when we first had him, but he found it +was easier to squawk, and that's all he ever does nowadays,--except bite +once in a while." + +"Well, an' to be sure," Kitty answered, radiant as she rose from her +defeats, "if you'll kape a cat that does n't know a mouse when she sees +it, an' a dog that only barks for his livin', and a part that only +squawks an' bites an' niver spakes a word, ye must be the best-hearted +woman that's alive, an' bliss ye, if ye was only a good Catholic, the +Holy Father 'd make a saint of ye in less than no time!" + +So Mistress Kitty Fagan got in her bit of Celtic flattery, in spite of +her three successive discomfitures. + +"You may come up now, Kitty," said Mr. Gridley over the stairs. He had +just finished and sealed a letter. + +"Well, Kitty, how are things going on up at The Poplars? And how does +our young lady seem to be of late?" + +"Whisht! whisht! your honor." + +Mr. Bradshaw's lessons had not been thrown away on his attentive +listener. She opened every door in the room, "by your lave," as she +said. She looked all over the walls to see if there was any old +stovepipe hole or other avenue to eye or ear. Then she went, in her +excess of caution, to the window. She saw nothing noteworthy except Mr. +Gifted Hopkins and the charge he convoyed, large and small, in the +distance. The whole living fleet was stationary for the moment, he +leaning on the fence with his cheek on his hand, in one of the attitudes +of the late Lord Byron; she, very near him, listening, apparently, in the +pose of Mignon aspirant au ciel, as rendered by Carlo Dolce Scheffer. + +Kitty came back, apparently satisfied, and stood close to Mr. Gridley, +who told her to sit down, which she did, first making a catch at her +apron to dust the chair with, and then remembering that she had left that +part of her costume at home.--Automatic movements, curious. + +Mistress Kitty began telling in an undertone of the meeting between Mr. +Bradshaw and Miss Badlam, and of the arrangements she made for herself as +the reporter of the occasion. She then repeated to him, in her own way, +that part of the conversation which has been already laid before the +reader. There is no need of going over the whole of this again in +Kitty's version, but we may fit what followed into the joints of what has +been already told. + +"He cahled her Cynthy, d' ye see, Mr. Gridley, an' tahked to her jist as +asy as if they was two rogues, and she knowed it as well as he did. An' +so, says he, I'm goin' away, says he, an' I'm goin' to be gahn siveral +days, or perhaps longer, says he, an' you'd better kape it, says he." + +"Keep what, Kitty? What was it he wanted her to keep?" said Mr. Gridley, +who no longer doubted that he was on the trail of a plot, and meant to +follow it. He was getting impatient with the "says he's" with which +Kitty double-leaded her discourse. + +"An' to be sure ain't I tellin' you, Mr. Gridley, jist as fast as my +breath will let me? An' so, says he, you'd better kape it, says he, +mixed up with your other paupers, says he," (Mr. Gridley started,) "an' +thin we can find it in the garret, says he, whinever we want it, says he. +An' if it all goes right out there, says he, it won't be lahng before we +shall want to find it, says he. And I can dipind on you, says he, for +we're both in the same boat, says he, an' you knows what I knows, says +he, an' I knows what you knows, says be. And thin he taks a stack o' +paupers out of his pocket, an' he pulls out one of 'em, an' he says to +her, says he, that's the pauper, says he, an' if you die, says be, niver +lose sight of that day or night, says he, for it's life an' dith to both +of us, says he. An' thin he asks her if she has n't got one o' them +paupers--what is 't they cahls 'em?--divilops, or some sich kind of a +name--that they wraps up their letters in; an' she says no, she has n't +got none that's big enough to hold it. So he says, give me a shate o' +pauper, says he. An' thin he takes the pauper that she give him, an' he +folds it up like one o' them--divilops, if that's the name of 'em; and +thin he pulls a stick o' salin'-wax out of his pocket, an' a stamp, an' +he takes the pauper an' puts it into th' other pauper, along with the +rest of the paupers, an' thin he folds th' other pauper over the paupers, +and thin he lights a candle, an' he milts the salin'-wax, and he sales up +the pauper that was outside th' other paupers, an' he writes on the back +of the pauper, an' thin he hands it to Miss Badlam." + +"Did you see the paper that he showed her before he fastened it up with +the others, Kitty?" + +"I did see it, indade, Mr. Gridley, and it's the truth I'm tellin' ye." + +"Did you happen to notice anything about it, Kitty?" + +"I did, indade, Mr. Gridley. It was a longish kind of a pauper, and +there was some blotches of ink on the back of it,--an' they looked like a +face without any mouth, for, says I, there's two spots for the eyes, says +I, and there's a spot for the nose, says I, and there's niver a spot for +the mouth, says I." + +This was the substance of what Master Byles Gridley got out of Kitty +Fagan. It was enough, yes, it was too much. There was some deep-laid +plot between Murray Bradshaw and Cynthia Badlam, involving the interests +of some of the persons connected with the late Malachi Withers; for that +the paper described by Kitty was the same that he had seen the young man +conceal in the Corpus Juris Civilis, it was impossible to doubt. If it +had been a single spot an the back of it, or two, he might have doubted. +But three large spots "blotches" she had called them, disposed thus +*.* --would not have happened to be on two different papers, in all human +probability. + +After grave consultation of all his mental faculties in committee of the +whole, he arrived at the following conclusion,--that Miss Cynthia Badlam +was the depositary of a secret involving interests which he felt it his +business to defend, and of a document which was fraudulently withheld and +meant to be used for some unfair purpose. And most assuredly, Master +Gridley said to himself, he held a master-key, which, just so certainly +as he could make up his mind to use it, would open any secret in the +keeping of Miss Cynthia Badlam. + +He proceeded, therefore, without delay, to get ready for a visit to that +lady at The Poplars. He meant to go thoroughly armed, for he was a very +provident old gentleman. His weapons were not exactly of the kind which +a housebreaker would provide himself with, but of a somewhat peculiar +nature. + +Weapon number one was a slip of paper with a date and a few words written +upon it. "I think this will fetch the document," he said to himself, "if +it comes to the worst. Not if I can help it,--not if I can help it. But +if I cannot get at the heart of this thing otherwise, why, I must come to +this. Poor woman!--Poor woman!" + +Weapon number two was a small phial containing spirits of hartshorn, sal +volatile, very strong, that would stab through the nostrils, like a +stiletto, deep into the gray kernels that lie in the core of the brain. +Excellent in cases of sudden syncope or fainting, such as sometimes +require the opening of windows, the dashing on of cold water, the cutting +of stays, perhaps, with a scene of more or less tumultuous perturbation +and afflux of clamorous womanhood. + +So armed, Byles Gridley, A. M., champion of unprotected innocence, +grasped his ivory-handled cane and sallied forth on his way to The +Poplars. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY CALLS ON MISS CYNTHIA BADLAM. + +MISS Cynthia Badlam was seated in a small parlor which she was accustomed +to consider her own during her long residences at The Poplars. The entry +stove warmed it but imperfectly, and she looked pinched and cold, for the +evenings were still pretty sharp, and the old house let in the chill +blasts, as old houses are in the habit of doing. She was sitting at her +table, with a little trunk open before her. She had taken some papers +from it, which she was looking over, when a knock at her door announced a +visitor, and Master Byles Gridley entered the parlor. + +As he came into the room, she gathered the papers together and replaced +them in the trunk, which she locked, throwing an unfinished piece of +needle-work over it, putting the key in her pocket, and gathering herself +up for company. Something of all this Master Gridley saw through his +round spectacles, but seemed not to see, and took his seat like a visitor +making a call of politeness. + +A visitor at such an hour, of the male sex, without special provocation, +without social pretext, was an event in the life of the desolate +spinster. Could it be--No, it could not--and yet--and yet! Miss Cynthia +threw back the rather common-looking but comfortable shawl which covered +her shoulders, and showed her quite presentable figure, arrayed with a +still lingering thought of that remote contingency which might yet offer +itself at some unexpected moment; she adjusted the carefully plaited cap, +which was not yet of the lasciate ogni speranza pattern, and as she +obeyed these instincts of her sex, she smiled a welcome to the +respectable, learned, and independent bachelor. Mr. Gridley had a frosty +but kindly age before him, with a score or so of years to run, which it +was after all not strange to fancy might be rendered more cheerful by the +companionship of a well-conserved and amiably disposed woman, if any such +should happen to fall in his way. + +That smile came very near disconcerting the plot of Master Byles Gridley. +He had come on an inquisitor's errand, his heart secure, as he thought, +against all blandishments, his will steeled to break down all resistance. +He had come armed with an instrument of torture worse than the +thumb-screw, worse than the pulleys which attempt the miracle of adding a +cubit to the stature, worse than the brazier of live coals brought close +to the naked soles of the feet,--an instrument which, instead of trifling +with the nerves, would clutch all the nerve-centres and the heart itself +in its gripe, and hold them until it got its answer, if the white lips +had life enough left to shape one. And here was this unfortunate maiden +lady smiling at him, setting her limited attractions in their best light, +pleading with him in that natural language which makes any contumacious +bachelor feel as guilty as Cain before any single woman. If Mr. Gridley +had been alone, he would have taken a good sniff at his own bottle of sal +volatile; for his kind heart sunk within him as he thought of the errand +upon which he had come. It would not do to leave the subject of his +vivisection under any illusion as to the nature of his designs. + +"Good evening, Miss Badlam," he said, "I have come to visit you on a +matter of business." + +What was the internal panorama which had unrolled itself at the instant +of his entrance, and which rolled up as suddenly at the sound of his +serious voice and the look of his grave features? It cannot be +reproduced, though pages were given to it; for some of the pictures were +near, and some were distant; some were clearly seen, and some were only +hinted; some were not recognized in the intellect at all, and yet they +were implied, as it were, behind the others. Many times we have all found +ourselves glad or sorry, and yet we could not tell what thought it was +that reflected the sunbeam or cast the shadow. Took into Cynthia's +suddenly exalted consciousness and see the picture, actual and potential, +unroll itself in all its details of the natural, the ridiculous, the +selfish, the pitiful, the human. Glimpses, hints, echoes, suggestions, +involving tender sentiments hitherto unknown, we may suppose, to that +unclaimed sister's breast,--pleasant excitement of receiving +congratulations from suddenly cordial friends; the fussy delights of +buying furniture and shopping for new dresses,--(it seemed as if she +could hear herself saying, "Heavy silks,--best goods, if you +please,")--with delectable thumping down of flat-sided pieces of calico, +cambric, "rep," and other stiffs, and rhythmic evolution of measured +yards, followed by sharp snip of scissors, and that cry of rending +tissues dearer to woman's ear than any earthly sound until she hears +the voice of her own first-born,(much of this potentially, +remember,)--thoughts of a comfortable settlement, an imposing social +condition, a cheerful household, and by and by an Indian summer of serene +widowhood,--all these, and infinite other involved possibilities had +mapped themselves in one long swift flash before Cynthia's inward eye, +and all vanished as the old man spoke those few words. The look on his +face, and the tone of his cold speech, had instantly swept them all away, +like a tea-set sliding in a single crash from a slippery tray. + +What could be the "business" on which he had come to her with that solemn +face?--she asked herself, as she returned his greeting and offered him a +chair. She was conscious of a slight tremor as she put this question to +her own intelligence. + +"Are we like to be alone and undisturbed?" Mr. Gridley asked. It was a +strange question,--men do act strangely sometimes. She hardly knew. +whether to turn red or white. + +"Yes, there is nobody like to come in at present," she answered. She did +not know what to make of it. What was coming next,--a declaration, or an +accusation of murder? + +"My business," Mr. Gridley said, very gravely, "relates to this. I wish +to inspect papers which I have reason to believe exist, and which have +reference to the affairs of the late Malachi Withers. Can you help me to +get sight of any of these papers not to be found at the Registry of Deeds +or the Probate Office?" + +"Excuse me, Mr. Gridley, but may I ask you what particular concern you +have with the affairs of my relative, Cousin Malachi Withers, that's been +dead and buried these half-dozen years?" + +"Perhaps it would take some time to answer that question fully, Miss +Badlam. Some of these affairs do concern those I am interested in, if +not myself directly." + +"May I ask who the person or persons may be on whose account you wish to +look at papers belonging to my late relative, Malachi Withers?" + +"You can ask me almost anything, Miss Badlam, but I should really be very +much obliged if you would answer my question first. Can you help me to +get a sight of any papers relating to the estate of Malachi Withers, not +to be found at the Registry of Deeds or the Probate Office,--any of which +you may happen to have any private and particular knowledge?" + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Gridley; but I don't understand why you come to +me with such questions. Lawyer Penhallow is the proper person, I should +think, to go to. He and his partner that was--Mr. Wibird, you +know--settled the estate, and he has got the papers, I suppose, if there +are any, that ain't to be found in the offices you mention." + +Mr. Gridley moved his chair a little, so as to bring Miss Badlam's face a +little more squarely in view. + +"Does Mr. William Murray Bradshaw know anything about any papers, such as +I am referring to, that may have been sent to the office?" + +The lady felt a little moisture stealing through all her pores, and at +the same time a certain dryness of the vocal organs, so that her answer +came in a slightly altered tone which neither of them could help +noticing. + +"You had better ask Mr. William Murray Bradshaw yourself about that," she +answered. She felt the hook now, and her spines were rising, partly with +apprehension, partly with irritation. + +"Has that young gentleman ever delivered into your hands any papers +relating to the affairs of the late Malachi Withers, for your safe +keeping?" + +"What do you mean by asking me these questions, Mr. Gridley? I don't +choose to be catechised about Murray Bradshaw's business. Go to him, if +you please, if you want to find out about it." + +"Excuse my persistence, Miss Badlam, but I must prevail upon you to +answer my question. Has Mr. William Murray Bradshaw ever delivered into +your hands any papers relating to the affairs of the late Malachi +Withers, for your safe keeping?" + +"Do you suppose I am going to answer such questions as you are putting me +because you repeat them over, Mr. Gridley? Indeed I cha'n't. Ask him, +if you please, whatever you wish to know about his doings." + +She drew herself up and looked savagely at him. She had talked herself +into her courage. There was a color in her cheeks and a sparkle in her +eye; she looked dangerous as a cobra. + +"Miss Cynthia Badlam," Master Gridley said, very deliberately, "I am +afraid we do not entirely understand each other. You must answer my +question precisely, categorically, point-blank, and on the instant. Will +you do this at once, or will you compel me to show you the absolute +necessity of your doing it, at the expense of pain to both of us? Six +words from me will make you answer all my questions." + +"You can't say six words, nor sixty, Mr. Gridley, that will make me +answer one question I do not choose to. I defy you!" + +"I will not say one, Miss Cynthia Badlam. There are some things one does +not like to speak in words. But I will show you a scrap of paper, +containing just six words and a date; not one word more nor one less. +You shall read them. Then I will burn the paper in the flame of your +lamp. As soon after that as you feel ready, I will ask the same question +again." + +Master Gridley took out from his pocket-book a scrap of paper, and handed +it to Cynthia Badlam. Her hand shook as she received it, for she was +frightened as well as enraged, and she saw that Mr. Gridley was in +earnest and knew what he was doing. + +She read the six words, he looking at her steadily all the time, and +watching her as if he had just given her a drop of prussic acid. + +No cry. No sound from her lips. She stared as if half stunned for one +moment, then turned her head and glared at Mr. Gridley as if she would +have murdered him if she dared. In another instant her face whitened, +the scrap of paper fluttered to the floor, and she would have followed it +but for the support of both Mr. Gridley's arms. He disengaged one of +them presently, and felt in his pocket for the sal volatile. It served +him excellently well, and stung her back again to her senses very +quickly. All her defiant aspect had gone. + +"Look!" he said, as he lighted the scrap of paper in the flame. "You +understand me, and you see that I must be answered the next time I ask my +question." + +She opened her lips as if to speak. It was as when a bell is rung in a +vacuum,--no words came from them,--only a faint gasping sound, an effort +at speech. She was caught tight in the heart-screw. + +"Don't hurry yourself, Miss Cynthia," he said, with a certain relenting +tenderness of manner. "Here, take another sniff of the smelling-salts. +Be calm, be quiet,--I am well disposed towards you,--I don't like to give +you trouble. There, now, I must have the answer to that question; but +take your time, take your time." + +"Give me some water,--some water!" she said, in a strange hoarse whisper. +There was a pitcher of water and a tumbler on an old marble sideboard +near by. He filled the tumbler, and Cynthia emptied it as if she had +just been taken from the rack, and could have swallowed a bucketful. + +"What do you want to know?" she asked. + +"I wish to know all that you can tell me about a certain paper, or +certain papers, which I have reason to believe Mr. William Murray +Bradshaw committed to your keeping." + +"There is only one paper of any consequence. Do you want to make him +kill me? or do you want to make me kill myself?" + +"Neither, Miss Cynthia, neither. I wish to see that paper, but not for +any bad purpose. Don't you think, on the whole, you have pretty good +reason to trust me? I am a very quiet man, Miss Cynthia. Don't be +afraid of me; only do what I ask,--it will be a great deal better for you +in the end." + +She thrust her trembling hand into her pocket, and took out the key of +the little trunk. She drew the trunk towards her, put the key in the +lock, and opened it. It seemed like pressing a knife into her own bosom +and turning the blade. That little trunk held all the records of her +life the forlorn spinster most cherished;--a few letters that came nearer +to love-letters than any others she had ever received; an album, with +flowers of the summers of 1840 and 1841 fading between its leaves; two +papers containing locks of hair, half of a broken ring, and other +insignificant mementos which had their meaning, doubtless, to her,--such +a collection as is often priceless to one human heart, and passed by as +worthless in the auctioneer's inventory. She took the papers out +mechanically, and laid them on the table. Among them was an oblong +packet, sealed with what appeared to be the office seal of Messrs. +Penhallow and Bradshaw. + +"Will you allow me to take that envelope containing papers, Miss Badlam?" +Mr. Gridley asked, with a suavity and courtesy in his tone and manner +that showed how he felt for her sex and her helpless position. + +She seemed to obey his will as if she had none of her own left. She +passed the envelope to him, and stared at him vacantly while he examined +it. He read on the back of the package: "Withers Estate--old papers--of +no importance apparently. Examine hereafter." + +"May I ask when, where, and of whom you obtained these papers, Miss +Badlam?" + +"Have pity on me, Mr. Gridley,--have pity on me. I am a lost woman if +you do not. Spare me! for God's sake, spare me! There will no wrong +come of all this, if you will but wait a little while. The paper will +come to light when it is wanted, and all will be right. But do not make +me answer any more questions, and let me keep this paper. O Mr. Gridley! +I am in the power of a dreadful man--" + +"You mean Mr. William Murray Bradshaw?" + +"I mean him." + +"Has there not been some understanding between you that he should become +the approved suitor of Miss Myrtle Hazard?" + +Cynthia wrung her hands and rocked herself backward and forward in her +misery, but answered not a word. What could she answer, if she had +plotted with this "dreadful man" against a young and innocent girl, to +deliver her over into his hands, at the risk of all her earthly hopes and +happiness? + +Master Gridley waited long and patiently for any answer she might have +the force to make. As she made none, he took upon himself to settle the +whole matter without further torture of his helpless victim. + +"This package must go into the hands of the parties who had the +settlement of the estate of the late Malachi Withers. Mr. Penhallow is +the survivor of the two gentlemen to whom that business was intrusted. +How long is Mr. William Murray Bradshaw like to be away?" + +"Perhaps a few days,--perhaps weeks,--and then he will come back and kill +me,--or--or--worse! Don't take that paper, Mr. Gridley,--he isn't like +you! you would n't--but he would--he would send me to everlasting misery +to gain his own end, or to save himself. And yet he is n't every way +bad, and if he did marry Myrtle she'd think there never was such a +man,--for he can talk her heart out of her, and the wicked in him lies +very deep and won't ever come out, perhaps, if the world goes right with +him." The last part of this sentence showed how Cynthia talked with her +own conscience; all her mental and moral machinery lay open before the +calm eyes of Master Byles Gridley. + +His thoughts wandered a moment from the business before him; he had just +got a new study of human nature, which in spite of himself would be +shaping itself into an axiom for an imagined new edition of "Thoughts on +the Universe," something like this, "The greatest saint may be a sinner +that never got down to "hard pan." It was not the time to be framing +axioms. + +"Poh! poh!" he said to himself; "what are you about making phrases, when +you have got a piece of work like this in hand?" Then to Cynthia, with +great gentleness and kindness of manner: "Have no fear about any +consequences to yourself. Mr. Penhallow must see that paper--I mean +those papers. You shall not be a loser nor a sufferer if you do your +duty now in these premises." + +Master Gridley, treating her, as far as circumstances permitted, like a +gentleman, had shown no intention of taking the papers either stealthily +or violently. It must be with her consent. He had laid the package down +upon the table, waiting for her to give him leave to take it. But just +as he spoke these last words, Cynthia, whose eye had been glancing +furtively at it while he was thinking out his axiom, and taking her +bearings to it pretty carefully, stretched her hand out, and, seizing the +package, thrust it into the sanctuary of her bosom. + +"Mr. Penhallow must see those papers, Miss Cynthia Badlam," Mr. Gridley +repeated calmly. "If he says they or any of them can be returned to your +keeping, well and good. But see them he must, for they have his office +seal and belong in his custody, and, as you see by the writing on the +back, they have not been examined. Now there may be something among them +which is of immediate importance to the relatives of the late deceased +Malachi Withers, and therefore they must be forthwith submitted to the +inspection of the surviving partner of the firm of Wibird and Penhallow. +This I propose to do, with your consent, this evening. It is now +twenty-five minutes past eight by the true time, as my watch has it. +At half past eight exactly I shall have the honor of bidding you good +evening, Miss Cynthia Badlam, whether you give me those papers or not. I +shall go to the office of Jacob Penhallow, Esquire, and there make one of +two communications to him; to wit, these papers and the facts connected +therewith, or another statement, the nature of which you may perhaps +conjecture." + +There is no need of our speculating as to what Mr. Byles Gridley, an +honorable and humane man, would have done, or what would have been the +nature of that communication which he offered as an alternative to the +perplexed woman. He had not at any rate miscalculated the strength of +his appeal, which Cynthia interpreted as he expected. She bore the +heart-screw about two minutes. Then she took the package from her bosom, +and gave it with averted face to Master Byles Gridley, who, on receiving +it, made her a formal but not unkindly bow, and bade her good evening. + +"One would think it had been lying out in the dew," he said, as he left +the house and walked towards Mr. Penhallow's residence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY CONSULTS WITH JACOB PENHALLOW, ESQUIRE + +Lawyer Penhallow was seated in his study, his day's work over, his feet +in slippers, after the comfortable but inelegant fashion which Sir Walter +Scott reprobates, amusing himself with a volume of old Reports. He was a +knowing man enough, a keen country lawyer but honest, and therefore less +ready to suspect the honesty of others. He had a great belief in his +young partner's ability, and, though he knew him to be astute, did not +think him capable of roguery. + +It was at his request that Mr. Bradshaw had undertaken his journey, +which, as he believed,--and as Mr. Bradshaw had still stronger evidence +of a strictly confidential nature which led him to feel sure,--would end +in the final settlement of the great land claim in favor of their client. +The case had been dragging along from year to year, like an English +chancery suit; and while courts and lawyers and witnesses had been +sleeping, the property had been steadily growing. A railroad had passed +close to one margin of the township, some mines had been opened in the +county, in which a village calling itself a city had grown big enough to +have a newspaper and Fourth of July orations. It was plain that the +successful issue of the long process would make the heirs of the late +Malachi Withers possessors of an ample fortune, and it was also plain +that the firm of Penhallow and Bradshaw were like to receive, in such +case, the largest fee that had gladdened the professional existence of +its members. + +Mr. Penhallow had his book open before him, but his thoughts were +wandering from the page. He was thinking of his absent partner, and the +probable results of his expedition. What would be the consequence if all +this property came into the possession of Silence Withers? Could she +have any liberal intentions with reference to Myrtle Hazard, the young +girl who had grown up with her, or was the common impression true, that +she was bent on endowing an institution, and thus securing for herself a +favorable consideration in the higher courts, where her beneficiaries +would be, it might be supposed, influential advocates? He could not help +thinking that Mr. Bradshaw believed that Myrtle Hazard would eventually +come to apart at least of this inheritance. For the story was, that he +was paying his court to the young lady whenever he got an opportunity, +and that he was cultivating an intimacy with Miss Cynthia Badlam. +"Bradshaw would n'tmake a move in that direction," Mr. Penhallow said to +himself, "until he felt pretty sure that it was going to be a paying +business. If he was only a young minister now, there'd be no difficulty +about it. Let any man, young or old, in a clerical white cravat, step up +to Myrtle Hazard, and ask her to be miserable in his company through this +wretched life, and aunt Silence would very likely give them her blessing, +and add something to it that the man in the white cravat would think +worth even more than that was. But I don't know what she'll say to +Bradshaw. Perhaps he 'd better have a hint to go to meeting a little +more regularly. However, I suppose he knows what he's about." + +He was thinking all this over when a visitor was announced, and Mr. Byles +Gridley entered the study. + +"Good evening, Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley said, wiping his forehead. +"Quite warm, is n't it, this evening?" + +"Warm!" said Mr. Penhallow, "I should think it would freeze pretty thick +to-night. I should have asked you to come up to the fire and warm +yourself. But take off your coat, Mr. Gridley,--very glad to see you. +You don't come to the house half as often as you come to the office. Sit +down, sit down." + +Mr. Gridley took off his outside coat and sat down. "He does look warm, +does n't he?" Mr. Penhallow thought. "Wonder what has heated up the old +gentleman so. Find out quick enough, for he always goes straight to +business." + +"Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley began at once, "I have come on a very grave +matter, in which you are interested as well as myself, and I wish to lay +the whole of it before you as explicitly as I can, so that we may settle +this night before I go what is to be done. I am afraid the good standing +of your partner, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, is concerned in the matter. +Would it be a surprise to you, if he had carried his acuteness in some +particular case like the one I am to mention beyond the prescribed +limits?" + +The question was put so diplomatically that there was no chance for an +indignant denial of the possibility of Mr. Bradshaw's being involved in +any discreditable transaction. + +"It is possible," he answered, "that Bradshaw's keen wits may have +betrayed him into sharper practice than I should altogether approve in +any business we carried on together. He is a very knowing young man, but +I can't think he is foolish enough, to say nothing of his honesty, to +make any false step of the kind you seem to hint. I think he might on +occasion go pretty near the line, but I don't believe he would cross it." + +"Permit me a few questions, Mr. Penhallow. You settled the estate of the +late Malachi Withers, did you not?" + +"Mr. Wibird and myself settled it together." + +"Have you received any papers from any of the family since the settlement +of the estate?" + +"Let me see. Yes; a roll of old plans of the Withers Place, and so +forth,--not of much use, but labelled and kept. An old trunk with +letters and account-books, some of them in Dutch,--mere curiosities. A +year ago or more, I remember that Silence sent me over some papers she +had found in an odd corner,--the old man hid things like a magpie. I +looked over most of them,--trumpery not worth keeping,--old leases and so +forth." + +"Do you recollect giving some of them to Mr. Bradshaw to look over?" + +"Now I come to think of it, I believe I did; but he reported to me, if I +remember right, that they amounted to nothing." + +"If any of those papers were of importance, should you think your junior +partner ought to keep them from your knowledge?" + +"I need not answer that question, Mr. Gridley. Will you be so good as to +come at once to the facts on which you found your suspicions, and which +lead you to put these questions to me?" + +Thereupon Mr. Gridley proceeded to state succinctly the singular behavior +of Murray Bradshaw in taking one paper from a number handed to him by Mr. +Penhallow, and concealing it in a volume. He related how he was just on +the point of taking out the volume which contained the paper, when Mr. +Bradshaw entered and disconcerted him. He had, however, noticed three +spots on the paper by which he should know it anywhere. He then repeated +the substance of Kitty Fagan's story, accenting the fact that she too +noticed three remarkable spots on the paper which Mr. Bradshaw had +pointed out to Miss Badlam as the one so important to both of them. Here +he rested the case for the moment. + +Mr. Penhallow looked thoughtful. There was something questionable in the +aspect of this business. It did obviously suggest the idea of an +underhand arrangement with Miss Cynthia, possibly involving some very +grave consequences. It would have been most desirable, he said, to have +ascertained what these papers, or rather this particular paper, to which +so much importance was attached, amounted to. Without that knowledge +there was nothing, after all, which it might not be possible to explain. +He might have laid aside the spotted paper to examine for some object of +mere curiosity. It was certainly odd that the one the Fagan woman had +seen should present three spots so like those on the other paper, but +people did sometimes throw treys at backgammon, and that which not rarely +happened with two dice of six faces might happen if they had sixty or six +hundred faces. On the whole, he did not see that there was any ground, +so far, for anything more than a vague suspicion. He thought it not +unlikely that Mr. Bradshaw was a little smitten with the young lady up at +The Poplars, and that he had made some diplomatic overtures to the +duenna, after the approved method of suitors. She was young for +Bradshaw,--very young,--but he knew his own affairs. If he chose to make +love to a child, it was natural enough that he should begin by courting +her nurse. + +Master Byles Gridley lost himself for half a minute in a most +discreditable inward discussion as to whether Laura Penhallow was +probably one or two years older than Mr. Bradshaw. That was his way, he +could not help it. He could not think of anything without these mental +parentheses. But he came back to business at the end of his half-minute. + +"I can lay the package before you at this moment, Mr. Penhallow. I have +induced that woman in whose charge it was left to intrust it to my +keeping, with the express intention of showing it to you. But it is +protected by a seal, as I have told you, which I should on no account +presume to meddle with." + +Mr. Gridley took out the package of papers. + +"How damp it is!" Mr. Penhallow said; "must have been lying in some very +moist neighborhood." + +"Very," Mr. Gridley answered, with a peculiar expression which said, +"Never mind about that." + +"Did the party give you possession of these documents without making any +effort to retain them?" the lawyer asked. + +"Not precisely. It cost some effort to induce Miss Badlam to let them go +out of her hands. I hope you think I was justified in making the effort +I did, not without a considerable strain upon my feelings, as well as her +own, to get hold of the papers?" + +"That will depend something on what the papers prove to be, Mr. Gridley. +A man takes a certain responsibility in doing just what you have done. +If, for instance, it should prove that this envelope contained matters +relating solely to private transactions between Mr. Bradshaw and Miss +Badlam, concerning no one but themselves,--and if the words on the back +of the envelope and the seal had been put there merely as a protection +for a package containing private papers of a delicate but perfectly +legitimate character--" + +The lawyer paused, as careful experts do, after bending the bow of an +hypothesis, before letting the arrow go. Mr. Gridley felt very warm +indeed, uncomfortably so, and applied his handkerchief to his face. Could +n't be anything in such a violent supposition as that, and yet such a +crafty fellow as that Bradshaw,--what trick was he not up to? Absurd! +Cynthia was not acting,--Rachel would n't be equal to such a +performance!--"why then, Mr. Gridley," the lawyer continued, "I don't +see but what my partner would have you at an advantage, and, if disposed +to make you uncomfortable, could do so pretty effectively. But this, you +understand, is only a supposed case, and not a very likely one. I don't +think it would have been prudent in you to meddle with that seal. But +it is a very different matter with regard to myself. It makes no +difference, so far as I am concerned, where this package came from, or +how it was obtained. It is just as absolutely within my control as any +piece of property I call my own. I should not hesitate, if I saw fit, to +break this seal at once, and proceed to the examination of any papers +contained within the envelope. If I found any paper of the slightest +importance relating to the estate, I should act as if it had never been +out of my possession. + +"Suppose, however, I chose to know what was in the package, and, having +ascertained, act my judgment about returning it to the party from whom +you obtained it. In such case I might see fit to restore or cause it to +be restored, to the party, without any marks of violence having been used +being apparent. If everything is not right, probably no questions would +be asked by the party having charge of the package. If there is no +underhand work going on, and the papers are what they profess to be, +nobody is compromised but yourself, so far as I can see, and you are +compromised at any rate, Mr. Gridley, at least in the good graces of the +party from whom you obtained the documents. Tell that party that I took +the package without opening it, and shall return it, very likely, without +breaking the seal. Will consider of the matter, say a couple of days. +Then you shall hear from me, and she shall hear from you. So. So. Yes, +that's it. A nice business. A thing to sleep on. You had better leave +the whole matter of dealing with the package to me. If I see fit to send +it back with the seal unbroken, that is my affair. But keep perfectly +quiet, if you please, Mr. Gridley, about the whole matter. Mr. Bradshaw +is off, as you know, and the business on which he is gone is +important,--very important. He can be depended on for that; he has acted +all along as if he had a personal interest in the success of our firm +beyond his legal relation to it." + +Mr. Penhallow's light burned very late in the office that night, and the +following one. He looked troubled and absent-minded, and when Miss Laura +ventured to ask him how long Mr. Bradshaw was like to be gone, he +answered her in such a way that the girl who waited at table concluded +that he did n't mean to have Miss Laury keep company with Mr. Bradshaw, +or he'd never have spoke so dreadful hash to her when she asked about +him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +SUSAN POSEY'S TRIAL. + +A day or two after Myrtle Hazard returned to the village, Master Byles +Gridley, accompanied by Gifted Hopkins, followed her, as has been already +mentioned, to the same scene of the principal events of this narrative. +The young man had been persuaded that it would be doing injustice to his +talents to crowd their fruit prematurely upon the market. He carried his +manuscript back with him, having relinquished the idea of publishing for +the present. Master Byles Gridley, on the other hand, had in his pocket +a very flattering proposal, from the same publisher to whom he had +introduced the young poet, for a new and revised edition of his work, +"Thoughts on the Universe," which was to be remodelled in some respects, +and to have a new title not quite so formidable to the average reader. + +It would be hardly fair to Susan Posey to describe with what delight and +innocent enthusiasm she welcomed back Gifted Hopkins. She had been so +lonely since he was away? She had read such of his poems as she +possessed--duplicates of his printed ones, or autographs which he had +kindly written out for her--over and over again, not without the sweet +tribute of feminine sensibility, which is the most precious of all +testimonials to a poet's power over the heart. True, her love belonged +to another,--but then she was so used to Gifted! She did so love to hear +him read his poems,--and Clement had never written that "little bit of a +poem to Susie," which she had asked him for so long ago! She received +him therefore with open arms,--not literally, of course, which would have +been a breach of duty and propriety, but in a figurative sense, which it +is hoped no reader will interpret to her discredit. + +The young poet was in need of consolation. It is true that he had seen +many remarkable sights during his visit to the city; that he had got +"smarted up," as his mother called it, a good deal; that he had been to +Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's party, where he had looked upon life in all its +splendors; and that he brought back many interesting experiences, which +would serve to enliven his conversation for a long time. But he had +failed in the great enterprise he had undertaken. He was forced to +confess to his revered parent, and his esteemed friend Susan Posey, that +his genius, which was freely acknowledged, was not thought to be quite +ripe as yet. He told the young lady some particulars of his visit to the +publisher, how he had listened with great interest to one of his poems, +"The Triumph of Song,"--how he had treated him with marked and flattering +attention; but that he advised him not to risk anything prematurely, +giving him the hope that by and by he would be admitted into that series +of illustrious authors which it was the publisher's privilege to present +to the reading public. In short, he was advised not to print. That was +the net total of the matter, and it was a pang to the susceptible heart +of the poet. He had hoped to have come home enriched by the sale of his +copyright, and with the prospect of seeing his name before long on the +back of a handsome volume. + +Gifted's mother did all in her power to console him in his +disappointment. There was plenty of jealous people always that wanted to +keep young folks from rising in the world. Never mind, she did n't +believe but what Gifted could make jest as good verses as any of them +that they kept such a talk about. She had a fear that he might pine away +in consequence of the mental excitement he had gone through, and +solicited his appetite with her choicest appliances,--of which he partook +in a measure which showed that there was no immediate cause of alarm. + +But Susan Posey was more than a consoler,--she was an angel to him in +this time of his disappointment. "Read me all the poems over again," she +said,--"it is almost the only pleasure I have left, to hear you read your +beautiful verses." Clement Lindsay had not written to Susan quite so +often of late as at some former periods of the history of their love. +Perhaps it was that which had made her look paler than usual for some +little time. Something was evidently preying on her. Her only delight +seemed to be in listening to Gifted as he read, sometimes with fine +declamatory emphasis, sometimes in low, tremulous tones, the various +poems enshrined in his manuscript. At other times she was sad, and more +than once Mrs. Hopkins had seen a tear steal down her innocent cheek, +when there seemed to be no special cause for grief. She ventured to +speak of it to Master Byles Gridley. + +"Our Susan's in trouble, Mr. Gridley, for some reason or other that's +unbeknown to me, and I can't help wishing you could jest have a few words +with her. You're a kind of a grandfather, you know, to all the young +folks, and they'd tell you pretty much everything about themselves. I +calc'late she is n't at ease in her mind about somethin' or other, and I +kind o' think, Mr. Gridley, you could coax it out of her." + +"Was there ever anything like it?" said Master Byles Gridley to himself. +"I shall have all the young folks in Oxbow Village to take care of at +this rate. Susan Posey in trouble, too! Well, well, well, it's easier +to get a birch-bark canoe off the shallows than a big ship off the rocks. +Susan Posey's trouble will be come at easily enough; but Myrtle Hazard +floats in deeper water. We must make Susan Posey tell her own story, or +let her tell it, for it will all come out of itself." + +"I am going to dust the books in the open shelves this morning. I wonder +if Miss Susan Posey would n't like to help for half an hour or so," +Master Gridley remarked at the breakfast-table. + +The amiable girl's very pleasant countenance lighted up at the thought of +obliging the old man who had been so kind to her and so liberal to her +friend, the poet. She would be delighted to help him; she would dust +them all for him, if he wanted her to. No, Master Gridley said, he +always wanted to have a hand in it; and, besides, such a little body as +she was could not lift those great folios out of the lower shelves +without overstraining herself; she might handle the musketry and the +light artillery, but he must deal with the heavy guns himself. "As low +down as the octavos, Susan Posey, you shall govern; below that, the Salic +law." + +Susan did not low much about the Salic law; but she knew he meant that he +would dust the big books and she would attend to the little ones. + +A very young and a very pretty girl is sometimes quite charming in a +costume which thinks of nothing less than of being attractive. Susan +appeared after breakfast in the study, her head bound with a kerchief of +bright pattern, a little jacket she had outgrown buttoned, in spite of +opposition, close about her up to the throat, round which a white +handkerchief was loosely tied, and a pair of old gauntlets protecting her +hands, so that she suggested something between a gypsy, a jaunty +soubrette, and the fille du regiment. + +Master Gridley took out a great volume from the lower shelf,--a folio in +massive oaken covers with clasps Like prison hinges, bearing the stately +colophon, white on a ground of vermilion, of Nicholas Jenson and his +associates. He opened the volume,--paused over its blue, and scarlet +initial letter,--he turned page after page, admiring its brilliant +characters, its broad, white marginal rivers, and the narrower white +creek that separated the black-typed twin-columns, he turned back to the +beginning and read the commendatory paragraph, "Nam ipsorum omnia fidgent +tum correctione dignissima, tum cura imprimendo splendida ac miranda," +and began reading, "Incipit proemium super apparatum decretalium...." +when it suddenly occurred to him that this was not exactly doing what he +had undertaken to do, and he began whisking an ancient bandanna about the +ears of the venerable volume. All this time Miss Susan Posey was +catching the little books by the small of their backs, pulling them out, +opening them, and clapping them together, 'p-'p-'p! 'p-'p-'p! and +carefully caressing all their edges with a regular professional +dusting-cloth, so persuasively that they yielded up every particle that a +year had drifted upon them, and came forth refreshed and rejuvenated. +This process went on for a while, until Susan had worked down among the +octavos and Master Gridley had worked up among the quartos. He had got +hold of Calmet's Dictionary, and was caught by the article Solomon, so +that he forgot his occupation again. All at once it struck him that +everything was very silent,--the 'p-'p-'p! of clapping the books had +ceased, and the light rustle of Susan's dress was no longer heard. He +looked up and saw her standing perfectly still, with a book in one hand +and her duster in the other. She was lost in thought, and by the shadow +on her face and the glistening of her blue eyes he knew it was her hidden +sorrow that had just come back to her. Master Gridley shut up his book, +leaving Solomon to his fate, like the worthy Benedictine he was reading, +without discussing the question whether he was saved or not. + +"Susan Posey, child, what is your trouble?" + +Poor Susan was in the state of unstable equilibrium which the least touch +upsets, and fell to crying. It took her some time to get down the waves +of emotion so that speech would live upon them. At last it ventured +out,--showing at intervals, like the boat rising on the billow, sinking +into the hollow, and climbing again into notice. + +"O Mr. Grid-ley--I can't--I can't--tell you or--any-body--what 's the +mat-mat-matter. My heart will br-br-break." + +"No, no, no, child," said Mr. Gridley, sympathetically stirred a little +himself by the sight of Susan in tears and sobbing and catching her +breath, "that mustn't be, Susan Posey. Come off the steps, Susan Posey, +and stop dusting the books,--I can finish them,--and tell me all abort +your troubles. I will try 'to help you out of them, and I have begun to +think I know how to help young people pretty well. I have had some +experience at it." + +But Susan cried and sobbed all the more uncontrollably and convulsively. +Master Gridley thought he had better lead her at once to what he felt +pretty sure was the source of her grief, and that, when she had had her +cry out, she would probably make the hole in the ice he had broken big +enough in a very few minutes. + +"I think something has gone wrong between you and your friend, the young +gentleman with whom you are in intimate relations, my child, and I think +you had better talk freely with me, for I can perhaps give you a little +counsel that will be of service." + +Susan cried herself quiet at last. "There's nobody in the world like +you, Mr. Gridley," she said, "and I've been wanting to tell you something +ever so long. My friend--Mr. Clem--Clement Lindsay does n't care for me +as he used to,--I know he does n't. He hasn't written to me for--I don't +know but it's a month. And O Mr. Gridley! he's such a great man, and I +am such a simple person,--I can't help thinking--he would be happier with +somebody else than poor little Susan Posey!" + +This last touch of self-pity overcame her, as it is so apt to do those +who indulge in that delightful misery, and she broke up badly, as a +horse-fancier would say, so that it was some little time before she +recovered her conversational road-gait. + +"O Mr. Gridley," she began again, at length, "if I only dared to tell him +what I think,--that perhaps it would be happier for us both--if we could +forget each other! Ought I not to tell him so? Don't you think he would +find another to make him happy? Wouldn't he forgive me for telling him +he was free? Were we not too young to know each other's hearts when we +promised each other that we would love as long as we lived? Sha'n't I +write him a letter this very day and tell him all? Do you think it would +be wrong in me to do it? O Mr. Gridley, it makes me almost crazy to +think about it. Clement must be free! I cannot, cannot hold him to a +promise he does n't want to keep." + +There were so many questions in this eloquent rhapsody of Susan's that +they neutralized each other, as one might say, and Master Gridley had +time for reflection. His thoughts went on something in this way: + +"Pretty clear case! Guess Mr. Clement can make up his mind to it. Put it +well, did n't she? Not a word about our little Gifted! That's the +trouble. Poets! how they do bewitch these schoolgirls! And having a +chance every day, too, how could you expect her to stand it?" Then +aloud: "Susan Posey, you are a good, honest little girl as ever was. I +think you and Clement were too hasty in coming together for life before +you knew what life meant. I think if you write Clement a letter, telling +him that you cannot help fearing that you two are not perfectly adapted +to each other, on account of certain differences for which neither of you +is responsible, and that you propose that each should release the other +from the pledge given so long ago,--in that case, I say, I believe he +will think no worse of you for so doing, and may perhaps agree that it is +best for both of you to seek your happiness elsewhere than in each +other." + +The book-dusting came to as abrupt a close as the reading of Lancelot. +Susan went straight to her room, dried her tears so as to write in a fair +hand, but had to stop every few lines and take a turn at the +"dust-layers," as Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's friend used to call the fountains +of sensibility. It would seem like betraying Susan's confidence to +reveal the contents of this letter, but the reader may be assured that it +was simple and sincere and very sweetly written, without the slightest +allusion to any other young man, whether of the poetical or cheaper human +varieties. + +It was not long before Susan received a reply from Clement Lindsay. It +was as kind and generous and noble as she could have asked. It was +affectionate, as a very amiable brother's letter might be, and candidly +appreciative of the reasons Susan had assigned for her proposal. He gave +her back her freedom, not that he should cease to feel an interest in +her, always. He accepted his own release, not that he would ever think +she could be indifferent to his future fortunes. And within a very brief +period of time after sending his answer to Susan Posey, whether he wished +to see her in person, or whether he had some other motive, he had packed +his trunk, and made his excuses for an absence of uncertain length at the +studio, and was on his way to Oxbow Village. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +JUST AS YOU EXPECTED. + +The spring of 1861 had now arrived,--that eventful spring which was to +lift the curtain and show the first scene of the first act in the mighty +drama which fixed the eyes of mankind during four bloody years. The +little schemes of little people were going on in all our cities and +villages without thought of the fearful convulsion which was soon coming +to shatter the hopes and cloud the prospects of millions. Our little +Oxbow Village, which held itself by no means the least of human centres, +was the scene of its own commotions, as intense and exciting to those +concerned as if the destiny of the nation had been involved in them. + +Mr. Clement Lindsay appeared suddenly in that important locality, and +repaired to his accustomed quarters at the house of Deacon Rumrill. That +worthy person received him with a certain gravity of manner, caused by +his recollections of the involuntary transgression into which Mr. Lindsay +had led him by his present of "Ivanhoe."--He was, on the whole, glad to +see him, for his finances were not yet wholly recovered from the injury +inflicted on them by the devouring element. But he could not forget that +his boarder had betrayed him into a breach of the fourth commandment, and +that the strict eyes of his clergyman had detected him in the very +commission of the offence. He had no sooner seen Mr. Clement comfortably +installed, therefore, than he presented himself at the door of his +chamber with the book, enveloped in strong paper and very securely tied +round with a stout string. + +"Here is your vollum, Mr. Lindsay," the Deacon said. "I understand it is +not the work of that great and good mahn who I thought wrote it. I did +not see anything immoral in it as fur as I read, but it belongs to what I +consider a very dangerous class of publications. These novels and +romances are awfully destructive to our youth. I should recommend you, +as a young man of principle, to burn the vollum. At least I hope you +will not leave it about anywhere unless it is carefully tied up. I have +written upon the paper round it to warn off all the young persons of my +household from meddling with it." + +True enough, Mr. Clement saw in strong black letters on the back of the +paper wrapping his unfortunate "Ivanhoe,"-- + + "DANGEROUS READING FOR CHRISTIAN YOUTH. + + "TOUCH NOT THE UNCLEAN THING." + +"I thought you said you had Scott's picture hung up in your parlor, +Deacon Rumrill," he said, a little amused with the worthy man's fear and +precautions. + +"It is the great Scott's likeness that I have in my parlor," he said; "I +will show it to you if you will come with me." + +Mr. Clement followed the Deacon into that sacred apartment. + +"That is the portrait of the great Scott," he said, pointing to an +engraving of a heavy-looking person whose phrenological developments were +a somewhat striking contrast to those of the distinguished Sir Walter. + +"I will take good care that none of your young people see this volume," +Mr. Clement said; "I trust you read it yourself, however, and found +something to please you in it. I am sure you are safe from being harmed +by any such book. Did n't you have to finish it, Deacon, after you had +once begun?" + +"Well, I--I--perused a consid'able portion of the work," the Deacon +answered, in a way that led Mr. Clement to think he had not stopped much +short of Finis. "Anything new in the city?" + +"Nothing except what you've all had,--Confederate States establishing an +army and all that,--not very new either. What has been going on here +lately, Deacon?"-- + +"Well, Mr. Lindsay, not a great deal. My new barn is pretty nigh done. +I've got as fine a litter of pigs as ever you see. I don't know whether +you're a judge of pigs or no. The Hazard gal's come back, spilt, pooty +much, I guess. Been to one o' them fashionable schools,--I 've heerd +that she 's learnt to dance. I've heerd say that that Hopkins boy's +round the Posey gal, come to think, she's the one you went with some when +you was here,--I 'm gettin' kind o' forgetful. Old Doctor Hurlbut's +pretty low,--ninety-four year old,--born in '67,--folks ain't ginerally +very spry after they're ninety, but he held out wonderful." + +"How's Mr. Bradshaw?" + +"Well, the young squire, he's off travellin' somewhere in the West, or to +Washin'ton, or somewhere else,--I don't jestly know where. They say that +he's follerin' up the courts in the business about old Malachi's estate. +I don' know much about it." + +The news got round Oxbow Village very speedily that Mr. Clement Lindsay, +generally considered the accepted lover of Miss Susan Posey, had arrived +in that place. Now it had come to be the common talk of the village that +young Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were getting to be mighty thick with +each other, and the prevailing idea was that Clement's visit had +reference to that state of affairs. Some said that Susan had given her +young man the mitten, meaning thereby that she had signified that his +services as a suitor were dispensed with. Others thought there was only a +wavering in her affection for her lover, and that he feared for her +constancy, and had come to vindicate his rights. + +Some of the young fellows, who were doubtless envious of Gifted's +popularity with the fair sex, attempted in the most unjustifiable manner +to play upon his susceptible nature. One of them informed him that he +had seen that Lindsay fellah raound taown with the darndest big stick y' +ever did see. Looked kind o' savage and wild like. Another one told him +that perhaps he'd better keep a little shady; that are chap that had got +the mittin was praowlin' abaout--with a pistil,--one o' them +Darringers,--abaout as long as your thumb, an' fire a bullet as big as a +p'tatah-ball,--'a fellah carries one in his breeches-pocket, an' shoots +y' right threugh his own pahnts, withaout ever takin' on it aout of his +pocket. The stable-keeper, who, it may be remembered, once exchanged a +few playful words with Mr. Gridley, got a hint from some of these +unfeeling young men, and offered the resources of his stable to the youth +supposed to be in peril. + +"I 've got a faast colt, Mr. Hopkins, that 'll put twenty mild betwixt +you an' this here village, as quick as any four huffs 'll dew it in this +here caounty, if you should want to get away suddin. I've heern tell +there was some lookin' raound here that wouldn't be wholesome to +meet,--jest say the word, Mr. Hopkins, an' I 'll have ye on that are +colt's back in less than no time, an' start ye off full jump. There's a +good many that's kind o' worried for fear something might happen to ye, +Mr. Hopkins,--y' see fellahs don't like to have other chaps cuttin' on +'em aout with their gals." + +Gifted Hopkins had become excessively nervous by this time. It is true +that everything in his intimacy with Susan Posey, so far, might come +under the general head of friendship; but he was conscious that something +more was in both their thoughts. Susan had given him mysterious hints +that her relations with Clement had undergone a change, but had never had +quite courage enough, perhaps had too much delicacy, to reveal the whole +truth. + +Gifted was walking home, deeply immersed in thoughts excited by the hints +which hail been thus wantonly thrown out to inflame his imagination, when +all at once, on lifting his eyes, he saw Clement Lindsay coming straight +towards him. Gifted was unarmed, except with a pair of blunt scissors, +which he carried habitually in his pocket. What should he do? Should he +fly? But he was never a good runner, being apt to find himself scant o' +breath, like Hamlet, after violent exercise. His demeanor on the +occasion did credit to his sense of his own virtuous conduct and his +self-possession. He put his hand out, while yet at a considerable +distance, and marched up towards Clement, smiling with all the native +amiability which belonged to him. + +To his infinite relief, Clement put out his hand to grasp the one offered +him, and greeted the young poet in the most frank and cordial manner. + +"And how is Miss Susan Posey, Mr. Hopkins?" asked Clement, in the most +cheerful tone. "It is a long while since I have seen her, and you must +tell her that I hope I shall not leave the village without finding time +to call upon her. She and I are good friends always, Mr. Hopkins, though +perhaps I shall not be quite so often at your mother's as I was during my +last visit to Oxbow Village." + +Gifted felt somewhat as the subject of one of those old-fashioned forms +of argument, formerly much employed to convince men of error in matters +of religion, must have felt when the official who superintended the +stretching-machine said, "Slack up!" + +He told Mr. Clement all about Susan, and was on the point of saying that +if he, Mr. Clement, did not claim any engrossing interest in her, he, +Gifted, was ready to offer her the devotion of a poet's heart. Mr. +Clement, however, had so many other questions to ask him about everybody +in the village, more particularly concerning certain young persons in +whom he seemed to be specially interested, that there was no chance to +work in his own revelations of sentiment. + +Clement Lindsay had come to Oxbow Village with a single purpose. He +could now venture to trust himself in the presence of Myrtle Hazard. He +was free, and he knew nothing to show that she had lost the liberty of +disposing of her heart. But after an experience such as he had gone +through, he was naturally distrustful of himself, and inclined to be +cautious and reserved in yielding to a new passion. Should he tell her +the true relations in which they stood to each other,--that she owed her +life to him, and that he had very nearly sacrificed his own in saving +hers? Why not? He had a claim on her gratitude for what he had done in +her behalf, and out of this gratitude there might naturally spring a +warmer feeling. + +No, he could not try to win her affections by showing that he had paid +for them beforehand. She seemed to be utterly unconscious of the fact +that it was he who had been with her in the abyss of waters. If the +thought came to her of itself, and she ever asked him, it would be time +enough to tell her the story. If not, the moment might arrive when he +could reveal to her the truth that he was her deliverer, without accusing +himself of bribing her woman's heart to reward him for his services. He +would wait for that moment. + +It was the most natural thing in the world that Mr. Lindsay, a young +gentleman from the city, should call to see Miss Hazard, a young lady +whom he had met recently at a party. To that pleasing duty he addressed +himself the evening after his arrival. + +"The young gentleman's goin' a courtin', I calc'late," was the remark of +the Deacon's wife when she saw what a comely figure Mr. Clement showed at +the tea-table. + +"A very hahnsome young mahn," the Deacon replied, "and looks as if he +might know consid'able. An architect, you know,--a sort of a builder. +Wonder if he has n't got any good plans for a hahnsome pigsty. I suppose +he 'd charge somethin' for one, but it couldn't be much, an' he could +take it out in board." + +"Better ask him," his wife--said; "he looks mighty pleasant; there's +nothin' lost by askin', an' a good deal got sometimes, grandma used to +say." + +The Deacon followed her advice. Mr. Clement was perfectly good-natured +about it, asked the Deacon the number of snouts in his menagerie, got an +idea of the accommodations required, and sketched the plaza of a neat, +and appropriate edifice for the Porcellarium, as Master Gridley +afterwards pleasantly christened it, which was carried out by the +carpenter, and stands to this day a monument of his obliging disposition, +and a proof that there is nothing so humble that taste cannot be shown in +it. + +"What'll be your charge for the plan of the pigsty, Mr. Lindsay?" the +Deacon inquired with an air of interest,--he might have become involved +more deeply than he had intended. "How much should you call about right +for the picter an' figgerin'?" + +"Oh, you're quite welcome to my sketch of a plan, Deacon. I've seen much +showier buildings tenanted by animals not very different from those your +edifice is meant for." + +Mr. Clement found the three ladies sitting together in the chill, dim +parlor at The Poplars. They had one of the city papers spread out on the +table, and Myrtle was reading aloud the last news from Charleston Harbor. +She rose as Mr. Clement entered, and stepped forward to meet him. It was +a strange impression this young man produced upon her,--not through the +common channels of the intelligence, not exactly that "magnetic" +influence of which she had had experience at a former time. It did not +over come her as at the moment of their second meeting. But it was +something she must struggle against, and she had force and pride and +training enough now to maintain her usual tranquillity, in spite of a +certain inward commotion which seemed to reach her breathing and her +pulse by some strange, inexplicable mechanism. + +Myrtle, it must be remembered, was no longer the simple country girl who +had run away at fifteen, but a young lady of seventeen, who had learned +all that more than a year's diligence at a great school could teach her, +who had been much with girls of taste and of culture, and was familiar +with the style and manners of those who came from what considered itself +the supreme order in the social hierarchy. Her natural love for +picturesque adornment was qualified by a knowledge of the prevailing +modes not usual in so small a place as Oxbow Village. All this had not +failed to produce its impression on those about her. Persons who, like +Miss Silence Withers, believe, not in education, inasmuch as there is no +healthy nature to be educated, but in transformation, worry about their +charges up to a certain period of their lives. Then, if the +transformation does not come, they seem to think their cares and duties +are at an end, and, considering their theories of human destiny, usually +accept the situation with wonderful complacency. This was the stage +which Miss Silence Withers had reached with reference to Myrtle. It made +her infinitely more agreeable, or less disagreeable, as the reader may +choose one or the other statement, than when she was always fretting +about her "responsibility." She even began to take an interest in some +of Myrtle's worldly experiences, and something like a smile would now and +then disarrange the chief-mourner stillness of her features, as Myrtle +would tell some lively story she had brought away from the gay society +she had frequented. + +Cynthia Badlam kept her keen eyes on her like a hawk. Murray Bradshaw +was away, and here was this handsome and agreeable youth coming in to +poach on the preserve of which she considered herself the gamekeeper. +What did it mean? She had heard the story about Susan's being off with +her old love and on with a new one. Ah ha! this is the game, is it? + +Clement Lindsay passed not so much a pleasant evening, as one of strange, +perplexed, and mingled delight and inward conflict. He had found his +marble once more turned to flesh and blood, and breathing before him. +This was the woman he was born for; her form was fit to model his +proudest ideal from, her eyes melted him when they rested for an instant +on his face,--her voice reached the hidden sensibilities of his inmost +nature; those which never betray their existence until the outward chord +to which they vibrate in response sends its message to stir them. But +was she not already pledged to that other,--that cold-blooded, +contriving, venal, cynical, selfish, polished, fascinating man of the +world, whose artful strategy would pass with nine women out of ten for +the most romantic devotion? + +If he had known the impression he made, he would have felt less anxiety +with reference to this particular possibility. Miss Silence expressed +herself gratified with his appearance, and thought he looked like a good +young man,--he reminded her of a young friend of hers who--[It was the +same who had gone to one of the cannibal islands as a missionary,--and +stayed there.] Myrtle was very quiet. She had nothing to say about +Clement, except that she had met him at a party in the city, and found +him agreeable. Miss Cynthia wrote a letter to Murray Bradshaw that very +evening, telling him that he had better come back to Oxbow Village as +quickly as he could, unless he wished to find his place occupied by an +intruder. + +In the mean time, the country was watching the garrison in Charleston +Harbor. All at once the first gun of the four years' cannonade hurled +its ball against the walls of Fort Sumter. There was no hamlet in the +land which the reverberations of that cannon-roar did not reach. There +was no valley so darkened by overshadowing hills that it did not see the +American flag hauled down on the 13th of April. There was no loyal heart +in the North that did not answer to the call of the country to its +defenders which went forth two days later. The great tide of feeling +reached the locality where the lesser events of our narrative were +occurring. A meeting of the citizens was instantly called. The +venerable Father Pemberton opened it with a prayer that filled every soul +with courage and high resolve. The young farmers and mechanics of that +whole region joined the companies to which they belonged, or organized in +squads and marched at once, or got ready to march, to the scene of +conflict. + +The contagion of warlike patriotism reached the most peacefully inclined +young persons. + +"My country calls me," Gifted Hopkins said to Susan Posey, "and I am +preparing to obey her summons. If I can pass the medical examination, +which it is possible I may, though I fear my constitution may be thought +too weak, and if no obstacle impedes me, I think of marching in the ranks +of the Oxbow Invincibles. If I go, Susan, and I fall, will you not +remember me . . . as one who . . . cherished the tenderest . . . +sentiments . . . towards you . . . and who had looked forward to the +time when . . . when . ." + +His eyes told the rest. He loved! + +Susan forgot all the rules of reserve to which she had been trained. What +were cold conventionalities at such a moment? "Never! never!" she said, +throwing her arms about his neck and mingling her tears with his, which +were flowing freely. "Your country does not need your sword .... but it +does need . . . your pen. Your poems will inspire . . . our +soldiers. . . . The Oxbow Invincibles will march to victory, singing +your songs . . . . If you go . . . and if you.. . fall . . . O +Gifted! . . . I . . . I . . . . yes, I shall die too!" + +His love was returned. He was blest! + +"Susan," he said, "my own Susan, I yield to your wishes at every +sacrifice. Henceforth they will be my law. Yes, I will stay and +encourage my brave countrymen to go forward to the bloody field. My +voice shall urge them on to the battle-ground. I will give my dearest +breath to stimulate their ardor. + +"O Susan! My own, own Susan!" + +While these interesting events had been going on beneath the modest roof +of the Widow Hopkins, affairs had been rapidly hastening to a similar +conclusion under the statelier shadow of The Poplars. Clement Lindsay was +so well received at his first visit that he ventured to repeat it several +times, with so short intervals that it implied something more than a +common interest in one of the members of the household. There was no +room for doubt who this could be, and Myrtle Hazard could not help seeing +that she was the object of his undisguised admiration. The belief was +now general in the village that Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were +either engaged or on the point of being so; and it was equally understood +that, whatever might be the explanation, she and her former lover had +parted company in an amicable manner. + +Love works very strange transformations in young women. Sometimes it +leads them to try every mode of adding to their attractions,--their whole +thought is how to be most lovely in the eyes they would fill so as to +keep out all other images. Poor darlings! We smile at their little +vanities, as if they were very trivial things compared with the last +Congressman's speech or the great Election Sermon; but Nature knows well +what she is about. The maiden's ribbon or ruffle means a great deal more +for her than the judge's wig or the priest's surplice. + +It was not in this way that the gentle emotion awaking in the breast of +Myrtle Hazard betrayed itself. As the thought dawned in her +consciousness that she was loved, a change came over her such as the +spirit that protected her, according to the harmless fancy she had +inherited, might have wept for joy to behold, if tears could flow from +angelic eyes. She forgot herself and her ambitions,--the thought of +shining in the great world died out in the presence of new visions of a +future in which she was not to be her own,--of feelings in the depth of +which the shallow vanities which had drawn her young eyes to them for a +while seemed less than nothing. Myrtle had not hitherto said to herself +that Clement was her lover, yet her whole nature was expanding and +deepening in the light of that friendship which any other eye could have +known at a glance for the great passion. + +Cynthia Badlam wrote a pressing letter to Murray Bradshaw. "There is no +time to be lost; she is bewitched, and will be gone beyond hope if this +business is not put a stop to." + +Love moves in an accelerating ratio; and there comes a time when the +progress of the passion escapes from all human formulae, and brings two +young hearts, which had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer +together, into complete union, with a suddenness that puts an infinity +between the moment when all is told and that which went just before. + +They were sitting together by themselves in the dimly lighted parlor. +They had told each other many experiences of their past lives, very +freely, as two intimate friends of different sex might do. Clement had +happened to allude to Susan, speaking very kindly and tenderly of her. +He hoped this youth to whom she was attached would make her life happy. +"You know how simple-hearted and good she is; her image will always be a +pleasant one in my memory,--second to but one other." + +Myrtle ought, according to the common rules of conversation, to have +asked, What other? but she did not. She may have looked as if she wanted +to ask,--she may have blushed or turned pale, perhaps she could not trust +her voice; but whatever the reason was, she sat still, with downcast +eyes. Clement waited a reasonable time, but, finding it was of no use, +began again. + +"Your image is the one other,--the only one, let me say, for all else +fades in its presence,--your image fills all my thought. Will you trust +your life and happiness with one who can offer you so little beside his +love? You know my whole heart is yours." + +Whether Myrtle said anything in reply or not, whether she acted like +Coleridge's Genevieve,--that is, "fled to him and wept," or suffered her +feelings to betray themselves in some less startling confession, we will +leave untold. Her answer, spoken or silent, could not have been a cruel +one, for in another moment Clement was pressing his lips to hers, after +the manner of accepted lovers. + +"Our lips have met to-day for the second time," he said, presently. + +She looked at him in wonder. What did he mean? The second time! How +assuredly he spoke! She looked him calmly in the face, and awaited his +explanation. + +"I have a singular story to tell you. On the morning of the 16th of +June, now nearly two years ago, I was sitting in my room at Alderbank, +some twenty miles down the river, when I heard a cry for help coming from +the river. I ran down to the bank, and there I saw a boy in an old +boat--" + +When it came to the "boy" in the old boat, Myrtle's cheeks flamed so that +she could not bear it, and she covered her face with both her hands. But +Clement told his story calmly through to the end, sliding gently over its +later incidents, for Myrtle's heart was throbbing violently, and her +breath a little catching and sighing, as when she had first lived with +the new life his breath had given her. + +"Why did you ask me for myself, when you could have claimed me?" she +said. + +"I wanted a free gift, Myrtle," Clement answered, "and I have it." + +They sat in silence, lost in the sense of that new life which had +suddenly risen on their souls. + +The door-bell rang sharply. Kitty Fagan answered its summons, and +presently entered the parlor and announced that Mr. Bradshaw was in the +library, and wished to see the ladies. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +MURRAY BRADSHAW PLAYS HIS LAST CARD. + +"How can I see that man this evening, Mr. Lindsay?" + +"May I not be Clement, dearest? I would not see him at all, Myrtle. I +don't believe you will find much pleasure in listening to his fine +speeches." + +"I cannot endure it.--Kitty, tell him I am engaged, and cannot see him +this evening. No, no! don't say engaged, say very much occupied." + +Kitty departed, communing with herself in this wise:--"Ockipied, is it? +An' that's what ye cahl it when ye 're kapin' company with one young +gintleman an' don't want another young gintleman to come in an' help the +two of ye? Ye won't get y'r pigs to market to-day, Mr. Bridshaw, no, nor +to-morrow, nayther, Mr. Bridshaw. It's Mrs. Lindsay that Miss Myrtle is +goin' to be,--an' a big cake there'll be at the weddin' frosted all +over,--won't ye be plased with a slice o' that, Mr. Bridshaw?" + +With these reflections in her mind, Mistress Kitty delivered her message, +not without a gleam of malicious intelligence in her look that stung Mr. +Bradshaw sharply. He had noticed a hat in the entry, and a little stick +by it which he remembered well as one he had seen carried by Clement +Lindsay. But he was used to concealing his emotions, and he greeted the +two older ladies who presently came into the library so pleasantly, that +no one who had not studied his face long and carefully would have +suspected the bitterness of heart that lay hidden far down beneath his +deceptive smile. He told Miss Silence, with much apparent interest, the +story of his journey. He gave her an account of the progress of the case +in which the estate of which she inherited the principal portion was +interested. He did not tell her that a final decision which would settle +the right to the great claim might be expected at any moment, and he did +not tell her that there was very little doubt that it would be in favor +of the heirs of Malachi Withers. He was very sorry he could not see Miss +Hazard that evening,--hoped he should be more fortunate to-morrow +forenoon, when he intended to call again,--had a message for her from one +of her former school friends, which he was anxious to give her. He +exchanged certain looks and hints with Miss Cynthia, which led her to +withdraw and bring down the papers he had entrusted to her. At the close +of his visit, she followed him into the entry with a lamp, as was her +common custom. + +"What's the meaning of all this, Cynthia? Is that fellow making love to +Myrtle?" + +"I'm afraid so, Mr. Bradshaw. He's been here several times, and they +seem to be getting intimate. I couldn't do anything to stop it." + +"Give me the papers,--quick!" + +Cynthia pulled the package from her pocket. Murray Bradshaw looked +sharply at it. A little crumpled,--crowded into her pocket. Seal +unbroken. All safe. + +"I shall come again to-morrow forenoon. Another day and it will be all +up. The decision of the court will be known. It won't be my fault if +one visit is not enough.--You don't suppose Myrtle is in love with this +fellow?" + +"She acts as--if she might be. You know he's broke with Susan Posey, and +there's nothing to hinder. If you ask my opinion, I think it's your last +chance: she is n't a girl to half do things, and if she has taken to this +man it will be hard to make her change her mind. But she's young, and +she has had a liking for you, and if you manage it well there's no +telling." + +Two notes passed between Myrtle Hazard and Master Byles Gridley that +evening. Mistress Kitty Fagan, who had kept her ears pretty wide open, +carried them. + +Murray Bradshaw went home in a very desperate state of feeling. He had +laid his plans, as he thought, with perfect skill, and the certainty of +their securing their end. These papers were to have been taken from the +envelope, and found in the garret just at the right moment, either by +Cynthia herself or one of the other members of the family, who was to be +led on, as it were accidentally, to the discovery. The right moment must +be close at hand. He was to offer his hand--and heart, of course--to +Myrtle, and it was to be accepted. As soon as the decision of the land +case was made known, or not long afterwards, there was to be a search in +the garret for papers, and these were to be discovered in a certain dusty +recess, where, of course, they would have been placed by Miss Cynthia. + +And now the one condition which gave any value to these arrangements +seemed like to fail. This obscure youth--this poor fool, who had been on +the point of marrying a simpleton to whom he had made a boyish +promise--was coming between him and the object of his long pursuit,--the +woman who had every attraction to draw him to herself. It had been a +matter of pride with Murray Bradshaw that he never lost his temper so as +to interfere with the precise course of action which his cool judgment +approved; but now he was almost beside himself with passion. His labors, +as he believed, had secured the favorable issue of the great case so long +pending. He had followed Myrtle through her whole career, if not as her +avowed lover, at least as one whose friendship promised to flower in love +in due season. The moment had come when the scene and the characters in +this village drama were to undergo a change as sudden and as brilliant as +is seen in those fairy spectacles where the dark background changes to a +golden palace and the sober dresses are replaced by robes of regal +splendor. The change was fast approaching; but he, the enchanter, as he +had thought himself, found his wand broken, and his power given to +another. + +He could not sleep during that night. He paced his room, a prey to +jealousy and envy and rage, which his calm temperament had kept him from +feeling in their intensity up to this miserable hour. He thought of all +that a maddened nature can imagine to deaden its own intolerable anguish. +Of revenge. If Myrtle rejected his suit, should he take her life on the +spot, that she might never be another's,--that neither man nor woman +should ever triumph over him,--the proud ambitious man, defeated, +humbled, scorned? No! that was a meanness of egotism which only the most +vulgar souls could be capable of. Should he challenge her lover? It was +not the way of the people and time, and ended in absurd complications, if +anybody was foolish enough to try it. Shoot him? The idea floated +through his mind, for he thought of everything; but he was a lawyer, and +not a fool, and had no idea of figuring in court as a criminal. Besides, +he was not a murderer,--cunning was his natural weapon, not violence. He +had a certain admiration of desperate crime in others, as showing nerve +and force, but he did not feel it to be his own style of doing business. + +During the night he made every arrangement for leaving the village the +next day, in case he failed to make any impression on Myrtle Hazard and +found that his chance was gone. He wrote a letter to his partner, +telling him that he had left to join one of the regiments forming in the +city. He adjusted all his business matters so that his partner should +find as little trouble as possible. A little before dawn he threw +himself on the bed, but he could not sleep; and he rose at sunrise, and +finished his preparations for his departure to the city. + +The morning dragged along slowly. He could not go to the office, not +wishing to meet his partner again. After breakfast he dressed himself +with great care, for he meant to show himself in the best possible +aspect. Just before he left the house to go to The Poplars, he took the +sealed package from his trunk, broke open the envelope, took from it a +single paper,--it had some spots on it which distinguished it from all +the rest,--put it separately in his pocket, and then the envelope +containing the other papers. The calm smile he wore on his features as +he set forth cost him a greater effort than he had ever made before to +put it on. He was moulding his face to the look with which he meant to +present himself; and the muscles had been sternly fixed so long that it +was a task to bring them to their habitual expression in company,--that +of ingenuous good-nature. + +He was shown into the parlor at The Poplars; and Kitty told Myrtle that +he had called and inquired for her and was waiting down stairs. + +"Tell him I will be down presently," she said. "And, Kitty, now mind +just what I tell you. Leave your kitchen door open, so that you can hear +anything fall in the parlor. If you hear a book fall,--it will be a +heavy one, and will make some noise,--run straight up here to my little +chamber, and hang this red scarf out of the window. The left-hand +side-sash, mind, so that anybody can see it from the road. If Mr. +Gridley calls, show him into the parlor, no matter who is there." + +Kitty Fagan looked amazingly intelligent, and promised that she would do +exactly as she was told. Myrtle followed her down stairs almost +immediately, and went into the parlor, where Mr. Bradshaw was waiting. + +Never in his calmest moments had he worn a more insinuating smile on his +features than that with which he now greeted Myrtle. So gentle, so +gracious, so full of trust, such a completely natural expression of a +kind, genial character did it seem, that to any but an expert it would +have appeared impossible that such an effect could be produced by the +skilful balancing of half a dozen pairs of little muscles that manage the +lips and the corners of the mouth. The tones of his voice were subdued +into accord with the look of his features; his whole manner was +fascinating, as far as any conscious effort could make it so. It was +just one of those artificially pleasing effects that so often pass with +such as have little experience of life for the genuine expression of +character and feeling. But Myrtle had learned the look that shapes +itself on the features of one who loves with a love that seeketh not its +own, and she knew the difference between acting and reality. She met his +insinuating approach with a courtesy so carefully ordered that it was of +itself a sentence without appeal. Artful persons often interpret sincere +ones by their own standard. Murray Bradshaw thought little of this +somewhat formal address,--a few minutes would break this thin film to +pieces. He was not only a suitor with a prize to gain, he was a +colloquial artist about to employ all the resources of his specialty. + +He introduced the conversation in the most natural and easy way, by +giving her the message from a former school-mate to which he had +referred, coloring it so delicately, as he delivered it, that it became +an innocent-looking flattery. Myrtle found herself in a rose-colored +atmosphere, not from Murray Bradshaw's admiration, as it seemed, but only +reflected by his mind from another source. That was one of his arts, +always, if possible, to associate himself incidentally, as it appeared, +and unavoidably, with an agreeable impression. + +So Myrtle was betrayed into smiling and being pleased before he had said +a word about himself or his affairs. Then he told her of the adventures +and labors of his late expedition; of certain evidence which at the very +last moment he had unearthed, and which was very probably the +turning-point in the case. He could not help feeling that she must +eventually reap some benefit from the good fortune with which his efforts +had been attended. The thought that it might yet be so had been a great +source of encouragement to him,--it would always be a great happiness to +him to remember that he had done anything to make her happy. + +Myrtle was very glad that he had been so far successful,--she did not +know that it made much difference to her, but she was obliged to him for +the desire of serving her that he had expressed. + +"My services are always yours, Miss Hazard. There is no sacrifice I +would not willingly make for your benefit. I have never had but one +feeling toward you. You cannot be ignorant of what that feeling is." + +"I know, Mr. Bradshaw, it has been one of kindness. I have to thank you +for many friendly attentions, for which I hope I have never been +ungrateful." + +"Kindness is not all that I feel towards you, Miss Hazard. If that were +all, my lips would not tremble as they do now in telling you my +feelings.--I love you." + +He sprang the great confession on Myrtle a little sooner than he had +meant. It was so hard to go on making phrases! Myrtle changed color a +little, for she was startled. + +The seemingly involuntary movement she made brought her arm against a +large dictionary, which lay very near the edge of the table on which it +was resting. The book fell with a loud noise to the floor. + +There it lay. The young man awaited her answer; he did not think of +polite forms at such a moment. + +"It cannot be, Mr. Bradshaw,--it must not be. I have known you long, and +I am not ignorant of all your brilliant qualities, but you must not speak +to me of love. Your regard,--your friendly interest, tell me that I +shall always have these, but do not distress me with offering more than +these." + +"I do not ask you to give me your love in return; I only ask you not to +bid me despair. Let me believe that the time may come' when you will +listen to me,--no matter how distant. You are young,--you have a tender +heart,--you would not doom one who only lives for you to +wretchedness,--so long that we have known each other. It cannot be that +any other has come between us--" + +Myrtle blushed so deeply that there was no need of his finishing his +question. + +"Do you mean, Myrtle Hazard, that you have cast me aside for +another?--for this stranger--this artist--who was with you yesterday when +I came, bringing with me the story of all I had done for you, yes, for +you,--and was ignominiously refused the privilege of seeing you?" Rage +and jealousy had got the better of him this time. He rose as he spoke, +and looked upon her with such passion kindling in his eyes that he seemed +ready for any desperate act. + +"I have thanked you for any services you may have rendered me, Mr. +Bradshaw," Myrtle answered, very calmly, "and I hope you will add one +more to them by sparing me this rude questioning. I wished to treat you +as a friend; I hope you will not render that impossible." + +He had recovered himself for one more last effort. "I was impatient +overlook it, I beg you. I was thinking of all the happiness I have +labored to secure for you, and of the ruin to us both it would be if you +scornfully rejected the love I offer you,--if you refuse to leave me any +hope for the future,--if you insist on throwing yourself away on this +man, so lately pledged to another. I hold the key of all your earthly +fortunes in my hand. My love for you inspired me in all that I have +done, and, now that I come to lay the result of my labors at your feet, +you turn from me, and offer my reward to a stranger. I do not ask you to +say this day that you will be mine,--I would not force your +inclinations,--but I do ask you that you will hold yourself free of all +others, and listen to me as one who may yet be more than a friend. Say +so much as this, Myrtle, and you shall have such a future as you never +dreamed of. Fortune, position, all that this world can give, shall be +yours." + +"Never! never! If you could offer me the whole world, or take away from +me all that the world can give, it would make no difference to me. I +cannot tell what power you hold over me, whether of life and death, or of +wealth and poverty; but after talking to me of love, I should not have +thought you would have wronged me by suggesting any meaner motive. It is +only because we have been on friendly terms so long that I have listened +to you as I have done. You have said more than enough, and I beg you +will allow me to put an end to this interview." + +She rose to leave the room. But Murray Bradshaw had gone too far to +control himself,--he listened only to the rage which blinded him. + +"Not yet!" he said. "Stay one moment, and you shall know what your pride +and self-will have cost you!" + +Myrtle stood, arrested, whether by fear, or curiosity, or the passive +subjection of her muscles to his imperious will, it would be hard to say. + +Murray Bradshaw took out the spotted paper from his breast-pocket, and +held it up before her. "Look here!" he exclaimed. "This would have made +you rich,--it would have crowned you a queen in society,--it would have +given you all, and more than all, that you ever dreamed of luxury, of +splendor, of enjoyment; and I, who won it for you, would have taught you +how to make life yield every bliss it had in store to your wishes. You +reject my offer unconditionally?" + +Myrtle expressed her negative only by a slight contemptuous movement. + +Murray Bradshaw walked deliberately to the fireplace, and laid the +spotted paper upon the burning coals. It writhed and curled, blackened, +flamed, and in a moment was a cinder dropping into ashes. He folded his +arms, and stood looking at the wreck of Myrtle's future, the work of his +cruel hand. Strangely enough, Myrtle herself was fascinated, as it were, +by the apparent solemnity of this mysterious sacrifice. She had kept her +eyes steadily on him all the time, and was still gazing at the altar on +which her happiness had been in some way offered up, when the door was +opened by Kitty Fagan, and Master Byles Gridley was ushered into the +parlor. + +"Too late, old man! "Murray Bradshaw exclaimed, in a hoarse and savage +voice, as he passed out of the room, and strode through the entry and +down the avenue. It was the last time the old gate of The Poplars was to +open or close for him. The same day he left the village; and the next +time his name was mentioned it was as an officer in one of the regiments +just raised and about marching to the seat of war. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +THE SPOTTED PAPER. + +What Master Gridley may have said to Myrtle Hazard that served to calm +her after this exciting scene cannot now be recalled. That Murray +Bradshaw thought he was inflicting a deadly injury on her was plain +enough. That Master Gridley did succeed in convincing her that no great +harm had probably been done her is equally certain. + +Like all bachelors who have lived a lonely life, Master Byles Gridley had +his habits, which nothing short of some terrestrial convulsion--or +perhaps, in his case, some instinct that drove him forth to help somebody +in trouble--could possibly derange. After his breakfast, he always sat +and read awhile,--the paper, if a new one came to hand, or some pleasant +old author,--if a little neglected by the world of readers, he felt more +at ease with him, and loved him all the better. + +But on the morning after his interview with Myrtle Hazard, he had +received a letter which made him forget newspapers, old authors, almost +everything, for the moment. It was from the publisher with whom he had +had a conversation, it may be remembered, when he visited the city, and +was to this effect: That Our Firm propose to print and stereotype the +work originally published under the title of "Thoughts on the Universe"; +said work to be remodelled according to the plan suggested by the Author, +with the corrections, alterations, omissions, and additions proposed by +him; said work to be published under the following title, to wit: +________ _________: said work to be printed in 12mo, on paper of good +quality, from new types, etc., etc., and for every copy thereof printed +the author to receive, etc., etc. + +Master Gridley sat as in a trance, reading this letter over and over, to +know if it could be really so. So it really was. His book had +disappeared from the market long ago, as the elm seeds that carpet the +ground and never germinate disappear. At last it had got a certain value +as a curiosity for book-hunters. Some one of them, keener-eyed than the +rest, had seen that there was a meaning and virtue in this unsuccessful +book, for which there was a new audience educated since it had tried to +breathe before its time. Out of this had grown at last the publisher's +proposal. It was too much: his heart swelled with joy, and his eyes +filled with tears. + +How could he resist the temptation? He took down his own particular copy +of the book, which was yet to do him honor as its parent, and began +reading. As his eye fell on one paragraph after another, he nodded +approval of this sentiment or opinion, he shook his head as if +questioning whether this other were not to be modified or left out, he +condemned a third as being no longer true for him as when it was written, +and he sanctioned a fourth with his hearty approval. The reader may like +a few specimens from this early edition, now a rarity. He shall have +them, with Master Gridley's verbal comments. The book, as its name +implied, contained "Thoughts" rather than consecutive trains of reasoning +or continuous disquisitions. What he read and remarked upon were a few +of the more pointed statements which stood out in the chapters he was +turning over. The worth of the book must not be judged by these almost +random specimens. + +"THE BEST THOUGHT, LIKE THE MOST PERFECT DIGESTION, IS DONE +UNCONSCIOUSLY.--Develop that.--Ideas at compound interest in the +mind.--Be aye sticking in an idea,--while you're sleeping it'll be +growing. Seed of a thought to-day,--flower to-morrow--next week--ten +years from now, etc.--Article by and by for the.... + +"CAN THE INFINITE BE SUPPOSED TO SHIFT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE ULTIMATE +DESTINY OF ANY CREATED THING TO THE FINITE? OUR THEOLOGIANS PRETEND THAT +IT CAN. I DOUBT.--Heretical. Stet. + +"PROTESTANTISM MEANS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. BUT IT IS AFRAID OF ITS OWN +LOGIC.--Stet. No logical resting-place short of None of your business. + +"THE SUPREME SELF-INDULGENCE IS TO SURRENDER THE WILL TO A SPIRITUAL +DIRECTOR.--Protestantism gave up a great luxury.--Did it though? + +"ASIATIC MODES OF THOUGHT AND SPEECH DO NOT EXPRESS THE 'RELATIONS IN +WHICH THE AMERICAN FEELS HIM SELF TO STAND TO HIS SUPERIORS IN THIS OR +ANY OTHER SPHERE OF BEING. REPUBLICANISM MUST HAVE ITS OWN RELIGIOUS +PHRASEOLOGY, WHICH IS NOT THAT BORROWED FROM ORIENTAL DESPOTISMS. + +"IDOLS AND DOGMAS IN PLACE OF CHARACTER; PILLS AND THEORIES IN PLACE OF +WHOLESOME LIVING. SEE THE HISTORIES OF THEOLOGY AND MEDICINE +PASSIM.--Hits 'em. + +"'OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.' DO YOU MEAN TO SAY JEAN CHAUVIN, +THAT + 'HEAVEN LIES ABOUT US IN OUR INFANCY'? + +"WHY DO YOU COMPLAIN OF YOUR ORGANIZATION? YOUR SOUL WAS IN A HURRY, AND +MADE A RUSH FOR A BODY. THERE ARE PATIENT SPIRITS THAT HAVE WAITED FROM +ETERNITY, AND NEVER FOUND PARENTS FIT TO BE BORN OF.--How do you know +anything about all that? Dele. + +"WHAT SWEET, SMOOTH VOICES THE NEGROES HAVE! A HUNDRED GENERATIONS FED +ON BANANAS.--COMPARE THEM WITH OUR APPLE-EATING WHITE FOLKS!--It won't +do. Bananas came from the West Indies. + +"TO TELL A MAN'S TEMPERAMENT BY HIS HANDWRITING. SEE IF THE DOTS OF HIS +I'S RUN AHEAD OR NOT, AND IF THEY DO, HOW FAR.--I have tried that--on +myself. + +"MARRYING INTO SOME FAMILIES IS THE NEXT THING TO BEING CANONIZED.--Not +so true now as twenty or thirty years ago. As many bladders, but more +pins. + +"FISH AND DANDIES ONLY KEEP ON ICE.--Who will take? Explain in note how +all warmth approaching blood heat spoils fops and flounders. + +"FLYING IS A LOST ART AMONG MEN AND REPTILES. BATS FLY, AND MEN OUGHT +TO. TRY A LIGHT TURBINE. RISE A MILE STRAIGHT, FALL HALF A MILE +SLANTING,--RISE HALF A MILE STRAIGHT, FALL HALF A MILE SLANTING, AND SO +ON. OR SLANT UP AND SLANT DOWN.--Poh! You ain't such a fool as to think +that is new,--are you? + +"Put in my telegraph project. Central station. Cables with insulated +wires running to it from different quarters of the city. These form the +centripetal system. From central station, wires to all the livery +stables, messenger stands, provision shops, etc., etc. These form the +centrifugal system. Any house may have a wire in the nearest cable at +small cost. + +"DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED AFTER THE CONTINENTS HAVE GONE UNDER, AND +COME UP AGAIN, AND DRIED, AND BRED NEW RACES? HAVE YOUR NAME STAMPED ON +ALL YOUR PLATES AND CUPS AND SAUCERS. NOTHING OF YOU OR YOURS WILL LAST +LIKE THOSE. I NEVER SIT DOWN AT MY TABLE WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE CHINA +SERVICE, AND SAYING, 'HERE ARE MY MONUMENTS. THAT BUTTER-DISH IS MY URN. +THIS SOUP-PLATE IS MY MEMORIAL TABLET.' NO NEED OF A SKELETON AT MY +BANQUETS! I FEED FROM MY TOMBSTONE AND READ MY EPITAPH AT THE BOTTOM OF +EVERY TEACUP.--Good." + +He fell into a revery as he finished reading this last sentence. He +thought of the dim and dread future,--all the changes that it would bring +to him, to all the living, to the face of the globe, to the order of +earthly things. He saw men of a new race, alien to all that had ever +lived, excavating with strange, vast engines the old ocean-bed now become +habitable land. And as the great scoops turned out the earth they had +fetched up from the unexplored depths, a relic of a former simple +civilization revealed the fact that here a tribe of human beings had +lived and perished.--Only the coffee-cup he had in his hand half an hour +ago.--Where would he be then? and Mrs. Hopkins, and Gifted, and Susan, +and everybody? and President Buchanan? and the Boston State-House? and +Broadway?--O Lord, Lord, Lord! And the sun perceptibly smaller, +according to the astronomers, and the earth cooled down a number of +degrees, and inconceivable arts practised by men of a type yet undreamed +of, and all the fighting creeds merged in one great universal-- + +A knock at his door interrupted his revery. Miss Susan Posey informed +him that a gentleman was waiting below who wished to see him. + +"Show him up to my study, Susan Posey, if you please," said Master +Gridley. + +Mr. Penhallow presented himself at Mr. Gridley's door with a countenance +expressive of a very high state of excitement. + +"You have heard the news, Mr. Gridley, I suppose?" + +"What news, Mr. Penhallow?" + +"First, that my partner has left very unexpectedly to enlist in a +regiment just forming. Second, that the great land case is decided in +favor of the heirs of the late Malachi Withers." + +"Your partner must have known about it yesterday?" + +"He did, even before I knew it. He thought himself possessed of a very +important document, as you know, of which he has made, or means to make, +some use. You are aware of the artifice I employed to prevent any +possible evil consequences from any action of his. I have the genuine +document, of course. I wish you to go over with me to The Poplars, and I +should be glad to have good old Father Pemberton go with us; for it is a +serious matter, and will be a great surprise to more than one of the +family." + +They walked together to the old house, where the old clergyman had lived +for more than half a century. He was used to being neglected by the +people who ran after his younger colleague; and the attention paid him in +asking him to be present on an important occasion, as he understood this +to be, pleased him greatly. He smoothed his long white locks, and called +a grand-daughter to help make him look fitly for such an occasion, and, +being at last got into his grandest Sunday aspect, took his faithful +staff, and set out with the two gentlemen for The Poplars. On the way, +Mr. Penhallow explained to him the occasion of their visit, and the +general character of the facts he had to announce. He wished the +venerable minister to prepare Miss Silence Withers for a revelation which +would materially change her future prospects. He thought it might be +well, also, if he would say a few words to Myrtle Hazard, for whom a new +life, with new and untried temptations, was about to open. His business +was, as a lawyer, to make known to these parties the facts just come to +his own knowledge affecting their interests. He had asked Mr. Gridley to +go with him, as having intimate relations with one of the parties +referred to, and as having been the principal agent in securing to that +party the advantages which were to accrue to her from the new turn of +events. "You are a second parent to her, Mr. Gridley," he said. "Your +vigilance, your shrewdness, and your-spectacles have saved her. I hope +she knows the full extent of her obligations to you, and that she will +always look to you for counsel in all her needs. She will want a wise +friend, for she is to begin the world anew." + +What had happened, when she saw the three grave gentlemen at the door +early in the forenoon, Mistress Kitty Fagan could not guess. Something +relating to Miss Myrtle, no doubt: she wasn't goin' to be married right +off to Mr. Clement,--was she,--and no church, nor cake, nor anything? +The gentlemen were shown into the parlor. "Ask Miss Withers to go into +the library, Kitty," said Master Gridley. "Dr. Pemberton wishes to speak +with her." The good old man was prepared for a scene with Miss Silence. +He announced to her, in a kind and delicate way, that she must make up +her mind to the disappointment of certain expectations which she had long +entertained, and which, as her lawyer, Mr. Penhallow, had come to inform +her and others, were to be finally relinquished from this hour. + +To his great surprise, Miss Silence received this communication almost +cheerfully. It seemed more like a relief to her than anything else. Her +one dread in this world was her "responsibility "; and the thought that +she might have to account for ten talents hereafter, instead of one, had +often of late been a positive distress to her. There was also in her mind +a secret disgust at the thought of the hungry creatures who would swarm +round her if she should ever be in a position to bestow patronage. This +had grown upon her as the habits of lonely life gave her more and more of +that fastidious dislike to males in general, as such, which is not rare +in maidens who have seen the roses of more summers than politeness cares +to mention. + +Father Pemberton then asked if he could see Miss Myrtle Hazard a few +moments in the library before they went into the parlor, where they were +to meet Mr. Penhallow and Mr. Gridley, for the purpose of receiving the +lawyer's communication. + +What change was this which Myrtle had undergone since love had touched +her heart, and her visions of worldly enjoyment had faded before the +thought of sharing and ennobling the life of one who was worthy of her +best affections,--of living for another, and of finding her own noblest +self in that divine office of woman? She had laid aside the bracelet +which she had so long worn as a kind of charm as well as an ornament. +One would have said her features had lost something of that look of +imperious beauty which had added to her resemblance to the dead woman +whose glowing portrait hung upon her wall. And if it could be that, +after so many generations, the blood of her who had died for her faith +could show in her descendants veins, and the soul of that elect lady of +her race look out from her far-removed offspring's dark eyes, such a +transfusion of the martyr's life and spiritual being might well seem to +manifest itself in Myrtle Hazard. + +The large-hearted old man forgot his scholastic theory of human nature as +he looked upon her face. He thought he saw in her the dawning of that +grace which some are born with; which some, like Myrtle, only reach +through many trials and dangers; which some seem to show for a while and +then lose; which too many never reach while they wear the robes of earth, +but which speaks of the kingdom of heaven already begun in the heart of a +child of earth. He told her simply the story of the occurrences which +had brought them together in the old house, with the message the lawyer +was to deliver to its inmates. He wished to prepare her for what might +have been too sudden a surprise. + +But Myrtle was not wholly unprepared for some such revelation. There was +little danger that any such announcement would throw her mind from its +balance after the inward conflict through which she had been passing. +For her lover had left her almost as soon as he had told her the story of +his passion, and the relation in which he stood to her. He, too, had +gone to answer his country's call to her children, not driven away by +crime and shame and despair, but quitting all--his new-born happiness, +the art in which he was an enthusiast, his prospects of success and +honor--to obey the higher command of duty. War was to him, as to so many +of the noble youth who went forth, only organized barbarism, hateful but +for the sacred cause which alone redeemed it from the curse that blasted +the first murderer. God only knew the sacrifice such young men as he +made. + +How brief Myrtle's dream had been! She almost doubted, at some moments, +whether she would not awake from it, as from her other visions, and find +it all unreal. There was no need of fearing any undue excitement of her +mind after the alternations of feeling she had just experienced. Nothing +seemed of much moment to her which could come from without,--her real +world was within, and the light of its day and the breath of its life +came from her love, made holy by the self-forgetfulness on both sides +which was born with it. + +Only one member of the household was in danger of finding the excitement +more than she could bear. Miss Cynthia knew that all Murray Bradshaw's +plans, in which he had taken care that she should have a personal +interest, had utterly failed. What he had done with the means of revenge +in his power,--if, indeed, they were still in his power,--she did not +know. She only knew that there had been a terrible scene, and that he +had gone, leaving it uncertain whether he would ever return. It was with +fear and trembling that she heard the summons which went forth, that the +whole family should meet in the parlor to listen to a statement from Mr. +Penhallow. They all gathered as requested, and sat round the room, with +the exception of Mistress Kitty Fagan, who knew her place too well to be +sittin' down with the likes o' them, and stood with attentive ears in the +doorway. + +Mr. Penhallow then read from a printed paper the decision of the Supreme +Court in the land case so long pending, where the estate of the late +Malachi Withers was the claimant, against certain parties pretending to +hold under an ancient grant. The decision was in favor of the estate. + +"This gives a great property to the heirs," Mr. Penhallow remarked, "and +the question as to who these heirs are has to be opened. For the will +under which Silence Withers, sister of the deceased, has inherited is +dated some years previous to the decease, and it was not very strange +that a will of later date should be discovered. Such a will has been +discovered. It is the instrument I have here." + +Myrtle Hazard opened her eyes very widely, for the paper Mr. Penlallow +held looked exactly like that which Murray Bradshaw had burned, and, what +was curious, had some spots on it just like some she had noticed on that. + +"This will," Mr. Penhallow said, "signed by witnesses dead or absent from +this place, makes a disposition of the testator's property in some +respects similar to that of the previous one, but with a single change, +which proves to be of very great importance." + +Mr. Penhallow proceeded to read the will. The important change in the +disposition of the property was this: in case the land claim was decided +in favor of the estate, then, in addition to the small provision made for +Myrtle Hazard, the property so coming to the estate should all go to her. +There was no question about the genuineness and the legal sufficiency of +this instrument. Its date was not very long after the preceding one, at +a period when, as was well known, he had almost given up the hope of +gaining his case, and when the property was of little value compared to +that which it had at present. + +A long silence followed this reading. Then, to the surprise of all, Miss +Silence Withers rose, and went to Myrtle Hazard, and wished her joy with +every appearance of sincerity. She was relieved of a great +responsibility. Myrtle was young and could bear it better. She hoped +that her young relative would live long to enjoy the blessings Providence +had bestowed upon her, and to use them for the good of the community, and +especially the promotion of the education of deserving youth. If some +fitting person could be found to advise Myrtle, whose affairs would +require much care, it would be a great relief to her. + +They all went up to Myrtle and congratulated her on her change of +fortune. Even Cynthia Badlam got out a phrase or two which passed muster +in the midst of the general excitement. As for Kitty Fagan, she could +not say a word, but caught Myrtle's hand and kissed it as if it belonged +to her own saint; and then, suddenly applying her apron to her eyes, +retreated from a scene which was too much for her, in a state of complete +mental beatitude and total bodily discomfiture. + +Then Silence asked the old minister to make a prayer, and he stretched +his hands up to Heaven, and called down all the blessings of Providence +upon all the household, and especially upon this young handmaiden, who +was to be tried with prosperity, and would need all aid from above to +keep her from its dangers. + +Then Mr. Penhallow asked Myrtle if she had any choice as to the friend +who should have charge of her affairs. Myrtle turned to Master Byles +Gridley, and said, "You have been my friend and protector so far, will +you continue to be so hereafter?" + +Master Gridley tried very hard to begin a few words of thanks to her for +her preference, but finding his voice a little uncertain, contented +himself with pressing her hand and saying, "Most willingly, my dear +daughter!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + + + +CONCLUSION. + +The same day the great news of Myrtle Hazard's accession to fortune came +out, the secret was told that she had promised herself in marriage to Mr. +Clement Lindsay. But her friends hardly knew how to congratulate her on +this last event. Her lover was gone, to risk his life, not improbably to +lose it, or to come home a wreck, crippled by wounds, or worn out with +disease. + +Some of them wondered to see her so cheerful in such a moment of trial. +They could not know how the manly strength of Clement's determination had +nerved her for womanly endurance. They had not learned that a great +cause makes great souls, or reveals them to themselves,--a lesson taught +by so many noble examples in the times that followed. Myrtle's only +desire seemed to be to labor in some way to help the soldiers and their +families. She appeared to have forgotten everything for this duty; she +had no time for regrets, if she were disposed to indulge them, and she +hardly asked a question as to the extent of the fortune which had fallen +to her. + +The next number of the "Banner and Oracle" contained two announcements +which she read with some interest when her attention was called to them. +They were as follows: + +"A fair and accomplished daughter of this village comes, by the late +decision of the Supreme Court, into possession of a property estimated at +a million of dollars or more. It consists of a large tract of land +purchased many years ago by the late Malachi Withers, now become of +immense value by the growth of a city in its neighborhood, the opening of +mines, etc., etc. It is rumored that the lovely and highly educated +heiress has formed a connection looking towards matrimony with a certain +distinguished artist." + +"Our distinguished young townsman, William Murray Bradshaw, Esq., has +been among the first to respond to the call of the country for champions +to defend her from traitors. We understand that he has obtained a +captaincy in the __th regiment, about to march to the threatened seat of +war. May victory perch on his banners!" + +The two lovers, parted by their own self-sacrificing choice in the very +hour that promised to bring them so much happiness, labored for the +common cause during all the terrible years of warfare, one in the camp +and the field, the other in the not less needful work which the good +women carried on at home, or wherever their services were needed. +Clement--now Captain Lindsay--returned at the end of his first campaign +charged with a special office. Some months later, after one of the great +battles, he was sent home wounded. He wore the leaf on his shoulder +which entitled him to be called Major Lindsay. He recovered from his +wound only too rapidly, for Myrtle had visited him daily in the military +hospital where he had resided for treatment; and it was bitter parting. +The telegraph wires were thrilling almost hourly with messages of death, +and the long pine boxes came by almost every train,--no need of asking +what they held. + +Once more he came, detailed on special duty, and this time with the eagle +on his shoulder,--he was Colonel Lindsay. The lovers could not part +again of their own free will. Some adventurous women had followed their +husbands to the camp, and Myrtle looked as if she could play the part of +the Maid of Saragossa on occasion. So Clement asked her if she would +return with him as his wife; and Myrtle answered, with as much +willingness to submit as a maiden might fairly show under such +circumstances, that she would do his bidding. Thereupon, with the +shortest possible legal notice, Father Pemberton was sent for, and the +ceremony was performed in the presence of a few witnesses in the large +parlor at The Poplars, which was adorned with flowers, and hung round +with all the portraits of the dead members of the family, summoned as +witnesses to the celebration. One witness looked on with unmoved +features, yet Myrtle thought there was a more heavenly smile on her faded +lips than she had ever seen before beaming from the canvas,--it was Ann +Holyoake, the martyr to her faith, the guardian spirit of Myrtle's +visions, who seemed to breathe a holier benediction than any words--even +those of the good old Father Pemberton himself--could convey. + +They went back together to the camp. From that period until the end of +the war, Myrtle passed her time between the life of the tent and that of +the hospital. In the offices of mercy which she performed for the sick +and the wounded and the dying, the dross of her nature seemed to be +burned away. The conflict of mingled lives in her blood had ceased. No +lawless impulses usurped the place of that serene resolve which had grown +strong by every exercise of its high prerogative. If she had been called +now to die for any worthy cause, her race would have been ennobled by a +second martyr, true to the blood of her who died under the cruel Queen. + +Many sad sights she saw in the great hospital where she passed some +months at intervals,--one never to be forgotten. An officer was brought +into the ward where she was in attendance. "Shot through the +lungs,--pretty nearly gone." + +She went softly to his bedside. He was breathing with great difficulty; +his face was almost convulsed with the effort, but she recognized him in +a moment; it was Murray Bradshaw,--Captain Bradshaw, as she knew by the +bars on his coat flung upon the bed where he had just been laid. + +She addressed him by name, tenderly as if he had been a dear brother; she +saw on his face that hers were to be the last kind words he would ever +hear. + +He turned his glazing eyes upon her. "Who are you?" he said in a feeble +voice. + +"An old friend," she answered; "you knew me as Myrtle Hazard." + +He started. "You by my bedside! You caring for me!--for me, that burned +the title to your fortune to ashes before your eyes! You can't forgive +that,--I won't believe it! Don't you hate me, dying as I am?" + +Myrtle was used to maintaining a perfect calmness of voice and +countenance, and she held her feelings firmly down. "I have nothing to +forgive you, Mr. Bradshaw. You may have meant to do me wrong, but +Providence raised up a protector for me. The paper you burned was not +the original,--it was a copy substituted for it--" + +"And did the old man outwit me after all?" he cried out, rising suddenly +in bed, and clasping his hands behind his head to give him a few more +gasps of breath. "I knew he was cunning, but I thought I was his match. +It must have been Byles Gridley,--nobody else. And so the old man beat +me after all, and saved you from ruin! Thank God that it came out so! +Thank God! I can die now. Give me your hand, Myrtle." + +She took his hand, and held it until it gently loosed its hold, and he +ceased to breathe. Myrtle's creed was a simple one, with more of trust +and love in it than of systematized articles of belief. She cherished +the fond hope that these last words of one who had erred so miserably +were a token of some blessed change which the influences of the better +world might carry onward until he should have outgrown the sins and the +weaknesses of his earthly career. + +Soon after this she rejoined her husband in the camp. From time to time +they received stray copies of the "Banner and Oracle," which, to Myrtle +especially, were full of interest, even to the last advertisement. A few +paragraphs may be reproduced here which relate to persons who have +figured in this narrative. + + "TEMPLE OF HYMEN. + +"Married, on the 6th instant, Fordyce Hurlbut, M. D., to Olive, only +daughter of the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth. The editor of this paper returns +his acknowledgments for a bountiful slice of the wedding-cake. May their +shadows never be less!" + +Not many weeks after this appeared the following: + +"Died in this place, on the 28th instant, the venerable Lemuel Hurlbut, +M. D., at the great age of XCVI years. + +"'With the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days understanding.'" + +Myrtle recalled his kind care of her in her illness, and paid the tribute +of a sigh to his memory,--there was nothing in a death like his to call +for any aching regret. + +The usual routine of small occurrences was duly recorded in the village +paper for some weeks longer, when she was startled and shocked by +receiving a number containing the following paragraph: + + CALAMITOUS ACCIDENT + +"It is known to our readers that the steeple of the old meeting-house was +struck by lightning about a month ago. The frame of the building was a +good deal jarred by the shock, but no danger was apprehended from the +injury it had received. On Sunday last the congregation came together as +usual. The Rev. Mr. Stoker was alone m the pulpit, the Rev. Doctor +Pemberton having been detained by slight indisposition. The sermon was +from the text, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard +shall lie down with the kid." (Isaiah xi. 6.) The pastor described the +millennium as--the reign of love and peace, in eloquent and impressive +language. He was in the midst of the prayer which follows the sermon, +and had jest put up a petition that the spirit of affection and faith and +trust might grow up and prevail among the flock of which he was the +shepherd, more especially those dear lambs whom he gathered with his arm, +and carried in his bosom, when the old sounding-board, which had hung +safely for nearly a century,--loosened, no doubt by the bolt which had +fallen on the church,--broke from its fastenings, and fell with a loud +crash upon the pulpit, crushing the Rev. Mr. Stoker under its ruins. The +scene that followed beggars description. Cries and shrieks resounded +through the horse. Two or three young women fainted entirely away. Mr. +Penhallow, Deacon Rumrill, Gifted Hopkins, Esq., and others, came forward +immediately, and after much effort succeeded in removing the wreck of the +sounding-board, and extricating their unfortunate pastor. He was not +fatally injured, it is hoped; but, sad to relate, he received such a +violent blow upon the spine of the back, that palsy of the lower +extremities is like to ensue. He is at present lying entirely helpless. +Every attention is paid to him by his affectionately devoted family." + +Myrtle had hardly got over the pain which the reading of this unfortunate +occurrence gave her, when her eyes were gladdened by the following +pleasing piece of intelligence, contained in a subsequent number of the +village paper: + + IMPOSING CEREMONY. + +"The Reverend Doctor Pemberton performed the impressive rite of baptism +upon the first-born child of our distinguished townsman, Gifted Hopkins, +Esq., the Bard of Oxbow Village, and Mrs. Susan P. Hopkins, his amiable +and respected lady. The babe conducted himself with singular propriety +on this occasion. He received the Christian name of Byron Tennyson +Browning. May be prove worthy of his name and his parentage!" + +The end of the war came at last, and found Colonel Lindsay among its +unharmed survivors. He returned with Myrtle to her native village, and +they established themselves, at the request of Miss Silence Withers, in +the old family mansion. Miss Cynthia, to whom Myrtle made a generous +allowance, had gone to live in a town not many miles distant, where she +had a kind of home on sufferance, as well as at The Poplars. This was a +convenience just then, because Nurse Byloe was invited to stay with them +for a month or two; and one nurse and two single women under the same +roof keep each other in a stew all the time, as the old dame somewhat +sharply remarked. + +Master Byles Gridley had been appointed Myrtle's legal protector, and, +with the assistance of Mr. Penhallow, had brought the property she +inherited into a more manageable and productive form; so that, when +Clement began his fine studio behind the old mansion, he felt that at +least he could pursue his art, or arts, if he chose to give himself to +sculpture, without that dreadful hag, Necessity, standing by him to pinch +the features of all his ideals, and give them something of her own +likeness. + +Silence Withers was more cheerful now that she had got rid of her +responsibility. She embellished her spare person a little more than in +former years. These young people looked so happy! Love was not so +unendurable, perhaps, after all. No woman need despair,--especially if +she has a house over her, and a snug little property. A worthy man, a +former missionary, of the best principles, but of a slightly jocose and +good-humored habit, thought that he could piece his widowed years with +the not insignificant, fraction of life left to Miss Silence, to their +mutual advantage. He came to the village, therefore, where Father +Pemberton was very glad to have him supply the pulpit in the place of his +unfortunate disabled colleague. The courtship soon began, and was brisk +enough; for the good man knew there was no time to lose at his period of +life,--or hers either, for that matter. It was a rather odd specimen of +love-making; for he was constantly trying to subdue his features to a +gravity which they were not used to, and she was as constantly +endeavoring to be as lively as possible, with the innocent desire of +pleasing her light-hearted suitor. + +"Vieille fille fait jeune mariee." Silence was ten years younger as a +bride than she had seemed as a lone woman. One would have said she had +got out of the coach next to the hearse, and got into one some half a +dozen behind it,--where there is often good and reasonably cheerful +conversation going on about the virtues of the deceased, the probable +amount of his property, or the little slips he may have committed, and +where occasionally a subdued pleasantry at his expense sets the four +waistcoats shaking that were lifting with sighs a half-hour ago in the +house of mourning. But Miss Silence, that was, thought that two +families, with all the possible complications which time might bring, +would be better in separate establishments. She therefore proposed +selling The Poplars to Myrtle and her husband, and removing to a house in +the village, which would be large enough for them, at least for the +present. So the young folks bought the old house, and paid a mighty good +price for it; and enlarged it, and beautified and glorified it, and one +fine morning went together down to the Widow Hopkins's, whose residence +seemed in danger of being a little crowded,--for Gifted lived there with +his Susan,--and what had happened might happen again,--and gave Master +Byles Gridley a formal and most persuasively worded invitation to come up +and make his home with them at The Poplars. + +Now Master Gridley has been betrayed into palpable and undisguised +weakness at least once in the presence of this assembly, who are looking +upon him almost for the last time before they part from him, and see his +face no more. Let us not inquire too curiously, then, how he received +this kind proposition. It is enough, that, when he found that a new +study had been built on purpose for him, and a sleeping-room attached to +it so that he could live there without disturbing anybody if he chose, he +consented to remove there for a while, and that he was there established +amidst great rejoicing. + +Cynthia Badlam had fallen of late into poor health. She found at last +that she was going; and as she had a little property of her own,--as +almost all poor relations have, only there is not enough of it,--she was +much exercised in her mind as to the final arrangements to be made +respecting its disposition. The Rev. Dr. Pemberton was one day surprised +by a message, that she wished to have an interview with him. He rode +over to the town in which she was residing, and there had a long +conversation with her upon this matter. When this was settled, her mind +seemed too be more at ease. She died with a comfortable assurance that +she was going to a better world, and with a bitter conviction that it +would be hard to find one that would offer her a worse lot than being a +poor relation in this. + +Her little property was left to Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton and Jacob +Penhallow, Esq., to be by them employed for such charitable purposes as +they should elect, educational or other. Father Pemberton preached an +admirable funeral sermon, in which he praised her virtues, known to this +people among whom she had long lived, and especially that crowning act by +which she devoted all she had to purposes of charity-and benevolence. + +The old clergyman seemed to have renewed his youth since the misfortune +of his colleague had incapacitated him from labor. He generally preached +in the forenoon now, and to the great acceptance of the people,--for the +truth was that the honest minister who had married Miss Silence was not +young enough or good-looking enough to be an object of personal +attentions like the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker, and the old minister +appeared to great advantage contrasted with him in the pulpit. Poor Mr. +Stoker was now helpless, faithfully and tenderly waited upon by his own +wife, who had regained her health and strength,--in no small measure, +perhaps, from the great need of sympathy and active aid which her +unfortunate husband now experienced. It was an astonishment to herself +when she found that she who had so long been served was able to serve +another. Some who knew his errors thought his accident was a judgment; +but others believed that it was only a mercy in disguise,--it snatched +him roughly from his sin, but it opened his heart to gratitude towards +her whom his neglect could not alienate, and through gratitude to +repentance and better thoughts. Bathsheba had long ago promised herself +to Cyprian Eveleth; and, as he was about to become the rector of a parish +in the next town, the marriage was soon to take place. + +How beautifully serene Master Byles Gridley's face was growing! Clement +loved to study its grand lines, which had so much strength and fine +humanity blended in them. He was so fascinated by their noble expression +that he sometimes seemed to forget himself, and looked at him more like +an artist taking his portrait than like an admiring friend. He +maintained that Master Gridley had a bigger bump of benevolence and as +large a one of cautiousness as the two people most famous for the size of +these organs on the phrenological chart he showed him, and proved it, or +nearly proved it, by careful measurements of his head. Master Gridley +laughed, and read him a passage on the pseudo-sciences out of his book. + +The disposal of Miss Cynthia's bequest was much discussed in the village. +Some wished the trustees would use it to lay the foundations of a public +library. Others thought it should be applied for the relief of the +families of soldiers who had fallen in the war. Still another set would +take it to build a monument to the memory of those heroes. The trustees +listened with the greatest candor to all these gratuitous hints. It was, +however, suggested, in a well-written anonymous article which appeared in +the village paper, that it was desirable to follow the general lead of +the testator's apparent preference. The trustees were at liberty to do +as they saw fit; but, other things being equal, same educational object +should be selected. + +If there were any orphan children in the place, it would seem to be very +proper to devote the moderate sum bequeathed to educating them. The +trustees recognized the justice of this suggestion. Why not apply it to +the instruction and maintenance of those two pretty and promising +children, virtually orphans, whom the charitable Mrs. Hopkins had cared +for so long without any recompense, and at a cost which would soon become +beyond her means? The good people of the neighborhood accepted this as +the best solution of the difficulty. It was agreed upon at length by the +trustees, that the Cynthia Badlam Fund for Educational Purposes should be +applied for the benefit of the two foundlings, known as Isosceles and +Helminthia Hopkins. + +Master Bytes Gridley was greatly exercised about the two "preposterous +names," as he called them, which in a moment of eccentric impulse he had +given to these children of nature. He ventured to hint as much to Mrs. +Hopkins. The good dame was vastly surprised. She thought they was about +as pooty names as anybody had had given 'em in the village. And they was +so handy, spoke short, Sossy and Minthy,--she never should know how to +call 'em anything else. + +"But my dear Mrs. Hopkins," Master Gridley urged, "if you knew the +meaning they have to the ears of scholars, you would see that I did very +wrong to apply such absurd names to my little fellow-creatures, and that +I am bound to rectify my error. More than that, my dear madam, I mean to +consult you as to the new names; and if we can fix upon proper and +pleasing ones, it is my intention to leave a pretty legacy in my will to +these interesting children." + +"Mr. Gridley," said Mrs. Hopkins, "you're the best man I ever see, or +ever shall see, . . . except my poor dear Ammi . . . . I 'll do +jest as you say about that, or about anything else in all this livin' +world." + +"Well, then, Mrs. Hopkins, what shall be the boy's name?" + +"Byles Gridley Hopkins!" she answered instantly. + +"Good Lord!" said Mr. Gridley, "think a minute, my dear madam. I will +not say one word,--only think a minute, and mention some name that will +not suggest quite so many winks and whispers." + +She did think something less than a minute, and then said aloud, "Abraham +Lincoln Hopkins." + +"Fifteen thousand children have been so christened during the past year, +on a moderate computation." + +"Do think of some name yourself, Mr. Gridley; I shall like anything that +you like. To think of those dear babes having a fund--if that's the +right name--on purpose for 'em, and a promise of a legacy, I hope they +won't get that till they're a hundred year old!" + +"What if we change Isosceles to Theodore, Mrs. Hopkins? That means the +gift of God, and the child has been a gift from Heaven, rather than a +burden." + +Mrs. Hopkins seized her apron, and held it to her eyes. She was weeping. +"Theodore!" she said, "Theodore! My little brother's name, that I buried +when I was only eleven year old. Drownded. The dearest little child +that ever you see. I have got his little mug with Theodore on it now. +Kep' o' purpose. Our little Sossy shall have it. Theodore P. +Hopkins,--sha'n't it be, Mr. Gridley?" + +"Well, if you say so; but why that P., Mrs. Hopkins? Theodore Parker, is +it?" + +"Doesn't P. stand for Pemberton, and isn't Father Pemberton the best man +in the world--next to you, Mr. Gridley?" + +"Well, well, Mrs. Hopkins, let it be so, if you are suited, I am. Now +about Helminthia; there can't be any doubt about what we ought to call +her,--surely the friend of orphans should be remembered in naming one of +the objects of her charity." + +"Cynthia Badlam Fund Hopkins," said the good woman triumphantly,--"is +that what you mean?" + +"Suppose we leave out one of the names,--four are too many. I think the +general opinion will be that Hehninthia should unite the names of her two +benefactresses,--Cynthia Badlam Hopkins." + +"Why, law! Mr. Gridley, is n't that nice?--Minthy and Cynthy,--there +ain't but one letter of difference! Poor Cynthy would be pleased if she +could know that one of our babes was to be called after her. She was +dreadful fond of children." + +On one of the sweetest Sundays that ever made Oxbow Village lovely, the +Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Pembertan was summoned to officiate at three most +interesting ceremonies,--a wedding and two christenings, one of the +latter a double one. + +The first was celebrated at the house of the Rev. Mr. Stoker, between the +Rev. Cyprian Eveleth and Bathsheba, daughter of the first-named +clergyman. He could not be present on account of his great infirmity, +but the door of his chamber was left open that he might hear the marriage +service performed. The old, white-haired minister, assisted, as the +papers said, by the bridegroom's father, conducted the ceremony according +to the Episcopal form. When he came to those solemn words in which the +husband promises fidelity to the wife so long as they both shall live, +the nurse, who was watching, near the poor father, saw him bury his face +in his pillow, and heard him murmur the words, "God be merciful to me a +sinner!" + +The christenings were both to take place at the same service, in the old +meeting-house. Colonel Clement Lindsay and Myrtle his wife came in, and +stout Nurse Byloe bore their sturdy infant in her arms. A slip of paper +was handed to the Reverend Doctor on which these words were +written:--"The name is Charles Hazard." + +The solemn and touching rite was then performed; and Nurse Byloe +disappeared with the child, its forehead glistening with the dew of its +consecration. + +Then, hand in hand, like the babes in the wood, marched up the broad +aisle--marshalled by Mrs. Hopkins in front, and Mrs. Gifted Hopkins +bringing up the rear--the two children hitherto known as Isosceles and +Helminthia. They had been well schooled, and, as the mysterious and to +them incomprehensible ceremony was enacted, maintained the most stoical +aspect of tranquillity. In Mrs. Hopkins's words, "They looked like +picters, and behaved like angels." + +That evening, Sunday evening as it was, there was a quiet meeting of some +few friends at The Poplars. It was such a great occasion that the +Sabbatical rules, never strict about Sunday evening,--which was, strictly +speaking, secular time,--were relaxed. Father Pemberton was there, and +Master Byles Gridley, of course, and the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth, with his +son and his daughter-in-law, Bathsheba, and her mother, now in +comfortable health, aunt Silence and her husband, Doctor Hurlbut and his +wife (Olive Eveleth that was), Jacob Penhallow, Esq., Mrs. Hopkins, her +son and his wife (Susan Posey that was), the senior deacon of the old +church (the admirer of the great Scott), the Editor-in-chief of the +"Banner and Oracle," and in the background Nurse Byloe and the privileged +servant, Mistress Kitty Fagan, with a few others whose names we need not +mention. + +The evening was made pleasant with sacred music, and the fatigues of two +long services repaired by such simple refections as would not turn the +holy day into a day of labor. A large paper copy of the new edition of +Byles Gridley's remarkable work was lying on the table. He never looked +so happy,--could anything fill his cup fuller? In the course of the +evening Clement spoke of the many trials through which they had passed in +common with vast numbers of their countrymen, and some of those peculiar +dangers which Myrtle had had to encounter in the course of a life more +eventful, and attended with more risks, perhaps, than most of them +imagined. But Myrtle, he said, had always been specially cared for. He +wished them to look upon the semblance of that protecting spirit who had +been faithful to her in her gravest hours of trial and danger. If they +would follow him into one of the lesser apartments up stairs they would +have an opportunity to do so. + +Myrtle wondered a little, but followed with the rest. They all ascended +to the little projecting chamber, through the window of which her scarlet +jacket caught the eyes of the boys paddling about on the river in those +early days when Cyprian Eveleth gave it the name of the Fire-hang-bird's +Nest. + +The light fell softly but clearly on the dim and faded canvas from which +looked the saintly features of the martyred woman, whose continued +presence with her descendants was the old family legend. But underneath +it Myrtle was surprised to see a small table with some closely covered +object upon it. It was a mysterious arrangement, made without any +knowledge on her part. + +"Now, then, Kitty!" Mr. Lindsay said. + +Kitty Fagan, who had evidently been taught her part, stepped forward, and +removed the cloth which concealed the unknown object. It was a lifelike +marble bust of Master Byles Gridley. + +"And this is what you have been working at so long,--is it, Clement?" +Myrtle said. + +"Which is the image of your protector, Myrtle?", he answered, smiling. + +Myrtle Hazard Lindsay walked up to the bust and kissed its marble +forehead, saying, "This is the face of my Guardian Angel." forehead, +saying, "This is the face of my Guardian Angel." + + + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY + +By Oliver Wendell Holmes + + + +PREFACE. + + +"A MORTAL ANTIPATHY" was a truly hazardous experiment. A very wise and +very distinguished physician who is as much at home in literature as he +is in science and the practice of medicine, wrote to me in referring to +this story: "I should have been afraid of my subject." He did not explain +himself, but I can easily understand that he felt the improbability of +the, physiological or pathological occurrence on which the story is +founded to be so great that the narrative could hardly be rendered +plausible. I felt the difficulty for myself as well as for my readers, +and it was only by recalling for our consideration a series of +extraordinary but well-authenticated facts of somewhat similar character +that I could hope to gain any serious attention to so strange a +narrative. + +I need not recur to these wonderful stories. There is, however, one, not +to be found on record elsewhere, to which I would especially call the +reader's attention. It is that of the middle-aged man, who assured me +that he could never pass a tall hall clock without an indefinable terror. +While an infant in arms the heavy weight of one of these tall clocks had +fallen with aloud crash and produced an impression on his nervous system +which he had never got over. + +The lasting effect of a shock received by the sense of sight or that of +hearing is conceivable enough. + +But there is another sense, the nerves of which are in close relation +with the higher organs of consciousness. The strength of the +associations connected with the function of the first pair of nerves, the +olfactory, is familiar to most persons in their own experience and as +related by others. Now we know that every human being, as well as every +other living organism, carries its own distinguishing atmosphere. If a +man's friend does not know it, his dog does, and can track him anywhere +by it. This personal peculiarity varies with the age and conditions of +the individual. It may be agreeable or otherwise, a source of attraction +or repulsion, but its influence is not less real, though far less obvious +and less dominant, than in the lower animals. It was an atmospheric +impression of this nature which associated itself with a terrible shock +experienced by the infant which became the subject of this story. The +impression could not be outgrown, but it might possibly be broken up by +some sudden change in the nervous system effected by a cause as potent as +the one which had produced the disordered condition. + +This is the best key that I can furnish to a story which must have +puzzled some, repelled others, and failed to interest many who did not +suspect the true cause of the mysterious antipathy. + +BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August, 1891. +O. W. H. + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. + +FIRST OPENING OF THE NEW PORTFOLIO. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +"And why the New Portfolio, I would ask?" + +Pray, do you remember, when there was an accession to the nursery in +which you have a special interest, whether the new-comer was commonly +spoken of as a baby? Was it not, on the contrary, invariably, under all +conditions, in all companies, by the whole household, spoken of as the +baby? And was the small receptacle provided for it commonly spoken of as +a cradle; or was it not always called the cradle, as if there were no +other in existence? + +Now this New Portfolio is the cradle in which I am to rock my new-born +thoughts, and from which I am to lift them carefully and show them to +callers, namely, to the whole family of readers belonging to my list of +intimates, and such other friends as may drop in by accident. And so it +shall have the definite article, and not be lost in the mob of its +fellows as a portfolio. + +There are a few personal and incidental matters of which I wish to say +something before reaching the contents of the Portfolio, whatever these +may be. I have had other portfolios before this,--two, more especially, +and the first thing I beg leave to introduce relates to these. + +Do not throw this volume down, or turn to another page, when I tell you +that the earliest of them, that of which I now am about to speak, was +opened more than fifty years ago. This is a very dangerous confession, +for fifty years make everything hopelessly old-fashioned, without giving +it the charm of real antiquity. If I could say a hundred years, now, my +readers would accept all I had to tell them with a curious interest; but +fifty years ago,--there are too many talkative old people who know all +about that time, and at best half a century is a half-baked bit of ware. +A coin-fancier would say that your fifty-year-old facts have just enough +of antiquity to spot them with rust, and not enough to give them--the +delicate and durable patina which is time's exquisite enamel. + +When the first Portfolio was opened the coin of the realm bore for its +legend,--or might have borne if the more devout hero-worshippers could +have had their way,--Andreas Jackson, Populi Gratia, Imp. Caesar. Aug. +Div., Max., etc., etc. I never happened to see any gold or silver with +that legend, but the truth is I was not very familiarly acquainted with +the precious metals at that period of my career, and, there might have +been a good deal of such coin in circulation without my handling it, or +knowing much about it. + +Permit me to indulge in a few reminiscences of that far-off time. + +In those days the Athenaeum Picture Gallery was a principal centre of +attraction to young Boston people and their visitors. Many of us got our +first ideas of art, to say nothing of our first lessons in the +comparatively innocent flirtations of our city's primitive period, in +that agreeable resort of amateurs and artists. + +How the pictures on those walls in Pearl Street do keep their places in +the mind's gallery! Trumbull's Sortie of Gibraltar, with red enough in +it for one of our sunset after-glows; and Neagle's full-length portrait +of the blacksmith in his shirt-sleeves; and Copley's long-waistcoated +gentlemen and satin-clad ladies,--they looked like gentlemen and ladies, +too; and Stuart's florid merchants and high-waisted matrons; and +Allston's lovely Italian scenery and dreamy, unimpassioned women, +not forgetting Florimel in full flight on her interminable +rocking-horse,--you may still see her at the Art Museum; and the rival +landscapes of Doughty and Fisher, much talked of and largely praised in +those days; and the Murillo,--not from Marshal Soup's collection; and the +portrait of Annibale Caracci by himself, which cost the Athenaeum a +hundred dollars; and Cole's allegorical pictures, and his immense and +dreary canvas, in which the prostrate shepherds and the angel in Joseph's +coat of many colors look as if they must have been thrown in for nothing; +and West's brawny Lear tearing his clothes to pieces. But why go on with +the catalogue, when most of these pictures can be seen either at the +Athenaeum building in Beacon Street or at the Art Gallery, and admired or +criticised perhaps more justly, certainly not more generously, than in +those earlier years when we looked at them through the japanned +fish-horns? + +If one happened to pass through Atkinson Street on his way to the +Athenaeum, he would notice a large, square, painted, brick house, in +which lived a leading representative of old-fashioned coleopterous +Calvinism, and from which emerged one of the liveliest of literary +butterflies. The father was editor of the "Boston Recorder," a very +respectable, but very far from amusing paper, most largely patronized by +that class of the community which spoke habitually of the first day of +the week as "the Sahbuth." The son was the editor of several different +periodicals in succession, none of them over severe or serious, and of +many pleasant books, filled with lively descriptions of society, which he +studied on the outside with a quick eye for form and color, and with a +certain amount of sentiment, not very deep, but real, though somewhat +frothed over by his worldly experiences. + +Nathaniel Parker Willis was in full bloom when I opened my first +Portfolio. He had made himself known by his religious poetry, published +in his father's paper, I think, and signed "Roy." He had started the +"American Magazine," afterwards merged in the "New York Mirror." He had +then left off writing scripture pieces, and taken to lighter forms of +verse. He had just written + + "I'm twenty-two, I'm twenty-two, + They idly give me joy, + As if I should be glad to know + That I was less a boy." + +He was young, therefore, and already famous. He came very near being +very handsome. He was tall; his hair, of light brown color, waved in +luxuriant abundance; his cheek was as rosy as if it had been painted to +show behind the footlights; he dressed with artistic elegance. He was +something between a remembrance of Count D'Orsay and an anticipation of +Oscar Wilde. There used to be in the gallery of the Luxembourg a picture +of Hippolytus and Phxdra, in which the beautiful young man, who had +kindled a passion in the heart of his wicked step-mother, always reminded +me of Willis, in spite of the shortcomings of the living face as compared +with the ideal. The painted youth is still blooming on the canvas, but +the fresh-cheecked, jaunty young author of the year 1830 has long faded +out of human sight. I took the leaves which lie before me at this +moment, as I write, from his coffin, as it lay just outside the door of +Saint Paul's Church, on a sad, overclouded winter's day, in the year +1867. At that earlier time, Willis was by far the most prominent young +American author. Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Dana, Halleck, Drake, had all +done their best work. Longfellow was not yet conspicuous. Lowell was a +school-boy. Emerson was unheard of. Whittier was beginning to make his +way against the writers with better educational advantages whom he was +destined to outdo and to outlive. Not one of the great histories, which +have done honor to our literature, had appeared. Our school-books +depended, so far as American authors were concerned, on extracts from the +orations and speeches of Webster and Everett; on Bryant's Thanatopsis, +his lines To a Waterfowl, and the Death of the Flowers, Halleck's Marco +Bozzaris, Red Jacket, and Burns; on Drake's American Flag, and Percival's +Coral Grove, and his Genius Sleeping and Genius Waking,--and not getting +very wide awake, either. These could be depended upon. A few other +copies of verses might be found, but Dwight's "Columbia, Columbia," and +Pierpont's Airs of Palestine, were already effaced, as many of the +favorites of our own day and generation must soon be, by the great wave +which the near future will pour over the sands in which they still are +legible. + +About this time, in the year 1832, came out a small volume entitled +"Truth, a Gift for Scribblers," which made some talk for a while, and is +now chiefly valuable as a kind of literary tombstone on which may be read +the names of many whose renown has been buried with their bones. The +"London Athenaeum" spoke of it as having been described as a "tomahawk +sort of satire." As the author had been a trapper in Missouri, he was +familiarly acquainted with that weapon and the warfare of its owners. +Born in Boston, in 1804, the son of an army officer, educated at West +Point, he came back to his native city about the year 1830. He wrote an +article on Bryant's Poems for the "North American Review," and another on +the famous Indian chief, Black Hawk. In this last-mentioned article he +tells this story as the great warrior told it himself. It was an +incident of a fight with the Osages. + +"Standing by my father's side, I saw him kill his antagonist and tear the +scalp from his head. Fired with valor and ambition, I rushed furiously +upon another, smote him to the earth with my tomahawk, ran my lance +through his body, took off his scalp, and returned in triumph to my +father. He said nothing, but looked pleased." + +This little red story describes very well Spelling's style of literary +warfare. His handling of his most conspicuous victim, Willis, was very +much like Black Hawk's way of dealing with the Osage. He tomahawked him +in heroics, ran him through in prose, and scalped him in barbarous +epigrams. Bryant and Halleck were abundantly praised; hardly any one +else escaped. + +If the reader wishes to see the bubbles of reputation that were floating, +some of them gay with prismatic colors, half a century ago, he will find +in the pages of "Truth" a long catalogue of celebrities he never heard +of. I recognize only three names, of all which are mentioned in the +little book, as belonging to persons still living; but as I have not read +the obituaries of all the others, some of them may be still flourishing +in spite of Mr. Spelling's exterminating onslaught. Time dealt as hardly +with poor Spelling, who was not without talent and instruction, as he had +dealt with our authors. I think he found shelter at last under a roof +which held numerous inmates, some of whom had seen better and many of +whom had known worse days than those which they were passing within its +friendly and not exclusive precincts. Such, at least, was the story I +heard after he disappeared from general observation. + +That was the day of Souvenirs, Tokens, Forget-me-nots, Bijous, and all +that class of showy annuals. Short stories, slender poems, steel +engravings, on a level with the common fashion-plates of advertising +establishments, gilt edges, resplendent binding,--to manifestations of +this sort our lighter literature had very largely run for some years. +The "Scarlet Letter" was an unhinted possibility. The "Voices of the +Night" had not stirred the brooding silence; the Concord seer was still +in the lonely desert; most of the contributors to those yearly volumes, +which took up such pretentious positions on the centre table, have shrunk +into entire oblivion, or, at best, hold their place in literature by a +scrap or two in some omnivorous collection. + +What dreadful work Spelling made among those slight reputations, floating +in swollen tenuity on the surface of the stream, and mirroring each other +in reciprocal reflections! Violent, abusive as he was, unjust to any +against whom he happened to have a prejudice, his castigation of the +small litterateurs of that day was not harmful, but rather of use. His +attack on Willis very probably did him good; he needed a little +discipline, and though he got it too unsparingly, some cautions came with +it which were worth the stripes he had to smart under. One noble writer +Spelling treated with rudeness, probably from some accidental pique, or +equally insignificant reason. I myself, one of the three survivors +before referred to, escaped with a love-pat, as the youngest son of the +Muse. Longfellow gets a brief nod of acknowledgment. Bailey, an +American writer, "who made long since a happy snatch at fame," which must +have been snatched away from him by envious time, for I cannot identify +him; Thatcher, who died early, leaving one poem, The Last Request, not +wholly unremembered; Miss Hannah F. Gould, a very bright and agreeable +writer of light verse,--all these are commended to the keeping of that +venerable public carrier, who finds his scythe and hour-glass such a load +that he generally drops the burdens committed to his charge, after making +a show of paying every possible attention to them so long as he is kept +in sight. + +It was a good time to open a portfolio. But my old one had boyhood +written on every page. A single passionate outcry when the old warship I +had read about in the broadsides that were a part of our kitchen +literature, and in the "Naval Monument," was threatened with demolition; +a few verses suggested by the sight of old Major Melville in his cocked +hat and breeches, were the best scraps that came out of that first +Portfolio, which was soon closed that it should not interfere with the +duties of a profession authorized to claim all the time and thought which +would have been otherwise expended in filling it. + +During a quarter of a century the first Portfolio remained closed for the +greater part of the time. Only now and then it would be taken up and +opened, and something drawn from it for a special occasion, more +particularly for the annual reunions of a certain class of which I was a +member. + +In the year 1857, towards its close, the "Atlantic Monthly," which I had +the honor of naming, was started by the enterprising firm of Phillips & +Sampson, under the editorship of Mr. James Russell Lowell. He thought +that I might bring something out of my old Portfolio which would be not +unacceptable in the new magazine. I looked at the poor old receptacle, +which, partly from use and partly from neglect, had lost its freshness, +and seemed hardly presentable to the new company expected to welcome the +new-comer in the literary world of Boston, the least provincial of +American centres of learning and letters. The gilded covering where the +emblems of hope and aspiration had looked so bright had faded; not +wholly, perhaps, but how was the gold become dim!---how was the most fine +gold changed! Long devotion to other pursuits had left little time for +literature, and the waifs and strays gathered from the old Portfolio had +done little more than keep alive the memory that such a source of supply +was still in existence. I looked at the old Portfolio, and said to +myself, "Too late! too late. This tarnished gold will never brighten, +these battered covers will stand no more wear and tear; close them, and +leave them to the spider and the book-worm." + +In the mean time the nebula of the first quarter of the century had +condensed into the constellation of the middle of the same period. When, +a little while after the establishment of the new magazine, the "Saturday +Club" gathered about the long table at "Parker's," such a representation +of all that was best in American literature had never been collected +within so small a compass. Most of the Americans whom educated +foreigners cared to see-leaving out of consideration official +dignitaries, whose temporary importance makes them objects of +curiosity--were seated at that board. But the club did not yet exist, +and the "Atlantic Monthly" was an experiment. There had already been +several monthly periodicals, more or less successful and permanent, among +which "Putnam's Magazine" was conspicuous, owing its success largely to +the contributions of that very accomplished and delightful writer, Mr. +George William Curtis. That magazine, after a somewhat prolonged and +very honorable existence, had gone where all periodicals go when they +die, into the archives of the deaf, dumb, and blind recording angel whose +name is Oblivion. It had so well deserved to live that its death was a +surprise and a source of regret. Could another monthly take its place +and keep it when that, with all its attractions and excellences, had died +out, and left a blank in our periodical literature which it would be very +hard to fill as well as that had filled it? + +This was the experiment which the enterprising publishers ventured upon, +and I, who felt myself outside of the charmed circle drawn around the +scholars and poets of Cambridge and Concord, having given myself to other +studies and duties, wondered somewhat when Mr. Lowell insisted upon my +becoming a contributor. And so, yielding to a pressure which I could not +understand, and yet found myself unable to resist, I promised to take a +part in the new venture, as an occasional writer in the columns of the +new magazine. + +That was the way in which the second Portfolio found its way to my table, +and was there opened in the autumn of the year 1857. I was already at +least + + 'Nel mezzo del cammin di mia, vita,' + +when I risked myself, with many misgivings, in little-tried paths of what +looked at first like a wilderness, a selva oscura, where, if I did not +meet the lion or the wolf, I should be sure to find the critic, the most +dangerous of the carnivores, waiting to welcome me after his own fashion. + +The second Portfolio is closed and laid away. Perhaps it was hardly +worth while to provide and open a new one; but here it lies before me, +and I hope I may find something between its covers which will justify me +in coming once more before my old friends. But before I open it I want +to claim a little further indulgence. + +There is a subject of profound interest to almost every writer, I might +say to almost every human being. No matter what his culture or +ignorance, no matter what his pursuit, no matter what his character, the +subject I refer to is one of which he rarely ceases to think, and, if +opportunity is offered, to talk. On this he is eloquent, if on nothing +else. The slow of speech becomes fluent; the torpid listener becomes +electric with vivacity, and alive all over with interest. + +The sagacious reader knows well what is coming after this prelude. He is +accustomed to the phrases with which the plausible visitor, who has a +subscription book in his pocket, prepares his victim for the depressing +disclosure of his real errand. He is not unacquainted with the +conversational amenities of the cordial and interesting stranger, who, +having had the misfortune of leaving his carpet-bag in the cars, or of +having his pocket picked at the station, finds himself without the means +of reaching that distant home where affluence waits for him with its +luxurious welcome, but to whom for the moment the loan of some five and +twenty dollars would be a convenience and a favor for which his heart +would ache with gratitude during the brief interval between the loan and +its repayment. + +I wish to say a few words in my own person relating to some passages in +my own history, and more especially to some of the recent experiences +through which I have been passing. + +What can justify one in addressing himself to the general public as if it +were his private correspondent? There are at least three sufficient +reasons: first, if he has a story to tell that everybody wants to +hear,--if he has been shipwrecked, or has been in a battle, or has +witnessed any interesting event, and can tell anything new about it; +secondly, if he can put in fitting words any common experiences not +already well told, so that readers will say, "Why, yes! I have had that +sensation, thought, emotion, a hundred times, but I never heard it spoken +of before, and I never saw any mention of it in print;" and thirdly, +anything one likes, provided he can so tell it as to make it interesting. + +I have no story to tell in this Introduction which can of itself claim +any general attention. My first pages relate the effect of a certain +literary experience upon myself,--a series of partial metempsychoses of +which I have been the subject. Next follows a brief tribute to the +memory of a very dear and renowned friend from whom I have recently been +parted. The rest of the Introduction will be consecrated to the memory +of my birthplace. + +I have just finished a Memoir, which will appear soon after this page is +written, and will have been the subject of criticism long before it is in +the reader's hands. The experience of thinking another man's thoughts +continuously for a long time; of living one's self into another man's +life for a month, or a year, or more, is a very curious one. No matter +how much superior to the biographer his subject may be, the man who +writes the life feels himself, in a certain sense, on the level of the +person whose life he is writing. One cannot fight over the battles of +Marengo or Austerlitz with Napoleon without feeling as if he himself had +a fractional claim to the victory, so real seems the transfer of his +personality into that of the conqueror while he reads. Still more must +this identification of "subject" and "object" take place when one is +writing of a person whose studies or occupations are not unlike his own. + +Here are some of my metempsychoses: Ten years ago I wrote what I called A +Memorial Outline of a remarkable student of nature. He was a born +observer, and such are far from common. He was also a man of great +enthusiasm and unwearying industry. His quick eye detected what others +passed by without notice: the Indian relic, where another would see only +pebbles and fragments; the rare mollusk, or reptile, which his companion +would poke with his cane, never suspecting that there was a prize at the +end of it. Getting his single facts together with marvellous sagacity +and long-breathed patience, he arranged them, classified them, described +them, studied them in their relations, and before those around him were +aware of it the collector was an accomplished naturalist. When--he died +his collections remained, and they still remain, as his record in the +hieratic language of science. In writing this memoir the spirit of his +quiet pursuits, the even temper they bred in him, gained possession of my +own mind, so that I seemed to look at nature through his gold-bowed +spectacles, and to move about his beautifully ordered museum as if I had +myself prepared and arranged its specimens. I felt wise with his wisdom, +fair-minded with his calm impartiality; it seemed as if for the time his +placid, observant, inquiring, keen-sighted nature "slid into my soul," +and if I had looked at myself in the glass I should almost have expected +to see the image of the Hersey professor whose life and character I was +sketching. + +A few years hater I lived over the life of another friend in writing a +Memoir of which he was the subject. I saw him, the beautiful, +bright-eyed boy, with dark, waving hair; the youthful scholar, first at +Harvard, then at Gottingen and Berlin, the friend and companion of +Bismarck; the young author, making a dash for renown as a novelist, and +showing the elements which made his failures the promise of success in a +larger field of literary labor; the delving historian, burying his fresh +young manhood in the dusty alcoves of silent libraries, to come forth in +the face of Europe and America as one of the leading historians of the +time; the diplomatist, accomplished, of captivating presence and manners, +an ardent American, and in the time of trial an impassioned and eloquent +advocate of the cause of freedom; reaching at last the summit of his +ambition as minister at the Court of Saint James. All this I seemed to +share with him as I tracked his career from his birthplace in Dorchester, +and the house in Walnut Street where he passed his boyhood, to the +palaces of Vienna and London. And then the cruel blow which struck him +from the place he adorned; the great sorrow that darkened his later +years; the invasion of illness, a threat that warned of danger, and after +a period of invalidism, during a part of which I shared his most intimate +daily life, the sudden, hardly unwelcome, final summons. Did not my own +consciousness migrate, or seem, at least, to transfer itself into this +brilliant life history, as I traced its glowing record? I, too, seemed +to feel the delight of carrying with me, as if they were my own, the +charms of a presence which made its own welcome everywhere. I shared his +heroic toils, I partook of his literary and social triumphs, I was +honored by the marks of distinction which gathered about him, I was +wronged by the indignity from which he suffered, mourned with him in his +sorrow, and thus, after I had been living for months with his memory, I +felt as if I should carry a part of his being with me so long as my +self-consciousness might remain imprisoned in the ponderable elements. + +The years passed away, and the influences derived from the companionships +I have spoken of had blended intimately with my own current of being. +Then there came to me a new experience in my relations with an eminent +member of the medical profession, whom I met habitually for a long +period, and to whose memory I consecrated a few pages as a prelude to a +work of his own, written under very peculiar circumstances. He was the +subject of a slow, torturing, malignant, and almost necessarily fatal +disease. Knowing well that the mind would feed upon itself if it were +not supplied with food from without, he determined to write a treatise on +a subject which had greatly interested him, and which would oblige him to +bestow much of his time and thought upon it, if indeed he could hold out +to finish the work. During the period while he was engaged in writing +it, his wife, who had seemed in perfect health, died suddenly of +pneumonia. Physical suffering, mental distress, the prospect of death at +a near, if uncertain, time always before him, it was hard to conceive a +more terrible strain than that which he had to endure. When, in the hour +of his greatest need, his faithful companion, the wife of many years of +happy union, whose hand had smoothed his pillow, whose voice had consoled +and cheered him, was torn from him after a few days of illness, I felt +that my, friend's trial was such that the cry of the man of many +afflictions and temptations might well have escaped from his lips: "I was +at ease, but he hath broken me asunder; he hath also taken me by my neck +and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. His archers compass +me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he +poureth out my gall upon the ground." + +I had dreaded meeting him for the first time after this crushing blow. +What a lesson he gave me of patience under sufferings which the fearful +description of the Eastern poet does not picture too vividly! We have +been taught to admire the calm philosophy of Haller, watching his +faltering pulse as he lay dying; we have heard the words of pious +resignation said to have been uttered with his last breath by Addison: +but here was a trial, not of hours, or days, or weeks, but of months, +even years, of cruel pain, and in the midst of its thick darkness the +light of love, which had burned steadily at his bedside, was suddenly +extinguished. + +There were times in which the thought would force itself upon my +consciousness, How long is the universe to look upon this dreadful +experiment of a malarious planet, with its unmeasurable freight of +suffering, its poisonous atmosphere, so sweet to breathe, so sure to kill +in a few scores of years at farthest, and its heart-breaking woes which +make even that brief space of time an eternity? There can be but one +answer that will meet this terrible question, which must arise in every +thinking nature that would fain "justify the ways of God to men." So +must it be until that + + "one far-off divine event + To which the whole creation moves" + +has become a reality, and the anthem in which there is no discordant note +shall be joined by a voice from every life made "perfect through +sufferings." + +Such was the lesson into which I lived in those sad yet placid years of +companionship with my suffering and sorrowing friend, in retracing which +I seemed to find another existence mingled with my own. + +And now for many months I have been living in daily relations of intimacy +with one who seems nearer to me since he has left us than while he was +here in living form and feature. I did not know how difficult a task I +had undertaken in venturing upon a memoir of a man whom all, or almost +all, agree upon as one of the great lights of the New World, and whom +very many regard as an unpredicted Messiah. Never before was I so +forcibly reminded of Carlyle's description of the work of a newspaper +editor,--that threshing of straw already thrice beaten by the flails of +other laborers in the same field. What could be said that had not been +said of "transcendentalism" and of him who was regarded as its prophet; +of the poet whom some admired without understanding, a few understood, or +thought they did, without admiring, and many both understood and +admired,--among these there being not a small number who went far beyond +admiration, and lost themselves in devout worship? While one exalted him +as "the greatest man that ever lived," another, a friend, famous in the +world of letters, wrote expressly to caution me against the danger of +overrating a writer whom he is content to recognize as an American +Montaigne, and nothing more. + +After finishing this Memoir, which has but just left my hands, I would +gladly have let my brain rest for a while. The wide range of thought +which belonged to the subject of the Memoir, the occasional mysticism and +the frequent tendency toward it, the sweep of imagination and the sparkle +of wit which kept his reader's mind on the stretch, the union of +prevailing good sense with exceptional extravagances, the modest audacity +of a nature that showed itself in its naked truthfulness and was not +ashamed, the feeling that I was in the company of a sibylline +intelligence which was discounting the promises of the remote future long +before they were due,--all this made the task a grave one. But when I +found myself amidst the vortices of uncounted, various, bewildering +judgments, Catholic and Protestant, orthodox and liberal, scholarly from +under the tree of knowledge and instinctive from over the potato-hill; +the passionate enthusiasm of young adorers and the cool, if not cynical, +estimate of hardened critics, all intersecting each other as they +whirled, each around its own centre, I felt that it was indeed very +difficult to keep the faculties clear and the judgment unbiassed. + +It is a great privilege to have lived so long in the society of such a +man. "He nothing common" said, "or mean." He was always the same pure +and high-souled companion. After being with him virtue seemed as natural +to man as its opposite did according to the old theologies. But how to +let one's self down from the high level of such a character to one's own +poor standard? I trust that the influence of this long intellectual and +spiritual companionship never absolutely leaves one who has lived in it. +It may come to him in the form of self-reproach that he falls so far +short of the superior being who has been so long the object of his +contemplation. But it also carries him at times into the other's +personality, so that he finds himself thinking thoughts that are not his +own, using phrases which he has unconsciously borrowed, writing, it may +be, as nearly like his long-studied original as Julio Romano's painting +was like Raphael's; and all this with the unquestioning conviction that +he is talking from his own consciousness in his own natural way. So far +as tones and expressions and habits which belonged to the idiosyncrasy of +the original are borrowed by the student of his life, it is a misfortune +for the borrower. But to share the inmost consciousness of a noble +thinker, to scan one's self in the white light of a pure and radiant +soul,--this is indeed the highest form of teaching and discipline. + +I have written these few memoirs, and I am grateful for all that they +have taught me. But let me write no more. There are but two biographers +who can tell the story of a man's or a woman's life. One is the person +himself or herself; the other is the Recording Angel. The autobiographer +cannot be trusted to tell the whole truth, though he may tell nothing but +the truth, and the Recording Angel never lets his book go out of his own +hands. As for myself, I would say to my friends, in the Oriental phrase, +"Live forever!" Yes, live forever, and I, at least, shall not have to +wrong your memories by my imperfect record and unsatisfying commentary. + +In connection with these biographies, or memoirs, more properly, in which +I have written of my departed friends, I hope my readers will indulge me +in another personal reminiscence. I have just lost my dear and honored +contemporary of the last century. A hundred years ago this day, December +13, 1784, died the admirable and ever to be remembered Dr. Samuel +Johnson. The year 1709 was made ponderous and illustrious in English +biography by his birth. My own humble advent to the world of protoplasm +was in the year 1809 of the present century. Summer was just ending when +those four letters, "son b." were written under the date of my birth, +August 29th. Autumn had just begun when my great pre-contemporary +entered this un-Christian universe and was made a member of the Christian +church on the same day, for he was born and baptized on the 18th of +September. + +Thus there was established a close bond of relationship between the great +English scholar and writer and myself. Year by year, and almost month by +month, my life has kept pace in this century with his life in the last +century. I had only to open my Boswell at any time, and I knew just what +Johnson at my age, twenty or fifty or seventy, was thinking and doing; +what were his feelings about life; what changes the years had wrought in +his body, his mind, his feelings, his companionships, his reputation. It +was for me a kind of unison between two instruments, both playing that +old familiar air, "Life,"--one a bassoon, if you will, and the other an +oaten pipe, if you care to find an image for it, but still keeping pace +with each other until the players both grew old and gray. At last the +thinner thread of sound is heard by itself, and its deep accompaniment +rolls out its thunder no more. + +I feel lonely now that my great companion and friend of so many years has +left me. I felt more intimately acquainted with him than I do with many +of my living friends. I can hardly remember when I did not know him. I +can see him in his bushy wig, exactly like that of the Reverend Dr. +Samuel Cooper (who died in December, 1783) as Copley painted him,--he +hangs there on my wall, over the revolving bookcase. His ample coat, too, +I see, with its broad flaps and many buttons and generous cuffs, and +beneath it the long, still more copiously buttoned waistcoat, arching in +front of the fine crescentic, almost semi-lunar Falstaffian prominence, +involving no less than a dozen of the above-mentioned buttons, and the +strong legs with their sturdy calves, fitting columns of support to the +massive body and solid, capacious brain enthroned over it. I can hear +him with his heavy tread as he comes in to the Club, and a gap is widened +to make room for his portly figure. "A fine day," says Sir Joshua. +"Sir," he answers, "it seems propitious, but the atmosphere is humid and +the skies are nebulous," at which the great painter smiles, shifts his +trumpet, and takes a pinch of snuff. + +Dear old massive, deep-voiced dogmatist and hypochondriac of the +eighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, +between you and the bony, "mighty-mouthed," harsh-toned termagant and +dyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and the +snarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven the +shores of Lethe. I wish I could find our "spiritualist's" paper in the +Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly know what +I shall find when it is opened. + +Yes, my life is a little less precious to me since I have lost that dear +old friend; and when the funeral train moves to Westminster Abbey next +Saturday, for I feel as if this were 1784, and not 1884,--I seem to find +myself following the hearse, one of the silent mourners. + +Among the events which have rendered the past year memorable to me has +been the demolition of that venerable and interesting old dwelling-house, +precious for its intimate association with the earliest stages of the war +of the Revolution, and sacred to me as my birthplace and the home of my +boyhood. + +The "Old Gambrel-roofed House" exists no longer. I remember saying +something, in one of a series of papers published long ago, about the +experience of dying out of a house,--of leaving it forever, as the soul +dies out of the body. We may die out of many houses, but the house +itself can die but once; and so real is the life of a house to one who +has dwelt in it, more especially the life of the house which held him in +dreamy infancy, in restless boyhood, in passionate youth,--so real, I +say, is its life, that it seems as if something like a soul of it must +outlast its perishing frame. + +The slaughter of the Old Gambrel-roofed House was, I am ready to admit, a +case of justifiable domicide. Not the less was it to be deplored by all +who love the memories of the past. With its destruction are obliterated +some of the footprints of the heroes and martyrs who took the first steps +in the long and bloody march which led us through the wilderness to the +promised land of independent nationality. Personally, I have a right to +mourn for it as a part of my life gone from me. My private grief for its +loss would be a matter for my solitary digestion, were it not that the +experience through which I have just passed is one so familiar to my +fellow-countrymen that, in telling my own reflections and feelings, I am +repeating those of great numbers of men and women who have had the +misfortune to outlive their birthplace. + +It is a great blessing to be born surrounded by a natural horizon. The +Old Gambrel-roofed House could not boast an unbroken ring of natural +objects encircling it. Northerly it looked upon its own outbuildings and +some unpretending two-story houses which had been its neighbors for a +century and more. To the south of it the square brick dormitories and +the bellfried hall of the university helped to shut out the distant view. +But the west windows gave a broad outlook across the common, beyond which +the historical "Washington elm" and two companions in line with it, +spread their leaves in summer and their networks in winter. And far away +rose the hills that bounded the view, with the glimmer here and there of +the white walls or the illuminated casements of some embowered, +half-hidden villa. Eastwardly also, the prospect was, in my earlier +remembrance, widely open, and I have frequently seen the sunlit sails +gliding along as if through the level fields, for no water was visible. +So there were broad expanses on two sides at least, for my imagination to +wander over. + +I cannot help thinking that we carry our childhood's horizon with us all +our days. Among these western wooded hills my day-dreams built their +fairy palaces, and even now, as I look at them from my library window, +across the estuary of the Charles, I find myself in the familiar home of +my early visions. The "clouds of glory" which we trail with us in after +life need not be traced to a pre-natal state. There is enough to account +for them in that unconsciously remembered period of existence before we +have learned the hard limitations of real life. Those earliest months in +which we lived in sensations without words, and ideas not fettered in +sentences, have all the freshness of proofs of an engraving "before the +letter." I am very thankful that the first part of my life was not +passed shut in between high walls and treading the unimpressible and +unsympathetic pavement. + +Our university town was very much like the real country, in those days of +which I am thinking. There were plenty of huckleberries and blueberries +within half a mile of the house. Blackberries ripened in the fields, +acorns and shagbarks dropped from the trees, squirrels ran among the +branches, and not rarely the hen-hawk might be seen circling over the +barnyard. Still another rural element was not wanting, in the form of +that far-diffused, infragrant effluvium, which, diluted by a good half +mile of pure atmosphere, is no longer odious, nay is positively +agreeable, to many who have long known it, though its source and centre +has an unenviable reputation. I need not name the animal whose Parthian +warfare terrifies and puts to flight the mightiest hunter that ever +roused the tiger from his jungle or faced the lion of the desert. +Strange as it may seem, an aerial hint of his personality in the far +distance always awakens in my mind pleasant remembrances and tender +reflections. A whole neighborhood rises up before me: the barn, with its +haymow, where the hens laid their eggs to hatch, and we boys hid our +apples to ripen, both occasionally illustrating the sic vos non vobis; +the shed, where the annual Tragedy of the Pig was acted with a realism +that made Salvini's Othello seem but a pale counterfeit; the rickety old +outhouse, with the "corn-chamber" which the mice knew so well; the paved +yard, with its open gutter,--these and how much else come up at the hint +of my far-off friend, who is my very near enemy. Nothing is more +familiar than the power of smell in reviving old memories. There was that +quite different fragrance of the wood-house, the smell of fresh sawdust. +It comes back to me now, and with it the hiss of the saw; the tumble of +the divorced logs which God put together and man has just put asunder; +the coming down of the axe and the hah! that helped it,--the +straight-grained stick opening at the first appeal of the implement as if +it were a pleasure, and the stick with a knot in the middle of it that +mocked the blows and the hahs! until the beetle and wedge made it listen +to reason,--there are just such straight-grained and just such knotty men +and women. All this passes through my mind while Biddy, whose +parlor-name is Angela, contents herself with exclaiming "egh!*******!" + +How different distances were in those young days of which I am thinking! +From the old house to the old yellow meeting-house, where the head of the +family preached and the limbs of the family listened, was not much more +than two or three times the width of Commonwealth Avenue. But of a hot +summer's afternoon, after having already heard one sermon, which could +not in the nature of things have the charm of novelty of presentation to +the members of the home circle, and the theology of which was not too +clear to tender apprehensions; with three hymns more or less lugubrious, +rendered by a village-choir, got into voice by many preliminary snuffles +and other expiratory efforts, and accompanied by the snort of a huge +bassviol which wallowed through the tune like a hippopotamus, with other +exercises of the customary character,--after all this in the forenoon, +the afternoon walk to the meeting-house in the hot sun counted for as +much, in my childish dead-reckoning, as from old Israel Porter's in +Cambridge to the Exchange Coffeehouse in Boston did in after years. It +takes a good while to measure the radius of the circle that is about us, +for the moon seems at first as near as the watchface. Who knows but +that, after a certain number of ages, the planet we live on may seem to +us no bigger than our neighbor Venus appeared when she passed before the +sun a few months ago, looking as if we could take her between our thumb +and finger, like a bullet or a marble? And time, too; how long was it +from the serious sunrise to the joyous "sun-down" of an old-fashioned, +puritanical, judaical first day of the week, which a pious fraud +christened "the Sabbath"? Was it a fortnight, as we now reckon duration, +or only a week? Curious entities, or non-entities, space and tithe? +When you see a metaphysician trying to wash his hands of them and get rid +of these accidents, so as to lay his dry, clean palm on the absolute, +does it not remind you of the hopeless task of changing the color of the +blackamoor by a similar proceeding? For space is the fluid in which he +is washing, and time is the soap which he is using up in the process, and +he cannot get free from them until he can wash himself in a mental +vacuum. + +In my reference to the old house in a former paper, published years ago, +I said, + +"By and by the stony foot of the great University will plant itself on +this whole territory, and the private recollections which clung so +tenaciously to the place and its habitations will have died with those +who cherished them." + +What strides the great University has taken since those words were +written! During all my early years our old Harvard Alma Mater sat still +and lifeless as the colossi in the Egyptian desert. Then all at once, +like the statue in Don Giovanni, she moved from her pedestal. The fall +of that "stony foot" has effected a miracle like the harp that Orpheus +played, like the teeth which Cadmus sowed. The plain where the moose and +the bear were wandering while Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, where a few +plain dormitories and other needed buildings were scattered about in my +school-boy days, groans under the weight of the massive edifices which +have sprung up all around them, crowned by the tower of that noble +structure which stands in full view before me as I lift my eyes from the +portfolio on the back of which I am now writing. + +For I must be permitted to remind you that I have not yet opened it. I +have told you that I have just finished a long memoir, and that it has +cost me no little labor to overcome some of its difficulties,--if I have +overcome them, which others must decide. And I feel exactly as honest +Dobbin feels when his harness is slipped off after a long journey with a +good deal of up-hill work. He wants to rest a little, then to feed a +little; then, if you will turn him loose in the pasture, he wants to +roll. I have left my starry and ethereal companionship,--not for a long +time, I hope, for it has lifted me above my common self, but for a while. +And now I want, so to speak, to roll in the grass and among the +dandelions with the other pachyderms. So I have kept to the outside of +the portfolio as yet, and am disporting myself in reminiscences, and +fancies, and vagaries, and parentheses. + +How well I understand the feeling which led the Pisans to load their +vessels with earth from the Holy Land, and fill the area of the Campo +Santo with that sacred soil! The old house stood upon about as perverse +a little patch of the planet as ever harbored a half-starved earth-worm. +It was as sandy as Sahara and as thirsty as Tantalus. The rustic +aid-de-camps of the household used to aver that all fertilizing matters +"leached" through it. I tried to disprove their assertion by gorging it +with the best of terrestrial nourishment, until I became convinced that I +was feeding the tea-plants of China, and then I gave over the attempt. +And yet I did love, and do love, that arid patch of ground. I wonder if +a single flower could not be made to grow in a pot of earth from that +Campo Santo of my childhood! One noble product of nature did not refuse +to flourish there,--the tall, stately, beautiful, soft-haired, +many-jointed, generous maize or Indian corn, which thrives on sand and +defies the blaze of our shrivelling summer. What child but loves to +wander in its forest-like depths, amidst the rustling leaves and with the +lofty tassels tossing their heads high above him! There are two aspects +of the cornfield which always impress my imagination: the first when it +has reached its full growth, and its ordered ranks look like an army on +the march with its plumed and bannered battalions; the second when, after +the battle of the harvest, the girdled stacks stand on the field of +slaughter like so many ragged Niobes,--say rather like the crazy widows +and daughters of the dead soldiery. + +Once more let us come back to the old house. It was far along in its +second century when the edict went forth that it must stand no longer. + +The natural death of a house is very much like that of one of its human +tenants. The roof is the first part to show the distinct signs of age. +Slates and tiles loosen and at last slide off, and leave bald the boards +that supported them; shingles darken and decay, and soon the garret or +the attic lets in the rain and the snow; by and by the beams sag, the +floors warp, the walls crack, the paper peels away, the ceilings scale +off and fall, the windows are crusted with clinging dust, the doors drop +from their rusted hinges, the winds come in without knocking and howl +their cruel death-songs through the empty rooms and passages, and at last +there comes a crash, a great cloud of dust rises, and the home that had +been the shelter of generation after generation finds its grave in its +own cellar. Only the chimney remains as its monument. Slowly, little by +little, the patient solvents that find nothing too hard for their +chemistry pick out the mortar from between the bricks; at last a mighty +wind roars around it and rushes against it, and the monumental relic +crashes down among the wrecks it has long survived. So dies a human +habitation left to natural decay, all that was seen above the surface of +the soil sinking gradually below it, + + Till naught remains the saddening tale to tell + Save home's last wrecks, the cellar and the well. + +But if this sight is saddening, what is it to see a human dwelling fall +by the hand of violence! The ripping off of the shelter that has kept +out a thousand storms, the tearing off of the once ornamental woodwork, +the wrench of the inexorable crowbar, the murderous blows of the axe, the +progressive ruin, which ends by rending all the joints asunder and +flinging the tenoned and mortised timbers into heaps that will be sawed +and split to warm some new habitation as firewood,--what a brutal act of +destruction it seems! + +Why should I go over the old house again, having already described it +more than ten years ago? Alas! how many remember anything they read but +once, and so long ago as that? How many would find it out if one should +say over in the same words that which he said in the last decade? But +there is really no need of telling the story a second time, for it can be +found by those who are curious enough to look it up in a volume of which +it occupies the opening chapter. + +In order, however, to save any inquisitive reader that trouble, let me +remind him that the old house was General Ward's headquarters at the +breaking out of the Revolution; that the plan for fortifying Bunker's +Hill was laid, as commonly believed, in the southeast lower room, the +floor of which was covered with dents, made, it was alleged, by the butts +of the soldiers' muskets. In that house, too, General Warren probably +passed the night before the Bunker Hill battle, and over its threshold +must the stately figure of Washington have often cast its shadow. + +But the house in which one drew his first breath, and where he one day +came into the consciousness that he was a personality, an ego, a little +universe with a sky over him all his own, with a persistent identity, +with the terrible responsibility of a separate, independent, inalienable +existence,--that house does not ask for any historical associations to +make it the centre of the earth for him. + +If there is any person in the world to be envied, it is the one who is +born to an ancient estate, with a long line of family traditions and the +means in his hands of shaping his mansion and his domain to his own +taste, without losing sight of all the characteristic features which +surrounded his earliest years. The American is, for the most part, a +nomad, who pulls down his house as the Tartar pulls up his tent-poles. +If I had an ideal life to plan for him it would be something like this: + +His grandfather should be a wise, scholarly, large-brained, large-hearted +country minister, from whom he should inherit the temperament that +predisposes to cheerfulness and enjoyment, with the finer instincts which +direct life to noble aims and make it rich with the gratification of pure +and elevated tastes and the carrying out of plans for the good of his +neighbors and his fellow-creatures. He should, if possible, have been +born, at any rate have passed some of his early years, or a large part of +them, under the roof of the good old minister. His father should be, we +will say, a business man in one of our great cities,--a generous +manipulator of millions, some of which have adhered to his private +fortunes, in spite of his liberal use of his means. His heir, our +ideally placed American, shall take possession of the old house, the home +of his earliest memories, and preserve it sacredly, not exactly like the +Santa Casa, but, as nearly as may be, just as he remembers it. He can +add as many acres as he will to the narrow house-lot. He can build a +grand mansion for himself, if he chooses, in the not distant +neighborhood. But the old house, and all immediately round it, shall be +as he recollects it when he had to stretch his little arm up to reach the +door-handles. Then, having well provided for his own household, himself +included, let him become the providence of the village or the town where +he finds himself during at least a portion of every year. Its schools, +its library, its poor,--and perhaps the new clergyman who has succeeded +his grandfather's successor may be one of them,--all its interests, he +shall make his own. And from this centre his beneficence shall radiate +so far that all who hear of his wealth shall also hear of him as a friend +to his race. + +Is not this a pleasing programme? Wealth is a steep hill, which the +father climbs slowly and the son often tumbles down precipitately; but +there is a table-land on a level with it, which may be found by those who +do not lose their head in looking down from its sharply cloven +summit.---Our dangerously rich men can make themselves hated, held as +enemies of the race, or beloved and recognized as its benefactors. The +clouds of discontent are threatening, but if the gold-pointed +lightning-rods are rightly distributed the destructive element may be +drawn off silently and harmlessly. For it cannot be repeated too often +that the safety of great wealth with us lies in obedience to the new +version of the Old World axiom, RICHESS oblige. + + + + +THE NEW PORTFOLIO: FIRST OPENING. + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. +I +GETTING READY. + +It is impossible to begin a story which must of necessity tax the powers +of belief of readers unacquainted with the class of facts to which its +central point of interest belongs without some words in the nature of +preparation. Readers of Charles Lamb remember that Sarah Battle insisted +on a clean-swept hearth before sitting down to her favorite game of +whist. + +The narrator wishes to sweep the hearth, as it were, in these opening +pages, before sitting down to tell his story. He does not intend to +frighten the reader away by prolix explanation, but he does mean to warn +him against hasty judgments when facts are related which are not within +the range of every-day experience. Did he ever see the Siamese twins, or +any pair like them? Probably not, yet he feels sure that Chang and Eng +really existed; and if he has taken the trouble to inquire, he has +satisfied himself that similar cases have been recorded by credible +witnesses, though at long intervals and in countries far apart from each +other. + +This is the first sweep of the brush, to clear the hearth of the +skepticism and incredulity which must be got out of the way before we can +begin to tell and to listen in peace with ourselves and each other. + +One more stroke of the brush is needed before the stage will be ready for +the chief characters and the leading circumstances to which the reader's +attention is invited. If the principal personages made their entrance at +once, the reader would have to create for himself the whole scenery of +their surrounding conditions. In point of fact, no matter how a story is +begun, many of its readers have already shaped its chief actors out of +any hint the author may have dropped, and provided from their own +resources a locality and a set of outward conditions to environ these +imagined personalities. These are all to be brushed away, and the actual +surroundings of the subject of the narrative represented as they were, at +the risk of detaining the reader a little while from the events most +likely to interest him. The choicest egg that ever was laid was not so +big as the nest that held it. If a story were so interesting that a +maiden would rather hear it than listen to the praise of her own beauty, +or a poet would rather read it than recite his own verses, still it would +have to be wrapped in some tissue of circumstance, or it would lose half +its effectiveness. + +It may not be easy to find the exact locality referred to in this +narrative by looking into the first gazetteer that is at hand. Recent +experiences have shown that it is unsafe to be too exact in designating +places and the people who live in them. There are, it may be added, so +many advertisements disguised under the form of stories and other +literary productions that one naturally desires to avoid the suspicion of +being employed by the enterprising proprietors of this or that celebrated +resort to use his gifts for their especial benefit. There are no doubt +many persons who remember the old sign and the old tavern and its four +chief personages presently to be mentioned. It is to be hoped that they +will not furnish the public with a key to this narrative, and perhaps +bring trouble to the writer of it, as has happened to other authors. If +the real names are a little altered, it need not interfere with the +important facts relating to those who bear them. It might not be safe to +tell a damaging story about John or James Smythe; but if the slight +change is made of spelling the name Smith, the Smythes would never think +of bringing an action, as if the allusion related to any of them. The +same gulf of family distinction separates the Thompsons with a p from the +Thomsons without that letter. + +There are few pleasanter places in the Northern States for a summer +residence than that known from the first period of its settlement by the +name of Arrowhead Village. The Indians had found it out, as the relics +they left behind them abundantly testified. The commonest of these were +those chipped stones which are the medals of barbarism, and from Which +the place took its name,--the heads of arrows, of various sizes, +material, and patterns: some small enough for killing fish and little +birds, some large enough for such game as the moose and the bear, to say +nothing of the hostile Indian and the white settler; some of flint, now +and then one of white quartz, and others of variously colored jasper. +The Indians must have lived here for many generations, and it must have +been a kind of factory village of the stone age,--which lasted up to near +the present time, if we may judge from the fact that many of these relics +are met with close to the surface of the ground. + +No wonder they found this a pleasant residence, for it is to-day one of +the most attractive of all summer resorts; so inviting, indeed, that +those who know it do not like to say too much about it, lest the swarms +of tourists should make it unendurable to those who love it for itself, +and not as a centre of fashionable display and extramural cockneyism. + +There is the lake, in the first place,--Cedar Lake,--about five miles +long, and from half a mile to a mile and a half wide, stretching from +north to south. Near the northern extremity are the buildings of +Stoughton University, a flourishing young college with an ambitious name, +but well equipped and promising, the grounds of which reach the water. +At the southern end of the lake are the edifices of the Corinna +Institute, a favorite school for young ladies, where large numbers of the +daughters of America are fitted, so far as education can do it, for all +stations in life, from camping out with a husband at the mines in Nevada +to acting the part of chief lady of the land in the White House at +Washington. + +Midway between the two extremities, on the eastern shore of the lake, is +a valley between two hills, which come down to the very edge of the lake, +leaving only room enough for a road between their base and the water. +This valley, half a mile in width, has been long settled, and here for a +century or more has stood the old Anchor Tavern. A famous place it was +so long as its sign swung at the side of the road: famous for its +landlord, portly, paternal, whose welcome to a guest that looked worthy +of the attention was like that of a parent to a returning prodigal, and +whose parting words were almost as good as a marriage benediction; famous +for its landlady, ample in person, motherly, seeing to the whole +household with her own eyes, mistress of all culinary secrets that +Northern kitchens are most proud of; famous also for its ancient servant, +as city people would call her,--help, as she was called in the tavern +and would have called herself,--the unchanging, seemingly immortal +Miranda, who cared for the guests as if she were their nursing mother, +and pressed the specially favorite delicacies on their attention as a +connoisseur calls the wandering eyes of an amateur to the beauties of a +picture. Who that has ever been at the old Anchor Tavern forgets +Miranda's + + "A little of this fricassee?-it is ver-y nice;" + +or + + "Some of these cakes? You will find them ver-y good." + +Nor would it be just to memory to forget that other notable and noted +member of the household,--the unsleeping, unresting, omnipresent Pushee, +ready for everybody and everything, everywhere within the limits of the +establishment at all hours of the day and night. He fed, nobody could +say accurately when or where. There were rumors of a "bunk," in which he +lay down with his clothes on, but he seemed to be always wide awake, and +at the service of as many guest, at once as if there had been half a +dozen of him. + +So much for old reminiscences. + +The landlord of the Anchor Tavern had taken down his sign. He had had +the house thoroughly renovated and furnished it anew, and kept it open in +summer for a few boarders. It happened more than once that the summer +boarders were so much pleased with the place that they stayed on through +the autumn, and some of them through the winter. The attractions of the +village were really remarkable. Boating in summer, and skating in +winter; ice-boats, too, which the wild ducks could hardly keep up with; +fishing, for which the lake was renowned; varied and beautiful walks +through the valley and up the hillsides; houses sheltered from the north +and northeasterly winds, and refreshed in the hot summer days by the +breeze which came over the water,--all this made the frame for a pleasing +picture of rest and happiness. But there was a great deal more than +this. There was a fine library in the little village, presented and +richly endowed by a wealthy native of the place. There was a small +permanent population of a superior character to that of an everyday +country town; there was a pretty little Episcopal church, with a +good-hearted rector, broad enough for the Bishop of the diocese to be a +little afraid of, and hospitable to all outsiders, of whom, in the summer +season, there were always some who wanted a place of worship to keep +their religion from dying out during the heathen months, while the +shepherds of the flocks to which they belonged were away from their empty +folds. + +What most helped to keep the place alive all through the year was the +frequent coming together of the members of a certain literary +association. Some time before the tavern took down its sign the landlord +had built a hall, where many a ball had been held, to which the young +folks of all the country round had resorted. It was still sometimes used +for similar occasions, but it was especially notable as being the place +of meeting of the famous PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +This association, the name of which might be invidiously interpreted as +signifying that its members knew everything, had no such pretensions, +but, as its Constitution said very plainly and modestly, held itself open +to accept knowledge on any and all subjects from such as had knowledge to +impart. Its President was the rector of the little chapel, a man who, in +spite of the Thirty-Nine Articles, could stand fire from the +widest-mouthed heretical blunderbuss without flinching or losing his +temper. The hall of the old Anchor Tavern was a convenient place of +meeting for the students and instructors of the University and the +Institute. Sometimes in boat-loads, sometimes in carriage-loads, +sometimes in processions of skaters, they came to the meetings in +Pansophian Hall, as it was now commonly called. + +These meetings had grown to be occasions of great interest. It was +customary to have papers written by members of the Society, for the most +part, but now and then by friends of the members, sometimes by the +students of the College or the Institute, and in rarer instances by +anonymous personages, whose papers, having been looked over and discussed +by the Committee appointed for that purpose, were thought worth listening +to. The variety of topics considered was very great. The young ladies of +the village and the Institute had their favorite subjects, the young +gentlemen a different set of topics, and the occasional outside +contributors their own; so that one who happened to be admitted to a +meeting never knew whether he was going to hear an account of recent +arctic discoveries, or an essay on the freedom of the will, or a +psychological experience, or a story, or even a poem. + +Of late there had been a tendency to discuss the questions relating to +the true status and the legitimate social functions of woman. The most +conflicting views were held on the subject. Many of the young ladies and +some of the University students were strong in defence of all the +"woman's rights" doctrines. Some of these young people were extreme in +their views. They had read about Semiramis and Boadicea and Queen +Elizabeth, until they were ready, if they could get the chance, to vote +for a woman as President of the United States or as General of the United +States Army. They were even disposed to assert the physical equality of +woman to man, on the strength of the rather questionable history of the +Amazons, and especially of the story, believed to be authentic, of the +female body-guard of the King of Dahomey,--females frightful enough to +need no other weapon than their looks to scare off an army of Cossacks. + +Miss Lurida Vincent, gold medallist of her year at the Corinna Institute, +was the leader of these advocates of virile womanhood. It was rather +singular that she should have elected to be the apostle of this extreme +doctrine, for she was herself far better equipped with brain than +muscles. In fact, she was a large-headed, large-eyed, long-eyelashed, +slender-necked, slightly developed young woman; looking almost like a +child at an age when many of the girls had reached their full stature and +proportions. In her studies she was so far in advance of her different +classes that there was always a wide gap between her and the second +scholar. So fatal to all rivalry had she proved herself that she passed +under the school name of The Terror. She learned so easily that she +undervalued her own extraordinary gifts, and felt the deepest admiration +for those of her friends endowed with faculties of an entirely different +and almost opposite nature. After sitting at her desk until her head was +hot and her feet were like ice, she would go and look at the blooming +young girls exercising in the gymnasium of the school, and feel as if she +would give all her knowledge, all her mathematics and strange tongues and +history, all those accomplishments that made her the encyclopaedia of +every class she belonged to, if she could go through the series of +difficult and graceful exercises in which she saw her schoolmates +delighting. + +One among them, especially, was the object of her admiration, as she was +of all who knew her exceptional powers in the line for which nature had +specially organized her. All the physical perfections which Miss Lurida +had missed had been united in Miss Euthymia Tower, whose school name was +The Wonder. Though of full womanly stature, there were several taller +girls of her age. While all her contours and all her movements betrayed +a fine muscular development, there was no lack of proportion, and her +finely shaped hands and feet showed that her organization was one of +those carefully finished masterpieces of nature which sculptors are +always in search of, and find it hard to detect among the imperfect +products of the living laboratory. + +This girl of eighteen was more famous than she cared to be for her +performances in the gymnasium. She commonly contented herself with the +same exercises that her companions were accustomed to. Only her +dumb-bells, with which she exercised easily and gracefully, were too +heavy for most of the girls to do more with than lift them from the +floor. She was fond of daring feats on the trapeze, and had to be +checked in her indulgence in them. The Professor of gymnastics at the +University came over to the Institute now and then, and it was a source +of great excitement to watch some of the athletic exercises in which the +young lady showed her remarkable muscular strength and skill in managing +herself in the accomplishment of feats which looked impossible at first +sight. How often The Terror had thought to herself that she would gladly +give up all her knowledge of Greek and the differential and integral +calculus if she could only perform the least of those feats which were +mere play to The Wonder! Miss Euthymia was not behind the rest in her +attainments in classical or mathematical knowledge, and she was one of +the very best students in the out-door branches,--botany, mineralogy, +sketching from nature,--to be found among the scholars of the Institute. + +There was an eight-oared boat rowed by a crew of the young ladies, of +which Miss Euthymia was the captain and pulled the bow oar. Poor little +Lurida could not pull an oar, but on great occasions, when there were +many boats out, she was wanted as coxswain, being a mere feather-weight, +and quick-witted enough to serve well in the important office where +brains are more needed than muscle. + +There was also an eight-oared boat belonging to the University, and rowed +by a picked crew of stalwart young fellows. The bow oar and captain of +the University crew was a powerful young man, who, like the captain of +the girls' boat, was a noted gymnast. He had had one or two quiet trials +with Miss Euthymia, in which, according to the ultras of the woman's +rights party, he had not vindicated the superiority of his sex in the way +which might have been expected. Indeed, it was claimed that he let a +cannon-ball drop when he ought to have caught it, and it was not disputed +that he had been ingloriously knocked over by a sand-bag projected by the +strong arms of the young maiden. This was of course a story that was +widely told and laughingly listened to, and the captain of the University +crew had become a little sensitive on the subject. When there was a +talk, therefore, about a race between the champion boats of the two +institutions there was immense excitement in both of them, as well as +among the members of the Pansophian Society and all the good people of +the village. + +There were many objections to be overcome. Some thought it unladylike +for the young maidens to take part in a competition which must attract +many lookers-on, and which it seemed to them very hoidenish to venture +upon. Some said it was a shame to let a crew of girls try their strength +against an equal number of powerful young men. These objections were +offset by the advocates of the race by the following arguments. They +maintained that it was no more hoidenish to row a boat than it was to +take a part in the calisthenic exercises, and that the girls had nothing +to do with the young men's boat, except to keep as much ahead of it as +possible. As to strength, the woman's righters believed that, weight for +weight, their crew was as strong as the other, and of course due +allowance would be made for the difference of weight and all other +accidental hindrances. It was time to test the boasted superiority of +masculine muscle. Here was a chance. If the girls beat, the whole +country would know it, and after that female suffrage would be only a +question of time. Such was the conclusion, from rather insufficient +premises, it must be confessed; but if nature does nothing per +saltum,--by jumps,--as the old adage has it, youth is very apt to take +long leaps from a fact to a possible sequel or consequence. So it had +come about that a contest between the two boat-crews was looked forward +to with an interest almost equal to that with which the combat between +the Horatii and Curiatii was regarded. + +The terms had been at last arranged between the two crews, after cautious +protocols and many diplomatic discussions. It was so novel in its +character that it naturally took a good deal of time to adjust it in such +a way as to be fair to both parties. The course must not be too long for +the lighter and weaker crew, for the staying power of the young persons +who made it up could not be safely reckoned upon. A certain advantage +must be allowed them at the start, and this was a delicate matter to +settle. The weather was another important consideration. June would be +early enough, in all probability, and if the lake should be tolerably +smooth the grand affair might come off some time in that month. Any +roughness of the water would be unfavorable to the weaker crew. The +rowing-course was on the eastern side of the lake, the starting-point +being opposite the Anchor Tavern; from that three quarters of a mile to +the south, where the turning-stake was fixed, so that the whole course of +one mile and a half would bring the boats back to their starting-point. + +The race was to be between the Algonquin, eight-oared boat with +outriggers, rowed by young men, students of Stoughton University, and the +Atalanta, also eight-oared and outrigger boat, by young ladies from the +Corinna Institute. Their boat was three inches wider than the other, for +various sufficient reasons, one of which was to make it a little less +likely to go over and throw its crew into the water, which was a sound +precaution, though all the girls could swim, and one at least, the bow +oar, was a famous swimmer, who had pulled a drowning man out of the water +after a hard struggle to keep him from carrying her down with him. + +Though the coming trial had not been advertised in the papers, so as to +draw together a rabble of betting men and ill-conditioned lookers-on, +there was a considerable gathering, made up chiefly of the villagers and +the students of the two institutions. Among them were a few who were +disposed to add to their interest in the trial by small wagers. The bets +were rather in favor of the "Quins," as the University boat was commonly +called, except where the natural sympathy of the young ladies or the +gallantry of some of the young men led them to risk their gloves or +cigars, or whatever it might be, on the Atalantas. The elements of +judgment were these: average weight of the Algonquins one hundred and +sixty-five pounds; average weight of the Atalantas, one hundred and +forty-eight pounds; skill in practice about equal; advantage of the +narrow boat equal to three lengths; whole distance allowed the Atalantas +eight lengths,--a long stretch to be made up in a mile and a half. + +And so both crews began practising for the grand trial. + + + + +II + +THE BOAT-RACE. + +The 10th of June was a delicious summer day, rather warm, but still and +bright. The water was smooth, and the crews were in the best possible +condition. All was expectation, and for some time nothing but +expectation. No boat-race or regatta ever began at the time appointed +for the start. Somebody breaks an oar, or somebody fails to appear in +season, or something is the matter with a seat or an outrigger; or if +there is no such excuse, the crew of one or both or all the boats to take +part in the race must paddle about to get themselves ready for work, to +the infinite weariness of all the spectators, who naturally ask why all +this getting ready is not attended to beforehand. The Algonquins wore +plain gray flannel suits and white caps. The young ladies were all in +dark blue dresses, touched up with a red ribbon here and there, and wore +light straw hats. The little coxswain of the Atalanta was the last to +step on board. As she took her place she carefully deposited at her feet +a white handkerchief wrapped about something or other, perhaps a sponge, +in case the boat should take in water. + +At last the Algonquin shot out from the little nook where she lay, +--long, narrow, shining, swift as a pickerel when he darts from the reedy +shore. It was a beautiful sight to see the eight young fellows in their +close-fitting suits, their brown muscular arms bare, bending their backs +for the stroke and recovering, as if they were parts of a single machine. + +"The gals can't stan' it agin them fellers," said the old blacksmith from +the village. + +"You wait till the gals get a-goin'," said the carpenter, who had often +worked in the gymnasium of the Corinna Institute, and knew something of +their muscular accomplishments. "Y' ought to see 'em climb ropes, and +swing dumb-bells, and pull in them rowin'-machines. Ask Jake there +whether they can't row a mild in double-quick time,--he knows all abaout +it." + +Jake was by profession a fisherman, and a freshwater fisherman in a +country village is inspector-general of all that goes on out-of-doors, +being a lazy, wandering sort of fellow, whose study of the habits and +habitats of fishes gives him a kind of shrewdness of observation, just as +dealing in horses is an education of certain faculties, and breeds a race +of men peculiarly cunning, suspicious, wary, and wide awake, with a +rhetoric of appreciation and depreciation all its own. + +Jake made his usual preliminary signal, and delivered himself to the +following effect: + +"Wahl, I don' know jest what to say. I've seed 'em both often enough +when they was practisin', an' I tell ye the' wa'n't no slouch abaout +neither on 'em. But them bats is all-fired long, 'n' eight on 'em +stretched in a straight line eendways makes a consid'able piece aout 'f a +mile 'n' a haaf. I'd bate on them gals if it wa'n't that them fellers is +naterally longer winded, as the gals 'll find aout by the time they git +raound the stake 'n' over agin the big ellum. I'll go ye a quarter on +the pahnts agin the petticoats." + +The fresh-water fisherman had expressed the prevailing belief that the +young ladies were overmatched. Still there were not wanting those who +thought the advantage allowed the "Lantas," as they called the Corinna +boatcrew, was too great, and that it would be impossible for the "Quins" +to make it up and go by them. + +The Algonquins rowed up and down a few times before the spectators. They +appeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, mettlesome as +colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, disciplined to +work together as symmetrically as a single sculler pulls his pair of +oars. The fisherman offered to make his quarter fifty cents. No takers. + +Five minutes passed, and all eyes were strained to the south, looking for +the Atalanta. A clump of trees hid the edge of the lake along which the +Corinna's boat was stealing towards the starting-point. Presently the +long shell swept into view, with its blooming rowers, who, with their +ample dresses, seemed to fill it almost as full as Raphael fills his +skiff on the edge of the Lake of Galilee. But how steadily the Atalanta +came on!---no rocking, no splashing, no apparent strain; the bow oar +turning to look ahead every now and then, and watching her course, which +seemed to be straight as an arrow, the beat of the strokes as true and +regular as the pulse of the healthiest rower among them all. And if the +sight of the other boat and its crew was beautiful, how lovely was the +look of this! Eight young girls,--young ladies, for those who prefer that +more dignified and less attractive expression,--all in the flush of +youth, all in vigorous health; every muscle taught its duty; each rower +alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let her oar dally +with the water so as to lose an ounce of its propelling virtue; every eye +kindling with the hope of victory. Each of the boats was cheered as it +came in sight, but the cheers for the Atalanta were naturally the +loudest, as the gallantry of one sex and the clear, high voices of the +other gave it life and vigor. + +"Take your places!" shouted the umpire, five minutes before the half +hour. The two boats felt their way slowly and cautiously to their +positions, which had been determined by careful measurement. After a +little backing and filling they got into line, at the proper distance +from each other, and sat motionless, their bodies bent forward, their +arms outstretched, their oars in the water, waiting for the word. + +"Go!" shouted the umpire. + +Away sprang the Atalanta, and far behind her leaped the Algonquin, her +oars bending like so many long Indian bows as their blades flashed +through the water. + +"A stern chase is a long chase," especially when one craft is a great +distance behind the other. It looked as if it would be impossible for +the rear boat to overcome the odds against it. Of course the Algonquin +kept gaining, but could it possibly gain enough? That was the question. +As the boats got farther and farther away, it became more and more +difficult to determine what change there was in the interval between +them. But when they came to rounding the stake it was easier to guess at +the amount of space which had been gained. It was clear that something +like half the distance, four lengths, as nearly as could be estimated, +had been made up in rowing the first three quarters of a mile. Could the +Algonquins do a little better than this in the second half of the +race-course, they would be sure of winning. + +The boats had turned the stake, and were coming in rapidly. Every minute +the University boat was getting nearer the other. + +"Go it, Quins!" shouted the students. + +"Pull away, Lantas!" screamed the girls, who were crowding down to the +edge of the water. + +Nearer,--nearer,--the rear boat is pressing the other more and more +closely,--a few more strokes, and they will be even, for there is but one +length between them, and thirty rods will carry them to the line. It +looks desperate for the Atalantas. The bow oar of the Algonquin turns +his head. He sees the little coxswain leaning forward at every stroke, +as if her trivial weight were of such mighty consequence,--but a few +ounces might turn the scale of victory. As he turned he got a glimpse of +the stroke oar of the Atalanta. What a flash of loveliness it was! Her +face was like the reddest of June roses, with the heat and the strain and +the passion of expected triumph. The upper button of her close-fitting +flannel suit had strangled her as her bosom heaved with exertion, and it +had given way before the fierce clutch she made at it. The bow oar was a +staunch and steady rower, but he was human. The blade of his oar +lingered in the water; a little more and he would have caught a crab, and +perhaps lost the race by his momentary bewilderment. + +The boat, which seemed as if it had all the life and nervousness of a +Derby three-year-old, felt the slight check, and all her men bent more +vigorously to their oars. The Atalantas saw the movement, and made a +spurt to keep their lead and gain upon it if they could. It was of no +use. The strong arms of the young men were too much for the young +maidens; only a few lengths remained to be rowed, and they would +certainly pass the Atalanta before she could reach the line. + +The little coxswain saw that it was all up with the girls' crew if she +could not save them by some strategic device. + + "Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat?" + +she whispered to herself,--for The Terror remembered her Virgil as she +did everything else she ever studied. As she stooped, she lifted the +handkerchief at her feet, and took from it a flaming bouquet. "Look!" she +cried, and flung it just forward of the track of the Algonquin. The +captain of the University boat turned his head, and there was the lovely +vision which had a moment before bewitched him. The owner of all that +loveliness must, he thought, have flung the bouquet. It was a challenge: +how could he be such a coward as to decline accepting it. + +He was sure he could win the race now, and he would sweep past the line +in triumph with the great bunch of flowers at the stem of his boat, proud +as Van Tromp in the British channel with the broom at his mast-head. + +He turned the boat's head a little by backing water. He came up with the +floating flowers, and near enough to reach them. He stooped and snatched +them up, with the loss perhaps of a second in all,--no more. He felt sure +of his victory. + +How can one tell the story of the finish in cold-blooded preterites? Are +we not there ourselves? Are not our muscles straining with those of +these sixteen young creatures, full of hot, fresh blood, their nerves all +tingling like so many tight-strained harp-strings, all their life +concentrating itself in this passionate moment of supreme effort? No! +We are seeing, not telling about what somebody else once saw! + +--The bow of the Algonquin passes the stern of the Atalanta! + +--The bow of the Algonquin is on a level with the middle of the Atalanta! + +--Three more lengths' rowing and the college crew will pass the girls! + +--"Hurrah for the Quins!" The Algonquin ranges up alongside of the +Atalanta! + +"Through with her!" shouts the captain of the Algonquin. + +"Now, girls!" shrieks the captain of the Atalanta. + +They near the line, every rower straining desperately, almost madly. + +--Crack goes the oar of the Atalanta's captain, and up flash its +splintered fragments, as the stem of her boat springs past the line, +eighteen inches at least ahead of the Algonquin. + +Hooraw for the Lantas! Hooraw for the Girls! Hooraw for the Institoot! +shout a hundred voices. + +"Hurrah for woman's rights and female suffrage!" pipes the small voice of +The Terror, and there is loud laughing and cheering all round. + +She had not studied her classical dictionary and her mythology for +nothing. "I have paid off one old score," she said. "Set down my damask +roses against the golden apples of Hippomenes!" + +It was that one second lost in snatching up the bouquet which gave the +race to the Atalantas. + + + + +III + +THE WHITE CANOE. + +While the two boats were racing, other boats with lookers-on in them were +rowing or sailing in the neighborhood of the race-course. The scene on +the water was a gay one, for the young people in the boats were, many of +them, acquainted with each other. There was a good deal of lively talk +until the race became too exciting. Then many fell silent, until, as the +boats neared the line, and still more as they crossed it, the shouts +burst forth which showed how a cramp of attention finds its natural +relief in a fit of convulsive exclamation. + +But far away, on the other side of the lake, a birchbark canoe was to be +seen, in which sat a young man, who paddled it skillfully and swiftly. +It was evident enough that he was watching the race intently, but the +spectators could see little more than that. One of them, however, who +sat upon the stand, had a powerful spy-glass, and could distinguish his +motions very minutely and exactly. It was seen by this curious observer +that the young man had an opera-glass with him, which he used a good deal +at intervals. The spectator thought he kept it directed to the girls' +boat, chiefly, if not exclusively. He thought also that the opera-glass +was more particularly pointed towards the bow of the boat, and came to +the natural conclusion that the bow oar, Miss Euthymia Tower, captain of +the Atalantas, "The Wonder" of the Corinna Institute, was the attraction +which determined the direction of the instrument. + +"Who is that in the canoe over there?" asked the owner of the spy-glass. + +"That's just what we should like to know," answered the old landlord's +wife. "He and his man boarded with us when they first came, but we could +never find out anything about him only just his name and his ways of +living. His name is Kirkwood, Maurice Kirkwood, Esq., it used to come on +his letters. As for his ways of living, he was the solitariest human +being that I ever came across. His man carried his meals up to him. He +used to stay in his room pretty much all day, but at night he would be +off, walking, or riding on horseback, or paddling about in the lake, +sometimes till nigh morning. There's something very strange about that +Mr. Kirkwood. But there don't seem to be any harm in him. Only nobody +can guess what his business is. They got up a story about him at one +time. What do you think? They said he was a counterfeiter! And so they +went one night to his room, when he was out, and that man of his was away +too, and they carried keys, and opened pretty much everything; and they +found--well, they found just nothing at all except writings and +letters,--letters from places in America and in England, and some with +Italian postmarks: that was all. Since that time the sheriff and his +folks have let him alone and minded their own business. He was a +gentleman,--anybody ought to have known that; and anybody that knew about +his nice ways of living and behaving, and knew the kind of wear he had +for his underclothing, might have known it. I could have told those +officers that they had better not bother him. I know the ways of real +gentlemen and real ladies, and I know those fellows in store clothes that +look a little too fine,--outside. Wait till washing-day comes!" + +The good lady had her own standards for testing humanity, and they were +not wholly unworthy of consideration; they were quite as much to be +relied on as the judgments of the travelling phrenologist, who sent his +accomplice on before him to study out the principal personages in the +village, and in the light of these revelations interpreted the bumps, +with very little regard to Gall and Spurzheim, or any other authorities. + +Even with the small amount of information obtained by the search among +his papers and effects, the gossips of the village had constructed +several distinct histories for the mysterious stranger. He was an agent +of a great publishing house; a leading contributor to several important +periodicals; the author of that anonymously published novel which had +made so much talk; the poet of a large clothing establishment; a spy of +the Italian, some said the Russian, some said the British, Government; a +proscribed refugee from some country where he had been plotting; a +school-master without a school, a minister without a pulpit, an actor +without an engagement; in short, there was no end to the perfectly +senseless stories that were told about him, from that which made him out +an escaped convict to the whispered suggestion that he was the eccentric +heir to a great English title and estate. + +The one unquestionable fact was that of his extraordinary seclusion. +Nobody in the village, no student in the University, knew his history. +No young lady in the Corinna Institute had ever had a word from him. +Sometimes, as the boats of the University or the Institute were returning +at dusk, their rowers would see the canoe stealing into the shadows as +they drew near it. Sometimes on a moonlight night, when a party of the +young ladies were out upon the lake, they would see the white canoe +gliding ghost-like in the distance. And it had happened more than once +that when a boat's crew had been out with singers among them, while they +were in the midst of a song, the white canoe would suddenly appear and +rest upon the water,--not very near them, but within hearing +distance,--and so remain until the singing was over, when it would steal +away and be lost sight of in some inlet or behind some jutting rock. + +Naturally enough, there was intense curiosity about this young man. The +landlady had told her story, which explained nothing. There was nobody +to be questioned about him except his servant, an Italian, whose name was +Paolo, but who to the village was known as Mr. Paul. + +Mr. Paul would have seemed the easiest person in the world to worm a +secret out of. He was good-natured, child-like as a Heathen Chinee, +talked freely with everybody in such English as he had at command, knew +all the little people of the village, and was followed round by them +partly from his personal attraction for them, and partly because he was +apt to have a stick of candy or a handful of peanuts or other desirable +luxury in his pocket for any of his little friends he met with. He had +that wholesome, happy look, so uncommon in our arid countrymen,--a look +hardly to be found except where figs and oranges ripen in the open air. +A kindly climate to grow up in, a religion which takes your money and +gives you a stamped ticket good at Saint Peter's box office, a roomy +chest and a good pair of lungs in it, an honest digestive apparatus, a +lively temperament, a cheerful acceptance of the place in life assigned +to one by nature and circumstance,--these are conditions under which life +may be quite comfortable to endure, and certainly is very pleasant to +contemplate. All these conditions were united in Paolo. He was the +easiest; pleasantest creature to talk with that one could ask for a +companion. His southern vivacity, his amusing English, his simplicity and +openness, made him friends everywhere. + +It seemed as if it would be a very simple matter to get the history of +his master out of this guileless and unsophisticated being. He had been +tried by all the village experts. The rector had put a number of +well-studied careless questions, which failed of their purpose. The old +librarian of the town library had taken note of all the books he carried +to his master, and asked about his studies and pursuits. Paolo found it +hard to understand his English, apparently, and answered in the most +irrelevant way. The leading gossip of the village tried her skill in +pumping him for information. It was all in vain. + +His master's way of life was peculiar,--in fact, eccentric. He had hired +rooms in an old-fashioned three-story house. He had two rooms in the +second and third stories of this old wooden building: his study in the +second, his sleeping-room in the one above it. Paolo lived in the +basement, where he had all the conveniences for cooking, and played the +part of chef for his master and himself. This was only a part of his +duty, for he was a man-of-all-work, purveyor, steward, chambermaid,--as +universal in his services for one man as Pushee at the Anchor Tavern used +to be for everybody. + +It so happened that Paolo took a severe cold one winter's day, and had +such threatening symptoms that he asked the baker, when he called, to +send the village physician to see him. In the course of his visit the +doctor naturally inquired about the health of Paolo's master. + +"Signor Kirkwood well,--molto bene," said Paolo. "Why does he keep out +of sight as he does?" asked the doctor. + +"He always so," replied Paolo. "Una antipatia." + +Whether Paolo was off his guard with the doctor, whether he revealed it +to him as to a father confessor, or whether he thought it time that the +reason of his master's seclusion should be known, the doctor did not feel +sure. At any rate, Paolo was not disposed to make any further +revelations. Una antipatia,--an antipathy,--that was all the doctor +learned. He thought the matter over, and the more he reflected the more +he was puzzled. What could an antipathy be that made a young man a +recluse! Was it a dread of blue sky and open air, of the smell of +flowers, or some electrical impression to which he was unnaturally +sensitive? + +Dr. Butts carried these questions home with him. His wife was a +sensible, discreet woman, whom he could trust with many professional +secrets. He told her of Paolo's revelation, and talked it over with her +in the light of his experience and her own; for she had known some +curious cases of constitutional likes and aversions. + +Mrs. Butts buried the information in the grave of her memory, where it +lay for nearly a week. At the end of that time it emerged in a +confidential whisper to her favorite sister-in-law, a perfectly safe +person. Twenty-four hours later the story was all over the village that +Maurice Kirkwood was the subject of a strange, mysterious, unheard-of +antipathy to something, nobody knew what; and the whole neighborhood +naturally resolved itself into an unorganized committee of investigation. + + + + +IV + +What is a country village without its mysterious personage? Few are now +living who can remember the advent of the handsome young man who was the +mystery of our great university town "sixty years since,"--long enough +ago for a romance to grow out of a narrative, as Waverley may remind us. +The writer of this narrative remembers him well, and is not sure that he +has not told the strange story in some form or other to the last +generation, or to the one before the last. No matter: if he has told it +they have forgotten it,--that is, if they have ever read it; and whether +they have or have not, the story is singular enough to justify running +the risk of repetition. + +This young man, with a curious name of Scandinavian origin, appeared +unheralded in the town, as it was then, of Cantabridge. He wanted +employment, and soon found it in the shape of manual labor, which he +undertook and performed cheerfully. But his whole appearance showed +plainly enough that he was bred to occupations of a very different +nature, if, in deed, he had been accustomed to any kind of toil for his +living. His aspect was that of one of gentle birth. His hands were not +those of a laborer, and his features were delicate and refined, as well +as of remarkable beauty. Who he was, where he came from, why he had come +to Cantabridge, was never clearly explained. He was alone, without +friends, except among the acquaintances he had made in his new residence. +If he had any correspondents, they were not known to the neighborhood +where he was living. But if he had neither friends nor correspondents, +there was some reason for believing that he had enemies. Strange +circumstances occurred which connected themselves with him in an ominous +and unaccountable way. A threatening letter was slipped under the door +of a house where he was visiting. He had a sudden attack of illness, +which was thought to look very much like the effect of poison. At one +time he disappeared, and was found wandering, bewildered, in a town many +miles from that where he was residing. When questioned how he came +there; he told a coherent story that he had been got, under some pretext, +or in some not incredible way, into a boat, from which, at a certain +landing-place, he had escaped and fled for his life, which he believed +was in danger from his kidnappers. + +Whoever his enemies may have been,--if they really existed,--he did not +fall a victim to their plots, so far as known to or remembered by this +witness. + +Various interpretations were put upon his story. Conjectures were as +abundant as they were in the case of Kaspar Hauser. That he was of good +family seemed probable; that he was of distinguished birth, not +impossible; that he was the dangerous rival of a candidate for a greatly +coveted position in one of the northern states of Europe was a favorite +speculation of some of the more romantic young persons. There was no +dramatic ending to this story,--at least none is remembered by the +present writer. + +"He left a name," like the royal Swede, of whose lineage he may have been +for aught that the village people knew, but not a name at which anybody +"grew pale;" for he had swindled no one, and broken no woman's heart with +false vows. Possibly some withered cheeks may flush faintly as they +recall the handsome young man who came before the Cantabridge maidens +fully equipped for a hero of romance when the century was in its first +quarter. + +The writer has been reminded of the handsome Swede by the incidents +attending the advent of the unknown and interesting stranger who had made +his appearance at Arrowhead Village. + +It was a very insufficient and unsatisfactory reason to assign for the +young man's solitary habits that he was the subject of an antipathy. For +what do we understand by that word? When a young lady screams at the +sight of a spider, we accept her explanation that she has a natural +antipathy to the creature. When a person expresses a repugnance to some +wholesome article of food, agreeable to most people, we are satisfied if +he gives the same reason. And so of various odors, which are pleasing to +some persons and repulsive to others. We do not pretend to go behind the +fact. It is an individual, and it may be a family, peculiarity. Even +between different personalities there is an instinctive elective dislike +as well as an elective affinity. We are not bound to give a reason why +Dr. Fell is odious to us any more than the prisoner who peremptorily +challenges a juryman is bound to say why he does it; it is enough that he +"does not like his looks." + +There was nothing strange, then, that Maurice Kirkwood should have his +special antipathy; a great many other people have odd likes and dislikes. +But it was a very curious thing that this antipathy should be alleged as +the reason for his singular mode of life. All sorts of explanations were +suggested, not one of them in the least satisfactory, but serving to keep +the curiosity of inquirers active until they were superseded by a new +theory. One story was that Maurice had a great fear of dogs. It grew at +last to a connected narrative, in which a fright in childhood from a +rabid mongrel was said to have given him such a sensitiveness to the near +presence of dogs that he was liable to convulsions if one came close to +him. + +This hypothesis had some plausibility. No other creature would be so +likely to trouble a person who had an antipathy to it. Dogs are very apt +to make the acquaintance of strangers, in a free and easy way. They are +met with everywhere,--in one's daily walk, at the thresholds of the doors +one enters, in the gentleman's library, on the rug of my lady's +sitting-room and on the cushion of her carriage. It is true that there +are few persons who have an instinctive repugnance to this "friend of +man." But what if this so-called antipathy were only a fear, a terror, +which borrowed the less unmanly name? It was a fair question, if, +indeed, the curiosity of the public had a right to ask any questions at +all about a harmless individual who gave no offence, and seemed entitled +to the right of choosing his way of living to suit himself, without being +submitted to espionage. + +There was no positive evidence bearing on the point as yet. But one of +the village people had a large Newfoundland dog, of a very sociable +disposition, with which he determined to test the question. He watched +for the time when Maurice should leave his house for the woods or the +lake, and started with his dog to meet him. The animal walked up to the +stranger in a very sociable fashion, and began making his acquaintance, +after the usual manner of well-bred dogs; that is, with the courtesies +and blandishments by which the canine Chesterfield is distinguished from +the ill-conditioned cur. Maurice patted him in a friendly way, and spoke +to him as one who was used to the fellowship of such companions. That +idle question and foolish story were disposed of, therefore, and some +other solution must be found, if possible. + +A much more common antipathy is that which is entertained with regard to +cats. This has never been explained. It is not mere aversion to the +look of the creature, or to any sensible quality known to the common +observer. The cat is pleasing in aspect, graceful in movement, nice in +personal habits, and of amiable disposition. No cause of offence is +obvious, and yet there are many persons who cannot abide the presence of +the most innocent little kitten. They can tell, in some mysterious way, +that there is a cat in the room when they can neither see nor hear the +creature. Whether it is an electrical or quasi-magnetic phenomenon, or +whatever it may be, of the fact of this strange influence there are too +many well-authenticated instances to allow its being questioned. But +suppose Maurice Kirkwood to be the subject of this antipathy in its +extremest degree, it would in no manner account for the isolation to +which he had condemned himself. He might shun the firesides of the old +women whose tabbies were purring by their footstools, but these worthy +dames do not make up the whole population. + +These two antipathies having been disposed of, a new suggestion was +started, and was talked over with a curious sort of half belief, very +much as ghost stories are told in a circle of moderately instructed and +inquiring persons. This was that Maurice was endowed with the unenviable +gift of the evil eye. He was in frequent communication with Italy, as +his letters showed, and had recently been residing in that country, as +was learned from Paolo. Now everybody knows that the evil eye is not +rarely met with in Italy. Everybody who has ever read Mr. Story's "Roba +di Roma" knows what a terrible power it is which the owner of the evil +eye exercises. It can blight and destroy whatever it falls upon. No +person's life or limb is safe if the jettatura, the withering glance of +the deadly organ, falls upon him. It must be observed that this malign +effect may follow a look from the holiest personages, that is, if we may +assume that a monk is such as a matter of course. Certainly we have a +right to take it for granted that the late Pope, Pius Ninth, was an +eminently holy man, and yet he had the name of dispensing the mystic and +dreaded jettatura as well as his blessing. If Maurice Kirkwood carried +that destructive influence, so that his clear blue eyes were more to be +feared than the fascinations of the deadliest serpent, it could easily be +understood why he kept his look away from all around him whom he feared +he might harm. + +No sensible person in Arrowhead Village really believed in the evil eye, +but it served the purpose of a temporary hypothesis, as do many +suppositions which we take as a nucleus for our observations without +putting any real confidence in them. It was just suited to the romantic +notions of the more flighty persons in the village, who had meddled more +or less with Spiritualism, and were ready for any new fancy, if it were +only wild enough. + +The riddle of the young stranger's peculiarity did not seem likely to +find any very speedy solution. Every new suggestion furnished talk for +the gossips of the village and the babble of the many tongues in the two +educational institutions. Naturally, the discussion was liveliest among +the young ladies. Here is an extract from a letter of one of these young +ladies, who, having received at her birth the ever-pleasing name of Mary, +saw fit to have herself called Mollie in the catalogue and in her +letters. The old postmaster of the town to which her letter was directed +took it up to stamp, and read on the envelope the direction to "Miss Lulu +Pinrow." He brought the stamp down with a vicious emphasis, coming very +near blotting out the nursery name, instead of cancelling the +postage-stamp. "Lulu!" he exclaimed. "I should like to know if that +great strapping girl isn't out of her cradle yet! I suppose Miss Louisa +will think that belongs to her, but I saw her christened and I heard the +name the minister gave her, and it was n't 'Lulu,' or any such baby +nonsense." And so saying, he gave it a fling to the box marked P, as if +it burned his fingers. Why a grown-up young woman allowed herself to be +cheapened in the way so many of them do by the use of names which become +them as well as the frock of a ten-year-old schoolgirl would become a +graduate of the Corinna Institute, the old postmaster could not guess. +He was a queer old man. + +The letter thus scornfully treated runs over with a young girl's written +loquacity: + +"Oh, Lulu, there is such a sensation as you never saw or heard of 'in all +your born days,' as mamma used to say. He has been at the village for +some time, but lately we have had--oh, the weirdest stories about him! +'The Mysterious Stranger is the name some give him, but we girls call him +the Sachem, because he paddles about in an Indian canoe. If I should +tell you all the things that are said about him I should use up all my +paper ten times over. He has never made a visit to the Institute, and +none of the girls have ever spoken to him, but the people at the village +say he is very, very handsome. We are dying to get a look at him, of +course--though there is a horrid story about him--that he has the evil +eye did you ever hear about the evil eye? If a person who is born with +it looks at you, you die, or something happens--awful--is n't it? + +"The rector says he never goes to church, but then you know a good many +of the people that pass the summer at the village never do--they think +their religion must have vacations--that's what I've heard they +say--vacations, just like other hard work--it ought not to be hard work, +I'm sure, but I suppose they feel so about it. Should you feel afraid to +have him look at you? Some of the girls say they would n't have him for +the whole world, but I shouldn't mind it--especially if I had on my +eyeglasses. Do you suppose if there is anything in the evil eye it would +go through glass? I don't believe it. Do you think blue eye-glasses +would be better than common ones? Don't laugh at me--they tell such +weird stories! The Terror--Lurida Vincent, you know-makes fun of all +they say about it, but then she 'knows everything and doesn't believe +anything,' the girls say--Well, I should be awfully scared, I know, if +anybody that had the evil eye should look at me--but--oh, I don't +know--but if it was a young man--and if he was very--very +good-looking--I think--perhaps I would run the risk--but don't tell +anybody I said any such horrid thing--and burn this letter right +up--there 's a dear good girl." + +It is to be hoped that no reader will doubt the genuineness of this +letter. There are not quite so many "awfuls" and "awfullys" as one +expects to find in young ladies' letters, but there are two "weirds," +which may be considered a fair allowance. How it happened that "jolly" +did not show itself can hardly be accounted for; no doubt it turns up two +or three times at least in the postscript. + +Here is an extract from another letter. This was from one of the +students of Stoughton University to a friend whose name as it was written +on the envelope was Mr. Frank Mayfield. The old postmaster who found +fault with Miss "Lulu's" designation would probably have quarrelled with +this address, if it had come under his eye. "Frank" is a very pretty, +pleasant-sounding name, and it is not strange that many persons use it in +common conversation all their days when speaking of a friend. Were they +really christened by that name, any of these numerous Franks? Perhaps +they were, and if so there is nothing to be said. But if not, was the +baptismal name Francis or Franklin? The mind is apt to fasten in a very +perverse and unpleasant way upon this question, which too often there is +no possible way of settling. One might hope, if he outlived the bearer +of the appellation, to get at the fact; but since even gravestones have +learned to use the names belonging to childhood and infancy in their +solemn record, the generation which docks its Christian names in such an +un-Christian way will bequeath whole churchyards full of riddles to +posterity. How it will puzzle and distress the historians and +antiquarians of a coming generation to settle what was the real name of +Dan and Bert and Billy, which last is legible on a white marble slab, +raised in memory of a grown person, in a certain burial-ground in a town +in Essex County, Massachusetts! + +But in the mean time we are forgetting the letter directed to Mr. Frank +Mayfield. + +"DEAR FRANK,--Hooray! Hurrah! Rah! + +"I have made the acquaintance of 'The Mysterious Stranger'! It happened +by a queer sort of accident, which came pretty near relieving you of the +duty of replying to this letter. I was out in my little boat, which +carries a sail too big for her, as I know and ought to have remembered. +One of those fitful flaws of wind to which the lake is so liable struck +the sail suddenly, and over went my boat. My feet got tangled in the +sheet somehow, and I could not get free. I had hard work to keep my head +above water, and I struggled desperately to escape from my toils; for if +the boat were to go down I should be dragged down with her. I thought of +a good many things in the course of some four or five minutes, I can tell +you, and I got a lesson about time better than anything Kant and all the +rest of them have to say of it. After I had been there about an ordinary +lifetime, I saw a white canoe making toward me, and I knew that our shy +young gentleman was coming to help me, and that we should become +acquainted without an introduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw what +the trouble was, managed to disentangle my feet without drowning me in +the process or upsetting his little flimsy craft, and, as I was somewhat +tired with my struggle, took me in tow and carried me to the landing +where he kept his canoe. I can't say that there is anything odd about +his manners or his way of talk. I judge him to be a native of one of our +Northern States,--perhaps a New Englander. He has lived abroad during +some parts of his life. He is not an artist, as it was at one time +thought he might be. He is a good-looking fellow, well developed, manly +in appearance, with nothing to excite special remark unless it be a +certain look of anxiety or apprehension which comes over him from time to +time. You remember our old friend Squire B., whose companion was killed +by lightning when he was standing close to him. You know the look he had +whenever anything like a thundercloud came up in the sky. Well, I should +say there was a look like that came over this Maurice Kirkwood's face +every now and then. I noticed that he looked round once or twice as if to +see whether some object or other was in sight. There was a little +rustling in the grass as if of footsteps, and this look came over his +features. A rabbit ran by us, and I watched to see if he showed any sign +of that antipathy we have heard so much of, but he seemed to be pleased +watching the creature. + +"If you ask me what my opinion is about this Maurice Kirkwood, I think he +is eccentric in his habit of life, but not what they call a 'crank' +exactly. He talked well enough about such matters as we spoke of,--the +lake, the scenery in general, the climate. I asked him to come over and +take a look at the college. He did n't promise, but I should not be +surprised if I should get him over there some day. I asked him why he +did n't go to the Pansophian meetings. He did n't give any reason, but +he shook his head in a very peculiar way, as much as to say that it was +impossible. + +"On the whole, I think it is nothing more than the same feeling of dread +of human society, or dislike for it, which under the name of religion +used to drive men into caves and deserts. What a pity that Protestantism +does not make special provision for all the freaks of individual +character! If we had a little more faith and a few more caverns, or +convenient places for making them, we should have hermits in these holes +as thick as woodchucks or prairie dogs. I should like to know if you +never had the feeling, + + "'Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place!' + +"I know what your answer will be, of course. You will say, 'Certainly, + + "'With one fair spirit for my minister;'" + +"but I mean alone,--all alone. Don't you ever feel as if you should like +to have been a pillar-saint in the days when faith was as strong as lye +(spelt with a y), instead of being as weak as dish-water? (Jerry is +looking over my shoulder, and says this pun is too bad to send, and a +disgrace to the University--but never mind.) I often feel as if I should +like to roost on a pillar a hundred feet high,--yes, and have it soaped +from top to bottom. Wouldn't it be fun to look down at the bores and the +duns? Let us get up a pillar-roosters' association. (Jerry--still +looking over says there is an absurd contradiction in the idea.) + +"What a matter-of-fact idiot Jerry is! + +"How do you like looking over, Mr. Inspector general?" + +The reader will not get much information out of this lively young +fellow's letter, but he may get a little. It is something to know that +the mysterious resident of Arrowhead Village did not look nor talk like a +crazy person; that he was of agreeable aspect and address, helpful when +occasion offered, and had nothing about him, so far as yet appeared, to +prevent his being an acceptable member of society. + +Of course the people in the village could never be contented without +learning everything there was to be learned about their visitor. All the +city papers were examined for advertisements. If a cashier had +absconded, if a broker had disappeared, if a railroad president was +missing, some of the old stories would wake up and get a fresh currency, +until some new circumstance gave rise to a new hypothesis. Unconscious of +all these inquiries and fictions, Maurice Kirkwood lived on in his +inoffensive and unexplained solitude, and seemed likely to remain an +unsolved enigma. The "Sachem" of the boating girls became the "Sphinx" +of the village ramblers, and it was agreed on all hands that Egypt did +not hold any hieroglyphics harder to make out than the meaning of this +young man's odd way of living. + + + + +V + +THE ENIGMA STUDIED. + +It was a curious, if it was not a suspicious, circumstance that a young +man, seemingly in good health, of comely aspect, looking as if made for +companionship, should keep himself apart from all the world around him in +a place where there was a general feeling of good neighborhood and a +pleasant social atmosphere. The Public Library was a central point which +brought people together. The Pansophian Society did a great deal to make +them acquainted with each other for many of the meetings were open to +outside visitors, and the subjects discussed in the meetings furnished +the material for conversation in their intervals. A card of invitation +had been sent by the Secretary to Maurice, in answer to which Paolo +carried back a polite note of regret. The paper had a narrow rim of +black, implying apparently some loss of relative or friend, but not any +very recent and crushing bereavement. This refusal to come to the +meetings of the society was only what was expected. It was proper to ask +him, but his declining the invitation showed that he did not wish for +attentions or courtesies. There was nothing further to be done to bring +him out of his shell, and seemingly nothing more to be learned about him +at present. + +In this state of things it was natural that all which had been previously +gathered by the few who had seen or known anything of him should be +worked over again. When there is no new ore to be dug, the old refuse +heaps are looked over for what may still be found in them. The landlord +of the Anchor Tavern, now the head of the boarding-house, talked about +Maurice, as everybody in the village did at one time or another. He had +not much to say, but he added a fact or two. + +The young gentleman was good pay,--so they all said. Sometimes he paid +in gold; sometimes in fresh bills, just out of the bank. He trusted his +man, Mr. Paul, with the money to pay his bills. He knew something about +horses; he showed that by the way he handled that colt,--the one that +threw the hostler and broke his collar-bone. "Mr. Paul come down to the +stable. 'Let me see that cult you all 'fraid of,' says he. 'My master, +he ride any hoss,' says Paul. 'You saddle him,' says be; and so they +did, and Paul, he led that colt--the kickinest and ugliest young beast +you ever see in your life--up to the place where his master, as he calls +him, and he lives. What does that Kirkwood do but clap on a couple of +long spurs and jump on to that colt's back, and off the beast goes, tail +up, heels flying, standing up on end, trying all sorts of capers, and at +last going it full run for a couple of miles, till he'd got about enough +of it. That colt went off as ferce as a wild-cat, and come back as quiet +as a cosset lamb. A man that pays his bills reg'lar, in good money, and +knows how to handle a hoss is three quarters of a gentleman, if he is n't +a whole one,--and most likely he is a whole one." + +So spake the patriarch of the Anchor Tavern. His wife had already given +her favorable opinion of her former guest. She now added something to +her description as a sequel to her husband's remarks. + +"I call him," she said, "about as likely a young gentleman as ever I +clapped my eyes on. He is rather slighter than I like to see a young man +of his age; if he was my sun, I should like to see him a little more +fleshy. I don't believe he weighs more than a hundred and thirty or +forty pounds. Did y' ever look at those eyes of his, M'randy? Just as +blue as succory flowers. I do like those light-complected young fellows, +with their fresh cheeks and their curly hair; somehow, curly hair doos +set off anybody's face. He is n't any foreigner, for all that he talks +Italian with that Mr. Paul that's his help. He looks just like our kind +of folks, the college kind, that's brought up among books, and is +handling 'em, and reading of 'em, and making of 'em, as like as not, all +their lives. All that you say about his riding the mad colt is just what +I should think he was up to, for he's as spry as a squirrel; you ought to +see him go over that fence, as I did once. I don't believe there's any +harm in that young gentleman,--I don't care what people say. I suppose +he likes this place just as other people like it, and cares more for +walking in the woods and paddling about in the water than he doos for +company; and if he doos, whose business is it, I should like to know?" + +The third of the speakers was Miranda, who had her own way of judging +people. + +"I never see him but two or three times," Miranda said. "I should like +to have waited on him, and got a chance to look stiddy at him when he was +eatin' his vittles. That 's the time to watch folks, when their jaws get +a-goin' and their eyes are on what's afore 'em. Do you remember that chap +the sheriff come and took away when we kep' tahvern? Eleven year ago it +was, come nex' Thanksgivin' time. A mighty grand gentleman from the City +he set up for. I watched him, and I watched him. Says I, I don't +believe you're no gentleman, says I. He eat with his knife, and that +ain't the way city folks eats. Every time I handed him anything I looked +closeter and closeter. Them whiskers never grooved on them cheeks, says +I to myself. Them 's paper collars, says I. That dimun in your +shirt-front hain't got no life to it, says I. I don't believe it's +nothiri' more 'n a bit o' winderglass. So says I to Pushee, 'You jes' +step out and get the sheriff to come in and take a look at that chap.' I +knowed he was after a fellah. He come right in, an' he goes up to the +chap. 'Why, Bill,' says he, 'I'm mighty glad to see yer. We've had the +hole in the wall you got out of mended, and I want your company to come +and look at the old place,' says he, and he pulls out a couple of +handcuffs and has 'em on his wrists in less than no time, an' off they +goes together! I know one thing about that young gentleman, +anyhow,--there ain't no better judge of what's good eatin' than he is. I +cooked him some maccaroni myself one day, and he sends word to me by that +Mr. Paul, 'Tell Miss Miranda,' says he, I that the Pope o' Rome don't +have no better cooked maccaroni than what she sent up to me yesterday,' +says he. I don' know much about the Pope o' Rome except that he's a +Roman Catholic, and I don' know who cooks for him, whether it's a man or +a woman; but when it comes to a dish o' maccaroni, I ain't afeard of +their shefs, as they call 'em,--them he-cooks that can't serve up a cold +potater without callin' it by some name nobody can say after 'em. But +this gentleman knows good cookin', and that's as good a sign of a +gentleman as I want to tell 'em by." + + + + +VI + +STILL AT FAULT. + +The house in which Maurice Kirkwood had taken up his abode was not a very +inviting one. It was old, and had been left in a somewhat dilapidated +and disorderly condition by the tenants who had lived in the part which +Maurice now occupied. They had piled their packing-boxes in the cellar, +with broken chairs, broken china, and other household wrecks. A cracked +mirror lay on an old straw mattress, the contents of which were airing +themselves through wide rips and rents. A lame clothes-horse was saddled +with an old rug fringed with a ragged border, out of which all the colors +had been completely trodden. No woman would have gone into a house in +such a condition. But the young man did not trouble himself much about +such matters, and was satisfied when the rooms which were to be occupied +by himself and his servant were made decent and tolerably comfortable. +During the fine season all this was not of much consequence, and if +Maurice made up his mind to stay through the winter he would have his +choice among many more eligible places. + +The summer vacation of the Corinna Institute had now arrived, and the +young ladies had scattered to their homes. Among the graduates of the +year were Miss Euthymia Tower and Miss Lurida Vincent, who had now +returned to their homes in Arrowhead Village. They were both glad to +rest after the long final examinations and the exercises of the closing +day, in which each of them had borne a conspicuous part. It was a +pleasant life they led in the village, which was lively enough at this +season. Walking, riding, driving, boating, visits to the Library, +meetings of the Pansophian Society, hops, and picnics made the time pass +very cheerfully, and soon showed their restoring influences. The +Terror's large eyes did not wear the dull, glazed look by which they had +too often betrayed the after effects of over-excitement of the strong and +active brain behind them. The Wonder gained a fresher bloom, and looked +full enough of life to radiate vitality into a statue of ice. They had a +boat of their own, in which they passed many delightful hours on the +lake, rowing, drifting, reading, telling of what had been, dreaming of +what might be. + +The Library was one of the chief centres of the fixed population, and +visited often by strangers. The old Librarian was a peculiar character, +as these officials are apt to be. They have a curious kind of knowledge, +sometimes immense in its way. They know the backs of books, their +title-pages, their popularity or want of it, the class of readers who +call for particular works, the value of different editions, and a good +deal besides. Their minds catch up hints from all manner of works on all +kinds of subjects. They will give a visitor a fact and a reference which +they are surprised to find they remember and which the visitor might have +hunted for a year. Every good librarian, every private book-owner, who +has grown into his library, finds he has a bunch of nerves going to every +bookcase, a branch to every shelf, and a twig to every book. These +nerves get very sensitive in old librarians, sometimes, and they do not +like to have a volume meddled with any more than they would like to have +their naked eyes handled. They come to feel at last that the books of a +great collection are a part, not merely of their own property, though +they are only the agents for their distribution, but that they are, as it +were, outlying portions of their own organization. The old Librarian was +getting a miserly feeling about his books, as he called them. +Fortunately, he had a young lady for his assistant, who was never so +happy as when she could find the work any visitor wanted and put it in +his hands,--or her hands, for there were more readers among the wives +and--daughters, and especially among the aunts, than there were among +their male relatives. The old Librarian knew the books, but the books +seemed to know the young assistant; so it looked, at least, to the +impatient young people who wanted their services. + +Maurice had a good many volumes of his own,--a great many, according to +Paolo's account; but Paolo's ideas were limited, and a few well-filled +shelves seemed a very large collection to him. His master frequently +sent him to the Public Library for books, which somewhat enlarged his +notions; still, the Signor was a very learned man, he was certain, and +some of his white books (bound in vellum and richly gilt) were more +splendid, according to Paolo, than anything in the Library. + +There was no little curiosity to know what were the books that Maurice +was in the habit of taking out, and the Librarian's record was carefully +searched by some of the more inquisitive investigators. The list proved +to be a long and varied one. It would imply a considerable knowledge of +modern languages and of the classics; a liking for mathematics and +physics, especially all that related to electricity and magnetism; a +fancy for the occult sciences, if there is any propriety in coupling +these words; and a whim for odd and obsolete literature, like the +Parthenologia of Fortunius Licetus, the quaint treatise 'De +Sternutatione,' books about alchemy, and witchcraft, apparitions, and +modern works relating to Spiritualism. With these were the titles of +novels and now and then of books of poems; but it may be taken for +granted that his own shelves held the works he was most frequently in the +habit of reading or consulting. Not much was to be made out of this +beyond the fact of wide scholarship,--more or less deep it might be, but +at any rate implying no small mental activity; for he appeared to read +very rapidly, at any rate exchanged the books he had taken out for new +ones very frequently. To judge by his reading, he was a man of letters. +But so wide-reading a man of letters must have an object, a literary +purpose in all probability. Why should not he be writing a novel? Not a +novel of society, assuredly, for a hermit is not the person to report the +talk and manners of a world which he has nothing to do with. Novelists +and lawyers understand the art of "cramming" better than any other +persons in the world. Why should not this young man be working up the +picturesque in this romantic region to serve as a background for some +story with magic, perhaps, and mysticism, and hints borrowed from +science, and all sorts of out-of-the-way knowledge which his odd and +miscellaneous selection of books furnished him? That might be, or +possibly he was only reading for amusement. Who could say? + +The funds of the Public Library of Arrowhead Village allowed the managers +to purchase many books out of the common range of reading. The two +learned people of the village were the rector and the doctor. These two +worthies kept up the old controversy between the professions, which grows +out of the fact that one studies nature from below upwards, and the other +from above downwards. The rector maintained that physicians contracted a +squint which turns their eyes inwardly, while the muscles which roll +their eyes upward become palsied. The doctor retorted that theological +students developed a third eyelid,--the nictitating membrane, which is so +well known in birds, and which serves to shut out, not all light, but all +the light they do not want. Their little skirmishes did not prevent +their being very good friends, who had a common interest in many things +and many persons. Both were on the committee which had the care of the +Library and attended to the purchase of books. Each was scholar enough +to know the wants of scholars, and disposed to trust the judgment of the +other as to what books should be purchased. Consequently, the clergyman +secured the addition to the Library of a good many old theological works +which the physician would have called brimstone divinity, and held to be +just the thing to kindle fires with,--good books still for those who know +how to use them, oftentimes as awful examples of the extreme of +disorganization the whole moral system may undergo when a barbarous +belief has strangled the natural human instincts. The physician, in the +mean time, acquired for the collection some of those medical works where +one may find recorded various rare and almost incredible cases, which may +not have their like for a whole century, and then repeat themselves, so +as to give a new lease of credibility to stories which had come to be +looked upon as fables. + +Both the clergyman and the physician took a very natural interest in the +young man who had come to reside in their neighborhood for the present, +perhaps for a long period. The rector would have been glad to see him at +church. He would have liked more especially to have had him hear his +sermon on the Duties of Young Men to Society. The doctor, meanwhile, was +meditating on the duties of society to young men, and wishing that he +could gain the young man's confidence, so as to help him out of any false +habit of mind or any delusion to which he might be subject, if he had the +power of being useful to him. + +Dr. Butts was the leading medical practitioner, not only of Arrowhead +Village, but of all the surrounding region. He was an excellent specimen +of the country doctor, self-reliant, self-sacrificing, working a great +deal harder for his living than most of those who call themselves the +laboring classes,--as if none but those whose hands were hardened by the +use of farming or mechanical implements had any work to do. He had that +sagacity without which learning is a mere incumbrance, and he had also a +fair share of that learning without which sagacity is like a traveller +with a good horse, but who cannot read the directions on the guideboards. +He was not a man to be taken in by names. He well knew that oftentimes +very innocent-sounding words mean very grave disorders; that all, degrees +of disease and disorder are frequently confounded under the same term; +that "run down" may stand for a fatigue of mind or body from which a week +or a month of rest will completely restore the over-worked patient, or an +advanced stage of a mortal illness; that "seedy" may signify the +morning's state of feeling, after an evening's over-indulgence, which +calls for a glass of soda-water and a cup of coffee, or a dangerous +malady which will pack off the subject of it, at the shortest notice, to +the south of France. He knew too well that what is spoken lightly of as +a "nervous disturbance" may imply that the whole machinery of life is in +a deranged condition, and that every individual organ would groan aloud +if it had any other language than the terrible inarticulate one of pain +by which to communicate with the consciousness. + +When, therefore, Dr. Butts heard the word antipatia he did not smile, and +say to himself that this was an idle whim, a foolish fancy, which the +young man had got into his head. Neither was he satisfied to set down +everything to the account of insanity, plausible as that supposition +might seem. He was prepared to believe in some exceptional, perhaps +anomalous, form of exaggerated sensibility, relating to what class of +objects he could not at present conjecture, but which was as vital to the +subject of it as the insulating arrangement to a piece of electrical +machinery. With this feeling he began to look into the history of +antipathies as recorded in all the books and journals on which he could +lay his hands. + + ------------------------------ + +The holder of the Portfolio asks leave to close it for a brief interval. +He wishes to say a few words to his readers, before offering them some +verses which have no connection with the narrative now in progress. + +If one could have before him a set of photographs taken annually, +representing the same person as he or she appeared for thirty or forty or +fifty years, it would be interesting to watch the gradual changes of +aspect from the age of twenty, or even of thirty or forty, to that of +threescore and ten. The face might be an uninteresting one; still, as +sharing the inevitable changes wrought by time, it would be worth looking +at as it passed through the curve of life,--the vital parabola, which +betrays itself in the symbolic changes of the features. An inscription +is the same thing, whether we read it on slate-stone, or granite, or +marble. To watch the lights and shades, the reliefs and hollows, of a +countenance through a lifetime, or a large part of it, by the aid of a +continuous series of photographs would not only be curious; it would +teach us much more about the laws of physiognomy than we could get from +casual and unconnected observations. + +The same kind of interest, without any assumption of merit to be found in +them, I would claim for a series of annual poems, beginning in middle +life and continued to what many of my correspondents are pleased to +remind me--as if I required to have the fact brought to my knowledge--is +no longer youth. Here is the latest of a series of annual poems read +during the last thirty-four years. There seems to have been one +interruption, but there may have been other poems not recorded or +remembered. This, the latest poem of the series, was listened to by the +scanty remnant of what was a large and brilliant circle of classmates and +friends when the first of the long series was read before them, then in +the flush of ardent manhood:-- + + THE OLD SONG. + + The minstrel of the classic lay + Of love and wine who sings + Still found the fingers run astray + That touched the rebel strings. + + Of Cadmus he would fair have sung, + Of Atreus and his line; + But all the jocund echoes rung + With songs of love and wine. + + Ah, brothers! I would fair have caught + Some fresher fancy's gleam; + My truant accents find, unsought, + The old familiar theme. + + Love, Love! but not the sportive child + With shaft and twanging bow, + Whose random arrows drove us wild + Some threescore years ago; + + Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, + The urchin blind and bare, + But Love, with spectacles and staff, + And scanty, silvered hair. + + Our heads with frosted locks are white, + Our roofs are thatched with snow, + But red, in chilling winter's spite, + Our hearts and hearthstones glow. + + Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, + And while the running sands + Their golden thread unheeded spin, + He warms his frozen hands. + + Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, + And waft this message o'er + To all we miss, from all we meet + On life's fast-crumbling shore: + + Say that to old affection true + We hug the narrowing chain + That binds our hearts,--alas, how few + The links that yet remain! + + The fatal touch awaits them all + That turns the rocks to dust; + From year to year they break and fall, + They break, but never rust. + + Say if one note of happier strain + This worn-out harp afford, + --One throb that trembles, not in vain, + Their memory lent its chord. + + Say that when Fancy closed her wings + And Passion quenched his fire, + Love, Love, still echoed from the strings + As from Anacreon's lyre! + + January 8, 1885. + + + + +VII + +A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES + +In thinking the whole matter over, Dr. Butts felt convinced that, with +care and patience and watching his opportunity, he should get at the +secret, which so far bad yielded nothing but a single word. It might be +asked why he was so anxious to learn what, from all appearances, the +young stranger was unwilling to explain. He may have been to some extent +infected by the general curiosity of the persons around him, in which +good Mrs. Butts shared, and which she had helped to intensify by +revealing the word dropped by Paolo. But this was not really his chief +motive. He could not look upon this young man, living a life of +unwholesome solitude, without a natural desire to do all that his science +and his knowledge of human nature could help him to do towards bringing +him into healthy relations with the world about him. Still, he would not +intrude upon him in any way. He would only make certain general +investigations, which might prove serviceable in case circumstances +should give him the right to counsel the young man as to his course of +life. The first thing to be done was to study systematically the whole +subject of antipathies. Then, if any further occasion offered itself, he +would be ready to take advantage of it. The resources of the Public +Library of the place and his own private collection were put in +requisition to furnish him the singular and widely scattered facts of +which he was in search. + +It is not every reader who will care to follow Dr. Butts in his study of +the natural history of antipathies. The stories told about them are, +however, very curious; and if some of them may be questioned, there is no +doubt that many of the strangest are true, and consequently take away +from the improbability of others which we are disposed to doubt. + +But in the first place, what do we mean by an antipathy? It is an +aversion to some object, which may vary in degree from mere dislike to +mortal horror. What the cause of this aversion is we cannot say. It acts +sometimes through the senses, sometimes through the imagination, +sometimes through an unknown channel. The relations which exist between +the human being and all that surrounds him vary in consequence of some +adjustment peculiar to each individual. The brute fact is expressed in +the phrase "One man's meat is another man's poison." + +In studying the history of antipathies the doctor began with those +referable to the sense of taste, which are among the most common. In any +collection of a hundred persons there will be found those who cannot make +use of certain articles of food generally acceptable. This may be from +the disgust they occasion or the effects they have been found to produce. +Every one knows individuals who cannot venture on honey, or cheese, or +veal, with impunity. Carlyle, for example, complains of having veal set +before him,--a meat he could not endure. There is a whole family +connection in New England, and that a very famous one, to many of whose +members, in different generations, all the products of the dairy are the +subjects of a congenital antipathy. Montaigne says there are persons who +dread the smell of apples more than they would dread being exposed to a +fire of musketry. The readers of the charming story "A Week in a French +Country-House" will remember poor Monsieur Jacque's piteous cry in the +night: "Ursula, art thou asleep? Oh, Ursula, thou sleepest, but I cannot +close my eyes. Dearest Ursula, there is such a dreadful smell! Oh, +Ursula, it is such a smell! I do so wish thou couldst smell it! +Good-night, my angel!----Dearest! I have found them! They are apples!" +The smell of roses, of peonies, of lilies, has been known to cause +faintness. The sight of various objects has had singular effects on some +persons. A boar's head was a favorite dish at the table of great people +in Marshal d'Albret's time; yet he used to faint at the sight of one. It +is not uncommon to meet with persons who faint at the sight of blood. +One of the most inveterately pugnacious of Dr. Butts's college-mates +confessed that he had this infirmity. Stranger and far more awkward than +this is the case mentioned in an ancient collection, where the subject of +the antipathy fainted at the sight of any object of a red color. There +are sounds, also, which have strange effects on some individuals. Among +the obnoxious noises are the crumpling of silk stuffs, the sound of +sweeping, the croaking of frogs. The effects in different cases have +been spasms, a sense of strangling, profuse sweating,--all showing a +profound disturbance of the nervous system. + +All these effects were produced by impressions on the organs of sense, +seemingly by direct agency on certain nerve centres. But there is +another series of cases in which the imagination plays a larger part in +the phenomena. Two notable examples are afforded in the lives of two +very distinguished personages. + +Peter the Great was frightened, when an infant, by falling from a bridge +into the water. Long afterward, when he had reached manhood, this hardy +and resolute man was so affected by the sound of wheels rattling over a +bridge that he had to discipline himself by listening to the sound, in +spite of his dread of it, in order to overcome his antipathy. The story +told by Abbe Boileau of Pascal is very similar to that related of Peter. +As he was driving in his coach and four over the bridge at Neuilly, his +horses took fright and ran away, and the leaders broke from their harness +and sprang into the river, leaving the wheel-horses and the carriage on +the bridge. Ever after this fright it is said that Pascal had the +terrifying sense that he was just on the edge of an abyss, ready to fall +over. + +What strange early impression was it which led a certain lady always to +shriek aloud if she ventured to enter a church, as it is recorded? The +old and simple way of accounting for it would be the scriptural one, that +it was an unclean spirit who dwelt in her, and who, when she entered the +holy place and brought her spiritual tenant into the presence of the +sacred symbols, "cried with a loud voice, and came out of" her. A very +singular case, the doctor himself had recorded, and which the reader may +accept as authentic, is the following: At the head of the doctor's front +stairs stood, and still stands, a tall clock, of early date and stately +presence. A middle-aged visitor, noticing it as he entered the front +door, remarked that he should feel a great unwillingness to pass that +clock. He could not go near one of those tall timepieces without a +profound agitation, which he dreaded to undergo. This very singular +idiosyncrasy he attributed to a fright when he was an infant in the arms +of his nurse. + +She was standing near one of those tall clocks, when the cord which +supported one of its heavy leaden weights broke, and the weight came +crashing down to the bottom of the case. Some effect must have been +produced upon the pulpy nerve centres from which they never recovered. +Why should not this happen, when we know that a sudden mental shock may +be the cause of insanity? The doctor remembered the verse of "The +Ancient Mariner:" + + "I moved my lips; the pilot shrieked + And fell down in a fit; + The holy hermit raised his eyes + And prayed where he did sit. + I took the oars; the pilot's boy, + Who now doth crazy go, + Laughed loud and long, and all the while + His eyes went to and fro." + +This is only poetry, it is true, but the poet borrowed the description +from nature, and the records of our asylums could furnish many cases +where insanity was caused by a sudden fright. + +More than this, hardly a year passes that we do not read of some person, +a child commonly, killed outright by terror,--scared to death, literally. +Sad cases they often are, in which, nothing but a surprise being +intended, the shock has instantly arrested the movements on which life +depends. If a mere instantaneous impression can produce effects like +these, such an impression might of course be followed by consequences +less fatal or formidable, but yet serious in their nature. If here and +there a person is killed, as if by lightning, by a sudden startling sight +or sound, there must be more numerous cases in which a terrible shock is +produced by similar apparently insignificant causes,--a shock which falls +short of overthrowing the reason and does not destroy life, yet leaves a +lasting effect upon the subject of it. + +This point, then, was settled in the mind of Dr. Butts, namely, that, as +a violent emotion caused by a sudden shock can kill or craze a human +being, there is no perversion of the faculties, no prejudice, no change +of taste or temper, no eccentricity, no antipathy, which such a cause may +not rationally account for. He would not be surprised, he said to +himself, to find that some early alarm, like that which was experienced +by Peter the Great or that which happened to Pascal, had broken some +spring in this young man's nature, or so changed its mode of action as to +account for the exceptional remoteness of his way of life. But how could +any conceivable antipathy be so comprehensive as to keep a young man +aloof from all the world, and make a hermit of him? He did not hate the +human race; that was clear enough. He treated Paolo with great kindness, +and the Italian was evidently much attached to him. He had talked +naturally and pleasantly with the young man he had helped out of his +dangerous situation when his boat was upset. Dr. Butts heard that he had +once made a short visit to this young man, at his rooms in the +University. It was not misanthropy, therefore, which kept him solitary. +What could be broad enough to cover the facts of the case? Nothing that +the doctor could think of, unless it were some color, the sight of which +acted on him as it did on the individual before mentioned, who could not +look at anything red without fainting. Suppose this were a case of the +same antipathy. How very careful it would make the subject of it as to +where he went and with whom he consorted! Time and patience would be +pretty sure to bring out new developments, and physicians, of all men in +the world, know how to wait as well as how to labor. + +Such were some of the crude facts as Dr. Butts found them in books or +gathered them from his own experience. He soon discovered that the story +had got about the village that Maurice Kirkwood was the victim of an +"antipathy," whatever that word might mean in the vocabulary of the +people of the place. If he suspected the channel through which it had +reached the little community, and, spreading from that centre, the +country round, he did not see fit to make out of his suspicions a +domestic casus belli. Paolo might have mentioned it to others as well as +to himself. Maurice might have told some friend, who had divulged it. +But to accuse Mrs. Butts, good Mrs. Butts, of petit treason in telling +one of her husband's professional secrets was too serious a matter to be +thought of. He would be a little more careful, he promised himself, the +next time, at any rate; for he had to concede, in spite of every wish to +be charitable in his judgment, that it was among the possibilities that +the worthy lady had forgotten the rule that a doctor's patients must put +their tongues out, and a doctor's wife must keep her tongue in. + + + + +VIII + +THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +The Secretary of this association was getting somewhat tired of the +office, and the office was getting somewhat tired of him. It occurred to +the members of the Society that a little fresh blood infused into it +might stir up the general vitality of the organization. The woman +suffragists saw no reason why the place of Secretary need as a matter of +course be filled by a person of the male sex. They agitated, they made +domiciliary visits, they wrote notes to influential citizens, and finally +announced as their candidate the young lady who had won and worn the +school name of "The Terror," who was elected. She was just the person +for the place: wide awake, with all her wits about her, full of every +kind of knowledge, and, above all, strong on points of order and details +of management, so that she could prompt the presiding officer, to do +which is often the most essential duty of a Secretary. The President, +the worthy rector, was good at plain sailing in the track of the common +moralities and proprieties, but was liable to get muddled if anything +came up requiring swift decision and off-hand speech. The Terror had +schooled herself in the debating societies of the Institute, and would +set up the President, when he was floored by an awkward question, as +easily as if he were a ninepin which had been bowled over. + +It has been already mentioned that the Pansophian Society received +communications from time to time from writers outside of its own +organization. Of late these had been becoming more frequent. Many of +them were sent in anonymously, and as there were numerous visitors to the +village, and two institutions not far removed from it, both full of +ambitious and intelligent young persons, it was often impossible to trace +the papers to their authors. The new Secretary was alive with curiosity, +and as sagacious a little body as one might find if in want of a +detective. She could make a pretty shrewd guess whether a paper was +written by a young or old person, by one of her own sex or the other, by +an experienced hand or a novice. + +Among the anonymous papers she received was one which exercised her +curiosity to an extraordinary degree. She felt a strong suspicion that +"the Sachem," as the boat-crews used to call him, "the Recluse," "the +Night-Hawk," "the Sphinx," as others named him, must be the author of it. +It appeared to her the production of a young person of a reflective, +poetical turn of mind. It was not a woman's way of writing; at least, so +thought the Secretary. The writer had travelled much; had resided in +Italy, among other places. But so had many of the summer visitors and +residents of Arrowhead Village. The handwriting was not decisive; it had +some points of resemblance with the pencilled orders for books which +Maurice sent to the Library, but there were certain differences, +intentional or accidental, which weakened this evidence. There was an +undertone in the essay which was in keeping with the mode of life of the +solitary stranger. It might be disappointment, melancholy, or only the +dreamy sadness of a young person who sees the future he is to climb, not +as a smooth ascent, but as overhanging him like a cliff, ready to crush +him, with all his hopes and prospects. This interpretation may have been +too imaginative, but here is the paper, and the reader can form his own +opinion: + + MY THREE COMPANIONS. + +"I have been from my youth upwards a wanderer. I do not mean constantly +flitting from one place to another, for my residence has often been fixed +for considerable periods. From time to time I have put down in a +notebook the impressions made upon me by the scenes through which I have +passed. I have long hesitated whether to let any of my notes appear +before the public. My fear has been that they were too subjective, to +use the metaphysician's term,--that I have seen myself reflected in +Nature, and not the true aspects of Nature as she was meant to be +understood. One who should visit the Harz Mountains would see--might +see, rather his own colossal image shape itself on the morning mist. But +if in every mist that rises from the meadows, in every cloud that hangs +upon the mountain, he always finds his own reflection, we cannot accept +him as an interpreter of the landscape. + +"There must be many persons present at the meetings of the Society to +which this paper is offered who have had experiences like that of its +author. They have visited the same localities, they have had many of the +same thoughts and feelings. Many, I have no doubt. Not all,--no, not +all. Others have sought the companionship of Nature; I have been driven +to it. Much of my life has been passed in that communion. These pages +record some of the intimacies I have formed with her under some of her +various manifestations. + +"I have lived on the shore of the great ocean, where its waves broke +wildest and its voice rose loudest. + +"I have passed whole seasons on the banks of mighty and famous rivers. + +"I have dwelt on the margin of a tranquil lake, and floated through many +a long, long summer day on its clear waters. + +"I have learned the 'various language' of Nature, of which poetry has +spoken,--at least, I have learned some words and phrases of it. I will +translate some of these as I best may into common speech. + +"The OCEAN says to the dweller on its shores:-- + +"You are neither welcome nor unwelcome. I do not trouble myself with the +living tribes that come down to my waters. I have my own people, of an +older race than yours, that grow to mightier dimensions than your +mastodons and elephants; more numerous than all the swarms that fill the +air or move over the thin crust of the earth. Who are you that build +your palaces on my margin? I see your white faces as I saw the dark +faces of the tribes that came before you, as I shall look upon the +unknown family of mankind that will come after you. And what is your +whole human family but a parenthesis in a single page of my history? The +raindrops stereotyped themselves on my beaches before a living creature +left his footprints there. This horseshoe-crab I fling at your feet is +of older lineage than your Adam,--perhaps, indeed, you count your Adam as +one of his descendants. What feeling have I for you? Not scorn, not +hatred,--not love,--not loathing. No!---indifference,--blank +indifference to you and your affairs that is my feeling, say rather +absence of feeling, as regards you.---Oh yes, I will lap your feet, I +will cool you in the hot summer days, I will bear you up in my strong +arms, I will rock you on my rolling undulations, like a babe in his +cradle. Am I not gentle? Am I not kind? Am I not harmless? But hark! +The wind is rising, and the wind and I are rough playmates! What do you +say to my voice now? Do you see my foaming lips? Do you feel the rocks +tremble as my huge billows crash against them? Is not my anger terrible +as I dash your argosy, your thunder-bearing frigate, into fragments, as +you would crack an eggshell?--No, not anger; deaf, blind, unheeding +indifference,--that is all. Out of me all things arose; sooner or later, +into me all things subside. All changes around me; I change not. I look +not at you, vain man, and your frail transitory concerns, save in +momentary glimpses: I look on the white face of my dead mistress, whom I +follow as the bridegroom follows the bier of her who has changed her +nuptial raiment for the shroud. + +"Ye whose thoughts are of eternity, come dwell at my side. Continents and +islands grow old, and waste and disappear. The hardest rock crumbles; +vegetable and animal kingdoms come into being, wax great, decline, and +perish, to give way to others, even as human dynasties and nations and +races come and go. Look on me! "Time writes no wrinkle" on my forehead. +Listen to me! All tongues are spoken on my shores, but I have only one +language: the winds taught me their vowels the crags and the sands +schooled me in my rough or smooth consonants. Few words are mine but I +have whispered them and sung them and shouted them to men of all tribes +from the time when the first wild wanderer strayed into my awful +presence. Have you a grief that gnaws at your heart-strings? Come with +it to my shore, as of old the priest of far-darting Apollo carried his +rage and anguish to the margin of the loud-roaring sea. There, if +anywhere you will forget your private and short-lived woe, for my voice +speaks to the infinite and the eternal in your consciousness. + +"To him who loves the pages of human history, who listens to the voices +of the world about him, who frequents the market and the thoroughfare, +who lives in the study of time and its accidents rather than in the +deeper emotions, in abstract speculation and spiritual contemplation, the +RIVER addresses itself as his natural companion. + +"Come live with me. I am active, cheerful, communicative, a natural +talker and story-teller. I am not noisy, like the ocean, except +occasionally when I am rudely interrupted, or when I stumble and get a +fall. When I am silent you can still have pleasure in watching my +changing features. My idlest babble, when I am toying with the trifles +that fall in my way, if not very full of meaning, is at least musical. I +am not a dangerous friend, like the ocean; no highway is absolutely safe, +but my nature is harmless, and the storms that strew the beaches with +wrecks cast no ruins upon my flowery borders. Abide with me, and you +shall not die of thirst, like the forlorn wretches left to the mercies of +the pitiless salt waves. Trust yourself to me, and I will carry you far +on your journey, if we are travelling to the same point of the compass. +If I sometimes run riot and overflow your meadows, I leave fertility +behind me when I withdraw to my natural channel. Walk by my side toward +the place of my destination. I will keep pace with you, and you shall +feel my presence with you as that of a self-conscious being like +yourself. You will find it hard to be miserable in my company; I drain +you of ill-conditioned thoughts as I carry away the refuse of your +dwelling and its grounds." + +But to him whom the ocean chills and crushes with its sullen +indifference, and the river disturbs with its never-pausing and +never-ending story, the silent LAKE shall be a refuge and a place of rest +for his soul. + +"'Vex not yourself with thoughts too vast for your limited faculties,' it +says; 'yield not yourself to the babble of the running stream. Leave the +ocean, which cares nothing for you or any living thing that walks the +solid earth; leave the river, too busy with its own errand, too talkative +about its own affairs, and find peace with me, whose smile will cheer +you, whose whisper will soothe you. Come to me when the morning sun +blazes across my bosom like a golden baldric; come to me in the still +midnight, when I hold the inverted firmament like a cup brimming with +jewels, nor spill one star of all the constellations that float in my +ebon goblet. Do you know the charm of melancholy? Where will you find a +sympathy like mine in your hours of sadness? Does the ocean share your +grief? Does the river listen to your sighs? The salt wave, that called +to you from under last month's full moon, to-day is dashing on the rocks +of Labrador; the stream, that ran by you pure and sparkling, has +swallowed the poisonous refuse of a great city, and is creeping to its +grave in the wide cemetery that buries all things in its tomb of liquid +crystal. It is true that my waters exhale and are renewed from one +season to another; but are your features the same, absolutely the same, +from year to year? We both change, but we know each other through all +changes. Am I not mirrored in those eyes of yours? And does not Nature +plant me as an eye to behold her beauties while she is dressed in the +glories of leaf and flower, and draw the icy lid over my shining surface +when she stands naked and ashamed in the poverty of winter?' + +"I have had strange experiences and sad thoughts in the course of a life +not very long, but with a record which much longer lives could not match +in incident. Oftentimes the temptation has come over me with dangerous +urgency to try a change of existence, if such change is a part of human +destiny,--to seek rest, if that is what we gain by laying down the burden +of life. I have asked who would be the friend to whom I should appeal +for the last service I should have need of. Ocean was there, all ready, +asking no questions, answering none. What strange voyages, downward +through its glaucous depths, upwards to its boiling and frothing surface, +wafted by tides, driven by tempests, disparted by rude agencies; one +remnant whitening on the sands of a northern beach, one perhaps built +into the circle of a coral reef in the Pacific, one settling to the floor +of the vast laboratory where continents are built, to emerge in far-off +ages! What strange companions for my pall-bearers! Unwieldy +sea-monsters, the stories of which are counted fables by the spectacled +collectors who think their catalogues have exhausted nature; naked-eyed +creatures, staring, glaring, nightmare-like spectres of the ghastly-green +abysses; pulpy islands, with life in gelatinous immensity,--what a +company of hungry heirs at every ocean funeral! No! No! Ocean claims +great multitudes, but does not invite the solitary who would fain be rid +of himself. + +"Shall I seek a deeper slumber at the bottom of the lake I love than I +have ever found when drifting idly over its surface? No, again. I do +not want the sweet, clear waters to know me in the disgrace of nature, +when life, the faithful body-servant, has ceased caring for me. That +must not be. The mirror which has pictured me so often shall never know +me as an unwelcome object. + +"If I must ask the all-subduing element to be my last friend, and lead me +out of my prison, it shall be the busy, whispering, not unfriendly, +pleasantly companionable river. + +"But Ocean and River and Lake have certain relations to the periods of +human life which they who are choosing their places of abode should +consider. Let the child play upon the seashore. The wide horizon gives +his imagination room to grow in, untrammelled. That background of +mystery, without which life is a poor mechanical arrangement, is shaped +and colored, so far as it can have outline, or any hue but shadow, on a +vast canvas, the contemplation of which enlarges and enriches the sphere +of consciousness. The mighty ocean is not too huge to symbolize the +aspirations and ambitions of the yet untried soul of the adolescent. + +"The time will come when his indefinite mental horizon has found a solid +limit, which shuts his prospect in narrower bounds than he would have +thought could content him in the years of undefined possibilities. Then +he will find the river a more natural intimate than the ocean. It is +individual, which the ocean, with all its gulfs and inlets and +multitudinous shores, hardly seems to be. It does not love you very +dearly, and will not miss you much when you disappear from its margin; +but it means well to you, bids you good-morning with its coming waves, +and good-evening with those which are leaving. It will lead your +thoughts pleasantly away, upwards to its source, downwards to the stream +to which it is tributary, or the wide waters in which it is to lose +itself. A river, by choice, to live by in middle age. + +"In hours of melancholy reflection, in those last years of life which +have little left but tender memories, the still companionship of the +lake, embosomed in woods, sheltered, fed by sweet mountain brooks and +hidden springs, commends itself to the wearied and saddened spirit. I am +not thinking of those great inland seas, which have many of the features +and much of the danger that belong to the ocean, but of those 'ponds,' as +our countrymen used to call them until they were rechristened by summer +visitors; beautiful sheets of water from a hundred to a few thousand +acres in extent, scattered like raindrops over the map of our Northern +sovereignties. The loneliness of contemplative old age finds its natural +home in the near neighborhood of one of these tranquil basins." + +Nature does not always plant her poets where they belong, but if we look +carefully their affinities betray themselves. The youth will carry his +Byron to the rock which overlooks the ocean the poet loved so well. The +man of maturer years will remember that the sonorous couplets of Pope +which ring in his ears were written on the banks of the Thames. The old +man, as he nods over the solemn verse of Wordsworth, will recognize the +affinity between the singer and the calm sheet that lay before him as he +wrote,--the stainless and sleepy Windermere. + +"The dwellers by Cedar Lake may find it an amusement to compare their own +feelings with those of one who has lived by the Atlantic and the +Mediterranean, by the Nile and the Tiber, by Lake Leman and by one of the +fairest sheets of water that our own North America embosoms in its +forests." + +Miss Lurida Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, read this +paper, and pondered long upon it. She was thinking very seriously of +studying medicine, and had been for some time in frequent communication +with Dr. Butts, under whose direction she had begun reading certain +treatises, which added to such knowledge of the laws of life in health +and in disease as she had brought with her from the Corinna Institute. +Naturally enough, she carried the anonymous paper to the doctor, to get +his opinion about it, and compare it with her own. They both agreed that +it was probably, they would not say certainly, the work of the solitary +visitor. There was room for doubt, for there were visitors who might +well have travelled to all the places mentioned, and resided long enough +on the shores of the waters the writer spoke of to have had all the +experiences mentioned in the paper. The Terror remembered a young lady, +a former schoolmate, who belonged to one of those nomadic families common +in this generation, the heads of which, especially the female heads, can +never be easy where they are, but keep going between America and Europe, +like so many pith-balls in the electrical experiment, alternately +attracted and repelled, never in contented equilibrium. Every few years +they pull their families up by the roots, and by the time they have begun +to take hold a little with their radicles in the spots to which they have +been successively transplanted up they come again, so that they never get +a tap-root anywhere. The Terror suspected the daughter of one of these +families of sending certain anonymous articles of not dissimilar +character to the one she had just received. But she knew the style of +composition common among the young girls, and she could hardly believe +that it was one of them who had sent this paper. Could a brother of this +young lady have written it? Possibly; she knew nothing more than that +the young lady had a brother, then a student at the University. All the +chances were that Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was the author. So thought +Lurida, and so thought Dr. Butts. + +Whatever faults there were in this essay, it interested them both. There +was nothing which gave the least reason to suspect insanity on the part +of the writer, whoever he or she might be. There were references to +suicide, it is true, but they were of a purely speculative nature, and +did not look to any practical purpose in that direction. Besides, if the +stranger were the author of the paper, he certainly would not choose a +sheet of water like Cedar Lake to perform the last offices for him, in +case he seriously meditated taking unceremonious leave of life and its +accidents. He could find a river easily enough, to say nothing of other +methods of effecting his purpose; but he had committed himself as to the +impropriety of selecting a lake, so they need not be anxious about the +white canoe and its occupant, as they watched it skimming the surface of +the deep waters. + +The holder of the Portfolio would never have ventured to come before the +public if he had not counted among his resources certain papers belonging +to the records of the Pansophian Society, which he can make free use of, +either for the illustration of the narrative, or for a diversion during +those intervals in which the flow of events is languid, or even ceases +for the time to manifest any progress. The reader can hardly have failed +to notice that the old Anchor Tavern had become the focal point where a +good deal of mental activity converged. There were the village people, +including a number of cultivated families; there were the visitors, among +them many accomplished and widely travelled persons; there was the +University, with its learned teachers and aspiring young men; there was +the Corinna Institute, with its eager, ambitious, hungry-souled young +women, crowding on, class after class coming forward on the broad stream +of liberal culture, and rounding the point which, once passed, the +boundless possibilities of womanhood opened before them. All this +furnished material enough and to spare for the records and the archives +of the society. + +The new Secretary infused fresh life into the meetings. It may be +remembered that the girls had said of her, when she was The Terror, that +"she knew everything and didn't believe anything." That was just the +kind of person for a secretary of such an association. Properly +interpreted, the saying meant that she knew a great deal, and wanted to +know a great deal more, and was consequently always on the lookout for +information; that she believed nothing without sufficient proof that it +was true, and therefore was perpetually asking for evidence where, others +took assertions on trust. + +It was astonishing to see what one little creature like The Terror could +accomplish in the course of a single season. She found out what each +member could do and wanted to do. She wrote to the outside visitors whom +she suspected of capacity, and urged them to speak at the meetings, or +send written papers to be read. As an official, with the printed title +at the head of her notes, PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY, she was a privileged +personage. She begged the young persons who had travelled to tell +something of their experiences. She had contemplated getting up a +discussion on the woman's rights question, but being a wary little body, +and knowing that the debate would become a dispute and divide the members +into two hostile camps, she deferred this project indefinitely. It would +be time enough after she had her team well in hand, she said to +herself,--had felt their mouths and tried their paces. This expression, +as she used it in her thoughts, seems rather foreign to her habits, but +there was room in her large brain for a wide range of illustrations and +an ample vocabulary. She could not do much with her own muscles, but she +had known the passionate delight of being whirled furiously over the road +behind four scampering horses, in a rocking stage-coach, and thought of +herself in the Secretary's chair as not unlike the driver on his box. A +few weeks of rest had allowed her nervous energy to store itself up, and +the same powers which had distanced competition in the classes of her +school had of necessity to expend themselves in vigorous action in her +new office. + +Her appeals had their effect. A number of papers were very soon sent in; +some with names, some anonymously. She looked these papers over, and +marked those which she thought would be worth reading and listening to at +the meetings. One of them has just been presented to the reader. As to +the authorship of the following one there were many conjectures. A +well-known writer, who had spent some weeks at Arrowhead Village, was +generally suspected of being its author. Some, however, questioned +whether it was not the work of a new hand, who wrote, not from +experience, but from his or her ideas of the condition to which a +story-teller, a novelist, must in all probability be sooner or later +reduced. The reader must judge for himself whether this first paper is +the work of an old hand or a novice. + + SOME EXPERIENCES OF A NOVELIST. + +"I have written a frightful number of stories, forty or more, I think. +Let me see. For twelve years two novels a year regularly: that makes +twenty-four. In three different years I have written three +stories annually: that makes thirty-three. In five years one a +year,--thirty-eight. That is all, is n't it? Yes. Thirty-eight, not +forty. I wish I could make them all into one composite story, as Mr. +Galton does his faces. + +"Hero--heroine--mamma--papa--uncle--sister, and so on. Love +--obstacles--misery--tears--despair--glimmer of hope--unexpected solution +of difficulties--happy finale. + +"Landscape for background according to season. Plants of each month got +up from botanical calendars. + +"I should like much to see the composite novel. Why not apply Mr. +Galton's process, and get thirty-eight stories all in one? All the +Yankees would resolve into one Yankee, all the P----West Britons into one +Patrick, etc., what a saving of time it would be! + +"I got along pretty well with my first few stories. I had some +characters around me which, a little disguised, answered well enough. +There was the minister of the parish, and there was an old schoolmaster +either of them served very satisfactorily for grandfathers and old +uncles. All I had to do was to shift some of their leading +peculiarities, keeping the rest. The old minister wore knee-breeches. I +clapped them on to the schoolmaster. The schoolmaster carried a tall +gold-headed cane. I put this in the minister's hands. So with other +things,--I shifted them round, and got a set of characters who, taken +together, reproduced the chief persons of the village where I lived, but +did not copy any individual exactly. Thus it went on for a while; but by +and by my stock company began to be rather too familiarly known, in spite +of their change of costume, and at last some altogether too sagacious +person published what he called a 'key' to several of my earlier stories, +in which I found the names of a number of neighbors attached to aliases +of my own invention. All the 'types,' as he called them, represented by +these personages of my story had come to be recognized, each as standing +for one and the same individual of my acquaintance. It had been of no +use to change the costume. Even changing the sex did no good. I had a +famous old gossip in one of my tales,--a much-babbling Widow Sertingly. +'Sho!' they all said, that 's old Deacon Spinner, the same he told about +in that other story of his,--only the deacon's got on a petticoat and a +mob-cap,--but it's the same old sixpence.' So I said to myself, I must +have some new characters. I had no trouble with young characters; they +are all pretty much alike,--dark-haired or light-haired, with the outfits +belonging to their complexion, respectively. I had an old great-aunt, +who was a tip-top eccentric. I had never seen anything just like her in +books. So I said, I will have you, old lady, in one of my stories; and, +sure enough, I fitted her out with a first-rate odd-sounding name, which +I got from the directory, and sent her forth to the world, disguised, as +I supposed, beyond the possibility of recognition. The book sold well, +and the eccentric personage was voted a novelty. A few weeks after it +was published a lawyer called upon me, as the agent of the person in the +directory, whose family name I had used, as he maintained, to his and all +his relatives' great damage, wrong, loss, grief, shame, and irreparable +injury, for which the sum of blank thousand dollars would be a modest +compensation. The story made the book sell, but not enough to pay blank +thousand dollars. In the mean time a cousin of mine had sniffed out the +resemblance between the character in my book and our great-aunt. We were +rivals in her good graces. 'Cousin Pansie' spoke to her of my book and +the trouble it was bringing on me,--she was so sorry about it! She liked +my story,--only those personalities, you know. 'What personalities?' +says old granny-aunt. 'Why, auntie, dear, they do say that he has +brought in everybody we know,--did n't anybody tell you about--well,--I +suppose you ought to know it,--did n't anybody tell you you were made fun +of in that novel?' Somebody--no matter who--happened to hear all this, +and told me. She said granny-aunt's withered old face had two red spots +come to it, as if she had been painting her cheeks from a pink saucer. +No, she said, not a pink saucer, but as if they were two coals of fire. +She sent out and got the book, and made her (the somebody that I was +speaking of) read it to her. When she had heard as much as she could +stand,--for 'Cousin Pansie' explained passages to her,--explained, you +know,--she sent for her lawyer, and that same somebody had to be a +witness to a new will she had drawn up. It was not to my advantage. +'Cousin Pansie' got the corner lot where the grocery is, and pretty much +everything else. The old woman left me a legacy. What do you think it +was? An old set of my own books, that looked as if it had been bought +out of a bankrupt circulating library. + +"After that I grew more careful. I studied my disguises much more +diligently. But after all, what could I do? Here I was, writing stories +for my living and my reputation. I made a pretty sum enough, and worked +hard enough to earn it. No tale, no money. Then every story that went +from my workshop had to come up to the standard of my reputation, and +there was a set of critics,--there is a set of critics now and +everywhere,--that watch as narrowly for the decline of a man's reputation +as ever a village half drowned out by an inundation watched for the +falling of the waters. The fame I had won, such as it was, seemed to +attend me,--not going before me in the shape of a woman with a trumpet, +but rather following me like one of Actaeon's hounds, his throat open, +ready to pull me down and tear me. What a fierce enemy is that which bays +behind us in the voice of our proudest bygone achievement! + +"But, as I said above, what could I do? I must write novels, and I must +have characters. 'Then why not invent them?' asks some novice. Oh, yes! +Invent them! You can invent a human being that in certain aspects of +humanity will answer every purpose for which your invention was intended. +A basket of straw, an old coat and pair of breeches, a hat which has been +soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken window, and had a brood of chickens +raised in it,--these elements, duly adjusted to each other, will +represent humanity so truthfully that the crows will avoid the cornfield +when your scarecrow displays his personality. Do you think you can make +your heroes and heroines,--nay, even your scrappy supernumeraries,--out +of refuse material, as you made your scarecrow? You can't do it. You +must study living people and reproduce them. And whom do you know so +well as your friends? You will show up your friends, then, one after +another. When your friends give out, who is left for you? Why, nobody +but your own family, of course. When you have used up your family, there +is nothing left for you but to write your autobiography. + +"After my experience with my grand-aunt, I be came more cautious, very +naturally. I kept traits of character, but I mixed ages as well as +sexes. In this way I continued to use up a large amount of material, +which looked as if it were as dangerous as dynamite to meddle with. Who +would have expected to meet my maternal uncle in the guise of a +schoolboy? Yet I managed to decant his characteristics as nicely as the +old gentleman would have decanted a bottle of Juno Madeira through that +long siphon which he always used when the most sacred vintages were +summoned from their crypts to render an account of themselves on his +hospitable board. It was a nice business, I confess, but I did it, and I +drink cheerfully to that good uncle's memory in a glass of wine from his +own cellar, which, with many other more important tokens of his good +will, I call my own since his lamented demise. + +"I succeeded so well with my uncle that I thought I would try a course of +cousins. I had enough of them to furnish out a whole gallery of +portraits. There was cousin 'Creeshy,' as we called her; Lucretia, more +correctly. She was a cripple. Her left lower limb had had something +happen to it, and she walked with a crutch. Her patience under her trial +was very pathetic and picturesque, so to speak,--I mean adapted to the +tender parts of a story; nothing could work up better in a melting +paragraph. But I could not, of course, describe her particular +infirmity; that would point her out at once. I thought of shifting the +lameness to the right lower limb, but even that would be seen through. +So I gave the young woman that stood for her in my story a lame elbow, +and put her arm in a sling, and made her such a model of uncomplaining +endurance that my grandmother cried over her as if her poor old heart +would break. She cried very easily, my grandmother; in fact, she had +such a gift for tears that I availed myself of it, and if you remember +old Judy, in my novel "Honi Soit" (Honey Sweet, the booksellers called +it),--old Judy, the black-nurse,--that was my grandmother. She had +various other peculiarities, which I brought out one by one, and saddled +on to different characters. You see she was a perfect mine of +singularities and idiosyncrasies. After I had used her up pretty well, I +came dawn upon my poor relations. They were perfectly fair game; what +better use could I put them to? I studied them up very carefully, and as +there were a good many of them I helped myself freely. They lasted me, +with occasional intermissions, I should say, three or four years. I had +to be very careful with my poor relations,--they were as touchy as they +could be; and as I felt bound to send a copy of my novel, whatever it +might be, to each one of them,--there were as many as a dozen,--I took +care to mix their characteristic features, so that, though each might +suspect I meant the other, no one should think I meant him or her. I got +through all my relations at last except my father and mother. I had +treated my brothers and sisters pretty fairly, all except Elisha and +Joanna. The truth is they both had lots of odd ways,--family traits, I +suppose, but were just different enough from each other to figure +separately in two different stories. These two novels made me some +little trouble; for Elisha said he felt sure that I meant Joanna in one +of them, and quarrelled with me about it; and Joanna vowed and declared +that Elnathan, in the other, stood for brother 'Lisha, and that it was a +real mean thing to make fun of folks' own flesh and blood, and treated me +to one of her cries. She was n't handsome when she cried, poor, dear +Joanna; in fact, that was one of the personal traits I had made use of in +the story that Elisha found fault with. + +"So as there was nobody left but my father and mother, you see for +yourself I had no choice. There was one great advantage in dealing with +them,--I knew them so thoroughly. One naturally feels a certain delicacy +it handling from a purely artistic point of view persons who have been so +near to him. One's mother, for instance: suppose some of her little ways +were so peculiar that the accurate delineation of them would furnish +amusement to great numbers of readers; it would not be without hesitation +that a writer of delicate sensibility would draw her portrait, with all +its whimsicalities, so plainly that it should be generally recognized. +One's father is commonly of tougher fibre than one's mother, and one +would not feel the same scruples, perhaps, in using him professionally as +material in a novel; still, while you are employing him as bait,--you see +I am honest and plain-spoken, for your characters are baits to catch +readers with,--I would follow kind Izaak Walton's humane counsel about +the frog you are fastening to your fish-hook: fix him artistically, as he +directs, but in so doing I use him as though you loved him.' + +"I have at length shown up, in one form and another, all my townsmen who +have anything effective in their bodily or mental make-up, all my +friends, all my relatives; that is, all my blood relatives. It has +occurred to me that I might open a new field in the family connection of +my father-in-law and mother-in-law. We have been thinking of paying them +a visit, and I shall have an admirable opportunity of studying them and +their relatives and visitors. I have long wanted a good chance for +getting acquainted with the social sphere several grades below that to +which I am accustomed, and I have no doubt that I shall find matter for +half a dozen new stories among those connections of mine. Besides, they +live in a Western city, and one doesn't mind much how he cuts up the +people of places he does n't himself live in. I suppose there is not +really so much difference in people's feelings, whether they live in +Bangor or Omaha, but one's nerves can't be expected to stretch across the +continent. It is all a matter of greater or less distance. I read this +morning that a Chinese fleet was sunk, but I did n't think half so much +about it as I did about losing my sleeve button, confound it! People +have accused me of want of feeling; they misunderstand the artist-nature, +--that is all. I obey that implicitly; I am sorry if people don't like +my descriptions, but I have done my best. I have pulled to pieces all +the persons I am acquainted with, and put them together again in my +characters. The quills I write with come from live geese, I would have +you know. I expect to get some first-rate pluckings from those people I +was speaking of, and I mean to begin my thirty-ninth novel as soon as I +have got through my visit." + + + + +IX + +THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY. + +There is no use in trying to hurry the natural course of events, in a +narrative like this. June passed away, and July, and August had come, +and as yet the enigma which had completely puzzled Arrowhead Village and +its visitors remained unsolved. The white canoe still wandered over the +lake, alone, ghostly, always avoiding the near approach of the boats +which seemed to be coming in its direction. Now and then a circumstance +would happen which helped to keep inquiry alive. Good horsemanship was +not so common among the young men of the place and its neighborhood that +Maurice's accomplishment in that way could be overlooked. If there was a +wicked horse or a wild colt whose owner was afraid of him, he would be +commended to Maurice's attention. Paolo would lead him to his master +with all due precaution,--for he had no idea of risking his neck on the +back of any ill-conditioned beast,--and Maurice would fasten on his long +spurs, spring into the saddle, and very speedily teach the creature good +behavior. There soon got about a story that he was what the fresh-water +fisherman called "one o' them whisperers." It is a common legend enough, +coming from the Old World, but known in American horse-talking circles, +that some persons will whisper certain words in a horse's ear which will +tame him if he is as wild and furious as ever Cruiser was. All this +added to the mystery which surrounded the young man. A single improbable +or absurd story amounts to very little, but when half a dozen such +stories are told about the same individual or the same event, they begin +to produce the effect of credible evidence. If the year had been 1692 +and the place had been Salem Village, Maurice Kirkwood would have run the +risk of being treated like the Reverend George Burroughs. + +Miss Lurida Vincent's curiosity had been intensely excited with reference +to the young man of whom so many stories were told. She had pretty +nearly convinced herself that he was the author of the paper on Ocean, +Lake, and River, which had been read at one of the meetings of the +Pansophian Society. She was very desirous of meeting him, if it were +possible. It seemed as if she might, as Secretary of the Society, +request the cooperation of any of the visitors, without impropriety. So, +after much deliberation, she wrote a careful note, of which the following +is an exact copy. Her hand was bold, almost masculine, a curious +contrast to that of Euthymia, which was delicately feminine. +PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 3, 18-. +MAURICE KIRKWOOD, ESQ. + +DEAR SIR,--You have received, I trust, a card of invitation to the +meetings of our Society, but I think we have not yet had the pleasure of +seeing you at any of them. We have supposed that we might be indebted to +you for a paper read at the last meeting, and listened to with much +interest. As it was anonymous, we do not wish to be inquisitive +respecting its authorship; but we desire to say that any papers kindly +sent us by the temporary residents of our village will be welcome, and if +adapted to the wants of our Association will be read at one of its +meetings or printed in its records, or perhaps both read and printed. +May we not hope for your presence at the meeting, which is to take place +next Wednesday evening? Respectfully yours, + +LURIDA VINCENT, Secretary of the Pansophian Society. + +To this note the Secretary received the following reply: +MISS LURIDA VINCENT, + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 4, 18-. + +Secretary of the Pansophian Society: + +DEAR MISS VINCENT,--I have received the ticket you refer to, and desire +to express my acknowledgments for the polite attention. I regret that I +have not been and I fear shall not be able to attend the meetings of the +Society; but if any subject occurs to me on which I feel an inclination +to write, it will give me pleasure to send a paper, to be disposed of as +the Society may see fit. + +Very respectfully yours, +MAURICE KIRKWOOD. + +"He says nothing about the authorship of the paper that was read the +other evening," the Secretary said to herself. "No matter,--he wrote +it,--there is no mistaking his handwriting. We know something about him, +now, at any rate. But why doesn't he come to our meetings? What has his +antipathy to do with his staying away? I must find out what his secret +is, and I will. I don't believe it's harder than it was to solve that +prize problem which puzzled so many teachers, or than beating Crakowitz, +the great chess-player." + +To this enigma, then, The Terror determined to bend all the faculties +which had excited the admiration and sometimes the amazement of those who +knew her in her school-days. It was a very delicate piece of business; +for though Lurida was an intrepid woman's rights advocate, and believed +she was entitled to do almost everything that men dared to, she knew very +well there were certain limits which a young woman like herself must not +pass. + +In the mean time Maurice had received a visit from the young student at +the University,--the same whom he had rescued from his dangerous +predicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers,--an +instructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and the +instructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke it with +the ease which implied long familiarity with its use. + +After they left, the instructor asked many curious questions about +him,--who he was, how long he had been in the village, whether anything +was known of his history,--all these inquiries with an eagerness which +implied some special and peculiar reason for the interest they evinced. + +"I feel satisfied," the instructor said, "that I have met that young man +in my own country. It was a number of years ago, and of course he has +altered in appearance a good deal; but there is a look about him of--what +shall I call it?---apprehension,--as if he were fearing the approach of +something or somebody. I think it is the way a man would look that was +haunted; you know what I mean,--followed by a spirit or ghost. He does +not suggest the idea of a murderer,--very far from it; but if he did, I +should think he was every minute in fear of seeing the murdered man's +spirit." + +The student was curious, in his turn, to know all the instructor could +recall. He had seen him in Rome, he thought, at the Fountain of Trevi, +where so many strangers go before leaving the city. The youth was in the +company of a man who looked like a priest. He could not mistake the +peculiar expression of his countenance, but that was all he now +remembered about his appearance. His attention had been called to this +young man by seeing that some of the bystanders were pointing at him, and +noticing that they were whispering with each other as if with reference +to him. He should say that the youth was at that time fifteen or sixteen +years old, and the time was about ten years ago. + +After all, this evidence was of little or no value. Suppose the youth +were Maurice; what then? We know that he had been in Italy, and had been +there a good while,--or at least we infer so much from his familiarity +with the language, and are confirmed in the belief by his having an +Italian servant, whom he probably brought from Italy when he returned. +If he wrote the paper which was read the other evening, that settles it, +for the writer says he had lived by the Tiber. We must put this scrap of +evidence furnished by the Professor with the other scraps; it may turn +out of some consequence, sooner or later. It is like a piece of a +dissected map; it means almost nothing by itself, but when we find the +pieces it joins with we may discover a very important meaning in it. + +In a small, concentrated community like that which centred in and +immediately around Arrowhead Village, every day must have its local +gossip as well as its general news. The newspaper tells the small +community what is going on in the great world, and the busy tongues of +male and female, especially the latter, fill in with the occurrences and +comments of the ever-stirring microcosm. The fact that the Italian +teacher had, or thought he had, seen Maurice ten years before was +circulated and made the most of,--turned over and over like a cake, until +it was thoroughly done on both sides and all through. It was a very +small cake, but better than nothing. Miss Vincent heard this story, as +others did, and talked about it with her friend, Miss Tower. Here was +one more fact to help along. + +The two young ladies who had recently graduated at the Corinna Institute +remained, as they had always been, intimate friends. They were the +natural complements of each other. Euthymia represented a complete, +symmetrical womanhood. Her outward presence was only an index of a +large, wholesome, affluent life. She could not help being courageous, +with such a firm organization. She could not help being generous, +cheerful, active. She had been told often enough that she was fair to +look upon. She knew that she was called The Wonder by the schoolmates +who were dazzled by her singular accomplishments, but she did not +overvalue them. She rather tended to depreciate her own gifts, in +comparison with those of her friend, Miss Lurida Vincent. The two agreed +all the better for differing as they did. The octave makes a perfect +chord, when shorter intervals jar more or less on the ear. Each admired +the other with a heartiness which if they had been less unlike, would +have been impossible. + +It was a pleasant thing to observe their dependence on each other. The +Terror of the schoolroom was the oracle in her relations with her friend. +All the freedom of movement which The Wonder showed in her bodily +exercises The Terror manifested in the world of thought. She would fling +open a book, and decide in a swift glance whether it had any message for +her. Her teachers had compared her way of reading to the taking of an +instantaneous photograph. When she took up the first book on Physiology +which Dr. Butts handed her, it seemed to him that if she only opened at +any place, and gave one look, her mind drank its meaning up, as a moist +sponge absorbs water. "What can I do with such a creature as this?" he +said to himself. "There is only one way to deal with her, treat her as +one treats a silkworm: give it its mulberry leaf, and it will spin its +own cocoon. Give her the books, and she will spin her own web of +knowledge." + +"Do you really think of studying medicine?" said Dr. Butts to her. + +"I have n't made up my mind about that," she answered, "but I want to +know a little more about this terrible machinery of life and death we are +all tangled in. I know something about it, but not enough. I find some +very strange beliefs among the women I meet with, and I want to be able +to silence them when they attempt to proselyte me to their whims and +fancies. Besides, I want to know everything." + +"They tell me you do, already," said Dr. Butts. + +"I am the most ignorant little wretch that draws the breath of life!" +exclaimed The Terror. + +The doctor smiled. He knew what it meant. She had reached that stage of +education in which the vast domain of the unknown opens its illimitable +expanse before the eyes of the student. We never know the extent of +darkness until it is partially illuminated. + +"You did not leave the Institute with the reputation of being the most +ignorant young lady that ever graduated there," said the doctor. "They +tell me you got the highest marks of any pupil on their record since the +school was founded." + +"What a grand thing it was to be the biggest fish in our small aquarium, +to be sure!" answered The Terror. "He was six inches long, the +monster,--a little too big for bait to catch a pickerel with! What did +you hand me that schoolbook for? Did you think I did n't know anything +about the human body?" + +"You said you were such an ignorant creature I thought I would try you +with an easy book, by way of introduction." + +The Terror was not confused by her apparent self-contradiction. + +"I meant what I said, and I mean what I say. When I talk about my +ignorance, I don't measure myself with schoolgirls, doctor. I don't +measure myself with my teachers, either. You must talk to me as if I +were a man, a grown man, if you mean to teach me anything. Where is your +hat, doctor? Let me try it on." + +The doctor handed her his wide-awake. The Terror's hair was not +naturally abundant, like Euthymia's, and she kept it cut rather short. +Her head used to get very hot when she studied hard. She tried to put +the hat on. + +"Do you see that?" she said. "I could n't wear it--it would squeeze my +eyes out of my head. The books told me that women's brains were smaller +than men's: perhaps they are,--most of them,--I never measured a great +many. But when they try to settle what women are good for, by +phrenology, I like to have them put their tape round my head. I don't +believe in their nonsense, for all that. You might as well tell me that +if one horse weighs more than another horse he is worth more,--a +cart-horse that weighs twelve or fourteen hundred pounds better than +Eclipse, that may have weighed a thousand. Give me a list of the best +books you can think of, and turn me loose in your library. I can find +what I want, if you have it; and what I don't find there I will get at +the Public Library. I shall want to ask you a question now and then." + +The doctor looked at her with a kind of admiration, but thoughtfully, as +if he feared she was thinking of a task too formidable for her slight +constitutional resource. + +She returned, instinctively, to the apparent contradiction in her +statements about herself. + +"I am not a fool, if I am ignorant. Yes, doctor, I sail on a wide sea of +ignorance, but I have taken soundings of some of its shallows and some of +its depths. Your profession deals with the facts of life that interest +me most just now, and I want to know something of it. Perhaps I may find +it a calling such as would suit me." + +"Do you seriously think of becoming a practitioner of medicine?" said the +doctor. + +"Certainly, I seriously think of it as a possibility, but I want to know +something more about it first. Perhaps I sha'n't believe in medicine +enough to practise it. Perhaps I sha'n't like it well enough. No matter +about that. I wish to study some of your best books on some of the +subjects that most interest me. I know about bones and muscles and all +that, and about digestion and respiration and such things. I want to +study up the nervous system, and learn all about it. I am of the nervous +temperament myself, and perhaps that is the reason. I want to read about +insanity and all that relates to it." + +A curious expression flitted across the doctor's features as The Terror +said this. + +"Nervous system. Insanity. She has headaches, I know,--all those +large-headed, hard-thinking girls do, as a matter of course; but what has +set her off about insanity and the nervous system? I wonder if any of +her more remote relatives are subject to mental disorder. Bright people +very often have crazy relations. Perhaps some of her friends are in that +way. I wonder whether"--the doctor did not speak any of these thoughts, +and in fact hardly shaped his "whether," for The Terror interrupted his +train of reflection, or rather struck into it in a way which startled +him. + +"Where is the first volume of this Medical Cyclopaedia?" she asked, +looking at its empty place on the shelf. + +"On my table," the doctor answered. "I have been consulting it." + +Lurida flung it open, in her eager way, and turned the pages rapidly +until she came to the one she wanted. The doctor cast his eye on the +beading of the page, and saw the large letters A N T. + +"I thought so," he said to himself. "We shall know everything there is +in the books about antipathies now, if we never did before. She has a +special object in studying the nervous system, just as I suspected. I +think she does not care to mention it at this time; but if she finds out +anything of interest she will tell me, if she does anybody. Perhaps she +does not mean to tell anybody. It is a rather delicate business,--a +young girl studying the natural history of a young man. Not quite so +safe as botany or palaeontology!" + +Lurida, lately The Terror, now Miss Vincent, had her own plans, and chose +to keep them to herself, for the present, at least. Her hands were full +enough, it might seem, without undertaking the solution of the great +Arrowhead Village enigma. But she was in the most perfect training, so +far as her intelligence was concerned; and the summer rest had restored +her bodily vigor, so that her brain was like an overcharged battery which +will find conductors somewhere to carry off its crowded energy. + +At this time Arrowhead Village was enjoying the most successful season it +had ever known. The Pansophian Society flourished to an extraordinary +degree under the fostering care of the new Secretary. The rector was a +good figure-head as President, but the Secretary was the life of the +Society. Communications came in abundantly: some from the village and +its neighborhood, some from the University and the Institute, some from +distant and unknown sources. The new Secretary was very busy with the +work of examining these papers. After a forenoon so employed, the carpet +of her room looked like a barn floor after a husking-match. A glance at +the manuscripts strewed about, or lying in heaps, would have frightened +any young writer away from the thought of authorship as a business. If +the candidate for that fearful calling had seen the process of selection +and elimination, he would have felt still more desperately. A paper of +twenty pages would come in, with an underscored request to please read +through, carefully. That request alone is commonly sufficient to condemn +any paper, and prevent its having any chance of a hearing; but the +Secretary was not hardened enough yet for that kind of martial law in +dealing with manuscripts. The looker-on might have seen her take up the +paper, cast one flashing glance at its title, read the first sentence and +the last, dip at a venture into two or three pages, and decide as swiftly +as the lightning calculator would add up a column of figures what was to +be its destination. If rejected, it went into the heap on the left; if +approved, it was laid apart, to be submitted to the Committee for their +judgment. The foolish writers who insist on one's reading through their +manuscript poems and stories ought to know how fatal the request is to +their prospects. It provokes the reader, to begin with. The reading of +manuscript is frightful work, at the best; the reading of worthless +manuscript--and most of that which one is requested to read through is +worthless--would add to the terrors of Tartarus, if any infernal deity +were ingenious enough to suggest it as a punishment. + +If a paper was rejected by the Secretary, it did not come before the +Committee, but was returned to the author, if he sent for it, which he +commonly did. Its natural course was to try for admission into some one +of the popular magazines: into "The Sifter," the most fastidious of them +all; if that declined it, into "The Second Best;" and if that returned +it, into "The Omnivorous." If it was refused admittance at the doors of +all the magazines, it might at length find shelter in the corner of a +newspaper, where a good deal of very readable verse is to be met with +nowadays, some of which has been, no doubt, presented to the Pansophian +Society, but was not considered up to its standard. + + + + +X + +A NEW ARRIVAL. + +There was a recent accession to the transient population of the village +which gave rise to some speculation. The new-comer was a young fellow, +rather careless in his exterior, but apparently as much at home as if he +owned Arrowhead Village and everything in it. He commonly had a cigar in +his mouth, carried a pocket pistol, of the non-explosive sort, and a +stick with a bulldog's bead for its knob; wore a soft bat, a coarse check +suit, a little baggy, and gaiterboots which had been half-soled,--a +Bohemian-looking personage, altogether. + +This individual began making explorations in every direction. He was +very curious about the place and all the people in it. He was especially +interested in the Pansophian Society, concerning which he made all sorts +of inquiries. This led him to form a summer acquaintance with the +Secretary, who was pleased to give him whatever information he asked for; +being proud of the Society, as she had a right to be, and knowing more +about it than anybody else. + +The visitor could not have been long in the village without hearing +something of Maurice Kirkwood, and the stories, true and false, connected +with his name. He questioned everybody who could tell him anything about +Maurice, and set down the answers in a little note-book he always had +with him. + +All this naturally excited the curiosity of the village about this new +visitor. Among the rest, Miss Vincent, not wanting in an attribute +thought to belong more especially to her sex, became somewhat interested +to know more exactly who this inquiring, note-taking personage, who +seemed to be everywhere and to know everybody, might himself be. Meeting +him at the Public Library at a fortunate moment, when there was nobody +but the old Librarian, who was hard of hearing, to interfere with their +conversation, the little Secretary had a chance to try to find out +something about him. + +"This is a very remarkable library for a small village to possess," he +remarked to Miss Lurida. + +"It is, indeed," she said. "Have you found it well furnished with the +books you most want?" + +"Oh, yes,--books enough. I don't care so much for the books as I do for +the Newspapers. I like a Review well enough,--it tells you all there is +in a book; but a good abstract of the Review in a Newspaper saves a +fellow the trouble of reading it." + +"You find the papers you want, here, I hope," said the young lady. + +"Oh, I get along pretty well. It's my off-time, and I don't do much +reading or writing. Who is the city correspondent of this place?" + +"I don't think we have any one who writes regularly. Now and then, there +is a letter, with the gossip of the place in it, or an account of some of +the doings at our Society. The city papers are always glad to get the +reports of our meetings, and to know what is going on in the village." + +"I suppose you write about the Society to the papers, as you are the +Secretary." + +This was a point-blank shot. She meant to question the young man about +his business, and here she was on the witness-stand. She ducked her +head, and let the question go over her. + +"Oh, there are plenty of members who are willing enough to write, +--especially to give an account of their own papers. I think they like +to have me put in the applause, when they get any. I do that sometimes." +(How much more, she did not say.) + +"I have seen some very well written articles, which, from what they tell +me of the Secretary, I should have thought she might have written +herself." + +He looked her straight in the eyes. + +"I have transmitted some good papers," she said, without winking, or +swallowing, or changing color, precious little color she had to change; +her brain wanted all the blood it could borrow or steal, and more too. +"You spoke of Newspapers," she said, without any change of tone or +manner: "do you not frequently write for them yourself?" + +"I should think I did," answered the young man. "I am a regular +correspondent of 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'" + +"The regular correspondent from where?" + +"Where! Oh, anywhere,--the place does not make much difference. I have +been writing chiefly from Naples and St. Petersburg, and now and then +from Constantinople." + +"How long since your return to this country, may I ask?" + +"My return? I have never been out of this country. I travel with a +gazetteer and some guide-books. It is the cheapest way, and you can get +the facts much better from them than by trusting your own observation. I +have made the tour of Europe by the help of them and the newspapers. But +of late I have taken to interviewing. I find that a very pleasant +specialty. It is about as good sport as trout-tickling, and much the +same kind of business. I should like to send the Society an account of +one of my interviews. Don't you think they would like to hear it?" + +"I have no doubt they would. Send it to me, and I will look it over; and +if the Committee approve it, we will have it at the next meeting. You +know everything has to be examined and voted on by the Committee," said +the cautious Secretary. + +"Very well,--I will risk it. After it is read, if it is read, please +send it back to me, as I want to sell it to 'The Sifter,' or 'The Second +Best,' or some of the paying magazines." + +This is the paper, which was read at the next meeting of the Pansophian +Society. + +"I was ordered by the editor of the newspaper to which I am attached, +'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor,' to make a visit to a +certain well-known writer, and obtain all the particulars I could +concerning him and all that related to him. I have interviewed a good +many politicians, who I thought rather liked the process; but I had never +tried any of these literary people, and I was not quite sure how this one +would feel about it. I said as much to the chief, but he pooh-poohed my +scruples. 'It is n't our business whether they like it or not,' said he; +'the public wants it, and what the public wants it's bound to have, and +we are bound to furnish it. Don't be afraid of your man; he 's used to +it,--he's been pumped often enough to take it easy, and what you've got +to do is to pump him dry. You need n't be modest,--ask him what you +like; he is n't bound to answer, you know.' + +"As he lived in a rather nice quarter of the town, I smarted myself up a +little, put on a fresh collar and cuffs, and got a five-cent shine on my +best high-lows. I said to myself, as I was walking towards the house +where he lived, that I would keep very shady for a while and pass for a +visitor from a distance; one of those 'admiring strangers' who call in to +pay their respects, to get an autograph, and go home and say that they +have met the distinguished So and So, which gives them a certain +distinction in the village circle to which they belong. + +"My man, the celebrated writer, received me in what was evidently his +reception-room. I observed that he managed to get the light full on my +face, while his own was in the shade. I had meant to have his face in +the light, but he knew the localities, and had arranged things so as to +give him that advantage. It was like two frigates manoeuvring,--each +trying to get to windward of the other. I never take out my note-book +until I and my man have got engaged in artless and earnest +conversation,--always about himself and his works, of course, if he is an +author. + +"I began by saying that he must receive a good many callers. Those who +had read his books were naturally curious to see the writer of them. + +"He assented, emphatically, to this statement. He had, he said, a great +many callers. + +"I remarked that there was a quality in his books which made his readers +feel as if they knew him personally, and caused them to cherish a certain +attachment to him. + +"He smiled, as if pleased. He was himself disposed to think so, he said. +In fact, a great many persons, strangers writing to him, had told him so. + +"My dear sir, I said, there is nothing wonderful in the fact you mention. +You reach a responsive chord in many human breasts. + + 'One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.' + +"Everybody feels as if he, and especially she (his eyes sparkled), were +your blood relation. Do they not name their children after you very +frequently? + +"He blushed perceptibly. 'Sometimes,' he answered. 'I hope they will +all turn out well.' + +"I am afraid I am taking up too much of your time, I said. + +"No, not at all,' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer and +pleasanter there.' + +"I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for an +author's library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a lady's +boudoir, a sacred apartment. + +"So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my face, +when I wanted it on has. + +"You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round the +room, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a +Bible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and +other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give it +a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming +Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap compends of +knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases when you visit +a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what books he does n't +want you to see, which of course are the ones you particularly wish to +see. + +"Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you suppose +is an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster opened? Yes? +Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. His man is his oyster, +which he, not with sword, but with pencil and note-book, must open. Mark +how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates itself,--how gently at first, +how strenuously when once fairly between the shells! + +"And here, I said, you write your books,--those books which have carried +your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down to +posterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the pen you +write with? + +"'It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied. + +"He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took up +the pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather which the +angel I used to read about in Young's "Night Thoughts" ought to have +dropped, and did n't. + +"Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that pen? I +asked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure. + +"So I got out my note-book. + +"It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this interview. +I admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just how high they are? + +"'They are about eight feet, with the cornice.' + +"I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, said +I. Eight feet,--eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that down. + +"So I got out my pencil. + +"I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but not +using them as yet. + +"I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a very +early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early you began +to write in verse? + +"He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are +themselves the subjects of conversation. + +"'Very early,--I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise Colet +said, + + "'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.'" + +"I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be kind +enough to translate that line for me. + +"'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first verses without knowing how +to write them.' + +"How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she? + +"My man was pleased to gi-ve me a piece of literary information. + +"'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of Alphonse +Karr?' + +"Why,--yes,--more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up in +French literature. What had he to do with your lioness? + +"'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a +case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he +came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing her +case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his +dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. He +keeps it with an inscription: + + "Donne a Alphonse Karr + Par Madame Louise Colet.... + Dans le dos. + +"Lively little female!' + +"I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview the +lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest I +appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel amiably +disposed toward me. + +"I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everything +about his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some of +the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my +most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new +concerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and the +public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I +meant to have, and I got. No matter about many of them now, but here are +some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or listening +to: + +"How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated +man? + +"'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love +is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes all +through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more of the +same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. It +generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in danger of +becoming slavery, like that following the abuse of alcohol, or opium, or +tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, by every post, letters that +tell him he is this and that and the other, with epithets and +endearments, one tenth part of which would have made him blush red hot +before he began to be what you call a celebrity!' + +"Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is called +celebrity? + +"'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life to +stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has to after +his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel after a few +months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given you thirty-five +millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, on condition that +you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: how do you think you +should like the look of a pair of scissors at the end of a year, in which +you had worked ten hours a day every day but Sunday, cutting off a +hundred coupons an hour, and found you had not finished your task, after +all? You have addressed me as what you are pleased to call "a literary +celebrity." I won't dispute with you as to whether or not I deserve that +title. I will take it for granted I am what you call me, and give you +some few hints on my experience. + +"'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors for +Self-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something would +come of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I am sorry +to say that it has not effected its purpose.' + +"I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws of +that Association. Yes, I said, an admirable Association it was, and as +much needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I am +sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop to the +abuse of a deserving class of men. It ought to have done it; it was well +conceived, and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. (I saw by his +expression that he was its author.) + +"'I see I can trust you,' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of some +of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to whom you +have applied the term "Literary Celebrity." + +"'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales of +his books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes into +his pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to him for +his signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his name comes to +him for assistance. + +"'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded by +receiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he is +expected to fill up. + +"'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and give +his opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a word which can +be used as an advertisement, he will find quoted in all the newspapers. + +"'He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose and verse, which he is +called upon to examine and pronounce on their merits; these manuscripts +having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to whom they have +been sent, and having as a rule no literary value whatever. + +"'He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to journals, to write +for fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner speeches, to send +money for objects he does not believe in to places he never heard of. + +"'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, who +begin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then appropriate it +by writing page after page, if of the male sex; and sheet after sheet, if +of the other. + +"'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any moment +and spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be suggested +to him; such as congratulations to the writer's great-grandmother on her +reaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant aged six weeks, an ode +for the Fourth of July in a Western township not to be found in +Lippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for some bucolic lover who +believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to win the object of his +affections.' + +"Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity. + +"'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, and +they will both have a good laugh over them.' + +"I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had with the +Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing +self-contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and +spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his linen on +the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to him that he +had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found himself exposed to +the wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the columns of The People's +Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'" + +After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was shown as to who the +person spoken of as the "Literary Celebrity" might be. Among the various +suppositions the startling idea was suggested that he was neither more +nor less than the unexplained personage known in the village as Maurice +Kirkwood. Why should that be his real name? Why should not he be the +Celebrity, who had taken this name and fled to this retreat to escape +from the persecutions of kind friends, who were pricking him and stabbing +him nigh to death with their daggers of sugar candy? + +The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined to question the +Interviewer the next time she met him at the Library, which happened soon +after the meeting when his paper was read. + +"I do not know," she said, in the course of a conversation in which she +had spoken warmly of his contribution to the literary entertainment of +the Society, "that you mentioned the name of the Literary Celebrity whom +you interviewed so successfully." + +"I did not mention him, Miss Vincent," he answered, "nor do I think it +worth while to name him. He might not care to have the whole story told +of how he was handled so as to make him communicative. Besides, if I did, +it would bring him a new batch of sympathetic letters, regretting that he +was bothered by those horrid correspondents, full of indignation at the +bores who presumed to intrude upon him with their pages of trash, all the +writers of which would expect answers to their letters of condolence." + +The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the young gentleman who +called himself Maurice Kirkwood. + +"What," he answered, "the man that paddles a birch canoe, and rides all +the wild horses of the neighborhood? No, I don't know him, but I have +met him once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, they tell me. +Do you know anything particular about him?" + +"Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. The story is that he +has a queer antipathy to something or to somebody, nobody knows what or +whom." + +"To newspaper correspondents, perhaps," said the interviewer. "What made +you ask me about him? You did n't think he was my 'Literary Celebrity,' +did you?" + +"I did not know. I thought he might be. Why don't you interview this +mysterious personage? He would make a good sensation for your paper, I +should think." + +"Why, what is there to be interviewed in him? Is there any story of +crime, or anything else to spice a column or so, or even a few +paragraphs, with? If there is, I am willing to handle him +professionally." + +"I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I don't know how much +wiser you are for that piece of information." + +"An antipathy! Why, so have I an antipathy. I hate a spider, and as for +a naked caterpillar,--I believe I should go into a fit if I had to touch +one. I know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great green +caterpillars that come down from the elm-trees in August and early +autumn." + +"Afraid of them?" asked the young lady. + +"Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I can't +give any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of these +creatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out,--sometimes using +very improper words. The fact is, they make me crazy for the moment." + +"I understand what you mean," said Miss Vincent. "I used to have the +same feeling about spiders, but I was ashamed of it, and kept a little +menagerie of spiders until I had got over the feeling; that is, pretty +much got over it, for I don't love the creatures very dearly, though I +don't scream when I see one." + +"What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fellow's particular +antipathy?" + +That is just the question. I told you that we don't know and we can't +guess what it is. The people here are tired out with trying to discover +some good reason for the young man's keeping out of the way of everybody, +as he does. They say he is odd or crazy, and they don't seem to be able +to tell which. It would make the old ladies of the village sleep a great +deal sounder,--yes, and some of the young ladies, too,--if they could +find out what this Mr. Kirkwood has got into his head, that he never +comes near any of the people here." + +"I think I can find out," said the Interviewer, whose professional +ambition was beginning to be excited. "I never came across anybody yet +that I could n't get something out of. I am going to stay here a week or +two, and before I go I will find out the secret, if there is any, of this +Mr. Maurice Kirkwood." + +We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances until they present us +with some kind of result, either in the shape of success or failure. + + + + +XI + +THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX. + +When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters, as she +pulled her last stroke in the boat-race, she did not know what a strain +she was putting upon it. She did know that she was doing her best, but +how great the force of her best was she was not aware until she saw its +effects. Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature, in all its +manifestations. She did not pride herself on her knowledge, nor reproach +herself for her ignorance. In every way she formed a striking contrast +to her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word they spoke betrayed the +difference between them: the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice, +penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed the corresponding +traits of mental and moral character; the quiet, conversational contralto +of Euthymia was the index of a nature restful and sympathetic. + +The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which will +one day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies. The dependence of +two young friends may be mutual, but one will always lean more heavily +than the other; the masculine and feminine elements will be as sure to +assert themselves as if the friends were of different sexes. + +On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as her superior. +She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge, and deferred to +her opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an oracle, but as wiser +than herself or any of her other companions. It was a different thing, +however, when the graver questions of life came up. Lurida was full of +suggestions, plans, projects, which were too liable to run into whims +before she knew where they were tending. She would lay out her ideas +before Euthymia so fluently and eloquently that she could not help +believing them herself, and feeling as if her friend must accept them +with an enthusiasm like her own. Then Euthymia would take them up with +her sweet, deliberate accents, and bring her calmer judgment to bear on +them. + +Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of all her new interests +and occupations. She was constantly on the lookout for papers to be read +at the meetings of her Society,--for she made it her own in great +measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm,--and in the mean time she was +reading in various books which Dr. Butts selected for her, all bearing on +the profession to which, at least as a possibility, she was looking +forward. Privately and in a very still way, she was occupying herself +with the problem of the young stranger, the subject of some delusion, or +disease, or obliquity of unknown nature, to which the vague name of +antipathy had been attached. Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly in +the fear that over-excitement would produce some mental injury, and +partly from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in her +desire to get at the truth of a very puzzling question. + +"How do you like the books I see you reading?" said Euthymia to Lurida, +one day, as they met at the Library. + +"Better than all the novels I ever read," she answered. "I have been +reading about the nervous system, and it seems to me I have come nearer +the springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I feel just as +if I were a telegraph operator. I was sure that I had a battery in my +head, for I know my brain works like one; but I did not know how many +centres of energy there are, and how they are played upon by all sorts of +influences, external and internal. Do you know, I believe I could solve +the riddle of the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx,' as the paper called him, if +he would only stay here long enough?" + +"What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or heard +of its being mentioned in any of the papers." + +"You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here for +some time,--the same one who gave the account of his interview with a +celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper in which he +writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.' He talks about +this village in a very free and easy way. He says there is a Sphinx here, +who has mystified us all." + +"And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that he'll +have you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that nothing is safe +where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book and pencil? Oh, +Lurida, Lurida, do be careful!" What with this mysterious young man and +this very questionable newspaper-paragraph writer, you will be talked +about, if you don't mind, before you know it. You had better let the +riddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must deal with such dangerous people, +the safest way is to set one of them to find out the other.--I wonder if +we can't get this new man to interview the visitor you have so much +curiosity about. That might be managed easily enough without your having +anything to do with it. Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind, +now, you must not meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and get +your name in the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like." + +"Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him a +chance to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can get +him to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy, +so much the better. I am very curious about it, and therefore about him. +I want to know what has produced this strange state of feeling in a young +man who ought to have all the common instincts of a social being. I +believe there are unexplained facts in the region of sympathies and +antipathies which will repay study with a deeper insight into the +mysteries of life than we have dreamed of hitherto. I often wonder +whether there are not heart-waves and soul-waves as well as +'brain-waves,' which some have already recognized." + +Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman talking +the language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida was one of +those persons who never are young, and who, by way of compensation, will +never be old. They are found in both sexes. Two well-known graduates of +one of our great universities are living examples of this precocious but +enduring intellectual development. If the readers of this narrative +cannot pick them out, they need not expect the writer of it to help them. +If they guess rightly who they are, they will recognize the fact that +just such exceptional individuals as the young woman we are dealing with +are met with from time to time in families where intelligence has been +cumulative for two or three generations. + +Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable visitor +should learn all that was known in the village about the nebulous +individual whose misty environment all the eyes in the village were +trying to penetrate, but that he should learn it from some other +informant than Lurida. + +The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outside his +door, to smoke his after-breakfast cigar, a bright-looking and handsome +youth, whose features recalled those of Euthymia so strikingly that one +might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a seat by his side. +Presently the two were engaged in conversation. The Interviewer asked all +sorts of questions about everybody in the village. When he came to +inquire about Maurice, the youth showed a remarkable interest regarding +him. The greatest curiosity, he said, existed with reference to this +personage. Everybody was trying to find out what his story was,--for a +story, and a strange one, he must surely have,--and nobody had succeeded. + +The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. The young man told him +the various antipathy stories, about the evil-eye hypothesis, about his +horse-taming exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat was +overturned, and every occurrence he could recall which would help out the +effect of his narrative. + +The Interviewer was becoming excited. "Can't find out anything about +him, you said, did n-'t you? How do you know there's anything to find? +Do you want to know what I think he is? I'll tell you. I think he is an +actor,--a fellow from one of the city theatres. Those fellows go off in +their summer vacation, and like to puzzle the country folks. They are +the very same chaps, like as not, the visitors have seen in plays at the +city theatres; but of course they don't know 'em in plain clothes. Kings +and Emperors look pretty shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tell you." + +The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. "I shouldn't wonder if +you were right," he said. "I remember seeing a young fellow in Romeo +that looked a good deal like this one. But I never met the Sphinx, as +they call him, face to face. He is as shy as a woodchuck. I believe +there are people here that would give a hundred dollars to find out who +he is, and where he came from, and what he is here for, and why he does +n't act like other folks. I wonder why some of those newspaper men don't +come up here and get hold of this story. It would be just the thing for +a sensational writer." + +To all this the Interviewer listened with true professional interest. +Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a column +about; driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions,--to the biggest +pumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat ox, the live frog from the +human stomach story, the third set of teeth and reading without +spectacles at ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous commonplaces +which are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m (every other year or every +six months) at the foot; always in want of a fresh incident, a new story, +an undescribed character, an unexplained mystery, it is no wonder that +the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon this most tempting subject for an +inventive and emotional correspondent. + +He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that he was Maurice's +confidential servant, but had never spoken to him. So he said to himself +that he must make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In the summer +season many kinds of small traffic were always carried on in Arrowhead +Village. Among the rest, the sellers of fruits--oranges, bananas, and +others, according to the seasons--did an active business. The +Interviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers, and saw that his +hand-cart stopped opposite the house where, as he knew, Maurice Kirkwood +was living. Presently Paolo came out of the door, and began examining +the contents of the hand-cart. The Interviewer saw his opportunity. +Here was an introduction to the man, and the man must introduce him to +the master. + +He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man,--there was no +difficulty about that. He had learned his name, and that he was an +Italian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him. + +"Good morning, Mr. Paul," he said. "How do you like the look of these +oranges?" + +"They pretty fair," said Paolo: "no so good as them las' week; no sweet +as them was." + +"Why, how do you know without tasting them?" said the Interviewer. + +"I know by his look,--I know by his smell,--he no good yaller,--he no +smell ripe,--I know orange ever since my head no bigger than he is," and +Paolo laughed at his own comparison. + +The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo. + +"Good!" said he,--"first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. Why +can't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of 'em? I +shall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I want to get +two nice sweet ones for him." + +Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were recognized. He felt +grateful to the stranger, who had given him, an opportunity of conferring +a favor. He selected two, after careful examination and grave +deliberation. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough not to offer him +an orange, and so shift the balance of obligation. + +"How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day?" he asked. + +"Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell you +he sick?" + +"No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a day +or two, and I thought he might have something the matter with him. Is he +in the house now?" + +"No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day. +Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very +early,--in night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and read, +and study, and write,--he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood." + +"A good many books, has n't he?" + +"He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, old +books, new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you." + +"Has n't he some curiosities,--old figures, old jewelry, old coins, or +things of that sort?" + +Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. "He don't +keep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some old things,--old +jugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they used to have in old +times: she don't pass now." Paolo's genders were apt to be somewhat +indiscriminately distributed. + +A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. "I wonder if he would examine +some old coins of mine?" said he, in a modestly tentative manner. + +"I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask him. +Who will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?" + +"Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call and +show him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones." + +The Interviewer had just remembered that he had two or three old battered +bits of copper which he had picked up at a tollman's, where they had been +passed off for cents. He had bought them as curiosities. One had the +name of Gallienus upon it, tolerably distinct,--a common little Roman +penny; but it would serve his purpose of asking a question, as would two +or three others with less legible legends. Paolo told him that if he +came the next morning he would stand a fair chance of seeing Mr. +Kirkwood. At any rate, he would speak to his master. + +The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing his +breakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. Kirkwood +at home, as he proved to be. He had told Paolo to show the stranger up +to his library,--or study, as he modestly called it. + +It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one +direction, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it up +in scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, many of +them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, showing that +probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other Italian city. With +these were older volumes in their dark original leather, and recent ones +in cloth or paper. As the Interviewer ran his eye over them, he found +that he could make very little out of what their backs taught him. Some +of the paper-covered books, some of the cloth-covered ones, had names +which he knew; but those on the backs of many of the others were strange +to his eyes. The classics of Greek and Latin and Italian literature were +there; and he saw enough to feel convinced that he had better not attempt +to display his erudition in the company of this young scholar. + +The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for his visiting +a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and who was living +as a recluse. He took out his battered coppers, and showed them to +Maurice. + +"I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a good +many yourself. So I took the liberty of calling upon you, hoping that +you could tell me something about some ancient coins I have had for a +good while." So saying, he pointed to the copper with the name of +Gallienus. + +"Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard that great prices have +been paid for some of these ancient coins,--ever so many guineas, +sometimes. I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old." + +"More than a thousand years old," said Maurice. + +"And worth a great deal of money?" asked the Interviewer. + +"No, not a great deal of money," answered Maurice. + +"How much, should you say?" said the Interviewer. + +Maurice smiled. "A little more than the value of its weight in +copper,--I am afraid not much more. There are a good many of these coins +of Gallienus knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers take such +pieces occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or ten cents, to +young collectors. No, it is not very precious in money value, but as a +relic any piece of money that was passed from hand to hand a thousand or +fifteen hundred years ago is interesting. The value of such relics is a +good deal a matter of imagination." + +"And what do you say to these others?" asked the Interviewer. Poor old +worn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some faint +trace of a figure on one or two of them. + +"Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagination back to the +times when you may suppose they were current. Perhaps Horace tossed one +of them to a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was brought +when One said to those about Him, 'Bring me a penny, that I may see it.' +But the market price is a different matter. That depends on the beauty +and preservation, and above all the rarity, of the specimen. Here is a +coin, now,"--he opened a small cabinet, and took one from it. "Here is a +Syracusan decadrachm with the head of Persephone, which is at once rare, +well preserved, and beautiful. I am afraid to tell what I paid for it." + +The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. He cared very little +more for an old coin than he did for an old button, but he had thought +his purchase at the tollman's might prove a good speculation. No matter +about the battered old pieces: he had found out, at any rate, that +Maurice must have money and could be extravagant, or what he himself +considered so; also that he was familiar with ancient coins. That would +do for a beginning. + +"May I ask where you picked up the coin you are showing me?" he said + +"That is a question which provokes a negative answer. One does not 'pick +up' first-class coins or paintings, very often, in these times. I bought +this of a great dealer in Rome." + +"Lived in Rome once?" said the Interviewer. + +"For some years. Perhaps you have been there yourself?" + +The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, but he hoped he should +go there, one of these years, "suppose you studied art and antiquities +while you were there?" he continued. + +"Everybody who goes to Rome must learn something of art and antiquities. +Before you go there I advise you to review Roman history and the classic +authors. You had better make a study of ancient and modern art, and not +have everything to learn while you are going about among ruins, and +churches, and galleries. You know your Horace and Virgil well, I take it +for granted?" + +The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as if he had heard them. +"Not so well as I mean to before going to Rome," he answered. "May I ask +how long you lived in Rome?" + +"Long enough to know something of what is to be seen in it. No one +should go there without careful preparation beforehand. You are familiar +with Vasari, of course?" + +The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his forehead. He took out his +handkerchief. "It is a warm day," he said. "I have not had time to read +all--the works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, myself, to +find all the time for reading and study I could have wished." + +"In what literary occupation have you been engaged, if you will pardon my +inquiry? said Maurice. + +"I am connected with the press. I understood that you were a man of +letters, and I hoped I might have the privilege of hearing from your own +lips some account of your literary experiences." + +"Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I shall reserve it for my +autobiography. You said you were connected with the press. Do I +understand that you are an author?" + +By this time the Interviewer had come to the conclusion that it was a +very warm day. He did not seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by the +right handle, somehow. But he could not help answering Maurice's very +simple question. + +"If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be called an author, I +may call myself one. I write for the "People's Perennial and Household +Inquisitor." + +"Are you the literary critic of that well-known journal, or do you manage +the political column?" + +"I am a correspondent from different places and on various matters of +interest." + +"Places you have been to, and people you have known?" + +"Well, yes,-generally, that is. Sometimes I have to compile my +articles." + +"Did you write the letter from Rome, published a few weeks ago?" + +The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight place. However, he had +found that his man was too much for him, and saw that the best thing he +could do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He thought that he +should be able to pick up something or other which he could work into his +report of his visit. + +"Well, I--prepared that article for our columns. You know one does not +have to see everything he describes. You found it accurate, I hope, in +its descriptions?" + +"Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but I +can't say how far you have copied them. You got the Ponte Molle--the +old Milvian bridge--a good deal too far down the stream, if I remember. +I happened to notice that, but I did not read the article carefully. May +I ask whether you propose to do me the honor of reporting this visit and +the conversation we have had, for the columns of the newspaper with which +you are connected?" + +The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. "If you have no objections," +he said, "I should like very much to ask a few questions." He was +recovering his professional audacity. + +"You can ask as many questions as you consider proper and discreet, +--after you have answered one or two of mine: Who commissioned you to +submit me to examination?" + +"The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, and I am the humble +agent of its investigations." + +"What has the public to do with my private affairs?" + +"I suppose it is a question of majority and minority. That settles +everything in this country. You are a minority of one opposed to a large +number of curious people that form a majority against you. That is the +way I've heard the chief put it." + +Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assumption of the American +citizen. The Interviewer smiled, too, and thought he had his man, sure, +at last. Maurice calmly answered, "There is nothing left for minorities, +then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care about being made the +subject of an article for your paper. I am here for my pleasure, minding +my own business, and content with that occupation. I rebel against your +system of forced publicity. Whenever I am ready I shall tell the public +all it has any right to know about me. In the mean time I shall request +to be spared reading my biography while I am living. I wish you a +good-morning." + +The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book and pencil. In his next +communication from Arrowhead Village he contented himself with a brief +mention of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman now visiting the +place, whose library and cabinet of coins he had had the privilege of +examining, and whose courtesy was equalled only by the modesty that +shunned the public notoriety which the organs of popular intelligence +would otherwise confer upon him. + +The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of the Sphinx, and had failed to +get the first hint of its solution. + +The many tongues of the village and its visitors could not remain idle. +The whole subject of antipathies had been talked over, and the various +cases recorded had become more or less familiar to the conversational +circles which met every evening in the different centres of social life. +The prevalent hypothesis for the moment was that Maurice had a congenital +aversion to some color, the effects of which upon him were so painful or +disagreeable that he habitually avoided exposure to it. It was known, +and it has already been mentioned, that such cases were on record. There +had been a great deal of discussion, of late, with reference to a fact +long known to a few individuals, but only recently made a matter of +careful scientific observation and brought to the notice of the public. +This was the now well-known phenomenon of color-blindness. It did not +seem very strange that if one person in every score or two could not tell +red from green there might be other curious individual peculiarities +relating to color. A case has already been referred to where the subject +of observation fainted at the sight of any red object. What if this were +the trouble with Maurice Kirkwood? It will be seen at once how such a +congenital antipathy would tend to isolate the person who was its +unfortunate victim. It was an hypothesis not difficult to test, but it +was a rather delicate business to be experimenting on an inoffensive +stranger. Miss Vincent was thinking it over, but said nothing, even to +Euthymia, of any projects she might entertain. + + + + +XII + +MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT. + +The young lady whom we have known as The Terror, as Lurida, as Miss +Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, had been reading various +works selected for her by Dr. Butts,--works chiefly relating to the +nervous system and its different affections. She thought it was about +time to talk over the general subject of the medical profession with her +new teacher,--if such a self-directing person as Lurida could be said to +recognize anybody as teacher. + +She began at the beginning. "What is the first book you would put in a +student's hands, doctor?" she said to him one day. They were in his +study, and Lurida had just brought back a thick volume on Insanity, one +of Bucknill and Puke's, which she had devoured as if it had been a +pamphlet. + +"Not that book, certainly," he said. "I am afraid it will put all sorts +of notions into your head. Who or what set you to reading that, I should +like to know?" + +"I found it on one of your shelves, and as I thought I might perhaps be +crazy some time or other, I felt as if I should like to know what kind of +a condition insanity is. I don't believe they were ever very bright, +those insane people, most of them. I hope I am not stupid enough ever to +lose my wits." + +"There is no telling, my dear, what may happen if you overwork that busy +brain of yours. But did n't it make you nervous, reading about so many +people possessed with such strange notions?" + +"Nervous? Not a bit. I could n't help thinking, though, how many people +I had known that had a little touch of craziness about them. Take that +poor woman that says she is Her Majesty's Person,--not Her Majesty, but +Her Majesty's Person,--a very important distinction, according to her: +how she does remind me of more than one girl I have known! She would let +her skirts down so as to make a kind of train, and pile things on her +head like a sort of crown, fold her arms and throw her head back, and +feel as grand as a queen. I have seen more than one girl act very much +in that way. Are not most of us a little crazy, doctor,--just a little? +I think so. It seems to me I never saw but one girl who was free from +every hint of craziness." + +"And who was that, pray?" + +"Why, Euthymia,--nobody else, of course. She never loses her head,--I +don't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work with +our microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind was the +only achromatic one I ever looked into,--I did n't say looked +through.---But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of your +books that when Sydenham was asked by a student what books he should +read, the great physician said, 'Read "Don Quixote."' I want you to +explain that to me; and then I want you to tell me what is the first +book, according to your idea, that a student ought to read." + +"What do you say to my taking your question as the subject of a paper to +be read before the Society? I think there may be other young ladies at +the meeting, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing the study of +medicine. At any rate, there are a good many who are interested in the +subject; in fact, most people listen readily to anything doctors tell +them about their calling." + +"I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to hear it, and I don't doubt +there will be others who will be glad to hear everything you have to say +about it. But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade Eutbymia to become +a physician! What a doctor she would make! So strong, so calm, so full +of wisdom! I believe she could take the wheel of a steamboat in a storm, +or the hose of a fire-engine in a conflagration, and handle it as well as +the captain of the boat or of the fire-company." + +"Have you ever talked with her about studying medicine?" + +"Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with me! What good times we +would have studying together!" + +"I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant study. But how do you +think practice would be? How would you like being called up to ride ten +miles in a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your raging headaches +was racking you?" + +"Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthymia is n't afraid of +storms or anything else. If she would only study medicine with me!" + +"Well, what does she say to it?" + +"She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't believe in women +doctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it by +nature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives me a +good many reasons against their practising medicine, you know what most +of them are, doctor,--and ends by saying that the same woman who would be +a poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate nurse; and that, she +thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct carries her to the +hospital or sick-chamber. I can't argue her ideas out of her." + +"Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about the matter; but I am +disposed to agree with your friend, that you will often spoil a good +nurse to make a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't seem to me +to go together. Riding habits would be awkward things for practitioners. +But come, we won't have a controversy just now. I am for giving women +every chance for a good education, and if they think medicine is one of +their proper callings let them try it. I think they will find that they +had better at least limit themselves to certain specialties, and always +have an expert of the other sex to fall back upon. The trouble is that +they are so impressible and imaginative that they are at the mercy of all +sorts of fancy systems. You have only to see what kinds of instruction +they very commonly flock to in order to guess whether they would be +likely to prove sensible practitioners. Charlatanism always hobbles on +two crutches, the tattle of women, and the certificates of clergymen, and +I am afraid that half the women doctors will be too much under both those +influences." + +Lurida believed in Dr. Butts, who, to use the common language of the +village, had "carried her through" a fever, brought on by over-excitement +and exhausting study. She took no offence at his reference to nursery +gossip, which she had learned to hold cheap. Nobody so despises the +weaknesses of women as the champion of woman's rights. She accepted the +doctor's concession of a fair field and open trial of the fitness of her +sex for medical practice, and did not trouble herself about his suggested +limitations. As to the imaginative tendencies of women, she knew too +well the truth of the doctor's remark relating to them to wish to +contradict it. + +"Be sure you let me have your paper in season for the next meeting, +doctor," she said; and in due season it came, and was of course approved +for reading. + + + + +XIII + +DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER. + +"Next to the interest we take in all that relates to our immortal souls +is that which we feel for our mortal bodies. I am afraid my very first +statement may be open to criticism. The care of the body is the first +thought with a great many,--in fact, with the larger part of the world. +They send for the physician first, and not until he gives them up do they +commonly call in the clergyman. Even the minister himself is not so very +different from other people. We must not blame him if he is not always +impatient to exchange a world of multiplied interests and ever-changing +sources of excitement for that which tradition has delivered to us as one +eminently deficient in the stimulus of variety. Besides, these bodily +frames, even when worn and disfigured by long years of service, hang +about our consciousness like old garments. They are used to us, and we +are used to them. And all the accidents of our lives,--the house we dwell +in, the living people round us, the landscape we look over, all, up to +the sky that covers us like a bell glass,--all these are but looser +outside garments which we have worn until they seem a part of us, and we +do not like the thought of changing them for a new suit which we have +never yet tried on. How well I remember that dear ancient lady, who +lived well into the last decade of her century, as she repeated the verse +which, if I had but one to choose, I would select from that string of +pearls, Gray's 'Elegy'! + + "'For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey + This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, + Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, + Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?' + +"Plotinus was ashamed of his body, we are told. Better so, it may be, +than to live solely for it, as so many do. But it may be well doubted if +there is any disciple of Plotinus in this Society. On the contrary, +there are many who think a great deal of their bodies, many who have come +here to regain the health they have lost in the wear and tear of city +life, and very few who have not at some time or other of their lives had +occasion to call in the services of a physician. + +"There is, therefore, no impropriety in my offering to the members some +remarks upon the peculiar difficulties which beset the medical +practitioner in the discharge of his laborious and important duties. + +"A young friend of mine, who has taken an interest in medical studies, +happened to meet with a very familiar story about one of the greatest and +most celebrated of all English physicians, Thomas Sydenham. The story is +that, when a student asked him what books he should read, the great +doctor told him to read 'Don Quixote.' + +"This piece of advice has been used to throw contempt upon the study of +books, and furnishes a convenient shield for ignorant pretenders. But +Sydenham left many writings in which he has recorded his medical +experience, and he surely would not have published them if he had not +thought they would be better reading for the medical student than the +story of Cervantes. His own works are esteemed to this day, and he +certainly could not have supposed that they contained all the wisdom of +all the past. No remedy is good, it was said of old, unless applied at +the right time in the right way. So we may say of all anecdotes, like +this which I have told you about Sydenham and the young man. It is very +likely that he carried him to the bedside of some patients, and talked to +him about the cases he showed him, instead of putting a Latin volume in +his hand. I would as soon begin in that way as any other, with a student +who had already mastered the preliminary branches,--who knew enough about +the structure and functions of the body in health. + +"But if you ask me what reading I would commend to the medical student of +a philosophical habit of mind, you may be surprised to hear me say it +would be certain passages in 'Rasselas.' They are the ones where the +astronomer gives an account to Imlac of his management of the elements, +the control of which, as he had persuaded himself, had been committed to +him. Let me read you a few sentences from this story, which is commonly +bound up with the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' like a woollen lining to a silken +mantle, but is full of stately wisdom in processions of paragraphs which +sound as if they ought to have a grammatical drum-major to march before +their tramping platoons. + +"The astronomer has taken Imlac into his confidence, and reveals to him +the secret of his wonderful powers:-- + +"'Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I have +possessed for five years the regulation of the weather and the +distribution of the seasons the sun has listened to my dictates, and +passed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my call, +have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my command; I +have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervors of +the crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have hitherto +eluded my authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctial +tempests, which I found myself unable to prohibit or restrain.' + +"The reader naturally wishes to know how the astronomer, a sincere, +devoted, and most benevolent man, for forty years a student of the +heavens, came to the strange belief that he possessed these miraculous +powers. This is his account: + +"'One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt in +my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the southern mountains, +and raise the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination I +commanded rain to fall, and by comparing the time of my command with that +of the inundation I found that the clouds had listened to my lips.' + +"'Might not some other cause,' said I, 'produce this concurrence? The +Nile does not always rise on the same day.' + +"'Do not believe,' said he, with impatience, I that such objections could +escape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and labored against +truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself of +madness, and should not have dared to impart this secret but to a man +like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible and +the incredible from the false.' + +"The good old astronomer gives his parting directions to Imlac, whom he +has adopted as his successor in the government of the elements and the +seasons, in these impressive words: + +"Do not, in the administration of the year, indulge thy pride by +innovation; do not please thyself with thinking that thou canst make +thyself renowned to all future ages by disordering the seasons. The +memory of mischief is no desirable fame. Much less will it become thee +to let kindness or interest prevail. Never rob other countries of rain +to pour it on thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient.' + +"Do you wonder, my friends, why I have chosen these passages, in which +the delusions of an insane astronomer are related with all the pomp of +the Johnsonian vocabulary, as the first lesson for the young person about +to enter on the study of the science and art of healing? Listen to me +while I show you the parallel of the story of the astronomer in the +history of medicine. + +"This history is luminous with intelligence, radiant with benevolence, +but all its wisdom and all its virtue have had to struggle with the +ever-rising mists of delusion. The agencies which waste and destroy the +race of mankind are vast and resistless as the elemental forces of +nature; nay, they are themselves elemental forces. They may be to some +extent avoided, to some extent diverted from their aim, to some extent +resisted. So may the changes of the seasons, from cold that freezes to +heats that strike with sudden death, be guarded against. So may the +tides be in some small measure restrained in their inroads. So may the +storms be breasted by walls they cannot shake from their foundations. +But the seasons and the tides and the tempests work their will on the +great scale upon whatever stands in their way; they feed or starve the +tillers of the soil; they spare or drown the dwellers by the shore; they +waft the seaman to his harbor or bury him in the angry billows. + +"The art of the physician can do much to remove its subjects from deadly +and dangerous influences, and something to control or arrest the effects +of these influences. But look at the records of the life-insurance +offices, and see how uniform is the action of nature's destroying +agencies. Look at the annual reports of the deaths in any of our great +cities, and see how their regularity approaches the uniformity of the +tides, and their variations keep pace with those of the seasons. The +inundations of the Nile are not more certainly to be predicted than the +vast wave of infantile disease which flows in upon all our great cities +with the growing heats of July,--than the fevers and dysenteries which +visit our rural districts in the months of the falling leaf. + +"The physician watches these changes as the astronomer watched the rise +of the great river. He longs to rescue individuals, to protect +communities from the inroads of these destroying agencies. He uses all +the means which experience has approved, tries every rational method +which ingenuity can suggest. Some fortunate recovery leads him to +believe he has hit upon a preventive or a cure for a malady which had +resisted all known remedies. His rescued patient sounds his praises, and +a wide circle of his patient's friends joins in a chorus of eulogies. +Self-love applauds him for his sagacity. Self-interest congratulates him +on his having found the road to fortune; the sense of having proved a +benefactor of his race smooths the pillow on which he lays his head to +dream of the brilliant future opening before him. If a single +coincidence may lead a person of sanguine disposition to believe that he +has mastered a disease which had baffled all who were before his time, +and on which his contemporaries looked in hopeless impotence, what must +be the effect of a series of such coincidences even on a mind of calmer +temper! Such series of coincidences will happen, and they may well +deceive the very elect. Think of Dr. Rush,--you know what a famous man +he was, the very head and front of American medical science in his day, +--and remember how he spoke about yellow fever, which he thought he had +mastered! + +"Thus the physician is entangled in the meshes of a wide conspiracy, in +which he and his patient and their friends, and-Nature herself, are +involved. What wonder that the history of Medicine should be to so great +an extent a record of self-delusion! + +"If this seems a dangerous concession to the enemies of the true science +and art of healing, I will remind you that it is all implied in the first +aphorism of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Do not draw a wrong +inference from the frank statement of the difficulties which beset the +medical practitioner. Think rather, if truth is so hard of attainment, +how precious are the results which the consent of the wisest and most +experienced among the healers of men agrees in accepting. Think what +folly it is to cast them aside in favor of palpable impositions stolen +from the records of forgotten charlatanism, or of fantastic speculations +spun from the squinting brains of theorists as wild as the Egyptian +astronomer. + +"Begin your medical studies, then, by reading the fortieth and the +following four chapters of 'Rasselas.' Your first lesson will teach you +modesty and caution in the pursuit of the most deceptive of all practical +branches of knowledge. Faith will come later, when you learn how much +medical science and art have actually achieved for the relief of mankind, +and how great are the promises it holds out of still larger triumphs over +the enemies of human health and happiness." + +After the reading of this paper there was a lively discussion, which we +have no room to report here, and the Society adjourned. + + + + +XIV + +MISS VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY. + +The sober-minded, sensible, well-instructed Dr. Butts was not a little +exercised in mind by the demands made upon his knowledge by his young +friend, and for the time being his pupil, Miss Lurida Vincent. + +"I don't wonder they called her The Terror," he said to himself. "She is +enough to frighten anybody. She has taken down old books from my shelves +that I had almost forgotten the backs of, and as to the medical journals, +I believe the girl could index them from memory. She is in pursuit of +some special point of knowledge, I feel sure, and I cannot doubt what +direction she is working in, but her wonderful way of dealing with books +amazes me." + +What marvels those "first scholars" in the classes of our great +universities and colleges are, to be sure! They are not, as a rule, the +most distinguished of their class in the long struggle of life. The +chances are that "the field" will beat "the favorite" over the long +race-course. Others will develop a longer stride and more staying power. +But what fine gifts those "first scholars" have received from nature! +How dull we writers, famous or obscure, are in the acquisition of +knowledge as compared with them! To lead their classmates they must have +quick apprehension, fine memories, thorough control of their mental +faculties, strong will, power of concentration, facility of +expression,--a wonderful equipment of mental faculties. I always want to +take my hat off to the first scholar of his year. + +Dr. Butts felt somewhat in the same way as he contemplated The Terror. +She surprised him so often with her knowledge that he was ready to +receive her without astonishment when she burst in upon him one allay +with a cry of triumph, "Eureka! Eureka!" + +"And what have you found, my dear?" said the doctor. + +Lurida was flushed and panting with the excitement of her new discovery. + +"I do believe that I have found the secret of our strange visitor's dread +of all human intercourse!" + +The seasoned practitioner was not easily thrown off his balance. + +"Wait a minute and get your breath," said the doctor. "Are you not a +little overstating his peculiarity? It is not quite so bad as that. He +keeps a man to serve him, he was civil with the people at the Old Tavern, +he was affable enough, I understand, with the young fellow he pulled out +of the water, or rescued somehow,--I don't believe be avoids the whole +human race. He does not look as if he hated them, so far as I have +remarked his expression. I passed a few words with him when his man was +ailing, and found him polite enough. No, I don't believe it is much more +than an extreme case of shyness, connected, perhaps, with some congenital +or other personal repugnance to which has been given the name of an +antipathy." + +Lurida could hardly keep still while the doctor was speaking. When he +finished, she began the account of her discovery: + +"I do certainly believe I have found an account of his case in an Italian +medical journal of about fourteen years ago. I met with a reference +which led me to look over a file of the Giornale degli Ospitali lying +among the old pamphlets in the medical section of the Library. I have +made a translation of it, which you must read and then tell me if you do +not agree with me in my conclusion." + +"Tell me what your conclusion is, and I will read your paper and see for +myself whether I think the evidence justifies the conviction you seem to +have reached." + +Lurida's large eyes showed their whole rounds like the two halves of a +map of the world, as she said, + +"I believe that Maurice Kirkwood is suffering from the effects of the +bite of a TARANTULA!" + +The doctor drew a long breath. He remembered in a vague sort of way the +stories which used to be told of the terrible Apulian spider, but he had +consigned them to the limbo of medical fable where so many fictions have +clothed themselves with a local habitation and a name. He looked into the +round eyes and wide pupils a little anxiously, as if he feared that she +was in a state of undue excitement, but, true to his professional +training, he waited for another symptom, if indeed her mind was in any +measure off its balance. + +"I know what you are thinking," Lurida said, "but it is not so. 'I am +not mad, most noble Festus.' You shall see the evidence and judge for +yourself. Read the whole case,--you can read my hand almost as if it +were print, and tell me if you do not agree with me that this young man +is in all probability the same person as the boy described in the Italian +journal, + +"One thing you might say is against the supposition. The young patient +is spoken of as Signorino M . . . Ch. . . . But you must remember +that ch is pronounced hard in Italian, like k, which letter is wanting in +the Italian alphabet; and it is natural enough that the initial of the +second name should have got changed in the record to its Italian +equivalent." + +Before inviting the reader to follow the details of this extraordinary +case as found in a medical journal, the narrator wishes to be indulged in +a few words of explanation, in order that he may not have to apologize +for allowing the introduction of a subject which may be thought to belong +to the professional student rather than to the readers of this record. +There is a great deal in medical books which it is very unbecoming to +bring before the general public,--a great deal to repel, to disgust, to +alarm, to excite unwholesome curiosity. It is not the men whose duties +have made them familiar with this class of subjects who are most likely +to offend by scenes and descriptions which belong to the physician's +private library, and not to the shelves devoted to polite literature. +Goldsmith and even Smollett, both having studied and practised medicine, +could not by any possibility have outraged all the natural feelings of +delicacy and decency as Swift and Zola have outraged them. But without +handling doubtful subjects, there are many curious medical experiences +which have interest for every one as extreme illustrations of ordinary +conditions with which all are acquainted. No one can study the now +familiar history of clairvoyance profitably who has not learned something +of the vagaries of hysteria. No one can read understandingly the life of +Cowper and that of Carlyle without having some idea of the influence of +hypochondriasis and of dyspepsia upon the disposition and intellect of +the subjects of these maladies. I need not apologize, therefore, for +giving publicity to that part of this narrative which deals with one of +the most singular maladies to be found in the records of bodily and +mental infirmities. + +The following is the account of the case as translated by Miss Vincent. +For obvious reasons the whole name was not given in the original paper, +and for similar reasons the date of the event and the birthplace of the +patient are not precisely indicated here. + +[Giornale degli Ospitali, Luglio 21, 18-.] +REMARKABLE CASE OF TARANTISM. + +"The great interest attaching to the very singular and exceptional +instance of this rare affection induces us to give a full account of the +extraordinary example of its occurrence in a patient who was the subject +of a recent medical consultation in this city. + +"Signorino M . . . Ch . . . is the only son of a gentleman +travelling in Italy at this time. He is eleven years of age, of +sanguine-nervous temperament, light hair, blue eyes, intelligent +countenance, well grown, but rather slight in form, to all appearance in +good health, but subject to certain peculiar and anomalous nervous +symptoms, of which his father gives this history. + +"Nine years ago, the father informs us, he was travelling in Italy with +his wife, this child, and a nurse. They were passing a few days in a +country village near the city of Bari, capital of the province of the +same name in the division (compartamento) of Apulia. The child was in +perfect health and had never been affected by any serious illness. On +the 10th of July he was playing out in the field near the house where the +family was staying when he was heard to scream suddenly and violently. +The nurse rushing to him found him in great pain, saying that something +had bitten him in one of his feet. A laborer, one Tommaso, ran up at the +moment and perceived in the grass, near where the boy was standing, an +enormous spider, which he at once recognized as a tarantula. He managed +to catch the creature in a large leaf, from which he was afterwards +transferred to a wide-mouthed bottle, where he lived without any food for +a month or more. The creature was covered with short hairs, and had a +pair of nipper-like jaws, with which he could inflict an ugly wound. His +body measured about an inch in length, and from the extremity of one of +the longest limbs to the other was between two and three inches. Such was +the account given by the physician to whom the peasant carried the great +spider. + +"The boy who had been bitten continued screaming violently while his +stocking was being removed and the foot examined. The place of the bite +was easily found and the two marks of the claw-like jaws already showed +the effects of the poison, a small livid circle extending around them, +with some puffy swelling. The distinguished Dr. Amadei was immediately +sent for, and applied cups over the wounds in the hope of drawing forth +the poison. In vain all his skill and efforts! Soon, ataxic (irregular) +nervous symptoms declared themselves, and it became plain that the system +had been infected by the poison. + +"The symptoms were very much like those of malignant fever, such as +distress about the region of the heart, difficulty of breathing, collapse +of all the vital powers, threatening immediate death. From these first +symptoms the child rallied, but his entire organism had been profoundly +affected by the venom circulating through it. His constitution has never +thrown off the malady resulting from this toxic (poisonous) agent. The +phenomena which have been observed in this young patient correspond so +nearly with those enumerated in the elaborate essay of the celebrated +Baglivi that one might think they had been transcribed from his pages. + +"He is very fond of solitude,--of wandering about in churchyards and +other lonely places. He was once found hiding in an empty tomb, which +had been left open. His aversion to certain colors is remarkable. +Generally speaking, he prefers bright tints to darker ones, but his likes +and dislikes are capricious, and with regard to some colors his antipathy +amounts to positive horror. Some shades have such an effect upon him +that he cannot remain in the room with them, and if he meets any one +whose dress has any of that particular color he will turn away or retreat +so as to avoid passing that person. Among these, purple and dark green +are the least endurable. He cannot explain the sensations which these +obnoxious colors produce except by saying that it is like the deadly +feeling from a blow on the epigastrium (pit of the stomach). + +"About the same season of the year at which the tarantular poisoning took +place he is liable to certain nervous seizures, not exactly like fainting +or epilepsy, but reminding the physician of those affections. All the +other symptoms are aggravated at this time. + +"In other respects than those mentioned the boy is in good health. He is +fond of riding, and has a pony on which he takes a great deal of +exercise, which seems to do him more good than any other remedy. + +"The influence of music, to which so much has been attributed by popular +belief and even by the distinguished Professor to whom we shall again +refer, has not as yet furnished any satisfactory results. If the graver +symptoms recur while the patient is under our observation, we propose to +make use of an agency discredited by modern skepticism, but deserving of +a fair trial as an exceptional remedy for an exceptional disease. + +"The following extracts from the work of the celebrated Italian physician +of the last century are given by the writer of the paper in the Giornale +in the original Latin, with a translation into Italian, subjoined. Here +are the extracts, or rather here is a selection from them, with a +translation of them into English. + +"After mentioning the singular aversion to certain colors shown by the +subject of Tarantism, Baglivi writes as follows: "'Et si astantes +incedant vestibus eo colore difusis, qui Tarantatis ingrates est, necesse +est ut ab illorum aspectu recedant; nam ad intuitum molesti coloris +angore cordis, et symptomatum recrudescantia stating corripiuntur.' (G. +Baglivi, Op. Omnia, page 614. Lugduni, 1745.) + +"That is, 'if the persons about the patient wear dresses of the color +which is offensive to him, he must get away from the sight of them, for +on seeing the obnoxious color he is at once seized with distress in the +region of the heart, and a renewal of his symptoms.' + +"As to the recurrence of the malady, Baglivi says: "'Dam calor solis +ardentius exurere incip at, quod contingit circa initia Julii et Augusti, +Tarantati lente venientem recrudescentiam veneni percipiunt.' (Ibid., +page 619.) + +"Which I render, 'When the heat of the sun begins to burn more fiercely, +which happens about the beginning of July and August, the subjects of +Tarantism perceive the gradually approaching recrudescence (returning +symptoms) of the poisoning. Among the remedies most valued by this +illustrious physician is that mentioned in the following sentence: + +"'Laudo magnopere equitationes in aere rusticano factas singulis diebus, +hord potissimum matutina, quibus equitationibus morbos chronicos pene +incurabiles protanus eliminavi.' + +"Or in translation, 'I commend especially riding on horseback in country +air, every day, by preference in the morning hours, by the aid of which +horseback riding I have driven off chronic diseases which were almost +incurable.'" + +Miss Vincent read this paper aloud to Dr. Butts, and handed it to him to +examine and consider. He listened with a grave countenance and devout +attention. + +As she finished reading her account, she exclaimed in the passionate +tones of the deepest conviction, + +"There, doctor! Have n't I found the true story of this strange visitor? +Have n't I solved the riddle of the Sphinx? Who can this man be but the +boy of that story? Look at the date of the journal when he was eleven +years old, it would make him twenty-five now, and that is just about the +age the people here think he must be of. What could account so entirely +for his ways and actions as that strange poisoning which produces the +state they call Tarantism? I am just as sure it must be that as I am +that I am alive. Oh, doctor, doctor, I must be right,--this Signprino M +. . . Ch . . . was the boy Maurice Kirkwood, and the story accounts +for everything,--his solitary habits, his dread of people,--it must be +because they wear the colors he can't bear. His morning rides on +horseback, his coming here just as the season was approaching which would +aggravate all his symptoms, does n't all this prove that I must be right +in my conjecture,--no, my conviction?" + +The doctor knew too much to interrupt the young enthusiast, and so he let +her run on until she ran down. He was more used to the rules of evidence +than she was, and could not accept her positive conclusion so readily as +she would have liked to have him. He knew that beginners are very apt to +make what they think are discoveries. But he had been an angler and knew +the meaning of a yielding rod and an easy-running reel. He said quietly, + +"You are a most sagacious young lady, and a very pretty prima facie case +it is that you make out. I can see no proof that Mr. Kirkwood is not the +same person as the M . . . Ch . . . of the medical journal,--that +is, if I accept your explanation of the difference in the initials of +these two names. Even if there were a difference, that would not +disprove their identity, for the initials of patients whose cases are +reported by their physicians are often altered for the purpose of +concealment. I do not know, however, that Mr. Kirkwood has shown any +special aversion to any particular color. It might be interesting to +inquire whether it is so, but it is a delicate matter. I don't exactly +see whose business it is to investigate Mr. Maurice Kirkwood's +idiosyncrasies and constitutional history. If he should have occasion to +send for me at any time, he might tell me all about himself, in +confidence, you know. These old accounts from Baglivi are curious and +interesting, but I am cautious about receiving any stories a hundred +years old, if they involve an improbability, as his stories about the +cure of the tarantula bite by music certainly do. I am disposed to wait +for future developments, bearing in mind, of course, the very singular +case you have unearthed. It wouldn't be very strange if our young +gentleman had to send for me before the season is over. He is out a good +deal before the dew is off the grass, which is rather risky in this +neighborhood as autumn comes on. I am somewhat curious, I confess, about +the young man, but I do not meddle where I am not asked for or wanted, +and I have found that eggs hatch just as well if you let them alone in +the nest as if you take them out and shake them every day. This is a +wonderfully interesting supposition of yours, and may prove to be +strictly in accordance with the facts. But I do not think we have all +the facts in this young man's case. If it were proved that he had an +aversion to any color, it would greatly strengthen your case. His +'antipatia,' as his man called it, must be one which covers a wide +ground, to account for his self-isolation,--and the color hypothesis +seems as plausible as any. But, my dear Miss Vincent, I think you had +better leave your singular and striking hypothesis in my keeping for a +while, rather than let it get abroad in a community like this, where so +many tongues are in active exercise. I will carefully study this paper, +if you will leave it with me, and we will talk the whole matter over. It +is a fair subject for speculation, only we must keep quiet about it." + +This long speech gave Lurida's perfervid brain time to cool off a little. +She left the paper with the doctor, telling him she would come for it the +next day, and went off to tell the result of this visit to her bosom +friend, Miss Euthymia Tower. + + + + +XV + +DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA. + +The doctor was troubled in thinking over his interview with the young +lady. She was fully possessed with the idea that she had discovered the +secret which had defied the most sagacious heads of the village. It was +of no use to oppose her while her mind was in an excited state. But he +felt it his duty to guard her against any possible results of +indiscretion into which her eagerness and her theory of the equality, +almost the identity, of the sexes might betray her. Too much of the woman +in a daughter of our race leads her to forget danger. Too little of the +woman prompts her to defy it. Fortunately for this last class of women, +they are not quite so likely to be perilously seductive as their more +emphatically feminine sisters. + +Dr. Butts had known Lurida and her friend from the days of their infancy. +He had watched the development of Lurida's intelligence from its +precocious nursery-life to the full vigor of its trained faculties. He +had looked with admiration on the childish beauty of Euthymia, and had +seen her grow up to womanhood, every year making her more attractive. He +knew that if anything was to be done with his self-willed young scholar +and friend, it would be more easily effected through the medium of +Euthymia than by direct advice to the young lady herself. So the +thoughtful doctor made up his mind to have a good talk with Euthymia, and +put her on her guard, if Lurida showed any tendency to forget the +conventionalities in her eager pursuit of knowledge. + +For the doctor's horse and chaise to stop at the door of Miss Euthymia +Tower's parental home was an event strange enough to set all the tongues +in the village going. This was one of those families where illness was +hardly looked for among the possibilities of life. There were other +families where a call from the doctor was hardly more thought of than a +call from the baker. But here he was a stranger, at least on his +professional rounds, and when he asked for Miss Euthymia the servant, who +knew his face well, stared as if he had held in his hand a warrant for +her apprehension. + +Euthymia did not keep the doctor waiting very long while she made ready +to meet him. One look at her glass to make sure that a lock had not run +astray, or a ribbon got out of place, and her toilet for a morning call +was finished. Perhaps if Mr. Maurice Kirkwood had been announced, she +might have taken a second look, but with the good middle-aged, married +doctor one was enough for a young lady who had the gift of making all the +dresses she wore look well, and had no occasion to treat her chamber like +the laboratory where an actress compounds herself. + +Euthymia welcomed the doctor very heartily. She could not help +suspecting his errand, and she was very glad to have a chance to talk +over her friend's schemes and fancies with him. + +The doctor began without any roundabout prelude. + +"I want to confer with you about our friend Lurida. Does she tell you +all her plans and projects?" + +"Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, positively, but I do not +believe she keeps back anything of importance from me. I know what she +has been busy with lately, and the queer idea she has got into her head. +What do you think of the Tarantula business? She has shown you the +paper, she has written, I suppose." + +"Indeed she has. It is a very curious case she has got hold of, and I do +not wonder at all that she should have felt convinced that she had come +at the true solution of the village riddle. It may be that this young +man is the same person as the boy mentioned in the Italian medical +journal. But it is very far from clear that he is so. You know all her +reasons, of course, as you have read the story. The times seem to agree +well enough. It is easy to conceive that Ch might be substituted for K +in the report. The singular solitary habits of this young man entirely +coincide with the story. If we could only find out whether he has any of +those feelings with reference to certain colors, we might guess with more +chance of guessing right than we have at present. But I don't see +exactly how we are going to submit him to examination on this point. If +he were only a chemical compound, we could analyze him. If he were only +a bird or a quadruped, we could find out his likes and dislikes. But +being, as he is, a young man, with ways of his own, and a will of his +own, which he may not choose to have interfered with, the problem becomes +more complicated. I hear that a newspaper correspondent has visited him +so as to make a report to his paper,--do you know what he found out?" + +"Certainly I do, very well. My brother has heard his own story, which +was this: He found out he had got hold of the wrong person to interview. +The young gentleman, he says, interviewed him, so that he did not learn +much about the Sphinx. But the newspaper man told Willy about the +Sphinx's library and a cabinet of coins he had; and said he should make +an article out of him, anyhow. I wish the man would take himself off. I +am afraid Lurida's love of knowledge will get her into trouble!" + +"Which of the men do you wish would take himself off?" + +"I was thinking of the newspaper man." + +She blushed a little as she said, "I can't help feeling a strange sort of +interest about the other, Mr. Kirkwood. Do you know that I met him this +morning, and had a good look at him, full in the face?" + +"Well, to be sure! That was an interesting experience. And how did you +like his looks?" + +"I thought his face a very remarkable one. But he looked very pale as he +passed me, and I noticed that he put his hand to his left side as if he +had a twinge of pain, or something of that sort,--spasm or neuralgia,--I +don't know what. I wondered whether he had what you call angina +pectoris. It was the same kind of look and movement, I remember, as you +trust, too, in my uncle who died with that complaint." + +The doctor was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "Were you dressed as +you are now?" + +"Yes, I was, except that I had a thin mantle over my shoulders. I was +out early, and I have always remembered your caution." + +"What color was your mantle?" + +"It was black. I have been over all this with Lucinda. A black mantle +on a white dress. A straw hat with an old faded ribbon. There can't be +much in those colors to trouble him, I should think, for his man wears a +black coat and white linen,--more or less white, as you must have +noticed, and he must have seen ribbons of all colors often enough. But +Lurida believes it was the ribbon, or something in the combination of +colors. Her head is full of Tarantulas and Tarantism. I fear that she +will never be easy until the question is settled by actual trial. And +will you believe it? the girl is determined in some way to test her +supposition!" + +"Believe it, Euthymia? I can believe almost anything of Lurida. She is +the most irrepressible creature I ever knew. You know as well as I do +what a complete possession any ruling idea takes of her whole nature. I +have had some fears lest her zeal might run away with her discretion. It +is a great deal easier to get into a false position than to get out of +it." + +"I know it well enough. I want you to tell me what you think about the +whole business. I don't like the look of it at all, and yet I can do +nothing with the girl except let her follow her fancy, until I can show +her plainly that she will get herself into trouble in some way or other. +But she is ingenious,--full of all sorts of devices, innocent enough in +themselves, but liable to be misconstrued. You remember how she won us +the boat-race?" + +"To be sure I do. It was rather sharp practice, but she felt she was +paying off an old score. The classical story of Atalanta, told, like +that of Eve, as illustrating the weakness of woman, provoked her to make +trial of the powers of resistance in the other sex. But it was +audacious. I hope her audacity will not go too far. You must watch her. +Keep an eye on her correspondence." + +The doctor had great confidence in the good sense of Lurida's friend. He +felt sure that she would not let Lurida commit herself by writing foolish +letters to the subject of her speculations, or similar indiscreet +performances. The boldness of young girls, who think no evil, in opening +correspondence with idealized personages is something quite astonishing +to those who have had an opportunity of knowing the facts. Lurida had +passed the most dangerous age, but her theory of the equality of the +sexes made her indifferent to the by-laws of social usage. She required +watching, and her two guardians were ready to check her, in case of need. + + + + +XVI + +MISS VINCENT WRITES A LETTER. + +Euthymia noticed that her friend had been very much preoccupied for two +or three days. She found her more than once busy at her desk, with a +manuscript before her, which she turned over and placed inside the desk, +as Euthymia entered. + +This desire of concealment was not what either of the friends expected to +see in the other. It showed that some project was under way, which, at +least in its present stage, the Machiavellian young lady did not wish to +disclose. It had cost her a good deal of thought and care, apparently, +for her waste-basket was full of scraps of paper, which looked as if they +were the remains of a manuscript like that at which she was at work. +"Copying and recopying, probably," thought Euthymia, but she was willing +to wait to learn what Lurida was busy about, though she had a suspicion +that it was something in which she might feel called upon to interest +herself. + +"Do you know what I think?" said Euthymia to the doctor, meeting him as +he left his door. "I believe Lurida is writing to this man, and I don't +like the thought of her doing such a thing. Of course she is not like +other girls in many respects, but other people will judge her by the +common rules of life." + +"I am glad that you spoke of it," answered the doctor; "she would write +to him just as quickly as to any woman of his age. Besides, under the +cover of her office, she has got into the way of writing to anybody. I +think she has already written to Mr. Kirkwood, asking him to contribute a +paper for the Society. She can find a pretext easily enough if she has +made up her mind to write. In fact, I doubt if she would trouble herself +for any pretext at all if she decided to write. Watch her well. Don't +let any letter go without seeing it, if you can help it." + +Young women are much given to writing letters to persons whom they only +know indirectly, for the most part through their books, and especially to +romancers and poets. Nothing can be more innocent and simple-hearted +than most of these letters. They are the spontaneous outflow of young +hearts easily excited to gratitude for the pleasure which some story or +poem has given them, and recognizing their own thoughts, their own +feelings, in those expressed by the author, as if on purpose for them to +read. Undoubtedly they give great relief to solitary young persons, who +must have some ideal reflection of themselves, and know not where to look +since Protestantism has taken away the crucifix and the Madonna. The +recipient of these letters sometimes wonders, after reading through one +of them, how it is that his young correspondent has managed to fill so +much space with her simple message of admiration or of sympathy. + +Lurida did not belong to this particular class of correspondents, but she +could not resist the law of her sex, whose thoughts naturally surround +themselves with superabundant drapery of language, as their persons float +in a wide superfluity of woven tissues. Was she indeed writing to this +unknown gentleman? Euthymia questioned her point-blank. + +"Are you going to open a correspondence with Mr. Maurice Kirkwood, +Lurida? You seem to be so busy writing, I can think of nothing else. Or +are you going to write a novel, or a paper for the Society,--do tell me +what you are so much taken up with." + +"I will tell you, Euthymia, if you will promise not to find fault with me +for carrying out my plan as I have made up my mind to do. You may read +this letter before I seal it, and if you find anything in it you don't +like you can suggest any change that you think will improve it. I hope +you will see that it explains itself. I don't believe that you will find +anything to frighten you in it." + +This is the letter, as submitted to Miss Tower by her friend. The bold +handwriting made it look like a man's letter, and gave it consequently a +less dangerous expression than that which belongs to the tinted and often +fragrant sheet with its delicate thready characters, which slant across +the page like an April shower with a south wind chasing it. + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August--, 18--. + +MY DEAR SIR,--You will doubtless be surprised at the sight of a letter +like this from one whom you only know as the Secretary of the Pansophian +Society. There is a very common feeling that it is unbecoming in one of +my sex to address one of your own with whom she is unacquainted, unless +she has some special claim upon his attention. I am by no means disposed +to concede to the vulgar prejudice on this point. If one human being has +anything to communicate to another,--anything which deserves being +communicated,--I see no occasion for bringing in the question of sex. I +do not think the homo sum of Terence can be claimed for the male sex as +its private property on general any more than on grammatical grounds, + +I have sometimes thought of devoting myself to the noble art of healing. +If I did so, it would be with the fixed purpose of giving my whole powers +to the service of humanity. And if I should carry out that idea, should +I refuse my care and skill to a suffering fellow-mortal because that +mortal happened to be a brother, and not a sister? My whole nature +protests against such one-sided humanity! No! I am blind to all +distinctions when my eyes are opened to any form of suffering, to any +spectacle of want. + +You may ask me why I address you, whom I know little or nothing of, and +to whom such an advance may seem presumptuous and intrusive. It is +because I was deeply impressed by the paper which I attributed to +you,--that on Ocean, River, and Lake, which was read at one of our +meetings. I say that I was deeply impressed, but I do not mean this as a +compliment to that paper. I am not bandying compliments now, but +thinking of better things than praises or phrases. I was interested in +the paper, partly because I recognized some of the feelings expressed in +it as my own,--partly because there was an undertone of sadness in all +the voices of nature as you echoed them which made me sad to hear, and +which I could not help longing to cheer and enliven. I said to myself, I +should like to hold communion with the writer of that paper. I have had +my lonely hours and days, as he has had. I have had some of his +experiences in my intercourse with nature. And oh! if I could draw him +into those better human relations which await us all, if we come with the +right dispositions, I should blush if I stopped to inquire whether I +violated any conventional rule or not. + +You will understand me, I feel sure. You believe, do you not? in the +insignificance of the barrier which divides the sisterhood from the +brotherhood of mankind. You believe, do you not? that they should be +educated side by side, that they should share the same pursuits, due +regard being had to the fitness of the particular individual for hard or +light work, as it must always be, whether we are dealing with the +"stronger" or the "weaker" sex. I mark these words because, +notwithstanding their common use, they involve so much that is not true. +Stronger! Yes, to lift a barrel of flour, or a barrel of cider,--though +there have been women who could do that, and though when John Wesley was +mobbed in Staffordshire a woman knocked down three or four men, one after +another, until she was at last overpowered and nearly murdered. Talk +about the weaker sex! Go and see Miss Euthymia Tower at the gymnasium! +But no matter about which sex has the strongest muscles. Which has most +to suffer, and which has most endurance and vitality? We go through many +ordeals which you are spared, but we outlast you in mind and body. I +have been led away into one of my accustomed trains of thought, but not +so far away from it as you might at first suppose. + +My brother! Are you not ready to recognize in me a friend, an equal, a +sister, who can speak to you as if she had been reared under the same +roof? And is not the sky that covers us one roof, which makes us all one +family? You are lonely, you must be longing for some human fellowship. +Take me into your confidence. What is there that you can tell me to +which I cannot respond with sympathy? What saddest note in your +spiritual dirges which will not find its chord in mine? + +I long to know what influence has cast its shadow over your existence. I +myself have known what it is to carry a brain that never rests in a body +that is always tired. I have defied its infirmities, and forced it to do +my bidding. You have no such hindrance, if we may judge by your aspect +and habits. You deal with horses like a Homeric hero. No wild Indian +could handle his bark canoe more dexterously or more vigorously than we +have seen you handling yours. There must be some reason for your +seclusion which curiosity has not reached, and into which it is not the +province of curiosity to inquire. But in the irresistible desire which I +have to bring you into kindly relations with those around you, I must run +the risk of giving offence that I may know in what direction to look for +those restorative influences which the sympathy of a friend and sister +can offer to a brother in need of some kindly impulse to change the +course of a life which is not, which cannot be, in accordance with his +true nature. + +I have thought that there may be something in the conditions with which +you are here surrounded which is repugnant to your feelings,--something +which can be avoided only by keeping yourself apart from the people whose +acquaintance you would naturally have formed. There can hardly be +anything in the place itself, or you would not have voluntarily sought it +as a residence, even for a single season there might be individuals here +whom you would not care to meet, there must be such, but you cannot have +a personal aversion to everybody. I have heard of cases in which certain +sights and sounds, which have no particular significance for most +persons, produced feelings of distress or aversion that made, them +unbearable to the subjects of the constitutional dislike. It has +occurred to me that possibly you might have some such natural aversion to +the sounds of the street, or such as are heard in most houses, especially +where a piano is kept, as it is in fact in almost all of those in the +village. Or it might be, I imagined, that some color in the dresses of +women or the furniture of our rooms affected you unpleasantly. I know +that instances of such antipathy have been recorded, and they would +account for the seclusion of those who are subject to it. + +If there is any removable condition which interferes with your free +entrance into and enjoyment of the social life around you, tell me, I beg +of you, tell me what it is, and it shall be eliminated. Think it not +strange, O my brother, that I thus venture to introduce myself into the +hidden chambers of your life. I will never suffer myself to be +frightened from the carrying out of any thought which promises to be of +use to a fellow-mortal by a fear lest it should be considered +"unfeminine." I can bear to be considered unfeminine, but I cannot +endure to think of myself as inhuman. Can I help you, my brother'? + +Believe me your most sincere well-wisher, +LURIDA VINCENT. + +Euthymia had carried off this letter and read it by herself. As she +finished it, her feelings found expression in an old phrase of her +grandmother's, which came up of itself, as such survivals of early days +are apt to do, on great occasions. + +"Well, I never!" + +Then she loosened some button or string that was too tight, and went to +the window for a breath of outdoor air. Then she began at the beginning +and read the whole letter all over again. + +What should she do about it? She could not let this young girl send a +letter like that to a stranger of whose character little was known except +by inference,--to a young man, who would consider it a most extraordinary +advance on the part of the sender. She would have liked to tear it into +a thousand pieces, but she had no right to treat it in that way. Lurida +meant to send it the next morning, and in the mean time Euthymia had the +night to think over what she should do about it. + +There is nothing like the pillow for an oracle. There is no voice like +that which breaks the silence--of the stagnant hours of the night with +its sudden suggestions and luminous counsels. When Euthymia awoke in the +morning, her course of action was as clear before her as if it bad been +dictated by her guardian angel. She went straight over to the home of +Lurida, who was just dressed for breakfast. + +She was naturally a little surprised at this early visit. She was struck +with the excited look of Euthymia, being herself quite calm, and +contemplating her project with entire complacency. + +Euthymia began, in tones that expressed deep anxiety. + +"I have read your letter, my dear, and admired its spirit and force. It +is a fine letter, and does you great credit as an expression of the +truest human feeling. But it must not be sent to Mr. Kirkwood. If you +were sixty years old, perhaps if you were fifty, it might be admissible +to send it. But if you were forty, I should question its propriety; if +you were thirty, I should veto it, and you are but a little more than +twenty. How do you know that this stranger will not show your letter to +anybody or everybody? How do you know that he will not send it to one of +the gossiping journals like the 'Household Inquisitor'? But supposing he +keeps it to himself, which is more than you have a right to expect, what +opinion is he likely to form of a young lady who invades his privacy with +such freedom? Ten to one he will think curiosity is at the bottom of +it,--and,--come, don't be angry at me for suggesting it,--may there not +be a little of that same motive mingled with the others? No, don't +interrupt me quite yet; you do want to know whether your hypothesis is +correct. You are full of the best and kindest feelings in the world, but +your desire for knowledge is the ferment under them just now, perhaps +more than you know." + +Lurida's pale cheeks flushed and whitened more than once while her friend +was speaking. She loved her too sincerely and respected her intelligence +too much to take offence at her advice, but she could not give up her +humane and sisterly intentions merely from the fear of some awkward +consequences to herself. She had persuaded herself that she was playing +the part of a Protestant sister of charity, and that the fact of her not +wearing the costume of these ministering angels made no difference in her +relations to those who needed her aid. + +"I cannot see your objections in the light in which they appear to you," +she said gravely. "It seems to me that I give up everything when I +hesitate to help a fellow-creature because I am a woman. I am not afraid +to send this letter and take all the consequences." + +"Will you go with me to the doctor's, and let him read it in our +presence? And will you agree to abide by his opinion, if it coincides +with mine?" + +Lurida winced a little at this proposal. "I don't quite like," she said, +"showing this letter to--to" she hesitated, but it had to come out--"to a +man, that is, to another man than the one for whom it was intended." + +The neuter gender business had got a pretty damaging side-hit. + +"Well, never mind about letting him read the letter. Will you go over to +his house with me at noon, when he comes back after his morning visits, +and have a talk over the whole matter with him? You know I have +sometimes had to say must to you, Lurida, and now I say you must go to +the doctor's with me and carry that letter." + +There was no resisting the potent monosyllable as the sweet but firm +voice delivered it. At noon the two maidens rang at the doctor's door. +The servant said he had been at the house after his morning visits, but +found a hasty summons to Mr. Kirkwood, who had been taken suddenly ill +and wished to see him at once. Was the illness dangerous? The +servant-maid did n't know, but thought it was pretty bad, for Mr. Paul +came in as white as a sheet, and talked all sorts of languages which she +couldn't understand, and took on as if he thought Mr. Kirkwood was going +to die right off. + +And so the hazardous question about sending the letter was disposed of, +at least for the present. + + + + +XVII + +Dr. BUTTS'S PATIENT. + +The physician found Maurice just regaining his heat after a chill of a +somewhat severe character. He knew too well what this meant, and the +probable series of symptoms of which it was the prelude. His patient was +not the only one in the neighborhood who was attacked in this way. The +autumnal fevers to which our country towns are subject, in the place of +those "agues," or intermittents, so largely prevalent in the South and +West, were already beginning, and Maurice, who had exposed himself in the +early and late hours of the dangerous season, must be expected to go +through the regular stages of this always serious and not rarely fatal +disease. + +Paolo, his faithful servant, would fain have taken the sole charge of his +master during his illness. But the doctor insisted that he must have a +nurse to help him in his task, which was likely to be long and +exhausting. + +At the mention of the word "nurse" Paolo turned white, and exclaimed in +an agitated and thoroughly frightened way, + +"No! no nuss! no woman! She kill him! I stay by him day and night, but +don' let no woman come near him,--if you do, he die!" + +The doctor explained that he intended to send a man who was used to +taking care of sick people, and with no little effort at last succeeded +in convincing Paolo that, as he could not be awake day and night for a +fortnight or three weeks, it was absolutely necessary to call in some +assistance from without. And so Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was to play the +leading part in that drama of nature's composing called a typhoid fever, +with its regular bedchamber scenery, its properties of phials and +pill-boxes, its little company of stock actors, its gradual evolution of +a very simple plot, its familiar incidents, its emotional alternations, +and its denouement, sometimes tragic, oftener happy. + +It is needless to say that the sympathies of all the good people of the +village, residents and strangers, were actively awakened for the young +man about whom they knew so little and conjectured so much. Tokens of +their kindness came to him daily: flowers from the woods and from the +gardens; choice fruit grown in the open air or under glass, for there +were some fine houses surrounded by well-kept grounds, and greenhouses +and graperies were not unknown in the small but favored settlement. + +On all these luxuries Maurice looked with dull and languid eyes. A faint +smile of gratitude sometimes struggled through the stillness of his +features, or a murmured word of thanks found its way through his parched +lips, and he would relapse into the partial stupor or the fitful sleep in +which, with intervals of slight wandering, the slow hours dragged along +the sluggish days one after another. With no violent symptoms, but with +steady persistency, the disease moved on in its accustomed course. It +was at no time immediately threatening, but the experienced physician +knew its uncertainties only too well. He had known fever patients +suddenly seized with violent internal inflammation, and carried off with +frightful rapidity. He remembered the case of a convalescent, a young +woman who had been attacked while in apparently vigorous general health, +who, on being lifted too suddenly to a sitting position, while still +confined to her bed, fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. It +may well be supposed that he took every possible precaution to avert the +accidents which tend to throw from its track a disease the regular course +of which is arranged by nature as carefully as the route of a railroad +from one city to another. The most natural interpretation which the +common observer would put upon the manifestations of one of these +autumnal maladies would be that some noxious combustible element had +found its way into the system which must be burned to ashes before the +heat which pervades the whole body can subside. Sometimes the fire may +smoulder and seem as if it were going out, or were quite extinguished, +and again it will find some new material to seize upon, and flame up as +fiercely as ever. Its coming on most frequently at the season when the +brush fires which are consuming the dead branches, and withered leaves, +and all the refuse of vegetation are sending up their smoke is +suggestive. Sometimes it seems as if the body, relieved of its effete +materials, renewed its youth after one of these quiet, expurgating, +internal fractional cremations. Lean, pallid students have found +themselves plump and blooming, and it has happened that one whose hair +was straight as gnat of an Indian has been startled to behold himself in +his mirror with a fringe of hyacinthine curls about his rejuvenated +countenance. + +There was nothing of what medical men call malignity in the case of +Maurice Kirkwood. The most alarming symptom was a profound prostration, +which at last reached such a point that he lay utterly helpless, as +unable to move without aid as the feeblest of paralytics. In this state +he lay for many days, not suffering pain, but with the sense of great +weariness, and the feeling that he should never rise from his bed again. +For the most part his intellect was unclouded when his attention was +aroused. He spoke only in whispers, a few words at a time. The doctor +felt sure, by the expression which passed over his features from time to +time, that something was worrying and oppressing him; something which he +wished to communicate, and had not the force, or the tenacity of purpose, +to make perfectly clear. His eyes often wandered to a certain desk, and +once he had found strength to lift his emaciated arm and point to it. The +doctor went towards it as if to fetch it to him, but he slowly shook his +head. He had not the power to say at that time what he wished. The next +day he felt a little less prostrated; and succeeded in explaining to the +doctor what he wanted. His words, so far as the physician could make +them out, were these which follow. Dr. Butts looked upon them as +possibly expressing wishes which would be his last, and noted them down +carefully immediately after leaving his chamber. + +"I commit the secret of my life to your charge. My whole story is told +in a paper locked in that desk. The key is--put your hand under my +pillow. If I die, let the story be known. It will show that I +was--human--and save my memory from reproach." + +He was silent for a little time. A single tear stole down his hollow +cheek. The doctor turned his head away, for his own eyes were full. But +he said to himself, "It is a good sign; I begin to feel strong hopes that +he will recover." + +Maurice spoke once more. "Doctor, I put full trust in you. You are wise +and kind. Do what you will with this paper, but open it at once and +read. I want you to know the story of my life before it is finished--if +the end is at hand. Take it with you and read it before you sleep." He +was exhausted and presently his eyes closed, but the doctor saw a +tranquil look on his features which added encouragement to his hopes. + + + + +XVIII + +MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. + +I am an American by birth, but a large part of my life has been passed in +foreign lands. My father was a man of education, possessed of an ample +fortune; my mother was considered, a very accomplished and amiable woman. +I was their first and only child. She died while I was yet an infant. +If I remember her at all it is as a vision, more like a glimpse of a +pre-natal existence than as a part of my earthly life. At the death of +my mother I was left in the charge of the old nurse who had enjoyed her +perfect confidence. She was devoted to me, and I became absolutely +dependent on her, who had for me all the love and all the care of a +mother. I was naturally the object of the attentions and caresses of the +family relatives. I have been told that I was a pleasant, smiling +infant, with nothing to indicate any peculiar nervous susceptibility; not +afraid of strangers, but on the contrary ready to make their +acquaintance. My father was devoted to me and did all in his power to +promote my health and comfort. + +I was still a babe, often carried in arms, when the event happened which +changed my whole future and destined me to a strange and lonely +existence. I cannot relate it even now without a sense of terror. I +must force myself to recall the circumstances as told me and vaguely +remembered, for I am not willing that my doomed and wholly exceptional +life should pass away unrecorded, unexplained, unvindicated. My nature +is, I feel sure, a kind and social one, but I have lived apart, as if my +heart were filled with hatred of my fellow-creatures. If there are any +readers who look without pity, without sympathy, upon those who shun the +fellowship of their fellow men and women, who show by their downcast or +averted eyes that they dread companionship and long for solitude, I pray +them, if this paper ever reaches them, to stop at this point. Follow me +no further, for you will not believe my story, nor enter into the +feelings which I am about to reveal. But if there are any to whom all +that is human is of interest, who have felt in their own consciousness +some stirrings of invincible attraction to one individual and equally +invincible repugnance to another, who know by their own experience that +elective affinities have as their necessary counterpart, and, as it were, +their polar opposites, currents not less strong of elective repulsions, +let them read with unquestioning faith the story of a blighted life I am +about to relate, much of it, of course, received from the lips of others. + +My cousin Laura, a girl of seventeen, lately returned from Europe, was +considered eminently beautiful. It was in my second summer that she +visited my father's house, where he was living with his servants and my +old nurse, my mother having but recently left him a widower. Laura was +full of vivacity, impulsive, quick in her movements, thoughtless +occasionally, as it is not strange that a young girl of her age should +be. It was a beautiful summer day when she saw me for the first time. +My nurse had me in her arms, walking back and forward on a balcony with a +low railing, upon which opened the windows of the second story of my +father's house. While the nurse was thus carrying me, Laura came +suddenly upon the balcony. She no sooner saw me than with all the +delighted eagerness of her youthful nature she rushed toward me, and, +catching me from the nurse's arms, began tossing me after the fashion of +young girls who have been so lately playing with dolls that they feel as +if babies were very much of the same nature. The abrupt seizure +frightened me; I sprang from her arms in my terror, and fell over the +railing of the balcony. I should probably enough have been killed on the +spot but for the fact that a low thorn-bush grew just beneath the +balcony, into which I fell and thus had the violence of the shock broken. +But the thorns tore my tender flesh, and I bear to this day marks of the +deep wounds they inflicted. + +That dreadful experience is burned deep into my memory. The sudden +apparition of the girl; the sense of being torn away from the protecting +arms around me; the frantic effort to escape; the shriek that accompanied +my fall through what must have seemed unmeasurable space; the cruel +lacerations of the piercing and rending thorns,--all these fearful +impressions blended in one paralyzing terror. + +When I was taken up I was thought to be dead. I was perfectly white, and +the physician who first saw me said that no pulse was perceptible. But +after a time consciousness returned; the wounds, though painful, were +none of them dangerous, and the most alarming effects of the accident +passed away. My old nurse cared for me tenderly day and night, and my +father, who had been almost distracted in the first hours which followed +the injury, hoped and believed that no permanent evil results would be +found to result from it. My cousin Laura was of course deeply distressed +to feel that her thoughtlessness had been the cause of so grave an +accident. As soon as I had somewhat recovered she came to see me, very +penitent, very anxious to make me forget the alarm she had caused me, +with all its consequences. I was in the nursery sitting up in my bed, +bandaged, but not in any pain, as it seemed, for I was quiet and to all +appearance in a perfectly natural state of feeling. As Laura came near +me I shrieked and instantly changed color. I put my hand upon my heart +as if I had been stabbed, and fell over, unconscious. It was very much +the same state as that in which I was found immediately after my fall. + +The cause of this violent and appalling seizure was but too obvious. The +approach of the young girl and the dread that she was about to lay her +hand upon me had called up the same train of effects which the moment of +terror and pain had already occasioned. The old nurse saw this in a +moment. "Go! go!" she cried to Laura, "go, or the child will die!" Her +command did not have to be repeated. After Laura had gone I lay +senseless, white and cold as marble, for some time. The doctor soon +came, and by the use of smart rubbing and stimulants the color came back +slowly to my cheeks and the arrested circulation was again set in motion. + +It was hard to believe that this was anything more than a temporary +effect of the accident. There could be little doubt, it was thought by +the doctor and by my father, that after a few days I should recover from +this morbid sensibility and receive my cousin as other infants receive +pleasant-looking young persons. The old nurse shook her head. "The girl +will be the death of the child," she said, "if she touches him or comes +near him. His heart stopped beating just as when the girl snatched him +out of my arms, and he fell over the balcony railing." Once more the +experiment was tried, cautiously, almost insidiously. The same alarming +consequences followed. It was too evident that a chain of nervous +disturbances had been set up in my system which repeated itself whenever +the original impression gave the first impulse. I never saw my cousin +Laura after this last trial. Its result had so distressed her that she +never ventured again to show herself to me. + +If the effect of the nervous shock had stopped there, it would have been +a misfortune for my cousin and myself, but hardly a calamity. The world +is wide, and a cousin or two more or less can hardly be considered an +essential of existence. I often heard Laura's name mentioned, but never +by any one who was acquainted with all the circumstances, for it was +noticed that I changed color and caught at my breast as if I wanted to +grasp my heart in my hand whenever that fatal name was mentioned. + +Alas! this was not all. While I was suffering from the effects of my +fall among the thorns I was attended by my old nurse, assisted by another +old woman, by a physician, and my father, who would take his share in +caring for me. It was thought best to keep--me perfectly quiet, and +strangers and friends were alike excluded from my nursery, with one +exception, that my old grandmother came in now and then. With her it +seems that I was somewhat timid and shy, following her with rather +anxious eyes, as if not quite certain whether or not she was dangerous. +But one day, when I was far advanced towards recovery, my father brought +in a young lady, a relative of his, who had expressed a great desire to +see me. She was, as I have been told, a very handsome girl, of about the +same age as my cousin Laura, but bearing no personal resemblance to her +in form, features, or complexion. She had no sooner entered the room +than the same sudden changes which had followed my cousin's visit began +to show themselves, and before she had reached my bedside I was in a +state of deadly collapse, as on the occasions already mentioned. + +Some time passed before any recurrence of these terrifying seizures. A +little girl of five or six years old was allowed to come into the nursery +one day and bring me some flowers. I took them from her hand, but turned +away and shut my eyes. There was no seizure, but there was a certain +dread and aversion, nothing more than a feeling which it might be hoped +that time would overcome. Those around me were gradually finding out the +circumstances which brought on the deadly attack to which I was subject. + +The daughter of one of our near neighbors was considered the prettiest +girl of the village where we were passing the summer. She was very +anxious to see me, and as I was now nearly well it was determined that +she should be permitted to pay me a short visit. I had always delighted +in seeing her and being caressed by her. I was sleeping when she entered +the nursery and came and took a seat at my side in perfect silence. +Presently I became restless, and a moment later I opened my eyes and saw +her stooping over me. My hand went to my left breast,--the color faded +from my cheeks,--I was again the cold marble image so like death that it +had well-nigh been mistaken for it. + +Could it be possible that the fright which had chilled my blood had left +me with an unconquerable fear of woman at the period when she is most +attractive not only to adolescents, but to children of tender age, who +feel the fascination of her flowing locks, her bright eyes, her blooming +cheeks, and that mysterious magnetism of sex which draws all life into +its warm and potently vitalized atmosphere? So it did indeed seem. The +dangerous experiment could not be repeated indefinitely. It was not +intentionally tried again, but accident brought about more than one +renewal of it during the following years, until it became fully +recognized that I was the unhappy subject of a mortal dread of +woman,--not absolutely of the human female, for I had no fear of my old +nurse or of my grandmother, or of any old wrinkled face, and I had become +accustomed to the occasional meeting of a little girl or two, whom I +nevertheless regarded with a certain ill-defined feeling that there was +danger in their presence. I was sent to a boys' school very early, and +during the first ten or twelve years of my life I had rarely any occasion +to be reminded of my strange idiosyncrasy. + +As I grew out of boyhood into youth, a change came over the feelings +which had so long held complete possession of me. This was what my +father and his advisers had always anticipated, and was the ground of +their confident hope in my return to natural conditions before I should +have grown to mature manhood. + +How shall I describe the conflicts of those dreamy, bewildering, dreadful +years? Visions of loveliness haunted me sleeping and waking. Sometimes +a graceful girlish figure would so draw my eyes towards it that I lost +sight of all else, and was ready to forget all my fears and find myself +at her side, like other youths by the side of young maidens,--happy in +their cheerful companionship, while I,--I, under the curse of one +blighting moment, looked on, hopeless. Sometimes the glimpse of a fair +face or the tone of a sweet voice stirred within me all the instincts +that make the morning of life beautiful to adolescence. I reasoned with +myself: + +Why should I not have outgrown that idle apprehension which had been the +nightmare of my earlier years? Why should not the rising tide of life +have drowned out the feeble growths that infested the shallows of +childhood? How many children there are who tremble at being left alone +in the dark, but who, a few years later, will smile at their foolish +terrors and brave all the ghosts of a haunted chamber! Why should I any +longer be the slave of a foolish fancy that has grown into a half insane +habit of mind? I was familiarly acquainted with all the stories of the +strange antipathies and invincible repugnances to which others, some of +them famous men, had been subject. I said to myself, Why should not I +overcome this dread of woman as Peter the Great fought down his dread of +wheels rolling over a bridge? Was I, alone of all mankind, to be doomed +to perpetual exclusion from the society which, as it seemed to me, was +all that rendered existence worth the trouble and fatigue of slavery to +the vulgar need of supplying the waste of the system and working at the +task of respiration like the daughters of Danaus,--toiling day and night +as the worn-out sailor labors at the pump of his sinking vessel? + +Why did I not brave the risk of meeting squarely, and without regard to +any possible danger, some one of those fair maidens whose far-off smile, +whose graceful movements, at once attracted and agitated me? I can only +answer this question to the satisfaction of any really inquiring reader +by giving him the true interpretation of the singular phenomenon of which +I was the subject. For this I shall have to refer to a paper of which I +have made a copy, and which will be found included with this manuscript. +It is enough to say here, without entering into the explanation of the +fact, which will be found simple enough as seen by the light of modern +physiological science, that the "nervous disturbance" which the presence +of a woman in the flower of her age produced in my system was a sense of +impending death, sudden, overwhelming, unconquerable, appalling. It was +a reversed action of the nervous centres,--the opposite of that which +flushes the young lover's cheek and hurries his bounding pulses as he +comes into the presence of the object of his passion. No one who has +ever felt the sensation can have failed to recognize it as an imperative +summons, which commands instant and terrified submission. + +It was at this period of my life that my father determined to try the +effect of travel and residence in different localities upon my bodily and +mental condition. I say bodily as well as mental, for I was too slender +for my height and subject to some nervous symptoms which were a cause of +anxiety. That the mind was largely concerned in these there was no +doubt, but the mutual interactions of mind and body are often too complex +to admit of satisfactory analysis. Each is in part cause and each also +in part effect. + +We passed some years in Italy, chiefly in Rome, where I was placed in a +school conducted by priests, and where of course I met only those of my +own sex. There I had the opportunity of seeing the influences under +which certain young Catholics, destined for the priesthood, are led to +separate themselves from all communion with the sex associated in their +minds with the most subtle dangers to which the human soul can be +exposed. I became in some degree reconciled to the thought of exclusion +from the society of women by seeing around me so many who were +self-devoted to celibacy. The thought sometimes occurred to me whether I +should not find the best and the only natural solution of the problem of +existence, as submitted to myself, in taking upon me the vows which +settle the whole question and raise an impassable barrier between the +devotee and the object of his dangerous attraction. + +How often I talked this whole matter over with the young priest who was +at once my special instructor and my favorite companion! But accustomed +as I had become to the forms of the Roman Church, and impressed as I was +with the purity and excellence of many of its young members with whom I +was acquainted, my early training rendered it impossible for me to accept +the credentials which it offered me as authoritative. My friend and +instructor had to set me down as a case of "invincible ignorance." This +was the loop-hole through which he crept out of the prison-house of his +creed, and was enabled to look upon me without the feeling of absolute +despair with which his sterner brethren would, I fear, have regarded me. + +I have said that accident exposed me at times to the influence which I +had such reasons for dreading. Here is one example of such an +occurrence, which I relate as simply as possible, vividly as it is +impressed upon my memory. A young friend whose acquaintance I had made +in Rome asked me one day to come to his rooms and look at a cabinet of +gems and medals which he had collected. I had been but a short time in +his library when a vague sense of uneasiness came over me. My heart +became restless,--I could feel it stirring irregularly, as if it were +some frightened creature caged in my breast. There was nothing that I +could see to account for it. A door was partly open, but not so that I +could see into the next room. The feeling grew upon me of some influence +which was paralyzing my circulation. I begged my friend to open a +window. As he did so, the door swung in the draught, and I saw a +blooming young woman,--it was my friend's sister, who had been sitting +with a book in her hand, and who rose at the opening of the door. +Something had warned me of the presence of a woman, that occult and +potent aura of individuality, call it personal magnetism, spiritual +effluence, or reduce it to a simpler expression if you will; whatever it +was, it had warned me of the nearness of the dread attraction which +allured at a distance and revealed itself with all the terrors of the +Lorelei if approached too recklessly. A sign from her brother caused her +to withdraw at once, but not before I had felt the impression which +betrayed itself in my change of color, anxiety about the region of the +heart, and sudden failure as if about to fall in a deadly fainting-fit. + +Does all this seem strange and incredible to the reader of my manuscript? +Nothing in the history of life is so strange or exceptional as it seems +to those who have not made a long study of its mysteries. I have never +known just such a case as my own, and yet there must have been such, and +if the whole history of mankind were unfolded I cannot doubt that there +have been many like it. Let my reader suspend his judgment until he has +read the paper I have referred to, which was drawn up by a Committee of +the Royal Academy of the Biological Sciences. In this paper the +mechanism of the series of nervous derangements to which I have been +subject since the fatal shock experienced in my infancy is explained in +language not hard to understand. It will be seen that such a change of +polarity in the nervous centres is only a permanent form and an extreme +degree of an emotional disturbance, which as a temporary and +comparatively unimportant personal accident is far from being +uncommon,--is so frequent, in fact, that every one must have known +instances of it, and not a few must have had more or less serious +experiences of it in their own private history. + +It must not be supposed that my imagination dealt with me as I am now +dealing with the reader. I was full of strange fancies and wild +superstitions. One of my Catholic friends gave me a silver medal which +had been blessed by the Pope, and which I was to wear next my body. I +was told that this would turn black after a time, in virtue of a power +which it possessed of drawing out original sin, or certain portions of +it, together with the evil and morbid tendencies which had been engrafted +on the corrupt nature. I wore the medal faithfully, as directed, and +watched it carefully. It became tarnished and after a time darkened, but +it wrought no change in my unnatural condition. + +There was an old gypsy who had the reputation of knowing more of futurity +than she had any right to know. The story was that she had foretold the +assassination of Count Rossi and the death of Cavour. + +However that may have been, I was persuaded to let her try her black art +upon my future. I shall never forget the strange, wild look of the +wrinkled hag as she took my hand and studied its lines and fixed her +wicked old eyes on my young countenance. After this examination she +shook her head and muttered some words, which as nearly as I could get +them would be in English like these: + + Fair lady cast a spell on thee, + Fair lady's hand shall set thee free. + +Strange as it may seem, these words of a withered old creature, whose +palm had to be crossed with silver to bring forth her oracular response, +have always clung to my memory as if they were destined to fulfilment. +The extraordinary nature of the affliction to which I was subject +disposed me to believe the incredible with reference to all that relates +to it. I have never ceased to have the feeling that, sooner or later, I +should find myself freed from the blight laid upon me in my infancy. It +seems as if it would naturally come through the influence of some young +and fair woman, to whom that merciful errand should be assigned by the +Providence that governs our destiny. With strange hopes, with trembling +fears, with mingled belief and doubt, wherever I have found myself I have +sought with longing yet half-averted eyes for the "elect lady," as I have +learned to call her, who was to lift the curse from my ruined life. + +Three times I have been led to the hope, if not the belief, that I had +found the object of my superstitious belief.--Singularly enough it was +always on the water that the phantom of my hope appeared before my +bewildered vision. Once it was an English girl who was a fellow +passenger with me in one of my ocean voyages. I need not say that she +was beautiful, for she was my dream realized. I heard her singing, I saw +her walking the deck on some of the fair days when sea-sickness was +forgotten. The passengers were a social company enough, but I had kept +myself apart, as was my wont. At last the attraction became too strong +to resist any longer. "I will venture into the charmed circle if it +kills me," I said to my father. I did venture, and it did not kill me, +or I should not be telling this story. But there was a repetition of the +old experiences. I need not relate the series of alarming consequences +of my venture. The English girl was very lovely, and I have no doubt has +made some one supremely happy before this, but she was not the "elect +lady" of the prophecy and of my dreams. + +A second time I thought myself for a moment in the presence of the +destined deliverer who was to restore me to my natural place among my +fellow men and women. It was on the Tiber that I met the young maiden +who drew me once more into that inner circle which surrounded young +womanhood with deadly peril for me, if I dared to pass its limits. I was +floating with the stream in the little boat in which I passed many long +hours of reverie when I saw another small boat with a boy and a young +girl in it. The boy had been rowing, and one of his oars had slipped +from his grasp. He did not know how to paddle with a single oar, and was +hopelessly rowing round and round, his oar all the time floating farther +away from him. I could not refuse my assistance. I picked up the oar +and brought my skiff alongside of the boat. When I handed the oar to the +boy the young girl lifted her veil and thanked me in the exquisite music +of the language which + + 'Sounds as if it should be writ on satin.' + +She was a type of Italian beauty,--a nocturne in flesh and blood, if I +may borrow a term certain artists are fond of; but it was her voice which +captivated me and for a moment made me believe that I was no longer shut +off from all relations with the social life of my race. An hour later I +was found lying insensible on the floor of my boat, white, cold, almost +pulseless. It cost much patient labor to bring me back to consciousness. +Had not such extreme efforts been made, it seems probable that I should +never have waked from a slumber which was hardly distinguishable from +that of death. + +Why should I provoke a catastrophe which appears inevitable if I invite +it by exposing myself to its too well ascertained cause? The habit of +these deadly seizures has become a second nature. The strongest and the +ablest men have found it impossible to resist the impression produced by +the most insignificant object, by the most harmless sight or sound to +which they had a congenital or acquired antipathy. What prospect have I +of ever being rid of this long and deep-seated infirmity? I may well ask +myself these questions, but my answer is that I will never give up the +hope that time will yet bring its remedy. It may be that the wild +prediction which so haunts me shall find itself fulfilled. I have had of +late strange premonitions, to which if I were superstitious I could not +help giving heed. But I have seen too much of the faith that deals in +miracles to accept the supernatural in any shape,--assuredly when it +comes from an old witch-like creature who takes pay for her revelations +of the future. Be it so: though I am not superstitious, I have a right +to be imaginative, and my imagination will hold to those words of the old +zingara with an irresistible feeling that, sooner or later, they will +prove true. + +Can it be possible that her prediction is not far from its realization? +I have had both waking and sleeping visions within these last months and +weeks which have taken possession of me and filled my life with new +thoughts, new hopes, new resolves. + +Sometimes on the bosom of the lake by which I am dreaming away this +season of bloom and fragrance, sometimes in the fields or woods in a +distant glimpse, once in a nearer glance, which left me pale and +tremulous, yet was followed by a swift reaction, so that my cheeks +flushed and my pulse bounded, I have seen her who--how do I dare to tell +it so that my own eyes can read it?---I cannot help believing is to be my +deliverer, my saviour. + +I have been warned in the most solemn and impressive language by the +experts most deeply read in the laws of life and the history of its +disturbing and destroying influences, that it would be at the imminent +risk of my existence if I should expose myself to the repetition of my +former experiences. I was reminded that unexplained sudden deaths were +of constant, of daily occurrence; that any emotion is liable to arrest +the movements of life: terror, joy, good news or bad news,--anything that +reaches the deeper nervous centres. I had already died once, as Sir +Charles Napier said of himself; yes, more than once, died and been +resuscitated. The next time, I might very probably fail to get my return +ticket after my visit to Hades. It was a rather grim stroke of humor, +but I understood its meaning full well, and felt the force of its menace. + +After all, what had I to live for if the great primal instinct which +strives to make whole the half life of lonely manhood is defeated, +suppressed, crushed out of existence? Why not as well die in the attempt +to break up a wretched servitude to a perverted nervous movement as in +any other way? I am alone in the world,--alone save for my faithful +servant, through whom I seem to hold to the human race as it were by a +single filament. My father, who was my instructor, my companion, my +dearest and best friend through all my later youth and my earlier +manhood, died three years ago and left me my own master, with the means +of living as might best please my fancy. This season shall decide my +fate. One more experiment, and I shall find myself restored to my place +among my fellow-beings, or, as I devoutly hope, in a sphere where all our +mortal infirmities are past and forgotten. + +I have told the story of a blighted life without reserve, so that there +shall not remain any mystery or any dark suspicion connected with my +memory if I should be taken away unexpectedly. It has cost me an effort +to do it, but now that my life is on record I feel more reconciled to my +lot, with all its possibilities, and among these possibilities is a gleam +of a better future. I have been told by my advisers, some of them wise, +deeply instructed, and kind-hearted men, that such a life-destiny should +be related by the subject of it for the instruction of others, and +especially for the light it throws on certain peculiarities of human +character often wrongly interpreted as due to moral perversion, when they +are in reality the results of misdirected or reversed actions in some of +the closely connected nervous centres. + +For myself I can truly say that I have very little morbid sensibility +left with reference to the destiny which has been allotted to me. I have +passed through different stages of feeling with reference to it, as I +have developed from infancy to manhood. At first it was mere blind +instinct about which I had no thought, living like other infants the life +of impressions without language to connect them in series. In my boyhood +I began to be deeply conscious of the infirmity which separated me from +those around me. In youth began that conflict of emotions and impulses +with the antagonistic influence of which I have already spoken, a +conflict which has never ceased, but to which I have necessarily become +to a certain degree accustomed; and against the dangers of which I have +learned to guard myself habitually. That is the meaning of my isolation. +You, young man,--if at any time your eyes shall look upon my melancholy +record,--you at least will understand me. Does not your heart throb, in +the presence of budding or blooming womanhood, sometimes as if it "were +ready to crack" with its own excess of strain? What if instead of +throbbing it should falter, flutter, and stop as if never to beat again? +You, young woman, who with ready belief and tender sympathy will look +upon these pages, if they are ever spread before you, know what it is +when your breast heaves with uncontrollable emotion and the grip of the +bodice seems unendurable as the embrace of the iron virgin of the +Inquisition. Think what it would be if the grasp were tightened so that +no breath of air could enter your panting chest! + +Does your heart beat in the same way, young man, when your honored +friend, a venerable matron of seventy years, greets you with her kindly +smile as it does in the presence of youthful loveliness? When a pretty +child brings you her doll and looks into your eyes with artless grace and +trustful simplicity, does your pulse quicken, do you tremble, does life +palpitate through your whole being, as when the maiden of seventeen meets +your enamored sight in the glow of her rosebud beauty? Wonder not, then, +if the period of mystic attraction for you should be that of agitation, +terror, danger, to one in whom the natural current of the instincts has +had its course changed as that of a stream is changed by a convulsion of +nature, so that the impression which is new life to you is death to him. + +I am now twenty-five years old. I have reached the time of life which I +have dreamed, nay even ventured to hope, might be the limit of the +sentence which was pronounced upon me in my infancy. I can assign no +good reason for this anticipation. But in writing this paper I feel as +if I were preparing to begin a renewed existence. There is nothing for me +to be ashamed of in the story I have told. There is no man living who +would not have yielded to the sense of instantly impending death which +seized upon me under the conditions I have mentioned. Martyrs have gone +singing to their flaming shrouds, but never a man could hold his breath +long enough to kill himself; he must have rope or water, or some +mechanical help, or nature will make him draw in a breath of air, and +would make him do so though he knew the salvation of the human race would +be forfeited by that one gasp. + +This paper may never reach the eye of any one afflicted in the same way +that I have been. It probably never will; but for all that, there are +many shy natures which will recognize tendencies in themselves in the +direction of my unhappy susceptibility. Others, to whom such weakness +seems inconceivable, will find their scepticism shaken, if not removed, +by the calm, judicial statement of the Report drawn up for the Royal +Academy. It will make little difference to me whether my story is +accepted unhesitatingly or looked upon as largely a product of the +imagination. I am but a bird of passage that lights on the boughs of +different nationalities. I belong to no flock; my home may be among the +palms of Syria, the olives of Italy, the oaks of England, the elms that +shadow the Hudson or the Connecticut; I build no nest; to-day I am here, +to-morrow on the wing. + +If I quit my native land before the trees have dropped their leaves I +shall place this manuscript in the safe hands of one whom I feel sure +that I can trust; to do with it as he shall see fit. If it is only +curious and has no bearing on human welfare, he may think it well to let +it remain unread until I shall have passed away. If in his judgment it +throws any light on one of the deeper mysteries of our nature,--the +repulsions which play such a formidable part in social life, and which +must be recognized as the correlatives of the affinities that distribute +the individuals governed by them in the face of impediments which seem to +be impossibilities,--then it may be freely given to the world. + +But if I am here when the leaves are all fallen, the programme of my life +will have changed, and this story of the dead past will be illuminated by +the light of a living present which will irradiate all its saddening +features. Who would not pray that my last gleam of light and hope may be +that of dawn and not of departing day? + +The reader who finds it hard to accept the reality of a story so far from +the common range of experience is once more requested to suspend his +judgment until he has read the paper which will next be offered for his +consideration. + + + + +XIX. + +THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE. + + +Perhaps it is too much to expect a reader who wishes to be entertained, +excited, amused, and does not want to work his passage through pages +which he cannot understand without some effort of his own, to read the +paper which follows and Dr. Butts's reflections upon it. If he has no +curiosity in the direction of these chapters, he can afford to leave them +to such as relish a slight flavor of science. But if he does so leave +them he will very probably remain sceptical as to the truth of the story +to which they are meant to furnish him with a key. + +Of course the case of Maurice Kirkwood is a remarkable and exceptional +one, and it is hardly probable that any reader's experience will furnish +him with its parallel. But let him look back over all his acquaintances, +if he has reached middle life, and see if he cannot recall more than one +who, for some reason or other, shunned the society of young women, as if +they had a deadly fear of their company. If he remembers any such, he +can understand the simple statements and natural reflections which are +laid before him. + +One of the most singular facts connected with the history of Maurice +Kirkwood was the philosophical equanimity with which he submitted to the +fate which had fallen upon him. He did not choose to be pumped by the +Interviewer, who would show him up in the sensational columns of his +prying newspaper. He lived chiefly by himself, as the easiest mode of +avoiding those meetings to which he would be exposed in almost every +society into which he might venture. But he had learned to look upon +himself very much as he would upon an intimate not himself,--upon a +different personality. A young man will naturally enough be ashamed of +his shyness. It is something which others believe, and perhaps he +himself thinks, he might overcome. But in the case of Maurice Kirkwood +there was no room for doubt as to the reality and gravity of the long +enduring effects of his first convulsive terror. He had accepted the +fact as he would have accepted the calamity of losing his sight or his +hearing. When he was questioned by the experts to whom his case was +submitted, he told them all that he knew about it almost without a sign +of emotion. Nature was so peremptory with him,--saying in language that +had no double meaning: "If you violate the condition on which you hold my +gift of existence I slay you on the spot,"--that he became as decisive in +his obedience as she was in her command, and accepted his fate without +repining. + +Yet it must not be thought for a moment,--it cannot be supposed,--that +he was insensible because he looked upon himself with the coolness of an +enforced philosophy. He bore his burden manfully, hard as it was to live +under it, for he lived, as we have seen, in hope. The thought of +throwing it off with his life, as too grievous to be borne, was familiar +to his lonely hours, but he rejected it as unworthy of his manhood. How +he had speculated and dreamed about it is plain enough from the paper the +reader may remember on Ocean, River, and Lake. + +With these preliminary hints the paper promised is submitted to such as +may find any interest in them. + + ACCOUNT OF A CASE OF GYNOPHOBIA. + + WITH REMARKS. + +Being the Substance of a Report to the Royal Academy of the Biological +Sciences by a Committee of that Institution. + +"The singular nature of the case we are about to narrate and comment upon +will, we feel confident, arrest the attention of those who have learned +the great fact that Nature often throws the strongest light upon her laws +by the apparent exceptions and anomalies which from time to time are +observed. We have done with the lusus naturae of earlier generations. +We pay little attention to the stories of 'miracles,' except so far as we +receive them ready-made at the hands of the churches which still hold to +them. Not the less do we meet with strange and surprising facts, which a +century or two ago would have been handled by the clergy and the courts, +but today are calmly recorded and judged by the best light our knowledge +of the laws of life can throw upon them. It must be owned that there are +stories which we can hardly dispute, so clear and full is the evidence in +their support, which do, notwithstanding, tax our faith and sometimes +leave us sceptical in spite of all the testimony which supports them. + +"In this category many will be disposed to place the case we commend to +the candid attention of the Academy. If one were told that a young man, +a gentleman by birth and training, well formed, in apparently perfect +health, of agreeable physiognomy and manners, could not endure the +presence of the most attractive young woman, but was seized with deadly +terror and sudden collapse of all the powers of life, if he came into her +immediate presence; if it were added that this same young man did not +shrink from the presence of an old withered crone; that he had a certain +timid liking for little maidens who had not yet outgrown the company of +their dolls, the listener would be apt to smile, if he did not laugh, at +the absurdity of the fable. Surely, he would say, this must be the +fiction of some fanciful brain, the whim of some romancer, the trick of +some playwright. It would make a capital farce, this idea, carried out. +A young man slighting the lovely heroine of the little comedy and making +love to her grandmother! This would, of course, be overstating the truth +of the story, but to such a misinterpretation the plain facts lend +themselves too easily. We will relate the leading circumstances of the +case, as they were told us with perfect simplicity and frankness by the +subject of an affection which, if classified, would come under the +general head of Antipathy, but to which, if we give it a name, we shall +have to apply the term Gynophobia, or Fear of Woman." + +Here follows the account furnished to the writer of the paper, which is +in all essentials identical with that already laid before the reader. + +"Such is the case offered to our consideration. Assuming its +truthfulness in all its particulars, it remains to see in the first place +whether or not it is as entirely exceptional and anomalous as it seems at +first sight, or whether it is only the last term of a series of cases +which in their less formidable aspect are well known to us in literature, +in the records of science, and even in our common experience. + +"To most of those among us the explanations we are now about to give are +entirely superfluous. But there are some whose chief studies have been +in different directions, and who will not complain if certain facts are +mentioned which to the expert will seem rudimentary, and which hardly +require recapitulation to those who are familiarly acquainted with the +common text-books. + +"The heart is the centre of every living movement in the higher animals, +and in man, furnishing in varying amount, or withholding to a greater or +less extent, the needful supplies to all parts of the system. If its +action is diminished to a certain degree, faintness is the immediate +consequence; if it is arrested, loss of consciousness; if its action is +not soon restored, death, of which fainting plants the white flag, +remains in possession of the system. + +"How closely the heart is under the influence of the emotions we need not +go to science to learn, for all human experience and all literature are +overflowing with evidence that shows the extent of this relation. +Scripture is full of it; the heart in Hebrew poetry represents the entire +life, we might almost say. Not less forcible is the language of +Shakespeare, as for instance, in 'Measure for Measure:' + + "'Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, + Making it both unable for itself + And dispossessing all my other parts + Of necessary fitness?' + +"More especially is the heart associated in every literature with the +passion of love. A famous old story is that of Galen, who was called to +the case of a young lady long ailing, and wasting away from some cause +the physicians who had already seen her were unable to make out. The +shrewd old practitioner suspected that love was at the bottom of the +young lady's malady. Many relatives and friends of both sexes, all of +them ready with their sympathy, came to see her. The physician sat by her +bedside during one of these visits, and in an easy, natural way took her +hand and placed a finger on her pulse. It beat quietly enough until a +certain comely young gentleman entered the apartment, when it suddenly +rose infrequency, and at the same moment her hurried breathing, her +changing color, pale and flushed by turns, betrayed the profound +agitation his presence excited. This was enough for the sagacious Greek; +love was the disease, the cure of which by its like may be claimed as an +anticipation of homoeopathy. In the frontispiece to the fine old 'Junta' +edition of the works of Galen, you may find among the wood-cuts a +representation of the interesting scene, with the title Amantas +Dignotio,--the diagnosis, or recognition, of the lover. + +"Love has many languages, but the heart talks through all of them. The +pallid or burning cheek tells of the failing or leaping fountain which +gives it color. The lovers at the 'Brookside' could hear each other's +hearts beating. When Genevieve, in Coleridge's poem, forgot herself, and +was beforehand with her suitor in her sudden embrace, + + "'T was partly love and partly fear, + And partly 't was a bashful art, + That I might rather feel than see + The swelling of her heart' + +"Always the heart, whether its hurried action is seen, or heard, or felt. +But it is not always in this way that the 'deceitful' organ treats the +lover. + + "'Faint heart never won fair lady.' + +"This saying was not meant, perhaps, to be taken literally, but it has +its literal truth. Many a lover has found his heart sink within +him,--lose all its force, and leave him weak as a child in his emotion at +the sight of the object of his affections. When Porphyro looked upon +Madeline at her prayers in the chapel, it was too much for him: + + "'She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, + Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint, + She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from earthly taint.' + +"And in Balzac's novel, 'Cesar Birotteau,' the hero of the story 'fainted +away for-joy at the moment when, under a linden-tree, at Sceaux, +Constance-Barbe-Josephine accepted him as her future husband.' + +"One who faints is dead if he does not I come to,' and nothing is more +likely than that too susceptible lovers have actually gone off in this +way. Everything depends on how the heart behaves itself in these and +similar trying moments. The mechanism of its actions becomes an +interesting subject, therefore, to lovers of both sexes, and to all who +are capable of intense emotions. + +"The heart is a great reservoir, which distributes food, drink, air, and +heat to every part of the system, in exchange for its waste material. It +knocks at the gate of every organ seventy or eighty times in a minute, +calling upon it to receive its supplies and unload its refuse. Between +it and the brain there is the closest relation. The emotions, which act +upon it as we have seen, govern it by a mechanism only of late years +thoroughly understood. This mechanism can be made plain enough to the +reader who is not afraid to believe that he can understand it. + +"The brain, as all know, is the seat of ideas, emotions, volition. It is +the great central telegraphic station with which many lesser centres are +in close relation, from which they receive, and to which they transmit, +their messages. The heart has its own little brains, so to speak,--small +collections of nervous substance which govern its rhythmical motions +under ordinary conditions. But these lesser nervous centres are to a +large extent dominated by influences transmitted from certain groups of +nerve-cells in the brain and its immediate dependencies. + +"There are two among the special groups of nerve-cells which produce +directly opposite effects. One of these has the power of accelerating +the action of the heart, while the other has the power of retarding or +arresting this action. One acts as the spur, the other as the bridle. +According as one or the other predominates, the action of the heart will +be stimulated or restrained. Among the great modern discoveries in +physiology is that of the existence of a distinct centre of inhibition, +as the restraining influence over the heart is called. + +"The centre of inhibition plays a terrible part in the history of +cowardice and of unsuccessful love. No man can be brave without blood to +sustain his courage, any more than he can think, as the German +materialist says, not absurdly, without phosphorus. The fainting lover +must recover his circulation, or his lady will lend him her +smelling-salts and take a gallant with blood in his cheeks. Porphyro got +over his faintness before he ran away with Madeline, and Cesar Birotteau +was an accepted lover when he swooned with happiness: but many an officer +has been cashiered, and many a suitor has been rejected, because the +centre of inhibition has got the upper hand of the centre of stimulation. + +"In the well-known cases of deadly antipathy which have been recorded, +the most frequent cause has been the disturbed and depressing influence +of the centre of inhibition. Fainting at the sight of blood is one of +the commonest examples of this influence. A single impression, in a very +early period of atmospheric existence,--perhaps, indirectly, before that +period, as was said to have happened in the case of James the First of +England,--may establish a communication between this centre and the heart +which will remain open ever afterwards. How does a footpath across a +field establish itself? Its curves are arbitrary, and what we call +accidental, but one after another follows it as if he were guided by a +chart on which it was laid down. So it is with this dangerous transit +between the centre of inhibition and the great organ of life. If once +the path is opened by the track of some profound impression, that same +impression, if repeated, or a similar one, is likely to find the old +footmarks and follow them. Habit only makes the path easier to traverse, +and thus the unreasoning terror of a child, of an infant, may perpetuate +itself in a timidity which shames the manhood of its subject. + +"The case before us is an exceptional and most remarkable example of the +effect of inhibition on the heart. + +"We will not say that we believe it to be unique in the history of the +human race; on the contrary, we do not doubt that there have been similar +cases, and that in some rare instances sudden death has been the +consequence of seizures like that of the subject of this Report. The case +most like it is that of Colone Townsend, which is too well known to +require any lengthened description in this paper. It is enough to recall +the main facts. He could by a voluntary effort suspend the action of his +heart for a considerable period, during which he lay like one dead, +pulseless, and without motion. After a time the circulation returned, +and he does not seem to have been the worse for his dangerous, or +seemingly dangerous, experiment. But in his case it was by an act of the +will that the heart's action was suspended. In the case before us it is +an involuntary impulse transmitted from the brain to the inhibiting +centre, which arrests the cardiac movements. + +"What is like to be the further history of the case? + +"The subject of this anomalous affliction is now more than twenty years +old. The chain of nervous actions has become firmly established. It +might have been hoped that the changes of adolescence would have effected +a transformation of the perverted instinct. On the contrary, the whole +force of this instinct throws itself on the centre of inhibition, instead +of quickening the heart-beats, and sending the rush of youthful blood +with fresh life through the entire system to the throbbing finger-tips. + +"Is it probable that time and circumstances will alter a habit of nervous +interactions so long established? We are disposed to think that there is +a chance of its being broken up. And we are not afraid to say that we +suspect the old gypsy woman, whose prophecy took such hold of the +patient's imagination, has hit upon the way in which the 'spell,' as she +called it, is to be dissolved. She must, in all probability, have had a +hint of the 'antipatia' to which the youth before her was a victim, and +its cause, and if so, her guess as to the probable mode in which the +young man would obtain relief from his unfortunate condition was the one +which would naturally suggest itself. + +"If once the nervous impression which falls on the centre of inhibition +can be made to change its course, so as to follow its natural channel, it +will probably keep to that channel ever afterwards. And this will, it is +most likely, be effected by some sudden, unexpected impression. If he +were drowning, and a young woman should rescue him, it is by no means +impossible that the change in the nervous current we have referred to +might be brought about as rapidly, as easily, as the reversal of the +poles in a magnet, which is effected in an instant. But he cannot be +expected to throw himself into the water just at the right moment when +the 'fair lady' of the gitana's prophecy is passing on the shore. +Accident may effect the cure which art seems incompetent to perform. It +would not be strange if in some future seizure he should never come back +to consciousness. But it is quite conceivable, on the other hand, that a +happier event may occur, that in a single moment the nervous polarity may +be reversed, the whole course of his life changed, and his past terrible +experiences be to him like a scarce-remembered dream. + +"This is one, of those cases in which it is very hard to determine the +wisest course to be pursued. The question is not unlike that which +arises in certain cases of dislocation of the bones of the neck. Shall +the unfortunate sufferer go all his days with his face turned far round +to the right or the left, or shall an attempt be made to replace the +dislocated bones? an attempt which may succeed, or may cause instant +death. The patient must be consulted as to whether he will take the +chance. The practitioner may be unwilling to risk it, if the patient +consents. Each case must be judged on its own special grounds. We +cannot think that this young man is doomed to perpetual separation from +the society of womanhood during the period of its bloom and attraction. +But to provoke another seizure after his past experiences would be too +much like committing suicide. We fear that we must trust to the chapter +of accidents. The strange malady--for such it is--has become a second +nature, and may require as energetic a shock to displace it as it did to +bring it into existence. Time alone can solve this question, on which +depends the well-being and, it may be, the existence of a young man every +way fitted to be happy, and to give happiness, if restored to his true +nature." + + + + +XX. + +DR. BUTTS REFLECTS. + +Dr. Butts sat up late at night reading these papers and reflecting upon +them. He was profoundly impressed and tenderly affected by the entire +frankness, the absence of all attempt at concealment, which Maurice +showed in placing these papers at his disposal. He believed that his +patient would recover from this illness for which he had been taking care +of him. He thought deeply and earnestly of what he could do for him +after he should have regained his health and strength. + +There were references, in Maurice's own account of himself, which the +doctor called to mind with great interest after reading his brief +autobiography. Some one person--some young woman, it must be--had +produced a singular impression upon him since those earlier perilous +experiences through which he had passed. The doctor could not help +thinking of that meeting with Euthymia of which she had spoken to him. +Maurice, as she said, turned pale,--he clapped his hand to his breast. +He might have done so if he had met her chambermaid, or any straggling +damsel of the village. But Euthymia was not a young woman to be looked +upon with indifference. She held herself like a queen, and walked like +one, not a stage queen, but one born and bred to self-reliance, and +command of herself as well as others. One could not pass her without +being struck with her noble bearing and spirited features. If she had +known how Maurice trembled as he looked upon her, in that conflict of +attraction and uncontrollable dread,--if she had known it! But what, +even then, could she have done? Nothing but get away from him as fast as +she could. As it was, it was a long time before his agitation subsided, +and his heart beat with its common force and frequency. + +Dr. Butts was not a male gossip nor a matchmaking go-between. But he +could not help thinking what a pity it was that these two young persons +could not come together as other young people do in the pairing season, +and find out whether they cared for and were fitted for each other. He +did not pretend to settle this question in his own mind, but the thought +was a natural one. And here was a gulf between them as deep and wide as +that between Lazarus and Dives. Would it ever be bridged over? This +thought took possession of the doctor's mind, and he imagined all sorts +of ways of effecting some experimental approximation between Maurice and +Euthymia. From this delicate subject he glanced off to certain general +considerations suggested by the extraordinary history he had been +reading. He began by speculating as to the possibility of the personal +presence of an individual making itself perceived by some channel other +than any of the five senses. The study of the natural sciences teaches +those who are devoted to them that the most insignificant facts may lead +the way to the discovery of the most important, all-pervading laws of the +universe. From the kick of a frog's hind leg to the amazing triumphs +which began with that seemingly trivial incident is a long, a very long +stride if Madam Galvani had not been in delicate health, which was the +occasion of her having some frog-broth prepared for her, the world of +to-day might not be in possession of the electric telegraph and the light +which blazes like the sun at high noon. A common-looking occurrence, one +seemingly unimportant, which had hitherto passed unnoticed with the +ordinary course of things, was the means of introducing us to a new and +vast realm of closely related phenomena. It was like a key that we might +have picked up, looking so simple that it could hardly fit any lock but +one of like simplicity, but which should all at once throw back the bolts +of the one lock which had defied the most ingenious of our complex +implements and open our way into a hitherto unexplored territory. + +It certainly was not through the eye alone that Maurice felt the +paralyzing influence. He could contemplate Euthymia from a distance, as +he did on the day of the boat-race, without any nervous disturbance. A +certain proximity was necessary for the influence to be felt, as in the +case of magnetism and electricity. An atmosphere of danger surrounded +every woman he approached during the period when her sex exercises its +most powerful attractions. How far did that atmosphere extend, and +through what channel did it act? + +The key to the phenomena of this case, he believed, was to be found in a +fact as humble as that which gave birth to the science of galvanism and +its practical applications. The circumstances connected with the very +common antipathy to cats were as remarkable in many points of view as the +similar circumstances in the case of Maurice Kirkwood. The subjects of +that antipathy could not tell what it was which disturbed their nervous +system. All they knew was that a sense of uneasiness, restlessness, +oppression, came over them in the presence of one of these animals. He +remembered the fact already mentioned, that persons sensitive to this +impression can tell by their feelings if a cat is concealed in the +apartment in which they may happen to be. It may be through some +emanation. It may be through the medium of some electrical disturbance. +What if the nerve-thrills passing through the whole system of the animal +propagate themselves to a certain distance without any more regard to +intervening solids than is shown by magnetism? A sieve lets sand pass +through it; a filter arrests sand, but lets fluids pass, glass holds +fluids, but lets light through; wood shuts out light, but magnetic +attraction goes through it as sand went through the sieve. No good +reasons can be given why the presence of a cat should not betray itself +to certain organizations, at a distance, through the walls of a box in +which the animal is shut up. We need not disbelieve the stories which +allege such an occurrence as a fact and a not very infrequent one. + +If the presence of a cat can produce its effects under these +circumstances, why should not that of a human being under similar +conditions, acting on certain constitutions, exercise its specific +influence? The doctor recalled a story told him by one of his friends, a +story which the friend himself heard from the lips of the distinguished +actor, the late Mr. Fechter. The actor maintained that Rachel had no +genius as an actress. It was all Samson's training and study, according +to him, which explained the secret of her wonderful effectiveness on the +stage. But magnetism, he said,--magnetism, she was full of. He declared +that he was made aware of her presence on the stage, when he could not +see her or know of her presence otherwise, by this magnetic emanation. +The doctor took the story for what it was worth. There might very +probably be exaggeration, perhaps high imaginative coloring about it, but +it was not a whit more unlikely than the cat-stories, accepted as +authentic. He continued this train of thought into further developments. +Into this series of reflections we will try to follow him. + +What is the meaning of the halo with which artists have surrounded the +heads of their pictured saints, of the aureoles which wraps them like a +luminous cloud? Is it not a recognition of the fact that these holy +personages diffuse their personality in the form of a visible emanation, +which reminds us of Milton's definition of light: + + "Bright effluence of bright essence increate"? + +The common use of the term influence would seem to imply the existence of +its correlative, effluence. There is no good reason that I can see, the +doctor said to himself, why among the forces which work upon the nervous +centres there should not be one which acts at various distances from its +source. It may not be visible like the "glory" of the painters, it may +not be appreciable by any one of the five senses, and yet it may be felt +by the person reached by it as much as if it were a palpable +presence,--more powerfully, perhaps, from the mystery which belongs to +its mode of action. + +Why should not Maurice have been rendered restless and anxious by the +unseen nearness of a young woman who was in the next room to him, just as +the persons who have the dread of cats are made conscious of their +presence through some unknown channel? Is it anything strange that the +larger and more powerful organism should diffuse a consciousness of its +presence to some distance as well as the slighter and feebler one? Is it +strange that this mysterious influence or effluence should belong +especially or exclusively to the period of complete womanhood in +distinction from that of immaturity or decadence? On the contrary, it +seems to be in accordance with all the analogies of nature,--analogies +too often cruel in the sentence they pass upon the human female. + +Among the many curious thoughts which came up in the doctor's mind was +this, which made him smile as if it were a jest, but which he felt very +strongly had its serious side, and was involved with the happiness or +suffering of multitudes of youthful persons who die without telling their +secret: + +How many young men have a mortal fear of woman, as woman, which they +never overcome, and in consequence of which the attraction which draws +man towards her, as strong in them as in others,--oftentimes, in virtue +of their peculiarly sensitive organizations, more potent in them than in +others of like age and conditions,--in consequence of which fear, this +attraction is completely neutralized, and all the possibilities of +doubled and indefinitely extended life depending upon it are left +unrealized! Think what numbers of young men in Catholic countries devote +themselves to lives of celibacy. Think how many young men lose all their +confidence in the presence of the young woman to whom they are most +attracted, and at last steal away from a companionship which it is +rapture to dream of and torture to endure, so does the presence of the +beloved object paralyze all the powers of expression. Sorcerers have in +all time and countries played on the hopes and terrors of lovers. Once +let loose a strong impulse on the centre of inhibition, and the warrior +who had faced bayonets and batteries becomes a coward whom the +well-dressed hero of the ball-room and leader of the German will put to +ignominious flight in five minutes of easy, audacious familiarity with +his lady-love. + +Yes, the doctor went on with his reflections, I do not know that I have +seen the term Gynophobia before I opened this manuscript, but I have seen +the malady many times. Only one word has stood between many a pair of +young people and their lifelong happiness, and that word has got as far +as the lips, but the lips trembled and would not, could not, shape that +little word. All young women are not like Coleridge's Genevieve, who +knew how to help her lover out of his difficulty, and said yes before he +had asked for an answer. So the wave which was to have wafted them on to +the shore of Elysium has just failed of landing them, and back they have +been drawn into the desolate ocean to meet no more on earth. + +Love is the master-key, he went on thinking, love is the master-key that +opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of +all, the gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of beauty!--not only +the historic wonder of beauty, that "burnt the topless towers of Ilium" +for the smile of Helen, and fired the palaces of Babylon by the hand of +Thais, but the beauty which springs up in all times and places, and +carries a torch and wears a serpent for a wreath as truly as any of the +Eumenides. Paint Beauty with her foot upon a skull and a dragon coiled +around her. + +The doctor smiled at his own imposing classical allusions and pictorial +imagery. Drifting along from thought to thought, he reflected on the +probable consequences of the general knowledge of Maurice Kirkwood's +story, if it came before the public. + +What a piece of work it would make among the lively youths of the +village, to be sure! What scoffing, what ridicule, what embellishments, +what fables, would follow in the trail of the story! If the Interviewer +got hold of it, how "The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor" +would blaze with capitals in its next issue! The young fellows' of the +place would be disposed to make fun of the whole matter. The young +girls-the doctor hardly dared to think what would happen when the story +got about among them. "The Sachem" of the solitary canoe, the bold +horseman, the handsome hermit,--handsome so far as the glimpses they had +got of him went,--must needs be an object of tender interest among them, +now that he was ailing, suffering, in danger of his life, away from +friends,--poor fellow! Little tokens of their regard had reached his +sick-chamber; bunches of flowers with dainty little notes, some of them +pinkish, some three-cornered, some of them with brief messages, others +"criss-crossed," were growing more frequent as it was understood that the +patient was likely to be convalescent before many days had passed. If it +should come to be understood that there was a deadly obstacle to their +coming into any personal relations with him, the doctor had his doubts +whether there were not those who would subject him to the risk; for there +were coquettes in the village,--strangers, visitors, let us hope,--who +would sacrifice anything or anybody to their vanity and love of conquest. + + + + +XXI + +AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION. + +The illness from which Maurice had suffered left him in a state of +profound prostration. The doctor, who remembered the extreme danger of +any overexertion in such cases, hardly allowed him to lift his head from +the pillow. But his mind was gradually recovering its balance, and he +was able to hold some conversation with those about him. His faithful +Paolo had grown so thin in waiting upon him and watching with him that +the village children had to take a second look at his face when they +passed him to make sure that it was indeed their old friend and no other. +But as his master advanced towards convalescence and the doctor assured +him that he was going in all probability to get well, Paolo's face began +to recover something of its old look and expression, and once more his +pockets filled themselves with comfits for his little circle of +worshipping three and four year old followers. + +"How is Mr. Kirkwood?" was the question with which he was always greeted. +In the worst periods of the fever be rarely left his master. When he +did, and the question was put to him, he would shake his head sadly, +sometimes without a word, sometimes with tears and sobs and faltering +words,--more like a brokenhearted child than a stalwart man as he was, +such a man as soldiers are made of in the great Continental armies. + +"He very bad,--he no eat nothing,--he--no say nothing,--he never be no +better," and all his Southern nature betrayed itself in a passionate +burst of lamentation. But now that he began to feel easy about his +master, his ready optimism declared itself no less transparently. + +"He better every day now. He get well in few weeks, sure. You see him +on hoss in little while." The kind-hearted creature's life was bound up +in that of his "master," as he loved to call him, in sovereign disregard +of the comments of the natives, who held themselves too high for any such +recognition of another as their better. They could not understand how +he, so much their superior in bodily presence, in air and manner, could +speak of the man who employed him in any other way than as "Kirkwood," +without even demeaning himself so far as to prefix a "Mr." to it. But +"my master" Maurice remained for Paolo in spite of the fact that all men +are born free and equal. And never was a servant more devoted to a +master than was Paolo to Maurice during the days of doubt and danger. +Since his improvement Maurice insisted upon his leaving his chamber and +getting out of the house, so as to breathe the fresh air of which he was +in so much need. It worried him to see his servant returning after too +short an absence. The attendant who had helped him in the care of the +patient was within call, and Paolo was almost driven out of the house by +the urgency of his master's command that he should take plenty of +exercise in the open air. + +Notwithstanding the fact of Maurice's improved condition, although the +force of the disease had spent itself, the state of weakness to which he +had been reduced was a cause of some anxiety, and required great +precautions to be taken. He lay in bed, wasted, enfeebled to such a +degree that he had to be cared for very much as a child is tended. +Gradually his voice was coming back to him, so that he could hold some +conversation, as was before mentioned, with those about him. The doctor +waited for the right moment to make mention of the manuscript which +Maurice had submitted to him. Up to this time, although it had been +alluded to and the doctor had told him of the intense interest with which +he had read it, he had never ventured to make it the subject of any long +talk, such as would be liable to fatigue his patient. But now he thought +the time had come. + +"I have been thinking," the doctor said, "of the singular seizures to +which you are liable, and as it is my business not merely to think about +such cases, but to do what I can to help any who may be capable of +receiving aid from my art, I wish to have some additional facts about +your history. And in the first place, will you allow me to ask what led +you to this particular place? It is so much less known to the public at +large than many other resorts that we naturally ask, What brings this or +that new visitor among us? We have no ill-tasting, natural spring of bad +water to be analyzed by the state chemist and proclaimed as a specific. +We have no great gambling-houses, no racecourse (except that fox boats on +the lake); we have no coaching-club, no great balls, few lions of any +kind, so we ask, What brings this or that stranger here? And I think I +may venture to ask you whether any, special motive brought you among us, +or whether it was accident that determined your coming to this place." + +"Certainly, doctor," Maurice answered, "I will tell you with great +pleasure. Last year I passed on the border of a great river. The year +before I lived in a lonely cottage at the side of the ocean. I wanted +this year to be by a lake. You heard the paper read at the meeting of +your society, or at least you heard of it,--for such matters are always +talked over in a village like this. You can judge by that paper, or +could, if it were before you, of the frame of mind in which I came here. +I was tired of the sullen indifference of the ocean and the babbling +egotism of the river, always hurrying along on its own private business. +I wanted the dreamy stillness of a large, tranquil sheet of water that +had nothing in particular to do, and would leave me to myself and my +thoughts. I had read somewhere about the place, and the old Anchor +Tavern, with its paternal landlord and motherly landlady and +old-fashioned household, and that, though it was no longer open as a +tavern, I could find a resting-place there early in the season, at least +for a few days, while I looked about me for a quiet place in which I +might pass my summer. I have found this a pleasant residence. By being +up early and out late I have kept myself mainly in the solitude which has +become my enforced habit of life. The season has gone by too swiftly for +me since my dream has become a vision." + +The doctor was sitting with his hand round Maurice's wrist, three fingers +on his pulse. As he spoke these last words he noticed that the pulse +fluttered a little,--beat irregularly a few times; intermitted; became +feeble and thready; while his cheek grew whiter than the pallid +bloodlessness of his long illness had left it. + +"No more talk, now," he said. "You are too tired to be using your voice. +I will hear all the rest another time." + +The doctor had interrupted Maurice at an interesting point. What did he +mean by saying that his dream had become a vision? This is what the +doctor was naturally curious, and professionally anxious, to know. But +his hand was still on his patient's pulse, which told him unmistakably +that the heart had taken the alarm and was losing its energy under the +depressing nervous influence. Presently, however, it recovered its +natural force and rhythm, and a faint flush came back to the pale cheek. +The doctor remembered the story of Galen, and the young maiden whose +complaint had puzzled the physicians. + +The next day his patient was well enough to enter once more into +conversation. + +"You said something about a dream of yours which had become a vision," +said the doctor, with his fingers on his patient's wrist, as before. He +felt the artery leap, under his pressure, falter a little, stop, then +begin again, growing fuller in its beat. The heart had felt the pull of +the bridle, but the spur had roused it to swift reaction. + +"You know the story of my past life, doctor," Maurice answered; "and, I +will tell you what is the vision which has taken the place of my dreams. +You remember the boat-race? I watched it from a distance, but I held a +powerful opera-glass in my hand, which brought the whole crew of the +young ladies' boat so close to me that I could see the features, the +figures, the movements, of every one of the rowers. I saw the little +coxswain fling her bouquet in the track of the other boat,--you remember +how the race was lost and won,--but I saw one face among those young +girls which drew me away from all the rest. It was that of the young lady +who pulled the bow oar, the captain of the boat's crew. I have since +learned her name, you know it well,--I need not name her. Since that day +I have had many distant glimpses of her; and once I met her so squarely +that the deadly sensation came over me, and I felt that in another moment +I should fall senseless at her feet. But she passed on her way and I on +mine, and the spasm which had clutched my heart gradually left it, and I +was as well as before. You know that young lady, doctor?" + +"I do; and she is a very noble creature. You are not the first young man +who has been fascinated, almost at a glance, by Miss Euthymia Tower. And +she is well worth knowing more intimately." + +The doctor gave him a full account of the young lady, of her early days, +her character, her accomplishments. To all this he listened devoutly, +and when the doctor left him he said to himself, "I will see her and +speak with her, if it costs me my life." + + + + +XXII + +EUTHYMIA. + +"The Wonder" of the Corinna Institute had never willingly made a show of +her gymnastic accomplishments. Her feats, which were so much admired, +were only her natural exercise. Gradually the dumb-bells others used +became too light for her, the ropes she climbed too short, the clubs she +exercised with seemed as if they were made of cork instead of being heavy +wood, and all the tests and meters of strength and agility had been +strained beyond the standards which the records of the school had marked +as their historic maxima. It was not her fault that she broke a +dynamometer one day; she apologized for it, but the teacher said he +wished he could have a dozen broken every year in the same way. The +consciousness of her bodily strength had made her very careful in her +movements. The pressure of her hand was never too hard for the tenderest +little maiden whose palm was against her own. So far from priding +herself on her special gifts, she was disposed to be ashamed of them. +There were times and places in which she could give full play to her +muscles without fear or reproach. She had her special costume for the +boat and for the woods. She would climb the rugged old hemlocks now and +then for the sake of a wide outlook, or to peep into the large nest where +a hawk, or it may be an eagle, was raising her little brood of +air-pirates. + +There were those who spoke of her wanderings in lonely places as an +unsafe exposure. One sometimes met doubtful characters about the +neighborhood, and stories were--told of occurrences which might well +frighten a young girl, and make her cautious of trusting herself alone in +the wild solitudes which surrounded the little village.. Those who knew +Euthymia thought her quite equal to taking care of herself. Her very +look was enough to ensure the respect of any vagabond who might cross her +path, and if matters came to the worst she would prove as dangerous as a +panther. + +But it was a pity to associate this class of thoughts with a noble +specimen of true womanhood. Health, beauty, strength, were fine +qualities, and in all these she was rich. She enjoyed all her natural +gifts, and thought little about them. Unwillingly, but over-persuaded by +some of her friends, she had allowed her arm and hand to be modelled. +The artists who saw the cast wondered if it would be possible to get the +bust of the maiden from whom it was taken. Nobody would have dared to +suggest such an idea to her except Lurida. For Lurida sex was a trifling +accident, to be disregarded not only in the interests of humanity, but +for the sake of art. + +"It is a shame," she said to Euthymia, "that you will not let your +exquisitely moulded form be perpetuated in marble. You have no right to +withhold such a model from the contemplation of your fellow-creatures. +Think how rare it is to see a woman who truly represents the divine idea! +You belong to your race, and not to yourself,--at least, your beauty is a +gift not to be considered as a piece of private property. Look at the +so-called Venus of Milo. Do you suppose the noble woman who was the +original of that divinely chaste statue felt any scruple about allowing +the sculptor to reproduce her pure, unblemished perfections?" + +Euthymia was always patient with her imaginative friend. She listened to +her eloquent discourse, but she could not help blushing, used as she was +to Lurida's audacities. "The Terror's" brain had run away with a large +share of the blood which ought to have gone to the nourishment of her +general system. She could not help admiring, almost worshipping, a +companion whose being was rich in the womanly developments with which +nature had so economically endowed herself. An impoverished organization +carries with it certain neutral qualities which make its subject appear, +in the presence of complete manhood and womanhood, like a deaf-mute among +speaking persons. The deep blush which crimsoned Euthymia's cheek at +Lurida's suggestion was in a strange contrast to her own undisturbed +expression. There was a range of sensibilities of which Lurida knew far +less than she did of those many and difficult studies which had absorbed +her vital forces. She was startled to see what an effect her proposal +had produced, for Euthymia was not only blushing, but there was a flame +in her eyes which she had hardly ever seen before. + +"Is this only your own suggestion?" Euthymia said, "or has some one been +putting the idea into your head?" The truth was that she had happened to +meet the Interviewer at the Library, one day, and she was offended by the +long, searching stare with which that individual had honored her. It +occurred to her that he, or some such visitor to the place, might have +spoken of her to Lurida, or to some other person who had repeated what +was said to Lurida, as a good subject for the art of the sculptor, and +she felt all her maiden sensibilities offended by the proposition. +Lurida could not understand her excitement, but she was startled by it. +Natures which are complementary of each other are liable to these +accidental collisions of feeling. They get along very well together, +none the worse for their differences, until all at once the tender spot +of one or the other is carelessly handled in utter unconsciousness on the +part of the aggressor, and the exclamation, the outcry, or the explosion +explains the situation altogether too emphatically. Such scenes did not +frequently occur between the two friends, and this little flurry was soon +over; but it served to warn Lurida that Miss Euthymia Tower was not of +that class of self-conscious beauties who would be ready to dispute the +empire of the Venus of Milo on her own ground, in defences as scanty and +insufficient as those of the marble divinity. + +Euthymia had had admirers enough, at a distance, while at school, and in +the long vacations, near enough to find out that she was anything but +easy to make love to. She fairly frightened more than one rash youth who +was disposed to be too sentimental in her company. They overdid +flattery, which she was used to and tolerated, but which cheapened the +admirer in her estimation, and now and then betrayed her into an +expression which made him aware of the fact, and was a discouragement to +aggressive amiability. The real difficulty was that not one of her +adorers had ever greatly interested her. It could not be that nature had +made her insensible. It must have been because the man who was made for +her had never yet shown himself. She was not easy to please, that was +certain; and she was one of those young women who will not accept as a +lover one who but half pleases them. She could not pick up the first +stick that fell in her way and take it to shape her ideal out of. Many +of the good people of the village doubted whether Euthymia would ever be +married. + +"There 's nothing good enough for her in this village," said the old +landlord of what had been the Anchor Tavern. + +"She must wait till a prince comes along," the old landlady said in +reply. "She'd make as pretty a queen as any of them that's born to it. +Wouldn't she be splendid with a gold crown on her head, and di'monds a +glitterin' all over her! D' you remember how handsome she looked in the +tableau, when the fair was held for the Dorcas Society? She had on an old +dress of her grandma's,--they don't make anything half so handsome +nowadays,--and she was just as pretty as a pictur'. But what's the use of +good looks if they scare away folks? The young fellows think that such a +handsome girl as that would cost ten times as much to keep as a plain +one. She must be dressed up like an empress,--so they seem to think. It +ain't so with Euthymy: she'd look like a great lady dressed anyhow, and +she has n't got any more notions than the homeliest girl that ever stood +before a glass to look at herself." + +In the humbler walks of Arrowhead Village society, similar opinions were +entertained of Miss Euthymia. The fresh-water fisherman represented +pretty well the average estimate of the class to which he belonged. "I +tell ye," said he to another gentleman of leisure, whose chief occupation +was to watch the coming and going of the visitors to Arrowhead +Village,--"I tell ye that girl ain't a gon to put up with any o' them +slab-sided fellahs that you see hangin' raound to look at her every +Sunday when she comes aout o' meetin'. It's one o' them big gents from +Boston or New York that'll step up an' kerry her off." + +In the mean time nothing could be further from the thoughts of Euthymia +than the prospect of an ambitious worldly alliance. The ideals of young +women cost them many and great disappointments, but they save them very +often from those lifelong companionships which accident is constantly +trying to force upon them, in spite of their obvious unfitness. The +higher the ideal, the less likely is the commonplace neighbor who has the +great advantage of easy access, or the boarding-house acquaintance who +can profit by those vacant hours when the least interesting of visitors +is better than absolute loneliness,--the less likely are these +undesirable personages to be endured, pitied, and, if not embraced, +accepted, for want of something better. Euthymia found so much pleasure +in the intellectual companionship of Lurida, and felt her own prudence +and reserve so necessary to that independent young lady, that she had +been contented, so far, with friendship, and thought of love only in an +abstract sort of way. Beneath her abstractions there was a capacity of +loving which might have been inferred from the expression of her +features, the light that shone in her eyes, the tones of her voice, all +of which were full of the language which belongs to susceptible natures. +How many women never say to themselves that they were born to love, until +all at once the discovery opens upon them, as the sense that he was born +a painter is said to have dawned suddenly upon Correggio! + +Like all the rest of the village and its visitors, she could not help +thinking a good deal about the young man lying ill amongst strangers. She +was not one of those who had sent him the three-cornered notes or even a +bunch of flowers. She knew that he was receiving abounding tokens of +kindness and sympathy from different quarters, and a certain inward +feeling restrained her from joining in these demonstrations. If he had +been suffering from some deadly and contagious malady she would have +risked her life to help him, without a thought that there was any +wonderful heroism in such self-devotion. Her friend Lurida might have +been capable of the same sacrifice, but it would be after reasoning with +herself as to the obligations which her sense of human rights and duties +laid upon her, and fortifying her courage with the memory of noble deeds +recorded of women in ancient and modern history. With Euthymia the +primary human instincts took precedence of all reasoning or reflection +about them. All her sympathies were excited by the thought of this +forlorn stranger in his solitude, but she felt the impossibility of +giving any complete expression to them. She thought of Mungo Park in the +African desert, and she envied the poor negress who not only pitied him, +but had the blessed opportunity of helping and consoling him. How near +were these two human creatures, each needing the other! How near in +bodily presence, how far apart in their lives, with a barrier seemingly +impassable between them! + + + + +XXIII + +THE MEETING OF MAURICE AND EUTHYMIA. + +These autumnal fevers, which carry off a large number of our young people +every year, are treacherous and deceptive diseases. Not only are they +liable, as has been mentioned, to various accidental complications which +may prove suddenly fatal, but too often, after convalescence seems to be +established, relapses occur which are more serious than the disease had +appeared to be in its previous course. One morning Dr. Butts found +Maurice worse instead of better, as he had hoped and expected to find +him. Weak as he was, there was every reason to fear the issue of this +return of his threatening symptoms. There was not much to do besides +keeping up the little strength which still remained. It was all needed. + +Does the reader of these pages ever think of the work a sick man as much +as a well one has to perform while he is lying on his back and taking +what we call his "rest"? More than a thousand times an hour, between a +hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand times a week, he has to lift +the bars of the cage in which his breathing organs are confined, to save +himself from asphyxia. Rest! There is no rest until the last long sigh +tells those who look upon the dying that the ceaseless daily task, to +rest from which is death, is at last finished. We are all galley-slaves, +pulling at the levers of respiration,--which, rising and falling like so +many oars, drive us across an unfathomable ocean from one unknown shore +to another. No! Never was a galley-slave so chained as we are to these +four and twenty oars, at which we must tug day and night all our life +long. + +The doctor could not find any accidental cause to account for this +relapse. It presently occurred to him that there might be some local +source of infection which had brought on the complaint, and was still +keeping up the symptoms which were the ground of alarm. He determined to +remove Maurice to his own house, where he could be sure of pure air, and +where he himself could give more constant attention to his patient during +this critical period of his disease. It was a risk to take, but he could +be carried on a litter by careful men, and remain wholly passive during +the removal. Maurice signified his assent, as he could hardly help +doing,--for the doctor's suggestion took pretty nearly the form of a +command. He thought it a matter of life and death, and was gently urgent +for his patient's immediate change of residence. The doctor insisted on +having Maurice's books and other movable articles carried to his own +house, so that he should be surrounded by familiar sights, and not worry +himself about what might happen to objects which he valued, if they were +left behind him. + +All these dispositions were quickly and quietly made, and everything was +ready for the transfer of the patient to the house of the hospitable +physician. Paolo was at the doctor's, superintending the arrangement of +Maurice's effects and making all ready for his master. The nurse in +attendance, a trustworthy man enough in the main, finding his patient in +a tranquil sleep, left his bedside for a little fresh air. While he was +at the door he heard a shouting which excited his curiosity, and he +followed the sound until he found himself at the border of the lake. It +was nothing very wonderful which had caused the shouting. A Newfoundland +dog had been showing off his accomplishments, and some of the idlers were +betting as to the time it would take him to bring back to his master the +various floating objects which had been thrown as far from the shore as +possible. He watched the dog a few minutes, when his attention was drawn +to a light wherry, pulled by one young lady and steered by another. It +was making for the shore, which it would soon reach. The attendant +remembered all at once, that he had left his charge, and just before the +boat came to land he turned and hurried back to the patient. Exactly how +long he had been absent he could not have said,--perhaps a quarter of an +hour, perhaps longer; the time appeared short to him, wearied with long +sitting and watching. + +It had seemed, when he stole away from Maurice's bedside, that he was not +in the least needed. The patient was lying perfectly quiet, and to all +appearance wanted nothing more than letting alone. It was such a comfort +to look at something besides the worn features of a sick man, to hear +something besides his labored breathing and faint, half-whispered words, +that the temptation to indulge in these luxuries for a few minutes had +proved irresistible. + +Unfortunately, Maurice's slumbers did not remain tranquil during the +absence of the nurse. He very soon fell into a dream, which began +quietly enough, but in the course of the sudden transitions which dreams +are in the habit of undergoing became successively anxious, distressing, +terrifying. His earlier and later experiences came up before him, +fragmentary, incoherent, chaotic even, but vivid as reality. He was at +the bottom of a coal-mine in one of those long, narrow galleries, or +rather worm-holes, in which human beings pass a large part of their +lives, like so many larvae boring their way into the beams and rafters of +some old building. How close the air was in the stifling passage through +which he was crawling! The scene changed, and he was climbing a slippery +sheet of ice with desperate effort, his foot on the floor of a shallow +niche, his hold an icicle ready to snap in an instant, an abyss below him +waiting for his foot to slip or the icicle to break. How thin the air +seemed, how desperately hard to breathe! He was thinking of Mont Blanc, +it may be, and the fearfully rarefied atmosphere which he remembered well +as one of the great trials in his mountain ascents. No, it was not Mont +Blanc,--it was not any one of the frozen Alpine summits; it was Hecla +that he was climbing. + +The smoke of the burning mountain was wrapping itself around him; he was +choking with its dense fumes; he heard the flames roaring around him, he +felt the hot lava beneath his feet, he uttered a faint cry, and awoke. + +The room was full of smoke. He was gasping for breath, strangling in the +smothering oven which his chamber had become. + +The house was on fire! + +He tried to call for help, but his voice failed him, and died away in a +whisper. He made a desperate effort, and rose so as to sit up in the bed +for an instant, but the effort was too much for him, and he sank back +upon his pillow, helpless. He felt that his hour had come, for he could +not live in this dreadful atmosphere, and he was left alone. He could +hear the crackle of fire as the flame crept along from one partition to +another. It was a cruel fate to be left to perish in that way,--the fate +that many a martyr had had to face,--to be first strangled and then +burned. Death had not the terror for him that it has for most young +persons. He was accustomed to thinking of it calmly, sometimes +wistfully, even to such a degree that the thought of self-destruction had +come upon him as a temptation. But here was death in an unexpected and +appalling shape. He did not know before how much he cared to live. All +his old recollections came before him as it were in one long, vivid +flash. The closed vista of memory opened to its far horizon-line, and +past and present were pictured in a single instant of clear vision. The +dread moment which had blighted his life returned in all its terror. He +felt the convulsive spring in the form of a faint, impotent spasm,--the +rush of air,--the thorns of the stinging and lacerating cradle into which +he was precipitated. One after another those paralyzing seizures which +had been like deadening blows on the naked heart seemed to repeat +themselves, as real as at the moment of their occurrence. The pictures +passed in succession with such rapidity that they appeared almost as if +simultaneous. The vision of the "inward eye" was so intensified in this +moment of peril that an instant was like an hour of common existence. +Those who have been very near drowning know well what this description +means. The development of a photograph may not explain it, but it +illustrates the curious and familiar fact of the revived recollections of +the drowning man's experience. The sensitive plate has taken one look at +a scene, and remembers it all, + +Every little circumstance is there,--the hoof in air, the wing in flight, +the leaf as it falls, the wave as it breaks. All there, but invisible; +potentially present, but impalpable, inappreciable, as if not existing at +all. A wash is poured over it, and the whole scene comes out in all its +perfection of detail. In those supreme moments when death stares a man +suddenly in the face the rush of unwonted emotion floods the undeveloped +pictures of vanished years, stored away in the memory, the vast panorama +of a lifetime, and in one swift instant the past comes out as vividly as +if it were again the present. So it was at this moment with the sick +man, as he lay helpless and felt that he was left to die. For he saw no +hope of relief: the smoke was drifting in clouds into the room; the +flames were very near; if he was not reached and rescued immediately it +was all over with him. + +His past life had flashed before him. Then all at once rose the thought +of his future,--of all its possibilities, of the vague hopes which he had +cherished of late that his mysterious doom would be lifted from him. +There was something, then, to be lived for, something! There was a new +life, it might be, in store for him, and such a new life! He thought of +all he was losing. Oh, could he but have lived to know the meaning of +love! And the passionate desire of life came over him,--not the dread of +death, but the longing for what the future might yet have of happiness +for him. + +All this took place in the course of a very few moments. Dreams and +visions have little to do with measured time, and ten minutes, possibly +fifteen or twenty, were all that had passed since the beginning of those +nightmare terrors which were evidently suggested by the suffocating air +he was breathing. + +What had happened? In the confusion of moving books and other articles +to the doctor's house, doors and windows had been forgotten. Among the +rest a window opening into the cellar, where some old furniture had been +left by a former occupant, had been left unclosed. One of the lazy +natives, who had lounged by the house smoking a bad cigar, had thrown the +burning stump in at this open window. He had no particular intention of +doing mischief, but he had that indifference to consequences which is the +next step above the inclination to crime. The burning stump happened to +fall among the straw of an old mattress which had been ripped open. The +smoker went his way without looking behind him, and it so chanced that no +other person passed the house for some time. Presently the straw was in +a blaze, and from this the fire extended to the furniture, to the +stairway leading up from the cellar, and was working its way along the +entry under the stairs leading up to the apartment where Maurice was +lying. + +The blaze was fierce and swift, as it could not help being with such a +mass of combustibles,--loose straw from the mattress, dry old furniture, +and old warped floors which had been parching and shrinking for a score +or two of years. The whole house was, in the common language of the +newspaper reports, "a perfect tinder-box," and would probably be a heap +of ashes in half an hour. And there was this unfortunate deserted sick +man lying between life and death, beyond all help unless some unexpected +assistance should come to his rescue. + +As the attendant drew near the house where Maurice was lying, he was +horror-struck to see dense volumes of smoke pouring out of the lower +windows. It was beginning to make its way through the upper windows, +also, and presently a tongue of fire shot out and streamed upward along +the side of the house. The man shrieked Fire! Fire! with all his might, +and rushed to the door of the building to make his way to Maurice's room +and save him. He penetrated but a short distance when, blinded and +choking with the smoke, he rushed headlong down the stairs with a cry of +despair that roused every man, woman, and child within reach of a human +voice. Out they came from their houses in every quarter of the village. +The shout of Fire! Fire! was the chief aid lent by many of the young and +old. Some caught up pails and buckets: the more thoughtful ones filling +them; the hastier snatching them up empty, trusting to find water nearer +the burning building. + +Is the sick man moved? + +This was the awful question first asked,--for in the little village all +knew that Maurice was about being transferred to the doctor's house. The +attendant, white as death, pointed to the chamber where he had left him, +and gasped out, + +"He is there!" + +A ladder! A ladder! was the general cry, and men and boys rushed off in +search of one. But a single minute was an age now, and there was no +ladder to be had without a delay of many minutes. The sick man was going +to be swallowed up in the flames before it could possibly arrive. Some +were going for a blanket or a coverlet, in the hope that the young man +might have strength enough to leap from the window and be safely caught +in it. The attendant shook his head, and said faintly, + +"He cannot move from his bed." + +One of the visitors at the village,--a millionaire, it was said,--a +kind-hearted man, spoke in hoarse, broken tones: + +"A thousand dollars to the man that will bring him from his chamber!" + +The fresh-water fisherman muttered, "I should like to save the man and to +see the money, but it ain't a thaousan' dollars, nor ten thaousan' +dollars, that'll pay a fellah for burnin' to death,--or even chokin' to +death, anyhaow." + +The carpenter, who knew the framework of every house in the village, +recent or old, shook his head. + +"The stairs have been shored up," he said, "and when the fists that holds +'em up goes, down they'll come. It ain't safe for no man to go over them +stairs. Hurry along your ladder,--that's your only chance." + +All was wild confusion around the burning house. The ladder they had +gone for was missing from its case,--a neighbor had carried it off for +the workmen who were shingling his roof. It would never get there in +time. There was a fire-engine, but it was nearly half a mile from the +lakeside settlement. Some were throwing on water in an aimless, useless +way; one was sending a thin stream through a garden syringe: it seemed +like doing something, at least. But all hope of saving Maurice was fast +giving way, so rapid was the progress of the flames, so thick the cloud +of smoke that filled the house and poured from the windows. Nothing was +heard but confused cries, shrieks of women, all sorts of orders to do +this and that, no one knowing what was to be done. The ladder! The +ladder! Five minutes more and it will be too late! + +In the mean time the alarm of fire had reached Paolo, and he had stopped +his work of arranging Maurice's books in the same way as that in which +they had stood in his apartment, and followed in the direction of the +sound, little thinking that his master was lying helpless in the burning +house. "Some chimney afire," he said to himself; but he would go and +take a look, at any rate. + +Before Paolo had reached the scene of destruction and impending death, +two young women, in boating dresses of decidedly Bloomerish aspect, had +suddenly joined the throng. "The Wonder" and "The Terror" of their +school-days--Miss Euthymia rower and Miss Lurida Vincent had just come +from the shore, where they had left their wherry. A few hurried words +told them the fearful story. Maurice Kirkwood was lying in the chamber +to which every eye was turned, unable to move, doomed to a dreadful +death. All that could be hoped was that he would perish by suffocation +rather than by the flames, which would soon be upon him. The man who had +attended him had just tried to reach his chamber, but had reeled back out +of the door, almost strangled by the smoke. A thousand dollars had been +offered to any one who would rescue the sick man, but no one had dared to +make the attempt; for the stairs might fall at any moment, if the smoke +did not blind and smother the man who passed them before they fell. + +The two young women looked each other in the face for one swift moment. + +"How can he be reached?" asked Lurida. "Is there nobody that will +venture his life to save a brother like that?" + +"I will venture mine," said Euthymia. + +"No! no!" shrieked Lurida,--"not you! not you! It is a man's work, not +yours! You shall not go!" Poor Lurida had forgotten all her theories in +this supreme moment. But Euthymia was not to be held back. Taking a +handkerchief from her neck, she dipped it in a pail of water and bound it +about her head. Then she took several deep breaths of air, and filled +her lungs as full as they would hold. She knew she must not take a +single breath in the choking atmosphere if she could possibly help it, +and Euthymia was noted for her power of staying under water so long that +more than once those who saw her dive thought she would never come up +again. So rapid were her movements that they paralyzed the bystanders, +who would forcibly have prevented her from carrying out her purpose. Her +imperious determination was not to be resisted. And so Euthymia, a +willing martyr, if martyr she was to be, and not saviour, passed within +the veil that hid the sufferer. + +Lurida turned deadly pale, and sank fainting to the ground. She was the +first, but not the only one, of her sex that fainted as Euthymia +disappeared in the smoke of the burning building. Even the rector grew +very white in the face,--so white that one of his vestry-men begged him +to sit down at once, and sprinkled a few drops of water on his forehead, +to his great disgust and manifest advantage. The old landlady was crying +and moaning, and her husband was wiping his eyes and shaking his head +sadly. + +"She will nevar come out alive," he said solemnly. + +"Nor dead, neither," added the carpenter. "Ther' won't be nothing left +of neither of 'em but ashes." And the carpenter hid his face in his +hands. + +The fresh-water fisherman had pulled out a rag which he called a +"hangkercher,"--it had served to carry bait that morning,--and was making +use of its best corner to dry the tears which were running down his +cheeks. The whole village was proud of Euthymia, and with these more +quiet signs of grief were mingled loud lamentations, coming alike from +old and young. + +All this was not so much like a succession of events as it was like a +tableau. The lookers-on were stunned with its suddenness, and before +they had time to recover their bewildered senses all was lost, or seemed +lost. They felt that they should never look again on either of those +young faces. + +The rector, not unfeeling by nature, but inveterately professional by +habit, had already recovered enough to be thinking of a text for the +funeral sermon. The first that occurred to him was this,--vaguely, of +course, in the background of consciousness: + +"Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came forth of the midst of the +fire." + +The village undertaker was of naturally sober aspect and reflective +disposition. He had always been opposed to cremation, and here was a +funeral pile blazing before his eyes. He, too, had his human sympathies, +but in the distance his imagination pictured the final ceremony, and how +he himself should figure in a spectacle where the usual centre piece of +attraction would be wanting,--perhaps his own services uncalled for. + +Blame him not, you whose garden-patch is not watered with the tears of +mourners. The string of self-interest answers with its chord to every +sound; it vibrates with the funeral-bell, it finds itself trembling to +the wail of the De Profundis. Not always,--not always; let us not be +cynical in our judgments, but common human nature, we may safely say, is +subject to those secondary vibrations under the most solemn and +soul-subduing influences. + +It seems as if we were doing great wrong to the scene we are +contemplating in delaying it by the description of little circumstances +and individual thoughts and feelings. But linger as we may, we cannot +compress into a chapter--we could not crowd into a volume--all that +passed through the minds and stirred the emotions of the awe-struck +company which was gathered about the scene of danger and of terror. We +are dealing with an impossibility: consciousness is a surface; narrative +is a line. + +Maurice had given himself up for lost. His breathing was becoming every +moment more difficult, and he felt that his strength could hold out but a +few minutes longer. + +"Robert!" he called in faint accents. But the attendant was not there to +answer. + +"Paolo! Paolo!" But the faithful servant, who would have given his life +for his master, had not yet reached the place where the crowd was +gathered. + +"Oh, for a breath of air! Oh, for an arm to lift me from this bed! Too +late! Too late!" he gasped, with what might have seemed his dying +expiration. + +"Not too late!" The soft voice reached his obscured consciousness as if +it had come down to him from heaven. + +In a single instant he found himself rolled in a blanket and in the arms +of--a woman! + +Out of the stifling chamber,--over the burning stairs,--close by the +tongues of fire that were lapping up all they could reach,--out into the +open air, he was borne swiftly and safely,--carried as easily as if he +had been a babe, in the strong arms of "The Wonder" of the gymnasium, the +captain of the Atalanta, who had little dreamed of the use she was to +make of her natural gifts and her school-girl accomplishments. + +Such a cry as arose from the crowd of on-lookers! It was a sound that +none of them had ever heard before or could expect ever to hear again, +unless he should be one of the last boat-load rescued from a sinking +vessel. Then, those who had resisted the overflow of their emotion, who +had stood in white despair as they thought of these two young lives soon +to be wrapped in their burning shroud,--those stern men--the old +sea-captain, the hard-faced, moneymaking, cast-iron tradesmen of the city +counting-room--sobbed like hysteric women; it was like a convulsion that +overcame natures unused to those deeper emotions which many who are +capable of experiencing die without ever knowing. + +This was the scene upon which the doctor and Paolo suddenly appeared at +the same moment. + +As the fresh breeze passed over the face of the rescued patient, his eyes +opened wide, and his consciousness returned in almost supernatural +lucidity. Euthymia had sat down upon a bank, and was still supporting +him. His head was resting on her bosom. Through his awakening senses +stole the murmurs of the living cradle which rocked him with the wavelike +movements of respiration, the soft susurrus of the air that entered with +every breath, the double beat of the heart which throbbed close to his +ear. And every sense, and every instinct, and every reviving pulse told +him in language like a revelation from another world that a woman's arms +were around him, and that it was life, and not death, which her embrace +had brought him. + +She would have disengaged him from her protecting hold, but the doctor +made her a peremptory sign, which he followed by a sharp command:-- + +"Do not move him a hair's breadth," he said. "Wait until the litter +comes. Any sudden movement might be dangerous. Has anybody a brandy +flask about him?" + +One or two members of the local temperance society looked rather awkward, +but did not come forward. + +The fresh-water fisherman was the first who spoke. + +"I han't got no brandy," he said, "but there's a drop or two of old +Medford rum in this here that you're welcome to, if it'll be of any help. +I alliz kerry a little on 't in case o' gettin' wet 'n' chilled." + +So saying he held forth a flat bottle with the word Sarsaparilla stamped +on the green glass, but which contained half a pint or more of the +specific on which he relied in those very frequent exposures which happen +to persons of his calling. + +The doctor motioned back Paolo, who would have rushed at once to the aid +of Maurice, and who was not wanted at that moment. So poor Paolo, in an +agony of fear for his master, was kept as quiet as possible, and had to +content himself with asking all sorts of questions and repeating all the +prayers he could think of to Our Lady and to his holy namesake the +Apostle. + +The doctor wiped the mouth of the fisherman's bottle very carefully. +"Take a few drops of this cordial," he said, as he held it to his +patient's lips. "Hold him just so, Euthymia, without stirring. I will +watch him, and say when he is ready to be moved. The litter is near by, +waiting." Dr. Butts watched Maurice's pulse and color. The "Old +Medford" knew its business. It had knocked over its tens of thousands; +it had its redeeming virtue, and helped to set up a poor fellow now and +then. It did this for Maurice very effectively. When he seemed somewhat +restored, the doctor had the litter brought to his side, and Euthymia +softly resigned her helpless burden, which Paolo and the attendant Robert +lifted with the aid of the doctor, who walked by the patient as he was +borne to the home where Mrs. Butts had made all ready for his reception. + +As for poor Lurida, who had thought herself equal to the sanguinary +duties of the surgeon, she was left lying on the grass with an old woman +over her, working hard with fan and smelling-salts to bring her back from +her long fainting fit. + + + + +XXIV + +THE INEVITABLE. + +Why should not human nature be the same in Arrowhead Village as +elsewhere? It could not seem strange to the good people of that place +and their visitors that these two young persons, brought together under +circumstances that stirred up the deepest emotions of which the human +soul is capable, should become attached to each other. But the bond +between them was stronger than any knew, except the good doctor, who had +learned the great secret of Maurice's life. For the first time since his +infancy he had fully felt the charm which the immediate presence of +youthful womanhood carries with it. He could hardly believe the fact when +he found himself no longer the subject of the terrifying seizures of +which he had had many and threatening experiences. + +It was the doctor's business to save his patient's life, if he could +possibly do it. Maurice had been reduced to the most perilous state of +debility by the relapse which had interrupted his convalescence. Only by +what seemed almost a miracle had he survived the exposure to suffocation +and the mental anguish through which he had passed. It was perfectly +clear to Dr. Butts that if Maurice could see the young woman to whom he +owed his life, and, as the doctor felt assured, the revolution in his +nervous system which would be the beginning of a new existence, it would +be of far more value as a restorative agency than any or all of the drugs +in the pharmacopoeia. He told this to Euthymia, and explained the matter +to her parents and friends. She must go with him on some of his visits. +Her mother should go with her, or her sister; but this was a case of life +and death, and no maidenly scruples must keep her from doing her duty. + +The first of her visits to the sick, perhaps dying, man presented a scene +not unlike the picture before spoken of on the title-page of the old +edition of Galen. The doctor was perhaps the most agitated of the little +group. He went before the others, took his seat by the bedside, and held +the patient's wrist with his finger on the pulse. As Euthymia entered it +gave a single bound, fluttered for an instant as if with a faint memory +of its old habit, then throbbed full and strong, comparatively, as if +under the spur of some powerful stimulus. Euthymia's task was a delicate +one, but she knew how to disguise its difficulty. + +"Here is a flower I have brought you, Mr. Kirkwood," she said, and handed +him a white chrysanthemum. He took it from her hand, and before she knew +it he took her hand into his own, and held it with a gentle constraint. +What could she do? Here was the young man whose life she had saved, at +least for the moment, and who was yet in danger from the disease which +had almost worn out his powers of resistance. + +"Sit down by Mr. Kirkwood's side," said the doctor. "He wants to thank +you, if he has strength to do it, for saving him from the death which +seemed inevitable." + +Not many words could Maurice command. He was weak enough for womanly +tears, but their fountains no longer flowed; it was with him as with the +dying, whose eyes may light up, but rarely shed a tear. + +The river which has found a new channel widens and deepens--it; it lets +the old water-course fill up, and never returns to its forsaken bed. The +tyrannous habit was broken. The prophecy of the gitana had verified +itself, and the ill a fair woman had wrought a fairer woman bad conquered +and abolished. + +The history of Maurice Kirkwood loses its exceptional character from the +time of his restoration to his natural conditions. His convalescence was +very slow and gradual, but no further accident interrupted its even +progress. The season was over, the summer visitors had left Arrowhead +Village; the chrysanthemums were going out of flower, the frosts had +come, and Maurice was still beneath the roof of the kind physician. The +relation between him and his preserver was so entirely apart from all +common acquaintances and friendships that no ordinary rules could apply +to it. Euthymia visited him often during the period of his extreme +prostration. + +"You must come every day," the doctor said. "He gains with every visit +you make him; he pines if you miss him for a single day." So she came +and sat by him, the doctor or good Mrs. Butts keeping her company in his +presence. He grew stronger,--began to sit up in bed; and at last +Euthymia found him dressed as in health, and beginning to walk about the +room. She was startled. She had thought of herself as a kind of nurse, +but the young gentleman could hardly be said to need a nurse any longer. +She had scruples about making any further visits. She asked Lurida what +she thought about it. + +"Think about it?" said Lurida. "Why should n't you go to see a brother +as well as a sister, I should like to know? If you are afraid to go to +see Maurice Kirkwood, I am not afraid, at any rate. If you would rather +have me go than go yourself, I will do it, and let people talk just as +much as they want to. Shall I go instead of you?" + +Euthymia was not quite sure that this would be the best thing for the +patient. The doctor had told her he thought there were special reasons +for her own course in coming daily to see him. "I am afraid," she said, +"you are too bright to be safe for him in his weak state. Your mind is +such a stimulating one, you know. A dull sort of person like myself is +better for him just now. I will continue visiting him as long as the +doctor says it is important that I should; but you must defend me, +Lurida,--I know you can explain it all so that people will not blame me." + +Euthymia knew full well what the effect of Lurida's penetrating +head-voice would be in a convalescent's chamber. She knew how that +active mind of hers would set the young man's thoughts at work, when what +he wanted was rest of every faculty. Were not these good and sufficient +reasons for her decision? What others could there be? + +So Euthymia kept on with her visits, until she blushed to see that she +was continuing her charitable office for one who was beginning to look +too well to be called an invalid. It was a dangerous condition of +affairs, and the busy tongues of the village gossips were free in their +comments. Free, but kindly, for the story of the rescue had melted every +heart; and what could be more natural than that these two young people +whom God had brought together in the dread moment of peril should find it +hard to tear themselves asunder after the hour of danger was past? When +gratitude is a bankrupt, love only can pay his debts; and if Maurice gave +his heart to Euthymia, would not she receive it as payment in full? + +The change which had taken place in the vital currents of Maurice +Kirkwood's system was as simple and solid a fact as the change in a +magnetic needle when the boreal becomes the austral pole, and the austral +the boreal. It was well, perhaps, that this change took place while he +was enfeebled by the wasting effects of long illness. For all the +long-defeated, disturbed, perverted instincts had found their natural +channel from the centre of consciousness to the organ which throbs in +response to every profound emotion. As his health gradually returned, +Euthymia could not help perceiving a flush in his cheek, a glitter in his +eyes, a something in the tone of his voice, which altogether were a +warning to the young maiden that the highway of friendly intercourse was +fast narrowing to a lane, at the head of which her woman's eye could read +plainly enough, "Dangerous passing." + +"You look so much better to-day, Mr. Kirkwood," she said, "that I think I +had better not play Sister of Charity any longer. The next time we meet +I hope you will be strong enough to call on me." + +She was frightened to see how pale he turned,--he was weaker than she +thought. There was a silence so profound and so long that Mrs. Butts +looked up from the stocking she was knitting. They had forgotten the +good woman's presence. + +Presently Maurice spoke,--very faintly, but Mrs. Butts dropped a stitch +at the first word, and her knitting fell into her lap as she listened to +what followed. + +"No! you must not leave me. You must never leave me. You saved my life. +But you have done more than that,--more than you know or can ever know. +To you I owe it that I am living; with you I live henceforth, if I am to +live at all. All I am, all I hope,--will you take this poor offering +from one who owes you everything, whose lips never touched those of woman +or breathed a word of love before you?" + +What could Euthymia reply to this question, uttered with all the depth of +a passion which had never before found expression. + +Not one syllable of answer did listening Mrs. Butts overhear. But she +told her husband afterwards that there was nothing in the tableaux they +had had in September to compare with what she then saw. It was indeed a +pleasing picture which those two young heads presented as Euthymia gave +her inarticulate but infinitely expressive answer to the question of +Maurice Kirkwood. The good-hearted woman thought it time to leave the +young people. Down went the stocking with the needles in it; out of her +lap tumbled the ball of worsted, rolling along the floor with its yarn +trailing after it, like some village matron who goes about circulating +from hearth to hearth, leaving all along her track the story of the new +engagement or of the arrival of the last "little stranger." + +Not many suns had set before it was told all through Arrowhead Village +that Maurice Kirkwood was the accepted lover of Euthymia Tower. + + + + +POSTSCRIPT: AFTER-GLIMPSES. + +MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, May 18. + +MY DEAREST EUTHYMIA,--Who would have thought, when you broke your oar as +the Atalanta flashed by the Algonquin, last June, that before the roses +came again you would find yourself the wife of a fine scholar and grand +gentleman, and the head of a household such as that of which you are the +mistress? You must not forget your old Arrowhead Village friends. What +am I saying?---you forget them! No, dearest, I know your heart too well +for that! You are not one of those who lay aside their old friendships +as they do last years bonnet when they get a new one. You have told me +all about yourself and your happiness, and now you want me to tell you +about myself and what is going on in our little place. + +And first about myself. I have given up the idea of becoming a doctor. +I have studied mathematics so much that I have grown fond of certainties, +of demonstrations, and medicine deals chiefly in probabilities. The +practice of the art is so mixed up with the deepest human interests that +it is hard to pursue it with that even poise of the intellect which is +demanded by science. I want knowledge pure and simple,--I do not fancy +having it mixed. Neither do I like the thought of passing my life in +going from one scene of suffering to another; I am not saintly enough for +such a daily martyrdom, nor callous enough to make it an easy occupation. +I fainted at the first operation I saw, and I have never wanted to see +another. I don't say that I wouldn't marry a physician, if the right one +asked me, but the young doctor is not forthcoming at present. Yes, I +think I might make a pretty good doctor's wife. I could teach him a good +deal about headaches and backaches and all sorts of nervous revolutions, +as the doctor says the French women call their tantrums. I don't know +but I should be willing to let him try his new medicines on me. If he +were a homeopath, I know I should; for if a billionth of a grain of sugar +won't begin to sweeten my tea or coffee, I don't feel afraid that a +billionth of a grain of anything would poison me,--no, not if it were +snake-venom; and if it were not disgusting, I would swallow a handful of +his lachesis globules, to please my husband. But if I ever become a +doctor's wife, my husband will not be one of that kind of practitioners, +you may be sure of that, nor an "eclectic," nor a "faith-cure man." On +the whole, I don't think I want to be married at all. I don't like the +male animal very well (except such noble specimens as your husband). +They are all tyrants,--almost all,--so far as our sex is concerned, and I +often think we could get on better without them. + +However, the creatures are useful in the Society. They send us papers, +some of them well worth reading. You have told me so often that you +would like to know how the Society is getting on, and to read some of the +papers sent to it if they happened to be interesting, that I have laid +aside one or two manuscripts expressly for your perusal. You will get +them by and by. + +I am delighted to know that you keep Paolo with you. Arrowhead Village +misses him dreadfully, I can tell you. That is the reason people become +so attached to these servants with Southern sunlight in their natures? I +suppose life is not long enough to cool their blood down to our Northern +standard. Then they are so child-like, whereas the native of these +latitudes is never young after he is ten or twelve years old. Mother +says,--you know mother's old-fashioned notions, and how shrewd and +sensible she is in spite of them,--mother says that when she was a girl +families used to import young men and young women from the country towns, +who called themselves "helps," not servants,--no, that was Scriptural; +"but they did n't know everything down in Judee," and it is not good +American language. She says that these people would live in the same +household until they were married, and the women often remain in the same +service until they died or were old and worn out, and then, what with the +money they had saved and the care and assistance they got from their +former employers, would pass a decent and comfortable old age, and be +buried in the family lot. Mother has made up her mind to the change, but +grandmother is bitter about it. She says there never was a country yet +where the population was made up of "ladies" and "gentlemen," and she +does n't believe there can be; nor that putting a spread eagle on a +copper makes a gold dollar of it. She is a pessimist after her own +fashion. She thinks all sentiment is dying out of our people. No +loyalty for the sovereign, the king-post of the political edifice, she +says; no deep attachment between employer and employed; no reverence of +the humbler members of a household for its heads; and to make sure of +continued corruption and misery, what she calls "universal suffrage" +emptying all the sewers into the great aqueduct we all must drink from. +"Universal suffrage!" I suppose we women don't belong to the universe! +Wait until we get a chance at the ballot-box, I tell grandma, and see if +we don't wash out the sewers before they reach the aqueduct! But my pen +has run away with men I was thinking of Paolo, and what a pleasant thing +it is to have one of those child-like, warm-hearted, attachable, +cheerful, contented, humble, faithful, companionable, but never presuming +grownup children of the South waiting on one, as if everything he could +do for one was a pleasure, and carrying a look of content in his face +which makes every one who meets him happier for a glimpse of his +features. + +It does seem a shame that the charming relation of master and servant, +intelligent authority and cheerful obedience, mutual interest in each +other's welfare, thankful recognition of all the advantages which belong +to domestic service in the better class of families, should be almost +wholly confined to aliens and their immediate descendants. Why should +Hannah think herself so much better than Bridget? When they meet at the +polls together, as they will before long, they will begin to feel more of +an equality than is recognized at present. The native female turns her +nose up at the idea of "living out;" does she think herself so much +superior to the women of other nationalities? Our women will have to +come to it,--so grandmother says,--in another generation or two, and in a +hundred years, according to her prophecy, there will be a new set of old +"Miss Pollys" and "Miss Betseys" who have lived half a century in the +same families, respectful and respected, cherished, cared for in time of +need (citizens as well as servants, holding a ballot as well as a broom, +I tell her), and bringing back to us the lowly, underfoot virtues of +contentment and humility, which we do so need to carpet the barren and +hungry thoroughfare of our unstratified existence. + +There, I have got a-going, and am forgetting all the news I have to tell +you. There is an engagement you will want to know all about. It came to +pass through our famous boat-race, which you and I remember, and shall +never forget as long as we live. It seems that the young fellow who +pulled the bow oar of that men's college boat which we had the pleasure +of beating got some glimpses of Georgina, our handsome stroke oar. I +believe he took it into his head that it was she who threw the bouquet +that won the race for us. He was, as you know, greatly mistaken, and +ought to have made love to me, only he did n't. Well, it seems he came +posting down to the Institute just before the vacation was over, and +there got a sight of Georgina. I wonder whether she told him she didn't +fling the bouquet! Anyhow, the acquaintance began in that way, and now +it seems that this young fellow, good-looking and a bright scholar, but +with a good many months more to pass in college, is her captive. It was +too bad. Just think of my bouquet's going to another girl's credit! No +matter, the old Atalanta story was paid off, at any rate. + +You want to know all about dear Dr. Butts. They say he has just been +offered a Professorship in one of the great medical colleges. I asked +him about it, and he did not say that he had or had not. "But," said be, +"suppose that I had been offered such a place; do you think I ought to +accept it and leave Arrowhead Village? Let us talk it over," said he, +"just as if I had had such an offer." I told him he ought to stay. +There are plenty of men that can get into a Professor's chair, I said, +and talk like Solomons to a class of wondering pupils: but once get a +really good doctor in a place, a man who knows all about everybody, +whether they have this or that tendency, whether when they are sick they +have a way of dying or a way of getting well, what medicines agree with +them and what drugs they cannot take, whether they are of the sort that +think nothing is the matter with them until they are dead as smoked +herring, or of the sort that send for the minister if they get a +stomach-ache from eating too many cucumbers,--who knows all about all the +people within half a dozen miles (all the sensible ones, that is, who +employ a regular practitioner),--such a man as that, I say, is not to be +replaced like a missing piece out of a Springfield musket or a Waltham +watch. Don't go! said I. Stay here and save our precious lives, if you +can, or at least put us through in the proper way, so that we needn't be +ashamed of ourselves for dying, if we must die. Well, Dr. Butts is not +going to leave us. I hope you will have no unwelcome occasion for his +services,--you are never ill, you know,--but, anyhow, he is going to be +here, and no matter what happens he will be on hand. + +The village news is not of a very exciting character. Item 1. A new +house is put up over the ashes of the one in which your husband lived +while he was here. It was planned by one of the autochthonous +inhabitants with the most ingenious combination of inconveniences that +the natural man could educe from his original perversity of intellect. +To get at any one room you must pass through every other. It is blind, or +nearly so, on the only side which has a good prospect, and commands a +fine view of the barn and pigsty through numerous windows. Item 2. We +have a small fire-engine near the new house which can be worked by a man +or two, and would be equal to the emergency of putting out a bunch of +fire-crackers. Item 3. We have a new ladder, in a bog, close to the new +fire-engine, so if the new house catches fire, like its predecessor, and +there should happen to, be a sick man on an upper floor, he can be got +out without running the risk of going up and down a burning staircase. +What a blessed thing it was that there was no fire-engine near by and no +ladder at hand on the day of the great rescue! If there had been, what a +change in your programme of life! You remember that "cup of tea spilt on +Mrs. Masham's apron," which we used to read of in one of Everett's +Orations, and all its wide-reaching consequences in the affairs of +Europe. I hunted up that cup of tea as diligently as ever a Boston +matron sought for the last leaves in her old caddy after the tea-chests +had been flung overboard at Griffin's wharf,--but no matter about that, +now. That is the way things come about in this world. I must write a +lecture on lucky mishaps, or, more elegantly, fortunate calamities. It +will be just the converse of that odd essay of Swift's we read together, +the awkward and stupid things done with the best intentions. Perhaps I +shall deliver the lecture in your city: you will come and hear it, and +bring him, won't you, dearest? Always, your loving + +LURIDA. + + + + +MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. + +It seems forever since you left us, dearest Euthymia! And are you, and +is your husband, and Paolo,--good Paolo,--are you all as well and happy +as you have been and as you ought to be? I suppose our small village +seems a very quiet sort of place to pass the winter in, now that you have +become accustomed to the noise and gayety of a great city. For all that, +it is a pretty busy place this winter, I can tell you. We have sleighing +parties,--I never go to them, myself, because I can't keep warm, and my +mind freezes up when my blood cools down below 95 or 96 deg. Fahrenheit. +I had a great deal rather sit by a good fire and read about Arctic +discoveries. But I like very well to hear the bells' jingling and to see +the young people trying to have a good time as hard as they do at a +picnic. It may be that they do, but to me a picnic is purgatory and a +sleigh-ride that other place, where, as my favorite Milton says, "frost +performs the effect of fire." I believe I have quoted him correctly; I +ought to, for I could repeat half his poems from memory once, if I cannot +now. + +You must have plenty of excitement in your city life. I suppose you +recognized yourself in one of the society columns of the "Household +Inquisitor:" "Mrs. E. K., very beautiful, in an elegant," etc., etc, +"with pearls," etc., etc.,--as if you were not the ornament of all that +you wear, no matter what it is! + +I am so glad that you have married a scholar! Why should not +Maurice--you both tell me to call him so--take the diplomatic office +which has been offered him? It seems to me that he would find himself in +exactly the right place. He can talk in two or three languages, has good +manners, and a wife who--well, what shall I say of Mrs. Kirkwood but that +"she would be good company for a queen," as our old friend the quondam +landlady of the Anchor Tavern used to say? I should so like to see you +presented at Court! It seems to me that I should be willing to hold your +train for the sake of seeing you in your court feathers and things. + +As for myself, I have been thinking of late that I would become either a +professional lecturer or head mistress of a great school or college for +girls. I have tried the first business a little. Last month I delivered +a lecture on Quaternions. I got three for my audience; two came over +from the Institute, and one from that men's college which they try to +make out to be a university, and where no female is admitted unless she +belongs among the quadrupeds. I enjoyed lecturing, but the subject is a +difficult one, and I don't think any one of them had any very clear +notion of what I was talking about, except Rhodora,--and I know she did +n't. To tell the truth, I was lecturing to instruct myself. I mean to +try something easier next time. I have thought of the Basque language +and literature. What do you say to that? + +The Society goes on famously. We have had a paper presented and read +lately which has greatly amused some of us and provoked a few of the +weaker sort. The writer is that crabbed old Professor of Belles-Lettres +at that men's college over there. He is dreadfully hard on the poor +"poets," as they call themselves. It seems that a great many young +persons, and more especially a great many young girls, of whom the +Institute has furnished a considerable proportion, have taken to sending +him their rhymed productions to be criticised,--expecting to be praised, +no doubt, every one of them. I must give you one of the sauciest +extracts from his paper in his own words: + +"It takes half my time to read the 'poems' sent me by young people of +both sexes. They would be more shy of doing it if they knew that I +recognize a tendency to rhyming as a common form of mental weakness, and +the publication of a thin volume of verse as prima facie evidence of +ambitious mediocrity, if not inferiority. Of course there are exceptions +to this rule of judgment, but I maintain that the presumption is always +against the rhymester as compared with the less pretentious persons about +him or her, busy with some useful calling,--too busy to be tagging +rhymed commonplaces together. Just now there seems to be an epidemic of +rhyming as bad as the dancing mania, or the sweating sickness. After +reading a certain amount of manuscript verse one is disposed to +anathematize the inventor of homophonous syllabification. [This phrase +made a great laugh when it was read.] This, that is rhyming, must have +been found out very early, + + "'Where are you, Adam?' + + "'Here am I, Madam;' + +"but it can never have been habitually practised until after the Fall. +The intrusion of tintinnabulating terminations into the conversational +intercourse of men and angels would have spoiled Paradise itself. Milton +would not have them even in Paradise Lost, you remember. For my own +part, I wish certain rhymes could be declared contraband of written or +printed language. Nothing should be allowed to be hurled at the world or +whirled with it, or furled upon it or curled over it; all eyes should be +kept away from the skies, in spite of os homini sublime dedit; youth +should be coupled with all the virtues except truth; earth should never +be reminded of her birth; death should never be allowed to stop a +mortal's breath, nor the bell to sound his knell, nor flowers from +blossoming bowers to wave over his grave or show their bloom upon his +tomb. We have rhyming dictionaries,--let us have one from which all +rhymes are rigorously excluded. The sight of a poor creature grubbing +for rhymes to fill up his sonnet, or to cram one of those voracious, +rhyme-swallowing rigmaroles which some of our drudging poetical +operatives have been exhausting themselves of late to satiate with +jingles, makes my head ache and my stomach rebel. Work, work of some +kind, is the business of men and women, not the making of jingles! +No,--no,--no! I want to see the young people in our schools and +academies and colleges, and the graduates of these institutions, lifted +up out of the little Dismal Swamp of self-contemplating and +self-indulging and self-commiserating emotionalism which is surfeiting +the land with those literary sandwiches,--thin slices of tinkling +sentimentality between two covers looking like hard-baked gilt +gingerbread. But what faces these young folks make up at my good advice! +They get tipsy on their rhymes. Nothing intoxicates one like his--or +her--own verses, and they hold on to their metre-ballad-mongering as the +fellows that inhale nitrous oxide hold on to the gas-bag." + +We laughed over this essay of the old Professor; though it hit us pretty +hard. The best part of the joke is that the old man himself published a +thin volume of poems when he was young, which there is good reason to +think he is not very proud of, as they say he buys up all the copies he +can find in the shops. No matter what they say, I can't help agreeing +with him about this great flood of "poetry," as it calls itself, and +looking at the rhyming mania much as he does. + +How I do love real poetry! That is the reason hate rhymes which have not +a particle of it in them. The foolish scribblers that deal in them are +like bad workmen in a carpenter's shop. They not only turn out bad jobs +of work, but they spoil the tools for better workmen. There is hardly a +pair of rhymes in the English language that is not so dulled and hacked +and gapped by these 'prentice hands that a master of the craft hates to +touch them, and yet he cannot very well do without them. I have not been +besieged as the old Professor has been with such multitudes of +would-be-poetical aspirants that he could not even read their +manuscripts, but I have had a good many letters containing verses, and I +have warned the writers of the delusion under which they were laboring. + +You may like to know that I have just been translating some extracts from +the Greek Anthology. I send you a few specimens of my work, with a +Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I hope you will find something of the +Greek rhythm in my versions, and that I have caught a spark of +inspiration from the impassioned Lesbian. I have found great delight in +this work, at any rate, and am never so happy as when I read from my +manuscript or repeat from memory the lines into which I have transferred +the thought of the men and women of two thousand years ago, or given +rhythmical expression to my own rapturous feelings with regard to them. +I must read you my Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I cannot help +thinking that you will like it better than either of my last two, The +Song of the Roses, or The Wail of the Weeds. + +How I do miss you, dearest! I want you: I want you to listen to what I +have written; I want you to hear all about my plans for the future; I +want to look at you, and think how grand it must be to feel one's self to +be such a noble and beautiful-creature; I want to wander in the woods +with you, to float on the lake, to share your life and talk over every +day's doings with you. Alas! I feel that we have parted as two friends +part at a port of embarkation: they embrace, they kiss each other's +cheeks, they cover their faces and weep, they try to speak good-by to +each other, they watch from the pier and from the deck; the two forms +grow less and less, fainter and fainter in the distance, two white +handkerchiefs flutter once and again, and yet once more, and the last +visible link of the chain which binds them has parted. Dear, dear, +dearest Euthymia, my eyes are running over with tears when I think that +we may never, never meet again. + +Don't you want some more items of village news? We are threatened with +an influx of stylish people: "Buttons" to answer the door-bell, in place +of the chamber-maid; "butler," in place of the "hired man;" footman in +top-boots and breeches, cockade on hat, arms folded a la Napoleon; +tandems, "drags," dogcarts, and go-carts of all sorts. It is rather +amusing to look at their ambitious displays, but it takes away the good +old country flavor of the place. + +I don't believe you mean to try to astonish us when you come back to +spend your summers here. I suppose you must have a large house, and I am +sure you will have a beautiful one. I suppose you will have some fine +horses, and who would n't be glad to? But I do not believe you will try +to make your old Arrowhead Village friends stare their eyes out of their +heads with a display meant to outshine everybody else that comes here. +You can have a yacht on the lake, if you like, but I hope you will pull a +pair of oars in our old boat once in a while, with me to steer you. I +know you will be just the same dear-Euthymia you always were and always +must be. How happy you must make such a man as Maurice Kirkwood! And +how happy you ought to be with him!--a man who knows what is in books, +and who has seen for himself, what is in men. If he has not seen so much +of women, where could he study all that is best in womanhood as he can in +his own wife? Only one thing that dear Euthymia lacks. She is not quite +pronounced enough in her views as to the rights and the wrongs of the +sex. When I visit you, as you say I shall, I mean to indoctrinate +Maurice with sound views on that subject. I have written an essay for +the Society, which I hope will go a good way towards answering all the +objections to female suffrage. I mean to read it to your husband, if you +will let me, as I know you will, and perhaps you would like to hear +it,--only you know my thoughts on the subject pretty well already. + +With all sorts of kind messages to your dear husband, and love to your +precious self, I am ever your +LURIDA. + + + + +DR. BUTTS TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. + +MY DEAR EUTHYMIA,--My pen refuses to call you by any other name. +Sweet-souled you are, and your Latinized Greek name is--the one which +truly designates you. I cannot tell you how we have followed you, with +what interest and delight through your travels, as you have told their +story in your letters to your mother. She has let us have the privilege +of reading them, and we have been with you in steamer, yacht, felucca, +gondola, Nile-boat; in all sorts of places, from crowded capitals to +"deserts where no men abide,"--everywhere keeping company with you in +your natural and pleasant descriptions of your experiences. And now that +you have returned to your home in the great city I must write you a few +lines of welcome, if nothing more. + +You will find Arrowhead Village a good deal changed since you left it. +We are discovered by some of those over-rich people who make the little +place upon which they swarm a kind of rural city. When this happens the +consequences are striking,--some of them desirable and some far +otherwise. The effect of well-built, well-furnished, well-kept houses +and of handsome grounds always maintained in good order about them shows +itself in a large circuit around the fashionable centre. Houses get on a +new coat of paint, fences are kept in better order, little plots of +flowers show themselves where only ragged weeds had rioted, the +inhabitants present themselves in more comely attire and drive in +handsomer vehicles with more carefully groomed horses. On the other +hand, there is a natural jealousy on the part of the natives of the +region suddenly become fashionable. They have seen the land they sold at +farm prices by the acre coming to be valued by the foot, like the corner +lots in a city. Their simple and humble modes of life look almost +poverty-stricken in the glare of wealth and luxury which so outshines +their plain way of living. It is true that many of them have found them +selves richer than in former days, when the neighborhood lived on its own +resources. They know how to avail themselves of their altered position, +and soon learn to charge city prices for country products; but nothing +can make people feel rich who see themselves surrounded by men whose +yearly income is many times their own whole capital. I think it would be +better if our rich men scattered themselves more than they do,--buying +large country estates, building houses and stables which will make it +easy to entertain their friends, and depending for society on chosen +guests rather than on the mob of millionaires who come together for +social rivalry. But I do not fret myself about it. Society will stratify +itself according to the laws of social gravitation. It will take a +generation or two more, perhaps, to arrange the strata by precipitation +and settlement, but we can always depend on one principle to govern the +arrangement of the layers. People interested in the same things will +naturally come together. The youthful heirs of fortunes who keep splendid +yachts have little to talk about with the oarsman who pulls about on the +lake or the river. What does young Dives, who drives his four-in-hand +and keeps a stable full of horses, care about Lazarus, who feels rich in +the possession of a horse-railroad ticket? You know how we live at our +house, plainly, but with a certain degree of cultivated propriety. We +make no pretensions to what is called "style." We are still in that +social stratum where the article called "a napkin-ring" is recognized as +admissible at the dinner-table. That fact sufficiently defines our +modest pretensions. The napkin-ring is the boundary mark between certain +classes. But one evening Mrs. Butts and I went out to a party given by +the lady of a worthy family, where the napkin itself was a newly +introduced luxury. The conversation of the hostess and her guests turned +upon details of the kitchen and the laundry; upon the best mode of +raising bread, whether with "emptins" (emptyings, yeast) or baking +powder; about "bluing" and starching and crimping, and similar matters. +Poor Mrs. Butts! She knew nothing more about such things than her +hostess did about Shakespeare and the musical glasses. What was the use +of trying to enforce social intercourse under such conditions? +Incompatibility of temper has been considered ground for a divorce; +incompatibility of interests is a sufficient warrant for social +separation. The multimillionaires have so much that is common among +themselves, and so little that they share with us of moderate means, that +they will naturally form a specialized class, and in virtue of their +palaces, their picture-galleries, their equipages, their yachts, their +large hospitality, constitute a kind of exclusive aristocracy. Religion, +which ought to be the great leveller, cannot reduce these elements to the +same grade. You may read in the parable, "Friend, how camest thou in +hither not having a wedding garment?" The modern version would be, "How +came you at Mrs. Billion's ball not having a dress on your back which +came from Paris?" + +The little church has got a new stained window, a saint who reminds me of +Hamlet's uncle,--a thing "of shreds and patches," but rather pretty to +look at, with an inscription under it which is supposed to be the name of +the person in whose honor the window was placed in the church. Smith was +a worthy man and a faithful churchwarden, and I hope posterity will be +able to spell out his name on his monumental window; but that old English +lettering would puzzle Mephistopheles himself, if he found himself before +this memorial tribute, on the inside,--you know he goes to church +sometimes, if you remember your Faust. + +The rector has come out, in a quiet way, as an evolutionist. He has +always been rather "broad" in his views, but cautious in their +expression. You can tell the three branches of the mother-island church +by the way they carry their heads. The low-church clergy look down, as +if they felt themselves to be worms of the dust; the high-church priest +drops his head on one side, after the pattern of the mediaeval saints; +the broad-church preacher looks forward and round about him, as if he +felt himself the heir of creation. Our rector carries his head in the +broad-church aspect, which I suppose is the least open to the charge of +affectation,--in fact, is the natural and manly way of carrying it. + +The Society has justified its name of Pansophian of late as never before. +Lurida has stirred up our little community and its neighbors, so that we +get essays on all sorts of subjects, poems and stories in large numbers. +I know all about it, for she often consults me as to the merits of a +particular contribution. + +What is to be the fate of Lurida? I often think, with no little interest +and some degree of anxiety, about her future. Her body is so frail and +her mind so excessively and constantly active that I am afraid one or the +other will give way. I do not suppose she thinks seriously of ever being +married. She grows more and more zealous in behalf of her own sex, and +sterner in her judgment of the other. She declares that she never would +marry any man who was not an advocate of female suffrage, and as these +gentlemen are not very common hereabouts the chance is against her +capturing any one of the hostile sex. + +What do you think? I happened, just as I was writing the last sentence, +to look out of my window, and whom should I see but Lurida, with a young +man in tow, listening very eagerly to her conversation, according to all +appearance! I think he must be a friend of the rector, as I have seen a +young man like this one in his company. Who knows? + +Affectionately yours, etc. + + + + +DR. BUTTS TO MRS. BUTTS. + +MY BELOVED WIFE,--This letter will tell you more news than you would have +thought could have been got together in this little village during the +short time you have been staying away from it. + +Lurida Vincent is engaged! He is a clergyman with a mathematical turn. +The story is that he put a difficult problem into one of the mathematical +journals, and that Lurida presented such a neat solution that the young +man fell in love with her on the strength of it. I don't think the story +is literally true, nor do I believe that other report that he offered +himself to her in the form of an equation chalked on the blackboard; but +that it was an intellectual rather than a sentimental courtship I do not +doubt. Lurida has given up the idea of becoming a professional +lecturer,--so she tells me,--thinking that her future husband's parish +will find her work enough to do. A certain amount of daily domestic +drudgery and unexciting intercourse with simple-minded people will be the +best thing in the world for that brain of hers, always simmering with +some new project in its least fervid condition. + +All our summer visitors have arrived. Euthymia Mrs. Maurice Kirkwood and +her husband and little Maurice are here in their beautiful house looking +out on the lake. They gave a grand party the other evening. You ought +to have been there, but I suppose you could not very well have left your +sister in the middle of your visit: All the grand folks were there, of +course. Lurida and her young man--Gabriel is what she calls him--were +naturally the objects of special attention. Paolo acted as major-domo, +and looked as if he ought to be a major-general. Nothing could be +pleasanter than the way in which Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood received their +plain country neighbors; that is, just as they did the others of more +pretensions, as if they were really glad to see them, as I am sure they +were. The old landlord and his wife had two arm-chairs to themselves, +and I saw Miranda with the servants of the household looking in at the +dancers and out at the little groups in the garden, and evidently +enjoying it as much as her old employers. It was a most charming and +successful party. We had two sensations in the course of the evening. +One was pleasant and somewhat exciting, the other was thrilling and of +strange and startling interest. + +You remember how emaciated poor Maurice Kirkwood was left after his +fever, in that first season when he was among us. He was out in a boat +one day, when a ring slipped off his thin finger and sunk in a place +where the water was rather shallow. "Jake"--you know Jake,--everybody +knows Jake--was rowing him. He promised to come to the spot and fish up +the ring if he could possibly find it. He was seen poking about with +fish-hooks at the end of a pole, but nothing was ever heard from him +about the ring. It was an antique intaglio stone in an Etruscan +setting,--a wild goose flying over the Campagna. Mr. Kirkwood valued it +highly, and regretted its loss very much. + +While we were in the garden, who should appear at the gate but Jake, with +a great basket, inquiring for Mr. Kirkwood. "Come," said Maurice to me, +"let us see what our old friend the fisherman has brought us. What have +you got there, Jake?" + +"What I 've got? Wall, I 'll tell y' what I've got: I 've got the +biggest pickerel that's been ketched in this pond for these ten year. An' +I 've got somethin' else besides the pickerel. When I come to cut him +open, what do you think I faound in his insides but this here ring o' +yourn,"--and he showed the one Maurice had lost so long before. There it +was, as good as new, after having tried Jonah's style of housekeeping for +all that time. There are those who discredit Jake's story about finding +the ring in the fish; anyhow, there was the ring and there was the +pickerel. I need not say that Jake went off well paid for his pickerel +and the precious contents of its stomach. Now comes the chief event of +the evening. I went early by special invitation. Maurice took me into +his library, and we sat down together. + +"I have something of great importance," he said, "to say to you. I +learned within a few days that my cousin Laura is staying with a friend +in the next town to this. You know, doctor, that we have never met since +the last, almost fatal, experience of my early years. I have determined +to defy the strength of that deadly chain of associations connected with +her presence, and I have begged her to come this evening with the friends +with whom she is staying. Several letters passed between us, for it was +hard to persuade her that there was no longer any risk in my meeting her. +Her imagination was almost as deeply impressed as mine had been at those +alarming interviews, and I had to explain to her fully that I had become +quite indifferent to the disturbing impressions of former years. So, as +the result of our correspondence, Laura is coming this evening, and I +wish you to be present at our meeting. There is another reason why I +wish you to be here. My little boy is not far from the--age at which I +received my terrifying, almost disorganizing shock. I mean to have +little Maurice brought into the presence of Laura, who is said to be +still a very handsome woman, and see if he betrays any hint of that +peculiar sensitiveness which showed itself in my threatening seizure. It +seemed to me not impossible that he might inherit some tendency of that +nature, and I wanted you to be at hand if any sign of danger should +declare itself. For myself I have no fear. Some radical change has +taken place in my nervous system. I have been born again, as it were, in +my susceptibilities, and am in certain respects a new man. But I must +know how it is with my little Maurice." + +Imagine with what interest I looked forward to this experiment; for +experiment it was, and not without its sources of anxiety, as it seemed +to me. The evening wore along; friends and neighbors came in, but no +Laura as yet. At last I heard the sound of wheels, and a carriage +stopped at the door. Two ladies and a gentleman got out, and soon +entered the drawing room. + +"My cousin Laura!" whispered Maurice to me, and went forward to meet her. +A very handsome woman, who might well have been in the thirties,--one of +those women so thoroughly constituted that they cannot help being +handsome at every period of life. I watched them both as they approached +each other. Both looked pale at first, but Maurice soon recovered his +usual color, and Laura's natural, rich bloom came back by degrees. Their +emotion at meeting was not to be wondered at, but there was no trace in +it of the paralyzing influence on the great centres of life which had +once acted upon its fated victim like the fabled head which turned the +looker-on into a stone. + +"Is the boy still awake?" said Maurice to Paolo, who, as they used to say +of Pushee at the old Anchor Tavern, was everywhere at once on that gay +and busy evening. + +"What! Mahser Maurice asleep an' all this racket going on? I hear him +crowing like young cockerel when he fus' smell daylight." + +"Tell the nurse to bring him down quietly to the little room that leads +out of the library." + +The child was brought down in his night-clothes, wide awake, wondering +apparently at the noise he heard, which he seemed to think was for his +special amusement. + +"See if he will go to that lady," said his father. Both of us held our +breath as Laura stretched her arms towards little Maurice. + +The child looked for an instant searchingly, but fearlessly, at her +glowing cheeks, her bright eyes, her welcoming smile, and met her embrace +as she clasped him to her bosom as if he had known her all his days. + +The mortal antipathy had died out of the soul and the blood of Maurice +Kirkwood at that supreme moment when he found himself snatched from the +grasp of death and cradled in the arms of Euthymia. + + -------------------------- + +In closing the New Portfolio I remember that it began with a prefix which +the reader may by this time have forgotten, namely, the First Opening. +It was perhaps presumptuous to thus imply the probability of a second +opening. + +I am reminded from time to time by the correspondents who ask a certain +small favor of me that, as I can only expect to be with my surviving +contemporaries a very little while longer, they would be much obliged if +I would hurry up my answer before it is too late. They are right, these +delicious unknown friends of mine, in reminding me of a fact which I +cannot gainsay and might suffer to pass from my recollection. I thank +them for recalling my attention to a truth which I shall be wiser, if not +more hilarious, for remembering. + +No, I had no right to say the First Opening. How do I know that I shall +have a chance to open it again? How do I know that anybody will want it +to be opened a second time? How do I know that I shall feel like opening +it? It is safest neither to promise to open the New Portfolio once more, +nor yet to pledge myself to keep it closed hereafter. There are many +papers potentially existent in it, some of which might interest a reader +here and there. The Records of the Pansophian Society contain a +considerable number of essays, poems, stories, and hints capable of being +expanded into presentable dimensions. In the mean time I will say with +Prospero, addressing my old readers, and my new ones, if such I have, + + "If you be pleased, retire into my cell + And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk, + To still my beating mind." + +When it has got quiet I may take up the New Portfolio again, and consider +whether it is worth while to open it consider whether it is worth while +to open it. + + + + + + +PAGES FROM AN OLD VOLUME OF LIFE + +A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS + +By Oliver Wendell Holmes + + + +CONTENTS: + BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER + MY HUNT AFTER "THE CAPTAIN" + THE INEVITABLE TRIAL + CINDERS FROM ASHES + THE PULPIT AND THE PEW + + + + +BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. + +(September, 1861.) + +This is the new version of the Panem et Circenses of the Roman populace. +It is our ultimatum, as that was theirs. They must have something to +eat, and the circus-shows to look at. We must have something to eat, and +the papers to read. + +Everything else we can give up. If we are rich, we can lay down our +carriages, stay away from Newport or Saratoga, and adjourn the trip to +Europe sine die. If we live in a small way, there are at least new +dresses and bonnets and every-day luxuries which we can dispense with. +If the young Zouave of the family looks smart in his new uniform, its +respectable head is content, though he himself grow seedy as a +caraway-umbel late in the season. He will cheerfully calm the perturbed +nap of his old beaver by patient brushing in place of buying a new one, +if only the Lieutenant's jaunty cap is what it should be. We all take a +pride in sharing the epidemic economy of the time. Only bread and the +newspaper we must have, whatever else we do without. + +How this war is simplifying our mode of being! We live on our emotions, +as the sick man is said in the common speech to be nourished by his +fever. Our ordinary mental food has become distasteful, and what would +have been intellectual luxuries at other times, are now absolutely +repulsive. + +All this change in our manner of existence implies that we have +experienced some very profound impression, which will sooner or later +betray itself in permanent effects on the minds and bodies of many among +us. We cannot forget Corvisart's observation of the frequency with which +diseases of the heart were noticed as the consequence of the terrible +emotions produced by the scenes of the great French Revolution. Laennec +tells the story of a convent, of which he was the medical director, where +all the nuns were subjected to the severest penances and schooled in the +most painful doctrines. They all became consumptive soon after their +entrance, so that, in the course of his ten years' attendance, all the +inmates died out two or three times, and were replaced by new ones. He +does not hesitate to attribute the disease from which they suffered to +those depressing moral influences to which they were subjected. + +So far we have noticed little more than disturbances of the nervous +system as a consequence of the war excitement in non-combatants. Take the +first trifling example which comes to our recollection. A sad disaster +to the Federal army was told the other day in the presence of two +gentlemen and a lady. Both the gentlemen complained of a sudden feeling +at the epigastrium, or, less learnedly, the pit of the stomach, changed +color, and confessed to a slight tremor about the knees. The lady had a +"grande revolution," as French patients say,--went home, and kept her bed +for the rest of the day. Perhaps the reader may smile at the mention of +such trivial indispositions, but in more sensitive natures death itself +follows in some cases from no more serious cause. An old, gentleman fell +senseless in fatal apoplexy, on hearing of Napoleon's return from Elba. +One of our early friends, who recently died of the same complaint, was +thought to have had his attack mainly in consequence of the excitements +of the time. + +We all know what the war fever is in our young men,--what a devouring +passion it becomes in those whom it assails. Patriotism is the fire of +it, no doubt, but this is fed with fuel of all sorts. The love of +adventure, the contagion of example, the fear of losing the chance of +participating in the great events of the time, the desire of personal +distinction, all help to produce those singular transformations which we +often witness, turning the most peaceful of our youth into the most +ardent of our soldiers. But something of the same fever in a different +form reaches a good many non-combatants, who have no thought of losing a +drop of precious blood belonging to themselves or their families. Some +of the symptoms we shall mention are almost universal; they are as plain +in the people we meet everywhere as the marks of an influenza, when that +is prevailing. + +The first is a nervous restlessness of a very peculiar character. Men +cannot think, or write, or attend to their ordinary business. They stroll +up and down the streets, or saunter out upon the public places. We +confessed to an illustrious author that we laid down the volume of his +work which we were reading when the war broke out. It was as interesting +as a romance, but the romance of the past grew pale before the red light +of the terrible present. Meeting the same author not long afterwards, he +confessed that he had laid down his pen at the same time that we had +closed his book. He could not write about the sixteenth century any more +than we could read about it, while the nineteenth was in the very agony +and bloody sweat of its great sacrifice. + +Another most eminent scholar told us in all simplicity that he had fallen +into such a state that he would read the same telegraphic dispatches over +and over again in different papers, as if they were new, until he felt as +if he were an idiot. Who did not do just the same thing, and does not +often do it still, now that the first flush of the fever is over? +Another person always goes through the side streets on his way for the +noon extra,--he is so afraid somebody will meet him and tell the news he +wishes to read, first on the bulletin-board, and then in the great +capitals and leaded type of the newspaper. + +When any startling piece of war-news comes, it keeps repeating itself in +our minds in spite of all we can do. The same trains of thought go +tramping round in circle through the brain, like the supernumeraries that +make up the grand army of a stage-show. Now, if a thought goes round +through the brain a thousand times in a day, it will have worn as deep a +track as one which has passed through it once a week for twenty years. +This accounts for the ages we seem to have lived since the twelfth of +April last, and, to state it more generally, for that ex post facto +operation of a great calamity, or any very powerful impression, which we +once illustrated by the image of a stain spreading backwards from the +leaf of life open before as through all those which we have already +turned. + +Blessed are those who can sleep quietly in times like these! Yet, not +wholly blessed, either; for what is more painful than the awaking from +peaceful unconsciousness to a sense that there is something wrong, we +cannot at first think what,--and then groping our way about through the +twilight of our thoughts until we come full upon the misery, which, like +some evil bird, seemed to have flown away, but which sits waiting for us +on its perch by our pillow in the gray of the morning? + +The converse of this is perhaps still more painful. Many have the +feeling in their waking hours that the trouble they are aching with is, +after all, only a dream,--if they will rub their eyes briskly enough and +shake themselves, they will awake out of it, and find all their supposed +grief is unreal. This attempt to cajole ourselves out of an ugly fact +always reminds us of those unhappy flies who have been indulging in the +dangerous sweets of the paper prepared for their especial use. + +Watch one of them. He does not feel quite well,--at least, he suspects +himself of indisposition. Nothing serious,--let us just rub our +fore-feet together, as the enormous creature who provides for us rubs his +hands, and all will be right. He rubs them with that peculiar twisting +movement of his, and pauses for the effect. No! all is not quite right +yet. Ah! it is our head that is not set on just as it ought to be. Let +us settle that where it should be, and then we shall certainly be in good +trim again. So he pulls his head about as an old lady adjusts her cap, +and passes his fore-paw over it like a kitten washing herself. Poor +fellow! It is not a fancy, but a fact, that he has to deal with. If he +could read the letters at the head of the sheet, he would see they were +Fly-Paper.--So with us, when, in our waking misery, we try to think we +dream! Perhaps very young persons may not understand this; as we grow +older, our waking and dreaming life run more and more into each other. + +Another symptom of our excited condition is seen in the breaking up of +old habits. The newspaper is as imperious as a Russian Ukase; it will be +had, and it will be read. To this all else must give place. If we must +go out at unusual hours to get it, we shall go, in spite of after-dinner +nap or evening somnolence. If it finds us in company, it will not stand +on ceremony, but cuts short the compliment and the story by the divine +right of its telegraphic dispatches. + +War is a very old story, but it is a new one to this generation of +Americans. Our own nearest relation in the ascending line remembers the +Revolution well. How should she forget it? Did she not lose her doll, +which was left behind, when she was carried out of Boston, about that +time growing uncomfortable by reason of cannon-balls dropping in from the +neighboring heights at all hours,--in token of which see the tower of +Brattle Street Church at this very day? War in her memory means '76. As +for the brush of 1812, "we did not think much about that"; and everybody +knows that the Mexican business did not concern us much, except in its +political relations. No! war is a new thing to all of us who are not in +the last quarter of their century. We are learning many strange matters +from our fresh experience. And besides, there are new conditions of +existence which make war as it is with us very different from war as it +has been. + +The first and obvious difference consists in the fact that the whole +nation is now penetrated by the ramifications of a network of iron nerves +which flash sensation and volition backward and forward to and from towns +and provinces as if they were organs and limbs of a single living body. +The second is the vast system of iron muscles which, as it were, move the +limbs of the mighty organism one upon another. What was the +railroad-force which put the Sixth Regiment in Baltimore on the 19th of +April but a contraction and extension of the arm of Massachusetts with a +clenched fist full of bayonets at the end of it? + +This perpetual intercommunication, joined to the power of instantaneous +action, keeps us always alive with excitement. It is not a breathless +courier who comes back with the report from an army we have lost sight of +for a month, nor a single bulletin which tells us all we are to know for +a week of some great engagement, but almost hourly paragraphs, laden with +truth or falsehood as the case may be, making us restless always for the +last fact or rumor they are telling. And so of the movements of our +armies. To-night the stout lumbermen of Maine are encamped under their +own fragrant pines. In a score or two of hours they are among the +tobacco-fields and the slave-pens of Virginia. The war passion burned +like scattered coals of fire in the households of Revolutionary times; +now it rushes all through the land like a flame over the prairie. And +this instant diffusion of every fact and feeling produces another +singular effect in the equalizing and steadying of public opinion. We +may not be able to see a month ahead of us; but as to what has passed a +week afterwards it is as thoroughly talked out and judged as it would +have been in a whole season before our national nervous system was +organized. + + "As the wild tempest wakes the slumbering sea, + Thou only teachest all that man can be!" + +We indulged in the above apostrophe to War in a Phi Beta Kappa poem of +long ago, which we liked better before we read Mr. Cutler's beautiful +prolonged lyric delivered at the recent anniversary of that Society. + +Oftentimes, in paroxysms of peace and good-will towards all mankind, we +have felt twinges of conscience about the passage,--especially when one +of our orators showed us that a ship of war costs as much to build and +keep as a college, and that every port-hole we could stop would give us a +new professor. Now we begin to think that there was some meaning in our +poor couplet. War has taught us, as nothing else could, what we can be +and are. It has exalted our manhood and our womanhood, and driven us all +back upon our substantial human qualities, for a long time more or less +kept out of sight by the spirit of commerce, the love of art, science, or +literature, or other qualities not belonging to all of us as men and +women. + +It is at this very moment doing more to melt away the petty social +distinctions which keep generous souls apart from each other, than the +preaching of the Beloved Disciple himself would do. We are finding out +that not only "patriotism is eloquence," but that heroism is gentility. +All ranks are wonderfully equalized under the fire of a masked battery. +The plain artisan or the rough fireman, who faces the lead and iron like +a man, is the truest representative we can show of the heroes of Crecy +and Agincourt. And if one of our fine gentlemen puts off his +straw-colored kids and stands by the other, shoulder to shoulder, or +leads him on to the attack, he is as honorable in our eyes and in theirs +as if he were ill-dressed and his hands were soiled with labor. + +Even our poor "Brahmins,"--whom a critic in ground-glass spectacles (the +same who grasps his statistics by the blade and strikes at his supposed +antagonist with the handle) oddly confounds with the, "bloated +aristocracy;" whereas they are very commonly pallid, undervitalized, shy, +sensitive creatures, whose only birthright is an aptitude for +learning,--even these poor New England Brahmins of ours, subvirates of an +organizable base as they often are, count as full men, if their courage +is big enough for the uniform which hangs so loosely about their slender +figures. + +A young man was drowned not very long ago in the river running under our +windows. A few days afterwards a field piece was dragged to the water's +edge, and fired many times over the river. We asked a bystander, who +looked like a fisherman, what that was for. It was to "break the gall," +he said, and so bring the drowned person to the surface. A strange +physiological fancy and a very odd non sequitur; but that is not our +present point. A good many extraordinary objects do really come to the +surface when the great guns of war shake the waters, as when they roared +over Charleston harbor. + +Treason came up, hideous, fit only to be huddled into its dishonorable +grave. But the wrecks of precious virtues, which had been covered with +the waves of prosperity, came up also. And all sorts of unexpected and +unheard-of things, which had lain unseen during our national life of +fourscore years, came up and are coming up daily, shaken from their bed +by the concussions of the artillery bellowing around us. + +It is a shame to own it, but there were persons otherwise respectable not +unwilling to say that they believed the old valor of Revolutionary times +had died out from among us. They talked about our own Northern people as +the English in the last centuries used to talk about the +French,--Goldsmith's old soldier, it may be remembered, called one +Englishman good for five of them. As Napoleon spoke of the English, +again, as a nation of shopkeepers, so these persons affected to consider +the multitude of their countrymen as unwarlike artisans,--forgetting that +Paul Revere taught himself the value of liberty in working upon gold, and +Nathaniel Greene fitted himself to shape armies in the labor of forging +iron. These persons have learned better now. The bravery of our free +working-people was overlaid, but not smothered; sunken, but not drowned. +The hands which had been busy conquering the elements had only to change +their weapons and their adversaries, and they were as ready to conquer +the masses of living force opposed to them as they had been to build +towns, to dam rivers, to hunt whales, to harvest ice, to hammer brute +matter into every shape civilization can ask for. + +Another great fact came to the surface, and is coming up every day in new +shapes,--that we are one people. It is easy to say that a man is a man +in Maine or Minnesota, but not so easy to feel it, all through our bones +and marrow. The camp is deprovincializing us very fast. Brave Winthrop, +marching with the city elegants, seems to have been a little startled to +find how wonderfully human were the hard-handed men of the Eighth +Massachusetts. It takes all the nonsense out of everybody, or ought to +do it, to see how fairly the real manhood of a country is distributed +over its surface. And then, just as we are beginning to think our own +soil has a monopoly of heroes as well as of cotton, up turns a regiment +of gallant Irishmen, like the Sixty-ninth, to show us that continental +provincialism is as bad as that of Coos County, New Hampshire, or of +Broadway, New York. + +Here, too, side by side in the same great camp, are half a dozen +chaplains, representing half a dozen modes of religious belief. When the +masked battery opens, does the "Baptist" Lieutenant believe in his heart +that God takes better care of him than of his "Congregationalist" +Colonel? Does any man really suppose, that, of a score of noble young +fellows who have just laid down their lives for their country, the +Homoousians are received to the mansions of bliss, and the Homoousians +translated from the battle-field to the abodes of everlasting woe? War +not only teaches what man can be, but it teaches also what he must not +be. He must not be a bigot and a fool in the presence of that day of +judgment proclaimed by the trumpet which calls to battle, and where a man +should have but two thoughts: to do his duty, and trust his Maker. Let +our brave dead come back from the fields where they have fallen for law +and liberty, and if you will follow them to their graves, you will find +out what the Broad Church means; the narrow church is sparing of its +exclusive formulae over the coffins wrapped in the flag which the fallen +heroes had defended! Very little comparatively do we hear at such times +of the dogmas on which men differ; very much of the faith and trust in +which all sincere Christians can agree. It is a noble lesson, and +nothing less noisy than the voice of cannon can teach it so that it shall +be heard over all the angry cries of theological disputants. + +Now, too, we have a chance to test the sagacity of our friends, and to +get at their principles of judgment. Perhaps most, of us, will agree +that our faith in domestic prophets has been diminished by the experience +of the last six months. We had the notable predictions attributed to the +Secretary of State, which so unpleasantly refused to fulfil themselves. +We were infested at one time with a set of ominous-looking seers, who +shook their heads and muttered obscurely about some mighty preparations +that were making to substitute the rule of the minority for that of the +majority. Organizations were darkly hinted at; some thought our armories +would be seized; and there are not wanting ancient women in the +neighboring University town who consider that the country was saved by +the intrepid band of students who stood guard, night after night, over +the G. R. cannon and the pile of balls in the Cambridge Arsenal. + +As a general rule, it is safe to say that the best prophecies are those +which the sages remember after the event prophesied of has come to pass, +and remind us that they have made long ago. Those who, are rash enough +to predict publicly beforehand commonly give us what they hope, or what +they fear, or some conclusion from an abstraction of their own, or some +guess founded on private information not half so good as what everybody +gets who reads the papers,--never by any possibility a word that we can +depend on, simply because there are cobwebs of contingency between every +to-day and to-morrow that no field-glass can penetrate when fifty of them +lie woven one over another. Prophesy as much as you like, but always +hedge. Say that you think the rebels are weaker than is commonly +supposed, but, on the other hand, that they may prove to be even stronger +than is anticipated. Say what you like,--only don't be too peremptory +and dogmatic; we know that wiser men than you have been notoriously +deceived in their predictions in this very matter. + + Ibis et redibis nunquam in bello peribis. + +Let that be your model; and remember, on peril of your reputation as a +prophet, not to put a stop before or after the nunquam. + +There are two or three facts connected with time, besides that already +referred to, which strike us very forcibly in their relation to the great +events passing around us. We spoke of the long period seeming to have +elapsed since this war began. The buds were then swelling which held the +leaves that are still green. It seems as old as Time himself. We cannot +fail to observe how the mind brings together the scenes of to-day and +those of the old Revolution. We shut up eighty years into each other +like the joints of a pocket-telescope. When the young men from Middlesex +dropped in Baltimore the other day, it seemed to bring Lexington and the +other Nineteenth of April close to us. War has always been the mint in +which the world's history has been coined, and now every day or week or +month has a new medal for us. It was Warren that the first impression +bore in the last great coinage; if it is Ellsworth now, the new face +hardly seems fresher than the old. All battle-fields are alike in their +main features. The young fellows who fell in our earlier struggle seemed +like old men to us until within these few months; now we remember they +were like these fiery youth we are cheering as they go to the fight; it +seems as if the grass of our bloody hillside was crimsoned but yesterday, +and the cannon-ball imbedded in the church-tower would feel warm, if we +laid our hand upon it. + +Nay, in this our quickened life we feel that all the battles from +earliest time to our own day, where Right and Wrong have grappled, are +but one great battle, varied with brief pauses or hasty bivouacs upon the +field of conflict. The issues seem to vary, but it is always a right +against a claim, and, however the struggle of the hour may go, a movement +onward of the campaign, which uses defeat as well as victory to serve its +mighty ends. The very implements of our warfare change less than we +think. Our bullets and cannonballs have lengthened into bolts like those +which whistled out of old arbalests. Our soldiers fight with weapons, +such as are pictured on the walls of Theban tombs, wearing a newly +invented head-gear as old as the days of the Pyramids. + +Whatever miseries this war brings upon us, it is making us wiser, and, we +trust, better. Wiser, for we are learning our weakness, our narrowness, +our selfishness, our ignorance, in lessons of sorrow and shame. Better, +because all that is noble in men and women is demanded by the time, and +our people are rising to the standard the time calls for. For this is +the question the hour is putting to each of us: Are you ready, if need +be, to sacrifice all that you have and hope for in this world, that the +generations to follow you may inherit a whole country whose natural +condition shall be peace, and not a broken province which must live under +the perpetual threat, if not in the constant presence, of war and all +that war brings with it? If we are all ready for this sacrifice, battles +may be lost, but the campaign and its grand object must be won. + +Heaven is very kind in its way of putting questions to mortals. We are +not abruptly asked to give up all that we most care for, in view of the +momentous issues before us. Perhaps we shall never be asked to give up +all, but we have already been called upon to part with much that is dear +to us, and should be ready to yield the rest as it is called for. The +time may come when even the cheap public print shall be a burden our +means cannot support, and we can only listen in the square that was once +the marketplace to the voices of those who proclaim defeat or victory. +Then there will be only our daily food left. When we have nothing to +read and nothing to eat, it will be a favorable moment to offer a +compromise. At present we have all that nature absolutely demands,--we +can live on bread and the newspaper. + + + + +MY HUNT AFTER "THE CAPTAIN." + +In the dead of the night which closed upon the bloody field of Antietam, +my household was startled from its slumbers by the loud summons of a +telegraphic messenger. The air had been heavy all day with rumors of +battle, and thousands and tens of thousands had walked the streets with +throbbing hearts, in dread anticipation of the tidings any hour might +bring. + +We rose hastily, and presently the messenger was admitted. I took the +envelope from his hand, opened it, and read: + +HAGERSTOWN 17th + +To__________ H ______ + +Capt H______ wounded shot through the neck thought not mortal at +Keedysville +WILLIAM G. LEDUC + +Through the neck,--no bullet left in wound. Windpipe, food-pipe, +carotid, jugular, half a dozen smaller, but still formidable vessels, a +great braid of nerves, each as big as a lamp-wick, spinal cord,--ought +to kill at once, if at all. Thought not mortal, or not thought +mortal,--which was it? The first; that is better than the second would +be.--"Keedysville, a post-office, Washington Co., Maryland." Leduc? +Leduc? Don't remember that name. The boy is waiting for his money. A +dollar and thirteen cents. Has nobody got thirteen cents? Don't keep +that boy waiting,--how do we know what messages he has got to carry? + +The boy had another message to carry. It was to the father of +Lieutenant-Colonel Wilder Dwight, informing him that his son was +grievously wounded in the same battle, and was lying at Boonsborough, a +town a few miles this side of Keedysville. This I learned the next +morning from the civil and attentive officials at the Central Telegraph +Office. + +Calling upon this gentleman, I found that he meant to leave in the +quarter past two o'clock train, taking with him Dr. George H. Gay, an +accomplished and energetic surgeon, equal to any difficult question or +pressing emergency. I agreed to accompany them, and we met in the cars. +I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in having companions whose society +would be a pleasure, whose feelings would harmonize with my own, and +whose assistance I might, in case of need, be glad to claim. + +It is of the journey which we began together, and which I finished apart, +that I mean to give my "Atlantic" readers an account. They must let me +tell my story in my own way, speaking of many little matters that +interested or amused me, and which a certain leisurely class of elderly +persons, who sit at their firesides and never travel, will, I hope, +follow with a kind of interest. For, besides the main object of my +excursion, I could not help being excited by the incidental sights and +occurrences of a trip which to a commercial traveller or a +newspaper-reporter would seem quite commonplace and undeserving of +record. There are periods in which all places and people seem to be in a +conspiracy to impress us with their individuality, in which every +ordinary locality seems to assume a special significance and to claim a +particular notice, in which every person we meet is either an old +acquaintance or a character; days in which the strangest coincidences are +continually happening, so that they get to be the rule, and not the +exception. Some might naturally think that anxiety and the weariness of +a prolonged search after a near relative would have prevented my taking +any interest in or paying any regard to the little matters around me. +Perhaps it had just the contrary effect, and acted like a diffused +stimulus upon the attention. When all the faculties are wide-awake in +pursuit of a single object, or fixed in the spasm of an absorbing +emotion, they are oftentimes clairvoyant in a marvellous degree in +respect to many collateral things, as Wordsworth has so forcibly +illustrated in his sonnet on the Boy of Windermere, and as Hawthorne has +developed with such metaphysical accuracy in that chapter of his wondrous +story where Hester walks forth to meet her punishment. + +Be that as it may,--though I set out with a full and heavy heart, though +many times my blood chilled with what were perhaps needless and unwise +fears, though I broke through all my habits without thinking about them, +which is almost as hard in certain circumstances as for one of our young +fellows to leave his sweetheart and go into a Peninsular campaign, though +I did not always know when I was hungry nor discover that I was +thirsting, though I had a worrying ache and inward tremor underlying all +the outward play of the senses and the mind, yet it is the simple truth +that I did look out of the car-windows with an eye for all that passed, +that I did take cognizance of strange sights and singular people, that I +did act much as persons act from the ordinary promptings of curiosity, +and from time to time even laugh very much as others do who are attacked +with a convulsive sense of the ridiculous, the epilepsy of the diaphragm. + +By a mutual compact, we talked little in the cars. A communicative +friend is the greatest nuisance to have at one's side during a railroad +journey, especially if his conversation is stimulating and in itself +agreeable. "A fast train and a 'slow' neighbor," is my motto. Many +times, when I have got upon the cars, expecting to be magnetized into an +hour or two of blissful reverie, my thoughts shaken up by the vibrations +into all sorts of new and pleasing patterns, arranging themselves in +curves and nodal points, like the grains of sand in Chladni's famous +experiment,--fresh ideas coming up to the surface, as the kernels do when +a measure of corn is jolted in a farmer's wagon,--all this without +volition, the mechanical impulse alone keeping the thoughts in motion, as +the mere act of carrying certain watches in the pocket keeps them wound +up,--many times, I say, just as my brain was beginning to creep and hum +with this delicious locomotive intoxication, some dear detestable friend, +cordial, intelligent, social, radiant, has come up and sat down by me and +opened a conversation which has broken my day-dream, unharnessed the +flying horses that were whirling along my fancies and hitched on the old +weary omnibus-team of every-day associations, fatigued my hearing and +attention, exhausted my voice, and milked the breasts of my thought dry +during the hour when they should have been filling themselves full of +fresh juices. My friends spared me this trial. + +So, then, I sat by the window and enjoyed the slight tipsiness produced +by short, limited, rapid oscillations, which I take to be the +exhilarating stage of that condition which reaches hopeless inebriety in +what we know as sea-sickness. Where the horizon opened widely, it +pleased me to watch the curious effect of the rapid movement of near +objects contrasted with the slow motion of distant ones. Looking from a +right-hand window, for instance, the fences close by glide swiftly +backward, or to the right, while the distant hills not only do not appear +to move backward, but look by contrast with the fences near at hand as if +they were moving forward, or to the left; and thus the whole landscape +becomes a mighty wheel revolving about an imaginary axis somewhere in the +middle-distance. + +My companions proposed to stay at one of the best-known and +longest-established of the New-York caravansaries, and I accompanied +them. We were particularly well lodged, and not uncivilly treated. The +traveller who supposes that he is to repeat the melancholy experience of +Shenstone, and have to sigh over the reflection that he has found "his +warmest welcome at an inn," has something to learn at the offices of the +great city hotels. The unheralded guest who is honored by mere +indifference may think himself blessed with singular good-fortune. If +the despot of the Patent-Annunciator is only mildly contemptuous in his +manner, let the victim look upon it as a personal favor. The coldest +welcome that a threadbare curate ever got at the door of a bishop's +palace, the most icy reception that a country cousin ever received at the +city mansion of a mushroom millionaire, is agreeably tepid, compared to +that which the Rhadamanthus who dooms you to the more or less elevated +circle of his inverted Inferno vouchsafes, as you step up to enter your +name on his dog's-eared register. I have less hesitation in unburdening +myself of this uncomfortable statement, as on this particular trip I met +with more than one exception to the rule. Officials become brutalized, I +suppose, as a matter of course. One cannot expect an office clerk to +embrace tenderly every stranger who comes in with a carpet-bag, or a +telegraph operator to burst into tears over every unpleasant message he +receives for transmission. Still, humanity is not always totally +extinguished in these persons. I discovered a youth in a telegraph +office of the Continental Hotel, in Philadelphia, who was as pleasant in +conversation, and as graciously responsive to inoffensive questions, as +if I had been his childless opulent uncle and my will not made. + +On the road again the next morning, over the ferry, into the cars with +sliding panels and fixed windows, so that in summer the whole side of the +car maybe made transparent. New Jersey is, to the apprehension of a +traveller, a double-headed suburb rather than a State. Its dull red dust +looks like the dried and powdered mud of a battle-field. Peach-trees are +common, and champagne-orchards. Canal-boats, drawn by mules, swim by, +feeling their way along like blind men led by dogs. I had a mighty +passion come over me to be the captain of one,--to glide back and forward +upon a sea never roughened by storms,--to float where I could not +sink,--to navigate where there is no shipwreck,--to lie languidly on the +deck and govern the huge craft by a word or the movement of a finger: +there was something of railroad intoxication in the fancy: but who has +not often envied a cobbler in his stall? + +The boys cry the "N'-York Heddle," instead of "Herald"; I remember that +years ago in Philadelphia; we must be getting near the farther end of the +dumb-bell suburb. A bridge has been swept away by a rise of the waters, +so we must approach Philadelphia by the river. Her physiognomy is not +distinguished; nez camus, as a Frenchman would say; no illustrious +steeple, no imposing tower; the water-edge of the town looking +bedraggled, like the flounce of a vulgar rich woman's dress that trails +on the sidewalk. The New Ironsides lies at one of the wharves, +elephantine in bulk and color, her sides narrowing as they rise, like the +walls of a hock-glass. + +I went straight to the house in Walnut Street where the Captain would be +heard of, if anywhere in this region. His lieutenant-colonel was there, +gravely wounded; his college-friend and comrade in arms, a son of the +house, was there, injured in a similar way; another soldier, brother of +the last, was there, prostrate with fever. A fourth bed was waiting +ready for the Captain, but not one word had been heard of him, though +inquiries had been made in the towns from and through which the father +had brought his two sons and the lieutenant-colonel. And so my search is, +like a "Ledger" story, to be continued. + +I rejoined my companions in time to take the noon-train for Baltimore. +Our company was gaining in number as it moved onwards. We had found upon +the train from New York a lovely, lonely lady, the wife of one of our +most spirited Massachusetts officers, the brave Colonel of the __th +Regiment, going to seek her wounded husband at Middletown, a place lying +directly in our track. She was the light of our party while we were +together on our pilgrimage, a fair, gracious woman, gentle, but +courageous, + + ---"ful plesant and amiable of port, + ---estatelich of manere, + And to ben holden digne of reverence." + +On the road from Philadelphia, I found in the same car with our party Dr. +William Hunt of Philadelphia, who had most kindly and faithfully attended +the Captain, then the Lieutenant, after a wound received at Ball's Bluff, +which came very near being mortal. He was going upon an errand of mercy +to the wounded, and found he had in his memorandum-book the name of our +lady's husband, the Colonel, who had been commended to his particular +attention. + +Not long after leaving Philadelphia, we passed a solitary sentry keeping +guard over a short railroad bridge. It was the first evidence that we +were approaching the perilous borders, the marches where the North and +the South mingle their angry hosts, where the extremes of our so-called +civilization meet in conflict, and the fierce slave-driver of the Lower +Mississippi stares into the stern eyes of the forest-feller from the +banks of the Aroostook. All the way along, the bridges were guarded more +or less strongly. In a vast country like ours, communications play a far +more complex part than in Europe, where the whole territory available for +strategic purposes is so comparatively limited. Belgium, for instance, +has long been the bowling-alley where kings roll cannon-balls at each +other's armies; but here we are playing the game of live ninepins without +any alley. + +We were obliged to stay in Baltimore over night, as we were too late for +the train to Frederick. At the Eutaw House, where we found both comfort +and courtesy, we met a number of friends, who beguiled the evening hours +for us in the most agreeable manner. We devoted some time to procuring +surgical and other articles, such as might be useful to our friends, or +to others, if our friends should not need them. In the morning, I found +myself seated at the breakfast-table next to General Wool. It did not +surprise me to find the General very far from expansive. With Fort +McHenry on his shoulders and Baltimore in his breeches-pocket, and the +weight of a military department loading down his social safety-valves, I +thought it a great deal for an officer in his trying position to select +so very obliging and affable an aid as the gentleman who relieved him of +the burden of attending to strangers. + +We left the Eutaw House, to take the cars for Frederick. As we stood +waiting on the platform, a telegraphic message was handed in silence to +my companion. Sad news: the lifeless body of the son he was hastening to +see was even now on its way to him in Baltimore. It was no time for +empty words of consolation: I knew what he had lost, and that now was not +the time to intrude upon a grief borne as men bear it, felt as women feel +it. + +Colonel Wilder Dwight was first made known to me as the friend of a +beloved relative of my own, who was with him during a severe illness in +Switzerland; and for whom while living, and for whose memory when dead, +he retained the warmest affection. Since that the story of his noble +deeds of daring, of his capture and escape, and a brief visit home before +he was able to rejoin his regiment, had made his name familiar to many +among us, myself among the number. His memory has been honored by those +who had the largest opportunity of knowing his rare promise, as a man of +talents and energy of nature. His abounding vitality must have produced +its impression on all who met him; there was a still fire about him which +any one could see would blaze up to melt all difficulties and recast +obstacles into implements in the mould of an heroic will. These elements +of his character many had the chance of knowing; but I shall always +associate him with the memory of that pure and noble friendship which +made me feel that I knew him before I looked upon his face, and added a +personal tenderness to the sense of loss which I share with the whole +community. + +Here, then, I parted, sorrowfully, from the companions with whom I set +out on my journey. + +In one of the cars, at the same station, we met General Shriver of +Frederick, a most loyal Unionist, whose name is synonymous with a hearty +welcome to all whom he can aid by his counsel and his hospitality. He +took great pains to give us all the information we needed, and expressed +the hope, which was afterwards fulfilled, to the great gratification of +some of us, that we should meet again when he should return to his home. + +There was nothing worthy of special note in the trip to Frederick, except +our passing a squad of Rebel prisoners, whom I missed seeing, as they +flashed by, but who were said to be a most forlorn-looking crowd of +scarecrows. Arrived at the Monocacy River, about three miles this side +of Frederick, we came to a halt, for the railroad bridge had been blown +up by the Rebels, and its iron pillars and arches were lying in the bed +of the river. The unfortunate wretch who fired the train was killed by +the explosion, and lay buried hard by, his hands sticking out of the +shallow grave into which he had been huddled. This was the story they +told us, but whether true or not I must leave to the correspondents of +"Notes and Queries" to settle. + +There was a great confusion of carriages and wagons at the stopping-place +of the train, so that it was a long time before I could get anything that +would carry us. At last I was lucky enough to light on a sturdy wagon, +drawn by a pair of serviceable bays, and driven by James Grayden, with +whom I was destined to have a somewhat continued acquaintance. We took +up a little girl who had been in Baltimore during the late Rebel inroad. +It made me think of the time when my own mother, at that time six years +old, was hurried off from Boston, then occupied by the British soldiers, +to Newburyport, and heard the people saying that "the redcoats were +coming, killing and murdering everybody as they went along." Frederick +looked cheerful for a place that had so recently been in an enemy's +hands. Here and there a house or shop was shut up, but the national +colors were waving in all directions, and the general aspect was peaceful +and contented. I saw no bullet-marks or other sign of the fighting which +had gone on in the streets. The Colonel's lady was taken in charge by a +daughter of that hospitable family to which we had been commended by its +head, and I proceeded to inquire for wounded officers at the various +temporary hospitals. + +At the United States Hotel, where many were lying, I heard mention of an +officer in an upper chamber, and, going there, found Lieutenant Abbott, +of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteers, lying ill with what looked +like typhoid fever. While there, who should come in but the almost +ubiquitous Lieutenant Wilkins, of the same Twentieth, whom I had met +repeatedly before on errands of kindness or duty, and who was just from +the battle-ground. He was going to Boston in charge of the body of the +lamented Dr. Revere, the Assistant Surgeon of the regiment, killed on the +field. From his lips I learned something of the mishaps of the regiment. +My Captain's wound he spoke of as less grave than at first thought; but +he mentioned incidentally having heard a story recently that he was +killed,--a fiction, doubtless,--a mistake,--a palpable absurdity,--not to +be remembered or made any account of. Oh no! but what dull ache is this +in that obscurely sensitive region, somewhere below the heart, where the +nervous centre called the semilunar ganglion lies unconscious of itself +until a great grief or a mastering anxiety reaches it through all the +non-conductors which isolate it from ordinary impressions? I talked +awhile with Lieutenant Abbott, who lay prostrate, feeble, but +soldier-like and uncomplaining, carefully waited upon by a most excellent +lady, a captain's wife, New England born, loyal as the Liberty on a +golden ten-dollar piece, and of lofty bearing enough to have sat for that +goddess's portrait. She had stayed in Frederick through the Rebel +inroad, and kept the star-spangled banner where it would be safe, to +unroll it as the last Rebel hoofs clattered off from the pavement of the +town. + +Near by Lieutenant Abbott was an unhappy gentleman, occupying a small +chamber, and filling it with his troubles. When he gets well and plump, +I know he will forgive me if I confess that I could not help smiling in +the midst of my sympathy for him. He had been a well-favored man, he +said, sweeping his hand in a semicircle, which implied that his +acute-angled countenance had once filled the goodly curve he described. +He was now a perfect Don Quixote to look upon. Weakness had made him +querulous, as it does all of us, and he piped his grievances to me in a +thin voice, with that finish of detail which chronic invalidism alone can +command. He was starving,--he could not get what he wanted to eat. He +was in need of stimulants, and he held up a pitiful two-ounce phial +containing three thimblefuls--of brandy,--his whole stock of that +encouraging article. Him I consoled to the best of my ability, and +afterwards, in some slight measure, supplied his wants. Feed this poor +gentleman up, as these good people soon will, and I should not know him, +nor he himself. We are all egotists in sickness and debility. An animal +has been defined as "a stomach ministered to by organs;" and the greatest +man comes very near this simple formula after a month or two of fever and +starvation. + +James Grayden and his team pleased me well enough, and so I made a +bargain with him to take us, the lady and myself, on our further journey +as far as Middletown. As we were about starting from the front of the +United States Hotel, two gentlemen presented themselves and expressed a +wish to be allowed to share our conveyance. I looked at them and +convinced myself that they were neither Rebels in disguise, nor +deserters, nor camp-followers, nor miscreants, but plain, honest men on a +proper errand. The first of them I will pass over briefly. He was a +young man of mild and modest demeanor, chaplain to a Pennsylvania +regiment, which he was going to rejoin. He belonged to the Moravian +Church, of which I had the misfortune to know little more than what I had +learned from Southey's "Life of Wesley." and from the exquisite hymns we +have borrowed from its rhapsodists. The other stranger was a New +Englander of respectable appearance, with a grave, hard, honest, +hay-bearded face, who had come to serve the sick and wounded on the +battle-field and in its immediate neighborhood. There is no reason why I +should not mention his name, but I shall content myself with calling him +the Philanthropist. + +So we set forth, the sturdy wagon, the serviceable bays, with James +Grayden their driver, the gentle lady, whose serene patience bore up +through all delays and discomforts, the Chaplain, the Philanthropist, and +myself, the teller of this story. + +And now, as we emerged from Frederick, we struck at once upon the trail +from the great battle-field. The road was filled with straggling and +wounded soldiers. All who could travel on foot,--multitudes with slight +wounds of the upper limbs, the head, or face,--were told to take up +their beds,--alight burden or none at all,--and walk. Just as the +battle-field sucks everything into its red vortex for the conflict, so +does it drive everything off in long, diverging rays after the fierce +centripetal forces have met and neutralized each other. For more than a +week there had been sharp fighting all along this road. Through the +streets of Frederick, through Crampton's Gap, over South Mountain, +sweeping at last the hills and the woods that skirt the windings of the +Antietam, the long battle had travelled, like one of those tornadoes +which tear their path through our fields and villages. The slain of +higher condition, "embalmed" and iron-cased, were sliding off on the +railways to their far homes; the dead of the rank and file were being +gathered up and committed hastily to the earth; the gravely wounded were +cared for hard by the scene of conflict, or pushed a little way along to +the neighboring villages; while those who could walk were meeting us, as +I have said, at every step in the road. It was a pitiable sight, truly +pitiable, yet so vast, so far beyond the possibility of relief, that many +single sorrows of small dimensions have wrought upon my feelings more +than the sight of this great caravan of maimed pilgrims. The +companionship of so many seemed to make a joint-stock of their suffering; +it was next to impossible to individualize it, and so bring it home, as +one can do with a single broken limb or aching wound. Then they were all +of the male sex, and in the freshness or the prime of their strength. +Though they tramped so wearily along, yet there was rest and kind nursing +in store for them. These wounds they bore would be the medals they would +show their children and grandchildren by and by. Who would not rather +wear his decorations beneath his uniform than on it? + +Yet among them were figures which arrested our attention and sympathy. +Delicate boys, with more spirit than strength, flushed with fever or pale +with exhaustion or haggard with suffering, dragged their weary limbs +along as if each step would exhaust their slender store of strength. At +the roadside sat or lay others, quite spent with their journey. Here and +there was a house at which the wayfarers would stop, in the hope, I fear +often vain, of getting refreshment; and in one place was a clear, cool +spring, where the little bands of the long procession halted for a few +moments, as the trains that traverse the desert rest by its fountains. +My companions had brought a few peaches along with them, which the +Philanthropist bestowed upon the tired and thirsty soldiers with a +satisfaction which we all shared. I had with me a small flask of strong +waters, to be used as a medicine in case of inward grief. From this, +also, he dispensed relief, without hesitation, to a poor fellow who +looked as if he needed it. I rather admired the simplicity with which he +applied my limited means of solace to the first-comer who wanted it more +than I; a genuine benevolent impulse does not stand on ceremony, and had +I perished of colic for want of a stimulus that night, I should not have +reproached my friend the Philanthropist, any more than I grudged my other +ardent friend the two dollars and more which it cost me to send the +charitable message he left in my hands. + +It was a lovely country through which we were riding. The hillsides +rolled away into the distance, slanting up fair and broad to the sun, as +one sees them in the open parts of the Berkshire Valley, at Lanesborough, +for instance, or in the many-hued mountain chalice at the bottom of which +the Shaker houses of Lebanon have shaped themselves like a sediment of +cubical crystals. The wheat was all garnered, and the land ploughed for +a new crop. There was Indian corn standing, but I saw no pumpkins +warming their yellow carapaces in the sunshine like so many turtles; only +in a single instance did I notice some wretched little miniature +specimens in form and hue not unlike those colossal oranges of our +cornfields. The rail fences were somewhat disturbed, and the cinders of +extinguished fires showed the use to which they had been applied. The +houses along the road were not for the most part neatly kept; the garden +fences were poorly built of laths or long slats, and very rarely of trim +aspect. The men of this region seemed to ride in the saddle very +generally, rather than drive. They looked sober and stern, less curious +and lively than Yankees, and I fancied that a type of features familiar +to us in the countenance of the late John Tyler, our accidental +President, was frequently met with. The women were still more +distinguishable from our New England pattern. Soft, sallow, succulent, +delicately finished about the mouth and firmly shaped about the chin, +dark-eyed, full-throated, they looked as if they had been grown in a land +of olives. There was a little toss in their movement, full of +muliebrity. I fancied there was something more of the duck and less of +the chicken about them, as compared with the daughters of our leaner +soil; but these are mere impressions caught from stray glances, and if +there is any offence in them, my fair readers may consider them all +retracted. + +At intervals, a dead horse lay by the roadside, or in the fields, +unburied, not grateful to gods or men. I saw no bird of prey, no +ill-omened fowl, on my way to the carnival of death, or at the place +where it had been held. The vulture of story, the crow of Talavera, the +"twa corbies" of the ghastly ballad, are all from Nature, doubtless; but +no black wing was spread over these animal ruins, and no call to the +banquet pierced through the heavy-laden and sickening air. + +Full in the middle of the road, caring little for whom or what they met, +came long strings of army wagons, returning empty from the front after +supplies. James Grayden stated it as his conviction that they had a +little rather run into a fellow than not. I liked the looks of these +equipages and their drivers; they meant business. Drawn by mules mostly, +six, I think, to a wagon, powdered well with dust, wagon, beast, and +driver, they came jogging along the road, turning neither to right nor +left,--some driven by bearded, solemn white men, some by careless, +saucy-looking negroes, of a blackness like that of anthracite or +obsidian. There seemed to be nothing about them, dead or alive, that was +not serviceable. Sometimes a mule would give out on the road; then he +was left where he lay, until by and by he would think better of it, and +get up, when the first public wagon that came along would hitch him on, +and restore him to the sphere of duty. + +It was evening when we got to Middletown. The gentle lady who had graced +our homely conveyance with her company here left us. She found her +husband, the gallant Colonel, in very comfortable quarters, well cared +for, very weak from the effects of the fearful operation he had been +compelled to undergo, but showing calm courage to endure as he had shown +manly energy to act. It was a meeting full of heroism and tenderness, of +which I heard more than there is need to tell. Health to the brave +soldier, and peace to the household over which so fair a spirit presides! + +Dr. Thompson, the very active and intelligent surgical director of the +hospitals of the place, took me in charge. He carried me to the house of +a worthy and benevolent clergyman of the German Reformed Church, where I +was to take tea and pass the night. What became of the Moravian chaplain +I did not know; but my friend the Philanthropist had evidently made up +his mind to adhere to my fortunes. He followed me, therefore, to the +house of the "Dominie." as a newspaper correspondent calls my kind host, +and partook of the fare there furnished me. He withdrew with me to the +apartment assigned for my slumbers, and slept sweetly on the same pillow +where I waked and tossed. Nay, I do affirm that he did, unconsciously, I +believe, encroach on that moiety of the couch which I had flattered +myself was to be my own through the watches of the night, and that I was +in serious doubt at one time whether I should not be gradually, but +irresistibly, expelled from the bed which I had supposed destined for my +sole possession. As Ruth clave unto Naomi, so my friend the +Philanthropist clave unto me. "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where +thou lodgest, I will lodge." A really kind, good man, full of zeal, +determined to help somebody, and absorbed in his one thought, he doubted +nobody's willingness to serve him, going, as he was, on a purely +benevolent errand. When he reads this, as I hope he will, let him be +assured of my esteem and respect; and if he gained any accommodation from +being in my company, let me tell him that I learned a lesson from his +active benevolence. I could, however, have wished to hear him laugh once +before we parted, perhaps forever. He did not, to the best of my +recollection, even smile during the whole period that we were in company. +I am afraid that a lightsome disposition and a relish for humor are not +so common in those whose benevolence takes an active turn as in people of +sentiment, who are always ready with their tears and abounding in +passionate expressions of sympathy. Working philanthropy is a practical +specialty, requiring not a mere impulse, but a talent, with its peculiar +sagacity for finding its objects, a tact for selecting its agencies, an +organizing and art ranging faculty, a steady set of nerves, and a +constitution such as Sallust describes in Catiline, patient of cold, of +hunger, and of watching. Philanthropists are commonly grave, +occasionally grim, and not very rarely morose. Their expansive social +force is imprisoned as a working power, to show itself only through its +legitimate pistons and cranks. The tighter the boiler, the less it +whistles and sings at its work. When Dr. Waterhouse, in 1780, travelled +with Howard, on his tour among the Dutch prisons and hospitals, he found +his temper and manners very different from what would have been expected. + +My benevolent companion having already made a preliminary exploration of +the hospitals of the place, before sharing my bed with him, as above +mentioned, I joined him in a second tour through them. The authorities +of Middletown are evidently leagued with the surgeons of that place, for +such a break-neck succession of pitfalls and chasms I have never seen in +the streets of a civilized town. It was getting late in the evening when +we began our rounds. The principal collections of the wounded were in +the churches. Boards were laid over the tops of the pews, on these some +straw was spread, and on this the wounded lay, with little or no covering +other than such scanty clothes as they had on. There were wounds of all +degrees of severity, but I heard no groans or murmurs. Most of the +sufferers were hurt in the limbs, some had undergone amputation, and all +had, I presume, received such attention as was required. Still, it was +but a rough and dreary kind of comfort that the extemporized hospitals +suggested. I could not help thinking the patients must be cold; but they +were used to camp life, and did not complain. The men who watched were +not of the soft-handed variety of the race. One of them was smoking his +pipe as he went from bed to bed. I saw one poor fellow who had been shot +through the breast; his breathing was labored, and he was tossing, +anxious and restless. The men were debating about the opiate he was to +take, and I was thankful that I happened there at the right moment to see +that he was well narcotized for the night. Was it possible that my +Captain could be lying on the straw in one of these places? Certainly +possible, but not probable; but as the lantern was held over each bed, it +was with a kind of thrill that I looked upon the features it illuminated. +Many times as I went from hospital to hospital in my wanderings, I +started as some faint resemblance,-the shade of a young man's hair, the +outline of his half-turned face,--recalled the presence I was in search +of. The face would turn towards me, and the momentary illusion would +pass away, but still the fancy clung to me. There was no figure huddled +up on its rude couch, none stretched at the roadside, none toiling +languidly along the dusty pike, none passing in car or in ambulance, that +I did not scrutinize, as if it might be that for which I was making my +pilgrimage to the battlefield. + +"There are two wounded Secesh," said my companion. I walked to the +bedside of the first, who was an officer, a lieutenant, if I remember +right, from North Carolina. He was of good family, son of a judge in one +of the higher courts of his State, educated, pleasant, gentle, +intelligent. One moment's intercourse with such an enemy, lying helpless +and wounded among strangers, takes away all personal bitterness towards +those with whom we or our children have been but a few hours before in +deadly strife. The basest lie which the murderous contrivers of this +Rebellion have told is that which tries to make out a difference of race +in the men of the North and South. It would be worth a year of battles to +abolish this delusion, though the great sponge of war that wiped it out +were moistened with the best blood of the land. My Rebel was of slight, +scholastic habit, and spoke as one accustomed to tread carefully among +the parts of speech. It made my heart ache to see him, a man finished in +the humanities and Christian culture, whom the sin of his forefathers and +the crime of his rulers had set in barbarous conflict against others of +like training with his own,--a man who, but for the curse which our +generation is called on to expiate, would have taken his part in the +beneficent task of shaping the intelligence and lifting the moral +standard of a peaceful and united people. + +On Sunday morning, the twenty-first, having engaged James Grayden and his +team, I set out with the Chaplain and the Philanthropist for Keedysville. +Our track lay through the South Mountain Gap, and led us first to the +town of Boonsborough, where, it will be remembered, Colonel Dwight had +been brought after the battle. We saw the positions occupied in the +battle of South Mountain, and many traces of the conflict. In one +situation a group of young trees was marked with shot, hardly one having +escaped. As we walked by the side of the wagon, the Philanthropist left +us for a while and climbed a hill, where, along the line of a fence, he +found traces of the most desperate fighting. A ride of some three hours +brought us to Boonsborough, where I roused the unfortunate army surgeon +who had charge of the hospitals, and who was trying to get a little sleep +after his fatigues and watchings. He bore this cross very creditably, +and helped me to explore all places where my soldier might be lying among +the crowds of wounded. After the useless search, I resumed my journey, +fortified with a note of introduction to Dr. Letterman; also with a bale +of oakum which I was to carry to that gentleman, this substance being +employed as a substitute for lint. We were obliged also to procure a +pass to Keedysville from the Provost Marshal of Boonsborough. As we came +near the place, we learned that General McClellan's head quarters had +been removed from this village some miles farther to the front. + +On entering the small settlement of Keedysville, a familiar face and +figure blocked the way, like one of Bunyan's giants. The tall form and +benevolent countenance, set off by long, flowing hair, belonged to the +excellent Mayor Frank B. Fay of Chelsea, who, like my Philanthropist, +only still more promptly, had come to succor the wounded of the great +battle. It was wonderful to see how his single personality pervaded this +torpid little village; he seemed to be the centre of all its activities. +All my questions he answered clearly and decisively, as one who knew +everything that was going on in the place. But the one question I had +come five hundred miles to ask,--Where is Captain H.?--he could not +answer. There were some thousands of wounded in the place, he told me, +scattered about everywhere. It would be a long job to hunt up my +Captain; the only way would be to go to every house and ask for him. +Just then a medical officer came up. + +"Do you know anything of Captain H. of the Massachusetts Twentieth?" + +"Oh yes; he is staying in that house. I saw him there, doing very well." + +A chorus of hallelujahs arose in my soul, but I kept them to myself. Now, +then, for our twice-wounded volunteer, our young centurion whose +double-barred shoulder-straps we have never yet looked upon. Let us +observe the proprieties, however; no swelling upward of the mother,--no +hysterica passio, we do not like scenes. A calm salutation,--then +swallow and hold hard. That is about the programme. + +A cottage of squared logs, filled in with plaster, and whitewashed. A +little yard before it, with a gate swinging. The door of the cottage +ajar,--no one visible as yet. I push open the door and enter. An old +woman, Margaret Kitzmuller her name proves to be, is the first person I +see. + +"Captain H. here?" + +"Oh no, sir,--left yesterday morning for Hagerstown,--in a milk-cart." + +The Kitzmuller is a beady-eyed, cheery-looking ancient woman, answers +questions with a rising inflection, and gives a good account of the +Captain, who got into the vehicle without assistance, and was in +excellent spirits. Of course he had struck for Hagerstown as the +terminus of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, and was on his way to +Philadelphia, via Chambersburg and Harrisburg, if he were not already in +the hospitable home of Walnut Street, where his friends were expecting +him. + +I might follow on his track or return upon my own; the distance was the +same to Philadelphia through Harrisburg as through Baltimore. But it was +very difficult, Mr. Fay told me, to procure any kind of conveyance to +Hagerstown; and, on the other hand, I had James Grayden and his wagon to +carry me back to Frederick. It was not likely that I should overtake the +object of my pursuit with nearly thirty-six hours start, even if I could +procure a conveyance that day. In the mean time James was getting +impatient to be on his return, according to the direction of his +employers. So I decided to go back with him. + +But there was the great battle-field only about three miles from +Keedysville, and it was impossible to go without seeing that. James +Grayden's directions were peremptory, but it was a case for the higher +law. I must make a good offer for an extra couple of hours, such as +would satisfy the owners of the wagon, and enforce it by a personal +motive. I did this handsomely, and succeeded without difficulty. To add +brilliancy to my enterprise, I invited the Chaplain and the +Philanthropist to take a free passage with me. + +We followed the road through the village for a space, then turned off to +the right, and wandered somewhat vaguely, for want of precise directions, +over the hills. Inquiring as we went, we forded a wide creek in which +soldiers were washing their clothes, the name of which we did not then +know, but which must have been the Antietam. At one point we met a +party, women among them, bringing off various trophies they had picked up +on the battlefield. Still wandering along, we were at last pointed to a +hill in the distance, a part of the summit of which was covered with +Indian corn. There, we were told, some of the fiercest fighting of the +day had been done. The fences were taken down so as to make a passage +across the fields, and the tracks worn within the last few days looked +like old roads. We passed a fresh grave under a tree near the road. A +board was nailed to the tree, bearing the name, as well as I could make +it out, of Gardiner, of a New Hampshire regiment. + +On coming near the brow of the hill, we met a party carrying picks and +spades. "How many?" "Only one." The dead were nearly all buried, then, +in this region of the field of strife. We stopped the wagon, and, +getting out, began to look around us. Hard by was a large pile of +muskets, scores, if not hundreds, which had been picked up, and were +guarded for the Government. A long ridge of fresh gravel rose before us. +A board stuck up in front of it bore this inscription, the first part of +which was, I believe, not correct: "The Rebel General Anderson and 80 +Rebels are buried in this hole." Other smaller ridges were marked with +the number of dead lying under them. The whole ground was strewed with +fragments of clothing, haversacks, canteens, cap-boxes, bullets, +cartridge-boxes, cartridges, scraps of paper, portions of bread and meat. +I saw two soldiers' caps that looked as though their owners had been shot +through the head. In several places I noticed dark red patches where a +pool of blood had curdled and caked, as some poor fellow poured his life +out on the sod. I then wandered about in the cornfield. It surprised me +to notice, that, though there was every mark of hard fighting having +taken place here, the Indian corn was not generally trodden down. One of +our cornfields is a kind of forest, and even when fighting, men avoid the +tall stalks as if they were trees. At the edge of this cornfield lay a +gray horse, said to have belonged to a Rebel colonel, who was killed near +the same place. Not far off were two dead artillery horses in their +harness. Another had been attended to by a burying-party, who had thrown +some earth over him but his last bed-clothes were too short, and his legs +stuck out stark and stiff from beneath the gravel coverlet. It was a +great pity that we had no intelligent guide to explain to us the position +of that portion of the two armies which fought over this ground. There +was a shallow trench before we came to the cornfield, too narrow for a +road, as I should think, too elevated for a water-course, and which +seemed to have been used as a rifle-pit. At any rate, there had been +hard fighting in and about it. This and the cornfield may serve to +identify the part of the ground we visited, if any who fought there +should ever look over this paper. The opposing tides of battle must have +blended their waves at this point, for portions of gray uniform were +mingled with the "garments rolled in blood" torn from our own dead and +wounded soldiers. I picked up a Rebel canteen, and one of our own,--but +there was something repulsive about the trodden and stained relics of the +stale battle-field. It was like the table of some hideous orgy left +uncleared, and one turned away disgusted from its broken fragments and +muddy heeltaps. A bullet or two, a button, a brass plate from a +soldier's belt, served well enough for mementos of my visit, with a +letter which I picked up, directed to Richmond, Virginia, its seal +unbroken. "N. C. Cleveland County. E. Wright to J. Wright." On the +other side, "A few lines from W. L. Vaughn." who has just been writing +for the wife to her husband, and continues on his own account. The +postscript, "tell John that nancy's folks are all well and has a verry +good Little Crop of corn a growing." I wonder, if, by one of those +strange chances of which I have seen so many, this number or leaf of the +"Atlantic" will not sooner or later find its way to Cleveland County, +North Carolina, and E. Wright, widow of James Wright, and Nancy's folks, +get from these sentences the last glimpse of husband and friend as he +threw up his arms and fell in the bloody cornfield of Antietam? I will +keep this stained letter for them until peace comes back, if it comes in +my time, and my pleasant North Carolina Rebel of the Middletown Hospital +will, perhaps look these poor people up, and tell them where to send for +it. + +On the battle-field I parted with my two companions, the Chaplain and the +Philanthropist. They were going to the front, the one to find his +regiment, the other to look for those who needed his assistance. We +exchanged cards and farewells, I mounted the wagon, the horses' heads +were turned homewards, my two companions went their way, and I saw them +no more. On my way back, I fell into talk with James Grayden. Born in +England, Lancashire; in this country since he was four years old. Had +nothing to care for but an old mother; didn't know what he should do if +he lost her. Though so long in this country, he had all the simplicity +and childlike lightheartedness which belong to the Old World's people. +He laughed at the smallest pleasantry, and showed his great white English +teeth; he took a joke without retorting by an impertinence; he had a very +limited curiosity about all that was going on; he had small store of +information; he lived chiefly in his horses, it seemed to me. His quiet +animal nature acted as a pleasing anodyne to my recurring fits of +anxiety, and I liked his frequent "'Deed I don't know, sir." better than +I have sometimes relished the large discourse of professors and other +very wise men. + +I have not much to say of the road which we were travelling for the +second time. Reaching Middletown, my first call was on the wounded +Colonel and his lady. She gave me a most touching account of all the +suffering he had gone through with his shattered limb before he succeeded +in finding a shelter; showing the terrible want of proper means of +transportation of the wounded after the battle. It occurred to me, while +at this house, that I was more or less famished, and for the first time +in my life I begged for a meal, which the kind family with whom the +Colonel was staying most graciously furnished me. + +After tea, there came in a stout army surgeon, a Highlander by birth, +educated in Edinburgh, with whom I had pleasant, not unstimulating talk. +He had been brought very close to that immane and nefandous +Burke-and-Hare business which made the blood of civilization run cold in +the year 1828, and told me, in a very calm way, with an occasional pinch +from the mull, to refresh his memory, some of the details of those +frightful murders, never rivalled in horror until the wretch Dumollard, +who kept a private cemetery for his victims, was dragged into the light +of day. He had a good deal to say, too, about the Royal College of +Surgeons in Edinburgh, and the famous preparations, mercurial and the +rest, which I remember well having seen there,--the "sudabit multum." +and others,--also of our New York Professor Carnochan's handiwork, a +specimen of which I once admired at the New York College. But the doctor +was not in a happy frame of mind, and seemed willing to forget the +present in the past: things went wrong, somehow, and the time was out of +joint with him. + +Dr. Thompson, kind, cheerful, companionable, offered me half his own wide +bed, in the house of Dr. Baer, for my second night in Middletown. Here I +lay awake again another night. Close to the house stood an ambulance in +which was a wounded Rebel officer, attended by one of their own surgeons. +He was calling out in a loud voice, all night long, as it seemed to me, +"Doctor! Doctor! Driver! Water!" in loud, complaining tones, I have no +doubt of real suffering, but in strange contrast with the silent patience +which was the almost universal rule. + +The courteous Dr. Thompson will let me tell here an odd coincidence, +trivial, but having its interest as one of a series. The Doctor and +myself lay in the bed, and a lieutenant, a friend of his, slept on the +sofa, At night, I placed my match-box, a Scotch one, of the +Macpherson-plaid pattern, which I bought years ago, on the bureau, just +where I could put my hand upon it. I was the last of the three to rise +in the morning, and on looking for my pretty match-box, I found it was +gone. This was rather awkward,--not on account of the loss, but of the +unavoidable fact that one of my fellow-lodgers must have taken it. I +must try to find out what it meant. + +"By the way, Doctor, have you seen anything of a little plaid-pattern +match-box?" + +The Doctor put his hand to his pocket, and, to his own huge surprise and +my great gratification, pulled out two match-boxes exactly alike, both +printed with the Macpherson plaid. One was his, the other mine, which he +had seen lying round, and naturally took for his own, thrusting it into +his pocket, where it found its twin-brother from the same workshop. In +memory of which event, we exchanged boxes, like two Homeric heroes. + +This curious coincidence illustrates well enough some supposed cases of +plagiarism of which I will mention one where my name figured. When a +little poem called "The Two Streams" was first printed, a writer in the +New York "Evening Post" virtually accused the author of it of borrowing +the thought from a baccalaureate sermon of President Hopkins of +Williamstown, and printed a quotation from that discourse, which, as I +thought, a thief or catch-poll might well consider as establishing a fair +presumption that it was so borrowed. I was at the same time wholly +unconscious of ever having met with the discourse or the sentence which +the verses were most like, nor do I believe I ever had seen or heard +either. Some time after this, happening to meet my eloquent cousin, +Wendell Phillips, I mentioned the fact to him, and he told me that he had +once used the special image said to be borrowed, in a discourse delivered +at Williamstown. On relating this to my friend Mr. Buchanan Read, he +informed me that he too, had used the image,--perhaps referring to his +poem called "The Twins." He thought Tennyson had used it also. The +parting of the streams on the Alps is poetically elaborated in a passage +attributed to "M. Loisne," printed in the "Boston Evening Transcript" for +October 23, 1859. Captain, afterwards Sir Francis Head, speaks of the +showers parting on the Cordilleras, one portion going to the Atlantic, +one to the Pacific. I found the image running loose in my mind, without +a halter. It suggested itself as an illustration of the will, and I +worked the poem out by the aid of Mitchell's School Atlas.--The spores of +a great many ideas are floating about in the atmosphere. We no more know +where all the growths of our mind came from, than where the lichens which +eat the names off from the gravestones borrowed the germs that gave them +birth. The two match-boxes were just alike, but neither was a +plagiarism. + +In the morning I took to the same wagon once more, but, instead of James +Grayden, I was to have for my driver a young man who spelt his name +"Phillip Ottenheimer" and whose features at once showed him to be an +Israelite. I found him agreeable enough, and disposed to talk. So I +asked him many questions about his religion, and got some answers that +sound strangely in Christian ears. He was from Wittenberg, and had been +educated in strict Jewish fashion. From his childhood he had read +Hebrew, but was not much of a scholar otherwise. A young person of his +race lost caste utterly by marrying a Christian. The Founder of our +religion was considered by the Israelites to have been "a right smart man +and a great doctor." But the horror with which the reading of the New +Testament by any young person of their faith would be regarded was as +great, I judged by his language, as that of one of our straitest +sectaries would be, if he found his son or daughter perusing the "Age of +Reason." + +In approaching Frederick, the singular beauty of its clustered spires +struck me very much, so that I was not surprised to find "Fair-View" laid +down about this point on a railroad map. I wish some wandering +photographer would take a picture of the place, a stereoscopic one, if +possible, to show how gracefully, how charmingly, its group of steeples +nestles among the Maryland hills. The town had a poetical look from a +distance, as if seers and dreamers might dwell there. The first sign I +read, on entering its long street, might perhaps be considered as +confirming my remote impression. It bore these words: "Miss Ogle, Past, +Present, and Future." On arriving, I visited Lieutenant Abbott, and the +attenuated unhappy gentleman, his neighbor, sharing between them as my +parting gift what I had left of the balsam known to the Pharmacopoeia as +Spiritus Vini Gallici. I took advantage of General Shriver's always open +door to write a letter home, but had not time to partake of his offered +hospitality. The railroad bridge over the Monocacy had been rebuilt since +I passed through Frederick, and we trundled along over the track toward +Baltimore. + +It was a disappointment, on reaching the Eutaw House, where I had ordered +all communications to be addressed, to find no telegraphic message from +Philadelphia or Boston, stating that Captain H. had arrived at the former +place, "wound doing well in good spirits expects to leave soon for +Boston." After all, it was no great matter; the Captain was, no doubt, +snugly lodged before this in the house called Beautiful, at * * * * +Walnut Street, where that "grave and beautiful damsel named Discretion" +had already welcomed him, smiling, though "the water stood in her eyes," +and had "called out Prudence, Piety, and Charity, who, after a little +more discourse with him, had him into the family." + +The friends I had met at the Eutaw House had all gone but one, the lady +of an officer from Boston, who was most amiable and agreeable, and whose +benevolence, as I afterwards learned, soon reached the invalids I had +left suffering at Frederick. General Wool still walked the corridors, +inexpansive, with Fort McHenry on his shoulders, and Baltimore in his +breeches-pocket, and his courteous aid again pressed upon me his kind +offices. About the doors of the hotel the news-boys cried the papers in +plaintive, wailing tones, as different from the sharp accents of their +Boston counterparts as a sigh from the southwest is from a northeastern +breeze. To understand what they said was, of course, impossible to any +but an educated ear, and if I made out "Starr" and "Clipp'rr," it was +because I knew beforehand what must be the burden of their advertising +coranach. + +I set out for Philadelphia on the morrow, Tuesday the twenty-third, there +beyond question to meet my Captain, once more united to his brave wounded +companions under that roof which covers a household of as noble hearts as +ever throbbed with human sympathies. Back River, Bush River, Gunpowder +Creek,--lives there the man with soul so dead that his memory has +cerements to wrap up these senseless names in the same envelopes with +their meaningless localities? But the Susquehanna,--the broad, the +beautiful, the historical, the poetical Susquehanna,--the river of +Wyoming and of Gertrude, dividing the shores where + + "Aye those sunny mountains half-way down + Would echo flageolet from some romantic town,"-- + +did not my heart renew its allegiance to the poet who has made it lovely +to the imagination as well as to the eye, and so identified his fame with +the noble stream that it "rolls mingling with his fame forever?" The +prosaic traveller perhaps remembers it better from the fact that a great +sea-monster, in the shape of a steamboat, takes him, sitting in the car, +on its back, and swims across with him like Arion's dolphin,--also that +mercenary men on board offer him canvas-backs in the season, and ducks of +lower degree at other periods. + +At Philadelphia again at last! Drive fast, O colored man and brother, to +the house called Beautiful, where my Captain lies sore wounded, waiting +for the sound of the chariot wheels which bring to his bedside the face +and the voice nearer than any save one to his heart in this his hour of +pain and weakness! Up a long street with white shutters and white steps +to all the houses. Off at right angles into another long street with +white shutters and white steps to all the houses. Off again at another +right angle into still another long street with white shutters and white +steps to all the houses. The natives of this city pretend to know one +street from another by some individual differences of aspect; but the +best way for a stranger to distinguish the streets he has been in from +others is to make a cross or other mark on the white shutters. + +This corner-house is the one. Ring softly,--for the Lieutenant-Colonel +lies there with a dreadfully wounded arm, and two sons of the family, one +wounded like the Colonel, one fighting with death in the fog of a typhoid +fever, will start with fresh pangs at the least sound you can make. I +entered the house, but no cheerful smile met me. The sufferers were each +of them thought to be in a critical condition. The fourth bed, waiting +its tenant day after day, was still empty. Not a word from my Captain. + +Then, foolish, fond body that I was, my heart sank within me. Had he +been taken ill on the road, perhaps been attacked with those formidable +symptoms which sometimes come on suddenly after wounds that seemed to be +doing well enough, and was his life ebbing away in some lonely cottage, +nay, in some cold barn or shed, or at the wayside, unknown, uncared for? +Somewhere between Philadelphia and Hagerstown, if not at the latter town, +he must be, at any rate. I must sweep the hundred and eighty miles +between these places as one would sweep a chamber where a precious pearl +had been dropped. I must have a companion in my search, partly to help +me look about, and partly because I was getting nervous and felt lonely. +Charley said he would go with me,--Charley, my Captain's beloved friend, +gentle, but full of spirit and liveliness, cultivated, social, +affectionate, a good talker, a most agreeable letter-writer, observing, +with large relish of life, and keen sense of humor. He was not well +enough to go, some of the timid ones said; but he answered by packing his +carpet-bag, and in an hour or two we were on the Pennsylvania Central +Railroad in full blast for Harrisburg. + +I should have been a forlorn creature but for the presence of my +companion. In his delightful company I half forgot my anxieties, which, +exaggerated as they may seem now, were not unnatural after what I had +seen of the confusion and distress that had followed the great battle, +nay, which seem almost justified by the recent statement that "high +officers" were buried after that battle whose names were never +ascertained. I noticed little matters, as usual. The road was filled in +between the rails with cracked stones, such as are used for macadamizing +streets. They keep the dust down, I suppose, for I could not think of +any other use for them. By and by the glorious valley which stretches +along through Chester and Lancaster Counties opened upon us. Much as I +had heard of the fertile regions of Pennsylvania, the vast scale and the +uniform luxuriance of this region astonished me. The grazing pastures +were so green, the fields were under such perfect culture, the cattle +looked so sleek, the houses were so comfortable, the barns so ample, the +fences so well kept, that I did not wonder, when I was told that this +region was called the England of Pennsylvania. The people whom we saw +were, like the cattle, well nourished; the young women looked round and +wholesome. + +"Grass makes girls." I said to my companion, and left him to work out my +Orphic saying, thinking to myself, that as guano makes grass, it was a +legitimate conclusion that Ichaboe must be a nursery of female +loveliness. + +As the train stopped at the different stations, I inquired at each if +they had any wounded officers. None as yet; the red rays of the +battle-field had not streamed off so far as this. Evening found us in +the cars; they lighted candles in spring-candle-sticks; odd enough I +thought it in the land of oil-wells and unmeasured floods of kerosene. +Some fellows turned up the back of a seat so as to make it horizontal, +and began gambling, or pretending to gamble; it looked as if they were +trying to pluck a young countryman; but appearances are deceptive, and no +deeper stake than "drinks for the crowd" seemed at last to be involved. +But remembering that murder has tried of late years to establish itself +as an institution in the cars, I was less tolerant of the doings of these +"sportsmen" who tried to turn our public conveyance into a travelling +Frascati. They acted as if they were used to it, and nobody seemed to +pay much attention to their manoeuvres. + +We arrived at Harrisburg in the course of the evening, and attempted to +find our way to the Jones House, to which we had been commended. By some +mistake, intentional on the part of somebody, as it may have been, or +purely accidental, we went to the Herr House instead. I entered my name +in the book, with that of my companion. A plain, middle-aged man stepped +up, read it to himself in low tones, and coupled to it a literary title +by which I have been sometimes known. He proved to be a graduate of Brown +University, and had heard a certain Phi Beta Kappa poem delivered there a +good many years ago. I remembered it, too; Professor Goddard, whose +sudden and singular death left such lasting regret, was the Orator. I +recollect that while I was speaking a drum went by the church, and how I +was disgusted to see all the heads near the windows thrust out of them, +as if the building were on fire. Cedat armis toga. The clerk in the +office, a mild, pensive, unassuming young man, was very polite in his +manners, and did all he could to make us comfortable. He was of a +literary turn, and knew one of his guests in his character of author. At +tea, a mild old gentleman, with white hair and beard, sat next us. He, +too, had come hunting after his son, a lieutenant in a Pennsylvania +regiment. Of these, father and son, more presently. + +After tea we went to look up Dr. Wilson, chief medical officer of the +hospitals in the place, who was staying at the Brady House. A +magnificent old toddy-mixer, Bardolphian in hue, and stern of aspect, as +all grog-dispensers must be, accustomed as they are to dive through the +features of men to the bottom of their souls and pockets to see whether +they are solvent to the amount of sixpence, answered my question by a +wave of one hand, the other being engaged in carrying a dram to his lips. +His superb indifference gratified my artistic feeling more than it +wounded my personal sensibilities. Anything really superior in its line +claims my homage, and this man was the ideal bartender, above all vulgar +passions, untouched by commonplace sympathies, himself a lover of the +liquid happiness he dispenses, and filled with a fine scorn of all those +lesser felicities conferred by love or fame or wealth or any of the +roundabout agencies for which his fiery elixir is the cheap, all-powerful +substitute. + +Dr. Wilson was in bed, though it was early in the evening, not having +slept for I don't know how many nights. + +"Take my card up to him, if you please." "This way, sir." + +A man who has not slept for a fortnight or so is not expected to be as +affable, when attacked in his bed, as a French Princess of old time at +her morning receptions. Dr. Wilson turned toward me, as I entered, +without effusion, but without rudeness. His thick, dark moustache was +chopped off square at the lower edge of the upper lip, which implied a +decisive, if not a peremptory, style of character. + +I am Dr. So-and-So of Hubtown, looking after my wounded son. (I gave my +name and said Boston, of course, in reality.) + +Dr. Wilson leaned on his elbow and looked up in my face, his features +growing cordial. Then he put out his hand, and good-humoredly excused +his reception of me. The day before, as he told me, he had dismissed +from the service a medical man hailing from ******, Pennsylvania, bearing +my last name, preceded by the same two initials; and he supposed, when my +card came up, it was this individual who was disturbing his slumbers. +The coincidence was so unlikely a priori, unless some forlorn parent +without antecedents had named, a child after me, that I could not help +cross-questioning the Doctor, who assured me deliberately that the fact +was just as he had said, even to the somewhat unusual initials. Dr. +Wilson very kindly furnished me all the information in his power, gave me +directions for telegraphing to Chambersburg, and showed every disposition +to serve me. + +On returning to the Herr House, we found the mild, white-haired old +gentleman in a very happy state. He had just discovered his son, in a +comfortable condition, at the United States Hotel. He thought that he +could probably give us some information which would prove interesting. +To the United States Hotel we repaired, then, in company with our +kind-hearted old friend, who evidently wanted to see me as happy as +himself. He went up-stairs to his son's chamber, and presently came down +to conduct us there. + +Lieutenant P________, of the Pennsylvania __th, was a very fresh, +bright-looking young man, lying in bed from the effects of a recent +injury received in action. A grape-shot, after passing through a post +and a board, had struck him in the hip, bruising, but not penetrating or +breaking. He had good news for me. + +That very afternoon, a party of wounded officers had passed through +Harrisburg, going East. He had conversed in the bar-room of this hotel +with one of them, who was wounded about the shoulder (it might be the +lower part of the neck), and had his arm in a sling. He belonged to the +Twentieth Massachusetts; the Lieutenant saw that he was a Captain, by the +two bars on his shoulder-strap. His name was my family-name; he was tall +and youthful, like my Captain. At four o'clock he left in the train for +Philadelphia. Closely questioned, the Lieutenant's evidence was as +round, complete, and lucid as a Japanese sphere of rock-crystal. + +TE DEUM LAUDAMUS! The Lord's name be praised! The dead pain in the +semilunar ganglion (which I must remind my reader is a kind of stupid, +unreasoning brain, beneath the pit of the stomach, common to man and +beast, which aches in the supreme moments of life, as when the dam loses +her young ones, or the wild horse is lassoed) stopped short. There was a +feeling as if I had slipped off a tight boot, or cut a strangling +garter,--only it was all over my system. What more could I ask to assure +me of the Captain's safety? As soon as the telegraph office opens +tomorrow morning we will send a message to our friends in Philadelphia, +and get a reply, doubtless, which will settle the whole matter. + +The hopeful morrow dawned at last, and the message was sent accordingly. +In due time, the following reply was received: "Phil Sept 24 I think the +report you have heard that W [the Captain] has gone East must be an error +we have not seen or heard of him here M L H" + +DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI! He could not have passed through Philadelphia +without visiting the house called Beautiful, where he had been so +tenderly cared for after his wound at Ball's Bluff, and where those whom +he loved were lying in grave peril of life or limb. Yet he did pass +through Harrisburg, going East, going to Philadelphia, on his way home. +Ah, this is it! He must have taken the late night-train from +Philadelphia for New York, in his impatience to reach home. There is such +a train, not down in the guide-book, but we were assured of the fact at +the Harrisburg depot. By and by came the reply from Dr. Wilson's +telegraphic message: nothing had been heard of the Captain at +Chambersburg. Still later, another message came from our Philadelphia +friend, saying that he was seen on Friday last at the house of Mrs. +K________, a well-known Union lady in Hagerstown. Now this could not be +true, for he did not leave Keedysville until Saturday; but the name of +the lady furnished a clew by which we could probably track him. A +telegram was at once sent to Mrs. K_______, asking information. It was +transmitted immediately, but when the answer would be received was +uncertain, as the Government almost monopolized the line. I was, on the +whole, so well satisfied that the Captain had gone East, that, unless +something were heard to the contrary, I proposed following him in the +late train leaving a little after midnight for Philadelphia. + +This same morning we visited several of the temporary hospitals, churches +and school-houses, where the wounded were lying. In one of these, after +looking round as usual, I asked aloud, "Any Massachusetts men here?" Two +bright faces lifted themselves from their pillows and welcomed me by +name. The one nearest me was private John B. Noyes of Company B, +Massachusetts Thirteenth, son of my old college class-tutor, now the +reverend and learned Professor of Hebrew, etc., in Harvard University. +His neighbor was Corporal Armstrong of the same Company. Both were +slightly wounded, doing well. I learned then and since from Mr. Noyes +that they and their comrades were completely overwhelmed by the +attentions of the good people of Harrisburg,--that the ladies brought +them fruits and flowers, and smiles, better than either,--and that the +little boys of the place were almost fighting for the privilege of doing +their errands. I am afraid there will be a good many hearts pierced in +this war that will have no bulletmark to show. + +There were some heavy hours to get rid of, and we thought a visit to Camp +Curtin might lighten some of them. A rickety wagon carried us to the +camp, in company with a young woman from Troy, who had a basket of good +things with her for a sick brother. "Poor boy! he will be sure to die," +she said. The rustic sentries uncrossed their muskets and let us in. +The camp was on a fair plain, girdled with hills, spacious, well kept +apparently, but did not present any peculiar attraction for us. The +visit would have been a dull one, had we not happened to get sight of a +singular-looking set of human beings in the distance. They were clad in +stuff of different hues, gray and brown being the leading shades, but +both subdued by a neutral tint, such as is wont to harmonize the +variegated apparel of travel-stained vagabonds. They looked slouchy, +listless, torpid,--an ill-conditioned crew, at first sight, made up of +such fellows as an old woman would drive away from her hen-roost with a +broomstick. Yet these were estrays from the fiery army which has given +our generals so much trouble,--"Secesh prisoners," as a bystander told +us. A talk with them might be profitable and entertaining. But they +were tabooed to the common visitor, and it was necessary to get inside of +the line which separated us from them. + +A solid, square captain was standing near by, to whom we were referred. +Look a man calmly through the very centre of his pupils and ask him for +anything with a tone implying entire conviction that he will grant it, +and he will very commonly consent to the thing asked, were it to commit +hari-kari. The Captain acceded to my postulate, and accepted my friend +as a corollary. As one string of my own ancestors was of Batavian +origin, I may be permitted to say that my new friend was of the Dutch +type, like the Amsterdam galiots, broad in the beam, capacious in the +hold, and calculated to carry a heavy cargo rather than to make fast +time. He must have been in politics at some time or other, for he made +orations to all the "Secesh," in which he explained to them that the +United States considered and treated them like children, and enforced +upon them the ridiculous impossibility of the Rebels attempting to do +anything against such a power as that of the National Government. + +Much as his discourse edified them and enlightened me, it interfered +somewhat with my little plans of entering into frank and friendly talk +with some of these poor fellows, for whom I could not help feeling a kind +of human sympathy, though I am as venomous a hater of the Rebellion as +one is like to find under the stars and stripes. It is fair to take a +man prisoner. It is fair to make speeches to a man. But to take a man +prisoner and then make speeches to him while in durance is not fair. + +I began a few pleasant conversations, which would have come to something +but for the reason assigned. + +One old fellow had a long beard, a drooping eyelid, and a black clay pipe +in his mouth. He was a Scotchman from Ayr, dour enough, and little +disposed to be communicative, though I tried him with the "Twa Briggs," +and, like all Scotchmen, he was a reader of "Burrns." He professed to +feel no interest in the cause for which he was fighting, and was in the +army, I judged, only from compulsion. There was a wild-haired, unsoaped +boy, with pretty, foolish features enough, who looked as if he might be +about seventeen, as he said he was. I give my questions and his answers +literally. + +"What State do you come from?" + +"Georgy." + +"What part of Georgia?" + +"Midway." + +--[How odd that is! My father was settled for seven years as pastor over +the church at Midway, Georgia, and this youth is very probably a grandson +or great grandson of one of his parishioners.] + +"Where did you go to church when you were at home?" + +"Never went inside 'f a church b't once in m' life." + +"What did you do before you became a soldier?" + +"Nothin'." + +"What do you mean to do when you get back?" + +"Nothin'." + +Who could have any other feeling than pity for this poor human weed, this +dwarfed and etiolated soul, doomed by neglect to an existence but one +degree above that of the idiot? + +With the group was a lieutenant, buttoned close in his gray coat,--one +button gone, perhaps to make a breastpin for some fair traitorous bosom. +A short, stocky man, undistinguishable from one of the "subject race" by +any obvious meanderings of the sangre azul on his exposed surfaces. He +did not say much, possibly because he was convinced by the statements and +arguments of the Dutch captain. He had on strong, iron-heeled shoes, of +English make, which he said cost him seventeen dollars in Richmond. + +I put the question, in a quiet, friendly way, to several of the +prisoners, what they were fighting for. One answered, "For our homes." +Two or three others said they did not know, and manifested great +indifference to the whole matter, at which another of their number, a +sturdy fellow, took offence, and muttered opinions strongly derogatory to +those who would not stand up for the cause they had been fighting for. A +feeble; attenuated old man, who wore the Rebel uniform, if such it could +be called, stood by without showing any sign of intelligence. It was +cutting very close to the bone to carve such a shred of humanity from the +body politic to make a soldier of. + +We were just leaving, when a face attracted me, and I stopped the party. +"That is the true Southern type," I said to my companion. A young +fellow, a little over twenty, rather tall, slight, with a perfectly +smooth, boyish cheek, delicate, somewhat high features, and a fine, +almost feminine mouth, stood at the opening of his tent, and as we turned +towards him fidgeted a little nervously with one hand at the loose +canvas, while he seemed at the same time not unwilling to talk. He was +from Mississippi, he said, had been at Georgetown College, and was so far +imbued with letters that even the name of the literary humility before +him was not new to his ears. Of course I found it easy to come into +magnetic relation with him, and to ask him without incivility what he was +fighting for. "Because I like the excitement of it," he answered. I +know those fighters with women's mouths and boys' cheeks. One such from +the circle of my own friends, sixteen years old, slipped away from his +nursery, and dashed in under, an assumed name among the red-legged +Zouaves, in whose company he got an ornamental bullet-mark in one of the +earliest conflicts of the war. + +"Did you ever see a genuine Yankee?" said my Philadelphia friend to the +young Mississippian. + +"I have shot at a good many of them," he replied, modestly, his woman's +mouth stirring a little, with a pleasant, dangerous smile. + +The Dutch captain here put his foot into the conversation, as his +ancestors used to put theirs into the scale, when they were buying furs +of the Indians by weight,--so much for the weight of a hand, so much for +the weight of a foot. It deranged the balance of our intercourse; there +was no use in throwing a fly where a paving-stone had just splashed into +the water, and I nodded a good-by to the boy-fighter, thinking how much +pleasanter it was for my friend the Captain to address him with +unanswerable arguments and crushing statements in his own tent than it +would be to meet him upon some remote picket station and offer his fair +proportions to the quick eye of a youngster who would draw a bead on him +before he had time to say dunder and blixum. + +We drove back to the town. No message. After dinner still no message. +Dr. Cuyler, Chief Army Hospital Inspector, is in town, they say. Let us +hunt him up,--perhaps he can help us. + +We found him at the Jones House. A gentleman of large proportions, but +of lively temperament, his frame knit in the North, I think, but ripened +in Georgia, incisive, prompt but good-humored, wearing his broad-brimmed, +steeple-crowned felt hat with the least possible tilt on one side,--a +sure sign of exuberant vitality in a mature and dignified person like +him, business-like in his ways, and not to be interrupted while occupied +with another, but giving himself up heartily to the claimant who held him +for the time. He was so genial, so cordial, so encouraging, that it +seemed as if the clouds, which had been thick all the morning, broke away +as we came into his presence, and the sunshine of his large nature filled +the air all around us. He took the matter in hand at once, as if it were +his own private affair. In ten minutes he had a second telegraphic +message on its way to Mrs. K at Hagerstown, sent through the Government +channel from the State Capitol,--one so direct and urgent that I should +be sure of an answer to it, whatever became of the one I had sent in the +morning. + +While this was going on, we hired a dilapidated barouche, driven by an +odd young native, neither boy nor man, "as a codling when 't is almost an +apple," who said wery for very, simple and sincere, who smiled faintly +at our pleasantries, always with a certain reserve of suspicion, and a +gleam of the shrewdness that all men get who live in the atmosphere of +horses. He drove us round by the Capitol grounds, white with tents, +which were disgraced in my eyes by unsoldierly scrawls in huge letters, +thus: THE SEVEN BLOOMSBURY BROTHERS, DEVIL'S HOLE, and similar +inscriptions. Then to the Beacon Street of Harrisburg, which looks upon +the Susquehanna instead of the Common, and shows a long front of handsome +houses with fair gardens. The river is pretty nearly a mile across here, +but very shallow now. The codling told us that a Rebel spy had been +caught trying its fords a little while ago, and was now at Camp Curtin +with a heavy ball chained to his leg,--a popular story, but a lie, Dr. +Wilson said. A little farther along we came to the barkless stump of the +tree to which Mr. Harris, the Cecrops of the city named after him, was +tied by the Indians for some unpleasant operation of scalping or +roasting, when he was rescued by friendly savages, who paddled across the +stream to save him. Our youngling pointed out a very respectable-looking +stone house as having been "built by the Indians" about those times. +Guides have queer notions occasionally. + +I was at Niagara just when Dr. Rae arrived there with his companions and +dogs and things from his Arctic search after the lost navigator. + +"Who are those?" I said to my conductor. + +"Them?" he answered. "Them's the men that's been out West, out to +Michig'n, aft' Sir Ben Franklin." + +Of the other sights of Harrisburg the Brant House or Hotel, or whatever +it is called, seems most worth notice. Its facade is imposing, with a +row of stately columns, high above which a broad sign impends, like a +crag over the brow of a lofty precipice. The lower floor only appeared +to be open to the public. Its tessellated pavement and ample courts +suggested the idea of a temple where great multitudes might kneel +uncrowded at their devotions; but from appearances about the place where +the altar should be, I judged, that, if one asked the officiating priest +for the cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, his prayer would not be +unanswered. The edifice recalled to me a similar phenomenon I had once +looked upon,--the famous Caffe Pedrocchi at Padua. It was the same +thing in Italy and America: a rich man builds himself a mausoleum, and +calls it a place of entertainment. The fragrance of innumerable +libations and the smoke of incense-breathing cigars and pipes shall +ascend day and night through the arches of his funereal monument. What +are the poor dips which flare and flicker on the crowns of spikes that +stand at the corners of St. Genevieve's filigree-cased sarcophagus to +this perpetual offering of sacrifice? + +Ten o'clock in the evening was approaching. The telegraph office would +presently close, and as yet there were no tidings from Hagerstown. Let +us step over and see for ourselves. A message! A message! + +"Captain H. still here leaves seven to-morrow for Harrisburg Penna Is +doing well Mrs HK--." + +A note from Dr. Cuyler to the same effect came soon afterwards to the +hotel. + +We shall sleep well to-night; but let us sit awhile with nubiferous, or, +if we may coin a word, nepheligenous accompaniment, such as shall gently +narcotize the over-wearied brain and fold its convolutions for slumber +like the leaves of a lily at nightfall. For now the over-tense nerves +are all unstraining themselves, and a buzz, like that which comes over +one who stops after being long jolted upon an uneasy pavement, makes the +whole frame alive with a luxurious languid sense of all its inmost +fibres. Our cheerfulness ran over, and the mild, pensive clerk was so +magnetized by it that he came and sat down with us. He presently +confided to me, with infinite naivete and ingenuousness, that, judging +from my personal appearance, he should not have thought me the writer +that he in his generosity reckoned me to be. His conception, so far as I +could reach it, involved a huge, uplifted forehead, embossed with +protuberant organs of the intellectual faculties, such as all writers are +supposed to possess in abounding measure. While I fell short of his +ideal in this respect, he was pleased to say that he found me by no means +the remote and inaccessible personage he had imagined, and that I had +nothing of the dandy about me, which last compliment I had a modest +consciousness of most abundantly deserving. + +Sweet slumbers brought us to the morning of Thursday. The train from +Hagerstown was due at 11.15 A. M: We took another ride behind the +codling, who showed us the sights of yesterday over again. Being in a +gracious mood of mind, I enlarged on the varying aspects of the +town-pumps and other striking objects which we had once inspected, as +seen by the different lights of evening and morning. After this, we +visited the school-house hospital. A fine young fellow, whose arm had +been shattered, was just falling into the spasms of lock-jaw. The beads +of sweat stood large and round on his flushed and contracted features. +He was under the effect of opiates,--why not (if his case was desperate, +as it seemed to be considered) stop his sufferings with chloroform? It +was suggested that it might shorten life. "What then?" I said. "Are a +dozen additional spasms worth living for?" + +The time approached for the train to arrive from Hagerstown, and we went +to the station. I was struck, while waiting there, with what seemed to +me a great want of care for the safety of the people standing round. +Just after my companion and myself had stepped off the track, I noticed a +car coming quietly along at a walk, as one may say, without engine, +without visible conductor, without any person heralding its approach, so +silently, so insidiously, that I could not help thinking how very near it +came to flattening out me and my match-box worse than the Ravel +pantomimist and his snuff-box were flattened out in the play. The train +was late,--fifteen minutes, half an hour late, and I began to get +nervous, lest something had happened. While I was looking for it, out +started a freight-train, as if on purpose to meet the cars I was +expecting, for a grand smash-up. I shivered at the thought, and asked an +employee of the road, with whom I had formed an acquaintance a few +minutes old, why there should not be a collision of the expected train +with this which was just going out. He smiled an official smile, and +answered that they arranged to prevent that, or words to that effect. + +Twenty-four hours had not passed from that moment when a collision did +occur, just out of the city, where I feared it, by which at least eleven +persons were killed, and from forty to sixty more were maimed and +crippled! + +To-day there was the delay spoken of, but nothing worse. The expected +train came in so quietly that I was almost startled to see it on the +track. Let us walk calmly through the cars, and look around us. + +In the first car, on the fourth seat to the right, I saw my Captain; +there saw I him, even my first-born, whom I had sought through many +cities. + +"How are you, Boy?" + +"How are you, Dad?" + +Such are the proprieties of life, as they are observed among us +Anglo-Saxons of the nineteenth century, decently disguising those natural +impulses that made Joseph, the Prime Minister of Egypt, weep aloud so +that the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard, nay, which had once +overcome his shaggy old uncle Esau so entirely that he fell on his +brother's neck and cried like a baby in the presence of all the women. +But the hidden cisterns of the soul may be filling fast with sweet tears, +while the windows through which it looks are undimmed by a drop or a film +of moisture. + +These are times in which we cannot live solely for selfish joys or +griefs. I had not let fall the hand I held, when a sad, calm voice +addressed me by name. I fear that at the moment I was too much absorbed +in my own feelings; for certainly at any other time. I should have +yielded myself without stint to the sympathy which this meeting might +well call forth. + +"You remember my son, Cortland Saunders, whom I brought to see you once +in Boston?" + +"I do remember him well." + +"He was killed on Monday, at Shepherdstown. I am carrying his body back +with me on this train. He was my only child. If you could come to my +house,--I can hardly call it my home now,--it would be a pleasure to me." + +This young man, belonging in Philadelphia, was the author of a "New +System of Latin Paradigms," a work showing extraordinary scholarship and +capacity. It was this book which first made me acquainted with him, and +I kept him in my memory, for there was genius in the youth. Some time +afterwards he came to me with a modest request to be introduced to +President Felton, and one or two others, who would aid him in a course of +independent study he was proposing to himself. I was most happy to +smooth the way for him, and he came repeatedly after this to see me and +express his satisfaction in the opportunities for study he enjoyed at +Cambridge. He was a dark, still, slender person, always with a +trance-like remoteness, a mystic dreaminess of manner, such as I never +saw in any other youth. Whether he heard with difficulty, or whether his +mind reacted slowly on an alien thought, I could not say; but his answer +would often be behind time, and then a vague, sweet smile, or a few words +spoken under his breath, as if he had been trained in sick men's +chambers. For such a young man, seemingly destined for the inner life of +contemplation, to be a soldier seemed almost unnatural. Yet he spoke to +me of his intention to offer himself to his country, and his blood must +now be reckoned among the precious sacrifices which will make her soil +sacred forever. Had he lived, I doubt not that he would have redeemed +the rare promise of his earlier years. He has done better, for he has +died that unborn generations may attain the hopes held out to our nation +and to mankind. + +So, then, I had been within ten miles of the place where my wounded +soldier was lying, and then calmly turned my back upon him to come once +more round by a journey of three or four hundred miles to the same region +I had left! No mysterious attraction warned me that the heart warm with +the same blood as mine was throbbing so near my own. I thought of that +lovely, tender passage where Gabriel glides unconsciously by Evangeline +upon the great river. Ah, me! if that railroad crash had been a few +hours earlier, we two should never have met again, after coming so close +to each other! + +The source of my repeated disappointments was soon made clear enough. The +Captain had gone to Hagerstown, intending to take the cars at once for +Philadelphia, as his three friends actually did, and as I took it for +granted he certainly would. But as he walked languidly along, some +ladies saw him across the street, and seeing, were moved with pity, and +pitying, spoke such soft words that he was tempted to accept their +invitation and rest awhile beneath their hospitable roof. The mansion +was old, as the dwellings of gentlefolks should be; the ladies were some +of them young, and all were full of kindness; there were gentle cares, +and unasked luxuries, and pleasant talk, and music-sprinklings from the +piano, with a sweet voice to keep them company,--and all this after the +swamps of the Chickahominy, the mud and flies of Harrison's Landing, the +dragging marches, the desperate battles, the fretting wound, the jolting +ambulance, the log-house, and the rickety milk--cart! Thanks, uncounted +thanks to the angelic ladies whose charming attentions detained him from +Saturday to Thursday, to his great advantage and my infinite +bewilderment! As for his wound, how could it do otherwise than well +under such hands? The bullet had gone smoothly through, dodging +everything but a few nervous branches, which would come right in time and +leave him as well as ever. + +At ten that evening we were in Philadelphia, the Captain at the house of +the friends so often referred to, and I the guest of Charley, my kind +companion. The Quaker element gives an irresistible attraction to these +benignant Philadelphia households. Many things reminded me that I was no +longer in the land of the Pilgrims. On the table were Kool Slaa and +Schmeer Kase, but the good grandmother who dispensed with such quiet, +simple grace these and more familiar delicacies was literally ignorant of +Baked Beans, and asked if it was the Lima bean which was employed in that +marvellous dish of animalized leguminous farina! + +Charley was pleased with my comparing the face of the small Ethiop known +to his household as "Tines" to a huckleberry with features. He also +approved my parallel between a certain German blonde young maiden whom we +passed in the street and the "Morris White" peach. But he was so +good-humored at times, that, if one scratched a lucifer, he accepted it +as an illumination. + +A day in Philadelphia left a very agreeable impression of the outside of +that great city, which has endeared itself so much of late to all the +country by its most noble and generous care of our soldiers. Measured by +its sovereign hotel, the Continental, it would stand at the head of our +economic civilization. It provides for the comforts and conveniences, +and many of the elegances of life, more satisfactorily than any American +city, perhaps than any other city anywhere. Many of its characteristics +are accounted for to some extent by its geographical position. It is the +great neutral centre of the Continent, where the fiery enthusiasms of the +South and the keen fanaticisms of the North meet at their outer limits, +and result in a compound which neither turns litmus red nor turmeric +brown. It lives largely on its traditions, of which, leaving out +Franklin and Independence Hall, the most imposing must be considered its +famous water-works. In my younger days I visited Fairmount, and it was +with a pious reverence that I renewed my pilgrimage to that perennial +fountain. Its watery ventricles were throbbing with the same systole and +diastole as when, the blood of twenty years bounding in my own heart, I +looked upon their giant mechanism. But in the place of "Pratt's Garden" +was an open park, and the old house where Robert Morris held his court in +a former generation was changing to a public restaurant. A suspension +bridge cobwebbed itself across the Schuylkill where that audacious arch +used to leap the river at a single bound,--an arch of greater span, as +they loved to tell us, than was ever before constructed. The Upper Ferry +Bridge was to the Schuylkill what the Colossus was to the harbor of +Rhodes. It had an air of dash about it which went far towards redeeming +the dead level of respectable average which flattens the physiognomy of +the rectangular city. Philadelphia will never be herself again until +another Robert Mills and another Lewis Wernwag have shaped her a new +palladium. She must leap the Schuylkill again, or old men will sadly +shake their heads, like the Jews at the sight of the second temple, +remembering the glories of that which it replaced. + +There are times when Ethiopian minstrelsy can amuse, if it does not +charm, a weary soul, and such a vacant hour there was on this same Friday +evening. The "opera-house" was spacious and admirably ventilated. As I +was listening to the merriment of the sooty buffoons, I happened to cast +my eyes up to the ceiling, and through an open semicircular window a +bright solitary star looked me calmly in the eyes. It was a strange +intrusion of the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite spaces. I +called the attention of one of my neighbors to it, but "Bones" was +irresistibly droll, and Arcturus, or Aldebaran, or whatever the blazing +luminary may have been, with all his revolving worlds, sailed uncared-for +down the firmament. + +On Saturday morning we took up our line of march for New York. Mr. +Felton, President of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, +had already called upon me, with a benevolent and sagacious look on his +face which implied that he knew how to do me a service and meant to do +it. Sure enough, when we got to the depot, we found a couch spread for +the Captain, and both of us were passed on to New York with no visits, +but those of civility, from the conductor. The best thing I saw on the +route was a rustic fence, near Elizabethtown, I think, but I am not quite +sure. There was more genius in it than in any structure of the kind I +have ever seen,--each length being of a special pattern, ramified, +reticulated, contorted, as the limbs of the trees had grown. I trust +some friend will photograph or stereograph this fence for me, to go with +the view of the spires of Frederick, already referred to, as mementos of +my journey. + +I had come to feeling that I knew most of the respectably dressed people +whom I met in the cars, and had been in contact with them at some time or +other. Three or four ladies and gentlemen were near us, forming a group +by themselves. Presently one addressed me by name, and, on inquiry, I +found him to be the gentleman who was with me in the pulpit as Orator on +the occasion of another Phi Beta Kappa poem, one delivered at New Haven. +The party were very courteous and friendly, and contributed in various +ways to our comfort. + +It sometimes seems to me as if there were only about a thousand people in +the world, who keep going round and round behind the scenes and then +before them, like the "army" in a beggarly stage-show. Suppose that I +should really wish; some time or other, to get away from this everlasting +circle of revolving supernumeraries, where should I buy a ticket the like +of which was not in some of their pockets, or find a seat to which some +one of them was not a neighbor. + +A little less than a year before, after the Ball's Bluff accident, the +Captain, then the Lieutenant, and myself had reposed for a night on our +homeward journey at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where we were lodged on the +ground-floor, and fared sumptuously. We were not so peculiarly fortunate +this time, the house being really very full. Farther from the flowers and +nearer to the stars,--to reach the neighborhood of which last the per +ardua of three or four flights of stairs was formidable for any mortal, +wounded or well. + +The "vertical railway" settled that for us, however. It is a giant +corkscrew forever pulling a mammoth cork, which, by some divine judgment, +is no sooner drawn than it is replaced in its position. This ascending +and descending stopper is hollow, carpeted, with cushioned seats, and is +watched over by two condemned souls, called conductors, one of whom is +said to be named Igion, and the other Sisyphus. + +I love New York, because, as in Paris, everybody that lives in it feels +that it is his property,--at least, as much as it is anybody's. My +Broadway, in particular, I love almost as I used to love my Boulevards. +I went, therefore, with peculiar interest, on the day that we rested at +our grand hotel, to visit some new pleasure-grounds the citizens had been +arranging for us, and which I had not yet seen. The Central Park is an +expanse of wild country, well crumpled so as to form ridges which will +give views and hollows that will hold water. The hips and elbows and +other bones of Nature stick out here and there in the shape of rocks +which give character to the scenery, and an unchangeable, unpurchasable +look to a landscape that without them would have been in danger of being +fattened by art and money out of all its native features. The roads were +fine, the sheets of water beautiful, the bridges handsome, the swans +elegant in their deportment, the grass green and as short as a fast +horse's winter coat. I could not learn whether it was kept so by +clipping or singeing. I was delighted with my new property,--but it cost +me four dollars to get there, so far was it beyond the Pillars of +Hercules of the fashionable quarter. What it will be by and by depends +on circumstances; but at present it is as much central to New York as +Brookline is central to Boston. + +The question is not between Mr. Olmsted's admirably arranged, but remote +pleasure-ground and our Common, with its batrachian pool, but between his +Excentric Park and our finest suburban scenery, between its artificial +reservoirs and the broad natural sheet of Jamaica Pond. I say this not +invidiously, but in justice to the beauties which surround our own +metropolis. To compare the situations of any dwellings in either of the +great cities with those which look upon the Common, the Public Garden, +the waters of the Back Bay, would be to take an unfair advantage of Fifth +Avenue and Walnut Street. St. Botolph's daughter dresses in plainer +clothes than her more stately sisters, but she wears an emerald on her +right hand and a diamond on her left that Cybele herself need not be +ashamed of. + +On Monday morning, the twenty-ninth of September, we took the cars for +home. Vacant lots, with Irish and pigs; vegetable-gardens; straggling +houses; the high bridge; villages, not enchanting; then Stamford: then +NORWALK. Here, on the sixth of May, 1853, I passed close on the heels of +the great disaster. But that my lids were heavy on that morning, my +readers would probably have had no further trouble with me. Two of my +friends saw the car in which they rode break in the middle and leave them +hanging over the abyss. From Norwalk to Boston, that day's journey of +two hundred miles was a long funeral procession. + +Bridgeport, waiting for Iranistan to rise from its ashes with all its +phoenix-egg domes,--bubbles of wealth that broke, ready to be blown +again; iridescent as ever, which is pleasant, for the world likes +cheerful Mr. Barnum's success; New Haven, girt with flat marshes that +look like monstrous billiard-tables, with hay-cocks lying about for +balls,--romantic with West Rock and its legends,--cursed with a +detestable depot, whose niggardly arrangements crowd the track so +murderously close to the wall that the peine forte et dare must be the +frequent penalty of an innocent walk on its platform,--with its neat +carriages, metropolitan hotels, precious old college-dormitories, its +vistas of elms and its dishevelled weeping-willows; Hartford, +substantial, well-bridged, many--steepled city,--every conical spire an +extinguisher of some nineteenth-century heresy; so onward, by and across +the broad, shallow Connecticut,--dull red road and dark river woven in +like warp and woof by the shuttle of the darting engine; then +Springfield, the wide-meadowed, well-feeding, horse-loving, hot-summered, +giant-treed town,--city among villages, village among cities; Worcester, +with its Daedalian labyrinth of crossing railroad-bars, where the +snorting Minotaurs, breathing fire and smoke and hot vapors, are stabled +in their dens; Framingham, fair cup-bearer, leaf-cinctured Hebe of the +deep-bosomed Queen sitting by the seaside on the throne of the Six +Nations. And now I begin to know the road, not by towns, but by single +dwellings; not by miles, but by rods. The poles of the great magnet that +draws in all the iron tracks through the grooves of all the mountains +must be near at hand, for here are crossings, and sudden stops, and +screams of alarmed engines heard all around. The tall granite obelisk +comes into view far away on the left, its bevelled cap-stone sharp +against the sky; the lofty chimneys of Charlestown and East Cambridge +flaunt their smoky banners up in the thin air; and now one fair bosom of +the three-pilled city, with its dome-crowned summit, reveals itself, as +when many-breasted Ephesian Artemis appeared with half-open chlamys +before her worshippers. + +Fling open the window-blinds of the chamber that looks out on the waters +and towards the western sun! Let the joyous light shine in upon the +pictures that hang upon its walls and the shelves thick-set with the +names of poets and philosophers and sacred teachers, in whose pages our +boys learn that life is noble only when it is held cheap by the side of +honor and of duty. Lay him in his own bed, and let him sleep off his +aches and weariness. So comes down another night over this household, +unbroken by any messenger of evil tidings,--a night of peaceful rest and +grateful thoughts; for this our son and brother was dead and is alive +again, and was lost and is found. + + + + +THE INEVITABLE TRIAL + +[An Oration delivered before the City Authorities of Boston, on the 4th +of July, 1863.] + +It is our first impulse, upon this returning day of our nation's birth, +to recall whatever is happiest and noblest in our past history, and to +join our voices in celebrating the statesmen and the heroes, the men of +thought and the men of action, to whom that history owes its existence. +In other years this pleasing office may have been all that was required +of the holiday speaker. But to-day, when the very life of the nation is +threatened, when clouds are thick about us, and men's hearts are +throbbing with passion, or failing with fear, it is the living question +of the hour, and not the dead story of the past, which forces itself into +all minds, and will find unrebuked debate in all assemblies. + +In periods of disturbance like the present, many persons who sincerely +love their country and mean to do their duty to her disappoint the hopes +and expectations of those who are actively working in her cause. They +seem to have lost whatever moral force they may have once possessed, and +to go drifting about from one profitless discontent to another, at a time +when every citizen is called upon for cheerful, ready service. It is +because their minds are bewildered, and they are no longer truly +themselves. Show them the path of duty, inspire them with hope for the +future, lead them upwards from the turbid stream of events to the bright, +translucent springs of eternal principles, strengthen their trust in +humanity and their faith in God, and you may yet restore them to their +manhood and their country. + +At all times, and especially on this anniversary of glorious +recollections and kindly enthusiasms, we should try to judge the weak and +wavering souls of our brothers fairly and generously. The conditions in +which our vast community of peace-loving citizens find themselves are new +and unprovided for. Our quiet burghers and farmers are in the position +of river-boats blown from their moorings out upon a vast ocean, where +such a typhoon is raging as no mariner who sails its waters ever before +looked upon. If their beliefs change with the veering of the blast, if +their trust in their fellow-men, and in the course of Divine Providence, +seems well-nigh shipwrecked, we must remember that they were taken +unawares, and without the preparation which could fit them to struggle +with these tempestuous elements. In times like these the faith is the +man; and they to whom it is given in larger measure owe a special duty to +those who for want of it are faint at heart, uncertain in speech, feeble +in effort, and purposeless in aim. + +Assuming without argument a few simple propositions,--that +self-government is the natural condition of an adult society, as +distinguished from the immature state, in which the temporary +arrangements of monarchy and oligarchy are tolerated as conveniences; +that the end of all social compacts is, or ought to be, to give every +child born into the world the fairest chance to make the most and the +best of itself that laws can give it; that Liberty, the one of the two +claimants who swears that her babe shall not be split in halves and +divided between them, is the true mother of this blessed Union; that the +contest in which we are engaged is one of principles overlaid by +circumstances; that the longer we fight, and the more we study the +movements of events and ideas, the more clearly we find the moral nature +of the cause at issue emerging in the field and in the study; that all +honest persons with average natural sensibility, with respectable +understanding, educated in the school of northern teaching, will have +eventually to range themselves in the armed or unarmed host which fights +or pleads for freedom, as against every form of tyranny; if not in the +front rank now, then in the rear rank by and by;--assuming these +propositions, as many, perhaps most of us, are ready to do, and believing +that the more they are debated before the public the more they will gain +converts, we owe it to the timid and the doubting to keep the great +questions of the time in unceasing and untiring agitation. They must be +discussed, in all ways consistent with the public welfare, by different +classes of thinkers; by priests and laymen; by statesmen and simple +voters; by moralists and lawyers; by men of science and uneducated +hand-laborers; by men of facts and figures, and by men of theories and +aspirations; in the abstract and in the concrete; discussed and +rediscussed every month, every week, every day, and almost every hour, as +the telegraph tells us of some new upheaval or subsidence of the rocky +base of our political order. + +Such discussions may not be necessary to strengthen the convictions of +the great body of loyal citizens. They may do nothing toward changing +the views of those, if such there be, as some profess to believe, who +follow politics as a trade. They may have no hold upon that class of +persons who are defective in moral sensibility, just as other persons are +wanting in an ear for music. But for the honest, vacillating minds, the +tender consciences supported by the tremulous knees of an infirm +intelligence, the timid compromisers who are always trying to curve the +straight lines and round the sharp angles of eternal law, the continual +debate of these living questions is the one offered means of grace and +hope of earthly redemption. And thus a true, unhesitating patriot may be +willing to listen with patience to arguments which he does not need, to +appeals which have no special significance for him, in the hope that some +less clear in mind or less courageous in temper may profit by them. + +As we look at the condition in which we find ourselves on this fourth day +of July, 1863, at the beginning of the Eighty-eighth Year of American +Independence, we may well ask ourselves what right we have to indulge in +public rejoicings. If the war in which we are engaged is an accidental +one, which might have been avoided but for our fault; if it is for any +ambitious or unworthy purpose on our part; if it is hopeless, and we are +madly persisting in it; if it is our duty and in our power to make a safe +and honorable peace, and we refuse to do it; if our free institutions are +in danger of becoming subverted, and giving place to an irresponsible +tyranny; if we are moving in the narrow circles which are to ingulf us in +national ruin,--then we had better sing a dirge, and leave this idle +assemblage, and hush the noisy cannon which are reverberating through the +air, and tear down the scaffolds which are soon to blaze with fiery +symbols; for it is mourning and not joy that should cover the land; there +should be silence, and not the echo of noisy gladness, in our streets; +and the emblems with which we tell our nation's story and prefigure its +future should be traced, not in fire, but in ashes. + +If, on the other hand, this war is no accident, but an inevitable result +of long incubating causes; inevitable as the cataclysms that swept away +the monstrous births of primeval nature; if it is for no mean, unworthy +end, but for national life, for liberty everywhere, for humanity, for the +kingdom of God on earth; if it is not hopeless, but only growing to such +dimensions that the world shall remember the final triumph of right +throughout all time; if there is no safe and honorable peace for us but a +peace proclaimed from the capital of every revolted province in the name +of the sacred, inviolable Union; if the fear of tyranny is a phantasm, +conjured up by the imagination of the weak, acted on by the craft of the +cunning; if so far from circling inward to the gulf of our perdition, the +movement of past years is reversed, and every revolution carries us +farther and farther from the centre of the vortex, until, by God's +blessing, we shall soon find ourselves freed from the outermost coil of +the accursed spiral; if all these things are true; if we may hope to make +them seem true, or even probable, to the doubting soul, in an hour's +discourse, then we may join without madness in the day's exultant +festivities; the bells may ring, the cannon may roar, the incense of our +harmless saltpetre fill the air, and the children who are to inherit the +fruit of these toiling, agonizing years, go about unblamed, making day +and night vocal with their jubilant patriotism. + +The struggle in which we are engaged was inevitable; it might have come a +little sooner, or a little later, but it must have come. The disease of +the nation was organic, and not functional, and the rough chirurgery of +war was its only remedy. + +In opposition to this view, there are many languid thinkers who lapse +into a forlorn belief that if this or that man had never lived, or if +this or that other man had not ceased to live, the country might have +gone on in peace and prosperity, until its felicity merged in the glories +of the millennium. If Mr. Calhoun had never proclaimed his heresies; if +Mr. Garrison had never published his paper; if Mr. Phillips, the +Cassandra in masculine shape of our long prosperous Ilium, had never +uttered his melodious prophecies; if the silver tones of Mr. Clay had +still sounded in the senate-chamber to smooth the billows of contention; +if the Olympian brow of Daniel Webster had been lifted from the dust to +fix its awful frown on the darkening scowl of rebellion,--we might have +been spared this dread season of convulsion. All this is but simple +Martha's faith, without the reason she could have given: "If Thou hadst +been here, my brother had not died." + +They little know the tidal movements of national thought and feeling, who +believe that they depend for existence on a few swimmers who ride their +waves. It is not Leviathan that leads the ocean from continent to +continent, but the ocean which bears his mighty bulk as it wafts its own +bubbles. If this is true of all the narrower manifestations of human +progress, how much more must it be true of those broad movements in the +intellectual and spiritual domain which interest all mankind? But in the +more limited ranges referred to, no fact is more familiar than that there +is a simultaneous impulse acting on many individual minds at once, so +that genius comes in clusters, and shines rarely as a single star. You +may trace a common motive and force in the pyramid-builders of the +earliest recorded antiquity, in the evolution of Greek architecture, and +in the sudden springing up of those wondrous cathedrals of the twelfth +and following centuries, growing out of the soil with stem and bud and +blossom, like flowers of stone whose seeds might well have been the +flaming aerolites cast over the battlements of heaven. You may see the +same law showing itself in the brief periods of glory which make the +names of Pericles and Augustus illustrious with reflected splendors; in +the painters, the sculptors, the scholars of "Leo's golden days"; in the +authors of the Elizabethan time; in the poets of the first part of this +century following that dreary period, suffering alike from the silence of +Cowper and the song of Hayley. You may accept the fact as natural, that +Zwingli and Luther, without knowing each other, preached the same +reformed gospel; that Newton, and Hooke, and Halley, and Wren arrived +independently of each other at the great law of the diminution of gravity +with the square of the distance; that Leverrier and Adams felt their +hands meeting, as it were, as they stretched them into the outer darkness +beyond the orbit of Uranus, in search of the dim, unseen Planet; that +Fulton and Bell, that Wheatstone and Morse, that Daguerre and Niepce, +were moving almost simultaneously in parallel paths to the same end. You +see why Patrick Henry, in Richmond, and Samuel Adams, in Boston, were +startling the crown officials with the same accents of liberty, and why +the Mecklenburg Resolutions had the very ring of the Protest of the +Province of Massachusetts. This law of simultaneous intellectual +movement, recognized by all thinkers, expatiated upon by Lord Macaulay +and by Mr. Herbert Spencer among recent writers, is eminently applicable +to that change of thought and feeling which necessarily led to the +present conflict. + +The antagonism of the two sections of the Union was not the work of this +or that enthusiast or fanatic. It was the consequence of a movement in +mass of two different forms of civilization in different directions, and +the men to whom it was attributed were only those who represented it most +completely, or who talked longest and loudest about it. Long before the +accents of those famous statesmen referred to ever resounded in the halls +of the Capitol, long before the "Liberator" opened its batteries, the +controversy now working itself out by trial of battle was foreseen and +predicted. Washington warned his countrymen of the danger of sectional +divisions, well knowing the line of cleavage that ran through the +seemingly solid fabric. Jefferson foreshadowed the judgment to fall upon +the land for its sins against a just God. Andrew Jackson announced a +quarter of a century beforehand that the next pretext of revolution would +be slavery. De Tocqueville recognized with that penetrating insight +which analyzed our institutions and conditions so keenly, that the Union +was to be endangered by slavery, not through its interests, but through +the change of character it was bringing about in the people of the two +sections, the same fatal change which George Mason, more than half a +century before, had declared to be the most pernicious effect of the +system, adding the solemn warning, now fearfully justifying itself in the +sight of his descendants, that "by an inevitable chain of causes and +effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities." The +Virginian romancer pictured the far-off scenes of the conflict which he +saw approaching as the prophets of Israel painted the coming woes of +Jerusalem, and the strong iconoclast of Boston announced the very year +when the curtain should rise on the yet unopened drama. + +The wise men of the past, and the shrewd men of our own time, who warned +us of the calamities in store for our nation, never doubted what was the +cause which was to produce first alienation and finally rupture. The +descendants of the men "daily exercised in tyranny," the "petty tyrants" +as their own leading statesmen called them long ago, came at length to +love the institution which their fathers had condemned while they +tolerated. It is the fearful realization of that vision of the poet +where the lost angels snuff up with eager nostrils the sulphurous +emanations of the bottomless abyss,--so have their natures become changed +by long breathing the atmosphere of the realm of darkness. + +At last, in the fulness of time, the fruits of sin ripened in a sudden +harvest of crime. Violence stalked into the senate-chamber, theft and +perjury wound their way into the cabinet, and, finally, openly organized +conspiracy, with force and arms, made burglarious entrance into a chief +stronghold of the Union. That the principle which underlay these acts of +fraud and violence should be irrevocably recorded with every needed +sanction, it pleased God to select a chief ruler of the false government +to be its Messiah to the listening world. As with Pharaoh, the Lord +hardened his heart, while he opened his mouth, as of old he opened that +of the unwise animal ridden by cursing Balaam. Then spake Mr. +"Vice-President" Stephens those memorable words which fixed forever the +theory of the new social order. He first lifted a degraded barbarism to +the dignity of a philosophic system. He first proclaimed the gospel of +eternal tyranny as the new revelation which Providence had reserved for +the western Palestine. Hear, O heavens! and give ear, O earth! The +corner-stone of the new-born dispensation is the recognized inequality of +races; not that the strong may protect the weak, as men protect women and +children, but that the strong may claim the authority of Nature and of +God to buy, to sell, to scourge, to hunt, to cheat out of the reward of +his labor, to keep in perpetual ignorance, to blast with hereditary +curses throughout all time, the bronzed foundling of the New World, upon +whose darkness has dawned the star of the occidental Bethlehem! + +After two years of war have consolidated the opinion of the Slave States, +we read in the "Richmond Examiner": "The establishment of the +Confederacy is verily a distinct reaction against the whole course of the +mistaken civilization of the age. For 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,' +we have deliberately substituted Slavery, Subordination, and Government." + +A simple diagram, within the reach of all, shows how idle it is to look +for any other cause than slavery as having any material agency in +dividing the country. Match the two broken pieces of the Union, and you +will find the fissure that separates them zigzagging itself half across +the continent like an isothermal line, shooting its splintery +projections, and opening its reentering angles, not merely according to +the limitations of particular States, but as a county or other limited +section of ground belongs to freedom or to slavery. Add to this the +official statement made in 1862, that "there is not one regiment or +battalion, or even company of men, which was organized in or derived from +the Free States or Territories, anywhere, against the Union"; throw in +gratuitously Mr. Stephens's explicit declaration in the speech referred +to, and we will consider the evidence closed for the present on this +count of the indictment. + +In the face of these predictions, these declarations, this line of +fracture, this precise statement, testimony from so many sources, +extending through several generations, as to the necessary effect of +slavery, a priori, and its actual influence as shown by the facts, few +will suppose that anything we could have done would have stayed its +course or prevented it from working out its legitimate effects on the +white subjects of its corrupting dominion. Northern acquiescence or even +sympathy may have sometimes helped to make it sit more easily on the +consciences of its supporters. Many profess to think that Northern +fanaticism, as they call it, acted like a mordant in fixing the black dye +of slavery in regions which would but for that have washed themselves +free of its stain in tears of penitence. It is a delusion and a snare to +trust in any such false and flimsy reasons where there is enough and more +than enough in the institution itself to account for its growth. Slavery +gratifies at once the love of power, the love of money, and the love of +ease; it finds a victim for anger who cannot smite back his oppressor; +and it offers to all, without measure, the seductive privileges which the +Mormon gospel reserves for the true believers on earth, and the Bible of +Mahomet only dares promise to the saints in heaven. + +Still it is common, common even to vulgarism, to hear the remark that the +same gallows-tree ought to bear as its fruit the arch-traitor and the +leading champion of aggressive liberty. The mob of Jerusalem was not +satisfied with its two crucified thieves; it must have a cross also for +the reforming Galilean, who interfered so rudely with its conservative +traditions! It is asserted that the fault was quite as much on our side +as on the other; that our agitators and abolishers kindled the flame for +which the combustibles were all ready on the other side of the border. +If these men could have been silenced, our brothers had not died. + +Who are the persons that use this argument? They are the very ones who +are at the present moment most zealous in maintaining the right of free +discussion. At a time when every power the nation can summon is needed +to ward off the blows aimed at its life, and turn their force upon its +foes,--when a false traitor at home may lose us a battle by a word, and a +lying newspaper may demoralize an army by its daily or weekly +stillicidium of poison, they insist with loud acclaim upon the liberty of +speech and of the press; liberty, nay license, to deal with government, +with leaders, with every measure, however urgent, in any terms they +choose, to traduce the officer before his own soldiers, and assail the +only men who have any claim at all to rule over the country, as the very +ones who are least worthy to be obeyed. If these opposition members of +society are to have their way now, they cannot find fault with those +persons who spoke their minds freely in the past on that great question +which, as we have agreed, underlies all our present dissensions. + +It is easy to understand the bitterness which is often shown towards +reformers. They are never general favorites. They are apt to interfere +with vested rights and time-hallowed interests. They often wear an +unlovely, forbidding aspect. Their office corresponds to that of +Nature's sanitary commission for the removal of material nuisances. It +is not the butterfly, but the beetle, which she employs for this duty. +It is not the bird of paradise and the nightingale, but the fowl of dark +plumage and unmelodious voice, to which is entrusted the sacred duty of +eliminating the substances that infect the air. And the force of obvious +analogy teaches us not to expect all the qualities which please the +general taste in those whose instincts lead them to attack the moral +nuisances which poison the atmosphere of society. But whether they +please us in all their aspects or not, is not the question. Like them or +not, they must and will perform their office, and we cannot stop them. +They may be unwise, violent, abusive, extravagant, impracticable, but +they are alive, at any rate, and it is their business to remove abuses as +soon as they are dead, and often to help them to die. To quarrel with +them because they are beetles, and not butterflies, is natural, but far +from profitable. They grow none the less vigorously for being trodden +upon, like those tough weeds that love to nestle between the stones of +court-yard pavements. If you strike at one of their heads with the +bludgeon of the law, or of violence, it flies open like the seedcapsule +of a snap-weed, and fills the whole region with seminal thoughts which +will spring up in a crop just like the original martyr. They chased one +of these enthusiasts, who attacked slavery, from St. Louis, and shot him +at Alton in 1837; and on the 23d of June just passed, the Governor of +Missouri, chairman of the Committee on Emancipation, introduced to the +Convention an Ordinance for the final extinction of Slavery! They hunted +another through the streets of a great Northern city in 1835; and within +a few weeks a regiment of colored soldiers, many of them bearing the +marks of the slave-driver's whip on their backs, marched out before a +vast multitude tremulous with newly-stirred sympathies, through the +streets of the same city, to fight our battles in the name of God and +Liberty! + +The same persons who abuse the reformers, and lay all our troubles at +their door, are apt to be severe also on what they contemptuously +emphasize as "sentiments" considered as motives of action. It is +charitable to believe that they do not seriously contemplate or truly +understand the meaning of the words they use, but rather play with them, +as certain so-called "learned" quadrupeds play with the printed +characters set before them. In all questions involving duty, we act from +sentiments. Religion springs from them, the family order rests upon +them, and in every community each act involving a relation between any +two of its members implies the recognition or the denial of a sentiment. +It is true that men often forget them or act against their bidding in the +keen competition of business and politics. But God has not left the hard +intellect of man to work out its devices without the constant presence of +beings with gentler and purer instincts. The breast of woman is the +ever-rocking cradle of the pure and holy sentiments which will sooner or +later steal their way into the mind of her sterner companion; which will +by and by emerge in the thoughts of the world's teachers, and at last +thunder forth in the edicts of its law-givers and masters. Woman herself +borrows half her tenderness from the sweet influences of maternity; and +childhood, that weeps at the story of suffering, that shudders at the +picture of wrong, brings down its inspiration "from God, who is our +home." To quarrel, then, with the class of minds that instinctively +attack abuses, is not only profitless but senseless; to sneer at the +sentiments which are the springs of all just and virtuous actions, is +merely a display of unthinking levity, or of want of the natural +sensibilities. + +With the hereditary character of the Southern people moving in one +direction, and the awakened conscience of the North stirring in the +other, the open conflict of opinion was inevitable, and equally +inevitable its appearance in the field of national politics. For what is +meant by self-government is, that a man shall make his convictions of +what is right and expedient regulate the community so far as his +fractional share of the government extends. If one has come to the +conclusion, be it right or wrong, that any particular institution or +statute is a violation of the sovereign law of God, it is to be expected +that he will choose to be represented by those who share his belief, and +who will in their wider sphere do all they legitimately can to get rid of +the wrong in which they find themselves and their constituents involved. +To prevent opinion from organizing itself under political forms may be +very desirable, but it is not according to the theory or practice of +self-government. And if at last organized opinions become arrayed in +hostile shape against each other, we shall find that a just war is only +the last inevitable link in a chain of closely connected impulses of +which the original source is in Him who gave to tender and humble and +uncorrupted souls the sense of right and wrong, which, after passing +through various forms, has found its final expression in the use of +material force. Behind the bayonet is the law-giver's statute, behind the +statute the thinker's argument, behind the argument is the tender +conscientiousness of woman, woman, the wife, the mother,--who looks upon +the face of God himself reflected in the unsullied soul of infancy. "Out +of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because +of thine enemies." + +The simplest course for the malcontent is to find fault with the order of +Nature and the Being who established it. Unless the law of moral +progress were changed, or the Governor of the Universe were dethroned, it +would be impossible to prevent a great uprising of the human conscience +against a system, the legislation relating to which, in the words of so +calm an observer as De Tocqueville, the Montesquieu of our laws, presents +"such unparalleled atrocities as to show that the laws of humanity have +been totally perverted." Until the infinite selfishness of the powers +that hate and fear the principles of free government swallowed up their +convenient virtues, that system was hissed at by all the old-world +civilization. While in one section of our land the attempt has been +going on to lift it out of the category of tolerated wrongs into the +sphere of the world's beneficent agencies, it was to be expected that the +protest of Northern manhood and womanhood would grow louder and stronger +until the conflict of principles led to the conflict of forces. The +moral uprising of the North came with the logical precision of destiny; +the rage of the "petty tyrants" was inevitable; the plot to erect a slave +empire followed with fated certainty; and the only question left for us +of the North was, whether we should suffer the cause of the Nation to go +by default, or maintain its existence by the argument of cannon and +musket, of bayonet and sabre. + +The war in which we are engaged is for no meanly ambitious or unworthy +purpose. It was primarily, and is to this moment, for the preservation +of our national existence. The first direct movement towards it was a +civil request on the part of certain Southern persons, that the Nation +would commit suicide, without making any unnecessary trouble about it. +It was answered, with sentiments of the highest consideration, that there +were constitutional and other objections to the Nation's laying violent +hands upon itself. It was then requested, in a somewhat peremptory tone, +that the Nation would be so obliging as to abstain from food until the +natural consequences of that proceeding should manifest themselves. All +this was done as between a single State and an isolated fortress; but it +was not South Carolina and Fort Sumter that were talking; it was a vast +conspiracy uttering its menace to a mighty nation; the whole menagerie of +treason was pacing its cages, ready to spring as soon as the doors were +opened; and all that the tigers of rebellion wanted to kindle their wild +natures to frenzy, was the sight of flowing blood. + +As if to show how coldly and calmly all this had been calculated +beforehand by the conspirators, to make sure that no absence of malice +aforethought should degrade the grand malignity of settled purpose into +the trivial effervescence of transient passion, the torch which was +literally to launch the first missile, figuratively, to "fire the +southern heart" and light the flame of civil war, was given into the +trembling hand of an old white-headed man, the wretched incendiary whom +history will handcuff in eternal infamy with the temple-burner of ancient +Ephesus. The first gun that spat its iron insult at Fort Sumter, smote +every loyal American full in the face. As when the foul witch used to +torture her miniature image, the person it represented suffered all that +she inflicted on his waxen counterpart, so every buffet that fell on the +smoking fortress was felt by the sovereign nation of which that was the +representative. Robbery could go no farther, for every loyal man of the +North was despoiled in that single act as much as if a footpad had laid +hands upon him to take from him his father's staff and his mother's +Bible. Insult could go no farther, for over those battered walls waved +the precious symbol of all we most value in the past and most hope for in +the future,--the banner under which we became a nation, and which, next +to the cross of the Redeemer, is the dearest object of love and honor to +all who toil or march or sail beneath its waving folds of glory. + +Let us pause for a moment to consider what might have been the course of +events if under the influence of fear, or of what some would name +humanity, or of conscientious scruples to enter upon what a few please +themselves and their rebel friends by calling a "wicked war"; if under +any or all these influences we had taken the insult and the violence of +South Carolina without accepting it as the first blow of a mortal combat, +in which we must either die or give the last and finishing stroke. + +By the same title which South Carolina asserted to Fort Sumter, Florida +would have challenged as her own the Gibraltar of the Gulf, and Virginia +the Ehrenbreitstein of the Chesapeake. Half our navy would have anchored +under the guns of these suddenly alienated fortresses, with the flag of +the rebellion flying at their peaks. "Old Ironsides" herself would have +perhaps sailed out of Annapolis harbor to have a wooden Jefferson Davis +shaped for her figure-head at Norfolk,--for Andrew Jackson was a hater of +secession, and his was no fitting effigy for the battle-ship of the +red-handed conspiracy. With all the great fortresses, with half the ships +and warlike material, in addition to all that was already stolen, in the +traitors' hands, what chance would the loyal men in the Border States +have stood against the rush of the desperate fanatics of the now +triumphant faction? Where would Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, +Tennessee,--saved, or looking to be saved, even as it is, as by +fire,--have been in the day of trial? Into whose hands would the +Capital, the archives, the glory, the name, the very life of the nation +as a nation, have fallen, endangered as all of them were, in spite of the +volcanic outburst of the startled North which answered the roar of the +first gun at Sumter? Worse than all, are we permitted to doubt that in +the very bosom of the North itself there was a serpent, coiled but not +sleeping, which only listened for the first word that made it safe to +strike, to bury its fangs in the heart of Freedom, and blend its golden +scales in close embrace with the deadly reptile of the cotton-fields. +Who would not wish that he were wrong in such a suspicion? yet who can +forget the mysterious warnings that the allies of the rebels were to be +found far north of the fatal boundary line; and that it was in their own +streets, against their own brothers, that the champions of liberty were +to defend her sacred heritage? + +Not to have fought, then, after the supreme indignity and outrage we had +suffered, would have been to provoke every further wrong, and to furnish +the means for its commission. It would have been to placard ourselves on +the walls of the shattered fort, as the spiritless race the proud +labor-thieves called us. It would have been to die as a nation of +freemen, and to have given all we had left of our rights into the hands +of alien tyrants in league with home-bred traitors. + +Not to have fought would have been to be false to liberty everywhere, and +to humanity. You have only to see who are our friends and who are our +enemies in this struggle, to decide for what principles we are combating. +We know too well that the British aristocracy is not with us. We know +what the West End of London wishes may be result of this controversy. +The two halves of this Union are the two blades of the shears, +threatening as those of Atropos herself, which will sooner or later cut +into shreds the old charters of tyranny. How they would exult if they +could but break the rivet that makes of the two blades one resistless +weapon! The man who of all living Americans had the best opportunity of +knowing how the fact stood, wrote these words in March, 1862: "That Great +Britain did, in the most terrible moment of our domestic trial in +struggling with a monstrous social evil she had earnestly professed to +abhor, coldly and at once assume our inability to master it, and then +become the only foreign nation steadily contributing in every indirect +way possible to verify its pre-judgment, will probably be the verdict +made up against her by posterity, on a calm comparison of the evidence." + +So speaks the wise, tranquil statesman who represents the nation at the +Court of St. James, in the midst of embarrassments perhaps not less than +those which vexed his illustrious grandfather, when he occupied the same +position as the Envoy of the hated, newborn Republic. + +"It cannot be denied,"--says another observer, placed on one of our +national watch-towers in a foreign capital,--"it cannot be denied that +the tendency of European public opinion, as delivered from high places, +is more and more unfriendly to our cause"; "but the people," he adds, +"everywhere sympathize with us, for they know that our cause is that of +free institutions,--that our struggle is that of the people against an +oligarchy." These are the words of the Minister to Austria, whose +generous sympathies with popular liberty no homage paid to his genius by +the class whose admiring welcome is most seductive to scholars has ever +spoiled; our fellow-citizen, the historian of a great Republic which +infused a portion of its life into our own,--John Lothrop Motley. + +It is a bitter commentary on the effects of European, and especially of +British institutions, that such men should have to speak in such terms of +the manner in which our struggle has been regarded. We had, no doubt, +very generally reckoned on the sympathy of England, at least, in a strife +which, whatever pretexts were alleged as its cause, arrayed upon one side +the supporters of an institution she was supposed to hate in earnest, and +on the other its assailants. We had forgotten what her own poet, one of +the truest and purest of her children, had said of his countrymen, in +words which might well have been spoken by the British Premier to the +American Ambassador asking for some evidence of kind feeling on the part +of his government: + + "Alas I expect it not. We found no bait + To tempt us in thy country. Doing good, + Disinterested good, is not our trade." + +We know full well by this time what truth there is in these honest lines. +We have found out, too, who our European enemies are, and why they are +our enemies. Three bending statues bear up that gilded seat, which, in +spite of the time-hallowed usurpations and consecrated wrongs so long +associated with its history, is still venerated as the throne. One of +these supports is the pensioned church; the second is the purchased army; +the third is the long-suffering people. Whenever the third caryatid +comes to life and walks from beneath its burden, the capitals of Europe +will be filled with the broken furniture of palaces. No wonder that our +ministers find the privileged orders willing to see the ominous republic +split into two antagonistic forces, each paralyzing the other, and +standing in their mighty impotence a spectacle to courts and kings; to be +pointed at as helots who drank themselves blind and giddy out of that +broken chalice which held the poisonous draught of liberty! + +We know our enemies, and they are the enemies of popular rights. We know +our friends, and they are the foremost champions of political and social +progress. The eloquent voice and the busy pen of John Bright have both +been ours, heartily, nobly, from the first; the man of the people has +been true to the cause of the people. That deep and generous thinker, +who, more than any of her philosophical writers, represents the higher +thought of England, John Stuart Mill, has spoken for us in tones to which +none but her sordid hucksters and her selfish land-graspers can refuse to +listen. Count Gasparin and Laboulaye have sent us back the echo from +liberal France; France, the country of ideas, whose earlier inspirations +embodied themselves for us in the person of the youthful Lafayette. +Italy,--would you know on which side the rights of the people and the +hopes of the future are to be found in this momentous conflict, what +surer test, what ampler demonstration can you ask--than the eager +sympathy of the Italian patriot whose name is the hope of the toiling +many, and the dread of their oppressors, wherever it is spoken, the +heroic Garibaldi? + +But even when it is granted that the war was inevitable; when it is +granted that it is for no base end, but first for the life of the nation, +and more and more, as the quarrel deepens, for the welfare of mankind, +for knowledge as against enforced ignorance, for justice as against +oppression, for that kingdom of God on earth which neither the +unrighteous man nor the extortioner can hope to inherit, it may still be +that the strife is hopeless, and must therefore be abandoned. Is it too +much to say that whether the war is hopeless or not for the North depends +chiefly on the answer to the question, whether the North has virtue and +manhood enough to persevere in the contest so long as its resources hold +out? But how much virtue and manhood it has can never be told until they +are tried, and those who are first to doubt the prevailing existence of +these qualities are not commonly themselves patterns of either. We have +a right to trust that this people is virtuous and brave enough not to +give up a just and necessary contest before its end is attained, or shown +to be unattainable for want of material agencies. What was the end to be +attained by accepting the gage of battle? It was to get the better of +our assailants, and, having done so, to take exactly those steps which we +should then consider necessary to our present and future safety. The +more obstinate the resistance, the more completely must it be subdued. +It may not even have been desirable, as Mr. Mill suggested long since, +that the victory over the rebellion should have been easily and speedily +won, and so have failed to develop the true meaning of the conflict, to +bring out the full strength of the revolted section, and to exhaust the +means which would have served it for a still more desperate future +effort. We cannot complain that our task has proved too easy. We give +our Southern army,--for we must remember that it is our army, after all, +only in a state of mutiny,--we give our Southern army credit for +excellent spirit and perseverance in the face of many disadvantages. But +we have a few plain facts which show the probable course of events; the +gradual but sure operation of the blockade; the steady pushing back of +the boundary of rebellion, in spite of resistance at many points, or even +of such aggressive inroads as that which our armies are now meeting with +their long lines of bayonets,--may God grant them victory!--the progress +of our arms down the Mississippi; the relative value of gold and currency +at Richmond and Washington. If the index-hands of force and credit +continue to move in the ratio of the past two years, where will the +Confederacy be in twice or thrice that time? + +Either all our statements of the relative numbers, power, and wealth of +the two sections of the country signify nothing, or the resources of our +opponents in men and means must be much nearer exhaustion than our own. +The running sand of the hour-glass gives no warning, but runs as freely +as ever when its last grains are about to fall. The merchant wears as +bold a face the day before he is proclaimed a bankrupt, as he wore at the +height of his fortunes. If Colonel Grierson found the Confederacy "a +mere shell," so far as his equestrian excursion carried him, how can we +say how soon the shell will collapse? It seems impossible that our own +dissensions can produce anything more than local disturbances, like the +Morristown revolt, which Washington put down at once by the aid of his +faithful Massachusetts soldiers. But in a rebellious state dissension is +ruin, and the violence of an explosion in a strict ratio to the pressure +on every inch of the containing surface. Now we know the tremendous +force which has compelled the "unanimity" of the Southern people. There +are men in the ranks of the Southern army, if we can trust the evidence +which reaches us, who have been recruited with packs of blood-hounds, and +drilled, as it were, with halters around their necks. We know what is +the bitterness of those who have escaped this bloody harvest of the +remorseless conspirators; and from that we can judge of the elements of +destruction incorporated with many of the seemingly solid portions of the +fabric of the rebellion. The facts are necessarily few, but we can reason +from the laws of human nature as to what must be the feelings of the +people of the South to their Northern neighbors. It is impossible that +the love of the life which they have had in common, their glorious +recollections, their blended histories, their sympathies as Americans, +their mingled blood, their birthright as born under the same flag and +protected by it the world over, their worship of the same God, under the +same outward form, at least, and in the folds of the same ecclesiastical +organizations, should all be forgotten, and leave nothing but hatred and +eternal alienation. Men do not change in this way, and we may be quite +sure that the pretended unanimity of the South will some day or other +prove to have been a part of the machinery of deception which the +plotters have managed with such consummate skill. It is hardly to be +doubted that in every part of the South, as in New Orleans, in +Charleston, in Richmond, there are multitudes who wait for the day of +deliverance, and for whom the coming of "our good friends, the enemies," +as Beranger has it, will be like the advent of the angels to the +prison-cells of Paul and Silas. But there is no need of depending on the +aid of our white Southern friends, be they many or be they few; there is +material power enough in the North, if there be the will to use it, to +overrun and by degrees to recolonize the South, and it is far from +impossible that some such process may be a part of the mechanism of its +new birth, spreading from various centres of organization, on the plan +which Nature follows when she would fill a half-finished tissue with +blood-vessels or change a temporary cartilage into bone. + +Suppose, however, that the prospects of the war were, we need not say +absolutely hopeless,--because that is the unfounded hypothesis of those +whose wish is father to their thought,--but full of discouragement. Can +we make a safe and honorable peace as the quarrel now stands? As honor +comes before safety, let us look at that first. We have undertaken to +resent a supreme insult, and have had to bear new insults and +aggressions, even to the direct menace of our national capital. The +blood which our best and bravest have shed will never sink into the +ground until our wrongs are righted, or the power to right them is shown +to be insufficient. If we stop now, all the loss of life has been +butchery; if we carry out the intention with which we first resented the +outrage, the earth drinks up the blood of our martyrs, and the rose of +honor blooms forever where it was shed. To accept less than indemnity +for the past, so far as the wretched kingdom of the conspirators can +afford it, and security for the future, would discredit us in our own +eyes and in the eyes of those who hate and long to be able to despise us. +But to reward the insults and the robberies we have suffered, by the +surrender of our fortresses along the coast, in the national gulf, and on +the banks of the national river,--and this and much more would surely be +demanded of us,--would place the United Fraction of America on a level +with the Peruvian guano-islands, whose ignoble but coveted soil is open +to be plundered by all comers! + +If we could make a peace without dishonor, could we make one that would +be safe and lasting? We could have an armistice, no doubt, long enough +for the flesh of our wounded men to heal and their broken bones to knit +together. But could we expect a solid, substantial, enduring peace, in +which the grass would have time to grow in the war-paths, and the bruised +arms to rust, as the old G. R. cannon rusted in our State arsenal, +sleeping with their tompions in their mouths, like so many sucking lambs? +It is not the question whether the same set of soldiers would be again +summoned to the field. Let us take it for granted that we have seen +enough of the miseries of warfare to last us for a while, and keep us +contented with militia musters and sham-fights. The question is whether +we could leave our children and our children's children with any secure +trust that they would not have to go through the very trials we are +enduring, probably on a more extended scale and in a more aggravated +form. + +It may be well to look at the prospects before us, if a peace is +established on the basis of Southern independence, the only peace +possible, unless we choose to add ourselves to the four millions who +already call the Southern whites their masters. We know what the +prevailing--we do not mean universal--spirit and temper of those people +have been for generations, and what they are like to be after a long and +bitter warfare. We know what their tone is to the people of the North; +if we do not, De Bow and Governor Hammond are schoolmasters who will +teach us to our heart's content. We see how easily their social +organization adapts itself to a state of warfare. They breed a superior +order of men for leaders, an ignorant commonalty ready to follow them as +the vassals of feudal times followed their lords; and a race of bondsmen, +who, unless this war changes them from chattels to human beings, will +continue to add vastly to their military strength in raising their food, +in building their fortifications, in all the mechanical work of war, in +fact, except, it may be, the handling of weapons. The institution +proclaimed as the corner-stone of their government does violence not +merely to the precepts of religion, but to many of the best human +instincts, yet their fanaticism for it is as sincere as any tribe of the +desert ever manifested for the faith of the Prophet of Allah. They call +themselves by the same name as the Christians of the North, yet there is +as much difference between their Christianity and that of Wesley or of +Channing, as between creeds that in past times have vowed mutual +extermination. Still we must not call them barbarians because they +cherish an institution hostile to civilization. Their highest culture +stands out all the more brilliantly from the dark background of ignorance +against which it is seen; but it would be injustice to deny that they +have always shone in political science, or that their military capacity +makes them most formidable antagonists, and that, however inferior they +may be to their Northern fellow-countrymen in most branches of literature +and science, the social elegances and personal graces lend their outward +show to the best circles among their dominant class. + +Whom have we then for our neighbors, in case of separation,--our +neighbors along a splintered line of fracture extending for thousands of +miles,--but the Saracens of the Nineteenth Century; a fierce, intolerant, +fanatical people, the males of which will be a perpetual standing army; +hating us worse than the Southern Hamilcar taught his swarthy boy to hate +the Romans; a people whose existence as a hostile nation on our frontier +is incompatible with our peaceful development? Their wealth, the proceeds +of enforced labor, multiplied by the breaking up of new cottonfields, and +in due time by the reopening of the slave-trade, will go to purchase +arms, to construct fortresses, to fit out navies. The old Saracens, +fanatics for a religion which professed to grow by conquest, were a +nation of predatory and migrating warriors. The Southern people, +fanatics for a system essentially aggressive, conquering, wasting, which +cannot remain stationary, but must grow by alternate appropriations of +labor and of land, will come to resemble their earlier prototypes. +Already, even, the insolence of their language to the people of the North +is a close imitation of the style which those proud and arrogant Asiatics +affected toward all the nations of Europe. What the "Christian dogs" +were to the followers of Mahomet, the "accursed Yankees," the "Northern +mud-sills" are to the followers of the Southern Moloch. The +accomplishments which we find in their choicer circles were prefigured in +the court of the chivalric Saladin, and the long train of Painim knights +who rode forth to conquest under the Crescent. In all branches of +culture, their heathen predecessors went far beyond them. The schools of +mediaeval learning were filled with Arabian teachers. The heavens +declare the glory of the Oriental astronomers, as Algorab and Aldebaran +repeat their Arabic names to the students of the starry firmament. The +sumptuous edifice erected by the Art of the nineteenth century, to hold +the treasures of its Industry, could show nothing fairer than the court +which copies the Moorish palace that crowns the summit of Granada. Yet +this was the power which Charles the Hammer, striking for Christianity +and civilization, had to break like a potter's vessel; these were the +people whom Spain had to utterly extirpate from the land where they had +ruled for centuries. + +Prepare, then, if you unseal the vase which holds this dangerous Afrit of +Southern nationality, for a power on your borders that will be to you +what the Saracens were to Europe before the son of Pepin shattered their +armies, and flung the shards and shivers of their broken strength upon +the refuse heap of extinguished barbarisms. Prepare for the possible fate +of Christian Spain; for a slave-market in Philadelphia; for the Alhambra +of a Southern caliph on the grounds consecrated by the domestic virtues +of a long line of Presidents and their exemplary families. Remember the +ages of border warfare between England and Scotland, closed at last by +the union of the two kingdoms. Recollect the hunting of the deer on the +Cheviot hills, and all that it led to; then think of the game which the +dogs will follow open-mouthed across our Southern border, and all that is +like to follow which the child may rue that is unborn; think of these +possibilities, or probabilities, if you will, and say whether you are +ready to make a peace which will give you such a neighbor; which may +betray your civilization as that of half the Peninsula was given up to +the Moors; which may leave your fair border provinces to be crushed under +the heel of a tyrant, as Holland was left to be trodden down by the Duke +of Alva! + +No! no! fellow-citizens! We must fight in this quarrel until one side or +the other is exhausted. Rather than suffer all that we have poured out +of our blood, all that we have lavished of our substance, to have been +expended in vain, and to bequeath an unsettled question, an unfinished +conflict, an unavenged insult, an unrighted wrong, a stained escutcheon, +a tarnished shield, a dishonored flag, an unheroic memory to the +descendants of those who have always claimed that their fathers were +heroes; rather than do all this, it were hardly an American exaggeration +to say, better that the last man and the last dollar should be followed +by the last woman and the last dime, the last child and the last copper! + +There are those who profess to fear that our government is becoming a +mere irresponsible tyranny. If there are any who really believe that our +present Chief Magistrate means to found a dynasty for himself and family, +that a coup d'etat is in preparation by which he is to become ABRAHAM, +DEI GRATIA REX,--they cannot have duly pondered his letter of June 12th, +in which he unbosoms himself with the simplicity of a rustic lover called +upon by an anxious parent to explain his intentions. The force of his +argument is not at all injured by the homeliness of his illustrations. +The American people are not much afraid that their liberties will be +usurped. An army of legislators is not very likely to throw away its +political privileges, and the idea of a despotism resting on an open +ballot-box, is like that of Bunker Hill Monument built on the waves of +Boston Harbor. We know pretty well how much of sincerity there is in the +fears so clamorously expressed, and how far they are found in company +with uncompromising hostility to the armed enemies of the nation. We +have learned to put a true value on the services of the watch-dog who +bays the moon, but does not bite the thief! + +The men who are so busy holy-stoning the quarterdeck, while all hands are +wanted to keep the ship afloat, can no doubt show spots upon it that +would be very unsightly in fair weather. No thoroughly loyal man, +however, need suffer from any arbitrary exercise of power, such as +emergencies always give rise to. If any half-loyal man forgets his code +of half-decencies and half-duties so far as to become obnoxious to the +peremptory justice which takes the place of slower forms in all centres +of conflagration, there is no sympathy for him among the soldiers who are +risking their lives for us; perhaps there is even more satisfaction than +when an avowed traitor is caught and punished. For of all men who are +loathed by generous natures, such as fill the ranks of the armies of the +Union, none are so thoroughly loathed as the men who contrive to keep +just within the limits of the law, while their whole conduct provokes +others to break it; whose patriotism consists in stopping an inch short +of treason, and whose political morality has for its safeguard a just +respect for the jailer and the hangman! The simple preventive against +all possible injustice a citizen is like to suffer at the hands of a +government which in its need and haste must of course commit many errors, +is to take care to do nothing that will directly or indirectly help the +enemy, or hinder the government in carrying on the war. When the clamor +against usurpation and tyranny comes from citizens who can claim this +negative merit, it may be listened to. When it comes from those who have +done what they could to serve their country, it will receive the +attention it deserves. Doubtless there may prove to be wrongs which +demand righting, but the pretence of any plan for changing the essential +principle of our self-governing system is a figment which its contrivers +laugh over among themselves. Do the citizens of Harrisburg or of +Philadelphia quarrel to-day about the strict legality of an executive act +meant in good faith for their protection against the invader? We are all +citizens of Harrisburg, all citizens of Philadelphia, in this hour of +their peril, and with the enemy at work in our own harbors, we begin to +understand the difference between a good and bad citizen; the man that +helps and the man that hinders; the man who, while the pirate is in +sight, complains that our anchor is dragging in his mud, and the man who +violates the proprieties, like our brave Portland brothers, when they +jumped on board the first steamer they could reach, cut her cable, and +bore down on the corsair, with a habeas corpus act that lodged twenty +buccaneers in Fort Preble before sunset! + +We cannot, then, we cannot be circling inward to be swallowed up in the +whirlpool of national destruction. If our borders are invaded, it is +only as the spur that is driven into the courser's flank to rouse his +slumbering mettle. If our property is taxed, it is only to teach us that +liberty is worth paying for as well as fighting for. We are pouring out +the most generous blood of our youth and manhood; alas! this is always +the price that must be paid for the redemption of a people. What have we +to complain of, whose granaries are choking with plenty, whose streets +are gay with shining robes and glittering equipages, whose industry is +abundant enough to reap all its overflowing harvest, yet sure of +employment and of its just reward, the soil of whose mighty valleys is an +inexhaustible mine of fertility, whose mountains cover up such stores of +heat and power, imprisoned in their coal measures, as would warm all the +inhabitants and work all the machinery of our planet for unnumbered ages, +whose rocks pour out rivers of oil, whose streams run yellow over beds of +golden sand,--what have we to complain of? + +Have we degenerated from our English fathers, so that we cannot do and +bear for our national salvation what they have done and borne over and +over again for their form of government? Could England, in her wars with +Napoleon, bear an income-tax of ten per cent., and must we faint under +the burden of an income-tax of three per cent.? Was she content to +negotiate a loan at fifty-three for the hundred, and that paid in +depreciated paper, and can we talk about financial ruin with our national +stocks ranging from one to eight or nine above par, and the "five-twenty" +war loan eagerly taken by our own people to the amount of nearly two +hundred millions, without any check to the flow of the current pressing +inwards against the doors of the Treasury? Except in those portions of +the country which are the immediate seat of war, or liable to be made so, +and which, having the greatest interest not to become the border states +of hostile nations, can best afford to suffer now, the state of +prosperity and comfort is such as to astonish those who visit us from +other countries. What are war taxes to a nation which, as we are assured +on good authority, has more men worth a million now than it had worth ten +thousand dollars at the close of the Revolution,--whose whole property is +a hundred times, and whose commerce, inland and foreign, is five hundred +times, what it was then? But we need not study Mr. Still's pamphlet and +"Thompson's Bank-Note Reporter" to show us what we know well enough, +that, so far from having occasion to tremble in fear of our impending +ruin, we must rather blush for our material prosperity. For the +multitudes who are unfortunate enough to be taxed for a million or more, +of course we must feel deeply, at the same time suggesting that the more +largely they report their incomes to the tax-gatherer, the more +consolation they will find in the feeling that they have served their +country. But,--let us say it plainly,--it will not hurt our people to be +taught that there are other things to be cared for besides money-making +and money-spending; that the time has come when manhood must assert +itself by brave deeds and noble thoughts; when womanhood must assume its +most sacred office, "to warn, to comfort," and, if need be, "to command," +those whose services their country calls for. This Northern section of +the land has become a great variety shop, of which the Atlantic cities +are the long-extended counter. We have grown rich for what? To put gilt +bands on coachmen's hats? To sweep the foul sidewalks with the heaviest +silks which the toiling artisans of France can send us? To look through +plate-glass windows, and pity the brown soldiers,--or sneer at the black +ones? to reduce the speed of trotting horses a second or two below its +old minimum? to color meerschaums? to flaunt in laces, and sparkle in +diamonds? to dredge our maidens' hair with gold-dust? to float through +life, the passive shuttlecocks of fashion, from the avenues to the +beaches, and back again from the beaches to the avenues? Was it for this +that the broad domain of the Western hemisphere was kept so long +unvisited by civilization?--for this, that Time, the father of empires, +unbound the virgin zone of this youngest of his daughters, and gave her, +beautiful in the long veil of her forests, to the rude embrace of the +adventurous Colonist? All this is what we see around us, now, now while +we are actually fighting this great battle, and supporting this great +load of indebtedness. Wait till the diamonds go back to the Jews of +Amsterdam; till the plate-glass window bears the fatal announcement, For +Sale or to Let; till the voice of our Miriam is obeyed, as she sings, + + "Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms!" + +till the gold-dust is combed from the golden locks, and hoarded to buy +bread; till the fast-driving youth smokes his clay-pipe on the platform +of the horse-cars; till the music-grinders cease because none will pay +them; till there are no peaches in the windows at twenty-four dollars a +dozen, and no heaps of bananas and pine-apples selling at the +street-corners; till the ten-flounced dress has but three flounces, and +it is felony to drink champagne; wait till these changes show themselves, +the signs of deeper wants, the preludes of exhaustion and bankruptcy; +then let us talk of the Maelstrom;--but till then, let us not be cowards +with our purses, while brave men are emptying their hearts upon the earth +for us; let us not whine over our imaginary ruin, while the reversed +current of circling events is carrying us farther and farther, every +hour, out of the influence of the great failing which was born of our +wealth, and of the deadly sin which was our fatal inheritance! + +Let us take a brief general glance at the wide field of discussion we are +just leaving. + +On Friday, the twelfth day of the month of April, in the year of our Lord +eighteen hundred and sixty-one, at half-past four of the clock in the +morning, a cannon was aimed and fired by the authority of South Carolina +at the wall of a fortress belonging to the United States. Its ball +carried with it the hatreds, the rages of thirty years, shaped and cooled +in the mould of malignant deliberation. Its wad was the charter of our +national existence. Its muzzle was pointed at the stone which bore the +symbol of our national sovereignty. As the echoes of its thunder died +away, the telegraph clicked one word through every office of the land. +That word was WAR! + +War is a child that devours its nurses one after another, until it is +claimed by its true parents. This war has eaten its way backward through +all the technicalities of lawyers learned in the infinitesimals of +ordinances and statutes; through all the casuistries of divines, experts +in the differential calculus of conscience and duty; until it stands +revealed to all men as the natural and inevitable conflict of two +incompatible forms of civilization, one or the other of which must +dominate the central zone of the continent, and eventually claim the +hemisphere for its development. + +We have reached the region of those broad principles and large axioms +which the wise Romans, the world's lawgivers, always recognized as above +all special enactments. We have come to that solid substratum +acknowledged by Grotius in his great Treatise: "Necessity itself which +reduces things to the mere right of Nature." The old rules which were +enough for our guidance in quiet times, have become as meaningless "as +moonlight on the dial of the day." We have followed precedents as long +as they could guide us; now we must make precedents for the ages which +are to succeed us. + +If we are frightened from our object by the money we have spent, the +current prices of United States stocks show that we value our nationality +at only a small fraction of our wealth. If we feel that we are paying +too dearly for it in the blood of our people, let us recall those grand +words of Samuel Adams: + +"I should advise persisting in our struggle for liberty, though it were +revealed from heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine were to perish, +and only one of a thousand were to survive and retain his liberty!" + +What we want now is a strong purpose; the purpose of Luther, when he +said, in repeating his Pater Noster, fiat voluntas MEA,--let my will be +done; though he considerately added, quia Tua,--because my will is Thine. +We want the virile energy of determination which made the oath of Andrew +Jackson sound so like the devotion of an ardent saint that the recording +angel might have entered it unquestioned among the prayers of the +faithful. + +War is a grim business. Two years ago our women's fingers were busy +making "Havelocks." It seemed to us then as if the Havelock made half +the soldier; and now we smile to think of those days of inexperience and +illusion. We know now what War means, and we cannot look its dull, dead +ghastliness in the face unless we feel that there is some great and noble +principle behind it. It makes little difference what we thought we were +fighting for at first; we know what we are fighting for now, and what we +are fighting against. + +We are fighting for our existence. We say to those who would take back +their several contributions to that undivided unity which we call the +Nation; the bronze is cast; the statue is on its pedestal; you cannot +reclaim the brass you flung into the crucible! There are rights, +possessions, privileges, policies, relations, duties, acquired, retained, +called into existence in virtue of the principle of absolute +solidarity,--belonging to the United States as an organic whole, which +cannot be divided, which none of its constituent parties can claim as its +own, which perish out of its living frame when the wild forces of +rebellion tear it limb from limb, and which it must defend, or confess +self-government itself a failure. + +We are fighting for that Constitution upon which our national existence +reposes, now subjected by those who fired the scroll on which it was +written from the cannon at Fort Sumter, to all those chances which the +necessities of war entail upon every human arrangement, but still the +venerable charter of our wide Republic. + +We cannot fight for these objects without attacking the one mother cause +of all the progeny of lesser antagonisms. Whether we know it or not, +whether we mean it or not, we cannot help fighting against the system +that has proved the source of all those miseries which the author of the +Declaration of Independence trembled to anticipate. And this ought to +make us willing to do and to suffer cheerfully. There were Holy Wars of +old, in which it was glory enough to die, wars in which the one aim was +to rescue the sepulchre of Christ from the hands of infidels. The +sepulchre of Christ is not in Palestine! He rose from that burial-place +more than eighteen hundred years ago. He is crucified wherever his +brothers are slain without cause; he lies buried wherever man, made in +his Maker's image, is entombed in ignorance lest he should learn the +rights which his Divine Master gave him! This is our Holy War, and we +must fight it against that great General who will bring to it all the +powers with which he fought against the Almighty before he was cast down +from heaven. He has retained many a cunning advocate to recruit for him; +he has bribed many a smooth-tongued preacher to be his chaplain; he has +engaged the sordid by their avarice, the timid by their fears, the +profligate by their love of adventure, and thousands of nobler natures by +motives which we can all understand; whose delusion we pity as we ought +always to pity the error of those who know not what they do. Against him +or for him we are all called upon to declare ourselves. There is no +neutrality for any single true-born American. If any seek such a +position, the stony finger of Dante's awful muse points them to their +place in the antechamber of the Halls of Despair,-- + + "--With that ill band + Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved, + Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves + Were only." + + "--Fame of them the world hath none + Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both. + Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by." + +We must use all the means which God has put into our hands to serve him +against the enemies of civilization. We must make and keep the great +river free, whatever it costs us; it is strapping up the forefoot of the +wild, untamable rebellion. We must not be too nice in the choice of our +agents. Non eget Mauri jaculis,--no African bayonets wanted,--was well +enough while we did not yet know the might of that desperate giant we had +to deal with; but Tros, Tyriusve,--white or black,--is the safer motto +now; for a good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color. +The iron-skins, as well as the iron-clads, have already done us noble +service, and many a mother will clasp the returning boy, many a wife will +welcome back the war-worn husband, whose smile would never again have +gladdened his home, but that, cold in the shallow trench of the +battle-field, lies the half-buried form of the unchained bondsman whose +dusky bosom sheathes the bullet which would else have claimed that +darling as his country's sacrifice. + +We shall have success if we truly will success, not otherwise. It may be +long in coming,--Heaven only knows through what trials and humblings we +may have to pass before the full strength of the nation is duly arrayed +and led to victory. We must be patient, as our fathers were patient; +even in our worst calamities, we must remember that defeat itself may be +a gain where it costs our enemy more in relation to his strength than it +costs ourselves. But if, in the inscrutable providence of the Almighty, +this generation is disappointed in its lofty aspirations for the race, if +we have not virtue enough to ennoble our whole people, and make it a +nation of sovereigns, we shall at least hold in undying honor those who +vindicated the insulted majesty of the Republic, and struck at her +assailants so long as a drum-beat summoned them to the field of duty. + +Citizens of Boston, sons and daughters of New England, men and women of +the North, brothers and sisters in the bond of the American Union, you +have among you the scarred and wasted soldiers who have shed their blood +for your temporal salvation. They bore your nation's emblems bravely +through the fire and smoke of the battle-field; nay, their own bodies are +starred with bullet-wounds and striped with sabre-cuts, as if to mark +them as belonging to their country until their dust becomes a portion of +the soil which they defended. In every Northern graveyard slumber the +victims of this destroying struggle. Many whom you remember playing as +children amidst the clover-blossoms of our Northern fields, sleep under +nameless mounds with strange Southern wild-flowers blooming over them. +By those wounds of living heroes, by those graves of fallen martyrs, by +the hopes of your children, and the claims of your children's children +yet unborn, in the name of outraged honor, in the interest of violated +sovereignty, for the life of an imperilled nation, for the sake of men +everywhere and of our common humanity, for the glory of God and the +advancement of his kingdom on earth, your country calls upon you to stand +by her through good report and through evil report, in triumph and in +defeat, until she emerges from the great war of Western civilization, +Queen of the broad continent, Arbitress in the councils of earth's +emancipated peoples; until the flag that fell from the wall of Fort +Sumter floats again inviolate, supreme, over all her ancient inheritance, +every fortress, every capital, every ship, and this warring land is once +more a, United Nation! + + + + +CINDERS FROM THE ASHES. + +The personal revelations contained in my report of certain +breakfast-table conversations were so charitably listened to and so +good-naturedly interpreted, that I may be in danger of becoming +over-communicative. Still, I should never have ventured to tell the +trivial experiences here thrown together, were it not that my brief +story is illuminated here and there by a glimpse of some shining +figure that trod the same path with me for a time, or crossed it, +leaving a momentary or lasting brightness in its track. I remember +that, in furnishing a chamber some years ago, I was struck with its +dull aspect as I looked round on the black-walnut chairs and bedstead +and bureau. "Make me a large and handsomely wrought gilded handle to +the key of that dark chest of drawers," I said to the furnisher. It +was done, and that one luminous point redeemed the sombre apartment +as the evening star glorifies the dusky firmament. So, my loving +reader,--and to none other can such table-talk as this be addressed, +--I hope there will be lustre enough in one or other of the names with +which I shall gild my page to redeem the dulness of all that is +merely personal in my recollections. + +After leaving the school of Dame Prentiss, best remembered by infantine +loves, those pretty preludes of more serious passions; by the great +forfeit-basket, filled with its miscellaneous waifs and deodauds, and by +the long willow stick by the aid of which the good old body, now stricken +in years and unwieldy in person could stimulate the sluggish faculties or +check the mischievous sallies of the child most distant from his ample +chair,--a school where I think my most noted schoolmate was the present +Bishop of Delaware, became the pupil of Master William Biglow. This +generation is not familiar with his title to renown, although he fills +three columns and a half in Mr. Duyckinck's "Cyclopaedia of American +Literature." He was a humorist hardly robust enough for more than a +brief local immortality. I am afraid we were an undistinguished set, for +I do not remember anybody near a bishop in dignity graduating from our +benches. + +At about ten years of age I began going to what we always called the +"Port School," because it was kept at Cambridgeport, a mile from the +College. This suburb was at that time thinly inhabited, and, being much +of it marshy and imperfectly reclaimed, had a dreary look as compared +with the thriving College settlement. The tenants of the many beautiful +mansions that have sprung up along Main Street, Harvard Street, and +Broadway can hardly recall the time when, except the "Dana House" and the +"Opposition House" and the "Clark House," these roads were almost all the +way bordered by pastures until we reached the "stores" of Main Street, or +were abreast of that forlorn "First Row" of Harvard Street. We called +the boys of that locality "Port-chucks." They called us +"Cambridge-chucks," but we got along very well together in the main. + +Among my schoolmates at the Port School was a young girl of singular +loveliness. I once before referred to her as "the golden blonde," but did +not trust myself to describe her charms. The day of her appearance in +the school was almost as much a revelation to us boys as the appearance +of Miranda was to Caliban. Her abounding natural curls were so full of +sunshine, her skin was so delicately white, her smile and her voice were +so all-subduing, that half our heads were turned. Her fascinations were +everywhere confessed a few years afterwards; and when I last met her, +though she said she was a grandmother, I questioned her statement, for +her winning looks and ways would still have made her admired in any +company. + +Not far from the golden blonde were two small boys, one of them very +small, perhaps the youngest boy in school, both ruddy, sturdy, quiet, +reserved, sticking loyally by each other, the oldest, however, beginning +to enter into social relations with us of somewhat maturer years. One of +these two boys was destined to be widely known, first in literature, as +author of one of the most popular books of its time and which is +freighted for a long voyage; then as an eminent lawyer; a man who, if his +countrymen are wise, will yet be prominent in the national councils. +Richard Henry Dana, Junior, is the name he bore and bears; he found it +famous, and will bequeath it a fresh renown. + +Sitting on the girls' benches, conspicuous among the school-girls of +unlettered origin by that look which rarely fails to betray hereditary +and congenital culture, was a young person very nearly of my own age. +She came with the reputation of being "smart," as we should have called +it, clever as we say nowadays. This was Margaret Fuller, the only one +among us who, like "Jean Paul," like "The Duke," like "Bettina," has +slipped the cable of the more distinctive name to which she was anchored, +and floats on the waves of speech as "Margaret." Her air to her +schoolmates was marked by a certain stateliness and distance, as if she +had other thoughts than theirs and was not of them. She was a great +student and a great reader of what she used to call "naw-vels." I +remember her so well as she appeared at school and later, that I regret +that she had not been faithfully given to canvas or marble in the day of +her best looks. None know her aspect who have not seen her living. +Margaret, as I remember her at school and afterwards, was tall, fair +complexioned, with a watery, aqua-marine lustre in her light eyes, which +she used to make small, as one does who looks at the sunshine. A +remarkable point about her was that long, flexile neck, arching and +undulating in strange sinuous movements, which one who loved her would +compare to those of a swan, and one who loved her not to those of the +ophidian who tempted our common mother. Her talk was affluent, +magisterial, de haut en bas, some would say euphuistic, but surpassing +the talk of women in breadth and audacity. Her face kindled and reddened +and dilated in every feature as she spoke, and, as I once saw her in a +fine storm of indignation at the supposed ill-treatment of a relative, +showed itself capable of something resembling what Milton calls the +viraginian aspect. + +Little incidents bear telling when they recall anything of such a +celebrity as Margaret. I remember being greatly awed once, in our +school-days, with the maturity of one of her expressions. Some themes +were brought home from the school for examination by my father, among +them one of hers. I took it up with a certain emulous interest (for I +fancied at that day that I too had drawn a prize, say a five-dollar one, +at least, in the great intellectual life-lottery) and read the first +words. + +"It is a trite remark," she began. + +I stopped. Alas! I did not know what trite meant. How could I ever +judge Margaret fairly after such a crushing discovery of her superiority? +I doubt if I ever did; yet oh, how pleasant it would have been, at about +the age, say, of threescore and ten, to rake over these ashes for cinders +with her,--she in a snowy cap, and I in a decent peruke! + +After being five years at the Port School, the time drew near when I was +to enter college. It seemed advisable to give me a year of higher +training, and for that end some public school was thought to offer +advantages. Phillips Academy at Andover was well known to us. We had +been up there, my father and myself, at anniversaries. Some Boston boys +of well-known and distinguished parentage had been scholars there very +lately, Master Edmund Quincy, Master Samuel Hurd Walley, Master Nathaniel +Parker Willis,--all promising youth, who fulfilled their promise. + +I do not believe there was any thought of getting a little respite of +quiet by my temporary absence, but I have wondered that there was not. +Exceptional boys of fourteen or fifteen make home a heaven, it is true; +but I have suspected, late in life, that I was not one of the exceptional +kind. I had tendencies in the direction of flageolets and octave flutes. +I had a pistol and a gun, and popped at everything that stirred, pretty +nearly, except the house-cat. Worse than this, I would buy a cigar and +smoke it by instalments, putting it meantime in the barrel of my pistol, +by a stroke of ingenuity which it gives me a grim pleasure to recall; for +no maternal or other female eyes would explore the cavity of that dread +implement in search of contraband commodities. + +It was settled, then, that I should go to Phillips Academy, and +preparations were made that I might join the school at the beginning of +the autumn. + +In due time I took my departure in the old carriage, a little modernized +from the pattern of my Lady Bountiful's, and we jogged soberly +along,--kind parents and slightly nostalgic boy,--towards the seat of +learning, some twenty miles away. Up the old West Cambridge road, now +North Avenue; past Davenport's tavern, with its sheltering tree and +swinging sign; past the old powder-house, looking like a colossal conical +ball set on end; past the old Tidd House, one of the finest of the +ante-Revolutionary mansions; past Miss Swan's great square +boarding-school, where the music of girlish laughter was ringing through +the windy corridors; so on to Stoneham, town of the bright lake, then +darkened with the recent memory of the barbarous murder done by its +lonely shore; through pleasant Reading, with its oddly named village +centres, "Trapelo," "Read'nwoodeend," as rustic speech had it, and the +rest; through Wilmington, then renowned for its hops; so at last into the +hallowed borders of the academic town. + +It was a shallow, two-story white house before which we stopped, just at +the entrance of the central village, the residence of a very worthy +professor in the theological seminary,--learned, amiable, exemplary, but +thought by certain experts to be a little questionable in the matter of +homoousianism, or some such doctrine. There was a great rock that showed +its round back in the narrow front yard. It looked cold and hard; but it +hinted firmness and indifference to the sentiments fast struggling to get +uppermost in my youthful bosom; for I was not too old for +home-sickness,--who is: The carriage and my fond companions had to leave +me at last. I saw it go down the declivity that sloped southward, then +climb the next ascent, then sink gradually until the window in the back +of it disappeared like an eye that shuts, and leaves the world dark to +some widowed heart. + +Sea-sickness and home-sickness are hard to deal with by any remedy but +time. Mine was not a bad case, but it excited sympathy. There was an +ancient, faded old lady in the house, very kindly, but very deaf, +rustling about in dark autumnal foliage of silk or other murmurous +fabric, somewhat given to snuff, but a very worthy gentlewoman of the +poor-relation variety. She comforted me, I well remember, but not with +apples, and stayed me, but not with flagons. She went in her benevolence, +and, taking a blue and white soda-powder, mingled the same in water, and +encouraged me to drink the result. It might be a specific for +seasickness, but it was not for home-sickness. The fiz was a mockery, +and the saline refrigerant struck a colder chill to my despondent heart. +I did not disgrace myself, however, and a few days cured me, as a week on +the water often cures seasickness. + +There was a sober-faced boy of minute dimensions in the house, who began +to make some advances to me, and who, in spite of all the conditions +surrounding him, turned out, on better acquaintance, to be one of the +most amusing, free-spoken, mocking little imps I ever met in my life. My +room-mate came later. He was the son of a clergyman in a neighboring +town,--in fact I may remark that I knew a good many clergymen's sons at +Andover. He and I went in harness together as well as most boys do, I +suspect; and I have no grudge against him, except that once, when I was +slightly indisposed, he administered to me,--with the best intentions, no +doubt,--a dose of Indian pills, which effectually knocked me out of time, +as Mr. Morrissey would say,--not quite into eternity, but so near it +that I perfectly remember one of the good ladies told me (after I had +come to my senses a little, and was just ready for a sip of cordial and a +word of encouragement), with that delightful plainness of speech which so +brings realities home to the imagination, that "I never should look any +whiter when I was laid out as a corpse." After my room-mate and I had +been separated twenty-five years, fate made us fellow-townsmen and +acquaintances once more in Berkshire, and now again we are close literary +neighbors; for I have just read a very pleasant article, signed by him, +in the last number of the "Galaxy." Does it not sometimes seem as if we +were all marching round and round in a circle, like the supernumeraries +who constitute the "army" of a theatre, and that each of us meets and is +met by the same and only the same people, or their doubles, twice, +thrice, or a little oftener, before the curtain drops and the "army" puts +off its borrowed clothes? + +The old Academy building had a dreary look, with its flat face, bare and +uninteresting as our own "University Building" at Cambridge, since the +piazza which relieved its monotony was taken away, and, to balance the +ugliness thus produced, the hideous projection was added to "Harvard +Hall." Two masters sat at the end of the great room,--the principal and +his assistant. Two others presided in separate rooms, one of them the +late Rev. Samuel Horatio Stearns, an excellent and lovable man, who +looked kindly on me, and for whom I always cherished a sincere regard, a +clergyman's son, too, which privilege I did not always find the warrant +of signal virtues; but no matter about that here, and I have promised +myself to be amiable. + +On the side of the long room was a large clock-dial, bearing these words: + + YOUTH IS THE SEED-TIME OF LIFE. + +I had indulged in a prejudice, up to that hour, that youth was the +budding time of life, and this clock-dial, perpetually twitting me with +its seedy moral, always had a forbidding look to my vernal apprehension. + +I was put into a seat with an older and much bigger boy, or youth, with a +fuliginous complexion, a dilating and whitening nostril, and a singularly +malignant scowl. Many years afterwards he committed an act of murderous +violence, and ended by going to finish his days in a madhouse. His +delight was to kick my shins with all his might, under the desk, not at +all as an act of hostility, but as a gratifying and harmless pastime. +Finding this, so far as I was concerned, equally devoid of pleasure and +profit, I managed to get a seat by another boy, the son of a very +distinguished divine. He was bright enough, and more select in his +choice of recreations, at least during school hours, than my late +homicidal neighbor. But the principal called me up presently, and +cautioned me against him as a dangerous companion. Could it be so? If +the son of that boy's father could not be trusted, what boy in +Christendom could? It seemed like the story of the youth doomed to be +slain by a lion before reaching a certain age, and whose fate found him +out in the heart of the tower where his father had shut him up for +safety. Here was I, in the very dove's nest of Puritan faith, and out of +one of its eggs a serpent had been hatched and was trying to nestle in my +bosom! I parted from him, however, none the worse for his companionship +so far as I can remember. + +Of the boys who were at school with me at Andover one has acquired great +distinction among the scholars of the land. One day I observed a new boy +in a seat not very far from my own. He was a little fellow, as I +recollect him, with black hair and very bright black eyes, when at length +I got a chance to look at them. Of all the new-comers during my whole +year he was the only one whom the first glance fixed in my memory, but +there he is now, at this moment, just as he caught my eye on the morning +of his entrance. His head was between his hands (I wonder if he does not +sometimes study in that same posture nowadays!) and his eyes were +fastened to his book as if he had been reading a will that made him heir +to a million. I feel sure that Professor Horatio Balch Hackett will not +find fault with me for writing his name under this inoffensive portrait. +Thousands of faces and forms that I have known more or less familiarly +have faded from my remembrance, but this presentment of the youthful +student, sitting there entranced over the page of his text-book,--the +child-father of the distinguished scholar that was to be,--is not a +picture framed and hung up in my mind's gallery, but a fresco on its +walls, there to remain so long as they hold together. + +My especial intimate was a fine, rosy-faced boy, not quite so free of +speech as myself, perhaps, but with qualities that promised a noble +manhood, and ripened into it in due season. His name was Phinehas +Barnes, and, if he is inquired after in Portland or anywhere in the State +of Maine, something will be heard to his advantage from any honest and +intelligent citizen of that Commonwealth who answers the question. This +was one of two or three friendships that lasted. There were other friends +and classmates, one of them a natural humorist of the liveliest sort, who +would have been quarantined in any Puritan port, his laugh was so +potently contagious. + +Of the noted men of Andover the one whom I remember best was Professor +Moses Stuart. His house was nearly opposite the one in which I resided +and I often met him and listened to him in the chapel of the Seminary. I +have seen few more striking figures in my life than his, as I remember +it. Tall, lean, with strong, bold features, a keen, scholarly, +accipitrine nose, thin, expressive lips, great solemnity and +impressiveness of voice and manner, he was my early model of a classic +orator. His air was Roman, his neck long and bare like Cicero's, and his +toga,--that is his broadcloth cloak,--was carried on his arm, whatever +might have been the weather, with such a statue-like rigid grace that he +might have been turned into marble as he stood, and looked noble by the +side of the antiques of the Vatican. + +Dr. Porter was an invalid, with the prophetic handkerchief bundling his +throat, and his face "festooned"--as I heard Hillard say once, speaking +of one of our College professors--in folds and wrinkles. Ill health gives +a certain common character to all faces, as Nature has a fixed course +which she follows in dismantling a human countenance: the noblest and the +fairest is but a death's-head decently covered over for the transient +ceremony of life, and the drapery often falls half off before the +procession has passed. + +Dr. Woods looked his creed more decidedly, perhaps, than any of the +Professors. He had the firm fibre of a theological athlete, and lived to +be old without ever mellowing, I think, into a kind of half-heterodoxy, +as old ministers of stern creed are said to do now and then,--just as old +doctors grow to be sparing of the more exasperating drugs in their later +days. He had manipulated the mysteries of the Infinite so long and so +exhaustively, that he would have seemed more at home among the mediaeval +schoolmen than amidst the working clergy of our own time. + +All schools have their great men, for whose advent into life the world is +waiting in dumb expectancy. In due time the world seizes upon these +wondrous youth, opens the shell of their possibilities like the valves of +an oyster, swallows them at a gulp, and they are for the most part heard +of no more. We had two great men, grown up both of them. Which was the +more awful intellectual power to be launched upon society, we debated. +Time cut the knot in his rude fashion by taking one away early, and +padding the other with prosperity so that his course was comparatively +noiseless and ineffective. We had our societies, too; one in particular, +"The Social Fraternity," the dread secrets of which I am under a lifelong +obligation never to reveal. The fate of William Morgan, which the +community learned not long after this time, reminds me of the danger of +the ground upon which I am treading. + +There were various distractions to make the time not passed in study a +season of relief. One good lady, I was told, was in the habit of asking +students to her house on Saturday afternoons and praying with and for +them. Bodily exercise was not, however, entirely superseded by spiritual +exercises, and a rudimentary form of base-ball and the heroic sport of +football were followed with some spirit. + +A slight immature boy finds his materials of though and enjoyment in very +shallow and simple sources. Yet a kind of romance gilds for me the sober +tableland of that cold New England hill where I came in contact with a +world so strange to me, and destined to leave such mingled and lasting +impressions. I looked across the valley to the hillside where Methuen +hung suspended, and dreamed of its wooded seclusion as a village +paradise. I tripped lightly down the long northern slope with facilis +descensus on my lips, and toiled up again, repeating sed revocare gradum. +I wandered' in the autumnal woods that crown the "Indian Ridge," much +wondering at that vast embankment, which we young philosophers believed +with the vulgar to be of aboriginal workmanship, not less curious, +perhaps, since we call it an escar, and refer it to alluvial agencies. +The little Shawshine was our swimming-school, and the great Merrimack, +the right arm of four toiling cities, was within reach of a morning +stroll. At home we had the small imp to make us laugh at his enormities, +for he spared nothing in his talk, and was the drollest little living +protest against the prevailing solemnities of the locality. It did not +take much to please us, I suspect, and it is a blessing that this is apt +to be so with young people. What else could have made us think it great +sport to leave our warm beds in the middle of winter and "camp out,"--on +the floor of our room,--with blankets disposed tent-wise, except the fact +that to a boy a new discomfort in place of an old comfort is often a +luxury. + +More exciting occupation than any of these was to watch one of the +preceptors to see if he would not drop dead while he was praying. He had +a dream one night that he should, and looked upon it as a warning, and +told it round very seriously, and asked the boys to come and visit him in +turn, as one whom they were soon to lose. More than one boy kept his eye +on him during his public devotions, possessed by the same feeling the man +had who followed Van Amburgh about with the expectation, let us not say +the hope, of seeing the lion bite his head off sooner or later. + +Let me not forget to recall the interesting visit to Haverhill with my +room-mate, and how he led me to the mighty bridge over the Merrimack +which defied the ice-rafts of the river; and to the old meetinghouse, +where, in its porch, I saw the door of the ancient parsonage, with the +bullet-hole in it through which Benjamin Rolfe, the minister, was shot by +the Indians on the 29th of August, 1708. What a vision it was when I +awoke in the morning to see the fog on the river seeming as if it wrapped +the towers and spires of a great city!--for such was my fancy, and +whether it was a mirage of youth or a fantastic natural effect I hate to +inquire too nicely. + +My literary performances at Andover, if any reader who may have survived +so far cares to know, included a translation from Virgil, out of which I +remember this couplet, which had the inevitable cockney rhyme of +beginners: + + "Thus by the power of Jove's imperial arm + The boiling ocean trembled into calm." + +Also a discussion with Master Phinehas Barnes on the case of Mary, Queen +of Scots, which he treated argumentatively and I rhetorically and +sentimentally. My sentences were praised and his conclusions adopted. +Also an Essay, spoken at the great final exhibition, held in the large +hall up-stairs, which hangs oddly enough from the roof, suspended by iron +rods. Subject, Fancy. Treatment, brief but comprehensive, illustrating +the magic power of that brilliant faculty in charming life into +forgetfulness of all the ills that flesh is heir to,--the gift of Heaven +to every condition and every clime, from the captive in his dungeon to +the monarch on his throne; from the burning sands of the desert to the +frozen icebergs of the poles, from--but I forget myself. + +This was the last of my coruscations at Andover. I went from the Academy +to Harvard College, and did not visit the sacred hill again for a long +time. + +On the last day of August, 1867, not having been at Andover, for many +years, I took the cars at noon, and in an hour or a little more found +myself at the station,--just at the foot of the hill. My first +pilgrimage was to the old elm, which I remembered so well as standing by +the tavern, and of which they used to tell the story that it held, buried +in it by growth, the iron rings put round it in the old time to keep the +Indians from chopping it with their tomahawks. I then began the once +familiar toil of ascending the long declivity. Academic villages seem to +change very slowly. Once in a hundred years the library burns down with +all its books. A new edifice or two may be put up, and a new library +begun in the course of the same century; but these places are poor, for +the most part, and cannot afford to pull down their old barracks. + +These sentimental journeys to old haunts must be made alone. The story +of them must be told succinctly. It is like the opium-smoker's showing +you the pipe from which he has just inhaled elysian bliss, empty of the +precious extract which has given him his dream. + +I did not care much for the new Academy building on my right, nor for the +new library building on my left. But for these it was surprising to see +how little the scene I remembered in my boyhood had changed. The +Professors' houses looked just as they used to, and the stage-coach +landed its passengers at the Mansion House as of old. The pale brick +seminary buildings were behind me on the left, looking as if "Hollis" and +"Stoughton" had been transplanted from Cambridge,--carried there in the +night by orthodox angels, perhaps, like the Santa Casa. Away to my left +again, but abreast of me, was the bleak, bare old Academy building; and +in front of me stood unchanged the shallow oblong white house where I +lived a year in the days of James Monroe and of John Quincy Adams. + +The ghost of a boy was at my side as I wandered among the places he knew +so well. I went to the front of the house. There was the great rock +showing its broad back in the front yard. I used to crack nuts on that, +whispered the small ghost. I looked in at the upper window in the +farther part of the house. I looked out of that on four long changing +seasons, said the ghost. I should have liked to explore farther, but, +while I was looking, one came into the small garden, or what used to be +the garden, in front of the house, and I desisted from my investigation +and went on my way. The apparition that put me and my little ghost to +flight had a dressing-gown on its person and a gun in its hand. I think +it was the dressing-gown, and not the gun, which drove me off. + +And now here is the shop, or store, that used to be Shipman's, after +passing what I think used to be Jonathan Leavitt's bookbindery, and here +is the back road that will lead me round by the old Academy building. + +Could I believe my senses when I found that it was turned into a +gymnasium, and heard the low thunder of ninepin balls, and the crash of +tumbling pins from those precincts? The little ghost said, Never! It +cannot be. But it was. "Have they a billiard-room in the upper story?" +I asked myself. "Do the theological professors take a hand at all-fours +or poker on weekdays, now and then, and read the secular columns of the +'Boston Recorder' on Sundays?" I was demoralized for the moment, it is +plain; but now that I have recovered from the shock, I must say that the +fact mentioned seems to show a great advance in common sense from the +notions prevailing in my time. + +I sauntered,--we, rather, my ghost and I,--until we came to a broken +field where there was quarrying and digging going on,--our old base-ball +ground, hard by the burial-place. There I paused; and if any thoughtful +boy who loves to tread in the footsteps that another has sown with +memories of the time when he was young shall follow my footsteps, I need +not ask him to rest here awhile, for he will be enchained by the noble +view before him. Far to the north and west the mountains of New +Hampshire lifted their summits in along encircling ridge of pale blue +waves. The day was clear, and every mound and peak traced its outline +with perfect definition against the sky. This was a sight which had more +virtue and refreshment in it than any aspect of nature that I had looked +upon, I am afraid I must say for years. I have been by the seaside now +and then, but the sea is constantly busy with its own affairs, running +here and there, listening to what the winds have to say and getting angry +with them, always indifferent, often insolent, and ready to do a mischief +to those who seek its companionship. But these still, serene, unchanging +mountains,--Monadnock, Kearsarge,--what memories that name recalls!--and +the others, the dateless Pyramids of New England, the eternal monuments +of her ancient race, around which cluster the homes of so many of her +bravest and hardiest children,--I can never look at them without feeling +that, vast and remote and awful as they are, there is a kind of inward +heat and muffled throb in their stony cores, that brings them into a +vague sort of sympathy with human hearts. It is more than a year since I +have looked on those blue mountains, and they "are to me as a feeling" +now, and have been ever since. + +I had only to pass a wall and I was in the burial-ground. It was thinly +tenanted as I remember it, but now populous with the silent immigrants of +more than a whole generation. There lay the dead I had left, the two or +three students of the Seminary; the son of the worthy pair in whose house +I lived, for whom in those days hearts were still aching, and by whose +memory the house still seemed haunted. A few upright stones were all +that I recollect. But now, around them were the monuments of many of the +dead whom I remembered as living. I doubt if there has been a more +faithful reader of these graven stones than myself for many a long day. +I listened to more than one brief sermon from preachers whom I had often +heard as they thundered their doctrines down upon me from the throne-like +desk. Now they spoke humbly out of the dust, from a narrower pulpit, from +an older text than any they ever found in Cruden's Concordance, but there +was an eloquence in their voices the listening chapel had never known. +There were stately monuments and studied inscriptions, but none so +beautiful, none so touching, as that which hallows the resting-place of +one of the children of the very learned Professor Robinson: "Is it well +with the child? And she answered, It is well." + +While I was musing amidst these scenes in the mood of Hamlet, two old +men, as my little ghost called them, appeared on the scene to answer to +the gravedigger and his companion. They christened a mountain or two for +me, "Kearnsarge" among the rest, and revived some old recollections, of +which the most curious was "Basil's Cave." The story was recent, when I +was there, of one Basil, or Bezill, or Buzzell, or whatever his name +might have been, a member of the Academy, fabulously rich, Orientally +extravagant, and of more or less lawless habits. He had commanded a cave +to be secretly dug, and furnished it sumptuously, and there with his +companions indulged in revelries such as the daylight of that consecrated +locality had never looked upon. How much truth there was in it all I +will not pretend to say, but I seem to remember stamping over every rock +that sounded hollow, to question if it were not the roof of what was once +Basil's Cave. + +The sun was getting far past the meridian, and I sought a shelter under +which to partake of the hermit fare I had brought with me. Following the +slope of the hill northward behind the cemetery, I found a pleasant clump +of trees grouped about some rocks, disposed so as to give a seat, a +table, and a shade. I left my benediction on this pretty little natural +caravansera, and a brief record on one of its white birches, hoping to +visit it again on some sweet summer or autumn day. + +Two scenes remained to look upon,--the Shawshine River and the Indian +Ridge. The streamlet proved to have about the width with which it flowed +through my memory. The young men and the boys were bathing in its +shallow current, or dressing and undressing upon its banks as in the days +of old; the same river, only the water changed; "The same boys, only the +names and the accidents of local memory different," I whispered to my +little ghost. + +The Indian Ridge more than equalled what I expected of it. It is well +worth a long ride to visit. The lofty wooded bank is a mile and a half +in extent, with other ridges in its neighborhood, in general running +nearly parallel with it, one of them still longer. These singular +formations are supposed to have been built up by the eddies of +conflicting currents scattering sand and gravel and stones as they swept +over the continent. But I think they pleased me better when I was taught +that the Indians built them; and while I thank Professor Hitchcock, I +sometimes feel as if I should like to found a chair to teach the +ignorance of what people do not want to know. + +"Two tickets to Boston." I said to the man at the station. + +But the little ghost whispered, "When you leave this place you leave me +behind you." + +"One ticket to Boston, if you please. Good by, little ghost." + +I believe the boy-shadow still lingers around the well-remembered scenes +I traversed on that day, and that, whenever I revisit them, I shall find +him again as my companion. + + + + +THE PULPIT AND THE PEW. + +The priest is dead for the Protestant world. Luther's inkstand did not +kill the devil, but it killed the priest, at least for us: He is a loss +in many respects to be regretted. He kept alive the spirit of reverence. +He was looked up to as possessing qualities superhuman in their nature, +and so was competent to be the stay of the weak and their defence against +the strong. If one end of religion is to make men happier in this world +as well as in the next, mankind lost a great source of happiness when the +priest was reduced to the common level of humanity, and became only a +minister. Priest, which was presbyter, corresponded to senator, and was +a title to respect and honor. Minister is but the diminutive of +magister, and implies an obligation to render service. + +It was promised to the first preachers that in proof of their divine +mission they should have the power of casting out devils and talking in +strange tongues; that they should handle serpents and drink poisons with +impunity; that they should lay hands on the sick and they should recover. +The Roman Church claims some of these powers for its clergy and its +sacred objects to this day. Miracles, it is professed, are wrought by +them, or through them, as in the days of the apostles. Protestantism +proclaims that the age of such occurrences as the apostles witnessed is +past. What does it know about miracles? It knows a great many records +of miracles, but this is a different kind of knowledge. + +The minister may be revered for his character, followed for his +eloquence, admired for his learning, loved for his amiable qualities, but +he can never be what the priest was in past ages, and is still, in the +Roman Church. Dr. Arnold's definition may be found fault with, but it +has a very real meaning. "The essential point in the notion of a priest +is this: that he is a person made necessary to our intercourse with God, +without being necessary or beneficial to us morally,--an unreasonable, +immoral, spiritual necessity." He did not mean, of course, that the +priest might not have all the qualities which would recommend him as a +teacher or as a man, but that he had a special power, quite independent +of his personal character, which could act, as it were, mechanically; +that out of him went a virtue, as from the hem of his Master's raiment, +to those with whom his sacred office brought him in contact. + +It was a great comfort to poor helpless human beings to have a tangible +personality of like nature with themselves as a mediator between them and +the heavenly powers. Sympathy can do much for the sorrowing, the +suffering, the dying, but to hear God himself speaking directly through +human lips, to feel the touch of a hand which is the channel of +communication with the unseen Omnipotent, this was and is the privilege +of those who looked and those who still look up to a priesthood. It has +been said, and many who have walked the hospitals or served in the +dispensaries can bear witness to the truth of the assertion, that the +Roman Catholics know how to die. The same thing is less confidently to +be said of Protestants. How frequently is the story told of the most +exemplary Protestant Christians, nay, how common is it to read in the +lives of the most exemplary Protestant ministers, that they were beset +with doubts and terrors in their last days! The blessing of the viaticum +is unknown to them. Man is essentially an idolater,--that is, in bondage +to his imagination,--for there is no more harm in the Greek word eidolon +than in the Latin word imago. He wants a visible image to fix his +thought, a scarabee or a crux ansata, or the modern symbols which are to +our own time what these were to the ancient Egyptians. He wants a +vicegerent of the Almighty to take his dying hand and bid him godspeed on +his last journey. Who but such an immediate representative of the +Divinity would have dared to say to the monarch just laying his head on +the block, "Fils de Saint Louis, monte au ciel"? + +It has been a long and gradual process to thoroughly republicanize the +American Protestant descendant of the ancient priesthood. The history of +the Congregationalists in New England would show us how this change has +gone on, until we have seen the church become a hall open to all sorts of +purposes, the pulpit come down to the level of the rostrum, and the +clergyman take on the character of a popular lecturer who deals with +every kind of subject, including religion. + +Whatever fault we may find with many of their beliefs, we have a right to +be proud of our Pilgrim and Puritan fathers among the clergy. They were +ready to do and to suffer anything for their faith, and a faith which +breeds heroes is better than an unbelief which leaves nothing worth being +a hero for. Only let us be fair, and not defend the creed of Mohammed +because it nurtured brave men and enlightened scholars, or refrain from +condemning polygamy in our admiration of the indomitable spirit and +perseverance of the Pilgrim Fathers of Mormonism, or justify an inhuman +belief, or a cruel or foolish superstition, because it was once held or +acquiesced in by men whose nobility of character we heartily recognize. +The New England clergy can look back to a noble record, but the pulpit +has sometimes required a homily from the pew, and may sometimes find it +worth its while to listen to one even in our own days. + +From the settlement of the country to the present time, the ministers +have furnished the highest type of character to the people among whom +they have lived. They have lost to a considerable extent the position of +leaders, but if they are in our times rather to be looked upon as +representatives of their congregations, they represent what is best among +those of whom they are the speaking organs. We have a right to expect +them to be models as well as teachers of all that makes the best citizens +for this world and the next, and they have not been, and are not in these +later days unworthy of their high calling. They have worked hard for +small earthly compensation. They have been the most learned men the +country had to show, when learning was a scarce commodity. Called by +their consciences to self-denying labors, living simply, often +half-supported by the toil of their own hands, they have let the light, +such light as shone for them, into the minds of our communities as the +settler's axe let the sunshine into their log-huts and farm-houses. + +Their work has not been confined to their professional duties, as a few +instances will illustrate. Often, as was just said, they toiled like +day-laborers, teasing lean harvests out of their small inclosures of +land, for the New England soil is not one that "laughs when tickled with +a hoe," but rather one that sulks when appealed to with that persuasive +implement. The father of the eminent Boston physician whose recent loss +is so deeply regretted, the Reverend Pitt Clarke, forty-two years pastor +of the small fold in the town of Norton, Massachusetts, was a typical +example of this union of the two callings, and it would be hard to find a +story of a more wholesome and useful life, within a limited and isolated +circle, than that which the pious care of one of his children +commemorated. Sometimes the New England minister, like worthy Mr. Ward +of Stratford-on-Avon, in old England, joined the practice of medicine to +the offices of his holy profession. Michael Wigglesworth, the poet of +"The Day of Doom," and Charles Chauncy, the second president of Harvard +College, were instances of this twofold service. In politics their +influence has always been felt, and in many cases their drums +ecclesiastic have beaten the reveille as vigorously, and to as good +purpose, as it ever sounded in the slumbering camp. Samuel Cooper sat in +council with the leaders of the Revolution in Boston. The three +Northampton-born brothers Allen, Thomas, Moses, and Solomon, lifted their +voices, and, when needed, their armed hands, in the cause of liberty. In +later days, Elijah Parish and David Osgood carried politics into their +pulpits as boldly as their antislavery successors have done in times +still more recent. + +The learning, the personal character, the sacredness of their office, +tended, to give the New England clergy of past generations a kind of +aristocratic dignity, a personal grandeur, much more felt in the days +when class distinctions were recognized less unwillingly than at present. +Their costume added to the effect of their bodily presence, as the old +portraits illustrate for us, as those of us who remember the last of the +"fair, white, curly" wigs, as it graced the imposing figure of the +Reverend Dr. Marsh of Wethersfield, Connecticut, can testify. They were +not only learned in the history of the past, but they were the +interpreters of the prophecy, and announced coming events with a +confidence equal to that with which the weather-bureau warns us of a +coming storm. The numbers of the book of Daniel and the visions of the +Revelation were not too hard for them. In the commonplace book of the +Reverend Joel Benedict is to be found the following record, made, as it +appears, about the year 1773: "Conversing with Dr. Bellamy upon the +downfall of Antichrist, after many things had been said upon the subject, +the Doctor began to warm, and uttered himself after this manner: 'Tell +your children to tell their children that in the year 1866 something +notable will happen in the church; tell them the old man says so.'" + +The "old man" came pretty near hitting the mark, as we shall see if we +consider what took place in the decade from 1860 to 1870. In 1864 the +Pope issued the "Syllabus of Errors," which "must be considered by +Romanists--as an infallible official document, and which arrays the +papacy in open war against modern civilization and civil and religious +freedom." The Vatican Council in 1870 declared the Pope to be the bishop +of bishops, and immediately after this began the decisive movement of the +party known as the "Old Catholics." In the exact year looked forward to +by the New England prophet, 1866, the evacuation of Rome by the French +and the publication of "Ecce Homo" appear to be the most remarkable +events having Special relation to the religious world. Perhaps the +National Council of the Congregationalists, held at Boston in 1865, may +be reckoned as one of the occurrences which the oracle just missed. + +The confidence, if not the spirit of prophecy, lasted down to a later +period. "In half a century," said the venerable Dr. Porter of Conway, +New Hampshire, in 1822, "there will be no Pagans, Jews, Mohammedans, +Unitarians, or Methodists." The half-century has more than elapsed, and +the prediction seems to stand in need of an extension, like many other +prophetic utterances. + +The story is told of David Osgood, the shaggy-browed old minister of +Medford, that he had expressed his belief that not more than one soul in +two thousand would be saved. Seeing a knot of his parishioners in +debate, he asked them what they were discussing, and was told that they +were questioning which of the Medford people was the elected one, the +population being just two thousand, and that opinion was divided whether +it would be the minister or one of his deacons. The story may or may not +be literally true, but it illustrates the popular belief of those days, +that the clergyman saw a good deal farther into the councils of the +Almighty than his successors could claim the power of doing. + +The objects about me, as I am writing, call to mind the varied +accomplishments of some of the New England clergy. The face of the +Revolutionary preacher, Samuel Cooper, as Copley painted it, looks upon +me with the pleasantest of smiles and a liveliness of expression which +makes him seem a contemporary after a hundred years' experience of +eternity. The Plato on this lower shelf bears the inscription: "Ezroe +Stiles, 1766. Olim e libris Rev. Jaredis Eliot de Killingworth." Both +were noted scholars and philosophers. The hand-lens before me was +imported, with other philosophical instruments, by the Reverend John +Prince of Salem, an earlier student of science in the town since +distinguished by the labors of the Essex Institute. Jeremy Belknap holds +an honored place in that unpretending row of local historians. And in +the pages of his "History of New Hampshire" may be found a chapter +contributed in part by the most remarkable man, in many respects, among +all the older clergymen preacher, lawyer, physician, astronomer, +botanist, entomologist, explorer, colonist, legislator in state and +national governments, and only not seated on the bench of the Supreme +Court of a Territory because he declined the office when Washington +offered it to him. This manifold individual was the minister of +Hamilton, a pleasant little town in Essex County, Massachusetts,--the +Reverend Manasseh Cutler. These reminiscences from surrounding objects +came up unexpectedly, of themselves: and have a right here, as showing +how wide is the range of intelligence in the clerical body thus +accidentally represented in a single library making no special +pretensions. + +It is not so exalted a claim to make for them, but it may be added that +they were often the wits and humorists of their localities. Mather +Byles's facetie are among the colonial classic reminiscences. But these +were, for the most part, verbal quips and quibbles. True humor is an +outgrowth of character. It is never found in greater perfection than in +old clergymen and old college professors. Dr. Sprague's "Annals of the +American Pulpit" tells many stories of our old ministers as good as Dean +Ramsay's "Scottish Reminiscences." He has not recorded the following, +which is to be found in Miss Larned's excellent and most interesting +History of Windham County, Connecticut. The Reverend Josiah Dwight was +the minister of Woodstock, Connecticut, about the year 1700. He was not +old, it is true, but he must have caught the ways of the old ministers. +The "sensational" pulpit of our own time could hardly surpass him in the +drollery of its expressions. A specimen or two may dispose the reader to +turn over the pages which follow in a good-natured frame of mind. "If +unconverted men ever got to heaven," he said, "they would feel as uneasy +as a shad up the crotch of a white-oak." Some of his ministerial +associates took offence at his eccentricities, and called on a visit of +admonition to the offending clergyman. "Mr. Dwight received their +reproofs with great meekness, frankly acknowledged his faults, and +promised amendment, but, in prayer at parting, after returning thanks for +the brotherly visit and admonition, 'hoped that they might so hitch their +horses on earth that they should never kick in the stables of everlasting +salvation.'" + +It is a good thing to have some of the blood of one of these old +ministers in one's veins. An English bishop proclaimed the fact before +an assembly of physicians the other day that he was not ashamed to say +that he had a son who was a doctor. Very kind that was in the bishop, +and very proud his medical audience must have felt. Perhaps he was not +ashamed of the Gospel of Luke, "the beloved physician," or even of the +teachings which came from the lips of one who was a carpenter, and the +son of a carpenter. So a New-Englander, even if he were a bishop, need +not be ashamed to say that he consented to have an ancestor who was a +minister. On the contrary, he has a right to be grateful for a probable +inheritance of good instincts, a good name, and a bringing up in a +library where he bumped about among books from the time when he was +hardly taller than one of his father's or grandfather's folios. What are +the names of ministers' sons which most readily occur to our memory as +illustrating these advantages? Edward Everett, Joseph Stevens +Buckminster, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Bancroft, Richard Hildreth, +James Russell Lowell, Francis Parkman, Charles Eliot Norton, were all +ministers' boys. John Lothrop Motley was the grandson of the clergyman +after whom he was named. George Ticknor was next door to such a descent, +for his father was a deacon. This is a group which it did not take a +long or a wide search to bring together. + +Men such as the ministers who have been described could not fail to +exercise a good deal of authority in the communities to which they +belonged. The effect of the Revolution must have been to create a +tendency to rebel against spiritual dictation. Republicanism levels in +religion as in everything. It might have been expected, therefore, that +soon after civil liberty had been established there would be conflicts +between the traditional, authority of the minister and the claims of the +now free and independent congregation. So it was, in fact, as for +instance in the case which follows, for which the reader is indebted to +Miss Lamed's book, before cited. + +The ministerial veto allowed by the Saybrook Platform gave rise, in the +year 1792, to a fierce conflict in the town of Pomfret, Connecticut. +Zephaniah Swift, a lawyer of Windham, came out in the Windham "Herald," +in all the vehemence of partisan phraseology, with all the emphasis of +italics and small capitals. Was it not time, he said, for people to look +about them and see whether "such despotism was founded in Scripture, in +reason, in policy, or on the rights of man! A minister, by his vote, by +his single voice, may negative the unanimous vote of the church! Are +ministers composed of finer clay than the rest of mankind, that entitles +them to this preeminence? Does a license to preach transform a man into a +higher order of beings and endow him with a natural quality to govern? +Are the laity an inferior order of beings, fit only to be slaves and to +be governed? Is it good policy for mankind to subject themselves to such +degrading vassalage and abject submission? Reason, common sense, and the +Bible, with united voice, proclaim to all mankind that they are all born +free and equal; that every member of a church or Christian congregation +must be on the same footing in respect of church government, and that the +CONSTITUTION, which delegates to one the power to negative the vote of +all the rest, is SUBVERSIVE OF THE NATURAL RIGHT OF MANKIND AND REPUGNANT +TO THE WORD OF GOD." + +The Reverend Mr. Welch replied to the lawyer's attack, pronouncing him +to be "destitute of delicacy, decency, good manners, sound judgment, +honesty, manhood, and humanity; a poltroon, a cat's-paw, the infamous +tool of a party, a partisan, a political weathercock, and a ragamuffin." + +No Fourth-of-July orator would in our day rant like the lawyer, and no +clergyman would use such language as that of the Reverend Moses Welch. +The clergy have been pretty well republicanized within that last two or +three generations, and are not likely to provoke quarrels by assertion of +their special dignities or privileges. The public is better bred than to +carry on an ecclesiastical controversy in terms which political brawlers +would hardly think admissible. The minister of religion is generally +treated with something more than respect; he is allowed to say undisputed +what would be sharply controverted in anybody else. Bishop Gilbert +Haven, of happy memory, had been discussing a religious subject with a +friend who was not convinced by his arguments. "Wait till you hear me +from the pulpit," he said; "there you cannot answer me." The +preacher--if I may use an image which would hardly have suggested itself +to him--has his hearer's head in chancery, and can administer punishment +ad libitum. False facts, false reasoning, bad rhetoric, bad grammar, +stale images, borrowed passages, if not borrowed sermons, are listened to +without a word of comment or a look of disapprobation. + +One of the ablest and most conscientiously laborious of our clergymen has +lately ventured to question whether all his professional brethren +invariably give utterance to their sincerest beliefs, and has been +sharply criticised for so doing. The layman, who sits silent in his pew, +has his rights when out of it, and among them is the right of questioning +that which has been addressed to him from the privileged eminence of the +pulpit, or in any way sanctioned by his religious teacher. It is nearly +two hundred years since a Boston layman wrote these words: "I am not +ignorant that the pious frauds of the ancient, and the inbred fire (I do +not call it pride) of many of our modern divines, have precipitated them +to propagate and maintain truth as well as falsehoods, in such an unfair +manner as has given advantage to the enemy to suspect the whole doctrine +these men have profest to be nothing but a mere trick." + +So wrote Robert Calef, the Boston merchant, whose book the Reverend +Increase Mather, president of Harvard College, burned publicly in the +college yard. But the pity of it is that the layman had not cried out +earlier and louder, and saved the community from the horror of those +judicial murders for witchcraft, the blame of which was so largely +attributable to the clergy. + +Perhaps no, laymen have given the clergy more trouble than the doctors. +The old reproach against physicians, that where there were three of them +together there were two atheists, had a real significance, but not that +which was intended by the sharp-tongued ecclesiastic who first uttered +it. Undoubtedly there is a strong tendency in the pursuits of the +medical profession to produce disbelief in that figment of tradition and +diseased human imagination which has been installed in the seat of +divinity by the priesthood of cruel and ignorant ages. It is impossible, +or at least very difficult, for a physician who has seen the perpetual +efforts of Nature--whose diary is the book he reads oftenest--to heal +wounds, to expel poisons, to do the best that can be done under the given +conditions,--it is very difficult for him to believe in a world where +wounds cannot heal, where opiates cannot give a respite from pain, where +sleep never comes with its sweet oblivion of suffering, where the art of +torture is the only science cultivated, and the capacity for being +tormented is the only faculty which remains to the children of that same +Father who cares for the falling sparrow. The Deity has often been +pictured as Moloch, and the physician has, no doubt, frequently +repudiated him as a monstrosity. + +On the other hand, the physician has often been renowned for piety as +well as for his peculiarly professional virtue of charity,--led upward by +what he sees to the source of all the daily marvels wrought before his +own eyes. So it was that Galen gave utterance to that psalm of praise +which the sweet singer of Israel need not have been ashamed of; and if +this "heathen" could be lifted into such a strain of devotion, we need +not be surprised to find so many devout Christian worshippers among the +crowd of medical "atheists." + +No two professions should come into such intimate and cordial relations +as those to which belong the healers of the body and the headers of the +mind. There can be no more fatal mistake than that which brings them +into hostile attitudes with reference to each other, both having in view +the welfare of their fellow-creatures. But there is a territory always +liable to be differed about between them. There are patients who never +tell their physician the grief which lies at the bottom of their +ailments. He goes through his accustomed routine with them, and thinks +he has all the elements needed for his diagnosis. But he has seen no +deeper into the breast than the tongue, and got no nearer the heart than +the wrist. A wise and experienced clergyman, coming to the patient's +bedside,--not with the professional look on his face which suggests the +undertaker and the sexton, but with a serene countenance and a +sympathetic voice, with tact, with patience, waiting for the right +moment,--will surprise the shy spirit into a confession of the doubt, the +sorrow, the shame, the remorse, the terror which underlies all the bodily +symptoms, and the unburdening of which into a loving and pitying soul is +a more potent anodyne than all the drowsy sirups of the world. And, on +the other hand, there are many nervous and over-sensitive natures which +have been wrought up by self-torturing spiritual exercises until their +best confessor would be a sagacious and wholesome-minded physician. + +Suppose a person to have become so excited by religious stimulants that +he is subject to what are known to the records of insanity as +hallucinations: that he hears voices whispering blasphemy in his ears, +and sees devils coming to meet him, and thinks he is going to be torn in +pieces, or trodden into the mire. Suppose that his mental conflicts, +after plunging him into the depths of despondency, at last reduce him to +a state of despair, so that he now contemplates taking his own life, and +debates with himself whether it shall be by knife, halter, or poison, and +after much questioning is apparently making up his mind to commit +suicide. Is not this a manifest case of insanity, in the form known as +melancholia? Would not any prudent physician keep such a person under +the eye of constant watchers, as in a dangerous state of, at least, +partial mental alienation? Yet this is an exact transcript of the mental +condition of Christian in "Pilgrim's Progress," and its counterpart has +been found in thousands of wretched lives terminated by the act of +self-destruction, which came so near taking place in the hero of the +allegory. Now the wonderful book from which this example is taken is, +next to the Bible and the Treatise of "De Imitatione Christi," the +best-known religious work of Christendom. If Bunyan and his +contemporary, Sydenham, had met in consultation over the case of +Christian at the time when he was meditating self-murder, it is very +possible that there might have been a difference of judgment. The +physician would have one advantage in such a consultation. He would +pretty certainly have received a Christian education, while the clergyman +would probably know next to nothing of the laws or manifestations of +mental or bodily disease. It does not seem as if any theological student +was really prepared for his practical duties until he had learned +something of the effects of bodily derangements, and, above all, had +become familiar with the gamut of mental discord in the wards of an +insane asylum. + +It is a very thoughtless thing to say that the physician stands to the +divine in the same light as the divine stands to the physician, so far as +each may attempt to handle subjects belonging especially to the other's +profession. Many physicians know a great deal more about religious +matters than they do about medicine. They have read the Bible ten times +as much as they ever read any medical author. They have heard scores of +sermons for one medical lecture to which they have listened. They often +hear much better preaching than the average minister, for he hears +himself chiefly, and they hear abler men and a variety of them. They +have now and then been distinguished in theology as well as in their own +profession. The name of Servetus might call up unpleasant recollections, +but that of another medical practitioner may be safely mentioned. "It +was not till the middle of the last century that the question as to the +authorship of the Pentateuch was handled with anything like a discerning +criticism. The first attempt was made by a layman, whose studies we might +have supposed would scarcely have led him to such an investigation." +This layman was "Astruc, doctor and professor of medicine in the Royal +College at Paris, and court physician to Louis XIV." The quotation is +from the article "Pentateuch" in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," +which, of course, lies on the table of the least instructed clergyman. +The sacred profession has, it is true, returned the favor by giving the +practitioner of medicine Bishop Berkeley's "Treatise on Tar-water," and +the invaluable prescription of that "aged clergyman whose sands of +life"----but let us be fair, if not generous, and remember that Cotton +Mather shares with Zabdiel Boylston the credit of introducing the +practice of inoculation into America. The professions should be cordial +allies, but the church-going, Bible-reading physician ought to know a +great deal more of the subjects included under the general name of +theology than the clergyman can be expected to know of medicine. To say, +as has been said not long since, that a young divinity student is as +competent to deal with the latter as an old physician is to meddle with +the former, suggests the idea that wisdom is not an heirloom in the +family of the one who says it. What a set of idiots our clerical +teachers must have been and be, if, after a quarter or half a century of +their instruction, a person of fair intelligence is utterly incompetent +to form any opinion about the subjects which they have been teaching, or +trying to teach him, so long! + +A minister must find it very hard work to preach to hearers who do not +believe, or only half believe, what he preaches. But pews without heads +in them are a still more depressing spectacle. He may convince the +doubter and reform the profligate. But he cannot produce any change on +pine and mahogany by his discourses, and the more wood he sees as he +looks along his floor and galleries, the less his chance of being useful. +It is natural that in times like the present changes of faith and of +place of worship should be far from infrequent. It is not less natural +that there should be regrets on one side and gratification on the other, +when such changes occur. It even happens occasionally that the regrets +become aggravated into reproaches, rarely from the side which receives +the new accessions, less rarely from the one which is left. It is quite +conceivable that the Roman Church, which considers itself the only true +one, should look on those who leave its communion as guilty of a great +offence. It is equally natural that a church which considers Pope and +Pagan a pair of murderous giants, sitting at the mouths of their caves, +alike in their hatred to true Christians, should regard any of its +members who go over to Romanism as lost in fatal error. But within the +Protestant fold there are many compartments, and it would seem that it is +not a deadly defection to pass from one to another. + +So far from such exchanges between sects being wrong, they ought to +happen a great deal oftener than they do. All the larger bodies of +Christians should be constantly exchanging members. All men are born +with conservative or aggressive tendencies: they belong naturally with +the idol-worshippers or the idol-breakers. Some wear their fathers' old +clothes, and some will have a new suit. One class of men must have their +faith hammered in like a nail, by authority; another class must have it +worked in like a screw, by argument. Members of one of these classes +often find themselves fixed by circumstances in the other. The late +Orestes A. Brownson used to preach at one time to a little handful of +persons, in a small upper room, where some of them got from him their +first lesson about the substitution of reverence for idolatry, in dealing +with the books they hold sacred. But after a time Mr. Brownson found he +had mistaken his church, and went over to the Roman Catholic +establishment, of which he became and remained to his dying day one of +the most stalwart champions. Nature is prolific and ambidextrous. While +this strong convert was trying to carry us back to the ancient faith, +another of her sturdy children, Theodore Parker, was trying just as hard +to provide a new church for the future. One was driving the sheep into +the ancient fold, while the other was taking down the bars that kept them +out of the new pasture. Neither of these powerful men could do the +other's work, and each had to find the task for which he was destined. + +The "old gospel ship," as the Methodist song calls it, carries many who +would steer by the wake of their vessel. But there are many others who +do not trouble themselves to look over the stern, having their eyes fixed +on the light-house in the distance before them. In less figurative +language, there are multitudes of persons who are perfectly contented +with the old formulae of the church with which they and their fathers +before them have been and are connected, for the simple reason that they +fit, like old shoes, because they have been worn so long, and mingled +with these, in the most conservative religious body, are here and there +those who are restless in the fetters of a confession of faith to which +they have pledged themselves without believing in it. This has been true +of the Athanasian creed, in the Anglican Church, for two centuries more +or less, unless the Archbishop of Canterbury, Tillotson, stood alone in +wishing the church were well rid of it. In fact, it has happened to the +present writer to hear the Thirty-nine Articles summarily disposed of by +one of the most zealous members of the American branch of that communion, +in a verb of one syllable, more familiar to the ears of the forecastle +than to those of the vestry. + +But on the other hand, it is far from uncommon to meet with persons among +the so-called "liberal" denominations who are uneasy for want of a more +definite ritual and a more formal organization than they find in their +own body. Now, the rector or the minister must be well aware that there +are such cases, and each of them must be aware that there are individuals +under his guidance whom he cannot satisfy by argument, and who really +belong by all their instincts to another communion. It seems as if a +thoroughly honest, straight-collared clergyman would say frankly to his +restless parishioner: "You do not believe the central doctrines of the +church which you are in the habit of attending. You belong properly to +Brother A.'s or Brother B.'s fold, and it will be more manly and probably +more profitable for you to go there than to stay with us." And, again, +the rolling-collared clergyman might be expected to say to this or that +uneasy listener: "You are longing for a church which will settle your +beliefs for you, and relieve you to a great extent from the task, to +which you seem to be unequal, of working out your own salvation with fear +and trembling. Go over the way to Brother C.'s or Brother D.'s; your +spine is weak, and they will furnish you a back-board which will keep you +straight and make you comfortable." Patients are not the property of +their physicians, nor parishioners of their ministers. + +As for the children of clergymen, the presumption is that they will +adhere to the general belief professed by their fathers. But they do not +lose their birthright or their individuality, and have the world all +before them to choose their creed from, like other persons. They are +sometimes called to account for attacking the dogmas they are supposed to +have heard preached from their childhood. They cannot defend themselves, +for various good reasons. If they did, one would have to say he got more +preaching than was good for him, and came at last to feel about sermons +and their doctrines as confectioners' children do about candy. Another +would have to own that he got his religious belief, not from his father, +but from his mother. That would account for a great deal, for the milk +in a woman's veins sweetens, or at least, dilutes an acrid doctrine, as +the blood of the motherly cow softens the virulence of small-pox, so that +its mark survives only as the seal of immunity. Another would plead +atavism, and say he got his religious instincts from his +great-grandfather, as some do their complexion or their temper. Others +would be compelled to confess that the belief of a wife or a sister had +displaced that which they naturally inherited. No man can be expected to +go thus into the details of his family history, and, therefore, it is an +ill-bred and indecent thing to fling a man's father's creed in his face, +as if he had broken the fifth commandment in thinking for himself in the +light of a new generation. Common delicacy would prevent him from saying +that he did not get his faith from his father, but from somebody else, +perhaps from his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, like the young +man whom the Apostle cautioned against total abstinence. + +It is always the right, and may sometimes be the duty, of the layman to +call the attention of the clergy to the short-comings and errors, not +only of their own time, but also of the preceding generations, of which +they are the intellectual and moral product. This is especially true +when the authority of great names is fallen back upon as a defence of +opinions not in themselves deserving to be upheld. It may be very +important to show that the champions of this or that set of dogmas, some +of which are extinct or obsolete as beliefs, while others retain their +vitality, held certain general notions which vitiated their conclusions. +And in proportion to the eminence of such champions, and the frequency +with which their names are appealed to as a bulwark of any particular +creed or set of doctrines, is it urgent to show into what obliquities or +extravagances or contradictions of thought they have been betrayed. + +In summing up the religious history of New England, it would be just and +proper to show the agency of the Mathers, father and son, in the +witchcraft delusion. It would be quite fair to plead in their behalf the +common beliefs of their time. It would be an extenuation of their acts +that, not many years before, the great and good magistrate, Sir Matthew +Hale, had sanctioned the conviction of prisoners accused of witchcraft. +To fall back on the errors of the time is very proper when we are trying +our predecessors in foro conscientace: The houses they dwelt in may have +had some weak or decayed beams and rafters, but they served for their +shelter, at any rate. It is quite another matter when those rotten +timbers are used in holding up the roofs over our own heads. Still more, +if one of our ancestors built on an unsafe or an unwholesome foundation, +the best thing we can do is to leave it and persuade others to leave it +if we can. And if we refer to him as a precedent, it must be as a +warning and not as a guide. + +Such was the reason of the present writer's taking up the writings of +Jonathan Edwards for examination in a recent essay. The "Edwardsian" +theology is still recognized as a power in and beyond the denomination to +which he belonged. One or more churches bear his name, and it is thrown +into the scale of theological belief as if it added great strength to the +party which claims him. That he was a man of extraordinary endowments +and deep spiritual nature was not questioned, nor that he was a most +acute reasoner, who could unfold a proposition into its consequences as +patiently, as convincingly, as a palaeontologist extorts its confession +from a fossil fragment. But it was maintained that so many dehumanizing +ideas were mixed up with his conceptions of man, and so many diabolizing +attributes embodied in his imagination of the Deity, that his system of +beliefs was tainted throughout by them, and that the fact of his being so +remarkable a logician recoiled on the premises which pointed his +inexorable syllogisms to such revolting conclusions. When he presents us +a God, in whose sight children, with certain not too frequent exceptions, +"are young vipers, and are infinitely more hateful than vipers;" when he +gives the most frightful detailed description of infinite and endless +tortures which it drives men and women mad to think of prepared for "the +bulk of mankind;" when he cruelly pictures a future in which parents are +to sing hallelujahs of praise as they see their children driven into the +furnace, where they are to lie "roasting" forever,--we have a right to +say that the man who held such beliefs and indulged in such imaginations +and expressions is a burden and not a support in reference to the creed +with which his name is associated. What heathenism has ever approached +the horrors of this conception of human destiny? It is not an abuse of +language to apply to such a system of beliefs the name of Christian +pessimism. + +If these and similar doctrines are so generally discredited as some +appear to think, we might expect to see the change showing itself in +catechisms and confessions of faith, to hear the joyful news of relief +from its horrors in all our churches, and no longer to read in the +newspapers of ministers rejected or put on trial for heresy because they +could not accept the most dreadful of these doctrines. Whether this be so +or not, it must be owned that the name of Jonathan Edwards does at this +day carry a certain authority with it for many persons, so that anything +he believed gains for them some degree of probability from that +circumstance. It would, therefore, be of much interest to know whether +he was trustworthy in his theological speculations, and whether he ever +changed his belief with reference to any of the great questions above +alluded to. + +Some of our readers may remember a story which got abroad many years ago +that a certain M. Babinet, a scientific Frenchman of note, had predicted +a serious accident soon to occur to the planet on which we live by the +collision with it of a great comet then approaching us, or some such +occurrence. There is no doubt that this prediction produced anxiety and +alarm in many timid persons. It became a very interesting question with +them who this M. Babinet might be. Was he a sound observer, who had made +other observations and predictions which had proved accurate? Or was he +one of those men who are always making blunders for other people to +correct? Is he known to have changed his opinion as to the approaching +disastrous event? + +So long as there were any persons made anxious by this prediction, so +long as there was even one who believed that he, and his family, and his +nation, and his race, and the home of mankind, with all its monuments, +were very soon to be smitten in mid-heaven and instantly shivered into +fragments, it was very desirable to find any evidence that this prophet +of evil was a man who held many extravagant and even monstrous opinions. +Still more satisfactory would it be if it could be shown that he had +reconsidered his predictions, and declared that he could not abide by his +former alarming conclusions. And we should think very ill of any +astronomer who would not rejoice for the sake of his fellow-creatures, if +not for his own, to find the threatening presage invalidated in either or +both of the ways just mentioned, even though he had committed himself to +M. Babinet's dire belief. + +But what is the trivial, temporal accident of the wiping out of a planet +and its inhabitants to the infinite catastrophe which shall establish a +mighty world of eternal despair? And which is it most desirable for +mankind to have disproved or weakened, the grounds of the threat of M. +Babinet, or those of the other infinitely more terrible comminations, so +far as they rest on the authority of Jonathan Edwards? + +The writer of this paper had been long engaged in the study of the +writings of Edwards, with reference to the essay he had in contemplation, +when, on speaking of the subject to a very distinguished orthodox divine, +this gentleman mentioned the existence of a manuscript of Edwards which +had been held back from the public on account of some opinions or +tendencies it contained, or was suspected of containing "High Arianism" +was the exact expression he used with reference to it. On relating this +fact to an illustrious man of science, whose name is best known to +botanists, but is justly held in great honor by the orthodox body to +which he belongs, it appeared that he, too, had heard of such a +manuscript, and the questionable doctrine associated with it in his +memory was Sabellianism. It was of course proper in the writer of an +essay on Jonathan Edwards to mention the alleged existence of such a +manuscript, with reference to which the same caution seemed to have been +exercised as that which led, the editor of his collected works to +suppress the language Edwards had used about children. + +This mention led to a friendly correspondence between the writer and one +of the professors in the theological school at Andover, and finally to +the publication of a brief essay, which, for some reason, had been +withheld from publication for more than a century. Its title is +"Observations concerning the Scripture OEconomy of the Trinity and +Covenant of Redemption. By Jonathan Edwards." It contains thirty-six +pages and a half, each small page having about two hundred words. The +pages before the reader will be found to average about three hundred and +twenty-five words. An introduction and an appendix by the editor, +Professor Egbert C. Smyth, swell the contents to nearly a hundred pages, +but these additions, and the circumstance that it is bound in boards, +must not lead us to overlook the fact that the little volume is nothing +more than a pamphlet in book's clothing. + +A most extraordinary performance it certainly is, dealing with the +arrangements entered into by the three persons of the Trinity, in as bald +and matter-of-fact language and as commercial a spirit as if the author +had been handling the adjustment of a limited partnership between three +retail tradesmen. But, lest a layman's judgment might be considered +insufficient, the treatise was submitted by the writer to one of the most +learned of our theological experts,--the same who once informed a church +dignitary, who had been attempting to define his theological position, +that he was a Eutychian,--a fact which he seems to have been no more +aware of than M. Jourdain was conscious that he had been speaking prose +all his life. The treatise appeared to this professor anti-trinitarian, +not in the direction of Unitarianism, however, but of Tritheism. Its +anthropomorphism affected him like blasphemy, and the paper produced in +him the sense of "great disgust," which its whole character might well +excite in the unlearned reader. + +All this is, however, of little importance, for this is not the work of +Edwards referred to by the present writer in his previous essay. The +tract recently printed as a volume may be the one referred to by Dr. +Bushnell, in 1851, but of this reference by him the writer never heard +until after his own essay was already printed. The manuscript of the +"Observations" was received by Professor Smyth, as he tells us in his +introduction, about fifteen years ago, from the late Reverend William T. +Dwight, D. D., to whom it was bequeathed by his brother, the Reverend Dr. +Sereno E. Dwight. + +But the reference of the present writer was to another production of the +great logician, thus spoken of in a quotation from "the accomplished +editor of the Hartford 'Courant,'" to be found in Professor Smyth's +introduction: + +"It has long been a matter of private information that Professor Edwards +A. Park, of Andover, had in his possession an published manuscript of +Edwards of considerable extent, perhaps two thirds as long as his +treatise on the will. As few have ever seen the manuscript, its contents +are only known by vague reports.... It is said that it contains a +departure from his published views on the Trinity and a modification of +the view of original sin. One account of it says that the manuscript +leans toward Sabellianism, and that it even approaches Pelagianism." + +It was to this "suppressed" manuscript the present writer referred, and +not to the slender brochure recently given to the public. He is bound, +therefore, to say plainly that to satisfy inquirers who may be still in +doubt with reference to Edwards's theological views, it would be +necessary to submit this manuscript, and all manuscripts of his which +have been kept private, to their inspection, in print, if possible, so +that all could form their own opinion about it or them. + +The whole matter may be briefly stated thus: Edwards believed in an +eternity of unimaginable horrors for "the bulk of mankind." His +authority counts with many in favor of that belief, which affects great +numbers as the idea of ghosts affected Madame de Stall: "Je n'y crois +pas, mais je les crains." This belief is one which it is infinitely +desirable to the human race should be shown to be possibly, probably, or +certainly erroneous. It is, therefore, desirable in the interest of +humanity that any force the argument in its favor may derive from +Edwards's authority should be weakened by showing that he was capable of +writing most unwisely, and if it should be proved that he changed his +opinions, or ran into any "heretical" vagaries, by using these facts +against the validity of his judgment. That he was capable of writing +most unwisely has been sufficiently shown by the recent publication of +his "Observations." Whether he, anywhere contradicted what were generally +accepted as his theological opinions, or how far he may have lapsed into +heresies, the public will never rest satisfied until it sees and +interprets for itself everything that is open to question which may be +contained in his yet unpublished manuscripts. All this is not in the +least a personal affair with the writer, who, in the course of his +studies of Edwards's works, accidentally heard, from the unimpeachable +sources sufficiently indicated, the reports, which it seems must have +been familiar to many, that there was unpublished matter bearing on the +opinions of the author through whose voluminous works he had been +toiling. And if he rejoiced even to hope that so wise a man as Edwards +has been considered, so good a man as he is recognized to have been, had, +possibly in his changes of opinion, ceased to think of children as +vipers, and of parents as shouting hallelujahs while their lost darlings +were being driven into the flames, where is the theologian who would not +rejoice to hope so with him or who would be willing to tell his wife or +his daughter that he did not? + +The real, vital division of the religious part of our Protestant +communities is into Christian optimists and Christian pessimists. The +Christian optimist in his fullest development is characterized by a +cheerful countenance, a voice in the major key, an undisguised enjoyment +of earthly comforts, and a short confession of faith. His theory of the +universe is progress; his idea of God is that he is a Father with all the +true paternal attributes, of man that he is destined to come into harmony +with the key-note of divine order, of this earth that it is a training +school for a better sphere of existence. The Christian pessimist in his +most typical manifestation is apt to wear a solemn aspect, to speak, +especially from the pulpit, in the minor key, to undervalue the lesser +enjoyments of life, to insist on a more extended list of articles of +belief. His theory of the universe recognizes this corner of it as a +moral ruin; his idea of the Creator is that of a ruler whose pardoning +power is subject to the veto of what is called "justice;" his notion of +man is that he is born a natural hater of God and goodness, and that his +natural destiny is eternal misery. The line dividing these two great +classes zigzags its way through the religious community, sometimes +following denominational layers and cleavages, sometimes going, like a +geological fracture, through many different strata. The natural +antagonists of the religious pessimists are the men of science, +especially the evolutionists, and the poets. It was but a conditioned +prophecy, yet we cannot doubt what was in Milton's mind when he sang, in +one of the divinest of his strains, that + + "Hell itself will pass away, + And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day." + +And Nature, always fair if we will allow her time enough, after giving +mankind the inspired tinker who painted the Christian's life as that of a +hunted animal, "never long at ease," desponding, despairing, on the verge +of self-murder,--painted it with an originality, a vividness, a power and +a sweetness, too, that rank him with the great authors of all time,--kind +Nature, after this gift, sent as his counterpoise the inspired ploughman, +whose songs have done more to humanize the hard theology of Scotland than +all the rationalistic sermons that were ever preached. Our own Whittier +has done and is doing the same thing, in a far holier spirit than Burns, +for the inherited beliefs of New England and the country to which New +England belongs. Let me sweeten these closing paragraphs of an essay not +meaning to hold a word of bitterness with a passage or two from the +lay-preacher who is listened to by a larger congregation than any man who +speaks from the pulpit. Who will not hear his words with comfort and +rejoicing when he speaks of "that larger hope which, secretly cherished +from the times of Origen and Duns Scotus to those of Foster and Maurice, +has found its fitting utterance in the noblest poem of the age?" + +It is Tennyson's "In Memoriam" to which he refers, and from which he +quotes four verses, of which this is the last: + + "Behold! we know not anything + I can but trust that good shall fall + At last,--far off,--at last, to all, + And every winter change to spring." + +If some are disposed to think that the progress of civilization and the +rapidly growing change of opinion renders unnecessary any further effort +to humanize "the Gospel of dread tidings;" if any believe the doctrines +of the Longer and Shorter Catechism of the Westminster divines are so far +obsolete as to require no further handling; if there are any who thank +these subjects have lost their interest for living souls ever since they +themselves have learned to stay at home on Sundays, with their cakes and +ale instead of going to meeting,--not such is Mr. Whittier's opinion, +as we may infer from his recent beautiful poem, "The Minister's +Daughter." It is not science alone that the old Christian pessimism has +got to struggle with, but the instincts of childhood, the affections of +maternity, the intuitions of poets, the contagious humanity of the +philanthropist,--in short, human nature and the advance of civilization. +The pulpit has long helped the world, and is still one of the chief +defences against the dangers that threaten society, and it is worthy now, +as it always has been in its best representation, of all love and honor. +But many of its professed creeds imperatively demand revision, and the +pews which call for it must be listened to, or the preacher will by and +by find himself speaking to a congregation of bodiless echoes by and by +find himself speaking to a congregation of bodiless echoes. + + + + + + +MEDICAL ESSAYS + +By Oliver Wendell Holmes + + +1842-1882 + + +CONTENTS: + +I. HOMEOPATHY AND ITS KINDRED DELUSIONS + +II. THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF PUERPERAL FEVER + +III. CURRENTS AND COUNTER-CURRENTS IN MEDICAL SCIENCE + +IV. BORDER LINES OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOME PROVINCES OF MEDICAL SCIENCE + +V. SCHOLASTIC AND BEDSIDE TEACHING + +VI. THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IN MASSACHUSETTS + +VII. THE YOUNG PRACTITIONER + +VIII. MEDICAL LIBRARIES + +IX. SOME OF MY EARLY TEACHERS + + + + +PREFACE. + +The character of the opposition which some of these papers have met with +suggests the inference that they contain really important, but unwelcome +truths. Negatives multiplied into each other change their sign and +become positives. Hostile criticisms meeting together are often +equivalent to praise, and the square of fault-finding turns out to be the +same thing as eulogy. + +But a writer has rarely so many enemies as it pleases him to believe. +Self-love leads us to overrate the numbers of our negative constituency. +The larger portion of my limited circle of readers must be quite +indifferent to, if not ignorant of, the adverse opinions which have been +expressed or recorded concerning any of these Addresses or Essays now +submitted to their own judgment. It is proper, however, to inform them, +that some of the positions maintained in these pages have been +unsparingly attacked, with various degrees of ability, scholarship, and +good-breeding. The tone of criticism naturally changes with local +conditions in different parts of a country extended like our own, so that +it is one of the most convenient gauges of the partial movements in the +direction of civilization. It is satisfactory to add, that the views +assailed have also been unflinchingly defended by unsought champions, +among the ablest of whom it is pleasant to mention, at this moment of +political alienation, the Editor of the Charleston Medical Journal. + +"Currents and Counter-Currents" was written and delivered as an Oration, +a florid rhetorical composition, expressly intended to secure the +attention of an audience not easy to hold as listeners. It succeeded in +doing this, and also in being as curiously misunderstood and +misrepresented as if it had been a political harangue. This gave it more +local notoriety than it might otherwise have attained, so that, as I +learn, one ingenious person made use of its title as an advertisement to +a production of his own. + +The commonest mode of misrepresentation was this: qualified propositions, +the whole meaning of which depended on the qualifications, were stripped +of these and taken as absolute. Thus, the attempt to establish a +presumption against giving poisons to sick persons was considered as +equivalent to condemning the use of these substances. The only important +inference the writer has been able to draw from the greater number of the +refutations of his opinions which have been kindly sent him, is that the +preliminary education of the Medical Profession is not always what it +ought to be. + +One concession he is willing to make, whatever sacrifice of pride it may +involve. The story of Massasoit, which has furnished a coral, as it +were, for some teething critics, when subjected to a powerful logical +analysis, though correct in its essentials, proves to have been told with +exceptionable breadth of statement, and therefore (to resume the +metaphor) has been slightly rounded off at its edges, so as to be +smoother for any who may wish to bite upon it hereafter. In other +respects the Discourse has hardly been touched. It is only an +individual's expression, in his own way, of opinions entertained by +hundreds of the Medical Profession in every civilized country, and has +nothing in it which on revision the writer sees cause to retract or +modify. The superstitions it attacks lie at the very foundation of +Homoeopathy, and of almost every form of medical charlatanism. Still the +mere routinists and unthinking artisans in most callings dislike whatever +shakes the dust out of their traditions, and it may be unreasonable to +expect that Medicine will always prove an exception to the rule. One +half the opposition which the numerical system of Louis has met with, as +applied to the results of treatment, has been owing to the fact that it +showed the movements of disease to be far more independent of the kind of +practice pursued than was agreeable to the pride of those whose +self-confidence it abated. + +The statement, that medicines are more sparingly used in physicians' +families than in most others, admits of a very natural explanation, +without putting a harsh construction upon it, which it was not intended +to admit. Outside pressure is less felt in the physician's own +household; that is all. If this does not sometimes influence him to give +medicine, or what seems to be medicine, when among those who have more +confidence in drugging than his own family commonly has, the learned +Professor Dunglison is hereby requested to apologize for his definition +of the word Placebo, or to expunge it from his Medical Dictionary. + +One thing is certain. A loud outcry on a slight touch reveals the weak +spot in a profession, as well as in a patient. It is a doubtful policy +to oppose the freest speech in those of our own number who are trying to +show us where they honestly believe our weakness lies. Vast as are the +advances of our Science and Art, may it not possibly prove on examination +that we retain other old barbarisms beside the use of the astrological +sign of Jupiter, with which we endeavor to insure good luck to our +prescriptions? Is it the act of a friend or a foe to try to point them +out to our brethren when asked to address them, and is the speaker to +subdue the constitutional habit of his style to a given standard, under +penalty of giving offence to a grave assembly? + +"Homoeopathy and its Kindred Delusions" was published nearly twenty years +ago, and has been long out of print, so that the author tried in vain to +procure a copy until the kindness of a friend supplied him with the only +one he has had for years. A foolish story reached his ears that he was +attempting to buy up stray copies for the sake of suppressing it. This +edition was in the press at that very time. + +Many of the arguments contained in the Lectures have lost whatever +novelty they may have possessed. All its predictions have been submitted +to the formidable test of time. They appear to have stood it, so far, +about as well as most uninspired prophecies; indeed, some of them require +much less accommodation than certain grave commentators employ in their +readings of the ancient Prophets. + +If some statistics recently published are correct, Homoeopathy has made +very slow progress in Europe. + +In all England, as it appears, there are hardly a fifth more Homoeopathic +practitioners than there are students attending Lectures at the +Massachusetts Medical College at the present time. In America it has +undoubtedly proved more popular and lucrative, yet how loose a hold it +has on the public confidence is shown by the fact that, when a specially +valued life, which has been played with by one of its agents, is +seriously threatened, the first thing we expect to hear is that a regular +practitioner is by the patient's bed, and the Homoeopathic counsellor +overruled or discarded. Again, how many of the ardent and capricious +persons who embraced Homoeopathy have run the whole round of pretentious +novelties;--have been boarded at water-cure establishments, closeted with +uterine and other specialists, and finally wandered over seas to put +themselves in charge of foreign celebrities, who dosed them as lustily as +they were ever dosed before they took to globules! It will surprise many +to learn to what a shadow of a shade Homoeopathy has dwindled in the +hands of many of its noted practitioners. The itch-doctrine is treated +with contempt. Infinitesimal doses are replaced by full ones whenever +the fancy-practitioner chooses. Good Homoeopathic reasons can be found +for employing anything that anybody wants to employ. Homoeopathy is now +merely a name, an unproved theory, and a box of pellets pretending to be +specifics, which, as all of us know, fail ignominiously in those cases +where we would thankfully sacrifice all our prejudices and give the world +to have them true to their promises. + +Homoeopathy has not died out so rapidly as Tractoration. Perhaps it was +well that it should not, for it has taught us a lesson of the healing +faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us have made +proper acknowledgments. But it probably does more harm than good to +medical science at the present time, by keeping up the delusion of +treating everything by specifics,--the old barbarous notion that sick +people should feed on poisons [Lachesis, arrow-poison, obtained from a +serpent (Pulte). Crotalus horridus, rattlesnake's venom (Neidhard). The +less dangerous Pediculus capitis is the favorite remedy of Dr. Mure, the +English "Apostle of Homoeopathy." These are examples of the retrograde +current setting towards barbarism] against which a part of the Discourse +at the beginning of this volume is directed. + +The infinitesimal globules have not become a curiosity as yet, like +Perkins's Tractors. But time is a very elastic element in Geology and +Prophecy. If Daniel's seventy weeks mean four hundred and ninety years, +as the learned Prideaux and others have settled it that they do, the "not +many years" of my prediction may be stretched out a generation or two +beyond our time, if necessary, when the prophecy will no doubt prove +true. + +It might be fitting to add a few words with regard to the Essay on the +Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever. But the whole question I consider to +be now transferred from the domain of medical inquiry to the +consideration of Life Insurance agencies and Grand Juries. For the +justification of this somewhat sharply accented language I must refer the +reader to the paper itself for details which I regret to have been forced +to place on permanent record. + +BOSTON, January, 1861. + + + + +A SECOND PREFACE. + +These Lectures and Essays are arranged in the order corresponding to the +date of their delivery or publication. They must, of course, be read +with a constant reference to these dates, by such as care to read them. +I have not attempted to modernize their aspect or character in presenting +them, in this somewhat altered connection, to the public. Several of +them were contained in a former volume which received its name from the +Address called "Currents and Counter-Currents." Some of those contained +in the former volume have been replaced by others. The Essay called +"Mechanism of Vital Actions" has been transferred to a distinct +collection of Miscellaneous essays, forming a separate volume. + +I had some intention of including with these papers an Essay on +Intermittent Fever in New England, which received one of the Boylston +prizes in 1837, and was published in the following year. But as this was +upon a subject of local interest, chiefly, and would have taken up a good +deal of room, I thought it best to leave it out, trusting that the stray +copies to be met with in musty book-shops would sufficiently supply the +not very extensive or urgent demand for a paper almost half a century +old. + +Some of these papers created a little stir when they first fell from the +press into the pool of public consciousness. They will slide in very +quietly now in this new edition, and find out for themselves whether the +waters are those of Lethe, or whether they are to live for a time as not +wholly unvalued reminiscences. + +March 21, 1883. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. + +These Essays are old enough now to go alone without staff or crutch in +the shape of Prefaces. A very few words may be a convenience to the +reader who takes up the book and wishes to know what he is likely to find +in it. + + HOMOEOPATHY AND ITS KINDRED DELUSIONS. + +Homoeopathy has proved lucrative, and so long as it continues to be so +will surely exist,--as surely as astrology, palmistry, and other methods +of getting a living out of the weakness and credulity of mankind and +womankind. Though it has no pretensions to be considered as belonging +among the sciences, it may be looked upon by a scientific man as a +curious object of study among the vagaries of the human mind. Its +influence for good or the contrary may be made a matter of calm +investigation. I have studied it in the Essay before the reader, under +the aspect of an extravagant and purely imaginative creation of its +founder. Since that first essay was written, nearly half a century ago, +we have all had a chance to witness its practical working. Two opposite +inferences may be drawn from its doctrines and practice. The first is +that which is accepted by its disciples. This is that all diseases are +"cured" by drugs. The opposite conclusion is drawn by a much larger +number of persons. As they see that patients are very commonly getting +well under treatment by infinitesimal drugging, which they consider +equivalent to no medication at all, they come to disbelieve in every form +of drugging and put their whole trust in "nature." Thus experience, + + "From seeming evil still educing good," + +has shown that the dealers in this preposterous system of +pseudo-therapeutics have cooperated with the wiser class of practitioners +in breaking up the system of over-dosing and over-drugging which has been +one of the standing reproaches of medical practice. While. keeping up +the miserable delusion that diseases were all to be "cured" by drugging, +Homoeopathy has been unintentionally showing that they would very +generally get well without any drugging at all. In the mean time the +newer doctrines of the "mind cure," the "faith cure," and the rest are +encroaching on the territory so long monopolized by that most ingenious +of the pseudo-sciences. It would not be surprising if its whole ground +should be taken possession of by these new claimants with their +flattering appeals to the imaginative class of persons open to such +attacks. Similia similabus may prove fatally true for once, if +Homoeopathy is killed out by its new-born rivals. + +It takes a very moderate amount of erudition to unearth a charlatan like +the supposed father of the infinitesimal dosing system. The real +inventor of that specious trickery was an Irishman by the name of Butler. +The whole story is to be found in the "Ortus Medicinm" of Van Helmont. I +have given some account of his chapter "Butler" in different articles, +but I would refer the students of our Homoeopathic educational +institutions to the original, which they will find very interesting and +curious. + + CURRENTS AND COUNTER-CURRENTS + +My attack on over-drugging brought out some hostile comments and +treatment. Thirty years ago I expressed myself with more vivacity than I +should show if I were writing on the same subjects today. Some of my more +lively remarks called out very sharp animadversion. Thus my illustration +of prevention as often better than treatment in the mother's words to her +child which had got a poisonous berry in its mouth,--"Spit it out!" gave +mortal offence to a well-known New York practitioner and writer, who +advised the Massachusetts Medical Society to spit out the offending +speaker. Worse than this was my statement of my belief that if a +ship-load of miscellaneous drugs, with certain very important +exceptions,--drugs, many of which were then often given needlessly and in +excess, as then used "could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be +all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes." This was +too bad. The sentence was misquoted, quoted without its qualifying +conditions, and frightened some of my worthy professional brethren as +much as if I had told them to throw all physic to the dogs. But for the +epigrammatic sting the sentiment would have been unnoticed as a harmless +overstatement at the very worst. + +Since this lecture was delivered a great and, as I think, beneficial +change has taken place in the practice of medicine. The habit of the +English "general practitioner" of making his profit out of the pills and +potions he administered was ruinous to professional advancement and the +dignity of the physician. When a half-starving medical man felt that he +must give his patient draught and boluses for which he could charge him, +he was in a pitiable position and too likely to persuade himself that his +drugs were useful to his patient because they were profitable to him. +This practice has prevailed a good deal in America, and was doubtless the +source in some measure of the errors I combated. + + THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF PUERPERAL FEVER. + +This Essay was read before a small Association called "The Society for +Medical Improvement," and published in a Medical Journal which lasted but +a single year. It naturally attracted less attention than it would have +done if published in such a periodical as the "American Journal of +Medical Sciences." Still it had its effect, as I have every reason to +believe. I cannot doubt that it has saved the lives of many young +mothers by calling attention to the existence and propagation of +"Puerperal Fever as a Private Pestilence," and laying down rules for +taking the necessary precautions against it. The case has long been +decided in favor of the views I advocated, but, at the time when I wrote +two of the most celebrated professors of Obstetrics in this country +opposed my conclusions with all the weight of their experience and +position. + +This paper was written in a great heat and with passionate indignation. +If I touched it at all I might trim its rhetorical exuberance, but I +prefer to leave it all its original strength of expression. I could not, +if I had tried, have disguised the feelings with which I regarded the +attempt to put out of sight the frightful facts which I brought forward +and the necessary conclusions to which they led. Of course the whole +matter has been looked at in a new point of view since the microbe as a +vehicle of contagion has been brought into light, and explained the +mechanism of that which was plain enough as a fact to all who were not +blind or who did not shut their eyes. + +O. W. H. + +BEVERLY Farms, Mass., August 3, 1891 + + + + +HOMOEOPATHY AND ITS KINDRED DELUSIONS + +[Two lectures delivered before the Boston Society for the Diffusion of +Useful Knowledge. 1842.] + +[When a physician attempts to convince a person, who has fallen into the +Homoeopathic delusion, of the emptiness of its pretensions, he is often +answered by a statement of cases in which its practitioners are thought +to have effected wonderful cures. The main object of the first of these +Lectures is to show, by abundant facts, that such statements, made by +persons unacquainted with the fluctuations of disease and the fallacies +of observation, are to be considered in general as of little or no value +in establishing the truth of a medical doctrine or the utility of a +method of practice. + +Those kind friends who suggest to a person suffering from a tedious +complaint, that he "Had better try Homoeopathy," are apt to enforce their +suggestion by adding, that "at any rate it can do no harm." This may or +may not be true as regards the individual. But it always does very great +harm to the community to encourage ignorance, error, or deception in a +profession which deals with the life and health of our fellow-creatures. +Whether or not those who countenance Homoeopathy are guilty of this +injustice towards others, the second of these Lectures may afford them +some means of determining. + +To deny that good effects may happen from the observance of diet and +regimen when prescribed by Homoeopathists as well as by others, would be +very unfair to them. But to suppose that men with minds so constituted +as to accept such statements and embrace such doctrines as make up the +so-called science of Homoeopathy are more competent than others to +regulate the circumstances which influence the human body in health and +disease, would be judging very harshly the average capacity of ordinary +practitioners. + +To deny that some patients may have been actually benefited through the +influence exerted upon their imaginations, would be to refuse to +Homoeopathy what all are willing to concede to every one of those +numerous modes of practice known to all intelligent persons by an +opprobrious title. + +So long as the body is affected through the mind, no audacious device, +even of the most manifestly dishonest character, can fail of producing +occasional good to those who yield it an implicit or even a partial +faith. The argument founded on this occasional good would be as +applicable in justifying the counterfeiter and giving circulation to his +base coin, on the ground that a spurious dollar had often relieved a poor +man's necessities. + +Homoeopathy has come before our public at a period when the growing +spirit of eclecticism has prepared many ingenious and honest minds to +listen to all new doctrines with a candor liable to degenerate into +weakness. It is not impossible that the pretended evolution of great and +mysterious virtues from infinitely attenuated atoms may have enticed a +few over-refining philosophers, who have slid into a vague belief that +matter subdivided grows less material, and approaches nearer to a +spiritual nature as it requires a more powerful microscope for its +detection. + +However this may be, some persons seem disposed to take the ground of +Menzel that the Laity must pass formal judgment between the Physician and +the Homoeopathist, as it once did between Luther and the Romanists. The +practitioner and the scholar must not, therefore, smile at the amount of +time and labor expended in these Lectures upon this shadowy system; +which, in the calm and serious judgment of many of the wisest members of +the medical profession, is not entitled by anything it has ever said or +done to the notoriety of a public rebuke, still less to the honors of +critical martyrdom.] + + + +I + +I have selected four topics for this lecture, the first three of which I +shall touch but slightly, the last more fully. They are + +1. The Royal cure of the King's Evil, or Scrofula. + +2. The Weapon Ointment, and its twin absurdity, the Sympathetic Powder. + +3. The Tar-water mania of Bishop Berkeley. + +4. The History of the Metallic Tractors, or Perkinism. + +The first two illustrate the ease with which numerous facts are +accumulated to prove the most fanciful and senseless extravagances. + +The third exhibits the entire insufficiency of exalted wisdom, immaculate +honesty, and vast general acquirements to make a good physician of a +great bishop. + +The fourth shows us the intimate machinery of an extinct delusion, which +flourished only forty years ago; drawn in all its details, as being a +rich and comparatively recent illustration of the pretensions, the +arguments, the patronage, by means of which windy errors have long been, +and will long continue to be, swollen into transient consequence. All +display in superfluous abundance the boundless credulity and excitability +of mankind upon subjects connected with medicine. + +"From the time of Edward the Confessor to Queen Anne, the monarchs of +England were in the habit of touching those who were brought to them +suffering with the scrofula, for the cure of that distemper. William the +Third had good sense enough to discontinue the practice, but Anne resumed +it, and, among her other patients, performed the royal operation upon a +child, who, in spite of his, disease, grew up at last into Samuel +Johnson. After laying his hand upon the sufferers, it was customary for +the monarch to hang a gold piece around the neck of each patient. Very +strict precautions were adopted to prevent those who thought more of the +golden angel hung round the neck by a white ribbon, than of relief of +their bodily infirmities, from making too many calls, as they sometimes +attempted to do. According to the statement of the advocates and +contemporaries of this remedy, none ever failed of receiving benefit +unless their little faith and credulity starved their merits. Some are +said to have been cured immediately on the very touch, others did not so +easily get rid of their swellings, until they were touched a second time. +Several cases are related, of persons who had been blind for several +weeks, and months, and obliged even to be led to Whitehall, yet recovered +their sight immediately upon being touched, so as to walk away without +any guide." So widely, at one period, was the belief diffused, that, in +the course of twelve years, nearly a hundred thousand persons were +touched by Charles the Second. Catholic divines; in disputes upon the +orthodoxy of their church, did not deny that the power had descended to +protestant princes;--Dr. Harpsfield, in his "Ecclesiastical History of +England," admitted it, and in Wiseman's words, "when Bishop Tooker would +make use of this Argument to prove the Truth of our Church, Smitheus doth +not thereupon go about to deny the Matter of fact; nay, both he and Cope +acknowledge it." "I myself," says Wiseman, the best English surgical +writer of his day,[Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. iii. p. +103.]--"I my self have been a frequent Eye-witness of many hundred of +Cures performed by his Majesties Touch alone, without any assistance of +Chirurgery; and those, many of them such as had tired out the endeavours +of able Chirurgeons before they came hither. It were endless to recite +what I myself have seen, and what I have received acknowledgments of by +Letter, not only from the severall parts of this Nation, but also from +Ireland, Scotland, Jersey, Garnsey. It is needless also to remember what +Miracles of this nature were performed by the very Bloud of his late +Majesty of Blessed memory, after whose decollation by the inhuman +Barbarity of the Regicides, the reliques of that were gathered on Chips +and in Handkerchieffs by the pious Devotes, who could not but think so +great a suffering in so honourable and pious a Cause, would be attended +by an extraordinary assistance of God, and some more then ordinary a +miracle: nor did their Faith deceive them in this there point, being so +many hundred that found the benefit of it." [Severall Chirurgicall +Treatises. London.1676. p. 246.] + +Obstinate and incredulous men, as he tells us, accounted for these cures +in three ways: by the journey and change of air the patients obtained in +coming to London; by the influence of imagination; and the wearing of +gold. + +To these objections he answers, 1st. That many of those cured were +inhabitants of the city. 2d. That the subjects of treatment were +frequently infants. 3d. That sometimes silver was given, and sometimes +nothing, yet the patients were cured. + +A superstition resembling this probably exists at the present time in +some ignorant districts of England and this country. A writer in a +Medical Journal in the year 1807, speaks of a farmer in Devonshire, who, +being a ninth son of a ninth son, is thought endowed with healing powers +like those of ancient royalty, and who is accustomed one day in every +week to strike for the evil. + +I remember that one of my schoolmates told me, when a boy, of a seventh +son of a seventh son, somewhere in Essex County, who touched for the +scrofula, and who used to hang a silver fourpence halfpenny about the +neck of those who came to him, which fourpence halfpenny it was solemnly +affirmed became of a remarkably black color after having been some time +worn, and that his own brother had been subjected to this extraordinary +treatment; but I must add that my schoolmate drew a bow of remarkable +length, strength, and toughness for his tender years. + +One of the most curious examples of the fallacy of popular belief and the +uncertainty of asserted facts in medical experience is to be found in the +history of the UNGUENTUM ARMARIUM, or WEAPON OINTMENT. + +Fabricius Hildanus, whose name is familiar to every surgical scholar, and +Lord Bacon, who frequently dipped a little into medicine, are my +principal authorities for the few circumstances I shall mention regarding +it. The Weapon Ointment was a preparation used for the healing of +wounds, but instead of its being applied to them, the injured part was +washed and bandaged, and the weapon with which the wound was inflicted +was carefully anointed with the unguent. Empirics, ignorant barbers, and +men of that sort, are said to have especially employed it. Still there +were not wanting some among the more respectable members of the medical +profession who supported its claims. The composition of this ointment +was complicated, in the different formulae given by different +authorities; but some substances addressed to the imagination, rather +than the wound or weapon, entered into all. Such were portions of mummy, +of human blood, and of moss from the skull of a thief hung in chains. + +Hildanus was a wise and learned man, one of the best surgeons of his +time. He was fully aware that a part of the real secret of the Unguentum +Armarium consisted in the washing and bandaging the wound and then +letting it alone. But he could not resist the solemn assertions +respecting its efficacy; he gave way before the outcry of facts, and +therefore, instead of denying all their pretensions, he admitted and +tried to account for them upon supernatural grounds. As the virtue of +those applications, he says, which are made to the weapon cannot reach +the wound, and as they can produce no effect without contact, it follows, +of necessity, that the Devil must have a hand in the business; and as he +is by far the most long headed and experienced of practitioners, he +cannot find this a matter of any great difficulty. Hildanus himself +reports, in detail, the case of a lady who had received a moderate wound, +for which the Unguentum Armarium was employed without the slightest use. +Yet instead of receiving this flat case of failure as any evidence +against the remedy, he accounts for its not succeeding by the devout +character of the lady, and her freedom from that superstitious and +over-imaginative tendency which the Devil requires in those who are to be +benefited by his devices. + +Lord Bacon speaks of the Weapon Ointment, in his Natural History, as +having in its favor the testimony of men of credit, though, in his own +language, he himself "as yet is not fully inclined to believe it." His +remarks upon the asserted facts respecting it show a mixture of wise +suspicion and partial belief. He does not like the precise directions +given as to the circumstances under which the animals from which some of +the materials were obtained were to be killed; for he thought it looked +like a provision for an excuse in case of failure, by laying the fault to +the omission of some of these circumstances. But he likes well that +"they do not observe the confecting of the Ointment under any certain +constellation; which is commonly the excuse of magical medicines, when +they fail, that they were not made under a fit figure of heaven." [This +was a mistake, however, since the two recipes given by Hildanus are both +very explicit as to the aspect of the heavens required for different +stages of the process.] "It was pretended that if the offending weapon +could not be had, it would serve the purpose to anoint a wooden one made +like it." "This," says Bacon, "I should doubt to be a device to keep +this strange form of cure in request and use; because many times you +cannot come by the weapon itself." And in closing his remarks on the +statements of the advocates of the ointment, he says, "Lastly, it will +cure a beast as well as a man, which I like best of all the rest, because +it subjecteth the matter to an easy trial." It is worth remembering, +that more than two hundred years ago, when an absurd and fantastic remedy +was asserted to possess wonderful power, and when sensible persons +ascribed its pretended influence to imagination, it was boldly answered +that the cure took place when the wounded party did not know of the +application made to the weapon, and even when a brute animal was the +subject of the experiment, and that this assertion, as we all know it +was, came in such a shape as to shake the incredulity of the keenest +thinker of his time. The very same assertion has been since repeated in +favor of Perkinism, and, since that, of Homoeopathy. + +The same essential idea as that of the Weapon Ointment reproduced itself +in the still more famous SYMPATHETIC POWDER. This Powder was said to +have the faculty, if applied to the blood-stained garments of a wounded +person, to cure his injuries, even though he were at a great distance at +the time. A friar, returning from the East, brought the recipe to Europe +somewhat before the middle of the seventeenth century. The Grand Duke of +Florence, in which city the friar was residing, heard of his cures, and +tried, but without success, to obtain his secret. Sir Kenehn Digby, an +Englishman well known to fame, was fortunate enough to do him a favor, +which wrought upon his feelings and induced him to impart to his +benefactor the composition of his extraordinary Powder. This English +knight was at different periods of his life an admiral, a theologian, a +critic, a metaphysician, a politician, and a disciple of Alchemy. As is +not unfrequent with versatile and inflammable people, he caught fire at +the first spark of a new medical discovery, and no sooner got home to +England than he began to spread the conflagration. + +An opportunity soon offered itself to try the powers of the famous +powder. Mr. J. Howell, having been wounded in endeavoring to part two of +his friends who were fighting a duel, submitted himself to a trial of the +Sympathetic Powder. Four days after he received his wounds, Sir Kenehn +dipped one of Mr. Howell's gaiters in a solution of the Powder, and +immediately, it is said, the wounds, which were very painful, grew easy, +although the patient, who was conversing in a corner of the chamber, had +not, the least idea of what was doing with his garter. He then returned +home, leaving his garter in the hands of Sir Kenelm, who had hung it up +to dry, when Mr. Howell sent his servant in a great hurry to tell him +that his wounds were paining him horribly; the garter was therefore +replaced in the solution of the Powder, "and the patient got well after +five or six days of its continued immersion." + +King James First, his son Charles the First, the Duke of Buckingham, then +prime minister, and all the principal personages of the time, were +cognizant of this fact; and James himself, being curious to know the +secret of this remedy, asked it of Sir Kenelm, who revealed it to him, +and his Majesty had the opportunity of making several trials of its +efficacy, "which all succeeded in a surprising manner." [Dict. des +Sciences Medieales.] + +The king's physician, Dr. Mayerne, was made master of the secret, which +he carried to France and communicated to the Duke of Mayenne, who +performed many cures by means of it, and taught it to his surgeon, who, +after the Duke's death, sold it to many distinguished persons, by whose +agency it soon ceased to be a secret. What was this wonderful substance +which so astonished kings, princes, dukes, knights, and doctors? Nothing +but powdered blue vitriol. But it was made to undergo several processes +that conferred on it extraordinary virtues. Twice or thrice it was to be +dissolved, filtered, and crystallized. The crystals were to be laid in +the sun during the months of June, July, and August, taking care to turn +them carefully that all should be exposed. Then they were to be +powdered, triturated, and again exposed to the sun, again reduced to a +very fine powder, and secured in a vessel, while hot, from the sunshine. +If there seem anything remarkable in the fact of such astonishing +properties being developed by this process, it must be from our +short-sightedness, for common salt and charcoal develop powers quite as +marvellous after a certain number of thumps, stirs, and shakes, from the +hands of modern workers of miracles. In fact the Unguentum Armarium and +Sympathetic Powder resemble some more recent prescriptions; the latter +consisting in an infinite dilution of the common dose in which remedies +are given, and the two former in an infinite dilution of the common +distance at which they are applied. + +Whether philosophers, and more especially metaphysicians, have any +peculiar tendency to dabble in drugs and dose themselves with physic, is +a question which might suggest itself to the reader of their biographies. + +When Bishop Berkeley visited the illustrious Malebranche at Paris, he +found him in his cell, cooking in a small pipkin a medicine for an +inflammation of the lungs, from which he was suffering; and the disease, +being unfortunately aggravated by the vehemence of their discussion, or +the contents of the pipkin, carried him off in the course of a few days. +Berkeley himself afforded a remarkable illustration of a truth which has +long been known to the members of one of the learned professions, namely, +that no amount of talent, or of acquirements in other departments, can +rescue from lamentable folly those who, without something of the +requisite preparation, undertake to experiment with nostrums upon +themselves and their neighbors. The exalted character of Berkeley is +thus drawn by Sir James Mackintosh: Ancient learning, exact science, +polished society, modern literature, and the fine arts, contributed to +adorn and enrich the mind of this accomplished man. All his +contemporaries agreed with the satirist in ascribing + + "'To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.' + +"Even the discerning, fastidious, and turbulent Atterbury said, after an +interview with him, 'So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much +innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any +but angels, till I saw this gentleman.'" + +But among the writings of this great and good man is an Essay of the most +curious character, illustrating his weakness upon the point in question, +and entitled, "Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries +concerning the Virtues of TAR WATER, and divers other Subjects,"--an +essay which begins with a recipe for his favorite fluid, and slides by +gentle gradations into an examination of the sublimest doctrines of +Plato. To show how far a man of honesty and benevolence, and with a mind +of singular acuteness and depth, may be run away with by a favorite +notion on a subject which his habits and education do not fit him to +investigate, I shall give a short account of this Essay, merely stating +that as all the supposed virtues of Tar Water, made public in successive +editions of his treatise by so illustrious an author, have not saved it +from neglect and disgrace, it may be fairly assumed that they were mainly +imaginary. + +The bishop, as is usual in such cases, speaks of himself as indispensably +obliged, by the duty he owes to mankind, to make his experience public. +Now this was by no means evident, nor does it follow in general, that +because a man has formed a favorable opinion of a person or a thing he +has not the proper means of thoroughly understanding, he shall be bound +to print it, and thus give currency to his impressions, which may be +erroneous, and therefore injurious. He would have done much better to +have laid his impressions before some experienced physicians and +surgeons, such as Dr. Mead and Mr. Cheselden, to have asked them to try +his experiment over again, and have been guided by their answers. But +the good bishop got excited; he pleased himself with the thought that he +had discovered a great panacea; and having once tasted the bewitching cup +of self-quackery, like many before and since his time, he was so +infatuated with the draught that he would insist on pouring it down the +throats of his neighbors and all mankind. + +The precious fluid was made by stirring a gallon of water with a quart of +tar, leaving it forty-eight hours, and pouring off the clear water. Such +was the specific which the great metaphysician recommended for averting +and curing all manner of diseases. It was, if he might be believed, a +preventive of the small-pox, and of great use in the course of the +disease. It was a cure for impurities of the blood, coughs, pleurisy, +peripneumony, erysipelas, asthma, indigestion, carchexia, hysterics, +dropsy, mortification, scurvy, and hypochondria. It was of great use in +gout and fevers, and was an excellent preservative of the teeth and gums; +answered all the purpose of Elixir Proprietatis, Stoughton's drops, diet +drinks, and mineral waters; was particularly to be recommended to +sea-faring persons, ladies, and men of studious and sedentary lives; +could never be taken too long, but, on the contrary, produced advantages +which sometimes did not begin to show themselves for two or three months. + +"From my representing Tar Water as good for so many things," says +Berkeley, "some perhaps may conclude it is good for nothing. But charity +obligeth me to say what I know, and what I think, however it may be +taken. Men may censure and object as they please, but I appeal to time +and experiment. Effects misimputed, cases wrong told, circumstances +overlooked, perhaps, too, prejudices and partialities against truth, may +for a time prevail and keep her at the bottom of her well, from whence +nevertheless she emergeth sooner or later, and strikes the eyes of all +who do not keep them shut." I cannot resist the temptation of +illustrating the bishop's belief in the wonderful powers of his remedy, +by a few sentences from different parts of his essay. "The hardness of +stubbed vulgar constitutions renders them insensible of a thousand things +that fret and gall those delicate people, who, as if their skin was +peeled off, feel to the quick everything that touches them. The tender +nerves and low spirits of such poor creatures would be much relieved by +the use of Tar Water, which might prolong and cheer their lives." "It +[the Tar Water] may be made stronger for brute beasts, as horses, in +whose disorders I have found it very useful." "This same water will also +give charitable relief to the ladies, who often want it more than the +parish poor; being many of them never able to make a good meal, and +sitting pale, puny, and forbidden, like ghosts, at their own table, +victims of vapors and indigestion." It does not appear among the virtues +of Tar Water that "children cried for it," as for some of our modern +remedies, but the bishop says, "I have known children take it for above +six months together with great benefit, and without any inconvenience; +and after long and repeated experience I do esteem it a most excellent +diet drink, fitted to all seasons and ages." After mentioning its +usefulness in febrile complaints, he says: "I have had all this confirmed +by my own experience in the late sickly season of the year one thousand +seven hundred and forty-one, having had twenty-five fevers in my own +family cured by this medicinal water, drunk copiously." And to finish +these extracts with a most important suggestion for the improvement of +the British nation: "It is much to be lamented that our Insulars who act +and think so much for themselves, should yet, from grossness of air and +diet, grow stupid or doat sooner than other people, who, by virtue of +elastic air, water-drinking, and light food, preserve their faculties to +extreme old age; an advantage which may perhaps be approached, if not +equaled, even in these regions, by Tar Water, temperance, and early +hours." + +Berkeley died at the age of about seventy; he might have lived longer, +but his fatal illness was so sudden that there was not time enough to +stir up a quart of the panacea. He was an illustrious man, but he held +two very odd opinions; that tar water was everything, and that the whole +material universe was nothing. + + -------------------------- + +Most of those present have at some time in their lives heard mention made +of the METALLIC TRACTORS, invented by one Dr. Perkins, an American, and +formerly enjoying great repute for the cure of various diseases. Many +have seen or heard of a satirical poem, written by one of our own +countrymen also, about forty years since, and called "Terrible +Tractoration." The Metallic Tractors are now so utterly abandoned that I +have only by good fortune fallen upon a single one of a pair, to show for +the sake of illustration. For more than thirty years this great +discovery, which was to banish at least half the evils which afflict +humanity, has been sleeping undisturbed in the grave of oblivion. Not a +voice has, for this long period, been raised in its favor; its noble and +learned patrons, its public institutions, its eloquent advocates, its +brilliant promises are all covered with the dust of silent neglect; and +of the generation which has sprung up since the period when it +flourished, very few know anything of its history, and hardly even the +title which in its palmy days it bore of PERKINISM. Taking it as +settled, then, as no one appears to answer for it, that Perkinism is +entirely dead and gone, that both in public and private, officially and +individually, its former adherents even allow it to be absolutely +defunct, I select it for anatomical examination. If this pretended +discovery was made public; if it was long kept before the public; if it +was addressed to the people of different countries; if it was formally +investigated by scientific men, and systematically adopted by benevolent +persons, who did everything in their power to diffuse the knowledge and +practice of it; if various collateral motives, such as interest and +vanity, were embarked in its cause; if, notwithstanding all these things, +it gradually sickened and died, then the conclusion seems a fair one, +that it did not deserve to live. Contrasting its failure with its high +pretensions, it is fair to call it an imposition; whether an expressly +fraudulent contrivance or not, some might be ready to question. +Everything historically shown to have happened concerning the mode of +promulgation, the wide diffusion, the apparent success of this delusion, +the respectability and enthusiasm of its advocates, is of great interest +in showing to what extent and by what means a considerable part of the +community may be led into the belief of that which is to be eventually +considered' as an idle folly. If there is any existing folly, fraudulent +or innocent in its origin, which appeals to certain arguments for its +support; provided that the very same arguments can be shown to have been +used for Perkinism with as good reason, they will at once fall to the +ground. Still more, if it shall appear that the general course of any +existing delusion bears a strong resemblance to that of Perkinism, that +the former is most frequently advocated by the same class of persons who +were conspicuous in behalf of the latter, and treated with contempt or +opposed by the same kind of persons who thus treated Perkinism; if the +facts in favor of both have a similar aspect; if the motives of their +originators and propagators may be presumed to have been similar; then +there is every reason to suppose that the existing folly will follow in +the footsteps of the past, and after displaying a given amount of cunning +and credulity in those deceiving and deceived, will drop from the public +view like a fruit which has ripened into spontaneous rottenness, and be +succeeded by the fresh bloom of some other delusion required by the same +excitable portion of the community. + +Dr. Elisha Perkins was born at Norwich, Connecticut, in the year 1740. +He had practised his profession with a good local reputation for many +years, when he fell upon a course of experiments, as it is related, which +led to his great discovery. He conceived the idea that metallic +substances might have the effect of removing diseases, if applied in a +certain manner; a notion probably suggested by the then recent +experiments of Galvani, in which muscular contractions were found to be +produced by the contact of two metals with the living fibre. It was in +1796 that his discovery was promulgated in the shape of the Metallic +Tractors, two pieces of metal, one apparently iron and the other brass, +about three inches long, blunt at one end and pointed at the other. +These instruments were applied for the cure of different complaints, such +as rheumatism, local pains, inflammations, and even tumors, by drawing +them over the affected part very lightly for about twenty minutes. Dr. +Perkins took out a patent for his discovery, and travelled about the +country to diffuse the new practice. He soon found numerous advocates of +his discovery, many of them of high standing and influence. In the year +1798 the tractors had crossed the Atlantic, and were publicly employed in +the Royal Hospital at Copenhagen. About the same time the son of the +inventor, Mr. Benjamin Douglass Perkins, carried them to London, where +they soon attracted attention. The Danish physicians published an +account of their cases, containing numerous instances of alleged success, +in a respectable octavo volume. In the year 1804 an establishment, +honored with the name of the Perkinean Institution, was founded in +London. The transactions of this institution were published in +pamphlets, the Perkinean Society had public dinners at the Crown and +Anchor, and a poet celebrated their medical triumph in strains like +these: + + "See, pointed metals, blest with power t' appease + The ruthless rage of merciless disease, + O'er the frail part a subtle fluid pour, + Drenched with invisible Galvanic shower, + Till the arthritic staff and crutch forego, + And leap exulting like the bounding roe!" + +While all these things were going on, Mr. Benjamin Douglass Perkins was +calmly pocketing money, so that after some half a dozen years he left the +country with more than ten thousand pounds, which had been paid him by +the believers in Great Britain. But in spite of all this success, and +the number of those interested and committed in its behalf, Perkinism +soon began to decline, and in 1811 the Tractors are spoken of by an +intelligent writer as being almost forgotten. Such was the origin and +duration of this doctrine and practice, into the history of which we will +now look a little more narrowly. + +Let us see, then, by whose agency this delusion was established and kept +up; whether it was principally by those who were accustomed to medical +pursuits, or those whose habits and modes of reasoning were different; +whether it was with the approbation of those learned bodies usually +supposed to take an interest in scientific discoveries, or only of +individuals whose claims to distinction were founded upon their position +in society, or political station, or literary eminence; whether the +judicious or excitable classes entered most deeply into it; whether, in +short, the scientific men of that time were deceived, or only intruded +upon, and shouted down for the moment by persons who had no particular +call to invade their precincts. + +Not much, perhaps, was to be expected of the Medical Profession in the +way of encouragement. One Dr. Fuller, who wrote in England, himself a +Perkinist, thus expressed his opinion: "It must be an extraordinary +exertion of virtue and humanity for a medical man, whose livelihood +depends either on the sale of drugs, or on receiving a guinea for writing +a prescription, which must relate to those drugs, to say to his patient, +'You had better purchase a set of Tractors to keep in your family; they +will cure you without the expense of my attendance, or the danger of the +common medical practice.' For very obvious reasons medical men must +never be expected to recommend the use of Perkinism. The Tractors must +trust for their patronage to the enlightened and philanthropic out of the +profession, or to medical men retired from practice, and who know of no +other interest than the luxury of relieving the distressed. And I do not +despair of seeing the day when but very few of this description as well +as private families will be without them." + +Whether the motives assigned by this medical man to his professional +brethren existed or not, it is true that Dr. Perkins did not gain a great +deal at their hands. The Connecticut Medical Society expelled him in +1797 for violating their law against the use of nostrums, or secret +remedies. The leading English physicians appear to have looked on with +singular apathy or contempt at the miracles which it was pretended were +enacting in the hands of the apostles of the new practice. In looking +over the reviews of the time, I have found little beyond brief occasional +notices of their pretensions; the columns of these journals being +occupied with subjects of more permanent interest. The state of things +in London is best learned, however, from the satirical poem to which I +have already alluded as having been written at the period referred to. +This was entitled, "Terrible Tractoration!! A Poetical Petition against +Galvanizing Trumpery and the Perkinistic Institution. Most respectfully +addressed to the Royal College of Physicians, by Christopher Caustic, M. +D., LL. D., A. S. S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, +Aberdeen, and Honorary Member of no less than nineteen very learned +Societies." Two editions of this work were published in London in the +years 1803 and 1804, and one or two have been published in this country. + +"Terrible Tractoration" is supposed, by those who never read it, to be a +satire upon the follies of Perkins and his followers. It is, on the +contrary, a most zealous defence of Perkinism, and a fierce attack upon +its opponents, most especially upon such of the medical profession as +treated the subject with neglect or ridicule. The Royal College of +Physicians was the more peculiar object of the attack, but with this +body, the editors of some of the leading periodicals, and several +physicians distinguished at that time, and even now remembered for their +services to science and humanity, were involved in unsparing +denunciations. The work is by no means of the simply humorous character +it might be supposed, but is overloaded with notes of the most seriously +polemical nature. Much of the history of the subject, indeed, is to be +looked for in this volume. + +It appears from this work that the principal members of the medical +profession, so far from hailing Mr. Benjamin Douglass Perkins as another +Harvey or Jenner, looked very coldly upon him and his Tractors; and it is +now evident that, though they were much abused for so doing, they knew +very well what they had to deal with, and were altogether in the right. +The delusion at last attracted such an amount of attention as to induce +Dr. Haygarth and some others of respectable standing to institute some +experiments which I shall mention in their proper place, the result of +which might have seemed sufficient to show the emptiness of the whole +contrivance. + +The Royal Society, that learned body which for ages has constituted the +best tribunal to which Britain can appeal in questions of science, +accepted Mr. Perkins's Tractors and the book written about them, passed +the customary vote of thanks, and never thought of troubling itself +further in the investigation of pretensions of such an aspect. It is not +to be denied that a considerable number of physicians did avow themselves +advocates of the new practice; but out of the whole catalogue of those +who were publicly proclaimed as such, no one has ever been known, so far +as I am aware, to the scientific world, except in connection with the +short-lived notoriety of Perkinism. Who were the people, then, to whose +activity, influence, or standing with the community was owing all the +temporary excitement produced by the Metallic Tractors? + +First, those persons who had been induced to purchase a pair of Tractors. +These little bits of brass and iron, the intrinsic value of which might, +perhaps, amount to ninepence, were sold at five guineas a pair! A man +who has paid twenty-five dollars for his whistle is apt to blow it louder +and longer than other people. So it appeared that when the "Perkinean +Society" applied to the possessors of Tractors in the metropolis to +concur in the establishment of a public institution for the use of these +instruments upon the poor, "it was found that only five out of above a +hundred objected to subscribe, on account of their want of confidence in +the efficacy of the practice; and these," the committee observes, "there +is reason to believe, never gave them a fair trial, probably never used +them in more than one case, and that perhaps a case in which the Tractors +had never been recommended as serviceable." "Purchasers of the +Tractors," said one of their ardent advocates, "would be among the last +to approve of them if they had reason to suppose themselves defrauded of +five guineas." He forgot poor Moses, with his "gross of green +spectacles, with silver rims and shagreen cases." "Dear mother," cried +the boy, "why won't you listen to reason? I had them a dead bargain, or +I should not have bought them. The silver rims alone will sell for +double the money." + +But it is an undeniable fact, that many persons of considerable standing, +and in some instances holding the most elevated positions in society, +openly patronized the new practice. In a translation of a work entitled +"Experiments with the Metallic Tractors," originally published in Danish, +thence rendered successively into German and English, Mr. Benjamin +Perkins, who edited the English edition, has given a copious enumeration +of the distinguished individuals, both in America and Europe, whose +patronage he enjoyed. He goes so far as to signify that ROYALTY itself +was to be included among the number. When the Perkinean Institution was +founded, no less a person than Lord Rivers was elected President, and +eleven other individuals of distinction, among them Governor Franklin, +son of Dr. Franklin, figured as Vice-Presidents. Lord Henniker, a member +of the Royal Society, who is spoken of as a man of judgment and talents, +condescended to patronize the astonishing discovery, and at different +times bought three pairs of Tractors. When the Tractors were introduced +into Europe, a large number of testimonials accompanied them from various +distinguished characters in America, the list of whom is given in the +translation of the Danish work referred to as follows: + +"Those who have individually stated cases, or who have presented their +names to the public as men who approved of this remedy, and acknowledged +themselves instrumental in circulating the Tractors, are fifty-six in +number; thirty-four of whom are physicians and surgeons, and many of them +of the first eminence, thirteen clergymen, most of whom are doctors of +divinity, and connected with the literary institutions of America; among +the remainder are two members of Congress, one professor of natural +philosophy in a college, etc., etc." It seemed to be taken rather hardly +by Mr. Perkins that the translators of the work which he edited, in +citing the names of the advocates of the Metallic Practice, frequently +omitted the honorary titles which should have been annexed. The +testimonials were obtained by the Danish writer, from a pamphlet +published in America, in which these titles were given in full. Thus one +of these testimonials is from "John Tyler, Esq., a magistrate in the +county of New London, and late Brigadier-General of the militia in that +State." The "omission of the General's title" is the subject of +complaint, as if this title were sufficient evidence of the commanding +powers of one of the patrons of tractoration. A similar complaint is +made when "Calvin Goddard, Esq., of Plainfield, Attorney at Law, and a +member of the Legislature of the State of Connecticut," is mentioned +without his titular honors, and even on account of the omission of the +proper official titles belonging to "Nathan Pierce, Esq., Governor and +Manager of the Almshouse of Newburyport." These instances show the great +importance to be attached to civil and military dignities, in qualifying +their holders to judge of scientific subjects, a truth which has not been +overlooked by the legitimate successors of the Perkinists. In Great +Britain, the Tractors were not less honored than in America, by the +learned and the illustrious. The "Perkinistic Committee" made this +statement in their report: "Mr. Perkins has annually laid before the +public a large collection of new cases communicated to him for that +purpose by disinterested and intelligent characters, from almost every +quarter of Great Britain. In regard to the competency of these vouchers, +it will be sufficient simply to state that, amongst others whose names +have been attached to their communications, are eight professors, in four +different universities, twenty-one regular Physicians, nineteen Surgeons, +thirty Clergymen, twelve of whom are Doctors of Divinity, and numerous +other characters of equal respectability." + +It cannot but excite our notice and surprise that the number of clergymen +both in America and Great Britain who thrust forward their evidence on +this medical topic was singularly large in proportion to that of the +members of the medical profession. Whole pages are contributed by such +worthies as the Rev. Dr. Trotter of Hans Place, the Rear. Waring +Willett, Chaplain to the Earl of Dunmore, the Rev. Dr. Clarke, Chaplain +to the Prince of Wales. The style of these theologico-medical +communications may be seen in the following from a divine who was also +professor in one of the colleges of New England. "I have used the +Tractors with success in several other cases in my own family, and +although, like Naaman the Syrian, I cannot tell why the waters of Jordan +should be better than Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus; yet since +experience has proved them so, no reasoning can change the opinion. +Indeed, the causes of all common facts are, we think, perfectly well +known to us; and it is very probable, fifty or a hundred years hence, we +shall as well know why the Metallic Tractors should in a few minutes +remove violent pains, as we now know why cantharides and opium will +produce opposite effects, namely, we shall know very little about either +excepting facts." Fifty or a hundred years hence! if he could have +looked forward forty years, he would have seen the descendants of the +"Perkinistic" philosophers swallowing infinitesimal globules, and knowing +and caring as much about the Tractors as the people at Saratoga Springs +do about the waters of Abana and Pharpar. + +I trust it will not be thought in any degree disrespectful to a +profession which we all honor, that I have mentioned the great zeal of +many clergymen in the cause of Perkinism. I hope, too, that I may +without offence suggest the causes which have often led them out of their +own province into one to which their education has no special reference. +The members of that profession ought to be, and commonly are, persons of +benevolent character. Their duties carry them into the midst of +families, and particularly at times when the members of them are +suffering from bodily illness. It is natural enough that a strong desire +should be excited to alleviate sufferings which may have defied the +efforts of professional skill; as natural that any remedy which +recommends itself to the belief or the fancy of the spiritual physician +should be applied with the hope of benefit; and perfectly certain that +the weakness of human nature, from which no profession is exempt, will +lead him to take the most flattering view of its effects upon the +patient; his own sagacity and judgment being staked upon the success of +the trial. The inventor of the Tractors was aware of these truths. He +therefore sent the Tractors gratuitously to many clergymen, accompanied +with a formal certificate that the holder had become entitled to their +possession by the payment of five guineas. This was practised in our own +neighborhood, and I remember finding one of these certificates, so +presented, which proved that amongst the risks of infancy I had to +encounter Perkins's Tractors. Two clergymen of Boston and the vicinity, +both well known to local fame, gave in their testimony to the value of +the instruments thus presented to them; an unusually moderate proportion, +when it is remembered that to the common motives of which I have spoken +was added the seduction of a gift for which the profane public was +expected to pay so largely. + +It was remarkable, also, that Perkinism, which had so little success with +the medical and scientific part of the community, found great favor in +the eyes of its more lovely and less obstinate portion. "The lady of +Major Oxholin,"--I quote from Mr. Perkins's volume,--"having been lately +in America, had seen and heard much of the great effects of Perkinism. +Influenced by a most benevolent disposition, she brought these Tractors +and the pamphlet with her to Europe, with a laudable desire of extending +their utility to her suffering countrymen." Such was the channel by +which the Tractors were conveyed to Denmark, where they soon became the +ruling passion. The workmen, says a French writer, could not manufacture +them fast enough. Women carried them about their persons, and delighted +in bringing them into general use. To what extent the Tractors were +favored with the patronage of English and American ladies, it is of +course not easy to say, except on general principles, as their names were +not brought before the public. But one of Dr. Haygarth's stories may +lead us to conjecture that there was a class of female practitioners who +went about doing good with the Tractors in England as well as in Denmark. +A certain lady had the misfortune to have a spot as big as a silver penny +at the corner of her eye, caused by a bruise, or some such injury. +Another lady, who was a friend of hers, and a strong believer in +Perkinism, was very anxious to try the effects of tractoration upon this +unfortunate blemish. The patient consented; the lady "produced the +instruments, and, after drawing them four or five times over the spot, +declared that it changed to a paler color, and on repeating the use of +them a few minutes longer, that it had almost vanished, and was scarcely +visible, and departed in high triumph at her success." The lady who +underwent the operation assured the narrator "that she looked in the +glass immediately after, and that not the least visible alteration had +taken place." + +It would be a very interesting question, what was the intellectual +character of those persons most conspicuous in behalf of the Perkinistic +delusion? Such an inquiry might bring to light some principles which we +could hereafter apply to the study of other popular errors. But the +obscurity into which nearly all these enthusiasts have subsided renders +the question easier to ask than to answer. I believe it would have been +found that most of these persons were of ardent temperament and of +considerable imagination, and that their history would show that +Perkinism was not the first nor the last hobby-horse they rode furiously. +Many of them may very probably have been persons of more than common +talent, of active and ingenious minds, of versatile powers and various +acquirements. Such, for instance, was the estimable man to whom I have +repeatedly referred as a warm defender of tractoration, and a bitter +assailant of its enemies. The story tells itself in the biographical +preface to his poem. He went to London with the view of introducing a +hydraulic machine, which he and his Vermont friends regarded as a very +important invention. He found, however, that the machine was already in +common use in that metropolis. A brother Yankee, then in London, had +started the project of a mill, which was to be carried by the water of +the Thames. He was sanguine enough to purchase one fifth of this +concern, which also proved a failure. At about the same period he wrote +the work which proved the great excitement of his mind upon the subject +of the transient folly then before the public. Originally a lawyer, he +was in succession a mechanician, a poet, and an editor, meeting with far +less success in each of these departments than usually attends men of +less varied gifts, but of more tranquil and phlegmatic composition. But +who is ignorant that there is a class of minds characterized by qualities +like those I have mentioned; minds with many bright and even beautiful +traits; but aimless and fickle as the butterfly; that settle upon every +gayly-colored illusion as it opens into flower, and flutter away to +another when the first has dropped its leaves, and stands naked in the +icy air of truth! + +Let us now look at the general tenor of the arguments addressed by +believers to sceptics and opponents. Foremost of all, emblazoned at the +head of every column, loudest shouted by every triumphant disputant, held +up as paramount to all other considerations, stretched like an +impenetrable shield to protect the weakest advocate of the great cause +against the weapons of the adversary, was that omnipotent monosyllable +which has been the patrimony of cheats and the currency of dupes from +time immemorial,--Facts! Facts! Facts! First came the published cases +of the American clergymen, brigadier-generals, almshouse governors, +representatives, attorneys, and esquires. Then came the published cases +of the surgeons of Copenhagen. Then followed reports of about one +hundred and fifty cases published in England, "demonstrating the efficacy +of the metallic practice in a variety of complaints both upon the human +body and on horses, etc." But the progress of facts in Great Britain did +not stop here. Let those who rely upon the numbers of their +testimonials, as being alone sufficient to prove the soundness and +stability of a medical novelty, digest the following from the report of +the Perkinistic Committee. "The cases published [in Great Britain] +amounted, in March last, the date of Mr. Perkins's last publication, to +about five thousand. Supposing that not more than one cure in three +hundred which the Tractors have performed has been published, and the +proportion is probably much greater, it will be seen that the number, to +March last, will have exceeded one million five hundred thousand!" + +Next in order after the appeal to what were called facts, came a series +of arguments, which have been so long bruised and battered round in the +cause of every doctrine or pretension, new, monstrous, or deliriously +impossible, that each of them is as odiously familiar to the scientific +scholar as the faces of so many old acquaintances, among the less +reputable classes, to the officers of police. + +No doubt many of my hearers will recognize, in the following passages, +arguments they may have heard brought forward with triumphant confidence +in behalf of some doctrine not yet extinct. No doubt some may have +honestly thought they proved something; may have used them with the +purpose of convincing their friends, or of silencing the opponents of +their favorite doctrine, whatever that might be. But any train of +arguments which was contrived for Perkinism, which was just as applicable +to it as to any other new doctrine in the same branch of science, and +which was fully employed against its adversaries forty years since, +might, in common charity, be suffered to slumber in the grave of +Perkinism. Whether or not the following sentences, taken literally from +the work of Mr. Perkins, were the originals of some of the idle +propositions we hear bandied about from time to time, let those who +listen judge. + +The following is the test assumed for the new practice: "If diseases are +really removed, as those persons who have practised extensively with the +Tractors declare, it should seem there would be but little doubt of their +being generally adopted; but if the numerous reports of their efficacy +which have been published are forgeries, or are unfounded, the practice +ought to be crushed." To this I merely add, it has been crushed. + +The following sentence applies to that a priori judging and uncandid +class of individuals who buy their dinners without tasting all the food +there is in the market. "On all discoveries there are persons who, +without descending to any inquiry into the truth, pretend to know, as it +were by intuition, that newly asserted facts are founded in the grossest +errors. These were those who knew that Harvey's report of the +circulation of the blood was a preposterous and ridiculous suggestion, +and in latter later days there were others who knew that Franklin +deserved reproach for declaring that points were preferable to balls for +protecting buildings from lightning." + +Again: "This unwarrantable mode of offering assertion for proof, so +unauthorized and even unprecedented except in the condemnation of a +Galileo, the persecution of a Copernicus, and a few other acts of +inquisitorial authority, in the times of ignorance and superstition, +affords but a lamentable instance of one of his remarks, that this is far +from being the Age of Reason." + +"The most valuable medicines in the Materia Medica act on principles of +which we are totally ignorant. None have ever yet been able to explain +how opium produces sleep, or how bark cures intermittent fevers; and yet +few, it is hoped, will be so absurd as to desist from the use of these +important articles because they know nothing of the principle of their +operations." Or if the argument is preferred, in the eloquent language +of the Perkinistic poet: + + "What though the CAUSES may not be explained, + Since these EFFECTS are duly ascertained, + Let not self-interest, prejudice, or pride, + Induce mankind to set the means aside; + Means which, though simple, are by + Heaven designed to alleviate the woes of human kind." + +This course of argument is so often employed, that it deserves to be +expanded a little, so that its length and breadth may be fairly seen. A +series of what are called facts is brought forward to prove some very +improbable doctrine. It is objected by judicious people, or such as have +devoted themselves to analogous subjects, that these assumed facts are in +direct opposition to all that is known of the course of nature, that the +universal experience of the past affords a powerful presumption against +their truth, and that in proportion to the gravity of these objections, +should be the number and competence of the witnesses. The answer is a +ready one. What do we know of the mysteries of Nature? Do we understand +the intricate machinery of the Universe? When to this is added the +never-failing quotation, + + "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, + Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,"-- + +the question is thought to be finally disposed of. + +Take the case of astrology as an example. It is in itself strange and +incredible that the relations of the heavenly bodies to each other at a +given moment of time, perhaps half a century ago, should have anything to +do with my success or misfortune in any undertaking of to-day. But what +right have I to say it cannot be so? Can I bind the sweet influences of +Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? I do not know by what mighty +magic the planets roll in their fluid paths, confined to circles as +unchanging as if they were rings of steel, nor why the great wave of +ocean follows in a sleepless round upon the skirts of moonlight; nor cam +I say from any certain knowledge that the phases of the heavenly bodies, +or even the falling of the leaves of the forest, or the manner in which +the sands lie upon the sea-shore, may not be knit up by invisible threads +with the web of human destiny. There is a class of minds much more ready +to believe that which is at first sight incredible, and because it is +incredible, than what is generally thought reasonable. Credo quia +impossibile est,--"I believe, because it is impossible,"--is an old +paradoxical expression which might be literally applied to this tribe of +persons. And they always succeed in finding something marvellous, to call +out the exercise of their robust faith. The old Cabalistic teachers +maintained that there was not a verse, line, word, or even letter in the +Bible which had not a special efficacy either to defend the person who +rightly employed it, or to injure his enemies; always provided the +original Hebrew was made use of. In the hands of modern Cabalists every +substance, no matter how inert, acquires wonderful medicinal virtues, +provided it be used in a proper state of purity and subdivision. + +I have already mentioned the motives attributed by the Perkinists to the +Medical Profession, as preventing its members from receiving the new but +unwelcome truths. This accusation is repeated in different forms and +places, as, for instance, in the following passage: "Will the medical man +who has spent much money and labor in the pursuit of the arcana of +Physic, and on the exercise of which depends his support in life, +proclaim the inefficacy of his art, and recommend a remedy to his patient +which the most unlettered in society can employ as advantageously as +himself? and a remedy, too, which, unlike the drops, the pills, the +powders, etc., of the Materia Medica, is inconsumable, and ever in +readiness to be employed in successive diseases?" + +As usual with these people, much indignation was expressed at any +parallel between their particular doctrine and practice and those of +their exploded predecessors. "The motives," says the disinterested Mr. +Perkins, "which must have impelled to this attempt at classing the +METALLIC PRACTICE with the most paltry of empyrical projects, are but too +thinly veiled to escape detection." + +To all these arguments was added, as a matter of course, an appeal to the +feelings of the benevolent in behalf of suffering humanity, in the shape +of a notice that the poor would be treated gratis. It is pretty well +understood that this gratuitous treatment of the poor does not +necessarily imply an excess of benevolence, any more than the gratuitous +distribution of a trader's shop-bills is an evidence of remarkable +generosity; in short, that it is one of those things which honest men +often do from the best motives, but which rogues and impostors never fail +to announce as one of their special recommendations. It is astonishing +to see how these things brighten up at the touch of Mr. Perkins's poet: + + "Ye worthy, honored, philanthropic few, + The muse shall weave her brightest wreaths for you, + Who in Humanity's bland cause unite, + Nor heed the shaft by interest aimed or spite; + Like the great Pattern of Benevolence, + Hygeia's blessings to the poor dispense; + And though opposed by folly's servile brood, + ENJOY THE LUXURY OF DOING GOOD." + +Having thus sketched the history of Perkinism in its days of prosperity; +having seen how it sprung into being, and by what means it maintained its +influence, it only remains to tell the brief story of its discomfiture +and final downfall. The vast majority of the sensible part of the +medical profession were contented, so far as we can judge, to let it die +out of itself. It was in vain that the advocates of this invaluable +discovery exclaimed over their perverse and interested obstinacy,--in +vain that they called up the injured ghosts of Harvey, Galileo, and +Copernicus to shame that unbelieving generation; the Baillies and the +Heberdens,--men whose names have come down to us as synonymous with honor +and wisdom,--bore their reproaches in meek silence, and left them +unanswered to their fate. There were some others, however, who, believing +the public to labor under a delusion, thought it worth while to see +whether the charm would be broken by an open trial of its virtue, as +compared with that of some less hallowed formula. It must be remembered +that a peculiar value was attached to the Metallic Tractors, as made and +patented by Mr. Perkins. Dr. Haygarth, of Bath, performed various +experiments upon patients afflicted with different complaints,--the +patients supposing that the real five-guinea Tractors were employed. +Strange to relate, he obtained equally wonderful effects with Tractors of +lead and of wood; with nails, pieces of bone, slate pencil, and +tobacco-pipe. Dr. Alderson employed sham Tractors made of wood, and +produced such effects upon five patients that they returned solemn thanks +in church for their cures. A single specimen of these cases may stand +for all of them. Ann Hill had suffered for some months from pain in the +right arm and shoulder. The Tractors (wooden ones) were applied, and in +the space of five minutes she expressed herself relieved in the following +apostrophe: "Bless me! why, who could have thought it, that them little +things could pull the pain from one. Well, to be sure, the longer one +lives, the more one sees; ah, dear!" + +These experiments did not result in the immediate extinction of +Perkinism. Doubtless they were a great comfort to many obstinate +unbelievers, and helped to settle some sceptical minds; but for the real +Perkinistic enthusiasts, it may be questioned whether they would at that +time have changed their opinion though one had risen from the dead to +assure them that it was an error. It perished without violence, by an +easy and natural process. Like the famous toy of Mongolfier, it rose by +means of heated air,--the fevered breath of enthusiastic ignorance,--and +when this grew cool, as it always does in a little while, it collapsed +and fell. + +And now, on reviewing the whole subject, how shall we account for the +extraordinary prevalence of the belief in Perkinism among a portion of +what is supposed to be the thinking part of the community? + +Could the cures have been real ones, produced by the principle of ANIMAL +MAGNETISM? To this it may be answered that the Perkinists ridiculed the +idea of approximating Mesmer and the founder of their own doctrine, that +nothing like the somnambulic condition seems to have followed the use of +the Tractors, and that neither the exertion of the will nor the powers of +the individual who operated seem to have been considered of any +consequence. Besides, the absolute neglect into which the Tractors soon +declined is good evidence that they were incapable of affording any +considerable and permanent relief in the complaints for the cure of which +they were applied. + +Of course a large number of apparent cures were due solely to nature; +which is true under every form of treatment, orthodox or empirical. Of +course many persons experienced at least temporary relief from the strong +impression made upon their minds by this novel and marvellous method of +treatment. + +Many, again, influenced by the sanguine hopes of those about them, like +dying people, who often say sincerely, from day to day, that they are +getting better, cheated themselves into a false and short-lived belief +that they were cured; and as happens in such cases, the public never knew +more than the first half of the story. + +When it was said to the Perkinists, that whatever effects they produced +were merely through the imagination, they declared (like the advocates of +the ROYAL TOUCH and the UNGUENTUM ARMARIUM) that this explanation was +sufficiently disproved by the fact of numerous and successful cures which +had been witnessed in infants and brute animals. Dr. Haygarth replied to +this, that "in these cases it is not the Patient, but the Observer, who +is deceived by his own imagination," and that such may be the fact, we +have seen in the case of the good lady who thought she had conjured away +the spot from her friend's countenance, when it remained just as before. + +As to the motives of the inventor and vender of the Tractors, the facts +must be allowed to speak for themselves. But when two little bits of +brass and iron are patented, as an invention, as the result of numerous +experiments, when people are led, or even allowed, to infer that they are +a peculiar compound, when they are artfully associated with a new and +brilliant discovery (which then happened to be Galvanism), when they are +sold at many hundred times their value, and the seller prints his opinion +that a Hospital will suffer inconvenience, "unless it possesses many sets +of the Tractors, and these placed in the hands of the patients to +practise on each other," one cannot but suspect that they were contrived +in the neighborhood of a wooden nutmeg factory; that legs of ham in that +region are not made of the best mahogany; and that such as buy their +cucumber seed in that vicinity have to wait for the fruit as long as the +Indians for their crop of gunpowder. + + -------------------------- + +The succeeding lecture will be devoted to an examination of the doctrines +of Samuel Hahnemann and his disciples; doctrines which some consider new +and others old; the common title of which is variously known as +Ho-moeopathy, Homoe-op-athy, Homoeo-paith-y, or Hom'pathy, and the claims +of which are considered by some as infinitely important, and by many as +immeasurably ridiculous. + +I wish to state, for the sake of any who may be interested in the +subject, that I shall treat it, not by ridicule, but by argument; perhaps +with great freedom, but with good temper and in peaceable language; with +very little hope of reclaiming converts, with no desire of making +enemies, but with a firm belief that its pretensions and assertions +cannot stand before a single hour of calm investigation. + + + + +II. + +It may be thought that a direct attack upon the pretensions of +HOMOEOPATHY is an uncalled-for aggression upon an unoffending doctrine +and its peaceful advocates. + +But a little inquiry will show that it has long assumed so hostile a +position with respect to the Medical Profession, that any trouble I, or +any other member of that profession, may choose to bestow upon it may be +considered merely as a matter of self-defence. It began with an attempt +to show the insignificance of all existing medical knowledge. It not +only laid claim to wonderful powers of its own, but it declared the +common practice to be attended with the most positively injurious +effects, that by it acute diseases are aggravated, and chronic diseases +rendered incurable. It has at various times brought forward collections +of figures having the air of statistical documents, pretending to show a +great proportional mortality among the patients of the Medical +Profession, as compared with those treated according to its own rules. +Not contented with choosing a name of classical origin for itself, it +invented one for the whole community of innocent physicians, assuring +them, to their great surprise, that they were all ALLOPATHISTS, whether +they knew it or not, and including all the illustrious masters of the +past, from Hippocrates down to Hunter, under the same gratuitous title. +The line, then, has been drawn by the champions of the new doctrine; they +have lifted the lance, they have sounded the charge, and are responsible +for any little skirmishing which may happen. + +But, independently of any such grounds of active resistance, the subject +involves interests so disproportioned to its intrinsic claims, that it is +no more than an act of humanity to give it a public examination. If the +new doctrine is not truth, it is a dangerous, a deadly error. If it is a +mere illusion, and acquires the same degree of influence that we have +often seen obtained by other illusions, there is not one of my audience +who may not have occasion to deplore the fatal credulity which listened +to its promises. + +I shall therefore undertake a sober examination of its principles, its +facts, and some points of its history. The limited time at my disposal +requires me to condense as much as possible what I have to say, but I +shall endeavor to be plain and direct in expressing it. Not one statement +shall be made which cannot be supported by unimpeachable reference: not +one word shall be uttered which I am not as willing to print as to speak. +I have no quibbles to utter, and I shall stoop to answer none; but, with +full faith in the sufficiency of a plain statement of facts and reasons, +I submit the subject to the discernment of my audience. + +The question may be asked in the outset,--Have you submitted the +doctrines you are professing to examine to the test of long-repeated and +careful experiment; have you tried to see whether they were true or not? +To this I answer, that it is abundantly evident, from what has often +happened, that it would be of no manner of use for me to allege the +results of any experiments I might have instituted. Again and again have +the most explicit statements been made by the most competent persons of +the utter failure of all their trials, and there were the same abundant +explanations offered as used to be for the Unguentum Armarium and the +Metallic Tractors. I could by no possibility perform any experiments the +result of which could not be easily explained away so as to be of no +conclusive significance. Besides, as arguments in favor of Homoeopathy +are constantly addressed to the public in journals, pamphlets, and even +lectures, by inexperienced dilettanti, the same channel must be open to +all its opponents. + +It is necessary, for the sake of those to whom the whole subject may be +new, to give in the smallest possible compass the substance of the +Homoeopathic Doctrine. Samuel Hahnemann, its founder, is a German +physician, now living in Paris, [Hahnemann died in 1843.] at the age of +eighty-seven years. In 1796 he published the first paper containing his +peculiar notions; in 1805 his first work on the subject; in 1810 his +somewhat famous "Organon of the Healing Art;" the next year what he +called the "Pure Materia Medica;" and in 1828 his last work, the +"Treatise on Chronic Diseases." He has therefore been writing at +intervals on his favorite subject for nearly half a century. + +The one great doctrine which constitutes the basis of Homoeopathy as a +system is expressed by the Latin aphorism, + + "SIMILIA SIBILIBUS CURANTUR," + +or like cures like, that is, diseases are cured by agents capable of +producing symptoms resembling those found in the disease under treatment. +A disease for Hahnemann consists essentially in a group of symptoms. The +proper medicine for any disease is the one which is capable of producing +a similar group of symptoms when given to a healthy person. + +It is of course necessary to know what are the trains of symptoms excited +by different substances, when administered to persons in health, if any +such can be shown to exist. Hahnemann and his disciples give catalogues +of the symptoms which they affirm were produced upon themselves or others +by a large number of drugs which they submitted to experiment. + +The second great fact which Hahnemann professes to have established is +the efficacy of medicinal substances reduced to a wonderful degree of +minuteness or dilution. The following account of his mode of preparing +his medicines is from his work on Chronic Diseases, which has not, I +believe, yet been translated into English. A grain of the substance, if +it is solid, a drop if it is liquid, is to be added to about a third part +of one hundred grains of sugar of milk in an unglazed porcelain capsule +which has had the polish removed from the lower part of its cavity by +rubbing it with wet sand; they are to be mingled for an instant with a +bone or horn spatula, and then rubbed together for six minutes; then the +mass is to be scraped together from the mortar and pestle, which is to +take four minutes; then to be again rubbed for six minutes. Four minutes +are then to be devoted to scraping the powder into a heap, and the second +third of the hundred grains of sugar of milk to be added. Then they are +to be stirred an instant and rubbed six minutes,--again to be scraped +together four minutes and forcibly rubbed six; once more scraped together +for four minutes, when the last third of the hundred grains of sugar of +milk is to be added and mingled by stirring with the spatula; six minutes +of forcible rubbing, four of scraping together, and six more (positively +the last six) of rubbing, finish this part of the process. + +Every grain of this powder contains the hundredth of a grain of the +medicinal substance mingled with the sugar of milk. If, therefore, a +grain of the powder just prepared is mingled with another hundred grains +of sugar of milk, and the process just described repeated, we shall have +a powder of which every grain contains the hundredth of the hundredth, or +the ten thousandth part of a grain of the medicinal substance. Repeat +the same process with the same quantity of fresh sugar of milk, and every +grain of your powder will contain the millionth of a grain of the +medicinal substance. When the powder is of this strength, it is ready to +employ in the further solutions and dilutions to be made use of in +practice. + +A grain of the powder is to be taken, a hundred drops of alcohol are to +be poured on it, the vial is to be slowly turned for a few minutes, until +the powder is dissolved, and two shakes are to be given to it. On this +point I will quote Hahnemann's own words. "A long experience and +multiplied observations upon the sick lead me within the last few years +to prefer giving only two shakes to medicinal liquids, whereas I formerly +used to give ten." The process of dilution is carried on in the same way +as the attenuation of the powder was done; each successive dilution with +alcohol reducing the medicine to a hundredth part of the quantity of that +which preceded it. In this way the dilution of the original millionth of +a grain of medicine contained in the grain of powder operated on is +carried successively to the billionth, trillionth, quadrillionth, +quintillionth, and very often much higher fractional divisions. A dose +of any of these medicines is a minute fraction of a drop, obtained by +moistening with them one or more little globules of sugar, of which +Hahnemann says it takes about two hundred to weigh a grain. + +As an instance of the strength of the medicines prescribed by Hahnemann, +I will mention carbonate of lime. He does not employ common chalk, but +prefers a little portion of the friable part of an oystershell. Of this +substance, carried to the sextillionth degree, so much as one or two +globules of the size mentioned can convey is a common dose. But for +persons of very delicate nerves it is proper that the dilution should be +carried to the decillionth degree. That is, an important medicinal +effect is to be expected from the two hundredth or hundredth part of the +millionth of the millionth of the millionth of the millionth of the +millionth of the millionth of the millionth of the millionth of the +millionth of the millionth of a grain of oyster-shell. This is only the +tenth degree of potency, but some of his disciples profess to have +obtained palpable effects from "much higher dilutions." + +The third great doctrine of Hahnemann is the following. Seven eighths at +least of all chronic diseases are produced by the existence in the system +of that infectious disorder known in the language of science by the +appellation of PSORA, but to the less refined portion of the community by +the name of ITCH. In the words of Hahnemann's "Organon," "This Psora is +the sole true and fundamental cause that produces all the other countless +forms of disease, which, under the names of nervous debility, hysteria, +hypochondriasis, insanity, melancholy, idiocy, madness, epilepsy, and +spasms of all kinds, softening of the bones, or rickets, scoliosis and +cyphosis, caries, cancer, fungua haematodes, gout,--yellow jaundice and +cyanosis, dropsy,--" + +["The degrees of DILUTION must not be confounded with those of POTENCY. +Their relations may be seen by this table: + +lst dilution,--One hundredth of a drop or grain. + +2d " One ten thousandth. + +3d " One millionth, marked I. + +4th " One hundred millionth. + +5th " One ten thousand millionth. + +6th " One million millionth, or one billionth, marked II. + +7th " One hundred billionth. + +8th " One ten thousand billionth. + +9th " One million billionth, or one trillionth, marked III. + +10th " One hundred trillionth. + +11th " One ten thousand trillionth. + +12th " One million trillionth, or one quadrillionth, marked + IV.,--and so on indefinitely. + +The large figures denote the degrees of POTENCY.] + +"gastralgia, epistaxis, haemoptysis,--asthma and suppuration of the +lungs,--megrim, deafness, cataract and amaurosis,--paralysis, loss of +sense, pains of every kind, etc., appear in our pathology as so many +peculiar, distinct, and independent diseases." + +For the last three centuries, if the same authority may be trusted, under +the influence of the more refined personal habits which have prevailed, +and the application of various external remedies which repel the +affection from the skin; Psora has revealed itself in these numerous +forms of internal disease, instead of appearing, as in former periods, +under the aspect of an external malady. + +These are the three cardinal doctrines of Hahnemann, as laid down in +those standard works of Homoeopathy, the "Organon" and the "Treatise on +Chronic Diseases." + +Several other principles may be added, upon all of which he insists with +great force, and which are very generally received by his disciples. + +1. Very little power is allowed to the curative efforts of nature. +Hahnemann goes so far as to say that no one has ever seen the simple +efforts of nature effect the durable recovery of a patient from a chronic +disease. In general, the Homoeopathist calls every recovery which +happens under his treatment a cure. + +2. Every medicinal substance must be administered in a state of the most +perfect purity, and uncombined with any other. The union of several +remedies in a single prescription destroys its utility, and, according to +the "Organon," frequently adds a new disease. + +3. A large number of substances commonly thought to be inert develop +great medicinal powers when prepared in the manner already described; and +a great proportion of them are ascertained to have specific antidotes in +case their excessive effects require to be neutralized. + +4. Diseases should be recognized, as far as possible, not by any of the +common names imposed upon them, as fever or epilepsy, but as individual +collections of symptoms, each of which differs from every other +collection. + +5. The symptoms of any complaint must be described with the most minute +exactness, and so far as possible in the patient's own words. To +illustrate the kind of circumstances the patient is expected to record, I +will mention one or two from the 313th page of the "Treatise on Chronic +Diseases,"--being the first one at which I opened accidentally. + +"After dinner, disposition to sleep; the patient winks." + +"After dinner, prostration and feeling of weakness (nine days after +taking the remedy)." + +This remedy was that same oyster-shell which is to be prescribed +"fractions of the sextillionth or decillionth degree." According to +Hahnemann, the action of a single dose of the size mentioned does not +fully display itself in some cases until twenty-four or even thirty days +after it is taken, and in such instances has not exhausted its good +effects until towards the fortieth or fiftieth day,--before which time it +would be absurd and injurious to administer a new remedy. + +So much for the doctrines of Hahnemann, which have been stated without +comment, or exaggeration of any of their features, very much as any +adherent of his opinions might have stated them, if obliged to compress +them into so narrow a space. + +Does Hahnemann himself represent Homoeopathy as it now exists? He +certainly ought to be its best representative, after having created it, +and devoted his life to it for half a century. He is spoken of as the +great physician of the time, in most, if not all Homoeopathic works. If +he is not authority on the subject of his own doctrines, who is? So far +as I am aware, not one tangible discovery in the so-called science has +ever been ascribed to any other observer; at least, no general principle +or law, of consequence enough to claim any prominence in Homoeopathic +works, has ever been pretended to have originated with any of his +illustrious disciples. He is one of the only two Homoeopathic writers +with whom, as I shall mention, the Paris publisher will have anything to +do upon his own account. The other is Jahr, whose Manual is little more +than a catalogue of symptoms and remedies. If any persons choose to +reject Hahnemann as not in the main representing Homoeopathy, if they +strike at his authority, if they wink out of sight his deliberate and +formally announced results, it is an act of suicidal rashness; for upon +his sagacity and powers of observation, and experience, as embodied in +his works, and especially in his Materia Medica, repose the foundations +of Homoeopathy as a practical system. + +So far as I can learn from the conflicting statements made upon the +subject, the following is the present condition of belief. + +1. All of any note agree that the law Similia similibus is the only +fundamental principle in medicine. Of course if any man does not agree +to this the name Homoeopathist can no longer be applied to him with +propriety. + +2. The belief in and employment of the infinitesimal doses is general, +and in some places universal, among the advocates of Homoeopathy; but a +distinct movement has been made in Germany to get rid of any restriction +to the use of these doses, and to employ medicines with the same license +as other practitioners. + +3. The doctrine of the origin of most chronic diseases in Psora, +notwithstanding Hahnemann says it cost him twelve years of study and +research to establish the fact and its practical consequences, has met +with great neglect and even opposition from very many of his own +disciples. + +It is true, notwithstanding, that, throughout most of their writings +which I have seen, there runs a prevailing tone of great deference to +Hahnemann's opinions, a constant reference to his authority, a general +agreement with the minor points of his belief, and a pretence of +harmonious union in a common faith. [Those who will take the trouble to +look over Hull's Translation of Jahr's Manual may observe how little +comparative space is given to remedies resting upon any other authority +than that of Hahnemann.] + +Many persons, and most physicians and scientific men, would be satisfied +with the statement of these doctrines, and examine them no further. They +would consider it vastly more probable that any observer in so fallacious +and difficult a field of inquiry as medicine had been led into error, or +walked into it of his own accord, than that such numerous and +extraordinary facts had really just come to light. They would feel a +right to exercise the same obduracy towards them as the French Institute +is in the habit of displaying when memoirs or models are offered to it +relating to the squaring of the circle or perpetual motion; which it is +the rule to pass over without notice. They would feel as astronomers and +natural philosophers must have felt when, some half a dozen years ago, an +unknown man came forward, and asked for an opportunity to demonstrate to +Arago and his colleagues that the moon and planets were at a distance of +a little more than a hundred miles from the earth. And so they would not +even look into Homoeopathy, though all its advocates should exclaim in +the words of Mr. Benjamin Douglass Perkins, vender of the Metallic +Tractors, that "On all discoveries there are persons who, without +descending to any inquiry into the truth, pretend to know, as it were by +intuition, that newly asserted facts are founded in the grossest errors." +And they would lay their heads upon their pillows with a perfectly clear +conscience, although they were assured that they were behaving in the +same way that people of old did towards Harvey, Galileo, and Copernicus, +the identical great names which were invoked by Mr. Benjamin Douglass +Perkins. + +But experience has shown that the character of these assertions is not +sufficient to deter many, from examining their claims to belief. I +therefore lean but very slightly on the extravagance and extreme apparent +singularity of their pretensions. I might have omitted them, but on the +whole it seemed more just to the claims of my argument to suggest the +vast complication of improbabilities involved in the statements +enumerated. Every one must of course judge for himself as to the weight +of these objections, which are by no means brought forward as a proof of +the extravagance of Homoeopathy, but simply as entitled to a brief +consideration before the facts of the case are submitted to our scrutiny. + +The three great asserted discoveries of Hahnemann are entirely +unconnected with and independent of each other. Were there any natural +relation between them it would seem probable enough that the discovery of +the first would have led to that of the others. But assuming it to be a +fact that diseases are cured by remedies capable of producing symptoms +like their own, no manifest relation exists between this fact and the +next assertion, namely, the power of the infinitesimal doses. And +allowing both these to be true, neither has the remotest affinity to the +third new doctrine, that which declares seven eighths of all chronic +diseases to be owing to Psora. + +This want of any obvious relation between Hahnemann's three cardinal +doctrines appears to be self-evident upon inspection. But if, as is +often true with his disciples, they prefer the authority of one of their +own number, I will refer them to Dr. Trinks's paper on the present state +of Homoeopathy in Europe, with which, of course, they are familiar, as +his name is mentioned as one of the most prominent champions of their +faith, in their American official organ. It would be a fact without a +parallel in the history, not merely of medicine, but of science, that +three such unconnected and astonishing discoveries, each of them a +complete revolution of all that ages of the most varied experience had +been taught to believe, should spring full formed from the brain of a +single individual. + +Let us look a moment at the first of his doctrines. Improbable though it +may seem to some, there is no essential absurdity involved in the +proposition that diseases yield to remedies capable of producing like +symptoms. There are, on the other hand, some analogies which lend a +degree of plausibility to the statement. There are well-ascertained +facts, known from the earliest periods of medicine, showing that, under +certain circumstances, the very medicine which, from its known effects, +one would expect to aggravate the disease, may contribute to its relief. +I may be permitted to allude, in the most general way, to the case in +which the spontaneous efforts of an overtasked stomach are quieted by the +agency of a drug which that organ refuses to entertain upon any terms. +But that every cure ever performed by medicine should have been founded +upon this principle, although without the knowledge of a physician; that +the Homoeopathic axiom is, as Hahnemann asserts, "the sole law of nature +in therapeutics," a law of which nothing more than a transient glimpse +ever presented itself to the innumerable host of medical observers, is a +dogma of such sweeping extent, and pregnant novelty, that it demands a +corresponding breadth and depth of unquestionable facts to cover its vast +pretensions. + +So much ridicule has been thrown upon the pretended powers of the minute +doses that I shall only touch upon this point for the purpose of +conveying, by illustrations, some shadow of ideas far transcending the +powers of the imagination to realize. It must be remembered that these +comparisons are not matters susceptible of dispute, being founded on +simple arithmetical computations, level to the capacity of any +intelligent schoolboy. A person who once wrote a very small pamphlet +made some show of objecting to calculations of thus kind, on the ground +that the highest dilutions could easily be made with a few ounces of +alcohol. But he should have remembered that at every successive dilution +he lays aside or throws away ninety-nine hundredths of the fluid on which +he is operating, and that, although he begins with a drop, he only +prepares a millionth, billionth, trillionth, and similar fractions of it, +all of which, added together, would constitute but a vastly minute +portion of the drop with which he began. But now let us suppose we take +one single drop of the Tincture of Camomile, and that the whole of this +were to be carried through the common series of dilutions. + +A calculation nearly like the following was made by Dr. Panvini, and may +be readily followed in its essential particulars by any one who chooses. + +For the first dilution it would take 100 drops of alcohol. + +For the second dilution it would take 10;000 drops, or about a pint. + +For the third dilution it would take 100 pints. + +For the fourth dilution it would take 10,000 pints, or more than 1,000 +gallons, and so on to the ninth dilution, which would take ten billion +gallons, which he computed would fill the basin of Lake Agnano, a body of +water two miles in circumference. The twelfth dilution would of course +fill a million such lakes. By the time the seventeenth degree of +dilution should be reached, the alcohol required would equal in quantity +the waters of ten thousand Adriatic seas. Trifling errors must be +expected, but they are as likely to be on one side as the other, and any +little matter like Lake Superior or the Caspian would be but a drop in +the bucket. + +Swallowers of globules, one of your little pellets, moistened in the +mingled waves of one million lakes of alcohol, each two miles in +circumference, with which had been blended that one drop of Tincture of +Camomile, would be of precisely the strength recommended for that +medicine in your favorite Jahr's Manual, "against the most sudden, +frightful, and fatal diseases!" [In the French edition of 1834, the +proper doses of the medicines are mentioned, and Camomile is marked IV. +Why are the doses omitted in Hull's Translation, except in three +instances out of the whole two hundred remedies, notwithstanding the +promise in the preface that "some remarks upon the doses used may be +found at the head of each medicine"? Possibly because it makes no +difference whether they are employed in one Homoeopathic dose or another; +but then it is very singular that such precise directions were formerly +given in the same work, and that Hahnemann's "experience" should have led +him to draw the nice distinctions we have seen in a former part of this +Lecture (p. 44).] + +And proceeding on the common data, I have just made a calculation which +shows that this single drop of Tincture of Camomile, given in the +quantity ordered by Jahr's Manual, would have supplied every individual +of the whole human family, past and present, with more than five billion +doses each, the action of each dose lasting about four days. + +Yet this is given only at the quadrillionth, or fourth degree of potency, +and various substances are frequently administered at the decillionth or +tenth degree, and occasionally at still higher attenuations with +professed medicinal results. Is there not in this as great an exception +to all the hitherto received laws of nature as in the miracle of the +loaves and fishes? Ask this question of a Homoeopathist, and he will +answer by referring to the effects produced by a very minute portion of +vaccine matter, or the extraordinary diffusion of odors. But the vaccine +matter is one of those substances called morbid poisons, of which it is a +peculiar character to multiply themselves, when introduced into the +system, as a seed does in the soil. Therefore the hundredth part of a +grain of the vaccine matter, if no more than this is employed, soon +increases in quantity, until, in the course of about a week, it is a +grain or more, and can be removed in considerable drops. And what is a +very curious illustration of Homoeopathy, it does not produce its most. +characteristic effects until it is already in sufficient quantity not +merely to be visible, but to be collected for further use. The +thoughtlessness which can allow an inference to be extended from a +product of disease possessing this susceptibility of multiplication when +conveyed into the living body, to substances of inorganic origin, such as +silex or sulphur, would be capable of arguing that a pebble may produce a +mountain, because an acorn can become a forest. + +As to the analogy to be found between the alleged action of the +infinitely attenuated doses, and the effects of some odorous substances +which possess the extraordinary power of diffusing their imponderable +emanations through a very wide space, however it may be abused in +argument, and rapidly as it evaporates on examination, it is not like +that just mentioned, wholly without meaning. The fact of the vast +diffusion of some odors, as that of musk or the rose, for instance, has +long been cited as the most remarkable illustration of the divisibility +of matter, and the nicety of the senses. And if this were compared with +the effects of a very minute dose of morphia on the whole system, or the +sudden and fatal impression of a single drop of prussic acid, or, with +what comes still nearer, the poisonous influence of an atmosphere +impregnated with invisible malaria, we should find in each of these +examples an evidence of the degree to which nature, in some few +instances, concentrates powerful qualities in minute or subtile forms of +matter. But if a man comes to me with a pestle and mortar in his hand, +and tells me that he will take a little speck of some substance which +nobody ever thought to have any smell at all, as, for instance, a grain +of chalk or of charcoal, and that he will, after an hour or two of +rubbing and scraping, develop in a portion of it an odor which, if the +whole grain were used, would be capable of pervading an apartment, a +house, a village, a province, an empire, nay, the entire atmosphere of +this broad planet upon which we tread; and that from each of fifty or +sixty substances he can in this way develop a distinct and hitherto +unknown odor: and if he tries to show that all this is rendered quite +reasonable by the analogy of musk and roses, I shall certainly be +justified in considering him incapable of reasoning, and beyond the reach +of my argument. What if, instead of this, he professes to develop new +and wonderful medicinal powers from the same speck of chalk or charcoal, +in such proportions as would impregnate every pond, lake, river, sea, and +ocean of our globe, and appeals to the same analogy in favor of the +probability of his assertion. + +All this may be true, notwithstanding these considerations. But so +extraordinary would be the fact, that a single atom of substances which a +child might swallow without harm by the teaspoonful could, by an easy +mechanical process, be made to develop such inconceivable powers, that +nothing but the strictest agreement of the most cautious experimenters, +secured by every guaranty that they were honest and faithful, appealing +to repeated experiments in public, with every precaution to guard against +error, and with the most plain and peremptory results, should induce us +to lend any credence to such pretensions. + +The third doctrine, that Psora, the other name of which you remember, is +the cause of the great majority of chronic diseases, is a startling one, +to say the least. That an affection always recognized as a very +unpleasant personal companion, but generally regarded as a mere temporary +incommodity, readily yielding to treatment in those unfortunate enough to +suffer from it, and hardly known among the better classes of society, +should be all at once found out by a German physician to be the great +scourge of mankind, the cause of their severest bodily and mental +calamities, cancer and consumption, idiocy and madness, must excite our +unqualified surprise. And when the originator of this singular truth +ascribes, as in the page now open before me, the declining health of a +disgraced courtier, the chronic malady of a bereaved mother, even the +melancholy of the love-sick and slighted maiden, to nothing more nor less +than the insignificant, unseemly, and almost unmentionable ITCH, does it +not seem as if the very soil upon which we stand were dissolving into +chaos, over the earthquake-heaving of discovery? + +And when one man claims to have established these three independent +truths, which are about as remote from each other as the discovery of the +law of gravitation, the invention of printing, and that of the mariner's +compass, unless the facts in their favor are overwhelming and unanimous, +the question naturally arises, Is not this man deceiving himself, or +trying to deceive others? + +I proceed to examine the proofs of the leading ideas of Hahnemann and his +school. + +In order to show the axiom, similia similibus curantur (or like is cured +by like), to be the basis of the healing art,--"the sole law of nature in +therapeutics,"--it is necessary, + +1. That the symptoms produced by drugs in healthy persons should be +faithfully studied and recorded. + +2. That drugs should be shown to be always capable of curing those +diseases most like their own symptoms. + +3. That remedies should be shown not to cure diseases when they do not +produce symptoms resembling those presented in these diseases. + +1. The effects of drugs upon healthy persons have been studied by +Hahnemann and his associates. Their results were made known in his +Materia Medica, a work in three large volumes in the French translation, +published about eight years ago. The mode of experimentation appears to +have been, to take the substance on trial, either in common or minute +doses, and then to set down every little sensation, every little movement +of mind or body, which occurred within many succeeding hours or days, as +being produced solely by the substance employed. When I have enumerated +some of the symptoms attributed to the power of the drugs taken, you will +be able to judge how much value is to be ascribed to the assertions of +such observers. + +The following list was taken literally from the Materia Medica of +Hahnemann, by my friend M. Vernois, for whose accuracy I am willing to +be responsible. He has given seven pages of these symptoms, not +selected, but taken at hazard from the French translation of the work. I +shall be very brief in my citations. + +"After stooping some time, sense of painful weight about the head upon +resuming the erect posture." + +"An itching, tickling sensation at the outer edge of the palm of the left +hand, which obliges the person to scratch." The medicine was acetate of +lime, and as the action of the globule taken is said to last twenty-eight +days, you may judge how many such symptoms as the last might be supposed +to happen. + +Among the symptoms attributed to muriatic acid are these: a catarrh, +sighing, pimples; "after having written a long time with the back a +little bent over, violent pain in the back and shoulder-blades, as if +from a strain,"--"dreams which are not remembered,--disposition to mental +dejection,--wakefulness before and after midnight." + +I might extend this catalogue almost indefinitely. I have not cited +these specimens with any view to exciting a sense of the ridiculous, +which many others of those mentioned would not fail to do, but to show +that the common accidents of sensation, the little bodily inconveniences +to which all of us are subject, are seriously and systematically ascribed +to whatever medicine may have been exhibited, even in the minute doses I +have mentioned, whole days or weeks previously. + +To these are added all the symptoms ever said by anybody, whether +deserving confidence or not, as I shall hereafter illustrate, to be +produced by the substance in question. + +The effects of sixty-four medicinal substances, ascertained by one or +both of these methods, are enumerated in the Materia Medica of Hahnemann, +which may be considered as the basis of practical Homoeopathy. In the +Manual of Jahr, which is the common guide, so far as I know, of those who +practise Homoeopathy in these regions, two hundred remedies are +enumerated, many of which, however, have never been employed in practice. +In at least one edition there were no means of distinguishing those which +had been tried upon the sick from the others. It is true that marks have +been added in the edition employed here, which serve to distinguish them; +but what are we to think of a standard practical author on Materia +Medica, who at one time omits to designate the proper doses of his +remedies, and at another to let us have any means of knowing whether a +remedy has ever been tried or not, while he is recommending its +employment in the most critical and threatening diseases? + +I think that, from what I have shown of the character of Hahnemann's +experiments, it would be a satisfaction to any candid inquirer to know +whether other persons, to whose assertions he could look with confidence, +confirm these pretended facts. Now there are many individuals, long and +well known to the scientific world, who have tried these experiments upon +healthy subjects, and utterly deny that their effects have at all +corresponded to Hahnemann's assertions. + +I will take, for instance, the statements of Andral (and I am not +referring to his well-known public experiments in his hospital) as to the +result of his own trials. This distinguished physician is Professor of +Medicine in the School of Paris, and one of the most widely known and +valued authors upon practical and theoretical subjects the profession can +claim in any country. He is a man of great kindness of character, a most +liberal eclectic by nature and habit, of unquestioned integrity, and is +called, in the leading article of the first number of the "Homoepathic +Examiner," "an eminent and very enlightened allopathist." Assisted by a +number of other persons in good health, he experimented on the effects of +cinchona, aconite, sulphur, arnica, and the other most highly extolled +remedies. His experiments lasted a year, and he stated publicly to the +Academy of Medicine that they never produced the slightest appearance of +the symptoms attributed to them. The results of a man like this, so +extensively known as one of the most philosophical and candid, as well as +brilliant of instructors, and whose admirable abilities and signal +liberality are generally conceded, ought to be of great weight in +deciding the question. + +M. Double, a well-known medical writer and a physician of high standing +in Paris, had occasion so long ago as 1801, before he had heard of +Homoeopathy, to make experiments upon Cinchona, or Peruvian bark. He and +several others took the drug in every kind of dose for four months, and +the fever it is pretended by Hahnemann to excite never was produced. + +M. Bonnet, President of the Royal Society of Medicine of Bordeaux, had +occasion to observe many soldiers during the Peninsular War, who made use +of Cinchona as a preservative against different diseases, but he never +found it to produce the pretended paroxysms. + +If any objection were made to evidence of this kind, I would refer to the +express experiments on many of the Homoeopathic substances, which were +given to healthy persons with every precaution as to diet and regimen, by +M. Louis Fleury, without being followed by the slightest of the pretended +consequences. And let me mention as a curious fact, that the same +quantity of arsenic given to one animal in the common form of the +unprepared powder, and to another after having been rubbed up into six +hundred globules, offered no particular difference of activity in the two +cases. + +This is a strange contradiction to the doctrine of the development of +what they call dynamic power, by means of friction and subdivision. + +In 1835 a public challenge was offered to the best known Homoeopathic +physician in Paris to select any ten substances asserted to produce the +most striking effects; to prepare them himself; to choose one by lot +without knowing which of them he had taken, and try it upon himself or +any intelligent and devoted Homoeopathist, and, waiting his own time, to +come forward and tell what substance had been employed. The challenge +was at first accepted, but the acceptance retracted before the time of +trial arrived. + +From all this I think it fair to conclude that the catalogues of symptoms +attributed in Homoeopathic works to the influence of various drugs upon +healthy persons are not entitled to any confidence. + +2. It is necessary to show, in the next place, that medicinal substances +are always capable of curing diseases most like their own symptoms. For +facts relating to this question we must look to two sources; the recorded +experience of the medical profession in general, and the results of +trials made according to Homoeopathic principles, and capable of testing +the truth of the doctrine. + +No person, that I am aware of, has ever denied that in some cases there +exists a resemblance between the effects of a remedy and the symptoms of +diseases in which it is beneficial. This has been recognized, as +Hahnemann himself has shown, from the time of Hippocrates. But according +to the records of the medical profession, as they have been hitherto +interpreted, this is true of only a very small proportion of useful +remedies. Nor has it ever been considered as an established truth that +the efficacy of even these few remedies was in any definite ratio to +their power of producing symptoms more or less like those they cured. + +Such was the state of opinion when Hahnemann came forward with the +proposition that all the cases of successful treatment found in the works +of all preceding medical writers were to be ascribed solely to the +operation of the Homoeopathic principle, which had effected the cure, +although without the physician's knowledge that this was the real secret. +And strange as it may seem, he was enabled to give such a degree of +plausibility to this assertion, that any person not acquainted somewhat +with medical literature, not quite familiar, I should rather say, with +the relative value of medical evidence, according to the sources whence +it is derived, would be almost frightened into the belief, at seeing the +pages upon pages of Latin names he has summoned as his witnesses. + +It has hitherto been customary, when examining the writings of authors of +preceding ages, upon subjects as to which they were less enlightened than +ourselves, and which they were very liable to misrepresent, to exercise +some little discretion; to discriminate, in some measure, between writers +deserving confidence and those not entitled to it. But there is not the +least appearance of any such delicacy on the part of Hahnemann. A large +majority of the names of old authors he cites are wholly unknown to +science. With some of them I have been long acquainted, and I know that +their accounts of diseases are no more to be trusted than their +contemporary Ambroise Pare's stories of mermen, and similar absurdities. +But if my judgment is rejected, as being a prejudiced one, I can refer to +Cullen, who mentioned three of Hahnemann's authors in one sentence, as +being "not necessarily bad authorities; but certainly such when they +delivered very improbable events;" and as this was said more than half a +century ago, it could not have had any reference to Hahnemann. But +although not the slightest sign of discrimination is visible in his +quotations,--although for him a handful of chaff from Schenck is all the +same thing as a measure of wheat from Morgagni,--there is a formidable +display of authorities, and an abundant proof of ingenious researches to +be found in each of the great works of Hahnemann with which I am +familiar. [Some painful surmises might arise as to the erudition of +Hahnemann's English Translator, who makes two individuals of "Zacutus, +Lucitanus," as well as respecting that of the conductors of an American +Homoeopathic periodical, who suffer the name of the world-renowned +Cardanus to be spelt Cardamus in at least three places, were not this +gross ignorance of course attributable only to the printer.] + +It is stated by Dr. Leo-Wolf, that Professor Joerg, of Leipsic, has +proved many of Hahnemann's quotations from old authors to be adulterate +and false. What particular instances he has pointed out I have no means +of learning. And it is probably wholly impossible on this side of the +Atlantic, and even in most of the public libraries of Europe, to find +anything more than a small fraction of the innumerable obscure +publications which the neglect of grocers and trunkmakers has spared to +be ransacked by the all-devouring genius of Homoeopathy. I have +endeavored to verify such passages as my own library afforded me the +means of doing. For some I have looked in vain, for want, as I am +willing to believe, of more exact references. But this I am able to +affirm, that, out of the very small number which I have been able, to +trace back to their original authors, I have found two to be wrongly +quoted, one of them being a gross misrepresentation. + +The first is from the ancient Roman author, Caelius Aurelianus; the +second from the venerable folio of Forestus. Hahnemann uses the +following expressions,--if he is not misrepresented in the English +Translation of the 'Organon': "Asclepiades on one occasion cured an +inflammation of the brain by administering a small quantity of wine." +After correcting the erroneous reference of the Translator, I can find no +such case alluded to in the chapter. But Caelius Aurelianus mentions two +modes of treatment employed by Asclepiades, into both of which the use of +wine entered, as being "in the highest degree irrational and dangerous." +[Caelius Aurel. De Morb. Acut. et Chron. lib. I. cap. xv. not xvi. +Amsterdam. Wetstein, 1755.] + +In speaking of the oil of anise-seed, Hahnemann says that Forestus +observed violent colic caused by its administration. But, as the author +tells the story, a young man took, by the counsel of a surgeon, an acrid +and virulent medicine, the name of which is not given, which brought on a +most cruel fit of the gripes and colic. After this another surgeon was +called, who gave him oil of anise-seed and wine, "which increased his +suffering." [Observ. et Curat. Med. lib. XXI obs. xiii. Frankfort, +1614.] Now if this was the Homoeopathic remedy, as Hahnemann pretends, +it might be a fair question why the young man was not cured by it. But +it is a much graver question why a man who has shrewdness and learning +enough to go so far after his facts, should think it right to treat them +with such astonishing negligence or such artful unfairness. + +Even if every word he had pretended to take from his old authorities were +to be found in them, even if the authority of every one of these authors +were beyond question, the looseness with which they are used to prove +whatever Hahnemann chooses is beyond the bounds of credibility. Let me +give one instance to illustrate the character of this man's mind. +Hahnemann asserts, in a note annexed to the 110th paragraph of the +"Organon," that the smell of the rose will cause certain persons to +faint. And he says in the text that substances which produce peculiar +effects of this nature on particular constitutions cure the same symptoms +in people in general. Then in another note to the same paragraph he +quotes the following fact from one of the last sources one would have +looked to for medical information, the Byzantine Historians. + +"It was by these means (i.e. Homoeopathically) that the Princess Eudosia +with rose-water restored a person who had fainted!" + +Is it possible that a man who is guilty of such pedantic folly as +this,--a man who can see a confirmation of his doctrine in such a +recovery as this,--a recovery which is happening every day, from a breath +of air, a drop or two of water, untying a bonnet-string, loosening a +stay-lace, and which can hardly help happening, whatever is done,--is it +possible that a man, of whose pages, not here and there one, but hundreds +upon hundreds are loaded with such trivialities, is the Newton, the +Columbus, the Harvey of the nineteenth century! + +The whole process of demonstration he employs is this. An experiment is +instituted with some drug upon one or more healthy persons. Everything +that happens for a number of days or weeks is, as we have seen, set down +as an effect of the medicine. Old volumes are then ransacked +promiscuously, and every morbid sensation or change that anybody ever +said was produced by the drug in question is added to the list of +symptoms. By one or both of these methods, each of the sixty-four +substances enumerated by Hahnemann is shown to produce a very large +number of symptoms, the lowest in his scale being ninety-seven, and the +highest fourteen hundred and ninety-one. And having made out this list +respecting any drug, a catalogue which, as you may observe in any +Homoeopathic manual, contains various symptoms belonging to every organ +of the body, what can be easier than to find alleged cures in every +medical author which can at once be attributed to the Homoeopathic +principle; still more if the grave of extinguished credulity is called +upon to give up its dead bones as living witnesses; and worst of all, if +the monuments of the past are to be mutilated in favor of "the sole law +of Nature in therapeutics"? + +There are a few familiar facts of which great use has been made as an +entering wedge for the Homoeopathic doctrine. They have been suffered to +pass current so long that it is time they should be nailed to the +counter, a little operation which I undertake, with perfect cheerfulness, +to perform for them. + +The first is a supposed illustration of the Homoeopathic law found in the +precept given for the treatment of parts which have been frozen, by +friction with snow or similar means. But we deceive ourselves by names, +if we suppose the frozen part to be treated by cold, and not by heat. +The snow may even be actually warmer than the part to which it is +applied. But even if it were at the same temperature when applied, it +never did and never could do the least good to a frozen part, except as a +mode of regulating the application of what? of heat. But the heat must +be applied gradually, just as food must be given a little at a time to +those perishing with hunger. If the patient were brought into a warm +room, heat would be applied very rapidly, were not something interposed +to prevent this, and allow its gradual admission. Snow or iced water is +exactly what is wanted; it is not cold to the part; it is very possibly +warm, on the contrary, for these terms are relative, and if it does not +melt and let the heat in, or is not taken away, the part will remain +frozen up until doomsday. Now the treatment of a frozen limb by heat, in +large or small quantities, is not Homoeopathy. + +The next supposed illustration of the Homoeopathic law is the alleged +successful management of burns, by holding them to the fire. This is a +popular mode of treating those burns which are of too little consequence +to require any more efficacious remedy, and would inevitably get well of +themselves, without any trouble being bestowed upon them. It produces a +most acute pain in the part, which is followed by some loss of +sensibility, as happens with the eye after exposure to strong light, and +the ear after being subjected to very intense sounds. This is all it is +capable of doing, and all further notions of its efficacy must be +attributed merely to the vulgar love of paradox. If this example affords +any comfort to the Homoeopathist, it seems as cruel to deprive him of it +as it would be to convince the mistress of the smoke-jack or the flatiron +that the fire does not literally "draw the fire out," which is her +hypothesis. + +But if it were true that frost-bites were cured by cold and burns by +heat, it would be subversive, so far as it went, of the great principle +of Homoeopathy. + +For you will remember that this principle is that Like cures Like, and +not that Same cures Same; that there is resemblance and not identity +between the symptoms of the disease and those produced by the drug which +cures it, and none have been readier to insist upon this distinction than +the Homoeopathists themselves. For if Same cures Same, then every poison +must be its own antidote,--which is neither a part of their theory nor +their so-called experience. They have been asked often enough, why it +was that arsenic could not cure the mischief which arsenic had caused, +and why the infectious cause of small-pox did not remedy the disease it +had produced, and then the; were ready enough to see the distinction I +have pointed out. O no! it was not the hair of the same dog, but only of +one very much like him! + +A third instance in proof of the Homoeopathic law is sought for in the +acknowledged efficacy of vaccination. And how does the law apply to +this? It is granted by the advocates of Homoeopathy that there is a +resemblance between the effects of the vaccine virus on a person in +health and the symptoms of small-pox. Therefore, according to the rule, +the vaccine virus will cure the small-pox, which, as everybody knows, is +entirely untrue. But it prevents small-pox, say the Homoeopathists. +Yes, and so does small-pox prevent itself from ever happening again, and +we know just as much of the principle involved in the one case as in the +other. For this is only one of a series of facts which we are wholly +unable to explain. Small-pox, measles, scarlet-fever, hooping-cough, +protect those who have them once from future attacks; but nettle-rash and +catarrh and lung fever, each of which is just as Homoeopathic to itself +as any one of the others, have no such preservative power. We are +obliged to accept the fact, unexplained, and we can do no more for +vaccination than for the rest. + +I come now to the most directly practical point connected with the +subject, namely,-- + +What is the state of the evidence as to the efficacy of the proper +Homoeopathic treatment in the cure of diseases. + +As the treatment adopted by the Homoeopathists has been almost +universally by means of the infinitesimal doses, the question of their +efficacy is thrown open, in common with that of the truth of their +fundamental axiom, as both are tested in practice. + +We must look for facts as to the actual working of Homoeopathy to three +sources. + +1. The statements of the unprofessional public. + +2. The assertions of Homoeopathic practitioners. + +3. The results of trials by competent and honest physicians, not pledged +to the system. + +I think, after what we have seen of medical facts, as they are +represented by incompetent persons, we are disposed to attribute little +value to all statements of wonderful cures, coming from those who have +never been accustomed to watch the caprices of disease, and have not +cooled down their young enthusiasm by the habit of tranquil observation. +Those who know nothing of the natural progress of a malady, of its +ordinary duration, of its various modes of terminating, of its liability +to accidental complications, of the signs which mark its insignificance +or severity, of what is to be expected of it when left to itself, of how +much or how little is to be anticipated from remedies, those who know +nothing or next to nothing of all these things, and who are in a great +state of excitement from benevolence, sympathy, or zeal for a new medical +discovery, can hardly be expected to be sound judges of facts which have +misled so many sagacious men, who have spent their lives in the daily +study and observation of them. I believe that, after having drawn the +portrait of defunct Perkinism, with its five thousand printed cures, and +its million and a half computed ones, its miracles blazoned about through +America, Denmark, and England; after relating that forty years ago women +carried the Tractors about in their pockets, and workmen could not make +them fast enough for the public demand; and then showing you, as a +curiosity, a single one of these instruments, an odd one of a pair, which +I obtained only by a lucky accident, so utterly lost is the memory of all +their wonderful achievements; I believe, after all this, I need not waste +time in showing that medical accuracy is not to be looked for in the +florid reports of benevolent associations, the assertions of illustrious +patrons, the lax effusions of daily journals, or the effervescent gossip +of the tea-table. + +Dr. Hering, whose name is somewhat familiar to the champions of +Homoeopathy, has said that "the new healing art is not to be judged by +its success in isolated cases only, but according to its success in +general, its innate truth, and the incontrovertible nature of its innate +principles." + +We have seen something of "the incontrovertible nature of its innate +principles," and it seems probable, on the whole, that its success in +general must be made up of its success in isolated cases. Some attempts +have been made, however, to finish the whole matter by sweeping +statistical documents, which are intended to prove its triumphant success +over the common practice. + +It is well known to those who have had the good fortune to see the +"Homoeopathic Examiner," that this journal led off, in its first number, +with a grand display of everything the newly imported doctrine had to +show for itself. It is well remarked, on the twenty-third page of this +article, that "the comparison of bills of mortality among an equal number +of sick, treated by divers methods, is a most poor and lame way to get at +conclusions touching principles of the healing art." In confirmation of +which, the author proceeds upon the twenty-fifth page to prove the +superiority of the Homoeopathic treatment of cholera, by precisely these +very bills of mortality. Now, every intelligent physician is aware that +the poison of cholera differed so much in its activity at different times +and, places, that it was next to impossible to form any opinion as to the +results of treatment, unless every precaution was taken to secure the +most perfectly corresponding conditions in the patients treated, and +hardly even then. Of course, then, a Russian Admiral, by the name of +Mordvinov, backed by a number of so-called physicians practising in +Russian villages, is singularly competent to the task of settling the +whole question of the utility of this or that kind of treatment; to prove +that, if not more than eight and a half per cent. of those attacked with +the disease perished, the rest owed their immunity to Hahnemann. I can +remember when more than a hundred patients in a public institution were +attacked with what, I doubt not, many Homoeopathic physicians (to say +nothing of Homoeopathic admirals) would have called cholera, and not one +of them died, though treated in the common way, and it is my firm belief +that, if such a result had followed the administration of the omnipotent +globules, it would have been in the mouth of every adept in Europe, from +Quin of London to Spohr of Gandersheim. No longer ago than yesterday, in +one of the most widely circulated papers of this city, there was +published an assertion that the mortality in several Homoeopathic +Hospitals was not quite five in a hundred, whereas, in what are called by +the writer Allopathic Hospitals, it is said to be eleven in a hundred. An +honest man should be ashamed of such an argumentum ad ignorantiam. The +mortality of a hospital depends not merely on the treatment of the +patients, but on the class of diseases it is in the habit of receiving, +on the place where it is, on the season, and many other circumstances. +For instance, there are many hospitals in the great cities of Europe that +receive few diseases of a nature to endanger life, and, on the other +hand, there are others where dangerous diseases are accumulated out of +the common proportion. Thus, in the wards of Louis, at the Hospital of +La Pitie, a vast number of patients in the last stages of consumption +were constantly entering, to swell the mortality of that hospital. It +was because he was known to pay particular attention to the diseases of +the chest that patients laboring under those fatal affections to an +incurable extent were so constantly coming in upon him. It is always a +miserable appeal to the thoughtlessness of the vulgar, to allege the +naked fact of the less comparative mortality in the practice of one +hospital or of one physician than another, as an evidence of the +superiority of their treatment. Other things being equal, it must always +be expected that those institutions and individuals enjoying to the +highest degree the confidence of the community will lose the largest +proportion of their patients; for the simple reason that they will +naturally be looked to by those suffering from the gravest class of +diseases; that many, who know that they are affected with mortal disease, +will choose to die under their care or shelter, while the subjects of +trifling maladies, and merely troublesome symptoms, amuse themselves to +any extent among the fancy practitioners. When, therefore, Dr. +Mublenbein, as stated in the "Homoeopathic Examiner," and quoted in +yesterday's "Daily Advertiser," asserts that the mortality among his +patients is only one per cent. since he has practised Homoeopathy, +whereas it was six per cent. when he employed the common mode of +practice, I am convinced by this, his own statement, that the citizens of +Brunswick, whenever they are seriously sick, take good care not to send +for Dr. Muhlenbein! + +It is evidently impossible that I should attempt, within the compass of a +single lecture, any detailed examination of the very numerous cases +reported in the Homoeopathic Treatises and Journals. Having been in the +habit of receiving the French "Archives of Homoeopathic Medicine" until +the premature decease of that Journal, I have had the opportunity of +becoming acquainted somewhat with the style of these documents, and +experiencing whatever degree of conviction they were calculated to +produce. Although of course I do not wish any value to be assumed for my +opinion, such as it is, I consider that you are entitled to hear it. So +far, then, as I am acquainted with the general character of the cases +reported by the Homoeopathic physicians, they would for the most part be +considered as wholly undeserving a place in any English, French, or +American periodical of high standing, if, instead of favoring the +doctrine they were intended to support, they were brought forward to +prove the efficacy of any common remedy administered by any common +practitioner. There are occasional exceptions to this remark; but the +general truth of it is rendered probable by the fact that these cases are +always, or almost always, written with the single object of showing the +efficacy of the medicine used, or the skill of the practitioner, and it +is recognized as a general rule that such cases deserve very little +confidence. Yet they may sound well enough, one at a time, to those who +are not fully aware of the fallacies of medical evidence. Let me state a +case in illustration. Nobody doubts that some patients recover under +every form of practice. Probably all are willing to allow that a large +majority, for instance, ninety in a hundred, of such cases as a physician +is called to in daily practice, would recover, sooner or later, with more +or less difficulty, provided nothing were done to interfere seriously +with the efforts of nature. + +Suppose, then, a physician who has a hundred patients prescribes to each +of them pills made of some entirely inert substance, as starch, for +instance. Ninety of them get well, or if he chooses to use such +language, he cures ninety of them. It is evident, according to the +doctrine of chances, that there must be a considerable number of +coincidences between the relief of the patient and the administration of +the remedy. It is altogether probable that there will happen two or +three very striking coincidences out of the whole ninety cases, in which +it would seem evident that the medicine produced the relief, though it +had, as we assumed, nothing to do with it. Now suppose that the +physician publishes these cases, will they not have a plausible +appearance of proving that which, as we granted at the outset, was +entirely false? Suppose that instead of pills of starch he employs +microscopic sugarplums, with the five' million billion trillionth part of +a suspicion of aconite or pulsatilla, and then publishes his successful +cases, through the leaden lips of the press, or the living ones of his +female acquaintances,--does that make the impression a less erroneous +one? But so it is that in Homoeopathic works and journals and gossip one +can never, or next to never, find anything but successful cases, which +might do very well as a proof of superior skill, did it not prove as much +for the swindling advertisers whose certificates disgrace so many of our +newspapers. How long will it take mankind to learn that while they listen +to "the speaking hundreds and units," who make the world ring with the +pretended triumphs they have witnessed, the "dumb millions" of deluded +and injured victims are paying the daily forfeit of their misplaced +confidence! + +I am sorry to see, also, that a degree of ignorance as to the natural +course of diseases is often shown in these published cases, which, +although it may not be detected by the unprofessional reader, conveys an +unpleasant impression to those who are acquainted with the subject. Thus +a young woman affected with jaundice is mentioned in the German "Annals +of Clinical Homoeopathy" as having been cured in twenty-nine days by +pulsatilla and nux vomica. Rummel, a well-known writer of the same +school, speaks of curing a case of jaundice in thirty-four days by +Homoeopathic doses of pulsatilla, aconite, and cinchona. I happened to +have a case in my own household, a few weeks since, which lasted about +ten days, and this was longer than I have repeatedly seen it in hospital +practice, so that it was nothing to boast of. + +Dr. Munneche of Lichtenburg in Saxony is called to a patient with +sprained ankle who had been a fortnight under the common treatment. The +patient gets well by the use of arnica in a little more than a month +longer, and this extraordinary fact is published in the French "Archives +of Homoeopathic Medicine." + +In the same Journal is recorded the case of a patient who with nothing +more, so far as any proof goes, than inluenza, gets down to her shop upon +the sixth day. + +And again, the cool way in which everything favorable in a case is set +down by these people entirely to their treatment, may be seen in a case +of croup reported in the "Homoeopathic Gazette" of Leipsic, in which +leeches, blistering, inhalation of hot vapor, and powerful internal +medicine had been employed, and yet the merit was all attributed to one +drop of some Homoeopathic fluid. + +I need not multiply these quotations, which illustrate the grounds of an +opinion which the time does not allow me to justify more at length; other +such cases are lying open before me; there is no end to them if more were +wanted; for nothing is necessary but to look into any of the numerous +broken-down Journals of Homoeopathy, the volumes of which may be found on +the shelves of those curious in such matters. + +A number of public trials of Homoeopathy have been made in different +parts of the world. Six of these are mentioned in the Manifesto of the +"Homoeopathic Examiner." Now to suppose that any trial can absolutely +silence people, would be to forget the whole experience of the past. Dr. +Haygarth and Dr. Alderson could not stop the sale of the five-guinea +Tractors, although they proved that they could work the same miracles +with pieces of wood and tobacco-pipe. It takes time for truth to operate +as well as Homoeopathic globules. Many persons thought the results of +these trials were decisive enough of the nullity of the treatment; those +who wish to see the kind of special pleading and evasion by which it is +attempted to cover results which, stated by the "Homoeopathic Examiner" +itself, look exceedingly like a miserable failure, may consult the +opening flourish of that Journal. I had not the intention to speak of +these public trials at all, having abundant other evidence on the point. +But I think it best, on the whole, to mention two of them in a few +words,--that instituted at Naples and that of Andral. + +There have been few names in the medical profession, for the last half +century, so widely known throughout the world of science as that of M. +Esquirol, whose life was devoted to the treatment of insanity, and who +was without a rival in that department of practical medicine. It is from +an analysis communicated by him to the "Gazette Medicale de Paris" that I +derive my acquaintance with the account of the trial at Naples by Dr. +Panvini, physician to the Hospital della Pace. This account seems to be +entirely deserving of credit. Ten patients were set apart, and not +allowed to take any medicine at all,--much against the wish of the +Homoeopathic physician. All of them got well, and of course all of them +would have been claimed as triumphs if they had been submitted to the +treatment. Six other slight cases (each of which is specified) got well +under the Homoeopathic treatment, none of its asserted specific effects +being manifested. + +All the rest were cases of grave disease; and so far as the trial, which +was interrupted about the fortieth day, extended, the patients grew +worse, or received no benefit. A case is reported on the page before me +of a soldier affected with acute inflammation in the chest, who took +successively aconite, bryonia, nux vomica, and pulsatilla, and after +thirty-eight days of treatment remained without any important change in +his disease. The Homoeopathic physician who treated these patients was +M. de Horatiis, who had the previous year been announcing his wonderful +cures. And M. Esquirol asserted to the Academy of Medicine in 1835, that +this M. de Horatiis, who is one of the prominent personages in the +"Examiner's" Manifesto published in 1840, had subsequently renounced +Homoeopathy. I may remark, by the way, that this same periodical, which +is so very easy in explaining away the results of these trials, makes a +mistake of only six years or a little more as to the time when this at +Naples was instituted. + +M. Andral, the "eminent and very enlightened allopathist" of the +"Homoeopathic Examiner," made the following statement in March, 1835, to +the Academy of Medicine: "I have submitted this doctrine to experiment; I +can reckon at this time from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and +forty cases, recorded with perfect fairness, in a great hospital, under +the eye of numerous witnesses; to avoid every objection--I obtained my +remedies of M. Guibourt, who keeps a Homoeopathic pharmacy, and whose +strict exactness is well known; the regimen has been scrupulously +observed, and I obtained from the sisters attached to the hospital a +special regimen, such as Hahnemann orders. I was told, however, some +months since, that I had not been faithful to all the rules of the +doctrine. I therefore took the trouble to begin again; I have studied +the practice of the Parisian Homoeopathists, as I had studied their +books, and I became convinced that they treated their patients as I had +treated mine, and I affirm that I have been as rigorously exact in the +treatment as any other person." + +And he expressly asserts the entire nullity of the influence of all the +Homoeopathic remedies tried by him in modifying, so far as he could +observe, the progress or termination of diseases. It deserves notice +that he experimented with the most boasted substances,--cinchona, +aconite, mercury, bryonia, belladonna. Aconite, for instance, he says he +administered in more than forty cases of that collection of feverish +symptoms in which it exerts so much power, according to Hahnemann, and in +not one of them did it have the slightest influence, the pulse and heat +remaining as before. + +These statements look pretty honest, and would seem hard to be explained +away, but it is calmly said that he "did not know enough of the method to +select the remedies with any tolerable precision." ["Homoeopathic +Examiner, vol. i. p. 22.] + +"Nothing is left to the caprice of the physician." (In a word, instead +of being dependent upon blind chance, that there is an infallible law, +guided by which; the physician MUST select the proper remedies.') +['Ibid.,' in a notice of Menzel's paper.] Who are they that practice +Homoeopathy, and say this of a man with the Materia Medica of Hahnemann +lying before him? Who are they that send these same globules, on which +he experimented, accompanied by a little book, into families, whose +members are thought competent to employ them, when they deny any such +capacity to a man whose life has been passed at the bedside of patients, +the most prominent teacher in the first Medical Faculty in the world, the +consulting physician of the King of France, and one of the most renowned +practical writers, not merely of his nation, but of his age? I leave the +quibbles by which such persons would try to creep out from under the +crushing weight of these conclusions to the unfortunates who suppose that +a reply is equivalent to an answer. + +Dr. Baillie, one of the physicians in the great Hotel Dieu of Paris, +invited two Homoeopathic practitioners to experiment in his wards. One of +these was Curie, now of London, whose works are on the counters of some +of our bookstores, and probably in the hands of some of my audience. +This gentleman, whom Dr. Baillie declares to be an enlightened man, and +perfectly sincere in his convictions, brought his own medicines from the +pharmacy which furnished Hahnemann himself, and employed them for four or +five months upon patients in his ward, and with results equally +unsatisfactory, as appears from Dr. Baillie's statement at a meeting of +the Academy of Medicine. And a similar experiment was permitted by the +Clinical Professor of the Hotel Dieu of Lyons, with the same complete +failure. + +But these are old and prejudiced practitioners. Very well, then take the +statement of Dr. Fleury, a most intelligent young physician, who treated +homoeopathically more than fifty patients, suffering from diseases which +it was not dangerous to treat in this way, taking every kind of +precaution as to regimen, removal of disturbing influences, and the state +of the atmosphere, insisted upon by the most vigorous partisans of the +doctrine, and found not the slightest effect produced by the medicines. +And more than this, read nine of these cases, which he has published, as +I have just done, and observe the absolute nullity of aconite, +belladonna, and bryonia, against the symptoms over which they are +pretended to exert such palpable, such obvious, such astonishing +influences. In the view of these statements, it is impossible not to +realize the entire futility of attempting to silence this asserted +science by the flattest and most peremptory results of experiment. Were +all the hospital physicians of Europe and America to devote themselves, +for the requisite period, to this sole pursuit, and were their results to +be unanimous as to the total worthlessness of the whole system in +practice, this slippery delusion would slide through their fingers +without the slightest discomposure, when, as they supposed, they had +crushed every joint in its tortuous and trailing body. + +3. I have said, that to show the truth of the Homoeopathic doctrine, as +announced by Hahnemann, it would be necessary to show, in the third +place, that remedies never cure diseases when they are not capable of +producing similar symptoms! The burden of this somewhat comprehensive +demonstration lying entirely upon the advocates of this doctrine, it may +be left to their mature reflections. + +It entered into my original plan to treat of the doctrine relating to +Psora, or itch,--an almost insane conception, which I am glad to get rid +of, for this is a subject one does not care to handle without gloves. I +am saved this trouble, however, by finding that many of the disciples of +Hahnemann, those disciples the very gospel of whose faith stands upon his +word, make very light of his authority on this point, although he himself +says, "It has cost me twelve years of study and research to trace out the +source of this incredible number of chronic affections, to discover this +great truth, which remained concealed from all my predecessors and +contemporaries, to establish the basis of its demonstration, and find +out, at the same time, the curative medicines that were fit to combat +this hydra in all its different forms." + +But, in the face of all this, the following remarks are made by Wolff, of +Dresden, whose essays, according to the editor of the "Homoeopathic +Examiner," "represent the opinions of a large majority of Homoeopathists +in Europe." + +"It cannot be unknown to any one at all familiar with Homoeopathic +literature, that Hahnemann's idea of tracing the large majority of +chronic diseases to actual itch has met with the greatest opposition from +Homoeopathic physicians themselves." And again, "If the Psoric theory +has led to no proper schism, the reason is to be found in the fact that +it is almost without any influence in practice." + +We are told by Jahr, that Dr. Griesselich, "Surgeon to the Grand Duke of +Baden," and a "distinguished" Homoeopathist, actually asked Hahnemann for +the proof that chronic diseases, such as dropsy, for instance, never +arise from any other cause than itch; and that, according to common +report, the venerable sage was highly incensed (fort courrouce) with Dr. +Hartmann, of Leipsic, another "distinguished" Homoeopathist, for +maintaining that they certainly did arise from other causes. + +And Dr. Fielitz, in the "Homoeopathic Gazette" of Leipsic, after saying, +in a good-natured way, that Psora is the Devil in medicine, and that +physicians are divided on this point into diabolists and exorcists, +declares that, according to a remark of Hahnemann, the whole civilized +world is affected with Psora. I must therefore disappoint any advocate +of Hahnemann who may honor me with his presence, by not attacking a +doctrine on which some of the disciples of his creed would be very happy +to have its adversaries waste their time and strength. I will not meddle +with this excrescence, which, though often used in time of peace, would +be dropped, like the limb of a shell-fish, the moment it was assailed; +time is too precious, and the harvest of living extravagances nods too +heavily to my sickle, that I should blunt it upon straw and stubble. + +I will close the subject with a brief examination of some of the +statements made in Homoeopathic works, and more particularly in the +brilliant Manifesto of the "Examiner," before referred to. And first, it +is there stated under the head of "Homoeopathic Literature," that "SEVEN +HUNDRED volumes have been issued from the press developing the +peculiarities of the system, and many of them possessed of a scientific +character that savans know well how to respect." If my assertion were +proper evidence in the case, I should declare, that, having seen a good +many of these publications, from the year 1834, when I bought the work of +the Rev. Thomas Everest, [Dr. Curie speaks of this silly pamphlet as +having been published in 1835.] to within a few weeks, when I received my +last importation of Homaeopathic literature, I have found that all, with +a very few exceptions, were stitched pamphlets varying from twenty or +thirty pages to somewhat less than a hundred, and generally resembling +each other as much as so many spelling-books. + +But not being evidence in the case, I will give you the testimony of Dr. +Trinks, of Dresden, who flourishes on the fifteenth page of the same +Manifesto as one of the most distinguished among the Homoeopathists of +Europe. I translate the sentence literally from the "Archives de la +Medecine Homoeopathique." + +"The literature of Homoeopathy, if that honorable name must be applied to +all kinds of book-making, has been degraded to the condition of the +humblest servitude. Productions without talent, without spirit, without +discrimination, flat and pitiful eulogies, exaggerations surpassing the +limits of the most robust faith, invectives against such as dared to +doubt the dogmas which had been proclaimed, or catalogues of remedies; of +such materials is it composed! From distance to distance only, have +appeared some memoirs useful to science or practice, which appear as so +many green oases in the midst of this literary desert." + +It is a very natural as well as a curious question to ask, What has been +the success of Homoeopathy in the different countries of Europe, and what +is its present condition? + +The greatest reliance of the advocates of Homoeopathy is of course on +Germany. We know very little of its medical schools, its medical +doctrines, or its medical men, compared with those of England and France. +And, therefore, when an intelligent traveller gives a direct account from +personal inspection of the miserable condition of the Homoeopathic +hospital at Leipsic, the first established in Europe, and the first on +the list of the ever-memorable Manifesto, it is easy enough answer or +elude the fact by citing various hard names of "distinguished" +practitioners, which sound just as well to the uninformed public as if +they were Meckel, or Tiedemann, or Langenbeck. Dr. Leo-Wolf, who, to be +sure, is opposed to Homoeopathy, but who is a scholar, and ought to know +something of his own countrymen, assures us that "Dr. Kopp is the only +German Homoeopathist, if we can call him so, who has been distinguished +as an author and practitioner before he examined this method." And Dr. +Lee, the same gentleman in whose travels the paragraph relating to the +Leipsic Hospital is to be found, says the same thing. And I will +cheerfully expose myself to any impertinent remark which it might +suggest, to assure my audience that I never heard or saw one authentic +Homoeopathic name of any country in Europe, which I had ever heard +mentioned before as connected with medical science by a single word or +deed sufficient to make it in any degree familiar to my ears, unless +Arnold of Heidelberg is the anatomist who discovered a little nervous +centre, called the otic ganglion. But you need ask no better proof of +who and what the German adherents of this doctrine must be, than the +testimony of a German Homoeopathist as to the wretched character of the +works they manufacture to enforce its claims. + +As for the act of this or that government tolerating or encouraging +Homoeopathy, every person of common intelligence knows that it is a mere +form granted or denied according to the general principles of policy +adopted in different states, or the degree of influence which some few +persons who have adopted it may happen to have at court. What may be the +value of certain pompous titles with which many of the advocates of +Homoeopathy are honored, it might be disrespectful to question. But in +the mean time the judicious inquirer may ponder over an extract which I +translate from a paper relating to a personage well known to the +community as Williams the Oculist, with whom I had the honor of crossing +the Atlantic some years since, and who himself handed me two copies of +the paper in question. + +"To say that he was oculist of Louis XVIII. and of Charles X., and that +he now enjoys the same title with respect to His Majesty, Louis Philippe, +and the King of the Belgians, is unquestionably to say a great deal; and +yet it is one of the least of his titles to public confidence. His +reputation rests upon a basis more substantial even than the numerous +diplomas with which he is provided, than the membership of the different +medical societies which have chosen him as their associate," etc., etc. + +And as to one more point, it is time that the public should fully +understand that the common method of supporting barefaced imposture at +the present day, both in Europe and in this country, consists in trumping +up "Dispensaries," "Colleges of Health," and other advertising charitable +clap-traps, which use the poor as decoy-ducks for the rich, and the +proprietors of which have a strong predilection for the title of +"Professor." These names, therefore, have come to be of little or no +value as evidence of the good character, still less of the high +pretensions of those who invoke their authority. Nor does it follow, even +when a chair is founded in connection with a well-known institution, that +it has either a salary or an occupant; so that it may be, and probably +is, a mere harmless piece of toleration on the part of the government if +a Professorship of Homoeopathy is really in existence at Jena or +Heidelberg. And finally, in order to correct the error of any who might +suppose that the whole Medical Profession of Germany has long since +fallen into the delusions of Hahnemann, I will quote two lines which a +celebrated anatomist and surgeon (whose name will occur again in this +lecture in connection with a very pleasing letter) addressed to the +French Academy of Medicine in 1835. "I happened to be in Germany some +months since, at a meeting of nearly six hundred physicians; one of them +wished to bring up the question of Homoeopathy; they would not even +listen to him." This may have been very impolite and bigoted, but that +is not precisely the point in reference to which I mention the +circumstance. + +But if we cannot easily get at Germany, we can very easily obtain exact +information from France and England. I took the trouble to write some +months ago to two friends in Paris, in whom I could place confidence, for +information upon the subject. One of them answered briefly to the effect +that nothing was said about it. When the late Curator of the Lowell +Institute, at his request, asked about the works upon the subject, he was +told that they had remained a long time on the shelves quite unsalable, +and never spoken of. + +The other gentleman, [Dr. Henry T. Bigelow, now Professor of Surgery in +Harvard University] whose name is well known to my audience, and who +needs no commendation of mine, had the kindness to procure for me many +publications upon the subject, and some information which sets the whole +matter at rest, so far as Paris is concerned. He went directly to the +Baillieres, the principal and almost the only publishers of all the +Homoeopathic books and journals in that city. The following facts were +taken by him from the account-books of this publishing firm. Four +Homoeopathic Journals have been published in Paris; three of them by the +Baillieres. + +The reception they met with may be judged of by showing the number of +subscribers to each on the books of the publishing firm. + +A Review published by some other house, which lasted one year, and had +about fifty subscribers, appeared in 1834, 1835. + +There were only four Journals of Homoeopathy ever published in Paris. The +Baillieres informed my correspondent that the sale of Homoeopathic books +was much less than formerly, and that consequently they should undertake +to publish no new books upon the subject, except those of Jahr or +Hahnemann. "This man," says my correspondent,--referring to one of the +brothers,--"the publisher and headquarters of Homoeopathy in Paris, +informs me that it is going down in England and Germany as well as in +Paris." For all the facts he had stated he pledged himself as +responsible. + +Homoeopathy was in its prime in Paris, he said, in 1836 and 1837, and +since then has been going down. + +Louis told my correspondent that no person of distinction in Paris had +embraced Homoeopathy, and that it was declining. If you ask who Louis +is, I refer you to the well-known Homoeopathist, Peschier of Geneva, who +says, addressing him, "I respect no one more than yourself; the feeling +which guides your researches, your labors, and your pen, is so honorable +and rare, that I could not but bow down before it; and I own, if there +were any allopathist who inspired me with higher veneration, it would be +him and not yourself whom I should address." + +Among the names of "Distinguished Homoeopathists," however, displayed in +imposing columns, in the index of the "Homoeopathic Examiner," are those +of MARJOLIN, AMUSSAT, and BRESCHET, names well known to the world of +science, and the last of them identified with some of the most valuable +contributions which anatomical knowledge has received since the +commencement of the present century. One Dr. Chrysaora, who stands +sponsor for many facts in that Journal, makes the following statement +among the rest: "Professors, who are esteemed among the most +distinguished of the Faculty (Faculty de Medicine), both as to knowledge +and reputation, have openly confessed the power of Homoeopathia in forms +of disease where the ordinary method of practice proved totally +insufficient. It affords me the highest pleasure to select from among +these gentlemen, Marjolin, Amussat, and Breschet." + +Here is a literal translation of an original letter, now in my +possession, from one of these Homoeopathists to my correspondent:-- + +"DEAR SIR, AND RESPECTED PROFESSIONAL BROTHER: + +"You have had the kindness to inform me in your letter that a new +American Journal, the 'New World,' has made use of my name in support of +the pretended Homoeopathic doctrines, and that I am represented as one of +the warmest partisans of Homoeopathy in France. + +"I am vastly surprised at the reputation manufactured for me upon the new +continent; but I am obliged, in deference to truth, to reject it with my +whole energy. I spurn far from me everything which relates to that +charlatanism called Homoeopathy, for these pretended doctrines cannot +endure the scrutiny of wise and enlightened persons, who are guided by +honorable sentiments in the practice of the noblest of arts. + +"PARIS, 3d November, 1841 + +"I am, etc., etc., +"G. BRESCHET, + +"Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Member of the Institute, Surgeon +of Hotel Dieu, and Consulting Surgeon to the King, etc." [I first saw M. +Breschet's name mentioned in that Journal] + +Concerning Amussat, my correspondent writes, that he was informed by +Madame Hahnemann, who converses in French more readily than her husband, +and therefore often speaks for him, that "he was not a physician, neither +Homoeopathist nor Allopathist, but that he was the surgeon of their own +establishment; that is, performed as a surgeon all the operations they +had occasion for in their practice." + +I regret not having made any inquiries as to Marjolin, who, I doubt not, +would strike his ponderous snuff-box until it resounded like the Grecian +horse, at hearing such a doctrine associated with his respectable name. +I was not aware, when writing to Paris, that this worthy Professor, whose +lectures I long attended, was included in these audacious claims; but +after the specimens I have given of the accuracy of the foreign +correspondence of the "Homoeopathic Examiner," any further information I +might obtain would seem so superfluous as hardly to be worth the postage. + +Homoeopathy may be said, then, to be in a sufficiently miserable +condition in Paris. Yet there lives, and there has lived for years, the +illustrious Samuel Hahnemann, who himself assured my correspondent that +no place offered the advantages of Paris in its investigation, by reason +of the attention there paid to it. + +In England, it appears by the statement of Dr. Curie in October, 1839, +about eight years after its introduction into the country, that there +were eighteen Homoeopathic physicians in the United Kingdom, of whom only +three were to be found out of London, and that many of these practised +Homoeopathy in secret. + +It will be seen, therefore, that, according to the recent statement of +one of its leading English advocates, Homoeopathy had obtained not quite +half as many practical disciples in England as Perkinism could show for +itself in a somewhat less period from the time of its first promulgation +in that country. + +Dr. Curie's letter, dated London, October 30, 1839, says there is "one in +Dublin, Dr. Luther; at Glasgow, Dr. Scott." The "distinguished" +Chrysaora writes from Paris, dating October 20, 1839, "On the other hand, +Homoeopathy is commencing to make an inroad into England by the way of +Ireland. At Dublin, distinguished physicians have already embraced the +new system, and a great part of the nobility and gentry of that city have +emancipated themselves from the English fashion and professional +authority." + +But the Marquis of Anglesea and Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer patronize +Homoeopathy; the Queen Dowager Adelaide has been treated by a +Homoeopathic physician. "Jarley is the delight of the nobility and +gentry." "The Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley." + +Let me ask if a Marquis and a Knight are better than two Lords, and if +the Dowager of Royalty is better than Royalty itself, all of which +illustrious dignities were claimed in behalf of Benjamin Douglass +Perkins? + +But if the balance is thought too evenly suspended in this case, another +instance can be given in which the evidence of British noblemen and their +ladies is shown to be as valuable in establishing the character of a +medical man or doctrine, as would be the testimony of the Marquis of +Waterford concerning the present condition and prospects of missionary +enterprise. I have before me an octavo volume of more than four hundred +pages, in which, among much similar matter, I find highly commendatory +letters from the Marchioness of Ormond, Lady Harriet Kavanagh, the +Countess of Buckinghamshire, the Right Hon. Viscount Ingestre, M. P., and +the Most Noble, the Marquis of Sligo,--all addressed to "John St. John +Long, Esq," a wretched charlatan, twice tried for, and once convicted of, +manslaughter at the Old Bailey. + +This poor creature, too, like all of his tribe, speaks of the medical +profession as a great confederation of bigoted monopolists. He, too, +says that "If an innovator should appear, holding out hope to those in +despair, and curing disorders which the faculty have recorded as +irremediable, he is at once, and without inquiry, denounced as an empiric +and an impostor." He, too, cites the inevitable names of Galileo and +Harvey, and refers to the feelings excited by the great discovery of +Jenner. From the treatment of the great astronomer who was visited with +the punishment of other heretics by the ecclesiastical authorities of a +Catholic country some centuries since, there is no very direct inference +to be drawn to the medical profession of the present time. His name +should be babbled no longer, after having been placarded for the +hundredth time in the pages of St. John Long. But if we are doomed to +see constant reference to the names of Harvey and Jenner in every +worthless pamphlet containing the prospectus of some new trick upon the +public, let us, once for all, stare the facts in the face, and see how +the discoveries of these great men were actually received by the medical +profession. + +In 1628, Harvey published his first work upon the circulation. His +doctrines were a complete revolution of the prevailing opinions of all +antiquity. They immediately found both champions and opponents; of which +last, one only, Riolanus, seemed to Harvey worthy of an answer, on +account of his "rank, fame, and learning." Controversy in science, as in +religion, was not, in those days, carried on with all the courtesy which +our present habits demand, and it is possible that some hard words may +have been applied to Harvey, as it is very certain that he used the most +contemptuous expressions towards others. + +Harvey declares in his second letter to Riolanus, "Since the first +discovery of the circulation, hardly a day, or a moment, has passed +without my hearing it both well and ill spoken of; some attack it with +great hostility, others defend it with high encomiums; one party believe +that I have abundantly proved the truth of the doctrine against all the +weight of opposing arguments, by experiments, observations, and +dissections; others think it not yet sufficiently cleared up, and free +from objections." Two really eminent Professors, Plempius of Louvain, +and Walaeus of Leyden, were among its early advocates. + +The opinions sanctioned by the authority of long ages, and the names of +Hippocrates and Galen, dissolved away, gradually, but certainly, before +the demonstrations of Harvey. Twenty-four years after the publication of +his first work, and six years before his death, his bust in marble was +placed in the Hall of the College of Physicians, with a suitable +inscription recording his discoveries. + +Two years after this he was unanimously invited to accept the Presidency +of that body; and he lived to see his doctrine established, and all +reputable opposition withdrawn. + +There were many circumstances connected with the discovery of Dr. Jenner +which were of a nature to excite repugnance and opposition. The practice +of inoculation for the small-pox had already disarmed that disease of +many of its terrors. The introduction of a contagious disease from a +brute creature into the human system naturally struck the public mind +with a sensation of disgust and apprehension, and a part of the medical +public may have shared these feelings. I find that Jenner's discovery of +vaccination was made public in June, 1798. In July of the same year the +celebrated surgeon, Mr. Cline, vaccinated a child with virus received +from Dr. Jenner, and in communicating the success of this experiment, he +mentions that Dr. Lister, formerly of the Small-Pox Hospital, and +himself, are convinced of the efficacy of the cow-pox. In November of +the same year, Dr. Pearson published his "Inquiry," containing the +testimony of numerous practitioners in different parts of the kingdom, to +the efficacy of the practice. Dr. HAYGARTH, who was so conspicuous in +exposing the follies of Perkinism, was among the very earliest to express +his opinion in favor of vaccination. In 1801, Dr. Lettsom mentions the +circumstance "as being to the honor of the medical professors, that they +have very generally encouraged this salutary practice, although it is +certainly calculated to lessen their pecuniary advantages by its tendency +to extirpate a fertile source of professional practice." + +In the same year the Medical Committee of Paris spoke of vaccination in a +public letter, as "the most brilliant and most important discovery of the +eighteenth century." The Directors of a Society for the Extermination of +the Small-Pox, in a Report dated October 1st, 1807, "congratulate the +public on the very favorable opinion which the Royal College of +Physicians of London, after a most minute and laborious investigation +made by the command of his Majesty, have a second time expressed on the +subject of vaccination, in their Report laid before the House of Commons, +in the last session of Parliament; in consequence of which the sum of +twenty thousand pounds was voted to Dr. Jenner, as a remuneration for his +discovery, in addition to ten thousand pounds before granted." (In June, +1802.) + +These and similar accusations, so often brought up against the Medical +Profession, are only one mode in which is manifested a spirit of +opposition not merely to medical science, but to all science, and to all +sound knowledge. It is a spirit which neither understands itself nor the +object at which it is aiming. It gropes among the loose records of the +past, and the floating fables of the moment, to glean a few truths or +falsehoods tending to prove, if they prove anything, that the persons who +have passed their lives in the study of a branch of knowledge the very +essence of which must always consist in long and accurate observation, +are less competent to judge of new doctrines in their own department than +the rest of the community. It belongs to the clown in society, the +destructive in politics, and the rogue in practice. + +The name of Harvey, whose great discovery was the legitimate result of +his severe training and patient study, should be mentioned only to check +the pretensions of presumptuous ignorance. The example of Jenner, who +gave his inestimable secret, the result of twenty-two years of experiment +and researches, unpurchased, to the public,--when, as was said in +Parliament, he might have made a hundred thousand pounds by it as well as +any smaller sum,--should be referred to only to rebuke the selfish +venders of secret remedies, among whom his early history obliges us +reluctantly to record Samuel Hahnemann. Those who speak of the great body +of physicians as if they were united in a league to support the +superannuated notions of the past against the progress of improvement, +have read the history of medicine to little purpose. The prevalent +failing of this profession has been, on the contrary, to lend a too +credulous ear to ambitious and plausible innovators. If at the present +time ten years of public notoriety have passed over any doctrine +professing to be of importance in medical science, and if it has not +succeeded in raising up a powerful body of able, learned, and ingenious +advocates for its claims, the fault must be in the doctrine and not in +the medical profession. + +Homoeopathy has had a still more extended period of trial than this, and +we have seen with what results. It only remains to throw out a few +conjectures as to the particular manner in which it is to break up and +disappear. + +1. The confidence of the few believers in this delusion will never +survive the loss of friends who may die of any acute disease, under a +treatment such as that prescribed by Homoeopathy. It is doubtful how far +cases of this kind will be trusted to its tender mercies, but wherever it +acquires any considerable foothold, such cases must come, and with them +the ruin of those who practise it, should any highly valued life be thus +sacrificed. + +2. After its novelty has worn out, the ardent and capricious individuals +who constitute the most prominent class of its patrons will return to +visible doses, were it only for the sake of a change. + +3. The Semi-Homoeopathic practitioner will gradually withdraw from the +rotten half of his business and try to make the public forget his +connection with it. + +4. The ultra Homoeopathist will either recant and try to rejoin the +medical profession; or he will embrace some newer and if possible equally +extravagant doctrine; or he will stick to his colors and go down with his +sinking doctrine. Very few will pursue the course last mentioned. + +A single fact may serve to point out in what direction there will +probably be a movement of the dissolving atoms of Homoeopathy. On the +13th page of the too frequently cited Manifesto of the "Examiner" I read +the following stately paragraph: + +"Bigelius, M. D., physician to the Emperor of Russia, whose elevated +reputation is well known in Europe, has been an acknowledged advocate of +Hahnemann's doctrines for several years. He abandoned Allopathia for +Homoeopathia." The date of this statement is January, 1840. I find on +looking at the booksellers' catalogues that one Bigel, or Bigelius, to +speak more classically, has been at various times publishing Homoeopathic +books for some years. + +Again, on looking into the "Encyclographie des Sciences Medicales" for +April, 1840, I find a work entitled "Manual of HYDROSUDOPATHY, or the +Treatment of Diseases by Cold Water, etc., etc., by Dr. Bigel, Physician +of the School of Strasburg, Member of the Medico-Chirurgical Institute of +Naples, of the Academy of St. Petersburg,--Assessor of the College of +the Empire of Russia, Physician of his late Imperial Highness the Grand +Duke Constantine, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, etc." Hydrosudopathy +or Hydropathy, as it is sometimes called, is a new medical doctrine or +practice which has sprung up in Germany since Homoeopathy, which it bids +fair to drive out of the market, if, as Dr. Bigel says, fourteen +physicians afflicted with diseases which defied themselves and their +colleagues came to Graefenberg, in the year 1836 alone, and were cured. +Now Dr. Bigel, "whose elevated reputation is well known in Europe," +writes as follows: "The reader will not fail to see in this defence of +the curative method of Graefenberg a profession of medical faith, and he +will be correct in so doing." And his work closes with the following +sentence, worthy of so distinguished an individual: "We believe, with +religion, that the water of baptism purifies the soul from its original +sin; let us believe also, with experience, that it is for our corporeal +sins the redeemer of the human body." If Bigel, Physician to the late +Grand Duke Constantine, is identical with Bigel whom the "Examiner" calls +Physician to the Emperor of Russia, it appears that he is now actively +engaged in throwing cold water at once upon his patients and the future +prospects of Homoeopathy. + +If, as must be admitted, no one of Hahnemann's doctrines is received with +tolerable unanimity among his disciples, except the central axiom, +Similia similibus curantur; if this axiom itself relies mainly for its +support upon the folly and trickery of Hahnemann, what can we think of +those who announce themselves ready to relinquish all the accumulated +treasures of our art, to trifle with life upon the strength of these +fantastic theories? What shall we think of professed practitioners of +medicine, if, in the words of Jahr, "from ignorance, for their personal +convenience, or through charlatanism, they treat their patients one day +Homoeopathically and the next Allopathically;" if they parade their +pretended new science before the unguarded portion of the community; if +they suffer their names to be coupled with it wherever it may gain a +credulous patient; and deny all responsibility for its character, refuse +all argument for its doctrines, allege no palliation for the ignorance +and deception interwoven with every thread of its flimsy tissue, when +they are questioned by those competent to judge and entitled to an +answer? + +Such is the pretended science of Homoeopathy, to which you are asked to +trust your lives and the lives of those dearest to you. A mingled mass +of perverse ingenuity, of tinsel erudition, of imbecile credulity, and of +artful misrepresentation, too often mingled in practice, if we may trust +the authority of its founder, with heartless and shameless imposition. +Because it is suffered so often to appeal unanswered to the public, +because it has its journals, its patrons, its apostles, some are weak +enough to suppose it can escape the inevitable doom of utter disgrace and +oblivion. Not many years can pass away before the same curiosity excited +by one of Perkins's Tractors will be awakened at the sight of one of the +Infinitesimal Globules. If it should claim a longer existence, it can +only be by falling into the hands of the sordid wretches who wring their +bread from the cold grasp of disease and death in the hovels of ignorant +poverty. + +As one humble member of a profession which for more than two thousand +years has devoted itself to the pursuit of the best earthly interests of +mankind, always assailed and insulted from without by such as are +ignorant of its infinite perplexities and labors, always striving in +unequal contest with the hundred-armed giant who walks in the noonday, +and sleeps not in the midnight, yet still toiling, not merely for itself +and the present moment, but for the race and the future, I have lifted my +voice against this lifeless delusion, rolling its shapeless bulk into the +path of a noble science it is too weak to strike, or to injure. + + + + +THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF PUERPERAL FEVER + +Printed in 1843; reprinted with additions, 1855. + +THE POINT AT ISSUE. + + +THE AFFIRMATIVE. + +"The disease known as Puerperal Fever is so far contagious as to be +frequently carried from patient to patient by physicians and nurses." +O. W. Holmes, 1843. + + +THE NEGATIVE. + +"The result of the whole discussion will, I trust, serve, not only to +exalt your views of the value and dignity of our profession, but to +divest your minds of the overpowering dread that you can ever become, +especially to woman, under the extremely interesting circumstances of +gestation and parturition, the minister of evil; that you can ever +convey, in any possible manner, a horrible virus, so destructive in its +effects, and so mysterious in its operations as that attributed to +puerperal fever."--Professor Hodge, 1852. + +"I prefer to attribute them to accident, or Providence, of which I can +form a conception, rather than to a contagion of which I cannot form any +clear idea, at least as to this particular malady."--Professor Meigs, +1852. + +" . . . in the propagation of which they have no more to do, than with +the propagation of cholera from Jessore to San Francisco, and from +Mauritius to St. Petersburg."--Professor Meigs, 1854. + + --------------------- + +"I arrived at that certainty in the matter, that I could venture to +foretell what women would be affected with the disease, upon hearing by +what midwife they were to be delivered, or by what nurse they were to be +attended, during their lying-in; and, almost in every instance, my +prediction was verified."--Gordon, 1795. + +"A certain number of deaths is caused every year by the contagion of +puerperal fever, communicated by the nurses and medical attendants." +Farr, in Fifth Annual Report of Registrar-General of England, 1843. + +". . . boards of health, if such exist, or, without them, the medical +institutions of a country, should have the power of coercing, or of +inflicting some kind of punishment on those who recklessly go from cases +of puerperal fevers to parturient or puerperal females, without using due +precaution; and who, having been shown the risk, criminally encounter it, +and convey pestilence and death to the persons they are employed to aid +in the most interesting and suffering period of female existence." +--Copland's Medical Dictionary, Art. Puerperal States and Diseases, 1852. + +"We conceive it unnecessary to go into detail to prove the contagious +nature of this disease, as there are few, if any, American practitioners +who do not believe in this doctrine."--Dr. Lee, in Additions to Article +last cited. + + ----------------------- + +[INTRODUCTORY NOTE.] It happened, some years ago, that a discussion arose +in a Medical Society of which I was a member, involving the subject of a +certain supposed cause of disease, about which something was known, a +good deal suspected, and not a little feared. The discussion was +suggested by a case, reported at the preceding meeting, of a physician +who made an examination of the body of a patient who had died with +puerperal fever, and who himself died in less than a week, apparently in +consequence of a wound received at the examination, having attended +several women in confinement in the mean time, all of whom, as it was +alleged, were attacked with puerperal fever. + +Whatever apprehensions and beliefs were entertained, it was plain that a +fuller knowledge of the facts relating to the subject would be acceptable +to all present. I therefore felt that it would be doing a good service +to look into the best records I could find, and inquire of the most +trustworthy practitioners I knew, to learn what experience had to teach +in the matter, and arrived at the results contained in the following +pages. + +The Essay was read before the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, +and, at the request of the Society, printed in the "New England Quarterly +Journal of Medicine and Surgery" for April, 1843. As this Journal never +obtained a large circulation, and ceased to be published after a year's +existence, and as the few copies I had struck off separately were soon +lost sight of among the friends to whom they were sent, the Essay can +hardly be said to have been fully brought before the Profession. + +The subject of this Paper has the same profound interest for me at the +present moment as it had when I was first collecting the terrible +evidence out of which, as it seems to me, the commonest exercise of +reason could not help shaping the truth it involved. It is not merely on +account of the bearing of the question,--if there is a question,--on all +that is most sacred in human life and happiness, that the subject cannot +lose its interest. It is because it seems evident that a fair statement +of the facts must produce its proper influence on a very large proportion +of well-constituted and unprejudiced minds. Individuals may, here and +there, resist the practical bearing of the evidence on their own feelings +or interests; some may fail to see its meaning, as some persons may be +found who cannot tell red from green; but I cannot doubt that most +readers will be satisfied and convinced, to loathing, long before they +have finished the dark obituary calendar laid before them. + +I do not know that I shall ever again have so good an opportunity of +being useful as was granted me by the raising of the question which +produced this Essay. For I have abundant evidence that it has made many +practitioners more cautious in their relations with puerperal females, +and I have no doubt it will do so still, if it has a chance of being +read, though it should call out a hundred counterblasts, proving to the +satisfaction of their authors that it proved nothing. And for my part, I +had rather rescue one mother from being poisoned by her attendant, than +claim to have saved forty out of fifty patients to whom I had carried the +disease. Thus, I am willing to avail myself of any hint coming from +without to offer this paper once more to the press. The occasion has +presented itself, as will be seen, in a convenient if not in a flattering +form. + +I send this Essay again to the MEDICAL PROFESSION, without the change of +a word or syllable. I find, on reviewing it, that it anticipates and +eliminates those secondary questions which cannot be entertained for a +moment until the one great point of fact is peremptorily settled. In its +very statement of the doctrine maintained it avoids all discussion of the +nature of the disease "known as puerperal fever," and all the somewhat +stale philology of the word contagion. It mentions, fairly enough, the +names of sceptics, or unbelievers as to the reality of personal +transmission; of Dewees, of Tonnelle, of Duges, of Baudelocque, and +others; of course, not including those whose works were then unwritten or +unpublished; nor enumerating all the Continental writers who, in +ignorance of the great mass of evidence accumulated by British +practitioners, could hardly be called well informed on this subject. It +meets all the array of negative cases,--those in which disease did not +follow exposure,--by the striking example of small-pox, which, although +one of the most contagious of diseases, is subject to the most remarkable +irregularities and seeming caprices in its transmission. It makes full +allowance for other causes besides personal transmission, especially for +epidemic influences. It allows for the possibility of different modes of +conveyance of the destructive principle. It recognizes and supports the +belief that a series of cases may originate from a single primitive +source which affects each new patient in turn; and especially from cases +of Erysipelas. It does not undertake to discuss the theoretical aspect +of the subject; that is a secondary matter of consideration. Where facts +are numerous, and unquestionable, and unequivocal in their significance, +theory must follow them as it best may, keeping time with their step, and +not go before them, marching to the sound of its own drum and trumpet. +Having thus narrowed its area to a limited practical platform of +discussion, a matter of life and death, and not of phrases or theories, +it covers every inch of it with a mass of evidence which I conceive a +Committee of Husbands, who can count coincidences and draw conclusions as +well as a Synod of Accoucheurs, would justly consider as affording ample +reasons for an unceremonious dismissal of a practitioner (if it is +conceivable that such a step could be waited for), after five or six +funerals had marked the path of his daily visits, while other +practitioners were not thus escorted. To the Profession, therefore, I +submit the paper in its original form, and leave it to take care of +itself. + +To the MEDICAL STUDENTS, into whose hands this Essay may fall, some words +of introduction may be appropriate, and perhaps, to a small number of +them, necessary. There are some among them who, from youth, or want of +training, are easily bewildered and confused in any conflict of opinions +into which their studies lead them. They are liable to lose sight of the +main question in collateral issues, and to be run away with by suggestive +speculations. They confound belief with evidence, often trusting the +first because it is expressed with energy, and slighting the latter +because it is calm and unimpassioned. They are not satisfied with proof; +they cannot believe a point is settled so long as everybody is not +silenced. They have not learned that error is got out of the minds that +cherish it, as the taenia is removed from the body, one joint, or a few +joints at a time, for the most part, rarely the whole evil at once. They +naturally have faith in their instructors, turning to them for truth, and +taking what they may choose to give them; babes in knowledge, not yet +able to tell the breast from the bottle, pumping away for the milk of +truth at all that offers, were it nothing better than a Professor's +shrivelled forefinger. + +In the earliest and embryonic stage of professional development, any +violent impression on the instructor's mind is apt to be followed by some +lasting effect on that of the pupil. No mother's mark is more permanent +than the mental naevi and moles, and excrescences, and mutilations, that +students carry with them out of the lecture-room, if once the teeming +intellect which nourishes theirs has been scared from its propriety by +any misshapen fantasy. Even an impatient or petulant expression, which +to a philosopher would be a mere index of the low state of amiability of +the speaker at the moment of its utterance, may pass into the young mind +as an element of its future constitution, to injure its temper or corrupt +its judgment. It is a duty, therefore, which we owe to this younger +class of students, to clear any important truth which may have been +rendered questionable in their minds by such language, or any +truth-teller against whom they may have been prejudiced by hasty +epithets, from the impressions such words have left. Until this is done, +they are not ready for the question, where there is a question, for them +to decide. Even if we ourselves are the subjects of the prejudice, there +seems to be no impropriety in showing that this prejudice is local or +personal, and not an acknowledged conviction with the public at large. +It may be necessary to break through our usual habits of reserve to do +this, but this is the fault of the position in which others have placed +us. + +Two widely-known and highly-esteemed practitioners, Professors in two of +the largest Medical Schools of the Union, teaching the branch of art +which includes the Diseases of Women, and therefore speaking with +authority; addressing in their lectures and printed publications large +numbers of young men, many of them in the tenderest immaturity of +knowledge, have recently taken ground in a formal way against the +doctrine maintained in this paper: + +On the Non-Contagious Character of Puerperal Fever: An Introductory +Lecture. By Hugh L. Hodge, M. D., Professor of Obstetrics in the +University of Pennsylvania. Delivered Monday, October 11, 1852. +Philadelphia, 1852. + +On the Nature, Signs, and Treatment of Childbed Fevers: in a Series of +Letters addressed to the Students of his Class. By Charles D. Meigs, M. +D., Professor of Midwifery and the Diseases of Women and Children in +Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, etc., etc. Philadelphia, 1854. +Letter VI. + +The first of the two publications, Dr. Hodge's Lecture, while its +theoretical considerations and negative experiences do not seem to me to +require any further notice than such as lay ready for them in my Essay +written long before, is, I am pleased to say, unobjectionable in tone and +language, and may be read without offence. + +This can hardly be said of the chapter of Dr. Meigs's volume which treats +of Contagion in Childbed Fever. There are expressions used in it which +might well put a stop to all scientific discussions, were they to form +the current coin in our exchange of opinions. I leave the "very young +gentlemen," whose careful expositions of the results of practice in more +than six thousand cases are characterized as "the jejune and fizenless +dreamings of sophomore writers," to the sympathies of those "dear young +friends," and "dear young gentlemen," who will judge how much to value +their instructor's counsel to think for themselves, knowing what they are +to expect if they happen not to think as he does. + +One unpalatable expression I suppose the laws of construction oblige me +to appropriate to myself, as my reward for a certain amount of labor +bestowed on the investigation of a very important question of evidence, +and a statement of my own practical conclusions. I take no offence, and +attempt no retort. No man makes a quarrel with me over the counterpane +that covers a mother, with her new-born infant at her breast. There is +no epithet in the vocabulary of slight and sarcasm that can reach my +personal sensibilities in such a controversy. Only just so far as a +disrespectful phrase may turn the student aside from the examination of +the evidence, by discrediting or dishonoring the witness, does it call +for any word of notice. + +I appeal from the disparaging language by which the Professor in the +Jefferson School of Philadelphia world dispose of my claims to be +listened to. I appeal, not to the vote of the Society for Medical +Improvement, although this was an unusual evidence of interest in the +paper in question, for it was a vote passed among my own townsmen; nor to +the opinion of any American, for none know better than the Professors in +the great Schools of Philadelphia how cheaply the praise of native +contemporary criticism is obtained. I appeal to the recorded opinions of +those whom I do not know, and who do not know me, nor care for me, except +for the truth that I may have uttered; to Copland, in his "Medical +Dictionary," who has spoken of my Essay in phrases to which the pamphlets +of American "scribblers" are seldom used from European authorities; to +Ramsbotham, whose compendious eulogy is all that self-love could ask; to +the "Fifth Annual Report" of the Registrar-General of England, in which +the second-hand abstract of my Essay figures largely, and not without +favorable comment, in an important appended paper. These testimonies, +half forgotten until this circumstance recalled them, are dragged into +the light, not in a paroxysm of vanity, but to show that there may be +food for thought in the small pamphlet which the Philadelphia Teacher +treats so lightly. They were at least unsought for, and would never have +been proclaimed but for the sake of securing the privilege of a decent +and unprejudiced hearing. + +I will take it for granted that they have so far counterpoised the +depreciating language of my fellow-countryman and fellow-teacher as to +gain me a reader here and there among the youthful class of students I am +now addressing. It is only for their sake that I think it necessary to +analyze, or explain, or illustrate, or corroborate any portion of the +following Essay. But I know that nothing can be made too plain for +beginners; and as I do not expect the practitioner, or even the more +mature student, to take the trouble to follow me through an Introduction +which I consider wholly unnecessary and superfluous for them, I shall not +hesitate to stoop to the most elementary simplicity for the benefit of +the younger student. I do this more willingly because it affords a good +opportunity, as it seems to me, of exercising the untrained mind in that +medical logic which does not seem to have been either taught or practised +in our schools of late, to the extent that might be desired. + +I will now exhibit, in a series of propositions reduced to their simplest +expression, the same essential statements and conclusions as are +contained in the Essay, with such commentaries and explanations as may be +profitable to the inexperienced class of readers addressed. + +I. It has been long believed, by many competent observers, that +Puerperal Fever (so called) is sometimes carried from patient to patient +by medical assistants. + +II. The express object of this Essay is to prove that it is so carried. + +III. In order to prove this point, it is not necessary to consult any +medical theorist as to whether or not it is consistent with his +preconceived notions that such a mode of transfer should exist. + +IV. If the medical theorist insists on being consulted, and we see fit +to indulge him, he cannot be allowed to assume that the alleged laws of +contagion, deduced from observation in other diseases, shall be cited to +disprove the alleged laws deduced from observation in this. Science +would never make progress under such conditions. Neither the long +incubation of hydrophobia, nor the protecting power of vaccination, would +ever have been admitted, if the results of observation in these +affections had been rejected as contradictory to the previously +ascertained laws of contagion. + +V. The disease in question is not a common one; producing, on the +average, about three deaths in a thousand births, according to the +English Registration returns which I have examined. + +VI. When an unusually large number of cases of this disease occur about +the same time, it is inferred, therefore, that there exists some special +cause for this increased frequency. If the disease prevails extensively +over a wide region of country, it is attributed without dispute to an +epidemic influence. If it prevails in a single locality, as in a +hospital, and not elsewhere, this is considered proof that some local +cause is there active in its production. + +VII. When a large number of cases of this disease occur in rapid +succession, in one individual's ordinary practice, and few or none +elsewhere, these cases appearing in scattered localities, in patients of +the same average condition as those who escape under the care of others, +there is the same reason for connecting the cause of the disease with the +person in this instance, as with the place in that last mentioned. + +VIII. Many series of cases, answering to these conditions, are given in +this Essay, and many others will be referred to which have occurred since +it was written. + +IX. The alleged results of observation may be set aside; first, because +the so-called facts are in their own nature equivocal; secondly, because +they stand on insufficient authority; thirdly, because they are not +sufficiently numerous. But, in this case, the disease is one of striking +and well-marked character; the witnesses are experts, interested in +denying and disbelieving the facts; the number of consecutive cases in +many instances frightful, and the number of series of cases such that I +have no room for many of them except by mere reference. + +X. These results of observation, being admitted, may, we will suppose, +be interpreted in different methods. Thus the coincidences may be +considered the effect of chance. I have had the chances calculated by a +competent person, that a given practitioner, A., shall have sixteen fatal +cases in a month, on the following data: A. to average attendance upon +two hundred and fifty births in a year; three deaths in one thousand +births to be assumed as the average from puerperal fever; no epidemic to +be at the time prevailing. It follows, from the answer given me, that if +we suppose every one of the five hundred thousand annual births of +England to have been recorded during the last half-century, there would +not be one chance in a million million million millions that one such +series should be noted. No possible fractional error in this calculation +can render the chance a working probability. Applied to dozens of series +of various lengths, it is obviously an absurdity. Chance, therefore, is +out of the question as an explanation of the admitted coincidences. + +XI. There is, therefore, some relation of cause and effect between the +physician's presence and the patient's disease. + +XII. Until it is proved to what removable condition attaching to the +attendant the disease is owing, he is bound to stay away from his +patients so soon as he finds himself singled out to be tracked by the +disease. How long, and with what other precautions, I have suggested, +without dictating, at the close of my Essay. If the physician does not +at once act on any reasonable suspicion of his being the medium of +transfer, the families where he is engaged, if they are allowed to know +the facts, should decline his services for the time. His feelings on the +occasion, however interesting to himself, should not be even named in +this connection. A physician who talks about ceremony and gratitude, and +services rendered, and the treatment he got, surely forgets himself; it +is impossible that he should seriously think of these small matters where +there is even a question whether he may not carry disease, and death, and +bereavement into any one of "his families," as they are sometimes called. + +I will now point out to the young student the mode in which he may +relieve his mind of any confusion, or possibly, if very young, any doubt, +which the perusal of Dr. Meigs's Sixth Letter may have raised in his +mind. + +The most prominent ideas of the Letter are, first, that the transmissible +nature of puerperal fever appears improbable, and, secondly, that it +would be very inconvenient to the writer. Dr. Woodville, Physician to the +Small-Pox and Inoculation Hospital in London, found it improbable, and +exceedingly inconvenient to himself, that cow pox should prevent +small-pox; but Dr. Jenner took the liberty to prove the fact, +notwithstanding. + +I will first call the young student's attention to the show of negative +facts (exposure without subsequent disease), of which much seems to be +thought. And I may at the same time refer him to Dr. Hodge's Lecture, +where he will find the same kind of facts and reasoning. Let him now +take up Watson's Lectures, the good sense and spirit of which have made +his book a universal favorite, and open to the chapter on Continued +Fever. He will find a paragraph containing the following sentence: "A +man might say, 'I was in the battle of Waterloo, and saw many men around +me fall down and die, and it was said that they were struck down by +musket-balls; but I know better than that, for I was there all the time, +and so were many of my friends, and we were never hit by any +musket-balls. Musket-balls, therefore, could not have been the cause of +the deaths we witnessed.' And if, like contagion, they were not palpable +to the senses, such a person might go on to affirm that no proof existed +of there being any such thing as musket-balls." Now let the student turn +back to the chapter on Hydrophobia in the same volume. He will find that +John Hunter knew a case in which, of twenty-one persons bitten, only one +died of the disease. He will find that one dog at Charenton was bitten +at different times by thirty different mad dogs, and outlived it all. Is +there no such thing, then, as hydrophobia? Would one take no especial +precautions if his wife, about to become a mother, had been bitten by a +rabid animal, because so many escape? Or let him look at "Underwood on +Diseases of Children," [Philadelphia, 1842, p. 244, note.] and he will +find the case of a young woman who was inoculated eight times in thirty +days, at the same time attending several children with smallpox, and yet +was not infected. But seven weeks afterwards she took the disease and +died. + +It would seem as if the force of this argument could hardly fail to be +seen, if it were granted that every one of these series of cases were so +reported as to prove that there could have been no transfer of disease. +There is not one of them so reported, in the Lecture or the Letter, as to +prove that the disease may not have been carried by the practitioner. I +strongly suspect that it was so carried in some of these cases, but from +the character of the very imperfect evidence the question can never be +settled without further disclosures. + +Although the Letter is, as I have implied, principally taken up with +secondary and collateral questions, and might therefore be set aside as +in the main irrelevant, I am willing, for the student's sake, to touch +some of these questions briefly, as an illustration of its logical +character. + +The first thing to be done, as I thought when I wrote my Essay, was to +throw out all discussions of the word contagion, and this I did +effectually by the careful wording of my statement of the subject to be +discussed. My object was not to settle the etymology or definition of a +word, but to show that women had often died in childbed, poisoned in some +way by their medical attendants. On the other point, I, at least, have +no controversy with anybody, and I think the student will do well to +avoid it in this connection. If I must define my position, however, as +well as the term in question, I am contented with Worcester's definition; +provided always this avowal do not open another side controversy on the +merits of his Dictionary, which Dr. Meigs has not cited, as compared with +Webster's, which he has. + +I cannot see the propriety of insisting that all the laws of the eruptive +fevers must necessarily hold true of this peculiar disease of puerperal +women. If there were any such propriety, the laws of the eruptive fevers +must at least be stated correctly. It is not true, for instance, as Dr. +Meigs states, that contagion is "no respecter of persons;" that "it +attacks all individuals alike." To give one example: Dr. Gregory, of the +Small-Pox Hospital, who ought to know, says that persons pass through +life apparently insensible to or unsusceptible of the small-pox virus, +and that the same persons do not take the vaccine disease. + +As to the short time of incubation, of which so much is made, we have no +right to decide beforehand whether it shall be long or short, in the +cases we are considering. A dissection wound may produce symptoms of +poisoning in six hours; the bite of a rabid animal may take as many +months. + +After the student has read the case in Dr. Meigs's 136th paragraph, and +the following one, in which he exclaims against the idea of contagion, +because the patient, delivered on the 26th of December, was attacked in +twenty-four hours, and died on the third day, let him read what happened +at the "Black Assizes" of 1577 and 1750. In the first case, six hundred +persons sickened the same night of the exposure, and three hundred more +in three days. [Elliotson's Practice, p. 298.] Of those attacked in the +latter year, the exposure being on the 11th of May, Alderman Lambert died +on the 13th, Under-Sheriff Cox on the 14th, and many of note before the +20th. But these are old stories. Let the student listen then to Dr. +Gerhard, whose reputation as a cautious observer he may be supposed to +know. "The nurse was shaving a man, who died in a few hours after his +entrance; he inhaled his breath, which had a nauseous taste, and in an +hour afterwards was taken with nausea, cephalalgia, and singing of the +ears. From that moment the attack began, and assumed a severe character. +The assistant was supporting another patient, who died soon afterwards; +he felt the pungent heat upon his skin, and was taken immediately with +the symptoms of typhus." [Am. Jour. Med. Sciences, Feb. 1837, p. 299.] +It is by notes of cases, rather than notes of admiration, that we must +be guided, when we study the Revised Statutes of Nature, as laid down +from the curule chairs of Medicine. + +Let the student read Dr. Meigs's 140th paragraph soberly, and then +remember, that not only does he infer, suspect, and surmise, but he +actually asserts (page 154), "there was poison in the house," because +three out of five patients admitted into a ward had puerperal fever and +died. Have I not as much right to draw a positive inference from "Dr. +A.'s" seventy exclusive cases as he from the three cases in the ward of +the Dublin Hospital? All practical medicine, and all action in common +affairs, is founded on inferences. How does Dr. Meigs know that the +patients he bled in puerperal fever would not have all got well if he had +not bled them? + +"You see a man discharge a gun at another; you see the flash, you hear +the report, you see the person fall a lifeless corpse; and you infer, +from all these circumstances, that there was a ball discharged from the +gun, which entered his body and caused his death, because such is the +usual and natural cause of such an effect. But you did not see the ball +leave the gun, pass through the air, and enter the body of the slain; and +your testimony to the fact of killing is, therefore, only +inferential,--in other words, circumstantial. It is possible that no +ball was in the gun; and we infer that there was, only because we cannot +account for death on any other supposition." [Chief Justice Gibson, in +Am. Law Journal, vol. vi. p. 123.] + +"The question always comes to this: Is the circumstance of intercourse +with the sick followed by the appearance of the disease in a proportion +of cases so much greater than any other circumstance common to any +portion of the inhabitants of the place under observation, as to make it +inconceivable that the succession of cases occurring in persons having +that intercourse should have been the result of chance? If so, the +inference is unavoidable, that that intercourse must have acted as a +cause of the disease. All observations which do not bear strictly on +that point are irrelevant, and, in the case of an epidemic first +appearing in a town or district, a succession of two cases is sometimes +sufficient to furnish evidence which, on the principle I have stated, is +nearly irresistible." + +Possibly an inexperienced youth may be awe-struck by the quotation from +Cuvier. These words, or their equivalent, are certainly to be found in +his Introduction. So are the words "top not come down"! to be found in +the Bible, and they were as much meant for the ladies' head-dresses as +the words of Cuvier were meant to make clinical observation wait for a +permit from anybody to look with its eyes and count on its fingers. Let +the inquiring youth read the whole Introduction, and he will see what +they mean. + +I intend no breach of courtesy, but this is a proper place to warn the +student against skimming the prefaces and introductions of works for +mottoes and embellishments to his thesis. He cannot learn anatomy by +thrusting an exploring needle into the body. He will be very liable to +misquote his author's meaning while he is picking off his outside +sentences. He may make as great a blunder as that simple prince who +praised the conductor of his orchestra for the piece just before the +overture; the musician was too good a courtier to tell him that it was +only the tuning of the instruments. + +To the six propositions in the 142d paragraph, and the remarks about +"specific" diseases, the answer, if any is necessary, seems very simple. +An inflammation of a serous membrane may give rise to secretions which +act as a poison, whether that be a "specific" poison or not, as Dr. Homer +has told his young readers, and as dissectors know too well; and that +poison may produce its symptoms in a few hours after the system has +received it, as any may see in Druitt's "Surgery," if they care to look. +Puerperal peritonitis may produce such a poison, and puerperal women may +be very sensible to its influences, conveyed by contact or exhalation. +Whether this is so or not, facts alone can determine, and to facts we +have had recourse to settle it. + +The following statement is made by Dr. Meigs in his 142d paragraph, and +developed more at length, with rhetorical amplifications, in the 134th. +"No human being, save a pregnant or parturient woman, is susceptible to +the poison." This statement is wholly incorrect, as I am sorry to have +to point out to a Teacher in Dr. Meigs's position. I do not object to the +erudition which quotes Willis and Fernelius, the last of whom was +pleasantly said to have "preserved the dregs of the Arabs in the honey of +his Latinity." But I could wish that more modern authorities had not +been overlooked. On this point, for instance, among the numerous facts +disproving the statement, the "American Journal of Medical Sciences," +published not far from his lecture-room, would have presented him with a +respectable catalog of such cases. Thus he might refer to Mr. Storrs's +paper "On the Contagious Effects of Puerperal Fever on the Male Subject; +or on Persons not Childbearing" (Jan. 1846), or to Dr. Reid's case +(April, 1846), or to Dr. Barron's statement of the children's dying of +peritonitis in an epidemic of puerperal fever at the Philadelphia +Hospital (Oct. 1842), or to various instances cited in Dr. Kneeland's +article (April, 186). Or, if he would have referred to the "New York +Journal," he might have seen Prof. Austin Flint's cases. Or, if he had +honored my Essay so far, he might have found striking instances of the +same kind in the first of the new series of cases there reported and +elsewhere. I do not see the bearing of his proposition, if it were true. +But it is one of those assertions that fall in a moment before a slight +examination of the facts; and I confess my surprise, that a professor who +lectures on the Diseases of Women should have ventured to make it. + +Nearly seven pages are devoted to showing that I was wrong in saying I +would not be "understood to imply that there exists a doubt in the mind +of any well-informed member of the medical profession as to the fact that +puerperal fever is sometimes communicated from one person to another, +both directly and indirectly." I will devote seven lines to these seven +pages, which seven lines, if I may say it without offence, are, as it +seems to me, six more than are strictly necessary. + +The following authors are cited as sceptics by Dr. Meigs: Dewees.--I +cited the same passage. Did not know half the facts. Robert +Lee.--Believes the disease is sometimes communicable by contagion. +Tonnelle, Baudelocque. Both cited by me. Jacquemier.--Published three +years after my Essay. Kiwisch. " Behindhand in knowledge of Puerperal +Fever." [B. & F. Med. Rev. Jan. 1842.] Paul Dubois.--Scanzoni. + +These Continental writers not well informed on this point.[See Dr. +Simpson's Remarks at Meeting of Edin. Med. Chir. Soc. (Am. Jour. +Oct. 1851.)] + +The story of Von Busch is of interest and value, but there is nothing in +it which need perplex the student. It is not pretended that the disease +is always, or even, it may be, in the majority of cases, carried about by +attendants; only that it is so carried in certain cases. That it may +have local and epidemic causes, as well as that depending on personal +transmission, is not disputed. Remember how small-pox often disappears +from a community in spite of its contagious character, and the necessary +exposure of many persons to those suffering from it; in both diseases +contagion is only one of the coefficients of the disease. + +I have already spoken of the possibility that Dr. Meigs may have been the +medium of transfer of puerperal fever in some of the cases he has briefly +catalogued. Of Dr. Rutter's cases I do not know how to speak. I only +ask the student to read the facts stated by Dr. Condie, as given in my +Essay, and say whether or not a man should allow his wife to be attended +by a practitioner in whose hands "scarcely a female that has been +delivered for weeks past has escaped an attack," "while no instance of +the disease has occurred in the patients of any other accoucheur +practising in the same district." If I understand Dr. Meigs and Dr. +Hodge, they would not warn the physician or spare the patient under such +circumstances. They would "go on," if I understand them, not to seven, +or seventy, only, but to seventy times seven, if they could find +patients. If this is not what they mean, may we respectfully ask them to +state what they do mean, to their next classes, in the name of humanity, +if not of science! + +I might repeat the question asked concerning Dr. Rutter's cases, with +reference to those reported by Dr. Roberton. Perhaps, however, the +student would like to know the opinion of a person in the habit of +working at matters of this kind in a practical point of view. To satisfy +him on this ground, I addressed the following question to the President +of one of our principal Insurance Companies, leaving Dr. Meigs's book and +my Essay in his hands at the same time. + +Question. "If such facts as Roberton's cases were before you, and the +attendant had had ten, or even five fatal cases, or three, or two even, +would you, or would you not, if insuring the life of the next patient to +be taken care of by that attendant, expect an extra premium over that of +an average case of childbirth?" + +Answer. "Of course I should require a very large extra premium, if I +would take take risk at all." + +But I do not choose to add the expressions of indignation which the +examination of the facts before him called out. I was satisfied from the +effect they produced on him, that if all the hideous catalogues of cases +now accumulated were fully brought to the knowledge of the public, +nothing, since the days of Burke and Hare, has raised such a cry of +horror as would be shrieked in the ears of the Profession. + +Dr. Meigs has elsewhere invoked "Providence" as the alternative of +accident, to account for the "coincidences." ("Obstetrics," Phil. 1852, +p. 631.) If so, Providence either acts through the agency of secondary +causes, as in other diseases, or not. If through such causes, let us +find out what they are, as we try to do in other cases. It may be true +that offences, or diseases, will come, but "woe unto him through whom +they come," if we catch him in the voluntary or careless act of bringing +them! But if Providence does not act through secondary causes in this +particular sphere of etiology, then why does Dr. Meigs take such pains to +reason so extensively about the laws of contagion, which, on that +supposition, have no more to do with this case than with the plague which +destroyed the people after David had numbered them? Above all, what +becomes of the theological aspect of the question, when he asserts that a +practitioner was "only unlucky in meeting with the epidemic cases?" (Op. +cit. p. 633.) We do not deny that the God of battles decides the fate of +nations; but we like to have the biggest squadrons on our side, and we +are particular that our soldiers should not only say their prayers, but +also keep their powder dry. We do not deny the agency of Providence in +the disaster at Norwalk, but we turn off the engineer, and charge the +Company five thousand dollars apiece for every life that is sacrificed. + +Why a grand jury should not bring in a bill against a physician who +switches off a score of women one after the other along his private +track, when he knows that there is a black gulf at the end of it, down +which they are to plunge, while the great highway is clear, is more than +I can answer. It is not by laying the open draw to Providence that he is +to escape the charge of manslaughter. + +To finish with all these lesser matters of question, I am unable to see +why a female must necessarily be unattended in her confinement, because +she declines the services of a particular practitioner. In all the +series of cases mentioned, the death-carrying attendant was surrounded by +others not tracked by disease and its consequences. Which, I would ask, +is worse,--to call in another, even a rival practitioner, or to submit an +unsuspecting female to a risk which an Insurance Company would have +nothing to do with? + +I do not expect ever to return to this subject. There is a point of +mental saturation, beyond which argument cannot be forced without +breeding impatient, if not harsh, feelings towards those who refuse to be +convinced. If I have so far manifested neither, it is well to stop here, +and leave the rest to those younger friends who may have more stomach for +the dregs of a stale argument. + +The extent of my prefatory remarks may lead some to think that I attach +too much importance to my own Essay. Others may wonder that I should +expend so many words upon the two productions referred to, the Letter and +the Lecture. I do consider my Essay of much importance so long as the +doctrine it maintains is treated as a question, and so long as any +important part of the defence of that doctrine is thought to rest on its +evidence or arguments. I cannot treat as insignificant any opinions +bearing on life, and interests dearer than life, proclaimed yearly to +hundreds of young men, who will carry them to their legitimate results in +practice. + +The teachings of the two Professors in the great schools of Philadelphia +are sure to be listened to, not only by their immediate pupils, but by +the Profession at large. I am too much in earnest for either humility or +vanity, but I do entreat those who hold the keys of life and death to +listen to me also for this once. I ask no personal favor; but I beg to +be heard in behalf of the women whose lives are at stake, until some +stronger voice shall plead for them. + +I trust that I have made the issue perfectly distinct and intelligible. +And let it be remembered that this is no subject to be smoothed over by +nicely adjusted phrases of half-assent and half-censure divided between +the parties. The balance must be struck boldly and the result declared +plainly. If I have been hasty, presumptuous, ill-informed, illogical; if +my array of facts means nothing; if there is no reason for any caution in +the view of these facts; let me be told so on such authority that I must +believe it, and I will be silent henceforth, recognizing that my mind is +in a state of disorganization. If the doctrine I have maintained is a +mournful truth; if to disbelieve it, and to practise on this disbelief, +and to teach others so to disbelieve and practise, is to carry +desolation, and to charter others to carry it, into confiding families, +let it be proclaimed as plainly what is to be thought of the teachings of +those who sneer at the alleged dangers, and scout the very idea of +precaution. Let it be remembered that persons are nothing in this +matter; better that twenty pamphleteers should be silenced, or as many +professors unseated, than that one mother's life should be taken. There +is no quarrel here between men, but there is deadly incompatibility and +exterminating warfare between doctrines. Coincidences meaning nothing, +though a man have a monopoly of the disease for weeks or months; or cause +and effect, the cause being in some way connected with the person; this +is the question. If I am wrong, let me be put down by such a rebuke as +no rash declaimer has received since there has been a public opinion in +the medical profession of America; if I am right, let doctrines which +lead to professional homicide be no longer taught from the chairs of +those two great Institutions. Indifference will not do here; our +Journalists and Committees have no right to take up their pages with +minute anatomy and tediously detailed cases, while it is a question +whether or not the "blackdeath" of child-bed is to be scattered broadcast +by the agency of the mother's friend and adviser. Let the men who mould +opinions look to it; if there is any voluntary blindness, any interested +oversight, any culpable negligence, even, in such a matter, and the facts +shall reach the public ear; the pestilence-carrier of the lying-in +chamber must look to God for pardon, for man will never forgive him. + + THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF PUERPERAL FEVER. + +In collecting, enforcing, and adding to the evidence accumulated upon +this most serious subject, I would not be understood to imply that there +exists a doubt in the mind of any well-informed member of the medical +profession as to the fact that puerperal fever is sometimes communicated +from one person to another, both directly and indirectly. In the present +state of our knowledge upon this point I should consider such doubts +merely as a proof that the sceptic had either not examined the evidence, +or, having examined it, refused to accept its plain and unavoidable +consequences. I should be sorry to think, with Dr. Rigby, that it was a +case of "oblique vision;" I should be unwilling to force home the +argumentum ad hominem of Dr. Blundell, but I would not consent to make a +question of a momentous fact which is no longer to be considered as a +subject for trivial discussions, but to be acted upon with silent +promptitude. It signifies nothing that wise and experienced +practitioners have sometimes doubted the reality of the danger in +question; no man has the right to doubt it any longer. No negative +facts, no opposing opinions, be they what they may, or whose they may, +can form any answer to the series of cases now within the reach of all +who choose to explore the records of medical science. + +If there are some who conceive that any important end would be answered +by recording such opinions, or by collecting the history of all the cases +they could find in which no evidence of the influence of contagion +existed, I believe they are in error. Suppose a few writers of authority +can be found to profess a disbelief in contagion,--and they are very few +compared with those who think differently,--is it quite clear that they +formed their opinions on a view of all the facts, or is it not apparent +that they relied mostly on their own solitary experience? Still further, +of those whose names are quoted, is it not true that scarcely a single +one could by any possibility have known the half or the tenth of the +facts bearing on the subject which have reached such a frightful amount +within the last few years? Again, as to the utility of negative facts, +as we may briefly call them,--instances, namely, in which exposure has +not been followed by disease,--although, like other truths, they may be +worth knowing, I do not see that they are like to shed any important +light upon the subject before us. Every such instance requires a good +deal of circumstantial explanation before it can be accepted. It is not +enough that a practitioner should have had a single case of puerperal +fever not followed by others. It must be known whether he attended +others while this case was in progress, whether he went directly from one +chamber to others, whether he took any, and what precautions. It is +important to know that several women were exposed to infection derived +from the patient, so that allowance may be made for want of +predisposition. Now if of negative facts so sifted there could be +accumulated a hundred for every one plain instance of communication here +recorded, I trust it need not be said that we are bound to guard and +watch over the hundredth tenant of our fold, though the ninety and nine +may be sure of escaping the wolf at its entrance. If any one is +disposed, then, to take a hundred instances of lives endangered or +sacrificed out of those I have mentioned, and make it reasonably clear +that within a similar time and compass ten thousand escaped the same +exposure, I shall thank him for his industry, but I must be permitted to +hold to my own practical conclusions, and beg him to adopt or at least to +examine them also. Children that walk in calico before open fires are not +always burned to death; the instances to the contrary may be worth +recording; but by no means if they are to be used as arguments against +woollen frocks and high fenders. + +I am not sure that this paper will escape another remark which it might +be wished were founded in justice. It may be said that the facts are too +generally known and acknowledged to require any formal argument or +exposition, that there is nothing new in the positions advanced, and no +need of laying additional statements before the Profession. But on +turning to two works, one almost universally, and the other extensively +appealed to as authority in this country, I see ample reason to overlook +this objection. In the last edition of Dewees's Treatise on the +"Diseases of Females," it is expressly said, "In this country, under no +circumstance that puerperal fever has appeared hitherto, does it afford +the slightest ground for the belief that it is contagious." In the +"Philadelphia Practice of Midwifery" not one word can be found in the +chapter devoted to this disease which would lead the reader to suspect +that the idea of contagion had ever been entertained. It seems proper, +therefore, to remind those who are in the habit of referring to these +works for guidance, that there may possibly be some sources of danger +they have slighted or omitted, quite as important as a trifling +irregularity of diet, or a confined state of the bowels, and that +whatever confidence a physician may have in his own mode of treatment, +his services are of questionable value whenever he carries the bane as +well as the antidote about his person. + +The practical point to be illustrated is the following: + +The disease known as Puerperal Fever is so far contagious as to be +frequently carried from patient to patient by physicians and nurses. + +Let me begin by throwing out certain incidental questions, which, without +being absolutely essential, would render the subject more complicated, +and by making such concessions and assumptions as may be fairly supposed +to be without the pale of discussion. + +1. It is granted that all the forms of what is called puerperal fever +may not be, and probably are not, equally contagious or infectious. I do +not enter into the distinctions which have been drawn by authors, because +the facts do not appear to me sufficient to establish any absolute line +of demarcation between such forms as may be propagated by contagion and +those which are never so propagated. This general result I shall only +support by the authority of Dr. Ramsbotham, who gives, as the result of +his experience, that the same symptoms belong to what he calls the +infectious and the sporadic forms of the disease, and the opinion of +Armstrong in his original Essay. If others can show any such +distinction, I leave it to them to do it. But there are cases enough +that show the prevalence of the disease among the patients of a single +practitioner when it was in no degree epidemic, in the proper sense of +the term. I may refer to those of Mr. Roberton and of Dr. Peirson, +hereafter to be cited, as examples. + +2. I shall not enter into any dispute about the particular mode of +infection, whether it be by the atmosphere the physician carries about +him into the sick-chamber, or by the direct application of the virus to +the absorbing surfaces with which his hand comes in contact. Many facts +and opinions are in favor of each of these modes of transmission. But it +is obvious that in the majority of cases it must be impossible to decide +by which of these channels the disease is conveyed, from the nature of +the intercourse between the physician and the patient. + +3. It is not pretended that the contagion of puerperal fever must always +be followed by the disease. It is true of all contagious diseases, that +they frequently spare those who appear to be fully submitted to their +influence. Even the vaccine virus, fresh from the subject, fails every +day to produce its legitimate effect, though every precaution is taken to +insure its action. This is still more remarkably the case with scarlet +fever and some other diseases. + +4. It is granted that the disease may be produced and variously modified +by many causes besides contagion, and more especially by epidemic and +endemic influences. But this is not peculiar to the disease in question. +There is no doubt that small-pox is propagated to a great extent by +contagion, yet it goes through the same periods of periodical increase +and diminution which have been remarked in puerperal fever. If the +question is asked how we are to reconcile the great variations in the +mortality of puerperal fever in different seasons and places with the +supposition of contagion, I will answer it by another question from Mr. +Farr's letter to the Registrar-General. He makes the statement that +"five die weekly of small-pox in the metropolis when the disease is not +epidemic,"--and adds, "The problem for solution is,--Why do the five +deaths become 10, 15, 20, 31, 58, 88, weekly, and then progressively fall +through the same measured steps?" + +5. I take it for granted, that if it can be shown that great numbers of +lives have been and are sacrificed to ignorance or blindness on this +point, no other error of which physicians or nurses may be occasionally +suspected will be alleged in palliation of this; but that whenever and +wherever they can be shown to carry disease and death instead of health +and safety, the common instincts of humanity will silence every attempt +to explain away their responsibility. + +The treatise of Dr. Gordon of Aberdeen was published in the year 1795, +being among the earlier special works upon the disease. Apart of his +testimony has been occasionally copied into other works, but his +expressions are so clear, his experience is given with such manly +distinctness and disinterested honesty, that it may be quoted as a model +which might have been often followed with advantage. + +"This disease seized such women only as were visited, or delivered by a +practitioner, or taken care of by a nurse, who had previously attended +patients affected with the disease." + +"I had evident proofs of its infectious nature, and that the infection +was as readily communicated as that of the small-pox or measles, and +operated more speedily than any other infection with which I am +acquainted." + +"I had evident proofs that every person who had been with a patient in +the puerperal fever became charged with an atmosphere of infection, which +was communicated to every pregnant woman who happened to come within its +sphere. This is not an assertion, but a fact, admitting of +demonstration, as may be seen by a perusal of the foregoing +table,"--referring to a table of seventy-seven cases, in many of which +the channel of propagation was evident. + +He adds, "It is a disagreeable declaration for me to mention, that I +myself was the means of carrying the infection to a great number of +women." He then enumerates a number of instances in which the disease +was conveyed by midwives and others to the neighboring villages, and +declares that "these facts fully prove that the cause of the puerperal +fever, of which I treat, was a specific contagion, or infection, +altogether unconnected with a noxious constitution of the atmosphere." + +But his most terrible evidence is given in these words: "I ARRIVED AT +THAT CERTAINTY IN THE MATTER, THAT I COULD VENTURE TO FORETELL WHAT WOMEN +WOULD BE AFFECTED WITH THE DISEASE, UPON HEARING BY WHAT MIDWIFE THEY +WERE TO BE DELIVERED, OR BY WHAT NURSE THEY WERE TO BE ATTENDED, DURING +THEIR LYING-IN: AND ALMOST IN EVERY INSTANCE, MY PREDICTION WAS +VERIFIED." + +Even previously to Gordon, Mr. White of Manchester had said, "I am +acquainted with two gentlemen in another town, where the whole business +of midwifery is divided betwixt them, and it is very remarkable that one +of them loses several patients every year of the puerperal fever, and the +other never so much as meets with the disorder,"--a difference which he +seems to attribute to their various modes of treatment. [On the +Management of Lying-in Women, p. 120.] + +Dr. Armstrong has given a number of instances in his Essay on Puerperal +Fever, of the prevalence of the disease among the patients of a single +practitioner. At Sunderland, "in all, forty-three cases occurred from +the 1st of January to the 1st of October, when the disease ceased; and of +this number forty were witnessed by Mr. Gregson and his assistant, Mr. +Gregory, the remainder having been separately seen by three accoucheurs." +There is appended to the London edition of this Essay, a letter from Mr. +Gregson, in which that gentleman says, in reference to the great number +of cases occurring in his practice, "The cause of this I cannot pretend +fully to explain, but I should be wanting in common liberality if I were +to make any hesitation in asserting, that the disease which appeared in +my practice was highly contagious, and communicable from one puerperal +woman to another." "It is customary among the lower and middle ranks of +people to make frequent personal visits to puerperal women resident in +the same neighborhood, and I have ample evidence for affirming that the +infection of the disease was often carried about in that manner; and, +however painful to my feelings, I must in candor declare, that it is very +probable the contagion was conveyed, in some instances, by myself, though +I took every possible care to prevent such a thing from happening, the +moment that I ascertained that the distemper was infectious." Dr. +Armstrong goes on to mention six other instances within his knowledge, in +which the disease had at different times and places been limited, in the +same singular manner, to the practice of individuals, while it existed +scarcely if at all among the patients of others around them. Two of the +gentlemen became so convinced of their conveying the contagion, that they +withdrew for a time from practice. + +I find a brief notice, in an American Journal, of another series of +cases, first mentioned by Mr. Davies, in the "Medical Repository." This +gentleman stated his conviction that the disease is contagious. + +"In the autumn of 1822 he met with twelve cases, while his medical +friends in the neighborhood did not meet with any, 'or at least very +few.' He could attribute this circumstance to no other cause than his +having been present at the examination, after death, of two cases, some +time previous, and of his having imparted the disease to his patients, +notwithstanding every precaution." + +Dr. Gooch says, "It is not uncommon for the greater number of cases to +occur in the practice of one man, whilst the other practitioners of the +neighborhood, who are not more skilful or more busy, meet with few or +none. A practitioner opened the body of a woman who had died of +puerperal fever, and continued to wear the same clothes. A lady whom he +delivered a few days afterwards was attacked with and died of a similar +disease; two more of his lying-in patients, in rapid succession, met with +the same fate; struck by the thought, that he might have carried +contagion in his clothes, he instantly changed them, and 'met with no +more cases of the kind.' A woman in the country, who was employed as +washerwoman and nurse, washed the linen of one who had died of puerperal +fever; the next lying-in patient she nursed died of the same disease; a +third nursed by her met with the same fate, till the neighborhood, +getting afraid of her, ceased to employ her." + +In the winter of the year 1824, "Several instances occurred of its +prevalence among the patients of particular practitioners, whilst others +who were equally busy met with few or none. One instance of this kind +was very remarkable. A general practitioner, in large midwifery +practice, lost so many patients from puerperal fever, that he determined +to deliver no more for some time, but that his partner should attend in +his place. This plan was pursued for one month, during which not a case +of the disease occurred in their practice. The elder practitioner, being +then sufficiently recovered, returned to his practice, but the first +patient he attended was attacked by the disease and died. A physician, +who met him in consultation soon afterwards, about a case of a different +kind, and who knew nothing of his misfortune, asked him whether puerperal +fever was at all prevalent in his neighborhood, on which he burst into +tears, and related the above circumstances. + +"Among the cases which I saw this season in consultation, four occurred +in one month in the practice of one medical man, and all of them +terminated fatally." [Lond. Med. Gaz. May 2, 1835.] + +Dr. Ramsbotham asserted, in a Lecture at the London Hospital, that he had +known the disease spread through a particular district, or be confined to +the practice of a particular person, almost every patient being attacked +with it, while others had not a single case. It seemed capable, he +thought, of conveyance, not only by common modes; but through the dress +of the attendants upon the patient. + +In a letter to be found in the "London Medical Gazette" for January, +1840, Mr. Roberton of Manchester makes the statement which I here give in +a somewhat condensed form. + +A midwife delivered a woman on the 4th of December, 1830, who died soon +after with the symptoms of puerperal fever. In one month from this date +the same midwife delivered thirty women, residing in different parts of +an extensive suburb, of which number sixteen caught the disease and all +died. These were the only cases which had occurred for a considerable +time in Manchester. The other midwives connected with the same +charitable institution as the woman already mentioned are twenty-five in +number, and deliver, on an average, ninety women a week, or about three +hundred and eighty a month. None of these women had a case of puerperal +fever. "Yet all this time this woman was crossing the other midwives in +every direction, scores of the patients of the charity being delivered by +them in the very same quarters where her cases of fever were happening." + +Mr. Roberton remarks, that little more than half the women she delivered +during this month took the fever; that on some days all escaped, on +others only one or more out of three or four; a circumstance similar to +what is seen in other infectious maladies. + +Dr. Blundell says, "Those who have never made the experiment can have but +a faint conception how difficult it is to obtain the exact truth +respecting any occurrence in which feelings and interests are concerned. +Omitting particulars, then, I content myself with remarking, generally, +that from more than one district I have received accounts of the +prevalence of puerperal fever in the practice of some individuals, while +its occurrence in that of others, in the same neighborhood, was not +observed. Some, as I have been told, have lost ten, twelve, or a greater +number of patients, in scarcely broken succession; like their evil +genius, the puerperal fever has seemed to stalk behind them wherever they +went. Some have deemed it prudent to retire for a time from practice. +In fine, that this fever may occur spontaneously, I admit; that its +infectious nature may be plausibly disputed, I do not deny; but I add, +considerately, that in my own family I had rather that those I esteemed +the most should be delivered, unaided, in a stable, by the manger-side, +than that they should receive the best help, in the fairest apartment, +but exposed to the vapors of this pitiless disease. Gossiping friends, +wet-nurses, monthly nurses, the practitioner himself, these are the +channels by which, as I suspect, the infection is principally conveyed." + +At a meeting of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, Dr. King +mentioned that some years since a practitioner at Woolwich lost sixteen +patients from puerperal fever in the same year. He was compelled to give +up practice for one or two years, his business being divided among the +neighboring practitioners. No case of puerperal fever occurred +afterwards, neither had any of the neighboring surgeons any cases of this +disease. + +At the same meeting Mr. Hutchinson mentioned the occurrence of three +consecutive cases of puerperal fever, followed subsequently by two +others, all in the practice of one accoucheur.[Lancet, May 2, 1840.] + +Dr. Lee makes the following statement: "In the last two weeks of +September, 1827, five fatal cases of uterine inflammation came under our +observation. All the individuals so attacked had been attended in labor +by the same midwife, and no example of a febrile or inflammatory disease +of a serious nature occurred during that period among the other patients +of the Westminster General Dispensary, who had been attended by the other +midwives belonging to that institution." + +The recurrence of long series of cases like those I have cited, reported +by those most interested to disbelieve in contagion, scattered along +through an interval of half a century, might have been thought sufficient +to satisfy the minds of all inquirers that here was something more than a +singular coincidence. But if, on a more extended observation, it should +be found that the same ominous groups of cases clustering about +individual practitioners were observed in a remote country, at different +times, and in widely separated regions, it would seem incredible that any +should be found too prejudiced or indolent to accept the solemn truth +knelled into their ears by the funeral bells from both sides of the +ocean,--the plain conclusion that the physician and the disease entered, +hand in hand, into the chamber of the unsuspecting patient. + +That such series of cases have been observed in this country, and in this +neighborhood, I proceed to show. + +In Dr. Francis's "Notes to Denman's Midwifery," a passage is cited from +Dr. Hosack, in which he refers to certain puerperal cases which proved +fatal to several lying-in women, and in some of which the disease was +supposed to be conveyed by the accoucheurs themselves. + +A writer in the "New York Medical and Physical Journal" for October, +1829, in speaking of the occurrence of puerperal fever, confined to one +man's practice, remarks, "We have known cases of this kind occur, though +rarely, in New York." + +I mention these little hints about the occurrence of such cases, partly +because they are the first I have met with in American medical +literature, but more especially because they serve to remind us that +behind the fearful array of published facts there lies a dark list of +similar events, unwritten in the records of science, but long remembered +by many a desolated fireside. + +Certainly nothing can be more open and explicit than the account given by +Dr. Peirson of Salem, of the cases seen by him. In the first nineteen +days of January, 1829, he had five consecutive cases of puerperal fever, +every patient he attended being attacked, and the three first cases +proving fatal. In March of the same year he had two moderate cases, in +June, another case, and in July, another, which proved fatal. "Up to +this period," he remarks, "I am not informed that a single case had +occurred in the practice of any other physician. Since that period I +have had no fatal case in my practice, although I have had several +dangerous cases. I have attended in all twenty cases of this disease, of +which four have been fatal. I am not aware that there has been any other +case in the town of distinct puerperal peritonitis, although I am willing +to admit my information may be very defective on this point. I have been +told of some I 'mixed cases,' and 'morbid affections after delivery.'" + +In the "Quarterly Summary of the Transactions of the College of +Physicians of Philadelphia" may be found some most extraordinary +developments respecting a series of cases occurring in the practice of a +member of that body. + +Dr. Condie called the attention of the Society to the prevalence, at the +present time, of puerperal fever of a peculiarly insidious and malignant +character. "In the practice of one gentleman extensively engaged as an +obstetrician, nearly every female he has attended in confinement, during +several weeks past, within the above limits" (the southern sections and +neighboring districts), "had been attacked by the fever." + +"An important query presents itself, the Doctor observed, in reference to +the particular form of fever now prevalent. Is it, namely, capable of +being propagated by contagion, and is a physician who has been in +attendance upon a case of the disease warranted in continuing, without +interruption, his practice as an obstetrician? Dr. C., although not a +believer in the contagious character of many of those affections +generally supposed to be propagated in this manner, has nevertheless +become convinced by the facts that have fallen under his notice, that the +puerperal fever now prevailing is capable of being communicated by +contagion. How otherwise can be explained the very curious circumstance +of the disease in one district being exclusively confined to the practice +of a single physician, a Fellow of this College, extensively engaged in +obstetrical practice,--while no instance of the disease has occurred in +the patients under the care of any other accoucheur practising within the +same district; scarcely a female that has been delivered for weeks past +has escaped an attack?" + +Dr. Rutter, the practitioner referred to, "observed that, after the +occurrence of a number of cases of the disease in his practice, he had +left the city and remained absent for a week, but on returning, no +article of clothing he then wore having been used by him before, one of +the very first cases of parturition he attended was followed by an attack +of the fever, and terminated fatally; he cannot, readily, therefore, +believe in the transmission of the disease from female to female, in the +person or clothes of the physician." + +The meeting at which these remarks were made was held on the 3d of May, +1842. In a letter dated December 20, 1842, addressed to Dr. Meigs, and +to be found in the "Medical Examiner," he speaks of "those horrible +cases of puerperal fever, some of which you did me the favor to see with +me during the past summer," and talks of his experience in the disease, +"now numbering nearly seventy cases, all of which have occurred within +less than a twelvemonth past." + +And Dr. Meigs asserts, on the same page, "Indeed, I believe that his +practice in that department of the profession was greater than that of +any other gentleman, which was probably the cause of his seeing a greater +number of the cases." This from a professor of midwifery, who some time +ago assured a gentleman whom he met in consultation, that the night on +which they met was the eighteenth in succession that he himself had been +summoned from his repose, seems hardly satisfactory. + +I must call the attention of the inquirer most particularly to the +Quarterly Report above referred to, and the letters of Dr. Meigs and Dr. +Rutter, to be found in the "Medical Examiner." Whatever impression they +may produce upon his mind, I trust they will at least convince him that +there is some reason for looking into this apparently uninviting subject. + +At a meeting of the College of Physicians just mentioned, Dr. Warrington +stated, that a few days after assisting at an autopsy of puerperal +peritonitis, in which he laded out the contents of the abdominal cavity +with his hands, he was called upon to deliver three women in rapid +succession. All of these women were attacked with different forms of +what is commonly called puerperal fever. Soon after these he saw two +other patients, both on the same day, with the same disease. Of these +five patients two died. + +At the same meeting, Dr. West mentioned a fact related to him by Dr. +Samuel Jackson of Northumberland. Seven females, delivered by Dr. +Jackson in rapid succession, while practising in Northumberland County, +were all attacked with puerperal fever, and five of them died. "Women," +he said, "who had expected me to attend upon them, now becoming alarmed, +removed out of my reach, and others sent for a physician residing several +miles distant. These women, as well as those attended by midwives; all +did well; nor did we hear of any deaths in child-bed within a radius of +fifty miles, excepting two, and these I afterwards ascertained to have +been caused by other diseases." He underwent, as he thought, a thorough +purification, and still his next patient was attacked with the disease +and died. He was led to suspect that the contagion might have been +carried in the gloves which he had worn in attendance upon the previous +cases. Two months or more after this he had two other cases. He could +find nothing to account for these, unless it were the instruments for +giving enemata, which had been used in two of the former cases, and were +employed by these patients. When the first case occurred, he was +attending and dressing a limb extensively mortified from erysipelas, and +went immediately to the accouchement with his clothes and gloves most +thoroughly imbued with its efluvia. And here I may mention, that this +very Dr. Samuel Jackson of Northumberland is one of Dr. Dewees's +authorities against contagion. + +The three following statements are now for the first time given to the +public. All of the cases referred to occurred within this State, and two +of the three series in Boston and its immediate vicinity. + +I. The first is a series of cases which took place during the last +spring in a town at some distance from this neighborhood. A physician of +that town, Dr. C., had the following consecutive cases. + + No. 1, delivered March 20, died March 24. + " 2, " April 9, " April 14. + " 3, " " 10, " " 14. + " 4, " " 11, " " 18. + " 5, " " 27, " May 3. + " 6, " " 28, had some symptoms,(recovered.) + " 7, " May 8, had some symptoms,(also recovered.) + +These were the only cases attended by this physician during the period +referred to. "They were all attended by him until their termination, +with the exception of the patient No. 6, who fell into the hands of +another physician on the 2d of May. (Dr. C. left town for a few days at +this time.) Dr. C. attended cases immediately before and after the +above-named periods, none of which, however, presented any peculiar +symptoms of the disease." + +About the 1st of July he attended another patient in a neighboring +village, who died two or three days after delivery. + +The first patient, it is stated, was delivered on the 20th of March. "On +the 19th, Dr. C. made the autopsy of a man who died suddenly, sick only +forty-eight hours; had oedema of the thigh, and gangrene extending from a +little above the ankle into the cavity of the abdomen." Dr. C. wounded +himself, very slightly, in the right hand during the autopsy. The hand +was quite painful the night following, during his attendance on the +patient No. 1. He did not see this patient after the 20th, being +confined to the house, and very sick from the wound just mentioned, from +this time until the 3d of April. + +Several cases of erysipelas occurred in the house where the autopsy +mentioned above took place, soon after the examination. There were also +many cases of erysipelas in town at the time of the fatal puerperal cases +which have been mentioned. + +The nurse who laid out the body of the patient No. 3 was taken on the +evening of the same day with sore throat and erysipelas, and died in ten +days from the first attack. + +The nurse who laid out the body of the patient No. 4 was taken on the day +following with symptoms like those of this patient, and died in a week, +without any external marks of erysipelas. + +"No other cases of similar character with those of Dr. C. occurred in the +practice of any of the physicians in the town or vicinity at the time. +Deaths following confinement have occurred in the practice of other +physicians during the past year, but they were not cases of puerperal +fever. No post-mortem examinations were held in any of these puerperal +cases." + +Some additional statements in this letter are deserving of insertion. + +"A physician attended a woman in the immediate neighborhood of the cases +numbered 2, 3, and 4. This patient was confined the morning of March +1st, and died on the night of March 7th. It is doubtful whether this +should be considered a case of puerperal fever. She had suffered from +canker, indigestion, and diarrhoea for a year previous to her delivery. +Her complaints were much aggravated for two or three months previous to +delivery; she had become greatly emaciated, and weakened to such an +extent that it had not been expected that she would long survive her +confinement, if indeed she reached that period. Her labor was easy +enough; she flowed a good deal, seemed exceedingly prostrated, had +ringing in the ears, and other symptoms of exhaustion; the pulse was +quick and small. On the second and third day there was some tenderness +and tumefaction of the abdomen, which increased somewhat on the fourth +and fifth. He had cases in midwifery before and after this, which +presented nothing peculiar." + +It is also mentioned in the same letter, that another physician had a +case during the last summer and another last fall, both of which +recovered. + +Another gentleman reports a case last December, a second case five weeks, +and another three weeks since. All these recovered. A case also +occurred very recently in the practice of a physician in the village +where the eighth patient of Dr. C. resides, which proved fatal. "This +patient had some patches of erysipelas on the legs and arms. The same +physician has delivered three cases since, which have all done well. +There have been no other cases in this town or its vicinity recently. +There have been some few cases of erysipelas." It deserves notice that +the partner of Dr. C., who attended the autopsy of the man above +mentioned and took an active part in it; who also suffered very slightly +from a prick under the thumb-nail received during the examination, had +twelve cases of midwifery between March 26th and April 12th, all of which +did well, and presented no peculiar symptoms. It should also be stated, +that during these seventeen days he was in attendance on all the cases of +erysipelas in the house where the autopsy had been performed. + +I owe these facts to the prompt kindness of a gentleman whose +intelligence and character are sufficient guaranty for their accuracy. + +The two following letters were addressed to my friend Dr. Scorer, by the +gentleman in whose practice the cases of puerperal fever occurred. His +name renders it unnecessary to refer more particularly to these +gentlemen, who on their part have manifested the most perfect freedom and +courtesy in affording these accounts of their painful experience. + +"January 28, 1843. + +II. . . . "The time to which you allude was in 1830. The first case +was in February, during a very cold time. She was confined the 4th, and +died the 12th. Between the 10th and 28th of this month, I attended six +women in labor, all of whom did well except the last, as also two who +were confined March 1st and 5th. Mrs. E., confined February 28th, +sickened, and died March 8th. The next day, 9th, I inspected the body, +and the night after attended a lady, Mrs. B., who sickened, and died +16th. The 10th, I attended another, Mrs. G., who sickened, but +recovered. March 16th, I went from Mrs. G.'s room to attend a Mrs. H., +who sickened, and died 21st. The 17th, I inspected Mrs. B. On the 19th, +I went directly from Mrs. H.'s room to attend another lady, Mrs. G., who +also sickened, and died 22d. While Mrs. B. was sick, on 15th, I went +directly from her room a few rods, and attended another woman, who was +not sick. Up to 20th of this month I wore the same clothes. I now +refused to attend any labor, and did not till April 21st, when, having +thoroughly cleansed myself, I resumed my practice, and had no more +puerperal fever. + +"The cases were not confined to a narrow space. The two nearest were +half a mile from each other, and half that distance from my residence. +The others were from two to three miles apart, and nearly that distance +from my residence. There were no other cases in their immediate vicinity +which came to my knowledge. The general health of all the women was +pretty good, and all the labors as good as common, except the first. +This woman, in consequence of my not arriving in season, and the child +being half-born at some time before I arrived, was very much exposed to +the cold at the time of confinement, and afterwards, being confined in a +very open, cold room. Of the six cases you perceive only one recovered. + +"In the winter of 1817 two of my patients had puerperal fever, one very +badly, the other not so badly. Both recovered. One other had swelled +leg, or phlegmasia dolens, and one or two others did not recover as well +as usual. + +"In the summer of 1835 another disastrous period occurred in my practice. +July 1st, I attended a lady in labor, who was afterwards quite ill and +feverish; but at the time I did not consider her case a decided puerperal +fever. On the 8th, I attended one who did well. On the 12th, one who was +seriously sick. This was also an equivocal case, apparently arising from +constipation and irritation of the rectum. These women were ten miles +apart and five from my residence. On 15th and 20th, two who did well. On +25th, I attended another. This was a severe labor, and followed by +unequivocal puerperal fever, or peritonitis. She recovered. August 2d +and 3d, in about twenty-four hours I attended four persons. Two of them +did very well; one was attacked with some of the common symptoms, which +however subsided in a day or two, and the other had decided puerperal +fever, but recovered. This woman resided five miles from me. Up to this +time I wore the same coat. All my other clothes had frequently been +changed. On 6th, I attended two women, one of whom was not sick at all; +but the other, Mrs. L., was afterwards taken ill. On 10th, I attended a +lady, who did very well. I had previously changed all my clothes, and +had no garment on which had been in a puerperal room. On 12th, I was +called to Mrs. S., in labor. While she was ill, I left her to visit Mrs. +L., one of the ladies who was confined on 6th. Mrs. L. had been more +unwell than usual, but I had not considered her case anything more than +common till this visit. I had on a surtout at this visit, which, on my +return to Mrs. S., I left in another room. Mrs. S. was delivered on +13th with forceps. These women both died of decided puerperal fever. + +"While I attended these women in their fevers, I changed my clothes, and +washed my hands in a solution of chloride of lime after each visit. I +attended seven women in labor during this period, all of whom recovered +without sickness. + +"In my practice I have had several single cases of puerperal fever, some +of whom have died and some have recovered. Until the year 1830 I had no +suspicion that the disease could be communicated from one patient to +another by a nurse or midwife; but I now think the foregoing facts +strongly favor that idea. I was so much convinced of this fact, that I +adopted the plan before related. + +"I believe my own health was as good as usual at each of the above +periods. I have no recollections to the contrary. + +"I believe I have answered all your questions. I have been more +particular on some points perhaps than necessary; but I thought you could +form your own opinion better than to take mine. In 1830 I wrote to Dr. +Charming a more particular statement of my cases. If I have not answered +your questions sufficiently, perhaps Dr. C. may have my letter to him, +and you can find your answer there." [In a letter to myself, this +gentleman also stated, "I do not recollect that there was any erysipelas +or any other disease particularly prevalent at the time."] + +"BOSTON, February 3, 1843. + +III. "MY DEAR SIR,--I received a note from you last evening, requesting +me to answer certain questions therein proposed, touching the cases of +puerperal fever which came under my observation the past summer. It +gives me pleasure to comply with your request, so far as it is in my +power so to do, but, owing to the hurry in preparing for a journey, the +notes of the cases I had then taken were lost or mislaid. The principal +facts, however, are too vivid upon my recollection to be soon forgotten. +I think, therefore, that I shall be able to give you all the information +you may require. + +"All the cases that occurred in my practice took place between the 7th of +May and the 17th of June 1842. + +"They were not confined to any particular part of the city. The first +two cases were patients residing at the South End, the next was at the +extreme North End, one living in Sea Street and the other in Roxbury. +The following is the order in which they occurred: + +"Case 1. Mrs._____ was confined on the 7th of May, at 5 o'clock, P. M., +after a natural labor of six hours. At 12 o'clock at night, on the 9th +(thirty-one hours after confinement), she was taken with severe chill, +previous to which she was as comfortable as women usually are under the +circumstances. She died on the 10th. + +"Case 2. Mrs._____ was confined on the 10th of June (four weeks after +Mrs. C.), at 11 A. M., after a natural, but somewhat severe labor of +five hours. At 7 o'clock, on the morning of the 11th, she had a chill. +Died on the 12th. + +"Case 3. Mrs._____ , confined on the 14th of June, was comfortable until +the 18th, when symptoms of puerperal fever were manifest. She died on +the 20th. + +"Case 4. Mrs._____ , confined June 17th, at 5 o'clock, A. M., was doing +well until the morning of the 19th. She died on the evening of the 21st. + +"Case 5. Mrs._____ was confined with her fifth child on the 17th of +June, at 6 o'clock in the evening. This patient had been attacked with +puerperal fever, at three of her previous confinements, but the disease +yielded to depletion and other remedies without difficulty. This time, I +regret to say, I was not so fortunate. She was not attacked, as were the +other patients, with a chill, but complained of extreme pain in abdomen, +and tenderness on pressure, almost from the moment of her confinement. +In this as in the other cases, the disease resisted all remedies, and she +died in great distress on the 22d of the same month. Owing to the +extreme heat of the season, and my own indisposition, none of the +subjects were examined after death. Dr. Channing, who was in attendance +with me on the three last cases, proposed to have a post-mortem +examination of the subject of case No. 5, but from some cause which I do +not now recollect it was not obtained. + +"You wish to know whether I wore the same clothes when attending the +different cases. I cannot positively say, but I should think I did not, +as the weather became warmer after the first two cases; I therefore think +it probable that I made a change of at least a part of my dress. I have +had no other case of puerperal fever in my own practice for three years, +save those above related, and I do not remember to have lost a patient +before with this disease. While absent, last July, I visited two +patients sick with puerperal fever, with a friend of mine in the country. +Both of them recovered. + +"The cases that I have recorded were not confined to any particular +constitution or temperament, but it seized upon the strong and the weak, +the old and the young,--one being over forty years, and the youngest +under eighteen years of age . . . . If the disease is of an +erysipelatous nature, as many suppose, contagionists may perhaps find +some ground for their belief in the fact, that, for two weeks previous to +my first case of puerperal fever, I had been attending a severe case of +erysipelas, and the infection may have been conveyed through me to the +patient; but, on the other hand, why is not this the case with other +physicians, or with the same physician at all times, for since my return +from the country I have had a more inveterate case of erysipelas than +ever before, and no difficulty whatever has attended any of my midwifery +cases?" + +I am assured, on unquestionable authority, that "About three years since, +a gentleman in extensive midwifery business, in a neighboring State, lost +in the course of a few weeks eight patients in child-bed, seven of them +being undoubted cases of puerperal fever. No other physician of the town +lost a single patient of this disease during the same period." And from +what I have heard in conversation with some of our most experienced +practitioners, I am inclined to think many cases of the kind might be +brought to light by extensive inquiry. + +This long catalogue of melancholy histories assumes a still darker aspect +when we remember how kindly nature deals with the parturient female, when +she is not immersed in the virulent atmosphere of an impure lying-in +hospital, or poisoned in her chamber by the unsuspected breath of +contagion. From all causes together, not more than four deaths in a +thousand births and miscarriages happened in England and Wales during the +period embraced by the first "Report of the Registrar-General." In the +second Report the mortality was shown to be about five in one thousand. +In the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, during the seven years of Dr. Collins's +mastership, there was one case of puerperal fever to 178 deliveries, or +less than six to the thousand, and one death from this disease in 278 +cases, or between three and four to the thousand a yet during this period +the disease was endemic in the hospital, and might have gone on to rival +the horrors of the pestilence of the Maternite, had not the poison been +destroyed by a thorough purification. + +In private practice, leaving out of view the cases that are to be +ascribed to the self-acting system of propagation, it would seem that the +disease must be far from common. Mr. White of Manchester says, "Out of +the whole number of lying-in patients whom I have delivered (and I may +safely call it a great one), I have never lost one, nor to the best of my +recollection has one been greatly endangered, by the puerperal, miliary, +low nervous, putrid malignant, or milk fever." Dr. Joseph Clarke informed +Dr. Collins, that in the course of forty-five years' most extensive +practice he lost but four patients from this disease. One of the most +eminent practitioners of Glasgow, who has been engaged in very extensive +practice for upwards of a quarter of a century, testifies that he never +saw more than twelve cases of real puerperal fever.[Lancet, May 4, 1833] + +I have myself been told by two gentlemen practising in this city, and +having for many years a large midwifery business, that they had neither +of them lost a patient from this disease, and by one of them that he had +only seen it in consultation with other physicians. In five hundred +cases of midwifery, of which Dr. Storer has given an abstract in the +first number of this Journal, there was only one instance of fatal +puerperal peritonitis. + +In the view of these facts, it does appear a singular coincidence, that +one man or woman should have ten, twenty, thirty, or seventy cases of +this rare disease following his or her footsteps with the keenness of a +beagle, through the streets and lanes of a crowded city, while the scores +that cross the same paths on the same errands know it only by name. It +is a series of similar coincidences which has led us to consider the +dagger, the musket, and certain innocent-looking white powders as having +some little claim to be regarded as dangerous. It is the practical +inattention to similar coincidences which has given rise to the +unpleasant but often necessary documents called indictments, which has +sharpened a form of the cephalotome sometimes employed in the case of +adults, and adjusted that modification of the fillet which delivers the +world of those who happen to be too much in the way while such striking +coincidences are taking place. + +I shall now mention a few instances in which the disease appears to have +been conveyed by the process of direct inoculation. + +Dr. Campbell of Edinburgh states that in October, 1821, he assisted at +the post-mortem examination of a patient who died with puerperal fever. +He carried the pelvic viscera in his pocket to the class-room. The same +evening he attended a woman in labor without previously changing his +clothes; this patient died. The next morning he delivered a woman with +the forceps; she died also, and of many others who were seized with the +disease within a few weeks, three shared the same fate in succession. + +In June, 1823, he assisted some of his pupils at the autopsy of a case of +puerperal fever. He was unable to wash his hands with proper care, for +want of the necessary accommodations. On getting home he found that two +patients required his assistance. He went without further ablution, or +changing his clothes; both these patients died with puerperal fever. +This same Dr. Campbell is one of Dr. Churchill's authorities against +contagion. + +Mr. Roberton says that in one instance within his knowledge a +practitioner passed the catheter for a patient with puerperal fever late +in the evening; the same night he attended a lady who had the symptoms of +the disease on the second day. In another instance a surgeon was called +while in the act of inspecting the body of a woman who had died of this +fever, to attend a labor; within forty-eight hours this patient was +seized with the fever.' + +On the 16th of March, 1831, a medical practitioner examined the body of a +woman who had died a few days after delivery, from puerperal peritonitis. +On the evening of the 17th he delivered a patient, who was seized with +puerperal fever on the 19th, and died on the 24th. Between this period +and the 6th of April, the same practitioner attended two other patients, +both of whom were attacked with the same disease and died. + +In the autumn of 1829 a physician was present at the examination of a +case of puerperal fever, dissected out the organs, and assisted in sewing +up the body. He had scarcely reached home when he was summoned to attend +a young lady in labor. In sixteen hours she was attacked with the +symptoms of puerperal fever, and narrowly escaped with her life. + +In December, 1830, a midwife, who had attended two fatal cases of +puerperal fever at the British Lying-in Hospital, examined a patient who +had just been admitted, to ascertain if labor had commenced. This patient +remained two days in the expectation that labor would come on, when she +returned home and was then suddenly taken in labor and delivered before +she could set out for the hospital. She went on favorably for two days, +and was then taken with puerperal fever and died in thirty-six hours. + +"A young practitioner, contrary to advice, examined the body of a patient +who had died from puerperal fever; there was no epidemic at the time; the +case appeared to be purely sporadic. He delivered three other women +shortly afterwards; they all died with puerperal fever, the symptoms of +which broke out very soon after labor. The patients of his colleague did +well, except one, where he assisted to remove some coagula from the +uterus; she was attacked in the same manner as those whom he had +attended, and died also." The writer in the "British and Foreign Medical +Review," from whom I quote this statement,--and who is no other than Dr. +Rigby, adds, "We trust that this fact alone will forever silence such +doubts, and stamp the well-merited epithet of 'criminal,' as above +quoted, upon such attempts." [Brit. and For. Medical Review for Jan. +1842, p. 112.] + +From the cases given by Mr. Ingleby, I select the following. Two +gentlemen, after having been engaged in conducting the post-mortem +examination of a case of puerperal fever, went in the same dress, each +respectively, to a case of midwifery. "The one patient was seized with +the rigor about thirty hours afterwards. The other patient was seized +with a rigor the third morning after delivery. One recovered, one died." +[Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, April, 1838.] + +One of these same gentlemen attended another woman in the same clothes +two days after the autopsy referred to. "The rigor did not take place +until the evening of the fifth day from the first visit. Result fatal." +These cases belonged to a series of seven, the first of which was thought +to have originated in a case of erysipelas. "Several cases of a mild +character followed the foregoing seven, and their nature being now most +unequivocal, my friend declined visiting all midwifery cases for a time, +and there was no recurrence of the disease." These cases occurred in +1833. Five of them proved fatal. Mr. Ingleby gives another series of +seven eases which occurred to a practitioner in 1836, the first of which +was also attributed to his having opened several erysipelatous abscesses +a short time previously. + +I need not refer to the case lately read before this Society, in which a +physician went, soon after performing an autopsy of a case of puerperal +fever, to a woman in labor, who was seized with the same disease and +perished. The forfeit of that error has been already paid. + +At a meeting of the Medical and Chirurgical Society before referred to, +Dr. Merriman related an instance occurring in his own practice, which +excites a reasonable suspicion that two lives were sacrificed to a still +less dangerous experiment. He was at the examination of a case of +puerperal fever at two o'clock in the afternoon. He took care not to +touch the body. At nine o'clock the same evening he attended a woman in +labor; she was so nearly delivered that he had scarcely anything to do. +The next morning she had severe rigors, and in forty-eight hours she was +a corpse. Her infant had erysipelas and died in two days. [Lancet, May +2, 1840.] + +In connection with the facts which have been stated, it seems proper to +allude to the dangerous and often fatal effects which have followed from +wounds received in the post-mortem examination of patients who have died +of puerperal fever. The fact that such wounds are attended with peculiar +risk has been long noticed. I find that Chaussier was in the habit of +cautioning his students against the danger to which they were exposed in +these dissections. [Stein, L'Art d'Accoucher, 1794; Dict. des Sciences +Medicales, art. "Puerperal."] The head pharmacien of the Hotel Dieu, in +his analysis of the fluid effused in puerperal peritonitis, says that +practitioners are convinced of its deleterious qualities, and that it is +very dangerous to apply it to the denuded skin. [Journal de Pharmacie, +January, 1836.] Sir Benjamin Brodie speaks of it as being well known +that the inoculation of lymph or pus from the peritoneum of a puerperal +patient is often attended with dangerous and even fatal symptoms. Three +cases in confirmation of this statement, two of them fatal, have been +reported to this Society within a few months. + +Of about fifty cases of injuries of this kind, of various degrees of +severity, which I have collected from different sources, at least twelve +were instances of infection from puerperal peritonitis. Some of the +others are so stated as to render it probable that they may have been of +the same nature. Five other cases were of peritoneal inflammation; three +in males. Three were what was called enteritis, in one instance +complicated with erysipelas; but it is well known that this term has been +often used to signify inflammation of the peritoneum covering the +intestines. On the other hand, no case of typhus or typhoid fever is +mentioned as giving rise to dangerous consequences, with the exception of +the single instance of an undertaker mentioned by Mr. Travers, who seems +to have been poisoned by a fluid which exuded from the body. The other +accidents were produced by dissection, or some other mode of contact with +bodies of patients who had died of various affections. They also +differed much in severity, the cases of puerperal origin being among the +most formidable and fatal. Now a moment's reflection will show that the +number of cases of serious consequences ensuing from the dissection of +the bodies of those who had perished of puerperal fever is so vastly +disproportioned to the relatively small number of autopsies made in this +complaint as compared with typhus or pneumonia (from which last disease +not one case of poisoning happened), and still more from all diseases put +together, that the conclusion is irresistible that a most fearful morbid +poison is often generated in the course of this disease. Whether or not +it is sui generis, confined to this disease, or produced in some others, +as, for instance, erysipelas, I need, not stop to inquire. + +In connection with this may be taken the following statement of Dr. +Rigby. "That the discharges from a patient under puerperal fever are in +the highest degree contagious we have abundant evidence in the history of +lying-in hospitals. The puerperal abscesses are also contagious, and may +be communicated to healthy lying-in women by washing with the same +sponge; this fact has been repeatedly proved in the Vienna Hospital; but +they are equally communicable to women not pregnant; on more than one +occasion the women engaged in washing the soiled bed-linen of the General +Lying-in Hospital have been attacked with abscess in the fingers or +hands, attended with rapidly spreading inflammation of the cellular +tissue." + +Now add to all this the undisputed fact, that within the walls of +lying-in hospitals there is often generated a miasm, palpable as the +chlorine used to destroy it, tenacious so as in some cases almost to defy +extirpation, deadly in some institutions as the plague; which has killed +women in a private hospital of London so fast that they were buried two +in one coffin to conceal its horrors; which enabled Tonnelle to record +two hundred and twenty-two autopsies at the Maternite of Paris; which has +led Dr. Lee to express his deliberate conviction that the loss of life +occasioned by these institutions completely defeats the objects of their +founders; and out of this train of cumulative evidence, the multiplied +groups of cases clustering about individuals, the deadly results of +autopsies, the inoculation by fluids from the living patient, the +murderous poison of hospitals,--does there not result a conclusion that +laughs all sophistry to scorn, and renders all argument an insult? + +I have had occasion to mention some instances in which there was an +apparent relation between puerperal fever and erysipelas. The length to +which this paper has extended does not allow me to enter into the +consideration of this most important subject. I will only say, that the +evidence appears to me altogether satisfactory that some most fatal +series of puerperal fever have been produced by an infection originating +in the matter or effluvia of erysipelas. In evidence of some connection +between the two diseases, I need not go back to the older authors, as +Pouteau or Gordon, but will content myself with giving the following +references, with their dates; from which it will be seen that the +testimony has been constantly coming before the profession for the last +few years. + +"London Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine," article Puerperal Fever, +1833. + +Mr. Ceeley's Account of the Puerperal Fever at Aylesbury. "Lancet," +1835. + +Dr. Ramsbotham's Lecture. "London Medical Gazette," 1835. + +Mr. Yates Ackerly's Letter in the same Journal, 1838. + +Mr. Ingleby on Epidemic Puerperal Fever. "Edinburgh Medical and Surgical +Journal," 1838. + +Mr. Paley's Letter. "London Medical Gazette," 1839. + +Remarks at the Medical and Chirurgical Society. "Lancet," 1840. + +Dr. Rigby's "System of Midwifery." 1841. + +"Nunneley on Erysipelas,"--a work which contains a large number of +references on the subject. 1841. + +"British and Foreign Quarterly Review," 1842. + +Dr. S. Jackson of Northumberland, as already quoted from the Summary of +the College of Physicians, 1842. + +And lastly, a startling series of cases by Mr. Storrs of Doncaster, to +be, found in the "American Journal of the Medical Sciences" for January, +1843. + +The relation of puerperal fever with other continued fevers would seem to +be remote and rarely obvious. Hey refers to two cases of synochus +occurring in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, in women who had attended +upon puerperal patients. Dr. Collins refers to several instances in +which puerperal fever has appeared to originate from a continued +proximity to patients suffering with typhus. + +Such occurrences as those just mentioned, though most important to be +remembered and guarded against, hardly attract our notice in the midst of +the gloomy facts by which they are surrounded. Of these facts, at the +risk of fatiguing repetitions, I have summoned a sufficient number, as I +believe, to convince the most incredulous that every attempt to disguise +the truth which underlies them all is useless. + +It is true that some of the historians of the disease, especially Hulme, +Hull, and Leake, in England; Tonnelle, Duges, and Baudelocque, in France, +profess not to have found puerperal fever contagious. At the most they +give us mere negative facts, worthless against an extent of evidence +which now overlaps the widest range of doubt, and doubles upon itself in +the redundancy of superfluous demonstration. Examined in detail, this and +much of the show of testimony brought up to stare the daylight of +conviction out of countenance, proves to be in a great measure unmeaning +and inapplicable, as might be easily shown were it necessary. Nor do I +feel the necessity of enforcing the conclusion which arises spontaneously +from the facts which have been enumerated, by formally citing the +opinions of those grave authorities who have for the last half-century +been sounding the unwelcome truth it has cost so many lives to establish. + +"It is to the British practitioner," says Dr. Rigby, "that we are +indebted for strongly insisting upon this important and dangerous +character of puerperal fever." + +The names of Gordon, John Clarke, Denman, Burns, Young, Hamilton, +Haighton, Good, Waller; Blundell, Gooch, Ramsbotham, Douglas, Lee, +Ingleby, Locock, Abercrombie, Alison; Travers, Rigby, and Watson, many of +whose writings I have already referred to, may have some influence with +those who prefer the weight of authorities to the simple deductions of +their own reason from the facts laid before them. A few Continental +writers have adopted similar conclusions. It gives me pleasure to +remember, that while the doctrine has been unceremoniously discredited in +one of the leading Journals, and made very light of by teachers in two of +the principal Medical Schools, of this country, Dr. Channing has for many +years inculcated, and enforced by examples, the danger to be apprehended +and the precautions to be taken in the disease under consideration. + +I have no wish to express any harsh feeling with regard to the painful +subject which has come before us. If there are any so far excited by the +story of these dreadful events that they ask for some word of indignant +remonstrance to show that science does not turn the hearts of its +followers into ice or stone, let me remind them that such words have been +uttered by those who speak with an authority I could not claim. It is as +a lesson rather than as a reproach that I call up the memory of these +irreparable errors and wrongs. No tongue can tell the heart-breaking +calamity they have caused; they have closed the eyes just opened upon a +new world of love and happiness; they have bowed the strength of manhood +into the dust; they have cast the helplessness of infancy into the +stranger's arms, or bequeathed it, with less cruelty, the death of its +dying parent. There is no tone deep enough for regret, and no voice loud +enough for warning. The woman about to become a mother, or with her +new-born infant upon her bosom, should be the object of trembling care +and sympathy wherever she bears her tender burden, or stretches her +aching limbs. The very outcast of the streets has pity upon her sister in +degradation, when the seal of promised maternity is impressed upon her. +The remorseless vengeance of the law, brought down upon its victim by a +machinery as sure as destiny, is arrested in its fall at a word which +reveals her transient claim for mercy. The solemn prayer of the liturgy +singles out her sorrows from the multiplied trials of life, to plead for +her in the hour of peril. God forbid that any member of the profession +to which she trusts her life, doubly precious at that eventful period, +should hazard it negligently, unadvisedly, or selfishly! + +There may be some among those whom I address who are disposed to ask the +question, What course are we to follow in relation to this matter? The +facts are before them, and the answer must be left to their own judgment +and conscience. If any should care to know my own conclusions, they are +the following; and in taking the liberty to state them very freely and +broadly, I would ask the inquirer to examine them as freely in the light +of the evidence which has been laid before him. + +1. A physician holding himself in readiness to attend cases of midwifery +should never take any active part in the post-mortem examination of cases +of puerperal fever. + +2. If a physician is present at such autopsies, he should use thorough +ablution, change every article of dress, and allow twenty-four hours or +more to elapse before attending to any case of midwifery. It may be well +to extend the same caution to cases of simple peritonitis. + +3. Similar precautions should be taken after the autopsy or surgical +treatment of cases of erysipelas, if the physician is obliged to unite +such offices with his obstetrical duties, which is in the highest degree +inexpedient. + +4. On the occurrence of a single case of puerperal fever in his +practice, the physician is bound to consider the next female he attends +in labor, unless some weeks at least have elapsed, as in danger of being +infected by him, and it is his duty to take every precaution to diminish +her risk of disease and death. + +5. If within a short period two cases of puerperal fever happen close to +each other, in the practice of the same physician, the disease not +existing or prevailing in the neighborhood, he would do wisely to +relinquish his obstetrical practice for at least one month, and endeavor +to free himself by every available means from any noxious influence he +may carry about with him. + +6. The occurrence of three or more closely connected cases, in the +practice of one individual, no others existing in the neighborhood, and +no other sufficient cause being alleged for the coincidence, is prima +facie evidence that he is the vehicle of contagion. + +7. It is the duty of the physician to take every precaution that the +disease shall not be introduced by nurses or other assistants, by making +proper inquiries concerning them, and giving timely warning of every +suspected source of danger. + +8. Whatever indulgence may be granted to those who have heretofore been +the ignorant causes of so much misery, the time has come when the +existence of a private pestilence in the sphere of a single physician +should be looked upon, not as a misfortune, but a crime; and in the +knowledge of such occurrences the duties of the practitioner to his +profession should give way to his paramount obligations to society. +ADDITIONAL REFERENCES AND CASES. + +Fifth Annual Report of the Registrar-General of England. + +1843. Appendix. Letter from William Farr, Esq.--Several new series of +cases are given in the Letter of Mr. Stows, contained in the Appendix to +this Report. Mr. Stows suggests precautions similar to those I have laid +down, and these precautions are strongly enforced by Mr. Farr, who is, +therefore, obnoxious to the same criticisms as myself. + +Hall and Dexter, in Am. Journal of Med. Sc. for January, 1844.--Cases +of puerperal fever seeming to originate in erysipelas. + +Elkington, of Birmingham, in Provincial Med. Journal, cited in Am. +Journ. Med. Se. for April, 1844.--Six cases in less than a fortnight, +seeming to originate in a case of erysipelas. + +West's Reports, in Brit. and For. Med. Review for October, 1845, and +January, 1847.--Affection of the arm, resembling malignant pustule, after +removing the placenta of a patient who died from puerperal fever. +Reference to cases at Wurzburg, as proving contagion, and to Keiller's +cases in the Monthly Journal for February, 1846, as showing connection of +puerperal fever and erysipelas. + +Kneeland.--Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever. Am. Jour. Med. Se., +January, 1846. Also, Connection between Puerperal Fever and Epidemic +Erysipelas. Ibid., April, 1846. + +Robert Storrs.--Contagious Effects of Puerperal Fever on the Male +Subject; or on Persons not Child-bearing. (From Provincial Med. and +Surg. Journal.) Am. Jour. Med. Sc., January, 184,6. Numerous cases. +See also Dr. Reid's case in same Journal for April, 1846. + +Routh's paper in Proc. of Royal Med. Chir. Soc., Am. Jour. Med. Sc., +April, 1849, also in B. and F. Med. Chir. Review, April, 1850. + +Hill, of Leuchars.--A Series of Cases illustrating the Contagious Nature +of Erysipelas and of Puerperal Fever, and their Intimate Pathological +Connection. (From Monthly Journal of Med. Sc.) Am. Jour. Med. Se., +July, 1850. + +Skoda on the Causes of Puerperal Fever. (Peritonitis in rabbits, from +inoculation with different morbid secretions.) Am. Jour. Med. Se., +October, 1850. + +Arneth. Paper read before the National Academy of Medicine. Annales +d'Hygiene, Tome LXV. 2e Partie. (Means of Disinfection proposed by M. +"Semmeliveis" (Semmelweiss.) Lotions of chloride of lime and use of +nail-brush before admission to lying-in wards. Alleged sudden and great +decrease of mortality from puerperal fever. Cause of disease attributed +to inoculation with cadaveric matters.) See also Routh's paper, mentioned +above. + +Moir. Remarks at a meeting of the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society. +Refers to cases of Dr. Kellie, of Leith. Sixteen in succession, all +fatal. Also to several instances of individual pupils having had a +succession of cases in various quarters of the town, while others, +practising as extensively in the same localities, had none. Also to +several special cases not mentioned elsewhere. Am. Jour. Med. Se. for +October, 1851. (From New Monthly Journal of Med. Science.) + +Simpson.--Observations at a Meeting of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society. +(An "eminent gentleman," according to Dr. Meigs, whose "name is as well +known in America as in (his) native land." Obstetrics. Phil. 1852, pp. +368, 375.) The student is referred to this paper for a valuable resume of +many of the facts, and the necessary inferences, relating to this +subject. Also for another series of cases, Mr. Sidey's, five or six in +rapid succession. Dr. Simpson attended the dissection of two of Dr. +Sidey's cases, and freely handled the diseased parts. His next four +child-bed patients were affected with puerperal fever, and it was the +first time he had seen it in practice. As Dr. Simpson is a gentleman +(Dr. Meigs, as above), and as "a gentleman's hands are clean" (Dr. Meigs' +Sixth Letter), it follows that a gentleman with clean hands may carry the +disease. Am. Jour. Med. Sc., October, 1851. + +Peddle.--The five or six cases of Dr. Sidey, followed by the four of Dr. +Simpson, did not end the series. A practitioner in Leith having examined +in Dr. Simpson's house, a portion of the uterus obtained from one of the +patients, had immediately afterwards three fatal cases of puerperal +fever. Dr. Veddie referred to two distinct series of consecutive cases +in his own practice. He had since taken precautions, and not met with +any such cases. Am. Jour. Med. Sc., October, 1851. + +Copland. Considers it proved that puerperal fever maybe propagated by +the hands and the clothes, or either, of a third person, the bed-clothes +or body-clothes of a patient. Mentions a new series of cases, one of +which he saw, with the practitioner who had attended them. She was the +sixth he had had within a few days. All died. Dr. Copland insisted that +contagion had caused these cases; advised precautionary measures, and the +practitioner had no other cases for a considerable time. Considers it +criminal, after the evidence adduced,--which he could have +quadrupled,--and the weight of authority brought forward, for a +practitioner to be the medium of transmitting contagion and death to his +patients. Dr. Copland lays down rules similar to those suggested by +myself, and is therefore entitled to the same epithet for so doing. +Medical Dictionary, New York, 1852. Article, Puerperal States and +Diseases. + +If there is any appetite for facts so craving as to be yet +unappeased,--Lesotho, necdum satiata,--more can be obtained. Dr. Hodge +remarks that "the frequency and importance of this singular circumstance +(that the disease is occasionally more prevalent with one practitioner +than another) has been exceedingly overrated." More than thirty strings +of cases, more than two hundred and fifty sufferers from puerperal fever, +more than one hundred and thirty deaths appear as the results of a +sparing estimate of such among the facts I have gleaned as could be +numerically valued. These facts constitute, we may take it for granted, +but a small fraction of those that have actually occurred. The number of +them might be greater, but "'t is enough, 't will serve," in Mercutio's +modest phrase, so far as frequency is concerned. For a just estimate of +the importance of the singular circumstance, it might be proper to +consult the languid survivors, the widowed husbands, and the motherless +children, as well as "the unfortunate accoucheur." + + + + +III + +CURRENTS AND COUNTER-CURRENTS IN MEDICAL SCIENCE + +An Address delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society, at the +Annual Meeting, May 30, 1860. + + "Facultate magis quam violentia." + HIPPOCRATES. + +Our Annual Meeting never fails to teach us at least one lesson. The art +whose province it is to heal and to save cannot protect its own ranks +from the inroads of disease and the waste of the Destroyer. + +Seventeen of our associates have been taken from us since our last +Anniversary. Most of them followed their calling in the villages or +towns that lie among the hills or along the inland streams. Only those +who have lived the kindly, mutually dependent life of the country, can +tell how near the physician who is the main reliance in sickness of all +the families throughout a thinly settled region comes to the hearts of +the people among whom he labors, how they value him while living, how +they cherish his memory when dead. For these friends of ours who have +gone before, there is now no more toil; they start from their slumbers no +more at the cry of pain; they sally forth no more into the storms; they +ride no longer over the lonely roads that knew them so well; their wheels +are rusting on their axles or rolling with other burdens; their watchful +eyes are closed to all the sorrows they lived to soothe. Not one of +these was famous in the great world; some were almost unknown beyond +their own immediate circle. But they have left behind them that loving +remembrance which is better than fame, and if their epitaphs are +chiselled briefly in stone, they are written at full length on living +tablets in a thousand homes to which they carried their ever-welcome aid +and sympathy. + +One whom we have lost, very widely known and honored, was a leading +practitioner of this city. His image can hardly be dimmed in your +recollection, as he stood before you only three years ago, filling the +same place with which I am now honored. To speak of him at all worthily, +would be to write the history of professional success, won without +special aid at starting, by toil, patience, good sense, pure character, +and pleasing manners; won in a straight uphill ascent, without one +breathing-space until he sat down, not to rest, but to die. If prayers +could have shielded him from the stroke, if love could have drawn forth +the weapon, and skill could have healed the wound, this passing tribute +might have been left to other lips and to another generation. + +Let us hope that our dead have at last found that rest which neither +summer nor winter, nor day nor night, had granted to their unending +earthly labors! And let us remember that our duties to our brethren do +not cease when they become unable to share our toils, or leave behind +them in want and woe those whom their labor had supported. It is +honorable to the Profession that it has organized an Association a for +the relief of its suffering members and their families; it owes this +tribute to the ill-rewarded industry and sacrifices of its less fortunate +brothers who wear out health and life in the service of humanity. I have +great pleasure in referring to this excellent movement, which gives our +liberal profession a chance to show its liberality, and serves to unite +us all, the successful and those whom fortune has cast down, in the bonds +of a true brotherhood. + +A medical man, as he goes about his daily business after twenty years of +practice, is apt to suppose that he treats his patients according to the +teachings of his experience. No doubt this is true to some extent; to +what extent depending much on the qualities of the individual. But it is +easy to prove that the prescriptions of even wise physicians are very +commonly founded on something quite different from experience. +Experience must be based on the permanent facts of nature. But a glance +at the prevalent modes of treatment of any two successive generations +will show that there is a changeable as well as a permanent element in +the art of healing; not merely changeable as diseases vary, or as new +remedies are introduced, but changeable by the going out of fashion of +special remedies, by the decadence of a popular theory from which their +fitness was deduced, or other cause not more significant. There is no +reason to suppose that the present time is essentially different in this +respect from any other. Much, therefore, which is now very commonly +considered to be the result of experience, will be recognized in the +next, or in some succeeding generation, as no such result at all, but as +a foregone conclusion, based on some prevalent belief or fashion of the +time. + +There are, of course, in every calling, those who go about the work of +the day before them, doing it according to the rules of their craft, and +asking no questions of the past or of the future, or of the aim and end +to which their special labor is contributing. These often consider and +call themselves practical men. They pull the oars of society, and have +no leisure to watch the currents running this or that way; let theorists +and philosophers attend to them. In the mean time, however, these +currents are carrying the practical men, too, and all their work may be +thrown away, and worse than thrown away, if they do not take knowledge of +them and get out of the wrong ones and into the right ones as soon as +they may. Sir Edward Parry and his party were going straight towards the +pole in one of their arctic expeditions, travelling at the rate of ten +miles a day. But the ice over which they travelled was drifting straight +towards the equator, at the rate of twelve miles a day, and yet no man +among them would have known that he was travelling two miles a day +backward unless he had lifted his eyes from the track in which he was +plodding. It is not only going backward that the plain practical workman +is liable to, if he will not look up and look around; he may go forward +to ends he little dreams of. It is a simple business for a mason to +build up a niche in a wall; but what if, a hundred years afterwards when +the wall is torn down, the skeleton of a murdered man drop out of the +niche? It was a plain practical piece of carpentry for a Jewish artisan +to fit two pieces of timber together according to the legal pattern in +the time of Pontius Pilate; he asked no questions, perhaps, but we know +what burden the cross bore on the morrow! And so, with subtler tools +than trowels or axes, the statesman who works in policy without +principle, the theologian who works in forms without a soul, the +physician who, calling himself a practical man, refuses to recognize the +larger laws which govern his changing practice, may all find that they +have been building truth into the wall, and hanging humanity upon the +cross. + +The truth is, that medicine, professedly founded on observation, is as +sensitive to outside influences, political, religious, philosophical, +imaginative, as is the barometer to the changes of atmospheric density. +Theoretically it ought to go on its own straightforward inductive path, +without regard to changes of government or to fluctuations of public +opinion. But look a moment while I clash a few facts together, and see +if some sparks do not reveal by their light a closer relation between the +Medical Sciences and the conditions of Society and the general thought of +the time, than would at first be suspected. + +Observe the coincidences between certain great political and intellectual +periods and the appearance of illustrious medical reformers and teachers. +It was in the age of Pericles, of Socrates, of Plato, of Phidias, that +Hippocrates gave to medical knowledge the form which it retained for +twenty centuries. With the world-conquering Alexander, the +world-embracing Aristotle, appropriating anatomy and physiology, among +his manifold spoils of study, marched abreast of his royal pupil to wider +conquests. Under the same Ptolemies who founded the Alexandrian Library +and Museum, and ordered the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Scriptures, +the infallible Herophilus ["Contradicere Herophilo in anatomicis, est +contradicere evangelium," was a saying of Fallopius.] made those six +hundred dissections of which Tertullian accused him, and the sagacious +Erasistratus introduced his mild antiphlogistic treatment in opposition +to the polypharmacy and antidotal practice of his time. It is significant +that the large-minded Galen should have been the physician and friend of +the imperial philosopher Marcus Aurelius. The Arabs gave laws in various +branches of knowledge to those whom their arms had invaded, or the terror +of their spreading dominion had reached, and the point from which they +started was, as Humboldt acknowledges, "the study of medicine, by which +they long ruled the Christian Schools," and to which they added the +department of chemical pharmacy. + +Look at Vesalius, the contemporary of Luther. Who can fail to see one +common spirit in the radical ecclesiastic and the reforming +court-physician? Both still to some extent under the dominion of the +letter: Luther holding to the real presence; Vesalius actually causing to +be drawn and engraved two muscles which he knew were not found in the +human subject, because they had been described by Galen, from dissections +of the lower animals. Both breaking through old traditions in the search +of truth; one, knife in hand, at the risk of life and reputation, the +other at the risk of fire and fagot, with that mightier weapon which all +the devils could not silence, though they had been thicker than the tiles +on the house-tops. How much the physician of the Catholic Charles V. had +in common with the great religious destructive, may be guessed by the +relish with which he tells the story how certain Pavian students exhumed +the body of an "elegans scortum," or lovely dame of ill repute, the +favorite of a monk of the order of St. Anthony, who does not seem to have +resisted temptation so well as the founder of his order. We have always +ranked the physician Rabelais among the early reformers, but I do not +know that Vesalius has ever been thanked for his hit at the morals of the +religious orders, or for turning to the good of science what was intended +for the "benefit of clergy." + +Our unfortunate medical brother, Michael Servetus, the spiritual patient +to whom the theological moxa was applied over the entire surface for the +cure of his heresy, came very near anticipating Harvey. The same +quickened thought of the time which led him to dispute the dogma of the +Church, opened his mind to the facts which contradicted the dogmas of the +Faculty. + +Harvey himself was but the posthumous child of the great Elizabethan +period. Bacon was at once his teacher and his patient. The founder of +the new inductive philosophy had only been dead two years when the +treatise on the Circulation, the first-fruit of the Restoration of +Science, was given to the world. + +And is it to be looked at as a mere accidental coincidence, that while +Napoleon was modernizing the political world, Bichat was revolutionizing +the science of life and the art that is based upon it; that while the +young general was scaling the Alps, the young surgeon was climbing the +steeper summits of unexplored nature; that the same year read the +announcement of those admirable "Researches on Life and Death," and the +bulletins of the battle of Marengo? + +If we come to our own country, who can fail to recognize that Benjamin +Rush, the most conspicuous of American physicians, was the intellectual +offspring of the movement which produced the Revolution? "The same hand," +says one of his biographers, "which subscribed the declaration of the +political independence of these States, accomplished their emancipation +from medical systems formed in foreign countries, and wholly unsuitable +to the state of diseases in America." + +Following this general course of remark, I propose to indicate in a few +words the direction of the main intellectual current of the time, and to +point out more particularly some of the eddies which tend to keep the +science and art of medicine from moving with it, or even to carry them +backwards. + +The two dominant words of our time are law and average, both pointing to +the uniformity of the order of being in which we live. Statistics have +tabulated everything,--population, growth, wealth, crime, disease. We +have shaded maps showing the geographical distribution of larceny and +suicide. Analysis and classification have been at work upon all tangible +and visible objects. The Positive Philosophy of Comte has only given +expression to the observing and computing mind of the nineteenth century. + +In the mean time, the great stronghold of intellectual conservatism, +traditional belief, has been assailed by facts which would have been +indicted as blasphemy but a few generations ago. Those new tables of the +law, placed in the hands of the geologist by the same living God who +spoke from Sinai to the Israelites of old, have remodelled the beliefs of +half the civilized world. The solemn scepticism of science has replaced +the sneering doubts of witty philosophers. The more positive knowledge +we gain, the more we incline to question all that has been received +without absolute proof. + +As a matter of course, this movement has its partial reactions. The +province of faith is claimed as a port free of entry to unsupported +individual convictions. The tendency to question is met by the +unanalyzing instinct of reverence. The old church calls back its +frightened truants. Some who have lost their hereditary religious belief +find a resource in the revelations of Spiritualism. By a parallel +movement, some of those who have become medical infidels pass over to the +mystic band of believers in the fancied miracles of Homoeopathy. + +Under these influences transmitted to, or at least shared by, the medical +profession, the old question between "Nature," so called, and "Art," or +professional tradition, has reappeared with new interest. I say the old +question, for Hippocrates stated the case on the side of "Nature" more +than two thousand years ago. Miss Florence Nightingale,--and if I name +her next to the august Father of the Healing Art, its noblest daughter +well deserves that place of honor,--Miss Florence Nightingale begins her +late volume with a paraphrase of his statement. But from a very early +time to this there has always been a strong party against "Nature." +Themison called the practice of Hippocrates "a meditation upon death." +Dr. Rush says: "It is impossible to calculate the mischief which +Hippocrates, has done, by first marking Nature with his name and +afterwards letting her loose upon sick people. Millions have perished by +her hands in all ages and countries." Sir John Forbes, whose defence of +"Nature" in disease you all know, and to the testimonial in whose honor +four of your Presidents have contributed, has been recently greeted, on +retiring from the profession, with a wish that his retirement had been +twenty years sooner, and the opinion that no man had done so much to +destroy the confidence of the public in the medical profession. + +In this Society we have had the Hippocratic and the Themisonic side +fairly represented. The treatise of one of your early Presidents on the +Mercurial Treatment is familiar to my older listeners. Others who have +held the same office have been noted for the boldness of their practice, +and even for partiality to the use of complex medication. + +On the side of "Nature" we have had, first of all, that remarkable +discourse on Self-Limited Diseases, [On Self-Limited Diseases. A +Discourse delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society, at their +Annual Meeting, May 27, 1835. By Jacob Bigelow, M. D.] which has given +the key-note to the prevailing medical tendency of this neighborhood, at +least, for the quarter of a century since it was delivered. Nor have we +forgotten the address delivered at Springfield twenty years later, +[Search out the Secrets, of Nature. By Augustus A. Gould, M. D. Read +at the Annual Meeting, June 27, 1855.] full of good sense and useful +suggestions, to one of which suggestions we owe the learned, impartial, +judicious, well-written Prize Essay of Dr. Worthington Hooker. [Rational +Therapeutics. A Prize Essay. By Worthington Hooker, M. D., of New +Haven. Boston. 1857.] We should not omit from the list the important +address of another of our colleagues, [On the Treatment of Compound and +Complicated Fractures. By William J. Walker, M. D. Read at the Annual +Meeting, May 29, 1845.] showing by numerous cases the power of Nature in +healing compound fractures to be much greater than is frequently +supposed,--affording, indeed, more striking illustrations than can be +obtained from the history of visceral disease, of the supreme wisdom, +forethought, and adaptive dexterity of that divine Architect, as shown in +repairing the shattered columns which support the living temple of the +body. + +We who are on the side of "Nature" please ourselves with the idea that we +are in the great current in which the true intelligence of the time is +moving. We believe that some who oppose, or fear, or denounce our +movement are themselves caught in various eddies that set back against +the truth. And we do most earnestly desire and most actively strive, +that Medicine, which, it is painful to remember, has been spoken of as +"the withered branch of science" at a meeting of the British Association, +shall be at length brought fully to share, if not to lead, the great wave +of knowledge which rolls with the tides that circle the globe. + +If there is any State or city which might claim to be the American +headquarters of the nature-trusting heresy, provided it be one, that +State is Massachusetts, and that city is its capital. The effect which +these doctrines have upon the confidence reposed in the profession is a +matter of opinion. For myself, I do not believe this confidence can be +impaired by any investigations which tend to limit the application of +troublesome, painful, uncertain, or dangerous remedies. Nay, I will +venture to say this, that if every specific were to fail utterly, if the +cinchona trees all died out, and the arsenic mines were exhausted, and +the sulphur regions were burned up, if every drug from the vegetable, +animal, and mineral kingdom were to disappear from the market, a body of +enlightened men, organized as a distinct profession, would be required +just as much as now, and respected and trusted as now, whose province +should be to guard against the causes of disease, to eliminate them if +possible when still present, to order all the conditions of the patient +so as to favor the efforts of the system to right itself, and to give +those predictions of the course of disease which only experience can +warrant, and which in so many cases relieve the exaggerated fears of +sufferers and their friends, or warn them in season of impending danger. +Great as the loss would be if certain active remedies could no longer be +obtained, it would leave the medical profession the most essential part +of it's duties, and all, and more than all, its present share of honors; +for it would be the death-blow to charlatanism, which depends for its +success almost entirely on drugs, or at least on a nomenclature that +suggests them. + +There is no offence, then, or danger in expressing the opinion, that, +after all which has been said, the community is still overdosed: The best +proof of it is, that "no families take so little medicine as those of +doctors, except those of apothecaries, and that old practitioners are +more sparing of active medicines than younger ones." [Dr. James Jackson +has kindly permitted me to make the following extract from a letter just +received by him from Sir James Clark, and dated May 26, 1860: "As a +physician advances in age, he generally, I think, places less confidence +in the ordinary medical treatment than he did, not only during his early, +but even his middle period of life."] The conclusion from these facts is +one which the least promising of Dr. Howe's pupils in the mental +department could hardly help drawing. + +Part of the blame of over-medication must, I fear, rest with the +profession, for yielding to the tendency to self-delusion, which seems +inseparable from the practice of the art of healing. I need only touch +on the common modes of misunderstanding or misapplying the evidence of +nature. + +First, there is the natural incapacity for sound observation, which is +like a faulty ear in music. We see this in many persons who know a good +deal about books, but who are not sharp-sighted enough to buy a horse or +deal with human diseases. + +Secondly, there is in some persons a singular inability to weigh the +value of testimony; of which, I think, from a pretty careful examination +of his books, Hahnemann affords the best specimen outside the walls of +Bedlam. + +The inveterate logical errors to which physicians have always been +subject are chiefly these: + +The mode of inference per enumerationem simplicem, in scholastic phrase; +that is, counting only their favorable cases. This is the old trick +illustrated in Lord Bacon's story of the gifts of the shipwrecked people, +hung up in the temple.--Behold! they vowed these gifts to the altar, and +the gods saved them. Ay, said a doubting bystander, but how many made +vows of gifts and were shipwrecked notwithstanding? The numerical system +is the best corrective of this and similar errors. The arguments +commonly brought against its application to all matters of medical +observation, treatment included, seem to apply rather to the tabulation +of facts ill observed, or improperly classified, than to the method +itself. + +The post hoc ergo propter hoc error: he got well after taking my +medicine; therefore in consequence of taking it. + +The false induction from genuine facts of observation, leading to the +construction of theories which are then deductively applied in the face +of the results of direct observation. The school of Broussais has +furnished us with a good example of this error. + +And lastly, the error which Sir Thomas Browne calls giving "a reason of +the golden tooth;" that is, assuming a falsehood as a fact, and giving +reasons for it, commonly fanciful ones, as is constantly done by that +class of incompetent observers who find their "golden tooth" in the +fabulous effects of the homoeopathie materia medica,--which consists of +sugar of milk and a nomenclature. + +Another portion of the blame rests with the public itself, which insists +on being poisoned. Somebody buys all the quack medicines that build +palaces for the mushroom, say rather, the toadstool millionaires. Who is +it? These people have a constituency of millions. The popular belief is +all but universal that sick persons should feed on noxious substances. +One of our members was called not long since to a man with a terribly +sore mouth. On inquiry he found that the man had picked up a box of +unknown pills, in Howard Street, and had proceeded to take them, on +general principles, pills being good for people. They happened to +contain mercury, and hence the trouble for which he consulted our +associate. + +The outside pressure, therefore, is immense upon the physician, tending +to force him to active treatment of some kind. Certain old +superstitions, still lingering in the mind of the public, and not yet +utterly expelled from that of the profession, are at the bottom of this, +or contribute to it largely. One of the most ancient is, that disease is +a malignant agency, or entity, to be driven out of the body by offensive +substances, as the smoke of the fish's heart and liver drove the devil +out of Tobit's bridal chamber, according to the Apochrypha. Epileptics +used to suck the blood from the wounds of dying gladiators. [Plinii Hist. +Mundi. lib. xxviii. c. 4.] The Hon. Robert Boyle's little book was +published some twenty or thirty years before our late President, Dr. +Holyoke, was born. [A Collection of Choice and Safe Remedies. The Fifth +Edition, corrected. London, 1712. Dr. Holyoke was born in 1728.] In it +he recommends, as internal medicines, most of the substances commonly +used as fertilizers of the soil. His "Album Graecum" is best left +untranslated, and his "Zebethum Occidentale" is still more +transcendentally unmentionable except in a strange dialect. It sounds +odiously to us to hear him recommend for dysentery a powder made from +"the sole of an old shoe worn by some man that walks much." Perhaps +nobody here ever heard of tying a stocking, which had been worn during +the day, round the neck at night for a sore throat. The same idea of +virtue in unlovely secretions! [The idea is very ancient. "Sordes +hominis" "Sudore et oleo medicinam facientibus."--Plin. xxviii. 4.] + +Even now the Homoeopathists have been introducing the venom of serpents, +under the learned title of Lachesis, and outraging human nature with +infusions of the pediculus capitis; that is, of course, as we understand +their dilutions, the names of these things; for if a fine-tooth-comb +insect were drowned in Lake Superior, we cannot agree with them in +thinking that every drop of its waters would be impregnated with all the +pedicular virtues they so highly value. They know what they are doing. +They are appealing to the detestable old superstitious presumption in +favor of whatever is nauseous and noxious as being good for the sick. + +Again, we all occasionally meet persons stained with nitrate of silver, +given for epilepsy. Read what Dr. Martin says, about the way in which it +came to be used, in his excellent address before the Norfolk County +Medical Society, and the evidence I can show, but have not time for now, +and then say what you think of the practice which on such presumptions +turns a white man as blue as the double-tattooed King of the Cannibal +Islands! [Note A.] + +If medical superstitions have fought their way down through all the +rationalism and scepticism of the nineteenth century, of course the +theories of the schools, supported by great names, adopted into the +popular belief and incorporated with the general mass of misapprehension +with reference to disease, must be expected to meet us at every turn in +the shape of bad practice founded on false doctrine. A French patient +complains that his blood heats him, and expects his doctor to bleed him. +An English or American one says he is bilious, and will not be easy +without a dose of calomel. A doctor looks at a patient's tongue, sees it +coated, and says the stomach is foul; his head full of the old saburral +notion which the extreme inflammation-doctrine of Broussais did so much +to root out, but which still leads, probably, to much needless and +injurious wrong of the stomach and bowels by evacuants, when all they +want is to be let alone. It is so hard to get anything out of the dead +hand of medical tradition! The mortmain of theorists extinct in science +clings as close as that of ecclesiastics defunct in law. + +One practical hint may not be out of place here. It seems to be +sometimes forgotten, by those who must know the fact, that the tongue is +very different, anatomically and physiologically, from the stomach. Its +condition does not in the least imply a similar one of the stomach, which +is a very different structure, covered with a different kind of +epithelium, and furnished with entirely different secretions. A +silversmith will, for a dollar, make a small hoe, of solid silver, which +will last for centuries, and will give a patient more comfort, used for +the removal of the accumulated epithelium and fungous growths which +constitute the "fur," than many a prescription with a split-footed Rx +before it, addressed to the parts out of reach. + +I think more of this little implement on account of its agency in saving +the Colony at Plymouth in the year 1623. Edward Winslow heard that +Massasoit was sick and like to die. He found him with a houseful of +people about him, women rubbing his arms and legs, and friends "making +such a hellish noise" as they probably thought would scare away the devil +of sickness. Winslow gave him some conserve, washed his mouth, scraped +his tongue, which was in a horrid state, got down some drink, made him +some broth, dosed him with an infusion of strawberry leaves and sassafras +root, and had the satisfaction of seeing him rapidly recover. Massasoit, +full of gratitude, revealed the plot which had been formed to destroy the +colonists, whereupon the Governor ordered Captain Miles Standish to see +to them; who thereupon, as everybody remembers, stabbed Pecksuot with his +own knife, broke up the plot, saved the colony, and thus rendered +Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Medical Society a possibility, as +they now are a fact before us. So much for this parenthesis of the +tongue-scraper, which helped to save the young colony from a much more +serious scrape, and may save the Union yet, if a Presidential candidate +should happen to be taken sick as Massasoit was, and his tongue wanted +cleaning,--which process would not hurt a good many politicians, with or +without a typhoid fever. + +Again, see how the "bilious" theory works in every-day life here and now, +illustrated by a case from actual life. A youthful practitioner, whose +last molars have not been a great while cut, meets an experienced and +noted physician in consultation. This is the case. A slender, lymphatic +young woman is suckling two lusty twins, the intervals of suction being +occupied on her part with palpitations, headaches, giddiness, throbbing +in the head, and various nervous symptoms, her cheeks meantime getting +bloodless, and her strength running away in company with her milk. The +old experienced physician, seeing the yellowish waxy look which is common +in anaemic patients, considers it a "bilious" case, and is for giving a +rousing emetic. Of course, he has to be wheedled out of this, a recipe +is written for beefsteaks and porter, the twins are ignominiously +expelled from the anaemic bosom, and forced to take prematurely to the +bottle, and this prolific mother is saved for future usefulness in the +line of maternity. + +The practice of making a profit on the medicine ordered has been held up +to reprobation by one at least of the orators who have preceded me. That +the effect of this has been ruinous in English practice I cannot doubt, +and that in this country the standard of practice was in former +generations lowered through the same agency is not unlikely. I have seen +an old account-book in which the physician charged an extra price for +gilding his rich patients' pills. If all medicine were very costly, and +the expense of it always came out of the physician's fee, it would really +be a less objectionable arrangement than this other most pernicious one. +He would naturally think twice before he gave an emetic or cathartic +which evacuated his own pocket, and be sparing of the cholagogues that +emptied the biliary ducts of his own wallet, unless he were sure they +were needed. If there is any temptation, it should not be in favor of +giving noxious agents, as it clearly must be in the case of English +druggists and "General Practitioners." The complaint against the other +course is a very old one. Pliny, inspired with as truly Roman horror of +quackery as the elder Cato,--who declared that the Greek doctors had +sworn to exterminate all barbarians, including the Romans, with their +drugs, but is said to have physicked his own wife to death, +notwithstanding,--Pliny says, in so many words, that the cerates and +cataplasms, plasters, collyria, and antidotes, so abundant in his time, +as in more recent days, were mere tricks to make money. + +A pretty strong eddy, then, or rather many eddies, setting constantly +back from the current of sober observation of nature, in the direction of +old superstitions and fancies, of exploded theories, of old ways of +making money, which are very slow to pass out of fashion. + +But there are other special American influences which we are bound to +take cognizance of. If I wished to show a student the difficulties of +getting at truth from medical experience, I would give him the history of +epilepsy to read. If I wished him to understand the tendencies of the +American medical mind, its sanguine enterprise, its self-confidence, its +audacious handling of Nature, its impatience with her old-fashioned ways +of taking time to get a sick man well, I would make him read the life and +writings of Benjamin Rush. Dr. Rush thought and said that there were +twenty times more intellect and a hundred times more knowledge in the +country in 1799 than before the Revolution. His own mind was in a +perpetual state of exaltation produced by the stirring scenes in which he +had taken a part, and the quickened life of the time in which he lived. +It was not the state to favor sound, calm observation. He was impatient, +and Nature is profoundly imperturbable. We may adjust the beating of our +hearts to her pendulum if we will and can, but we may be very sure that +she will not change the pendulum's rate of going because our hearts are +palpitating. He thought he had mastered yellow-fever. "Thank God," he +said, "out of one hundred patients whom I have visited or prescribed for +this day, I have lost none." Where was all his legacy of knowledge when +Norfolk was decimated? Where was it when the blue flies were buzzing +over the coffins of the unburied dead piled up in the cemetery of New +Orleans, at the edge of the huge trenches yawning to receive them? + +One such instance will do as well as twenty. Dr. Rush must have been a +charming teacher, as he was an admirable man. He was observing, rather +than a sound observer; eminently observing, curious, even, about all +manner of things. But he could not help feeling as if Nature had been a +good deal shaken by the Declaration of Independence, and that American +art was getting to be rather too much for her,--especially as illustrated +in his own practice. He taught thousands of American students, he gave a +direction to the medical mind of the country more than any other one man; +perhaps he typifies it better than any other. It has clearly tended to +extravagance in remedies and trust in remedies, as in everything else. +How could a people which has a revolution once in four years, which has +contrived the Bowie-knife and the revolver, which has chewed the juice +out of all the superlatives in the language in Fourth of July orations, +and so used up its epithets in the rhetoric of abuse that it takes two +great quarto dictionaries to supply the demand; which insists in sending +out yachts and horses and boys to out-sail, out-run, out-fight, and +checkmate all the rest of creation; how could such a people be content +with any but "heroic" practice? What wonder that the stars and stripes +wave over doses of ninety grains of sulphate of quinine, [More strictly, +ninety-six grains in two hours. Dunglison's Practice, 1842, vol. ii. p. +520. Eighty grains in one dose. Ibid. p. 536. Ninety-six grains of +sulphate of quinine are equal to eight ounces of good bark.--Wood & +Bache.] and that the American eagle screams with delight to see three +drachms of calomel given at a single mouthful? + +Add to this the great number of Medical Journals, all useful, we hope, +most of them necessary, we trust, many of them excellently well +conducted, but which must find something to fill their columns, and so +print all the new plans of treatment and new remedies they can get hold +of, as the newspapers, from a similar necessity, print the shocking +catastrophes and terrible murders. + +Besides all this, here are we, the great body of teachers in the +numberless medical schools of the Union, some of us lecturing to crowds +who clap and stamp in the cities, some of us wandering over the country, +like other professional fertilizers, to fecundate the minds of less +demonstrative audiences at various scientific stations; all of us talking +habitually to those supposed to know less than ourselves, and loving to +claim as much for our art as we can, not to say for our own schools, and +possibly indirectly for our own practical skill. Hence that annual crop +of introductory lectures; the useful blossoming into the ornamental, as +the cabbage becomes glorified in the cauliflower; that lecture-room +literature of adjectives, that declamatory exaggeration, that splendid +show of erudition borrowed from D'Israeli, and credited to Lord Bacon and +the rest, which have suggested to our friends of the Medical Journals an +occasional epigram at our expense. Hence the tendency in these +productions, and in medical lectures generally, to overstate the efficacy +of favorite methods of cure, and hence the premium offered for showy +talkers rather than sagacious observers, for the men of adjectives rather +than of nouns substantive in the more ambitious of these institutions. + +Such are some of the eddies in which we are liable to become involved and +carried back out of the broad stream of philosophical, or, in other +words, truth-loving, investigations. The causes of disease, in the mean +time, have been less earnestly studied in the eagerness of the search for +remedies. Speak softly! Women have been borne out from an old-world +hospital, two in one coffin, that the horrors of their prison-house might +not be known, while the very men who were discussing the treatment of the +disease were stupidly conveying the infection from bed to bed, as +rat-killers carry their poisons from one household to another. Do not +some of you remember that I have had to fight this private-pestilence +question against a scepticism which sneered in the face of a mass of +evidence such as the calm statisticians of the Insurance office could not +listen to without horror and indignation? ["The Contagiousness of +Puerperal Fever."--N. E. Quar. Jour. of Medicine and Surgery, April, +1843. Reprinted, with Additions. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1855.] Have +we forgotten what is told in one of the books published under our own +sanction, that a simple measure of ventilation, proposed by Dr. John +Clark, had saved more than sixteen thousand children's lives in a single +hospital? How long would it have taken small doses of calomel and +rhubarb to save as many children? These may be useful in prudent hands, +but how insignificant compared to the great hygienic conditions! Causes, +causes, and again causes,--more and more we fall back on these as the +chief objects of our attention. The shortest system of medical practice +that I know of is the oldest, but not the worst. It is older than +Hippocrates, older than Chiron the Centaur. Nature taught it to the first +mother when she saw her first-born child putting some ugly pebble or +lurid berry into its mouth. I know not in what language it was spoken, +but I know that in English it would sound thus: Spit it out! + +Art can do something more than say this. It can sometimes reach the +pebble or berry after it has been swallowed. But the great thing is to +keep these things out of children's mouths, and as soon as they are +beyond our reach, to be reasonable and patient with Nature, who means +well, but does not like to hurry, and who took nine calendar months, more +or less, to every mother's son among us, before she thought he was fit to +be shown to the public. + +Suffer me now to lay down a few propositions, whether old or new it +matters little, not for your immediate acceptance, nor yet for your hasty +rejection, but for your calm consideration. + +But first, there are a number of terms which we are in the habit of using +in a vague though not unintelligible way, and which it is as well now to +define. These terms are the tools with which we are to work, and the +first thing is to sharpen them. It is nothing to us that they have been +sharpened a thousand times before; they always get dull in the using, and +every new workman has a right to carry them to the grindstone and sharpen +them to suit himself. + +Nature, in medical language, as opposed to Art, means trust in the +reactions of the living system against, ordinary normal impressions. + +Art, in the same language, as opposed to Nature, means an intentional +resort to extraordinary abnormal impressions for the relief of disease. + +The reaction of the living system is the essence of both. Food is +nothing, if there is no digestive act to respond to it. We cannot raise +a blister on a dead man, or hope that a carminative forced between his +lips will produce its ordinary happy effect. + +Disease, dis-ease,--disturbed quiet, uncomfortableness,--means imperfect +or abnormal reaction of the living system, and its more or less permanent +results. + +Food, in its largest sense, is whatever helps to build up the normal +structures, or to maintain their natural actions. + +Medicine, in distinction from food, is every unnatural or noxious agent +applied for the relief of disease. + +Physic means properly the Natural art, and Physician is only the Greek +synonyme of Naturalist. + +With these few explanations I proceed to unfold the propositions I have +mentioned. + +Disease and death, if we may judge by the records of creation, are +inherently and essentially necessary in the present order of things. A +perfect intelligence, trained by a perfect education, could do no more +than keep the laws of the physical and spiritual universe. An imperfect +intelligence, imperfectly taught,--and this is the condition of our +finite humanity,--will certainly fail to keep all these laws perfectly. +Disease is one of the penalties of one of the forms of such failure. It +is prefigured in the perturbations of the planets, in the disintegration +of the elemental masses; it has left its traces in the fossil organisms +of extinct creations. [Professor Agassiz has kindly handed me the +following note: "There are abnormal structures in animals of all ages +anterior to the creation of mankind. Malformed specimens of Crinoids are +known from the Triassic and Jurassic deposits. Malformed and diseased +bones of tertiary mammalia have been collected in the caverns of +Gailenreuth with traces of healing."] + +But it is especially the prerogative, I had almost said privilege, of +educated and domesticated beings, from man down to the potato, serving to +teach them, and such as train them, the laws of life, and to get rid of +those who will not mind or cannot be kept subject to these laws. + +Disease, being always an effect, is always in exact proportion to the sum +of its causes, as much in the case of Spigelius, who dies of a scratch, +as in that of the man who recovers after an iron bar has been shot +through his brain. The one prevalent failing of the medical art is to +neglect the causes and quarrel with the effect. + +There are certain general facts which include a good deal of what is +called and treated as disease. Thus, there are two opposite movements of +life to be seen in cities and elsewhere, belonging to races which, from +various persistent causes, are breeding down and tending to run out, and +to races which are breeding up, or accumulating vital capital,--a +descending and an ascending series. Let me give an example of each; and +that I may incidentally remove a common impression about this country as +compared with the Old World, an impression which got tipsy with conceit +and staggered into the attitude of a formal proposition in the work of +Dr. Robert Knox, I will illustrate the downward movement from English +experience, and the upward movement from a family history belonging to +this immediate neighborhood. + +Miss Nightingale speaks of "the fact so often seen of a +great-grandmother, who was a tower of physical vigor, descending into a +grandmother perhaps a little less vigorous, but still sound as a bell, +and healthy to the core, into a mother languid and confined to her +carriage and house; and lastly into a daughter sickly and confined to her +bed." So much for the descending English series; now for the ascending +American series. + +Something more than one hundred and thirty years ago there graduated at +Harvard College a delicate youth, who lived an invalid life and died at +the age of about fifty. His two children were both of moderate physical +power, and one of them diminutive in stature. The next generation rose +in physical development, and reached eighty years of age and more in some +of its members. The fourth generation was of fair average endowment. +The fifth generation, great-great-grandchildren of the slender invalid, +are several of, them of extraordinary bodily and mental power; large in +stature, formidable alike with their brains and their arms, organized on +a more extensive scale than either of their parents. + +This brief account illustrates incidentally the fallacy of the +universal-degeneration theory applied to American life; the same on which +one of our countrymen has lately brought some very forcible facts to bear +in a muscular discussion of which we have heard rather more than is good +for us. But the two series, American and English, ascending and +descending, were adduced with the main purpose of showing the immense +difference of vital endowments in different strains of blood; a +difference to which all ordinary medication is in all probability a +matter of comparatively trivial purport. Many affections which art has +to strive against might be easily shown to be vital to the well-being of +society. Hydrocephalus, tabes mesenterica, and other similar maladies, +are natural agencies which cut off the children of races that are sinking +below the decent minimum which nature has established as the condition of +viability, before they reach the age of reproduction. They are really +not so much diseases, as manifestations of congenital incapacity for +life; the race would be ruined if art could ever learn always to preserve +the individuals subject to them. We must do the best we can for them, +but we ought also to know what these "diseases" mean. + +Again, invalidism is the normal state of many organizations. It can be +changed to disease, but never to absolute health by medicinal appliances. +There are many ladies, ancient and recent, who are perpetually taking +remedies for irremediable pains and aches. They ought to have headaches +and back-aches and stomach-aches; they are not well if they do not have +them. To expect them to live without frequent twinges is like expecting +a doctor's old chaise to go without creaking; if it did, we might be sure +the springs were broken. There is no doubt that the constant demand for +medicinal remedies from patients of this class leads to their over-use; +often in the case of cathartics, sometimes in that of opiates. I have +been told by an intelligent practitioner in a Western town, that the +constant prescription of opiates by certain physicians in his vicinity +has rendered the habitual use of that drug in all that region very +prevalent; more common, I should think, than alcoholic drunkenness in the +most intemperate localities of which I have known anything. A frightful +endemic demoralization betrays itself in the frequency with which the +haggard features and drooping shoulders of the opium-drunkards are met +with in the streets. + +The next proposition I would ask you to consider is this: The presumption +always is that every noxious agent, including medicines proper, which +hurts a well man, hurts a sick one. [ Note B.] + +Let me illustrate this proposition before you decide upon it. If it were +known that a prize-fighter were to have a drastic purgative administered +two or three days before a contest, or a large blister applied to his +back, no one will question that it would affect the betting on his side +unfavorably; we will say to the amount of five per cent. Now the drain +upon the resources of the system produced in such a case must be at its +minimum, for the subject is a powerful man, in the prime of life, and in +admirable condition. If the drug or the blister takes five per cent. +from his force of resistance, it will take at least as large a fraction +from any invalid. But this invalid has to fight a champion who strikes +hard but cannot be hit in return, who will press him sharply for breath, +but will never pant himself while the wind can whistle through his +fleshless ribs. The suffering combatant is liable to want all his +stamina, and five per cent. may lose him the battle. + +All noxious agents, all appliances which are not natural food or stimuli, +all medicines proper, cost a patient, on the average, five per cent. of +his vital force, let us say. Twenty times as much waste of force +produced by any of them, that is, would exactly kill him, nothing less +than kill him, and nothing more. If this, or something like this, is +true, then all these medications are, prima facie, injurious. + +In the game of Life-or-Death, Rouge et Noir, as played between the Doctor +and the Sexton, this five per cent., this certain small injury entering +into the chances is clearly the sexton's perquisite for keeping the green +table, over which the game is played, and where he hoards up his gains. +Suppose a blister to diminish a man's pain, effusion or dyspnoea to the +saving of twenty per cent. in vital force; his profit from it is fifteen, +in that case, for it always hurts him five to begin with, according to +our previous assumption. + +Presumptions are of vast importance in medicine, as in law. A man is +presumed innocent until he is proved guilty. A medicine--that is, a +noxious agent, like a blister, a seton, an emetic, or a cathartic +--should always be presumed to be hurtful. It always is directly +hurtful; it may sometimes be indirectly beneficial. If this presumption +were established, and disease always assumed to be the innocent victim of +circumstances, and not punishable by medicines, that is, noxious agents, +or poisons, until the contrary was shown, we should not so frequently +hear the remark commonly, perhaps erroneously, attributed to Sir Astley +Cooper, but often repeated by sensible persons, that, on the whole, more +harm than good is done by medication. Throw out opium, which the Creator +himself seems to prescribe, for we often see the scarlet poppy growing in +the cornfields, as if it were foreseen that wherever there is hunger to +be fed there must also be pain to be soothed; throw out a few specifics +which our art did not discover, and is hardly needed to apply [ Note C.]; +throw out wine, which is a food, and the vapors which produce the miracle +of anaesthesia, and I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as +now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the +better for mankind,--and all the worse for the fishes. + +But to justify this proposition, I must add that the injuries inflicted +by over-medication are to a great extent masked by disease. Dr. Hooker +believes that the typhus syncopatia of a preceding generation in New +England "was often in fact a brandy and opium disease." How is a +physician to distinguish the irritation produced by his blister from that +caused by the inflammation it was meant to cure? How can he tell the +exhaustion produced by his evacuants from the collapse belonging to the +disease they were meant to remove? + +Lastly, medication without insuring favorable hygienic conditions is like +amputation without ligatures. I had a chance to learn this well of old, +when physician to the Broad Street district of the Boston Dispensary. +There, there was no help for the utter want of wholesome conditions, and +if anybody got well under my care, it must have been in virtue of the +rough-and-tumble constitution which emerges from the struggle for life in +the street gutters, rather than by the aid of my prescriptions. + +But if the materia medica were lost overboard, how much more pains would +be taken in ordering all the circumstances surrounding the patient (as +can be done everywhere out of the crowded pauper districts), than are +taken now by too many who think they do their duty and earn their money +when they write a recipe for a patient left in an atmosphere of domestic +malaria, or to the most negligent kind of nursing! I confess that I +should think my chance of recovery from illness less with Hippocrates for +my physician and Mrs. Gamp for my nurse, than if I were in the hands of +Hahnemann himself, with Florence Nightingale or good Rebecca Taylor to +care for me. + +If I am right in maintaining that the presumption is always against the +use of noxious agents in disease, and if any whom I might influence +should adopt this as a principle of practice, they will often find +themselves embarrassed by the imperative demand of patients and their +friends for such agents where a case is not made out against this +standing presumption. I must be permitted to say, that I think the +French, a not wholly uncivilized people, are in advance of the English +and ourselves in the art of prescribing for the sick without hurting +them. And I do confess that I think their varied ptisans and syrups are +as much preferable to the mineral regimen of bug-poison and ratsbane, so +long in favor on the other side of the Channel, as their art of preparing +food for the table to the rude cookery of those hard-feeding and +much-dosing islanders. We want a reorganized cuisine of invalidism +perhaps as much as the culinary, reform, for which our lyceum lecturers, +and others who live much at hotels and taverns, are so urgent. Will you +think I am disrespectful if I ask whether, even in Massachusetts, a dose +of calomel is not sometimes given by a physician on the same principle as +that upon which a landlord occasionally prescribes bacon and +eggs,--because he cannot think of anything else quite so handy? I leave +my suggestion of borrowing a hint from French practice to your mature +consideration. + +I may, however, call your attention, briefly, to the singular fact, that +English and American practitioners are apt to accuse French medical +practice of inertness, and French surgical practice of unnecessary +activity. Thus, Dr. Bostock considers French medical treatment, with +certain exceptions, as "decidedly less effective" than that of his own +country. Mr. S. Cooper, again, defends the simple British practice of +procuring union by the first intention against the attacks of M. Roux and +Baron Larrey. [Cooper's Surg. Diet. art. "Wounds." Yet Mr. John Bell +gives the French surgeons credit for introducing this doctrine of +adhesion, and accuses O'Halloran of "rudeness and ignorance," and "bold, +uncivil language," in disputing their teaching. Princ. of Surgery, vol. +i. p. 42. Mr. Hunter succeeded at last in naturalizing the doctrine and +practice, but even he had to struggle against the perpetual jealousy of +rivals, and died at length assassinated by an insult.] We have often +heard similar opinions maintained by our own countrymen. While +Anglo-American criticism blows hot or cold on the two departments of +French practice, it is not, I hope, indecent to question whether all the +wisdom is necessarily with us in both cases. + +Our art has had two or three lessons which have a deep meaning to those +who are willing to read them honestly. The use of water-dressings in +surgery completed the series of reforms by which was abolished the +"coarse and cruel practice" of the older surgeons, who with their +dressings and acrid balsams, their tents and leaden tubes, "absolutely +delayed the cure." The doctrine of Broussais, transient as was its +empire, reversed the practice of half of Christendom for a season, and +taught its hasty disciples to shun their old favorite remedies as mortal +poisons. This was not enough permanently to shift the presumption about +drugs where it belonged, and so at last, just as the sympathetic powder +and the Unguentum Armarium came in a superstitious age to kill out the +abuses of external over-medication, the solemn farce of Homoeopathy was +enacted in the face of our own too credulous civilization, that under +shelter of its pretences the "inward bruises" of over-drugged viscera +might be allowed to heal by the first intention. Its lesson we must +accept, whether we will or not; its follies we are tired of talking +about. The security of the medical profession against this and all +similar fancies is in the average constitution of the human mind with +regard to the laws of evidence. + +My friends and brothers in Art! There is nothing to be feared from the +utterance of any seeming heresy to which you may have listened. I cannot +compromise your collective wisdom. If I have strained the truth one +hair's breadth for the sake of an epigram or an antithesis, you are +accustomed to count the normal pulse-beats of sound judgment, and know +full well how to recognize the fever-throbs of conceit and the nervous +palpitations of rhetoric. + +The freedom with which each of us speaks his thought in this presence, +belongs in part to the assured position of the Profession in our +Commonwealth, to the attitude of Science, which is always fearless, and +to the genius of the soil on which we stand, from which Nature withheld +the fatal gift of malaria only to fill it with exhalations that breed the +fever of inquiry in our blood and in our brain. But mainly we owe the +large license of speech we enjoy to those influences and privileges +common to us all as self-governing Americans. + +This Republic is the chosen home of minorities, of the less power in the +presence of the greater. It is a common error to speak of our +distinction as consisting in the rule of the majority. Majorities, the +greater material powers, have always ruled before. The history of most +countries has been that of majorities, mounted majorities, clad in iron, +armed with death treading down the tenfold more numerous minorities. In +the old civilizations they root themselves like oaks in the soil; men +must live in their shadow or cut them down. With us the majority is only +the flower of the passing noon, and the minority is the bud which may +open in the next morning's sun. We must be tolerant, for the thought +which stammers on a single tongue today may organize itself in the +growing consciousness of the time, and come back to us like the voice of +the multitudinous waves of the ocean on the morrow. + +Twenty-five years have passed since one of your honored Presidents spoke +to this Society of certain limitations to the power of our Art, now very +generally conceded. Some were troubled, some were almost angry, thinking +the Profession might suffer from such concessions. It has certainly not +suffered here; if, as some affirm, it has lost respect anywhere, it was +probably for other, and no doubt sufficient reasons. + +Since that time the civilization of this planet has changed hands. Strike +out of existence at this moment every person who was breathing on that +day, May 27, 1835, and every institution of society, every art and every +science would remain intact and complete in the living that would be +left. Every idea the world then held has been since dissolved and +recrystallized. + +We are repeating the same process. Not to make silver shrines for our +old divinities, even though by this craft we should have our wealth, was +this Society organized and carried on by the good men and true who went +before us. Not for this, but to melt the gold out of the past, though +its dross should fly in dust to all the winds of heaven, to save all our +old treasures of knowledge and mine deeply for new, to cultivate that +mutual respect of which outward courtesy is the sign, to work together, +to feel together, to take counsel together, and to stand together for the +truth, now, always, here, everywhere; for this our fathers instituted, +and we accept, the offices and duties of this time-honored Society. + + + + +BORDER LINES OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOME PROVINCES OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. + +An Introductory Lecture delivered before the Medical Class of Harvard +University, November 6, 1861. + +[This Lecture appears as it would have been delivered had the time +allowed been less strictly, limited. Passages necessarily omitted have +been restored, and points briefly touched have been more fully +considered. A few notes have been added for the benefit of that limited +class of students who care to track an author through the highways and +by-ways of his reading. I owe my thanks to several of my professional +brethren who have communicated with me on subjects with which they are +familiar; especially to Dr. John Dean, for the opportunity of profiting +by his unpublished labors, and to Dr. Hasket Derby, for information and +references to recent authorities relating to the anatomy and physiology +of the eye.] + +The entrance upon a new course of Lectures is always a period of interest +to instructors and pupils. As the birth of a child to a parent, so is +the advent of a new class to a teacher. As the light of the untried +world to the infant, so is the dawning of the light resting over the +unexplored realms of science to the student. In the name of the Faculty +I welcome you, Gentlemen of the Medical Class, new-born babes of science, +or lustier nurslings, to this morning of your medical life, and to the +arms and the bosom of this ancient University. Fourteen years ago I +stood in this place for the first time to address those who occupied +these benches. As I recall these past seasons of our joint labors, I +feel that they have been on the whole prosperous, and not undeserving of +their prosperity. + +For it has been my privilege to be associated with a body of true and +faithful workers; I cannot praise them freely to their faces, or I should +be proud to discourse of the harmonious diligence and the noble spirit in +which they have toiled together, not merely to teach their several +branches, but to elevate the whole standard of teaching. + +I may speak with less restraint of those gentlemen who have aided me in +the most laborious part of my daily duties, the Demonstrators, to whom +the successive classes have owed so much of their instruction. They rise +before me, the dead and the living, in the midst of the most grateful +recollections. The fair, manly face and stately figure of my friend, Dr. +Samuel Parkman, himself fit for the highest offices of teaching, yet +willing to be my faithful assistant in the time of need, come back to me +with the long sigh of regret for his early loss to our earthly +companionship. Every year I speak the eulogy of Dr. Ainsworth's patient +toil as I show his elaborate preparations: When I take down my "American +Cyclopaedia" and borrow instruction from the learned articles of Dr. +Kneeland, I cease to regret that his indefatigable and intelligent +industry was turned into a broader channel. And what can I say too +cordial of my long associated companion and friend, Dr. Hodges, whose +admirable skill, working through the swiftest and surest fingers that +ever held a scalpel among us, has delighted class after class, and filled +our Museum with monuments which will convey his name to unborn +generations? + +This day belongs, however, not to myself and my recollections, but to all +of us who teach and all of you who listen, whether experts in our +specialties or aliens to their mysteries, or timid neophytes just +entering the portals of the hall of science. Look in with me, then, +while I attempt to throw some rays into its interior, which shall +illuminate a few of its pillars and cornices, and show at the same time +how many niches and alcoves remain in darkness. + +SCIENCE is the topography of ignorance. From a few elevated points we +triangulate vast spaces, inclosing infinite unknown details. We cast the +lead, and draw up a little sand from abysses we may never reach with our +dredges. + +The best part of our knowledge is that which teaches us where knowledge +leaves off and ignorance begins. Nothing more clearly separates a vulgar +from a superior mind, than the confusion in the first between the little +that it truly knows, on the one hand, and what it half knows and what it +thinks it knows on the other. + +That which is true of every subject is especially true of the branch of +knowledge which deals with living beings. Their existence is a perpetual +death and reanimation. Their identity is only an idea, for we put off +our bodies many times during our lives, and dress in new suits of bones +and muscles. + + "Thou art not thyself; + For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains + That issue out of dust." + +If it is true that we understand ourselves but imperfectly in health, +this truth is more signally manifested in disease, where natural actions +imperfectly understood, disturbed in an obscure way by half-seen causes, +are creeping and winding along in the dark toward their destined issue, +sometimes using our remedies as safe stepping-stones, occasionally, it +may be, stumbling over them as obstacles. + +I propose in this lecture to show you some points of contact between our +ignorance and our knowledge in several of the branches upon the study of +which you are entering. I may teach you a very little directly, but I +hope much more from the trains of thought I shall suggest. Do not expect +too much ground to be covered in this rapid survey. Our task is only +that of sending out a few pickets under the starry flag of science to the +edge of that dark domain where the ensigns of the obstinate rebel, +Ignorance, are flying undisputed. We are not making a reconnoissance in +force, still less advancing with the main column. But here are a few +roads along which we have to march together, and we wish to see clearly +how far our lines extend, and where the enemy's outposts begin. + +Before touching the branches of knowledge that deal with organization and +vital functions, let us glance at that science which meets you at the +threshold of your study, and prepares you in some measure to deal with +the more complex problems of the living laboratory. + +CHEMISTRY. includes the art of separating and combining the elements of +matter, and the study of the changes produced by these operations. We can +hardly say too much of what it has contributed to our knowledge of the +universe and our power of dealing with its materials. It has given us a +catalogue raisonne of the substances found upon our planet, and shown how +everything living and dead is put together from them. It is +accomplishing wonders before us every day, such as Arabian story-tellers +used to string together in their fables. It spreads the, sensitive film +on the artificial retina which looks upon us through the optician's lens +for a few seconds, and fixes an image that will outlive its original. It +questions the light of the sun, and detects the vaporized metals floating +around the great luminary,--iron, sodium, lithium, and the rest,--as if +the chemist of our remote planet could fill his bell-glasses from its +fiery atmosphere. It lends the power which flashes our messages in +thrills that leave the lazy chariot of day behind them. It seals up a +few dark grains in iron vases, and lo! at the touch of a single spark, +rises in smoke and flame a mighty Afrit with a voice like thunder and an +arm that shatters like an earthquake. The dreams of Oriental fancy have +become the sober facts of our every-day life, and the chemist is the +magician to whom we owe them. + +To return to the colder scientific aspect of chemistry. It has shown us +how bodies stand affected to each other through an almost boundless range +of combinations. It has given us a most ingenious theory to account for +certain fixed relations in these combinations. It has successfully +eliminated a great number of proximate compounds, more or less stable, +from organic structures. It has invented others which form the basis of +long series of well-known composite substances. In fact, we are perhaps +becoming overburdened with our list of proximate principles, demonstrated +and hypothetical. + +How much nearer have we come to the secret of force than Lully and Geber +and the whole crew of juggling alchemists? We have learned a great deal +about the how, what have we learned about the why? + +Why does iron rust, while gold remains untarnished, and gold amalgamate, +while iron refuses the alliance of mercury? + +The alchemists called gold Sol, the sun, and iron Mars, and pleased +themselves with fancied relations between these substances and the +heavenly bodies, by which they pretended to explain the facts they +observed. Some of their superstitions have lingered in practical +medicine to the present day, but chemistry has grown wise enough to +confess the fact of absolute ignorance. + +What is it that makes common salt crystallize in the form of cubes, and +saltpetre in the shape of six-sided prisms? We see no reason why it +should not have been just the other way, salt in prisms and saltpetre in +cubes, or why either should take an exact geometrical outline, any more +than coagulating albumen. + +But although we had given up attempting to explain the essential nature +of affinities and of crystalline types, we might have supposed that we +had at least fixed the identity of the substances with which we deal, and +determined the laws of their combination. All at once we find that a +simple substance changes face, puts off its characteristic qualities and +resumes them at will;--not merely when we liquefy or vaporize a solid, or +reverse the process; but that a solid is literally transformed into +another solid under our own eyes. We thought we knew phosphorus. We warm +a portion of it sealed in an empty tube, for about a week. It has become +a brown infusible substance, which does not shine in the dark nor oxidate +in the air. We heat it to 500 F., and it becomes common phosphorus again. +We transmute sulphur in the same singular way. Nature, you know, gives +us carbon in the shape of coal and in that of the diamond. It is easy to +call these changes by the name allotropism, but not the less do they +confound our hasty generalizations. + +These facts of allotropism have some corollaries connected with them +rather startling to us of the nineteenth century. There may be other +transmutations possible besides those of phosphorus and sulphur. When Dr. +Prout, in 1840, talked about azote and carbon being "formed" in the +living system, it was looked upon as one of those freaks of fancy to +which philosophers, like other men, are subject. But when Professor +Faraday, in 1851, says, at a meeting of the British Association, that +"his hopes are in the direction of proving that bodies called simple were +really compounds, and may be formed artificially as soon as we are +masters of the laws influencing their combinations,"--when he comes +forward and says that he has tried experiments at transmutation, and +means, if his life is spared, to try them again,--how can we be surprised +at the popular story of 1861, that Louis Napoleon has established a +gold-factory and is glutting the mints of Europe with bullion of his own +making? + +And so with reference to the law of combinations. The old maxim was, +Corpora non agunt nisi soluta. If two substances, a and b, are inclosed +in a glass vessel, c, we do not expect the glass to change them, unless a +or b or the compound a b has the power of dissolving the glass. But if +for a I take oxygen, for b hydrogen, and for c a piece of spongy +platinum, I find the first two combine with the common signs of +combustion and form water, the third in the mean time undergoing no +perceptible change. It has played the part of the unwedded priest, who +marries a pair without taking a fee or having any further relation with +the parties. We call this catalysis, catalytic action, the action of +presence, or by what learned name we choose. Give what name to it we +will, it is a manifestation of power which crosses our established laws +of combination at a very open angle of intersection. I think we may find +an analogy for it in electrical induction, the disturbance of the +equilibrium of the electricity of a body by the approach of a charged +body to it, without interchange of electrical conditions between the two +bodies. But an analogy is not an explanation, and why a few drops of +yeast should change a saccharine mixture to carbonic acid and alcohol,--a +little leaven leavening the whole lump,--not by combining with it, but by +setting a movement at work, we not only cannot explain, but the fact is +such an exception to the recognized laws of combination that Liebig is +unwilling to admit the new force at all to which Berzelius had given the +name so generally accepted. + +The phenomena of isomerism, or identity of composition and proportions of +constituents with difference of qualities, and of isomorphism, or +identity of form in crystals which have one element substituted for +another, were equally surprises to science; and although the mechanism by +which they are brought about can be to a certain extent explained by a +reference to the hypothetical atoms of which the elements are +constituted, yet this is only turning the difficulty into a fraction with +an infinitesimal denominator and an infinite numerator. + +So far we have studied the working of force and its seeming anomalies in +purely chemical phenomena. But we soon find that chemical force is +developed by various other physical agencies,--by heat, by light, by +electricity, by magnetism, by mechanical agencies; and, vice versa, that +chemical action develops heat, light, electricity, magnetism, mechanical +force, as we see in our matches, galvanic batteries, and explosive +compounds. Proceeding with our experiments, we find that every kind of +force is capable of producing all other kinds, or, in Mr. Faraday's +language, that "the various forms under which the forces of matter are +made manifest have a common origin, or, in other words, are so directly +related and mutually dependent that they are convertible one into +another." + +Out of this doctrine naturally springs that of the conservation of force, +so ably illustrated by Mr. Grove, Dr. Carpenter, and Mr. Faraday. This +idea is no novelty, though it seems so at first sight. It was maintained +and disputed among the giants of philosophy. Des Cartes and Leibnitz +denied that any new motion originated in nature, or that any ever ceased +to exist; all motion being in a circle, passing from one body to another, +one losing what the other gained. Newton, on the other hand, believed +that new motions were generated and existing ones destroyed. On the +first supposition, there is a fixed amount of force always circulating in +the universe. On the second, the total amount may be increasing or +diminishing. You will find in the "Annual of Scientific Discovery" for +1858 a very interesting lecture by Professor Helmholtz of Bonn, in which +it is maintained that a certain portion of force is lost in every natural +process, being converted into unchangeable heat, so that the universe +will come to a stand-still at last, all force passing into heat, and all +heat into a state of equilibrium. + +The doctrines of the convertibility or specific equivalence of the +various forms of force, and of its conservation, which is its logical +consequence, are very generally accepted, as I believe, at the present +time, among physicists. We are naturally led to the question, What is +the nature of force? The three illustrious philosophers just referred to +agree in attributing the general movements of the universe to the +immediate Divine action. The doctrine of "preestablished harmony" was an +especial contrivance of Leibnitz to remove the Creator from unworthy +association with the less divine acts of living beings. Obsolete as this +expression sounds to our ears, the phrase laws of the universe, which we +use so constantly with a wider application, appears to me essentially +identical with it. + +Force does not admit of explanation, nor of proper definition, any more +than the hypothetical substratum of matter. If we assume the Infinite as +omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, we cannot suppose Him excluded from +any part of His creation, except from rebellious souls which voluntarily +exclude Him by the exercise of their fatal prerogative of free-will. +Force, then, is the act of immanent Divinity. I find no meaning in +mechanical explanations. Newton's hypothesis of an ether filling the +heavenly spaces does not, I confess, help my conceptions. I will, and +the muscles of my vocal organs shape my speech. God wills, and the +universe articulates His power, wisdom, and goodness. That is all I +know. There is no bridge my mind can throw from the "immaterial" cause +to the "material" effect. + +The problem of force meets us everywhere, and I prefer to encounter it in +the world of physical phenomena before reaching that of living actions. +It is only the name for the incomprehensible cause of certain changes +known to our consciousness, and assumed to be outside of it. For me it +is the Deity Himself in action. + +I can therefore see a large significance in the somewhat bold language of +Burdach: "There is for me but one miracle, that of infinite existence, +and but one mystery, the manner in which the finite proceeds from the +infinite. So soon as we recognize this incomprehensible act as the +general and primordial miracle, of which our reason perceives the +necessity, but the manner of which our intelligence cannot grasp, so soon +as we contemplate the nature known to us by experience in this light, +there is for us no other impenetrable miracle or mystery." + +Let us turn to a branch of knowledge which deals with certainties up to +the limit of the senses, and is involved in no speculations beyond them. +In certain points of view, HUMAN ANATOMY may be considered an almost +exhausted science. From time to time some small organ which had escaped +earlier observers has been pointed out,--such parts as the tensor tarsi, +the otic ganglion, or the Pacinian bodies; but some of our best +anatomical works are those which have been classic for many generations. +The plates of the bones in Vesalius, three centuries old, are still +masterpieces of accuracy, as of art. The magnificent work of Albinus on +the muscles, published in 1747, is still supreme in its department, as +the constant references of the most thorough recent treatise on the +subject, that of Theile, sufficiently show. More has been done in +unravelling the mysteries of the fasciae, but there has been a tendency +to overdo this kind of material analysis. Alexander Thomson split them +up into cobwebs, as you may see in the plates to Velpeau's Surgical +Anatomy. I well remember how he used to shake his head over the coarse +work of Scarpa and Astley Cooper,--as if Denner, who painted the separate +hairs of the beard and pores of the skin in his portraits, had spoken +lightly of the pictures of Rubens and Vandyk. + +Not only has little been added to the catalogue of parts, but some things +long known had become half-forgotten. Louis and others confounded the +solitary glands of the lower part of the small intestine with those which +"the great Brunner," as Haller calls him, described in 1687 as being +found in the duodenum. The display of the fibrous structure of the brain +seemed a novelty as shown by Spurzheim. One is startled to find the +method anticipated by Raymond Vieussens nearly two centuries ago. I can +hardly think Gordon had ever looked at his figures, though he names their +author, when he wrote the captious and sneering article which attracted +so much attention in the pages of the "Edinburgh Review." + +This is the place, if anywhere, to mention any observations I could +pretend to have made in the course of my teaching the structure of the +human body. I can make no better show than most of my predecessors in +this well-reaped field. The nucleated cells found connected with the +cancellated structure of the bones, which I first pointed out and had +figured in 1847, and have shown yearly from that time to the present, and +the fossa masseterica, a shallow concavity on the ramus of the lower jaw, +for the lodgment of the masseter muscle, which acquires significance when +examined by the side of the deep cavity on the corresponding part in some +carnivora to which it answers, may perhaps be claimed as deserving +attention. I have also pleased myself by making a special group of the +six radiating muscles which diverge from the spine of the axis, or second +cervical vertebra, and by giving to it the name stella musculosa nuchaee. +But this scanty catalogue is only an evidence that one may teach long and +see little that has not been noted by those who have gone before him. Of +course I do not think it necessary to include rare, but already described +anomalies, such as the episternal bones, the rectus sternalis, and other +interesting exceptional formations I have encountered, which have shown a +curious tendency to present themselves several times in the same season, +perhaps because the first specimen found calls our attention to any we +may subsequently meet with. + +The anatomy of the scalpel and the amphitheatre was, then, becoming an +exhausted branch of investigation. But during the present century the +study of the human body has changed its old aspect, and become fertile in +new observations. This rejuvenescence was effected by means of two +principal agencies,--new methods and a new instrument. + +Descriptive anatomy, as known from an early date, is to the body what +geography is to the planet. Now geography was pretty well known so long +ago as when Arrowsmith, who was born in 1750, published his admirable +maps. But in that same year was born Werner, who taught a new way of +studying the earth, since become familiar to us all under the name of +Geology. + +What geology has done for our knowledge of the earth, has been done for +our knowledge of the body by that method of study to which is given the +name of General Anatomy. It studies, not the organs as such, but the +elements out of which the organs are constructed. It is the geology of +the body, as that is the general anatomy of the earth. The extraordinary +genius of Bichat, to whom more than any other we owe this new method of +study, does not require Mr. Buckle's testimony to impress the +practitioner with the importance of its achievements. I have heard a +very wise physician question whether any important result had accrued to +practical medicine from Harvey's discovery of the circulation. But +Anatomy, Physiology, and Pathology have received a new light from this +novel method of contemplating the living structures, which has had a vast +influence in enabling the practitioner at least to distinguish and +predict the course of disease. We know as well what differences to +expect in the habits of a mucous and of a serous membrane, as what +mineral substances to look for in the chalk or the coal measures. You +have only to read Cullen's description of inflammation of the lungs or of +the bowels, and compare it with such as you may find in Laennec or +Watson, to see the immense gain which diagnosis and prognosis have +derived from general anatomy. + +The second new method of studying the human structure, beginning with the +labors of Scarpa, Burns, and Colles, grew up principally during the first +third of this century. It does not deal with organs, as did the earlier +anatomists, nor with tissues, after the manner of Bichat. It maps the +whole surface of the body into an arbitrary number of regions, and +studies each region successively from the surface to the bone, or beneath +it. This hardly deserves the name of a science, although Velpeau has +dignified it with that title, but it furnishes an admirable practical way +for the surgeon who has to operate on a particular region of the body to +study that region. If we are buying a farm, we are not content with the +State map or a geological chart including the estate in question. We +demand an exact survey of that particular property, so that we may know +what we are dealing with. This is just what regional, or, as it is +sometimes called, surgical anatomy, does for the surgeon with reference +to the part on which his skill is to be exercised. It enables him to see +with the mind's eye through the opaque tissues down to the bone on which +they lie, as if the skin were transparent as the cornea, and the organs +it covers translucent as the gelatinous pulp of a medusa. + +It is curious that the Japanese should have anticipated Europe in a kind +of rude regional anatomy. I have seen a manikin of Japanese make traced +all over with lines, and points marking their intersection. By this +their doctors are guided in the performance of acupuncture, marking the +safe places to thrust in needles, as we buoy out our ship-channels, and +doubtless indicating to learned eyes the spots where incautious meddling +had led to those little accidents of shipwreck to which patients are +unfortunately liable. + +A change of method, then, has given us General and Regional Anatomy. +These, too, have been worked so thoroughly, that, if not exhausted, they +have at least become to a great extent fixed and positive branches of +knowledge. But the first of them, General Anatomy, would never, have +reached this positive condition but for the introduction of that, +instrument which I have mentioned as the second great aid to modern +progress. + +This instrument is the achromatic microscope. For the history of the +successive steps by which it became the effective scientific implement we +now possess, I must refer you to the work of Mr. Quekett, to an excellent +article in the "Penny Cyclopaedia," or to that of Sir David Brewster in +the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." It is a most interesting piece of +scientific history, which shows how the problem which Biot in 1821 +pronounced insolvable was in the course of a few years practically +solved, with a success equal to that which Dollond had long before +obtained with the telescope. It is enough for our purpose that we are +now in possession of an instrument freed from all confusions and +illusions, which magnifies a thousand diameters,--a million times in +surface,--without serious distortion or discoloration of its object. + +A quarter of a century ago, or a little more, an instructor would not +have hesitated to put John Bell's "Anatomy" and Bostock's "Physiology" +into a student's hands, as good authority on their respective subjects. +Let us not be unjust to either of these authors. John Bell is the +liveliest medical writer that I can remember who has written since the +days of delightful old Ambroise Pare. His picturesque descriptions and +bold figures are as good now as they ever were, and his book can never +become obsolete. But listen to what John Bell says of the microscope: + +"Philosophers of the last age had been at infinite pains to find the +ultimate fibre of muscles, thinking to discover its properties in its +form; but they saw just in proportion to the glasses which they used, or +to their practice and skill in that art, which is now almost forsaken." + +Dr. Bostock's work, neglected as it is, is one which I value very highly +as a really learned compilation, full of original references. But Dr. +Bostock says: "Much as the naturalist has been indebted to the +microscope, by bringing into view many beings of which he could not +otherwise have ascertained the existence, the physiologist has not yet +derived any great benefit from the instrument." + +These are only specimens of the manner in which the microscope and its +results were generally regarded by the generation just preceding our own. + +I have referred you to the proper authorities for the account of those +improvements which about the year 1830 rendered the compound microscope +an efficient and trustworthy instrument. It was now for the first time +that a true general anatomy became possible. As early as 1816 Treviranus +had attempted to resolve the tissues, of which Bichat had admitted no +less than twenty-one, into their simple microscopic elements. How could +such an attempt succeed, Henle well asks, at a time when the most +extensively diffused of all the tissues, the areolar, was not at all +understood? All that method could do had been accomplished by Bichat and +his followers. It was for the optician to take the next step. The +future of anatomy and physiology, as an enthusiastic micrologist of the +time said, was in the hands of Messrs. Schieck and Pistor, famous +opticians of Berlin. + +In those earlier days of which I am speaking, all the points of minute +anatomy were involved in obscurity. Some found globules everywhere, some +fibres. Students disputed whether the conjunctiva extended over the +cornea or not, and worried themselves over Gaultier de Claubry's +stratified layers of the skin, or Breschet's blennogenous and +chromatogenous organs. The dartos was a puzzle, the central spinal canal +a myth, the decidua clothed in fable as much as the golden fleece. The +structure of bone, now so beautifully made out,--even that of the teeth, +in which old Leeuwenhoek, peeping with his octogenarian eyes through the +minute lenses wrought with his own hands, had long ago seen the "pipes," +as he called them,--was hardly known at all. The minute structure of the +viscera lay in the mists of an uncertain microscopic vision. The +intimate recesses of the animal system were to the students of anatomy +what the anterior of Africa long was to geographers, and the stories of +microscopic explorers were as much sneered at as those of Bruce or Du +Chailly, and with better reason. + +Now what have we come to in our own day? In the first place, the minute +structure of all the organs has been made out in the most satisfactory +way. The special arrangements of the vessels and the ducts of all the +glands, of the air-tubes and vesicles of the lungs, of the parts which +make up the skin and other membranes, all the details of those complex +parenchymatous organs which had confounded investigation so long, have +been lifted out of the invisible into the sight of all observers. It is +fair to mention here, that we owe a great deal to the art of minute +injection, by which we are enabled to trace the smallest vessels in the +midst of the tissues where they are distributed. This is an old artifice +of anatomists. The famous Ruysch, who died a hundred and thirty years +ago, showed that each of the viscera has its terminal vessels arranged in +its own peculiar way; the same fact which you may see illustrated in +Gerber's figures after the minute injections of Berres. I hope to show +you many specimens of this kind in the microscope, the work of English +and American hands. Professor Agassiz allows me also to make use of a +very rich collection of injected preparations sent him by Professor +Hyrtl, formerly of Prague, now of Vienna, for the proper exhibition of +which I had a number of microscopes made expressly, by Mr. Grunow, during +the past season. All this illustrates what has been done for the +elucidation of the intimate details of formation of the organs. + +But the great triumph of the microscope as applied to anatomy has been in +the resolution of the organs and the tissues into their simple +constituent anatomical elements. It has taken up general anatomy where +Bichat left it. He had succeeded in reducing the structural language of +nature to syllables, if you will permit me to use so bold an image. The +microscopic observers who have come after him have analyzed these into +letters, as we may call them,--the simple elements by the combination of +which Nature spells out successively tissues, which are her syllables, +organs which are her words, systems which are her chapters, and so goes +on from the simple to the complex, until she binds up in one living whole +that wondrous volume of power and wisdom which we call the human body. + +The alphabet of the organization is so short and simple, that I will risk +fatiguing your attention by repeating it, according to the plan I have +long adopted. + +A. Cells, either floating, as in the blood, or fixed, like those in the +cancellated structure of bone, already referred to. Very commonly they +have undergone a change of figure, most frequently a flattening which +reduces them to scales, as in the epidermis and the epithelium. + +B. Simple, translucent, homogeneous solid, such as is found at the back +of the cornea, or forming the intercellular substance of cartilage. + +C. The white fibrous element, consisting of very delicate, tenacious +threads. This is the long staple textile substance of the body. It is +to the organism what cotton is pretended to be to our Southern States. +It pervades the whole animal fabric as areolar tissue, which is the +universal packing and wrapping material. It forms the ligaments which +bind the whole frame-work together. It furnishes the sinews, which are +the channels of power. It enfolds every muscle. It wraps the brain in +its hard, insensible folds, and the heart itself beats in a purse that is +made of it. + +D. The yellow elastic, fibrous element, the caoutchouc of the animal +mechanism, which pulls things back into place, as the India-rubber band +shuts the door we have opened. + +E. The striped muscular fibre,--the red flesh, which shortens itself in +obedience to the will, and thus produces all voluntary active motion. + +F. The unstriped muscular fibre, more properly the fusiform-cell fibre, +which carries on the involuntary internal movements. + +G. The nerve-cylinder, a glassy tube, with a pith of some firmness, +which conveys sensation to the brain and the principle which induces +motion from it. + +H. The nerve-corpuscle, the centre of nervous power. + +I. The mucous tissue, as Virchow calls it, common in embryonic +structures, seen in the vitreous humor of the adult. + +To these add X, granules, of indeterminate shape and size, Y, for +inorganic matters, such as the salts of bone and teeth, and Z, to stand +as a symbol of the fluids, and you have the letters of what I have +ventured to call the alphabet of the body. + +But just as in language certain diphthongs and syllables are frequently +recurring, so we have in the body certain secondary and tertiary +combinations, which we meet more frequently than the solitary elements of +which they are composed. + +Thus A B, or a collection of cells united by simple structureless solid, +is seen to be extensively employed in the body under the name of +cartilage. Out of this the surfaces of the articulations and the springs +of the breathing apparatus are formed. But when Nature came to the +buffers of the spinal column (intervertebral disks) and the washers of +the joints (semilunar fibrocartilages of the knee, etc.), she required +more tenacity than common cartilage possessed. What did she do? What +does man do in a similar case of need? I need hardly tell you. The +mason lays his bricks in simple mortar. But the plasterer works some +hair into the mortar which he is going to lay in large sheets on the +walls. The children of Israel complained that they had no straw to make +their bricks with, though portions of it may still be seen in the +crumbling pyramid of Darshour, which they are said to have built. I +visited the old house on Witch Hill in Salem a year or two ago, and there +I found the walls coated with clay in which straw was abundantly +mingled;--the old Judaizing witch-hangers copied the Israelites in a good +many things. The Chinese and the Corsicans blend the fibres of amianthus +in their pottery to give it tenacity. Now to return to Nature. To make +her buffers and washers hold together in the shocks to which they would +be subjected, she took common cartilage and mingled the white fibrous +tissue with it, to serve the same purpose as the hair in the mortar, the +straw in the bricks and in the plaster of the old wall, and the amianthus +in the earthen vessels. Thus we have the combination A B C, or +fibro-cartilage. Again, the bones were once only gristle or cartilage, A +B. To give them solidity they were infiltrated with stone, in the form +of salts of lime, an inorganic element, so that bone would be spelt out +by the letters A, B, and Y. + +If from these organic syllables we proceed to form organic words, we +shall find that Nature employs three principal forms; namely, Vessels, +Membranes, and Parenchyma, or visceral tissue. The most complex of them +can be resolved into a combination of these few simple anatomical +constituents. + +Passing for a moment into the domain of PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY, we find the +same elements in morbid growths that we have met with in normal +structures. The pus-corpuscle and the white blood-corpuscle can only be +distinguished by tracing them to their origin. A frequent form of +so-called malignant disease proves to be only a collection of altered +epithelium-cells. Even cancer itself has no specific anatomical element, +and the diagnosis of a cancerous tumor by the microscope, though +tolerably sure under the eye of an expert, is based upon accidental, and +not essential points,--the crowding together of the elements, the size of +the cell-nuclei, and similar variable characters. + +Let us turn to PHYSIOLOGY. The microscope, which has made a new science +of the intimate structure of the organs, has at the same time cleared up +many uncertainties concerning the mechanism of the special functions. Up +to the time of the living generation of observers, Nature had kept over +all her inner workshops the forbidding inscription, No Admittance! If +any prying observer ventured to spy through his magnifying tubes into the +mysteries of her glands and canals and fluids, she covered up her work in +blinding mists and bewildering halos, as the deities of old concealed +their favored heroes in the moment of danger. + +Science has at length sifted the turbid light of her lenses, and blanched +their delusive rainbows. + +Anatomy studies the organism in space. Physiology studies it also in +time. After the study of form and composition follows close that of +action, and this leads us along back to the first moment of the germ, and +forward to the resolution of the living frame into its lifeless elements. +In this way Anatomy, or rather that branch of it which we call Histology, +has become inseparably blended with the study of function. The +connection between the science of life and that of intimate structure on +the one hand, and composition on the other, is illustrated in the titles +of two recent works of remarkable excellence,--"the Physiological +Anatomy" of Todd and Bowman, and the "Physiological Chemistry" of +Lehmann. + +Let me briefly recapitulate a few of our acquisitions in Physiology, due +in large measure to our new instruments and methods of research, and at +the same time indicate the limits which form the permanent or the +temporary boundaries of our knowledge. I will begin with the largest +fact and with the most absolute and universally encountered limitation. + +The "largest truth in Physiology" Mr. Paget considers to be "the +development of ova through multiplication and division of their cells." +I would state it more broadly as the agency of the cell in all living +processes. It seems at present necessary to abandon the original idea of +Schwann, that we can observe the building up of a cell from the simple +granules of a blastema, or formative fluid. The evidence points rather +towards the axiom, Omnis cellula a cellula; that is, the germ of a new +cell is always derived from a preexisting cell. The doctrine of Schwann, +as I remarked long ago (1844), runs parallel with the nebular theory in +astronomy, and they may yet stand or fall together. + +As we have seen Nature anticipating the plasterer in fibro-cartilage, so +we see her beforehand with the glassblower in her dealings with the cell. +The artisan blows his vitreous bubbles, large or small, to be used +afterwards as may be wanted. So Nature shapes her hyaline vesicles and +modifies them to serve the needs of the part where they are found. The +artisan whirls his rod, and his glass bubble becomes a flattened disk, +with its bull's-eye for a nucleus. These lips of ours are all glazed +with microscopic tiles formed of flattened cells, each one of them with +its nucleus still as plain and relatively as prominent, to the eye of the +microscopist, as the bull's-eye in the old-fashioned windowpane. +Everywhere we find cells, modified or unchanged. They roll in +inconceivable multitudes (five millions and more to the cubic millimetre, +according to Vierordt) as blood-disks through our vessels. A +close-fitting mail of flattened cells coats our surface with a panoply of +imbricated scales (more than twelve thousand millions), as Harting has +computed, as true a defence against our enemies as the buckler of the +armadillo or the carapace of the tortoise against theirs. The same +little protecting organs pave all the great highways of the interior +system. Cells, again, preside over the chemical processes which +elaborate the living fluids; they change their form to become the agents +of voluntary and involuntary motion; the soul itself sits on a throne of +nucleated cells, and flashes its mandates through skeins of glassy +filaments which once were simple chains of vesicles. And, as if to +reduce the problem of living force to its simplest expression, we see the +yolk of a transparent egg dividing itself in whole or in part, and again +dividing and subdividing, until it becomes a mass of cells, out of which +the harmonious diversity of the organs arranges itself, worm or man, as +God has willed from the beginning. + +This differentiation having been effected, each several part assumes its +special office, having a life of its own adjusted to that of other parts +and the whole. "Just as a tree constitutes a mass arranged in a definite +manner, in which, in every single part, in the leaves as in the root, in +the trunk as in the blossom, cells are discovered to be the ultimate +elements, so is it also with the forms of animal life. Every animal +presents itself as a sum of vital unities, every one of which manifests +all the characteristics of life." + +The mechanism is as clear, as unquestionable, as absolutely settled and +universally accepted, as the order of movement of the heavenly bodies, +which we compute backward to the days of the observatories on the plains +of Shinar, and on the faith of which we regulate the movements of war and +trade by the predictions of our ephemeris. + +The mechanism, and that is all. We see the workman and the tools, but +the skill that guides the work and the power that performs it are as +invisible as ever. I fear that not every listener took the significance +of those pregnant words in the passage I quoted from John +Bell,--"thinking to discover its properties in its form." We have +discovered the working bee in this great hive of organization. We have +detected the cell in the very act of forming itself from a nucleus, of +transforming itself into various tissues, of selecting the elements of +various secretions. But why one cell becomes nerve and another muscle, +why one selects bile and another fat, we can no more pretend to tell, +than why one grape sucks out of the soil the generous juice which princes +hoard in their cellars, and another the wine which it takes three men to +drink,--one to pour it down, another to swallow it, and a third to hold +him while it is going down. Certain analogies between this selecting +power and the phenomena of endosmosis in the elective affinities of +chemistry we can find, but the problem of force remains here, as +everywhere, unsolved and insolvable. + +Do we gain anything by attempting to get rid of the idea of a special +vital force because we find certain mutually convertible relations +between forces in the body and out of it? I think not, any more than we +should gain by getting rid of the idea and expression Magnetism because +of its correlation with electricity. We may concede the unity of all +forms of force, but we cannot overlook the fixed differences of its +manifestations according to the conditions under which it acts. It is a +mistake, however, to think the mystery is greater in an organized body +than in any other. We see a stone fall or a crystal form, and there is +nothing stranger left to wonder at, for we have seen the Infinite in +action. + +Just so far as we can recognize the ordinary modes of operation of the +common forces of nature,--gravity, cohesion, elasticity, transudation, +chemical action, and the rest,--we see the so-called vital acts in the +light of a larger range of known facts and familiar analogies. +Matteuecci's well-remembered lectures contain many and striking examples +of the working of physical forces in physiological processes. Wherever +rigid experiment carries us, we are safe in following this lead; but the +moment we begin to theorize beyond our strict observation, we are in +danger of falling into those mechanical follies which true science has +long outgrown. + +Recognizing the fact, then, that we have learned nothing but the +machinery of life, and are no nearer to its essence, what is it that we +have gained by this great discovery of the cell formation and function? + +It would have been reward enough to learn the method Nature pursues for +its own sake. If the sovereign Artificer lets us into his own +laboratories and workshops, we need not ask more than the privilege of +looking on at his work. We do not know where we now stand in the +hierarchy of created intelligences. We were made a little lower than the +angels. I speak it not irreverently; as the lower animals surpass man in +some of their attributes, so it may be that not every angel's eye can see +as broadly and as deeply into the material works of God as man himself, +looking at the firmament through an equatorial of fifteen inches' +aperture, and searching into the tissues with a twelfth of an inch +objective. + +But there are other positive gains of a more practical character. Thus we +are no longer permitted to place the seat of the living actions in the +extreme vessels, which are only the carriers from which each part takes +what it wants by the divine right of the omnipotent nucleated cell. The +organism has become, in the words already borrowed from Virchow, "a sum +of vital unities." The strictum and laxum, the increased and diminished +action of the vessels, out of which medical theories and methods of +treatment have grown up, have yielded to the doctrine of local +cell-communities, belonging to this or that vascular district, from which +they help themselves, as contractors are wont to do from the national +treasury. + +I cannot promise to do more than to select a few of the points of contact +between our ignorance and our knowledge which present particular interest +in the existing state of our physiological acquisitions. Some of them +involve the microscopic discoveries of which I have been speaking, some +belong to the domain of chemistry, and some have relations with other +departments of physical science. + +If we should begin with the digestive function, we should find that the +long-agitated question of the nature of the acid of the gastric juice is +becoming settled in favor of the lactic. But the whole solvent agency of +the digestive fluid enters into the category of that exceptional mode of +action already familiar to us in chemistry as catalysis. It is therefore +doubly difficult of explanation; first, as being, like all reactions, a +fact not to be accounted for except by the imaginative appeal to +"affinity," and secondly, as being one of those peculiar reactions +provoked by an element which stands outside and looks on without +compromising itself. + +The doctrine of Mulder, so widely diffused in popular and scientific +belief, of the existence of a common base of all albuminous substances, +the so-called protein, has not stood the test of rigorous analysis. The +division of food into azotized and non-azotized is no doubt important, +but the attempt to show that the first only is plastic or nutritive, +while the second is simply calorifacient, or heat-producing, fails +entirely in the face of the facts revealed by the study of man in +different climates, and of numerous experiments in the feeding of +animals. I must return to this subject in connection with the +respiratory function. + +The sugar-making faculty of the liver is another "catalytic" mystery, as +great as the rest of them, and no greater. Liver-tissue brings sugar out +of the blood, or out of its own substance;--why? + + Quia est in eo + Virtus saccharitiva. + +Just what becomes of the sugar beyond the fact of its disappearance +before it can get into the general circulation and sweeten our tempers, +it is hard to say. + +The pancreatic fluid makes an emulsion of the fat contained in our food, +but just how the fatty particles get into the villi we must leave Brucke +and Kolliker to settle if they can. + +No one has shown satisfactorily the process by which the blood-corpuscles +are formed out of the lymph-corpuscles, nor what becomes of them. These +two questions are like those famous household puzzles,--Where do the +flies come from? and, Where do the pins go to? + +There is a series of organs in the body which has long puzzled +physiologists,--organs of glandular aspect, but having no ducts,--the +spleen, the thyroid and thymus bodies, and the suprarenal capsules. We +call them vascular glands, and we believe that they elaborate colored and +uncolored blood-cells; but just what changes they effect, and just how +they effect them, it has proved a very difficult matter to determine. So +of the noted glandules which form Peyer's patches, their precise office, +though seemingly like those of the lymphatic glands, cannot be positively +assigned, so far as I know, at the present time. It is of obvious +interest to learn it with reference to the pathology of typhoid fever. +It will be remarked that the coincidence of their changes in this disease +with enlargement of the spleen suggests the idea of a similarity of +function in these two organs. + +The theories of the production of animal heat, from the times of Black, +Lavoisier, and Crawford to those of Liebig, are familiar to all who have +paid any attention to physiological studies. The simplicity of Liebig's +views, and the popular form in which they have been presented, have given +them wide currency, and incorporated them in the common belief and +language of our text-books. Direct oxidation or combustion of the carbon +and hydrogen contained in the food, or in the tissues themselves; the +division of alimentary substances into respiratory, or non-azotized, and +azotized,--these doctrines are familiar even to the classes in our +high-schools. But this simple statement is boldly questioned. Nothing +proves that oxygen combines (in the system) with hydrogen and carbon in +particular, rather than with sulphur and azote. Such is the +well-grounded statement of Robin and Verdeil. "It is very probable that +animal heat is entirely produced by the chemical actions which take place +in the organism, but the phenomenon is too complex to admit of our +calculating it according to the quality of oxygen consumed." These last +are the words of Regnault, as cited by Mr. Lewes, whose intelligent +discussion of this and many of the most interesting physiological +problems I strongly recommend to your attention. + +This single illustration covers a wider ground than the special function +to which it belongs. We are learning that the chemistry of the body must +be studied, not simply by its ingesta and egesta, but that there is a +long intermediate series of changes which must be investigated in their +own light, under their own special conditions. The expression "sum of +vital unities" applies to the chemical actions, as well as to other +actions localized in special parts; and when the distinguished chemists +whom I have just cited entitle their work a treatise on the immediate +principles of the body, they only indicate the nature of that profound +and subtile analysis which must take the place of all hasty +generalizations founded on a comparison of the food with residual +products. + +I will only call your attention to the fact, that the exceptional +phenomenon of the laboratory is the prevailing law of the organism. +Nutrition itself is but one great catalytic process. As the blood +travels its rounds, each part selects its appropriate element and +transforms it to its own likeness. Whether the appropriating agent be +cell or nucleus, or a structureless solid like the intercellular +substance of cartilage, the fact of its presence determines the +separation of its proper constituents from the circulating fluid, so that +even when we are wounded bone is replaced by bone, skin by skin, and +nerve by nerve. + +It is hardly without a smile that we resuscitate the old question of the +'vis insita' of the muscular fibre, so famous in the discussions of +Haller and his contemporaries. Speaking generally, I think we may say +that Haller's doctrine is the one now commonly received; namely, that the +muscles contract in virtue of their own inherent endowments. It is true +that Kolliker says no perfectly decisive fact has been brought forward to +prove that the striated muscles contract without having been acted on +by nerves. Yet Mr. Bowman's observations on the contraction of isolated +fibres appear decisive enough (unless we consider them invalidated by Dr. +Lionel Beale's recent researches), tending to show that each elementary +fibre is supplied with nerves; and as to the smooth muscular fibres, we +have Virchow's statement respecting the contractility of those of the +umbilical cord, where there is not a trace of any nerves. + +In the investigation of the nervous system, anatomy and physiology have +gone hand in hand. It is very singular that so important, and seemingly +simple, a fact as the connection of the nerve-tubes, at their origin or +in their course, with the nerve-cells, should have so long remained open +to doubt, as you may see that it did by referring to the very complete +work of Sharpey and Quain (edition of 1849), the histological portion of +which is cordially approved by Kolliker himself. + +Several most interesting points of the minute anatomy of the nervous +centres have been laboriously and skilfully worked out by a recent +graduate of this Medical School, in a monograph worthy to stand in line +with those of Lockhart Clarke, Stilling, and Schroder van der Kolk. I +have had the privilege of examining and of showing some of you a number +of Dr. Dean's skilful preparations. I have no space to give even an +abstract of his conclusions. I can only refer to his proof of the fact, +that a single cell may send its processes into several different bundles +of nerve-roots, and to his demonstration of the curved ascending and +descending fibres from the posterior nerveroots, to reach what he has +called the longitudinal columns of the cornea. I must also mention Dr. +Dean's exquisite microscopic photographs from sections of the medulla +oblongata, which appear to me to promise a new development, if not a new +epoch, in anatomical art. + +It having been settled that the nerve-tubes can very commonly be traced +directly to the nerve-cells, the object of all the observers in this +department of anatomy is to follow these tubes to their origin. We have +an infinite snarl of telegraph wires, and we may be reasonably sure, +that, if we can follow them up, we shall find each of them ends in a +battery somewhere. One of the most interesting problems is to find the +ganglionic origin of the great nerves of the medulla oblongata, and this +is the end to which, by the aid of the most delicate sections, colored so +as to bring out their details, mounted so as to be imperishable, +magnified by the best instruments, and now self-recorded in the light of +the truth-telling sunbeam, our fellow-student is making a steady progress +in a labor which I think bids fair to rank with the most valuable +contributions to histology that we have had from this side of the +Atlantic. + +It is interesting to see how old questions are incidentally settled in +the course of these new investigations. Thus, Mr. Clarke's dissections, +confirmed by preparations of Mr. Dean's which I have myself examined, +placed the fact of the decussation of the pyramids--denied by Haller, by +Morgagni, and even by Stilling--beyond doubt. So the spinal canal, the +existence of which, at least in the adult, has been so often disputed, +appears as a coarse and unequivocal anatomical fact in many of the +preparations referred to. + +While these studies of the structure of the cord have been going on, the +ingenious and indefatigable Brown-Sequard has been investigating the +functions of its different parts with equal diligence. The microscopic +anatomists had shown that the ganglionic corpuscles of the gray matter of +the cord are connected with each other by their processes, as well as +with the nerve-roots. M. Brown-Sequard has proved by numerous +experiments that the gray substance transmits sensitive impressions and +muscular stimulation. The oblique ascending and descending fibres from +the posterior nerve-roots, joining the "longitudinal columns of the +cornua," account for the results of Brown-Sequard's sections of the +posterior columns. The physiological experimenter has also made it +evident that the decussation of the conductors of sensitive impressions +has its seat in the spinal core, and not in the encephalon, as had been +supposed. Not less remarkable than these results are the facts, which I +with others of my audience have had the opportunity of observing, as +shown by M. Brown-Sequard, of the artificial production of epilepsy in +animals by injuring the spinal cord, and the induction of the paroxysm by +pinching a certain portion of the skin. I would also call the student's +attention to his account of the relations of the nervous centres to +nutrition and secretion, the last of which relations has been made the +subject of an extended essay by our fellow countryman, Dr. H. F. Campbell +of Georgia. + +The physiology of the spinal cord seems a simple matter as you study it +in Longet. The experiments of Brown-Sequard have shown the problem to be +a complex one, and raised almost as many doubts as they have solved +questions; at any rate, I believe all lecturers on physiology agree that +there is no part of their task they dread so much as the analysis of the +evidence relating to the special offices of the different portions of the +medulla spinalis. In the brain we are sure that we do not know how to +localize functions; in the spinal cord, we think we do know something; +but there are so many anomalies, and seeming contradictions, and sources +of fallacy, that beyond the facts of crossed paralysis of sensation, and +the conducting agency of the gray substance, I am afraid we retain no +cardinal principles discovered since the development of the reflex +function took its place by Sir Charles Bell's great discovery. + +By the manner in which I spoke of the brain, you will see that I am +obliged to leave phrenology sub Jove,--out in the cold,--as not one of +the household of science. I am not one of its haters; on the contrary, I +am grateful for the incidental good it has done. I love to amuse myself +in its plaster Golgothas, and listen to the glib professor, as he +discovers by his manipulations + + "All that disgraced my betters met in me." + +I loved of old to see square-headed, heavy-jawed Spurzheim make a brain +flower out into a corolla of marrowy filaments, as Vieussens had done +before him, and to hear the dry-fibred but human-hearted George Combe +teach good sense under the disguise of his equivocal system. But the +pseudo-sciences, phrenology and the rest, seem to me only appeals to weak +minds and the weak points of strong ones. There is a pica or false +appetite in many intelligences; they take to odd fancies in place of +wholesome truth, as girls gnaw at chalk and charcoal. Phrenology juggles +with nature. It is so adjusted as to soak up all evidence that helps it, +and shed all that harms it. It crawls forward in all weathers, like +Richard Edgeworth's hygrometer. It does not stand at the boundary of our +ignorance, it seems to me, but is one of the will-o'-the-wisps of its +undisputed central domain of bog and quicksand. Yet I should not have +devoted so many words to it, did I not recognize the light it has thrown +on human actions by its study of congenital organic tendencies. Its maps +of the surface of the head are, I feel sure, founded on a delusion, but +its studies of individual character are always interesting and +instructive. + +The "snapping-turtle" strikes after its natural fashion when it first +comes out of the egg. Children betray their tendencies in their way of +dealing with the breasts that nourish them; nay, lean venture to affirm, +that long before they are born they teach their mothers something of +their turbulent or quiet tempers. + + "Castor gaudet equis, ovo proanatus eodem + Pugnis." + +Strike out the false pretensions of phrenology; call it anthropology; let +it study man the individual in distinction from man the abstraction, the +metaphysical or theological lay-figure; and it becomes "the proper study +of mankind," one of the noblest and most interesting of pursuits. + +The whole physiology of the nervous system, from the simplest +manifestation of its power in an insect up to the supreme act of the +human intelligence working through the brain, is full of the most +difficult yet profoundly interesting questions. The singular relations +between electricity and nerve-force, relations which it has been +attempted to interpret as meaning identity, in the face of palpable +differences, require still more extended studies. You may be interested +by Professor Faraday's statement of his opinion on the matter. "Though I +am not satisfied that the nervous fluid is only electricity, still I +think that the agent in the nervous system maybe an inorganic force; and +if there be reason for supposing that magnetism is a higher relation of +force than electricity, so it may well be imagined that the nervous power +may be of a still more exalted character, and yet within the reach of +experiment." + +In connection with this statement, it is interesting to refer to the +experiments of Helmholtz on the rapidity of transmission of the nervous +actions. The rate is given differently in Valentin's report of these +experiments and in that found in the "Scientific Annual" for 1858. One +hundred and eighty to three hundred feet per second is the rate of +movement assigned for sensation, but all such results must be very +vaguely approximative. Boxers, fencers, players at the Italian game of +morn, "prestidigitators," and all who depend for their success on +rapidity of motion, know what differences there are in the personal +equation of movement. + +Reflex action, the mechanical sympathy, if I may so call it, of distant +parts; Instinct, which is crystallized intelligence,--an absolute law +with its invariable planes and angles introduced into the sphere of +consciousness, as raphides are inclosed in the living cells of plants; +Intellect,--the operation of the thinking principle through material +organs, with an appreciable waste of tissue in every act of thought, so +that our clergymen's blood has more phosphates to get rid of on Monday +than on any other day of the week; Will,--theoretically the absolute +determining power, practically limited in different degrees by the +varying organization of races and individuals, annulled or perverted by +different ill-understood organic changes; on all these subjects our +knowledge is in its infancy, and from the study of some of them the +interdict of the Vatican is hardly yet removed. + +I must allude to one or two points in the histology and physiology of the +organs of sense. The anterior continuation of the retina beyond the ora +serrata has been a subject of much discussion. If H. Muller and Kolliker +can be relied upon, this question is settled by recognizing that a layer +of cells, continued from the retina, passes over the surface of the +zonula Zinnii, but that no proper nervous element is so prolonged +forward. + +I observe that Kolliker calls the true nervous elements of the retina +"the layer of gray cerebral substance." In fact, the ganglionic +corpuscles of each eye may be considered as constituting a little brain, +connected with the masses behind by the commissure, commonly called the +optic nerve. We are prepared, therefore, to find these two little brains +in the most intimate relations with each other, as we find the cerebral +hemispheres. We know that they are directly connected by fibres that +arch round through the chiasma. + +I mention these anatomical facts to introduce a physiological observation +of my own, first announced in one of the lectures before the Medical +Class, subsequently communicated to the American Academy of Arts and +Sciences, and printed in its "Transactions" for February 14, 1860. I +refer to the apparent transfer of impressions from one retina to the +other, to which I have given the name reflex vision. The idea was +suggested to me in consequence of certain effects noticed in employing +the stereoscope. Professor William B. Rodgers has since called the +attention of the American Scientific Association to some facts bearing on +the subject, and to a very curious experiment of Leonardo da Vinci's, +which enables the observer to look through the palm of his hand (or seem +to), as if it had a hole bored through it. As he and others hesitated to +accept my explanation, I was not sorry to find recently the following +words in the "Observations on Man" of that acute observer and thinker, +David Hartley. "An impression made on the right eye alone by a single +object may propagate itself into the left, and there raise up an image +almost equal in vividness to itself; and consequently when we see with +one eye only, we may, however, have pictures in both eyes." Hartley, in +1784, had anticipated many of the doctrines which have since been +systematized into the theory of reflex actions, and with which I have +attempted to associate this act of reflex vision. My sixth experiment, +however, in the communication referred to, appears to me to be a crucial +one, proving the correctness of my explanation, and I am not aware that +it has been before instituted. + +Another point of great interest connected with the physiology of vision, +and involved for a long time in great obscurity, is that of the +adjustment of the eye to different distances. Dr. Clay Wallace of New +York, who published a very ingenious little book on the eye about twenty +years ago, with vignettes reminding one of Bewick, was among the first, +if not the first, to describe the ciliary muscle, to which the power of +adjustment is generally ascribed. It is ascertained, by exact experiment +with the phacueidoscope, that accommodation depends on change of form of +the crystalline lens. Where the crystalline is wanting, as Mr. Ware long +ago taught, no power of accommodation remains. The ciliary muscle is +generally thought to effect the change of form of the crystalline. The +power of accommodation is lost after the application of atropine, in +consequence, as is supposed, of the paralysis of this muscle. This, I +believe, is the nearest approach to a demonstration we have on this +point. + +I have only time briefly to refer to Professor Draper's most ingenious +theory as to the photographic nature of vision, for an account of which I +must refer to his original and interesting Treatise on Physiology. + +It were to be wished that the elaborate and very interesting researches +of the Marquis Corti, which have revealed such singular complexity of +structure in the cochlea of the ear, had done more to clear up its +doubtful physiology; but I am afraid we have nothing but hypotheses for +the special part it plays in the act of hearing, and that we must say the +same respecting the office of the semicircular canals. + +The microscope has achieved some of its greatest triumphs in teaching us +the changes which occur in the development of the embryo. No more +interesting discovery stands recorded in the voluminous literature of +this subject than the one originally announced by Martin Barry, +afterwards discredited, and still later confirmed by Mr. Newport and +others; namely the fact that the fertilizing filament reaches the +interior of the ovum in various animals;--a striking parallel to the +action of the pollen-tube in the vegetable. But beyond the mechanical +facts all is mystery in the movements of organization, as profound as in +the fall of a stone or the formation of a crystal. + +To the chemist and the microscopist the living body presents the same +difficulties, arising from the fact that everything is in perpetual +change in the organism. The fibrine of the blood puzzles the one as much +as its globules puzzle the other. The difference between the branches of +science which deal with space only, and those which deal with space and +time, is this: we have no glasses that can magnify time. The figure I +here show you a was photographed from an object (pleurosigma angulatum) +magnified a thousand diameters, or presenting a million times its natural +surface. This other figure of the same object, enlarged from the one +just shown, is magnified seven thousand diameters, or forty-nine million +times in surface. When we can make the forty-nine millionth of a second +as long as its integer, physiology and chemistry will approach nearer the +completeness of anatomy. + +Our reverence becomes more worthy, or, if you will, less unworthy of its +Infinite Object in proportion as our intelligence is lifted and expanded +to a higher and broader understanding of the Divine methods of action. +If Galen called his heathen readers to admire, the power, the wisdom, the +providence, the goodness of the "Framer of the animal body,"--if Mr. +Boyle, the student of nature, as Addison and that friend of his who had +known him for forty years tell us, never uttered the name of the Supreme +Being without making a distinct pause in his speech, in token of his +devout recognition of its awful meaning,--surely we, who inherit the +accumulated wisdom of nearly two hundred years since the time of the +British philosopher, and of almost two thousand since the Greek +physician, may well lift our thoughts from the works we study to their +great Artificer. These wonderful discoveries which we owe to that mighty +little instrument, the telescope of the inner firmament with all its +included worlds; these simple formulae by which we condense the +observations of a generation in a single axiom; these logical analyses by +which we fence out the ignorance we cannot reclaim, and fix the limits of +our knowledge,--all lead us up to the inspiration of the Almighty, which +gives understanding to the world's great teachers. To fear science or +knowledge, lest it disturb our old beliefs, is to fear the influx of the +Divine wisdom into the souls of our fellow-men; for what is science but +the piecemeal revelation,--uncovering,--of the plan of creation, by the +agency of those chosen prophets of nature whom God has illuminated from +the central light of truth for that single purpose? + +The studies which we have glanced at are preliminary in your education to +the practical arts which make use of them,--the arts of healing,--surgery +and medicine. The more you examine the structure of the organs and the +laws of life, the more you will find how resolutely each of the +cell-republics which make up the E pluribus unum of the body maintains +its independence. Guard it, feed it, air it, warm it, exercise or rest +it properly, and the working elements will do their best to keep well or +to get well. What do we do with ailing vegetables? Dr. Warren, my +honored predecessor in this chair, bought a country-place, including half +of an old orchard. A few years afterwards I saw the trees on his side of +the fence looking in good health, while those on the other side were +scraggy and miserable. How do you suppose this change was brought about? +By watering them with Fowler's solution? By digging in calomel freely +about their roots? Not at all; but by loosening the soil round them, and +supplying them with the right kind of food in fitting quantities. + +Now a man is not a plant, or, at least, he is a very curious one, for he +carries his soil in his stomach, which is a kind--of portable flower-pot, +and he grows round it, instead of out of it. He has, besides, a +singularly complex nutritive apparatus and a nervous system. But +recollect the doctrine already enunciated in the language of Virchow, +that an animal, like a tree, is a sum of vital unities, of which the cell +is the ultimate element. Every healthy cell, whether in a vegetable or +an animal, necessarily performs its function properly so long as it is +supplied with its proper materials and stimuli. A cell may, it is true, +be congenitally defective, in which case disease is, so to speak, its +normal state. But if originally sound and subsequently diseased, there +has certainly been some excess, deficiency, or wrong quality in the +materials or stimuli applied to it. You remove this injurious influence +and substitute a normal one; remove the baked coal-ashes, for instance, +from the roots of a tree, and replace them with loam; take away the salt +meat from the patient's table, and replace it with fresh meat and +vegetables, and the cells of the tree or the man return to their duty. + +I do not know that we ever apply to a plant any element which is not a +natural constituent of the vegetable structure, except perhaps +externally, for the accidental purpose of killing parasites. The whole +art of cultivation consists in learning the proper food and conditions of +plants, and supplying them. We give them water, earths, salts of various +kinds such as they are made of, with a chance to help themselves to air +and light. The farmer would be laughed at who undertook to manure his +fields or his trees with a salt of lead or of arsenic. These elements +are not constituents of healthy plants. The gardener uses the waste of +the arsenic furnaces to kill the weeds in his walks. + +If the law of the animal cell, and of the animal organism, which is built +up of such cells, is like that of the vegetable, we might expect that we +should treat all morbid conditions of any of the vital unities belonging +to an animal in the same way, by increasing, diminishing, or changing its +natural food or stimuli. + +That is an aliment which nourishes; whatever we find in the organism, as +a constant and integral element, either forming part of its structure, or +one of the conditions of vital processes, that and that only deserves the +name of aliment. I see no reason, therefore, why iron, phosphate of +lime, sulphur, should not be considered food for man, as much as guano or +poudrette for vegetables. Whether one or another of them is best in any +given case,--whether they shall be taken alone or in combination, in +large or small quantities, are separate questions. But they are elements +belonging to the body, and even in moderate excess will produce little +disturbance. There is no presumption against any of this class of +substances, any more than against water or salt, provided they are used +in fitting combinations, proportions, and forms. + +But when it comes to substances alien to the healthy system, which never +belong to it as normal constituents, the case is very different. There +is a presumption against putting lead or arsenic into the human body, as +against putting them into plants, because they do not belong there, any +more than pounded glass, which, it is said, used to be given as a poison. +The same thing is true of mercury and silver. What becomes of these +alien substances after they get into the system we cannot always tell. +But in the case of silver, from the accident of its changing color under +the influence of light, we do know what happens. It is thrown out, in +part at least, under the epidermis, and there it remains to the patient's +dying day. This is a striking illustration of the difficulty which the +system finds in dealing with non-assimilable elements, and justifies in +some measure the vulgar prejudice against mineral poisons. + +I trust the youngest student on these benches will not commit the +childish error of confounding a presumption against a particular class of +agents with a condemnation of them. Mercury, for instance, is alien to +the system, and eminently disturbing in its influence. Yet its efficacy +in certain forms of specific disease is acknowledged by all but the most +sceptical theorists. Even the esprit moqueur of Ricord, the Voltaire of +pelvic literature, submits to the time-honored constitutional authority +of this great panacea in the class of cases to which he has devoted his +brilliant intelligence. Still, there is no telling what evils have +arisen from the abuse of this mineral. Dr. Armstrong long ago pointed +out some of them, and they have become matters of common notoriety. I am +pleased, therefore, when I find so able and experienced a practitioner as +Dr. Williams of this city proving that iritis is best treated without +mercury, and Dr. Vanderpoel showing the same thing to be true for +pericarditis. + +Whatever elements nature does not introduce into vegetables, the natural +food of all animal life,--directly of herbivorous, indirectly of +carnivorous animals,--are to be regarded with suspicion. Arsenic-eating +may seem to improve the condition of horses for a time,--and even of +human beings, if Tschudi's stories can be trusted,--but it soon appears +that its alien qualities are at war with the animal organization. So of +copper, antimony, and other non-alimentary simple substances; everyone of +them is an intruder in the living system, as much as a constable would +be, quartered in our household. This does not mean that they may not, any +of them, be called in for a special need, as we send for the constable +when we have good reason to think we have a thief under our roof; but a +man's body is his castle, as well as his house, and the presumption is +that we are to keep our alimentary doors bolted against these perturbing +agents. + +Now the feeling is very apt to be just contrary to this. The habit has +been very general with well-taught practitioners, to have recourse to the +introduction of these alien elements into the system on the occasion of +any slight disturbance. The tongue was a little coated, and mercury must +be given; the skin was a little dry, and the patient must take antimony. +It was like sending for the constable and the posse comitatus when there +is only a carpet to shake or a refuse-barrel to empty. [Dr. James Johnson +advises persons not ailing to take five grains of blue pill with one or +two of aloes twice a week for three or four months in the year, with half +a pint of compound decoction of sarsaparilla every day for the same +period, to preserve health and prolong life. Pract. Treatise on Dis. +of Liver, etc. p. 272.] The constitution bears slow poisoning a great +deal better than might be expected; yet the most intelligent men in the +profession have gradually got out of the habit of prescribing these +powerful alien substances in the old routine way. Mr. Metcalf will tell +you how much more sparingly they are given by our practitioners at the +present time, than when he first inaugurated the new era of pharmacy +among us. Still, the presumption in favor of poisoning out every +spontaneous reaction of outraged nature is not extinct in those who are +trusted with the lives of their fellow-citizens. "On examining the file +of prescriptions at the hospital, I discovered that they were rudely +written, and indicated a treatment, as they consisted chiefly of tartar +emetic, ipecacuanha, and epsom salts, hardly favorable to the cure of the +prevailing diarrhoea and dysenteries." In a report of a poisoning case +now on trial, where we are told that arsenic enough was found in the +stomach to produce death in twenty-four hours, the patient is said to +have been treated by arsenic, phosphorus, bryonia, aconite, nux vomica, +and muriatic acid,--by a practitioner of what school it may be imagined. + +The traditional idea of always poisoning out disease, as we smoke out +vermin, is now seeking its last refuge behind the wooden cannon and +painted port-holes of that unblushing system of false scientific +pretences which I do not care to name in a discourse addressed to an +audience devoted to the study of the laws of nature in the light of the +laws of evidence. It is extraordinary to observe that the system which, +by its reducing medicine to a name and a farce, has accustomed all who +have sense enough to see through its thin artifices to the idea that +diseases get well without being "cured," should now be the main support +of the tottering poison-cure doctrine. It has unquestionably helped to +teach wise people that nature heals most diseases without help from +pharmaceutic art, but it continues to persuade fools that art can arrest +them all with its specifics. + +It is worse than useless to attempt in any way to check the freest +expression of opinion as to the efficacy of any or all of the "heroic" +means of treatment employed by practitioners of different schools and +periods. Medical experience is a great thing, but we must not forget +that there is a higher experience, which tries its results in a court of +a still larger jurisdiction; that, namely, in which the laws of human +belief are summoned to the witness-box, and obliged to testify to the +sources of error which beset the medical practitioner. The verdict is as +old as the father of medicine, who announces it in the words, "judgment +is difficult." Physicians differed so in his time, that some denied that +there was any such thing as an art of medicine. + +One man's best remedies were held as mischievous by another. The art of +healing was like soothsaying, so the common people said; "the same bird +was lucky or unlucky, according as he flew to the right or left." + +The practice of medicine has undergone great changes within the period of +my own observation. Venesection, for instance, has so far gone out of +fashion, that, as I am told by residents of the New York Bellevue and the +Massachusetts General Hospitals, it is almost obsolete in these +institutions, at least in medical practice. The old Brunonian +stimulating treatment has come into vogue again in the practice of Dr. +Todd and his followers. The compounds of mercury have yielded their +place as drugs of all work, and specifics for that very frequent +subjective complaint, nescio quid faciam,--to compounds of iodine. [Sir +Astley Cooper has the boldness,--or honesty,--to speak of medicines which +"are given as much to assist the medical man as his patient." Lectures +(London, 1832), p. 14.] Opium is believed in, and quinine, and "rum," +using that expressive monosyllable to mean all alcoholic cordials. If +Moliere were writing now, instead of saignare, purgare, and the other, he +would be more like to say, Stimulare, opium dare et potassio-iodizare. + +I have been in relation successively with the English and American +evacuant and alterative practice, in which calomel and antimony figured +so largely that, as you may see in Dr. Jackson's last "Letter," Dr. +Holyoke, a good representative of sterling old-fashioned medical art, +counted them with opium and Peruvian bark as his chief remedies; with the +moderately expectant practice of Louis; the blood-letting "coup sur coup" +of Bouillaud; the contra-stimulant method of Rasori and his followers; +the anti-irritant system of Broussais, with its leeching and gum-water; I +have heard from our own students of the simple opium practice of the +renowned German teacher, Oppolzer; and now I find the medical community +brought round by the revolving cycle of opinion to that same old plan of +treatment which John Brown taught in Edinburgh in the last quarter of the +last century, and Miner and Tully fiercely advocated among ourselves in +the early years of the present. The worthy physicians last mentioned, +and their antagonist Dr. Gallup, used stronger language than we of these +degenerate days permit ourselves. "The lancet is a weapon which annually +slays more than the sword," says Dr. Tully. "It is probable that, for +forty years past, opium and its preparations have done seven times the +injury they have rendered benefit, on the great scale of the world," says +Dr. Gallup. + +What is the meaning of these perpetual changes and conflicts of medical +opinion and practice, from an early antiquity to our own time? Simply +this: all "methods" of treatment end in disappointment of those +extravagant expectations which men are wont to entertain of medical art. +The bills of mortality are more obviously affected by drainage, than by +this or that method of practice. The insurance companies do not commonly +charge a different percentage on the lives of the patients of this or +that physician. In the course of a generation, more or less, physicians +themselves are liable to get tired of a practice which has so little +effect upon the average movement of vital decomposition. Then they are +ready for a change, even if it were back again to a method which has +already been tried, and found wanting. + +Our practitioners, or many of them, have got back to the ways of old Dr. +Samuel Danforth, who, as it is well known, had strong objections to the +use of the lancet. By and by a new reputation will be made by some +discontented practitioner, who, tired of seeing patients die with their +skins full of whiskey and their brains muddy with opium, returns to a +bold antiphlogistic treatment, and has the luck to see a few patients of +note get well under it. So of the remedies which have gone out of +fashion and been superseded by others. It can hardly be doubted that +they will come into vogue again, more or less extensively, under the +influence of that irresistible demand for change just referred to. + +Then will come the usual talk about a change in the character of disease, +which has about as much meaning as that concerning "old-fashioned +snow-storms." "Epidemic constitutions" of disease mean something, no +doubt; a great deal as applied to malarious affections; but that the +whole type of diseases undergoes such changes that the practice must be +reversed from depleting to stimulating, and vice versa, is much less +likely than that methods of treatment go out of fashion and come in +again. If there is any disease which claims its percentage with +reasonable uniformity, it is phthisis. Yet I remember that the reverend +and venerable Dr. Prince of Salem told me one Commencement day, as I was +jogging along towards Cambridge with him, that he recollected the time +when that disease was hardly hardly known; and in confirmation of his +statement mentioned a case in which it was told as a great event, that +somebody down on "the Cape" had died of "a consumption." This story does +not sound probable to myself, as I repeat it, yet I assure you it is +true, and it shows how cautiously we must receive all popular stories of +great changes in the habits of disease. + +Is there no progress, then, but do we return to the same beliefs and +practices which our forefathers wore out and threw away? I trust and +believe that there is a real progress. We may, for instance, return in a +measure to the Brunonian stimulating system, but it must be in a modified +way, for we cannot go back to the simple Brunonian pathology, since we +have learned too much of diseased action to accept its convenient +dualism. So of other doctrines, each new Avatar strips them of some of +their old pretensions, until they take their fitting place at last, if +they have any truth in them, or disappear, if they were mere phantasms of +the imagination. + +In the mean time, while medical theories are coming in and going out, +there is a set of sensible men who are never run away with by them, but +practise their art sagaciously and faithfully in much the same way from +generation to generation. From the time of Hippocrates to that of our +own medical patriarch, there has been an apostolic succession of wise and +good practitioners. If you will look at the first aphorism of the +ancient Master you will see that before all remedies he places the proper +conduct of the patient and his attendants, and the fit ordering of all +the conditions surrounding him. The class of practitioners I have +referred to have always been the most faithful in attending to these +points. No doubt they have sometimes prescribed unwisely, in compliance +with the prejudices of their time, but they have grown wiser as they have +grown older, and learned to trust more in nature and less in their plans +of interference. I believe common opinion confirms Sir James Clark's +observation to this effect. + +The experience of the profession must, I think, run parallel with that of +the wisest of its individual members. Each time a plan of treatment or a +particular remedy comes up for trial, it is submitted to a sharper +scrutiny. When Cullen wrote his Materia Medica, he had seriously to +assail the practice of giving burnt toad, which was still countenanced by +at least one medical authority of note. I have read recently in some +medical journal, that an American practitioner, whose name is known to +the country, is prescribing the hoof of a horse for epilepsy. It was +doubtless suggested by that old fancy of wearing a portion of elk's hoof +hung round the neck or in a ring, for this disease. But it is hard to +persuade reasonable people to swallow the abominations of a former +period. The evidence which satisfied Fernelius will not serve one of our +hospital physicians. + +In this way those articles of the Materia Medica which had nothing but +loathsomeness to recommend them have been gradually dropped, and are not +like to obtain any general favor again with civilized communities. The +next culprits to be tried are the poisons. I have never been in the +least sceptical as to the utility of some of them, when properly +employed. Though I believe that at present, taking the world at large, +and leaving out a few powerful agents of such immense value that they +rank next to food in importance, the poisons prescribed for disease do +more hurt than good, I have no doubt, and never professed to have any, +that they do much good in prudent and instructed hands. But I am very +willing to confess a great jealousy of many agents, and I could almost +wish to see the Materia Medica so classed as to call suspicion upon +certain ones among them. + +Thus the alien elements, those which do not properly enter into the +composition of any living tissue, are the most to be suspected, +--mercury, lead, antimony, silver, and the rest, for the reasons I have +before mentioned. Even iodine, which, as it is found in certain plants, +seems less remote from the animal tissues, gives unequivocal proofs from +time to time that it is hostile to some portions of the glandular system. + +There is, of course, less prima facie objection to those agents which +consist of assimilable elements, such as are found making a part of +healthy tissues. These are divisible into three classes,--foods, +poisons, and inert, mostly because insoluble, substances. The food of +one animal or of one human being is sometimes poison to another, and vice +versa; inert substances may act mechanically, so as to produce the effect +of poisons; but this division holds exactly enough for our purpose. + +Strictly speaking, every poison consisting of assimilable elements may be +considered as unwholesome food. It is rejected by the stomach, or it +produces diarrhoea, or it causes vertigo or disturbance of the heart's +action, or some other symptom for which the subject of it would consult +the physician, if it came on from any other cause than taking it under +the name of medicine. Yet portions of this unwholesome food which we +call medicine, we have reason to believe, are assimilated; thus, +castor-oil appears to be partially digested by infants, so that they +require large doses to affect them medicinally. Even that deadliest of +poisons, hydrocyanic acid, is probably assimilated, and helps to make +living tissue, if it do not kill the patient, for the assimilable +elements which it contains, given in the separate forms of amygdalin and +emulsin, produce no disturbance, unless, as in Bernard's experiments, +they are suffered to meet in the digestive organs. A medicine consisting +of assimilable substances being then simply unwholesome food, we +understand what is meant by those cumulative effects of such remedies +often observed, as in the case of digitalis and strychnia. They are +precisely similar to the cumulative effects of a salt diet in producing +scurvy, or of spurred rye in producing dry gangrene. As the effects of +such substances are a violence to the organs, we should exercise the same +caution with regard to their use that we would exercise about any other +kind of poisonous food,--partridges at certain seasons, for instance. +Even where these poisonous kinds of food seem to be useful, we should +still regard them with great jealousy. Digitalis lowers the pulse in +febrile conditions. Veratrum viride does the same thing. How do we know +that a rapid pulse is not a normal adjustment of nature to the condition +it accompanies? Digitalis has gone out of favor; how sure are we that +Veratrum viride will not be found to do more harm than good in a case of +internal inflammation, taking the whole course of the disease into +consideration? Think of the change of opinion with regard to the use of +opium in delirium tremens (which you remember is sometimes called +delirium vigilans), where it seemed so obviously indicated, since the +publication of Dr. Ware's admirable essay. I respect the evidence of my +contemporaries, but I cannot forget the sayings of the Father of +medicine,--Ars longa, judicium diffcile. + +I am not presuming to express an opinion concerning Veratrum viride, +which was little heard of when I was still practising medicine. I am +only appealing to that higher court of experience which sits in judgment +on all decisions of the lower medical tribunals, and which requires more +than one generation for its final verdict. + +Once change the habit of mind so long prevalent among practitioners of +medicine; once let it be everywhere understood that the presumption is in +favor of food, and not of alien substances, of innocuous, and not of +unwholesome food, for the sick; that this presumption requires very +strong evidence in each particular case to overcome it; but that, when +such evidence is afforded, the alien substance or the unwholesome food +should be given boldly, in sufficient quantities, in the same spirit as +that with which the surgeon lifts his knife against a patient,--that is, +with the same reluctance and the same determination,--and I think we +shall have and hear much less of charlatanism in and out of the +profession. The disgrace of medicine has been that colossal system of +self-deception, in obedience to which mines have been emptied of their +cankering minerals, the vegetable kingdom robbed of all its noxious +growths, the entrails of animals taxed for their impurities, the +poison-bags of reptiles drained of their venom, and all the inconceivable +abominations thus obtained thrust down the throats of human beings +suffering from some fault of organization, nourishment, or vital +stimulation. + +Much as we have gained, we have not yet thoroughly shaken off the notion +that poison is the natural food of disease, as wholesome aliment is the +support of health. Cowper's lines, in "The Task," show the +matter-of-course practice of his time: + + "He does not scorn it, who has long endured + A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs." + +Dr. Kimball of Lowell, who has been in the habit of seeing a great deal +more of typhoid fever than most practitioners, and whose surgical +exploits show him not to be wanting in boldness or enterprise, can tell +you whether he finds it necessary to feed his patients on drugs or not. +His experience is, I believe, that of the most enlightened and advanced +portion of the profession; yet I think that even in typhoid fever, and +certainly in many other complaints, the effects of ancient habits and +prejudices may still be seen in the practice of some educated physicians. + +To you, young men, it belongs to judge all that has gone before you. You +come nearer to the great fathers of modern medicine than some of you +imagine. Three of my own instructors attended Dr. Rush's Lectures. The +illustrious Haller mentions Rush's inaugural thesis in his "Bibliotheca +Anatomica;" and this same Haller, brought so close to us, tells us he +remembers Ruysch, then an old man, and used to carry letters between him +and Boerhaave. Look through the history of medicine from Boerhaave to +this present day. You will see at once that medical doctrine and +practice have undergone a long series of changes. You will see that the +doctrine and practice of our own time must probably change in their turn, +and that, if we can trust at all to the indications of their course, it +will be in the direction of an improved hygiene and a simplified +treatment. Especially will the old habit of violating the instincts of +the sick give place to a judicious study of these same instincts. It +will be found that bodily, like mental insanity, is best managed, for the +most part, by natural soothing agencies. Two centuries ago there was a +prescription for scurvy containing "stercoris taurini et anserini par, +quantitas trium magnarum nucum," of the hell-broth containing which +"guoties-cumque sitit oeger, large bibit." When I have recalled the +humane common-sense of Captain Cook in the matter of preventing this +disease; when I have heard my friend, Mr. Dana, describing the avidity +with which the scurvy-stricken sailors snuffed up the earthy fragrance of +fresh raw potatoes, the food which was to supply the elements wanting to +their spongy tissues, I have recognized that the perfection of art is +often a return to nature, and seen in this single instance the germ of +innumerable beneficent future medical reforms. + +I cannot help believing that medical curative treatment will by and by +resolve itself in great measure into modifications of the food, swallowed +and breathed, and of the natural stimuli, and that less will be expected +from specifics and noxious disturbing agents, either alien or +assimilable. The noted mineral-waters containing iron, sulphur, carbonic +acid, supply nutritious or stimulating materials to the body as much as +phosphate of lime and ammoniacal compounds do to the cereal plants. The +effects of a milk and vegetable diet, of gluten bread in diabetes, of +cod-liver oil in phthisis, even of such audacious innovations as the +water-cure and the grape-cure, are only hints of what will be +accomplished when we have learned to discover what organic elements are +deficient or in excess in a case of chronic disease, and the best way of +correcting the abnormal condition, just as an agriculturist ascertains +the wants of his crops and modifies the composition of his soil. In +acute febrile diseases we have long ago discovered that far above all +drug-medication is the use of mild liquid diet in the period of +excitement, and of stimulant and nutritious food in that of exhaustion. +Hippocrates himself was as particular about his barley-ptisan as any +Florence Nightingale of our time could be. + +The generation to which you, who are just entering the profession, +belong, will make a vast stride forward, as I believe, in the direction +of treatment by natural rather than violent agencies. What is it that +makes the reputation of Sydenham, as the chief of English physicians? +His prescriptions consisted principally of simples. An aperient or an +opiate, a "cardiac" or a tonic, may be commonly found in the midst of a +somewhat fantastic miscellany of garden herbs. It was not by his +pharmaceutic prescriptions that he gained his great name. It was by +daring to order fresh air for small-pox patients, and riding on horseback +for consumptives, in place of the smothering system, and the noxious and +often loathsome rubbish of the established schools. Of course Sydenham +was much abused by his contemporaries, as he frequently takes occasion to +remind his reader. "I must needs conclude," he says, "either that I am +void of merit, or that the candid and ingenuous part of mankind, who are +formed with so excellent a temper of mind as to be no strangers to +gratitude, make a very small part of the whole." If in the fearless +pursuit of truth you should find the world as ungracious in the +nineteenth century as he found it in the seventeenth, you may learn a +lesson of self-reliance from another utterance of the same illustrious +physician: "'T is none of my business to inquire what other persons +think, but to establish my own observations; in order to which, I ask no +favor of the reader but to peruse my writings with temper." + +The physician has learned a great deal from the surgeon, who is naturally +in advance of him, because he has a better opportunity of seeing the +effects of his remedies. Let me shorten one of Ambroise Pare's stories +for you. There had been a great victory at the pass of Susa, and they +were riding into the city. The wounded cried out as the horses trampled +them under their hoofs, which caused good Ambroise great pity, and made +him wish himself back in Paris. Going into a stable he saw four dead +soldiers, and three desperately wounded, placed with their backs against +the wall. An old campaigner came up.--"Can these fellows get well?" he +said. "No!" answered the surgeon. Thereupon, the old soldier walked up +to them and cut all their throats, sweetly, and without wrath (doulcement +et sans cholere). Ambroise told him he was a bad man to do such a thing. +"I hope to God;" he said, "somebody will do as much for me if I ever get +into such a scrape" (accoustre de telle facon). "I was not much salted +in those days" (bien doux de sel), says Ambroise, "and little acquainted +with the treatment of wounds." However, as he tells us, he proceeded to +apply boiling oil of Sambuc (elder) after the approved fashion of the +time,--with what torture to the patient may be guessed. At last his +precious oil gave out, and he used instead an insignificant mixture of +his own contrivance. He could not sleep that night for fear his patients +who had not been scalded with the boiling oil would be poisoned by the +gunpowder conveyed into their wounds by the balls. To his surprise, he +found them much better than the others the next morning, and resolved +never again to burn his patients with hot oil for gun-shot wounds. + +This was the beginning, as nearly as we can fix it, of that reform which +has introduced plain water-dressings in the place of the farrago of +external applications which had been a source of profit to apothecaries +and disgrace to art from, and before, the time when Pliny complained of +them. A young surgeon who was at Sudley Church, laboring among the +wounded of Bull Run, tells me they had nothing but water for dressing, +and he (being also doux de sel) was astonished to see how well the wounds +did under that simple treatment. + +Let me here mention a fact or two which may be of use to some of you who +mean to enter the public service. You will, as it seems, have gun-shot +wounds almost exclusively to deal with. Three different surgeons, the +one just mentioned and two who saw the wounded of Big Bethel, assured me +that they found no sabre-cuts or bayonet wounds. It is the rifle-bullet +from a safe distance which pierces the breasts of our soldiers, and not +the gallant charge of broad platoons and sweeping squadrons, such as we +have been in the habit of considering the chosen mode of warfare of +ancient and modern chivalry. [Sir Charles James Napier had the same +experience in Virginia in 1813. "Potomac. We have nasty sort of fighting +here, amongst creeks and bushes, and lose men without show." "Yankee +never shows himself, he keeps in the thickest wood, fires and runs +off."--"These five thousand in the open field might be attacked, but +behind works it would be throwing away lives." He calls it "an +inglorious warfare,"--says one of the leaders is "a little deficient in +gumption,"--but--still my opinion is, that if we tuck up our sleeves and +lay our ears back we might thrash them; that is, if we caught them out of +their trees, so as to slap at them with the bayonet."--Life, etc. vol. +i. p. 218 et seq.] + +Another fact parallels the story of the old campaigner, and may teach +some of you caution in selecting your assistants. A chaplain told it to +two of our officers personally known to myself. He overheard the +examination of a man who wished to drive one of the "avalanche" wagons, +as they call them. The man was asked if he knew how to deal with wounded +men. "Oh yes," he answered; "if they're hit here," pointing to the +abdomen, "knock 'em on the head,--they can't get well." + +In art and outside of it you will meet the same barbarisms that Ambroise +Pare met with,--for men differ less from century to century than we are +apt to suppose; you will encounter the same opposition, if you attack any +prevailing opinion, that Sydenham complained of. So far as possible, let +not such experiences breed in you a contempt for those who are the +subjects of folly or prejudice, or foster any love of dispute for its own +sake. Should you become authors, express your opinions freely; defend +them rarely. It is not often that an opinion is worth expressing, which +cannot take care of itself. Opposition is the best mordant to fix the +color of your thought in the general belief. + +It is time to bring these crowded remarks to a close. The day has been +when at the beginning of a course of Lectures I should have thought it +fitting to exhort you to diligence and entire devotion to your tasks as +students. It is not so now. The young man who has not heard the +clarion-voices of honor and of duty now sounding throughout the land, +will heed no word of mine. In the camp or the city, in the field or the +hospital, under sheltering roof, or half-protecting canvas, or open sky, +shedding our own blood or stanching that of our wounded defenders, +students or teachers, whatever our calling and our ability, we belong, +not to ourselves, but to our imperilled country, whose danger is our +calamity, whose ruin would be our enslavement, whose rescue shall be our +earthly salvation! + + + + +SCHOLASTIC AND BEDSIDE TEACHING. + +An Introductory Lecture delivered before the Medical Class of Harvard +University, November 6, 1867. + +The idea is entertained by some of our most sincere professional +brethren, that to lengthen and multiply our Winter Lectures will be of +necessity to advance the cause of medical education. It is a fair +subject for consideration whether they do not overrate the relative +importance of that particular mode of instruction which forms the larger +part of these courses. + +As this School could only lengthen its lecture term at the expense of its +"Summer Session," in which more direct, personal, and familiar teaching +takes the place of our academic discourses, and in which more time can be +given to hospitals, infirmaries, and practical instruction in various +important specialties, whatever might be gained, a good deal would +certainly be lost in our case by the exchange. + +The most essential part of a student's instruction is obtained, as I +believe, not in the lecture-room, but at the bedside. Nothing seen there +is lost; the rhythms of disease are learned by frequent repetition; its +unforeseen occurrences stamp themselves indelibly in the memory. Before +the student is aware of what he has acquired, he has learned the aspects +and course and probable issue of the diseases he has seen with his +teacher, and the proper mode of dealing with them, so far as his master +knows it. On the other hand, our ex cathedra prelections have a strong +tendency to run into details which, however interesting they may be to +ourselves and a few of our more curious listeners, have nothing in them +which will ever be of use to the student as a practitioner. It is a +perfectly fair question whether I and some other American Professors do +not teach quite enough that is useless already. Is it not well to remind +the student from time to time that a physician's business is to avert +disease, to heal the sick, to prolong life, and to diminish suffering? +Is it not true that the young man of average ability will find it as much +as he can do to fit himself for these simple duties? Is it not best to +begin, at any rate, by making sure of such knowledge as he will require +in his daily walk, by no means discouraging him from any study for which +his genius fits him when he once feels that he has become master of his +chosen art. + +I know that many branches of science are of the greatest value as feeders +of our medical reservoirs. But the practising physician's office is to +draw the healing waters, and while he gives his time to this labor he can +hardly be expected to explore all the sources that spread themselves over +the wide domain of science. The traveller who would not drink of the +Nile until he had tracked it to its parent lakes, would be like to die of +thirst; and the medical practitioner who would not use the results of +many laborers in other departments without sharing their special toils, +would find life far too short and art immeasurably too long. + +We owe much to Chemistry, one of the most captivating as well as +important of studies; but the medical man must as a general rule content +himself with a clear view of its principles and a limited acquaintance +with its facts; such especially as are pertinent to his pursuits. I am +in little danger of underrating Anatomy or Physiology; but as each of +these branches splits up into specialties, any one of which may take up a +scientific life-time, I would have them taught with a certain judgment +and reserve, so that they shall not crowd the more immediately practical +branches. So of all the other ancillary and auxiliary kinds of +knowledge, I would have them strictly subordinated to that particular +kind of knowledge for which the community looks to its medical advisers. + +A medical school is not a scientific school, except just so far as +medicine itself is a science. On the natural history side, medicine is a +science; on the curative side, chiefly an art. This is implied in +Hufeland's aphorism: "The physician must generalize the disease and +individualize the patient." + +The coordinated and classified results of empirical observation, in +distinction from scientific experiment, have furnished almost all we know +about food, the medicine of health, and medicine, the food of sickness. +We eat the root of the Solanum tuberosum and throw away its fruit; we eat +the fruit of the Solanum Lycopersicum and throw away its root. Nothing +but vulgar experience has taught us to reject the potato ball and cook +the tomato. So of most of our remedies. The subchloride of mercury, +calomel, is the great British specific; the protochloride of mercury, +corrosive sublimate, kills like arsenic, but no chemist could have told +us it would be so. + +From observations like these we can obtain certain principles from which +we can argue deductively to facts of a like nature, but the process is +limited, and we are suspicious of all reasoning in that direction applied +to the processes of healthy and diseased life. We are continually +appealing to special facts. We are willing to give Liebig's artificial +milk when we cannot do better, but we watch the child anxiously whose +wet-nurse is a chemist's pipkin. A pair of substantial mammary glands +has the advantage over the two hemispheres of the most learned +Professor's brain, in the art of compounding a nutritious fluid for +infants. + +The bedside is always the true centre of medical teaching. Certain +branches must be taught in the lecture-room, and will necessarily involve +a good deal that is not directly useful to the future practitioner. But +the over ambitious and active student must not be led away by the +seduction of knowledge for its own sake from his principal pursuit. The +humble beginner, who is alarmed at the vast fields of knowledge opened to +him, may be encouraged by the assurance that with a very slender +provision of science, in distinction from practical skill, he may be a +useful and acceptable member of the profession to which the health of the +community is intrusted. + +To those who are not to engage in practice, the various pursuits of +science hardly require to be commended. Only they must not be +disappointed if they find many subjects treated in our courses as a +medical class requires, rather than as a scientific class would expect, +that is, with special limitations and constant reference to practical +ends. Fortunately they are within easy reach of the highest scientific +instruction. The business of a school like this is to make useful +working physicians, and to succeed in this it is almost as important not +to overcrowd the mind of the pupil with merely curious knowledge as it is +to store it with useful information. + +In this direction I have written my lecture, not to undervalue any form +of scientific labor in its place, an unworthy thought from which I hope I +need not defend myself,--but to discourage any undue inflation of the +scholastic programme, which even now asks more of the student than the +teacher is able to obtain from the great majority of those who present +themselves for examination. I wish to take a hint in education from the +Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, who regards the +cultivation of too much land as a great defect in our New England +farming. I hope that our Medical Institutions may never lay themselves +open to the kind of accusation Mr. Lowe brings against the English +Universities, when he says that their education is made up "of words that +few understand and most will shortly forget; of arts that can never be +used, if indeed they can even be learnt; of histories inapplicable to our +times; of languages dead and even mouldy; of grammatical rules that never +had living use and are only post mortem examinations; and of statements +fagoted with utter disregard of their comparative value." + +This general thought will be kept in view throughout my somewhat +discursive address, which will begin with an imaginary clinical lesson +from the lips of an historical personage, and close with the portrait +from real life of one who, both as teacher and practitioner, was long +loved and honored among us. If I somewhat overrun my hour, you must +pardon me, for I can say with Pascal that I have not had the time to make +my lecture shorter. + +In the year 1647, that good man John Eliot, commonly called the Apostle +Eliot, writing to Mr. Thomas Shepherd, the pious minister of Cambridge, +referring to the great need of medical instruction for the Indians, used +these words: + +"I have thought in my heart that it were a singular good work, if the +Lord would stirre up the hearts of some or other of his people in England +to give some maintenance toward some Schoole or Collegiate exercise this +way, wherein there should be Anatomies and other instructions that way, +and where there might be some recompence given to any that should bring +in any vegetable or other thing that is vertuous in the way of Physick. + +"There is another reason which moves my thought and desires this way, +namely that our young students in Physick may be trained up better then +they yet bee, who have onely theoreticall knowledge, and are forced to +fall to practise before ever they saw an Anatomy made, or duely trained +up in making experiments, for we never had but one Anatomy in the +countrey, which Mr. Giles Firman [Firmin] now in England, did make and +read upon very well, but no more of that now." + +Since the time of the Apostle Eliot the Lord has stirred up the hearts of +our people to the building of many Schools and Colleges where medicine is +taught in all its branches. Mr. Giles Firmin's "Anatomy" may be +considered the first ancestor of a long line of skeletons which have been +dangling and rattling in our lecture-rooms for more than a century. + +Teaching in New England in 1647 was a grave but simple matter. A single +person, combining in many cases, as in that of Mr. Giles Firmin, the +offices of physician and preacher, taught what he knew to a few disciples +whom he gathered about him. Of the making of that "Anatomy" on which my +first predecessor in the branch I teach "did read very well" we can know +nothing. The body of some poor wretch who had swung upon the gallows, +was probably conveyed by night to some lonely dwelling at the outskirts +of the village, and there by the light of flaring torches hastily +dissected by hands that trembled over the unwonted task. And ever and +anon the master turned to his book, as he laid bare the mysteries of the +hidden organs; to his precious Vesalius, it might be, or his figures +repeated in the multifarious volume of Ambroise Pare; to the Aldine +octavo in which Fallopius recorded his fresh observations; or that giant +folio of Spigelius just issued from the press of Amsterdam, in which +lovely ladies display their viscera with a coquettish grace implying that +it is rather a pleasure than otherwise to show the lace-like omentum, and +hold up their appendices epiploicae as if they were saying "these are our +jewels." + +His teaching of medicine was no doubt chiefly clinical, and received with +the same kind of faith as that which accepted his words from the pulpit. +His notions of disease were based on what he had observed, seen always in +the light of the traditional doctrines in which he was bred. His +discourse savored of the weighty doctrines of Hippocrates, diluted by the +subtle speculations of Galen, reinforced by the curious comments of the +Arabian schoolmen as they were conveyed in the mellifluous language of +Fernelius, blended, it may be, with something of the lofty mysticism of +Van Helmont, and perhaps stealing a flavor of that earlier form of +Homoeopathy which had lately come to light in Sir Kenelm Digby's +"Discourse concerning the Cure of Wounds by the Sympathetic Powder." + +His Pathology was mythology. A malformed foetus, as the readers of +Winthrop's Journal may remember, was enough to scare the colonists from +their propriety, and suggest the gravest fears of portended disaster. +The student of the seventeenth century opened his Licetus and saw figures +of a lion with the head of a woman, and a man with the head of an +elephant. He had offered to his gaze, as born of a human mother, the +effigy of a winged cherub, a pterocephalous specimen, which our Professor +of Pathological Anatomy would hardly know whether to treat with the +reverence due to its celestial aspect, or to imprison in one of his +immortalizing jars of alcohol. + +His pharmacopoeia consisted mainly of simples, such as the venerable +"Herball" of Gerard describes and figures in abounding affluence. St. +John's wort and Clown's All-heal, with Spurge and Fennel, Saffron and +Parsley, Elder and Snake-root, with opium in some form, and roasted +rhubarb and the Four Great Cold Seeds, and the two Resins, of which it +used to be said that whatever the Tacamahaca has not cured, the Caranna +will, with the more familiar Scammony and Jalap and Black Hellebore, made +up a good part of his probable list of remedies. He would have ordered +Iron now and then, and possibly an occasional dose of Antimony. He would +perhaps have had a rheumatic patient wrapped in the skin of a wolf or a +wild cat, and in case of a malignant fever with "purples" or petechiae, +or of an obstinate king's evil, he might have prescribed a certain black +powder, which had been made by calcining toads in an earthen pot; a +choice remedy, taken internally, or applied to any outward grief. + +Except for the toad-powder and the peremptory drastics, one might have +borne up against this herb doctoring as well as against some more modern +styles of medication. Barbeyrac and his scholar Sydenham had not yet +cleansed the Pharmacopoeia of its perilous stuff, but there is no doubt +that the more sensible physicians of that day knew well enough that a +good honest herb-tea which amused the patient and his nurses was all that +was required to carry him through all common disorders. + +The student soon learned the physiognomy of disease by going about with +his master; fevers, pleurisies, asthmas, dropsies, fluxes, small-pox, +sore-throats, measles, consumptions. He saw what was done for them. He +put up the medicines, gathered the herbs, and so learned something of +materia medico and botany. He learned these few things easily and well, +for he could give his whole attention to them. Chirurgery was a separate +specialty. Women in child-birth were cared for by midwives. There was +no chemistry deserving the name to require his study. He did not learn a +great deal, perhaps, but what he did learn was his business, namely, how +to take care of sick people. + +Let me give you a picture of the old=fashioned way of instruction, by +carrying you with me in imagination in the company of worthy Master Giles +Firmin as he makes his round of visits among the good folk of Ipswich, +followed by his one student, who shall answer to the scriptural name of +Luke. It will not be for entertainment chiefly, but to illustrate the +one mode of teaching which can never be superseded, and which, I venture +to say, is more important than all the rest put together. The student is +a green hand, as you will perceive. + +In the first dwelling they come to, a stout fellow is bellowing with +colic. + +"He will die, Master, of a surety, methinks," says the timid youth in a +whisper. + +"Nay, Luke," the Master answers, "'t is but a dry belly-ache. Didst thou +not mark that he stayed his roaring when I did press hard over the lesser +bowels? Note that he hath not the pulse of them with fevers, and by what +Dorcas telleth me there hath been no long shutting up of the vice +naturales. We will steep certain comforting herbs which I will shew +thee, and put them in a bag and lay them on his belly. Likewise he shall +have my cordial julep with a portion of this confection which we do call +Theriaca Andromachi, which hath juice of poppy in it, and is a great +stayer of anguish. This fellow is at his prayers to-day, but I warrant +thee he shall be swearing with the best of them to-morrow." + +They jog along the bridle-path on their horses until they come to another +lowly dwelling. They sit a while with a delicate looking girl in whom +the ingenuous youth naturally takes a special interest. The good +physician talks cheerfully with her, asks her a few questions. Then to +her mother: "Good-wife, Margaret hath somewhat profited, as she telleth, +by the goat's milk she hath taken night and morning. Do thou pluck a +maniple--that is an handful--of the plant called Maidenhair, and make a +syrup therewith as I have shewed thee. Let her take a cup full of the +same, fasting, before she sleepeth, also before she riseth from her bed." +And so they leave the house. + +"What thinkest thou, Luke, of the maid we have been visiting?" "She +seemeth not much ailing, Master, according to my poor judgment. For she +did say she was better. And she had a red cheek and a bright eye, and +she spake of being soon able to walk unto the meeting, and did seem +greatly hopeful, but spare of flesh, methought, and her voice something +hoarse, as of one that hath a defluxion, with some small coughing from a +cold, as she did say. Speak I not truly, Master, that she will be well +speedily?" + +"Yea, Luke, I do think she shall be well, and mayhap speedily. But it is +not here with us she shall be well. For that redness of the cheek is but +the sign of the fever which, after the Grecians, we do call the hectical; +and that shining of the eyes is but a sickly glazing, and they which do +every day get better and likewise thinner and weaker shall find that way +leadeth to the church-yard gate. This is the malady which the ancients +did call tubes, or the wasting disease, and some do name the consumption. +A disease whereof most that fall ailing do perish. This Margaret is not +long for earth--but she knoweth it not, and still hopeth." + +"Why, then, Master, didst thou give her of thy medicine, seeing that her +ail is unto death?" + +"Thou shalt learn, boy, that they which are sick must have somewhat +wherewith to busy their thoughts. There be some who do give these tabid +or consumptives a certain posset made with lime-water and anise and +liquorice and raisins of the sun, and there be other some who do give the +juice of craw-fishes boiled in barley-water with chicken-broth, but these +be toys, as I do think, and ye shall find as good virtue, nay better, in +this syrup of the simple called Maidenhair." + +Something after this manner might Master Giles Firmin have delivered his +clinical instructions. Somewhat in this way, a century and a half later, +another New England physician, Dr. Edward Augustus Holyoke, taught a +young man who came to study with him, a very diligent and intelligent +youth, James Jackson by name, the same whose portrait in his advanced +years hangs upon this wall, long the honored Professor of Theory and +Practice in this Institution, of whom I shall say something in this +Lecture. Our venerated Teacher studied assiduously afterwards in the +great London Hospitals, but I think he used to quote his "old Master" ten +times where he quoted Mr. Cline or Dr. Woodville once. + +When I compare this direct transfer of the practical experience of a wise +man into the mind of a student,--every fact one that he can use in the +battle of life and death,--with the far off, unserviceable "scientific" +truths that I and some others are in the habit of teaching, I cannot help +asking myself whether, if we concede that our forefathers taught too +little, there is not--a possibility that we may sometimes attempt to +teach too much. I almost blush when I think of myself as describing the +eight several facets on two slender processes of the palate bone, or the +seven little twigs that branch off from the minute tympanic nerve, and I +wonder whether my excellent colleague feels in the same way when he +pictures himself as giving the constitution of neurin, which as he and I +know very well is that of the hydrate of trimethyle-oxethyle-ammonium, or +the formula for the production of alloxan, which, though none but the +Professors and older students can be expected to remember it, is C10 H4 +N4 O6+ 2HO, NO5=C8 H4 N2 O10+2CO2+N2+NH4 O, NO5. + +I can bear the voice of some rough iconoclast addressing the Anatomist +and the Chemist in tones of contemptuous indignation: "What is this stuff +with which you are cramming the brains of young men who are to hold the +lives of the community in their hands? Here is a man fallen in a fit; +you can tell me all about the eight surfaces of the two processes of the +palate bone, but you have not had the sense to loosen that man's +neck-cloth, and the old women are all calling you a fool? Here is a +fellow that has just swallowed poison. I want something to turn his +stomach inside out at the shortest notice. Oh, you have forgotten the +dose of the sulphate of zinc, but you remember the formula for the +production of alloxan!" + +"Look you, Master Doctor,--if I go to a carpenter to come and stop a leak +in my roof that is flooding the house, do you suppose I care whether he +is a botanist or not? Cannot a man work in wood without knowing all +about endogens and exogens, or must he attend Professor Gray's Lectures +before he can be trusted to make a box-trap? If my horse casts a shoe, +do you think I will not trust a blacksmith to shoe him until I have made +sure that he is sound on the distinction between the sesquioxide and the +protosesquioxide of iron?" + +--But my scientific labor is to lead to useful results by and by, in the +next generation, or in some possible remote future.-- + +"Diavolo!" as your Dr. Rabelais has it,--answers the iconoclast,--"what +is that to me and my colic, to me and my strangury? I pay the Captain of +the Cunard steamship to carry me quickly and safely to Liverpool, not to +make a chart of the Atlantic for after voyagers! If Professor Peirce +undertakes to pilot me into Boston Harbor and runs me on Cohasset rocks, +what answer is it to tell me that he is Superintendent of the Coast +Survey? No, Sir! I want a plain man in a pea-jacket and a sou'wester, +who knows the channel of Boston Harbor, and the rocks of Boston Harbor, +and the distinguished Professor is quite of my mind as to the matter, for +I took the pains to ask him before I ventured to use his name in the way +of illustration." + +I do not know how the remarks of the image-breaker may strike others, but +I feel that they put me on my defence with regard to much of my teaching. +Some years ago I ventured to show in an introductory Lecture how very +small a proportion of the anatomical facts taught in a regular course, as +delivered by myself and others, had any practical bearing whatever on the +treatment of disease. How can I, how can any medical teacher justify +himself in teaching anything that is not like to be of practical use to a +class of young men who are to hold in their hands the balance in which +life and death, ease and anguish, happiness and wretchedness are to be +daily weighed? + +I hope we are not all wrong. Oftentimes in finding how sadly ignorant of +really essential and vital facts and rules were some of those whom we had +been larding with the choicest scraps of science, I have doubted whether +the old one-man system of teaching, when the one man was of the right +sort, did not turn out better working physicians than our more elaborate +method. The best practitioner I ever knew was mainly shaped to +excellence in that way. I can understand perfectly the regrets of my +friend Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh, for the good that was lost with the +old apprenticeship system. I understand as well Dr. Latham's fear "that +many men of the best abilities and good education will be deterred from +prosecuting physic as a profession, in consequence of the necessity +indiscriminately laid upon all for impossible attainments." + +I feel therefore impelled to say a very few words in defence of that +system of teaching adopted in our Colleges, by which we wish to +supplement and complete the instruction given by private individuals or +by what are often called Summer Schools. + +The reason why we teach so much that is not practical and in itself +useful, is because we find that the easiest way of teaching what is +practical and useful. If we could in any way eliminate all that would +help a man to deal successfully with disease, and teach it by itself so +that it should be as tenaciously rooted in the memory, as easily summoned +when wanted, as fertile in suggestion of related facts, as satisfactory +to the peremptory demands of the intelligence as if taught in its +scientific connections, I think it would be our duty so to teach the +momentous truths of medicine, and to regard all useless additions as an +intrusion on the time which should be otherwise occupied. + +But we cannot successfully eliminate and teach by itself that which is +purely practical. The easiest and surest why of acquiring facts is to +learn them in groups, in systems, and systematized knowledge is science. +You can very often carry two facts fastened together more easily than one +by itself, as a housemaid can carry two pails of water with a hoop more +easily than one without it. You can remember a man's face, made up of +many features, better than you can his nose or his mouth or his eye-brow. +Scores of proverbs show you that you can remember two lines that rhyme +better than one without the jingle. The ancients, who knew the laws of +memory, grouped the seven cities that contended for the honor of being +Homer's birthplace in a line thus given by Aulus Gellius: + +Smurna, Rodos, Colophon, Salamin, Ios, Argos, Athenai. + +I remember, in the earlier political days of Martin Van Buren, that +Colonel Stone, of the "New York Commercial," or one of his +correspondents, said that six towns of New York would claim in the same +way to have been the birth-place of the "Little Magician," as he was then +called; and thus he gave their names, any one of which I should long ago +have forgotten, but which as a group have stuck tight in my memory from +that day to this; + +Catskill, Saugerties, Redhook, Kinderhook, Scaghticoke, Schodac. + +If the memory gains so much by mere rhythmical association, how much more +will it gain when isolated facts are brought together under laws and +principles, when organs are examined in their natural connections, when +structure is coupled with function, and healthy and diseased action are +studied as they pass one into the other! Systematic, or scientific study +is invaluable as supplying a natural kind of mnemonics, if for nothing +else. You cannot properly learn the facts you want from Anatomy and +Chemistry in any way so easily as by taking them in their regular order, +with other allied facts, only there must be common sense exercised in +leaving out a great deal which belongs to each of the two branches as +pure science. The dullest of teachers is the one who does not know what +to omit. + +The larger aim of scientific training is to furnish you with principles +to which you will be able to refer isolated facts, and so bring these +within the range of recorded experience. See what the "London Times" +said about the three Germans who cracked open John Bull Chatwood's +strong-box at the Fair the other day, while the three Englishmen hammered +away in vain at Brother Jonathan Herring's. The Englishmen represented +brute force. The Germans had been trained to appreciate principle. The +Englishman "knows his business by rote and rule of thumb"--science, which +would "teach him to do in an hour what has hitherto occupied him two +hours," "is in a manner forbidden to him." To this cause the "Times" +attributes the falling off of English workmen in comparison with those of +the Continent. + +Granting all this, we must not expect too much from "science" as +distinguished from common experience. There are ten thousand +experimenters without special apparatus for every one in the laboratory. +Accident is the great chemist and toxicologist. Battle is the great +vivisector. Hunger has instituted researches on food such as no Liebig, +no Academic Commission has ever recorded. + +Medicine, sometimes impertinently, often ignorantly, often carelessly +called "allopathy," appropriates everything from every source that can be +of the slightest use to anybody who is ailing in any way, or like to be +ailing from any cause. It learned from a monk how to use antimony, from +a Jesuit how to cure agues, from a friar how to cut for stone, from a +soldier how to treat gout, from a sailor how to keep off scurvy, from a +postmaster how to sound the Eustachian tube, from a dairy-maid how to +prevent small-pox, and from an old market-woman how to catch the +itch-insect. It borrowed acupuncture and the moxa from the Japanese +heathen, and was taught the use of lobelia by the American savage. It +stands ready to-day to accept anything from any theorist, from any +empiric who can make out a good case for his discovery or his remedy. +"Science" is one of its benefactors, but only one, out of many. Ask the +wisest practising physician you know, what branches of science help him +habitually, and what amount of knowledge relating to each branch he +requires for his professional duties. He will tell you that scientific +training has a value independent of all the special knowledge acquired. +He will tell you that many facts are explained by studying them in the +wider range of related facts to which they belong. He will gratefully +recognize that the anatomist has furnished him with indispensable data, +that the physiologist has sometimes put him on the track of new modes of +treatment, that the chemist has isolated the active principles of his +medicines, has taught him how to combine them, has from time to time +offered him new remedial agencies, and so of others of his allies. But he +will also tell you, if I am not mistaken, that his own branch of +knowledge is so extensive and so perplexing that he must accept most of +his facts ready made at their hands. He will own to you that in the +struggle for life which goes on day and night in our thoughts as in the +outside world of nature, much that he learned under the name of science +has died out, and that simple homely experience has largely taken the +place of that scholastic knowledge to which he and perhaps some of his +instructors once attached a paremount importance. + +This, then, is my view of scientific training as conducted in courses +such as you are entering on. Up to a certain point I believe in set +Lectures as excellent adjuncts to what is far more important, practical +instruction at the bedside, in the operating room, and under the eye of +the Demonstrator. But I am so far from wishing these courses extended, +that I think some of them--suppose I say my own--would almost bear +curtailing. Do you want me to describe more branches of the sciatic and +crural nerves? I can take Fischer's plates, and lecturing on that scale +fill up my whole course and not finish the nerves alone. We must stop +somewhere, and for my own part I think the scholastic exercises of our +colleges have already claimed their full share of the student's time +without our seeking to extend them. + +I trust I have vindicated the apparent inconsequence of teaching young +students a good deal that seems at first sight profitless, but which +helps them to learn and retain what is profitable. But this is an +inquisitive age, and if we insist on piling up beyond a certain height +knowledge which is in itself mere trash and lumber to a man whose life is +to be one long fight with death and disease, there will be some sharp +questions asked by and by, and our quick-witted people will perhaps find +they can get along as well without the professor's cap as without the +bishop's mitre and the monarch's crown. + +I myself have nothing to do with clinical teaching. Yet I do not +hesitate to say it is more essential than all the rest put together, so +far as the ordinary practice of medicine is concerned; and this is by far +the most important thing to be learned, because it deals with so many +more lives than any other branch of the profession. So of personal +instruction, such as we give and others give in the interval of lectures, +much of it at the bedside, some of it in the laboratory, some in the +microscope-room, some in the recitation-room, I think it has many +advantages of its own over the winter course, and I do not wish to see it +shortened for the sake of prolonging what seems to me long enough +already. + +If I am jealous of the tendency to expand the time given to the +acquisition of curious knowledge, at the expense of the plain +old-fashioned bedside teachings, I only share the feeling which Sydenham +expressed two hundred years ago, using an image I have already borrowed. +"He would be no honest and successful pilot who was to apply himself with +less industry to avoid rocks and sands and bring his vessel safely home, +than to search into the causes of the ebbing and flowing of the sea, +which, though very well for a philosopher, is foreign to him whose +business it is to secure the ship. So neither will a physician, whose +province it is to cure diseases, be able to do so, though he be a person +of great genius, who bestows less time on the hidden and intricate method +of nature, and adapting his means thereto, than on curious and subtle +speculation." + +"Medicine is my wife and Science is my mistress," said Dr. Rush. I do +not think that the breach of the seventh commandment can be shown to have +been of advantage to the legitimate owner of his affections. Read what +Dr. Elisha Bartlett says of him as a practitioner, or ask one of our own +honored ex-professors, who studied under him, whether Dr. Rush had ever +learned the meaning of that saying of Lord Bacon, that man is the +minister and interpreter of Nature, or whether he did not speak +habitually of Nature as an intruder in the sick room, from which his art +was to expel her as an incompetent and a meddler. + +All a man's powers are not too much for such a profession as Medicine. +"He is a learned man," said old Parson Emmons of Franklin, "who +understands one subject, and he is a very learned man who understands two +subjects." Schonbein says he has been studying oxygen for thirty years. +Mitscherlich said it took fourteen years to establish a new fact in +chemistry. Aubrey says of Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation, +that "though all his profession would allow him to be an excellent +anatomist, I have never heard of any who admired his therapeutic way." +My learned and excellent friend before referred to, Dr. Brown of +Edinburgh, from whose very lively and sensible Essay, "Locke and +Sydenham," I have borrowed several of my citations, contrasts Sir Charles +Bell, the discoverer, the man of science, with Dr. Abercrombie, the +master in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. It is through one of +the rarest of combinations that we have in our Faculty a teacher on whom +the scientific mantle of Bell has fallen, and who yet stands preeminent +in the practical treatment of the class of diseases which his inventive +and ardent experimental genius has illustrated. M. Brown-Sequard's +example is as, eloquent as his teaching in proof of the advantages of +well directed scientific investigation. But those who emulate his +success at once as a discoverer and a practitioner must be content like +him to limit their field of practice. The highest genius cannot afford +in our time to forget the ancient precept, Divide et impera. + +"I suppose I must go and earn this guinea," said a medical man who was +sent for while he was dissecting an animal. I should not have cared to +be his patient. His dissection would do me no good, and his thoughts +would be too much upon it. I want a whole man for my doctor, not a half +one. I would have sent for a humbler practitioner, who would have given +himself entirely to me, and told the other--who was no less a man than +John Hunter--to go on and finish the dissection of his tiger. + +Sydenham's "Read Don Quixote" should be addressed not to the student, but +to the Professor of today. Aimed at him it means, "Do not be too +learned." + +Do not think you are going to lecture to picked young men who are +training themselves to be scientific discoverers. They are of fair +average capacity, and they are going to be working doctors. + +These young men are to have some very serious vital facts to deal with. +I will mention a few of them. + +Every other resident adult you meet in these streets is or will be more +or less tuberculous. This is not an extravagant estimate, as very nearly +one third of the deaths of adults in Boston last year were from phthisis. +If the relative number is less in our other northern cities, it is +probably in a great measure because they are more unhealthy; that is, +they have as much, or nearly as much, consumption, but they have more +fevers or other fatal diseases. + +These heavy-eyed men with the alcoholized brains, these pallid youths +with the nicotized optic ganglia and thinking-marrows brown as their own +meerschaums, of whom you meet too many,--will ask all your wisdom to deal +with their poisoned nerves and their enfeebled wills. + +Nearly seventeen hundred children under five years of age died last year +in this city. A poor human article, no doubt, in many cases, still, +worth an attempt to save them, especially when we remember the effect of +Dr. Clarke's suggestion at the Dublin Hospital, by which some twenty-five +or thirty thousand children's lives have probably been saved in a single +city. + +Again, the complaint is often heard that the native population is not +increasing so rapidly as in former generations. The breeding and nursing +period of American women is one of peculiar delicacy and frequent +infirmity. Many of them must require a considerable interval between the +reproductive efforts, to repair damages and regain strength. This +matter is not to be decided by an appeal to unschooled nature. It is the +same question as that of the deformed pelvis,--one of degree. The facts +of mal-vitalization are as much to be attended to as those of +mal-formation. If the woman with a twisted pelvis is to be considered an +exempt, the woman with a defective organization should be recognized as +belonging to the invalid corps. We shudder to hear what is alleged as to +the prevalence of criminal practices; if back of these there can be shown +organic incapacity or overtaxing of too limited powers, the facts belong +to the province of the practical physician, as well as of the moralist +and the legislator, and require his gravest consideration. + +Take the important question of bleeding. Is venesection done with +forever? Six years ago it was said here in an introductory Lecture that +it would doubtless come back again sooner or later. A fortnight ago I +found myself in the cars with one of the most sensible and esteemed +practitioners in New England. He took out his wallet and showed me two +lancets, which he carried with him; he had never given up their use. +This is a point you will have to consider. + +Or, to mention one out of many questionable remedies, shall you give +Veratrum Viride in fevers and inflammations? It makes the pulse slower +in these affections. Then the presumption would naturally be that it +does harm. The caution with reference to it on this ground was long ago +recorded in the Lecture above referred to. See what Dr. John Hughes +Bennett says of it in the recent edition of his work on Medicine. +Nothing but the most careful clinical experience can settle this and such +points of treatment. + +These are all practical questions--questions of life and death, and every +day will be full of just such questions. Take the problem of climate. A +patient comes to you with asthma and wants to know where he can breathe; +another comes to you with phthisis and wants to know where he can live. +What boy's play is nine tenths of all that is taught in many a +pretentious course of lectures, compared with what an accurate and +extensive knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of different +residences in these and other complaints would be to a practising +physician. + +I saw the other day a gentleman living in Canada, who had spent seven +successive winters in Egypt, with the entire relief of certain obscure +thoracic symptoms which troubled him while at home. I saw, two months +ago, another gentleman from Minnesota, an observer and a man of sense, +who considered that State as the great sanatorium for all pulmonary +complaints. If half our grown population are or will be more or less +tuberculous, the question of colonizing Florida assumes a new aspect. +Even within the borders of our own State, the very interesting researches +of Dr. Bowditch show that there is a great variation in the amount of +tuberculous disease in different towns, apparently connected with local +conditions. The hygienic map of a State is quite as valuable as its +geological map, and it is the business of every practising physician to +know it thoroughly. They understand this in England, and send a patient +with a dry irritating cough to Torquay or Penzance, while they send +another with relaxed bronchial membranes to Clifton or Brighton. Here is +another great field for practical study. + +So as to the all-important question of diet. "Of all the means of cure +at our command," says Dr. Bennett, "a regulation of the quantity and +quality of the diet is by far the most powerful." Dr. MacCormac would +perhaps except the air we breathe, for he thinks that impure air, +especially in sleeping rooms, is the great cause of tubercle. It is +sufficiently proved that the American,--the New Englander,--the +Bostonian, can breed strong and sound children, generation after +generation,--nay, I have shown by the record of a particular family that +vital losses may be retrieved, and a feeble race grow to lusty vigor in +this very climate and locality. Is not the question why our young men +and women so often break down, and how they can be kept from breaking +down, far more important for physicians to settle than whether there is +one cranial vertebra, or whether there are four, or none? + +--But I have a taste for the homologies, I want to go deeply into the +subject of embryology, I want to analyze the protonihilates precipitated +from pigeon's milk by the action of the lunar spectrum,--shall I not +follow my star,--shall I not obey my instinct,--shall I not give myself +to the lofty pursuits of science for its own sake? + +Certainly you may, if you like. But take down your sign, or never put it +up. That is the way Dr. Owen and Dr. Huxley, Dr. Agassiz and Dr. +Jeffries Wyman, Dr. Gray and Dr. Charles T. Jackson settled the +difficulty. We all admire the achievements of this band of distinguished +doctors who do not practise. But we say of their work and of all pure +science, as the French officer said of the charge of the six hundred at +Balaclava, "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre,"--it is very +splendid, but it is not a practising doctor's business. His patient has +a right to the cream of his life and not merely to the thin milk that is +left after "science" has skimmed it off. The best a physician can give +is never too good for the patient. + +It is often a disadvantage to a young practitioner to be known for any +accomplishment outside of his profession. Haller lost his election as +Physician to the Hospital in his native city of Berne, principally on the +ground that he was a poet. In his later years the physician may venture +more boldly. Astruc was sixty-nine years old when he published his +"Conjectures," the first attempt, we are told, to decide the authorship +of the Pentateuch showing anything like a discerning criticism. Sir +Benjamin Brodie was seventy years old before he left his physiological +and surgical studies to indulge in psychological speculations. The +period of pupilage will be busy enough in acquiring the knowledge needed, +and the season of active practice will leave little leisure for any but +professional studies. + +Dr. Graves of Dublin, one of the first clinical teachers of our time, +always insisted on his students' beginning at once to visit the hospital. +At the bedside the student must learn to treat disease, and just as +certainly as we spin out and multiply our academic prelections we shall +work in more and more stuffing, more and more rubbish, more and more +irrelevant, useless detail which the student will get rid of just as soon +as he leaves us. Then the next thing will be a new organization, with an +examining board of first-rate practical men, who will ask the candidate +questions that mean business,--who will make him operate if he is to be a +surgeon, and try him at the bedside if he is to be a physician,--and not +puzzle him with scientific conundrums which not more than one of the +questioners could answer himself or ever heard of since he graduated. + +Or these women who are hammering at the gates on which is written "No +admittance for the mothers of mankind," will by and by organize an +institution, which starting from that skilful kind of nursing which +Florence Nightingale taught so well, will work backwards through +anodynes, palliatives, curatives, preventives, until with little show of +science it imparts most of what is most valuable in those branches of the +healing art it professes to teach. When that time comes, the fitness of +women for certain medical duties, which Hecquet advocated in 1708, which +Douglas maintained in 1736, which Dr. John Ware, long the honored +Professor of Theory and Practice in this Institution, upheld within our +own recollection in the face of his own recorded opinion to the contrary, +will very possibly be recognized. + +My advice to every teacher less experienced than myself would be, +therefore: Do not fret over the details you have to omit; you probably +teach altogether too many as it is. Individuals may learn a thing with +once hearing it, but the only way of teaching a whole class is by +enormous repetition, representation, and illustration in all possible +forms. Now and then you will have a young man on your benches like the +late Waldo Burnett,--not very often, if you lecture half a century. You +cannot pretend to lecture chiefly for men like that,--a Mississippi raft +might as well take an ocean-steamer in tow. To meet his wants you would +have to leave the rest of your class behind and that you must not do. +President Allen of Jefferson College says that his instruction has been +successful in proportion as it has been elementary. It may be a +humiliating statement, but it is one which I have found true in my own +experience. + +To the student I would say, that however plain and simple may be our +teaching, he must expect to forget much which he follows intelligently in +the lecture-room. But it is not the same as if he had never learned it. +A man must get a thing before he can forget it. There is a great world +of ideas we cannot voluntarily recall,--they are outside the limits of +the will. But they sway our conscious thought as the unseen planets +influence the movements of those within the sphere of vision. No man +knows how much he knows,--how many ideas he has,--any more than he knows +how many blood-globules roll in his veins. Sometimes accident brings +back here and there one, but the mind is full of irrevocable remembrances +and unthinkable thoughts, which take a part in all its judgments as +indestructible forces. Some of you must feel your scientific +deficiencies painfully after your best efforts. But every one can +acquire what is most essential. A man of very moderate ability may be a +good physician, if he devotes himself faithfully to the work. More than +this, a positively dull man, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, +sometimes makes a safer practitioner than one who has, we will say, five +per cent. more brains than his average neighbor, but who thinks it is +fifty per cent. more. Skulls belonging to this last variety of the human +race are more common, I may remark, than specimens like the Neanderthal +cranium, a cast of which you will find on the table in the Museum. + +Whether the average talent be high or low, the Colleges of the land must +make the best commodity they can out of such material as the country and +the cities furnish them. The community must have Doctors as it must have +bread. It uses up its Doctors just as it wears out its shoes, and +requires new ones. All the bread need not be French rolls, all the shoes +need not be patent leather ones; but the bread must be something that can +be eaten, and the shoes must be something that can be worn. Life must +somehow find food for the two forces that rub everything to pieces, or +burn it to ashes,--friction and oxygen. Doctors are oxydable products, +and the schools must keep furnishing new ones as the old ones turn into +oxyds; some of first-rate quality that burn with a great light, some of a +lower grade of brilliancy, some honestly, unmistakably, by the grace of +God, of moderate gifts, or in simpler phrase, dull. + +The public will give every honest and reasonably competent worker in the +healing art a hearty welcome. It is on the whole very loyal to the +Medical Profession. Three successive years have borne witness to the +feeling with which this Institution, representing it in its educational +aspect, is regarded by those who are themselves most honored and +esteemed. The great Master of Natural Science bade the last year's class +farewell in our behalf, in those accents which delight every audience. +The Head of our ancient University honored us in the same way in the +preceding season. And how can we forget that other occasion when the +Chief Magistrate of the Commonwealth, that noble citizen whom we have +just lost, large-souled, sweet-natured, always ready for every kind +office, came among us at our bidding, and talked to us of our duties in +words as full of wisdom as his heart was of goodness? + +You have not much to fear, I think, from the fancy practitioners. The +vulgar quackeries drop off, atrophied, one after another. Homoeopathy has +long been encysted, and is carried on the body medical as quietly as an +old wen. Every year gives you a more reasoning and reasonable people to +deal with. See how it is in Literature. The dynasty of British +dogmatists, after lasting a hundred years and more, is on its last legs. +Thomas Carlyle, third in the line of descent, finds an audience very +different from those which listened to the silver speech of Samuel Taylor +Coleridge and the sonorous phrases of Samuel Johnson. We read him, we +smile at his clotted English, his "swarmery" and other picturesque +expressions, but we lay down his tirade as we do one of Dr. Cumming's +interpretations of prophecy, which tells us that the world is coming to +an end next week or next month, if the weather permits,--not +otherwise,--feeling very sure that the weather will be unfavorable. + +It is the same common-sense public you will appeal to. The less +pretension you make, the better they will like you in the long run. I +hope we shall make everything as plain and as simple to you as we can. I +would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the +purpose. I know there are professors in this country who "ligate" +arteries. Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just +as well. It is the familiarity and simplicity of bedside instruction +which makes it so pleasant as well as so profitable. A good clinical +teacher is himself a Medical School. We need not wonder that our young +men are beginning to announce themselves not only as graduates of this or +that College, but also as pupils of some one distinguished master. + +I wish to close this Lecture, if you will allow me a few moments longer, +with a brief sketch of an instructor and practitioner whose character was +as nearly a model one in both capacities as I can find anywhere recorded. + +Dr. JAMES JACKSON, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in +this University from 1812 to 1846, and whose name has been since retained +on our rolls as Professor Emeritus, died on the 27th of August last, in +the ninetieth year of his age. He studied his profession, as I have +already mentioned, with Dr. Holyoke of Salem, one of the few physicians +who have borne witness to their knowledge of the laws of life by living +to complete their hundredth year. I think the student took his Old +Master, as he always loved to call him, as his model; each was worthy of +the other, and both were bright examples to all who come after them. + +I remember that in the sermon preached by Dr. Grazer after Dr. Holyoke's +death, one of the points most insisted upon as characteristic of that +wise and good old man was the perfect balance of all his faculties. The +same harmonious adjustment of powers, the same symmetrical arrangement of +life, the same complete fulfilment of every day's duties, without haste +and without needless delay, which characterized the master, equally +distinguished the scholar. A glance at the life of our own Old Master, +if I can do any justice at all to his excellences, will give you +something to carry away from this hour's meeting not unworthy to be +remembered. + +From December, 1797, to October, 1799, he remained with Dr. Holyoke as a +student, a period which he has spoken of as a most interesting and most +gratifying part of his life. After this he passed eight months in +London, and on his return, in October, 1800, he began business in Boston. + +He had followed Mr. Cline, as I have mentioned, and was competent to +practise Surgery. But he found Dr. John Collins Warren had already +occupied the ground which at that day hardly called for more than one +leading practitioner, and wisely chose the Medical branch of the +profession. He had only himself to rely upon, but he had confidence in +his prospects, conscious, doubtless, of his own powers, knowing his own +industry and determination, and being of an eminently cheerful and +hopeful disposition. No better proof of his spirit can be given than +that, just a year from the time when he began to practise as a physician, +he took that eventful step which in such a man implies that he sees his +way clear to a position; he married a lady blessed with many gifts, but +not bringing him a fortune to paralyze his industry. + +He had not miscalculated his chances in life. He very soon rose into a +good practice, and began the founding of that reputation which grew with +his years, until he stood by general consent at the head of his chosen +branch of the profession, to say the least, in this city and in all this +region of country. His skill and wisdom were the last tribunal to which +the sick and suffering could appeal. The community trusted and loved +him, the profession recognized him as the noblest type of the physician. +The young men whom he had taught wandered through foreign hospitals; +where they learned many things that were valuable, and many that were +curious; but as they grew older and began to think more of their ability +to help the sick than their power of talking about phenomena, they began +to look back to the teaching of Dr. Jackson, as he, after his London +experience, looked back to that of Dr. Holyoke. And so it came to be at +last that the bare mention of his name in any of our medical assemblies +would call forth such a tribute of affectionate regard as is only yielded +to age when it brings with it the record of a life spent in well doing. + +No accident ever carries a man to eminence such as his in the medical +profession. He who looks for it must want it earnestly and work for it +vigorously; Nature must have qualified him in many ways, and education +must have equipped him with various knowledge, or his reputation will +evaporate before it reaches the noon-day blaze of fame. How did Dr. +Jackson gain the position which all conceded to him? In the answer to +this question some among you may find a key that shall unlock the gate +opening on that fair field of the future of which all dream but which not +all will ever reach. + +First of all, he truly loved his profession. He had no intellectual +ambitions outside of it, literary, scientific or political. To him it +was occupation enough to apply at the bedside the best of all that he +knew for the good of his patient; to protect the community against the +inroads of pestilence; to teach the young all that he himself had been +taught, with all that his own experience had added; to leave on record +some of the most important results of his long observation. + +With his patients he was so perfect at all points that it is hard to +overpraise him. I have seen many noted British and French and American +practitioners, but I never saw the man so altogether admirable at the +bedside of the sick as Dr. James Jackson. His smile was itself a remedy +better than the potable gold and the dissolved pearls that comforted the +praecordia of mediaeval monarchs. Did a patient, alarmed without cause, +need encouragement, it carried the sunshine of hope into his heart and +put all his whims to flight, as David's harp cleared the haunted chamber +of the sullen king. Had the hour come, not for encouragement, but for +sympathy, his face, his voice, his manner all showed it, because his +heart felt it. So gentle was he, so thoughtful, so calm, so absorbed in +the case before him, not to turn round and look for a tribute to his +sagacity, not to bolster himself in a favorite theory, but to find out +all he could, and to weigh gravely and cautiously all that he found, that +to follow him in his morning visit was not only to take a lesson in the +healing art, it was learning how to learn, how to move, how to look, how +to feel, if that can be learned. To visit with Dr. Jackson was a medical +education. + +He was very firm, with all his kindness. He would have the truth about +his patients. The nurses found it out; and the shrewder ones never +ventured to tell him anything but a straight story. A clinical dialogue +between Dr. Jackson and Miss Rebecca Taylor, sometime nurse in the +Massachusetts General Hospital, a mistress in her calling, was as good +questioning and answering as one would be like to hear outside of the +court-room. + +Of his practice you can form an opinion from his book called "Letters to +a Young Physician." Like all sensible men from the days of Hippocrates +to the present, he knew that diet and regimen were more important than +any drug or than all drugs put together. Witness his treatment of +phthisis and of epilepsy. He retained, however, more confidence in some +remedial agents than most of the younger generation would concede to +them. Yet his materia medica was a simple one. + +"When I first went to live with Dr. Holyoke," he says, "in 1797, showing +me his shop, he said, 'There seems to you to be a great variety of +medicines here, and that it will take you long to get acquainted with +them, but most of them are unimportant. There are four which are equal +to all the rest, namely, Mercury, Antimony, Bark and Opium.'" And Dr. +Jackson adds, "I can only say of his practice, the longer I have lived, I +have thought better and better of it." When he thought it necessary to +give medicine, he gave it in earnest. He hated half-practice--giving a +little of this or that, so as to be able to say that one had done +something, in case a consultation was held, or a still more ominous event +occurred. He would give opium, for instance, as boldly as the late Dr. +Fisher of Beverly, but he followed the aphorism of the Father of +Medicine, and kept extreme remedies for extreme cases. + +When it came to the "non-naturals," as he would sometimes call them, +after the old physicians,--namely, air, meat and drink, sleep and +watching, motion and rest, the retentions and excretions, and the +affections of the mind,--he was, as I have said, of the school of +sensible practitioners, in distinction from that vast community of +quacks, with or without the diploma, who think the chief end of man is to +support apothecaries, and are never easy until they can get every patient +upon a regular course of something nasty or noxious. Nobody was so +precise in his directions about diet, air, and exercise, as Dr. Jackson. +He had the same dislike to the a peu pres, the about so much, about so +often, about so long, which I afterwards found among the punctilious +adherents of the numerical system at La Pitie. + +He used to insist on one small point with a certain philological +precision, namely, the true meaning of the word "cure." He would have it +that to cure a patient was simply to care for him. I refer to it as +showing what his idea was of the relation of the physician to the +patient. It was indeed to care for him, as if his life were bound up in +him, to watch his incomings and outgoings, to stand guard at every avenue +that disease might enter, to leave nothing to chance; not merely to throw +a few pills and powders into one pan of the scales of Fate, while Death +the skeleton was seated in the other, but to lean with his whole weight +on the side of life, and shift the balance in its favor if it lay in +human power to do it. Such devotion as this is only to be looked for in +the man who gives himself wholly up to the business of healing, who +considers Medicine itself a Science, or if not a science, is willing to +follow it as an art,--the noblest of arts, which the gods and demigods of +ancient religions did not disdain to practise and to teach. + +The same zeal made him always ready to listen to any new suggestion which +promised to be useful, at a period of life when many men find it hard to +learn new methods and accept new doctrines. Few of his generation became +so accomplished as he in the arts of direct exploration; coming straight +from the Parisian experts, I have examined many patients with him, and +have had frequent opportunities of observing his skill in percussion and +auscultation. + +One element in his success, a trivial one compared with others, but not +to be despised, was his punctuality. He always carried two watches,--I +doubt if he told why, any more than Dr. Johnson told what he did with the +orange-peel,--but probably with reference to this virtue. He was as much +to be depended upon at the appointed time as the solstice or the equinox. +There was another point I have heard him speak of as an important rule +with him; to come at the hour when he was expected; if he had made his +visit for several days successively at ten o'clock, for instance, not to +put it off, if he could possibly help it, until eleven, and so keep a +nervous patient and an anxious family waiting for him through a long, +weary hour. + +If I should attempt to characterize his teaching, I should say that while +it conveyed the best results of his sagacious and extended observation, +it was singularly modest, cautious, simple, sincere. Nothing was for +show, for self-love; there was no rhetoric, no declamation, no triumphant +"I told you so," but the plain statement of a clear-headed honest man, +who knows that he is handling one of the gravest subjects that interest +humanity. His positive instructions were full of value, but the spirit +in which he taught inspired that loyal love of truth which lies at the +bottom of all real excellence. + +I will not say that, during his long career, Dr. Jackson never made an +enemy. I have heard him tell how, in his very early days, old Dr. +Danforth got into a towering passion with him about some professional +consultation, and exploded a monosyllable or two of the more energetic +kind on the occasion. I remember that that somewhat peculiar personage, +Dr. Waterhouse, took it hardly when Dr. Jackson succeeded to his place as +Professor of Theory and Practice. A young man of Dr. Jackson's talent +and energy could hardly take the position that belonged to him without +crowding somebody in a profession where three in a bed is the common rule +of the household. But he was a peaceful man and a peace-maker all his +days. No man ever did more, if so much, to produce and maintain the +spirit of harmony for which we consider our medical community as somewhat +exceptionally distinguished. + +If this harmony should ever be threatened, I could wish that every +impatient and irritable member of the profession would read that +beautiful, that noble Preface to the "Letters," addressed to John Collins +Warren. I know nothing finer in the medical literature of all time than +this Prefatory Introduction. It is a golden prelude, fit to go with the +three great Prefaces which challenge the admiration of scholars, +--Calvin's to his Institutes, De Thou's to his History, and +Casaubon's to his Polybius,--not because of any learning or rhetoric, +though it is charmingly written, but for a spirit flowing through it to +which learning and rhetoric are but as the breath that is wasted on the +air to the Mood that warms the heart. + +Of a similar character is this short extract which I am permitted to make +from a private letter of his to a dear young friend. He was eighty-three +years old at the time of writing it. + +"I have not loved everybody whom I have known, but I have striven to see +the good points in the characters of all men and women. At first I must +have done this from something in my own nature, for I was not aware of +it, and yet was doing it without any plan, when one day, sixty years ago, +a friend whom I loved and respected said this to me, 'Ah, James, I see +that you are destined to succeed in the world, and to make friends, +because you are so ready to see the good point in the characters of those +you meet.'" + +I close this imperfect notice of some features in the character of this +most honored and beloved of physicians by applying to him the words which +were written of William Heberden, whose career was not unlike his own, +and who lived to the same patriarchal age. + +"From his early youth he had always entertained a deep sense of religion, +a consummate love of virtue, an ardent thirst after knowledge, and an +earnest desire to promote the welfare and happiness of all mankind. By +these qualities, accompanied with great sweetness of manners, he acquired +the love and esteem of all good men, in a degree which perhaps very few +have experienced; and after passing an active life with the uniform +testimony of a good conscience, he became an eminent example of its +influence, in the cheerfulness and serenity of his latest age." + +Such was the man whom I offer to you as a model, young gentlemen, at the +outset of your medical career. I hope that many of you will recognize +some traits of your own special teachers scattered through various parts +of the land in the picture I have drawn. Let me assure you that whatever +you may learn in this or any other course of public lectures,--and I +trust you will learn a great deal,--the daily guidance, counsel, example, +of your medical father, for such the Oath of Hippocrates tells you to +consider your preceptor, will, if he is in any degree like him of whom I +have spoken, be the foundation on which all that we teach is reared, and +perhaps outlive most of our teachings, as in Dr. Jackson's memory the +last lessons that remained with him were those of his Old Master. + + + + +THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IN MASSACHUSETTS. + +A Lecture of a Course by members of the Massachusetts Historical Society, +delivered before the Lowell Institute, January 29, 1869. + +The medical history of eight generations, told in an hour, must be in +many parts a mere outline. The details I shall give will relate chiefly +to the first century. I shall only indicate the leading occurrences, +with the more prominent names of the two centuries which follow, and add +some considerations suggested by the facts which have been passed in +review. + +A geographer who was asked to describe the tides of Massachusetts Bay, +would have to recognize the circumstance that they are a limited +manifestation of a great oceanic movement. To consider them apart from +this, would be to localize a planetary phenomenon, and to provincialize a +law of the universe. The art of healing in Massachusetts has shared more +or less fully and readily the movement which, with its periods of ebb and +flow, has been raising its level from age to age throughout the better +part of Christendom. Its practitioners brought with them much of the +knowledge and many of the errors of the Old World; they have always been +in communication with its wisdom and its folly; it is not without +interest to see how far the new conditions in which they found themselves +have been favorable or unfavorable to the growth of sound medical +knowledge and practice. + +The state of medicine is an index of the civilization of an age and +country,--one of the best, perhaps, by which it can be judged. Surgery +invokes the aid of all the mechanical arts. From the rude violences of +the age of stone,--a relic of which we may find in the practice of +Zipporah, the wife of Moses,--to the delicate operations of to-day upon +patients lulled into temporary insensibility, is a progress which +presupposes a skill in metallurgy and in the labors of the workshop and +the laboratory it has taken uncounted generations to accumulate. Before +the morphia which deadens the pain of neuralgia, or the quinine which +arrests the fit of an ague, can find their place in our pharmacies, +commerce must have perfected its machinery, and science must have refined +its processes, through periods only to be counted by the life of nations. +Before the means which nature and art have put in the hands of the +medical practitioner can be fairly brought into use, the prejudices of +the vulgar must be overcome, the intrusions of false philosophy must be +fenced out, and the partnership with the priesthood dissolved. All this +implies that freedom and activity of thought which belong only to the +most advanced conditions of society; and the progress towards this is by +gradations as significant of wide-spread changes, as are the varying +states of the barometer of far-extended conditions of the atmosphere. + +Apart, then, from its special and technical interest, my subject has a +meaning which gives a certain importance, and even dignity, to details in +themselves trivial and almost unworthy of record. A medical entry in +Governor Winthrop's journal may seem at first sight a mere curiosity; +but, rightly interpreted, it is a key to his whole system of belief as to +the order of the universe and the relations between man and his Maker. +Nothing sheds such light on the superstitions of an age as the prevailing +interpretation and treatment of disease. When the touch of a profligate +monarch was a cure for one of the most inveterate of maladies, when the +common symptoms of hysteria were prayed over as marks of demoniacal +possession, we might well expect the spiritual realms of thought to be +peopled with still stranger delusions. + +Let us go before the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, and look at the shores on +which they were soon to land. A wasting pestilence had so thinned the +savage tribes that it was sometimes piously interpreted as having +providentially prepared the way for the feeble band of exiles. Cotton +Mather, who, next to the witches, hated the "tawnies," "wild beasts," +"blood-hounds," "rattlesnakes," "infidels," as in different places he +calls the unhappy Aborigines, describes the condition of things in his +lively way, thus: "The Indians in these Parts had newly, even about a +Year or Two before, been visited with such a prodigious Pestilence; as +carried away not a Tenth, but Nine Parts of Ten (yea't is said Nineteen +of Twenty) among them so that the Woods were almost cleared of those +pernicious Creatures to make Room for a better Growth." + +What this pestilence was has been much discussed. It is variously +mentioned by different early writers as "the plague," "a great and +grievous plague," "a sore consumption," as attended with spots which left +unhealed places on those who recovered, as making the "whole surface +yellow as with a garment." Perhaps no disease answers all these +conditions so well as smallpox. We know from different sources what +frightful havoc it made among the Indians in after years,--in 1631, for +instance, when it swept away the aboriginal inhabitants of "whole towns," +and in 1633. We have seen a whole tribe, the Mandans, extirpated by it +in our own day. The word "plague" was used very vaguely, as in the +description of the "great sickness" found among the Indians by the +expedition of 1622. This same great sickness could hardly have been +yellow fever, as it occurred in the month of November. I cannot think, +therefore, that either the scourge of the East or our Southern malarial +pestilence was the disease that wasted the Indians. As for the +yellowness like a garment, that is too familiar to the eyes of all who +have ever looked on the hideous mask of confluent variola. + +Without the presence or the fear of these exotic maladies, the forlorn +voyagers of the Mayflower had sickness enough to contend with. At their +first landing at Cape Cod, gaunt and hungry and longing for fresh food, +they found upon the sandy shore "great mussel's, and very fat and full of +sea-pearl." Sailors and passengers indulged in the treacherous delicacy; +which seems to have been the sea-clam; and found that these mollusks, +like the shell the poet tells of, remembered their august abode, and +treated the way-worn adventurers to a gastric reminiscence of the heaving +billows. In the mean time it blew and snowed and froze. The water turned +to ice on their clothes, and made them many times like coats of iron. +Edward Tilley had like to have "sounded" with cold. The gunner, too, was +sick unto death, but "hope of trucking" kept him on his feet,--a Yankee, +it should seem, when he first touched the shore of New England. Most, if +not all, got colds and coughs, which afterwards turned to scurvy, whereof +many died. + +How can we wonder that the crowded and tempest-tossed voyagers, many of +them already suffering, should have fallen before the trials of the first +winter in Plymouth? Their imperfect shelter, their insufficient supply +of bread, their salted food, now in unwholesome condition, account too +well for the diseases and the mortality that marked this first dreadful +season; weakness, swelling of the limbs, and other signs of scurvy, +betrayed the want of proper nourishment and protection from the elements. +In December six of their number died, in January eight, in February, +seventeen, in March thirteen. With the advance of spring the mortality +diminished, the sick and lame began to recover, and the colonists, +saddened but not disheartened, applied themselves to the labors of the +opening year. + +One of the most pressing needs of the early colonists must have been that +of physicians and surgeons. In Mr. Savage's remarkable Genealogical +Dictionary of the first settlers who came over before 1692 and their +descendants to the third generation, I find scattered through the four +crowded volumes the names of one hundred and thirty-four medical +practitioners. Of these, twelve, and probably many more, practised +surgery; three were barber-surgeons. A little incident throws a glimmer +from the dark lantern of memory upon William Direly, one of these +practitioners with the razor and the lancet. He was lost between Boston +and Roxbury in a violent tempest of wind and snow; ten days afterwards a +son was born to his widow, and with a touch of homely sentiment, I had +almost said poetry, they called the little creature "Fathergone" Direly. +Six or seven, probably a larger number, were ministers as well as +physicians, one of whom, I am sorry to say, took to drink and tumbled +into the Connecticut River, and so ended. One was not only doctor, but +also schoolmaster and poet. One practised medicine and kept a tavern. +One was a butcher, but calls himself a surgeon in his will, a union of +callings which suggests an obvious pleasantry. One female practitioner, +employed by her own sex,--Ann Moore,--was the precursor of that intrepid +sisterhood whose cause it has long been my pleasure and privilege to +advocate on all fitting occasions. + +Outside of this list I must place the name of Thomas Wilkinson, who was +complained of, is 1676, for practising contrary to law. + +Many names in the catalogue of these early physicians have been +associated, in later periods, with the practice of the profession, +--among them, Boylston, Clark, Danforth, Homan, Jeffrey, Kittredge, +Oliver, Peaslee, Randall, Shattuck, Thacher, Wellington, Williams, +Woodward. Touton was a Huguenot, Burchsted a German from Silesia, +Lunerus a German or a Pole; "Pighogg Churrergeon," I hope, for the honor +of the profession, was only Peacock disguised under this alias, which +would not, I fear, prove very attractive to patients. + +What doctrines and practice were these colonists likely to bring, with +them? + +Two principal schools of medical practice prevailed in the Old World +during the greater part of the seventeenth century. The first held to +the old methods of Galen: its theory was that the body, the microcosm, +like the macrocosm, was made up of the four elements--fire, air, water, +earth; having respectively the qualities hot, dry, moist, cold. The body +was to be preserved in health by keeping each of these qualities in its +natural proportion; heat, by the proper temperature; moisture, by the due +amount of fluid; and so as to the rest. Diseases which arose from excess +of heat were to be attacked by cooling remedies; those from excess of +cold, by heating ones; and so of the other derangements of balance. This +was truly the principle of contraries contrariis, which ill-informed +persons have attempted to make out to be the general doctrine of +medicine, whereas there is no general dogma other than this: disease is +to be treated by anything that is proved to cure it. The means the +Galenist employed were chiefly diet and vegetable remedies, with the use +of the lancet and other depleting agents. He attributed the four +fundamental qualities to different vegetables, in four different degrees; +thus chicory was cold in the fourth degree, pepper was hot in the fourth, +endive was cold and dry in the second, and bitter almonds were hot in the +first and dry in the second degree. When we say "cool as a cucumber," we +are talking Galenism. The seeds of that vegetable ranked as one of "the +four greater cold seeds" of this system. + +Galenism prevailed mostly in the south of Europe and France. The readers +of Moliere will have no difficulty in recalling some of its favorite +modes of treatment, and the abundant mirth he extracted from them. + +These Galenists were what we should call "herb-doctors" to-day. Their +insignificant infusions lost credit after a time; their absurdly +complicated mixtures excited contempt, and their nauseous prescriptions +provoked loathing and disgust. A simpler and bolder practice found +welcome in Germany, depending chiefly on mineral remedies, mercury, +antimony, sulphur, arsenic, and the use, sometimes the secret use, of +opium. Whatever we think of Paracelsus, the chief agent in the +introduction of these remedies, and whatever limits we may assign to the +use of these long-trusted mineral drugs, there can be no doubt that the +chemical school, as it was called, did a great deal towards the +expurgation of the old, overloaded, and repulsive pharmacopoeia. We +shall find evidence in the practice of our New-England physicians of the +first century, that they often employed chemical remedies, and that, by +the early part of the following century, their chief trust was in the few +simple, potent drugs of Paracelsus. + +We have seen that many of the practitioners of medicine, during the first +century of New England, were clergymen. This relation between medicine +and theology has existed from a very early period; from the Egyptian +priest to the Indian medicine-man, the alliance has been maintained in +one form or another. The partnership was very common among our British +ancestors. Mr. Ward, the Vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, himself a notable +example of the union of the two characters, writing about 1660, says, + +"The Saxons had their blood-letters, but under the Normans physicke, +begunne in England; 300 years agoe itt was not a distinct profession by +itself, but practised by men in orders, witness Nicholas de Ternham, the +chief English physician and Bishop of Durham; Hugh of Evesham, a +physician and cardinal; Grysant, physician and pope; John Chambers, Dr. +of Physick, was the first Bishop of Peterborough; Paul Bush, a bachelor +of divinitie in Oxford, was a man well read in physick as well as +divinitie, he was the first bishop of Bristol." + +"Again in King Richard the Second's time physicians and divines were not +distinct professions; for one Tydeman, Bishop of Landaph and Worcester, +was physician to King Richard the Second." + +This alliance may have had its share in creating and keeping up the many +superstitions which have figured so largely in the history of medicine. +It is curious to see that a medical work left in manuscript by the Rev. +Cotton Mather and hereafter to be referred to, is running over with +follies and superstitious fancies; while his contemporary and +fellow-townsman, William Douglass, relied on the same few simple remedies +which, through Dr. Edward Holyoke and Dr. James Jackson, have come down +to our own time, as the most important articles of the materia medica. + +Let us now take a general glance at some of the conditions of the early +settlers; and first, as to the healthfulness of the climate. The +mortality of the season that followed the landing of the Pilgrims at +Plymouth has been sufficiently accounted for. After this, the colonists +seem to have found the new country agreeing very well with their English +constitutions. Its clear air is the subject of eulogy. Its dainty +springs of sweet water are praised not only by Higginson and Wood, but +even the mischievous Morton says, that for its delicate waters "Canaan +came not near this country." There is a tendency to dilate on these +simple blessings, which reminds one a little of the Marchioness in +Dickens's story, with her orange-peel-and-water beverage. Still more +does one feel the warmth of coloring,--such as we expect from converts to +a new faith, and settlers who want to entice others over to their +clearings, when Winslow speaks, in 1621, of "abundance of roses, white, +red, and damask; single, but very sweet indeed;" a most of all, however, +when, in the same connection, he says, "Here are grapes white and red, +and very sweet and strong also." This of our wild grape, a little +vegetable Indian, which scalps a civilized man's mouth, as his animal +representative scalps his cranium. But there is something quite charming +in Winslow's picture of the luxury in which they are living. Lobsters, +oysters, eels, mussels, fish and fowl, delicious fruit, including the +grapes aforesaid,--if they only had "kine, horses, and sheep," he makes +no question but men would live as contented here as in any part of the +world. We cannot help admiring the way in which they took their trials, +and made the most of their blessings. + +"And how Content they were," says Cotton Mather, "when an Honest Man, as +I have heard, inviting his Friends to a Dish of Clams, at the Table gave +Thanks to Heaven, who had given them to suck the abundance of the Seas, +and of the Treasures Aid in the Sands!" + +Strangely enough, as it would seem, except for this buoyant determination +to make the best of everything, they hardly appear to recognize the +difference of the climate from that which they had left. After almost +three years' experience, Winslow says, he can scarce distinguish New +England from Old England, in respect of heat and cold, frost, snow, rain, +winds, etc. The winter, he thinks (if there is a difference), is sharper +and longer; but yet he may be deceived by the want of the comforts he +enjoyed at home. He cannot conceive any climate to agree better with the +constitution of the English, not being oppressed with extremity of heats, +nor nipped by biting cold: + +"By which means, blessed be God, we enjoy our health, notwithstanding +those difficulties we have undergone, in such a measure as would have +been admired, if we had lived in England with the like means." + +Edward Johnson, after mentioning the shifts to which they were put for +food, says,-- + +"And yet, methinks, our children are as cheerful, fat, and lusty, with +feeding upon those mussels, clams, and other fish, as they were in +England with their fill of bread." + +Higginson, himself a dyspeptic, "continually in physic," as he says, and +accustomed to dress in thick clothing, and to comfort his stomach with +drink that was "both strong and stale,"--the "jolly good ale and old," I +suppose, of free and easy Bishop Still's song,--found that he both could +and did oftentimes drink New England water very well,--which he seems to +look upon as a remarkable feat. He could go as lightclad as any, too, +with only a light stuff cassock upon his shirt, and stuff breeches +without linings. Two of his children were sickly: one,--little misshapen +Mary,--died on the passage, and, in her father's words, "was the first in +our ship that was buried in the bowels of the great Atlantic sea;" the +other, who had been "most lamentably handled" by disease, recovered +almost entirely "by the very wholesomeness of the air, altering, +digesting, and drying up the cold and crude humors of the body." +Wherefore, he thinks it a wise course for all cold complexions to come to +take physic in New England, and ends with those often quoted words, that +"a sup of New England's air is better than a whole draught of Old +England's ale." Mr. Higginson died, however, "of a hectic fever," a +little more than a year after his arrival. + +The medical records which I shall cite show that the colonists were not +exempt from the complaints of the Old World. Besides the common diseases +to which their descendants are subject, there were two others, to say +nothing of the dreaded small-pox, which later medical science has +disarmed,--little known among us at the present day, but frequent among +the first settlers. The first of these was the scurvy, already +mentioned, of which Winthrop speaks in 1630, saying, that it proved fatal +to those who fell into discontent, and lingered after their former +conditions in England; the poor homesick creatures in fact, whom we so +forget in our florid pictures of the early times of the little band in +the wilderness. Many who were suffering from scurvy got well when the +Lyon arrived from England, bringing store of juice of lemons. The +Governor speaks of another case in 1644; and it seems probable that the +disease was not of rare occurrence. + +The other complaint from which they suffered, but which has nearly +disappeared from among us, was intermittent fever, or fever and ague. I +investigated the question as to the prevalence of this disease in New +England, in a dissertation, which was published in a volume with other +papers, in the year 1838. I can add little to the facts there recorded. +One which escaped me was, that Joshua Scottow, in "Old Men's Tears," +dated 1691, speaks of "shaking agues," as among the trials to which they +had been subjected. The outline map of New England, accompanying the +dissertation above referred to, indicates all the places where I had +evidence that the disease had originated. It was plain enough that it +used to be known in many localities where it has long ceased to be +feared. Still it was and is remarkable to see what a clean bill of +health in this particular respect our barren soil inherited with its +sterility. There are some malarious spots on the edge of Lake Champlain, +and there have been some temporary centres of malaria, within the memory +of man, on one or more of our Massachusetts rivers, but these are +harmless enough, for the most part, unless the millers dam them, when +they are apt to retaliate with a whiff from their meadows, that sets the +whole neighborhood shaking with fever and ague. + +The Pilgrims of the Mayflower had with them a good physician, a man of +standing, a deacon of their church, one whom they loved and trusted, Dr. +Samuel Fuller. But no medical skill could keep cold and hunger and bad +food, and, probably enough, desperate homesickness in some of the feebler +sort, from doing their work. No detailed record remains of what they +suffered or what was attempted for their relief during the first sad +winter. The graves of those who died were levelled and sowed with grain +that the losses of the little band might not be suspected by the savage +tenants of the wilderness, and their story remains untold. + +Of Dr. Fuller's practice, at a later period, we have an account in a +letter of his to Governor Bradford, dated June, 1630. "I have been to +Matapan" (now Dorchester), he says, "and let some twenty of those people +blood." Such wholesale depletion as this, except with avowed homicidal +intent, is quite unknown in these days; though I once saw the noted +French surgeon, Lisfranc, in a fine phlebotomizing frenzy, order some ten +or fifteen patients, taken almost indiscriminately, to be bled in a +single morning. + +Dr. Fuller's two visits to Salem, at the request of Governor Endicott, +seem to have been very satisfactory to that gentleman. Morton, the wild +fellow of Merry Mount, gives a rather questionable reason for the +Governor's being so well pleased with the physician's doings. The names +under which he mentions the two personages, it will be seen, are not +intended to be complimentary. "Dr. Noddy did a great cure for Captain +Littleworth. He cured him of a disease called a wife." William Gager, +who came out with Winthrop, is spoken of as "a right godly man and +skilful chyrurgeon, but died of a malignant fever not very long after his +arrival." + +Two practitioners of the ancient town of Newbury are entitled to special +notice, for different reasons. The first is Dr. John Clark, who is said +by tradition to have been the first regularly educated physician who +resided in New England. His portrait, in close-fitting skull-cap, with +long locks and venerable flowing beard, is familiar to our eyes on the +wall of our Society's antechamber. His left hand rests upon a skull, his +right hand holds an instrument which deserves a passing comment. It is a +trephine, a surgical implement for cutting round pieces out of broken +skulls, so as to get at the fragments which have been driven in, and lift +them up. It has a handle like that of a gimlet, with a claw like a +hammer, to lift with, I suppose, which last contrivance I do not see +figured in my books. But the point I refer to is this: the old +instrument, the trepan, had a handle like a wimble, what we call a brace +or bit-stock. The trephine is not mentioned at all in Peter Lowe's book, +London, 1634; nor in Wiseman's great work on Surgery, London, 1676; nor +in the translation of Dionis, published by Jacob Tonson, in 1710. In fact +it was only brought into more general use by Cheselden and Sharpe so late +as the beginning of the last century. As John Clark died in 1661, it is +remarkable to see the last fashion in the way of skull-sawing +contrivances in his hands,--to say nothing of the claw on the handle, and +a Hey's saw, so called in England, lying on the table by him, and painted +there more than a hundred years before Hey was born. This saw is an old +invention, perhaps as old as Hippocrates, and may be seen figured in the +"Armamentarium Chirurgicum" of Scultetus, or in the Works of Ambroise +Pare. + +Dr. Clark is said to have received a diploma before he came, for skill in +lithotomy. He loved horses, as a good many doctors do, and left a good +property, as they all ought to do. His grave and noble presence, with +the few facts concerning him, told with more or less traditional +authority, give us the feeling that the people of Newbury, and afterwards +of Boston, had a wise and skilful medical adviser and surgeon in Dr. John +Clark. + +The venerable town of Newbury had another physician who was less +fortunate. The following is a court record of 1652: + +"This is to certify whom it may concern, that we the subscribers, being +called upon to testify against doctor William Snelling for words by him +uttered, affirm that being in way of merry discourse, a health being +drank to all friends, he answered, + + "I'll pledge my friends, + And for my foes + A plague for their heels + And,'---- + +[a similar malediction on the other extremity of their feet.] + +"Since when he hath affirmed that he only intended the proverb used in +the west country, nor do we believe he intended otherwise. + +"[Signed] "WILLIAM THOMAS. "THOMAS MILWARD. + +"March 12th 1651, All which I acknowledge, and am sorry I did not +expresse my intent, or that I was so weak as to use so foolish a proverb. + +"[Signed] "GULIELMUS SNELLING." + +Notwithstanding this confession and apology, the record tells us that +"William Snelling in his presentment for cursing is fined ten shillings +and the fees of court." + +I will mention one other name among those of the Fathers of the medical +profession in New England. The "apostle" Eliot says, writing in 1647, +"We never had but one anatomy in the country, which Mr. Giles Firman, now +in England, did make and read upon very well." + +Giles Firmin, as the name is commonly spelled, practised physic in this +country for a time. He seems to have found it a poor business; for, in a +letter to Governor Winthrop, he says, "I am strongly sett upon to studye +divinitie: my studyes else must be lost, for physick is but a meene +helpe." + +Giles Firmin's Lectures on Anatomy were the first scientific teachings of +the New World. While the Fathers were enlightened enough to permit such +instructions, they were severe in dealing with quackery; for, in 1631, +our court records show that one Nicholas Knopp, or Knapp, was sentenced +to be fined or whipped "for taking upon him to cure the scurvey by a +water of noe worth nor value, which he solde att a very deare rate." +Empty purses or sore backs would be common with us to-day if such a rule +were enforced. + +Besides the few worthies spoken of, and others whose names I have not +space to record, we must remember that there were many clergymen who took +charge of the bodies as well as the souls of their patients, among them +two Presidents of Harvard College, Charles Chauncy and Leonard Hoar,--and +Thomas Thacher, first minister of the "Old South," author of the earliest +medical treatises printed in the country,[A Brief Rule to Guide the +Common People in Small pox and Measles. 1674.] whose epitaph in Latin +and Greek, said to have been written by Eleazer, an "Indian Youth" and a +member of the Senior Class of Harvard College, may be found in the +"Magnalia." I miss this noble savage's name in our triennial catalogue; +and as there is many a slip between the cup and lip, one is tempted to +guess that he may have lost his degree by some display of his native +instinct,--possibly a flourish of the tomahawk or scalping-knife. +However this may have been, the good man he celebrated was a notable +instance of the Angelical Conjunction, as the author of the "Magnalia" +calls it, of the offices of clergyman and medical practitioner. + +Michael Wigglesworth, author of the "Day of Doom," attended the sick, +"not only as a Pastor, but as a Physician too, and this, not only in his +own town, but also in all those of the vicinity." Mather says of the +sons of Charles Chauncy, "All of these did, while they had Opportunity, +Preach the Gospel; and most, if not all of them, like their excellent +Father before them, had an eminent skill in physick added unto their +other accomplishments," etc. Roger Williams is said to have saved many +in a kind of pestilence which swept away many Indians. + +To these names must be added, as sustaining a certain relation to the +healing art, that of the first Governor Winthrop, who is said by John +Cotton to have been "Help for our Bodies by Physick [and] for our Estates +by Law," and that of his son, the Governor of Connecticut, who, as we +shall see, was as much physician as magistrate. + +I had submitted to me for examination, in 1862, a manuscript found among +the Winthrop Papers, marked with the superscription, "For my worthy +friend Mr. Wintrop," dated in 1643, London, signed Edward Stafford, and +containing medical directions and prescriptions. It may be remembered by +some present that I wrote a report on this paper, which was published in +the "Proceedings" of this Society. Whether the paper was written for +Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, or for his son, Governor John of +Connecticut, there is no positive evidence that I have been able to +obtain. It is very interesting, however, as giving short and simple +practical directions, such as would be most like to be wanted and most +useful, in the opinion of a physician in repute of that day. + +The diseases prescribed for are plague, small-pox, fevers, king's evil, +insanity, falling-sickness, and the like; with such injuries as broken +bones, dislocations, and burning with gunpowder. The remedies are of +three kinds: simples, such as St. John's wort, Clown's all-heal, elder, +parsley, maidenhair, mineral drugs, such as lime, saltpetre, Armenian +bole, crocus metallorum, or sulphuret of antimony; and thaumaturgic or +mystical, of which the chief is, "My black powder against the plague, +small-pox; purples, all sorts of feavers; Poyson; either, by Way of +Prevention or after Infection." This marvellous remedy was made by +putting live toads into an earthen pot so as to half fill it, and baking +and burning them "in the open ayre, not in an house,"--concerning which +latter possibility I suspect Madam Winthrop would have had something to +say,--until they could be reduced by pounding, first into a brown, and +then into a black, powder. Blood-letting in some inflammations, fasting +in the early stage of fevers, and some of those peremptory drugs with +which most of us have been well acquainted in our time, the infragrant +memories of which I will not pursue beyond this slight allusion, are +among his remedies. + +The Winthrops, to one of whom Dr. Stafford's directions were addressed, +were the medical as well as the political advisers of their +fellow-citizens for three or four successive generations. One of them, +Governor John of Connecticut, practised so extensively, that, but for his +more distinguished title in the State, he would have been remembered as +the Doctor. The fact that he practised in another colony, for the most +part, makes little difference in the value of the records we have of his +medical experience, which have fortunately been preserved, and give a +very fair idea, in all probability, of the way in which patients were +treated in Massachusetts, when they fell into intelligent and somewhat +educated hands, a little after the middle of the seventeenth century: + +I have before me, while writing, a manuscript collection of the medical +cases treated by him, and recorded at the time in his own hand, which has +been intrusted to me by our President, his descendant. + +They are generally marked Hartford, and extend from the year 1657 to +1669. From these, manuscripts, and from the letters printed in the +Winthrop Papers published by our Society, I have endeavored to obtain +some idea of the practice of Governor John Winthrop, Junior. The learned +eye of Mr. Pulsifer would have helped me, no doubt, as it has done in +other cases; but I have ventured this time to attempt finding my own way +among the hieroglyphics of these old pages. By careful comparison of +many prescriptions, and by the aid of Schroder, Salmon, Culpeper, and +other old compilers, I have deciphered many of his difficult paragraphs +with their mysterious recipes. + +The Governor employed a number of the simples dear to ancient women, +--elecampane and elder and wormwood and anise and the rest; but he also +employed certain mineral remedies, which he almost always indicates by +their ancient symbols, or by a name which should leave them a mystery to +the vulgar. I am now prepared to reveal the mystic secrets of the +Governor's beneficent art, which rendered so many good and great as well +as so many poor and dependent people his debtors,--at least, in their +simple belief,--for their health and their lives. + +His great remedy, which he gave oftener than any other, was nitre; which +he ordered in doses of twenty or thirty grains to adults, and of three +grains to infants. Measles, colics, sciatica, headache, giddiness, and +many other ailments, all found themselves treated, and I trust bettered, +by nitre; a pretty safe medicine in moderate doses, and one not likely to +keep the good Governor awake at night, thinking whether it might not +kill, if it did not cure. We may say as much for spermaceti, which he +seems to have considered "the sovereign'st thing on earth" for inward +bruises, and often prescribes after falls and similar injuries. + +One of the next remedies, in point of frequency, which he was in the +habit of giving, was (probably diaphoretic) antimony; a mild form of that +very active metal, and which, mild as it was, left his patients very +commonly with a pretty strong conviction that they had been taking +something that did not exactly agree with them. Now and then he gave a +little iron or sulphur or calomel, but very rarely; occasionally, a good, +honest dose of rhubarb or jalap; a taste of stinging horseradish, oftener +of warming guiacum; sometimes an anodyne, in the shape of +mithridate,--the famous old farrago, which owed its virtue to poppy +juice; [This is the remedy which a Boston divine tried to simplify. See +Electuarium Novum Alexipharmacum, by Rev. Thomas Harward, lecturer at +the Royal Chappell. Boston, 1732. This tract is in our Society's +library.] very often, a harmless powder of coral; less frequently, an +inert prescription of pleasing amber; and (let me say it softly within +possible hearing of his honored descendant), twice or oftener,--let us +hope as a last resort,--an electuary of millipedes,--sowbugs, if we must +give them their homely English name. One or two other prescriptions, of +the many unmentionable ones which disgraced the pharmacopoeia of the +seventeenth century, are to be found, but only in very rare instances, in +the faded characters of the manuscript. + +The excellent Governor's accounts of diseases are so brief, that we get +only a very general notion of the complaints for which he prescribed. +Measles and their consequences are at first more prominent than any other +one affection, but the common infirmities of both sexes and of all ages +seem to have come under his healing hand. Fever and ague appears to have +been of frequent occurrence. + +His published correspondence shows that many noted people were in +communication with him as his patients. Roger Williams wants a little of +his medicine for Mrs. Weekes's daughter; worshipful John Haynes is in +receipt of his powders; troublesome Captain Underhill wants "a little +white vitterall" for his wife, and something to cure his wife's friend's +neuralgia, (I think his wife's friend's husband had a little rather have +had it sent by the hands of Mrs. Underhill, than by those of the gallant +and discursive captain); and pious John Davenport says, his wife "tooke +but one halfe of one of the papers" (which probably contained the +medicine he called rubila), "but could not beare the taste of it, and is +discouraged from taking any more;" and honored William Leete asks for +more powders for his "poore little daughter Graciana," though he found it +"hard to make her take it," delicate, and of course sensitive, child as +she was, languishing and dying before her time, in spite of all the +bitter things she swallowed,--God help all little children in the hands +of dosing doctors and howling dervishes! Restless Samuel Gorton, now +tamed by the burden of fourscore and two years, writes so touching an +account of his infirmities, and expresses such overflowing gratitude for +the relief he has obtained from the Governor's prescriptions, wondering +how "a thing so little in quantity, so little in sent, so little in +taste, and so little to sence in operation, should beget and bring forth +such efects," that we repent our hasty exclamation, and bless the memory +of the good Governor, who gave relief to the worn-out frame of our +long-departed brother, the sturdy old heretic of Rhode Island. + +What was that medicine which so frequently occurs in the printed letters +under the name of "rubila"? It is evidently a secret remedy, and, so far +as I know, has not yet been made out. I had almost given it up in +despair, when I found what appears to be a key to the mystery. In the +vast multitude of prescriptions contained in the manuscripts, most of +them written in symbols, I find one which I thus interpret: + +"Four grains of (diaphoretic) antimony, with twenty grains of nitre, with +a little salt of tin, making rubila." Perhaps something was added to +redden the powder, as he constantly speaks of "rubifying" or "viridating" +his prescriptions; a very common practice of prescribers, when their +powders look a little too much like plain salt or sugar. + +Waitstill Winthrop, the Governor's son, "was a skilful physician," says +Mr. Sewall, in his funeral sermon; "and generously gave, not only his +advice, but also his Medicines, for the healing of the Sick, which, by +the Blessing of God, were made successful for the recovery of many." +"His son John, a member of the Royal Society, speaks of himself as 'Dr. +Winthrop,' and mentions one of his own prescriptions in a letter to +Cotton Mather." Our President tells me that there was an heirloom of the +ancient skill in his family, within his own remembrance, in the form of a +certain precious eye-water, to which the late President John Quincy Adams +ascribed rare virtue, and which he used to obtain from the possessor of +the ancient recipe. + +These inherited prescriptions are often treasured in families, I do not +doubt, for many generations. When I was yet of trivial age, and +suffering occasionally, as many children do, from what one of my +Cambridgeport schoolmates used to call the "ager,"--meaning thereby +toothache or face-ache,--I used to get relief from a certain plaster +which never went by any other name in the family than "Dr. Oliver." + +Dr. James Oliver was my great-great-grandfather, graduated in 1680, and +died in 1703. This was, no doubt, one of his nostrums; for nostrum, as +is well known, means nothing more than our own or my own particular +medicine, or other possession or secret, and physicians in old times used +to keep their choice recipes to themselves a good deal, as we have had +occasion to see. + +Some years ago I found among my old books a small manuscript marked +"James Oliver. This Book Begun Aug. 12, 1685." It is a rough sort of +account-book, containing among other things prescriptions for patients, +and charges for the same, with counter-charges for the purchase of +medicines and other matters. Dr. Oliver practised in Cambridge, where +may be seen his tomb with inscriptions, and with sculptured figures that +look more like Diana of the Ephesians, as given in Calmet's Dictionary, +than like any angels admitted into good society here or elsewhere. + +I do not find any particular record of what his patients suffered from, +but I have carefully copied out the remedies he mentions, and find that +they form a very respectable catalogue. Besides the usual simples, +elder, parsley, fennel, saffron, snake-root, wormwood, I find the Elixir +Proprietatis, with other elixire and cordials, as if he rather fancied +warming medicines; but he called in the aid of some of the more energetic +remedies, including iron, and probably mercury, as he bought two pounds +of it at one time. + +The most interesting item is his bill against the estate of Samuel Pason +of Roxbury, for services during his last illness. He attended this +gentleman,--for such he must have been, by the amount of physic which he +took, and which his heirs paid for,--from June 4th, 1696, to September 3d +of the same year, three months. I observe he charges for visits as well +as for medicines, which is not the case in most of his bills. He opens +the attack with a carminative appeal to the visceral conscience, and +follows it up with good hard-hitting remedies for dropsy,--as I suppose +the disease would have been called,--and finishes off with a rallying +dose of hartshorn and iron. + +It is a source of honest pride to his descendant that his bill, which was +honestly paid, as it seems to have been honorably earned, amounted to the +handsome total of seven pounds and two shillings. Let me add that he +repeatedly prescribes plaster, one of which was very probably the "Dr. +Oliver" that soothed my infant griefs, and for which I blush to say that +my venerated ancestor received from Goodman Hancock the painfully +exiguous sum of no pounds, no shillings, and sixpence. + +I have illustrated the practice of the first century, from the two +manuscripts I have examined, as giving an impartial idea of its every-day +methods. The Governor, Johannes Secundus, it is fair to remember, was an +amateur practitioner, while my ancestor was a professed physician. +Comparing their modes of treatment with the many scientific follies still +prevailing in the Old World, and still more with the extraordinary +theological superstitions of the community in which they lived, we shall +find reason, I think, to consider the art of healing as in a +comparatively creditable state during the first century of New England. + +In addition to the evidence as to methods of treatment furnished by the +manuscripts I have cited, I subjoin the following document, to which my +attention was called by Dr. Shurtleff, our present Mayor. This is a +letter of which the original is to be found in vol. lxix. page 10 of the +"Archives" preserved at the State House in Boston. It will be seen that +what the surgeon wanted consisted chiefly of opiates, stimulants, +cathartics, plasters, and materials for bandages. The complex and varied +formulae have given place to simpler and often more effective forms of +the same remedies; but the list and the manner in which it is made out +are proofs of the good sense and schooling of the surgeon, who, it may be +noted, was in such haste that he neglected all his stops. He might well +be in a hurry, as on the very day upon which he wrote, a great body of +Indians--supposed to be six or seven hundred--appeared before Hatfield; +and twenty-five resolute young men of Hadley, from which town he wrote, +crossed the river and drove them away. + +HADLY May 30: 76 + +Mr RAWSON Sr + +What we have recd by Tho: Houey the past month is not the cheifest of our +wants as you have love for poor wounded I pray let us not want for these +following medicines if you have not a speedy conveyance of them I pray +send on purpose they are those things mentioned in my former letter but +to prevent future mistakes I have wrote them att large wee have great +want with the greatest halt and speed let us be supplyed. Sr Yr Sert WILL +LOCHS + +(Endorsed) + +Mr. Lockes Letter Recd from the Governor 13 Jane & acquainted ye Council +with it but could not obtaine any thing to be sent in answer thereto. +13 June 1676 + +I have given some idea of the chief remedies used by our earlier +physicians, which were both Galenic and chemical; that is, vegetable and +mineral. They, of course, employed the usual perturbing medicines which +Montaigne says are the chief reliance of their craft. There were, +doubtless, individual practitioners who employed special remedies with +exceptional boldness and perhaps success. Mr. Eliot is spoken of, in a +letter of William Leete to Winthrop, Junior, as being under Mr. +Greenland's mercurial administrations. The latter was probably enough +one of these specialists. + +There is another class of remedies which appears to have been employed +occasionally, but, on the whole, is so little prominent as to imply a +good deal of common sense among the medical practitioners, as compared +with the superstitions prevailing around them. I have said that I have +caught the good Governor, now and then, prescribing the electuary of +millipedes; but he is entirely excused by the almost incredible fact that +they were retained in the materia medica so late as when Rees's +Cyclopaedia was published, and we there find the directions formerly +given by the College of Edinburgh for their preparation. Once or twice +we have found him admitting still more objectionable articles into his +materia medica; in doing which, I am sorry to say that he could plead +grave and learned authority. But these instances are very rare +exceptions in a medical practice of many years, which is, on the whole, +very respectable, considering the time and circumstances. + +Some remedies of questionable though not odious character appear +occasionally to have been employed by the early practitioners, but they +were such as still had the support of the medical profession. Governor +John Winthrop, the first, sends for East Indian bezoar, with other +commodities he is writing for. Governor Endicott sends him one he had of +Mr. Humfrey. I hope it was genuine, for they cheated infamously in the +matter of this concretion, which ought to come out of an animal's +stomach, but the real history of which resembles what is sometimes told +of modern sausages. + +There is a famous law-case of James the First's time, in which a +goldsmith sold a hundred pounds' worth of what he called bezoar, which +was proved to be false, and the purchaser got a verdict against him. +Governor Endicott also sends Winthrop a unicorn's horn, which was the +property of a certain Mrs. Beggarly, who, in spite of her name, seems to +have been rich in medical knowledge and possessions. The famous Thomas +Bartholinus wrote a treatise on the virtues of this fabulous-sounding +remedy, which was published in 1641, and republished in 1678. + +The "antimonial cup," a drinking vessel made of that metal, which, like +our quassia-wood cups, might be filled and emptied in saecula saeculorum +without exhausting its virtues, is mentioned by Matthew Cradock, in a +letter to the elder Winthrop, but in a doubtful way, as it was thought, +he says, to have shortened the days of Sir Nathaniel Riche; and Winthrop +himself, as I think, refers to its use, calling it simply "the cup." An +antimonial cup is included in the inventory of Samuel Seabury, who died +1680, and is valued at five shillings. There is a treatise entitled "The +Universall Remedy, or the Vertues of the Antimoniall Cup, By John Evans, +Minister and Preacher of God's Word, London, 1634," in our own Society's +library. + +One other special remedy deserves notice, because of native growth. I do +not know when Culver's root, Leptandra Virginica of our National +Pharmacopoeia, became noted, but Cotton Mather, writing in 1716 to John +Winthrop of New London, speaks of it as famous for the cure of +consumptions, and wishes to get some of it, through his mediation, for +Katharine, his eldest daughter. He gets it, and gives it to the "poor +damsel," who is languishing, as he says, and who dies the next +month,--all the sooner, I have little doubt, for this uncertain and +violent drug, with which the meddlesome pedant tormented her in that +spirit of well-meant but restless quackery, which could touch nothing +without making mischief, not even a quotation, and yet proved at length +the means of bringing a great blessing to our community, as we shall see +by and by; so does Providence use our very vanities and infirmities for +its wise purposes. + +Externally, I find the practitioners on whom I have chiefly relied used +the plasters of Paracelsus, of melilot, diachylon, and probably +diaphoenicon, all well known to the old pharmacopoeias, and some of them +to the modern ones,--to say nothing of "my yellow salve," of Governor +John, the second, for the composition of which we must apply to his +respected descendant. + +The authors I find quoted are Barbette's Surgery, Camerarius on Gout, and +Wecherus, of all whom notices may be found in the pages of Haller and +Vanderlinden; also, Reed's Surgery, and Nicholas Culpeper's Practice of +Physic and Anatomy, the last as belonging to Samuel Seabury, chirurgeon, +before mentioned. Nicholas Culpeper was a shrewd charlatan, and as +impudent a varlet as ever prescribed for a colic; but knew very well what +he was about, and badgers the College with great vigor. A copy of +Spigelius's famous Anatomy, in the Boston Athenaeum, has the names of +Increase and Samuel Mather written in it, and was doubtless early +overhauled by the youthful Cotton, who refers to the great anatomist's +singular death, among his curious stories in the "Magnalia," and quotes +him among nearly a hundred authors whom he cites in his manuscript "The +Angel of Bethesda." Dr. John Clark's "books and instruments, with +several chirurgery materials in the closet," a were valued in his +inventory at sixty pounds; Dr. Matthew Fuller, who died in 1678, left a +library valued at ten pounds; and a surgeon's chest and drugs valued at +sixteen pounds.' + +Here we leave the first century and all attempts at any further detailed +accounts of medicine and its practitioners. It is necessary to show in a +brief glance what had been going on in Europe during the latter part of +that century, the first quarter of which had been made illustrious in the +history of medical science by the discovery of the circulation. + +Charles Barbeyrac, a Protestant in his religion, was a practitioner and +teacher of medicine at Montpellier. His creed was in the way of his +obtaining office; but the young men followed his instructions with +enthusiasm. Religious and scientific freedom breed in and in, until it +becomes hard to tell the family of one from that of the other. Barbeyrac +threw overboard the old complex medical farragos of the pharmacopoeias, +as his church had disburdened itself of the popish ceremonies. + +Among the students who followed his instructions were two Englishmen: one +of them, John Locke, afterwards author of an "Essay on the Human +Understanding," three years younger than his teacher; the other, Thomas +Sydenham, five years older. Both returned to England. Locke, whose +medical knowledge is borne witness to by Sydenham, had the good fortune +to form a correct opinion on a disease from which the Earl of Shaftesbury +was suffering, which led to an operation that saved his life. Less +felicitous was his experience with a certain ancilla culinaria +virgo,--which I am afraid would in those days have been translated +kitchen-wench, instead of lady of the culinary department,--who turned +him off after she had got tired of him, and called in another +practitioner. [Locke and Sydenham, p. 124. By John Brown, M. D. +Edinburgh, 1866.] This helped, perhaps, to spoil a promising doctor, and +make an immortal metaphysician. At any rate, Locke laid down the +professional wig and cane, and took to other studies. + +The name of Thomas Sydenham is as distinguished in the history of +medicine as that of John Locke in philosophy. As Barbeyrac was found in +opposition to the established religion, as Locke took the rational side +against orthodox Bishop Stillingfleet, so Sydenham went with Parliament +against Charles, and was never admitted a Fellow by the College of +Physicians, which, after he was dead, placed his bust in their hall by +the side of that of Harvey. + +What Sydenham did for medicine was briefly this he studied the course of +diseases carefully, and especially as affected by the particular season; +to patients with fever he gave air and cooling drinks, instead of +smothering and heating them, with the idea of sweating out their disease; +he ordered horseback exercise to consumptives; he, like his teacher, used +few and comparatively simple remedies; he did not give any drug at all, +if he thought none was needed, but let well enough alone. He was a +sensible man, in short, who applied his common sense to diseases which he +had studied with the best light of science that he could obtain. + +The influence of the reform he introduced must have been more or less +felt in this country, but not much before the beginning of the eighteenth +century, as his great work was not published until 1675, and then in +Latin. I very strongly suspect that there was not so much to reform in +the simple practice of the physicians of the new community, as there was +in that of the learned big-wigs of the "College," who valued their +remedies too much in proportion to their complexity, and the extravagant +and fantastic ingredients which went to their making. + +During the memorable century which bred and bore the Revolution, the +medical profession gave great names to our history. But John Brooks +belonged to the State, and Joseph Warren belongs to the country and +mankind, and to speak of them would lead me beyond my limited--subject. +There would be little pleasure in dwelling on the name of Benjamin +Church; and as for the medical politicians, like Elisha Cooke in the +early part of the century, or Charles Jarvis, the bald eagle of Boston, +in its later years, whether their practice was heroic or not, their +patients were, for he is a bold man who trusts one that is making +speeches and coaxing voters, to meddle with the internal politics of his +corporeal republic. + +One great event stands out in the medical history of this eighteenth +century; namely, the introduction of the practice of inoculation for +small-pox. Six epidemics of this complaint had visited Boston in the +course of a hundred years. Prayers had been asked in the churches for +more than a hundred sick in a single day, and this many times. About a +thousand persons had died in a twelvemonth, we are told, and, as we may +infer, chiefly from this cause. + +In 1721, this disease, after a respite of nineteen years, again appeared +as an epidemic. In that year it was that Cotton Mather, browsing, as was +his wont, on all the printed fodder that came within reach of his +ever-grinding mandibles, came upon an account of inoculation as practised +in Turkey, contained in the "Philosophical Transactions." He spoke of it +to several physicians, who paid little heed to his story; for they knew +his medical whims, and had probably been bored, as we say now-a-days, +many of them, with listening to his "Angel of Bethesda," and satiated +with his speculations on the Nishmath Chajim. + +The Reverend Mather,--I use a mode of expression he often employed when +speaking of his honored brethren,--the Reverend Mather was right this +time, and the irreverent doctors who laughed at him were wrong. One only +of their number disputes his claim to giving the first impulse to the +practice, in Boston. This is what that person says: "The Small-Pox +spread in Boston, New England, A.1721, and the Reverend Dr. Cotton +Mather, having had the use of these Communications from Dr. William +Douglass (that is, the writer of these words); surreptitiously, without +the knowledge of his Informer, that he might have the honour of a New +fangled notion, sets an Undaunted Operator to work, and in this Country +about 290 were inoculated." + +All this has not deprived Cotton Mather of the credit of suggesting, and +a bold and intelligent physician of the honor of carrying out, the new +practice. On the twenty-seventh day of June, 1721, Zabdiel Boylston of +Boston inoculated his only son for smallpox,--the first person ever +submitted to the operation in the New World. The story of the fierce +resistance to the introduction of the practice; of how Boylston was +mobbed, and Mather had a hand-grenade thrown in at his window; of how +William Douglass, the Scotchman, "always positive, and sometimes +accurate," as was neatly said of him, at once depreciated the practice +and tried to get the credit of suggesting it, and how Lawrence Dalhonde, +the Frenchman, testified to its destructive consequences; of how Edmund +Massey, lecturer at St. Albans, preached against sinfully endeavoring to +alter the course of nature by presumptuous interposition, which he would +leave to the atheist and the scoffer, the heathen and unbeliever, while +in the face of his sermon, afterwards reprinted in Boston, many of our +New England clergy stood up boldly in defence of the practice,--all this +has been told so well and so often that I spare you its details. Set +this good hint of Cotton Mather against that letter of his to John +Richards, recommending the search after witch-marks, and the application +of the water-ordeal, which means throw your grandmother into the water, +if she has a mole on her arm;--if she swims, she is a witch and must be +hanged; if she sinks, the Lord have mercy on her soul! + +Thus did America receive this great discovery, destined to save thousands +of lives, via Boston, from the hands of one of our own Massachusetts +physicians. + +The year 1735 was rendered sadly memorable by the epidemic of the +terrible disease known as "throat distemper," and regarded by many as the +same as our "diphtheria." Dr. Holyoke thinks the more general use of +mercurials in inflammatory complaints dates from the time of their +employment in this disease, in which they were thought to have proved +specially useful. + +At some time in the course of this century medical practice had settled +down on four remedies as its chief reliance. I must repeat an incident +which I have related in another of these Essays. When Dr. Holyoke, +nearly seventy years ago, received young Mr. James Jackson as his +student, he showed him the formidable array of bottles, jars, and drawers +around his office, and then named the four remedies referred to as being +of more importance than all the rest put together. These were "Mercury, +Antimony, Opium, and Peruvian Bark." I doubt if either of them +remembered that, nearly seventy years before, in 1730, Dr. William +Douglass, the disputatious Scotchman, mentioned those same four remedies, +in the dedication of his quarrelsome essay on inoculation, as the most +important ones in the hands of the physicians of his time. + +In the "Proceedings" of this Society for the year 1863 is a very pleasant +paper by the late Dr. Ephraim Eliot, giving an account of the leading +physicians of Boston during the last quarter of the last century. The +names of Lloyd, Gardiner, Welsh, Rand, Bulfinch, Danforth, John Warren, +Jeffries, are all famous in local history, and are commemorated in our +medical biographies. One of them, at least, appears to have been more +widely known, not only as one of the first aerial voyagers, but as an +explorer in the almost equally hazardous realm of medical theory. Dr. +John Jeffries, the first of that name, is considered by Broussais as a +leader of medical opinion in America, and so referred to in his famous +"Examen des Doctrines Medicales." + +Two great movements took place in this eighteenth century, the effect of +which has been chiefly felt in our own time; namely, the establishment of +the Massachusetts Medical Society, and the founding of the Medical School +of Harvard University. + +The third century of our medical history began with the introduction of +the second great medical discovery of modern times,--of all time up to +that date, I may say,--once more via Boston, if we count the University +village as its suburb, and once more by one of our Massachusetts +physicians. In the month of July, 1800, Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse of +Cambridge submitted four of his own children to the new process of +vaccination,--the first persons vaccinated, as Dr. Zabdiel Boylston's son +had been the first person inoculated in the New World. + +A little before the first half of this century was completed, in the +autumn of 1846, the great discovery went forth from the Massachusetts +General Hospital, which repaid the debt of America to the science of the +Old World, and gave immortality to the place of its origin in the memory +and the heart of mankind. The production of temporary insensibility at +will--tuto, cito, jucunde, safely, quickly, pleasantly--is one of those +triumphs over the infirmities of our mortal condition which change the +aspect of life ever afterwards. Rhetoric can add nothing to its glory; +gratitude, and the pride permitted to human weakness, that our Bethlehem +should have been chosen as the birthplace of this new embodiment of the +divine mercy, are all we can yet find room for. + +The present century has seen the establishment of all those great +charitable institutions for the cure of diseases of the body and of the +mind, which our State and our city have a right to consider as among the +chief ornaments of their civilization. + +The last century had very little to show, in our State, in the way of +medical literature. The worthies who took care of our grandfathers and +great-grandfathers, like the Revolutionary heroes, fought (with disease) +and bled (their patients) and died (in spite of their own remedies); but +their names, once familiar, are heard only at rare intervals. Honored in +their day, not unremembered by a few solitary students of the past, their +memories are going sweetly to sleep in the arms of the patient old +dry-nurse, whose "blackdrop" is the never-failing anodyne of the restless +generations of men. Except the lively controversy on inoculation, and +floating papers in journals, we have not much of value for that long +period, in the shape of medical records. + +But while the trouble with the last century is to find authors to +mention, the trouble of this would be to name all that we find. Of +these, a very few claim unquestioned preeminence. + +Nathan Smith, born in Rehoboth, Mass., a graduate of the Medical School +of our University, did a great work for the advancement of medicine and +surgery in New England, by his labors as teacher and author, greater, it +is claimed by some, than was ever done by any other man. The two +Warrens, of our time, each left a large and permanent record of a most +extended surgical practice. James Jackson not only educated a whole +generation by his lessons of wisdom, but bequeathed some of the most +valuable results of his experience to those who came after him, in a +series of letters singularly pleasant and kindly as well as instructive. +John Ware, keen and cautious, earnest and deliberate, wrote the two +remarkable essays which have identified his name, for all time, with two +important diseases, on which he has shed new light by his original +observations. + +I must do violence to the modesty of the living by referring to the many +important contributions to medical science by Dr. Jacob Bigelow, and +especially to his discourse on "Self-limited Diseases," an address which +can be read in a single hour, but the influence of which will be felt for +a century. + +Nor would the profession forgive me if I forgot to mention the admirable +museum of pathological anatomy, created almost entirely by the hands of +Dr. John Barnard Swett Jackson, and illustrated by his own printed +descriptive catalogue, justly spoken of by a distinguished professor in +the University of Pennsylvania as the most important contribution which +had ever been made in this country to the branch to which it relates. + +When we look at the literature of mental disease, as seen in hospital +reports and special treatises, we can mention the names of Wyman, +Woodward, Brigham, Bell, and Ray, all either natives of Massachusetts or +placed at the head of her institutions for the treatment of the insane. + +We have a right to claim also one who is known all over the civilized +world as a philanthropist, to us as a townsman and a graduate of our own +Medical School, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, the guide and benefactor of a +great multitude who were born to a world of inward or of outward +darkness. + +I cannot pass over in silence the part taken by our own physicians in +those sanitary movements which are assuming every year greater +importance. Two diseases especially have attracted attention, above all +others, with reference to their causes and prevention; cholera, the +"black death" of the nineteenth century, and consumption, the white +plague of the North, both of which have been faithfully studied and +reported on by physicians of our own State and city. The cultivation of +medical and surgical specialties, which is fast becoming prevalent, is +beginning to show its effects in the literature of the profession, which +is every year growing richer in original observations and investigations. + +To these benefactors who have labored for us in their peaceful vocation, +we must add the noble army of surgeons, who went with the soldiers who +fought the battles of their country, sharing many of their dangers, not +rarely falling victims to fatigue, disease, or the deadly volleys to +which they often exposed themselves in the discharge of their duties. + +The pleasant biographies of the venerable Dr. Thacher, and the worthy and +kind-hearted gleaner, Dr. Stephen W. Williams, who came after him, are +filled with the names of men who served their generation well, and rest +from their labors, followed by the blessing of those for whom they +endured the toils and fatigues inseparable from their calling. The +hardworking, intelligent country physician more especially deserves the +gratitude of his own generation, for he rarely leaves any permanent +record in the literature of his profession. Books are hard to obtain; +hospitals, which are always centres of intelligence, are remote; +thoroughly educated and superior men are separated by wide intervals; and +long rides, though favorable to reflection, take up much of the time +which might otherwise be given to the labors of the study. So it is that +men of ability and vast experience, like the late Dr. Twitchell, for +instance, make a great and deserved reputation, become the oracles of +large districts, and yet leave nothing, or next to nothing, by which +their names shall be preserved from blank oblivion. + +One or two other facts deserve mention, as showing the readiness of our +medical community to receive and adopt any important idea or discovery. +The new science of Histology, as it is now called, was first brought +fully before the profession of this country by the translation of +Bichat's great work, "Anatomie Generale," by the late Dr. George Hayward. + +The first work printed in this country on Auscultation,--that wonderful +art of discovering disease, which, as it were, puts a window in the +breast, through which the vital organs can be seen, to all intents and +purposes, was the manual published anonymously by "A Member of the +Massachusetts Medical Society." + +We are now in some slight measure prepared to weigh the record of the +medical profession in Massachusetts, and pass our judgment upon it. But +in-order to do justice to the first generation of practitioners, we must +compare what we know of their treatment of disease with the state of the +art in England, and the superstitions which they saw all around them in +other departments of knowledge or belief. + +English medical literature must have been at a pretty low ebb when +Sydenham recommended Don Quixote to Sir Richard Blackmore for +professional reading. The College Pharmacopoeia was loaded with the most +absurd compound mixtures, one of the most complex of which (the same +which the Reverend Mr. Harward, "Lecturer at the Royal Chappel in +Boston," tried to simplify), was not dropped until the year 1801. Sir +Kenelm Digby was playing his fantastic tricks with the Sympathetic +powder, and teaching Governor Winthrop, the second, how to cure fever and +ague, which some may like to know. "Pare the patient's nails; put the +parings in a little bag, and hang the bag round the neck of a live eel, +and put him in a tub of water. The eel will die, and the patient will +recover." + +Wiseman, the great surgeon, was discoursing eloquently on the efficacy of +the royal touch in scrofula. The founder of the Ashmolean Museum at +Oxford, consorting with alchemists and astrologers, was treasuring the +manuscripts of the late pious Dr. Richard Napier, in which certain +letters (Rx Ris) were understood to mean Responsum Raphaelis,--the answer +of the angel Raphael to the good man's medical questions. The +illustrious Robert Boyle was making his collection of choice and safe +remedies, including the sole of an old shoe, the thigh bone of a hanged +man, and things far worse than these, as articles of his materia medica. +Dr. Stafford, whose paper of directions to his "friend, Mr. Wintrop," I +cited, was probably a man of standing in London; yet toad-powder was his +sovereign remedy. + +See what was the state of belief in other matters among the most +intelligent persons of the colonies, magistrates and clergymen. Jonathan +Brewster, son of the church-elder, writes the wildest letters to John +Winthrop about alchemy,--"mad for making gold as the Lynn rock-borers are +for finding it." + +Remember the theology and the diabology of the time. Mr. Cotton's +Theocracy was a royal government, with the King of kings as its nominal +head, but with an upper chamber of saints, and a tremendous opposition in +the lower house; the leader of which may have been equalled, but cannot +have been surpassed by any of our earth-born politicians. The demons +were prowling round the houses every night, as the foxes were sneaking +about the hen-roosts. The men of Gloucester fired whole flasks of +gunpowder at devils disguised as Indians and Frenchmen. + +How deeply the notion of miraculous interference with the course of +nature was rooted, is shown by the tenacity of the superstition about +earthquakes. We can hardly believe that our Professor Winthrop, father +of the old judge and the "squire," whom many of us Cambridge people +remember so well, had to defend himself against the learned and excellent +Dr. Prince, of the Old South Church, for discussing their phenomena as if +they belonged to the province of natural science: + +Not for the sake of degrading the aspect of the noble men who founded our +State, do I refer to their idle beliefs and painful delusions, but to +show against what influences the common sense of the medical profession +had to assert itself. + +Think, then, of the blazing stars, that shook their horrid hair in the +sky; the phantom ship, that brought its message direct from the other +world; the story of the mouse and the snake at Watertown; of the mice +and the prayer-book; of the snake in church; of the calf with two heads; +and of the cabbage in the perfect form of a cutlash,--all which innocent +occurrences were accepted or feared as alarming portents. + +We can smile at these: but we cannot smile at the account of unhappy Mary +Dyer's malformed offspring; or of Mrs. Hutchinson's domestic misfortune +of similar character, in the story of which the physician, Dr. John Clark +of Rhode Island, alone appears to advantage; or as we read the Rev. +Samuel Willard's fifteen alarming pages about an unfortunate young woman +suffering with hysteria. Or go a little deeper into tragedy, and see +poor Dorothy Talby, mad as Ophelia, first admonished, then whipped; at +last, taking her own little daughter's life; put on trial, and standing +mute, threatened to be pressed to death, confessing, sentenced, praying +to be beheaded; and none the less pitilessly swung from the fatal ladder. + +The cooper's crazy wife--crazy in the belief that she has committed the +unpardonable sin--tries to drown her child, to save it from misery; and +the poor lunatic, who would be tenderly cared for to-day in a quiet +asylum, is judged to be acting under the instigation of Satan himself. +Yet, after all, what can we say, who put Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," +full of nightmare dreams of horror, into all our children's hands; a +story in which the awful image of the man in the cage might well turn the +nursery where it is read into a madhouse? + +The miserable delusion of witchcraft illustrates, in a still more +impressive way, the false ideas which governed the supposed relation of +men with the spiritual world. I have no doubt many physicians shared in +these superstitions. Mr. Upham says they--that is, some of them--were in +the habit of attributing their want of success to the fact, that an "evil +hand" was on their patient. The temptation was strong, no doubt, when +magistrates and ministers and all that followed their lead were contented +with such an explanation. But how was it in Salem, according to Mr. +Upham's own statement? Dr. John Swinnerton was, he says, for many years +the principal physician of Salem. And he says, also, "The Swinnerton +family were all along opposed to Mr. Parris, and kept remarkably clear +from the witchcraft delusion." Dr. John Swinnerton--the same, by the +way, whose memory is illuminated by a ray from the genius of +Hawthorne--died the very year before the great witchcraft explosion took +place. But who can doubt that it was from him that the family had +learned to despise and to resist the base superstition; or that Bridget +Bishop, whose house he rented, as Mr. Upham tells me, the first person +hanged in the time of the delusion, would have found an efficient +protector in her tenant, had he been living, to head the opposition of +his family to the misguided clergymen and magistrates? + +I cannot doubt that our early physicians brought with them many Old-World +medical superstitions, and I have no question that they were more or less +involved in the prevailing errors of the community in which they lived. +But, on the whole, their record is a clean one, so far as we can get at +it; and where it is questionable we must remember that there must have +been many little-educated persons among them; and that all must have +felt, to some extent, the influence of those sincere and devoted but +unsafe men, the physic-practising clergymen, who often used spiritual +means as a substitute for temporal ones, who looked upon a hysteric +patient as possessed by the devil, and treated a fractured skull by +prayers and plasters, following the advice of a ruling elder in +opposition to the "unanimous opinion of seven surgeons." + +To what results the union of the two professions was liable to lead, may +be seen by the example of a learned and famous person, who has left on +record the product of his labors in the double capacity of clergyman and +physician. + +I have had the privilege of examining a manuscript of Cotton Mather's +relating to medicine, by the kindness of the librarian of the American +Antiquarian Society, to which society it belongs. A brief notice of this +curious document may prove not uninteresting. + +It is entitled "The Angel of Bethesda: an Essay upon the Common Maladies +of Mankind, offering, first, the sentiments of Piety," etc., etc., and "a +collection of plain but potent and Approved REMEDIES for the Maladies." +There are sixty-six "Capsula's," as he calls them, or chapters, in his +table of contents; of which, five--from the fifteenth to the nineteenth, +inclusive--are missing. This is a most unfortunate loss, as the +eighteenth capsula treated of agues, and we could have learned from it +something of their degree of frequency in this part of New England. +There is no date to the manuscript; which, however, refers to a case +observed Nov. 14, 1724. + +The divine takes precedence of the physician in this extraordinary +production. He begins by preaching a sermon at his unfortunate patient. +Having thrown him into a cold sweat by his spiritual sudorific, he +attacks him with his material remedies, which are often quite as +unpalatable. The simple and cleanly practice of Sydenham, with whose +works he was acquainted, seems to have been thrown away upon him. +Everything he could find mentioned in the seventy or eighty authors he +cites, all that the old women of both sexes had ever told him of, gets +into his text, or squeezes itself into his margin. + +Evolving disease out of sin, he hates it, one would say, as he hates its +cause, and would drive it out of the body with all noisome appliances. +"Sickness is in Fact Flagellum Dei pro peccatis mundi." So saying, he +encourages the young mother whose babe is wasting away upon her breast +with these reflections: + +"Think; oh the grievous Effects of Sin! This wretched Infant has not +arrived unto years of sense enough, to sin after the similitude of the +transgression committed by Adam. Nevertheless the Transgression of Adam, +who had all mankind Foederally, yea, Naturally, in him, has involved this +Infant in the guilt of it. And the poison of the old serpent, which +infected Adam when he fell into his Transgression, by hearkening to the +Tempter, has corrupted all mankind, and is a seed unto such diseases as +this Infant is now laboring under. Lord, what are we, and what are our +children, but a Generation of Vipers?" + +Many of his remedies are at least harmless, but his pedantry and utter +want of judgment betray themselves everywhere. He piles his +prescriptions one upon another, without the least discrimination. He is +run away with by all sorts of fancies and superstitions. He prescribes +euphrasia, eye-bright, for disease of the eyes; appealing confidently to +the strange old doctrine of signatures, which inferred its use from the +resemblance of its flower to the organ of vision. For the scattering of +wens, the efficacy of a Dead Hand has been out of measure wonderful. +But when he once comes to the odious class of remedies, he revels in them +like a scarabeus. This allusion will bring us quite near enough to the +inconceivable abominations with which he proposed to outrage the sinful +stomachs of the unhappy confederates and accomplices of Adam. + +It is well that the treatise was never printed, yet there are passages in +it worth preserving. He speaks of some remedies which have since become +more universally known: + +"Among the plants of our soyl, Sir William Temple singles out Five [Six] +as being of the greatest virtue and most friendly to health: and his +favorite plants, Sage, Rue, Saffron, Alehoof, Garlick, and Elder." + +"But these Five [Six] plants may admitt of some competitors. The +QUINQUINA--How celebrated: Immoderately, Hyperbolically celebrated!" + +Of Ipecacuanha, he says,--"This is now in its reign; the most +fashionable vomit." + +"I am not sorry that antimonial emetics begin to be disused." + +He quotes "Mr. Lock" as recommending red poppy-water and abstinence from +flesh as often useful in children's diseases. + +One of his "Capsula's" is devoted to the animalcular origin of diseases, +at the end of which he says, speaking of remedies for this supposed +source of our distempers: + +"Mercury we know thee: But we are afraid thou wilt kill us too, if we +employ thee to kill them that kill us. + +"And yett, for the cleansing of the small Blood Vessels, and making way +for the free circulation of the Blood and Lymph--there is nothing like +Mercurial Deobstruents." + +From this we learn that mercury was already in common use, and the +subject of the same popular prejudice as in our own time. + +His poetical turn shows itself here and there: + +"O Nightingale, with a Thorn at thy Breast; Under the trouble of a Cough, +what can be more proper than such thoughts as these?"... + +If there is pathos in this, there is bathos in his apostrophe to the +millipede, beginning "Poor sowbug!" and eulogizing the healing virtues of +that odious little beast; of which he tells us to take "half a pound, +putt 'em alive into a quart or two of wine," with saffron and other +drugs, and take two ounces twice a day. + +The "Capsula" entitled "Nishmath Chajim" was printed in 1722, at New +London, and is in the possession of our own Society. He means, by these +words, something like the Archxus of Van Helmont, of which he discourses +in a style wonderfully resembling that of Mr. Jenkinson in the "Vicar of +Wakefield." "Many of the Ancients thought there was much of a Real +History in the Parable, and their Opinion was that there is, DIAPHORA +KATA TAS MORPHAS, A Distinction (and so a Resemblance) of men as to their +Shapes after Death." And so on, with Ireaeus, Tertullian, Thespesius, +and "the TA TONE PSEUCONE CROMATA," in the place of "Sanconiathon, +Manetho, Berosus," and "Anarchon ara kai ateleutaion to pan." + +One other passage deserves notice, as it relates to the single medical +suggestion which does honor to Cotton Mather's memory. It does not +appear that he availed himself of the information which he says, he +obtained from his slave, for such I suppose he was. + +In his appendix to "Variolae Triumphatae," he says,-- + +"There has been a wonderful practice lately used in several parts of the +world, which indeed is not yet become common in our nation. + +"I was first informed of it by a Garamantee servant of my own, long +before I knew that any Europeans or Asiaticks had the least acquaintance +with it, and some years before I was enriched with the communications of +the learned Foreigners, whose accounts I found agreeing with what I +received of my servant, when he shewed me the Scar of the Wound made for +the operation; and said, That no person ever died of the smallpox, in +their countrey, that had the courage to use it. + +"I have since met with a considerable Number of these Africans, who all +agree in one story; That in their countrey grandy-many dy of the +small-pox: But now they learn this way: people take juice of smallpox and +cutty-skin and put in a Drop; then by'nd by a little sicky, sicky: then +very few little things like small-pox; and nobody dy of it; and nobody +have small-pox any more. Thus, in Africa, where the poor creatures dy of +the smallpox like Rotten Sheep, a merciful God has taught them an +Infallible preservative. 'T is a common practice, and is attended with a +constant success." + +What has come down to us of the first century of medical practice, in the +hands of Winthrop and Oliver, is comparatively simple and reasonable. I +suspect that the conditions of rude, stern life, in which the colonists +found themselves in the wilderness, took the nonsense out of them, as the +exigencies of a campaign did out of our physicians and surgeons in the +late war. Good food and enough of it, pure air and water, cleanliness, +good attendance, an anaesthetic, an opiate, a stimulant, quinine, and two +or three common drugs, proved to be the marrow of medical treatment; and +the fopperies of the pharmacopoeia went the way of embroidered shirts and +white kid gloves and malacca joints, in their time of need. "Good wine +is the best cordiall for her," said Governor John Winthrop, Junior, to +Samuel Symonds, speaking of that gentleman's wife,--just as Sydenham, +instead of physic, once ordered a roast chicken and a pint of canary for +his patient in male hysterics. + +But the profession of medicine never could reach its full development +until it became entirely separated from that of divinity. The spiritual +guide, the consoler in affliction, the confessor who is admitted into the +secrets of our souls, has his own noble sphere of duties; but the healer +of men must confine himself solely to the revelations of God in nature, +as he sees their miracles with his own eyes. No doctrine of prayer or +special providence is to be his excuse for not looking straight at +secondary causes, and acting, exactly so far as experience justifies him, +as if he were himself the divine agent which antiquity fabled him to be. +While pious men were praying--humbly, sincerely, rightly, according to +their knowledge--over the endless succession of little children dying of +spasms in the great Dublin Hospital, a sagacious physician knocked some +holes in the walls of the ward, let God's blessed air in on the little +creatures, and so had already saved in that single hospital, as it was +soberly calculated thirty years ago, more than sixteen thousand lives of +these infant heirs of immortality. [Collins's Midwifery, p. 312. +Published by order of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Boston, 1841.] + +Let it be, if you will, that the wise inspiration of the physician was +granted in virtue of the clergyman's supplications. Still, the habit of +dealing with things seen generates another kind of knowledge, and another +way of thought, from that of dealing with things unseen; which knowledge +and way of thought are special means granted by Providence, and to be +thankfully accepted. + +The mediaeval ecclesiastics expressed a great truth in that saying, so +often quoted, as carrying a reproach with it: "Ubi tres medici, duo +athei,"--"Where there are three physicians, there are two atheists." + +It was true then, it is true to-day, that the physician very commonly, if +not very generally, denies and repudiates the deity of ecclesiastical +commerce. The Being whom Ambroise Pare meant when he spoke those +memorable words, which you may read over the professor's chair in the +French School of Medicine, "Te le pensay, et Dieu le guarit," "I dressed +his wound, and God healed it,"--is a different being from the God that +scholastic theologians have projected from their consciousness, or shaped +even from the sacred pages which have proved so plastic in their hands. +He is a God who never leaves himself without witness, who repenteth him +of the evil, who never allows a disease or an injury, compatible with the +enjoyment of life, to take its course without establishing an effort, +limited by certain fixed conditions, it is true, but an effort, always, +to restore the broken body or the shattered mind. In the perpetual +presence of this great Healing Agent, who stays the bleeding of wounds, +who knits the fractured bone, who expels the splinter by a gentle natural +process, who walls in the inflammation that might involve the vital +organs, who draws a cordon to separate the dead part from the living, who +sends his three natural anaesthetics to the over-tasked frame in due +order, according to its need,--sleep, fainting, death; in this perpetual +presence, it is doubtless hard for the physician to realize the +theological fact of a vast and permanent sphere of the universe, where no +organ finds itself in its natural medium, where no wound heals kindly, +where the executive has abrogated the pardoning power, and mercy forgets +its errand; where the omnipotent is unfelt save in malignant agencies, +and the omnipresent is unseen and unrepresented; hard to accept the God +of Dante's "Inferno," and of Bunyan's caged lunatic. If this is atheism, +call three, instead of two of the trio, atheists, and it will probably +come nearer the truth. + +I am not disposed to deny the occasional injurious effect of the +materializing influences to which the physician is subjected. A spiritual +guild is absolutely necessary to keep him, to keep us all, from becoming +the "fingering slaves" that Wordsworth treats with such shrivelling +scorn. But it is well that the two callings have been separated, and it +is fitting that they remain apart. In settling the affairs of the late +concern, I am afraid our good friends remain a little in our debt. We +lent them our physician Michael Servetus in fair condition, and they +returned him so damaged by fire as to be quite useless for our purposes. +Their Reverend Samuel Willard wrote us a not over-wise report of a case +of hysteria; and our Jean Astruc gave them (if we may trust Dr. Smith's +Dictionary of the Bible) the first discerning criticism on the authorship +of the Pentateuch. Our John Locke enlightened them with his letters +concerning toleration; and their Cotton Mather obscured our twilight with +his "Nishmath Chajim." + +Yet we must remember that the name of Basil Valentine, the monk, is +associated with whatever good and harm we can ascribe to antimony; and +that the most remarkable of our specifics long bore the name of "Jesuit's +Bark," from an old legend connected with its introduction. "Frere +Jacques," who taught the lithotomists of Paris, owes his ecclesiastical +title to courtesy, as he did not belong to a religious order. + +Medical science, and especially the study of mental disease, is destined, +I believe, to react to much greater advantage on the theology of the +future than theology has acted on medicine in the past. The liberal +spirit very generally prevailing in both professions, and the good +understanding between their most enlightened members, promise well for +the future of both in a community which holds every point of human +belief, every institution in human hands, and every word written in a +human dialect, open to free discussion today, to-morrow, and to the end +of time. Whether the world at large will ever be cured of trusting to +specifics as a substitute for observing the laws of health, and to +mechanical or intellectual formula as a substitute for character, may +admit of question. Quackery and idolatry are all but immortal. + +We can find most of the old beliefs alive amongst us to-day, only having +changed their dresses and the social spheres in which they thrive. We +think the quarrels of Galenists and chemists belong to the past, +forgetting that Thomsonism has its numerous apostles in our community; +that it is common to see remedies vaunted as purely vegetable, and that +the prejudice against "mineral poisons," especially mercury, is as strong +in many quarters now as it was at the beginning of the seventeenth +century. Names are only air, and blow away with a change of wind; but +beliefs are rooted in human wants and weakness, and die hard. The oaks +of Dodona are prostrate, and the shrine of Delphi is desolate; but the +Pythoness and the Sibyl may be consulted in Lowell Street for a very +moderate compensation. Nostradamus and Lilly seem impossible in our time; +but we have seen the advertisements of an astrologer in our Boston papers +year after year, which seems to imply that he found believers and +patrons. You smiled when I related Sir Kenelm Digby's prescription with +the live eel in it; but if each of you were to empty his or her pockets, +would there not roll out, from more than one of them, a horse-chestnut, +carried about as a cure for rheumatism? The brazen head of Roger Bacon +is mute; but is not "Planchette" uttering her responses in a hundred +houses of this city? We think of palmistry or chiromancy as belonging to +the days of Albertus Magnus, or, if existing in our time, as given over +to the gypsies; but a very distinguished person has recently shown me the +line of life, and the line of fortune, on the palm of his hand, with a +seeming confidence in the sanguine predictions of his career which had +been drawn from them. What shall we say of the plausible and +well-dressed charlatans of our own time, who trade in false pretences, +like Nicholas Knapp of old, but without any fear of being fined or +whipped; or of the many follies and inanities, imposing on the credulous +part of the community, each of them gaping with eager, open mouth for a +gratuitous advertisement by the mention of its foolish name in any +respectable connection? + +I turn from this less pleasing aspect of the common intelligence which +renders such follies possible, to close the honorable record of the +medical profession in this, our ancient Commonwealth. + +We have seen it in the first century divided among clergymen, +magistrates, and regular practitioners; yet, on the whole, for the time, +and under the circumstances, respectable, except where it invoked +supernatural agencies to account for natural phenomena. + +In the second century it simplified its practice, educated many +intelligent practitioners, and began the work of organizing for concerted +action, and for medical teaching. + +In this, our own century, it has built hospitals, perfected and +multiplied its associations and educational institutions, enlarged and +created museums, and challenged a place in the world of science by its +literature. + +In reviewing the whole course of its history we read a long list of +honored names, and a precious record written in private memories, in +public charities, in permanent contributions to medical science, in +generous sacrifices for the country. We can point to our capital as the +port of entry for the New World of the great medical discoveries of two +successive centuries, and we can claim for it the triumph over the most +dreaded foe that assails the human body,--a triumph which the annals of +the race can hardly match in three thousand years of medical history. + + + + +THE YOUNG PRACTITIONER + +[A Valedictory Address delivered to the Graduating Class of the Bellevue +Hospital College, March 2, 1871.] + +The occasion which calls us together reminds us not a little of that +other ceremony which unites a man and woman for life. The banns have +already been pronounced which have wedded our young friends to the +profession of their choice. It remains only to address to them some +friendly words of cheering counsel, and to bestow upon them the parting +benediction. + +This is not the time for rhetorical display or ambitious eloquence. We +must forget ourselves, and think only of them. To us it is an occasion; +to them it is an epoch. The spectators at the wedding look curiously at +the bride and bridegroom; at the bridal veil, the orange-flower garland, +the giving and receiving of the ring; they listen for the tremulous "I +will," and wonder what are the mysterious syllables the clergyman +whispers in the ear of the married maiden. But to the newly-wedded pair +what meaning in those words, "for better, for worse," "in sickness and in +health," "till death us do part!" To the father, to the mother, who know +too well how often the deadly nightshade is interwoven with the wreath of +orange-blossoms, how empty the pageant, how momentous the reality! + +You will not wonder that I address myself chiefly to those who are just +leaving academic life for the sterner struggle and the larger tasks of +matured and instructed manhood. The hour belongs to them; if others find +patience to listen, they will kindly remember that, after all, they are +but as the spectators at the wedding, and that the priest is thinking +less of them than of their friends who are kneeling at the altar. + +I speak more directly to you, then, gentlemen of the graduating class. +The days of your education, as pupils of trained instructors, are over. +Your first harvest is all garnered. Henceforth you are to be sowers as +well as reapers, and your field is the world. How does your knowledge +stand to-day? What have you gained as a permanent possession? What must +you expect to forget? What remains for you yet to learn? These are +questions which it may interest you to consider. + +There is another question which must force itself on the thoughts of many +among you: "How am I to obtain patients and to keep their confidence?" +You have chosen a laborious calling, and made many sacrifices to fit +yourselves for its successful pursuit. You wish to be employed that you +may be useful, and that you may receive the reward of your industry. I +would take advantage of these most receptive moments to give you some +hints which may help you to realize your hopes and expectations. Such is +the outline of the familiar talk I shall offer you. + +Your acquaintance with some of the accessory branches is probably greater +now than it will be in a year from now,--much greater than it will by ten +years from now. The progress of knowledge, it may be feared, or hoped, +will have outrun the text-books in which you studied these branches. +Chemistry, for instance, is very apt to spoil on one's hands. "Nous +avons change tout cela" might serve as the standing motto of many of our +manuals. Science is a great traveller, and wears her shoes out pretty +fast, as might be expected. + +You are now fresh from the lecture-room and the laboratory. You can pass +an examination in anatomy, physiology, chemistry, materia medica, which +the men in large practice all around you would find a more potent +sudorific than any in the Pharmacopceia. These masters of the art of +healing were once as ready with their answers as you are now, but they +have got rid of a great deal of the less immediately practical part of +their acquisitions, and you must undergo the same depleting process. +Hard work will train it off, as sharp exercise trains off the fat of a +prize-fighter. + +Yet, pause a moment before you infer that your teachers must have been in +fault when they furnished you with mental stores not directly convertible +to practical purposes, and likely in a few years to lose their place in +your memory. All systematic knowledge involves much that is not +practical, yet it is the only kind of knowledge which satisfies the mind, +and systematic study proves, in the long-run, the easiest way of +acquiring and retaining facts which are practical. There are many things +which we can afford to forget, which yet it was well to learn. Your +mental condition is not the same as if you had never known what you now +try in vain to recall. There is a perpetual metempsychosis of thought, +and the knowledge of to-day finds a soil in the forgotten facts of +yesterday. You cannot see anything in the new season of the guano you +placed last year about the roots of your climbing plants, but it is +blushing and breathing fragrance in your trellised roses; it has scaled +your porch in the bee-haunted honey-suckle; it has found its way where +the ivy is green; it is gone where the woodbine expands its luxuriant +foliage. + +Your diploma seems very broad to-day with your list of accomplishments, +but it begins to shrink from this hour like the Peau de Chagrin of +Balzac's story. Do not worry about it, for all the while there will be +making out for you an ampler and fairer parchment, signed by old Father +Time himself as President of that great University in which experience is +the one perpetual and all-sufficient professor. + +Your present plethora of acquirements will soon cure itself. Knowledge +that is not wanted dies out like the eyes of the fishes of the Mammoth +Cave. When you come to handle life and death as your daily business, +your memory will of itself bid good-by to such inmates as the well-known +foramina of the sphenoid bone and the familiar oxides of +methyl-ethylamyl-phenyl-ammonium. Be thankful that you have once known +them, and remember that even the learned ignorance of a nomenclature is +something to have mastered, and may furnish pegs to hang facts upon which +would otherwise have strewed the floor of memory in loose disorder. + +But your education has, after all, been very largely practical. You have +studied medicine and surgery, not chiefly in books, but at the bedside +and in the operating amphitheatre. It is the special advantage of large +cities that they afford the opportunity of seeing a great deal of disease +in a short space of time, and of seeing many cases of the same kind of +disease brought together. Let us not be unjust to the claims of the +schools remote from the larger centres of population. Who among us has +taught better than Nathan Smith, better than Elisha Bartlett? who teaches +better than some of our living contemporaries who divide their time +between city and country schools? I am afraid we do not always do +justice to our country brethren, whose merits are less conspicuously +exhibited than those of the great city physicians and surgeons, such +especially as have charge of large hospitals. There are modest +practitioners living in remote rural districts who are gifted by nature +with such sagacity and wisdom, trained so well in what is most essential +to the practice of their art, taught so thoroughly by varied experience, +forced to such manly self-reliance by their comparative isolation, that, +from converse with them alone, from riding with them on their long rounds +as they pass from village to village, from talking over cases with them, +putting up their prescriptions, watching their expedients, listening to +their cautions, marking the event of their predictions, hearing them tell +of their mistakes, and now and then glory a little in the detection of +another's blunder, a young man would find himself better fitted for his +real work than many who have followed long courses of lectures and passed +a showy examination. But the young man is exceptionally fortunate who +enjoys the intimacy of such a teacher. And it must be confessed that the +great hospitals, infirmaries, and dispensaries of large cities, where men +of well-sifted reputations are in constant attendance, are the true +centres of medical education. No students, I believe, are more +thoroughly aware of this than those who have graduated at this +institution. Here, as in all our larger city schools, the greatest pains +are taken to teach things as well as names. You have entered into the +inheritance of a vast amount of transmitted skill and wisdom, which you +have taken, warm, as it were, with the life of your well-schooled +instructors. You have not learned all that art has to teach you, but you +are safer practitioners to-day than were many of those whose names we +hardly mention without a genuflection. I had rather be cared for in a +fever by the best-taught among you than by the renowned Fernelius or the +illustrious Boerhaave, could they come back to us from that better world +where there are no physicians needed, and, if the old adage can be +trusted, not many within call. I had rather have one of you exercise his +surgical skill upon me than find myself in the hands of a resuscitated +Fabricius Hildanus, or even of a wise Ambroise Pare, revisiting earth in +the light of the nineteenth century. + +You will not accuse me of underrating your accomplishments. You know +what to do for a child in a fit, for an alderman in an apoplexy, for a +girl that has fainted, for a woman in hysterics, for a leg that is +broken, for an arm that is out of joint, for fevers of every color, for +the sailor's rheumatism, and the tailor's cachexy. In fact you do really +know so much at this very hour, that nothing but the searching test of +time can fully teach you the limitations of your knowledge. + +Of some of these you will permit me to remind you. You will never have +outgrown the possibility of new acquisitions, for Nature is endless in +her variety. But even the knowledge which you may be said to possess +will be a different thing after long habit has made it a part of your +existence. The tactus eruditus extends to the mind as well as to the +finger-ends. Experience means the knowledge gained by habitual trial, +and an expert is one who has been in the habit of trying. This is the +kind of knowledge that made Ulysses wise in the ways of men. Many cities +had he seen, and known the minds of those who dwelt in them. This +knowledge it was that Chaucer's Shipman brought home with him from the +sea-- + + "In many a tempest had his berd be shake." + +This is the knowledge we place most confidence in, in the practical +affairs of life. + +Our training has two stages. The first stage deals with our +intelligence, which takes the idea of what is to be done with the most +charming ease and readiness. Let it be a game of billiards, for +instance, which the marker is going to teach us. We have nothing to do +but to make this ball glance from that ball and hit that other ball, and +to knock that ball with this ball into a certain caecal sacculus or +diverticulum which our professional friend calls a pocket. Nothing can +be clearer; it is as easy as "playing upon this pipe," for which Hamlet +gives Guildenstern such lucid directions. But this intelligent Me, who +steps forward as the senior partner in our dual personality, turns out to +be a terrible bungler. He misses those glancing hits which the +hard-featured young professional person calls "carroms," and insists on +pocketing his own ball instead of the other one. + +It is the unintelligent Me, stupid as an idiot, that has to try a thing a +thousand times before he can do it, and then never knows how he does it, +that at last does it well. We have to educate ourselves through the +pretentious claims of intellect, into the humble accuracy of instinct, +and we end at last by acquiring the dexterity, the perfection, the +certainty, which those masters of arts, the bee and the spider, inherit +from Nature. + +Book-knowledge, lecture-knowledge, examination-knowledge, are all in the +brain. But work-knowledge is not only in the brain, it is in the senses, +in the muscles, in the ganglia of the sympathetic nerves,--all over the +man, as one may say, as instinct seems diffused through every part of +those lower animals that have no such distinct organ as a brain. See a +skilful surgeon handle a broken limb; see a wise old physician smile away +a case that looks to a novice as if the sexton would soon be sent for; +mark what a large experience has done for those who were fitted to profit +by it, and you will feel convinced that, much as you know, something is +still left for you to learn. + +May I venture to contrast youth and experience in medical practice, +something in the way the man painted the lion, that is, the lion under? + +The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows-the exceptions. The +young man knows his patient, but the old man knows also his patient's +family, dead and alive, up and down for generations. He can tell +beforehand what diseases their unborn children will be subject to, what +they will die of if they live long enough, and whether they had better +live at all, or remain unrealized possibilities, as belonging to a stock +not worth being perpetuated. The young man feels uneasy if he is not +continually doing something to stir up his patient's internal +arrangements. The old man takes things more quietly, and is much more +willing to let well enough alone: All these superiorities, if such they +are,'you must wait for time to bring you. In the meanwhile (if we will +let the lion be uppermost for a moment), the young man's senses are +quicker than those of his older rival. His education in all the +accessory branches is more recent, and therefore nearer the existing +condition of knowledge. He finds it easier than his seniors to accept +the improvements which every year is bringing forward. New ideas build +their nests in young men's brains. "Revolutions are not made by men in +spectacles," as I once heard it remarked, and the first whispers of a new +truth are not caught by those who begin to feel the need of an +ear-trumpet. Granting all these advantages to the young man, he ought, +nevertheless, to go on improving, on the whole, as a medical +practitioner, with every year, until he has ripened into a well-mellowed +maturity. But, to improve, he must be good for something at the start. +If you ship a poor cask of wine to India and back, if you keep it a half +a century, it only grows thinner and sharper. + +You are soon to enter into relations with the public, to expend your +skill and knowledge for its benefit, and find your support in the rewards +of your labor. What kind of a constituency is this which is to look to +you as its authorized champions in the struggle of life against its +numerous enemies? + +In the first place, the persons who seek the aid of the physician are +very honest and sincere in their wish to get rid of their complaints, +and, generally speaking, to live as long as they can. However +attractively the future is painted to them, they are attached to the +planet with which they are already acquainted. They are addicted to the +daily use of this empirical and unchemical mixture which we call air; and +would hold on to it as a tippler does to his alcoholic drinks. There is +nothing men will not do, there is nothing they have not done, to recover +their health and save their lives. They have submitted to be +half-drowned in water, and half-choked with gases, to be buried up to +their chins in earth, to be seared with hot irons like galley-slaves, to +be crimped with knives, like cod-fish, to have needles thrust into their +flesh, and bonfires kindled on their skin, to swallow all sorts of +abominations, and to pay for all this, as if to be singed and scalded +were a costly privilege, as if blisters were a blessing, and leeches were +a luxury. What more can be asked to prove their honesty and sincerity? + +This same community is very intelligent with respect to a great many +subjects-commerce, mechanics, manufactures, politics. But with regard to +medicine it is hopelessly ignorant and never finds it out. I do not know +that it is any worse in this country than in Great Britain, where Mr. +Huxley speaks very freely of "the utter ignorance of the simplest laws of +their own animal life, which prevails among even the most highly educated +persons." And Cullen said before him "Neither the acutest genius nor the +soundest judgment will avail in judging of a particular science, in +regard to which they have not been exercised. I have been obliged to +please my patients sometimes with reasons, and I have found that any will +pass, even with able divines and acute lawyers; the same will pass with +the husbands as with the wives." If the community could only be made +aware of its own utter ignorance, and incompetence to form opinions on +medical subjects, difficult enough to those who give their lives to the +study of them, the practitioner would have an easier task. But it will +form opinions of its own, it cannot help it, and we cannot blame it, even +though we know how slight and deceptive are their foundations. + +This is the way it happens: Every grown-up person has either been ill +himself or had a friend suffer from illness, from which he has recovered. +Every sick person has done something or other by somebody's advice, or of +his own accord, a little before getting better. There is an irresistible +tendency to associate the thing done, and the improvement which followed +it, as cause and effect. This is the great source of fallacy in medical +practice. But the physician has some chance of correcting his hasty +inference. He thinks his prescription cured a single case of a +particular complaint; he tries it in twenty similar cases without effect, +and sets down the first as probably nothing more than a coincidence. The +unprofessional experimenter or observer has no large experience to +correct his hasty generalization. He wants to believe that the means he +employed effected his cure. He feels grateful to the person who advised +it, he loves to praise the pill or potion which helped him, and he has a +kind of monumental pride in himself as a living testimony to its +efficacy. So it is that you will find the community in which you live, +be it in town or country, full of brands plucked from the burning, as +they believe, by some agency which, with your better training, you feel +reasonably confident had nothing to do with it. Their disease went out +of itself, and the stream from the medical fire-annihilator had never +even touched it. + +You cannot and need not expect to disturb the public in the possession of +its medical superstitions. A man's ignorance is as much his private +property, and as precious in his own eyes, as his family Bible. You have +only to open your own Bible at the ninth chapter of St. John's Gospel, +and you will find that the logic of a restored patient was very simple +then, as it is now, and very hard to deal with. My clerical friends will +forgive me for poaching on their sacred territory, in return for an +occasional raid upon the medical domain of which they have now and then +been accused. + +A blind man was said to have been restored to sight by a young person +whom the learned doctors of the Jewish law considered a sinner, and, as +such, very unlikely to have been endowed with a divine gift of healing. +They visited the patient repeatedly, and evidently teased him with their +questions about the treatment, and their insinuations about the young +man, until he lost his temper. At last he turned sharply upon them: +"Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, +whereas I was blind, now I see." + +This is the answer that always has been and always will be given by most +persons when they find themselves getting well after doing anything, no +matter what,--recommended by anybody, no matter whom. Lord Bacon, Robert +Boyle, Bishop Berkeley, all put their faith in panaceas which we should +laugh to scorn. They had seen people get well after using them. Are we +any wiser than those great men? Two years ago, in a lecture before the +Massachusetts Historical Society, I mentioned this recipe of Sir Kenelm +Digby for fever and ague: Pare the patient's nails; put the parings in a +little bag, and hang the bag round the neck of a live eel, and place him +in a tub of water. The eel will die, and the patient will recover. + +Referring to this prescription in the course of the same lecture, I said: +"You smiled when I related Sir Kenehn Digby's prescription, with the live +eel in it; but if each of you were to empty his or her pockets, would +there not roll out, from more than one of them, a horse-chestnut, carried +about as a cure for rheumatism?" Nobody saw fit to empty his or her +pockets, and my question brought no response. But two months ago I was in +a company of educated persons, college graduates every one of them, when +a gentleman, well known in our community, a man of superior ability and +strong common-sense, on the occasion of some talk arising about +rheumatism, took a couple of very shiny horse-chestnuts from his +breeches-pocket, and laid them on the table, telling us how, having +suffered from the complaint in question, he had, by the advice of a +friend, procured these two horse-chestnuts on a certain time a year or +more ago, and carried them about him ever since; from which very day he +had been entirely free from rheumatism. + +This argument, from what looks like cause and effect, whether it be so or +not, is what you will have to meet wherever you go, and you need not +think you can answer it. In the natural course of things some thousands +of persons must be getting well or better of slight attacks of colds, of +rheumatic pains, every week, in this city alone. Hundreds of them do +something or other in the way of remedy, by medical or other advice, or +of their own motion, and the last thing they do gets the credit of the +recovery. Think what a crop of remedies this must furnish, if it were +all harvested! + +Experience has taught, or will teach you, that most of the wonderful +stories patients and others tell of sudden and signal cures are like Owen +Glendower's story of the portents that announced his birth. The earth +shook at your nativity, did it? Very likely, and + + "So it would have done, + At the same season, if your mother's cat + Had kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born." + +You must listen more meekly than Hotspur did to the babbling Welshman, +for ignorance is a solemn and sacred fact, and, like infancy, which it +resembles, should be respected. Once in a while you will have a patient +of sense, born with the gift of observation, from whom you may learn +something. When you find yourself in the presence of one who is fertile +of medical opinions, and affluent in stories of marvellous cures,--of a +member of Congress whose name figures in certificates to the value of +patent medicines, of a voluble dame who discourses on the miracles she +has wrought or seen wrought with the little jokers of the sugar-of-milk +globule-box, take out your watch and count the pulse; also note the time +of day, and charge the price of a visit for every extra fifteen, or, if +you are not very busy, every twenty minutes. In this way you will turn +what seems a serious dispensation into a double blessing, for this class +of patients loves dearly to talk, and it does them a deal of good, and +you feel as if you had earned your money by the dose you have taken, +quite as honestly as by any dose you may have ordered. + +You must take the community just as it is, and make the best of it. You +wish to obtain its confidence; there is a short rule for doing this which +you will find useful,--deserve it. But, to deserve it in full measure, +you must unite many excellences, natural and acquired. + +As the basis of all the rest, you must have all those traits of character +which fit you to enter into the most intimate and confidential relations +with the families of which you are the privileged friend and counsellor. +Medical Christianity, if I may use such a term, is of very early date. +By the oath of Hippocrates, the practitioner of ancient times bound +himself to enter his patient's house with the sole purpose of doing him +good, and so to conduct himself as to avoid the very appearance of evil. +Let the physician of to-day begin by coming up to this standard, and add +to it all the more recently discovered virtues and graces. + +A certain amount of natural ability is requisite to make you a good +physician, but by no means that disproportionate development of some +special faculty which goes by the name of genius. A just balance of the +mental powers is a great deal more likely to be useful than any single +talent, even were it the power of observation; in excess. For a mere +observer is liable to be too fond of facts for their own sake, so that, +if he told the real truth, he would confess that he takes more pleasure +in a post-mortem examination which shows him what was the matter with a +patient, than in a case which insists on getting well and leaving him in +the dark as to its nature. Far more likely to interfere with the sound +practical balance of the mind is that speculative, theoretical tendency +which has made so many men noted in their day, whose fame has passed away +with their dissolving theories. Read Dr. Bartlett's comparison of the +famous Benjamin Rush with his modest fellow-townsman Dr. William Currie, +and see the dangers into which a passion for grandiose generalizations +betrayed a man of many admirable qualities. + +I warn you against all ambitious aspirations outside of your profession. +Medicine is the most difficult of sciences and the most laborious of +arts. It will task all your powers of body and mind if you are faithful +to it. Do not dabble in the muddy sewer of politics, nor linger by the +enchanted streams of literature, nor dig in far-off fields for the hidden +waters of alien sciences. The great practitioners are generally those +who concentrate all their powers on their business. If there are here +and there brilliant exceptions, it is only in virtue of extraordinary +gifts, and industry to which very few are equal. + +To get business a man mast really want it; and do you suppose that when +you are in the middle of a heated caucus, or half-way through a delicate +analysis, or in the spasm of an unfinished ode, your eyes rolling in the +fine frenzy of poetical composition, you want to be called to a teething +infant, or an ancient person groaning under the griefs of a lumbago? I +think I have known more than one young man whose doctor's sign proclaimed +his readiness to serve mankind in that capacity, but who hated the sound +of a patient's knock, and as he sat with his book or his microscope, felt +exactly as the old party expressed himself in my friend Mr. Brownell's +poem-- + + "All I axes is, let me alone." + +The community soon finds out whether you are in earnest, and really mean +business, or whether you are one of those diplomaed dilettanti who like +the amusement of quasi medical studies, but have no idea of wasting their +precious time in putting their knowledge in practice for the benefit of +their suffering fellow-creatures. + +The public is a very incompetent judge of your skill and knowledge, but +it gives its confidence most readily to those who stand well with their +professional brethren, whom they call upon when they themselves or their +families are sick, whom they choose to honorable offices, whose writings +and teachings they hold in esteem. A man may be much valued by the +profession and yet have defects which prevent his becoming a favorite +practitioner, but no popularity can be depended upon as permanent which +is not sanctioned by the judgment of professional experts, and with these +you will always stand on your substantial merits. + +What shall I say of the personal habits you must form if you wish for +success? Temperance is first upon the list. Intemperance in a physician +partakes of the guilt of homicide, for the muddled brain may easily make +a fatal blunder in a prescription and the unsteady hand transfix an +artery in an operation. Tippling doctors have been too common in the +history of medicine. Paracelsus was a sot, Radcliffe was much too fond +of his glass, and Dr. James Hurlbut of Wethersfield, Connecticut, a +famous man in his time, used to drink a square bottle of rum a day, with +a corresponding allowance of opium to help steady his nerves. We +commonly speak of a man as being the worse for liquor, but I was asking +an Irish laborer one day about his doctor, who, as he said, was somewhat +given to drink. "I like him best when he's a little that way," he said; +"then I can spake to him." I pitied the poor patient who could not +venture to allude to his colic or his pleurisy until his physician was +tipsy. + +There are personal habits of less gravity than the one I have mentioned +which it is well to guard against, or, if they are formed, to relinquish. +A man who may be called at a moment's warning into the fragrant boudoir +of suffering loveliness should not unsweeten its atmosphere with +reminiscences of extinguished meerschaums. He should remember that the +sick are sensitive and fastidious, that they love the sweet odors and the +pure tints of flowers, and if his presence is not like the breath of the +rose, if his hands are not like the leaf of the lily, his visit may be +unwelcome, and if he looks behind him he may see a window thrown open +after he has left the sick-chamber. I remember too well the old doctor +who sometimes came to help me through those inward griefs to which +childhood is liable. "Far off his coming "--shall I say "shone," and +finish the Miltonic phrase, or leave the verb to the happy conjectures of +my audience? Before him came a soul-subduing whiff of ipecacuanha, and +after him lingered a shuddering consciousness of rhubarb. He had lived +so much among his medicaments that he had at last become himself a drug, +and to have him pass through a sick-chamber was a stronger dose than a +conscientious disciple of Hahnemann would think it safe to administer. + +Need I remind you of the importance of punctuality in your engagements, +and of the worry and distress to patients and their friends which the +want of it occasions? One of my old teachers always carried two watches, +to make quite sure of being exact, and not only kept his appointments +with the regularity of a chronometer, but took great pains to be at his +patient's house at the time when he had reason to believe he was +expected, even if no express appointment was made. It is a good rule; if +you call too early, my lady's hair may not be so smooth as could be +wished, and, if you keep her waiting too long, her hair may be smooth, +but her temper otherwise. + +You will remember, of course, always to get the weather-gage of your +patient. I mean, to place him so that the light falls on his face and +not on yours. It is a kind of, ocular duel that is about to take place +between you; you are going to look through his features into his +pulmonary and hepatic and other internal machinery, and he is going to +look into yours quite as sharply to see what you think about his +probabilities for time or eternity. + +No matter how hard he stares at your countenance, he should never be able +to read his fate in it. It should be cheerful as long as there is hope, +and serene in its gravity when nothing is left but resignation. The face +of a physician, like that of a diplomatist, should be impenetrable. +Nature is a benevolent old hypocrite; she cheats the sick and the dying +with illusions better than any anodynes. If there are cogent reasons why +a patient should be undeceived, do it deliberately and advisedly, but do +not betray your apprehensions through your tell-tale features. + +We had a physician in our city whose smile was commonly reckoned as being +worth five thousand dollars a year to him, in the days, too, of moderate +incomes. You cannot put on such a smile as that any more than you can +get sunshine without sun; there was a tranquil and kindly nature under it +that irradiated the pleasant face it made one happier to meet on his +daily rounds. But you can cultivate the disposition, and it will work +its way through to the surface, nay, more,--you can try to wear a quiet +and encouraging look, and it will react on your disposition and make you +like what you seem to be, or at least bring you nearer to its own +likeness. + +Your patient has no more right to all the truth you know than he has to +all the medicine in your saddlebags, if you carry that kind of +cartridge-box for the ammunition that slays disease. He should get only +just so much as is good for him. I have seen a physician examining a +patient's chest stop all at once, as he brought out a particular sound +with a tap on the collarbone, in the attitude of a pointer who has just +come on the scent or sight of a woodcock. You remember the Spartan boy, +who, with unmoved countenance, hid the fox that was tearing his vitals +beneath his mantle. What he could do in his own suffering you must learn +to do for others on whose vital organs disease has fastened its devouring +teeth. It is a terrible thing to take away hope, even earthly hope, from +a fellow-creature. Be very careful what names you let fall before your +patient. He knows what it means when you tell him he has tubercles or +Bright's disease, and, if he hears the word carcinoma, he will certainly +look it out in a medical dictionary, if he does not interpret its dread +significance on the instant. Tell him he has asthmatic symptoms, or a +tendency to the gouty diathesis, and he will at once think of all the +asthmatic and gouty old patriarchs he has ever heard of, and be +comforted. You need not be so cautious in speaking of the health of rich +and remote relatives, if he is in the line of succession. + +Some shrewd old doctors have a few phrases always on hand for patients +that will insist on knowing the pathology of their complaints without the +slightest capacity of understanding the scientific explanation. I have +known the term "spinal irritation" serve well on such occasions, but I +think nothing on the whole has covered so much ground, and meant so +little, and given such profound satisfaction to all parties, as the +magnificent phrase "congestion of the portal system." + +Once more, let me recommend you, as far as possible, to keep your doubts +to yourself, and give the patient the benefit of your decision. +Firmness, gentle firmness, is absolutely necessary in this and certain +other relations. Mr. Rarey with Cruiser, Richard with Lady Ann, Pinel +with his crazy people, show what steady nerves can do with the most +intractable of animals, the most irresistible of despots, and the most +unmanageable of invalids. + +If you cannot acquire and keep the confidence of your patient, it is time +for you to give place to some other practitioner who can. If you are +wise and diligent, you can establish relations with the best of them +which they will find it very hard to break. But, if they wish to employ +another person, who, as they think, knows more than you do, do not take +it as a personal wrong. A patient believes another man can save his +life, can restore him to health, which, as he thinks, you have not the +skill to do. No matter whether the patient is right or wrong, it is a +great impertinence to think you have any property in him. Your estimate +of your own ability is not the question, it is what the patient thinks of +it. All your wisdom is to him like the lady's virtue in Raleigh's song: + + "If she seem not chaste to me, + What care I how chaste she be?" + +What I call a good patient is one who, having found a good physician, +sticks to him till he dies. But there are many very good people who are +not what I call good patients. I was once requested to call on a lady +suffering from nervous and other symptoms. It came out in the +preliminary conversational skirmish, half medical, half social, that I +was the twenty-sixth member of the faculty into whose arms, +professionally speaking, she had successively thrown herself. Not being +a believer in such a rapid rotation of scientific crops, I gently +deposited the burden, commending it to the care of number twenty-seven, +and, him, whoever he might be, to the care of Heaven. + +If there happened to be among my audience any person who wished to know +on what principles the patient should choose his physician, I should give +him these few precepts to think over: + +Choose a man who is personally agreeable, for a daily visit from an +intelligent, amiable, pleasant, sympathetic person will cost you no more +than one from a sloven or a boor, and his presence will do more for you +than any prescription the other will order. + +Let him be a man of recognized good sense in other matters, and the +chance is that he will be sensible as a practitioner. + +Let him be a man who stands well with his professional brethren, whom +they approve as honest, able, courteous. + +Let him be one whose patients are willing to die in his hands, not one +whom they go to for trifles, and leave as soon as they are in danger, and +who can say, therefore, that he never loses a patient. + +Do not leave the ranks of what is called the regular profession, unless +you wish to go farther and fare worse, for you may be assured that its +members recognize no principle which hinders their accepting any remedial +agent proved to be useful, no matter from what quarter it comes. The +difficulty is that the stragglers, organized under fantastic names in +pretentious associations, or lurking in solitary dens behind doors left +ajar, make no real contributions to the art of healing. When they bring +forward a remedial agent like chloral, like the bromide of potassium, +like ether, used as an anesthetic, they will find no difficulty in +procuring its recognition. + +Some of you will probably be more or less troubled by the pretensions of +that parody of mediaeval theology which finds its dogma of hereditary +depravity in the doctrine of psora, its miracle of transubstantiation in +the mystery of its triturations and dilutions, its church in the people +who have mistaken their century, and its priests in those who have +mistaken their calling. You can do little with persons who are disposed +to accept these curious medical superstitions. The saturation-point of +individual minds with reference to evidence, and especially medical +evidence, differs, and must always continue to differ, very widely. +There are those whose minds are satisfied with the decillionth dilution +of a scientific proof. No wonder they believe in the efficacy of a +similar attenuation of bryony or pulsatilla. You have no fulcrum you can +rest upon to lift an error out of such minds as these, often highly +endowed with knowledge and talent, sometimes with genius, but commonly +richer in the imaginative than the observing and reasoning faculties. + +Let me return once more to the young graduate. Your relations to your +professional brethren may be a source of lifelong happiness and growth in +knowledge and character, or they may make you wretched and end by leaving +you isolated from those who should be your friends and counsellors. The +life of a physician becomes ignoble when he suffers himself to feed on +petty jealousies and sours his temper in perpetual quarrels. You will be +liable to meet an uncomfortable man here and there in the +profession,--one who is so fond of being in hot water that it is a wonder +all the albumen in his body is not coagulated. There are common barrators +among doctors as there are among lawyers,--stirrers up of strife under +one pretext and another, but in reality because they like it. They are +their own worst enemies, and do themselves a mischief each time they +assail their neighbors. In my student days I remember a good deal of +this Donnybrook-Fair style of quarrelling, more especially in Paris, +where some of the noted surgeons were always at loggerheads, and in one +of our lively Western cities. Soon after I had set up an office, I had a +trifling experience which may serve to point a moral in this direction. +I had placed a lamp behind the glass in the entry to indicate to the +passer-by where relief from all curable infirmities was to be sought and +found. Its brilliancy attracted the attention of a devious youth, who +dashed his fist through the glass and upset my modest luminary. All he +got by his vivacious assault was that he left portions of integument from +his knuckles upon the glass, had a lame hand, was very easily identified, +and had to pay the glazier's bill. The moral is that, if the brilliancy +of another's reputation excites your belligerent instincts, it is not +worth your while to strike at it, without calculating which of you is +likely to suffer most, if you do. + +You may be assured that when an ill-conditioned neighbor is always +complaining of a bad taste in his mouth and an evil atmosphere about him, +there is something wrong about his own secretions. In such cases there +is an alterative regimen of remarkable efficacy: it is a starvation-diet +of letting alone. The great majority of the profession are peacefully +inclined. Their pursuits are eminently humanizing, and they look with +disgust on the personalities which intrude themselves into the placid +domain of an art whose province it is to heal and not to wound. + +The intercourse of teacher and student in a large school is necessarily +limited, but it should be, and, so far as my experience goes, it is, +eminently cordial and kindly. You will leave with regret, and hold in +tender remembrance, those who have taken you by the hand at your entrance +on your chosen path, and led you patiently and faithfully, until the +great gates at its end have swung upon their hinges, and the world lies +open before you. That venerable oath to which I have before referred +bound the student to regard his instructor in the light of a parent, to +treat his children like brothers, to succor him in his day of need. I +trust the spirit of the oath of Hippocrates is not dead in the hearts of +the students of to-day. They will remember with gratitude every earnest +effort, every encouraging word, which has helped them in their difficult +and laborious career of study. The names they read on their diplomas +will recall faces that are like family-portraits in their memory, and the +echo of voices they have listened to so long will linger in their +memories far into the still evening of their lives. + +One voice will be heard no more which has been familiar to many among +you. It is not for me, a stranger to these scenes, to speak his eulogy. +I have no right to sadden this hour by dwelling on the deep regrets of +friendship, or to bid the bitter tears of sorrow flow afresh. Yet I +cannot help remembering what a void the death of such a practitioner as +your late instructor must leave in the wide circle of those who leaned +upon his counsel and assistance in their hour of need, in a community +where he was so widely known and esteemed, in a school where he bore so +important a part. There is no exemption from the common doom for him who +holds the shield to protect others. The student is called from his +bench, the professor from his chair, the practitioner in his busiest +period hears a knock more peremptory than any patient's midnight summons, +and goes on that unreturning visit which admits of no excuse, and suffers +no delay. The call of such a man away from us is the bereavement of a +great family. Nor can we help regretting the loss for him of a bright +and cheerful earthly future; for the old age of a physician is one of the +happiest periods of his life. He is loved and cherished for what he has +been, and even in the decline of his faculties there are occasions when +his experience is still appealed to, and his trembling hands are looked +to with renewing hope and trust, as being yet able to stay the arm of the +destroyer. + +But if there is so much left for age, how beautiful, how inspiring is the +hope of youth! I see among those whom I count as listeners one by whose +side I have sat as a fellow-teacher, and by whose instructions I have +felt myself not too old to profit. As we borrowed him from your city, I +must take this opportunity of telling you that his zeal, intelligence, +and admirable faculty as an instructor were heartily and universally +recognized among us. We return him, as we trust, uninjured, to the +fellow-citizens who have the privilege of claiming him as their own. + +And now, gentlemen of the graduating class, nothing remains but for me to +bid you, in the name of those for whom I am commissioned and privileged +to speak, farewell as students, and welcome as practitioners. I +pronounce the two benedictions in the same breath, as the late king's +demise and the new king's accession are proclaimed by the same voice at +the same moment. You would hardly excuse me if I stooped to any meaner +dialect than the classical and familiar language of your prescriptions, +the same in which your title to the name of physician is, if, like our +own institution, you follow the ancient usage, engraved upon your +diplomas. + +Valete, JUVENES, artis medicae studiosi; valete, discipuli, valete, +filii! + +Salvete, VIRI, artis medicae magister; Salvete amici; salvete fratres! + + + + +MEDICAL LIBRARIES. + +[Dedicatory Address at the opening of the Medical Library in Boston, +December 3, 1878.] + +It is my appointed task, my honorable privilege, this evening, to speak +of what has been done by others. No one can bring his tribute of words +into the presence of great deeds, or try with them to embellish the +memory of any inspiring achievement, without feeling and leaving with +others a sense of their insufficiency. So felt Alexander when he +compared even his adored Homer with the hero the poet had sung. So felt +Webster when he contrasted the phrases of rhetoric with the eloquence of +patriotism and of self-devotion. So felt Lincoln when on the field of +Gettysburg he spoke those immortal words which Pericles could not have +bettered, which Aristotle could not have criticised. So felt he who +wrote the epitaph of the builder of the dome which looks down on the +crosses and weathercocks that glitter over London. + +We are not met upon a battle-field, except so far as every laborious +achievement means a victory over opposition, indifference, selfishness, +faintheartedness, and that great property of mind as well as +matter,--inertia. We are not met in a cathedral, except so far as every +building whose walls are lined with the products of useful and ennobling +thought is a temple of the Almighty, whose inspiration has given us +understanding. But we have gathered within walls which bear testimony to +the self-sacrificing, persevering efforts of a few young men, to whom we +owe the origin and development of all that excites our admiration in this +completed enterprise; and I might consider my task as finished if I +contented myself with borrowing the last word of the architect's epitaph +and only saying, Look around you! + +The reports of the librarian have told or will tell you, in some detail, +what has been accomplished since the 21st of December, 1874, when six +gentlemen met at the house of Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch to discuss +different projects for a medical library. In less than four years from +that time, by the liberality of associations and of individuals, this +collection of nearly ten thousand volumes, of five thousand pamphlets, +and of one hundred and twenty-five journals, regularly received,--all +worthily sheltered beneath this lofty roof,--has come into being under +our eyes. It has sprung up, as it were; in the night like a mushroom; it +stands before us in full daylight as lusty as an oak, and promising to +grow and flourish in the perennial freshness of an evergreen. + +To whom does our profession owe this already large collection of books, +exceeded in numbers only by four or five of the most extensive medical +libraries in the country, and lodged in a building so well adapted to its +present needs? We will not point out individually all those younger +members of the profession who have accomplished what their fathers and +elder brethren had attempted and partially achieved. We need not write +their names on these walls, after the fashion of those civic dignitaries +who immortalize themselves on tablets of marble and gates of iron. But +their contemporaries know them well, and their descendants will not +forget them,--the men who first met together, the men who have given +their time and their money, the faithful workers, worthy associates of +the strenuous agitator who gave no sleep to his eyes, no slumber to his +eyelids, until he had gained his ends; the untiring, imperturbable, +tenacious, irrepressible, all-subduing agitator who neither rested nor +let others rest until the success of the project was assured. If, +against his injunctions, I name Dr. James Read Chadwick, it is only my +revenge for his having kept me awake so often and so long while he was +urging on the undertaking in which he has been preeminently active and +triumphantly successful. + +We must not forget the various medical libraries which preceded this: +that of an earlier period, when Boston contained about seventy regular +practitioners, the collection afterwards transferred to the Boston +Athenaeum; the two collections belonging to the University; the Treadwell +Library at the Massachusetts General Hospital; the collections of the two +societies, that for Medical Improvement and that for Medical Observation; +and more especially the ten thousand volumes relating to medicine +belonging to our noble public city library,--too many blossoms on the +tree of knowledge, perhaps, for the best fruit to ripen. But the +Massachusetts Medical Society now numbers nearly four hundred members in +the city of Boston. The time had arrived for a new and larger movement. +There was needed a place to which every respectable member of the medical +profession could obtain easy access; where, under one roof, all might +find the special information they were seeking; where the latest medical +intelligence should be spread out daily as the shipping news is posted on +the bulletins of the exchange; where men engaged in a common pursuit +could meet, surrounded by the mute oracles of science and art; where the +whole atmosphere should be as full of professional knowledge as the +apothecary's shop is of the odor of his medicaments. This was what the +old men longed for,--the prophets and kings of the profession, who + + "Desired it long, + But died without the sight." + +This is what the young men and those who worked under their guidance +undertook to give us. And now such a library, such a reading-room, such +an exchange, such an intellectual and social meeting place, we be hold a +fact, plain before us. The medical profession of our city, and, let us +add, of all those neighboring places which it can reach with its iron +arms, is united as never before by the commune vinculum, the common bond +of a large, enduring, ennobling, unselfish interest. It breathes a new +air of awakened intelligence. It marches abreast of the other learned +professions, which have long had their extensive and valuable centralized +libraries; abreast of them, but not promising to be content with that +position. What glorifies a town like a cathedral? What dignifies a +province like a university? What illuminates a country like its +scholarship, and what is the nest that hatches scholars but a library? + +The physician, some may say, is a practical man and has little use for +all this book-learning. Every student has heard Sydenham's reply to Sir +Richard Blackmore's question as to what books he should read,--meaning +medical books. "Read Don Quixote," was his famous answer. But Sydenham +himself made medical books and may be presumed to have thought those at +least worth reading. Descartes was asked where was his library, and in +reply held up the dissected body of an animal. But Descartes made books, +great books, and a great many of them. A physician of common sense +without erudition is better than a learned one without common sense, but +the thorough master of his profession must have learning added to his +natural gifts. + +It is not necessary to maintain the direct practical utility of all kinds +of learning. Our shelves contain many books which only a certain class +of medical scholars will be likely to consult. There is a dead medical +literature, and there is a live one. The dead is not all ancient, the +live is not all modern. There is none, modern or ancient, which, if it +has no living value for the student, will not teach him something by its +autopsy. But it is with the live literature of his profession that the +medical practitioner is first of all concerned. + +Now there has come a great change in our time over the form in which +living thought presents itself. The first printed books,--the +incunabula,--were inclosed in boards of solid oak, with brazen clasps and +corners; the boards by and by were replaced by pasteboard covered with +calf or sheepskin; then cloth came in and took the place of leather; then +the pasteboard was covered with paper instead of cloth; and at this day +the quarterly, the monthly, the weekly periodical in its flimsy +unsupported dress of paper, and the daily journal, naked as it came from +the womb of the press, hold the larger part of the fresh reading we live +upon. We must have the latest thought in its latest expression; the page +must be newly turned like the morning bannock; the pamphlet must be newly +opened like the ante-prandial oyster. + +Thus a library, to meet the need of our time, must take, and must spread +out in a convenient form, a great array of periodicals. Our active +practitioners read these by preference over almost everything else. Our +specialists, more particularly, depend on the month's product, on the +yearly crop of new facts, new suggestions, new contrivances, as much as +the farmer on the annual yield of his acres. One of the first wants, +then, of the profession is supplied by our library in its great array of +periodicals from many lands, in many languages. Such a number of medical +periodicals no private library would have room for, no private person +would pay for, or flood his tables with if they were sent him for +nothing. These, I think, with the reports of medical societies and the +papers contributed to them, will form the most attractive part of our +accumulated medical treasures. They will be also one of our chief +expenses, for these journals must be bound in volumes and they require a +great amount of shelf-room; all this, in addition to the cost of +subscription for those which are not furnished us gratuitously. + +It is true that the value of old scientific periodicals is, other things +being equal, in the inverse ratio of their age, for the obvious reason +that what is most valuable in the earlier volumes of a series is drained +off into the standard works with which the intelligent practitioner is +supposed to be familiar. But no extended record of facts grows too old +to be useful, provided only that we have a ready and sure way of getting +at the particular fact or facts we are in search of. + +And this leads me to speak of what I conceive to be one of the principal +tasks to be performed by the present and the coming generation of +scholars, not only in the medical, but in every department of knowledge. +I mean the formation of indexes, and more especially of indexes to +periodical literature. + +This idea has long been working in the minds of scholars, and all who +have had occasion to follow out any special subject. I have a right to +speak of it, for I long ago attempted to supply the want of indexes in +some small measure for my own need. I had a very complete set of the +"American Journal of the Medical Sciences;" an entire set of the "North +American Review," and many volumes of the reprints of the three leading +British quarterlies. Of what use were they to me without general +indexes? I looked them all through carefully and made classified lists +of all the articles I thought I should most care to read. But they soon +outgrew my lists. The "North American Review" kept filling up shelf +after shelf, rich in articles which I often wanted to consult, but what a +labor to find them, until the index of Mr. Gushing, published a few +months since, made the contents of these hundred and twenty volumes as +easily accessible as the words in a dictionary! I had a, copy of good +Dr. Abraham Rees's Cyclopaedia, a treasure-house to my boyhood which has +not lost its value for me in later years. But where to look for what I +wanted? I wished to know, for instance, what Dr. Burney had to say about +singing. Who would have looked for it under the Italian word cantare? I +was curious to learn something of the etchings of Rembrandt, and where +should I find it but under the head "Low Countries, Engravers of +the,"--an elaborate and most valuable article of a hundred +double-columned close-printed quarto pages, to which no reference, even, +is made under the title Rembrandt. + +There was nothing to be done, if I wanted to know where that which I +specially cared for was to be found in my Rees's Cyclopaedia, but to look +over every page of its forty-one quarto volumes and make out a brief list +of matters of interest which I could not find by their titles, and this I +did, at no small expense of time and trouble. + +Nothing, therefore, could be more pleasing to me than to see the +attention which has been given of late years to the great work of +indexing. It is a quarter of a century since Mr. Poole published his +"Index to Periodical Literature," which it is much to be hoped is soon to +appear in a new edition, grown as it must be to formidable dimensions by +the additions of so long a period. The "British and Foreign Medical +Review," edited by the late Sir John Forties, contributed to by Huxley, +Carpenter, Laycock, and others of the most distinguished scientific men +of Great Britain, has an index to its twenty-four volumes, and by its aid +I find this valuable series as manageable as a lexicon. The last edition +of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" had a complete index in a separate +volume, and the publishers of Appletons' "American Cyclopaedia" have +recently issued an index to their useful work, which must greatly add to +its value. I have already referred to the index to the "North American +Review," which to an American, and especially to a New Englander, is the +most interesting and most valuable addition of its kind to our literary +apparatus since the publication of Mr. Allibone's "Dictionary of +Authors." I might almost dare to parody Mr. Webster's words in speaking +of Hamilton, to describe what Mr. Gushing did for the solemn rows of back +volumes of our honored old Review which had been long fossilizing on our +shelves: "He touched the dead corpse of the 'North American,' and it +sprang to its feet." A library of the best thought of the best American +scholars during the greater portion of the century was brought to light +by the work of the indexmaker as truly as were the Assyrian tablets by +the labors of Layard. + +A great portion of the best writing and reading literary, scientific, +professional, miscellaneous--comes to us now, at stated intervals, in +paper covers. The writer appears, as it were, in his shirt-sleeves. As +soon as he has delivered his message the book-binder puts a coat on his +back, and he joins the forlorn brotherhood of "back volumes," than which, +so long as they are unindexed, nothing can be more exasperating. Who +wants a lock without a key, a ship without a rudder, a binnacle without a +compass, a check without a signature, a greenback without a goldback +behind it? + +I have referred chiefly to the medical journals, but I would include with +these the reports of medical associations, and those separate +publications which, coming in the form of pamphlets, heap themselves into +chaotic piles and bundles which are worse than useless, taking up a great +deal of room, and frightening everything away but mice and mousing +antiquarians, or possibly at long intervals some terebrating specialist. + +Arranged, bound, indexed, all these at once become accessible and +valuable. I will take the first instance which happens to suggest +itself. How many who know all about osteoblasts and the experiments of +Ollier, and all that has grown out of them, know where to go for a paper +by the late Dr. A. L. Peirson of Salem, published in the year 1840, under +the modest title, Remarks on Fractures? And if any practitioner who has +to deal with broken bones does not know that most excellent and practical +essay, it is a great pity, for it answers very numerous questions which +will be sure to suggest themselves to the surgeon and the patient as no +one of the recent treatises, on my own shelves, at least, can do. + +But if indexing is the special need of our time in medical literature, as +in every department of knowledge, it must be remembered that it is not +only an immense labor, but one that never ends. It requires, therefore, +the cooperation of a large number of individuals to do the work, and a +large amount of money to pay for making its results public through the +press. When it is remembered that the catalogue of the library of the +British Museum is contained in nearly three thousand large folios of +manuscript, and not all its books are yet included, the task of indexing +any considerable branch of science or literature looks as if it were well +nigh impossible. But many hands make light work. An "Index Society" has +been formed in England, already numbering about one hundred and seventy +members. It aims at "supplying thorough indexes to valuable works and +collections which have hitherto lacked them; at issuing indexes to the +literature of special subjects; and at gathering materials for a general +reference index." This society has published a little treatise setting +forth the history and the art of indexing, which I trust is in the hands +of some of our members, if not upon our shelves. + +Something has been done in the same direction by individuals in our own +country, as we have already seen. The need of it in the department of +medicine is beginning to be clearly felt. Our library has already an +admirable catalogue with cross references, the work of a number of its +younger members cooperating in the task. A very intelligent medical +student, Mr. William D. Chapin, whose excellent project is indorsed by +well-known New York physicians and professors, proposes to publish a +yearly index to original communications in the medical journals of the +United States, classified by authors and subjects. But it is from the +National Medical Library at Washington that we have the best promise and +the largest expectations. That great and growing collection of fifty +thousand volumes is under the eye and hand of a librarian who knows books +and how to manage them. For libraries are the standing armies of +civilization, and an army is but a mob without a general who can organize +and marshal it so as to make it effective. The "Specimen Fasciculus of a +Catalogue of the National Medical Library," prepared under the direction +of Dr. Billings, the librarian, would have excited the admiration of +Haller, the master scholar in medical science of the last century, or +rather of the profession in all centuries, and if carried out as it is +begun will be to the nineteenth all and more than all that the three +Bibliothecae--Anatomica, Chirurgica, and Medicinae-Practicae--were to the +eighteenth century. I cannot forget the story that Agassiz was so fond +of telling of the king of Prussia and Fichte. It was after the +humiliation and spoliation of the kingdom by Napoleon that the monarch +asked the philosopher what could be done to regain the lost position of +the nation. "Found a great university, Sire," was the answer, and so it +was that in the year 1810 the world-renowned University of Berlin came +into being. I believe that we in this country can do better than found a +national university, whose professors shall be nominated in caucuses, go +in and out, perhaps, like postmasters, with every change of +administration, and deal with science in the face of their constituency +as the courtier did with time when his sovereign asked him what o'clock +it was: "Whatever hour your majesty pleases." But when we have a noble +library like that at Washington, and a librarian of exceptional +qualifications like the gentleman who now holds that office, I believe +that a liberal appropriation by Congress to carry out a conscientious +work for the advancement of sound knowledge and the bettering of human +conditions, like this which Dr. Billings has so well begun, would redound +greatly to the honor of the nation. It ought to be willing to be at some +charge to make its treasures useful to its citizens, and, for its own +sake, especially to that class which has charge of health, public and +private. This country abounds in what are called "self-made men," and is +justly proud of many whom it thus designates. In one sense no man is +self-made who breathes the air of a civilized community. In another +sense every man who is anything other than a phonograph on legs is +self-made. But if we award his just praise to the man who has attained +any kind of excellence without having had the same advantages as others +whom, nevertheless, he has equalled or surpassed, let us not be betrayed +into undervaluing the mechanic's careful training to his business, the +thorough and laborious education of the scholar and the professional man. + +Our American atmosphere is vocal with the flippant loquacity of half +knowledge. We must accept whatever good can be got out of it, and keep +it under as we do sorrel and mullein and witchgrass, by enriching the +soil, and sowing good seed in plenty; by good teaching and good books, +rather than by wasting our time in talking against it. Half knowledge +dreads nothing but whole knowledge. + +I have spoken of the importance and the predominance of periodical +literature, and have attempted to do justice to its value. But the +almost exclusive reading of it is not without its dangers. The journals +contain much that is crude and unsound; the presumption; it might be +maintained, is against their novelties, unless they come from observers +of established credit. Yet I have known a practitioner,--perhaps more +than one,--who was as much under the dominant influence of the last +article he had read in his favorite medical journal as a milliner under +the sway of the last fashion-plate. The difference between green and +seasoned knowledge is very great, and such practitioners never hold long +enough to any of their knowledge to have it get seasoned. + +It is needless to say, then, that all the substantial and permanent +literature of the profession should be represented upon our shelves. Much +of it is there already, and as one private library after another falls +into this by the natural law of gravitation, it will gradually acquire +all that is most valuable almost without effort. A scholar should not be +in a hurry to part with his books. They are probably more valuable to +him than they can be to any other individual. What Swedenborg called +"correspondence" has established itself between his intelligence and the +volumes which wall him within their sacred inclosure. Napoleon said that +his mind was as if furnished with drawers,--he drew out each as he wanted +its contents, and closed it at will when done with them. The scholar's +mind, to use a similar comparison, is furnished with shelves, like his +library. Each book knows its place in the brain as well as against the +wall or in the alcove. His consciousness is doubled by the books which +encircle him, as the trees that surround a lake repeat themselves in its +unruffled waters. Men talk of the nerve that runs to the pocket, but one +who loves his books, and has lived long with them, has a nervous filament +which runs from his sensorium to every one of them. Or, if I may still +let my fancy draw its pictures, a scholar's library is to him what a +temple is to the worshipper who frequents it. There is the altar sacred +to his holiest experiences. There is the font where his new-born thought +was baptized and first had a name in his consciousness. There is the +monumental tablet of a dead belief, sacred still in the memory of what it +was while yet alive. No visitor can read all this on the lettered backs +of the books that have gathered around the scholar, but for him, from the +Aldus on the lowest shelf to the Elzevir on the highest, every volume has +a language which none but he can interpret. Be patient with the +book-collector who loves his companions too well to let them go. Books +are not buried with their owners, and the veriest book-miser that ever +lived was probably doing far more for his successors than his more +liberal neighbor who despised his learned or unlearned avarice. Let the +fruit fall with the leaves still clinging round it. Who would have +stripped Southey's walls of the books that filled them, when, his mind no +longer capable of taking in their meaning, he would still pat and fondle +them with the vague loving sense of what they had once been to him,--to +him, the great scholar, now like a little child among his playthings? + +We need in this country not only the scholar, but the virtuoso, who +hoards the treasures which he loves, it may be chiefly for their rarity +and because others who know more than he does of their value set a high +price upon them. As the wine of old vintages is gently decanted out of +its cobwebbed bottles with their rotten corks into clean new receptacles, +so the wealth of the New World is quietly emptying many of the libraries +and galleries of the Old World into its newly formed collections and +newly raised edifices. And this process must go on in an accelerating +ratio. No Englishman will be offended if I say that before the New +Zealander takes his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the +ruins of St. Paul's in the midst of a vast solitude, the treasures of the +British Museum will have found a new shelter in the halls of New York or +Boston. No Catholic will think hardly of my saying that before the +Coliseum falls, and with it the imperial city, whose doom prophecy has +linked with that of the almost eternal amphitheatre, the marbles, the +bronzes, the paintings, the manuscripts of the Vatican will have left the +shores of the Tiber for those of the Potomac, the Hudson, the +Mississippi, or the Sacramento. And what a delight in the pursuit of the +rarities which the eager book-hunter follows with the scent of a beagle! + +Shall I ever forget that rainy day in Lyons, that dingy bookshop, where I +found the Aetius, long missing from my Artis bledicae Principes, and +where I bought for a small pecuniary consideration, though it was marked +rare, and was really tres rare, the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, edited by +and with a preface from the hand of Francis Rabelais? And the +vellum-bound Tulpius, which I came upon in Venice, afterwards my only +reading when imprisoned in quarantine at Marseilles, so that the two +hundred and twenty-eight cases he has recorded are, many of them, to this +day still fresh in my memory. And the Schenckius,--the folio filled with +casus rariores, which had strayed in among the rubbish of the bookstall +on the boulevard,--and the noble old Vesalius with its grand frontispiece +not unworthy of Titian, and the fine old Ambroise Pare, long waited for +even in Paris and long ago, and the colossal Spigelius with his +eviscerated beauties, and Dutch Bidloo with its miracles of fine +engraving and bad dissection, and Italian Mascagni, the despair of all +would-be imitators, and pre-Adamite John de Ketam, and antediluvian +Berengarius Carpensis,--but why multiply names, every one of which brings +back the accession of a book which was an event almost like the birth of +an infant? + +A library like ours must exercise the largest hospitality. A great many +books may be found in every large collection which remind us of those +apostolic looking old men who figure on the platform at our political and +other assemblages. Some of them have spoken words of wisdom in their +day, but they have ceased to be oracles; some of them never had any +particularly important message for humanity, but they add dignity to the +meeting by their presence; they look wise, whether they are so or not, +and no one grudges them their places of honor. Venerable figure-heads, +what would our platforms be without you? + +Just so with our libraries. Without their rows of folios in creamy +vellum, or showing their black backs with antique lettering of tarnished +gold, our shelves would look as insufficient and unbalanced as a column +without its base, as a statue without its pedestal. And do not think +they are kept only to be spanked and dusted during that dreadful period +when their owner is but too thankful to become an exile and a wanderer +from the scene of single combats between dead authors and living +housemaids. Men were not all cowards before Agamemnon or all fools +before the days of Virchow and Billroth. And apart from any practical +use to be derived from the older medical authors, is there not a true +pleasure in reading the accounts of great discoverers in their own words? +I do not pretend to hoist up the Bibliotheca Anatomica of Mangetus and +spread it on my table every day. I do not get out my great Albinus +before every lecture on the muscles, nor disturb the majestic repose of +Vesalius every time I speak of the bones he has so admirably described +and figured. But it does please me to read the first descriptions of +parts to which the names of their discoverers or those who have first +described them have become so joined that not even modern science can +part them; to listen to the talk of my old volume as Willis describes his +circle and Fallopius his aqueduct and Varolius his bridge and Eustachius +his tube and Monro his foramen,--all so well known to us in the human +body; it does please me to know the very words in which Winslow described +the opening which bears his name, and Glisson his capsule and De Graaf +his vesicle; I am not content until I know in what language Harvey +announced his discovery of the circulation, and how Spigelius made the +liver his perpetual memorial, and Malpighi found a monument more enduring +than brass in the corpuscles of the spleen and the kidney. + +But after all, the readers who care most for the early records of medical +science and art are the specialists who are dividing up the practice of +medicine and surgery as they were parcelled out, according to Herodotus, +by the Egyptians. For them nothing is too old, nothing is too new, for +to their books of all others is applicable the saying of D'Alembert that +the author kills himself in lengthening out what the reader kills himself +in trying to shorten. + +There are practical books among these ancient volumes which can never +grow old. Would you know how to recognize "male hysteria" and to treat +it, take down your Sydenham; would you read the experience of a physician +who was himself the subject of asthma, and who, notwithstanding that, in +the words of Dr. Johnson, "panted on till ninety," you will find it in +the venerable treatise of Sir John Floyer; would you listen to the story +of the King's Evil cured by the royal touch, as told by a famous +chirurgeon who fully believed in it, go to Wiseman; would you get at +first hand the description of the spinal disease which long bore his +name, do not be startled if I tell you to go to Pott,--to Percival Pott, +the great surgeon of the last century. + +There comes a time for every book in a library when it is wanted by +somebody. It is but a few weeks since one of the most celebrated +physicians in the country wrote to me from a great centre of medical +education to know if I had the works of Sanctorius, which he had tried in +vain to find. I could have lent him the "Medicina Statica," with its +frontispiece showing Sanctorius with his dinner on the table before him, +in his balanced chair which sunk with him below the level of his +banquet-board when he had swallowed a certain number of ounces,--an early +foreshadowing of Pettenkofer's chamber and quantitative physiology,--but +the "Opera Omnia" of Sanctorius I had never met with, and I fear he had +to do without it. + +I would extend the hospitality of these shelves to a class of works which +we are in the habit of considering as being outside of the pale of +medical science, properly so called, and sometimes of coupling with a +disrespectful name. Such has always been my own practice. I have +welcomed Culpeper and Salmon to my bookcase as willingly as Dioscorides +or Quincy, or Paris or Wood and Bache. I have found a place for St. John +Long, and read the story of his trial for manslaughter with as much +interest as the laurel-water case in which John Hunter figured as a +witness. I would give Samuel Hahnemann a place by the side of Samuel +Thomson. Am I not afraid that some student of imaginative turn and not +provided with the needful cerebral strainers without which all the refuse +of gimcrack intelligences gets into the mental drains and chokes them +up,--am I not afraid that some such student will get hold of the +"Organon" or the "Maladies Chroniques" and be won over by their +delusions, and so be lost to those that love him as a man of common sense +and a brother in their high calling? Not in the least. If he showed any +symptoms of infection I would for once have recourse to the principle of +similia similibus. To cure him of Hahnemann I would prescribe my +favorite homoeopathic antidote, Okie's Bonninghausen. If that failed, I +would order Grauvogl as a heroic remedy, and if he survived that uncured, +I would give him my blessing, if I thought him honest, and bid him depart +in peace. For me he is no longer an individual. He belongs to a class of +minds which we are bound to be patient with if their Maker sees fit to +indulge them with existence. We must accept the conjuring +ultra-ritualist, the dreamy second adventist, the erratic spiritualist, +the fantastic homoeopathist, as not unworthy of philosophic study; not +more unworthy of it than the squarers of the circle and the inventors of +perpetual motion, and the other whimsical visionaries to whom De Morgan +has devoted his most instructive and entertaining "Budget of Paradoxes." +I hope, therefore, that our library will admit the works of the so-called +Eclectics, of the Thomsonians, if any are in existence, of the +Clairvoyants, if they have a literature, and especially of the +Homoeopathists. This country seems to be the place for such a +collection, which will by and by be curious and of more value than at +present, for Homoeopathy seems to be following the pathological law of +erysipelas, fading out where it originated as it spreads to new regions. +At least I judge so by the following translated extract from a criticism +of an American work in the "Homoeopatische Rundschau" of Leipzig for +October, 1878, which I find in the "Homoeopathic Bulletin" for the month +of November just passed: "While we feel proud of the spread and rise of +Homoeopathy across the ocean, and while the Homoeopathic works reaching +us from there, and published in a style such as is unknown in Germany, +bear eloquent testimony to the eminent activity of our transatlantic +colleagues, we are overcome by sorrowful regrets at the position +Homoeopathy occupies in Germany. Such a work [as the American one +referred to] with us would be impossible; it would lack the necessary +support." + +By all means let our library secure a good representation of the +literature of Homoeopathy before it leaves us its "sorrowful regrets" and +migrates with its sugar of milk pellets, which have taken the place of +the old pilulae micae panis, to Alaska, to "Nova Zembla, or the Lord +knows where." + +What shall I say in this presence of the duties of a Librarian? Where +have they ever been better performed than in our own public city library, +where the late Mr. Jewett and the living Mr. Winsor have shown us what a +librarian ought to be,--the organizing head, the vigilant guardian, the +seeker's index, the scholar's counsellor? His work is not merely that of +administration, manifold and laborious as its duties are. He must have a +quick intelligence and a retentive memory. He is a public carrier of +knowledge in its germs. His office is like that which naturalists +attribute to the bumble-bee,--he lays up little honey for himself, but +he conveys the fertilizing pollen from flower to flower. + +Our undertaking, just completed,--and just begun--has come at the right +time, not a day too soon. Our practitioners need a library like this, +for with all their skill and devotion there is too little genuine +erudition, such as a liberal profession ought to be able to claim for +many of its members. In reading the recent obituary notices of the late +Dr. Geddings of South Carolina, I recalled what our lamented friend Dr. +Coale used to tell me of his learning and accomplishments, and I could +not help reflecting how few such medical scholars we had to show in +Boston or New England. We must clear up this unilluminated atmosphere, +and here,--here is the true electric light which will irradiate its +darkness. + +The public will catch the rays reflected from the same source of light, +and it needs instruction on the great subjects of health and +disease,--needs it sadly. It is preyed upon by every kind of imposition +almost without hindrance. Its ignorance and prejudices react upon the +profession to the great injury of both. The jealous feeling, for +instance, with regard to such provisions for the study of anatomy as are +sanctioned by the laws in this State and carried out with strict regard +to those laws, threatens the welfare, if not the existence of +institutions for medical instruction wherever it is not held in check by +enlightened intelligence. And on the other hand the profession has just +been startled by a verdict against a physician, ruinous in its +amount,--enough to drive many a hard-working young practitioner out of +house and home,--a verdict which leads to the fear that suits for +malpractice may take the place of the panel game and child-stealing as a +means of extorting money. If the profession in this State, which claims +a high standard of civilization, is to be crushed and ground beneath the +upper millstone of the dearth of educational advantages and the lower +millstone of ruinous penalties for what the ignorant ignorantly shall +decide to be ignorance, all I can say is + + God save the Commonhealth of Massachusetts! + +Once more, we cannot fail to see that just as astrology has given place +to astronomy, so theology, the science of Him whom by searching no man +can find out, is fast being replaced by what we may not improperly call +theonomy, or the science of the laws according to which the Creator acts. +And since these laws find their fullest manifestations for us, at least, +in rational human natures, the study of anthropology is largely replacing +that of scholastic divinity. We must contemplate our Maker indirectly in +human attributes as we talk of Him in human parts of speech. And this +gives a sacredness to the study of man in his physical, mental, moral, +social, and religious nature which elevates the faithful students of +anthropology to the dignity of a priesthood, and sheds a holy light on +the recorded results of their labors, brought together as they are in +such a collection as this which is now spread out before us. + +Thus, then, our library is a temple as truly as the dome-crowned +cathedral hallowed by the breath of prayer and praise, where the dead +repose and the living worship. May it, with all its treasures, be +consecrated like that to the glory of God, through the contributions it +shall make to the advancement of sound knowledge, to the relief of human +suffering, to the promotion of harmonious relations between the members +of the two noble professions which deal with the diseases of the soul and +with those of the body, and to the common cause in which all good men are +working, the furtherance of the well-being of their fellow-creatures! + +NOTE.--As an illustration of the statement in the last paragraph but one, +I take the following notice from the "Boston Daily Advertiser," of +December 4th, the day after the delivery of the address: "Prince Lucien +Bonaparte is now living in London, and is devoting himself to the work of +collecting the creeds of all religions and sects, with a view to their +classification,--his object being simply scientific or anthropological." + +Since delivering the address, also, I find a leading article in the +"Cincinnati Lancet and Clinic" of November 30th, headed "The Decadence of +Homoeopathy," abundantly illustrated by extracts from the "Homoeopathic +Times," the leading American organ of that sect. + +In the New York "Medical Record" of the same date, which I had not seen +before the delivery of my address, is an account of the action of the +Homoeopathic Medical Society of Northern New York, in which Hahnemann's +theory of "dynamization" is characterized in a formal resolve as +"unworthy the confidence of the Homoeopathic profession." + +It will be a disappointment to the German Homoeopathists to read in the +"Homoeopathic Times" such a statement as the following: "Whatever the +influences have been which have checked the outward development of +Homoeopathy, it is plainly evident that the Homoeopathic school, as +regards the number of its openly avowed representatives, has attained its +majority, and has begun to decline both in this country and in England." + +All which is an additional reason for making a collection of the +incredibly curious literature of Homoeopathy before that pseudological +inanity has faded out like so many other delusions. + + + + +SOME OF MY EARLY TEACHERS + +[A Farewell Address to the Medical School of Harvard University, November +28, 1882.] + +I had intended that the recitation of Friday last should be followed by a +few parting words to my class and any friends who might happen to be in +the lecture-room. But I learned on the preceding evening that there was +an expectation, a desire, that my farewell should take a somewhat +different form; and not to disappoint the wishes of those whom I was +anxious to gratify, I made up my mind to appear before you with such +hasty preparation as the scanty time admitted. + +There are three occasions upon which a human being has a right to +consider himself as a centre of interest to those about him: when he is +christened, when he is married, and when he is buried. Every one is the +chief personage, the hero, of his own baptism, his own wedding, and his +own funeral. + +There are other occasions, less momentous, in which one may make more of +himself than under ordinary circumstances he would think it proper to do; +when he may talk about himself, and tell his own experiences, in fact, +indulge in a more or less egotistic monologue without fear or reproach. + +I think I may claim that this is one of those occasions. I have +delivered my last anatomical lecture and heard my class recite for the +last time. They wish to hear from me again in a less scholastic mood +than that in which they have known me. Will you not indulge me in +telling you something of my own story? + +This is the thirty-sixth Course of Lectures in which I have taken my +place and performed my duties as Professor of Anatomy. For more than +half of my term of office I gave instruction in Physiology, after the +fashion of my predecessors and in the manner then generally prevalent in +our schools, where the physiological laboratory was not a necessary part +of the apparatus of instruction. It was with my hearty approval that the +teaching of Physiology was constituted a separate department and made an +independent Professorship. Before my time, Dr. Warren had taught +Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery in the same course of Lectures, lasting +only three or four months. As the boundaries of science are enlarged, +new divisions and subdivisions of its territories become necessary. In +the place of six Professors in 1847, when I first became a member of the +Faculty, I count twelve upon the Catalogue before me, and I find the +whole number engaged in the work of instruction in the Medical School +amounts to no less than fifty. + +Since I began teaching in this school, the aspect of many branches of +science has undergone a very remarkable transformation. Chemistry and +Physiology are no longer what they were, as taught by the instructors of +that time. We are looking forward to the synthesis of new organic +compounds; our artificial madder is already in the market, and the +indigo-raisers are now fearing that their crop will be supplanted by the +manufactured article. In the living body we talk of fuel supplied and +work done, in movement, in heat, just as if we were dealing with a +machine of our own contrivance. + +A physiological laboratory of to-day is equipped with instruments of +research of such ingenious contrivance, such elaborate construction, that +one might suppose himself in a workshop where some exquisite fabric was +to be wrought, such as Queens love to wear, and Kings do not always love +to pay for. They are, indeed, weaving a charmed web, for these are the +looms from which comes the knowledge that clothes the nakedness of the +intellect. Here are the mills that grind food for its hunger, and "is +not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" + +But while many of the sciences have so changed that the teachers of the +past would hardly know them, it has not been so with the branch I teach, +or, rather, with that division of it which is chiefly taught in this +amphitheatre. General anatomy, or histology, on the other hand, is +almost all new; it has grown up, mainly, since I began my medical +studies. I never saw a compound microscope during my years of study in +Paris. Individuals had begun to use the instrument, but I never heard it +alluded to by either Professors or students. In descriptive anatomy I +have found little to unlearn, and not a great deal that was both new and +important to learn. Trifling additions are made from year to year, not +to be despised and not to be overvalued. Some of the older anatomical +works are still admirable, some of the newer ones very much the contrary. +I have had recent anatomical plates brought me for inspection, and I have +actually button-holed the book-agent, a being commonly as hard to get rid +of as the tar-baby in the negro legend, that I might put him to shame +with the imperial illustrations of the bones and muscles in the great +folio of Albinus, published in 1747, and the unapproached figures of the +lymphatic system of Mascagni, now within a very few years of a century +old, and still copied, or, rather, pretended to be copied, in the most +recent works on anatomy. + +I am afraid that it is a good plan to get rid of old Professors, and I am +thankful to hear that there is a movement for making provision for those +who are left in need when they lose their offices and their salaries. I +remember one of our ancient Cambridge Doctors once asked me to get into +his rickety chaise, and said to me, half humorously, half sadly, that he +was like an old horse,--they had taken off his saddle and turned him out +to pasture. I fear the grass was pretty short where that old servant of +the public found himself grazing. If I myself needed an apology for +holding my office so long, I should find it in the fact that human +anatomy is much the same study that it was in the days of Vesalius and +Fallopius, and that the greater part of my teaching was of such a nature +that it could never become antiquated. + +Let me begin with my first experience as a medical student. I had come +from the lessons of Judge Story and Mr. Ashmun in the Law School at +Cambridge. I had been busy, more or less, with the pages of Blackstone +and Chitty, and other text-books of the first year of legal study. More +or less, I say, but I am afraid it was less rather than more. For during +that year I first tasted the intoxicating pleasure of authorship. A +college periodical, conducted by friends of mine, still undergraduates, +tempted me into print, and there is no form of lead-poisoning which more +rapidly and thoroughly pervades the blood and bones and marrow than that +which reaches the young author through mental contact with type-metal. +Qui a bu, boira,--he who has once been a drinker will drink again, says +the French proverb. So the man or woman who has tasted type is sure to +return to his old indulgence sooner or later. In that fatal year I had +my first attack of authors' lead-poisoning, and I have never got quite +rid of it from that day to this. But for that I might have applied +myself more diligently to my legal studies, and carried a green bag in +place of a stethoscope and a thermometer up to the present day. + +What determined me to give up Law and apply myself to Medicine I can +hardly say, but I had from the first looked upon that year's study as an +experiment. At any rate, I made the change, and soon found myself +introduced to new scenes and new companionships. + +I can scarcely credit my memory when I recall the first impressions +produced upon me by sights afterwards become so familiar that they could +no more disturb a pulse-beat than the commonest of every-day experiences. +The skeleton, hung aloft like a gibbeted criminal, looked grimly at me as +I entered the room devoted to the students of the school I had joined, +just as the fleshless figure of Time, with the hour-glass and scythe, +used to glare upon me in my childhood from the "New England Primer." The +white faces in the beds at the Hospital found their reflection in my own +cheeks, which lost their color as I looked upon them. All this had to +pass away in a little time; I had chosen my profession, and must meet its +painful and repulsive aspects until they lost their power over my +sensibilities. + +The private medical school which I had joined was one established by Dr. +James Jackson, Dr. Walter Channing, Dr. John Ware, Dr. Winslow Lewis, and +Dr. George W. Otis. Of the first three gentlemen I have either spoken +elsewhere or may find occasion to speak hereafter. The two younger +members of this association of teachers were both graduates of our +University, one of the year 1819, the other of 1818. + +Dr. Lewis was a great favorite with students. He was a man of very +lively temperament, fond of old books and young people, open-hearted, +free-spoken, an enthusiast in teaching, and especially at home in that +apartment of the temple of science where nature is seen in undress, the +anthropotomic laboratory, known to common speech as the dissecting-room. +He had that quality which is the special gift of the man born for a +teacher,--the power of exciting an interest in that which he taught. +While he was present the apartment I speak of was the sunniest of studios +in spite of its mortuary spectacles. Of the students I met there I best +remember James Jackson, Junior, full of zeal and playful as a boy, a +young man whose early death was a calamity to the profession of which he +promised to be a chief ornament; the late Reverend J. S. C. Greene, who, +as the prefix to his name signifies, afterwards changed his profession, +but one of whose dissections I remember looking upon with admiration; and +my friend Mr. Charles Amory, as we call him, Dr. Charles Amory, as he is +entitled to be called, then, as now and always, a favorite with all about +him. He had come to us from the schools of Germany, and brought with him +recollections of the teachings of Blumenbach and the elder Langenbeck, +father of him whose portrait hangs in our Museum. Dr. Lewis was our +companion as well as our teacher. A good demonstrator is,--I will not +say as important as a good Professor in the teaching of Anatomy, because +I am not sure that he is not more important. He comes into direct +personal relations with the students,--he is one of them, in fact, as the +Professor cannot be from the nature of his duties. The Professor's chair +is an insulating stool, so to speak; his age, his knowledge, real or +supposed, his official station, are like the glass legs which support the +electrician's piece of furniture, and cut it off from the common currents +of the floor upon which it stands. Dr. Lewis enjoyed teaching and made +his students enjoy being taught. He delighted in those anatomical +conundrums to answer which keeps the student's eyes open and his wits +awake. He was happy as he dexterously performed the tour de maitre of +the old barber-surgeons, or applied the spica bandage and taught his +scholars to do it, so neatly and symmetrically that the aesthetic +missionary from the older centre of civilization would bend over it in +blissful contemplation, as if it were a sunflower. Dr. Lewis had many +other tastes, and was a favorite, not only with students, but in a wide +circle, professional, antiquarian, masonic, and social. + +Dr. Otis was less widely known, but was a fluent and agreeable lecturer, +and esteemed as a good surgeon. + +I must content myself with this glimpse at myself and a few of my +fellow-students in Boston. After attending two courses of Lectures in +the school of the University, I went to Europe to continue my studies. + +You may like to hear something of the famous Professors of Paris in the +days when I was a student in the Ecole de Medicine, and following the +great Hospital teachers. + +I can hardly believe my own memory when I recall the old practitioners +and Professors who were still going round the hospitals when I mingled +with the train of students that attended the morning visits. See that +bent old man who is groping his way through the wards of La Charity. +That is the famous Baron Boyer, author of the great work on surgery in +nine volumes, a writer whose clearness of style commends his treatise to +general admiration, and makes it a kind of classic. He slashes away at a +terrible rate, they say, when he gets hold of the subject of fistula in +its most frequent habitat,--but I never saw him do more than look as if +he wanted to cut a good dollop out of a patient he was examining. The +short, square, substantial man with iron-gray hair, ruddy face, and white +apron is Baron Larrey, Napoleon's favorite surgeon, the most honest man +he ever saw,--it is reputed that he called him. To go round the Hotel +des Invalides with Larrey was to live over the campaigns of Napoleon, to +look on the sun of Austerlitz, to hear the cannons of Marengo, to +struggle through the icy waters of the Beresina, to shiver in the snows +of the Russian retreat, and to gaze through the battle smoke upon the +last charge of the red lancers on the redder field of Waterloo. Larrey +was still strong and sturdy as I saw him, and few portraits remain +printed in livelier colors on the tablet of my memory. + +Leave the little group of students which gathers about Larrey beneath the +gilded dome of the Invalides and follow me to the Hotel Dieu, where rules +and reigns the master-surgeon of his day, at least so far as Paris and +France are concerned,--the illustrious Baron Dupuytren. No man disputed +his reign, some envied his supremacy. Lisfranc shrugged his shoulders as +he spoke of "ce grand homme de l'autre cots de la riviere," that great +man on the other side of the river, but the great man he remained, until +he bowed before the mandate which none may disobey. "Three times," said +Bouillaud, "did the apoplectic thunderbolt fall on that robust +brain,"--it yielded at last as the old bald cliff that is riven and +crashes down into the valley. I saw him before the first thunderbolt had +descended: a square, solid man, with a high and full-domed head, oracular +in his utterances, indifferent to those around him, sometimes, it was +said, very rough with them. He spoke in low, even tones, with quiet +fluency, and was listened to with that hush of rapt attention which I +have hardly seen in any circle of listeners unless when such men as +ex-President John Quincy Adams or Daniel Webster were the speakers. I do +not think that Dupuytren has left a record which explains his influence, +but in point of fact he dominated those around him in a remarkable +manner. You must have all witnessed something of the same kind. The +personal presence of some men carries command with it, and their accents +silence the crowd around them, when the same words from other lips might +fall comparatively unheeded. + +As for Lisfranc, I can say little more of him than that he was a great +drawer of blood and hewer of members. I remember his ordering a +wholesale bleeding of his patients, right and left, whatever might be the +matter with them, one morning when a phlebotomizing fit was on him. I +recollect his regretting the splendid guardsmen of the old Empire,--for +what? because they had such magnificent thighs to amputate. I got along +about as far as that with him, when I ceased to be a follower of M. +Lisfranc. + +The name of Velpeau must have reached many of you, for he died in 1867, +and his many works made his name widely known. Coming to Paris in wooden +shoes, starving, almost, at first, he raised himself to great eminence as +a surgeon and as an author, and at last obtained the Professorship to +which his talents and learning entitled him. His example may be an +encouragement to some of my younger hearers who are born, not with the +silver spoon in their mouths, but with the two-tined iron fork in their +hands. It is a poor thing to take up their milk porridge with in their +young days, but in after years it will often transfix the solid dumplings +that roll out of the silver spoon. So Velpeau found it. He had not what +is called genius, he was far from prepossessing in aspect, looking as if +he might have wielded the sledge-hammer (as I think he had done in early +life) rather than the lancet, but he had industry, determination, +intelligence, character, and he made his way to distinction and +prosperity, as some of you sitting on these benches and wondering +anxiously what is to become of you in the struggle for life will have +done before the twentieth century has got halfway through its first +quarter. A good sound head over a pair of wooden shoes is a great deal +better than a wooden head belonging to an owner who cases his feet in +calf-skin, but a good brain is not enough without a stout heart to fill +the four great conduits which carry at once fuel and fire to that +mightiest of engines. + +How many of you who are before me are familiarly acquainted with the name +of Broussais, or even with that of Andral? Both were lecturing at the +Ecole de Medicine, and I often heard them. Broussais was in those days +like an old volcano, which has pretty nearly used up its fire and +brimstone, but is still boiling and bubbling in its interior, and now and +then sends up a spirt of lava and a volley of pebbles. His theories of +gastro-enteritis, of irritation and inflammation as the cause of disease, +and the practice which sprang from them, ran over the fields of medicine +for a time like flame over the grass of the prairies. The way in which +that knotty-featured, savage old man would bring out the word +irritation--with rattling and rolling reduplication of the resonant +letter r--might have taught a lesson in articulation to Salvini. But +Broussais's theory was languishing and well-nigh become obsolete, and +this, no doubt, added vehemence to his defence of his cherished dogmas. + +Old theories, and old men who cling to them, must take themselves out of +the way as the new generation with its fresh thoughts and altered habits +of mind comes forward to take the place of that which is dying out. This +was a truth which the fiery old theorist found it very hard to learn, and +harder to bear, as it was forced upon him. For the hour of his lecture +was succeeded by that of a younger and far more popular professor. As +his lecture drew towards its close, the benches, thinly sprinkled with +students, began to fill up; the doors creaked open and banged back +oftener and oftener, until at last the sound grew almost continuous, and +the voice of the lecturer became a leonine growl as he strove in vain to +be heard over the noise of doors and footsteps. + +Broussais was now sixty-two years old. The new generation had outgrown +his doctrines, and the Professor for whose hour the benches had filled +themselves belonged to that new generation. Gabriel Andral was little +more than half the age of Broussais, in the full prime and vigor of +manhood at thirty-seven years. He was a rapid, fluent, fervid, and +imaginative speaker, pleasing in aspect and manner,--a strong contrast to +the harsh, vituperative old man who had just preceded him. His Clinique +Medicale is still valuable as a collection of cases, and his researches +on the blood, conducted in association with Gavarret, contributed new and +valuable facts to science. But I remember him chiefly as one of those +instructors whose natural eloquence made it delightful to listen to him. +I doubt if I or my fellow-students did full justice either to him or to +the famous physician of Hotel Dieu, Chomel. We had addicted ourselves +almost too closely to the words of another master, by whom we were ready +to swear as against all teachers that ever were or ever would be. + +This object of our reverence, I might almost say idolatry, was one whose +name is well known to most of the young men before me, even to those who +may know comparatively little of his works and teachings. Pierre Charles +Alexandre Louis, at the age of forty-seven, as I recall him, was a tall, +rather spare, dignified personage, of serene and grave aspect, but with a +pleasant smile and kindly voice for the student with whom he came into +personal relations. If I summed up the lessons of Louis in two +expressions, they would be these; I do not hold him answerable for the +words, but I will condense them after my own fashion in French, and then +give them to you, expanded somewhat, in English: + + Formez toujours des idees nettes. + Fuyez toujours les a peu pres. + +Always make sure that you form a distinct and clear idea of the matter +you are considering. + +Always avoid vague approximations where exact estimates are possible; +about so many,--about so much, instead of the precise number and +quantity. + +Now, if there is anything on which the biological sciences have prided +themselves in these latter years it is the substitution of quantitative +for qualitative formulae. The "numerical system," of which Louis was the +great advocate, if not the absolute originator, was an attempt to +substitute series of carefully recorded facts, rigidly counted and +closely compared, for those never-ending records of vague, unverifiable +conclusions with which the classics of the healing art were overloaded. +The history of practical medicine had been like the story of the +Danaides. "Experience" had been, from time immemorial, pouring its +flowing treasures into buckets full of holes. At the existing rate of +supply and leakage they would never be filled; nothing would ever be +settled in medicine. But cases thoroughly recorded and mathematically +analyzed would always be available for future use, and when accumulated +in sufficient number would lead to results which would be trustworthy, +and belong to science. + +You young men who are following the hospitals hardly know how much you +are indebted to Louis. I say nothing of his Researches on Phthisis or +his great work on Typhoid Fever. But I consider his modest and brief +Essay on Bleeding in some Inflammatory Diseases, based on cases carefully +observed and numerically analyzed, one of the most important written +contributions to practical medicine, to the treatment of internal +disease, of this century, if not since the days of Sydenham. The lancet +was the magician's wand of the dark ages of medicine. The old physicians +not only believed in its general efficacy as a wonder-worker in disease, +but they believed that each malady could be successfully attacked from +some special part of the body,--the strategic point which commanded the +seat of the morbid affection. On a figure given in the curious old work +of John de Ketam, no less than thirty-eight separate places are marked as +the proper ones to bleed from, in different diseases. Even Louis, who +had not wholly given up venesection, used now and then to order that a +patient suffering from headache should be bled in the foot, in preference +to any other part. + +But what Louis did was this: he showed by a strict analysis of numerous +cases that bleeding did not strangle,--jugulate was the word then +used,--acute diseases, more especially pneumonia. This was not a +reform,--it was a revolution. It was followed up in this country by the +remarkable Discourse of Dr. Jacob Bigelow upon Self-Limited Diseases, +which has, I believe, done more than any other work or essay in our own +language to rescue the practice of medicine from the slavery to the +drugging system which was a part of the inheritance of the profession. + +Yes, I say, as I look back on the long hours of the many days I spent in +the wards and in the autopsy room of La Pitie, where Louis was one of the +attending physicians,--yes, Louis did a great work for practical +medicine. Modest in the presence of nature, fearless in the face of +authority, unwearying in the pursuit of truth, he was a man whom any +student might be happy and proud to claim as his teacher and his friend, +and yet, as I look back on the days when I followed his teachings, I feel +that I gave myself up too exclusively to his methods of thought and +study. + +There is one part of their business which certain medical practitioners +are too apt to forget; namely, that what they should most of all try to +do is to ward off disease, to alleviate suffering, to preserve life, or +at least to prolong it if possible. It is not of the slightest interest +to the patient to know whether three or three and a quarter cubic inches +of his lung are hepatized. His mind is not occupied with thinking of the +curious problems which are to be solved by his own autopsy,--whether this +or that strand of the spinal marrow is the seat of this or that form of +degeneration. He wants something to relieve his pain, to mitigate the +anguish of dyspnea, to bring back motion and sensibility to the dead +limb, to still the tortures of neuralgia. What is it to him that you can +localize and name by some uncouth term the disease which you could not +prevent and which you cannot cure? An old woman who knows how to make a +poultice and how to put it on, and does it tuto, eito, jucunde, just when +and where it is wanted, is better,--a thousand times better in many +cases,--than a staring pathologist, who explores and thumps and doubts +and guesses, and tells his patient be will be better tomorrow, and so +goes home to tumble his books over and make out a diagnosis. + +But in those days, I, like most of my fellow students, was thinking much +more of "science" than of practical medicine, and I believe if we had not +clung so closely to the skirts of Louis and had followed some of the +courses of men like Trousseau,--therapeutists, who gave special attention +to curative methods, and not chiefly to diagnosis,--it would have been +better for me and others. One thing, at any rate, we did learn in the +wards of Louis. We learned that a very large proportion of diseases get +well of themselves, without any special medication,--the great fact +formulated, enforced, and popularized by Dr. Jacob Bigelow in the +Discourse referred to. We unlearned the habit of drugging for its own +sake. This detestable practice, which I was almost proscribed for +condemning somewhat too epigrammatically a little more than twenty years +ago, came to us, I suspect, in a considerable measure from the English +"general practitioners," a sort of prescribing apothecaries. You +remember how, when the city was besieged, each artisan who was called +upon in council to suggest the best means of defence recommended the +articles he dealt in: the carpenter, wood; the blacksmith, iron; the +mason, brick; until it came to be a puzzle to know which to adopt. Then +the shoemaker said, "Hang your walls with new boots," and gave good +reasons why these should be the best of all possible defences. Now the +"general practitioner" charged, as I understand, for his medicine, and +in that way got paid for his visit. Wherever this is the practice, +medicine is sure to become a trade, and the people learn to expect +drugging, and to consider it necessary, because drugs are so universally +given to the patients of the man who gets his living by them. + +It was something to have unlearned the pernicious habit of constantly +giving poisons to a patient, as if they were good in themselves, of +drawing off the blood which he would want in his struggle with disease, +of making him sore and wretched with needless blisters, of turning his +stomach with unnecessary nauseous draught and mixtures,--only because he +was sick and something must be done. But there were positive as well as +negative facts to be learned, and some of us, I fear, came home rich in +the negatives of the expectant practice, poor in the resources which many +a plain country practitioner had ready in abundance for the relief and +the cure of disease. No one instructor can be expected to do all for a +student which he requires. Louis taught us who followed him the love of +truth, the habit of passionless listening to the teachings of nature, the +most careful and searching methods of observation, and the sure means of +getting at the results to be obtained from them in the constant +employment of accurate tabulation. He was not a showy, or eloquent, or, +I should say, a very generally popular man, though the favorite, almost +the idol, of many students, especially Genevese and Bostonians. But he +was a man of lofty and admirable scientific character, and his work will +endure in its influences long after his name is lost sight of save to the +faded eyes of the student of medical literature. + +Many other names of men more or less famous in their day, and who were +teaching while I was in Paris, come up before me. They are but empty +sounds for the most part in the ears of persons of not more than middle +age. Who of you knows anything of Richerand, author of a very popular +work on Physiology, commonly put into the student's hands when I first +began to ask for medical text-books? I heard him lecture once, and have +had his image with me ever since as that of an old, worn-out man,--a +venerable but dilapidated relic of an effete antiquity. To verify this +impression I have just looked out the dates of his birth and death, and +find that he was eighteen years younger than the speaker who is now +addressing you. There is a terrible parallax between the period before +thirty and that after threescore and ten, as two men of those ages look, +one with naked eyes, one through his spectacles, at the man of fifty and +thereabout. Magendie, I doubt not you have all heard of. I attended but +one of his lectures. I question if one here, unless some contemporary of +my own has strayed into the amphitheatre,--knows anything about Marjolin. +I remember two things about his lectures on surgery, the deep tones of +his voice as he referred to his oracle,--the earlier writer, Jean Louis +Petit,--and his formidable snuffbox. What he taught me lies far down, I +doubt not, among the roots of my knowledge, but it does not flower out in +any noticeable blossoms, or offer me any very obvious fruits. Where now +is the fame of Bouillaud, Professor and Deputy, the Sangrado of his time? +Where is the renown of Piorry, percussionist and poet, expert alike in +the resonances of the thoracic cavity and those of the rhyming +vocabulary?--I think life has not yet done with the vivacious Ricord, +whom I remember calling the Voltaire of pelvic literature,--a sceptic as +to the morality of the race in general, who would have submitted Diana to +treatment with his mineral specifics, and ordered a course of blue pills +for the vestal virgins. + +Ricord was born at the beginning of the century, and Piorry some years +earlier. Cruveilhier, who died in 1874, is still remembered by his great +work on pathological anatomy; his work on descriptive anatomy has some +things which I look in vain for elsewhere. But where is Civiale,--where +are Orfila, Gendrin, Rostan, Biett, Alibert,--jolly old Baron Alibert, +whom I remember so well in his broad-brimmed hat, worn a little jauntily +on one side, calling out to the students in the court-yard of the +Hospital St. Louis, "Enfans de la methode naturelle, etes-vous tous +ici?" "Children of the natural method [his own method of classification +of skin diseases,] are you all here?" All here, then, perhaps; all +where, now? + +My show of ghosts is over. It is always the same story that old men tell +to younger ones, some few of whom will in their turn repeat the tale, +only with altered names, to their children's children. + + Like phantoms painted on the magic slide, + Forth from the darkness of the past we glide, + As living shadows for a moment seen + In airy pageant on the eternal screen, + Traced by a ray from one unchanging flame, + Then seek the dust and stillness whence we came. + +Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, whom I well remember, came back from Leyden, +where he had written his Latin graduating thesis, talking of the learned +Gaubius and the late illustrious Boerhaave and other dead Dutchmen, of +whom you know as much, most of you, as you do of Noah's apothecary and +the family physician of Methuselah, whose prescriptions seem to have been +lost to posterity. Dr. Lloyd came back to Boston full of the teachings +of Cheselden and Sharpe, William Hunter, Smellie, and Warner; Dr. James +Jackson loved to tell of Mr. Cline and to talk of Mr. John Hunter; Dr. +Reynolds would give you his recollections of Sir Astley Cooper and Mr. +Abernethy; I have named the famous Frenchmen of my student days; Leyden, +Edinburgh, London, Paris, were each in turn the Mecca of medical +students, just as at the present day Vienna and Berlin are the centres +where our young men crowd for instruction. These also must sooner or +later yield their precedence and pass the torch they hold to other hands. +Where shall it next flame at the head of the long procession? Shall it +find its old place on the shores of the Gulf of Salerno, or shall it +mingle its rays with the northern aurora up among the fiords of +Norway,--or shall it be borne across the Atlantic and reach the banks of +the Charles, where Agassiz and Wyman have taught, where Hagen still +teaches, glowing like his own Lampyris splendidula, with enthusiasm, +where the first of American botanists and the ablest of American surgeons +are still counted in the roll of honor of our great University? + +Let me add a few words which shall not be other than cheerful, as I bid +farewell to this edifice which I have known so long. I am grateful to +the roof which has sheltered me, to the floors which have sustained me, +though I have thought it safest always to abstain from anything like +eloquence, lest a burst of too emphatic applause might land my class and +myself in the cellar of the collapsing structure, and bury us in the fate +of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. I have helped to wear these stairs into +hollows,--stairs which I trod when they were smooth and level, fresh from +the plane. There are just thirty-two of them, as there were five and +thirty years ago, but they are steeper and harder to climb, it seems to +me, than they were then. I remember that in the early youth of this +building, the late Dr. John K. Mitchell, father of our famous Dr. Weir +Mitchell, said to me as we came out of the Demonstrator's room, that some +day or other a whole class would go heels over head down this graded +precipice, like the herd told of in Scripture story. This has never +happened as yet; I trust it never will. I have never been proud of the +apartment beneath the seats, in which my preparations for lecture were +made. But I chose it because I could have it to myself, and I resign it, +with a wish that it were more worthy of regret, into the hands of my +successor, with my parting benediction. Within its twilight precincts I +have often prayed for light, like Ajax, for the daylight found scanty +entrance, and the gaslight never illuminated its dark recesses. May it +prove to him who comes after me like the cave of the Sibyl, out of the +gloomy depths of which came the oracles which shone with the rays of +truth and wisdom! + +This temple of learning is not surrounded by the mansions of the great +and the wealthy. No stately avenues lead up to its facades and +porticoes. I have sometimes felt, when convoying a distinguished +stranger through its precincts to its door, that he might question +whether star-eyed Science had not missed her way when she found herself +in this not too attractive locality. I cannot regret that we--you, I +should say--are soon to migrate to a more favored region, and carry on +your work as teachers and as learners in ampler halls and under far more +favorable conditions. + +I hope that I may have the privilege of meeting you there, possibly may +be allowed to add my words of welcome to those of my former colleagues, +and in that pleasing anticipation I bid good-by to this scene of my long +labors, and, for the present at least, to the friends with whom I have +been associated. + + + + +APPENDUM + + + + +NOTES TO THE ADDRESS ON CURRENTS AND COUNTER +CURRENTS IN MEDICAL SCIENCE. + +Some passages contained in the original manuscript of the Address, and +omitted in the delivery on account of its length, are restored in the +text or incorporated with these Notes. + + + +NOTE A.-- + +There is good reason to doubt whether the nitrate of silver has any real +efficacy in epilepsy. It has seemed to cure many cases, but epilepsy is +a very uncertain disease, and there is hardly anything which has not been +supposed to cure it. Dr. Copland cites many authorities in its favor, +most especially Lombard's cases. But De la Berge and Monneret (Comp. de +Med. Paris), 1839, analyze these same cases, eleven in number, and can +only draw the inference of a very questionable value in the supposed +remedy. Dr. James Jackson says that relief of epilepsy is not to be +attained by any medicine with which he is acquainted, but by diet. +(Letters to a Young Physician, p. 67.) Guy Patin, Dean of the Faculty of +Paris, Professor at the Royal College, Author of the Antimonial +Martyrology, a wit and a man of sense and learning, who died almost two +hundred years ago, had come to the same conclusion, though the chemists +of his time boasted of their remedies. "Did, you ever see a case of +epilepsy cured by nitrate of silver?" I said to one of the oldest and +most experienced surgeons in this country. "Never," was his instant +reply. Dr. Twitchell's experience was very similar. How, then, did +nitrate of silver come to be given for epilepsy? Because, as Dr. Martin +has so well reminded us, lunatics were considered formerly to be under +the special influence of Luna, the moon (which Esquirol, be it observed, +utterly denies), and lunar caustic, or nitrate of silver, is a salt of +that metal which was called luna from its whiteness, and of course must +be in the closest relations with the moon. It follows beyond all +reasonable question that the moon's metal, silver, and its preparations, +must be the specific remedy for moonblasted maniacs and epileptics! + +Yet the practitioner who prescribes the nitrate of silver supposes he is +guided by the solemn experience of the past, instead of by its idle +fancies. He laughs at those old physicians who placed such confidence in +the right hind hoof of an elk as a remedy for the same disease, and +leaves the record of his own belief in a treatment quite as fanciful and +far more objectionable, written in indelible ink upon a living tablet +where he who runs may read it for a whole generation, if nature spares +his walking advertisement so long. + + + +NOTE B.-- + +The presumption that a man is innocent until he is proved guilty, does +not mean that there are no rogues, but lays the onus probandi on the +party to which it properly belongs. So with this proposition. A noxious +agent should never be employed in sickness unless there is ample evidence +in the particular case to overcome the general presumption against all +such agents, and the evidence is very apt to be defective. + +The miserable delusion of Homoeopathy builds itself upon an axiom +directly the opposite of this; namely, that the sick are to be cured by +poisons. Similia similibus curantur means exactly this. It is simply a +theory of universal poisoning, nullified in practice by the infinitesimal +contrivance. The only way to kill it and all similar fancies, and to +throw every quack nostrum into discredit, is to root out completely the +suckers of the old rotten superstition that whatever is odious or noxious +is likely to be good for disease. The current of sound practice with +ourselves is, I believe, setting fast in the direction I have indicated +in the above proposition. To uphold the exhibition of noxious agents in +disease, as the rule, instead of admitting them cautiously and +reluctantly as the exception, is, as I think, an eddy of opinion in the +direction of the barbarism out of which we believe our art is escaping. +It is only through the enlightened sentiment and action of the Medical +Profession that the community can be brought to acknowledge that drugs +should always be regarded as evils. + +It is true that some suppose, and our scientific and thoughtful +associate, Dr. Gould, has half countenanced the opinion, that there may +yet be discovered a specific for every disease. Let us not despair of +the future, but let us be moderate in our expectations. When an oil is +discovered that will make a bad watch keep good time; when a recipe is +given which will turn an acephalous foetus into a promising child; when a +man can enter the second time into his mother's womb and give her back +the infirmities which twenty generations have stirred into her blood, and +infused into his own through hers, we may be prepared to enlarge the +National Pharmacopoeia with a list of specifies for everything but old +age,--and possibly for that also. + + + +NOTE C.-- + +The term specific is used here in its ordinary sense, without raising the +question of the propriety of its application to these or other remedies. + +The credit of introducing Cinchona rests between the Jesuits, the +Countess of Chinchon, the Cardinal de Lugo, and Sir Robert Talbor, who +employed it as a secret remedy. (Pereira.) Mercury as an internal +specific remedy was brought into use by that impudent and presumptuous +quack, as he was considered, Paracelsus. (Encyc. Brit. art. +"Paracelsus.") Arsenic was introduced into England as a remedy for +intermittents by Dr. Fowler, in consequence of the success of a patent +medicine, the Tasteless Ague Drops, which were supposed, "probably with +reason," to be a preparation of that mineral. (Rees's Cyc. art. +"Arsenic.") Colchicum came into notice in a similar way, from the +success of the Eau Medicinale of M. Husson, a French military officer. +(Pereira.) Iodine was discovered by a saltpetre manufacturer, but applied +by a physician in place of the old remedy, burnt sponge, which seems to +owe its efficacy to it. (Dunglison, New Remedies.) As for Sulphur, "the +common people have long used it as an ointment" for scabies. (Rees's +Cyc. art. "Scabies.") The modern cantiscorbutic regimen is credited to +Captain Cook. "To his sagacity we are indebted for the first impulse to +those regulations by which scorbutus is so successfully prevented in our +navy." (Lond. Cyc. Prac. Med. art. "Scorbutus.") Iron and various +salts which enter into the normal composition of the human body do not +belong to the materia medica by our definition, but to the materia +alimentaria. + +For the first introduction of iron as a remedy, see Pereira, who gives a +very curious old story. + +The statement in the text concerning a portion of the materia medica +stands exactly as delivered, and is meant exactly as it stands. No +denunciation of drugs, as sparingly employed by a wise physician, was or +is intended. If, however, as Dr. Gould stated in his "valuable and +practical discourse" to which the Massachusetts Medical Society "listened +with profit as well as interest," "Drugs, in themselves considered, may +always be regarded as evils,"--any one who chooses may question whether +the evils from their abuse are, on the whole, greater or less than the +undoubted benefits obtained from their proper use. The large exception +of opium, wine, specifics, and anaesthetics, made in the text, takes off +enough from the useful side, as I fully believe, to turn the balance; so +that a vessel containing none of these, but loaded with antimony, +strychnine, acetate of lead, aloes, aconite, lobelia, lapis infernalis, +stercus diaboli, tormentilla, and other approved, and, in skilful hands, +really useful remedies, brings, on the whole, more harm than good to the +port it enters. + +It is a very narrow and unjust view of the practice of medicine, to +suppose it to consist altogether in the use of powerful drugs, or of +drugs of any kind. Far from it. "The physician may do very much for the +welfare of the sick, more than others can do, although he does not, even +in the major part of cases, undertake to control and overcome the disease +by art. It was with these views that I never reported any patient cured +at our hospital. Those who recovered their health were reported as well; +not implying that they were made so by the active treatment they had +received there. But it was to be understood that all patients received +in that house were to be cured, that is, taken care of." (Letters to a +Young Physician, by James Jackson, M. D., Boston, 1855.) + +"Hygienic rules, properly enforced, fresh air, change of air, travel, +attention to diet, good and appropriate food judiciously regulated, +together with the administration of our tonics, porter, ale, wine, iron, +etc., supply the diseased or impoverished system with what Mr. Gull, of +St. Bartholomew's Hospital, aptly calls the 'raw material of the blood;' +and we believe that if any real improvement has taken place in medical +practice, independently of those truly valuable contributions we have +before described, it is in the substitution of tonics, stimulants, and +general management, for drastic cathartics, for bleeding, depressing +agents, including mercury, tartar emetics, etc., so much in vogue during +the early part even of this century." (F. P. Porcher, in Charleston Med. +Journal and Review for January, 1860.) 1860.) + + + + + + +JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. + +A MEMOIR, Complete + +By Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + + + +Volume I. + + +NOTE. + +The Memoir here given to the public is based on a biographical sketch +prepared by the writer at the request of the Massachusetts Historical +Society for its Proceedings. The questions involving controversies into +which the Society could not feel called to enter are treated at +considerable length in the following pages. Many details are also given +which would have carried the paper written for the Society beyond the +customary limits of such tributes to the memory of its deceased members. +It is still but an outline which may serve a present need and perhaps be +of some assistance to a future biographer. + + + + +I. + +1814-1827. To AEt. 13. +BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS. + +John Motley, the great-grandfather of the subject of this Memoir, came in +the earlier part of the last century from Belfast in Ireland to Falmouth, +now Portland, in the District, now the State of Maine. He was twice +married, and had ten children, four of the first marriage and six of the +last. Thomas, the youngest son by his first wife, married Emma, a +daughter of John Wait, the first Sheriff of Cumberland County under the +government of the United States. Two of their seven sons, Thomas and +Edward, removed from Portland to Boston in 1802 and established +themselves as partners in commercial business, continuing united and +prosperous for nearly half a century before the firm was dissolved. + +The earlier records of New England have preserved the memory of an +incident which deserves mention as showing how the historian's life was +saved by a quickwitted handmaid, more than a hundred years before he was +born. On the 29th of August, 1708, the French and Indians from Canada +made an attack upon the town of Haverhill, in Massachusetts. Thirty or +forty persons were slaughtered, and many others were carried captive into +Canada. + +The minister of the town, Rev. Benjamin Rolfe, was killed by a bullet +through the door of his house. Two of his daughters, Mary, aged thirteen, +and Elizabeth, aged nine, were sleeping in a room with the maid-servant, +Hagar. When Hagar heard the whoop of the savages she seized the children, +ran with them into the cellar, and, after concealing them under two large +washtubs, hid herself. The Indians ransacked the cellar, but missed the +prey. Elizabeth, the younger of the two girls, grew up and married the +Rev. Samuel Checkley, first minister of the "New South" Church, Boston. +Her son, Rev. Samuel Checkley, Junior, was minister of the Second Church, +and his successor, Rev. John Lothrop, or Lathrop, as it was more commonly +spelled, married his daughter. Dr. Lothrop was great-grandson of Rev. +John Lothrop, of Scituate, who had been imprisoned in England for +nonconformity. The Checkleys were from Preston Capes, in +Northamptonshire. The name is probably identical with that of the +Chicheles or Chichleys, a well-known Northamptonshire family. + +Thomas Motley married Anna, daughter of the Rev. John Lothrop, +granddaughter of the Rev. Samuel Checkley, Junior, the two ministers +mentioned above, both honored in their day and generation. Eight children +were born of this marriage, of whom four are still living. + +JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, the second of these children, was born in +Dorchester, now a part of Boston, Massachusetts, on the 15th of April, +1814. A member of his family gives a most pleasing and interesting +picture, from his own recollections and from what his mother told him, of +the childhood which was to develop into such rich maturity. The boy was +rather delicate in organization, and not much given to outdoor +amusements, except skating and swimming, of which last exercise he was +very fond in his young days, and in which he excelled. He was a great +reader, never idle, but always had a book in his hand,--a volume of +poetry or one of the novels of Scott or Cooper. His fondness for plays +and declamation is illustrated by the story told by a younger brother, +who remembers being wrapped up in a shawl and kept quiet by sweetmeats, +while he figured as the dead Caesar, and his brother, the future +historian, delivered the speech of Antony over his prostrate body. He was +of a most sensitive nature, easily excited, but not tenacious of any +irritated feelings, with a quick sense of honor, and the most entirely +truthful child, his mother used to say, that she had ever seen. Such are +some of the recollections of those who knew him in his earliest years and +in the most intimate relations. + +His father's family was at this time living in the house No. 7 Walnut +Street, looking down Chestnut Street over the water to the western hills. +Near by, at the corner of Beacon Street, was the residence of the family +of the first mayor of Boston, and at a little distance from the opposite +corner was the house of one of the fathers of New England manufacturing +enterprise, a man of superior intellect, who built up a great name and +fortune in our city. The children from these three homes naturally became +playmates. Mr. Motley's house was a very hospitable one, and Lothrop and +two of his young companions were allowed to carry out their schemes of +amusement in the garden and the garret. If one with a prescient glance +could have looked into that garret on some Saturday afternoon while our +century was not far advanced in its second score of years, he might have +found three boys in cloaks and doublets and plumed hats, heroes and +bandits, enacting more or less impromptu melodramas. In one of the boys +he would have seen the embryo dramatist of a nation's life history, John +Lothrop Motley; in the second, a famous talker and wit who has spilled +more good things on the wasteful air in conversation than would carry a +"diner-out" through half a dozen London seasons, and waked up somewhat +after the usual flowering-time of authorship to find himself a very +agreeable and cordially welcomed writer,--Thomas Gold Appleton. In the +third he would have recognized a champion of liberty known wherever that +word is spoken, an orator whom to hear is to revive all the traditions of +the grace, the address, the commanding sway of the silver-tongued +eloquence of the most renowned speakers,--Wendell Phillips. + +Both of young Motley's playmates have furnished me with recollections of +him and of those around him at this period of his life, and I cannot do +better than borrow freely from their communications. His father was a man +of decided character, social, vivacious, witty, a lover of books, and +himself not unknown as a writer, being the author of one or more of the +well remembered "Jack Downing" letters. He was fond of having the boys +read to him from such authors as Channing and Irving, and criticised +their way of reading with discriminating judgment and taste. Mrs. Motley +was a woman who could not be looked upon without admiration. I remember +well the sweet dignity of her aspect, her "regal beauty," as Mr. Phillips +truly styles it, and the charm of her serene and noble presence, which +made her the type of a perfect motherhood. Her character corresponded to +the promise of her gracious aspect. She was one of the fondest of +mothers, but not thoughtlessly indulgent to the boy from whom she hoped +and expected more than she thought it wise to let him know. The story +used to be current that in their younger days this father and mother were +the handsomest pair the town of Boston could show. This son of theirs was +"rather tall," says Mr. Phillips, "lithe, very graceful in movement and +gesture, and there was something marked and admirable in the set of his +head on his shoulders,"--a peculiar elegance which was most noticeable in +those later days when I knew him. Lady Byron long afterwards spoke of him +as more like her husband in appearance than any other person she had met; +but Mr. Phillips, who remembers the first bloom of his boyhood and youth, +thinks he was handsomer than any portrait of Byron represents the poet. +"He could not have been eleven years old," says the same correspondent, +"when he began writing a novel. It opened, I remember, not with one +solitary horseman, but with two, riding up to an inn in the valley of the +Housatonic. Neither of us had ever seen the Housatonic, but it sounded +grand and romantic. Two chapters were finished." + +There is not much remembered of the single summer he passed at Mr. +Green's school at Jamaica Plain. From that school he went to Round Hill, +Northampton, then under the care of Mr. Cogswell and Mr. Bancroft. The +historian of the United States could hardly have dreamed that the +handsome boy of ten years was to take his place at the side of his +teacher in the first rank of writers in his own department. Motley came +to Round Hill, as one of his schoolmates tells me, with a great +reputation, especially as a declaimer. He had a remarkable facility for +acquiring languages, excelled as a reader and as a writer, and was the +object of general admiration for his many gifts. There is some reason to +think that the flattery he received was for a time a hindrance to his +progress and the development of his character. He obtained praise too +easily, and learned to trust too much to his genius. He had everything to +spoil him,--beauty, precocious intelligence, and a personal charm which +might have made him a universal favorite. Yet he does not seem to have +been generally popular at this period of his life. He was wilful, +impetuous, sometimes supercilious, always fastidious. He would study as +he liked, and not by rule. His school and college mates believed in his +great possibilities through all his forming period, but it may be doubted +if those who counted most confidently on his future could have supposed +that he would develop the heroic power of concentration, the +long-breathed tenacity of purpose, which in after years gave effect to +his brilliant mental endowments. "I did wonder," says Mr. Wendell +Phillips, "at the diligence and painstaking, the drudgery shown in his +historical works. In early life he had no industry, not needing it. All +he cared for in a book he caught quickly,--the spirit of it, and all his +mind needed or would use. This quickness of apprehension was marvellous." +I do not find from the recollections of his schoolmates at Northampton +that he was reproached for any grave offences, though he may have +wandered beyond the prescribed boundaries now and then, and studied +according to his inclinations rather than by rule. While at that school +he made one acquisition much less common then than now,--a knowledge of +the German language and some degree of acquaintance with its literature, +under the guidance of one of the few thorough German scholars this +country then possessed, Mr. George Bancroft. + + + + +II. + +1827-1831. AEt. 13-17. +COLLEGE LIFE. + +Such then was the boy who at the immature, we might almost say the +tender, age of thirteen entered Harvard College. Though two years after +me in college standing, I remember the boyish reputation which he brought +with him, especially that of a wonderful linguist, and the impression +which his striking personal beauty produced upon us as he took his seat +in the college chapel. But it was not until long after this period that I +became intimately acquainted with him, and I must again have recourse to +the classmates and friends who have favored me with their reminiscences +of this period of his life. Mr. Phillips says: + + "During our first year in college, though the youngest in the class, + he stood third, I think, or second in college rank, and ours was an + especially able class. Yet to maintain this rank he neither cared + nor needed to make any effort. Too young to feel any + responsibilities, and not yet awake to any ambition, he became so + negligent that he was 'rusticated' [that is, sent away from college + for a time]. He came back sobered, and worked rather more, but with + no effort for college rank thenceforward." + +I must finish the portrait of the collegian with all its lights and +shadows by the help of the same friends from whom I have borrowed the +preceding outlines. + +He did not care to make acquaintances, was haughty in manner and cynical +in mood, at least as he appeared to those in whom he felt no special +interest. It is no wonder, therefore, that he was not a popular favorite, +although recognized as having very brilliant qualities. During all this +period his mind was doubtless fermenting with projects which kept him in +a fevered and irritable condition. "He had a small writing-table," Mr. +Phillips says, "with a shallow drawer; I have often seen it half full of +sketches, unfinished poems, soliloquies, a scene or two of a play, prose +portraits of some pet character, etc. These he would read to me, though +he never volunteered to do so, and every now and then he burnt the whole +and began to fill the drawer again." + +My friend, Mr. John Osborne Sargent, who was a year before him in +college, says, in a very interesting letter with which he has favored me: + + "My first acquaintance with him [Motley] was at Cambridge, when he + came from Mr. Cogswell's school at Round Hill. He then had a good + deal of the shyness that was just pronounced enough to make him + interesting, and which did not entirely wear off till he left + college. . . I soon became acquainted with him, and we used to take + long walks together, sometimes taxing each other's memory for poems + or passages from poems that had struck our fancy. Shelley was then + a great favorite of his, and I remember that Praed's verses then + appearing in the 'New Monthly' he thought very clever and brilliant, + and was fond of repeating them. You have forgotten, or perhaps + never knew, that Motley's first appearance in print was in the + 'Collegian.' He brought me one day, in a very modest mood, a + translation from Goethe, which I was most happy to oblige him by + inserting. It was very prettily done, and will now be a curiosity. + . . . How it happened that Motley wrote only one piece I do not + remember. I had the pleasure about that time of initiating him as a + member of the Knights of the Square Table,--always my favorite + college club, for the reason, perhaps, that I was a sometime Grand + Master. He was always a genial and jovial companion at our supper- + parties at Fresh Pond and Gallagher's." + +We who live in the days of photographs know how many faces belong to +every individual. We know too under what different aspects the same +character appears to those who study it from different points of view and +with different prepossessions. I do not hesitate, therefore, to place +side by side the impressions of two of his classmates as to one of his +personal traits as they observed him at this period of his youth. + + "He was a manly boy, with no love for or leaning to girls' company; + no care for dress; not a trace of personal vanity. . . . He was, + or at least seemed, wholly unconscious of his rare beauty and of the + fascination of his manner; not a trace of pretence, the simplest and + most natural creature in the world." + +Look on that picture and on this:-- + + "He seemed to have a passion for dress. But as in everything else, + so in this, his fancy was a fitful one. At one time he would excite + our admiration by the splendor of his outfit, and perhaps the next + week he would seem to take equal pleasure in his slovenly or + careless appearance." + +It is not very difficult to reconcile these two portraitures. I recollect +it was said by a witty lady of a handsome clergyman well remembered among +us, that he had dressy eyes. Motley so well became everything he wore, +that if he had sprung from his bed and slipped his clothes on at an alarm +of fire, his costume would have looked like a prince's undress. His +natural presentment, like that of Count D'Orsay, was of the kind which +suggests the intentional effects of an elaborate toilet, no matter how +little thought or care may have been given to make it effective. I think +the "passion for dress" was really only a seeming, and that he often +excited admiration when he had not taken half the pains to adorn himself +that many a youth less favored by nature has wasted upon his unblest +exterior only to be laughed at. + +I gather some other interesting facts from a letter which I have received +from his early playmate and school and college classmate, Mr. T. G. +Appleton. + + "In his Sophomore year he kept abreast of the prescribed studies, + but his heart was out of bounds, as it often had been at Round Hill + when chasing squirrels or rabbits through forbidden forests. + Already his historical interest was shaping his life. A tutor + coming-by chance, let us hope--to his room remonstrated with him + upon the heaps of novels upon his table. + +"'Yes,' said Motley, 'I am reading historically, and have come to the +novels of the nineteenth century. Taken in the lump, they are very hard +reading.'" + +All Old Cambridge people know the Brattle House, with its gambrel roof, +its tall trees, its perennial spring, its legendary fame of good fare and +hospitable board in the days of the kindly old bon vivant, Major Brattle. +In this house the two young students, Appleton and Motley, lived during a +part of their college course. + + "Motley's room was on the ground floor, the room to the left of the + entrance. He led a very pleasant life there, tempering his college + duties with the literature he loved, and receiving his friends + amidst elegant surroundings, which added to the charm of his + society. Occasionally we amused ourselves by writing for the + magazines and papers of the day. Mr. Willis had just started a slim + monthly, written chiefly by himself, but with the true magazine + flavor. We wrote for that, and sometimes verses in the corner of a + paper called 'The Anti-Masonic Mirror,' and in which corner was a + woodcut of Apollo, and inviting to destruction ambitious youths by + the legend underneath,-- + + 'Much yet remains unsung.' + + These pieces were usually dictated to each other, the poet recumbent + upon the bed and a classmate ready to carry off the manuscript for + the paper of the following day. 'Blackwood's' was then in its + glory, its pages redolent of 'mountain dew' in every sense; the + humor of the Shepherd, the elegantly brutal onslaughts upon Whigs + and Cockney poets by Christopher North, intoxicated us youths. + + "It was young writing, and made for the young. The opinions were + charmingly wrong, and its enthusiasm was half Glenlivet. But this + delighted the boys. There were no reprints then, and to pass the + paper-cutter up the fresh inviting pages was like swinging over the + heather arm in arm with Christopher himself. It is a little + singular that though we had a college magazine of our own, Motley + rarely if ever wrote for it. I remember a translation from Goethe, + 'The Ghost-Seer,' which he may have written for it, and a poem upon + the White Mountains. Motley spoke at one of the college exhibitions + an essay on Goethe so excellent that Mr. Joseph Cogswell sent it to + Madam Goethe, who, after reading it, said, 'I wish to see the first + book that young man will write.'" + +Although Motley did not aim at or attain a high college rank, the rules +of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, which confine the number of members to the +first sixteen of each class, were stretched so as to include him,--a +tribute to his recognized ability, and an evidence that a distinguished +future was anticipated for him. + + + + +III. + +1832-1833. AEt. 18-19. +STUDY AND TRAVEL IN EUROPE. + +Of the two years divided between the Universities of Berlin and Gottingen +I have little to record. That he studied hard I cannot doubt; that he +found himself in pleasant social relations with some of his +fellow-students seems probable from the portraits he has drawn in his +first story, "Morton's Hope," and is rendered certain so far as one of +his companions is concerned. Among the records of the past to which he +referred during his last visit to this country was a letter which he took +from a collection of papers and handed me to read one day when I was +visiting him. The letter was written in a very lively and exceedingly +familiar vein. It implied such intimacy, and called up in such a lively +way the gay times Motley and himself had had together in their youthful +days, that I was puzzled to guess who could have addressed him from +Germany in that easy and off-hand fashion. I knew most of his old friends +who would be likely to call him by his baptismal name in its most +colloquial form, and exhausted my stock of guesses unsuccessfully before +looking at the signature. I confess that I was surprised, after laughing +at the hearty and almost boyish tone of the letter, to read at the bottom +of the page the signature of Bismarck. I will not say that I suspect +Motley of having drawn the portrait of his friend in one of the +characters of "Morton's Hope," but it is not hard to point out traits in +one of them which we can believe may have belonged to the great +Chancellor at an earlier period of life than that at which the world +contemplates his overshadowing proportions. + +Hoping to learn something of Motley during the two years while we had +lost sight of him, I addressed a letter to His Highness Prince Bismarck, +to which I received the following reply:-- + + FOREIGN OFFICE, BERLIN, March 11, 1878. + + SIR,--I am directed by Prince Bismarck to acknowledge the receipt of + your letter of the 1st of January, relating to the biography of the + late Mr. Motley. His Highness deeply regrets that the state of his + health and pressure of business do not allow him to contribute + personally, and as largely as he would be delighted to do, to your + depicting of a friend whose memory will be ever dear to him. Since + I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Mr. Motley at + Varzin, I have been intrusted with communicating to you a few + details I have gathered from the mouth of the Prince. I enclose + them as they are jotted down, without any attempt of digestion. + + I have the honor to be + Your obedient servant, + LOTHAIR BUCHER. + + "Prince Bismarck said:-- + + "'I met Motley at Gottingen in 1832, I am not sure if at the + beginning of Easter Term or Michaelmas Term. He kept company with + German students, though more addicted to study than we members of + the fighting clubs (corps). Although not having mastered yet the + German language, he exercised a marked attraction by a conversation + sparkling with wit, humor, and originality. In autumn of 1833, + having both of us migrated from Gottingen to Berlin for the + prosecution of our studies, we became fellow-lodgers in the house + No. 161 Friedrich Strasse. There we lived in the closest intimacy, + sharing meals and outdoor exercise. Motley by that time had arrived + at talking German fluently; he occupied himself not only in + translating Goethe's poem "Faust," but tried his hand even in + composing German verses. Enthusiastic admirer of Shakespeare, + Byron, Goethe, he used to spice his conversation abundantly with + quotations from these his favorite authors. A pertinacious arguer, + so much so that sometimes he watched my awakening in order to + continue a discussion on some topic of science, poetry, or practical + life, cut short by the chime of the small hours, he never lost his + mild and amiable temper. Our faithful companion was Count Alexander + Keyserling, a native of Courland, who has since achieved distinction + as a botanist. + + "'Motley having entered the diplomatic service of his country, we + had frequently the opportunity of renewing our friendly intercourse; + at Frankfort he used to stay with me, the welcome guest of my wife; + we also met at Vienna, and, later, here. The last time I saw him + was in 1872 at Varzin, at the celebration of my "silver wedding," + namely, the twenty-fifth anniversary. + + "'The most striking feature of his handsome and delicate appearance + was uncommonly large and beautiful eyes. He never entered a + drawing-room without exciting the curiosity and sympathy of the + ladies.'" + +It is but a glimpse of their young life which the great statesman gives +us, but a bright and pleasing one. Here were three students, one of whom +was to range in the flowery fields of the loveliest of the sciences, +another to make the dead past live over again in his burning pages, and a +third to extend an empire as the botanist spread out a plant and the +historian laid open a manuscript. + + + + +IV. + +1834-1839. 2ET. 20-25. + +RETURN TO AMERICA.--STUDY OF LAW.--MARRIAGE.--HIS FIRST NOVEL, "MORTON'S +HOPE." + +Of the years passed in the study of law after his return from Germany I +have very little recollection, and nothing of importance to record. He +never became seriously engaged in the practice of the profession he had +chosen. I had known him pleasantly rather than intimately, and our +different callings tended to separate us. I met him, however, not very +rarely, at one house where we were both received with the greatest +cordiality, and where the attractions brought together many both young +and old to enjoy the society of its charming and brilliant inmates. This +was at No. 14 Temple Place, where Mr. Park Benjamin was then living with +his two sisters, both in the bloom of young womanhood. Here Motley found +the wife to whom his life owed so much of its success and its happiness. +Those who remember Mary Benjamin find it hard to speak of her in the +common terms of praise which they award to the good and the lovely. She +was not only handsome and amiable and agreeable, but there was a cordial +frankness, an openhearted sincerity about her which made her seem like a +sister to those who could help becoming her lovers. She stands quite +apart in the memory of the friends who knew her best, even from the +circle of young persons whose recollections they most cherish. Yet hardly +could one of them have foreseen all that she was to be to him whose life +she was to share. They were married on the 2d of March, 1837. His +intimate friend, Mr. Joseph Lewis Stackpole, was married at about the +same time to her sister, thus joining still more closely in friendship +the two young men who were already like brothers in their mutual +affection. + +Two years after his marriage, in 1839, appeared his first work, a novel +in two volumes, called "Morton's Hope." He had little reason to be +gratified with its reception. The general verdict was not favorable to +it, and the leading critical journal of America, not usually harsh or +cynical in its treatment of native authorship, did not even give it a +place among its "Critical Notices," but dropped a small-print +extinguisher upon it in one of the pages of its "List of New +Publications." Nothing could be more utterly disheartening than the +unqualified condemnation passed upon the story. At the same time the +critic says that "no one can read 'Morton's Hope' without perceiving it +to have been written by a person of uncommon resources of mind and +scholarship." + +It must be confessed that, as a story, "Morton's Hope" cannot endure a +searching or even a moderately careful criticism. It is wanting in +cohesion, in character, even in a proper regard to circumstances of time +and place; it is a map of dissected incidents which has been flung out of +its box and has arranged itself without the least regard to chronology or +geography. It is not difficult to trace in it many of the influences +which had helped in forming or deforming the mind of the young man of +twenty-five, not yet come into possession of his full inheritance of the +slowly ripening qualities which were yet to assert their robust +independence. How could he help admiring Byron and falling into more or +less unconscious imitation of his moods if not of his special +affectations? Passion showing itself off against a dark foil of cynicism; +sentiment, ashamed of its own self-betrayal, and sneering at itself from +time to time for fear of the laugh of the world at its sincerity,--how +many young men were spoiled and how many more injured by becoming bad +copies of a bad ideal! The blood of Don Juan ran in the veins of Vivian +Grey and of Pelham. But if we read the fantastic dreams of Disraeli, the +intellectual dandyisms of Bulwer, remembering the after careers of which +these were the preludes, we can understand how there might well be +something in those earlier efforts which would betray itself in the way +of thought and in the style of the young men who read them during the +plastic period of their minds and characters. Allow for all these +influences, allow for whatever impressions his German residence and his +familiarity with German literature had produced; accept the fact that the +story is to the last degree disjointed, improbable, impossible; lay it +aside as a complete failure in what it attempted to be, and read it, as +"Vivian Grey" is now read, in the light of the career which it heralded. + +"Morton's Hope" is not to be read as a novel: it is to be studied as an +autobiography, a prophecy, a record of aspirations, disguised under a +series of incidents which are flung together with no more regard to the +unities than a pack of shuffled playing-cards. I can do nothing better +than let him picture himself, for it is impossible not to recognize the +portrait. It is of little consequence whether every trait is an exact +copy from his own features, but it is so obvious that many of the lines +are direct transcripts from nature that we may believe the same thing of +many others. Let us compare his fictitious hero's story with what we have +read of his own life. + +In early boyhood Morton amused himself and astonished those about him by +enacting plays for a puppet theatre. This was at six years old, and at +twelve we find him acting in a play with other boys, just as Motley's +playmates have already described him. The hero may now speak for himself, +but we shall all perceive that we are listening to the writer's own +story. + + "I was always a huge reader; my mind was essentially craving and + insatiable. Its appetite was enormous, and it devoured too greedily + for health. I rejected all guidance in my studies. I already + fancied myself a misanthrope. I had taken a step very common for + boys of my age, and strove with all my might to be a cynic." + +He goes on to describe, under the perfectly transparent mask of his hero, +the course of his studies. "To poetry, like most infants, I devoted most +of my time." From modern poetry he went back to the earlier sources, +first with the idea of systematic reading and at last through Chaucer and +Gower and early ballads, until he lost himself "in a dismal swamp of +barbarous romances and lying Latin chronicles. I got hold of the +Bibliotheca Monastica, containing a copious account of Anglo-Norman +authors, with notices of their works, and set seriously to reading every +one of them." One profit of his antiquarianism, however, was, as he says, +his attention to foreign languages,--French, Spanish, German, especially +in their earliest and rudest forms of literature. From these he ascended +to the ancient poets, and from Latin to Greek. He would have taken up the +study of the Oriental languages, but for the advice of a relative, who +begged him seriously to turn his attention to history. The paragraph +which follows must speak for itself as a true record under a feigned +heading. + + "The groundwork of my early character was plasticity and fickleness. + I was mortified by this exposure of my ignorance, and disgusted with + my former course of reading. I now set myself violently to the + study of history. With my turn of mind, and with the preposterous + habits which I had been daily acquiring, I could not fail to make as + gross mistakes in the pursuit of this as of other branches of + knowledge. I imagined, on setting out, a system of strict and + impartial investigation of the sources of history. I was inspired + with the absurd ambition, not uncommon to youthful students, of + knowing as much as their masters. I imagined it necessary for me, + stripling as I was, to study the authorities; and, imbued with the + strict necessity of judging for myself, I turned from the limpid + pages of the modern historians to the notes and authorities at the + bottom of the page. These, of course, sent me back to my monastic + acquaintances, and I again found myself in such congenial company to + a youthful and ardent mind as Florence of Worcester and Simeon of + Durham, the Venerable Bede and Matthew Paris; and so on to Gregory + and Fredegarius, down to the more modern and elegant pages of + Froissart, Hollinshed, Hooker, and Stowe. Infant as I was, I + presumed to grapple with masses of learning almost beyond the + strength of the giants of history. A spendthrift of my time and + labor, I went out of my way to collect materials, and to build for + myself, when I should have known that older and abler architects had + already appropriated all that was worth preserving; that the edifice + was built, the quarry exhausted, and that I was, consequently, only + delving amidst rubbish. + + "This course of study was not absolutely without its advantages. + The mind gained a certain proportion of vigor even by this exercise + of its faculties, just as my bodily health would have been improved + by transporting the refuse ore of a mine from one pit to another, + instead of coining the ingots which lay heaped before my eyes. + Still, however, my time was squandered. There was a constant want + of fitness and concentration of my energies. My dreams of education + were boundless, brilliant, indefinite; but alas! they were only + dreams. There was nothing accurate and defined in my future course + of life. I was ambitious and conceited, but my aspirations were + vague and shapeless. I had crowded together the most gorgeous and + even some of the most useful and durable materials for my woof, but + I had no pattern, and consequently never began to weave. + + "I had not made the discovery that an individual cannot learn, nor + be, everything; that the world is a factory in which each individual + must perform his portion of work:--happy enough if he can choose it + according to his taste and talent, but must renounce the desire of + observing or superintending the whole operation. . . . + + "From studying and investigating the sources of history with my own + eyes, I went a step further; I refused the guidance of modern + writers; and proceeding from one point of presumption to another, I + came to the magnanimous conviction that I could not know history as + I ought to know it unless I wrote it for myself. . . . + + "It would be tedious and useless to enlarge upon my various attempts + and various failures. I forbear to comment upon mistakes which I + was in time wise enough to retrieve. Pushing out as I did, without + compass and without experience, on the boundless ocean of learning, + what could I expect but an utter and a hopeless shipwreck? + + "Thus I went on, becoming more learned, and therefore more ignorant, + more confused in my brain, and more awkward in my habits, from day + to day. I was ever at my studies, and could hardly be prevailed + upon to allot a moment to exercise or recreation. I breakfasted + with a pen behind my ear, and dined in company with a folio bigger + than the table. I became solitary and morose, the necessary + consequence of reckless study; talked impatiently of the value of my + time, and the immensity of my labors; spoke contemptuously of the + learning and acquirements of the whole world, and threw out + mysterious hints of the magnitude and importance of my own project. + + "In the midst of all this study and this infant authorship the + perusal of such masses of poetry could not fail to produce their + effect. Of a youth whose mind, like mine at that period, possessed + some general capability, without perhaps a single prominent and + marked talent, a proneness to imitation is sure to be the besetting + sin. I consequently, for a large portion of my earlier life, never + read a work which struck my fancy, without planning a better one + upon its model; for my ambition, like my vanity, knew no bounds. + It was a matter of course that I should be attacked by the poetic + mania. I took the infection at the usual time, went through its + various stages, and recovered as soon as could be expected. I + discovered soon enough that emulation is not capability, and he is + fortunate to whom is soonest revealed the relative extent of his + ambition and his powers. + + "My ambition was boundless; my dreams of glory were not confined to + authorship and literature alone; but every sphere in which the + intellect of man exerts itself revolved in a blaze of light before + me. And there I sat in my solitude and dreamed such wondrous + dreams! Events were thickening around me which were soon to change + the world, but they were unmarked by me. The country was changing + to a mighty theatre, on whose stage those who were as great as I + fancied myself to be were to enact a stupendous drama in which I had + no part. I saw it not; I knew it not; and yet how infinitely + beautiful were the imaginations of my solitude! Fancy shook her + kaleidoscope each moment as chance directed, and lo! what new, + fantastic, brilliant, but what unmeaning visions. My ambitious + anticipations were as boundless as they were various and + conflicting. There was not a path which leads to glory in which I + was not destined to gather laurels. As a warrior I would conquer + and overrun the world. As a statesman I would reorganize and govern + it. As a historian I would consign it all to immortality; and in my + leisure moments I would be a great poet and a man of the world. + + "In short, I was already enrolled in that large category of what are + called young men of genius,--men who are the pride of their sisters + and the glory of their grandmothers,--men of whom unheard-of things + are expected, till after long preparation comes a portentous + failure, and then they are forgotten; subsiding into indifferent + apprentices and attorneys' clerks. + + "Alas for the golden imaginations of our youth! They are bright and + beautiful, but they fade. They glitter brightly enough to deceive + the wisest and most cautious, and we garner them up in the most + secret caskets of our hearts; but are they not like the coins which + the Dervise gave the merchant in the story? When we look for them + the next morning, do we not find them withered leaves?" + +The ideal picture just drawn is only a fuller portraiture of the youth +whose outlines have been already sketched by the companions of his +earlier years. If his hero says, "I breakfasted with a pen behind my ear +and dined in company with a folio bigger than the table," one of his +family says of the boy Motley that "if there were five minutes before +dinner, when he came into the parlor he always took up some book near at +hand and began to read until dinner was announced." The same unbounded +thirst for knowledge, the same history of various attempts and various +failures, the same ambition, not yet fixed in its aim, but showing itself +in restless effort, belong to the hero of the story and its narrator. + +Let no man despise the first efforts of immature genius. Nothing can be +more crude as a novel, nothing more disappointing, than "Morton's Hope." +But in no other of Motley's writings do we get such an inside view of his +character with its varied impulses, its capricious appetites, its +unregulated forces, its impatient grasp for all kinds of knowledge. With +all his university experiences at home and abroad, it might be said with +a large measure of truth that he was a self-educated man, as he had been +a self-taught boy. His instincts were too powerful to let him work +quietly in the common round of school and college training. Looking at +him as his companions describe him, as he delineates himself 'mutato +nomine,' the chances of success would have seemed to all but truly +prophetic eyes very doubtful, if not decidedly against him. Too many +brilliant young novel-readers and lovers of poetry, excused by their +admirers for their shortcomings on the strength of their supposed +birthright of "genius," have ended where they began; flattered into the +vain belief that they were men at eighteen or twenty, and finding out at +fifty that they were and always had been nothing more than boys. It was +but a tangled skein of life that Motley's book showed us at twenty-five, +and older men might well have doubted whether it would ever be wound off +in any continuous thread. To repeat his own words, he had crowded +together the materials for his work, but he had no pattern, and +consequently never began to weave. + +The more this first work of Motley's is examined, the more are its faults +as a story and its interest as a self-revelation made manifest to the +reader. The future historian, who spared no pains to be accurate, falls +into the most extraordinary anachronisms in almost every chapter. Brutus +in a bob-wig, Othello in a swallow-tail coat, could hardly be more +incongruously equipped than some of his characters in the manner of +thought, the phrases, the way of bearing themselves which belong to them +in the tale, but never could have belonged to characters of our +Revolutionary period. He goes so far in his carelessness as to mix up +dates in such a way as almost to convince us that he never looked over +his own manuscript or proofs. His hero is in Prague in June, 1777, +reading a letter received from America in less than a fortnight from the +date of its being written; in August of the same year he is in the +American camp, where he is found in the company of a certain Colonel +Waldron, an officer of some standing in the Revolutionary Army, with whom +he is said to have been constantly associated for some three months, +having arrived in America, as he says, on the 15th of May, that is to +say, six weeks or more before he sailed, according to his previous +account. Bohemia seems to have bewitched his chronology as it did +Shakespeare's geography. To have made his story a consistent series of +contradictions, Morton should have sailed from that Bohemian seashore +which may be found in "A Winter's Tale," but not in the map of Europe. + +And yet in the midst of all these marks of haste and negligence, here and +there the philosophical student of history betrays himself, the ideal of +noble achievement glows in an eloquent paragraph, or is embodied in a +loving portrait like that of the professor and historian Harlem. The +novel, taken in connection with the subsequent developments of the +writer's mind, is a study of singular interest. It is a chaos before the +creative epoch; the light has not been divided from the darkness; the +firmament has not yet divided the waters from the waters. The forces at +work in a human intelligence to bring harmony out of its discordant +movements are as mysterious, as miraculous, we might truly say, as those +which give shape and order to the confused materials out of which +habitable worlds are evolved. It is too late now to be sensitive over +this unsuccessful attempt as a story and unconscious success as a +self-portraiture. The first sketches of Paul Veronese, the first patterns +of the Gobelin tapestry, are not to be criticised for the sake of +pointing out their inevitable and too manifest imperfections. They are to +be carefully studied as the earliest efforts of the hand which painted +the Marriage at Cana, of the art which taught the rude fabrics made to be +trodden under foot to rival the glowing canvas of the great painters. +None of Motley's subsequent writings give such an insight into his +character and mental history. It took many years to train the as yet +undisciplined powers into orderly obedience, and to bring the unarranged +materials into the organic connection which was needed in the +construction of a work that should endure. There was a long interval +between his early manhood and the middle term of life, during which the +slow process of evolution was going on. There are plants which open their +flowers with the first rays of the sun; there are others that wait until +evening to spread their petals. It was already the high noon of life with +him before his genius had truly shown itself; if he had not lived beyond +this period, he would have left nothing to give him a lasting name. + + + + +V. + +1841-1842. AEt. 27-28. + +FIRST DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENT, SECRETARY OF LEGATION TO THE RUSSIAN +MISSION.--BRIEF RESIDENCE AT ST. PETERSBURG.--LETTER TO HIS MOTHER. +--RETURN. + +In the autumn of 1841, Mr. Motley received the appointment of Secretary +of Legation to the Russian Mission, Mr. Todd being then the Minister. +Arriving at St. Petersburg just at the beginning of winter, he found the +climate acting very unfavorably upon his spirits if not upon his health, +and was unwilling that his wife and his two young children should be +exposed to its rigors. The expense of living, also, was out of proportion +to his income, and his letters show that he had hardly established +himself in St. Petersburg before he had made up his mind to leave a place +where he found he had nothing to do and little to enjoy. He was homesick, +too, as a young husband and father with an affectionate nature like his +ought to have been under these circumstances. He did not regret having +made the experiment, for he knew that he should not have been satisfied +with himself if he had not made it. It was his first trial of a career in +which he contemplated embarking, and in which afterwards he had an +eventful experience. In his private letters to his family, many of which +I have had the privilege of looking over, he mentions in detail all the +reasons which influenced him in forming his own opinion about the +expediency of a continued residence at St. Petersburg, and leaves the +decision to her in whose judgment he always had the greatest confidence. +No unpleasant circumstance attended his resignation of his secretaryship, +and though it must have been a disappointment to find that the place did +not suit him, as he and his family were then situated, it was only at the +worst an experiment fairly tried and not proving satisfactory. He left +St. Petersburg after a few months' residence, and returned to America. On +reaching New York he was met by the sad tidings of the death of his +first-born child, a boy of great promise, who had called out all the +affections of his ardent nature. It was long before he recovered from the +shock of this great affliction. The boy had shown a very quick and bright +intelligence, and his father often betrayed a pride in his gifts and +graces which he never for a moment made apparent in regard to his own. + +Among the letters which he wrote from St. Petersburg are two miniature +ones directed to this little boy. His affectionate disposition shows +itself very sweetly in these touching mementos of a love of which his +first great sorrow was so soon to be born. Not less charming are his +letters to his mother, showing the tenderness with which he always +regarded her, and full of all the details which he thought would +entertain one to whom all that related to her children was always +interesting. Of the letters to his wife it is needless to say more than +that they always show the depth of the love he bore her and the absolute +trust he placed in her, consulting her at all times as his nearest and +wisest friend and adviser,--one in all respects fitted "To warn, to +comfort, and command." + +I extract a passage from one of his letters to his mother, as much for +the sake of lending a character of reality to his brief residence at St. +Petersburg as for that of the pleasant picture it gives us of an interior +in that Northern capital. + + "We entered through a small vestibule, with the usual arrangement of + treble doors, padded with leather to exclude the cold and guarded by + two 'proud young porters' in severe cocked hats and formidable + batons, into a broad hall,--threw off our furred boots and cloaks, + ascended a carpeted marble staircase, in every angle of which stood + a statuesque footman in gaudy coat and unblemished unmentionables, + and reached a broad landing upon the top thronged as usual with + servants. Thence we passed through an antechamber into a long, + high, brilliantly lighted, saffron-papered room, in which a dozen + card-tables were arranged, and thence into the receiving room. This + was a large room, with a splendidly inlaid and polished floor, the + walls covered with crimson satin, the cornices heavily incrusted + with gold, and the ceiling beautifully painted in arabesque. The + massive fauteuils and sofas, as also the drapery, were of crimson + satin with a profusion of gilding. The ubiquitous portrait of the + Emperor was the only picture, and was the same you see everywhere. + This crimson room had two doors upon the side facing the three + windows: The innermost opened into a large supper-room, in which a + table was spread covered with the usual refreshments of European + parties,--tea, ices, lemonade, and et ceteras,--and the other opened + into a ball-room which is a sort of miniature of the 'salle blanche' + of the Winter Palace, being white and gold, and very brilliantly + lighted with 'ormolu' chandeliers filled with myriads of candles. + This room (at least forty feet long by perhaps twenty-five) opened + into a carpeted conservatory of about the same size, filled with + orange-trees and japonica plants covered with fruit and flowers, + arranged very gracefully into arbors, with luxurious seats under the + pendent boughs, and with here and there a pretty marble statue + gleaming through the green and glossy leaves. One might almost have + imagined one's self in the 'land of the cypress and myrtle' instead + of our actual whereabout upon the polar banks of the Neva. + Wandering through these mimic groves, or reposing from the fatigues + of the dance, was many a fair and graceful form, while the + brilliantly lighted ballroom, filled with hundreds of exquisitely + dressed women (for the Russian ladies, if not very pretty, are + graceful, and make admirable toilettes), formed a dazzling contrast + with the tempered light of the 'Winter Garden.' The conservatory + opened into a library, and from the library you reach the + antechamber, thus completing the 'giro' of one of the prettiest + houses in St. Petersburg. I waltzed one waltz and quadrilled one + quadrille, but it was hard work; and as the sole occupation of these + parties is dancing and card-playing--conversation apparently not + being customary--they are to me not very attractive." + +He could not be happy alone, and there were good reasons against his +being joined by his wife and children. + + "With my reserved habits," he says, "it would take a great deal + longer to become intimate here than to thaw the Baltic. I have only + to 'knock that it shall be opened to me,' but that is just what I + hate to do. . . . 'Man delights not me, no, nor woman neither.'" + +Disappointed in his expectations, but happy in the thought of meeting his +wife and children, he came back to his household to find it clad in +mourning for the loss of its first-born. + + + + +VI. + +1844. AEt. 30. +LETTER TO PARK BENJAMIN.--POLITICAL VIEWS AND FEELINGS. + +A letter to Mr. Park Benjamin, dated December 17, 1844, which has been +kindly lent me by Mrs. Mary Lanman Douw of Poughkeepsie, gives a very +complete and spirited account of himself at this period. He begins with a +quiet, but tender reference to the death of his younger brother, Preble, +one of the most beautiful youths seen or remembered among us, "a great +favorite," as he says, "in the family and in deed with every one who knew +him." He mentions the fact that his friends and near connections, the +Stackpoles, are in Washington, which place he considers as exceptionally +odious at the time when he is writing. The election of Mr. Polk as the +opponent of Henry Clay gives him a discouraged feeling about our +institutions. The question, he thinks, is now settled that a statesman +can never again be called to administer the government of the country. He +is almost if not quite in despair "because it is now proved that a man, +take him for all in all, better qualified by intellectual power, energy +and purity of character, knowledge of men, a great combination of +personal qualities, a frank, high-spirited, manly bearing, keen sense of +honor, the power of attracting and winning men, united with a vast +experience in affairs, such as no man (but John Quincy Adams) now living +has had and no man in this country can ever have again,--I say it is +proved that a man better qualified by an extraordinary combination of +advantages to administer the government than any man now living, or any +man we can ever produce again, can be beaten by anybody. . . . . It has +taken forty years of public life to prepare such a man for the +Presidency, and the result is that he can be beaten by anybody,--Mr. Polk +is anybody,--he is Mr. Quelconque." + +I do not venture to quote the most burning sentences of this impassioned +letter. It shows that Motley had not only become interested most +profoundly in the general movements of parties, but that he had followed +the course of political events which resulted in the election of Mr. Polk +with careful study, and that he was already looking forward to the revolt +of the slave States which occurred sixteen years later. The letter is +full of fiery eloquence, now and then extravagant and even violent in +expression, but throbbing with a generous heat which shows the excitable +spirit of a man who wishes to be proud of his country and does not wish +to keep his temper when its acts make him ashamed of it. He is disgusted +and indignant to the last degree at seeing "Mr. Quelconque" chosen over +the illustrious statesman who was his favorite candidate. But all his +indignation cannot repress a sense of humor which was one of his marked +characteristics. After fatiguing his vocabulary with hard usage, after +his unsparing denunciation of "the very dirty politics" which he finds +mixed up with our popular institutions, he says,--it must be remembered +that this was an offhand letter to one nearly connected with him,-- + + "All these things must in short, to use the energetic language of + the Balm of Columbia advertisement, 'bring every generous thinking + youth to that heavy sinking gloom which not even the loss of + property can produce, but only the loss of hair, which brings on + premature decay, causing many to shrink from being uncovered, and + even to shun society, to avoid the jests and sneers of their + acquaintances. The remainder of their lives is consequently spent + in retirement.'" + +He continues:-- + + "Before dropping the subject, and to show the perfect purity of my + motives, I will add that I am not at all anxious about the + legislation of the new government. I desired the election of Clay + as a moral triumph, and because the administration of the country, + at this moment of ten thousand times more importance than its + legislation, would have been placed in pure, strong, and determined + hands." + +Then comes a dash of that satirical and somewhat cynical way of feeling +which he had not as yet outgrown. He had been speaking about the general +want of attachment to the Union and the absence of the sentiment of +loyalty as bearing on the probable dissolution of the Union. + + "I don't mean to express any opinions on these matters,--I haven't + got any. It seems to me that the best way is to look at the + hodge-podge, be good-natured if possible, and laugh, + + 'As from the height of contemplation + We view the feeble joints men totter on.' + + I began a tremendous political career during the election, having + made two stump speeches of an hour and a half each,--after you went + away,--one in Dedham town-hall and one in Jamaica Plain, with such + eminent success that many invitations came to me from the + surrounding villages, and if I had continued in active political + life I might have risen to be vote-distributor, or fence-viewer, or + selectman, or hog-reeve, or something of the kind." + +The letter from which the above passages are quoted gives the same +portrait of the writer, only seen in profile, as it were, which we have +already seen drawn in full face in the story of "Morton's Hope." It is +charged with that 'saeva indignatio' which at times verges on +misanthropic contempt for its objects, not unnatural to a high-spirited +young man who sees his lofty ideals confronted with the ignoble facts +which strew the highways of political life. But we can recognize real +conviction and the deepest feeling beneath his scornful rhetoric and his +bitter laugh. He was no more a mere dilettante than Swift himself, but +now and then in the midst of his most serious thought some absurd or +grotesque image will obtrude itself, and one is reminded of the lines on +the monument of Gay rather than of the fierce epitaph of the Dean of +Saint Patrick's. + + + + +VII. + +1845-1847. AEt. 31-33. + +FIRST HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ESSAYS.--PETER THE GREAT.--NOVELS OF +BALZAC.--POLITY OF THE PURITANS. + +Mr. Motley's first serious effort in historical composition was an +article of fifty pages in "The North American Review" for October, 1845. +This was nominally a notice of two works, one on Russia, the other "A +Memoir of the Life of Peter the Great." It is, however, a narrative +rather than a criticism, a rapid, continuous, brilliant, almost dramatic +narrative. If there had been any question as to whether the young +novelist who had missed his first mark had in him the elements which +might give him success as an author, this essay would have settled the +question. It shows throughout that the writer has made a thorough study +of his subject, but it is written with an easy and abundant, yet +scholarly freedom, not as if he were surrounded by his authorities and +picking out his material piece by piece, but rather as if it were the +overflow of long-pursued and well-remembered studies recalled without +effort and poured forth almost as a recreation. + +As he betrayed or revealed his personality in his first novel, so in this +first effort in another department of literature he showed in epitome his +qualities as a historian and a biographer. The hero of his narrative +makes his entrance at once in his character as the shipwright of Saardam, +on the occasion of a visit of the great Duke of Marlborough. The portrait +instantly arrests attention. His ideal personages had been drawn in such +a sketchy way, they presented so many imperfectly harmonized features, +that they never became real, with the exception, of course, of the +story-teller himself. But the vigor with which the presentment of the +imperial ship-carpenter, the sturdy, savage, eager, fiery Peter, was +given in the few opening sentences, showed the movement of the hand, the +glow of the color, that were in due time to display on a broader canvas +the full-length portraits of William the Silent and of John of Barneveld. +The style of the whole article is rich, fluent, picturesque, with light +touches of humor here and there, and perhaps a trace or two of youthful +jauntiness, not quite as yet outgrown. His illustrative poetical +quotations are mostly from Shakespeare,--from Milton and Byron also in a +passage or two,--and now and then one is reminded that he is not +unfamiliar with Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus" and the "French Revolution" +of the same unmistakable writer, more perhaps by the way in which phrases +borrowed from other authorities are set in the text than by any more +important evidence of unconscious imitation. + +The readers who had shaken their heads over the unsuccessful story of +"Morton's Hope" were startled by the appearance of this manly and +scholarly essay. This young man, it seemed, had been studying,--studying +with careful accuracy, with broad purpose. He could paint a character +with the ruddy life-blood coloring it as warmly as it glows in the cheeks +of one of Van der Helst's burgomasters. He could sweep the horizon in a +wide general outlook, and manage his perspective and his lights and +shadows so as to place and accent his special subject with its due relief +and just relations. It was a sketch, or rather a study for a larger +picture, but it betrayed the hand of a master. The feeling of many was +that expressed in the words of Mr. Longfellow in his review of the +"Twice-Told Tales" of the unknown young writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne: +"When a new star rises in the heavens, people gaze after it for a season +with the naked eye, and with such telescopes as they may find. . . . This +star is but newly risen; and erelong the observation of numerous +star-gazers, perched up on arm-chairs and editor's tables, will inform +the world of its magnitude and its place in the heaven of"--not poetry in +this instance, but that serene and unclouded region of the firmament +where shine unchanging the names of Herodotus and Thucydides. Those who +had always believed in their brilliant schoolmate and friend at last felt +themselves justified in their faith. The artist that sent this unframed +picture to be hung in a corner of the literary gallery was equal to +larger tasks. There was but one voice in the circle that surrounded the +young essayist. He must redeem his pledge, he can and will redeem it, if +he will only follow the bent of his genius and grapple with the heroic +labor of writing a great history. + +And this was the achievement he was already meditating. + +In the mean time he was studying history for its facts and principles, +and fiction for its scenery and portraits. In "The North American Review" +for July, 1847, is a long and characteristic article on Balzac, of whom +he was an admirer, but with no blind worship. The readers of this great +story-teller, who was so long in obtaining recognition, who "made twenty +assaults upon fame and had forty books killed under him" before he +achieved success, will find his genius fully appreciated and fairly +weighed in this discriminating essay. A few brief extracts will show its +quality. + + "Balzac is an artist, and only an artist. In his tranquil, + unimpassioned, remorseless diagnosis of morbid phenomena, in his + cool method of treating the morbid anatomy of the heart, in his + curiously accurate dissection of the passions, in the patient and + painful attention with which, stethoscope in hand, finger on pulse, + eye everywhere, you see him watching every symptom, alive to every + sound and every breath, and in the scientific accuracy with which he + portrays the phenomena which have been the subject of his + investigation,--in all this calm and conscientious study of nature + he often reminds us of Goethe. Balzac, however, is only an artist + . . . He is neither moral nor immoral, but a calm and profound + observer of human society and human passions, and a minute, patient, + and powerful delineator of scenes and characters in the world before + his eyes. His readers must moralize for themselves. . . . It + is, perhaps, his defective style more than anything else which will + prevent his becoming a classic, for style above all other qualities + seems to embalm for posterity. As for his philosophy, his + principles, moral, political, or social, we repeat that he seems to + have none whatever. He looks for the picturesque and the striking. + He studies sentiments and sensations from an artistic point of view. + He is a physiognomist, a physiologist, a bit of an anatomist, a bit + of a mesmerist, a bit of a geologist, a Flemish painter, an + upholsterer, a micrological, misanthropical, sceptical philosopher; + but he is no moralist, and certainly no reformer." + +Another article contributed by Mr. Motley to "The North American Review" +is to be found in the number for October, 1849. It is nominally a review +of Talvi's (Mrs. Robinson's) "Geschichte der Colonisation von New +England," but in reality an essay on the Polity of the Puritans,--an +historical disquisition on the principles of self-government evolved in +New England, broad in its views, eloquent in its language. Its spirit is +thoroughly American, and its estimate of the Puritan character is not +narrowed by the nearsighted liberalism which sees the past in the +pitiless light of the present,--which looks around at high noon and finds +fault with early dawn for its long and dark shadows. Here is a sentence +or two from the article:-- + + "With all the faults of the system devised by the Puritans, it was a + practical system. With all their foibles, with all their teasing, + tyrannical, and arbitrary notions, the Pilgrims were lovers of + liberty as well as sticklers for authority. . . . Nowhere can a + better description of liberty be found than that given by Winthrop, + in his defence of himself before the General Court on a charge of + arbitrary conduct. 'Nor would I have you mistake your own liberty,' + he says. 'There is a freedom of doing what we list, without regard + to law or justice; this liberty is indeed inconsistent with + authority; but civil, moral, and federal liberty consists in every + man's enjoying his property and having the benefit of the laws of + his country; which is very consistent with a due subjection to the + civil magistrate.' . . . + + "We enjoy an inestimable advantage in America. One can be a + republican, a democrat, without being a radical. A radical, one who + would uproot, is a man whose trade is dangerous to society. Here is + but little to uproot. The trade cannot flourish. All classes are + conservative by necessity, for none can wish to change the structure + of our polity. . . + + "The country without a past cannot be intoxicated by visions of the + past of other lands. Upon this absence of the past it seems to us + that much of the security of our institutions depends. Nothing + interferes with the development of what is now felt to be the true + principle of government, the will of the people legitimately + expressed. To establish that great truth, nothing was to be torn + down, nothing to be uprooted. It grew up in New England out of the + seed unconsciously planted by the first Pilgrims, was not crushed + out by the weight of a thousand years of error spread over the whole + continent, and the Revolution was proclaimed and recognized." + + + + +VIII. + +1847-1849. AEt. 33-35. + +JOSEPH LEWIS STACKPOLE, THE FRIEND OF MOTLEY. HIS SUDDEN DEATH.--MOTLEY +IN THE MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.--SECOND NOVEL, +"MERRY-MOUNT, A ROMANCE OF THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY." + +The intimate friendships of early manhood are not very often kept up +among our people. The eager pursuit of fortune, position, office, +separates young friends, and the indoor home life imprisons them in the +domestic circle so generally that it is quite exceptional to find two +grown men who are like brothers,--or rather unlike most brothers, in +being constantly found together. An exceptional instance of such a more +than fraternal relation was seen in the friendship of Mr. Motley and Mr. +Joseph Lewis Stackpole. Mr. William Amory, who knew them both well, has +kindly furnished me with some recollections, which I cannot improve by +changing his own language. + + "Their intimacy began in Europe, and they returned to this country + in 1835. In 1837 they married sisters, and this cemented their + intimacy, which continued to Stackpole's death in 1847. The + contrast in the temperament of the two friends--the one sensitive + and irritable, and the other always cool and good-natured--only + increased their mutual attachment to each other, and Motley's + dependence upon Stackpole. Never were two friends more constantly + together or more affectionately fond of each other. As Stackpole + was about eight years older than Motley, and much less impulsive and + more discreet, his death was to his friend irreparable, and at the + time an overwhelming blow." + +Mr. Stackpole was a man of great intelligence, of remarkable personal +attractions, and amiable character. His death was a loss to Motley even +greater than he knew, for he needed just such a friend, older, calmer, +more experienced in the ways of the world, and above all capable of +thoroughly understanding him and exercising a wholesome influence over +his excitable nature without the seeming of a Mentor preaching to a +Telemachus. Mr. Stackpole was killed by a railroad accident on the 20th +of July, 1847. + +In the same letter Mr. Amory refers to a very different experience in Mr. +Motley's life,--his one year of service as a member of the Massachusetts +House of Representatives, 1849. + + "In respect to the one term during which he was a member of the + Massachusetts House of Representatives, I can recall only one thing, + to which he often and laughingly alluded. Motley, as the Chairman + of the Committee on Education, made, as he thought, a most masterly + report. It was very elaborate, and, as he supposed, unanswerable; + but Boutwell, then a young man from some country town [Groton, + Mass.], rose, and as Motley always said, demolished the report, so + that he was unable to defend it against the attack. You can imagine + his disgust, after the pains he had taken to render it unassailable, + to find himself, as he expressed it, 'on his own dunghill,' + ignominiously beaten. While the result exalted his opinion of the + speech-making faculty of a Representative of a common school + education, it at the same time cured him of any ambition for + political promotion in Massachusetts." + +To my letter of inquiry about this matter, Hon. George S. Boutwell +courteously returned the following answer:-- + + BOSTON, October 14, 1878. + + MY DEAR SIR,--As my memory serves me, Mr. Motley was a member of the + Massachusetts House of Representatives in the year 1847 1849. It + may be well to consult the manual for that year. I recollect the + controversy over the report from the Committee on Education. + + His failure was not due to his want of faculty or to the vigor of + his opponents. + + In truth he espoused the weak side of the question and the unpopular + one also. His proposition was to endow the colleges at the expense + of the fund for the support of the common schools. Failure was + inevitable. Neither Webster nor Choate could have carried the bill. + + Very truly, + GEO. S. BOUTWELL. + +No one could be more ready and willing to recognize his own failures than +Motley. He was as honest and manly, perhaps I may say as sympathetic with +the feeling of those about him, on this occasion, as was Charles Lamb, +who, sitting with his sister in the front of the pit, on the night when +his farce was damned at its first representation, gave way to the common +feeling, and hissed and hooted lustily with the others around him. It was +what might be expected from his honest and truthful nature, sometimes too +severe in judging itself. + +The commendation bestowed upon Motley's historical essays in "The North +American Review" must have gone far towards compensating him for the ill +success of his earlier venture. It pointed clearly towards the field in +which he was to gather his laurels. And it was in the year following the +publication of the first essay, or about that time (1846), that he began +collecting materials for a history of Holland. Whether to tell the story +of men that have lived and of events that have happened, or to create the +characters and invent the incidents of an imaginary tale be the higher +task, we need not stop to discuss. But the young author was just now like +the great actor in Sir Joshua's picture, between the allurements of +Thalia and Melpomene, still doubtful whether he was to be a romancer or a +historian. + +The tale of which the title is given at the beginning of this section had +been written several years before the date of its publication. It is a +great advance in certain respects over the first novel, but wants the +peculiar interest which belonged to that as a partially autobiographical +memoir. The story is no longer disjointed and impossible. It is carefully +studied in regard to its main facts. It has less to remind us of "Vivian +Grey" and "Pelham," and more that recalls "Woodstock" and "Kenilworth." +The personages were many of them historical, though idealized; the +occurrences were many of them such as the record authenticated; the +localities were drawn largely from nature. The story betrays marks of +haste or carelessness in some portions, though others are elaborately +studied. His preface shows that the reception of his first book had made +him timid and sensitive about the fate of the second, and explains and +excuses what might be found fault with, to disarm the criticism he had +some reason to fear. + +That old watch-dog of our American literature, "The North American +Review," always ready with lambent phrases in stately "Articles" for +native talent of a certain pretension, and wagging its appendix of +"Critical Notices" kindly at the advent of humbler merit, treated +"Merry-Mount" with the distinction implied in a review of nearly twenty +pages. This was a great contrast to the brief and slighting notice of +"Morton's Hope." The reviewer thinks the author's descriptive power +wholly exceeds his conception of character and invention of +circumstances. + + "He dwells, perhaps, too long and fondly upon his imagination of the + landscape as it was before the stillness of the forest had been + broken by the axe of the settler; but the picture is so finely + drawn, with so much beauty of language and purity of sentiment, that + we cannot blame him for lingering upon the scene. . . . The + story is not managed with much skill, but it has variety enough of + incident and character, and is told with so much liveliness that few + will be inclined to lay it down before reaching the conclusion. . + . . The writer certainly needs practice in elaborating the details + of a consistent and interesting novel; but in many respects he is + well qualified for the task, and we shall be glad to meet him again + on the half-historical ground he has chosen. His present work, + certainly, is not a fair specimen of what he is able to accomplish, + and its failure, or partial success, ought only to inspirit him for + further effort." + +The "half-historical ground" he had chosen had already led him to the +entrance into the broader domain of history. The "further effort" for +which he was to be inspirited had already begun. He had been for some +time, as was before mentioned, collecting materials for the work which +was to cast all his former attempts into the kindly shadow of oblivion, +save when from time to time the light of his brilliant after success is +thrown upon them to illustrate the path by which it was at length +attained. + + + + +IX. + +1850. AEt. 36. +PLAN OF A HISTORY.--LETTERS. + +The reputation of Mr. Prescott was now coextensive with the realm of +scholarship. The histories of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella and of +the conquest of Mexico had met with a reception which might well tempt +the ambition of a young writer to emulate it, but which was not likely to +be awarded to any second candidate who should enter the field in rivalry +with the great and universally popular historian. But this was the field +on which Mr. Motley was to venture. + +After he had chosen the subject of the history he contemplated, he found +that Mr. Prescott was occupied with a kindred one, so that there might be +too near a coincidence between them. I must borrow from Mr. Ticknor's +beautiful life of Prescott the words which introduce a letter of Motley's +to Mr. William Amory, who has kindly allowed me also to make use of it. + + "The moment, therefore, that he [Mr. Motley] was aware of this + condition of things, and the consequent possibility that there might + be an untoward interference in their plans, he took the same frank + and honorable course with Mr. Prescott that Mr. Prescott had taken + in relation to Mr. Irving, when he found that they had both been + contemplating a 'History of the Conquest of Mexico.' The result was + the same. Mr. Prescott, instead of treating the matter as an + interference, earnestly encouraged Mr. Motley to go on, and placed + at his disposition such of the books in his library as could be most + useful to him. How amply and promptly he did it, Mr. Motley's own + account will best show. It is in a letter dated at Rome, 26th + February, 1859, the day he heard of Mr. Prescott's death, and was + addressed to his intimate friend, Mr. William Amory, of Boston, Mr. + Prescott's much-loved brother-in-law." + + "It seems to me but as yesterday," Mr. Motley writes, "though it + must be now twelve years ago, that I was talking with our + ever-lamented friend Stackpole about my intention of writing a history + upon a subject to which I have since that time been devoting myself. + I had then made already some general studies in reference to it, + without being in the least aware that Prescott had the intention of + writing the 'History of Philip the Second.' Stackpole had heard the + fact, and that large preparations had already been made for the + work, although 'Peru' had not yet been published. I felt naturally + much disappointed. I was conscious of the immense disadvantage to + myself of making my appearance, probably at the same time, before + the public, with a work not at all similar in plan to 'Philip the + Second,' but which must of necessity traverse a portion of the same + ground. + + "My first thought was inevitably, as it were, only of myself. + It seemed to me that I had nothing to do but to abandon at once a + cherished dream, and probably to renounce authorship. For I had not + first made up my mind to write a history, and then cast about to + take up a subject. My subject had taken me up, drawn me on, and + absorbed me into itself. It was necessary for me, it seemed, to + write the book I had been thinking much of, even if it were destined + to fall dead from the press, and I had no inclination or interest to + write any other. When I had made up my mind accordingly, it then + occurred to me that Prescott might not be pleased that I should come + forward upon his ground. It is true that no announcement of his + intentions had been made, and that he had not, I believe, even + commenced his preliminary studies for Philip. At the same time I + thought it would be disloyal on my part not to go to him at once, + confer with him on the subject, and if I should find a shadow of + dissatisfaction on his mind at my proposition, to abandon my plan + altogether. + + "I had only the slightest acquaintance with him at that time. I was + comparatively a young man, and certainly not entitled on any ground + to more than the common courtesy which Prescott never could refuse + to any one. But he received me with such a frank and ready and + liberal sympathy, and such an open-hearted, guileless expansiveness, + that I felt a personal affection for him from that hour. I remember + the interview as if it had taken place yesterday. It was in his + father's house, in his own library, looking on the garden-house and + garden,--honored father and illustrious son,--alas! all numbered + with the things that were! He assured me that he had not the + slightest objection whatever to my plan, that he wished me every + success, and that, if there were any books in his library bearing on + my subject that I liked to use, they were entirely at my service. + After I had expressed my gratitude for his kindness and cordiality, + by which I had been in a very few moments set completely at ease, + --so far as my fears of his disapprobation went,--I also very + naturally stated my opinion that the danger was entirely mine, and + that it was rather wilful of me thus to risk such a collision at my + first venture, the probable consequence of which was utter + shipwreck. I recollect how kindly and warmly he combated this + opinion, assuring me that no two books, as he said, ever injured + each other, and encouraging me in the warmest and most earnest + manner to proceed on the course I had marked out for myself. + + "Had the result of that interview been different,--had he distinctly + stated, or even vaguely hinted, that it would be as well if I should + select some other topic, or had he only sprinkled me with the cold + water of conventional and commonplace encouragement,--I should have + gone from him with a chill upon my mind, and, no doubt, have laid + down the pen at once; for, as I have already said, it was not that I + cared about writing a history, but that I felt an inevitable impulse + to write one particular history. + + "You know how kindly he always spoke of and to me; and the generous + manner in which, without the slightest hint from me, and entirely + unexpected by me, he attracted the eyes of his hosts of readers to + my forthcoming work, by so handsomely alluding to it in the Preface + to his own, must be almost as fresh in your memory as it is in mine. + + "And although it seems easy enough for a man of world-wide + reputation thus to extend the right hand of fellowship to an unknown + and struggling aspirant, yet I fear that the history of literature + will show that such instances of disinterested kindness are as rare + as they are noble." + +It was not from any feeling that Mr. Motley was a young writer from whose +rivalry he had nothing to apprehend. Mr. Amory says that Prescott +expressed himself very decidedly to the effect that an author who had +written such descriptive passages as were to be found in Mr. Motley's +published writings was not to be undervalued as a competitor by any one. +The reader who will turn to the description of Charles River in the +eighth chapter of the second volume of "Merry-Mount," or of the autumnal +woods in the sixteenth chapter of the same volume, will see good reason +for Mr. Prescott's appreciation of the force of the rival whose advent he +so heartily and generously welcomed. + + + + +X. + +1851-1856. AEt. 37-42. +HISTORICAL STUDIES IN EUROPE.-LETTER FROM BRUSSELS. + +After working for several years on his projected "History of the Dutch +Republic," he found that, in order to do justice to his subject, he must +have recourse to the authorities to be found only in the libraries and +state archives of Europe. In the year 1851 he left America with his +family, to begin his task over again, throwing aside all that he had +already done, and following up his new course of investigations at +Berlin, Dresden, the Hague, and Brussels during several succeeding years. +I do not know that I can give a better idea of his mode of life during +this busy period, his occupations, his state of mind, his objects of +interest outside of his special work, than by making the following +extracts from a long letter to myself, dated Brussels, 20th November, +1853. + +After some personal matters he continued:-- + + "I don't really know what to say to you. I am in a town which, for + aught I know, may be very gay. I don't know a living soul in it. + We have not a single acquaintance in the place, and we glory in the + fact. There is something rather sublime in thus floating on a + single spar in the wide sea of a populous, busy, fuming, fussy world + like this. At any rate it is consonant to both our tastes. You may + suppose, however, that I find it rather difficult to amuse my + friends out of the incidents of so isolated an existence. Our daily + career is very regular and monotonous. Our life is as stagnant as a + Dutch canal. Not that I complain of it,--on the contrary, the canal + may be richly freighted with merchandise and be a short cut to the + ocean of abundant and perpetual knowledge; but, at the same time, + few points rise above the level of so regular a life, to be worthy + of your notice. You must, therefore, allow me to meander along the + meadows of commonplace. Don't expect anything of the impetuous and + boiling style. We go it weak here. I don't know whether you were + ever in Brussels. It is a striking, picturesque town, built up a + steep promontory, the old part at the bottom, very dingy and mouldy, + the new part at the top, very showy and elegant. Nothing can be + more exquisite in its way than the grande place in the very heart of + the city, surrounded with those toppling, zigzag, ten-storied + buildings bedizened all over with ornaments and emblems so peculiar + to the Netherlands, with the brocaded Hotel de Ville on one side, + with its impossible spire rising some three hundred and seventy feet + into the air and embroidered to the top with the delicacy of needle- + work, sugarwork, spider-work, or what you will. I haunt this place + because it is my scene, my theatre. Here were enacted so many deep + tragedies, so many stately dramas, and even so many farces, which + have been familiar to me so long that I have got to imagine myself + invested with a kind of property in the place, and look at it as if + it were merely the theatre with the coulisses, machinery, drapery, + etc., for representing scenes which have long since vanished, and + which no more enter the minds of the men and women who are actually + moving across its pavements than if they had occurred in the moon. + When I say that I knew no soul in Brussels I am perhaps wrong. With + the present generation I am not familiar. 'En revanche,' the dead + men of the place are my intimate friends. I am at home in any + cemetery. With the fellows of the sixteenth century I am on the + most familiar terms. Any ghost that ever flits by night across the + moonlight square is at once hailed by me as a man and a brother. I + call him by his Christian name at once. When you come out of this + place, however, which, as I said, is in the heart of the town,--the + antique gem in the modern setting,--you may go either up or down. + If you go down, you will find yourself in the very nastiest + complications of lanes and culs-de-sac possible, a dark entanglement + of gin-shops, beer-houses, and hovels, through which charming valley + dribbles the Senne (whence, I suppose, is derived Senna), the most + nauseous little river in the world, which receives all the + outpourings of all the drains and houses, and is then converted into + beer for the inhabitants, all the many breweries being directly upon + its edge. If you go up the hill instead of down, you come to an + arrangement of squares, palaces, and gardens as trim and fashionable + as you will find in Europe. Thus you see that our Cybele sits with + her head crowned with very stately towers and her feet in a tub of + very dirty water. + + "My habits here for the present year are very regular. I came here, + having, as I thought, finished my work, or rather the first Part + (something like three or four volumes, 8vo), but I find so much + original matter here, and so many emendations to make, that I am + ready to despair. However, there is nothing for it but to + penelopize, pull to pieces, and stitch away again. Whatever may be + the result of my labor, nobody can say that I have not worked like + a brute beast,--but I don't care for the result. The labor is in + itself its own reward and all I want. I go day after day to the + archives here (as I went all summer at the Hague), studying the old + letters and documents of the fifteenth century. Here I remain among + my fellow-worms, feeding on these musty mulberry-leaves, out of + which we are afterwards to spin our silk. How can you expect + anything interesting from such a human cocoon? It is, however, not + without its amusement in a mouldy sort of way, this reading of dead + letters. It is something to read the real, bona fide signs-manual + of such fellows as William of Orange, Count Egmont, Alexander + Farnese, Philip II., Cardinal Granvelle, and the rest of them. It + gives a 'realizing sense,' as the Americans have it. . . . There + are not many public resources of amusement in this place,--if we + wanted them,--which we don't. I miss the Dresden Gallery very much, + and it makes me sad to think that I shall never look at the face of + the Sistine Madonna again,--that picture beyond all pictures in the + world, in which the artist certainly did get to heaven and painted a + face which was never seen on earth--so pathetic, so gentle, so + passionless, so prophetic. . . . There are a few good Rubenses + here,--but the great wealth of that master is in Antwerp. The great + picture of the Descent from the Cross is free again, after having + been ten years in the repairing room. It has come out in very good + condition. What a picture? It seems to me as if I had really stood + at the cross and seen Mary weeping on John's shoulder, and Magdalen + receiving the dead body of the Saviour in her arms. Never was the + grand tragedy represented in so profound and dramatic a manner. For + it is not only in his color in which this man so easily surpasses + all the world, but in his life-like, flesh-and-blood action,--the + tragic power of his composition. And is it not appalling to think + of the 'large constitution of this man,' when you reflect on the + acres of canvas which he has covered? How inspiriting to see with + what muscular, masculine vigor this splendid Fleming rushed in and + plucked up drowning Art by the locks when it was sinking in the + trashy sea of such creatures as the Luca Giordanos and Pietro + Cortonas and the like. Well might Guido exclaim, 'The fellow mixes + blood with his colors! . . . How providentially did the man come + in and invoke living, breathing, moving men and women out of his + canvas! Sometimes he is ranting and exaggerated, as are all men of + great genius who wrestle with Nature so boldly. No doubt his + heroines are more expansively endowed than would be thought genteel + in our country, where cryptogams are so much in fashion, + nevertheless there is always something very tremendous about him, + and very often much that is sublime, pathetic, and moving. I defy + any one of the average amount of imagination and sentiment to stand + long before the Descent from the Cross without being moved more + nearly to tears than he would care to acknowledge. As for color, + his effects are as sure as those of the sun rising in a tropical + landscape. There is something quite genial in the cheerful sense of + his own omnipotence which always inspired him. There are a few fine + pictures of his here, and I go in sometimes of a raw, foggy morning + merely to warm myself in the blaze of their beauty." + +I have been more willing to give room to this description of Rubens's +pictures and the effect they produced upon Motley, because there is a +certain affinity between those sumptuous and glowing works of art and the +prose pictures of the historian who so admired them. He was himself a +colorist in language, and called up the image of a great personage or a +splendid pageant of the past with the same affluence, the same rich +vitality, that floods and warms the vast areas of canvas over which the +full-fed genius of Rubens disported itself in the luxury of imaginative +creation. + + + + +XI. + +1856-1857. AEt. 42-43. + +PUBLICATION OF HIS FIRST HISTORICAL WORK, "RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC." +--ITS RECEPTION.--CRITICAL NOTICES. + +The labor of ten years was at last finished. Carrying his formidable +manuscript with him,--and how formidable the manuscript which melts down +into three solid octavo volumes is, only writers and publishers know,--he +knocked at the gate of that terrible fortress from which Lintot and Curll +and Tonson looked down on the authors of an older generation. So large a +work as the "History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic," offered for the +press by an author as yet unknown to the British public, could hardly +expect a warm welcome from the great dealers in literature as +merchandise. Mr. Murray civilly declined the manuscript which was offered +to him, and it was published at its author's expense by Mr. John Chapman. +The time came when the positions of the first-named celebrated publisher +and the unknown writer were reversed. Mr. Murray wrote to Mr. Motley +asking to be allowed to publish his second great work, the "History of +the United Netherlands," expressing at the same time his regret at what +he candidly called his mistake in the first instance, and thus they were +at length brought into business connection as well as the most agreeable +and friendly relations. An American edition was published by the Harpers +at the same time as the London one. + +If the new work of the unknown author found it difficult to obtain a +publisher, it was no sooner given to the public than it found an +approving, an admiring, an enthusiastic world of readers, and a noble +welcome at the colder hands of the critics. + +"The Westminster Review" for April, 1856, had for its leading article a +paper by Mr. Froude, in which the critic awarded the highest praise to +the work of the new historian. As one of the earliest as well as one of +the most important recognitions of the work, I quote some of its +judgments. + + "A history as complete as industry and genius can make it now lies + before us of the first twenty years of the Revolt of the United + Provinces; of the period in which those provinces finally conquered + their independence and established the Republic of Holland. It has + been the result of many years of silent, thoughtful, unobtrusive + labor, and unless we are strangely mistaken, unless we are ourselves + altogether unfit for this office of criticising which we have here + undertaken, the book is one which will take its place among the + finest histories in this or in any language. . . . All the + essentials of a great writer Mr. Motley eminently possesses. His + mind is broad, his industry unwearied. In power of dramatic + description no modern historian, except perhaps Mr. Carlyle, + surpasses him, and in analysis of character he is elaborate and + distinct. His principles are those of honest love for all which is + good and admirable in human character wherever he finds it, while he + unaffectedly hates oppression, and despises selfishness with all his + heart." + +After giving a slight analytical sketch of the series of events related +in the history, Mr. Froude objects to only one of the historian's +estimates, that, namely, of the course of Queen Elizabeth. + + "It is ungracious, however," he says, "even to find so slight a + fault with these admirable volumes. Mr. Motley has written without + haste, with the leisurely composure of a master. . . . We now + take our leave of Mr. Motley, desiring him only to accept our hearty + thanks for these volumes, which we trust will soon take their place + in every English library. Our quotations will have sufficed to show + the ability of the writer. Of the scope and general character of + his work we have given but a languid conception. The true merit of + a great book must be learned from the book itself. Our part has + been rather to select varied specimens of style and power. Of Mr. + Motley's antecedents we know nothing. If he has previously appeared + before the public, his reputation has not crossed the Atlantic. It + will not be so now. We believe that we may promise him as warm a + welcome among ourselves as he will receive even in America; that his + place will be at once conceded to him among the first historians in + our common language." + +The faithful and unwearied Mr. Allibone has swept the whole field of +contemporary criticism, and shown how wide and universal was the welcome +accorded to the hitherto unknown author. An article headed "Prescott and +Motley," attributed to M. Guizot, which must have been translated, I +suppose, from his own language, judging by its freedom from French +idioms, is to be found in "The Edinburgh Review" for January, 1857. The +praise, not unmingled with criticisms, which that great historian +bestowed upon Motley is less significant than the fact that he +superintended a translation of the "Rise of the Dutch Republic," and +himself wrote the Introduction to it. + +A general chorus of approbation followed or accompanied these leading +voices. The reception of the work in Great Britain was a triumph. On the +Continent, in addition to the tribute paid to it by M. Guizot, it was +translated into Dutch, into German, and into Russian. At home his +reception was not less hearty. "The North American Review," which had set +its foot on the semi-autobiographical medley which he called "Morton's +Hope," which had granted a decent space and a tepid recognition to his +"semi-historical" romance, in which he had already given the reading +public a taste of his quality as a narrator of real events and a +delineator of real personages,--this old and awe-inspiring New England +and more than New England representative of the Fates, found room for a +long and most laudatory article, in which the son of one of our most +distinguished historians did the honors of the venerable literary +periodical to the new-comer, for whom the folding-doors of all the +critical headquarters were flying open as if of themselves. Mr. Allibone +has recorded the opinions of some of our best scholars as expressed to +him. + +Dr. Lieber wrote a letter to Mr. Allibone in the strongest terms of +praise. I quote one passage which in the light of after events borrows a +cruel significance:-- + + "Congress and Parliament decree thanks for military exploits, + --rarely for diplomatic achievements. If they ever voted their thanks + for books,--and what deeds have influenced the course of human + events more than some books?--Motley ought to have the thanks of our + Congress; but I doubt not that he has already the thanks of every + American who has read the work. It will leave its distinct mark + upon the American mind." + +Mr. Everett writes:-- + + "Mr. Motley's 'History of the Dutch Republic' is in my judgment a + work of the highest merit. Unwearying research for years in the + libraries of Europe, patience and judgment in arranging and + digesting his materials, a fine historical tact, much skill in + characterization, the perspective of narration, as it may be called, + and a vigorous style unite to make it a very capital work, and place + the name of Motley by the side of those of our great historical + trio,--Bancroft, Irving, and Prescott." + +Mr. Irving, Mr. Bancroft, Mr. Sumner, Mr. Hillard, united their voices in +the same strain of commendation. Mr. Prescott, whose estimate of the new +history is of peculiar value for obvious reasons, writes to Mr. Allibone +thus:-- + + "The opinion of any individual seems superfluous in respect to a + work on the merits of which the public both at home and abroad have + pronounced so unanimous a verdict. As Motley's path crosses my own + historic field, I may be thought to possess some advantage over most + critics in my familiarity with the ground. + + "However this may be, I can honestly bear my testimony to the extent + of his researches and to the accuracy with which he has given the + results of them to the public. Far from making his book a mere + register of events, he has penetrated deep below the surface and + explored the cause of these events. He has carefully studied the + physiognomy of the times and given finished portraits of the great + men who conducted the march of the revolution. Every page is + instinct with the love of freedom and with that personal knowledge + of the working of free institutions which could alone enable him to + do justice to his subject. We may congratulate ourselves that it + was reserved for one of our countrymen to tell the story-better than + it had yet been told--of this memorable revolution, which in so many + of its features bears a striking resemblance to our own." + +The public welcomed the work as cordially as the critics. Fifteen +thousand copies had already been sold in London in 1857. In America it +was equally popular. Its author saw his name enrolled by common consent +among those of the great writers of his time. Europe accepted him, his +country was proud to claim him, scholarship set its jealously guarded +seal upon the result of his labors, the reading world, which had not +cared greatly for his stories, hung in delight over a narrative more +exciting than romances; and the lonely student, who had almost forgotten +the look of living men in the solitude of archives haunted by dead +memories, found himself suddenly in the full blaze of a great reputation. + + + + +XII. + +1856-1857. AEt. 42-43. +VISIT TO AMERICA.--RESIDENCE IN BOYLSTON PLACE. + +He visited this country in 1856, and spent the winter of 1856-57 in +Boston, living with his family in a house in Boylston Place. At this time +I had the pleasure of meeting him often, and of seeing the changes which +maturity, success, the opening of a great literary and social career, had +wrought in his character and bearing. He was in every way greatly +improved; the interesting, impulsive youth had ripened into a noble +manhood. Dealing with great themes, his own mind had gained their +dignity. Accustomed to the company of dead statesmen and heroes, his own +ideas had risen to a higher standard. The flattery of society had added a +new grace to his natural modesty. He was now a citizen of the world by +his reputation; the past was his province, in which he was recognized as +a master; the idol's pedestal was ready for him, but he betrayed no +desire to show himself upon it. + + + + +XIII. + +1858-1860. AEt. 44-46. +RETURN TO ENGLAND.--SOCIAL RELATIONS.--LADY HARCOURT'S LETTER. + +During the years spent in Europe in writing his first history, from 1851 +to 1856, Mr. Motley had lived a life of great retirement and simplicity, +devoting himself to his work and to the education of his children, to +which last object he was always ready to give the most careful +supervision. He was as yet unknown beyond the circle of his friends, and +he did not seek society. In this quiet way he had passed the two years of +residence in Dresden, the year divided between Brussels and the Hague, +and a very tranquil year spent at Vevay on the Lake of Geneva. His health +at this time was tolerably good, except for nervous headaches, which +frequently recurred and were of great severity. His visit to England with +his manuscript in search of a publisher has already been mentioned. + +In 1858 he revisited England. His fame as a successful author was there +before him, and he naturally became the object of many attentions. He now +made many acquaintances who afterwards became his kind and valued +friends. Among those mentioned by his daughter, Lady Harcourt, are Lord +Lyndhurst, Lord Carlisle, Lady William Russell, Lord and Lady Palmerston, +Dean Milman, with many others. The following winter was passed in Rome, +among many English and American friends. + + "In the course of the next summer," his daughter writes to me, "we + all went to England, and for the next two years, marked chiefly by + the success of the 'United Netherlands,' our social life was most + agreeable and most interesting. He was in the fulness of his health + and powers; his works had made him known in intellectual society, + and I think his presence, on the other hand, increased their + effects. As no one knows better than you do, his belief in his own + country and in its institutions at their best was so passionate and + intense that it was a part of his nature, yet his refined and + fastidious tastes were deeply gratified by the influences of his + life in England, and the spontaneous kindness which he received + added much to his happiness. At that time Lord Palmerston was Prime + Minister; the weekly receptions at Cambridge House were the centre + of all that was brilliant in the political and social world, while + Lansdowne House, Holland House, and others were open to the + 'sommites' in all branches of literature, science, rank, and + politics. . . . It was the last year of Lord Macaulay's life, + and as a few out of many names which I recall come Dean Milman, Mr. + Froude (whose review of the 'Dutch Republic' in the 'Westminster' + was one of the first warm recognitions it ever received), the Duke + and Duchess of Argyll, Sir William Stirling Maxwell, then Mr. + Stirling of Keir, the Sheridan family in its different brilliant + members, Lord Wensleydale, and many more." + +There was no society to which Motley would not have added grace and +attraction by his presence, and to say that he was a welcome guest in the +best houses of England is only saying that these houses are always open +to those whose abilities, characters, achievements, are commended to the +circles that have the best choice by the personal gifts which are +nature's passport everywhere. + + + + +XIV. + +1859. AEt. 45. + +LETTER TO MR. FRANCIS H. UNDERWOOD.--PLAN OF MR. MOTLEY'S HISTORICAL +WORKS.--SECOND GREAT WORK, "HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS." + +I am enabled by the kindness of Mr. Francis H. Underwood to avail myself +of a letter addressed to him by Mr. Motley in the year before the +publication of this second work, which gives us an insight into his mode +of working and the plan he proposed to follow. It begins with an allusion +which recalls a literary event interesting to many of his American +friends. + + ROME, March 4, 1859. + + F. H. UNDERWOOD, ESQ. + + My dear Sir,--. . . I am delighted to hear of the great success + of "The Atlantic Monthly." In this remote region I have not the + chance of reading it as often as I should like, but from the + specimens which I have seen I am quite sure it deserves its wide + circulation. A serial publication, the contents of which are purely + original and of such remarkable merit, is a novelty in our country, + and I am delighted to find that it has already taken so prominent a + position before the reading world. . . + + The whole work [his history], of which the three volumes already + published form a part, will be called "The Eighty Years' War for + Liberty." + + Epoch I. is the Rise of the Dutch Republic. + + Epoch II. Independence Achieved. From the Death of William the + Silent till the Twelve Years' Truce. 1584-1609. + + Epoch III. Independence Recognized. From the Twelve Years' Truce + to the Peace of Westphalia. 1609-1648. + + My subject is a very vast one, for the struggle of the United + Provinces with Spain was one in which all the leading states of + Europe were more or less involved. After the death of William the + Silent, the history assumes world-wide proportions. Thus the volume + which I am just about terminating . . . is almost as much English + history as Dutch. The Earl of Leicester, very soon after the death + of Orange, was appointed governor of the provinces, and the alliance + between the two countries almost amounted to a political union. I + shall try to get the whole of the Leicester administration, + terminating with the grand drama of the Invincible Armada, into one + volume; but I doubt, my materials are so enormous. I have been + personally very hard at work, nearly two years, ransacking the + British State Paper Office, the British Museum, and the Holland + archives, and I have had two copyists constantly engaged in London, + and two others at the Hague. Besides this, I passed the whole of + last winter at Brussels, where, by special favor of the Belgian + Government, I was allowed to read what no one else has ever been + permitted to see,--the great mass of copies taken by that government + from the Simancas archives, a translated epitome of which has been + published by Gachard. This correspondence reaches to the death of + Philip II., and is of immense extent and importance. Had I not + obtained leave to read the invaluable and, for my purpose, + indispensable documents at Brussels, I should have gone to Spain, + for they will not be published these twenty years, and then only in + a translated and excessively abbreviated and unsatisfactory form. + I have read the whole of this correspondence, and made very copious + notes of it. In truth, I devoted three months of last winter to + that purpose alone. + + The materials I have collected from the English archives are also + extremely important and curious. I have hundreds of interesting + letters never published or to be published, by Queen Elizabeth, + Burghley, Walsingham, Sidney, Drake, Willoughby, Leicester, and + others. For the whole of that portion of my subject in which + Holland and England were combined into one whole, to resist Spain in + its attempt to obtain the universal empire, I have very abundant + collections. For the history of the United Provinces is not at all + a provincial history. It is the history of European liberty. + Without the struggle of Holland and England against Spain, all + Europe might have been Catholic and Spanish. It was Holland that + saved England in the sixteenth century, and, by so doing, secured + the triumph of the Reformation, and placed the independence of the + various states of Europe upon a sure foundation. Of course, the + materials collected by me at the Hague are of great importance. As + a single specimen, I will state that I found in the archives there + an immense and confused mass of papers, which turned out to be the + autograph letters of Olden Barneveld during the last few years of + his life; during, in short, the whole of that most important period + which preceded his execution. These letters are in such an + intolerable handwriting that no one has ever attempted to read them. + I could read them only imperfectly myself, and it would have taken + me a very long time to have acquired the power to do so; but my + copyist and reader there is the most patient and indefatigable + person alive, and he has quite mastered the handwriting, and he + writes me that they are a mine of historical wealth for me. I shall + have complete copies before I get to that period, one of signal + interest, and which has never been described. I mention these + matters that you may see that my work, whatever its other value may + be, is built upon the only foundation fit for history,--original + contemporary documents. These are all unpublished. Of course, I + use the contemporary historians and pamphleteers,--Dutch, Spanish, + French, Italian, German, and English,--but the most valuable of my + sources are manuscript ones. I have said the little which I have + said in order to vindicate the largeness of the subject. The + kingdom of Holland is a small power now, but the Eighty Years' War, + which secured the civil and religious independence of the Dutch + Commonwealth and of Europe, was the great event of that whole age. + + The whole work will therefore cover a most remarkable epoch in human + history, from the abdication of Charles Fifth to the Peace of + Westphalia, at which last point the political and geographical + arrangements of Europe were established on a permanent basis,--in + the main undisturbed until the French Revolution. . . . + + I will mention that I received yesterday a letter from the + distinguished M. Guizot, informing me that the first volume of the + French translation, edited by him, with an introduction, has just + been published. The publication was hastened in consequence of the + appearance of a rival translation at Brussels. The German + translation is very elegantly and expensively printed in handsome + octavos; and the Dutch translation, under the editorship of the + archivist general of Holland, Bakhuyzen v. d. Brink, is enriched + with copious notes and comments by that distinguished scholar. + + There are also three different piratical reprints of the original + work at Amsterdam, Leipzig, and London. I must add that I had + nothing to do with the translation in any case. In fact, with the + exception of M. Guizot, no one ever obtained permission of me to + publish translations, and I never knew of the existence of them + until I read of it in the journals. . . . I forgot to say that + among the collections already thoroughly examined by me is that + portion of the Simancas archives still retained in the Imperial + archives of France. I spent a considerable time in Paris for the + purpose of reading these documents. There are many letters of + Philip II. there, with apostilles by his own hand. . . . I + would add that I am going to pass this summer at Venice for the + purpose of reading and procuring copies from the very rich archives + of that Republic, of the correspondence of their envoys in Madrid, + London, and Brussels during the epoch of which I am treating. + + I am also not without hope of gaining access to the archives of the + Vatican here, although there are some difficulties in the way. + + With kind regards . . . + I remain very truly yours, + J. L. MOTLEY. + + + + +XV. + +1860. AT. 46. + +PUBLICATION OF THE FIRST TWO VOLUMES OF THE "HISTORY OF THE UNITED +NETHERLANDS."--THEIR RECEPTION. + +We know something of the manner in which Mr. Motley collected his +materials. We know the labors, the difficulties, the cost of his toils +among the dusty records of the past. What he gained by the years he spent +in his researches is so well stated by himself that I shall borrow his +own words:-- + + "Thanks to the liberality of many modern governments of Europe, the + archives where the state secrets of the buried centuries have so + long mouldered are now open to the student of history. To him who + has patience and industry, many mysteries are thus revealed which no + political sagacity or critical acumen could have divined. He leans + over the shoulder of Philip the Second at his writing-table, as the + King spells patiently out, with cipher-key in hand, the most + concealed hieroglyphics of Parma, or Guise, or Mendoza. He reads + the secret thoughts of 'Fabius' [Philip II.] as that cunctative + Roman scrawls his marginal apostilles on each dispatch; he pries + into all the stratagems of Camillus, Hortensius, Mucius, Julius, + Tullius, and the rest of those ancient heroes who lent their names + to the diplomatic masqueraders of the sixteenth century; he enters + the cabinet of the deeply pondering Burghley, and takes from the + most private drawer the memoranda which record that minister's + unutterable doubtings; he pulls from the dressing-gown folds of the + stealthy, soft-gliding Walsingham the last secret which he has + picked from the Emperor's pigeon-holes or the Pope's pocket, and + which not Hatton, nor Buckhurst, nor Leicester, nor the Lord + Treasurer is to see,--nobody but Elizabeth herself; he sits + invisible at the most secret councils of the Nassaus and Barneveld + and Buys, or pores with Farnese over coming victories and vast + schemes of universal conquest; he reads the latest bit of scandal, + the minutest characteristic of king or minister, chronicled by the + gossiping Venetians for the edification of the Forty; and after all + this prying and eavesdropping, having seen the cross-purposes, the + bribings, the windings in the dark, he is not surprised if those who + were systematically deceived did not always arrive at correct + conclusions." + +The fascination of such a quest is readily conceivable. A drama with real +characters, and the spectator at liberty to go behind the scenes and look +upon and talk with the kings and queens between the acts; to examine the +scenery, to handle the properties, to study the "make up" of the imposing +personages of full-dress histories; to deal with them all as Thackeray +has done with the Grand Monarque in one of his caustic sketches,--this +would be as exciting, one might suppose, as to sit through a play one +knows by heart at Drury Lane or the Theatre Francais, and might furnish +occupation enough to the curious idler who was only in search of +entertainment. The mechanical obstacles of half-illegible manuscript, of +antiquated forms of speech, to say nothing of the intentional obscurities +of diplomatic correspondence, stand, however, in the way of all but the +resolute and unwearied scholar. These difficulties, in all their complex +obstinacy, had been met and overcome by the heroic efforts, the +concentrated devotion, of the new laborer in the unbroken fields of +secret history. + +Without stopping to take breath, as it were,--for his was a task 'de +longue haleine,'--he proceeded to his second great undertaking. + +The first portion--consisting of two volumes--of the "History of the +United Netherlands" was published in the year 1860. It maintained and +increased the reputation he had already gained by his first history. + +"The London Quarterly Review" devoted a long article to it, beginning +with this handsome tribute to his earlier and later volumes:-- + + "Mr. Motley's 'History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic' is already + known and valued for the grasp of mind which it displays, for the + earnest and manly spirit in which he has communicated the results of + deep research and careful reflection. Again he appears before us, + rich with the spoils of time, to tell the story of the United + Netherlands from the time of William the Silent to the end of the + eventful year of the Spanish Armada, and we still find him in every + way worthy of this 'great argument.' Indeed, it seems to us that he + proceeds with an increased facility of style, and with a more + complete and easy command over his materials. These materials are + indeed splendid, and of them most excellent use has been made. The + English State Paper Office, the Spanish archives from Simancas, and + the Dutch and Belgian repositories, have all yielded up their + secrets; and Mr. Motley has enjoyed the advantage of dealing with a + vast mass of unpublished documents, of which he has not failed to + avail himself to an extent which places his work in the foremost + rank as an authority for the period to which it relates. By means + of his labor and his art we can sit at the council board of Philip + and Elizabeth, we can read their most private dispatches. Guided by + his demonstration, we are enabled to dissect out to their ultimate + issues the minutest ramifications of intrigue. We join in the + amusement of the popular lampoon; we visit the prison-house; we + stand by the scaffold; we are present at the battle and the siege. + We can scan the inmost characters of men and can view them in their. + habits as they lived." + +After a few criticisms upon lesser points of form and style, the writer +says:-- + + "But the work itself must be read to appreciate the vast and + conscientious industry bestowed upon it. His delineations are true + and life-like, because they are not mere compositions written to + please the ear, but are really taken from the facts and traits + preserved in those authentic records to which he has devoted the + labor of many years. Diligent and painstaking as the humblest + chronicler, he has availed himself of many sources of information + which have not been made use of by any previous historical writer. + At the same time he is not oppressed by his materials, but has + sagacity to estimate their real value, and he has combined with + scholarly power the facts which they contain. He has rescued the + story of the Netherlands from the domain of vague and general + narrative, and has labored, with much judgment and ability, to + unfold the 'Belli causas, et vitia, et modos,' and to assign to + every man and every event their own share in the contest, and their + own influence upon its fortunes. We do not wonder that his earlier + publication has been received as a valuable addition, not only to + English, but to European literature." + +One or two other contemporary criticisms may help us with their side +lights. A critic in "The Edinburgh Review" for January, 1861, thinks that +"Mr. Motley has not always been successful in keeping the graphic variety +of his details subordinate to the main theme of his work." Still, he +excuses the fault, as he accounts it, in consideration of the new light +thrown on various obscure points of history, and-- + + "it is atoned for by striking merits, by many narratives of great + events faithfully, powerfully, and vividly executed, by the clearest + and most life-like conceptions of character, and by a style which, + if it sacrifices the severer principles of composition to a desire + to be striking and picturesque, is always vigorous, full of + animation, and glowing with the genuine enthusiasm of the writer. + Mr. Motley combines as an historian two qualifications seldom found + united,--to great capacity for historical research he adds much + power of pictorial representation. In his pages we find characters + and scenes minutely set forth in elaborate and characteristic + detail, which is relieved and heightened in effect by the artistic + breadth of light and shade thrown across the broader prospects of + history. In an American author, too, we must commend the hearty + English spirit in which the book is written; and fertile as the + present age has been in historical works of the highest merit, none + of them can be ranked above these volumes in the grand qualities of + interest, accuracy, and truth." + +A writer in "Blackwood" (May, 1861) contrasts Motley with Froude somewhat +in the way in which another critic had contrasted him with Prescott. +Froude, he says, remembers that there are some golden threads in the +black robe of the Dominican. Motley "finds it black and thrusts it +farther into the darkness." + +Every writer carries more or less of his own character into his book, of +course. A great professor has told me that there is a personal flavor in +the mathematical work of a man of genius like Poisson. Those who have +known Motley and Prescott would feel sure beforehand that the impulsive +nature of the one and the judicial serenity of the other would as surely +betray themselves in their writings as in their conversation and in their +every movement. Another point which the critic of "Blackwood's Magazine" +has noticed has not been so generally observed: it is what he calls "a +dashing, offhand, rattling style,"--"fast" writing. It cannot be denied +that here and there may be detected slight vestiges of the way of writing +of an earlier period of Motley's literary life, with which I have no +reason to think the writer just mentioned was acquainted. Now and then I +can trace in the turn of a phrase, in the twinkle of an epithet, a faint +reminiscence of a certain satirical levity, airiness, jauntiness, if I +may hint such a word, which is just enough to remind me of those perilous +shallows of his early time through which his richly freighted argosy had +passed with such wonderful escape from their dangers and such very slight +marks of injury. That which is pleasant gayety in conversation may be +quite out of place in formal composition, and Motley's wit must have had +a hard time of it struggling to show its spangles in the processions +while his gorgeous tragedies went sweeping by. + + + + + + +JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. + +A MEMOIR + +By Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Volume II. + + + +XVI. + +1860-1866. AEt. 46-52. + +RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND.--OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR.--LETTERS TO THE LONDON +"TIMES."--VISIT TO AMERICA.--APPOINTED MINISTER TO AUSTRIA.--LADY +HARCOURT'S LETTER.--MISS MOTLEY'S MEMORANDUM. + +The winter of 1859-60 was passed chiefly at Oatlands Hotel, +Walton-on-Thames. In 1860 Mr. Motley hired the house No. 31 Hertford +Street, May Fair, London. He had just published the first two volumes of +his "History of the Netherlands," and was ready for the further labors of +its continuation, when the threats, followed by the outbreak, of the +great civil contention in his native land brought him back from the +struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the conflict of +the nineteenth. + +His love of country, which had grown upon him so remarkably of late +years, would not suffer him to be silent at such a moment. All around him +he found ignorance and prejudice. The quarrel was like to be prejudged in +default of a champion of the cause which to him was that of Liberty and +Justice. He wrote two long letters to the London "Times," in which he +attempted to make clear to Englishmen and to Europe the nature and +conditions of our complex system of government, the real cause of the +strife, and the mighty issues at stake. Nothing could have been more +timely, nothing more needed. Mr. William Everett, who was then in +England, bears strong testimony to the effect these letters produced. Had +Mr. Motley done no other service to his country, this alone would entitle +him to honorable remembrance as among the first defenders of the flag, +which at that moment had more to fear from what was going on in the +cabinet councils of Europe than from all the armed hosts that were +gathering against it. + +He returned to America in 1861, and soon afterwards was appointed by Mr. +Lincoln Minister to Austria. Mr. Burlingame had been previously appointed +to the office, but having been objected to by the Austrian Government for +political reasons, the place unexpectedly left vacant was conferred upon +Motley, who had no expectation of any diplomatic appointment when he left +Europe. For some interesting particulars relating to his residence in +Vienna I must refer to the communications addressed to me by his +daughter, Lady Harcourt, and her youngest sister, and the letters I +received from him while at the Austrian capital. Lady Harcourt writes:-- + + "He held the post for six years, seeing the civil war fought out and + brought to a triumphant conclusion, and enjoying, as I have every + reason to believe, the full confidence and esteem of Mr. Lincoln to + the last hour of the President's life. In the first dark years the + painful interest of the great national drama was so all-absorbing + that literary work was entirely put aside, and with his countrymen + at home he lived only in the varying fortunes of the day, his + profound faith and enthusiasm sustaining him and lifting him above + the natural influence of a by no means sanguine temperament. Later, + when the tide was turning and success was nearing, he was more able + to work. His social relations during the whole period of his + mission were of the most agreeable character. The society of Vienna + was at that time, and I believe is still, the absolute reverse of + that of England, where all claims to distinction are recognized and + welcomed. There the old feudal traditions were still in full force, + and diplomatic representatives admitted to the court society by + right of official position found it to consist exclusively of an + aristocracy of birth, sixteen quarterings of nobility being + necessary to a right of presentation to the Emperor and Empress. + The society thus constituted was distinguished by great charm and + grace of manner, the exclusion of all outer elements not only + limiting the numbers, but giving the ease of a family party within + the charmed circle. On the other hand, larger interests suffered + under the rigid exclusion of all occupations except the army, + diplomacy, and court place. The intimacy among the different + members of the society was so close that, beyond a courtesy of + manner that never failed, the tendency was to resist the approach of + any stranger as a 'gene'. A single new face was instantly remarked + and commented on in a Vienna saloon to an extent unknown in any + other large capital. This peculiarity, however, worked in favor of + the old resident. Kindliness of feeling increased with familiarity + and grew into something better than acquaintance, and the parting + with most sincere and affectionately disposed friends in the end was + deeply felt on both sides. Those years were passed in a pleasant + house in the Weiden Faubourg, with a large garden at the back, and I + do not think that during this time there was one disagreeable + incident in his relations to his colleagues, while in several cases + the relations, agreeable with all, became those of close friendship. + We lived constantly, of course, in diplomatic and Austrian society, + and during the latter part of the time particularly his house was as + much frequented and the centre of as many dancing and other + receptions as any in the place. His official relations with the + Foreign Office were courteous and agreeable, the successive Foreign + Ministers during his stay being Count Richberg, Count Mensdorff, and + Baron Beust. Austria was so far removed from any real contact with + our own country that, though the interest in our war may have been + languid, they did not pretend to a knowledge which might have + inclined them to controversy, while an instinct that we were acting + as a constituted government against rebellion rather inclined them + to sympathy. I think I may say that as he became known among them + his keen patriotism and high sense of honor and truth were fully + understood and appreciated, and that what he said always commanded a + sympathetic hearing among men with totally different political + ideas, but with chivalrous and loyal instincts to comprehend his + own. I shall never forget his account of the terrible day when the + news of Mr. Lincoln's death came. By some accident a rumor of it + reached him first through a colleague. He went straight to the + Foreign Office for news, hoping against hope, was received by Count + Mensdorff, who merely came forward and laid his arm about his + shoulder with an intense sympathy beyond words." + +Miss Motley, the historian's youngest daughter, has added a note to her +sister's communication:-- + + "During his residence in Vienna the most important negotiations + which he had to carry on with the Austrian Government were those + connected with the Mexican affair. Maximilian at one time applied + to his brother the Emperor for assistance, and he promised to accede + to his demand. Accordingly a large number of volunteers were + equipped and had actually embarked at Trieste, when a dispatch from + Seward arrived, instructing the American Minister to give notice to + the Austrian Government that if the troops sailed for Mexico he was + to leave Vienna at once. My father had to go at once to Count + Mensdorff with these instructions, and in spite of the Foreign + Minister being annoyed that the United States Government had not + sooner intimated that this extreme course would be taken, the + interview was quite amicable and the troops were not allowed to + sail. We were in Vienna during the war in which Denmark fought + alone against Austria and Prussia, and when it was over Bismarck + came to Vienna to settle the terms of peace with the Emperor. He + dined with us twice during his short stay, and was most delightful + and agreeable. When he and my father were together they seemed to + live over the youthful days they had spent together as students, + and many were the anecdotes of their boyish frolics which Bismarck + related." + + + + +XVII. + +1861-1863. AEt. 47-49. +LETTERS FROM VIENNA. + +Soon after Mr. Motley's arrival in Vienna I received a long letter from +him, most of which relates to personal matters, but which contains a few +sentences of interest to the general reader as showing his zealous +labors, wherever he found himself, in behalf of the great cause then in +bloody debate in his own country: + + November 14, 1861. + + . . . What can I say to you of cis-Atlantic things? I am almost + ashamed to be away from home. You know that I had decided to + remain, and had sent for my family to come to America, when my + present appointment altered my plans. I do what good I can. I + think I made some impression on Lord John Russell, with whom I spent + two days soon after my arrival in England, and I talked very frankly + and as strongly as I could to Palmerston, and I have had long + conversations and correspondences with other leading men in England. + I have also had an hour's [conversation] with Thouvenel in Paris. I + hammered the Northern view into him as soundly as I could. For this + year there will be no foreign interference with us. I don't + anticipate it at any time, unless we bring it on ourselves by bad + management, which I don't expect. Our fate is in our own hands, and + Europe is looking on to see which side is strongest,--when it has + made the discovery it will back it as also the best and the most + moral. Yesterday I had my audience with the Emperor. He received + me with much cordiality, and seemed interested in a long account + which I gave him of our affairs. You may suppose I inculcated the + Northern views. We spoke in his vernacular, and he asked me + afterwards if I was a German. I mention this not from vanity, but + because he asked it with earnestness, and as if it had a political + significance. Of course I undeceived him. His appearance + interested me, and his manner is very pleasing. + +I continued to receive long and interesting letters from him at intervals +during his residence as Minister at Vienna. Relating as they often did to +public matters, about which he had private sources of information, his +anxiety that they should not get into print was perfectly natural. As, +however, I was at liberty to read his letters to others at my discretion, +and as many parts of these letters have an interest as showing how +American affairs looked to one who was behind the scenes in Europe, I may +venture to give some extracts without fear of violating the spirit of his +injunctions, or of giving offence to individuals. The time may come when +his extended correspondence can be printed in full with propriety, but it +must be in a future year and after it has passed into the hands of a +younger generation. Meanwhile these few glimpses at his life and records +of his feelings and opinions will help to make the portrait of the man we +are studying present itself somewhat more clearly. + + LEGATION of THE U. S. A., VIENNA, January 14, 1862. + + MY DEAR HOLMES,--I have two letters of yours, November 29 and + December 17, to express my thanks for. It is quite true that it is + difficult for me to write with the same feeling that inspires you, + --that everything around the inkstand within a radius of a thousand + miles is full of deepest interest to writer and reader. I don't + even intend to try to amuse you with Vienna matters. What is it to + you that we had a very pleasant dinner-party last week at Prince + Esterhazy's, and another this week at Prince Liechtenstein's, and + that to-morrow I am to put on my cocked hat and laced coat to make a + visit to her Imperial Majesty, the Empress Mother, and that to-night + there is to be the first of the assembly balls, the Vienna Almack's, + at which--I shall be allowed to absent myself altogether? + + It strikes me that there is likely to be left a fair field for us a + few months longer, say till midsummer. The Trent affair I shall not + say much about, except to state that I have always been for giving + up the prisoners. I was awfully afraid, knowing that the demand had + gone forth,-- + + "Send us your prisoners or you'll hear of it," + + that the answer would have come back in the Hotspur vein-- + + 'And if the Devil come and roar for them, + We will not send them." + + The result would have been most disastrous, for in order to secure a + most trifling advantage,--that of keeping Mason and Slidell at Fort + Warren a little longer,--we should have turned our backs on all the + principles maintained by us when neutral, and should have been + obliged to accept a war at an enormous disadvantage. . . . + + But I hardly dared to hope that we should have obtained such a + victory as we have done. To have disavowed the illegal transaction + at once,--before any demand came from England,--to have placed that + disavowal on the broad ground of principle which we have always + cherished, and thus with a clear conscience, and to our entire + honor, to have kept ourselves clear from a war which must have given + the Confederacy the invincible alliance of England,--was exactly + what our enemies in Europe did not suppose us capable of doing. But + we have done it in the handsomest manner, and there is not one + liberal heart in this hemisphere that is not rejoiced, nor one hater + of us and of our institutions that is not gnashing his teeth with + rage. + +The letter of ten close pages from which I have quoted these passages is +full of confidential information, and contains extracts from letters of +leading statesmen. If its date had been 1762, I might feel authorized in +disobeying its injunctions of privacy. I must quote one other sentence, +as it shows his animus at that time towards a distinguished statesman of +whom he was afterwards accused of speaking in very hard terms by an +obscure writer whose intent was to harm him. In speaking of the Trent +affair, Mr. Motley says: "The English premier has been foiled by our much +maligned Secretary of State, of whom, on this occasion at least, one has +the right to say, with Sir Henry Wotton,-- + + 'His armor was his honest thought, + And simple truth his utmost skill.'" + +"He says at the close of this long letter: + + 'I wish I could bore you about something else but American politics. + But there is nothing else worth thinking of in the world. All else + is leather and prunella. We are living over again the days of the + Dutchmen or the seventeenth-century Englishmen.'" + +My next letter, of fourteen closely written pages, was of similar +character to the last. Motley could think of nothing but the great +conflict. He was alive to every report from America, listening too with +passionate fears or hopes, as the case might be, to the whispers not yet +audible to the world which passed from lip to lip of the statesmen who +were watching the course of events from the other side of the Atlantic +with the sweet complacency of the looker-on of Lucretius; too often +rejoicing in the storm that threatened wreck to institutions and an +organization which they felt to be a standing menace to the established +order of things in their older communities. + +A few extracts from this very long letter will be found to have a special +interest from the time at which they were written. + + LEGATION OF U. S. A., VIENNA, February 26, 1862. + + MY DEAR HOLMES,--. . . I take great pleasure in reading your + prophecies, and intend to be just as free in hazarding my own, for, + as you say, our mortal life is but a string of guesses at the + future, and no one but an idiot would be discouraged at finding + himself sometimes far out in his calculations. If I find you + signally right in any of your predictions, be sure that I will + congratulate and applaud. If you make mistakes, you shall never + hear of them again, and I promise to forget them. Let me ask the + same indulgence from you in return. This is what makes letter- + writing a comfort and journalizing dangerous. . . The ides of March + will be upon us before this letter reaches you. We have got to + squash the rebellion soon, or be squashed forever as a nation. I + don't pretend to judge military plans or the capacities of generals. + But, as you suggest, perhaps I can take a more just view of the + whole picture of the eventful struggle at this great distance than + do those absolutely acting and suffering on the scene. Nor can I + resist the desire to prophesy any more than you can do, knowing that + I may prove utterly mistaken. I say, then, that one great danger + comes from the chance of foreign interference. What will prevent + that? + + Our utterly defeating the Confederates in some great and conclusive + battle; or, + + Our possession of the cotton ports and opening them to European + trade; or, + + A most unequivocal policy of slave emancipation. + + Any one of these three conditions would stave off recognition by + foreign powers, until we had ourselves abandoned the attempt to + reduce the South to obedience. + + The last measure is to my mind the most important. The South has, + by going to war with the United States government, thrust into our + hands against our will the invincible weapon which constitutional + reasons had hitherto forbidden us to employ. At the same time it + has given us the power to remedy a great wrong to four millions of + the human race, in which we had hitherto been obliged to acquiesce. + We are threatened with national annihilation, and defied to use the + only means of national preservation. The question is distinctly + proposed to us, Shall Slavery die, or the great Republic? It is + most astounding to me that there can be two opinions in the free + States as to the answer. + + If we do fall, we deserve our fate. At the beginning of the + contest, constitutional scruples might be respectable. But now we + are fighting to subjugate the South; that is, Slavery. We are + fighting for nothing else that I know of. We are fighting for the + Union. Who wishes to destroy the Union? The slaveholder, nobody + else. Are we to spend twelve hundred millions, and raise six + hundred thousand soldiers, in order to protect slavery? It really + does seem to me too simple for argument. I am anxiously waiting for + the coming Columbus who will set this egg of ours on end by smashing + in the slavery end. We shall be rolling about in every direction + until that is done. I don't know that it is to be done by + proclamation. Rather perhaps by facts. . . . Well, I console + myself with thinking that the people--the American people, at least + --is about as wise collectively as less numerous collections of + individuals, and that the people has really declared emancipation, + and is only puzzling how to carry it into effect. After all, it + seems to be a law of Providence, that progress should be by a spiral + movement; so that when it seems most tortuous, we may perhaps be + going ahead. I am firm in the faith that slavery is now wriggling + itself to death. With slavery in its pristine vigor, I should think + the restored Union neither possible nor desirable. Don't understand + me as not taking into account all the strategical considerations + against premature governmental utterances on this great subject. + But are there any trustworthy friends to the Union among the + slaveholders? Should we lose many Kentuckians and Virginians who + are now with us, if we boldly confiscated the slaves of all rebels? + --and a confiscation of property which has legs and so confiscates + itself, at command, is not only a legal, but would prove a very + practical measure in time of war. In brief, the time is fast + approaching, I think, when 'Thorough' should be written on all our + banners. Slavery will never accept a subordinate position. The + great Republic and Slavery cannot both survive. We have been defied + to mortal combat, and yet we hesitate to strike. These are my poor + thoughts on this great subject. Perhaps you will think them crude. + I was much struck with what you quote from Mr. Conway, that if + emancipation was proclaimed on the Upper Mississippi it would be + known to the negroes of Louisiana in advance of the telegraph. And + if once the blacks had leave to run, how many whites would have to + stay at home to guard their dissolving property? + + You have had enough of my maunderings. But before I conclude them, + may I ask you to give all our kindest regards to Lowell, and to + express our admiration for the Yankee Idyl. I am afraid of using + too extravagant language if I say all I think about it. Was there + ever anything more stinging, more concentrated, more vigorous, more + just? He has condensed into those few pages the essence of a + hundred diplomatic papers and historical disquisitions and Fourth of + July orations. I was dining a day or two since with his friend + Lytton (Bulwer's son, attache here) and Julian Fane (secretary of + the embassy), both great admirers of him,--and especially of the + "Biglow Papers;" they begged me to send them the Mason and Slidell + Idyl, but I wouldn't,--I don't think it is in English nature + (although theirs is very cosmopolitan and liberal) to take such + punishment and come up smiling. I would rather they got it in some + other way, and then told me what they thought voluntarily. + + I have very pleasant relations with all the J. B.'s here. They are + all friendly and well disposed to the North,--I speak of the + embassy, which, with the ambassador and---dress, numbers eight or + ten souls, some of them very intellectual ones. There are no other + J. B.'s here. I have no fear at present of foreign interference. + We have got three or four months to do our work in,--a fair field + and no favor. There is no question whatever that the Southern + commissioners have been thoroughly snubbed in London and Paris. + There is to be a blockade debate in Parliament next week, but no bad + consequences are to be apprehended. The Duke de Gramont (French + ambassador, and an intimate friend of the Emperor) told my wife last + night that it was entirely false that the Emperor had ever urged the + English government to break the blockade. "Don't believe it,--don't + believe a word of it," he said. He has always held that language to + me. He added that Prince Napoleon had just come out with a strong + speech about us,--you will see it, doubtless, before you get this + letter,--but it has not yet reached us. + + Shall I say anything of Austria,--what can I say that would interest + you? That's the reason why I hate to write. All my thoughts are in + America. Do you care to know about the Archduke Ferdinand + Maximilian, that shall be King hereafter of Mexico (if L. N. has his + way)? He is next brother to the Emperor, but although I have had + the honor of private audiences of many archdukes here, this one is a + resident of Trieste. + + He is about thirty,--has an adventurous disposition,--some + imagination,--a turn for poetry,--has voyaged a good deal about the + world in the Austrian ship-of-war,--for in one respect he much + resembles that unfortunate but anonymous ancestor of his, the King + of Bohemia with the seven castles, who, according to Corporal Trim, + had such a passion for navigation and sea-affairs, "with never a + seaport in all his dominions." But now the present King of Bohemia + has got the sway of Trieste, and is Lord High Admiral and Chief of + the Marine Department. He has been much in Spain, also in South + America; I have read some travels, "Reise Skizzen," of his--printed, + not published. They are not without talent, and he ever and anon + relieves his prose jog-trot by breaking into a canter of poetry. He + adores bull-fights, and rather regrets the Inquisition, and + considers the Duke of Alva everything noble and chivalrous, and the + most abused of men. It would do your heart good to hear his + invocations to that deeply injured shade, and his denunciations of + the ignorant and vulgar protestants who have defamed him. (N.B. + Let me observe that the R. of the D. R. was not published until long + after the "Reise Skizzen" were written.) 'Du armer Alva! weil du + dem Willen deines Herrn unerschiitterlich treu vast, weil die + festbestimmten grundsatze der Regierung,' etc., etc., etc. You + can imagine the rest. Dear me! I wish I could get back to the + sixteenth and seventeenth century. . . . But alas! the events + of the nineteenth are too engrossing. + + If Lowell cares to read this letter, will you allow me to "make it + over to him jointly," as Captain Cuttle says. I wished to write to + him, but I am afraid only you would tolerate my writing so much when + I have nothing to say. If he would ever send me a line I should be + infinitely obliged, and would quickly respond. We read the "Washers + of the Shroud" with fervid admiration. + + Always remember me most sincerely to the Club, one and all. It + touches me nearly when you assure me that I am not forgotten by + them. To-morrow is Saturday and the last of the month.--[See + Appendix A.]--We are going to dine with our Spanish colleague. But + the first bumper of the Don's champagne I shall drain to the health + of my Parker House friends. + +From another long letter dated August 31, 1862, I extract the following +passages:-- + + "I quite agree in all that you said in your last letter. 'The imp + of secession can't reenter its mother's womb.' It is merely + childish to talk of the Union 'as it was.' You might as well bring + back the Saxon Heptarchy. But the great Republic is destined to + live and flourish, I can't doubt. . . . Do you remember that + wonderful scene in Faust in which Mephistopheles draws wine for the + rabble with a gimlet out of the wooden table; and how it changes to + fire as they drink it, and how they all go mad, draw their knives, + grasp each other by the nose, and think they are cutting off bunches + of grapes at every blow, and how foolish they all look when they + awake from the spell and see how the Devil has been mocking them? + It always seems to me a parable of the great Secession. + + "I repeat, I can't doubt as to the ultimate result. But I dare say + we have all been much mistaken in our calculations as to time. + Days, months, years, are nothing in history. Men die, man is + immortal, practically, even on this earth. We are so impatient, + --and we are always watching for the last scene of the tragedy. Now I + humbly opine that the drop is only about falling on the first act, + or perhaps only the prologue. This act or prologue will be called, + in after days, War for the status quo. Such enthusiasm, heroism, + and manslaughter as status quo could inspire, has, I trust, been not + entirely in vain, but it has been proved insufficient. + + "I firmly believe that when the slaveholders declared war on the + United States government they began a series of events that, in the + logical chain of history, cannot come to a conclusion until the last + vestige of slavery is gone. Looking at the whole field for a moment + dispassionately, objectively, as the dear Teutonic philosophers say, + and merely as an exhibition of phenomena, I cannot imagine any other + issue. Everything else may happen. This alone must happen. + + "But after all this isn't a war. It is a revolution. It is n't + strategists that are wanted so much as believers. In revolutions + the men who win are those who are in earnest. Jeff and Stonewall + and the other Devil-worshippers are in earnest, but it was not + written in the book of fate that the slaveholders' rebellion should + be vanquished by a pro-slavery general. History is never so + illogical. No, the coming 'man on horseback' on our side must be a + great strategist, with the soul of that insane lion, mad old John + Brown, in his belly. That is your only Promethean recipe:-- + + 'et insani leonis + Vim stomacho apposuisse nostro.' + + "I don't know why Horace runs so in my head this morning. . . . + + "There will be work enough for all; but I feel awfully fidgety just + now about Port Royal and Hilton Head, and about affairs generally + for the next three months. After that iron-clads and the new levies + must make us invincible." + +In another letter, dated November 2, 1862, he expresses himself very +warmly about his disappointment in the attitude of many of his old +English friends with reference to our civil conflict. He had recently +heard the details of the death of "the noble Wilder Dwight." + + "It is unnecessary," he says, "to say how deeply we were moved. I + had the pleasure of knowing him well, and I always appreciated his + energy, his manliness, and his intelligent cheerful heroism. I look + back upon him now as a kind of heroic type of what a young New + Englander ought to be and was. I tell you that one of these days + --after a generation of mankind has passed away--these youths will + take their places in our history, and be regarded by the young men + and women now unborn with the admiration which the Philip Sidneys + and the Max Piccolominis now inspire. After all, what was your + Chevy Chace to stir blood with like a trumpet? What noble + principle, what deathless interest, was there at stake? Nothing but + a bloody fight between a lot of noble gamekeepers on one side and of + noble poachers on the other. And because they fought well and + hacked each other to pieces like devils, they have been heroes for + centuries." + +The letter was written in a very excited state of feeling, and runs over +with passionate love of country and indignation at the want of sympathy +with the cause of freedom which he had found in quarters where he had not +expected such coldness or hostile tendencies. + +From a letter dated Vienna, September 22, 1863. + + . . . "When you wrote me last you said on general matters this: + 'In a few days we shall get the news of the success or failure of + the attacks on Port Hudson and Vicksburg. If both are successful, + many will say that the whole matter is about settled.' You may + suppose that when I got the great news I shook hands warmly with you + in the spirit across the Atlantic. Day by day for so long we had + been hoping to hear the fall of Vicksburg. At last when that little + concentrated telegram came, announcing Vicksburg and Gettysburg on + the same day and in two lines, I found myself almost alone. . . . + There was nobody in the house to join in my huzzahs but my youngest + infant. And my conduct very much resembled that of the excellent + Philip II. when he heard the fall of Antwerp,--for I went to her + door, screeching through the key-hole 'Vicksburg is ours!' just as + that other 'pere de famille,' more potent, but I trust not more + respectable than I, conveyed the news to his Infanta. (Fide, for + the incident, an American work on the Netherlands, i. p. 263, and + the authorities there cited.) It is contemptible on my part to + speak thus frivolously of events which will stand out in such golden + letters so long as America has a history, but I wanted to illustrate + the yearning for sympathy which I felt. You who were among people + grim and self-contained usually, who, I trust, were falling on each + other's necks in the public streets, shouting, with tears in their + eyes and triumph in their hearts, can picture my isolation. + + "I have never faltered in my faith, and in the darkest hours, when + misfortunes seemed thronging most thickly upon us, I have never felt + the want of anything to lean against; but I own I did feel like + shaking hands with a few hundred people when I heard of our Fourth + of July, 1863, work, and should like to have heard and joined in an + American cheer or two. + + "I have not much to say of matters here to interest you. We have + had an intensely hot, historically hot, and very long and very dry + summer. I never knew before what a drought meant. In Hungary the + suffering is great, and the people are killing the sheep to feed the + pigs with the mutton. Here about Vienna the trees have been almost + stripped of foliage ever since the end of August. There is no glory + in the grass nor verdure in anything. + + "In fact, we have nothing green here but the Archduke Max, who + firmly believes that he is going forth to Mexico to establish an + American empire, and that it is his divine mission to destroy the + dragon of democracy and reestablish the true Church, the Right + Divine, and all sorts of games. Poor young man! . . . + + "Our information from home is to the 12th. Charleston seems to be + in 'articulo mortis,' but how forts nowadays seem to fly in the face + of Scripture. Those founded on a rock, and built of it, fall easily + enough under the rain of Parrotts and Dahlgrens, while the house + built of sand seems to bid defiance to the storm." + +In quoting from these confidential letters I have been restrained from +doing full justice to their writer by the fact that he spoke with such +entire freedom of persons as well as events. But if they could be read +from beginning to end, no one could help feeling that his love for his +own country, and passionate absorption of every thought in the strife +upon which its existence as a nation depended, were his very life during +all this agonizing period. He can think and talk of nothing else, or, if +he turns for a moment to other subjects, he reverts to the one great +central interest of "American politics," of which he says in one of the +letters from which I have quoted, "There is nothing else worth thinking +of in the world." + +But in spite of his public record as the historian of the struggle for +liberty and the champion of its defenders, and while every letter he +wrote betrayed in every word the intensity of his patriotic feeling, he +was not safe against the attacks of malevolence. A train laid by unseen +hands was waiting for the spark to kindle it, and this came at last in +the shape of a letter from an unknown individual,--a letter the existence +of which ought never to have been a matter of official recognition. + + + + +XVIII. + +1866-1867. AEt. 52-43. +RESIGNATION OF HIS OFFICE.--CAUSES OF HIS RESIGNATION. + +It is a relief to me that just here, where I come to the first of two +painful episodes in this brilliant and fortunate career, I can preface my +statement with the generous words of one who speaks with authority of his +predecessor in office. + +The Hon. John Jay, Ex-Minister to Austria, in the tribute to the memory +of Motley read at a meeting of the New York Historical Society, wrote as +follows:-- + + "In singular contrast to Mr. Motley's brilliant career as an + historian stands the fact recorded in our diplomatic annals that he + was twice forced from the service as one who had forfeited the + confidence of the American government. This society, while he was + living, recognized his fame as a statesman, diplomatist, and + patriot, as belonging to America, and now that death has closed the + career of Seward, Sumner, and Motley, it will be remembered that the + great historian, twice humiliated, by orders from Washington, before + the diplomacy and culture of Europe, appealed from the passions of + the hour to the verdict of history. + + "Having succeeded Mr. Motley at Vienna some two years after his + departure, I had occasion to read most of his dispatches, which + exhibited a mastery of the subjects of which they treated, with much + of the clear perception, the scholarly and philosophic tone and + decided judgment, which, supplemented by his picturesque + description, full of life and color, have given character to his + histories. They are features which might well have served to extend + the remark of Madame de Stael that a great historian is almost a + statesman. I can speak also from my own observation of the + reputation which Motley left in the Austrian capital. + Notwithstanding the decision with which, under the direction of Mr. + Seward, he had addressed the minister of foreign affairs, Count + Mensdorff, afterwards the Prince Diedrickstein, protesting against + the departure of an Austrian force of one thousand volunteers, who + were about to embark for Mexico in aid of the ill-fated Maximilian, + --a protest which at the last moment arrested the project,--Mr. + Motley and his amiable family were always spoken of in terms of + cordial regard and respect by members of the imperial family and + those eminent statesmen, Count de Beust and Count Andrassy. His + death, I am sure, is mourned to-day by the representatives of the + historic names of Austria and Hungary, and by the surviving + diplomats then residing near the Court of Vienna, wherever they may + still be found, headed by their venerable Doyen, the Baron de + Heckeren." + +The story of Mr. Motley's resignation of his office and its acceptance by +the government is this. + +The President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, received a letter +professing to be written from the Hotel Meurice, Paris, dated October 23, +1866, and signed "George W. M'Crackin, of New York." This letter was +filled with accusations directed against various public agents, +ministers, and consuls, representing the United States in different +countries. Its language was coarse, its assertions were improbable, its +spirit that of the lowest of party scribblers. It was bitter against New +England, especially so against Massachusetts, and it singled out Motley +for the most particular abuse. I think it is still questioned whether +there was any such person as the one named,--at any rate, it bore the +characteristic marks of those vulgar anonymous communications which +rarely receive any attention unless they are important enough to have the +police set on the track of the writer to find his rathole, if possible. A +paragraph in the "Daily Advertiser" of June 7, 1869, quotes from a +Western paper a story to the effect that one William R. M'Crackin, who +had recently died at-----confessed to having written the M' Crackin +letter. Motley, he said, had snubbed him and refused to lend him money. +"He appears to have been a Bohemian of the lowest order." Between such +authorship and the anonymous there does not seem to be much to choose. +But the dying confession sounds in my ears as decidedly apocryphal. As +for the letter, I had rather characterize it than reproduce it. It is an +offence to decency and a disgrace to the national record on which it is +found. This letter of "George W. M'Crackin" passed into the hands of Mr. +Seward, the Secretary of State. Most gentlemen, I think, would have +destroyed it on the spot, as it was not fit for the waste-basket. Some, +more cautious, might have smothered it among the piles of their private +communications. If any notice was taken of it, one would say that a +private note to each of the gentlemen attacked might have warned him that +there were malicious eavesdroppers about, ready to catch up any careless +expression he might let fall and make a scandalous report of it to his +detriment. + +The secretary, acquiescing without resistance in a suggestion of the +President, saw fit to address a formal note to several of the gentlemen +mentioned in the M'Crackin letter, repeating some of its offensive +expressions, and requesting those officials to deny or confirm the report +that they had uttered them. + +A gentleman who is asked whether he has spoken in a "malignant" or +"offensive" manner, whether he has "railed violently and shamefully" +against the President of the United States, or against anybody else, +might well wonder who would address such a question to the humblest +citizen not supposed to be wanting in a common measure of self-respect. A +gentleman holding an important official station in a foreign country, +receiving a letter containing such questions, signed by the prime +minister of his government, if he did not think himself imposed upon by a +forgery, might well consider himself outraged. It was a letter of this +kind which was sent by the Secretary of State to the Minister +Plenipotentiary to the Empire of Austria. Not quite all the vulgar +insolence of the M'Crackin letter was repeated. Mr. Seward did not ask +Mr. Motley to deny or confirm the assertion of the letter that he was a +"thorough flunky" and "un-American functionary." But he did insult him +with various questions suggested by the anonymous letter,--questions that +must have been felt as an indignity by the most thick-skinned of battered +politicians. + +Mr. Motley was very sensitive, very high-spirited, very impulsive, very +patriotic, and singularly truthful. The letter of Mr. Seward to such a +man was like a buffet on the cheek of an unarmed officer. It stung like +the thrust of a stiletto. It roused a resentment that could not find any +words to give it expression. He could not wait to turn the insult over in +his mind, to weigh the exact amount of affront in each question, to take +counsel, to sleep over it, and reply to it with diplomatic measure and +suavity. One hour had scarcely elapsed before his answer was written. As +to his feelings as an American, he appeals to his record. This might have +shown that if he erred it was on the side of enthusiasm and extravagant +expressions of reverence for the American people during the heroic years +just passed. He denounces the accusations as pitiful fabrications and +vile calumny. He blushes that such charges could have been uttered; he is +deeply wounded that Mr. Seward could have listened to such falsehood. He +does not hesitate to say what his opinions are with reference to home +questions, and especially to that of reconstruction. + + "These opinions," he says, "in the privacy of my own household, and + to occasional American visitors, I have not concealed. The great + question now presenting itself for solution demands the + conscientious scrutiny of every American who loves his country and + believes in the human progress of which that country is one of the + foremost representatives. I have never thought, during my residence + at Vienna, that because I have the honor of being a public servant + of the American people I am deprived of the right of discussing + within my own walls the gravest subjects that can interest freemen. + A minister of the United States does not cease to be a citizen of + the United States, as deeply interested as others in all that + relates to the welfare of his country." + +Among the "occasional American visitors" spoken of above must have been +some of those self-appointed or hired agents called "interviewers," who +do for the American public what the Venetian spies did for the Council of +Ten, what the familiars of the Inquisition did for the priesthood, who +invade every public man's privacy, who listen at every key-hole, who +tamper with every guardian of secrets; purveyors to the insatiable +appetite of a public which must have a slain reputation to devour with +its breakfast, as the monster of antiquity called regularly for his +tribute of a spotless virgin. + +The "interviewer" has his use, undoubtedly, and often instructs and +amuses his public with gossip they could not otherwise listen to. He +serves the politician by repeating the artless and unstudied remarks +which fall from his lips in a conversation which the reporter has been +invited to take notes of. He tickles the author's vanity by showing him +off as he sits in his library unconsciously uttering the engaging items +of self-portraiture which, as he well knows, are to be given to the +public in next week's illustrated paper. The feathered end of his shaft +titillates harmlessly enough, but too often the arrowhead is crusted with +a poison worse than the Indian gets by mingling the wolf's gall with the +rattlesnake's venom. No man is safe whose unguarded threshold the +mischief-making questioner has crossed. The more unsuspecting, the more +frank, the more courageous, the more social is the subject of his +vivisection, the more easily does he get at his vital secrets, if he has +any to be extracted. No man is safe if the hearsay reports of his +conversation are to be given to the public without his own careful +revision. When we remember that a proof-text bearing on the mighty +question of the future life, words of supreme significance, uttered as +they were in the last hour, and by the lips to which we listen as to none +other,--that this text depends for its interpretation on the position of +a single comma, we can readily see what wrong may be done by the +unintentional blunder of the most conscientious reporter. But too +frequently it happens that the careless talk of an honest and high-minded +man only reaches the public after filtering through the drain of some +reckless hireling's memory,--one who has played so long with other men's +characters and good name that he forgets they have any value except to +fill out his morning paragraphs. + +Whether the author of the scandalous letter which it was disgraceful to +the government to recognize was a professional interviewer or only a +malicious amateur, or whether he was a paid "spotter," sent by some +jealous official to report on the foreign ministers as is sometimes done +in the case of conductors of city horsecars, or whether the dying +miscreant before mentioned told the truth, cannot be certainly known. But +those who remember Mr. Hawthorne's account of his consular experiences at +Liverpool are fully aware to what intrusions and impertinences and +impositions our national representatives in other countries are +subjected. Those fellow-citizens who "often came to the consulate in +parties of half a dozen or more, on no business whatever, but merely to +subject their public servant to a rigid examination, and see how he was +getting on with his duties," may very possibly have included among them +some such mischief-maker as the author of the odious letter which +received official recognition. Mr. Motley had spoken in one of his +histories of "a set of venomous familiars who glided through every +chamber and coiled themselves at every fireside." He little thought that +under his own roof he himself was to be the victim of an equally base +espionage. + +It was an insult on the part of the government to have sent Mr. Motley +such a letter with such questions as were annexed to it. No very exact +rule can be laid down as to the manner in which an insult shall be dealt +with. Something depends on temperament, and his was of the warmer +complexion. His first impulse, he says, was to content himself with a +flat denial of the truth of the accusations. But his scrupulous honesty +compelled him to make a plain statement of his opinions, and to avow the +fact that he had made no secret of them in conversation under conditions +where he had a right to speak freely of matters quite apart from his +official duties. His answer to the accusation was denial of its charges; +his reply to the insult was his resignation. + +It may be questioned whether this was the wisest course, but wisdom is +often disconcerted by an indignity, and even a meek Christian may forget +to turn the other cheek after receiving the first blow until the natural +man has asserted himself by a retort in kind. But the wrong was +committed; his resignation was accepted; the vulgar letter, not fit to be +spread out on these pages, is enrolled in the records of the nation, and +the first deep wound was inflicted on the proud spirit of one whose +renown had shed lustre on the whole country. + +That the burden of this wrong may rest where it belongs, I quote the +following statement from Mr. Jay's paper, already referred to. + + "It is due to the memory of Mr. Seward to say, and there would seem + now no further motive for concealing the truth, that I was told in + Europe, on what I regarded as reliable authority, that there was + reason to believe that on the receipt of Mr. Motley's resignation + Mr. Seward had written to him declining to accept it, and that this + letter, by a telegraphic order of President Johnson, had been + arrested in the hands of a dispatch agent before its delivery to Mr. + Motley, and that the curt letter of the 18th of April had been + substituted in its stead." + +The Hon. John Bigelow, late Minister to France, has published an article +in "The International Review" for July-August, 1878, in which he defends +his late friend Mr. Seward's action in this matter at the expense of the +President, Mr. Andrew Johnson, and not without inferences unfavorable to +the discretion of Mr. Motley. Many readers will think that the simple +record of Mr. Seward's unresisting acquiescence in the action of the +President is far from being to his advantage. I quote from his own +conversation as carefully reported by his friend Mr. Bigelow. "Mr. +Johnson was in a state of intense irritation, and more or less suspicious +of everybody about him."--"Instead of throwing the letter into the fire," +the President handed it to him, the secretary, and suggested answering +it, and without a word, so far as appears, he simply answered, +"Certainly, sir." Again, the secretary having already written to Mr. +Motley that "his answer was satisfactory," the President, on reaching the +last paragraph of Mr. Motley's letter, in which he begged respectfully to +resign his post, "without waiting to learn what Mr. Seward had done or +proposed to do, exclaimed, with a not unnatural asperity, 'Well, let him +go,' and 'on hearing this,' said Mr. Seward, laughing, 'I did not read my +dispatch.'" Many persons will think that the counsel for the defence has +stated the plaintiff's case so strongly that there is nothing left for +him but to show his ingenuity and his friendship for the late secretary +in a hopeless argument. At any rate, Mr. Seward appears not to have made +the slightest effort to protect Mr. Motley against his coarse and jealous +chief at two critical moments, and though his own continuance in office +may have been more important to the State than that of the Vicar of Bray +was to the Church, he ought to have risked something, as it seems to me, +to shield such a patriot, such a gentleman, such a scholar, from ignoble +treatment; he ought to have been as ready to guard Mr. Motley from wrong +as Mr. Bigelow has shown himself to shield Mr. Seward from reproach, and +his task, if more delicate, was not more difficult. I am willing to +accept Mr. Bigelow's loyal and honorable defence of his friend's memory +as the best that could be said for Mr. Seward, but the best defence in +this case is little better than an impeachment. As for Mr. Johnson, he +had held the weapon of the most relentless of the 'Parcae' so long that +his suddenly clipping the thread of a foreign minister's tenure of office +in a fit of jealous anger is not at all surprising. + +Thus finished Mr. Motley's long and successful diplomatic service at the +Court of Austria. He may have been judged hasty in resigning his place; +he may have committed himself in expressing his opinions too strongly +before strangers, whose true character as spies and eavesdroppers he was +too high-minded to suspect. But no caution could have protected him +against a slanderer who hated the place he came from, the company he +kept, the name he had made famous, to whom his very look and bearing +--such as belong to a gentleman of natural refinement and good breeding +--must have been a personal grievance and an unpardonable offence. + +I will add, in illustration of what has been said, and as showing his +feeling with reference to the matter, an extract from a letter to me from +Vienna, dated the 12th of March, 1867. + + . . . "As so many friends and so many strangers have said so much + that is gratifying to me in public and private on this very painful + subject, it would be like affectation, in writing to so old a friend + as you, not to touch upon it. I shall confine myself, however, to + one fact, which, so far as I know, may be new to you. + + "Geo. W. M'Cracken is a man and a name utterly unknown to me. + + "With the necessary qualification which every man who values truth + must make when asserting such a negation,--viz., to the very best of + my memory and belief,--I never set eyes on him nor heard of him + until now, in the whole course of my life. Not a member of my + family or of the legation has the faintest recollection of any such + person. I am quite convinced that he never saw me nor heard the + sound of my voice. That his letter was a tissue of vile calumnies, + shameless fabrications, and unblushing and contemptible falsehoods, + --by whomsoever uttered,--I have stated in a reply to what ought + never to have been an official letter. No man can regret more than + I do that such a correspondence is enrolled in the capital among + American state papers. I shall not trust myself to speak of the + matter. It has been a sufficiently public scandal." + + + + +XIX. + +1867-1868. AEt. 53-54. + +LAST TWO VOLUMES OF THE "HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS."--GENERAL +CRITICISMS OF DUTCH SCHOLARS ON MOTLEY'S HISTORICAL WORKS. + +In his letter to me of March 12, 1867, just cited, Mr. Motley writes:-- + + "My two concluding volumes of the United Netherlands are passing + rapidly through the press. Indeed, Volume III. is entirely printed + and a third of Volume IV. + + "If I live ten years longer I shall have probably written the + natural sequel to the first two works,--viz., the Thirty Years' War. + After that I shall cease to scourge the public. + + "I don't know whether my last two volumes are good or bad; I only + know that they are true--but that need n't make them amusing. + + "Alas! one never knows when one becomes a bore." + +In 1868 the two concluding volumes of the "History of the Netherlands" +were published at the same time in London and in New York. The events +described and the characters delineated in these two volumes had, +perhaps, less peculiar interest for English and American readers than +some of those which had lent attraction to the preceding ones. There was +no scene like the siege of Antwerp, no story like that of the Spanish +Armada. There were no names that sounded to our ears like those of Sir +Philip Sidney and Leicester and Amy Robsart. But the main course of his +narrative flowed on with the same breadth and depth of learning and the +same brilliancy of expression. The monumental work continued as nobly as +it had begun. The facts had been slowly, quietly gathered, one by one, +like pebbles from the empty channel of a brook. The style was fluent, +impetuous, abundant, impatient, as it were, at times, and leaping the +sober boundaries prescribed to it, like the torrent which rushes through +the same channel when the rains have filled it. Thus there was matter for +criticism in his use of language. He was not always careful in the +construction of his sentences. He introduced expressions now and then +into his vocabulary which reminded one of his earlier literary efforts. +He used stronger language at times than was necessary, coloring too +highly, shading too deeply in his pictorial delineations. To come to the +matter of his narrative, it must be granted that not every reader will +care to follow him through all the details of diplomatic intrigues which +he has with such industry and sagacity extricated from the old +manuscripts in which they had long lain hidden. But we turn a few pages +and we come to one of those descriptions which arrest us at once and show +him in his power and brilliancy as a literary artist. His characters move +before us with the features of life; we can see Elizabeth, or Philip, or +Maurice, not as a name connected with events, but as a breathing and +acting human being, to be loved or hated, admired or despised, as if he +or she were our contemporary. That all his judgments would not be +accepted as final we might easily anticipate; he could not help writing +more or less as a partisan, but he was a partisan on the side of freedom +in politics and religion, of human nature as against every form of +tyranny, secular or priestly, of noble manhood wherever he saw it as +against meanness and violence and imposture, whether clad in the +soldier's mail or the emperor's purple. His sternest critics, and even +these admiring ones, were yet to be found among those who with +fundamental beliefs at variance with his own followed him in his long +researches among the dusty annals of the past. + +The work of the learned M. Groen van Prinsterer,--[Maurice et Barnevelt, +Etude Historique. Utrecht, 1875.]--devoted expressly to the revision and +correction of what the author considers the erroneous views of Mr. Motley +on certain important points, bears, notwithstanding, such sincere and +hearty tribute to his industry, his acquisitions, his brilliant qualities +as a historian, that some extracts from it will be read, I think, with +interest. + + "My first interview, more than twenty years ago, with Mr. Lothrop + Motley, has left an indelible impression on my memory. + + "It was the 8th of August, 1853. A note is handed me from our + eminent archivist Bakhuyzen van den Brink. It informs me that I am + to receive a visit from an American, who, having been struck by the + analogies between the United Provinces and the United States, + between Washington and the founder of our independence, has + interrupted his diplomatic career to write the life of William the + First; that he has already given proof of ardor and perseverance, + having worked in libraries and among collections of manuscripts, + and that he is coming to pursue his studies at the Hague. + + "While I am surprised and delighted with this intelligence, I am + informed that Mr. Motley himself is waiting for my answer. My + eagerness to make the acquaintance of such an associate in my + sympathies and my labors may be well imagined. But how shall I + picture my surprise, in presently discovering that this unknown and + indefatigable fellow-worker has really read, I say read and reread, + our Quartos, our Folios, the enormous volumes of Bor, of van + Meteren, besides a multitude of books, of pamphlets, and even of + unedited documents. Already he is familiar with the events, the + changes of condition, the characteristic details of the life of his + and my hero. Not only is he acquainted with my Archives, but it + seems as if there was nothing in this voluminous collection of which + he was ignorant. . . . + + "In sending me the last volume of his 'History of the Foundation of + the Republic of the Netherlands,' Mr. Motley wrote to me: 'Without + the help of the Archives I could never have undertaken the difficult + task I had set myself, and you will have seen at least from my + numerous citations that I have made a sincere and conscientious + study of them.' Certainly in reading such a testimonial I + congratulated myself on the excellent fruit of my labors, but the + gratitude expressed to me by Mr. Motley was sincerely reciprocated. + The Archives are a scientific collection, and my 'Manual of National + History,' written in Dutch, hardly gets beyond the limits of my own + country. And here is a stranger, become our compatriot in virtue of + the warmth of his sympathies, who has accomplished what was not in + my power. By the detail and the charm of his narrative, by the + matter and form of a work which the universality of the English + language and numerous translations were to render cosmopolitan, Mr. + Motley, like that other illustrious historian, Prescott, lost to + science by too early death, has popularized in both hemispheres the + sublime devotion of the Prince of Orange, the exceptional and + providential destinies of my country, and the benedictions of the + Eternal for all those who trust in Him and tremble only at his + Word." + +The old Dutch scholar differs in many important points from Mr. Motley, +as might be expected from his creed and his life-long pursuits. This I +shall refer to in connection with Motley's last work, "John of +Barneveld." An historian among archivists and annalists reminds one of +Sir John Lubbock in the midst of his ant-hills. Undoubtedly he disturbs +the ants in their praiseworthy industry, much as his attentions may +flatter them. Unquestionably the ants (if their means of expressing +themselves were equal to their apparent intellectual ability) could teach +him many things that he has overlooked and correct him in many mistakes. +But the ants will labor ingloriously without an observer to chronicle +their doings, and the archivists and annalists will pile up facts forever +like so many articulates or mollusks or radiates, until the vertebrate +historian comes with his generalizing ideas, his beliefs, his prejudices, +his idiosyncrasies of all kinds, and brings the facts into a more or less +imperfect, but still organic series of relations. The history which is +not open to adverse criticism is worth little, except as material, for it +is written without taking cognizance of those higher facts about which +men must differ; of which Guizot writes as follows, as quoted in the work +of M. Groen van Prinsterer himself. + + "It is with facts that our minds are exercised, it has nothing but + facts as its materials, and when it discovers general laws these + laws are themselves facts which it determines. . . . In the + study of facts the intelligence may allow itself to be crushed; it + may lower, narrow, materialize itself; it may come to believe that + there are no facts except those which strike us at the first glance, + which come close to us, which fall, as we say, under our senses; a + great and gross error; there are remote facts, immense, obscure, + sublime, very difficult to reach, to observe, to describe, and which + are not any less facts for these reasons, and which man is not less + obliged to study and to know; and if he fails to recognize them or + forgets them, his thought will be prodigiously abashed, and all his + ideas carry the stamp of this deterioration." + +In that higher region of facts which belongs to the historian, whose task +it is to interpret as well as to transcribe, Mr. Motley showed, of +course, the political and religious school in which he had been brought +up. Every man has a right to his "personal equation" of prejudice, and +Mr. Motley, whose ardent temperament gave life to his writings, betrayed +his sympathies in the disputes of which he told the story, in a way to +insure sharp criticism from those of a different way of thinking. Thus it +is that in the work of M. Groen van Prinsterer, from which I have quoted, +he is considered as having been betrayed into error, while his critic +recognizes "his manifest desire to be scrupulously impartial and +truth-telling." And M. Fruin, another of his Dutch critics, says, "His +sincerity, his perspicacity, the accuracy of his laborious researches, +are incontestable." + +Some of the criticisms of Dutch scholars will be considered in the pages +which deal with his last work, "The Life of John of Barneveld." + + + + +XX. + +1868-1869. AEt. 54-55. + +VISIT TO AMERICA.--RESIDENCE AT NO. 2 PARK STREET, BOSTON.--ADDRESS ON +THE COMING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.--ADDRESS ON HISTORIC PROGRESS AND +AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.--APPOINTED MINISTER TO ENGLAND. + +In June, 1868, Mr. Motley returned with his family to Boston, and +established himself in the house No. 2 Park Street. During his residence +here he entered a good deal into society, and entertained many visitors +in a most hospitable and agreeable way. + +On the 20th of October, 1868, he delivered an address before the Parker +Fraternity, in the Music Hall, by special invitation. Its title was "Four +Questions for the People, at the Presidential Election." This was of +course what is commonly called an electioneering speech, but a speech +full of noble sentiments and eloquent expression. Here are two of its +paragraphs:-- + + "Certainly there have been bitterly contested elections in this + country before. Party spirit is always rife, and in such vivid, + excitable, disputatious communities as ours are, and I trust always + will be, it is the very soul of freedom. To those who reflect upon + the means and end of popular government, nothing seems more stupid + than in grand generalities to deprecate party spirit. Why, + government by parties and through party machinery is the only + possible method by which a free government can accomplish the + purpose of its existence. The old republics of the past may be said + to have fallen, not because of party spirit, but because there was + no adequate machinery by which party spirit could develop itself + with facility and regularity. + + "And if our Republic be true to herself, the future of the human + race is assured by our example. No sweep of overwhelming armies, no + ponderous treatises on the rights of man, no hymns to liberty, + though set to martial music and resounding with the full diapason of + a million human throats, can exert so persuasive an influence as + does the spectacle of a great republic, occupying a quarter of the + civilized globe, and governed quietly and sagely by the people + itself." + +A large portion of this address is devoted to the proposition that it is +just and reasonable to pay our debts rather than to repudiate them, and +that the nation is as much bound to be honest as is the individual. "It +is an awful thing," he says, "that this should be a question at all," but +it was one of the points on which the election turned, for all that. + +In his advocacy of the candidate with whom, and the government of which +he became the head, his relations became afterwards so full of personal +antagonism, he spoke as a man of his ardent nature might be expected to +speak on such an occasion. No one doubts that his admiration of General +Grant's career was perfectly sincere, and no one at the present day can +deny that the great captain stood before the historian with such a record +as one familiar with the deeds of heroes and patriots might well consider +as entitling him to the honors too often grudged to the living to be +wasted on the dead. The speaker only gave voice to the widely prevailing +feelings which had led to his receiving the invitation to speak. The time +was one which called for outspoken utterance, and there was not a +listener whose heart did not warm as he heard the glowing words in which +the speaker recorded the noble achievements of the soldier who must in so +many ways have reminded him of his favorite character, William the +Silent. + +On the 16th of December of this same year, 1868, Mr. Motley delivered an +address before the New York Historical Society, on the occasion of the +sixty-fourth anniversary of its foundation. The president of the society, +Mr. Hamilton Fish, introduced the speaker as one "whose name belongs to +no single country, and to no single age. As a statesman and diplomatist +and patriot, he belongs to America; as a scholar, to the world of +letters; as a historian, all ages will claim him in the future." + +His subject was "Historic Progress and American Democracy." The discourse +is, to use his own words, "a rapid sweep through the eons and the +centuries," illustrating the great truth of the development of the race +from its origin to the time in which we are living. It is a long distance +from the planetary fact of the obliquity of the equator, which gave the +earth its alternation of seasons, and rendered the history, if not the +existence of man and of civilization a possibility, to the surrender of +General Lee under the apple-tree at Appomattox Court-House. No one but a +scholar familiar with the course of history could have marshalled such a +procession of events into a connected and intelligible sequence. It is +indeed a flight rather than a march; the reader is borne along as on the +wings of a soaring poem, and sees the rising and decaying empires of +history beneath him as a bird of passage marks the succession of cities +and wilds and deserts as he keeps pace with the sun in his journey. + +Its eloquence, its patriotism, its crowded illustrations, drawn from vast +resources of knowledge, its epigrammatic axioms, its occasional +pleasantries, are all characteristic of the writer. + +Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, the venerable senior member of the society, +proposed the vote of thanks to Mr. Motley with words of warm +commendation. + +Mr. William Cullen Bryant rose and said:-- + + "I take great pleasure in seconding the resolution which has just + been read. The eminent historian of the Dutch Republic, who has + made the story of its earlier days as interesting as that of Athens + and Sparta, and who has infused into the narrative the generous glow + of his own genius, has the highest of titles to be heard with + respectful attention by the citizens of a community which, in its + origin, was an offshoot of that renowned republic. And cheerfully + has that title been recognized, as the vast audience assembled here + to-night, in spite of the storm, fully testifies; and well has our + illustrious friend spoken of the growth of civilization and of the + improvement in the condition of mankind, both in the Old World--the + institutions of which he has so lately observed--and in the country + which is proud to claim him as one of her children." + +Soon after the election of General Grant, Mr. Motley received the +appointment of Minister to England. That the position was one which was +in many respects most agreeable to him cannot be doubted. Yet it was not +with unmingled feelings of satisfaction, not without misgivings which +warned him but too truly of the dangers about to encompass him, that he +accepted the place. He writes to me on April 16, 1869:-- + + "I feel anything but exultation at present,--rather the opposite + sensation. I feel that I am placed higher than I deserve, and at + the same time that I am taking greater responsibilities than ever + were assumed by me before. You will be indulgent to my mistakes and + shortcomings,--and who can expect to avoid them? But the world will + be cruel, and the times are threatening. I shall do my best,--but + the best may be poor enough,--and keep 'a heart for any fate.'" + + + + +XXI. + +1869-1870. AEt. 55-56. +RECALL FROM THE ENGLISH MISSION.--ITS ALLEGED AND ITS PROBABLE REASONS. + +The misgivings thus expressed to me in confidence, natural enough in one +who had already known what it is to fall on evil days and evil tongues, +were but too well justified by after events. I could have wished to leave +untold the story of the English mission, an episode in Motley's life full +of heart-burnings, and long to be regretted as a passage of American +history. But his living appeal to my indulgence comes to me from his +grave as a call for his defence, however little needed, at least as a +part of my tribute to his memory. It is little needed, because the case +is clear enough to all intelligent readers of our diplomatic history, and +because his cause has been amply sustained by others in many ways better +qualified than myself to do it justice. The task is painful, for if a +wrong was done him it must be laid at the doors of those whom the nation +has delighted to honor, and whose services no error of judgment or +feeling or conduct can ever induce us to forget. If he confessed him, +self-liable, like the rest of us, to mistakes and shortcomings, we must +remember that the great officers of the government who decreed his +downfall were not less the subjects of human infirmity. + +The outline to be filled up is this: A new administration had just been +elected. The "Alabama Treaty," negotiated by Motley's predecessor, Mr. +Reverdy Johnson, had been rejected by the Senate. The minister was +recalled, and Motley, nominated without opposition and unanimously +confirmed by the Senate, was sent to England in his place. He was +welcomed most cordially on his arrival at Liverpool, and replied in a +similar strain of good feeling, expressing the same kindly sentiments +which may be found in his instructions. Soon after arriving in London he +had a conversation with Lord Clarendon, the British Foreign Secretary, of +which he sent a full report to his own government. While the reported +conversation was generally approved of in the government's dispatch +acknowledging it, it was hinted that some of its expressions were +stronger than were required by the instructions, and that one of its +points was not conveyed in precise conformity with the President's view. +The criticism was very gently worded, and the dispatch closed with a +somewhat guarded paragraph repeating the government's approbation. + +This was the first offence alleged against Mr. Motley. The second ground +of complaint was that he had shown written minutes of this conversation +to Lord Clarendon to obtain his confirmation of its exactness, and that +he had--as he said, inadvertently,--omitted to make mention to the +government of this circumstance until some weeks after the time of the +interview. + +He was requested to explain to Lord Clarendon that a portion of his +presentation and treatment of the subject discussed at the interview +immediately after his arrival was disapproved by the Secretary of State, +and he did so in a written communication, in which he used the very words +employed by Mr. Fish in his criticism of the conversation with Lord +Clarendon. An alleged mistake; a temperate criticism, coupled with a +general approval; a rectification of the mistake criticised. All this +within the first two months of Mr. Motley's official residence in London. + +No further fault was found with him, so far as appears, in the discharge +of his duties, to which he must have devoted himself faithfully, for he +writes to me, under the date of December 27, 1870: "I have worked harder +in the discharge of this mission than I ever did in my life." This from a +man whose working powers astonished the old Dutch archivist, Groen van +Prinsterer, means a good deal. + +More than a year had elapsed since the interview with Lord Clarendon, +which had been the subject of criticism. In the mean time a paper of +instructions was sent to Motley, dated September 25, 1869, in which the +points in the report of his interview which had been found fault with are +so nearly covered by similar expressions, that there seemed no real +ground left for difference between the government and the minister. +Whatever over-statement there had been, these new instructions would +imply that the government was now ready to go quite as far as the +minister had gone, and in some points to put the case still more +strongly. Everything was going on quietly. Important business had been +transacted, with no sign of distrust or discontent on the part of the +government as regarded Motley. Whatever mistake he was thought to have +committed was condoned by amicable treatment, neutralized by the virtual +indorsement of the government in the instructions of the 25th of +September, and obsolete as a ground of quarrel by lapse of time. The +question about which the misunderstanding, if such it deserves to be +called, had taken place, was no longer a possible source of disagreement, +as it had long been settled that the Alabama case should only be opened +again at the suggestion of the British government, and that it should be +transferred to Washington whenever that suggestion should again bring it +up for consideration. + +Such was the aspect of affairs at the American Legation in London. No +foreign minister felt more secure in his place than Mr. Motley. "I +thought myself," he says in the letter of December 27, "entirely in the +confidence of my own government, and I know that I had the thorough +confidence and the friendship of the leading personages in England." All +at once, on the first of July, 1870, a letter was written by the +Secretary of State, requesting him to resign. This gentle form of +violence is well understood in the diplomatic service. Horace Walpole +says, speaking of Lady Archibald Hamilton: "They have civilly asked her +and grossly forced her to ask civilly to go away, which she has done, +with a pension of twelve hundred a year." Such a request is like the +embrace of the "virgin" in old torture-chambers. She is robed in soft +raiment, but beneath it are the knife-blades which are ready to lacerate +and kill the victim, if he awaits the pressure of the machinery already +in motion. + +Mr. Motley knew well what was the logical order in an official execution, +and saw fit to let the government work its will upon him as its servant. +In November he was recalled. + +The recall of a minister under such circumstances is an unusual if not an +unprecedented occurrence. The government which appoints a citizen to +represent the country at a foreign court assumes a very serious +obligation to him. The next administration may turn him out and nothing +will be thought of it. He may be obliged to ask for his passports and +leave all at once if war is threatened between his own country and that +which he represents. He may, of course, be recalled for gross misconduct. +But his dismissal is very serious matter to him personally, and not to be +thought of on the ground of passion or caprice. Marriage is a simple +business, but divorce is a very different thing. The world wants to know +the reason of it; the law demands its justification. It was a great blow +to Mr. Motley, a cause of indignation to those who were interested in +him, a surprise and a mystery to the world in general. + +When he, his friends, and the public, all startled by this unexpected +treatment, looked to find an explanation of it, one was found which +seemed to many quite sufficient. Mr. Sumner had been prominent among +those who had favored his appointment. A very serious breach had taken +place between the President and Mr. Sumner on the important San Domingo +question. It was a quarrel, in short, neither more nor less, at least so +far as the President was concerned. The proposed San Domingo treaty had +just been rejected by the Senate, on the thirtieth day of June, and +immediately thereupon,--the very next day,--the letter requesting Mr. +Motley's resignation was issued by the executive. This fact was +interpreted as implying something more than a mere coincidence. It was +thought that Sumner's friend, who had been supported by him as a +candidate for high office, who shared many of his political ideas and +feelings, who was his intimate associate, his fellow-townsman, his +companion in scholarship and cultivation, his sympathetic co-laborer in +many ways, had been accounted and dealt with as the ally of an enemy, and +that the shaft which struck to the heart of the sensitive envoy had +glanced from the 'aes triplex' of the obdurate Senator. + +Mr. Motley wrote a letter to the Secretary of State immediately after his +recall, in which he reviewed his relations with the government from the +time of his taking office, and showed that no sufficient reason could be +assigned for the treatment to which he had been subjected. He referred +finally to the public rumor which assigned the President's hostility to +his friend Sumner, growing out of the San Domingo treaty question, as the +cause of his own removal, and to the coincidence between the dates of the +rejection of the treaty and his dismissal, with an evident belief that +these two occurrences were connected by something more than accident. + +To this, a reply was received from the Secretary of State's office, +signed by Mr. Fish, but so objectionable in its tone and expressions that +it has been generally doubted whether the paper could claim anything more +of the secretary's hand than his signature. It travelled back to the old +record of the conversation with Lord Clarendon, more than a year and a +half before, took up the old exceptions, warmed them over into +grievances, and joined with them whatever the 'captatores verborum,' not +extinct since Daniel Webster's time, could add to their number. This was +the letter which was rendered so peculiarly offensive by a most +undignified comparison which startled every well-bred reader. No answer +was possible to such a letter, and the matter rested until the death of +Mr. Motley caused it to be brought up once more for judgment. + +The Honorable John Jay, in his tribute to the memory of Mr. Motley, read +at a meeting of the New York Historical Society, vindicated his character +against the attacks of the late executive in such a way as to leave an +unfavorable impression as to the course of the government. Objection was +made on this account to placing the tribute upon the minutes of the +society. This led to a publication by Mr. Jay, entitled "Motley's Appeal +to History," in which the propriety of the society's action is +questioned, and the wrong done to him insisted upon and further +illustrated. + +The defence could not have fallen into better hands. Bearing a name which +is, in itself, a title to the confidence of the American people, a +diplomatist familiar with the rights, the customs, the traditions, the +courtesies, which belong to the diplomatic service, the successor of Mr. +Motley at Vienna, and therefore familiar with his official record, not +self-made, which too commonly means half-made, but with careful training +added to the instincts to which he had a right by inheritance, he could +not allow the memory of such a scholar, of such a high-minded lover of +his country, of so true a gentleman as Mr. Motley, to remain without +challenge under the stigma of official condemnation. I must refer to Mr. +Jay's memorial tribute as printed in the newspapers of the day, and to +his "Appeal" published in "The International Review," for his convincing +presentation of the case, and content myself with a condensed statement +of the general and special causes of complaint against Mr. Motley, and +the explanations which suggest themselves, as abundantly competent to +show the insufficiency of the reasons alleged by the government as an +excuse for the manner in which he was treated. + +The grounds of complaint against Mr. Motley are to be looked for:-- + +1. In the letter of Mr. Fish to Mr. Moran, of December 30, 1870. + +2. In Mr. Bancroft Davis's letter to the New York "Herald" of January 4, +1878, entitled, "Mr. Sumner, the Alabama Claims and their Settlement." + +3. The reported conversations of General Grant. + +4. The reported conversations of Mr. Fish. + +In considering Mr. Fish's letter, we must first notice its animus. The +manner in which Dickens's two old women are brought in is not only +indecorous, but it shows a state of feeling from which nothing but harsh +interpretation of every questionable expression of Mr. Motley's was to be +expected. + +There is not the least need of maintaining the perfect fitness and +rhetorical felicity of every phrase and every word used by him in his +interview with Lord Clarendon. It is not to be expected that a minister, +when about to hold a conversation with a representative of the government +to which he is accredited, will commit his instructions to memory and +recite them, like a school-boy "speaking his piece." He will give them +more or less in his own language, amplifying, it may be, explaining, +illustrating, at any rate paraphrasing in some degree, but endeavoring to +convey an idea of their essential meaning. In fact, as any one can see, a +conversation between two persons must necessarily imply a certain amount +of extemporization on the part of both. I do not believe any long and +important conference was ever had between two able men without each of +them feeling that he had not spoken exactly in all respects as he would +if he could say all over again. + +Doubtless, therefore, Mr. Motley's report of his conversation shows that +some of his expressions might have been improved, and others might as +well have been omitted. A man does not change his temperament on taking +office. General Jackson still swore "by the Eternal," and his illustrious +military successor of a more recent period seems, by his own showing, to +have been able to sudden impulses of excitement. It might be said of +Motley, as it was said of Shakespeare by Ben Jonson, "aliquando +sufflaminandus erat." Yet not too much must be made of this concession. +Only a determination to make out a case could, as it seems to me, have +framed such an indictment as that which the secretary constructed by +stringing together a slender list of pretended peccadillos. One instance +will show the extreme slightness which characterizes many of the grounds +of inculpation:-- + +The instructions say, "The government, in rejecting the recent +convention, abandons neither its own claims nor those of its citizens," +etc. + +Mr. Motley said, in the course of his conversation, "At present, the +United States government, while withdrawing neither its national claims +nor the claims of its individual citizens against the British +government," etc. + +Mr. Fish says, "The determination of this government not to abandon its +claims nor those of its citizens was stated parenthetically, and in such +a subordinate way as not necessarily to attract the attention of Lord +Clarendon." + +What reported conversation can stand a captious criticism like this? Are +there not two versions of the ten commandments which were given out in +the thunder and smoke of Sinai, and would the secretary hold that this +would have been a sufficient reason to recall Moses from his "Divine +Legation" at the court of the Almighty? + +There are certain expressions which, as Mr. Fish shows them apart from +their connection, do very certainly seem in bad taste, if not actually +indiscreet and unjustifiable. Let me give an example:-- + + "Instead of expressing the hope entertained by this government that + there would be an early, satisfactory, and friendly settlement of + the questions at issue, he volunteered the unnecessary, and from the + manner in which it was thrust in, the highly objectionable statement + that the United States government had no insidious purposes,'" etc. + +This sounds very badly as Mr. Fish puts it; let us see how it stands in +its proper connection:-- + + "He [Lord Clarendon] added with some feeling, that in his opinion it + would be highly objectionable that the question should be hung up on + a peg, to be taken down at some convenient moment for us, when it + might be difficult for the British government to enter upon its + solution, and when they might go into the debate at a disadvantage. + These were, as nearly as I can remember, his words, and I replied + very earnestly that I had already answered that question when I said + that my instructions were to propose as brief a delay as would + probably be requisite for the cooling of passions and for producing + the calm necessary for discussing the defects of the old treaty and + a basis for a new one. The United States government had no + insidious purposes," etc. + +Is it not evident that Lord Clarendon suggested the idea which Mr. Motley +repelled as implying an insidious mode of action? Is it not just as clear +that Mr. Fish's way of reproducing the expression without the insinuation +which called it forth is a practical misstatement which does Mr. Motley +great wrong? + +One more example of the method of wringing a dry cloth for drops of +evidence ought to be enough to show the whole spirit of the paper. + +Mr. Fish, in his instructions:-- + + "It might, indeed, well have occurred in the event of the selection + by lot of the arbitrator or umpire in different cases, involving + however precisely the same principles, that different awards, + resting upon antagonistic principles, might have been made." + +Mr. Motley, in the conversation with Lord Clarendon:-- + + "I called his lordship's attention to your very judicious suggestion + that the throwing of the dice for umpires might bring about opposite + decisions in cases arising out of identical principles. He agreed + entirely that no principle was established by the treaty, but that + the throwing of dice or drawing of lots was not a new invention on + that occasion, but a not uncommon method in arbitrations. I only + expressed the opinion that such an aleatory process seemed an + unworthy method in arbitrations," etc. + +Mr. Fish, in his letter to Mr. Moran:-- + + "That he had in his mind at that interview something else than his + letter of instructions from this department would appear to be + evident, when he says that 'he called his lordship's attention to + your [my] very judicious suggestion that the throwing of dice for + umpire might bring about opposite decisions.' The instructions + which Mr. Motley received from me contained no suggestion about + throwing of dice.' That idea is embraced in the suggestive words + 'aleatory process' (adopted by Mr. Motley), but previously applied + in a speech made in the Senate on the question of ratifying the + treaty." + +Charles Sumner's Speech on the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty, April 13, 1869: + + "In the event of failure to agree, the arbitrator is determined 'by + lot' out of two persons named by each side. Even if this aleatory + proceeding were a proper device in the umpirage of private claims, + it is strongly inconsistent with the solemnity which belongs to the + present question." + +It is "suggestive" that the critical secretary, so keen in detecting +conversational inaccuracies, having but two words to quote from a printed +document, got one of them wrong. But this trivial comment must not lead +the careful reader to neglect to note how much is made of what is really +nothing at all. The word aleatory, whether used in its original and +limited sense, or in its derived extension as a technical term of the +civil law, was appropriate and convenient; one especially likely to be +remembered by any person who had read Mr. Sumner's speech,--and everybody +had read it; the secretary himself doubtless got the suggestion of +determining the question "by lot" from it. What more natural than that it +should be used again when the subject of appealing to chance came up in +conversation? It "was an excellent good word before it was ill-sorted," +and we were fortunate in having a minister who was scholar enough to know +what it meant. The language used by Mr. Motley conveyed the idea of his +instructions plainly enough, and threw in a compliment to their author +which should have saved this passage at least from the wringing process. +The example just given is, like the concession of belligerency to the +insurgents by Great Britain, chiefly important as "showing animus." + +It is hardly necessary to bring forward other instances of virtual +misrepresentation. If Mr. Motley could have talked his conversation over +again, he would very probably have changed some expressions. But he felt +bound to repeat the interview exactly as it occurred, with all the errors +to which its extemporaneous character exposed it. When a case was to be +made out against him, the secretary wrote, December 30, 1870: + + "Well might he say, as he did in a subsequent dispatch on the 15th + of July, 1869, that he had gone beyond the strict letter of his + instructions. He might have added, in direct opposition to their + temper and spirit." + +Of the same report the secretary had said, June 28, 1869: "Your general +presentation and treatment of the several subjects discussed in that +interview meet the approval of this department." This general approval is +qualified by mild criticism of a single statement as not having been +conveyed in "precise conformity" to the President's view. The minister +was told he might be well content to rest the question on the very +forcible presentation he had made of the American side of the question, +and that if there were expressions used stronger than were required by +his instructions, they were in the right direction. The mere fact that a +minute of this conversation was confidentially submitted to Lord +Clarendon in order that our own government might have his authority for +the accuracy of the record, which was intended exclusively for its own +use, and that this circumstance was overlooked and not reported to the +government until some weeks afterward, are the additional charges against +Mr. Motley. The submission of the dispatch containing an account of the +interview, the secretary says, is not inconsistent with diplomatic usage, +but it is inconsistent with the duty of a minister not to inform his +government of that submission. "Mr. Motley submitted the draft of his No. +8 to Lord Clarendon, and failed to communicate that fact to his +government." He did inform Mr. Fish, at any rate, on the 30th of July, +and alleged "inadvertence" as the reason for his omission to do it +before. + +Inasmuch as submitting the dispatch was not inconsistent with diplomatic +usage, nothing seems left to find fault with but the not very long delay +in mentioning the fact, or in his making the note "private and +confidential," as is so frequently done in diplomatic correspondence. + +Such were the grounds of complaint. On the strength of the conversation +which had met with the general approval of the government, tempered by +certain qualifications, and of the omission to report immediately to the +government the fact of its verification by Lord Clarendon, the secretary +rests the case against Mr. Motley. On these grounds it was that, +according to him, the President withdrew all right to discuss the Alabama +question from the minister whose dismissal was now only a question of +time. But other evidence comes in here. + +Mr. Motley says:-- + + "It was, as I supposed, understood before my departure for England, + although not publicly announced, that the so-called Alabama + negotiations, whenever renewed, should be conducted at Washington, + in case of the consent of the British government." + +Mr. Sumner says, in his "Explanation in Reply to an Assault:"-- + + "The secretary in a letter to me at Boston, dated at Washington, + October 9, 1869, informs the that the discussion of the question was + withdrawn from London 'because (the italics are the secretary's) we + think that when renewed it can be carried on here with a better + prospect of settlement, than where the late attempt at a convention + which resulted so disastrously and was conducted so strangely was + had;' and what the secretary thus wrote he repeated in conversation + when we met, carefully making the transfer to Washington depend upon + our advantage here, from the presence of the Senate,--thus showing + that the pretext put forth to wound Mr. Motley was an afterthought." + +Again we may fairly ask how the government came to send a dispatch like +that of September 25, 1869, in which the views and expressions for which +Mr. Motley's conversation had been criticised were so nearly reproduced, +and with such emphasis that Mr. Motley says, in a letter to me, dated +April 8, 1871, "It not only covers all the ground which I ever took, but +goes far beyond it. No one has ever used stronger language to the British +government than is contained in that dispatch. . . . It is very able and +well worth your reading. Lord Clarendon called it to me 'Sumner's speech +over again.' It was thought by the English cabinet to have 'out-Sumnered +Sumner,' and now our government, thinking that every one in the United +States had forgotten the dispatch, makes believe that I was removed +because my sayings and doings in England were too much influenced by +Sumner!" Mr. Motley goes on to speak of the report that an offer of his +place in England was made to Sumner "to get him out of the way of San +Domingo." The facts concerning this offer are now sufficiently known to +the public. + +Here I must dismiss Mr. Fish's letter to Mr. Moran, having, as I trust, +sufficiently shown the spirit in which it was written and the strained +interpretations and manifest overstatements by which it attempts to make +out its case against Mr. Motley. I will not parade the two old women, +whose untimely and unseemly introduction into the dress-circle of +diplomacy was hardly to have been expected of the high official whose +name is at the bottom of this paper. They prove nothing, they disprove +nothing, they illustrate nothing--except that a statesman may forget +himself. Neither will I do more than barely allude to the unfortunate +reference to the death of Lord Clarendon as connected with Mr. Motley's +removal, so placidly disposed of by a sentence or two in the London +"Times" of January 24, 1871. I think we may consider ourselves ready for +the next witness. + +Mr. J. C. Bancroft Davis, Assistant Secretary of State under President +Grant and Secretary Fish, wrote a letter to the New York "Herald," under +the date of January 4, 1878, since reprinted as a pamphlet and entitled +"Mr. Sumner, the Alabama Claims and their Settlement." Mr. Sumner was +never successfully attacked when living,--except with a bludgeon,--and +his friends have more than sufficiently vindicated him since his death. +But Mr. Motley comes in for his share of animadversion in Mr. Davis's +letter. He has nothing of importance to add to Mr. Fish's criticisms on +the interview with Lord Clarendon. Only he brings out the head and front +of Mr. Motley's offending by italicizing three very brief passages from +his conversation at this interview; not discreetly, as it seems to me, +for they will not bear the strain that is put upon them. These are the +passages:-- + +1. "but that such, measures must always be taken with a full view of the +grave responsibilities assumed." 2. "and as being the fountain head of +the disasters which had been caused to the American people." 3. "as the +fruits of the proclamation." + +1. It is true that nothing was said of responsibility in Mr. Motley's +instructions. But the idea was necessarily involved in their statements. +For if, as Mr. Motley's instructions say, the right of a power "to define +its own relations," etc., when a civil conflict has arisen in another +state depends on its (the conflict's) having "attained a sufficient +complexity, magnitude, and completeness," inasmuch as that Power has to +judge whether it has or has not fulfilled these conditions, and is of +course liable to judge wrong, every such act of judgment must be attended +with grave responsibilities. The instructions say that "the necessity and +propriety of the original concession of belligerency by Great Britain at +the time it was made have been contested and are not admitted." It +follows beyond dispute that Great Britain may in this particular case +have incurred grave responsibilities; in fact, the whole negotiations +implied as much. Perhaps Mr. Motley need not have used the word +"responsibilities." But considering that the government itself said in +dispatch No. 70, September 25, 1869, "The President does not deny, on the +contrary he maintains, that every sovereign power decides for itself on +its responsibility whether or not it will, at a given time, accord the +status of belligerency," etc., it was hardly worth while to use italics +about Mr. Motley's employment of the same language as constituting a +grave cause of offence. + +2. Mr. Motley's expression, "as being the fountain head of the +disasters," is a conversational paraphrase of the words of his +instructions, "as it shows the beginning and the animus of that course of +conduct which resulted so disastrously," which is not "in precise +conformity" with his instructions, but is just such a variation as is to +be expected when one is talking with another and using the words that +suggest themselves at the moment, just as the familiar expression, "hung +up on a peg," probably suggested itself to Lord Clarendon. + +3. "The fruits of the proclamation" is so inconsiderable a variation on +the text of the instructions, "supplemented by acts causing direct +damage," that the secretary's hint about want of precise conformity seems +hardly to have been called for. + +It is important to notice this point in the instructions: With other +powers Mr. Motley was to take the position that the "recognition of the +insurgents' state of war" was made "no ground of complaint;" with Great +Britain that the cause of grievance was "not so much" placed upon the +issuance of this recognition as upon her conduct under, and subsequent +to, such recognition. + +There is no need of maintaining the exact fitness of every expression +used by Mr. Motley. But any candid person who will carefully read the +government's dispatch No. 70, dated September 25, 1869, will see that a +government holding such language could find nothing in Mr. Motley's +expressions in a conversation held at his first official interview to +visit with official capital punishment more than a year afterwards. If +Mr. Motley had, as it was pretended, followed Sumner, Mr. Fish had +"out-Sumnered" the Senator himself. + +Mr. Davis's pamphlet would hardly be complete without a mysterious letter +from an unnamed writer, whether a faithless friend, a disguised enemy, a +secret emissary, or an injudicious alarmist, we have no means of judging +for ourselves. The minister appears to have been watched by somebody in +London, as he was in Vienna. This somebody wrote a private letter in +which he expressed "fear and regret that Mr. Motley's bearing in his +social intercourse was throwing obstacles in the way of a future +settlement." The charge as mentioned in Mr. Davis's letter is hardly +entitled to our attention. Mr. Sumner considered it the work of an enemy, +and the recollection of the M'Crackin letter might well have made the +government cautious of listening to complaints of such a character. This +Somebody may have been one whom we should call Nobody. We cannot help +remembering how well 'Outis' served 'Oduxseus' of old, when he was +puzzled to extricate himself from an embarrassing position. 'Stat nominis +umbra' is a poor showing for authority to support an attack on a public +servant exposed to every form of open and insidious abuse from those who +are prejudiced against his person or his birthplace, who are jealous of +his success, envious of his position, hostile to his politics, dwarfed by +his reputation, or hate him by the divine right of idiosyncrasy, always +liable, too, to questioning comment from well-meaning friends who happen +to be suspicious or sensitive in their political or social relations. + +The reported sayings of General Grant and of Mr. Fish to the +correspondents who talked with them may be taken for what they are worth. +They sound naturally enough to have come from the speakers who are said +to have uttered them. I quote the most important part of the Edinburgh +letter, September 11, 1877, to the New York "Herald." These are the words +attributed to General Grant:-- + + "Mr. Motley was certainly a very able, very honest gentleman, fit to + hold any official position. But he knew long before he went out + that he would have to go. When I was making these appointments, Mr. + Sumner came to me and asked me to appoint Mr. Motley as minister to + the court of St. James. I told him I would, and did. Soon after + Mr. Sumner made that violent speech about the Alabama claims, and + the British government was greatly offended. Mr. Sumner was at the + time chairman of the committee on foreign affairs. Mr. Motley had + to be instructed. The instructions were prepared very carefully, + and after Governor Fish and I had gone over them for the last time I + wrote an addendum charging him that above all things he should + handle the subject of the Alabama claims with the greatest delicacy. + Mr. Motley instead of obeying his explicit instructions, + deliberately fell in line with Sumner, and thus added insult to the + previous injury. As soon as I heard of it I went over to the State + Department and told Governor Fish to dismiss Motley at once. I was + very angry indeed, and I have been sorry many a time since that I + did not stick to my first determination. Mr. Fish advised delay + because of Sumner's position in the Senate and attitude on the + treaty question. We did not want to stir him up just then. We + dispatched a note of severe censure to Motley at once and ordered + him to abstain from any further connection with that question. We + thereupon commenced negotiations with the British minister at + Washington, and the result was the joint high commission and the + Geneva award. I supposed Mr. Motley would be manly enough to resign + after that snub, but he kept on till he was removed. Mr. Sumner + promised me that he would vote for the treaty. But when it was + before the Senate he did all he could to beat it." + +General Grant talked again at Cairo, in Egypt. + + "Grant then referred to the statement published at an interview with + him in Scotland, and said the publication had some omissions and + errors. He had no ill-will towards Mr. Motley, who, like other + estimable men, made mistakes, and Motley made a mistake which made + him an improper person to hold office under me." + + "It is proper to say of me that I killed Motley, or that I made war + upon Sumner for not supporting the annexation of San Domingo. But + if I dare to answer that I removed Motley from the highest + considerations of duty as an executive; if I presume to say that he + made a mistake in his office which made him no longer useful to the + country; if Fish has the temerity to hint that Sumner's temper was + so unfortunate that business relations with him became impossible, + we are slandering the dead." + +"Nothing but Mortimer." Those who knew both men--the Ex-President and the +late Senator--would agree, I do not doubt, that they would not be the +most promising pair of human beings to make harmonious members of a +political happy family. "Cedant arma togae," the life-long sentiment of +Sumner, in conflict with "Stand fast and stand sure," the well-known +device of the clan of Grant, reminds one of the problem of an +irresistible force in collision with an insuperable resistance. But the +President says,--or is reported as saying,--"I may be blamed for my +opposition to Mr. Sumner's tactics, but I was not guided so much by +reason of his personal hatred of myself, as I was by a desire to protect +our national interests in diplomatic affairs." + +"It would be useless," says Mr. Davis in his letter to the "Herald," "to +enter into a controversy whether the President may or may not have been +influenced in the final determination of the moment for requesting +Motley's resignation by the feeling caused by Sumner's personal hostility +and abuse of himself." Unfortunately, this controversy had been entered +into, and the idleness of suggesting any relation of cause and effect +between Mr. Motley's dismissal and the irritation produced in the +President's mind by the rejection of the San Domingo treaty--which +rejection was mainly due to Motley's friend Sumner's opposition +--strongly insisted upon in a letter signed by the Secretary of State. +Too strongly, for here it was that he failed to remember what was due to +his office, to himself, and to the gentleman of whom he was writing; if +indeed it was the secretary's own hand which held the pen, and not +another's. + +We might as well leave out the wrath of Achilles from the Iliad, as the +anger of the President with Sumner from the story of Motley's dismissal. +The sad recital must always begin with M-----------. He was, he is +reported as saying, "very angry indeed" with Motley because he had, +fallen in line with Sumner. He couples them together in his conversation +as closely as Chang and Eng were coupled. The death of Lord Clarendon +would have covered up the coincidence between the rejection of the San +Domingo treaty and Mr. Motley's dismissal very neatly, but for the +inexorable facts about its date, as revealed by the London "Times." It +betrays itself as an afterthought, and its failure as a defence reminds +us too nearly of the trial in which Mr. Webster said suicide is +confession. + +It is not strange that the spurs of the man who had so lately got out of +the saddle should catch in the scholastic robe of the man on the floor of +the Senate. But we should not have looked for any such antagonism between +the Secretary of State and the envoy to Great Britain. On the contrary, +they must have had many sympathies, and it must have cost the secretary +pain, as he said it did, to be forced to communicate with Mr. Moran +instead of with Mr. Motley. + +He, too, was inquired of by one of the emissaries of the American Unholy +Inquisition. His evidence is thus reported: + + "The reason for Mr. Motley's removal was found in considerations of + state. He misrepresented the government on the Alabama question, + especially in the two speeches made by him before his arrival at his + post." + +These must be the two speeches made to the American and the Liverpool +chambers of commerce. If there is anything in these short addresses +beyond those civil generalities which the occasion called out, I have +failed to find it. If it was in these that the reason of Mr. Motley's +removal was to be looked for, it is singular that they are not mentioned +in the secretary's letter to Mr. Moran, or by Mr. Davis in his letter to +the New York "Herald." They must have been as unsuccessful as myself in +the search after anything in these speeches which could be construed into +misinterpretation of the government on the Alabama question. + +We may much more readily accept "considerations of state" as a reason for +Mr. Motley's removal. Considerations of state have never yet failed the +axe or the bowstring when a reason for the use of those convenient +implements was wanted, and they are quite equal to every emergency which +can arise in a republican autocracy. But for the very reason that a +minister is absolutely in the power of his government, the manner in +which that power is used is always open to the scrutiny, and, if it has +been misused, to the condemnation, of a tribunal higher than itself; a +court that never goes out of office, and which no personal feelings, no +lapse of time, can silence. + +The ostensible grounds on which Mr. Motley was recalled are plainly +insufficient to account for the action of the government. If it was in +great measure a manifestation of personal feeling on the part of the high +officials by whom and through whom the act was accomplished, it was a +wrong which can never be repaired and never sufficiently regretted. + +Stung by the slanderous report of an anonymous eavesdropper to whom the +government of the day was not ashamed to listen, he had quitted Vienna, +too hastily, it may be, but wounded, indignant, feeling that he had been +unworthily treated. The sudden recall from London, on no pretext whatever +but an obsolete and overstated incident which had ceased to have any +importance, was under these circumstances a deadly blow. It fell upon +"the new-healed wound of malice," and though he would not own it, and +bore up against it, it was a shock from which he never fully recovered. + +"I hope I am one of those," he writes to me from the Hague, in 1872, "who +'fortune's buffets and rewards can take with equal thanks.' I am quite +aware that I have had far more than I deserve of political honors, and +they might have had my post as a voluntary gift on my part had they +remembered that I was an honorable man, and not treated me as a detected +criminal deserves to be dealt with." + +Mr. Sumner naturally felt very deeply what he considered the great wrong +done to his friend. He says:-- + + "How little Mr. Motley merited anything but respect and courtesy + from the secretary is attested by all who know his eminent position + in London, and the service he rendered to his country. Already the + London press, usually slow to praise Americans when strenuous for + their country, has furnished its voluntary testimony. The 'Daily + News' of August 16, 1870, spoke of the insulted minister in these + terms:-- + + "'We are violating no confidence in saying that all the hopes of Mr. + Motley's official residence in England have been amply fulfilled, + and that the announcement of his unexpected and unexplained recall + was received with extreme astonishment and unfeigned regret. The + vacancy he leaves cannot possibly be filled by a minister more + sensitive to the honor of his government, more attentive to the + interests of his country, and more capable of uniting the most + vigorous performance of his public duties with the high-bred + courtesy and conciliatory tact and temper that make those duties + easy and successful. Mr. Motley's successor will find his mission + wonderfully facilitated by the firmness and discretion that have + presided over the conduct of American affairs in this country during + too brief a term, too suddenly and unaccountably concluded.'" + +No man can escape being found fault with when it is necessary to make out +a case against him. A diplomatist is watched by the sharpest eyes and +commented on by the most merciless tongues. The best and wisest has his +defects, and sometimes they would seem to be very grave ones if brought +up against him in the form of accusation. Take these two portraits, for +instance, as drawn by John Quincy Adams. The first is that of Stratford +Canning, afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe:-- + + "He is to depart to-morrow. I shall probably see him no more. He + is a proud, high-tempered Englishman, of good but not extraordinary + parts; stubborn and punctilious, with a disposition to be + overbearing, which I have often been compelled to check in its own + way. He is, of all the foreign ministers with whom I have had + occasion to treat, the man who has most severely tried my temper. + Yet he has been long in the diplomatic career, and treated with + governments of the most opposite characters. He has, however, a + great respect for his word, and there is nothing false about him. + This is an excellent quality for a negotiator. Mr. Canning is a man + of forms, studious of courtesy, and tenacious of private morals. As + a diplomatic man, his great want is suppleness, and his great virtue + is sincerity." + +The second portrait is that of the French minister, Hyde de Neuville:-- + + "No foreign minister who ever resided here has been so universally + esteemed and beloved, nor have I ever been in political relations + with any foreign statesman of whose moral qualities I have formed so + good an opinion, with the exception of Count Romanzoff. He has not + sufficient command of his temper, is quick, irritable, sometimes + punctilious, occasionally indiscreet in his discourse, and tainted + with Royalist and Bourbon prejudices. But he has strong sentiments + of honor, justice, truth, and even liberty. His flurries of temper + pass off as quickly as they rise. He is neither profound nor + sublime nor brilliant; but a man of strong and good feelings, with + the experience of many vicissitudes of fortune, a good but common + understanding, and good intentions biassed by party feelings, + occasional interests, and personal affections." + +It means very little to say that a man has some human imperfections, or +that a public servant might have done some things better. But when a +questionable cause is to be justified, the victim's excellences are +looked at with the eyes of Liliput and his failings with those of +Brobdingnag. + +The recall of a foreign minister for alleged misconduct in office is a +kind of capital punishment. It is the nearest approach to the Sultan's +bowstring which is permitted to the chief magistrate of our Republic. A +general can do nothing under martial law more peremptory than a President +can do with regard to the public functionary whom he has appointed with +the advice and consent of the Senate, but whom he can officially degrade +and disgrace at his own pleasure for insufficient cause or for none at +all. Like the centurion of Scripture, he says Go, and he goeth. The +nation's representative is less secure in his tenure of office than his +own servant, to whom he must give warning of his impending dismissal. + +"A breath unmakes him as a breath has made." + +The chief magistrate's responsibility to duty, to the fellow-citizen at +his mercy, to his countrymen, to mankind, is in proportion to his power. +His prime minister, the agent of his edicts, should feel bound to +withstand him if he seeks to gratify a personal feeling under the plea of +public policy, unless the minister, like the slaves of the harem, is to +find his qualification for office in leaving his manhood behind him. + +The two successive administrations, which treated Mr. Motley in a manner +unworthy of their position and cruel, if not fatal to him, have been +heard, directly or through their advocates. I have attempted to show that +the defence set up for their action is anything but satisfactory. A later +generation will sit in judgment upon the evidence more calmly than our +own. It is not for a friend, like the writer, to anticipate its decision, +but unless the reasons alleged to justify his treatment, and which have +so much the air of afterthoughts, shall seem stronger to that future +tribunal than they do to him, the verdict will be that Mr. Motley was +twice sacrificed to personal feelings which should never have been +cherished by the heads of the government, and should never have been +countenanced by their chief advisers. + + + + + + +JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. + +A MEMOIR + +By Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + + +Volume III. + + + + +XXII. + +1874. AEt. 60. +"LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD."--CRITICISMS.--GROEN VAN PRINSTERER. + +The full title of Mr. Motley's next and last work is "The Life and Death +of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland; with a View of the Primary +Causes and Movements of the Thirty Years' War." + +In point of fact this work is a history rather than a biography. It is an +interlude, a pause between the acts which were to fill out the complete +plan of the "Eighty Years' Tragedy," and of which the last act, the +Thirty Years' War, remains unwritten. The "Life of Barneveld" was +received as a fitting and worthy continuation of the series of +intellectual labor in which he was engaged. I will quote but two general +expressions of approval from the two best known British critical reviews. +In connection with his previous works, it forms, says "The London +Quarterly," "a fine and continuous story, of which the writer and the +nation celebrated by him have equal reason to be proud; a narrative which +will remain a prominent ornament of American genius, while it has +permanently enriched English literature on this as well as on the other +side of the Atlantic." + +"The Edinburgh Review" speaks no less warmly: "We can hardly give too +much appreciation to that subtile alchemy of the brain which has enabled +him to produce out of dull, crabbed, and often illegible state papers, +the vivid, graphic, and sparkling narrative which he has given to the +world." + +In a literary point of view, M. Groen van Prinsterer, whose elaborate +work has been already referred to, speaks of it as perhaps the most +classical of Motley's productions, but it is upon this work that the +force of his own and other Dutch criticisms has been chiefly expended. + +The key to this biographical history or historical biography may be found +in a few sentences from its opening chapter. + + "There have been few men at any period whose lives have been more + closely identical than his [Barneveld's] with a national history. + There have been few great men in any history whose names have become + less familiar to the world, and lived less in the mouths of + posterity. Yet there can be no doubt that if William the Silent was + the founder of the independence of the United Provinces, Barneveld + was the founder of the Commonwealth itself. . . . + + "Had that country of which he was so long the first citizen + maintained until our own day the same proportional position among + the empires of Christendom as it held in the seventeenth century, + the name of John of Barneveld would have perhaps been as familiar to + all men as it is at this moment to nearly every inhabitant of the + Netherlands. Even now political passion is almost as ready to flame + forth, either in ardent affection or enthusiastic hatred, as if two + centuries and a half had not elapsed since his death. His name is + so typical of a party, a polity, and a faith, so indelibly + associated with a great historical cataclysm, as to render it + difficult even for the grave, the conscientious, the learned, the + patriotic, of his own compatriots to speak of him with absolute + impartiality. + + "A foreigner who loves and admires all that is great and noble in + the history of that famous republic, and can have no hereditary bias + as to its ecclesiastical or political theories, may at least attempt + the task with comparative coldness, although conscious of inability + to do thorough justice to a most complex subject." + +With all Mr. Motley's efforts to be impartial, to which even his sternest +critics bear witness, he could not help becoming a partisan of the cause +which for him was that of religious liberty and progress, as against the +accepted formula of an old ecclesiastical organization. For the quarrel +which came near being a civil war, which convulsed the state, and cost +Barneveld his head, had its origin in a difference on certain points, and +more especially on a single point, of religious doctrine. + +As a great river may be traced back until its fountainhead is found in a +thread of water streaming from a cleft in the rocks, so a great national +movement may sometimes be followed until its starting-point is found in +the cell of a monk or the studies of a pair of wrangling professors. + +The religious quarrel of the Dutchmen in the seventeenth century reminds +us in some points of the strife between two parties in our own New +England, sometimes arraying the "church" on one side against the +"parish," or the general body of worshippers, on the other. The portraits +of Gomarus, the great orthodox champion, and Arminius, the head and front +of the "liberal theology" of his day, as given in the little old quarto +of Meursius, recall two ministerial types of countenance familiar to +those who remember the earlier years of our century. + +Under the name of "Remonstrants" and "Contra-Remonstrants,"--Arminians +and old-fashioned Calvinists, as we should say,--the adherents of the two +Leyden professors disputed the right to the possession of the churches, +and the claim to be considered as representing the national religion. Of +the seven United Provinces, two, Holland and Utrecht, were prevailingly +Arminian, and the other five Calvinistic. Barneveld, who, under the title +of Advocate, represented the province of Holland, the most important of +them all, claimed for each province a right to determine its own state +religion. Maurice the Stadholder, son of William the Silent, the military +chief of the republic, claimed the right for the States-General. 'Cujus +regio ejus religio' was then the accepted public doctrine of Protestant +nations. Thus the provincial and the general governments were brought +into conflict by their creeds, and the question whether the republic was +a confederation or a nation, the same question which has been practically +raised, and for the time at least settled, in our own republic, was in +some way to be decided. After various disturbances and acts of violence +by both parties, Maurice, representing the States-General, pronounced for +the Calvinists or Contra-Remonstrants, and took possession of one of the +great churches, as an assertion of his authority. Barneveld, representing +the Arminian or Remonstrant provinces, levied a body of mercenary +soldiers in several of the cities. These were disbanded by Maurice, and +afterwards by an act of the States-General. Barneveld was apprehended, +imprisoned, and executed, after an examination which was in no proper +sense a trial. Grotius, who was on the Arminian side and involved in the +inculpated proceedings, was also arrested and imprisoned. His escape, by +a stratagem successfully repeated by a slave in our own times, may +challenge comparison for its romantic interest with any chapter of +fiction. How his wife packed him into the chest supposed to contain the +folios of the great oriental scholar Erpenius, how the soldiers wondered +at its weight and questioned whether it did not hold an Arminian, how the +servant-maid, Elsje van Houwening, quick-witted as Morgiana of the "Forty +Thieves," parried their questions and convoyed her master safely to the +friendly place of refuge,--all this must be read in the vivid narrative +of the author. + +The questions involved were political, local, personal, and above all +religious. Here is the picture which Motley draws of the religious +quarrel as it divided the people:-- + + "In burghers' mansions, peasants' cottages, mechanics' back-parlors; + on board herring-smacks, canal-boats, and East Indiamen; in shops, + counting-rooms, farm-yards, guard-rooms, alehouses; on the exchange, + in the tennis court, on the mall; at banquets, at burials, + christenings, or bridals; wherever and whenever human creatures met + each other, there was ever to be found the fierce wrangle of + Remonstrant and Contra-Remonstrant, the hissing of red-hot + theological rhetoric, the pelting of hostile texts. The + blacksmith's iron cooled on the anvil, the tinker dropped a kettle + half mended, the broker left a bargain unclinched, the Scheveningen + fisherman in his wooden shoes forgot the cracks in his pinkie, while + each paused to hold high converse with friend or foe on fate, free- + will, or absolute foreknowledge; losing himself in wandering mazes + whence there was no issue. Province against province, city against + city, family against family; it was one vast scene of bickering, + denunciation, heart-burnings, mutual excommunication and hatred." + +The religious grounds of the quarrel which set these seventeenth-century +Dutchmen to cutting each other's throats were to be looked for in the +"Five Points" of the Arminians as arrayed against the "Seven Points" of +the Gomarites, or Contra-Remonstrants. The most important of the +differences which were to be settled by fratricide seem to have been +these:-- + +According to the Five Points, "God has from eternity resolved to choose +to eternal life those who through his grace believe in Jesus Christ," +etc. According to the Seven Points, "God in his election has not looked +at the belief and the repentance of the elect," etc. According to the +Five Points, all good deeds must be ascribed to God's grace in Christ, +but it does not work irresistibly. The language of the Seven Points +implies that the elect cannot resist God's eternal and unchangeable +design to give them faith and steadfastness, and that they can never +wholly and for always lose the true faith. The language of the Five +Points is unsettled as to the last proposition, but it was afterwards +maintained by the Remonstrant party that a true believer could, through +his own fault, fall away from God and lose faith. + +It must be remembered that these religious questions had an immediate +connection with politics. Independently of the conflict of jurisdiction, +in which they involved the parties to the two different creeds, it was +believed or pretended that the new doctrines of the Remonstrants led +towards Romanism, and were allied with designs which threatened the +independence of the country. "There are two factions in the land," said +Maurice, "that of Orange and that of Spain, and the two chiefs of the +Spanish faction are those political and priestly Arminians, Uytenbogaert +and Oldenbarneveld." + +The heads of the two religious and political parties were in such +hereditary, long-continued, and intimate relations up to the time when +one signed the other's death-warrant, that it was impossible to write the +life of one without also writing that of the other. For his biographer +John of Barneveld is the true patriot, the martyr, whose cause was that +of religious and political freedom. For him Maurice is the ambitious +soldier who hated his political rival, and never rested until this rival +was brought to the scaffold. + +The questions which agitated men's minds two centuries and a half ago are +not dead yet in the country where they produced such estrangement, +violence, and wrong. No stranger could take them up without encountering +hostile criticism from one party or the other. It may be and has been +conceded that Mr. Motley writes as a partisan,--a partisan of freedom in +politics and religion, as he understands freedom. This secures him the +antagonism of one class of critics. But these critics are themselves +partisans, and themselves open to the cross-fire of their antagonists. M. +Groen van Prinsterer, "the learned and distinguished" editor of the +"Archives et Correspondance" of the Orange and Nassau family, published a +considerable volume, before referred to, in which many of Motley's views +are strongly controverted. But he himself is far from being in accord +with "that eminent scholar," M. Bakhuyzen van den Brink, whose name, he +says, is celebrated enough to need no comment, or with M. Fruin, of whose +impartiality and erudition he himself speaks in the strongest terms. The +ground upon which he is attacked is thus stated in his own words:-- + +"People have often pretended to find in my writings the deplorable +influence of an extreme Calvinism. The Puritans of the seventeenth +century are my fellow-religionists. I am a sectarian and not an +historian." + +It is plain enough to any impartial reader that there are at least +plausible grounds for this accusation against Mr. Motley's critic. And on +a careful examination of the formidable volume, it becomes obvious that +Mr. Motley has presented a view of the events and the personages of the +stormy epoch with which he is dealing, which leaves a battle-ground yet +to be fought over by those who come after him. The dispute is not and +cannot be settled. + +The end of all religious discussion has come when one of the parties +claims that it is thinking or acting under immediate Divine guidance. "It +is God's affair, and his honor is touched," says William Lewis to Prince +Maurice. Mr. Motley's critic is not less confident in claiming the +Almighty as on the side of his own views. Let him state his own ground of +departure:-- + + "To show the difference, let me rather say the contrast, between the + point of view of Mr. Motley and my own, between the Unitarian and + the Evangelical belief. I am issue of CALVIN, child of the + Awakening (reveil). Faithful to the device of the Reformers: + Justification by faith alone, and the Word of God endures eternally. + I consider history from the point of view of Merle d'Aubigne, + Chalmers, Guizot. I desire to be disciple and witness of our Lord + and Saviour, Jesus Christ." + +He is therefore of necessity antagonistic to a writer whom he describes +in such words as these:-- + + "Mr. Motley is liberal and rationalist. + + "He becomes, in attacking the principle of the Reformation, the + passionate opponent of the Puritans and of Maurice, the ardent + apologist of Barnevelt and the Arminians. + + "It is understood, and he makes no mystery of it, that he inclines + towards the vague and undecided doctrine of the Unitarians." + +What M. Groen's idea of Unitarians is may be gathered from the statement +about them which he gets from a letter of De Tocqueville. + + "They are pure deists; they talk about the Bible, because they do + not wish to shock too severely public opinion, which is prevailingly + Christian. They have a service on Sundays; I have been there. At + it they read verses from Dryden or other English poets on the + existence of God and the immortality of the soul. They deliver a + discourse on some point of morality, and all is said." + +In point of fact the wave of protest which stormed the dikes of Dutch +orthodoxy in the seventeenth century stole gently through the bars of New +England Puritanism in the eighteenth. + +"Though the large number," says Mr. Bancroft, "still acknowledged the +fixedness of the divine decrees, and the resistless certainty from all +eternity of election and of reprobation, there were not wanting, even +among the clergy, some who had modified the sternness of the ancient +doctrine by making the self-direction of the active powers of man with +freedom of inquiry and private judgment the central idea of a protest +against Calvinism." + +Protestantism, cut loose from an infallible church, and drifting with +currents it cannot resist, wakes up once or oftener in every century, to +find itself in a new locality. Then it rubs its eyes and wonders whether +it has found its harbor or only lost its anchor. There is no end to its +disputes, for it has nothing but a fallible vote as authority for its +oracles, and these appeal only to fallible interpreters. + +It is as hard to contend in argument against "the oligarchy of heaven," +as Motley calls the Calvinistic party, as it was formerly to strive with +them in arms. + +To this "aristocracy of God's elect" belonged the party which framed the +declaration of the Synod of Dort; the party which under the forms of +justice shed the blood of the great statesman who had served his country +so long and so well. To this chosen body belonged the late venerable and +truly excellent as well as learned M. Groen van Prinsterer, and he +exercised the usual right of examining in the light of his privileged +position the views of a "liberal" and "rationalist" writer who goes to +meeting on Sunday to hear verses from Dryden. This does not diminish his +claim for a fair reading of the "intimate correspondence," which he +considers Mr. Motley has not duly taken into account, and of the other +letters to be found printed in his somewhat disjointed and fragmentary +volume. + +This "intimate correspondence" shows Maurice the Stadholder indifferent +and lax in internal administration and as being constantly advised and +urged by his relative Count William of Nassau. This need of constant +urging extends to religious as well as other matters, and is inconsistent +with M. Groen van Prinsterer's assertion that the question was for +Maurice above all religious, and for Barneveld above all political. +Whether its negative evidence can be considered as neutralizing that +which is adduced by Mr. Motley to show the Stadholder's hatred of the +Advocate may be left to the reader who has just risen from the account of +the mock trial and the swift execution of the great and venerable +statesman. The formal entry on the record upon the day of his "judicial +murder" is singularly solemn and impressive:-- + + "Monday, 13th May, 1619. To-day was executed with the sword here in + the Hague, on a scaffold thereto erected in the Binnenhof before the + steps of the great hall, Mr. John of Barneveld, in his life Knight, + Lord of Berkel, Rodenrys, etc., Advocate of Holland and West + Friesland, for reasons expressed in the sentence and otherwise, with + confiscation of his property, after he had served the state thirty- + three years two months and five days, since 8th March, 1586; a man + of great activity, business, memory, and wisdom,--yea, extraordinary + in every respect. He that stands let him see that he does not + fall." + +Maurice gave an account of the execution of Barneveld to Count William +Lewis on the same day in a note "painfully brief and dry." + +Most authors write their own biography consciously or unconsciously. We +have seen Mr. Motley portraying much of himself, his course of life and +his future, as he would have had it, in his first story. In this, his +last work, it is impossible not to read much of his own external and +internal personal history told under other names and with different +accessories. The parallelism often accidentally or intentionally passes +into divergence. He would not have had it too close if he could, but +there are various passages in which it is plain enough that he is telling +his own story. + +Mr. Motley was a diplomatist, and he writes of other diplomatists, and +one in particular, with most significant detail. It need not be supposed +that he intends the "arch intriguer" Aerssens to stand for himself, or +that he would have endured being thought to identify himself with the man +of whose "almost devilish acts" he speaks so freely. But the sagacious +reader--and he need not be very sharp-sighted--will very certainly see +something more than a mere historical significance in some of the +passages which I shall cite for him to reflect upon. Mr. Motley's +standard of an ambassador's accomplishments may be judged from the +following passage:-- + + "That those ministers [those of the Republic] were second to the + representatives of no other European state in capacity and + accomplishment was a fact well known to all who had dealings with + them, for the states required in their diplomatic representatives + knowledge of history and international law, modern languages, and + the classics, as well as familiarity with political customs and + social courtesies; the breeding of gentlemen, in short, and the + accomplishments of scholars." + +The story of the troubles of Aerssens, the ambassador of the United +Provinces at Paris, must be given at some length, and will repay careful +reading. + + "Francis Aerssens . . . continued to be the Dutch ambassador + after the murder of Henry IV. . . . He was beyond doubt one of + the ablest diplomatists in Europe. Versed in many languages, a + classical student, familiar with history and international law, a + man of the world and familiar with its usages, accustomed to + associate with dignity and tact on friendliest terms with + sovereigns, eminent statesmen, and men of letters; endowed with a + facile tongue, a fluent pen, and an eye and ear of singular + acuteness and delicacy; distinguished for unflagging industry and + singular aptitude for secret and intricate affairs;--he had by the + exercise of these various qualities during a period of nearly twenty + years at the court of Henry the Great been able to render + inestimable services to the Republic which he represented. + + "He had enjoyed the intimacy and even the confidence of Henry IV., + so far as any man could be said to possess that monarch's + confidence, and his friendly relations and familiar access to the + king gave him political advantages superior to those of any of his + colleagues at the same court. + + "Acting entirely and faithfully according to the instructions of the + Advocate of Holland, he always gratefully and copiously acknowledged + the privilege of being guided and sustained in the difficult paths + he had to traverse by so powerful and active an intellect. I have + seldom alluded in terms to the instructions and dispatches of the + chief, but every position, negotiation, and opinion of the envoy + --and the reader has seen many of them is pervaded by their spirit. + + "It had become a question whether he was to remain at his post or + return. It was doubtful whether he wished to be relieved of his + embassy or not. The States of Holland voted 'to leave it to his + candid opinion if in his free conscience he thinks he can serve the + public any longer. If yes, he may keep his office one year more. + If no, he may take leave and come home.' + + "Surely the States, under the guidance of the Advocate, had thus + acted with consummate courtesy towards a diplomatist whose position, + from no apparent fault of his own, but by the force of + circumstances,--and rather to his credit than otherwise, + --was gravely compromised." + +The Queen, Mary de' Medici, had a talk with him, got angry, "became very +red in the face," and wanted to be rid of him. + + "Nor was the envoy at first desirous of remaining. . . . + Nevertheless, he yielded reluctantly to Barneveld's request that he + should, for the time at least, remain at his post. Later on, as the + intrigues against him began to unfold themselves, and his faithful + services were made use of at home to blacken his character and + procure his removal, he refused to resign, as to do so would be to + play into the hands of his enemies, and, by inference at least, to + accuse himself of infidelity to his trust. . . . + + "It is no wonder that the ambassador was galled to the quick by the + outrage which those concerned in the government were seeking to put + upon him. How could an honest man fail to be overwhelmed with rage + and anguish at being dishonored before the world by his masters for + scrupulously doing his duty, and for maintaining the rights and + dignity of his own country? He knew that the charges were but + pretexts, that the motives of his enemies were as base as the + intrigues themselves, but he also knew that the world usually sides + with the government against the individual, and that a man's + reputation is rarely strong enough to maintain itself unsullied in a + foreign land when his own government stretches forth its hand, not + to shield, but to stab him. . . . + + "'I know,' he said, that this plot has been woven partly here in + Holland and partly here by good correspondence in order to drive me + from my post. + + "'But as I have discovered this accurately, I have resolved to offer + to my masters the continuance of my very humble service for such + time and under such conditions as they may think good to prescribe. + I prefer forcing my natural and private inclinations to giving an + opportunity for the ministers of this kingdom to discredit us, and + to my enemies to succeed in injuring me, and by fraud and malice to + force me from my post. . . . I am truly sorry, being ready to + retire, wishing to have an honorable testimony in recompense of my + labors, that one is in such hurry to take advantage of my fall. . + . . What envoy will ever dare to speak with vigor if he is not + sustained by the government at home? . . . My enemies have + misrepresented my actions, and my language as passionate, + exaggerated, mischievous, but I have no passion except for the + service of my superiors.' + + "Barneveld, from well-considered motives of public policy, was + favoring his honorable recall. But he allowed a decorous interval + of more than three years to elapse in which to terminate his + affairs, and to take a deliberate departure from that French embassy + to which the Advocate had originally promoted him, and in which + there had been so many years of mutual benefit and confidence + between the two statesmen. He used no underhand means. He did not + abuse the power of the States-General which he wielded to cast him + suddenly and brutally from the distinguished post which he occupied, + and so to attempt to dishonor him before the world. Nothing could + be more respectful and conciliatory than the attitude of the + government from first to last towards this distinguished + functionary. The Republic respected itself too much to deal with + honorable agents whose services it felt obliged to dispense with as + with vulgar malefactors who had been detected in crime. . . . + + "This work aims at being a political study. I would attempt to + exemplify the influence of individual humors and passions--some of + them among the highest, and others certainly the basest that agitate + humanity--upon the march of great events, upon general historical + results at certain epochs, and upon the destiny of eminent + personages." + +Here are two suggestive portraits:-- + + "The Advocate, while acting only in the name of a slender + confederacy, was in truth, so long as he held his place, the prime + minister of European Protestantism. There was none other to rival + him, few to comprehend him, fewer still to sustain him. As Prince + Maurice was at that time the great soldier of Protestantism, without + clearly scanning the grandeur of the field in which he was a chief + actor, or foreseeing the vastness of its future, so the Advocate was + its statesman and its prophet. Could the two have worked together + as harmoniously as they had done at an earlier day, it would have + been a blessing for the common weal of Europe. But, alas! the evil + genius of jealousy, which so often forbids cordial relations between + soldier and statesman, already stood shrouded in the distance, + darkly menacing the strenuous patriot, who was wearing his life out + in exertions for what he deemed the true cause of progress and + humanity. . . . + + "All history shows that the brilliant soldier of a republic is apt + to have the advantage, in a struggle for popular affection and + popular applause, over the statesman, however consummate. . . . + The great battles and sieges of the prince had been on a world's + theatre, had enchained the attention of Christendom, and on their + issue had frequently depended, or seemed to depend, the very + existence of the nation. The labors of the statesman, on the + contrary, had been comparatively secret. His noble orations and + arguments had been spoken with closed doors to assemblies of + colleagues, rather envoys than senators, . . while his vast labors + in directing both the internal administration and especially the + foreign affairs of the commonwealth had been by their very nature + as secret as they were perpetual and enormous." + +The reader of the "Life of Barneveld" must judge for himself whether in +these and similar passages the historian was thinking solely of Maurice, +the great military leader, of Barneveld, the great statesman, and of +Aerssens, the recalled ambassador. He will certainly find that there were +"burning questions" for ministers to handle then as now, and recognize in +"that visible atmosphere of power the poison of which it is so difficult +to resist" a respiratory medium as well known to the nineteenth as to the +seventeenth century. + + + + +XXIII. + +1874-1877. AEt. 60-63. + +DEATH OF MRS. MOTLEY.--LAST VISIT TO AMERICA.--ILLNESS AND DEATH.-LADY +HARCOURT'S COMMUNICATION. + +On the last day of 1874, the beloved wife, whose health had for some +years been failing, was taken from him by death. She had been the pride +of his happier years, the stay and solace of those which had so tried his +sensitive spirit. The blow found him already weakened by mental suffering +and bodily infirmity, and he never recovered from it. Mr. Motley's last +visit to America was in the summer and autumn of 1875. During several +weeks which he passed at Nahant, a seaside resort near Boston, I saw him +almost daily. He walked feebly and with some little difficulty, and +complained of a feeling of great weight in the right arm, which made +writing laborious. His handwriting had not betrayed any very obvious +change, so far as I had noticed in his letters. His features and speech +were without any paralytic character. His mind was clear except when, as +on one or two occasions, he complained of some confused feeling, and +walked a few minutes in the open air to compose himself. His thoughts +were always tending to revert to the almost worshipped companion from +whom death had parted him a few months before. Yet he could often be led +away to other topics, and in talking of them could be betrayed into +momentary cheerfulness of manner. His long-enduring and all-pervading +grief was not more a tribute to the virtues and graces of her whom he +mourned than an evidence of the deeply affectionate nature which in other +relations endeared him to so many whose friendship was a title to love +and honor. + +I have now the privilege of once more recurring to the narrative of Mr. +Motley's daughter, Lady Harcourt. + + "The harassing work and mental distress of this time [after the + recall from England], acting on an acutely nervous organization, + began the process of undermining his constitution, of which we were + so soon to see the results. It was not the least courageous act of + his life, that, smarting under a fresh wound, tired and unhappy, he + set his face immediately towards the accomplishment of fresh + literary labor. After my sister's marriage in January he went to + the Hague to begin his researches in the archives for John of + Barneveld. The Queen of the Netherlands had made ready a house + for us, and personally superintended every preparation for his + reception. We remained there until the spring, and then removed to + a house more immediately in the town, a charming old-fashioned + mansion, once lived in by John de Witt, where he had a large library + and every domestic comfort during the year of his sojourn. The + incessant literary labor in an enervating climate with enfeebled + health may have prepared the way for the first break in his + constitution, which was to show itself soon after. There were many + compensations in the life about him. He enjoyed the privilege of + constant companionship with one of the warmest hearts and finest + intellects which I have ever known in a woman,--the 'ame d'elite' + which has passed beyond this earth. The gracious sentiment with + which the Queen sought to express her sense of what Holland owed him + would have been deeply felt even had her personal friendship been + less dear to us all. From the King, the society of the Hague, and + the diplomatic circle we had many marks of kindness. Once or twice + I made short journeys with him for change of air to Amsterdam, to + look for the portraits of John of Barneveld and his wife; to + Bohemia, where, with the lingering hope of occupying himself with + the Thirty Years' War, he looked carefully at the scene of + Wallenstein's death near Prague, and later to Varzin in Pomerania + for a week with Prince Bismarck, after the great events of the + Franco-German war. In the autumn of 1872 we moved to England, + partly because it was evident that his health and my mother's + required a change; partly for private reasons to be near my sister + and her children. The day after our arrival at Bournemouth occurred + the rupture of a vessel on the lungs, without any apparently + sufficient cause. He recovered enough to revise and complete his + manuscript, and we thought him better, when at the end of July, in + London, he was struck down by the first attack of the head, which + robbed him of all after power of work, although the intellect + remained untouched. Sir William Gull sent him to Cannes for the + winter, where he was seized with a violent internal inflammation, + in which I suppose there was again the indication of the lesion of + blood-vessels. I am nearing the shadow now,--the time of which I + can hardly bear to write. You know the terrible sorrow which + crushed him on the last day of 1874,--the grief which broke his + heart and from which he never rallied. From that day it seems to me + that his life may be summed up in the two words,--patient waiting. + Never for one hour did her spirit leave him, and he strove to follow + its leading for the short and evil days left and the hope of the + life beyond. I think I have never watched quietly and reverently + the traces of one personal character remaining so strongly impressed + on another nature. With herself--depreciation and unselfishness she + would have been the last to believe how much of him was in her very + existence; nor could we have realized it until the parting came. + Henceforward, with the mind still there, but with the machinery + necessary to set it in motion disturbed and shattered, he could but + try to create small occupations with which to fill the hours of a + life which was only valued for his children's sake. Kind and loving + friends in England and America soothed the passage, and our + gratitude for so many gracious acts is deep and true. His love for + children, always a strong feeling, was gratified by the constant + presence of my sister's babies, the eldest, a little girl who bore + my mother's name, and had been her idol, being the companion of many + hours and his best comforter. At the end the blow came swiftly and + suddenly, as he would have wished it. It was a terrible shock to us + who had vainly hoped to keep him a few years longer, but at least he + was spared what he had dreaded with a great dread, a gradual failure + of mental or bodily power. The mind was never clouded, the + affections never weakened, and after a few hours of unconscious + physical struggle he lay at rest, his face beautiful and calm, + without a trace of suffering or illness. Once or twice he said, 'It + has come, it has come,' and there were a few broken words before + consciousness fled, but there was little time for messages or leave- + taking. By a strange coincidence his life ended near the town of + Dorchester, in the mother country, as if the last hour brought with + it a reminiscence of his birthplace, and of his own dearly loved + mother. By his own wish only the dates of his birth and death + appear upon his gravestone, with the text chosen by himself, 'In God + is light, and in him is no darkness at all.'" + + + + +XXIV. + + + + +CONCLUSION.--HIS CHARACTER.--HIS LABORS.--HIS REWARD. + +In closing this restricted and imperfect record of a life which merits, +and in due time will, I trust, receive an ampler tribute, I cannot +refrain from adding a few thoughts which naturally suggest themselves, +and some of which may seem quite unnecessary to the reader who has +followed the story of the historian and diplomatist's brilliant and +eventful career. + +Mr. Motley came of a parentage which promised the gifts of mind and body +very generally to be accounted for, in a measure at least, wherever we +find them, by the blood of one or both of the parents. They gave him +special attractions and laid him open to not a few temptations. Too many +young men born to shine in social life, to sparkle, it may be, in +conversation, perhaps in the lighter walks of literature, become +agreeable idlers, self-indulgent, frivolous, incapable of large designs +or sustained effort, lose every aspiration and forget every ideal. Our +gilded youth want such examples as this of Motley, not a solitary, but a +conspicuous one, to teach them how much better is the restlessness of a +noble ambition than the narcotized stupor of club-life or the vapid +amusement of a dressed-up intercourse which too often requires a +questionable flavor of forbidden license to render it endurable to +persons of vivacious character and temperament. + +It would seem difficult for a man so flattered from his earliest days to +be modest in his self-estimate; but Motley was never satisfied with +himself. He was impulsive, and was occasionally, I have heard it said, +over excited, when his prejudices were roughly handled. In all that +related to the questions involved in our civil war, he was, no doubt, +very sensitive. He had heard so much that exasperated him in the foreign +society which he had expected to be in full sympathy with the cause of +liberty as against slavery, that he might be excused if he showed +impatience when he met with similar sentiments among his own countrymen. +He felt that he had been cruelly treated by his own government, and no +one who conceives himself to have been wronged and insulted must be +expected to reason in naked syllogisms on the propriety of the liberties +which have been taken with his name and standing. But with all his +quickness of feeling, his manners were easy and courteous, simply because +his nature was warm and kindly, and with all his natural fastidiousness +there was nothing of the coxcomb about him. + +He must have had enemies, as all men of striking individuality are sure +to have; his presence cast more uncouth patriots into the shade; his +learning was a reproach to the ignorant, his fame was too bright a +distinction; his high-bred air and refinement, which he could not help, +would hardly commend him to the average citizen in an order of things in +which mediocrity is at a premium, and the natural nobility of presence, +which rarely comes without family antecedents to account for it, is not +always agreeable to the many whose two ideals are the man on horseback +and the man in his shirt-sleeves. It may well be questioned whether +Washington, with his grand manner, would be nearly as popular with what +are called "the masses" as Lincoln, with his homely ways and broad +stories. The experiment of universal suffrage must render the waters of +political and social life more or less turbid even if they remain +innoxious. The Cloaca Maxima can hardly mingle its contents with the +stream of the Aqua Claudia, without taking something from its crystal +clearness. We need not go so far as one of our well-known politicians has +recently gone in saying that no great man can reach the highest position +in our government, but we can safely say that, apart from military fame, +the loftiest and purest and finest personal qualities are not those which +can be most depended upon at the ballot-box. Strange stories are told of +avowed opposition to Mr. Motley on the ground of the most trivial +differences in point of taste in personal matters,--so told that it is +hard to disbelieve them, and they show that the caprices which we might +have thought belonged exclusively to absolute rulers among their +mistresses or their minions may be felt in the councils of a great people +which calls itself self-governing. It is perfectly true that Mr. Motley +did not illustrate the popular type of politician. He was too +high-minded, too scholarly, too generously industrious, too polished, too +much at home in the highest European circles, too much courted for his +personal fascinations, too remote from the trading world of caucus +managers. To degrade him, so far as official capital punishment could do +it, was not merely to wrong one whom the nation should have delighted to +honor as showing it to the world in the fairest flower of its young +civilization, but it was an indignity to a representative of the highest +scholarship of native growth, which every student in the land felt as a +discouragement to all sound learning and noble ambition. + +If he was disappointed in his diplomatic career, he had enough, and more +than enough, to console him in his brilliant literary triumphs. He had +earned them all by the most faithful and patient labor. If he had not the +"frame of adamant" of the Swedish hero, he had his "soul of fire." No +labors could tire him, no difficulties affright him. What most surprised +those who knew him as a young man was, not his ambition, not his +brilliancy, but his dogged, continuous capacity for work. We have seen +with what astonishment the old Dutch scholar, Groen van Prinsterer, +looked upon a man who had wrestled with authors like Bor and Van Meteren, +who had grappled with the mightiest folios and toiled undiscouraged among +half-illegible manuscript records. Having spared no pains in collecting +his materials, he told his story, as we all know, with flowing ease and +stirring vitality. His views may have been more or less partial; Philip +the Second may have deserved the pitying benevolence of poor Maximilian; +Maurice may have wept as sincerely over the errors of Arminius as any one +of "the crocodile crew that believe in election;" Barneveld and Grotius +may have been on the road to Rome; none of these things seem probable, +but if they were all proved true in opposition to his views, we should +still have the long roll of glowing tapestry he has woven for us, with +all its life-like portraits, its almost moving pageants, its sieges where +we can see the artillery flashing, its battle-fields with their smoke and +fire,--pictures which cannot fade, and which will preserve his name +interwoven with their own enduring colors. + +Republics are said to be ungrateful; it might be truer to say that they +are forgetful. They forgive those who have wronged them as easily as they +forget those who have done them good service. But History never forgets +and never forgives. To her decision we may trust the question, whether +the warm-hearted patriot who had stood up for his country nobly and +manfully in the hour of trial, the great scholar and writer who had +reflected honor upon her throughout the world of letters, the high-minded +public servant, whose shortcomings it taxed the ingenuity of experts to +make conspicuous enough to be presentable, was treated as such a citizen +should have been dealt with. His record is safe in her hands, and his +memory will be precious always in the hearts of all who enjoyed his +friendship. + + + + +APPENDIX. + +A. + +THE SATURDAY CLUB. + +This club, of which we were both members, and which is still flourishing, +came into existence in a very quiet sort of way at about the same time as +"The Atlantic Monthly," and, although entirely unconnected with that +magazine, included as members some of its chief contributors. Of those +who might have been met at some of the monthly gatherings in its earlier +days I may mention Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, Motley, +Whipple, Whittier; Professors Agassiz and Peirce; John S. Dwight; +Governor Andrew, Richard H. Dana, Junior, Charles Sumner. It offered a +wide gamut of intelligences, and the meetings were noteworthy occasions. +If there was not a certain amount of "mutual admiration" among some of +those I have mentioned it was a great pity, and implied a defect in the +nature of men who were otherwise largely endowed. The vitality of this +club has depended in a great measure on its utter poverty in statutes and +by-laws, its entire absence of formality, and its blessed freedom from +speech-making. + +That holy man, Richard Baxter, says in his Preface to Alleine's +"Alarm:"-- + + "I have done, when I have sought to remove a little scandal, which I + foresaw, that I should myself write the Preface to his Life where + himself and two of his friends make such a mention of my name, which + I cannot own; which will seem a praising him for praising me. I + confess it looketh ill-favoredly in me. But I had not the power of + other men's writings, and durst not forbear that which was his due." + +I do not know that I have any occasion for a similar apology in printing +the following lines read at a meeting of members of the Saturday Club and +other friends who came together to bid farewell to Motley before his +return to Europe in 1857. + + A PARTING HEALTH + + Yes, we knew we must lose him,--though friendship may claim + To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame, + Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, + 'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown. + + As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel, + As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, + As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, + He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring. + + What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom + Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, + While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes + That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies! + + In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of time, + Where flit the dark spectres of passion and crime, + There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, + There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue! + + Let us hear the proud story that time has bequeathed + From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed! + Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, + Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom! + + The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake + On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, + To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine + With incense they stole from the rose and the pine. + + So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed + When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed; + THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING,--the world holds him dear,-- + + Love bless him, joy crown him, God speed his career! + + + +B. + +HABITS AND METHODS OF STUDY. + +Mr. Motley's daughter, Lady Harcourt, has favored me with many +interesting particulars which I could not have learned except from a +member of his own family. Her description of his way of living and of +working will be best given in her own words:-- + + "He generally rose early, the hour varying somewhat at different + parts of his life, according to his work and health. Sometimes when + much absorbed by literary labor he would rise before seven, often + lighting his own fire, and with a cup of tea or coffee writing until + the family breakfast hour, after which his work was immediately + resumed, and he usually sat over his writing-table until late in the + afternoon, when he would take a short walk. His dinner hour was + late, and he rarely worked at night. During the early years of his + literary studies he led a life of great retirement. Later, after + the publication of the 'Dutch Republic' and during the years of + official place, he was much in society in England, Austria, and + Holland. He enjoyed social life, and particularly dining out, + keenly, but was very moderate and simple in all his personal habits, + and for many years before his death had entirely given up smoking. + His work, when not in his own library, was in the Archives of the + Netherlands, Brussels, Paris, the English State Paper Office, and + the British Museum, where he made his own researches, patiently and + laboriously consulting original manuscripts and reading masses of + correspondence, from which he afterwards sometimes caused copies to + be made, and where he worked for many consecutive hours a day. + After his material had been thus painfully and toilfully amassed, + the writing of his own story was always done at home, and his mind, + having digested the necessary matter, always poured itself forth in + writing so copiously that his revision was chiefly devoted to + reducing the over-abundance. He never shrank from any of the + drudgery of preparation, but I think his own part of the work was + sheer pleasure to him." + +I should have mentioned that his residence in London while minister was +at the house No. 17 Arlington Street, belonging to Lord Yarborough. + + + + +C. + +SIR WILLIAM GULL's ACCOUNT OF HIS ILLNESS. + +I have availed myself of the permission implied in the subjoined letter +of Sir William Gull to make large extracts from his account of Mr. +Motley's condition while under his medical care. In his earlier years he +had often complained to me of those "nervous feelings connected with the +respiration" referred to by this very distinguished physician. I do not +remember any other habitual trouble to which he was subject. + + 74 BROOK STREET, GROSVENOR SQUARE, W. + February 13, 1878. +MY DEAR SIR,--I send the notes of Mr. Motley's last illness, as I +promised. They are too technical for general readers, but you will make +such exception as you require. The medical details may interest your +professional friends. Mr. Motley's case was a striking illustration that +the renal disease of so-called Bright's disease may supervene as part and +parcel of a larger and antecedent change in the blood-vessels in other +parts than the kidney. . . . I am, my dear sir, + + Yours very truly, + WILLIAM W. GULL. + +To OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, ESQ. + + I first saw Mr. Motley, I believe, about the year 1870, on account + of some nervous feelings connected with the respiration. At that + time his general health was good, and all he complained of was + occasionally a feeling of oppression about the chest. There were no + physical signs of anything abnormal, and the symptoms quite passed + away in the course of time, and with the use of simple antispasmodic + remedies, such as camphor and the like. This was my first interview + with Mr. Motley, and I was naturally glad to have the opportunity of + making his acquaintance. I remember that in our conversation I + jokingly said that my wife could hardly forgive him for not making + her hero, Henri IV., a perfect character, and the earnestness with + which he replied 'au serieux,' I assure you I have fairly recorded + the facts. After this date I did not see Mr. Motley for some time. + He had three slight attacks of haemoptysis in the autumn of 1872, + but no physical signs of change in the lung tissue resulted. So + early as this I noticed that there were signs of commencing + thickening in the heart, as shown by the degree and extent of its + impulse. The condition of his health, though at that time not very + obviously failing, a good deal arrested my attention, as I thought I + could perceive in the occurrence of the haemoptysis, and in the + cardiac hypertrophy, the early beginnings of vascular degeneration. + + In August, 1873, occurred the remarkable seizure, from the effects + of which Mr. Motley never recovered. I did not see him in the + attack, but was informed, as far as I can remember, that he was on a + casual visit at a friend's house at luncheon (or it might have been + dinner), when he suddenly became strangely excited, but not quite + unconscious. . . . I believed at the time, and do so still, that + there was some capillary apoplexy of the convolutions. The attack + was attended with some hemiplegic weakness on the right side, and + altered sensation, and ever after there was a want of freedom and + ease both in the gait and in the use of the arm of that side. To my + inquiries from time to time how the arm was, the patient would + always flex and extend it freely, but nearly always used the + expression, "There is a bedevilment in it;" though the handwriting + was not much, if at all, altered. + + In December, 1873, Mr. Motley went by my advice to Cannes. I wrote + the following letter at the time to my friend Dr. Frank, who was + practising there:-- + + [This letter, every word of which was of value to the + practitioner who was to have charge of the patient, relates + many of the facts given above, and I shall therefore only give + extracts from it.] + + December 29, 1873. + + MY DEAR DR. FRANK,--My friend Mr. Motley, the historian and late + American Minister, whose name and fame no doubt you know very well, + has by my advice come to Cannes for the winter and spring, and I + have promised him to give you some account of his case. To me it is + one of special interest, and personally, as respects the subject of + it, of painful interest. I have known Mr. Motley for some time, but + he consulted me for the present condition about midsummer. + + . . . If I have formed a correct opinion of the pathology of the + case, I believe the smaller vessels are degenerating in several + parts of the vascular area, lung, brain, and kidneys. With this + view I have suggested a change of climate, a nourishing diet, etc.; + and it is to be hoped, and I trust expected, that by great attention + to the conditions of hygiene, internal and external, the progress of + degeneration may be retarded. I have no doubt you will find, as + time goes on, increasing evidence of renal change, but this is + rather a coincidence and consequence than a cause, though no doubt + when the renal change has reached a certain point, it becomes in its + own way a factor of other lesions. I have troubled you at this + length because my mind is much occupied with the pathology of these + cases, and because no case can, on personal grounds, more strongly + challenge our attention. + + Yours very truly, + WILLIAM W. GULL. + + During the spring of 1874, whilst at Cannes, Mr. Motley had a sharp + attack of nephritis, attended with fever; but on returning to + England in July there was no important change in the health. The + weakness of the side continued, and the inability to undertake any + mental work. The signs of cardiac hypertrophy were more distinct. + In the beginning of the year 1875 I wrote as follows:-- + + February 20, 1875. + + MY DEAR Mr. MOTLEY,--. . . The examination I have just made + appears to indicate that the main conditions of your health are more + stable than they were some months ago, and would therefore be so far + in favor of your going to America in the summer, as we talked of. + The ground of my doubt has lain in the possibility of such a trip + further disordering the circulation. Of this, I hope, there is now + less risk. + + On the 4th of June, 1875, I received the following letter:-- + + CALVERLY PARK HOTEL, TUNBRIDGE WELLS, + June 4, 1875. + + MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM,--I have been absent from town for a long time, + but am to be there on the 9th and 10th. Could I make an appointment + with you for either of those days? I am anxious to have a full + consultation with you before leaving for America. Our departure is + fixed for the 19th of this month. I have not been worse than usual + of late. I think myself, on the contrary, rather stronger, and it + is almost impossible for me not to make my visit to America this + summer, unless you should absolutely prohibit it. If neither of + those days should suit you, could you kindly suggest another day? + I hope, however, you can spare me half an hour on one of those days, + as I like to get as much of this bracing air as I can. Will you + kindly name the hour when I may call on you, and address me at this + hotel. Excuse this slovenly note in pencil, but it fatigues my head + and arm much more to sit at a writing-table with pen and ink. + + Always most sincerely yours, + My dear Sir William, + J. L. MOTLEY. + + On Mr. Motley's return from America I saw him, and found him, I + thought, rather better in general health than when he left England. + + In December, 1875, Mr. Motley consulted me for trouble of vision in + reading or walking, from sensations like those produced by flakes of + falling snow coming between him and the objects he was looking at. + Mr. Bowman, one of our most excellent oculists, was then consulted. + Mr. Bowman wrote to me as follows: "Such symptoms as exist point + rather to disturbed retinal function than to any brain-mischief. It + is, however, quite likely that what you fear for the brain may have + had its counterpart in the nerve-structures of the eye, and as he is + short-sighted, this tendency may be further intensified." + + Mr. Bowman suggested no more than such an arrangement of glasses as + might put the eyes, when in use, under better optic conditions. + + The year 1876 was passed over without any special change worth + notice. The walking powers were much impeded by the want of control + over the right leg. The mind was entirely clear, though Mr. Motley + did not feel equal, and indeed had been advised not to apply + himself, to any literary work. Occasional conversations, when I had + interviews with him on the subject of his health, proved that the + attack which had weakened the movements of the right side had not + impaired the mental power. The most noticeable change which had + come over Mr. Motley since I first knew him was due to the death of + Mrs. Motley in December, 1874. It had in fact not only profoundly + depressed him, but, if I may so express it, had removed the centre + of his thought to a new world. In long conversations with me of a + speculative kind, after that painful event, it was plain how much + his point of view of the whole course and relation of things had + changed. His mind was the last to dogmatize on any subject. There + was a candid and childlike desire to know, with an equal confession + of the incapacity of the human intellect. I wish I could recall the + actual expressions he used, but the sense was that which has been so + well stated by Hooker in concluding an exhortation against the pride + of the human intellect, where he remarks:-- + + "Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the + doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to + make mention of His Name, yet our soundest knowledge is to know that + we know Him, not indeed as He is, neither can know Him; and our + safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence, when we confess + without confession that His glory is inexplicable, His greatness + above our capacity and reach. He is above and we upon earth; + therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few." + + Mrs. Motley's illness was not a long one, and the nature of it was + such that its course could with certainty be predicted. Mr. Motley + and her children passed the remaining days of her life, extending + over about a month, with her, in the mutual under standing that she + was soon to part from them. The character of the illness, and the + natural exhaustion of her strength by suffering, lessened the shock + of her death, though not the loss, to those who survived her. + + The last time I saw Mr. Motley was, I believe, about two months + before his death, March 28, 1877. There was no great change in his + health, but he complained of indescribable sensations in his nervous + system, and felt as if losing the whole power of walking, but this + was not obvious in his gait, although he walked shorter distances + than before. I heard no more of him until I was suddenly summoned + on the 29th of May into Devonshire to see him. The telegram I + received was so urgent, that I suspected some rupture of a blood- + vessel in the brain, and that I should hardly reach him alive; and + this was the case. About two o'clock in the day he complained of a + feeling of faintness, said he felt ill and should not recover; and + in a few minutes was insensible with symptoms of ingravescent + apoplexy. There was extensive haemorrhage into the brain, as shown + by post-mortem examination, the cerebral vessels being atheromatous. + The fatal haemorrhage had occurred into the lateral ventricles, from + rupture of one of the middle cerebral arteries. + + I am, my dear Sir, + Yours very truly, + WILLIAM W. GULL. + + +E. + +FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY. + +At a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, held on Thursday, +the 14th of June, 1877, after the reading of the records of the preceding +meeting, the president, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, spoke as follows: + + "Our first thoughts to-day, gentlemen, are of those whom we may not + again welcome to these halls. We shall be in no mood, certainly, + for entering on other subjects this morning until we have given some + expression to our deep sense of the loss--the double loss--which our + Society has sustained since our last monthly meeting."--[Edmund + Quincy died May 17. John Lothrop Motley died May 29.] + +After a most interesting and cordial tribute to his friend, Mr. Quincy, +Mr. Winthrop continued: + + "The death of our distinguished associate, Motley, can hardly have + taken many of us by surprise. Sudden at the moment of its + occurrence, we had long been more or less prepared for it by his + failing health. It must, indeed, have been quite too evident to + those who had seen him, during the last two or three years, that his + life-work was finished. I think he so regarded it himself. + + "Hopes may have been occasionally revived in the hearts of his + friends, and even in his own heart, that his long-cherished purpose + of completing a History of the Thirty Years' War, as the grand + consummation of his historical labors,--for which all his other + volumes seemed to him to have been but the preludes and overtures, + --might still be accomplished. But such hopes, faint and flickering + from his first attack, had well-nigh died away. They were like + Prescott's hopes of completing his 'Philip the Second,' or like + Macaulay's hopes of finishing his brilliant 'History of England.' + + "But great as may be the loss to literature of such a crowning work + from Motley's pen, it was by no means necessary to the completeness + of his own fame. His 'Rise of the Dutch Republic,' his 'History of + the United Netherlands,' and his 'Life of John of Barneveld,' had + abundantly established his reputation, and given him a fixed place + among the most eminent historians of our country and of our age. + + "No American writer, certainly, has secured a wider recognition or a + higher appreciation from the scholars of the Old World. The + universities of England and the learned societies of Europe have + bestowed upon him their largest honors. It happened to me to be in + Paris when he was first chosen a corresponding member of the + Institute, and when his claims were canvassed with the freedom and + earnestness which peculiarly characterize such a candidacy in + France. There was no mistaking the profound impression which his + first work had made on the minds of such men as Guizot and Mignet. + Within a year or two past, a still higher honor has been awarded him + from the same source. The journals not long ago announced his + election as one of the six foreign associates of the French Academy + of Moral and Political Sciences,--a distinction which Prescott would + probably have attained had he lived a few years longer, until there + was a vacancy, but which, as a matter of fact, I believe, Motley was + the only American writer, except the late Edward Livingston, of + Louisiana, who has actually enjoyed. + + "Residing much abroad, for the purpose of pursuing his historical + researches, he had become the associate and friend of the most + eminent literary men in almost all parts of the world, and the + singular charms of his conversation and manners had made him a + favorite guest in the most refined and exalted circles. + + "Of his relations to political and public life, this is hardly the + occasion or the moment for speaking in detail. Misconstructions and + injustices are the proverbial lot of those who occupy eminent + position. It was a duke of Vienna, if I remember rightly, whom + Shakespeare, in his 'Measure for Measure,' introduces as + exclaiming,-- + + 'O place and greatness, millions of false eyes + Are stuck upon thee! Volumes of report + Run with these false and most contrarious quests + Upon thy doings! Thousand 'stapes of wit + Make thee the father of their idle dream, + And rack thee in their fancies!' + + "I forbear from all application of the lines. It is enough for me, + certainly, to say here, to-day, that our country was proud to be + represented at the courts of Vienna and London successively by a + gentleman of so much culture and accomplishment as Mr. Motley, and + that the circumstances of his recall were deeply regretted by us + all. + + "His fame, however, was quite beyond the reach of any such + accidents, and could neither be enhanced nor impaired by + appointments or removals. As a powerful and brilliant historian we + pay him our unanimous tribute of admiration and regret, and give him + a place in our memories by the side of Prescott and Irving. I do + not forget how many of us lament him, also, as a cherished friend. + + "He died on the 29th ultimo, at the house of his daughter, Mrs. + Sheridan, in Dorsetshire, England, and an impressive tribute to his + memory was paid, in Westminster Abbey, on the following Sunday, by + our Honorary Member, Dean Stanley. Such a tribute, from such lips, + and with such surroundings, leaves nothing to be desired in the way + of eulogy. He was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, by the side of + his beloved wife. + + "One might well say of Motley precisely what he said of Prescott, in + a letter from Rome to our associate, Mr. William Amory, immediately + on hearing of Prescott's death: 'I feel inexpressibly disappointed + --speaking now for an instant purely from a literary point of view + --that the noble and crowning monument of his life, for which he had + laid such massive foundations, and the structure of which had been + carried forward in such a grand and masterly manner, must remain + uncompleted, like the unfinished peristyle of some stately and + beautiful temple on which the night of time has suddenly descended. + But, still, the works which his great and untiring hand had already + thoroughly finished will remain to attest his learning and genius, + --a precious and perpetual possession for his country." + + ................................. + +The President now called on Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said:-- + + "The thoughts which suggest themselves upon this occasion are such + as belong to the personal memories of the dear friends whom we have + lost, rather than to their literary labors, the just tribute to + which must wait for a calmer hour than the present, following so + closely as it does on our bereavement." + + ................................. + + "His first literary venture of any note was the story called + 'Morton's Hope; or, The Memoirs of a Provincial.' This first effort + failed to satisfy the critics, the public, or himself. His + personality pervaded the characters and times which he portrayed, + so that there was a discord between the actor and his costume. + Brilliant passages could not save it; and it was plain enough that + he must ripen into something better before the world would give him + the reception which surely awaited him if he should find his true + destination. + + "The early failures of a great writer are like the first sketches + of a great artist, and well reward patient study. More than this, + the first efforts of poets and story-tellers are very commonly + palimpsests: beneath the rhymes or the fiction one can almost always + spell out the characters which betray the writer's self. Take these + passages from the story just referred to: + + "'Ah! flattery is a sweet and intoxicating potion, whether we drink + it from an earthen ewer or a golden chalice. . . . Flattery from + man to woman is expected: it is a part of the courtesy of society; + but when the divinity descends from the altar to burn incense to the + priest, what wonder if the idolater should feel himself transformed + into a god!' + + "He had run the risk of being spoiled, but he had a safeguard in his + aspirations. + + "'My ambitious anticipations,' says Morton, in the story, were as + boundless as they were various and conflicting. There was not a + path which leads to glory in which I was not destined to gather + laurels. As a warrior, I would conquer and overrun the world; as a + statesman, I would reorganize and govern it; as a historian, I would + consign it all to immortality; and, in my leisure moments, I would + be a great poet and a man of the world.' + + "Who can doubt that in this passage of his story he is picturing his + own visions, one of the fairest of which was destined to become + reality? + + "But there was another element in his character, which those who + knew him best recognized as one with which he had to struggle hard, + --that is, a modesty which sometimes tended to collapse into self- + distrust. This, too, betrays itself in the sentences which follow + those just quoted:-- + + "'In short,' says Morton, 'I was already enrolled in that large + category of what are called young men of genius, . . . men of + whom unheard-of things are expected; till after long preparation + comes a portentous failure, and then they are forgotten. . . . + Alas! for the golden imaginations of our youth. . . . They are + all disappointments. They are bright and beautiful, but they fade.'" + + ........................... + +The President appointed Professor Lowell to write the Memoir of Mr. +Quincy, and Dr. Holmes that of Mr. Motley, for the Society's +"Proceedings." + +Professor William Everett then spoke as follows: + + "There is one incident, sir, in Mr. Motley's career that has not + been mentioned to-day, which is, perhaps, most vividly remembered by + those of us who were in Europe at the outbreak of our civil war in + 1861. At that time, the ignorance of Englishmen, friendly or + otherwise, about America, was infinite: they knew very little of us, + and that little wrong. Americans were overwhelmed with questions, + taunts, threats, misrepresentations, the outgrowth of ignorance, and + ignoring worse than ignorance, from every class of Englishmen. + Never was an authoritative exposition of our hopes and policy worse + needed; and there was no one to do it. The outgoing diplomatic + agents represented a bygone order of things; the representatives of + Mr. Lincoln's administration had not come. At that time of anxiety, + Mr. Motley, living in England as a private person, came forward with + two letters in the 'Times,' which set forth the cause of the United + States once and for all. No unofficial, and few official, men could + have spoken with such authority, and been so certain of obtaining a + hearing from Englishmen. Thereafter, amid all the clouds of + falsehood and ridicule which we had to encounter, there was one + lighthouse fixed on a rock to which we could go for foothold, from + which we could not be driven, and against which all assaults were + impotent. + + "There can be no question that the effect produced by these letters + helped, if help had been needed, to point out Mr. Motley as a + candidate for high diplomatic place who could not be overlooked. + Their value was recognized alike by his fellow-citizens in America + and his admirers in England; but none valued them more than the + little band of exiles, who were struggling against terrible odds, + and who rejoiced with a great joy to see the stars and stripes, + whose centennial anniversary those guns are now celebrating, planted + by a hand so truly worthy to rally every American to its support." + + + +G. + +POEM BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. + +I cannot close this Memoir more appropriately than by appending the +following poetical tribute:-- + + IN MEMORY OF JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. + + BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. + + Sleep, Motley, with the great of ancient days, + Who wrote for all the years that yet shall be. + Sleep with Herodotus, whose name and praise + Have reached the isles of earth's remotest sea. + Sleep, while, defiant of the slow delays + Of Time, thy glorious writings speak for thee + And in the answering heart of millions raise + The generous zeal for Right and Liberty. + And should the days o'ertake us, when, at last, + The silence that--ere yet a human pen + Had traced the slenderest record of the past + Hushed the primeval languages of men + Upon our English tongue its spell shall cast, + Thy memory shall perish only then. + + + + + + +American Men of Letters + +EDITED BY + +CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. + + + "_Thou wert the morning star among the living, + Ere thy fair light had fled: + Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving + New splendor to the dead._" + + + +RALPH WALDO EMERSON. + +BY + +OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. + +1891 + + + + +NOTE. + + +My thanks are due to the members of Mr. Emerson's family, and the other +friends who kindly assisted me by lending interesting letters and +furnishing valuable information. + +The Index, carefully made by Mr. J.H. Wiggin, was revised and somewhat +abridged by myself. + +OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. + +BOSTON, November 25, 1884. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +INTRODUCTION + + +CHAPTER I. + +1803-1823. To AET. 20. + +Birthplace.--Boyhood.--College Life. + + +CHAPTER II. + +1823-1828. AET. 20-25. + +Extract from a Letter to a Classmate.--School-Teaching.--Study of +Divinity.--"Approbated" to Preach.--Visit to the South.--Preaching in +Various Places. + + +CHAPTER III. + +1828-1833. AET. 25-30. + +Settled as Colleague of Rev. Henry Ware.--Married to Ellen Louisa +Tucker.--Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. H.B. Goodwin.--His Pastoral +and Other Labors.--Emerson and Father Taylor.--Death of Mrs. +Emerson.--Difference of Opinion with some of his Parishioners.--Sermon +Explaining his Views.--Resignation of his Pastorate. + + +CHAPTER IV. + +1833-1838. AET. 30-35. + +Section I. Visit to Europe.--On his Return preaches in Different +Places.--Emerson in the Pulpit.--At Newton.--Fixes his Residence at +Concord.--The Old Manse.--Lectures in Boston.--Lectures on +Michael Angelo and on Milton published in the "North American +Review."--Beginning of the Correspondence with Carlyle.--Letters to the +Rev. James Freeman Clarke.--Republication of "Sartor Resartus." + +Section 2. Emerson's Second Marriage.--His New Residence in +Concord.--Historical Address.--Course of Ten Lectures on English +Literature delivered in Boston.--The Concord Battle Hymn.--Preaching +in Concord and East Lexington.--Accounts of his Preaching by +Several Hearers.--A Course of Lectures on the Nature and Ends of +History.--Address on War.--Death of Edward Bliss Emerson.--Death of +Charles Chauncy Emerson. + +Section 3. Publication of "Nature."--Outline of this Essay.--Its +Reception.--Address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society + + +CHAPTER V. + +1838-1843. AET. 35-40. + +Section 1. Divinity School Address.--Correspondence.--Lectures on Human +Life.--Letters to James Freeman Clarke.--Dartmouth College Address: +Literary Ethics.--Waterville College Address: The Method of +Nature.--Other Addresses: Man the Reformer.--Lecture on the Times.--The +Conservative.--The Transcendentalist.--Boston "Transcendentalism."--"The +Dial."--Brook Farm. + +Section 2. First Series of Essays published.--Contents: History, +Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, +Heroism, The Over-Soul, Circles, Intellect, Art.--Emerson's Account +of his Mode of Life in a Letter to Carlyle.--Death of Emerson's +Son.--Threnody + + +CHAPTER VI. + +1843-1848. AET. 40-45. + +"The Young American."--Address on the Anniversary of the Emancipation +of the Negroes in the British West Indies.--Publication of the +Second Series of Essays.--Contents: The Poet.--Experience. +--Character.--Manners.--Gifts.--Nature.--Politics.--Nominalist +and Realist.--New England Reformers.--Publication of Poems.--Second +Visit to England + + +CHAPTER VII. + +1848-1853. AET. 45-50. + +The "Massachusetts Quarterly Review."--Visit to +Europe.--England.--Scotland.--France.--"Representative Men" published. +I. Lives of Great Men. II. Plato; or, the Philosopher; Plato; New +Readings. III. Swedenborg; or, the Mystic. IV. Montaigne; or, the +Skeptic. V. Shakespeare; or, the Poet. VI. Napoleon; or, the Man of the +World. VII. Goethe; or, the Writer.--Contribution to the "Memoirs of +Margaret Fuller Ossoli" + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +1853-1858. AET. 50-55. + +Lectures in various Places.--Anti-Slavery Addresses.--Woman. A Lecture +read before the Woman's Rights Convention.--Samuel Hoar. Speech at +Concord.--Publication of "English Traits."--The "Atlantic Monthly."--The +"Saturday Club" + + +CHAPTER IX + +1858-1863. AET. 55-60. + +Essay on Persian Poetry.--Speech at the Burns Centennial +Festival.--Letter from Emerson to a Lady.--Tributes to Theodore Parker +and to Thoreau.--Address on the Emancipation Proclamation.--Publication +of "The Conduct of Life." Contents: Fate; Power; Wealth; Culture; +Behavior; Considerations by the Way; Beauty; Illusions + + +CHAPTER X. + +1863-1868. AET. 60-65. + +"Boston Hymn."--"Voluntaries."--Other Poems.--"May-Day and other +Pieces."--"Remarks at the Funeral Services of President Lincoln."--Essay +on Persian Poetry.--Address at a Meeting of the Free Religious +Association.--"Progress of Culture." Address before the Phi Beta +Kappa Society of Harvard University.--Course of Lectures in +Philadelphia.--The Degree of LL.D. conferred upon Emerson by Harvard +University.--"Terminus". + + +CHAPTER XI. + +1868-1873. AET. 65-70. + +Lectures on the Natural History of the Intellect.--Publication of +"Society and Solitude." Contents: Society and Solitude. +--Civilization.--Art.--Eloquence.--Domestic Life.--Farming. +--Works and Days.--Books.--Clubs.--Courage.--Success.--Old Age.--Other +Literary Labors.--Visit to California.--Burning of his House, and the +Story of its Rebuilding.--Third Visit to Europe.--His Reception at +Concord on his Return + + +CHAPTER XII + +1873-1878. AET. 70-75. + +Publication of "Parnassus."--Emerson Nominated as Candidate for the +Office of Lord Rector of Glasgow University.--Publication of +"Letters and Social Aims." Contents: Poetry and Imagination.--Social +Aims.--Eloquence.--Resources.--The Comic.--Quotation and Originality. +--Progress of Culture.--Persian Poetry.--Inspiration.--Greatness. +--Immortality.--Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of "The +Minute-Man" at Concord.--Publication of Collected Poems + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +1878-1882. AET. 75-79. + +Last Literary Labors.--Addresses and Essays.--"Lectures and Biographical +Sketches."--"Miscellanies" + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +Emerson's Poems + + +CHAPTER XV. + +Recollections of Emerson's Last Years.--Mr. Conway's Visits.--Extracts +from Mr. Whitman's Journal.--Dr. Le Baron Russell's Visit.--Dr. Edward +Emerson's Account.--Illness and Death.--Funeral Services + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +EMERSON.---A RETROSPECT. + +Personality and Habits of Life.--His Commission and Errand.--As a +Lecturer.--His Use of Authorities.--Resemblance to Other Writers.--As +influenced by Others.--His Place as a Thinker.--Idealism and +Intuition.--Mysticism.--His Attitude respecting Science.--As an +American.--His Fondness for Solitary Study.--His Patience and +Amiability.--Feeling with which he was regarded.--Emerson and +Burns.--His Religious Belief.--His Relations with Clergymen.--Future of +his Reputation.--His Life judged by the Ideal Standard + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +"I have the feeling that every man's biography is at his own expense. He +furnishes not only the facts, but the report. I mean that all biography +is autobiography. It is only what he tells of himself that comes to be +known and believed." + +So writes the man whose life we are to pass in review, and it is +certainly as true of him as of any author we could name. He delineates +himself so perfectly in his various writings that the careful reader +sees his nature just as it was in all its essentials, and has little +more to learn than those human accidents which individualize him +in space and time. About all these accidents we have a natural and +pardonable curiosity. We wish to know of what race he came, what were +the conditions into which he was born, what educational and social +influences helped to mould his character, and what new elements Nature +added to make him Ralph Waldo Emerson. + +He himself believes in the hereditary transmission of certain +characteristics. Though Nature appears capricious, he says, "Some +qualities she carefully fixes and transmits, but some, and those the +finer, she exhales with the breath of the individual, as too costly to +perpetuate. But I notice also that they may become fixed and permanent +in any stock, by painting and repainting them on every individual, until +at last Nature adopts them and bakes them in her porcelain." + + * * * * * + +We have in New England a certain number of families who constitute what +may be called the Academic Races. Their names have been on college +catalogues for generation after generation. They have filled the learned +professions, more especially the ministry, from the old colonial days to +our own time. If aptitudes for the acquisition of knowledge can be +bred into a family as the qualities the sportsman wants in his dog are +developed in pointers and setters, we know what we may expect of a +descendant of one of the Academic Races. Other things being equal, he +will take more naturally, more easily, to his books. His features will +be more pliable, his voice will be more flexible, his whole nature more +plastic than those of the youth with less favoring antecedents. The +gift of genius is never to be reckoned upon beforehand, any more than +a choice new variety of pear or peach in a seedling; it is always a +surprise, but it is born with great advantages when the stock from which +it springs has been long under cultivation. + +These thoughts suggest themselves in looking back at the striking record +of the family made historic by the birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was +remarkable for the long succession of clergymen in its genealogy, and +for the large number of college graduates it counted on its rolls. + +A genealogical table is very apt to illustrate the "survival of the +fittest,"--in the estimate of the descendants. It is inclined to +remember and record those ancestors who do most honor to the living +heirs of the family name and traditions. As every man may count two +grandfathers, four great-grandfathers, eight great-great-grandfathers, +and so on, a few generations give him a good chance for selection. If +he adds his distinguished grandmothers, he may double the number of +personages to choose from. The great-grandfathers of Mr. Emerson at the +sixth remove were thirty-two in number, unless the list was shortened by +intermarriage of relatives. One of these, from whom the name descended, +was Thomas Emerson of Ipswich, who furnished the staff of life to the +people of that wonderfully interesting old town and its neighborhood. + +His son, the Reverend Joseph Emerson, minister of the town of Mendon, +Massachusetts, married Elizabeth, daughter of the Reverend Edward +Bulkeley, who succeeded his father, the Reverend Peter Bulkeley, as +Minister of Concord, Massachusetts. + +Peter Bulkeley was therefore one of Emerson's sixty-four grandfathers +at the seventh remove. We know the tenacity of certain family +characteristics through long lines of descent, and it is not impossible +that any one of a hundred and twenty-eight grandparents, if indeed the +full number existed in spite of family admixtures, may have transmitted +his or her distinguishing traits through a series of lives that cover +more than two centuries, to our own contemporary. Inherited qualities +move along their several paths not unlike the pieces in the game of +chess. Sometimes the character of the son can be traced directly to that +of the father or of the mother, as the pawn's move carries him from one +square to the next. Sometimes a series of distinguished fathers follows +in a line, or a succession of superior mothers, as the black or white +bishop sweeps the board on his own color. Sometimes the distinguishing +characters pass from one sex to the other indifferently, as the castle +strides over the black and white squares. Sometimes an uncle or aunt +lives over again in a nephew or niece, as if the knight's move were +repeated on the squares of human individuality. It is not impossible, +then, that some of the qualities we mark in Emerson may have come from +the remote ancestor whose name figures with distinction in the early +history of New England. + +The Reverend Peter Bulkeley is honorably commemorated among the worthies +consigned to immortality in that precious and entertaining medley of +fact and fancy, enlivened by a wilderness of quotations at first or +second hand, the _Magnolia Christi Americana_, of the Reverend Cotton +Mather. The old chronicler tells his story so much better than any one +can tell it for him that he must be allowed to speak for himself in a +few extracts, transferred with all their typographical idiosyncrasies +from the London-printed, folio of 1702. + + "He was descended of an Honourable Family in _Bedfordshire_.--He was + born at _Woodhil_ (or _Odel_) in _Bedfordshire_, _January_ 31st, + 1582. + + "His _Education_ was answerable unto his _Original_; it was + _Learned_, it was _Genteel_, and, which was the top of all, it was + very _Pious_: At length it made him a _Batchellor_ of _Divinity_, + and a Fellow of Saint _John's_ Colledge in Cambridge.-- + + "When he came abroad into the World, a good benefice befel him, + added unto the estate of a Gentleman, left him by his Father; whom + he succeeded in his Ministry, at the place of his Nativity: Which + one would imagine _Temptations_ enough to keep him out of a + _Wilderness_." + +But he could not conscientiously conform to the ceremonies of the +English Church, and so,-- + + "When Sir _Nathaniel Brent_ was Arch-Bishop _Laud's_ General, as + Arch-Bishop _Laud_ was _another's_, Complaints were made against Mr. + _Bulkly_, for his Non-Conformity, and he was therefore Silenced. + + "To _New-England_ he therefore came, in the Year 1635; and there + having been for a while, at _Cambridge_, he carried a good Number of + Planters with him, up further into the _Woods_, where they gathered + the _Twelfth Church_, then formed in the Colony, and call'd the Town + by the Name of _Concord_. + + "Here he _buried_ a great Estate, while he _raised_ one still, + for almost every Person whom he employed in the Affairs of his + Husbandry.-- + + "He was a most excellent _Scholar_, a very-_well read_ Person, and + one, who in his advice to young Students, gave Demonstrations, that + he knew what would go to make a _Scholar_. But it being essential + unto a _Scholar_ to love a _Scholar_, so did he; and in Token + thereof, endowed the Library of _Harvard_-Colledge with no small + part of his own. + + "And he was therewithal a most exalted _Christian_--In his Ministry + he was another _Farel, Quo nemo tonuit fortius_--And the observance + which his own People had for him, was also paid him from all sorts + of People throughout the Land; but especially from the Ministers of + the Country, who would still address him as a _Father_, a _Prophet_, + a _Counsellor_, on all occasions." + +These extracts may not quite satisfy the exacting reader, who must be +referred to the old folio from which they were taken, where he will +receive the following counsel:-- + +"If then any Person would know what Mr. _Peter Bulkly_ was, let him read +his Judicious and Savory Treatise of the _Gospel Covenant_, which has +passed through several Editions, with much Acceptance among the People +of God." It must be added that "he had a competently good Stroke at +Latin Poetry; and even in his Old Age, affected sometimes to improve it. +Many of his Composure are yet in our Hands." + +It is pleasant to believe that some of the qualities of this +distinguished scholar and Christian were reproduced in the descendant +whose life we are studying. At his death in 1659 he was succeeded, as +was mentioned, by his son Edward, whose daughter became the wife of the +Reverend Joseph Emerson, the minister of Mendon who, when that village +was destroyed by the Indians, removed to Concord, where he died in the +year 1680. This is the first connection of the name of Emerson with +Concord, with which it has since been so long associated. + +Edward Emerson, son of the first and father of the second Reverend +Joseph Emerson, though not a minister, was the next thing to being one, +for on his gravestone he is thus recorded: "Mr. Edward Emerson, sometime +Deacon of the first church in Newbury." He was noted for the virtue of +patience, and it is a family tradition that he never complained but +once, when he said mildly to his daughter that her dumplings were +somewhat harder than needful,--"_but not often_." This same Edward was +the only break in the line of ministers who descended from Thomas of +Ipswich. He is remembered in the family as having been "a merchant in +Charlestown." + +Their son, the second Reverend Joseph Emerson, Minister of Malden for +nearly half a century, married Mary, the daughter of the Reverend Samuel +Moody,--Father Moody,--of York, Maine. Three of his sons were ministers, +and one of these, William, was pastor of the church at Concord at the +period of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. + +As the successive generations narrow down towards the individual whose +life we are recalling, the character of his progenitors becomes more and +more important and interesting to the biographer. The Reverend William +Emerson, grandfather of Ralph Waldo, was an excellent and popular +preacher and an ardent and devoted patriot. He preached resistance to +tyrants from the pulpit, he encouraged his townsmen and their allies to +make a stand against the soldiers who had marched upon their peaceful +village, and would have taken a part in the Fight at the Bridge, which +he saw from his own house, had not the friends around him prevented +his quitting his doorstep. He left Concord in 1776 to join the army at +Ticonderoga, was taken with fever, was advised to return to Concord and +set out on the journey, but died on his way. His wife was the daughter +of the Reverend Daniel Bliss, his predecessor in the pulpit at Concord. +This was another very noticeable personage in the line of Emerson's +ancestors. His merits and abilities are described at great length on his +tombstone in the Concord burial-ground. There is no reason to doubt that +his epitaph was composed by one who knew him well. But the slabs +which record the excellences of our New England clergymen of the past +generations are so crowded with virtues that the reader can hardly help +inquiring whether a sharp bargain was not driven with the stonecutter, +like that which the good Vicar of Wakefield arranged with the +portrait-painter. He was to represent Sophia as a shepherdess, it will +be remembered, with as many sheep as he could afford to put in for +nothing. + +William Emerson left four children, a son bearing the same name, and +three daughters, one of whom, Mary Moody Emerson, is well remembered as +pictured for us by her nephew, Ralph Waldo. His widow became the wife +of the Reverend Ezra Ripley, Doctor of Divinity, and his successor as +Minister at Concord. + +The Reverend William Emerson, the second of that name and profession, +and the father of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born in the year 1769, and +graduated at Harvard College in 1789. He was settled as Minister in the +town of Harvard in the year 1792, and in 1799 became Minister of the +First Church in Boston. In 1796 he married Ruth Haskins of Boston. He +died in 1811, leaving five sons, of whom Ralph Waldo was the second. + +The interest which attaches itself to the immediate parentage of a man +like Emerson leads us to inquire particularly about the characteristics +of the Reverend William Emerson so far as we can learn them from his own +writings and from the record of his contemporaries. + +The Reverend Dr. Sprague's valuable and well-known work, "Annals of the +American Pulpit," contains three letters from which we learn some of +his leading characteristics. Dr. Pierce of Brookline, the faithful +chronicler of his time, speaks of his pulpit talents as extraordinary, +but thinks there was not a perfect sympathy between him and the people +of the quiet little town of Harvard, while he was highly acceptable in +the pulpits of the metropolis. In personal appearance he was attractive; +his voice was melodious, his utterance distinct, his manner agreeable. +"He was a faithful and generous friend and knew how to forgive an +enemy.--In his theological views perhaps he went farther on the liberal +side than most of his brethren with whom he was associated.--He was, +however, perfectly tolerant towards those who differed from him most +widely." + +Dr. Charles Lowell, another brother minister, says of him, "Mr. Emerson +was a handsome man, rather tall, with a fair complexion, his cheeks +slightly tinted, his motions easy, graceful, and gentlemanlike, his +manners bland and pleasant. He was an honest man, and expressed himself +decidedly and emphatically, but never bluntly or vulgarly.--Mr. Emerson +was a man of good sense. His conversation was edifying and useful; never +foolish or undignified.--In his theological opinions he was, to say the +least, far from having any sympathy with Calvinism. I have not supposed +that he was, like Dr. Freeman, a Humanitarian, though he may have been +so." + +There was no honester chronicler than our clerical Pepys, good, hearty, +sweet-souled, fact-loving Dr. John Pierce of Brookline, who knew the +dates of birth and death of the graduates of Harvard, starred and +unstarred, better, one is tempted to say (_Hibernice_), than they did +themselves. There was not a nobler gentleman in charge of any Boston +parish than Dr. Charles Lowell. But after the pulpit has said what it +thinks of the pulpit, it is well to listen to what the pews have to say +about it. + +This is what the late Mr. George Ticknor said in an article in the +"Christian Examiner" for September, 1849. + +"Mr. Emerson, transplanted to the First Church in Boston six years +before Mr. Buckminster's settlement, possessed, on the contrary, a +graceful and dignified style of speaking, which was by no means without +its attraction, but he lacked the fervor that could rouse the masses, +and the original resources that could command the few." + +As to his religious beliefs, Emerson writes to Dr. Sprague as follows: +"I did not find in any manuscript or printed sermons that I looked +at, any very explicit statement of opinion on the question between +Calvinists and Socinians. He inclines obviously to what is ethical +and universal in Christianity; very little to the personal and +historical.--I think I observe in his writings, as in the writings of +Unitarians down to a recent date, a studied reserve on the subject of +the nature and offices of Jesus. They had not made up their own minds on +it. It was a mystery to them, and they let it remain so." + +Mr. William Emerson left, published, fifteen Sermons and Discourses, an +Oration pronounced at Boston on the Fourth of July, 1802, a Collection +of Psalms and Hymns, an Historical Sketch of the First Church in Boston, +besides his contributions to the "Monthly Anthology," of which he was +the Editor. + +Ruth Haskins, the wife of William and the mother of Ralph Waldo +Emerson, is spoken of by the late Dr. Frothingham, in an article in the +"Christian Examiner," as a woman "of great patience and fortitude, of +the serenest trust in God, of a discerning spirit, and a most courteous +bearing, one who knew how to guide the affairs of her own house, as long +as she was responsible for that, with the sweetest authority, and knew +how to give the least trouble and the greatest happiness after that +authority was resigned. Both her mind and her character were of a +superior order, and they set their stamp upon manners of peculiar +softness and natural grace and quiet dignity. Her sensible and kindly +speech was always as good as the best instruction; her smile, though it +was ever ready, was a reward." + +The Reverend Dr. Furness of Philadelphia, who grew up with her son, +says, "Waldo bore a strong resemblance to his father; the other children +resembled their mother." + +Such was the descent of Ralph Waldo Emerson. If the ideas of parents +survive as impressions or tendencies in their descendants, no man had +a better right to an inheritance of theological instincts than this +representative of a long line of ministers. The same trains of thought +and feeling might naturally gain in force from another association of +near family relationship, though not of blood. After the death of the +first William Emerson, the Concord minister, his widow, Mr. Emerson's +grandmother, married, as has been mentioned, his successor, Dr. Ezra +Ripley. The grandson spent much time in the family of Dr. Ripley, whose +character he has drawn with exquisite felicity in a sketch read before +The Social Circle of Concord, and published in the "Atlantic Monthly" +for November, 1883. Mr. Emerson says of him: "He was identified with the +ideas and forms of the New England Church, which expired about the same +time with him, so that he and his coevals seemed the rear guard of the +great camp and army of the Puritans, which, however in its last days +declining into formalism, in the heyday of its strength had planted and +liberated America.... The same faith made what was strong and what was +weak in Dr. Ripley." It would be hard to find a more perfect sketch of +character than Mr. Emerson's living picture of Dr. Ripley. I myself +remember him as a comely little old gentleman, but he was not so +communicative in a strange household as his clerical brethren, smiling +John Foster of Brighton and chatty Jonathan Homer of Newton. Mr. Emerson +says, "He was a natural gentleman; no dandy, but courtly, hospitable, +manly, and public-spirited; his nature social, his house open to all +men.--His brow was serene and open to his visitor, for he loved men, and +he had no studies, no occupations, which company could interrupt. His +friends were his study, and to see them loosened his talents and his +tongue. In his house dwelt order and prudence and plenty. There was +no waste and no stint. He was open-handed and just and generous. +Ingratitude and meanness in his beneficiaries did not wear out his +compassion; he bore the insult, and the next day his basket for the +beggar, his horse and chaise for the cripple, were at their door." How +like Goldsmith's good Dr. Primrose! I do not know any writing of +Mr. Emerson which brings out more fully his sense of humor,--of the +picturesque in character,--and as a piece of composition, continuous, +fluid, transparent, with a playful ripple here and there, it is +admirable and delightful. + +Another of his early companionships must have exercised a still more +powerful influence on his character,--that of his aunt, Mary Moody +Emerson. He gave an account of her in a paper read before the Woman's +Club several years ago, and published in the "Atlantic Monthly" for +December, 1883. Far more of Mr. Emerson is to be found in this aunt of +his than in any other of his relations in the ascending series, with +whose history we are acquainted. Her story is an interesting one, but +for that I must refer the reader to the article mentioned. Her character +and intellectual traits are what we are most concerned with. "Her early +reading was Milton, Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke, Jonathan Edwards, +and always the Bible. Later, Plato, Plotinus, Marcus Antoninus, Stewart, +Coleridge, Herder, Locke, Madam De Staël, Channing, Mackintosh, Byron. +Nobody can read in her manuscript, or recall the conversation of +old-school people, without seeing that Milton and Young had a religious +authority in their minds, and nowise the slight merely entertaining +quality of modern bards. And Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus,--how venerable +and organic as Nature they are in her mind!" + +There are many sentences cited by Mr. Emerson which remind us very +strongly of his own writings. Such a passage as the following might have +come from his Essay, "Nature," but it was written when her nephew was +only four years old. + + "Malden, 1807, September.--The rapture of feeling I would part from + for days devoted to higher discipline. But when Nature beams with + such excess of beauty, when the heart thrills with hope in its + Author,--feels it is related to Him more than by any ties of + creation,--it exults, too fondly, perhaps, for a state of trial. But + in dead of night, nearer morning, when the eastern stars glow, or + appear to glow, with more indescribable lustre, a lustre which + penetrates the spirits with wonder and curiosity,--then, however + awed, who can fear?"--"A few pulsations of created beings, a few + successions of acts, a few lamps held out in the firmament, enable + us to talk of Time, make epochs, write histories,--to do more,--to + date the revelations of God to man. But these lamps are held to + measure out some of the moments of eternity, to divide the history + of God's operations in the birth and death of nations, of worlds. It + is a goodly name for our notions of breathing, suffering, enjoying, + acting. We personify it. We call it by every name of fleeting, + dreaming, vaporing imagery. Yet it is nothing. We exist in eternity. + Dissolve the body and the night is gone; the stars are extinguished, + and we measure duration by the number of our thoughts, by the + activity of reason, the discovery of truths, the acquirement of + virtue, the approval of God." + +Miss Mary Emerson showed something of the same feeling towards natural +science which may be noted in her nephews Waldo and Charles. After +speaking of "the poor old earth's chaotic state, brought so near in its +long and gloomy transmutings by the geologist," she says:-- + + "Yet its youthful charms, as decked by the hand of Moses' + Cosmogony, will linger about the heart, while Poetry succumbs to + science."--"And the bare bones of this poor embryo earth may give + the idea of the Infinite, far, far better than when dignified with + arts and industry; its oceans, when beating the symbols of countless + ages, than when covered with cargoes of war and oppression. How + grand its preparation for souls, souls who were to feel the + Divinity, before Science had dissected the emotions and applied its + steely analysis to that state of being which recognizes neither + psychology nor element."--"Usefulness, if it requires action, seems + less like existence than the desire of being absorbed in God, + retaining consciousness.... Scorn trifles, lift your aims; do + what you are afraid to do. Sublimity of character must come from + sublimity of motive." + +So far as hereditary and family influences can account for the character +and intellect of Ralph Waldo Emerson, we could hardly ask for a better +inborn inheritance, or better counsels and examples. + + * * * * * + +Having traced some of the distinguishing traits which belong by descent +to Mr. Emerson to those who were before him, it is interesting to note +how far they showed themselves in those of his own generation, his +brothers. Of these I will mention two, one of whom I knew personally. + +Edward Bliss Emerson, who graduated at Harvard College in 1824, three +years after Ralph Waldo, held the first place in his class. He began +the study of the law with Daniel Webster, but overworked himself and +suffered a temporary disturbance of his reason. After this he made +another attempt, but found his health unequal to the task and exiled +himself to Porto Rico, where, in 1834, he died. Two poems preserve his +memory, one that of Ralph Waldo, in which he addresses his memory,-- + + "Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star," + +the other his own "Last Farewell," written in 1832, whilst sailing out +of Boston Harbor. The lines are unaffected and very touching, full of +that deep affection which united the brothers in the closest intimacy, +and of the tenderest love for the mother whom he was leaving to see no +more. + +I had in my early youth a key furnished me to some of the leading traits +which were in due time to develop themselves in Emerson's character and +intelligence. As on the wall of some great artist's studio one may find +unfinished sketches which he recognizes as the first growing conceptions +of pictures painted in after years, so we see that Nature often +sketches, as it were, a living portrait, which she leaves in its +rudimentary condition, perhaps for the reason that earth has no colors +which can worthily fill in an outline too perfect for humanity. The +sketch is left in its consummate incompleteness because this mortal life +is not rich enough to carry out the Divine idea. + +Such an unfinished but unmatched outline is that which I find in the +long portrait-gallery of memory, recalled by the name of Charles Chauncy +Emerson. Save for a few brief glimpses of another, almost lost among my +life's early shadows, this youth was the most angelic adolescent my eyes +ever beheld. Remembering what well-filtered blood it was that ran in the +veins of the race from which he was descended, those who knew him in +life might well say with Dryden,-- + + "If by traduction came thy mind + Our wonder is the less to find + A soul so charming from a stock so good." + +His image is with me in its immortal youth as when, almost fifty years +ago, I spoke of him in these lines, which I may venture to quote from +myself, since others have quoted them before me. + + Thou calm, chaste scholar! I can see thee now, + The first young laurels on thy pallid brow, + O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down + In graceful folds the academic gown, + On thy curled lip the classic lines that taught + How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought, + And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye, + Too bright to live,--but O, too fair to die. + +Being about seven years younger than Waldo, he must have received much +of his intellectual and moral guidance at his elder brother's hands. +I told the story at a meeting of our Historical Society of Charles +Emerson's coming into my study,--this was probably in 1826 or +1827,--taking up Hazlitt's "British Poets" and turning at once to a poem +of Marvell's, which he read with his entrancing voice and manner. The +influence of this poet is plain to every reader in some of Emerson's +poems, and Charles' liking for him was very probably caught from Waldo. +When Charles was nearly through college, a periodical called "The +Harvard Register" was published by students and recent graduates. Three +articles were contributed by him to this periodical. Two of them have +the titles "Conversation," "Friendship." His quotations are from Horace +and Juvenal, Plato, Plutarch, Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Shakespeare, and +Scott. There are passages in these Essays which remind one strongly of +his brother, the Lecturer of twenty-five or thirty years later. Take +this as an example:-- + + "Men and mind are my studies. I need no observatory high in air to + aid my perceptions or enlarge my prospect. I do not want a costly + apparatus to give pomp to my pursuit or to disguise its inutility. + I do not desire to travel and see foreign lands and learn all + knowledge and speak with all tongues, before I am prepared for my + employment. I have merely to go out of my door; nay, I may stay at + home at my chambers, and I shall have enough to do and enjoy." + +The feeling of this sentence shows itself constantly in Emerson's poems. +He finds his inspiration in the objects about him, the forest in which +he walks; the sheet of water which the hermit of a couple of seasons +made famous; the lazy Musketaquid; the titmouse that mocked his weakness +in the bitter cold winter's day; the mountain that rose in the horizon; +the lofty pines; the lowly flowers. All talked with him as brothers and +sisters, and he with them as of his own household. + +The same lofty idea of friendship which we find in the man in his +maturity, we recognize in one of the Essays of the youth. + + "All men of gifted intellect and fine genius," says Charles Emerson, + "must entertain a noble idea of friendship. Our reverence we are + constrained to yield where it is due,--to rank, merit, talents. But + our affections we give not thus easily. + + 'The hand of Douglas is his own.'" + + --"I am willing to lose an hour in gossip with persons whom good + men hold cheap. All this I will do out of regard to the decent + conventions of polite life. But my friends I must know, and, + knowing, I must love. There must be a daily beauty in their life + that shall secure my constant attachment. I cannot stand upon the + footing of ordinary acquaintance. Friendship is aristocratical--the + affections which are prostituted to every suitor I will not accept." + +Here are glimpses of what the youth was to be, of what the man who long +outlived him became. Here is the dignity which commands reverence,--a +dignity which, with all Ralph Waldo Emerson's sweetness of manner and +expression, rose almost to majesty in his serene presence. There was +something about Charles Emerson which lifted those he was with into +a lofty and pure region of thought and feeling. A vulgar soul stood +abashed in his presence. I could never think of him in the presence +of such, listening to a paltry sentiment or witnessing a mean action +without recalling Milton's line, + + "Back stepped those two fair angels half amazed," + +and thinking how he might well have been taken for a celestial +messenger. + +No doubt there is something of idealization in all these reminiscences, +and of that exaggeration which belongs to the _laudator temporis acti_. +But Charles Emerson was idolized in his own time by many in college and +out of college. George Stillman Hillard was his rival. Neck and neck +they ran the race for the enviable position of first scholar in the +class of 1828, and when Hillard was announced as having the first part +assigned to him, the excitement within the college walls, and to some +extent outside of them, was like that when the telegraph proclaims the +result of a Presidential election,--or the Winner of the Derby. But +Hillard honestly admired his brilliant rival. "Who has a part with **** +at this next exhibition?" I asked him one day, as I met him in the +college yard. "***** the Post," answered Hillard. "Why call him _the +Post_?" said I. "He is a wooden creature," said Hillard. "Hear him and +Charles Emerson translating from the Latin _Domus tota inflammata erat_. +The Post will render the words, 'The whole house was on fire.' Charles +Emerson will translate the sentence 'The entire edifice was wrapped in +flames.'" It was natural enough that a young admirer should prefer the +Bernini drapery of Charles Emerson's version to the simple nudity of +"the Post's" rendering. + + * * * * * + +The nest is made ready long beforehand for the bird which is to be bred +in it and to fly from it. The intellectual atmosphere into which a +scholar is born, and from which he draws the breath of his early mental +life, must be studied if we would hope to understand him thoroughly. + +When the present century began, the elements, thrown into confusion +by the long struggle for Independence, had not had time to arrange +themselves in new combinations. The active intellects of the country had +found enough to keep them busy in creating and organizing a new order of +political and social life. Whatever purely literary talent existed was +as yet in the nebular condition, a diffused luminous spot here and +there, waiting to form centres of condensation. + +Such a nebular spot had been brightening in and about Boston for a +number of years, when, in the year 1804, a small cluster of names became +visible as representing a modest constellation of literary luminaries: +John Thornton Kirkland, afterwards President of Harvard University; +Joseph Stevens Buckminster; John Sylvester John Gardiner; William Tudor; +Samuel Cooper Thacher; William Emerson. These were the chief stars of +the new cluster, and their light reached the world, or a small part of +it, as reflected from the pages of "The Monthly Anthology," which very +soon came under the editorship of the Reverend William Emerson. + +The father of Ralph Waldo Emerson may be judged of in good measure by +the associates with whom he was thus connected. A brief sketch of these +friends and fellow-workers of his may not be out of place, for these +men made the local sphere of thought into which Ralph Waldo Emerson was +born. + +John Thornton Kirkland should have been seen and heard as he is +remembered by old graduates of Harvard, sitting in the ancient +Presidential Chair, on Commencement Day, and calling in his penetrating +but musical accents: "_Expectatur Oratio in Lingua Latina_" or +"_Vernacula_," if the "First Scholar" was about to deliver the English +oration. It was a presence not to be forgotten. His "shining morning +face" was round as a baby's, and talked as pleasantly as his voice did, +with smiles for accents and dimples for punctuation. Mr. Ticknor speaks +of his sermons as "full of intellectual wealth and practical wisdom, +with sometimes a quaintness that bordered on humor." It was of him +that the story was always told,--it may be as old as the invention of +printing,--that he threw his sermons into a barrel, where they went to +pieces and got mixed up, and that when he was going to preach he fished +out what he thought would be about enough for a sermon, and patched the +leaves together as he best might. The Reverend Dr. Lowell says: "He +always found the right piece, and that was better than almost any of +his brethren could have found in what they had written with twice the +labor." Mr. Cabot, who knew all Emerson's literary habits, says he used +to fish out the number of leaves he wanted for a lecture in somewhat the +same way. Emerson's father, however, was very methodical, according +to Dr. Lowell, and had "a place for everything, and everything in its +place." Dr. Kirkland left little to be remembered by, and like many of +the most interesting personalities we have met with, has become a very +thin ghost to the grandchildren of his contemporaries. + +Joseph Stevens Buckminster was the pulpit darling of his day, in Boston. +The beauty of his person, the perfection of his oratory, the finish of +his style, added to the sweetness of his character, made him one of +those living idols which seem to be as necessary to Protestantism as +images and pictures are to Romanism. + +John Sylvester John Gardiner, once a pupil of the famous Dr. Parr, was +then the leading Episcopal clergyman of Boston. Him I reconstruct from +scattered hints I have met with as a scholarly, social man, with a +sanguine temperament and the cheerful ways of a wholesome English +parson, blest with a good constitution and a comfortable benefice. Mild +Orthodoxy, ripened in Unitarian sunshine, is a very agreeable aspect of +Christianity, and none was readier than Dr. Gardiner, if the voice of +tradition may be trusted, to fraternize with his brothers of the liberal +persuasion, and to make common cause with them in all that related to +the interests of learning. + +William Tudor was a chief connecting link between the period of the +"Monthly Anthology," and that of the "North American Review," for he was +a frequent contributor to the first of these periodicals, and he was the +founder of the second. Edward Everett characterizes him, in speaking of +his "Letters on the Eastern States," as a scholar and a gentleman, an +impartial observer, a temperate champion, a liberal opponent, and a +correct writer. Daniel Webster bore similar testimony to his talents and +character. + +Samuel Cooper Thacher was hardly twenty years old when the "Anthology" +was founded, and died when he was only a little more than thirty. He +contributed largely to that periodical, besides publishing various +controversial sermons, and writing the "Memoir of Buckminster." + +There was no more brilliant circle than this in any of our cities. +There was none where so much freedom of thought was united to so much +scholarship. The "Anthology" was the literary precursor of the "North +American Review," and the theological herald of the "Christian +Examiner." Like all first beginnings it showed many marks of immaturity. +It mingled extracts and original contributions, theology and medicine, +with all manner of literary chips and shavings. It had Magazine +ways that smacked of Sylvanus Urban; leading articles with balanced +paragraphs which recalled the marching tramp of Johnson; translations +that might have been signed with the name of Creech, and Odes to +Sensibility, and the like, which recalled the syrupy sweetness and +languid trickle of Laura Matilda's sentimentalities. It talked about +"the London Reviewers" with a kind of provincial deference. It printed +articles with quite too much of the license of Swift and Prior for the +Magazines of to-day. But it had opinions of its own, and would compare +well enough with the "Gentleman's Magazine," to say nothing of "My +Grandmother's Review, the British." A writer in the third volume (1806) +says: "A taste for the belles lettres is rapidly spreading in our +country. I believe that, fifty years ago, England had never seen a +Miscellany or a Review so well conducted as our 'Anthology,' however +superior such publications may now be in that kingdom." + +It is well worth one's while to look over the volumes of the "Anthology" +to see what our fathers and grandfathers were thinking about, and how +they expressed themselves. The stiffness of Puritanism was pretty well +relaxed when a Magazine conducted by clergymen could say that "The +child,"--meaning the new periodical,--"shall not be destitute of the +manners of a gentleman, nor a stranger to genteel amusements. He shall +attend Theatres, Museums, Balls, and whatever polite diversions the town +shall furnish." The reader of the "Anthology" will find for his reward +an improving discourse on "Ambition," and a commendable schoolboy's +"theme" on "Inebriation." He will learn something which may be for his +advantage about the "Anjou Cabbage," and may profit by a "Remedy for +Asthma." A controversy respecting the merits of Sir Richard Blackmore +may prove too little exciting at the present time, and he can turn for +relief to the epistle "Studiosus" addresses to "Alcander." If the lines +of "The Minstrel" who hails, like Longfellow in later years, from "The +District of Main," fail to satisfy him, he cannot accuse "R.T. Paine, +Jr., Esq.," of tameness when he exclaims:-- + + "Rise Columbia, brave and free, + Poise the globe and bound the sea!" + +But the writers did not confine themselves to native or even to English +literature, for there is a distinct mention of "Mr. Goethe's new novel," +and an explicit reference to "Dante Aligheri, an Italian bard." But +let the smiling reader go a little farther and he will find Mr. +Buckminster's most interesting account of the destruction of Goldau. +And in one of these same volumes he will find the article, by Dr. Jacob +Bigelow, doubtless, which was the first hint of our rural cemeteries, +and foreshadowed that new era in our underground civilization which is +sweetening our atmospheric existence. + +The late President Josiah Quincy, in his "History of the Boston +Athenaeum," pays a high tribute of respect to the memory and the +labors of the gentlemen who founded that institution and conducted the +"Anthology." A literary journal had already been published in Boston, +but very soon failed for want of patronage. An enterprising firm of +publishers, "being desirous that the work should be continued, applied +to the Reverend William Emerson, a clergyman of the place, distinguished +for energy and literary taste; and by his exertions several gentlemen +of Boston and its vicinity, conspicuous for talent and zealous for +literature, were induced to engage in conducting the work, and for this +purpose they formed themselves into a Society. This Society was not +completely organized until the year 1805, when Dr. Gardiner was elected +President, and William Emerson Vice-President. The Society thus formed +maintained its existence with reputation for about six years, and issued +ten octavo volumes from the press, constituting one of the most lasting +and honorable monuments of the literature of the period, and may be +considered as a true revival of polite learning in this country after +that decay and neglect which resulted from the distractions of the +Revolutionary War, and as forming an epoch in the intellectual history +of the United States. Its records yet remain, an evidence that it was a +pleasant, active, high-principled association of literary men, laboring +harmoniously to elevate the literary standard of the time, and with a +success which may well be regarded as remarkable, considering the little +sympathy they received from the community, and the many difficulties +with which they had to struggle." + +The publication of the "Anthology" began in 1804, when Mr. William +Emerson was thirty-four years of age, and it ceased to be published in +the year of his death, 1811. Ralph Waldo Emerson was eight years old at +that time. His intellectual life began, we may say, while the somewhat +obscure afterglow of the "Anthology" was in the western horizon of the +New England sky. + +The nebula which was to form a cluster about the "North American Review" +did not take definite shape until 1815. There is no such memorial of +the growth of American literature as is to be found in the first half +century of that periodical. It is easy to find fault with it for uniform +respectability and occasional dulness. But take the names of its +contributors during its first fifty years from the literary record of +that period, and we should have but a meagre list of mediocrities, saved +from absolute poverty by the genius of two or three writers like Irving +and Cooper. Strike out the names of Webster, Everett, Story, Sumner, and +Cushing; of Bryant, Dana, Longfellow, and Lowell; of Prescott, Ticknor, +Motley, Sparks, and Bancroft; of Verplanck, Hillard, and Whipple; of +Stuart and Robinson; of Norton, Palfrey, Peabody, and Bowen; and, +lastly, that of Emerson himself, and how much American classic +literature would be left for a new edition of "Miller's Retrospect"? + +These were the writers who helped to make the "North American Review" +what it was during the period of Emerson's youth and early manhood. +These, and men like them, gave Boston its intellectual character. We +may count as symbols the three hills of "this darling town of ours," +as Emerson called it, and say that each had its beacon. Civil liberty +lighted the torch on one summit, religious freedom caught the flame and +shone from the second, and the lamp of the scholar has burned steadily +on the third from the days when John Cotton preached his first sermon to +those in which we are living. + +The social religious influences of the first part of the century +must not be forgotten. The two high-caste religions of that day were +white-handed Unitarianism and ruffled-shirt Episcopalianism. What called +itself "society" was chiefly distributed between them. Within less than +fifty years a social revolution has taken place which has somewhat +changed the relation between these and other worshipping bodies. This +movement is the general withdrawal of the native New Englanders of both +sexes from domestic service. A large part of the "hired help,"--for +the word servant was commonly repudiated,--worshipped, not with their +employers, but at churches where few or no well-appointed carriages +stood at the doors. The congregations that went chiefly from the +drawing-room and those which were largely made up of dwellers in the +culinary studio were naturally separated by a very distinct line of +social cleavage. A certain exclusiveness and fastidiousness, not +reminding us exactly of primitive Christianity, was the inevitable +result. This must always be remembered in judging the men and women +of that day and their immediate descendants, as much as the surviving +prejudices of those whose parents were born subjects of King George in +the days when loyalty to the crown was a virtue. The line of social +separation was more marked, probably, in Boston, the headquarters of +Unitarianism, than in the other large cities; and even at the present +day our Jerusalem and Samaria, though they by no means refuse dealing +with each other, do not exchange so many cards as they do checks and +dollars. The exodus of those children of Israel from the house of +bondage, as they chose to consider it, and their fusion with the mass of +independent citizens, got rid of a class distinction which was felt even +in the sanctuary. True religious equality is harder to establish than +civil liberty. No man has done more for spiritual republicanism than +Emerson, though he came from the daintiest sectarian circle of the time +in the whole country. + +Such were Emerson's intellectual and moral parentage, nurture, and +environment; such was the atmosphere in which he grew up from youth to +manhood. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +Birthplace.--Boyhood.--College Life. + +1803-1823. To _AET_. 20. + + +Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 25th of +May, 1803. + +He was the second of five sons; William, R.W., Edward Bliss, Robert +Bulkeley, and Charles Chauncy. + +His birthplace and that of our other illustrious Bostonian, Benjamin +Franklin, were within a kite-string's distance of each other. When +the baby philosopher of the last century was carried from Milk Street +through the narrow passage long known as Bishop's Alley, now Hawley +Street, he came out in Summer Street, very nearly opposite the spot +where, at the beginning of this century, stood the parsonage of the +First Church, the home of the Reverend William Emerson, its pastor, and +the birthplace of his son, Ralph Waldo. The oblong quadrangle between +Newbury, now Washington Street, Pond, now Bedford Street, Summer Street, +and the open space called Church Green, where the New South Church was +afterwards erected, is represented on Bonner's maps of 1722 and 1769 as +an almost blank area, not crossed or penetrated by a single passageway. + +Even so late as less than half a century ago this region was still a +most attractive little _rus in urbe_. The sunny gardens of the late +Judge Charles Jackson and the late Mr. S.P. Gardner opened their flowers +and ripened their fruits in the places now occupied by great warehouses +and other massive edifices. The most aristocratic pears, the "Saint +Michael," the "Brown Bury," found their natural homes in these sheltered +enclosures. The fine old mansion of Judge William Prescott looked out +upon these gardens. Some of us can well remember the window of his +son's, the historian's, study, the light from which used every evening +to glimmer through the leaves of the pear-trees while "The Conquest of +Mexico" was achieving itself under difficulties hardly less formidable +than those encountered by Cortes. It was a charmed region in which +Emerson first drew his breath, and I am fortunate in having a +communication from one who knew it and him longer than almost any other +living person. + +Mr. John Lowell Gardner, a college classmate and life-long friend of Mr. +Emerson, has favored me with a letter which contains matters of +interest concerning him never before given to the public. With his kind +permission I have made some extracts and borrowed such facts as seemed +especially worthy of note from his letter. + + "I may be said to have known Emerson from the very beginning. A very + low fence divided my father's estate in Summer Street from the field + in which I remember the old wooden parsonage to have existed,--but + this field, when we were very young, was to be covered by Chauncy + Place Church and by the brick houses on Summer Street. Where the + family removed to I do not remember, but I always knew the boys, + William, Ralph, and perhaps Edward, and I again associated with + Ralph at the Latin School, where we were instructed by Master Gould + from 1815 to 1817, entering College in the latter year. + + "... I have no recollection of his relative rank as a scholar, but it + was undoubtedly high, though not the highest. He never was idle or a + lounger, nor did he ever engage in frivolous pursuits. I should say + that his conduct was absolutely faultless. It was impossible that + there should be any feeling about him but of regard and affection. + He had then the same manner and courtly hesitation in addressing you + that you have known in him since. Still, he was not prominent in the + class, and, but for what all the world has since known of him, + his would not have been a conspicuous figure to his classmates in + recalling College days. + + "The fact that we were almost the only Latin School fellows in the + class, and the circumstance that he was slow during the Freshman + year to form new acquaintances, brought us much together, and an + intimacy arose which continued through our College life. We were in + the habit of taking long strolls together, often stopping for repose + at distant points, as at Mount Auburn, etc.... Emerson was not + talkative; he never spoke for effect; his utterances were well + weighed and very deliberately made, but there was a certain flash + when he uttered anything that was more than usually worthy to be + remembered. He was so universally amiable and complying that my + evil spirit would sometimes instigate me to take advantage of his + gentleness and forbearance, but nothing could disturb his + equanimity. All that was wanting to render him an almost perfect + character was a few harsher traits and perhaps more masculine vigor. + + "On leaving College our paths in life were so remote from each other + that we met very infrequently. He soon became, as it were, public + property, and I was engrossed for many years in my commercial + undertakings. All his course of life is known to many survivors. I + am inclined to believe he had a most liberal spirit. I remember that + some years since, when it was known that our classmate ---- was + reduced almost to absolute want by the war, in which he lost his two + sons, Emerson exerted himself to raise a fund among his classmates + for his relief, and, there being very few possible subscribers, made + what I considered a noble contribution, and this you may be sure was + not from any Southern sentiment on the part of Emerson. I send you + herewith the two youthful productions of Emerson of which I spoke to + you some time since." + +The first of these is a prose Essay of four pages, written for a +discussion in which the Professions of Divinity, Medicine, and Law were +to be weighed against each other. Emerson had the Lawyer's side to +advocate. It is a fair and sensible paper, not of special originality or +brilliancy. His opening paragraph is worth citing, as showing the same +instinct for truth which displayed itself in all his after writings and +the conduct of his life. + + "It is usual in advocating a favorite subject to appropriate all + possible excellence, and endeavor to concentrate every doubtful + auxiliary, that we may fortify to the utmost the theme of our + attention. Such a design should be utterly disdained, except as far + as is consistent with fairness; and the sophistry of weak arguments + being abandoned, a bold appeal should be made to the heart, for + the tribute of honest conviction, with regard to the merits of the + subject." + +From many boys this might sound like well-meaning commonplace, but in +the history of Mr. Emerson's life that "bold appeal to the heart," that +"tribute of honest conviction," were made eloquent and real. The +boy meant it when he said it. To carry out his law of sincerity and +self-trust the man had to sacrifice much that was dear to him, but he +did not flinch from his early principles. + +It must not be supposed that the blameless youth was an ascetic in his +College days. The other old manuscript Mr. Gardner sends me is marked +"'Song for Knights of Square Table,' R.W.E." + +There are twelve verses of this song, with a chorus of two lines. The +Muses and all the deities, not forgetting Bacchus, were duly invited to +the festival. + + "Let the doors of Olympus be open for all + To descend and make merry in Chivalry's hall." + * * * * * + +Mr. Sanborn has kindly related to me several circumstances told him by +Emerson about his early years. + +The parsonage was situated at the corner of Summer and what is now +Chauncy streets. It had a yard, and an orchard which Emerson said was as +large as Dr. Ripley's, which might have been some two or three acres. +Afterwards there was a brick house looking on Summer Street, in which +Emerson the father lived. It was separated, Emerson said, by a brick +wall from a garden in which _pears grew_ (a fact a boy is likely to +remember). Master Ralph Waldo used to _sit on this wall_,--but we cannot +believe he ever got off it on the wrong side, unless politely asked to +do so. On the occasion of some alarm the little boy was carried in his +nightgown to a neighboring house. + +After Reverend William Emerson's death Mrs. Emerson removed to a house +in Beacon Street, where the Athenaeum Building now stands. She kept some +boarders,--among them Lemuel Shaw, afterwards Chief Justice of the State +of Massachusetts. It was but a short distance to the Common, and Waldo +and Charles used to drive their mother's cow there to pasture. + + * * * * * + +The Reverend Doctor Rufus Ellis, the much respected living successor of +William Emerson as Minister of the First Church, says that R.W. Emerson +must have been born in the old parsonage, as his father (who died +when he was eight years old) lived but a very short time in "the new +parsonage," which was, doubtless, the "brick house" above referred to. + + * * * * * + +We get a few glimpses of the boy from other sources. Mr. Cooke tells us +that he entered the public grammar school at the age of eight years, and +soon afterwards the Latin School. At the age of eleven he was turning +Virgil into very readable English heroics. He loved the study of Greek; +was fond of reading history and given to the frequent writing of verses. +But he thinks "the idle books under the bench at the Latin School" were +as profitable to him as his regular studies. + +Another glimpse of him is that given us by Mr. Ireland from the "Boyhood +Memories" of Rufus Dawes. His old schoolmate speaks of him as "a +spiritual-looking boy in blue nankeen, who seems to be about ten years +old,--whose image more than any other is still deeply stamped upon my +mind, as I then saw him and loved him, I knew not why, and thought him +so angelic and remarkable." That "blue nankeen" sounds strangely, it may +be, to the readers of this later generation, but in the first quarter +of the century blue and yellow or buff-colored cotton from China were a +common summer clothing of children. The places where the factories and +streets of the cities of Lowell and Lawrence were to rise were then open +fields and farms. My recollection is that we did not think very highly +of ourselves when we were in blue nankeen,--a dull-colored fabric, too +nearly of the complexion of the slates on which we did our ciphering. + +Emerson was not particularly distinguished in College. Having a near +connection in the same class as he, and being, as a Cambridge boy, +generally familiar with the names of the more noted young men in College +from the year when George Bancroft, Caleb Cushing, and Francis William +Winthrop graduated until after I myself left College, I might have +expected to hear something of a young man who afterwards became one of +the great writers of his time. I do not recollect hearing of him except +as keeping school for a short time in Cambridge, before he settled as a +minister. His classmate, Mr. Josiah Quincy, writes thus of his college +days:-- + + "Two only of my classmates can be fairly said to have got into + history, although one of them, Charles W. Upham [the connection of + mine referred to above] has written history very acceptably. Ralph + Waldo Emerson and Robert W. Barnwell, for widely different reasons, + have caused their names to be known to well-informed Americans. Of + Emerson, I regret to say, there are few notices in my journals. Here + is the sort of way in which I speak of the man who was to make so + profound an impression upon the thought of his time. 'I went to the + chapel to hear Emerson's dissertation: a very good one, but rather + too long to give much pleasure to the hearers.' The fault, I + suspect, was in the hearers; and another fact which I have mentioned + goes to confirm this belief. It seems that Emerson accepted the duty + of delivering the Poem on Class Day, after seven others had been + asked who positively, refused. So it appears that, in the opinion of + this critical class, the author of the 'Woodnotes' and the 'Humble + Bee' ranked about eighth in poetical ability. It can only be because + the works of the other five [seven] have been 'heroically unwritten' + that a different impression has come to prevail in the outside + world. But if, according to the measurement of undergraduates, + Emerson's ability as a poet was not conspicuous, it must also be + admitted that, in the judgment of persons old enough to know better, + he was not credited with that mastery of weighty prose which the + world has since accorded him. In our senior year the higher classes + competed for the Boylston prizes for English composition. Emerson + and I sent in our essays with the rest and were fortunate enough to + take the two prizes; but--Alas for the infallibility of academic + decisions! Emerson received the second prize. I was of course much + pleased with the award of this intelligent committee, and should + have been still more gratified had they mentioned that the man who + was to be the most original and influential writer born in America + was my unsuccessful competitor. But Emerson, incubating over deeper + matters than were dreamt of in the established philosophy of + elegant letters, seems to have given no sign of the power that was + fashioning itself for leadership in a new time. He was quiet, + unobtrusive, and only a fair scholar according to the standard of + the College authorities. And this is really all I have to say about + my most distinguished classmate." + +Barnwell, the first scholar in the class, delivered the Valedictory +Oration, and Emerson the Poem. Neither of these performances was highly +spoken of by Mr. Quincy. + +I was surprised to find by one of the old Catalogues that Emerson +roomed during a part of his College course with a young man whom I well +remember, J.G.K. Gourdin. The two Gourdins, Robert and John Gaillard +Keith, were dashing young fellows as I recollect them, belonging to +Charleston, South Carolina. The "Southerners" were the reigning College +_elegans_ of that time, the _merveilleux_, the _mirliflores_, of their +day. Their swallow-tail coats tapered to an arrow-point angle, and the +prints of their little delicate calfskin boots in the snow were objects +of great admiration to the village boys of the period. I cannot help +wondering what brought Emerson and the showy, fascinating John Gourdin +together as room-mates. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +1823-1828. AET. 20-25. + +Extract from a Letter to a Classmate.--School-Teaching.--Study of +Divinity.--"Approbated" to Preach.--Visit to the South.--Preaching in +Various Places. + + +We get a few brief glimpses of Emerson during the years following his +graduation. He writes in 1823 to a classmate who had gone from Harvard +to Andover:-- + + "I am delighted to hear there is such a profound studying of German + and Hebrew, Parkhurst and Jahn, and such other names as the memory + aches to think of, on foot at Andover. Meantime, Unitarianism will + not hide her honors; as many hard names are taken, and as much + theological mischief is planned, at Cambridge as at Andover. By the + time this generation gets upon the stage, if the controversy will + not have ceased, it will run such a tide that we shall hardly + he able to speak to one another, and there will be a Guelf and + Ghibelline quarrel, which cannot tell where the differences lie." + + "You can form no conception how much one grovelling in the city + needs the excitement and impulse of literary example. The sight of + broad vellum-bound quartos, the very mention of Greek and German + names, the glimpse of a dusty, tugging scholar, will wake you up to + emulation for a month." + +After leaving College, and while studying Divinity, Emerson employed a +part of his time in giving instruction in several places successively. + +Emerson's older brother William was teaching in Boston, and Ralph Waldo, +after graduating, joined him in that occupation. In the year 1825 or +1826, he taught school also in Chelmsford, a town of Middlesex County, +Massachusetts, a part of which helped to constitute the city of Lowell. +One of his pupils in that school, the Honorable Josiah Gardiner Abbott, +has favored me with the following account of his recollections:-- + +The school of which Mr. Emerson had the charge was an old-fashioned +country "Academy." Mr. Emerson was probably studying for the ministry +while teaching there. Judge Abbott remembers the impression he made +on the boys. He was very grave, quiet, and very impressive in his +appearance. There was something engaging, almost fascinating, about him; +he was never harsh or severe, always perfectly self-controlled, never +punished except with words, but exercised complete command over the +boys. His old pupil recalls the stately, measured way in which, for some +offence the little boy had committed, he turned on him, saying only +these two words: "Oh, sad!" That was enough, for he had the faculty of +making the boys love him. One of his modes of instruction was to give +the boys a piece of reading to carry home with them,--from some book +like Plutarch's Lives,--and the next day to examine them and find out +how much they retained from their reading. Judge Abbott remembers a +peculiar look in his eyes, as if he saw something beyond what seemed to +be in the field of vision. The whole impression left on this pupil's +mind was such as no other teacher had ever produced upon him. + +Mr. Emerson also kept a school for a short time at Cambridge, and among +his pupils was Mr. John Holmes. His impressions seem to be very much +like those of Judge Abbott. + +My brother speaks of Mr. Emerson thus:-- + + "Calm, as not doubting the virtue residing in his sceptre. Rather + stern in his very infrequent rebukes. Not inclined to win boys by a + surface amiability, but kindly in explanation or advice. Every inch + a king in his dominion. Looking back, he seems to me rather like a + captive philosopher set to tending flocks; resigned to his destiny, + but not amused with its incongruities. He once recommended the use + of rhyme as a cohesive for historical items." + +In 1823, two years after graduating, Emerson began studying for the +ministry. He studied under the direction of Dr. Charming, attending some +of the lectures in the Divinity School at Cambridge, though not enrolled +as one of its regular students. + +The teachings of that day were such as would now be called +"old-fashioned Unitarianism." But no creed can be held to be a finality. +From Edwards to Mayhew, from Mayhew to Channing, from Channing to +Emerson, the passage is like that which leads from the highest lock of +a canal to the ocean level. It is impossible for human nature to remain +permanently shut up in the highest lock of Calvinism. If the gates are +not opened, the mere leakage of belief or unbelief will before long fill +the next compartment, and the freight of doctrine finds itself on +the lower level of Arminianism, or Pelagianism, or even subsides to +Arianism. From this level to that of Unitarianism the outlet is freer, +and the subsidence more rapid. And from Unitarianism to Christian +Theism, the passage is largely open for such as cannot accept the +evidence of the supernatural in the history of the church. + +There were many shades of belief in the liberal churches. If De +Tocqueville's account of Unitarian preaching in Boston at the time of +his visit is true, the Savoyard Vicar of Rousseau would have preached +acceptably in some of our pulpits. In fact, the good Vicar might have +been thought too conservative by some of our unharnessed theologians. + +At the period when Emerson reached manhood, Unitarianism was the +dominating form of belief in the more highly educated classes of both of +the two great New England centres, the town of Boston and the University +at Cambridge. President Kirkland was at the head of the College, Henry +Ware was Professor of Theology, Andrews Norton of Sacred Literature, +followed in 1830 by John Gorham Palfrey in the same office. James +Freeman, Charles Lowell, and William Ellery Channing were preaching in +Boston. I have mentioned already as a simple fact of local history, that +the more exclusive social circles of Boston and Cambridge were chiefly +connected with the Unitarian or Episcopalian churches. A Cambridge +graduate of ambition and ability found an opening far from undesirable +in a worldly point of view, in a profession which he was led to choose +by higher motives. It was in the Unitarian pulpit that the brilliant +talents of Buckminster and Everett had found a noble eminence from which +their light could shine before men. + +Descended from a long line of ministers, a man of spiritual nature, a +reader of Plato, of Augustine, of Jeremy Taylor, full of hope for his +fellow-men, and longing to be of use to them, conscious, undoubtedly, of +a growing power of thought, it was natural that Emerson should turn from +the task of a school-master to the higher office of a preacher. It is +hard to conceive of Emerson in either of the other so-called learned +professions. His devotion to truth for its own sake and his feeling +about science would have kept him out of both those dusty highways. His +brother William had previously begun the study of Divinity, but found +his mind beset with doubts and difficulties, and had taken to the +profession of Law. It is not unlikely that Mr. Emerson was more or less +exercised with the same questionings. He has said, speaking of his +instructors: "If they had examined me, they probably would not have let +me preach at all." His eyes had given him trouble, so that he had not +taken notes of the lectures which he heard in the Divinity School, which +accounted for his being excused from examination. In 1826, after three +years' study, he was "approbated to preach" by the Middlesex Association +of Ministers. His health obliging him to seek a southern climate, he +went in the following winter to South Carolina and Florida. During this +absence he preached several times in Charleston and other places. On his +return from the South he preached in New Bedford, in Northampton, in +Concord, and in Boston. His attractiveness as a preacher, of which we +shall have sufficient evidence in a following chapter, led to his +being invited to share the duties of a much esteemed and honored city +clergyman, and the next position in which we find him is that of a +settled Minister in Boston. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +1828-1833. AET. 25-30. + +Settled as Colleague of Rev. Henry Ware.--Married to Ellen Louisa +Tucker.--Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. H.B. Goodwin.--His Pastoral +and Other Labors.--Emerson and Father Taylor.--Death of Mrs. +Emerson.--Difference of Opinion with some of his Parishioners.--Sermon +Explaining his Views.--Resignation of his Pastorate. + + +On the 11th of March, 1829, Emerson was ordained as colleague with +the Reverend Henry Ware, Minister of the Second Church in Boston. In +September of the same year he was married to Miss Ellen Louisa Tucker. +The resignation of his colleague soon after his settlement threw all the +pastoral duties upon the young minister, who seems to have performed +them diligently and acceptably. Mr. Conway gives the following brief +account of his labors, and tells in the same connection a story of +Father Taylor too good not to be repeated:-- + + "Emerson took an active interest in the public affairs of Boston. + He was on its School Board, and was chosen chaplain of the State + Senate. He invited the anti-slavery lecturers into his church, and + helped philanthropists of other denominations in their work. Father + Taylor [the Methodist preacher to the sailors], to whom Dickens gave + an English fame, found in him his most important supporter when + establishing the Seaman's Mission in Boston. This was told me by + Father Taylor himself in his old age. I happened to be in his + company once, when he spoke rather sternly about my leaving the + Methodist Church; but when I spoke of the part Emerson had in it, he + softened at once, and spoke with emotion of his great friend. I have + no doubt that if the good Father of Boston Seamen was proud of any + personal thing, it was of the excellent answer he is said to have + given to some Methodists who objected to his friendship for Emerson. + Being a Unitarian, they insisted that he must go to"--[the place + which a divine of Charles the Second's day said it was not good + manners to mention in church].--"'It does look so,' said Father + Taylor, 'but I am sure of one thing: if Emerson goes to'"--[that + place]--"'he will change the climate there, and emigration will set + that way.'" + +In 1830, Emerson took part in the services at the ordination of the +Reverend H.B. Goodwin as Dr. Ripley's colleague. His address on giving +the right hand of fellowship was printed, but is not included among his +collected works. + +The fair prospects with which Emerson began his life as a settled +minister were too soon darkened. In February, 1832, the wife of +his youth, who had been for some time in failing health, died of +consumption. + +He had become troubled with doubts respecting a portion of his duties, +and it was not in his nature to conceal these doubts from his people. On +the 9th of September, 1832, he preached a sermon on the Lord's Supper, +in which he announced unreservedly his conscientious scruples against +administering that ordinance, and the grounds upon which those scruples +were founded. This discourse, as his only printed sermon, and as one +which heralded a movement in New England theology which has never +stopped from that day to this, deserves some special notice. The sermon +is in no sense "Emersonian" except in its directness, its sweet temper, +and outspoken honesty. He argues from his comparison of texts in a +perfectly sober, old-fashioned way, as his ancestor Peter Bulkeley might +have done. It happened to that worthy forefather of Emerson that upon +his "pressing a piece of _Charity_ disagreeable to the will of the +_Ruling Elder_, there was occasioned an unhappy _Discord_ in the Church +of _Concord_; which yet was at last healed, by their calling in the help +of a _Council_ and the _Ruling Elder's_ Abdication." So says Cotton +Mather. Whether zeal had grown cooler or charity grown warmer in +Emerson's days we need not try to determine. The sermon was only a more +formal declaration of views respecting the Lord's Supper, which he had +previously made known in a conference with some of the most active +members of his church. As a committee of the parish reported resolutions +radically differing from his opinion on the subject, he preached this +sermon and at the same time resigned his office. There was no "discord," +there was no need of a "council." Nothing could be more friendly, more +truly Christian, than the manner in which Mr. Emerson expressed himself +in this parting discourse. All the kindness of his nature warms it +throughout. He details the differences of opinion which have existed +in the church with regard to the ordinance. He then argues from the +language of the Evangelists that it was not intended to be a permanent +institution. He takes up the statement of Paul in the Epistle to the +Corinthians, which he thinks, all things considered, ought not to alter +our opinion derived from the Evangelists. He does not think that we are +to rely upon the opinions and practices of the primitive church. If that +church believed the institution to be permanent, their belief does not +settle the question for us. On every other subject, succeeding times +have learned to form a judgment more in accordance with the spirit of +Christianity than was the practice of the early ages. + +"But, it is said, 'Admit that the rite was not designed to be +perpetual.' What harm doth it?" + +He proceeds to give reasons which show it to be inexpedient to continue +the observance of the rite. It was treating that as authoritative which, +as he believed that he had shown from Scripture, was not so. It confused +the idea of God by transferring the worship of Him to Christ. Christ is +the Mediator only as the instructor of man. In the least petition to God +"the soul stands alone with God, and Jesus is no more present to your +mind than your brother or child." Again:-- + + "The use of the elements, however suitable to the people and the + modes of thought in the East, where it originated, is foreign and + unsuited to affect us. The day of formal religion is past, and we + are to seek our well-being in the formation of the soul. The Jewish + was a religion of forms; it was all body, it had no life, and the + Almighty God was pleased to qualify and send forth a man to teach + men that they must serve him with the heart; that only that life was + religious which was thoroughly good; that sacrifice was smoke and + forms were shadows. This man lived and died true to that purpose; + and with his blessed word and life before us, Christians must + contend that it is a matter of vital importance,--really a duty to + commemorate him by a certain form, whether that form be acceptable + to their understanding or not. Is not this to make vain the gift of + God? Is not this to turn back the hand on the dial?" + +To these objections he adds the practical consideration that it brings +those who do not partake of the communion service into an unfavorable +relation with those who do. + +The beautiful spirit of the man shows itself in all its noble sincerity +in these words at the close of his argument:-- + + "Having said this, I have said all. I have no hostility to this + institution; I am only stating my want of sympathy with it. Neither + should I ever have obtruded this opinion upon other people, had I + not been called by my office to administer it. That is the end of + my opposition, that I am not interested in it. I am content that it + stand to the end of the world if it please men and please Heaven, + and I shall rejoice in all the good it produces." + +He then announces that, as it is the prevailing opinion and feeling +in our religious community that it is a part of a pastor's duties to +administer this rite, he is about to resign the office which had been +confided to him. + +This is the only sermon of Mr. Emerson's ever published. It was +impossible to hear or to read it without honoring the preacher for his +truthfulness, and recognizing the force of his statement and reasoning. +It was equally impossible that he could continue his ministrations +over a congregation which held to the ordinance he wished to give up +entirely. And thus it was, that with the most friendly feelings on +both sides, Mr. Emerson left the pulpit of the Second Church and found +himself obliged to make a beginning in a new career. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +1833-1838. AET. 30-35. + +Section 1. Visit to Europe.--On his Return preaches in Different +Places.--Emerson in the Pulpit.--At Newton.--Fixes his Residence at +Concord.--The Old Manse.--Lectures in Boston.--Lectures on +Michael Angelo and on Milton published in the "North American +Review."--Beginning of the Correspondence with Carlyle.--Letters to the +Rev. James Freeman Clarke.--Republication of "Sartor Resartus." + +Section 2. Emerson's Second Marriage.--His New Residence in +Concord.--Historical Address.--Course of Ten Lectures on English +Literature delivered in Boston.--The Concord Battle Hymn.--Preaching +in Concord and East Lexington.--Accounts of his Preaching by +Several Hearers.--A Course of Lectures on the Nature and Ends of +History.--Address on War.--Death of Edward Bliss Emerson.--Death of +Charles Chauncy Emerson. + +Section 3. Publication of "Nature."--Outline of this Essay.--Its +Reception.--Address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society. + + +Section 1. In the year 1833 Mr. Emerson visited Europe for the first +time. A great change had come over his life, and he needed the relief +which a corresponding change of outward circumstances might afford +him. A brief account of this visit is prefixed to the volume entitled +"English Traits." He took a short tour, in which he visited Sicily, +Italy, and France, and, crossing from Boulogne, landed at the Tower +Stairs in London. He finds nothing in his Diary to publish concerning +visits to places. But he saw a number of distinguished persons, of whom +he gives pleasant accounts, so singularly different in tone from the +rough caricatures in which Carlyle vented his spleen and caprice, that +one marvels how the two men could have talked ten minutes together, +or would wonder, had not one been as imperturbable as the other was +explosive. Horatio Greenough and Walter Savage Landor are the chief +persons he speaks of as having met upon the Continent. Of these he +reports various opinions as delivered in conversation. He mentions +incidentally that he visited Professor Amici, who showed him his +microscopes "magnifying (it was said) two thousand diameters." Emerson +hardly knew his privilege; he may have been the first American to look +through an immersion lens with the famous Modena professor. Mr. Emerson +says that his narrow and desultory reading had inspired him with the +wish to see the faces of three or four writers, Coleridge, Wordsworth, +Landor, De Quincey, Carlyle. His accounts of his interviews with +these distinguished persons are too condensed to admit of further +abbreviation. Goethe and Scott, whom he would have liked to look upon, +were dead; Wellington he saw at Westminster Abbey, at the funeral of +Wilberforce. His impressions of each of the distinguished persons whom +he visited should be looked at in the light of the general remark which, +follows:-- + + "The young scholar fancies it happiness enough to live with people + who can give an inside to the world; without reflecting that + they are prisoners, too, of their own thought, and cannot apply + themselves to yours. The conditions of literary success are almost + destructive of the best social power, as they do not have that + frolic liberty which only can encounter a companion on the best + terms. It is probable you left some obscure comrade at a tavern, or + in the farms, with right mother-wit, and equality to life, when you + crossed sea and land to play bo-peep with celebrated scribes. I + have, however, found writers superior to their books, and I cling to + my first belief that a strong head will dispose fast enough of these + impediments, and give one the satisfaction of reality, the sense of + having been met, and a larger horizon." + +Emerson carried a letter of introduction to a gentleman in Edinburgh, +who, being unable to pay him all the desired attention, handed him over +to Mr. Alexander Ireland, who has given a most interesting account of +him as he appeared during that first visit to Europe. Mr. Ireland's +presentation of Emerson as he heard him in the Scotch pulpit shows +that he was not less impressive and attractive before an audience of +strangers than among his own countrymen and countrywomen:-- + +"On Sunday, the 18th of August, 1833, I heard him deliver a discourse in +the Unitarian Chapel, Young Street, Edinburgh, and I remember distinctly +the effect which it produced on his hearers. It is almost needless to +say that nothing like it had ever been heard by them before, and many of +them did not know what to make of it. The originality of his thoughts, +the consummate beauty of the language in which they were clothed, the +calm dignity of his bearing, the absence of all oratorical effort, and +the singular directness and simplicity of his manner, free from the +least shadow of dogmatic assumption, made a deep impression on me. Not +long before this I had listened to a wonderful sermon by Dr. Chalmers, +whose force, and energy, and vehement, but rather turgid eloquence +carried, for the moment, all before them,--his audience becoming like +clay in the hands of the potter. But I must confess that the pregnant +thoughts and serene self-possession of the young Boston minister had a +greater charm for me than all the rhetorical splendors of Chalmers. His +voice was the sweetest, the most winning and penetrating of any I ever +heard; nothing like it have I listened to since. + + 'That music in our hearts we bore + Long after it was heard no more.'" + +Mr. George Gilfillan speaks of "the solemnity of his manner, and the +earnest thought pervading his discourse." + +As to the effect of his preaching on his American audiences, I find the +following evidence in Mr. Cooke's diligently gathered collections. Mr. +Sanborn says:-- + + "His pulpit eloquence was singularly attractive, though by no means + equally so to all persons. In 1829, before the two friends had met, + Bronson Alcott heard him preach in Dr. Channing's church on 'The + Universality of the Moral Sentiment,' and was struck, as he said, + with the youth of the preacher, the beauty of his elocution and the + direct and sincere manner in which he addressed his hearers." + +Mr. Charles Congdon, of New Bedford, well known as a popular +writer, gives the following account of Emerson's preaching in his +"Reminiscences." I borrow the quotation from Mr. Conway:-- + + "One day there came into our pulpit the most gracious of mortals, + with a face all benignity, who gave out the first hymn and made the + first prayer as an angel might have read and prayed. Our choir was + a pretty good one, but its best was coarse and discordant after + Emerson's voice. I remember of the sermon only that it had an + indefinite charm of simplicity and wisdom, with occasional + illustrations from nature, which were about the most delicate and + dainty things of the kind which I had ever heard. I could understand + them, if not the fresh philosophical novelties of the discourse." + +Everywhere Emerson seems to have pleased his audiences. The Reverend Dr. +Morison, formerly the much respected Unitarian minister of New Bedford, +writes to me as follows:-- + + "After Dr. Dewey left New Bedford, Mr. Emerson preached there + several months, greatly to the satisfaction and delight of those who + heard him. The Society would have been glad to settle him as their + minister, and he would have accepted a call, had it not been for + some difference of opinion, I think, in regard to the communion + service. Judge Warren, who was particularly his friend, and had at + that time a leading influence in the parish, with all his admiration + for Mr. Emerson, did not think he could well be the pastor of a + Christian church, and so the matter was settled between him and his + friend, without any action by the Society." + +All this shows well enough that his preaching was eminently acceptable. +But every one who has heard him lecture can form an idea of what he must +have been as a preacher. In fact, we have all listened, probably, to +many a passage from old sermons of his,--for he tells us he borrowed +from those old sermons for his lectures,--without ever thinking of the +pulpit from which they were first heard. + +Among the stray glimpses we get of Emerson between the time when he +quitted the pulpit of his church and that when he came before the public +as a lecturer is this, which I owe to the kindness of Hon. Alexander H. +Rice. In 1832 or 1833, probably the latter year, he, then a boy, with +another boy, Thomas R. Gould, afterwards well known as a sculptor, being +at the Episcopal church in Newton, found that Mr. Emerson was sitting in +the pew behind them. Gould knew Mr. Emerson, and introduced young Rice +to him, and they walked down the street together. As they went along, +Emerson burst into a rhapsody over the Psalms of David, the sublimity of +thought, and the poetic beauty of expression of which they are full, and +spoke also with enthusiasm of the Te Deum as that grand old hymn which +had come down through the ages, voicing the praises of generation after +generation. + +When they parted at the house of young Rice's father, Emerson invited +the boys to come and see him at the Allen farm, in the afternoon. They +came to a piece of woods, and, as they entered it, took their hats off. +"Boys," said Emerson, "here we recognize the presence of the Universal +Spirit. The breeze says to us in its own language, How d' ye do? How d' +ye do? and we have already taken our hats off and are answering it with +our own How d' ye do? How d' ye do? And all the waving branches of +the trees, and all the flowers, and the field of corn yonder, and the +singing brook, and the insect and the bird,--every living thing and +things we call inanimate feel the same divine universal impulse while +they join with us, and we with them, in the greeting which is the +salutation of the Universal Spirit." + +We perceive the same feeling which pervades many of Emerson's earlier +Essays and much of his verse, in these long-treasured reminiscences +of the poetical improvisation with which the two boys were thus +unexpectedly favored. Governor Rice continues:-- + + "You know what a captivating charm there always was in Emerson's + presence, but I can never tell you how this line of thought then + impressed a country boy. I do not remember anything about the + remainder of that walk, nor of the after-incidents of that day,--I + only remember that I went home wondering about that mystical dream + of the Universal Spirit, and about what manner of man he was under + whose influence I had for the first time come.... + + "The interview left impressions that led me into new channels of + thought which have been a life-long pleasure to me, and, I doubt + not, taught me somewhat how to distinguish between mere theological + dogma and genuine religion in the soul." + +In the summer of 1834 Emerson became a resident of Concord, +Massachusetts, the town of his forefathers, and the place destined to +be his home for life. He first lived with his venerable connection, Dr. +Ripley, in the dwelling made famous by Hawthorne as the "Old Manse." It +is an old-fashioned gambrel-roofed house, standing close to the scene +of the Fight on the banks of the river. It was built for the Reverend +William Emerson, his grandfather. In one of the rooms of this house +Emerson wrote "Nature," and in the same room, some years later, +Hawthorne wrote "Mosses from an Old Manse." + +The place in which Emerson passed the greater part of his life well +deserves a special notice. Concord might sit for its portrait as an +ideal New England town. If wanting in the variety of surface which +many other towns can boast of, it has at least a vision of the distant +summits of Monadnock and Wachusett. It has fine old woods, and noble +elms to give dignity to its open spaces. Beautiful ponds, as they +modestly call themselves,--one of which, Walden, is as well known in our +literature as Windermere in that of Old England,--lie quietly in their +clean basins. And through the green meadows runs, or rather lounges, +a gentle, unsalted stream, like an English river, licking its grassy +margin with a sort of bovine placidity and contentment. This is the +Musketaquid, or Meadow River, which, after being joined by the more +restless Assabet, still keeps its temper and flows peacefully along by +and through other towns, to lose itself in the broad Merrimac. The names +of these rivers tell us that Concord has an Indian history, and there is +evidence that it was a favorite residence of the race which preceded our +own. The native tribes knew as well as the white settlers where were +pleasant streams and sweet springs, where corn grew tall in the meadows +and fish bred fast in the unpolluted waters. + +The place thus favored by nature can show a record worthy of its +physical attractions. Its settlement under the lead of Emerson's +ancestor, Peter Bulkeley, was effected in the midst of many +difficulties, which the enterprise and self-sacrifice of that noble +leader were successful in overcoming. On the banks of the Musketaquid +was fired the first fatal shot of the "rebel" farmers. Emerson appeals +to the Records of the town for two hundred years as illustrating the +working of our American institutions and the character of the men of +Concord:-- + + "If the good counsel prevailed, the sneaking counsel did not fail to + be suggested; freedom and virtue, if they triumphed, triumphed in a + fair field. And so be it an everlasting testimony for them, and so + much ground of assurance of man's capacity for self-government." + +What names that plain New England town reckons in the roll of its +inhabitants! Stout Major Buttrick and his fellow-soldiers in the war of +Independence, and their worthy successors in the war of Freedom; lawyers +and statesmen like Samuel Hoar and his descendants; ministers like Peter +Bulkeley, Daniel Bliss, and William Emerson; and men of genius such as +the idealist and poet whose inspiration has kindled so many souls; as +the romancer who has given an atmosphere to the hard outlines of our +stern New England; as that unique individual, half college-graduate and +half Algonquin, the Robinson Crusoe of Walden Pond, who carried out a +school-boy whim to its full proportions, and told the story of Nature in +undress as only one who had hidden in her bedroom could have told it. I +need not lengthen the catalogue by speaking of the living, or mentioning +the women whose names have added to its distinction. It has long been an +intellectual centre such as no other country town of our own land, if of +any other, could boast. Its groves, its streams, its houses, are haunted +by undying memories, and its hillsides and hollows are made holy by the +dust that is covered by their turf. + +Such was the place which the advent of Emerson made the Delphi of New +England and the resort of many pilgrims from far-off regions. + +On his return from Europe in the winter of 1833-4, Mr. Emerson began to +appear before the public as a lecturer. His first subjects, "Water," and +the "Relation of Man to the Globe," were hardly such as we should have +expected from a scholar who had but a limited acquaintance with physical +and physiological science. They were probably chosen as of a popular +character, easily treated in such a way as to be intelligible and +entertaining, and thus answering the purpose of introducing him +pleasantly to the new career he was contemplating. These lectures are +not included in his published works, nor were they ever published, so +far as I know. He gave three lectures during the same winter, relating +the experiences of his recent tour in Europe. Having made himself at +home on the platform, he ventured upon subjects more congenial to his +taste and habits of thought than some of those earlier topics. In 1834 +he lectured on Michael Angelo, Milton, Luther, George Fox, and Edmund +Burke. The first two of these lectures, though not included in his +collected works, may be found in the "North American Review" for 1837 +and 1838. The germ of many of the thoughts which he has expanded in +prose and verse may be found in these Essays. + +The _Cosmos_ of the Ancient Greeks, the _piu nel' uno_, "The Many in +One," appear in the Essay on Michael Angelo as they also appear in his +"Nature." The last thought takes wings to itself and rises in the little +poem entitled "Each and All." The "Rhodora," another brief poem, finds +itself foreshadowed in the inquiry, "What is Beauty?" and its answer, +"This great Whole the understanding cannot embrace. Beauty may be felt. +It may be produced. But it cannot be defined." And throughout this Essay +the feeling that truth and beauty and virtue are one, and that Nature is +the symbol which typifies it to the soul, is the inspiring sentiment. +_Noscitur a sociis_ applies as well to a man's dead as to his living +companions. A young friend of mine in his college days wrote an essay on +Plato. When he mentioned his subject to Mr. Emerson, he got the caution, +long remembered, "When you strike at a _King_, you must kill him." +He himself knew well with what kings of thought to measure his own +intelligence. What was grandest, loftiest, purest, in human character +chiefly interested him. He rarely meddles with what is petty or ignoble. +Like his "Humble Bee," the "yellow-breeched philosopher," whom he speaks +of as + + "Wiser far than human seer," + +and says of him, + + "Aught unsavory or unclean + Hath my insect never seen," + +he goes through the world where coarser minds find so much that is +repulsive to dwell upon, + + "Seeing only what is fair, + Sipping only what is sweet." + +Why Emerson selected Michael Angelo as the subject of one of his +earliest lectures is shown clearly enough by the last sentence as +printed in the Essay. + + "He was not a citizen of any country; he belonged to the human race; + he was a brother and a friend to all who acknowledged the beauty + that beams in universal nature, and who seek by labor and + self-denial to approach its source in perfect goodness." + +Consciously or unconsciously men describe themselves in the characters +they draw. One must have the mordant in his own personality or he will +not take the color of his subject. He may force himself to picture that +which he dislikes or even detests; but when he loves the character he +delineates, it is his own, in some measure, at least, or one of which he +feels that its possibilities and tendencies belong to himself. Let us +try Emerson by this test in his "Essay on Milton:"-- + + "It is the prerogative of this great man to stand at this hour + foremost of all men in literary history, and so (shall we not say?) + of all men, in the power to _inspire_. Virtue goes out of him into + others." ... "He is identified in the mind with all select and holy + images, with the supreme interests of the human race."--"Better than + any other he has discharged the office of every great man, namely, + to raise the idea of Man in the minds of his contemporaries and of + posterity,--to draw after nature a life of man, exhibiting such a + composition of grace, of strength, and of virtue as poet had not + described nor hero lived. Human nature in these ages is indebted to + him for its best portrait. Many philosophers in England, France, and + Germany, have formally dedicated their study to this problem; and + we think it impossible to recall one in those countries who + communicates the same vibration of hope, of self-reverence, of + piety, of delight in beauty, which the name of Milton awakes." + +Emerson had the same lofty aim as Milton, "To raise the idea of man;" +he had "the power _to inspire_" in a preëminent degree. If ever a man +communicated those _vibrations_ he speaks of as characteristic of +Milton, it was Emerson. In elevation, purity, nobility of nature, he is +worthy to stand with the great poet and patriot, who began like him as a +school-master, and ended as the teacher in a school-house which had for +its walls the horizons of every region where English is spoken. The +similarity of their characters might be followed by the curious into +their fortunes. Both were turned away from the clerical office by a +revolt of conscience against the beliefs required of them; both lost +very dear objects of affection in early manhood, and mourned for them +in tender and mellifluous threnodies. It would be easy to trace many +parallelisms in their prose and poetry, but to have dared to name any +man whom we have known in our common life with the seraphic singer +of the Nativity and of Paradise is a tribute which seems to savor of +audacity. It is hard to conceive of Emerson as "an expert swordsman" +like Milton. It is impossible to think of him as an abusive +controversialist as Milton was in his controversy with Salmasius. But +though Emerson never betrayed it to the offence of others, he must have +been conscious, like Milton, of "a certain niceness of nature, an honest +haughtiness," which was as a shield about his inner nature. Charles +Emerson, the younger brother, who was of the same type, expresses the +feeling in his college essay on Friendship, where it is all summed up in +the line he quotes:-- + + "The hand of Douglas is his own." + +It must be that in writing this Essay on Milton Emerson felt that he was +listening in his own soul to whispers that seemed like echoes from that +of the divine singer. + + * * * * * + +My friend, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, a life-long friend of Emerson, +who understood him from the first, and was himself a great part in the +movement of which Emerson, more than any other man, was the leader, has +kindly allowed me to make use of the following letters:-- + + TO REV. JAMES F. CLARKE, LOUISVILLE, KY. + + PLYMOUTH, MASS., March 12, 1834. + + MY DEAR SIR,--As the day approaches when Mr. Lewis should leave + Boston, I seize a few moments in a friendly house in the first of + towns, to thank you heartily for your kindness in lending me the + valued manuscripts which I return. The translations excited me much, + and who can estimate the value of a good thought? I trust I am to + learn much more from you hereafter of your German studies, and much + I hope of your own. You asked in your note concerning Carlyle. My + recollections of him are most pleasant, and I feel great confidence + in his character. He understands and recognizes his mission. He is + perfectly simple and affectionate in his manner, and frank, as he + can well afford to be, in his communications. He expressed some + impatience of his total solitude, and talked of Paris as a + residence. I told him I hoped not; for I should always remember + him with respect, meditating in the mountains of Nithsdale. He was + cheered, as he ought to be, by learning that his papers were read + with interest by young men unknown to him in this continent; and + when I specified a piece which had attracted warm commendation from + the New Jerusalem people here, his wife said that is always the way; + whatever he has writ that he thinks has fallen dead, he hears of + two or three years afterward.--He has many, many tokens of Goethe's + regard, miniatures, medals, and many letters. If you should go to + Scotland one day, you would gratify him, yourself, and me, by your + visit to Craigenputtock, in the parish of Dunscore, near Dumfries. + He told me he had a book which he thought to publish, but was in + the purpose of dividing into a series of articles for "Fraser's + Magazine." I therefore subscribed for that book, which he calls the + "Mud Magazine," but have seen nothing of his workmanship in the two + last numbers. The mail is going, so I shall finish my letter another + time. + + Your obliged friend and servant, + + R. WALDO EMERSON. + + + CONCORD, MASS., November 25, 1834. + + MY DEAR SIR,--Miss Peabody has kindly sent me your manuscript piece + on Goethe and Carlyle. I have read it with great pleasure and a + feeling of gratitude, at the same time with a serious regret that it + was not published. I have forgotten what reason you assigned for not + printing it; I cannot think of any sufficient one. Is it too late + now? Why not change its form a little and annex to it some account + of Carlyle's later pieces, to wit: "Diderot," and "Sartor Resartus." + The last is complete, and he has sent it to me in a stitched + pamphlet. Whilst I see its vices (relatively to the reading public) + of style, I cannot but esteem it a noble philosophical poem, + reflecting the ideas, institutions, men of this very hour. And it + seems to me that it has so much wit and other secondary graces as + must strike a class who would not care for its primary merit, that + of being a sincere exhortation to seekers of truth. If you still + retain your interest in his genius (as I see not how you can avoid, + having understood it and cooperated with it so truly), you will be + glad to know that he values his American readers very highly; + that he does not defend this offensive style of his, but calls it + questionable tentative; that he is trying other modes, and is about + publishing a historical piece called "The Diamond Necklace," as a + part of a great work which he meditates on the subject of the French + Revolution. He says it is part of his creed that history is poetry, + could we tell it right. He adds, moreover, in a letter I have + recently received from him, that it has been an odd dream that he + might end in the western woods. Shall we not bid him come, and be + Poet and Teacher of a most scattered flock wanting a shepherd? Or, + as I sometimes think, would it not be a new and worse chagrin to + become acquainted with the extreme deadness of our community to + spiritual influences of the higher kind? Have you read Sampson + Reed's "Growth of the Mind"? I rejoice to be contemporary with that + man, and cannot wholly despair of the society in which he lives; + there must be some oxygen yet, and La Fayette is only just dead. + + Your friend, R. WALDO EMERSON. + + + It occurs to me that 't is unfit to send any white paper so far as + to your house, so you shall have a sentence from Carlyle's letter. + +[This may be found in Carlyle's first letter, dated 12th August, 1834.] +Dr. Le Baron Russell, an intimate friend of Emerson for the greater part +of his life, gives me some particulars with reference to the publication +of "Sartor Resartus," which I will repeat in his own words:-- + + "It was just before the time of which I am speaking [that of + Emerson's marriage] that the 'Sartor Resartus' appeared in 'Fraser.' + Emerson lent the numbers, or the collected sheets of 'Fraser,' to + Miss Jackson, and we all had the reading of them. The excitement + which the book caused among young persons interested in the + literature of the day at that time you probably remember. I was + quite carried away by it, and so anxious to own a copy, that I + determined to publish an American edition. I consulted James Munroe + & Co. on the subject. Munroe advised me to obtain a subscription to + a sufficient number of copies to secure the cost of the publication. + This, with the aid of some friends, particularly of my classmate, + William Silsbee, I readily succeeded in doing. When this was + accomplished, I wrote to Emerson, who up to this time had taken no + part in the enterprise, asking him to write a preface. (This is the + Preface which appears in the American edition, James Munroe & Co., + 1836. It was omitted in the third American from the second London + edition,[1] by the same publishers, 1840.) Before the first edition + appeared, and after the subscription had been secured, Munroe & Co. + offered to assume the whole responsibility of the publication, and + to this I assented. + + [Footnote 1: Revised and corrected by the author.] + + "This American edition of 1836 was the first appearance of the + 'Sartor' in either country, as a distinct edition. Some copies of + the sheets from 'Fraser,' it appears, were stitched together and sent + to a few persons, but Carlyle could find no English publisher willing + to take the responsibility of printing the book. This shows, I think, + how much more interest was taken in Carlyle's writings in this country + than in England." + +On the 14th of May, 1834, Emerson wrote to Carlyle the first letter of +that correspondence which has since been given to the world under the +careful editorship of Mr. Charles Norton. This correspondence lasted +from the date mentioned to the 2d of April, 1872, when Carlyle wrote his +last letter to Emerson. The two writers reveal themselves as being in +strong sympathy with each other, in spite of a radical difference of +temperament and entirely opposite views of life. The hatred of unreality +was uppermost with Carlyle; the love of what is real and genuine with +Emerson. Those old moralists, the weeping and the laughing philosophers, +find their counterparts in every thinking community. Carlyle did not +weep, but he scolded; Emerson did not laugh, but in his gravest moments +there was a smile waiting for the cloud to pass from his forehead. The +Duet they chanted was a Miserere with a Te Deum for its Antiphon; a _De_ +_Profundis_ answered by a _Sursum Corda_. "The ground of my existence +is black as death," says Carlyle. "Come and live with me a year," says +Emerson, "and if you do not like New England well enough to stay, one of +these years; (when the 'History' has passed its ten editions, and been +translated into as many languages) I will come and dwell with you." + + +Section 2. In September, 1835, Emerson was married to Miss Lydia +Jackson, of Plymouth, Massachusetts. The wedding took place in the fine +old mansion known as the Winslow House, Dr. Le Baron Russell and his +sister standing up with the bridegroom and his bride. After their +marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Emerson went to reside in the house in which +he passed the rest of his life, and in which Mrs. Emerson and their +daughter still reside. This is the "plain, square, wooden house," with +horse-chestnut trees in the front yard, and evergreens around it, which +has been so often described and figured. It is without pretensions, but +not without an air of quiet dignity. A full and well-illustrated account +of it and its arrangements and surroundings is given in "Poets' Homes," +by Arthur Gilman and others, published by D. Lothrop & Company in 1879. + +On the 12th of September, 1835, Emerson delivered an "Historical +Discourse, at Concord, on the Second Centennial Anniversary of +the Incorporation of the Town." There is no "mysticism," no +"transcendentalism" in this plain, straightforward Address. The facts +are collected and related with the patience and sobriety which became +the writer as one of the Dryasdusts of our very diligent, very useful, +very matter-of-fact, and for the most part judiciously unimaginative +Massachusetts Historical Society. It looks unlike anything else Emerson +ever wrote, in being provided with abundant foot-notes and an appendix. +One would almost as soon have expected to see Emerson equipped with +a musket and a knapsack as to find a discourse of his clogged with +annotations, and trailing a supplement after it. Oracles are brief and +final in their utterances. Delphi and Cumae are not expected to explain +what they say. + +It is the habit of our New England towns to celebrate their own worthies +and their own deeds on occasions like this, with more or less of +rhetorical gratitude and self-felicitation. The discourses delivered +on these occasions are commonly worth reading, for there was never a +clearing made in the forest that did not let in the light on heroes and +heroines. Concord is on the whole the most interesting of all the inland +towns of New England. Emerson has told its story in as painstaking, +faithful a way as if he had been by nature an annalist. But with this +fidelity, we find also those bold generalizations and sharp picturesque +touches which reveal the poetic philosopher. + + "I have read with care," he says, "the town records themselves. + They exhibit a pleasing picture of a community almost exclusively + agricultural, where no man has much time for words, in his search + after things; of a community of great simplicity of manners, and of + a manifest love of justice. I find our annals marked with a uniform + good sense.--The tone of the record rises with the dignity of the + event. These soiled and musty books are luminous and electric + within. The old town clerks did not spell very correctly, but + they contrive to make intelligible the will of a free and just + community." ... "The matters there debated (in town meetings) are + such as to invite very small consideration. The ill-spelled pages + of the town records contain the result. I shall be excused for + confessing that I have set a value upon any symptom of meanness and + private pique which I have met with in these antique books, as + proof that justice was done; that if the results of our history are + approved as wise and good, it was yet a free strife; if the + good counsel prevailed, the sneaking counsel did not fail to be + suggested; freedom and virtue, if they triumphed, triumphed in a + fair field. And so be it an everlasting testimony for them, and so + much ground of assurance of man's capacity for self-government." + +There was nothing in this Address which the plainest of Concord's +citizens could not read understandingly and with pleasure. In fact Mr. +Emerson himself, besides being a poet and a philosopher, was also a +plain Concord citizen. His son tells me that he was a faithful attendant +upon town meetings, and, though he never spoke, was an interested and +careful listener to the debates on town matters. That respect for +"mother-wit" and for all the wholesome human qualities which reveals +itself all through his writings was bred from this kind of intercourse +with men of sense who had no pretensions to learning, and in whom, for +that very reason, the native qualities came out with less disguise in +their expression. He was surrounded by men who ran to extremes in their +idiosyncrasies; Alcott in speculations, which often led him into the +fourth dimension of mental space; Hawthorne, who brooded himself into +a dream--peopled solitude; Thoreau, the nullifier of civilization, who +insisted on nibbling his asparagus at the wrong end, to say nothing of +idolaters and echoes. He kept his balance among them all. It would +be hard to find a more candid and sober record of the result of +self-government in a small community than is contained in this simple +discourse, patient in detail, large in treatment, more effective than +any unsupported generalities about the natural rights of man, which +amount to very little unless men earn the right of asserting them by +attending fairly to their natural duties. So admirably is the working of +a town government, as it goes on in a well-disposed community, displayed +in the history of Concord's two hundred years of village life, that +one of its wisest citizens had portions of the address printed +for distribution, as an illustration of the American principle of +self-government. + +After settling in Concord, Emerson delivered courses of Lectures in +Boston during several successive winters; in 1835, ten Lectures on +English Literature; in 1836, twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of +History; in 1837, ten Lectures on Human Culture. Some of these lectures +may have appeared in print under their original titles; all of them +probably contributed to the Essays and Discourses which we find in his +published volumes. + +On the 19th of April, 1836, a meeting was held to celebrate the +completion of the monument raised in commemoration of the Concord Fight. +For this occasion Emerson wrote the hymn made ever memorable by the +lines:-- + + Here once the embattled farmers stood, + And fired the shot heard round the world. + +The last line of this hymn quickens the heartbeats of every American, +and the whole hymn is admirable in thought and expression. Until the +autumn of 1838, Emerson preached twice on Sundays to the church at East +Lexington, which desired him to become its pastor. Mr. Cooke says that +when a lady of the society was asked why they did not settle a friend of +Emerson's whom he had urged them to invite to their pulpit, she replied: +"We are a very simple people, and can understand no one but Mr. +Emerson." He said of himself: "My pulpit is the Lyceum platform." +Knowing that he made his Sermons contribute to his Lectures, we need not +mourn over their not being reported. + +In March, 1837, Emerson delivered in Boston a Lecture on War, afterwards +published in Miss Peabody's "Aesthetic Papers." He recognizes war as one +of the temporary necessities of a developing civilization, to disappear +with the advance of mankind:-- + + "At a certain stage of his progress the man fights, if he be of a + sound body and mind. At a certain high stage he makes no offensive + demonstration, but is alert to repel injury, and of an unconquerable + heart. At a still higher stage he comes into the region of holiness; + passion has passed away from him; his warlike nature is all + converted into an active medicinal principle; he sacrifices himself, + and accepts with alacrity wearisome tasks of denial and charity; + but being attacked, he bears it, and turns the other cheek, as one + engaged, throughout his being, no longer to the service of an + individual, but to the common good of all men." + +In 1834 Emerson's brother Edward died, as already mentioned, in the West +India island where he had gone for his health. In his letter to Carlyle, +of November 12th of the same year, Emerson says: "Your letter, which +I received last week, made a bright light in a solitary and saddened +place. I had quite recently received the news of the death of a brother +in the island of Porto Rico, whose loss to me will be a lifelong +sorrow." It was of him that Emerson wrote the lines "In Memoriam," in +which he says,-- + + "There is no record left on earth + Save on tablets of the heart, + Of the rich, inherent worth, + Of the grace that on him shone + Of eloquent lips, of joyful wit; + He could not frame a word unfit, + An act unworthy to be done." + +Another bereavement was too soon to be recorded. On the 7th of October, +1835, he says in a letter to Carlyle:-- + + "I was very glad to hear of the brother you describe, for I have one + too, and know what it is to have presence in two places. Charles + Chauncy Emerson is a lawyer now settled in this town, and, as I + believe, no better Lord Hamlet was ever. He is our Doctor on + all questions of taste, manners, or action. And one of the pure + pleasures I promise myself in the months to come is to make you two + gentlemen know each other." + +Alas for human hopes and prospects! In less than a year from the date of +that letter, on the 17th of September, 1836, he writes to Carlyle:-- + + "Your last letter, dated in April, found me a mourner, as did your + first. I have lost out of this world my brother Charles, of whom I + have spoken to you,--the friend and companion of many years, the + inmate of my house, a man of a beautiful genius, born to speak well, + and whose conversation for these last years has treated every grave + question of humanity, and has been my daily bread. I have put so + much dependence on his gifts, that we made but one man together; for + I needed never to do what he could do by noble nature, much better + than I. He was to have been married in this month, and at the time + of his sickness and sudden death, I was adding apartments to my + house for his permanent accommodation. I wish that you could have + known him. At twenty-seven years the best life is only preparation. + He built his foundation so large that it needed the full age of + man to make evident the plan and proportions of his character. He + postponed always a particular to a final and absolute success, so + that his life was a silent appeal to the great and generous. But + some time I shall see you and speak of him." + + +Section 3. In the year 1836 there was published in Boston a little book +of less than a hundred very small pages, entitled "Nature." It bore no +name on its title-page, but was at once attributed to its real author, +Ralph Waldo Emerson. + +The Emersonian adept will pardon me for burdening this beautiful Essay +with a commentary which is worse than superfluous for him. For it has +proved for many,--I will not say a _pons asinorum_,--but a very narrow +bridge, which it made their heads swim to attempt crossing, and yet they +must cross it, or one domain of Emerson's intellect will not be reached. + +It differed in some respects from anything he had hitherto written. It +talked a strange sort of philosophy in the language of poetry. Beginning +simply enough, it took more and more the character of a rhapsody, until, +as if lifted off his feet by the deepened and stronger undercurrent of +his thought, the writer dropped his personality and repeated the words +which "a certain poet sang" to him. + +This little book met with a very unemotional reception. Its style was +peculiar,--almost as unlike that of his Essays as that of Carlyle's +"Sartor Resartus" was unlike the style of his "Life of Schiller." It was +vague, mystic, incomprehensible, to most of those who call themselves +common-sense people. Some of its expressions lent themselves easily to +travesty and ridicule. But the laugh could not be very loud or very +long, since it took twelve years, as Mr. Higginson tells us, to sell +five hundred copies. It was a good deal like Keats's + + "doubtful tale from fairy-land + Hard for the non-elect to understand." + +The same experience had been gone through by Wordsworth. + + "Whatever is too original," says De Quincey, "will be hated at the + first. It must slowly mould a public for itself; and the resistance + of the early thoughtless judgments must be overcome by a + counter-resistance to itself, in a better audience slowly mustering + against the first. Forty and seven years it is since William + Wordsworth first appeared as an author. Twenty of these years he was + the scoff of the world, and his poetry a by-word of scorn. Since + then, and more than once, senates have rung with acclamations to the + echo of his name." + +No writer is more deeply imbued with the spirit of Wordsworth than +Emerson, as we cannot fail to see in turning the pages of "Nature," his +first thoroughly characteristic Essay. There is the same thought in the +Preface to "The Excursion" that we find in the Introduction to "Nature." + + "The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; + we through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original + relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and + philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by + revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?" + + "Paradise and groves + Elysian, Fortunate Fields--like those of old + Sought in the Atlantic Main, why should they be + A history only of departed things, + Or a mere fiction of what never was?" + +"Nature" is a reflective prose poem. It is divided into eight chapters, +which might almost as well have been called cantos. + +Never before had Mr. Emerson given free utterance to the passion with +which the aspects of nature inspired him. He had recently for the first +time been at once master of himself and in free communion with all the +planetary influences above, beneath, around him. The air of the country +intoxicated him. There are sentences in "Nature" which are as exalted +as the language of one who is just coming to himself after having been +etherized. Some of these expressions sounded to a considerable part of +his early readers like the vagaries of delirium. Yet underlying these +excited outbursts there was a general tone of serenity which reassured +the anxious. The gust passed over, the ripples smoothed themselves, and +the stars shone again in quiet reflection. + +After a passionate outbreak, in which he sees all, is nothing, loses +himself in nature, in Universal Being, becomes "part or particle of +God," he considers briefly, in the chapter entitled _Commodity_, the +ministry of nature to the senses. A few picturesque glimpses in pleasing +and poetical phrases, with a touch of archaism, and reminiscences of +Hamlet and Jeremy Taylor, "the Shakspeare of divines," as he has +called him, are what we find in this chapter on Commodity, or natural +conveniences. + +But "a nobler want of man is served by Nature, namely, the love +of _Beauty_" which is his next subject. There are some touches of +description here, vivid, high-colored, not so much pictures as hints and +impressions for pictures. + +Many of the thoughts which run through all his prose and poetry may be +found here. Analogy is seen everywhere in the works of Nature. "What is +common to them all,--that perfectness and harmony, is beauty."--"Nothing +is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole."--"No +reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty." How easily +these same ideas took on the robe of verse may be seen in the Poems, +"Each and All," and "The Rhodora." A good deal of his philosophy comes +out in these concluding sentences of the chapter:-- + + "Beauty in its largest and profoundest sense is one expression for + the universe; God is the all-fair. Truth and goodness and beauty are + but different faces of the same All. But beauty in Nature is not + ultimate. It is the herald of inward and eternal beauty, and is not + alone a solid and satisfactory good. It must therefore stand as a + part and not as yet the highest expression of the final cause of + Nature.". + +In the "Rhodora" the flower is made to answer that + + "Beauty is its own excuse for being." + +In this Essay the beauty of the flower is not enough, but it must excuse +itself for being, mainly as the symbol of something higher and deeper +than itself. + +He passes next to a consideration of _Language_. Words are signs of +natural facts, particular material facts are symbols of particular +spiritual facts, and Nature is the symbol of spirit. Without going very +profoundly into the subject, he gives some hints as to the mode in +which languages are formed,--whence words are derived, how they become +transformed and worn out. But they come at first fresh from Nature. + + "A man conversing in earnest, if he watch his intellectual + processes, will find that always a material image, more or less + luminous, arises in his mind, contemporaneous with every thought, + which furnishes the vestment of the thought. Hence good writing and + brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories." + +From this he argues that country life is a great advantage to a powerful +mind, inasmuch as it furnishes a greater number of these material +images. They cannot be summoned at will, but they present themselves +when great exigencies call for them. + + "The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose senses have been + nourished by their fair and appeasing changes, year after year, + without design and without heed,--shall not lose their lesson + altogether, in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long + hereafter, amidst agitations and terror in national councils,--in + the hour of revolution,--these solemn images shall reappear in their + morning lustre, as fit symbols and words of the thought which the + passing events shall awaken. At the call of a noble sentiment, again + the woods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and + the cattle low upon the mountains, as he saw and heard them in his + infancy. And with these forms the spells of persuasion, the keys of + power, are put into his hands." + +It is doing no wrong to this very eloquent and beautiful passage to say +that it reminds us of certain lines in one of the best known poems of +Wordsworth:-- + + "These beauteous forms, + Through a long absence, have not been to me + As is a landscape to a blind man's eye; + But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din + Of towns and cities, I have owed to them + In hours of weariness sensations sweet + Felt in the blood and felt along the heart." + +It is needless to quote the whole passage. The poetry of Wordsworth may +have suggested the prose of Emerson, but the prose loses nothing by the +comparison. + +In _Discipline_, which is his next subject, he treats of the influence +of Nature in educating the intellect, the moral sense, and the will. +Man is enlarged and the universe lessened and brought within his grasp, +because + + "Time and space relations vanish as laws are known."--"The moral + law lies at the centre of Nature and radiates to the + circumference."--"All things with which we deal preach to us. + What is a farm but a mute gospel?"--"From the child's successive + possession of his several senses up to the hour when he sayeth, 'Thy + will be done!' he is learning the secret that he can reduce under + his will, not only particular events, but great classes, nay, the + whole series of events, and so conform all facts to his character." + +The unity in variety which meets us everywhere is again referred to. +He alludes to the ministry of our friendships to our education. When a +friend has done for our education in the way of filling our minds with +sweet and solid wisdom "it is a sign to us that his office is closing, +and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time." This +thought was probably suggested by the death of his brother Charles, +which occurred a few months before "Nature" was published. He had +already spoken in the first chapter of this little book as if from some +recent experience of his own, doubtless the same bereavement. "To a man +laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. +Then there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has +just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it shuts down +over less worth in the population." This was the first effect of the +loss; but after a time he recognizes a superintending power which orders +events for us in wisdom which we could not see at first. + +The chapter on _Idealism_ must be read by all who believe themselves +capable of abstract thought, if they would not fall under the judgment +of Turgot, which Emerson quotes: "He that has never doubted the +existence of matter may be assured he has no aptitude for metaphysical +inquiries." The most essential statement is this:-- + + "It is a sufficient account of that Appearance we call the World, + that God will teach a human mind, and so makes it the receiver of a + certain number of congruent sensations, which we call sun and moon, + man and woman, house and trade. In my utter impotence to test + the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the + impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects, what + difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in Heaven, or + some god paints the image in the firmament of the Soul?" + +We need not follow the thought through the argument from illusions, like +that when we look at the shore from a moving ship, and others which +cheat the senses by false appearances. + +The poet animates Nature with his own thoughts, perceives the affinities +between Nature and the soul, with Beauty as his main end. The +philosopher pursues Truth, but, "not less than the poet, postpones +the apparent order and relation of things to the empire of thought." +Religion and ethics agree with all lower culture in degrading Nature +and suggesting its dependence on Spirit. "The devotee flouts +Nature."--"Plotinus was ashamed of his body."--"Michael Angelo said of +external beauty, 'it is the frail and weary weed, in which God dresses +the soul, which He has called into time.'" Emerson would not +undervalue Nature as looked at through the senses and "the unrenewed +understanding." "I have no hostility to Nature," he says, "but a +child's love of it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and +melons."--But, "seen in the light of thought, the world always is +phenomenal; and virtue subordinates it to the mind. Idealism sees the +world in God,"--as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant +eternity, for the contemplation of the soul. + +The unimaginative reader is likely to find himself off soundings in the +next chapter, which has for its title _Spirit_. + +Idealism only denies the existence of matter; it does not satisfy the +demands of the spirit. "It leaves God out of me."--Of these three +questions, What is matter? Whence is it? Where to? The ideal theory +answers the first only. The reply is that matter is a phenomenon, not a +substance. + + "But when we come to inquire Whence is matter? and Whereto? many + truths arise to us out of the recesses of consciousness. We learn + that the highest is present to the soul of man, that the dread + universal essence, which is not wisdom, or love, or beauty, or + power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for which all + things exist, and that by which they are; that spirit creates; that + behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present; that spirit is + one and not compound; that spirit does not act upon us from + without, that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or through + ourselves."--"As a plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the + bosom of God; he is nourished by unfailing fountains, and draws, at + his need, inexhaustible power." + +Man may have access to the entire mind of the Creator, himself become a +"creator in the finite." + + "As we degenerate, the contrast between us and our house is more + evident. We are as much strangers in nature as we are aliens from + God. We do not understand the notes of birds. The fox and the deer + run away from us; the bear and the tiger rend us." + +All this has an Old Testament sound as of a lost Paradise. In the next +chapter he dreams of Paradise regained. + +This next and last chapter is entitled _Prospects_. He begins with +a bold claim for the province of intuition as against induction, +undervaluing the "half sight of science" as against the "untaught +sallies of the spirit," the surmises and vaticinations of the mind,--the +"imperfect theories, and sentences which contain glimpses of truth." In +a word, he would have us leave the laboratory and its crucibles for +the sibyl's cave and its tripod. We can all--or most of us, +certainly--recognize something of truth, much of imagination, and more +of danger in speculations of this sort. They belong to visionaries and +to poets. Emerson feels distinctly enough that he is getting into the +realm of poetry. He quotes five beautiful verses from George Herbert's +"Poem on Man." Presently he is himself taken off his feet into the air +of song, and finishes his Essay with "some traditions of man and nature +which a certain poet sang to me."--"A man is a god in ruins."--"Man is +the dwarf of himself. Once he was permeated and dissolved by spirit. He +filled nature with his overflowing currents. Out from him sprang the +sun and moon; from man the sun, from woman the moon."--But he no longer +fills the mere shell he had made for himself; "he is shrunk to a drop." +Still something of elemental power remains to him. "It is instinct." +Such teachings he got from his "poet." It is a kind of New England +Genesis in place of the Old Testament one. We read in the Sermon on the +Mount: "Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect." +The discourse which comes to us from the Trimount oracle commands us, +"Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to +the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions." The +seer of Patmos foretells a heavenly Jerusalem, of which he says, "There +shall in no wise enter into it anything which defileth." The sage of +Concord foresees a new heaven on earth. "A correspondent revolution in +things will attend the influx of the spirit. So fast will disagreeable +appearances, swine, spiders, snakes, pests, mad-houses, prisons, +enemies, vanish; they are temporary and shall be no more seen." + + * * * * * + +It may be remembered that Calvin, in his Commentary on the New +Testament, stopped when he came to the book of the "Revelation." He +found it full of difficulties which he did not care to encounter. Yet, +considered only as a poem, the vision of St. John is full of noble +imagery and wonderful beauty. "Nature" is the Book of Revelation of our +Saint Radulphus. It has its obscurities, its extravagances, but as a +poem it is noble and inspiring. It was objected to on the score of its +pantheistic character, as Wordsworth's "Lines composed near Tintern +Abbey" had been long before. But here and there it found devout readers +who were captivated by its spiritual elevation and great poetical +beauty, among them one who wrote of it in the "Democratic Review" in +terms of enthusiastic admiration. + +Mr. Bowen, the Professor of Natural Theology and Moral Philosophy +in Harvard University, treated this singular semi-philosophical, +semi-poetical little book in a long article in the "Christian Examiner," +headed "Transcendentalism," and published in the January number for +1837. The acute and learned Professor meant to deal fairly with his +subject. But if one has ever seen a sagacious pointer making the +acquaintance of a box-tortoise, he will have an idea of the relations +between the reviewer and the reviewed as they appear in this article. +The professor turns the book over and over,--inspects it from plastron +to carapace, so to speak, and looks for openings everywhere, sometimes +successfully, sometimes in vain. He finds good writing and sound +philosophy, passages of great force and beauty of expression, marred by +obscurity, under assumptions and faults of style. He was not, any more +than the rest of us, acclimated to the Emersonian atmosphere, and after +some not unjust or unkind comments with which many readers will heartily +agree, confesses his bewilderment, saying:-- + + "On reviewing what we have already said of this singular work, the + criticism seems to be couched in contradictory terms; we can only + allege in excuse the fact that the book is a contradiction in + itself." + +Carlyle says in his letter of February 13, 1837:-- + + "Your little azure-colored 'Nature' gave me true satisfaction. I + read it, and then lent it about to all my acquaintances that had a + sense for such things; from whom a similar verdict always came back. + You say it is the first chapter of something greater. I call it + rather the Foundation and Ground-plan on which you may build + whatsoever of great and true has been given you to build. It is the + true Apocalypse, this when the 'Open Secret' becomes revealed to a + man. I rejoice much in the glad serenity of soul with which you look + out on this wondrous Dwelling-place of yours and mine,--with an ear + for the _Ewigen Melodien_, which pipe in the winds round us, and + utter themselves forth in all sounds and sights and things; _not_ to + be written down by gamut-machinery; but which all right writing is a + kind of attempt to write down." + +The first edition of "Nature" had prefixed to it the following words +from Plotinus: "Nature is but an image or imitation of wisdom, the last +thing of the soul; Nature being a thing which doth only do, but not +know." This is omitted in after editions, and in its place we read:-- + + "A subtle chain of countless rings + The next unto the farthest brings; + The eye reads omens where it goes, + And speaks all languages the rose; + And striving to be man, the worm + Mounts through all the spires of form." + +The copy of "Nature" from which I take these lines, his own, of course, +like so many others which he prefixed to his different Essays, was +printed in the year 1849, ten years before the publication of Darwin's +"Origin of Species," twenty years and more before the publication of +"The Descent of Man." But the "Vestiges of Creation," published in 1844, +had already popularized the resuscitated theories of Lamarck. It seems +as if Emerson had a warning from the poetic instinct which, when it does +not precede the movement of the scientific intellect, is the first to +catch the hint of its discoveries. There is nothing more audacious in +the poet's conception of the worm looking up towards humanity, than +the naturalist's theory that the progenitor of the human race was an +acephalous mollusk. "I will not be sworn," says Benedick, "but love may +transform me to an oyster." For "love" read science. + +Unity in variety, "_il piu nell uno_" symbolism of Nature and its +teachings, generation of phenomena,--appearances,--from spirit, to +which they correspond and which they obey; evolution of the best and +elimination of the worst as the law of being; all this and much more may +be found in the poetic utterances of this slender Essay. It fell like an +aerolite, unasked for, unaccounted for, unexpected, almost unwelcome,--a +stumbling-block to be got out of the well-trodden highway of New England +scholastic intelligence. But here and there it found a reader to whom it +was, to borrow, with slight changes, its own quotation,-- + + "The golden key + Which opes the palace of eternity," + +inasmuch as it carried upon its face the highest certificate of truth, +because it animated them to create a new world for themselves through +the purification of their own souls. + +Next to "Nature" in the series of his collected publications comes "The +American Scholar. An Oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society +at Cambridge, August 31, 1837." + +The Society known by these three letters, long a mystery to the +uninitiated, but which, filled out and interpreted, signify that +philosophy is the guide of life, is one of long standing, the +annual meetings of which have called forth the best efforts of many +distinguished scholars and thinkers. Rarely has any one of the annual +addresses been listened to with such profound attention and interest. +Mr. Lowell says of it, that its delivery "was an event without any +former parallel in our literary annals, a scene to be always treasured +in the memory for its picturesqueness and its inspiration. What crowded +and breathless aisles, what windows clustering with eager heads, what +enthusiasm of approval, what grim silence of foregone dissent!" + +Mr. Cooke says truly of this oration, that nearly all his leading ideas +found expression in it. This was to be expected in an address delivered +before such an audience. Every real thinker's world of thought has its +centre in a few formulae, about which they revolve as the planets circle +round the sun which cast them off. But those who lost themselves now and +then in the pages of "Nature" will find their way clearly enough through +those of "The American Scholar." It is a plea for generous culture; +for the development of all the faculties, many of which tend to become +atrophied by the exclusive pursuit of single objects of thought. It +begins with a note like a trumpet call. + + "Thus far," he says, "our holiday has been simply a friendly sign + of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy to + give to letters any more. As such it is precious as the sign of an + indestructible instinct. Perhaps the time is already come when + it ought to be, and will be, something else; when the sluggard + intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids and + fill the postponed expectations of the world with something better + than the exertions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our + long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a + close. The millions that around us are rushing into life cannot + always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, + actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves. Who can + doubt that poetry will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in + the constellation Harp, which now flames in our zenith, astronomers + announce shall one day be the pole-star for a thousand years?" + +Emerson finds his text in the old fable which tells that Man, as he was +in the beginning, was divided into men, as the hand was divided into +fingers, the better to answer the end of his being. The fable covers the +doctrine that there is One Man; present to individuals only in a partial +manner; and that we must take the whole of society to find the whole +man. Unfortunately the unit has been too minutely subdivided, and many +faculties are practically lost for want of use. "The state of society is +one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and +strut about so many walking monsters,--a good finger, a neck, a stomach, +an elbow, but never a man.... Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, +into many things.... The priest becomes a form; the attorney a statute +book; the mechanic a machine; the sailor a rope of the ship." + +This complaint is by no means a new one. Scaliger says, as quoted +by omnivorous old Burton: "_Nequaquam, nos homines sumus sed partes +hominis_." The old illustration of this used to be found in pin-making. +It took twenty different workmen to make a pin, beginning with drawing +the wire and ending with sticking in the paper. Each expert, skilled +in one small performance only, was reduced to a minute fraction of a +fraction of humanity. If the complaint was legitimate in Scaliger's +time, it was better founded half a century ago when Mr. Emerson found +cause for it. It has still more serious significance to-day, when +in every profession, in every branch of human knowledge, special +acquirements, special skill have greatly tended to limit the range of +men's thoughts and working faculties. + + "In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated + intellect. In the right state he is _Man thinking_. In the + degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a + mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. + In this view of him, as Man thinking, the theory of his office is + continued. Him Nature solicits with all her placid, all her monitory + pictures; him the past instructs; him the future invites." + +Emerson proceeds to describe and illustrate the influences of nature +upon the mind, returning to the strain of thought with which his +previous Essay has made us familiar. He next considers the influence of +the past, and especially of books as the best type of that influence. +"Books are the best of things well used; abused among the worst." It is +hard to distil what is already a quintessence without loss of what is +just as good as the product of our labor. A sentence or two may serve to +give an impression of the epigrammatic wisdom of his counsel. + + "Each age must write its own books, or, rather, each generation + for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit + this." + +When a book has gained a certain hold on the mind, it is liable to +become an object of idolatrous regard. + + "Instantly the book becomes noxious: the guide is a tyrant. The + sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the + incursions of reason, having once so opened, having received this + book, stands upon it and makes an outcry if it is disparaged. + Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not + by Man thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set + out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principle. + Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to + accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given; + forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in + libraries when they wrote these books.--One must he an inventor to + read well. As the proverb says, 'He that would bring home the wealth + of the Indies must carry out the wealth of the Indies.'--When the + mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book + we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is + doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the + world." + +It is not enough that the scholar should be a student of nature and of +books. He must take a part in the affairs of the world about him. + + "Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. + Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can never ripen + into truth.--The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action + past by, as a loss of power. It is the raw material out of which the + intellect moulds her splendid products. A strange process, too, this + by which experience is converted into thought as a mulberry leaf is + converted into satin. The manufacture goes forward at all hours." + +Emerson does not use the words "unconscious cerebration," but these +last words describe the process in an unmistakable way. The beautiful +paragraph in which he pictures the transformation, the transfiguration +of experience, closes with a sentence so thoroughly characteristic, so +Emersonially Emersonian, that I fear some readers who thought they were +his disciples when they came to it went back and walked no more with +him, at least through the pages of this discourse. The reader shall have +the preceding sentence to prepare him for the one referred to. + + "There is no fact, no event in our private history, which shall not, + sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert form, and astonish us by + soaring from our body into the empyrean. + + "Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and + dogs, and ferules, the love of little maids and berries, and many + another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; + friend and relative, professions and party, town and country, nation + and world must also soar and sing." + +Having spoken of the education of the scholar by nature, by books, by +action, he speaks of the scholar's duties. "They may all," he says, "be +comprised in self-trust." We have to remember that the _self_ he means +is the highest self, that consciousness which he looks upon as open to +the influx of the divine essence from which it came, and towards which +all its upward tendencies lead, always aspiring, never resting; as he +sings in "The Sphinx ":-- + + "The heavens that now draw him + With sweetness untold, + Once found,--for new heavens + He spurneth the old." + + "First one, then another, we drain all cisterns, and waxing greater + by all these supplies, we crave a better and more abundant food. The + man has never lived that can feed us ever. The human mind cannot be + enshrined in a person who shall set a barrier on any one side of + this unbounded, unboundable empire. It is one central fire, which, + flaming now out of the lips of Etna, lightens the Capes of Sicily, + and now out of the throat of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers and + vineyards of Naples. It is one light which beams out of a thousand + stars. It is one soul which animates all men." + +And so he comes to the special application of the principles he has laid +down to the American scholar of to-day. He does not spare his censure; +he is full of noble trust and manly courage. Very refreshing it is +to remember in this day of specialists, when the walking fraction of +humanity he speaks of would hardly include a whole finger, but rather +confine itself to the single joint of the finger, such words as these:-- + + "The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the + ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the + hopes of the future. He must he a university of knowledges.... We + have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of + the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, + tame.--The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant.--The mind of + this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There + is no work for any but the decorous and the complaisant." + +The young men of promise are discouraged and disgusted. + + "What is the remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of young + men as hopeful now crowding to the barriers for the career do not + yet see, that if the single man plant himself indomitably on his + instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him." + +Each man must be a unit,--must yield that peculiar fruit which he was +created to bear. + + "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; + we will speak our own minds.--A nation of men will for the first + time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the + Divine Soul which also inspires all men." + +This grand Oration was our intellectual Declaration of Independence. +Nothing like it had been heard in the halls of Harvard since Samuel +Adams supported the affirmative of the question, "Whether it be lawful +to resist the chief magistrate, if the commonwealth cannot otherwise be +preserved." It was easy to find fault with an expression here and there. +The dignity, not to say the formality of an Academic assembly was +startled by the realism that looked for the infinite in "the meal in the +firkin; the milk in the pan." They could understand the deep thoughts +suggested by "the meanest flower that blows," but these domestic +illustrations had a kind of nursery homeliness about them which the +grave professors and sedate clergymen were unused to expect on so +stately an occasion. But the young men went out from it as if a prophet +had been proclaiming to them "Thus saith the Lord." No listener ever +forgot that Address, and among all the noble utterances of the speaker +it may be questioned if one ever contained more truth in language more +like that of immediate inspiration. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +1838-1843. AET. 35-40. + +Section 1. Divinity School Address.--Correspondence.--Lectures on Human +Life.--Letters to James Freeman Clarke.--Dartmouth College Address: +Literary Ethics.--Waterville College Address: The Method of +Nature.--Other Addresses: Man the Reformer.--Lecture on the Times.--The +Conservative.--The Transcendentalist.--Boston "Transcendentalism."--"The +Dial."--Brook Farm. + +Section 2. First Series of Essays published.--Contents: History, +Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, +Heroism, The Oversoul, Circles, Intellect, Art.--Emerson's Account +of his Mode of Life in a Letter to Carlyle.--Death of Emerson's +Son.--Threnody. + + +Section 1. On Sunday evening, July 15, 1838, Emerson delivered an +Address before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, +which caused a profound sensation in religious circles, and led to a +controversy, in which Emerson had little more than the part of Patroclus +when the Greeks and Trojans fought over his body. In its simplest +and broadest statement this discourse was a plea for the individual +consciousness as against all historical creeds, bibles, churches; for +the soul as the supreme judge in spiritual matters. + +He begins with a beautiful picture which must be transferred without the +change of an expression:-- + + "In this refulgent Summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath + of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with + fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and + sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm of Gilead, and the new + hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. + Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost + spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge + globe a toy. The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and + prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn." + +How softly the phrases of the gentle iconoclast steal upon the ear, +and how they must have hushed the questioning audience into pleased +attention! The "Song of Songs, which is Solomon's," could not have wooed +the listener more sweetly. "Thy lips drop as the honeycomb: honey and +milk are under thy tongue, and the smell of thy garments is like the +smell of Lebanon." And this was the prelude of a discourse which, when +it came to be printed, fared at the hands of many a theologian, who did +not think himself a bigot, as the roll which Baruch wrote with ink from +the words of Jeremiah fared at the hands of Jehoiakim, the King of +Judah. He listened while Jehudi read the opening passages. But "when +Jehudi had read three or four leaves he cut it with the penknife, and +cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was +consumed in the fire that was on the hearth." Such was probably the fate +of many a copy of this famous discourse. + +It is reverential, but it is also revolutionary. The file-leaders of +Unitarianism drew back in dismay, and the ill names which had often been +applied to them were now heard from their own lips as befitting this +new heresy; if so mild a reproach as that of heresy belonged to this +alarming manifesto. And yet, so changed is the whole aspect of the +theological world since the time when that discourse was delivered that +it is read as calmly to-day as a common "Election Sermon," if such are +ever read at all. A few extracts, abstracts, and comments may give the +reader who has not the Address before him some idea of its contents and +its tendencies. + +The material universe, which he has just pictured in its summer beauty, +deserves our admiration. But when the mind opens and reveals the laws +which govern the world of phenomena, it shrinks into a mere fable and +illustration of this mind. What am I? What is?--are questions always +asked, never fully answered. We would study and admire forever. + +But above intellectual curiosity, there is the sentiment of virtue. Man +is born for the good, for the perfect, low as he now lies in evil and +weakness. "The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the +presence of certain divine laws.--These laws refuse to be adequately +stated.--They elude our persevering thought; yet we read them hourly in +each other's faces, in each other's actions, in our own remorse.--The +intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of +the laws of the soul. These laws execute themselves.--As we are, so we +associate. The good, by affinity, seek the good; the vile, by affinity, +the vile. Thus, of their own volition, souls proceed into heaven, into +hell." + +These facts, Emerson says, have always suggested to man that the +world is the product not of manifold power, but of one will, of one +mind,--that one mind is everywhere active.--"All things proceed out of +the same spirit, and all things conspire with it." While a man seeks +good ends, nature helps him; when he seeks other ends, his being +shrinks, "he becomes less and less, a mote, a point, until absolute +badness is absolute death."--"When he says 'I ought;' when love warms +him; when he chooses, warned from on high, the good and great deed; then +deep melodies wander through his soul from Supreme Wisdom." + + "This sentiment lies at the foundation of society and successively + creates all forms of worship.--This thought dwelled always deepest + in the minds of men in the devout and contemplative East; not alone in + Palestine, where it reached its purest expression, but in Egypt, + in Persia, in India, in China. Europe has always owed to Oriental + genius its divine impulses. What these holy bards said, all sane men + found agreeable and true. And the unique impression of Jesus upon + mankind, whose name is not so much written as ploughed into the + history of this world, is proof of the subtle virtue of this + infusion." + +But this truth cannot be received at second hand; it is an intuition. +What another announces, I must find true in myself, or I must reject +it. If the word of another is taken instead of this primary faith, the +church, the state, art, letters, life, all suffer degradation,--"the +doctrine of inspiration is lost; the base doctrine of the majority of +voices usurps the place of the doctrine of the soul." + +The following extract will show the view that he takes of Christianity +and its Founder, and sufficiently explain the antagonism called forth by +the discourse:-- + + "Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with + open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, + ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. + Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man. One man was + true to what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself in + man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his World. + He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, 'I am Divine. Through + me God acts; through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me; or see + thee, when thou also thinkest as I now think.' But what a distortion + did his doctrine and memory suffer in the same, in the next, and the + following ages! There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear + to be taught by the Understanding. The understanding caught this + high chant from the poet's lips, and said, in the next age, 'This + was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will kill you if you say + he was a man.' The idioms of his language and the figures of his + rhetoric have usurped the place of his truth; and churches are not + built on his principles, but on his tropes. Christianity became a + Mythus, as the poetic teaching of Greece and of Egypt, before. He + spoke of Miracles; for he felt that man's life was a miracle, and + all that man doth, and he knew that this miracle shines as the + character ascends. But the word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian + churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one + with the blowing clover and the falling rain." + +He proceeds to point out what he considers the great defects of +historical Christianity. It has exaggerated the personal, the positive, +the ritual. It has wronged mankind by monopolizing all virtues for the +Christian name. It is only by his holy thoughts that Jesus serves us. +"To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul." The +preachers do a wrong to Jesus by removing him from our human sympathies; +they should not degrade his life and dialogues by insulation and +peculiarity. + +Another defect of the traditional and limited way of using the mind of +Christ is that the Moral Nature--the Law of Laws--is not explored as the +fountain of the established teaching in society. "Men have come to speak +of the revelation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God were +dead."--"The soul is not preached. The church seems to totter to its +fall, almost all life extinct.--The stationariness of religion; the +assumption that the age of inspiration is past; that the Bible is +closed; the fear of degrading the character of Jesus by representing +him as a man; indicate with sufficient clearness the falsehood of our +theology. It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not +was; that he speaketh, not spake. The true Christianity--a faith like +Christ's in the infinitude of Man--is lost." + +When Emerson came to what his earlier ancestors would have called the +"practical application," some of his young hearers must have been +startled at the style of his address. + + "Yourself a new--born bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all + conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity. Look to it + first and only, that fashion, custom, authority, pleasure, and + money are nothing to you,--are not bandages over your eyes, that + you cannot see,--but live with the privilege of the + immeasurable mind." + +Emerson recognizes two inestimable advantages as the gift of +Christianity; first the Sabbath,--hardly a Christian institution,--and +secondly the institution of preaching. He spoke not only eloquently, but +with every evidence of deep sincerity and conviction. He had sacrificed +an enviable position to that inner voice of duty which he now proclaimed +as the sovereign law over all written or spoken words. But he was +assailing the cherished beliefs of those before him, and of Christendom +generally; not with hard or bitter words, not with sarcasm or levity, +rather as one who felt himself charged with a message from the same +divinity who had inspired the prophets and evangelists of old with +whatever truth was in their messages. He might be wrong, but his words +carried the evidence of his own serene, unshaken confidence that the +spirit of all truth was with him. Some of his audience, at least, must +have felt the contrast between his utterances and the formal discourses +they had so long listened to, and said to themselves, "he speaks 'as one +having authority, and not as the Scribes.'" + +Such teaching, however, could not be suffered to go unchallenged. Its +doctrines were repudiated in the "Christian Examiner," the leading organ +of the Unitarian denomination. The Rev. Henry Ware, greatly esteemed +and honored, whose colleague he had been, addressed a letter to him, in +which he expressed the feeling that some of the statements of Emerson's +discourse would tend to overthrow the authority and influence of +Christianity. To this note Emerson returned the following answer:-- + + "What you say about the discourse at Divinity College is just what I + might expect from your truth and charity, combined with your known + opinions. I am not a stick or a stone, as one said in the old time, + and could not but feel pain in saying some things in that place and + presence which I supposed would meet with dissent, I may say, of + dear friends and benefactors of mine. Yet, as my conviction is + perfect in the substantial truth of the doctrines of this discourse, + and is not very new, you will see at once that it must appear very + important that it be spoken; and I thought I could not pay the + nobleness of my friends so mean a compliment as to suppress my + opposition to their supposed views, out of fear of offence. I would + rather say to them, these things look thus to me, to you otherwise. + Let us say our uttermost word, and let the all-pervading truth, as + it surely will, judge between us. Either of us would, I doubt not, + be willingly apprised of his error. Meantime, I shall be admonished + by this expression of your thought, to revise with greater care the + 'address,' before it is printed (for the use of the class): and I + heartily thank you for this expression of your tried toleration and + love." + +Dr. Ware followed up his note with a sermon, preached on the 23d of +September, in which he dwells especially on the necessity of adding the +idea of personality to the abstractions of Emerson's philosophy, and +sent it to him with a letter, the kindness and true Christian spirit of +which were only what were inseparable from all the thoughts and feelings +of that most excellent and truly apostolic man. + +To this letter Emerson sent the following reply:-- + + CONCORD, October 8, 1838. + + "MY DEAR SIR,--I ought sooner to have acknowledged your kind letter + of last week, and the sermon it accompanied. The letter was right + manly and noble. The sermon, too, I have read with attention. If it + assails any doctrine of mine,--perhaps I am not so quick to see it + as writers generally,--certainly I did not feel any disposition + to depart from my habitual contentment, that you should say your + thought, whilst I say mine. I believe I must tell you what I think + of my new position. It strikes me very oddly that good and wise men + at Cambridge and Boston should think of raising me into an object of + criticism. I have always been--from my very incapacity of methodical + writing--a 'chartered libertine,' free to worship and free to + rail,--lucky when I could make myself understood, but never esteemed + near enough to the institutions and mind of society to deserve the + notice of the masters of literature and religion. I have appreciated + fully the advantages of my position, for I well know there is no + scholar less willing or less able than myself to be a polemic. I + could not give an account of myself, if challenged. I could not + possibly give you one of the 'arguments' you cruelly hint at, on + which any doctrine of mine stands; for I do not know what arguments + are in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in + telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it + is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see + that either of these questions admits of an answer. So that in the + present droll posture of my affairs, when I see myself suddenly + raised to the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I + advert to the supposed duties of such a personage, who is to make + good his thesis against all comers. I certainly shall do no such + thing. I shall read what you and other good men write, as I have + always done, glad when you speak my thoughts, and skipping the + page that has nothing for me. I shall go on just as before, seeing + whatever I can, and telling what I see; and, I suppose, with the + same fortune that has hitherto attended me,--the joy of finding that + my abler and better brothers, who work with the sympathy of society, + loving and beloved, do now and then unexpectedly confirm my + conceptions, and find my nonsense is only their own thought in + motley,--and so I am your affectionate servant," etc. + +The controversy which followed is a thing of the past; Emerson took no +part in it, and we need not return to the discussion. He knew his +office and has defined it in the clearest manner in the letter just +given,--"Seeing whatever I can, and telling what I see." But among his +listeners and readers was a man of very different mental constitution, +not more independent or fearless, but louder and more combative, whose +voice soon became heard and whose strength soon began to be felt in the +long battle between the traditional and immanent inspiration,--Theodore +Parker. If Emerson was the moving spirit, he was the right arm in the +conflict, which in one form or another has been waged up to the present +day. + +In the winter of 1838-39 Emerson delivered his usual winter course +of Lectures. He names them in a letter to Carlyle as follows: "Ten +Lectures: I. The Doctrine of the Soul; II. Home; III. The School; IV. +Love; V. Genius; VI. The Protest; VII. Tragedy; VIII. Comedy; IX. Duty; +X. Demonology. I designed to add two more, but my lungs played me false +with unseasonable inflammation, so I discoursed no more on Human Life." +Two or three of these titles only are prefixed to his published Lectures +or Essays; Love, in the first volume of Essays; Demonology in "Lectures +and Biographical Sketches;" and "The Comic" in "Letters and Social +Aims." + + * * * * * + +I owe the privilege of making use of the two following letters to my +kind and honored friend, James Freeman Clarke. + +The first letter was accompanied by the Poem "The Humble-bee," which +was first published by Mr. Clarke in the "Western Messenger," from the +autograph copy, which begins "Fine humble-bee! fine humble-bee!" and has +a number of other variations from the poem as printed in his collected +works. + + CONCORD, December 7, 1838. + + MY DEAR SIR,--Here are the verses. They have pleased some of my + friends, and so may please some of your readers, and you asked me + in the spring if I hadn't somewhat to contribute to your journal. I + remember in your letter you mentioned the remark of some friend of + yours that the verses, "Take, O take those lips away," were not + Shakspeare's; I think they are. Beaumont, nor Fletcher, nor both + together were ever, I think, visited by such a starry gleam as that + stanza. I know it is in "Rollo," but it is in "Measure for Measure" + also; and I remember noticing that the Malones, and Stevens, and + critical gentry were about evenly divided, these for Shakspeare, and + those for Beaumont and Fletcher. But the internal evidence is all + for one, none for the other. If he did not write it, they did not, + and we shall have some fourth unknown singer. What care we _who_ + sung this or that. It is we at last who sing. Your friend and + servant, R.W. EMERSON. + + +TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. + + CONCORD, February 27, 1839. + + MY DEAR SIR,--I am very sorry to have made you wait so long for an + answer to your flattering request for two such little poems. You are + quite welcome to the lines "To the Rhodora;" but I think they need + the superscription ["Lines on being asked 'Whence is the Flower?'"]. + Of the other verses ["Good-by proud world," etc] I send you a + corrected copy, but I wonder so much at your wishing to print them + that I think you must read them once again with your critical + spectacles before they go further. They were written sixteen years + ago, when I kept school in Boston, and lived in a corner of Roxbury + called Canterbury. They have a slight misanthropy, a shade deeper + than belongs to me; and as it seems nowadays I am a philosopher and + am grown to have opinions, I think they must have an apologetic + date, though I well know that poetry that needs a date is no poetry, + and so you will wiselier suppress them. I heartily wish I had any + verses which with a clear mind I could send you in lieu of these + juvenilities. It is strange, seeing the delight we take in verses, + that we can so seldom write them, and so are not ashamed to lay up + old ones, say sixteen years, instead of improvising them as freely + as the wind blows, whenever we and our brothers are attuned to + music. I have heard of a citizen who made an annual joke. I believe + I have in April or May an annual poetic _conatus_ rather than + _afflatus_, experimenting to the length of thirty lines or so, if I + may judge from the dates of the rhythmical scraps I detect among my + MSS. I look upon this incontinence as merely the redundancy of + a susceptibility to poetry which makes all the bards my daily + treasures, and I can well run the risk of being ridiculous once a + year for the benefit of happy reading all the other days. In regard + to the Providence Discourse, I have no copy of it; and as far as I + remember its contents, I have since used whatever is striking in it; + but I will get the MS., if Margaret Fuller has it, and you shall + have it if it will pass muster. I shall certainly avail myself + of the good order you gave me for twelve copies of the "Carlyle + Miscellanies," so soon as they appear. He, T.C., writes in excellent + spirits of his American friends and readers.... A new book, he + writes, is growing in him, though not to begin until his spring + lectures are over (which begin in May). Your sister Sarah was kind + enough to carry me the other day to see some pencil sketches done + by Stuart Newton when in the Insane Hospital. They seemed to me to + betray the richest invention, so rich as almost to say, why draw any + line since you can draw all? Genius has given you the freedom of the + universe, why then come within any walls? And this seems to be the + old moral which we draw from our fable, read it how or where you + will, that we cannot make one good stroke until we can make every + possible stroke; and when we can one, every one seems superfluous. I + heartily thank you for the good wishes you send me to open the year, + and I say them back again to you. Your field is a world, and all men + are your spectators, and all men respect the true and great-hearted + service you render. And yet it is not spectator nor spectacle that + concerns either you or me. The whole world is sick of that very ail, + of being seen, and of seemliness. It belongs to the brave now to + trust themselves infinitely, and to sit and hearken alone. I am glad + to see William Channing is one of your coadjutors. Mrs. Jameson's + new book, I should think, would bring a caravan of travellers, + aesthetic, artistic, and what not, up your mighty stream, or along + the lakes to Mackinaw. As I read I almost vowed an exploration, but + I doubt if I ever get beyond the Hudson. + + Your affectionate servant, R.W. EMERSON. + +On the 24th of July, 1838, a little more than a week after the delivery +of the Address before the Divinity School, Mr. Emerson delivered an +Oration before the Literary Societies of Dartmouth College. If any rumor +of the former discourse had reached Dartmouth, the audience must have +been prepared for a much more startling performance than that to +which they listened. The bold avowal which fluttered the dovecotes of +Cambridge would have sounded like the crash of doom to the cautious +old tenants of the Hanover aviary. If there were any drops of false or +questionable doctrine in the silver shower of eloquence under which +they had been sitting, the plumage of orthodoxy glistened with unctuous +repellents, and a shake or two on coming out of church left the sturdy +old dogmatists as dry as ever. + +Those who remember the Dartmouth College of that day cannot help smiling +at the thought of the contrast in the way of thinking between the +speaker and the larger part, or at least the older part, of his +audience. President Lord was well known as the scriptural defender of +the institution of slavery. Not long before a controversy had arisen, +provoked by the setting up of the Episcopal form of worship by one of +the Professors, the most estimable and scholarly Dr. Daniel Oliver. +Perhaps, however, the extreme difference between the fundamental +conceptions of Mr. Emerson and the endemic orthodoxy of that place +and time was too great for any hostile feeling to be awakened by the +sweet-voiced and peaceful-mannered speaker. There is a kind of harmony +between boldly contrasted beliefs like that between complementary +colors. It is when two shades of the same color are brought side by side +that comparison makes them odious to each other. Mr. Emerson could go +anywhere and find willing listeners among those farthest in their belief +from the views he held. Such was his simplicity of speech and manner, +such his transparent sincerity, that it was next to impossible to +quarrel with the gentle image-breaker. + +The subject of Mr. Emerson's Address is _Literary Ethics._ It is on the +same lofty plane of sentiment and in the same exalted tone of eloquence +as the Phi Beta Kappa Address. The word impassioned would seem +misplaced, if applied to any of Mr. Emerson's orations. But these +discourses were both written and delivered in the freshness of his +complete manhood. They were produced at a time when his mind had learned +its powers and the work to which it was called, in the struggle which +freed him from the constraint of stereotyped confessions of faith and +all peremptory external authority. It is not strange, therefore, to find +some of his paragraphs glowing with heat and sparkling with imaginative +illustration. + +"Neither years nor books," he says, "have yet availed to extirpate a +prejudice rooted in me, that a scholar is the favorite of Heaven and +earth, the excellency of his country, the happiest of men." And yet, +he confesses that the scholars of this country have not fulfilled +the reasonable expectation of mankind. "Men here, as elsewhere, are +indisposed to innovation and prefer any antiquity, any usage, any livery +productive of ease or profit, to the unproductive service of thought." +For all this he offers those correctives which in various forms underlie +all his teachings. "The resources of the scholar are proportioned to his +confidence in the attributes of the Intellect." New lessons of spiritual +independence, fresh examples and illustrations, are drawn from history +and biography. There is a passage here so true to nature that it permits +a half page of quotation and a line or two of comment:-- + + "An intimation of these broad rights is familiar in the sense of + injury which men feel in the assumption of any man to limit their + possible progress. We resent all criticism which denies us anything + that lies In our line of advance. Say to the man of letters, that + he cannot paint a Transfiguration, or build a steamboat, or be a + grand-marshal, and he will not seem to himself depreciated. But deny + to him any quality of literary or metaphysical power, and he is + piqued. Concede to him genius, which is a sort of stoical _plenum_ + annulling the comparative, and he is content; but concede him + talents never so rare, denying him genius, and he is aggrieved." + +But it ought to be added that if the pleasure of denying the genius of +their betters were denied to the mediocrities, their happiness would be +forever blighted. + +From the resources of the American Scholar Mr. Emerson passes to his +tasks. Nature, as it seems to him, has never yet been truly studied. +"Poetry has scarcely chanted its first song. The perpetual admonition of +Nature to us is, 'The world is new, untried. Do not believe the past. I +give you the universe a virgin to-day.'" And in the same way he would +have the scholar look at history, at philosophy. The world belongs to +the student, but he must put himself into harmony with the constitution +of things. "He must embrace solitude as a bride." Not superstitiously, +but after having found out, as a little experience will teach him, all +that society can do for him with its foolish routine. I have spoken of +the exalted strain into which Mr. Emerson sometimes rises in the midst +of his general serenity. Here is an instance of it:-- + + "You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear + that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. 'What + is this truth you seek? What is this beauty?' men will ask, with + derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore + truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, + 'As others do, so will I: I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early + visions: I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and + romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season;'--then + dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and + poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand + thousand men.--Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from + every object in nature, to be its tongue to the heart of man, and to + show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom. Why should you + renounce your right to traverse the starlit deserts of truth, for + the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has + its roof and house and board. Make yourself necessary to the world, + and mankind will give you bread; and if not store of it, yet such as + shall not take away your property in all men's possessions, in all + men's affections, in art, in nature, and in hope." + +The next Address Emerson delivered was "The Method of Nature," before +the Society of the Adelphi, in Waterville College, Maine, August 11, +1841. + +In writing to Carlyle on the 31st of July, he says: "As usual at this +season of the year, I, incorrigible spouting Yankee, am writing an +oration to deliver to the boys in one of our little country colleges +nine days hence.... My whole philosophy--which is very real--teaches +acquiescence and optimism. Only when I see how much work is to be done, +what room for a poet--for any spiritualist--in this great, intelligent, +sensual, and avaricious America, I lament my fumbling fingers and +stammering tongue." It may be remembered that Mr. Matthew Arnold quoted +the expression about America, which sounded more harshly as pronounced +in a public lecture than as read in a private letter. + +The Oration shows the same vein of thought as the letter. Its title is +"The Method of Nature." He begins with congratulations on the enjoyments +and promises of this literary Anniversary. + + "The scholars are the priests of that thought which establishes the + foundations of the castle."--"We hear too much of the results of + machinery, commerce, and the useful arts. We are a puny and a fickle + folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases. The rapid + wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the + incessant expansion of our population and arts, enchants the eyes + of all the rest; this luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the + bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the + farm, the school, the church, the house, and the very body and + feature of man."--"While the multitude of men degrade each other, + and give currency to desponding doctrines, the scholar must be a + bringer of hope, and must reinforce man against himself." + +I think we may detect more of the manner of Carlyle in this Address than +in any of those which preceded it. + + "Why then goest thou as some Boswell or literary worshipper to this + saint or to that? That is the only lese-majesty. Here art thou with + whom so long the universe travailed in labor; darest thou think + meanly of thyself whom the stalwart Fate brought forth to unite his + ragged sides, to shoot the gulf, to reconcile the irreconcilable?" + +That there is an "intimate divinity" which is the source of all true +wisdom, that the duty of man is to listen to its voice and to follow it, +that "the sanity of man needs the poise of this immanent force," +that the rule is "Do what you know, and perception is converted into +character,"--all this is strongly enforced and richly illustrated in +this Oration. Just how easily it was followed by the audience, just how +far they were satisfied with its large principles wrought into a few +broad precepts, it would be easier at this time to ask than to learn. +We notice not so much the novelty of the ideas to be found in this +discourse on "The Method of Nature," as the pictorial beauty of +their expression. The deep reverence which underlies all Emerson's +speculations is well shown in this paragraph:-- + + "We ought to celebrate this hour by expressions of manly joy. Not + thanks nor prayer seem quite the highest or truest name for + our communication with the infinite,--but glad and conspiring + reception,--reception that becomes giving in its turn as the + receiver is only the All-Giver in part and in infancy."--"It is God + in us which checks the language of petition by grander thought. In + the bottom of the heart it is said: 'I am, and by me, O child! this + fair body and world of thine stands and grows. I am, all things are + mine; and all mine are thine.'" + +We must not quarrel with his peculiar expressions. He says, in this same +paragraph, "I cannot,--nor can any man,--speak precisely of things so +sublime; but it seems to me the wit of man, his strength, his grace, his +tendency, his art, is the grace and the presence of God. It is beyond +explanation." + + "We can point nowhere to anything final but tendency; but tendency + appears on all hands; planet, system, constellation, total nature is + growing like a field of maize in July; is becoming something else; + is in rapid metamorphosis. The embryo does not more strive to be + man, than yonder burr of light we call a nebula tends to be a ring, + a comet, a globe, and parent of new stars." "In short, the spirit + and peculiarity of that impression nature makes on us is this, that + it does not exist to any one, or to any number of particular ends, + but to numberless and endless benefit; that there is in it no + private will, no rebel leaf or limb, but the whole is oppressed by + one superincumbent tendency, obeys that redundancy or excess of life + which in conscious beings we call ecstasy." + +Here is another of those almost lyrical passages which seem too long for +the music of rhythm and the resonance of rhyme. + + "The great Pan of old, who was clothed in a leopard skin to signify + the beautiful variety of things, and the firmament, his coat of + stars, was but the representative of thee, O rich and various Man! + thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the morning + and the night and the unfathomable galaxy; in thy brain the geometry + of the City of God; in thy heart the bower of love and the realms of + right and wrong." + +His feeling about the soul, which has shown itself in many of the +extracts already given, is summed up in the following sentence:-- + + "We cannot describe the natural history of the soul, but we know + that it is divine. I cannot tell if these wonderful qualities which + house to-day in this mental home shall ever reassemble in equal + activity in a similar frame, or whether they have before had a + natural history like that of this body you see before you; but this + one thing I know, that these qualities did not now begin to exist, + cannot be sick with my sickness, nor buried in any grave; but that + they circulate through the Universe: before the world was, they + were." + +It is hard to see the distinction between the omnipresent Deity +recognized in our formal confessions of faith and the "pantheism" which +is the object of dread to many of the faithful. But there are many +expressions in this Address which must have sounded strangely and +vaguely to his Christian audience. "Are there not moments in the history +of heaven when the human race was not counted by individuals, but was +only the Influenced; was God in distribution, God rushing into manifold +benefit?" It might be feared that the practical philanthropists would +feel that they lost by his counsels. + + "The reform whose fame now fills the land with Temperance, + Anti-Slavery, Non-Resistance, No Government, Equal Labor, fair and + generous as each appears, are poor bitter things when prosecuted for + themselves as an end."--"I say to you plainly there is no end to + which your practical faculty can aim so sacred or so large, that if + pursued for itself, will not at last become carrion and an offence + to the nostril. The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with + objects immense and eternal. Your end should be one inapprehensible + to the senses; then it will be a god, always approached,--never + touched; always giving health." + +Nothing is plainer than that it was Emerson's calling to supply impulses +and not methods. He was not an organizer, but a power behind many +organizers, inspiring them with lofty motive, giving breadth, to their +views, always tending to become narrow through concentration on their +special objects. The Oration we have been examining was delivered in +the interval between the delivery of two Addresses, one called "Man the +Reformer," and another called "Lecture on the Times." In the first he +preaches the dignity and virtue of manual labor; that "a man should have +a farm, or a mechanical craft for his culture."--That he cannot give up +labor without suffering some loss of power. "How can the man who has +learned but one art procure all the conveniences of life honestly? Shall +we say all we think?--Perhaps with his own hands.--Let us learn the +meaning of economy.--Parched corn eaten to-day that I may have roast +fowl to my dinner on Sunday is a baseness; but parched corn and a house +with one apartment, that I may be free of all perturbation, that I +may be serene and docile to what the mind shall speak, and quit and +road-ready for the lowest mission of knowledge or good will, is +frugality for gods and heroes." + +This was what Emerson wrote in January, 1841. This "house with one +apartment" was what Thoreau built with his own hands in 1845. In April +of the former year, he went to live with Mr. Emerson, but had been on +intimate terms with him previously to that time. Whether it was from him +that Thoreau got the hint of the Walden cabin and the parched corn, or +whether this idea was working in Thoreau's mind and was suggested to +Emerson by him, is of no great consequence. Emerson, to whom he owed +so much, may well have adopted some of those fancies which Thoreau +entertained, and afterwards worked out in practice. He was at the +philanthropic centre of a good many movements which he watched others +carrying out, as a calm and kindly spectator, without losing his common +sense for a moment. It would never have occurred to him to leave all the +conveniences and comforts of life to go and dwell in a shanty, so as to +prove to himself that he could live like a savage, or like his friends +"Teague and his jade," as he called the man and brother and sister, more +commonly known nowadays as Pat, or Patrick, and his old woman. + +"The Americans have many virtues," he says in this Address, "but they +have not Faith and Hope." Faith and Hope, Enthusiasm and Love, are the +burden of this Address. But he would regulate these qualities by "a +great prospective prudence," which shall mediate between the spiritual +and the actual world. + +In the "Lecture on the Times" he shows very clearly the effect which a +nearer contact with the class of men and women who called themselves +Reformers had upon him. + + "The Reforms have their higher origin in an ideal justice, + but they do not retain the purity of an idea. They are + quickly organized in some low, inadequate form, and present no + more poetic image to the mind than the evil tradition which they + reprobated. They mix the fire of the moral sentiment with personal + and party heats, with measureless exaggerations, and the blindness + that prefers some darling measure to justice and truth. Those who + are urging with most ardor what are called the greatest benefit of + mankind are narrow, self-pleasing, conceited men, and affect us as + the insane do. They bite us, and we run mad also. I think the work + of the reformer as innocent as other work that is done around him; + but when I have seen it near!--I do not like it better. It is done + in the same way; it is done profanely, not piously; by management, + by tactics and clamor." + +All this, and much more like it, would hardly have been listened to by +the ardent advocates of the various reforms, if anybody but Mr. Emerson +had said it. He undervalued no sincere action except to suggest a wiser +and better one. He attacked no motive which had a good aim, except in +view of some larger and loftier principle. The charm of his imagination +and the music of his words took away all the sting from the thoughts +that penetrated to the very marrow of the entranced listeners. Sometimes +it was a splendid hyperbole that illuminated a statement which by the +dim light of common speech would have offended or repelled those who +sat before him. He knew the force of _felix audacia_ as well as any +rhetorician could have taught him. He addresses the reformer with one of +those daring images which defy the critics. + + "As the farmer casts into the ground the finest ears of his grain, + the time will come when we too shall hold nothing back, but shall + eagerly convert more than we possess into means and powers, when we + shall be willing to sow the sun and the moon for seeds." + +He said hard things to the reformer, especially to the Abolitionist, in +his "Lecture on the Times." It would have taken a long while to get +rid of slavery if some of Emerson's teachings in this lecture had been +accepted as the true gospel of liberty. But how much its last sentence +covers with its soothing tribute! + + "All the newspapers, all the tongues of today will of course defame + what is noble; but you who hold not of to-day, not of the times, but + of the Everlasting, are to stand for it; and the highest compliment + man ever receives from Heaven is the sending to him its disguised + and discredited angels." + +The Lecture called "The Transcendentalist" will naturally be looked at +with peculiar interest, inasmuch as this term has been very commonly +applied to Emerson, and to many who were considered his disciples. +It has a proper philosophical meaning, and it has also a local and +accidental application to the individuals of a group which came together +very much as any literary club might collect about a teacher. All this +comes out clearly enough in the Lecture. In the first place, Emerson +explains that the "_new views_," as they are called, are the oldest of +thoughts cast in a new mould. + + "What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us is Idealism: + Idealism as it appears in 1842. As thinkers, mankind have ever + divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class + founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class + beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class + perceive that the senses are not final, and say, the senses give us + representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they + cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the + force of circumstances and the animal wants of man; the idealist on + the power of Thought and of Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on + individual culture." + + "The materialist takes his departure from the external world, + and esteems a man as one product of that. The idealist takes his + departure from his consciousness, and reckons the world an + appearance.--His thought, that is the Universe." + +The association of scholars and thinkers to which the name of +"Transcendentalists" was applied, and which made itself an organ in the +periodical known as "The Dial," has been written about by many who were +in the movement, and others who looked on or got their knowledge of +it at second hand. Emerson was closely associated with these "same +Transcendentalists," and a leading contributor to "The Dial," which was +their organ. The movement borrowed its inspiration more from him than +from any other source, and the periodical owed more to him than to any +other writer. So far as his own relation to the circle of illuminati and +the dial which they shone upon was concerned, he himself is the best +witness. + +In his "Historic Notes of Life and Letters in New England," he sketches +in a rapid way the series of intellectual movements which led to the +development of the "new views" above mentioned. "There are always two +parties," he says, "the party of the Past and the party of the Future; +the Establishment and the Movement." + +About 1820, and in the twenty years which followed, an era of activity +manifested itself in the churches, in politics, in philanthropy, in +literature. In our own community the influence of Swedenborg and of the +genius and character of Dr. Channing were among the more immediate early +causes of the mental agitation. Emerson attributes a great importance +to the scholarship, the rhetoric, the eloquence, of Edward Everett, who +returned to Boston in 1820, after five years of study in Europe. Edward +Everett is already to a great extent a tradition, somewhat as Rufus +Choate is, a voice, a fading echo, as must be the memory of every great +orator. These wondrous personalities have their truest and warmest life +in a few old men's memories. It is therefore with delight that one who +remembers Everett in his robes of rhetorical splendor, who recalls his +full-blown, high-colored, double-flowered periods, the rich, resonant, +grave, far-reaching music of his speech, with just enough of nasal +vibration to give the vocal sounding-board its proper value in the +harmonies of utterance,--it is with delight that such a one reads the +glowing words of Emerson whenever he refers to Edward Everett. It is +enough if he himself caught inspiration from those eloquent lips; but +many a listener has had his youthful enthusiasm fired by that great +master of academic oratory. + +Emerson follows out the train of influences which added themselves to +the impulse given by Mr. Everett. German scholarship, the growth of +science, the generalizations of Goethe, the idealism of Schelling, the +influence of Wordsworth, of Coleridge, of Carlyle, and in our immediate +community, the writings of Channing,--he left it to others to say of +Emerson,--all had their part in this intellectual, or if we may call it +so, spiritual revival. He describes with that exquisite sense of the +ridiculous which was a part of his mental ballast, the first attempt at +organizing an association of cultivated, thoughtful people. They came +together, the cultivated, thoughtful people, at Dr. John Collins +Warren's,--Dr. Channing, the great Dr. Channing, among the rest, full +of the great thoughts he wished to impart. The preliminaries went on +smoothly enough with the usual small talk,-- + + "When a side-door opened, the whole company streamed in to an oyster + supper, crowned by excellent wines [this must have been before + Dr. Warren's temperance epoch], and so ended the first attempt to + establish aesthetic society in Boston. + + "Some time afterwards Dr. Channing opened his mind to Mr. and Mrs. + Ripley, and with some care they invited a limited party of ladies + and gentlemen. I had the honor to be present.--Margaret Fuller, + George Ripley, Dr. Convers Francis, Theodore Parker, Dr. Hedge, Mr. + Brownson, James Freeman Clarke, William H. Channing, and many others + gradually drew together, and from time to time spent an afternoon at + each other's houses in a serious conversation." + +With them was another, "a pure Idealist,--who read Plato as an +equal, and inspired his companions only in proportion as they were +intellectual." He refers, of course to Mr. Alcott. Emerson goes on to +say:-- + + "I think there prevailed at that time a general belief in Boston + that there was some concert of _doctrinaires_ to establish certain + opinions, and inaugurate some movement in literature, philosophy, + and religion, of which design the supposed conspirators were quite + innocent; for there was no concert, and only here and there two or + three men and women who read and wrote, each alone, with unusual + vivacity. Perhaps they only agreed in having fallen upon Coleridge + and Wordsworth and Goethe, then on Carlyle, with pleasure and + sympathy. Otherwise their education and reading were not marked, but + had the American superficialness, and their studies were solitary. + I suppose all of them were surprised at this rumor of a school or + sect, and certainly at the name of Transcendentalism, given, nobody + knows by whom, or when it was applied." + +Emerson's picture of some of these friends of his is so peculiar as to +suggest certain obvious and not too flattering comments. + + "In like manner, if there is anything grand and daring in human + thought or virtue; any reliance on the vast, the unknown; any + presentiment, any extravagance of faith, the Spiritualist adopts + it as most in nature. The Oriental mind has always tended to this + largeness. Buddhism is an expression of it. The Buddhist, who thanks + no man, who says, 'Do not flatter your benefactors,' but who in his + conviction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its + reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that he has + done more than he should, is a Transcendentalist. + + "These exacting children advertise us of our wants. There is no + compliment, no smooth speech with them; they pay you only this one + compliment, of insatiable expectation; they aspire, they severely + exact, and if they only stand fast in this watch-tower, and persist + in demanding unto the end, and without end, then are they terrible + friends, whereof poet and priest cannot choose but stand in awe; and + what if they eat clouds, and drink wind, they have not been without + service to the race of man." + +The person who adopts "any presentiment, any extravagance as most in +nature," is not commonly called a Transcendentalist, but is known +colloquially as a "crank." The person who does not thank, by word or +look, the friend or stranger who has pulled him out of the fire or +water, is fortunate if he gets off with no harder name than that of a +churl. + +Nothing was farther from Emerson himself than whimsical eccentricity or +churlish austerity. But there was occasionally an air of bravado in some +of his followers as if they had taken out a patent for some knowing +machine which was to give them a monopoly of its products. They claimed +more for each other than was reasonable,--so much occasionally that +their pretensions became ridiculous. One was tempted to ask: "What +forlorn hope have you led? What immortal book have you written? What +great discovery have you made? What heroic task of any kind have you +performed?" There was too much talk about earnestness and too little +real work done. Aspiration too frequently got as far as the alpenstock +and the brandy flask, but crossed no dangerous crevasse, and scaled +no arduous summit. In short, there was a kind of "Transcendentalist" +dilettanteism, which betrayed itself by a phraseology as distinctive as +that of the Della Cruscans of an earlier time. + +In reading the following description of the "intelligent and religious +persons" who belonged to the "Transcendentalist" communion, the reader +must remember that it is Emerson who draws the portrait,--a friend and +not a scoffer:-- + + "They are not good citizens, not good members of society: + unwillingly they bear their part of the public and private burdens; + they do not willingly share in the public charities, in the public + religious rites, in the enterprise of education, of missions, + foreign and domestic, in the abolition of the slave-trade, or in the + temperance society. They do not even like to vote." + +After arraigning the representatives of Transcendental or spiritual +beliefs in this way, he summons them to plead for themselves, and this +is what they have to say:-- + + "'New, we confess, and by no means happy, is our condition: if you + want the aid of our labor, we ourselves stand in greater want of the + labor. We are miserable with inaction. We perish of rest and rust: + but we do not like your work.' + + 'Then,' says the world, 'show me your own.' + + 'We have none.' + + 'What will you do, then?' cries the world. + + 'We will wait.' + + 'How long?' + + 'Until the Universe beckons and calls us to work.' + + 'But whilst you wait you grow old and useless.' + + 'Be it so: I can sit in a corner and _perish_ (as you call it), but + I will not move until I have the highest command.'" + +And so the dissatisfied tenant of this unhappy creation goes on with his +reasons for doing nothing. + +It is easy to stay away from church and from town-meetings. It is +easy to keep out of the way of the contribution box and to let the +subscription paper go by us to the next door. The common duties of life +and the good offices society asks of us may be left to take care of +themselves while we contemplate the infinite. There is no safer fortress +for indolence than "the Everlasting No." The chimney-corner is the true +arena for this class of philosophers, and the pipe and mug furnish their +all-sufficient panoply. Emerson undoubtedly met with some of them among +his disciples. His wise counsel did not always find listeners in a +fitting condition to receive it. He was a sower who went forth to sow. +Some of the good seed fell among the thorns of criticism. Some fell on +the rocks of hardened conservatism. Some fell by the wayside and was +picked up by the idlers who went to the lecture-room to get rid of +themselves. But when it fell upon the right soil it bore a growth of +thought which ripened into a harvest of large and noble lives. + +Emerson shows up the weakness of his young enthusiasts with that +delicate wit which warns its objects rather than wounds them. But he +makes it all up with the dreamers before he can let them go. + + "Society also has its duties in reference to this class, and must + behold them with what charity it can. Possibly some benefit may yet + accrue from them to the state. Besides our coarse implements, there + must be some few finer instruments,--rain-gauges, thermometers, and + telescopes; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, and weavers, + there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as gauges + and meters of character; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, + who note the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the + by-stander. Perhaps too there might be room for the exciters and + monitors; collectors of the heavenly spark, with power to convey the + electricity to others. Or, as the storm-tossed vessel at sea speaks + the frigate or "line-packet" to learn its longitude, so it may not + be without its advantage that we should now and then encounter rare + and gifted men, to compare the points of our spiritual compass, and + verify our bearings from superior chronometers." + +It must be confessed that it is not a very captivating picture which +Emerson draws of some of his transcendental friends. Their faults were +naturally still more obvious to those outside of their charmed circle, +and some prejudice, very possibly, mingled with their critical +judgments. On the other hand we have the evidence of a visitor who knew +a good deal of the world as to the impression they produced upon him:-- + + "There has sprung up in Boston," says Dickens, in his "American + Notes," "a sect of philosophers known as Transcendentalists. On + inquiring what this appellation might be supposed to signify, I + was given to understand that whatever was unintelligible would be + certainly Transcendental. Not deriving much comfort from this + elucidation, I pursued the inquiry still further, and found that the + Transcendentalists are followers of my friend Mr. Carlyle, or, I + should rather say, of a follower of his, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. + This gentleman has written a volume of Essays, in which, among much + that is dreamy and fanciful (if he will pardon me for saying + so), there is much more that is true and manly, honest and bold. + Transcendentalism has its occasional vagaries (what school has + not?), but it has good healthful qualities in spite of them; not + least among the number a hearty disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to + detect her in all the million varieties of her everlasting wardrobe. + And therefore, if I were a Bostonian, I think I would be a + Transcendentalist." + +In December, 1841, Emerson delivered a Lecture entitled "The +Conservative." It was a time of great excitement among the members of +that circle of which he was the spiritual leader. Never did Emerson +show the perfect sanity which characterized his practical judgment more +beautifully than in this Lecture and in his whole course with reference +to the intellectual agitation of the period. He is as fair to the +conservative as to the reformer. He sees the fanaticism of the one as +well as that of the other. "Conservatism tends to universal seeming and +treachery; believes in a negative fate; believes that men's tempers +govern them; that for me it avails not to trust in principles, they will +fail me, I must bend a little; it distrusts Nature; it thinks there is a +general law without a particular application,--law for all that does +not include any one. Reform in its antagonism inclines to asinine +resistance, to kick with hoofs; it runs to egotism and bloated +self-conceit; it runs to a bodiless pretension, to unnatural refining +and elevation, which ends in hypocrisy and sensual reaction. And so, +whilst we do not go beyond general statements, it may be safely affirmed +of these two metaphysical antagonists that each is a good half, but an +impossible whole." + +He has his beliefs, and, if you will, his prejudices, but he loves fair +play, and though he sides with the party of the future, he will not be +unjust to the present or the past. + +We read in a letter from Emerson to Carlyle, dated March 12, 1835, that +Dr. Charming "lay awake all night, he told my friend last week, because +he had learned in the evening that some young men proposed to issue +a journal, to be called 'The Transcendentalist,' as the organ of a +spiritual philosophy." Again on the 30th of April of the same year, in +a letter in which he lays out a plan for a visit of Carlyle to this +country, Emerson says:-- + + "It was suggested that if Mr. C. would undertake a journal of which + we have talked much, but which we have never yet produced, he would + do us great service, and we feel some confidence that it could be + made to secure him a support. It is that project which I mentioned + to you in a letter by Mr. Barnard,--a book to be called 'The + Transcendentalist;' or, 'The Spiritual Inquirer,' or the like.... + Those who are most interested in it designed to make gratuitous + contribution to its pages, until its success could be assured." + +The idea of the grim Scotchman as editor of what we came in due time to +know as "The Dial!" A concert of singing mice with a savage and hungry +old grimalkin as leader of the orchestra! It was much safer to be +content with Carlyle's purring from his own side of the water, as +thus:-- + + "'The Boston Transcendentalist,' whatever the fate or merit of it + may prove to be, is surely an interesting symptom. There must be + things not dreamt of over in that _Transoceanic_ parish! I shall + certainly wish well to this thing; and hail it as the sure + forerunner of things better." + +There were two notable products of the intellectual ferment of the +Transcendental period which deserve an incidental notice here, from the +close connection which Emerson had with one of them and the interest +which he took in the other, in which many of his friends were more +deeply concerned. These were the periodical just spoken of as a +possibility realized, and the industrial community known as Brook Farm. +They were to a certain extent synchronous,--the Magazine beginning in +July, 1840, and expiring in April, 1844; Brook Farm being organized in +1841, and breaking up in 1847. + +"The Dial" was edited at first by Margaret Fuller, afterwards by +Emerson, who contributed more than forty articles in prose and verse, +among them "The Conservative," "The Transcendentalist," "Chardon Street +and Bible Convention," and some of his best and best known poems, "The +Problem," "Woodnotes," "The Sphinx," "Fate." The other principal writers +were Margaret Fuller, A. Bronson Alcott, George Ripley, James Freeman +Clarke, Theodore Parker, William H. Channing, Henry Thoreau, Eliot +Cabot, John S. Dwight, C.P. Cranch, William Ellery Channing, Mrs. +Ellen Hooper, and her sister Mrs. Caroline Tappan. Unequal as the +contributions are in merit, the periodical is of singular interest. +It was conceived and carried on in a spirit of boundless hope and +enthusiasm. Time and a narrowing subscription list proved too hard +a trial, and its four volumes remain stranded, like some rare and +curiously patterned shell which a storm of yesterday has left beyond +the reach of the receding waves. Thoreau wrote for nearly every number. +Margaret Fuller, less attractive in print than in conversation, did her +part as a contributor as well as editor. Theodore Parker came down with +his "trip-hammer" in its pages. Mrs. Ellen Hooper published a few poems +in its columns which remain, always beautiful, in many memories. Others, +whose literary lives have fulfilled their earlier promise, and who are +still with us, helped forward the new enterprise with their frequent +contributions. It is a pleasure to turn back to "The Dial," with all its +crudities. It should be looked through by the side of the "Anthology." +Both were April buds, opening before the frosts were over, but with the +pledge of a better season. + +We get various hints touching the new Magazine in the correspondence +between Emerson and Carlyle. Emerson tells Carlyle, a few months before +the first number appeared, that it will give him a better knowledge +of our _young people_ than any he has had. It is true that unfledged +writers found a place to try their wings in it, and that makes it more +interesting. This was the time above all others when out of the mouth +of babes and sucklings was to come forth strength. The feeling that +intuition was discovering a new heaven and a new earth was the +inspiration of these "young people" to whom Emerson refers. He has to +apologize for the first number. "It is not yet much," he says; "indeed, +though no copy has come to me, I know it is far short of what it should +be, for they have suffered puffs and dulness to creep in for the sake +of the complement of pages, but it is better than anything we had.--The +Address of the Editors to the Readers is all the prose that is mine, and +whether they have printed a few verses for me I do not know." They did +print "The Problem." There were also some fragments of criticism from +the writings of his brother Charles, and the poem called "The Last +Farewell," by his brother Edward, which is to be found in Emerson's +"May-day and other Pieces." + +On the 30th of August, after the periodical had been published a couple +of months, Emerson writes:-- + + "Our community begin to stand in some terror of Transcendentalism; + and the _Dial_, poor little thing, whose first number contains + scarce anything considerable or even visible, is just now honored + by attacks from almost every newspaper and magazine; which at least + betrays the irritability and the instincts of the good public." + +Carlyle finds the second number of "The Dial" better than the first, and +tosses his charitable recognition, as if into an alms-basket, with +his usual air of superiority. He distinguishes what is Emerson's +readily,--the rest he speaks of as the work of [Greek: oi polloi] for +the most part. "But it is all good and very good as a _soul;_ wants only +a body, which want means a great deal." And again, "'The Dial,' too, it +is all spirit like, aeri-form, aurora-borealis like. Will no _Angel_ +body himself out of that; no stalwart Yankee _man_, with color in the +cheeks of him and a coat on his back?" + +Emerson, writing to Carlyle in March, 1842, speaks of the "dubious +approbation on the part of you and other men," notwithstanding which he +found it with "a certain class of men and women, though few, an object +of tenderness and religion." So, when Margaret Fuller gave it up, at the +end of the second volume, Emerson consented to become its editor. "I +cannot bid you quit 'The Dial,'" says Carlyle, "though it, too, alas, is +Antinomian somewhat! _Perge, perge_, nevertheless." + +In the next letter he says:-- + + "I love your 'Dial,' and yet it is with a kind of shudder. You seem + to me in danger of dividing yourselves from the Fact of this present + Universe, in which alone, ugly as it is, can I find any anchorage, + and soaring away after Ideas, Beliefs, Revelations and such + like,--into perilous altitudes, as I think; beyond the curve of + perpetual frost, for one thing. I know not how to utter what + impression you give me; take the above as some stamping of the + fore-hoof." + +A curious way of characterizing himself as a critic,--but he was not +always as well-mannered as the Houyhnhnms. + +To all Carlyle's complaints of "The Dial's" short-comings Emerson did +not pretend to give any satisfactory answer, but his plea of guilty, +with extenuating circumstances, is very honest and definite. + + "For the _Dial_ and its sins, I have no defence to set up. We write + as we can, and we know very little about it. If the direction of + these speculations is to be deplored, it is yet a fact for literary + history that all the bright boys and girls in New England, quite + ignorant of each other, take the world so, and come and make + confession to fathers and mothers,--the boys, that they do not wish + to go into trade, the girls, that they do not like morning calls and + evening parties. They are all religious, but hate the churches; they + reject all the ways of living of other men, but have none to offer + in their stead. Perhaps one of these days a great Yankee shall come, + who will easily do the unknown deed." + +"All the bright boys and girls in New England," and "'The Dial' dying of +inanition!" In October, 1840, Emerson writes to Carlyle:-- + + "We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social + reform. Not a reading man but has a draft of a new community in his + waistcoat pocket. I am gently mad myself, and am resolved to live + cleanly. George Ripley is talking up a colony of agriculturists and + scholars, with whom he threatens to take the field and the book. + One man renounces the use of animal food; and another of coin; and + another of domestic hired service; and another of the state; and on + the whole we have a commendable share of reason and hope." + +Mr. Ripley's project took shape in the West Roxbury Association, better +known under the name of Brook Farm. Emerson was not involved in this +undertaking. He looked upon it with curiosity and interest, as he would +have looked at a chemical experiment, but he seems to have had only a +moderate degree of faith in its practical working. "It was a noble and +generous movement in the projectors to try an experiment of better +living. One would say that impulse was the rule in the society, without +centripetal balance; perhaps it would not be severe to say, intellectual +sans-culottism, an impatience of the formal routinary character of our +educational, religious, social, and economical life in Massachusetts." +The reader will find a full detailed account of the Brook Farm +experiment in Mr. Frothingham's "Life of George Ripley," its founder, +and the first President of the Association. Emerson had only tangential +relations with the experiment, and tells its story in his "Historic +Notes" very kindly and respectfully, but with that sense of the +ridiculous in the aspect of some of its conditions which belongs to the +sagacious common-sense side of his nature. The married women, he +says, were against the community. "It was to them like the brassy and +lacquered life in hotels. The common school was well enough, but to +the common nursery they had grave objections. Eggs might be hatched in +ovens, but the hen on her own account much preferred the old way. A hen +without her chickens was but half a hen." Is not the inaudible, inward +laughter of Emerson more refreshing than the explosions of our noisiest +humorists? + +This is his benevolent summing up:-- + + "The founders of Brook Farm should have this praise, that they made + what all people try to make, an agreeable place to live in. All + comers, even the most fastidious, found it the pleasantest of + residences. It is certain, that freedom from household routine, + variety of character and talent, variety of work, variety of means + of thought and instruction, art, music, poetry, reading, masquerade, + did not permit sluggishness or despondency; broke up routine. + There is agreement in the testimony that it was, to most of the + associates, education; to many, the most important period of their + life, the birth of valued friendships, their first acquaintance with + the riches of conversation, their training in behavior. The art of + letter-writing, it is said, was immensely cultivated. Letters were + always flying, not only from house to house, but from room to room. + It was a perpetual picnic, a French Revolution in small, an Age of + Reason in a patty-pan." + +The public edifice called the "Phalanstery" was destroyed by fire +in 1846. The Association never recovered from this blow, and soon +afterwards it was dissolved. + + +Section 2. Emerson's first volume of his collected Essays was published +in 1841. In the reprint it contains the following Essays: History; +Self-Reliance; Compensation; Spiritual Laws; Love; Friendship; Prudence; +Heroism; The Over-Soul; Circles; Intellect; Art. "The Young American," +which is now included in the volume, was not delivered until 1844. + +Once accustomed to Emerson's larger formulae we can to a certain extent +project from our own minds his treatment of special subjects. But we +cannot anticipate the daring imagination, the subtle wit, the curious +illustrations, the felicitous language, which make the Lecture or the +Essay captivating as read, and almost entrancing as listened to by +the teachable disciple. The reader must be prepared for occasional +extravagances. Take the Essay on History, in the first series of Essays, +for instance. "Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, +namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, +history is to be read and written." When we come to the application, +in the same Essay, almost on the same page, what can we make of such +discourse as this? The sentences I quote do not follow immediately, one +upon the other, but their sense is continuous. + + "I hold an actual knowledge very cheap. Hear the rats in the wall, + see the lizard on the fence, the fungus under foot, the lichen on + the log. What do I know sympathetically, morally, of either of these + worlds of life?--How many times we must say Rome and Paris, and + Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are + Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? + Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimau + seal-hunter, for the Kamchatcan in his canoe, for the fisherman, the + stevedore, the porter?" + +The connection of ideas is not obvious. One can hardly help being +reminded of a certain great man's Rochester speech as commonly reported +by the story-teller. "Rome in her proudest days never had a waterfall +a hundred and fifty feet high! Greece in her palmiest days never had a +waterfall a hundred and fifty feet high! Men of Rochester, go on! No +people ever lost their liberty who had a waterfall a hundred and fifty +feet high!" + +We cannot help smiling, perhaps laughing, at the odd mixture of Rome +and rats, of Olympiads and Esquimaux. But the underlying idea of the +interdependence of all that exists in nature is far from ridiculous. +Emerson says, not absurdly or extravagantly, that "every history should +be written in a wisdom which divined the range of our affinities and +looked at facts as symbols." + +We have become familiar with his doctrine of "Self-Reliance," which is +the subject of the second lecture of the series. We know that he +always and everywhere recognized that the divine voice which speaks +authoritatively in the soul of man is the source of all our wisdom. +It is a man's true self, so that it follows that absolute, supreme +self-reliance is the law of his being. But see how he guards his +proclamation of self-reliance as the guide of mankind. + + "Truly it demands something god-like in him who has cast off the + common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a + task-master. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, + that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, + that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is + to others!" + +"Compensation" might be preached in a synagogue, and the Rabbi would be +praised for his performance. Emerson had been listening to a sermon from +a preacher esteemed for his orthodoxy, in which it was assumed that +judgment is not executed in this world, that the wicked are successful, +and the good are miserable. This last proposition agrees with John +Bunyan's view:-- + + "A Christian man is never long at ease, + When one fright's gone, another doth him seize." + +Emerson shows up the "success" of the bad man and the failures and +trials of the good man in their true spiritual characters, with a noble +scorn of the preacher's low standard of happiness and misery, which +would have made him throw his sermon into the fire. + +The Essay on "Spiritual Laws" is full of pithy sayings:-- + + "As much virtue as there is, so much appears; as much goodness as + there is, so much reverence it commands. All the devils respect + virtue.--A man passes for that he is worth.--The ancestor of every + action is a thought.--To think is to act.--Let a man believe in + God, and not in names and places and persons. Let the great soul + incarnated in some woman's form, poor and sad and single, in some + Dolly or Joan, go out to service and sweep chambers and scour + floors, and its effulgent day-beams cannot be hid, but to sweep and + scour will instantly appear supreme and beautiful actions, the top + and radiance of human life, and all people will get mops and brooms; + until, lo! suddenly the great soul has enshrined itself in some + other form and done some other deed, and that is now the flower and + head of all living nature." + +This is not any the worse for being the flowering out of a poetical bud +of George Herbert's. The Essay on "Love" is poetical, but the three +poems, "Initial," "Daemonic," and "Celestial Love" are more nearly equal +to his subject than his prose. + +There is a passage in the Lecture on "Friendship" which suggests +some personal relation of Emerson's about which we cannot help being +inquisitive:-- + + "It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a + friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the + other. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is + not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall + wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the + reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold + companion.... Yet these things may hardly be said without a sort of + treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is entireness, + a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or provide for + infirmity. It treats its object as a god that it may deify both." + +Was he thinking of his relations with Carlyle? It is a curious subject +of speculation what would have been the issue if Carlyle had come to +Concord and taken up his abode under Emerson's most hospitable roof. +"You shall not come nearer a man by getting into his house." How could +they have got on together? Emerson was well-bred, and Carlyle was +wanting in the social graces. "Come rest in this bosom" is a sweet air, +heard in the distance, too apt to be followed, after a protracted season +of close proximity, by that other strain,-- + + "No, fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole! + Rise Alps between us and whole oceans roll!" + +But Emerson may have been thinking of some very different person, +perhaps some "crude and cold companion" among his disciples, who was not +equal to the demands of friendly intercourse. + +He discourses wisely on "Prudence," a virtue which he does not claim for +himself, and nobly on "Heroism," which was a shining part of his own +moral and intellectual being. + +The points which will be most likely to draw the reader's attention are +the remarks on the literature of heroism; the claim for our own America, +for Massachusetts and Connecticut River and Boston Bay, in spite of our +love for the names of foreign and classic topography; and most of all +one sentence which, coming from an optimist like Emerson, has a sound of +sad sincerity painful to recognize. + + "Who that sees the meanness of our politics but inly congratulates + Washington that he is long already wrapped in his shroud, and + forever safe; that he was laid sweet in his grave, the hope of + humanity not yet subjugated in him. Who does not sometimes envy the + good and brave who are no more to suffer from the tumults of the + natural world, and await with curious complacency the speedy term of + his own conversation with finite nature? And yet the love that + will be annihilated sooner than treacherous has already made death + impossible, and affirms itself no mortal, but a native of the deeps + of absolute and inextinguishable being." + +In the following Essay, "The Over-Soul," Emerson has attempted the +impossible. He is as fully conscious of this fact as the reader of his +rhapsody,--nay, he is more profoundly penetrated with it than any of his +readers. In speaking of the exalted condition the soul is capable of +reaching, he says,-- + + "Every man's words, who speaks from that life, must sound vain to + those who do not dwell in the same thought on their own part. I dare + not speak for it. My words do not carry its august sense; they fall + short and cold. Only itself can inspire whom it will, and behold! + their speech shall be lyrical and sweet, and universal as the rising + of the wind. Yet I desire, even by profane words, if I may not use + sacred, to indicate the heaven of this deity, and to report what + hints I have collected of the transcendent simplicity and energy of + the Highest Law." + +"The Over-Soul" might almost be called the Over-_flow_ of a spiritual +imagination. We cannot help thinking of the "pious, virtuous, +God-intoxicated" Spinoza. When one talks of the infinite in terms +borrowed from the finite, when one attempts to deal with the absolute +in the language of the relative, his words are not symbols, like those +applied to the objects of experience, but the shadows of symbols, +varying with the position and intensity of the light of the individual +intelligence. It is a curious amusement to trace many of these thoughts +and expressions to Plato, or Plotinus, or Proclus, or Porphyry, to +Spinoza or Schelling, but the same tune is a different thing according +to the instrument on which it is played. There are songs without words, +and there are states in which, in place of the trains of thought moving +in endless procession with ever-varying figures along the highway of +consciousness, the soul is possessed by a single all-absorbing idea, +which, in the highest state of spiritual exaltation, becomes a vision. +Both Plotinus and Porphyry believed they were privileged to look upon +Him whom "no man can see and live." + +But Emerson states his own position so frankly in his Essay entitled +"Circles," that the reader cannot take issue with him as against +utterances which he will not defend. There can be no doubt that he would +have confessed as much with reference to "The Over-Soul" as he has +confessed with regard to "Circles," the Essay which follows "The +Over-Soul." + + "I am not careful to justify myself.... But lest I should mislead + any when I have my own head and obey my whims, let me remind the + reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value + on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I + pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all + things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply + experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back." + +Perhaps, after reading these transcendental essays of Emerson, we might +borrow Goethe's language about Spinoza, as expressing the feeling with +which we are left. + + "I am reading Spinoza with Frau von Stein. I feel myself very near + to him, though his soul is much deeper and purer than mine. + + "I cannot say that I ever read Spinoza straight through, that at any + time the complete architecture of his intellectual system has + stood clear in view before me. But when I look into him I seem to + understand him,--that is, he always appears to me consistent with + himself, and I can always gather from him very salutary influences + for my own way of feeling and acting." + +Emerson would not have pretended that he was always "consistent with +himself," but these "salutary influences," restoring, enkindling, +vivifying, are felt by many of his readers who would have to confess, +like Dr. Walter Channing, that these thoughts, or thoughts like these, +as he listened to them in a lecture, "made his head ache." + +The three essays which follow "The Over-Soul," "Circles," "Intellect," +"Art," would furnish us a harvest of good sayings, some of which we +should recognize as parts of our own (borrowed) axiomatic wisdom. + + "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then + all things are at risk." + + "God enters by a private door into every individual." + + "God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take + which you please,--you can never have both." + + "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must + carry it with us, or we find it not." + +But we cannot reconstruct the Hanging Gardens with a few bricks from +Babylon. + +Emerson describes his mode of life in these years in a letter to +Carlyle, dated May 10, 1838. + + "I occupy, or improve, as we Yankees say, two acres only of God's + earth; on which is my house, my kitchen-garden, my orchard of thirty + young trees, my empty barn. My house is now a very good one for + comfort, and abounding in room. Besides my house, I have, I believe, + $22,000, whose income in ordinary years is six per cent. I have no + other tithe or glebe except the income of my winter lectures, which + was last winter $800. Well, with this income, here at home, I am a + rich man. I stay at home and go abroad at my own instance. I have + food, warmth, leisure, books, friends. Go away from home, I am rich + no longer. I never have a dollar to spend on a fancy. As no wise + man, I suppose, ever was rich in the sense of freedom to spend, + because of the inundation of claims, so neither am I, who am not + wise. But at home, I am rich,--rich enough for ten brothers. My wife + Lidian is an incarnation of Christianity,--I call her Asia,--and + keeps my philosophy from Antinomianism; my mother, whitest, mildest, + most conservative of ladies, whose only exception to her universal + preference for old things is her son; my boy, a piece of love and + sunshine, well worth my watching from morning to night;--these, and + three domestic women, who cook, and sew and run for us, make all my + household. Here I sit and read and write, with very little system, + and, as far as regards composition, with the most fragmentary + result: paragraphs incompressible, each sentence an infinitely + repellent particle." + +A great sorrow visited Emerson and his household at this period of his +life. On the 30th of October, 1841, he wrote to Carlyle: "My little boy +is five years old to-day, and almost old enough to send you his love." + +Three months later, on the 28th of February, 1842, he writes once +more:-- + + "My dear friend, you should have had this letter and these messages + by the last steamer; but when it sailed, my son, a perfect little + boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You + can never sympathize with me; you can never know how much of me such + a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a + very rich man, and now the poorest of all. What would it avail to + tell you anecdotes of a sweet and wonderful boy, such as we solace + and sadden ourselves with at home every morning and evening? From a + perfect health and as happy a life and as happy influences as ever + child enjoyed, he was hurried out of my arms in three short days by + scarlatina. We have two babes yet, one girl of three years, and one + girl of three months and a week, but a promise like that Boy's I + shall never see. How often I have pleased myself that one day I + should send to you this Morning Star of mine, and stay at home so + gladly behind such a representative. I dare not fathom the Invisible + and Untold to inquire what relations to my Departed ones I yet + sustain." + +This was the boy whose memory lives in the tenderest and most pathetic +of Emerson's poems, the "Threnody,"--a lament not unworthy of comparison +with Lycidas for dignity, but full of the simple pathos of Cowper's +well-remembered lines on the receipt of his mother's picture, in the +place of Milton's sonorous academic phrases. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +1843-1848. AET. 40-45. + +"The Young American."--Address on the Anniversary of the Emancipation +of the Negroes in the British West Indies.[1]--Publication of the Second +Series of Essays.--Contents: The Poet.--Experience.--Character. +--Manners.--Gifts.--Nature.--Politics.--Nominalist and Realist.--New +England Reformers.--Publication of Poems.--Second Visit to England. + + +[Footnote 1: These two addresses are to be found in the first and +eleventh volumes, respectively, of the last collective edition of +Emerson's works, namely, "Nature, Addresses, and Lectures," and +"Miscellanies."] + +Emerson was American in aspect, temperament, way of thinking, and +feeling; American, with an atmosphere of Oriental idealism; American, so +far as he belonged to any limited part of the universe. He believed in +American institutions, he trusted the future of the American race. In +the address first mentioned in the contents, of this chapter, delivered +February 7, 1844, he claims for this country all that the most ardent +patriot could ask. Not a few of his fellow-countrymen will feel the +significance of the following contrast. + + "The English have many virtues, many advantages, and the proudest + history in the world; but they need all and more than all the + resources of the past to indemnify a heroic gentleman in that + country for the mortifications prepared for him by the system of + society, and which seem to impose the alternative to resist or to + avoid it.... It is for Englishmen to consider, not for us; we only + say, Let us live in America, too thankful for our want of feudal + institutions.... If only the men are employed in conspiring with the + designs of the Spirit who led us hither, and is leading us still, we + shall quickly enough advance out of all hearing of others' censures, + out of all regrets of our own, into a new and more excellent social + state than history has recorded." + +Thirty years have passed since the lecture from which these passages are +taken was delivered. The "Young American" of that day is the more than +middle-aged American of the present. The intellectual independence of +our country is far more solidly established than when this lecture was +written. But the social alliance between certain classes of Americans +and English is more and more closely cemented from year to year, as the +wealth of the new world burrows its way among the privileged classes +of the old world. It is a poor ambition for the possessor of suddenly +acquired wealth to have it appropriated as a feeder of the impaired +fortunes of a deteriorated household, with a family record of which +its representatives are unworthy. The plain and wholesome language of +Emerson is on the whole more needed now than it was when spoken. His +words have often been extolled for their stimulating quality; following +the same analogy, they are, as in this address, in a high degree tonic, +bracing, strengthening to the American, who requires to be reminded of +his privileges that he may know and find himself equal to his duties. + +On the first day of August, 1844, Emerson delivered in Concord an +address on the Anniversary of the Emancipation of the Negroes in the +British West India Islands. This discourse would not have satisfied the +Abolitionists. It was too general in its propositions, full of humane +and generous sentiments, but not looking to their extreme and immediate +method of action. + + * * * * * + +Emerson's second series of Essays was published in 1844. There are +many sayings in the Essay called "The Poet," which are meant for the +initiated, rather than for him who runs, to read:-- + + "All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is + the principal event in chronology." + +Does this sound wild and extravagant? What were the political ups and +downs of the Hebrews,--what were the squabbles of the tribes with each +other, or with their neighbors, compared to the birth of that poet to +whom we owe the Psalms,--the sweet singer whose voice is still the +dearest of all that ever sang to the heart of mankind? + +The poet finds his materials everywhere, as Emerson tells him in this +eloquent apostrophe:-- + + "Thou true land-bird! sea-bird! air-bird! Wherever snow falls, or + water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, + wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, + wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets + into celestial space, wherever is danger and awe and love, there is + Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou should'st + walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition + inopportune or ignoble." + +"Experience" is, as he says himself, but a fragment. It bears marks of +having been written in a less tranquil state of mind than the other +essays. His most important confession is this:-- + + "All writing comes by the grace of God, and all doing and having. I + would gladly be moral and keep due metes and bounds, which I dearly + love, and allow the most to the will of man; but I have set my + heart on honesty in this chapter, and I can see nothing at last, in + success or failure, than more or less of vital force supplied from + the Eternal." + +The Essay on "Character" requires no difficult study, but is well worth +the trouble of reading. A few sentences from it show the prevailing tone +and doctrine. + + "Character is Nature in the highest form. It is of no use to ape it, + or to contend with it. Somewhat is possible of resistance and of + persistence and of creation to this power, which will foil all + emulation." + + "There is a class of men, individuals of which appear at long + intervals, so eminently endowed with insight and virtue, that they + have been unanimously saluted as _divine_, and who seem to be an + accumulation of that power we consider. + + "The history of those gods and saints which the world has written, + and then worshipped, are documents of character. The ages have + exulted in the manners of a youth who owed nothing to fortune, and + who was hanged at the Tyburn of his nation, who, by the pure quality + of his nature, shed an epic splendor around the facts of his death + which has transfigured every particular into an universal symbol + for the eyes of mankind. This great defeat is hitherto our highest + fact." + +In his Essay on "Manners," Emerson gives us his ideas of a gentleman:-- + + "The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions and + expressing that lordship in his behavior, not in any manner + dependent and servile either on persons or opinions or possessions. + Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word denotes + good-nature or benevolence: manhood first, and then + gentleness.--Power first, or no leading class.--God knows that + all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door: but whenever used in + strictness, and with any emphasis, the name will be found to point + at original energy.--The famous gentlemen of Europe have been of + this strong type: Saladin, Sapor, the Cid, Julius Caesar, Scipio, + Alexander, Pericles, and the lordliest personages. They sat very + carelessly in their chairs, and were too excellent themselves to + value any condition at a high rate.--I could better eat with one + who did not respect the truth or the laws than with a sloven and + unpresentable person.--The person who screams, or uses the + superlative degree, or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms + to flight.--I esteem it a chief felicity of this country that it + excels in woman." + +So writes Emerson, and proceeds to speak of woman in language which +seems almost to pant for rhythm and rhyme. + +This essay is plain enough for the least "transcendental" reader. +Franklin would have approved it, and was himself a happy illustration of +many of the qualities which go to the Emersonian ideal of good manners, +a typical American, equal to his position, always as much so in the +palaces and salons of Paris as in the Continental Congress, or the +society of Philadelphia. + +"Gifts" is a dainty little Essay with some nice distinctions and some +hints which may help to give form to a generous impulse:-- + + "The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. + Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the + farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the + painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing." + + "Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because + they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the + utilities of the world.--Fruits are acceptable gifts, because they + are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic values being + attached to them." + + "It is a great happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning + from one who has had the ill-luck to be served by you. It is a very + onerous business, this of being served, and the debtor naturally + wishes to give you a slap." + +Emerson hates the superlative, but he does unquestionably love the +tingling effect of a witty over-statement. + +We have recognized most of the thoughts in the Essay entitled "Nature," +in the previous Essay by the same name, and others which we have passed +in review. But there are poetical passages which will give new pleasure. + + Here is a variation of the formula with which we are familiar:-- + "Nature is the incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought + again, as ice becomes water and gas. The world is mind precipitated, + and the volatile essence is forever escaping again into the state of + free thought." + +And here is a quaint sentence with which we may take leave of this +Essay:-- + + "They say that by electro-magnetism, your salad shall be grown from + the seed, whilst your fowl is roasting for dinner: it is a symbol of + our modern aims and endeavors,--of our condensation and acceleration + of objects; but nothing is gained: nature cannot be cheated: man's + life is but seventy salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow." + +This is pretty and pleasant, but as to the literal value of the +prediction, M. Jules Verne would be the best authority to consult. Poets +are fond of that branch of science which, if the imaginative Frenchman +gave it a name, he would probably call _Onditologie_. + +It is not to be supposed that the most sanguine optimist could be +satisfied with the condition of the American political world at the +present time, or when the Essay on "Politics" was written, some years +before the great war which changed the aspects of the country in so many +respects, still leaving the same party names, and many of the characters +of the old parties unchanged. This is Emerson's view of them as they +then were:-- + + "Of the two great parties, which, at this hour, almost share + the nation between them, I should say that one has the best + cause, and the other contains the best men. The philosopher, the + poet, or the religious man, will, of course, wish to cast his vote + with the democrat, for free trade, for wide suffrage, for the + abolition of legal cruelties in the penal code, and for facilitating + in every manner the access of the young and the poor to the sources + of wealth and power. But he can rarely accept the persons whom the + so-called popular party propose to him as representatives of these + liberties. They have not at heart the ends which give to the name of + democracy what hope and virtue are in it. The spirit of our American + radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no + ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and + selfishness. On the other side, the conservative party, composed of + the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the population, is + timid, and merely defensive of property. It indicates no right, it + aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, it proposes no generous + policy, it does not build nor write, nor cherish the arts, nor + foster religion, nor establish schools, nor encourage science, nor + emancipate the slave, nor befriend the poor, or the Indian, or the + immigrant. From neither party, when in power, has the world any + benefit to expect in science, art, or humanity, at all commensurate + with the resources of the nation." + +The metaphysician who looks for a closely reasoned argument on the +famous old question which so divided the schoolmen of old will find +a very moderate satisfaction in the Essay entitled "Nominalism and +Realism." But there are many discursive remarks in it worth gathering +and considering. We have the complaint of the Cambridge "Phi Beta +Kappa Oration," reiterated, that there is no complete man, but only a +collection of fragmentary men. + +As a Platonist and a poet there could not be any doubt on which side +were all his prejudices; but he takes his ground cautiously. + + "In the famous dispute with the Nominalists, the Realists had a good + deal of reason. General ideas are essences. They are our gods: they + round and ennoble the most practical and sordid way of living. + + "Though the uninspired man certainly finds persons a conveniency in + household matters, the divine man does not respect them: he sees + them as a rack of clouds, or a fleet of ripples which the wind + drives over the surface of the water. But this is flat rebellion. + Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and + insults the philosopher in every moment with a million of fresh + particulars." + +_New England Reformers_.--Would any one venture to guess how Emerson +would treat this subject? With his unsparing, though amiable radicalism, +his excellent common sense, his delicate appreciation of the ridiculous, +too deep for laughter, as Wordsworth's thoughts were too deep for tears, +in the midst of a band of enthusiasts and not very remote from a throng +of fanatics, what are we to look for from our philosopher who unites +many characteristics of Berkeley and of Franklin? + +We must remember when this lecture was written, for it was delivered on +a Sunday in the year 1844. The Brook Farm experiment was an index of the +state of mind among one section of the Reformers of whom he was writing. +To remodel society and the world into a "happy family" was the aim +of these enthusiasts. Some attacked one part of the old system, some +another; some would build a new temple, some would rebuild the old +church, some would worship in the fields and woods, if at all; one was +for a phalanstery, where all should live in common, and another was +meditating the plan and place of the wigwam where he was to dwell apart +in the proud independence of the woodchuck and the musquash. Emerson had +the largest and kindliest sympathy with their ideals and aims, but he +was too clear-eyed not to see through the whims and extravagances of the +unpractical experimenters who would construct a working world with the +lay figures they had put together, instead of flesh and blood men and +women and children with all their congenital and acquired perversities. +He describes these Reformers in his own good-naturedly half-satirical +way:-- + + "They defied each other like a congress of kings; each of whom had a + realm to rule, and a way of his own that made concert unprofitable. + What a fertility of projects for the salvation of the world! One + apostle thought all men should go to farming; and another that no + man should buy or sell; that the use of money was the cardinal evil; + another that the mischief was in our diet, that we eat and drink + damnation. These made unleavened bread, and were foes to the death + to fermentation. It was in vain urged by the housewife that God made + yeast as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he + does vegetation; that fermentation develops the saccharine element + in the grain, and makes it more palatable and more digestible. No, + they wish the pure wheat, and will die but it shall not ferment. + Stop, dear nature, these innocent advances of thine; let us + scotch these ever-rolling wheels! Others attacked the system of + agriculture, the use of animal manures in farming; and the tyranny + of man over brute nature; these abuses polluted his food. The ox + must be taken from the plough, and the horse from the cart, the + hundred acres of the farm must be spaded, and the man must walk + wherever boats and locomotives will not carry him. Even the insect + world was to be defended,--that had been too long neglected, and a + society for the protection of ground-worms, slugs, and mosquitoes + was to be incorporated without delay. With these appeared the adepts + of homoeopathy, of hydropathy, of mesmerism, of phrenology, and + their wonderful theories of the Christian miracles!" + +We have already seen the issue of the famous Brook Farm experiment, +which was a practical outcome of the reforming agitation. + +Emerson has had the name of being a leader in many movements in which he +had very limited confidence, this among others to which the idealizing +impulse derived from him lent its force, but for the organization of +which he was in no sense responsible. + +He says in the lecture we are considering:-- + + "These new associations are composed of men and women of superior + talents and sentiments; yet it may easily be questioned whether such + a community will draw, except in its beginnings, the able and the + good; whether these who have energy will not prefer their choice of + superiority and power in the world to the humble certainties of the + association; whether such a retreat does not promise to become an + asylum to those who have tried and failed rather than a field to the + strong; and whether the members will not necessarily be fractions of + men, because each finds that he cannot enter into it without some + compromise." + +His sympathies were not allowed to mislead him; he knew human nature too +well to believe in a Noah's ark full of idealists. + +All this time he was lecturing for his support, giving courses of +lectures in Boston and other cities, and before the country lyceums in +and out of New England. + +His letters to Carlyle show how painstaking, how methodical, how +punctual he was in the business which interested his distant friend. He +was not fond of figures, and it must have cost him a great effort to +play the part of an accountant. + +He speaks also of receiving a good deal of company in the summer, and +that some of this company exacted much time and attention,--more than he +could spare,--is made evident by his gentle complaints, especially in +his poems, which sometimes let out a truth he would hardly have uttered +in prose. + +In 1846 Emerson's first volume of poems was published. Many of the poems +had been long before the public--some of the best, as we have seen, +having been printed in "The Dial." It is only their being brought +together for the first time which belongs especially to this period, +and we can leave them for the present, to be looked over by and by in +connection with a second volume of poems published in 1867, under the +title, "May-Day and other Pieces." + +In October, 1847, he left Concord on a second visit to England, which +will be spoken of in the following chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +1848-1853. AET. 45-50. + +The "Massachusetts Quarterly Review;" Visit to Europe.--England. +--Scotland.--France.--"Representative Men" published. I. Uses +of Great Men. II. Plato; or, the Philosopher; Plato; New +Readings. III. Swedenborg; or, the Mystic. IV. Montaigne; or, the +Skeptic. V. Shakespeare; or, the Poet. VI. Napoleon; or, the Man of the +World. VII. Goethe; or, the Writer.--Contribution to the "Memoirs of +Margaret Fuller Ossoli." + + +A new periodical publication was begun in Boston in 1847, under the name +of the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review." Emerson wrote the "Editor's +Address," but took no further active part in it, Theodore Parker being +the real editor. The last line of this address is characteristic: "We +rely on the truth for aid against ourselves." + +On the 5th of October, 1847, Emerson sailed for Europe on his second +visit, reaching Liverpool on the 22d of that month. Many of his admirers +were desirous that he should visit England and deliver some courses of +lectures. Mr. Alexander Ireland, who had paid him friendly attentions +during his earlier visit, and whose impressions of him in the pulpit +have been given on a previous page, urged his coming. Mr. Conway +quotes passages from a letter of Emerson's which show that he had some +hesitation in accepting the invitation, not unmingled with a wish to be +heard by the English audiences favorably disposed towards him. + +"I feel no call," he said, "to make a visit of literary propagandism in +England. All my impulses to work of that kind would rather employ me at +home." He does not like the idea of "coaxing" or advertising to get +him an audience. He would like to read lectures before institutions or +friendly persons who sympathize with his studies. He has had a good many +decisive tokens of interest from British men and women, but he doubts +whether he is much and favorably known in any one city, except perhaps +in London. It proved, however, that there was a very widespread desire +to hear him, and applications for lectures flowed in from all parts of +the kingdom. + +From Liverpool he proceeded immediately to Manchester, where Mr. Ireland +received him at the Victoria station. After spending a few hours with +him, he went to Chelsea to visit Carlyle, and at the end of a week +returned to Manchester to begin the series of lecturing engagements +which had been arranged for him. Mr. Ireland's account of Emerson's +visits and the interviews between him and many distinguished persons +is full of interest, but the interest largely relates to the persons +visited by Emerson. He lectured at Edinburgh, where his liberal way of +thinking and talking made a great sensation in orthodox circles. But he +did not fail to find enthusiastic listeners. A young student, Mr. George +Cupples, wrote an article on these lectures from which, as quoted by Mr. +Ireland, I borrow a single sentence,--one only, but what could a critic +say more? + +Speaking of his personal character, as revealed through his writings, he +says: "In this respect, I take leave to think that Emerson is the most +mark-worthy, the loftiest, and most heroic mere man that ever appeared." +Emerson has a lecture on the superlative, to which he himself was never +addicted. But what would youth be without its extravagances,--its +preterpluperfect in the shape of adjectives, its unmeasured and +unstinted admiration? + +I need not enumerate the celebrated literary personages and other +notabilities whom Emerson met in England and Scotland. He thought "the +two finest mannered literary men he met in England were Leigh Hunt and +De Quincey." His diary might tell us more of the impressions made upon +him by the distinguished people he met, but it is impossible to believe +that he ever passed such inhuman judgments on the least desirable of +his new acquaintances as his friend Carlyle has left as a bitter legacy +behind him. Carlyle's merciless discourse about Coleridge and Charles +Lamb, and Swinburne's carnivorous lines, which take a barbarous +vengeance on him for his offence, are on the level of political rhetoric +rather than of scholarly criticism or characterization. Emerson never +forgot that he was dealing with human beings. He could not have long +endured the asperities of Carlyle, and that "loud shout of laughter," +which Mr. Ireland speaks of as one of his customary explosions, would +have been discordant to Emerson's ears, which were offended by such +noisy manifestations. + +During this visit Emerson made an excursion to Paris, which furnished +him materials for a lecture on France delivered in Boston, in 1856, but +never printed. + +From the lectures delivered in England he selected a certain number for +publication. These make up the volume entitled "Representative Men," +which was published in 1850. I will give very briefly an account of its +contents. The title was a happy one, and has passed into literature and +conversation as an accepted and convenient phrase. It would teach us a +good deal merely to consider the names he has selected as typical, +and the ground of their selection. We get his classification of men +considered as leaders in thought and in action. He shows his own +affinities and repulsions, and, as everywhere, writes his own biography, +no matter about whom or what he is talking. There is hardly any book of +his better worth study by those who wish to understand, not Plato, not +Plutarch, not Napoleon, but Emerson himself. All his great men interest +us for their own sake; but we know a good deal about most of them, and +Emerson holds the mirror up to them at just such an angle that we +see his own face as well as that of his hero, unintentionally, +unconsciously, no doubt, but by a necessity which he would be the first +to recognize. + +Emerson swears by no master. He admires, but always with a reservation. +Plato comes nearest to being his idol, Shakespeare next. But he says of +all great men: "The power which they communicate is not theirs. When we +are exalted by ideas, we do not owe this to Plato, but to the idea, to +which also Plato was debtor." + +Emerson loves power as much as Carlyle does; he likes "rough and +smooth," "scourges of God," and "darlings of the human race." He likes +Julius Caesar, Charles the Fifth, of Spain, Charles the Twelfth, of +Sweden, Richard Plantagenet, and Bonaparte. + + "I applaud," he says, "a sufficient man, an officer equal + to his office; captains, ministers, senators. I like a master + standing firm on legs of iron, well born, rich, handsome, + eloquent, loaded with advantages, drawing all men by fascination + into tributaries and supporters of his power. Sword and staff, + or talents sword-like or staff-like, carry on the work of the + world. But I find him greater when he can abolish himself and + all heroes by letting in this element of reason, irrespective of + persons, this subtilizer and irresistible upward force, into our + thoughts, destroying individualism; the power is so great that the + potentate is nothing.-- + + "The genius of humanity is the right point of view of history. The + qualities abide; the men who exhibit them have now more, now less, + and pass away; the qualities remain on another brow.--All that + respects the individual is temporary and prospective, like the + individual himself, who is ascending out of his limits into a + catholic existence." + +No man can be an idol for one who looks in this way at all men. But +Plato takes the first place in Emerson's gallery of six great personages +whose portraits he has sketched. And of him he says:-- + + "Among secular books Plato only is entitled to Omar's fanatical + compliment to the Koran, when he said, 'Burn the libraries; for + their value is in this book.' Out of Plato come all things that are + still written and debated among men of thought."-- + + "In proportion to the culture of men they become his + scholars."--"How many great men Nature is incessantly sending up + out of night to be _his men_!--His contemporaries tax him with + plagiarism.--But the inventor only knows how to borrow. When we are + praising Plato, it seems we are praising quotations from Solon and + Sophron and Philolaus. Be it so. Every book is a quotation; and + every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone + quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors." + +The reader will, I hope, remember this last general statement when +he learns from what wide fields of authorship Emerson filled his +storehouses. + +A few sentences from Emerson will show us the probable source of some of +the deepest thought of Plato and his disciples. + +The conception of the fundamental Unity, he says, finds its highest +expression in the religious writings of the East, especially in the +Indian Scriptures. "'The whole world is but a manifestation of Vishnu, +who is identical with all things, and is to be regarded by the wise as +not differing from but as the same as themselves. I neither am going nor +coming; nor is my dwelling in any one place; nor art thou, thou; nor are +others, others; nor am I, I.' As if he had said, 'All is for the soul, +and the soul is Vishnu; and animals and stars are transient paintings; +and light is whitewash; and durations are deceptive; and form is +imprisonment; and heaven itself a decoy.'" All of which we see +reproduced in Emerson's poem "Brahma."--"The country of unity, of +immovable institutions, the seat of a philosophy delighting in +abstractions, of men faithful in doctrine and in practice to the idea of +a deaf, unimplorable, immense fate, is Asia; and it realizes this faith +in the social institution of caste. On the other side, the genius +of Europe is active and creative: it resists caste by culture; its +philosophy was a discipline; it is a land of arts, inventions, trade, +freedom."--"Plato came to join, and by contact to enhance, the energy of +each." + +But Emerson says,--and some will smile at hearing him say it of +another,--"The acutest German, the lovingest disciple, could never tell +what Platonism was; indeed, admirable texts can be quoted on both sides +of every great question from him." + +The transcendent intellectual and moral superiorities of this "Euclid of +holiness," as Emerson calls him, with his "soliform eye and his boniform +soul,"--the two quaint adjectives being from the mint of Cudworth,--are +fully dilated upon in the addition to the original article called +"Plato: New Readings." + +Few readers will be satisfied with the Essay entitled "Swedenborg; or, +the Mystic." The believers in his special communion as a revealer of +divine truth will find him reduced to the level of other seers. The +believers of the different creeds of Christianity will take offence +at the statement that "Swedenborg and Behmen both failed by attaching +themselves to the Christian symbol, instead of to the moral sentiment, +which carries innumerable christianities, humanities, divinities in +its bosom." The men of science will smile at the exorbitant claims +put forward in behalf of Swedenborg as a scientific discoverer. +"Philosophers" will not be pleased to be reminded that Swedenborg called +them "cockatrices," "asps," or "flying serpents;" "literary men" will +not agree that they are "conjurers and charlatans," and will not listen +with patience to the praises of a man who so called them. As for the +poets, they can take their choice of Emerson's poetical or prose +estimate of the great Mystic, but they cannot very well accept both. In +"The Test," the Muse says:-- + + "I hung my verses in the wind, + Time and tide their faults may find; + All were winnowed through and through, + Five lines lasted good and true ... + Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, + Nor time unmake what poets know. + Have you eyes to find the five + Which five hundred did survive?" + +In the verses which follow we learn that the five immortal poets +referred to are Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, _Swedenborg_, and Goethe. + +And now, in the Essay we have just been looking at, I find that "his +books have no melody, no emotion, no humor, no relief to the dead +prosaic level. We wander forlorn in a lack-lustre landscape. No bird +ever sang in these gardens of the dead. The entire want of poetry in so +transcendent a mind betokens the disease, and like a hoarse voice in a +beautiful person, is a kind of warning." Yet Emerson says of him that +"He lived to purpose: he gave a verdict. He elected goodness as the clue +to which the soul must cling in this labyrinth of nature." + +Emerson seems to have admired Swedenborg at a distance, but seen nearer, +he liked Jacob Behmen a great deal better. + +"Montaigne; or, the Skeptic," is easier reading than the last-mentioned +Essay. Emerson accounts for the personal regard which he has for +Montaigne by the story of his first acquaintance with him. But no other +reason was needed than that Montaigne was just what Emerson describes +him as being. + + "There have been men with deeper insight; but, one would say, never + a man with such abundance of thought: he is never dull, never + insincere, and has the genius to make the reader care for all that + he cares for. + + "The sincerity and marrow of the man reaches to his sentences. + I know not anywhere the book that seems less written. It is the + language of conversation transferred to a book. Cut these words and + they would bleed; they are vascular and alive.-- + + "Montaigne talks with shrewdness, knows the world and books and + himself, and uses the positive degree; never shrieks, or protests, + or prays: no weakness, no convulsion, no superlative: does not wish + to jump out of his skin, or play any antics, or annihilate space or + time, but is stout and solid; tastes every moment of the day; likes + pain because it makes him feel himself and realize things; as we + pinch ourselves to know that we are awake. He keeps the plain; he + rarely mounts or sinks; likes to feel solid ground and the stones + underneath. His writing has no enthusiasms, no aspiration; + contented, self-respecting, and keeping the middle of the road. + There is but one exception,--in his love for Socrates. In speaking + of him, for once his cheek flushes and his style rises to passion." + +The writer who draws this portrait must have many of the same +characteristics. Much as Emerson loved his dreams and his dreamers, he +must have found a great relief in getting into "the middle of the road" +with Montaigne, after wandering in difficult by-paths which too often +led him round to the point from which he started. + +As to his exposition of the true relations of skepticism to affirmative +and negative belief, the philosophical reader must be referred to the +Essay itself. + +In writing of "Shakespeare; or, the Poet," Emerson naturally gives +expression to his leading ideas about the office of the poet and of +poetry. + +"Great men are more distinguished by range and extent than by +originality." A poet has "a heart in unison with his time and +country."--"There is nothing whimsical and fantastic in his production, +but sweet and sad earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, +and pointed with the most determined aim which any man or class knows of +in his times." + +When Shakespeare was in his youth the drama was the popular means of +amusement. It was "ballad, epic, newspaper, caucus, lecture, Punch, and +library, at the same time. The best proof of its vitality is the crowd +of writers which suddenly broke into this field." Shakespeare found a +great mass of old plays existing in manuscript and reproduced from time +to time on the stage. He borrowed in all directions: "A great poet who +appears in illiterate times absorbs into his sphere all the light which +is anywhere radiating." Homer, Chaucer, Saadi, felt that all wit was +their wit. "Chaucer is a huge borrower." Emerson gives a list of authors +from whom he drew. This list is in many particulars erroneous, as I have +learned from a letter of Professor Lounsbury's which I have had the +privilege of reading, but this is a detail which need not delay us. + +The reason why Emerson has so much to say on this subject of borrowing, +especially when treating of Plato and of Shakespeare, is obvious enough. +He was arguing in his own cause,--not defending himself, as if there +were some charge of plagiarism to be met, but making the proud claim +of eminent domain in behalf of the masters who knew how to use their +acquisitions. + + "Shakespeare is the only biographer of Shakespeare; and even he can + tell nothing except to the Shakespeare in us."--"Shakespeare is as + much out of the category of eminent authors as he is out of the + crowd. A good reader can in a sort nestle into Plato's brain and + think from thence; but not into Shakespeare's. We are still out of + doors." + +After all the homage which Emerson pays to the intellect of Shakespeare, +he weighs him with the rest of mankind, and finds that he shares "the +halfness and imperfection of humanity." + + "He converted the elements which waited on his command into + entertainment. He was master of the revels to mankind." + +And so, after this solemn verdict on Shakespeare, after looking at the +forlorn conclusions of our old and modern oracles, priest and prophet, +Israelite, German, and Swede, he says: "It must be conceded that these +are half views of half men. The world still wants its poet-priest, who +shall not trifle with Shakespeare the player, nor shall grope in graves +with Swedenborg the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act with +equal inspiration." + +It is not to be expected that Emerson should have much that is new to +say about "Napoleon; or, the Man of the World." + +The stepping-stones of this Essay are easy to find:-- + + "The instinct of brave, active, able men, throughout the middle + class everywhere, has pointed out Napoleon as the incarnate + democrat.-- + + "Napoleon is thoroughly modern, and at the highest point of his + fortunes, has the very spirit of the newspapers." As Plato borrowed, + as Shakespeare borrowed, as Mirabeau "plagiarized every good + thought, every good word that was spoken in France," so Napoleon is + not merely "representative, but a monopolizer and usurper of other + minds." + +He was "a man of stone and iron,"--equipped for his work by nature as +Sallust describes Catiline as being. "He had a directness of action +never before combined with such comprehension. Here was a man who in +each moment and emergency knew what to do next. He saw only the object; +the obstacle must give way." + +"When a natural king becomes a titular king everybody is pleased and +satisfied."-- + +"I call Napoleon the agent or attorney of the middle class of modern +society.--He was the agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the +internal improver, the liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, the +opener of doors and markets, the subverter of monopoly and abuse." + +But he was without generous sentiments, "a boundless liar," and +finishing in high colors the outline of his moral deformities, Emerson +gives us a climax in two sentences which render further condemnation +superfluous:-- + + "In short, when you have penetrated through all the circles of power + and splendor, you were not dealing with a gentleman, at last, but + with an impostor and rogue; and he fully deserves the epithet of + Jupiter Scapin, or a sort of Scamp Jupiter. + + "So this exorbitant egotist narrowed, impoverished, and absorbed the + power and existence of those who served him; and the universal cry + of France and of Europe in 1814 was, Enough of him; '_Assez de + Bonaparte_.'" + + It was to this feeling that the French poet Barbier, whose death + we have but lately seen announced, gave expression in the terrible + satire in which he pictured France as a fiery courser bestridden by + her spurred rider, who drove her in a mad career over heaps of rocks + and ruins. + + But after all, Carlyle's "_carrière ouverte aux talens_" is the + expression for Napoleon's great message to mankind. + +"Goethe; or, the Writer," is the last of the Representative Men who +are the subjects of this book of Essays. Emerson says he had read the +fifty-five volumes of Goethe, but no other German writers, at least in +the original. It must have been in fulfilment of some pious vow that +he did this. After all that Carlyle had written about Goethe, he could +hardly help studying him. But this Essay looks to me as if he had found +the reading of Goethe hard work. It flows rather languidly, toys with +side issues as a stream loiters round a nook in its margin, and finds +an excuse for play in every pebble. Still, he has praise enough for his +author. "He has clothed our modern existence with poetry."--"He has +said the best things about nature that ever were said.--He flung into +literature in his Mephistopheles the first organic figure that has +been added for some ages, and which will remain as long as the +Prometheus.--He is the type of culture, the amateur of all arts and +sciences and events; artistic, but not artist; spiritual, but not +spiritualist.--I join Napoleon with him, as being both representatives +of the impatience and reaction of nature against the morgue of +conventions,--two stern realists, who, with their scholars, have +severally set the axe at the root of the tree of cant and seeming, for +this time and for all time." + +This must serve as an _ex pede_ guide to reconstruct the Essay which +finishes the volume. + +In 1852 there was published a Memoir of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, in which +Emerson, James Freeman Clarke, and William Henry Channing each took +a part. Emerson's account of her conversation and extracts from +her letters and diaries, with his running commentaries and his +interpretation of her mind and character, are a most faithful and vivid +portraiture of a woman who is likely to live longer by what is written +of her than by anything she ever wrote herself. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +1858-1858. AEt. 50-55. + +Lectures in various Places.--Anti-Slavery Addresses.--Woman. A Lecture +read before the Woman's Rights Convention.--Samuel Hoar. Speech at +Concord.--Publication of "English Traits."--The "Atlantic Monthly."--The +"Saturday Club." + + +After Emerson's return from Europe he delivered lectures to different +audiences,--one on Poetry, afterwards published in "Letters and Social +Aims," a course of lectures in Freeman Place Chapel, Boston, some of +which have been published, one on the Anglo-Saxon Race, and many +others. In January, 1855, he gave one of the lectures in a course of +Anti-Slavery Addresses delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston. In the same +year he delivered an address before the Anti-Slavery party of New York. +His plan for the extirpation of slavery was to buy the slaves from the +planters, not conceding their right to ownership, but because "it is +the only practical course, and is innocent." It would cost two thousand +millions, he says, according to the present estimate, but "was there +ever any contribution that was so enthusiastically paid as this would +be?" + +His optimism flowers out in all its innocent luxuriance in the paragraph +from which this is quoted. Of course with notions like these he could +not be hand in hand with the Abolitionists. He was classed with the Free +Soilers, but he seems to have formed a party by himself in his project +for buying up the negroes. He looked at the matter somewhat otherwise in +1863, when the settlement was taking place in a different currency,--in +steel and not in gold:-- + + "Pay ransom to the owner, + And fill the bag to the brim. + Who is the owner? The slave is owner, + And ever was. Pay him." + +His sympathies were all and always with freedom. He spoke with +indignation of the outrage on Sumner; he took part in the meeting at +Concord expressive of sympathy with John Brown. But he was never in the +front rank of the aggressive Anti-Slavery men. In his singular "Ode +inscribed to W.H. Channing" there is a hint of a possible solution of +the slavery problem which implies a doubt as to the permanence of the +cause of all the trouble. + + "The over-god + Who marries Right to Might, + Who peoples, unpeoples,-- + He who exterminates + Races by stronger races, + Black by white faces,-- + Knows to bring honey + Out of the lion." + +Some doubts of this kind helped Emerson to justify himself when he +refused to leave his "honeyed thought" for the busy world where + + "Things are of the snake." + +The time came when he could no longer sit quietly in his study, and, to +borrow Mr. Cooke's words, "As the agitation proceeded, and brave men +took part in it, and it rose to a spirit of moral grandeur, he gave a +heartier assent to the outward methods adopted." + + * * * * * + +No woman could doubt the reverence of Emerson for womanhood. In a +lecture read to the "Woman's Rights Convention" in 1855, he takes bold, +and what would then have been considered somewhat advanced, ground in +the controversy then and since dividing the community. This is the way +in which he expresses himself: + + "I do not think it yet appears that women wish this equal share in + public affairs. But it is they and not we that are to determine it. + Let the laws he purged of every barbarous remainder, every barbarous + impediment to women. Let the public donations for education be + equally shared by them, let them enter a school as freely as a + church, let them have and hold and give their property as men do + theirs;--and in a few years it will easily appear whether they wish + a voice in making the laws that are to govern them. If you do refuse + them a vote, you will also refuse to tax them,--according to our + Teutonic principle, No representation, no tax.--The new movement + is only a tide shared by the spirits of man and woman; and you may + proceed in the faith that whatever the woman's heart is prompted to + desire, the man's mind is simultaneously prompted to accomplish." + +Emerson was fortunate enough to have had for many years as a neighbor, +that true New England Roman, Samuel Hoar. He spoke of him in Concord +before his fellow-citizens, shortly after his death, in 1856. He +afterwards prepared a sketch of Mr. Hoar for "Putnam's Magazine," from +which I take one prose sentence and the verse with which the sketch +concluded:-- + + "He was a model of those formal but reverend manners which make + what is called a gentleman of the old school, so called under an + impression that the style is passing away, but which, I suppose, is + an optical illusion, as there are always a few more of the class + remaining, and always a few young men to whom these manners are + native." + +The single verse I quote is compendious enough and descriptive enough +for an Elizabethan monumental inscription. + + "With beams December planets dart + His cold eye truth and conduct scanned; + July was in his sunny heart, + October in his liberal hand." + +Emerson's "English Traits," forming one volume of his works, was +published in 1856. It is a thoroughly fresh and original book. It is not +a tourist's guide, not a detailed description of sights which tired +the traveller in staring at them, and tire the reader who attacks the +wearying pages in which they are recorded. Shrewd observation there is +indeed, but its strength is in broad generalization and epigrammatic +characterizations. They are not to be received as in any sense final; +they are not like the verifiable facts of science; they are more or less +sagacious, more or less well founded opinions formed by a fair-minded, +sharp-witted, kind-hearted, open-souled philosopher, whose presence +made every one well-disposed towards him, and consequently left him +well-disposed to all the world. + +A glance at the table of contents will give an idea of the objects which +Emerson proposed to himself in his tour, and which take up the principal +portion of his record. Only one _place_ is given as the heading of a +chapter,--_Stonehenge_. The other eighteen chapters have general titles, +_Land, Race, Ability, Manners_, and others of similar character. + +He uses plain English in introducing us to the Pilgrim fathers of the +British Aristocracy:-- + + "Twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings. These founders of the + House of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy + and ferocious pirates. They were all alike, they took everything + they could carry; they burned, harried, violated, tortured, and + killed, until everything English was brought to the verge of ruin. + Such, however, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth, that decent + and dignified men now existing boast their descent from these filthy + thieves, who showed a far juster conviction of their own merits by + assuming for their types the swine, goat, jackal, leopard, wolf, and + snake, which they severally resembled." + +The race preserves some of its better characteristics. + + "They have a vigorous health and last well into middle and old age. + The old men are as red as roses, and still handsome. A clear skin, + a peach-bloom complexion, and good teeth are found all over the + island." + +English "Manners" are characterized, according to Emerson, by pluck, +vigor, independence. "Every one of these islanders is an island himself, +safe, tranquil, incommunicable." They are positive, methodical, cleanly, +and formal, loving routine and conventional ways; loving truth and +religion, to be sure, but inexorable on points of form. + + "They keep their old customs, costumes, and pomps, their wig and + mace, sceptre and crown. A severe decorum rules the court and the + cottage. Pretension and vaporing are once for all distasteful. They + hate nonsense, sentimentalism, and high-flown expressions; they use + a studied plainness." + + "In an aristocratical country like England, not the Trial by Jury, + but the dinner is the capital institution." + + "They confide in each other,--English believes in English."--"They + require the same adherence, thorough conviction, and reality in + public men." + + "As compared with the American, I think them cheerful and contented. + Young people in this country are much more prone to melancholy." + +Emerson's observation is in accordance with that of Cotton Mather nearly +two hundred years ago. + + "_New England_, a country where splenetic Maladies are prevailing + and pernicious, perhaps above any other, hath afforded numberless + instances, of even pious people, who have contracted those + _Melancholy Indispositions_, which have unhinged them from all + service or comfort; yea, not a few persons have been hurried thereby + to lay _Violent Hands_ upon themselves at the last. These are among + the _unsearchable Judgments_ of God." + +If there is a little exaggeration about the following portrait of the +Englishman, it has truth enough to excuse its high coloring, and the +likeness will be smilingly recognized by every stout Briton. + + "They drink brandy like water, cannot expend their quantities of + waste strength on riding, hunting, swimming, and fencing, and run + into absurd follies with the gravity of the Eumenides. They stoutly + carry into every nook and corner of the earth their turbulent sense; + leaving no lie uncontradicted; no pretension unexamined. They chew + hasheesh; cut themselves with poisoned creases, swing their hammock + in the boughs of the Bohon Upas, taste every poison, buy every + secret; at Naples, they put St. Januarius's blood in an alembic; + they saw a hole into the head of the 'winking virgin' to know why + she winks; measure with an English foot-rule every cell of the + inquisition, every Turkish Caaba, every Holy of Holies; translate + and send to Bentley the arcanum, bribed and bullied away from + shuddering Bramins; and measure their own strength by the terror + they cause." + +This last audacious picture might be hung up as a prose pendant to +Marvell's poetical description of Holland and the Dutch. + + "A saving stupidity marks and protects their perception as the + curtain of the eagle's eye. Our swifter Americans, when they first + deal with English, pronounce them stupid; but, later, do them + justice as people who wear well, or hide their strength.--High and + low, they are of an unctuous texture.--Their daily feasts argue a + savage vigor of body.--Half their strength they put not forth. The + stability of England is the security of the modern world." + +Perhaps nothing in any of his vigorous paragraphs is more striking than +the suggestion that "if hereafter the war of races often predicted, +and making itself a war of opinions also (a question of despotism +and liberty coming from Eastern Europe), should menace the English +civilization, these sea-kings may take once again to their floating +castles and find a new home and a second millennium of power in their +colonies." + +In reading some of Emerson's pages it seems as if another Arcadia, or +the new Atlantis, had emerged as the fortunate island of Great Britain, +or that he had reached a heaven on earth where neither moth nor rust +doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal,--or if +they do, never think of denying that they have done it. But this was a +generation ago, when the noun "shoddy," and the verb "to scamp," had not +grown such familiar terms to English ears as they are to-day. Emerson +saw the country on its best side. Each traveller makes his own England. +A Quaker sees chiefly broad brims, and the island looks to him like a +field of mushrooms. + +The transplanted Church of England is rich and prosperous and +fashionable enough not to be disturbed by Emerson's flashes of light +that have not come through its stained windows. + + "The religion of England is part of good-breeding. When you see on + the continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassador's + chapel, and put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed + hat, one cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, + and the religion of a gentleman. + + "The church at this moment is much to be pitied. She has nothing + left but possession. If a bishop meets an intelligent gentleman, and + reads fatal interrogation in his eyes, he has no resource but to + take wine with him." + +Sydney Smith had a great reverence for a bishop,--so great that he told +a young lady that he used to roll a crumb of bread in his hand, from +nervousness, when he sat next one at a dinner-table,--and if next an +archbishop, used to roll crumbs with both hands,---but Sydney Smith +would have enjoyed the tingling felicity of this last stinging touch +of wit, left as lightly and gracefully as a _banderillero_ leaves his +little gayly ribboned dart in the shoulders of the bull with whose +unwieldy bulk he is playing. + +Emerson handles the formalism and the half belief of the Established +Church very freely, but he closes his chapter on Religion with +soft-spoken words. + + "Yet if religion be the doing of all good, and for its sake + the suffering of all evil, _souffrir de tout le monde, + et ne faire souffrir personne,_ that divine secret has existed in + England from the days of Alfred to those of Romilly, of Clarkson, + and of Florence Nightingale, and in thousands who have no fame." + +"English Traits" closes with Emerson's speech at Manchester, at the +annual banquet of the "Free Trade Athenaeum." This was merely an +occasional after-dinner reply to a toast which called him up, but it had +sentences in it which, if we can imagine Milton to have been called up +in the same way, he might well have spoken and done himself credit in +their utterance. + + * * * * * + +The total impression left by the book is that Emerson was fascinated +by the charm of English society, filled with admiration of the people, +tempted to contrast his New Englanders in many respects unfavorably with +Old Englanders, mainly in their material and vital stamina; but with all +this not blinded for a moment to the thoroughly insular limitations +of the phlegmatic islander. He alternates between a turn of genuine +admiration and a smile as at a people that has not outgrown its +playthings. This is in truth the natural and genuine feeling of a +self-governing citizen of a commonwealth where thrones and wigs and +mitres seem like so many pieces of stage property. An American need not +be a philosopher to hold these things cheap. He cannot help it. Madame +Tussaud's exhibition, the Lord-Mayor's gilt coach, and a coronation, if +one happens to be in season, are all sights to be seen by an American +traveller, but the reverence which is born with the British subject went +up with the smoke of the gun that fired the long echoing shot at the +little bridge over the sleepy river which works its way along through +the wide-awake town of Concord. + +In November, 1857, a new magazine was established in Boston, bearing +the name of "The Atlantic Monthly." Professor James Russell Lowell +was editor-in-chief, and Messrs. Phillips and Sampson, who were the +originators of the enterprise, were the publishers. Many of the old +contributors to "The Dial" wrote for the new magazine, among them +Emerson. He contributed twenty-eight articles in all, more than half of +them verse, to different numbers, from the first to the thirty-seventh +volume. Among them are several of his best known poems, such as "The +Romany Girl," "Days," "Brahma," "Waldeinsamkeit," "The Titmouse," +"Boston Hymn," "Saadi," and "Terminus." + +At about the same time there grew up in Boston a literary association, +which became at last well known as the "Saturday Club," the members +dining together on the last Saturday of every month. + +The Magazine and the Club have existed and flourished to the present +day. They have often been erroneously thought to have some organic +connection, and the "Atlantic Club" has been spoken of as if there was +or had been such an institution, but it never existed. + +Emerson was a member of the Saturday Club from the first; in reality +before it existed as an empirical fact, and when it was only a Platonic +idea. The Club seems to have shaped itself around him as a nucleus of +crystallization, two or three friends of his having first formed the +habit of meeting him at dinner at "Parker's," the "Will's Coffee-House" +of Boston. This little group gathered others to itself and grew into a +club as Rome grew into a city, almost without knowing how. During its +first decade the Saturday Club brought together, as members or as +visitors, many distinguished persons. At one end of the table sat +Longfellow, florid, quiet, benignant, soft-voiced, a most agreeable +rather than a brilliant talker, but a man upon whom it was always +pleasant to look,--whose silence was better than many another man's +conversation. At the other end of the table sat Agassiz, robust, +sanguine, animated, full of talk, boy-like in his laughter. The stranger +who should have asked who were the men ranged along the sides of the +table would have heard in answer the names of Hawthorne, Motley, Dana, +Lowell, Whipple, Peirce, the distinguished mathematician, Judge Hoar, +eminent at the bar and in the cabinet, Dwight, the leading musical +critic of Boston for a whole generation, Sumner, the academic champion +of freedom, Andrew, "the great War Governor" of Massachusetts, Dr. Howe, +the philanthropist, William Hunt, the painter, with others not unworthy +of such company. And with these, generally near the Longfellow end of +the table, sat Emerson, talking in low tones and carefully measured +utterances to his neighbor, or listening, and recording on his mental +phonograph any stray word worth remembering. Emerson was a very regular +attendant at the meetings of the Saturday Club, and continued to dine at +its table, until within a year or two of his death. + +Unfortunately the Club had no Boswell, and its golden hours passed +unrecorded. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +1858-1863: AET. 55-60. + +Essay on Persian Poetry.--Speech at the Burns Centennial +Festival--Letter from Emerson to a Lady.--Tributes to Theodore Parker +and to Thoreau.--Address on the Emancipation Proclamation.--Publication +of "The Conduct of Life." Contents: Fate; Power; Wealth; Culture; +Behavior; Worship; Considerations by the Way; Beauty; Illusions. + + +The Essay on Persian Poetry, published in the "Atlantic Monthly" in +1858, should be studied by all readers who are curious in tracing the +influence of Oriental poetry on Emerson's verse. In many of the shorter +poems and fragments published since "May-Day," as well as in the +"Quatrains" and others of the later poems in that volume, it is +sometimes hard to tell what is from the Persian from what is original. + +On the 25th of January, 1859, Emerson attended the Burns Festival, held +at the Parker House in Boston, on the Centennial Anniversary of the +poet's birth. He spoke after the dinner to the great audience with such +beauty and eloquence that all who listened to him have remembered it as +one of the most delightful addresses they ever heard. Among his hearers +was Mr. Lowell, who says of it that "every word seemed to have just +dropped down to him from the clouds." Judge Hoar, who was another of his +hearers, says, that though he has heard many of the chief orators of his +time, he never witnessed such an effect of speech upon men. I was myself +present on that occasion, and underwent the same fascination that these +gentlemen and the varied audience before the speaker experienced. His +words had a passion in them not usual in the calm, pure flow most +natural to his uttered thoughts; white-hot iron we are familiar with, +but white-hot silver is what we do not often look upon, and his +inspiring address glowed like silver fresh from the cupel. + +I am allowed the privilege of printing the following letter addressed +to a lady of high intellectual gifts, who was one of the earliest, most +devoted, and most faithful of his intimate friends:-- + + +CONCORD, May 13, 1859. + +Please, dear C., not to embark for home until I have despatched these +lines, which I will hasten to finish. Louis Napoleon will not bayonet +you the while,--keep him at the door. So long I have promised to +write! so long I have thanked your long suffering! I have let pass the +unreturning opportunity your visit to Germany gave to acquaint you with +Gisela von Arnim (Bettina's daughter), and Joachim the violinist, and +Hermann Grimm the scholar, her friends. Neither has E.,--wandering in +Europe with hope of meeting you,--yet met. This contumacy of mine I +shall regret as long as I live. How palsy creeps over us, with gossamer +first, and ropes afterwards! and the witch has the prisoner when +once she has put her eye on him, as securely as after the bolts are +drawn.--Yet I and all my little company watch every token from you, and +coax Mrs. H. to read us letters. I learned with satisfaction that you +did not like Germany. Where then did Goethe find his lovers? Do all the +women have bad noses and bad mouths? And will you stop in England, and +bring home the author of "Counterparts" with you? Or did----write the +novels and send them to London, as I fancied when I read them? How +strange that you and I alone to this day should have his secret! I think +our people will never allow genius, without it is alloyed by talent. +But----is paralyzed by his whims, that I have ceased to hope from him. +I could wish your experience of your friends were more animating than +mine, and that there were any horoscope you could not cast from the +first day. The faults of youth are never shed, no, nor the merits, and +creeping time convinces ever the more of our impotence, and of the +irresistibility of our bias. Still this is only science, and must remain +science. Our _praxis_ is never altered for that. We must forever hold +our companions responsible, or they are not companions but stall-fed. + +I think, as we grow older, we decrease as individuals, and as if in an +immense audience who hear stirring music, none essays to offer a new +stave, but we only join emphatically in the chorus. We volunteer +no opinion, we despair of guiding people, but are confirmed in +our perception that Nature is all right, and that we have a good +understanding with it. We must shine to a few brothers, as palms or +pines or roses among common weeds, not from greater absolute value, but +from a more convenient nature. But 'tis almost chemistry at last, though +a meta-chemistry. I remember you were such an impatient blasphemer, +however musically, against the adamantine identities, in your youth, +that you should take your turn of resignation now, and be a preacher of +peace. But there is a little raising of the eyebrow, now and then, in +the most passive acceptance,--if of an intellectual turn. Here comes out +around me at this moment the new June,--the leaves say June, though the +calendar says May,--and we must needs hail our young relatives again, +though with something of the gravity of adult sons and daughters +receiving a late-born brother or sister. Nature herself seems a little +ashamed of a law so monstrous, billions of summers, and now the old game +again without a new bract or sepal. But you will think me incorrigible +with my generalities, and you so near, and will be here again this +summer; perhaps with A.W. and the other travellers. My children scan +curiously your E.'s drawings, as they have seen them. + +The happiest winds fill the sails of you and yours! + +R.W. EMERSON. + + +In the year 1860, Theodore Parker died, and Emerson spoke +of his life and labors at the meeting held at the Music Hall to do honor +to his memory. Emerson delivered discourses on Sundays and week-days in +the Music Hall to Mr. Parker's society after his death. In 1862, he lost +his friend Thoreau, at whose funeral he delivered an address which was +published in the "Atlantic Monthly" for August of the same year. Thoreau +had many rare and admirable qualities, and Thoreau pictured by Emerson +is a more living personage than White of Selborne would have been on the +canvas of Sir Joshua Reynolds. + +The Address on the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered in Boston +in September, 1862. The feeling that inspired it may be judged by the +following extract:-- + + "Happy are the young, who find the pestilence cleansed out of the + earth, leaving open to them an honest career. Happy the old, who see + Nature purified before they depart. Do not let the dying die; hold + them back to this world, until you have charged their ear and heart + with this message to other spiritual societies, announcing the + melioration of our planet:-- + + "'Incertainties now crown themselves assured, + And Peace proclaims olives of endless age.'" + +The "Conduct of Life" was published in 1860. The chapter on "Fate" might +leave the reader with a feeling that what he is to do, as well as what +he is to be and to suffer, is so largely predetermined for him, that +his will, though formally asserted, has but a questionable fraction in +adjusting him to his conditions as a portion of the universe. But let +him hold fast to this reassuring statement:-- + + "If we must accept Fate, we are not less compelled to affirm + liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, + the power of character.--We are sure, that, though we know not how, + necessity does comport with liberty, the individual with the world, + my polarity with the spirit of the times." + +But the value of the Essay is not so much in any light it throws on the +mystery of volition, as on the striking and brilliant way in which the +limitations of the individual and the inexplicable rule of law are +illustrated. + + "Nature is no sentimentalist,--does not cosset or pamper us. We must + see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a + man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust.--The + way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, + the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the + crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda,--these + are in the system, and our habits are like theirs. You have just + dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in + the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity,--expensive + races,--race living at the expense of race.--Let us not deny it up + and down. Providence has a wild, rough, incalculable road to its + end, and it is of no use to try to whitewash its huge, mixed + instrumentalities, or to dress up that terrific benefactor in a + clean shirt and white neckcloth of a student in divinity." + +Emerson cautions his reader against the danger of the doctrines which he +believed in so fully:-- + + "They who talk much of destiny, their birth-star, etc., are in a + lower dangerous plane, and invite the evils they fear." + +But certainly no physiologist, no cattle-breeder, no Calvinistic +predestinarian could put his view more vigorously than Emerson, who +dearly loves a picturesque statement, has given it in these words, +which have a dash of science, a flash of imagination, and a hint of the +delicate wit that is one of his characteristics:-- + + "People are born with the moral or with the material bias;--uterine + brothers with this diverging destination: and I suppose, with + high magnifiers, Mr. Fraunhofer or Dr. Carpenter might come to + distinguish in the embryo at the fourth day, this is a whig and that + a free-soiler." + +Let us see what Emerson has to say of "Power:"-- + + "All successful men have agreed in one thing--they were + _causationists_. They believed that things went not by luck, but by + law; that there was not a weak or a cracked link in the chain that + joins the first and the last of things. + + "The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young + orators describe;--the key to all ages is,--Imbecility; imbecility + in the vast majority of men at all times, and, even in heroes, in + all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and + fear. This gives force to the strong,--that the multitude have no + habit of self-reliance or original action.-- + + "We say that success is constitutional; depends on a _plus_ + condition of mind and body, on power of work, on courage; that is of + main efficacy in carrying on the world, and though rarely found + in the right state for an article of commerce, but oftener in the + supernatural or excess, which makes it dangerous and destructive, + yet it cannot be spared, and must be had in that form, and + absorbents provided to take off its edge." + +The "two economies which are the best _succedanea"_ for deficiency of +temperament are concentration and drill. This he illustrates by example, +and he also lays down some good, plain, practical rules which "Poor +Richard" would have cheerfully approved. He might have accepted also the +Essay on "Wealth" as having a good sense so like his own that he could +hardly tell the difference between them. + + "Wealth begins in a tight roof that keeps the rain and + wind out; in a good pump that yields you plenty of sweet + water; in two suits of clothes, so as to change your dress + when you are wet; in dry sticks to burn; in a good double-wick + lamp, and three meals; in a horse or locomotive to cross + the land; in a boat to cross the sea; in tools to work with; in + books to read; and so, in giving, on all sides, by tools and + auxiliaries, the greatest possible extension to our powers, as if it + added feet, and hands, and eyes, and blood, length to the day, + and knowledge and good will. Wealth begins with these articles of + necessity.-- + + "To be rich is to have a ticket of admission to the masterworks and + chief men of each race.-- + + "The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the + thirst for wealth; but if men should take these moralists at their + word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush + to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest + civilization should be undone." + +Who can give better counsels on "Culture" than Emerson? But we must +borrow only a few sentences from his essay on that subject. All kinds of +secrets come out as we read these Essays of Emerson's. We know something +of his friends and disciples who gathered round him and sat at his feet. +It is not hard to believe that he was drawing one of those composite +portraits Mr. Galton has given us specimens of when he wrote as +follows:-- + + "The pest of society is egotism. This goitre of egotism + is so frequent among notable persons that we must infer some strong + necessity in nature which it subserves; such as we see in the sexual + attraction. The preservation of the species was a point of such + necessity that Nature has secured it at all hazards by immensely + overloading the passion, at the risk of perpetual crime and + disorder. So egotism has its root in the cardinal necessity by which + each individual persists to be what he is. + + "The antidotes against this organic egotism are, the range and + variety of attraction, as gained by acquaintance with the world, + with men of merit, with classes of society, with travel, with + eminent persons, and with the high resources of philosophy, art, and + religion: books, travel, society, solitude." + + "We can ill spare the commanding social benefits of cities; they + must be used; yet cautiously and haughtily,--and will yield their + best values to him who can best do without them. Keep the town for + occasions, but the habits should be formed to retirement. Solitude, + the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the + cold, obscure shelter, where moult the wings which will bear it + farther than suns and stars." + +We must remember, too, that "the calamities are our friends. Try the +rough water as well as the smooth. Rough water can teach lessons worth +knowing. Don't be so tender at making an enemy now and then. He who aims +high, must dread an easy home and popular manners." + +Emerson cannot have had many enemies, if any, in his calm and noble +career. He can have cherished no enmity, on personal grounds at least. +But he refused his hand to one who had spoken ill of a friend whom he +respected. It was "the hand of Douglas" again,--the same feeling that +Charles Emerson expressed in the youthful essay mentioned in the +introduction to this volume. + +Here are a few good sayings about "Behavior." + + "There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an + egg. Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke + of genius or of love,--now repeated and hardened into usage." + +Thus it is that Mr. Emerson speaks of "Manners" in his Essay under the +above title. + + "The basis of good manners is self-reliance.--Manners require time, + as nothing is more vulgar than haste.-- + + "Men take each other's measure, when they meet for the first + time,--and every time they meet.-- + + "It is not what talents or genius a man has, but how he is to his + talents, that constitutes friendship and character. The man that + stands by himself, the universe stands by him also." + +In his Essay on "Worship," Emerson ventures the following prediction:-- + + "The religion which is to guide and fulfil the present and coming + ages, whatever else it be, must be intellectual. The scientific mind + must have a faith which is science.--There will be a new church + founded on moral science, at first cold and naked, a babe in a + manger again, the algebra and mathematics of ethical law, the church + of men to come, without shawms or psaltery or sackbut; but it will + have heaven and earth for its beams and rafters; science for symbol + and illustration; it will fast enough gather beauty, music, picture, + poetry." + +It is a bold prophecy, but who can doubt that all improbable and +unverifiable traditional knowledge of all kinds will make way for the +established facts of science and history when these last reach it in +their onward movement? It may be remarked that he now speaks of science +more respectfully than of old. I suppose this Essay was of later date +than "Beauty," or "Illusions." But accidental circumstances made such +confusion in the strata of Emerson's published thought that one is often +at a loss to know whether a sentence came from the older or the newer +layer. + +We come to "Considerations by the Way." The common-sense side of +Emerson's mind has so much in common with the plain practical +intelligence of Franklin that it is a pleasure to find the philosopher +of the nineteenth century quoting the philosopher of the eighteenth. + + "Franklin said, 'Mankind are very superficial and dastardly: they + begin upon a thing, but, meeting with a difficulty, they fly from it + discouraged; but they have the means if they would employ them.'" + +"Shall we judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the +minority, surely." Here we have the doctrine of the "saving remnant," +which we have since recognized in Mr. Matthew Arnold's well-remembered +lecture. Our republican philosopher is clearly enough outspoken on this +matter of the _vox populi_. "Leave this hypocritical prating about the +masses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands, and +need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede +anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and +draw individuals out of them." + +Père Bouhours asked a question about the Germans which found its answer +in due time. After reading what Emerson says about "the masses," one is +tempted to ask whether a philosopher can ever have "a constituency" and +be elected to Congress? Certainly the essay just quoted from would not +make a very promising campaign document. Perhaps there was no great +necessity for Emerson's returning to the subject of "Beauty," to which +he had devoted a chapter of "Nature," and of which he had so often +discoursed incidentally. But he says so many things worth reading in the +Essay thus entitled in the "Conduct of Life" that we need not trouble +ourselves about repetitions. The Essay is satirical and poetical rather +than philosophical. Satirical when he speaks of science with something +of that old feeling betrayed by his brother Charles when he was writing +in 1828; poetical in the flight of imagination with which he enlivens, +entertains, stimulates, inspires,--or as some may prefer to say,--amuses +his listeners and readers. + +The reader must decide which of these effects is produced by the +following passage:-- + + "The feat of the imagination is in showing the convertibility of + everything into every other thing. Facts which had never before left + their stark common sense suddenly figure as Eleusinian mysteries. My + boots and chair and candlestick are fairies in disguise, meteors, + and constellations. All the facts in Nature are nouns of the + intellect, and make the grammar of the eternal language. Every word + has a double, treble, or centuple use and meaning. What! has my + stove and pepper-pot a false bottom? I cry you mercy, good shoe-box! + I did not know you were a jewel-case. Chaff and dust begin to + sparkle, and are clothed about with immortality. And there is a joy + in perceiving the representative or symbolic character of a fact, + which no base fact or event can ever give. There are no days + so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the + imagination." + +One is reminded of various things in reading this sentence. An ounce +of alcohol, or a few whiffs from an opium-pipe, may easily make a day +memorable by bringing on this imaginative delirium, which is apt, if +often repeated, to run into visions of rodents and reptiles. A +coarser satirist than Emerson indulged his fancy in "Meditations on a +Broomstick," which My Lady Berkeley heard seriously and to edification. +Meditations on a "Shoe-box" are less promising, but no doubt something +could be made of it. A poet must select, and if he stoops too low he +cannot lift the object he would fain idealize. + +The habitual readers of Emerson do not mind an occasional +over-statement, extravagance, paradox, eccentricity; they find them +amusing and not misleading. But the accountants, for whom two and two +always make four, come upon one of these passages and shut the book up +as wanting in sanity. Without a certain sensibility to the humorous, no +one should venture upon Emerson. If he had seen the lecturer's smile +as he delivered one of his playful statements of a runaway truth, fact +unhorsed by imagination, sometimes by wit, or humor, he would have found +a meaning in his words which the featureless printed page could never +show him. + +The Essay on "Illusions" has little which we have not met with, or shall +not find repeating itself in the Poems. + +During this period Emerson contributed many articles in prose and +verse to the "Atlantic Monthly," and several to "The Dial," a second +periodical of that name published in Cincinnati. Some of these have +been, or will be, elsewhere referred to. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +1863-1868. AET. 60-65. + +"Boston Hymn."--"Voluntaries."--Other Poems.--"May-Day and other +Pieces."--"Remarks at the Funeral Services of Abraham Lincoln."--Essay +on Persian Poetry.--Address at a Meeting of the Free Religious +Association.--"Progress of Culture." Address before the Phi Beta +Kappa Society of Harvard University.--Course of Lectures in +Philadelphia.--The Degree of LL.D. conferred upon Emerson by Harvard +University.--"Terminus." + + +The "Boston Hymn" was read by Emerson in the Music Hall, on the first +day of January, 1863. It is a rough piece of verse, but noble from +beginning to end. One verse of it, beginning "Pay ransom to the owner," +has been already quoted; these are the three that precede it:-- + + "I cause from every creature + His proper good to flow: + As much as he is and doeth + So much shall he bestow. + + "But laying hands on another + To coin his labor and sweat, + He goes in pawn to his victim + For eternal years in debt. + + "To-day unbind the captive, + So only are ye unbound: + Lift up a people from the dust, + Trump of their rescue, sound!" + +"Voluntaries," published in the same year in the "Atlantic Monthly," is +more dithyrambic in its measure and of a more Pindaric elevation than +the plain song of the "Boston Hymn." + + "But best befriended of the God + He who, in evil times, + Warned by an inward voice, + Heeds not the darkness and the dread, + Biding by his rule and choice, + Feeling only the fiery thread + Leading over heroic ground, + Walled with mortal terror round, + To the aim which him allures, + And the sweet heaven his deed secures. + Peril around, all else appalling, + Cannon in front and leaden rain + Him duly through the clarion calling + To the van called not in vain." + +It is in this poem that we find the lines which, a moment after they +were written, seemed as if they had been carved on marble for a thousand +years:-- + + "So nigh is grandeur to our dust, + So near is God to man, + When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_, + The youth replies, _I can_." + +"Saadi" was published in the "Atlantic Monthly" in 1864, "My Garden" in +1866, "Terminus" in 1867. In the same year these last poems with many +others were collected in a small volume, entitled "May-Day, and +Other Pieces." The general headings of these poems are as follows: +May-Day.--The Adirondacs.--Occasional and Miscellaneous Pieces.--Nature +and Life.--Elements.--Quatrains.--Translations.--Some of these poems, +which were written at long intervals, have been referred to in previous +pages. "The Adirondacs" is a pleasant narrative, but not to be compared +for its poetical character with "May-Day," one passage from which, +beginning, + + "I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth," + +is surpassingly imaginative and beautiful. In this volume will be found +"Brahma," "Days," and others which are well known to all readers of +poetry. + +Emerson's delineations of character are remarkable for high-relief and +sharp-cut lines. In his Remarks at the Funeral Services for Abraham +Lincoln, held in Concord, April 19, 1865, he drew the portrait of the +homespun-robed chief of the Republic with equal breadth and delicacy:-- + + "Here was place for no holiday magistrate, no fair weather sailor; + the new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four + years,--four years of battle-days,--his endurance, his fertility + of resources, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found + wanting. There, by his courage, his justice, his even temper, his + fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the + centre of a heroic epoch. He is the true history of the American + people in his time. Step by step he walked before them; slow + with their slowness, quickening his march by theirs, the true + representative of this continent; an entirely public man; father of + his country; the pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart, + the thought of their minds articulated by his tongue." + +In his "Remarks at the Organization of the Free Religious Association," +Emerson stated his leading thought about religion in a very succinct and +sufficiently "transcendental" way: intelligibly for those who wish to +understand him; mystically to those who do not accept or wish to accept +the doctrine shadowed forth in his poem, "The Sphinx." + + --"As soon as every man is apprised of the Divine Presence within + his own mind,--is apprised that the perfect law of duty corresponds + with the laws of chemistry, of vegetation, of astronomy, as face to + face in a glass; that the basis of duty, the order of society, the + power of character, the wealth of culture, the perfection of taste, + all draw their essence from this moral sentiment; then we have a + religion that exalts, that commands all the social and all the + private action." + +Nothing could be more wholesome in a meeting of creed-killers than the +suggestive remark,-- + + --"What I expected to find here was, some practical suggestions by + which we were to reanimate and reorganize for ourselves the true + Church, the pure worship. Pure doctrine always bears fruit in pure + benefits. It is only by good works, it is only on the basis of + active duty, that worship finds expression.--The interests that grow + out of a meeting like this, should bind us with new strength to the + old eternal duties." + + In a later address before the same association, Emerson says:-- + "I object, of course, to the claim of miraculous + dispensation,--certainly not to the _doctrine_ of Christianity.--If + you are childish and exhibit your saint as a worker of wonders, a + thaumaturgist, I am repelled. That claim takes his teachings out of + nature, and permits official and arbitrary senses to be grafted on + the teachings." + +The "Progress of Culture" was delivered as a Phi Beta Kappa oration just +thirty years after his first address before the same society. It is very +instructive to compare the two orations written at the interval of a +whole generation: one in 1837, at the age of thirty-four; the other in +1867, at the age of sixty-four. Both are hopeful, but the second is more +sanguine than the first. He recounts what he considers the recent gains +of the reforming movement:-- + + "Observe the marked ethical quality of the innovations urged or + adopted. The new claim of woman to a political status is itself an + honorable testimony to the civilization which has given her a civil + status new in history. Now that by the increased humanity of law she + controls her property, she inevitably takes the next step to her + share in power." + +He enumerates many other gains, from the war or from the growth of +intelligence,--"All, one may say, in a high degree revolutionary, +teaching nations the taking of governments into their own hands, and +superseding kings." + +He repeats some of his fundamental formulae. + + "The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral + sentiment. + + "Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any + material force, that thoughts rule the world. + + "Periodicity, reaction, are laws of mind as well as of matter." + +And most encouraging it is to read in 1884 what was written in +1867,--especially in the view of future possibilities. "Bad kings and +governors help us, if only they are bad enough." _Non tali auxilio_, we +exclaim, with a shudder of remembrance, and are very glad to read these +concluding words: "I read the promise of better times and of greater +men." + +In the year 1866, Emerson reached the age which used to be spoken of as +the "grand climacteric." In that year Harvard University conferred upon +him the degree of Doctor of Laws, the highest honor in its gift. + +In that same year, having left home on one of his last lecturing trips, +he met his son, Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson, at the Brevoort House, in New +York. Then, and in that place, he read to his son the poem afterwards +published in the "Atlantic Monthly," and in his second volume, under the +title "Terminus." This was the first time that Dr. Emerson recognized +the fact that his father felt himself growing old. The thought, which +must have been long shaping itself in the father's mind, had been so far +from betraying itself that it was a shock to the son to hear it plainly +avowed. The poem is one of his noblest; he could not fold his robes +about him with more of serene dignity than in these solemn lines. The +reader may remember that one passage from it has been quoted for a +particular purpose, but here is the whole poem:-- + + TERMINUS. + + It is time to be old, + To take in sail:-- + The god of bounds, + Who sets to seas a shore, + Came to me in his fatal rounds, + And said: "No more! + No farther shoot + Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. + Fancy departs: no more invent; + Contract thy firmament + To compass of a tent. + There's not enough for this and that, + Make thy option which of two; + Economize the failing river, + Not the less revere the Giver, + Leave the many and hold the few, + Timely wise accept the terms, + Soften the fall with wary foot; + A little while + Still plan and smile, + And,--fault of novel germs,-- + Mature the unfallen fruit. + Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires, + Bad husbands of their fires, + Who when they gave thee breath, + Failed to bequeath + The needful sinew stark as once, + The baresark marrow to thy bones, + But left a legacy of ebbing veins, + Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,-- + Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb, + Amid the gladiators, halt and numb. + + "As the bird trims her to the gale + I trim myself to the storm of time, + I man the rudder, reef the sail, + Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: + 'Lowly faithful, banish fear, + Right onward drive unharmed; + The port, well worth the cruise, is near, + And every wave is charmed.'" + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +1868-1873. AET. 65-70. + +Lectures on the Natural History of the Intellect.--Publication +of "Society and Solitude." Contents: Society and Solitude. +--Civilization.--Art.--Eloquence.--Domestic Life.--Farming. +--Works and Days.--Books.--Clubs.--Courage.--Success.--Old Age.--Other +Literary Labors.--Visit to California.--Burning of his House, and the +Story of its Rebuilding.--Third Visit to Europe.--His Reception at +Concord on his Return. + + +During three successive years, 1868, 1869, 1870, Emerson delivered a +series of Lectures at Harvard University on the "Natural History of the +Intellect." These Lectures, as I am told by Dr. Emerson, cost him a +great deal of labor, but I am not aware that they have been collected or +reported. They will be referred to in the course of this chapter, in an +extract from Prof. Thayer's "Western Journey with Mr. Emerson." He is +there reported as saying that he cared very little for metaphysics. +It is very certain that he makes hardly any use of the ordinary terms +employed by metaphysicians. If he does not hold the words "subject and +object" with their adjectives, in the same contempt that Mr. Ruskin +shows for them, he very rarely employs either of these expressions. +Once he ventures on the _not me_, but in the main he uses plain English +handles for the few metaphysical tools he has occasion to employ. + +"Society and Solitude" was published in 1870. The first Essay in the +volume bears the same name as the volume itself. + +In this first Essay Emerson is very fair to the antagonistic claims +of solitary and social life. He recognizes the organic necessity of +solitude. We are driven "as with whips into the desert." But there is +danger in this seclusion. "Now and then a man exquisitely made can live +alone and must; but coop up most men and you undo them.--Here again, as +so often, Nature delights to put us between extreme antagonisms, and +our safety is in the skill with which we keep the diagonal line.--The +conditions are met, if we keep our independence yet do not lose our +sympathy." + +The Essay on "Civilization" is pleasing, putting familiar facts in a +very agreeable way. The framed or stone-house in place of the cave or +the camp, the building of roads, the change from war, hunting, +and pasturage to agriculture, the division of labor, the skilful +combinations of civil government, the diffusion of knowledge through the +press, are well worn subjects which he treats agreeably, if not with +special brilliancy:-- + + "Right position of woman in the State is another index.--Place the + sexes in right relations of mutual respect, and a severe morality + gives that essential charm to a woman which educates all that + is delicate, poetic, and self-sacrificing; breeds courtesy and + learning, conversation and wit, in her rough mate, so that I have + thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of + good women." + +My attention was drawn to one paragraph for a reason which my reader +will readily understand, and I trust look upon good-naturedly:-- + + "The ship, in its latest complete equipment, is an abridgment and + compend of a nation's arts: the ship steered by compass and chart, + longitude reckoned by lunar observation and by chronometer, driven + by steam; and in wildest sea-mountains, at vast distances from + home,-- + + "'The pulses of her iron heart + Go beating through the storm.'" + +I cannot be wrong, it seems to me, in supposing those two lines to be +an incorrect version of these two from a poem of my own called "The +Steamboat:" + + "The beating of her restless heart + Still sounding through the storm." + +It is never safe to quote poetry from memory, at least while the writer +lives, for he is ready to "cavil on the ninth part of a hair" where his +verses are concerned. But extreme accuracy was not one of Emerson's +special gifts, and vanity whispers to the misrepresented versifier that + + 'tis better to be quoted wrong + Than to be quoted not at all. + +This Essay of Emerson's is irradiated by a single precept that is worthy +to stand by the side of that which Juvenal says came from heaven. How +could the man in whose thought such a meteoric expression suddenly +announced itself fail to recognize it as divine? It is not strange that +he repeats it on the page next the one where we first see it. Not having +any golden letters to print it in, I will underscore it for italics, and +doubly underscore it in the second extract for small capitals:-- + + "Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, + to _hitch his wagon to a star_, and see his chore done by the gods + themselves."-- + + "'It was a great instruction,' said a saint in Cromwell's war, 'that + the best courages are but beams of the Almighty.' HITCH YOUR WAGON + TO A STAR. Let us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and + bag alone. Let us not lie and steal. No god will help. We shall find + all their teams going the other way,--Charles's Wain, Great Bear, + Orion, Leo, Hercules: every god will leave us. Work rather for those + interests which the divinities honor and promote,--justice, love, + freedom, knowledge, utility."-- + +Charles's Wain and the Great Bear, he should have been reminded, are the +same constellation; the _Dipper_ is what our people often call it, and +the country folk all know "the pinters," which guide their eyes to the +North Star. + +I find in the Essay on "Art" many of the thoughts with which we are +familiar in Emerson's poem, "The Problem." It will be enough to cite +these passages:-- + + "We feel in seeing a noble building which rhymes well, as we do in + hearing a perfect song, that it is spiritually organic; that it had + a necessity in nature for being; was one of the possible forms in + the Divine mind, and is now only discovered and executed by the + artist, not arbitrarily composed by him. And so every genuine work + of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.-- + + --"The Iliad of Homer, the songs of David, the odes of Pindar, the + tragedies of Aeschylus, the Doric temples, the Gothic cathedrals, + the plays of Shakspeare, all and each were made not for sport, but + in grave earnest, in tears and smiles of suffering and loving men.-- + + --"The Gothic cathedrals were built when the builder and the priest + and the people were overpowered by their faith. Love and fear laid + every stone.-- + + "Our arts are happy hits. We are like the musician on the lake, + whose melody is sweeter than he knows." + +The discourse on "Eloquence" is more systematic, more professorial, +than many of the others. A few brief extracts will give the key to its +general purport:-- + + "Eloquence must be grounded on the plainest narrative. Afterwards, + it may warm itself until it exhales symbols of every kind and color, + speaks only through the most poetic forms; but, first and last, it + must still be at bottom a biblical statement of fact.-- + + "He who will train himself to mastery in this science of persuasion + must lay the emphasis of education, not on popular arts, but on + character and insight.-- + + --"The highest platform of eloquence is the moral sentiment.-- + + --"Its great masters ... were grave men, who preferred their + integrity to their talent, and esteemed that object for which they + toiled, whether the prosperity of their country, or the laws, or a + reformation, or liberty of speech, or of the press, or letters, or + morals, as above the whole world and themselves also." + +"Domestic Life" begins with a picture of childhood so charming that it +sweetens all the good counsel which follows like honey round the rim of +the goblet which holds some tonic draught:-- + + "Welcome to the parents the puny struggler, strong in + his weakness, his little arms more irresistible than the + soldier's, his lips touched with persuasion which Chatham + and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected lamentations + when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, + the sobbing child,--the face all liquid grief, as he tries to + swallow his vexation,--soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful + and clamorous compassion. The small despot asks so little that + all reason and all nature are on his side. His ignorance is more + charming than all knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching + than any virtue. His flesh is angels' flesh, all alive.--All day, + between his three or four sleeps, he coos like a pigeon-house, + sputters and spurs and puts on his faces of importance; and when he + fasts, the little Pharisee fails not to sound his trumpet before + him." + +Emerson has favored his audiences and readers with what he knew about +"Farming." Dr. Emerson tells me that this discourse was read as an +address before the "Middlesex Agricultural Society," and printed in the +"Transactions" of that association. He soon found out that the hoe and +the spade were not the tools he was meant to work with, but he had some +general ideas about farming which he expressed very happily:-- + + "The farmer's office is precise and important, but you must not try + to paint him in rose-color; you cannot make pretty compliments to + fate and gravitation, whose minister he is.--This hard work will + always be done by one kind of man; not by scheming speculators, nor + by soldiers, nor professors, nor readers of Tennyson; but by men + of endurance, deep-chested, long-winded, tough, slow and sure, and + timely." + +Emerson's chemistry and physiology are not profound, but they are +correct enough to make a fine richly colored poetical picture in his +imaginative presentation. He tells the commonest facts so as to make +them almost a surprise:-- + + "By drainage we went down to a subsoil we did not know, and have + found there is a Concord under old Concord, which we are now getting + the best crops from; a Middlesex under Middlesex; and, in fine, that + Massachusetts has a basement story more valuable and that promises + to pay a better rent than all the superstructure." + +In "Works and Days" there is much good reading, but I will call +attention to one or two points only, as having a slight special interest +of their own. The first is the boldness of Emerson's assertions and +predictions in matters belonging to science and art. Thus, he speaks of +"the transfusion of the blood,--which, in Paris, it was claimed, enables +a man to change his blood as often as his linen!" And once more, + +"We are to have the balloon yet, and the next war will be fought in the +air." + +Possibly; but it is perhaps as safe to predict that it will be fought on +wheels; the soldiers on bicycles, the officers on tricycles. + +The other point I have marked is that we find in this Essay a prose +version of the fine poem, printed in "May-Day" under the title "Days." I +shall refer to this more particularly hereafter. + +It is wronging the Essay on "Books" to make extracts from it. It is all +an extract, taken from years of thought in the lonely study and the +public libraries. If I commit the wrong I have spoken of, it is under +protest against myself. Every word of this Essay deserves careful +reading. But here are a few sentences I have selected for the reader's +consideration:-- + + "There are books; and it is practicable to read them because they + are so few.-- + + "I visit occasionally the Cambridge Library, and I can seldom go + there without renewing the conviction that the best of it all is + already within the four walls of my study at home.-- + + "The three practical rules which I have to offer are, 1. Never read + any book that is not a year old. 2. Never read any but famed books. + 3. Never read any but what you like, or, in Shakspeare's phrase,-- + + "'No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en; + In brief, Sir, study what you most affect.'" + +Emerson has a good deal to say about conversation in his Essay on +"Clubs," but nothing very notable on the special subject of the Essay. +Perhaps his diary would have something of interest with reference to the +"Saturday Club," of which he was a member, which, in fact, formed itself +around him as a nucleus, and which he attended very regularly. But he +was not given to personalities, and among the men of genius and of +talent whom he met there no one was quieter, but none saw and heard and +remembered more. He was hardly what Dr. Johnson would have called a +"clubable" man, yet he enjoyed the meetings in his still way, or he +would never have come from Concord so regularly to attend them. He gives +two good reasons for the existence of a club like that of which I have +been speaking:-- + + "I need only hint the value of the club for bringing masters in + their several arts to compare and expand their views, to come to + an understanding on these points, and so that their united opinion + shall have its just influence on public questions of education and + politics." + + "A principal purpose also is the hospitality of the club, as a means + of receiving a worthy foreigner with mutual advantage." + +I do not think "public questions of education and politics" were very +prominent at the social meetings of the "Saturday Club," but "worthy +foreigners," and now and then one not so worthy, added variety to the +meetings of the company, which included a wide range of talents and +callings. + +All that Emerson has to say about "Courage" is worth listening to, for +he was a truly brave man in that sphere of action where there are more +cowards than are found in the battle-field. He spoke his convictions +fearlessly; he carried the spear of Ithuriel, but he wore no breastplate +save that which protects him + + "Whose armor is his honest thought, + And simple truth his utmost skill." + +He mentions three qualities as attracting the wonder and reverence of +mankind: 1. Disinterestedness; 2. Practical Power; 3. Courage. "I need +not show how much it is esteemed, for the people give it the first rank. +They forgive everything to it. And any man who puts his life in peril in +a cause which is esteemed becomes the darling of all men."--There are +good and inspiriting lessons for young and old in this Essay or Lecture, +which closes with the spirited ballad of "George Nidiver," written "by a +lady to whom all the particulars of the fact are exactly known." + +Men will read any essay or listen to any lecture which has for its +subject, like the one now before me, "Success." Emerson complains of the +same things in America which Carlyle groaned over in England:-- + + "We countenance each other in this life of show, puffing + advertisement, and manufacture of public opinion; and excellence is + lost sight of in the hunger for sudden performance and praise.-- + + "Now, though I am by no means sure that the reader will assent to + all my propositions, yet I think we shall agree in my first rule for + success,--that we shall drop the brag and the advertisement and take + Michael Angelo's course, 'to confide in one's self and be something + of worth and value.'" + +Reading about "Success" is after all very much like reading in old books +of alchemy. "How not to do it," is the lesson of all the books and +treatises. Geber and Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon and Raymond Lully, and +the whole crew of "pauperes alcumistae," all give the most elaborate +directions showing their student how to fail in transmuting Saturn into +Luna and Sol and making a billionaire of himself. "Success" in its +vulgar sense,--the gaining of money and position,--is not to be reached +by following the rules of an instructor. Our "self-made men," who govern +the country by their wealth and influence, have found their place by +adapting themselves to the particular circumstances in which they were +placed, and not by studying the broad maxims of "Poor Richard," or any +other moralist or economist.--For such as these is meant the cheap +cynical saying quoted by Emerson, "_Rien ne réussit mieux que le +succès_." + +But this is not the aim and end of Emerson's teaching:-- + + "I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition + in all points to the real and wholesome success. One adores public + opinion, the other private opinion; one fame, the other desert; one + feats, the other humility; one lucre, the other love; one monopoly, + and the other hospitality of mind." + +And so, though there is no alchemy in this Lecture, it is profitable +reading, assigning its true value to the sterling gold of character, +the gaining of which is true success, as against the brazen idol of the +market-place. + +The Essay on "Old Age" has a special value from its containing two +personal reminiscences: one of the venerable Josiah Quincy, a brief +mention; the other the detailed record of a visit in the year 1825, +Emerson being then twenty-two years old, to ex-President John Adams, +soon after the election of his son to the Presidency. It is enough to +allude to these, which every reader will naturally turn to first of all. + +But many thoughts worth gathering are dropped along these pages. He +recounts the benefits of age; the perilous capes and shoals it has +weathered; the fact that a success more or less signifies little, so +that the old man may go below his own mark with impunity; the feeling +that he has found expression,--that his condition, in particular and in +general, allows the utterance of his mind; the pleasure of completing +his secular affairs, leaving all in the best posture for the future:-- + + "When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well + spare, muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works + that belong to these. But the central wisdom which was old in + infancy is young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstructions, + leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise. I have heard + that whoever loves is in no condition old. I have heard that + whenever the name of man is spoken, the doctrine of immortality is + announced; it cleaves to his constitution. The mode of it baffles + our wit, and no whisper comes to us from the other side. But the + inference from the working of intellect, hiving knowledge, hiving + skill,--at the end of life just ready to be born,--affirms the + inspirations of affection and of the moral sentiment." + +Other literary labors of Emerson during this period were the +Introduction to "Plutarch's Morals" in 1870, and a Preface to William +Ellery Channing's Poem, "The Wanderer," in 1871. He made a speech at +Howard University, Washington, in 1872. + +In the year 1871 Emerson made a visit to California with a very pleasant +company, concerning which Mr. John M. Forbes, one of whose sons married +Emerson's daughter Edith, writes to me as follows. Professor James B. +Thayer, to whom he refers, has more recently written and published an +account of this trip, from which some extracts will follow Mr. Forbes's +letter:-- + + BOSTON, February 6, 1884. + + MY DEAR DR.,--What little I can give will be of a very rambling + character. + + One of the first memories of Emerson which comes up is my meeting + him on the steamboat at returning from Detroit East. I persuaded him + to stop over at Niagara, which he had never seen. We took a carriage + and drove around the circuit. It was in early summer, perhaps in + 1848 or 1849. When we came to Table Rock on the British side, our + driver took us down on the outer part of the rock in the carriage. + We passed on by rail, and the next day's papers brought us the + telegraphic news that Table Rock had fallen over; perhaps we were + among the last persons on it! + + About 1871 I made up a party for California, including Mr. Emerson, + his daughter Edith, and a number of gay young people. We drove with + B----, the famous Vermont coachman, up to the Geysers, and then made + the journey to the Yosemite Valley by wagon and on horseback. I wish + I could give you more than a mere outline picture of the sage at + this time. With the thermometer at 100 degrees he would sometimes + drive with the buffalo robes drawn up over his knees, apparently + indifferent to the weather, gazing on the new and grand scenes + of mountain and valley through which we journeyed. I especially + remember once, when riding down the steep side of a mountain, his + reins hanging loose, the bit entirely out of the horse's mouth, + without his being aware that this was an unusual method of riding + Pegasus, so fixed was his gaze into space, and so unconscious was + he, at the moment, of his surroundings. + + In San Francisco he visited with us the dens of the opium smokers, + in damp cellars, with rows of shelves around, on which were + deposited the stupefied Mongolians; perhaps the lowest haunts of + humanity to be found in the world. The contrast between them and + the serene eye and undisturbed brow of the sage was a sight for all + beholders. + + When we reached Salt Lake City on our way home he made a point of + calling on Brigham Young, then at the summit of his power. The + Prophet, or whatever he was called, was a burly, bull-necked man of + hard sense, really leading a great industrial army. He did not seem + to appreciate who his visitor was, at any rate gave no sign of so + doing, and the chief interest of the scene was the wide contrast + between these leaders of spiritual and of material forces. + + I regret not having kept any notes of what was said on this and + other occasions, but if by chance you could get hold of Professor + J.B. Thayer, who was one of our party, he could no doubt give you + some notes that would be valuable. + + Perhaps the latest picture that remains in my mind of our friend is + his wandering along the beaches and under the trees at Naushon, no + doubt carrying home large stealings from my domain there, which lost + none of their value from being transferred to his pages. Next to + his private readings which he gave us there, the most notable + recollection is that of his intense amusement at some comical songs + which our young people used to sing, developing a sense of humor + which a superficial observer would hardly have discovered, but which + you and I know he possessed in a marked degree. + + Yours always, + + J.M. FORBES. + +Professor James B. Thayer's little book, "A Western Journey with Mr. +Emerson," is a very entertaining account of the same trip concerning +which Mr. Forbes wrote the letter just given. Professor Thayer kindly +read many of his notes to me before his account was published, and +allows me to make such use of the book as I see fit. Such liberty must +not be abused, and I will content myself with a few passages in which +Emerson has a part. No extract will interest the reader more than the +following:-- + + "'How _can_ Mr. Emerson,' said one of the younger members of the + party to me that day, 'be so agreeable, all the time, without + getting tired!' It was the _naive_ expression of what we all had + felt. There was never a more agreeable travelling companion; he was + always accessible, cheerful, sympathetic, considerate, tolerant; and + there was always that same respectful interest in those with whom + he talked, even the humblest, which raised them in their own + estimation. One thing particularly impressed me,--the sense that he + seemed to have of a certain great amplitude of time and leisure. It + was the behavior of one who really _believed_ in an immortal life, + and had adjusted his conduct accordingly; so that, beautiful and + grand as the natural objects were, among which our journey lay, they + were matched by the sweet elevation of character, and the spiritual + charm of our gracious friend. Years afterwards, on that memorable + day of his funeral at Concord, I found that a sentence from his own + Essay on Immortality haunted my mind, and kept repeating itself + all the day long; it seemed to point to the sources of his power: + 'Meantime the true disciples saw through the letter the doctrine of + eternity, which dissolved the poor corpse, and Nature also, and gave + grandeur to the passing hour.'" + +This extract will be appropriately followed by another alluding to the +same subject. + + "The next evening, Sunday, the twenty-third, Mr. Emerson read his + address on 'Immortality,' at Dr. Stebbins's church. It was the first + time that he had spoken on the Western coast; never did he speak + better. It was, in the main, the same noble Essay that has since + been printed. + + "At breakfast the next morning we had the newspaper, the 'Alta + California.' It gave a meagre outline of the address, but praised it + warmly, and closed with the following observations: 'All left the + church feeling that an elegant tribute had been paid to the creative + genius of the Great First Cause, and that a masterly use of the + English language had contributed to that end.'" + +The story used to be told that after the Reverend Horace Holley had +delivered a prayer on some public occasion, Major Ben. Russell, of ruddy +face and ruffled shirt memory, Editor of "The Columbian Centinel," +spoke of it in his paper the next day as "the most eloquent prayer ever +addressed to a Boston audience." + +The "Alta California's" "elegant tribute" is not quite up to this +rhetorical altitude. + + "'The minister,' said he, 'is in no danger of losing his position; + he represents the moral sense and the humanities.' He spoke of his + own reasons for leaving the pulpit, and added that 'some one had + lately come to him whose conscience troubled him about retaining the + name of Christian; he had replied that he himself had no difficulty + about it. When he was called a Platonist, or a Christian, or a + Republican, he welcomed it. It did not bind him to what he did + not like. What is the use of going about and setting up a flag of + negation?'" + + "I made bold to ask him what he had in mind in naming his recent + course of lectures at Cambridge, 'The Natural History of the + Intellect.' This opened a very interesting conversation; but, alas! + I could recall but little of it,--little more than the mere hintings + of what he said. He cared very little for metaphysics. But he + thought that as a man grows he observes certain facts about his own + mind,--about memory, for example. These he had set down from time + to time. As for making any methodical history, he did not undertake + it." + +Emerson met Brigham Young at Salt Lake City, as has been mentioned, but +neither seems to have made much impression upon the other. Emerson spoke +of the Mormons. Some one had said, "They impress the common people, +through their imagination, by Bible-names and imagery." "Yes," he said, +"it is an after-clap of Puritanism. But one would think that after this +Father Abraham could go no further." + +The charm of Boswell's Life of Johnson is that it not merely records +his admirable conversation, but also gives us many of those lesser +peculiarities which are as necessary to a true biography as lights and +shades to a portrait on canvas. We are much obliged to Professor Thayer +therefore for the two following pleasant recollections which he has been +good-natured enough to preserve for us, and with which we will take +leave of his agreeable little volume:-- + + "At breakfast we had, among other things, pie. This article at + breakfast was one of Mr. Emerson's weaknesses. A pie stood before + him now. He offered to help somebody from it, who declined; and + then one or two others, who also declined; and then Mr.----; he too + declined. 'But Mr.----!' Mr. Emerson remonstrated, with humorous + emphasis, thrusting the knife under a piece of the pie, and putting + the entire weight of his character into his manner,--'but Mr.----, + _what is pie for_?'" + +A near friend of mine, a lady, was once in the cars with Emerson, and +when they stopped for the refreshment of the passengers he was very +desirous of procuring something at the station for her solace. Presently +he advanced upon her with a cup of tea in one hand and a wedge of pie in +the other,--such a wedge! She could hardly have been more dismayed +if one of Caesar's _cunei_, or wedges of soldiers, had made a charge +against her. + +Yet let me say here that pie, often foolishly abused, is a good +creature, at the right time and in angles of thirty or forty degrees. In +semicircles and quadrants it may sometimes prove too much for delicate +stomachs. But here was Emerson, a hopelessly confirmed pie-eater, never, +so far as I remember, complaining of dyspepsia; and there, on the other +side, was Carlyle, feeding largely on wholesome oatmeal, groaning with +indigestion all his days, and living with half his self-consciousness +habitually centred beneath his diaphragm. + +Like his friend Carlyle and like Tennyson, Emerson had a liking for a +whiff of tobacco-smoke:-- + + "When alone," he said, "he rarely cared to finish a whole cigar. But + in company it was singular to see how different it was. To one who + found it difficult to meet people, as he did, the effect of a cigar + was agreeable; one who is smoking may be as silent as he likes, and + yet be good company. And so Hawthorne used to say that he found it. + On this journey Mr. Emerson generally smoked a single cigar after + our mid-day dinner, or after tea, and occasionally after both. This + was multiplying, several times over, anything that was usual with + him at home." + +Professor Thayer adds in a note:-- + + "Like Milton, Mr. Emerson 'was extraordinary temperate in his Diet,' + and he used even less tobacco. Milton's quiet day seems to have + closed regularly with a pipe; he 'supped,' we are told, 'upon ... + some light thing; and after a pipe of tobacco and a glass of water + went to bed.'" + +As Emerson's name has been connected with that of Milton in its nobler +aspects, it can do no harm to contemplate him, like Milton, indulging in +this semi-philosophical luxury. + +One morning in July, 1872, Mr. and Mrs. Emerson woke to find their room +filled with smoke and fire coming through the floor of a closet in the +room over them. The alarm was given, and the neighbors gathered and did +their best to put out the flames, but the upper part of the house was +destroyed, and with it were burned many papers of value to Emerson, +including his father's sermons. Emerson got wet and chilled, and it +seems too probable that the shock hastened that gradual loss of memory +which came over his declining years. + +His kind neighbors did all they could to save his property and relieve +his temporary needs. A study was made ready for him in the old Court +House, and the "Old Manse," which had sheltered his grandfather, and +others nearest to him, received him once more as its tenant. + +On the 15th of October he spoke at a dinner given in New York in honor +of James Anthony Froude, the historian, and in the course of this same +month he set out on his third visit to Europe, accompanied by his +daughter Ellen. We have little to record of this visit, which was +suggested as a relief and recreation while his home was being refitted +for him. He went to Egypt, but so far as I have learned the Sphinx had +no message for him, and in the state of mind in which he found himself +upon the mysterious and dream-compelling Nile it may be suspected that +the landscape with its palms and pyramids was an unreal vision,--that, +as to his Humble-bee, + + "All was picture as he passed." + +But while he was voyaging his friends had not forgotten him. The +sympathy with him in his misfortune was general and profound. It did not +confine itself to expressions of feeling, but a spontaneous movement +organized itself almost without effort. If any such had been needed, the +attached friend whose name is appended to the Address to the Subscribers +to the Fund for rebuilding Mr. Emerson's house would have been as +energetic in this new cause as he had been in the matter of procuring +the reprint of "Sartor Resartus." I have his kind permission to publish +the whole correspondence relating to the friendly project so happily +carried out. + + _To the Subscribers to the Fund for the Rebuilding of Mr. Emerson's + House, after the Fire of July_ 24, 1872: + + The death of Mr. Emerson has removed any objection which may have + before existed to the printing of the following correspondence. I + have now caused this to be done, that each subscriber may have the + satisfaction of possessing a copy of the touching and affectionate + letters in which he expressed his delight in this, to him, most + unexpected demonstration of personal regard and attachment, in the + offer to restore for him his ruined home. + + No enterprise of the kind was ever more fortunate and successful in + its purpose and in its results. The prompt and cordial response to + the proposed subscription was most gratifying. No contribution was + solicited from any one. The simple suggestion to a few friends of + Mr. Emerson that an opportunity was now offered to be of service + to him was all that was needed. From the first day on which it was + made, the day after the fire, letters began to come in, with cheques + for large and small amounts, so that in less than three weeks I + was enabled to send to Judge Hoar the sum named in his letter as + received by him on the 13th of August, and presented by him to Mr. + Emerson the next morning, at the Old Manse, with fitting words. + + Other subscriptions were afterwards received, increasing the amount + on my book to eleven thousand six hundred and twenty dollars. A part + of this was handed directly to the builder at Concord. The balance + was sent to Mr. Emerson October 7, and acknowledged by him in his + letter of October 8, 1872. + + All the friends of Mr. Emerson who knew of the plan which was + proposed to rebuild his house, seemed to feel that it was a + privilege to be allowed to express in this way the love and + veneration with which he was regarded, and the deep debt of + gratitude which they owed to him, and there is no doubt that a much + larger amount would have been readily and gladly offered, if it had + been required, for the object in view. + + Those who have had the happiness to join in this friendly + "conspiracy" may well take pleasure in the thought that what they + have done has had the effect to lighten the load of care and anxiety + which the calamity of the fire brought with it to Mr. Emerson, and + thus perhaps to prolong for some precious years the serene and noble + life that was so dear to all of us. + + My thanks are due to the friends who have made me the bearer of this + message of good-will. + + LE BARON RUSSELL. + + BOSTON, May 8, 1882. + + + BOSTON, August 13, 1872. + + DEAR MR. EMERSON: + + It seems to have been the spontaneous desire of your friends, on + hearing of the burning of your house, to be allowed the pleasure of + rebuilding it. + + A few of them have united for this object, and now request your + acceptance of the amount which I have to-day deposited to your order + at the Concord Bank, through the kindness of our friend, Judge Hoar. + They trust that you will receive it as an expression of sincere + regard and affection from friends, who will, one and all, esteem it + a great privilege to be permitted to assist in the restoration of + your home. + + And if, in their eagerness to participate in so grateful a work, + they may have exceeded the estimate of your architect as to what + is required for that purpose, they beg that you will devote the + remainder to such other objects as may be most convenient to you. + + Very sincerely yours, + + LE BARON RUSSELL. + + + CONCORD, August 14, 1872. + + DR. LE B. RUSSELL: + + _Dear Sir_,--I received your letters, with the check for ten + thousand dollars inclosed, from Mr. Barrett last evening. This + morning I deposited it to Mr. Emerson's credit in the Concord + National Bank, and took a bank book for him, with his little balance + entered at the top, and this following, and carried it to him with + your letter. I told him, by way of prelude, that some of his friends + had made him treasurer of an association who wished him to go to + England and examine Warwick Castle and other noted houses that + had been recently injured by fire, in order to get the best ideas + possible for restoration, and then to apply them to a house which + the association was formed to restore in this neighborhood. + + When he understood the thing and had read your letter, he seemed + very deeply moved. He said that he had been allowed so far in life + to stand on his own feet, and that he hardly knew what to say,--that + the kindness of his friends was very great. I said what I thought + was best in reply, and told him that this was the spontaneous act of + friends, who wished the privilege of expressing in this way their + respect and affection, and was done only by those who thought it a + privilege to do so. I mentioned Hillard as you desired, and also + Mrs. Tappan, who, it seems, had written to him and offered any + assistance he might need, to the extent of five thousand dollars, + personally. + + I think it is all right, but he said he must see the list of + contributors, and would then say what he had to say about it. He + told me that Mr. F.C. Lowell, who was his classmate and old friend, + Mr. Bangs, Mrs. Gurney, and a few other friends, had already sent + him five thousand dollars, which he seemed to think was as much as + he could bear. This makes the whole a very gratifying result, and + perhaps explains the absence of some names on your book. + + I am glad that Mr. Emerson, who is feeble and ill, can learn what a + debt of obligation his friends feel to him, and thank you heartily + for what you have done about it. Very truly yours, + + E.R. HOAR. + + + CONCORD, August 16, 1872. + + MY DEAR LE BARON: + + I have wondered and melted over your letter and its accompaniments + till it is high time that I should reply to it, if I can. My + misfortunes, as I have lived along so far in this world, have been + so few that I have never needed to ask direct aid of the host of + good men and women who have cheered my life, though many a gift has + come to me. And this late calamity, however rude and devastating, + soon began to look more wonderful in its salvages than in its ruins, + so that I can hardly feel any right to this munificent endowment + with which you, and my other friends through you, have astonished + me. But I cannot read your letter or think of its message without + delight, that my companions and friends bear me so noble a + good-will, nor without some new aspirations in the old heart toward + a better deserving. Judge Hoar has, up to this time, withheld from + me the names of my benefactors, but you may be sure that I shall not + rest till I have learned them, every one, to repeat to myself at + night and at morning. + + Your affectionate friend and debtor, + + R.W. EMERSON. + + + DR. LE BARON RUSSELL + + CONCORD, October 8, 1872. + + MY DEAR DOCTOR LE BARON: + + I received last night your two notes, and the cheque, enclosed in + one of them, for one thousand and twenty dollars. + + Are my friends bent on killing me with kindness? No, you will say, + but to make me live longer. I thought myself sufficiently loaded + with benefits already, and you add more and more. It appears that + you all will rebuild my house and rejuvenate me by sending me in my + old days abroad on a young man's excursion. + + I am a lover of men, but this recent wonderful experience of their + tenderness surprises and occupies my thoughts day by day. Now that + I have all or almost all the names of the men and women who have + conspired in this kindness to me (some of whom I have never + personally known), I please myself with the thought of meeting each + and asking, Why have we not met before? Why have you not told me + that we thought alike? Life is not so long, nor sympathy of thought + so common, that we can spare the society of those with whom we best + agree. Well, 'tis probably my own fault by sticking ever to my + solitude. Perhaps it is not too late to learn of these friends a + better lesson. + + Thank them for me whenever you meet them, and say to them that I am + not wood or stone, if I have not yet trusted myself so far as to go + to each one of them directly. + + My wife insists that I shall also send her acknowledgments to them + and you. + + Yours and theirs affectionately, + + R.W. EMERSON. + + DR. LE BARON KUSSELL. + + +The following are the names of the subscribers to the fund for +rebuilding Mr. Emerson's house:-- + +Mrs. Anne S. Hooper. +Miss Alice S. Hooper. +Mrs. Caroline Tappan. +Miss Ellen S. Tappan. +Miss Mary A. Tappan. +Mr. T.G. Appleton. +Mrs. Henry Edwards. +Miss Susan E. Dorr. +Misses Wigglesworth. +Mr. Edward Wigglesworth. +Mr. J. Elliot Cabot. +Mrs. Sarah S. Russell. +Friends in New York and Philadelphia, through Mr. Williams. +Mr. William Whiting. +Mr. Frederick Beck. +Mr. H.P. Kidder. +Mrs. Abel Adams. +Mrs. George Faulkner. +Hon. E.R. Hoar. +Mr. James B. Thayer. +Mr. John M. Forbes. +Mr. James H. Beal. +Mrs. Anna C. Lodge. +Mr. T. Jefferson Coolidge. +Mr. H.H. Hunnewell. +Mrs. S. Cabot. +Mr. James A. Dupee. +Mrs. Anna C. Lowell. +Mrs. M.F. Sayles. +Miss Helen L. Appleton. +J.R. Osgood & Co. +Mr. Richard Soule. +Mr. Francis Geo. Shaw. +Dr. R.W. Hooper. +Mr. William P. Mason. +Mr. William Gray. +Mr. Sam'l G. Ward. +Mr. J.I. Bowditch. +Mr. Geo. C. Ward. +Mrs. Luicia J. Briggs. +Mr. John E. Williams. +Dr. Le Baron Russell. + +In May, 1873, Emerson returned to Concord. His friends and +fellow-citizens received him with every token of affection and +reverence. A set of signals was arranged to announce his arrival. +Carriages were in readiness for him and his family, a band greeted him +with music, and passing under a triumphal arch, he was driven to his +renewed old home amidst the welcomes and the blessings of his loving and +admiring friends and neighbors. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +1873-1878. AET. 70-75. + +Publication of "Parnassus."--Emerson Nominated as Candidate for the +Office of Lord Rector of Glasgow University.--Publication of +"Letters and Social Aims." Contents: Poetry and Imagination.--Social +Aims.--Eloquence.--Resources.--The Comic.--Quotation and +Originality.--Progress of Culture.--Persian Poetry.--Inspiration.-- +Greatness.--Immortality.--Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of "The +Minute-Man" at Concord.--Publication of Collected Poems. + + +In December, 1874, Emerson published "Parnassus," a Collection of Poems +by British and American authors. Many readers may like to see his +subdivisions and arrangement of the pieces he has brought together. +They are as follows: "Nature."--"Human Life."--"Intellectual." +--"Contemplation."--"Moral and Religious."--"Heroic."--"Personal." +--"Pictures."--"Narrative Poems and Ballads."--"Songs."--"Dirges and +Pathetic Poems."--"Comic and Humorous."--"Poetry of Terror."--"Oracles +and Counsels." + +I have borrowed so sparingly from the rich mine of Mr. George Willis +Cooke's "Ralph Waldo Emerson, His Life, Writings, and Philosophy," that +I am pleased to pay him the respectful tribute of taking a leaf from his +excellent work. + +"This collection," he says, + + "was the result of his habit, pursued for many years, of copying + into his commonplace book any poem which specially pleased him. Many + of these favorites had been read to illustrate his lectures on + the English poets. The book has no worthless selections, almost + everything it contains bearing the stamp of genius and worth. Yet + Emerson's personality is seen in its many intellectual and serious + poems, and in the small number of its purely religious selections. + With two or three exceptions he copies none of those devotional + poems which have attracted devout souls.--His poetical sympathies + are shown in the fact that one third of the selections are from the + seventeenth century. Shakespeare is drawn on more largely than any + other, no less than eighty-eight selections being made from him. The + names of George Herbert, Herrick, Ben Jonson, and Milton frequently + appear. Wordsworth appears forty-three times, and stands next to + Shakespeare; while Burns, Byron, Scott, Tennyson, and Chaucer make + up the list of favorites. Many little known pieces are included, and + some whose merit is other than poetical.--This selection of poems + is eminently that of a poet of keen intellectual tastes. I + not popular in character, omitting many public favorites, and + introducing very much which can never be acceptable to the general + reader. The Preface is full of interest for its comments on many of + the poems and poets appearing in these selections." + +I will only add to Mr. Cooke's criticism these two remarks: First, that +I have found it impossible to know under which of his divisions to look +for many of the poems I was in search of; and as, in the earlier copies +at least, there was no paged index where each author's pieces were +collected together, one had to hunt up his fragments with no little loss +of time and patience, under various heads, "imitating the careful search +that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris." The other remark is that +each one of Emerson's American fellow-poets from whom he has quoted +would gladly have spared almost any of the extracts from the poems of +his brother-bards, if the editor would only have favored us with some +specimens of his own poetry, with a single line of which he has not seen +fit to indulge us. + +In 1874 Emerson received the nomination by the independent party among +the students of Glasgow University for the office of Lord Rector. He +received five hundred votes against seven hundred for Disraeli, who was +elected. He says in a letter to Dr. J. Hutchinson Sterling:-- + + "I count that vote as quite the fairest laurel that has ever fallen + on me; and I cannot but feel deeply grateful to my young friends in + the University, and to yourself, who have been my counsellor and my + too partial advocate." + +Mr. Cabot informs us in his Prefatory Note to "Letters and Social Aims," +that the proof sheets of this volume, now forming the eighth of the +collected works, showed even before the burning of his house and the +illness which followed from the shock, that his loss of memory and of +mental grasp was such as to make it unlikely that he would in any case +have been able to accomplish what he had undertaken. Sentences, even +whole pages, were repeated, and there was a want of order beyond what +even he would have tolerated:-- + + "There is nothing here that he did not write, and he gave his + full approval to whatever was done in the way of selection and + arrangement; but I cannot say that he applied his mind very closely + to the matter." + +This volume contains eleven Essays, the subjects of which, as just +enumerated, are very various. The longest and most elaborate paper is +that entitled "Poetry and Imagination." I have room for little more than +the enumeration of the different headings of this long Essay. By these +it will be seen how wide a ground it covers. They are "Introductory;" +"Poetry;" "Imagination;" "Veracity;" "Creation;" "Melody, Rhythm, Form;" +"Bards and Trouveurs;" "Morals;" "Transcendency." Many thoughts with +which we are familiar are reproduced, expanded, and illustrated in this +Essay. Unity in multiplicity, the symbolism of nature, and others of his +leading ideas appear in new phrases, not unwelcome, for they look fresh +in every restatement. It would be easy to select a score of pointed +sayings, striking images, large generalizations. Some of these we find +repeated in his verse. Thus:-- + + "Michael Angelo is largely filled with the Creator that made and + makes men. How much of the original craft remains in him, and he a + mortal man!" + +And so in the well remembered lines of "The Problem":-- + + "Himself from God he could not free." + +"He knows that he did not make his thought,--no, his thought made him, +and made the sun and stars." + + "Art might obey but not surpass. + The passive Master lent his hand + To the vast soul that o'er him planned." + +Hope is at the bottom of every Essay of Emerson's as it was at the +bottom of Pandora's box:-- + + "I never doubt the riches of nature, the gifts of the future, the + immense wealth of the mind. O yes, poets we shall have, mythology, + symbols, religion of our own. + + --"Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every + fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song." + +Under the title "Social Aims" he gives some wise counsel concerning +manners and conversation. One of these precepts will serve as a +specimen--if we have met with it before it is none the worse for wear:-- + + "Shun the negative side. Never worry people with; your contritions, + nor with dismal views of politics or society. Never name sickness; + even if you could trust yourself on that perilous topic, beware of + unmuzzling a valetudinarian, who will give you enough of it." + +We have had one Essay on "Eloquence" already. One extract from this new +discourse on the same subject must serve our turn:-- + + "These are ascending stairs,--a good voice, winning manners, plain + speech, chastened, however, by the schools into correctness; but + we must come to the main matter, of power of statement,--know your + fact; hug your fact. For the essential thing is heat, and heat comes + of sincerity. Speak what you know and believe; and are personally in + it; and are answerable for every word. Eloquence is _the power to_ + _translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the + person to whom you speak_." + +The italics are Emerson's. + +If our learned and excellent John Cotton used to sweeten his mouth +before going to bed with a bit of Calvin, we may as wisely sweeten and +strengthen our sense of existence with a morsel or two from Emerson's +Essay on "Resources":-- + + "A Schopenhauer, with logic and learning and wit, teaching + pessimism,--teaching that this is the worst of all possible worlds, + and inferring that sleep is better than waking, and death than + sleep,--all the talent in the world cannot save him from being + odious. But if instead of these negatives you give me affirmatives; + if you tell me that there is always life for the living; that what + man has done man can do; that this world belongs to the energetic; + that there is always a way to everything desirable; that every man + is provided, in the new bias of his faculty, with a key to + nature, and that man only rightly knows himself as far as he has + experimented on things,--I am invigorated, put into genial and + working temper; the horizon opens, and we are full of good-will and + gratitude to the Cause of Causes." + +The Essay or Lecture on "The Comic" may have formed a part of a series +he had contemplated on the intellectual processes. Two or three sayings +in it will show his view sufficiently:-- + + "The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or + well-intended halfness; a non-performance of what is pretended to + be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of + performance. + + "If the essence of the Comic be the contrast in the intellect + between the idea and the false performance, there is good reason why + we should be affected by the exposure. We have no deeper interest + than our integrity, and that we should be made aware by joke and by + stroke of any lie we entertain. Besides, a perception of the comic + seems to be a balance-wheel in our metaphysical structure. It + appears to be an essential element in a fine character.--A rogue + alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, + his fellow-men can do little for him." + +These and other sayings of like purport are illustrated by +well-preserved stories and anecdotes not for the most part of very +recent date. + +"Quotation and Originality" furnishes the key to Emerson's workshop. He +believed in quotation, and borrowed from everybody and every book. Not +in any stealthy or shame-faced way, but proudly, royally, as a king +borrows from one of his attendants the coin that bears his own image and +superscription. + + "All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every + moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two + strands.--We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, + religion, customs, and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, + tables and chairs by imitation.-- + + "The borrowing is often honest enough and comes of magnanimity and + stoutness. A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his + invention when his memory serves him with a word as good. + + "Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of + it."-- + +--"The Progress of Culture," his second Phi Beta Kappa oration, has +already been mentioned. + +--The lesson of self-reliance, which he is never tired of inculcating, +is repeated and enforced in the Essay on "Greatness." + + "There are certain points of identity in which these masters agree. + Self-respect is the early form in which greatness appears.--Stick to + your own; don't inculpate yourself in the local, social, or national + crime, but follow the path your genius traces like the galaxy of + heaven for you to walk in. + + "Every mind has a new compass, a new direction of its own, + differencing its genius and aim from every other mind.--We call this + specialty the _bias_ of each individual. And none of us will ever + accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens + to this whisper which is heard by him alone." + +If to follow this native bias is the first rule, the second is +concentration.--To the bias of the individual mind must be added the +most catholic receptivity for the genius of others. + + "Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every + man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of + him."-- + + "The man whom we have not seen, in whom no regard of self degraded + the adorer of the laws,--who by governing himself governed others; + sportive in manner, but inexorable in act; who sees longevity in his + cause; whose aim is always distinct to him; who is suffered to be + himself in society; who carries fate in his eye;--he it is whom we + seek, encouraged in every good hour that here or hereafter he shall + he found." + +What has Emerson to tell us of "Inspiration?" + + "I believe that nothing great or lasting can be done except by + inspiration, by leaning on the secret augury.-- + + "How many sources of inspiration can we count? As many as our + affinities. But to a practical purpose we may reckon a few of + these." + +I will enumerate them briefly as he gives them, but not attempting to +reproduce his comments on each:-- + +1. Health. 2. The experience of writing letters. 3. The renewed +sensibility which comes after seasons of decay or eclipse of the +faculties. 4. The power of the will. 5. Atmospheric causes, especially +the influence of morning. 6. Solitary converse with nature. 7. Solitude +of itself, like that of a country inn in summer, and of a city hotel +in winter. 8. Conversation. 9. New poetry; by which, he says, he means +chiefly old poetry that is new to the reader. + + "Every book is good to read which sets the reader in a working + mood." + +What can promise more than an Essay by Emerson on "Immortality"? It is +to be feared that many readers will transfer this note of interrogation +to the Essay itself. What is the definite belief of Emerson as expressed +in this discourse,--what does it mean? We must tack together such +sentences as we can find that will stand for an answer:-- + + "I think all sound minds rest on a certain preliminary conviction, + namely, that if it be best that conscious personal life shall + continue, it will continue; if not best, then it will not; and we, + if we saw the whole, should of course see that it was better so." + +This is laying the table for a Barmecide feast of nonentity, with the +possibility of a real banquet to be provided for us. But he continues:-- + + "Schiller said, 'What is so universal as death must be benefit.'" + +He tells us what Michael Angelo said, how Plutarch felt, how Montesquieu +thought about the question, and then glances off from it to the terror +of the child at the thought of life without end, to the story of the two +skeptical statesmen whose unsatisfied inquiry through a long course of +years he holds to be a better affirmative evidence than their failure +to find a confirmation was negative. He argues from our delight in +permanence, from the delicate contrivances and adjustments of created +things, that the contriver cannot be forever hidden, and says at last +plainly:-- + + "Everything is prospective, and man is to live hereafter. That the + world is for his education is the only sane solution of the enigma." + +But turn over a few pages and we may read:-- + + "I confess that everything connected with our personality fails. + Nature never spares the individual; we are always balked of a + complete success; no prosperity is promised to our self-esteem. We + have our indemnity only in the moral and intellectual reality to + which we aspire. That is immortal, and we only through that. The + soul stipulates for no private good. That which is private I see not + to be good. 'If truth live, I live; if justice live, I live,' + said one of the old saints, 'and these by any man's suffering are + enlarged and enthroned.'" + +Once more we get a dissolving view of Emerson's creed, if such a word +applies to a statement like the following:-- + + --"I mean that I am a better believer, and all serious souls are + better believers in the immortality than we can give grounds for. + The real evidence is too subtle, or is higher than we can write down + in propositions, and therefore Wordsworth's 'Ode' is the best modern + essay on the subject." + +Wordsworth's "Ode" is a noble and beautiful dream; is it anything more? +The reader who would finish this Essay, which I suspect to belong to an +early period of Emerson's development, must be prepared to plunge +into mysticism and lose himself at last in an Oriental apologue. The +eschatology which rests upon an English poem and an Indian fable belongs +to the realm of reverie and of imagination rather than the domain of +reason. + +On the 19th of April, 1875, the hundredth anniversary of the "Fight at +the Bridge," Emerson delivered a short Address at the unveiling of the +statue of "The Minute-Man," erected at the place of the conflict, to +commemorate the event. This is the last Address he ever wrote, though he +delivered one or more after this date. From the manuscript which lies +before me I extract a single passage:-- + + "In the year 1775 we had many enemies and many friends in England, + but our one benefactor was King George the Third. The time had + arrived for the political severance of America, that it might play + its part in the history of this globe, and the inscrutable divine + Providence gave an insane king to England. In the resistance of the + Colonies, he alone was immovable on the question of force. England + was so dear to us that the Colonies could only be absolutely + disunited by violence from England, and only one man could compel + the resort to violence. Parliament wavered, Lord North wavered, all + the ministers wavered, but the king had the insanity of one idea; he + was immovable, he insisted on the impossible, so the army was sent, + America was instantly united, and the Nation born." + +There is certainly no mark of mental failure in this paragraph, written +at a period when he had long ceased almost entirely from his literary +labors. + +Emerson's collected "Poems" constitute the ninth volume of the recent +collected edition of his works. They will be considered in a following +chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +1878-1882. AET. 75-79. + +Last Literary Labors.--Addresses and Essays.--"Lectures and Biographical +Sketches."--"Miscellanies." + + +The decline of Emerson's working faculties went on gently and gradually, +but he was not condemned to entire inactivity. His faithful daughter, +Ellen, followed him with assiduous, quiet, ever watchful care, aiding +his failing memory, bringing order into the chaos of his manuscript, an +echo before the voice whose words it was to shape for him when his mind +faltered and needed a momentary impulse. + +With her helpful presence and support he ventured from time to time +to read a paper before a select audience. Thus, March 30, 1878, he +delivered a Lecture in the Old South Church,--"Fortune of the Republic." +On the 5th of May, 1879, he read a Lecture in the Chapel of Divinity +College, Harvard University,--"The Preacher." In 1881 he read a paper on +Carlyle before the Massachusetts Historical Society.--He also published +a paper in the "North American Review," in 1878,--"The Sovereignty of +Ethics," and one on "Superlatives," in "The Century" for February, 1882. + +But in these years he was writing little or nothing. All these papers +were taken from among his manuscripts of different dates. The same +thing is true of the volumes published since his death; they were +only compilations from his stores of unpublished matter, and their +arrangement was the work of Mr. Emerson's friend and literary executor, +Mr. Cabot. These volumes cannot be considered as belonging to any single +period of his literary life. + +Mr. Cabot prefixes to the tenth volume of Emerson's collected works, +which bears the title, "Lectures and Biographical Sketches," the +following:-- + +"NOTE. + +"Of the pieces included in this volume the following, namely, those from +'The Dial,' 'Character,' 'Plutarch,' and the biographical sketches of +Dr. Ripley, of Mr. Hoar, and of Henry Thoreau, were printed by Mr. +Emerson before I took any part in the arrangement of his papers. The +rest, except the sketch of Miss Mary Emerson, I got ready for his use +in readings to his friends, or to a limited public. He had given up +the regular practice of lecturing, but would sometimes, upon special +request, read a paper that had been prepared for him from his +manuscripts, in the manner described in the Preface to 'Letters and +Social Aims,'--some former lecture serving as a nucleus for the new. +Some of these papers he afterwards allowed to be printed; others, +namely, 'Aristocracy,' 'Education,' 'The Man of Letters,' 'The Scholar,' +'Historic Notes of Life and Letters in New England,' 'Mary Moody +Emerson,' are now published for the first time." + +Some of these papers I have already had occasion to refer to. From +several of the others I will make one or two extracts,--a difficult +task, so closely are the thoughts packed together. + +From "Demonology":-- + + "I say to the table-rappers + + 'I will believe + Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,' + And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate!" + + "Meantime far be from me the impatience which cannot brook the + supernatural, the vast; far be from me the lust of explaining away + all which appeals to the imagination, and the great presentiments + which haunt us. Willingly I too say Hail! to the unknown, awful + powers which transcend the ken of the understanding." + +I will not quote anything from the Essay called "Aristocracy." But let +him who wishes to know what the word means to an American whose life has +come from New England soil, whose ancestors have breathed New England +air for many generations, read it, and he will find a new interpretation +of a very old and often greatly wronged appellation. + +"Perpetual Forces" is one of those prose poems,--of his earlier epoch, +I have no doubt,--in which he plays with the facts of science with +singular grace and freedom. + +What man could speak more fitly, with more authority of "Character," +than Emerson? When he says, "If all things are taken away, I have +still all things in my relation to the Eternal," we feel that such an +utterance is as natural to his pure spirit as breathing to the frame in +which it was imprisoned. + +We have had a glimpse of Emerson as a school-master, but behind and far +above the teaching drill-master's desk is the chair from which he speaks +to us of "Education." Compare the short and easy method of the wise man +of old,--"He that spareth his rod hateth his son," with this other, "Be +the companion of his thought, the friend of his friendship, the lover of +his virtue,--but no kinsman of his sin." + +"The Superlative" will prove light and pleasant reading after these +graver essays. [Greek: Maedhen agan]--_ne quid nimis_,--nothing in +excess, was his precept as to adjectives. + +Two sentences from "The Sovereignty of Ethics" will go far towards +reconciling elderly readers who have not forgotten the Westminster +Assembly's Catechism with this sweet-souled dealer in spiritual +dynamite:-- + + "Luther would cut his hand off sooner than write theses against the + pope if he suspected that he was bringing on with all his might the + pale negations of Boston Unitarianism.-- + + "If I miss the inspiration of the saints of Calvinism, or of + Platonism, or of Buddhism, our times are not up to theirs, or, more + truly, have not yet their own legitimate force." + +So, too, this from "The Preacher":-- + + "All civil mankind have agreed in leaving one day for contemplation + against six for practice. I hope that day will keep its honor and + its use.--The Sabbath changes its forms from age to age, but the + substantial benefit endures." + +The special interest of the Address called "The Man of Letters" is, that +it was delivered during the war. He was no advocate for peace where +great principles were at the bottom of the conflict:-- + + "War, seeking for the roots of strength, comes upon the moral + aspects at once.--War ennobles the age.--Battle, with the sword, + has cut many a Gordian knot in twain which all the wit of East and + West, of Northern and Border statesmen could not untie." + +"The Scholar" was delivered before two Societies at the University of +Virginia so late as the year 1876. If I must select any of its wise +words, I will choose the questions which he has himself italicized to +show his sense of their importance:-- + + "For all men, all women, Time, your country, your condition, the + invisible world are the interrogators: _Who are you? What do you? + Can you obtain what you wish? Is there method in your consciousness? + Can you see tendency in your life? Can you help any soul_? + + "Can he answer these questions? Can he dispose of them? Happy if you + can answer them mutely in the order and disposition of your life! + Happy for more than yourself, a benefactor of men, if you can answer + them in works of wisdom, art, or poetry; bestowing on the general + mind of men organic creations, to be the guidance and delight of all + who know them." + +The Essay on "Plutarch" has a peculiar value from the fact that Emerson +owes more to him than to any other author except Plato, who is one of +the only two writers quoted oftener than Plutarch. _Mutato nomine_, the +portrait which Emerson draws of the Greek moralist might stand for his +own:-- + + "Whatever is eminent in fact or in fiction, in opinion, in + character, in institutions, in science--natural, moral, or + metaphysical, or in memorable sayings drew his attention and came to + his pen with more or less fulness of record. + + "A poet in verse or prose must have a sensuous eye, but an + intellectual co-perception. Plutarch's memory is full and his + horizon wide. Nothing touches man but he feels to be his. + + "Plutarch had a religion which Montaigne wanted, and which defends + him from wantonness; and though Plutarch is as plain spoken, his + moral sentiment is always pure.-- + + "I do not know where to find a book--to borrow a phrase of Ben + Jonson's--'so rammed with life,' and this in chapters chiefly + ethical, which are so prone to be heavy and sentimental.--His + vivacity and abundance never leave him to loiter or pound on an + incident.-- + + "In his immense quotation and allusion we quickly cease to + discriminate between what he quotes and what he invents.--'Tis all + Plutarch, by right of eminent domain, and all property vests in this + emperor. + + "It is in consequence of this poetic trait in his mind, that I + confess that, in reading him, I embrace the particulars, and carry a + faint memory of the argument or general design of the chapter; but + he is not less welcome, and he leaves the reader with a relish and a + necessity for completing his studies. + + "He is a pronounced idealist, who does not hesitate to say, like + another Berkeley, 'Matter is itself privation.'-- + + "Of philosophy he is more interested in the results than in the + method. He has a just instinct of the presence of a master, and + prefers to sit as a scholar with Plato than as a disputant. + + "His natural history is that of a lover and poet, and not of a + physicist. + + "But though curious in the questions of the schools on the nature + and genesis of things, his extreme interest in every trait of + character, and his broad humanity, lead him constantly to Morals, to + the study of the Beautiful and Good. Hence his love of heroes, his + rule of life, and his clear convictions of the high destiny of the + soul. La Harpe said that 'Plutarch is the genius the most naturally + moral that ever existed.' + + "Plutarch thought 'truth to be the greatest good that man can + receive, and the goodliest blessing that God can give.' + + "All his judgments are noble. He thought with Epicurus that it is + more delightful to do than to receive a kindness. + + "Plutarch was well-born, well-conditioned--eminently social, he was + a king in his own house, surrounded himself with select friends, and + knew the high value of good conversation.-- + + "He had that universal sympathy with genius which makes all its + victories his own; though he never used verse, he had many qualities + of the poet in the power of his imagination, the speed of his mental + associations, and his sharp, objective eyes. But what specially + marks him, he is a chief example of the illumination of the + intellect by the force of morals." + +How much, of all this would have been recognized as just and true if it +had been set down in an obituary notice of Emerson! + +I have already made use of several of the other papers contained in this +volume, and will merely enumerate all that follow the "Plutarch." Some +of the titles will be sure to attract the reader. They are "Historic +Notes of Life and Letters in New England;" "The Chardon Street +Convention;" "Ezra Ripley, D.D.;" "Mary Moody Emerson;" "Samuel Hoar;" +"Thoreau;" "Carlyle."-- + +Mr. Cabot prefaces the eleventh and last volume of Emerson's writings +with the following "Note":-- + + "The first five pieces in this volume, and the 'Editorial Address' + from the 'Massachusetts Quarterly Review,' were published by Mr. + Emerson long ago. The speeches at the John Brown, the Walter Scott, + and the Free Religious Association meetings were published at the + time, no doubt with his consent, but without any active co-operation + on his part. The 'Fortune of the Republic' appeared separately in + 1879; the rest have never been published. In none was any change + from the original form made by me, except in the 'Fortune of the + Republic,' which was made up of several lectures for the occasion + upon which it was read." + +The volume of "Miscellanies" contains no less than twenty-three pieces +of very various lengths and relating to many different subjects. The +five referred to as having been previously published are, "The Lord's +Supper," the "Historical Discourse in Concord," the "Address at the +Dedication of the Soldiers' Monument in Concord," the "Address on +Emancipation in the British West Indies," and the Lecture or Essay on +"War,"--all of which have been already spoken of. + +Next in order comes a Lecture on the "Fugitive Slave Law." Emerson says, +"I do not often speak on public questions.--My own habitual view is to +the well-being of scholars." But he leaves his studies to attack the +institution of slavery, from which he says he himself has never suffered +any inconvenience, and the "Law," which the abolitionists would always +call the "Fugitive Slave _Bill_." Emerson had a great admiration for +Mr. Webster, but he did not spare him as he recalled his speech of the +seventh of March, just four years before the delivery of this Lecture. +He warns against false leadership:-- + + "To make good the cause of Freedom, you must draw off from all + foolish trust in others.--He only who is able to stand alone is + qualified for society. And that I understand to be the end for which + a soul exists in this world,--to be himself the counter-balance of + all falsehood and all wrong.--The Anglo-Saxon race is proud and + strong and selfish.--England maintains trade, not liberty." + +Cowper had said long before this:-- + + "doing good, + Disinterested good, is not our trade." + +And America found that England had not learned that trade when, fifteen +years after this discourse was delivered, the conflict between the free +and slave states threatened the ruin of the great Republic, and England +forgot her Anti-slavery in the prospect of the downfall of "a great +empire which threatens to overshadow the whole earth." + +It must be remembered that Emerson had never been identified with the +abolitionists. But an individual act of wrong sometimes gives a sharp +point to a blunt dagger which has been kept in its sheath too long:-- + + "The events of the last few years and months and days have taught us + the lessons of centuries. I do not see how a barbarous community and + a civilized community can constitute one State. I think we must get + rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom." + +These were his words on the 26th of May, 1856, in his speech on "The +Assault upon Mr. Sumner." A few months later, in his "Speech on the +Affairs of Kansas," delivered almost five years before the first gun +was fired at Fort Sumter, he spoke the following fatally prophetic and +commanding words:-- + + "The hour is coming when the strongest will not be strong enough. + A harder task will the new revolution of the nineteenth century be + than was the revolution of the eighteenth century. I think the + American Revolution bought its glory cheap. If the problem was new, + it was simple. If there were few people, they were united, and the + enemy three thousand miles off. But now, vast property, gigantic + interests, family connections, webs of party, cover the land with a + net-work that immensely multiplies the dangers of war. + + "Fellow-citizens, in these times full of the fate of the Republic, + I think the towns should hold town meetings, and resolve themselves + into Committees of Safety, go into permanent sessions, adjourning + from week to week, from month to month. I wish we could send the + sergeant-at-arms to stop every American who is about to leave the + country. Send home every one who is abroad, lest they should find no + country to return to. Come home and stay at home while there is a + country to save. When it is lost it will be time enough then for any + who are luckless enough to remain alive to gather up their clothes + and depart to some land where freedom exists." + +Two short speeches follow, one delivered at a meeting for the relief of +the family of John Brown, on the 18th of November, 1859, the other after +his execution:-- + + "Our blind statesmen," he says, "go up and down, with committees of + vigilance and safety, hunting for the origin of this new heresy. + They will need a very vigilant committee indeed to find its + birthplace, and a very strong force to root it out. For the + arch-Abolitionist, older than Brown, and older than the Shenandoah + Mountains, is Love, whose other name is Justice, which was before + Alfred, before Lycurgus, before Slavery, and will be after it." + +From his "Discourse on Theodore Parker" I take the following vigorous +sentence:-- + + "His commanding merit as a reformer is this, that he insisted beyond + all men in pulpits,--I cannot think of one rival,--that the essence + of Christianity is its practical morals; it is there for use, or + it is nothing; and if you combine it with sharp trading, or with + ordinary city ambitions to gloze over municipal corruptions, or + private intemperance, or successful fraud, or immoral politics, or + unjust wars, or the cheating of Indians, or the robbery of frontier + nations, or leaving your principles at home to follow on the + high seas or in Europe a supple complaisance to tyrants,--it is + hypocrisy, and the truth is not in you; and no love of religious + music, or of dreams of Swedenborg, or praise of John Wesley, or of + Jeremy Taylor, can save you from the Satan which you are." + +The Lecture on "American Civilization," made up from two Addresses, one +of which was delivered at Washington on the 31st of January, 1862, is, +as might be expected, full of anti-slavery. That on the "Emancipation +Proclamation," delivered in Boston in September, 1862, is as full of +"silent joy" at the advent of "a day which most of us dared not hope +to see,--an event worth the dreadful war, worth its costs and +uncertainties." + +From the "Remarks" at the funeral services for Abraham Lincoln, held +in Concord on the 19th of April, 1865, I extract this admirably drawn +character of the man:-- + + "He is the true history of the American people in his time. Step by + step he walked before them; slow with their slowness, quickening + his march by theirs, the true representative of this continent; an + entirely public man; father of his country, the pulse of twenty + millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds + articulated by his tongue." + +The following are the titles of the remaining contents of this volume: +"Harvard Commemoration Speech;" "Editor's Address: Massachusetts +Quarterly Review;" "Woman;" "Address to Kossuth;" "Robert Burns;" +"Walter Scott;" "Remarks at the Organization of the Free Religious +Association;" "Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Free Religious +Association;" "The Fortune of the Republic." In treating of the +"Woman Question," Emerson speaks temperately, delicately, with perfect +fairness, but leaves it in the hands of the women themselves to +determine whether they shall have an equal part in public affairs. "The +new movement," he says, "is only a tide shared by the spirits of man and +woman; and you may proceed in the faith that whatever the woman's heart +is prompted to desire, the man's mind is simultaneously prompted to +accomplish." + +It is hard to turn a leaf in any book of Emerson's writing without +finding some pithy remark or some striking image or witty comment which +illuminates the page where we find it and tempts us to seize upon it for +an extract. But I must content myself with these few sentences from "The +Fortune of the Republic," the last address he ever delivered, in which +his belief in America and her institutions, and his trust in the +Providence which overrules all nations and all worlds, have found +fitting utterance:-- + + "Let the passion for America cast out the passion for Europe. Here + let there be what the earth waits for,--exalted manhood. What this + country longs for is personalities, grand persons, to counteract its + materialities. For it is the rule of the universe that corn shall + serve man, and not man corn. + + "They who find America insipid,--they for whom London and Paris have + spoiled their own homes, can be spared to return to those cities. I + not only see a career at home for more genius than we have, but for + more than there is in the world. + + "Our helm is given up to a better guidance than our own; the course + of events is quite too strong for any helmsman, and our little + wherry is taken in tow by the ship of the great Admiral which knows + the way, and has the force to draw men and states and planets to + their good." + +With this expression of love and respect for his country and trust +in his country's God, we may take leave of Emerson's prose writings. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +EMERSON'S POEMS. + + +The following "Prefatory Note" by Mr. Cabot introduces the ninth volume +of the series of Emerson's collected works:-- + + "This volume contains nearly all the pieces included in the POEMS + and MAY-DAY of former editions. In 1876 Mr. Emerson published a + selection from his poems, adding six new ones, and omitting many. + Of those omitted, several are now restored, in accordance with the + expressed wishes of many readers and lovers of them. Also some + pieces never before published are here given in an Appendix, on + various grounds. Some of them appear to have had Emerson's approval, + but to have been withheld because they were unfinished. These it + seemed best not to suppress, now that they can never receive their + completion. Others, mostly of an early date, remained unpublished + doubtless because of their personal and private nature. Some of + these seem to have an autobiographic interest sufficient to justify + their publication. Others again, often mere fragments, have been + admitted as characteristic, or as expressing in poetic form thoughts + found in the Essays. + + "In coming to a decision in these cases, it seemed on the whole + preferable to take the risk of including too much rather than the + opposite, and to leave the task of further winnowing to the hands of + time. + + "As was stated in the Preface to the first volume of this edition of + Mr. Emerson's writings, the readings adopted by him in the "Selected + Poems" have not always been followed here, but in some cases + preference has been given to corrections made by him when he was in + fuller strength than at the time of the last revision. + + "A change in the arrangement of the stanzas of "May-Day," in the + part representative of the march of Spring, received his sanction as + bringing them more nearly in accordance with the events in Nature." + +Emerson's verse has been a fertile source of discussion. Some have +called him a poet and nothing but a poet, and some have made so much of +the palpable defects of his verse that they have forgotten to recognize +its true claims. His prose is often highly poetical, but his verse is +something more than the most imaginative and rhetorical passages of his +prose. An illustration presently to be given will make this point clear. + +Poetry is to prose what the so-called full dress of the ball-room is to +the plainer garments of the household and the street. Full dress, as +we call it, is so full of beauty that it cannot hold it all, and the +redundancy of nature overflows the narrowed margin of satin or velvet. + +It reconciles us to its approach to nudity by the richness of its +drapery and ornaments. A pearl or diamond necklace or a blushing bouquet +excuses the liberal allowance of undisguised nature. We expect from the +fine lady in her brocades and laces a generosity of display which we +should reprimand with the virtuous severity of Tartuffe if ventured upon +by the waiting-maid in her calicoes. So the poet reveals himself under +the protection of his imaginative and melodious phrases,--the flowers +and jewels of his vocabulary. + +Here is a prose sentence from Emerson's "Works and Days:"-- + + "The days are ever divine as to the first Aryans. They come and go + like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; + but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, + they carry them as silently away." + +Now see this thought in full dress, and then ask what is the difference +between prose and poetry:-- + + "DAYS. + + "Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, + Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, + And marching single in an endless file, + Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. + To each they offer gifts after his will, + Bread, kingdom, stars, and sky that holds them all. + I, in my pleachéd garden watched the pomp, + Forgot my morning wishes, hastily + Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day + Turned and departed silent. I too late + Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn." + +--Cinderella at the fireside, and Cinderella at the prince's ball! The +full dress version of the thought is glittering with new images like +bracelets and brooches and ear-rings, and fringed with fresh adjectives +like edges of embroidery. That one word _pleachéd,_ an heir-loom from +Queen Elizabeth's day, gives to the noble sonnet an antique dignity and +charm like the effect of an ancestral jewel. But mark that now the +poet reveals himself as he could not in the prosaic form of the first +extract. It is his own neglect of his great opportunity of which he +now speaks, and not merely the indolent indifference of others. It +is himself who is the object of scorn. Self-revelation of beauty +embellished by ornaments is the privilege of full dress; self-revelation +in the florid costume of verse is the divine right of the poet. Passion +that must express itself longs always for the freedom of rhythmic +utterance. And in spite of the exaggeration and extravagance which +shield themselves under the claim of poetic license, I venture to affirm +that "_In_ vino _veritas_" is not truer than _In_ carmine _veritas_. +As a further illustration of what has just been said of the +self-revelations to be looked for in verse, and in Emerson's verse more +especially, let the reader observe how freely he talks about his bodily +presence and infirmities in his poetry,--subjects he never referred to +in prose, except incidentally, in private letters. + +Emerson is so essentially a poet that whole pages of his are like so +many litanies of alternating chants and recitations. His thoughts slip +on and off their light rhythmic robes just as the mood takes him, as was +shown in the passage I have quoted in prose and in verse. Many of the +metrical preludes to his lectures are a versified and condensed abstract +of the leading doctrine of the discourse. They are a curious instance of +survival; the lecturer, once a preacher, still wants his text; and finds +his scriptural motto in his own rhythmic inspiration. + +Shall we rank Emerson among the great poets or not? + + "The great poets are judged by the frame of mind they induce; and to + them, of all men, the severest criticism is due." + +These are Emerson's words in the Preface to "Parnassus." + +His own poems will stand this test as well as any in the language. They +lift the reader into a higher region of thought and feeling. This seems +to me a better test to apply to them than the one which Mr. Arnold cited +from Milton. The passage containing this must be taken, not alone, but +with the context. Milton had been speaking of "Logic" and of "Rhetoric," +and spoke of poetry "as being less subtile and fine, but more simple, +sensuous, and passionate." This relative statement, it must not be +forgotten, is conditioned by what went before. If the terms are used +absolutely, and not comparatively, as Milton used them, they must be +very elastic if they would stretch widely enough to include all the +poems which the world recognizes as masterpieces, nay, to include some +of the best of Milton's own. + +In spite of what he said about himself in his letter to Carlyle, Emerson +was not only a poet, but a very remarkable one. Whether a great poet +or not will depend on the scale we use and the meaning we affix to the +term. The heat at eighty degrees of Fahrenheit is one thing and the heat +at eighty degrees of Réaumur is a very different matter. The rank of +poets is a point of very unstable equilibrium. From the days of Homer to +our own, critics have been disputing about the place to be assigned to +this or that member of the poetic hierarchy. It is not the most popular +poet who is necessarily the greatest; Wordsworth never had half the +popularity of Scott or Moore. It is not the multitude of remembered +passages which settles the rank of a metrical composition as poetry. +Gray's "Elegy," it is true, is full of lines we all remember, and is a +great poem, if that term can be applied to any piece of verse of that +length. But what shall we say to the "Ars Poetica" of Horace? It is +crowded with lines worn smooth as old sesterces by constant quotation. +And yet we should rather call it a versified criticism than a poem in +the full sense of that word. And what shall we do with Pope's "Essay on +Man," which has furnished more familiar lines than "Paradise Lost" and +"Paradise Regained" both together? For all that, we know there is a +school of writers who will not allow that Pope deserves the name of +poet. + +It takes a generation or two to find out what are the passages in +a great writer which are to become commonplaces in literature and +conversation. It is to be remembered that Emerson is one of those +authors whose popularity must diffuse itself from above downwards. And +after all, few will dare assert that "The Vanity of Human Wishes" is +greater as a poem than Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind," or Keats's "Ode +to a Nightingale," because no line in either of these poems is half so +often quoted as + + "To point a moral or adorn a tale." + +We cannot do better than begin our consideration of Emerson's poetry +with Emerson's own self-estimate. He says in a fit of humility, writing +to Carlyle:-- + + "I do not belong to the poets, but only to a low department of + literature, the reporters, suburban men." + +But Miss Peabody writes to Mr. Ireland:-- + + "He once said to me, 'I am not a great poet--but whatever is of me + _is a poet_.'" + +These opposite feelings were the offspring of different moods and +different periods. + +Here is a fragment, written at the age of twenty-eight, in which his +self-distrust and his consciousness of the "vision," if not "the +faculty, divine," are revealed with the brave nudity of the rhythmic +confessional:-- + + "A dull uncertain brain, + But gifted yet to know + That God has cherubim who go + Singing an immortal strain, + Immortal here below. + I know the mighty bards, + I listen while they sing, + And now I know + The secret store + Which these explore + When they with torch of genius pierce + The tenfold clouds that cover + The riches of the universe + From God's adoring lover. + And if to me it is not given + To fetch one ingot thence + Of that unfading gold of Heaven + His merchants may dispense, + Yet well I know the royal mine + And know the sparkle of its ore, + Know Heaven's truth from lies that shine,-- + Explored, they teach us to explore." + +These lines are from "The Poet," a series of fragments given in the +"Appendix," which, with his first volume, "Poems," his second, "May-Day, +and other Pieces," form the complete ninth volume of the new series. +These fragments contain some of the loftiest and noblest passages to be +found in his poetical works, and if the reader should doubt which of +Emerson's self-estimates in his two different moods spoken of above had +most truth in it, he could question no longer after reading "The Poet." + +Emerson has the most exalted ideas of the true poetic function, as this +passage from "Merlin" sufficiently shows:-- + + "Thy trivial harp will never please + Or fill my craving ear; + Its chords should ring as blows the breeze, + Free, peremptory, clear. + No jingling serenader's art + Nor tinkling of piano-strings + Can make the wild blood start + In its mystic springs; + The kingly bard + Must smite the chords rudely and hard, + As with hammer or with mace; + That they may render back + Artful thunder, which conveys + Secrets of the solar track, + Sparks of the supersolar blaze. + + * * * * * + + Great is the art, + Great be the manners of the bard. + He shall not his brain encumber + With the coil of rhythm and number; + But leaving rule and pale forethought + He shall aye climb + For his rhyme. + 'Pass in, pass in,' the angels say, + 'In to the upper doors, + Nor count compartments of the floors, + But mount to paradise + By the stairway of surprise.'" + +And here is another passage from "The Poet," mentioned in the quotation +before the last, in which the bard is spoken of as performing greater +miracles than those ascribed to Orpheus:-- + + "A Brother of the world, his song + Sounded like a tempest strong + Which tore from oaks their branches broad, + And stars from the ecliptic road. + Time wore he as his clothing-weeds, + He sowed the sun and moon for seeds. + As melts the iceberg in the seas, + As clouds give rain to the eastern breeze, + As snow-banks thaw in April's beam, + The solid kingdoms like a dream + Resist in vain his motive strain, + They totter now and float amain. + For the Muse gave special charge + His learning should be deep and large, + And his training should not scant + The deepest lore of wealth or want: + His flesh should feel, his eyes should read + Every maxim of dreadful Need; + In its fulness he should taste + Life's honeycomb, but not too fast; + Full fed, but not intoxicated; + He should be loved; he should be hated; + A blooming child to children dear, + His heart should palpitate with fear." + +We look naturally to see what poets were Emerson's chief favorites. In +his poems "The Test" and "The Solution," we find that the five whom +he recognizes as defying the powers of destruction are Homer, Dante, +Shakespeare, Swedenborg, Goethe. + +Here are a few of his poetical characterizations from "The Harp:"-- + + "And this at least I dare affirm, + Since genius too has bound and term, + There is no bard in all the choir, + Not Homer's self, the poet-sire, + Wise Milton's odes of pensive pleasure, + Or Shakespeare whom no mind can measure, + Nor Collins' verse of tender pain, + Nor Byron's clarion of disdain, + Scott, the delight of generous boys, + Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice,-- + Not one of all can put in verse, + Or to this presence could rehearse + The sights and voices ravishing + The boy knew on the hills in spring."-- + +In the notice of "Parnassus" some of his preferences have been already +mentioned. + +Comparisons between men of genius for the sake of aggrandizing the +one at the expense of the other are the staple of the meaner kinds of +criticism. No lover of art will clash a Venetian goblet against a Roman +amphora to see which is strongest; no lover of nature undervalues a +violet because it is not a rose. But comparisons used in the way of +description are not odious. + +The difference between Emerson's poetry and that of the contemporaries +with whom he would naturally be compared is that of algebra and +arithmetic. He deals largely in general symbols, abstractions, and +infinite series. He is always seeing the universal in the particular. +The great multitude of mankind care more for two and two, something +definite, a fixed quantity, than for _a_ + _b's_ and _x^{2's}_,--symbols +used for undetermined amounts and indefinite possibilities. Emerson is +a citizen of the universe who has taken up his residence for a few days +and nights in this travelling caravansary between the two inns that +hang out the signs of Venus and Mars. This little planet could not +provincialize such a man. The multiplication-table is for the every day +use of every day earth-people, but the symbols he deals with are +too vast, sometimes, we must own, too vague, for the unilluminated +terrestrial and arithmetical intelligence. One cannot help feeling that +he might have dropped in upon us from some remote centre of spiritual +life, where, instead of addition and subtraction, children were taught +quaternions, and where the fourth dimension of space was as familiarly +known to everybody as a foot-measure or a yard-stick is to us. Not that +he himself dealt in the higher or the lower mathematics, but he saw the +hidden spiritual meaning of things as Professor Cayley or Professor +Sylvester see the meaning of their mysterious formulae. Without using +the Rosetta-stone of Swedenborg, Emerson finds in every phenomenon of +nature a hieroglyphic. Others measure and describe the monuments,--he +reads the sacred inscriptions. How alive he makes Monadnoc! Dinocrates +undertook to "hew Mount Athos to the shape of man" in the likeness of +Alexander the Great. Without the help of tools or workmen, Emerson makes +"Cheshire's haughty hill" stand before us an impersonation of kingly +humanity, and talk with us as a god from Olympus might have talked. + +This is the fascination of Emerson's poetry; it moves in a world of +universal symbolism. The sense of the infinite fills it with its +majestic presence. It shows, also, that he has a keen delight in the +every-day aspects of nature. But he looks always with the eye of a poet, +never with that of the man of science. The law of association of ideas +is wholly different in the two. The scientific man connects objects in +sequences and series, and in so doing is guided by their collective +resemblances. His aim is to classify and index all that he sees and +contemplates so as to show the relations which unite, and learn the laws +that govern, the subjects of his study. The poet links the most remote +objects together by the slender filament of wit, the flowery chain of +fancy, or the living, pulsating cord of imagination, always guided by +his instinct for the beautiful. The man of science clings to his object, +as the marsupial embryo to its teat, until he has filled himself as full +as he can hold; the poet takes a sip of his dew-drop, throws his head +up like a chick, rolls his eyes around in contemplation of the heavens +above him and the universe in general, and never thinks of asking a +Linnaean question as to the flower that furnished him his dew-drop. The +poetical and scientific natures rarely coexist; Haller and Goethe are +examples which show that such a union may occur, but as a rule the poet +is contented with the colors of the rainbow and leaves the study of +Fraunhofer's lines to the man of science. + +Though far from being a man of science, Emerson was a realist in the +best sense of that word. But his realities reached to the highest +heavens: like Milton,-- + + "He passed the flaming bounds of place and time; + The living throne, the sapphire blaze + Where angels tremble while they gaze, + HE SAW"-- + +Everywhere his poetry abounds in celestial imagery. If Galileo had been +a poet as well as an astronomer, he would hardly have sowed his verse +thicker with stars than we find them in the poems of Emerson. + +Not less did Emerson clothe the common aspects of life with the colors +of his imagination. He was ready to see beauty everywhere:-- + + "Thou can'st not wave thy staff in air, + Or dip thy paddle in the lake, + But it carves the bow of beauty there, + And the ripples in rhyme the oar forsake." + +He called upon the poet to + + "Tell men what they knew before; + Paint the prospect from their door." + +And his practice was like his counsel. He saw our plain New England life +with as honest New England eyes as ever looked at a huckleberry-bush or +into a milking-pail. + +This noble quality of his had its dangerous side. In one of his exalted +moods he would have us + + "Give to barrows, trays and pans + Grace and glimmer of romance." + +But in his Lecture on "Poetry and Imagination," he says:-- + + "What we once admired as poetry has long since come to be a sound + of tin pans; and many of our later books we have outgrown. Perhaps + Homer and Milton will be tin pans yet." + +The "grace and glimmer of romance" which was to invest the tin pan are +forgotten, and he uses it as a belittling object for comparison. He +himself was not often betrayed into the mistake of confounding the +prosaic with the poetical, but his followers, so far as the "realists" +have taken their hint from him, have done it most thoroughly. Mr. +Whitman enumerates all the objects he happens to be looking at as if +they were equally suggestive to the poetical mind, furnishing his reader +a large assortment on which he may exercise the fullest freedom of +selection. It is only giving him the same liberty that Lord Timothy +Dexter allowed his readers in the matter of punctuation, by leaving all +stops out of his sentences, and printing at the end of his book a page +of commas, semicolons, colons, periods, notes of interrogation and +exclamation, with which the reader was expected to "pepper" the pages as +he might see fit. + +French realism does not stop at the tin pan, but must deal with the +slop-pail and the wash-tub as if it were literally true that + + "In the mud and scum of things + There alway, alway something sings." + +Happy were it for the world if M. Zola and his tribe would stop even +there; but when they cross the borders of science into its infected +districts, leaving behind them the reserve and delicacy which the +genuine scientific observer never forgets to carry with him, they +disgust even those to whom the worst scenes they describe are too +wretchedly familiar. The true realist is such a man as Parent du +Chatelet; exploring all that most tries the senses and the sentiments, +and reporting all truthfully, but soberly, chastely, without needless +circumstance, or picturesque embellishment, for a useful end, and not +for a mere sensational effect. + +What a range of subjects from "The Problem" and "Uriel" and +"Forerunners" to "The Humble-Bee" and "The Titmouse!" Nor let the reader +who thinks the poet must go far to find a fitting theme fail to read the +singularly impressive home-poem, "Hamatreya," beginning with the names +of the successive owners of a piece of land in Concord,--probably the +same he owned after the last of them:-- + + "Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint," + +and ending with the austere and solemn "Earth-Song." + +Full of poetical feeling, and with a strong desire for poetical +expression, Emerson experienced a difficulty in the mechanical part +of metrical composition. His muse picked her way as his speech did in +conversation and in lecturing. He made desperate work now and then with +rhyme and rhythm, showing that though a born poet he was not a born +singer. Think of making "feeble" rhyme with "people," "abroad" with +"Lord," and contemplate the following couplet which one cannot make +rhyme without actual verbicide:-- + + "Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear, + And up the tall mast runs the woodpeck"-are! + +And how could prose go on all-fours more unmetrically than this? + + "In Adirondac lakes + At morn or noon the guide rows bare-headed." + +It was surely not difficult to say-- + + "At morn or noon bare-headed rows the guide." +And yet while we note these blemishes, many of us will confess that we +like his uncombed verse better, oftentimes, than if it were trimmed more +neatly and disposed more nicely. When he is at his best, his lines flow +with careless ease, as a mountain stream tumbles, sometimes rough and +sometimes smooth, but all the more interesting for the rocks it runs +against and the grating of the pebbles it rolls over. + +There is one trick of verse which Emerson occasionally, not very often, +indulges in. This is the crowding of a redundant syllable into a line. +It is a liberty which is not to be abused by the poet. Shakespeare, the +supreme artist, and Milton, the "mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies," +knew how to use it effectively. Shelley employed it freely. Bryant +indulged in it occasionally, and wrote an article in an early number of +the "North American Review" in defence of its use. Willis was fond of +it. As a relief to monotony it may be now and then allowed,--may even +have an agreeable effect in breaking the monotony of too formal verse. +But it may easily become a deformity and a cause of aversion. A humpback +may add picturesqueness to a procession, but if there are too many +humpbacks in line we turn away from the sight of them. Can any ear +reconcile itself to the last of these three lines of Emerson's? + + "Oh, what is Heaven but the fellowship + Of minds that each can stand against the world + By its own meek and incorruptible will?" + +These lines that lift their backs up in the middle--span-worm lines, we +may call them--are not to be commended for common use because some great +poets have now and then admitted them. They have invaded some of our +recent poetry as the canker-worms gather on our elms in June. Emerson +has one or two of them here and there, but they never swarm on his +leaves so as to frighten us away from their neighborhood. + +As for the violently artificial rhythms and rhymes which have reappeared +of late in English and American literature, Emerson would as soon have +tried to ride three horses at once in a circus as to shut himself up in +triolets, or attempt any cat's-cradle tricks of rhyming sleight of hand. + +If we allow that Emerson is not a born singer, that he is a careless +versifier and rhymer, we must still recognize that there is something +in his verse which belongs, indissolubly, sacredly, to his thought. Who +would decant the wine of his poetry from its quaint and antique-looking +_lagena_?--Read his poem to the Aeolian harp ("The Harp") and his model +betrays itself:-- + + "These syllables that Nature spoke, + And the thoughts that in him woke + Can adequately utter none + Save to his ear the wind-harp lone. + Therein I hear the Parcae reel + The threads of man at their humming wheel, + The threads of life and power and pain, + So sweet and mournful falls the strain. + And best can teach its Delphian chord + How Nature to the soul is moored, + If once again that silent string, + As erst it wont, would thrill and ring." + +There is no need of quoting any of the poems which have become familiar +to most true lovers of poetry. Emerson saw fit to imitate the Egyptians +by placing "The Sphinx" at the entrance of his temple of song. This poem +was not fitted to attract worshippers. It is not easy of comprehension, +not pleasing in movement. As at first written it had one verse in it +which sounded so much like a nursery rhyme that Emerson was prevailed +upon to omit it in the later versions. There are noble passages in it, +but they are for the adept and not for the beginner. A commonplace young +person taking up the volume and puzzling his or her way along will come +by and by to the verse:-- + + "Have I a lover + Who is noble and free?-- + I would he were nobler + Than to love me." + +The commonplace young person will be apt to say or think _c'est +magnifique, mais ce n'est pas_--_l'amour_. + +The third poem in the volume, "The Problem," should have stood first in +order. This ranks among the finest of Emerson's poems. All his earlier +verse has a certain freshness which belongs to the first outburst +of song in a poetic nature. "Each and All," "The Humble-Bee," "The +Snow-Storm," should be read before "Uriel," "The World-Soul," or +"Mithridates." "Monadnoc" will be a good test of the reader's taste for +Emerson's poetry, and after this "Woodnotes." + +In studying his poems we must not overlook the delicacy of many of their +descriptive portions. If in the flights of his imagination he is +like the strong-winged bird of passage, in his exquisite choice of +descriptive epithets he reminds me of the _tenui-rostrals._ His subtle +selective instinct penetrates the vocabulary for the one word he wants, +as the long, slender bill of those birds dives deep into the flower for +its drop of honey. Here is a passage showing admirably the two different +conditions: wings closed and the selective instinct picking out its +descriptive expressions; then suddenly wings flashing open and the +imagination in the firmament, where it is always at home. Follow the +pitiful inventory of insignificances of the forlorn being he describes +with a pathetic humor more likely to bring a sigh than a smile, and then +mark the grand hyperbole of the last two lines. The passage is from the +poem called "Destiny":-- + + "Alas! that one is born in blight, + Victim of perpetual slight: + When thou lookest on his face, + Thy heart saith 'Brother, go thy ways! + None shall ask thee what thou doest, + Or care a rush for what thou knowest. + Or listen when thou repliest, + Or remember where thou liest, + Or how thy supper is sodden;' + And another is born + To make the sun forgotten." + +Of all Emerson's poems the "Concord Hymn" is the most nearly complete +and faultless,--but it is not distinctively Emersonian. It is such a +poem as Collins might have written,--it has the very movement and +melody of the "Ode on the Death of Mr. Thomson," and of the "Dirge in +Cymbeline," with the same sweetness and tenderness of feeling. Its one +conspicuous line, + + "And fired the shot heard round the world," + +must not take to itself all the praise deserved by this perfect little +poem, a model for all of its kind. Compact, expressive, serene, solemn, +musical, in four brief stanzas it tells the story of the past, records +the commemorative act of the passing day, and invokes the higher Power +that governs the future to protect the Memorial-stone sacred to Freedom +and her martyrs. + +These poems of Emerson's find the readers that must listen to them and +delight in them, as the "Ancient Mariner" fastened upon the man who must +hear him. If any doubter wishes to test his fitness for reading them, +and if the poems already mentioned are not enough to settle the +question, let him read the paragraph of "May-Day," beginning,-- + + "I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth," + +"Sea-shore," the fine fragments in the "Appendix" to his published +works, called, collectively, "The Poet," blocks bearing the mark of +poetic genius, but left lying round for want of the structural instinct, +and last of all, that which is, in many respects, first of all, the +"Threnody," a lament over the death of his first-born son. This poem has +the dignity of "Lycidas" without its refrigerating classicism, and with +all the tenderness of Cowper's lines on the receipt of his mother's +picture. It may well compare with others of the finest memorial poems in +the language,--with Shelley's "Adonais," and Matthew Arnold's "Thyrsis," +leaving out of view Tennyson's "In Memoriam" as of wider scope and +larger pattern. + +Many critics will concede that there is much truth in Mr. Arnold's +remark on the want of "evolution" in Emerson's poems. One is struck +with the fact that a great number of fragments lie about his poetical +workshop: poems begun and never finished; scraps of poems, chips of +poems, paving the floor with intentions never carried out. One cannot +help remembering Coleridge with his incomplete "Christabel," and his +"Abyssinian Maid," and her dulcimer which she never got a tune out of. +We all know there was good reason why Coleridge should have been infirm +of purpose. But when we look at that great unfinished picture over which +Allston labored with the hopeless ineffectiveness of Sisyphus; when we +go through a whole gallery of pictures by an American artist in which +the backgrounds are slighted as if our midsummer heats had taken away +half the artist's life and vigor; when we walk round whole rooms full of +sketches, impressions, effects, symphonies, invisibilities, and other +apologies for honest work, it would not be strange if it should suggest +a painful course of reflections as to the possibility that there may be +something in our climatic or other conditions which tends to scholastic +and artistic anaemia and insufficiency,--the opposite of what we find +showing itself in the full-blooded verse of poets like Browning and on +the flaming canvas of painters like Henri Regnault. Life seemed lustier +in Old England than in New England to Emerson, to Hawthorne, and to +that admirable observer, Mr. John Burroughs. Perhaps we require another +century or two of acclimation. + +Emerson never grappled with any considerable metrical difficulties. +He wrote by preference in what I have ventured to call the normal +respiratory measure,--octosyllabic verse, in which one common expiration +is enough and not too much for the articulation of each line. The "fatal +facility" for which this verse is noted belongs to it as recited and +also as written, and it implies the need of only a minimum of skill and +labor. I doubt if Emerson would have written a verse of poetry if he had +been obliged to use the Spenserian stanza. In the simple measures he +habitually employed he found least hindrance to his thought. + +Every true poet has an atmosphere as much as every great painter. The +golden sunshine of Claude and the pearly mist of Corot belonged to their +way of looking at nature as much as the color of their eyes and hair +belonged to their personalities. So with the poets; for Wordsworth the +air is always serene and clear, for Byron the sky is uncertain between +storm and sunshine. Emerson sees all nature in the same pearly mist +that wraps the willows and the streams of Corot. Without its own +characteristic atmosphere, illuminated by + + "The light that never was on sea or land," + +we may have good verse but no true poem. In his poetry there is not +merely this atmosphere, but there is always a mirage in the horizon. + +Emerson's poetry is eminently subjective,--if Mr. Ruskin, who hates the +word, will pardon me for using it in connection with a reference to two +of his own chapters in his "Modern Painters." These are the chapter +on "The Pathetic Fallacy," and the one which follows it "On Classical +Landscape." In these he treats of the transfer of a writer's mental or +emotional conditions to the external nature which he contemplates. He +asks his readers to follow him in a long examination of what he calls by +the singular name mentioned, "the pathetic fallacy," because, he says, +"he will find it eminently characteristic of the modern mind; and in the +landscape, whether of literature or art, he will also find the modern +painter endeavoring to express something which he, as a living creature, +imagines in the lifeless object, while the classical and mediaeval +painters were content with expressing the unimaginary and actual +qualities of the object itself." + +Illustrations of Mr. Ruskin's "pathetic fallacy" may be found almost +anywhere in Emerson's poems. Here is one which offers itself without +search:-- + + "Daily the bending skies solicit man, + The seasons chariot him from this exile, + The rainbow hours bedeck his glowing wheels, + The storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along, + Suns haste to set, that so remoter lights + Beckon the wanderer to his vaster home." + +The expression employed by Ruskin gives the idea that he is dealing with +a defect. If he had called the state of mind to which he refers the +_sympathetic illusion_, his readers might have looked upon it more +justly. + +It would be a pleasant and not a difficult task to trace the +resemblances between Emerson's poetry and that of other poets. Two or +three such resemblances have been incidentally referred to, a few others +may be mentioned. + +In his contemplative study of Nature he reminds us of Wordsworth, at +least in certain brief passages, but he has not the staying power of +that long-breathed, not to say long-winded, lover of landscapes. Both +are on the most intimate terms with Nature, but Emerson contemplates +himself as belonging to her, while Wordsworth feels as if she belonged +to him. + + "Good-by, proud world," + +recalls Spenser and Raleigh. "The Humble-Bee" is strongly marked by the +manner and thought of Marvell. Marvell's + + "Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade," + +may well have suggested Emerson's + + "The green silence dost displace + With thy mellow, breezy bass." + +"The Snow-Storm" naturally enough brings to mind the descriptions of +Thomson and of Cowper, and fragment as it is, it will not suffer by +comparison with either. + +"Woodnotes," one of his best poems, has passages that might have been +found in Milton's "Comus;" this, for instance:-- + + "All constellations of the sky + Shed their virtue through his eye. + Him Nature giveth for defence + His formidable innocence." + +Of course his Persian and Indian models betray themselves in many of +his poems, some of which, called translations, sound as if they were +original. + +So we follow him from page to page and find him passing through many +moods, but with one pervading spirit:-- + + "Melting matter into dreams, + Panoramas which I saw, + And whatever glows or seems + Into substance, into Law." + +We think in reading his "Poems" of these words of Sainte-Beuve:-- + + "The greatest poet is not he who has done the best; it is he who + suggests the most; he, not all of whose meaning is at first obvious, + and who leaves you much to desire, to explain, to study; much to + complete in your turn." + +Just what he shows himself in his prose, Emerson shows himself in his +verse. Only when he gets into rhythm and rhyme he lets us see more of +his personality, he ventures upon more audacious imagery, his flight is +higher and swifter, his brief crystalline sentences have dissolved and +pour in continuous streams. Where they came from, or whither they flow +to empty themselves, we cannot always say,--it is enough to enjoy them +as they flow by us. + +Incompleteness--want of beginning, middle, and end,--is their too common +fault. His pages are too much like those artists' studios all hung round +with sketches and "bits" of scenery. "The Snow-Storm" and "Sea-Shore" +are "bits" out of a landscape that was never painted, admirable, so far +as they go, but forcing us to ask, "Where is the painting for which +these scraps are studies?" or "Out of what great picture have these +pieces been cut?" + +We do not want his fragments to be made wholes,--if we did, what hand +could be found equal to the task? We do not want his rhythms and rhymes +smoothed and made more melodious. They are as honest as Chaucer's, +and we like them as they are, not modernized or manipulated by any +versifying drill-sergeant,--if we wanted them reshaped whom could we +trust to meddle with them? + +His poetry is elemental; it has the rock beneath it in the eternal laws +on which it rests; the roll of deep waters in its grander harmonies; its +air is full of Aeolian strains that waken and die away as the breeze +wanders over them; and through it shines the white starlight, and +from time to time flashes a meteor that startles us with its sudden +brilliancy. + +After all our criticisms, our selections, our analyses, our comparisons, +we have to recognize that there is a charm in Emerson's poems +which cannot be defined any more than the fragrance of a rose or a +hyacinth,--any more than the tone of a voice which we should know from +all others if all mankind were to pass before us, and each of its +articulating representatives should call us by name. + +All our crucibles and alembics leave unaccounted for the great mystery +of _style_. "The style is of [a part of] the man himself," said Buffon, +and this saying has passed into the stronger phrase, "The style is the +man." + +The "personal equation" which differentiates two observers is not +confined to the tower of the astronomer. Every human being is +individualized by a new arrangement of elements. His mind is a safe with +a lock to which only certain letters are the key. His ideas follow in +an order of their own. His words group themselves together in special +sequences, in peculiar rhythms, in unlooked-for combinations, the +total effect of which is to stamp all that he says or writes with +his individuality. We may not be able to assign the reason of the +fascination the poet we have been considering exercises over us. But +this we can say, that he lives in the highest atmosphere of thought; +that he is always in the presence of the infinite, and ennobles the +accidents of human existence so that they partake of the absolute and +eternal while he is looking at them; that he unites a royal dignity +of manner with the simplicity of primitive nature; that his words and +phrases arrange themselves, as if by an elective affinity of their own, +with a _curiosa felicitas_ which captivates and enthrals the reader who +comes fully under its influence, and that through all he sings as in all +he says for us we recognize the same serene, high, pure intelligence and +moral nature, infinitely precious to us, not only in themselves, but as +a promise of what the transplanted life, the air and soil and breeding +of this western world may yet educe from their potential virtues, +shaping themselves, at length, in a literature as much its own as the +Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +Recollections of Emerson's Last Years.--Mr. Conway's Visits.--Extracts +from Mr. Whitman's Journal.--Dr. Le Baron Russell's Visit.--Dr. Edward +Emerson's Account.--Illness and Death.--Funeral Services. + + +Mr. Conway gives the following account of two visits to Emerson after +the decline of his faculties had begun to make itself obvious:-- + + "In 1875, when I stayed at his house in Concord for a little time, + it was sad enough to find him sitting as a listener before those + who used to sit at his feet in silence. But when alone with him he + conversed in the old way, and his faults of memory seemed at + times to disappear. There was something striking in the kind of + forgetfulness by which he suffered. He remembered the realities + and uses of things when he could not recall their names. He would + describe what he wanted or thought of; when he could not recall + 'chair' he could speak of that which supports the human frame, and + 'the implement that cultivates the soil' must do for plough.-- + + "In 1880, when I was last in Concord, the trouble had made heavy + strides. The intensity of his silent attention to every word that + was said was painful, suggesting a concentration of his powers to + break through the invisible walls closing around them. Yet his face + was serene; he was even cheerful, and joined in our laughter at some + letters his eldest daughter had preserved, from young girls, trying + to coax autograph letters, and in one case asking for what price he + would write a valedictory address she had to deliver at college. He + was still able to joke about his 'naughty memory;' and no complaint + came from him when he once rallied himself on living too long. + Emerson appeared to me strangely beautiful at this time, and the + sweetness of his voice, when he spoke of the love and providence at + his side, is quite indescribable."-- + +One of the later glimpses we have of Emerson is that preserved in the +journal of Mr. Whitman, who visited Concord in the autumn of 1881. Mr. +Ireland gives a long extract from this journal, from which I take the +following:-- + + "On entering he had spoken very briefly, easily and politely to + several of the company, then settled himself in his chair, a trifle + pushed back, and, though a listener and apparently an alert one, + remained silent through the whole talk and discussion. And so, there + Emerson sat, and I looking at him. A good color in his face, eyes + clear, with the well-known expression of sweetness, and the old + clear-peering aspect quite the same." + +Mr. Whitman met him again the next day, Sunday, September 18th, and +records:-- + + "As just said, a healthy color in the cheeks, and good light in the + eyes, cheery expression, and just the amount of talking that best + suited, namely, a word or short phrase only where needed, and almost + always with a smile." + +Dr. Le Baron Russell writes to me of Emerson at a still later period:-- + + "One incident I will mention which occurred at my last visit + to Emerson, only a few months before his death. I went by Mrs. + Emerson's request to pass a Sunday at their house at Concord towards + the end of June. His memory had been failing for some time, and his + mind as you know was clouded, but the old charm of his voice and + manner had never left him. On the morning after my arrival Mrs. + Emerson took us into the garden to see the beautiful roses in which + she took great delight. One red rose of most brilliant color she + called our attention to especially; its 'hue' was so truly 'angry + and brave' that I involuntarily repeated Herbert's line,-- + + 'Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,'-- + + from the verses which Emerson had first repeated to me so long ago. + Emerson looked at the rose admiringly, and then as if by a sudden + impulse lifted his hat gently, and said with a low bow, 'I take off + my hat to it.'" + +Once a poet, always a poet. It was the same reverence for the beautiful +that he had shown in the same way in his younger days on entering the +wood, as Governor Rice has told us the story, given in an earlier +chapter. + +I do not remember Emerson's last time of attendance at the "Saturday +Club," but I recollect that he came after the trouble in finding words +had become well marked. "My memory hides itself," he said. The last time +I saw him, living, was at Longfellow's funeral. I was sitting opposite +to him when he rose, and going to the side of the coffin, looked +intently upon the face of the dead poet. A few minutes later he rose +again and looked once more on the familiar features, not apparently +remembering that he had just done so. Mr. Conway reports that he said to +a friend near him, "That gentleman was a sweet, beautiful soul, but I +have entirely forgotten his name." + +Dr. Edward Emerson has very kindly furnished me, in reply to my request, +with information regarding his father's last years which will interest +every one who has followed his life through its morning and midday to +the hour of evening shadows. + +"May-Day," which was published in 1867, was made up of the poems written +since his first volume appeared. After this he wrote no poems, but with +some difficulty fitted the refrain to the poem "Boston," which had +remained unfinished since the old Anti-slavery days. "Greatness," and +the "Phi Beta Kappa Oration" of 1867, were among his last pieces of +work. His College Lectures, "The Natural History of the Intellect," +were merely notes recorded years before, and now gathered and welded +together. In 1876 he revised his poems, and made the selections from +them for the "Little Classic" edition of his works, then called +"Selected Poems." In that year he gave his "Address to the Students of +the University of Virginia." This was a paper written long before, and +its revision, with the aid of his daughter Ellen, was accomplished with +much difficulty. + +The year 1867 was about the limit of his working life. During the last +five years he hardly answered a letter. Before this time it had become +increasingly hard for him to do so, and he always postponed and thought +he should feel more able the next day, until his daughter Ellen was +compelled to assume the correspondence. He did, however, write some +letters in 1876, as, for instance, the answer to the invitation of the +Virginia students. + +Emerson left off going regularly to the "Saturday Club" probably in +1875. He used to depend on meeting Mr. Cabot there, but after Mr. Cabot +began to come regularly to work on "Letters and Social Aims," Emerson, +who relied on his friendly assistance, ceased attending the meetings. +The trouble he had in finding the word he wanted was a reason for his +staying away from all gatherings where he was called upon to take a +part in conversation, though he the more willingly went to lectures and +readings and to church. His hearing was very slightly impaired, and his +sight remained pretty good, though he sometimes said letters doubled, +and that "M's" and "N's" troubled him to read. He recognized the members +of his own family and his _old_ friends; but, as I infer from this +statement, he found a difficulty in remembering the faces of new +acquaintances, as is common with old persons. + +He continued the habit of reading,--read through all his printed works +with much interest and surprise, went through all his manuscripts, and +endeavored, unsuccessfully, to index them. In these Dr. Emerson found +written "Examined 1877 or 1878," but he found no later date. + +In the last year or two he read anything which he picked up on his +table, but he read the same things over, and whispered the words like a +child. He liked to look over the "Advertiser," and was interested in the +"Nation." He enjoyed pictures in books and showed them with delight to +guests. + +All this with slight changes and omissions is from the letter of Dr. +Emerson in answer to my questions. The twilight of a long, bright day +of life may be saddening, but when the shadow falls so gently and +gradually, with so little that is painful and so much that is soothing +and comforting, we do not shrink from following the imprisoned spirit to +the very verge of its earthly existence. + +But darker hours were in the order of nature very near at hand. From +these he was saved by his not untimely release from the imprisonment of +the worn-out bodily frame. + +In April, 1882, Emerson took a severe cold, and became so hoarse that he +could hardly speak. When his son, Dr. Edward Emerson, called to see him, +he found him on the sofa, feverish, with more difficulty of expression +than usual, dull, but not uncomfortable. As he lay on his couch he +pointed out various objects, among others a portrait of Carlyle "the +good man,--my friend." His son told him that he had seen Carlyle, which +seemed to please him much. On the following day the unequivocal signs of +pneumonia showed themselves, and he failed rapidly. He still recognized +those around him, among the rest Judge Hoar, to whom he held out his +arms for a last embrace. A sharp pain coming on, ether was administered +with relief. And in a little time, surrounded by those who loved him +and whom he loved, he passed quietly away. He lived very nearly to the +completion of his seventy-ninth year, having been born May 25, 1803, and +his death occurring on the 27th of April, 1882. + +Mr. Ireland has given a full account of the funeral, from which are, for +the most part, taken the following extracts:-- + + "The last rites over the remains of Ralph Waldo Emerson took place + at Concord on the 30th of April. A special train from Boston carried + a large number of people. Many persons were on the street, attracted + by the services, but were unable to gain admission to the church + where the public ceremonies were held. Almost every building in town + bore over its entrance-door a large black and white rosette with + other sombre draperies. The public buildings were heavily draped, + and even the homes of the very poor bore outward marks of grief at + the loss of their friend and fellow-townsman. + + "The services at the house, which were strictly private, occurred + at 2.30, and were conducted by Rev. W.H. Furness of Philadelphia, a + kindred spirit and an almost life-long friend. They were simple in + character, and only Dr. Furness took part in them. The body lay in + the front northeast room, in which were gathered the family and + close friends of the deceased. The only flowers were contained in + three vases on the mantel, and were lilies of the valley, red and + white roses, and arbutus. The adjoining room and hall were filled + with friends and neighbors. + + "At the church many hundreds of persons were awaiting the arrival + of the procession, and all the space, except the reserved pews, was + packed. In front of the pulpit were simple decorations, boughs of + pine covered the desk, and in their centre was a harp of yellow + jonquils, the gift of Miss Louisa M. Alcott. Among the floral + tributes was one from the teachers and scholars in the Emerson + school. By the sides of the pulpit were white and scarlet geraniums + and pine boughs, and high upon the wall a laurel wreath. + + "Before 3.30 the pall-bearers brought in the plain black walnut + coffin, which was placed before the pulpit. The lid was turned back, + and upon it was put a cluster of richly colored pansies and a small + bouquet of roses. While the coffin was being carried in, 'Pleyel's + Hymn' was rendered on the organ by request of the family of the + deceased. Dr. James Freeman Clarke then entered the pulpit. Judge + E. Rockwood Hoar remained by the coffin below, and when the + congregation became quiet, made a brief and pathetic address, his + voice many times trembling with emotion." + +I subjoin this most impressive "Address" entire, from the manuscript +with which Judge Hoar has kindly favored me:-- + + "The beauty of Israel is fallen in its high place! Mr. Emerson + has died; and we, his friends and neighbors, with this sorrowing + company, have turned aside the procession from his home to his + grave,--to this temple of his fathers, that we may here unite in our + parting tribute of memory and love. + + "There is nothing to mourn for him. That brave and manly life was + rounded out to the full length of days. That dying pillow was + softened by the sweetest domestic affection; and as he lay down to + the sleep which the Lord giveth his beloved, his face was as the + face of an angel, and his smile seemed to give a glimpse of the + opening heavens. + + "Wherever the English language is spoken throughout the world his + fame is established and secure. Throughout this great land and from + beyond the sea will come innumerable voices of sorrow for this great + public loss. But we, his neighbors and townsmen, feel that he was + _ours_. He was descended from the founders of the town. He chose our + village as the place where his lifelong work was to be done. It was + to our fields and orchards that his presence gave such value; it was + our streets in which the children looked up to him with love, and + the elders with reverence. He was our ornament and pride. + + "'He is gone--is dust,-- + He the more fortunate! Yea, he hath finished! + For him there is no longer any future. + His life is bright--bright without spot it was + And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour + Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap. + Far off is he, above desire and fear; + No more submitted to the change and chance + Of the uncertain planets.-- + + "'The bloom is vanished from my life, + For, oh! he stood beside me like my youth; + Transformed for me the real to a dream, + Clothing the palpable and the familiar + With golden exhalations of the dawn. + Whatever fortunes wait my future toils, + The _beautiful_ is vanished and returns not.' + + "That lofty brow, the home of all wise thoughts and high + aspirations,--those lips of eloquent music,--that great soul, which + trusted in God and never let go its hope of immortality,--that large + heart, to which everything that belonged to man was welcome,--that + hospitable nature, loving and tender and generous, having no + repulsion or scorn for anything but meanness and baseness,--oh, + friend, brother, father, lover, teacher, inspirer, guide! is there + no more that we can do now than to give thee this our hail and + farewell!" + +Judge Hoar's remarks were followed by the congregation singing the +hymns, "Thy will be done," "I will not fear the fate provided by Thy +love." The Rev. Dr. Furness then read selections from the Scriptures. + +The Rev. James Freeman Clarke then delivered an "Address," from which I +extract two eloquent and inspiring passages, regretting to omit any +that fell from lips so used to noble utterances and warmed by their +subject,--for there is hardly a living person more competent to speak or +write of Emerson than this high-minded and brave-souled man, who did not +wait until he was famous to be his admirer and champion. + + "The saying of the Liturgy is true and wise, that 'in the midst of + life we are in death.' But it is still more true that in the midst + of death we are in life. Do we ever believe so much in immortality + as when we look on such a dear and noble face, now so still, which a + few hours ago was radiant with thought and love? 'He is not here: + he is risen.' That power which we knew,--that soaring intelligence, + that soul of fire, that ever-advancing spirit,--_that_ cannot have + been suddenly annihilated with the decay of these earthly organs. It + has left its darkened dust behind. It has outsoared the shadow of + our night. God does not trifle with his creatures by bringing to + nothing the ripe fruit of the ages by the lesion of a cerebral cell, + or some bodily tissue. Life does not die, but matter dies off from + it. The highest energy we know, the soul of man, the unit in which + meet intelligence, imagination, memory, hope, love, purpose, + insight,--this agent of immense resource and boundless power,--this + has not been subdued by its instrument. When we think of such an one + as he, we can only think of life, never of death. + + "Such was his own faith, as expressed in his paper on 'Immortality.' + But he himself was the best argument for immortality. Like the + greatest thinkers, he did not rely on logical proof, but on the + higher evidence of universal instincts,--the vast streams of belief + which flow through human thought like currents in the ocean; those + shoreless rivers which forever roll along their paths in the + Atlantic and Pacific, not restrained by banks, but guided by the + revolutions of the globe and the attractions of the sun." + + * * * * * + + "Let us then ponder his words:-- + + 'Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know + What rainbows teach and sunsets show? + Voice of earth to earth returned, + Prayers of saints that inly burned, + Saying, _What is excellent + As God lives, is permanent; + Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; + Hearts' love will meet thee again._ + + * * * * + + House and tenant go to ground + Lost in God, in Godhead found.'" + +After the above address a feeling prayer was offered by Rev. Howard M. +Brown, of Brookline, and the benediction closed the exercises in the +church. Immediately before the benediction, Mr. Alcott recited the +following sonnet, which he had written for the occasion:--- + + "His harp is silent: shall successors rise, + Touching with venturous hand the trembling string, + Kindle glad raptures, visions of surprise, + And wake to ecstasy each slumbering thing? + Shall life and thought flash new in wondering eyes, + As when the seer transcendent, sweet, and wise, + World-wide his native melodies did sing, + Flushed with fair hopes and ancient memories? + Ah, no! That matchless lyre shall silent lie: + None hath the vanished minstrel's wondrous skill + To touch that instrument with art and will. + With him, winged poesy doth droop and die; + While our dull age, left voiceless, must lament + The bard high heaven had for its service sent." + + + "Over an hour was occupied by the passing files of neighbors, + friends, and visitors looking for the last time upon the face of the + dead poet. The body was robed completely in white, and the face bore + a natural and peaceful expression. From the church the procession + took its way to the cemetery. The grave was made beneath a tall + pine-tree upon the hill-top of Sleepy Hollow, where lie the bodies + of his friends Thoreau and Hawthorne, the upturned sod being + concealed by strewings of pine boughs. A border of hemlock spray + surrounded the grave and completely lined its sides. The services + here were very brief, and the casket was soon lowered to its final + resting-place. + + "The Rev. Dr. Haskins, a cousin of the family, an Episcopal + clergyman, read the Episcopal Burial Service, and closed with the + Lord's Prayer, ending at the words, 'and deliver us from evil.' + In this all the people joined. Dr. Haskins then pronounced the + benediction. After it was over the grandchildren passed the open + grave and threw flowers into it." + +So vanished from human eyes the bodily presence of Ralph Waldo Emerson, +and his finished record belongs henceforth to memory. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +EMERSON.--A RETROSPECT. + +Personality and Habits of Life.--His Commission and Errand.--As a +Lecturer.--His Use of Authorities.--Resemblance to Other Writers.--As +influenced by Others.--His Place as a Thinker.--Idealism and +Intuition.--Mysticism.--His Attitude respecting Science.--As an +American.--His Fondness for Solitary Study.--His Patience and +Amiability.--Feeling with which he was regarded.--Emerson and +Burns.--His Religious Belief.--His Relations with Clergymen.--Future of +his Reputation.--His Life judged by the Ideal Standard. + + +Emerson's earthly existence was in the estimate of his own philosophy so +slight an occurrence in his career of being that his relations to the +accidents of time and space seem quite secondary matters to one who has +been long living in the companionship of his thought. Still, he had to +be born, to take in his share of the atmosphere in which we are all +immersed, to have dealings with the world of phenomena, and at length to +let them all "soar and sing" as he left his earthly half-way house. It +is natural and pardonable that we should like to know the details of the +daily life which the men whom we admire have shared with common mortals, +ourselves among the rest. But Emerson has said truly "Great geniuses +have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about +them. They lived in their writings, and so their home and street life +was trivial and commonplace." + +The reader has had many extracts from Emerson's writings laid before +him. It was no easy task to choose them, for his paragraphs are +so condensed, so much in the nature of abstracts, that it is like +distilling absolute alcohol to attempt separating the spirit of what he +says from his undiluted thought. His books are all so full of his life +to their last syllable that we might letter every volume _Emersoniana_, +by Ralph Waldo Emerson. + +From the numerous extracts I have given from Emerson's writings it may +be hoped that the reader will have formed an idea for himself of the man +and of the life which have been the subjects of these pages. But he may +probably expect something like a portrait of the poet and moralist from +the hand of his biographer, if the author of this Memoir may borrow the +name which will belong to a future and better equipped laborer in the +same field. He may not unreasonably look for some general estimate of +the life work of the scholar and thinker of whom he has been reading. +He will not be disposed to find fault with the writer of the Memoir +if he mentions many things which would seem very trivial but for the +interest they borrow from the individual to whom they relate. + +Emerson's personal appearance was that of a scholar, the descendant of +scholars. He was tall and slender, with the complexion which is bred in +the alcove and not in the open air. He used to tell his son Edward that +he measured six feet in his shoes, but his son thinks he could hardly +have straightened himself to that height in his later years. He was very +light for a man of his stature. He got on the scales at Cheyenne, on +his trip to California, comparing his weight with that of a lady of +the party. A little while afterwards he asked of his fellow-traveller, +Professor Thayer, "How much did I weigh? A hundred and forty?" "A +hundred and forty and a half," was the answer. "Yes, yes, a hundred and +forty and a half! That _half_ I prize; it is an index of better things!" + +Emerson's head was not such as Schopenhauer insists upon for a +philosopher. He wore a hat measuring six and seven eighths on the +_cephalometer_ used by hatters, which is equivalent to twenty-one inches +and a quarter of circumference. The average size is from seven to seven +and an eighth, so that his head was quite small in that dimension. It +was long and narrow, but lofty, almost symmetrical, and of more nearly +equal breadth in its anterior and posterior regions than many or most +heads. + +His shoulders sloped so much as to be commented upon for this +peculiarity by Mr. Gilfillan, and like "Ammon's great son," he carried +one shoulder a little higher than the other. His face was thin, his nose +somewhat accipitrine, casting a broad shadow; his mouth rather wide, +well formed and well closed, carrying a question and an assertion in +its finely finished curves; the lower lip a little prominent, the chin +shapely and firm, as becomes the corner-stone of the countenance. His +expression was calm, sedate, kindly, with that look of refinement, +centring about the lips, which is rarely found in the male New +Englander, unless the family features have been for two or three +cultivated generations the battlefield and the playground of varied +thoughts and complex emotions as well as the sensuous and nutritive port +of entry. His whole look was irradiated by an ever active inquiring +intelligence. His manner was noble and gracious. Few of our +fellow-countrymen have had larger opportunities of seeing distinguished +personages than our present minister at the Court of St. James. In +a recent letter to myself, which I trust Mr. Lowell will pardon my +quoting, he says of Emerson:-- + +"There was a majesty about him beyond all other men I have known, and he +habitually dwelt in that ampler and diviner air to which most of us, if +ever, only rise in spurts." + +From members of his own immediate family I have derived some particulars +relating to his personality and habits which are deserving of record. + +His hair was brown, quite fine, and, till he was fifty, very thick. +His eyes were of the "strongest and brightest blue." The member of the +family who tells me this says:-- + +"My sister and I have looked for many years to see whether any one else +had such absolutely blue eyes, and have never found them except in +sea-captains. I have seen three sea-captains who had them." + +He was not insensible to music, but his gift in that direction was very +limited, if we may judge from this family story. When he was in College, +and the singing-master was gathering his pupils, Emerson presented +himself, intending to learn to sing. The master received him, and when +his turn came, said to him, "Chord!" "What?" said Emerson. "Chord! +Chord! I tell you," repeated the master. "I don't know what you mean," +said Emerson. "Why, sing! Sing a note." "So I made some kind of a noise, +and the singing-master said, 'That will do, sir. You need not come +again.'" + +Emerson's mode of living was very simple: coffee in the morning, tea in +the evening, animal food by choice only once a day, wine only when with +others using it, but always _pie_ at breakfast. "It stood before him and +was the first thing eaten." Ten o'clock was his bed-time, six his hour +of rising until the last ten years of his life, when he rose at seven. +Work or company sometimes led him to sit up late, and this he could +do night after night. He never was hungry,--could go any time from +breakfast to tea without food and not know it, but was always ready for +food when it was set before him. + +He always walked from about four in the afternoon till tea-time, and +often longer when the day was fine, or he felt that he should work the +better. + +It is plain from his writings that Emerson was possessed all his life +long with the idea of his constitutional infirmity and insufficiency. +He hated invalidism, and had little patience with complaints about +ill-health, but in his poems, and once or twice in his letters to +Carlyle, he expresses himself with freedom about his own bodily +inheritance. In 1827, being then but twenty-four years old, he writes:-- + + "I bear in youth the sad infirmities + That use to undo the limb and sense of age." + +Four years later:-- + + "Has God on thee conferred + A bodily presence mean as Paul's, + Yet made thee bearer of a word + Which sleepy nations as with trumpet calls?" + +and again, in the same year:-- + + "Leave me, Fear, thy throbs are base, + Trembling for the body's sake."-- + +Almost forty years from the first of these dates we find him bewailing +in "Terminus" his inherited weakness of organization. + +And in writing to Carlyle, he says:-- + +"You are of the Anakirn and know nothing of the debility and +postponement of the blonde constitution." + +Again, "I am the victim of miscellany--miscellany of designs, vast +debility and procrastination." + +He thought too much of his bodily insufficiencies, which, it will be +observed, he refers to only in his private correspondence, and in that +semi-nudity of self-revelation which is the privilege of poetry. His +presence was fine and impressive, and his muscular strength was enough +to make him a rapid and enduring walker. + +Emerson's voice had a great charm in conversation, as in the +lecture-room. It was never loud, never shrill, but singularly +penetrating. He was apt to hesitate in the course of a sentence, so as +to be sure of the exact word he wanted; picking his way through +his vocabulary, to get at the best expression of his thought, as a +well-dressed woman crosses the muddy pavement to reach the opposite +sidewalk. It was this natural slight and not unpleasant semicolon +pausing of the memory which grew upon him in his years of decline, until +it rendered conversation laborious and painful to him. + +He never laughed loudly. When he laughed it was under protest, as it +were, with closed doors, his mouth shut, so that the explosion had to +seek another respiratory channel, and found its way out quietly, while +his eyebrows and nostrils and all his features betrayed the "ground +swell," as Professor Thayer happily called it, of the half-suppressed +convulsion. He was averse to loud laughter in others, and objected to +Margaret Fuller that she made him laugh too much. + +Emerson was not rich in some of those natural gifts which are considered +the birthright of the New Englander. He had not the mechanical turn of +the whittling Yankee. I once questioned him about his manual dexterity, +and he told me he could split a shingle four ways with one nail, +--which, as the intention is not to split it at all in fastening it +to the roof of a house or elsewhere, I took to be a confession of +inaptitude for mechanical works. He does not seem to have been very +accomplished in the handling of agricultural implements either, for it +is told in the family that his little son, Waldo, seeing him at work +with a spade, cried out, "Take care, papa,--you will dig your leg." + +He used to regret that he had no ear for music. I have said enough about +his verse, which often jars on a sensitive ear, showing a want of the +nicest perception of harmonies and discords in the arrangement of the +words. + +There are stories which show that Emerson had a retentive memory in the +earlier part of his life. It is hard to say from his books whether he +had or not, for he jotted down such a multitude of things in his diary +that this was a kind of mechanical memory which supplied him with +endless materials of thought and subjects for his pen. + +Lover and admirer of Plato as Emerson was, the doors of the academy, +over which was the inscription [Greek: maedeis hageometraetos +eseito]--Let no one unacquainted with geometry enter here,--would have +been closed to him. All the exact sciences found him an unwilling +learner. He says of himself that he cannot multiply seven by twelve with +impunity. + +In an unpublished manuscript kindly submitted to me by Mr. Frothingham, +Emerson is reported as saying, "God has given me the seeing eye, but not +the working hand." His gift was insight: he saw the germ through its +envelop; the particular in the light of the universal; the fact in +connection with the principle; the phenomenon as related to the law; all +this not by the slow and sure process of science, but by the sudden +and searching flashes of imaginative double vision. He had neither the +patience nor the method of the inductive reasoner; he passed from one +thought to another not by logical steps but by airy flights, which left +no footprints. This mode of intellectual action when found united with +natural sagacity becomes poetry, philosophy, wisdom, or prophecy in its +various forms of manifestation. Without that gift of natural sagacity +(_odoratio quaedam venatica_),--a good scent for truth and beauty,--it +appears as extravagance, whimsicality, eccentricity, or insanity, +according to its degree of aberration. Emerson was eminently sane for +an idealist. He carried the same sagacity into the ideal world that +Franklin showed in the affairs of common life. + +He was constitutionally fastidious, and had to school himself to become +able to put up with the terrible inflictions of uncongenial fellowships. +We must go to his poems to get at his weaknesses. The clown of the first +edition of "Monadnoc" "with heart of cat and eyes of bug," disappears +in the after-thought of the later version of the poem, but the eye that +recognized him and the nature that recoiled from him were there still. +What must he not have endured from the persecutions of small-minded +worshippers who fastened upon him for the interminable period between +the incoming and the outgoing railroad train! He was a model of patience +and good temper. We might have feared that he lacked the sensibility to +make such intrusions and offences an annoyance. But when Mr. Frothingham +gratifies the public with those most interesting personal recollections +which I have had the privilege of looking over, it will be seen that his +equanimity, admirable as it was, was not incapable of being disturbed, +and that on rare occasions he could give way to the feeling which showed +itself of old in the doom pronounced on the barren fig-tree. + +Of Emerson's affections his home-life, and those tender poems in memory +of his brothers and his son, give all the evidence that could be asked +or wished for. His friends were all who knew him, for none could be +his enemy; and his simple graciousness of manner, with the sincerity +apparent in every look and tone, hardly admitted indifference on the +part of any who met him were it but for a single hour. Even the little +children knew and loved him, and babes in arms returned his angelic +smile. Of the friends who were longest and most intimately associated +with him, it is needless to say much in this place. Of those who are +living, it is hardly time to speak; of those who are dead, much has +already been written. Margaret Fuller,--I must call my early schoolmate +as I best remember her,--leaves her life pictured in the mosaic of +five artists,--Emerson himself among the number; Thoreau is faithfully +commemorated in the loving memoir by Mr. Sanborn; Theodore Parker lives +in the story of his life told by the eloquent Mr. Weiss; Hawthorne +awaits his portrait from the master-hand of Mr. Lowell. + +How nearly any friend, other than his brothers Edward and Charles, came +to him, I cannot say, indeed I can hardly guess. That "majesty" Mr. +Lowell speaks of always seemed to hedge him round like the divinity that +doth hedge a king. What man was he who would lay his hand familiarly +upon his shoulder and call him Waldo? No disciple of Father Mathew +would be likely to do such a thing. There may have been such irreverent +persons, but if any one had so ventured at the "Saturday Club," it would +have produced a sensation like Brummel's "George, ring the bell," to +the Prince Regent. His ideas of friendship, as of love, seem almost too +exalted for our earthly conditions, and suggest the thought as do many +others of his characteristics, that the spirit which animated his mortal +frame had missed its way on the shining path to some brighter and better +sphere of being. + +Not so did Emerson appear among the plain working farmers of the village +in which he lived. He was a good, unpretending fellow-citizen who put on +no airs, who attended town-meetings, took his part in useful measures, +was no great hand at farming, but was esteemed and respected, and felt +to be a principal source of attraction to Concord, for strangers came +flocking to the place as if it held the tomb of Washington. + + * * * * * + +What was the errand on which he visited our earth,--the message with +which he came commissioned from the Infinite source of all life? + +Every human soul leaves its port with sealed orders. These may be opened +earlier or later on its voyage, but until they are opened no one can +tell what is to be his course or to what harbor he is bound. + +Emerson inherited the traditions of the Boston pulpit, such as they +were, damaged, in the view of the prevailing sects of the country, +perhaps by too long contact with the "Sons of Liberty," and their +revolutionary notions. But the most "liberal" Boston pulpit still held +to many doctrines, forms, and phrases open to the challenge of any +independent thinker. + +In the year 1832 this young priest, then a settled minister, "began," as +was said of another,--"to be about thirty years of age." He had opened +his sealed orders and had read therein: + +Thou shalt not profess that which thou dost not believe. + +Thou shalt not heed the voice of man when it agrees not with the voice +of God in thine own soul. + +Thou shalt study and obey the laws of the Universe and they will be thy +fellow-servants. + +Thou shalt speak the truth as thou seest it, without fear, in the spirit +of kindness to all thy fellow-creatures, dealing with the manifold +interests of life and the typical characters of history. + +Nature shall be to thee as a symbol. The life of the soul, in conscious +union with the Infinite, shall be for thee the only real existence. + +This pleasing show of an external world through which thou art passing +is given thee to interpret by the light which is in thee. Its least +appearance is not unworthy of thy study. Let thy soul be open and thine +eyes will reveal to thee beauty everywhere. + +Go forth with thy message among thy fellow-creatures; teach them they +must trust themselves as guided by that inner light which dwells with +the pure in heart, to whom it was promised of old that they shall see +God. + +Teach them that each generation begins the world afresh, in perfect +freedom; that the present is not the prisoner of the past, but that +today holds captive all yesterdays, to compare, to judge, to accept, to +reject their teachings, as these are shown by its own morning's sun. + +To thy fellow-countrymen thou shalt preach the gospel of the New World, +that here, here in our America, is the home of man; that here is the +promise of a new and more excellent social state than history has +recorded. + +Thy life shall be as thy teachings, brave, pure, truthful, beneficent, +hopeful, cheerful, hospitable to all honest belief, all sincere +thinkers, and active according to thy gifts and opportunities. + + * * * * * + +He was true to the orders he had received. Through doubts, troubles, +privations, opposition, he would not + + "bate a jot + Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer + Right onward." + +All through the writings of Emerson the spirit of these orders manifests +itself. His range of subjects is very wide, ascending to the highest +sphere of spiritual contemplation, bordering on that "intense inane" +where thought loses itself in breathless ecstasy, and stooping to the +homeliest maxims of prudence and the every-day lessons of good manners, +And all his work was done, not so much + + "As ever in his great Taskmaster's eye," + +as in the ever-present sense of divine companionship. + +He was called to sacrifice his living, his position, his intimacies, to +a doubt, and he gave them all up without a murmur. He might have been an +idol, and he broke his own pedestal to attack the idolatry which he saw +all about him. He gave up a comparatively easy life for a toilsome and +trying one; he accepted a precarious employment, which hardly kept him +above poverty, rather than wear the golden padlock on his lips which has +held fast the conscience of so many pulpit Chrysostoms. Instead of a +volume or two of sermons, bridled with a text and harnessed with a +confession of faith, he bequeathed us a long series of Discourses and +Essays in which we know we have his honest thoughts, free from that +professional bias which tends to make the pulpit teaching of the +fairest-minded preacher follow a diagonal of two forces,--the promptings +of his personal and his ecclesiastical opinions. + +Without a church or a pulpit, he soon had a congregation. It was largely +made up of young persons of both sexes, young by nature, if not +in years, who, tired of routine and formulae, and full of vague +aspirations, found in his utterances the oracles they sought. To them, +in the words of his friend and neighbor Mr. Alcott, he + + "Sang his full song of hope and lofty cheer." + +Nor was it only for a few seasons that he drew his audiences of devout +listeners around him. Another poet, his Concord neighbor, Mr. Sanborn, +who listened to him many years after the first flush of novelty was +over, felt the same enchantment, and recognized the same inspiring life +in his words, which had thrilled the souls of those earlier listeners. + + "His was the task and his the lordly gift + Our eyes, our hearts, bent earthward, to uplift." + +This was his power,--to inspire others, to make life purer, loftier, +calmer, brighter. Optimism is what the young want, and he could no more +help taking the hopeful view of the universe and its future than Claude +could help flooding his landscapes with sunshine. + +"Nature," published in 1836, "the first clear manifestation of his +genius," as Mr. Norton calls it, revealed him as an idealist and a +poet, with a tendency to mysticism. If he had been independent in +circumstances, he would doubtless have developed more freely in these +directions. But he had his living to get and a family to support, and +he must look about him for some paying occupation. The lecture-room +naturally presented itself to a scholar accustomed to speaking from +the pulpit. This medium of communicating thought was not as yet very +popular, and the rewards it offered were but moderate. Emerson was of a +very hopeful nature, however, and believed in its possibilities. + +--"I am always haunted with brave dreams of what might be accomplished +in the lecture-room,--so free and so unpretending a platform,--a Delos +not yet made fast. I imagine an eloquence of infinite variety, rich as +conversation can be, with anecdote, joke, tragedy, epics and pindarics, +argument and confession." So writes Emerson to Carlyle in 1841. + +It would be as unfair to overlook the special form in which Emerson gave +most of his thoughts to the world, as it would be to leave out of view +the calling of Shakespeare in judging his literary character. Emerson +was an essayist and a lecturer, as Shakespeare was a dramatist and a +play-actor. + +The exigencies of the theatre account for much that is, as it were, +accidental in the writings of Shakespeare. The demands of the +lecture-room account for many peculiarities which are characteristic of +Emerson as an author. The play must be in five acts, each of a given +length. The lecture must fill an hour and not overrun it. Both play and +lecture must be vivid, varied, picturesque, stimulating, or the audience +would tire before the allotted time was over. + +Both writers had this in common: they were poets and moralists. +They reproduced the conditions of life in the light of penetrative +observation and ideal contemplation; they illustrated its duties in +their breach and in their observance, by precepts and well-chosen +portraits of character. The particular form in which they wrote makes +little difference when we come upon the utterance of a noble truth or an +elevated sentiment. + +It was not a simple matter of choice with the dramatist or the lecturer +in what direction they should turn their special gifts. The actor had +learned his business on the stage; the lecturer had gone through his +apprenticeship in the pulpit. Each had his bread to earn, and he must +work, and work hard, in the way open before him. For twenty years the +playwright wrote dramas, and retired before middle age with a good +estate to his native town. For forty years Emerson lectured and +published lectures, and established himself at length in competence in +the village where his ancestors had lived and died before him. He never +became rich, as Shakespeare did. He was never in easy circumstances +until he was nearly seventy years old. Lecturing was hard work, but he +was under the "base necessity," as he called it, of constant labor, +writing in summer, speaking everywhere east and west in the trying and +dangerous winter season. + +He spoke in great cities to such cultivated audiences as no other man +could gather about him, and in remote villages where he addressed +plain people whose classics were the Bible and the "Farmer's Almanac." +Wherever he appeared in the lecture-room, he fascinated his listeners by +his voice and manner; the music of his speech pleased those who found +his thought too subtle for their dull wits to follow. + +When the Lecture had served its purpose, it came before the public +in the shape of an Essay. But the Essay never lost the character it +borrowed from the conditions under which it was delivered; it was a +lay sermon,--_concio ad populum_. We must always remember what we are +dealing with. "Expect nothing more of my power of construction,--no +ship-building, no clipper, smack, nor skiff even, only boards and logs +tied together."--"Here I sit and read and write, with very little +system, and, as far as regards composition, with the most fragmentary +result: paragraphs incompressible, each sentence an infinitely repellent +particle." We have then a moralist and a poet appearing as a Lecturer +and an Essayist, and now and then writing in verse. He liked the freedom +of the platform. "I preach in the Lecture-room," he says, "and there it +tells, for there is no prescription. You may laugh, weep, reason, sing, +sneer, or pray, according to your genius." In England, he says, "I find +this lecturing a key which opens all doors." But he did not tend to +overvalue the calling which from "base necessity" he followed so +diligently. "Incorrigible spouting Yankee," he calls himself; and again, +"I peddle out all the wit I can gather from Time or from Nature, and +am pained at heart to see how thankfully that little is received." +Lecture-peddling was a hard business and a poorly paid one in the +earlier part of the time when Emerson was carrying his precious wares +about the country and offering them in competition with the cheapest +itinerants, with shilling concerts and negro-minstrel entertainments. +But one could get a kind of living out of it if he had invitations +enough. I remember Emerson's coming to my house to know if I could +fill his place at a certain Lyceum so that he might accept a very +advantageous invitation in another direction. I told him that I was +unfortunately engaged for the evening mentioned. He smiled serenely, +saying that then he supposed he must give up the new stove for that +season. + +No man would accuse Emerson of parsimony of ideas. He crams his pages +with the very marrow of his thought. But in weighing out a lecture he +was as punctilious as Portia about the pound of flesh. His utterance was +deliberate and spaced with not infrequent slight delays. Exactly at the +end of the hour the lecture stopped. Suddenly, abruptly, but quietly, +without peroration of any sort, always with "a gentle shock of mild +surprise" to the unprepared listener. He had weighed out the full +measure to his audience with perfect fairness. + + [Greek: oste thalanta gunhae cheruhaetis halaethaes + Aetestathmhon hechon echousa kahi heirion hamphis hanhelkei + Ishazous ina paishin haeikhea misthon haraetai,] + +or, in Bryant's version, + + "as the scales + Are held by some just woman, who maintains + By spinning wool her household,--carefully + She poises both the wool and weights, to make + The balance even, that she may provide + A pittance for her babes."-- + +As to the charm of his lectures all are agreed. It is needless to handle +this subject, for Mr. Lowell has written upon it. Of their effect on +his younger listeners he says, "To some of us that long past experience +remains the most marvellous and fruitful we have ever had. Emerson +awakened us, saved us from the body of this death. It is the sound of +the trumpet that the young soul longs for, careless of what breath may +fill it. Sidney heard it in the ballad of 'Chevy Chase,' and we in +Emerson. Nor did it blow retreat, but called us with assurance of +victory." + +There was, besides these stirring notes, a sweet seriousness in +Emerson's voice that was infinitely soothing. So might "Peace, be +still," have sounded from the lips that silenced the storm. I remember +that in the dreadful war-time, on one of the days of anguish and terror, +I fell in with Governor Andrew, on his way to a lecture of Emerson's, +where he was going, he said, to relieve the strain upon his mind. An +hour passed in listening to that flow of thought, calm and clear as the +diamond drops that distil from a mountain rock, was a true nepenthe for +a careworn soul. + +An author whose writings are like mosaics must have borrowed from many +quarries. Emerson had read more or less thoroughly through a very wide +range of authors. I shall presently show how extensive was his reading. +No doubt he had studied certain authors diligently, a few, it would +seem, thoroughly. But let no one be frightened away from his pages by +the terrible names of Plotinus and Proclus and Porphyry, of Behmen or +Spinoza, or of those modern German philosophers with whom it is not +pretended that he had any intimate acquaintance. Mr. George Ripley, a +man of erudition, a keen critic, a lover and admirer of Emerson, speaks +very plainly of his limitations as a scholar. + +"As he confesses in the Essay on 'Books,' his learning is second hand; +but everything sticks which his mind can appropriate. He defends the use +of translations, and I doubt whether he has ever read ten pages of +his great authorities, Plato, Plutarch, Montaigne, or Goethe, in the +original. He is certainly no friend of profound study any more than +of philosophical speculation. Give him a few brilliant and suggestive +glimpses, and he is content." + +One correction I must make to this statement. Emerson says he has +"contrived to read" almost every volume of Goethe, and that he has +fifty-five of them, but that he has read nothing else in German, and has +not looked into him for a long time. This was in 1840, in a letter to +Carlyle. It was up-hill work, it may be suspected, but he could not well +be ignorant of his friend's great idol, and his references to Goethe are +very frequent. + +Emerson's quotations are like the miraculous draught of fishes. I hardly +know his rivals except Burton and Cotton Mather. But no one would accuse +him of pedantry. Burton quotes to amuse himself and his reader; Mather +quotes to show his learning, of which he had a vast conceit; Emerson +quotes to illustrate some original thought of his own, or because +another writer's way of thinking falls in with his own,--never with +a trivial purpose. Reading as he did, he must have unconsciously +appropriated a great number of thoughts from others. But he was profuse +in his references to those from whom he borrowed,--more profuse than +many of his readers would believe without taking the pains to count his +authorities. This I thought it worth while to have done, once for all, +and I will briefly present the results of the examination. The named +references, chiefly to authors, as given in the table before me, are +three thousand three hundred and ninety-three, relating to eight hundred +and sixty-eight different individuals. Of these, four hundred and eleven +are mentioned more than once; one hundred and fifty-five, five times +or more; sixty-nine, ten times or more; thirty-eight, fifteen times or +more; and twenty-seven, twenty times or more. These twenty-seven names +alone, the list of which is here given, furnish no less than one +thousand and sixty-five references. + + Authorities. Number of times mentioned. + Shakespeare.....112 + Napoleon.........84 + Plato............81 + Plutarch.........70 + Goethe...........62 + Swift............49 + Bacon............47 + Milton...........46 + Newton...........43 + Homer............42 + Socrates.........42 + Swedenborg.......40 + Montaigne........30 + Saadi............30 + Luther...........30 + Webster..........27 + Aristotle........25 + Hafiz............25 + Wordsworth.......25 + Burke............24 + Saint Paul.......24 + Dante............22 + Shattuck (Hist. of + Concord).......21 + Chaucer..........20 + Coleridge........20 + Michael Angelo...20 + The name of Jesus occurs fifty-four times. + +It is interesting to observe that Montaigne, Franklin, and Emerson all +show the same fondness for Plutarch. + +Montaigne says, "I never settled myself to the reading of any book of +solid learning but Plutarch and Seneca." + +Franklin says, speaking of the books in his father's library, "There was +among them Plutarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, and I still think +that time spent to great advantage." + +Emerson says, "I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to +all the ancient writers." + +Studies of life and character were the delight of all these four +moralists. As a judge of character, Dr. Hedge, who knew Emerson well, +has spoken to me of his extraordinary gift, and no reader of "English +Traits" can have failed to mark the formidable penetration of the +intellect which looked through those calm cerulean eyes. + +_Noscitur a sociis_ is as applicable to the books a man most affects as +well as to the companions he chooses. It is with the kings of +thought that Emerson most associates. As to borrowing from his royal +acquaintances his ideas are very simple and expressed without reserve. + +"All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. +There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By +necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote." + +What Emerson says of Plutarch applies very nearly to himself. + +"In his immense quotation and allusion we quickly cease to discriminate +between what he quotes and what he invents. We sail on his memory into +the ports of every nation, enter into every private property, and do not +stop to discriminate owners, but give him the praise of all." + +Mr. Ruskin and Lord Tennyson have thought it worth their while to defend +themselves from the charge of plagiarism. Emerson would never have taken +the trouble to do such a thing. His mind was overflowing with thought as +a river in the season of flood, and was full of floating fragments from +an endless variety of sources. He drew ashore whatever he wanted that +would serve his purpose. He makes no secret of his mode of writing. "I +dot evermore in my endless journal, a line on every knowable in nature; +but the arrangement loiters long, and I get a brick-kiln instead of +a house." His journal is "full of disjointed dreams and audacities." +Writing by the aid of this, it is natural enough that he should speak of +his "lapidary style" and say "I build my house of boulders." + +"It is to be remembered," says Mr. Ruskin, "that all men who have sense +and feeling are continually helped: they are taught by every person they +meet, and enriched by everything that falls in their way. The greatest +is he who has been oftenest aided; and if the attainments of all human +minds could be traced to their real sources, it would be found that the +world had been laid most under contribution by the men of most original +powers, and that every day of their existence deepened their debt to +their race, while it enlarged their gifts to it." + +The reader may like to see a few coincidences between Emerson's words +and thoughts and those of others. + +Some sayings seem to be a kind of family property. "Scorn trifles" +comes from Aunt Mary Moody Emerson, and reappears in her nephew, Ralph +Waldo.--"What right have you, Sir, to your virtue? Is virtue piecemeal? +This is a jewel among the rags of a beggar." So writes Ralph Waldo +Emerson in his Lecture "New England Reformers."--"Hiding the badges of +royalty beneath the gown of the mendicant, and ever on the watch lest +their rank be betrayed by the sparkle of a gem from under their rags." +Thus wrote Charles Chauncy Emerson in the "Harvard Register" nearly +twenty years before. + + "The hero is not fed on sweets, + Daily his own heart he eats." + +The image comes from Pythagoras _via_ Plutarch. + +Now and then, but not with any questionable frequency, we find a +sentence which recalls Carlyle. + +"The national temper, in the civil history, is not flashy or whiffling. +The slow, deep English mass smoulders with fire, which at last sets all +its borders in flame. The wrath of London is not French wrath, but has a +long memory, and in hottest heat a register and rule." + +Compare this passage from "English Traits" with the following one from +Carlyle's "French Revolution":-- + +"So long this Gallic fire, through its successive changes of color and +character, will blaze over the face of Europe, and afflict and scorch +all men:--till it provoke all men, till it kindle another kind of fire, +the Teutonic kind, namely; and be swallowed up, so to speak, in a day! +For there is a fire comparable to the burning of dry jungle and grass; +most sudden, high-blazing: and another fire which we liken to the +burning of coal, or even of anthracite coal, but which no known thing +will put out." + + "O what are heroes, prophets, men + But pipes through which the breath of man doth blow + A momentary music." + +The reader will find a similar image in one of Burns's letters, again in +one of Coleridge's poetical fragments, and long before any of them, in a +letter of Leibnitz. + + "He builded better than he knew" + +is the most frequently quoted line of Emerson. The thought is constantly +recurring in our literature. It helps out the minister's sermon; and a +Fourth of July Oration which does not borrow it is like the "Address +without a Phoenix" among the Drury Lane mock poems. Can we find any +trace of this idea elsewhere? + +In a little poem of Coleridge's, "William Tell," are these two lines: + + "On wind and wave the boy would toss + Was great, nor knew how great he was." + +The thought is fully worked out in the celebrated Essay of Carlyle +called "Characteristics." It reappears in Emerson's poem "Fate." + + "Unknown to Cromwell as to me + Was Cromwell's measure and degree; + Unknown to him as to his horse, + If he than his groom is better or worse." + +It is unnecessary to illustrate this point any further in this +connection. In dealing with his poetry other resemblances will suggest +themselves. All the best poetry the world has known is full of such +resemblances. If we find Emerson's wonderful picture, "Initial Love" +prefigured in the "Symposium" of Plato, we have only to look in the +"Phaedrus" and we we shall find an earlier sketch of Shakespeare's +famous group,-- + + "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet." + +Sometimes these resemblances are nothing more than accidental +coincidences; sometimes the similar passages are unconsciously borrowed +from another; sometimes they are paraphrases, variations, embellished +copies, _éditions de luxe_ of sayings that all the world knows are old, +but which it seems to the writer worth his while to say over again. +The more improved versions of the world's great thoughts we have, the +better, and we look to the great minds for them. The larger the river +the more streams flow into it. The wide flood of Emerson's discourse has +a hundred rivers and thousands of streamlets for its tributaries. + +It was not from books only that he gathered food for thought and for his +lectures and essays. He was always on the lookout in conversation for +things to be remembered. He picked up facts one would not have expected +him to care for. He once corrected me in giving Flora Temple's time at +Kalamazoo. I made a mistake of a quarter of a second, and he set me +right. He was not always so exact in his memory, as I have already shown +in several instances. Another example is where he speaks of Quintus +Curtius, the historian, when he is thinking of Mettus Curtius, the +self-sacrificing equestrian. Little inaccuracies of this kind did not +concern him much; he was a wholesale dealer in illustrations, and could +not trouble himself about a trifling defect in this or that particular +article. + +Emerson was a man who influenced others more than others influenced him. +Outside of his family connections, the personalities which can be most +easily traced in his own are those of Carlyle, Mr. Alcott, and Thoreau. +Carlyle's harsh virility could not be without its effect on his +valid, but sensitive nature. Alcott's psychological and physiological +speculations interested him as an idealist. Thoreau lent him a new set +of organs of sense of wonderful delicacy. Emerson looked at nature as a +poet, and his natural history, if left to himself, would have been as +vague as that of Polonius. But Thoreau had a pair of eyes which, like +those of the Indian deity, could see the smallest emmet on the blackest +stone in the darkest night,--or come nearer to seeing it than those of +most mortals. Emerson's long intimacy with him taught him to give an +outline to many natural objects which would have been poetic nebulae to +him but for this companionship. A nicer analysis would detect many +alien elements mixed with his individuality, but the family traits +predominated over all the external influences, and the personality stood +out distinct from the common family qualities. Mr. Whipple has well +said: "Some traits of his mind and character may be traced back to his +ancestors, but what doctrine of heredity can give us the genesis of his +genius? Indeed the safest course to pursue is to quote his own words, +and despairingly confess that it is the nature of genius 'to spring, +like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the +past and refuse all history.'" + + * * * * * + +Emerson's place as a thinker is somewhat difficult to fix. He cannot +properly be called a psychologist. He made notes and even delivered +lectures on the natural history of the intellect; but they seem to have +been made up, according to his own statement, of hints and fragments +rather than of the results of systematic study. He was a man of +intuition, of insight, a seer, a poet, with a tendency to mysticism. +This tendency renders him sometimes obscure, and once in a while almost, +if not quite, unintelligible. We can, for this reason, understand why +the great lawyer turned him over to his daughters, and Dr. Walter +Channing complained that his lecture made his head ache. But it is not +always a writer's fault that he is not understood. Many persons have +poor heads for abstractions; and as for mystics, if they understand +themselves it is quite as much as can be expected. But that which is +mysticism to a dull listener may be the highest and most inspiring +imaginative clairvoyance to a brighter one. It is to be hoped that no +reader will take offence at the following anecdote, which may be found +under the title "Diogenes," in the work of his namesake, Diogenes +Laertius. I translate from the Latin version. + +"Plato was talking about ideas, and spoke of _mensality_ and _cyathity_ +[_tableity_, and _gobletity_]. 'I can see a table and a goblet,' said +the cynic, 'but I can see no such things as tableity and gobletity.' +'Quite so,' answered Plato, 'because you have the eyes to see a goblet +and a table with, but you have not the brains to understand tableity and +gobletity.'" + +This anecdote may be profitably borne in mind in following Emerson into +the spheres of intuition and mystical contemplation. + +Emerson was an idealist in the Platonic sense of the word, a +spiritualist as opposed to a materialist. He believes, he says, "as +the wise Spenser teaches," that the soul makes its own body. This, of +course, involves the doctrine of preexistence; a doctrine older than +Spenser, older than Plato or Pythagoras, having its cradle in India, +fighting its way down through Greek philosophers and Christian fathers +and German professors, to our own time, when it has found Pierre Leroux, +Edward Beecher, and Brigham Young among its numerous advocates. Each has +his fancies on the subject. The geography of an undiscovered country and +the soundings of an ocean that has never been sailed over may belong to +romance and poetry, but they do not belong to the realm of knowledge. + +That the organ of the mind brings with it inherited aptitudes is a +simple matter of observation. That it inherits truths is a different +proposition. The eye does not bring landscapes into the world on its +retina,--why should the brain bring thoughts? Poetry settles such +questions very simply by saying it is so. + +The poet in Emerson never accurately differentiated itself from the +philosopher. He speaks of Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of +Immortality as the high-water mark of the poetry of this century. It +sometimes seems as if he had accepted the lofty rhapsodies of this noble +Ode as working truths. + + "Not in entire forgetfulness, + And not in utter nakedness, + But trailing clouds of glory do we come + From God, who is our home." + +In accordance with this statement of a divine inheritance from a +preexisting state, the poet addresses the infant:-- + + "Mighty prophet! Seer blest! + On whom those truths do rest + Which we are toiling all our lives to find."-- + +These are beautiful fancies, but the philosopher will naturally ask the +poet what are the truths which the child has lost between its cradle and +the age of eight years, at which Wordsworth finds the little girl of + whom he speaks in the lines,-- + + "A simple child-- + That lightly draws its breath + And feels its life in every limb,-- + What should it know of death?" + +What should it, sure enough, or of any other of those great truths which +Time with its lessons, and the hardening of the pulpy brain can alone +render appreciable to the consciousness? Undoubtedly every brain has its +own set of moulds ready to shape all material of thought into its own +individual set of patterns. If the mind comes into consciousness with a +good set of moulds derived by "traduction," as Dryden called it, from a +good ancestry, it may be all very well to give the counsel to the youth +to plant himself on his instincts. But the individual to whom this +counsel is given probably has dangerous as well as wholesome instincts. +He has also a great deal besides the instincts to be considered. His +instincts are mixed up with innumerable acquired prejudices, erroneous +conclusions, deceptive experiences, partial truths, one-sided +tendencies. The clearest insight will often find it hard to decide what +is the real instinct, and whether the instinct itself is, in theological +language, from God or the devil. That which was a safe guide for Emerson +might not work well with Lacenaire or Jesse Pomeroy. The cloud of glory +which the babe brings with it into the world is a good set of instincts, +which dispose it to accept moral and intellectual truths,--not the +truths themselves. And too many children come into life trailing after +them clouds which are anything but clouds of glory. + +It may well be imagined that when Emerson proclaimed the new +doctrine,--new to his young disciples,--of planting themselves on their +instincts, consulting their own spiritual light for guidance,--trusting +to intuition,--without reference to any other authority, he opened the +door to extravagances in any unbalanced minds, if such there were, which +listened to his teachings. Too much was expected out of the mouths of +babes and sucklings. The children shut up by Psammetichus got as far as +one word in their evolution of an original language, but _bekkos_ was a +very small contribution towards a complete vocabulary. "The Dial" +was well charged with intuitions, but there was too much vagueness, +incoherence, aspiration without energy, effort without inspiration, to +satisfy those who were looking for a new revelation. + +The gospel of intuition proved to be practically nothing more or less +than this: a new manifesto of intellectual and spiritual independence. +It was no great discovery that we see many things as truths which we +cannot prove. But it was a great impulse to thought, a great advance +in the attitude of our thinking community, when the profoundly devout +religious free-thinker took the ground of the undevout and irreligious +free-thinker, and calmly asserted and peaceably established the right +and the duty of the individual to weigh the universe, its laws and its +legends, in his own balance, without fear of authority, or names, or +institutions. + +All this brought its dangers with it, like other movements of +emancipation. For the Fay _ce que voudras_ of the revellers of Medmenham +Abbey, was substituted the new motto, Pense _ce que voudras_. There was +an intoxication in this newly proclaimed evangel which took hold of some +susceptible natures and betrayed itself in prose and rhyme, occasionally +of the Bedlam sort. Emerson's disciples were never accused of falling +into the more perilous snares of antinomianism, but he himself +distinctly recognizes the danger of it, and the counterbalancing +effect of household life, with its curtain lectures and other benign +influences. Extravagances of opinion cure themselves. Time wore off the +effects of the harmless debauch, and restored the giddy revellers to the +regimen of sober thought, as reformed spiritual inebriates. + +Such were some of the incidental effects of the Emersonian declaration +of independence. It was followed by a revolutionary war of opinion not +yet ended or at present like to be. A local outbreak, if you will, but +so was throwing the tea overboard. A provincial affair, if the Bohemian +press likes that term better, but so was the skirmish where the gun was +fired the echo of which is heard in every battle for freedom all over +the world. + + * * * * * + +Too much has been made of Emerson's mysticism. He was an intellectual +rather than an emotional mystic, and withal a cautious one. He never let +go the string of his balloon. He never threw over all his ballast of +common sense so as to rise above an atmosphere in which a rational being +could breathe. I found in his library William Law's edition of Jacob +Behmen. There were all those wonderful diagrams over which the reader +may have grown dizzy,--just such as one finds on the walls of lunatic +asylums,--evidences to all sane minds of cerebral strabismus in the +contrivers of them. Emerson liked to lose himself for a little while in +the vagaries of this class of minds, the dangerous proximity of which to +insanity he knew and has spoken of. He played with the incommunicable, +the inconceivable, the absolute, the antinomies, as he would have played +with a bundle of jack-straws. "Brahma," the poem which so mystified +the readers of the "Atlantic Monthly," was one of his spiritual +divertisements. To the average Western mind it is the nearest approach +to a Torricellian vacuum of intelligibility that language can pump out +of itself. If "Rejected Addresses" had not been written half a century +before Emerson's poem, one would think these lines were certainly meant +to ridicule and parody it. + + "The song of Braham is an Irish howl; + Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, + And nought is everything and everything is nought." + +Braham, Hazlitt might have said, is so obviously the anagram of Brahma +that dulness itself could not mistake the object intended. + +Of course no one can hold Emerson responsible for the "Yoga" doctrine +of Brahmanism, which he has amused himself with putting in verse. The +oriental side of Emerson's nature delighted itself in these narcotic +dreams, born in the land of the poppy and of hashish. They lend a +peculiar charm to his poems, but it is not worth while to try to +construct a philosophy out of them. The knowledge, if knowledge it be, +of the mystic is not transmissible. It is not cumulative; it begins and +ends with the solitary dreamer, and the next who follows him has to +build his own cloud-castle as if it were the first aerial edifice that a +human soul had ever constructed. + +Some passages of "Nature," "The Over-Soul," "The Sphinx," "Uriel," +illustrate sufficiently this mood of spiritual exaltation. Emerson's +calm temperament never allowed it to reach the condition he sometimes +refers to,--that of ecstasy. The passage in "Nature" where he says "I +become a transparent eyeball" is about as near it as he ever came. This +was almost too much for some of his admirers and worshippers. One of his +most ardent and faithful followers, whose gifts as an artist are well +known, mounted the eyeball on legs, and with its cornea in front for +a countenance and its optic nerve projecting behind as a queue, the +spiritual cyclops was shown setting forth on his travels. + +Emerson's reflections in the "transcendental" mood do beyond question +sometimes irresistibly suggest the close neighborhood of the sublime to +the ridiculous. But very near that precipitous border line there is a +charmed region where, if the statelier growths of philosophy die out and +disappear, the flowers of poetry next the very edge of the chasm have +a peculiar and mysterious beauty. "Uriel" is a poem which finds itself +perilously near to the gulf of unsounded obscurity, and has, I doubt +not, provoked the mirth of profane readers; but read in a lucid moment, +it is just obscure enough and just significant enough to give the +voltaic thrill which comes from the sudden contacts of the highest +imaginative conceptions. + +Human personality presented itself to Emerson as a passing phase of +universal being. Born of the Infinite, to the Infinite it was to return. +Sometimes he treats his own personality as interchangeable with objects +in nature,--he would put it off like a garment and clothe himself in the +landscape. Here is a curious extract from "The Adirondacs," in which the +reader need not stop to notice the parallelism with Byron's-- + + "The sky is changed,--and such a change! O night + And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong."-- + +Now Emerson:-- + + "And presently the sky is changed; O world! + What pictures and what harmonies are thine! + The clouds are rich and dark, the air serene, + _So like the soul of me, what if't were me_?" + +We find this idea of confused personal identity also in a brief poem +printed among the "Translations" in the Appendix to Emerson's Poems. +These are the last two lines of "The Flute, from Hilali":-- + + "Saying, Sweetheart! the old mystery remains, + If I am I; thou, thou, or thou art I?" + +The same transfer of personality is hinted in the line of Shelley's "Ode +to the West Wind": + + "Be thou, Spirit fierce, + My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!" + +Once more, how fearfully near the abyss of the ridiculous! A few drops +of alcohol bring about a confusion of mind not unlike this poetical +metempsychosis. + +The laird of Balnamoon had been at a dinner where they gave him +cherry-brandy instead of port wine. In driving home over a wild tract of +land called Munrimmon Moor his hat and wig blew off, and his servant got +out of the gig and brought them to him. The hat he recognized, but not +the wig. "It's no my wig, Hairy [Harry], lad; it's no my wig," and he +would not touch it. At last Harry lost his patience: "Ye'd better tak' +it, sir, for there's nae waile [choice] o' wigs on Munrimmon Moor." +And in our earlier days we used to read of the bewildered market-woman, +whose _Ego_ was so obscured when she awoke from her slumbers that she +had to leave the question of her personal identity to the instinct of +her four-footed companion:-- + + "If it be I, he'll wag his little tail; + And if it be not I, he'll loudly bark and wail." + +I have not lost my reverence for Emerson in showing one of his fancies +for a moment in the distorting mirror of the ridiculous. He would +doubtless have smiled with me at the reflection, for he had a keen sense +of humor. But I take the opportunity to disclaim a jesting remark about +"a foresmell of the Infinite" which Mr. Conway has attributed to me, who +am innocent of all connection with it. + +The mystic appeals to those only who have an ear for the celestial +concords, as the musician only appeals to those who have the special +endowment which enables them to understand his compositions. It is +not for organizations untuned to earthly music to criticise the great +composers, or for those who are deaf to spiritual harmonies to criticise +the higher natures which lose themselves in the strains of divine +contemplation. The bewildered reader must not forget that passage of +arms, previously mentioned, between Plato and Diogenes. + + * * * * * + +Emerson looked rather askance at Science in his early days. I remember +that his brother Charles had something to say in the "Harvard Register" +(1828) about its disenchantments. I suspect the prejudice may have come +partly from Wordsworth. Compare this verse of his with the lines of +Emerson's which follow it. + + "Physician art thou, one all eyes; + Philosopher, a fingering slave, + One that would peep and botanize + Upon his mother's grave?" + +Emerson's lines are to be found near the end of the Appendix in the new +edition of his works. + + "Philosophers are lined with eyes within, + And, being so, the sage unmakes the man. + In love he cannot therefore cease his trade; + Scarce the first blush has overspread his cheek, + He feels it, introverts his learned eye + To catch the unconscious heart in the very act. + His mother died,--the only friend he had,-- + Some tears escaped, but his philosophy + Couched like a cat, sat watching close behind + And throttled all his passion. Is't not like + That devil-spider that devours her mate + Scarce freed from her embraces?" + +The same feeling comes out in the Poem "Blight," where he says the +"young scholars who invade our hills" + + "Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, + And all their botany is Latin names;" + +and in "The Walk," where the "learned men" with their glasses are +contrasted with the sons of Nature,--the poets are no doubt meant,--much +to the disadvantage of the microscopic observers. Emerson's mind +was very far from being of the scientific pattern. Science is +quantitative,--loves the foot-rule and the balance,--methodical, +exhaustive, indifferent to the beautiful as such. The poet is curious, +asks all manner of questions, and never thinks of waiting for the +answer, still less of torturing Nature to get at it. Emerson wonders, +for instance,-- + + "Why Nature loves the number five," + +but leaves his note of interrogation without troubling himself any +farther. He must have picked up some wood-craft and a little botany +from Thoreau, and a few chemical notions from his brother-in-law, Dr. +Jackson, whose name is associated with the discovery of artificial +anaesthesia. It seems probable that the genial companionship of Agassiz, +who united with his scientific genius, learning, and renown, most +delightful social qualities, gave him a kinder feeling to men of science +and their pursuits than he had entertained before that great master came +among us. At any rate he avails himself of the facts drawn from their +specialties without scruple when they will serve his turn. But he loves +the poet always better than the scientific student of nature. In his +Preface to the Poems of Mr. W.E. Channing, he says:-- + +"Here is a naturalist who sees the flower and the bud with a poet's +curiosity and awe, and does not count the stamens in the aster, nor the +feathers in the wood-thrush, but rests in the surprise and affection +they awake."-- + +This was Emerson's own instinctive attitude to all the phenomena of +nature. + +Emerson's style is epigrammatic, incisive, authoritative, sometimes +quaint, never obscure, except when he is handling nebulous subjects. +His paragraphs are full of brittle sentences that break apart and are +independent units, like the fragments of a coral colony. His imagery is +frequently daring, leaping from the concrete to the abstract, from the +special to the general and universal, and _vice versa_, with a bound +that is like a flight. Here are a few specimens of his pleasing +_audacities_:-- + +"There is plenty of wild azote and carbon unappropriated, but it is +naught till we have made it up into loaves and soup."-- + +"He arrives at the sea-shore and a sumptuous ship has floored and +carpeted for him the stormy Atlantic."-- + +"If we weave a yard of tape in all humility and as well as we can, long +hereafter we shall see it was no cotton tape at all but some galaxy +which we braided, and that the threads were Time and Nature."-- + +"Tapping the tempest for a little side wind."-- + +"The locomotive and the steamboat, like enormous shuttles, shoot +every day across the thousand various threads of national descent and +employment and bind them fast in one web."-- + +He is fond of certain archaisms and unusual phrases. He likes +the expression "mother-wit," which he finds in Spenser, Marlowe, +Shakespeare, and other old writers. He often uses the word "husband" +in its earlier sense of economist. His use of the word "haughty" is so +fitting, and it sounds so nobly from his lips, that we could wish its +employment were forbidden henceforth to voices which vulgarize it. But +his special, constitutional, word is "fine," meaning something like +dainty, as Shakespeare uses it,--"my dainty Ariel,"--"fine Ariel." It +belongs to his habit of mind and body as "faint" and "swoon" belong to +Keats. This word is one of the ear-marks by which Emerson's imitators +are easily recognized. "Melioration" is another favorite word of +Emerson's. A clairvoyant could spell out some of his most characteristic +traits by the aid of his use of these three words; his inborn +fastidiousness, subdued and kept out of sight by his large charity and +his good breeding, showed itself in his liking for the word "haughty;" +his exquisite delicacy by his fondness for the word "fine," with a +certain shade of meaning; his optimism in the frequent recurrence of the +word "melioration." + +We must not find fault with his semi-detached sentences until we quarrel +with Solomon and criticise the Sermon on the Mount. The "point and +surprise" which he speaks of as characterizing the style of Plutarch +belong eminently to his own. His fertility of illustrative imagery is +very great. His images are noble, or, if borrowed from humble objects, +ennobled by his handling. He throws his royal robe over a milking-stool +and it becomes a throne. But chiefly he chooses objects of comparison +grand in themselves. He deals with the elements at first hand. Such +delicacy of treatment, with such breadth and force of effect, is hard to +match anywhere, and we know him by his style at sight. It is as when the +slight fingers of a girl touch the keys of some mighty and many-voiced +organ, and send its thunders rolling along the aisles and startling +the stained windows of a great cathedral. We have seen him as an +unpretending lecturer. We follow him round as he "peddles out all the +wit he can gather from Time or from Nature," and we find that "he has +changed his market cart into a chariot of the sun," and is carrying +about the morning light as merchandise. + + * * * * * + +Emerson was as loyal an American, as thorough a New Englander, as +home-loving a citizen, as ever lived. He arraigned his countrymen +sharply for their faults. Mr. Arnold made one string of his epithets +familiar to all of us,--"This great, intelligent, sensual, and +avaricious America." This was from a private letter to Carlyle. In his +Essay, "Works and Days," he is quite as outspoken: "This mendicant +America, this curious, peering, itinerant, imitative America." "I +see plainly," he says, "that our society is as bigoted to the +respectabilities of religion and education as yours." "The war," he +says, "gave back integrity to this erring and immoral nation." All his +life long he recognized the faults and errors of the new civilization. +All his life long he labored diligently and lovingly to correct them. +To the dark prophecies of Carlyle, which came wailing to him across the +ocean, he answered with ever hopeful and cheerful anticipations. "Here," +he said, in words I have already borrowed, "is the home of man--here is +the promise of a new and more excellent social state than history has +recorded." + +Such a man as Emerson belongs to no one town or province or continent; +he is the common property of mankind; and yet we love to think of him +as breathing the same air and treading the same soil that we and our +fathers and our children have breathed and trodden. So it pleases us +to think how fondly he remembered his birthplace; and by the side of +Franklin's bequest to his native city we treasure that golden verse of +Emerson's:-- + + "A blessing through the ages thus + Shield all thy roofs and towers, + GOD WITH THE FATHERS, SO WITH US, + Thou darling town of ours!" + +Emerson sympathized with all generous public movements, but he was not +fond of working in associations, though he liked well enough to attend +their meetings as a listener and looker-on. His study was his workshop, +and he preferred to labor in solitude. When he became famous he paid the +penalty of celebrity in frequent interruptions by those "devastators of +the day" who sought him in his quiet retreat. His courtesy and kindness +to his visitors were uniform and remarkable. Poets who come to recite +their verses and reformers who come to explain their projects are +among the most formidable of earthly visitations. Emerson accepted +his martyrdom with meek submission; it was a martyrdom in detail, but +collectively its petty tortures might have satisfied a reasonable +inquisitor as the punishment of a moderate heresy. Except in that one +phrase above quoted he never complained of his social oppressors, so far +as I remember, in his writings. His perfect amiability was one of his +most striking characteristics, and in a nature fastidious as was his in +its whole organization, it implied a self-command worthy of admiration. + + * * * * * + +The natural purity and elevation of Emerson's character show themselves +in all that he writes. His life corresponded to the ideal we form of him +from his writings. This it was which made him invulnerable amidst all +the fierce conflicts his gentle words excited. His white shield was so +spotless that the least scrupulous combatants did not like to leave +their defacing marks upon it. One would think he was protected by some +superstition like that which Voltaire refers to as existing about +Boileau,-- + + "Ne disons pas mal de Nicolas,--cela porte malheur." + +(Don't let us abuse Nicolas,--it brings ill luck.) The cooped-up +dogmatists whose very citadel of belief he was attacking, and who had +their hot water and boiling pitch and flaming brimstone ready for the +assailants of their outer defences, withheld their missiles from him, +and even sometimes, in a movement of involuntary human sympathy, +sprinkled him with rose-water. His position in our Puritan New England +was in some respects like that of Burns in Presbyterian Scotland. The +_dour_ Scotch ministers and elders could not cage their minstrel, and +they could not clip his wings; and so they let this morning lark rise +above their theological mists, and sing to them at heaven's gate, until +he had softened all their hearts and might nestle in their bosoms and +find his perch on "the big ha' bible," if he would,--and as he did. So +did the music of Emerson's words and life steal into the hearts of our +stern New England theologians, and soften them to a temper which would +have seemed treasonable weakness to their stiff-kneed forefathers. When +a man lives a life commended by all the Christian virtues, enlightened +persons are not so apt to cavil at his particular beliefs or unbeliefs +as in former generations. We do, however, wish to know what are the +convictions of any such persons in matters of highest interest about +which there is so much honest difference of opinion in this age of deep +and anxious and devout religious scepticism. + +It was a very wise and a very prudent course which was taken by +Simonides, when he was asked by his imperial master to give him his +ideas about the Deity. He begged for a day to consider the question, but +when the time came for his answer he wanted two days more, and at the +end of these, four days. In short, the more he thought about it, the +more he found himself perplexed. + +The name most frequently applied to Emerson's form of belief is +Pantheism. How many persons who shudder at the sound of this word can +tell the difference between that doctrine and their own professed belief +in the omnipresence of the Deity? + +Theodore Parker explained Emerson's position, as he understood it, in an +article in the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review." I borrow this quotation +from Mr. Cooke:-- + +"He has an absolute confidence in God. He has been foolishly accused of +Pantheism, which sinks God in nature, but no man Is further from it. +He never sinks God in man; he does not stop with the law, in matter or +morals, but goes to the Law-giver; yet probably it would not be so easy +for him to give his definition of God, as it would be for most graduates +at Andover or Cambridge." + +We read in his Essay, "Self-Reliance ": "This is the ultimate fact which +we so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, the resolution of all +into the ever-blessed ONE. Self-existence is the attribute of the +Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree in +which it enters into all lower forms." + +The "ever-blessed ONE" of Emerson corresponds to the Father in the +doctrine of the Trinity. The "Over-Soul" of Emerson is that aspect of +Deity which is known to theology as the Holy Spirit. Jesus was for him a +divine manifestation, but only as other great human souls have been in +all ages and are to-day. He was willing to be called a Christian just as +he was willing to be called a Platonist. + +Explanations are apt not to explain much in dealing with subjects like +this. "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the +Almighty unto perfection?" But on certain great points nothing could be +clearer than the teaching of Emerson. He believed in the doctrine of +spiritual influx as sincerely as any Calvinist or Swedenborgian. His +views as to fate, or the determining conditions of the character, +brought him near enough to the doctrine of predestination to make him +afraid of its consequences, and led him to enter a caveat against any +denial of the self-governing power of the will. + +His creed was a brief one, but he carried it everywhere with him. In all +he did, in all he said, and so far as all outward signs could show, in +all his thoughts, the indwelling Spirit was his light and guide; through +all nature he looked up to nature's God; and if he did not worship the +"man Christ Jesus" as the churches of Christendom have done, he followed +his footsteps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father Taylor, spoke of +him as more like Christ than any man he had known. + +Emerson was in friendly relations with many clergymen of the church +from which he had parted. Since he left the pulpit, the lesson, not +of tolerance, for that word is an insult as applied by one set of +well-behaved people to another, not of charity, for that implies an +impertinent assumption, but of good feeling on the part of divergent +sects and their ministers has been taught and learned as never before. +Their official Confessions of Faith make far less difference in their +human sentiments and relations than they did even half a century ago. +These ancient creeds are handed along down, to be kept in their phials +with their stoppers fast, as attar of rose is kept in its little +bottles; they are not to be opened and exposed to the atmosphere so long +as their perfume,--the odor of sanctity,--is diffused from the carefully +treasured receptacles,--perhaps even longer than that. + +Out of the endless opinions as to the significance and final outcome of +Emerson's religious teachings I will select two as typical. + +Dr. William Hague, long the honored minister of a Baptist church in +Boston, where I had the pleasure of friendly acquaintance with him, has +written a thoughtful, amiable paper on Emerson, which he read before the +New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. This Essay closes with +the following sentence:-- + +"Thus, to-day, while musing, as at the beginning, over the works of +Ralph Waldo Emerson, we recognize now as ever his imperial genius as one +of the greatest of writers; at the same time, his life work, as a whole, +tested by its supreme ideal, its method and its fruitage, shows also a +great waste of power, verifying the saying of Jesus touching the harvest +of human life: 'HE THAT GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD.'" + +"But when Dean Stanley returned from America, it was to report," says +Mr. Conway "('Macmillan,' June, 1879), that religion had there passed +through an evolution from Edwards to Emerson, and that 'the genial +atmosphere which Emerson has done so much to promote is shared by all +the churches equally.'" + +What is this "genial atmosphere" but the very spirit of Christianity? +The good Baptist minister's Essay is full of it. He comes asking what +has become of Emerson's "wasted power" and lamenting his lack of +"fruitage," and lo! he himself has so ripened and mellowed in that same +Emersonian air that the tree to which he belongs would hardly know him. +The close-communion clergyman handles the arch-heretic as tenderly as if +he were the nursing mother of a new infant Messiah. A few generations +ago this preacher of a new gospel would have been burned; a little later +he would been tried and imprisoned; less than fifty years ago he was +called infidel and atheist; names which are fast becoming relinquished +to the intellectual half-breeds who sometimes find their way into +pulpits and the so-called religious periodicals. + +It is not within our best-fenced churches and creeds that the +self-governing American is like to find the religious freedom which the +Concord prophet asserted with the strength of Luther and the sweetness +of Melancthon, and which the sovereign in his shirt-sleeves will surely +claim. Milton was only the precursor of Emerson when he wrote:-- + +"Neither is God appointed and confined, where and out of what place +these his chosen shall be first heard to speak; for he sees not as man +sees, chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote ourselves again +to set places and assemblies, and outward callings of men, planting our +faith one while in the old convocation house, and another while in the +Chapel at Westminster, when all the faith and religion that shall be +there canonized is not sufficient without plain convincement, and +the charity of patient instruction, to supple the least bruise of +conscience, to edify the meanest Christian who desires to walk in the +spirit and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of +voices that can be there made; no, though Harry the Seventh himself +there, with all his liege tombs about him, should lend their voices from +the dead, to swell their number." + +The best evidence of the effect produced by Emerson's writings and life +is to be found in the attention he has received from biographers and +critics. The ground upon which I have ventured was already occupied by +three considerable Memoirs. Mr. George Willis Cooke's elaborate work is +remarkable for its careful and thorough analysis of Emerson's teachings. +Mr. Moncure Daniel Conway's "Emerson at Home and Abroad" is a lively +picture of its subject by one long and well acquainted with him. Mr. +Alexander Ireland's "Biographical Sketch" brings together, from a great +variety of sources, as well as from his own recollections, the facts of +Emerson's history and the comments of those whose opinions were best +worth reproducing. I must refer to this volume for a bibliography of the +various works and Essays of which Emerson furnished the subject. + +From the days when Mr. Whipple attracted the attention of our +intelligent, but unawakened reading community, by his discriminating and +appreciative criticisms of Emerson's Lectures, and Mr. Lowell drew the +portrait of the New England "Plotinus-Montaigne" in his brilliant "Fable +for Critics," to the recent essays of Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. John +Morley, Mr. Henry Norman, and Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, Emerson's +writings have furnished one of the most enduring _pièces de résistance_ +at the critical tables of the old and the new world. + +He early won the admiration of distinguished European thinkers and +writers: Carlyle accepted his friendship and his disinterested services; +Miss Martineau fully recognized his genius and sounded his praises; Miss +Bremer fixed her sharp eyes on him and pronounced him "a noble man." +Professor Tyndall found the inspiration of his life in Emerson's +fresh thought; and Mr. Arnold, who clipped his medals reverently but +unsparingly, confessed them to be of pure gold, even while he questioned +whether they would pass current with posterity. He found discerning +critics in France, Germany, and Holland. Better than all is the +testimony of those who knew him best. They who repeat the saying that +"a prophet is not without honor save in his own country," will find an +exception to its truth in the case of Emerson. Read the impressive words +spoken at his funeral by his fellow-townsman, Judge Hoar; read the +glowing tributes of three of Concord's poets,--Mr. Alcott, Mr. Channing, +and Mr. Sanborn,--and it will appear plainly enough that he, whose fame +had gone out into all the earth, was most of all believed in, honored, +beloved, lamented, in the little village circle that centred about his +own fireside. + +It is a not uninteresting question whether Emerson has bequeathed to the +language any essay or poem which will resist the flow of time like "the +adamant of Shakespeare," and remain a classic like the Essays of Addison +or Gray's Elegy. It is a far more important question whether his thought +entered into the spirit of his day and generation, so that it modified +the higher intellectual, moral, and religious life of his time, and, as +a necessary consequence, those of succeeding ages. _Corpora non agunt +nisi soluta_, and ideas must be dissolved and taken up as well as +material substances before they can act. "That which thou sowest is not +quickened except it die," or rather lose the form with which it was +sown. Eight stanzas of four lines each have made the author of "The +Burial of Sir John Moore" an immortal, and endowed the language with a +classic, perfect as the most finished cameo. But what is the gift of a +mourning ring to the bequest of a perpetual annuity? How many lives +have melted into the history of their time, as the gold was lost +in Corinthian brass, leaving no separate monumental trace of their +influence, but adding weight and color and worth to the age of which +they formed a part and the generations that came after them! We can dare +to predict of Emerson, in the words of his old friend and disciple, Mr. +Cranch:-- + + "The wise will know thee and the good will love, + The age to come will feel thy impress given + In all that lifts the race a step above + Itself, and stamps it with the seal of heaven." + +It seems to us, to-day, that Emerson's best literary work in prose and +verse must live as long as the language lasts; but whether it live or +fade from memory, the influence of his great and noble life and +the spoken and written words which were its exponents, blends, +indestructible, with the enduring elements of civilization. + + * * * * * + +It is not irreverent, but eminently fitting, to compare any singularly +pure and virtuous life with that of the great exemplar in whose +footsteps Christendom professes to follow. The time was when the divine +authority of his gospel rested chiefly upon the miracles he is reported +to have wrought. As the faith in these exceptions to the general laws +of the universe diminished, the teachings of the Master, of whom it was +said that he spoke as never man spoke, were more largely relied upon +as evidence of his divine mission. Now, when a comparison of these +teachings with those of other religious leaders is thought by many to +have somewhat lessened the force of this argument, the life of the +sinless and self-devoted servant of God and friend of man is appealed to +as the last and convincing proof that he was an immediate manifestation +of the Divinity. + +Judged by his life Emerson comes very near our best ideal of humanity. +He was born too late for the trial of the cross or the stake, or even +the jail. But the penalty of having an opinion of his own and expressing +it was a serious one, and he accepted it as cheerfully as any of Queen +Mary's martyrs accepted his fiery baptism. His faith was too large and +too deep for the formulae he found built into the pulpit, and he was too +honest to cover up his doubts under the flowing vestments of a sacred +calling. His writings, whether in prose or verse, are worthy of +admiration, but his manhood was the underlying quality which gave them +their true value. It was in virtue of this that his rare genius acted on +so many minds as a trumpet call to awaken them to the meaning and the +privileges of this earthly existence with all its infinite promise. +No matter of what he wrote or spoke, his words, his tones, his looks, +carried the evidence of a sincerity which pervaded them all and was to +his eloquence and poetry like the water of crystallization; without +which they would effloresce into mere rhetoric. He shaped an ideal for +the commonest life, he proposed an object to the humblest seeker after +truth. Look for beauty in the world around you, he said, and you shall +see it everywhere. Look within, with pure eyes and simple trust, and you +shall find the Deity mirrored in your own soul. Trust yourself because +you trust the voice of God in your inmost consciousness. + +There are living organisms so transparent that we can see their hearts +beating and their blood flowing through their glassy tissues. So +transparent was the life of Emerson; so clearly did the true nature of +the man show through it. What he taught others to be, he was himself. +His deep and sweet humanity won him love and reverence everywhere +among those whose natures were capable of responding to the highest +manifestations of character. Here and there a narrow-eyed sectary may +have avoided or spoken ill of him; but if He who knew what was in man +had wandered from door to door in New England as of old in Palestine, we +can well believe that one of the thresholds which "those blessed feet" +would have crossed, to hallow and receive its welcome, would have been +that of the lovely and quiet home of Emerson. + + + + +INDEX. + +[For many references, not found elsewhere, see under the general +headings of _Emerson's Books, Essays, Poems_.] + + + Abbott, Josiah Gardiner, a pupil of Emerson, 49, 50. + + Academic Races, 2, 3. (See _Heredity_.) + + Action, subordinate, 112. + + Adams, John, old age, 261. + + Adams, Samuel, Harvard debate, 115. + + Addison, Joseph, classic, 416. + + Advertiser, The, Emerson's interest in, 348. + + Aeolian Harp, his model, 329, 340. + (See _Emerson's Poems_,--Harp.) + + Aeschylus, tragedies, 253. (See _Greek_.) + + Agassiz, Louis: + Saturday Club, 222; + companionship, 403. + + Agriculture: + in Anthology, 30; + attacked, 190; + not Emerson's field, 255, 256, 365. + + Akenside, Mark, allusion, 16. + + Alchemy, adepts, 260, 261. + + Alcott, A. Bronson: + hearing Emerson, 66; + speculations, 86; + an idealist, 150; + The Dial, 159; + sonnet, 355; + quoted, 373; + personality traceable, 389. + + Alcott, Louisa M., funeral bouquet, 351. + + Alexander the Great: + allusion, 184; + mountain likeness, 322. + + Alfred the Great, 220, 306. + + Allston, Washington, unfinished picture, 334. + (See _Pictures_.) + + Ambition, treated in Anthology, 30. + + America: + room for a poet, 136, 137; + virtues and defects, 143; + faith in, 179; + people compared with English, 216; + things awry, 260; + _aristocracy_, 296; + in the Civil War, 304; + Revolution, 305; + Lincoln, the true history of his time, 307; + passion for, 308, 309; + artificial rhythm, 329; + its own literary style, 342; + home of man, 371; + loyalty to, 406; + epithets, 406, 407. + (See _England, New England_, etc.) + + Amici, meeting Emerson, 63. + (See _Italy_.) + + Amusements, in New England, 30. + + Anaemia, artistic, 334. + + Ancestry: + in general, 1-3; + Emerson's, 3 _et seq._ + (See _Heredity_.) + + Andover, Mass.: + Theological School, 48; + graduates, 411. + + Andrew, John Albion: + War Governor, 223; + hearing Emerson, 379. + (See _South_.) + + Angelo. (See _Michael Angelo_.) + + Antinomianism: + in The Dial, 162; + kept from, 177. + (See _God, Religion_, etc.) + + Anti-Slavery: + in Emerson's pulpit, 57; + the reform, 141, 145, 152; + Emancipation address, 181; + Boston and New York addresses, 210-212; + Emancipation Proclamation, 228; + Fugitive Slave Law, and other matters, 303-307. + (See _South_.) + + Antoninus, Marcus, allusion, 16. + + Architecture, illustrations, 253. + + Arianism, 51. + (See _Unitarianism_.) + + Aristotle: + influence over Mary Emerson, 17; + times mentioned, 382. + + Arminianism, 51. + (See _Methodism, Religion_, etc.) + + Arnim, Gisela von, 225. + + Arnold, Matthew: + quotation about America, 137: + lecture, 236; + on Milton, 315; + his Thyrsis, 333; + criticism, 334; + string of Emerson's epithets, 406. + + Aryans, comparison, 312. + + Asia: + a pet name, 176; + immovable, 200. + + Assabet River, 70, 71. + + Astronomy: + Harp illustration, 108; + stars against wrong, 252, 253. + (See _Galileo, Stars, Venus_, etc.) + + Atlantic Monthly: + sketch of Dr. Ripley, 14, 15; + of Mary Moody Emerson, 16; + established, 221; + supposititious club, 222; + on Persian Poetry, 224; + on Thoreau, 228; + Emerson's contributions, 239, 241; + Brahma, 296. + + Atmosphere: + effect on inspiration, 290; + spiritual, 413, 414. + + Augustine, Emerson's study of, 52. + + Authors, quoted by Emerson, 381-383. + (See _Plutarch_, etc.) + + + Bacon, Francis: + allusion, 22, 111; + times quoted, 382. + + Bancroft, George: + literary rank, 33; + in college, 45. + + Barbier, Henri Auguste, on Napoleon, 208. + + Barnwell, Robert W.: + in history, 45; + in college, 47. + + Beaumont and Fletcher, disputed, line, 128, 129. + + Beauty: + its nature, 74, 94, 95; + an end, 99, 135, 182; + study, 301. + + Beecher, Edward, on preexistence, 391. + (See _Preexistence_.) + + Behmen, Jacob: + mysticism, 201, 202, 396; + citation, 380. + + Berkeley, Bishop: + characteristics, 189; + matter, 300. + + Bible: + Mary Emerson's study, 16; + Mosaic cosmogony, 18; + the Exodus, 35; + the Lord's Supper, 58; + Psalms, 68, 181, 182, 253; + lost Paradise, 101; + Genesis, Sermon on the Mount, 102; + Seer of Patmos, 102, 103; + Apocalypse, 105; + Song of Songs, 117; + Baruch's roll, 117, 118; + not closed, 122; + the Sower, 154; + Noah's Ark, 191; + Pharisee's trumpets, 255; + names and imagery, 268; + sparing the rod, 297; + rhythmic mottoes, 314; + beauty of Israel, 351; + face of an angel, 352; + barren fig-tree, 367; + a classic, 376; + body of death, "Peace be still!" 379; + draught of fishes, 381; + its semi-detached sentences, 405; + Job quoted, 411; + "the man Christ Jesus," 412; + scattering abroad, 414. + (See _Christ, God, Religion,_ etc.) + + Bigelow, Jacob, on rural cemeteries, 31. + + Biography, every man writes his own, 1. + + Blackmore, Sir Richard, controversy, 31. + + Bliss Family, 9. + + Bliss, Daniel, patriotism, 72. + + Blood, transfusion of, 256. + + Books, use and abuse, 110, 111. + (See _Emerson's Essays_.) + + Boston, Mass.: + First Church, 10, 12, 13; + Woman's Club, 16; + Harbor, 19; + nebular spot, 25, 26; + its pulpit darling, 27; + Episcopacy, 28; + Athenaeum, 31; + magazines, 28-34; + intellectual character, lights on its three hills, high caste + religion, 34; + Samaria and Jerusalem, 35; + streets and squares, 37-39; + Latin School, 39, 40, 43; + new buildings, 42; + Mrs. Emerson's boarding-house, the Common as a pasture, 43; + Unitarian preaching, 51; + a New England centre, 52; + Emerson's settlement, 54; + Second Church, 55-61; + lectures, 87, 88, 191; + Trimount Oracle, 102; + stirred by the Divinity-School address, 126; + school-keeping, Roxbury, 129; + aesthetic society, 149; + Transcendentalists, 155, 156; + Bay, 172; + Freeman Place Chapel, 210: + Saturday Club, 221-223; + Burns Centennial, 224, 225; + Parker meeting, 228; + letters, 263, 274, 275; + Old South lecture, 294; + Unitarianism, 298; + Emancipation Proclamation, 307; + special train, 350; + Sons of Liberty, 369; + birthplace, 407; + Baptists, 413. + + Boswell, James: + allusion, 138; + one lacking, 223; + Life of Johnson, 268. + + Botany, 403. + (See _Science_.) + + Bowen, Francis: literary rank, 34; + on Nature, 103, 104. + + Brook Farm, 159, 164-166, 189, 191. + (See _Transcendentalism_, etc.) + + Brown, Howard N., prayer, 355. + + Brown, John, sympathy with, 211. + (See _Anti-Slavery, South_.) + + Brownson, Orestes A., at a party, 149. + + Bryant, William Cullen: + his literary rank, 33; + redundant syllable, 328; + his translation of Homer quoted, 378. + + Buckminster, Joseph Stevens: + minister in Boston, 12, 26, 27, 52; + Memoir, 29; + destruction of Goldau, 31. + + Buddhism: + like Transcendentalism, 151; + Buddhist nature, 188; + saints + 298. (See _Emerson's Poems_,--Brahma, + --_India_, etc.) + + Buffon, on style, 341. + + Bulkeley Family, 4-7. + + Bulkeley, Peter: + minister of Concord, 4-7, 71; + comparison of sermons, 57; + patriotism, 72; + landowner, 327. + + Bunyan, John, quoted, 169. + + Burke, Edmund: + essay, 73; + times mentioned, 382. + + Burns, Robert: + festival, 224, 225; + rank, 281; + image referred to, 386; + religious position, 409. (See _Scotland_.) + + Burroughs, John, view of English life, 335. + + Burton, Robert, quotations, 109, 381. + + Buttrick, Major, in the Revolution, 71, 72. + + Byron, Lord: + allusion, 16; + rank, 281; + disdain, 321; + uncertain sky, 335; + parallelism, 399. + + + CABOT, J. ELLIOT: + on Emerson's literary habits, 27; + The Dial, 159; + prefaces, 283, 302; + Note, 295, 296; + Prefatory Note, 310, 311; + the last meetings, 347, 348. + + Caesar, Julius, 184,197. + + California, trip, 263-271, 359. (See _Thayer_.) + + Calvin, John: + his Commentary, 103; + used by Cotton, 286. + + Calvinism: + William Emerson's want of sympathy with, 11, 12; + outgrown, 51; + predestination, 230; + saints, 298; + spiritual influx, 412. + (See _God, Puritanism, Religion, Unitarianism.)_ + + Cambridge, Mass.: + Emerson teaching there, 50; + exclusive circles, 52. + (See _Harvard University_.) + + Cant, disgust with, 156. + + Carlyle, Thomas: + meeting Emerson, 63; + recollections of their relations, 78-80, 83; + Sartor Resartus, 81, 82, 91; + correspondence, 82, 83, 89, 90, 127, 176, 177, 192, 315, 317, 374, + 380, 381, 406, 407; + Life of Schiller, 91; + on Nature, 104, 105; + Miscellanies, 130; + the Waterville Address, 136-138; + influence, 149, 150; + on Transcendentalism, 156-158; + The Dial, 160-163; + Brook Farm, 164; + friendship, 171; + Chelsea visit, 194; + bitter legacy, 196; + love of power, 197; + on Napoleon and Goethe, 208; + grumblings, 260; + tobacco, 270; + Sartor reprinted, 272; + paper on, 294; + Emerson's dying friendship, 349; + physique, 363; + Gallic fire, 386; + on Characteristics, 387; + personality traceable, 389. + + Carpenter, William B., 230. + + Century, The, essay in, 295. + + Cerebration, unconscious, 112, 113. + + Chalmers, Thomas, preaching, 65. + + Channing, Walter, headache, 175, 390. + + Channing, William Ellery: + allusion, 16; + directing Emerson's studies, 51; + preaching, 52; + Emerson in his pulpit, 66; + influence, 147, 149; + kept awake, 157. + + Channing, William Ellery, the poet: + his Wanderer, 263; + Poems, 403. + + Channing, William Henry: + allusions, 131, 149; + in The Dial, 159; + the Fuller Memoir, 209; + Ode inscribed to, 211, 212. + + Charleston, S C, Emerson's preaching, 53. (See _South_.) + + Charlestown, Mass., Edward Emerson's residence, 8. + + Charles V., 197. + + Charles XII., 197. + + Chatelet, Parent du, a realist, 326. + + Chatham, Lord, 255. + + Chaucer, Geoffrey: + borrowings, 205; + rank, 281; + honest rhymes, 340; + times mentioned, 382. + + Chelmsford, Mass., Emerson teaching there, 49, 50. + + Chemistry, 403. (See _Science_.) + + Cheshire, its "haughty hill," 323. + + Choate, Rufus, oratory, 148. + + Christ: + reserved expressions about, 13; + mediatorship, 59; + true office, 120-122; + worship, 412. (See _Jesus, Religion_, etc.) + + Christianity: + its essentials, 13; + primitive, 35; + a mythus, defects, 121; + the true, 122; + two benefits, 123; + authority, 124; + incarnation of, 176; + the essence, 306; + Fathers, 391. + + Christian, Emerson a, 267. + + Christian Examiner, The: + on William Emerson, 12; + its literary predecessor, 29; + on Nature, 103, 104; + repudiates Divinity School Address, 124. + + Church: + activity in 1820, 147; + avoidance of, 153; + the true, 244; + music, 306. (See _God, Jesus, Religion_, etc.) + + Cicero, allusion, 111. + Cid, the, 184. + + Clarke, James Freeman: + letters, 77-80, 128-131; + transcendentalism, 149; + The Dial, 159; + Fuller Memoir, 209; + Emerson's funeral, 351, 353-355. + + Clarke, Samuel, allusion, 16. + + Clarke, Sarah, sketches, 130. + + Clarkson, Thomas, 220. + + Clergy: + among Emerson's ancestry, 3-8; + gravestones, 9. (See _Cotton, Heredity_, etc.) + + Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: + allusion, 16; + Emerson's account, 63; + influence, 149, 150; + Carlyle's criticism, 196; + Ancient Mariner, 333; + Christabel, Abyssinian Maid, 334; + times mentioned, 382; + an image quoted, 386; + William Tell, 387. + + Collins, William: + poetry, 321; + Ode and Dirge, 332. + + Commodity, essay, 94. + + Concentration, 288. + + Concord, Mass.: + Bulkeley's ministry, 4-7; + first association with the Emerson name, 7; + Joseph's descendants, 8; + the Fight, 9; Dr. Ripley, 10; + Social Club, 14; + Emerson's preaching, 54; + Goodwin's settlement, 56; + discord, 57; + Emerson's residence begun, 69, 70; + a typical town, 70; + settlement, 71; + a Delphi, 72; + Emerson home, 83; + Second Centennial, 84, 85, 303; + noted citizens, 86; + town government, the, monument, 87; + the Sage, 102; + letters, 125-131, 225; + supposition of Carlyle's life there, 171; + Emancipation Address, 181; + leaving, 192; + John Brown meeting, 211; + Samuel Hoar, 213; + wide-awake, 221; + Lincoln obsequies, 243, 307; + an _under_-Concord, 256; + fire, 271-279; + letters, 275-279; + return, 279; + Minute Man unveiled, 292; + Soldiers' Monument, 303; + land-owners, 327; + memorial stone, 333; + Conway's visits, 343, 344; + Whitman's, 344, 345; + Russell's, 345; funeral, 350-356; + founders, 352; + Sleepy Hollow, 356; + a strong attraction, 369; + neighbors, 373; + Prophet, 415. + + Congdon, Charles, his Reminiscences, + 66. + + Conservatism, fairly treated, 156, + 157. (See _Reformers, Religion, + Transcendentalism,_ etc.) + + Conversation: + C.C. Emerson's essay, 22, 258; + inspiration, 290. + + Conway, Moncure D.: + account of Emerson, 55, 56, 66, 194; + two visits, 343, 344; + anecdote, 346; + error, 401; + on Stanley, 414. + + Cooke, George Willis: + biography of Emerson, 43, 44, 66, 88; + on American Scholar, 107, 108; + on anti-slavery, 212; + on Parnassus, 280-282; + on pantheism, 411. + + Cooper, James Fenimore, 33. + + Corot, pearly mist, 335, 336. (See + _Pictures_, etc.) + + Cotton, John: + service to scholarship, 34; + reading Calvin, 286. + + Counterparts, the story, 226. + + Cowper, William: + Mother's Picture, 178; + disinterested good, 304; + tenderness, 333; + verse, 338. + + Cranch, Christopher P.: + The Dial, 159; + poetic prediction, 416, 417. + + Cromwell, Oliver: + saying by a war saint, 252; + in poetry, 387. + + Cudworth, Ralph, epithets, 200. + + Cupples, George, on Emerson's lectures, 195. + + Curtius, Quintus for Mettus, 388. + + Cushing, Caleb: + rank, 33; + in college, 45. + + + Dana, Richard Henry, his literary place, 33, 223. + + Dante: + allusion in Anthology, 31; + rank, 202, 320; + times mentioned, 382. + + Dartmouth College, oration, 131-135. + + Darwin, Charles, Origin of Species, 105. + + Dawes, Rufus, Boyhood Memories, 44. + + Declaration of Independence, intellectual, + 115. (See _American_, etc.) + + Delirium, imaginative, easily produced, + 238. (See _Intuition_.) + + Delia Cruscans, allusion, 152. (See + _Transcendentalism_.) + + Delos, allusion, 374. + + Delphic Oracle: + of New England, 72; + illustration, 84. + + Democratic Review, The, on Nature, 103. + + De Profundis, illustrating Carlyle's spirit, 83. + + De Quincey, Thomas: + Emerson's interview with, 63, 195; + on originality, 92. + + De Staël, Mme., allusion, 16. + + De Tocqueville, account of Unitarianism, 51. + Dewey, Orville, New Bedford ministry, 67. + + Dexter, Lord Timothy, punctuation, 325, 326. + + Dial, The: + established, 147, 158; + editors, 159; + influence, 160-163; + death, 164; + poems, 192; + old contributors, 221; + papers, 295; + intuitions, 394. + + Dial, The (second), in Cincinnati, 239. + + Dickens, Charles: + on Father Taylor, 56; + American Notes, 155. + + Diderot, Denis, essay, 79. + + Diogenes, story, 401. (See _Laertius_.) + + Disinterestedness, 259. + + Disraeli, Benjamin, the rectorship, 282. + + Dramas, their limitations, 375. (See _Shakespeare_.) + + Dress, illustration of poetry, 311, 312. + + Dryden, John, quotation, 20, 21. + + Dwight, John S.: + in The Dial, 159; + musical critic, 223. + + + East Lexington, Mass., the Unitarian pulpit, 88. + + Economy, its meaning, 142. + + Edinburgh, Scotland: + Emerson's visit and preaching, 64, 65; + lecture, 195. + + Education: + through friendship, 97, 98; + public questions, 258, 259. + + Edwards, Jonathan: + allusions, 16, 51; + the atmosphere changed, 414. + (See _Calvinism, Puritanism, Unitarianism_, etc.) + + Egotism, a pest, 233. + + Egypt: + poetic teaching, 121; + trip, 271, 272; + Sphinx, 330. (See _Emerson's Poems_,--Sphinx.) + + Election Sermon, illustration, 112. + + Elizabeth, Queen, verbal heir-loom, 313. (See _Raleigh_, etc.) + + Ellis, Rufus, minister of the First Church, Boston, 43. + + Eloquence, defined, 285, 286. + + Emerson Family, 3 _et seq_. + + Emerson, Charles Chauncy, brother of Ralph Waldo: + feeling towards natural science, 18, 237; + memories, 19-25, 37, 43; + character, 77; + death, 89, 90; + influence, 98; + The Dial, 161; + "the hand of Douglas," 234; + nearness, 368; + poetry, 385; + Harvard Register, 401. + + Emerson, Edith, daughter of Ralph Waldo, 263. + + Emerson, Edward, of Newbury, 8. + + Emerson, Edward Bliss, brother of Ralph Waldo: + allusions, 19, 20, 37, 38; + death, 89; + Last Farewell, poem, 161; + nearness, 368. + + Emerson, Edward Waldo, son of Ralph Waldo: + in New York, 246; + on the Farming essay, 255; + father's last days, 346-349; + reminiscences, 359. + + Emerson, Ellen, daughter of Ralph Waldo: + residence, 83; + trip to Europe, 271; + care of her father, 294; + correspondence, 347. + + Emerson, Mrs. Ellen Louisa Tucker, first wife of Ralph Waldo, 55. + + Emerson, Joseph, minister of Mendon, 4, 7, 8. + + Emerson, Joseph, the second, minister of Malden, 8. + + Emerson, Mrs. Lydia Jackson, second wife of Ralph Waldo: + marriage, 83; + _Asia_, 176. + + Emerson, Mary Moody: + influence over her nephew, 16-18; + quoted, 385. + + Emerson, Robert Bulkeley, brother of Ralph Waldo, 37. + + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, His Life: + moulding influences, 1; + New England heredity, 2; + ancestry, 3-10; + parents, 10-16; + Aunt Mary, 16-19; + brothers, 19-25; + the nest, 25; + noted scholars, 26-36; + birthplace, 37, 38; + boyhood, 39, 40; + early efforts, 41, 42; + parsonages, 42; + father's death, 43; + boyish appearance, 44; + college days, 45-47; + letter, 48; + teaching, 49, 50; + studying theology, and preaching, 51-54; + ordination, marriage, 55; + benevolent efforts, wife's death, 56; + withdrawal from his church, 57-61; + first trip to Europe, 62-65; + preaching in America, 66, 67; + remembered conversations, 68, 69; + residence in the Old Manse, 69-72; + lecturing, essays in The North American, 73; + poems, 74; + portraying himself, 75; + comparison with Milton, 76, 77; + letters to Clarke, 78-80, 128-131; + interest in Sartor Resartus, 81; + first letter to Carlyle, 82; + second marriage and Concord home, 83; + Second Centennial, 84-87; + Boston lectures, Concord Fight; 87; + East Lexington church, War, 88; + death of brothers, 89, 90; + Nature published, 91; + parallel with Wordsworth, 92; + free utterance, 93; + Beauty, poems, + 94; + Language, 95-97; + Discipline, 97, 98; + Idealism, 98, 99; + Illusions, 99, 100; + Spirit and Matter, 100; + Paradise regained, 101; + the Bible spirit, 102; + Revelations, 103; + Bowen's criticism, 104; + Evolution, 105, 106; + Phi Beta Kappa oration, 107, 108; + fable of the One Man, 109; + man thinking, 110; + Books, 111; + unconscious cerebration, 112; + a scholar's duties, 113; + specialists, 114; + a declaration of intellectual independence, 115; + address at the Theological School, 116, 117; + effect on Unitarians, 118; + sentiment of duty, 119; + Intuition, 120; + Reason, 121; + the Traditional Jesus, 122; + Sabbath and Preaching, 123; + correspondence with Ware, 124-127; + ensuing controversy, 127; + Ten Lectures, 128; + Dartmouth Address, 131-136; + Waterville Address, 136-140; + reforms, 141-145; + new views, 146; + Past and Present, 147; + on Everett, 148; + assembly at Dr. Warren's, 149; + Boston _doctrinaires_, 150; + unwise followers, 151-156; + Conservatives, 156, 157; + two Transcendental products, 157-166; + first volume of Essays, 166; + History, 167, 168; + Self-reliance, 168, 169; + Compensation, 169; + other essays, 170; + Friendship, 170, 171; + Heroism, 172; + Over-Soul, 172-175; + house and income, 176; + son's death, 177, 178; + American and Oriental qualities, 179; + English virtues, 180; + Emancipation addresses in 1844, 181; + second series of Essays, 181-188; + Reformers, 188-191; + Carlyle's business, Poems published, 192; + a second trip to Europe, 193-196; + Representative Men, 196-209; + lectures again, 210; + Abolitionism, 211, 212; + Woman's Rights, 212, 213; + a New England Roman, 213, 214; + English Traits, 214-221; + a new magazine, 221; + clubs, 222, 223; + more poetry, 224; + Burns Festival, 224; + letter about various literary matters, 225-227; + Parker's death, Lincoln's Proclamation, 228; + Conduct of Life, 228-239; + Boston Hymn, 240; + "So nigh is grandeur to our dust," 241; + Atlantic contributions, 242; + Lincoln obsequies, 243; + Free Religion, 243, 244; + second Phi Beta Kappa oration, 244-246; + poem read to his son, 246-248; + Harvard Lectures, 249-255; + agriculture and science, 255, 256; + predictions, 257; + Books, 258; + Conversation, 258; + elements of Courage, 259; + Success, 260, 261; + on old men, 261, 262; + California trip, 263-268; + eating, 269; + smoking, 270; + conflagration, loss of memory, Froude banquet, third trip abroad, 272; + friendly gifts, 272-279; + editing Parnassus, 280-282; + failing powers, 283; + Hope everywhere, 284; + negations, 285; + Eloquence, Pessimism, 286; + Comedy, Plagiarism, 287; + lessons repeated, 288; + Sources of Inspiration, 289, 290; + Future Life, 290-292; + dissolving creed, 292; + Concord Bridge, 292, 293; + decline of faculties, Old South lecture, 294; + papers, 294, 295; + quiet pen, 295; + posthumous works, 295 _et seq.;_ + the pedagogue, 297; + University of Virginia, 299; + indebtedness to Plutarch, 299-302; + slavery questions, 303-308; + Woman Question, 308; + patriotism, 308, 309; + nothing but a poet, 311; + antique words, 313; + self-revelation, 313, 314; + a great poet? 314-316; + humility, 317-319; + poetic favorites, 320, 321; + comparison with contemporaries, 321; + citizen of the universe, 322; + fascination of symbolism, 323; + realism, science, imaginative coloring, 324; + dangers of realistic poetry, 325; + range of subjects, 326; + bad rhymes, 327; + a trick of verse, 328; + one faultless poem, 332; + spell-bound readers, 333; + workshop, 334; + octosyllabic verse, atmosphere, 335, 336; + comparison with Wordsworth, 337; + and others, 338; + dissolving sentences, 339; + incompleteness, 339, 340; + personality, 341, 342; + last visits received, 343-345; + the red rose, 345; + forgetfulness, 346; + literary work of last years, 346, 347; + letters unanswered, 347; + hearing and sight, subjects that interested him, 348; + later hours, death, 349; + last rites, 350-356; + portrayal, 357-419; + atmosphere, 357; + books, distilled alcohol, 358; + physique, 359; + demeanor, 360; + hair and eyes, insensibility to music, 361; + daily habits, 362; + bodily infirmities, 362, 363; + voice, 363; + quiet laughter, want of manual dexterity, 364; + spade anecdote, memory, + ignorance of exact science, 305; + intuition and natural sagacity united, fastidiousness, 366; + impatience with small-minded worshippers, Frothingham's Biography, 367; + intimates, familiarity not invited, 368; + among fellow-townsmen, errand to earth, inherited traditions, 369; + sealed orders, 370, 371; + conscientious work, sacrifices for truth, essays instead of sermons, + 372; + congregation at large, charm, optimism, 373; + financially straitened, 374; + lecture room limitations, 374, 375; + a Shakespeare parallel, 375, 376; + platform fascination, 376; + constructive power, 376, 377; + English experiences, lecture-peddling, 377; + a stove relinquished, utterance, an hour's weight, 378; + trumpet-sound, sweet seriousness, diamond drops, effect on Governor + Andrew, 379; + learning at second hand, 380; + the study of Goethe, 380; + a great quoter, no pedantry, 381; + list of authors referred to, 381, 382; + special indebtedness, 382; + penetration, borrowing, 383; + method of writing and its results, aided by others, 384; + sayings that seem family property, 385; + passages compared, 385-387; + the tributary streams, 388; + accuracy as to facts, 388; + personalities traceable in him, 389; + place as a thinker, 390; + Platonic anecdote, 391; + preëxistence, 391, 392; + mind-moulds, 393; + relying on instinct, 394; + dangers of intuition, 395; + mysticism, 396; + Oriental side, 397; + transcendental mood, 398; + personal identity confused, 399; + a distorting mirror, 400; + distrust of science, 401-403; + style illustrated, 403, 404; + favorite words, 405; + royal imagery, 406; + comments on America, 406, 407; + common property of mankind, 407; + public spirit, solitary workshop, martyrdom from visitors, 408; + white shield invulnerable, 409; + religious attitude, 409-411; + spiritual influx, creed, 412; + clerical relations, 413; + Dr. Hague's criticism, 413, 414; + ameliorating religious influence, 414; + freedom, 415; + enduring verse and thought, 416, 417; + comparison with Jesus, 417; + sincere manhood, 418; + transparency, 419. + + Emerson's Books:-- + Conduct of Life, 229, 237. + English Traits: + the first European trip, 62; + published, 214; + analysis, 214-220; + penetration, 383; + Teutonic fire, 386. + Essays: + Dickens's allusion, 156; + collected, 166. + Essays, second series, 183. + Lectures and Biographical Sketches, 128, 295, 296, 347. + Letters and Social Aims, 210, 283, 284, 296. + May-day and Other Pieces, 161, 192, 224, 242, 257, 310, 318, 346. + Memoir of Margaret Fuller, 209. + Miscellanies, 302, 303. + Nature, Addresses, and Lectures, 179. + Nature: + resemblance of extracts from Mary Moody Emerson, 17; + where written, 70; + the Many in One, 73; + first published, 91, 92, 373; + analysis, 93-107; + obscure, 108; + Beauty, 237. + Parnassus: + collected, 280; + Preface, 314; + allusion, 321. + Poems, 293, 310, 318, 339. + Representative Men, 196-209. + Selected Poems, 311, 347. + Society and Solitude, 250. + + Emerson's Essays, Lectures, Sermons, Speeches, etc.:-- + In general: + essays, 73, 88, 91, 92, 310; + income from lectures, 176, 191, 192; + lectures in England, 194-196; + long series, 372; + lecture-room, 374; + plays and lectures, 375; + double duty, 376, 377; + charm, 379. + (See _Emerson's Life, Lyceum_, etc.) + American Civilization, 307. + American Scholar, The, 107-115, 133, 188. + Anglo-Saxon Race, The, 210. + Anti-Slavery Address, New York, 210-212. + Anti-Slavery Lecture, Boston, 210, 211. + Aristocracy, 296. + Art, 166, 175, 253, 254. + Beauty, 235-237. + Behavior, 234. + Books, 257, 380. + Brown, John, 302, 305, 306. + Burke, Edmund, 73. + Burns, Robert, 224, 225, 307. + Carlyle, Thomas, 294, 302, 317. + Channing's Poem, preface, 262, 263, 403. + Character, 183, 295, 297. + Chardon Street and Bible Convention, 159, 302. + Circles, 166, 174, 175. + Civilization, 250-253. + Clubs, 258. + Comedy. 128. + Comic, The, 286, 287. + Commodity, 94. + Compensation, 166, 169. + Concord Fight, the anniversary speech, 292, 293. + Concord, Second Centennial Discourse, 84-86. + Conservative, The, 156, 157, 159. + Considerations by the Way, 235. + Courage, 259. + Culture, 232, 233. + Demonology, 128, 296. + Discipline, 97, 98. + Divinity School Address, 116-127, 131. + Doctrine of the Soul, 127. + Domestic Life, 254, 255. + Duty, 128. + Editorial Address, Mass. Quarterly Review, 193, 302, 307. + Education, 296, 297. + Eloquence, 254; + second essay, 285, 286. + Emancipation in the British West Indies, 181, 303. + Emancipation Proclamation, 228, 307. + Emerson, Mary Moody, 295, 296, 302. + English Literature, 87. + Experience, 182. + Farming, 255, 256. + Fate, 228-330. + Fortune of the Republic, 294, 302, 307-309. + Fox, George, 73. + France, 196. + Free Religious Association, 243, 302, 307. + Friendship, 166, 170. + Froude, James Anthony, after-dinner speech, 271. + Fugitive Slave Law, 303, 304. + Genius, 127. + Gifts, 184, 185. + Goethe, or the Writer, 208, 209. + Greatness, 288, 346. + Harvard Commemoration, 307. + Heroism, 166, 172. + Historical Discourse, at Concord, 303. + Historic Notes of Life and Letters in New England, 147, 165, 296, 302. + History, 166, 167. + Hoar, Samuel, 213, 214, 295, 302. + Home, 127. + Hope, 284, 285. + Howard University, speech, 263. + Human Culture, 87. + Idealism, 98-100. + Illusions, 235, 239. + Immortality, 266, 290-292, 354. + Inspiration, 289. + Intellect, 166, 175. + Kansas Affairs, 305. + Kossuth, 307. + Language, 95-97. + Lincoln, Abraham, funeral remarks, 242, 243, 307. + Literary Ethics, 131-136. + Lord's Supper, 57-60, 303. + Love, 127,128,166,170. (See _Emerson's Poems_.) + Luther, 73. + Manners, 183, 234. + Man of Letters, The, 296, 298. + Man the Reformer, 142, 143. + Method of Nature, The, 136-141. + Michael Angelo, 73, 75. + Milton, 73, 75. + Montaigne, or the Skeptic, 202-204. + Napoleon, or the Man of the World, 206-209. + Natural History of the Intellect, 249, 268, 347. + Nature (the essay), 185, 186, 398. + New England Reformers, 188-191, 385. + Nominalism and Realism, 188. + Old Age, 261, 262. + Over-Soul, The, 166, 172-175, 398, 411. + Parker, Theodore, 228, 306. + Perpetual Forces, 297. + Persian Poetry, 224. + Phi Beta Kappa oration, 347. + Philosophy of History, 87. + Plato, 198-200; + New Readings, 200. + Plutarch, 295, 299-302. + Plutarch's Morals, introduction, 262. + Poet, The, 181, 182. + Poetry, 210. + Poetry and Imagination, 283; + subdivisions: Bards and Trouveurs, + Creation, Form, Imagination, + Melody, Morals, Rhythm, Poetry, + Transcendency, Veracity, 283, 284; + quoted, 325. + Politics, 186, 187. + Power, 230, 231. + Preacher, The, 294, 298. + Professions of Divinity, Law, and Medicine, 41. + Progress of Culture, The, 244, 288. + Prospects, 101-103. + Protest, The, 127. + Providence Sermon, 130. + Prudence, 166, 171, 172. + Quotation and Originality, 287, 288. + Relation of Man to the Globe, 73. + Resources, 286. + Right Hand of Fellowship, The, at Concord, 56. + Ripley, Dr. Ezra, 295, 302. + Scholar, The, 296, 299. + School, The, 127. + Scott, speech, 302, 307. + Self-Reliance, 166, 168, 411. + Shakespeare, or the Poet, 204-206. + Social Aims, 285. + Soldiers' Monument, at Concord, 303. + Sovereignty of Ethics, The, 295, 297, 298. + Spirit, 100, 101. + Spiritual Laws, 166, 168. + Success, 260, 261. + Sumner Assault, 304. + Superlatives, 295, 297. + Swedenborg, or the Mystic, 201, 202, 206. + Thoreau, Henry D., 228, 295, 302. + Times, The, 142-145. + Tragedy, 127. + Transcendentalist, The, 145-155, 159. + Universality of the Moral Sentiment, 66. + University of Virginia, address, 347. + War, 88, 303. + Water, 73. + Wealth, 231, 232. + What is Beauty? 74, 94, 95. + Woman, 307, 308. + Woman's Rights, 212, 213. + Work and Days, 256, 312, 406, 407. + Worship, 235. + Young American, The, 166, 180, 181. + + Emerson's Poems:-- + In general: inspiration from nature, 22, 96; + poetic rank in college, 45, 46; + prose-poetry and philosophy, 91, 93; + annual _afflatus_, in America, 136, 137; + first volume, 192; + five immortal poets, 202; + ideas repeated, 239; + true position, 311 _et seq.; in carmine veritas_, 313; + litanies, 314; + arithmetic, 321, 322; + fascination, 323; + celestial imagery, 324; + tin pans, 325; + realism, 326; + metrical difficulties, 327, 335; + blemishes, 328; + careless rhymes, 329; + delicate descriptions, 331; + pathos, 332; + fascination, 333; + unfinished, 334, 339, 340; + atmosphere, 335; + subjectivity, 336; + sympathetic illusion, 337; + resemblances, 337, 338; + rhythms, 340; + own order, 341, 342; + always a poet, 346. + (See _Emerson's Life, Milton, Poets_, etc.) + Adirondacs, The, 242, 309, 327. + Blight, 402. + Boston, 346, 407, 408. + Boston Hymn, 211, 221, 241, 242. + Brahma, 221, 242, 396, 397. + Celestial Love, 170. (Three Loves.) + Class Day Poem, 45-47. + Concord Hymn, 87, 332. + Daemonic Love, 170. (Three Loves.) + Days, 221, 242, 257, 312; + _pleachéd_, 313. + Destiny, 332. + Each and All, 73, 74, 94, 331. + Earth-Song, 327. + Elements, 242. + Fate, 159, 387. + Flute, The, 399. + Good-by, Proud World, 129, 130, 338. + Hamatreya, 327. + Harp, The, 320, 321, 329, 330. (See _Aeolian Harp_.) + Hoar, Samuel, 213, 214. + Humble Bee, 46, 74, 75, 128, 272, 326, 331, 338. + Initial Love, 170, 387. (Three Loves.) + In Memoriam, 19, 89. + Latin Translations, 43. + May Day, 242; + changes, 311, 333. + Merlin, 318, 319. (Merlin's Song.) + Mithridates, 331. + Monadnoc, 322, 331; + alterations, 366. + My Garden, 242. + Nature and Life, 242. + Occasional and Miscellaneous Pieces, 242. + Ode inscribed to W.H. Channing, 211, 212. + Poet, The, 317-320, 333. + Preface to Nature, 105. + Problem, The, 159, 161, 253, 284, 326, 337, 380. + Quatrains, 223, 242. + Rhodora, The, 74, 94, 95, 129. + Romany Girl, The, 221. + Saadi, 221, 242. + Sea-Shore, 333, 339. + Snow-Storm, 331, 338, 339. + Solution, 320. + Song for Knights of Square Table, 42. + Sphinx, The, 113, 159, 243, 330, 398. + Terminus, 221, 242; + read to his son, 246-248, 363. + Test, The, 201, 202, 320. + Threnody, 178, 333. + Titmouse, The, 221, 326. + Translations, 242, 399. + Uriel, 326, 331, 398. + Voluntaries, 241. + Waldeinsamkeit, 221. + Walk, The, 402. + Woodnotes, 46, 159, 331, 338. + World-Soul, The, 331. + + Emersoniana, 358. + + Emerson, Thomas, of Ipswich, 38. + + Emerson, Waldo, child of Ralph Waldo: + death, 177, 178; + anecdote, 265. + + Emerson, William, grandfather of Ralph Waldo: + minister of Concord, 8-10, 14; + building the Manse, 70; + patriotism, 72. + + Emerson, William, father of Ralph Waldo: + minister, in Harvard and Boston, 10-14; + editorship, 26, 32, 33; + the parsonage, 37, 42; + death, 43. + + Emerson, William, brother of Ralph Waldo, 37, 39, 49, 53. + + England: + first visit, 62-65; + Lake Windermere, 70; + philosophers, 76; + the virtues of the people, 179, 180; + a second visit, 192 _et seq.;_ + notabilities 195; + the lectures, 196; + Stonehenge, 215; + the aristocracy, 215; + matters wrong, 260; + Anglo-Saxon race, trade and liberty, 304; + lustier life, 335; + language, 352; + lecturing, a key, 377; + smouldering fire, 385. (See _America, Europe_, etc.) + + Enthusiasm: + need of, 143; + weakness, 154. + + Epicurus, agreement with, 301. + + Episcopacy: + in Boston, 28, 34, 52; + church in Newton, 68; + at Hanover, 132; + quotation from liturgy, 354; + burial service, 356. (See _Calvinism, Church, Religion_, etc.) + + Esquimau, allusion, 167. + + Establishment, party of the, 147. (See _Puritanism, Religion, + Unitarianism_, etc.) + + Eternal, relations to the, 297. (See _God, Jesus, Religion_, etc.) + + Europe: + Emerson's first visit, 62-65; + return, 72; + the Muses, 114; + debt to the East, 120; + famous gentlemen, 184; + second visit, 193-196; + weary of Napoleon, 207; + return, 210; + conflict possible, 218; + third visit, 271-279; + cast-out passion for, 308. (See _America, England, France_, etc.) + + Everett, Edward: + on Tudor, 28; + literary rank, 33; + preaching, 52; + influence, 148. + + Evolution, taught in "Nature," 105, 106. + + Eyeball, transparent, 398. + + + Faith: + lacking in America, 143, + building cathedrals, 253. (See _God, Religion_, etc.) + + Fine, a characteristic expression, 405. + + Fire, illustration, 386. (See _England, France_, etc.) + + Forbes, John M., connected with the Emerson family, 263-265; + his letter, 263. + + Foster, John, minister of Brighton, 15. + + Fourth-of-July, orations, 386. (See _America_, etc.) + + Fox, George, essay on, 73. + + France: + Emerson's first visit, 62, 63; + philosophers, 76; + Revolution, 80; + tired of Napoleon, 207, 208; + realism, 326; + wrath, 385, 386. (See _Carlyle, England, Europe_, etc.) + + Francis, Convers, at a party, 149. + + Franklin, Benjamin: + birthplace, 37; + allusion, 184; + characteristics, 189; + Poor Richard, 231; + quoted, 236; + maxims, 261; + fondness for Plutarch, 382; + bequest, 407. + + Fraunhofer, Joseph, optician, 230, 324. + + Frazer's Magazine: + "The Mud," 79; + Sartor Resartus, 81. (See _Carlyle_.) + + Freeman, James, minister of King's Chapel, 11, 12, 52. + Free Trade, Athenaeum banquet, 220. + + Friendship, C.C. Emerson's essay, 22, 23, 77. + + Frothingham, Nathaniel L., account of Emerson's mother, 13. + + Frothingham, Octavius Brooks: Life of Ripley, 165; + an unpublished manuscript, 365-367. + + Fuller, Margaret: + borrowed sermon, 130; + at a party, 149; + The Dial, 159, 160, 162; + Memoir, 209; + causing laughter, 364; + mosaic Biography, 368. + + Furness, William Henry: + on the Emerson family, 14; + Emerson's funeral, 350, 353. + + Future, party of the, 147. + + + Galton, Francis, composite portraits, 232. + + Gardiner, John Sylvester John: + allusion, 26; + leadership in Boston, 28; + Anthology Society, 32. + (See _Episcopacy_.) + + Gardner, John Lowell, recollections of Emerson's boyhood, 38-42. + + Gardner, S.P., garden, 38. + + Genealogy, survival of the fittest, 3. + (See _Heredity_.) + + Gentleman's Magazine, 30. + + Gentleman, the, 183. + + Geography, illustration, 391. + + German: + study of, 48, 49, 78, 380; + philosophers, 76; + scholarship, 148; + oracles, 206; + writers unread, 208; + philosophers, 380; + professors, 391. + + Germany, a visit, 225, 226. + (See _Europe, France, Goethe_, etc.) + + Gifts, 185. + + Gilfillan, George: + on Emerson's preaching, 65; + Emerson's physique, 360. + + Gilman, Arthur, on the Concord home, 83. + + Glasgow, the rectorship, 280. + + God: + the universal spirit, 68, 69, 94; + face to face, 92, 93; + teaching the human mind, 98, 99; + aliens from, 101; + in us, 139-141; + his thought, 146; + belief, 170; + seen by man, 174; + divine offer, 176; + writing by grace, 182; + presence, 243; + tribute to Great First Cause, 267; + perplexity about, 410; + ever-blessed One, 411; + mirrored, 412. + (See _Christianity, Religion_, etc.) + + Goethe: + called _Mr_., 31; + dead, 63; + Clarke's essay, 79; + generalizations, 148; + influence, 150; + on Spinoza, 174, 175; + rank as a poet, 202, 320; + lovers, 226; + rare union, 324; + his books read, 380, 381; + times quoted, 382. + (See _German_, etc.) + + Goldsmith, Oliver, his Vicar of Wakefield, 9, 10, 15. + + Good, the study of, 301. + + Goodwin, H.B., Concord minister, 56. + + Gould, Master of Latin School, 39. + + Gould, Thomas R., sculptor, 68. + + Gourdin, John Gaillard Keith and Robert, in college, 47. + + Government, abolition of, 141. + + Grandmother's Review, 30. + + Gray, Thomas, Elegy often quoted, 316, 317, 416. + + Greece: + poetic teaching, 121; + allusion, 108. + + Greek: + Emerson's love for, 43, 44; + in Harvard, 49; + poets, 253; + moralist, 299; + Bryant's translation, 378; + philosophers, 391. + (See _Homer_, etc.) + + Greenough, Horatio, meeting Emerson, 63. + + Grimm, Hermann, 226. + + Guelfs and Ghibellines, illustration, 47. + + + Hafiz, times mentioned, 382. + (See _Persia_.) + + Hague, William, essay, 413. + + Haller, Albert von, rare union, 324. + + Harvard, Mass., William Emerson's settlement, 10, 11. + + Harvard University: + the Bulkeley gift, 6; + William Emerson's graduation, 10; + list of graduates, 12; + Emerson's brothers, 19, 21; + Register, 21, 24, 385, 401; + Hillard, 24, 25; + Kirkland's presidency, 26, 27; + Gardner, 39-41; + Emerson's connection, 44-49; + the Boylston prizes, 46; + Southern students, 47; + graduates at Andover, 48; + Divinity School, 51, 53; + a New England centre, 52; + Bowen's professorship, 103; + Phi Beta Kappa oration, 107, 115, 133, 188, 244; + Divinity School address, 116-132; + degree conferred, 246; + lectures, 249; + library, 257; + last Divinity address, 294; + Commemoration, 307; + singing class, 361; + graduates, 411. + (See _Cambridge_.) + + Haskins, David Green, at Emerson's funeral, 356. + + Haskins, Ruth (Emerson's mother), 10, 13, 14. + Haughty, a characteristic expression, 405. + + Hawthorne, Nathaniel: + his Mosses, 70; + "dream-peopled solitude," 86; + at the club, 223; + view of English life, 335; + grave, 356; + biography, 368. + + Hazlitt, William: + British Poets, 21. + + Health, inspiration, 289. + + Hebrew Language, study, 48. (See _Bible_.) + + Hedge, Frederic Henry: + at a party, 149; + quoted, 383. + + Henry VII., tombs, 415. + + Herbert, George: + Poem on Man, 102; + parallel, 170; + poetry, 281; + a line quoted, 345. + + Herder, Johann Gottfried, allusion, 16. + + Heredity: + Emerson's belief, 1, 2; + in Emerson family, 4, 19; + Whipple on, 389; + Jonson, 393. + + Herrick, Robert, poetry, 281. + + Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. (See _Emerson's Books_,--Nature.) + + Hilali, The Flute, 399. + + Hillard, George Stillman: + in college, 24, 25; + his literary place, 33; + aid, 276. + + Hindoo Scriptures, 199, 200. (See _Bible, India_, etc.) + + History, how it should be written, 168. + + Hoar, Ebenezer Rockwood: + reference to, 223; + on the Burns speech, 225; + kindness, 273, 274, 276-279; + at Emerson's death-bed, 349; + funeral address, 351-353. + + Hoar, Samuel: + statesman, 72; + tribute, 213, 214. + + Holland, description of the Dutch, 217. + + Holley, Horace, prayer, 267. + + Holmes, John, a pupil of Emerson, 50. + + Holmes, Oliver Wendell: + memories of Dr. Ripley, 15; + of C.C. Emerson, 20, 21; + familiarity with Cambridge and its college, 45; + erroneous quotation from, 251, 252; + jest erroneously attributed to, 400, 401. + + Holy Ghost, "a new born bard of the," 123. (See _Christ, God, + Religion_, etc.) + + Homer: + poetic rank, 202, 320; + plagiarism, 205; + Iliad, 253; + allusion, 315; + tin pans, 325; + times quoted, 382. (See _Greek_, etc.) + + Homer, Jonathan, minister of Newton, 15. + + Hooper, Mrs. Ellen, The Dial, 159, 160. + + Hope: + lacking in America, 143; + in every essay, 284. + + Horace: + allusion, 22; + Ars Poetica, 316. + + Horses, Flora Temple's time, 388. + + Howard University, speech, 263. + + Howe, Samuel Gridley, the philanthropist, 223. + + Hunt, Leigh, meeting Emerson, 195. + + Hunt, William, the painter, 223. + + + Idealism, 98-100, 146, 150. + + Idealists: + Ark full, 191; + Platonic sense, 391. + + Imagination: + the faculty, 141; + defined, 237, 238; + essay, 283; + coloring life, 324. + + Imbecility, 231. + + Immortality, 262. (See _God, Religion_, etc.) + + Incompleteness, in poetry, 339. + + India: + poetic models, 338; + idea of preëxistence, 391; + Brahmanism, 397. (See _Emerson's Poems_,--Brahma.) + + Indians: + in history of Concord, 71; + Algonquins, 72. + + Inebriation, subject in Monthly Anthology, 30. + + Insects, defended, 190. + + Inspiration: + of Nature, 22, 96, 141; + urged, 146. + + Instinct, from God or Devil, 393. + + Intellect, confidence in, 134. + + Intuition, 394. + + Ipswich, Mass., 3, 4, 8. + + Ireland, Alexander: + glimpses of Emerson, 44, 64, 65: + reception, 193,194; + on Carlyle, 196; + letter from Miss Peabody, 317; + quoting Whitman, 344; + quoted, 350. + + Irving, Washington, 33. + + Italy: + Emerson's first visit, 62, 63; + Naples, 113. + + + Jackson, Charles, garden, 38. + + Jackson, Dr. Charles Thomas, anaesthesia, 403. + + Jackson, Miss Lydia, reading Carlyle, 81. (See _Mrs. Emerson_.) + + Jahn, Johann, studied at Andover, 48. + + Jameson, Anna, new book, 131. + + Jesus: + times mentioned, 382; + a divine manifestation, 411; + followers, 417; + and Emerson, 419. (See _Bible, Christ, Church, Religion_, etc.) + Joachim, the violinist, 225, 226. + + Johnson, Samuel, literary style, 29. + + Jonson, Ben: + poetic rank, 281; + a phrase, 300; + _traduction_, 393. + (See _Heredity_, etc.) + + Journals, as a method of work, 384. + + Jupiter Scapin, 207. + + Jury Trial, and dinners, 216. + + Justice, the Arch Abolitionist, 306. + + Juvenal: + allusion, 22; + precept from heaven, 252. + + + Kalamazoo, Mich., allusion, 388. + + Kamschatka, allusion, 167. + + Keats, John: + quoted, 92; + Ode to a Nightingale, 316; + _faint, swoon_, 405. + + King, the, illustration, 74. + + Kirkland, John Thornton: + Harvard presidency, 26, 52; + memories, 27. + + Koran, allusion, 198. + (See _Bible, God, Religion_, etc.) + + + Labor: + reform, 141; + dignity, 142. + + Lacenaire, evil instinct, 392. + + Laertius, Diogenes, 390, 391. + + La Harpe, Jean Francois, on Plutarch, 301. + + Lamarck, theories, 166. + + Lamb, Charles, Carlyle's criticism, 196. + + Landor, Walter Savage, meeting Emerson, 63. + + Landscape, never painted, 339, 240. + (See _Pictures, etc_.) + + Language: + its symbolism, 95-97; + an original, 394. + + Latin: + Peter Bulkeley's scholarship, 7; + translation, 24, 25; + Emerson's Translations, 43, 44. + + Laud, Archbishop, 6. + + Law, William, mysticism, 396. + + Lawrence, Mass., allusion, 44. + + Lecturing, given up, 295. + (See _Emerson's Essays, Lectures_, etc.) + + Leibnitz, 386. + + Leroux, Pierre, preëxistance, 391. + + Letters, inspiration, 289. + + Lincoln, Abraham, character, 307. + (See _Emerson's Essays_.) + + Linnaeus, illustration, 323, 324. + + Litanies, in Emerson, 314. + (See _Episcopacy_.) + + Literature: + aptitude for, 2, 3; + activity in 1820, 147. + + Little Classics, edition, 347. + + Liverpool, Eng., a visit, 193, 194. + (See _England, Europe, Scotland_, etc.) + + Locke, John, allusion, 16, 111. + + London, England.: + Tower Stairs, 63; + readers, 194; + sights, 221; + travellers, 308; + wrath, 385. + (See _England_, etc.) + + Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth: + allusions, 31, 33; + Saturday Club, 222, 223; + burial, 346. + + Lord, Nathan, President of Dartmouth College, 132. + + Lord's Supper, Emerson's doubts, 57-61. + + Lothrop & Co., publishers, 83. + + Louisville, Ky., Dr. Clarke's residence, 78-80. + + Lounsbury, Professor, Chaucer letter, 205. + + Love: + in America, 143; + the Arch Abolitionist, 306. + (See _Emerson's Poems_.) + + Lowell, Charles: + minister of the West Church, 11, 12, 52; + on Kirkland, 27. + + Lowell, F.C., generosity, 276. + + Lowell, James Russell: + an allusion, 33; + on The American Scholar, 107; + editorship, 221; + club, 223; + on the Burns speech, 225; + on Emerson's bearing, 360, 361; + Hawthorne biography, 368; + on lectures, 379. + + Lowell, Mass., factories, 44. + + Luther, Martin: + lecture, 73; + his conservatism, 298; + times mentioned, 382. + + Lyceum, the: + a pulpit, 88; + New England, 192; + a sacrifice, 378. + (See _Lecturing, Emerson's Lectures_, etc.) + + Lycurgus, 306. (See _Greece_.) + + + Mackintosh, Sir James, an allusion, 16. + + Macmillan's Magazine, 414. + + Malden, Mass.: + Joseph Emerson's ministry, 8; + diary, 17. + + Man: + a fable about, 109, 110; + faith in, 122; + apostrophe, 140. + + Manchester, Eng.: + visit, 194, 195; + banquet, 220. + (See _England_, etc.) + + Marlowe, Christopher, expressions, 404. + + Marvell, Andrew: + reading by C.C. Emerson, 21; + on the Dutch, 217; + verse, 338. + + Mary, Queen, her martyrs, 418. + + Massachusetts Historical Society: + tribute to C.C. Emerson, 21; + quality of its literature, 84; + on Carlyle, 294. + + Massachusetts Quarterly Review, 193, 302, 307, 411. + Materialism, 146, 391. + (See _Religion_.) + + Mather, Cotton: + his Magnalia, 5-7; + on Concord discord, 57; + on New England Melancholy, 216; + a borrower, 381. + + Mathew, Father, disciples, 368. + + Mayhew, Jonathan, Boston minister, 51. + + Melioration, a characteristic expression, 405. + + Mendon, Mass., Joseph Emerson's ministry, 4. + + Mephistopheles, Goethe's creation, 208. + + Merrimac River, 71. + + Metaphysics, indifference to, 249. + + Methodism, in Boston, 56. + (See _Father Taylor_.) + + Michael Angelo: + allusions, 73, 75; + on external beauty, 99; + course, 260; + filled with God, 284; + on immortality, 290; + times mentioned, 382. + + Middlesex Agricultural Association, 235. + (See _Agriculture, Emerson's Essays._) + + Middlesex Association, Emerson admitted, 53. + + Miller's Retrospect, 34. + + Milton, John: + influence in New England, 16; + quotation, 24; + essay, 73, 75; + compared with Emerson, 76, 77; + Lycidas, 178; + supposed speech, 220; + diet, 270, 271; + poetic rank, 281; + Arnold's citation, Logic, Rhetoric, 315; + popularity, 316; + quoted, 324; + tin pans, 325; + inventor of harmonies, 328; + Lycidas, 333; + Comus, 338; + times mentioned, 382; + precursor, quotation, 415. + + Miracles: + false impression, 121, 122; + and idealism, 146; + theories, 191; + St. Januarius, 217; + objections, 244. + (See _Bible, Christ, Religion_, etc.) + + Modena, Italy, Emerson's visit, 63. + + Monadnoc, Mount, 70. + + Montaigne: + want of religion, 300; + great authority, 380; + times quoted, 382. + + Montesquieu, on immortality, 291. + + Monthly Anthology: + Wm. Emerson's connection, 13, 26; + precursor of North American Review, 28, 29; + character, 30, 31; + Quincy's tribute, 31; + Society formed, 32; + career, 33; + compared with The Dial, 160. + + Moody Family, of York, Me., 8,10. + + Morals, in Plutarch, 301. + + Morison, John Hopkins, on Emerson's preaching, 67. + + Mormons, 264, 268. + + Mother-wit, a favorite expression, 404, 405. + + Motley, John Lothrop, 33, 223. + + Mount Auburn, strolls, 40. + + Movement, party of the, 147. + + Munroe & Co., publishers, 81. + + Music: + church, 306; + inaptitude for, 361; + great composers, 401. + + Musketaquid River, 22, 70, 71. + + Mysticism: + unintelligible, 390; + Emerson's, 396. + + + Napoleon: + allusion, 197; + times mentioned, 382. + + Napoleon III., 225. + + Nation, The, Emerson's interest in, 348. + + Native Bias, 288. + + Nature: + in undress, 72; + solicitations, 110; + not truly studied, 135; + great men, 199; + tortured, 402. + (See _Emerson's Books, Emerson's Essays_, etc.) + + Negations, to be shunned, 285. + + New Bedford, Mass., Emerson's preaching, 52, 67. + + Newbury, Mass., Edward Emerson's deaconship, 8. + + New England: + families, 2, 3, 5; + Peter Bulkeley's coming, 6; + clerical virtues, 9; + Church, 14; + literary sky, 33; + domestic service, 34, 35; + two centres, 52; + an ideal town, 70, 71; + the Delphi, 72; + Carlyle invited, 83; + anniversaries, 84; + town records, 85; + Genesis, 102; + effect of Nature, 106; + boys and girls, 163; + Massachusetts, Connecticut River, 172; + lyceums, 192; + melancholy, 216; + New Englanders and Old, 220; + meaning of a word, 296, 297; + eyes, 325; + life, 325, 335; + birthright, 364; + a thorough New Englander, 406; + Puritan, 409; + theologians, 410; + Jesus wandering in, 419. + (See _America, England_, etc.) + + Newspapers: + defaming the noble, 145; + in Shakespeare's day, 204. + + Newton, Mass.: + its minister, 15; + Episcopal Church, 68. + (See _Rice_.) + + Newton, Sir Isaac, times quoted, 382. + + Newton, Stuart, sketches, 130. + + New World, gospel, 371. (See _America_.) + + New York: + Brevoort House, 246; + Genealogical Society, 413. + + Niagara, visit, 263. + + Nidiver, George, ballad, 259. + + Nightingale, Florence, 220. + + Nithsdale, Eng., mountains, 78. + + Non-Resistance, 141. + + North American Review: + its predecessor, 28, 29, 33; + the writers, 34; + Emerson's contributions, 73; + Ethics, 294, 295; + Bryant's article, 328. + + Northampton, Mass., Emerson's preaching, 53. + + Norton, Andrews: + literary rank, 34; + professorship, 52. + + Norton, Charles Eliot: + editor of Correspondence, 82; + on Emerson's genius, 373. + + + Old Manse, The: + allusion, 70; + fire, 271-279. + (See _Concord_.) + + Oliver, Daniel, in Dartmouth College, 132. + + Optimism: + in philosophy, 136; + "innocent luxuriance," 211; + wanted by the young, 373. + + Oriental: + genius, 120; + spirit in Emerson, 179. + + Orpheus, allusion, 319. + + + Paine, R.T., JR., quoted, 31. + + Palfrey, John Gorham: + literary rank, 34; + professorship, 52. + + Pan, the deity, 140. + + Pantheism: + in Wordsworth and Nature, 103; + dreaded, 141; + Emerson's, 410, 411. + + Paris, Trance: + as a residence, 78; + allusion, 167; + salons, 184; + visit, 196, 308. + + Parker, Theodore: + a right arm of freedom, 127; + at a party, 149; + The Dial, 159, 160; + editorship, 193; + death, 228; + essence of Christianity, 306; + biography, 368; + on Emerson's position, 411. + + Parkhurst, John, studied at Andover, 48. + + Parr, Samuel, allusion, 28. + + Past, party of the, 147. + + Peabody, Andrew Preston, literary rank, 34. + + Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer: + her Aesthetic Papers, 88; + letter to Mr. Ireland, 317. + + Peirce, Benjamin, mathematician, 223. + + Pelagianisin, 51. + (See _Religion_.) + + Pepys, Samuel, allusion, 12. + + Pericles, 184, 253. + + Persia, poetic models, 338. + (See _Emerson's Poems, Saadi_). + + Pessimism, 286. + (See _Optimism_). + + Philadelphia, Pa., society, 184. + + Philanthropy, activity in 1820, 147. + + Philolaus, 199. + + Pie, fondness for, 269. + + Pierce, John: + the minister of Brookline, 11; + "our clerical Pepys," 12. + + Pindar, odes, 253. + (See _Greek, Homer_, etc.) + + Plagiarism, 205, 206, 287, 288, 384. + (See _Quotations, Mather_, etc.) + + Plato: + influence on Mary Emerson, 16, 17; + over Emerson, 22, 52, 173, 188, 299, 301; + youthful essay, 74; + Alcott's study, 150; + reading, 197; + borrowed thought, 205, 206; + Platonic idea, 222; + a Platonist, 267; + saints of Platonism, 298; + academy inscription, 365; + great authority, 380; + times quoted, 382; + Symposium and Phaedrus quoted, 387; + _tableity_, preëxistence, 391; + Diogenes dialogue, 401; + a Platonist, 411. + (See _Emerson's Books_, and _Essays, Greek_, etc.) + + Plotinus: + influence over Mary Emerson, 16, 17; + ashamed of his body, 99; + motto, 105; + opinions, 173, 174; + studied, 380. + + Plutarch: + allusion, 22; + his Lives, 50; + study, 197; + on immortality, 291; + influence over Emerson, 299 _et seq_.; + his great authority, 380; + times mentioned, 382; + Emerson on, 383; + imagery quoted, 385; + style, 405. + + Plymouth, Mass.: + letters written, 78, 79; + marriage, 83. + + Poetry: + as an inspirer, 290; + Milton on, 315. + (See _Shakespeare_, etc.) + + Poets: + list in Parnassus, 281; + comparative popularity, 316, 317; + consulting Emerson, 408. + (See _Emerson's Poems_). + + Politics: + activity in 1820, 147; + in Saturday Club, 259. + + Pomeroy, Jesse, allusion, 393. + + Pope, Alexander, familiar lines, 316 + + Porphyry: + opinions, 173, 174; + studied, 380. + + Porto Rico, E.B. Emerson's death, 19. + + Power, practical, 259. + + Prayer: + not enough, 138, 139; + anecdotes, 267. + (See _God, Religion_, etc.) + + Preaching, a Christian blessing, 123. + Preëxistence, 391. + + Presbyterianism, in Scotland, 409. + + Prescott, William, the Judge's mansion, 38. + + Prescott, William Hickling: + rank, 33; + Conquest of Mexico, 38. + + Prior, Matthew, 30. + + Proclus, influence, 173, 380. + + Prometheus, 209. + + Prospects, for man, 101-103. + (See _Emerson's Essays_.) + + Protestantism, its idols, 28. + (See _Channing, Religion, Unitarianism_, etc.) + + Psammetichus, an original language, 394. + (See _Heredity, Language_, etc.) + + Punch, London, 204. + + Puritans, rear guard, 15. + (See _Calvinism_, etc.) + + Puritanism: + relaxation from, 30; + after-clap, 268; + in New England, 409. + (See _Unitarianism_.) + + Putnam's Magazine, on Samuel Hoar, 213, 214. + + Pythagoras: + imagery quoted, 385; + preëxistence, 391. + + + Quakers, seeing only broad-brims, 218. + + Quincy, Josiah: + History of Boston Athenaeum, 31; + tribute to the Anthology, 32, 33; + memories of Emerson, 45-47; + old age, 261. + + Quotations, 381-383. + (See _Plagiarism_, etc.) + + + Raleigh, Sir Walter, verse, 338. + + Raphael, his Transfiguration, 134. + (See _Allston, Painters_, etc.) + + Rats, illustration, 167, 168. + + Reed, Sampson, his Growth of the Mind, 80. + + Reforms, in America, 141-145. + + Reformers, fairness towards, 156, 157, 188-192. + (See _Anti-Slavery, John Brown_.) + + Religion: + opinions of Wm. Emerson and others, 11-13; + nature the symbol of spirit, 95; + pleas for independence, 117; + universal sentiment, 118-120; + public rites, 152; + Church of England, 219; + of the future, 235; + relative positions towards, 409, 410; + Trinity, 411; + Emerson's belief, 412-415; + bigotry modified, 414. + (See _Calvinism, Channing, Christ, Emerson's Life, Essays_, + and _Poems, Episcopacy, God, Unitarianism_, etc.) + + Republicanism, spiritual, 36. + + Revolutionary War: + Wm. Emerson's service, 8, 9; + subsequent confusion, 25, 32; + Concord's part, 71, 72, 292, 293. + (See _America, New England_, etc.) + + Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 228. + + Rhythm, 328, 329, 340. + (See _Emerson's Poems_, etc.) + + Rice, Alexander H., anecdote, 68, 69, 346. + (See _Newton_.) + + Richard Plantagenet, 197. + + Ripley, Ezra: + minister of Concord, 10; + Emerson's sketch, 14-16; + garden, 42; + colleague, 56; + residence, 70. + + Ripley, George: + a party, 149; + The Dial, 159; + Brook Farm, 164-166; + on Emerson's limitations, 380. + + Robinson, Edward, literary rank, 34. + + Rochester, N.Y., speech, 168. + + Rome: + allusions, 167, 168; + growth, 222; + amphora, 321. + (See _Latin_.) + + Romilly, Samuel, allusion, 220. + + Rose, anecdote, 345. + (See _Flowers_.) + + Rousseau, Jean Jacques, his Savoyard Vicar, 51, 52. + + Ruskin, John: + on metaphysics, 250; + certain chapters, 336; + pathetic fallacy, 337; + plagiarism, 384. + + Russell, Ben., quoted, 267. + + Russell, Le Baron: + on Sartor Resartus, 81, 82; + groomsman, 83; + aid in rebuilding the Old Manse, 272-279; + Concord visit, 345. + + + Saadi: a borrower, 205; + times mentioned, 382. + (See _Persia_.) + + Sabbath: a blessing of Christianity, 123, 298. + + Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin, on poetry, 339. + + Saint Paul, times mentioned, 382. + (See _Bible_.) + + Saladin, 184. + + Sallust, on Catiline, 207. + + Sanborn, Frank B.: + facts about Emerson, 42, 43, 66; + Thoreau memoir, 368; + old neighbor, 373. + + Sapor, 184. + + Satan, safety from, 306. + (See _Mephistopheles, Religion_, etc.) + + Saturday Club: + establishment, 221-223, 258; + last visits, 346, 347; + familiarity at, 368. + + Scaliger, quotation, 109, 110. + + Schelling, idealism, 148; + influence 173. + + Schiller, on immortality, 290. + + Scholarship: + a priesthood, 137; + docility of, 289. + + School-teaching, 297. + (See _Chelmsford_.) + + Schopenhauer, Arthur: + his pessimism, 286; + idea of a philosopher, 359. + + Science: + growth of, 148; + Emerson inaccurate in, 256; + attitude toward, 401, 402. + (See _C.C. Emerson_.) + + Scipio, 184. + + Scotland: + Carlyle's haunts, 79; + notabilities, 195, 196; + Presbyterian, 409. + + Scott, Sir Walter: + allusion, 22; + quotations, 23, 77; + dead, 63; + "the hand of Douglas," 234; + as a poet, 281; + popularity, 316; + poetic rank, 321. + + Self: + the highest, 113; + respect for, 288, 289. + + Seneca, Montaigne's study, 382. + + Shakespeare: + allusion, 22; + Hamlet, 90, 94; + Benedick and love, 106; + disputed line, 128, 129; + an idol, 197; + poetic rank, 202, 281, 320, 321; + plagiarism, 204-206; + on studies, 257, 258; + supremacy, 328; + a comparison, 374; + a playwright, 375, 376; + punctiliousness of Portia, 378; + times mentioned, 382; + lunatic, lover, poet, 387; + Polonius, 389; + _mother-wit_, 404; + _fine_ Ariel, 405; + adamant, 418. + + Shattuck, Lemuel, History of Concord, 382. + + Shaw, Lemuel, boarding-place, 43. + + Shelley, Percy Bysshe: + Ode to the West Wind, 316, 399; + redundant syllable, 328; + Adonais, 333. + + Shenandoah Mountain, 306. + + Shingle, Emerson's jest, 364. + + Ships: + illustration of longitude, 154; + erroneous quotation, 251, 252; + building illustration, 376, 377. + + Sicily: + Emerson's visit, 62; + Etna, 113. + + Sidney, Sir Philip, Chevy Chace, 379. + + Silsbee, William, aid in publishing Carlyle, 81. + + Simonides, prudence, 410. + + Sisyphus, illustration, 334. + + Sleight-of-hand, illustration, 332. + + Smith, James and Horace, Rejected Addresses, 387, 397. + + Smith, Sydney, on bishops, 219. + + Socrates: + allusion, 203; + times mentioned, 382. + + Solitude, sought, 135. + + Solomon, epigrammatic, 405. + (See _Bible_.) + + Solon, 199. + + Sophron, 199. + + South, the: + Emerson's preaching tour, 53; + Rebellion, 305, 407. + (See _America, Anti-Slavery_, etc.) + + Southerners, in college, 47. + + Sparks, Jared, literary rank, 33. + + Spenser, Edmund: + stanza, 335, 338; + soul making body, 391; + _mother-wit_, 404. + + Spinoza, influence, 173, 380. + + Spirit and matter, 100, 101. + (See _God, Religion, Spenser_, etc.) + + Spiritualism, 296. + + Sprague, William Buel, Annals of the American Pulpit, 10-12. + + Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, on American religion, 414. + + Star: + "hitch your wagon to a star," 252, 253; + stars in poetry, 324. + + Sterling, J. Hutchinson, letter to, 282, 283. + + Stewart, Dugald, allusion, 16. + + Story, Joseph, literary rank, 33. + + Stuart, Moses, literary rank, 33. + + Studio, illustration, 20. + + Summer, description, 117. + + Sumner, Charles: + literary rank, 33: + the outrage on, 211; + Saturday Club, 223. + + Swedenborg, Emanuel: + poetic rank, 202, 320; + dreams, 306; + Rosetta-Stone, 322; + times mentioned, 382. + + Swedenborgians: + liking for a paper of Carlyle's, 78; + Reed's essay, 80; + spiritual influx, 412. + + Swift, Jonathan: + allusion, 30; + the Houyhnhnms, 163; + times mentioned, 382. + + Synagogue, illustration, 169. + + + Tappan, Mrs. Caroline, The Dial, 159. + + Tartuffe, allusion, 312. + + Taylor, Father, relation to Emerson, 55, 56, 413. + + Taylor, Jeremy: + allusion, 22; + Emerson's study, 52; + "the Shakespeare of divines," 94; + praise for, 306. + + Teague, Irish name, 143. + + Te Deum: + the hymn, 68; + illustration, 82. + + Temperance, the reform, 141, 152. + (See _Reforms_.) + + Tennyson, Alfred: + readers, 256; + tobacco, 270; + poetic rank, 281; + In Memoriam, 333; + on plagiarism, 384. + + Thacher, Samuel Cooper: + allusion, 26; + death, 29. + + Thayer, James B.: + Western Journey with Emerson, 249, 263, 265-271, 359; + _ground swell_, 364. + (See _California_.) + + Thinkers, let loose, 175. + + Thomson, James, descriptions, 338. + + Thoreau, Henry D.: + allusion, 22; + a Crusoe, 72; + "nullifier of civilization," 86; + one-apartment house, 142, 143; + The Dial, 159, 160; + death, 228; + Emerson's burial-place, 356; + biography, 368; + personality traceable, 389; + woodcraft, 403. + + Ticknor, George: + on William Emerson, 12; + on Kirkland, 27; + literary rank, 33. + + Traduction, 393. + (See _Heredity, Jonson_, etc.) + + Transcendentalism: + Bowen's paper, 103, 104; + idealism, 146; + adherents, 150-152; + dilettanteism, 152-155; + a terror, 161. + + Transcendentalist, The, 157-159. + + Truth: + as an end, 99; + sought, 135. + + Tudor, William: + allusion, 26; + connecting literary link, 28, 29. + + Turgot, quoted, 98, 99. + + Tyburn, allusion, 183. + + + Unitarianism: + Dr. Freeman's, 11, 12; + nature of Jesus, 13; + its sunshine, 28; + white-handed, 34; + headquarters, 35; + lingual studies, 48, 49; + transition, 51; + domination, 52; + pulpits, 53, 54; + chapel in Edinburgh, 65; + file-leaders, 118; + its organ, 124; + "pale negations," 298. + (See _Religion, Trinity_, etc.) + + United States, intellectual history, 32. + (See _America, New England_, etc.) + + Unity, in diversity, 73, 106, 284. + + Upham, Charles W., his History, 45. + + + Verne, Jules, _onditologie_, 186. + + Verplanck, Gulian Crommelin, literary rank, 33. + + Virginia, University of, 299. + + Volcano, illustration, 113. + + Voltaire, 409. + + Voting, done reluctantly, 152, 153. + + + Wachusett, Mount, 70. + + Walden Pond: + allusion, 22, 70, 72; + cabin, 142, 143. + (See _Concord_.) + + War: + outgrown, 88, 89; + ennobling, 298. + + Ware, Henry, professorship, 52. + (See _Harvard University_.) + + Ware, Henry, Jr.: + Boston ministry, 55; + correspondence, 124-127. + (See _Unitarianism_, etc.) + + Warren, John Collins, Transcendentalism and Temperance, 149. + + Warren, Judge, of New Bedford, 67. + + Warwick Castle, fire, 275. + + Washington City, addresses, 307. + (See _Anti-Slavery_, etc.) + + Waterville College, Adelphi Society, 135-142. + + Webster, Daniel: + E.B. Emerson's association with, 19; + on Tudor, 28, 29; + literary rank, 33; + Seventh-of-March Speech, 303; + times mentioned, 382. + + Weiss, John, Parker biography, 368. + + Wellington, Lord, seen by Emerson, 63, 64. + + Wesley, John, praise of, 306. + (See _Methodism_.) + + Western Messenger, poems in, 128. + + West India Islands, Edward B. Emerson's death, 89. + + Westminster Abbey, Emerson's visit, 63, 64. + (See _Emerson's Books_,--English Traits,--_England_, etc.) + + Westminster Catechism, 298. + (See _Calvinism, Religion_, etc.) + + Whipple, Edwin Percy: + literary rank, 33; + club, 223; + on heredity, 389. + + White of Selborne, 228. + + Whitman, Walt: + his enumerations, 325, 326; + journal, 344, 346. + + Wilberforce, William, funeral, 64. + + Will: + inspiration of, 289; + power of, 290. + + Windermere, Lake, 70. + (See _England_.) + + Winthrop, Francis William, in college, 45. + + Wolfe, Charles, Burial of Moore, 416. + + Woman: + her position, 212, 213, 251; + crossing a street, 364. + + Woman's Club, 16. + + Words, Emerson's favorite, 404, 405. + (See _Emerson's Poems_,--Days.) + + Wordsworth, William: + Emerson's account, 63; + early reception, Excursion, 92, 95; + quoted, 96, 97; + Tintern Abbey, 103; + influence, 148, 150; + poetic rank, 281, 321; + on Immortality, 293, 392; + popularity, 316; + serenity, 335; + study of nature, 337; + times mentioned, 382; + We are Seven, 393; + prejudice against science, 401. + + Wotton, Sir Henry, quoted, 259. + + + Yankee: + a spouting, 136; + _improve_, 176; + whittling, 364. + (See _America, New England_, etc.) + + Yoga, Hindoo idea, 397. + + Young, Brigham: + Utah, 264, 268; + on preëxistence, 391. + + Young, Edward, influence in New England, 16, 17. + + + Zola, Émile, offensive realism, 326. + + + + + + +OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE + +BY + +OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + + +To + +MY DAUGHTER AMELIA + +(MRS. TURNER SARGENT) + +MY FAITHFUL AND DEVOTED COMPANION + +THIS OUTLINE OF OUR SUMMER EXCURSION + +IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED + + + +CONTENTS. + + +INTRODUCTORY + +A PROSPECTIVE VISIT + + + +OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE. + +CHAPTER + +I. THE VOYAGE.--LIVERPOOL.--CHESTER.--LONDON.--EPSOM + +II. EPSOM.--LONDON.--WINDSOR + +III. LONDON.--ISLE OF WIGHT.--CAMBRIDGE.--OXFORD.--YORK.--EDINBURGH + +IV. STRATFORD-ON-AVON.--GREAT MALVERN.--TEWKESBURY.--BATH.--SALISBURY. +--STONEHENGE + +V. STONEHENGE.--SALISBURY.--OLD SARUM.--BEMERTON.--BRIGHTON + +VI. LONDON + +VII. BOULOGNE.--PARIS.--LONDON.--LIVERPOOL.--THE HOMEWARD PASSAGE + +VIII. GENERAL IMPRESSIONS.--MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AT THE AGE OF 82. From a painting by Sarah W. +Whitman + +ROBERT BROWNING + +MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD + +SALISBURY CATHEDRAL + +PLACE DE LA CONCORDE + + + +INTRODUCTORY. + +A PROSPECTIVE VISIT. + + +After an interval of more than fifty years, I propose taking a second +look at some parts of Europe. It is a Rip Van Winkle experiment which I +am promising myself. The changes wrought by half a century in the +countries I visited amount almost to a transformation. I left the +England of William the Fourth, of the Duke of Wellington, of Sir Robert +Peel; the France of Louis Philippe, of Marshal Soult, of Thiers, of +Guizot. I went from Manchester to Liverpool by the new railroad, the +only one I saw in Europe. I looked upon England from the box of a +stage-coach, upon France from the coupé of a diligence, upon Italy from +the cushion of a carrozza. The broken windows of Apsley House were still +boarded up when I was in London. The asphalt pavement was not laid in +Paris. The Obelisk of Luxor was lying in its great boat in the Seine, as +I remember it. I did not see it erected; it must have been an exciting +scene to witness, the engineer standing underneath, so as to be crushed +by the great stone if it disgraced him by falling in the process. As for +the dynasties which have overlaid each other like Dr. Schliemann's +Trojan cities, there is no need of moralizing over a history which +instead of Finis is constantly ending with What next? + +With regard to the changes in the general conditions of society and the +advance in human knowledge, think for one moment what fifty years have +done! I have often imagined myself escorting some wise man of the past +to our Saturday Club, where we often have distinguished strangers as our +guests. Suppose there sat by me, I will not say Sir Isaac Newton, for he +has been too long away from us, but that other great man, whom Professor +Tyndall names as next to him in intellectual stature, as he passes along +the line of master minds of his country, from the days of Newton to our +own,--Dr. Thomas Young, who died in 1829. Would he or I be the listener, +if we were side by side? However humble I might feel in such a presence, +I should be so clad in the grandeur of the new discoveries, inventions, +ideas, I had to impart to him that I should seem to myself like the +ambassador of an Emperor. I should tell him of the ocean steamers, the +railroads that spread themselves like cobwebs over the civilized and +half-civilized portions of the earth, the telegraph and the telephone, +the photograph and the spectroscope. I should hand him a paper with the +morning news from London to read by the electric light, I should startle +him with a friction match, I should amaze him with the incredible truths +about anesthesia, I should astonish him with the later conclusions of +geology, I should dazzle him by the fully developed law of the +correlation of forces, I should delight him with the cell-doctrine, I +should confound him with the revolutionary apocalypse of Darwinism. All +this change in the aspects, position, beliefs, of humanity since the +time of Dr. Young's death, the date of my own graduation from college! + +I ought to consider myself highly favored to have lived through such a +half century. But it seems to me that in walking the streets of London +and Paris I shall revert to my student days, and appear to myself like a +relic of a former generation. Those who have been born into the +inheritance of the new civilization feel very differently about it from +those who have lived their way into it. To the young and those +approaching middle age all these innovations in life and thought are as +natural, as much a matter of course, as the air they breathe; they form +a part of the inner framework of their intelligence, about which their +mental life is organized. To men and women of more than threescore and +ten they are external accretions, like the shell of a mollusk, the +jointed plates of an articulate. This must be remembered in reading +anything written by those who knew the century in its teens; it is not +likely to be forgotten, for the fact betrays itself in all the writer's +thoughts and expressions. + +The story of my first visit to Europe is briefly this: my object was to +study the medical profession, chiefly in Paris, and I was in Europe +about two years and a half, from April, 1833, to October, 1835. I sailed +in the packet ship Philadelphia from New York for Portsmouth, where we +arrived after a passage of twenty-four days. A week was spent in +visiting Southampton, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Wilton, and the Isle of +Wight. I then crossed the Channel to Havre, from which I went to Paris. +In the spring and summer of 1834 I made my principal visit to England +and Scotland. There were other excursions to the Rhine and to Holland, +to Switzerland and to Italy, but of these I need say nothing here. I +returned in the packet ship Utica, sailing from Havre, and reaching New +York after a passage of forty-two days. + +A few notes from my recollections will serve to recall the period of my +first visit to Europe, and form a natural introduction to the +experiences of my second. I take those circumstances which happen to +suggest themselves. + +After a short excursion to Strasbourg, down the Rhine, and through +Holland, a small steamer took us from Rotterdam across the Channel, and +we found ourselves in the British capital. + +The great sight in London is--London. No man understands himself as an +infinitesimal until he has been a drop in that ocean, a grain of sand on +that sea-margin, a mote in its sunbeam, or the fog or smoke which stands +for it; in plainer phrase, a unit among its millions. + +I had two letters to persons in England: one to kind and worthy Mr. +Petty Vaughan, who asked me to dinner; one to pleasant Mr. William +Clift, conservator of the Hunterian Museum, who asked me to tea. + +To Westminster Abbey. What a pity it could not borrow from Paris the +towers of Notre Dame! But the glory of its interior made up for this +shortcoming. Among the monuments, one to Rear Admiral Charles Holmes, a +descendant, perhaps, of another namesake, immortalized by Dryden in the +"Annus Mirabilis" as + + "the Achates of the general's fight." + +He accompanied Wolfe in his expedition which resulted in the capture of +Quebec. My relative, I will take it for granted, as I find him in +Westminster Abbey. Blood is thicker than water,--and warmer than marble, +I said to myself, as I laid my hand on the cold stone image of the once +famous Admiral. + +To the Tower, to see the lions,--of all sorts. There I found a "poor +relation," who made my acquaintance without introduction. A large +baboon, or ape,--some creature of that family,--was sitting at the open +door of his cage, when I gave him offence by approaching too near and +inspecting him too narrowly. He made a spring at me, and if the keeper +had not pulled me back would have treated me unhandsomely, like a +quadrumanous rough, as he was. He succeeded in stripping my waistcoat of +its buttons, as one would strip a pea-pod of its peas. + +To Vauxhall Gardens. All Americans went there in those days, as they go +to Madame Tussaud's in these times. There were fireworks and an +exhibition of polar scenery. "Mr. Collins, the English PAGANINI," +treated us to music on his violin. A comic singer gave us a song, of +which I remember the line, + + "You'll find it all in the agony bill." + +This referred to a bill proposed by Sir Andrew Agnew, a noted Scotch +Sabbatarian agitator. + +To the opera to hear Grisi. The king, William the Fourth, was in his +box; also the Princess Victoria, with the Duchess of Kent. The king +tapped with his white-gloved hand on the ledge of the box when he was +pleased with the singing.--To a morning concert and heard the real +Paganini. To one of the lesser theatres and heard a monologue by the +elder Mathews, who died a year or two after this time. To another +theatre, where I saw Listen in Paul Pry. Is it not a relief that I am +abstaining from description of what everybody has heard described? + +To Windsor. Machinery to the left of the road. Recognized it instantly, +by recollection of the plate in "Rees's Cyclopedia," as Herschel's great +telescope.--Oxford. Saw only its outside. I knew no one there, and no +one knew me.--Blenheim,--the Titians best remembered of its objects on +exhibition. The great Derby day of the Epsom races. Went to the race +with a coach-load of friends and acquaintances. Plenipotentiary, the +winner, "rode by P. Connelly." So says Herring's picture of him, now +before me. Chestnut, a great "bullock" of a horse, who easily beat the +twenty-two that started. Every New England deacon ought to see one Derby +day to learn what sort of a world this is he lives in. Man is a sporting +as well as a praying animal. + +Stratford-on-Avon. Emotions, but no scribbling of name on +walls.--Warwick. The castle. A village festival, "The Opening of the +Meadows," a true exhibition of the semi-barbarism which had come down +from Saxon times.--Yorkshire. "The Hangman's Stone." Story told in my +book called the "Autocrat," etc. York Cathedral.--Northumberland. +Alnwick Castle. The figures on the walls which so frightened my man John +when he ran away from Scotland in his boyhood. Berwick-on-Tweed. A +regatta going on; a very pretty show. Scotland. Most to be remembered, +the incomparable loveliness of Edinburgh.--Sterling. The view of the +Links of Forth from the castle. The whole country full of the romance of +history and poetry. Made one acquaintance in Scotland, Dr. Robert Knox, +who asked my companion and myself to breakfast. I was treated to five +entertainments in Great Britain: the breakfast just mentioned; lunch +with Mrs. Macadam,--the good old lady gave me bread, and not a stone; +dinner with Mr. Vaughan; one with Mr. Stanley, the surgeon; tea with Mr. +Clift,--for all which attentions I was then and am still grateful, for +they were more than I had any claim to expect. Fascinated with +Edinburgh. Strolls by Salisbury Crag; climb to the top of Arthur's Seat; +delight of looking up at the grand old castle, of looking down on +Holyrood Palace, of watching the groups on Calton Hill, wandering in the +quaint old streets and sauntering on the sidewalks of the noble avenues, +even at that time adding beauty to the new city. The weeks I spent in +Edinburgh are among the most memorable of my European experiences. To +the Highlands, to the Lakes, in short excursions; to Glasgow, seen to +disadvantage under gray skies and with slippery pavements. Through +England rapidly to Dover and to Calais, where I found the name of M. +Dessein still belonging to the hotel I sought, and where I read Sterne's +"Preface Written in a Désobligeante," sitting in the vehicle most like +one that I could find in the stable. From Calais back to Paris, where I +began working again. + +All my travelling experiences, including a visit to Switzerland and +Italy in the summer and autumn of 1835, were merely interludes of my +student life in Paris. On my return to America, after a few years of +hospital and private practice, I became a Professor in Harvard +University, teaching Anatomy and Physiology, afterwards Anatomy alone, +for the period of thirty-five years, during part of which time I paid +some attention to literature, and became somewhat known as the author of +several works in prose and verse which have been well received. My +prospective visit will not be a professional one, as I resigned my +office in 1882, and am no longer known chiefly as a teacher or a +practitioner. + +BOSTON, _April_, 1886. + + + + +OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE + + +I. + + +I begin this record with the columnar, self-reliant capital letter to +signify that there is no disguise in its egoisms. If it were a chapter +of autobiography, this is what the reader would look for as a matter of +course. Let him consider it as being such a chapter, and its egoisms +will require no apology. + +I have called the record _our_ hundred days, because I was +accompanied by my daughter, without the aid of whose younger eyes and +livelier memory, and especially of her faithful diary, which no fatigue +or indisposition was allowed to interrupt, the whole experience would +have remained in my memory as a photograph out of focus. + +We left Boston on the 29th of April, 1886, and reached New York on the +29th of August, four months of absence in all, of which nearly three +weeks were taken up by the two passages; one week was spent in Paris, +and the rest of the time in England and Scotland. + +No one was so much surprised as myself at my undertaking this visit. Mr. +Gladstone, a strong man for his years, is reported as saying that he is +too old to travel, at least to cross the ocean, and he is younger than I +am,--just four months, to a day, younger. It is true that Sir Henry +Holland came to this country, and travelled freely about the world, +after he was eighty years old; but his pitcher went to the well once too +often, and met the usual doom of fragile articles. When my friends asked +me why I did not go to Europe, I reminded them of the fate of Thomas +Parr. He was only twice my age, and was getting on finely towards his +two hundredth year, when the Earl of Arundel carried him up to London, +and, being feasted and made a lion of, he found there a premature and +early grave at the age of only one hundred and fifty-two years. He lies +in Westminster Abbey, it is true, but he would probably have preferred +the upper side of his own hearth-stone to the under side of the slab +which covers him. + +I should never have thought of such an expedition if it had not been +suggested by a member of my family that I should accompany my daughter, +who was meditating a trip to Europe. I remembered how many friends had +told me I ought to go; among the rest, Mr. Emerson, who had spoken to me +repeatedly about it. I had not seen Europe for more than half a century, +and I had a certain longing for one more sight of the places I +remembered, and others it would be a delight to look upon. There were a +few living persons whom I wished to meet. I was assured that I should be +kindly received in England. All this was tempting enough, but there was +an obstacle in the way which I feared, and, as it proved, not without +good reason. I doubted whether I could possibly breathe in a narrow +state-room. In certain localities I have found myself liable to attacks +of asthma, and, although I had not had one for years, I felt sure that I +could not escape it if I tried to sleep in a state-room. + +I did not escape it, and I am glad to tell my story about it, because it +excuses some of my involuntary social shortcomings, and enables me to +thank collectively all those kind members of the profession who trained +all the artillery of the pharmacopoeia upon my troublesome enemy, from +bicarbonate of soda and Vichy water to arsenic and dynamite. One costly +contrivance, sent me by the Reverend Mr. Haweis, whom I have never duly +thanked for it, looked more like an angelic trump for me to blow in a +better world than what I believe it is, an inhaling tube intended to +prolong my mortal respiration. The best thing in my experience was +recommended to me by an old friend in London. It was Himrod's asthma +cure, one of the many powders, the smoke of which when burning is +inhaled. It is made in Providence, Rhode Island, and I had to go to +London to find it. It never failed to give at least temporary relief, +but nothing enabled me to sleep in my state-room, though I had it all to +myself, the upper berth being removed. After the first night and part of +the second, I never lay down at all while at sea. The captain allowed me +to have a candle and sit up in the saloon, where I worried through the +night as I best might. How could I be in a fit condition to accept the +attention of my friends in Liverpool, after sitting up every night for +more than a week; and how could I be in a mood for the catechizing of +interviewers, without having once lain down during the whole return +passage? I hope the reader will see why I mention these facts. They +explain and excuse many things; they have been alluded to, sometimes +with exaggeration, in the newspapers, and I could not tell my story +fairly without mentioning them. I got along well enough as soon as I +landed, and have had no return of the trouble since I have been back in +my own home. I will not advertise an assortment of asthma remedies for +sale, but I assure my kind friends I have had no use for any one of them +since I have walked the Boston pavements, drank, not the Cochituate, but +the Belmont spring water, and breathed the lusty air of my native +northeasters. + +My companion and I required an attendant, and we found one of those +useful androgynous personages known as _courier-maids_, who had +travelled with friends of ours, and who was ready to start with us at a +moment's warning. She was of English birth, lively, short-gaited, +serviceable, more especially in the first of her dual capacities. So far +as my wants were concerned, I found her zealous and active in providing +for my comfort. + +It was no sooner announced in the papers that I was going to England +than I began to hear of preparations to welcome me. An invitation to a +club meeting was cabled across the Atlantic. One of my countrywomen who +has a house in London made an engagement for me to meet friends at her +residence. A reverend friend, who thought I had certain projects in my +head, wrote to me about lecturing: where I should appear, what fees I +should obtain, and such business matters. I replied that I was going to +England to spend money, not to make it; to hear speeches, very possibly, +but not to make them; to revisit scenes I had known in my younger days; +to get a little change of my routine, which I certainly did; and to +enjoy a little rest, which I as certainly did not, at least in London. +In a word, I wished a short vacation, and had no thought of doing +anything more important than rubbing a little rust off and enjoying +myself, while at the same time I could make my companion's visit +somewhat pleasanter than it would be if she went without me. The visit +has answered most of its purposes for both of us, and if we have saved a +few recollections which our friends can take any pleasure in reading, +this slight record may be considered a work of supererogation. + +The Cephalonia was to sail at half past six in the morning, and at that +early hour a company of well-wishers was gathered on the wharf at East +Boston to bid us good-by. We took with us many tokens of their +thoughtful kindness; flowers and fruits from Boston and Cambridge, and a +basket of champagne from a Concord friend whose company is as +exhilarating as the sparkling wine he sent us. With the other gifts came +a small tin box, about as big as a common round wooden match box. I +supposed it to hold some pretty gimcrack, sent as a pleasant parting +token of remembrance. It proved to be a most valued daily companion, +useful at all times, never more so than when the winds were blowing hard +and the ship was struggling with the waves. There must have been some +magic secret in it, for I am sure that I looked five years younger after +closing that little box than when I opened it. Time will explain its +mysterious power. + +All the usual provisions for comfort made by seagoing experts we had +attended to. Impermeable rugs and fleecy shawls, head-gear to defy the +rudest northeasters, sea-chairs of ample dimensions, which we took care +to place in as sheltered situations as we could find,--all these were a +matter of course. Everybody stays on deck as much as possible, and lies +wrapped up and spread out at full length on his or her sea-chair, so +that the deck looks as if it had a row of mummies on exhibition. Nothing +is more comfortable, nothing, I should say, more indispensable, than a +hot-water bag,--or rather, _two_ hot-water bags; for they will +burst sometimes, as I found out, and a passenger who has become intimate +with one of these warm bosom friends feels its loss almost as if it were +human. + +Passengers carry all sorts of luxuries on board, in the firm faith that +they shall be able to profit by them all. Friends send them various +indigestibles. To many all these well-meant preparations soon become a +mockery, almost an insult. It is a clear case of _Sic(k) vos non +vobis_. The tougher neighbor is the gainer by these acts of kindness; +the generosity of a sea-sick sufferer in giving away the delicacies +which seemed so desirable on starting is not ranked very high on the +books of the recording angel. With us three things were best: grapes, +oranges, and especially oysters, of which we had provided a half barrel +in the shell. The "butcher" of the ship opened them fresh for us every +day, and they were more acceptable than anything else. + +Among our ship's company were a number of family relatives and +acquaintances. We formed a natural group at one of the tables, where we +met in more or less complete numbers. I myself never missed; my +companion, rarely. Others were sometimes absent, and sometimes came to +time when they were in a very doubtful state, looking as if they were +saying to themselves, with Lear,-- + + "Down, thou climbing sorrow, + Thy element's below." + +As for the intellectual condition of the passengers, I should say that +faces were prevailingly vacuous, their owners half hypnotized, as it +seemed, by the monotonous throb and tremor of the great sea-monster on +whose back we were riding. I myself had few thoughts, fancies, emotions. +One thing above all struck me as never before,--the terrible solitude of +the ocean. + + "So lonely 'twas that God himself + Scarce seemed there to be." + +Whole days passed without our seeing a single sail. The creatures of the +deep which gather around sailing vessels are perhaps frightened off by +the noise and stir of the steamship. At any rate, we saw nothing more +than a few porpoises, so far as I remember. + +No man can find himself over the abysses, the floor of which is paved +with wrecks and white with the bones of the shrieking myriads of human +beings whom the waves have swallowed up, without some thought of the +dread possibilities hanging over his fate. There is only one way to get +rid of them: that which an old sea-captain mentioned to me, namely, to +keep one's self under opiates until he wakes up in the harbor where he +is bound. I did not take this as serious advice, but its meaning is that +one who has all his senses about him cannot help being anxious. My old +friend, whose beard had been shaken in many a tempest, knew too well +that there is cause enough for anxiety. + +What does the reader suppose was the source of the most ominous thought +which forced itself upon my mind, as I walked the decks of the mighty +vessel? Not the sound of the rushing winds, nor the sight of the +foam-crested billows; not the sense of the awful imprisoned force which +was wrestling in the depths below me. The ship is made to struggle with +the elements, and the giant has been tamed to obedience, and is manacled +in bonds which an earthquake would hardly rend asunder. No! It was the +sight of the _boats_ hanging along at the sides of the deck,--the +boats, always suggesting the fearful possibility that before another day +dawns one may be tossing about in the watery Sahara, shelterless, +fireless, almost foodless, with a fate before him he dares not +contemplate. No doubt we should feel worse without the boats; still they +are dreadful tell-tales. To all who remember Géricault's Wreck of the +Medusa,--and those who have seen it do not forget it,--the picture the +mind draws is one it shudders at. To be sure, the poor wretches in the +painting were on a raft, but to think of fifty people in one of these +open boats! Let us go down into the cabin, where at least we shall not +see them. + +The first morning at sea revealed the mystery of the little round tin +box. The process of _shaving_, never a delightful one, is a very +unpleasant and awkward piece of business when the floor on which one +stands, the glass in which he looks, and he himself are all describing +those complex curves which make cycles and epicycles seem like +simplicity itself. The little box contained a reaping machine, which +gathered the capillary harvest of the past twenty-four hours with a +thoroughness, a rapidity, a security, and a facility which were a +surprise, almost a revelation. The idea of a guarded cutting edge is an +old one; I remember the "Plantagenet" razor, so called, with the +comb-like row of blunt teeth, leaving just enough of the edge free to do +its work. But this little affair had a blade only an inch and a half +long by three quarters of an inch wide. It had a long slender handle, +which took apart for packing, and was put together with the greatest +ease. It was, in short, a lawn-mower for the masculine growth of which +the proprietor wishes to rid his countenance. The mowing operation +required no glass, could be performed with almost reckless boldness, as +one cannot cut himself, and in fact had become a pleasant amusement +instead of an irksome task. I have never used any other means of shaving +from that day to this. I was so pleased with it that I exhibited it to +the distinguished tonsors of Burlington Arcade, half afraid they would +assassinate me for bringing in an innovation which bid fair to destroy +their business. They probably took me for an agent of the manufacturers; +and so I was, but not in their pay nor with their knowledge. I +determined to let other persons know what a convenience I had found the +"Star Razor" of Messrs. Kampf, of New York, without fear of reproach for +so doing. I know my danger,--does not Lord Byron say, "I have even been +accused of writing puffs for Warren's blacking"? I was once offered pay +for a poem in praise of a certain stove polish, but I declined. It is +pure good-will to my race which leads me to commend the Star Razor to +all who travel by land or by sea, as well as to all who stay at home. + +With the first sight of land many a passenger draws a long sigh of +relief. Yet everybody knows that the worst dangers begin after we have +got near enough to see the shore, for there are several ways of landing, +not all of which are equally desirable. On Saturday, May 8th, we first +caught a glimpse of the Irish coast, and at half past four in the +afternoon we reached the harbor of Queenstown. A tug came off, bringing +newspapers, letters, and so forth, among the rest some thirty letters +and telegrams for me. This did not look much like rest, but this was +only a slight prelude to what was to follow. I was in no condition to go +on shore for sight-seeing, as some of the passengers did. + +We made our way through the fog towards Liverpool, and arrived at 1.30, +on Sunday, May 9th. A special tug came to take us off: on it were the +American consul, Mr. Russell, the vice-consul, Mr. Sewall, Dr. Nevins, +and Mr. Rathbone, who came on behalf of our as yet unseen friend, Mr. +Willett, of Brighton, England. Our Liverpool friends were meditating +more hospitalities to us than, in our fatigued condition, we were equal +to supporting. They very kindly, however, acquiesced in our wishes, +which were for as much rest as we could possibly get before any attempt +to busy ourselves with social engagements. So they conveyed us to the +Grand Hotel for a short time, and then saw us safely off to the station +to take the train for Chester, where we arrived in due season, and soon +found ourselves comfortably established at the Grosvenor Arms Hotel. A +large basket of Surrey primroses was brought by Mr. Rathbone to my +companion. I had set before me at the hotel a very handsome floral harp, +which my friend's friend had offered me as a tribute. It made melody in +my ears as sweet as those hyacinths of Shelley's, the music of whose +bells was so + + "delicate, soft, and intense, + It was felt like an odor within the sense." + +At Chester we had the blissful security of being unknown, and were left +to ourselves. Americans know Chester better than most other old towns in +England, because they so frequently stop there awhile on their way from +Liverpool to London. It has a mouldy old cathedral, an old wall, partly +Roman, strange old houses with overhanging upper floors, which make +sheltered sidewalks and dark basements. When one sees an old house in +New England with the second floor projecting a foot or two beyond the +wall of the ground floor, the country boy will tell him that "them +haouses was built so th't th' folks upstairs could shoot the Injins when +they was tryin' to git threew th' door or int' th' winder." There are +plenty of such houses all over England, where there are no "Injins" to +shoot. But the story adds interest to the somewhat lean traditions of +our rather dreary past, and it is hardly worth while to disturb it. I +always heard it in my boyhood. Perhaps it is true; certainly it was a +very convenient arrangement for discouraging an untimely visit. The oval +lookouts in porches, common in our Essex County, have been said to +answer a similar purpose, that of warning against the intrusion of +undesirable visitors. The walk round the old wall of Chester is +wonderfully interesting and beautiful. At one part it overlooks a wide +level field, over which the annual races are run. I noticed that here as +elsewhere the short grass was starred with daisies. They are not +considered in place in a well-kept lawn. But remembering the cuckoo song +in "Love's Labour's Lost," "When daisies pied ... do paint the meadows +with delight," it was hard to look at them as unwelcome intruders. + +The old cathedral seemed to me particularly mouldy, and in fact too +high-flavored with antiquity. I could not help comparing some of the +ancient cathedrals and abbey churches to so many old cheeses. They have +a tough gray rind and a rich interior, which find food and lodging for +numerous tenants who live and die under their shelter or their +shadow,--lowly servitors some of them, portly dignitaries others, humble +holy ministers of religion many, I doubt not,--larvae of angels, who +will get their wings by and by. It is a shame to carry the comparison so +far, but it is natural enough; for Cheshire cheeses are among the first +things we think of as we enter that section of the country, and this +venerable cathedral is the first that greets the eyes of great numbers +of Americans. + +We drove out to Eaton Hall, the seat of the Duke of Westminster, the +many-millioned lord of a good part of London. It is a palace, +high-roofed, marble-columned, vast, magnificent, everything but +homelike, and perhaps homelike to persons born and bred in such +edifices. A painter like Paul Veronese finds a palace like this not too +grand for his banqueting scenes. But to those who live, as most of us +do, in houses of moderate dimensions, snug, comfortable, which the +owner's presence fills sufficiently, leaving room for a few visitors, a +vast marble palace is disheartening and uninviting. I never get into a +very large and lofty saloon without feeling as if I were a weak solution +of myself,--my personality almost drowned out in the flood of space +about me. The wigwam is more homelike than the cavern. Our wooden houses +are a better kind of wigwam; the marble palaces are artificial caverns, +vast, resonant, chilling, good to visit, not desirable to live in, for +most of us. One's individuality should betray itself in all that +surrounds him; he should _secrete_ his shell, like a mollusk; if he +can sprinkle a few pearls through it, so much the better. It is best, +perhaps, that one should avoid being a duke and living in a +palace,--that is, if he has his choice in the robing chamber where souls +are fitted with their earthly garments. + +One of the most interesting parts of my visit to Eaton Hall was my tour +through the stables. The Duke is a famous breeder and lover of the turf. +Mr. Rathbone and myself soon made the acquaintance of the chief of the +stable department. Readers of Homer do not want to be reminded that +_hippodamoio_, horse-subduer, is the genitive of an epithet applied +as a chief honor to the most illustrious heroes. It is the last word of +the last line of the Iliad, and fitly closes the account of the funeral +pageant of Hector, the tamer of horses. We Americans are a little shy of +confessing that any title or conventional grandeur makes an impression +upon us. If at home we wince before any official with a sense of +blighted inferiority, it is by general confession the clerk at the hotel +office. There is an excuse for this, inasmuch as he holds our destinies +in his hands, and decides whether, in case of accident, we shall have to +jump from the third or sixth story window. Lesser grandeurs do not find +us very impressible. There is, however, something about the man who +deals in horses which takes down the spirit, however proud, of him who +is unskilled in equestrian matters and unused to the horse-lover's +vocabulary. We followed the master of the stables, meekly listening and +once in a while questioning. I had to fall back on my reserves, and +summoned up memories half a century old to gain the respect and win the +confidence of the great horse-subduer. He showed us various fine +animals, some in their stalls, some outside of them. Chief of all was +the renowned Bend Or, a Derby winner, a noble and beautiful bay, +destined in a few weeks to gain new honors on the same turf in the +triumph of his offspring Ormonde, whose acquaintance we shall make +by-and-by. + +The next day, Tuesday, May 11th, at 4.25, we took the train for London. +We had a saloon car, which had been thoughtfully secured for us through +unseen, not unsuspected, agencies, which had also beautified the +compartment with flowers. + +Here are some of my first impressions of England as seen from the +carriage and from the cars.--How very English! I recall Birket Foster's +Pictures of English Landscape,--a beautiful, poetical series of views, +but hardly more poetical than the reality. How thoroughly England _is +groomed_! Our New England out-of-doors landscape often looks as if it +had just got out of bed, and had not finished its toilet. The glowing +green of everything strikes me: green hedges in place of our +rail-fences, always ugly, and our rude stone-walls, which are not +wanting in a certain look of fitness approaching to comeliness, and are +really picturesque when lichen-coated, but poor features of landscape as +compared to these universal hedges. I am disappointed in the trees, so +far; I have not seen one large tree as yet. Most of those I see are of +very moderate dimensions, feathered all the way up their long slender +trunks, with a lop-sided mop of leaves at the top, like a wig which has +slipped awry. I trust that I am not finding everything _couleur de +rose_; but I certainly do find the cheeks of children and young +persons of such brilliant rosy hue as I do not remember that I have ever +seen before. I am almost ready to think this and that child's face has +been colored from a pink saucer. If the Saxon youth exposed for sale at +Rome, in the days of Pope Gregory the Great, had complexions like these +children, no wonder that the pontiff exclaimed, Not _Angli_, but +_angeli_! All this may sound a little extravagant, but I am giving +my impressions without any intentional exaggeration. How far these first +impressions may be modified by after-experiences there will be time +enough to find out and to tell. It is better to set them down at once +just as they are. A first impression is one never to be repeated; the +second look will see much that was not noticed before, but it will not +reproduce the sharp lines of the _first proof_, which is always +interesting, no matter what the eye or the mind fixes upon. "I see men +as trees walking." That first experience could not be mended. When +Dickens landed in Boston, he was struck with the brightness of all the +objects he saw,--buildings, signs, and so forth. When I landed in +Liverpool, everything looked very dark, very dingy, very massive, in the +streets I drove through. So in London, but in a week it all seemed +natural enough. + +We got to the hotel where we had engaged quarters, at eleven o'clock in +the evening of Wednesday, the 12th of May. Everything was ready for +us,--a bright fire blazing and supper waiting. When we came to look at +the accommodations, we found they were not at all adapted to our needs. +It was impossible to stay there another night. So early the next morning +we sent out our courier-maid, a dove from the ark, to find us a place +where we could rest the soles of our feet. London is a nation of +something like four millions of inhabitants, and one does not feel easy +without he has an assured place of shelter. The dove flew all over the +habitable districts of the city,--inquired at as many as twenty houses. +No roosting-place for our little flock of three. At last the good angel +who followed us everywhere, in one shape or another, pointed the +wanderer to a place which corresponded with all our requirements and +wishes. This was at No. 17 Dover Street, Mackellar's Hotel, where we +found ourselves comfortably lodged and well cared for during the whole +time we were in London. It was close to Piccadilly and to Bond Street. +Near us, in the same range, were Brown's Hotel and Batt's Hotel, both +widely known to the temporary residents of London. + +We were but partially recovered from the fatigues and trials of the +voyage when our arrival pulled the string of the social shower-bath, and +the invitations began pouring down upon us so fast that we caught our +breath, and felt as if we should be smothered. The first evening saw us +at a great dinner-party at our well-remembered friend Lady Harcourt's. +Twenty guests, celebrities and agreeable persons, with or without +titles. The tables were radiant with silver, glistening with choice +porcelain, blazing with a grand show of tulips. This was our "baptism of +fire" in that long conflict which lasts through the London season. After +dinner came a grand reception, most interesting, but fatiguing to +persons hardly as yet in good condition for social service. We lived +through it, however, and enjoyed meeting so many friends, known and +unknown, who were very cordial and pleasant in their way of receiving +us. + +It was plain that we could not pretend to answer all the invitations +which flooded our tables. If we had attempted it, we should have found +no time for anything else. A secretary was evidently a matter of +immediate necessity. Through the kindness of Mrs. Pollock, we found a +young lady who was exactly fitted for the place. She was installed in +the little room intended for her, and began the work of accepting with +pleasure and regretting our inability, of acknowledging the receipt of +books, flowers, and other objects, and being very sorry that we could +not subscribe to this good object and attend that meeting in behalf of a +deserving charity,--in short, writing almost everything for us except +autographs, which I can warrant were always genuine. The poor young lady +was almost tired out sometimes, having to stay at her table, on one +occasion, so late as eleven in the evening, to get through her day's +work. I simplified matters for her by giving her a set of formulae as a +base to start from, and she proved very apt at the task of modifying +each particular letter to suit its purpose. + +From this time forward continued a perpetual round of social +engagements. Breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, teas, receptions with +spread tables, two, three, and four deep of an evening, with receiving +company at our own rooms, took up the day, so that we had very little +time for common sight-seeing. + +Of these kinds of entertainments, the breakfast, though pleasant enough +when the company is agreeable, as I always found it, is the least +convenient of all times and modes of visiting. You have already +interviewed one breakfast, and are expecting soon to be coquetting with +a tempting luncheon. If one had as many stomachs as a ruminant, he would +not mind three or four serious meals a day, not counting the tea as one +of them. The luncheon is a very convenient affair: it does not require +special dress; it is informal; it is soon over, and may be made light or +heavy, as one chooses. The afternoon tea is almost a necessity in London +life. It is considered useful as "a pick me up," and it serves an +admirable purpose in the social system. It costs the household hardly +any trouble or expense. It brings people together in the easiest +possible way, for ten minutes or an hour, just as their engagements or +fancies may settle it. A cup of tea at the right moment does for the +virtuous reveller all that Falstaff claims for a good sherris-sack, or +at least the first half of its "twofold operation:" "It ascends me into +the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapors +which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of +nimble, fiery and delectable shapes, which delivered over to the voice, +the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit." + +But it must have the right brain to work upon, and I doubt if there is +any brain to which it is so congenial and from which it brings so much +as that of a first-rate London old lady. I came away from the great city +with the feeling that this most complex product of civilization was +nowhere else developed to such perfection. The octogenarian Londoness +has been in society,--let us say the highest society,--all her days. She +is as tough as an old macaw, or she would not have lasted so long. She +has seen and talked with all the celebrities of three generations, all +the beauties of at least half a dozen decades. Her wits have been kept +bright by constant use, and as she is free of speech it requires some +courage to face her. Yet nobody can be more agreeable, even to young +persons, than one of these precious old dowagers. A great beauty is +almost certainly thinking how she looks while one is talking with her; +an authoress is waiting to have one praise her book; but a grand old +lady, who loves London society, who lives in it, who understands young +people and all sorts of people, with her high-colored recollections of +the past and her grand-maternal interests in the new generation, is the +best of companions, especially over a cup of tea just strong enough to +stir up her talking ganglions. + +A breakfast, a lunch, a tea, is a circumstance, an occurrence, in social +life, but a dinner is an event. It is the full-blown flower of that +cultivated growth of which those lesser products are the buds. I will +not try to enumerate, still less to describe, the various entertainments +to which we were invited, and many of which we attended. Among the +professional friends I found or made during this visit to London, none +were more kindly attentive than Dr. Priestley, who, with his charming +wife, the daughter of the late Robert Chambers, took more pains to carry +out our wishes than we could have asked or hoped for. At his house I +first met Sir James Paget and Sir William Gull, long well known to me, +as to the medical profession everywhere, as preëminent in their several +departments. If I were an interviewer or a newspaper reporter, I should +be tempted to give the impression which the men and women of distinction +I met made upon me; but where all were cordial, where all made me feel +as nearly as they could that I belonged where I found myself, whether +the ceiling were a low or a lofty one, I do not care to differentiate my +hosts and my other friends. _Fortemque Gyan fortemque Cloanthum_, +--I left my microscope and my test-papers at home. + +Our friends, several of them, had a pleasant way of sending their +carriages to give us a drive in the Park, where, except in certain +permitted regions, the common numbered vehicles are not allowed to +enter. Lady Harcourt sent her carriage for us to go to her sister's, +Mrs. Mildmay's, where we had a pleasant little "tea," and met one of the +most agreeable and remarkable of those London old ladies I have spoken +of. For special occasions we hired an unnumbered carriage, with +professionally equipped driver and footman. + +Mrs. Bloomfield Moore sent her carriage for us to take us to a lunch at +her house, where we met Mr. Browning, Sir Henry and Lady Layard, Oscar +Wilde and his handsome wife, and other well-known guests. After lunch, +recitations, songs, etc. House full of pretty things. Among other +curiosities a portfolio of drawings illustrating Keeley's motor, which, +up to this time, has manifested a remarkably powerful _vis +inertice_, but which promises miracles. In the evening a grand +reception at Lady Granville's, beginning (for us, at least) at eleven +o'clock. The house a palace, and A---- thinks there were a thousand +people there. We made the tour of the rooms, saw many great personages, +had to wait for our carriage a long time, but got home at one o'clock. + +English people have queer notions about iced-water and ice-cream. "You +will surely die, eating such cold stuff," said a lady to my companion. +"Oh, no," she answered, "but I should certainly die were I to drink your +two cups of strong tea." I approved of this "counter" on the teacup, but +I did not think either of them was in much danger. + +The next day Rev. Mr. Haweis sent his carriage, and we drove in the +Park. In the afternoon we went to our Minister's to see the American +ladies who had been presented at the drawing-room. After this, both of +us were glad to pass a day or two in comparative quiet, except that we +had a room full of visitors. So many persons expressed a desire to make +our acquaintance that we thought it would be acceptable to them if we +would give a reception ourselves. We were thinking how we could manage +it with our rooms at the hotel, which were not arranged so that they +could be thrown together. Still, we were planning to make the best of +them, when Dr. and Mrs. Priestley suggested that we should receive our +company at their house. This was a surprise, and a most welcome one, and +A---- and her kind friend busied themselves at once about the +arrangements. + +We went to a luncheon at Lansdowne House, Lord Rosebery's residence, not +far from our hotel. My companion tells a little incident which may +please an American six-year-old: "The eldest of the four children, +Sibyl, a pretty, bright child of six, told me that she wrote a letter to +the Queen. I said, 'Did you begin, Dear Queen?' 'No,' she answered, 'I +began, Your Majesty, and signed myself, Your little humble servant, +Sibyl.'" A very cordial and homelike reception at this great house, +where a couple of hours were passed most agreeably. + +On the following Sunday I went to Westminster Abbey to hear a sermon +from Canon Harford on A Cheerful Life. A lively, wholesome, and +encouraging discourse, such as it would do many a forlorn New England +congregation good to hear. In the afternoon we both went together to the +Abbey. Met our Beverly neighbor, Mrs. Vaughan, and adopted her as one of +our party. The seats we were to have were full, and we had to be stowed +where there was any place that would hold us. I was smuggled into a +stall, going through long and narrow passages, between crowded rows of +people, and found myself at last with a big book before me and a set of +official personages around me, whose duties I did not clearly +understand. I thought they might be mutes, or something of that sort, +salaried to look grave and keep quiet. After service we took tea with +Dean Bradley, and after tea we visited the Jerusalem Chamber. I had been +twice invited to weddings in that famous room: once to the marriage of +my friend Motley's daughter, then to that of Mr. Frederick Locker's +daughter to Lionel Tennyson, whose recent death has been so deeply +mourned. I never expected to see that Jerusalem in which Harry the +Fourth died, but there I found myself in the large panelled chamber, +with all its associations. The older memories came up but vaguely; an +American finds it as hard to call back anything over two or three +centuries old as a sucking-pump to draw up water from a depth of over +thirty-three feet and a fraction. After this A---- went to a musical +party, dined with the Vaughans, and had a good time among American +friends. + +The next evening we went to the Lyceum Theatre to see Mr. Irving. He had +placed the Royal box at our disposal, so we invited our friends the +Priestleys to go with us, and we all enjoyed the evening mightily. +Between the scenes we went behind the curtain, and saw the very curious +and admirable machinery of the dramatic spectacle. We made the +acquaintance of several imps and demons, who were got up wonderfully +well. Ellen Terry was as fascinating as ever. I remembered that once +before I had met her and Mr. Irving behind the scenes. It was at the +Boston Theatre, and while I was talking with them a very heavy piece of +scenery came crashing down, and filled the whole place with dust. It was +but a short distance from where we were standing, and I could not help +thinking how near our several life-dramas came to a simultaneous +_exeunt omnes_. + +A long visit from a polite interviewer, shopping, driving, calling, +arranging about the people to be invited to our reception, and an +agreeable dinner at Chelsea with my American friend, Mrs. Merritt, +filled up this day full enough, and left us in good condition for the +next, which was to be a very busy one. + +In the Introduction to these papers, I mentioned the fact that more than +half a century ago I went to the famous Derby race at Epsom. I +determined, if possible, to see the Derby of 1886, as I had seen that of +1834. I must have spoken of this intention to some interviewer, for I +find the following paragraph in an English sporting newspaper, "The +Field," for May 29th, 1886:-- + +"The Derby has always been the one event in the racing year which +statesmen, philosophers, poets, essayists, and _littérateurs_ +desire to see once in their lives. A few years since Mr. Gladstone was +induced by Lord Granville and Lord Wolverton to run down to Epsom on the +Derby day. The impression produced upon the Prime Minister's sensitive +and emotional mind was that the mirth and hilarity displayed by his +compatriots upon Epsom race-course was Italian rather than English in +its character. On the other hand, Gustave Doré, who also saw the Derby +for the first and only time in his life, exclaimed, as he gazed with +horror upon the faces below him, _Quelle scène brutale!_ We wonder +to which of these two impressions Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes inclined, if +he went last Wednesday to Epsom! Probably the well-known, etc., etc.--Of +one thing Dr. Holmes may rest finally satisfied: the Derby of 1886 may +possibly have seemed to him far less exciting than that of 1834; but +neither in 1834 nor in any other year was the great race ever won by a +better sportsman or more honorable man than the Duke of Westminster." + +My desire to see the Derby of this year was of the same origin and +character as that which led me to revisit many scenes which I +remembered. I cared quite as much about renewing old impressions as +about getting new ones. I enjoyed everything which I had once seen all +the more from the blending of my recollections with the present as it +was before me. + +The Derby day of 1834 was exceedingly windy and dusty. Our party, riding +on the outside of the coach, was half smothered with the dust, and +arrived in a very deteriorated condition, but recompensed for it by the +extraordinary sights we had witnessed. There was no train in those days, +and the whole road between London and Epsom was choked with vehicles of +all kinds, from four-in-hands to donkey-carts and wheelbarrows. My +friends and I mingled freely in the crowds, and saw all the "humours" of +the occasion. The thimble-riggers were out in great force, with their +light, movable tables, the cups or thimbles, and the "little jokers," +and the coachman, the sham gentleman, the country greenhorn, all +properly got up and gathered about the table. I think we had "Aunt +Sally," too,--the figure with a pipe in her mouth, which one might shy a +stick at for a penny or two and win something, I forget what. The +clearing the course of stragglers, and the chasing about of the +frightened little dog who had got in between the thick ranks of +spectators, reminded me of what I used to see on old "artillery +election" days. + +It was no common race that I went to see in 1834. "It is asserted in the +columns of a contemporary that Plenipotentiary was absolutely the best +horse of the century." This was the winner of the race I saw so long +ago. Herring's colored portrait, which I have always kept, shows him as +a great, powerful chestnut horse, well deserving the name of "bullock," +which one of the jockeys applied to him. "Rumor credits Dr. Holmes," so +"The Field" says, "with desiring mentally to compare his two Derbies +with each other." I was most fortunate in my objects of comparison. The +horse I was about to see win was not unworthy of being named with the +renowned champion of my earlier day. I quote from a writer in the +"London Morning Post," whose words, it will be seen, carry authority +with them:-- + +"Deep as has hitherto been my reverence for Plenipotentiary, Bay +Middleton, and Queen of Trumps from hearsay, and for Don John, Crucifix, +etc., etc., from my own personal knowledge, I am inclined to award the +palm to Ormonde as the best three-year-old I have ever seen during close +upon half a century's connection with the turf." + +Ormonde, the Duke of Westminster's horse, was the son of that other +winner of the Derby, Bend Or, whom I saw at Eaton Hall. + +Perhaps some coeval of mine may think it was a rather youthful idea to +go to the race. I cannot help that. I was off on my first long vacation +for half a century, and had a right to my whims and fancies. But it was +one thing to go in with a vast crowd at five and twenty, and another +thing to run the risks of the excursion at more than thrice that age. I +looked about me for means of going safely, and could think of nothing +better than to ask one of the pleasantest and kindest of gentlemen, to +whom I had a letter from Mr. Winthrop, at whose house I had had the +pleasure of making his acquaintance. Lord Rosebery suggested that the +best way would be for me to go in the special train which was to carry +the Prince of Wales. First, then, I was to be introduced to his Royal +Highness, which office was kindly undertaken by our very obliging and +courteous Minister, Mr. Phelps. After this all was easily arranged, and +I was cared for as well as if I had been Mr. Phelps himself. On the +grand stand I found myself in the midst of the great people, who were +all very natural, and as much at their ease as the rest of the world. +The Prince is of a lively temperament and a very cheerful aspect,--a +young girl would call him "jolly" as well as "nice." I recall the story +of "Mr. Pope" and his Prince of Wales, as told by Horace Walpole. "Mr. +Pope, you don't love princes." "Sir, I beg your pardon." "Well, you +don't love kings, then." "Sir, I own I love the lion best before his +claws are grown." Certainly, nothing in Prince Albert Edward suggests +any aggressive weapons or tendencies. The lovely, youthful-looking, +gracious Alexandra, the always affable and amiable Princess Louise, the +tall youth who sees the crown and sceptre afar off in his dreams, the +slips of girls so like many school misses we left behind us,--all these +grand personages, not being on exhibition, but off enjoying themselves, +just as I was and as other people were, seemed very much like their +fellow-mortals. It is really easier to feel at home with the highest +people in the land than with the awkward commoner who was knighted +yesterday. When "My Lord and Sir Paul" came into the Club which +Goldsmith tells us of, the hilarity of the evening was instantly +checked. The entrance of a dignitary like the present Prince of Wales +would not have spoiled the fun of the evening. If there is any one +accomplishment specially belonging to princes, it is that of making the +persons they meet feel at ease. + +The grand stand to which I was admitted was a little privileged +republic. I remember Thackeray's story of his asking some simple +question of a royal or semi-royal personage whom he met in the courtyard +of an hotel, which question his Highness did not answer, but called a +subordinate to answer for him. I had been talking some time with a tall, +good-looking gentleman, whom I took for a nobleman to whom I had been +introduced. Something led me to think I was mistaken in the identity of +this gentleman. I asked him, at last, if he were not So and So. "No," he +said, "I am Prince Christian." You are a Christian prince, anyhow, I +said to myself, if I may judge by your manners. + +I once made a similar mistake in addressing a young fellow-citizen of +some social pretensions. I apologized for my error. + +"No offence," he answered. + +_Offence_ indeed! I should hope not. But he had not the "_manière +de prince_", or he would never have used that word. + +I must say something about the race I had taken so much pains to see. +There was a preliminary race, which excited comparatively little +interest. After this the horses were shown in the paddock, and many of +our privileged party went down from the stand to look at them. Then they +were brought out, smooth, shining, fine-drawn, frisky, spirit-stirring +to look upon,--most beautiful of all the bay horse Ormonde, who could +hardly be restrained, such was his eagerness for action. The horses +disappear in the distance.--They are off,--not yet distinguishable, at +least to me. A little waiting time, and they swim into our ken, but in +what order of precedence it is as yet not easy to say. Here they come! +Two horses have emerged from the ruck, and are sweeping, rushing, +storming, towards us, almost side by side. One slides by the other, half +a length, a length, a length and a half. Those are Archer's colors, and +the beautiful bay Ormonde flashes by the line, winner of the Derby of +1886. "The Bard" has made a good fight for the first place, and comes in +second. Poor Archer, the king of the jockeys! He will bestride no more +Derby winners. A few weeks later he died by his own hand. + +While the race was going on, the yells of the betting crowd beneath us +were incessant. It must have been the frantic cries and movements of +these people that caused Gustave Doré to characterize it as a brutal +scene. The vast mob which thronged the wide space beyond the shouting +circle just round us was much like that of any other fair, so far as I +could see from my royal perch. The most conspicuous object was a man on +an immensely tall pair of stilts, stalking about among the crowd. I +think it probable that I had as much enjoyment in forming one of the +great mob in 1834 as I had among the grandeurs in 1886, but the last is +pleasanter to remember and especially to tell of. + +After the race we had a luncheon served us, a comfortable and +substantial one, which was very far from unwelcome. I did not go to the +Derby to bet on the winner. But as I went in to luncheon, I passed a +gentleman standing in custody of a plate half covered with sovereigns. +He politely asked me if I would take a little paper from a heap there +was lying by the plate, and add a sovereign to the collection already +there. I did so, and, unfolding my paper, found it was a blank, and +passed on. The pool, as I afterwards learned, fell to the lot of the +Turkish Ambassador. I found it very windy and uncomfortable on the more +exposed parts of the grand stand, and was glad that I had taken a shawl +with me, in which I wrapped myself as if I had been on shipboard. This, +I told my English friends, was the more civilized form of the Indian's +blanket. My report of the weather does not say much for the English May, +but it is generally agreed upon that this is a backward and unpleasant +spring. + +After my return from the race we went to a large dinner at Mr. Phelps's +house, where we met Mr. Browning again, and the Lord Chancellor +Herschell, among others. Then to Mrs. Cyril Flower's, one of the most +sumptuous houses in London; and after that to Lady Rothschild's, another +of the private palaces, with ceilings lofty as firmaments, and walls +that might have been copied from the New Jerusalem. There was still +another great and splendid reception at Lady Dalhousie's, and a party at +Mrs. Smith's, but we were both tired enough to be willing to go home +after what may be called a pretty good day's work at enjoying ourselves. + +We had been a fortnight in London, and were now inextricably entangled +in the meshes of the golden web of London social life. + + + + +II. + + +The reader who glances over these papers, and, finding them too full of +small details and the lesser personal matters which belong naturally to +private correspondences, turns impatiently from them, has my entire +sympathy and good-will. He is not one of those for whom these pages are +meant. Having no particular interest in the writer or his affairs, he +does not care for the history of "the migrations from the blue bed to +the brown" and the many Mistress Quicklyisms of circumstantial +narrative. Yet all this may be pleasant reading to relatives and +friends. + +But I must not forget that a new generation of readers has come into +being since I have been writing for the public, and that a new +generation of aspiring and brilliant authors has grown into general +recognition. The dome of Boston State House, which is the centre of my +little universe, was glittering in its fresh golden pellicle before I +had reached the scriptural boundary of life. It has lost its lustre now, +and the years which have dulled its surface have whitened the dome of +that fragile structure in which my consciousness holds the session of +its faculties. Time is not to be cheated. It is easy to talk of +perennial youth, and to toy with the flattering fictions which every +ancient personage accepts as true so far as he himself is concerned, and +laughs at as foolish talk when he hears them applied to others. When, in +my exulting immaturity, I wrote the lines not unknown to the reading +public under the name of "The Last Leaf", I spoke of the possibility +that I myself might linger on the old bough until the buds and blossoms +of a new spring were opening and spreading all around me. I am not as +yet the solitary survivor of my literary contemporaries, and, +remembering who my few coevals are, it may well be hoped that I shall +not be. But I feel lonely, very lonely, in the pages through which I +wander. These are new names in the midst of which I find my own. In +another sense I am very far from alone. I have daily assurances that I +have a constituency of known and unknown personal friends, whose +indulgence I have no need of asking. I know there are readers enough who +will be pleased to follow me in my brief excursion, _because I am +myself_, and will demand no better reason. If I choose to write for +them, I do no injury to those for whom my personality is an object of +indifference. They will find on every shelf some publications which are +not intended for them, and which they prefer to let alone. No person is +expected to help himself to everything set before him at a public table. +I will not, therefore, hesitate to go on with the simple story of our +Old World experiences. + +Thanks to my Indian blanket,--my shawl, I mean,--I found myself nothing +the worse for my manifold adventures of the 27th of May. The cold wind +sweeping over Epsom downs reminded me of our own chilling easterly +breezes; especially the northeasterly ones, which are to me less +disagreeable than the southeasterly. But the poetical illusion about an +English May,-- + + "Zephyr with Aurora playing, + As he met her once a-Maying,"-- + +and all that, received a shrewd thrust. Zephyr ought to have come in an +ulster, and offered Aurora a warm petticoat. However, in spite of all +difficulties, I brought off my recollections of the Derby of 1886 in +triumph, and am now waiting for the colored portrait of Ormonde with +Archer on his back,--Archer, the winner of five Derby races, one of +which was won by the American horse Iroquois. When that picture, which I +am daily expecting, arrives, I shall have it framed and hung by the side +of Herring's picture of Plenipotentiary, the horse I saw win the Derby +in 1834. These two, with an old portrait of the great Eclipse, who, as +my engraving of 1780 (Stubbs's) says, "was never beat, or ever had +occation for Whip or Spur," will constitute my entire sporting gallery. +I have not that vicious and demoralizing love of horse-flesh which makes +it next to impossible to find a perfectly honest hippophile. But a racer +is the realization of an ideal quadruped,-- + + "A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift;" + +so ethereal, so bird-like, that it is no wonder that the horse about +whom those old story-tellers lied so stoutly,--telling of his running a +mile in a minute,--was called Flying Childers. + +The roses in Mrs. Pfeiffer's garden were hardly out of flower when I +lunched with her at her pretty villa at Putney. There I met Mr. +Browning, Mr. Holman Hunt, Mrs. Ritchie, Miss Anna Swanwick, the +translator of Æschylus, and other good company, besides that of my +entertainer. + +One of my very agreeable experiences was a call from a gentleman with +whom I had corresponded, but whom I had never met. This was Mr. John +Bellows, of Gloucester, publisher, printer, man of letters, or rather of +words; for he is the author of that truly remarkable little manual, "The +Bona Fide Pocket Dictionary of the French and English Languages." To the +review of this little book, which is dedicated to Prince Lucien +Bonaparte, the "London Times" devoted a full column. I never heard any +one who had used it speak of it except with admiration. The modest +Friend may be surprised to find himself at full length in my pages, but +those who know the little miracle of typography, its conciseness, +completeness, arrangement, will not wonder that I was gratified to see +the author, who sent it to me, and who has written me most interesting +letters on the local antiquities of Gloucester and its neighborhood. + +We lunched that day at Lady Camperdown's, where we were happy to meet +Miss Frances Power Cobbe. In the afternoon we went by invitation to a +"tea and talk" at the Reverend Mr. Haweis's, at Chelsea. We found the +house close packed, but managed to get through the rooms, shaking +innumerable hands of the reverend gentleman's parishioners and other +visitors. It was very well arranged, so as not to be too fatiguing, and +we left the cordial gathering in good condition. We drove home with +Bishop and Mrs. Ellicott. + +After this Sir James Paget called, and took me to a small and early +dinner-party; and A---- went with my secretary, the young lady of whom I +have spoken, to see "Human Nature," at Drury Lane Theatre. + +On the following day, after dining with Lady Holland (wife of Sir Henry, +niece of Macaulay), we went across the street to our neighbor's, Lady +Stanley's. There was to be a great meeting of schoolmistresses, in whose +work her son, the Honorable Lyulph Stanley, is deeply interested. Alas! +The schoolma'ams were just leaving as we entered the door, and all we +saw of them was the trail of their descending robes. I was very sorry +for this, for I have a good many friends among our own schoolmistresses, +--friends whom I never saw, but know through the kind words they have +addressed to me. + +No place in London looks more reserved and exclusive than Devonshire +House, standing back behind its high wall, extending along Piccadilly. +There is certainly nothing in its exterior which invites intrusion. We +had the pleasure of taking tea in the great house, accompanying our +American friend, Lady Harcourt, and were graciously received and +entertained by Lady Edward Cavendish. Like the other great houses, it is +a museum of paintings, statues, objects of interest of all sorts. It +must be confessed that it is pleasanter to go through the rooms with one +of the ladies of the household than under the lead of a liveried +servant. Lord Hartington came in while we were there. All the men who +are distinguished in political life become so familiar to the readers of +"Punch" in their caricatures, that we know them at sight. Even those who +can claim no such public distinction are occasionally the subjects of +the caricaturist, as some of us have found out for ourselves. A good +caricature, which seizes the prominent features and gives them the +character Nature hinted, but did not fully carry out, is a work of +genius. Nature herself is a remorseless caricaturist, as our daily +intercourse with our fellow men and women makes evident to us, and as is +curiously illustrated in the figures of Charles Lebrun, showing the +relations between certain human faces and those of various animals. +Hardly an English statesman in bodily presence could be mistaken by any +of "Punch's" readers. + +On the same day that we made this quiet visit we attended a great and +ceremonious assembly. There were two parts in the programme, in the +first of which I was on the stage _solus_,--that is, without my +companion; in the second we were together. This day, Saturday, the 29th +of May, was observed as the Queen's birthday, although she was born on +the 24th. Sir William Harcourt gave a great dinner to the officials of +his department, and later in the evening Lady Rosebery held a reception +at the Foreign Office. On both these occasions everybody is expected to +be in court dress, but my host told me I might present myself in +ordinary evening dress. I thought that I might feel awkwardly among so +many guests, all in the wedding garments, knee-breeches and the rest, +without which I ventured among them. I never passed an easier evening in +any company than among these official personages. Sir William took me +under the shield of his ample presence, and answered all my questions +about the various notable personages at his table in a way to have made +my fortune if I had been a reporter. From the dinner I went to Mrs. +Gladstone's, at 10 Downing Street, where A---- called for me. She had +found a very small and distinguished company there, Prince Albert Victor +among the rest. At half past eleven we walked over to the Foreign Office +to Lady Rosebery's reception. + +Here Mr. Gladstone was of course the centre of a group, to which I was +glad to add myself. His features are almost as familiar to me as my own, +for a photograph of him in his library has long stood on my revolving +bookcase, with a large lens before it. He is one of a small circle of +individuals in whom I have had and still have a special personal +interest. The year 1809, which introduced me to atmospheric existence, +was the birth-year of Gladstone, Tennyson, Lord Houghton, and Darwin. It +seems like an honor to have come into the world in such company, but it +is more likely to promote humility than vanity in a common mortal to +find himself coeval with such illustrious personages. Men born in the +same year watch each other, especially as the sands of life begin to run +low, as we can imagine so many damaged hour-glasses to keep an eye on +each other. Women, of course, never know who are their contemporaries. + +Familiar to me as were the features of Mr. Gladstone, I looked upon him +with astonishment. For he stood before me with epaulets on his shoulders +and a rapier at his side, as military in his aspect as if he had been +Lord Wolseley, to whom I was introduced a short time afterwards. I was +fortunate enough to see and hear Mr. Gladstone on a still more memorable +occasion, and can afford to leave saying what were my impressions of the +very eminent statesman until I speak of that occasion. + +A great number of invitations had been given out for the reception at +Lady Rosebery's,--over two thousand, my companion heard it said. +Whatever the number was, the crowd was very great,--so great that one +might well feel alarmed for the safety of any delicate person who was in +the _pack_ which formed itself at one place in the course of the +evening. Some obstruction must have existed _a fronte_, and the +_vis a tergo_ became fearful in its pressure on those who were +caught in the jam. I began thinking of the crushes in which I had been +caught, or which I had read and heard of: the terrible time at the +execution of Holloway and Haggerty, where some forty persons were +squeezed or trampled to death; the Brooklyn Theatre and other similar +tragedies; the crowd I was in at the unveiling of the statue on the +column of the Place Vendome, where I felt as one may suppose Giles Corey +did when, in his misery, he called for "more weight" to finish him. But +there was always a _deus ex machina_ for us when we were in +trouble. Looming up above the crowd was the smiling and encouraging +countenance of the ever active, always present, always helpful Mr. +Smalley. He cleared a breathing space before us. For a short time it was +really a formidable wedging together of people, and if a lady had +fainted in the press, she might have run a serious risk before she could +have been extricated. No more "marble halls" for us, if we had to +undergo the _peine forte et dure_ as the condition of our presence! +We were both glad to escape from this threatened asphyxia, and move +freely about the noble apartments. Lady Rosebery, who was kindness +itself, would have had us stay and sit down in comfort at the +supper-table, after the crowd had thinned, but we were tired with all we +had been through, and ordered our carriage. _Ordered our carriage!_ + + "I can call spirits from the vasty deep." ... + _But will they come when you do call for them?_" + +The most formidable thing about a London party is getting away from it. +"C'est le _dernier_ pas qui coute." A crowd of anxious persons in +retreat is hanging about the windy door, and the breezy stairway, and +the airy hall. + +A stentorian voice, hard as that of Rhadamanthus, exclaims,-- + +"Lady Vere de Vere's carriage stops the way!" + +If my Lady Vere de Vere is not on hand, and that pretty quickly, off +goes her carriage, and the stern voice bawls again,-- + +"Mrs. Smith's carriage stops the way!" + +Mrs. Smith's particular Smith may be worth his millions and live in his +marble palace; but if Mrs. Smith thinks her coachman is going to stand +with his horses at that door until she appears, she is mistaken, for she +is a minute late, and now the coach moves on, and Rhadamanthus calls +aloud,-- + +"Mrs. Brown's carriage stops the way!" + +Half the lung fevers that carry off the great people are got waiting for +their carriages. + +I know full well that many readers would be disappointed if I did not +mention some of the grand places and bring in some of the great names +that lend their lustre to London society. We were to go to a fine +musical party at Lady Rothschild's on the evening of the 30th of May. It +happened that the day was Sunday, and if we had been as punctilious as +some New England Sabbatarians, we might have felt compelled to decline +the tempting invitation. But the party was given by a daughter of +Abraham, and in every Hebrew household the true Sabbath was over. We +were content for that evening to shelter ourselves under the old +dispensation. + +The party, or concert, was a very brilliant affair. Patti sang to us, +and a tenor, and a violinist played for us. How we two Americans came to +be in so favored a position I do not know; all I do know is that we were +shown to our places, and found them very agreeable ones. In the same row +of seats was the Prince of Wales, two chairs off from A----'s seat. +Directly in front of A---- was the Princess of Wales, "in ruby velvet, +with six rows of pearls encircling her throat, and two more strings +falling quite low;" and next her, in front of me, the startling presence +of Lady de Grey, formerly Lady Lonsdale, and before that Gladys Herbert. +On the other side of the Princess sat the Grand Duke Michael of Russia. + +As we are among the grandest of the grandees, I must enliven my sober +account with an extract from my companion's diary:-- + +"There were several great beauties there, Lady Claude Hamilton, a +queenly blonde, being one. Minnie Stevens Paget had with her the pretty +Miss Langdon, of New York. Royalty had one room for supper, with its +attendant lords and ladies. Lord Rothschild took me down to a long table +for a sit-down supper,--there were some thirty of us. The most superb +pink orchids were on the table. The [Thane] of ---- sat next me, and how +he stared before he was introduced! ... This has been the finest party +we have been to, sitting comfortably in such a beautiful ball-room, +gazing at royalty in the flesh, and at the shades of departed beauties +on the wall, by Sir Joshua and Gainsborough. It was a new experience to +find that the royal lions fed upstairs, and mixed animals below!" + +A visit to Windsor had been planned, under the guidance of a friend +whose kindness had already shown itself in various forms, and who, +before we left England, did for us more than we could have thought of +owing to any one person. This gentleman, Mr. Willett, of Brighton, +called with Mrs. Willett to take us on the visit which had been arranged +between us. + +Windsor Castle, which everybody knows, or can easily learn, all about, +is one of the largest of those huge caverns in which the descendants of +the original cave men, when they have reached the height of human +grandeur, delight to shelter themselves. It seems as if such a great +hollow quarry of rock would strike a chill through every tenant, but +modern improvements reach even the palaces of kings and queens, and the +regulation temperature of the castle, or of its inhabited portions, is +fixed at sixty-five degrees of Fahrenheit. The royal standard was not +floating from the tower of the castle, and everything was quiet and +lonely. We saw all we wanted to,--pictures, furniture, and the rest. My +namesake, the Queen's librarian, was not there to greet us, or I should +have had a pleasant half-hour in the library with that very polite +gentleman, whom I had afterwards the pleasure of meeting in London. + +After going through all the apartments in the castle that we cared to +see, or our conductress cared to show us, we drove in the park, along +the "three-mile walk," and in the by-roads leading from it. The +beautiful avenue, the open spaces with scattered trees here and there, +made this a most delightful excursion. I saw many fine oaks, one about +sixteen feet of honest girth, but no one which was very remarkable. I +wished I could have compared the handsomest of them with one in Beverly, +which I never look at without taking my hat off. This is a young tree, +with a future before it, if barbarians do not meddle with it, more +conspicuous for its spread than its circumference, stretching not very +far from a hundred feet from bough-end to bough-end. I do not think I +saw a specimen of the British _Quercus robur_ of such consummate +beauty. But I know from Evelyn and Strutt what England has to boast of, +and I will not challenge the British oak. + +Two sensations I had in Windsor park, or forest, for I am not quite sure +of the boundary which separates them. The first was the lovely sight of +the _hawthorn_ in full bloom. I had always thought of the hawthorn +as a pretty shrub, growing in hedges; as big as a currant bush or a +barberry bush, or some humble plant of that character. I was surprised +to see it as a tree, standing by itself, and making the most delicious +roof a pair of young lovers could imagine to sit under. It looked at a +little distance like a young apple-tree covered with new-fallen snow. I +shall never see the word hawthorn in poetry again without the image of +the snowy but far from chilling canopy rising before me. It is the very +bower of young love, and must have done more than any growth of the +forest to soften the doom brought upon man by the fruit of the forbidden +tree. No wonder that + + "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of + love," + +with the object of his affections awaiting him in this boudoir of +nature. What a pity that Zekle, who courted Huldy over the apples she +was peeling, could not have made love as the bucolic youth does, when + + "Every shepherd tells his tale + Under the hawthorn in the dale!" + +(I will have it _love_-tale, in spite of Warton's comment.) But +I suppose it does not make so much difference, for love transmutes the +fruit in Huldy's lap into the apples of the Hesperides. + +In this way it is that the associations with the poetry we remember come +up when we find ourselves surrounded by English scenery. The great poets +build temples of song, and fill them with images and symbols which move +us almost to adoration; the lesser minstrels fill a panel or gild a +cornice here and there, and make our hearts glad with glimpses of +beauty. I felt all this as I looked around and saw the hawthorns in full +bloom, in the openings among the oaks and other trees of the forest. +Presently I heard a sound to which I had never listened before, and +which I have never heard since:-- + +Coooo--coooo! + +Nature had sent one cuckoo from her aviary to sing his double note for +me, that I might not pass away from her pleasing show without once +hearing the call so dear to the poets. It was the last day of spring. A +few more days, and the solitary voice might have been often heard; for +the bird becomes so common as to furnish Shakespeare an image to fit +"the skipping king:"-- + + "He was but as the cuckoo is in June, + Heard, not regarded." + +For the lyric poets the cuckoo is "companion of the spring," "darling of +the spring;" coming with the daisy, and the primrose, and the blossoming +sweet-pea. Where the sound came from I could not tell; it puzzled +Wordsworth, with younger eyes than mine, to find whence issued + + "that cry + Which made me look a thousand ways + In bush, and tree, and sky." + +Only one hint of the prosaic troubled my emotional delight: I could not +help thinking how capitally the little rogue imitated the cuckoo clock, +with the sound of which I was pretty well acquainted. + +On our return from Windsor we had to get ready for another great dinner +with our Minister, Mr. Phelps. As we are in the habit of considering our +great officials as public property, and as some of my readers want as +many glimpses of high life as a decent regard to republican +sensibilities will permit, I will borrow a few words from the diary to +which I have often referred:-- + +"The Princess Louise was there with the Marquis, and I had the best +opportunity of seeing how they receive royalty at private houses. Mr. +and Mrs. Phelps went down to the door to meet her the moment she came, +and then Mr. Phelps entered the drawing-room with the Princess on his +arm, and made the tour of the room with her, she bowing and speaking to +each one of us. Mr. Goschen took me in to dinner, and Lord Lorne was on +my other side. All of the flowers were of the royal color, red. It was a +grand dinner.... The Austrian Ambassador, Count Karoli, took Mrs. Phelps +in [to dinner], his position being higher than that of even the Duke [of +Argyll], who sat upon her right." + +It was a very rich experience for a single day: the stately abode of +royalty, with all its manifold historical recollections, the magnificent +avenue of forest trees, the old oaks, the hawthorn in full bloom, and +the one cry of the cuckoo, calling me back to Nature in her spring-time +freshness and glory; then, after that, a great London dinner-party at a +house where the kind host and the gracious hostess made us feel at home, +and where we could meet the highest people in the land,--the people whom +we who live in a simpler way at home are naturally pleased to be with +under such auspices. What of all this shall I remember longest? Let me +not seem ungrateful to my friends who planned the excursion for us, or +to those who asked us to the brilliant evening entertainment, but I feel +as Wordsworth felt about the cuckoo,--he will survive all the other +memories. + + "And I can listen to thee yet, + Can lie upon the plain + And listen, till I do beget + That golden time again." + +Nothing is more hackneyed than an American's description of his feelings +in the midst of the scenes and objects he has read of all his days, and +is looking upon for the first time. To each of us it appears in some +respects in the same way, but with a difference for every individual. We +may smile at Irving's emotions at the first sight of a distinguished +Englishman on his own soil,--the ingenious Mr. Roscoe, as an earlier +generation would have called him. Our tourists, who are constantly going +forward and back between England and America, lose all sense of the +special distinctions between the two countries which do not bear on +their personal convenience. Happy are those who go with unworn, +unsatiated sensibilities from the New World to the Old; as happy, it may +be, those who come from the Old World to the New, but of that I cannot +form a judgment. + +On the first day of June we called by appointment upon Mr. Peel, the +Speaker of the House of Commons, and went through the Houses of +Parliament. We began with the train-bearer, then met the housekeeper, +and presently were joined by Mr. Palgrave. The "Golden Treasury" stands +on my drawing-room table at home, and the name on its title-page had a +familiar sound. This gentleman is, I believe, a near relative of +Professor Francis Turner Palgrave, its editor. + +Among other things to which Mr. Palgrave called our attention was the +death-warrant of Charles the First. One name in the list of signers +naturally fixed our eyes upon it. It was that of John Dixwell. A lineal +descendant of the old regicide is very near to me by family connection, +Colonel Dixwell having come to this country, married, and left a +posterity, which has resumed the name, dropped for the sake of safety at +the time when he, Goffe, and Whalley, were in concealment in various +parts of New England. + +We lunched with the Speaker, and had the pleasure of the company of +Archdeacon Farrar. In the afternoon we went to a tea at a very grand +house, where, as my companion says in her diary, "it took full six men +in red satin knee-breeches to let us in." Another grand personage asked +us to dine with her at her country place, but we were too full of +engagements. In the evening we went to a large reception at Mr. Gosse's. +It was pleasant to meet artists and scholars,--the kind of company to +which we are much used in our aesthetic city. I found our host as +agreeable at home as he was when in Boston, where he became a favorite, +both as a lecturer and as a visitor. + +Another day we visited Stafford House, where Lord Ronald Gower, himself +an artist, did the honors of the house, showing us the pictures and +sculptures, his own included, in a very obliging and agreeable way. I +have often taken note of the resemblances of living persons to the +portraits and statues of their remote ancestors. In showing us the +portrait of one of his own far-back progenitors, Lord Ronald placed a +photograph of himself in the corner of the frame. The likeness was so +close that the photograph might seem to have been copied from the +painting, the dress only being changed. The Duke of Sutherland, who had +just come back from America, complained that the dinners and lunches had +used him up. I was fast learning how to sympathize with him. + +Then to Grosvenor House to see the pictures. I best remember +Gainsborough's beautiful Blue Boy, commonly so called, from the color of +his dress, and Sir Joshua's Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, which +everybody knows in engravings. We lunched in clerical company that day, +at the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol's, with the Archbishop of York, +the Reverend Mr. Haweis, and others as guests. I told A---- that she was +not sufficiently impressed with her position at the side of an +archbishop; she was not _crumbling bread_ in her nervous +excitement. The company did not seem to remember Sydney Smith's remark +to the young lady next him at a dinner-party: "My dear, I see you are +nervous, by your crumbling your bread as you do. _I_ always crumble +bread when I sit by a bishop, and when I sit by an archbishop I crumble +bread with both hands." That evening I had the pleasure of dining with +the distinguished Mr. Bryce, whose acquaintance I made in our own +country, through my son, who has introduced me to many agreeable persons +of his own generation, with whose companionship I am glad to mend the +broken and merely fragmentary circle of old friendships. + +The 3d of June was a memorable day for us, for on the evening of that +day we were to hold our reception. If Dean Bradley had proposed our +meeting our guests in the Jerusalem Chamber, I should hardly have been +more astonished. But these kind friends meant what they said, and put +the offer in such a shape that it was impossible to resist it. So we +sent out our cards to a few hundreds of persons,--those who we thought +might like invitations. I was particularly desirous that many members of +the medical profession whom I had not met, but who felt well disposed +towards me, should be at this gathering. The meeting was in every +respect a success. I wrote a prescription for as many baskets of +champagne as would be consistent with the well-being of our guests, and +such light accompaniments as a London company is wont to expect under +similar circumstances. My own recollections of the evening, unclouded by +its festivities, but confused by its multitudinous succession of +introductions, are about as definite as the Duke of Wellington's alleged +monosyllabic description of the battle of Waterloo. But A---- writes in +her diary: "From nine to twelve we stood, receiving over three hundred +people out of the four hundred and fifty we invited." As I did not go to +Europe to visit hospitals or museums, I might have missed seeing some of +those professional brethren whose names I hold in honor and whose +writings are in my library. If any such failed to receive our cards of +invitation, it was an accident which, if I had known, I should have +deeply regretted. So far as we could judge by all we heard, our +unpretentious party gave general satisfaction. Many different social +circles were represented, but it passed off easily and agreeably. I can +say this more freely, as the credit of it belongs so largely to the care +and self-sacrificing efforts of Dr. Priestley and his charming wife. + +I never refused to write in the birthday book or the album of the +humblest schoolgirl or schoolboy, and I could not refuse to set my name, +with a verse from one of my poems, in the album of the Princess of +Wales, which was sent me for that purpose. It was a nice new book, with +only two or three names in it, and those of musical composers,-- +Rubinstein's, I think, was one of them,--so that I felt honored by +the great lady's request. I ought to describe the book, but I only +remember that it was quite large and sumptuously elegant, and that +I copied into it the last verse of a poem of mine called "The Chambered +Nautilus," as I have often done for plain republican albums. + +The day after our simple reception was notable for three social events +in which we had our part. The first was a lunch at the house of Mrs. +Cyril Flower, one of the finest in London,--Surrey House, as it is +called. Mr. Browning, who seems to go everywhere, and is one of the +vital elements of London society, was there as a matter of course. Miss +Cobbe, many of whose essays I have read with great satisfaction, though +I cannot accept all her views, was a guest whom I was very glad to meet +a second time. + +In the afternoon we went to a garden-party given by the Princess Louise +at Kensington Palace, a gloomy-looking edifice, which might be taken +for a hospital or a poorhouse. Of all the festive occasions which I +attended, the garden-parties were to me the most formidable. They are +all very well for young people, and for those who do not mind the +nipping and eager air, with which, as I have said, the climate of +England, no less than that of America, falsifies all the fine things the +poets have said about May, and, I may add, even June. We wandered about +the grounds, spoke with the great people, stared at the odd ones, and +said to ourselves,--at least I said to myself,--with Hamlet, + + "The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold." + +[Illustration: Robert Browning.] + +The most curious personages were some East Indians, a chocolate-colored +lady, her husband, and children. The mother had a diamond on the side of +her nose, its setting riveted on the inside, one might suppose; the +effect was peculiar, far from captivating. A---- said that she should +prefer the good old-fashioned nose-ring, as we find it described and +pictured by travellers. She saw a great deal more than I did, of course. +I quote from her diary: "The little Eastern children made their native +salaam to the Princess by prostrating themselves flat on their little +stomachs in front of her, putting their hands between her feet, pushing +them aside, and kissing the print of her feet!" + +I really believe one or both of us would have run serious risks of +catching our "death o' cold," if we had waited for our own carriage, +which seemed forever in coming forward. The good Lady Holland, who was +more than once our guardian angel, brought us home in hers. So we got +warmed up at our own hearth, and were ready in due season for the large +and fine dinner-party at Archdeacon Farrar's, where, among other guests, +were Mrs. Phelps, our Minister's wife, who is a great favorite alike +with Americans and English, Sir John Millais, Mr. Tyndall, and other +interesting people. + +I am sorry that we could not have visited Newstead Abbey. I had a letter +from Mr. Thornton Lothrop to Colonel Webb, the present proprietor, with +whom we lunched. I have spoken of the pleasure I had when I came +accidentally upon persons with whose name and fame I had long been +acquainted. A similar impression was that which I received when I found +myself in the company of the bearer of an old historic name. When my +host at the lunch introduced a stately-looking gentleman as Sir Kenelm +Digby, it gave me a start, as if a ghost had stood before me. I +recovered myself immediately, however, for there was nothing of the +impalpable or immaterial about the stalwart personage who bore the name. +I wanted to ask him if he carried any of his ancestor's "powder of +sympathy" about with him. Many, but not all, of my readers remember that +famous man's famous preparation. When used to cure a wound, it was +applied to the weapon that made it; the part was bound up so as to bring +the edges of the wound together, and by the wondrous influence of the +sympathetic powder the healing process took place in the kindest +possible manner. Sir Kenelm, the ancestor, was a gallant soldier, a +grand gentleman, and the husband of a wonderfully beautiful wife, whose +charms he tried to preserve from the ravages of time by various +experiments. He was also the homoeopathist of his day, the Elisha +Perkins (metallic tractors) of his generation. The "mind cure" people +might adopt him as one of their precursors. + +I heard a curious statement which was illustrated in the person of one +of the gentlemen we met at this table. It is that English sporting men +are often deaf on one side, in consequence of the noise of the frequent +discharge of their guns affecting the right ear. This is a very +convenient infirmity for gentlemen who indulge in slightly aggressive +remarks, but when they are hit back never seem to be conscious at all of +the _riposte_,--the return thrust of the fencer. + +Dr. Allchin called and took me to a dinner, where I met many +professional brothers, and enjoyed myself highly. + +By this time every day was pledged for one or more engagements, so that +many very attractive invitations had to be declined. I will not follow +the days one by one, but content myself with mentioning some of the more +memorable visits. I had been invited to the Rabelais Club, as I have +before mentioned, by a cable message. This is a club of which the late +Lord Houghton was president, and of which I am a member, as are several +other Americans. I was afraid that the gentlemen who met, + + "To laugh and shake in Rabelais's easy chair," + +might be more hilarious and demonstrative in their mirth than I, a sober +New Englander in the superfluous decade, might find myself equal to. But +there was no uproarious jollity; on the contrary, it was a pleasant +gathering of literary people and artists, who took their pleasure not +sadly, but serenely, and I do not remember a single explosive guffaw. + +Another day, after going all over Dudley House, including Lady Dudley's +boudoir, "in light blue satin, the prettiest room we have seen," A---- +says, we went, by appointment, to Westminster Abbey, where we spent two +hours under the guidance of Archdeacon Farrar. I think no part of the +Abbey is visited with so much interest as Poets' Corner. We are all +familiarly acquainted with it beforehand. We are all ready for "O rare +Ben Jonson!" as we stand over the place where he was planted standing +upright, as if he had been dropped into a post-hole. We remember too +well the foolish and flippant mockery of Gay's "Life is a Jest." If I +were dean of the cathedral, I should be tempted to alter the _J_ to +a _G_. Then we could read it without contempt; for life _is_ a +gest, an achievement,--or always ought to be. Westminster Abbey is too +crowded with monuments to the illustrious dead and those who have been +considered so in their day to produce any other than a confused +impression. When we visit the tomb of Napoleon at the Invalides, no +side-lights interfere with the view before us in the field of mental +vision. We see the Emperor; Marengo, Austerlitz, Waterloo, Saint Helena, +come before us, with him as their central figure. So at Stratford,--the +Cloptons and the John a Combes, with all their memorials, cannot make us +lift our eyes from the stone which covers the dust that once breathed +and walked the streets of Stratford as Shakespeare. + +Ah, but here is one marble countenance that I know full well, and knew +for many a year in the flesh! Is there an American who sees the bust of +Longfellow among the effigies of the great authors of England without +feeling a thrill of pleasure at recognizing the features of his native +fellow-countryman in the Valhalla of his ancestral fellow-countrymen? +There are many memorials in Poets' Corner and elsewhere in the Abbey +which could be better spared than that. Too many that were placed there +as luminaries have become conspicuous by their obscurity in the midst of +that illustrious company. On the whole, the Abbey produces a distinct +sense of being overcrowded. It appears too much like a lapidary's +store-room. Look up at the lofty roof, which we willingly pardon for +shutting out the heaven above us,--at least in an average London day; +look down at the floor and think of what precious relics it covers; but +do not look around you with the hope of getting any clear, concentrated, +satisfying effect from this great museum of gigantic funereal bricabrac. +Pardon me, shades of the mighty dead! I had something of this feeling, +but at another hour I might perhaps be overcome by emotion, and weep, as +my fellow-countryman did at the grave of the earliest of his ancestors. +I should love myself better in that aspect than I do in this coldblooded +criticism; but it suggested itself, and as no flattery can soothe, so no +censure can wound, "the dull, cold ear of death." + +Of course we saw all the sights of the Abbey in a hurried way, yet with +such a guide and expositor as Archdeacon Farrar our two hours' visit was +worth a whole day with an undiscriminating verger, who recites his +lesson by rote, and takes the life out of the little mob that follows +him round by emphasizing the details of his lesson, until "Patience on a +monument" seems to the sufferer, who knows what he wants and what he +does not want, the nearest emblem of himself he can think of. Amidst all +the imposing recollections of the ancient edifice, one impressed me in +the inverse ratio of its importance. The Archdeacon pointed out the +little holes in the stones, in one place, where the boys of the choir +used to play marbles, before America was discovered, probably,-- +centuries before, it may be. It is a strangely impressive glimpse +of a living past, like the _graffiti_ of Pompeii. I find it +is often the accident rather than the essential which fixes my attention +and takes hold of my memory. This is a tendency of which I suppose I +ought to be ashamed, if we have any right to be ashamed of those +idiosyncrasies which are ordered for us. It is the same tendency which +often leads us to prefer the picturesque to the beautiful. Mr. Gilpin +liked the donkey in a forest landscape better than the horse. A touch of +imperfection interferes with the beauty of an object and lowers its +level to that of the picturesque. The accident of the holes in the stone +of the noble building, for the boys to play marbles with, makes me a boy +again and at home with them, after looking with awe upon the statue of +Newton, and turning with a shudder from the ghastly monument of Mrs. +Nightingale. + +What a life must be that of one whose years are passed chiefly in and +about the great Abbey! Nowhere does Macbeth's expression "dusty death" +seem so true to all around us. The dust of those who have been lying +century after century below the marbles piled over them,--the dust on +the monuments they lie beneath; the dust on the memories those monuments +were raised to keep living in the recollection of posterity,--dust, +dust, dust, everywhere, and we ourselves but shapes of breathing dust +moving amidst these objects and remembrances! Come away! The good +Archdeacon of the "Eternal Hope" has asked us to take a cup of tea with +him. The tea-cup will be a cheerful substitute for the funeral urn, and +a freshly made infusion of the fragrant leaf is one of the best things +in the world to lay the dust of sad reflections. + +It is a somewhat fatiguing pleasure to go through the Abbey, in spite of +the intense interest no one can help feeling. But my day had but just +begun when the two hours we had devoted to the visit were over. At a +quarter before eight, my friend Mr. Frederick Locker called for me to go +to a dinner at the Literary Club. I was particularly pleased to dine +with this association, as it reminded me of our own Saturday Club, which +sometimes goes by the same name as the London one. They complimented me +with a toast, and I made some kind of a reply. As I never went prepared +with a speech for any such occasion, I take it for granted that I +thanked the company in a way that showed my gratitude rather than my +eloquence. And now, the dinner being over, my day was fairly begun. + +This was to be a memorable date in the record of the year, one long to +be remembered in the political history of Great Britain. For on this +day, the 7th of June, Mr. Gladstone was to make his great speech on the +Irish question, and the division of the House on the Government of +Ireland Bill was to take place. The whole country, to the corners of its +remotest colony, was looking forward to the results of this evening's +meeting of Parliament. The kindness of the Speaker had furnished me with +a ticket, entitling me to a place among the "distinguished guests," +which I presented without modestly questioning my right to the title. + +The pressure for entrance that evening was very great, and I, coming +after my dinner with the Literary Club, was late upon the ground. The +places for "distinguished guests" were already filled. But all England +was in a conspiracy to do everything possible to make my visit +agreeable. I did not take up a great deal of room,--I might be put into +a seat with the ambassadors and foreign ministers. And among them I was +presently installed. It was now between ten and eleven o'clock, as +nearly as I recollect. The House had been in session since four o'clock. +A gentleman was speaking, who was, as my unknown next neighbor told me, +Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, a leading member, as we all know, of the +opposition. When he sat down there was a hush of expectation, and +presently Mr. Gladstone rose to his feet. A great burst of applause +welcomed him, lasting more than a minute. His clean-cut features, his +furrowed cheeks, his scanty and whitened hair, his well-shaped but not +extraordinary head, all familiarized by innumerable portraits and +emphasized in hundreds of caricatures, revealed him at once to every +spectator. His great speech has been universally read, and I need only +speak of the way in which it was delivered. His manner was forcible +rather than impassioned or eloquent; his voice was clear enough, but +must have troubled him somewhat, for he had a small bottle from which he +poured something into a glass from time to time and swallowed a little, +yet I heard him very well for the most part. In the last portion of his +speech he became animated and inspiriting, and his closing words were +uttered with an impressive solemnity: "Think, I beseech you, think well, +think wisely, think not for a moment, but for the years that are to +come, before you reject this bill." + +After the burst of applause which followed the conclusion of Mr. +Gladstone's speech, the House proceeded to the division on the question +of passing the bill to a second reading. While the counting of the votes +was going on there was the most intense excitement. A rumor ran round +the House at one moment that the vote was going in favor of the second +reading. It soon became evident that this was not the case, and +presently the result was announced, giving a majority of thirty against +the bill, and practically overthrowing the liberal administration. Then +arose a tumult of applause from the conservatives and a wild confusion, +in the midst of which an Irish member shouted, "Three cheers for the +Grand Old Man!" which were lustily given, with waving of hats and all +but Donnybrook manifestations of enthusiasm. + +I forgot to mention that I had a very advantageous seat among the +diplomatic gentlemen, and was felicitating myself on occupying one of +the best positions in the House, when an usher politely informed me that +the Russian Ambassador, in whose place I was sitting, had arrived, and +that I must submit to the fate of eviction. Fortunately, there were some +steps close by, on one of which I found a seat almost as good as the one +I had just left. + +It was now two o'clock in the morning, and I had to walk home, not a +vehicle being attainable. I did not know my way to my headquarters, and +I had no friend to go with me, but I fastened on a stray gentleman, who +proved to be an ex-member of the House, and who accompanied me to 17 +Dover Street, where I sought my bed with a satisfying sense of having +done a good day's work and having been well paid for it. + + + + +III. + + +On the 8th of June we visited the Record Office for a sight of the +Domesday Book and other ancient objects of interest there preserved. As +I looked at this too faithful memorial of an inexorable past, I thought +of the battle of Hastings and all its consequences, and that reminded me +of what I have long remembered as I read it in Dr. Robert Knox's "Races +of Men." Dr. Knox was the monoculous Waterloo surgeon, with whom I +remember breakfasting, on my first visit to England and Scotland. His +celebrity is less owing to his book than to the unfortunate connection +of his name with the unforgotten Burke and Hare horrors. This is his +language in speaking of Hastings: "... that bloody field, surpassing far +in its terrible results the unhappy day of Waterloo. From this the Celt +has recovered, but not so the Saxon. To this day he feels, and feels +deeply, the most disastrous day that ever befell his race; here he was +trodden down by the Norman, whose iron heel is on him yet.... To this +day the Saxon race in England have never recovered a tithe of their +rights, and probably never will." + +The Conqueror meant to have a thorough summing up of his stolen +property. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says,--I quote it at second +hand,--"So very straitly did he cause the survey to be made, that there +was not a single hyde, nor a yardland of ground, nor--it is shameful to +say what he thought no shame to do--was there an ox or a cow, or a pig +passed by, and that was not down in the accounts, and then all these +writings were brought to him." The "looting" of England by William and +his "twenty thousand thieves," as Mr. Emerson calls his army, was a +singularly methodical proceeding, and Domesday Book is a searching +inventory of their booty, movable and immovable. + +From this reminder of the past we turned to the remembrances of home; +A---- going to dine with a transplanted Boston friend and other ladies +from that blessed centre of New England life, while I dined with a party +of gentlemen at my friend Mr. James Russell Lowell's. + +I had looked forward to this meeting with high expectations, and they +were abundantly satisfied. I knew that Mr. Lowell must gather about him, +wherever he might be, the choicest company, but what his selection would +be I was curious to learn. I found with me at the table my own +countrymen and his, Mr. Smalley and Mr. Henry James. Of the other +guests, Mr. Leslie Stephen was my only old acquaintance in person; but +Du Maurier and Tenniel I have met in my weekly "Punch" for many a year; +Mr. Lang, Mr. Oliphant, Mr. Townsend, we all know through their +writings; Mr. Burne-Jones and Mr. Alma Tadema, through the frequent +reproductions of their works in engravings, as well as by their +paintings. If I could report a dinner-table conversation, I might be +tempted to say something of my talk with Mr. Oliphant. I like well +enough conversation which floats safely over the shallows, touching +bottom at intervals with a commonplace incident or truism to push it +along; I like better to find a few fathoms of depth under the surface; +there is a still higher pleasure in the philosophical discourse which +calls for the deep sea line to reach bottom; but best of all, when one +is in the right mood, is the contact of intelligences when they are off +soundings in the ocean of thought. Mr. Oliphant is what many of us call +a mystic, and I found a singular pleasure in listening to him. This +dinner at Mr. Lowell's was a very remarkable one for the men it brought +together, and I remember it with peculiar interest. My entertainer holds +a master-key to London society, and he opened the gate for me into one +of its choicest preserves on that evening. + +I did not undertake to renew my old acquaintance with hospitals and +museums. I regretted that I could not be with my companion, who went +through the Natural History Museum with the accomplished director, +Professor W. H. Flower. One old acquaintance I did resuscitate. For the +second time I took the hand of Charles O'Byrne, the celebrated Irish +giant of the last century. I met him, as in my first visit, at the Royal +College of Surgeons, where I accompanied Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson. He was +in the condition so longed for by Sydney Smith on a very hot day; +namely, with his flesh taken off, and sitting, or rather standing, in +his bones. The skeleton measures eight feet, and the living man's height +is stated as having been eight feet two, or four inches, by different +authorities. His hand was the only one I took, either in England or +Scotland, which had not a warm grasp and a hearty welcome in it. + +A---- went with Boston friends to see "Faust" a second time, Mr. Irving +having offered her the Royal box, and the polite Mr. Bram Stoker serving +the party with tea in the little drawing-room behind the box; so that +she had a good time while I was enjoying myself at a dinner at Sir Henry +Thompson's, where I met Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Browning, and other +distinguished gentlemen. These dinners of Sir Henry's are well known for +the good company one meets at them, and I felt myself honored to be a +guest on this occasion. + +Among the pleasures I had promised myself was that of a visit to +Tennyson, at the Isle of Wight. I feared, however, that this would be +rendered impracticable by reason of the very recent death of his younger +son, Lionel. But I learned from Mr. Locker-Lampson, whose daughter Mr. +Lionel Tennyson had married, that the poet would be pleased to see me at +his place, Farringford; and by the kind intervention of Mr. +Locker-Lampson, better known to the literary world as Frederick Locker, +arrangements were made for my daughter and myself to visit him. I +considered it a very great favor, for Lord Tennyson has a poet's +fondness for the tranquillity of seclusion, which many curious explorers +of society fail to remember. Lady Tennyson is an invalid, and though +nothing could be more gracious than her reception of us both, I fear it +may have cost her an effort which she would not allow to betray itself. +Mr. Hallam Tennyson and his wife, both of most pleasing presence and +manners, did everything to make our stay agreeable. I saw the poet to +the best advantage, under his own trees and walking over his own domain. +He took delight in pointing out to me the finest and the rarest of his +trees,--and there were many beauties among them. I recalled my morning's +visit to Whittier at Oak Knoll, in Danvers, a little more than a year +ago, when he led me to one of his favorites, an aspiring evergreen which +shot up like a flame. I thought of the graceful American elms in front +of Longfellow's house and the sturdy English elms that stand in front of +Lowell's. In this garden of England, the Isle of Wight, where everything +grows with such a lavish extravagance of greenness that it seems as if +it must bankrupt the soil before autumn, I felt as if weary eyes and +overtasked brains might reach their happiest haven of rest. We all +remember Shenstone's epigram on the pane of a tavern window. If we find +our "warmest welcome at an inn," we find our most soothing companionship +in the trees among which we have lived, some of which we may ourselves +have planted. We lean against them, and they never betray our trust; +they shield us from the sun and from the rain; their spring welcome is a +new birth, which never loses its freshness; they lay their beautiful +robes at our feet in autumn; in winter they "stand and wait," emblems of +patience and of truth, for they hide nothing, not even the little +leaf-buds which hint to us of hope, the last element in their triple +symbolism. + +This digression, suggested by the remembrance of the poet under his +trees, breaks my narrative, but gives me the opportunity of paying a +debt of gratitude. For I have owned many beautiful trees, and loved many +more outside of my own leafy harem. Those who write verses have no +special claim to be lovers of trees, but so far as one is of the +poetical temperament he is likely to be a tree-lover. Poets have, as a +rule, more than the average nervous sensibility and irritability. Trees +have no nerves. They live and die without suffering, without +self-questioning or self-reproach. They have the divine gift of silence. +They cannot obtrude upon the solitary moments when one is to himself the +most agreeable of companions. The whole vegetable world, even "the +meanest flower that blows," is lovely to contemplate. What if creation +had paused there, and you or I had been called upon to decide whether +self-conscious life should be added in the form of the existing animal +creation, and the hitherto peaceful universe should come under the rule +of Nature as we now know her, + + "red in tooth and claw"? + +Are we not glad that the responsibility of the decision did not rest on +us? + +I am sorry that I did not ask Tennyson to read or repeat to me some +lines of his own. Hardly any one perfectly understands a poem but the +poet himself. One naturally loves his own poem as no one else can. It +fits the mental mould in which it was cast, and it will not exactly fit +any other. For this reason I had rather listen to a poet reading his own +verses than hear the best elocutionist that ever spouted recite them. He +may not have a good voice or enunciation, but he puts his heart and his +inter-penetrative intelligence into every line, word, and syllable. I +should have liked to hear Tennyson read such lines as + + "Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere;" + +and in spite of my good friend Matthew Arnold's _in terrorem_, I +should have liked to hear Macaulay read, + + "And Aulus the Dictator + Stroked Auster's raven mane," + +and other good mouthable lines, from the "Lays of Ancient Rome." Not +less should I like to hear Mr. Arnold himself read the passage +beginning,-- + + "In his cool hall with haggard eyes + The Roman noble lay." + +The next day Mrs. Hallam Tennyson took A---- in her pony cart to see +Alum Bay, The Needles, and other objects of interest, while I wandered +over the grounds with Tennyson. After lunch his carriage called for us, +and we were driven across the island, through beautiful scenery, to +Ventnor, where we took the train to Ryde, and there the steamer to +Portsmouth, from which two hours and a half of travel carried us to +London. + + * * * * * + +My first visit to Cambridge was at the invitation of Mr. Gosse, who +asked me to spend Sunday, the 13th of June, with him. The rooms in +Neville Court, Trinity College, occupied by Sir William Vernon Harcourt +when lecturing at Cambridge, were placed at my disposal. The room I +slept in was imposing with the ensigns armorial of the Harcourts and +others which ornamented its walls. I had great delight in walking +through the quadrangles, along the banks of the Cam, and beneath the +beautiful trees which border it. Mr. Gosse says that I stopped in the +second court of Clare, and looked around and smiled as if I were +bestowing my benediction. He was mistaken: I smiled as if I were +receiving a benediction from my dear old grandmother; for Cambridge in +New England is my mother town, and Harvard University in Cambridge is my +Alma Mater. She is the daughter of Cambridge in Old England, and my +relationship is thus made clear. + +Mr. Gosse introduced me to many of the younger and some of the older men +of the university. Among my visits was one never to be renewed and never +to be forgotten. It was to the Master of Trinity, the Reverend William +Hepworth Thompson. I hardly expected to have the privilege of meeting +this very distinguished and greatly beloved personage, famous not alone +for scholarship, or as the successor of Dr. Whewell in his high office, +but also as having said some of the wittiest things which we have heard +since Voltaire's _pour encourager les autres_. I saw him in his +chamber, a feeble old man, but noble to look upon in all "the monumental +pomp of age." He came very near belonging to the little group I have +mentioned as my coevals, but was a year after us. Gentle, dignified, +kindly in his address as if I had been his schoolmate, he left a very +charming impression. He gave me several mementoes of my visit, among +them a beautiful engraving of Sir Isaac Newton, representing him as one +of the handsomest of men. Dr. Thompson looked as if he could not be very +long for this world, but his death, a few weeks after my visit, was a +painful surprise to me. I had been just in time to see "the last of the +great men" at Cambridge, as my correspondent calls him, and I was very +grateful that I could store this memory among the hoarded treasures I +have been laying by for such possible extra stretch of time as may be +allowed me. + +My second visit to Cambridge will be spoken of in due season. + +While I was visiting Mr. Gosse at Cambridge, A---- was not idle. On +Saturday she went to Lambeth, where she had the pleasure and honor of +shaking hands with the Archbishop of Canterbury in his study, and of +looking about the palace with Mrs. Benson. On Sunday she went to the +Abbey, and heard "a broad and liberal sermon" from Archdeacon Farrar. +Our young lady-secretary stayed and dined with her, and after dinner +sang to her. "A peaceful, happy Sunday," A---- says in her diary,--not +less peaceful, I suspect, for my being away, as my callers must have got +many a "not at 'ome" from young Robert of the multitudinous buttons. + +On Monday, the 14th of June, after getting ready for our projected +excursions, we had an appointment which promised us a great deal of +pleasure. Mr. Augustus Harris, the enterprising and celebrated manager +of Drury Lane Theatre, had sent us an invitation to occupy a box, having +eight seats, at the representation of "Carmen." We invited the +Priestleys and our Boston friends, the Shimminses, to take seats with +us. The chief singer in the opera was Marie Roze, who looked well and +sang well, and the evening went off very happily. After the performance +we were invited by Mr. Harris to a supper of some thirty persons, where +we were the special guests. The manager toasted me, and I said +something,--I trust appropriate; but just what I said is as +irrecoverable as the orations of Demosthenes on the seashore, or the +sermons of St. Francis to the beasts and birds. + +Of all the attentions I received in England, this was, perhaps, the +least to be anticipated or dreamed of. To be fêted and toasted and to +make a speech in Drury Lane Theatre would not have entered into my +flightiest conceptions, if I had made out a programme beforehand. It is +a singularly gratifying recollection. Drury Lane Theatre is so full of +associations with literature, with the great actors and actresses of the +past, with the famous beauties who have stood behind the footlights and +the splendid audiences that have sat before them, that it is an +admirable nucleus for remembrances to cluster around. It was but a vague +spot in memory before, but now it is a bright centre for other images of +the past. That one evening seems to make me the possessor of all its +traditions from the time when it rose from its ashes, when Byron's poem +was written and recited, and when the brothers Smith gave us the +"Address without a Phoenix," and all those exquisite parodies which make +us feel towards their originals somewhat as our dearly remembered Tom +Appleton did when he said, in praise of some real green turtle soup, +that it was almost as good as mock. + +With much regret we gave up an invitation we had accepted to go to +Durdans to dine with Lord Rosebery. We must have felt very tired indeed +to make so great a sacrifice, but we had to be up until one o'clock +getting ready for the next day's journey; writing, packing, and +attending to what we left behind us as well as what was in prospect. + +On the morning of Wednesday, June 16th, Dr. Donald Macalister called to +attend us on our second visit to Cambridge, where we were to be the +guests of his cousin, Alexander Macalister, Professor of Anatomy, who, +with Mrs. Macalister, received us most cordially. There was a large +luncheon-party at their house, to which we sat down in our travelling +dresses. In the evening they had a dinner-party, at which were present, +among others, Professor Stokes, President of the Royal Society, and +Professor Wright. We had not heard much talk of political matters at the +dinner-tables where we had been guests, but A---- sat near a lady who +was very earnest in advocating the Irish side of the great impending +question. + +The 17th of June is memorable in the annals of my country. On that day +of the year 1775 the battle of Bunker's Hill was fought on the height I +see from the window of my library, where I am now writing. The monument +raised in memory of our defeat, which was in truth a victory, is almost +as much a part of the furniture of the room as its chairs and tables; +outside, as they are inside, furniture. But the 17th of June, 1886, is +memorable to me above all the other anniversaries of that day I have +known. For on that day I received from the ancient University of +Cambridge, England, the degree of Doctor of Letters, "Doctor Litt.," in +its abbreviated academic form. The honor was an unexpected one; that is, +until a short time before it was conferred. + +Invested with the academic gown and cap, I repaired in due form at the +appointed hour to the Senate Chamber. Every seat was filled, and among +the audience were youthful faces in large numbers, looking as if they +were ready for any kind of outbreak of enthusiasm or hilarity. + +The first degree conferred was that of LL.D., on Sir W. A. White, +G.C.M., G.C.B., to whose long list of appended initials it seemed like +throwing a perfume on the violet to add three more letters. + +When I was called up to receive my honorary title, the young voices were +true to the promise of the young faces. There was a great noise, not +hostile nor unpleasant in its character, in answer to which I could +hardly help smiling my acknowledgments. In presenting me for my degree +the Public Orator made a Latin speech, from which I venture to give a +short extract, which I would not do for the world if it were not +disguised by being hidden in the mask of a dead language. But there will +be here and there a Latin scholar who will be pleased with the way in +which the speaker turned a compliment to the candidate before him, with +a reference to one of his poems and to some of his prose works. + +_"Juvat nuper audivisse eum cujus carmen prope primum 'Folium ultimum' +nominatum est, folia adhuc plura e scriniis suis esse prolaturum. +Novimus quanta lepore descripserit colloquia illa antemeridiana, +symposia illa sobria et severa, sed eadem festiva et faceta, in quibus +totiens mutata persona, modo poeta, modo professor, modo princeps et +arbiter, loquendi, inter convivas suos regnat."_ + +I had no sooner got through listening to the speech and receiving my +formal sentence as Doctor of Letters than the young voices broke out in +fresh clamor. There were cries of "A speech! a speech!" mingled with the +title of a favorite poem by John Howard Payne, having a certain amount +of coincidence with the sound of my name. The play upon the word was not +absolutely a novelty to my ear, but it was good-natured, and I smiled +again, and perhaps made a faint inclination, as much as to say, "I hear +you, young gentlemen, but I do not forget that I am standing on my +dignity, especially now since a new degree has added a moral cubit to my +stature." Still the cries went on, and at last I saw nothing else to do +than to edge back among the silk gowns, and so lose myself and be lost +to the clamorous crowd in the mass of dignitaries. It was not +indifference to the warmth of my welcome, but a feeling that I had no +claim to address the audience because some of its younger members were +too demonstrative. I have not forgotten my very cordial reception, which +made me feel almost as much at home in the old Cambridge as in the new, +where I was born and took my degrees, academic, professional, and +honorary. + +The university town left a very deep impression upon my mind, in which a +few grand objects predominate over the rest, all being of a delightful +character. I was fortunate enough to see the gathering of the boats, +which was the last scene in their annual procession. The show was +altogether lovely. The pretty river, about as wide as the Housatonic, I +should judge, as that slender stream winds through "Canoe Meadow," my +old Pittsfield residence, the gaily dressed people who crowded the +banks, the flower-crowned boats, with the gallant young oarsmen who +handled them so skilfully, made a picture not often equalled. The walks, +the bridges, the quadrangles, the historic college buildings, all +conspired to make the place a delight and a fascination. The library of +Trinity College, with its rows of busts by Roubiliac and Woolner, is a +truly noble hall. But beyond, above all the rest, the remembrance of +King's College Chapel, with its audacious and richly wrought roof and +its wide and lofty windows, glowing with old devices in colors which are +ever fresh, as if just from the furnace, holds the first place in my +gallery of Cambridge recollections. + +I cannot do justice to the hospitalities which were bestowed upon us in +Cambridge. Professor and Mrs. Macalister, aided by Dr. Donald +Macalister, did all that thoughtful hosts could do to make us feel at +home. In the afternoon the ladies took tea at Mr. Oscar Browning's. In +the evening we went to a large dinner at the invitation of the +Vice-Chancellor. Many little points which I should not have thought of +are mentioned in A----'s diary. I take the following extract from it, +toning down its vivacity more nearly to my own standard:-- + +"Twenty were there. The Master of St. John's took me in, and the +Vice-Chancellor was on the other side.... The Vice-Chancellor rose and +returned thanks after the meats and before the sweets, as usual. I have +now got used to this proceeding, which strikes me as extraordinary. +Everywhere here in Cambridge, and the same in Oxford, I believe, they +say grace and give thanks. A gilded ewer and flat basin were passed, +with water in the basin to wash with, and we all took our turn at the +bath! Next to this came the course with the finger-bowls!... Why two +baths?" + +On Friday, the 18th, I went to a breakfast at the Combination Room, at +which about fifty gentlemen were present, Dr. Sandys taking the chair. +After the more serious business of the morning's repast was over, Dr. +Macalister, at the call of the chairman, arose, and proposed my welfare +in a very complimentary way. I of course had to respond, and I did so in +the words which came of their own accord to my lips. After my +unpremeditated answer, which was kindly received, a young gentleman of +the university, Mr. Heitland, read a short poem, of which the following +is the title:-- + +LINES OF GREETING TO DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. + +AT BREAKFAST IN COMBINATION ROOM, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, +ENGLAND. + +I wish I dared quote more than the last two verses of these lines, which +seemed to me, not unused to giving and receiving complimentary tributes, +singularly happy, and were so considered by all who heard them. I think +I may venture to give the two verses referred to:-- + + "By all sweet memory of the saints and sages + Who wrought among us in the days of yore; + By youths who, turning now life's early pages, + Ripen to match the worthies gone before: + + "On us, O son of England's greatest daughter, + A kindly word from heart and tongue bestow; + Then chase the sunsets o'er the western water, + And bear our blessing with you as you go." + +I need not say that I left the English Cambridge with a heart full of +all grateful and kindly emotions. + +I must not forget that I found at Cambridge, very pleasantly established +and successfully practising his profession, a former student in the +dental department of our Harvard Medical School, Dr. George Cunningham, +who used to attend my lectures on anatomy. In the garden behind the +quaint old house in which he lives is a large medlar-tree,--the first I +remember seeing. + +On this same day we bade good-by to Cambridge, and took the two o'clock +train to Oxford, where we arrived at half past five. At this first visit +we were to be the guests of Professor Max Müller, at his fine residence +in Norham Gardens. We met there, at dinner, Mr. Herkomer, whom we have +recently had with us in Boston, and one or two others. In the evening we +had music; the professor playing on the piano, his two daughters, Mrs. +Conybeare and her unmarried sister, singing, and a young lady playing +the violin. It was a very lovely family picture; a pretty house, +surrounded by attractive scenery; scholarship, refinement, simple +elegance, giving distinction to a home which to us seemed a pattern of +all we could wish to see beneath an English roof. It all comes back to +me very sweetly, but very tenderly and sadly, for the voice of the elder +of the two sisters who sang to us is heard no more on earth, and a deep +shadow has fallen over the household we found so bright and cheerful. + +Everything was done to make me enjoy my visit to Oxford, but I was +suffering from a severe cold, and was paying the penalty of too much +occupation and excitement. I missed a great deal in consequence, and +carried away a less distinct recollection of this magnificent seat of +learning than of the sister university. + +If one wishes to know the magic of names, let him visit the places made +memorable by the lives of the illustrious men of the past in the Old +World. As a boy I used to read the poetry of Pope, of Goldsmith, and of +Johnson. How could I look at the Bodleian Library, or wander beneath its +roof, without recalling the lines from "The Vanity of Human Wishes"? + + "When first the college rolls receive his name, + The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame; + Resistless burns the fever of renown, + Caught from the strong contagion of the gown: + O'er Bodley's dome his future labors spread, + And Bacon's mansion trembles o'er his head." + +The last line refers to Roger Bacon. "There is a tradition that the +study of Friar Bacon, built on an arch over the bridge, will fall when a +man greater than Bacon shall pass under it. To prevent so shocking an +accident, it was pulled down many years since." We shall meet with a +similar legend in another university city. Many persons have been shy of +these localities, who were in no danger whatever of meeting the fate +threatened by the prediction. + +We passed through the Bodleian Library, only glancing at a few of its +choicest treasures, among which the exquisitely illuminated missals were +especially tempting objects of study. It was almost like a mockery to +see them opened and closed, without having the time to study their +wonderful miniature paintings. A walk through the grounds of Magdalen +College, under the guidance of the president of that college, showed us +some of the fine trees for which I was always looking. One of these, a +wych-elm (Scotch elm of some books), was so large that I insisted on +having it measured. A string was procured and carefully carried round +the trunk, above the spread of the roots and below that of the branches, +so as to give the smallest circumference. I was curious to know how the +size of the trunk of this tree would compare with that of the trunks of +some of our largest New England elms. I have measured a good many of +these. About sixteen feet is the measurement of a large elm, like that +on Boston Common, which all middle-aged people remember. From twenty-two +to twenty-three feet is the ordinary maximum of the very largest trees. +I never found but one exceed it: that was the great Springfield elm, +which looked as if it might have been formed by the coalescence from the +earliest period of growth, of two young trees. When I measured this in +1837, it was twenty-four feet eight inches in circumference at five feet +from the ground; growing larger above and below. I remembered this tree +well, as we measured the string which was to tell the size of its +English rival. As we came near the end of the string, I felt as I did +when I was looking at the last dash of Ormonde and The Bard at +Epsom.--Twenty feet, and a long piece of string left.--Twenty-one. +--Twenty-two.--Twenty-three.--An extra heartbeat or two.--Twenty-four! +--Twenty-five and six inches over!!--The Springfield elm may have grown +a foot or more since I measured it, fifty years ago, but the tree at +Magdalen stands ahead of all my old measurements. Many of the fine old +trees, this in particular, may have been known in their younger days to +Addison, whose favorite walk is still pointed out to the visitor. + +I would not try to compare the two university towns, as one might who +had to choose between them. They have a noble rivalry, each honoring the +other, and it would take a great deal of weighing one point of +superiority against another to call either of them the first, except in +its claim to antiquity. + +After a garden-party in the afternoon, a pleasant evening at home, when +the professor played and his daughter Beatrice sang, and a garden-party +the next day, I found myself in somewhat better condition, and ready for +the next move. + +[Illustration: Magdalen College, Oxford.] + +At noon on the 23d of June we left for Edinburgh, stopping over night at +York, where we found close by the station an excellent hotel, and where +the next morning we got one of the best breakfasts we had in our whole +travelling experience. At York we wandered to and through a flower-show, +and _did_ the cathedral, as people _do_ all the sights they +see under the lead of a paid exhibitor, who goes through his lesson like +a sleepy old professor. I missed seeing the slab with the inscription +_miserrimus_. There may be other stones bearing this sad +superlative, but there is a story connected with this one, which sounds +as if it might be true. + +In the year 1834, I spent several weeks in Edinburgh. I was fascinated +by the singular beauties of that "romantic town," which Scott called his +own, and which holds his memory, with that of Burns, as a most precious +part of its inheritance. The castle with the precipitous rocky wall out +of which it grows, the deep ravines with their bridges, pleasant Calton +Hill and memorable Holyrood Palace, the new town and the old town with +their strange contrasts, and Arthur's Seat overlooking all,--these +varied and enchanting objects account for the fondness with which all +who have once seen Edinburgh will always regard it. + +We were the guests of Professor Alexander Crum Brown, a near relative of +the late beloved and admired Dr. John Brown. Professor and Mrs. Crum +Brown did everything to make our visit a pleasant one. We met at their +house many of the best known and most distinguished people of Scotland. +The son of Dr. John Brown dined with us on the day of our arrival, and +also a friend of the family, Mr. Barclay, to whom we made a visit on the +Sunday following. Among the visits I paid, none was more gratifying to +me than one which I made to Dr. John Brown's sister. No man could leave +a sweeter memory than the author of "Rab and his Friends," of "Pet +Marjorie," and other writings, all full of the same loving, human +spirit. I have often exchanged letters with him, and I thought how much +it would have added to the enjoyment of my visit if I could have taken +his warm hand and listened to his friendly voice. I brought home with me +a precious little manuscript, written expressly for me by one who had +known Dr. John Brown from the days of her girlhood, in which his +character appears in the same lovable and loving light as that which +shines in every page he himself has written. + +On Friday, the 25th, I went to the hall of the university, where I was +to receive the degree of LL.D. The ceremony was not unlike that at +Cambridge, but had one peculiar feature: the separate special investment +of the candidate with the _hood_, which Johnson defines as "an +ornamental fold which hangs down the back of a graduate." There were +great numbers of students present, and they showed the same exuberance +of spirits as that which had forced me to withdraw from the urgent calls +at Cambridge. The cries, if possible, were still louder and more +persistent; they must have a speech and they would have a speech, and +what could I do about it? I saw but one way of pacifying a crowd as +noisy and long-breathed as that which for about the space of two hours +cried out, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" So I stepped to the front +and made a brief speech, in which, of course, I spoke of the +"_perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_." A speech without that would have +been like that "Address without a Phoenix" before referred to. My few +remarks were well received, and quieted the shouting Ephesians of the +warm-brained and warm-hearted northern university. It gave me great +pleasure to meet my friend Mr. Underwood, now American consul in +Glasgow, where he has made himself highly esteemed and respected. + +In my previous visit to Edinburgh in 1834, I was fond of rambling along +under Salisbury Crags, and climbing the sides of Arthur's Seat. I had +neither time nor impulse for such walks during this visit, but in +driving out to dine at Nidrie, the fine old place now lived in by Mr. +Barclay and his daughters, we passed under the crags and by the side of +the great hill. I had never heard, or if I had I had forgotten, the name +and the story of "Samson's Ribs." These are the columnar masses of rock +which form the face of Salisbury Crags. There is a legend that one day +one of these pillars will fall and crush the greatest man that ever +passes under them. It is said that a certain professor was always very +shy of "Samson's Ribs," for fear the prophecy might be fulfilled in his +person. We were most hospitably received at Mr. Barclay's, and the +presence of his accomplished and pleasing daughters made the visit +memorable to both of us. There was one picture on their walls, that of a +lady, by Sir Joshua, which both of us found very captivating. This is +what is often happening in the visits we make. Some painting by a master +looks down upon us from its old canvas, and leaves a lasting copy of +itself, to be stored in memory's picture gallery. These surprises are +not so likely to happen in the New World as in the Old. + +It seemed cruel to be forced to tear ourselves away from Edinburgh, +where so much had been done to make us happy, where so much was left to +see and enjoy, but we were due in Oxford, where I was to receive the +last of the three degrees with which I was honored in Great Britain. + +Our visit to Scotland gave us a mere glimpse of the land and its people, +but I have a very vivid recollection of both as I saw them on my first +visit, when I made an excursion into the Highlands to Stirling and to +Glasgow, where I went to church, and wondered over the uncouth ancient +psalmody, which I believe is still retained in use to this day. I was +seasoned to that kind of poetry in my early days by the verses of Tate +and Brady, which I used to hear "entuned in the nose ful swetely," +accompanied by vigorous rasping of a huge bass-viol. No wonder that +Scotland welcomed the song of Burns! + +On our second visit to Oxford we were to be the guests of the +Vice-Chancellor of the university, Dr. Jowett. This famous scholar and +administrator lives in a very pleasant establishment, presided over by +the Muses, but without the aid of a Vice-Chancelloress. The hospitality +of this classic mansion is well known, and we added a second pleasant +chapter to our previous experience under the roof of Professor Max +Müller. There was a little company there before us, including the Lord +Chancellor and Lady Herschell, Lady Camilla Wallop, Mr. Browning, and +Mr. Lowell. We were too late, in consequence of the bad arrangement of +the trains, and had to dine by ourselves, as the whole party had gone +out to a dinner, to which we should have accompanied them had we not +been delayed. We sat up long enough to see them on their return, and +were glad to get to bed, after our day's journey from Edinburgh to +Oxford. + +At eleven o'clock on the following day we who were to receive degrees +met at Balliol College, whence we proceeded in solemn procession to the +Sheldonian Theatre. Among my companions on this occasion were Mr. John +Bright, the Lord Chancellor Herschell, and Mr. Aldis Wright. I have an +instantaneous photograph, which was sent me, of this procession. I can +identify Mr. Bright and myself, but hardly any of the others, though +many better acquainted with their faces would no doubt recognize them. +There is a certain sensation in finding one's self invested with the +academic gown, conspicuous by its red facings, and the cap with its +square top and depending tassel, which is not without its accompanying +satisfaction. One can walk the streets of any of the university towns in +his academic robes without being jeered at, as I am afraid he would be +in some of our own thoroughfares. There is a noticeable complacency in +the members of our Phi Beta Kappa society when they get the pink and +blue ribbons in their buttonholes, on the day of annual meeting. How +much more when the scholar is wrapped in those flowing folds, with their +flaming borders, and feels the dignity of the distinction of which they +are the symbol! I do not know how Mr. John Bright felt, but I cannot +avoid the impression that some in the ranks which moved from Balliol to +the Sheldonian felt as if Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like +the candidates for the degree of D.C.L. + +After my experience at Cambridge and Edinburgh, I might have felt some +apprehension about my reception at Oxford. I had always supposed the +audience assembled there at the conferring of degrees was a more +demonstrative one than that at any other of the universities, and I did +not wish to be forced into a retreat by calls for a speech, as I was at +Cambridge, nor to repeat my somewhat irregular proceeding of addressing +the audience, as at Edinburgh. But when I found that Mr. John Bright was +to be one of the recipients of the degree I felt safe, for if he made a +speech I should be justified in saying a few words, if I thought it +best; and if he, one of the most eloquent men in England, remained +silent, I surely need not make myself heard on the occasion. It was a +great triumph for him, a liberal leader, to receive the testimonial of a +degree from the old conservative university. To myself it was a graceful +and pleasing compliment; to him it was a grave and significant tribute. +As we marched through the crowd on our way from Balliol, the people +standing around recognized Mr. Bright, and cheered him vociferously. + +The exercises in the Sheldonian Theatre were more complex and lasted +longer than those at the other two universities. The candidate stepped +forward and listened to one sentence, then made another move forward and +listened to other words, and at last was welcomed to all the privileges +conferred by the degree of Doctor of Civil Law, which was announced as +being bestowed upon him. Mr. Bright, of course, was received with +immense enthusiasm. I had every reason to be gratified with my own +reception. The only "chaffing" I heard was the question from one of the +galleries, "Did he come in the One-Hoss Shay?"--at which there was a +hearty laugh, joined in as heartily by myself. A part of the +entertainment at this ceremony consisted in the listening to the reading +of short extracts from the prize essays, some or all of them in the dead +languages, which could not have been particularly intelligible to a +large part of the audience. During these readings there were frequent +_interpellations_, as the French call such interruptions, something +like these: "That will do, sir!" or "You had better stop, sir!" +--always, I noticed, with the sir at the end of the remark. With us it +would have been "Dry up!" or "Hold on!" At last came forward the young +poet of the occasion, who read an elaborate poem, "Savonarola," which +was listened to in most respectful silence, and loudly applauded at its +close, as I thought, deservedly. Prince and Princess Christian were +among the audience. They were staying with Professor and Mrs. Max +Müller, whose hospitalities I hope they enjoyed as much as we did. One +or two short extracts from A----'s diary will enliven my record: "The +Princess had a huge bouquet, and going down the aisle had to bow both +ways at once, it seemed to me: but then she has the Guelph spine and +neck! Of course it is necessary that royalty should have more elasticity +in the frame than we poor ordinary mortals. After all this we started +for a luncheon at All Souls, but had to wait (impatiently) for H. R. H. +to rest herself, while our resting was done standing." + +It is a long while since I read Madame d'Arblay's Recollections, but if +I remember right, _standing_ while royalty rests its bones is one +of the drawbacks to a maid of honor's felicity. + +"Finally, at near three, we went into a great luncheon of some fifty. +There were different tables, and I sat at the one with royalty. The +Provost of Oriel took me in, and Mr. Browning was on my other side. +Finally, we went home to rest, but the others started out again to go to +a garden-party, but that was beyond us." After all this came a +dinner-party of twenty at the Vice-Chancellor's, and after that a +reception, where among others we met Lord and Lady Coleridge, the lady +resplendent in jewels. Even after London, this could hardly be called a +day of rest. + +The Chinese have a punishment which consists simply in keeping the +subject of it awake, by the constant teasing of a succession of +individuals employed for the purpose. The best of our social pleasures, +if carried beyond the natural power of physical and mental endurance, +begin to approach the character of such a penance. After this we got a +little rest; did some mild sight-seeing, heard some good music, called +on the Max Müllers, and bade them good-by with the warmest feeling to +all the members of a household which it was a privilege to enter. There +only remained the parting from our kind entertainer, the +Vice-Chancellor, who added another to the list of places which in +England and Scotland were made dear to us by hospitality, and are +remembered as true homes to us while we were under their roofs. + +On the second day of July we left the Vice-Chancellor's, and went to the +Randolph Hotel to meet our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Willett, from Brighton, +with whom we had an appointment of long standing. With them we left +Oxford, to enter on the next stage of our pilgrimage. + + + + +IV. + + +It had been the intention of Mr. Willett to go with us to visit Mr. +Ruskin, with whom he is in the most friendly relations. But a letter +from Mr. Ruskin's sister spoke of his illness as being too serious for +him to see company, and we reluctantly gave up this part of our plan. + +My first wish was to revisit Stratford-on-Avon, and as our travelling +host was guided in everything by our inclinations, we took the cars for +Stratford, where we arrived at five o'clock in the afternoon. It had +been arranged beforehand that we should be the guests of Mr. Charles E. +Flower, one of the chief citizens of Stratford, who welcomed us to his +beautiful mansion in the most cordial way, and made us once more at home +under an English roof. + +I well remembered my visit to Stratford in 1834. The condition of the +old house in which Shakespeare was born was very different from that in +which we see it to-day. A series of photographs taken in different years +shows its gradual transformation since the time when the old projecting +angular sign-board told all who approached "The immortal Shakespeare was +born in this House." How near the old house came to sharing the fortunes +of Jumbo under the management of our enterprising countryman, Mr. +Barnum, I am not sure; but that he would have "traded" for it, if the +proprietors had been willing, I do not doubt, any more than I doubt that +he would make an offer for the Tower of London, if that venerable +structure were in the market. The house in which Shakespeare was born is +the Santa Casa of England. What with my recollections and the +photographs with which I was familiarly acquainted, it had nothing very +new for me. Its outside had undergone great changes, but its bare +interior was little altered. + +My previous visit was a hurried one,--I took but a glimpse, and then +went on my way. Now, for nearly a week I was a resident of +Stratford-on-Avon. How shall I describe the perfectly ideal beauty of +the new home in which I found myself! It is a fine house, surrounded by +delightful grounds, which skirt the banks of the Avon for a considerable +distance, and come close up to the enclosure of the Church of the Holy +Trinity, beneath the floor of which lie the mortal remains of +Shakespeare. The Avon is one of those narrow English rivers in which +half a dozen boats might lie side by side, but hardly wide enough for a +race between two rowing abreast of each other. Just here the river is +comparatively broad and quiet, there being a dam a little lower down the +stream. The waters were a perfect mirror, as I saw them on one of the +still days we had at Stratford. I do not remember ever before seeing +cows walking with their legs in the air, as I saw them reflected in the +Avon. Along the banks the young people were straying. I wondered if the +youthful swains quoted Shakespeare to their ladyloves. Could they help +recalling Romeo and Juliet? It is quite impossible to think of any human +being growing up in this place which claims Shakespeare as its child, +about the streets of which he ran as a boy, on the waters of which he +must have often floated, without having his image ever present. Is it +so? There are some boys, from eight to ten or a dozen years old, fishing +in the Avon, close by the grounds of "Avonbank," the place at which we +are staying. I call to the little group. I say, "Boys, who was this man +Shakespeare, people talk so much about?" Boys turn round and look up +with a plentiful lack of intelligence in their countenances. "Don't you +know who he was nor what he was?" Boys look at each other, but confess +ignorance.--Let us try the universal stimulant of human faculties. "Here +are some pennies for the boy that will tell me what that Mr. Shakespeare +was." The biggest boy finds his tongue at last. "He was a writer,--he +wrote plays." That was as much as I could get out of the youngling. I +remember meeting some boys under the monument upon Bunker Hill, and +testing their knowledge as I did that of the Stratford boys. "What is +this great stone pillar here for?" I asked. "Battle fought here,--great +battle." "Who fought?" "Americans and British." (I never hear the +expression Britishers.) "Who was the general on the American side?" +"Don' know,--General Washington or somebody."--What is an old battle, +though it may have settled the destinies of a nation, to the game of +base-ball between the Boston and Chicago Nines which is to come off +to-morrow, or to the game of marbles which Tom and Dick are just going +to play together under the shadow of the great obelisk which +commemorates the conflict? + +The room more especially assigned to me looked out, at a distance of not +more than a stone's-throw, on the northern aspect of the church where +Shakespeare lies buried. Workmen were busy on the roof of the transept. +I could not conveniently climb up to have a talk with the roofers, but I +have my doubts whether they were thinking all the time of the dust over +which they were working. How small a matter literature is to the great +seething, toiling, struggling, love-making, bread-winning, +child-rearing, death-awaiting men and women who fill this huge, +palpitating world of ours! It would be worth while to pass a week or a +month among the plain, average people of Stratford. What is the relative +importance in human well-being of the emendations of the text of Hamlet +and the patching of the old trousers and the darning of the old +stockings which task the needles of the hard-working households that +fight the battle of life in these narrow streets and alleys? I ask the +question; the reader may answer it. + +Our host, Mr. Flower, is more deeply interested, perhaps, than any other +individual in the "Shakespeare Memorial" buildings which have been +erected on the banks of the Avon, a short distance above the Church of +the Holy Trinity. Under Mr. Flower's guidance we got into one of his +boats, and were rowed up the stream to the Memorial edifice. There is a +theatre, in a round tower which has borrowed some traits from the +octagon "Globe" theatre of Shakespeare's day; a Shakespeare library and +portrait gallery are forming; and in due time these buildings, of +stately dimensions and built solidly of brick, will constitute a +Shakespearean centre which will attract to itself many mementoes now +scattered about in various parts of the country. + +On the 4th of July we remembered our native land with all the +affectionate pride of temporary exiles, and did not forget to drink at +lunch to the prosperity and continued happiness of the United States of +America. In the afternoon we took to the boat again, and were rowed up +the river to the residence of Mr. Edgar Flower, where we found another +characteristic English family, with its nine children, one of whom was +the typical English boy, most pleasing and attractive in look, voice, +and manner. + +I attempt no description of the church, the birthplace, or the other +constantly visited and often described localities. The noble bridge, +built in the reign of Henry VII. by Sir Hugh Clopton, and afterwards +widened, excited my admiration. It was a much finer piece of work than +the one built long afterwards. I have hardly seen anything which gave me +a more striking proof of the thoroughness of the old English workmen. +They built not for an age, but for all time, and the New Zealander will +have to wait a long while before he will find in any one of the older +bridges that broken arch from which he is to survey the ruins of London. + +It is very pleasant to pick up a new epithet to apply to the poet upon +whose genius our language has nearly exhausted itself. It delights me to +speak of him in the words which I have just found in a memoir not yet a +century old, as "the Warwickshire bard," "the inestimable Shakespeare." + +Ever since Miss Bacon made her insane attempt to unearth what is left of +Shakespeare's bodily frame, the thought of doing reverently and openly +what she would have done by stealth has been entertained by +psychologists, artists, and others who would like to know what were his +cranial developments, and to judge from the conformation of the skull +and face which of the various portraits is probably the true one. There +is little doubt that but for the curse invoked upon the person who +should disturb his bones, in the well-known lines on the slab which +covers him, he would rest, like Napoleon, like Washington, in a fitting +receptacle of marble or porphyry. In the transfer of his remains the +curiosity of men of science and artists would have been gratified, if +decay had spared the more durable portions of his material structure. It +was probably not against such a transfer that the lines were +written,--whoever was their author,--but in the fear that they would be +carried to the charnel-house. + +"In this charnel-house was contained a vast collection of human bones. +How long they had been deposited there is not easily to be determined; +but it is evident, from the immense quantity contained in the vault, it +could have been used for no other purpose for many ages." "It is +probable that from an early contemplation of this dreary spot +Shakespeare imbibed that horror of a violation of sepulture which is +observable in many parts of his writings." + +The body of Raphael was disinterred in 1833 to settle a question of +identity of the remains, and placed in a new coffin of lead, which was +deposited in a marble sarcophagus presented by the Pope. The +sarcophagus, with its contents, was replaced in the same spot from which +the remains had been taken. But for the inscription such a transfer of +the bones of Shakespeare would have been proposed, and possibly carried +out. Kings and emperors have frequently been treated in this way after +death, and the proposition is no more an indignity than was that of the +exhumation of the remains of Napoleon, or of André, or of the author of +"Home, Sweet Home." But sentiment, a tender regard for the supposed +wishes of the dead poet, and a natural dread of the consequences of +violating a dying wish, coupled with the execration of its contemner, +are too powerful for the arguments of science and the pleadings of art. +If Shakespeare's body had been embalmed,--which there is no reason that +I know of to suppose,--the desire to compare his features with the bust +and the portraits would have been much more imperative. When the body of +Charles the First was examined, under the direction of Sir Henry +Halford, in the presence of the Regent, afterwards George the Fourth, +the face would have been recognized at once by all who were acquainted +with Vandyke's portrait of the monarch, if the lithograph which comes +attached to Sir Henry's memoir is an accurate representation of what +they found. Even the bony framework of the face, as I have had occasion +to know, has sometimes a striking likeness to what it was when clothed +in its natural features. As between the first engraved portrait and the +bust in the church, the form of the bones of the head and face would +probably be decisive. But the world can afford to live without solving +this doubt, and leave his perishing vesture of decay to its repose. + +After seeing the Shakespeare shrines, we drove over to Shottery, and +visited the Anne Hathaway cottage. I am not sure whether I ever saw it +before, but it was as familiar to me as if I had lived in it. The old +lady who showed it was agreeably communicative, and in perfect keeping +with the place. + +A delightful excursion of ten or a dozen miles carried our party, +consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Flower, Mr. and Mrs. Willett, with A---- and +myself, to Compton Wynyate, a most interesting old mansion, belonging to +the Marquis of Northampton, who, with his daughter-in-law, Lady William +Compton, welcomed us and showed us all the wonders of the place. It was +a fine morning, but hot enough for one of our American July days. The +drive was through English rural scenery; that is to say, it was lovely. +The old house is a great curiosity. It was built in the reign of Henry +the Eighth, and has passed through many vicissitudes. The place, as well +as the edifice, is a study for the antiquarian. Remains of the old moat +which surrounded it are still distinguishable. The twisted and variously +figured chimneys are of singular variety and exceptional forms. Compton +_Wynyate_ is thought to get its name from the vineyards formerly +under cultivation on the hillsides, which show the signs of having been +laid out in terraces. The great hall, with its gallery, and its +hangings, and the long table made from the trunk of a single tree, +carries one back into the past centuries. There are strange nooks and +corners and passages in the old building, and one place, a queer little +"cubby-hole," has the appearance of having been a Roman Catholic chapel. +I asked the master of the house, who pointed out the curiosities of the +place most courteously, about the ghosts who of course were tenants in +common with the living proprietors. I was surprised when he told me +there were none. It was incredible, for here was every accommodation for +a spiritual visitant. I should have expected at least one haunted +chamber, to say nothing of blood-stains that could never be got rid of; +but there were no legends of the supernatural or the terrible. + +Refreshments were served us, among which were some hot-house peaches, +ethereally delicate as if they had grown in the Elysian Fields and been +stolen from a banquet of angels. After this we went out on the lawn, +where, at Lady William Compton's request, I recited one or two poems; +the only time I did such a thing in England. + +It seems as if Compton Wynyate must have been written about in some +novel or romance,--perhaps in more than one of both. It is the place of +all others to be the scene of a romantic story. It lies so hidden away +among the hills that its vulgar name, according to old Camden, was +"Compton in the Hole." I am not sure that it was the scene of any actual +conflict, but it narrowly escaped demolition in the great civil war, and +in 1646 it was garrisoned by the Parliament army. + +On the afternoon of July 6th, our hosts had a large garden-party. If +nothing is more trying than one of these out-of-door meetings on a cold, +windy, damp day, nothing can be more delightful than such a social +gathering if the place and the weather are just what we could wish them. +The garden-party of this afternoon was as near perfection as such a +meeting could well be. The day was bright and warm, but not +uncomfortably hot, to me, at least. The company strolled about the +grounds, or rested on the piazzas, or watched the birds in the aviary, +or studied rudimentary humanity in the monkey, or, better still, in a +charming baby, for the first time on exhibition since she made the +acquaintance of sunshine. Every one could dispose of himself or herself +as fancy might suggest. I broke away at one time, and wandered alone by +the side of the Avon, under the shadow of the tall trees upon its bank. +The whole scene was as poetical, as inspiring, as any that I remember. +It would be easy to write verses about it, but unwritten poems are so +much better! + +One reminiscence of that afternoon claims precedence over all the rest. +The reader must not forget that I have been a medical practitioner, and +for thirty-five years a professor in a medical school. Among the guests +whom I met in the grounds was a gentleman of the medical profession, +whose name I had often heard, and whom I was very glad to see and talk +with. This was Mr. Lawson Tait, F.R.C.S., M.D., of Birmingham. Mr., or +more properly Dr., Tait has had the most extraordinary success in a +class of cases long considered beyond the reach of surgery. If I refer +to it as a scientific _hari kari_, not for the taking but for the +saving of life, I shall come near enough to its description. This +operation is said to have been first performed by an American surgeon in +Danville, Kentucky, in the year 1809. So rash and dangerous did it seem +to most of the profession that it was sometimes spoken of as if to +attempt it were a crime. Gradually, however, by improved methods, and +especially by the most assiduous care in nursing the patient after the +operation, the mortality grew less and less, until it was recognized as +a legitimate and indeed an invaluable addition to the resources of +surgery. Mr. Lawson Tait has had, so far as I have been able to learn, +the most wonderful series of successful cases on record: namely, one +hundred and thirty-nine consecutive operations without a single death. + +As I sat by the side of this great surgeon, a question suggested itself +to my mind which I leave the reader to think over. Which would give the +most satisfaction to a thoroughly humane and unselfish being, of +cultivated intelligence and lively sensibilities: to have written all +the plays which Shakespeare has left as an inheritance for mankind, or +to have snatched from the jaws of death more than a hundred fellow- +creatures,--almost seven scores of suffering women,--and restored them +to sound and comfortable existence? It would be curious to get the +answers of a hundred men and a hundred women, of a hundred young people +and a hundred old ones, of a hundred scholars and a hundred operatives. +My own specialty is asking questions, not answering them, and I trust I +shall not receive a peck or two of letters inquiring of me how I should +choose if such a question were asked me. It may prove as fertile a +source of dispute as "The Lady or the Tiger." + +It would have been a great thing to pass a single night close to the +church where Shakespeare's dust lies buried. A single visit by daylight +leaves a comparatively slight impression. But when, after a night's +sleep, one wakes up and sees the spire and the old walls full before +him, that impression is very greatly deepened, and the whole scene +becomes far more a reality. Now I was nearly a whole week at +Stratford-on-Avon. The church, its exterior, its interior, the +birthplace, the river, had time to make themselves permanent images in +my mind. To effect this requires a certain amount of exposure, as much +as in the case of a photographic negative. + + * * * * * + +And so we bade good-by to Stratford-on-Avon and its hospitalities, with +grateful remembrances of our kind entertainers and all they did for our +comfort and enjoyment. + +Where should we go next? Our travelling host proposed Great Malvern, a +famous watering-place, where we should find peace, rest, and good +accommodations. So there we went, and soon found ourselves installed at +the "Foley Arms" hotel. The room I was shown to looked out upon an +apothecary's shop, and from the window of that shop stared out upon me a +plaster bust which I recognized as that of Samuel Hahnemann. I was glad +to change to another apartment, but it may be a comfort to some of his +American followers to know that traces of homoeopathy,--or what still +continues to call itself so,--survive in the Old World, which we have +understood was pretty well tired of it. + +We spent several days very pleasantly at Great Malvern. It lies at the +foot of a range of hills, the loftiest of which is over a thousand feet +in height. A---- and I thought we would go to the top of one of these, +known as the Beacon. We hired a "four-wheeler," dragged by a +much-enduring horse and in charge of a civil young man. We turned out of +one of the streets not far from the hotel, and found ourselves facing an +ascent which looked like what I should suppose would be a pretty steep +toboggan slide. We both drew back. _"Facilis ascensus,"_ I said to +myself, _"sed revocare gradum."_ It is easy enough to get up if you +are dragged up, but how will it be to come down such a declivity? When +we reached it on our return, the semi-precipice had lost all its +terrors. We had seen and travelled over so much worse places that this +little bit of slanting road seemed as nothing. The road which wound up +to the summit of the Beacon was narrow and uneven. It ran close to the +edge of the steep hillside,--so close that there were times when every +one of our forty digits curled up like a bird's claw. If we went over, +it would not be a fall down a good honest precipice,--a swish through +the air and a smash at the bottom,--but a tumbling, and a rolling over +and over, and a bouncing and bumping, ever accelerating, until we +bounded into the level below, all ready for the coroner. At one sudden +turn of the road the horse's body projected so far over its edge that +A---- declared if the beast had been an inch longer he would have +toppled over. When we got close to the summit we found the wind blowing +almost a gale. A---- says in her diary that I (meaning her honored +parent) "nearly blew off from the top of the mountain." It is true that +the force of the wind was something fearful, and seeing that two young +men near me were exposed to its fury, I offered an arm to each of them, +which they were not too proud to accept; A---- was equally attentive to +another young person; and having seen as much of the prospect as we +cared to, we were glad to get back to our four-wheeler and our hotel, +after a perilous journey almost comparable to Mark Twain's ascent of the +Riffelberg. + +At Great Malvern we were deliciously idle. We walked about the place, +rested quietly, drove into the neighboring country, and made a single +excursion,--to Tewkesbury. There are few places better worth seeing than +this fine old town, full of historical associations and monumental +relics. The magnificent old abbey church is the central object of +interest. The noble Norman tower, one hundred and thirty-two feet in +height, was once surmounted by a spire, which fell during divine service +on Easter Day of the year 1559. The arch of the west entrance is sixteen +feet high and thirty-four feet wide. The fourteen columns of the nave +are each six feet and three inches in diameter and thirty feet in +height. I did not take these measurements from the fabric itself, but +from the guidebook, and I give them here instead of saying that the +columns were huge, enormous, colossal, as they did most assuredly seem +to me. The old houses of Tewkesbury compare well with the finest of +those in Chester. I have a photograph before me of one of them, in which +each of the three upper floors overhangs the one beneath it, and the +windows in the pointed gable above project over those of the fourth +floor. + +I ought to have visited the site of Holme Castle, the name of which +reminds me of my own origin. "The meaning of the Saxon word 'Holme' is a +meadow surrounded with brooks, and here not only did the castle bear the +name, but the meadow is described as the 'Holme,--where the castle +was.'" The final _s_ in the name as we spell it is a frequent +addition to old English names, as Camden mentions, giving the name +Holmes among the examples. As there is no castle at the Holme now, I +need not pursue my inquiries any further. It was by accident that I +stumbled on this bit of archaeology, and as I have a good many +namesakes, it may perhaps please some of them to be told about it. Few +of us hold any castles, I think, in these days, except those _châteaux +en Espagne_, of which I doubt not, many of us are lords and masters. + +In another of our excursions we visited a venerable church, where our +attention was called to a particular monument. It was erected to the +memory of one of the best of husbands by his "wretched widow," who +records upon the marble that there never was such a man on the face of +the earth before, and never will be again, and that there never was +anybody so miserable as she,--no, never, never, never! These are not the +exact words, but this is pretty nearly what she declares. The story is +that she married again within a year. + +From my window at the Foley Arms I can see the tower of the fine old +abbey church of Malvern, which would be a centre of pilgrimages if it +were in our country. But England is full of such monumental structures, +into the history of which the local antiquarians burrow, and pass their +peaceful lives in studying and writing about them with the same innocent +enthusiasm that White of Selborne manifested in studying nature as his +village showed it to him. + +In our long drives we have seen everywhere the same picturesque old +cottages, with the pretty gardens, and abundant flowers, and noble +trees, more frequently elms than any other. One day--it was on the 10th +of July--we found ourselves driving through what seemed to be a +gentleman's estate, an ample domain, well wooded and well kept. On +inquiring to whom this place belonged, I was told that the owner was Sir +Edmund Lechmere. The name had a very familiar sound to my ears. Without +rising from the table at which I am now writing, I have only to turn my +head, and in full view, at the distance of a mile, just across the +estuary of the Charles, shining in the morning sun, are the roofs and +spires and chimneys of East Cambridge, always known in my younger days +as Lechmere's Point. Judge Richard Lechmere was one of our old Cambridge +Tories, whose property was confiscated at the time of the Revolution. An +engraving of his handsome house, which stands next to the Vassall house, +long known as Washington's headquarters, and since not less celebrated +as the residence of Longfellow, is before me, on one of the pages of the +pleasing little volume, "The Cambridge of 1776." I take it for granted +that our Lechmeres were of the same stock as the owner of this property. +If so, he probably knows all that I could tell him about his colonial +relatives, who were very grand people, belonging to a little +aristocratic circle of friends and relatives who were faithful to their +king and their church. The Baroness Riedesel, wife of a Hessian officer +who had been captured, was for a while resident in this house, and her +name, scratched on a window-pane, was long shown as a sight for eyes +unused to titles other than governor, judge, colonel, and the like. I +was tempted to present myself at Sir Edmund's door as one who knew +something about the Lechmeres in America, but I did not feel sure how +cordially a descendant of the rebels who drove off Richard and Mary +Lechmere would be received. + +From Great Malvern we went to Bath, another place where we could rest +and be comfortable. The Grand Pump-Room Hotel was a stately building, +and the bath-rooms were far beyond anything I had ever seen of that +kind. The remains of the old Roman baths, which appear to have been very +extensive, are partially exposed. What surprises one all over the Old +World is to see how deeply all the old civilizations contrive to get +buried. Everybody seems to have lived in the cellar. It is hard to +believe that the cellar floor was once the sun surface of the smiling +earth. + +I looked forward to seeing Bath with a curious kind of interest. I once +knew one of those dear old English ladies whom one finds all the world +over, with their prim little ways, and their gilt prayer-books, and +lavender-scented handkerchiefs, and family recollections. She gave me +the idea that Bath, a city where the great people often congregate, was +more especially the paradise of decayed gentlewomen. There, she told me, +persons with very narrow incomes--not _demi-fortunes_, but +_demi-quart-de-fortunes_--could find everything arranged to +accommodate their modest incomes. I saw the evidence of this everywhere. +So great was the delight I had in looking in at the shop-windows of the +long street which seemed to be one of the chief thoroughfares that, +after exploring it in its full extent by myself, I went for A----, and +led her down one side its whole length and up the other. In these shops +the precious old dears could buy everything they wanted in the most +minute quantities. Such tempting heaps of lumps of white sugar, only +twopence! Such delectable cakes, two for a penny! Such seductive scraps +of meat, which would make a breakfast nourishing as well as relishing, +possibly even what called itself a dinner, blushing to see themselves +labelled threepence or fourpence! We did not know whether to smile or to +drop a tear, as we contemplated these baits hung out to tempt the coins +from the exiguous purses of ancient maidens, forlorn widows, withered +annuitants, stranded humanity in every stage of shipwrecked penury. I am +reminded of Thackeray's "Jack Spiggot." "And what are your pursuits, +Jack? says I. 'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go +down there once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist.'" Mrs. +Gaskell's picture of "Cranford" is said to have been drawn from a +village in Cheshire, but Bath must have a great deal in common with its +"elegant economies." Do not make the mistake, however, of supposing that +this splendid watering-place, sometimes spoken of as "the handsomest +city in Britain," is only a city of refuge for people that have seen +better days. Lord Macaulay speaks of it as "that beautiful city which +charms even eyes familiar with the masterpieces of Bramante and +Palladio." If it is not quite so conspicuous as a fashionable resort as +it was in the days of Beau Nash or of Christopher Anstey, it has never +lost its popularity. Chesterfield writes in 1764, "The number of people +in this place is infinite," and at the present time the annual influx of +visitors is said to vary from ten to fourteen thousand. Many of its +public buildings are fine, and the abbey church, dating from 1499, is an +object of much curiosity, especially on account of the sculptures on its +western façade. These represent two ladders, with angels going up and +down upon them,--suggested by a dream of the founder of the church, +repeating that of Jacob. + +On the 14th of July we left Bath for Salisbury. While passing Westbury, +one of our fellow-passengers exclaimed, "Look out! Look out!" "What is +it?" "The horse! the horse!" All our heads turned to the window, and all +our eyes fastened on the figure of a white horse, upon a hillside some +miles distant. This was not the white horse which Mr. Thomas Hughes has +made famous, but one of much less archaic aspect and more questionable +history. A little book which we bought tells us all we care to know +about it. "It is formed by excoriating the turf over the steep slope of +the northern escarpment of Salisbury Plain." It was "remodelled" in +1778, and "restored" in 1873 at a cost of between sixty and seventy +pounds. It is said that a smaller and ruder horse stood here from time +immemorial, and was made to commemorate a victory of Alfred over the +Danes. However that may be, the horse we now see on the hillside is a +very modern-looking and well-shaped animal, and is of the following +dimensions: length, 170 feet; height from highest part of back, 128 +feet; thickness of body, 55 feet; length of head, 50 feet; eye, 6 by 8 +feet. It is a very pretty little object as we see it in the distance. + +Salisbury Cathedral was my first love among all the wonderful +ecclesiastical buildings which I saw during my earlier journey. I looked +forward to seeing it again with great anticipations of pleasure, which +were more than realized. + +Our travelling host had taken a whole house in the Close,--a privileged +enclosure, containing the cathedral, the bishop's palace, houses of the +clergy, and a limited number of private residences, one of the very best +of which was given over entirely into the hands of our party during our +visit. The house was about as near the cathedral as Mr. Flower's house, +where we stayed at Stratford-on-Avon, was to the Church of the Holy +Trinity. It was very completely furnished, and in the room assigned to +me as my library I found books in various languages, showing that the +residence was that of a scholarly person. + +If one had to name the apple of the eye of England, I think he would be +likely to say that Salisbury Cathedral was as near as he could come to +it, and that the white of the eye was Salisbury Close. The cathedral is +surrounded by a high wall, the gates of which,--its eyelids,--are closed +every night at a seasonable hour, at which the virtuous inhabitants are +expected to be in their safe and sacred quarters. Houses within this +hallowed precinct naturally bring a higher rent than those of the +unsanctified and unprotected region outside of its walls. It is a realm +of peace, glorified by the divine edifice, which lifts the least +imaginative soul upward to the heavens its spire seems trying to reach; +beautified by rows of noble elms which stretch high aloft, as if in +emulation of the spire; beatified by holy memories of the good and great +men who have worn their lives out in the service of the church of which +it is one of the noblest temples. + +For a whole week we lived under the shadow of the spire of the great +cathedral. Our house was opposite the north transept, only separated by +the road in front of it from the cathedral grounds. Here, as at +Stratford, I learned what it was to awake morning after morning and find +that I was not dreaming, but there in the truth-telling daylight the +object of my admiration, devotion, almost worship, stood before me. I +need not here say anything more of the cathedral, except that its +perfect exterior is hardly equalled in beauty by its interior, which +looks somewhat bare and cold. It was my impression that there is more to +study than to admire in the interior, but I saw the cathedral so much +oftener on the outside than on the inside that I may not have done +justice to the latter aspect of the noble building. + +Nothing could be more restful than our week at Salisbury. There was +enough in the old town besides the cathedral to interest us,--old +buildings, a museum, full of curious objects, and the old town itself. +When I was there the first time, I remember that we picked up a +guide-book in which we found a verse that has remained in my memory ever +since. It is an epitaph on a native of Salisbury who died in Venice. + + "Born in the English Venice, thou didst dye + Dear Friend, in the Italian Salisbury." + +This would be hard to understand except for the explanation which the +local antiquarians give us of its significance. The Wiltshire Avon flows +by or through the town, which is drained by brooks that run through its +streets. These, which used to be open, are now covered over, and thus +the epitaph becomes somewhat puzzling, as there is nothing to remind one +of Venice in walking about the town. + +While at Salisbury we made several excursions: to Old Sarum; to +Bemerton, where we saw the residence of holy George Herbert, and visited +the little atom of a church in which he ministered; to Clarendon Park; +to Wilton, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, a most interesting place +for itself and its recollections; and lastly to Stonehenge. My second +visit to the great stones after so long an interval was a strange +experience. But what is half a century to a place like Stonehenge? +Nothing dwarfs an individual life like one of these massive, almost +unchanging monuments of an antiquity which refuses to be measured. The +"Shepherd of Salisbury Plain" was represented by an old man, who told +all he knew and a good deal more about the great stones, and sheared a +living, not from sheep, but from visitors, in the shape of shillings and +sixpences. I saw nothing that wore unwoven wool on its back in the +neighborhood of the monuments, but sheep are shown straggling among them +in the photographs. + +The broken circle of stones, some in their original position, some +bending over like old men, some lying prostrate, suggested the thoughts +which took form in the following verses. They were read at the annual +meeting, in January, of the class which graduated at Harvard College in +the year 1829. Eight of the fifty-nine men who graduated sat round the +small table. There were several other classmates living, but infirmity, +distance, and other peremptory reasons kept them from being with us. I +have read forty poems at our successive annual meetings. I will +introduce this last one by quoting a stanza from the poem I read in +1851:-- + + As one by one is falling + Beneath the leaves or snows, + Each memory still recalling + The broken ring shall close, + Till the night winds softly pass + O'er the green and growing grass, + Where it waves on the graves + Of the "Boys of 'Twenty-nine." + + THE BROKEN CIRCLE. + + I stood on Sarum's treeless plain, + The waste that careless Nature owns; + Lone tenants of her bleak domain, + Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones. + + Upheaved in many a billowy mound + The sea-like, naked turf arose, + Where wandering flocks went nibbling round + The mingled graves of friends and foes. + + The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane, + This windy desert roamed in turn; + Unmoved these mighty blocks remain + Whose story none that lives may learn. + + Erect, half buried, slant or prone, + These awful listeners, blind and dumb, + Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown, + As wave on wave they go and come. + + "Who are you, giants, whence and why?" + I stand and ask in blank amaze; + My soul accepts their mute reply: + "A mystery, as are you that gaze. + + "A silent Orpheus wrought the charm + From riven rocks their spoils to bring; + A nameless Titan lent his arm + To range us in our magic ring. + + "But Time with still and stealthy stride, + That climbs and treads and levels all, + That bids the loosening keystone slide, + And topples down the crumbling wall,-- + + "Time, that unbuilds the quarried past, + Leans on these wrecks that press the sod; + They slant, they stoop, they fall at last, + And strew the turf their priests have trod. + + "No more our altar's wreath of smoke + Floats up with morning's fragrant dew; + The fires are dead, the ring is broke, + Where stood the many stand the few." + + --My thoughts had wandered far away, + Borne off on Memory's outspread wing, + To where in deepening twilight lay + The wrecks of friendship's broken ring. + + Ah me! of all our goodly train + How few will find our banquet hall! + Yet why with coward lips complain + That this must lean and that must fall? + + Cold is the Druid's altar-stone, + Its vanished flame no more returns; + But ours no chilling damp has known,-- + Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns. + + So let our broken circle stand + A wreck, a remnant, yet the same, + While one last, loving, faithful hand + Still lives to feed its altar-flame! + +My heart has gone back over the waters to my old friends and my own +home. When this vision has faded, I will return to the silence of the +lovely Close and the shadow of the great Cathedral. + + + + +V. + + +The remembrance of home, with its early and precious and long-enduring +friendships, has intruded itself among my recollections of what I saw +and heard, of what I felt and thought, in the distant land I was +visiting. I must return to the scene where I found myself when the +suggestion of the broken circle ran away with my imagination. + +The literature of Stonehenge is extensive, and illustrates the weakness +of archaeologists almost as well as the "Praetorium" of Scott's +"Antiquary." "In 1823," says a local handbook, "H. Browne, of Amesbury, +published 'An Illustration of Stonehenge and Abury,' in which he +endeavored to show that both of these monuments were antediluvian, and +that the latter was formed under the direction of Adam. He ascribes the +present dilapidated condition of Stonehenge to the operation of the +general deluge; for, he adds, 'to suppose it to be the work of any +people since the flood is entirely monstrous.'" + +We know well enough how great stones--pillars and obelisks--are brought +into place by means of our modern appliances. But if the great blocks +were raised by a mob of naked Picts, or any tribe that knew none of the +mechanical powers but the lever, how did they set them up and lay the +cross-stones, the imposts, upon the uprights? It is pleasant, once in a +while, to think how we should have managed any such matters as this if +left to our natural resources. We are all interested in the make-shifts +of Robinson Crusoe. Now the rudest tribes make cords of some kind, and +the earliest, or almost the earliest, of artificial structures is an +earth-mound. If a hundred, or hundreds, of men could drag the huge +stones many leagues, as they must have done to bring them to their +destined place, they could have drawn each of them up a long slanting +mound ending in a sharp declivity, with a hole for the foot of the stone +at its base. If the stone were now tipped over, it would slide into its +place, and could be easily raised from its slanting position to the +perpendicular. Then filling in the space between the mound and two +contiguous stones, the impost could be dragged up to its position. I +found a pleasure in working at this simple mechanical problem, as a +change from the more imaginative thoughts suggested by the mysterious +monuments. + +One incident of our excursion to Stonehenge had a significance for me +which renders it memorable in my personal experience. As we drove over +the barren plain, one of the party suddenly exclaimed, "Look! Look! See +the lark rising!" I looked up with the rest. There was the bright blue +sky, but not a speck upon it which my eyes could distinguish. Again, one +called out, "Hark! Hark! Hear him singing!" I listened, but not a sound +reached my ear. Was it strange that I felt a momentary pang? _Those +that look out at the windows are darkened, and all the daughters of +music are brought low._ Was I never to see or hear the soaring +songster at Heaven's gate,--unless,--unless,--if our mild humanized +theology promises truly, I may perhaps hereafter listen to him singing +far down beneath me? For in whatever world I may find myself, I hope I +shall always love our poor little spheroid, so long my home, which some +kind angel may point out to me as a gilded globule swimming in the +sunlight far away. After walking the streets of pure gold in the New +Jerusalem, might not one like a short vacation, to visit the +well-remembered green fields and flowery meadows? I had a very sweet +emotion of self-pity, which took the sting out of my painful discovery +that the orchestra of my pleasing life-entertainment was unstringing its +instruments, and the lights were being extinguished,--that the show was +almost over. All this I kept to myself, of course, except so far as I +whispered it to the unseen presence which we all feel is in sympathy +with us, and which, as it seemed to my fancy, was looking into my eyes, +and through them into my soul, with the tender, tearful smile of a +mother who for the first time gently presses back the longing lips of +her as yet unweaned infant. + +On our way back from Stonehenge we stopped and took a cup of tea with a +friend of our host, Mr. Nightingale. His house, a bachelor +establishment, was very attractive to us by the beauty within and around +it. His collection of "china," as Pope and old-fashioned people call all +sorts of earthenware, excited the enthusiasm of our host, whose +admiration of some rare pieces in the collection was so great that it +would have run into envy in a less generous nature. + +It is very delightful to find one's self in one of these English country +residences. The house is commonly old, and has a history. It is +oftentimes itself a record, like that old farmhouse my friend John +Bellows wrote to me about, which chronicled half a dozen reigns by +various architectural marks as exactly as if it had been an official +register. "The stately homes of England," as we see them at Wilton and +Longford Castle, are not more admirable in their splendors than "the +blessed homes of England" in their modest beauty. Everywhere one may see +here old parsonages by the side of ivy-mantled churches, and the +comfortable mansions where generations of country squires have lived in +peace, while their sons have gone forth to fight England's battles, and +carry her flags of war and commerce all over the world. We in America +can hardly be said to have such a possession as a family home. We +encamp,--not under canvas, but in fabrics of wood or more lasting +materials, which are pulled down after a brief occupancy by the +builders, and possibly their children, or are modernized so that the +former dwellers in them would never recognize their old habitations. + +In my various excursions from Salisbury I was followed everywhere by the +all-pervading presence of the towering spire. Just what it was in that +earlier visit, when my eyes were undimmed and my sensibilities unworn, +just such I found it now. As one drives away from the town, the roofs of +the houses drop out of the landscape, the lesser spires disappear one by +one, until the great shaft is left standing alone,--solitary as the +broken statue of Ozymandias in the desert, as the mast of some mighty +ship above the waves which have rolled over the foundering vessel. Most +persons will, I think, own to a feeling of awe in looking up at it. Few +can look down from a great height without creepings and crispations, if +they do not get as far as vertigos and that aerial calenture which +prompts them to jump from the pinnacle on which they are standing. It +does not take much imagination to make one experience something of the +same feeling in looking up at a very tall steeple or chimney. To one +whose eyes are used to Park Street and the Old South steeples as +standards of height, a spire which climbs four hundred feet towards the +sky is a new sensation. Whether I am more "afraid of that which is high" +than I was at my first visit, as I should be on the authority of +Ecclesiastes, I cannot say, but it was quite enough for me to let my +eyes climb the spire, and I had no desire whatever to stand upon that +"bad eminence," as I am sure that I should have found it. + +I soon noticed a slight deflection from the perpendicular at the upper +part of the spire. This has long been observed. I could not say that I +saw the spire quivering in the wind, as I felt that of Strasburg doing +when I ascended it,--swaying like a blade of grass when a breath of air +passes over it. But it has been, for at least two hundred years, nearly +two feet out of the perpendicular. No increase in the deviation was +found to exist when it was examined early in the present century. It is +a wonder that this slight-looking structure can have survived the +blasts, and thunderbolts, and earthquakes, and the weakening effects of +time on its stones and timbers for five hundred years. Since the spire +of Chichester Cathedral fell in 1861, sheathing itself in its tower like +a sword dropping into its scabbard, one can hardly help looking with +apprehension at all these lofty fabrics. I have before referred to the +fall of the spire of Tewkesbury Abbey church, three centuries earlier. +There has been a good deal of fear for the Salisbury spire, and great +precautions have been taken to keep it firm, so that we may hope it will +stand for another five hundred years. It ought to be a "joy forever," +for it is a thing of beauty, if ever there were one. + +I never felt inclined to play the part of the young enthusiast in +"Excelsior," as I looked up at the weathercock which surmounts the +spire. But the man who oils the weathercock-spindle has to get up to it +in some way, and that way is by ladders which reach to within thirty +feet of the top, where there is a small door, through which he emerges, +to crawl up the remaining distance on the outside. "The situation and +appearance," says one of the guide-books, "must be terrific, yet many +persons have voluntarily and daringly clambered to the top, even in a +state of intoxication." Such, I feel sure, was not the state of my most +valued and exemplary clerical friend, who, with a cool head and steady +nerves, found himself standing in safety at the top of the spire, with +his hand upon the vane, which nothing terrestrial had ever looked down +upon in its lofty position, except a bird, a bat, a sky-rocket, or a +balloon. + +In saying that the exterior of Salisbury Cathedral is more interesting +than its interior, I was perhaps unfair to the latter, which only yields +to the surpassing claims of the wonderful structure as seen from the +outside. One may get a little tired of marble Crusaders, with their +crossed legs and broken noses, especially if, as one sometimes finds +them, they are covered with the pencilled autographs of cockney +scribblers. But there are monuments in this cathedral which excite +curiosity, and others which awaken the most striking associations. There +is the "Boy Bishop," his marble effigy protected from vandalism by an +iron cage. There is the skeleton figure representing Fox (who should +have been called Goose), the poor creature who starved himself to death +in trying to imitate the fast of forty days in the wilderness. Since +this performance has been taken out of the list of miracles, it is not +so likely to be repeated by fanatics. I confess to a strong suspicion +that this is one of the ambulatory or movable stories, like the +"hangman's stone" legend, which I have found in so many different parts +of England. Skulls and crossbones, sometimes skeletons or skeleton-like +figures, are not uncommon among the sepulchral embellishments of an +earlier period. Where one of these figures is found, the forty-day-fast +story is likely to grow out of it, as the mistletoe springs from the oak +or apple tree. + +With far different emotions we look upon the spot where lie buried many +of the Herbert family, among the rest, + + "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," + +for whom Ben Jonson wrote the celebrated epitaph. I am almost afraid to +say it, but I never could admire the line, + + "Lies the subject of all verse," + +nor the idea of Time dropping his hour-glass and scythe to throw a dart +at the fleshless figure of Death. This last image seems to me about the +equivalent in mortuary poetry of Roubiliac's monument to Mrs. +Nightingale in mortuary sculpture,--poor conceits both of them, without +the suggestion of a tear in the verses or in the marble; but the +rhetorical exaggeration does not prevent us from feeling that we are +standing by the resting-place of one who was + + "learn'd and fair and good" + +enough to stir the soul of stalwart Ben Jonson, and the names of Sidney +and Herbert make us forget the strange hyperboles. + +History meets us everywhere, as we stray among these ancient monuments. +Under that effigy lie the great bones of Sir John Cheyne, a mighty man +of war, said to have been "overthrown" by Richard the Third at the +battle of Bosworth Field. What was left of him was unearthed in 1789 in +the demolition of the Beauchamp chapel, and his thigh-bone was found to +be four inches longer than that of a man of common stature. + +The reader may remember how my recollections started from their +hiding-place when I came, in one of our excursions, upon the name of +Lechmere, as belonging to the owner of a fine estate by or through which +we were driving. I had a similar twinge of reminiscence at meeting with +the name of Gorges, which is perpetuated by a stately monument at the +end of the north aisle of the cathedral. Sir Thomas Gorges, Knight of +Longford Castle, may or may not have been of the same family as the +well-remembered grandiose personage of the New England Pilgrim period. +The title this gentleman bore had a far more magnificent sound than +those of his contemporaries, Governor Carver and Elder Brewster. No +title ever borne among us has filled the mouth quite so full as that of +"Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Lord Palatine of the Province of Maine," a +province with "Gorgeana" (late the plantation of Agamenticus) as its +capital. Everywhere in England a New Englander is constantly meeting +with names of families and places which remind him that he comes of a +graft from an old tree on a new stock. I could not keep down the +associations called up by the name of Gorges. There is a certain +pleasure in now and then sprinkling our prosaic colonial history with +the holy water of a high-sounding title; not that a "Sir" before a man's +name makes him any better,--for are we not all equal, and more than +equal, to each other?--but it sounds pleasantly. Sir Harry Vane and Sir +Harry Frankland look prettily on the printed page, as the illuminated +capital at the head of a chapter in an old folio pleases the eye of the +reader. Sir Thomas Gorges was the builder of Longford Castle, now the +seat of the Earl of Radnor, whose family name is Bouverie. Whether our +Sir Ferdinando was of the Longford Castle stock or not I must leave to +my associates of the Massachusetts Historical Society to determine. + +We lived very quietly at our temporary home in Salisbury Close. A +pleasant dinner with the Dean, a stroll through the grounds of the +episcopal palace, with that perpetual feast of the eyes which the +cathedral offered us, made our residence delightful at the time, and +keeps it so in remembrance. Besides the cathedral there were the very +lovely cloisters, the noble chapter-house with its central pillar,--this +structure has been restored and rejuvenated since my earlier visit,--and +there were the peaceful dwellings, where I insist on believing that only +virtue and happiness are ever tenants. Even outside the sacred enclosure +there is a great deal to enjoy, in the ancient town of Salisbury. One +may rest under the Poultry Cross, where twenty or thirty generations +have rested before him. One may purchase his china at the well-furnished +establishment of the tenant of a spacious apartment of ancient +date,--"the Halle of John Halle," a fine private edifice built in the +year 1470, restored and beautified in 1834; the emblazonment of the +royal arms having been executed by the celebrated architectural artist +Pugin. The old houses are numerous, and some of them eminently +picturesque. + +Salisbury was formerly very unhealthy, on account of the low, swampy +nature of its grounds. The Sanitary Reform, dating from about thirty +years ago, had a great effect on the condition of the place. Before the +drainage the annual mortality was twenty-seven in the thousand; since +the drainage twenty in the thousand, which is below that of Boston. In +the Close, which is a little Garden of Eden, with no serpent in it that +I could hear of, the deaths were only fourteen in a thousand. Happy +little enclosure, where thieves cannot break through and steal, where +Death himself hesitates to enter, and makes a visit only now and then at +long intervals, lest the fortunate inhabitants should think they had +already reached the Celestial City! + +[Illustration: Salisbury Cathedral.] + +It must have been a pretty bitter quarrel that drove the tenants of the +airy height of Old Sarum to remove to the marshy level of the present +site of the cathedral and the town. I wish we could have given more time +to the ancient fortress and cathedral town. This is one of the most +interesting historic localities of Great Britain. We looked from +different points of view at the mounds and trenches which marked it as a +strongly fortified position. For many centuries it played an important +part in the history of England. At length, however, the jealousies of +the laity and the clergy, a squabble like that of "town and gown," but +with graver underlying causes, broke up the harmony and practically +ended the existence of the place except as a monument of the past. It +seems a pity that the headquarters of the Prince of Peace could not have +managed to maintain tranquillity within its own borders. But so it was; +and the consequence followed that Old Sarum, with all its grand +recollections, is but a collection of mounds and hollows,--as much a +tomb of its past as Birs Nimroud of that great city, Nineveh. Old Sarum +is now best remembered by its long-surviving privilege, as a borough, of +sending two members to Parliament. The farcical ceremony of electing two +representatives who had no real constituency behind them was put an end +to by the Reform Act of 1832. + +Wilton, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, within an easy drive's +distance from Salisbury, was the first nobleman's residence I saw in my +early visit. Not a great deal of what I then saw had survived in my +memory. I recall the general effect of the stately mansion and its +grounds. A picture or two of Vandyke's had not quite faded out of my +recollection. I could not forget the armor of Anne de Montmorenci,--not +another Maid of Orleans, but Constable of France,--said to have been +taken in battle by an ancestor of the Herberts. It was one of the first +things that made me feel I was in the Old World. Miles Standish's sword +was as far back as New England collections of armor carried us at that +day. The remarkable gallery of ancient sculptures impressed me at the +time, but no one bust or statue survived as a distinct image. Even the +beautiful Palladian bridge had not pictured itself on my mental tablet +as it should have done, and I could not have taken my oath that I had +seen it. But the pretty English maidens whom we met on the day of our +visit to Wilton,--daughters or granddaughters of a famous inventor and +engineer,--still lingered as vague and pleasing visions, so lovely had +they seemed among the daisies and primroses. The primroses and daisies +were as fresh in the spring of 1886 as they were in the spring of 1833, +but I hardly dared to ask after the blooming maidens of that early +period. + +One memory predominates over all others, in walking through the halls, +or still more in wandering through the grounds, of Wilton House. Here +Sir Philip Sidney wrote his "Arcadia," and the ever youthful presence of +the man himself rather than the recollection of his writings takes +possession of us. There are three young men in history whose names +always present themselves to me in a special companionship: Pico della +Mirandola, "the Phoenix of the Age" for his contemporaries; "the +Admirable Crichton," accepting as true the accounts which have come down +to us of his wonderful accomplishments; and Sidney, the Bayard of +England, "that glorious star, that lively pattern of virtue and the +lovely joy of all the learned sort, ... born into the world to show unto +our age a sample of ancient virtue." The English paragon of excellence +was but thirty-two years old when he was slain at Zutphen, the Italian +Phoenix but thirty-one when he was carried off by a fever, and the +Scotch prodigy of gifts and attainments was only twenty-two when he was +assassinated by his worthless pupil. Sir Philip Sidney is better +remembered by the draught of water he gave the dying soldier than by all +the waters he ever drew from the fountain of the Muses, considerable as +are the merits of his prose and verse. But here, where he came to cool +his fiery spirit after the bitter insult he had received from the Earl +of Leicester; here, where he mused and wrote, and shaped his lofty plans +for a glorious future, he lives once more in our imagination, as if his +spirit haunted the English Arcadia he loved so dearly. + +The name of Herbert, which we have met with in the cathedral, and which +belongs to the Earls of Pembroke, presents itself to us once more in a +very different and very beautiful aspect. Between Salisbury and Wilton, +three miles and a half distant, is the little village of Bemerton, where +"holy George Herbert" lived and died, and where he lies buried. Many +Americans who know little else of him recall the lines borrowed from him +by Irving in the "Sketch-Book" and by Emerson in "Nature." The +"Sketch-Book" gives the lines thus:-- + + "Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so bright, + The bridal of the earth and sky." + +In other versions the fourth word is _cool_ instead of _pure_, +and _cool_ is, I believe, the correct reading. The day when we +visited Bemerton was, according to A----'s diary, "perfect." I was +struck with the calm beauty of the scene around us, the fresh greenness +of all growing things, and the stillness of the river which mirrored the +heavens above it. It must have been this reflection which the poet was +thinking of when he spoke of the bridal of the earth and sky. The river +is the Wiltshire Avon; not Shakespeare's Avon, but the southern stream +of the same name, which empties into the British Channel. + +So much of George Herbert's intellectual and moral character repeat +themselves in Emerson that if I believed in metempsychosis I should +think that the English saint had reappeared in the American philosopher. +Their features have a certain resemblance, but the type, though an +exceptional and fine one, is not so very rare. I found a portrait in the +National Gallery which was a good specimen of it; the bust of a near +friend of his, more intimate with him than almost any other person, is +often taken for that of Emerson. I see something of it in the portrait +of Sir Philip Sidney, and I doubt not that traces of a similar mental +resemblance ran through the whole group, with individual characteristics +which were in some respects quite different. I will take a single verse +of Herbert's from Emerson's "Nature,"--one of the five which he +quotes:-- + + "Nothing hath got so far + But man hath caught and kept it as his prey; + His eyes dismount the highest star: + He is in little all the sphere. + Herbs gladly cure our flesh because that they + Find their acquaintance there." + +Emerson himself fully recognizes his obligations to "the beautiful +psalmist of the seventeenth century," as he calls George Herbert. There +are many passages in his writings which sound as if they were +paraphrases from the elder poet. From him it is that Emerson gets a word +he is fond of, and of which his imitators are too fond:-- + + "Who sweeps a room as for thy laws + Makes that and the action _fine_." + +The little chapel in which Herbert officiated is perhaps half as long +again as the room in which I am writing, but it is four or five feet +narrower,--and I do not live in a palace. Here this humble servant of +God preached and prayed, and here by his faithful and loving service he +so endeared himself to all around him that he has been canonized by an +epithet no other saint of the English Church has had bestowed upon him. +His life as pictured by Izaak Walton is, to borrow one of his own lines, + + "A box where sweets compacted lie;" + +and I felt, as I left his little chapel and the parsonage which he +rebuilt as a free-will offering, as a pilgrim might feel who had just +left the holy places at Jerusalem. + +Among the places which I saw in my first visit was Longford Castle, the +seat of the Earl of Radnor. I remembered the curious triangular +building, constructed with reference to the doctrine of the Trinity, as +churches are built in the form of the cross. I remembered how the +omnipresent spire of the great cathedral, three miles away, looked down +upon the grounds about the building as if it had been their next-door +neighbor. I had not forgotten the two celebrated Claudes, Morning and +Evening. My eyes were drawn to the first of these two pictures when I +was here before; now they turned naturally to the landscape with the +setting sun. I have read my St. Ruskin with due reverence, but I have +never given up my allegiance to Claude Lorraine. But of all the fine +paintings at Longford Castle, no one so much impressed me at my recent +visit as the portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein. This is one of those +pictures which help to make the Old World worth a voyage across the +Atlantic. Portraits of Erasmus are not uncommon; every scholar would +know him if he met him in the other world with the look he wore on +earth. All the etchings and their copies give a characteristic +presentation of the spiritual precursor of Luther, who pricked the false +image with his rapier which the sturdy monk slashed with his broadsword. +What a face it is which Hans Holbein has handed down to us in this +wonderful portrait at Longford Castle! How dry it is with scholastic +labor, how keen with shrewd scepticism, how worldly-wise, how conscious +of its owner's wide-awake sagacity! Erasmus and Rabelais,--Nature used +up all her arrows for their quivers, and had to wait a hundred years and +more before she could find shafts enough for the outfit of Voltaire, +leaner and keener than Erasmus, and almost as free in his language as +the audacious creator of Gargantua and Pantagruel. + +I have not generally given descriptions of the curious objects which I +saw in the great houses and museums which I visited. There is, however, +a work of art at Longford Castle so remarkable that I must speak of it. +I was so much struck by the enormous amount of skilful ingenuity and +exquisite workmanship bestowed upon it that I looked up its history, +which I found in the "Beauties of England and Wales." This is what is +there said of the wonderful steel chair: "It was made by Thomas Rukers +at the city of Augsburgh, in the year 1575, and consists of more than +130 compartments, all occupied by groups of figures representing a +succession of events in the annals of the Roman Empire, from the landing +of Æneas to the reign of Rodolphus the Second." It looks as if a life +had gone into the making of it, as a pair or two of eyes go to the +working of the bridal veil of an empress. + +Fifty years ago and more, when I was at Longford Castle with my two +companions, who are no more with us, we found there a pleasant, motherly +old housekeeper, or attendant of some kind, who gave us a draught of +home-made ale and left a cheerful remembrance with us, as, I need hardly +say, we did with her, in a materialized expression of our good-will. It +always rubbed very hard on my feelings to offer money to any persons who +had served me well, as if they were doing it for their own pleasure. It +may have been the granddaughter of the kindly old matron of the year +1833 who showed us round, and possibly, if I had sunk a shaft of +inquiry, I might have struck a well of sentiment. But + + "Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee," + +carried into practical life, is certain in its financial result to the +subject of the emotional impulse, but is less sure to call forth a +tender feeling in the recipient. One will hardly find it worth while to +go through the world weeping over his old recollections, and paying gold +instead of silver and silver instead of copper to astonished boatmen and +bewildered chambermaids. + +On Sunday, the 18th of July, we attended morning service at the +cathedral. The congregation was not proportioned to the size of the +great edifice. These vast places of worship were built for ages when +faith was the rule and questioning the exception. I will not say that +faith has grown cold, but it has cooled from white heat to cherry red or +a still less flaming color. As to church attendance, I have heard the +saying attributed to a great statesman, that "once a day is Orthodox, +but twice a day is Puritan." No doubt many of the same class of people +that used to fill the churches stay at home and read about evolution or +telepathy, or whatever new gospel they may have got hold of. Still the +English seem to me a religious people; they have leisure enough to say +grace and give thanks before and after meals, and their institutions +tend to keep alive the feelings of reverence which cannot be said to be +distinctive of our own people. + +In coming out of the cathedral, on the Sunday I just mentioned, a +gentleman addressed me as a fellow-countryman. There is something,--I +will not stop now to try and define it,--but there is something by which +we recognize an American among the English before he speaks and betrays +his origin. Our new friend proved to be the president of one of our +American colleges; an intelligent and well-instructed gentleman, of +course. By the invitation of our host he came in to visit us in the +evening, and made himself very welcome by his agreeable conversation. + +I took great delight in wandering about the old town of Salisbury. There +are no such surprises in our oldest places as one finds in Chester, or +Tewkesbury, or Stratford, or Salisbury, and I have no doubt in scores or +hundreds of similar places which I have never visited. The best +substitute for such rambles as one can take through these mouldy +boroughs (or burrows) is to be found in such towns as Salem, +Newburyport, Portsmouth. Without imagination, Shakespeare's birthplace +is but a queer old house, and Anne Hathaway's home a tumble-down +cottage. With it, one can see the witches of Salem Village sailing out +of those little square windows, which look as if they were made on +purpose for them, or stroll down to Derby's wharf and gaze at +"Cleopatra's Barge," precursor of the yachts of the Astors and Goulds +and Vanderbilts, as she comes swimming into the harbor in all her gilded +glory. But it must make a difference what the imagination has to work +upon, and I do not at all wonder that Mr. Ruskin would not wish to live +in a land where there are no old ruins of castles and monasteries. Man +will not live on bread only; he wants a great deal more, if he can get +it,--frosted cake as well as corn-bread; and the New World keeps the +imagination on plain and scanty diet, compared to the rich traditional +and historic food which furnishes the banquets of the Old World. + +What memories that week in Salisbury and the excursions from it have +left in my mind's picture gallery! The spire of the great cathedral had +been with me as a frequent presence during the last fifty years of my +life, and this second visit has deepened every line of the impression, +as Old Mortality refreshed the inscriptions on the tombstones of the +Covenanters. I find that all these pictures which I have brought home +with me to look at, with + + "that inward eye + Which is the bliss of solitude," + +are becoming clearer and brighter as the excitement of overcrowded days +and weeks gradually calms down. I can _be_ in those places where I +passed days and nights, and became habituated to the sight of the +cathedral, or of the Church of the Holy Trinity, at morning, at noon, at +evening, whenever I turned my eyes in its direction. I often close my +eyelids, and startle my household by saying, "Now I am in Salisbury," or +"Now I am in Stratford." It is a blessed thing to be able, in the +twilight of years, to illuminate the soul with such visions. The +Charles, which flows beneath my windows, which I look upon between the +words of the sentence I am now writing, only turning my head as I sit at +my table,--the Charles is hardly more real to me than Shakespeare's +Avon, since I floated on its still waters, or strayed along its banks +and saw the cows reflected in the smooth expanse, their legs upward, as +if they were walking the skies as the flies walk the ceiling. Salisbury +Cathedral stands as substantial in my thought as our own King's Chapel, +since I slumbered by its side, and arose in the morning to find it still +there, and not one of those unsubstantial fabrics built by the architect +of dreams. + +On Thursday, the 22d of July, we left Salisbury for Brighton, where we +were to be guests at Arnold House, the residence of our kind host. Here +we passed another delightful week, with everything around us to +contribute to our quiet comfort and happiness. The most thoughtful of +entertainers, a house filled with choice works of art, fine paintings, +and wonderful pottery, pleasant walks and drives, a visitor now and +then, Mr. and Mrs. Goldwin Smith among the number, rest and peace in a +magnificent city built for enjoyment,--what more could we have asked to +make our visit memorable? Many watering-places look forlorn and desolate +in the intervals of "the season." This was not the time of Brighton's +influx of visitors, but the city was far from dull. The houses are very +large, and have the grand air, as if meant for princes; the shops are +well supplied; the salt breeze comes in fresh and wholesome, and the +noble esplanade is lively with promenaders and Bath chairs, some of them +occupied by people evidently ill or presumably lame, some, I suspect, +employed by healthy invalids who are too lazy to walk. I took one +myself, drawn by an old man, to see how I liked it, and found it very +convenient, but I was tempted to ask him to change places and let me +drag him. + +With the aid of the guide-book I could describe the wonders of the +pavilion and the various changes which have come over the great +watering-place. The grand walks, the two piers, the aquarium, and all +the great sights which are shown to strangers deserve full attention +from the tourist who writes for other travellers, but none of these +things seem to me so interesting as what we saw and heard in a little +hamlet which has never, so far as I know, been vulgarized by sightseers. +We drove in an open carriage,--Mr. and Mrs. Willett, A----, and +myself,--into the country, which soon became bare, sparsely settled, a +long succession of rounded hills and hollows. These are the South Downs, +from which comes the famous mutton known all over England, not unknown +at the table of our Saturday Club and other well-spread boards. After a +drive of ten miles or more we arrived at a little "settlement," as we +Americans would call it, and drove up to the door of a modest parsonage, +where dwells the shepherd of the South Down flock of Christian +worshippers. I hope that the good clergyman, if he ever happens to see +what I am writing, will pardon me for making mention of his hidden +retreat, which he himself speaks of as "one of the remoter nooks of the +old country." Nothing I saw in England brought to my mind Goldsmith's +picture of "the man to all the country dear," and his surroundings, like +this visit. The church dates, if I remember right, from the thirteenth +century. Some of its stones show marks, as it is thought, of having +belonged to a Saxon edifice. The massive leaden font is of a very great +antiquity. In the wall of the church is a narrow opening, at which the +priest is supposed to have sat and listened to the confession of the +sinner on the outside of the building. The dead lie all around the +church, under stones bearing the dates of several centuries. One +epitaph, which the unlettered Muse must have dictated, is worth +recording. After giving the chief slumberer's name the epitaph adds,-- + + "Here lies on either side, the remains of each of his former wives." + +Those of a third have found a resting-place close by, behind him. + +It seemed to me that Mr. Bunner's young man in search of Arcady might +look for it here with as good a chance of being satisfied as anywhere I +can think of. But I suppose that men and women and especially boys, +would prove to be a good deal like the rest of the world, if one lived +here long enough to learn all about them. One thing I can safely +say,--an English man or boy never goes anywhere without his fists. I saw +a boy of ten or twelve years, whose pleasant face attracted my +attention. I said to the rector, "That is a fine-looking little fellow, +and I should think an intelligent and amiable kind of boy." "Yes," he +said, "yes; he can strike from the shoulder pretty well, too. I had to +stop him the other day, indulging in that exercise." Well, I said to +myself, we have not yet reached the heaven on earth which I was fancying +might be embosomed in this peaceful-looking hollow. Youthful angels can +hardly be in the habit of striking from the shoulder. But the well-known +phrase, belonging to the pugilist rather than to the priest, brought me +back from the ideal world into which my imagination had wandered. + +Our week at Brighton was passed in a very quiet but most enjoyable way. +It could not be otherwise with such a host and hostess, always arranging +everything with reference to our well-being and in accordance with our +wishes. I became very fond of the esplanade, such a public walk as I +never saw anything to compare with. In these tranquil days, and long, +honest nights of sleep, the fatigues of what we had been through were +forgotten, the scales showed that we were becoming less ethereal every +day, and we were ready for another move. + +We bade good-by to our hosts with the most grateful and the warmest +feeling towards them, after a month of delightful companionship and the +experience of a hospitality almost too generous to accept, but which +they were pleased to look upon as if we were doing them a favor. + +On the 29th of July we found ourselves once more in London. + + + + +VI. + + +We found our old quarters all ready and awaiting us. Mrs. Mackellar's +motherly smile, Sam's civil bow, and the rosy cheeks of many-buttoned +Robert made us feel at home as soon as we crossed the threshold. + +The dissolution of Parliament had brought "the season" abruptly to an +end. London was empty. There were three or four millions of people in +it, but the great houses were for the most part left without occupants +except their liveried guardians. We kept as quiet as possible, to avoid +all engagements. For now we were in London for London itself, to do +shopping, to see sights, to be our own master and mistress, and to live +as independent a life as we possibly could. + +The first thing we did on the day of our arrival was to take a hansom +and drive over to Chelsea, to look at the place where Carlyle passed the +larger part of his life. The whole region about him must have been +greatly changed during his residence there, for the Thames Embankment +was constructed long after he removed to Chelsea. We had some little +difficulty in finding the place we were in search of. Cheyne (pronounced +"Chainie") Walk is a somewhat extended range of buildings. Cheyne Row is +a passage which reminded me a little of my old habitat, Montgomery +Place, now Bosworth Street. Presently our attention was drawn to a +marble medallion portrait on the corner building of an ordinary-looking +row of houses. This was the head of Carlyle, and an inscription informed +us that he lived for forty-seven years in the house No. 24 of this row +of buildings. Since Carlyle's home life has been made public, he has +appeared to us in a different aspect from the ideal one which he had +before occupied. He did not show to as much advantage under the +Boswellizing process as the dogmatist of the last century, dear old Dr. +Johnson. But he remains not the less one of the really interesting men +of his generation, a man about whom we wish to know all that we have a +right to know. + +The sight of an old nest over which two or three winters have passed is +a rather saddening one. The dingy three-story brick house in which +Carlyle lived, one in a block of similar houses, was far from +attractive. It was untenanted, neglected; its windows were unwashed, a +pane of glass was broken; its threshold appeared untrodden, its whole +aspect forlorn and desolate. Yet there it stood before me, all covered +with its associations as an ivy-clad tower with its foliage. I wanted to +see its interior, but it looked as if it did not expect a tenant and +would not welcome a visitor. Was there nothing but this forbidding +house-front to make the place alive with some breathing memory? I saw +crossing the street a middle-aged woman,--a decent body, who looked as +if she might have come from the lower level of some not opulent but +respectable household. She might have some recollection of an old man +who was once her neighbor. I asked her if she remembered Mr. Carlyle. +Indeed she did, she told us. She used to see him often, in front of his +house, putting bits of bread on the railing for the birds. He did not +like to see anything wasted, she said. The merest scrap of information, +but genuine and pleasing; an instantaneous photograph only, but it makes +a pretty vignette in the volume of my reminiscences. There are many +considerable men in every generation of mankind, but not a great number +who are personally interesting,--not a great many of whom we feel that +we cannot know too much; whose foibles, even, we care to know about; +whose shortcomings we try to excuse; who are not models, but whose +special traits make them attractive. Carlyle is one of these few, and no +revelations can prevent his interesting us. He was not quite finished in +his parental existence. The bricklayer's mortar of his father's calling +stuck to his fingers through life, but only as the soil he turned with +his ploughshare clung to the fingers of Burns. We do not wish either to +have been other than what he was. Their breeding brings them to the +average level, carries them more nearly to the heart, makes them a +simpler expression of our common humanity. As we rolled in the cars by +Ecclefechan, I strained my eyes to take in every point of the landscape, +every cottage, every spire, if by any chance I could find one in that +lonely region. There was not a bridge nor a bit of masonry of any kind +that I did not eagerly scrutinize, to see if it were solid and honest +enough to have been built by Carlyle's father. Solitary enough the +country looked. I admired Mr. Emerson's devotion in seeking his friend +in his bare home among what he describes as the "desolate heathery +hills" about Craigenputtock, which were, I suppose, much like the region +through which we were passing. + +It is one of the regrets of my life that I never saw or heard Carlyle. +Nature, who seems to be fond of trios, has given us three dogmatists, +all of whom greatly interested their own generation, and whose +personality, especially in the case of the first and the last of the +trio, still interests us,--Johnson, Coleridge, and Carlyle. Each was an +oracle in his way, but unfortunately oracles are fallible to their +descendants. The author of "Taxation no Tyranny" had wholesale opinions, +and pretty harsh ones, about us Americans, and did not soften them in +expression: "Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful +for anything we allow them short of hanging." We smile complacently when +we read this outburst, which Mr. Croker calls in question, but which +agrees with his saying in the presence of Miss Seward, "I am willing to +love all mankind _except an American_." + +A generation or two later comes along Coleridge, with his circle of +reverential listeners. He says of Johnson that his fame rests +principally upon Boswell, and that "his _bow-wow_ manner must have +had a good deal to do with the effect produced." As to Coleridge +himself, his contemporaries hardly know how to set bounds to their +exaltation of his genius. Dibdin comes pretty near going into rhetorical +hysterics in reporting a conversation of Coleridge's to which he +listened: "The auditors seemed to be wrapt in wonder and delight, as one +observation more profound, or clothed in more forcible language, than +another fell from his tongue.... As I retired homeward I thought a +SECOND JOHNSON had visited the earth to make wise the sons of men." And +De Quincey speaks of him as "the largest and most spacious intellect, +the subtlest and most comprehensive, in my judgment, that has yet +existed amongst men." One is sometimes tempted to wish that the +superlative could be abolished, or its use allowed only to old experts. +What are men to do when they get to heaven, after having exhausted their +vocabulary of admiration on earth? + +Now let us come down to Carlyle, and see what he says of Coleridge. We +need not take those conversational utterances which called down the +wrath of Mr. Swinburne, and found expression in an epigram which +violates all the proprieties of literary language. Look at the +full-length portrait in the Life of Sterling. Each oracle denies his +predecessor, each magician breaks the wand of the one who went before +him. There were Americans enough ready to swear by Carlyle until he +broke his staff in meddling with our anti-slavery conflict, and buried +it so many fathoms deep that it could never be fished out again. It is +rather singular that Johnson and Carlyle should each of them have +shipwrecked his sagacity and shown a terrible leak in his moral +sensibilities on coming in contact with American rocks and currents, +with which neither had any special occasion to concern himself, and +which both had a great deal better have steered clear of. + +But here I stand once more before the home of the long-suffering, +much-laboring, loud-complaining Heraclitus of his time, whose very smile +had a grimness in it more ominous than his scowl. Poor man! Dyspeptic on +a diet of oatmeal porridge; kept wide awake by crowing cocks; drummed +out of his wits by long-continued piano-pounding; sharp of speech, I +fear, to his high-strung wife, who gave him back as good as she got! I +hope I am mistaken about their everyday relations, but again I say, poor +man!--for all his complaining must have meant real discomfort, which a +man of genius feels not less, certainly, than a common mortal. + +I made a second visit to the place where he lived, but I saw nothing +more than at the first. I wanted to cross the threshold over which he +walked so often, to see the noise-proof room in which he used to write, +to look at the chimney-place down which the soot came, to sit where he +used to sit and smoke his pipe, and to conjure up his wraith to look in +once more upon his old deserted dwelling. That vision was denied me. + +After visiting Chelsea we drove round through Regent's Park. I suppose +that if we use the superlative in speaking of Hyde Park, Regent's Park +will be the comparative, and Battersea Park the positive, ranking them +in the descending grades of their hierarchy. But this is my conjecture +only, and the social geography of London is a subject which only one who +has become familiarly acquainted with the place should speak of with any +confidence. A stranger coming to our city might think it made little +difference whether his travelling Boston acquaintance lived in Alpha +Avenue or in Omega Square, but he would have to learn that it is farther +from one of these places to the other, a great deal farther, than it is +from Beacon Street, Boston, to Fifth Avenue, New York. + +An American finds it a little galling to be told that he must not drive +in his _numbered_ hansom or four-wheeler except in certain portions +of Hyde Park. If he is rich enough to keep his own carriage, or if he +will pay the extra price of a vehicle not vulgarized by being on the +numbered list, he may drive anywhere that his Grace or his Lordship +does, and perhaps have a mean sense of satisfaction at finding himself +in the charmed circle of exclusive "gigmanity." It is a pleasure to meet +none but well-dressed and well-mannered people, in well-appointed +equipages. In the high road of our own country, one is liable to fall in +with people and conveyances that it is far from a pleasure to meet. I +was once driving in an open carriage, with members of my family, towards +my own house in the country town where I was then living. A cart drawn +by oxen was in the road in front of us. Whenever we tried to pass, the +men in it turned obliquely across the road and prevented us, and this +was repeated again and again. I could have wished I had been driving in +Hyde Park, where clowns and boors, with their carts and oxen, do not +find admittance. Exclusiveness has its conveniences. + +The next day, as I was strolling through Burlington Arcade, I saw a +figure just before me which I recognized as that of my townsman, Mr. +Abbott Lawrence. He was accompanied by his son, who had just returned +from a trip round the planet. There are three grades of recognition, +entirely distinct from each other: the meeting of two persons of +different countries who speak the same language,--an American and an +Englishman, for instance; the meeting of two Americans from different +cities, as of a Bostonian and a New Yorker or a Chicagonian; and the +meeting of two from the same city, as of two Bostonians. + +The difference of these recognitions may be illustrated by supposing +certain travelling philosophical instruments, endowed with intelligence +and the power of speech, to come together in their wanderings,--let us +say in a restaurant of the Palais Royal. "Very hot," says the talking +Fahrenheit (Thermometer) from Boston, and calls for an ice, which he +plunges his bulb into and cools down. In comes an intelligent and +socially disposed English Barometer. The two travellers greet each +other, not exactly as old acquaintances, but each has heard very +frequently about the other, and their relatives have been often +associated. "We have a good deal in common," says the Barometer. "Of the +same blood, as we may say; quicksilver is thicker than water." "Yes," +says the little Fahrenheit, "and we are both of the same mercurial +temperament." While their columns are dancing up and down with laughter +at this somewhat tepid and low-pressure pleasantry, there come in a New +York Réaumur and a Centigrade from Chicago. The Fahrenheit, which has +got warmed up to _temperate_, rises to _summer heat_, and even +a little above it. They enjoy each other's company mightily. To be sure, +their scales differ, but have they not the same freezing and the same +boiling point? To be sure, each thinks his own scale is the true +standard, and at home they might get into a contest about the matter, +but here in a strange land they do not think of disputing. Now, while +they are talking about America and their own local atmosphere and +temperature, there comes in a second Boston Fahrenheit. The two of the +same name look at each other for a moment, and rush together so eagerly +that their bulbs are endangered. How well they understand each other! +Thirty-two degrees marks the freezing point. Two hundred and twelve +marks the boiling point. They have the same scale, the same fixed +points, the same record: no wonder they prefer each other's company! + +I hope that my reader has followed my illustration, and finished it off +for himself. Let me give a few practical examples. An American and an +Englishman meet in a foreign land. The Englishman has occasion to +mention his weight, which he finds has gained in the course of his +travels. "How much is it now?" asks the American. "Fourteen stone. How +much do you weigh?" "Within four pounds of two hundred." Neither of them +takes at once any clear idea of what the other weighs. The American has +never thought of his own, or his friends', or anybody's weight in +_stones_ of fourteen pounds. The Englishman has never thought of +any one's weight in _pounds_. They can calculate very easily with a +slip of paper and a pencil, but not the less is their language but half +intelligible as they speak and listen. The same thing is in a measure +true of other matters they talk about. "It is about as large a space as +the Common," says the Boston man. "It is as large as St. James's Park," +says the Londoner. "As high as the State House," says the Bostonian, or +"as tall as Bunker Hill Monument," or "about as big as the Frog Pond," +where the Londoner would take St. Paul's, the Nelson Column, the +Serpentine, as his standard of comparison. The difference of scale does +not stop here; it runs through a great part of the objects of thought +and conversation. An average American and an average Englishman are +talking together, and one of them speaks of the beauty of a field of +corn. They are thinking of two entirely different objects: one of a +billowy level of soft waving wheat, or rye, or barley; the other of a +rustling forest of tall, jointed stalks, tossing their plumes and +showing their silken epaulettes, as if every stem in the ordered ranks +were a soldier in full regimentals. An Englishman planted for the first +time in the middle of a well-grown field of Indian corn would feel as +much lost as the babes in the wood. Conversation between two Londoners, +two New Yorkers, two Bostonians, requires no foot-notes, which is a +great advantage in their intercourse. + +To return from my digression and my illustration. I did not do a great +deal of shopping myself while in London, being contented to have it done +for me. But in the way of looking in at shop windows I did a very large +business. Certain windows attracted me by a variety in unity which +surpassed anything I have been accustomed to. Thus one window showed +every conceivable convenience that could be shaped in ivory, and nothing +else. One shop had such a display of magnificent dressing-cases that I +should have thought a whole royal family was setting out on its travels. +I see the cost of one of them is two hundred and seventy guineas. +Thirteen hundred and fifty dollars seems a good deal to pay for a +dressing-case. + +On the other hand, some of the first-class tradesmen and workmen make no +show whatever. The tailor to whom I had credentials, and who proved +highly satisfactory to me, as he had proved to some of my countrymen and +to Englishmen of high estate, had only one small sign, which was placed +in one of his windows, and received his customers in a small room that +would have made a closet for one of our stylish merchant tailors. The +bootmaker to whom I went on good recommendation had hardly anything +about his premises to remind one of his calling. He came into his +studio, took my measure very carefully, and made me a pair of what we +call Congress boots, which fitted well when once on my feet, but which +it cost more trouble to get into and to get out of than I could express +my feelings about without dangerously enlarging my limited vocabulary. + +Bond Street, Old and New, offered the most inviting windows, and I +indulged almost to profligacy in the prolonged inspection of their +contents. Stretching my walk along New Bond Street till I came to a +great intersecting thoroughfare, I found myself in Oxford Street. Here +the character of the shop windows changed at once. Utility and +convenience took the place of show and splendor. Here I found various +articles of use in a household, some of which were new to me. It is very +likely that I could have found most of them in our own Boston Cornhill, +but one often overlooks things at home which at once arrest his +attention when he sees them in a strange place. I saw great numbers of +illuminating contrivances, some of which pleased me by their arrangement +of reflectors. + +Bryant and May's safety matches seemed to be used everywhere. I procured +some in Boston with these names on the box, but the label said they were +made in Sweden, and they diffused vapors that were enough to produce +asphyxia. I greatly admired some of Dr. Dresser's water-cans and other +contrivances, modelled more or less after the antique, but I found an +abundant assortment of them here in Boston, and I have one I obtained +here more original in design and more serviceable in daily use than any +I saw in London. I should have regarded Wolverhampton, as we glided +through it, with more interest, if I had known at that time that the +inventive Dr. Dresser had his headquarters in that busy-looking town. + +One thing, at least, I learned from my London experience: better a small +city where one knows all it has to offer, than a great city where one +has no disinterested friend to direct him to the right places to find +what he wants. But of course there are some grand magazines which are +known all the world over, and which no one should leave London without +entering as a looker-on, if not as a purchaser. + +There was one place I determined to visit, and one man I meant to see, +before returning. The place was a certain book-store or book-shop, and +the person was its proprietor, Mr. Bernard Quaritch. I was getting very +much pressed for time, and I allowed ten minutes only for my visit. I +never had any dealings with Mr. Quaritch, but one of my near relatives +had, and I had often received his catalogues, the scale of prices in +which had given me an impression almost of sublimity. I found Mr. +Bernard Quaritch at No. 15 Piccadilly, and introduced myself, not as one +whose name he must know, but rather as a stranger, of whom he might have +heard through my relative. The extensive literature of catalogues is +probably little known to most of my readers. I do not pretend to claim a +thorough acquaintance with it, but I know the luxury of reading good +catalogues, and such are those of Mr. Quaritch. I should like to deal +with him; for if he wants a handsome price for what he sells, he knows +its value, and does not offer the refuse of old libraries, but, on the +other hand, all that is most precious in them is pretty sure to pass +through his hands, sooner or later. + +"Now, Mr. Quaritch," I said, after introducing myself, "I have ten +minutes to pass with you. You must not open a book; if you do I am lost, +for I shall have to look at every illuminated capital, from the first +leaf to the colophon." Mr. Quaritch did not open a single book, but let +me look round his establishment, and answered my questions very +courteously. It so happened that while I was there a gentleman came in +whom I had previously met,--my namesake, Mr. Holmes, the Queen's +librarian at Windsor Castle. My ten minutes passed very rapidly in +conversation with these two experts in books, the bibliopole and the +bibliothecary. No place that I visited made me feel more thoroughly that +I was in London, the great central mart of all that is most precious in +the world. + +_Leave at home all your guineas, ye who enter here_, would be a +good motto to put over his door, unless you have them in plenty and can +spare them, in which case _Take all your guineas with you_ would be +a better one. For you can here get their equivalent, and more than their +equivalent, in the choicest products of the press and the finest work of +the illuminator, the illustrator, and the binder. You will be sorely +tempted. But do not be surprised when you ask the price of the volume +you may happen to fancy. You are not dealing with a _bouquiniste_ +of the Quais, in Paris. You are not foraging in an old book-shop of New +York or Boston. Do not suppose that I undervalue these dealers in old and +rare volumes. Many a much-prized rarity have I obtained from Drake and +Burnham and others of my townsmen, and from Denham in New York; and +in my student years many a choice volume, sometimes even an Aldus or +an Elzevir, have I found among the trumpery spread out on the parapets +of the quays. But there is a difference between going out on the Fourth +of July with a militia musket to shoot any catbird or "chipmunk" that +turns up in a piece of woods within a few miles of our own cities, and +shooting partridges in a nobleman's preserves on the First of September. +I confess to having felt a certain awe on entering the precincts made +sacred by their precious contents. The lord and master of so many +_Editiones Principes_, the guardian of this great nursery full of +_incunabula_, did not seem to me like a simple tradesman. I felt that +I was in the presence of the literary purveyor of royal and imperial +libraries, the man before whom millionaires tremble as they calculate, +and billionaires pause and consider. I have recently received two of Mr. +Quaritch's catalogues, from which I will give my reader an extract or two, +to show him what kind of articles this prince of bibliopoles deals in. + +Perhaps you would like one of those romances which turned the head of +Don Quixote. Here is a volume which will be sure to please you. It is on +one of his lesser lists, confined principally to Spanish and Portuguese +works:-- + +"Amadis de Gaula ... folio, gothic letter, FIRST EDITION, unique ... red +morocco super extra, _doublé_ with olive morocco, richly gilt, +tooled to an elegant Grolier design, gilt edges ... in a neat case." + +A pretty present for a scholarly friend. A nice old book to carry home +for one's own library. Two hundred pounds--one thousand dollars--will +make you the happy owner of this volume. + +But if you would have also on your shelves the first edition of the +"Cronica del famoso cabaluero cid Ruy Diaz Campadero," not "richly +gilt," not even bound in leather, but in "cloth boards," you will have +to pay two hundred and ten pounds to become its proprietor. After this +you will not be frightened by the thought of paying three hundred +dollars for a little quarto giving an account of the Virginia +Adventurers. You will not shrink from the idea of giving something more +than a hundred guineas for a series of Hogarth's plates. But when it +comes to Number 1001 in the May catalogue, and you see that if you would +possess a first folio Shakespeare, "untouched by the hand of any modern +renovator," you must be prepared to pay seven hundred and eighty-five +pounds, almost four thousand dollars, for the volume, it would not be +surprising if you changed color and your knees shook under you. No doubt +some brave man will be found to carry off that prize, in spite of the +golden battery which defends it, perhaps to Cincinnati, or Chicago, or +San Francisco. But do not be frightened. These Alpine heights of +extravagance climb up from the humble valley where shillings and +sixpences are all that are required to make you a purchaser. + +One beauty of the Old World shops is that if a visitor comes back to the +place where he left them fifty years before, he finds them, or has a +great chance of finding them, just where they stood at his former visit. +In driving down to the old city, to the place of business of the +Barings, I found many streets little changed. Temple Bar was gone, and +the much-abused griffin stood in its place. There was a shop close to +Temple Bar, where, in 1834, I had bought some brushes. I had no +difficulty in finding Prout's, and I could not do less than go in and +buy some more brushes. I did not ask the young man who served me how the +old shopkeeper who attended to my wants on the earlier occasion was at +this time. But I thought what a different color the locks these brushes +smooth show from those that knew their predecessors in the earlier +decade! + +I ought to have made a second visit to the Tower, so tenderly spoken of +by Artemus Ward as "a sweet boon," so vividly remembered by me as the +scene of a personal encounter with one of the animals then kept in the +Tower menagerie. But the project added a stone to the floor of the +underground thoroughfare which is paved with good intentions. + +St. Paul's I must and did visit. The most striking addition since I was +there is the massive monument to the Duke of Wellington. The great +temple looked rather bare and unsympathetic. Poor Dr. Johnson, sitting +in semi-nude exposure, looked to me as unhappy as our own half-naked +Washington at the national capital. The Judas of Matthew Arnold's poem +would have cast his cloak over those marble shoulders, if he had found +himself in St. Paul's, and have earned another respite. We brought away +little, I fear, except the grand effect of the dome as we looked up at +it. It gives us a greater idea of height than the sky itself, which we +have become used to looking upon. + +A second visit to the National Gallery was made in company with A----. +It was the repetition of an attempt at a draught from the Cup of +Tantalus. I was glad of a sight of the Botticellis, of which I had heard +so much, and others of the more recently acquired paintings of the great +masters; of a sweeping glance at the Turners; of a look at the +well-remembered Hogarths and the memorable portraits by Sir Joshua. I +carried away a confused mass of impressions, much as the soldiers that +sack a city go off with all the precious things they can snatch up, +huddled into clothes-bags and pillow-cases. I am reminded, too, of Mr. +Galton's composite portraits; a thousand glimpses, as one passes through +the long halls lined with paintings, all blending in one not unpleasing +general effect, out of which emerges from time to time some single +distinct image. + +In the same way we passed through the exhibition of paintings at the +Royal Academy. I noticed that A---- paid special attention to the +portraits of young ladies by John Sargent and by Collier, while I was +more particularly struck with the startling portrait of an ancient +personage in a full suit of wrinkles, such as Rembrandt used to bring +out with wonderful effect. Hunting in couples is curious and +instructive; the scent for this or that kind of game is sure to be very +different in the two individuals. + +I made but two brief visits to the British Museum, and I can easily +instruct my reader so that he will have no difficulty, if he will follow +my teaching, in learning how not to see it. When he has a spare hour at +his disposal, let him drop in at the Museum, and wander among its books +and its various collections. He will know as much about it as the fly +that buzzes in at one window and out at another. If I were asked whether +I brought away anything from my two visits, I should say, Certainly I +did. The fly sees some things, not very intelligently, but he cannot +help seeing them. The great round reading-room, with its silent +students, impressed me very much. I looked at once for the Elgin +Marbles, but casts and photographs and engravings had made me familiar +with their chief features. I thought I knew something of the sculptures +brought from Nineveh, but I was astonished, almost awe-struck, at the +sight of those mighty images which mingled with the visions of the +Hebrew prophets. I did not marvel more at the skill and labor expended +upon them by the Assyrian artists than I did at the enterprise and +audacity which had brought them safely from the mounds under which they +were buried to the light of day and the heart of a great modern city. I +never thought that I should live to see the Birs Nimroud laid open, and +the tablets in which the history of Nebuchadnezzar was recorded spread +before me. The Empire of the Spade in the world of history was founded +at Nineveh by Layard, a great province added to it by Schliemann, and +its boundary extended by numerous explorers, some of whom are diligently +at work at the present day. I feel very grateful that many of its +revelations have been made since I have been a tenant of the travelling +residence which holds so many secrets in its recesses. + +There is one lesson to be got from a visit of an hour or two to the +British Museum,--namely, the fathomless abyss of our own ignorance. One +is almost ashamed of his little paltry heartbeats in the presence of the +rushing and roaring torrent of Niagara. So if he has published a little +book or two, collected a few fossils, or coins, or vases, he is crushed +by the vastness of the treasures in the library and the collections of +this universe of knowledge. + +I have shown how not to see the British museum; I will tell how to see +it. + +Take lodgings next door to it,--in a garret, if you cannot afford +anything better,--and pass all your days at the Museum during the whole +period of your natural life. At threescore and ten you will have some +faint conception of the contents, significance, and value of this great +British institution, which is as nearly as any one spot the _noeud +vital_ of human civilization, a stab at which by the dagger of +anarchy would fitly begin the reign of chaos. + +On the 3d of August, a gentleman, Mr. Wedmore, who had promised to be my +guide to certain interesting localities, called for me, and we took a +hansom for the old city. The first place we visited was the Temple, a +collection of buildings with intricate passages between them, some of +the edifices reminding me of our college dormitories. One, however, was +a most extraordinary exception,--the wonderful Temple church, or rather +the ancient part of it which is left, the round temple. We had some +trouble to get into it, but at last succeeded in finding a slip of a +girl, the daughter of the janitor, who unlocked the door for us. It +affected my imagination strangely to see this girl of a dozen years old, +or thereabouts, moving round among the monuments which had kept their +place there for some six or seven hundred years; for the church was +built in the year 1185, and the most recent of the crusaders' monuments +is said to date as far back as 1241. Their effigies have lain in this +vast city, and passed unharmed through all its convulsions. The Great +Fire must have crackled very loud in their stony ears, and they must +have shaken day and night, as the bodies of the victims of the Plague +were rattled over the pavements. + +Near the Temple church, in a green spot among the buildings, a plain +stone laid flat on the turf bears these words: "Here lies Oliver +Goldsmith." I believe doubt has been thrown upon the statement that +Goldsmith was buried in that place, but, as some poet ought to have +written, + + Where doubt is disenchantment + 'Tis wisdom to believe. + +We do not "drop a tear" so often as our Della Cruscan predecessors, but +the memory of the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield" stirred my feelings +more than a whole army of crusaders would have done. A pretty rough set +of filibusters they were, no doubt. + +The whole group to which Goldsmith belonged came up before me, and as +the centre of that group the great Dr. Johnson; not the Johnson of the +"Rambler," or of "The Vanity of Human Wishes," or even of "Rasselas," +but Boswell's Johnson, dear to all of us, the "Grand Old Man" of his +time, whose foibles we care more for than for most great men's virtues. +Fleet Street, which he loved so warmly, was close by. Bolt Court, +entered from it, where he lived for many of his last years, and where he +died, was the next place to visit. I found Fleet Street a good deal like +Washington Street as I remember it in former years. When I came to the +place pointed out as Bolt Court, I could hardly believe my eyes that so +celebrated a place of residence should be entered by so humble a +passageway. I was very sorry to find that No. 3, where he lived, was +demolished, and a new building erected in its place. In one of the other +houses in this court he is said to have labored on his dictionary. Near +by was a building of mean aspect, in which Goldsmith is said to have at +one time resided. But my kind conductor did not profess to be well +acquainted with the local antiquities of this quarter of London. + +If I had a long future before me, I should like above all things to +study London with a dark lantern, so to speak, myself in deepest shadow +and all I wanted to see in clearest light. Then I should want time, +time, time. For it is a sad fact that sight-seeing as commonly done is +one of the most wearying things in the world, and takes the life out of +any but the sturdiest or the most elastic natures more efficiently than +would a reasonable amount of daily exercise on a treadmill. In my +younger days I used to find that a visit to the gallery of the Louvre +was followed by more fatigue and exhaustion than the same amount of time +spent in walking the wards of a hospital. + +Another grand sight there was, not to be overlooked, namely, the +Colonial Exhibition. The popularity of this immense show was very great, +and we found ourselves, A---- and I, in the midst of a vast throng, made +up of respectable and comfortable looking people. It was not strange +that the multitude flocked to this exhibition. There was a jungle, with +its (stuffed) monsters,--tigers, serpents, elephants; there were +carvings which may well have cost a life apiece, and stuffs which none +but an empress or a millionairess would dare to look at. All the arts of +the East were there in their perfection, and some of the artificers were +at their work. We had to content ourselves with a mere look at all these +wonders. It was a pity; instead of going to these fine shows tired, +sleepy, wanting repose more than anything else, we should have come to +them fresh, in good condition, and had many days at our disposal. I +learned more in a visit to the Japanese exhibition in Boston than I +should have learned in half a dozen half-awake strolls through this +multitudinous and most imposing collection of all + + "The gorgeous East with richest hand + Showers on her kings," + +and all the masterpieces of its wonder-working artisans. + +One of the last visits we paid before leaving London for a week in Paris +was to the South Kensington Museum. Think of the mockery of giving one +hour to such a collection of works of art and wonders of all kinds! Why +should I consider it worth while to say that we went there at all? All +manner of objects succeeded each other in a long series of dissolving +views, so to speak, nothing or next to nothing having a chance to leave +its individual impress. In the battle for life which took place in my +memory, as it always does among the multitude of claimants for a +permanent hold, I find that two objects came out survivors of the +contest. The first is the noble cast of the column of Trajan, vast in +dimensions, crowded with history in its most striking and enduring form; +a long array of figures representing in unquestioned realism the +military aspect of a Roman army. The second case of survival is thus +described in the catalogue: "An altar or shrine of a female saint, +recently acquired from Padua, is also ascribed to the same sculptor +[Donatello]. This very valuable work of art had for many years been used +as a drinking-trough for horses. A hole has been roughly pierced in it." +I thought the figure was the most nearly perfect image of heavenly +womanhood that I had ever looked upon, and I could have gladly given my +whole hour to sitting--I could almost say kneeling--before it in silent +contemplation. I found the curator of the Museum, Mr. Soden Smith, +shared my feelings with reference to the celestial loveliness of this +figure. Which is best, to live in a country where such a work of art is +taken for a horse-trough, or in a country where the products from the +studio of a self-taught handicraftsman, equal to the shaping of a +horse-trough and not much more, are put forward as works of art? + +A little time before my visit to England, before I had even thought of +it as a possibility, I had the honor of having two books dedicated to me +by two English brother physicians. One of these two gentlemen was Dr. +Walshe, of whom I shall speak hereafter; the other was Dr. J. Milner +Fothergill. The name Fothergill was familiar to me from my boyhood. My +old townsman, Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, who died in 1846 at the age of +ninety-two, had a great deal to say about his relative Dr. John +Fothergill, the famous Quaker physician of the last century, of whom +Benjamin Franklin said, "I can hardly conceive that a better man ever +existed." Dr. and Mrs. Fothergill sent us some beautiful flowers a +little before we left, and when I visited him he gave me a medallion of +his celebrated kinsman. + +London is a place of mysteries. Looking out of one of the windows at the +back of Dr. Fothergill's house, I saw an immense wooden blind, such as +we have on our windows in summer, but reaching from the ground as high +as the top of the neighboring houses. While admitting the air freely, it +shut the property to which it belonged completely from sight. I asked +the meaning of this extraordinary structure, and learned that it was put +up by a great nobleman, of whose subterranean palace and strange +seclusion I had before heard. Common report attributed his unwillingness +to be seen to a disfiguring malady with which he was said to be +afflicted. The story was that he was visible only to his valet. But a +lady of quality, whom I met in this country, told me she had seen him, +and observed nothing to justify it. These old countries are full of +romances and legends and _diableries_ of all sorts, in which truth +and lies are so mixed that one does not know what to believe. What +happens behind the high walls of the old cities is as much a secret as +were the doings inside the prisons of the Inquisition. + +Little mistakes sometimes cause us a deal of trouble. This time it was +the presence or absence of a single letter which led us to fear that an +important package destined to America had miscarried. There were two +gentlemen unwittingly involved in the confusion. On inquiring for the +package at Messrs. Low, the publishers, Mr. Watts, to whom I thought it +had been consigned, was summoned. He knew nothing about it, had never +heard of it, was evidently utterly ignorant of us and our affairs. While +we were in trouble and uncertainty, our Boston friend, Mr. James R. +Osgood, came in. "Oh," said he, "it is Mr. Watt you want, the agent of a +Boston firm," and gave us the gentleman's address. I had confounded Mr. +Watt's name with Mr. Watts's name. "W'at's in a name?" A great deal +sometimes. I wonder if I shall be pardoned for quoting six lines from +one of my after-dinner poems of long ago:-- + + --One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt, + One trivial letter ruins all, left out; + A knot can change a felon into clay, + A not will save him, spelt without the k; + The smallest word has some unguarded spot, + And danger lurks in i without a dot. + +I should find it hard to account for myself during our two short stays +in London in the month of August, separated by the week we passed in +Paris. The ferment of continued over-excitement, calmed very much by our +rest in the various places I have mentioned, had not yet wholly worked +itself off. There was some of that everlasting shopping to be done. +There were photographs to be taken, a call here and there to be made, a +stray visitor now and then, a walk in the morning to get back the use of +the limbs which had been too little exercised, and a drive every +afternoon to one of the parks, or the Thames Embankment, or other +locality. After all this, an honest night's sleep served to round out +the day, in which little had been effected besides making a few +purchases, writing a few letters, reading the papers, the Boston "Weekly +Advertiser" among the rest, and making arrangements for our passage +homeward. The sights we saw were looked upon for so short a time, most +of them so very superficially, that I am almost ashamed to say that I +have been in the midst of them and brought home so little. I remind +myself of my boyish amusement of _skipping stones_,--throwing a +flat stone so that it shall only touch the water, but touch it in half a +dozen places before it comes to rest beneath the smooth surface. The +drives we took showed us a thousand objects which arrested our +attention. Every street, every bridge, every building, every monument, +every strange vehicle, every exceptional personage, was a show which +stimulated our curiosity. For we had not as yet changed our Boston eyes +for London ones, and very common sights were spectacular and dramatic to +us. I remember that one of our New England country boys exclaimed, when +he first saw a block of city dwellings, "Darn it all, who ever see +anything like that 'are? Sich a lot o' haousen all stuck together!" I +must explain that "haousen" used in my early days to be as common an +expression in speaking of houses among our country-folk as its phonetic +equivalent ever was in Saxony. I felt not unlike that country-boy. + +In thinking of how much I missed seeing, I sometimes have said to +myself, Oh, if the carpet of the story in the Arabian Nights would only +take me up and carry me to London for one week,--just one short +week,--setting me down fresh from quiet, wholesome living, in my usual +good condition, and bringing me back at the end of it, what a different +account I could give of my experiences! But it is just as well as it is. +Younger eyes have studied and will study, more instructed travellers +have pictured and will picture, the great metropolis from a hundred +different points of view. No person can be said to know London. The most +that any one can claim is that he knows something of it. I am now just +going to leave it for another great capital, but in my concluding pages +I shall return to Great Britain, and give some of the general +impressions left by what I saw and heard in our mother country. + + + + +VII. + + +Straitened as we were for time, it was impossible to return home without +a glimpse, at least, of Paris. Two precious years of my early manhood +were spent there under the reign of Louis Philippe, king of the French, +_le Roi Citoyen_. I felt that I must look once more on the places I +knew so well,--once more before shutting myself up in the world of +recollections. It is hardly necessary to say that a lady can always find +a little shopping, and generally a good deal of it, to do in Paris. So +it was not difficult to persuade my daughter that a short visit to that +city was the next step to be taken. + +We left London on the 5th of August to go _via_ Folkestone and +Boulogne. The passage across the Channel was a very smooth one, and +neither of us suffered any inconvenience. Boulogne as seen from the +landing did not show to great advantage. I fell to thinking of Brummel, +and what a satisfaction it would have been to treat him to a good +dinner, and set him talking about the days of the Regency. Boulogne was +all Brummel in my associations, just as Calais was all Sterne. I find +everywhere that it is a distinctive personality which makes me want to +linger round a spot, more than an important historical event. There is +not much worth remembering about Brummel; but his audacity, his starched +neckcloth, his assumptions and their success, make him a curious subject +for the student of human nature. + +Leaving London at twenty minutes before ten in the forenoon, we arrived +in Paris at six in the afternoon. I could not say that the region of +France through which we passed was peculiarly attractive. I saw no fine +trees, no pretty cottages, like those so common in England. There was +little which an artist would be tempted to sketch, or a traveller by the +railroad would be likely to remember. + +The place where we had engaged lodgings was Hôtel d'Orient, in the Rue +Daunou. The situation was convenient, very near the Place Vendome and +the Rue de la Paix. But the house was undergoing renovations which made +it as unpresentable as a moulting fowl. Scrubbing, painting of blinds, +and other perturbing processes did all they could to make it +uncomfortable. The courtyard was always sloppy, and the whole condition +of things reminded me forcibly of the state of Mr. Briggs's household +while the mason was carrying out the complex operations which began with +the application of "a little compo." (I hope all my readers remember Mr. +Briggs, whose adventures as told by the pencil of John Leech are not +unworthy of comparison with those of Mr. Pickwick as related by +Dickens.) Barring these unfortunate conditions, the hotel was +commendable, and when in order would be a desirable place of temporary +residence. + +It was the dead season of Paris, and everything had the air of suspended +animation. The solitude of the Place Vendome was something oppressive; I +felt, as I trod its lonely sidewalk, as if I were wandering through +Tadmor in the Desert. We were indeed as remote, as unfriended,--I will +not say as melancholy or as slow,--as Goldsmith by the side of the lazy +Scheldt or the wandering Po. Not a soul did either of us know in that +great city. Our most intimate relations were with the people of the +hotel and with the drivers of the fiacres. These last were a singular +looking race of beings. Many of them had a dull red complexion, almost +brick color, which must have some general cause. I questioned whether +the red wine could have something to do with it. They wore glazed hats, +and drove shabby vehicles for the most part; their horses would not +compare with those of the London hansom drivers, and they themselves +were not generally inviting in aspect, though we met with no incivility +from any of them. One, I remember, was very voluble, and over-explained +everything, so that we became afraid to ask him a question. They were +fellow-creatures with whom one did not naturally enter into active +sympathy, and the principal point of interest about the fiacre and its +arrangements was whether the horse was fondest of trotting or of +walking. In one of our drives we made it a point to call upon our +Minister, Mr. McLane, but he was out of town. We did not bring a single +letter, but set off exactly as if we were on a picnic. + +While A---- and her attendant went about making their purchases, I +devoted myself to the sacred and pleasing task of reviving old memories. +One of the first places I visited was the house I lived in as a student, +which in my English friend's French was designated as "Noomero sankont +sank Roo Monshure ler Pranse." I had been told that the whole region +thereabout had been transformed by the creation of a new boulevard. I +did not find it so. There was the house, the lower part turned into a +shop, but there were the windows out of which I used to look along the +Rue Vaugirard,--_au troisième_ the first year, _au second_ the +second year. Why should I go mousing about the place? What would the +shopkeeper know about M. Bertrand, my landlord of half a century ago; or +his first wife, to whose funeral I went; or his second, to whose bridal +I was bidden? + +I ought next to have gone to the hospital La Pitié, where I passed much +of my time during those two years. But the people there would not know +me, and my old master's name, Louis, is but a dim legend in the wards +where he used to teach his faithful band of almost worshipping students. +Besides, I have not been among hospital beds for many a year, and my +sensibilities are almost as impressible as they were before daily habit +had rendered them comparatively callous. + +How strange it is to look down on one's venerated teachers, after +climbing with the world's progress half a century above the level where +we left them! The stethoscope was almost a novelty in those days. The +microscope was never mentioned by any clinical instructor I listened to +while a medical student. _Nous avons changé tout cela_ is true of +every generation in medicine,--changed oftentimes by improvement, +sometimes by fashion or the pendulum-swing from one extreme to another. + +On my way back from the hospital I used to stop at the beautiful little +church St. Etienne du Mont, and that was one of the first places to +which I drove after looking at my student-quarters. All was just as of +old. The tapers were burning about the tomb of St. Genevieve. Samson, +with the jawbone of the ass, still crouched and sweated, or looked as if +he did, under the weight of the pulpit. One might question how well the +preacher in the pulpit liked the suggestion of the figure beneath it. +The sculptured screen and gallery, the exquisite spiral stairways, the +carved figures about the organ, the tablets on the walls,--one in +particular relating the fall of two young girls from the gallery, and +their miraculous protection from injury,--all these images found their +counterpart in my memory. I did not remember how very beautiful is the +stained glass in the _charniers_, which must not be overlooked by +visitors. + +It is not far from St. Etienne du Mont to the Pantheon. I cannot say +that there is any odor of sanctity about this great temple, which has +been consecrated, if I remember correctly, and, I will not say +desecrated, but secularized from time to time, according to the party +which happened to be uppermost. I confess that I did not think of it +chiefly as a sacred edifice, or as the resting-place, more or less +secure, of the "_grands hommes_" to whom it is dedicated. I was +thinking much more of Foucault's grand experiment, one of the most +sublime visible demonstrations of a great physical fact in the records +of science. The reader may not happen to remember it, and will like, +perhaps, to be reminded of it. Foucault took advantage of the height of +the dome, nearly three hundred feet, and had a heavy weight suspended by +a wire from its loftiest point, forming an immense pendulum,--the +longest, I suppose, ever constructed. Now a moving body tends to keep +its original plane of movement, and so the great pendulum, being set +swinging north and south, tended to keep on in the same direction. But +the earth was moving under it, and as it rolled from west to east the +plane running through the north and south poles was every instant +changing. Thus the pendulum appeared to change its direction, and its +deviation was shown on a graduated arc, or by the marks it left in a +little heap of sand which it touched as it swung. This experiment on the +great scale has since been repeated on the small scale by the aid of +other contrivances. + +My thoughts wandered back, naturally enough, to Galileo in the Cathedral +at Pisa. It was the swinging of the suspended lamp in that edifice which +set his mind working on the laws which govern the action of the +pendulum. While he was meditating on this physical problem, the priest +may have been holding forth on the dangers of meddling with matters +settled by Holy Church, who stood ready to enforce her edicts by the +logic of the rack and the fagot. An inference from the above remarks is +that what one brings from a church depends very much on what he carries +into it. + +The next place to visit could be no other than the Café Procope. This +famous resort is the most ancient and the most celebrated of all the +Parisian cafés. Voltaire, the poet J. B. Rousseau, Marmontel, Sainte +Foix, Saurin, were among its frequenters in the eighteenth century. It +stands in the Rue des Fossés-Saint Germain, now Rue de l'Ancienne +Comédie. Several American students, Bostonians and Philadelphians, +myself among the number, used to breakfast at this café every morning. I +have no doubt that I met various celebrities there, but I recall only +one name which is likely to be known to most or many of my readers. A +delicate-looking man, seated at one of the tables, was pointed out to me +as Jouffroy. If I had known as much about him as I learned afterwards, I +should have looked at him with more interest. He had one of those +imaginative natures, tinged by constitutional melancholy and saddened by +ill health, which belong to a certain class of poets and sentimental +writers, of which Pascal is a good example, and Cowper another. The +world must have seemed very cruel to him. I remember that when he was a +candidate for the Assembly, one of the popular cries, as reported by the +newspapers of the time, was _A bas le poitrinaire!_ His malady soon +laid him low enough, for he died in 1842, at the age of forty-six. I +must have been very much taken up with my medical studies to have +neglected my opportunity of seeing the great statesmen, authors, +artists, orators, and men of science outside of the medical profession. +Poisson, Arago, and Jouffroy are all I can distinctly recall, among the +Frenchmen of eminence whom I had all around me. + +The Café Procope has been much altered and improved, and bears an +inscription telling the date of its establishment, which was in the year +1689. I entered the cafe, which was nearly or quite empty, the usual +breakfast hour being past. + +_Garçon! Une tasse de café._ + +If there is a river of _mneme_ as a counterpart of the river +_lethe_, my cup of coffee must have got its water from that stream +of memory. If I could borrow that eloquence of Jouffroy which made his +hearers turn pale, I might bring up before my readers a long array of +pallid ghosts, whom these walls knew well in their earthly habiliments. +Only a single one of those I met here still survives. The rest are +mostly well-nigh forgotten by all but a few friends, or remembered +chiefly in their children and grandchildren. + +"How much?" I said to the garçon in his native tongue, or what I +supposed to be that language. "_Cinq sous_," was his answer. By the +laws of sentiment, I ought to have made the ignoble sum five francs, at +least. But if I had done so, the waiter would undoubtedly have thought +that I had just come from Charenton. Besides, why should I violate the +simple habits and traditions of the place, where generation after +generation of poor students and threadbare Bohemians had taken their +morning coffee and pocketed their two lumps of sugar? It was with a +feeling of virile sanity and Roman self-conquest that I paid my five +sous, with the small additional fraction which I supposed the waiter to +expect, and no more. + +So I passed for the last time over the threshold of the Café Procope, +where Voltaire had matured his plays and Piron sharpened his epigrams; +where Jouffroy had battled with his doubts and fears; where, since their +time,--since my days of Parisian life,--the terrible storming youth, +afterwards renowned as Léon Michel Gambetta, had startled the quiet +guests with his noisy eloquence, till the old _habitués_ spilled +their coffee, and the red-capped students said to each other, _"Il ira +loin, ce gaillard-là!"_ + +But what to me were these shadowy figures by the side of the group of my +early friends and companions, that came up before me in all the +freshness of their young manhood? The memory of them recalls my own +youthful days, and I need not go to Florida to bathe in the fountain of +Ponce de Leon. + +I have sometimes thought that I love so well the accidents of this +temporary terrestrial residence, its endeared localities, its precious +affections, its pleasing variety of occupation, its alternations of +excited and gratified curiosity, and whatever else comes nearest to the +longings of the natural man, that I might be wickedly homesick in a +far-off spiritual realm where such toys are done with. But there is a +pretty lesson which I have often meditated, taught, not this time by the +lilies of the field, but by the fruits of the garden. When, in the June +honeymoon of the seasons, the strawberry shows itself among the bridal +gifts, many of us exclaim for the hundredth time with Dr. Boteler, +"Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never +did." Nature, who is God's handmaid, does not attempt a rival berry. But +by and by a little woolly knob, which looked and saw with wonder the +strawberry reddening, and perceived the fragrance it diffused all +around, begins to fill out, and grow soft and pulpy and sweet; and at +last a glow comes to its cheek, and we say the peach is ripening. When +Nature has done with it, and delivers it to us in its perfection, we +forget all the lesser fruits which have gone before it. If the flavor of +the peach and the fragrance of the rose are not found in some fruit and +flower which grow by the side of the river of life, an earth-born spirit +might be forgiven for missing them. The strawberry and the pink are very +delightful, but we could be happy without them. + +So, too, we may hope that when the fruits of our brief early season of +three or four score years have given us all they can impart for our +happiness; when "the love of little maids and berries," and all other +earthly prettinesses, shall "soar and sing," as Mr. Emerson sweetly +reminds us that they all must, we may hope that the abiding felicities +of our later life-season may far more than compensate us for all that +have taken their flight. + +I looked forward with the greatest interest to revisiting the Gallery of +the Louvre, accompanied by my long-treasured recollections. I retained a +vivid remembrance of many pictures, which had been kept bright by seeing +great numbers of reproductions of them in photographs and engravings. + +The first thing which struck me was that the pictures had been +rearranged in such a way that I could find nothing in the place where I +looked for it. But when I found them, they greeted me, so I fancied, +like old acquaintances. The meek-looking "Belle Jardinière" was as +lamb-like as ever; the pearly nymph of Correggio invited the stranger's +eye as frankly as of old; Titian's young man with the glove was the +calm, self-contained gentleman I used to admire; the splashy Rubenses, +the pallid Guidos, the sunlit Claudes, the shadowy Poussins, the moonlit +Girardets, Géricault's terrible shipwreck of the Medusa, the exquisite +home pictures of Gerard Douw and Terburg,--all these and many more have +always been on exhibition in my ideal gallery, and I only mention them +as the first that happen to suggest themselves. The Museum of the Hôtel +Cluny is a curious receptacle of antiquities, many of which I looked at +with interest; but they made no lasting impression, and have gone into +the lumber-room of memory, from which accident may, from time to time, +drag out some few of them. + +After the poor unsatisfactory towers of Westminster Abbey, the two +massive, noble, truly majestic towers of Notre Dame strike the traveller +as a crushing contrast. It is not hard to see that one of these grand +towers is somewhat larger than the other, but the difference does not +interfere with the effect of the imposing front of the cathedral. + +I was much pleased to find that I could have entrance to the Sainte +Chapelle, which was used, at the time of my earlier visit, as a +storehouse of judicial archives, of which there was a vast accumulation. + +With the exception of my call at the office of the American Legation, I +made but a single visit to any person in Paris. That person was M. +Pasteur. I might have carried a letter to him, for my friend Mrs. +Priestley is well acquainted with him, but I had not thought of asking +for one. So I presented myself at his headquarters, and was admitted +into a courtyard, where a multitude of his patients were gathered. They +were of various ages and of many different nationalities, every one of +them with the vague terror hanging over him or her. Yet the young people +seemed to be cheerful enough, and very much like scholars out of school. +I sent my card in to M. Pasteur, who was busily engaged in writing, with +his clerks or students about him, and presently he came out and greeted +me. I told him I was an American physician, who wished to look in his +face and take his hand,--nothing more. I looked in his face, which was +that of a thoughtful, hard-worked student, a little past the grand +climacteric,--he was born in 1822. I took his hand, which has performed +some of the most delicate and daring experiments ever ventured upon, +with results of almost incalculable benefit to human industries, and the +promise of triumph in the treatment of human disease which prophecy +would not have dared to anticipate. I will not say that I have a full +belief that hydrophobia--in some respects the most terrible of all +diseases--is to be extirpated or rendered tractable by his method of +treatment. But of his inventive originality, his unconquerable +perseverance, his devotion to the good of mankind, there can be no +question. I look upon him as one of the greatest experimenters that ever +lived, one of the truest benefactors of his race; and if I made my due +obeisance before princes, I felt far more humble in the presence of this +great explorer, to whom the God of Nature has entrusted some of her most +precious secrets. + +There used to be--I can hardly think it still exists--a class of +persons who prided themselves on their disbelief in the reality of any +such distinct disease as hydrophobia. I never thought it worth while to +argue with them, for I have noticed that this disbelief is only a +special manifestation of a particular habit of mind. Its advocates will +be found, I think, most frequently among "the long-haired men and the +short-haired women." Many of them dispute the efficacy of vaccination. +Some are disciples of Hahnemann, some have full faith in the mind-cure, +some attend the séances where flowers (bought from the nearest florist) +are materialized, and some invest their money in Mrs. Howe's Bank of +Benevolence. Their tendency is to reject the truth which is generally +accepted, and to accept the improbable; if the impossible offers itself, +they deny the existence of the impossible. Argument with this class of +minds is a lever without a fulcrum. + +I was glad to leave that company of--patients, still uncertain of their +fate,--hoping, yet pursued by their terror: peasants bitten by mad +wolves in Siberia; women snapped at by their sulking lap-dogs in London; +children from over the water who had been turned upon by the irritable +Skye terrier; innocent victims torn by ill-conditioned curs at the doors +of the friends they were meaning to visit,--all haunted by the same +ghastly fear, all starting from sleep in the same nightmare. + +If canine rabies is a fearful subject to contemplate, there is a sadder +and deeper significance in _rabies humana_; in that awful madness +of the human race which is marked by a thirst for blood and a rage for +destruction. The remembrance of such a distemper which has attacked +mankind, especially mankind of the Parisian sub-species, came over me +very strongly when I first revisited the Place Vendôme. I should have +supposed that the last object upon which Parisians would, in their +wildest frenzy, have laid violent hands would have been the column with +the figure of Napoleon at its summit. We all know what happened in 1871. +An artist, we should have thought, would be the last person to lead the +iconoclasts in such an outrage. But M. Courbet has attained an +immortality like that of Erostratus by the part he took in pulling down +the column. It was restored in 1874. I do not question that the work of +restoration was well done, but my eyes insisted on finding a fault in +some of its lines which was probably in their own refracting media. +Fifty years before an artist helped to overthrow the monument to the +Emperor, a poet had apostrophized him in the bitterest satire since the +days of Juvenal:-- + + "Encor Napoléon! encor sa grande image! + Ah! que ce rude et dur guerrier + Nous a couté de sang et de pleurs et d'outrage + Pour quelques rameaux de laurier! + + * * * * * + + "Eh bien! dans tous ces jours d'abaissement, de peine, + Pour tous ces outrages sans nom, + Je n'ai jamais chargé qu'un être de ma haine,... + Sois maudit, O Napoléon!" + +After looking at the column of the Place Vendôme and recalling these +lines of Barbier, I was ready for a visit to the tomb of Napoleon. The +poet's curse had helped me to explain the painter's frenzy against the +bronze record of his achievements and the image at its summit. But I +forgot them both as I stood under the dome of the Invalides, and looked +upon the massive receptacle which holds the dust of the imperial exile. +Two things, at least, Napoleon accomplished: he opened the way for +ability of all kinds, and he dealt the death-blow to the divine right of +kings and all the abuses which clung to that superstition. If I brought +nothing else away from my visit to his mausoleum, I left it impressed +with what a man can be when fully equipped by nature, and placed in +circumstances where his forces can have full play. "How infinite in +faculty! ... in apprehension how like a god!" Such were my reflections; +very much, I suppose, like those of the average visitor, and too +obviously having nothing to require contradiction or comment. + +Paris as seen by the morning sun of three or four and twenty and Paris +in the twilight of the superfluous decade cannot be expected to look +exactly alike. I well remember my first breakfast at a Parisian café in +the spring of 1833. It was in the Place de la Bourse, on a beautiful +sunshiny morning. The coffee was nectar, the _flute_ was ambrosia, +the _brioche_ was more than good enough for the Olympians. Such an +experience could not repeat itself fifty years later. The first +restaurant at which we dined was in the Palais Royal. The place was hot +enough to cook an egg. Nothing was very excellent nor very bad; the wine +was not so good as they gave us at our hotel in London; the enchanter +had not waved his wand over our repast, as he did over my earlier one in +the Place de la Bourse, and I had not the slightest desire to pay the +garçon thrice his fee on the score of cherished associations. + +We dined at our hotel on some days, at different restaurants on others. +One day we dined, and dined well, at the old Café Anglais, famous in my +earlier times for its turbot. Another day we took our dinner at a very +celebrated restaurant on the boulevard. One sauce which was served us +was a gastronomic symphony, the harmonies of which were new to me and +pleasing. But I remember little else of superior excellence. The garçon +pocketed the franc I gave him with the air of having expected a +napoleon. + +Into the mysteries of a lady's shopping in Paris I would not venture to +inquire. But A---- and I strolled together through the Palais Royal in +the evening, and amused ourselves by staring at the glittering windows +without being severely tempted. Bond Street had exhausted our +susceptibility to the shop-window seduction, and the napoleons did not +burn in the pockets where the sovereigns had had time to cool. + +Nothing looked more nearly the same as of old than the bridges. The Pont +Neuf did not seem to me altered, though we had read in the papers that +it was in ruins or seriously injured in consequence of a great flood. +The statues had been removed from the Pont Royal, one or two new bridges +had been built, but all was natural enough, and I was tempted to look +for the old woman, at the end of the Pont des Arts, who used to sell me +a bunch of violets, for two or three sous,--such as would cost me a +quarter of a dollar in Boston. I did not see the three objects which a +popular saying alleges are always to be met on the Pont Neuf: a priest, +a soldier, and a white horse. + +The weather was hot; we were tired, and did not care to go to the +theatres, if any of them were open. The pleasantest hours were those of +our afternoon drive in the Champs Elysées and the Bois de Boulogne,--or +"the Boulogne Woods," as our American tailor's wife of the old time +called the favorite place for driving. In passing the Place de la +Concorde, two objects in especial attracted my attention,--the obelisk, +which was lying, when I left it, in the great boat which brought it from +the Nile, and the statue of Strasbourg, all covered with wreaths and +flags. How like children these Parisians do act; crying "À Berlin, à +Berlin!" and when Berlin comes to Paris, and Strasbourg goes back to her +old proprietors, instead of taking it quietly, making all this parade of +patriotic symbols, the display of which belongs to victory rather than +to defeat! + +I was surprised to find the trees in the Bois de Boulogne so well grown: +I had an idea that they had been largely sacrificed in the time of the +siege. Among the objects which deserve special mention are the shrieking +parrots and other birds and the yelping dogs in the grounds of the +Society of Acclimatization,--out of the range of which the visitor will +be glad to get as soon as possible. A fountain visited by newly married +couples and their friends, with a restaurant near by, where the bridal +party drink the health of the newly married pair, was an object of +curiosity. An unsteadiness of gait was obvious in some of the feasters. +At one point in the middle of the road a maenad was flinging her arms +about and shrieking as if she were just escaped from a madhouse. But the +drive in the Bois was what made Paris tolerable. There were few fine +equipages, and few distinguished-looking people in the carriages, but +there were quiet groups by the wayside, seeming happy enough; and now +and then a pretty face or a wonderful bonnet gave variety to the +somewhat _bourgeois_ character of the procession of fiacres. + +[Illustration: Place de la Concorde] + +I suppose I ought to form no opinion at all about the aspect of Paris, +any more than I should of an oyster in a month without an _r_ in +it. We were neither of us in the best mood for sight-seeing, and Paris +was not sitting up for company; in fact, she was "not at home." +Remembering all this, I must say that the whole appearance of the city +was dull and dreary. London out of season seemed still full of life; +Paris out of season looked vacuous and torpid. The recollection of the +sorrow, the humiliation, the shame, and the agony she had passed through +since I left her picking her way on the arm of the Citizen King, with +his old _riflard_ over her, rose before me sadly, ominously, as I +looked upon the high board fence which surrounded the ruins of the +Tuileries. I can understand the impulse which led the red caps to make a +wreck of this grand old historical building. "Pull down the nest," they +said, "and the birds will not come back." But I shudder when I think +what "the red fool-fury of the Seine" has done and is believed capable +of doing. I think nothing has so profoundly impressed me as the story of +the precautions taken to preserve the Venus of Milo from the brutal +hands of the mob. A little more violent access of fury, a little more +fiery declamation, a few more bottles of _vin bleu_, and the +Gallery of the Louvre, with all its treasures of art, compared with +which the crown jewels just sold are but pretty pebbles, the market +price of which fairly enough expresses their value,--much more, rather, +than their true value,--that noble gallery, with all its masterpieces +from the hands of Greek sculptors and Italian painters, would have been +changed in a single night into a heap of blackened stones and a pile of +smoking cinders. + +I love to think that now that the people have, or at least think they +have, the power in their own hands, they will outgrow this form of +madness, which is almost entitled to the name of a Parisian endemic. +Everything looked peaceable and stupid enough during the week I passed +in Paris. But among all the fossils which Cuvier found in the Parisian +basin, nothing was more monstrous than the _poissardes_ of the old +Revolution, or the _pétroleuses_ of the recent Commune, and I fear +that the breed is not extinct. An American comes to like Paris as warmly +as he comes to love England, after living in it long enough to become +accustomed to its ways, and I, like the rest of my countrymen who +remember that France was our friend in the hour of need, who remember +all the privileges and enjoyments she has freely offered us, who feel +that as a sister republic her destinies are of the deepest interest to +us, can have no other wish than for her continued safety, order, and +prosperity. + +We returned to London on the 13th of August by the same route we had +followed in going from London to Paris. Our passage was rough, as +compared to the former one, and some of the passengers were seasick. We +were both fortunate enough to escape that trial of comfort and +self-respect. + +I can hardly separate the story of the following week from that of the +one before we went to Paris. We did a little more shopping and saw a few +more sights. I hope that no reader of mine would suppose that I would +leave London without seeing Madame Tussaud's exhibition. Our afternoon +drives made us familiar with many objects which I always looked upon +with pleasure. There was the obelisk, brought from Egypt at the expense +of a distinguished and successful medical practitioner, Sir Erasmus +Wilson, the eminent dermatologist and author of a manual of anatomy +which for many years was my favorite text-book. There was "The +Monument," which characterizes itself by having no prefix to its generic +name. I enjoyed looking at and driving round it, and thinking over +Pepys's lively account of the Great Fire, and speculating as to where +Pudding Lane and Pie Corner stood, and recalling Pope's lines which I +used to read at school, wondering what was the meaning of the second +one:-- + + "Where London's column, pointing to the skies + Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies." + +The week passed away rapidly enough, and we made ready for our +departure. It was no easy matter to get a passage home, but we had at +last settled it that we would return in the same vessel in which we had +at first engaged our passage to Liverpool, the Catalonia. But we were +fortunate enough to have found an active and efficient friend in our +townsman, Mr. Montgomery Sears, who procured staterooms for us in a much +swifter vessel, to sail on the 21st for New York, the Aurania. + +Our last visitor in London was the faithful friend who had been the +first to welcome us, Lady Harcourt, in whose kind attentions I felt the +warmth of my old friendship with her admired and honored father and her +greatly beloved mother. I had recently visited their place of rest in +the Kensal Green Cemetery, recalling with tenderest emotions the many +years in which I had enjoyed their companionship. + +On the 19th of August we left London for Liverpool, and on our arrival +took lodgings at the Adelphi Hotel. + +The kindness with which I had been welcomed, when I first arrived at +Liverpool, had left a deep impression upon my mind. It seemed very +ungrateful to leave that noble city, which had met me in some of its +most esteemed representatives with a warm grasp of the hand even before +my foot had touched English soil, without staying to thank my new +friends, who would have it that they were old friends. But I was +entirely unfit for enjoying any company when I landed. I took care, +therefore, to allow sufficient time in Liverpool, before sailing for +home, to meet such friends, old and recent, as cared to make or renew +acquaintance with me. In the afternoon of the 20th we held a reception, +at which a hundred visitors, more or less, presented themselves, and we +had a very sociable hour or two together. The Vice-Consul, Mr. Sewall, +in the enforced absence of his principal, Mr. Russell, paid us every +attention, and was very agreeable. In the evening I was entertained at a +great banquet given by the Philomathean Society. This flourishing +institution enrolls among its members a large proportion of the most +cultivated and intelligent gentlemen of Liverpool. I enjoyed the meeting +very highly, listened to pleasant things which were said about myself, +and answered in the unpremeditated words which came to my lips and were +cordially received. I could have wished to see more of Liverpool, but I +found time only to visit the great exhibition, then open. The one class +of objects which captivated my attention was the magnificent series of +models of steamboats and other vessels. I did not look upon them with +the eye of an expert, but the great number and variety of these +beautiful miniature ships and boats excited my admiration. + +On the 21st of August we went on board the Aurania. Everything was done +to make us comfortable. Many old acquaintances, friends, and family +connections were our fellow-passengers. As for myself, I passed through +the same trying experiences as those which I have recorded as +characterizing my outward passage. Our greatest trouble during the +passage was from fog. The frequency of collisions, of late years, tends +to make everybody nervous when they hear the fog-whistle shrieking. This +sound and the sight of the boats are not good for timid people. +Fortunately, no one was particularly excitable, or if so, no one +betrayed any special uneasiness. + +On the evening of the 27th we had an entertainment, in which Miss +Kellogg sang and I read several poems. A very pretty sum was realized +for some charity,--I forget what,--and the affair was voted highly +successful. The next day, the 28th, we were creeping towards our harbor +through one of those dense fogs which are more dangerous than the old +rocks of the sirens, or Scylla and Charybdis, or the much-lied-about +maelstrom. + +On Sunday, the 29th of August, my birthday, we arrived in New York. In +these days of birthday-books our chronology is not a matter of secret +history, in case we have been much before the public. I found a great +cake had been made ready for me, in which the number of my summers was +represented by a ring of raisins which made me feel like Methuselah. A +beautiful bouquet which had been miraculously preserved for the occasion +was for the first time displayed. It came from Dr. Beach, of Boston, +_via_ London. Such is the story, and I can only suppose that the +sweet little cherub who sits up aloft had taken special charge of it, or +it would have long ago withered. + +We slept at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which we found fresh, sweet, +bright,--it must have been recently rejuvenated, I thought. The next day +we took the train for New Haven, Springfield, and Boston, and that night +slept in our own beds, thankful to find ourselves safe at home after our +summer excursion, which had brought us so many experiences delightful to +remember, so many friendships which have made life better worth living. + +In the following section I shall give some of the general impressions +which this excursion has left in my memory, and a few suggestions +derived from them. + + + + +VIII. + + +My reader was fairly forewarned that this narrative was to be more like +a chapter of autobiography than the record of a tourist. In the language +of philosophy, it is written from a subjective, not an objective, point +of view. It is not exactly a "Sentimental Journey," though there are +warm passages here and there which end with notes of admiration. I +remind myself now and then of certain other travellers: of Benjamin of +Tudela, going from the hospitalities of one son of Abraham to another; +of John Buncle, finding the loveliest of women under every roof that +sheltered him; sometimes, perhaps, of that tipsy rhymester whose record +of his good and bad fortunes at the hands of landlords and landladies is +enlivened by an occasional touch of humor, which makes it palatable to +coarse literary feeders. But in truth these papers have many of the +characteristics of private letters written home to friends. They +_are_ written for friends, rather than for a public which cares +nothing about the writer. I knew that there were many such whom it would +please to know where the writer went, whom he saw and what he saw, and +how he was impressed by persons and things. + +If I were planning to make a tour of the United Kingdom, and could +command the service of all the wise men I count or have counted among my +friends, I would go with such a retinue summoned from the ranks of the +living and the dead as no prince ever carried with him. I would ask Mr. +Lowell to go with me among scholars, where I could be a listener; Mr. +Norton to visit the cathedrals with me; Professor Gray to be my +botanical oracle; Professor Agassiz to be always ready to answer +questions about the geological strata and their fossils; Dr. Jeffries +Wyman to point out and interpret the common objects which present +themselves to a sharp-eyed observer; and Mr. Boyd Dawkins to pilot me +among the caves and cairns. Then I should want a better pair of eyes and +a better pair of ears, and, while I was reorganizing, perhaps a quicker +apprehension and a more retentive memory; in short, a new outfit, bodily +and mental. But Nature does not care to mend old shoes; she prefers a +new pair, and a young person to stand in them. + +What a great book one could make, with such aids, and how many would +fling it down, and take up anything in preference, provided only that it +were short enough; even this slight record, for want of something +shorter! + +Not only did I feel sure that many friends would like to read our +itinerary, but another motive prompted me to tell the simple story of +our travels. I could not receive such kindness, so great evidences of +friendly regard, without a strong desire, amounting to a positive +necessity, for the expression of my grateful sense of all that had been +done for us. Individually, I felt it, of course, as a most pleasing +experience. But I believed it to have a more important significance as +an illustration of the cordial feeling existing between England and +America. I know that many of my countrymen felt the attentions paid to +me as if they themselves shared them with me. I have lived through many +strata of feeling in America towards England. My parents, full-blooded +Americans, were both born subjects of King George III. Both learned in +their early years to look upon Britons as the enemies of their country. +A good deal of the old hostility lingered through my boyhood, and this +was largely intensified by the war of 1812. After nearly half a century +this feeling had in great measure subsided, when the War of Secession +called forth expressions of sympathy with the slaveholding States which +surprised, shocked, and deeply wounded the lovers of liberty and of +England in the Northern States. A new generation is outgrowing that +alienation. More and more the older and younger nations are getting to +be proud and really fond of each other. There is no shorter road to a +mother's heart than to speak pleasantly to her child, and caress it, and +call it pretty names. No matter whether the child is something +remarkable or not, it is _her_ child, and that is enough. It may be +made too much of, but that is not its mother's fault. If I could believe +that every attention paid me was due simply to my being an American, I +should feel honored and happy in being one of the humbler media through +which the good-will of a great and generous country reached the heart of +a far-off people not always in friendly relations with her. + +I have named many of the friends who did everything to make our stay in +England and Scotland agreeable. The unforeseen shortening of my visit +must account for many disappointments to myself, and some, it may be, to +others. + +First in the list of lost opportunities was that of making my bow to the +Queen. I had the honor of receiving a card with the invitation to meet +Her Majesty at a garden-party, but we were travelling when it was sent, +and it arrived too late. + +I was very sorry not to meet Mr. Ruskin, to whom Mr. Norton had given me +a note of introduction. At the time when we were hoping to see him it +was thought that he was too ill to receive visitors, but he has since +written me that he regretted we did not carry out our intention. I +lamented my being too late to see once more two gentlemen from whom I +should have been sure of a kind welcome,--Lord Houghton and Dean +Stanley, both of whom I had met in Boston. Even if I had stayed out the +whole time I had intended to remain abroad, I should undoubtedly have +failed to see many persons and many places that I must always feel sorry +for having missed. But as it is, I will not try to count all that I +lost; let me rather be thankful that I met so many friends whom it was a +pleasure to know personally, and saw so much that it is a pleasure to +remember. + +I find that many of the places I most wish to see are those associated +with the memory of some individual, generally one of the generations +more or less in advance of my own. One of the first places I should go +to, in a leisurely tour, would be Selborne. Gilbert White was not a +poet, neither was he a great systematic naturalist. But he used his eyes +on the world about him; he found occupation and happiness in his daily +walks, and won as large a measure of immortality within the confines of +his little village as he could have gained in exploring the sources of +the Nile. I should make a solemn pilgrimage to the little town of Eyam, +in Derbyshire, where the Reverend Mr. Mompesson, the hero of the plague +of 1665, and his wife, its heroine and its victim, lie buried. I should +like to follow the traces of Cowper at Olney and of Bunyan at Elstow. I +found an intense interest in the Reverend Mr. Alger's account of his +visit to the Vale of Llangollen, where Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss +Ponsonby passed their peaceful days in long, uninterrupted friendship. +Of course the haunts of Burns, the home of Scott, the whole region made +sacred by Wordsworth and the group to which he belongs would be so many +shrines to which I should make pilgrimages. + +I own, also, to having something of the melodramatic taste so notable in +Victor Hugo. I admired the noble façade of Wells cathedral and the grand +old episcopal palace, but I begged the bishop to show me the place where +his predecessor, Bishop Kidder, and his wife, were killed by the falling +chimney in the "Great Storm."--I wanted to go to Devizes, and see the +monument in the market-place, where Ruth Pierce was struck dead with a +lie in her mouth,--about all which I had read in early boyhood. I +contented myself with a photograph of it which my friend, Mr. Willett, +went to Devizes and bought for me. + +There are twenty different Englands, every one of which it would be a +delight to visit, and I should hardly know with which of them to begin. + +The few remarks I have to make on what I saw and heard have nothing +beyond the value of first impressions; but as I have already said, if +these are simply given, without pretending to be anything more, they are +not worthless. At least they can do little harm, and may sometimes amuse +a reader whom they fail to instruct. But we must all beware of hasty +conclusions. If a foreigner of limited intelligence were whirled through +England on the railways, he would naturally come to the conclusion that +the chief product of that country is _mustard_, and that its most +celebrated people are Mr. Keen and Mr. Colman, whose great advertising +boards, yellow letters on a black ground, and black letters on a yellow +ground, stare the traveller in the face at every station. + +Of the climate, as I knew it in May and the summer months, I will only +say that if I had any illusions about May and June in England, my +fireplace would have been ample evidence that I was entirely +disenchanted. The Derby day, the 26th of May, was most chilly and +uncomfortable; at the garden-party at Kensington Palace, on the 4th of +June, it was cold enough to make hot drinks and warm wraps a comfort, if +not a necessity. I was thankful to have passed through these two ordeals +without ill consequences. Drizzly, or damp, or cold, cloudy days were +the rule rather than the exception, while we were in London. We had some +few hot days, especially at Stratford, in the early part of July. In +London an umbrella is as often carried as a cane; in Paris _"un homme +à para-pluie"_ is, or used to be, supposed to carry that useful +article because he does not keep and cannot hire a carriage of some +sort. He may therefore be safely considered a person, and not a +personage. + +The soil of England does not seem to be worn out, to judge by the +wonderful verdure and the luxuriance of vegetation. It contains a great +museum of geological specimens, and a series of historical strata which +are among the most instructive of human records. I do not pretend to +much knowledge of geology. The most interesting geological objects in +our New England that I can think of are the great boulders and the +scratched and smoothed surface of the rocks; the fossil footprints in +the valley of the Connecticut; the trilobites found at Quincy. But the +readers of Hugh Miller remember what a variety of fossils he found in +the stratified rocks of his little island, and the museums are full of +just such objects. When it comes to underground historical relics, the +poverty of New England as compared with the wealth of Old England is +very striking. Stratum after stratum carries the explorer through the +relics of successive invaders. After passing through the characteristic +traces of different peoples, he comes upon a Roman pavement, and below +this the weapons and ornaments of a tribe of ancient Britons. One cannot +strike a spade into the earth, in Great Britain, without a fair chance +of some surprise in the form of a Saxon coin, or a Celtic implement, or +a Roman fibula. Nobody expects any such pleasing surprise in a New +England field. One must be content with an Indian arrowhead or two, now +and then a pestle and mortar, or a stone pipe. A top dressing of +antiquity is all he can look for. The soil is not humanized enough to be +interesting; whereas in England so much of it has been trodden by human +feet, built on in the form of human habitations, nay, has been itself a +part of preceding generations of human beings, that it is in a kind of +dumb sympathy with those who tread its turf. Perhaps it is not literally +true that + + One half her soil has walked the rest + In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages; + +but so many of all these lie within it that the whole mother island is a +_campo santo_ to all who can claim the same blood as that which +runs in the veins of her unweaned children. + +The flora and fauna of a country, as seen from railroad trains and +carriages, are not likely to be very accurately or exhaustively studied. +I spoke of the trees I noticed between Chester and London somewhat +slightingly. But I did not form any hasty opinions from what happened to +catch my eye. Afterwards, in the oaks and elms of Windsor Park, in the +elms of Cambridge and Oxford and Salisbury, in the lindens of Stratford, +in the various noble trees, including the cedar of Lebanon, in which +Tennyson very justly felt a pride as their owner, I saw enough to make +me glad that I had not uttered any rash generalizations on the strength +of my first glance. The most interesting comparison I made was between +the New England and the Old England elms. It is not necessary to cross +the ocean to do this, as we have both varieties growing side by side in +our parks,--on Boston Common, for instance. It is wonderful to note how +people will lie about big trees. There must be as many as a dozen trees, +each of which calls itself the "largest elm in New England." In my +younger days, when I never travelled without a measuring-tape in my +pocket, it amused me to see how meek one of the great swaggering elms +would look when it saw the fatal measure begin to unreel itself. It +seemed to me that the leaves actually trembled as the inexorable band +encircled the trunk in _the smallest place it could find_, which is +the only safe rule. The English elm (_Ulmus campestris_) as we see +it in Boston comes out a little earlier perhaps, than our own, but the +difference is slight. It holds its leaves long after our elms are bare. +It grows upward, with abundant dark foliage, while ours spreads, +sometimes a hundred and twenty feet, and often droops like a weeping +willow. The English elm looks like a much more robust tree than ours, +yet they tell me it is very fragile, and that its limbs are constantly +breaking off in high winds, just as happens with our native elms. Ours +is not a very long-lived tree; between two and three hundred years is, I +think, the longest life that can be hoped for it. Since I have heard of +the fragility of the English elm, which is the fatal fault of our own, I +have questioned whether it can claim a greater longevity than ours. +There is a hint of a typical difference in the American and the +Englishman which I have long recognized in the two elms as compared to +each other. It may be fanciful, but I have thought that the compactness +and robustness about the English elm, which are replaced by the long, +tapering limbs and willowy grace and far-spreading reach of our own, +might find a certain parallelism in the people, especially the females +of the two countries. + +I saw no horse-chestnut trees equal to those I remember in Salem, and +especially to one in Rockport, which is the largest and finest I have +ever seen; no willows like those I pass in my daily drives. + +On the other hand, I think I never looked upon a Lombardy poplar equal +to one I saw in Cambridge, England. This tree seems to flourish in +England much more than with us. + +I do not remember any remarkable beeches, though there are some very +famous ones, especially the Burnham beeches. + +No apple-trees I saw in England compare with one next my own door, and +there are many others as fine in the neighborhood. + +I have spoken of the pleasure I had in seeing by the roadside primroses, +cowslips, and daisies. Dandelions, buttercups, hawkweed looked much as +ours do at home. Wild roses also grew at the roadside,--smaller and +paler, I thought, than ours. + +I cannot make a chapter like the famous one on Iceland, from my own +limited observation: _There are no snakes in England._ I can say +that I found two small caterpillars on my overcoat, in coming from Lord +Tennyson's grounds. If they had stayed on his premises, they might +perhaps have developed into "purple emperors," or spread "the tiger +moth's deep damasked wings" before the enraptured eyes of the noble +poet. These two caterpillars and a few house-flies are all I saw, heard, +or felt, by day or night, of the native fauna of England, except a few +birds,--rooks, starlings, a blackbird, and the larks of Salisbury Plain +just as they rose; for I lost sight of them almost immediately. I +neither heard nor saw the nightingales, to my great regret. They had +been singing at Oxford a short time before my visit to that place. The +only song I heard was that which I have mentioned, the double note of +the cuckoo. + +England is the paradise of horses. They are bred, fed, trained, groomed, +housed, cared for, in a way to remind one of the Houyhnhnms, and +strikingly contrasting with the conditions of life among the wretched +classes whose existence is hardly more tolerable than that of those +_quasi_-human beings under whose name it pleased the fierce +satirist to degrade humanity. The horses that are driven in the hansoms +of London are the best I have seen in any public conveyance. I cannot +say as much of those in the four-wheelers. + +Broad streets, sometimes, as in Bond Street, with narrow sidewalks; +_islands_ for refuge in the middle of many of them; deep areas; +lofty houses; high walls; plants in the windows; frequent open spaces; +policemen at near intervals, always polite in my experience,--such are +my recollections of the quarter I most frequented. + +Are the English taller, stouter, lustier, ruddier, healthier, than our +New England people? If I gave my impression, I should say that they are. +Among the wealthier class, tall, athletic-looking men and stately, +well-developed women are more common, I am compelled to think, than with +us. I met in company at different times five gentlemen, each of whom +would be conspicuous in any crowd for his stature and proportions. We +could match their proportions, however, in the persons of well-known +Bostonians. To see how it was with other classes, I walked in the Strand +one Sunday, and noted carefully the men and women I met. I was surprised +to see how many of both sexes were of low stature. I counted in the +course of a few minutes' walk no less than twenty of these little +people. I set this experience against the other. Neither is convincing. +The anthropologists will settle the question of man in the Old and in +the New World before many decades have passed. + +In walking the fashionable streets of London one can hardly fail to be +struck with the well-dressed look of gentlemen of all ages. The special +point in which the Londoner excels all other citizens I am conversant +with is the hat. I have not forgotten Béranger's + + "_Quoique leurs chapeaux soient bien laids_ + *** ***! moi, j'aime les Anglais;" + +but in spite of it I believe in the English hat as the best thing of its +ugly kind. As for the Englishman's feeling with reference to it, a +foreigner might be pardoned for thinking it was his fetich, a North +American Indian for looking at it as taking the place of his own +medicine-bag. It is a common thing for the Englishman to say his prayers +into it, as he sits down in his pew. Can it be that this imparts a +religious character to the article? However this may be, the true +Londoner's hat is cared for as reverentially as a High-Church altar. Far +off its coming shines. I was always impressed by the fact that even with +us a well-bred gentleman in reduced circumstances never forgets to keep +his beaver well brushed, and I remember that long ago I spoke of the hat +as the _ultimum moriens_ of what we used to call gentility,--the +last thing to perish in the decay of a gentleman's outfit. His hat is as +sacred to an Englishman as his beard to a Mussulman. + + * * * * * + +In looking at the churches and the monuments which I saw in London and +elsewhere in England, certain resemblances, comparisons, parallels, +contrasts, and suggestions obtruded themselves upon my consciousness. We +have one steeple in Boston which to my eyes seems absolutely perfect: +that of the Central Church, at the corner of Newbury and Berkeley +streets. Its resemblance to the spire of Salisbury had always struck me. +On mentioning this to the late Mr. Richardson, the very distinguished +architect, he said to me that he thought it more nearly like that of the +Cathedral of Chartres. One of our best living architects agreed with me +as to its similarity to that of Salisbury. It does not copy either +exactly, but, if it had twice its actual dimensions, would compare well +with the best of the two, if one is better than the other. +Saint-Martin's-in-the-Fields made me feel as if I were in Boston. Our +Arlington Street Church copies it pretty closely, but Mr. Gilman left +out the columns. I could not admire the Nelson Column, nor that which +lends monumental distinction to the Duke of York. After Trajan's and +that of the Place Vendôme, each of which is a permanent and precious +historical record, accounting sufficiently for its existence, there is +something very unsatisfactory in these nude cylinders. That to the Duke +of York might well have the confession of the needy knife grinder as an +inscription on its base. I confess in all honesty that I vastly prefer +the monument commemorating the fire to either of them. That _has_ a +story to tell and tells it,--with a lie or two added, according to Pope, +but it tells it in language and symbol. + +As for the kind of monument such as I see from my library window +standing on the summit of Bunker Hill, and have recently seen for the +first time at Washington, on a larger scale, I own that I think a +built-up obelisk a poor affair as compared with an Egyptian monolith of +the same form. It was a triumph of skill to quarry, to shape, to +transport, to cover with expressive symbols, to erect, such a stone as +that which has been transferred to the Thames Embankment, or that which +now stands in Central Park, New York. Each of its four sides is a page +of history, written so as to endure through scores of centuries. A +built-up obelisk requires very little more than brute labor. A child can +shape its model from a carrot or a parsnip, and set it up in miniature +with blocks of loaf sugar. It teaches nothing, and the stranger must go +to his guide-book to know what it is there for. I was led into many +reflections by a sight of the Washington Monument. I found that it was +almost the same thing at a mile's distance as the Bunker Hill Monument +at half a mile's distance; and unless the eye had some means of +measuring the space between itself and the stone shaft, one was about as +good as the other. A mound like that of Marathon or that at Waterloo, a +cairn, even a shaft of the most durable form and material, are fit +memorials of the place where a great battle was fought. They seem less +appropriate as monuments to individuals. I doubt the durability of these +piecemeal obelisks, and when I think of that vast inverted pendulum +vibrating in an earthquake, I am glad that I do not live in its shadow. +The Washington Monument is more than a hundred feet higher than +Salisbury steeple, but it does not look to me so high as that, because +the mind has nothing to climb by. But the forming taste of the country +revels in superlatives, and if we could only have the deepest artesian +well in the world sunk by the side of the tallest column in all +creation, the admiring, not overcritical patriot would be happier than +ever was the Athenian when he looked up at the newly erected Parthenon. + +I made a few miscellaneous observations which may be worth recording. +One of these was the fact of the repetition of the types of men and +women with which I was familiar at home. Every now and then I met a new +acquaintance whom I felt that I had seen before. Presently I identified +him with his double on the other side. I had found long ago that even +among Frenchmen I often fell in with persons whose counterparts I had +known in America. I began to feel as if Nature turned out a batch of +human beings for every locality of any importance, very much as a +workman makes a set of chessmen. If I had lived a little longer in +London, I am confident that I should have met myself, as I did actually +meet so many others who were duplicates of those long known to me. + +I met Mr. Galton for a few moments, but I had no long conversation with +him. If he should ask me to say how many faces I can visually recall, I +should have to own that there are very few such. The two pictures which +I have already referred to, those of Erasmus and of Dr. Johnson, come up +more distinctly before my mind's eye than almost any faces of the +living. My mental retina has, I fear, lost much of its sensitiveness. +Long and repeated exposure of an object of any kind, in a strong light, +is necessary to fix its image. + + * * * * * + +Among the gratifications that awaited me in England and Scotland was +that of meeting many before unseen friends with whom I had been in +correspondence. I have spoken of Mr. John Bellows. I should have been +glad to meet Mr. William Smith, the Yorkshire antiquary, who has sent me +many of his antiquarian and biographical writings and publications. I do +not think I saw Mr. David Gilmour, of Paisley, whose "Paisley Folk" and +other writings have given me great pleasure. But I did have the +satisfaction of meeting Professor Gairdner, of Glasgow, to whose +writings my attention was first called by my revered instructor, the +late Dr. James Jackson, and with whom I had occasionally corresponded. I +ought to have met Dr. Martineau. I should have visited the Reverend +Stopford Brooke, who could have told me much that I should have liked to +hear of dear friends of mine, of whom he saw a great deal in their hours +of trial. The Reverend Mr. Voysey, whose fearless rationalism can hardly +give him popularity among the conservative people I saw most of, paid me +the compliment of calling, as he had often done of sending me his +published papers. Now and then some less known correspondent would +reveal himself or herself in bodily presence. Let most authors beware of +showing themselves to those who have idealized them, and let readers not +be too anxious to see in the flesh those whom they have idealized. When +I was a boy, I read Miss Edgeworth's "L'Amie Inconnue." I have learned +to appreciate its meaning in later years by abundant experiences, and I +have often felt unwilling to substitute my real for my imaginary +presence. I will add here that I must have met a considerable number of +persons, in the crowd at our reception and elsewhere, whose names I +failed to hear, and whom I consequently did not recognize as the authors +of books I had read, or of letters I had received. The story of my +experience with the lark accounts for a good deal of what seemed like +negligence or forgetfulness, and which must be, not pardoned, but sighed +over. + +I visited several of the well-known clubs, either by special invitation, +or accompanied by a member. The Athenaeum was particularly attentive, +but I was unable to avail myself of the privileges it laid freely open +before me during my stay in London. Other clubs I looked in upon were: +the Reform Club, where I had the pleasure of dining at a large party +given by the very distinguished Dr. Morell Mackenzie; the Rabelais, of +which, as I before related, I have been long a member, and which was one +of the first places where I dined; the Saville; the Savage; the St. +George's. I saw next to nothing of the proper club-life of London, but +it seemed to me that the Athenaeum must be a very desirable place of +resort to the educated Londoner, and no doubt each of the many +institutions of this kind with which London abounds has its special +attractions. + +My obligations to my brethren of the medical profession are too numerous +to be mentioned in detail. Almost the first visit I paid was one to my +old friend and fellow-student in Paris, Dr. Walter Hayle Walshe. After +more than half a century's separation, two young friends, now old +friends, must not expect to find each other just the same as when they +parted. Dr. Walshe thought he should have known me; my eyes are not so +good as his, and I would not answer for them and for my memory. That he +should have dedicated his recent original and ingenious work to me, +before I had thought of visiting England, was a most gratifying +circumstance. I have mentioned the hospitalities extended to me by +various distinguished members of the medical profession, but I have not +before referred to the readiness with which, on all occasions, when +professional advice was needed, it was always given with more than +willingness, rather as if it were a pleasure to give it. I could not +have accepted such favors as I received had I not remembered that I, in +my time, had given my services freely for the benefit of those of my own +calling. If I refer to two names among many, it is for special reasons. +Dr. Wilson Fox, the distinguished and widely known practitioner, who +showed us great kindness, has since died, and this passing tribute is +due to his memory. I have before spoken of the exceptional favor we owed +to Dr. and Mrs. Priestley. It enabled us to leave London feeling that we +had tried, at least, to show our grateful sense of all the attentions +bestowed upon us. If there were any whom we overlooked, among the guests +we wished to honor, all such accidental omissions will be pardoned, I +feel sure, by those who know how great and bewildering is the pressure +of social life in London. + +I was, no doubt, often more or less confused, in my perceptions, by the +large number of persons whom I met in society. I found the +dinner-parties, as Mr. Lowell told me I should, very much like the same +entertainments among my home acquaintances. I have not the gift of +silence, and I am not a bad listener, yet I brought away next to nothing +from dinner-parties where I had said and heard enough to fill out a +magazine article. After I was introduced to a lady, the conversation +frequently began somewhat in this way:-- + +"It is a long time since you have been in this country, I believe?" + +"It is a _very_ long time: fifty years and more." + +"You find great changes in London, of course, I suppose?" + +"Not so great as you might think. The Tower is where I left it. The +Abbey is much as I remember it. Northumberland House with its lion is +gone, but Charing Cross is in the same old place. My attention is drawn +especially to the things which have not changed,--those which I +remember." + +That stream was quickly dried up. Conversation soon found other springs. +I never knew the talk to get heated or noisy. Religion and politics +rarely came up, and never in any controversial way. The bitterest +politician I met at table was a quadruped,--a lady's dog,--who refused a +desirable morsel offered him in the name of Mr. Gladstone, but snapped +up another instantly on being told that it came from Queen Victoria. I +recall many pleasant and some delightful talks at the dinner-table; one +in particular, with the most charming woman in England. I wonder if she +remembers how very lovely and agreeable she was? Possibly she may be +able to identify herself. + +People--the right kind of people--meet at a dinner-party as two ships +meet and pass each other at sea. They exchange a few signals; ask each +other's reckoning, where from, where bound; perhaps one supplies the +other with a little food or a few dainties; then they part, to see each +other no more. But one or both may remember the hour passed together all +their days, just as I recollect our brief parley with the brig +Economist, of Leith, from Sierra Leone, in mid ocean, in the spring of +1833. + +I am very far from despising the science of gastronomy, but if I wished +to institute a comparison between the tables of England and America, I +could not do it without eating my way through the four seasons. I will +say that I did not think the bread from the bakers' shops was so good as +our own. It was very generally tough and hard, and even the muffins were +not always so tender and delicate as they ought to be. I got impatient +one day, and sent out for some biscuits. They brought some very +excellent ones, which we much preferred to the tough bread. They proved +to be the so-called "seafoam" biscuit from New York. The potatoes never +came on the table looking like new fallen snow, as we have them at home. +We were surprised to find both mutton and beef overdone, according to +our American taste. The French talk about the Briton's "_bifteck +saignant_," but we never saw anything cooked so as to be, as we +should say, "rare." The tart is national with the English, as the pie is +national with us. I never saw on an English table that excellent +substitute for both, called the Washington pie, in memory of him whom we +honor as first in pies, as well as in war and in the hearts of his +countrymen. + +The truth is that I gave very little thought to the things set before +me, in the excitement of constantly changing agreeable companionship. I +understand perfectly the feeling of the good liver in Punch, who +suggests to the lady next him that their host has one of the best cooks +in London, and that it might therefore be well to defer all conversation +until they adjourned to the drawing-room. I preferred the conversation, +and adjourned, indefinitely, the careful appreciation of the +_menu_. I think if I could devote a year to it, I might be able to +make out a graduated scale of articles of food, taking a well-boiled +fresh egg as the unit of gastronomic value, but I leave this scientific +task to some future observer. + +The most remarkable piece of European handiwork I remember was the steel +chair at Longford Castle. The most startling and frightful work of man I +ever saw or expect to see was another specimen of work in steel, said to +have been taken from one of the infernal chambers of the Spanish +Inquisition. It was a complex mechanism, which grasped the body and the +head of the heretic or other victim, and by means of many ingeniously +arranged screws and levers was capable of pressing, stretching, +piercing, rending, crushing, all the most sensitive portions of the +human body, one at a time or many at once. The famous Virgin, whose +embrace drove a hundred knives into the body of the poor wretch she took +in her arms, was an angel of mercy compared to this masterpiece of +devilish enginery. + +Ingenuity is much better shown in contrivances for making our daily life +more comfortable. I was on the lookout for everything that promised to +be a convenience. I carried out two things which seemed to be new to the +Londoners: the Star Razor, which I have praised so freely, and still +find equal to all my commendations; and the mucilage pencil, which is a +very handy implement to keep on the writer's desk or table. I found a +contrivance for protecting the hand in drawing corks, which all who are +their own butlers will appreciate, and luminous match-boxes which really +shine brightly in the dark, and that after a year's usage; whereas one +professing to shine by night, which I bought in Boston, is only visible +by borrowed light. I wanted a very fine-grained hone, and inquired for +it at a hardware store, where they kept everything in their line of the +best quality. I brought away a very pretty but very small stone, for +which I paid a large price. The stone was from Arkansas, and I need not +have bought in London what would have been easily obtained at a dozen or +more stores in Boston. It was a renewal of my experience with the +seafoam biscuit. "Know thyself" and the things about thee, and "Take the +good the gods provide thee," if thou wilt only keep thine eyes open, are +two safe precepts. + +Who is there of English descent among us that does not feel with Cowper, + + "England, with all thy faults, I love thee still"? + +Our recently naturalized fellow-citizens, of a different blood and +different religion, must not suppose that we are going to forget our +inborn love for the mother to whom we owe our being. Protestant England +and Protestant America are coming nearer and nearer to each other every +year. The interchange of the two peoples is more and more frequent, and +there are many reasons why it is likely to continue increasing. + +Hawthorne says in a letter to Longfellow, "Why don't you come over, +being now a man of leisure and with nothing to keep you in America? If I +were in your position, I think I should make my home on this side of the +water,--though always with an indefinite and never-to-be-executed +intention to go back and die in my native land. America is a good land +for young people, but not for those who are past their prime. ... A man +of individuality and refinement can certainly live far more comfortably +here--provided he has the means to live at all--than in New England. Be +it owned, however, that I sometimes feel a tug at my very heart-strings +when I think of my old home and friends." This was written from +Liverpool in 1854. + +We must not forget that our fathers were exiles from their dearly loved +native land, driven by causes which no longer exist. "Freedom to worship +God" is found in England as fully as in America, in our day. In placing +the Atlantic between themselves and the Old World civilizations they +made an enormous sacrifice. It is true that the wonderful advance of our +people in all the arts and accomplishments which make life agreeable has +transformed the wilderness into a home where men and women can live +comfortably, elegantly, happily, if they are of contented disposition; +and without that they can be happy nowhere. What better provision can be +made for a mortal man than such as our own Boston can afford its wealthy +children? A palace on Commonwealth Avenue or on Beacon Street; a +country-place at Framingham or Lenox; a seaside residence at Nahant, +Beverly Farms, Newport, or Bar Harbor; a pew at Trinity or King's +Chapel; a tomb at Mount Auburn or Forest Hills; with the prospect of a +memorial stained window after his lamented demise,--is not this a pretty +programme to offer a candidate for human existence? + +Give him all these advantages, and he will still be longing to cross the +water, to get back to that old home of his fathers, so delightful in +itself, so infinitely desirable on account of its nearness to Paris, to +Geneva, to Rome, to all that is most interesting in Europe. The less +wealthy, less cultivated, less fastidious class of Americans are not so +much haunted by these longings. But the convenience of living in the Old +World is so great, and it is such a trial and such a risk to keep +crossing the ocean, that it seems altogether likely that a considerable +current of re-migration will gradually develop itself among our people. + +Some find the climate of the other side of the Atlantic suits them +better than their own. As the New England characteristics are gradually +superseded by those of other races, other forms of belief, and other +associations, the time may come when a New Englander will feel more as +if he were among his own people in London than in one of our seaboard +cities. The vast majority of our people love their country too well and +are too proud of it to be willing to expatriate themselves. But going +back to our old home, to find ourselves among the relatives from whom we +have been separated for a few generations, is not like transferring +ourselves to a land where another language is spoken, and where there +are no ties of blood and no common religious or political traditions. I, +for one, being myself as inveterately rooted an American of the +Bostonian variety as ever saw himself mirrored in the Frog Pond, hope +that the exchanges of emigrants and re-migrants will be much more evenly +balanced by and by than at present. I hope that more Englishmen like +James Smithson will help to build up our scientific and literary +institutions. I hope that more Americans like George Peabody will call +down the blessings of the English people by noble benefactions to the +cause of charity. It was with deep feelings of pride and gratitude that +I looked upon the bust of Longfellow, holding its place among the +monuments of England's greatest and best children. I see with equal +pleasure and pride that one of our own large-hearted countrymen has +honored the memory of three English poets, Milton, and Herbert, and +Cowper, by the gift of two beautiful stained windows, and with still +ampler munificence is erecting a stately fountain in the birthplace of +Shakespeare. Such acts as these make us feel more and more the truth of +the generous sentiment which closes the ode of Washington Allston, +"America to Great Britain:" We are one! + + * * * * * + +I have told our story with the help of my daughter's diary, and often +aided by her recollections. Having enjoyed so much, I am desirous that +my countrymen and countrywomen should share my good fortune with me. I +hesitated at first about printing names in full, but when I remembered +that we received nothing but the most overflowing hospitality and the +most considerate kindness from all we met, I felt sure that I could not +offend by telling my readers who the friends were that made England a +second home to us. If any one of them is disturbed by such reference as +I have made to him or to her, I most sincerely apologize for the liberty +I have taken. I am far more afraid that through sheer forgetfulness I +have left unmentioned many to whom I was and still remain under +obligations. + +If I were asked what I think of people's travelling after the commonly +accepted natural term of life is completed, I should say that everything +depends on constitution and habit. The old soldier says, in speaking of +crossing the Beresina, where the men had to work in the freezing stream +constructing the bridges, "Faut du tempérament pour cela!" I often +thought of this expression, in the damp and chilly weather which not +rarely makes English people wish they were in Italy. I escaped unharmed +from the windy gusts at Epsom and the nipping chill of the Kensington +garden-party; but if a score of my contemporaries had been there with +me, there would not improbably have been a funeral or two within a week. +If, however, the super-septuagenarian is used to exposures, if he is an +old sportsman or an old officer not retired from active service, he may +expect to elude the pneumonia which follows his footsteps whenever he +wanders far from his fireside. But to a person of well-advanced years +coming from a counting-room, a library, or a studio, the risk is +considerable, unless he is of hardy natural constitution; any other will +do well to remember, "Faut du tempérament pour cela!" + +Suppose there to be a reasonable chance that he will come home alive, +what is the use of one's going to Europe after his senses have lost +their acuteness, and his mind no longer retains its full measure of +sensibilities and vigor? I should say that the visit to Europe under +those circumstances was much the same thing as the _petit +verre_,--the little glass of Chartreuse, or Maraschino, or Curaçoa, +or, if you will, of plain Cognac, at the end of a long banquet. One has +gone through many courses, which repose in the safe recesses of his +economy. He has swallowed his coffee, and still there is a little corner +left with its craving unappeased. Then comes the drop of liqueur, +_chasse-café_, which is the last thing the stomach has a right to +expect. It warms, it comforts, it exhales its benediction on all that +has gone before. So the trip to Europe may not do much in the way of +instructing the wearied and overloaded intelligence, but it gives it a +fillip which makes it feel young again for a little while. + +Let not the too mature traveller think it will change any of his habits. +It will interrupt his routine for a while, and then he will settle down +into his former self, and be just what he was before. I brought home a +pair of shoes I had made in London; they do not fit like those I had +before I left, and I rarely wear them. It is just so with the new habits +I formed and the old ones I left behind me. + +But am I not glad, for my own sake, that I went? Certainly I have every +reason to be, and I feel that the visit is likely to be a great source +of happiness for my remaining days. But there is a higher source of +satisfaction. If the kindness shown me strengthens the slenderest link +that binds us in affection to that ancestral country which is, and I +trust will always be to her descendants, "dear Mother England," that +alone justifies my record of it, and to think it is so is more than +reward enough. If, in addition, this account of our summer experiences +is a source of pleasure to many friends, and of pain to no one, as I +trust will prove to be the fact, I hope I need never regret giving to +the public the pages which are meant more especially for readers who +have a personal interest in the writer. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Complete PG Works of Oliver +Wendell Holmes, Sr., by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PG WORKS OF O.W. 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