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The following diagrams illustrate the method: Un des symboles suivants apparattra sur la dernidre image de chaqce microfiche, selon le cas: le symboie -^^ signifie "A SUIVRE ", le symbols y signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmfo A des taux de rMuction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seui clich6, il est fiimi d partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite. et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 lebicatfon. W. and J. DuFFiELD, London, Ontario : My derr friends — 'I'his unpretending volu le is mainly dedicated to you. Still, little as it may be esteemed, it would not be given, if your only merit consisted in ample coffers, even though to amass a fortune honorably in opposition to so much successful chicanery as exists in trade at the present time appears to require as great an amount of energy and ability as is necessary in taking a city or to write an epic, and, in the estimation of some, deserves proportionate appreciation. More honor, however, seems due where monetary triumph is not attended by its usual niggardly disregard of the fine arts or mental excellence. Looking at your dispositions in this light less hesitation arises in offering the present pro- duction, whatever its faults, believing it will be kindly received by you, if only as a remembrancer of other days. ONE QUIET DAY, A BOOK OF PROSE AND POETRY, By J, R. RAMSAYy Author of " THE CANADTAK LYRE,'* •« WI-NON-AH," "CHRON- ICLES OF A CANADIAN FAMILY" ete.f etc. HAMILTON, ONT. LANCEFIELD BROTHERS, 1873. \^Af^ ^ Printtd at the " Canada Christian Advocate " Office, 14 JOHN ST. NORTH, RlXItTOV, ONT. 'OnUnis» w I ONE QUIET DAY, AjV i ■• •• •• •• , SOME CANADIAN BOOKS, TRANSFIGURATION FRENCH CHAOS, ON THE SOFT SIDE OF HUMANITY, . . MY LIBRARY " MRS. street's place," TO EMMA, THE THOUSAND ISLES, BRIGHT LEAVES, MY NATIVE LAND, la O. G. T., (, ,, ,, ,, TIME WAS, TO— — — A DEW DROP, CHATTERTON, TO THE MEMORY OF M. BURKHOLDER, STANZAS, EARTH AND DEATH, ONE HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW, TO AN UNKNOWN BARD, VERSES IN ANSWER TO " HONOR THE DEAD," A FANCY PICTURE, DEAD LEAVES, . . , , . . , , SYiABOLS {To A, N. Ranuay.}, ICTHYOSAURUS, I 13 28 39 41 75 100 "5 118 119 T22 128 130 132 ^33 134 136 137 138 141 143 145 146 148 150 CONTENTS. ;. BASTEDO (Surgeon Dentist), WHAT FOR ? EPITHALAMIUM (EUie Van Every.), A BEAUTIFUL BATHER, THE SECRET, THE r.LADE, THE GRAND RIVER, . . FAME, . . . . . , , FORGIVE, LINES — ^woman's RIGHTS, THE HAUNTED HOUSE (To Mrs Zimmerman. farewell, A SIGH, the blue lakes of DUMFRIES, THOMAS SCOTT, AWAK.£^ •• •• « ,, ,, OLD STEPHEN, A DIRGE, THE WARM HEARTED GRASP, ), ,'53 154 156 159 161 163 165 167 169 170 172 182 183 184 186 188 190 192 ONE QUIET DAY. " Beauty is all our wisdom, We painters demand no more.** — B. Bdooanait. " The Germans have a phrase which would enrich any language that should adopt it. They say ' Orient yourself.* When a traveller arrives at a strange city, or is overtaken by a storm, he takes out his compass and learns which way is. the Orient. Forthwith he is in no danger of seeking for his home, or the pole star in a wrong quarter of the heavens. He orients himself." Suppose we do likewise. Let us who have wandered afar "arise and go" back to our old homestead once more, if we have one to return to ; if not, then in remembrance revisit some homestead of the heart. Let the time be in October — ^most oriental season of all the western world. Lie down to rest under one of those ancient hillside pines, and look from shade to sunshine eastward towards Eden. A goodly morning. Night has departed, — " A shadow like an augel with bright hair Dabbled in blood," having sprinkled Autumn's lintels mth the Passover's san- guine symbols. Some red drops fall on the patriotic maple, making it a cardinal flower, five cubits high. Lo, he lords it redundantly, triumphant, but not vain, crowned with a tiara of opal, flashing in early air. With florid hues the land- scape is wonderfully glorious, save where purple pools veil liheir blushing faces in a crimson mist, which arises as from » ONE QUIET DAY. unseen censers held by cherubim. All the atmosphere is full of colors that have faded from summer flowers. Huge oaks generously offer their brown manna to the tax-gathering winds. } 'rom afar off comes the sound of our village school bell. It was dreadful to answer that summons when our tasks had been neglected. As for the teacher, he shall be dismissed from these vagrant reveries far more summarily than we thought he discharged us from his august presence. Aptly the melancholy Byron's description of Satan disput- ing with Michael at the celestial gate about their respective claims to a soul, applies to him as he came into the school : "And where lie gtiEcd, a gloom pervaded spticc." Ah, well, he is enjoying his vacation now, and we will enjoy ours. Vale, vale, salve etcrnum. There is a latent goodness in humanity which is not fos- tered much by mi:.'gling too freely among our fellows. With few exceptions, the spirit receives its keenest misery from its own kin. As for nature, she enhances our value ; con- sequently one is led to believe, and Jiis scene at once sug- gests and proves the idea, that more can be done by her in excellence than is hinted here, glorious as it is. But nature is reticent of her claims for fear of rendering us forgetful of purer prospects — a forgetfulness to which we are prone. Yet one almost wishes that the majority of months in the green fields of Eden will be October ; a long Indian summer's Sabbath afternoon in Paradise ; an eternity of this strangely stained twilight of the year. — Allelu. It is important that these hazy ponderings may not be perused by any strenuously pious person ; if so, misunder- standings would ensue. Such may object that this style of orientmg savors of loafing. There will be readers plenty, ONE QUIET DAY. however, if our vagaries are only tolerated by the repro- bate, or those who believe as I do. When asked for an in- terpretation of that belief, I cannot give it. The question is so boundless it startles me. Once, when a small urchin, I was in a fruit orchard — as it might be, like this one. I was there by mistake. A man — I have often since thought, for he spake quite high, that he had a more absorbing interest in those apples than in my personal comfort — that man re- quested me to state precisely what my business was there. I did not presume to waste his valuable time by arguing with him, though it is diverting sometimes, when safe, to get up a dispute — an excitement of rage, so to say — in order to discover by force just what others opine concerning my shortcomings. Yet such opinions are overdrawn ; they have too much warmth of color, artistically speaking, to be re- liable. But when questioned regarding our wayfaring in that other orchard — the wide vineyard of life — an answer will be rendered according to the motives which formed our con- duct therein, and our fealty to conscience, that great ques- tioner. Some geniuses answer any interrogation glibly, and give advice gratuitously at all times and on every subject. They remind us of an Indian pony that could canter all day on an acre of ground. To you, however, who must be of a good turn of mind, or you would not have endured with me thus far, to you let me state in trust that I believe I am, as it were, a sort of Berserker. I am not sure just what that is, and may be that's why I'm it. If it means vagabond, or bard, these I am — the one by nature, the other by grace, and both by choice. It is easy to believe in whatever one knows nothing about. Is not faith founded on linity ? In fact, humanity requires greater capacity for gullibility to doubt than is requisite to entertain a spiritual solution. ONE QUIET DAY. which we call faith, in all that we fail to understand. We are compelled so to do anyway, and it looks better to ac- cept the conditions gracefully. Our minds resemble lan- terns of various sizes, carried by an unseen hand ; and, not- withstanding many unfortunate misinterpretatics thereof, one can easily believe in the Bible, yea, and out of it, too. And this morning preaches well. Peace is plainly written by the right hand of angels on everything under this azure arch. " Enter, it« grandeur oTcrwhelms thee not.' Those memorial windows are the flashing dawns, and every portion of this miraculous structure is suggestive of some- thing more infinite than itself. Ages were consumed before it was sufficiently finished for our reception. Here faith and not fashion prevails. The members are cheerful, but inno- cently so. The service is exultant, but natural, redund- ant with the harmony of .beauty, and the ceiling is the em- pyrean. An orchestra composed of birds, flocks, and " The wind, that grand old harper, smites His thunder-harp of pinos." Also, in order that the quiet of sunshine may be appre- ciated, at intervals the storm and lightning of thunder. Let us arise and sing. Be ye lifted up, ye gates of the morning, that the beautiful may be magnified ; be exalted also, ye doors of the excellent sun, for a goodly thing hath come upon the maple trees, and a marvelous upon the valleys. Likewise respect hath been paid to the husband- man ; neither hath the wild raven perished for lack of food. Selah. The cedar tree withholdeth not his fragrance, no^ the vine his luscious clusters. I said, as for a man, what ONE QUIET DAY. portion of strength hath he to perform this glory ? The lily, he destroyeth it ; it retumeth upon his dust : he envieth also the eagle and horse — ^yea, the young eagle uttereth his anthem. " Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah ? This that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength. Wherefore art thou red in thine appard, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-vat ?" If forced to choose some mode of barbarous oblation, it should be fire-worship. Who would not accept a " life sitting " as high priest in the magnificent porphyry temple of Mexico, dedicated to the sun ? — Not to offer up human sacrifices: that portion of their ceremonies does not differ greatly from our social rites, excepting that the heathen are far more ex- peditious in finishing — not in furnishing — victims : he must liave a stonier heart than they who could rebuke them for bowing to the shadow of God on such a day as this — a day as unassuming as mercy, — a day when every thought is a flower, and every flower a portion of God's smile. f' The Celestials have a proverb which says, " If you take an idle day, take an idle day." The great trouble with our way Of society is that we do too much unnecessary work. Two- thirds of time are frittered away pandering to vitiated tastes and the unnatural requirements of luxurious living ; hence those whose normal^sympathies are goaded with stimuli can- not enjoy innocent'rest, nor allow to others that precious priv- ilege. But to thoroughly"appreciate one quiet day requires a predisposition for it, as well as freedom from the thrall of evil. Very few men possess the strength of mind necessaiy to evolve that nameless condition which the slaves of habit — " the restless wanderers after rest" — denominate idleness, all day. Yet as a fine art, very beautiful it is to loaf in the ONE QUIET DAY. oriental style once or twice a year. Shame to say, such an exaltation seldom happens even to the wisest oftener than once in a lifetime. As it is, because society is miscon- structed, the pure are overworked to supply the impure with the means of ruin — or be called names. The nine hours movement is in the right direction ; but if men eschewed luxury, six hours would be belter. Every hour over that time is consumed by the unremunerative tax- ation of vice, or goes to support the " constitutionally tired." Lovely, therefore, is the disposition that is qualified to eman- cipate itself from human want one complete day, to dream and bathe the spirit in supernal light. Whole troops of ideas — gorgeous imaginings — hurtle through the universe from tlie four corners of the heavens, to be initiated into the brain. Try it : let the mind keep open house for one day. I am aware of an unostentatious individual who partook of just such a diurnal orientalization once, and was enabled thereby to see farther into the " burden and the mystery of all this unintelligible world" than ever before. Millions of visitors arrived and, folding their pure white wings, waited to be en- tertained. Visions hovered in the vivid opaline air. From the storehouse of the past came hopes, unrealized, but still how exceedingly lovely even in imaginary fruition. As tliey should have been they were. Nature is v/omanly. She reserves her choicest smiles for the one who appreciates her. Flowers instinctively recog- nize the presence of a bard, and radiate themselves ac- cordingly for him. Only a finely organized damsel or poet can feel the burning glory of a rose and the symbol therein. If you have a desire to go and be likewise, do not take any books with you. Ideas and dreams arrive out of space more speedily than you can r2ad. The purple mists on ONE QUIET DAY. your native hills are lovelier than literature. Lean back against a tree. Let the muse extend wide wings. Predate the miiknnium. , ,^..< ' ' "Free the chiseled mfirble cf your dream." Vindicate elysium. Feel safe ; it is all right. No debt for .one day, — no duns ! Do not take any wine, but be healthy. There is no wine like health. Honor the cricket in the grass ; behold the gold-cloud metropolitan. Live while it is yet now, for soon this nebulous lustre called Autumn, resembling a super- human Hannibal's beacon fires on Italian hills, "Will fold its tents liko the Arab, ' ' "'■ And as silently steal away." ' Do not regret that nameless thousands are going down in ships to death's d?.rk sea ; it is so ordered for the best ; be- sides ambition, unless for good, is verily only foam on that same dim sea. But the proper benefit of a vagrant day- -if you can snatch one from close-fisted fate v/ilhout a dereliction of duty — is in its sootliing remembrance. It will remain under the tongue of your cogitations as a sweet morsel forever. Its sustaining influence equals that of a gcodly conscience. You will feel in i)o.'?session of an especial gift, as of prophecy. Only the unutterable recollection of your first celestial flame, which '* Prometheus filched for us from heaven," is similar and superior. A noble disposition is necessary, as well as a powerful brain (are they not the same ?) to loaf alone with any de- gree of spiritual profit. Still, it is not advisable to get caught at it. The great, cruel, melancholy, wise world, which exacts so much from others, and so enormously little 8 ONE QUIET DAY. from itself, will marvel why you are not at work. Work is well enough in its place, though as our friend, A. T. Freed, said, it is not a law of nature, but only a by-law. However that may be, one oriental rest will enable you to accomplish more on the three hundred and sixty-four, and please retro- spectively when they are all forgotten. Certainly, no mortal deserves to be, or indeed can be, wise, or rich, or great without work, and plenty of it, too. All that is said or sung in praise of requisite toil is sensible ; but the surplus amount of labor with which men tax themselves and their patient, forgivable wives, in order to enjoy (?) the lux- ury of tobacco, etc., is what seems objectionable. Yet the first to cry out against any elevating labor are those who spend so much of their time and hardly-earned wages on such foolishness as stultifies and unfits them to judge of what is necessary for themselves, or the lofty crav- ings which occupy the souls of others. The quality of work also depends on the condition of the worker. There- fore whatever degi'ades a man essentially deteriorates ihat which he was sent on earth to do. It is a strange spectacle to witness the inestimable amount of misdirected human power. If one-half of man's energy was expended judiciously, well and continuously concen- trated, the world, which has been so long " suckled in creeds outworn," would sooner become the receptacle of universal brotherhood. But such may be the waiting result. The millennium is not a myth. To survey such scenery as is here, one is led to believe that earth is Eden-worthy even now if we are. It does not seem consistent with the sur- rounding excellence, nor the rest of creation, to suppose that our aspirations after all that is high, pure and true are only twits. Still the whole fabric of this material world would re- quire reconstruction before we could be happy here. ONF QUIEi DAY. The world is correct in tlie main, but it is frequently reprehensibly wrong in its opinions — ^just where one would naturally expect something wise — about men who dare, as we do, to differ from its prejudices. If you or I go according to the light of an educated conscience, we are certain to im- bibe trouble. Society is a huge tyrant. Few care to face the great bugbear, and that is why so many follow opinion or fashion instead of principle. But if nature has not been lavish with you ; if you are not gifted with beauty and power sufficient to enable you to shake the hampering, dusty city's commotion from your mind for one quiet diurnal dream, then orient yourself with a ramble in the dim bush, "Or where the brook' runs o'er the stones, and smoothes ' Their green locks with its current's crystal comb." Go forth at da^vn, if in spring ; at evening, if in autumn, and croon the following as you go : u " Rest is not quitting This busy career; Best is the fitting Of self to its sphere. , . 'Tis the brook's motion Fleeing from strife, ■* Seeking the ocean '■ After its life. , 'Tis loving and serving The highest and be«t, — ' ^♦M Tis onward unswerving, And that is true rest." If you deem some book essential, take " The Harvest of a Quiet Eye," " Reveries of a Bachelor," " Beulah," or " Dreamthorp," which contains (without being personal) a genial essay on vagabonds. If you are thoroughly acquainted with such, take, as did Delilah's lord, " The Gates Ajar." A zo ONE QUIET DAY. Tennyson is choice, but his scenery is not so "native and to the manner born" with us as " Longfellow's Evangeline." " The Onyx Ring," of Stirling, will rj^goncile you to your lot ; so also that ** List of Shipwrec3#," the Rev. Geo. GilfiUan's " Literary Portrait Gallery." If you have not perused Mrs. Hoodie's works, there is yet a treat in store, especially her poem " Fame." It will disenchant you ot that folly, " for splendid talents often lead astray." Arcadian Hawthorne's books are exquisitely useful. If they are not congenial, take " Jephthah's Daughter" — not the beautiful Hebrew maid- en's self — but the poem, by Heavysege. Do not take a fair friend v/ith you, or your happiness may be too celestial to be remembered v/ithout regret ; but go alone if you wish to loaf thoroughly. Women do not believe in it ; they wish, and deserve, to monopolize museland and the like. You cannot see any other wonder if a woman is near. If you desire to make it a fine art, go free. We all agree with Leigh Hunt that the happiest human lot is "A lovely womnn in a rural spot." But it is so ordained from the first that intense happiness does not invariably produce the sweetest remembrance. We should foster that form of serene enjoyment which will not be liable to curdle into a bitter cud of regret for after years to ruminate. Talk is not necessary on such occasions. Images in- crease as words diminish. The native Indians enjoy fewer words and an ampler supply of poetical metaphors than any other nation. Your circumstances will not allow you to do so ? That may be ; but adverse conditions, my dear sir, do not ob- viate the requirements of the spirit, which distinctively are ONE QUIET DAY. IX that you should orient yourself. But there are other ways by which the soul can vindicate its immortality. Some form naturally suggests itself to an enfranchised conscience. Goethe's advice is to repeat f me line thought, see a beauti- ful picture, or hear a gentle song once a day at least. The German Shakespeare's doctrine is another proof of his pro found insight into the requirements of humanity's great thirsty heart, and in following his fine thesis, we may be ex- cused for quoting a little lilt. It is unusual to find poetry about an old woman, however deserving ; but it is still stranger to obtain such by an aged husband. It was first seen years ago in a newspaper, the loss of which compells me to quote from memory. WESTWARD, HO! Nay, do not sit thee down and sigh. My girl, whose forehead pale appears, — A fane whose eyes look royally. Backward and forward o'er the years, — The long, long realms of conquered time — The possible years unwon — which slope Before us in the grey sublime Of lives which have more faith than hope. We should not sit us down and dream Fond dreams as idle children do ; Thy brow is marked with many a seam, And tears have worn their channels through These poor thin cheeks, which now I take 'Twixt my two hands caressing, dear, — A little sunshine for my sake. Although 'tis far on in the year. M9 WESTWARD, HO ! Though all onr violets, sweet, are dead ; The promise gone from fields we knew ; Who knows what harvests may be spread For reapers brave, like me and you ? Who knows what bright October suns May light up unseen valleys wild, Where we, such happy children, once Felt joy come to us like a child ? A child that at the gateway stands To kiss the laborers' weary brows, And lead them through the twilight lands. Up, softly, to her father's house. Then sit not do^vn and sigh, my dear, But keep right on, Ferene and bold^ To where the sun sets calm and clear, Westward, behind the hills of gold. lil "LO!" One morning not long ago, " alone, withouten any com- pany," I took a quiet ramble in the old forest, which is al- ways a land of dreams. One cannot well settle accounts with conscience in public, nor see visions there, for the in- habitants of imagination's airy regions are like happiness, exceedingly seclusive in the choice of associates. Con- sequently it is good to loiter alone sometimes in those fairy realms where spirits most do congregate. It was hazy In- dian summer time. The woods were glowing with autumnal fire ; but whether I was allured thither, as a child might be, by those fascinating leagues of crimson foliage, or urged on by some demon of discontent, I cannot now remember, nor does it signify. After wandering for hours by an old Indian trail over a forest floor carpeted with scarlet leaves, beautifully varie- gated, and rendered fragrant by tufts of tall grass, spikenard and fern, over fallen trees, deserted river beds and creeks, whose waters and banks resembled the burning bush of Israel's leader, at last my path emerged near the foot of a long row of hills.* These hills are ranged east and west- ward. They rise two or three hundred feet above the sur- rounding wilderness, and are about twenty-five miles from Bur- lington Bay. Being partly cultivated, every time the plough turns the brown furrows it discloses another litter of grim, • By that same stream, but nearer its outlet, in the days of other years, vrheu a pine canoe was my perfect happiness, it was a subject of enaless wonder where the water ceme from, and whore it drifted to. In after life we found its emergence by the Hamilton cemetery, and its source near those tiunuli. 14 "LO!" ilr :i^ I"',, ,1 i III bygone humanity. Bits of decrepit gods, human teeth, here and yonder a piece of broken skull — probably the only peace said skull ever enjoyed — as if the owners had been amusing themselves at a Donnybrook fair ; kettles full of colored beads, and skeletons doubled up ; wampum belts, toma- hawks with their edges bent or broken — evidently served so for a purpose, as guns are spiked to render them worthless in the hands of a foe ; strangely shaped stones, resembling ladies' tatting shuttles, supposed formerly to have been used by Mexican net-weavers ; arrow-heads, wedges, curiously carved pipes and images are found in and around these an- cient Indian graves, for to such purposes these hills were applied in times out of mind. And, was it a guardian spirit ? from the pale blue ether came a lonesome cry out of a shape as of a wild hawk. It was a beautiful day — as lovely as was ever let out of heaven — and being somewhat weary, I concluded to enjoy a short rest with those who rested here. . , " Stop I for thy tread is on an empire's dust!" " And Harold stands upon the place of skulls !" and would be pleased to hold a few words of parley with those who have trod " the road to dusty death," if only to ask : Brother, below there, what of the night ? or, is there any below and above ? or are they like astronomical names, merely relative ? and how has it fared with you since you entered those dim doors, which we feel to be secretly swinging ajar for others, and what have you found therein ? " Fear not thou to loose thy tongue, Set thy hoary fancies free." Still silent all. Is this silence owing to a misunderstanding of our tongue ? And have you no ghostly interpreter ? We ;,IU^ " LO ! " IS were taught to believe the language of that bourn universal ; if so, we may mercifully translate such reticence as being the reserve of a sublime pity for the dark doom awaiting us, or a quiet scorn for our seeming impertinent familiarity. " 0, that some courteous ghost would blab it out." But if it is contrary to the regulations of the place, vain for us to urge an untimely disclosure. Nevertheless, is it not astonishing that out of the countless hosts of drafted, volunteers, regular and honorable members, who have gone to compose your company for such an immeasurable multi- tude of centuries, none ever turned Morgan ? .4; " I'll ask no more : Sullen, like lamps iu sepnlclires, your sliino Enlightens but yourselvea. Woll, 'tis no matter ; A very little time will clear up all, And make us wise as you are, and as close;" IS Silence sits there and holds the portals wide for us to enter at all hours ; but out of that house — that huge mute morgue — no spirit ever ventures. Tiiose doors jict as valves, they open only one way. There are no thoroughfares; there are no return tickets, nor are they transferable. We are not in a position to prove the experiment, but take for granted that not all the flashing diamonds of Golconda could bribe a Cimmerian to come forth, or to admit an uninvited mortal before the ebony-winged angel saw fit to unclasp the everlasting sesame and bow the sedate stranger in. Perhaps such questions as we importune the dead with will never be answered; yet it is possible, because we ask, that in the unfinished future of even this world something may arise to open our eyes eteme. »# <( LO!" ,1. Of one thing we can be certain : the mundane destiny of those who repose here resembled ours. We " eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, sleep and die." Such being the required conditions of universal humanity, hence the brother- hood. And on this forsaken stage history could have been erected centuries before its repetition of min marred the marble streets of Rome, or the red rain laid the ghostly dust of war in breezy Troy. Prof Agassis assserts that this continent is older than the " Old World," and remnants of nations and cities from Su- perior to Peru, as well as geological proofs, attest the ac- curacy of his conclusions ; consequently it may not be wrong to infer that empires, even memories of them, have gone by and left no more record than the flight of disturbed birds leaves on the vague air of night. Certainly these graves are as enigmatical as any that loom " from out the drear eclipse of the long Theban years."* So when Jonah winded his liorn of warning around the walls of proud Nineveh, possibly the teocallis resounded through the halls of Montezuma. An empire is menaced ; the gods must be invoked, for pov/er is in the hands of the • Note. — The modem Indians, in their legends and chants, often allude to the expulsion of an earlier and more civilized race of peo- ple from the north, portions of whom the Aztecs and Mexicans aro Buppoaed to be. Tlie thrifty manner in which the copper mines of Lake Superior were worked leads us to infer they were not con- ducted by the present aborigines. The extent of those mining oper- ations presupposes considerable skill, and corresponding demand ; while the condition in which the ore was left — as if " the shadows of evening told the long forgotten owners that the labors of the day were at an end, hut to which they never returned" — goes far to proT© that the miners were surprised at work and fled, leaving copper slabs, toolH, etc., in the mines. According to Williamson and Macintosh, the traditions of many Indian tribes affirm they originally came from Asia by Behring's Strait;?, and drovo the ancient Americans south- ward. Dr. h. Wilson graphically alludes to this interesting subject. See also " Ancient Americ.y by Prof. John D, Baldwin, M. A. m "LO!" 17 priests, who inteq)ret the mystic oracles according to their own lustful cupidity or fear. An awed nation is hushed, waiting for some favorable omen. Mutely they look and listen while human sacrifices smoke and shriek on the great green stone altars. The magestic porphyry fane of the sua must receive aromatic gums in golden censers, ard reek with propitiatory youthful blood. But the gods are stone ; they refuse to hear or help. The looms are abandoned for the armorer's hammer, and mill-wheels remain still. Miners hasten from the mountains to guard their homes in the an- cient city against a northern foe. The foe — suddenly they come ! and the canals are filled with a human bridge, over which barbarous hoards enter to sack and render the city a shambles, full of unsung Iliads. Thus nations pass away in gore, like red leaves in an autumnal gale, and lovely vine- yards of prosperity are changed by the twinkling of war's red brand into Shanandoahs of desolation. And over all these Borodinos of woe, this building, replenishing and decay of empires, over feats of valor, fame, beauty — whatever constitutes a state — hang the fogs and litchens of relentless oblivion, whose wrecks have not even the meagre consolation of a dirge. " I passed by the walls of Balciutha, and they were desolate." t Very likely the grandiloquent orators of those days pointed back to past iniquity, and thanked their gods that they were not as the hypocrite, while with, the other hand they fostered similar sins ; weeping pure tears over anti- quarian suffering, and leaving the innocent orphans without any present help. If so, if their learned theologists worried the world with disputations concerning the origin of obsolete words, and left the widows to wail at their varnished portals, while they hold farcical contentions about the punctuation of their prayers, then are they different from the wise of our days? % i8 " LO ! " m ■li Will posterity ever become as superior to the present as we overpar what we know of the past ? Will some compla- cent philosopher of futurity — some " truthful James" — ever take a moral delight in shying stoves at our hydra-headed delinquinries when we become the past ? charging us with our gin-palaces, gambling hells, equivocal buildings, etc., or that we " went for the heathen" ? As we treat the merits of traditionary ages after the manner in which young mothers regard unwedded fair friends — with feelings of conde- scension — so the future may look down upon us. " Lo God's likeness ; the ground plan, Neither painted, glazed or framed ! Buss thee, thou rough sketch of man. Far too naked to be shamed 1" These skeletons, empty quivers now, that once contained the sharp arrows of love, fear, rage, ambition, pain and hope, are all that remain of thee, and these shattered stone gods are just what exists of thy piety. Thy great dread of omens, at which we, in our presumptuous scientific lore, dare to laugh ; thy scorn of those things which we fear. And now, what lessons are we to learn from these broken cisterns ? None, We have more warnings already, printed in the blood of the red man and the pale faced Christian, than we ever apply to our good. Thy wars are a portion of thy dim divinity ; ours are diametrically opposed to our mercy-saving creeds ; consequently, if " revenge, red ruin, and the break- ing up of laws" are ever right, they are so with thee. We are educated above all such heathen rites as revenge. We send missionaries to every available portion of the gieen earth. We trundle wheel-barrows full of Bibles through the traditionary streets of Rome. We, the enlightened, have steam presses, electricity, science, lectures, teachers by the "LO!" 19 million. We rejoice in thousands of years of prophecy ful filled by eighteen hundred years of the words of inefiiable peace, to draw inspiring examples from. We have four thousand years of history and, probably, six misty cycles or aeons of geology, to ponder on. What need have we to abuse our idea of peace, by contemplating these petrified waves of time's immeasurable " drift period," peopled by war, while we have brought to our doors, per Atlantic cable, refreshing daily accounts of the most enlightened, successful and honorable sanguinary strife that ever rubricated a European map of war, got up on the most efficient Prussian plans ? No. We want no lessons from the cruel, cruel heathen. They do not cheat fair. This is an age of progress ; and it is not reasonable for the ghosts who once animated these bleaching bones, to expect us to exorcise them with reveren- tial sympathy for their past ruins, since they fail to furnish proof that they even knew of present improved systems of government contract with the mitrailleuses, monitors or Armstrongs. Governments smilingly place their mailed hands on the strong shoulders of the red heathen and say, Peace ; while the agents are safely appropriating spoils. If the fraud is resented, peace is forced by the bayonet. Peace, says the missionary, and four years of such human bloodshed as has made a winepress from centre to sea of the finest portions of this glowing globe sets the example. Peace 1 and a thousand breweries opulently exude the very essence of strife, quietly called by Rev. Robert Hall " liquid hell-fire, and distilled damnation." Peace, we say, and the mildest practical application of civilized nations' feelings heretofore shown towards the Indian is kill, bum, destroy. Peace ! he may reply, Iljf 20 " LO ! " ■l:'i r > "I have sought it where it should be found, , *. In love, with love, too, which perhaps deserved it, And in its place a heaviness of heart, ' A weariness of spirit, listless days And nights inexorable to sweet sleep Have come upon me I Peace, what j, jace ? The calm of desolation, and the stillness of The untrodden forest, only broken by The sighing tempest in its groaning bougha." But actions speak more palpably than words. We teach them the precepts of the Bible and the practice of the rifle. It is easy to arouse a spirit of retaliation in the minds of those with whom it is a religion, .vhenever such a spirit is necessary as an excuse to justify the seizure of more spoils. When an excuse is required, the waters of the fabled stream will run in any required direction. Looking over our deal- ings with the savages in the light of truth, which side exhibits the greater degree of consistency? Too frequently our progress in one art is purchased with a corresponding loss of some excellence on the other hand. It is frequently lamented that our scientific prosperity generates materialism ; while others aver that much of conventional spirituality is little more than superstition in a fashionable form, and many of the highly approved theories of so-called civilized society are merely diluted doses of death. The doctrine of predes- tination and the doctrine of free will — the latter seems like a life lease to us of a portion of the spirit world — seem both to be sufuciently established, by nature and by grace ; yet, year after year, v/hat time-wasting controversies are launched sheer over the sleepy heads of fashionable congregations. Whole shiploads of the prodigal's husks are vaguely drifting across the mental ocean of this creed-weary world. We despise the stupid stone gods of the heathen, and erect creed-gods instead. Images will not save us, though they be carved out of the jaspar of the great white throne ; and iiiii 4.V.. "LO!" 21 i m that we may find to our detriment, when the roll-call of ruin is read at the final tribunal. There the beamless eyes of the soul may see that, with all the pride and vanity of boasted progress, we make many successful pilgrimages back to barbarity. It may then be obvious, also, that the dis- tance from the Nineteenth century back to heathendom is much shorter than forward to civilization, and that sectarian- ism has no more to do with genuine piety than the color of the church with prayers. Let us, however, not be misunderstood in this. Sects, we believe, do not err simply because they enjoy different forms of one worship. It is natural that every pilgrim should prefer that side of the great temple of truth which first broke upon his longing gaze and made his heart glad. Even controversies may be well enough (as an attrition process by which both sides of the diamond are brightened at once) as long as they are conducted in a spirit of mutual forbearance. To condemn wholesale because some err is a modern sample of Herod's legislation — equivalent to bar- ricading all roads because they are sometimes bad. " Such a course is like that of a man who destroys the steps of a ladder by which he proposes to climb." * We only denounce bigotry, intolerance and whatever arouses bitter feeling between denominations, for such courses are not only evil in themselves, but they give room for skeptics to sneer, who try tn r^-'^p others believe that because sects differ they are all to be despised. But our principal reason for despising the heathen is, because they cannot sin on such a magnificent scale as becomes our liberal views of social advancement. They have not the ability, nor the moral education, requisite to fit ii • Rev. David Inglis. ij 22 "LO! 4 12 1 them for it. For instance : it entered the silly pate of a French Empress to fabricate a hairy absurdity on the summit of her florid cranium, and soon the lovely outlines of female Christendom were disfigured. Her husband promised to sustain Garabaldi in the liberation of Italy, but she did not see fit to disturb the infallibility of his Holiness the Pope, consequently " the land of lost gods and god-like men " was abandoned to groan and grovel in bondage. What would have been the advice of Queen Pocahontas under similar circumstances ? He, this French Emperor, persuaded his friend Maximilian to establish a throne in Mexico, but in time of need, when the Mexicans arose in rebellion, he abandoned his friend to be butchered by a foreign foe and turned coldly from the suppUcations of Princess Carlotta on behalf of her young lord, because it did not suit his or his consort's " idea " to keep his word. Would Tecumseh have done so ? Subse- quently this same despot, who, according to Victor Hugo, gained his throne by forcing seventy-five millions of votes in his favor, because he was not allowed to place whom he pleased on the throne of Spain, seemingly without compunction deluged his own kingdom with the blood of millions, as a holocaust to his exorbitant ambition. " For France got drunk with blood Other causes why our productions have not heretofore grown in greater demand were very ably explained by a gentleman in connection with the publishing firm of Adam, Stevenson & Co., Toronto. Large publishing houses in other countries, having had a monopoly of the trade before Canadian firms began, were in possession of greater facilities not only for supplying but for causing a demand, which the Americans succeeded in doing even in this country to its detriment ; for the great obstacle in this, as in other enter- prises, is to compete with an established commodity. The New York Ledger militated as much against the success of our efforts as its influence could do to elevate us. I was told by a gentleman* of London, Ont, that for nine years he was forced to sell at the one-third value the same brand of Canadian kerosene, in order to introduce it in Canada where the Pennsylvania petroleum was previously sold. Such up-hill work being necessary in establishing a staple necessity, much more is it required when the demand has to be created, as is too frequently the case with mental pabulum. But it is not likely that even Bums could have obtained a hearing in this country in its earliest days — though there • W. Duffield. SOME CANADIAN BOOKS. 31 1/ is no genius in it or out of it capable of proving the experi- * ment. Such a condition may partly be accounted for,- because the first settlers brought no extra luxuries, refine-"^ ments or sentiments with them. Muscle was the standard - of excellence. It was important to " clear a spot " and *" " put up " a house. No time to get homesick. They worked until too weary to think, slept, and then worked ^ again. A school-housewas a tradition. If any remembrance of fine art remained, it was considered of no use. Except to hunt stray cattle, or trap musk-wash, or keep the hair on when the Indians were around, no art was necessary. Learning then meant the use of herbs. Such a state of affairs continued for nearly three generations. When parents do not appreciate any thing, the offspring are not likely to do so ; for whatever may be said about the Divine afflatus of genius, probably it is plainly a transmission of parental characteristics under other very favorable circum^ stances. When we add to this the truth that ignorance is hereditary, and moreover that whatever the " home-made " supply may be, there is considerable " imported ignorance " to be educated in this country — for the samples of immigra- tion which we gladly receive are not the most polished which their respective nations can furnish — and the wonder is that we are so nearly abreast of those who have long had a start. Then again, there are such high standards of literature in ^ the older lands. England does not consider how long she had to wait for a Shakespeare, nor does Sandie speer about the number of centuries that rolled along through space before that Scotch angel called Bums lit on a misty scraggy island, on his way to Canada, Goethe doubted if he would have had the heart to attemjt literature if his country had such precedent works as Hamlet. How then is it with us ? On the one hand is the unextinguishable sun, on the other ils 32 SOME CANADIAN BOOKS. i| ; t / the cloud of comparison which always has a shadow. " I can't get out, said the starling," and the critics instead of helping out fasten the cage with wire-drawn definitions of " high art " — so high that you cannot see (being among the cloud-mists) a single flower below nor star above. We sometimes think it would be as well if the critics would let authors alone for the ensuing three or four hun- dred years. Then the timid would have a gorgeous timcy for it often happens that the profoundest thinkers are the most diffident. For the untimely extinction of how many such are the critics responsible ? The only definite conclu- sion that they come to is, to confound each other's pet theories or schools. '* I sometimes think we have too much preaching," said H. W. Beecher. Men are apt to become bewildered by reason of too many guides, as did Mark Twain in Palestine. But there are some starlings who can " get out " even here. I am led to these observations because a reviewer advised Mr. C. Heavysege to omit the scene from " Saul " where Malzah, " the evil spirit from the Lord," shirks his work. His spiritual bowels, as it were, yearned towards the unhap- py king with compassion. There may have been a fellow- feeling between them — anyAvay Malzah plays hookie, as school boys call it, by hiding in Saul's wine cellar, where he was discovered sitting astride the wine bags, singing earthly songs and making remarks about humanity ; in a condition which would not receive the approbation of Mr. J. B. Gough, who would likely object to the hypercritical expur- gation of that scene. What more consistent condition could an evil spirit be in ? Is not inebriety their legitimate busi- ness ? As far as personal experience and observation ex- tend, evil spirits have monopolized the liquor traffic for some time. However, not every one is gifted with a moral SOME CANADIAN BOOKS. 33 perception of the universal fitness of even sin. There are those who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. That Oiiission may have been done, however, with the consent of the author. With him I took a quiet walk one Sabbath evening up the mountain side from Montreal. We came upon a road leading southerly by the Jesuits' college — ^an immense building, facing the east, from the centre projec- tion of which emanated such music as I never expected to hear this side of the New Jerusalem. " Ave Maria! blessed be the hour, The time, the clime, the spot where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft ; While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint, dying day-hymn stole aloft ; And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer." To the left was the city, beyond it the Victoria Bridge^ and, glinting in the evening sun, the mighty St. Lawrence. *' Far off his coming shone." Broad, bright, beautiful ! The great, melancholy river — unfathomable. A monopoly of majesty, cotinuing forever to seethe and surge, to boil and foam, to rush and roll. The conversation, as can be imagined, was chiefly of poetry, but ranged through an infinity of themes, he having the power " To point the inconclusive page ' ,,Fiill on the tye," As one would readily infer after reading " Saul," a work which we have no hesitation in placing first among Canadian productions. Original and alone in style ; untrammeled in imagination ; and bold as Byron's " Cain," without Cain'» 3 34 SOME CANADIAN BOOKS. blasphemy and deepening gloom of doubt. Its very faults have the unusual excellency which the critics of" Jane Eyre " called " the economy of art." A reserve of power ; as if the winged steed had to be reined in — an easy grace— na- ture's choicest gift. It imparts the idea tliat the mental fountain whence it came is exhaustless. Some portions of Lord Byron's genius, as described by Follok, apply to Saul. — " As some vast river of unfailing source," etc. Malzah, the evil spirit, is my favorite character in the book. Some who have read the work, and some who have not read it, will not marvel at this. Though a good-hearted sprite, he is frequently in trouble, not only of his own making, but he gives his employers no rest. Demon. " Look, who therefrom now cometh towards us sad, Peyona, Malzah's lover. Thou knowest Malzah ? Him, the facetious spirit, who with mirth Infectious doth at times provoke half Hell. I will accost her. Malzah's lately grown — And here's the fruit of that forbidden tree Which we first tasted in the carnal world — Groundlessly jealous of her ; for sure never More constant creature than herself ever fell From light, — indeed from thence she did not fall, But wandered freely to our gloomy pit. After her lover, whom to seek was ruin. Lo, where yon demon with increasing speed Makes his dim way across the night-hung flood, Due to the Hebrew king, with onward heed, Like to a hound that sniffs the scent of blood." ■f 1 ,•/ Hear him parting from Peyona, his mistress, who is on a visit from Tophet to Ramah, seeking Malzah ; III SOME CANADIAN BOOKS. 35 "My Peyona, •-' The scents of heaven yet hover round thy Hps, j'n. That are a garden of well watered sweets; , : / Which I must leave now for the arid desert Of vexing Saul. ';'-^''"' * And I'll expire Till quickened i' the resurrection of thy countenance. Exeunt both. Messenger Angel, Whitner art thou descending, sweet Zelehtha ? Zelehtha. To earth, whereon to seek a certain spirit, Who has been trespassing on Heaven's light — One of the troop of the notorious Zaph. Messenger Angel. Hath he a roguish look ? ' Zelehtha. He hath. Messenger Angel. Then I, Even now, as I was leaving earth, have met him, Down towards Lebanon flying. Steer thou by Yon orient cloud. P'arewell. [^Disappears ascending. Zelehtha. 'TisNardial, The ever journeying angel of the Lord, What an auroral hue and morning tinge The constant-fanning ether gives his form 1 , . : , ,, Exit descending. Zaph, Chief of Evil Spirits. The Jewish king now walks at large and sound, Yet of our emissary Malzah hear we nothing ; Go now, sweet spirit, and, if need be, seek The world all over for him ; — find him out, ■K ,1 I I' [lib* I;-' h' I «« SOME CANADIAN BOOKS. Be he within the bounds of earth or Hell. He is a most erratic spirit, so May give thee trouble (as I give thee time) To find him, for he may be now diminished. And at the bottom of some silken flower. Wherein, I know he loves, when evening comes. To creep, aud lie all night, encanopied Beneath the manifold and scented petals ; Fancying, he says, he bids the world adieu. And is again a slumberer in heaven : Or, in some other vein, perchance thou'lt find him Within the walls or dens of some famed city. Give thou a general search, in open day, I' the town and country's ample field ; and next Seek him in dusky cave, and in dim grot ; And in the shadow of the precipice, Prone or supine extended motionless ; Or, in the twilight of o'erhanging leaves, Swung at the nodding arm of some vast beech. By moonlight seek him on the mount, at noon In the translucent waters salt or fresh ; Or near the dank-marged fountain, or clear well. Watching the tadpole thrive on suck of venom ; Or where the brook runs o'er the stones and smoothes Their green locks with its current's crystal comb. Seek him in rising vapors and in clouds Crimson or dun ; and often on the edge Of the gray morning and of tawny eve : Search in the rocky alcove and woody bower ; And in the crow's nest look, and into every Pilgrim-crowd-drawing Idol, wherein he Is wont to sit in darkness and be worshipped. If thou should'st find him not in these, search for him By the lone melancholy tarns of bitterns ; And in the embosomed dells, whereunto maidens Resort to bathe into the tepid pool. Look specially there, and, if thou seest peeping Satyr or faun, give chase and call out ' Malzah I ' For he shall know thy voice and his own name." » , SOME CANADIAN BOOKS. 9^ Mark Malzah's influence on Saul ; — " Ay, I am filled with evil whilst my fit Continues, and do scores of murders then, In fancy, and in my excited hour, Abominations work for which there is No name in the vocabulary, whose worst Expressions seem soft terms of innocence. Compared with the big syllables required To express me fully, when, in cruelty And guile, the very soul of Moloch and The machinations of the cunningest fiends That walk the bottomless pit, and therein ply Their fruitful fancies to deceive the world. Move me midst black temptation. O, I breathe Then the live coals of hell, and all my heart Glows ruddier than Tophet's angry noon, So bloody is my soul, and wrapped in sable." Afler having partaken of David's musical medicine Saul exclaims : — " O Music, thou art a magician ! strange. Most strange, we did not sooner think of thee, And charm us with thy gentle sorcery." It is not possible to take one or two diamonds from a complete circlet, and call them a sample of the finished necklace. Such a proceeding resembles felling an orchard tree for the fruit. y The poem, " Jephthah's Daughter," is also a gem, reminding >one of Sir Walter Scott's beautiful Jewess in Ivanhoe. Other works by the same author should be better known. The poem " Saul " has been frequendy and favorably reviewed on both sides of the Atlantic. It was analyzed with discrimination by the " North British Review," a por- tion of which is as follows : " In this poem, for thejfirst time, spirits have been repre- sented in a manner which fully justifies the boldness 38 SOME CANADIAN BOOKS. involved in representing them at all. Malzah is a living character, as true to supernatural as Hamlet or Falstaff are to nature ; and, by this continuation, as it were, of humanity into new circumstances and another world, we are taught to look upon humanity itself from a fresh point of view, and we seem to obtain new and startling impressions of the awful character of the influences by which we are beset. Seldom has art so well performed the office of handmaiden to religion as in this embodiment of the soul of the faithless, sophistical, brave and generously disposed king of Israel, and a most impressive, practical exposition of the awful truth, that he who is not wholly for God is against Him. For proof of our opinion we can only refer the reader to the entire work, of which a few separate passages are no test whatever." The subject of " Canadirn Poetry "' was ably treated in .."Pure Gold "for May 17 th, 1872, showing our partiaUty / for foreign literature to the neglect of our own " McLachlan, Heavysege, Sangster and a dozen such." ' . ". But we must forego the pleasure of a quotation therefrom because it might be misinterpreted. There is a little dose of consolation in the axiom that " favorites are ever unfor- tunate." However, there appears no reason to be disheartened. Better times for Canadian books arc dawning, judging from the reception accorded to the truly worthy '* Canadian Monthly,"* and also as inferred from the exten- sive catalogue of Hunter, Rose & Co., publishers, Toronto. * Sec article ia the May number, beaded " lutoroational Cour- tesies." (\ii ■-! •)■■•.■,■ TRANSFIGURATION. WRITTEN AT NIAGARA FALLS. A thirsty wanderer o'er an arid desert When first he looks on water, even so There comes a change o'er every human spirit When first it looks on Beauty, and that hour Is to the soul as rain to thirsty soil, As flowers to June, or radiance from that star That moved before the Magi gloriously, Baptizing with illimitable light. It gleameth upon all, but to a few • Imparts a doubly swift significance — Yea, it awakened superhuman visions In one when first he stood in that quick presence Ineffable, immutable, unknown. O strange beginning of life's endlessness ! — Not any Arab in realms oriental. Not those of Mexico who made the morn. Or the mom's god, a worship marvellous. When, standing on their native solar fanes, Dark devotees of dawn, enrapc, regarding Their god make glad the kindling earth and heavens- Flaahing his far off flames upon the high Old crimson-cresttd mountains, making each An occidental Sinai, — e'er felt A swifter adoration than his spirit When first he saw th' unuttered loveliness, Predestined never more to pass away. This is the Horeb of the heart, whose dower Is in the terrible tables, and whose charge u \n \ 11 "i 11 . 40 TRANSFIGURATION. < \ 1 Is to transcribe them to a scornful world. And this responsible transfiguration Is dowered with disenchantment and with pain, As is the sun with shadows ; therefore, thou, Bum not thine incense lavishly, O bard ! Behold ! a time may come when thou canst see Before thee no shekinah in the night. Then shalt thou use thine innate inspirations. The soothing sustenance of Song, when friends. By calumny estranged, cry, " Crucify." Like Israel's sackclothed monarch may'st thou lie, Forced to thank foes for thine own offspring's death ; Or proudly driven to the lone heathen art. To bind up thine own wounds in thine own blood ; For few can understand unselfishness. But, as the oak is by the storm sustained, -So thou hast learned that a grand soul grows strong In just proportion as woe's waves roll high. Inducted thus in mighty scenes like these ; A glorious hint of that which is to come, A rapture rendering the full spirit dumb. '{;.! • ■:i; Ar)',\ r m FRENCH CHAOS. RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO DR. VERNON, Affable friend, — Once in my hearing you expressed sen- timents to the effect that you were " fond of this sort of thing." Permit me, therefore, to present to you the following. If you read it, be kind enough to draw a pencil through those ideas which are unseemly. Spare not. Criticism is beneficial in proportion to its honesty. Delay your verdict, however, if you are laboring in a fit of indiges- tion. Your acumen is caustic enough naturally. At best, you may call it by its title. Chaos — very well, we will sup- pose you to be a judge of such, tor the same faculties that appreciate excellence capacitate their possessor to expound the opposite extreme. The ensuing lines — I hesitate to call them poetry — ^are, as it were, a sort of literary lava, ejected during a convulsion on one of the few green isles in life's unpacific ocean. Some time previously, having listened to the advice of a flinty utilitarian, I embarked in money-brewing speculations, and lost — three several ventures, gold, time, health and a " bosom friend, dearer than all." To keep the mind from following its losses, I allowed it to imbibe homoeopathic doses of imaginary bale. So fancy flitted away with fear and trembling into a woful hereafter, in order to escape from a worse here. Yet it is a sleezy respite, striving to express some consolation from the hard, acidulated rinds of wretchedness, and may add another to the innumerable instances, whereby misery wins more to Heaven's antipodes than it saves. If this Cimmerian monstrosity survives its in- cubation, I may gratify a taste for evil with some remaining n ;| .:! ! 'I ) .; I I!" ,i ll I Mi 1 !WI|, ■,. !! I 1 I! 49 FRENCH CHAOS. acts ; if not, you will spare me the disagreeable task of copying. To compose is delightful ; it soothes ** the aching void the world can never fill ; " but to re-write is exquisite wretchedness. In these lines — as well as in the lines of life — it has not seemed important to persist in locating Tophet afar off; for it is the opinion of some who speak from much personal experience, and whose lives substantiate their conclusions, that humanity, by a perversion of free will, or otherwise, Ls quite capable of creating such a state of circumstances as they feelingly denominate " a perfect hell ujion earthy It is not easy to imagine eternity apart fr-^m time, yet no time has been observed, excepting that, at tl reduction of events and characters herein interviewed, ..^ic is sup- posed to be a cessation of hostilities in ** yon lowin' haugh," Otherwise, the unities have been strictly adhered to — even in the instance of Napoleon's acrimonious initiation. If censured for predating his advent thitherward, our precipi- tance cannot be said to apply to his intentions. In any case he has labored assiduously to render his calling and election sure, and should not be blamed because his carcass, like Cowper's " tempest, itself lags behind.'' Some objections you may also moot about the apparent inconsistency of humane sentiments emanating out of the mouths of Furies and Demons. My experience in this may bo exceptional, and, for the credit of humanity, I hope it is not the rule ; but the loftiest ideas of millennial perfectibility have been uttered in my hearing by such as are not likely to swell the host of martyrs by dying at the stake for piety. I have heard soothing words for misfortunes, and sensible advice for the unsuccessful, proclaimed by some, the obverse side of whose dispositions was full of an inveterate propensity to render themselves, and all who might be so FRENCH CHAOS. H unfortunate as to approach them on that " off side," cause- lessly unhappy. So truly extremes meet. So truly are we all symbols of the other world. Moreover, it may be said there is no description of the world to come, even by the most creative imagination, but has its counterpart in earthly possibility. Nor is it unfair to suppose an " evil spirit from the Lord " wholly unaware of the justice of her infernal mission. One more liberty of the muse may be deemed necessary : Milton and PoUok allude to Chaos and Tophet as being separate regions. Apart from the presumption of mentioning great names in this connection, jjeimic the remark ; "the divinity that doth hedge a king " may have hindered those geniuses from gaining such an efficient knowledge of low places as comes natural to bards of lesser note — a knowledge I sin- cerely hope no genrie reader will, under any stress of circumstances, be forced to obtain. It is scarcely fair to burden you with a catalogue of shortcomings, but such as have a craving " for something afar from the sphere of their sorrow" will comprehend how frequently the literary traveller, Imagination, grows dis- heartened, when, at arriving on the top of some eve-tinted hill of his longing — his visual nerve being purged by the " euphrasy and rue " of inspiration — he beholds the immeas- urable distance yet extending between him and his ideal glorious Temple of Perfection. " I Btrctch a hand To you who know, who understand." Some eminent writer has said — what is there of any importance to say that some eminent person has not said ? — that every author makes an offering to Oblivion. It will please me if this is my only oblation. Probably the shortest m 1 !? •iiii ^il '^f' *'^P^ FRENCH CHAOS. hir i II III 'iiil way by which to despatch the whole conception to that final depot of all things mundane would be to state that the writer is a Canadian — by that same token no other confession could more clearly establish his carelessness regarding suc- cess or fame. Once it was not so. Power was desired so as to be worthy of friends and country. I hold to the obsolete sentiment that patriotism is preferable to riches as a test of manhood; and my heart makes itself manifest in the usual way at the mention of our native land, but hope of doing it good in literature is gone. So much by way of explanation, not of apology. To ad- rerse criticism no reply will be made. It will seem more modest, while acknowledging their profounder insight into "things evil," to be still and meditate. i'l *j> FRENCH CHAOS. H> BEINGS REPRESENTED. Celeno, an executrix of wrath, sometimes in shape of a very comely woman. Alecto, another beautiful minister of vengeance. Lucifer, once the morning star — the "star" of a different company now. Napoleon Third and Eugenie. A Bard. Terminus, a lawyer and civil engineer in hell. ^Acus, judge of Europeans in do. Familiar Demon of the Bard. Juno, queen of heaven. Hebe, Juno's daughter, exceedingly lovely. Iris, their maid of honor, and others. TO ONE WHO CAN UNDERSTAND IT. '' " A green isle in a sea, love, A fountain and a shrine." — Poe. " Farewell I a sad word easy said And easy sung, I think, by some .... ... .1 clutched my hands and turned my head In my endeavor, and was dumb ; And when I should have said, Farewell, I only murmured ' This is hell.'" — Joaquin Milhr, " A hideous throng rush out forever, They laugh — but smile no more." ■ ' ' i •'. ■■' SCENE I. . A pale green lawn ill a land of shad*.. Celeno and Al> ECTO, greeting. Celeno. Heard you that Europe had another war? 'Twas fought in France, the nearest port Hell has. Alecto. The moons grow gibbous on strange dates in France, Jn ! i i:l ■ III MM jlli i|" nil 46 FRENCH CHAOS. Gendering European euroclydons And most unseemly revolutions there. Celeno. The Press — our enemy assiduous- Say swifter butchering hath never been In any sanguine strife from Cain to Booth, So fast France fell from proud red Prussian spears. We thought those Fenians who hither came Were first-class fools, also the Shenandoans — , Their creed is dubious, want of faith in kings Begets a want of it in loftier things — , ; ,. ■■■ But this Niagara of humanity - Will shortly burst upon us unredeemed. What news from Venus ? ' Alecto. Nothing out of tune— ; Also, by last advice, was Mercury, Celeno. Alecto, I do think it may be said ' Earth is nigh on the eve of some huge change. There seems to be a culmination there, That puts my thought in recollection of A dropsied cloud, ere by the lightning cupped. We may get respite then a thousand years, A thousand years, Alecto, think of it ! 'Tis an idea worth^being amplified. ■ After great Armageddon's war with Christ, Or previously, I have forgotten which, And there's no Bible here for reference. I'd question Paine, but he's not accurate. It may transpire ; the promise is for sure, Fore-spoken by Jehovah ; Lucifer Seems lenient even; see him pensive there, ► ' Prone by the hydra-guarded tribute porch, • ' ' *** Lonesome from unrestricted majesty. A dreadful demon" he, the very shade ' *■ ; ^ 1 FRENCH CHAOS. That half conceals his presence quakes with dread ! There's not, in all the worlds, one capable To be his friend, therefore he is alone ; i For Where's the angel who would dare explore , ., ' The awful secrets of his soul of yore? s; : But Hell's throned ignorance and cruel pride •;,| Will crumble in the fullness of those times. . ' This sty will not remain un-Herculesed , : ; > Forever, nor God's countenance eclipsed. To be hedged out by Heaven's high unconcern Is the last lesson Satan has to learn. Alecto. I fear, Celeno, it is figurative, — A thousand times too glorious to be true I ' Nay, buoy me not with hope, I supplicate ; My only hope is, that I'll hope no more I ; My soul has lost the very shape of it. • ' For disappointment to a fervent spirit * ' '" Is terrible as fire or love, that first "' ' A -^ • ,^ Just shows us where we are ; the golden smoke Makes drowsy with a nectarine delight, ■ Which laps us in " elysian reverie, , ,i. A momentary dream j" — then, suddenly - .• ; > Awaked, — behold, a city full of flame 1 Whose vast spires thunder down, whose sacred fanes Spoil with their smoke the splendors of a sky ,, , \\. Of flame-eclipsing hurricanes and shade, .^' .. Till dawn but shows the havoc they have made ; So strong souls feel for hopes that are undone, As waves are warm long after set of sun. Exit Alecio singing 1 would buy a recipe, And millions more than I, * !!! • // liTT' lISi ■ Hi li ! II ! l! !i II M !; I « FRENCH CHAOS. How to dispose of memory, As night shuts out day's sky. Celeno, solus : I've more compunction for humanita^ Than all the Hinnomites that hither come, Even from more favored worlds ; man's lot is hand; And woman's harsher, being more sensitive. That taxed inheritance which they call life Is doled to them, strained through a seive of pain^, ' And from that moment till they colonize In death is one fierce struggle and defeat. Yet some of them endure their agony •- With a strange grandeur ; even Alecto once Was human, but long years of torturing O'erstrained her high strung soul. As honey makes The purest acid, so fine minds best fiends — 'Tis one of those unfathomable quirks, Which the Almighty weaves into his works. Reenter Alecto. I would net phrase, Alecto, after all. If earth should be the place of peace foretold — Of course it costs Jehovah little toil To will new worlds, or throne immensities. Alecto. One fiat of His word immaculate, And lo, illimitable worlds caroom All scintillant in azurous inane. Celeno. But, 'tis humanity's dependency Makes me believe something will come of it ; With misery, else, man would not be so cursed, But be left vagrant as the groveling brutes. And not for nothing be accountable. Nay, man must have millenniums of life, If he will walk according to the law ; FRENCH CHAOS. # Else his cnished being is creation's blot. 'Twill co7ne, the light, in spite of spurious kings, Priests, and their craft's presumptuous dignity Of my lords bishops ! — gods, it genders bile To see mankind so supple in the knee To error, and rheumatic to the truth ! • , What chore, Alecto, have you to perform ? Alecto. None, but I think I'll to Urania go. My lungs require some change of spiritual air. Celeno. Sweet sister, wing thy flight by way of Mars. (His occultation is in apogee) Urge the mailed god immediately to me. Having entered on the opppositc side of the promontoiy, unohservedby Cchno, Mars sings: Serene was the weather and azure the sky, We wandered together, my chosen and I ; The place was secluded, low in a green dell, Where eglantines brooded, of exc^uisite smell. The dreams that we cherished, like roses were they. Too suddenly perished, too pure to delay ; Now changed is the weather and gloomy the sky ; We go not together, my chosen and I. . Like morn to the water remembrance returns, The day when I brought her among the green ferns ; Like night to the ocean and wrecks to the main, My spirit's devotion was darkened to pain. The music is ended, the flower is dead, Its fragrance ascended forever and fled. Henceforth by the river no roses entwine, Thy pathway forever is parted from mine. 4 [I mil'! Mi m m:% III! Ill i. I 50 FRENCH CHAOS. Celeno. I know that song, 'twas chanted first for me One spring in Greece, before he was a god. It half inclines me to relax my heart, For of all gods Mars is most amorous — ' Hence war and woman may be similar — • His constancy as well as courage wins. Were I but sure my loss thy peace destroyed^ I could no more renounce thee, nor avoid. Sings : . O that those parting times were o'er And thou at rest with me! ■_ \ The future has no joy in store, Dear friend, like meeting thee. Mars listening^ solus : Music and thou are mine especial joy. O, if the heavenly seraphim love song And glorify the beautiful, tlien thou Couldst charm the very cherubim from heaven. (observes her.) Lo, there's the essence of my misery ! I love that supple beauty, O ye gods, I could reconquer worlds undreamed of by That druling imbecile of Macedon More easily than lose my lady love ! (approaches.) Celeno, had I but known 'twas thou didst send, With airless friction had I warped my wings Sooner to lave me in such loveliness ; But, to shun earth — that tomb of my dead hopes — I timidly prolonged my spheral way. Yea, though a god, superior to death, Still hesitate I to withstand those smiles. FRENCH CHAOS. 5» Celeno. You say not so when dure Bellona's by, Or Ops, gay goddess of the glebe, beneath The spotted beechen groves Idalian. Exeunt together. Scene ii. . " Where the stream of time pays tribute to the Stygian wmt' ers, in Ceres, which corresponds to our August. Enter Terminus and ^acus with plans and specifications for the immediate erection of a new and gigantic Inquisition, rendered requisite by the late American and Franco- Prussian wars. Term. How hot this marl ! Only a shower of souls Can cool these waiting purgatorial coals. uEacns. Good Terminus, I hope thou'It not defer; I'm densely wedged for wharfage even now. So fast the nations rain their niins here. There's scarcely room for torture adequate For the requirements of infuriate France, And there are other empires in arrears. Scene hi. Near that portion of Tophet represented in the last scene. A terrible whirlwind arises, filled loith phantoms bewailing their doom. When the storm subsides the whole cheerless icene is changed, A forest of blazing bohon upas, cypress and yew presents itself. Its charred branches crealc in the retreating storm. A raven is seen to alight on a burning palm tree, and presently follows the tempest, " moaning and calling out of other lands." Lucifer is seen alone, musing and looking up at the battlements of Henoen, ^^ edged with intolerable radiancy." Lucifer. This is the hour when on the hills of Heaven, Upon the vales and gardens 'round the throne. On all the leafy blessings of the groves By angels tenanted, and on the wings Of gorgeous cherubim, careering home From sacred errands of the will of God, \ f» FRENCH CHAOS. In" V' 1:1 J- si! 1 1: ;> : ■ ■'I' ; : ■ I iHll';!! liiii 'IP 'IL. The dewy incense of refreshment falls — Cooling the drouth which is not, till the draught Which is presented makes it — while my soul Creaks like a bark by storms of sand impelled Through Hell's Sahara, darkly waiting doom, The dreadful future which will never come. Be 18 interrupted ly a hand of redeemed soaring from wrih to Heaven f and singing : We came from painful journeying Where our triumphant Saviour trod, Up to the heavenly realms to sing O hallelujah, great Lord God ! Behold His mercy -kindled face For all who passed beneath the rod. Translated through eternal grace O holy, holy, great Lord God I Sin and his Death have passed away, Obedient to a dark abode ; But Christ hath rest eternally. O hallelujah, great Lord God ! We too will irit(.rpose for man. To save frou Ruin's fiery Hood; But Christ shall Aanquish Satan's plan, O holy, holy, p."eai Lord God ! Angels are seen descending to meet the sanctified singers^ " harping on their harps'^ Lucifer. Be hushed, hounds of all happiness. Remorse, Hell-gendered hydrophobia, be still ! — Symbol of legions, thou shalt be appeased, ^ FRENCH CHAOS. Si n 'f'l But how can I appease thee ? even now T.;ou art rebellious ; how then wilt thou be In the millennium? how shall I bear This cancer through eternity, and see Millions who have no majesty like mine Made sluggish with much joy? O thou, Remorse 1 No Pompeian sanult or scrip cuneform Are requisite to teach me what thou art. And I but live to soothe thee, not with love, As a young bride her lord, but out of fear. Though foiled, to wear the placid brow of peace Exacts a tension of the soul more fierce Than tempests pent in Tophet — lurid storms Tossed on the fiery lightning's crimson prongs. This shoreless wind, unchained and chartless, finds Far less of pauseless change than I of pain, For I have crushed creation through revenge. *' I have not borne me wisely in Thy world, Thou great all-judging God," nor worshipful. Me no repenting saves — The anguish of this hour would make eterne The period called a day in human date, * Such fearful scope hath pain to lengthen fate ! Enter Familiar Demon. Fam. 'Tis well I caught thee musing ; I would probe Thy judgment with a query : Let me know The fates of twain late seen beyond the Styx. One — O, she is a nursling of the dawn, A mortal with a sweetly blushing soul. Who dwells 'midst her own charms and fairy dreams, Like Eve in Eden's first luxurious June. Her arms are full of beauty, and her brow Appears to bless whatever she beholds. I ? 54 FRENCH CHAOS. lil"! iii: ■■ I5I;.!HI As shining folds of sacramental fumes, Her hair seems incense on an ivory shrine Whereto men bow who never bowed before. As for those timid eyes, what sliall be said ? Or motion's music rendered visible Where peaceful mornings part the shadows for The white feet of her faultlvss loveliness, O I would sell my soul to keep hers pure ! Luc Cease thy terrestrial transports ; she may die. Clang not thy tonjnic like some lost Celeno Disturbed by Nox out of Hell's moonless lake. > Fam. Well, he, who bows before her among men. Hath musings superhuman, thoughts unbound. His life hath been misjudged, because his soul Is greater than the circumstance of life, Even of her glorious presence — though her form, The very essence of supreme delight. Shapely as hers who tempted thee, is pure. ' ' Grant me a pious answer — what shall be . ■•< Their portion, happiness or miseiy ? Luc. Get back to thine appointments, I may choose This love-lorn eagle for immediate use. ' •. Exeunt together, SCENE. ' ■ ? 1 ■ The same. Enter Familiar Demon and two other Dcmonu Dcm. What structure's yon just reared in Acheron ? Fam. 'Tis said that Satan hath prepared a plan To ruin God's whole universe at once, Therefore that vast St. Peter's of our realm Is their infernal tribunal to be. Dem. How were those Alpine pillars reared so high ? Fam. Nimrod was loosed for that a transient space. He, with some gods — Cyclops and Hercules, — FRENCH CHAOS. 55 Smote up the beams with earthquakes of much force. And piled the majesty portentous there ; Big domes like midnights fired with Hghtnings, A smith from Lemnos forged the bossy doors But Satan's self's the agony within. See the red blasts of torment, where the walls Are thunder-rent with tones of great distress, Answering the keen demands of austere death. So Hell hath summoned all her demons home From every region, Gauls and goddesses, . . .. To make a different programme presently ; I'll choose for me a dame whose sire's at Rome, .■ ., Superbly clothed in optional delight. Dem. And / may probably inspect the stock From yonder where divorces do abound ; Let us haste thither and behold them come. And, as we go, an incident I'll tell. Which did transpire on earth — the place you know. There was an Emperor who desired a throne, And when 'twas given him to save a realm, . > He sat him down imperiously happy , .<-<\ Nor saw the coming storm. He mused not on Man's curious apparition-lifo, man's fall, What men are most addicted to, and all We might have been mns sin. His lovely queen — Fam. Oust the remembrance of th' obdurate sex. For love for aye eventuates to vex. , \ Pardon my contradictory reply, ■. , , ,i ' . All men lose faith in women ere they die ; . . , . : Experience is like science, it lays bare ■ Those moons our early fancy thought so fair. Dem. Such foul conclusions prove experience foul. For love itself can bridge eternity. ] I ! W'.'- 86 FRENCH CHAOS. Hence, be thou shamed — I apprehend 'tis gold That doth excUide salvation from men's minds. Fam. And so do I, but 'tis the want of it. Gold is the missionary's staff and scrip ; There is no eloquence like gold, no power. Here priesis perceive grim poverty sends ten To Tophet to one by affliction saved. Dem. Can gold make purchase of the gates of death And liberate the lost ? Fam. Yea, ere they come, And subsequently — frequently it doth. Dem. Could you bribe nature to grow golden figs On tartish crabs, it were a bastard stock. Fam. Still, if 'twere gold, gold turns all crabs to plums, And makes all bastards legal. Dem. But the worm, The worm that never dies, what of the worm ? Fam. That, like most such, is nurtured by defect ; It propagates not in prosperity. Dem. Just Job was wealthy, was he prosperous ? Fam. Job did not use his funds judiciously, Being a bard ; they never bow to gold, Which is one wherefore they are miserable, As one we wot of, our familiar friend. But bards have never yet been understood. Save by a few pure women, perfectly. Dem. Gold makes no cause offer earth's final pale ! Fam. Well, Earth's the seed of Time's eternal tree, And all men's acts are branches. There is no bliss that gold refrains to buy Hi, Nor misery but its want can multiply. Dem. Is not the world's work by its wants performed ? Focal Necessity's concentrant power FRENCH CHAOS. 57 1i Goads Slavery on to Freedom. Fam. Freedom ! yea, Freedom to deluge with profoundest guilt Themselves, and broadcast ruin's germs for bale. I've studied all conceptions of despair, I knew Gehenna's worst conditions well Ere I came here, being cursed by poverty In youth's dark days ; from me she held a hand That might have saved ; imagination then Some respite gained, by conjuring prosperous worlds For one who could have formed a Heaven for both With paradises unconditional, Whose only clouds were ministering angels' wings. Where vales of palms produced carbuncles gay And all their dews dropped diamonds — showering pearls On grasses alchymized to emeralds June after June, till even Misfortune laughed To see lush fruits fiill in Starvation's lap. By azure rivers rolled o'er golden sands, And there we trysted, wandering hands in hands. Through amethystine dawns and purple noons. And every eve was opal. Dem. Thou'st forgot Th' excess of that whose want doth make its worth Would mar what good was in it ; furthermore — Fam. Nay, but those gifts did not continue long ; They scarce sufficed to soothe my misery. Dcm. ISuch good would spoil Heaven's plan for work- ing good. 2nd Dem. 'Tis slighting priests when fiends begin to preach. Dem. Still, as statistics show, war's ranks are filled With disappointed love — so, haply, woe's. I i ^n; 5« FRENCH CHAOS. In ''•«' I' We'll prove it by recruits from recreant Gaul, Who must be near her advent hitherward. Fam. Now thou art short of logic, list to me ; This Earth, like that bright snake that saddened Eve, Will cast her leprous scales of mammon in Bethesda's bath millennial and be free. Dem, Which is the direst evil men invent ? Fam. Bad human stock, wrong bearing and worse rearing. Dcm. I thought the tears because of drunkenness In exhalations from the graveyard world, Would stain the jasper of Heaven's great white throne. Why not announce it to our bard, to chime For love of his own kind ? Fam. He did so oft 'To save us from the toil of torturing souls. _, . ■ Men deem such laws material, unrefined. Therefore they forge rud hug the chains that bind. ' ' 2nd Dem. Lo, yonder's Lucifer, let us disperse, Lest he compel us to apply (iaul's curse. Exeunt all. SCENK IV. Space cast of thv sun. JuNo, Hebe, and Iris wafting their airy jonrnei/ towards Flora, ont. of the Asteroids. Vast worlds on worjdh:, iiilinlited nrid liiuli, hjongfiil, sunoimdcd ilu'in, f.tst wheeling by. 7m. What globe is yon, just yearning o'er Hell's verge? It looks as if forsaken of the Lord. Juno. Lo, 'tis our Earth ; how innocent it seems, ' Seeing 'tis the world to which three bans are tagged^ Like Encke's strange comet with the triune tails. Lone as a drifting wreck o'er dreadful seas FRENCH CHAOS. 5> By pirates boarded, who no knowledge have Of compass, keel, or sun, or whither bound, It is infested with a curious crew ! , , So beautiful the gods have wept for-it, ,: \., Predestined for great things, yet so perverse. But it is chartered by Omnipotence v >;> To orb the azure ocean of the air • » Till he will guide it into port in time. Ilebc. Urge thou more westward, I would see that world. Its clouds are glorious as the vivid silk Of some huge god's abandoned war-torn tent, ^ ' ; With numerous tints as an October day, ;- i When to the south's a brilliant noontide sun And to the north a sable thunder-storm. Juno. A beaming diamond on Diana's breast. Behold the Bay of Naples ! yonder's Rome, • • - In hoary desolation of old days; Northward observe Jerusalem decayed, To be rebuilded when th? kingdom comes — • The mournful city where men crucified The Son of God, who came to save His foes ! ' . ' It was an impious deed — heart-rending death. Hebe. What is that superhuman phantom. Death ? Juno. There all, except the Deity, are dumb, Being left dim for mercy and for faith. i But thither, like an occidental dawn, ..., ■' A new dominion from oblivion comes. I mention this, remembenng you were born In that mild star that hath a different map. Ilehc. Your boundless knowledge burdens words with thanks. Those regions I've heard tell of in our orb Chancewise, but nothing definite till now, ,i!- 1 6o FRENCH CHAOS. CL-' ■I II 'I m ii Saving of Eden and Jerusalem. Meantime inform me of those clouds of smoke Rising as from red holocausts — they shriek ! Juno. Such as they seem they are, from vales once Gaul's. Hehe, Why are they with infernal fury scourged ? Juno. I know not why, such lore is limited. It may be so to cure the culpable By dread ordeals, this nation thus may warn Others that Reason is not God, and save High worlds that have not sinned ; at once make pure Themselves and teach celestial cause for praise. We will return to this unhappy world After a thousand years or so, and see » How prophecy hath changed geography ; For truth, like dawn just filtering through yon clouds, Will burn away abommation's shades. And, on some future Waterloo, decide Once and forever human destiny. But yonder's Tophet's tainted atmosphere, Lit by volcanoes barking to the moon. SCENE III. again. Enter Bard alone. Bard. This dim immitigable den is full Of scowling ghosts on errands of despair, Foul-languaged, but of destiny afraid ; And this the burden of their baleful songs : O for some power to kill th' immortal soul. Some memory-murdering nostrum lethean I I stood upon the verge of fate, Where fiends and angels congregate ; I waited there to hear my doom I FRENCH CHAOS. ^ Of future happiness or gloom ; But holy hopes are always crossed By those whom we esteem the most. So bring Oblivion's listless wine, A wrecked eternity is mine. \ Now what shall I do with my soul ? O say How shall I dispose of eternity ? 2nd Ghost. I wonder why that shudder came And shook thy bosom ; was it blame, When last in thy fond presence I Stood, willing yet for thee to die ? For thou art loved as poets love, , Whose full souls Icel the heavens all move * With sympathizing symbols rare, To show thy glorious eyes and hair. Fam. No more, no more each echoing spirit cries, Can thy lost -soul exalt desiring eyes ; Reversed Bethesda, here we would away, There they crept in to cure their leprosy. 2nd Ghost. In every direction Was excellence there, But not thy perfection, t * My beautiful fair. 'Tis vain to endeavor The sea to pass by — That severs forever My chosen and I. Bard. Strange the supremest peace on earth we knew Should terminate in torture. 'P: 62 FRENCH CHAOS. ii »%. ^^i l:>>i I ! • ii ' ' \ Fam, Even so My patron, but why murmur ? 'tis in vain. Come and behold a baptism of strange fire, , ■ The acrimonious initiation Of hither-hastening Gaul — haply thou mayst See some similitudes exceeding far 1 . , Your soul's regretful loss. Bardt I cannot go ; Their wails would make mine own exceed their woe. Fam. Then I must hasten to those games alone, Else they'll be damned before I am begone. Exit, soliloquizing on his way : His song was good, but I'll not tell him so, The better to discourage dreariness ; For nothing — even women, wine or war, Can sap vitality so fast as care. A poet's mission is to teach grand hopes, How to sustain misfortune with due force, And never groan, though seldom minus cause, For they're reformers, and all Hell hates such. This path is rough, being paved with good intentions— 1 hate this life, pity I ever came ; But thought ere now to be acclimated — O for one smell of green grass bent with dew ! For there's no company worth having here ; That Bard was once a better chum : of late • He's grown immoral, else he is be-mooned By the bright memory of some earthly dame — / know how 'tis — O they are apt in ruin ! It took me years — it costs me more than all. My heart to disentangle from her thrall. I'll skip a jig to keep her charms at bay. Soon as I move those skulls from out my way. ' | FRENCH CHAOS. fii (dances.) Left and right, limber-light, etc. Yes, sadness is a symbol of great minds, With wit narcotic spiced consistently. I have been told on good authority Hell has more gayety than even Heaven ; > Perhaps so, of a superficial sort. But majesty as well as Beauty's sad ; The gods lugubrious are, even mighty Mars; Who though too partial to the goddesses. Still proves it may be writ a standard rule That all high minds are predisposed to gloom. Great gifts enable us to see great faults Both in ourselves and Heaven's vexed universe — For wheels slip cogs elsewhere as well as here — Hence Rousseaux, Lucifer, Lord Byron, Cain.* The odds 'twixt all their hungry hearts desired, And grim reality's assiduous wrong Spread o'er Lnagination a dark glow. Like a volcano's glare in Paradise ; So when the blast of desolation comes — And as our talents will our torment be — Faint souls, like flexile reeds, bend and are saved ; But let it smite the oak, and every bough Resists it fiercely, till o'erwhelmed for aye. So grand souls tremble when their treasure's gone, As the bough quivers whence the bird's just flown. i • Note. — Some bards may object to tlie above company, but one glance into their spu-itnal pedigree will settle the question ; A gcnias is one possessed of genii, i. c., demons. Lucifer being their prince, ofdenidus I mean iiot of poets, is consequently of the same guild. Iforever, "The Oovil waa the first reformer," taid Dr. Johnson. 64 FRENCH CHAOS. I I sometimes sigh, what shall I do To keep my heart from breaking, For every tie that once I knew Still haunts me with its aching. I curse the day I was begot, And bless the hour when buried — The offspring of a merry sot And maiden never married. — (sings.') -•'<, Which, like our poet's last, is much too sad. Imagination marvels why he came Into this unregenerative cave ? Haply because of an unhappy home, — That frequent synonym for shuddering, — A poet's day with an unhappy morn ! Poor dreary wretch, he'd better ne'ei been bom, Or Atropos should sheer from memory Life's crimson threads of sin inlaid by woe. I had the hugest heart on earth, ' And most sagacious reason, But Satan manufactures mirth From every hope I seize on. A rosebud that I loved to watch, Because it knew no evil, Was crushed by an inhuman wretch, A dreadful sensual devil. 1 I I'll chant another distich, sweet with change Of air, but ah 1 no change of sentiment. When I exclaim, " Away, fond dream ; Thou shalt not linger longer, FRENCH CHAOS. 65 Then, like a dam in some swift stream, It stops but to grow stronger.' Time was, my darling, when your face ,. r;^r Was all worth living for, I deemed ; Nor beautiful nor time nor place Where you were not, yea, so it seemed. ^ That suits me better, for the theme's still dear ; Yea, so it seemed ! — and who presumes to blame ? Not I, in truth I did renounce the Heavens For smiles whose memory is Tophet's sun. To death's pale kingdom for her sake I came, Because existence blasted Paradise. There lives no mightier deed a man may do, Though small it is, than properly to woo ; Nor can we rest much faith in that frail soul ; Who did not, during his brief stay on earth, , Prefer some dame to his extrinsic worth. — O, I have wrenched myself immortally ! — • And must inspect this sprained tendon Achilles, Wryed on some slaggy Hell-proof miser's heart, — A fossil I would send to Agassiz, Were such not commoner up there than here. How dark ! I scarce can see my wounding way. Egyptian shadows throng the sighful sky, Filled with an elfish animalculje. Or mist of midges on a moonlit stream, And sounds resembling flocks of storks befogged Once witnessed, egged by storms through earth's pale air* More furious these ! how they increase on high, iS'on« precedent^ except preceding death, They come ! innumerous as clouds of sand ; [i -I • I' '^} \ ti- ill 1 I r I " « i ,-;0 FRENCH CHAOS. From some huge hill driven down upon the main, Howling and trundling through eternity, Like thunder-tempests seaward hurtled on. Here's tribute for grim Charon and the dogs That, sleepless, guard the ghost-worn gates of gloom ! — I hiear the Marseillaise — lo, 'tis tlie French. Lord of Gehenna, save some souls, Ere cruel Hell is crammed ; Or Lucifer will fail for coals Or pains to purge the damned ! SCKNE V. Near the entrance of Tophet and not far from Malebolge. The hall of Nemesis, a gothic temple in the desert gorge of a mountain whose yellow armlike promontories dandle moaning Avernus in their melancholy cinhrace. Present — the Dii Ma jorum Gentium, inducing Janus, ./Eacus, Lucifer, Demons anr? Furies, etc, at the trial of Americans and French. Lucifer addressing tEacus, Rhadamanthus, Minos, Mors, etc. Luc. We miss an Emperor from Sedan, but he Is coming by infallibility. That craft which brings blaspheming legions down Damnation's most prolific tributary. > Enter Louis Napoleon in difguise,in charge o/'I^lwo. Fam. Mention his Majesty and lo, he comes ! A Berlin, vive le roi, comme il faut, hail ! , Quote me ambition's stocks in Prussia now, Thy chances for the throne Iberian. Luc. Free would have been our ferry for thy works — Not that we have much present need of aid — But all thy life proved that thy will was ours ; , FRENCH CHAOS. 67 tS — Therefore no need to smuggle thyself here, As once an Emperor did in pious Gaul. Nap. As once a Fiend seductively in bliss 1 After a trial Napoleon is given in charge of the Furies ely got From miscreant millions, sycophants and slaves. For thou didst cumber Italy — the land Of Angelo — in bondage unto France, That shambles and monopoly of shame Whose quit-claim to corruption ne'er was served, Because she took Jehovah for a jest And made of sophistry and lust a god. ! ■ FRENCH CHAOS. 69 Ah ! by crushed hearts (and hers eclipsed whose name These flues may never echo) which were lost, Imploring thy sworn aid, repulsed, thou'lt plead For help now and forevermore in vain. Thou reticent grasper after stolen thrones ! Ho ! Furies, force Gaul's foe profounder still, And pile her maledictions on his soul Ere ours are seared — as thine on earth, beloved — O heavenliest daughter of undone mankind ! SCENE VI. Purgatory — Enter a Shaih resembling the Empress EUGE- NIE awd^^e Familiar. • Fam. Yea, Madame, yea, we meet in Tartarus, ■ . But I can make thy peace with Lucifer, For I would be thy joy, to nurture thee In this dull realm of dinful solitude, ' ' And crown thee with more gems than thou didst leave On the gay threshold of thy frittered world, Before bald-headed Death did interfere With his grim rending of thy fashion, where There was a chance to save — here all are nude, We sport no style in Hades — this is Death, '-; ' There is no future Hell. ' Shade. Hear me, lost Heaven ! Fam. Prayer should be offered from thy prior world ; Or were thy virgin Aves rendered vain, Because Italia baffled their success And hindered Mary's hearing ? If thy vows Reached not the mercy seat when nearer Heaven, They hardly will from here — so be thou mine, To my pure purpose let thyself incline, ir I \f l" \ 4 ■r ' '•> i ■H 70 FRENXH CHAOa. And thou shalt reign in Ruin with a court Of which thy previous one shall fall far short. Exeunt together. SCENE II. again. Enter Bard alone. Bard. I hear the blasphemies of Malebolge, Which rouse the hydra-howling sentinels Of Death's eternally impending Night. Poor limpid fools, by giving way to folly We make ourselves a Hell to which we hie, Then upbraid God ; from life to blighted life Easy we sail with unmolested Sin To unrestricted Ruin ; but one act, One innocent, feeble, orphan act of good, Can raise rebellious Tophet in both worlds. So generations propagate disease. Which blooms as wormwood blooms in bitterness, And, though unfostered, still goes festering on, Long after its flesh channels are in dust. that those cries could reach th' incautious ears Of sin-swerved spirits in that world of snares ! Yet, though one from this ruined realm arose. They would not hear for planning funerals And disemboguing mammonites in Bale. 1 do not hate my fellows, but I hate The actuating selfishness of man. They bind their beings, — millions of them do- As publishers produce cheap works for sale. They prey upon each other ; they despise The littie good the poor attempt to do, Their precious days, that never dawn but once, Are squandered rendering misery ripe for death. ; '• iM „ > ON THE SOFT SIDE OF HUMANITY. It is my intention some bright day to write a very learned essay on "The ignorance of knowledge." Probably no other person is better qualified by nature to illuminate such I theme. Not only by natural inclination does the subject suit me; I \.?.yz r.nother and more powerful advantage, which arises out of the strange, I may say very strange, manner in which some of my numerous friends comport themselves, as often as my circumstances go astray. The title of that intended essay is conspicuous in their conversation, when the aforesaid friends, through kindness, condescend to give advice — but more especially so, when I find it impossible to avail myself of their superior wisdom. (It must be a " distressful stroke " to a high-toned, self- poised man, who has always been above want, to offer his advice and have it neglected.) Though the subject, ignorance of knowledge, resembles the world when it was without form and void, with darkness upon the face of the deep, still it will differ from other pro- found themes in keeping close to the text — pardy through sympathy with it, but mostly by necessity compelled. Yet th';re is always a drawback or so to every man's excellenr e — which fact is a source of exquisite satisfaction to the bad. That disadvantage amounts to a sort of balance wheel to pride in every being's mental machinery. It may be so ordained, " Lest he o'er proud and high should turn, 'cause he's sae gifted." The obstacle to be overcome by the writer of that article will be the charge of personal 76 ON THE SOFT SIDE OF HUMANITY. If 'i' allusion, preferred against him not only by his advisers but by politicians also ; consequently, the most intensely striking illustrations of my text, furnished gratuitously by men who stand conspicuous representatives of our public aiTairs, will thereby be rendered of none effect. Still another stumbling block will be Prejudice. But, in that essay the author — thoroughly imbued with the genial spirit of toleration, liberality and compromise — will not abate one iota of duty out of consideration for feelings of bigotry, political bias or party whim. lie is, or will, if need be, be prepared for the cause of truth to go " Sounding on his dim and perilous wav," alone. In that essay it shall be seen how easily a '' little child " can confound the profoundest philosopher ; that those whom the superficial denominate the strong minded do not always march in the van of human improvement ; that the rulers of society are not implicitly to be relied on ; that the genuine reformers of all ages have been enthusiasts; that "nations may be wrong in opinions, but never in sentiment ; " that the majority of misery is the effect of chronic ignorance ; and that, though sin (so we are told) entered the world first, yet disease has been abreast of sin ever since — and a long race they have had of it for the ebony goal of Death. However, the writer will not attempt, in his modest way, to dissect human frailty for fun, or thorough wantonness ; but for a wise and merciful purpose — to hurt in order to heal ; for the only useful information that " The burden and the mys^eiy Of all this unintelligible world " can teach is, to learn Jiow to learn. i)> h! ON THE SOFT SIDE OF HUMANITY. 77 It will also be observed in the order of nature, that good predominates among men ; but, owing to a want of knowledge of each other's intentions, or fearing to be misunderstood or not appreciated, we overlook its good, we hide the excellence, we quench refinement, we dare not display our preferences for those persons or high principles, which we appreciate most, as a Jew does not display his costliest pearl, flashing rubies or the beamy chrysopras to a public thoroughfare of Chatham street roughs. Goodness is a sensitive plant which shuts up when roughly handled. Hence much more misery, human and superhuman, than the world is willing to endure frequently arises from a misinterpretation of the motives of those unsuccessful members of society, whose minds are above the common groove and whose circumstances therefore often compel them to act diametrically opposed to their own high ideas, or Divine intentions. A friend, seeing me at fault, will place his or her — for kindness is more frequently feminine than masculine — hand upon my shoulder in warning ; but, how delicately must it be done, or vanity will "erase the impression divine," and likely reward the adviser with a " What is that to you ? " Consequendy, in order to encourage the gentle, even the sentimental, it will appear that they are considerably more respected even by iron-clan Utilitarianism, than the stul>- bornness of Prejudice will allow these samtj metal men to acknowledge. The wicked — there is experience in this— are forced to work pretty diligently in striving to sustain self-respect ; for the way of the transgressor is hard. The little self-esteem remaining with him is assumed as a shield to ward off the i p. 1 lll iak i|{ i^, "^ B i<'>