THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OE CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 

MUSKINGUM LEGENDS 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER SKETCHES AND PAPERS. 
 
MUSKINGUM LEGENDS, 
 
 WITH 
 
 OTHER SKETCHES AND PAPERS 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OF 
 
 THE YOUNG MEN OF GERMANY 
 
 AND 
 
 THE OLD BOYS OF AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 STEPHEN POWERS. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 
 1871. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 
 
 STEPHEN POWERS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
pm 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 four of the five legends have their action on 
 the banks of the Muskingum, and to none other 
 than one native there, perhaps, would they seem entitled 
 to christen the book. The scenes of the few simple 
 stories told in these pages range from the Elbe to the 
 Sacramento, but among all the included streams there is 
 none to me half so dear as the little Indian river, the 
 little "winking river," which flows past my father s 
 house. 
 
 In explanation of the word young, as applied to the 
 Germans in the title, I have only to say that if an Amer 
 ican, wearied and disgusted with the janglings of home 
 politics, will visit the continent of Europe for a season, 
 he will find himself greatly refreshed by the youthfulness 
 of political discussions and platforms. And, in their en 
 thusiasm for all noble learning, are not the Germans ever 
 young? To Franklin, I believe, is attributed the remark 
 that a people never grows younger in crossing the ocean. 
 
 i* (v) 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 If one will compare the Americans in California, who 
 may be said, in a certain sense, to have made the entire 
 circuit of the globe, with the Chinese, who have remained 
 almost stationary near the origin of the human race, he 
 will feel that our countrymen are, in many respects, the 
 
 oldest people in the world. 
 
 S. P. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 1871. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Legend of Federal Bottom ....... 9 
 
 Twinkle of the Moose s Eye 24 
 
 St. Tammany 32 
 
 St. Shoddy 39 
 
 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 The Missing Link Restored . 47 
 
 Awaking in the Old World 60 
 
 Riding by Rail 68 
 
 Old Fritz on Guard 78 
 
 Professor Doctor Kinck von Kinck 90 
 
 Student Rambles in Prussia. I. . . . . . . 103 
 
 II 122 
 
 ni I37 
 
 The Kaiser s Resolve 152 
 
 Kaiser Hans . . . . . . . . . 163 
 
 Allgemeine Zeitung Z 6g 
 
 Some German Characteristics 194 
 
 (vii) 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 IN THE GREAT WEST. PAGE 
 
 The College Politicians . . . 20 4 
 
 Two Only Sons 223 
 
 San Antone 
 
 Pimo Legend of Montezuma 
 
 Tom and his Wife 
 
 243 
 261 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 A Royal Road to History 2 94 
 
 German Student Fraternities S 1 ^ 
 
 California Saved 34 
 
 Freedmen s Bureau 355 
 
MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 LEGEND OF FEDERAL BOTTOM. 
 
 What verse can sing, what prose narrate, 
 The butcher deeds of bloody fate, 
 
 Amid this mighty tulzie ! 
 Grim Horror grinned, pale Terror roared, 
 As Murther at his thrapple shored, 
 
 And hell mixed in the brulzie. 
 
 BURNS. 
 Now let us sing, long live the king, 
 
 And Gilpin long live he ; 
 And when he next doth ride abroad, 
 May I be there to see. 
 
 COW PER. 
 
 AMONG the tributaries of the Beautiful River which 
 flow down through the Buckeye State, there is one 
 celebrated for its picturesqueness. It is known by the 
 Indian name of Muskingum. And a jolly, twinkling, 
 little river it is on a summer s day, winking at all the old, 
 red-jowled farmers, winking very slyly with one eye at 
 their red-cheeked maidens, and with the other at the 
 broad-shouldered, gawky hobbledehoys; winking at the 
 sleepy villages, and the many fields of dark-green maize ; 
 winking at the great white-armed sycamores and the wil 
 lows, whose leaves dance all day in a silly flutter of delight 
 at such flattery ; winking at the bright May-weed, and the 
 spring beauties, and yellow dandelions along the grassy 
 bank ; winking at the huge eyes of the coal-mines, which 
 
 (9) 
 
I0 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 glower blackly down upon the little river as it goes dancing, 
 bobbing, blinking, skipping, and winking along. 
 
 On the bank of this river there abode a community 
 which was renowned for its patriotism. In the first place, 
 the name of their county was Washington. In the second 
 place, the half-moon level, formed by one of those beau 
 tifully superfluous sinuosities which the Muskingum loves, 
 was called by them Federal Bottom. Lastly, the little 
 creek which empties into the river at the lower extremity 
 of this half-moon bottom received the patriotic christen 
 ing of Congress Run. Thus impregnably intrenched in 
 a loyal nomenclature, they abode long years in profound 
 and tranquil security before they were overtaken by dis 
 aster. 
 
 On the opposite side of the river is the precipitous 
 river-range known as Tick Hill. This name is explained 
 by local etymologists from the fact that, so great is the 
 sterility of the hill, the early settlers were compelled to 
 buy and sell exclusively on tick. On its summit there 
 stood a tree, famous far and near as the Crooked Tree, 
 which was so very crooked that no farmer who looked at 
 it could ever strike a straight furrow afterward. 
 
 Just a mile from the river, up the dismal hollow of 
 Congress Run, many years ago, so long ago, indeed, that 
 the memory of man ran not to the contrary, a queer old 
 codger cleared away a little space among the lordly sugar- 
 trees, and built a log-cabin beside the creek. He was 
 known for many a mile around as Daddy Childs, and his 
 clearing, which never grew any wider, was called Childs 
 Place. Strange and wonderful were the stories told to 
 children and superstitious persons about Daddy Childs. 
 Among other things, it was said that his wife, when she 
 made his clothes, spread the cloth upon the floor, laid him 
 down on it, and cut them out by the shape of his body. 
 
LEGEND OF FEDERAL BOTTOM. u 
 
 In consequence of this, his trousers were so very loose and 
 bagging that you could have introduced into the seat of 
 them a bushel of beans. 
 
 His feet were very red, long, and flat, and he never 
 wore shoes in any season. Neither did he wear a coat, 
 and always had his waistcoat and shirt opened on his 
 breast, where the hair on a triangular space grew so abun 
 dant that when he came into a neighbor s house in a snow 
 storm his breast would be as white as his silvered beard. 
 He was a stout, little man, with very red hands and face, 
 albeit the latter was almost hidden by his snow-white hair, 
 which contrasted strongly with his brown and shaggy 
 breast. He always had his yellow woolen shirt-sleeves 
 rolled up to his elbows, displaying forearms as hairy -black 
 as a bear s, though he never did any labor. His black 
 hat was rolled up with great precision on two sides, and 
 he always laid it off the last garment before he got into 
 bed, taking it with both hands, and carefully placing it 
 bottom side up; and when he got out of bed in the morn 
 ing, he put it on first, with both hands, and invariably with 
 the same end forward. 
 
 He was always walking about with a white hickory staff, 
 and often went to tattle with the neighbors ; but nobody 
 could tell what in the world Daddy Childs did for a living. 
 Most people considered him a losel, worthless fellow. His 
 cabin stood in the center of his unfenced clearing, with 
 out a bush or a stalk of maize about it, and thus it seemed 
 to have stood forever. 
 
 But the thing about which observing farmers puzzled 
 and cudgeled their brains most was to " contrive" how the 
 stumps were all extracted so quickly and so completely. 
 They could not have rotted away so soon. More than 
 one simple soul believed there had been some witchcraft 
 about that stump-pulling. There it was, that smooth, 
 
12 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 stumpless, grassy plat ; the path down to the spring ; the 
 cabin in the midst, with its puncheon door, and the latch- 
 string hanging out ; the knees and the weights on the roof; 
 and the enormous stone chimney outside. Not a shadow 
 or vestige of anything else ; no evidences of housekeep 
 ing, not even a long-handled gourd swinging against the 
 logs. 
 
 When did Daddy Childs come there ? Nobody knew. 
 He had always been there. 
 
 Some of the most inquisitive spirits of the neighbor 
 hood visited the house several times, but they never could 
 find Daddy Childs doing anything. His wife was always 
 sitting glum in the chimney corner, rocking in her chair 
 
 " Gathering her brows like gathering storm." 
 
 Strange and terrible stories were related of the house, 
 and certain timorous souls would never, on any account, 
 pass it after nightfall. One narrated to gaping auditors 
 how he had seen a head of flame thrust out of the chim 
 ney in the evening, with drops of fiery blood dripping 
 from its severed neck. Others had, at the dead hour of 
 midnight, seen Daddy Childs driving a yoke of fiery-eyed 
 oxen over the hill, drawing a bob-sled, on which his wife 
 was riding. But nobody could find out anything posi 
 tively evil concerning him, so he was permitted to remain, 
 a mystery to some, a terror to others. Some questioned, 
 " What good does such a man in the world?" We shall 
 see. 
 
 One day, in the hay-making month of July, Daddy 
 Childs suddenly seized his hickory staff, and started down 
 the woody hollow of Congress Run. He walked very 
 briskly, with his head stretched forward and his white 
 hair streaming long down his shoulders, while with his 
 staff he kept time with his left foot. He trudged through 
 
LEGEND OF FEDERAL BOTTOM. 13 
 
 the majestic groves of sugar-trees, and passed the pellucid 
 pools of the creek, where the great-bellied cows stood 
 deep in the water, cooling their udders and sleepily 
 ruminating; nor did he glance aside even when little 
 Bunny whipped up a lofty tree, and squatted on a limb 
 fifty feet overhead, cocking his brush gayly up over his 
 back, peering down at him with one eye, and saying, 
 " Squk, wtik, wuk !" None of these things did he regard, 
 but walked right on. 
 
 At last he approached the little creek-meadow, in which 
 the hearty old bachelor, Halford Pinbury, was raking hay 
 into windrows on the hillside. Now, Halford Pinbury, 
 bachelor though he was, was renowned for the mince-pies, 
 the rich old cheese, mustard cider, and hickory-nuts kept 
 in his house ; and seeing Daddy Childs climb over the 
 fence, he was reminded of his mustard cider, went and 
 lifted a wisp of hay off the oaken firkin, and took a judi 
 cious swig. Then he squatted down, struck the tail of 
 his rake into a summer-crack, wiped the perspiration from 
 his forehead with his arm, winked wickedly with his 
 right eye, and laughed to himself. He watched Daddy 
 Childs, as he shuffled along, breaking the stubble down 
 with his naked feet. The old man did not approach him, 
 but passed along at the foot of the hill, and when he was 
 opposite, he waved his white staff above his head, and 
 cried out, without stopping, 
 
 "Beware of Jim Crow and his rebel rout !" 
 
 Upon this, Halford Pinbury rose up, standing six feet 
 high, winked mischievously with his right eye again, and 
 laughed. Then he leaned on his rake with his left arm, 
 and called after him, 
 
 " Hillo ! Say, now! It s in the old of the moon. 
 Come up, Tisn t going to rain to-day. Come up and 
 
 2 
 
I 4 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 try some. By hokey, what s the use in worrying so this 
 hot day?" 
 
 The old man did not pause for a moment, but turned 
 his head back, waved his staff again, and cried out 
 aloud, 
 
 "Beware of Jim Crow and his rebel rout !" 
 
 Halford Pinbury squatted down by his rake again, and 
 watched the old man, as he hurried away, until he saw 
 him ascend the hill, climb another fence, and disappear. 
 Then he arose and went about his work, muttering to 
 himself, " Humph ! what is the old luney after now, I 
 wonder?" 
 
 As the old man ascended to the top of the meadow, he 
 came in sight of Tick Hill, and the ample fields of the 
 river-farms lay before him, in all the splendid ripeness 
 and richness of the yellow harvest-time. Oh, beautiful 
 valley of the Muskingum ! in thy summer wealth of farms, 
 between the green and sunny rims of thy hills ; with thy 
 evergreen-embowered houses amid the golden fields ; and 
 thy hearty, old-time farmers, challenging each the other to 
 a friendly combat with the ringing of the whetted scythe ; 
 or the long cohorts of contending harvesters, with the 
 swift and whirring swoop of their cradles through the 
 yielding grain ; while the whistling quail keeps time upon 
 the fence did ever human eye behold a lovelier ! 
 
 But Daddy Childs heeded none of these things. He 
 only strode right on across the stubbly wheatfiekl, swing 
 ing his hairy-black arms. Under a mighty mulberry there 
 sat a squad of Farmer Pinbury s jolly harvesters at their 
 forenoon luncheon ; but when their eyes fell upon Daddy 
 Childs, they all began to hoot, and whistle, and utter 
 cat-calls. Hagerman, who was a facetious fellow, cried 
 out, 
 
 " Well, old cock, you look pretty red around the gills 
 
LEGEND OF FEDERAL BOTTOM. 15 
 
 to-day. You ll have to walk faster than that, if ever you 
 ketch up with your wits ag in. Seen em pass here long 
 ago, in the hind part of the morning. But they was so 
 monstrous little, you ll never find em without puttin on 
 your leather specs." 
 
 Then he tossed up a mulberry, and it descended through 
 his huge black whiskers straight into his cavernous mouth. 
 He looked at the old man again, and said, muttering to 
 himself, "The devil is in him." 
 
 Daddy Childs gave no attention to these taunts, but 
 turned his head, swung his white staff, and cried out, 
 mournfully, 
 
 " Beware of Jim Crow and his rebel rout !" 
 
 Then all the jolly harvesters, with one accord, hooted 
 in reply, and said, 
 
 "Sho! Daddy Childs." 
 
 Little red-headed Danny was bringing out a jug of 
 dogwood beer to the laborers, whistling like a quail, and 
 taking one short step and one very long one, while the 
 jug bumped along against his legs. As soon as he saw 
 Daddy Childs he dropped the jug, and ran and hid him 
 self in a wheat-shock. 
 
 When the old man passed down the lane near Farmer 
 Pinbury s house, the little farmer was mending a gate. 
 He did not stop for a moment, but waved his staff and 
 called to him, 
 
 " Beware of Jim Crow and his rebel rout !" 
 
 The little farmer, with his smooth-shaven face and his 
 soft, pleasant eye, looked after him several moments in 
 wondering silence, and then began to whistle under his 
 breath, as his manner was in a brown study, and went on 
 tinkering his gate. 
 
 When he passed Colonel Dobley s house, the venerable 
 colonel was hobbling along in his yard on his crutches. 
 
j6 MUSKINGUM LEGEA DS. 
 
 He stopped a moment, straightened himself vigorously up 
 on his sound leg, and looked scowlingly at Daddy Childs, 
 for the colonel, though nobly kind-hearted, had a counte 
 nance which, when wrinkled in meditation, looked frown 
 ing and severe. The old man glanced through the fence, 
 and called out loudly, for he knew the aged colonel was 
 slightly deaf, 
 
 "Beware of Jim Crow and his rebel rout !" 
 
 But the noble old testy colonel frowned still more at 
 this, and answered him quite loudly, 
 
 " What sense is there in talking so loud?" 
 
 But stout little Mr. Boonder, with his glossy tile, his 
 far-looking gray eyes, and his fatherly, thoughtful ways, 
 mildly said, 
 
 " But, perhaps, Colonel Dobley, it would be well enough 
 to make some arrangements, in case there should be any 
 danger." 
 
 Near the river the old man passed a merry group of 
 school-children, tumbling in the grass, under a magnifi 
 cent lofty apple-tree, vast as any white-oak of the prime 
 val forest, and eating the little yellow sheepnoses. All 
 the smaller children ran and hid themselves in the grass, 
 but two big brothers stood their ground. Daddy Childs 
 called to them, as to everybody, 
 
 " Beware of Jim Crow and his rebel rout !" 
 
 The smaller children peeped at him from behind the 
 trunk of the tree, but the older ones, when he was far 
 enough away, pelted him with rotten apples, and hooted, 
 
 "Sho! Daddy Childs." 
 
 How the old man crossed the river has never been sat 
 isfactorily ascertained. Old Alpha, the fisherman, de 
 clared he swam across, passing hand over hand along his 
 trot-line ; but nobody believed Old Alpha, because he once 
 said he caught a catfish weighing ninety pounds. Others 
 
LEGEND OF FEDERAL BOTTOM. I? 
 
 affirmed he slid across on a film of petroleum ; but that 
 would be a greasy slander upon the waters of the beautiful 
 Muskingum which cannot for a moment be tolerated. In 
 any event, he did cross, and climbed up the rocky, sterile 
 steeps of Tick Hill, toiling up laboriously with his hands 
 on his knees, or clutching the whortleberry-bushes for 
 a support. Once upon the summit, he paused, turned 
 about, and gazed mournfully down upon the surpassing 
 rich and noble valley he had crossed, but in which he had 
 been received with so much flouting and contumely. He 
 struck his staff into the ground and leaned on it for a 
 moment, while his eyes wandered over its peaceful and 
 tranquil homes. Then he cried out yet again, and his 
 voice rang strangely and sadly wild over that whole great 
 valley, 
 
 "Beware! beware! I warn you faithfully, and deceive 
 you not. Beware!" 
 
 Then all the people heard him, and they listened now 
 to his words, and their souls were smitten with a sudden 
 and sharp terror, as if they heard already the thundering 
 hoofs of the dreadful and direful cavalcade. Every one 
 stopped still in his place, and dropped the work he was 
 doing, and they all, with one accord, lifted up their voices 
 and answered him, 
 
 " Thou art faithful, Daddy Childs. Thou warnest all." 
 
 And, indeed, this dreadful and fearful host was already 
 very near, and was even then hastening with fatal swiftness 
 down the hollow of Congress Run. They were already 
 passing the lowly cabin of Daddy Childs, from which the 
 raging flames leaped and hissed, and snapped their fiery 
 tongues in the very face of the gorgeous sun in heaven. 
 
 Now this Jim Crow was a man of the Dark and Bloody 
 Ground, famous in all that region round about for his 
 astuteness in swapping horses. It became a monomania 
 
 2* 
 
IS MUSK1NGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 with him. When the great and terrible war came on be- 
 cween the two countries lying on opposite sides of the 
 Beautiful River, this strange infatuation became tinged witn 
 patriotism. He pondered the matter so much that, like a 
 certain famous knight, his reason became partially unset 
 tled, and then it was his disordered brain conceived the 
 daring and brilliant project of bringing the enemies of his 
 country to utter and ignominious defeat and irretrievable 
 ruin, by compelling them to swap all their horses. He 
 would ride through all the length and breadth of the land 
 with a numerous following, force everybody to swap horses 
 with him, and so ride all hostile horseflesh into a state of 
 exhaustion and heaves, and terminate the war. Whether 
 it ever occurred to him or not, this would have effected a 
 great saving of human lives, and was therefore a plan 
 which should have commended itself to all humane souls. 
 
 Jim Crow was a man of exceeding fierce and unconsti 
 tutional aspect. He was dressed throughout in gray, and 
 his coat had a tail treasonably long, because the fashion 
 of his country s enemies was short. In his belt he had four 
 pistols and seven knives. His eyes were gray, like his 
 clothes. It is said that he whetted his knives every morn 
 ing, and then took his eyesight out and whittled it, by 
 which means he made it so very sharp and fierce that, when 
 he looked at one of his country s enemies, with both eyes 
 at once, they made a hole quite through his head. His 
 black moustache was so long that he could lap it around his 
 head and bring the ends together in front. On the nar 
 row, upright collar of his coat he had golden stars, which 
 symbolized the loftiness of his character, though others 
 affirmed that they denoted the phenomena which appeared 
 to the eyes of his enemies in battle. 
 
 And now, his dreadful and fearful host had crossed the 
 Beautiful River, traversed the Hoosier State, and a good 
 
LEGEND OF FEDERAL BOTTOM. 19 
 
 part of the Buckeye State, and was now hastening down 
 the hollow of Congress Run. Just as Halford Pinbury 
 had taken a draught of mustard cider, and covered the 
 oaken firkin with hay, the tremendous and multitudinous 
 thundering of their hoofs was heard, and a great cloud of 
 dust ascended above the sugar-trees. In a few minutes 
 more they emerged in sight, and then what an appalling 
 spectacle petrified his vision ! 
 
 Horned horses, horses with brazen hoofs and eyes of 
 fire, headless horsemen, some with their heads tied on be 
 hind their saddles, two-legged horses, which advanced 
 only by a kind of kangaroo jumps. The better to accom 
 plish the diabolical purposes hereinbefore set forth, many 
 of them caused their horses to go forward, not in the 
 usual manner, but by a continuous series of somersaults, 
 by which violent motions many of the poor beasts had 
 jerked off their ears, and looked very hideous. Many 
 of the riders were young, and often fell asleep, when they 
 would be jounced violently off upon the ground; but 
 they would run and clamber on again. Most of them had 
 bales of calico and strings of shoes flung over their 
 horses backs. Jim Crow rode in fierce and terrific splen 
 dor at the head of the cavalcade, and his horse had a 
 horn of brass on his forehead, and his eyes were of a 
 peculiar, traitorous color, and from his nostrils there 
 issued smoke of sulphur and other disloyal substances. 
 
 For a moment, Halford Pinbury stood and gazed in 
 speechless amazement ; then he simply ejaculated, " Well, 
 now, by hokey !" and dived down hill at the top of his 
 speed, to save his fat, old, sorrel horse, which stood 
 hitched to a little locust. Snatching the halter loose, he 
 leaped upon his back ; but the infatuated animal, whinny 
 ing frantically, ran with all his might to join the dreadful 
 cavalcade. Finding himself, despite his most desperate 
 
20 MUSKINCUM LEGENDS. 
 
 efforts, about to be carried, irresistibly, into the fatal and 
 direful host, Halford Pinbury dismounted in hot haste, 
 abandoning the beast to his miserable fate, and fled up 
 hill to his firkin of mustard cider, where, seeing he was 
 not pursued, he stopped. 
 
 Leave we this dreadful procession, for a moment, to 
 note the assembling of the Home Guards at the little 
 frame schoolhouse in the valley. Roused by the last 
 solemn warning of Daddy Childs, they had hastened to 
 this place of rendezvous, with their arms and accoutre 
 ments. Stout little Mr. Boonder, with the far-looking 
 gray eyes, and his fatherly, thoughtful ways, was there to 
 assist in "making arrangements." His voice was always 
 heard by the neighbors in times of peril. Little Farmer 
 Pinbury, with his smooth-shaven face, and his soft, pleas 
 ant eyes, was there in a brown study. He was walking 
 to and fro, whistling under his breath, with his hands be 
 hind him under his coat-tails. Stout-hearted old Colonel 
 Dobley had also hobbled there, to show the young men 
 how to fight. There, too, was the stately, but languid, 
 Miss Jemima Boonder, with the pleading eyes and the 
 ripe, pouting lips ; and Miss Jerusha Pinbury, with the 
 earnest, pretty, brown eyes, and the tight little mouth, 
 like an elongated knot-hole. 
 
 While the inspection and loading of arms were in pro 
 gress, Mr. Boonder "made arrangements" with red- 
 bearded Captain Dobley about a supply of gunpowder, 
 then passed along the line, speaking a fatherly word to 
 each, and showing the awkward how to load their rifles 
 more quickly. Presently, Farmer Pinbury stopped whist 
 ling under his breath, and began quietly to build rail-pens 
 for barricades. Colonel Dobley stationed himself at the 
 end of the line, straightened himself vigorously up on his 
 sound leg, sighted along the line, motioned with his 
 
LEGEND OF FEDERAL BOTTOM. 2 I 
 
 crutch toward the middle, and commanded, in stentorian 
 tones, 
 
 " Dress up in the middle there !" 
 
 Captain Dobley then stepped forward, and, with a ter 
 rific and portentous sternness on his brow, which was 
 peculiarly militia-like, commanded, 
 
 " Dress up, company !" 
 
 Upon this, the grand old veteran colonel scowled, 
 struck his crutch hard upon the ground, and said, very 
 loudly, 
 
 " What sense is there in talking so loud !" 
 
 Meantime Mr. Boonder and Farmer Pinbury had con 
 sulted together as to the height the rail-pens should have ; 
 then Mr. Boonder and the captain consulted about the 
 probability of any of the squirrel-guns bursting; then Mr. 
 Boonder "made arrangements" to have the brave boys 
 supplied with the necessary nutriment. 
 
 "Colonel Dobley," said Mr. Boonder, "did you hide 
 your horse in the smoke-house or the cornfield?" 
 
 "I tumbled him over the bank of the river," replied 
 the colonel, twitching a soldier into line. 
 
 Miss Jemima Boonder had, however, in the mean time, 
 acting upon her own sweet and patriotic will, brought a 
 generous supply of blackberry turnovers, which she was 
 distributing along the line, while Miss Jerusha Pinbury, 
 not to be behind, was cheering the defenders of their 
 country with fresh, cool well-water. As these two dear 
 creatures moved along they dropped several tears. When 
 the boys had eaten the blackberry turnovers and drunk 
 the well-water, they felt nourished, and waxed patriotic 
 and fierce exceedingly. They gave three cheers, and 
 loaded their shot-guns double. 
 
 And now, when the dreadful procession ascended the 
 meadow- hill and beheld the noble valley spread out be 
 fore them, what a spectacle awaited them ! Horses tails 
 
22 
 
 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 sticking out of hen-houses, horses ears sticking out of 
 haycocks, horses whinnying down-cellar, where they were 
 complacently munching the last shriveled remnant of last 
 year s apples. The children ran into the house, crowded 
 under the bed, and plugged up their ears with their 
 fingers. The hired girl hurried up-stairs and went to bed, 
 covering her head with the clothes. Rosy-cheeked little 
 Mrs. Pinbury seated herself in her rocking-chair, and 
 pulled out her hair-pins, so that, when the dreadful noise 
 began, she might faint without doing herself bodily in 
 jury. The cat popped into the hole. The old Shanghai 
 cock set off at the head of his harem, but knocked his 
 knees together, and plumped headforemost into the pud 
 dle. Then the direful procession swept along, and all the 
 horses, summoned by the irresistible fascination of the 
 great leader s voice, issued from concealment, and joy 
 fully hastened to swell the calvacade. 
 
 Long before they approached the little frame school- 
 house, the Home Guards discharged their pieces into the 
 atmosphere, at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and 
 effected a masterly retreat, "to draw the enemy on to 
 destruction." None were left behind but the three old 
 unarmed citizens and their two brave daughters. After 
 looking for a few moments at their fleeing defenders, Mr. 
 Boonder remarked, 
 
 " I think, perhaps, Colonel Dobley, we had better make 
 some arrangements to run." 
 
 Farmer Pinbury pointed toward one of his strawstacks, 
 and said, quietly, 
 
 "We might find a refuge there; but if they shot at 
 us, I fear they might fire the stack, and then my cattle 
 would have no shelter next winter." 
 
 But stout-hearted old Colonel Dobley scowled till his 
 face looked terrible, struck his crutch fiercely on the 
 ground, and said, 
 
LEGEND OF FEDERAL BOTTOM. 23 
 
 " We ll stay and fight it out here ! My crutch is worth 
 a dozen of the chicken-hearted fellows. " 
 
 And there they stayed. And Miss Jerusha Pinbury and 
 Miss Jemima Boonder, when they saw their defenders and 
 their lovers all running away, cried out, "Oh, were ever 
 good blackberry turnovers so wasted ! 
 
 Hastening down to the river, the Home Guards em 
 barked in skiffs and rowed across. Taking a safe station, 
 so that no bullets could disturb them in their important 
 labors, they commenced excavating rifle-pits and felling 
 trees. It was a profound movement of strategy; they 
 were changing their base. One smooth-faced, white- 
 headed Simon Pinbury was the first to secure a strategic 
 position, wherein, with his head barely visible above the 
 ground, he called upon his countrymen, in passionate 
 eloquence, never to yield to the vandal invader, but rather 
 to die in the last ditch. Then he leveled his rifle, took 
 deliberate and deadly aim, fired across the river, and 
 totally killed and abolished a small dog. 
 
 In commemoration of this great victory, the patriotic 
 maidens of that neighborhood caused the rifle-pit to be 
 inclosed with an iron railing, which remains to this day, 
 an imperishable monument to the heroism of their country s 
 defenders. 
 
 After securing all the horses, the marauders hastened on 
 to the river, and crossed over. Ascending Tick Hill in 
 the track of Daddy Childs, they found that faithful but 
 despised guardian of his people waiting to complete his 
 mission of deliverance. He conducted them straightway 
 to the Crooked Tree. And now, behold, what a wonderful 
 thing was wrought ! As soon as they looked at the Crooked 
 Tree, their eyesight became distorted, so that no two of 
 them any longer clave together, but they rode each his 
 several way. Thus was the great sovereign and inviolable 
 Buckeye State delivered out of the hand of the spoilers. 
 
TWINKLE OF THE MOOSE S EYE. 
 
 The red man came 
 
 The roaming hunter- tribes, warlike and fierce, 
 And the Mound-builders vanished from the earth. 
 
 . . . . All is gone ; 
 
 All save the piles of earth that hold their bones, 
 The platforms where they worshiped unknown gods, 
 The barriers which they builded from the soil 
 To keep the foe at bay till o er the walls 
 The wild beleaguerers broke, and, one by one, 
 The strongholds of the plain were forced, and heaped 
 With corpses. The brown vultures of the wood 
 Flocked to those vast uncovered sepulchres, 
 And sat, unscared and silent, at their feast. 
 Haply some solitary fugitive, 
 Lurking in marsh and forest, till the sense 
 Of desolation and of fear became 
 Bitterer than death, yielded himself to die. 
 Man s better nature triumphed then. Kind word 
 Welcomed and soothed him ; the rude conquerors 
 Seated the captive with their chiefs ; he chose 
 A bride among their maidens. 
 
 BRYANT. 
 
 MANY centuries ago the tribe of Shawnee Indians, 
 a member of the great nation of the Lenni-Le- 
 nape, were emigrating across the continent toward the 
 Ocean of the Rising Sun. It was long before any pale 
 face had ever trodden its western shores, or even ventured 
 out on its trackless highways, and while yet the race of 
 the Mound-builders still existed, unscared by these fierce 
 hunter-tribes of the red Mongolians. This was the van 
 guard of that great ancient migration which swept them 
 off the earth. 
 (24) 
 
TWINKLE OF THE MOOSE S EYE. 2 $ 
 
 In that peerless valley which now immortalizes their 
 name, the Miamis, their kindred, in a sacred and irre 
 vocable alliance with them, had utterly extirpated the 
 effeminate and fallen Mound-builders ; and now their 
 warriors were come to assist in the conquest of a certain 
 noble and goodly valley, of which reports had brought 
 them information. Luxurious, degenerate, and debased 
 by an effete and horrible religion, the Mound-builders 
 dwelt only in the valleys, which they had reddened with 
 the blood of human sacrifices, while they had cowardly 
 abandoned all the fortresses once maintained by them on 
 the crowning summits. Beyond the river-ranges all the 
 face of the earth was still somber with the ancient gloom 
 of the forest, and penetrated only by the bear and the 
 ferocious panther. 
 
 At length the Shawnee scouts announced their near ap 
 proach to the valley. Leaving their squaws and papooses 
 secreted in the recesses of the forest, they emerged cau 
 tiously upon the brow of a woody mountain, and looked 
 down, with grim exultation, upon the valley which was 
 theirs to conquer. Directly below them was one of those 
 mysterious and ancient barrows which the Mound-builders 
 elevate above their chieftains. The river here sweeps 
 grandly around in a semicircle, and in the middle of this 
 spacious plain they beheld a white-walled village, defended 
 only by a feeble rampart of earth, crested with wooden 
 palisades. In their indolent and pampered degeneracy, 
 the Mound -builders of the east had ceased to fortify their 
 cities with those imposing bulwarks of earth, the remains 
 of which have lingered to this day in the valley of the 
 Father of Waters. 
 
 All the inhabitants, for miles above and below, were 
 gathering into this village in direful haste, for a messen 
 ger had just arrived with the heart-sickening tidings from 
 
 3 
 
26 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 the Miami. As these fierce and cruel hordes stood and 
 looked down with gleaming eyes upon their coming har 
 vest of massacre, the smoke of burning habitations went 
 up, and here and there a fleeing family were seen, with all 
 their household goods in a wooden-wheeled cart, mothers 
 and children crying as they went, over the ruin of their 
 little homes, while the father goaded on his team of 
 crooked-kneed, shaggy bisons. 
 
 The Shawnees gathered upon the brow of the mountain, 
 and awaited the approach of sunset. As soon as the huge 
 shadows of the mountains stretched full across the valley 
 and commenced climbing the opposite side, they de 
 scended, and crouched in a gloomy ravine, until a scout, 
 who had crawled to the summit of the barrow, brought 
 word that all lights were extinguished in the village. 
 Then their great prophet and medicine-man, with his 
 drum, his snakeskin rattle, and his medicine-bag, ad 
 vanced alone to the top of the sacred burial-mound, mut 
 tered a solemn invocation to the Most High God, took a 
 magic arrow from his quiver, placed it in his good ashen 
 bow, and sped it on a long and lofty flight through heaven 
 toward the village. With an eager and a hungry motion 
 the barbed arrow cleft the mellow air, slipping through 
 the darkness on its curving course, until it reached its 
 highest flight, when the heavens opened with an appalling 
 glare, the arrow shone in a globe of white lightning, and 
 terrifically the awful thunders roared in the valley. To 
 the awe-stricken warriors, as the majestic figure of their 
 prophet stood blackly out for an instant against the quiv 
 ering heavens, there seemed to flicker around his head 
 and uplifted bow a lambent, pale-blue halo. Then the 
 solemn tones of the prophet were heard through the dark 
 ness, 
 
 " By the impious and horrible sacrifices of their bloody 
 
TWINKLE OF THE MOOSE S EYE. 27 
 
 religion our enemies have exhausted the long patience of 
 Heaven. The thunders of the Most High God shall bring 
 swift and terrible succor to their destroyers." 
 
 Then the Shawnees sent their allies, the Miamis, around 
 in two bodies, above and below, to intercept any fugitives 
 at the fords. This done, they themselves lay quiet till 
 near daybreak, listening to the slow rumbling of the 
 thunders. 
 
 When their watching eyes beheld the morning-star for 
 one moment twinkle with a watery luster amid an oak- 
 tree on the mountain, they arose and rushed down across 
 the plain, and in that self-same hour the arsenals of the Most 
 High God were opened. With horrid and heart-sickening 
 yells they leaped the phantom stockade, and the lurid 
 lightnings guided their swift tomahawks not amiss. The 
 Mound-builders yielded up their wretched lives like sheep 
 before the slayer. Not more swiftly did the murderous 
 stones descend upon the heads of unresisting victims than 
 the quick and forked cross-lightnings hissed and hurtled 
 from heaven. The torrents of warm rain which gurgled 
 in the streets glared crimson beneath the continuous bolts, 
 and all their purple bubbles winked like bloodshot eyes 
 in the face of the lightnings. The tempest swept over 
 and the thunders lulled, as if the vengeance of Heaven 
 were palled and glutted, and yet the weary savages paused 
 not, though forgetting even their yells of triumph, so that 
 in all the village there was no sound but the dull and thud 
 ding crash of the tomahawk. Only when the great sun 
 looked out, with his angry and lurid eye, through a chink 
 in the morning clouds, did the village rest in silence, and 
 the butchers cease, because there were no victims. 
 
 So great was the multitude of the Mound-builders ! 
 
 And after that the Shawnees gathered much plunder, 
 and sent for their squaws to serve them, and they feasted, 
 
28 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 they and their allies, and made merry. Afterward, it hap 
 pened that a band of Shawnee warriors, wandering over 
 the village, found a house wherein was a maiden hidden, 
 and yet alive. And there was with her a young moose, 
 which had been tenderly nourished by her hand, and now 
 lingered about her hiding-place. Upon the approach of 
 the Shawnees it ran a little way off, then returned, and 
 darted into the house which secreted its mistress, and 
 moaned piteously, and turned its pleading sad gaze upon 
 the warriors, as if beseeching them to show mercy. Thus it 
 revealed to them the hiding-place of the maiden, and she 
 was dragged forth, lifeless with terror. As soon as it saw 
 her, the little animal ran toward her with a plaintive cry, 
 pressed its silken, glossy neck fondly against her, and cow 
 ered timorously beside her, looking piteously into her face 
 for protection, and crying and moaning ; then it looked 
 again at its strange captors, and ran a little way off, then 
 turned and gazed again, with such infinite pitifulness, to 
 ward its mistress, and such dumb, helpless wonder at the 
 savage warriors ; then ran to her again, and so, backward 
 and forward. The dainty little foot-taps on the floor, as 
 it trotted about its beloved mistress ; its soft bleating ; 
 the sad and piteous terror of the poor innocent, as it 
 turned its great, lustrous eyes upon its captors ; the dear 
 and tender caresses of its glossy neck against the insen 
 sible form of the maiden ; the tremor of helpless terror 
 along its velvety flanks ah ! could even the voice of the 
 mistress have pleaded more eloquently ? 
 
 Even the grim savages were touched, all except one, 
 who brutally struck the poor, crying innocent, and dashed 
 it to the ground. They bore away the maiden, and left 
 the stricken pet where it fell. But, after a time, it re 
 covered, and, guided by the unerring instinct of its kind, 
 limped away toward the river. 
 
TWINKLE OF THE MOOSE S EYE. 2 g 
 
 The youthful chief, Pallenund, was fascinated with the 
 beauty of the maiden, whose name was Opimya, and he 
 ordered the bearers to carry her away to his wigwam. But 
 now, continues the tradition, hardly had the stricken 
 moose disappeared, when the very heavens seemed to 
 scowl wrathfully, and lowered with gloom. All the thun 
 ders were fearfully reawakened, twofold more terrific than 
 those which drowned the shrieks of the murdered city, 
 and the lightnings blazed and quivered on the ground 
 and over the bloody ruins. The dead Mound-builders 
 arose and pursued their murderers with horrid yells, and 
 with their cold and stringy fingers clutched their naked 
 bodies. Their hideous livid faces glared with hate and 
 fury. The very scalps writhed in the slippery clutch of 
 the savages, and flapped, bloody and clammy, in their 
 faces. The brutal wretch who struck down the moose was 
 specially singled out, and pursued by corpses with sunken 
 eyes, and bodies covered thick with carrion flies. The 
 vultures, disturbed at their banquet, screamed above their 
 heads. The wounded moose appeared before them with a 
 body of flaming fire, but turned upon them the same sad 
 and piteous gaze as before. 
 
 Then was heard again the solemn voice of the great 
 prophet, crying through the gloom and the raging of the 
 storm, 
 
 " The Most High God is angry. He dwells in the air, 
 and the clouds, and the lightnings, and the beasts of the 
 forest, and the wound given to the moose is given to Him 
 likewise. He has given us the animals for our necessary 
 meat, therefore has He taken away their voices, that they 
 should not cry unto the slayers ; but the fierce lightnings 
 are his also, and fearfully does He plead for His creat 
 ures when they are cruelly entreated. We shall not escape 
 these thunders till we have made expiation ; howbeit, if 
 
 3* 
 
3 o MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 the moose be dead, He will plague this man with the tor 
 ments of an implacable vengeance." 
 
 But the maiden, Opimya, had arisen, and wandered 
 weeping for the slain innocent. In the horror of the 
 great darkness and of the lightnings, she fled among the 
 Shawnees, that lay stricken to the ground in terror, and 
 sought the bank of the river, where she was wont to fondle 
 with the fawn in the summer days. In the middle of the 
 river was a little island, covered with pale-green trees, and 
 opposite this she sat down under a great sycamore. Night 
 came to deepen the tempest, and the darkness became 
 thick blackness. Sitting and leaning her head against the 
 friendly tree, she cried out, piteously, 
 
 "Ah! my pretty, my pet, my innocent! How often 
 have I watched my face and ranged my braided hair in 
 the light of thy eyes ! How often hast thou fondly 
 leaned against me, in thy pretty, helpless terror, when I 
 swept in my little, light canoe across the water ! Ah ! 
 pretty, my pretty, my pet ! would I were dead now, and 
 laid beside thee !" 
 
 The young chief, Pallenund, was passing, with a band 
 of his warriors, searching for the moose, that they might 
 appease the wrath of Heaven, and they heard the wail- 
 ings of the maiden, and approached. Pallenund drew 
 near, and spoke kind words, and lifted her gently in his 
 arms, but she only bewailed herself the more. Then sud 
 denly one cried out, and pointed to two little gleams in 
 the edge of the water, fiery-red and immovable, as if they 
 were blood-red stars dropped from heaven into the river. 
 But Pallenund no sooner looked than he uttered a joyous 
 shout, " It is the twinkle of the moose s eye ! It is the 
 twinkle of the moose s eye!" And one dashed into the 
 water, and fetched it forth, amid songs, and shouting, and 
 dancing, and great rejoicing, but the maiden fell upon its 
 
TWINKLE OF THE MOOSE^S EYE. 31 
 
 neck, and wrapped it about with her arms, and laid her 
 cheek against its neck, and pressed it silently to her breast, 
 while her tears trickled fast over its glossy coat. 
 
 Heaven itself rejoiced at that spectacle, for, as the 
 tradition relates, the clouds were riven asunder and van 
 ished, the shadows of night were rolled back, and the sun 
 returned on his course, to lighten the earth in that glad 
 moment. 
 
 Then said Pallenund to his warriors, " Heaven is ap 
 peased hereby, and we shall be saved if we cut off the 
 offender from among us. Therefore let the name of this 
 river be The Twinkle of the Moose s Eye, and so shall 
 it be called Moos-ken-gum, and the moose shall be sacred 
 unto us for evermore. 
 
 So they returned with great rejoicings to the encamp 
 ment, bearing the maiden, with the recovered moose still 
 tightly clasped in her glad embrace. 
 
 On the morrow they made a joyful feast for their de 
 liverance, and sacrificed to the Great God, and the maiden 
 was given to Pallenund. And when, afterward, Pallenund 
 and Opimya stood together beneath a mighty beech, before 
 the assembled tribe, and the venerable prophet gave them 
 a double ear of maize, in token of their union, and also 
 in token of her proper industry, subjection, and provi 
 dence, while the little pet stood with its great eyes won- 
 deringly gazing at the unwonted spectacle ; then Pallenund 
 made a solemn vow, and attested it before Heaven, that, 
 so long as the golden sun should light the land the Great 
 God had given them, and so long as the uncounted eyes 
 of the Moose-Eye River should twinkle and wink adown 
 its course, the faithful and unforgetting Shawnees would 
 lift up hand no more, wantonly, against a moose. 
 
ST. TAMMANY. 
 
 Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, 
 But why did you kick me down-stairs ? 
 
 BlCKERSTAFF. 
 
 TAMMANY was a friend to the pale-face. He desired 
 to abide with him in peace in the country of the 
 Great Waters ; but his tribe would none of it, and he 
 yielded to them, removed from the land of his ancestors, 
 and journeyed toward the setting sun. 
 
 Slowly and sadly he paddled his canoe, amid the fleet 
 of his tribe, up the broad, blue waters of the River of the 
 Burning Pine ; then they traveled on foot over the great, 
 roaring mountains of the Appalachites ; fashioned bark 
 canoes again, and teetered away down the swift and bub 
 bling River of Falling Banks ; passed the Place of a Head ; 
 then floated many and many a golden summer day down 
 a mighty stream, which, gliding down in the majesty of its 
 smooth and oily rolling, between the never-ending colon 
 nade of pale-green trees, and around the stripped and 
 ravaged islands which attested the greatness of its savage 
 energy when aroused, with here and there a dead branch 
 thrust up out of the water like a palsied arm that would 
 drag their canoes under, seemed to them to be indeed, as 
 it was named, the Beautiful River. Then at last, after 
 floating down through all the long and pleasant Moon of 
 Strawberries, they joyfully dragged their canoes upon the 
 sand where this majestic stream receives the waters of the 
 dimpling, little, winking Moose-Eye River, and journeyed 
 no more. 
 
ST. TAMMANY. 33 
 
 We cannot follow Tammany s people through all the 
 vicissitudes of their history, the fierce and horrid battles 
 in the echoing forest, the triumphs, the defeats, the 
 treaties, the alliances, which at last established them 
 securely in their new dominion. The legend has business 
 with another matter. 
 
 The tribe waxed great among the nations of the abo 
 rigines round about, and became impregnably colonized 
 on the banks of the Muskingum. In the course of their 
 history it had now become necessary to choose a chief 
 sachem to rule over them. It is to this memorable event 
 that this legend relates, for by it were laid down the rule 
 and precedent for all coming generations of American 
 politics. By this transaction the great American science 
 of How to Get into Office (politics) was established for 
 ever on fundamental principles, in contradistinction to 
 the useless art of How to Get out of Office (statesman 
 ship). 
 
 By his well-known friendliness to the pale-face, Tam 
 many had raised up enemies in his tribe, who composed 
 the opposition. In accordance with their respective 
 sentiments on this issue, Tammany s party were recog 
 nized as the White Eyes, while the opposition were de 
 signated Red Eyes. 
 
 The point of junction of the rivers, where now stands 
 the pleasant village of Harmar, is the place where this 
 momentous event occurred. Hither, on a designated day, 
 repaired all the multitudes of the tribe. All the squaws 
 and papooses came, even those which were borne upon 
 the backs in wicker baby -baskets ; and all the superan 
 nuated warriors, who could no longer walk, but were 
 borne on stretchers of bearskin (for Tammany gave the 
 bearers wampum); with all the gallant and stalwart 
 braves of a hundred fights, with nodding plumes of feathers 
 
34 
 
 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 of eagles and of redbirds, and stained quills of porcupine 
 twisted in their hair, fiercely painted with smears and 
 streaks of scarlet ochre, and gorgeously bedecked with 
 flowing robes of figured wolfskins, and beaded moccasins, 
 with chinking and jingling strings of purple wampum, 
 and flint-headed arrows of hickory. From many a somber 
 fastness in the wood along the shores of the river called 
 Beautiful, and from many a patch of shining corn beside 
 the Moose-Eye River, and from beneath the shadows of 
 the Great Mound, the ancient and mysterious, they came 
 in numbers, fearlessly leaving their growing maize and 
 their wigwams without even a dog on sentry, for the 
 matchless prowess and diplomacy of Tammany had made 
 all tribes to fear them. 
 
 The wigwams of Tammany and of the chief of the Red 
 Eyes were pitched about a tomahawk s throw apart, at 
 the great encampment. 
 
 Whenever Tammany beheld a company approaching, 
 he would advance about an arrow-shot to meet them, 
 stop short before them, look earnestly and steadfastly into 
 their faces, then salute them: "Welcome, my children. 
 May the Great Spirit guide your minds, that you may 
 vote with wisdom." To this they would reply, if they 
 were White Eyes, "The Great Spirit is in you;" but 
 if they were Red Eyes, "Ugh! ugh!" Then he would 
 conduct them into his wigwam, pour a little fire-water 
 into a gourd from a porcupine-skin, taste it himself, and 
 hand it to all his guests in succession, each of whom re 
 marked after tasting it, "Ugh, ugh!" After that, they 
 would seat themselves in a circle, and he would take down 
 a bladder of tobacco, fill the bowl of his red-stone Kana- 
 wha calumet, and pass it around the circle. All these 
 solemn and decorous hospitalities were interspersed by 
 Tammany, occasionally, with brief, judicious observations, 
 
ST. TAMMANY. 35 
 
 such as, "Ugh, ugh!" "May the Great Spirit guide 
 you !" " The Red Eyes are fools," " Maize well watered 
 grows fast." 
 
 These ceremonies of hospitality being finished, the 
 braves would visit likewise the wigwam of the Red Eyes, 
 partake of the hostile chief s fire-water, and smoke his 
 calumet. 
 
 Meantime Tammany would go abroad, and mingle 
 familiarly, yet with dignity, with the assembled braves of 
 his tribe. To the younger ones he gave strings of wam 
 pum, fine embroidered moccasins, pipe-bowls, beautiful 
 ashen bows and arrows, and whatever other things are 
 either pleasant to see or to possess. If an aged brave was 
 almost deaf, he told him that people did not speak so 
 loudly nowadays as in former years, when he was young. 
 If any one was blind, he led him by the hand, and spoke 
 to him many words of kindness. He struck his tomahawk 
 into a tree, so low that the youths could all leap over the 
 handle, and told them they could all spring as high as 
 Tammany could in his lustiest youth. 
 
 Two days the braves were in assembling together, and 
 on the morning of the third day there was a mighty 
 multitude. When the hour drew near that they should 
 elect their chief sachem, Tammany caused a long and a 
 strong blast to be blown on the hollow thigh-bone of a 
 moose, which was heard far and wide throughout the en 
 campment. All the braves thereupon gathered about his 
 wigwam, and squatted on their haunches beneath a wide- 
 spreading beech. 
 
 Then Tammany issued forth, arrayed in gorgeous and 
 barbaric splendor, with seven extra smears of ochre on his 
 face, an imposing coronal of feathers on his head, two 
 carved and beaded clam-shells depending from his ears, 
 and robes and moccasins of great magnificence. Stand- 
 
36 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 ing before his wigwam, he made that oration which caused 
 him to be canonized as the patron and great tutelary saint 
 of ail American politicians. He took a blackberry into 
 his mouth to moisten it, and then spoke as follows : 
 
 " Men are not ruled by wisdom. My arms are not long, 
 but I can reach above my head. My feet are not nice, 
 but they carry my head wheresoever it goes. 
 
 "A full bladder gives no sound when it is struck. When 
 the wolf howls he is empty. 
 
 " The deceit of man is great. The coon s tail is in the 
 pond, but his body is on the log. The crawfish get a 
 nibble of his tail, but the coon eats the crawfish. 
 
 " No man has eyes in the back of his head. I can see 
 farther than I can reach. It is easier to pierce the heart 
 through the back than through the breast. 
 
 " Go not too far. A man can sleep in a small sapling. 
 If he climbs to the top it bends to the ground. 
 
 " Every man has a place made for him by the Great 
 Spirit. A deer cannot climb a tree. The jay sits on the 
 topmost bough. The arrow of the brave slays them both. 
 
 "It is easier for fools to go forward than backward. 
 The cat can climb a tree, but she comes down tail first. 
 A wise man does not go forward till he sees how he can 
 come back. The duck dives after the corn, but its neck 
 sticks fast in the net. 
 
 " If two braves contend for a squaw, and one wins her, 
 does he give the other her beads? They are his own. 
 What brave is there who kills his enemy and does not take 
 his scalp? If he did not, men would count him no bet 
 ter than a fool and a squaw. 
 
 "A man cannot pull up a tree by the roots, but if he 
 climbs to the top he can bend and break it down to the 
 ground. 
 
 "Is anybody wise who is Tammany s enemy? He is 
 
ST. TAMMANY. 
 
 37 
 
 a fool. The Red Eyes are fools. This I know. They 
 are knaves. The Great Spirit has told me this. Truth is 
 not to be divided. Can you split the sun with a toma 
 hawk? Are there two moons? The sun is in all things, 
 and when fire springs forth from wood it is the sun. There 
 is one light. 
 
 " When the Evil Spirit seizes a man, and torments him 
 with fatness, do not men bleed him with flints? It is 
 wise. Also, when the Evil Spirit seizes him, and he 
 madly thinks to become a sachem to whom the Great 
 Spirit has not given it, wampum is taken from him. 
 These things I know well, and the custom is so. But 
 there is no blood in a dead man. When he is dying he is 
 not bled, but he is cast out, and men leap and dance on his 
 stomach, and beat him with sticks. These things are true. 
 
 "A wise brave does not strike his enemy s war-club, 
 but his eyes. A dog has a long tail, but a squaw can cut 
 it off. She cannot pluck out his teeth. 
 
 " The chief of the Red Eyes is an enemy of his people. 
 This I know. If he were a friend to his people, he would 
 be a White Eye. If you choose him to be sachem, the 
 Great Spirit will be wroth, and our tribe will talk with 
 owls, and become acquainted with bats. If the Red 
 Eye chief becomes sachem, we shall take counsel with 
 screech-owls. We shall seek the haunts of dogs, and find 
 them. The grass will grow in our wigwams, and our 
 sacred places will be deserted and silent. The howling 
 of the wolf will be heard in our lodges, and in our ancient 
 villages the fox will dig his hole unscared. 
 
 "Humbles are something, but wampum is greater. 
 Tammany has wampum. Tammany is wise. The chief 
 of the Red Eyes is a fool. He is also a knave. This I 
 know well. He wishes to ruin his people. Tammany 
 wishes to save them. 
 
3 8 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 "The words of Tammany are ended." 
 
 The conclusion of this oration was received with very 
 general exclamations of Ugh, ugh!" as indicative of 
 assent and applause. Then the multitude arose and 
 gathered about the wigwam of the opposing chieftain, 
 who came forth and stood before his door. After look 
 ing sternly and immovably toward the great warrior for 
 some minutes, he slowly raised his right hand, pointed 
 scornfully toward him with his forefinger, and began in a 
 deep and solemn voice, scowling darkly : 
 
 "Tammany is not wise. He has not spoken the words 
 of wisdom. The sound of his voice is as the west wind 
 when it blows in the winter. Beside the noise of the 
 blowing, there is nothing else at all." 
 
 At this point, Tammany strode majestically to the side 
 of the speaker, confronted him with a lowering and terrible 
 mien, and imparted to him his opinion of the entire mis 
 apprehension of facts under which he evidently labored. 
 Thereupon the chief of the Red Eyes informed Tammany 
 that his statement was diametrically opposed to the re 
 quirements of strict veracity, and that that virtue abode 
 not in him. Upon that Tammany enlightened his ad 
 versary with an expression of his convictions respecting 
 his personal character and descent, and the character of 
 his mother, to which the chief of the Red Eyes replied 
 with a reciprocal piece of information. 
 
 Thereupon Tammany drew near to him, and smote 
 him with his fist between his two eyes, knocked him down, 
 and spat in his right ear. 
 
 The assembled multitude greeted this triumph with pro 
 longed and vigorous exclamations of "Ugh, ugh!" and 
 at once Tammany was chosen sachem by acclamation. 
 
ST. SHODDY. 
 
 Gars auld claes look amaist as weel s the new. 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 IN the previous legend we have been permitted to rescue 
 from oblivion a portion of the career of the great 
 tutelary divinity of American politicians. Now be it our 
 delightful task to preserve, through written record, so 
 much as has been treasured up by immemorial tradition of 
 the life and tragical death of St. Shoddy, known and re 
 cognized in all our Christian world as the great patron 
 saint of American speculators. 
 
 St. Shoddy was born in the valley of the Muskingum, 
 on the left bank of the river, near the little village of 
 Smartville, situated in the township of Getmore. The 
 precise hour of his birth is not recorded, but that auspi 
 cious event is supposed to have occurred in the night-time, 
 since the infant is reported to have looked hard at the 
 whale-oil lamp, and blinked with both eyes, which cir 
 cumstance was regarded by his nurse, in subsequent years, 
 as indicative of the child s wonderful keenness for a specu 
 lation. 
 
 Very early in youth, while yet most children are wick 
 edly devoting themselves to kites, tops, hobby-horses, and 
 other reprehensible amusement, St. Shoddy developed 
 a most commendable ability to "make money." Having 
 been orphaned at a tender age, he was assigned to the 
 guardianship of a remarkably shrewd uncle, who fostered 
 
 (39) 
 
40 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS, 
 
 \ 
 
 the boy s speculatory propensities. The earliest known 
 instance of the development of this precocity occurred in 
 the following manner: 
 
 The boy s uncle frequently sent him to the village of 
 Smartville, to carry to market poultry, vegetables, dairy 
 products, etc., in order to educate him to shrewdness in 
 dickering and shifting for himself, for he despised schools. 
 One day he ordered him to take a dozen fowls, and, in 
 order that he might start early in the morning, he bade 
 him catch them off the trees overnight. The youth 
 obeyed, but, with remarkable shrewdness, caught only 
 such as had bright red combs, which denoted that they 
 were laying eggs. These he put carefully into a large 
 crate, carpeted with straw, and early in the morning he 
 hitched the old dobbin into the wagon and started. The 
 wagon was very small, and had no springs, and the boy 
 took pains to drive it over the hardest and stoniest road 
 he could find. The consequence was, when he arrived at 
 the market, there were in the straw twelve new-laid eggs, 
 warm and white. This was what he had expected when he 
 drove the wagon over the stony road. 
 
 These he justly considered his own property, and, in 
 stead of spending them for foolish and wicked toys, such 
 as kites and tops, or, still worse, for books, he bartered 
 them for a terrier pup. This was not for play, but for 
 profit, as will soon appear. His uncle, in order further 
 to teach him to "look out for number one," was very 
 close with his crumbs, so that the animal often howled 
 full sore with hunger, and his ribs were grievously con 
 stricted. But the boy secretly nourished the pup, by 
 taking him into the barnyard and milking the rich strip- 
 pings into his mouth. He was well rewarded for all this 
 prudence, for when the pup waxed to a good stature, and 
 his teeth were well grown, he brought his young master a 
 
ST. SHODDY. 41 
 
 revenue of fifty-seven ratskins and two minks, worth 
 several dollars. 
 
 The lad also, while he was yet in his extreme youth, 
 concocted a sort of unguent or salve, wherewith to anoint 
 people s corns. It was very active in its operations, being 
 composed largely of aquafortis. Indeed, it was so very 
 active in its effects that the lad presently procured for 
 himself a sound beating, and he was obliged to put aside 
 his corn-salve for the present. 
 
 By all these youthful speculations, and many others not 
 here enumerated, he at length accumulated enough to pur 
 chase a large stock of candies and sweetmeats of all kinds 
 from the village, which he brought out for sale to a chil 
 dren s picnic on a May-day. He also procured quite a 
 quantity of materials for the manufacture of lemonade. 
 Then, by his influence with the parents and older children, 
 he caused the picnic to be celebrated in a certain grove, 
 where there was only one spring to supply them with 
 water. He sold his sweetmeats to them at a low price, 
 quite as low as they could have purchased them from the 
 village confectioners, which caused the children to eat 
 heartily of them and become very thirsty. Meantime, 
 in some mysterious manner which has never been fully 
 explained, his terrier dog, which was now quite aged and 
 feeble, fell into a corner of the spring, so that the chil 
 dren could no longer drink the water. Thus they were 
 compelled to purchase large quantities of his lemonade at 
 a high price, by which St. Shoddy received great profit. 
 The dog having fallen into a corner of the spring was re 
 membered by St. Shoddy when he grew to manhood, and 
 gave rise to an expression which has become exceedingly 
 famous among speculators. 
 
 But the one great and mature enterprise of St. Shoddy, 
 for which all this was only preparatory, and which pro- 
 
 4* 
 
42 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 cured for him canonization and immortality, is now to be 
 related. His speculative brain conceived a mighty project. 
 Looking about him, he beheld thousands and tens of 
 thousands of his fellow-mortals engaged in making clothes, 
 ( at such pitiful rates of compensation, especially in the 
 case of young seamstresses in great cities, that the slow 
 wasting away and destruction of human life were melan 
 choly to contemplate. But, saddening as was this cir 
 cumstance to his mind, there was another yet more pain 
 ful the waste and utter loss of a great quantity of clothes. 
 Month after month he beheld bundles of raiment, often 
 only slightly abraded or soiled, cast aside at the imperious 
 mandate of fickle Fashion, thrown out to be trodden under 
 foot of mankind, sodden by the rains, defiled with mouldi- 
 ness, and reduced to ignominious mildew, pulp, and decay. 
 He regretted so much wastefulness, but, above all things 
 beside, he beheld herein an opportunity for acquiring im 
 mense profit. He considered in his mind the principle, 
 that there is nothing new on earth. 
 
 "The cabbages," said he to himself, in his thrifty mus 
 ings, "grow up, flourish, and decay if they are not 
 utilized ; but they return to the earth, and, in the mys 
 terious laboratory of Nature, they are transformed from 
 death into life, and appear again as cabbages, to gladden 
 the appetite, and minister to the lusty strength, of the 
 farmer. Nature cannot supply our artificial wants ; cannot, 
 in short, either originally fashion, or subsequently trans 
 mute, our clothes ; but we can imitate her methods, and 
 be instructed by her wise economy. 
 
 " I will cause old clothes to be converted into new. I 
 will bring about a condition of affairs on earth, among 
 civilized men, wherein all useless and cumbersome sheep, 
 cotton-plants, hemp, flax, ramie, silk-worms, and what 
 ever other fabric-producing animals, worms, or plants 
 
ST. SHODDY. 43 
 
 now occupy so great a portion of the earth, to the exclu 
 sion of factories, mills, and other evidences of civilization, 
 may be wholly discarded. I will thus make living-space 
 on earth for millions of people, now excluded by these 
 plants and animals. I will relieve untold misery and 
 penury among the laboring poor, by giving them new 
 garments for their old, for a slight compensation. I will 
 exterminate the heartless monopolies of clothiers, who 
 crush the very life from the wretched seamstresses whom 
 they employ. 
 
 "And, in doing all these things, I shall accomplish 
 marvels for myself. I shall put profit into my pocket. 
 It will be one of the greatest speculations of history. 
 There is money in it. In short, it will pay." 
 
 Thus much he devised within his thrifty mind ; but 
 how to bring his great project into execution was a puzzle. 
 He set himself to devise some invention. How could old 
 clothes be renovated ? How could the threadbare places 
 be thickened, and the holes in the elbows bridged over ? 
 How could the color be restored? And then, too, it 
 would not answer, in every case, to restore the original 
 color, because the owner would weary of wearing the same 
 always. Besides that, the fashions were continually shift 
 ing, and, if his invention was to be of any avail, it must 
 be capable of taking the discarded garment the moment 
 the fashion changed, and making it entirely over. 
 
 But at last he contrived an invention of marvelous in 
 genuity. He constructed a curious and intricate machine, 
 into which old clothes could be fed, with water, and 
 ground into pulp, then spread out thin in beautiful cloth, 
 better than it was before, from which, by means of other 
 wonderful machinery, the garment could be entirely re 
 constructed. And, most wonderful of all, he discovered 
 that the oftener a garment was ground over the better it 
 
44 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 became. At first he was alarmed at this discovery, as it 
 promised eventually to bring the garments to such a pitch 
 of excellence that they would never wear out, and thus his 
 occupation would be gone forever. But the goddess 
 Fashion quickly came to his relief, and whispered to St. 
 Shoddy that, so long as she held supreme dominion over 
 mankind, he should never lack employment for his in 
 vention. 
 
 Then, to establish himself and his descendants in the 
 control of this invention for all future time, he procured 
 from this goddess a writing called a patent, which secured 
 to him the exclusive right throughout the world to grind 
 up old clothes. Not only were all the remainder of 
 mankind strictly forbidden to grind up an old coat, but 
 they were not even permitted to mend it. So powerfully 
 did the goddess Fashion contribute to the subsequent 
 apotheosis of St. Shoddy. 
 
 Need the sequel be chronicled? Need it be related 
 how St. Shoddy received immense contracts from his 
 government, during a war which then unhappily raged ? 
 How he furnished a mighty army with fine new garments? 
 How, when their old clothes could not be gathered up 
 amid the whizzing bullets, he even, in his ardent patriot 
 ism, ground up hair, ropes, old paper, and skins, and 
 made them into clothes, that he might fulfill his contract? 
 How the gallant lads loved him, rejoiced, and were proud 
 in their radiant new garments ? How thus the army was 
 saved, and enabled to inflict on the enemy a bloody de 
 feat, because when their old clothes were worn out they 
 had no St. Shoddy to grind them over ? How he became 
 enormously wealthy, such as man never was before in all 
 this goodly land ? 
 
 St. Shoddy waxed very great, and the fame of him was 
 enlarged exceedingly. He caused a grand house to be 
 
ST. SHODDY. 45 
 
 constructed of pressed stone, and plastered to look like 
 marble, and the pillars of it were of hollow iron, also 
 marbled. The rooms thereof were paneled with pine, 
 and grained like laurel, and all manner of precious woods 
 of Brazil ; and his furniture was veneered like mahogany 
 and rosewood. 
 
 He also caused a library to be built, and he gave out a 
 contract for the purchase and manufacture of many thou 
 sands of books one thousand to be six inches long, for 
 the upper shelf; one thousand seven inches long, etc.; 
 and all to be beautifully gilded or marbled. He also in 
 structed his librarian to cause a large number of letters to 
 be written, in different handwritings, and signed with the 
 names of philosophers, statesmen, literary men, and the 
 like, that his visitors might wonder at the greatness of his 
 correspondence. But the letters from the greatest men 
 St. Shoddy wrote best himself, because, as he remarked to 
 his librarian, he had never learned to write. 
 
 St. Shoddy also took unto himself a wife, a woman who 
 was fleshy and red-faced, and had on her fingers many 
 flashing diamonds very ingeniously made of clarified paste 
 (for St. Shoddy sought to encourage ingenuity in all men), 
 and she rode in a splendid chariot, with mulberry panels, 
 bearing, as a heraldic device, the representation of St. 
 Shoddy himself benevolently offering a poor mechanic a 
 coat of his ground cloth in place of one made in the 
 ancient manner. She also patronized learning greatly, 
 and even permitted a poor schoolmaster to live in her 
 elegant mansion, and encouraged him by her daily pres 
 ence. She went much further in her benevolence, and 
 employed a poor girl, paying her a considerable stipend, 
 to serve as her amanuensis. 
 
 And now, alas ! it remains only to chronicle the mel 
 ancholy and tragical death which caused St. Shoddy to 
 
46 MUSKINGUM LEGENDS. 
 
 be canonized. The architect whom he employed to con 
 struct his mansion was imbued with his own great prin 
 ciples of enterprise and rotation, and, in the erection of a 
 house, he observed the same general plan followed by his 
 illustrious employer in the fashioning of garments. In 
 short, he reasoned that the oftener a house was con 
 structed the better it became. He therefore very in 
 geniously built this mansion of pressed stone and plaster 
 without iron girders, in such a manner that, when the 
 rain descended upon it in great quantities, the pressed 
 stone dissolved, and the house fell in with a mighty crash. 
 But he had neglected to inform his employer of the great 
 principle which he had discovered, and he was crushed 
 beneath the ruins. And for his epitaph there were written 
 these words: "Thou hast no speculation in those eyes." 
 So it came about, from the memorable and melancholy 
 manner of St. Shoddy s death, that there arose a super 
 stitious tradition in that country, which was, that it was 
 dangerous for one person to possess over seven tenement- 
 houses, for that one of them was certain to fall upon him 
 and destroy him. 
 
PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 THE MISSING LINK RESTORED. 
 
 A STORY FOR BOYS. 
 
 Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
 Be it ever so humble, there s no place like home. 
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 
 
 ONCE upon a time, a number of years ago, there 
 lived in the Oldenburg hamlet of Donnersheim a 
 sturdy peasant, named Christian Thurngauer, with his wife 
 Katharine, and their only and hopeful son, Hans. They 
 dwelt in one of those little old, quaint houses one may 
 see so many of in North Germany, with a frame of wood, 
 and all the space between filled in with brick, then the 
 whole plastered thickly over, inside and out, with coarse 
 mortar, and sicklied all over with a greenish-yellow wash. 
 The walls bowed this way and that, like jolly old burghers 
 at their beer, albeit they were so thick that the small square 
 windows with their four panes looked more like holes 
 punched through for the extrusion of cannon, in case the 
 hamlet needed defense. 
 
 All along the street these mud-walls were ranged in 
 order, with the gables sharpened steeply up, and little 
 pigeon-holes, and holes of windows for the drowsy cats; 
 each house leaning to or from the street in a manner 
 entirely peculiar to itself; and all strung along together 
 
 (47) 
 
48 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 in such a funny kind of way that the street was as crooked 
 as the limb of a crab-apple tree. 
 
 Christian Thurngauer owned a little plot of land out 
 side of the village, which was large enough to produce all 
 the cabbages he needed for sauer-kraut, and more than 
 that, had a pond where the geese could flounce and pud 
 dle at will, and then pick grass around the edges on little 
 scraps of shores. Every day Hans had to let the geese 
 out of the pen in the morning, and watch them while they 
 picked, and bring them back at night. One day, in March, 
 when there was a cold, nasty wind, which made his face 
 and hands look as blue as skimmed milk, he had been out 
 all day, and having had no dinner but a piece of bread 
 without beer, he was impatient with the geese as they 
 came slowly waddling home, and flung a pebble at an old 
 gander, which broke its leg. 
 
 Great was his dismay thereat, for he knew he should 
 not escape his father s wrath. He caught the gander, and 
 tried to carry it, but it made such a squalling and flapping 
 that he was obliged to let it go. It dragged itself along 
 to the pen, and then set up such a screeching that his 
 father came to see what was the matter. 
 
 " How did this happen, Hans?" 
 
 I I He kept a peckin the other geese, and 
 
 wouldn t go along." 
 
 "Ah, Sacrament ! I see how it is." And with that he 
 fetched him a smack on the face with his hard, broad 
 hand, which sent him spinning away over the bank, and 
 down into the ditch, where he fell top downward, and 
 jabbed his head into the mud so deep that it was only 
 after a considerable flouncing about that he pulled it 
 loose. 
 
 Hans s Teutonic blood was up now. Before, he had 
 felt sorry, and pitied the old gander; but now he cried 
 
THE MISSING LINK RESTORED. 
 
 49 
 
 for very rage. His mother came to him, and tried to 
 soothe him. She was a patient, kindly, daft little body, 
 with a pale, thin face, and soft, Saxon blue eyes, around 
 which many sorrows and the boisterous temper of her 
 husband had imprinted deep lines of grief. She loved 
 Hans, as her only remaining child, with all the intensity 
 of which her nature was capable; and many a time 
 shielded him with her own person from the choleric 
 bursts of passion to which his father so often gave way. 
 
 Now, she soothed and caressed him with more than 
 her wonted tenderness, washed his face, and kissed away 
 his tears, in a vain attempt to check their flow. Hans 
 was inconsolable. His soul was full of rebellion. They 
 went into the room, and sat down around their little sup 
 per. There was a great platter of boiled potatoes, with a 
 cellar of salt beside it, into which each dipped his potato, 
 and a pan of bonny-clabber. That was all. 
 
 Hans tried to eat, but he could not. Now and then a 
 tear would trickle out and run all the way down along his 
 nose; and he kept heaving long sobs, and the potato 
 would not go down. 
 
 So, after the meal was finished in silence, Hans crept 
 away to bed, but not to sleep. He kept turning over and 
 over, and muttering to himself as nearly aloud as he dared, 
 for he did not quite venture to speak out even to himself 
 the naughty things he was thinking about. He was plan 
 ning to run away, and was determined to go to America ; 
 but he would have to slip out through the back door, and 
 he could not for his life think how he could get through 
 the goose-pen without stirring up the geese and making a 
 great uproar. He thought the matter all over a great many 
 times, and finally he remembered a hole in the wall, about 
 as high up as his head, where he could crawl out without 
 getting among the geese. So he got up carefully, after all 
 
 5 
 
50 PAPERS FROM GERMAN*. 
 
 the house was still, dressed himself, and crept slyly out, 
 and crawled through the hole and got safely into the 
 road. 
 
 The moon was shining brightly overhead as brightly 
 as it ever does in blue old Germany and Hans, in order 
 not to make tracks in the road, walked along on the grass 
 under the great spindling poplars. He did not know 
 where America was, but he had heard old Herr Hund- 
 bacher, in the village, talk about it often enough, and he 
 knew people had to go to Bremen to get there, and he 
 knew the road to Bremen very well. 
 
 All night long he walked as fast as he could, and never 
 thought once of his mother, nor of anybody else behind 
 him. Before morning he got pretty hungry, and a little 
 after daybreak he stopped at a house where they gave him 
 some crusts of black bread. He was very tired, and sat 
 down by the roadside to nibble them, and then he thought 
 about his mother s bread, and he could not help thinking 
 that if he were at home she would not give him hard 
 crusts to eat ; and while he thought about her he cried a 
 little, but then there came back to him the broken-legged 
 gander and the ditch, and they made him feel spunky 
 again. 
 
 Presently he overtook an old peasant, with his long 
 sheepskin coat and staff, trudging along in the middle 
 of the road, shuffling his wooden shoes along, and making 
 a prodigious dust. Hans began to talk with him. 
 
 " Mem Herr, is it very far to America?" 
 
 " Oh, little one, Sacrament ! America ! That s more 
 than a hundred miles from here !" 
 
 " But when I get to Bremen I ll be pretty near there, 
 won t I?" 
 
 "Tut, little one! Bremen isn t more than half way 
 there. They have to cross the big water first, where 
 
THE MISSING LINK RESTORED. ^ 
 
 there s great wall-fishes, with holes in their heads on 
 top." 
 
 "Is them wall-fishes very big?" asked Hans, somewhat 
 alarmed, "and will they catch anybody?" 
 
 "Yes, they re long as that house yonder. But what 
 are you doing; going to America? I m afraid you re 
 running away, little one?" 
 
 This question confused Hans not a little ; but he was too 
 honest to lie, so he muttered and mumbled something, but 
 the old peasant s understanding was so obtuse that he paid 
 little attention. More than that, even if he had, he would 
 have been only too glad to be young himself, and on the 
 way to America. Presently Hans mustered courage to 
 commence again. 
 
 " They telled me in our village that in America the 
 clouds is barrels, and it rains beer sometimes, so people 
 only has to set kegs under the spouts." 
 
 " Potztausend ! little one, don t you believe none of 
 them foolish stories. But I ll tell you true stories about 
 America. There s men there that gives men money just 
 as soon as they comes ashore, and shakes their hands, and 
 gives em plenty of beer, and takes em to nice houses, 
 and takes their old German money, and gives em Amer 
 ican money, lots of it, more than five times as much as 
 they had before, and all new money, too. They are so 
 glad to see em come." 
 
 " Well, I hope they ll give me some money," said Hans, 
 with childish honesty, " cause I ain t got much." 
 
 "And then, when Germans has been there two or three 
 months, they takes em again, and gives em more money 
 for nothing at all ; but all they has to do is to take some 
 papers, and some little pieces of papers, and go and put 
 it all in boxes. They treats em like brothers, and shakes 
 their hands every time they meets *em." 
 
5 2 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 "But what s all them papers and boxes for?" asked 
 Hans. 
 
 "Oh, they re just to get beer with. If they gets 
 enough papers into the boxes, the men that gets the most 
 buys beer again." 
 
 And so they talked and walked together, Hans and the 
 peasant, till noon, when they sat down on a grassy bank, 
 and the peasant gave Hans some bread and sausages out 
 of his handkerchief, and they ate together and drank 
 some beer from a flask. 
 
 Hans had to sit down and rest many times that after 
 noon, and it was not till about sunset that he reached 
 Bremen. He knew nothing whatever of the big city, so 
 he went wandering about the thronged streets, among the 
 crowds of people so strangely and brilliantly dressed, his 
 great eyes rolling about in his round, pudding-sack face, 
 like those you may see in a little Dutch clock in a jew 
 eler s window. By a most fortunate chance he fell in 
 with a Bavarian, with a great red face and yellow beard, 
 who was going to America on the next vessel, and agreed 
 to take him along if he would live with him in New York 
 and learn to brew beer. Hans readily agreed to this, and 
 in a few days they went down to Geestemiinde, and went 
 on board. 
 
 It was a sailing vessel that they embarked upon, and 
 they had a great deal of tempestuous weather on the voy 
 age. Ah ! how sick was poor Hans ! He would sit by 
 the taffrail hour after hour and gaze down upon the sea, 
 which looked just as the soapsuds used to in his mother s 
 washtub ; and then he would keck, and retch, and strain 
 until he thought he would turn wrong side out. 
 
 When the ship would go up, his head would feel as 
 heavy as if there were a big gander on top of it ; and 
 then it would go down, down, down, so far and so fast 
 
THE MISSING LINK RESTORED. 53 
 
 that it seemed as if his stomach had slipped right up into 
 his mouth, and as if his hair were coming loose and flying 
 up into the air, while all around him it would look yellow 
 and ghastly, and he would feel so desperately sick that he 
 could scarcely keep hold of the ship s rail. Ten thousand 
 times when he sat crying, and felt that he would almost 
 as lief fall into the water as not, he wished he was back 
 again minding the geese at home. 
 
 The fare on board the ship was very wretched. In the 
 morning and at evening it was nothing but miserable watery 
 soup and mouldy bread, and at noon they would get some 
 greasy, rancid meat and beans, or perhaps some spoiled 
 and stinking fish, that made Hans sicker than the ship did 
 in rolling. 
 
 Many grew sick and died ; his friend, the Bavarian, 
 was sick and thought he should die ; the storms were ter 
 rible. Nearly every day Hans saw them tie up some 
 emigrant in a sort of sack, with a heavy piece of coal at 
 his feet, and slide him over the rail into the dark cold 
 ocean. He was afraid to look over to see what became 
 of them, and he soon became afraid to sit by the edge of 
 the ship at all and look down upon the water. He was 
 so weak he could no longer walk about the deck, but he 
 would crawl out for an hour or two to look at the beauti 
 ful sun once more, when it shone out dimly through the 
 clouds, and wonder whether his mother were thinking 
 of him, and whether the same sun he saw stood over his 
 dear old home. Then he would weep bitter tears, and 
 wish he, too, might die, though he did not want to be 
 thrown down into that cold black sea. 
 
 Then he would crawl back into his black and filthy 
 room, and one of the emigrants would lift him up into 
 his berth. There he lay without any covering, and all 
 night he would have to keep hold of the edge of the berth 
 
 r* 
 
54 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 with both hands lest he should fall out. The ship plunged 
 about so that he would sometimes almost stand on his 
 feet ; and then he would go back the other way and butt 
 his head against the wall so hard he thought he should 
 break a hole through after awhile, and fall out into the 
 brine. 
 
 Poor Hans ! Did he not wish ten thousand times he 
 had stayed at home, and minded his father? By the time 
 he got to New York his plump round face was all pinched 
 together, and he had to be carried ashore. They carried 
 him through the streets of the great swarming city, and 
 laid him in a bed in a quiet room, where, after many 
 weeks, he got well. 
 
 We will here skip over a long interval in the life of 
 Hans. Suffice it to say, that after he recovered he became 
 an apprentice to his friend, the Bavarian, with the great 
 red face and yellow beard ; stayed with him till he was 
 of age ; then went out to San Francisco, dug gold, be 
 came wealthy, and finally took unto himself a frau. 
 
 But all the while he kept thinking of his father and 
 mother, and wondering what his mother would do, and 
 after he had quietly settled down to business in San Fran 
 cisco he determined to write home. He wrote, and in 
 due time received a letter from his father, in which he 
 told him that his mother had died many years ago, soon 
 after he ran away, for grief at his loss. He had supposed 
 Hans was dead, but had long ago forgiven him, and he 
 begged him to come home and visit him without delay, 
 "For," said he, "I might be sleeping under the grass 
 before you come, and so die without beholding your 
 face." 
 
 Hans wept when he read this letter, and he determined 
 to go at once to his father before he died. He went to 
 
THE MISSING LINK RESTORED. 55 
 
 New York, sent a telegram home, telling his father by 
 what steamer he should sail, and went aboard. 
 
 He was now a fine and manly figure ; his yellow hair 
 had darkened into a beautiful auburn ; his face had lost 
 something of its expressionless and boyish fatness, but 
 was clear and fresh with the ruddy flush of health. His 
 huge brown beard had changed him so that nobody who 
 saw the yellow : haired, white-faced boy carried through 
 the streets of New York would once have thought that this 
 was the same. 
 
 "I wonder," said he to his wife, as they sat on deck 
 one morning, "I wonder if my father will know me?" 
 
 "Oh, I suppose so. Why not?" 
 
 "Because I am not Hans any longer; nor am I a 
 German even, but an American." 
 
 "But your father has grown old, too; and don t- you 
 suppose his recollection of you has grown old as fast as 
 he has?" 
 
 " No ; when he last saw me I was a mere sprig of a 
 boy, with a round whey-face and yellow hair. Every 
 time that he has thought of me since, even if it was 
 twenty years afterward, he thought of that same boy with 
 the yellow hair." 
 
 " But then he will remember how he himself looked at 
 your age." 
 
 " He might, perhaps, if he had before him an exact 
 picture of himself at thirty." 
 
 "Has he one?" 
 
 " He has none at all. Nobody can have the least recol 
 lection how he looked when he was a boy or a young man, 
 unless he has a picture which was taken then. If one 
 should look in the mirror twenty times a day all his life, 
 he would only remember how he looked the last time." 
 
 "Well, we shall soon see." 
 
56 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 "At any rate, I believe my mother would know me; 
 but, alas ! she is dead, and it was I that killed her by my 
 ingratitude." 
 
 Here Hans turned away to conceal his emotion. 
 
 It was a wonderful thing for old Christian Thurngauer 
 to receive a telegram from his son in far-off New York, 
 which seemed to him on the other side of the world. He 
 believed it was all a trick and a jest they were making 
 upon him. "He will sail to-morrow in the steamer 
 Quadratic, and here it is to-day yet ! Tut, tut, all non 
 sense ! People in these days has run clean mad with their 
 jimcracks, and lost their senses. Twan t so in my young 
 days. They didn t have no such fool doins in them days. 
 Sail to-morrow, and here tain t night yet ! Tut ! such 
 foolishness!" 
 
 So the old man talked on, and it was not till the burgo 
 master of the village came down and explained the whole 
 matter to him for an hour or two, and gave him some 
 money to go down to Bremen, that he would believe any 
 thing. Even then he would not believe their stories ; but 
 he said "he would go down to Bremen anyhow, for he d 
 never been there once in his life, just to see what foolish 
 ness men could do in these days." 
 
 After a long but pleasant passage in the month of June, 
 the good ship Quadratic hove anchor in the harbor of 
 Portsmouth, England, and sent ashore some mails and 
 passengers. Next morning she continued on her way 
 through the German Ocean. 
 
 It was now, the captain said, the last day of the voyage, 
 and everybody was out on deck to watch the coming land 
 and take the pleasant sunshine. Pale, limp ladies, who 
 had suffered unceasingly during the voyage, were gently 
 
THE MISSING LINK RESTORED. 57 
 
 helped on deck, and sat in shady corners, fanned and 
 refreshed by the cool salt breeze. The fidgety old gen 
 tleman brought up his little packages, and canes and coats, 
 and set them down a minute, then straightway moved 
 them somewhere else, and so kept fussing about, and 
 moving them fifty times an hour. Little knots of pas 
 sengers gathered over the forecastle, and all along the 
 ship s rail, and pointed out to each other each fresh object 
 with all the feverish delight of children. 
 
 The very wheels seemed to partake the general anima 
 tion, and, eager to rest once more, lashed the yielding 
 waves into two long streaks of snowy foam; while the 
 graceful old Quadratic, with great politeness in her man 
 ners, went 
 
 " Bending and bowing o er the billowy swells," 
 
 waving her "silent welcome" to the shore; and the 
 great white sails above now bellied slowly out with a 
 sounding flap in the breeze, as she careened, then slack 
 ened down all flaccid and lazy, as she righted. 
 
 Hans and his wife, with their little Carl, sat alone on 
 the quarter-deck while he pointed out to her, one after 
 another, the objects which he still remembered. They 
 sailed among myriads of small white fishing-smacks, which 
 rocked and teetered on the waves so much like toys that 
 Carl was delighted, and clapped his hands in childish glee. 
 
 At last the long white line of the surf lifted itself slowly 
 out of the blue, far, far off; and in an hour more they 
 began to plow the muddy waters which flowed out of 
 the river Weser. Then the long flat coast spread out in 
 finitely before them, and on it the quaint old boxes of 
 houses, huddled together in villages, and the ponderous 
 windmills swinging around their four long arms in a sort 
 of boozy way, as if they had taken too much schnapps. 
 
5 8 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 As all these familiar objects drew nearer, Hans became 
 sad and silent, and left his wife and Carl, that he might 
 pace the deck alone. He could not forget that he should 
 see his mother no more on earth, and that it was his base 
 ingratitude which had brought down that dear, sad face 
 so early to the grave. As the hour drew near when he 
 should stand in the presence of his once stern father, his 
 heart was filled with the most melancholy recollections, 
 and with an indefinable dread, lest he had not been fully 
 forgiven ; and, strong man though he was, as he drew 
 nearer to that beloved yet dreaded face, he felt as if he 
 had gone back through all the years of his wanderings, 
 and stood again before him with the awe of a little child. 
 
 At last the deep-voiced cannon boomed from the fore 
 castle its salutation far and wide over the level land, but 
 there came back no echoing response. As the smoke 
 lifted above the bowsprit there came up the long, rumbling 
 clank of the great chain as the anchor shot swiftly down 
 to its miry rest ; and to Hans the sound was like the rat 
 tling of the clods upon his mother s coffin, burying that 
 pale, sad face he should see no more forever. The vessel 
 stood still at last, and rested from her long tossing, and to 
 him the strange and unwonted cessation of noise was like 
 the silence of his mother s grave. The little tender came 
 out swiftly from the shore, dancing and bobbing over the 
 waves, rounded to, and quickly came alongside the mighty 
 hulk, like a little, affectionate child eager to greet its 
 mother. 
 
 Even before the tender was made fast, the yearning 
 eyes of Hans discerned his father amid her passengers, 
 leaning upon his staff the same old staff as of yore and 
 gazing, with a bewildered look, upon the huge monster. 
 
 Feebly the old man climbed up the stairs, supported by 
 a friendly hand, for Hans could not trust himself to go 
 
THE MISSING LINK RESTORED. 59 
 
 down. He stepped upon the deck and gazed about him, 
 seeking the face of his long-lost wanderer. But in all 
 that throng his dim eyes rested on no familiar form. All 
 the passengers knew the history, and they stood in re 
 spectful silence. The son stood near, in an agony of 
 suspense, but not daring to approach. 
 
 But at length he stepped forward, and reached him his 
 trembling hand. Mechanically, the old man took it, and 
 looked in his face with his dimmed and milky eyes, but 
 gave no sign of recognition. The stricken prodigal 
 quivered in every limb, and seemed about to sink to the 
 deck, but his tongue could not utter a word. His voice 
 all stuck in his throat. 
 
 "Ah! my father, my father, speak and say I am for 
 given !" he would have cried, in the anguish of his soul, 
 but his tongue refused him utterance. 
 
 At that moment little Carl came running to him, cry 
 ing, "Papa! papa!" clasped him about the knees, and 
 looked up in innocent wonder into the grandfather s 
 face. 
 
 The old man glanced down upon the child, and in an 
 instant his doubts were dispelled. The missing link was 
 restored. He saw at his feet the little white-haired boy he 
 had coddled thirty years before upon his knees. He fell 
 upon his son s neck in a passionate embrace, and together 
 they mingled their glad tears and their sobs. 
 
 Many a face amid that throng was turned aside to con 
 ceal a moistening eye. 
 
AWAKING IN THE OLD WORLD. 
 
 Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest fair, 
 But different everywhere the trace of men, 
 Paths, homes, groves, ruins, from the lowest glen 
 
 To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air. 
 Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight, 
 But keep that earlier, wilder image bright. 
 
 BRYANT. 
 
 HOW we got to Bremen I know not, for it was mid 
 night. Neither do I know any other thing what 
 soever save that I awoke in the morning, lying, or rather 
 half sitting up, on a prodigious bolster, under the feather 
 bed instead of on top thereof. The bed was tucked away 
 in a most dainty little niche, curtained off, with luxurious 
 accommodations for sleeping, but the most contracted 
 space for breathing. And the counterpane was so exqui 
 sitely smooth and silken that it had a distressing propen 
 sity to slide off to the floor during my slumbers. And 
 the bed-tick was so delightfully pulpy and plump with 
 feathers that I had the utmost difficulty in inducing it to 
 remain perpendicularly over my person, as much as if it 
 had been one sack of flour superimposed upon another. 
 
 I arose very early, and went down to take my first 
 observations of the Old World. After a long sea-voyage, 
 with what a dazed, wandering, and uncertain gaze one 
 treads again the "strong base and building" of mother 
 earth ! One s head feels like a spent pegtop, swimming 
 in the air. In the first movements one unconsciously 
 braces one s legs, as if to resist the ship s lurching, and 
 (60) 
 
AWAKING IN THE OLD WORLD. 6 1 
 
 one is fain to clutch at the ratlines, as if the deck were 
 about to come up again into one s face. 
 
 My first visit was to the market-place. How queer it 
 is for the first time to have the porches of one s ears filled 
 with the unintelligible, buzzing hum of foreign words, 
 with which one has only a book acquaintance ! Why, 
 these people stand there, with their graphic and changeful 
 countenances, and gesturing so naturally that I ought to 
 understand them. What is the matter ? There is a word 
 I understand. There is another. The first thing one 
 knows one smiles at himself for his eagerness, as if he had 
 caught himself smiling and nodding to a person whom he 
 thought he knew, but did not. He runs on in a jack-o - 
 lantern chase after these words, now and then bobbing up, 
 that he understands, and thinks he is about to catch the 
 whole meaning, but "every something, being blent to 
 gether, turns to a wild of nothing." 
 
 How immaculately clean, and square, and regular, and 
 prinked-up everything is about the streets ! Every square 
 stone in the flagging is just as large as every other, and 
 looks as if it had been dusted with a brush of peacock s 
 feathers. And the barouches glide over them so tenderly, 
 so smoothly, so noiselessly ! Every house is precisely as 
 high as its neighbor, to which it is joined, and all of 
 them alike are sicklied over with that creamy-yellow 
 stucco. It is wearisome to behold. 
 
 And then you never see anybody in the streets, as in 
 great, roaring New York, even on Broadway, swinging 
 his arms along, with his sleeves pulled up to cool his 
 wrists. Indeed, nobody wears a linen coat at all. And 
 so much profound bowing and doffing of shining hats ! 
 These two soldiers, in their bright light-blue uniforms, 
 salute each other with as much punctilious courtesy as if 
 they were major-generals. Stop to speak to this laborer, 
 
 6 
 
62 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 in his blue linen blouse, and presto ! his cap is in his 
 hands and he stands uncovered till you, in your Ameri 
 can disgust, bid him put it on again. 
 
 How lightly this tenor-drum is tapped as the soldiers 
 move along to guard-mounting ! And the very locomo 
 tive pipes in a thin, delicate, little whistle, as if it feared 
 to scare somebody. 
 
 Except these gouty, old merchant burghers, with their 
 glistening tiles, everybody seems to be only half a man. The 
 people seem to be scared, as if they were afraid of doing 
 something. One thinks of poor little Mr. Chillip, who 
 would slip through a door sideways to take up as little 
 room as possible. A wild and bloody American feels 
 greatly tempted to get in the middle of the street and 
 give a lusty yell, and swing his hat, so that he can hear a 
 good hearty noise once more. 
 
 Ah ! Bryant, well might you conjure the departing Cole 
 to keep that "earlier, wilder image bright." Heaven be 
 thanked that we have that image ! 
 
 But to me one of the most amusing and yet touching 
 of all spectacles was that of the thousands of collected 
 emigrants, waiting for a passage to America. Here they 
 all were : the hard-featured Brandenburger, in his sheep 
 skin cloak ; the Saxon, with the mild, blue eye and pud 
 ding-sack face ; the Bavarian woman, with her enormous 
 bearskin shako, like a grenadier ; the jolly, laughing 
 Suabian, in his knee-breeches and shad-bellied waistcoat; 
 the pretty Bernese maiden ; the Tyrolese chamois-hunter, 
 with his conical hat and cock s feather, a simple-hearted 
 terra filius, gaping in a loamy-faced vacuousness at every 
 thing. But the thing which was above all amusing 
 was to see how the leaven of the far-off liberty was work 
 ing already, and to watch their uncouth friskiness. 
 
 All at once you shall see a lumpish fellow, with his 
 
AWAKING IN THE OLD WORLD. 63 
 
 clouted shoon, jump straight up a foot high, like a hare 
 when the hound runs underneath. There is no visi 
 ble incitement whatever to this sudden and gratuitous 
 proceeding. Then he will shoot out his hand, and 
 poke his fellow in the ribs, whereupon they will both 
 throw up their heels and laugh immoderately. What 
 has so suddenly made all these old, spavined plow- 
 horses into merry-andrews ? Why, they are going to 
 America. 
 
 And then they were so amusingly and so unusually pro 
 fuse with their snuff and tobacco peasants who, for 
 many a year, perhaps, after a hard week s toil were barely 
 able to scrape enough together for Sunday to purchase a 
 very small schoppen of small beer. Whenever I went 
 among them they insisted I should partake. At first I 
 took a pinch and sniffed at it, but it was so very strong 
 that I sneezed my hat off, whereupon the simple fellows 
 were like to fall upon the ground with the violence of 
 their laughter. Why have they thus suddenly become so 
 shockingly extravagant with their snuff and their schnapps? 
 Oh, they are going to America, where there is a plenty 
 and to spare. And have they not collected in divers 
 fragments of cloth marvelous store of little, greasy, 
 dingy coins, "hoarded long and counted oft;" besides 
 pillow-cases, and long strings of sausages, and tin cups, 
 and tobacco and snuff of mighty potency ? 
 
 For once, and, perhaps, the first time in their hard 
 lives of poverty, they have an unbroken holiday, and 
 many of the more sober ones wander vacantly about the 
 streets, in a sad perplexity what to do with themselves. 
 Others, collected under the spreading lindens, sought to 
 cheat dull care, 
 
 " While many a pastime circled in the shade, 
 The young contending as the old surveyed." 
 
64 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 Untutored freedmen of the Old World ! They scarce 
 knew yet how to employ their new-found faculties. How 
 touching to an American to watch these uncouth gambols 
 of these newly unyoked oxen so uncouth because so un 
 accustomed ! With what strange and unheard-of antics 
 may we not imagine the children of Israel, as they went 
 out, bent, and stiffened, and galled with their hard bond 
 age in the brickyards, gave vent to their first rejoicings ! 
 Infinitely more precious to an American does his native 
 land become when he beholds how it is yearned for by 
 the peoples abroad. Alas, that their anticipations are 
 destined to encounter so many rude brunts, and the 
 hopes of some of them so many bitter disappointments ! 
 
 Then I strolled back to the hotel, and when I arrived 
 the proprietor sallied forth to meet me, with an abundance 
 of ostentatious civilities and kind inquiries, as if the love 
 of me were greatly shed abroad in his heart. His multi 
 plied blandishments and bowings quite overwhelmed me, 
 and made me feel ridiculous, as if I were an individual 
 of mighty consequence. But to a meek-spirited man, who 
 may have felt somewhat aggrieved and wounded by the 
 "insolence of office" of the regal snobs who do clerical 
 duty in our American hotels, this is worth more than his 
 passage-money to Europe, for he feels that he is now ap 
 preciated for once in his life. Why, this landlord is a 
 genius, and you feel that he understands you. 
 
 Entering the hotel, I found I was going in the same 
 passage used by the horses. They are driven on into the 
 hotel court, however, while the guest turns aside, just be 
 yond the porter s lodge, from which that high functionary 
 is always peering out through his glass walls, ready to 
 issue forth on the instant, and extend to the arriving 
 guest all the courtesies and assiduities learned from his 
 master. 
 
AWAKING IN THE OLD WORLD. 65 
 
 I passed through a long hall, which conducted to the 
 cafe or breakfast-room. In an instant, before I was even 
 well seated, two attendants were at my elbow, arrayed in 
 fastidiously elegant suits of black, with immaculate white 
 neckcloths. They received my orders with a profound 
 obeisance, and the remark that they were "beautiful" 
 (schonri], and set out to execute them with the most com 
 mendable alacrity. In one corner of the room there was 
 a white earthenware stove, towering nearly to the ceiling, 
 and polished to a most icy and forbidding glitter. The 
 little tables were profusely littered with newspapers, but 
 how lonesome and homesick I felt for a moment when I 
 found on all of them, instead of the familiar faces of my 
 inseparable friends, the fat, dowdy hieroglyphics of the 
 German alphabet ! 
 
 Under the conduct of my German friend, I went, a 
 little later, to visit the old cathedral, being then under the 
 delusion which most novices in European travel experi 
 ence, that I must conscientiously visit, scrutinize, and 
 identify each and several of the stones, bricks, crucifixes, 
 and ancient and desiccated mummies in every city. This 
 also is a delusion to which the guides are nowise loth to 
 minister. Although afterward I should have rated this 
 cathedral a very slender spectacle, and even, as Byron 
 says, irreverently and contemptuously held my nose in 
 gazing upon the mummies, I am bound to record the 
 powerful impression which they produced upon me then. 
 
 Designed originally as a simple nave and intersecting 
 transept, it has expanded through seven hundred years, 
 straggling wide around ; adding here a chapel, a sacristy, 
 or a porch ; there a vestry, or a mausoleum for a warrior, 
 bishop, or some glorious old soldier of the Lord ; and 
 shooting up into airy pinnacles, and blossoming with 
 gables rich in colored glass or stony foliations. Beneath, 
 
 6* 
 
66 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 in the vast and gloomy crypt, our lightest footfall echoed 
 and re-echoed along the mouldy alleys, and among the 
 shrunken mummies, which grin repulsively out upon us 
 from their linen cerements. Welcome, indeed, was the 
 voice of the living here, even though it was only the inde 
 scribably drowsy droning of the wrinkled beldam. 
 
 Whether we move along the majestic aisles, in the reli 
 gious and mellow dimness of their tinted light, or among 
 the gigantic columns, towering far up and reaching each 
 other their strong arms overhead like a forest monarch, or 
 pause under the great groined arches of the transept, or 
 penetrate the inmost sacristies, where a sacred and secret 
 solitude holds undisturbed dominion, everywhere we are 
 surrounded by a concourse of silent monitors, patriarchs, 
 prophets, apostles, martyrs, who all, from out the canvas 
 seamed and dimmed with years, look down upon us with 
 the same unchangeably sad, earnest, and tranquil mien. 
 
 Ranged below them, the marble effigies of those who 
 partook their triumphs or their tribulations, even unto 
 death, kneel meekly with upturned eyes, or lie recumbent 
 along their stony couches, with folded hands, in that 
 quaint, and straight, and stiffened, and yet most touching 
 simplicity which only the childhood of sculpture could 
 have fashioned. No studied graces of posture ; no punc 
 tilious disposition of folded drapery ; no dainty curves, or 
 smiles, or dimples, but stark, and rigid, and meek they 
 sleep. No futile effort to cheat the grim destroyer of his 
 terrors, but stiff, and still, and mute they bow before him. 
 
 Whether in the sculptured monument, or enshrined in 
 storied urn, or on the dimmed and somber canvas, or within 
 the imposing pomp of the mausoleum, or beneath the dull, 
 cold pavement, they are preachers more eloquent than the 
 living. These you may mock and put to silence, but, 
 standing before those, you dare not mock. The living 
 
AWAKING IN THE OLD WORLD. 67 
 
 die, and their words are heard no more, but when you 
 toss on the couch of death, the eyes of those dumb wit 
 nesses shall still turn upon you their sad, earnest, admoni 
 tory gaze. 
 
 From their places on the wall, looking out through their 
 dull, rayless sockets, they have watched the cycling gen 
 erations of the living ; they have seen the infant carried to 
 the baptismal font ; they have beheld him, in the full pride 
 and strength of youth, kneel before the hymeneal altar ; 
 they have followed him as he doddered, feeble and sight 
 less, before them, to listen a last time to the voice of 
 sweet music ; they have seen him borne, in slow and 
 solemn march, to his rest. Revolutions, and religions, 
 and kingdoms, and empires have arisen, and flourished, 
 and fallen into oblivion ; but there they have unremittingly 
 maintained their silent vigils. The watchman on the 
 mediaeval citadel may have slumbered on his sentry, and 
 neglected to warn the sleeping garrison of the incursion 
 of the enemy; but these sleepless sentinels on the out 
 looks of time have failed not to warn the careless dwellers 
 within of the approach of the King of Terrors, and, 
 through "an innumerable series of years and the flight 
 of times," have ceased not to utter to each passing pil 
 grim their voiceless admonition, "So shalt thou rest." 
 
RIDING BY RAIL. 
 
 Rumpas bellorum lorum, 
 Vim confer amorum 
 Morum verorum rorum, 
 Tu plena polorum ! 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 AS we passed out from the hotel in Bremen all the 
 waiters in the establishment, cut and long-tail, were 
 drawn up in military array. In their immaculate swallow- 
 tailed coats, and white neckcloths, ranging from biggest 
 down to littlest, who looked so funny in his clerical attire, 
 they stood with their hands clapped on their trousers 
 seams, bodies as rigidly erect, and countenances as solemn 
 and austere, as an " awkward squad" in the terrific pres 
 ence of the drill-sergeant. 
 
 As each traveler dropped a trifling gratuity in the ex 
 tended hand of each, he acknowledged his gratitude with 
 a profound and silent obeisance, at the same time looking 
 at his benefactor with one eye and three-quarters of the 
 other, while one small corner squinted down at the money 
 in a way that was very amusing. Poor machines and 
 sticks that they are ! it offends the soul of a wild and sav 
 age American to be fussed over with so much servility. 
 And then there was the last and supreme fuss of the pro 
 prietor, the supple and smooth blandishments, the smiles, 
 and the unctuousness of farewell flunkyism. 
 
 We got through it all at last, stepped into a drosky, and 
 just then the commissionnaire may his tribe decrease ! 
 came rushing breathless down-stairs to dun us for his fees, 
 (68) 
 
RIDING BY RAIL. 69 
 
 when we had paid him in the cathedral, at the same time 
 we did the ancient beldam. He thus put us to open 
 shame before the multitude, though one would have be 
 lieved from his manner that it nearly broke his heart so to 
 distress us, and, as the engine had already whistled, we 
 were compelled to pay him again. 
 
 What a wonder to our fresh American eyes was that 
 palatial station, with its indented battlements, interlacing 
 arches, turrets, groined arches, and colonnades ! If only 
 it were not everywhere sicklied over with that maudlin, 
 drab-colored stucco of Germany ! It was some relief to 
 this to look upon the long, latticed piazzas, covered with 
 screens of luxuriant ivy, so copious in its growth that it 
 often clambered to the very battlements and crept through 
 the indentations. If one of those brave old cavaliers who 
 jousted in Aspromont or Montalban could stand before 
 this splendid palace, he could almost believe that he might 
 still, " ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde," ride 
 forth beneath the portcullis, intent on "knightly giusts 
 and fierce encounters." 
 
 A large number of uniformed officials were sauntering 
 up and down the spacious saloons, mingling among the 
 passengers, as if they even sought occasions for extending 
 to them every possible civility and information. How 
 cheerfully and smilingly they bow the willing ear to any 
 inquirer ! How elaborately they lengthen out the pleas 
 ant answer, " Ja wohl, meinHerr" instead of the grumpy 
 "Yes" or the surly and contemptuous nod of our Amer 
 ican sovereigns ! Verily these be servants of the people 
 in no metaphorical interpretation. Many of them seem 
 to feel positively grateful to you that you have given them 
 an opportunity of doing something to entitle them to 
 their wages and a full discharge and acquittal of con 
 science. 
 
7 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 Let us inspect the passengers arriving, and we can 
 grade them pretty accurately according to caste. 
 
 Here comes a clownish peasant, in his coarse gabardine 
 and thumping wooden shoes, half running or trotting, 
 staggering under a mighty chest, which bends his head far 
 forward, and bumps cruelly about his brawny shoulders. 
 Surely he will ride third-class. 
 
 Next there sweeps up, with great ostentation, a carriage 
 glittering with silver and with gilding, the curveting 
 steeds flinging the gravel disdainfully aside with their 
 dainty hoofs. The lackey flings himself off, nearly throw 
 ing himself to the ground, in his absurd flummery of assi 
 duity, by treading on the tail of his ridiculously long coat, 
 lifts his high, glazed hat, and assists the inmates to alight. 
 It is Mr. Americus Shoddy, and he will ride in the first- 
 class, of course, with the other kings, fools, and Ameri 
 cans. He has the "genuine money -making counte 
 nance;" his collar has not been changed since we sighted 
 land, and his slouched hat is pulled down on one side. 
 The footman, still standing uncovered before him, ad 
 dresses him some inquiry, " with bated breath and whis 
 pering humbleness," to which he replies, taking out one 
 of his hands for a moment from his pantaloons pocket, 
 and motioning with it, " Take them fixins in the depot." 
 
 Immediately following this is a modest drosky, from 
 which springs out a rosy-faced little merchant. He makes 
 the coachman hand him the Fahr-tariff, which he had 
 cunningly secreted under the cushion, ascertains for him 
 self his compensation, quietly counts out the precise 
 amount in the infinitesimal coins, hands them to the fel 
 low without allowing him a word, puts his cigar in his 
 mouth again, and walks away. He is sensible, and will 
 ride second-class. 
 
 Next comes a well -favored, rubicund, merry-eyed priest, 
 
RIDING BY RAIL. 7 ! 
 
 with his shovel-hat, and his long cassock flapping and 
 fluttering inconveniently about his legs, as he runs for 
 ward at the sound of the whistle. He does not omit to 
 carry the purse and the scrip for his journey, and in a 
 piece of penitential-looking old cloth he has a suspicious 
 bottle rolled away. He rides with the peasant, with 
 whom he cracks a joke as well as a hard-boiled egg, and 
 seems nowise concerned to inquire as to the condition of 
 his soul. 
 
 In one of the largest saloons the passengers are busily 
 unrolling on a low counter, and displaying to view, their 
 wardrobes, "ruff and cuff, and farthingales and things," 
 while on the other side the officers are leisurely inspecting 
 them. Good nature ripples over most countenances, for 
 even the veteran officials cannot wholly divest these pro 
 ceedings of a certain aspect of ludicrousness. 
 
 They utter scarcely a word, quietly nodding and smiling 
 assent, yet allowing nothing to pass unopened, though 
 they sometimes merely give it a pinch with the thumb and 
 forefinger, as on the corner of a bandbox; and sometimes, 
 again, without any conceivable reason, plunge in an arm 
 elbow-deep, and rummage far and wide underneath, till 
 they ferret out a box of pills, perchance, and unwrap it 
 persistently, cover after cover, despite all explanations, to 
 the innermost core and center of mystery. Heart knows 
 under what a solemn responsibility these officials labor, 
 for if, through their remissness, any incendiary potions or 
 evil mixtures and concoctions, or other "perilous stuff" 
 whatsoever, should be imported into the kingdom, who 
 knows but it might burst, or otherwise crack off, or pro 
 duce a destructive combustion, and alarm his Majesty ! 
 Oh, who would be an officer of the customs? " Neither 
 the front nor the back entrance of the custom-house opens 
 on the road to Paradise," says the Salem Surveyor. 
 
72 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 One notices that the most inexperienced travelers, espe 
 cially of the tender sex, stand most pertinaciously on the 
 defensive against the exposure of certain highly innocent 
 and exquisite articles of the wardrobe. They explain, 
 protest, expostulate, and thus induce a number of embar 
 rassing contentions, half comical, half vexatious, and only 
 make the inspection more rigid. Women are natural 
 smugglers. 
 
 About a minute before the departure of the train, the 
 doors were opened, and the passengers surged frantically 
 through upon the platform. Then came a spectacle, on a 
 small scale, of a "paternal government." Accustomed 
 as we are to see our railroad officials standing about in 
 the most grouty and contemptuous unconcern, it was not 
 a little amusing to see these German officials, many of 
 whom were of dumpy stature and of considerable obesity, 
 and flushed with excitement, racing anxiously up and 
 down the platform, with a paternal solicitude lest some 
 misguided traveler should go astray. Here one plucked 
 a passenger by the sleeve, and pointed out to him the 
 proper car ; there another shouted at the peasant, " Steigen 
 Sie heraus /" and twitched him out of a second-class car; 
 yonder, another ran along before a very red -faced, elderly 
 gentleman, who trotted and waddled after him, like Mr. 
 Pickwick at the ice-pond, till they came to the proper car, 
 into which he whisked him with such unseemly haste 
 that the old gentleman sprawled flat on the floor of the 
 car, flinging his bandbox against the opposite door, while 
 his legs projected out into the depot. 
 
 Said I to myself, after I sat down in the car, What 
 figure can such a people ever cut in self-government, when 
 they interfere, with so much fuss and meddlesomeness, 
 even in the most trivial affairs? 
 
 We found ourselves in an apartment splendidly uphol- 
 
RIDING BY RAIL. 73 
 
 stered, extending quite across the car, and separated from 
 all others by partitions reaching to the ceiling. There 
 were only two seats, so that the occupants sat facing each 
 other, one-half riding backwards. 
 
 Now, herein is a phase of the German character admir 
 ably illustrated, to wit, their sociability. In an American 
 car there is a universal sweep from end to end, containing 
 whatever multitude it may on a common understanding ; 
 but here each compartment contains its little coterie, half 
 facing half, for conversation. It is an intensely disagree 
 able arrangement to most Americans to have their faces 
 set square over against strangers, only four feet distant ; 
 but I have seen German peasants, after they had tempo 
 rarily exhausted their stock of small talk, or had it drowned 
 in the tl morum verorum rorum" of the train, sit fifteen 
 full minutes gazing into the depths of each other s eyes 
 with a most profound and serene vacuousness that was re 
 freshing to contemplate. 
 
 It was our fortune to be assigned to a compartment 
 filled with ladies, and it was with immense consternation 
 that I heard the conductor of our car bolt the door and 
 announce that it would not be opened till we reached 
 Hanover. I had thought to enjoy without interruption 
 these my first broader glimpses of Germany, and had pro 
 vided myself with no books or newspapers. Great was 
 my disgust, therefore, when I found that, through my own 
 remissness and my friend s mischievous plotting, I was 
 packed like a sardine in the middle of the sofa, with ladies 
 on both sides of me, and likewise opposite. 
 
 The Prince of Morocco declares to Portia that he would 
 " outstare the sternest eyes that look" to win her regards ; 
 bat what would he do confronted by the most bewitching ? 
 The young lady opposite me had such eyes, wonderfully 
 soft, and blue, and melting ; hair of that golden hue 
 
 7 
 
74 
 
 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 of which Ouida seems to have a monopoly ; and delicate, 
 almond-shaped nails. 
 
 I scrutinized the architecture of the ceiling overhead, 
 the loops, knops, and scollops, and other paraphernalia. 
 I narrowly inspected the ventilator over the door, with a 
 gaze as intent as that which a photographer s client fixes 
 on a polyanthus pinned to a curtain. I rummaged my 
 valise for articles I was certain it did not contain. After 
 looking a long time at a fly on the ceiling overhead, 
 scraping and polishing his thighs, and screwing his head 
 on, I would accidentally look at my vis-d-vis, and pop ! 
 our eyes would cross. Then I would look steadfastly out 
 at the cabbages, streaking past us in a gray line, as if they 
 were about to run their heads off, and so fall to musing on 
 the beauties of German agriculture, and of a rural life in 
 general, and at length attempt to sweep diagonally across 
 from the lower corner to the opposite upper one, when 
 pop ! our eyes would cross again. 
 
 I made repeated endeavors to create a diversion in my 
 favor by engaging my friend in conversation, " nutans, 
 distorquens oculos tit me eriperet" but he cruelly preferred 
 to appear wholly absorbed in contemplating the scenery 
 without. 
 
 It s a far cry to Lochow, but Hanover was reached at 
 last ; several of the ladies alighted, and I took good care, 
 in the redistribution of sittings, to secure one next the 
 window. The vacant places were taken by a couple of 
 extremely elegant and finical young Berlinese, who, to the 
 astonishment of us Americans, deliberately took out their 
 cigar-cases, extracted therefrom each his cigar, lighted 
 them, and began to whiff out voluminous rolls of smoke, 
 without even saying to the remaining lady, "By your 
 leave. 
 
 That feature of the landscapes which most vividly im- 
 
RIDING BY RAIL. 
 
 75 
 
 pressed me was the inexpressibly wearisome air of con 
 straint, of silence, of rigid precision. In all that dreary 
 land, where "nor fosse nor fence are found," absolutely 
 and interminably level, over which we clattered all that 
 April day, we saw not a single 
 
 " Wild and wanton herd, 
 Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, 
 Fetching mad bounds." 
 
 Here, perhaps, was a great crooked-horned cow, led to 
 pasture with a rope along the roadside, or a few sheep, 
 nibbling the close-cropped grass on a flat as big as my 
 hat, or some geese, guarded by a blue-cheeked, carroty- 
 haired child, everything rigidly watched and tended. 
 How I wished that those poor, cribbed, cabined, and con 
 fined animals could break away somehow, leap, and jump, 
 and stand on their heads, if they so desired, and throw up 
 their heels without getting a permit therefor from the 
 Prussian government ! 
 
 There was not a singing bird to be heard anywhere. 
 What heart had they to sing, or to do anything else whatso 
 ever, in a land without trees, or containing only poplars, 
 so absurdly straight and erect that they could not build 
 in them ? 
 
 The whole face of the land, as far as our eyes could 
 extend, was just like a checker-board, being divided into 
 an infinite number of tiny plats, parti colored with vari 
 ous grains and vegetables. But on that April day there 
 was a "frown upon the atmosphere." It was not the 
 frown of a leaden heaven, but of an old age, cheerless and 
 saddened by penury. A single rich, creamy cloud would 
 have been a mighty relief to the landscape, but they were 
 all skimmed off, leaving the atmosphere indescribably 
 bleak-looking, poor, and blue, like thin skimmed milk. 
 
7 6 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 But along the railroad the labor expended in ornamen 
 tation was wonderful. Now the train rushed, without 
 slackening speed in the least, over a bridge embellished 
 with elegant carvings in stone, and which trembled no 
 more than the solid earth. Then it bowled along an em 
 bankment whose slopes were shaven like a lawn, and 
 planted with diamond-work of boxwood rows. Then it 
 whirled through a shallow cut, whose unsightly edges had 
 been sodded, and ornamented with slender pavements of 
 stone, in the shape of geometrical figures or of branching 
 trees. 
 
 Every half-mile, or oftener, the train rumbles past a 
 tiny brick cottage, sometimes half hidden in ivy, and 
 always surrounded by pretty parterres of vegetables and 
 homely flowers. Here resides the patrolman, who takes 
 his station with punctilious precision before his house, and 
 presents arms with his baton. 
 
 By an ingenious contrivance of telegraphy, a clear- 
 toned bell, perched in a little isolated belfry, announces 
 in measured strokes our arrival at a station. The same 
 contrivance causes a tiny clock-hammer, fastened to the 
 station, to give forth a rapid musical tinkle while we halt, 
 and when we start again the bell tolls as before. 
 
 Thus our humble journey becomes like the triumphal 
 progress of a crowned and sceptered sovereign through 
 his dominions. The patrolmen accord us military honors 
 as our train sweeps majestically before them ; watchful 
 attendants make haste to bar all crossings against the ap 
 proach of vulgar vehicles, and even against irreverent 
 curs, which might disturb the decorous and stately advance 
 of our royal equipage. Even the lightning yields loyal 
 obedience to our high behests, heralding our approach, 
 recording the interval while we graciously deign to pause, 
 and, when we take our departure, intoning us a sonorous 
 and pompous farewell. 
 
RIDING BY RAIL. 77 
 
 But it is now almost time to relinquish the enjoyment 
 of this fancied homage and these imaginary triumphs, for 
 we are rapidly approaching the Prussian capital. The 
 shadows of the night have long since settled calmly down 
 around us, and the silvery flocks of heaven, in their noise 
 less march above us, look down in tranquil silence upon 
 our noisy and tumultuous flight. 
 
 Far before us, across an extended plateau, an uncertain 
 and tremulous luster, as of the aurora in September, 
 stretches in a long arch across the eastern horizon. But 
 it is not until we sweep around the jutting skirt of a pinery 
 that the great metropolis looms in midnight resplendence 
 before us, across its enveloping waste of sand and swamp. 
 
 Now our royal courser, as if he had husbanded his 
 powers for his imposing entry into the capital for does 
 not everything belong to the king? neighs exultingly in 
 the pride of his unsubdued strength. How his single 
 great eye drinks up the darkness before him ! Fiercely 
 does he drag his burden after him, swaying to and fro in 
 the gloom. 
 
 Thus we entered at midnight into great Berlin, and 
 poured out into a surging multitude, in which the gilded 
 helmets of the gendarmes, glittering in the gaslight, are 
 all that I remember, Out of this tumultuous and jostling 
 throng some skillful hand caught us up into a drosky, I 
 know not how, I know not where, and we were whirled 
 away through a long, silent, cavernous street. 
 
OLD FRITZ ON GUARD. 
 
 Since these arms of mine hath seven years pith, 
 Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used 
 Their dearest action in the tented field ; 
 And little of this great world can I speak, 
 More than pertains to feats of broil and battle. 
 
 OTHELLO. 
 
 T3 ETURNING one afternoon from a visit to the Thier- 
 _LV garten, I sauntered under the great Brandenburg 
 Gate, and then along the magnificent boulevard, Unter 
 den Linden. It was one of those indescribably sweet and 
 sunny days of early spring, a kind of beatific accident, 
 which sometimes, for a few hours, "breathes through the 
 sky of March the airs of May," so grateful to the inhab 
 itants of a great city. 
 
 Along the middle track, the Rotten Row of Berlin, 
 military officers reined their glossy, curveting Poles, lean 
 ing forward in the saddle with that distressing lack of ease 
 and confidence which marks the German horseman. Hun 
 dreds of brilliant equipages glided along the flagged high 
 ways, with tops opened to scoop in the mellow sunshine. 
 It was Corso day, and all the haughty nobility of Berlin 
 was abroad, with many princes ; and from but the lan 
 daus flashed those apple-red faces of the beer-drinkers, 
 with that mottled white-and-red which seems to be daintily 
 painted on, and not suffused from the blood beneath. 
 
 Even the lordly merchant, slipping along the pavement 
 with that easy, level gait of the German, relaxed a little 
 his buttoned-up complacency and his upright neck, let 
 (73) 
 
OLD FRITZ ON GUARD. 79 
 
 out the business wrinkles from his brow, and glanced about 
 him with a kind of retail satisfaction, as if he were al 
 most apologizing to himself for smiling. How the sweet 
 sunshine warms up even his soul, and makes him linger ! 
 All along the street, in front of the Conditoreien, the 
 potted shrubbery fenced in from the pavement long, nar 
 row retreats, whence the sippers of the bitter goat-beer 
 glanced out through the green leaves upon the happy 
 idlers. The winter haunts within were all deserted and 
 silent, but there came out now and then a chilly puff of 
 yesterday, mingling in the sunshine, and reminding them 
 of January. How joyously they laugh and quaff these 
 witty Berlinese, half hid in their leafy screens, and 
 swig off mug after mug of that inexpressibly bitter beer ! 
 The Englishman, when he feels merry and wants to in 
 form mankind of that fact, like the Fat Boy of Dickens, 
 " likes eating best," but the German says with Wollheim, 
 when he has a gala-day, 
 
 " Bring* mir bairisch Bier, 
 Ewig bairisch Bier !" 
 
 A little beyond the university I stopped to admire, for 
 the hundredth time, Rauch s magnificent equestrian statue 
 of Old Fritz. 
 
 There is not in all Europe such another noble, com 
 prehensive, and imposing constellation of architecture 
 though not so brilliantly grouped as that one beholds 
 in standing by the Egyptian obelisk in the Place de la 
 Concorde as that which surrounds the great Frederic. 
 That university which is the greatest in the world, and 
 that arsenal which is the mightiest ; that academy of art 
 and science which is the most learned ; the palatial Old 
 and New Museums ; the Protestant and Catholic cathe 
 drals, side by side ; the vast, gray pile of the Schloss ; the 
 
8o PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 Royal Library and the Royal Opera, the most richly mu 
 sical and scenic in Europe ; and the palaces of the kings, 
 these, all within his sight, these, to use one of the am 
 bitious phrases of Berlin, are the exclamation-points upon 
 the illustrious past, and the interrogation-points upon the 
 great future, of the Prussia which he created. 
 
 The martial atmosphere which floats over this noble 
 boulevard is terribly significant. From the Goddess of 
 Victory on the Brandenburg Gate, who conducts her 
 fierce steeds homeward, through all its course, to the 
 statues of the Lion-tamer and the Amazon guarding the 
 portals of the Old Museum, the Unter den Linden re 
 sounds like the Iliad with the clang of arms. Grouped 
 around Old Fritz, or standing near him on humbler ped 
 estals, are the Great Elector, worthy of his Roman son ; 
 old Marshal Forward, Von Bliicher, who spoke at Water 
 loo " in Prussia s trumpet tone," side by side with Gnei- 
 senau, his Patroclus, and former of those campaigns whose 
 execution made them both immortal; Scharnhorst, whose 
 genius gave to Prussia that unequaled system which made 
 her a "people in arms," and thereby the savior of the 
 Fatherland ; and the great captains, Schwerin, and Win- 
 terfeld, and York. 
 
 Eight marble statues on the bridge over the Spree por 
 tray the tutelary deities who lead forth young Fritz to 
 a long and glorious career ; defend, support, and inspire 
 him through its arduous warfare ; reward him for its tri 
 umphs ; and crown at last with laurel the brow of the 
 dying hero when his course is finished. 
 
 The citizen of Berlin, when walking in this great bou 
 levard, may almost fancy he hears the silver clarion of 
 Virgil : 
 
 " Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem, 
 Inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum, 
 Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romce." 
 
OLD FRITZ ON GUARD. 8 1 
 
 It may even excite a smile in the beholder, in a thought 
 less mood, to note how often the martial gods are called 
 in to the exclusion of the softer deities. Pallas appears 
 twice, and three times does exultant Nike bestow upon 
 him her acclamations and her laurel chaplets. Even 
 peaceful Iris is impressed into Prussian service as a gentle 
 vivandiere, and presses to Frederic s feverish lips the nec- 
 tareous cordials of Olympus. 
 
 The very Caryatides and the brawny-shouldered Atlan- 
 tes on the facades of some of the government palaces are 
 relieved on guard by hussars, cannoneers, and their similars. 
 
 But the thoughtful gazer can hardly smile, for it is one 
 of the saddest spectacles of Europe, thus to observe how 
 a peace-loving people have been, all their national life, 
 driven to " feats of broil and battle" by the bitter neces 
 sities of self-defense, and to rescue Germany from the 
 evil and miserable quarrels imposed on that unhappy 
 country by its hordes of little princes. Above all things 
 else, let not the "red fool-fury of the Seine" shake her 
 gory locks at this peaceful people, upon whom her hellish 
 lust of dominion has forced this loathed habit and custom 
 of battle. 
 
 While Frederic was yet alive, and occupied his favorite 
 palace in Potsdam, his subjects were accustomed to assem 
 ble under a certain linden which flourished near the win 
 dow of his work-cabinet, with their petitions in hand, 
 waiting to gain his attention. As soon as he chanced to 
 look that way, up would fly the petitions, fluttering into the 
 air, and off would come the caps of the petitioners. He 
 would nod a friendly recognition from the window, and 
 forthwith dispatch one of his stalwart hussars to fetch in 
 the documents. 
 
 When I visited Potsdam, a century after the great mon 
 arch had been carried to his grave, the famous old "peti- 
 
g 2 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 tion-linden" was still living, but seemed likely to topple 
 over in the first hurricane. 
 
 But it was no longer needed. The palace where it 
 stood was no longer the favorite abode of the Prussian 
 monarchs, and with their removal migrated also the tra 
 dition of the brave old linden. The very bronze which 
 preserved the lineaments of the grim Frederic became the 
 successor of the venerable petition-linden, and, as it were, 
 the patron of the suppliants. Who had a better commis 
 sion to plead for mercy to the poor and humble than the 
 terrible old Fritz ? 
 
 By accident or design, the statue was planted very near 
 the window of the little work-room of the reigning mon 
 arch. It was so close that he could, as he sat before his 
 writing-table, discern the countenances of the petitioners 
 standing at its base. 
 
 It was the custom of King William to spend many hours 
 every day in this his favorite work-room, writing, giving 
 audiences, or perusing and dictating telegraphic messages 
 by hundreds. When he was reading dispatches, or talking 
 with auditors, he generally sat beside the little window, 
 leaning his arm along the sill. He would cast frequent 
 glances down into the street, and invariably return with a 
 friendly nod or beckoning of the hand the salutations of 
 his humblest subject. Everybody in Berlin knew where 
 to look for the "King s window," and seldom did any 
 body ever pass it, at whatever unseasonable hour, without 
 glancing up to see if it was occupied by the august scriv 
 ener, for he was a most indefatigable worker. 
 
 If he sat writing at his desk, they could just discern 
 his head and shoulders. But nobody could ever mistake 
 that broad face, those half-closed eyes, that Burnside 
 beard, that clean-shaven chin, shining almost like the 
 razor with which it was daily polished. It was a heavy 
 
OLD FRITZ ON GUARD. 3 
 
 face, and a fluffy, but sensual-kind, with beetling eyebrows, 
 and inclined to a scowl, serious, but not severe, when in 
 repose. It was eminently a negative face, the scowl seem 
 ing to denote a painful laborer thought rather than with 
 thought. 
 
 But if beside him were visible the figures of ambassa 
 dors or others, the citizen would pause for a moment and 
 begin to cudgel his brains. Your humdrum, home-keep 
 ing Cousin Michael is a thorough Paul Pry, ever "pluck 
 ing the grass to know where sits the wind." Who knows 
 but something may happen \ Only think of it, if some 
 thing should happen ! Wonder if there ll be war with 
 Napoleon ? Look, neighbor, that messenger has a red 
 stripe round his kepi. I believe there will be war with 
 Napoleon. O fie ! see, it s yellow. He s from Austria, 
 Don t you remember, three weeks ago the king refused a 
 mug of Vienna beer? If that doesn t mean war, I should 
 like to know what does. 
 
 But these wiseacres seldom arrive very near the truth 
 with their guesses; for the Germans are anything but bril 
 liant in setting "romance on the throne of the Caesars." 
 
 Among the multitudes who press along in endless pro 
 cession past the statue of Old Fritz as I stand there, comes 
 a notable man, tall and spare, with the inclined head and 
 stooped shoulders of a professor. What eyes ! They are 
 set under eyebrows where order and locality are large, and 
 so far back in his head that he looks right out from his 
 brain. Beard or moustache has he none, and his face is 
 furrowed with delicate hair-lines, like the spider-webs of 
 his wonderful strategy, wherein he catcheth the crafty. 
 
 That is the "old schoolmaster," silent in seven lan 
 guages. He flogs the naughty nations without even let 
 ting them behold his rod. All Europe is mapped on that 
 subtle brain. Shut in his little closet, his eyes look in- 
 
84 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 ward upon that map, and order battles. He fingers the 
 electric wires, and a quarter of a million soldiers move in 
 obedience to his commands. 
 
 That man gripped Benedek at Sadowa, and ground him 
 as between the upper and nether millstones. He coiled 
 his legions like a boa round Metz, and crushed it in his 
 folds. He took an Emperor in a trap, and Paris, the 
 world-city, in a mouse-trap. That is Moltke. Yet how 
 modestly and pensively he walks along, with his hands 
 behind his back ! 
 
 Now here comes another of Prussia s great ones, as we 
 may know by the profound deference with which he is 
 greeted. He strides along like a grenadier, with an erect 
 and daring mien, towering above most men a head and 
 shoulders. He is a major of dragoons, with a white cap 
 and yellow band, black-blue, double-breasted coat, and a 
 great mass of black silk wrapped close around his muscu 
 lar neck almost to the chin. 
 
 He is not in a smiling mood to-day, but his face is 
 darkened, Mephistophelian, with " a laughing devil in his 
 sneer" at all humanity. The high and massive forehead, 
 the peculiarly square-cast features, the half-closed eyes, the 
 enormous ears, standing far out from the huge, close- 
 cropped head, give the beholder an idea of an almost 
 Satanic energy, and of an immense, audacious courage. 
 No words can convey a true impression of the unscrupu 
 lous daring, the amazing strength of determination, which 
 dwell in that grim countenance. It is the pure Scandi 
 navian brawn, not Teutonic, but the heaven-daring and 
 earth-defying audacity of the old vikings, which exulted 
 in danger for its own sake. It is " steel and blood," with 
 very little blood. 
 
 Not in all my life have I ever looked upon another 
 human being who, when not relaxing in the moment of 
 
OLD FRITZ ON GUARD. 85 
 
 social intercourse, seemed to be so absolutely devoid of a 
 conscience. Hating none, fearing none on earth or in 
 heaven, neglectful and even scornful of personal appear 
 ance and of most of the conventions of society, he seems 
 the nearest human approach to Mephistopheles, except 
 that in the sublime grandeur of his daring he more resem 
 bles the Miltonic Satan. 
 
 In fact, Bismarck resembles Goethe s great creation 
 most in his " malignant mirth" upon occasion, which yet 
 is hardly malignant, because, like Milton s Satan, he has 
 an egotism so vast and an ambition so immense that he 
 hardly appears conscious of wickedness. To repeat, Bis 
 marck s character, though sublime in its audacity and in 
 its colossal intellect, appears to contain no ingredient of 
 conscience. Yet it has no element of cruelty, which 
 lurked in the Italian nature of Bonaparte, making him a 
 vile and dastardly assassin in Syria. Bismarck is like 
 Cromwell, but greater. 
 
 Thus he strides on, in his large indifference, shoulder 
 ing his way through the obsequious multitude, not deign 
 ing a single glance toward the king s window, passes on 
 over the Spree bridge, and enters the Schloss. 
 
 Meantime, a considerable number of persons of hum 
 ble degree have collected about the iron railing which 
 incloses their great advocate. For the hour is near at 
 hand when the battalions of the garrison will march past 
 to the afternoon parade, and they are certain then to 
 catch a glimpse of King William. The battalion drums, 
 colors, and standards must all be brought from the little 
 room beside the king s, where he scrupulously keeps them 
 under his own lock and key, and where an unexpected 
 visitor has sometimes found him with board and pins, busy 
 at the game of war, like a seven-years child ! Here it 
 was, also, that he humbly bowed himself upon his knees, 
 
 8 
 
86 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 and wrestled earnestly in prayer with his Maker for 
 three hours, before he departed for the campaign in 
 Bohemia. 
 
 When the troops defile before his window, therefore, 
 he never neglects to appear to their vision, in uniform as 
 scrupulously correct as a martinet s, with his regulation- 
 coat closely buttoned up to his ample chin, and the ribbon 
 of the Ordre pour le merite hanging down over the lap 
 pet. This is, for petitioners, the auspicious hour, between 
 the outward march of the troops and their return. 
 
 Here is the Rheinlander, in his bright-blue linen blouse ; 
 the Westphalian, with his white great-coat, and a piece of 
 ham in his pocket ; the Pole and the Silesian, in their 
 untanned sheepskins ; the widow in her weeds; the pen 
 sioner on his wooden leg, with a petition, perhaps, asking 
 permission to beg in the streets. 
 
 To be sure, they are congregated right in the middle of 
 the main thoroughfare of the city, and are exposed to the 
 danger of being dashed under the wheels, or beneath the 
 feet of the prancing steeds. But there, too, rides Old 
 Fritz high aloft, looking grimly to the west, and flourish 
 ing his sceptre with authority, bidding the multitude part 
 to right and left. This is highly inconvenient, no doubt, 
 and productive of delays to the gay and feathered occu 
 pants of the coaches which glide along ; but the people 
 will have it so, and the people are king sometimes, even 
 in Prussia. 
 
 It were a high-handed outrage, forsooth, if these honest 
 provincials could not be permitted to prosecute their 
 Eesthetical culture by gazing on the statue of Rauch s 
 workmanship ! 
 
 The citizens of Berlin are spirited, and noted for their 
 persistence in defending certain minor prerogatives, while 
 they allow the greater to slip through their fingers. They 
 
OLD FRITZ ON GUARD. 87 
 
 will resist with tooth and nail a rise of a penny in the 
 price of beer, but quietly submit while the king takes 
 away their liberties. In 1848 they made a desperate 
 charge on the city officers, under the ringing slogan, 
 "Liberty, Equality, and the Right to Smoke in the 
 Thiergarten ! " and carried their point. So here, they 
 insisted on the right to study High Art in the Unter den 
 Linden. 
 
 The government not only yielded gracefully, but pro 
 vided a number of select policemen, designated as "con 
 trollers of petitions," whose duty it was sedulously to 
 foster these aesthetic cravings. They were to be always in 
 attendance, and look to it that nobody was run over while 
 he was gazing at the Father of his Country. 
 
 And now the king is seen to rise from his writing-table, 
 disappear in the next apartment, then present himself, 
 smiling and uniformed, before the casement. Off in a 
 twinkling go a score of hats, tiles polished, tiles fuzzy, 
 plush caps, sheepskin caps, cloth caps, sweaty and frowzy, 
 while several large blue-and-white mottled handkerchiefs 
 descend, with many a pensive and melancholy flutter, 
 gently down to the ground. Out of these caps emerge 
 petitions, soiled and greasy, which twinkle on high. 
 
 All manner of familiar, cabalistic, and blandishing ges 
 tures, winks, nods, and beckonings woo his Majesty. 
 The eager petitioners elbow and jostle one another, and 
 barely escape being thrust out and trodden down by the 
 horses. 
 
 The king nods pleasantly, and smiles, and sends down 
 one of his gigantic orderlies to bring up the petitions. 
 This official kindly offers to take the documents in charge, 
 and pledges himself to convey them in his own person 
 into the king s hands. 
 
 But unaccountable perversity five out of ten of the 
 
88 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 suppliants wholly reject the offer ! It is absolutely indis 
 pensable that each individual should be presented to his 
 Majesty in his own proper person and essence, in order 
 that his "little matter" may be accurately propounded 
 and thoroughly elucidated to the king. 
 
 "Would the porter have the goodness to inform his 
 Majesty that Hans Wurst, from Blitzendonnerhausen, had 
 arrived ? If his memory was a little treacherous, he might 
 remind him that he once drank a porringer of his brindled 
 cow s milk, and smacked his lips afterward, when he was 
 riding on a hunt. Would he also please inform him fur 
 ther that Conrad Rumpelschirmer s mooly ox had unlaw 
 fully and feloniously broken into his (Hans Wurst s) 
 cabbage-garden, and abstracted, purloined, devoured, and 
 injuriously munched forty-three heads of the cabbages 
 aforesaid ; that the court had refused to requite him of 
 the offender ; and that he had come to Berlin to ascertain 
 if his Majesty could not issue a proclamation in behalf of 
 his faithful and liege subject, Hans Wurst aforesaid, com 
 pelling said Conrad Rumpelschirmer to make full and com 
 plete restitution to him for the felonious purloinings and 
 endamagements aforesaid ? 
 
 " Then, too (plucking him mysteriously aside and whis 
 pering in his ear), he could assure him he should be no 
 loser if he would procure him such audience, as he had 
 brought up four crocks of nice sauer-kraut to present to 
 his Majesty ; but that he would give him one, provided 
 he would not reveal the transaction to his Majesty." 
 
 The porter smiles blandly an official German smile (the 
 blandest on earth), but informs his countryman that his 
 Majesty has a good many "little matters" claiming his 
 attention. And so at last poor Hans Wurst dolefully con 
 sents, and reluctantly gives into his hands the greasy and 
 rumpled document, elaborated in hard and staggering 
 
OLD FRITZ ON GUARD. 89 
 
 characters, and worn nearly through in his hat in coming 
 from the far province. 
 
 As soon as the king receives the documents, he holds 
 them up before the window, and nods and smiles pleas 
 antly to the suppliants below, as an assurance that their 
 petitions shall receive attention. 
 
 And now the soldiers are returning from parade. They 
 defile with stately tread and mighty clangor of brass be 
 fore their sovereign, move on down the great avenue, 
 beneath the acacias and the lindens, encompassed by a 
 great cloud of citizens, who have come out to follow them, 
 and listen, with the ever-new delight of their nation, to 
 the inexpressibly rich, mellow, glorious music of Ger 
 many. 
 
 The king vanishes from the casement, the petitioners 
 are swept away in the music-loving multitude, the twi 
 light slowly darkens in the streets, its pale, wannish glim 
 mers flicker off the windows, and Old Fritz rides high 
 aloft and alone on guard. 
 
PROFESSOR DOCTOR KINCK VON KINCK. 
 
 In Berlin, says he, 
 Be you fine, says he, 
 And make use, says he, 
 Of your eyne, says he ; 
 Knowledge great, says he, 
 You may win, says he, 
 For I ve been, says he, 
 In Berlin. 
 
 HoLTY. 
 
 THERE are few things which afford me more pleasure 
 than to wander about those great old libraries of 
 Europe and rummage among their quaint and curious 
 volumes of forgotten lore. I highly value the privilege 
 of being allowed to sit at leisure in their alcoves, and pull 
 down one ponderous dusty tome after another, "bound 
 in brass and wild -boar s hide," or in beechen boards and 
 blue, and turn them over, catching now and then from 
 their crabbed black-letter pages some whimsical conceit, 
 or reading some story of those ancient worthies, the best 
 that ever lived " thorough the unyversal world." 
 
 Nowhere has this pleasure been oftener tinged with a 
 certain pensiveness or melancholy than in the libraries of 
 the Germans, a feeling almost as sacred as that which 
 should attend the visitor in their village churchyards. 
 Above all other people, the German finds his best compan 
 ionship in books ; and the circles of a society he has found 
 so pleasant he wishes to enlarge, until they shall embrace 
 the whole mundane brotherhood. 
 (90) 
 
PROFESSOR DOCTOR KINCK VON KINCK, 91 
 
 He willingly relinquishes the enjoyment of social inter 
 course, his beloved mug, and all the innocent and connu 
 bial endearments of his frau, to give himself up wholly to 
 his unselfish labors. With an unwearying and more than 
 paternal affection, he gathers and digs from innumerable 
 sources the choicest roots, buds, and blossoms of the True, 
 the Beautiful, and the Good, to furnish forth and embel 
 lish therewith the pages he is writing with such fond and 
 confiding assiduity. Each volume we behold on these 
 shelves informs us of some such earnest life ; informs 
 us, perchance, of long years of penury and pain, of 
 nights of sleeplessness and days of hunger, all endured 
 with cheerfulness in the sweet hope of fame, "that last 
 infirmity of noble mind." 
 
 And now he is dead, long dead ; and the book which 
 he wrote, and of which himself was the principal reader, 
 has lived its appointed life, and is found no more among 
 the living, except in these dusty alcoves, or amid the 
 heterogeneous and musty collections of the antiquarian. 
 But when the thoughtful soul passes the antiquated book, 
 or stops awhile to explore its pages and ramble among its 
 obsolete constructions and its queer old cranky involu 
 tions, he will not mock him who lived all these laborious 
 days to write what nobody now-possesses. It is the coun 
 terpart of the author s better self; the faithful Horatio 
 whom the dying Hamlet piteously adjures to linger yet 
 awhile, and in this harsh world draw his -breath in pain 
 to tell his story. 
 
 "He gave the people of his best ; 
 His worst he kept, his best he gave." 
 
 Here, then, in this great library, is a city of the dead. 
 Through its populous recesses we should tread with a 
 greater reverence than along the more pleasant and sunny 
 
9 2 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 alleys of the churchyard, for here repose, as it were, the 
 remains of the soul, while yonder is only the mouldering 
 and loathsome body. And while the separate particles of 
 the latter return, by the chemistry of decay, each to its 
 native dust, and appear again, after an innumerable suc 
 cession of years, to gladden our eyes in the "forms and 
 hues of vegetable beauty," who can tell what seeds of 
 thought may have been planted in fruitful intellects by the 
 mere passing glimpse of a title, or by a casual perusal of 
 these dead and forgotten pages ? 
 
 One day, after a number of hours thus spent in the 
 Royal Library of Berlin, I sauntered into the reading- 
 room. Among the numerous busy inmates, I had my at 
 tention particularly attracted by a robust and rosy- or, 
 rather, pink-faced gentleman, who the librarian kindly 
 informed me was none other than the celebrated Professor 
 Doctor Kinck von Kinck. 
 
 He kept buzzing and bobbing over a great number of 
 large books bound in blue pasteboard, plucking out from 
 a hundred places snippets of sentences and paragraphs, 
 which he industriously transcribed into a memorandum- 
 book. He was quite short-sighted, and as he turned over 
 the pages rapidly, thrusting his nose and green spectacles 
 deep down between them, his motion reminded me of 
 that of an athlete jumping through empty barrels, set on 
 end in a series. 
 
 My mind recurred at once to the scene so delightfully 
 described by Irving in his " Art of Book-making," and 
 I supposed these persons, as in that sketch, were all pro 
 fessional authors. What was my surprise when the libra 
 rian informed me they were all popular lecturers, wholly 
 distinct from the hundred ninety and seven regularly 
 employed in the Royal University ! 
 
 This bit of information piqued my curiosity to know 
 
PROFESSOR DOCTOR KINCK VON KINCK. 93 
 
 something further concerning them, their audiences, and 
 subjects of discourse. I asked the librarian if it was not 
 a matter of great difficulty to procure audiences for such 
 a multitude of lecturers. He replied that it had become 
 very difficult, and that the lecturers thought of petitioning 
 the Prussian government to institute military levies in their 
 behalf. 
 
 Even while we were speaking, there presented himself in 
 the library a collector of subscriptions for a series of lec 
 tures soon to be delivered " for the especial benefit of the 
 laboring-classes." He was a stout little man, with a rather 
 dirty neck, and two small and very rosy-bright patches of 
 color on his white cheeks, in the manner peculiar to many 
 beer-drinkers. The librarian was a very pale, thin-fea 
 tured gentleman, with preternaturally large black eyes, 
 and one leg so crooked that he seemed almost to step on 
 the knee. 
 
 The stout little man deliberately hung his overcoat and 
 hat on the rack, set his cane beneath them, approached, 
 and bowed very low before the librarian, smiling all over 
 his face. The librarian bowed quite low, smiled an offi 
 cial smile, and extended his hand. 
 
 " Good day, Herr Doctor," said the little man. 
 
 "Good day, mein Herr," replied the librarian, in a 
 very bland but non-committal voice. 
 
 The stout little man wore a kind of gray jerkin, gath 
 ered tight by a band behind, and edged around the neck 
 and pockets with green binding. From an inside pocket 
 of this he now produced a very thin green memorandum- 
 book, as broad as it was long, with leaves of intensely 
 blue smooth paper. This he handed to the librarian, open 
 at the subscription page. 
 
 "Herr Doctor," said he, "it gives me the greatest 
 pleasure to inform you that Herr Professor Doctor Kinck 
 
9 4. PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 von Kinck will lecture to-morrow, at seven o clock P.M., 
 in Hypothenuse Hall, on the Satires of Horace. I have 
 the honor to say, Herr Doctor," here he bowed quite 
 low, " that he has commissioned me to solicit the honor 
 of your subscription." 
 
 Upon that the librarian bowed, and smiled that pain 
 fully polite official smile, so exquisitely and so inexpressi 
 bly less than nothing, so far as meaning is concerned, 
 that such an attack as this must slip off it as rain-drops 
 off a duck s feathers. 
 
 " Mein Herr," he replied, " it gives me great pleasure 
 to learn that the Herr Professor Doctor Kinck von Kinck 
 will lecture. I need not assure you, certainly, that none 
 knows better than myself how to value the opportunity 
 thus afforded of profiting by the Herr Professor s acknowl 
 edged great learning, if my official engagements would 
 permit." 
 
 Here both bow quite low again, and smile, and the 
 stout little man resumes : 
 
 "The price of admission, Herr Doctor, has been set 
 very low ; only four silver Groschen per ticket. 
 
 Again that exquisitely and excruciatingly polite official 
 smile the only answer the honored Herr Doctor deigns 
 to give to a suggestion so immeasurably and so insuffer 
 ably contemptible as that relating to money. The little 
 man now trains on him his last battery, and very com 
 placently, for he knows it will succeed. 
 
 " Herr Doctor, I believe your next lecture is to be 
 ?" 
 
 "A week from to-day, mein Herr," says the learned 
 Herr Doctor librarian, promptly. 
 
 "And the subject, I believe ?" 
 
 "On a singular mass of fused flint recently found in 
 the ashes of a burnt haystack." The Herr Doctor an- 
 
PROFESSOR DOCTOR KINCK VON KINCK. 95 
 
 nounced this with more animation and positiveness than 
 he had yet shown, having been hitherto exceedingly neg 
 ative. 
 
 "Ach, yes !" The little man utters this in a tone of 
 the most profound remorse and self-abasement, to think 
 he should have forgotten, and strikes impatiently before 
 his face, as if he were killing a mosquito. 
 
 " Pardon, Herr Doctor. I may do myself the honor 
 to remark that the Herr Professor Doctor Kinck von 
 Kinck observed, a few days ago, in my presence, that he 
 certainly intended to be present at your lecture." 
 
 At this point the learned Herr Doctor librarian bows, 
 and both of them smile very pleasantly. Need I add 
 anything further? The little man knew the librarian s 
 weakness, and that the certainty of having one auditor 
 was a bait at which he would inevitably catch. He knew 
 that he could have secured his subscription with the lure 
 of half an auditor (like the forty professors of Erfurt, 
 who had, in 1805, twenty-one students), having him sit in 
 a partition, with one ear opening into one room and the 
 other into another ; but he chose to be generous. Of 
 course he got his subscription, and went away with many 
 bows and smiles. 
 
 Next day I was leisurely sauntering along Subjectivity 
 Street, and stopped before one of the wooden pillars 
 erected at the street-corners for that purpose, to read the 
 latest bulletins of lectures. Among them was one an 
 nouncing "a gratuitous course of lectures for the special 
 instruction of the laboring classes;" and a few of the 
 topics were as follows: "The Diseases of Chinese Silk 
 worms," "Salubrity of the Climate of Beloochistan," 
 " The Figures of Equilibrium in Liquids." 
 
 Now, thought I to myself, is this all a philanthropic 
 humbug? or are the " laboring classes" of Berlin possessed 
 
96 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 of such immense learning as to be able to comprehend 
 these things? Goethe makes one of the characters in 
 "Faust," on hearing a revolutionary song, declare his 
 gratitude to Heaven that he is not responsible for the pre 
 servation of the Holy Roman Empire. But what gov 
 ernment on earth can stand, when such ponderous boul 
 ders of knowledge are pitched promiscuously about its 
 bases ? Surely Prussia is in danger ! 
 
 While I was thus musing, whom should I behold but 
 the famous and learned Herr Professor Doctor Kinck von 
 Kinck ! He whisked past me on a keen run, and, turn 
 ing round, I observed, a few rods in advance of him, a 
 person whose blue linen blouse showed him to be a mem 
 ber of the " laboring classes," and of whom the learned 
 Herr Professor was evidently in earnest pursuit. Being 
 an elderly gentleman, of a very considerable obesity, he 
 waddled along with much difficulty, and was constantly 
 losing ground. I was certain it was he, from the immense 
 roll of smooth greasy-blue manuscript which protruded 
 from his pocket. 
 
 Well, now, thought I to myself, upon my word, he s 
 running after that workman to get him for an audience ! 
 He wants him to listen to his lecture. This is no longer 
 the pursuit of knowledge, but the pursuit of ignorance, 
 under difficulties. 
 
 I determined now that nothing should deter me from 
 hearing the Professor s exposition of Horace. On the 
 appointed evening, therefore, I found myself in the spa 
 cious Hypothenuse Hall on Subjectivity Street. There 
 was not a soul present except the usher ; but presently the 
 pale librarian with the crooked leg arrived, and halted 
 painfully up the aisle. He was followed by the little agent 
 himself, with the dirty neck and rosy-mottled cheeks. 
 Then came two other persons, one of whom had wads of 
 
PROFESSOR DOCTOR KINCK VON KINCK. 97 
 
 jeweler s cotton in his ears, and the other had black hair 
 and blue spectacles. We five composed the audience. 
 
 The learned Herr Professor Doctor arrived very 
 promptly. He was, as before remarked, of a short stat 
 ure, and quite obese, very fair-skinned and ruddy-cheeked, 
 though the color, as with many of these beer-drinkers, 
 looked almost as if painted on, and not suffused from be 
 neath. His hair was yellow, parted high on his head, 
 combed behind the ears, and cut straight off all around. 
 In the lobe of each ear was a very small ring. Around 
 his neck there was wrapped a very portentous black neck 
 cloth, in many a fold, covering his neck thickly from his 
 ears quite down to his shoulders. He moved up the aisle 
 with that peculiar German pace or gliding motion, con 
 sisting of short level steps, which, as the novelist Rich 
 ardson describes it in his own case, seems rather to steal 
 away the ground than to get rid of it by perceptible de 
 grees. 
 
 He was evidently gratified by the warmth of our ap 
 plause and the size of the audience. He bowed low, then 
 untied the blue pasteboard covers, and read as follows : 
 
 " Meine Herren : The lecture, as announced, will con 
 sist of a running commentary on Satire 9, Book I., of 
 Q. Horatius Flaccus, popularly elucidating that amusing 
 composition in the hodigetico-exegetical method of West- 
 ner. The subject of the satire, as you well know, is the 
 encounter of the poet with a persistent Roman bore. 
 
 "If you will carefully observe the first verse of this 
 admirable satire, you will discover in it a most beautiful 
 instance of the adaptation of the rhythmical structure to 
 the sense of the passage. The poet was ascending the 
 Sacred Way, which is a brisk slope upward from the Col 
 iseum, and the halting movement of the wards Ibam 
 forte Via Sacra fitly represents the laboriousncss of the 
 
98 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 ascent. On the summit of the ascent, before you de 
 scend toward the Forum, stands now the Arch of Titus, 
 where Horace probably sat down to rest himself, a move 
 ment which is beautifully represented by the caesura in the 
 verse, where we pause, or, as it were, sit down, in scan 
 ning. Then the line concludes with the soft, liquescent 
 words, sicut meus est mos, which indicate the ease of the 
 descent. 
 
 " You will observe, meine Herren, that the third line, 
 which records the approach of the garrulous fool, contains 
 four words of two syllables each. Now, here is a remark 
 able beauty of composition. In the first line, where 
 Horace was still alone, the words are mostly of one sylla 
 ble ; in the second line, where he descends into the noisy 
 Forum, the words swell out into a turbulent length ; but 
 in the third, where the poet and the fool are together, a 
 majority of the words are of two syllables. [Applause by 
 the man with the defective ears.] 
 
 "Next, I will call your attention to the remarkable 
 words, O te, Bolane, cerebri felicem ! O Bolanus, happy 
 of your head ! I need not tell you, meine Herren, that 
 this celebrated passage has given rise to innumerable vir 
 ulent controversies among the learned, beginning as early 
 as the time of Permixtus, in the second century. Every 
 thing hinges on the case of the substantive cerebrum. 
 
 " First, as to the reading cerebri. By this we must under 
 stand the poet as saying that Bolanus is happy ^/"his head, 
 in possession of his head, that is, in having any head at 
 all. But we can form no conception of a man happy 
 without his head ; hence this reading seems to attribute 
 to the poet an impertinence, and I condemn it as spu 
 rious. 
 
 " With regard to the reading cerebro, we know that poets 
 are licensed to give the ablative the sense of in, without 
 
PROFESSOR DOCTOR KINCK VON KINCK. 99 
 
 employing that preposition. From this we should have 
 the reading, happy in his head. But the usual sense of 
 the ablative is privative, denoting absence, ablation, or 
 abstention. Understanding it so, we should read, happy 
 out of his head. But it can hardly be supposed the poet 
 would write in this manner, though, as a purely psycho 
 logical fact, people are often happier out of their heads 
 than they are in them. [Profound silence.] 
 
 "I do not attempt to deny that there are also many 
 difficulties connected with the reading cerebrum. The 
 phrase, happy in respect to his head, would indicate that 
 he was peculiarly felicitous in regard of some peculiar 
 quality of that organ. If this were a serious composition, 
 we should be bound to suppose that Horace meant to 
 congratulate him on his acumen or brilliancy ; but, since 
 it is satirical, we are unsettled from the usual base of cri 
 ticism, and compelled to seek for outside historical infor 
 mation. There is, indeed, an inherent probability that 
 the poet meant to felicitate Bolanus on his obtuseness, since 
 that quality would have shielded him (Horace) from this 
 fool s infliction. 
 
 " But this theory, unfortunately, is controverted by the 
 positive historical statement of Mallonius (ii. 27), that 
 Bolanus was a remarkably astute advocate. On the other 
 hand, however, Trebonius affirms with equal positiveness, 
 in a fragment discovered in Brindisi in the fourteenth cen 
 tury, that when he dined with Bolanus on one occasion 
 he had peacock in the third course and boar s-head in 
 the fourth, and ate his celery with sweet oil. This would 
 seem to indicate that he was a person of a rather imbecile 
 understanding. So this important question still remains 
 sub judice. 
 
 "Mtsere cupis abtre, You are monstrous anxious to get 
 away, says the inexorable bore to the poet, as he writhes 
 
100 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 and wriggles. I desire, meine Herren, to call your atten 
 tion to the profound metaphysical or psychological knowl 
 edge here displayed by Horace. He might have written 
 vis, You wish to get away ; or petis, You seek ; or desi- 
 deras, You desire ; or niteris. You struggle ; but not one of 
 them would have conveyed the nice shade of meaning 
 expressed by cupis. Wish denotes pure and simple voli 
 tion ; seek, muscular volition, as that of a stag-hound ; 
 desire, intellectual, or, oftener, moral, volition, without 
 cause or reason expressed ; struggle, strong and violent 
 volition, accompanied by kicks, blows, flinging of stones, 
 and the like. But want denotes intense, interior, subject 
 ive volition, a movement of the intellect seldom found 
 among the superficial and objective Italians, or even among 
 the ancient Romans, but more frequent among Northern 
 nations. Cupis abire ! It is very expressive." 
 
 During the delivery of the above paragraph, the Pro 
 fessor seemed temporarily to lose himself in a profound 
 metaphysical abstraction. He gradually lost sight of his 
 manuscript, and began to pace slowly up and down on the 
 platform. Presently he fell into the national attitude of 
 meditation, to wit, the left hand laid gently across the ab 
 domen, the head thrown slightly to the right and upward, 
 and the right forefinger placed alongside the nose. In 
 this attitude he remained in a deep meditation for some 
 moments. Then he began, in a dreamy and pensive 
 strain, to repeat what he had uttered, but with his right 
 side toward the audience, and his eyes directed upon the 
 side wall of the room, as if he were abstractedly apostro 
 phizing an imaginary audience. 
 
 Here I ventured to commit a breach of decorum to 
 which the student of human nature is sometimes tempted. 
 I turned back and looked into the faces of the audience 
 of four persons. Any one who will perpetrate this piece 
 
PROFESSOR DOCTOR KINCK VON KINCK. IQI 
 
 of ill manners in a theater, or when listening to a comical 
 speaker, will be rewarded with an interesting phenomenon 
 which will repay the loss of some of the finest passages. 
 The facial muscles of the most impressible people in the 
 audience, especially in Germany, seem to play in sym 
 pathy with the speaker s, assuming the same smiles and dis 
 tortions. These movements sometimes extend, among 
 Germans, even to the neck and arms, causing them to 
 gyrate in unconscious and gentle accord, as if in an effort 
 to assist or supplement the thought of the speaker. 
 
 In like manner, one may often observe little children 
 at play, earnestly intent on some circular or twisting mo 
 tion, industriously following it up with their lips or tongues. 
 As Horace himself says, 
 
 " Si vis me flere, dolendum est 
 Primum ipsi tibi." 
 
 So now, graven on the bewildered face of the poor 
 fellow with the black hair and blue spectacles, I saw the 
 word cupis in all its pregnant significance. Let the reader 
 only consider what a dreadful thing it was for a member 
 of the "laboring classes" to have this intensely psycho 
 logical word written upon his lineaments ! I was mightily 
 alarmed for him, lest it should strike into his system. 
 
 The Professor presently faced his audience again, and 
 resumed upon cupis : 
 
 11 1 seem to myself, meine Herren, to see them now be 
 fore me, the irrepressible bore in his luxurious toga and 
 perfumed, flowing locks, leering with a grin of exultation 
 on the unfortunate Horace, who * sweats even down to 
 the ends of his toes, and looks piteously about for Apollo 
 or some compassionate mortal to hasten to his rescue. 
 The taunting tone of the impudent snob in that word is 
 
 9* 
 
102 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 quite untranslatable. Cupis abire. Cupis ha, ha ! Misere 
 cupis ha, ha, ha ! [Great laughter.] 
 
 "When Horace tells this impertinent chatterbox " 
 
 Here the Herr Professor Doctor was suddenly inter 
 rupted by a deep and prolonged groan, followed by a 
 heavy thud, as of a man falling to the floor. Hastening 
 to the spot, we found that the unfortunate laborer with the 
 blue spectacles had fallen under a paralytic stroke, and 
 was insensible. The kind-hearted Professor hastened 
 down from the platform in deep concern, and ran with 
 great precipitation to fetch the sufferer a draught of beer. 
 In the mean time we carried him gently out into the open 
 air, and then across the street, into an apothecary shop, 
 to await the arrival of a physician. 
 
 Seeing the lecture was hopelessly broken off, I started 
 homeward, then lingered awhile on the pavement, while 
 the relatives and sympathetic friends were administering 
 cordials, rolling the unfortunate man on a barrel, ham 
 mering him on the back, and performing other well-meant 
 operations. A physician arrived presently, and, after 
 glancing at the sufferer, took his companion aside to ques 
 tion him as to his habits of life and the probable cause 
 of the stroke. I overheard only the concluding sentences. 
 
 " Did you say it was the honored Herr Professor Doc 
 tor Kinckvon Kinck s lecture you were listening to?" 
 
 "It was, Herr Doctor." 
 
 " Ach, Donnerwetter ! Then I can do nothing for him. 
 It is a hopeless case." 
 
 Next morning I read in the newspaper the coroner s 
 verdict : " Came to his death from an excessive and un 
 timely administration of cupis" 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA, 
 i. 
 
 Hamlet. I am very glad to see you. Good even. 
 
 But what, in faith, makes you from Wittenberg ? 
 Horatio. A truant disposition, good my lord. 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 BUT Wittenberg breeds "truant dispositions" no 
 more. No more does the German student, round- 
 faced, broad-shouldered, in his immense cannon-boots, 
 and with his little skull-cap gayly cocked on one side of 
 his head and brilliant with as many colors as a poppy- 
 bed, saunter with his level gait through the narrow, 
 crooked, cobble-paved alleys of lonely Wittenberg. No 
 more do the Bierburschen prowl through the streets on 
 midnight missions of sign-lifting, hoisting one the other 
 upon his shoulders before some grocery door, or scattering 
 like frightened rats at the alarm of the police " rattlers," 
 diving higgledy-piggledy down the darkened alleys. 
 No more in lonely Wittenberg does the incarcerated 
 sign-lifter turn his leaden eyes from the depths of the 
 university dungeon, as he hears in the court the footfall 
 of some comrade who was fleeter than he, and sees his 
 shadow flit across the narrow grating, and dolefully sigh, 
 O beatus ille ! No more in Wittenberg does the hapless 
 fag, the freshman "fox," sigh for the day of his legal 
 emancipation, the great, the pregnant day which shall 
 usher him into the miseries and the mysteries of the con 
 dition of "singed fox," when his emancipators shall 
 
104 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 dance and yell around him, paint on his face a pair of 
 whiskers, and sing the song of his deliverance : 
 
 " Ich mal dir einen Bart, dass du hinfort geartet 
 Sollst sein, nicht wie ein Kind, das noch ganz ungebartet." 
 
 Then, in due process of time, the "singed fox" be 
 came a "young boy," then an "old boy," and, last of 
 all, arrived at the tremendous dignity and responsibility 
 of a "moss-skin," a free person, inter pares primus. 
 Then he could wear his sword of authority, and play the 
 absolute tyrant over the luckless "school worms," "boo 
 bies," or "yellow-bills" in the classes below; compel 
 his freshman to run on errands, to feast him without re 
 turn, to lend him money without hope of repayment, to 
 fight with the street-boys for his amusement, or to pom 
 mel for him the "obscurants" or "stinkers" who obsti 
 nately refused to yield to his tyranny by entering the 
 secret societies. And if the wretched fag refused to obey, 
 the lordly "moss-skin" could beat him with the flat of 
 his sword. 
 
 Evil days were those, albeit the golden age of "aca 
 demic freedom," and sad dogs were many of the gradu 
 ates who went home to their elders. The old song says : 
 
 " Wer von Leipzig kommt ohne Weib, 
 Und von Halle mit gesundem Leib, 
 Und von Jena ungeschlagen, 
 Der hat von grossem Gliick zu sagen." 
 
 Gone forever and forever by, not alone in Wittenberg, 
 but everywhere, is that German student whom Kobbe 
 limns with a touch of fond and tender pathos : " Ah ! 
 where are ye, happy times, when the German student was 
 a being who considered himself lifted above common 
 mortals, and who looked down upon the life of a citizen 
 with unspeakable superciliousness and contempt? Like 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 105 
 
 the ancient Titans, he gazed down upon the puny genera 
 tion that crept, and crawled, and wept upon the earth, 
 regarding them as so many ants which existed only for 
 his service. 
 
 "Bestowed in his immense cannon-boots; his pipe, 
 with its long, swinging, gay-colored tassels, resting its 
 bowl on the floor before him ; and his jaunty little cap 
 tipped to one side, what was the world to him, or he to 
 the world ? Or, as he sat in the cellar before the beer- 
 table, while his voice swelled high in Gaudeamus or in 
 Landesvater, and the backsword hurtled through his hat, 
 and the glasses clinked around him ; or, mayhap, as he 
 swung his lusty arms to a Hoch lebe or a fiducit, how all 
 things else in the outer world sank into prosy vulgarity 
 and nothingness ! Or, again, when he sat in his little 
 chamber his throne his bed, his footstool the Pandects 
 piled high around him, all in confusion, wherever he could 
 find room ; the beermug beside the inkstand, and on the 
 broken plate, as the song says, with the potato a herring ; 
 his table an altar to Bacchus ; and from the midst of all 
 a dense savory smoke ascending from his pipe how its 
 delicious fumes wrapped him in sweet forgetfulness of the 
 dull world ! 
 
 Behold him again in the intoxicating hour when he 
 stands before the chalk-line on the floor, and the gleam 
 ing rapiers cross and clink before him O world ! ye do 
 not know his exultation. Or the yet greater felicity of the 
 day when he gave audience to his freshmen ! There he 
 sat in his fleecy robe, stretched far back in his soft easy- 
 chair, the pipe in his mouth, his weather-soiled cap 
 cocked upon his head ; and before him, clad in black 
 from tip to toe, all ruffled and frizzled, and \\i\\igaZanterie- 
 swords by their sides, his chapeaux d*honneur, like cham 
 berlains, awaiting the beck of their Serenissimus ; while 
 
106 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 before his mental vision there floats a coach drawn by four 
 or six prancing steeds, postilions with their clanging horns, 
 marshals of honor, seniors and Praeses on horseback a 
 long train in brilliant array ! Now he is king for the last 
 time ; for the last time a free man, one of the elect ; and 
 they are escorting him forth with honors into the busy 
 world. But it existed not for him. . . . 
 
 "Nowhere else than in Germany, in the land of dream 
 ers, could have existed, could have arisen, such a being as 
 the old German student. Nowhere else than in old Ger 
 many could there have lived such an exclusive freedom. 
 In that land alone where no freedom was, could men feel 
 themselves attracted to this fiction of freedom." 
 
 Ah, yes ! these enormous ramparts, which encircle the 
 little humdrum town, grass-grown, and clean-shaven as a 
 lawn, and so lofty that the sentries on them almost over 
 look the town, as they pace their appointed beats, with 
 their polished bayonets and their Pickelhauben flash 
 ing in the sunlight, these are Chancellor Bismarck s 
 latest revised edition and commentary of that old " aca 
 demic freedom." These gleaming cannon, which, with 
 their single grim eyes, Cyclops-like, glower down from 
 the grassy parapets, these are the big exclamation-points 
 of sarcasm which King William writes at the end of that 
 brilliant phantasmagoria of liberty, that " fiction of free 
 dom," conceived in dreaming professors brains. Ger 
 many needed a little "blood and iron" to startle these 
 academic troglodytes out of their political hibernation, 
 and make them lift their noses for a moment from be 
 tween the pages of commentaries, that they might com 
 prehend true liberty, which comes only from strength, 
 which comes only from union. 
 
 But there is no change since Hamlet s time in these 
 little greenish-yellow, mud-and-cobble houses, the ever- 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 107 
 
 lasting stucco of Germany, sicklied over with a maudlin 
 wash, but so enormously thick-walled that the small square 
 windows look like portholes for cannon. Here, on a 
 market-day, one wanders whithersoever the current bears 
 him now jostling among wagons and pedestrians sheer 
 in the middle of the alley; now nearly overturned by 
 a low cabbage-wagon, guided by a stalwart, red-faced 
 woman, and tugged along by a dog, barking and screw 
 ing his tail in his impatience. You had better take care, 
 or he will knock you down among the cabbages. 
 
 Still carried along in the devious windings, unable to 
 see ten rods ahead in the crooked crevices called streets, 
 seeming to be only earthquake-cracks among the houses ; 
 sufficiently grateful if one escapes being borne down 
 by an Amazonian market-woman bending under an im 
 mense hamper of vegetables ; looking before and behind, 
 and dodging fearfully under horses noses. 
 
 The quaint sharp gables are ranged along like so many 
 huge saw-teeth, or the red-tiled roofs slope toward the 
 street, reaching down through several stories, with rows 
 of dormers to each, and all black-spotted by time or 
 smirched with splashes of lichens. In one of the dormers 
 is a mousing grimalkin, which stretches its neck eagerly 
 up, and moves it round and round, following the flight of 
 the pigeons close above. What a queer, funny way these 
 houses of old Germany have of standing along in a row 
 like militia ! some with backs to faces, others with backs 
 to backs, others sides to sides, and every one leaning in 
 its own peculiar direction. 
 
 But to-day there is only an occasional peasant-woman, 
 in a very short dress, stumping along with her wooden 
 shoes, and rattling over the cobbles, as she shoves her 
 toes in at every step ; or one of Bismarck s boys, m his 
 dark-blue uniform with red facings, and his fascine-knife 
 
Io8 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 dangling in its broad sheath against his legs, while he 
 munches a sausage which he holds in both hands. 
 
 Once out of Wittenberg, I journeyed on along the 
 ancient royal highway, between the ever-welcome colon 
 nades of stately poplars, planted that the kingly head 
 might never be scorched by the sun of summer. The 
 sun shone as brightly as it ever does in blue old Germany ; 
 but what a weary, weary land to my eyes, on that pitiless 
 May-day, was that sandy champaign, almost utterly naked 
 in its hopeless sterility ! So indescribably blue, and cold, 
 and pinched was it, without any vegetation but a forest 
 of planted pines, which, after a quarter of a century, had 
 struggled up with their wretched, scraggy trunks only 
 fifteen feet. The very soil looked blue and thin and 
 skinny, and the rye looked blue, and was so meager and 
 chilled that it could not conceal the ground or the knees 
 of men who plucked up the weeds. 
 
 All the dismal immensity of this fenceless, hedgeless, 
 houseless waste, except an acre of rye in a hundred, was 
 given up to the sorrel, the lichens, and the quitches. The 
 very air seemed poor and attenuated, like old skimmed 
 milk. All the houses were clustered together in little 
 villages, far apart, where they huddled close, as if for 
 warmth. Their dead, dull peat-fires gave forth no cheer 
 ful wreaths of smoke. In all the desolate and bleak waste 
 there was scarcely a soul abroad. 
 
 The faces of the carroty-haired children, who were oc 
 casionally watching some geese, were mottled with blue, 
 and purple, and goose-pimples. If a man ventured abroad 
 to pluck up weeds in the stunted rye, which seemed to 
 shiver with a kind of rustling, starved chilliness, his hands 
 were bluer than the air. 
 
 So utterly worn out, so bluish-wan, and weary, and lean 
 with the lapse of untold centuries seemed all the earth and 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 109 
 
 the air of that Germany which I looked out upon on that 
 dismal May forenoon. 
 
 Lamartine says the blood of the Germans is blue, but 
 that of these Brandenburgers must certainly be sour. 
 
 It will readily be believed that I did not undertake a 
 pilgrimage through this inexpressibly bleak region in 
 search of fine landscapes. I wished only to visit, by their 
 own firesides, and in their own fields, that hard, grim, 
 Puritanic race to whom Prussia is primarily indebted for 
 all her greatness. 
 
 It was hours after mid-day before the spires of Witten 
 berg vanished below one of those broad sand-knolls, which 
 swell broadly up with a thousand acres. The afternoon 
 was far spent, and I began to cast longing glances ahead 
 in quest of an eligible tavern. I had come up with a 
 thumping lout of a young peasant, who strode along with 
 his " clouted shoon," about a yard and a quarter at a 
 stride, whose voice blubbered and gurgled up out of his 
 stomach in such a manner that the fierce wind whisked it 
 away, leaving me only an occasional horse-laugh (where 
 upon I would also laugh, though I had not the remotest 
 notion of the matters whereof he was discoursing). By 
 his advice I passed several tolerable inns, though I found 
 afterward, to my sorrow, he was looking only for the 
 cheapest. 
 
 At last we came to one which was the meanest of all, 
 but I was too weary to go a step farther. It bore the 
 pretentious name of the Inn of the Green Linden. It was 
 an absolute hovel, built of cobbles and mud, tawny-yellow 
 within, greenish-yellow without, with an earthen floor and 
 benches around the walls. Above the door were twined 
 some twigs of Whitsuntide birch, which I had noticed 
 during the day on the peasants hats, wagons, and every 
 where. 
 
no PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 Around a pine table were eight or ten men and hobble 
 dehoys, each with a Schoppen of terribly stiff beer before 
 him, and most of them smoking the long, swan-necked 
 porcelain pipe, while four were intent on cards. The 
 men were hard, gristly-faced, sour-blooded fellows, who 
 only muttered now and then a monosyllable, which I 
 could seldom understand. The youths looked on with 
 the most vacuous loamy countenances imaginable. So 
 intent were they on the miserable game that they gave no 
 heed to our arrival, and when I endeavored to ascertain 
 who was the landlord, I received only a blank stare, or a 
 gesture of impatience. 
 
 I sat down and waited, and I confess, for a few minutes, 
 my enthusiasm for the Prussian character fell absolutely to 
 the freezing-point. 
 
 After about half an hour the landlord seemed to be 
 disturbed in his mind by a suspicion that I was a foreigner, 
 drew near, and ascertained that fact. Whereupon he 
 brought me some vile black coffee, and a couple of ex 
 cellent wheaten Semmel, such as you seldom fail to find 
 in Germany, and which do much to atone for the exe 
 crable coffee. 
 
 The players continued at their game far into the even 
 ing, and though the stakes were of the most trifling 
 amount, often only half a penny, they displayed a fierce 
 and obstinate eagerness which was surprising. They 
 would rise up on their feet, lean far across the table, and 
 smite the same with astounding violence. When they at 
 last desisted, and were preparing to disperse, they col 
 lected about me, and, finding I was an American, listened 
 to me awhile with a kind of drowsy, immovable passive- 
 ness, while the smoke lazily twirled above their heads. 
 Unlike the lively Suabians, and the joyous drinkers of 
 the sunny wine of Freiburg, they scarcely asked any ques- 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. m 
 
 tions, or expressed any interest beyond grunting their 
 assent or wonder. 
 
 At last the host and myself were left alone. Then he 
 proceeded to prepare the only couch he could offer, by 
 shaking down on the floor a bundle of clean rye straw. 
 He tucked me all up as carefully as if I were one of his 
 young Buben, shook the hand which I reached out from 
 the straw, and left me with a cheerful " Schlafen Sie 
 wohl." 
 
 There, in the inexpressibly dense and bitter smudge 
 of the tobacco smoke, and the fumes of that terrific beer, 
 cold and shivering, I grabbed frantically the livelong 
 night at my persecutors. 
 
 In the adjoining room a lusty fellow stretched himself 
 on a bench, pillowed his head on a portentous loaf of rye 
 bread, without having even inserted that useful article of 
 diet into a pillow-case, and there he snored stertitque 
 supinus the long night through, in a tone so exaspera 
 ting that I was greatly tempted to arise and introduce a 
 wisp of rye-straw judiciously into his windpipe. 
 
 When I sat up on my couch next morning, pulling the 
 straw out of my hair, I said to myself, " Oh, I have passed 
 a miserable night !" I had not had any "fearful dreams," 
 nor, for that matter, any sleep, that I was aware of; 
 neither had I had any "ugly sights," because it was too 
 dark to see them ; but I felt them. They appeared to be 
 greatly rejoiced to be able, once in their lives, to extract 
 blood from a man s veins instead of beer. 
 
 The next day I passed through spectacles of the most 
 wonderfully minute and unceasing toil. In a planted 
 pinery, where the trees were become too large to be 
 plowed, there were men on their knees weeding them. 
 Others, in long sheepskin cloaks, inherited from the time 
 of Tacitus, were weeding great fields of flax. In a royal 
 
H2 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 forest a woman was culling the merest twigs for fuel. 
 Others along the roadside snipped off the close short 
 fleece of grass, bunched it up in mighty bundles on their 
 backs, and carried it to the village for the stalled cattle. 
 Here a stalwart yeoman lazily leans his chin on the top 
 of his crook, guarding three sheep as they nimbly nibble ! 
 Peasant women going to the village to hawk their little 
 stuff, shuffled along with their wooden sabots, making a 
 prodigious dust, and chatting cheerfully with their stolid 
 lords, though they were half bowed down to the earth 
 beneath the intolerable weight of vegetables. And the 
 infamous tyrants trudged on beside the poor women, never 
 offering to touch their burdens with so much as one of 
 their fingers. 
 
 The women and the cows of Germany perform all the 
 labor in-doors, and a third of that done out-doors. 
 
 At this point I will introduce a few statistics, taken from 
 the Prussian Jahrbuch, showing the industrial condition of 
 the monarchy in certain aspects. By the latest census (1863) 
 there were in the entire kingdom 1,216,919 independent 
 landholders or farmers, while the number of dependent 
 laborers, of all sorts, on these farms was 1,911,861. How 
 different is that from England, where there are only some 
 30,000 landholders ! 
 
 The relation between the number of independents and 
 dependents of the rural districts is quite variable. Thus, 
 in the Stralsund district, there are 5*40 laborers to one 
 farmer; in the Berlin district, 3*32; Potsdam, 2^58; 
 Konigsberg, 2*73; Magdeburg, 2 o6; Erfurt, 1*24; Co 
 logne, 1*05; Aix-la-Chapelle, o - 82. 
 
 The reader will detect a singular and apparently para 
 doxical fact in the above figures. In the Westphalian 
 and other fertile provinces along the Rhine, the propor 
 tion of laborers is much less than in the sterile eastern 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 113 
 
 provinces. In other words, in those fat and merry pro 
 vinces where Catholics are most numerous and wine 
 abounds, the number of dependent laborers is smaller, 
 proportionately, than in these sandy barrens I am travers 
 ing, peopled by a grim, Puritanic, beer-drinking race. 
 This appears to be contrary to what one would naturally 
 expect. 
 
 The explanation seems to be, that these eastern pro 
 vinces have been longest under the iron rule of Prussia, 
 and that the onerous taxes which have been necessitated 
 by her military system have forced many farmers to sell 
 their little patrimonies, and become hirelings to the 
 nobility. If so, it is the hard and bitter price which 
 Germany has to pay for union, because nothing else in 
 the world but the grim military system of Prussia can ever 
 stamp out the infernal janglings of the little princes of 
 Central and Southern Germany, and make one great nation, 
 respectable and strong. The world will never know, 
 until it is fully set forth in history, the infinite indebted 
 ness of Germany to those few, early, Puritanical provinces 
 of Prussia, and the mighty burdens they have borne in 
 their poverty in building up, in spite of itself, the great 
 ness of the German nation. 
 
 When Germany is fully united and strong externally, 
 she will become liberal to her own citizens. Louis Blanc 
 said, in 1840, "Germany becomes Prussian to-day, to 
 become democratic to-morrow." With this agrees Bis 
 marck: "None but a completed commonwealth can 
 afford the luxury of a liberal government." 
 
 I think the Germans will never "witch the world with 
 noble horsemanship." The horses of Prussia are splendid 
 animals for the farm, strong, and glossy, and round, equal 
 to the heaviest Clydesdales ; but the people seem to care 
 very little to mount them. After all my travels in Prus- 
 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 sia, I have yet to see a man riding on horseback in the 
 country, and in the city it is chiefly the military officers 
 who prance along the boulevards. The great superiority 
 of the Hungarian cavalry over the Prussian was abun 
 dantly demonstrated in the Bohemian campaign of 1866. 
 The dreaded "Three Uhlans" of Edmond About were 
 often Poles. 
 
 It is said that the sovereigns of Germany, when paying 
 visits of ceremony at foreign courts, seldom omit to take 
 along with them a favorite charger or two, to whose 
 paces they are accustomed, that there may be no blunders 
 or embarrassments in the reviews. It would be a dread 
 ful thing if his majesty should be planted on his august 
 head by an uncourtly Gaul. 
 
 These poor peasants here evince little more confidence 
 than do their majesties. The outrageously unprofessional 
 and awkward manner in which they treat the noble brutes 
 would enrage a horse-fancier beyond endurance. To save 
 toll at the gates, they often hitch only one horse in a 
 two-horse wagon, so that the tongue bruises and thwacks 
 his shins in a disgraceful manner. And then to hitch the 
 head of one gallant horse to the tail of another bah ! 
 
 In the village of Beelitz I had an amusing adventure, 
 resulting from my ignorance of the customs of the country. 
 Upon entering the village, I began to cast about me for 
 some eligible tavern, wherein I might take my customary 
 mid-day repast. The first one I approached was the Inn 
 of the Black Horse ; but there were rather too many 
 frowzy, unwashed children and dingy geese tumbling 
 about; besides, the sign hung down from one corner. 
 The only other one was the Inn of the White Eagle, 
 which was scarcely any better, but it was Hobson s choice. 
 It was so extremely small that I was in doubt whether it 
 was a public tavern or not ; so I rapped. 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. I15 
 
 Only the clink of the dinner-knives responded. 
 
 The operation was repeated with a certain amount ot 
 vigor. There was a kind of objurgatory remark made 
 inside, and in a moment the door was opened about two 
 feet, and an immense brawny arm, bared to the elbow, 
 was protruded out around the edge of the door. The 
 arm alone was visible, no body seeming to be attached 
 thereto. In the fingers there was clutched a hunk of some 
 substance which appeared to solicit my closer inspection. 
 A single glance at this substance revealed to me the 
 pleasing and interesting fact that it was bread. It was 
 undoubtedly bread. 
 
 This was an unexpectedly prompt response to my de 
 sires, and presented an opportunity for the acquisition of 
 a limited amount of provisions cheap, but one of which 
 my conscience would not permit me to avail myself. 
 Howsoever, I scrutinized the bread with quite a lively in 
 terest. It was manifestly good bread, that is to say, it 
 had been good bread at some former period of time, but 
 was now somewhat dry. Indeed, I think I may safely 
 affirm that it was totally devoid of moisture. 
 
 Presently the hand holding this article of diet executed 
 a sudden movement of impatience, or, as it were, of 
 beckoning or blandishment, as if I were expected to take 
 this bread and masticate the same. But as I still hesitated, 
 the arm was suddenly withdrawn into the tavern, there 
 was a very audible remark made inside, and then the 
 brawny hostess owning the hand presented herself at the 
 door, and appeared to have made an astounding dis 
 covery. 
 
 Tableau ! 
 
 A substantial dinner of pork and cabbage. Many 
 apologies. 
 
!i6 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 Moral: In a country where beggars are numerous, 
 never knock at the tavern door. 
 
 ******* 
 
 I will end this chapter with a translation of part of a 
 curious document I came upon in my rambles. It is en 
 titled " Leipsic Beer Code," and is the body of rules 
 accumulated from tradition upon the subject of beer- 
 drinking in the Leipsic University. It will show better 
 than a treatise could to what a system the devotees of 
 Gambrinus have reduced their orgies : 
 
 I. SUBJECTS OF THE CODE. 
 
 1. All persons, under the operations of this Code, are 
 divided into beer-boys and foxes. 
 
 2. A fox becomes a beer-boy, either by the lapse of 
 two semesters, or by beer-trial. The beer-trial is con 
 ducted in the following manner : the song beginning, 
 
 " In Leipzig angekommen, 
 Als Fuchs bin aufgenommen," 
 
 is sung ; and if, after the first and the last stanzas, the can 
 didate drinks a whole, and after each of the others a half- 
 pint, he is solemnly proclaimed a beer-boy. 
 
 3. All kinds of beer are constitutional under this Code, 
 but other drinks are not recognized. 
 
 II. DRINKING CHALLENGES. 
 
 4. To increase the jollity of drinking-bouts, it is an 
 immemorial custom for the beer-boys to drink to each 
 other about a round-table, even if it is only the plain 
 beer-table of the jovial student, for thereby the reproach 
 of the "solitary swig" is removed. When Miiller says 
 to Schulze, " I come to thee, I challenge thee, I drink to 
 thee a half, a whole," or so, Schulze will be so carried 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 117 
 
 away with enthusiasm that he will involuntarily accept in 
 the usual words. 
 
 5. As to the acceptance of the quantity named, Schulze 
 is bound under all circumstances, both morally and by 
 the beneficent rules of the beer-shame, to do so at once, 
 and in the following words: "Profit, drink it, swig it, 
 it s right." Mere winking or nodding does not suffice. 
 Even the expression "Swig it double" is not forbidden, 
 only Schulze is not to guarantee that it is actually done. 
 If Shtilze delays to respond "Profit" etc., then Miiller 
 can demand it of him with the words, "Schulze, say 
 Profit? " etc. three times. If Schulze, after this de 
 mand, does not at once accept the quantity named, he 
 goes into a beer-shame. If Miiller drinks before Schulze 
 accepts, the latter is not bound to follow up. But if 
 Schulze has his throat so well in order that he feels the 
 need of a drink, he cries out with a loud voice, "Miiller, 
 I follow you up," whereupon the latter gives vent to his 
 unspeakable joy. 
 
 6. One is not bound to accept a challenge from a beer- 
 debtor. The constitutional quantity ranges from a quar 
 ter-pint to two wholes. 
 
 7. Should several beer-honorable souls, as Miiller, 
 Schulze, Lehmann, etc., wish to express their liking for 
 some one, they blow him in the air with so or so many 
 wholes or halves, that is, each of them drinks the same 
 quantity to Richter, for instance. Richter must now 
 drink this quantity to each of them in return, at intervals 
 of five beer-minutes (three minutes). Foxes cannot blow 
 in the air this way without the participation of at least 
 one beer-boy. 
 
 8. To promote universal jollity at the beer-table is the 
 object of the very useful custom called " Drinking to the 
 World." Richter, after drinking his quantities, retaliates 
 
Il8 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 with the same (at least a half-pint) upon every one at the 
 table except Miiller, Schulze, and Lehmann. 
 
 III. BEER-DUELS. 
 
 9. A beer-duel is a duel in which the weapons are beer, 
 and the conqueror is he who first drinks a certain quantity 
 in a constitutional manner. 
 
 10. As in every duel, so here, there must first be an 
 offense given. After every offense a challenge must be 
 given within at least five beer-minutes. The offense is 
 of two sorts, "sage" and "beer-baby." 
 
 11. In case a beer-boy is called "sage," he can either 
 challenge the offender, or, when he thinks the offense was 
 involuntary, or proceeded from some other cause, he can 
 reply with "Doctor." The other must then challenge 
 him, or reply with "Pope." After "Pope" a challenge 
 must be given. In case of a duel on "sage," each party 
 drinks a half; " Doctor," a whole ; " Pope," two wholes. 
 
 12. When a beer-boy is called "beer*baby," a chal 
 lenge must be given, and each party drinks a half. 
 
 13. Each principal must choose a second, and the 
 second of the challengee an umpire. The challenger s 
 second commands, "Let the Popes (or Doctors) seize!" 
 the challengee s second says, "Attack!" the other re 
 plies, " Out !" In a duel on " beer-baby," the challengee 
 chooses an umpire, who equalizes the weapons. The chal 
 lenger says, "One;" the challengee, "Two;" the chal 
 lenger, "Three;" whereupon they begin to drink. 
 
 14. The umpire declares him in beer-shame who drinks 
 unconstitutionally, or who was the last to say " beer- 
 baby." To drink unconstitutionally is, to begin to drink 
 before the word "Out," or "Three;" to slop out beer 
 (bleed) during the drinking; to leave a little (called 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. up 
 
 Philistine), enough to cover the bottom of the mug ; or, 
 to break the mug in setting it down. 
 
 15. Seconds and umpires must be beer-honorable beer- 
 boys, and the umpire is bound on Grand Cerevis to decide 
 according to his best knowledge and belief. 
 
 IV. ORDERS Ex PLENO. 
 
 1 6. Every beer-boy -has the right, in certain cases, to 
 order a fox to drink as a punishment. This is called an 
 order ex plena. It is usually resorted to when the foxes 
 carry their tails too high, and long experience has demon 
 strated it to be the best means for keeping them in a proper 
 state of humility. 
 
 1 7. The order ex pleno is given in the following man 
 ner: The beer-boy calls out to the culprit fox, " Mtiller, 
 drink ex plena" once. If the fox delays, this order is 
 given a second and third time, and if he still refuses, 
 he is at once declared in a beer-shame. Idle excuses are 
 not to be accepted. If the beer-boy calls out, "It is 
 remitted," the fox is released from further drinking; but 
 if he compels him to drink it all, he is bound to drink at 
 least one swallow with him, under pain of the beer- 
 shame. 
 
 1 8. Should a fox think he was ordered to drink ex pleno 
 without sufficient ground (which is hardly conceivable), 
 he can, after he drinks his quantity, ask the other why he 
 ordered him to do it. If he still thinks himself wronged, 
 he can then take oath before any impartial beer-honor 
 able beer-boy, and through him have a beer-court as 
 sembled. 
 
 19. In beer-villages, that is, in every place outside of 
 Leipsic, except in corps-bouts and regular beer-cellars, a 
 man of a higher semester can order one of a lower to drink 
 
120 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 ex plena. If the latter refuses, the other can punish him 
 by shaking his mug of beer out over his head. 
 
 
 V. GRAND CEREVIS. 
 
 20. The Grand Cerevis is the highest form of affirma 
 tion in all beer-cases. It is, therefore, to be given as the 
 last and indefeasible testimony, when no other kind can 
 be adduced for lack of witnesses. 
 
 21. Since the Grand Cerevis is principally employed 
 when jollity has reached its acme, by reason of the un 
 limited swigging, and when, by consequence, it is no 
 longer to be expected that general attention will be paid 
 to what is passing, it is necessary, in order to prevent a 
 frivolous use of it, that it should never be given negatively. 
 In other words, one must never affirm on Grand Cerevis 
 that another did not do so and so ; but, at the utmost, 
 that he did not hear or see him do so and so. One Grand 
 Cerevis must also never be given against another. 
 
 22. The only case where the last clause above given is 
 violated is as follows : When one accuses another of having 
 given his Grand Cerevis falsely, he must establish that 
 fact through two beer-honorable witnesses, who are bound 
 on Grand Cerevis to declare truthfully what they have 
 seen or heard. If the defendant is proven guilty, he goes 
 into the highest beer-shame. 
 
 ******* 
 I cannot follow up this quaint document further. It 
 contains eighty-three sections, describing beer-courts, 
 beer-conventions, beer-punishments, the beer-shame, etc. 
 There are twenty-two beer-crimes which lead to the beer- 
 shame, seven which conduct to the sharpened beer-shame, 
 and four which terminate in the perpetual beer-shame, or 
 gallows, at which point the offender may be forcibly 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 121 
 
 ejected from the drinking-bout, if he refuses to enter a 
 beer-trial for the sake of drinking himself back to a beer- 
 honorable estate. Although hanging on tke gallows, he 
 can still return, if he will drink enough within a certain 
 number of minutes. 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 
 
 All that s moisture 
 
 Drink with cheer ; 
 Only water 
 
 Touch with fear. 
 
 GOUNOD S OPERA FAUST. 
 
 STANDING just outside the mighty ramparts of Mag 
 deburg, looking south, I saw only a green infinity 
 of grass. Not a tree for the birds to perch in and sing. 
 11 Daz tuot den vogellnen we" as the ancient Walther 
 sings. How grumpy they were, although it was June, as 
 if they felt sour toward the Lombardy poplars for shoot 
 ing up their branches so straight that they could not build 
 in them ! Even when they wanted to alight, they had to 
 clutch a perpendicular twig desperately, and stand out 
 horizontal, to their great disgust. 
 
 Imprimis, let us observe this circumstance. The superb 
 old Lombardy poplars, regally useless, and planted in the 
 times of "divine right" notions, are here fast yielding 
 place to sweet-scented apples and cherries. It is the 
 triumph of modern utilitarian democracy over roy 
 alty. Every poplar destroyed is one more infinitesimal 
 kingling gone. "Off with his head!" Well done for 
 him. 
 
 Walking down between these blooming and sweet- 
 smelling rows here a king, there a score of democrats 
 you shall see, far out on the magnificent long sea-rolls of 
 brown loam, gangs of laborers, seventy or eighty in a 
 
 (122) 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 123 
 
 row, men and women together, dressed in blue Saxon 
 linen, hoeing in the beet-rows, which reach away till they 
 disappear below the blue horizon. It is 4he same sad, 
 hopeless, trip-hammer stroke which one might see, some 
 twenty years ago, in our own sunny Carolinas. There is 
 the overseer, too (how much he looks like Legree!), 
 moving to and fro along the line. 
 
 It is not that there is such an excessive amount of 
 physical suffering, except in winter and in unusual cases ; 
 but the circumstance most deplorable is, the intellectual 
 vacuousness, the lubricity, and the utter crushing out of 
 noble ambitions wrought by this never-ceasing drudgery 
 for another. It degrades human nature to be always a 
 hireling. 
 
 As the sun nears the horizon, and " procul villarum 
 culmina fumant" with supper-getting, many a wistful 
 glance wanders thither. When the village bell rings, 
 forthwith they throw up their heels, leap, and jump, and 
 stand on their heads, and butt one another like bellicose 
 rams, showing that they lack much of exhaustion. But 
 their toil is not ennobled by the sacred ambitions of 
 ownership, and such toil is inevitably brutalizing. 
 
 For this reason it was that, in the village inns, although 
 the peasants who flocked in to fuddle themselves with 
 beer in the evening were more glib and oily in speech 
 than the sour-blooded boors about Wittenberg, they 
 were far more lascivious. The unchastity of the South 
 Germans is partly accounted for by their softer climate, 
 but here the same temperature prevails as about Wit 
 tenberg. 
 
 The Germans seem to suffer in their moral nature, under 
 a purely hireling system, more than any other people of 
 Christendom. Manifestly, they are not to be compared 
 with the Italians as to the absolute descent, because they 
 
124 
 
 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 fall from a higher level ; but they are a nobler race, and 
 are correspondingly more brutalized by peonage. 
 
 The laborers on these beet-plantations live in immense 
 barracks owned by the planters, and in the towns those 
 employed in the sugar-factories live in the same manner, 
 but in still more deplorable squalor. They live largely 
 off beets and other vegetables, and greens snipped out of 
 the fields, in consequence of which their faces are very 
 fluffy and pulpy. They seem to have in their veins the 
 colorless lymph of fishes. The little carroty-haired chil 
 dren, tumbling on their heads in the streets of Stassfurt, 
 have the ophthalmia to a distressing extent. Nearly all 
 of them look repulsively blear-eyed and watery, as if they 
 were just about to dissolve away. 
 
 I talked with one of the laborers on the plantation, who 
 was a trifle more intelligent than most I tried, but his 
 utter ignorance of political liberty was astonishing. Said 
 I to him : 
 
 " Couldn t you get along without a king, think?" 
 
 The question almost shocked him, and he looked quite 
 vacant. 
 
 " The king gives alms to the poor." It was the strong 
 est argument that occurred to him. 
 
 "But, suppose you should elect your king, and allow 
 him regular wages, such as you get yourself, only higher, 
 in proportion to his place?" 
 
 The poor fellow s countenance was really troubled, and 
 he answered softly, as if afraid he might be overheard : 
 
 "Oh, I think that would be bad, for then the poor 
 would get no alms." 
 
 "Is that all you fear? Suppose your Diet in Berlin 
 paid him wages not half so much as he now gets and 
 saved the rest for the poor?" 
 
 He gave a glance, to be sure we were not overheard, 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. ^5 
 
 and then he considered the notion of electing a king, 
 which seemed to be peculiarly strange and terrible to him. 
 Then came the argument which was convincing. 
 
 " But, if we did not vote for this king, but another, 
 his police would come and catch us, and put us in 
 prison." 
 
 The poor, scared, starved soul ! So utterly impossible 
 was it for him to place himself back of the notion of the 
 king as the source of all things earthly. He seemed to 
 be as incapable of conceiving of anything whatever exist 
 ing without the consent of the king as we all are of under 
 standing how the Almighty has existed from eternity, 
 self created. I questioned many, and found this notion 
 of royal almsgiving was always uppermost. 
 
 Here it becomes necessary to write a thing which may 
 seem terribly un-American and undemocratic. A vast ma 
 jority of the masses of the Continent are not "sighing 
 for liberty" at all. They do not even know what liberty 
 is. The root of the matter is not found in them. They 
 are dimly conscious, like a linnet hatched in its wicker- 
 cage, that there is something lacking in their little lives ; 
 but, if they long to come to America, an honest analysis 
 of their minds would evolve the unheroic fact that most of 
 them are distinctly conscious of no higher purpose than 
 to be able to acquire a more ample quantum of meat and 
 mustard for a smaller outlay of labor. 
 
 The war between Prussia and Austria was just in its 
 incipiency, and Stassfurt was full of belligerent talk. As 
 the villagers sat around their little tables, I thought many 
 times they would certainly fall to breaking one another s 
 noses. First, one would leap up, lean far across the table, 
 and beat it very earnestly with his fist, or strike wildly 
 into the atmosphere, as if in the prosecution of severely 
 personal hostilities against a June-bug ; then the other 
 
 n* 
 
126 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 would do the same ; then they would both jump up, 
 put their countenances close together, and discourse 
 very violently and simultaneously for many moments 
 together. 
 
 Close by the roadside, on an eminence commanding 
 a prospect far and wide over the plains, stood a sandstone 
 monolith, which, to the seeker after the dark ways of 
 character, was a better guide than ever Number Nip served 
 to the wayfarer. It appears that the Duke of Anhalt, on 
 whose territory it stood, some twenty years ago, when his 
 excessive taxes had reduced the people to beggary, was 
 graciously moved in his paternal heart to order the con 
 struction of a ducal turnpike, to enable his subjects to 
 keep the wolf from their doors. This was all very good 
 and pleasant to a philanthropic mind, but the weak point 
 of the German character appears on this monument, in 
 the following inscription, among others : 
 
 " Wanderer, as you pause here, let us joyfully declare 
 to you that Love fashioned this column, as a memorial 
 of our lealty to him." 
 
 The principal circumstance to be noted in this inscrip 
 tion is that certain something of servility, of adulation 
 and incense-burning to sleek rank rather than to starved 
 and penniless genius, that "too-much-ness" of loyalty 
 of which Coleridge accuses the Germans. Compare the 
 German Domkirchen with the cathedrals of Italy. In the 
 latter are tens of thousands of statues, statuettes, busts, 
 pictures, cartoons, in which the children of genius do 
 each other noble honor above all ribboned potentates; 
 but in German churches there are few grand tombs, ex 
 cept to coffin the purple, few sublime frescoes, except to 
 celebrate the heroism of the blue blood. How true, how 
 pitifully true, even of the genius of Germany, is that bit 
 ter sarcasm of Bismarck: "If the people had money 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 127 
 
 enough, every one of them would have his king." Or 
 that acrid word of Moltke, as he stood before the splendid 
 portraits of Bazaine and McMahon in Versailles: "I 
 think we Prussian generals have about as much merit as 
 these gentlemen, but they will not place any of our por 
 traits in a Pantheon at Berlin." Of all nations of Europe 
 the most peaceful, and the most unhandsome on a horse, 
 they have the most absurd disproportion of equestrian 
 bronze in their streets. 
 
 When will the Germans cease to worship kings, and 
 build for the Fatherland a true Walhalla, wherein shall be 
 gathered their real Einheriar? 
 
 What more contemptuous term of reproach in the rest 
 of Europe than German count?" In their journals 
 they quote the sayings of their great statesmen far oftener 
 than we in America do, but it is merely the tribute of 
 bookworms, the conceit of learning. It is egotism. 
 Egotism and skepticism are one. And it is a curious 
 commentary on the value of most modern skepticism, 
 that the most skeptical people of Christendom are the 
 most devoted king-worshipers. 
 
 A skeptical people can never maintain republican gov 
 ernment. They are too absolute ; they must push every 
 principle to its ultimate results ; none of the imperfect 
 systems, which alone, in this fallen world, can be carried 
 on among men, will be tolerated by. them. They would 
 pick it to pieces, and establish in its stead such a Utopian 
 complication as was sought to be made, in 1848, in Frank 
 fort. There is no elasticity in the German character, no 
 spirit of compromise, none of our easy American laisser 
 alter, which is indispensable to self-government. The 
 German loses his temper in politics, and strikes blindly 
 about him. German minorities always protest. They 
 have no patience with political offenders. " Shoot them 
 
128 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 down like mad dogs," said Luther of the rebellious 
 peasants. 
 
 But we have wandered a long way from our sandstone 
 pillar. Yes, here is Hettstadt. 
 
 The landlord of the White Swan was a tall, slender, 
 meager-faced man, and he received me with much solem 
 nity. We sat down on opposite sides of the polished 
 earthenware stove, he with a hand on each knee, and I 
 looked at him, and he looked at me, and we both looked 
 at each other. To keep up the conversation, I was 
 obliged to set forth unto him my whole history in order, 
 interspersing the same with divers instructive accounts of 
 American wheat and rye. But when the young people 
 came in, as usual, in the evening, to refresh themselves 
 with a little beer, his tongue was loosened. His preter 
 natural gravity had been superinduced only by the pro 
 found cogitation in his mind, whereby he was lifting him 
 self to the realization that he had a genuine live Ameri 
 can under his roof. 
 
 He rehearsed to them, with an almost childish eager 
 ness, all my noble qualities, together with those of Amer 
 ican vegetables ; every man the while looking at me with 
 his two round eyes, with many ejaculations of admiration, 
 until I began to feel, as Hawthorne said he did once when 
 lionized, very much like a hippopotamus. I had to drink 
 an alarming quantity of beer that evening, and answer 
 several hundred questions about America. 
 
 Eisleben stands on one side of a picturesque valley, 
 not very deep, and about a half-mile wide, looking across 
 to vast accumulations of copper slag, heaped among the 
 knolls. 
 
 Directly I deposited my traveling-bag in the Golden 
 Ship, I set out to seek the birthplace of the great monk. 
 And what a disappointment ! Elizabeth Goethe says : 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. ^9 
 
 " The individual is buried in consecrated ground. So 
 should one also bury great and rare events in a beautiful 
 coffin of recollections, to which each can return to com 
 memorate the remembrance." But how all my youthful 
 and rose-colored imaginings of Luther s birthplace were 
 mildewed ! 
 
 Conceive a mud-and-cobble house, of the natural earth- 
 color, jammed in between two others so tight that it 
 shoots up into two full stories, though scarcely more than 
 fifteen feet on the ground, looking like a little boy in a 
 spelling-class, -standing on tiptoe, with his arms squeezed 
 close to his body. Not more than five corpulent old 
 burghers could walk abreast in the alley before it, and right 
 in front of the stone step, worn down many inches by 
 centuries of use, trickled along a film of sewerage. The 
 tiny window on the right of the door contained nearly 
 a hundred pieces of stained glass, about three-fourths of 
 them square, and the others puttied together in kaleido 
 scopic fashion. Over the door was a black medallion 
 bust of the Reformer, a modern work, with leaves and 
 grapes twined around it, and this dubious legend written 
 above : 
 
 " Jedes Wort ist Luther s Lehr, 
 Darum vergeht sie nimrner mehr." 
 
 The door consisted of two rough unplaned boards 
 tacked together, and the walls were of almost Cyclopean 
 thickness, the same within as without. In one corner 
 there was a huge uncouth structure of hewn logs, whereby 
 we ascended to the upper story. 
 
 This is low, and the walls are partly covered with 
 ragged paper, partly with frescos, and partly with paint 
 ings, chiefly by Cranach and Albrecht Diirer, referring to 
 scenes in Luther s history. They are in the quaint, pre- 
 Raphaelite style ; the trees looking like toy-trees drawn 
 
I 3 
 
 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 by school-children, with occasional dabs of leaves without 
 any visible means of support, and the trunks sometimes 
 failing to make connection with the ground ; and the 
 people reaching their arms out of their breasts, as in an 
 Egyptian wall-picture. One of them depictures the Diet 
 of Worms under Biblical forms, being divided into three 
 compartments : that on the right showing Nebuchadnez 
 zar (Charles V.), and the three young Jews (Luther, 
 Spalatin, etc.), with the corpulent form of Tetzel among 
 his councilors ; that in the center, the golden image 
 (Popery) ; and that on the left, the Jews in the burning 
 fiery furnace. 
 
 These paintings are full of bigotry. They are as Luther 
 describes himself, " Rough, boisterous, stormy, and alto 
 gether warlike, born to fight innumerable devils and 
 monsters, to remove stumps and stones, to cut down 
 thistles and thorns, and to clear the wild woods." The 
 guide shows a mediaeval coin, which, as you hold one side 
 up, presents Leo X., but when the other is turned up, 
 there appears a moderately correct likeness of the devil. 
 
 It will be remembered that the "profoundly learned 
 lady, Catherine Luther, his gracious housewife," bore to 
 Luther six children. Of his numerous descendants, living 
 in Halle, nobody knew anything whatsoever except the 
 simple fact that they existed. "Alas for thee that thou 
 art a grandson," says Goethe. 
 
 The memory of the mighty monk is not cherished as it 
 deserves to be, either by the Prussian government or by 
 the German nation. Not in all the city of Eisleben, with 
 its two daily newspapers, could I find a photograph of the 
 Reformer, and it was with difficulty that I found two of 
 his house in an obscure Buckhandlung. The stone step 
 of his humble dwelling is little worn now by the tread 
 of reverent pilgrims, and the cobwebs stretch athwart the 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 131 
 
 stairs. That the house exists even is due to its Cyclopean 
 walls. It is built better than was Shakspeare s. 
 
 Germany has erected a few statues to the honor of 
 genius, to Guttenberg, and Faust, and Schoeffer ; to 
 Goethe and Schiller ; but most are in apotheosis of sashed 
 and ribboned idiocy, bestriding the horse which the Ger 
 mans of all men sit most ill, and only great "by the 
 grace of God," or the titular additions of flunkyism. 
 France writes on her July Column the names of all her 
 immortals; Italy fashions from enduring marble, with 
 the long patience of centuries, and places in her Pantheon 
 of Milan the forms of all her illustrious sons ; but Ger 
 many, which is full of bronze kings, who, in their genera 
 tion were tyrannic idiots, plants no worthy statue to 
 Luther, or Humboldt, or Beethoven, princes of eloquence, 
 of science, and of music in all our Christian world. 
 
 Peaceful as she is, and plodding in all practical matters, 
 Germany is tine youngest of all civilized peoples, and, like 
 a young girl, her imagination runs on military brass and 
 spangles. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and we attended service in 
 the little chapel wherein Luther preached his last sermon. 
 Its rough walls were cracked and crumbled away in many 
 places, giving chinks for the chattering rooks, and check 
 ered around the bottom outside with memorial tablets of 
 stone bearing the names of deceased members. The 
 high-backed perpendicular seats were thoroughly of the 
 American pioneer sort, in their discomfortableness. They 
 remind one forcibly of that ancient meeting-house where 
 in one was wont to sit, listening to 
 
 " The humming of the drowsy pulpit drone 
 Half God s good Sabbath," 
 
 with one s little legs projected straight out, like a couple 
 
132 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 of marline-spikes, now sleepily blinking at the flies dancing 
 a mad cotillon in the air, and now munching a caraway- 
 speckled cooky, surreptitiously slipped into one s hand 
 as a preventive against childish ungodliness. 
 
 The congregation rose to their feet during the reading 
 of the text, and bent their heads reverently while the 
 Lord s Prayer was recited, as did also the pastor, removing 
 his skull-cap. I was surprised to see, on the pulpit beside 
 him, an old-fashioned hour-glass. It was matter of sur 
 prise, because the Germans are noted for the brevity of 
 their discourses, and are never so long-winded as the 
 seventeenth-century English divines, with their "six- 
 teenthly" and " seventeenthly" elaborated with "Epis 
 copal pertinacity," as Sydney Smith says. 
 
 I had an interesting conversation with a young editor 
 of the town on the scarcity of fuel in Prussia. It is cer 
 tain that this has a very benumbing effect on the intellects 
 of the peasants, who consume such quantities of cold beer 
 besides. The picture of a sour-blooded peasant shivering 
 over his still, dead, smokeless peat-fire, is not one sug 
 gestive of brilliant brain-work. 
 
 Dr. H. P. Tappan, a distinguished metaphysician, said 
 that when he wished to compose on an abstruse topic he 
 shut himself in a cold room ; but there is no logic in an 
 unintermitting congelation. The terrible rigors of Dun 
 Edin are doubtless well suited to the production of steely 
 treatises on "Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge abso 
 lute," if there be judicious alternations of roaring fires; 
 but the poor blue-nosed peasant, with never a jolly blaze 
 before him, raps on his frosty mind, and finds no fore 
 knowledge in it at all. 
 
 In the village of Querfurt I was burdened and over 
 whelmed by the hospitalities of the people when they 
 discovered I was a child of die machtige Rcpublik. In the 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. l ^ 
 
 evening I effected the acquaintance of a musician who 
 had returned from our happy land, with daughters and 
 dollars, and he rallied a circle around me who kept me 
 up till the stroke of midnight, and were rapping at my 
 door directly after cockcrow. All that forenoon, I re 
 member, and until three in the afternoon, we ranged 
 about the village, visiting the ancient round- tower, and 
 well, I believe that was the only antiquity, but we made 
 up for that by visiting it at various angles, to complete 
 the perspective ; and each time we emerged from it we 
 discovered an entirely new and convenient beer-garden, 
 whereinto we entered, being weary, and rested, and re 
 freshed ourselves with a little beer. My musical friend 
 had indoctrinated his fellows in the American custom for 
 this particular occasion. 
 
 In The Traveling Student, Schneider has the following 
 discourse : 
 
 " Quiet, Freshman ! You are to keep still when old 
 moss-heads speak." 
 
 " O Lord ! I can t stand so much drinking of healths. 
 It s killing me." 
 
 "Hold your tongue, Freshman. You have taken only 
 nineteen schoppen of vile cerevisium yet. That is nothing. 
 Study three years, and you ll bring it up to twenty- 
 nine." 
 
 Like the luckless freshman, I thought it was a good 
 time to stop, between nineteen and twenty-nine. But 
 such genial and overflowing hospitality ! one cannot be 
 boorish. 
 
 What a tempting way the Germans have of arranging 
 provisions in the show-window with rural scenery: boiled 
 hams, daisies, links of sausage, sweet-williams, sprouting 
 pinks, sweet fountains, and moss-banks ! Try this glass 
 of maitrank, an innocent beverage, new to Americans. 
 
 12 
 
134 
 
 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 My friends, we all shakes our hands. Sausages hanging in 
 the woods. Fine portrait of General Scott on the wall. 
 General Scott fought for his country, and whipped the 
 Mexicans. You cheers for General Scott. 
 
 It was long after noon before I could by any means get 
 away from the importunate hospitality of these pleasant 
 people. 
 
 Like the young editor of Eisleben, my musical friend 
 accompanied me many miles, and insisted on carrying 
 my traveling-bag the entire distance. It was an extremely 
 warm day in June, and he was quite a stout little gentle 
 man, yet he clothed himself with a heavy overcbat before 
 he started, and, to my astonishment, wore it the whole 
 afternoon, but laid it off directly we entered the cool 
 hotel in the evening. Of course, after our arduous labors 
 in exploring the round-tower, we frequently became 
 fatigued, whereupon we would enter into a little inn, and 
 refresh ourselves with a little beer. There was an inn every 
 half mile, and my friend was quite impartial. At first I 
 kept him company, but presently I was obliged to skip 
 every other inn, and at last to refuse, sternly and abso 
 lutely. 
 
 The German capacity to drink beer is positively amazing. 
 Yet I can truly say that I never saw an habitual drunkard, 
 or even a drunken man, in Prussia. 
 
 Next day, when I parted from my stout little musical 
 friend in Freiburg, he seemed considerably affected. His 
 eyes moistened, his voice trembled, and, before I was in 
 the least aware of his intentions upon me, he imprinted a 
 very warm, soft, and broad kiss on my forehead. There 
 was no doubt whatever of the sincerity of his affection, 
 yet I confess I almost staggered with amazement. But 
 this same man, the day before, when we came upon a poor 
 woman who had fallen in the road beneath a mighty bunch 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 
 
 135 
 
 of grass, which she had reaped and stacked upon her neck, 
 passed her by with contemptuous unconcern. It did not 
 seem to occur to him for a moment that she was the vic 
 tim of an infamous domestic tyranny. 
 
 So strangely susceptible are the German people of the 
 deepest attachments known on earth, and yet so destitute 
 of gallantry, and often so tyrannous over their women and 
 children ! 
 
 At Naumburg I had two hours to wait in the station, 
 and I imprudently took out my map and newspapers, and 
 commenced reading the war news from Bohemia. Pres 
 ently a broad-faced gendarme, with a short stout sword in 
 his scabbard, and trousers which fitted his legs as if the 
 latter had been molten and poured into them, came and 
 gently tapped me on the shoulder. He asked to see my 
 "papers," meaning my passport, but as he could read no 
 word in it though I could hardly keep from bursting 
 outright with laughter at the intense and inscrutable 
 solemnity with which the fellow perused it awhile he 
 requested me to accompany him to police headquarters. 
 
 As nobody there could read English, we went next to 
 the burgomaster. This personage was a blue-eyed, rather 
 long-featured, and exquisitely bland gentleman, seated 
 behind a desk, on which was a mountain of documents 
 bound in the inevitable blue, official pasteboard covers 
 of Prussia. He questioned me pretty sharply. He could 
 by no means comprehend what any rational individual 
 should be doing, walking about over Prussia and writing 
 down matters in his book, without some ulterior Zweck. 
 He was greatly concerned to know what my Zweck was. 
 Was haben Sie denn zum Zweck P he asked me several 
 times. 
 
 I explained to him, as well as I could, that my Zweck 
 was to acquire useful and interesting information for my- 
 
136 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 self, and also to impart the same to inquiring minds. 
 But he was not satisfied, and presently he bethought him 
 self to call in his wife, who could speak English. 
 
 li Liebe Frau" said he, "herein" 
 
 This lady spoke English very sweetly, and it was all the 
 more delicious from her exquisitely musical and liquid 
 German accent. It was worth more than an hour s arrest 
 to be questioned by such a charming inquisitor. At his 
 command she perused my note-book pretty thoroughly, 
 but when she found, instead of descriptions of fortresses 
 intended for the use of the wicked Austrians, such peace 
 ful and innocent observations as that the King of Prussia, 
 for instance, squinted when he laughed, and that two 
 gallons of goat s milk in Eisleben made a pound of strong 
 cheese, she smiled feebly, and handed the note-book back. 
 To convince her I was an American, I handed her some 
 letters. She turned them over and over, and then looked 
 at me with a puzzled and dubious expression. 
 
 "But they are not opened," she said, with the faintest 
 tone of expectant triumph in her voice. 
 
 The burgomaster also looked at me more sternly than 
 he had ever hitherto done, as if demanding that this dark 
 mystery should be solved at once. 
 
 I squeezed one a little in my hand, causing it to gape 
 open at the end, where it had been merely slit. 
 
 They were both so chagrined that such a simple device 
 should have escaped them that they at once dismissed the 
 case. The lady explained to her lord that the contents 
 of my note-book were not dangerous, and that she was 
 convinced I was by no means an incendiary person, a 
 roaring democrat going about seeking helpless monarchs 
 to devour ; and so at last they sent me away, with very 
 sweet and bland apologies and expressions of regret. 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 
 
 Thus I wag through the world, half the time on foot and the other 
 half walking ; and always as merry as a thunder-storm in the night. And 
 so we plow along, as the fly said to the ox. Who knows what may 
 happen ? Patience and shuffle the cards. 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 AS I left the cathedral of Frankfort, its great chime 
 of bells were pealing out wild and wide and swift 
 over the old imperial city their clangorous summons to 
 matins. What a stirring and imperious voice is that of 
 the morning bells wherewith, all round the world, the 
 Church of the ancient Eternal City speaks yet to her 
 worshipers ! 
 
 The Prussians had occupied the city only a few days 
 before, and Frankfort was ebullient with wrath. As I 
 walked down the street I saw a ragged urchin run after 
 a Prussian officer with a lady on his arm, screaming and 
 yelling with laughter, " Kuckuk mit^nem Schmetterling ! " 
 (Cuckoo with a butterfly), until the officer became so en 
 raged that he dropped the lady, drew his sword, and pur 
 sued the screeching youngster most furiously. He ran 
 into a crowd, who protected him. 
 
 I walked on, past the house of the good Rath, wherein 
 was lived that "rich and manifold life, without any posi 
 tive moral tendency;" past that lordly statue from whose 
 troublous brow looks out the grandest mere intellect since 
 Shakspeare ; past the statues of those three men of whom 
 12* (i37) 
 
138 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 Louis XI. said, in wonder, that they spent all their time 
 in making plusieurs beaux fores." 
 
 In a twinkling, almost, I popped out from the narrow, 
 reeking alleys of the old city into the superb beauty of 
 this immensely rich metropolis. 
 
 On one of its broad avenues, so surpassingly rich in 
 shade-trees, among the lordly piles built with " Christian 
 ducats," but inhabited by men scarcely known beyond 
 the bulletins of the Frankfort Bourse, there nestles in a 
 bosky labyrinth one little white-walled cottage, to whose 
 owner Czar and Caesar and Kaiser do homage. It is the 
 house of Rothschild. It is rather Oriental in shape, look 
 ing in front as if one low, flat-roofed house were placed 
 upon another, the lower being much the wider. Across 
 its whitewashed front, between the upper and lower 
 ranges of casements, trails its one ornament, full of sig 
 nificance to its pretentious neighbors, a slender moulding 
 of flowers and cornucopias intertwined. It was a pleas 
 ing spectacle, to find this descendant of a race once 
 "God-beloved in old Jerusalem," now persecuted and 
 homeless on earth, dwelling in unaffected simplicity, and 
 content to observe that outward modesty which, like 
 mercy, is "mightiest in the mightiest," and so beautiful 
 in contrast with the tawdry pomp of his people s heredi 
 tary oppressors. 
 
 Once out of this wonderful wealth of suburban green 
 ery, I entered upon the great champaign of the valley of 
 the Main. It is early June, and a mellow, drowsy 
 glamour spreads like an enchantment over the plain, 
 softening the outlines of the low Wiesbaden mountains. 
 Far down, athwart this sunny, dreamy plain, roll the 
 light-green waters of the Main, the ancient, while the 
 spotless cope of the heavens spreads high and wide above, 
 resting down upon the hills, " with peaky tops engrailed," 
 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 139 
 
 with which it is blended by the haze into an almost un 
 broken oneness. The stately poplars of the Prussian 
 highways shade the roadsides no longer, but are wholly 
 replaced by stout-limbed apples, wherein the birds, ex 
 ultant in the grateful warmth after a chill and rainy week, 
 twitter and chirp and shake out their feathers and twiddle 
 their tails, and jump up and down over their callow 
 young a hundred thousand times a day. 
 
 Whether on a noble and lordly estate of the dimensions 
 of a house-yard, or on a bloated and grasping monopoly 
 of a full-rounded acre, each peasant is tilling the ances 
 tral ground, separated from his neighbor by no unsightly 
 , fence or unsociable hedgerow, and molested in his opera 
 tions by no plows or cultivators, or other inconvenient 
 and troublesome gimcracks of modern ambition. Every 
 hamlet and every hovel is to-day deserted and silent. All 
 the occupants are laboring in the field this sunny weather, 
 the woman side by side with her lord, brother and sister 
 together, chattering maiden and lover a little apart. If 
 the clumsy hobbledehoy discovers an injurious potato- 
 worm close by the little pink toes of his beloved, and 
 slashes at it with his mattock to see her jump and give a 
 pretty scream, whose business in all the world is it but 
 his own, I should like to know? Here one group, with 
 measured and laborious stroke, swing the heavy, two- 
 pronged mattock among the vines ; others collect the 
 wandering tendrils and teach them to clasp the espaliers ; 
 i woman moves along the highway with erect and steady 
 tread, bearing on her head a mighty bunch of grass ; 
 there one drives a lumbering water-tank backward and 
 forward, while a helper slings the liquid manure far and 
 wide over the young meadow. 
 
 At frequent intervals along the wayside still stand, in 
 neglect and decay, the memorials of a religious devotion 
 
140 
 
 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 from which the living generation appear to have grievously 
 lapsed. The wooden crucifixes, some of which were erected 
 over a century ago, and bearing effigies of the Redeemer 
 in his dying agony, beneath which are still dimly dis 
 cernible such legends as, "At the name of Jesus every 
 knee shall bow," now stand forsaken and dismantled, and, 
 to the eye of taste, repulsive. Kneeling penitents no 
 longer wear away the grass around them, or piteously beat 
 their foreheads on the ground, or adorn their weather- 
 stained arms with garlands ; and when a summer breeze 
 plays over the field, it sways the bending stalks of rye full 
 against them, these cedes labentes deorum. The peasants 
 dare not lay sacrilegious hands upon them to remove 
 them, but they allow them no more to crowd out their 
 barley. 
 
 From the dark and fertile alluvium in which Frankfort 
 is situated the soil gradually changed, as I mounted 
 higher upon the plain, into an ashen whiteness, and the 
 full mid-day glare of the summer sun was reflected from 
 it with that flickering brilliancy which almost blinds the 
 eyes, as in parts of Lombardy and Venetia the perfection 
 of a vineyard soil. About one o clock I reached the 
 celebrated champagne factory of Hockheim, and found 
 within its long cool walls a most grateful refuge from this 
 fervid, shimmering incandescence. 
 
 I found the only proprietor who was present a thoroughly 
 courteous and affable gentleman, rather short of stature, 
 and with a sharp, American, "genuine money-making" 
 countenance. That German wine manufacturers are not 
 incapable of accomplishing remarkably shrewd things will 
 appear hereinafter. 
 
 We visited first the "hot room," which is not hot at 
 all, being unheated, but is so called to distinguish it from 
 the "cold room," or cellar. At first I was under the 
 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 
 
 141 
 
 guidance of an intelligent clerk, too intelligent and frank 
 by far, for the proprietor soon came and relieved him, 
 evidently fearing he would expound too many processes. 
 Here, as we passed along, our taper dimly revealed on 
 some of the butts and tuns the outlines of quaint and fan 
 tastic devices, vintage festivals, wild junketings of fauns 
 and satyrs, bacchanalian carousals, many of them de 
 pictured at life-size on the immense heads of the vessels : 
 
 " Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, 
 Led by his inebriate satyrs : 
 On his head his breast is sunken 
 Vacantly he leers and chatters." 
 
 There, in the weird solitude and darkness of that old 
 wine-hall, these creatures hold their fantastic orgies un 
 disturbed, ready to salute each new explorer with the 
 same leering grins and grimaces if he will only rewake 
 them to life by the gleam of his little wax taper. 
 
 At this point let us begin at the beginning, and trace 
 the lordly juice through its various transmigrations, until 
 it astonishes itself and other people by its wonderful ac 
 quired qualities. The hilarious labors of crushing and 
 pressing the grapes must be performed in the field, lest, 
 if the bunches were conveyed anywhither in a cart, some 
 of the tender skins might be ruptured, thus mingling the 
 juices of the stem with those of the berry, or the internal 
 structure of the juices might be disorganized, and their 
 tartrates jolted into nitrates or phosphates. With what 
 incredible carefulness and painstaking the bunches are 
 handled ! Not a crate of King Dagobert s eggs would be 
 lifted more softly, borne more tenderly. After culling 
 out all the stems and straws, and whatsoever other con 
 ceivable matters might mar the quality of the juice, the 
 vintners press the grapes without an hour s delay, for if 
 
 
142 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 this should ensue, those berries which are red would im 
 part that color to the juice. Grapes which are slightly 
 crimson communicate to the wine a richness which the 
 paler berries do not, but they must be crushed directly 
 they are picked, if white wine is desired. 
 
 The juice thus procured is brought to the factory and 
 poured into some enormous wooden tanks. Here it re 
 mains throughout the winter, fermenting, mingling, and 
 distributing the ripest and sunniest juices through those 
 which are paler, so that the whole mass is concocted into 
 a uniform consistency, and purges itself of a large quan 
 tity of impure matters, which are precipitated to the 
 bottom. 
 
 With the earliest warm days of spring the fermentation 
 has sufficiently advanced, so that the must may be taken 
 from the tanks and bottled. Pure and wholesome as it 
 now appears, it is still loaded with impurities, and is exe 
 crably sour. The smallest mouthful will produce a lament 
 ably unhandsome countenance on the impatient drinker. 
 
 Up to this point all varieties of wine, the still and the 
 sparkling, the noble and the base, have pursued a com 
 mon course, simply fermenting as natural juices. Hence 
 forth they part company. First we will follow the baser 
 sorts, which are to be converted into sparkling wines or 
 champagnes. These are not bottled yet, but are conveyed 
 from the tanks into the great tuns and butts above men 
 tioned, where they can be compounded, nurtured, and 
 11 craftily qualified" to evoke within them the treacherous 
 and delusive sparkle more readily than if they were in 
 bottles. We went, for form s sake, into the room where 
 these operations are performed, and found a great quantity 
 of suspicious-looking funnels, sections of hose, chambered 
 stoves for nursing the juice, and gallipots rilled with mys 
 terious decoctions and distillments for imparting the 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. I43 
 
 " delicate aroma" which the too fleeting German summer 
 failed to communicate. Here, by the aid of these subtile 
 elixirs, viellesseur, pomard, distillation of potatoes, and 
 heart knows what, they concoct a vintage as mean as 
 Scuppernong into a liquor fit for gentlemen s tables in 
 America. After allowing me a few moments of silence 
 to gather such information as I might from an inspection 
 of harmless vessels and of labels that told no tales, my 
 sharp -faced proprietor, usually so voluble, but here so 
 ominously silent, led me hastily away. 
 
 All the varieties now go below, in bottles, into the 
 "cold room," the sparkling with all those mysterious 
 concoctions admixed ; the still wines containing only a 
 little white beet-sugar, the purest essence of sweetness 
 produced by human art. Only a very small portion of 
 the vintage is rich enough to be used for these noble 
 wines. We go down with them into the vast subterranean 
 vaults, down a first flight of steps, down a second flight, 
 into the profoundest deep of deeps, a dungeon more ter 
 rible than that where Bonnivard wore his life away. In 
 the first vault into which we descend the champagne 
 variety is still frisky with fermentations, and frets and 
 chafes within its narrow prison-house like the ^Eolian 
 winds in their cave, " indignant es magno cum murmure 
 fremunt" while the workmen vainly seek by daily turn 
 ings to mollify its rage, mollitque animos et temperat 
 iras." Instead of being appeased by a reversal of posi 
 tion, it is often impelled into a more towering passion, 
 and resents the high offense against its dignity by flinging 
 the ragged shards of its broken dungeon hurtling about 
 the eyes and ears of the workmen, who would certainly 
 suffer for this their crimen Iczsa majestatis, but for their 
 strong visors of wire gauze. All these noisy outbreaks, 
 however, the workmen contemplate with the same quiet 
 
144 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 complacency and satisfaction with which the farmer 
 watches his prankish young herds ; and, indeed, if they 
 were mute and motionless, they would be greatly con 
 cerned. 
 
 Farther below there is much less clatter and whizz of 
 shivered bottles, for the haughty spirit that inhabits them, 
 no longer able to resent the vile decoctions that are eat 
 ing his heart away, has abated his fiery ardor. Still lower 
 down, he rests quiet, broken-hearted, and submissive, 
 thoroughly crushed and subdued by the cold damps of his 
 prison-walls, and the heartless rigor of his incarceration. 
 
 When the wine is ripe and old, it is hoisted from the 
 vaults with the carefulest of motions, cork downward, to 
 prevent the sediment on it from mingling again with the 
 liquor. A workman then takes a bottle in his left hand, 
 cuts the cord, which lets the cork shoot out, together with 
 the sediment and a teaspoonful of wine, then claps his 
 thumb deftly over the mouth, and hands the bottle to 
 another. This one fills the little remaining space with 
 sugar, cognac, and very old wine, mingled in secret pro 
 portions, and the bottle is then ready to be corked for a 
 last time, wired, labeled, and dispatched to America or 
 Calcutta. 
 
 What, now, is the result of the two processes, the 
 honest and the dishonest? On the one hand, fresh, 
 crisp, sparkling Moselle, which sends up a thousand little 
 beady silver-specks from the bottom of the bumper, quiv 
 ering up in dainty, tender effervescence, fascinating to the 
 eye, and deliciously cool in the mouth like a breath of 
 soda ; but it is a cheat and a delusion. All the glorious 
 heart of ripeness and mellowness is eaten out of it by the 
 manifold concoctions through which it has passed. On 
 the other hand, the honest process, aided alone with a 
 little quintessence of sweetness, the beet-sugar, gives us 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 145 
 
 the noble, old, inexpressibly rich Hockheimer, still, and 
 deep, and calm, and satisfying to the soul of man. The 
 first is the ever-restless, nomadic, brave, ardent American ; 
 the other, the ripe, old, mellow, dreaming soul of the 
 German philosopher, infinitely rich, soft, and full of mazy 
 fantasies. And it is precisely that flippant and lively 
 wine that is sent to America, while the wise and cunning 
 old Germans retain the other. Knowing I was an Amer 
 ican, this shrewd proprietor caused many varieties of the 
 sparkling juice to be set for my approval, and but few of 
 the better sort ; and he tried various devices to induce 
 me to pronounce in favor of the first. " All your coun 
 trymen prefer it," said he, impatient and almost offended 
 that I persisted in liking the still wine better. 
 
 To reduce this matter to dollars and cents, which may 
 make it more comprehensible to certain minds, I may say 
 that the confiding young clerk told me that the average 
 price per bottle of the best sparkling wines sent from this 
 factory to America is only forty cents, while the still 
 varieties, such as the genuine Hockheimer, a great part 
 of which goes to the royal cellars in Berlin, cost, at the 
 factory, $1.50 to $1.75 a bottle. Steinberger, another 
 still wine, which was the favorite of the Dukes of Nassau, 
 costs $9.72 a gallon at the factory ! We know nothing 
 of good still wine in America. 
 
 I may add, in conclusion, that I fully felt the important 
 responsibility devolving upon me, as a committee of one, 
 for the investigation of the qualities of Rhine wines, and 
 that I prosecuted my researches with that thoroughness 
 and assiduity befitting one charged with the rendition 
 of a verdict so weighty. But I distinctly recollect that, 
 as frequently happens also when profound minds are en 
 gaged in the adjudication of legal questions, the more I 
 investigated the less I came to any clear conclusion. 
 
 13 
 
1 46 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 Then at last I left the great champagne factory, and 
 hastened forward, eager to behold the Rhine for the first 
 time at the approaching sunset. At the summit of a 
 little hillock, which the road passed over, I came suddenly 
 in sight of the valley, just after the setting of the sun, and 
 seated myself on the coping of a roadside wall to enjoy 
 the noble vision. Imagine two vast and beautifully un 
 dulating plateaus, each a league in width and a dozen long, 
 inclined toward each other with a uniform and gentle 
 slope, and their surfaces covered with an infinitely sub 
 divided mosaic of white-walled villages, dark-green pas 
 ture, yellowing grain, light-green barley, and somber 
 pineries. And down between these vast slopes glide the 
 silken, sea-green waves of the historic, the legendary, the 
 romantic Rhine. 
 
 As far away to the left as the eye can extend the 
 majestic river begins its course, and travels league on 
 league directly toward me ; then sweeps in a slow and 
 stately curve before me, where his green waves laugh 
 among the willows, as they go down to the sea ; rolls his 
 great flood past a hundred villages, which strew his shores 
 like baubles ; then, curving northward, hews his giant 
 highway through the mountains, and sinks from view. 
 The noble Rhine disdains, in the pride of his Teutonic 
 strength, the effeminate purple drapery of the streams of 
 luxurious Italy, and enrobes himself in an atmosphere 
 tinted with emerald, as if the very radiance of his own 
 shining waves were diffused upward through the lower 
 heavens. 
 
 And now, over all these green-and-yellow-mottled, far- 
 slanting plateaus, and vine-grown slopes, and murmuring 
 villages, and along all the meandering margents of the 
 willows, there creeps the hallowing enchantment of the 
 daylight dying. The gorgeous segment of light that 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 147 
 
 arches across the west is the sole lingering fragment of 
 the broken empire of the king of day, and it crimsons 
 with the blood of his impetuous hosts, who fiercely strug 
 gle for its occupation with the dusky legions of the 
 queen of night. But they contend in vain, and slowly 
 and reluctantly retreat before the darkling masses of 
 their adversary, and sink silently down, down, down. 
 The drowsy and soothing murmur of human avocation 
 mellows down to a peaceful stillness, across which the 
 silvery trill of some clarionet is wafted like a melodious 
 echo in a dream ; the far, white walls of silent cities 
 glimmer vaguely in the thickening darkness, and sink at 
 length beneath its encroaching floods ; a myriad house 
 hold fires, like shining points, spring one by one along 
 the glooming slopes, countless as the stars which hold 
 their noiseless march above ; and I sit in the brooding 
 darkness, alone. After the painful incandescence of 
 noon at Hockheim, how sweet to my aching eyes were 
 the changing glories of that unequaled sunset ! waning 
 successively from the softest emerald to orange, from 
 orange to crimson, from crimson to leaden night. 
 
 In Mayence, as always, I went first to visit the cathe 
 dral, guided thither by the tumultuous and mighty clangor 
 of its great bells. In front of the gorgeous high altar 
 two or three priests, robed in soiled white cassocks, were 
 performing their drowsy rites ; now swinging a smoking 
 censer before the altar, now before the people ; kneeling 
 mechanically in various places, and touching their fore 
 heads to the altar ; exposing with ostentatious solemnity 
 a gilded image to the worshipers ; then intoning a chant 
 in a rapid and monotonous sing-song, while a loud blare 
 of instruments peals down from some hidden gallery. 
 Most of the peasant women, who composed a large pro 
 portion of the worshipers, had come in from the market- 
 
148 PAPERS FROM GERMANY, 
 
 place hard by, in their short, work-day dresses, and they 
 were constantly coming and going. Most of them brought 
 their huge baskets and panniers with them into the slips, 
 where they kneeled a few minutes, counting their rosaries. 
 Some hurried right away, others proceeded to extract 
 from their pockets divers rags, from which they took out 
 dingy little coins, the gains of the morning, and counted 
 them over and over again with laborious accuracy, while 
 others wandered through the gorgeous aisles and the tran 
 sept, lugging their uncouth baskets, and staring, perhaps 
 for the thousandth time, at the lustrous fringes of velvet 
 and gold, the ivory effigies, the golden candelabra, and 
 all the splendid paraphernalia of their religion. Nothing 
 is more singular and more notable among the South Ger 
 man peasants than their almost infantine devotion to 
 tawdry ornamentation. 
 
 This was well illustrated in a little village near May- 
 ence, whose single street, when I entered it, was furbe- 
 lowed in an astonishing manner. Scores of streamers 
 and banners, of endless variety, were stretched across the 
 street, while the front of every dwelling was lavishly 
 decorated with festoons and garlands of flowers, miniature 
 flags, and an innumerable and indescribable multitude of 
 devices in colored papers. They were momently ex 
 pecting the arrival of their bishop (Catholic), who was 
 on his periodical tour through his diocese, to confirm the 
 children of three years and upward. Presently his com 
 ing was heralded by the booming of cannon, and then a 
 great procession of children, young men and maidens, 
 went out to receive him, and brought him in beneath a 
 gorgeous canopy of silk, the while chanting a solemn an 
 them. In the evening the successful termination of this 
 ceremony of holy anointing of children was celebrated 
 by booming cannon, the incessant rattle of musketry, an 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 149 
 
 open-air speech from the bishop, uproariously applauded, 
 and finally, by an alarming outpouring of beer. On the 
 evening of this religious festival I saw at least a score of 
 peasants who required to be lifted into their wagons, or 
 steadied through the streets, mumbling and maundering 
 like a calf more than I saw in all Prussia besides ! 
 
 In the village of Ober - Ingelheim there was also a 
 festive occasion which was well illustrative of South Ger 
 man character (for these peasants here are no longer like 
 those in Protest-ant Prussia). It was the birthday of a 
 certain great man of the village, who died and was 
 buried, and they assembled to do honor to his memory 
 in the graveyard ! A speech was made by an orator stand 
 ing on his monument ! So great was the crush of the 
 multitude to hear the eulogium that there arose a conten 
 tion at the gate, wherein walking-sticks were freely used 
 and broken over the people s heads, and when they were 
 all at last well in, there was a most unseemly surging and 
 swaying to and fro, right over the graves, which were 
 shamelessly trodden and beaten down. 
 
 Then a band of music came in, and, standing before 
 certain graves, discoursed some of the mellow, glorious 
 music, the inexpressibly sweet and solemn threnodies, of 
 Germany, as it were a mournful serenade to the spirits of 
 the dead. Again the abominable desecrations and tram 
 pling of graves ! It was not done by vulgar clowns, but 
 by cultivated villagers, men and women who had in them 
 the soul of music, even to intense devotion. 
 
 If there is one thing notable above another in a South 
 German city, it is the studiously artistic, or rather artil- 
 ized, nature of the ornamentation of the cemeteries. 
 Great prices are paid for large pieces of coral, or stalac 
 tites and stalagmites, or fantastic shapes of Oriental ala 
 baster, to place upon the graves, whereon ivy is taught t^ 
 
 3* 
 
! 5 o PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 climb in imitation of nature. And yet people of such 
 finely artistic perceptions, so passionately fond of music, 
 and so exquisitely capable of judging it, will tread thus 
 ruthlessly over the grave, which the English or American 
 child is taught so reverently to pass around. And yet 
 English and American graveyards are gloomy as death 
 compared with the South German ! It is a mystery, a 
 contradiction, one of those innumerable paradoxes of the 
 German character. 
 
 The South German mind is utterly hollow and vain, 
 sacrificing utility or noble reverence for gauds at any time. 
 Why do not the multitudes tread over the grave beautiful 
 with ivy and coral or natural alabaster ? Simply because 
 of their devotion to the form of beauty. The graves are 
 not ornamented even because of affection, but because of 
 a devotion to the gay, the brilliant, the beautiful in super 
 ficial things. Says Louis Ehlert : " The hasty demands 
 of life do not stop to inquire whether it be Sabbath or 
 not ; they surprise man amid the worship of the Beautiful, 
 and scarcely give him time to refrain from profanation of 
 the altar." But the South Germans sacrifice everything 
 upon the altar of the Beautiful, even piety to the dead, 
 and worship there alway. 
 
 Between Bingen, "dear Bingen on the Rhine," and 
 Ehrenbreitstein, the Rhine traverses a defile which, 
 though far less sublime and elevated than Harper s Ferry, 
 reminds the American of that historic pass. Wherever 
 there is the smallest sunny bank or handful of earth amid 
 the towering ledges, the industrious peasants have terraced 
 it with walls and planted it with vines, so that the innu 
 merable little zigzag walls and cross-walls have the ap 
 pearance of an immense honeycomb. 
 
 Everywhere else are the somber pines, while 
 
STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA. 15 j 
 
 " Above, the frequent feudal towers 
 
 Through green leaves lift their walls of gray, 
 And many a rock which steeply lowers, 
 And noble arch in proud decay." 
 
 He who has never voyaged from Bingen down the Rhine, 
 between these time-old walls, where it moves in majesty, 
 may well believe that when a German cradled on its 
 banks relates its natural glories, he does but speak with a 
 fond and filial exaggeration ; and that the artist who has 
 labored to portray them has sought rather to repay a debt 
 of gratitude than to sketch a truthful panorama. But 
 when he comes and beholds the object of these seeming 
 adulations, his incredulity straightway vanishes. Whether 
 gazing on the "walls of gray" which crown many a 
 towering crest, or on the giant palisades in liveries of 
 softest, richest brown, or on the sloping ledges and vast, 
 overthrown boulders whose emerald tints seem only a 
 deepened reflex of the silken, sea-green waves which glide 
 beneath them, he declares in his rapture that these un 
 hewn walls yield hues more noble than the artist ever 
 spread upon his canvas. However bleak, and cold, and 
 gray the hand of nature may have penciled ledges in 
 drier and higher regions, here they seem warm, and soft, 
 and glowing. However hard and grim may be the sur 
 roundings of the Rhine where it is cradled among the 
 thundering avalanches and the savage granite of Alpine 
 solitudes, it flows down at length in the tranquil majesty 
 of its greatness, along exuberant and picturesque valleys 
 which its own green waters have fructified, and through 
 mountain gorges which its own humid influence has soft 
 ened and green-limned with beauty. 
 
THE KAISER S RESOLVE, 
 i. 
 
 Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
 
 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 IN 1 848 three crazy words from France created such an 
 earthquake in Austria that the imperial succession 
 made a long skip. Uncle, father, were both set aside, 
 in that year of rejuvenescence, and the boy Francis Joseph 
 reigned Kaiser of Austria. The House of Hapsburg, how 
 ever, did not skip as many traditions as years, and Hun 
 gary revolted. But the struggle of revolution went sore 
 against her, through treachery and division, and the end 
 was now daily awaited. 
 
 One evening the young Kaiser, unutterably disgusted 
 and bewildered with the state business to which he was 
 so little used, was reclining languidly in an easy-chair be 
 fore the fire in a small private parlor of the old Burg. 
 With his feet resting across a footstool cushioned like an 
 ottoman, he slipped far down in the capacious chair, 
 crossed his hands over the arms, turned his head wearily 
 to one side, snuggled it deep into the rich downy velvet, 
 and was soon lost in sleep. From this he was awakened 
 by a messenger, bringing a telegram from Pesth, they 
 having orders to bring him such at whatever hour. Mut 
 tering a petulant curse upon the lackey, he sleepily reached 
 out his hand, took the message, dropped it, cursed the 
 (ISO 
 
THE KAISER S RESOLVE. 
 
 153 
 
 lackey for his awkwardness, took it again, and laid it on 
 the cushion, without once lifting his head. 
 
 Some time after the messenger went out, a brand of fire 
 fell down, startling him a little, when he remembered the 
 telegram, stretched it out with both hands, and read : 
 
 ARMY HEADQUARTERS, PESTH, 
 October 7, 1849. 
 
 To His IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE KAISER. 
 
 Since Gorgey s surrender at Vilagos, the whole province 
 has been tranquilized. The rebel soldiers have been dis 
 persed to their homes, and quiet prevails. Yesterday the 
 nine generals were shot at Arad. 
 
 HAYNAU, FZM. 
 
 "So! then it is over. Pity nine had to be shot," 
 soliloquized the young Kaiser half aloud; and then, 
 after heavily and drowsily blinking at the paper three or 
 four times, he rolled his head over again, snuggled it into 
 the velvet, and slowly the uplifted hands drifted down, 
 down, down, till they softly rested on the chair again, and 
 the paper slipped from their nerveless grasp, and fluttered 
 to the floor. Weariness prevailed, and he was slumbering 
 again. 
 
 Whither wandered the dreams of the imperial sleeper ? 
 Did his roving imagination return to the hated work- 
 cabinet in the vast and lonely Burg, whence he had just 
 escaped, to drag him again through the thousand argu 
 ments and cross-arguments with which his ministers and 
 dispatches from his jangling provinces daily distracted his 
 p unpered young life ? 
 
 No ; the remembrance of the message still lingers, and 
 he wanders in dreams far away to the battle-fields of un 
 happy Hungary. He gropes his way among the hideous 
 and blackened ruins. The vultures, scared from the un- 
 
I 5 4 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 buried corpses, flap and scream around him. Human 
 heads, bloody and horrible with their protruding eyes, 
 stare at him from the tops of poles. He stops at last 
 before the patriot generals doomed by his command to 
 death. The files of executioners stand stolidly before 
 them. There are the faint words of preparation, each 
 slightest sound being terribly distinct in the awful stillness. 
 He hears the muskets click. Then a second word of com 
 mand, low but plain. The fatal crash of muskets is heard. 
 They fall, writhing and ghastly, and the bright blood 
 spirts on their gorgeous Magyar uniforms. The young 
 Kaiser leaps to his feet, with a shudder of unspeakable 
 horror, catching his breath convulsively ! 
 
 The low buzz of commands was only the purring of the 
 fire ; the crash of musketry, the brands falling again ; and 
 the bright streams of blood, the flickering, expiring 
 flames. 
 
 Thus was announced, and thus was received, the news 
 of the downfall of poor Hungary, and the beginning of 
 one of the most hellish retributions recorded in history. 
 
 II. 
 
 Eighteen long years rolled away, and some of them left 
 their imprint in wrinkles upon the face of Francis Joseph. 
 Its boyish roundness was gone, it had grown longer, ap 
 parently, and was pulled down and pulled together into 
 something very like an habitual scowl. It was a small 
 and delicate face, but there was little meaning in the 
 eyes, except a kind of querulous appeal to be let alone. 
 The cares of his bedlam of provinces, forever wrangling 
 and bickering, and the unvarying succession of disap 
 pointments, defeats, bankruptcies, and disagreements with 
 his ministers, had soured his temper. He was always 
 
THE KAISER S RESOLVE. 
 
 155 
 
 suspicious that somebody was about to overreach him. His 
 eyes, looking out from their slender setting beneath faint 
 eyebrows, seemed to be always glancing toward one side 
 or the other, never straight forward. 
 
 Kossuth, the noble, the generous, the confiding, was 
 pining in proud and hopeless poverty as a teacher in 
 Turin. Gorgey, the infamous, after having dragged his 
 Fatherland down to an earthly hell rather than abate one 
 jot of his satanic pride, had retired, detested and ab 
 horred, as an obscure professor in Styria, haggard with a 
 remorse which came too late. Haynau, the Austrian 
 Hyena, whether in a spirit of demoniacal mockery, or 
 attracted by the splendid chivalry and magnanimity of 
 that people whose best sons he had butchered, declared 
 his purpose to become an Hungarian ; and put to the 
 practical test their great-hearted forgiveness by riding on 
 horseback, with a single attendant, through the length of 
 the land. With the wonderful elasticity of that people, 
 they had recovered everything, except their liberty and 
 their unforgotten dead. 
 
 And now the black war-clouds commenced drifting 
 heavily down from Berlin, and there was sore apprehen 
 sion in the old Imperial Burg. The tempest was also 
 gathering in Italy. The Hungarian Parliament beheld 
 its opportunity, and prepared and forwarded to the Kaiser 
 a proposition for restoring them their ancient constitu 
 tion, and a separate army and treasury. This was too 
 much, or rather, it was too soon. The Kaiser had been 
 well scourged at Solferino and Magenta, but those events 
 were so distant that the lesson of them had slipped from 
 his memory. 
 
 An Imperial missive was quietly sent down to Pesth, 
 informing the members of the Parliament that the exi 
 gencies of public affairs, fortunately, were not so pressing 
 
 
156 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 as to demand their further attention ; and that therefore 
 his Imperial Majesty graciously accorded them permis 
 sion to go about their private business. 
 
 ii i. 
 
 Francis Joseph went to war with King William. Or 
 rather, as a matter of history, his man Benedek stayed 
 supinely in Bohemia, and let the war come over the 
 Giant Mountains to him. About the first day of July, 1866, 
 Marshal Benedek telegraphed earnestly to his Imperial 
 master substantially this : "I beseech your Majesty to 
 make peace on the best attainable terms." Benedek was 
 an Hungarian, and he saw well, what was hidden from 
 the Kaiser s eyes, that his compatriot Magyars in the 
 army had no heart in the bloody business which was 
 approaching. 
 
 But no peace was made, and the two great armies stood 
 up to the battle. Two days after the above dispatch, 
 about nine o clock in the morning, there came to the 
 Burg the following message : 
 
 ARMY HEADQUARTERS, KONIGGRATZ, 
 July 3, 1866. 
 
 To His IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE KAISER. 
 
 The decisive battle of the campaign was joined this 
 morning. Everything is going well. 
 
 BENEDEK, FZM. 
 
 At ten o clock there came another brief message : 
 
 "The battle is raging all along the line. Our troops 
 are steadily advancing, and the enemy is falling back. 
 Everything is going well." 
 
 This was true up to that hour, for the two Prussian 
 
 
THE KAISER S RESOLVE. 
 
 157 
 
 armies had not yet effected a junction. But the tele 
 graph talked no more. All day long it was obstinately 
 silent. The Kaiser, no longer the listless boy disgusted 
 with affairs, in his impatience repaired to the office in the 
 Burg. At his command they shot messages off to the 
 battle-field, but they dived off the end of the wire, and 
 clicked in deserted offices, or were drowned in the mighty 
 roar of battle. Where was Benedek? was the agonizing 
 question. And still the messages which they lanced at 
 him danced off the end of the wire into nothingness, 
 lost in the great void of the world, and brought no re 
 sponse. 
 
 But at last, about ten o clock at night, oh, joy ! the in 
 strument began to rattle, as if it wanted to say something. 
 All ears were erected. The operator called off, " Hohen- 
 mauth." Then he slowly repeated aloud to the Kaiser 
 
 what the wire was saying, "Click, click, click! 
 
 at first the retreat was conducted 
 in good order, but finally the soldiers were 
 panic - stricken and the retreat became a rout. 
 Hundreds perished in the Elbe. * 
 
 The Kaiser s heart sank within him. Feverishly his 
 finger sought for Hohenmauth on the wall-map. Hohen- 
 mauth? Hohenmauth? Perdition catch these German 
 maps ! They are so covered with little fine names that 
 nobody can find any place. Ah ! here it is ! Sick was 
 the heart of the Kaiser when he marked it. A long way 
 more than a score of miles south of Koniggratz ! All 
 that long flight since ten o clock in the morning ! 
 
 Never in history or in story will the narrative of Konig 
 gratz be told more graphically than Marshal Benedek 
 pictured it to his Imperial master, in that single date, and 
 that fatal sentence, "Hundreds perished in the Elbe." 
 
 Then all the remainder of that dreary night the Kaiser 
 
158 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 lingered in the telegraph office in the Burg, alternately 
 dictating dispatches to his "good brother" on the Seine, 
 and listening to his replies. All night long, without in 
 termission, the wire hummed and buzzed between Paris 
 and Vienna, and it was long after sunrise of that summer 
 morning before the Kaiser entered his carriage and drove 
 out to the palace of Schonbrunn. And not many hours 
 afterward, the tricolor of France waved over beautiful 
 Venice. The Kaiser flung the burdensome province out 
 of his left hand, that he might withdraw it to the succor 
 of his right. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Before he drove out to Schonbrunn, however, he was 
 able, by this cession of Venetia, to telegraph to the Arch 
 duke Albert, in Verona, to set the South Army in motion 
 in all haste for Vienna. And right well did the heroes 
 of Custozza obey the command, for they longed to meet a 
 foeman worthier of their steel. One long train after 
 another, crowded with the gallant lads, thundered over 
 the great Semmering Pass, and bowled away down the 
 valley to Vienna. Never in history has another immense 
 army been hurled as that army was hurled from Italy into 
 Bohemia. With a proud heart might the Kaiser have 
 looked down from the south windows of the Burg, to be 
 hold the trains rumble in, for never was grander achieve 
 ment of human energy ; but, alas ! he was filled with dis 
 may when he looked from the north windows. Swiftly as 
 his gallant lads were hastening to save the tottering mon 
 archy, the fierce and dreaded Prussians were rushing more 
 swiftly to overthrow it. 
 
 The watchers perched far aloft in St. Stephen s tower, 
 straining their eager eyes across the valley of the Dan 
 ube toward the low mountains and hills of Moravia, 
 
THE KAISERS RESOLVE. 159 
 
 already caught with their glasses the long and glittering 
 lines of the Pickelhauben amid the blue mountain passes. 
 Gay, thoughtless Vienna for once forgot to laugh, and 
 looked on in silence, while one immense train after an 
 other rolled away toward Pesth, loaded with archives, and 
 jewels, and bullion, and with the fleeing nobility. 
 
 v. 
 
 Then came another night when there was sore trouble 
 and unrest in the old Imperial Burg. In his little cabinet 
 sat the Kaiser, surrounded by a few faithful counselors, 
 who pleaded with him as they plead whose life hangs in 
 the balance. The irresolute and yet obstinate monarch, 
 goaded almost to distraction by this unparalleled succes 
 sion of sudden and overwhelming calamities, and protest 
 ing he was betrayed by every one, declared his determi 
 nation to put himself at the head of his gallant army, lead 
 it to victory, and save his dynasty, or perish in the uni 
 versal ruin. They entreated him, on the contrary, to 
 follow the example of his illustrious ancestor, go down to 
 Pesth, and there throw himself on the generosity of the 
 great-hearted Magyars. 
 
 Now he would start impatiently across the floor, ex 
 claim aloud against his enemies and betrayers, uttering 
 impotent and puerile threats ; then he would sit a long 
 time moodily silent, listening doggedly to their arguments 
 and entreaties. It was long after midnight, and the wan 
 and flickering camp-fires of his four hundred thousand 
 soldiers had hours since ceased to be reflected in the 
 twinkling waters of the Danube, or among the forests of 
 the Moravian hills. The sentinel paced his beat to and 
 fro alone in the shadow of the grim arsenal. Still the 
 humiliated monarch hesitated. 
 
160 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 The great bell in the tower of St. Stephen, with a deep 
 and measured clang, slowly tolled the stroke of three. 
 In the solemn silence of the night, the sonorous rever 
 berations floated in to those sleepless watchers in the 
 cabinet with awful distinctness. Suddenly the Kaiser 
 started up, as if alarmed by its ominous voice, advanced 
 to a window, and looked out upon his slumbering capital. 
 What said the great bell to him, with its after-vibrations ? 
 " Go go go o o o o !" faintly ringing, ringing, 
 dying, in the midnight void. It was as the voice of the 
 city, of those eight hundred thousand human beings who 
 were asleep, reposing their destiny in his hands. In that 
 solemn hour their voice was heard ; his better self pre 
 vailed. Turning suddenly to his counselors, he said, 
 "I will go." 
 
 When we remember the fatuous persistency with whir h 
 Louis Napoleon saddled his own incompetency upon his 
 army, thereby crushing it into hideous disaster and ruin, 
 let it be remembered, to the praise of Francis Joseph, 
 that, weak and obstinate as he was, he listened to 
 wholesome but bitter counsel. When we consider the 
 galling humiliation it was for a Hapsburg to go and plead 
 like a mendicant before the haughty Magyars, whom he 
 had so cruelly spurned and destroyed when they petitioned, 
 let it also be remembered that he accepted even this 
 penance. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Kaiser went down to Ofen. In the ancient and 
 sacred capital of the kingdom of St. Stephen, he met the 
 Magyar chiefs. They received him with cold and haughty 
 obeisance. Happy for him, in that moment of keen 
 humiliation, he did not yet know that no standards were 
 lost at Koniggratz, except by Magyar regiments. In all 
 
THE KAISER S RESOLVE. 161 
 
 the Oriental splendor of their native uniforms, what of 
 them had been spared by the mean and beggarly pro 
 scription of 1849, which are not equaled in Europe for 
 their picturesqueness, they stood before him, to listen to 
 his appeal. In their own rich and melodious tongue, 
 and with a frankness which astonished them, he pictured 
 to them his tottering monarchy, and entreated them to 
 hasten to his succor. 
 
 They listened to his words in stern silence. He pleaded 
 for that Austria with which, for eight hundred years, their 
 traditions and their glories had been united. He pictured 
 to them, in the best eloquence he could summon, the con 
 sequences of defeat, the disruption of the empire, and 
 their own probable absorption into Russia. They listened 
 to him with astonished eagerness, and yet with the most 
 lofty outward unconcern and the immobile gravity of the 
 Orient. Not once was he rewarded with such a ringing 
 outburst as followed the appeal of Maria Theresa. His 
 heart was dismayed. 
 
 Then he spoke, lastly, of his family, and, in soft, tremu 
 lous tones, he pleaded before the Magyars as a father 
 speaking unto fathers. In the earnestness of his plea for 
 his innocent little ones, he forgot, for the moment, the 
 monarch, his feelings overmastered him, his eyes moist 
 ened with tears, and he turned away his face, and was 
 silent. 
 
 Then at last the haughty Magyars made reply. They, 
 too, were not unmoved, but it was not a time for scenic 
 display. It was a time for justice. They could not for 
 get the fearful crime of 1849. They, too, spoke plainly. 
 Never before had the hearts of monarch and people been 
 so uncovered to each other s gaze. It was an hour of 
 mutual reasonings, not of reproaches, but of noble and 
 solemn admonitory eloquence, addressed by them to their 
 
 14* 
 
1 62 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 humbled monarch. They, too, had had children, and sec i 
 them cut down in hideous butchery before their eyes. 
 After eighteen years, they remembered those things no 
 longer vindictively, but with a mournful and unforgetting 
 bitterness ; and they spoke to him with that lofty and 
 patriarchal dignity native to the children of the Orient. 
 Each of them could say : 
 
 " Time has laid his hand 
 Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, 
 But as a harper lays his open palm 
 Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations." 
 
 They offered him a crown for a constitution. He accepted. 
 Before he left them, Hungary was restored. How great 
 happiness it was given to that man to bestow, within a 
 few days, upon two peoples, the Venetians and the 
 Magyars ! 
 
 In that hour, how greatly and how signally were the 
 Magyars avenged ! They had not only recovered, by a 
 peaceful triumph, what had been wrested from them with 
 cruel and bloody violence, but they had seen a Haps- 
 burg weep. 
 
 Thus it is that the kings extremities are the people s 
 opportunities. 
 
 NOTE. All the main events set forth in the preceding narrative are 
 matters of historical record ; but it is necessary to state, for the sake of 
 accuracy, that a few of the minor incidents and details rest on no higher 
 foundation than the gossip of court circles in Vienna. 
 
KAISER HANS. 
 
 There was a king of Yvetot once 
 
 But little known in story ; 
 To bed betimes, and rising late, 
 Sound sleeper without glory ; 
 With cotton nightcap, too, instead 
 Of crown, would Jenny deck his head, 
 
 Tis said. 
 
 Rat tat, rat tat, rat tat, rat tat, 
 O what a good little king was that ! 
 Rat tat. 
 
 BfcRANGER. 
 
 ONCE upon a time there was a good little Kaiser 
 called Kaiser Hans, who ruled over the land of 
 Albeeria. The name of his capital city was Circumstadt, 
 and his favorite summer palace, near by, was called 
 Maulhaus. 
 
 Now, one morning this good little Kaiser awoke at 
 eight o clock, and opened his eyes. He rung his bell for 
 the attendant, and ordered him to bring in a small cup 
 of black coffee, which he drank reclining in bed, and 
 then covered up his head with the sheets, and took an 
 other pleasant nap. 
 
 Afterward he awoke again, and winked three times, and 
 rubbed his eyes. Then he arose and dressed himself all 
 over, and wound up his watch. After that, he caused the 
 attendant to put his slippers on his feet, and then he sat 
 down before the fire and ordered them to bring im a 
 mug of Klein-schwechater beer, which they brought, and 
 he quaffed the same. Then his Majesty held out his feet 
 
 (163) 
 
1 64 PAPERS FROM GERMANY, 
 
 to the fire, and toasted his toes, and rubbed his stomach, 
 and felt very snug and comfortable. 
 
 At ten o clock and fifteen minutes, this good little 
 Kaiser Hans pared his nails. 
 
 Some time afterward he sat down to his piano, and 
 played the little love-song, " Come questo care" from Don 
 Bucefalo. This seemed to recall old and pleasant memo 
 ries of the youthful life of the Kaiser, and he sat some 
 time absorbed in deep reflection. 
 
 At eleven o clock the Kaiser partook of breakfast, 
 which, on this occasion, he was pleased to eat alone. He 
 partook of a deviled Manx chicken, with the quality of 
 which he expressed himself well satisfied. 
 
 Soon after this he proceeded to the White Chamber, 
 where he presided over a council of ministers, assembled 
 to consult upon the main business of the day. Directly 
 he took his seat upon the throne, the Kaiser arose, and 
 stated to his ministers that the question for their con 
 sideration that day was the very important one of mili 
 tary reform. Complaints had reached his ears, he said, 
 through petitions from his faithful and well-beloved sub 
 jects, that they were grievously burdened and distressed 
 by the present military system. The welfare of his people 
 lay ever very near his heart. He was deeply moved by 
 these appeals. He had assembled together his trusted 
 ministers, on whose wisdom he had depended so often, 
 and not in vain, that they might assist him in devising 
 some thorough measure of relief. A sovereign s greatest 
 crown of glory, he believed, was in his tender nurture 
 and protection of his people. He invited all his ministers 
 to express themselves freely. 
 
 When his Majesty the Kaiser ceased speaking, his 
 Eminence, Prince Moritz von Mettler, Minister of Other 
 People s Affairs, a tall, dark gentleman, with black whis- 
 
KAISER HANS. 165 
 
 kers, arose and craved his sovereign s indulgence. He 
 said, if he might be permitted by his august master, he 
 would suggest that a pressing necessity for reform existed 
 in the present color of the infantry uniform trousers. It 
 was well known that scarlet was a dangerous color in 
 battle, as it virtually invited and guided the enemy s fire, 
 thus causing wounds in the shins, which incapacitated the 
 soldier not only from all further service, but from future 
 usefulness in civil stations. He would suggest that green 
 trousers be substituted, as being more like the color of the 
 fields. 
 
 His Eminence Count Johannes von Pumpenhausen, 
 Inspector of Bungs, a well-favored German, with specta 
 cles and blonde hair, begged to suggest that the white 
 coats of the uniform also be abolished. Battles were 
 seldom fought in winter, as the learned Dr. Conrady had 
 demonstrated in his great history (vol. ii. p. 136), hence 
 the white coats were conspicuous in the landscape, and 
 scarcely less dangerous than scarlet trousers. 
 
 At this point of the proceedings, his Majesty s favorite 
 spaniel, King Charles, bounded into the council-chamber. 
 He was exceedingly delighted to see his kind little master, 
 and whisked and jumped about, and wagged his tail to 
 such an extent that his whole body, from his ears back, 
 seemed to be one elongated tail. Kaiser Hans was also 
 much pleased to see his favorite, and stooped down and 
 patted his head, and called him by name. Thereupon 
 the dog waggled his tail again. The attendants finally had 
 to remove him from the chamber. 
 
 His Majesty then said he was pleased to listen to these 
 suggestions, and considered them valuable ; but they were 
 not in the direction he had anticipated, since they did 
 not steadfastly keep in view the welfare of his people, 
 whose prosperity he always had earnestly at heart. 
 
!66 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 His Excellency the Minister of Other People s Affairs 
 begged to remind his Majesty that green cloth was cheaper 
 than scarlet, and would therefore lessen the expenses of 
 the military bureau, and enable the taxes upon the people 
 to be very materially lightened. He had no doubt that 
 each pair of green trousers substituted for the scarlet would 
 save a peasant the value of two chickens. 
 
 His Excellency Baron Rothkopf von Rothkopf, Minister 
 of Belligerency, a gentleman with fiery red hair, begged 
 to be allowed to suggest that neither of the noble gentle 
 men had struck at the root of the matter. The measure 
 of reform must go deeper, and deal with profounder ques 
 tions than any which had been mooted, or the empire 
 of Albeeria was bankrupt. The present was a time which 
 demanded the most searching investigation into the errors 
 and corruptions of the past. The empire, as all the noble 
 gentlemen well knew, was even then struggling in the 
 very throes of he had almost said dissolution ; but no, 
 it was a healthy effort, the effort of a great body to free 
 itself from the materia peccans, the evil influences of bad 
 legislation and bad administration. Albeeria was not a 
 corpse, Heaven be thanked, but only a convalescent strug 
 gling with its great natural strength to shake off disease. 
 
 The measure of reform which seemed to him most ur 
 gent, was one in relation to the soldier s personal welfare. 
 How often, his Excellency asked, during the recent dis 
 astrous campaign which shook Albeeria to its base, how 
 often had the soldier been seized by his beard, and thus 
 held while he was beaten ! How often had his beard be 
 come the harbor of dust, fog, and consequent disease ! 
 How often had he bled to death, because his cumbrous 
 and useless beard prevented the surgeons from reaching 
 his wound in time to stanch the flow of blood ! The 
 noble gentlemen must certainly be aware that the learned 
 
KAISER HANS. 167 
 
 Dr. Krackmeyer, in his great work on the Human Whiskers 
 (p. 1407), had demonstrated that one-half the throat 
 diseases of soldiers are caused by their beards, which they 
 are too indolent to keep punned. 
 
 He would, therefore, humbly suggest to his Majesty 
 that the projected reform should begin with the whiskers 
 of the army. He would propose, in fine, that the soldier 
 should be required to shave off his beard. 
 
 His Majesty said he must ask the eloquent minister the 
 same question as before. In what manner would this re 
 form benefit his faithful and beloved subjects? He was 
 unable to perceive. 
 
 His Excellency begged to reply to his sovereign, ever 
 anxious for his people, that whatever benefited the soldier 
 must indirectly benefit the subject. It would give occu 
 pation to thousands of barbers, now languishing in utter 
 penury for lack of employment. But, far more than this, 
 it would restore the efficiency of the army, insure Albeeria 
 victory in the impending great conflict of arms, and, 
 therefore, give the whole nation prosperity, where now all 
 was ruin. 
 
 His Majesty was pleased to say that he was deeply im 
 pressed by the views which the minister had urged so 
 eloquently. 
 
 His Excellency the Minister of Other People s Affairs, 
 nervously stroking his beard, and speaking in a husky 
 tone, asked whether the noble gentleman had intended to 
 cast any slur upon his colleagues by his vehement and 
 very pointed tirade against beards. 
 
 His Excellency the Minister of Belligerency sharply 
 replied that he could, with as good reason, ask whether 
 his Excellency the Minister of Other People s Affairs 
 had intended to cast any slur upon him (the speaker) by 
 his attack upon trousers of a certain color. 
 
1 68 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 His Majesty said it grieved him to see two of his min 
 isters descend to sharp and undignified personal allusions. 
 He could not permit two of his most distinguished sub 
 jects to become involved in an affair of honor upon such 
 trivial matters. 
 
 Under this paternal rebuke from their sovereign, the 
 two noble gentlemen made ample apologies and retrac 
 tions, and finally shook hands very amicably. 
 
 After some further unimportant discussion, his Majesty 
 caused a decree to be drawn up, and then dismissed the 
 council. 
 
 The decree was as follows : 
 
 Hans, by the grace of God Kaiser of Albeeria ; King 
 of Essen and Trinken ; Prince of Sauer-Kraut, Schnapps, 
 and Pumpernickel ; Archduke of Brod and Kartoffel ; 
 Duke of Bratwurst ; Margrave of Rindfleisch ; Count of 
 Klein-Schwechater ; Grand Commander of the Order of 
 Hans; Chevalier of the Order of Zechen, Kneipen, and 
 Scherzen ; etc. etc. etc. 
 
 It is Our pleasure, and We hereby decree : 
 
 1. Every subaltern officer and soldier in Our army 
 shall abate, remove, abolish, and shave off his whiskers. 
 
 2. Every commissioned officer in Our army shall, at 
 his option, shave off his entire beard, or only that part 
 of it situated, lying, and being between two lines let fall 
 perpendicularly from the corners of the mouth. 
 
 Given in this Our capital and city of residence, Cir- 
 cumstadt. 
 
 HANS, m.p. 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG.* 
 
 Gazettes, if they are to be interesting, must not be restrained. 
 
 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 In a free commonwealth both language and reason, word and thought, 
 must be free. 
 
 TIBERIUS C^SAR. 
 
 HAVING solicited and obtained permission to visit, 
 at their office, the editors of the Allgemeine 
 Zeitung, of Augsburg, I took good care to keep my ap 
 pointment punctually. At an early hour in the forenoon 
 the train set me down at the depot, and I started out 
 to wander, without as much as the mythical thread of 
 Ariadne to guide me, along alleys more tangled than the 
 streets of Troy, and among the historic memorials that 
 still bear their majestic witness to a once fabulous opu 
 lence. After an illustrious career of eighteen hundred 
 years, this Imperial City has seen its scepter depart for 
 ever ; and over its once populous and resounding marts 
 there hovers now a tranquil stillness. Where once the 
 lieutenants of Augustus led out beyond the walls their 
 long legions, with glittering helmet and cuirass ; and 
 where the gorgeous retinue of a monarch, greater than 
 ever ruled in the Eternal City, moved in imposing and 
 solemn grandeur along its winding streets, to hold their 
 august tribunal for a continent, there the web-footed 
 
 * Reprinted, by permission, from Harper s Magazine. 
 
 5 (169) 
 
1 7 o PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 tribes hold now their noisy musters undisturbed. I wan 
 dered on, past the "Three Moors," where once the 
 Fuggers gave audience to spendthrift sovereigns, but 
 where the traveler now resorts to taste its famous, sunny 
 wines ; under the great clock-tower above the gate in its 
 ponderous walls ; past arsenals, and ancient, gloomy 
 palaces, and long, monotonous fronts of modern bar 
 racks ; past the mediaeval cathedral, whose jagged, crum 
 bling walls are the home of chattering ravens, but whose 
 interior is still resplendent with the offerings of a wealth 
 gathered from the ports of a world. 
 
 At last I came suddenly upon it, hidden away in a 
 labyrinthine recess, little less difficult to penetrate than 
 that in the vicinity of the London Printing-House Square. 
 On a quiet, grass-grown alley a long, low building lifts its 
 gray front toward the south it is the home of Germany s 
 "Great Thunderer." 
 
 Passing through a spacious entry-way into the large, 
 quadrangular court, I found an obliging individual who 
 conducted me at once to the apartments of the editor-in- 
 chief. An atmosphere so cheerful, so domestic, so tran 
 quil pervaded everything around me that I seemed to 
 myself to be in a private residence ; and, half yielding to 
 the impression, knocked on his door. He opened it him 
 self, for he was wholly without attendants. 
 
 In a twinkling the voices of both of us were drowned 
 in a fierce chorus from his little favorites black terriers 
 and tan, white spaniels and black whisking about our 
 feet and making an extraordinary uproar. Presently he 
 succeeded in calming them so that we could hear each 
 other speak. I presented him my card, and was received 
 with the most cordial kindness. 
 
 " Ich bin gekommen, Hcrr Rcdacteur, urn" here a 
 fresh scurry of yelps deafened us for a moment "//;// 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. 1 71 
 
 um to visit your newspaper establishment, in accordance 
 with your very kind invitation." 
 
 "Ja,ja; ich sehe. Ein Amerikaner. Come in, come 
 in, sir." 
 
 Oh, who shall ever fully know and honor the benevo 
 lence of his brother-man? What more noble proof of it 
 than the commiseration with which two persons not of 
 the same language regard each other when they meet ? 
 How kindly and how patiently each assists the other by 
 speaking to him in his language ! 
 
 Thus there ensued for a moment a running skirmish at 
 cross-purposes: "Take place, sir; take place," said the 
 editor, pointing to a great arm-chair covered with rich 
 velvet. 
 
 "Ich wiinsche, mein Herr, nur nur " 
 
 "You are a journaleest, I think a correspondent; not 
 true, sir?" 
 
 Seeing the venerable editor was intent on speaking 
 "Engleesh," I quietly abandoned the benevolent contest, 
 for, like Wellington in French, he spoke "with the greatest 
 intrepidity," while my German was rather labored. 
 
 The editor-in-chief, Dr. Altenhofer, was a gentleman 
 of stout, short stature ; the muscular neck, small gray 
 eyes, and strong lower development of the head denoting 
 that he was fond of the good things of life. He reminded 
 me not a little of the portrait of Sir Walter Scott, only 
 there was not that wonderful Scotch top-head. The 
 somewhat misanthropic and heavy expression of his 
 thoroughly Suabian features would not have pointed him 
 out as the author of the quietly humorous paragraphs 
 I knew him to have written. A head equally and com 
 pactly rounded, rather than large or prominent in any 
 point, thinly covered with gray hair, with a forehead not 
 high but full, seemed to be the home of a certain dogged 
 
1 72 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 but immense power rather than of any brilliancy of im 
 agination. 
 
 He wore a bright parti-colored dressing-gown, rich as 
 that of "Lusignan;" a Turkish fez of crimson velvet, 
 from the top of which swung a long black tassel ; and an 
 incredible mass of black satin, wound about the neck 
 until it became more formidable than a Prussian regula 
 tion stock. 
 
 I was surprised to find even an editor-in-chief occupy 
 ing, as a work-room, such sumptuous apartments. There 
 were three rooms parlors, I had almost written all laid 
 with the choicest Brussels carpets, furnished with luxu 
 rious sofas, velvet-cushioned easy-chairs, mahogany cen 
 ter-tables, book-cases with richly carved walnut mouldings, 
 busts, engravings, and several gems by old masters, 
 Cranach, Holbein, and others. The books on the shelves 
 were numbered by thousands, modern volumes in dainty 
 bindings ranged above ; worm-eaten and dusty tomes of 
 ancient lore drawn out below in solemn phalanx. The 
 deep recesses of the casements were the hiding-place of 
 pleasant flowers ; and the clambering vines, covering 
 nearly all the window, bathed the rooms in a soft, green 
 radiance. As well expect sturdy political disquisitions to 
 issue from these dreamy, Platonic abodes as to look for 
 madrigals from the grimy, garish, sweltering attics of our 
 American editors. 
 
 The chief editor had four lieutenants, only one of whom 
 occupied the spacious suite of rooms with him. After a 
 few minutes of conversation, I suggested that I could not 
 allow myself to interrupt their pressing labors (though the 
 elegant walls contained no curt admonitions to the visitor), 
 and that nothing would be more agreeable to me than to 
 be permitted to be a silent spectator of the various stages 
 of growth of a German newspaper. 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. 173 
 
 They accordingly seated themselves at their tables, and 
 began to rummage among the heaps of newspapers and 
 letters before them. The veteran chief seized first upon 
 a quantity of letters from his correspondents, lifted his 
 large green spectacles a little higher on his nose, and 
 commenced chasing the scraggy hieroglyphics to and fro 
 across the page, addressing me now and then a question. 
 But a German editor cannot so completely make himself 
 two men at once as an American. In a letter from Berlin 
 his quick eye detects a paragraph that might cause his 
 correspondent to be expelled from his Majesty s domin 
 ions, and he quietly buries it under a long, black, ob 
 livious furrow, " allinet atrum traverso calamo signum" 
 To another he affixes a brief note of explanation, or of 
 total disavowal. A little further on he pauses doubtingly 
 upon a quotation from Lucretius, glances a moment into 
 a thick quarto within easy supporting distance, then passes 
 on content. In a market quotation that has traveled over 
 the wires all the way from Bombay he seizes upon a geo 
 graphical name that seems to violate the analogies of 
 Sanscrit terminology. A brief reference to a ponderous 
 lexicon at his right elbow confirms his suspicions, and he 
 washes his hands clear of it with an ?-mark. 
 
 Now, after deigning it scarcely a glance, he contemp 
 tuously tosses a letter into a capacious wicker-basket. 
 " Death loves a shining mark." The German editor is 
 utterly intolerant of "eloquence." My indignation 
 waxed warm against him. Presumptuous and vain man 
 that thou art, has thy little lease of power thus emboldened 
 thy thoughts and steeled thy heart, to wage such cruel 
 and Herodian warfare upon these innocents of the 
 brain ? 
 
 While he is thus burrowing through a hill of "diplo 
 matic correspondence" and English newspapers, his lieu- 
 
 .5* 
 
I74 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 tenant in the adjoining room is laboriously quarrying 
 through a mountain of "occasional correspondence" 
 and German journals. The other three, in their apart 
 ments, are industriously mining in all the other leads of 
 Europe, France, Italy, Spain, all except Turkey and 
 the Slavonic languages. The crude metals thus obtained 
 they hammer, and purge of all dross, and beat into the 
 smallest possible compass. 
 
 All these busy workers are what Confucius modestly 
 called himself, " transmitters, not makers," for they very 
 seldom delve in the dangerous and unprofitable mines of 
 original composition. The atmosphere of Germany is 
 of a nature so peculiar that literary mining may be prose 
 cuted with the greatest safety; but in political shafts 
 there always collects a body of highly inflammable and 
 destructive gases, which are liable to explode without a 
 moment s warning, and hoist the workmen in irretrieva 
 ble ruin. 
 
 Returning presently from a cursory inspection of the 
 rooms, I was pained and dismayed at the disastrous havoc 
 that had been wrought among the helpless contributors. 
 There were letters from far Oamaru, in the South Sea 
 Islands, written by the uncertain flicker of a rush-light ; 
 from Hong-Kong, penned by the glare of a burning joss ; 
 from Helsingfors, where the atmosphere was still luminous 
 at midnight ; from wherever in the world there is a Ger 
 man, and where is there not one? all written with 
 laborious accuracy, most of them furnished forth with 
 apposite ornaments and choice morsels of wisdom from 
 Horace and Cicero, and all of them framed with a highly- 
 commendable terseness; yet all, all consigned without favor 
 and without compunction to the insatiable basket. 
 
 I asked the editor if his conscience did not sometimes 
 reproach him for the wantonness with which he thus de- 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. 
 
 175 
 
 prived mankind of so much valuable advice and informa 
 tion. He replied that it had ; that he had often regretted 
 the hard necessity that was imposed upon him ; that he 
 was every day made aware that it is the inalienable privi 
 lege of every German to write and publish a letter ; and 
 that his countrymen carried with them a high sense of 
 their prerogatives to the remotest confines of the earth. 
 He believed they received as many as eighty communica 
 tions daily, aside from those relating entirely to business 
 concerns. 
 
 Besides these countless stationary contributors they em 
 ployed two special correspondents in the Austrian camps 
 in Bohemia, and one in the Confederate army campaign 
 ing on the Main ; but the latter the Bavarian Prince 
 Charles, Commander-in-Chief, expelled, together with all 
 his comrades, detailing one of his aids to transmit by 
 telegraph the "necessary news!" This was a return 
 to the system of the Roman government, for Suetonius 
 relates that Julius Caesar appointed a military editor for 
 the acta politico, diurna (some interesting fragments of 
 which Petronius has preserved in his Supper of Trimal- 
 chio"), and that he ordered copies of it to be dispatched 
 by couriers to the provinces. This was certainly a more 
 generous undertaking than that of the Bavarian prince. 
 In his earlier campaigns Caesar wrote and published his 
 own journals, which have survived eighteen centuries a 
 destiny certainly not reserved for the ephemeral records 
 of the war of 1866. In the modern instance, as in the 
 ancient, there appears to have been no detriment suffered, 
 but a benefit gained, by the substitution of a military for 
 a civilian journalist, for the dispatches of both were 
 equally laconic, while those of the former narrated events 
 with military accuracy. 
 
 A German correspondent, who witnessed the great 
 
176 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 battle of Custozza, spurred back to Verona in furious 
 haste, took down his annotated edition of Schiller, seated 
 himself among his lexicons, furbished his dusty spectacles 
 and then covered a large page of foolscap with a history 
 of the battle, which he prefaced with an admirable quota 
 tion from "The Robbers," and illustrated by two in 
 structive references to Grotius s work on the Rights of 
 War and Peace. The modern German, like the ancient 
 Roman, studying the idiom of camps, abhors prolixity; 
 but what should we say if Caesar had introduced his con 
 cise description of his battle with the Nervii, and embel 
 lished a number of passages in it with elegant extracts 
 from "Antigone" or "Prometheus Unbound"? Con 
 ceive him making a destructive onslaught on the left 
 flank of the Sequani with a quotation from Alcaeus ! 
 
 After lingering a short time among the editors, I pro 
 ceeded, under the guidance of the foreman, through the 
 light, airy rooms in which the compositors were at work. 
 There were between seventy and eighty persons, many of 
 them small boys, ranged before a series of elevated desks, 
 sloping toward them, and partitioned into a great number 
 of minute compartments. The number of these com 
 partments is necessarily great, since the erudite editors 
 and correspondents, whose compositions the printer must 
 follow as scrupulously as an ancient Jewish copyist his 
 manuscript, pillage all languages and enrich their own 
 with its spoils. In one series of them are the German 
 letters ; in another, the Latin ; in another, the Greek ; in 
 another, the Cyril ; while others contain single letters or 
 symbols from the French, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, and 
 numerous others. Over all this grimy mosaic of tongues 
 hover his busy ringers, choosing with incredible rapidity 
 here one piece, another there, and shaping them into 
 words, some of which speak to him in familiar accents, 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. 177 
 
 while others utter only a vacuous myth. Poor, patient, 
 plodding printer groping, guessing, comparing, earnestly 
 anxious to know the mind of the master whom he serves, 
 but who often addresses him not only in a foreign idiom, 
 but so crudely and so uncouthly in his own that his servile 
 understanding cannot follow who oftener maligned, who 
 more conscientious than the German compositor ? 
 
 Although they were employed almost exclusively by 
 daylight, a large proportion of them had seriously im 
 paired their vision. Whether induced by neglect of san 
 itary requirements and excessive use of acid vegetable diet 
 (which is most probable), or by close application to a 
 vicious alphabet, the prevalence of ophthalmia among 
 South German printers (which is much more universal 
 than in Prussia) is a subject of serious concern to their 
 physicians and philanthropists. The appearance of so 
 large a number of young boys and youths, with the full, 
 round, and almost colorless faces so peculiar to German 
 apprentices, disfigured by their uncouthly- large green 
 goggles or spectacles, would have been highly grotesque 
 if it had been less melancholy. Five full years these 
 mere children must plod through this irksome and cease 
 less drudgery for the German compositor, not less than 
 the American, knows little of Sunday before they are 
 released from the restraints of apprenticeship ; and when 
 this long probation has at last passed away, it often leaves 
 them with an eyesight incurably impaired. But they can 
 not escape even then from bondage, for they are dependent 
 on their daily toil for the merest sustenance, and it is too 
 late to turn back and devote another sixth part of a life 
 time to the acquisition of another craft. There is no 
 avenue of escape but that which leads out to the New 
 World ; and that, unhappily, is too often closed by the 
 poverty which it alone could alleviate. And yet they 
 
I 7 8 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 labor with cheerfulness ; and I saw pale-faced boys, bend 
 ing over their grimy "cases," cast occasional glances of 
 deep enjoyment upon the little pot-plants in their windows. 
 So strange did these sweet flowers seem amid the inde 
 scribable dinginess and smut of a printing-room ! 
 
 Having now visited the principal rooms, I returned to 
 the parlor of one of the junior editors, who gave me a 
 "complete day s history of a German newspaper." 
 
 The editor sips his black coffee or chocolate, and arrives 
 in his parlor nearly as early as the clerks, instead of at 
 eleven o clock, like the American. First he reads over 
 the proofs of the afternoon edition, although they have 
 been read already very thoroughly by the proof-reader. 
 Then he busies himself in his letters, as above described, 
 until about noon, when the afternoon paper is out, a copy 
 of which, still dank and reeking, he takes in his pocket 
 to read while seated at his dinner. Thus early has he ac 
 quired a vigorousness of appetite which does not come to 
 his American congener until the middle of the afternoon ; 
 and he accordingly partakes of a very leisurely and sub 
 stantial repast, followed by a number of Schoppen of 
 Munich s best, or by a half-flask of Johannisberger. 
 
 The afternoon is occupied in the preparation of the 
 morning edition. Sunset finds his labors for the day 
 substantially ended, and the main body of the paper in 
 type at an hour when its great contemporary of London 
 lingers yet half in the inkstand. While the " Great 
 Thunderer" composes himself for a night of placid and 
 bucolic repose, his English brother keeps up all night his 
 growls and his grumbles. 
 
 Nightfall, then, brings relief to most of the tired 
 laborers, whether with head or with hand, and the pro 
 found rural stillness that settles down over the great es 
 tablishment is broken only by the slow and measured 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. 
 
 179 
 
 tread of the solitary watchman, moving to and fro in the 
 light of the dim taper, or by the squeaking and gibber 
 ing of some literary mice. One editor remains alone in 
 his parlor, but, instead of writing for dear life beneath 
 the flaming gaslight, or making great garish head-lines 
 over the telegrams swarming in upon him, he is probably 
 absorbed in the latest romance by Auerbach. By ten 
 o clock, or earlier if he choose, he turns his light down 
 low, and snugly bestows himself in his luxurious couch. 
 If, perchance, a trusty compositor still lingers, employed 
 upon a brief dispatch from Berlin, as soon as it is finished 
 he follows the comfortable example of his superior. In 
 stead of that row of flaming-bright windows in the fourth 
 or fifth story, which, in America, shine out until nearly 
 morning over the darkened city, all here is deep and 
 blissful repose. 
 
 Perhaps at midnight a dispatch comes from Paris (for 
 those naughty Frenchmen will never go to bed, and let 
 honest people sleep), and the messenger comes pounding 
 at the editor s door. He rouses himself in his night-robe, 
 reclines in bed in that attitude beloved of inveterate 
 novel-readers, gazes dreamily on the jumbled and some 
 times hopelessly meaningless words before him (for Euro 
 pean operators make bad work with news), reads them 
 forward and then backward, as they did the Delphian 
 oracles, conjectures, expurgates, and punctuates, until they 
 assume at least a constructive meaning, then sends them 
 to a compositor, who has also to be awakened. After 
 three o clock nothing further can be introduced into the 
 morning edition, and the editor s slumbers are thence 
 forth undisturbed. 
 
 At early cock-crow the forms are set, without stereo 
 typing, in the cylinders, which are then put in motion. 
 The great sepulchral press-room, hitherto so quiet, now 
 
l8o PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 speedily becomes "distraught with noise." What a 
 weird, Plutonic, diabolical thing it seems, that black- 
 looking, many-cylindered, many-jointed monster, clank 
 ing there in its power ; swallowing down bale after bale 
 into its insatiable maw, and flapping off its iron-feathered 
 pinions the printed sheets ! What demoniacal business 
 or sorcery manufacture is prosecuted here ? Is it an abode 
 of wizards and hobgoblins, or is it a laboratory of Doctor 
 Faustus? Near by the glowing furnace flings a ruddy 
 glare over the faces of the workmen ; the engines hiss and 
 quiver under their own superfluous strength ; the sooty 
 feeders move hither and thither, carrying bales, as if, like 
 fell ministers, they sought to propitiate with votive offer 
 ings this paper-devouring Moloch. 
 
 Such is a brief narrative of my visit to the home of this 
 village Weltblatt, this village oracle, which is so great in 
 Germany. More than any of its contemporaries, more 
 than any other paper in Europe, it is the workmanship 
 and noble monument of a single man, John Frederic 
 Cotta ; the outgrowth of a single great thought, followed 
 with an unwavering fidelity, to which, in the political 
 sphere at least, the history of Germany affords few par 
 allels. 
 
 A man of incorruptible integrity, great learning, accu 
 rate, reticent, and an utter contemner of the tuft-hunting 
 and sycophancy of his time, Cotta saw with pain the 
 press of his Fatherland sunk in abject vassalage, sloth, 
 and scurrility; whispering with bated breath the per 
 mitted chronicles and scandal of fifty courts, and abso 
 lutely devoid of political intelligence not copied from the 
 Monitcur, and he determined to rescue it from a servility 
 so ignominious. 
 
 In 1798 he, together with a kindred spirit, established 
 this journal, and in the first issue announced that it would 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. jgi 
 
 be the mouth-piece of none but himself and his corre 
 spondents. For a creed he proclaimed the great word, 
 facts facts facts. Germany was astonished and incred 
 ulous, and the courts set all their snares to entrap him. 
 His name was mentioned with scoffing not unmixed with 
 concern, but an unbroken silence was his only retort. 
 This almost divine patience and silence under reproach 
 and injury were something so unusual among his too- 
 passionate countrymen that they attracted curiosity, and, 
 eventually, that admiration that is never denied to con 
 scious strength. No word was suffered to appear in his 
 columns that had not previously received his personal 
 scrutiny. Everything scandalous, trivial, or dogmatical 
 he expurgated so rigidly, and every one who furnished 
 him accurate and sententious descriptions if it were only 
 five lines of what he himself had seen or learned from 
 the most unimpeachable witnesses he remunerated so gen 
 erously, that he not only eluded all the stratagems of the 
 courts and the espionage of the police, but surrounded 
 himself gradually with many friends in every station. 
 The princes and princelings, seeing he did not come to 
 them, and that his proclamations were rapidly becoming 
 more weighty than their own, followed the prudent ex 
 ample of Mohammed and went to him. Five years 
 after the foundation of the paper the remote Pasha of 
 Egypt forwarded him semi-official communications, to 
 gether with a respectful solicitation for insertion. Early 
 in the century the French court was the only one that 
 maintained an official organ; but from 1818 to 1820 this 
 paper supplanted even the Moniteur. No cabinet in 
 Europe could claim its columns exclusively as it own ; 
 nor was there one but was fain to seek at times their now 
 powerful assistance. But a triumph far more gratifying 
 to their owner than this conquest of kings was that of the 
 
 16 
 
182 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 great names of Goethe, Humboldt, Fichte, Schelling, and 
 others, all of whom, in speaking through them to their 
 countrymen, thought themselves not less honored than 
 honoring. 
 
 Many years before his death Cotta had the satisfaction 
 of seeing the journal he had built up with such incredi 
 ble labor the acknowledged leader of Continental journal 
 ism ; and what was greatly better, he could affirm that it 
 was the voice of his beloved Germany, while its only 
 great rival was only the voice of the king who " ruled the 
 hour" to-day Louis XVI., to-morrow Robespierre. As 
 he lay on his death-bed he could say, truthfully and with 
 noble pride, that his example had contributed more than 
 the wars of Bonaparte to vindicate the freedom of the 
 press in his Fatherland. The poet Goethe, though a 
 citizen of an inconsiderable t wn, compassed the sublime 
 thought of a universal literature ; but Cotta, with a truer 
 perception of human possibilities, created a bond of 
 German liberty and German concord more effective than 
 the poet s own august memory. 
 
 When Goethe approached his final hour he could nom 
 inate no follower to continue his sublime labor, and his 
 works were his only successor; but when Cotta passed 
 away from his labors, that must be renewed day by day, 
 would they not go down with him into the grave ? No ; 
 for a work so beneficent is self-perpetuating, and imperi 
 ously summons a pupil to follow in the footsteps of the 
 master. The glazing eyes of the dying Colta still traced 
 the familiar lines, and his stiffening fingers still guided the 
 correcting pen, even though it were grasped in the hand 
 of another. 
 
 No, the labor of his hands has not perished ; neither 
 have those hands, though turned to silent dust, ceased to 
 guide it onward. In a land always torn with intestine 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. 183 
 
 feuds, always groping in search of an unknown good, it 
 has moved tranquilly on amidst the wrecks of broken 
 monarchies, unshaken^ by the brunts of revolution, un 
 moved by the menaces of monarchs, unawed by the ap 
 proach of contending armies; never threatening, never 
 desponding; yet more eloquent than all the clamorous 
 partisans around it, more eloquent than all the imperious 
 oracles of courts. 
 
 "It is the voice of a god" is no longer the idolatrous 
 acclamation of the multitudes; but, on the contrary, 
 when a monarch s voice is heard speaking through that 
 which the people have consecrated to liberty, it renders 
 it fatally and forever odious. He who speaks the king s 
 words is soon fain to eat the king s bread. In those 
 sleepless outposts of German liberty, the book-stalls, the 
 voice of the dead Cotta still speaks ; but the voice of the 
 living king is not heard there. No news-vender offers 
 you the king s paper; you must go to the publication- 
 office for that. 
 
 The greater popularization of knowledge in America, 
 which is both the cause and the result of the newspaper, 
 is shown by the greater comparative rewards of its writers. 
 Thus, for instance, Prussia pays her English ambassador 
 $29,400 a year, while the best-paid editors of Berlin re 
 ceive only $1000 or $1200. On the other hand, the 
 highest salary received by an American ambassador is 
 $17,000, while New York editors receive from $2400 to 
 $6000. The editor-in-chief of the Allgemeine Zeitung 
 has a yearly stipend of only $998. 
 
 The characteristics of German editorials are the same, 
 in general, that mark the literature of the country. The 
 Horatian maxim which teaches that "knowledge is both 
 the foundation and the source of correct writing" is the 
 guide of the ambitious feuilletonist no less than of Kant 
 
1 84 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 and Schelling ; while the American practically obeys the 
 advice of Cicero, first to acquire words, and afterward 
 thoughts. "Fine writing," therefore, which is only a 
 paraphrase of Hamlet s "words, words, words," that is, 
 words for the sake of words, finds no place in the Ger 
 man s ambition. There is a species of wretched diplo 
 macy practiced in our American law-courts, called 
 "speaking against time," known also to thriftless colle 
 gians on examination-day, under a slightly modified form, 
 as "mouthing," which is also not unknown to journalists 
 of slender intellectual resources, when they sit before a 
 vacuous, hungry page that must be filled. 
 
 This is a device having its origin in a peculiarly Amer 
 ican combination of insincerity and fertility of invention, 
 and to the less ingenious but more conscientious German 
 is wholly unknown, for he is always profoundly in earnest, 
 even though the topic to be treated is not more elevated 
 than the proper care of shoe-leather. 
 
 If a German editor has no original thoughts to offer 
 his readers and it is exceedingly seldom that he has 
 none he by no means refuses to allow Aristotle, or 
 Scaliger, or Grotius, or Jean Paul to speak in his stead ; 
 nay, so great is the benevolence of his nature, and so 
 honorable his sense of comparative merit, that he often 
 permits them to speak so frequently that neither himself 
 nor his topic can be perceived to have said anything at 
 all. "Wonderful erudition, but no logic," as Victor 
 Cousin once said of Ralph Waldo Emerson. If you will 
 only give a Vienna feuilletonist leisure and lexicons, he 
 will array a subject so humble as that of city drainage in 
 apparel of the most faultless texture and classical ele 
 gance ; yet it will not be discoverable that he has said 
 anything in particular in regard to city drainage. Into 
 his short newspaper-woof he will weave more golden 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. 185 
 
 threads and shreds of "sky-tinctured grain" than enter 
 into the fabric of the sacred coronation-robe of St. 
 Stephen ; but his gorgeous garment will not afford its 
 wearer any appreciable amount of protection against a 
 few rugged arrows of Anglo-Saxon logic. 
 
 One of the most salient features in the methods of the 
 German editor is the feebleness and indecision with which 
 he generalizes from passing events, in order to turn the 
 current of the time upon the mill-wheels of thought. 
 With two occurrences before him, the searching and 
 vigorous intuition of the Anglo-Saxon seizes out of them 
 a prophecy, or a formula for his future guidance ; but the 
 dreamy and skeptical Teuton, distrusting his ability to 
 cast the horoscope of coming events, applies himself in 
 stead to ascertain whether the occurrences ever took 
 place. 
 
 The most exalted attribute of the philosophical histo 
 rian (which the journalist should be) is the imagination 
 not the fancy which gives him power to summon from 
 the dust buried generations, and revivify them with the 
 hopes, the hates, the fears they carried with them into 
 the grave. This endowment, this historical imagination, 
 which is thus useful to the historian of dead men, is alone 
 capable of seizing out the heart of meaning from the 
 present. When exercised upon current events, this his 
 torical imagination becomes intuition into their relations, 
 and perception of their widest import. 
 
 This clairvoyant insight into the genius of his time, 
 into that which daily goes on around him, is denied to 
 the German editor. It was their sympathies rather than 
 their prophetic ken which made the German press predict 
 success to our anti-slavery North, while the English 
 prophesied only evil continually. 
 
 The imaginative Frenchman and the Englishman 
 16* 
 
1 86 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 schooled in the craft of state always seek first the con 
 nections of the present with the future, but the German 
 first with the past ; hence the press of the former hold 
 that of the latter in a perpetual bondage. The German 
 .editor feigns to hold the "conjectural politics" of his 
 western neighbors in philosophical contempt ; yet when 
 their seers take their station to watch for omens in the 
 perturbed sky of Europe he never fails to be present, and 
 scans them with an intensity of curiosity that is a tacit 
 confession of the shortness of his own forecast. If, when 
 the earth is giving premonitions of disruption, and the 
 low, sullen mutterings of the approaching earthquake are 
 heard at intervals, the journalists on the Seine and on the 
 Thames (as the German sarcasm is) are sometimes capa 
 ble of hearing the grass grow, their contemporaries on 
 the Spree and on the Danube often hear nothing what 
 ever until the earth yawns along the Rhine and swallows 
 down a German province. On the other hand, they 
 sometimes harass themselves with an undefinable terror, 
 and predict a throng of improbable calamities, with 
 whose imaginary ordeals they are so distraught that when 
 the genuine catastrophe comes it finds them unprepared, 
 and overwhelms them with unresisted violence. 
 
 After the great battle of Sadowa had unsettled Europe, 
 and destroyed that "balance of power," to preserve 
 which, as French catechisms teach, is the chief end of 
 man, the German journals had an infinite deal of pother, 
 and were occupied nearly half their time, all the next 
 winter, in destroying the mare s-nests of Continental 
 alliances discovered by the imaginative Parisians. 
 
 This routinism and this very incredulity it is that makes 
 the German press, in the crises of history, paradoxical as 
 it may sound, the most untrustworthy of the Continent. 
 During the tranquil leisure of peace the soil of Germany 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. 187 
 
 produces the most fragrant and the most copious abun 
 dance of the roses of Truth ; but in the disturbed epochs 
 of revolution it yields also the most noxious harvests of 
 the nettles of Uncertainty. With the German, truth is 
 the growth only of toilsome comparison and analysis, for 
 he lacks the Anglo-Saxon s searching penetration, which 
 adjusts conflicting probabilities at the moment, and from 
 internal evidence alone. During the short war of 1866 
 the South German and Austrian press was inundated with 
 false history ; the comparative amount of truth in the 
 published telegraphic reports sunk even below that of the 
 marvelous bulletins that were written along the Potomac 
 and the Chickahominy in the early, credulous days of the 
 rebellion. There were no amazing and magnificent in 
 ventions, as among us ; but lean, bald, official falsehoods 
 day after day persisted in. The unhappy editors pub 
 lished everything, the chaff with the wheat, in sheer des 
 peration, for there was no leisure to winnow it ; but they 
 published also an incredible daily edition of interroga 
 tion-points such editions as were never read before or 
 since in any well-informed community. None is more 
 conscientious and truthful than the German editor ; 
 neither is any more incapable of instantly branding false 
 hood on its brazen front. 
 
 During those few fearful weeks when the "Black 
 Eagle" flapped his exulting wings over Bohemia, and 
 Germany was convulsed as it had not been since Water 
 loo, nothing could have been more pitiable than the Ger 
 man press, groping amidst the surging and raging of the 
 battle like the blind Ajax, and crying out for light ! 
 Around a little window in Munich there gathered nightly 
 a multitude with pale, careworn faces, waiting for the 
 official dole of "necessary news;" far off beside the 
 Main their sons and brothers lay already in their "cold 
 
1 88 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 and bloody shrouds," or fled with a traitor prince in ig 
 nominious retreat, while each day brought the fierce 
 Prussians a day s long march nearer Munich; yet each 
 day the official journal gave them the poor, stale lie, 
 "No more battles at the front," and they turned away 
 with sickened hearts ! 
 
 In Prussia, Austria, and Bavaria alike the police-officers 
 search suspected dwellings without a warrant, confiscate 
 and carry away obnoxious papers, and on their testimony 
 alone imprison, mulct, or banish as a public malefactor a 
 subject whose greatest offense perhaps was an unguarded 
 utterance touching the sacred person of the monarch ; or, 
 if he will accept debasement as the price of liberty, they 
 suffer him to roam his Majesty s dominions at pleasure, 
 but voiceless. In Prussia alone have I known such an in 
 terdict enforced with such minuteness of interpretation 
 that a subject who had given his parole was seized and 
 imprisoned for a violation of it, because he had visited a 
 public assembly, and, " by his presence" merely, exhorted 
 the populace to sedition ! The mere hint of a potentate, 
 so inconsiderable that one may stride over his dominions 
 in an hour, is sufficient to procure the banishment of an 
 Austrian subject from Austria by Austrian courts. But in 
 Prussia alone have I witnessed the amazing spectacle of a 
 court, composed largely of gray-haired men, publicly con 
 demning an edition of the Allgemeine Zeitungto be burned 
 with fire for traducing their august sovereign ! 
 
 It is notorious in Germany that the journals of Vienna 
 as far surpass those of Berlin in the license of their pas 
 quinades on the court and nobility, as the latter surpass 
 the former in sturdy political discussions and in the casu 
 alty lists they publish after battles. It is the Kaiser s 
 good pleasure to allow the journalists to amuse the mer 
 curial and merry citizens of his capital with "quips and 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. 189 
 
 cranks" which, in the columns of the austere and solemn 
 journals of Berlin, would be Staatsamtsehrebeleidigung ! 
 
 Another characteristic of the Vienna press, as contra 
 distinguished from that of Berlin, is its coquetry with 
 French phrases and awkwardly Germanized words, such as 
 comfortabel, octroyirung, etc. The dialect of Berlin may 
 often deal in words so rugged, hirsute, and ponderous as 
 to make the reader feel uncomfortable, but it is at least 
 patriotic and unimpeachable German. So terrible is the 
 Berlinese sometimes that, in a telegraph treaty made be 
 tween France and Prussia, on one occasion, the French 
 insisted on the stipulation that " no unusual combinations 
 of words should be permitted," as the operators of Berlin, 
 to save expense, sometimes glued together such terrible 
 big words that their contemporaries in Paris had to coil 
 them around a cylinder to get them off the wires ! 
 
 Most of the telegraph lines in Germany are controlled 
 by government, and they do not encourage journalistic 
 enterprise by making deductions for dispatches of extraor 
 dinary length, but rather the contrary. And it is doubt 
 ful if newspaper proprietors could be induced to accept a 
 much greater quantity than they already receive. When 
 such a possibility is suggested, they simply shrug their 
 shoulders in dismay, for that which they now receive re 
 quires to be so often translated in its tortuous journeyings, 
 and is sometimes so wretchedly rendered by routine offi 
 cials, that, upon its arrival, it is frequently impossible to 
 render it more than approximately intelligible and accurate. 
 To the conscientious and painstaking German these uncer 
 tain oracles are peculiarly unsatisfactory and obnoxious ; 
 they perturb his philosophic equanimity, they becloud his 
 understanding, they harass and perplex his waking hours, 
 and thus invade and retrench the period allotted by nature 
 to healthful repose. It is greatly corrosive of intellectual 
 
190 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 tranquillity, and wholly subversive of the principles that 
 should control every well-regulated human life, to be 
 compelled to lose half an hour from one s meditations on 
 the Corpus inscriptionum Romanarum in an attempt to 
 ascertain from a miserable telegram whether a colliery ex 
 plosion in Wales occurred at Llwydcoed or at Llwid- 
 coed. 
 
 But in no department of journalistic enterprise is Ger 
 many more deficient than in her Art journals. When St. 
 Paul s Cathedral requires new windows of stained glass 
 they must be brought from Munich ; when Englishmen 
 of culture weary of looking at the wretched, tawdry col 
 lections of the National Gallery, they flee to Dresden and 
 Munich ; yet when Germans would read of what them 
 selves have accomplished they are obliged to subscribe for 
 a London journal. Germany affords the most striking 
 demonstration of the truthfulness of the old complaint, 
 that artists do not read. Of agricultural papers Leipsic 
 publishes over half a dozen, in fine, there is no known 
 country in which agriculture is at the same time better 
 taught and illustrated and more wretchedly practiced than 
 in Germany, especially in South Germany. 
 
 Single newspapers in Germany never attain the colossal 
 circulations sometimes found in France and England. 
 This fact is entirely in accordance with the centrifugal 
 tendencies of the character of the nation. There pre 
 vail in Germany as many theories of governmental and 
 ecclesiastical polity all of them of the most indubitable 
 practicability and impregnable orthodoxy as there are 
 separate and particular persons, viz., some fifty or sixty 
 millions. Now every thoughtful reader must see at once 
 that it would be very difficult I think I might say ex 
 tremely difficult for one paper to espouse one-half of 
 these theories, or even a tenth portion of them. It 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. ! 9 ! 
 
 should also be here premised that every German citizen 
 desires the welfare of the land of his nativity more than 
 he desires his customary nutriment; and, further, that he 
 is profoundly persuaded and convinced that that welfare 
 can be permanently established and maintained only by 
 bringing to bear upon the science of legislation a body 
 of preordained, immutable, and primordial principles, 
 axioms, and corollaries which no previous legislator or 
 collection of legislators of any century or country has 
 hitherto either discovered or applied. For want of an 
 understanding of those principles the fatherland is travel 
 ing hourly to canine habitations. To avert a catastrophe 
 so deplorable and so fraught with direful consequences, 
 he patriotically establishes a journal in which to propound, 
 elucidate, and demonstrate those principles. He also 
 reads it. Whether any other of his countrymen engage 
 with him in that patriotic and interesting avocation is a 
 matter of secondary consequence, for he now peruses 
 healthful sentiments, and feels secure. 
 
 Thus, while the United Kingdom of Great Britain 
 supports only ninety daily newspapers, Prussia publishes 
 one hundred and forty-three, and Austria seventy-two, 
 most of them in the German provinces. While I do not 
 for a moment overlook the importance of the circum 
 stance that the journals of Great Britain have only one 
 government to assault or champion, while those of Ger 
 many have a matter of thirty or thereabout upon which 
 to employ their attention, I likewise cannot forget that 
 in Prussia it is perilous to subscribe for more than one 
 political journal, while in England (as also in America) 
 it is perilous to subscribe for only one. As soon as a 
 thriving burgher in the little village of Eichhornstadt be 
 comes so ambitious as to presume to peruse a journal in 
 addition to the government organ, it will go hard but the 
 
IQ2 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 police will presently find it necessary to confiscate his 
 wild-cherry book-case, together with its contents; but if 
 the American farmer peruses only one partisan newspaper 
 it may be a great many months after the occurrence before 
 he learns that his party has violated the Constitution. I 
 am fully persuaded, therefore, that it is the great multi 
 plicity of governments alone that has been able to impart 
 vitality to so large a number of daily journals, when they 
 were laboring under the depressing restrictions above 
 narrated ; and in view of this fact the cruelty of Count 
 Bismarck in merging together a number of those govern 
 ments will appear in its most aggravated and heinous 
 character. 
 
 Another notable phenomenon is found in the fact that 
 Protestant and intelligent North Germany does not pub 
 lish proportionately as many papers as South Germany 
 and Austria. Berlin, with a population of 620,000, re 
 quires only 142,200 copies of daily newspapers; while 
 Vienna, with a population of only 530,000, requires 
 142,700 copies. In other words, Berlin has a daily to 
 every 4-39 inhabitants ; Vienna, one to every 3*73. Dres 
 den, with a population of 200,000, requires 25,800 copies ; 
 Munich, population 167,000, daily papers 77,600. 
 
 Certainly this marked disparity cannot establish a supe 
 rior intelligence for the South, for every other known fact 
 demonstrates the contrary. The true explanation is that 
 the South publishes a greater proportionate number of 
 small penny papers {Kreutzerblatter) very minute and 
 trivial affairs, largely filled with advertisements, and of so 
 low a price that thrifty merchants subscribe for several 
 of them. They contain very little political or valuable 
 information of any description, but chiefly "wise saws 
 and modern instances," "old wives fables," neighbor 
 hood genealogies, chronicles of two-headed calves, and 
 
ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. 
 
 193 
 
 such like matters as are level with the intellectual abilities 
 of the credulous, tattling populations of the Catholic 
 South. The South German or the Austrian laborer awaits 
 nearly as anxiously as the French or the American, and 
 more anxiously than the English or the Prussian, his daily 
 portion of small news, though he employs great economy 
 in its purchase. You will find in his house a trifling 
 newspaper and a well-thumbed prayer-book oftener than 
 in that of the Prussian, but less frequently a copy of 
 Schiller. 
 
 17 
 
SOME GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Dey set dem down und argued it, 
 
 Like Deutschers vree from fear, 
 Dill dey schmoke ten pfounds of Knaster 
 
 Und drinked drei fass of bier. 
 Der Breitmann go py Schopenhauer, 
 
 Boot Veit he had him denn, 
 For he dook him on de angles 
 
 Of de moral oxygen. 
 
 HANS BREITMANN. 
 
 ONE of Kaulbach s colossal frescos, ornamenting 
 the new picture-gallery of Munich, allegorizes the 
 triumph of true art over false. Under the conduct of 
 Minerva, the artists and scholars, some on the friendly 
 back of Pegasus, some on the ground, are making a terrific 
 row with a many-headed monstrosity called the Zopf. 
 Thwacked and thumped on all sides with all manner of 
 weapons, brushes, mahl-sticks, dictionaries, chisels, this 
 modern Cerberus struggles to escape in every direction, 
 but cannot, on account of the number of his heads. 
 With frantic rage depicted in one of his hideous faces, 
 the blustering and gasconading audacity of an Homeric 
 hero in another, and the whimpering, sneaking grimaces 
 of a whipped Thersites in another, this grotesque man- 
 beast worthy the creative genius of Spenser writhes and 
 writhes, but cannot escape. 
 
 Such a many-headed nondescript has Germany always 
 been among the nations. Every one of the sixty-odd 
 millions who speak the great language of Luther he is 
 ( 194) 
 
SOME GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS. ^5 
 
 Germany. The heart of every one of them beats honestly 
 and passionately for one and the same fatherland ; but, 
 alas ! the head of every one of these sixty-odd millions 
 is the origin and perpetual dwelling-place of an absolutely 
 perfect system of government, without the adoption of 
 which the fatherland aforesaid will necessarily and inevi 
 tably go, and daily and hourly is going, hopelessly to the 
 dogs ! 
 
 In the German provinces of Austria, for instance, there 
 are six well-defined political parties Centralists, Auton 
 omists, Dualists, Federalists, Democrats, and Clericals. 
 To catch the shades of difference between the platforms 
 of some of them would require a dialectician able to 
 "distinguish and divide a hair twixt south and south 
 west side." The Germans reduce politics to a learned 
 science, and treat it in the methods of the scholastics. 
 The famous Frankfort Parliament of 1848 contained a 
 hundred and eighteen professors ! But the Germans 
 learned something in that Parliament, for they elected 
 to the first North German Parliament only twelve pro 
 fessors. 
 
 The professors of Germany are the bane of its liberties. 
 They seek a perfect liberty, a platonic liberty, such as no 
 nation ever has had or can have. The Frankfort consti 
 tution has been fondly called the wisest ever made. It 
 was quite too wise. The German professor says, x of 
 taxation -j- y of representation = z of liberty ; but Fran 
 cis Joseph says it should be ?- of representation. The 
 professor says that is not a good equation. Thereupon 
 the Kaiser loses his temper, and cancels that quantity 
 altogether. 
 
 These professors do not understand how to vote a de 
 manded appropriation which they know they cannot with 
 hold, simply to save the form of right, as the House of 
 
196 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 Commons did many a year when it was struggling with 
 the Tudors or the Plantagenets. 
 
 In the legislatures of Berlin and Vienna one finds vast 
 and almost encyclopaedic learning; in Paris, elegant 
 scholarship, wit, sometimes fresh and crisp eloquence ; 
 and in Florence, a legal acumen often carried to a ridicu 
 lous excess. The Germans deliver lectures in their par 
 liaments, the French construct climaxes, the Italians 
 quibble on points of law, while the Magyars appoint sub 
 committees and proceed to business. 
 
 The intense individualism mentioned above has a re 
 sult which may seem paradoxical, or not legitimately 
 deducible therefrom, and which yet is probably natural. 
 The egotism of independence in thought and action be 
 comes, in politics, the egotism of servility, if the critics 
 will tolerate the phrase. In speaking to Lord Loftus, the 
 English ambassador, Bismarck once characterized this 
 foible of his countrymen with trenchant sarcasm. "My 
 lord," said he, "you do not know the Germans yet. I 
 can assure you that, if the people had money enough, 
 every one of them would have his king." 
 
 To a member of any particular little principality, there 
 are more "foreigners" in Germany than in England. 
 That is to say, if a man is so unfortunate as to live out 
 side of an imaginary circle inclosing some few thousand 
 acres, by courtesy called a kingdom, he is, politically, an 
 alien. One of the most notable features of Vienna jour 
 nalism is the absurd violence with which any man not 
 born in Austria is attacked as a "foreigner," especially 
 if he is a German. The great Count von Beust, the most 
 astute premier, and the one who gave Austria the most 
 splendid diplomatic triumphs, since Metternich, was stig 
 matized as a " foreigner" because he came from Saxony. 
 
 The inhabitants of the little principality of Reuss will 
 
SOME GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 197 
 
 resist to the last drop of their blood rather than allow the 
 Prussians to eat a steak of venison from the princely pre 
 serves, though they themselves, only a little before, in a 
 frenzy of passion, tear down the chateaus in the park 
 made odious to them by the tyranny of the prince. 
 
 In Prussia, however, the sentiment is far broader and 
 more catholic. The only questions asked respecting a 
 candidate are : Is he capable ? Is he a German ? Indeed, 
 when the great University of Berlin was established, 
 learned men were specially invited to professorships from 
 nearly the whole civilized world. 
 
 Another result, perfectly logical and natural, of this 
 intense individualism, is found in the cosmopolitanism of 
 the German mind. The Germans are an epitome and 
 digest of all nations. Begin at Dantzic, and study your 
 way through to Basle, if your lifetime sufficed, and you 
 would never need to travel more. You would possess all 
 that this present time has to offer, not only of exact and 
 speculative science, but of human character. 
 
 As Dr. Dollinger says, the Germans have written 
 better on Shakspeare than the English, and better on 
 Dante than the Italians. Even the Italians themselves, 
 egotistical and self-saturated as they are, confess, through 
 Count Cesare Balbo : " These wonderful and conscien 
 tious Germans are, step by step, usurping to themselves 
 all our learning." The ancient saying of Jordan, in his 
 Chronica de Imperio, " For the student one place, namely 
 Paris, suffices," should be changed now to, "For the 
 student one country, namely Germany, suffices." Ger 
 many alone has the real and true university, because Ger 
 many alone has real and true universality of thought. 
 
 The traveled German becomes like an onion with its 
 many layers. You can peel off one after another, each 
 representing some foreign nation, until you arrive at last 
 
 17* 
 
198 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 to the original heart and core of the fatherland. The 
 German alone of all men can truly say, with Ulysses, 
 
 " I am a part of all that I have met." 
 
 This intensely developed egotism and personal inde 
 pendence of thought makes the German continually over 
 flow into one great ocean of universal brotherhood. That 
 is to say, he continually flies off in a tangent from the 
 fatherland and from all his friends and kindred, and joins 
 himself in sympathy to the remotest and the strangest of 
 the tribes of men. He loves his own country more ar 
 dently than any other human being, and the more 
 ardently in proportion to its smallness, and yet he loves 
 the whole world. He has the true "world-soul." 
 
 It is in illustration of this fact that Germany clung to 
 Latin most tenaciously of all mediaeval nations, and to 
 French most tenaciously of all the modern. "He who 
 seeks to restore to use his mother tongue is considered a 
 lunatic," wrote Gabriel Wagner in despair. Even as late 
 as 1690, Professor Thomasius, in Halle University, found 
 the German language, as written, so little understood, 
 that he was compelled to exercise his classes in making 
 German letters on the blackboard before they could listen 
 to him in that language intelligently. " The most of 
 them," said he, "could not even construct the simplest 
 sentence, or write a German letter." But they were pro 
 ficient enough in Latin. Even the great Leibnitz 
 abandoned all attempts to introduce German into the 
 universities. 
 
 And the German continued longest of all in the de 
 grading vassalage to the French. Not only did Frederic 
 the Great correspond with Voltaire in French, but with 
 his sister Amalie. Count Ernst von Hesse and Leibnitz 
 exchanged none but French letters. Maria Theresa con- 
 
SOME GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS. 199 
 
 sidered it unworthy of her to correspond in German. To 
 this day German is systematically discouraged in the noble 
 circles of Vienna, but far less so in Berlin. 
 
 Having inflicted upon the French at Sedan the most 
 crushing defeat ever suffered in civilized warfare, still the 
 conquerors, with the most exquisite politeness, negotiated 
 with the fallen emperor in his own tongue ! European 
 etiquette may have demanded that, but American inde 
 pendence would have been rejoiced to see that language 
 of which Leibnitz says, "It never says any but honest 
 things," at last and for once assert itself against the lying 
 idiom of dandies and harlots. But if King William did 
 not, at least the harmonious cannon of Prussians, Bava 
 rians, Saxons, Wurtembergers, bellowing together on the 
 heights, thundered into the ears of the stupefied and col 
 lapsed braggarts the information that for once the Unzu- 
 sammengehorigkeit of the grand old jargon was laid 
 aside. 
 
 A German who did not begin to learn our language 
 until he had arrived at an adult age, once told me that, 
 at the end of five years, he habitually " thought in Eng 
 lish." I doubt if anybody but a German would have 
 accomplished that. 
 
 But this very comprehensiveness or fluidity of charac 
 ter, which enables them, as it were, to pour themselves 
 into the thoughts of all men, is fatal to them politically. 
 Bismarck, with his usual acuteness of perception, but 
 with more sadness of utterance than is his wont, declares 
 that, "The disposition of mind which causes men to 
 grow enthusiastic in support of foreign nationalities, even 
 when their own fatherland suffers thereby, is a form of 
 political disease which, alas ! is found in Germany 
 alone." 
 
 The Germans of Austria outnumber every other nation- 
 
200 PAPERS FROA1 GERMANY. 
 
 ality, and they have again and again, by their valor on 
 the battlefield, subjugated every other in that motley em 
 pire, and again and again abdicated to every other in 
 politics. " Nowhere do things happen more wonderfully 
 than in the world," says the Princess Elizabeth Charlotte 
 of Orleans, in one of her letters ; and nowhere in the 
 world more wonderfully than in Germany. 
 
 Of this species of moral abdication it will be worth 
 while to give examples at some length. A pamphlet pub 
 lished in Leipsic, in 1867, gave a list of six hundred and 
 seventy-four families in Hungary, who, in the two years, 
 1848 and 1849, caused their names to be translated from 
 German into Magyar. This, be it remembered, at the 
 time when to be a Magyar was to be the subject of the 
 greatest suspicion and persecution from the Imperial Gov 
 ernment ! 
 
 It is chiefly the nobles and the middle classes who 
 affect this thing, for the peasants remain in the ways of 
 the fathers. For instance, Tolpy, Matray, Ballagi, Hun- 
 salvi, and Ipolyi, members of the Hungarian Academy, 
 thought themselves unfit to enter its august portals until 
 they had divested themselves of the unseemly rags, 
 Schedel, Lutzenbacher, Bloch, Unsdorfer, and Stummer, 
 respectively. They sometimes carry the egg-shells of 
 their Teutonic origin still on their heads, as Szonntag, 
 Weisz, Oszwald, and Sulcz, for Sonntag, Weiss, Oswald, 
 and Schulze. So common is this thing that they have a 
 stanza about it, which may be rendered thus : 
 
 " Ludasy call me here, 
 
 In Prussia call me Kehl. 
 Thus Magyar feathers grow 
 From German sparrow s tail." 
 
 In Tyrol these silent conquests go on more stealthily, 
 
SOME GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS. 2 oi 
 
 and the sweet accents of sunny Italy are steadily creep 
 ing up the valley and among its mountains. The fierce 
 old battle-cry, Morte ai Tedeschi ! is heard there no more ; 
 but the soft air of Italy, the beaming wine of Terlan and 
 Lagarina, and the silvery-sounding patronymics, are more 
 potent than the red-shirted legions. There is on the 
 border a little village with the mighty name Mezzo Te- 
 descho Mezzo Lombardo (half German, half Lombard), 
 which once corresponded to the fact ; but it stands now 
 far out in the ocean of Italian waters. 
 
 Honest Hans Wurst colonizes in the valley of the Adige, 
 and straightway he and all his carroty-haired progeny 
 are installed in the illustrious family of Calderini, tracing 
 their genealogy back to the flood. 
 
 And this translation of German names and sympathies 
 into Italian, strange to relate, suffered no check, but 
 rather an acceleration, from the great German victory of 
 Custozza. The Tyrolese seemed to say, with Cato, Vic- 
 trix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. 
 
 In Triest these conquests of the Italianissimi are more 
 enigmatical, for they are opposed to the interests of com 
 merce, which is supposed always to follow common sense. 
 The Germans who are forever agitating for the annexation 
 of that city to Italy are too well read in history not to 
 know that, when Bonaparte joined it to that country, 
 thus cutting it off from its natural base of supplies in 
 Austria, the population fell to 19,000. 
 
 In the Slavonic provinces, which are the most degraded 
 in Austria, and which are indebted to the German lan 
 guage for whatever culture they have, these renegades are 
 found, as clannish as elsewhere. Herr Kaiser, for in 
 stance, in some little swinish village of huts in Carniola, 
 dubs himself from immemorial antiquity," by the Sla 
 vonic name of Zeravez. To set everything right on its 
 
202 PAPERS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 head, he puts his given name behind the surname, and, 
 as Zeravez Ambrosch, he feels himself a made man, ad 
 unguemfactus homo. 
 
 The great Bishop Strossmayer, who made such a gal 
 lant struggle in the Eternal City against the Dogma of 
 Infallibility, and who makes no attempt to disguise his 
 origin, is one of the most redoubtable champions of 
 Panslavism in the Parliament of Croatia. 
 
 A German member of the Parliament of Carniola not 
 only learned their uncouth idiom, but spoke it in prefer 
 ence to his mother tongue, although more than two-thirds 
 of his audience were German, and did not understand 
 him. Why should a man be more Catholic than the Pope 
 himself? 
 
 In Carinthia these renegade Germans received a merited 
 rebuke. They constructed for the schools an artificial 
 alphabet, that they might study their native dialect of 
 Slavonic. But the children could not understand it any 
 better than the German ; and, moreover, the parents pe 
 titioned their Parliament that the scholars might be per 
 mitted to learn German, because, even after they acquired 
 the patois alphabet, there was no literature for them to 
 read. 
 
 In Bohemia the German nobles become leaders of the 
 ultra Tchech party, as against their own unspeakably 
 oppressed and pillaged countrymen. 
 
 Enough instances have been adduced above to show 
 forth this weakness of the Teutonic mind, which began 
 to be exhibited as early as the time of the celebrated 
 Philip Schwarzerd, better known by his Greek name of 
 Melanchthon. And it was through their respective deal 
 ings with this national foible, that Austria finally lost the 
 hegemony in the German Empire, and Prussia gained the 
 same. 
 
SOME GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS. 203 
 
 Through the whole course of her history Prussia has 
 industriously and persistently Germanized, but Austria has 
 always lusted after the flesh-pots of Slavonia. Above all 
 things else, and all other considerations, Prussia has 
 sought to add to herself German territory, but Austria has 
 married and conquered fourteen languages, and always 
 anything rather than German. In the mixed provinces 
 of that empire it has come to be regarded as axiomatic 
 that to belong to the Government party is to be Slavonic 
 to the Opposition, German. It is an historical fact 
 that the single Slavonic province of Bohemia has been 
 allowed to furnish three-fourths of the officers of the 
 empire, and that too when all Tchechs are devout disci 
 ples of St. Vladimir, whose most notable saying was, " It 
 is better to live under the knout of Russia than in Aus 
 trian freedom." There are hundreds of little towns in 
 the mixed provinces of Austria, where a little assistance 
 from the government would enable the Germans to main 
 tain a German school, and so save their children from 
 becoming denationalized ; but Austria never helps them. 
 On the contrary, Prussia gladly gives such assistance in 
 her Polish province, and in Schleswig-Holstein, to save 
 her young German subjects, and gain others from the 
 Poles and Danes. 
 
 In a word, then, all indications point to Prussia as the 
 only rightful regenerator and conserver of those Teutonic 
 forces which Austria and the petty princes have so prodi 
 gally wasted. To Prussian statesmen everything that is 
 German is exceedingly precious, while all the other Ger 
 man governments, including Austria, have practically co 
 operated with France in scattering, dividing, dissolving, 
 and frittering away the noblest national inheritance on 
 the continent. 
 
IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 THE COLLEGE POLITICIANS. 
 
 I ll sing the zeal Drumlanrig bears, 
 Who left the all-important cares 
 
 Of princes and their darlings ; 
 And, bent on winning borough towns, 
 Came shaking hands wi wabster lowns, 
 
 And kissing barefit carlins. 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 IN a little Western town, which, as a seat of learning, 
 was greatly exalted above its natural importance, and 
 whose quiet inhabitants, being chiefly descended from the 
 Puritans, were often grievously scandalized by the wild 
 pranks of the madcaps collected there from the great 
 roaring cities of the West, this story has its action. 
 
 In a dingy chamber, on a certain evening, two students 
 were seated on opposite sides of a table, conning Latin. 
 The kerosene lamp between them, having a shade with 
 brick-red pictures of elegant rural gentlemen gracefully 
 bending with sickle in hand to reap impossible golden 
 wheat, was just lighted for the evening. One of the stu 
 dents had his lexicon, carefully covered with sheepskin, 
 leaned up at a convenient angle on a small wooden frame, 
 and his De Offidis spread open upon his lap. He was a 
 youth of huge stature, but very loose-knit in the joints, 
 with a head so capacious that his almost white hair seemed 
 to be spread over it in a single layer. His great blood- 
 ( 204) 
 
THE COLLEGE POLITICIANS. 
 
 205 
 
 less face and forehead, and his big eyes, reminded the 
 beholder of nothing more forcibly than a couple of eggs 
 broken into a tolerably large basin of flour. When he 
 stood up to make a lyceum speech, his feet were planted 
 wide apart, and, in his gestures, his powerful arms radi 
 ated from him in rigidly straight lines, with all his fingers 
 spread out fan-shaped. 
 
 He was a man of a massive intellect, but his uncouth- 
 ness procured for him, among the pert collegiates, the 
 nickname of Pulp. 
 
 His companion was as odd a genius as himself, but in the 
 opposite extreme. He was short and stout, with a head 
 like a bullet, and a singularly funny pug-nose. It seemed 
 to have been struck, at some period of his earlier history, 
 with injurious violence, and slightly driven up into his fore 
 head, and at the same time flattened on the end, and 
 bunched out sharp. He had a piping voice, which was 
 often fervently lifted up in the class prayer-meetings ; and 
 he had a habit, when addressing his fellows, of turning 
 his head somewhat to one side, and elevating his little 
 eyes to the upper corner of the wall with a kind of soft, 
 Madonna-like simplicity, while his mouth, being pursed 
 together, caused his pug-nose to turn up in a comical 
 manner. 
 
 He was profoundly earnest, in his narrow way ; but he 
 had the misfortune of being obliged to wear the same 
 very short, pudgy, pale-drab overcoat all through college ; 
 hence he had to abide a nickname also. He shall be 
 known in this history as little Tim Pliny. 
 
 He had just shoved into the table a drawer from which 
 he had eaten his frugal repast, and was again immersed in 
 his lexicon. Pulp continued to fumble his awhile, then 
 he turned his De Offiriis over, straddling widely on the 
 table, rose up, joined his hands behind him under his 
 
 18 
 
206 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 coat-skirts, and commenced pacing to and fro across the 
 floor, in his soft shambling gait, putting down his heels 
 first and as carefully as if he were treading on Geneva 
 crystals. Presently he stopped, rolled his great gray 
 eyes up toward the ceiling, and slowly repeated to him 
 self the famous passage : 
 
 " Nunquam se minus otiosum esse, quam quum otiosus, 
 nee minus solum, quam quum solus esset." 
 
 Then he raised his voice out of the depths of its ab 
 straction : 
 
 "I think, Mr. Pliny, that is one of the profoundest 
 sentiments ever uttered. Quam quum solus esset. Won 
 derful power of introspection and treasury of intellectual 
 resources must that philosopher possess, to whom the 
 microcosm, the little world of himself, is greater than the 
 great world, the macrocosm of the universe ! Remarka 
 ble power of introspection, Mr. Pliny." 
 
 " If he had only been a Christian instead of a heathen ! 
 But a heathen s thoughts, not being directed toward his 
 Maker, must be wicked and deceitful," replied little Tim 
 Pliny, without looking up from his book. 
 
 "An inconsequential suggestion, Mr. Pliny; quite. 
 Christianity, if absorbingly pursued, consumes the indi 
 viduality. No Christian philosopher has ever possessed 
 a more profoundly subjective idealism than the heathen 
 speculists of Greece," rejoined Pulp, with a disdainful 
 flourish of his arm above his head, as he seated himself. 
 
 "Do you think Cicero as great as St. Paul?" asked 
 Tim Pliny, looking up, distressed at his chum s skepti 
 cism. 
 
 Rap, rap, rap ! 
 
 "Come in," said Pulp, out of his infinite and serene 
 benevolence. 
 
 The knocker availed himself of this invitation. 
 
THE COLLEGE POLITICIANS. 207 
 
 "Good-evening, Mr. Square," said Pulp, rising, and 
 reaching him his huge hand across the corner of the 
 table. 
 
 "Take a chair, Mr. Square," piped little Tim Pliny, 
 and then he cackled and shook himself, and felt quite 
 funny indeed over his jingling rhyme. 
 
 Square, with an easy familiarity, shook hands with both 
 at once, then seated himself at the end of the table. This 
 newcomer, although his very prominent cheek-bones and 
 sunken cheeks gave him a triangular-shaped face, had a 
 mathematically square and marble-white forehead. His 
 hair was coarse and black, and in their deep, flaring 
 sockets glowed a pair of relentless, coal-black eyes. His 
 voice was hard and sometimes almost terrible. He was 
 accustomed to stand up in class, and translate De Corona 
 with wonderful accuracy and fluency, in a strong voice, 
 and with more audacious assurance and pomposity of 
 utterance than if he had been Demosthenes speaking on 
 the bema. His splendid scholarship made him a favorite 
 of the professors, but he was detested by his class. 
 
 " We were just entering upon a very interesting dis 
 cussion relative to that famous passage in the lesson 
 beginning Nunquam " 
 
 " Forever totus in tilts, Pulp. Cut that !" said Square, 
 impatiently, lighting his cigar over the lamp-chimney. 
 "I came here to talk politics. You never smoke, I be 
 lieve. You know, Pulp, you have influence among the 
 Neutrals in all the classes, and you ought to bear a hand for 
 yours truly, because it will all redound to the glory of the 
 Neutrals. You know these dapper little sweet-williams of 
 the secret societies have had the President of the Lyceum 
 three years hand-running, and they now labor under the 
 delusion that they have a moral mortgage upon the 
 same. Are you afraid of these wealthy curled darlings? 
 
208 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 Curse the whole crew of the sick-faced, musky dandies, 
 and lily-livered pulks ! I will fight them to the last tunk, 
 before they shall ride over our necks every year on their 
 high cock-horse. They have whistled and snapped their 
 fingers at us, as if we were spaniels in training, long 
 enough ; and if / have any influence, the Neutrals shall 
 not crawl and whine after them, like whipped puppies and 
 fags, any longer, by " 
 
 "Oh, don t swear, Mr. Square!" squeaked little Tim 
 Pliny ; and then he cackled very much again, and rubbed 
 his hands, at his unintentional rhyme, for he had meant 
 to be very solemn. 
 
 Square looked at him, with an ill-concealed expression 
 of contempt, then lighted his cigar again, which had gone 
 out during the above outburst. 
 
 Pulp had listened intently, his thin-haired, lumpy head 
 rolling heavily back; and when the orator finished, he 
 puckered out his mouth sagely. After considerable delib 
 eration, he said : 
 
 " Caret tibi pectus inani ambitione, Mr. Square? For I 
 fear it is indeed a vain ambition. The secret societies 
 are always reinforced by deserters from our ranks ; besides 
 which, they outvote us from the beginning. In comittiis 
 prevalebunt. 
 
 "Prevalebunt be !" said Square, fiercely, smiting 
 
 the table with his clinched fist. "I know there are 
 always white-faced muck- worms enough among the Neu 
 trals, who are groveling in the dust the whole four years 
 of college after these insolent damned jewelers sons and 
 French cooks, in hope of getting an invitation to join 
 them. They are ready to do anything they bid them, the 
 pitiful fags ! even to blacking their boots. But if we come 
 out once in a body, like men, and dare to own our own 
 souls, and fling defiance in the teeth of these cowardly 
 
THE COLLEGE POLITICIANS. 209 
 
 snobs and bullies, they will come to us quick enough, and 
 we can demand our own terms." 
 
 Poor little Tim Pliny had laid down his book, and 
 simply gazed at Square with open mouth, appalled at such 
 audacious wickedness. But Pulp was slowly kindling, 
 for, as soon as Square finished, his great gray eyes rolled 
 about in a fine frenzy. He was manifestly jarred out of 
 his ponderous propriety by such daring and fierce talk, 
 and it took him some time to recover his metaphysical 
 condition of mind. 
 
 "You state your propositions vigorously, Mr. Square, 
 I concede. And now I think I remember to have heard, 
 vaguely, that the hereditary feud between the Alphas and 
 the Omegas is more embittered than common this year. 
 Adversi turbine venti confligunt, as Virgil says. 
 
 "Yes," interposed Square, eagerly; "and they have 
 the little societies, their allies, so equally divided be 
 tween them that we Neutrals hold the balance of power. 
 Let them tear one another, the false harpies ! If we 
 will only make politics a study, as they do, and begin in 
 time, and not be eleventh-hour vaporers and fools, we 
 can bring them cringing to us for an alliance, and force 
 them to give us the President this year. We can force 
 them to do it, and then, of course, I shall be elected." 
 
 In this strain the discussion was continued for some 
 time, during which Square established, from private in 
 formation he had, the following facts: That there was 
 an extraordinarily bitter rivalry that year between the 
 Alphas and the Omegas, the leading societies \ that each 
 of them had a good man for the Presidency, and each 
 was determined to elect at all hazards. Both of them 
 had, by the proffer of certain minor offices, not only 
 strengthened their old alliances, but gained new qnes, 
 
 1 8* 
 
2IO I A 7 THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 having plied all the small societies so industriously that 
 they had ranged them all on one side or the other. Also, 
 these two great hostile camps were so nearly equal in 
 numbers that they dared not enter the election without 
 some positive arrangement with the Neutrals. 
 
 Neither of them, however, expected to make any com 
 pact which should bind all the members of that body, 
 because it was a kind of wild Ishmael of college, con 
 taining all the odd and eccentric elements which could 
 not be carved into their likeness. Any one of the secret 
 societies, in making a political alliance, was always able 
 to bind all its members to the support of a certain ticket ; 
 but the Neutrals were refractory, independent, scattering, 
 a drove of wild ass colts which never could be so penned 
 in but that some of them would make a clean breach 
 through the fence. There were always stragglers and 
 guerrillas among them, prowling on the outskirts of the 
 secret societies, seeking admittance. 
 
 After having read Square s fierce denunciation of this 
 class, as above, it may be interesting to the reader to be 
 informed that he had formerly been expelled from a 
 branch chapter of the Omegas in another college ! At 
 the moment when he was heaping maledictions on all 
 secret societies, he was wearing the Omega badge, not, 
 of course, on the left lapel of his vest, but attached to 
 that portion of his trousers by which he might be sup 
 posed to signify toward it his most concentrated and pro 
 found contempt. 
 
 The result of Square s energetic movements was, that a 
 few of the most prominent Neutrals issued a call, a few 
 days after the circumstances above narrated, requesting 
 all collegiates not belonging to any secret society to 
 assemble at a designated hour in the Greek recitation- 
 room. So thoroughly had the election excitement among 
 
THE COLLEGE POLITICIANS. 2 n 
 
 the secret societies penetrated the Neutrals, that there 
 was scarcely one lacking. Square took good care not to 
 get himself nominated chairman, and then, by being 
 promptly on the floor, as soon as business was in order, 
 with a motion for appointing a Committee on Elections, 
 of course he secured for himself the chairmanship of that 
 committee. The other members were Pulp, and a third 
 man of remarkable insignificance. Then, through a 
 friend whom he had charged for the purpose, the wily 
 Square procured the passage of a resolution instructing 
 this committee to fight shy, simply awaiting bids for alli 
 ance ; and, on no account, either to make or receive any 
 proposition looking to anything less than the Presidency 
 for the Neutrals. 
 
 A further result of these proceedings was, that, early 
 the next afternoon, a delegation from the Alphas, more 
 prompt and watchful than their enemies, called upon the 
 Neutral Election Committee to beat the bush. The two 
 principal delegates were Augustus and Polly. 
 
 Augustus was a handsome brunet, tall, slender, with a 
 very commendable incipient moustache, and a pair of 
 coal-black eyes. He had that easy nobility of dignity, 
 that eloquence of mere motion, that unhesitating volu 
 bility, which proclaimed him the born orator. More 
 than this, he had that wild and wizard quaver of the 
 voice, that lightening of the eye, in his impassioned 
 moments, and that electric quivering of the hand above 
 the head, followed by a swing of the arm with that aban 
 don which announced the genius, and which held the 
 listeners in thrilled and breathless silence, so that they 
 forgot to applaud until after the bewitchment of the 
 clarion voice had ceased. And then, when they tried to 
 recollect what he had uttered, " Every something, being 
 blent together, turned to a wild of nothing." He was 
 
2i2 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 of that kind of men whom women love with a devotion 
 that passeth knowledge. 
 
 Polly was the college nickname of a youth who should 
 have been born a girl. He wore his hair long, had a liquid 
 longing languor in his large eyes, and soft, long cheeks. 
 But, above all else, he was thoroughly girlish in his im 
 petuosity and his charming unreason, and in his passionate 
 Italian fondness for burrowing in some harmless plot, some 
 secret society intrigue. He was always hunting up per 
 sonal facts, anecdotes, and reminiscences. He was a 
 walking encyclopaedia of biography of all the men at 
 least, all the Alphas who had ever been in college. He 
 knew what Alpha took a valedictory in 1854, who took 
 the salutatory in 1837, and all about it. He had postage- 
 stamps, autographs, and an Alpha catalogue with innu 
 merable annotations and interlineations. 
 
 These two, and a third who need not be described, 
 met the Neutrals in Pulp s room. This apartment was, 
 therefore, occupied by seven persons, little Tim Pliny 
 being supernumerary, for he had obstinately refused to go 
 out. Polly was no speaker, so Augustus was to be spokes 
 man. But Polly was full of fidgets lest his eloquent f rater 
 should offer too much ; so he seated himself close beside 
 him, slyly reached his arm around, and seized his coat- 
 tail, ready to twitch it in case of emergency. 
 
 The Neutrals sat on one side of the room, the Alphas 
 on the other, and little Tim Pliny at the table. Intense 
 solemnity prevailed. Augustus rose and began, somewhat 
 embarrassed as his manner was at the outset : 
 
 "Gentlemen of the Neutral Committee: Having been 
 unofficially informed of the action recently taken by your 
 honorable body, in regard to the impending election, the 
 Alphas, to which we have the honor to belong, have dele 
 gated us to meet you, and endeavor to effect some 
 
THE COLLEGE POLITICIANS. 213 
 
 arrangement for an alliance. Our meeting was entirely 
 informal [twitch by Polly] We have no creden 
 tials to offer you, gentlemen, showing our authority to 
 negotiate ; but we demand none from you, believing that, 
 in an affair of this description, we can repose confidence 
 in our mutual good faith. It is unnecessary, perhaps, for 
 me to enter here upon an extended explanation of our 
 relations toward our ancient and hereditary enemies, the 
 Omegas ; but I think it may not be improper to request 
 an answer to the question whether they have yet ap 
 proached your committee with any [twitch] whether 
 
 the Omegas have well, I think it is entirely safe, gentle 
 men of the committee, to premise that we are prepared 
 to offer you more fraternal and generous terms than the 
 Omegas can possibly be willing to concede. You must 
 have perceived, gentlemen, in the course of your college 
 experience, that the Alphas have never yielded themselves 
 up to that blind spirit of persecution and of contumelious 
 effrontery toward the always honorable and noble body 
 of students you represent, which has disgraced the history 
 of the Omegas from the foundation of the chapter 
 
 [twitch] Gentlemen, we are instructed by our 
 
 society, then, to offer you an alliance upon the following 
 exceedingly liberal conditions : The Alphas to elect the 
 President of the Lyceum (seeing they have not been 
 represented in that office for a year), they pledging them 
 selves, on their part, to vote solid for a Neutral as V ice- 
 President, and promising also, on the good word of gen 
 tlemen, to secure to this arrangement all the votes of the 
 societies in alliance with them. Of the six minor offices, 
 we pledge ourselves to give you four, reserving only two 
 for our allies. Such, gentlemen, are the very liberal 
 
 terms we have been instructed to offer [twitch] " 
 
 Augustus sat down in great disgust at this unseemly 
 
214 IN TIIE GREAT WEST. 
 
 curtailment and reduction to plain sense of his intended 
 flowers of speech. Square rose abruptly to reply : 
 
 "Gentlemen of the Alphas: You speak of giving us 
 the Vice-Presidency and four of the minor offices. Until 
 this moment I had not been made acquainted with the 
 fact that the authority was vested in your secret societies, 
 either singly or collectively, to give or withhold any of 
 the offices whatsoever within the gift of the whole body 
 of students. In reply to your offer to give us the offices 
 named, I have simply to state that my instructions are to 
 entertain no proposition which does not offer the Neutrals 
 the Presidency." 
 
 Polly glanced at Augustus, and Augustus glanced at 
 Polly. Pulp rolled his great gray eyes at Square in amaze 
 ment. As for little Tim Pliny, who did not at all 
 believe in these wicked buyings and sellings, he was 
 so indecorous as to put his head under the table and 
 snicker. 
 
 It is not necessary to pursue the course of the negotia 
 tions, and indeed they had not much further course. 
 After a little more parleying, with great stateliness and 
 stiffness the Alphas withdrew. 
 
 It is well to record, perhaps, that Polly took his depart 
 ure from the scene of these unsuccessful negotiations with 
 a large-sized flea in his ear. There entered into his mind 
 a profound conviction, or rather, one of those prescient 
 intuitions for which he was noted. He had the keenness 
 to perceive that Square, with all his ferocity, was not a 
 mighty man among the Neutrals, and not at all to be 
 feared ; and that Pulp was the mountain, which, not 
 being able to bring it to him, like the prophet, he must 
 approach. 
 
 As they went out through the wicket-gate (or the place 
 where the gate should be, for certain evil-disposed persons 
 
THE COLLEGE POLITICIANS. 215 
 
 had, before Pulp was put on the committee, abstracted, 
 purloined, and secreted the same), whom of all men 
 should they meet but a delegation of Omegas, going up 
 to labor with Pulp ? Singular what a popular place of 
 resort that sorry chamber had suddenly become for those 
 young aristocrats ! Little Tim Pliny had hard work now 
 adays to get a chance to eat his dinner at all. He would 
 hardly get well to nibbling and munching at a piece of 
 Graham bread, when somebody would knock, and he 
 would have to whip the bread into the drawer, shove in 
 the same, wipe his mouth, and become intently engaged 
 over his Greek lexicon. Indeed, it is related that a band 
 of young politicians once came upon him so suddenly 
 that he bolted a whole cut of sausage endways, which 
 lodged in his throat, to the serious detriment of his faculty 
 of speech for several consecutive minutes. 
 
 Several days passed on, and each society delegation 
 met the Neutrals frequently, as it leaked out that one or 
 the other had offered better terms. But a time at last 
 arrived when each had offered its ultimatum, and had no 
 thing further to propose. The chairman of the Neutrals 
 now summoned another general meeting, for the purpose 
 of listening to the report of the committee, and taking 
 action thereon. This evening, therefore, would be the 
 momentous crisis of the whole campaign. If the Neutrals 
 should determine to adhere. to the resolution of instruc 
 tions given to their committee, it would make a " trian 
 gular fight," for neither society intended to offer them 
 the Presidency for this year ; but if they voted to accept 
 the terms of either, the contest was already virtually de 
 cided. 
 
 For these reasons, therefore, while the Neutrals were 
 holding secret session (for they did this, despite their de 
 nunciation of the societies) in the Greek recitation-room, 
 
2i 6 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 the electioneering committees of the Alphas and the 
 Omegas were assembled at their respective headquarters, 
 eager to catch the earliest intelligence. Both of them 
 had spies or sycophants among the Neutrals, who were 
 certain to hasten to them with the result, in hope of earn 
 ing the coveted membership. 
 
 In Augustus s splendid suite of chambers (for a society 
 man could occasionally persuade himself to accept rooms 
 on the second floor) there were, besides Polly and the 
 third man, nearly all the Alphas congregated together, for 
 there was no studying that night. While waiting and 
 wondering at the unusually protracted discussions of the 
 Neutrals, they had agitated the question in all its bearings 
 for the thousandth time, until they had grown listless and 
 disgusted. They were almost invisible to each other in 
 the cigar-smoke, as they indolently lounged on the sofas, 
 or covered all the huge French bedstead, like an army 
 encamped, or lazily shuffled the chess-men, or lolled in 
 the rocking-chairs, reading something out of "Verdant 
 Green." 
 
 The ever-wakeful Polly sat at the window, looking down 
 into the street, and occasionally casting wistful glances up 
 it toward the college. His colleague sat near him, in 
 specting his meerschaum. 
 
 "I say, Polly," exclaimed the latter, "blast my eyes 
 but those Neuts are windy tonight!" 
 
 Polly winked significantly with one eye. 
 
 " Pulp has his hands full of hoc job. " 
 
 " Do you think he can make it?" 
 
 " Of course he can." 
 
 There was a slight click of the gate-latch down in the 
 yard, only caught by Polly s catlike ears. Looking down, 
 he saw, where the gaslight flooded the snow, three men 
 standing behind a snowball bush, apparently consulting. 
 
THE COLLEGE POLITICIANS. 217 
 
 Presently they moved out of the shadow, and advanced 
 toward the door. 
 
 " Cock s soul !" cried Polly, leaping up. "Boys, the 
 Omega committee are coming up here ! What does it 
 mean?" 
 
 In an instant every sleeper was aroused ; the chess-men 
 executed some frantic gymnastics in the air, and the win 
 dow went nigh to be broken by the boys surging against 
 it. Their immemorial enemies coming to solicit an alli 
 ance ! What can it mean else ? It must be that they 
 have some secret information that the Neuts are going 
 against them. What does it mean ? Such a thing was 
 never heard of in college. 
 
 But no head was equal to the tremendous necessities of 
 the occasion but Polly s. Make an alliance with the 
 Omegas? Of course, if the Neuts were lost, but not 
 otherwise. Victory at any cost ; but victory would be 
 twofold sweeter if it meant also defeat to the Omegas. 
 But quid facere? The Omegas were already admitted, 
 and were tramping in the hall below. If they only knew 
 how the Neuts were going ! Tramp, tramp, tramp ! 
 coming up the stairs. Polly frantically clutched his hat, 
 and sung out : 
 
 " Delay, boys, at all hazards ! Mum s the word ! Tell 
 em an important member of the committee is absent. 
 Leave all to me." 
 
 With that he dashed over two sofas and a wide bed 
 stead, knocking flat down a f rater Alpha. He made a 
 frantic rush for a window, opened it, and leaped out like 
 a frog on a shed-roof, his coat-tail whipping through the 
 sash just as the Omegas knocked. Crawling along the 
 roof on the inside slope, he reached the outside corner, 
 slipped down a post bruin-fashion, and found himself in 
 the back-yard. He must make a wide circuit before 
 
2i8 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 coming into the street, lest the Omegas should catch a 
 glimpse of him from the window. While he is flounder 
 ing through the snow in back-gardens, tearing through 
 choice English gooseberry bushes and raspberries, nearly 
 cutting his neck in two on clothes-lines, and receiving 
 attacks in the rear from several ferocious bull-dogs, indig 
 nant at being disturbed at such an unseemly hour of the 
 night, we precede him to the Greek recitation-room, to 
 make some note of things which happened there before 
 his arrival. 
 
 The Neutrals being called to order. Square, as Chair 
 man of the Committee on Election, proceeded to make 
 his report. He simply stated the offers they had received 
 as the ultimatum of each society. He was not unaware 
 of his growing unpopularity, and he had so often fulmined 
 against the society men, that for once he restrained him 
 self. 
 
 Upon this there arose a mighty wind of debate. Some 
 called upon the Neutrals to accept the offer of the Alphas, 
 others that of the Omegas, and others insisted that they 
 should go into the fight independent of either. 
 
 Pulp waited calmly until all the small orators had lashed 
 themselves into a fury, and subsided. Then he arose, 
 and went all the way to the upper end of the room, in 
 his rolling, plantigrade gait, picking his feet up and set 
 ting them down so softly, and with his head thrown back 
 in his lunatic manner. He stepped on the dais, planted 
 his feet far asunder, placed his hands upon his hips, and 
 began abruptly, the audience listening breathless : 
 
 " Buddha Sakia said, All men are equal, and he re 
 ceived the lowly. But the haughty Brahmins despised 
 him, and remained aloof, saying, He accepts even beg 
 gars and criminals. They received only the great. As 
 a consequence of this Pharisaical exclusiveness, the Brah- 
 
THE COLLEGE POLITICIANS. 
 
 219 
 
 mins number less than one-fifth the converts of the 
 Buddhists. Let us be instructed by this example, and 
 shun a vainglorious but empty independence. There are 
 three great contestants in the field. If we enter into a 
 triangular battle, the election may last all night ; and, de 
 pend upon it, the society men will linger until the morn 
 ing stars grow dim, while the Neutrals will either go over 
 to them through sheer weariness, or go home. As a last 
 resort, they will make an alliance, and thus, in either case, 
 we shall lose everything, cantamus vacui. But by a 
 timely alliance we shall secure much. I give my voice for 
 an alliance with the Alphas." 
 
 He sat down amid universal astonishment. What, 
 Pulp ! Of all men in college, Pulp, proposing an alli 
 ance, and that with the aristocratic Alphas ! Pulp, who 
 had so often, in his elevated and philosophical vein, dis 
 coursed on the evils of clannishness, emulous intrigue, 
 and the deplorable bitterness of bickering flowing from 
 that fountain of gall, the secret societies. Pulp, the 
 greatest intellect in four hundred, whom even the profes 
 sors never contradicted, but listened to as to a superior ; 
 Pulp, the lofty, the Baconian, the wise, haranguing in 
 favor of a coalition with boys ! 
 
 Square was furious. "It is false!" he cried fiercely, 
 quivering with passion. "It is false! The soft-handed 
 snobs dare not go into a fight without us. Let not these 
 brainless dandies who caper nimbly in a lady s chamber 
 to the lascivious pleasing of a lute, pipe their Ranz des 
 Vaches to us ! Has my colleague been opiated with musk 
 and geranium? Has he been brained with a lady s fan? 
 Has he been introduced into the first circles, and been 
 overpowered by the lewd witcheries of the round-dance? 
 Has his philosophy been turned into a jeweler s kit, and 
 the music of the spheres, which echoed sweet and low 
 
220 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 from his soul, been crimped into the little measure of 
 their creed, until his great heart beats to the ticking of a 
 twenty-carat gold watch, and his traitor hands mark the 
 time of boughten infamy ? It is a lie ! a gratuitous lie ! 
 They will fight each other to the bitter end, and we have 
 only to stand by and await their coming, which will be 
 the coming of cowards, begging, ay, whining, for an al 
 liance. This I happen to know from private " 
 
 At this point he was interrupted by Pulp, who had 
 been seen to step out a moment with the doorkeeper, and 
 then return to his place. He stopped there a moment, 
 as if hoping Square would pause ; but the fierce, dis 
 jointed invective of the man was too much even for the 
 philosophic Pulp, and he held up his right hand, with all 
 his fingers intensely rigid**with passion, each one striving 
 to get as far away as possible from all the others. He 
 spoke, huskily : 
 
 "Will Mr. Square permit me to interrupt him for a 
 moment ? In reply to his assertion that the societies will 
 never coalesce, I have to say, that I have just received, 
 from a trustworthy source, the information that the 
 Omegas have gone to the Alpha headquarters, and are at 
 this moment in consultation with them in regard to an 
 alliance." 
 
 Square turned deadly pale, and uttered never a word 
 more. Well he might, for in an instant the room was 
 filled with hisses, yells, and hoots of execration. The 
 voices of Pulp and the chairman, calling for order, were 
 utterly drowned and lost, being inaudible even to them 
 selves. Infuriated cries of " Put him out ! Put him out !" 
 "The liar!" "The slanderer!" "The big mouth!" 
 mingled with stamping, hisses, groans, and cat-calls. 
 Every one rose from his seat. Fists were brandished 
 fiercely at the fallen plotter. Fiery maledictions were 
 
THE COLLEGE POLITICIANS. 2 2I 
 
 hissed in his face through clinched teeth. He would 
 doubtless have suffered personal violence, if he had not 
 seized his hat and hastened away. Ruined forever ! 
 Never did vaulting ambition so overleap itself, and fall. 
 He never appeared in chapel again, and he left college in 
 less than a week. 
 
 As soon as quiet could be restored, a member moved 
 a reconsideration of the former vote of instructions, 
 which was carried. Then Pulp moved that the offer of 
 the Alphas be accepted ; the motion was seconded, and 
 instantly carried by a unanimous vote. A committee- 
 man was elected in place of Square, and then the com 
 mittee was instructed to proceed at once to the Alpha 
 headquarters with the acceptance. 
 
 Polly had hurried back to his follows, and, as soon as 
 he cooled his face a little with snow, and removed the 
 impressions he had received from the clothes-lines and 
 the gooseberry bushes, he entered, and greeted the wait 
 ing Omegas with considerable cordiality. But the Neu 
 tral committee soon arrived, and the disgusted Omegas, 
 knowing what it signified, took their melancholy depart 
 ure. They knew, without asking, that the offer of the 
 Neutrals would be accepted before theirs. 
 
 Not long afterward came the election, and the Alphas, 
 of course, gained the Presidency. Next morning Pulp, 
 for the first time in his college history, was late at chapel. 
 He walked up the aisle with downcast eyes. So unusual 
 a circumstance turns every eye upon him. What is the 
 matter with the man ? Has he suddenly, in some unac 
 countable manner, become ashamed of his huge feet, that 
 he looks at them so steadily? What is that so bright and 
 pretty on the left lapel of his vest ? It must be a butter 
 fly. No ; it is winter yet. Four hundred pairs of eyes 
 are riveted on it. What can it be ? It burns his breast 
 
 19* 
 
222 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 as the flaming emblem of her crime, the "scarlet letter," 
 did the bosom of Hester Prynne. 
 
 It is the Alpha badge ! 
 
 Deserter ? 
 
 Yes ; and something more. Most of the Neutrals 
 used a harsher word than that. 
 
 A week or two later, just before Commencement, Polly 
 is talking in his chamber with a frater who has just re 
 turned from a long vacation. 
 
 "But I say, Polly, how in the deuce could you fellows 
 stand it to rope in such a camel ? 
 
 "But we had to do it to get the Neuts, don t you un 
 derstand? Then, too, he had only two weeks more in 
 college." 
 
 "Tell me how it all happened, Polly. Die age, O 
 virgo / 
 
 "Well, you see the Neuts put him on their committee 
 one evening, and the next afternoon we met them, and 
 hcec-fatus-zdi the matter. I saw in a minute Pulp carried 
 them all on his shoulders. So that very night we voted 
 him in, and I rushed him hard, and pledged him about 
 midnight, and we initiated him about one o clock. But, 
 of course, we didn t swing him out till election was over; 
 and then it was only two weeks to Commencement. We 
 could stand it two weeks." 
 
 "Who would have thought Pulp would do it?" 
 
 "Do you remember what Pope says of Lord Bacon?" 
 
TWO ONLY SONS. 
 
 If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, 
 Absent thee from felicity awhile, 
 And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain 
 To tell my story. 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 THERE lived once on the bank of the Beautiful 
 River, in Ohio, two neighbors, of whose children 
 we have somewhat to chronicle. Farmer Polney was a 
 hard-working, God-fearing man ; but Mr. Baywood lived 
 in an old-time, generous ease, on the interest of his 
 money. His house stood close beside the lordly river, 
 surrounded by a smirk white fence, with flowers in par 
 terres, shrubbery, etc.; but Farmer Polney s house was 
 far back amid his fields, and had a hard and naked ap 
 pearance, being inclosed by a lichened fence, and by a 
 few rosebushes, which were frequently nibbled by some 
 extremely utilitarian calves. 
 
 These two families, being the most prominent in the 
 little neighborhood fenced in by the river hills, led 
 off in all the momentous school-meetings and in the 
 various solemn conclaves and weighty businesses of the 
 district. They contrived, by strict economy, and by 
 having the teacher "board round," to maintain a school 
 three months in summer and three in winter. So, twice 
 a year there was considerable commotion in the little 
 humdrum district, and much riding up and down of pros 
 pective schoolmistresses on wheezy, old, stiff-necked 
 plow-horses, on side-saddles that were certain to turn over. 
 
 (223) 
 
224 2N THE GREAT WEST, 
 
 Sometimes they came to see Farmer Polney, but oftener 
 Mr. Baywood, because he was never away in the fields ; 
 but it was always Farmer Polney s horses which had to go 
 after the schoolmistresses, and take them home on Satur 
 days ; and it was always little white-headed Sargent Pol 
 ney who had to go with them and ride behind. And in 
 variably, when they ascended a steep hill, the girth would 
 burst, and he would slip off behind over the horse s tail, 
 and the saddle and schoolmistress would fall on top of 
 him. 
 
 Harry Baywood and Sargent were always together, as 
 absolutely indispensable to each other as the sine to the 
 cosine. In the weekly spelling-schools, held on long 
 winter evenings, they two and Jolie Baywood were always 
 the last to be "spelled down." Harry was never con 
 tent unless he had Sargent at his house, and the latter was 
 so fond of Jolie that he had no trouble in going, and in 
 variably overstayed the hour appointed by his father. 
 
 Farmer Polney s library was small, and contained prin 
 cipally such intensely solemn and inscrutable volumes as 
 Drelincourt "On Death," Baxter s "Saint s Rest," and 
 similar ; while old Mr. Baywood s book-case was ample, 
 reaching, in its grandeur of rich old walnut mouldings 
 and gilded tomes, all the way from the floor to the ceiling, 
 and containing "Robinson Crusoe," "Scottish Chiefs," 
 etc. But Harry would always drag Sargent away from 
 the books, and whisk him off out-doors to watch his mills 
 for sawing rotten wood, his wind-mills, and all manner 
 of automatons and moving gimcracks. 
 
 He was a merry and a lively boy, caring nothing for 
 girls, dogs, and cats, except to torment them, hang them 
 by the neck, or explode firecrackers in their ears. He 
 was captain of all the school battles, but he could do no 
 thing without Sargent for his swift-footed lieutenant. He 
 
TWO ONL Y SONS. 225 
 
 organized all games of " shinny" on the ice, and all snow 
 balling combats ; but Sargent always contrived to make 
 his duty to his captain so elastic as to allow him to push 
 Jolie s sled, or stand by her side when the snowball bom 
 bardment waxed most furious. He could not have told 
 why it was if he had puzzled for a week, but it was never 
 theless an indisputable fact that he never could play at 
 " blindman" without catching Jolie first; and it was 
 equally certain that she would be offended if he did not 
 catch her first. But the strangest thing of all was, she 
 would give him the most trouble she possibly could. 
 
 The schoolmistresses were generally selected from 
 among the poorer "hill-folks;" hence these two boys 
 presently got beyond their depth, and " knew more than 
 the mistress." They graduated across the river, into the 
 pretentious, three-story brick "college," but they were 
 still inseparable. They crossed in the same skiff, Harry 
 always rowing the forward oar, in which respective posi 
 tions they had many a tug to try which could turn the 
 other. They were in the same Latin classes with Bullion s 
 Grammar, played the same games of ball and marble. 
 
 But now at last they were obliged to separate. Harry 
 conceived, after awhile, a rooted disgust for Latin, and 
 aspired to a steamboat. Sargent rather liked the art and 
 science of surveying, and had vague yearnings for civil 
 engineering, though he had once, after having his suscep 
 tible imagination strongly wrought upon by the blare of 
 trumpets from a menagerie chariot, registered a solemn 
 promise in chalk, upon the paternal work-bench, to de 
 vote his life to the menagerie. 
 
 Harry was too modest for a Western steamboat-captain, 
 that pearl of all gentlemen ; too modest to grapple with 
 the rude insolence of the boiler-deck ; though he had 
 that native and graceful nobility, that dignity of mere 
 
226 W THE GREAT IVES7\ 
 
 motion, of manner, of voice, which made him the com 
 panion of his seniors and the envy of the younger. He 
 went into partnership with an old man in a small local 
 craft. But he rapidly mounted to the hurricane deck, and 
 waxed prosperous exceedingly. 
 
 As for Sargent, he suddenly fell away from the binomial 
 theorem to the cornfield. Farmer Polney had conquered 
 his way up from poverty by hard knocks, and "he still kept 
 a strong grip upon the farm ; but he was resolved that his 
 boy must begin to prepare himself to stand presently in 
 his stead. It was well enough for him to go to school 
 until he "ciphered to the rule of three," but when he 
 began to gabble algebra, and quotations from Caesar, the 
 farmer shook his head. He gave him "sums" to find 
 the number of acres in a certain field ; he tried to interest 
 him in adding, subtracting, and multiplying crops of 
 wheat. He gave him sole and exclusive proprietorship 
 in sheep and a yoke of oxen ; he induced him to clear 
 away the forest on a hillside, and plant an orchard. But 
 the orchard grew to brambles, and the chipmunks nibbled 
 away all the apples thereof. 
 
 The boy would carry out his " Paradise Lost, "-the only 
 readable book he could find, and leave it at the end of a 
 cornrow, and when he plowed a round, he would snatch 
 it up and commit to memory two or three verses. While 
 he was repeating them on another round, he would let the 
 plow gouge out a cornhill, whereupon he would most un 
 justly fustigate the faithful and innocent old horse, and an 
 alarming capering about and destruction of maize would 
 result. He named his young oxen " Noun" and " Verb ;" 
 but they recognized no such outlandish and opprobrious 
 names, and accordingly ran away, got unyoked, and one 
 violently extracted the other s tail, to which it had been 
 very injudiciously attached. In trying to add some verses 
 
TWO ONL Y SONS. 
 
 227 
 
 of Milton to the stock he possessed, while cutting corn in 
 the field, he would grievously hack his shins. In the long 
 winter evenings he would sit by the kitchen stove, to es 
 cape the contagious and agreeable tattle of the sitting- 
 room, crooning over his Milton or his Latin grammar ; 
 but, after the day s fatigues, he would nod in spite of him 
 self, and then thump his head in disgust. 
 
 His father, with the old habit of authority strong upon 
 him, and impatient of any blundering in his sight, sought 
 to direct the boy s doings, even in his own little crops, 
 and in the most minute particulars, where he should have 
 let him stumble along and learn for himself. The youth s 
 slowly growing sense of independence would sometimes 
 assert itself in most tempestuous phrasing, which he would 
 afterward bitterly regret. 
 
 Thus he was gradually acquiring an unconquerable re 
 pugnance toward the farm, and groped blindly along, in 
 obedience to some higher impulse, he knew not what. 
 His thirst for knowledge increased, and he often pleaded 
 with his father for permission to go to college, and wept 
 in secret over his hopeless ignorance, and cursed his 
 sleepy stupidity. 
 
 He received frequent letters from Harry, written in 
 elegant commercial chirography ; but his replies he was 
 compelled to send in the accursed scrawl of the district- 
 school, made with oak-ball ink, which dried into an un 
 healthy yellow color. Harry was greatly prosperous ; he 
 was adding to his bank-account many hundreds every year, 
 more than the whole Polney farm produced. He had 
 dined and ridden out with the Mayor, and had even been 
 introduced to the Governor. He was sole proprietor and 
 captain of the " Viola/ and thirteen men gave obedience 
 to his youthful behests. In short, his life was gliding 
 tranquilly along in that smooth and uninterrupted current 
 
228 /#" THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 of commercial prosperity which afforded little of episode, 
 or of matter for romantic or instructive narration. 
 
 But Sargent envied him none of these things, for he 
 knew him to be nobly worthy of the best success ; but it 
 caused him to chafe more and more at the plow-tail. 
 Jolie, the romping and mischievous, was grown into a 
 very dignified young lady, and had gone away to a 
 fashionable boarding-school, and he saw her very seldom. 
 He thought she was acquiring high notions, and cared 
 nothing more for him, a clumsy clown of the farm ; and, 
 whether she did or not, he determined, with a kind of 
 proud and obstinate bitterness, to think she did not, and 
 avoided seeing her. In all this he judged her very fool 
 ishly and unjustly. 
 
 His sister, Jane, had grown into a pretty farmer s 
 daughter, with soft, brown eyes and brown hair, and a 
 very affectionate disposition ; and she often wept and 
 wondered at her brother s stormy discontent, and sought 
 in vain to encourage him with her innocent prattle. She 
 pleaded for him with their father. She magnified his 
 gifts, which to her seemed marvelous. She told the taci 
 turn farmer, with wonder and with pride, how he would 
 stride up and down the room, now repeating Webster or 
 Milton, and now fuming over his enforced ignorance. 
 
 And so at last the farmer reluctantly gave his consent 
 that the lad should go to college. But he still believed 
 he could make a farmer of him, so he agreed to send him, 
 on condition that, during vacation, he should come home 
 and buckle to the farm-work. His outfit was purchased 
 and made up, even to the checkered trousers, through 
 which he jumped every morning about four inches too 
 far, and the little caraway-seed silk handkerchief. At 
 last the great and eventful morning arrived. In his char 
 acteristic way, the farmer worked and puddered about 
 
TWO ONLY SONS. 229 
 
 something or other, in order to lose no time, till the 
 very smoke of the steamboat was in sight. Sargent and 
 his sister were distracted, for he had not yet received even 
 the money for his expenses. Nevertheless, they reached 
 the river in season. The lad shook hands around the 
 little circle of the farm inhabitants, his father s tenants, 
 and then walked aboard, with his heart in his throat, and 
 stepping very high and awkwardly on the teetering plank. 
 The boat backed off, and then steamed grandly up past 
 the landing, while the handkerchiefs fluttered and the 
 farmer shook his hat. But, as soon as the steamboat 
 was behind a tree, he turned away, and with the back of 
 his hard broad hand dashed away a falling tear. Ah ! if 
 the boy could have witnessed that act, he would have 
 known and loved his hard and taciturn father better. 
 
 This succinct narration cannot follow him throughout 
 his college career. The black and gusty clouds of civil 
 war came up ; Fort Sumter was assaulted and captured ; 
 and a great nation was delirious with frenzied patriotism 
 and with mad passion. Hard upon the heels of this news 
 came the thrilling intelligence to the college : " Wash 
 ington is captured ; the rebel banner flaunts in insolent and 
 haughty triumph above the Capitol ; the streets are red 
 dened with blood, and Lincoln and Scott are captives !" 
 
 It was a bright Sunday morning in May when this evil 
 and astounding intelligence burst upon the quiet village. 
 The great college chapel was crowded as it seldom was on 
 that day of the week, but not to listen to prayer. 
 
 The grand old chancellor enters. There falls upon the 
 stormy multitude a great silence. He opens the Bible on 
 the desk. He closes it again. He strides up and down 
 the long estrade, with his head drooped, as if unconscious 
 of the very existence of Bible or of students. Then he 
 suddenly stops, turns to his audience, and, gazing ab- 
 
 20 
 
230 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 stractedly far away ovei their heads, as if he beheld the 
 bloody streets of Washington itself, says very slowly, as 
 if dreaming : 
 
 " So, young gentlemen, some twenty millions of us are 
 without a government to-day !" 
 
 Then he pauses many moments, slowly lifts his clinched 
 right hand, and with a swift and strong gesture, and in a 
 voice tremulous with emotion, but thrilling in the im 
 mense and audacious greatness of its energy, he exclaims: 
 
 "But I think we know how to find it, young gentle 
 men !" 
 
 Never since the swift and burning rhetoric of Peter the 
 Hermit summoned fanatic Christians to the rescue of the 
 Holy Sepulchre has human eloquence wrought more 
 magically than did these words upon those impassioned 
 young souls. The effect was indescribable. The smoky 
 old chapel thundered to the echo. The ardent young 
 patriots rushed away to a mass-meeting, and the Sabbath 
 quiet of the strict old Puritan town was profaned by the 
 clangor of mustering regiments. 
 
 Hark ! I hear the tramp of thousands, 
 And of armed men the hum ; 
 Lo ! a nation s hosts have gathered 
 Round the quick alarming drum- 
 Saying, Come, 
 Freemen, come ! 
 Ere your heritage be wasted, said the quick alarming drum. 
 
 All day the town echoed to the soul-stirring music 
 of the clarion and of the "ear-piercing fife," the tumul 
 tuous surging of the thousands, and the rattle of rusty 
 bayonets. Five student companies were organized at 
 once. If the rumor had not been contradicted, Monday 
 morning had seen the university depopulated. 
 
TWO ONLY SONS. 231 
 
 The farmer s son wrote home for permission to enlist 
 for actual service. He received the following reply : 
 
 " You are my only son, and I cannot consent. I shall contribute to the 
 volunteer fund according to my means, and send a special substitute. If 
 you enlist without my consent, I shall follow you up and join the same 
 regiment." 
 
 Could any answer have stopped him more effectually ? 
 He had intended to enlist without permission, if he 
 could not get it ; but to think of his gray-haired father 
 carrying a musket beside him ! 
 
 Meantime, in a far-distant camp, Harry Baywood is in 
 the full progress of the militia drill. A soldier in the 
 ranks as yet, his experiences are amusing, if not peculiar. 
 " Get into two rows, you fellers, and come out here end 
 ways, the way you did yesterday !" cries the good-natured 
 drill-sergeant. They jumble, they jiggle, they hobble 
 along higgledy-piggledy, in a kind of absurd Shaker 
 dance, galling their kibes and decorticating their shins at 
 a frightful rate. One gets his legs tangled together, and 
 tumbles down in the middle. Harry fortified his ankles 
 with a pair of heavy boots, and bided his time. 
 
 When at last the poor fellows, by their scanty prepara 
 tion, had been rendered meet food for powder," and 
 were about to start for that terrible unknown region, the 
 front, he was elected Lieutenant. Every day brought 
 out his merits, and made him more beloved by his com 
 rades. He was modest and frequently blundered in giving 
 commands, but he was never too busy in his tent to listen 
 patiently to the humblest of his comrades. When there 
 was no tent, he slept on the ground among his men, and 
 not aloof, as if he were an intelligence from another 
 world. When the wagons were delayed, and there was 
 no baggage, he might have been seen marching the live- 
 
232 IN TPIE GREAT WEST. 
 
 long day cheerfully beside his column, with his sword 
 across his shoulder, and at night dependent on one of his 
 men for half of his blanket. He never threw out a 
 soldier s tin cup to make room for his box of collars. 
 
 And now the farmer s son came home for his first an 
 nual vacation. Obedient to his promise, he laid aside his 
 scholastic gown, and arrayed himself for the cornfield. 
 To his infinite dismay, he met Jolie, for the first time in 
 many months, while ignominiously attired in indigo-blue 
 trousers, much too short, a farmer s hunting-shirt, and an 
 immense chip-hat. He sidled awkwardly around, and 
 prayed the earth to open uader him ; but Jolie was very 
 gracious, and, in the kindness of her heart, noticed 
 nothing. She even detained him, and conversed very 
 cheerfully for a good while about the old school-days. 
 
 It is useless to deny that Sargent was greatly encour 
 aged. He even "went to see Mr. Baywood." In fact, 
 he presently became quite a frequent inmate of his fine 
 old-fashioned parlor. About dusk on summer evenings 
 he might be seen walking rapidly up the clean gravel 
 walk, stepping very lightly, and looking sheepishly about, 
 greatly distressed at the unusual and gratuitous loudness 
 of the crunching in the gravel. In some mysterious 
 manner unknown to him for he had never dared mention 
 such a thing Jolie had become aware that the sight of a 
 very little white apron was especially agreeable to his eyes, 
 and she never failed to appear in that particular apron. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Baywood, anxious to assure him, would re 
 main a few moments in the parlor, monopolizing the con 
 versation, then presently retire, to his immense conster 
 nation. He would be obliged to propose a resort to 
 chess, that favorite refuge of bashful lovers. 
 
 O ye kindly cavalcade of kings, and queens, and 
 knights, and bishops, in your snowy or sable robes, 
 
TWO ONL Y SONS. 233 
 
 blessed ministrations are yours ! How often do ye pur 
 posely entangle yourselves together, so that the fingers 
 which move you touch the fingers of the beloved, and 
 are thrilled with a divine electricity ! How conveniently 
 stupid ye are, and how ingeniously absurd are the moves 
 ye make, not to spoil her dear little silly game ! 
 
 But as terms and vacations came and went, and Sargent 
 never got any further along than chess-playing, he was in 
 a profound despair. The neighborhood match-makers 
 lost their patience. It threatened to be a courtship as in 
 terminable as that of poor Lilly Dale, who is dragged 
 through two whole volumes, and remains an old maid 
 after all. 
 
 One evening they were voyaging down the Ohio on a 
 magnificent steamboat, and by some unexplained chance 
 they found themselves sitting alone on the hurricane deck. 
 Jolie was now ripened into a stately but languishing beauty, 
 with pallid cheeks, rather long and grave in expression, 
 hazel eyes, with a soft and pleading lustre, and pouting 
 lips. She still cherished a hope that the farmer s son 
 would, in some inspired and happy hour, so far soar above 
 the clods of this dull world as to say something which 
 she wished to hear, and to which she encouraged him by 
 many a gracious and languishing smile. 
 
 Smooth and still the Beautiful River lay on either side, 
 and far back behind they could see the graceful hair-line 
 waves widen out from the steamboat s wake, chase each 
 other across the patches of starlight, and fade silently 
 away on the dark bosom of the river. How gracefully 
 and how stately the stars lifted and then sunk, as the first 
 wave rolled beneath them, then fell to rocking faster and 
 faster, until at last they got to dancing at such an unseemly 
 rate that they shock their little cheeks all to pieces ! Right 
 beneath them the mighty wheel, in its slow and laboring 
 
234 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 revolutions, clawed, and thumped, and mauled the waters 
 in the darkness, until they glistened and whitened the 
 black night. It was a scene by no means poetical, except 
 to a poetical soul, but the very swish and thudding of the 
 waters conveniently tempered his voice, so that it did not 
 frighten him as it usually did when he was alone with 
 Jolie. 
 
 Suddenly there came to him a great and indomitable 
 resolution to say it. 
 
 "Jolie," then he was seized with an unimaginable 
 terror, and looked up into the sky, "the stars are very 
 bright to-night." 
 
 "Yes; do you see those double stars, one red and the 
 other green?" She pointed to them. 
 
 "Do you think they are really I mean, why do you 
 suppose one is red and the other green ? he said, with a 
 gasp. 
 
 "Our old astronomy, I believe, says they are what is 
 it? supplementary to each other. Now, isn t that the 
 word? You haven t any right to laugh at me if you 
 won t correct me." 
 
 "I didn t laugh at you." This was a highly gratui 
 tous assertion on his part, though the lamentable grimace 
 of distress which at that moment pervaded his counte 
 nance, if it could have been seen, would have moved the 
 laughter of devils. 
 
 " That word means they are necessary to each other, 
 doesn t it?" 
 
 "Jolie, I was going to say yes, it means that, neces 
 sary." Then, by a prodigious effort of will, he ventured 
 to take her hand, " Take care, my dear ! upon my word, 
 you will fall over on the wheel." 
 
 " Oh, I haven t the slightest fear of that so long as you 
 hold my hand. You were about to say something?" 
 
TWO ONL Y SONS. 235 
 
 She looked toward him with a sweet, inviting smile, but 
 he was looking the other way ; so it was lost in the dark 
 ness, as so many others had been before. 
 
 A pause. 
 
 Just then a great shower of sparks came out of the 
 flues, and floated in a long and splendid sheet above their 
 heads. It was as if ten thousand solar systems had been 
 ground to powder and blown in red-hot dust athwart the 
 heavens. 
 
 "Ah, that spark ! let me brush it off." 
 
 After brushing it off, he was alarmed to find his arm 
 almost encircling her neck, and he drew it away very 
 quickly. 
 
 " Oh ! I shall be burnt up here ! I do believe there s 
 another spark on my shoulder. Pray do look !" 
 
 Shrugging her shoulders in a dear little panic to get 
 away from a spark which didn t exist, she leaned quite 
 against him. He looked, but saw nothing. 
 
 Oh, you poor stupid Philistine ! Why, anybody 
 could have put his arm round there then and found an 
 other spark. But you couldn t ! Oh, fie ! 
 
 A long pause. 
 
 It clouded over at last, and began slowly to rain. 
 Sargent went below, and returned with an umbrella, 
 which he spread, for he was not yet ready to abandon 
 hope. 
 
 "I have often wondered," began Jolie, slowly and 
 thoughtfully, but with volumes of hidden meaning in her 
 tones, " I have often wondered how any one person could 
 own an umbrella with a good conscience." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 " Why, hold it as one will, there is a great yawning 
 void on one side, so suggestive. One alone under an 
 umbrella looks so selfish !" 
 
236 IN TPIE GREAT WEST. 
 
 He gasped out a quick breath, and felt he was almost 
 going. 
 
 "I was just thinking Jolie, I was about there! did 
 you hear that plunge ? Somebody must have fallen over 
 the guards." 
 
 He ran to the edge of the deck, and peered down into 
 the dark, rushing waters. It was only a log, bumping 
 along on the hull. 
 
 It began now to rain hard, and they therefore went 
 below, and separated for the night, both of them well- 
 nigh in despair. After all, he didn t say it. He didn t 
 pop. 
 
 How the Lieutenant gets on in the army, meantime, 
 may be learned from this letter to his old schoolmate : 
 
 " PEACHTREE CREEK, GEORGIA. 
 
 " MY DEAR OLD BOY, I have lately got promoted to Captain, and I 
 will narrate the whole matter to you in order. Our ridgi-ment (as the 
 Johnnies say) had been five days on the skirmish line ; and, by one of 
 those blunders which happen so often that the boys are about ready to 
 knock off, when our supports were drawn back, we were not notified, and 
 we were left hanging right down into the Confederacy. We were two 
 
 whole days without a pinch of grub, and at last Colonel swore he 
 
 would take the responsibility of ordering us to tack, in short, to fall back, 
 to save our bacon, or get some. Here again was a shameful blunder (I 
 wouldn t blab thus of my superior officers to any one but you, for it is a 
 great relief to be able to speak my mind freely once in awhile, where none 
 of the boys can hear me I think I fight better for it afterward), it was a 
 blunder, I say, for we ought to have fallen back under cover of the dark 
 ness. We were lying each in a pit about as large as a bath-tub, from the 
 which we scrambled out, and ran pell-mell back to the first line of works 
 where we could find any grub. 
 
 " My Captain was the only man hit, falling in a little hollow. He lay 
 only a biscuit-toss from the works, but the interval was raked by a fire in 
 which no man could live. He was not mortally hurt, and he could have 
 come in, only he couldn t get on his pins. He was safe where he was, 
 and he waved his arms piteously, begging for water. We flung him can 
 teen after canteen, but none of them reached him, and the rebel sharp 
 shooters spitefully bored them through and through, like hornets stinging 
 some luckless enemy again and again. 
 
7 WO ONLY SONS. 237 
 
 " Then at last I called for volunteers, and we cut an enormous log, 
 which we rolled ahead of us until we reached the Captain. But revocare 
 gradutn that was the opus. However, after an hour s hard work, and 
 after having been pelted by the rebels most unmercifully, we succeeded in 
 getting back, and brought the Captain safely in. But, at the very last 
 moment of success, just as we were lifting the poor fellow over the works, 
 and when one of the boys was saying to him, Well, Cap, you re behind 
 good wood now, a rebel bullet pierced his heart. 
 
 "H. B." 
 
 Another vacation beheld Sargent at work on the farm 
 again. He was revolving plans for the prosecution of 
 his arduous enterprise beyond the limits of chess-playing. 
 There came to him a happy inspiration. He would sum 
 mon the assistance of the Muses ; not his own, but those 
 of the " bards sublime." He made a pretext of pressing 
 agricultural business to visit the nearest bookstore, where 
 he became the possessor of a dainty edition of Tennyson, 
 in which he remembered a passage suitable to his needs. 
 He hauled it triumphantly home in his four-horse wagon. 
 He conveyed it joyfully into his chamber; and that 
 evening he searched out the passage, marked it with a 
 pencil, and inserted a book-mark in the place. 
 
 Now, it happened that the affairs of his father s house 
 hold were administered by a good motherly aunt, who 
 possessed, perhaps, more than the usual modicum of 
 feminine curiosity. Next day she espied the book, was 
 attracted by its gorgeous binding, and scarcely less by 
 the book-mark, which she took out to admire. Then she 
 naturally fell to reading cursorily, here and there a little, 
 until she turned over several pages, and marked another 
 passage which impressed her fancy. Suddenly recollect 
 ing that the dinner-hour was approaching, she whipped 
 in the book-mark, as it happened, at the passage she 
 marked, laid the book down, and went bustling away. 
 
 That evening Sargent carried the book with him, to 
 
238 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 present it to the mistress of his bashful affections. They 
 played chess once more, and with a zest not at all im 
 paired by the generous goblets of sound and mellow 
 cider brought by the servant-girl. Jolie played so well, 
 indeed, that the book was entirely forgotten until he was 
 going away. Then he reached awkwardly round and 
 extracted the volume from his coat-tail, and thrust it at 
 her, mumbling some inarticulate words, and was at the 
 bottom of the great stone steps before she could return 
 thanks. 
 
 She tripped away up-stairs, half sadly, wondering if 
 anything more would come of this present than of the 
 numerous others ; set the lamp down, looked admiringly 
 at the book, the frontispiece, etc., and read a snatch or 
 two. Ah ! a mark. She hoped there might be a note. 
 No nothing whatever. Ah, yes ! a passage very dimly 
 marked. Her heart throbbed wildly while she read : 
 
 " I have played with her when a child ; 
 
 She remembers it now we meet. 
 Ah ! well, well, well, I may be beguiled 
 
 By some coquettish deceit. 
 
 Yet if she were not a cheat, 
 If Maud were all that she seemed, 
 And her smile had all that I dreamed, 
 Then the world were not so bitter 
 
 But a smile could make it sweet." 
 
 Jolie flung the book angrily on the sofa, and com 
 menced pacing the floor. 
 
 " Well, I m sure he needn t have given himself so much 
 trouble to tell me that. A cheat, indeed! Oh, yes; 
 Captain Hayes rode out with me once in his own carriage, 
 to be sure t To call me a cheat for that ! So dim, too ! 
 He didn t dare mark it plain." 
 
TWO ONL Y SONS. 
 
 239 
 
 Then she threw herself on the sofa again, buried her 
 face in her hands, and wept bitter tears not of anger 
 now, but of sorrow. A long time she remained in this 
 position, then arose, gathered together all his presents, 
 and commenced, very slowly, very wearily, very sadly, 
 making them into a package. Very long did she linger 
 over this task, never hesitating in her steady purpose, 
 but stopping often, ah, how often ! because she could 
 no longer see through her fast-falling tears. At last the 
 sad work was done, but before it was finished the first faint 
 gray streak of daylight straggled into her chamber window. 
 
 In the morning the servant-girl carried it to the farm 
 house, and Sargent being near by, plowing in the Ijeld, 
 she carried it out, and gave it into his hands. Alas, alas ! 
 that it had not fallen under the eye of the motherly med 
 dlesome aunt ! He opened it with eager hands, wonder 
 ing and glad, gazed at it transfixed, then sat down on the 
 plow-beam, and rested his forehead on his hands in his 
 voiceless grief. Long after the girl had crossed the last 
 field and entered her mistress s door, he quietly dropped 
 the package beside the plow, spoke to his horses, and 
 one long smooth furrow hid it from his sight forever. 
 
 Upon receipt of the news that the Captain was wounded 
 in battle, so dangerously that he could not be removed 
 from the field-hospital, Jolie nobly rallied from her sick 
 bed and hastened to his side, while Sargent went away, 
 as one who is dead to the world, to his classes. 
 
 We behold Jolie sitting now, sad and silent, by the 
 pallet of leaves and branches where her brother catches 
 his quick and painful breath. He is sleeping for the first 
 time in many days. The long hospital-tent is crowded 
 with the wounded and the dying, whose faces the wan 
 glimmer of the candle lights up with the ghastly waxy 
 
240 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 pallor of death. The attendants move noiselessly to and 
 fro, speaking in ghostly hollow whispers, most rasping io 
 the lacerated nerves ; they lave the burning foreheads ; 
 they smooth the dank and bloody locks of the dead. The 
 hot and breathless stillness is broken only by feeble 
 moans, where some gallant fellow, in his last agony, fights 
 his battles again. He struggles in the frantic surging of 
 the charge ; he feels the cold bayonet plunging again 
 toward his heart ; he sees his brave comrades fall around 
 him, and their hot blood spurt again across his face. 
 They reel backward, broken and beaten down and 
 trampled upon by ten thousand yelling demons, and a 
 frown of despair settles upon his face. But now he sees 
 the reinforcements ; he feebly swings his arms ; he cries 
 out, " Steady, boys, steady ! they are coming ! they are 
 coming !" But for him they come no more forever. The 
 Angel of Death soars on his dark wing above him, and 
 his pallid face is still. 
 
 Awakened by this noise, the Captain beheld his sister 
 bending sleeplessly above him. He smiled, and feebly 
 reached out his poor bloodless hand, already growing cold. 
 
 "Jolie dear," he whispered, "tell me now, before I 
 die, what has passed between you and Sargent, that you 
 are estranged?" 
 
 "Ah! my brother " She covered her face with 
 
 her hand, and buried it in his pillow. 
 
 "I did not think to give you pain, Jolie." 
 
 For a moment she made no reply; then, with a true 
 woman s devotion and unselfishness, fearing lest, in his 
 dying hour, her brother should think aught less of his 
 beloved friend, she made a great effort, and said, very 
 calmly, and in a voice scarcely above a whisper: 
 
 " It was I, Harry ; believe me, he was not to blame." 
 
 The Captain made no answer, but turned his eyes upon 
 
TWO ONLY SONS. 241 
 
 her in one long inquiring look, as if awaiting something 
 more. She would have answered more, but he inter 
 posed, 
 
 " Forgive me, dear Jolie. I only thought " 
 
 She heard no more, for suddenly there burst upon the 
 midnight stillness the crash of musketry, and the awful 
 thunder of the cannonade. The moon had risen, and 
 there was a night attack. The Union troops, taken by 
 surprise, reel back, broken and panic-stricken ; the forest 
 is filled with the fleeing and disorderly multitude ; the 
 hoarse roaring of the battle and the exultant yells of the 
 pursuers mingle with the cries of the wounded and dying. 
 That most heart-sickening noise of battle, the hellish 
 blurt and howling of ragged shells, swashes with a fierce 
 rattle through the forest. The pursuers are coming on 
 amain. All the hospital attendants have fled or hidden. 
 Jolie sits alone, speechless with terror, holding the still 
 hand. The glazing eyes of the dying soldier gleam for a 
 moment with the old light of battle. He beholds his 
 regimental flag once more brightly flaunt above the bayo 
 nets ; she feels the stiffening hand feebly clutch her own 
 for his sword. 
 
 A single bullet, wandering far and spent through the 
 rushing multitude, plunges through the tent. Another 
 and another. Shall they be all in vain? Shall they not 
 have a fair prize ? This one bursts one canvas wall, but 
 not the other. What ! Jolie ? Ah ! Jolie ! She droops- 
 she falls ! Her head lies on his pillow. She has even 
 gone before him. 
 
 In reply to the letter which bore these double tidings 
 of death, Sargent wrote to his sister : 
 
 " He has given his life gloriously to his country, while I live here in 
 ignominious ease. I cannot blame our father for opposing the enlistment 
 
 21 
 
242 
 
 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 of his only son ; but mother, dear mother, if you look down to-night 
 from your blissful abode upon your useless and unhonored boy, you 
 would rather see him lying on the battle-field than living here. Ah, Jolie 1 
 by some evil and inexplicable fate thou hast robbed me already once, and 
 now this time yet again. Would that to-night I could dispute thy privi 
 lege, and sleep beside him, low in the quiet grave ! His tomb should be 
 chiseled with a wreath of laurel, but mine should be wholly blank, and it 
 might thus, perchance, add to the honor of his. 
 
 " O Death, Death, Death, thou ever-floating cloud ! 
 There are enough unhappy on this earth ; 
 Pass by the happy souls that love to live ! 
 I pray thee, pass before my light of life, 
 And shadow all my soul, that I may die ! 
 
 " O that I had gone out with my beloved comrade, and been in the 
 front of battle, that I might sleep now beside him in the quiet grave ! 
 Then, perhaps, some one on earth, sitting alone at evening, would miss 
 me now, and drop a tear to my memory, and whisper softly, But he died 
 for his country. " 
 
SAN ANTONE. 
 
 Kind words can never die, 
 
 Cherished and blest ; 
 God knows how deep they lie, 
 
 Stored in the breast, 
 Like childhood s simple rhymes, 
 Said o er a thousand times. 
 
 POPULAR SONG. 
 
 THAT was the name by which he was generally known 
 in camp. He was richly endowed with the agno- 
 mens of a rude inchoate heraldry, but this was the most 
 convenient. Besides these was his real name ; but that 
 was German, and few had ever heard it, and fewer still 
 could pronounce it within a half-dozen consonants of cor 
 rectness. Another appellation he had was " Marine 
 Sheeps," which accrued to him from his comical mis 
 pronunciation of the name of a certain valuable breed of 
 wool-producing animals. 
 
 When the train was assembling and organizing on 
 the prairies of Texas, preparing to cross the continent, 
 and everybody was eliciting, a fragment at a time, the 
 history of everybody else with whom he was destined 
 to spend several months, this man was distinguished 
 among the keen, gray-eyed, quizzing Texans by his glum 
 seclusiveness, and he contemptuously told the loquacious 
 little Doctor that his name was San Antonio (which be 
 came abbreviated as above), as if he took a kind of savage 
 satisfaction in being despised as a "Greaser" by a man 
 whom he so thoroughly despised himself. He seemed to 
 say: 
 
 ( 243 ) 
 
244 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 " Scorned, to be scorned by one that I scorn- 
 Is that a matter to make me fret?" 
 
 He had lived so long near San Antonio, Texas, that the 
 flaming sun of Mexico had burned his Teutonic skin into 
 the color of a bilious mestino, so that the deception was 
 easy; and as for the little old-young Doctor, San Antone 
 despised him from the outset to the utmost of his im 
 measurable capacity for contempt. 
 
 The first time I saw this strange and terrible man, the 
 impression he produced .upon me was sufficiently vivid. 
 The train was to leave Waxahatchie the next day, and I 
 accordingly carried out my roll of blankets, etc., and 
 deposited them in the mess-wagon. Beside a feeble 
 fire near the tent crouched a man, clad in whitish-gray, 
 slouching clothes, and a dingy-white hat, which lopped 
 down all around, giving his eyes a kind of sinister glare. 
 He was of a medium height, rather spare-faced, but with 
 a body powerfully built and knit together with mighty 
 muscles, though he had lived so much in camps that he 
 had become extremely round-shouldered. He had the 
 Teutonic roundness of head, but his large occiput and 
 strong emphatic nose showed if physiognomy be any 
 guide that he was not an inherently malicious man, 
 terrible though he looked. Yet there was something in 
 his great bloodshot eyes at times which was absolutely 
 awful. When he was enraged as Germans, unfortunately, 
 become sometimes they glared out from their cavernous 
 sockets with a blood-curdling ferocity which made a 
 peaceable man quite satisfied with a single glance. Add 
 to this his haggled and matted hair, projecting from the 
 top of his hat ; his complexion, which was about an equal 
 compound of an olive-green and a coffee-color ; and his 
 Herculean muscles, which rounded broadly out on his 
 
SAN ANTONE. 245 
 
 back, as he sat doubled almost into a half-circle, and you 
 have a man whom most people would be disposed to let 
 assiduously alone. 
 
 Yet he returned my salutation in a tone of voice so 
 pleasant that I was surprised. He set off his frying-pan, 
 brought out some biscuits and coffee from the tent, and 
 we ate together, squatting on the ground. 
 
 " You are to cross the continent with us, I suppose?" 
 I remarked in my most winning manner. 
 
 "Yes," said he, making a beef sandwich for himself. 
 " Are you de man what walks afoot ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "It is very much deestance to walk," he said, quite 
 indifferently. 
 
 I looked sharply at him, for I thought his accent was 
 anything but Mexican. 
 
 " Sie sprechen Deutsch vietteicht?" I ventured to re 
 mark. 
 
 "I was German born, only in Texas. I speak also 
 German, but better English." 
 
 He was the first and only German I ever saw in Amer 
 ica who did not gladly respond to the invitation to speak 
 in his mother tongue. It appeared upon subsequent in 
 quiry that he was the son of a wealthy stock-farmer in 
 Western Texas, who had been well educated in the Father 
 land, both in English and French, but had wandered to 
 the New World, and found something congenial in Texan 
 frontier savagery ; and that this was a kind of black sheep 
 in the flock, the only discontented one, and yet the best- 
 beloved of his sons. He was ignorant, as he acknowledged 
 with regret, because he had always played truant from 
 his father s own school ; and he had, by consequence, 
 passed through some fearful experiences in the Yellow 
 Jack hospitals, and in the Rebel army, wherein he had 
 
 21* 
 
? 4 6 IN 7 HE GREAT WEST. 
 
 served as a battery soldier. He was, therefore, no mean 
 and beggarly ruffian, but the prospective heir of broad 
 acres and a patriarchal wealth of cattle, and he had a 
 most savage contempt for small moneys and small econo 
 mies. Yet he was fierce and uncouth enough, to be sure, 
 to have been a Rio Grande bandit. 
 
 Probably I did not learn even these few particulars at 
 first, for I speedily lost caste with San Antone, because 
 he thought I was "citified." Yet I never fell quite so 
 low in his estimation as did the little Doctor. 
 
 The fellow could swear some of the most appalling 
 oaths, in which an Americanized German probably excels 
 any of our native citizens ; but, with all his amazing 
 affluence of cursing, he never could invent any expression 
 which would, in the slightest degree whatsoever, do justice 
 to his disdain for that effeminate individual. He would 
 sit cross-legged by the fire, cooking breakfast, and watch 
 him dip the palms of his long apelike hands into water 
 and pass them daintily over his face, and then he would 
 simply ejaculate, " Humph !" He could no more. Shade 
 of Diogenes ! the unspeakable riches of scorn concen 
 trated into that single grunt. To the last morning of our 
 four-months journey he would feast his fascinated eyes 
 on that spectacle, and let his soul fatten on these pas 
 tures of contempt. He loved to live to despise the little 
 Doctor s face-washing. 
 
 He exercised a most terrific stepmotherly tyranny over 
 the unhappy Doctor, in divers fashions. The Doctor 
 was a sluggard in the morning, and San Antone, after 
 waiting the shortest possible allowance of time after 
 reveille, would strip the blankets off him with violence. 
 We lived with Spartan simplicity in our mess, having 
 only one tin cup apiece ; and if sometimes the Doctor 
 .took two, unnecessarily, our ferocious stepmother would 
 
SAN ANTONE. 247 
 
 snatch one out of his hand and put it away. This would 
 have been simply outrageous with any other person, but 
 the Doctor was lazy, effeminate, cowardly, and insincere; 
 and San Antone did all this with such thoroughly straight 
 forward and incorruptible honesty of contempt, and with 
 such absence of any symptom of a smile on his face, that 
 the rest of us were only amused. 
 
 Being obliged to be much with this terrific Agonistes, 
 walking along with the train, I studied to be as barbarous 
 as possible. I praised his cookery, which was, in fact, 
 very good for a camp-cook, except that he would fry his 
 steaks Southern fashion, in grease. Consequently he 
 never vented upon me any of those outrageous indignities 
 which he heaped upon the head of the- hapless Doctor. 
 
 He displayed the most amazing energy and strength in 
 his wrestles with the diabolical oxen of Texas. He would 
 ride on horseback after a full-grown wild ox, lasso its 
 forefeet, jerk it headlong to the ground, then dismount 
 and tie it head and foot. Then he would ride down 
 another, capture it in the same manner, hitch the rope to 
 the pommel of his saddle and fetch it to the other, when 
 he would, single-handed and alone on the open prairie, 
 yoke the furious brutes together and bring them trium 
 phantly to the corral. It was an achievement worthy of 
 Hercules himself, and would appear quite incredible to 
 anybody not acquainted with Texas. 
 
 Nearly every morning, especially when we had rested 
 awhile, they had to inclose the accursed never-tamed 
 brutes in the circle of wagons, where they would surge 
 up and down, putting all the women and children and 
 half the drivers to flight. But San Antone would seize 
 the hugest ox by the horn and nostril, double his neck 
 together, and fling him upon the ground. Sometimes we 
 would see him in the middle of a dreadful tangle of oxen, 
 
248 /A" THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 wrestling with the hellish beasts, justling among their long 
 shining horns, or slung around with his heels high up in 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 I took pains to applaud him for these feats, but he ap 
 peared to care nothing about it, one way or the other. 
 He was something more sensitive as to his cookery, and I 
 lay the flattering unction to my soul that I produced some 
 impression in that direction. 
 
 I began really to admire the man for his hearty and 
 brawny savagery, and for the ferocious contempt which 
 he manifested toward all shams and make-believes and 
 half-hearted doings. 
 
 One thing which was especially admirable in him was 
 his kindness toward his oxen, which stood out in noble 
 contrast with the infamous brutalities of many Texans. 
 He never would make the least provision for his own 
 comfort until they had been driven to the best water and 
 the best grazing anywhere to be found. Once only, 
 during a long and exasperating march by day and night 
 across the terrible Llanos Estacados, he lost his temper, 
 snatched up a great chain, and swung it with his powerful 
 arm like a whip-lash. Fortunately for the offending oxen, 
 they saw it in time to leap aside, and the chain descended 
 upon a box, smashing it into a hundred splinters. He did 
 not spare the lash in critical places, but one strong swift 
 blow, with the magnetism there was in his terrible voice, 
 was worth hours of the infamous dead mauling of the 
 miserable brigands with the other teams, who had in them 
 no soul of power. 
 
 But as soon as they were up the hill, he would go and 
 lean against them, put his arms around their necks I 
 have seen him do this a hundred times and caress them 
 like children. His leaders, a pair of little spotted 
 monkeys, he almost idolized. He would go out from 
 
SAN AN TONE. 249 
 
 camp on the darkest night, and grope all about with his 
 hands, to find whether they had any grass. On moon 
 light nights or in the daytime he would stand and wag 
 his head at them, and laugh, and call them by name, and 
 they would look up with their large mild eyes, and wink 
 quiet winks at him, as if to say, "You re a pretty good 
 fellow you are !" The consequence of all this was, that 
 he never killed an ox, while other drivers sacrificed whole 
 teams. These things covered a multitude of his outrageous 
 rudenesses. 
 
 San Antone began to be an exceedingly interesting 
 study to me, as showing how completely German servility 
 of politeness could, in a single generation, be converted 
 into the savagest and the sturdiest of Texan frontier bar 
 barism. Is it Landor who attributes to Benjamin Franklin 
 the remark that a people never grow younger in crossing 
 the ocean ? But it is not true of the Germans coming to 
 America. They do grow younger. 
 
 The other members of our mess were always occupied 
 with the herds ; and through weary days, weeks, and 
 months, while we crawled on our slow march across the 
 mighty plains, this rude ox-driver was my most frequent 
 companion. What was most singular in him was, that 
 he avoided his own countrymen. Who ever saw a Ger 
 man, I wonder, that did not prefer the congregation of 
 them that are faithful to the mug, to all the tents of the 
 beer-scoffers ? But San Antone not only would not speak 
 German, but he studiously secreted from any Cousin 
 Michael we might meet his knowledge of the grand old 
 jargon, and was angry if any American imparted that 
 information to him. 
 
 And now at last his demeanor toward me began very 
 perceptibly to soften. When, weary of vagabondizing or 
 botanizing on the short incursions I dared make into 
 
250 ftf THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 Comanche or Apache land, I would fall back to saunter 
 along with the train, he would jump down from his wagon 
 and seek to make himself sociable. He began to be my 
 friend, in his uncouth and boisterous way, and to make 
 me his confidant. Thereat I wondered. I had done no 
 valorous or great thing, I had tamed no ox, I had ridden 
 no "bucking" mustang, that I should be illustrious in his 
 eyes. Why this change ? 
 
 He seemed to be poising over the edge of some terrible 
 revelation he wished to make ; and yet he was still uncer 
 tain of me, and he would sometimes gaze at me with one 
 long and hungry look, as if he wished to penetrate my 
 heart of hearts. While we strolled along beside his oxen, 
 swinging on in their slow, ponderous gait, he would talk 
 in a monologue for half an hour, in a kind of smiling, 
 childish, German way, telling me the story of his life, 
 which was, like that of most Germans, so far as dis 
 astrous chances and moving accidents by flood and field 
 are concerned, as insipid and colorless as can well be 
 imagined. Thus would he talk on, and talk on, and on, 
 until he seemed suddenly to draw near some frightful 
 precipice, some hideous chasm in his memory wherein lay 
 a ghastly secret, when he would shrink back appalled and 
 horrified, glare at me to see if I had divined his soul, 
 and then retreat into himself and become gloomy and 
 morose. 
 
 On all sides, around and around, he had passed this 
 hideous secret of his life, leading me to the very verge, as 
 if to point it out, then shrinking back with a shudder, and 
 with a strange fierceness which scared me. It seemed as 
 if, having conducted me almost to this dreaded and mys 
 terious revelation, he were about to slay me for having it 
 in my possession. 
 
 Ever and again he returned, as if lured by some fright- 
 
 
SAN AN7ONE. 25 C 
 
 ful fascination, and circled round and round this awful 
 mystery, until at last the dreaded secret would out ; with 
 a sudden and almost frenzied movement he stretched out 
 his arm, snatched away the curtain, and, with a livid, 
 deathly face and a quivering finger, pointed out to me a 
 ghastly corpse I 
 
 A murderer ! 
 
 I stared at him with a feeling of unfeigned loathing and 
 repugnance I could not conceal. But he, as if he would 
 destroy me, now that the fatal secret was in my posses 
 sion, turned upon me in an instant such an awful glare of 
 those blood-shot eyes as made my blood freeze. In a 
 moment I penetrated his thought : 
 
 " Your unaccustomed kindness has bewitched me, until 
 I have made an abject fool of myself, licked the dust to 
 you for sympathy, and absolutely put my life in your pos 
 session. Will you now turn, and put your heel on me, 
 like everybody else?" 
 
 Then it was that there seemed to me, for the first time 
 in all my experience, to be some meaning in that phrase 
 of Thomson s, "fierce repentance." By every possible 
 means I endeavored to conceal my natural dislike, and 
 make him understand I was not his enemy. But he re 
 mained for a long time gloomy and sullen, and I heard 
 him sometimes imprecate the most awful doom upon him 
 self, so terrible and so bitter was his remorse. Simple- 
 minded as he was, he seemed to be astute enough to sus 
 pect that I might be smoothing matters over merely out 
 of complaisance. It took me many days to regain his 
 confidence. He was not a cold-blooded assassin, and had 
 only committed the deed in a moment of frenzied anger ; 
 but he had that strange capacity for self-torture and re 
 morse which appears to be characteristic of the German 
 nature, and which, as illustrated in the character of Rig- 
 
2 5 2 
 
 AV THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 olette in the " Mysteries of Paris," is more Teutonic than 
 Gallic. 
 
 But gradually his confidence was restored, and, as it re 
 turned, his gratitude became unbounded. To me it was 
 a most interesting and piteous spectacle to witness the 
 struggles of that grim and savage nature to find means for 
 expressing his grateful feeling, without making himself 
 obnoxious to me or the butt of ridicule to the brutal souls 
 about him. Knowing my eagerness to learn the botany 
 of the country, he would make wide explorations through 
 the perilous chaparral about camp, and bring me rare 
 specimens, carefully secreted in his coat lest he should 
 make himself ridiculous to the herdsmen. He would 
 urge me to walk out, and then he would, of his own 
 motion, scale the most precipitous and dreadful cliffs to 
 bring me mineral contributions. He exhausted all his 
 little stock of knowledge to tell me the popular names of 
 flowers. Once he came to camp and conducted me, 
 almost with the triumph and elation of a little child, to 
 see a curious clump of cactus ; and when I did nqt utter 
 as many exclamations of wonder as he had expected, he 
 was sadly disappointed. 
 
 When we were recruiting in camp, he would hasten to 
 finish his kitchen business, and then come and crawl into 
 the tent with the utmost quietness, when I was writing, 
 and stretch himself close beside my desk, where he would 
 lie for hours together, with a doglike patience and 
 fidelity, waiting for me to finish, that he might talk 
 again. 
 
 One day, after our larder had become exceedingly 
 skinny, and even boiled dried apples were an extrava 
 gance of Sybaritic luxury which we scarcely hoped ever 
 to indulge in again, the cook of a neighboring mess 
 boiled some of that luxurious fruit, and brought over a 
 
SAN ANTONE. 
 
 253 
 
 cupful to his brother potwolloper. As soon as he was 
 gone, San Antone brought the boiled dried apples into 
 the tent where I was writing, and not a mouthful would 
 the poor fellow touch until he had compelled me to mas- 
 tic.ite a considerable portion. I confess this simple little 
 act touched me deeply. 
 
 When we were sitting around our bivouac-fire with the 
 other members of the mess, he was, if possible, more 
 savagely boisterous in his conduct than ever ; but the 
 moment he was alone with me, his voice became as soft, 
 and his manner as gentle, as a woman s. What fascina 
 tion had I acquired over this strange and terrible nature ? 
 It was a wonder to myself. 
 
 It was in Apache Pass, that gloomy and horrible pit, 
 most darkly infamous in the bloody history of Arizona, 
 where San Antone s great powers were fully brought to 
 the test, and where he displayed the most fierce and 
 amazing energy that is possible to any human being. 
 Nearly all the wagons had to be drawn up with doubled 
 teams, but there was one unwieldy monster which eighteen 
 great oxen of Texas failed to take up the mountain. 
 About a score of imbeciles had collected around them, 
 mauling, and cursing, and yelling, and swinging their 
 arms, and jumping up and down like a number of crip 
 pled grasshoppers. The poor brutes were lacerated and 
 terrified ; but there was no soul in all those drivers which 
 had in it any magnetism of power. 
 
 Then everybody called for San Antone. He was re 
 luctant to undertake the Herculean task, but night was 
 coming on rapidly in that great horror of blackness and 
 massacre ; nobody knew but the bloodshot eyes of the 
 Apaches already glared down upon us from the racked 
 and battered crags, waiting for nightfall and vengeance ; 
 the women and children were crying with terror, as night 
 
 22 
 
254 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 came on ; and there was no other man in the train, no 
 score of them together, who could take that wagon up the 
 mountain. 
 
 So he finally consented, and came down into the ravine 
 with his great whip, nearly twenty feet long. With the 
 savage brusqueness of his nature, he ordered every man to 
 stand aside. He fetches his long lash round and round, 
 ending with a crack which leaps among the lofty mount 
 ains like the roar of a rifle ; and all the yelling and flut 
 tering fools fall back in silence, like an awe-stricken mob. 
 Every voice of crying woman or of whooping teamster is 
 hushed, that they may witness the mighty struggle. 
 
 He speaks one strong word. The oxen know their 
 master. They bow their great crooked knees to the 
 ground. The very mountain seems to tremble. The 
 wagon moves. Then comes peal after peal of cracks, 
 like a rattling volley of musketry; but above all rises 
 that deep, terrible voice. The oxen fall they rise again 
 they sway and surge they crawl on bended knees 
 their eyes start from their sockets they falter they 
 stagger slowly backward. A moment more, and they 
 will be dashed over the precipice ! His calm is gone ; he 
 becomes like a fiend; he seems in all places at every 
 moment; the mere terror of his voice and the rage of his 
 presence appall them. His one fierce will leaps into all 
 those huge bodies, and quivers along all those mighty mus 
 cles. They recover they move upward they are saved ! 
 
 A great and multitudinous clamor of applause bursts 
 from the whole train. Ah ! how we worship power, in 
 whatever shape it is manifested ! 
 
 I stood alone on a hill to witness this triumph of human 
 will over brute force, and I confess I never felt more ex 
 ultant enthusiasm in witnessing the most fearful and 
 splendid bursts of heaven s artillery on the prairies of 
 
SAN ANTONE. 255 
 
 Texas. Such was the amazing energy of that man s 
 presence ! The few stinging lashes he gave his oxen 
 were not for a moment to be compared with the infamous, 
 brutal, dead mauling of the imbeciles. As soon as he 
 reached the top of the ascent, he walked modestly away 
 to his own oxen an unconscious hero, worthy to be 
 ranked with Wordsworth s Benjamin. With that worthy, 
 he could well say to his oxen : 
 
 " Yos, without me, up hills so high 
 Tis vain to strive for mastery." 
 
 But I think Wordsworth never saw, for a prototype of 
 his Benjamin, a man so grand in his rude and unconscious 
 simplicity. Xenophon, in the " Cyropaedia," draws a 
 pretty comparison between the horseman and the states 
 man ; and I think there was in San Antone the making 
 of a better conduttore of states than in many a politician. 
 
 From Apache Pass to Tucson the journey was soon 
 accomplished. Several times I had declared my inten 
 tion of leaving the intolerably sluggish train at that city, 
 to venture on alone and more rapidly, across the desert 
 swept by the cruel and treacherous Tonto Apaches, to 
 the Gila, where I should be safe in the Pima villages. 
 The other members of the mess made demonstrative and 
 wordy remonstrances, and tried to dissuade me from an 
 undertaking which they could only consider downright 
 foolhardiness ; but whenever the subject was mentioned, 
 San Antone would say nothing whatever. If I spoke of 
 it when we were alone, his voice would lower in an in 
 stant, and his single pleading glance and the few subdued 
 words he would utter were more eloquent than ten thou 
 sand wordy protestations of the others. 
 
 It was a touching thing to witness, the mute, uncouth 
 
256 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 pleadings of this savage nature so all unused to pleading 
 and so unwonted to any atmosphere of sympathetic kind 
 liness to detain me yet a little longer. So precious to 
 him seemed to be the few kind words I had spoken, and 
 yet so awkward was it for this untamed boisterousness to 
 use the gentle arts of persuasion. Hfc appeared to study 
 how to make his manner more courteous and softened. 
 
 When he came to awaken me in the morning, he would 
 turn down a little corner of the blanket with a touch as 
 gentle as a babe s, then speak hardly above a whisper, 
 and greet my opening eyes with a smile. Sometimes I 
 feigned to be in a deep and refreshing slumber, and would 
 watch him with one half-opened eye. He would come up 
 softly on tip-toe, and stand looking at me, then stoop 
 down and sit motionless beside me for a long time, as if 
 he could hardly persuade himself to disturb me at all ; 
 so wonderfully tender and gentle had a little kindness 
 rendered this broken-hearted murderer, who toward others, 
 in the bitterness of his despair, was so ferocious ! 
 
 And now, after we had recruited and refreshed our 
 selves awhile near Tucson, the appointed time was near 
 at hand when we were to separate. Many and many a 
 pleasant summer day, through perils manifold and deadly, 
 we had journeyed together across the great globe, and 
 now the approaching hour of parting was one of un 
 feigned sadness. San Antone was oppressed and gloomy 
 even more than ordinarily, and, but for his obligation to 
 his employer in this hour when so many worthless hire 
 lings, disgusted and appalled with the -journey, were 
 deserting and leaving the train-owners in desperate need, 
 he protested he would keep me company. He saw I was 
 in first-rate earnest in my purpose, but he tried to con 
 vince me I knew nothing of the infernal Apaches as lie 
 did ; and he would have gone along for what I believe he 
 
 
SAN ANTONE. 257 
 
 would have counted the privilege of fighting for me, if 
 matters came to a pinch. But his noble sentiment of duty 
 to his employer, our well-beloved Tom, in this time of 
 dastardly desertions, restrained him. 
 
 There was a Mexican fandango in Tucson one evening, 
 which several of our mess visited out of curiosity, San 
 Antone among the number. But he was gloomy and sad, 
 amid the obstreperous gayety, keeping near me all the 
 while with a doglike faithfulness. He was so unusually 
 melancholy with the remorse he could not shake off, that 
 he seemed to dread lest he should be provoked into some 
 deed of violence. 
 
 The wild and riotous dancing went on almost without 
 interruption, to the soft, voluptuous tinkle of the light 
 guitar, until late in the night. It was a long, low, stone- 
 floored room, with benches around the sides, dimly lighted 
 with tallow dips, which cast a sickly yellow glare around, 
 gleaming now and then on the polished pistol-butts, and 
 turning the creamy complexions of the gaudily-dressed 
 Mexican girls to the ghastly waxiness of a corpse. Occa 
 sionally the couples retired for refreshments into a con 
 tiguous room, half grocery, half groggery, where men 
 and maidens partook together of candy, villainous wine, 
 or more villainous mescal. 
 
 Among the dancers there was one particularly low 
 browed villain of a peon, short in stature, and almost as 
 dark-skinned as a negro. He wore a United States army 
 coat, dungaree trousers, and carried two revolvers and a 
 murderous-looking snickersnee in his girdle. He was 
 flushed and wild from frequent potations of the fiery 
 mescal, and whenever one of the hated Americans joined 
 in the dance, he scowled fiercely. He was said to have 
 had a bloody affray with one recently, and he was only 
 waiting for an opportunity to wreak a cowardly, vicarious 
 
258 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 revenge on the first one of the meddlesome race who 
 might cross his pathway. 
 
 According to the usual custom of these rude orgies, 
 whenever a man wished to invite a partner for the dance, 
 he had only to advance into the middle of the floor and 
 beckon to her, no matter how limited might be his ac 
 quaintance. She would accept or decline without further 
 ceremony. 
 
 Few Americans, and none of our mess, joined in the 
 barbarous revels, for all the Mexicans were jealous. At 
 length, just as we were about to go home to camp, this 
 peon came out with a partner from the dance-room, half 
 staggered up to the counter, violently slapped the same 
 with his hand, and demanded more candy and mescal. 
 They both drank, and then started to return. I happened 
 to be standing near them, and stepped away to avoid 
 coming in collision with the fellow. The space was 
 narrow among the barley-sacks and the barrels, and it so 
 fell out that I stepped on the trailing dress of his partner. 
 She turned about and gave me an angry glance. I said, 
 "Perdon, senorita /" and bowed an apology. But the 
 cramped position I was standing in caused it to appear, 
 probably, that I was soliciting her company for the next 
 waltz. 
 
 The peon heard my words, turned and saw me bowing, 
 saw that the woman was giving her attention to me, and, 
 not knowing the real cause, evidently supposed I was about 
 to interfere and entice away his partner. This was his 
 opportunity. In an instant, and without a word, he drew 
 his revolver and made a lunge. 
 
 San Antone was standing on the other side of the heap 
 of barley-sacks which prevented me from escaping, and 
 had seen and heard everything, for the faithful fellow had 
 scarcely let his eyes wander from me for a moment. With 
 
SAA T ANTONE. 259 
 
 the agility of a tiger he vaulted over the barley-heap, 
 knocking over a Mexican, who in turn stumbled against 
 and threw down the unfortunate girl. He could not 
 possibly reach the peon before he fired. He saw it ; he 
 saw all in an instant ; with one sweep of his powerful 
 arm he thrust me behind him as if I had been a child. 
 
 The deadly report of the pistol crashed in the close, 
 stifling room. There was no echo in the reeking air, but 
 a dull, deep thud, followed by a moment of awful silence. 
 Then came a low moan from poor San Antone, and he 
 slowly staggered backward against me, and fell to the 
 floor. The proud soul of the man, though he was stricken 
 unto death, yet disdained to fall prone before the base 
 Mexican, and he convulsively clutched a barley-sack, but 
 dragged it over on him, as he fell. 
 
 The Mexican was instantly seized. 
 
 We carried San Antone out into the cool, sweet air, 
 and laid him gently down where the bright moon and 
 the stars looked down upon him in pitying tenderness 
 from heaven that calm, grand face of Nature, so sooth 
 ing, and so full of the sadness of an infinite compassion. 
 The life of his life was swiftly throbbing away in a great 
 crimson current. But after that first low moan of mortal 
 agony, he disdained to utter a complaint. Some brandy 
 was hastily brought, and I knelt down beside him. 
 
 "San Antone, my brave fellow, do you remember the 
 dried apples? Can you taste a little of this?" 
 
 He looked at me, and tried to smile. He remembered. 
 Then he thought of his little spotted monkeys, his lead 
 ers, around whose necks he had so often put his arms and 
 caressed them, after they had tugged hard up the hill. 
 He feebly whispered : 
 
 " Don t let them kill my little Spot and Ball. My poor 
 little monkeys !" 
 
260 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 I bowed down my head over this dying murderer, who 
 had given his life for mine, and my tears fell thick and 
 fast. He thought not of himself. He thought of his 
 "little monkeys." They had been kinder to him than 
 his fellows. No more, in the bitter, bitter despair of his 
 remorse, should he go out, and, looking in their large, 
 mild eyes, find that kindliness he had sought in vain among 
 men. 
 
 He lingered but a little while. His mind wandered 
 away in a delirium. Seeing his lips move, I bent down 
 and caught these words, muttered in his mother tongue : 
 
 " Dort ist Ruhe." 
 
 "Yonder is rest." 
 
 Was he thinking of his far-off home in Texas ? or were 
 his thoughts at that moment following his fast-glazing 
 eyes, and roving among the stars ? 
 
 There came a sharp, quick shudder, and San Antone 
 was dead. 
 
PIMO LEGEND OF MONTEZUMA. 
 
 Let us welcome, then, the strangers, 
 Hail them as our friends and brothers, 
 And the heart s right hand of friendship 
 Give them when they come to see us. 
 Gitche Manito, the Mighty, 
 Said this to me in my vision. 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 JT was when the Casa Grande still lifted up its mud- 
 built walls beside the waters of the sacred Gila. It 
 was when the seven cities of Cibola were still full of war 
 riors, strong to twank the arrow, and of the glories and 
 the riches of many wars, turquoises, and emeralds, and 
 many precious stones, with jewels of copper, and knives 
 of obsidian. All their streets and market-places were still 
 full of spinning- women ; and these had gourds, and earthen 
 vessels, and plenty of maize and of melons, beans of mes- 
 quite, and painted cloths of manta. 
 
 Far toward the rising Sun, a great king ruled without 
 dispute over mighty plains and sandy heaths, smooth and 
 wearisome, and bare of wood, covered all over with herds 
 of crook-backed oxen, swift and fierce. Toward the 
 setting Sun, beyond the great Colorado, King Tartarrax 
 ruled over the pleasant and sunny land of Quivera, with 
 yellow valleys, and purple hills full of gold. The Colo 
 rado still rolled down his wide waters to the sea, unvexed 
 by any keel of the Palefaces ; and the banks of our own 
 river were still untrodden by any of their destroying bands 
 of braves, or of their ancient and black-robed Fathers, 
 
 (261) 
 
262 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 who came to take away peace forever from our sacred 
 country, Aztlan. 
 
 It was when our strong young braves still wooed their 
 dark-eyed maidens, and walked in purity beneath the 
 shadow of the cottonwoods, naked, and were not ashamed ; 
 before the unclean and guilty Paleface had taught them to 
 covet those blood-colored garments which are abominable 
 unto mine eyes. All yet was peace, sweet peace, within 
 the borders of our sacred country, Aztlan ; but our young 
 braves triumphed over all her enemies round about, and 
 the Moquis brought us tribute of wolf-skins, and the ter 
 rible Apaches humbly bought our maize for the gold of 
 their mountains. We drank the blood of the savage 
 Yumas, and braided their long hair into bow-strings ; and 
 there was no deceitful Paleface to interfere. There was 
 then no murrain in our flocks, no blight or mildew in 
 our fields, and no fire-water in our wigwams. Our women 
 were pure yet from the hated touch of the Paleface, and 
 our papooses toddled in and out our doors, with faces 
 clear of those horrible cankers which they bear now for 
 the sins of their fallen mothers. 
 
 When you stand with your face toward the rising Sun, 
 and point with your right hand, far off in that direction 
 ruled our Great Father, Montezuma, in his city Tenoch- 
 titlan, over all the land from the sunrise- to the sunset- 
 waters. We had silver like rice, and gold like heaps of 
 yellow corn, brought from the land beyond the Colorado, 
 the land of Quivera; but we gladly gave it all to our 
 Great Father. 
 
 In those days there came to our fathers a story, floating 
 on the wind, that a band of the braves of the Palefaces, 
 with certain of their ancient and black-robed Fathers, 
 were coming from the city of our Great Father, to visit 
 sacred Aztlan. And the hearts of our fathers were filled 
 
PIMO LEGEND OF MONTEZUMA. 263 
 
 with joy ; and they were moved to propose a feast of wel 
 come to those who were coming so great a distance to 
 visit them. Our chief and all the young chiefs assembled 
 together, that they might devise how best to give them 
 welcome. 
 
 And, before many days, there came one of the Pimos, 
 running and catching his breath, and said the Palefaces 
 were coming. There was a little company of braves, 
 bearing muskets and lances; and they came with great 
 pomp, and many horses, and strange and wonderful music 
 of silver reeds, and having upon their heads coverings, as 
 it were, of rubbed and shining gold. Before them rode 
 their chief, with a great knife, long and dazzling, and his 
 horse wheeled this way and that way; and behind, sitting 
 upon asses, were the ancient and black-robed Fathers, 
 who bore crosses of mahogany wood, and chanted with 
 loud voices. 
 
 Then our chief and all the young chiefs made haste, 
 and went out to welcome the Palefaces. They gave them 
 water to drink in gourds, and ripe pears of the cactus, 
 blood-hearted, and very cool to the traveler. They also 
 brought them to sit under shady arbors, and gave them 
 whatever things else, either pleasant to eat or to drink, 
 were in their village ; for our fathers rejoiced greatly at 
 their coming. And the Palefaces ate, and drank, and 
 talked with them. Last of all our chief talked with one 
 of the black-robed Fathers, but his words were interpreted 
 by another. Yet they spake not well together, but were 
 of different minds. And it came about that the black- 
 robed Father said to our chief: 
 
 " Dost thou believe on God ?" 
 
 "Yea, my brother," said our chief; "we believe in 
 God, even the Great Spirit, from whom we have our 
 spirits, and our sacred country, Aztlan." 
 
264 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 "But thy god is a heathen god, and we account him 
 less than nothing, and as a delusion and a snare." 
 
 " We know not, brother, if he be a heathen god, nor 
 yet what heathen may be. We only know he is very 
 kind unto us, and gave us our Great Mother, Aztlan, to 
 nourish us, and all these shady trees, and the sacred Gila 
 for water." 
 
 "But thy god cannot save thy soul from hell when 
 thou diest." 
 
 "Tell me, what is hell, brother? Our prophets and 
 medicine-men have spoken nothing of it at any time. 
 Hell may have terrors for the Paleface, if his God made 
 it ; but, for the Pimo, none. If thy God be not able to 
 save all from hell, but only a portion, as thou sayest, then 
 Aztitli pities the Paleface. 
 
 " We believe that every Pimo, when he dies, is carried 
 to the banks of the great and rapid Colorado \ and that 
 the spirit of every brave then takes up its habitation in 
 some green and mighty tree which waves upon his banks, 
 or stands upon the lofty mountains which he washes. 
 The spirit of every squaw is carried into one of the clouds, 
 those silvery, golden, and rosy clouds thou seest yonder. 
 He who was bravest in this life, and slew fierce and many 
 enemies, shall dwell in the loftiest tree, which waves in 
 the sweet air the Great Spirit hath made, and lifts up its 
 head proudly toward the Sun, and holds converse with 
 the spirits of the clouds that settle round his head. But 
 he whose soul was base, and whose life was a shame, shall 
 inhabit the lowest tree, which dwells down in perpetual 
 darkness and dampness, never beholding the Sun, or the 
 golden clouds, or the sweet light of heaven. The clouds 
 shall never settle fondly round his head." 
 
 "Ah, vain and babbling Pagan ! What can all these 
 thy wicked and idle imaginings avail thee against an 
 
PIMO LEGEND OF MONTEZUMA. 265 
 
 offended and consuming God ? Fall down humbly upon 
 thy knees, and beseech the Holy Virgin, Mother of God, 
 to intercede with her Son for thee, that the abounding 
 efficacy of his death upon the cross may be applied to 
 save thee from the wrath to come." 
 
 "Nay, my brother, hear me yet. Is not the Great 
 Spirit very good toward the Pimos? Thou hast not 
 shown me that thy God is any better. When our squaws 
 cast seed into the ground, behold, does it not sprout? 
 Does the sacred Gila ever forget his appointed floods? 
 Does not our maize blossom in our fields, and bring milk 
 in the husk, arid after that the yellow ear? When have 
 our squaws been stricken down in time of harvest, or 
 given up their lives to black death upon their childbeds ? 
 Does not the Sun shine gloriously here, as in the country 
 whence thou comest? And, indeed, I know not whether 
 the same Sun shines upon thy fields, or whether thou hast 
 any Sun ; else wouldst thou be of a stronger color. Thou 
 seemest to me altogether bloodless, and as a plant growing 
 beneath a tree." 
 
 When he did not, therefore, bow himself before the 
 cross, but rather stood up the more stiffly, and did not 
 humble his neck, the black-robed Father drew near, and 
 smote him with his hand full upon the forehead. 
 
 "Thou infidel dog !" cried he, " thy god has not even 
 a name, nor yet any habitation ; and thou darest set him 
 above the Holy Virgin and the Almighty Maker of heaven 
 and earth !" 
 
 Then there arose a great uproar in the village, and the 
 young braves of the Pimos would have slain the braves 
 of the Palefaces, and not left one of them remaining upon 
 the earth. But the thing which the black-robed Father 
 had done was displeasing to the chief of the Palefaces, 
 
266 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 and he rebuked him, and appeased the Pimos, and there 
 was peace again in the village. 
 
 After that the band of the Palefaces visited all the lands 
 of sacred Aztlan, and were well pleased with them, and 
 remained many days. Many feasts did they eat, feasts 
 of cakes of maize, with calabashes of yellow whey, and 
 fat beans of mesquitc, and rich, roasted bulbs of mescal, 
 with curds, and gourds of pinole, sweet and good with 
 sugar of maguey, and gourds of pulque, and blood-hearted 
 pears of the cactus. And the dark-eyed daughters of the 
 Pimos ministered unto them, and brought them clay to 
 anoint their heads, and mats, and they danced before 
 them. 
 
 Now, it came about that a maiden of the Pimos loved 
 a young brave of the Palefaces, and was loved by him 
 again. But the laws of the Pimos, in those days, guarded 
 their women straitly, that they should not be given in 
 marriage to strangers ; and the maiden sighed within her 
 for the love she had to the Paleface, but she dared not 
 make it known to her tribe. But when she could no 
 longer conceal how it was with her, the Palefaces had 
 already gone three days march from sacred Aztlan. 
 Then they used upon her all the awful tortures wherewith 
 the Pimos of old were wont to punish a woman guilty of 
 adultery, and commanded her to give the name of her 
 betrayer ; but when she continually refused, the tortures 
 were made double, and again double, until the breath 
 went out from her body; but she uttered never a word 
 nor cried aloud. But when the babe was ripped from the 
 womb, the doer of this horrible deceit was discovered. 
 
 Then straightway a band of young braves, led by the 
 maiden s brother, went forth with all haste, and, at the 
 end of the second day, they came to the camp of the 
 Palefaces. When they demanded the man, at first the 
 
PIMO LEGEND OF MONTEZUMA. 267 
 
 chief of the band refused to send him forth but when 
 he saw that the Pimos were more numerous than they, 
 and were greatly more fierce in their countenances than 
 was their wont, he consented, and yielded up the 
 seducer. 
 
 Then it came about, when they were even commencing 
 their tortures upon him, that there came a strong and 
 swift rushing, like that of a mighty wind from the desert ; 
 and there appeared unto the Pimos a glorious and fearful 
 figure, shining as an angel from heaven, that stopped and 
 stood still above the sacred Gila. Yet was he not young, 
 like an angel, but ancient, and his hair was long upon his 
 shoulders, and sad was his visage. Upon his head there was 
 a panache of green plumes, and his robe glittered with 
 emeralds and chalchivitl, and was bound with a golden 
 girdle, and the soles of his sandals were as of burnished 
 gold. Then this figure stood, and lifted his hand slowly 
 toward the setting Sun, and began to speak unto the 
 Pimos; and at the sound of his words, the souls of 
 the Pimos became as water for terror, and they fell 
 upon their faces to the ground : 
 
 " O Pimos ! O my children ! I am your Great 
 Father, Montezuma. Lift not up your hands to slay the 
 Paleface. 
 
 11 Even now I ascend up from the city of my people, 
 the great city Tenochtitlan, unto the bosom of the Sun.* 
 Into this, the city of my people, are the Palefaces come, 
 and rule in it supreme ; and the ancient monarchy of the 
 Nahuatlecas, the kingdom of the Seven Peoples, is for 
 ever overthrown. At the first, I prayed with strong cry 
 ing and agony unto our great god, Mexitli, the God of 
 
 * The reader of Aztec history will detect the anachronisms of the 
 egend. 
 
2 68 fN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 Battles, for mine armies, that he would send them victory 
 but he gave them defeat. Nevertheless, my hope was not 
 cast down, even as the mystic cactus, when it is cut down 
 to the ground, dieth not, nor withereth. 
 
 " Then, on a time, there came upon me a troubled and 
 fitful sleep, and I dreamed. There stood before me seven 
 men of noble mien and stature, the first an Azteca, one 
 for each of the Seven Peoples, the Nahuatlecas, who ruled 
 in the land to the borders of flowery Cholulu. But, while 
 I was looking, there came a Paleface, and touched the 
 Seven, and they vanished utterly, insomuch that half 
 their names were forgotten on earth. Then I cried aloud, 
 in my grief for my beloved Aztecas, and for all the Seven 
 Peoples, and awoke. But, when I slept again, behold, 
 the Paleface was no longer the same, but his face was 
 changed, like unto my people. And, when I looked yet 
 another time, the Seven were there whom I beheld at the 
 first, and the Paleface was one of them, and half of them 
 bore his names. 
 
 "When I awoke, and mine eyes were opened, and I 
 saw clearly the meaning of the vision, I commanded mine 
 armies, and said unto them, Make no longer war against 
 the Paleface, for ye shall not prosper, for ye are of one 
 blood with him. But they would not hearken. They 
 stopped their ears ; they ran upon me ; they stoned me 
 with stones, for their hatred to the Paleface. I was a 
 friend to him, and for that I died at the hands of mine 
 own people ; and even now I ascend up into the bosom 
 of the sacred Sun. 
 
 " Ye and the Paleface have one God, the God by whom 
 we live, omnipresent, who knoweth all thoughts, and 
 giveth all gifts, without whom man is as nothing. Ye 
 have one God ; yet your lives are given to contention. 
 
 " O Pimos ! O my unhappy children ! Mine eyes 
 
PIMO LEGEND OF MONTEZUMA. 269 
 
 are filled with tears for you, when they see the things 
 which ye shall suffer before ye shall come to me at the 
 last. The Paleface is great, he is proud, he is strong. 
 Ye are weak, ye see not far, ye are vindictive. He can 
 not stoop to you. He does you wrong ; and ye, in your 
 littleness, avenge yourselves twofold ; and then he makes 
 no ending but with your death. 
 
 "O Pimos ! O my unhappy children ! My heart is 
 filled with bitter grief for you, when it remembers the 
 things which ye shall yet suffer. Each circling year, 
 when I look down upon you from the bosom of the gor 
 geous Sun, I shall see your little tribe grow less. Ye are 
 dearer to me even than they of the city of my people, 
 the great city Tenochtitlan, because ye left not sacred 
 Aztlan. But make no longer war against the Paleface. 
 Remember what our holy men have said : Keep peace 
 with all ; bear injuries with humility ; God, who sees, will 
 avenge you. So long as the sacred Gila rolls down his 
 waters toward the All-mother of Oceans, so long shall 
 God watch over you in heaven, and so long shall ye have, 
 in your Great Father, an advocate to plead for your 
 weakness and your littleness. Be ye steadfast. The 
 trees which ye see on yonder desert take no root, and 
 are beaten and broken in every wind ; but behold the 
 lordly pitahaya, which sends down his roots deep, and 
 makes the desert glorious with his sap and his greenness, 
 
 "And when, at the last, your sufferings are too great 
 for you, I will come to you in the chariot of the rising 
 Sun, and ye shall be delivered from your sorrows. In 
 the bosom of the gorgeous Sun there are many abodes, 
 and thither shall ye come to me at the last. There shall 
 your souls enter into the shining clouds, which float alway 
 before God in Paradise, and into the singing-birds which 
 dwell there. There shall ye see also the Paleface, 
 
270 
 
 AV THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 "O Pimos ! O my children! hearken well unto the 
 words which I speak. When the evil days come upon 
 you, ye shall certainly look for my coming in the chariot 
 of the rising Sun, and set a watchman to watch for every 
 village. Let the doors of your wigwams look toward the 
 morning, and let them never be closed, for sad will it be 
 with that one who shall not be ready at my coming." 
 
 When he finished speaking, the Sun was setting, as you 
 see yonder now ; and the Pimos heard a strong rushing, 
 as at the first, and when they looked up, they beheld a 
 swift and shadowy figure, which winged its way toward 
 the setting Sun.* 
 
 ******* 
 
 As old Miliano concluded, in his broken Spanish, the 
 story, of which the above is a somewhat embellished trans 
 lation, the sun was setting. While we sat beneath the 
 mesquitc bush, the sky had clouded over, and just then 
 there fell a little shower between us and the sun. The 
 falling luminary looked through a chink in the clouds, 
 and, shining through the wonderful tropic atmosphere of 
 Arizona, turned all that rain into dropping blood. Then 
 the river Gila, with its long and winding thread of green, 
 and those immeasurable, deadened plains, so strangely 
 dotted with the gorgeous emerald shafts of the pitahaya, 
 and all the encompassing mountains, were, for the space 
 of two or three minutes, red-lighted with an imposing and 
 
 * I care not to argue whether the Pimos are, or are not, of Aztec descent. 
 It is sufficient for my purposes that they believe they are, and are looking 
 for the second coming of Montezuma, and invariably make their doors 
 open to the east, as I have abundantly seen for myself. Torquemada 
 asserted they were Aztec; Coronado believed it; Pedro Font believed it; 
 but Mr. Bartlett rejects the theory on linguistic grounds. I do not know 
 how thorough was his examination ; but he does not appear to have 
 learned that they look for the second coming of Montezuma, nor to 
 have noticed the singular fact respecting their doors. 
 
PIMO LEGEND OF MONTEZUMA. 2 yi 
 
 lurid grandeur, as if an angel, great and glorious with the 
 radiance of Paradise, swung already in the heavens the 
 flaming firebrand of doom. 
 
 For several minutes we sat beneath the mesquite, con 
 templating in silence a scene which seemed to me like a 
 prelude to the ushering in of eternity. I looked at old 
 Miliano. Could it be, perhaps, that the soul of the old 
 man, weary and sick with watching for the coming of 
 Montezuma, was exulting in the belief that to-morrow s 
 sun would bring him sweet release ? Alas, I trow not ; 
 for presently he wreathed his skinny face into a most ex 
 quisitely hideous smile, held out his hand, and asked for 
 a piece of tobacco. For once in my life, I sincerely 
 regretted that I did not use the insane weed, for I should 
 have given him all I possessed. 
 
 Then I arose, musing, and walked on alone down my 
 long way westward. O too credulous and superstitious 
 Pimo ! by your constancy you rebuke the Paleface. But 
 sad would be the face of Montezuma, if he came. You 
 once were happy. Who brought you this your ceaseless 
 dull pain, and your unrest and vague groping, and your 
 despair? In the very presence of the Paleface, though you 
 welcome him, you can see nothing but a monitor of swift- 
 hastening annihilation. 
 
 As I passed through the last village, the inhabitants 
 were sitting beneath their rude bush-arbors to take the 
 breeze of the evening. Many of them had painted 
 streaks of red ochre beneath their eyes, so that they 
 seemed to weep incessantly tears of blood. Never can I 
 forget the dull and stolid sorrow with which those big 
 black faces descended from a once mighty race, ancient, 
 perhaps, already when the Old World was young, but 
 touched now by the thickening miseries and the melan 
 choly of their impending and relentless doom with yet 
 
272 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 sadder and darker lineaments looked out upon a restless 
 wanderer, sprung from a race which the wind blew yes 
 terday over the sea ; straying from the far-off East to 
 molest with questions their ancient solitary customs and 
 their immutability. 
 
 Not far distant, on the desert of Gila Bend, I passed 
 within sight of Montezuma s Face. On the summit of a 
 naked and wind-swept sierra, sculptured by Nature in 
 the red granitic porphyry, that reclining face of the 
 Great Father, unchangeable through wind, and tempest, 
 and burning heat, and earthquake, sleeps on with the 
 same sad, earnest, and tranquil mien, year after year, 
 through these centuries of oppression and wrong, un 
 moved by the dying shriek of Pimo, or Apache, or Pale 
 face, as they fall on the burning plain beneath him, be 
 cause the fullness of time is not yet come when he shall 
 awaken for the delivery of his waiting children. 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 EARLY DOMESTIC LIFE IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 As through the land at eve we went, 
 
 And plucked the ripened ears, 
 We fell out, my wife and I, 
 We fell out, I know not why, 
 
 And kissed again with tears. 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 TOM CULVER married simply because he was des 
 perate. He had loved a fisherman s daughter in 
 Maine, but his mother was one of those inscrutably ab 
 surd women who believe their children marry, not for 
 themselves, but for them ; and she decreed that Mary 
 Milman was "beneath her son," and surreptitiously in 
 tercepted their letters until they became estranged, and 
 one night the heart-broken girl threw herself from a cliff 
 into the ocean. But at length Tom discovered the per 
 fidy of his mother, and, with despair and bitterness rank 
 ling in his soul, he left her without a word of farewell, 
 and sought that congenial refuge of broken hopes and 
 embittered lives, the sunny, the wild, the all-forgetting 
 California. 
 
 There, after long and aimless wanderings among the 
 placers, he found, in Sacramento, Annie Donovan, a 
 proud, willful, petted servant-girl. She was not beautiful, 
 but she was vivacious in repartee, and to Tom Culver, in 
 the blind and maddened bitterness of his despair, there 
 was something unaccountably fascinating in the scorn 
 which flashed in the black eyes and kindled the bloodless 
 cheeks of this haughty little brunette, when she repelled 
 
 (273) 
 
274 IM THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 his most careless advances. What ! a little Irish servant- 
 girl in California repulse him in that manner ! Tom had 
 wellnigh lost faith in the virtue of womankind, and here 
 was a phenomenon. He set his heart recklessly on the 
 conquest of that woman who dared repel him, especially 
 as his rival was a State Senator, being determined, as he 
 said, to "go him one better." 
 
 And he did. 
 
 Tom and Annie were married and took a little house, 
 and the State Senator went home to his constituents. 
 
 But, now that Tom had triumphed through the mere 
 recklessness of momentary devotion inspired, as it were, 
 by his despair, the old bitterness of his early and only 
 true love, forever blighted, gradually returned, supplant 
 ing this new and factitious sentiment. With it also re 
 turned the old restlessness of a brooding and bitter-hearted 
 melancholy. His little wife was of that description of 
 women with whom "love is love for evermore;" she 
 loved her Tom with a passionateness he could not feel ; 
 and she was sorely puzzled at his moodiness and his in 
 curable discontent. She had married him without even 
 knowing his occupation, much less his early history. And, 
 knowing it partially, the reader will, in the sad business 
 through which we must conduct poor Tom, judge him 
 more charitably than Annie could. 
 
 She could not discover that he had any occupation 
 whatever. He would peruse the morning newspaper until 
 Annie announced breakfast, when he would carelessly sit 
 by, absently conning a paragraph, then absently sipping 
 his tea, and speaking only in monosyllables. Then he 
 would saunter forth into the city, with his hands pen 
 sively inserted into his pockets ; return at dinner-time ; 
 then go silently and vacantly out again, and return late 
 in the evening. 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 275 
 
 It was hardly a fortnight before the evening kiss, so 
 eagerly exacted by Annie, and repaid at the highest rate 
 of California interest, was omitted altogether. She felt 
 greatly aggrieved, but was a thousand times too proud to 
 ask him yet any reason wherefore. 
 
 Then again the inconsequent Tom would come home 
 so early, whistling, and so blithe, so witty, so cheery in 
 his manner, that she would forgive him everything, and 
 the questions she had reserved for one of these happier 
 moods were forgotten. 
 
 One morning, when Tom was unusually somber, they 
 were sitting at breakfast in their little carpetless room, 
 one of two in their little shell of a house. He tasted his 
 tea, then shoved it quietly aside with an expression of 
 listlessness. 
 
 " It s beastly cold, Annie." 
 
 "There, dear me, I forgot again," she said; and 
 jumped up quickly, and set the teapot on the stove 
 awhile. 
 
 He glanced with a troubled look into her face, then 
 leaned over, thrust his hand into his pocket, and fetched 
 out his purse. 
 
 "I m going away to-day," he forced himself to say, in 
 a faint, abrupt manner. 
 
 "Oh, dear, Tom, where?" 
 
 "Nevada." 
 
 She would have asked him why, but the extreme brevity 
 of his reply nettled her a little, and she only looked pite- 
 ously at him, and he looked at his newspaper. After he 
 read a paragraph, he twisted the paper into a long stick, 
 and, in an abstracted manner, pushed the purse across 
 the table. 
 
 "That will keep you, I think, till I send you more 
 from Nevada." 
 
276 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 She brought the teapot, and poured out a cup, boiling 
 hot, as he liked. There was something thick in her 
 throat, and it took a whole cup of tea to wash it down. 
 
 " You ll come back I mean you ll not I hope your 
 business won t keep you very long." So soon had her 
 intense woman s curiosity begun to struggle with pride. 
 
 "That depends. If I make a big strike it s uncer 
 tain." 
 
 He rose, to cut the parting short. He took Annie s 
 hand, and, now that the struggle was over, he spoke more 
 tenderly: 
 
 " Well, Annie, so long so long !" 
 
 Then he walked away, with his hands deep in his pockets, 
 but nothing else "dead broke." 
 
 Day after day passed away, and no letter came from 
 the wanderer. Morning, noon, and night, day after day, 
 she set their little pine table in the little unplastered room, 
 with Tom s plate in its place ; and sometimes she dropped 
 a tear when she looked at it ; and sometimes she stormed 
 to and fro in the lonesome room. 
 
 Ah ! this living death, this utter silence and absence 
 of those who are loved ! It is unspeakably worse than 
 the grave, for the grave has a voice, and when that speaks, 
 we are silent and question no further. This relentless, 
 unbroken silence ! To live this day through in hope of 
 to-morrow; to dream the weary night away; to awaken 
 to nothing, ever and again nothing; and then to dream 
 over and over again, and wander ten thousand times 
 through the same maze of doubts, and hopes, and fears, 
 and deaths, and still nothing but silence, unbroken and 
 impenetrable silence. Ah, God ! if she might know only 
 one word ! Dead or alive ? 
 
 One morning there came a long and a strong rapping 
 at the door. When she opened it, there stood a man in 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 277 
 
 a double-crowned, white pith hat, with a vulturine nose, 
 and immense black whiskers. He jerked his right hand 
 half way up to his head, and nodded with his chin. 
 
 "Morning, m m. Husband at home?" 
 
 " He is not. What did you wish?" 
 
 "No? Sorry, m m," said he, leaning with one hand 
 on the doorpost ; " have to take the furniture away." 
 
 "What do you mean, sir?" said Tom Culver s brave 
 wife, pulling down her black eyebrows in a very por 
 tentous manner. 
 
 "Sorry, m m; but it s not paid for. Sheriff s attach 
 ment. Sorry; but can t be helped." 
 
 Now, the little woman had the murkiest possible notion 
 what an attachment was, for she had not then lived long 
 enough in California, where, as has been botanically as 
 certained, attachments used to grow on a species of shrub. 
 But those other words, "not paid for," were dreadfully 
 intelligible. So, without more remonstrance, she dis 
 missed the fellow with the assurance that everything 
 should be ready at eleven o clock. Next, she hurried 
 down to the furniture-rooms, and found the story was 
 true ; then to the landlord of her house, whom she noti 
 fied and paid ; then to a vacant room on N Street, which 
 she rented ; then back to her house again. She stacked 
 the furniture neatly together in the middle of the room, 
 gathered all her little possessions of trinkets, swept down 
 and tidied up, took her broom in her hand, shot the bolt 
 into its place, left the key in the lock, and reached her 
 room before ten o clock, with only a dollar in her pos 
 session. 
 
 Hitherto her deeply wounded pride had buoyed her up ; 
 but now that she was secure for a month once more, she 
 wept bitter, passionate tears. A bride of only four months, 
 and her husband ignotninioi&ly absconded, and the very 
 
 24 
 
278 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 chairs dragged from her house on an attachment ! That 
 hateful, mean, ugly, disgraceful thing I 
 
 But she was not a woman to be dismayed, and she set 
 herself resolutely to earn a livelihood by sewing. And 
 now, at last, there came a letter from Nevada. Tom 
 wrote cheerily : 
 
 " VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA. 
 
 " MY OWN ANNIE, Here is a lifter that will fetch you to me $500. 
 Ere ever the gourd blossoms again on my shanty, or the tree-toad singeth 
 thrice in the sage, let me see you in Virginia. I ve struck color, and have 
 a pocketful of dust ; but there s a hole in my pocket, and it s all running 
 out. I think you can mend that pocket, my daisy, without taking a 
 stitch. I m afraid they took the furniture away from you. I forgot it 
 teetotally. Pay whatever is due." 
 
 When Annie read this letter, she forgave her truant 
 lord in a moment, and had absolutely no other wish but 
 that she possessed a pair of wings, that she might fly to 
 Virginia. But she was obliged to content herself with the 
 lumbering stage-coach. 
 
 Tom received her at the stage-office, in holiday attire, 
 purchased at a fabulous expense, and conducted her 
 proudly, among the wondering and admiring bachelor 
 miners, to his lowly shanty. The interior of it was won 
 derfully prinked up for this special occasion ; the earth floor 
 had been scrupulously swept, and on a scantling behind the 
 blackened and shining stove, each on his several nail, in 
 perpendicular array, were a holder, a lifter, a sage-hen s 
 wing, an iron stewpan, and a polished tin dipper. 
 
 The satisfaction which Tom took in introducing his 
 little black-eyed wife to his brother miners, the expensive 
 dinners he gave, the marvelous silks and satins he bought 
 for her, were wonderful, and to her positively alarming, 
 for she could not wholly forget the attachment. I think 
 anybody would have laughed for very joy to see how 
 proudly Tom strutted among the swarming bachelors with 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 279 
 
 his Annie on his arm; how he tried to be exceedingly 
 polite, but would be a blunt and hearty miner in spite of 
 himself; and how he would pluck one by the sleeve in 
 
 the street with : " I say, Jim , Mrs. Culver;" or how, 
 
 when another was about to pass him with only a side 
 glance, doubting whether he would wish to be recognized 
 in company with so much silk, he would say: " No cor 
 ner-lots to-day, Sammy. A front view. Mrs. Culver 
 my friend, Sam." 
 
 He always emphasized "Mrs. Culver," and if anybody 
 had omitted to call her by that title, Tom would have 
 knocked him down before he could say " Jack Robinson." 
 To be able to say "Mrs. Culver," in those regions, was 
 worth a quartz-mill. 
 
 But, after a few weeks, Tom began to grow restless and 
 moody again. Was it because the presence of his wife 
 reminded him of her who had perished broken-hearted in 
 the ocean ? Annie was gradually learning the melancholy 
 secret of his life. By one of those inscrutable intellectual 
 processes which women use, she hated Tom s mother, 
 virtuously, for Tom s sake, but she hated the betrayed and 
 perished woman, viciously, for her own sake. Instead 
 of seeking to smother the early flame in his heart, she 
 seemed rather to kindle it afresh, that it might consume 
 itself. 
 
 > But in process of time they accumulated large money, 
 and then they cordially agreed upon one thing : that they 
 would abandon the desolate region of the mines and go 
 to San Francisco. That thing they did, and Tom secured 
 a situation in the custom-house. 
 
 In the great city his generous soul quickly made him 
 the center of a band of good fellows, whose society drew 
 copiously upon his generous hand. This chapter is soon 
 written. He loses his place, he is bailed out of the station- 
 
2 So IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 house one summer midnight by his weeping wife, and 
 carried to his home on a dray. Very soon there comes 
 another attachment, and Annie goes out to service in 
 Sonoma, without a dollar, having expended her last to 
 procure Tom a horse. 
 
 Upon this animal bestriding, he sets out for Idaho, a 
 very sober and somber Tom, to "make his fortune" for 
 the third time. Arrived in Boise City, he barters the 
 animal for an axe, a plane, and a saw, and, what with his 
 native ingenuity, in three weeks he is a successful car 
 penter, earning fabulous wages. 
 
 Months elapsed, and no litter came to Sonoma. After 
 enduring untold anguish of suspense, of hope and doubt, 
 of fear and jealousy, Annie went down to San Francisco, 
 as a last resort, to inquire of persons arriving from Idaho 
 if, perchance, somebody might have seen her erring and 
 unhappy Tom. When nearly all her money was spent, 
 "my uncle," with a round, white face and a blue eye 
 glass, arrived from those regions, and, upon being closely 
 questioned, remembered a "French carpenter" who, be 
 thought, nearly corresponded to Annie s description. 
 She was puzzled and distressed beyond measure by this 
 intelligence, and exclaimed, in feverish eagerness, "Part 
 is Tom, and part isn t!" But, after a deal of cross- 
 questioning, and the identification of a certain broken 
 finger, this strange man was finally resolved into her 
 American miner husband "that was." She was proud 
 and delighted that he could learn carpentry so soon. But 
 how had he learned French so quickly? That was a 
 puzzle. 
 
 And then she was set in a delirium of distress and 
 jealousy by the pawnbroker s exclamation of surprise: 
 
 "Is he your husband, madam? Well, he ought to be 
 ashamed of himself! You must go to him right away." 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 28 1 
 
 She ran straightway out of the room, lest she should 
 hear something worse. By using the utmost possible 
 economy, she could make her thin purse carry her to 
 Portland, and thence by stage to Boise City, and, with 
 out an hour s delay, she set forth. 
 
 In all the eleven miserable and weary days, amid the 
 unutterable insults which came to a woman traveling to 
 the mines in those times in the steerage, she scarcely 
 slept. Scorned and despised by the few women who 
 could take better passage, disdainfully refused even the 
 poor loan of a pin, subjected to the brutal taunts of the 
 sailors, she patiently and silently crouched in her wretched 
 corner, bedraggled and bedabbled by the filthy decks, 
 sleepless and haggard, and only creeping feebly at times 
 to the guards, to solace her weary eyes with a sight of the 
 rushing waters. Faster ! faster ! a hundred times faster ! 
 was her only thought. 
 
 Ah, Tom, Tom ! if you had only understood the depth 
 and the earnestness of that devotion, you could have for 
 given many a little imperious jealousy and surveillance of 
 its assertion. You married only in bravado, and so, in 
 part, did she ; but her love has increased with every year, 
 while, I fear, yours has only grown feebler. 
 
 Boise City was reached at last, Tom was found, and 
 they were speedily reconciled. 
 
 He was in possession of a mining claim, with several 
 Chinamen employed ; but Annie, determined that she 
 would now get into her own hands the means for keeping 
 a roof over their heads, against which all attachments 
 would be powerless for evermore, set herself to washing. 
 This was her personal and separate industry, and the 
 rewards of it, which were enormous, were carefully 
 hoarded. Tom was Tom gay and melancholy by turns ; 
 and whether he was making any money from his claim, 
 
 24* 
 
282 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 or not, she was profoundly unaware. Probably Tom did 
 not know himself. 
 
 Eighteen months passed on thus, happy months to 
 Annie, because she was so rapidly getting the means to 
 secure them a home which would endure, and then it 
 was agreed by them that she should return to San Fran 
 cisco, and invest her personal savings in a house and lot, 
 while Tom remained a few weeks longer, to close out the 
 business to advantage. 
 
 She accomplished the journey with a little justifiable 
 luxury, to recompense herself for the meanness and hu 
 miliation of the outward voyage. Before she had even 
 become well rested from the journey, and shaken off the 
 dust of travel, while she was looking over the "For 
 Sale" columns in the newspapers, how great was her sur 
 prise to receive the following telegram : 
 
 " PORTLAND, OREGON. 
 " To MRS. THOMAS CULVER, Russ House, San Francisco. 
 
 " Send me up a hundred dollars, to pay my passage down to Frisco. 
 
 "TOM." 
 
 On reading this message she laughed outright. She 
 sent him the draft, however, by telegraph. It appears 
 that the business had become perfectly hollow before she 
 left Boise City. Her sudden departure aroused suspi 
 cion, unjust though it was toward her, an examination 
 was made, and forthwith the water company gripped the 
 unhappy Tom, attached his claim, and left him barely 
 enough to pay his passage to Portland. 
 
 Arriving in the Golden City, he found his wife com 
 fortably ensconced in a snug little house, and he registered 
 a great oath to do better, and went to work, as never be 
 fore, at carpentry. But Tom s chin was too short. He 
 had no stick-to-it-iveness. 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 283 
 
 The story must now hasten on to its final stage. It is 
 only necessary to say that they soon perceived another 
 attachment looming up in the middle distance, and that 
 Tom willing to flee from temptation went down to Los 
 Angeles, bought a sheep-ranch in Annie s name, paid for 
 it with Annie s money, and stocked it with sheep in his 
 own name. With infinite ado he rived out enough 
 "shakes" (long oak shingles) to construct a shanty, and 
 in it, amid an indescribable clutter of tin cans, pet lambs, 
 boxes, barrels, cats, dried apples, feather beds, etc., they 
 lived the happiest winter they had ever spent together. 
 
 As soon as possible, Tom constructed a house, and then 
 there was a house-warming which was characteristic of 
 Southern California. 
 
 First, something as to the vicinity. The house stood 
 at the foot of an easy terrace of foothills, thinly sprinkled 
 over with oak-trees, just where they broke off, on the 
 margin of an expanse of level open champaign. Tom 
 whitewashed it and the two or three tiny structures about 
 exceeding smirk and white, so that they looked very 
 strange and toylike, standing on the edge of the naked 
 waste. On all the dusty champaign, and under all the 
 oaks, there was not one relieving thing, not a bush, in 
 November, nothing but the burrows of ten thousand 
 squirrels, which sat bolt upright on their little mounds, 
 squeaking, and winking with their tails, in utter amaze 
 ment at this invasion of their time-old dominions. The 
 chickens wandered vacantly about over the nude expanse, 
 and under the oaks, vainly cocking their eyes up and 
 down, and all around, in search of a grasshopper, or any 
 living bug ; then they strolled disconsolately home, and 
 seemed to lay eggs, because there was nothing else to 
 occupy their minds. 
 
 Tom s dwelling was threefold. In the middle was a 
 
284 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 house of one room ; on one side, another house of one 
 room ; and on the other side, the shanty of shakes. For 
 this occasion he made a chandelier of boards, with can 
 dles in the ends. The estrade for the fiddlers was suffi 
 ciently elevated to allow the dancers room beneath. 
 There was a smooth floor beneath, a roof overhead, and 
 a shell of redwood boards nothing else. 
 
 As fast as the people arrived, their horses were taken 
 into the corral, which was made like a stockade, of mighty 
 logs planted in the ground. Some clean barley hay was 
 deposited under their noses on the ground, while the gen 
 tlemen made their toilets in one end of the shanty, and 
 the ladies in the "parlor," the dance-room being between 
 them. 
 
 Tom was in an ecstasy of happiness, introducing people 
 to one another for some had come thirty miles now 
 running out to the hen s-nest in the forked oak beside the 
 parlor door, and now mixing a glass of eggnog for ome 
 new arrival. He and Annie were arrayed in all the cor 
 rect elegance of San Francisco. There were a number 
 of local wool-kings, rather uneasy in their unaccustomed 
 immaculate broadcloth, leaning most of the time against 
 the scantling posts of the veranda and smoking, but going 
 into the dance occasionally with an extreme vivacity; 
 five or six creamy-complexioned, dark-eyed senoritas, the 
 perfection of natural grace, with pale beauties from Texas, 
 and a superfluity of shaggy-whiskered shepherds, jiggling 
 and shaking themselves about over the floor in a comical 
 manner. 
 
 It was very pleasant to see these happy, awkward 
 couples, whirling in the lively dance, under the fiddlers, 
 under the board-chandelier, getting drops of tallow on 
 their heads, then away up, and back, and down the mid 
 dle, straining their heads away from each other, as if in 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 285 
 
 a frantic effort to separate. Annie was everywhere among 
 the guests, saying a great many pleasant things ; and the 
 silks and calicoes rustled on the slivers of the wall ; and 
 Tom s terrier pup got into the dance, and jumped up and 
 down, and waggled his tail ; and the little Digger peeped 
 through the window, and grinned all night long till day 
 light ; and all enjoyed themselves very much indeed. 
 
 About midnight a long table of rough boards was 
 brought in, ranged under the chandelier, and Tom and 
 Annie, assisted by a jolly old millionaire, six feet high 
 and with a mighty Roman nose, the king of all wool- 
 kings, soon loaded it with substantial provisions. " Ladies 
 and gentlemen, fall to !" cried Tom. 
 
 The amount of broken pies and cakes, canned peaches, 
 oysters, and chickens which the little Digger privately 
 and publicly devoured in the shanty for the next two 
 weeks, was positively alarming. 
 
 But, now that the edge of novelty was dulled again, 
 Tom s life began to be clouded with the ancient and in 
 curable melancholy. The life of a wool-king in Southern 
 California is nearly as dreary as can be imagined. Week 
 after week, month upon month, for nearly half the weary, 
 interminable year, the sun comes up in the tenuous air 
 of the mountains, as spotless as a new brass platter ; burns 
 all day in the bright heavens in uncurtained and undi- 
 minished whiteness ; then burrows into the dusty hill 
 tops as unclouded, as pitiless, and as unwinking as he 
 arose. All through the summer he lives in a dun-colored 
 desert, with only scattered oaks visible on the distant 
 sierras. There are lovely sunsets and sunrises, but they 
 fall upon the weary eyes, being always the same, without 
 the variation of a cloud ; and the unequaled purity and 
 healthfulness of the air itself becomes a weariness to the 
 spirit of man, because it seems to correspond so well to 
 
286 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 the utter nakedness of the earth in summer, and the ab 
 sence of all sights and sounds, save the stupid bleating 
 of the lazy, contented sheep. It is quite too healthy, 
 too pure, too vacuous, too colorless, and one longs to 
 have a little quinsy for variety, or at least the terrific 
 crack and splitting of a thunder-storm once in awhile. 
 It seems as if a man would live almost forever here, until 
 he dried up to a mere stick, and shot off somewhere like 
 a rocket. 
 
 Around his wretched tenement of boards, or of sun- 
 dried brick, there is a pole-fence, standing out in such 
 indescribably hideous contrast under these immaculately 
 blue heavens an insult to the very crows, which will not 
 perch thereon. Or, perhaps, there are only vacuous 
 spaces around, without even a pole to anchor the dust, 
 which burdens the very air, that you sniff all day the swel 
 tering smell of the ground. Close at hand, for safety 
 against the wild beasts, are the noisome corrals, where 
 the sunshine riots and dances in the vile exhalations. 
 
 As soon as his shepherds are gone to the mountains, 
 where they drowse the livelong day, the wool-king sad 
 dles his horse, and hies away to the old Mission. In its 
 cool, dark recesses, looking out upon the desert glare 
 only through the doors of its ancient arcades, long ago 
 fallen away from spiritual to spirituous uses, he meets his 
 compotators for cards and drinking-bouts. 
 
 Tom is often here, fleeing from the domestic surveil 
 lance which is daily becoming more intolerable. He 
 returns only to encounter Annie s ominous frown, and 
 supper is eaten in silence. He goes out to see if the little 
 Digger returns with the flock unharmed, bandies some 
 tolerable California Spanish with some bad Digger Spanish, 
 and learns that the coyotes have caught two lambs. He 
 curses himself for his stupidity, goes in, sits down by his 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 287 
 
 lonely stove, and slides down all in a heap in his chair. 
 He knows what is coming. 
 
 Aitnie holds up a plate, wipes and wipes it, turns it 
 over and over, stops, scratches it a little with her ringer, 
 then turns half way round toward him, and pulls down 
 her black eyebrows sternly. 
 
 " I suppose, of course, Inez Dominguez is well to-day?" 
 This in a cutting tone. 
 
 "And narrow is the way to destruction. I m going to 
 preach under the big live-oak to-morrow, Annie, and I 
 want a handsome deaconess about like you, to take up 
 a contribution." 
 
 " But you didn t answer my question. I am anxious to 
 know how Miss Dominguez is to-day." 
 
 Tom commenced singing gayly : 
 
 " When this cruel war is over, 
 
 No Micky need apply, 
 For everything is lovely, 
 
 And the goose hangs high/ 
 
 "Why do you always sing that to me? Because I am 
 Irish? Do you sing that to Miss Dominguez?" 
 
 Tom reached and took a crumb of bread off the table, 
 and gave it to the cat, to see him and the terrier pup 
 squabble for it, at which he laughed heartily. " Nip him, 
 Topsy ! Nail him once or twice !" he cried. 
 
 Annie held the cup close to her face, and wiped very 
 hard and fast, while her face began to ripple, and her 
 mouth to tremble, for she was about to laugh, in spite 
 of herself. 
 
 Tom clasped his hands over the top of his head, and 
 slipped farther down in his chair. 
 
 "Annie, I saw to-day the strangest man I ever saw in 
 my life. One side of his face was perfectly black." 
 
 Her intense feminine curiosity triumphed at once, and 
 
288 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 she stopped, and looked straight at him, for the first time 
 that evening. 
 
 " La me ! and the other side was white !" 
 
 " The other side was black, too." 
 
 It is an incredibly short time before Tom and his wife 
 are chattering together as gayly as little children. 
 
 But the quarrel was ever renewed. We have seen how 
 greatly superior Annie was in business ; but Tom would 
 come in at noon sometimes, hungry as a bear, after work 
 ing hard over his smirk whitewashed toy-houses, and find 
 the breakfast things still on the table, and one of Annie s 
 innumerable pet chickens with the whole length of its 
 neck down in the cream-pitcher, while its mistress sat by 
 the stove, reading the Ledger or Dickens. He vexed his 
 tidy soul from day to day with his slatternly shanty, and 
 when chance made him master of it for a day or so, he 
 would peel off his coat, as in the old mining-days, and 
 sing and whistle the livelong day, jolly as a sand-boy, 
 while he scoured up and hung up a thousand and one 
 things. On the other hand, he was so offended at the 
 rigorous precision with which she always seated herself at 
 the end of the table opposite him, that she was obliged to 
 sit at the side. And indeed it is a most dreary thing for 
 a married couple to sit seven long years at opposite ends 
 of a table, when no little high-chair comes meantime to 
 be drawn up to the side. So Tom thought, at least, and 
 he often sighed and said to himself, "Ah ! if I only had 
 a child to love, my life might be mended yet." 
 
 To Annie s great distress, Tom would sit in his shirt 
 sleeves, even when Judge Haskell was there to dinner. 
 And he could not endure to see her so fussy as to hand 
 him bread on the plate, but she must pass him a slice " in 
 her fist," and that not delicately, but as fearlessly as he 
 would seize a crowbar. 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 289 
 
 The married life of Tom and Annie had been hitherto 
 sadly at sixes and sevens, though it had partaken largely 
 of the character of a farce ; but now it darkened down, 
 apparently, toward a swift and awful tragedy. Naturally 
 of a jealous nature, and wedded to a man too proud to 
 protest his innocence every day of his life, for Tom was 
 innocent now, she found herself in a loneliness where 
 she was left to be preyed upon by her own morbid im 
 aginings. The only woman she saw for months together 
 was a little, withered, green-eyed hag, who had conceived 
 a spite against Tom, for some reason, and supplied his 
 wife to surfeit with infamous daily slander and lies. 
 
 Tom s most harmless business letters were by her in 
 vested with mystery and wickedness. She fancied im 
 pending over her all that was terrible on earth some 
 dark and secret plot of divorce, abandonment, infamy, 
 beggary, imprisonment, friendless and hideous death. 
 Sometimes she shuddered as she allowed herself to pro 
 nounce even the dreadful word "murder." 
 
 All the stem and grim suffering which is depicted in 
 that weird, awful, and lurid story of "The Scarlet Letter" 
 became her portion. Sitting in her lonely house at even 
 ing, far from human habitation, when Tom was absent 
 hunting his horses, at the dismal yelling of the coyotes, 
 or the boding screech of the owl, she would shriek in 
 terror, run, and fall lifeless upon the Indian-boy, only less 
 frightened than his mistress. A band of thieves and mur 
 derers had their rendezvous near by in the mountains, 
 and the faintest scream of the night-hawk or the ghostly 
 moaning of the wind through the trees, her distempered 
 imagination magnified into their approach. 
 
 Tom was distracted almost to madness. He hardly 
 dared leave her sight. He dreaded only less than death 
 the quarterly journey to Los Angeles for supplies, which 
 
290 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 occupied nearly three days, lest he should return only to 
 find Annie a raving maniac. With all his earnestness he 
 warned her against the mousing visits of the evil-minded 
 hag who was destroying her life, and he even threatened 
 to expel her by violence ; but he perceived that it would 
 only add fuel to the flame of jealousy, and intensify 
 Annie s suspicions. He abandoned his visits to the Mis 
 sion, except on the most urgent necessity. 
 
 The time arrived again for another of his regular jour 
 neys to Los Angeles, and, parting from Annie with un 
 wonted tenderness, he set out with a promise to return 
 speedily. During his absence the lying hag spent day 
 and night with Annie, and poured into her ears, itching 
 with that strange and infatuated eagerness of jealousy, all 
 her envenomed hate against the absent husband. 
 
 Tom kept his promise, and returned promptly in two 
 days, bringing his wife an elegant gold watch and a 
 rocking-chair. But no Annie came forth to greet him. 
 Seeking her in her room, with a smile and a hearty, 
 "Well, my dear, how has the time gone?" he found her 
 silent and delirious with jealousy. She turned her face 
 away to the wall, and refused to speak. 
 
 Not only was Annie indeed sick, but she feigned to be 
 dying. For days together she persistently refused all 
 nourishment at his hands, but kept some concealed, of 
 which she secretly partook in his absence. 
 
 Does the reader, upon this announcement, cry out 
 against the woman , and feel disposed to reproach me for 
 having even described such a character? It is hard to 
 look with allowance upon such a wickedness as this, and 
 perhaps few of us would have done it, but we must be 
 lenient in our judgment. We must pardon many an 
 offense, heinous and despicable though it may seem, to 
 the weakness and the madness of a jealous woman. She 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 291 
 
 stooped to this base act of wickedness to try if her cup 
 of married love was wholly drained ; and in that awful 
 night when Tom sat beside her whom he thought dying, 
 far from any habitation of man, with no one near but the 
 mute and stricken savage, crouching in the corner and 
 rigid with terror, with no sound borne on the midnight 
 air but the dismal yelling of the coyotes, as they dashed 
 themselves against the wattled corral, and were hurled 
 back upon the ground, he spoke to her with such true and 
 piteous tenderness of love, that her sick heart returned 
 from its wanderings, and she told him all, with tears, and 
 begged forgiveness. 
 
 After seven years of married life, Tom was still so little 
 learned in the devious ways of woman s jealousy, that he 
 could not look upon this misdeed with any allowance. 
 He forgot the large and generous pity of that saying of 
 Seneca, Quern poenitet peccasse pene est innocens. For 
 give her ! the act seemed to him so inexpressibly despica 
 ble that he turned away in silence and in loathing. 
 
 He took his rifle, and walked forth in the clear, crisp 
 moonlight. After the first burst of passion had passed 
 away, his soul was filled with that saddening and ineffable 
 bitterness which longs for death, and the sweet and quiet 
 rest of the grave, and he murmured: "Ah, Mary! my 
 lost, lost Mary!" 
 
 Hardly knowing whither he went in his blinded and 
 bitter despair, he approached his corral, and saw the 
 coyotes dimly fleeing away across the champaign. Me 
 chanically, he cocked the rifle, and put it to his shoulder. 
 Then he brought it down, and placed the muzzle against 
 his cheek. He touched the trigger, and in the very last 
 moment he dashed it away, and, with a keen and hellish 
 shriek, the bullet cut the still moonlight. 
 
2 9 2 IN THE GREAT WEST. 
 
 Next day he saddled his favorite horse, and, after a 
 cold and careless farewell, he rode away. Week after 
 week passed away, and- there came no tidings of his 
 rovings ; month passed into month, and brought no re 
 port from the wanderer. What his wife endured from 
 suspense can only be imagined, 
 
 " The hope, and the fear, and the sorrow, 
 All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing, 
 All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience." 
 
 What was he doing? He penetrated the savage wilds 
 of Arizona. He made long journeys across its trackless 
 deserts, without any aim, and returned on his trail, with 
 out any purpose. Now he mined a little, and now he 
 joined himself to a squadron in pursuit of Apaches, and, 
 leaping in his stirrups with the old ringing yell of his 
 youth, he sought death at the hand of the tawny savage. 
 An arrow-wound, which brought him to the very mouth 
 of the grave, brought him also to remorse, and to a yearn 
 ing for his home. While he was yet convalescent, he set 
 his face steadfastly homeward an old man at thirty-two, 
 with his cheeks seamed and bronzed, and his fine, black, 
 curly poll half turned to gray. But he was still Tom, and 
 his better nature had only slumbered. 
 
 The story ends well. Alas, alas ! for both of them, it 
 had not ended so years before. At last he is approaching 
 his house. It is evening. He sees the familiar light of 
 his "parlor" window shining under the old forked white- 
 oak. He spurs his jaded horse into an amble. Hark ! 
 There is borne to his ears, on the still evening air, a 
 feeble and uncertain squeal. What ! Is it possible? Is 
 it a 
 
 He spurs his horse again, and the old fellow almost 
 
TOM AND HIS WIFE. 293 
 
 jams his nose against the parlor door. Tom alights, and 
 flings the rein over the horseshoe nailed to the oak. He 
 knocks, and they open. He enters. Exclamations all 
 around. He looks about him. They go to the bed, and 
 gently turn down the counterpane. Upon my word, it 
 is a 
 
 Tom settles back on one foot, plants the other ahead, 
 folds his arms across his breast, and, with a perfectly un 
 moved countenance, but with a light of infinite gladness 
 in his eye, and of a reconciliation never again to be 
 broken, he salutes : 
 
 "Ah, he s a buster!" 
 
 25* 
 
HISTORICAL. 
 
 A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 
 
 Well were it not a pleasant thing 
 
 To fall asleep with all one s friends ; 
 To pass with all our social ties 
 
 To silence from the paths of men ; 
 And every hundred years to rise 
 
 And learn the world and sleep again ; 
 To sleep through terms of mighty wars, 
 
 And wake on science grown to more, 
 On secrets of the brain, the stars, 
 
 As wild as aught of fairy lore ; 
 And all that else the years will show, 
 
 The Poet-forms of stronger hours, 
 The vast Republics that may grow. 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 TO the youthful student who aspires to " climb the 
 steep where Fame s proud temple shines afar," no 
 part of that steep looks more formidable than the mount 
 ains of History. It is not their ruggedness, but their 
 sheer height. Let us be thankful that the clean beasts 
 and the unclean and the fowls of the air were so numerous 
 in Noah s Ark as to leave no room for whatever parchment 
 records that wise patriarch may have preserved. When 
 the conquering Caliph applied the torch to the vast maga 
 zine of papyrus scrolls in Alexandria, he said, "If there 
 be anything good in them it is contained in the Koran, 
 and whatever is bad in them ought to be destroyed." 
 When any other than one of those inscrutable persons, 
 (294) 
 
A ROYAL ROAD 7V HISTORY. 
 
 295 
 
 of whom the Chinese say, "If there is anything he does 
 not know, he is ashamed," or one who, unlike the Ad 
 mirable Crichton, is not prepared to dispute de omni re 
 scibili, contemplates the above decision, he is disposed to 
 cry out from the depths of his gratitude, " Thank Heaven 
 for the Caliph!" 
 
 And yet, as time rolls on, and the busy hand of His 
 tory is piling up Pelion on Ossa of the world s chronicles, 
 the poor span of human life is yearly growing shorter. I 
 have often cherished a secret rebellion against the his 
 torians themselves, as being largely responsible for this 
 deplorable result ; and if matters go on this way much 
 longer, the mighty back of the world will be broken 
 under its own accumulated history, and we shall all go 
 down together in one desperate last floundering under 
 our books. 
 
 It is a source of positive mental dissipation to be con 
 fronted with so many histories, for one feels all the while 
 the spurrings of conscience that one ought to read them ; 
 and so, not doing it, one becomes intellectually debauched 
 and reckless, like him who harbors in his bosom a secret 
 deed of murder. O Methuselah and Mehujael, and all 
 ye long-lived brotherhood of antediluvians, happy were 
 ye that no Grotes, or Gibbons, or Bancrofts existed in 
 your days, to pester your patriarchal tranquillity, and eat 
 away your lives with a consciousness of duty unfulfilled ! 
 
 Not many weeks after the great battle of Sadowa the 
 school-children of Moscow wrote a letter to Bismarck, in 
 which, with childish frankness and enthusiasm, they 
 thanked him for ironing out some of the wrinkles of that 
 part of European geography which had always given them 
 so much trouble. When will some Bismarck arise to hew 
 off a few of the branches from the " historical trees" which 
 are a terror and a nightmare to our childhood ? 
 
296 HISTORICAL. 
 
 There is rich and large material for a skeleton history 
 in the political catch-words found in the literature of 
 every nation, especially in our own. Every great crisis 
 in human affairs produces one or more men, its "noblest 
 offspring," who stamp their ineffaceable impress upon it, 
 among other ways, by moulding certain apt phrases for 
 affairs ; for those epochs most prolific in noble deeds, 
 "God s sons," also nourish the fairest generations of 
 "men s daughters," words. It is these terse, clear-cut 
 utterances of such periods that become the heirs and trans 
 mitters of their best or worst endeavors, as it were the 
 high- and low-water marks of history. This article is 
 simply an experiment in the construction of such an out 
 line history, an attempt to indicate some of the possi 
 bilities of the topic. 
 
 Passing over all the Colonial and chaotic period, when 
 we were no nation, let us begin with the Revolution, 
 when we became such in substance, as a little later in 
 name. 
 
 As in all history the grandest results have often grown 
 from the most trivial causes, so here the spark that ignited 
 the great magazine of war was only a little bit of "stamped 
 paper" dropped into a few caddies of " gunpowder tea." 
 That bowl of cold tea made in Boston harbor was as 
 eventful as the one flagon too much of wine drunk by 
 Alexander in the alabaster cup. But behind these mere 
 trifles lay the great principle, " No taxation without repre 
 sentation." As a matter of fact, that was the whole head 
 and front of the rebellion for a year, at least with the 
 great majority. Franklin philosophically said, "Where 
 Liberty is, there is my country;" but Paine, speaking to 
 the fact, added a word: "Where Liberty is not, there is 
 my country." Yet the real "Liberty Party" in the early 
 days of the Revolution was small in numbers, even under 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 297 
 
 the clarion eloquence of Henry, " Give me Liberty, or 
 give me death !" 
 
 Thus the battle was joined. Having solemnly and dis 
 passionately pledged to each other "their lives, their 
 fortunes, and their sacred honor" for their common de 
 fense, and for the achievement of independence, they 
 were not dismayed or faint-hearted in the day of sore 
 calamity. " Independence forever !" cried Adams. Paine 
 wrote, "These are the times that try men s souls;" but, 
 fortunately for us, the pillars of the Revolution were made 
 of sterner stuff than the ratiocinative souls of Paine and 
 Franklin. We know what a disastrous shipwreck Bacon 
 made of statesmanship. 
 
 Not only in the beginning of the war, but throughout, 
 the authority of Congress was very weak ; there was no 
 President with even advisory powers. " There was a state 
 without King or nobles ; there was a church without a 
 Bishop." Some good souls interpreted so ill the great 
 movement they were engaged in, that they believed them 
 selves still fighting under the banner of George III., for 
 him, and against his usurping ministers, just as, later in 
 our history, some held.to the impossible power of "con 
 stitutional resistance" and of "peaceable secession." 
 Accordingly, when bold Ethan Allen laid siege to Ticon- 
 deroga, although the substance of royalty was gone out 
 of him, the phantom of "divine right" still hovered over 
 the vacuum, notwithstanding he was an infidel, and he 
 issued his summons in the name of the great Jehovah 
 and of the Continental Congress." 
 
 That notion of "divine right" was driven out of the 
 Fathers minds far more by the whips and scorpions of 
 war than by the philosophy of Jefferson, leading him to 
 that great word, "Governments derive their just powers 
 from the consent of the governed," and that the source 
 
298 HISTORICAL. 
 
 of all authority in government is, "We, the People." 
 Jefferson might write (poaching on the North Carolina 
 doctrines) "All men are created equal;" but the some 
 what humiliating quarrels of the Fathers about grades of 
 authority did more to put that equality into effect than 
 did the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Having no President, and only a very shadowy Con 
 gress, they were often in dire chaos. Washington was 
 elected to the chief command to restore order. Repair 
 ing to New England to organize his little army, and find 
 ing matters in sad confusion, he said, playfully, referring 
 to the Governor of Connecticut, "We must consult 
 Brother Jonathan on the subject." Brother Jonathan 
 helped them. 
 
 The "Cowboys" on the Tory side, and the "Skinners" 
 on the Patriot flanks, were probably about like the modern 
 guerrillas and bushwhackers on the Rebel side, and the 
 "bummers" on the Unionist. There were some as 
 anxious to "take protection" from the British com 
 manders as Southern families were to secure "protection- 
 papers" from soft-hearted Union generals. 
 
 The war was ended at last, independence was estab 
 lished, and the nation staggered along as best it might 
 without a head. The Tory McFingal scornfully but 
 truthfully said : 
 
 " For what s your Congress, or its end ? 
 A power t* advise and recommend ; 
 To call forth troops, adjust your quotas 
 And yet no soul is bound to notice ; 
 To pawn your faith to th utmost limit, 
 But cannot bind you to redeem it." 
 
 The Articles of Confederation were found to be a 
 "rope of sand," and men began to say of them as poor 
 humpbacked Pope said of himself, "God mend me!" 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 299 
 
 But the wiser ones answered as the link-boy replied to his 
 master, "God mend you? It would be far easier to 
 make a new one." And they made a new one. They 
 also gave the nation its present name. To our ancestors, 
 just emancipated from dependence, and occupying only 
 the edge of the continent, which the rising sun of empire 
 had barely fringed with civilization, as the morning sun 
 gilds the overhanging cloud, the name "America" might 
 have seemed too pretentious ; but it would not have been 
 more assuming than "Continental Congress." It would 
 have been more convenient than "United States." 
 
 To form a national banner to supplant the multitude of 
 snakes, pine-trees, bears, and other grotesque devices 
 carried through the Revolution, they 
 
 " Tore the azure robe of night, 
 And set the stars of glory there." 
 
 Trumbull puts into the mouth of his hero the contempt 
 ible objection which was urged against the flag at that 
 time, that it was 
 
 Inscribed with inconsistent types 
 Of Liberty and thirteen stripes." 
 
 As though, forsooth, the Fathers designed to symbolize the 
 lashes of slavery in its sacred folds ! Yet we know very 
 well, from the cooler erasures and interlineations which 
 Jefferson drew through the white-hot first draft of the 
 Declaration, and the still further omissions made by the 
 Committee, that they did not by any means regard slavery 
 with the abhorrence that young Jefferson did. 
 
 The national motto was probably taken from a modest 
 metrical composition by John Carey, of Philadelphia, 
 entitled "The Pyramid of Fifteen States," in which 
 occur the following verses : 
 
300 HISTORICAL. 
 
 *- 
 
 * * 
 
 * * * 
 
 * * *- * 
 
 * # :;:- * 
 
 "Audax inde cohors stellis e p lurid us unum 
 Ardua pyramidos tollit ad astra caput." 
 
 These three words occur as a motto on the title-page 
 of the Gentleman s Magazine, published in London in 
 1731 ; but whether Carey or the Fathers ever saw them 
 there I am not informed. 
 
 In 1796, C. C. Pinckney, having received a mercenary 
 proposition of alliance from the French Directory, wrote 
 home his great word, " Millions for defense, but not one 
 cent for tribute !" 
 
 Two years later, in the midst of the partisan clamor 
 and dissensions that distracted the country, in sympathy 
 with the frenzied madness of the French Revolution, the 
 voice of Hopkinson was heard above the din, summoning 
 his countrymen to concord and fraternal love : 
 
 " Firm, united let us be, 
 Rallying round our Liberty 
 As a band of brothers joined, 
 Peace and safety we shall find." 
 
 But suddenly every note of passion and of discord was 
 hushed. There went a voice of mourning through the 
 Republic, at the sound of which the stoutest hearts were 
 awed, and the eyes of grim veterans were suffused with 
 tears. He of whom it was said that "he had no children 
 that a nation might call him father," went to his long 
 home. Before the assembled Congress, Henry Lee pro 
 nounced his noble and memorable eulogy, "To the 
 memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first 
 in the hearts of his countrymen." 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 301 
 
 Already, before the close of the century, such was the 
 strong recuperative power of the young country, the 
 Republic had so far recovered from the shocks of the 
 Revolution, that the eaglet was hatched that was destined 
 to develop into the " Birdofredum Sawin ;" and Timothy 
 Dwight was moved to unpack his swelling patriotism in 
 voluminous poetical compositions. He gave the nation 
 its right name in the following couplet : 
 
 " Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise 
 The queen of the world, and the child of the skies." 
 
 The national money, after the conclusion of the war, 
 became so worthless as to furnish us a proverb to this day : 
 "Not worth a Continental." But as early as 1811 the 
 national finances appear to have become greatly improved, 
 for in that year honest, indignant Josiah Quincy said in 
 a speech, "Why, sir, we hear the clamor of the craving 
 animals at the treasury-trough here in this Capitol." In 
 this year, too, the Massachusetts politicians taught the 
 country how to "gerrymander;" so it was evident that 
 "Young America" was making quite as rapid progress, 
 both politically and financially, as was healthy. He was 
 already looking well after the "Almighty Dollar" and 
 the office. 
 
 The Federalist party took the lead during the Revolu 
 tion and for some years after it, because, like their modern 
 successors, the Republicans, in the war of the Rebellion, 
 they were the party of strength and centralization. But 
 the Democratic reaction came and swept them from power, 
 bringing in Jefferson. 
 
 During the stately administration of Washington there 
 was in the Capital a "Republican Court," and especially 
 a brilliant galaxy of female beauties clustering about Mrs. 
 Washington. When Jefferson rode down to the Capitol 
 
 26 
 
302 HISTORICAL. 
 
 on horseback, and entered it in his dirty boots, all this 
 was changed into "Democratic simplicity." The sturdy 
 old Ironsides of the Federalist party became unpopular ; 
 being in the minority, they were necessarily " treason 
 able." The suite of rooms in Washington occupied by 
 Pickering and Hillhouse were the Federalist headquar 
 ters, and were known as "Treason -Hall." The party 
 name was becoming so unpopular that, a few years later, 
 it had to be abandoned. 
 
 Jefferson originated the cry of "British influence," if 
 not that of "British gold," which has hounded many a 
 man to political death. He earnestly sympathized with 
 France, and in 1809 he sought to cripple English com 
 merce by the "Embargo ;" but this harmed New England s 
 commerce even more. Upon its enactment, therefore, 
 her orators dramatically cried out, "Liberty is dead!" 
 and the Boston newspapers appeared in mourning. Yankees 
 disposed to jest though not much humor had yet appeared 
 in New England anagrammatically called it the " O grab 
 me." 
 
 The Republic went to war against England to resist the 
 pretended "right of search." But " Brother Jonathan" 
 grumbled loudly, because this war would ruin his com 
 merce and his codfishing business ; so he had to be de 
 graded from the chief command, and replaced by the less 
 provincial and more catholic, if coarser, "Uncle Sam," 
 who was born in 1812, and had for his birth-record the 
 head of a commissary barrel of beans. 
 
 Under this greater leadership the nation made gallant 
 head in the war on the ocean, where it never "gave up 
 the ship;" but on shore there seemed to prevail a "mas 
 terly inactivity," as John Randolph said. So sturdy was 
 the opposition of New England to the war that certain 
 persons along the shore of Connecticut (it was asserted) 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO IH STORY. 303 
 
 hoisted "blue lights" at night, to show British smugglers 
 where to land; and thus added another phrase to the 
 vocabulary of treason. The commerce of New England 
 was literally going to grass, and the virulence of her oppo 
 sition developed an intense party spirit. In 1814 met the 
 famous Hartford Convention. It is wonderful how this 
 assembly of twenty-six eminently respectable gentlemen 
 scared Madison and his Cabinet ; and yet not wonderful, 
 when we consider the anger of New England, and the fact 
 that these gentlemen dared even whisper the fatal word 
 " Disunion." 
 
 Advancing upon New Orleans with the (alleged) rally- 
 ing-cry of "Booty and Beauty," the English received 
 their final and crushing defeat at the hands of "Old 
 Hickory." The war of 1812 was ended. 
 
 The great "Northwest Territory" had been sacredly 
 consecrated to liberty, but the ever-aggressive slave-power, 
 stimulated by the new and great value given to cotton by 
 the invention of Eli Whitney, cast greedy eyes upon this 
 fair region. In the memorable struggle of 1820, termi 
 nating in the "Missouri Compromise," a noble State 
 was lost to slavery, although, for the rest, the line be 
 tween freedom and slavery, the old " Mason and Dixon s 
 Line" (latitude 39), was replaced by one further south, 
 that of 36 30 . But it was a gain to slavery on the whole. 
 John Randolph denounced this compromise as a "dirty 
 bargain," and the eighteen Northern Congressmen who 
 helped strike it, as "dough-faces." 
 
 The advocacy of "Disunion" had already migrated 
 from Hartford to Charleston. But it had not, in either 
 case, reached the masses ; and when Webster (1823) lifted 
 up his voice in behalf of "Our country, our whole country, 
 and nothing but our country," his words awakened, North 
 and South, an approving response. 
 
304 HISTORICAL. 
 
 About this time the nation was gratified by Monroe s 
 declaration of the principle, really originated by J. Q. 
 Adams, that " the United States would view any attempt 
 of the Allied Powers to extend their system to any por 
 tion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and 
 safety." 
 
 Reassured by the valorous assertion of this principle, 
 dear to every American heart, and released by compro 
 mises from the baleful struggle with slavery, the Republic 
 now entered upon the "Era of good feeling," which 
 characterized Monroe s administration. 
 
 About the year 1828 a new fountain of bitter waters 
 was opened up in the discussion of the tariff. Some 
 stoutly defended the "American System," as alone pa 
 triotic; others insisted that the "Foreign System," or 
 English free trade, could alone protect the finances of the 
 country. Jackson advocated the rather indeterminate 
 measure of a "judicious tariff." The manufactures of 
 New England and the Middle States vigorously demanded 
 "Protection to domestic industry;" but John Randolph, 
 speaking for the cotton-growing, free-trade South, replied, 
 " I would go half a mile out of my way to kick a sheep." 
 
 With the accession of Jackson came a new rule in poli 
 tics. In 1832 Marcy gave it felicitous utterance in the 
 Senate : " They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the 
 victors belong the spoils of the enemy." Blair and Ken 
 dall, composing Jackson s famous "Kitchen Cabinet," 
 on this new principle decapitated many a Whig, and 
 roasted him on the Democratic spit. 
 
 The Federalists had long since transmuted themselves 
 into "National Republicans," which name still indicated 
 their centralizing theories. But about 1829 that was in turn 
 abandoned for "Whig," although, after both these new 
 births, the party still appeared wrapped in the swaddling- 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 
 
 305 
 
 bands of the slave-power. The fierce attacks of the 
 tariff party upon the Democrats forced them also, for a 
 time, to seem to abandon their ancient name ; at least 
 they tacked on it as a shield the word "Republican," 
 becoming "Democratic Republicans." 
 
 The Southern opposition to the tariff, under the leader 
 ship of Polk, began as early as 1828, and the war of words 
 speedily waxed to threatening proportions. Hayne fired 
 a great gun never heard before, "A State can commit no 
 treason;" and from Garrison came back the answering 
 defiance, " No union with slaveholders." Calhoun took 
 up the word: "Each State has an equal right to judge 
 for itself, as well of the infraction [of the Constitution] 
 as of the mode and manner of redress;" and the Massa 
 chusetts "Gome-outers" again retorted, "The Constitu 
 tion is a covenant with death, and an agreement with 
 hell." The South cried out, "Let us alone !" to which 
 Garrison a third time made reply: " Our country is the 
 world; our countrymen are all mankind." 
 
 Amid all these low, sullen mutterings of the approach 
 ing tempest, while the red glare of the lightnings was 
 already playing along the horizon, and the heavens were 
 darkened by black and gusty clouds, and the hearts of the 
 mariners quailed with fear, there was heard the steady voice 
 of the master, the "Expounder of the Constitution," 
 warning his fellows to stand by the old ship, and giving 
 them for a watchword to the end of time, " Liberty and 
 Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" 
 
 Holding the Constitution to be only a "compact," 
 South Carolina invented a word of new and baneful im 
 port, "Nullification." But Jackson declared that the 
 Union "must and shall be preserved," and his vigorous 
 proceedings cleared the political atmosphere of South 
 Carolina wonderfully. 
 
 26* 
 
306 HISTORICAL 
 
 Jackson fully restored the prestige of the ancient party 
 name, and they now dropped their shield, and became 
 once more (1834) simple " Democrats." The Whigs being 
 now fully organized as such, received from Choate a pop 
 ular rallying-cry, when he wrote to their convention, 
 "We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the 
 flag and keep step to the music of the Union." 
 
 The trifling incident of the so-called " Locofoco 
 cigars" in Tammany Hall gave the Democrats a new nick 
 name, which became popular. 
 
 In the famous " Hard -cider campaign" of 1840, for 
 and against " Tippecanoe and Tyler too," the country 
 first began to hear of, and to assemble in, " mass-meet 
 ings." Before this, too, not much had been heard of 
 "available candidates." The West being now fully 
 opened up, the business of "stump-speaking" and "log 
 rolling" began to flourish, though both were quite honor 
 able and above-ground compared with the New York 
 operations of "pipe-laying" and "repeating." When 
 Vice-President Tyler became President, and turned away 
 from the party which elected him, men revived the old 
 Virginia doctrine (known also to the Magyars centuries 
 ago) of the "right of instruction." 
 
 The great slave-power was now waxing so bold and so 
 powerful in the land, that it was hard for both the two 
 great parties to remain any longer neutral. The Whigs, 
 under the lead of Webster and Clay, claimed to be the 
 least subservient to it, but they began now to be sore 
 pushed in their neutrality. As early as 1841 the seeds of 
 their final ruin were planted ; they became divided into 
 "Conscience Whigs" and "Cotton Whigs," names 
 which graphically explain themselves. Of the former 
 division, Charles Francis Adams and Wilson were promi 
 nent leaders. 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 
 
 37 
 
 The slave-power had long had a wistful eye on the 
 great and rich region of Texas, and in 1844 Polk was 
 elected on the distinct platform of "Annexation," or 
 " Reannexation" as some preferred to call it, which the 
 Democratic party pronounced to be a " political neces 
 sity." Despite the imposing petition sent to Congress 
 by the Conscience Whigs, the new "Liberty party," and 
 the "Abolitionists," Texas was annexed by joint resolu 
 tion. There was war with Mexico, and five Whigs in 
 Congress made themselves immortal by " firing in the 
 rear." Corwin virtually hoped the Mexicans would "wel 
 come with bloody hands to a hospitable grave" every in 
 vader of their country. The animosity between the Con 
 science Whigs and the Cotton Whigs became intense ; 
 party spirit ran as high as in 1812. 
 
 At the same time with the Mexican war the country 
 escaped with the skin of its teeth from another with 
 England about the Oregon boundary. "Fifty-four forty, 
 or fight ! was the popular cry, both North and South ; 
 but our government was obliged to yield its claims, 
 although it compensated itself by seizing upon the peer 
 less domain of California, at Monterey, scarce twenty- four 
 hours in advance of the English admiral. 
 
 Jefferson s foreign policy, which consisted simply in 
 avoiding "entangling alliances," expanded, under Folk s 
 Administration, to this formula: "Ask nothing that is 
 not right, and submit to nothing that is wrong." Both 
 were rather vague. 
 
 Notwithstanding the great immigration all the while, 
 our people still regarded foreigners with a certain amount 
 of distrust, and used toward them a rather illiberal policy. 
 Accordingly, when Bishop Hughes sought to organize an 
 Irish party, his attempt not only failed, but produced a 
 violent reaction (1844) which filled the land with the cry, 
 
308 HISTORICAL. 
 
 "Native Americans," "America for Americans," and 
 subsequently gave birth to "Sam" and the "Know- 
 Nothings." Our countrymen seemed to forget that it 
 was foreign men coming to America, and not, as in the 
 case of Poland and Ireland, foreign governments. 
 
 In 1850 the country was again alarmingly convulsed 
 over the proposition to admit California as a free State. 
 Webster virtually joined himself to the Cotton Whigs by 
 advocating the infamous Fugitive Slave Bill. He asserted 
 that " there are times when we must learn to conquer our 
 prejudices," and that it was useless to attempt to "re- 
 enact the will of God" concerning the destination of New 
 Mexico. But a rupture was again staved off for awhile by 
 Clay s " Omnibus Bill," which brought in California free, 
 New Mexico and Utah as Territories, without mention of 
 slavery, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, 
 and the Fugitive Slave Bill. Thii news was received in 
 far-off California with wild delight, making "Admission 
 Day" a joyful anniversary forever, to be celebrated with 
 bonfires, cannon, and bell-ringing. But this bargaining 
 with the slave-power shattered the Whig party, and it 
 went down soon after in hopeless and irremediable dis 
 aster. 
 
 The arrogant attitude and demands of the slave oli 
 garchy were now driving men from both the great parties 
 toward a separate organization. Some came from the 
 Democracy, but most of them were earnest men fleeing 
 from the fast-sinking and dishonored ship of Whiggery, 
 who, together with their few Democratic allies, launched 
 a new vessel on the political seas, and named it " Free 
 Soil." In 1848 it was fully rigged, and ready to sail. 
 The two "healthy organizations" chose their captains for 
 the coming contest, Taylor and Cass respectively, and 
 now was opened an opportunity for the new party to win 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 309 
 
 a splendid triumph. But, unfortunately, acting too closely 
 upon their motto, "Success is a duty," they selected a 
 feeble leader, Van Buren, and in the ensuing election they 
 came out disastrously in the vocative. Their failure barely 
 escaped contempt. 
 
 But now came up a new apparition, one of the most 
 wonderful in all the erratic career of American politics, 
 the Know-Nothing party (1853). Like an uncalculated 
 comet, it blazed through the heavens on its brief but 
 astonishing career, smashing Whig and Free-Soil utterly, 
 and shaking Democracy to its center. It seems almost 
 like a providential intervention in history, in that it 
 ground so thoroughly to powder the feeble parties which 
 had hitherto made sham battles against the slave-power, 
 reducing all to a common level, and thus clearing the 
 ground of old and false traditions, preparatory to the 
 rise of a new organization squarely confronting the 
 oligarchy. 
 
 This new party called itself "Republican," thereby 
 shaking off old and painful memories of disaster, and 
 unhappy traditions connected with dishonored names. 
 In 1856 it went forth to battle with the rally ing-cry, 
 "Fremont and freedom!" and, though beaten, was 
 beaten without disgrace to itself. 
 
 In response to the demand for " free soil" in the Terri 
 tories, the South replied, "We have a right to take our 
 slaves wherever you take your horses." This was the 
 first exchange of shots at long range between the out 
 posts. In 1850 Seward said in the Senate that there was 
 a "higher law . . . which regulates our authority 
 over the domain ;" but there came back from Hammond 
 the proud response, "Cotton is king." 
 
 In 1854 Burns was carried back to Virginia and sla 
 very in a government cutter, and the New York Tribune 
 
3io HISTORICAL. 
 
 passionately declared the flag that fluttered above him was 
 a "flaunting lie." But Chief Justice Taney calmly re 
 plied that the negro " had no rights which the white man 
 was bound to respect." Douglas protested against the 
 quarrel over the negro, declaring that this is a "white 
 man s government." 
 
 Through the action of Douglas the Missouri Compro 
 mise was repealed, thus throwing Kansas open to sla 
 very ; and Chief Justice Taney ruled that the Constitution 
 "made no distinction between the right of property in a 
 slave and any other property held by a citizen," which 
 opened even the Free States to slavery. But the North 
 was busy in hurrying emigrants into Kansas, and the 
 "underground railroad" in carrying slaves out of it. 
 Douglas offered his mediative principle of "Squatter 
 Sovereignty" in the Territories, but it availed little for 
 Kansas. There followed in that unfortunate State a long, 
 miserable, and desolating struggle between the inhabitants 
 and the Border Ruffians of Missouri ; but the former tri 
 umphed over all at last, rejected the last plan of humilia 
 tion concocted by Congress, called the " English Com 
 promise," and entered the Union free. The day of 
 compromises was fast passing away. 
 
 Clear-sighted men saw the great battle was at hand. In 
 June, 1858, Lincoln declared, "The Union cannot exist 
 half slave, half free;" and four months later Seward an 
 nounced to a startled and incredulous nation the "Irre 
 pressible Conflict." 
 
 Parties were swiftly rushing to desperate measures. In 
 May, 1859, the Southern Commercial Convention boldly 
 affirmed the unconstitutionally of the laws forbidding 
 the foreign slave-trade. Five months later old John 
 Brown made the South tremble by his mad sally at Har 
 per s Ferry. 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 311 
 
 The near approach of war oppressed thoughtful men 
 with dread and melancholy, and the timorous separated 
 themselves from the strong. Political parties multiplied 
 on every hand, as the physicians assemble thick about the 
 bedside of a dying man. In one great camp was seen 
 the banner inscribed, " Congressional interference in the 
 Territories against slavery;" in another the device, " Con 
 gressional interference in the Territories for slavery." 
 Between these two remotest camps was another on whose 
 ensign was written, " The great principle : Congressional 
 non-interference;" and another with this motto, The 
 Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the 
 laws." There was a multitude of separate brigades and 
 regiments, as "Abolitionists," "Fire-eaters," "Silver 
 Grays," "Old Hunkers," "Barn-Burners," " Co-opera- 
 tionists," etc. 
 
 The election of 1860 let slip the dogs of war. As one 
 after another of the "erring sisters" took her departure 
 from the ancestral hearth -stone, there were some who 
 cried out, "Let the Union slide !" but the "old public 
 functionary" shed tears. Some called earnestly after 
 them, that they meant to leave their "peculiar institu 
 tion" unharmed, but these protests of the weak-kneed 
 were no longer of any avail. So great was the distress 
 and alarm of the majority of the people, both North and 
 South, that one good old man was encouraged to attempt 
 once more the work of compromise. But the "Peace 
 Congress" was laughed to scorn. 
 
 All patchwork of diplomacy was rudely swept aside by 
 the attack on Fort Sumter, which commenced a war on 
 "the best government the world ever saw." But in 
 thus "firing the Southern heart" the Rebels fired also 
 the Northern, and then came a wild cry for "blood-let 
 ting." The great word was spoken: "If any man 
 
3 i2 HISTORICAL. 
 
 attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on 
 the spot!" 
 
 Maryland "had no quarrel with the Union," and then 
 there came from the North a fierce cry, " Through Balti 
 more, or over it 1" This was followed by " On to Rich 
 mond !" The raw and untutored army made a blunder 
 ing pass at Manassas, had victory just in its gripe, then 
 ran away in a bloody and disastrous panic, and a well- 
 known voice cried, " Peace on the best attainable terms !" 
 Then for weary months all remained " quiet on the Poto 
 mac," and the heart of the people grew sick and sad 
 with hope deferred. But they were listening meantime to 
 the marvelous narratives of the "reliable gentleman" and 
 the " intelligent contraband," who related to their gaping 
 auditors such accounts of the doings of the dreadful and 
 mysterious "masked batteries" of the Rebels as made 
 each separate and particular hair on our heads stand on 
 end. 
 
 They had not yet learned in Washington to let head 
 quarters be in the field, whence McClellan, after a series 
 of dreadful battles, had to "change his base" before 
 Richmond. This emboldened Lee to change his base 
 into "Maryland, my Maryland," from which Antietam 
 caused him to change it back again. Instructed by these 
 bitter experiences, the government had allowed Pope, as 
 Lee jestingly said, "to have his headquarters where his 
 hindquarters ought to be;" in consequence of which 
 proceeding the "Mackerel Brigade" performed some 
 most wonderful and astounding evolutions, in a race with 
 the Rebels for Washington. 
 
 But in the mean time, happily, Grant was learning out 
 West how to "move on your works;" Sherman, how to 
 " make a flank movement;" and Sheridan, how to "do 
 things." 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 313 
 
 There was a deal of bad management everywhere ; a 
 good deal of "shoddy" was distributed to the brave boys 
 in blue ; and the bacon was often rancid, or lacking alto 
 gether. Many a poor fellow who enlisted to do hard 
 fighting, but was allowed to rot in ignominious inaction 
 along the banks of the James, the Rappahannock, the 
 Tennessee, and the Mississippi, lost the number of his 
 mess, and was carried out feet foremost from his little 
 "chebang" to his long home. Billy Jones "jumped the 
 boun-ti-ee;" there were "Copperheads" in the grass, 
 ready to strike the boys in the rear; there were infam 
 ous contractors getting rich on their sufferings. The 
 "K. G. C." abounded; the "Butternuts" obstructed. 
 The deserted and lonely maidens began to sing "When 
 this cruel war is over." Many declared the "war was 
 a failure," and all were at least ready to admit, with the 
 President, that it was a "big job," bigger even than 
 "Crazy Sherman" had predicted, and not to be ended 
 in "ninety days" by any means. Those were dark, dark, 
 sad days for all who loved the Republic. 
 
 But the people never desponded, whatever weak-kneed 
 officers might do ; and to the call for more troops they 
 gloriously responded, "We are coming, Father Abraham, 
 with three hundred thousand more ;" and the tramp of 
 armed myriads was heard from the piney forests of Maine 
 to the broad prairies of Kansas. The " War Democrats" 
 did nobly. Hooker fought his "battle above the clouds ;" 
 Rosecrans "went down to take Chattanooga, and there 
 he was." 
 
 Hitherto many good men had not been able to decide 
 within themselves whether "the war was prosecuted to 
 put down slavery, or slavery was to be put down to prose 
 cute the war," or neither; but all the while "John Brown s 
 soul was marching on" to its inevitable goal. At last the 
 
 27 
 
314 HISTORICAL. 
 
 President grew to the stature of the times, and felt him 
 self strong enough to proclaim emancipation. This was 
 a grievous stumbling-block and rock of offense to many 
 good friends of the Republic ; and they were hardly per 
 suaded by the argument of "military necessity." The 
 people drifted as slowly to emancipation as they did, in 
 the Revolution, toward independence. 
 
 Better days were coming now. Grant sat doggedly 
 down and pounded at Vicksburg for months. At last he 
 and Pemberton met under a tree, and in the course of 
 two or three hours broke a celebrated "backbone." 
 
 The navy was "stopping up the rat-holes" faithfully. 
 Grant was assisted in the capture of Vicksburg by "an 
 iron fleet with a wooden commander;" New Orleans was 
 taken by "a wooden fleet with an iron commander." 
 
 As for the Rebels, so thoroughly had they believed in 
 " peaceable secession, " thinking the North too mercenary 
 to fight, that many a vainglorious orator offered to "drink 
 all the blood that would be spilled. Even should there be 
 fighting (as Northern men also asserted), " one man would 
 whip ten." At first there was division in their councils, 
 some wishing all the Southern States to "co-operate;" 
 but the capture of Sumter so turned the Southern head 
 that opinion was reduced to an almost absolute dead level 
 of unanimity, and "secession," pure and simple, every 
 State going out for itself, was the order. 
 
 At first the leaders inflated the popular hopes with 
 "foreign recognition;" then later, when the battle was 
 beginning to go sore against them, with a "revulsion of 
 popular feeling in the North." 
 
 The Rebels too often had to defend their cities, as 
 Bragg said to Davis, "with five proclamations and one 
 brigade." " Political Brigadiers" were the curse of their 
 armies. Deserters abounded at the front, and "bomb- 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 315 
 
 proofs" at home. The secret "Red and White League" 
 not daring to add the "blue," but repudiating the 
 " red" sapped their Georgia regiments. Discipline was 
 nugatory ; the order to charge or to fall back sometimes 
 proceeded from some Stentor of a private. "Lee s 
 miserables" were so ragged that he "was always ashamed 
 of them except when fighting." Memminger s "gray- 
 backs" would not feed them, and Nature s "graybacks" 
 devoured them. 
 
 Stonewall Jackson performed prodigies of daring and 
 valor, and made Fremont his "Quartermaster." John 
 ston made a masterly retreat in Georgia ; and then Hood 
 "fout and fout" in Atlanta, and afterward was driven 
 away from Nashville with ignominy. 
 
 But it was all of no avail. Their great " interior 
 circle," on which Albert Sydney Johnston counted so 
 much, became daily narrower and more hollow. " Cousin 
 Sal was impetuous and brave, but no match for her per 
 sistent and hard-headed old Uncle. To replenish their 
 wasted regiments, they were driven to "rob the cradle 
 and the grave." The fatal end drew near. "Submis- 
 sionists" began to rear their heads. Men began to talk 
 of "dying in the last ditch." 
 
 Meantime, Grant was pounding at Richmond with his 
 accustomed doggedness, determined to "fight it out on 
 that line, if it took all summer." It took all summer, 
 and all winter. Sherman conceived his daring project, 
 asked and received permission, and then went " marching 
 through Georgia." Sheridan took a memorable "ride" 
 up the Shenandoah Valley, then hastened down, and fell 
 upon Petersburg. 
 
 One Sunday morning, after reading a mysterious tele 
 gram in church, Davis made ready in all haste, and fled 
 
3 i 6 HISTORICAL. 
 
 with his Cabinet from Richmond. On his way through 
 North Carolina he made a speech, in which he affirmed 
 that the "war had entered upon a new phase." That 
 new phase meant for him a "Yankee Bastile." 
 
 It was a " lost cause." The Rebels were " overpowered, 
 but not whipped." They were "outnumbered by the 
 Northern scum." 
 
 The government did not hang Davis on a "sour apple- 
 tree," or any other, but proceeded quietly to the great 
 work of " Reconstruction." " My policy" did not pre 
 vail, but Congress deemed it necessary to " reconstruct 
 reconstruction." "Universal amnesty and universal suf 
 frage" was refused, though the Northern people were dis 
 posed to treat the fallen Rebels with great generosity. 
 There followed a long and disgraceful wrangle between 
 Congress and the President, continuing until the incoming 
 of a new administration, with a motto which the people 
 took up with that great joy that comes of weariness : 4 "Let 
 us have peace." But, alas ! the South had been "recon 
 structed" so much, and yet so ill, that there was no peace 
 there ; but the unhealed and rankling malady of disfran- 
 chisement within burst forth in the violent eruptions of 
 the "Ku-Klux." 
 
 The North had said, " The negro troops fought nobly," 
 and therefore demanded for them the ballot. But the 
 negro himself responded : 
 
 " Shoo, fly ! don t bodder me, 
 For I belong to Company B." 
 
 This history may properly end with the latest sectional 
 mottoes. New England says, " Boston State-House is the 
 hub of the Solar System." The West, speaking through 
 General Logan, replies with arguments about the "geo- 
 
A ROYAL ROAD TO HISTORY. 317 
 
 graphical center." The South says, "In Dixie land I ll 
 take my stand." On the Pacific slope the word is: 
 
 " That for ways that are dark, 
 And for tricks that are vain , 
 The heathen Chinee is peculiar." 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 
 
 T)ERHAPS it would be impossible to give a clearer 
 JL and yet more comprehensive epitome of German 
 political history for the last three centuries than is found 
 in the student fraternities. Of course, they do not present 
 an actual epitome of that history, but only an imitation 
 performed by boys ; but the doings of boys are so much 
 simpler and withal so much more attractive than their 
 fathers actions, and, in Germany, have been such an 
 exact imitation of the same, that their history is alto 
 gether the most interesting. Gorres says, " If a boy does 
 not at ten run around with all the gamins he can find, and 
 at twenty become a red-hot republican, he will come to 
 nothing." But the university boys of Germany are not 
 all red-hot republicans at twenty, and we shall therefore 
 find in their doings all forms of government typified. 
 
 The fraternities correspond exactly neither to the secret 
 societies of our American colleges nor to the literary 
 societies; for, unlike the first, their constitutions and pro 
 ceedings are open, and, unlike the second, they pay small 
 attention to that kind of peculiarly American oratory 
 which frequently smacks, as the French say, de la blague, 
 and more to the cultivation of a slightly maudlin patriot 
 ism which is known in Germany as D cuts clithaume lei. 
 As in America, there are two classes of organizations, quite 
 as distinct as ours, and a third party of neutrals, though 
 these latter are far less numerous proportionately than in 
 American colleges. The most numerous and powerful 
 (3i8) 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 319 
 
 class of fraternities, especially in North German uni 
 versities, is the corps ; and the others we may call, for 
 lack of a more accurate word, literary clubs, though this 
 is by no means a translation of their title (JBurschen- 
 schaften), but only an approximate indication of their 
 character. Besides these, there are a few theological 
 fraternities, found principally in Catholic universities and 
 in Switzerland ; and fewer still of what may be called 
 classic fraternities, as, for instance, that of Berlin devoted 
 to the study of Thucydides. Both the corps and the 
 literary clubs have, as in America, a common organiza 
 tion in many universities, though this community is less 
 perfect than ours, extending usually only to the most 
 general regulations as to duels, beer-courts, etc., and the 
 correspondence between them is irregular. Each uni 
 versity has its own special beer-code and duel-code, estab 
 lished by its General Convention, by which all beer and 
 sword-duels must be regulated ; but the different lodges 
 of the same organization have an arrangement of cartel 
 between them which entitles students moving from one 
 university to another, or students fighting a duel in another 
 university than their own, to certain rights and privileges. 
 Some of them may have secret grips or pass- words, but, 
 if so, it is in violation of agreements made with the facul 
 ties, and I have never discovered any evidence of them. 
 The principal mode of salutation consists in an embrace 
 and a good, broad, "clamorous smack." As to badges, 
 colors, uniforms, and present general character, it will be 
 more appropriate to speak after some consideration has 
 been devoted to their origin and history. 
 
 The existence of these fraternities reaches far back into 
 the seventeenth century, and the earliest form which they 
 assumed was that of national clubs (Landsmannschafteri) 
 founded solely on the principle of a common nationality. 
 
3 20 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 When the student came to the university he was a stranger, 
 far from home and in need of friends ; he found there 
 many different dialects of German, less intelligible to each 
 other than now, and many varieties of national costume 
 and customs. Nothing was more natural, therefore, 
 than that he should seek out men from his own province, 
 speaking his own dialect. They would console each 
 other in their loneliness, and "drink brotherhood" to 
 gether, that is, holding the beer-mugs in locked arms. 
 
 Of course, the constitutions and laws of these clubs 
 were at first very ill defined, and their amusements were 
 of the rudest and often the most scandalous description. 
 Many students wore swords, and their favorite pastime 
 was to slap the street-boys {Gnoteri} with the flat of the 
 sword, or to terrify children and nurses at night with 
 hideous ghostly apparitions. The " captain joke" was 
 to annoy the "rattlers," as they called the policemen, 
 by thumping on their doors and crying "Murder!" 
 to see them gather up their loins and run through the 
 streets. 
 
 "Pennalism," or the system of fagging, existed then in 
 its worst shape ; and in many universities the student did 
 not become a " moss-skin," that is, entirely free from ser 
 vitude, until the seventh semester, or beginning of the 
 fourth year. German historians assert that this custom, 
 or one very like to it, existed in the schools of Athens. 
 The Senior Convention was absolute. It was its influ 
 ence principally which gave the clubs so great a suprem 
 acy in the universities as to force nearly all the students 
 to join them, will they, nill they. As the university was 
 imported into Germany from France, so the cumbrous 
 title, national club, presently yielded to the French des 
 ignation corps, though the fraternity was sometimes called 
 a circle (Kranzcheri). The constitution of the Senior 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 
 
 321 
 
 Convention, as it existed before the nineteenth century, 
 was substantially as follows : 
 
 1. All students who wish to have a voice in the regu 
 lation of public affairs in the university must belong to 
 some corps. In most universities the names of all corps 
 that may exist there have been already permanently es 
 tablished, so that any new organization springing up must 
 take a name now vacant, by which it becomes entitled to 
 a vote in the Senior Convention ; or, if not satisfied with 
 an old name, must approve itself in the duello with all 
 the existing corps. The new name will then be recognized 
 by the Senior Convention. 
 
 2. Each corps has one vote in the Senior Convention. 
 This body exercises all legislative and administrative 
 functions in public affairs, and wields executive power 
 through a committee of three {Chargirte). 
 
 3. No honorable student can permit himself to be 
 slandered or insulted. He must, within the lawful time 
 (generally three days), either exact an explanation or 
 challenge the offender to a duel. 
 
 4. When the student s personal honor is wounded by 
 insult or slander, it can be restored by the duello (with 
 the sword) alone. 
 
 5. Regulations as to methods of challenge, weapons, 
 seconds, distance, etc. are different in different universi 
 ties. 
 
 6. Regulations as to the degree or amount of disgrace 
 attaching to every dishonorable action, such as a breach 
 of the word of honor, certain verbal and personal in 
 juries specified in the code of honor, but, above all, 
 refusal to fight when challenged, are generally prescribed 
 by the Senior Convention. 
 
 7. Another matter over which the Senior Convention 
 exercises control, is the rights of the students among 
 
322 HISTORICAL. 
 
 themselves. During the existence of the system of fag 
 ging, the regulation of the relations of fags to the other 
 students occupied most of the legislative activity of this 
 body. (The precise definition of the nature and position 
 of a fag appears to have given students much trouble a 
 century ago. An old Heidelberg code defines a fag as 
 "A piece of flesh without mind, wit, or sense, but who 
 always carries a great quantity of cigars and tobacco about 
 him." Another at Halle summed them up thus, " Pen- 
 nals are sly, but they do not think.") 
 
 The corps, as inspired and guided by the Senior Con 
 vention, exercised a relentless tyranny, and their influ 
 ence was in many respects then, as it is to-day, deplora 
 ble. All who would not join them, preferring to avoid 
 the duel and to give their evenings to study, were branded 
 as "finches," "camels," "savages," and were treated 
 with unmeasured contempt. Kobbe, writing of the 
 period which followed the Thirty Years War, says: " In 
 that dark epoch it was, when the national heart was 
 crushed and broken, that the germ of our liberties, or, 
 if the name is preferred, the spirit of youthful chivalry, 
 took refuge in the universities ; and that of which people 
 had no enjoyment elsewhere they consoled themselves 
 with to the fill during their three years residence at the 
 university. In this way, then, the old university freedom 
 soon degenerated. The staid old men gave the institu 
 tion their sanction only because the youth could therein 
 find vent for their buoyancy, and run out their horns. 
 The wilder the better, said they, and so that which was 
 originally designed to make the soul really free, and to 
 elevate the intellect above the conventional, and give it 
 strength for coming life, became a sort of opium-eat 
 ing, which wasted the intellectual powers, perverted the 
 ambition, and left behind a corresponding insipidity and 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 323 
 
 hollowness, and that which the state, as it was left by that 
 unhappy war, could best employ machine-laborers." 
 
 About the middle of the eighteenth century there 
 spread out from Scotland, all over Europe and into the 
 German universities, a sort of Freemasonry, which threat 
 ened, for a time, to extinguish the earlier national clubs 
 or corps altogether. They disregarded nationality, and 
 selected members solely on the principle of congeni 
 ality. The students went mad over these follies, and for 
 a quarter of a century, corresponding with the Storm- 
 and-Stress Period in literature, Germany was filled with 
 signs and wonders, stories of pale riders on horseback, 
 terrific caged goats, heated gridirons, etc. Fearful rites 
 of initiation were employed, which made "each particu 
 lar hair to stand on end." The national clubs almost 
 entirely disappeared from some universities, being sup 
 planted by these new orders, of which the most widely 
 ramified and popular was the Amicisten Orden. Their 
 device consisted of a kind of cross, with the letters V. V. 
 A. (irivat vera amicitid) above it, and V. A. F. H. (vivat 
 amicitia fructus honoris} below it. 
 
 Toward the end of the century these fooleries fell away, 
 and the year 1 798 tumbled them into their grave. The 
 old national clubs everywhere experienced a resurrection, 
 with their ancient names, Saxonia, Westphalia, Bavaria, 
 Rhenania, etc.; but the furore of Scotch-German Free 
 masonry had had this effect, that it destroyed the princi 
 ple of association by nationalities, and henceforth these 
 national clubs were called corps, as now, and selected 
 their members entirely on the basis of congeniality. Thus 
 this half-mad folly from Scotland had done something to 
 break down provincialism in the universities, and so for 
 forth was useful. 
 
 A writer describing the costumes of the corps in Er- 
 
324 HISTORICAL. 
 
 langen, about 1800, says they generally wore leather 
 breeches, like the Bavarian peasants of to-day, usually 
 black or brown and ornamented with looped braid ; can 
 non-boots, very high, with the trousers worn inside ; tall, 
 pointed, black felt hats, ornamented with long white 
 cock s-feathers; spurs, gauntlets, and a light straight 
 sword (Stossdegeri). This last article they carried a great 
 portion of the time. Their long swan-neck pipes were 
 ornamented with the corps colors, and sometimes they 
 wore a leather helm, like that of the Bavarian army. In 
 other universities the modern jaunty little cloth cap was 
 already introduced. 
 
 Such were the fraternities at the outbreak of the French 
 Revolution. The great Napoleonic wars decimated the 
 universities only less disastrously than the Thirty Years 
 War; nearly half a score of them totally disappeared, 
 professors and students going into the ranks. The tyr 
 anny of the French rallied all to the front, and in the 
 momentous years 1814-1815, when old Germany boiled 
 like a pot, the enthusiasm which ran through that phleg 
 matic people, as the mighty game which had been played 
 by giants for a quarter of a century was drawing to its 
 grand close, was only equaled by our vast uprising of 1861. 
 Jena sent half a regiment. The student Stapps shot at 
 Bonaparte in the garden of Schonbrunn, and five hours 
 afterward he was fusiladed. His death wrought miracles, 
 for every drop of his blood so dastardly spilled there 
 sprang up a thousand of his comrades to avenge his 
 death. 
 
 Bonaparte was crushed. Many of the students re 
 turned to the lecture-room to complete their studies, boys 
 no longer, but broad-shouldered and bearded men, the 
 veterans of many a hard campaign, leather-hided and 
 brawny, decorated with crosses and epaulettes and honor- 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 
 
 325 
 
 able scars, their white, thin skins tough as shagreen. 
 Should they now go back to the petty squabbles of their 
 vealy days ? Should men who had fought for all Germany, 
 bared their breasts to its foes on many a gallant field, and 
 drained the bowl around many a bivouac-fire beside the 
 Rhine to the united Fatherland, now draw their toy- 
 swords for Saxonia, or Lusatia, or Rhenania? Absurd ! 
 They must have a fraternity founded on a broader basis. 
 
 Scarcely, therefore, had the peace of Vienna been con 
 cluded, when one Jahn, a Jena man, sent out a circular 
 to all the students of Germany, glowing with patriotic 
 fervor, and containing the kernel of a constitution for 
 such a new and broader sodality. In it he named the 
 magic word Bursch^ for which the English has no full 
 equivalent. Eleven men of Jena, from the four corps 
 there existing, met and organized the first literary club, 
 but did not awaken the enthusiasm they expected, and 
 presently the project fell through. Another small club, 
 calling itself the Sulphurea, having no constitution but 
 the motto, "Death to the duello!" died even more 
 quickly. 
 
 But one Kaffenberger, also a man of Jena, saw that 
 the corps, backed by the great and ancient prestige of the 
 duel, must be attacked more craftily. He took Jahn s 
 constitution, but popularized it by adding many of the 
 least objectionable laws of the corps, and founded there 
 on, June 1 2th, 1815, the Christlich-deutsche-Burschen- 
 schaft, with the motto, "Honor, Freedom, Fatherland." 
 This is an important date in the student life of Germany, 
 as marking the first great step of revolt against the duello. 
 Kaffenberger took away the despotic power given by the 
 corps to the oligarchic Senior Convention, for which body 
 he substituted the General Convention, wherein every stu 
 dent, except Freshmen of the first semester, had a voice. 
 
 28 
 
326 HISTORICAL. 
 
 This latter body was a return to the old Athenian ecclesia, 
 and was the ultimate authority ; but his President and 
 council, with their combined executive and legislative 
 powers, mutually supplementary, curiously resembled our 
 President and Senate. They made small war on the 
 duello as yet, even fighting themselves when unavoidable, 
 and their principal object was to cultivate patriotism. The 
 greatness, the unity, the invulnerability, the incompre 
 hensibility of Germany, etc., this was their weakness, 
 or rather their strength, for the new doctrine now began 
 to multiply on the face of the earth. About the only 
 good thing these enthusiasts accomplished was to give to 
 Germany some of its most beautiful songs, for which the 
 appreciative American student will ever be grateful to 
 them. The glorious drinking-songs of Arndt, Riickert, 
 Korner, and others, such as the "Gaudeamus," " Lan- 
 desvater," and 
 
 " Wir batten erbaut ein stattliches Haus," 
 
 were first heard then in many a roistering beer-cellar, and, 
 to the great advantage of morality, soon supplanted the 
 smutty or maudlin effusions which had descended from 
 the age of Louis XIV. 
 
 In less than a year after their foundation the literary 
 clubs had rooted out all the corps in Jena except one 
 dwindling lodge, and the faculties negotiated with them 
 as constituting the entire body of students. On the first 
 anniversary of the Vienna peace they marched in gor 
 geous procession through Jena, and received from the 
 young ladies a silk banner bearing their colors (black, 
 red, and gold), which afterward had a history more mys 
 terious and celebrated than any other ever known in Ger 
 many. A year later they carried it in gala procession 
 again, and immediately afterward it was stolen and no 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 327 
 
 trace of it could be found, a circumstance which created 
 an excitement as profound as the abduction of Morgan. 
 Thirty years afterward a man who had belonged to the 
 only corps that was left, confessed on his dying bed that 
 he had hidden it in spite ; but to this day there are hun 
 dreds of thousands of superstitious Germans who still be 
 lieve that old flag is hidden somewhere about the Wart- 
 burg, sacredly guarded by the patron saint of Germany, 
 who will bring it forth in triumph on the day of Germany s 
 final union. Its appearance is now due. 
 
 In 1818 these literary clubs held their first great re 
 union, and at that time they were firmly established in 
 eleven universities. Haughty and aristocratic Gottingen 
 and Breslau were the only strongholds that had not been 
 wholly or partly carried by this half-mad Deutschthaumelei. 
 America is called the peculiar dwelling-place of humbug 
 and "sensations;" but does the marvelous history of 
 Know-Nothingism or of the morus multicaulis furnish 
 anything surpassing this ? 
 
 Jena was the only university where the corps had en 
 tirely succumbed, but in a few cities they still held out in 
 undiminished strength, and in others shared the dominion 
 pretty equally with their young rivals. On the whole, 
 Germany was more equally parceled out between them 
 than at the present day, the literary clubs being weaker 
 now, which fact is significant, since they represent social 
 istic democracy, while the corps stand for the old feudal 
 aristocracy. Since they now (about 1818) stand over 
 against each other most equally matched and in full battle- 
 array, let us take a survey of their respective uniforms. 
 
 The literary clubs called themselves Old Germans, 
 and affected something of the simplicity and more of the 
 extravagances of their mediaeval ancestors. Their gala 
 uniform was generally a close, short, black tabard, with a 
 
328 HISTORICAL. 
 
 stiff narrow collar, and, turned over it, a wide shirt-collar, 
 ornamented with embroidery, spangles, etc.; bare neck; 
 long hair ; a black bonnet on the head, garnished with 
 feathers and a gold acorn. On particular days they wore 
 a red scarf bordered with gold fringe ; a long, straight, 
 slender sword (not the pointed rapier, for the stab-duel, 
 but a sword with a knob on the point, for the stroke-duel) ; 
 gold spurs of great size ; and had their coats bordered 
 with velvet scollops and gold fringe. Sometimes they 
 trained in the linen uniforms of the Turners, as we see 
 them to-day. 
 
 The corps, inconsistent with their real principles, called 
 themselves Young Germans, and chose the then most 
 modern costumes. They wore cavalry collars ; cannon- 
 boots, the same as now ; immense spurs ; sometimes mili 
 tary helmets, but oftener the modern caps ; uhlan casques ; 
 hussar cassocks ; Polish coats with an abundance of loops 
 and braid on the breasts ; and on their trousers galloons 
 as wide as one s hand. They generally carried yet the 
 pointed rapier suited for the stab-duel. Mayer s article 
 on the universities, from which I derive many facts, and 
 the Breslau pamphlet entitled " Der Unsinn des Duells" 
 differ somewhat as to the date when the corps abandoned 
 the stab-duel for the less ferocious stroke-duel, but it was 
 somewhat later than the time under discussion. 
 
 The literary clubs, as we have seen, came in on the 
 mighty flood-tide of enthusiasm following the expulsion 
 of Bonaparte, but that flood-tide was already ebbing. 
 The Germans having healed their wounds were beginning 
 to dream again, and to burrow in their book-dens like 
 troglodytes. Arndt says, "People have sometimes done 
 us Germans the honor to call us the Greeks of the modem 
 world, and the thoughtful people who have been desig 
 nated by God to think and invent for the peoples of 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 329 
 
 Europe. . . . But we are for all other Europeans 
 and above all others the dreamers, and have thereby suf 
 fered to fall into the hands of subtle and crafty strangers 
 a great part of that which we had earned with our sweat 
 and blood." For this reason the literary clubs were 
 already showing the yellow leaf, when there fell a stroke 
 which cut them up by the roots. The Confederate Par 
 liament, in Frankfort, passed a series of resolutions which 
 set forth that "the so-called literary clubs, now existing 
 in certain universities, and carrying on a secret corre 
 spondence that extends all over Germany, an institution 
 that is dangerous to the liberties of the people, as well as 
 corrupting to public morals, and cannot therefore be tol 
 erated, be, and the same are, hereby forbidden." They 
 further enacted that any person convicted of belonging 
 to one of these pestilent clubs after the enactment should 
 be declared forever incompetent to hold a public office ! 
 So another reunion took place in Jena in 1819, and with 
 solemn and imposing ceremonies the literary clubs were 
 dissolved as public organizations. Whereupon there was 
 great rejoicing among the corps, and much accession of 
 beer and new members. The literary clubs deserved their 
 fate, not for their sins, but for their follies. Patriotism 
 with them became a disease. With all their scandalous 
 sins of sottishness, outrageous quarrelsomeness, and vain 
 glory, the corps were the more respectable, even if their 
 souls were so dead that none ever to himself hath said, 
 "This is my own, my native land." They were too 
 proud to make themselves fools. 
 
 Of course, as the reader has foreseen, these literary 
 clubs, being publicly suppressed, gradually sprang up 
 again as secret societies. In Jena alone did they main 
 tain an open existence, but did it at the expense of all 
 their old principles and their patriotism, fought duels, 
 
 28* 
 
33 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 and despised the non-fraternity men, the "camels," as 
 heartily as did the corps. In the universities, too, where 
 they lived only in profound secrecy, they abandoned the 
 notion of saving the Fatherland, and gave their attention 
 pretty exclusively to the question of the relative disad 
 vantages of the fore-stroke and the back-stroke. Within 
 three years after their formal dissolution they had secret 
 lodges in most of the universities where they existed be 
 fore ; but the university police hunted them so keenly 
 that many of them dared have no written constitution, 
 and were liable at any moment to be seized and igno- 
 miniously cast into the pit, whence they might dolorously 
 cry out of the deeps, O quid agis ? 
 
 But as time rolled on, and the statute began to acquire 
 a covering of dust, this severity relaxed. In 1824 the 
 remnants of the old literary clubs in Erlangen ventured 
 to reorganize themselves into a body to which they gave 
 the cautious name of the Generality (Allgemeinheit), and 
 by conducting themselves with great discretion, in a year 
 they transgressed with impunity the Bavarian law which 
 forbade any but the corps from wearing colors. They 
 assumed uniform caps. But from the day of their founda 
 tion there had been growing up among them a division 
 of sentiment, one section acquiring the title of the Pathos 
 party, while the others became known as Bummers. The 
 first hankered after the flesh-pots of the old Jena literary 
 clubs, were the dreamers, the maudlin patriots, the trog 
 lodytes of the university ; but the second had caught a 
 partial inspiration of real human life, and were less anx 
 ious to save the Fatherland than to find out the best 
 quality of beer and swig the same. Having before them 
 a goodly keg (Pass) of mellow old hock, they would cry 
 out in the words of the moral Seneca, "Zforabsit \\t-fas!" 
 The Pathos worshiped the Muses and the Graces, and 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 331 
 
 wept over the downfall of the Fatherland ; the Bummers 
 worshiped the graces who lived in Erlangen, could quaff 
 beer, and trip it "on the light fantastic toe," and as for 
 the Fatherland, their creed was to commit a slight vio 
 lence on a venerable text ubi puella, ibi patria. In the 
 picnics in the vicinity of Erlangen, the Pathos would 
 wander off alone, and frequently improve the opportunity 
 in the silent forests to debate and reason together upon 
 the affairs of the nation, or 
 
 " Retreated in a silent valley, sing 
 With notes angelical to many a harp ;" 
 
 while the Bummers danced, and rollicked, and occasion 
 ally fleshed upon each other the latest fashion of saber 
 from Suhl. They were captured by the police so often 
 when they were enjoying their Attic nights, and incar 
 cerated in the dungeon, that they made a song about it, 
 of which a couplet may be thus rendered : 
 
 " Think you this joke annoys me, chum? 
 No; prison-life is frolicsome." 
 
 German students are generally good draughtsmen, and 
 they had such frequent and admirable opportunities for 
 developing their gifts in this direction, that the walls of 
 the old university dungeons look like a geometrical pa 
 limpsest. 
 
 In a year after its establishment the Generality split, 
 the Bummers becoming the Germania, and the Pathos 
 the Arminia. The former adopted the colors of the old 
 literary clubs and white regulation-caps. This date is 
 important, because the Germania eventually became the 
 widely-ramified literary clubs of to-day, a fine body of 
 men, who have been an honor and a benefit to the uni 
 versities; and we must overlook their origin when we 
 
332 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 remember the human material out of which Rome was 
 builded. Freshmen were now for the first time in history 
 admitted to a perfect equality with the older classes in all 
 elections and other privileges, their sole lingering badge 
 of inferiority being the tricolored guards which they 
 wore instead of the white ones of the older classes. This 
 year, therefore (1825), marks the final abolition, at least 
 by this new order of fraternities, of the odious and bar 
 barous system of fagging ; and it is greatly to the credit 
 of Catholic Erlangen that it was in advance of the Prot 
 estant North German universities in adopting this reform. 
 But the duello was still retained in a milder form, for no 
 fraternity could hope to live in open revolt against it, and 
 it was by this alone that the Germania fought its way to 
 a vote in the Erlangen Senior Convention. On the other 
 hand, the Arminia with their foolish Deutschthaumelei 
 allied themselves with the Philistines (citizens), thus 
 covering themselves with fresh contempt, and speedily 
 went into nothingness. 
 
 Jena also had a revival of the old literary club, and it 
 likewise split into Pathos and Bummers. The Pathos 
 occupied themselves with such questions as these, Ought 
 the Almighty or Mephistopheles to have won his wager 
 on Faust ? and, Ought grace to be said at table aloud or in 
 a whisper ? They adopted the Erlangen names, Germania 
 and Arminia, but both retained the duello, and one day 
 they assembled in battle-array, thirty on a side, in a pinery 
 near Jena, fell to at a given signal, and made no end until 
 they had fought three-quarters of an hour. One student 
 was killed on the field, two others had to have arms am 
 putated, and none of them escaped without serious stabs 
 or slashes. The Arminia was beaten, and consequently was 
 expelled from the Senior Convention with ignominy. 
 
 In 1832 came the bastard Frankfort revolution, an affair 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 333 
 
 as contemptible in every way as our John Brown raid, but 
 it scared the German governments greatly. The Ger- 
 mania now had numerous chapters, and some of their men 
 were foolish enough to join in the Frankfort fiasco, or to 
 cause suspicions that they did, and forthwith the storm 
 burst over their heads again. All the governments in 
 Germany, with the single exception of Wiirtemberg (now, 
 perhaps, the most stupidly illiberal in the empire), issued 
 rigid decrees against the Germania men, and swept them 
 all away smack-smooth. In Tubingen alone did one 
 chapter remain in open existence. All other universities 
 compelled the student to promise on matriculation that 
 he would join himself to no secret fraternity, and some, 
 as that of Vienna, included secret and open, though they 
 left a loop-hole where-through a man might creep, by 
 adding, "or that you will abide all the penalties thereto 
 attached." 
 
 Of course, the Germania men had to burrow in secret 
 again and live the lives of ground-moles. After a few 
 years they began to come up again ; they picked up the 
 best men from the scattered remnants of the poor Armi- 
 nia ; purged their ranks of the help-drinks (Mitbummler) 
 and the bottle-tails (Kneipschwdnze] whom they had taken 
 in the day of prosperity merely to equalize their numbers 
 with their enemies the corps ; and so began slowly to 
 come to the surface once more. In some universities the 
 storm had wrecked everything, clubs and corps alike. 
 This was the case in Jena, and for several years there 
 ensued a dreary interregnum, an arid waste in college 
 life for lack of the social vivacity of the fraternities, until 
 in 1837 there came up the Unsinnia, a club of wits and 
 scholars, like the Owls of London and our own Phi Beta 
 Kappa. These men gradually drifted into the again rising 
 tide of the literary clubs or Germania men, and by their 
 
334 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 eminent respectability gave them impetus and eclat. In 
 1848 the Germania may be considered to have regained 
 all the ground lost by the blunder of 1832, and they were 
 now pretty much everywhere either tacitly or directly 
 recognized by the faculties. That year, therefore, may 
 stand as the date when the corps and the literary clubs 
 were fully organized and developed as they stand to-day. 
 Among the elegant and haughty swashbucklers of Got- 
 tingen the literary clubs never got any considerable foot 
 hold in all their vicissitudes. The great storm of 1832 
 swept away even the corps in Gottingen, but after their 
 revival they began to find rivals in fraternities founded 
 much on the same principle as obtained in the ancient 
 national clubs. These men called themselves Liineburgers, 
 Bremeners, etc.; but the haughty young gentlemen and 
 sprigs of Hanoverian nobility in the corps dubbed them 
 "guzzlers," implying that they assembled for no purpose 
 but to swig beer. They also accused them of Deutsch- 
 thaumelei or Jena Red Republicanism, -and this brought a 
 great explosion in 1840, which I find reported in an old 
 number of the Rheinische Zeitung; but the examination 
 instituted by the faculty cleared them of the charge. 
 The corps also tried to root them out by throwing them 
 selves on them and contracting innumerable pro-patria 
 duels with them ; but the nationals got themselves pri 
 vately coached in the use of the sword, and the only 
 result was that they became as good strokes as the corps 
 men, and gave them as good as they sent. The prime 
 cause of the hostility of the corps was that the guzzlers 
 were too democratic to submit to the oligarchic tyranny 
 of the Senior Convention, and also wished to substitute a 
 court of honor for the duel. The quarrel waxed so fierce 
 at last that the faculty intervened, punished the corps 
 men severely, distributing among them fifteen hundred 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 
 
 335 
 
 days of imprisonment, and gave some of them the con- 
 silium abeundi. They obliged them to enter into cartel 
 with the nationals ; recognize the court of honor, if the 
 nationals preferred it to the duel ; and also abide by the 
 decisions of the General Convention in all matters affect 
 ing equally corps men and nationals, although the former 
 still retained the Senior Convention as the highest autho 
 rity in matters between the corps alone. Preposterous as 
 it may seem, the mystic letters G. C. and S. C. were 
 never spoken but in a whisper (so says this Rheinische 
 Zeitung] as being the awful depositories of power, though 
 every bootblack in the town knew on what evenings they 
 met. About the only difference between the corps and 
 these nationals in Gottingen was, that the former fought 
 more duels, and developed more vociferous ability in 
 " throating." A duel with them generally created a great 
 clamor as to whether a stroke had "set," whether or not 
 it was " on," or was a " back-stroke" or a " fore-stroke," 
 so that one duel usually begot another among the seconds 
 or witnesses. 
 
 Thus we have briefly traced out the corps, beginning 
 before the Thirty Years War, and the literary clubs which 
 arose in 1815. The first represent the old feudal aris 
 tocracy ; the latter, democracy. The subject cannot be 
 dismissed without a word or two of comment. 
 
 One of the greatest benefits which the club men have 
 helped to confer on student life is the mitigation of 
 the duel. Coming originally from Italy, the dark and 
 treacherous, the duello prevailed for centuries in Ger 
 many in the frightful form of the thrust-duel. The first 
 step of reform was to cause a large hilt, as broad as a 
 dinner-plate, to be made on the rapier, to catch the point 
 of the adversary s weapon. Then a knob was put on the 
 point, and the thrust-duel was abandoned for the stroke- 
 
336 HISTORICAL. 
 
 duel, which is far more honest, manly, and consonant 
 with that Teutonic genius which invented the war-club 
 swung so lustily in the time of Tacitus. That hideous 
 weapon the three-edged rapier, bearded like a sickle, so 
 that when it was thrust into the body it could not be 
 drawn out, was forbidden by the university statutes. Jean 
 Paul cynically said of that barbarous form of duel that it 
 was well enough, for it was killing off the fools ; but, un 
 fortunately, so great was the strength of a false public 
 opinion, a good man, unskilled with the sword, could be 
 forced to fight and be killed by a brainless coxcomb who 
 would escape unhurt. Next the whole breast, throat, and 
 right arm were muffled in stout leather, and the eyes pro 
 tected with wire goggles, so that a man could get no 
 slashes except on his cheeks and on the top of his pate. 
 The present mode of duel is very seldom fatal, almost 
 never unless the rapier breaks, as happened a few years 
 ago, when the point broken off pierced a student s heart. 
 Club men are inclined to avoid the duel, and appeal to 
 a court of honor; but the corps push dueling to a ridicu 
 lous and outrageous excess. Rival corps often egg on 
 their best strokes to settle a long-standing feud between 
 them, like the Horatii and the Curiatii. In Heidelberg, 
 for instance, when a student wishes to fight another, he 
 has only to look hard at him in a peculiar manner, when 
 the other asks, "What do you want?" and the first one 
 replies by asking him to name his seconds. In one respect 
 the corps are superior, for they never descend to the base 
 American fisticuff, or the "hustle" in the university halls, 
 or the caning (Holzerei^, while the club men sometimes 
 so forget their dignity as to engage at least in the 
 "wooden." It is the one solitary palliation of German 
 dueling that it prevents men from fighting on the spot, 
 brutally, and in the red heat of passion, and adjourns the 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 337 
 
 matter to a cooler moment. The corps never fight a 
 Philistine, unless he be a military officer; but the club 
 men will not refuse a " towny" satisfaction, but prefer to 
 carry the dispute before the university senate. 
 
 On the other hand, the beer-duels are, if possible, more 
 ridiculous and puerile than the contest with the rapier. 
 The club men are even freer than the corps to swig off fif 
 teen or twenty glasses in a "salamander," or drain their 
 glass after each stanza of the long song : 
 
 " In Leipzig angekommen, 
 Als Fuchs bin aufgenommen," 
 
 or to resent the insult of being called "Pope," or "doc 
 tor," or "sage," or "beer-baby," by challenging the 
 adversary to an expiation of this mortal offense by a duel 
 of two, three, or four glasses, the first one through being 
 winner. 
 
 " Und de more you trinks, pe cerdain, 
 More Deutsch you ll surely pe." 
 
 And is it not the darling purpose of the club men to be 
 as German as possible, and to save the Fatherland ? 
 
 Gottingen, Heidelberg, and Wlirzburg are the strong 
 holds of the corps, while the literary clubs are potent in 
 Jena, Erlangen, and Munich. Thanks to the young 
 scions of nobility who keep up the corps in Gottingen, 
 that institution has been a bane to Hanover and to all 
 North Germany. Go almost any evening to the " Kaiser" 
 or other favorite student resort in that city, and about the 
 only topics you shall hear broached will be duels, love- 
 intrigues, or the qualities of the dogs kept there by the 
 young noblemen. If sometimes they so forget their frigid 
 dignity as to join in a song, they do not, like the "sholly 
 
 29 
 
338 HISTORICAL. 
 
 poy" of the literary club, choose the beautiful songs of 
 Fred. Riickert, Arndt, or Schenkendorf, but rather the 
 scandalous effusions of the French Rococo age. It is the 
 acme of wit to narrate some belittling and vulgar anec 
 dote of a professor, as it is the acme of stupidity to men 
 tion any topic of his lecture, and who does it is soon 
 enough silenced with "sage." Gottingen is praised for 
 its outward decorum, the students daintily prink and 
 polish their apparel, and you shall not hear a tenth part 
 of the vulgar but honest noise resounding in that cellar 
 where Goethe once helped to make night hideous; but 
 nowhere in Germany is there another body of students so 
 hollow-hearted and so eaten up with conceit. The Ger 
 man language has no equivalent for the word gentleman, 
 and it is said to have been introduced and naturalized by 
 the young Hanoverian snobs of Gottingen in the time 
 of George IV., a prince whom they had given to Eng 
 land. As for their studies, they consist simply in parrot 
 ing certain necessary facts, which they arrange as on a 
 string and mechanically cram for examination-day. They 
 are too proud to endure the disgrace of being plucked, 
 but as for any enduring and assimilated knowledge, it is 
 not in them. Gottingen is a memorizing machine. 
 
 It is not to be denied that the corps are schools of a 
 certain independence, a certain formation of gentlemanly 
 character in the external sense; but the independence 
 nurtured by them is founded on an immeasurable conceit, 
 and the character is one of unmitigated selfishness and 
 arrogance. The whole body of corps laws and their 
 esprit de corps are filled with a contempt for everything 
 not reducible to certain formulas of honor, falsely so 
 called, and especially for the Philistine, the plain citizen. 
 One of the most hateful characteristics of the upper 
 classes of Germany is their despotism over the humble 
 
GERMAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES. 
 
 339 
 
 and their cringing servility before the great, and it is in 
 no small degree traceable to the teachings of these uni 
 versity corps. An Italian nobleman may be of the most 
 exalted rank and yet be a liberal ; but no sooner does a 
 German get a title and a kingly cross on his bosom than 
 he hastens to kow-tow before the throne. 
 
 If the club men sometimes, nay, often, bubble quite 
 over with a certain namby-pamby patriotism, they are at 
 least greatly and honestly in earnest. Give me a man, 
 says Emerson, who has a bias in his convictions. The 
 literary clubs are less devoted to dreamy and worse-than- 
 useless Platonic-Republic-building than they were twenty- 
 five years ago. The one great excellence in them is that 
 they are schools of practical oratory. Jean Paul says, 
 " The man can dispense with the savant, but not the 
 savant with the man." What the German universities 
 need above all things else is schools of practical men of 
 affairs, of statesmen who can make kings tremble instead 
 of laughing, as now, over their lamentable and egregious 
 follies. The literary clubs teach men how to stand up 
 and reason on their legs, how to hit straight out from the 
 shoulder of their argument. Anything and everything 
 is good for a German that will rouse him out of his bed, 
 out of his easy-chair, out of his book-den, or any other 
 place, attitude, or atmosphere whatsoever which is con 
 ducive to his fatal habit of searching for the unseen, and 
 inject into his veins some of the fresh blood of solid 
 facts, and rack his brain with some of the hard knocks 
 of everyday political and social human nature. If the 
 literary clubs will make debates on fresh practical topics 
 a specialty, they will be worth more as educators of public 
 men than all the universities together. 
 
CALIFORNIA SAVED. 
 
 /"^ALIFORNIA saved the Republic once, and was 
 \^s saved by it in return. How did California save 
 the Republic ? 
 
 The discovery of gold in the placers at Coloma turned 
 us away from Mexico, which is political death. Before 
 that discovery, and especially after the conquering heroes 
 of Buena Vista and Chapultepec had marched through 
 and spied out the land, there was a current of adventure 
 and speculation steadily setting toward her fabulous riches 
 of silver ; but the fame of California turned it aside, let 
 us hope, forever. American men and American money 
 would have grouped themselves gradually about the richest 
 mines, and, becoming compactly knit together in strong 
 towns, would have revolted, as the Lone Star Republic 
 did, and brought province after province knocking at our 
 doors. 
 
 The Roman Empire girdled nearly all the known world 
 with victories, but when its armies went down to Egypt, 
 there was opened a fountain of corruption and contention 
 which overthrew the empire. In the day when we add 
 Mexico, it becomes our Egypt. 
 
 To many this may seem a shadowy and altogether in 
 substantial peril which was thus averted. But there was 
 a very positive and tangible element of salvation which 
 California digged, and washed, and pounded out, in the 
 shape of $191,300,000 in gold, produced during the years 
 of the war, to say nothing of the million or more which 
 the people contributed, out of their prodigal generosity, 
 (34o) 
 
CALIFORNIA SAVED. 
 
 341 
 
 to the Sanitary Fund. There never was any adequate 
 official acknowledgment of this mighty succor given by 
 California to the struggling nation. But Congress under 
 stood it well, when, in the midst of an unparalleled civil 
 war, there came a sudden dread and a peril, lest some 
 losel rebel should fall foul of the monthly argosy, heavy 
 with oro Americano, off the coast of Mazatlan, and when 
 in all haste it voted millions, though in the darkest days 
 of a frightfully expensive war, to set the overland railroad 
 a-digging. General Grant understood it well, when he 
 congratulated the people in his message that they were 
 gotten now in a position to reach across quickly, and 
 finger their "strong-box" in the day when they needed 
 money. 
 
 But our principal concern is with the second question : 
 How did the Republic save California? And, first, it is 
 necessary to state at considerable length the condition of 
 affairs present and impending, from which the coast was 
 thus rescued. 
 
 Not many months after the completion of the overland 
 railroad everybody was asking his neighbor, "What ails 
 California?" In many of the mountain mining towns, 
 which once resounded with the blast of the powder, the 
 clank of the quartz-mill, and the merry click of the pistol, 
 the doors were shut in the streets, and the sound of the 
 grinding was low. The silver mills were dry, the gold 
 ran thin in the sluices, in many places the harvests 
 were shortened, and the " blanket men" were abroad in 
 the land in ominous numbers. Real estate fell from the 
 very top-round of the ladder of an unprecedented inflation 
 down to the fourth or fifth step. Mortgages on real estate 
 in San Francisco mounted up to the alarming figure of 
 $30,000,000, a sum nearly equal to all the deposits then 
 in the savings-banks of California. The enormous cash 
 
 29* 
 
34 2 HISTORICAL. 
 
 rent which small farmers were paying for wheat-fields, 
 with money borrowed at an exorbitant interest, thereby 
 often spending in one year s rent nearly the whole actual 
 value of the farm, was sinking them deeper than luckless 
 Digger ever floundered in the wintry adobe of Salsapeutos. 
 
 Sii, the venerable and godlike, says: "Every good 
 and bad deed will in the end receive its merited recom 
 pense ; fly high or run far, still will it be difficult to 
 escape." Wherein had California sinned, that its sin had 
 found it out so swiftly and so surely? We must, to use 
 a mining phrase, go down to the bed-rock, and patiently 
 scrape together all the elements of the false position. 
 
 The vast mineral wealth of California had a deplorable 
 effect on great masses of the early population, in a two 
 fold manner. First, it infected men with that restless 
 fever which clung to them through life, even until they 
 made their last little entry of real estate, and " took up a 
 claim," seven feet by three. Second, many miners were 
 attracted by the admirable adaptation to viniculture of the 
 soil in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and gradually beat their 
 picks into priming-hooks, and their long-handled shovels 
 into plows. This was fortunate, so far, and illustrates the 
 remark of Humboldt, that the influence of mines on the 
 progressive cultivation of the soil is more durable than 
 the mines themselves. The placer gold was soon ex 
 hausted, and then the land became more valuable for 
 agricultural purposes j but, unfortunately, the government 
 refused to sell it or give any title for it, still holding it for 
 "mineral land." 
 
 Fifteen or twenty years thus spent by the farmer, in the 
 hope of some time getting a title to his little homestead, 
 had a most disastrous effect, both on himself and his 
 children. His family grew up unstable and uncertain. 
 His manly arm was unnerved by insecurity. For the 
 
CALIFORNIA SAVED. 
 
 343 
 
 sake of a few paltry and delusive particles of glittering 
 dust which yet lingered in the creek-bed or in the boul 
 ders among his clambering vines, any lawless rover might 
 tear up all his terraces, uproot all his carefully-cultured 
 vines and trees, for whose fruit he had toiled and waited, 
 and leave him utterly without redress. Thousands of 
 families grew up in this manner, making only a miserable 
 shift until they might be certain of their possessions, and 
 then abandoned them in despair at last, all the best 
 years of their lives wasted, their energies gone, and idle 
 ness and shiftlessness woven into the very life-web of their 
 characters. 
 
 At last the government was induced to set about the 
 survey and sale of these equivocal and fatal lands, but 
 not until irreparable mischief had been done. The 
 amount of "poor white trash" (I beg pardon of the 
 reader for using this mean phrase, for no other is so ex 
 pressive) which this state of things, together with other 
 causes, produced, and turned loose upon California, es 
 pecially the southern portion, it is deplorable to contem 
 plate. 
 
 Such a course wrought such an effect in the fruit-grow 
 ing foothills, and a different cause produced a like effect 
 in the great valleys. To liken great things to small, the 
 condition of California resembled that iniquitous old 
 monopoly, the Roman Empire, as it was in the third and 
 fourth centuries, when the homeless and landless hordes 
 of savages began to surge against its borders, and strain 
 their bloodshot eyes across its walls toward the riotous 
 opulence within. 
 
 A man in the Tulare valley owns $1,000,000 worth of 
 land for his herds to roam upon, yet he comes up to 
 Sacramento, stands up in his place in the Legislature, 
 and fights like a brigand against a projected railroad, be- 
 
344 HISTORICAL. 
 
 cause, forsooth, it would pierce his principality, and in 
 duce settlement ; while the farmers, for lack of that rail 
 road, pay half the value of their wheat for transportation. 
 Another in Kern valley owns 230,000 acres, yet sixty 
 families go home to Texas, because they can find no use 
 ful land. Another near Santa Barbara claims 247,000 
 acres, and the citizens of that town hold an indignation 
 meeting, because this one man is throttling their life like 
 an anaconda, and no farmers can settle near them. And 
 even mutton is not cheap. 
 
 " Coyotes" is getting to be the cant name for the poor 
 in Southern California. There is no place for them on 
 top of the land, and they must dig underneath. 
 
 Travel anywhere in that section, and you shall find 
 them. Between the great hills, all softened with a lilac, 
 chiaroscuro film of haze, brightly evergreen on the north 
 side with chamizal, but on the south side nibbled bare and 
 dusty by the swarming sheep, you shall anywhere find one 
 of these families, in an abandoned shepherd s-hut or a 
 wretched cabin of logs. A spring of water is hard by ; 
 under the vast overshadowing live-oak hangs a half-eaten 
 carcass of venison (fortunately, the atmosphere is very 
 pure); and in the cabin there is a can of wild honey. 
 They are a lank and sallow couple, with the Pike-county 
 twang, and seven white-haired daughters. 
 
 Come farther north, and journey over the great plains 
 of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. In the midst 
 of an almost boundless expanse of wheat, there stands a 
 mean, unpainted, unfenced shanty. For days and days 
 the whistle of the steam-thresher can be heard, here to 
 day, there to-morrow, but all the while on the ranch of 
 him who lives in that shanty. The grimy gang of laborers 
 follow it through the season, for it is their principal "job" 
 of the year. When the summer is over, and the harvest 
 
CALIFORNIA SAVED. 345 
 
 is ended, they betake themselves to the towns ; and then, 
 as soon as they and their money part company, which is 
 quickly enough, they sally forth again, sweating under 
 their rolls of blankets, aimless and incurable vagabonds. 
 
 California had no more grievous a system of land- 
 monopoly than Michigan and Illinois formerly groaned 
 under. Why, then, was it not broken up small, like those 
 States? 
 
 The answer to that question is, that the Chinese scared 
 away the immigrants whose crowding and attrition could 
 break it up small. Why do Germans avoid the South ? 
 Many of them do, because they learn in infancy to run 
 and hide their heads when the bonne cries Schwarzer 
 Mohr ! Mongolophobia did for California, to no little 
 extent, what negrophobia did for the Sou.th. 
 
 The influence of the Chinese race in bolstering up these 
 evil and ominous monopolies was twofold : they scared 
 away Caucasian immigrants, who would have forced a 
 division of them ; and they enabled them the better to 
 be kept together, inasmuch as they prefer to labor in 
 gangs, for the sake of companionship and protection, and 
 do not care to hire themselves to small farmers, or buy 
 farms of their own. In a word, the curse of California 
 always was, that it had an excess of mere hirelings, and a 
 lack of families ; and, as the Chinese seldom bring their 
 wives, they tend to keep up this worst of all social con 
 ditions. 
 
 The peculiar circumstances attending the genesis of 
 California created a state of affairs not a little resembling 
 the English system of primogeniture, with its train of 
 evils. Men who were here before the discovery of gold 
 "had greatness thrust upon them" by that event, while 
 those who "came in 49 or the spring of 50," with 
 reasonable prudence and energy, could hardly choose 
 
346 HISTORICAL. 
 
 but achieve greatness. The immense grabs which were 
 made in that famous year into this unmeasured and un- 
 handled wild became the foundations of monopolies such 
 as no other country ever beheld. The " Pioneers" be 
 came demigods. There was scarcely a member of Steven 
 son s Regiment who did not become rich and famous. 
 For twenty years the State had only two governors, and 
 San Francisco only two mayors, who did not " come here 
 in 49 or the spring of 50." "Opposition" in Cali 
 fornia meant "the second son;" it meant a losing 
 game. Monopoly was the very breath of the life of busi 
 ness. 
 
 On the one hand, there were the many, the unfortu 
 nate, and the wicked (regarded in Chinese philosophy as 
 identical), the wrecks of the mines. 
 
 On the other hand, there were these fortunate or 
 energetic few, under whose magic touch everything had 
 turned to gold. They were strong, and great, and happy. 
 They held California in their gripe. They had banks, 
 and ranches, and steam-lines, and stage-lines. They were 
 anxious to see California grow, partly because of a com 
 mendable public pride, partly because its growth was their 
 wealth. It irked them to see "enterprises of great pith 
 and moment" languish for want of laborers. Many of 
 them were parvenus, and hardly brooked the lordly uses 
 and the arrogance of the sometime miners and specu 
 lators, who had drifted down from loss to loss, and lodged 
 at last, as common laborers, with soured tempers and 
 broken bodies, in this soft and sunny clime. 
 
 Here stepped in the Chinese. We cannot refuse to 
 believe the employers of California when they affirm, as 
 most of them do, that they prefer white laborers to 
 Chinese ; and this makes it the more certain that it was 
 the former who, by their absurd arrogance, wrought their 
 
CALIFORNIA SAVED. 347 
 
 own harm, and fastened the Chinese upon the country. 
 It seems as if, almost in proportion as white laborers in 
 California were worthless, in that proportion were they 
 stubborn and dictatorial. The Chinese are even tamer 
 in soul than the negroes, they are exceedingly imitative, 
 and, in certain small and nimble labors not much exposed 
 to the sun, they are notably industrious. Hence they 
 were even better material than the negroes for an aris 
 tocracy to build upon. 
 
 California always will have an excess of " those unfor 
 tunates, the Helots of mankind," who come out ruined 
 from the mines, and whom it will always tax the rural 
 population to absorb and neutralize. More than that, 
 the vast plains and valleys of the interior, being adapted 
 to wheat culture, naturally gravitate into large ownings, 
 on account of the facility and profit of machine-work ; 
 and this circumstance tends to make the body of laborers 
 bachelor hirelings. In short, the main great agricultural 
 system of California, instead of serving as a reclaimer 
 of vagabond miners, has a tendency to keep them vaga 
 bonds. 
 
 If the Chinese brought their wives and stayed, their imi- 
 tativeness would soon make them good citizens, and their 
 willingness to work up the little odds and ends of farms 
 would render them admirable chinking and filling between 
 these great wheat-ranches. But, as it is, they not only do 
 not become citizens, but they scare away people who 
 would. Hon. F. M. Pixley, in a public lecture in San 
 Francisco, affirmed that they have frightened away thirty 
 thousand men. They make California empty of citizen 
 ship. They rot out the heart of the people, as the slaves 
 of Italy, in the later days of the Roman Empire, rotted 
 out the independent peasantry, and drove them into the 
 cities. 
 
348 HISTORICAL. 
 
 Of all things, California most needs a stable, hard-fisted 
 class of small farmers, to redeem her from the infamy of 
 money-jugglers on one hand, and of vagabonds on the 
 other. As the heart needs its good red blood, so does 
 California need, on the great plains of the interior (for 
 there is no danger of this great ranch system in the moun 
 tains), to make every man who labors there an owner 
 and a voter. There is already a pernicious tendency to 
 absenteeism in California; that is, men owning great 
 ranches leave them to lieutenants, and spend their lives 
 in hotels in the cities. 
 
 A few figures here set down will show that California 
 was at one time rapidly approaching a point where the 
 Chinese immigration would have exceeded the Caucasian. 
 In the decade ending with 1850 only 35 Chinese arrived 
 in the country; in that ending with 1860, 41,396; 1870, 
 68,475. I n J 865 the Chinese immigration formed thir 
 teen per cent, of the whole ; over eighteen per cent, in 
 1868; nearly forty per cent, in 1869; and over twenty- 
 one per cent, in 1870. The crisis was passed in 1869. 
 But, while many Caucasians came only to go away, the 
 Chinese permanent gain was larger. Thus, the Caucasian 
 gain of arrivals over departures during the last three years 
 of the decade was only a little over one hundred per 
 cent.; while the Chinese gain was over one hundred and 
 seventy-five per cent. 
 
 These figures are anything but pleasant to contemplate, 
 or were at that time. The point was, not that California 
 had not room for millions, but that, almost inversely 
 as the Chinese immigration increased, the Caucasian 
 diminished. 
 
 And what was, if possible, still more deplorable, was 
 that the greatest organs of public opinion were almost as 
 effectually estopped from even pointing out the evils of 
 
CALIFORNIA SAVED. 349 
 
 Chinese immigration, as ever the press of the South was 
 gagged against attacks on slavery. The wild and brutal 
 atrocities of the mob, and the ad captandum diatribes of 
 the demagogues, created a fierce party sentiment, and 
 men brought over Chinamen from spite. The innocent 
 Chinamen served, as the negroes did in the South, and 
 do still when liberated, to separate the rich man more 
 hopelessly from the poor. With the Chinamen present, 
 the rich and great would infallibly put their hands on 
 their shoulders, and lift themselves head and neck above 
 the multitude. No Chinaman helped a laboring man to 
 get on, but he made the poor poorer, and the rich richer. 
 The Chinaman served as a wedge, to cleave the extremes 
 of society further and further apart. 
 
 Under the influence of this sad and miserable political 
 antagonism, the sentiment of the ruling classes was be 
 coming oligarchic, plutocratic. Their talk had in it the 
 old arrogant fallacies of the Southern planter. A quota 
 tion from one of their most authoritative utterances will 
 illustrate : 
 
 "If society must have mudsills, it is certainly better 
 to take them from a race which would be benefited by 
 even that position in a civilized community, than subject 
 a portion of our own race to a position which they have 
 outgrown." 
 
 How much that sounds like the old ante-bellum reasoning 
 of Governor Hammond and De Bow s Review, by which 
 it was conclusively demonstrated that the presence of the 
 negro was the elevation of the white man ! And the 
 "poor white trash" to-day show what the results were. 
 "The Chinese are just so many human machines," was 
 the utterance of another high authority ; and this was the 
 burden of the general argument. Ignorant and fanatic 
 workingmen have often, in modern history, made bloody 
 
350 HISTORICAL. 
 
 riots because of labor-saving machinery ; but none ever 
 made war upon machinery persistently for twenty years. 
 And no mere machinery ever degraded any part of the 
 laboring masses to the condition of "coyotes." 
 
 There was a little golden-walled empire here, isolated 
 from the great world almost as effectually as China itself, 
 and full of notions of its own greatness as an egg is full 
 of meat. It was prosperous beyond all that men read of 
 in history. California was sailing down a glittering track 
 of prosperity toward industrial and social ruin. The 
 minds of business men were provincial and supercrafty, 
 but narrow as their own range of physical vision. Much 
 money had made them mad. One of the most amusing 
 instances of this perverted judgment, as it were turning a 
 summersault in an oyster-shell, is found in the same 
 authoritative utterance above quoted : 
 
 "The clear-headed capitalist rejects the present one 
 per cent, per month for the future five per cent, per 
 month on his capital, and adds thereto the gratification 
 of having done his part in forwarding the interests of all 
 mankind." 
 
 Thus far the article has been devoted to a considera 
 tion of the condition of California from which it was 
 rescued by the Republic. It turns now to narrate briefly 
 the circumstances of that change which linked the Pacific 
 coast to the great world. 
 
 On the roth day of May, 1869, the golden spike was 
 driven on Promontory Mountain which united the East 
 to the West. That was the signal for the dismissal, by 
 the Central Pacific alone, of an army of 16,000 laborers, 
 who surged back upon California. One-half of them were 
 Chinese. This great multitude swamped the labor market 
 in a twinkling. The hundreds and thousands of butchers, 
 bakers, grocers, etc. who had supplied them, were sud- 
 
CALIFORNIA SAVED. 
 
 351 
 
 denly without customers. The golden stream of a mil 
 lion dollars per month, which had poured out of the 
 coffers of the Central Pacific, ceased to flow. The 
 fifty ships per month which had sailed up the Sacra 
 mento, laden with materials for the mighty work, bumped 
 their barnacled hulks idly against the wharves of San 
 Francisco. 
 
 Real estate suffered an extraordinary collapse. The 
 drummers and the runners of Chicago swarmed in the 
 land like the locusts of Egypt, while the merchants of 
 San Francisco sat in their office chairs, cocked up their 
 heels on "the great resources," serenely smoked the 
 cigar of "the laws of trade," and saw the Territorial 
 merchants go off arm-in-arm with Chicago. Hundreds 
 of wagon-makers, grocers, and merchants barely escaped 
 bankruptcy with the skin of their teeth, by dismissing 
 hands and cutting down expenses ; while scores sold out 
 everything at a ruinous sacrifice, and with the little rem 
 nants bought a piece of a ranch. The rush of Eastern 
 competition and Eastern goods was too great for the 
 market, and, for the time, the whole bottom dropped 
 out. An extraordinary and ominous number of "blanket 
 men" were abroad, and that winter the streets of San 
 Francisco rumbled to the tread of three thousand hungry 
 men, clamoring for work or bread. 
 
 Never since the day when Babel heaved its high walls 
 in the face of heaven have men more thoroughly accom 
 plished the opposite of what they sought. It was thought 
 the railroad would straightway bring the starving East 
 and Europe to California, in search of land ; but the first 
 task the railroad had to perform was, to carry homesick 
 California to the East on a visit. It was confidently be 
 lieved by many that it would restore the ever-lamented 
 "flush times" of 1850; but, so far from that, it sunk 
 
35 2 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 California, temporarily, to the profoundest depths of de 
 pression. 
 
 It was amusing to see the commercial wincing and wry 
 faces with which it was reluctantly acknowledged at last 
 that "the railroad was not an unmixed good," and to 
 see even a great newspaper array itself lustily against it 
 and take up the championship of the stage-coach ! In 
 fact, California had fallen into a deep and gentle slumber, 
 lulled by the paeans of her own greatness. The first 
 through train, coming laden with the belated thunders 
 of Gettysburg, and with the big hoarse music of the noisy 
 and justling East, was as if a six-cylinder press had sud 
 denly been heard clanking in the Happy Valley of Ras- 
 selas and Imlac. 
 
 And now for the first time it went hard, in good sooth, 
 with poor John Chinaman. Who killed Cock Robin? 
 The Central Pacific, his best friend. It was a new thing 
 under the sun to hear a Chinaman complain of " hard 
 times," and to see him going about soliciting little jobs 
 of washing or dish-washing. Eastern competition was 
 ruining him also. It began to be the common remark 
 among them that California was little better now than 
 China. Thousands of them, who had prodigally gambled 
 away their seven fat kine in the years when the Central 
 Pacific was building, and were penniless, now circumscribed 
 all their ambition to the single purpose of saving enough 
 from their seven lean kine to carry them home to China. 
 
 And then came, in the summer of 1870, the famous 
 manifesto of the Six Companies, which was posted on all 
 the dead walls of the Celestial Empire, warning their 
 countrymen to remain at home. Then, in process of 
 time, the splendid steamers of the Pacific Mail no longer 
 staggered wearily into the Golden Gate, after their long, 
 long flight across the waters, with nine, ten, eleven hun- 
 
CALIFORNIA SAVED. 353 
 
 dred yellow faces staring curiously out from their decks 
 upon the shores of the Kingdom of the Flowery Flag. 
 They came now with a hundred, seventy-five, fifty ; and 
 went away reeling under hundreds. The Chinese per 
 centage of the whole immigration fell off in one year 
 from forty to twenty-one. 
 
 Those two car-loads of Chinese bones, digged up in 
 the Nevada deserts along the line of the Central Pacific, 
 and carried home for burial in the Celestial Empire, were 
 the vanguard of the final exodus. 
 
 "And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him : for he 
 had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God 
 will surely visit you ; and ye shall carry up my bones 
 away hence with you." 
 
 And, after their hard labor and bondage in the desert, 
 let them depart in peace. They have done their great 
 work. They have made their bricks without straw, a 
 railroad where there was no wood. Let them spoil us, 
 the Egyptian taskmasters, if they will, and carry home 
 their poor little remnants of gold and their silver. They 
 have earned it well. 
 
 With the departure of the Chinese will come the long- 
 awaited immigrants. With them will come the just parti 
 tion of the soil. With that will come white competition 
 in labor, to which the workmen need no longer be ashamed 
 to yield. With that will come cheap capital, busy to 
 seek out the development of the land, instead of burying 
 itself in dead bank-vaults, or wasting itself in wild and 
 frantic speculations. 
 
 Thus it was that, at the last ringing stroke of the sledge 
 upon the golden spike, all this colonial narrowness and 
 colonial inflation, all these false ideas and false systems 
 of labor, vanished like gibbering ghosts at cockcrow, and 
 a new and true foundation was laid, although at great 
 
354 HISTORICAL. 
 
 present loss, whereon to build the future of this peerless 
 California. Not less auspicious for America was the hour 
 when those two locomotives rubbed their pilots together, 
 in friendly greeting, on Promontory Mountain, 
 
 " Facing on the single track, 
 Half a world behind each back," 
 
 than was for Europe that day when Charles Martel smote 
 hip and thigh the Saracenic hordes before the walls of 
 Tours. Alexander Dumas says Africa begins at the Pyr 
 enees. We did not want Asia to begin at the Sierra 
 Nevada. Thanks to the overland railroad, it shall not. 
 
FREEDMEN S BUREAU. 
 
 ALL that is necessary to be said of the Freedmen s 
 Bureau may be grouped under four heads. 
 
 I. In the organization of it a mistake was made in not 
 committing the whole matter to the control of the army. 
 Obloquy necessarily attached to the functions of the Bu 
 reau among the Southern whites ; and as it was the army, 
 in very many cases, which was the ultima ratio and only 
 final enforcer of the Bureau s decrees, the Regulars, both 
 officers and soldiers, conceived a rooted hatred both for 
 the Bureau and the freedmen, because they were through 
 them brought into odium with the citizens. Hence they 
 often obstructed the one and shamefully abused the other, 
 which they would not have done if acting on their own 
 orders. 
 
 In the appointment of the head of the Bureau, a gen 
 tleman was chosen who, as a soldier, was brave as a lion, 
 as a Christian, was thoroughly earnest, but as a man, was 
 narrow, jealous, and easily deceived. Consequently, he 
 appointed many subagents who, like himself, were, as 
 Talleyrand says, " too full of zeal," and whose total igno 
 rance of human nature made them disqualified above all 
 men for an office wielding such great discretionary power. 
 On the other hand, the most worthless of the volunteer 
 officers were precisely those who were most reluctant to 
 be mustered out, because they were conscious they could 
 make an easier living in the army than under their own 
 vine and fig-tree. By writing patriotic letters, full of 
 sympathy for the freedmen, these fellows often induced 
 
 (355) 
 
356 HISTORICAL. 
 
 the over-zealous head of the Bureau to appoint them 
 agents. 
 
 Thus, what with the foolish zealots and the worthless 
 volunteer officers, more than half the agents were totally 
 unfit for the office. 
 
 From the above facts resulted, (i) that, for a short time 
 after the establishment of the Bureau, the planters were 
 excessively fined and humiliated, which created in them 
 an exasperation that wreaked itself directly upon the 
 freedmen ; (2) that, as the agents gradually settled down 
 among the people, and found it necessary to cultivate 
 friendly relations with them, since they were to live there 
 several years, they yielded to cajolery, and fraternized 
 with whites against blacks. By the end of 1866 there 
 were as many agents who sold the freedmen justice, or 
 did them absolute injustice, as there were in 1865 who 
 did the same by the planters. In the first months of 1868, 
 when I walked a thousand miles through the South, I 
 found, by innumerable inquiries of the negroes them 
 selves, the following state of affairs : There were thirteen 
 agents of whom most negroes spoke with more or less bitter 
 ness, and only six whom they generally agreed in praising. 
 
 II. The first work of the Bureau was, necessarily, one 
 of demolition. The surrender destroyed the form of 
 slavery, but not its traditions and its airy and impalpable 
 fetters. The freedmen had a universal and instinctive 
 desire to wander (which they seldom could explain), 
 founded on a vague notion that they were not free at all 
 if they remained on the old plantation. They must de 
 monstrate their freedom with their legs, just as an infant 
 wanders into every corner of its room. The old masters, 
 of course, dreaded this disruption, and tried to prevent 
 it. Governor Marvin, of Florida, a wise and noble man, 
 was great enough to feel and appreciate this longing of 
 
FREEDMEN S BUREAU. 357 
 
 the freedmen, and he advised them to wander to their 
 hearts content, till they fully felt and knew they were 
 free, knowing as he did full well that most of them would 
 ultimately return. But most planters were too narrow 
 and short-sighted to foresee this, and, by tacit (sometimes 
 by expressed) neighborhood agreement, it was made a 
 mean-spirited and unhandsome thing for one planter to 
 employ another s late slaves. Some neighborhoods organ 
 ized, and expressly agreed among themselves that no one 
 should employ another s freedmen unless they could 
 produce a written recommendation, which, of course, was 
 not given. 
 
 In thwarting these tendencies, the Bureau was infinitely 
 useful. Whenever the freedman wanted to rove until he 
 could feel the uttermost length and breadth of his free 
 dom, the Bureau insisted on his right. This wandering 
 was absolutely necessary, in order that the idea might 
 fully dawn upon their poor darkened souls that they were 
 not bound to call any man master. We who have always 
 had our liberty can hardly understand how necessary it 
 was for the freedmen to swing like a pendulum, to tramp 
 day after day for weeks, and never find the end of the 
 rope and be obliged to give an account of themselves. 
 They were the merest children, and this was healthy for 
 them. They got their lungs full of good wide breath. 
 They got hungry. They knocked about the world, and 
 found the need of a home. Then they were ready to go 
 back to the old plantation, and live content, knowing 
 they were absolutely free. 
 
 This work of the Bureau was like that of the farmer who 
 tears down his old fence and builds a new one. If he is 
 a good farmer, he pitches all the rails about and handles 
 them roughly, so that all may be broken which are not fit 
 to enter into the new fence. Of course, the Bureau broke 
 
35 8 HISTORICAL. 
 
 many a negro rail in thus pitching them about, sent many 
 a one to the penitentiary or under the sod sooner than he 
 would have gone ; but this was inseparable from the gen 
 eral benefit. Many an idle and worthless negro, whom 
 force had hitherto kept in some decency, under this new 
 relaxation speedily went to the bad ; but this new and 
 broad notion of liberty gotten by the others was worth 
 unspeakably more than the lives of these few vagabonds. 
 
 III. The second great work of the Bureau was to re 
 build. After the freedmen had wandered to their hearts 
 content, more than three-fifths of them (I speak from wide 
 observation) returned to the old plantations. The Bureau 
 did great service in leading them back to steady habits, 
 by solemnizing contracts for labor with formalities which 
 impressed their imaginations. This helped to build up 
 that in which life-long slaves were almost utterly lacking, 
 that is, a sense of legal responsibility. Without the in 
 tervention of the Bureau, the old courts of planters would 
 have flogged the negro on the spot, as a legal nonentity. 
 It was an herculean task to make the negro understand that 
 he had a right to go to the penitentiary, or to be hanged 
 by process of law. It was an infinite labor to lift the 
 freedman up high enough to understand that he was not 
 to be whipped as a child, but was to be tried like a citi 
 zen. This the Bureau did. 
 
 The Bureau made it, for the time, fashionable among 
 the freedmen to go to school (for there is no other race 
 in the world so absolutely governed by the fashion of the 
 hour). Its agents established an immense number of 
 schools. Yet I consider the benefit thus conferred on 
 the freedman almost incomparably less than the practical 
 sense of equality, the knack of affairs, the savoir-faire, 
 knowledge of the great world, and ability to knock about 
 and make a living, which the Bureau greatly helped to 
 
FREEDMEN S BUREAU. 
 
 359 
 
 build. There is not another race in the world in whose 
 heads book-learning is so little turned to bread-and-butter 
 uses as in the negroes. 
 
 As to the evils of the Bureau, a word. It has often 
 been charged with having encouraged the freedmen to 
 expect confiscation and distribution of lands, and thus 
 kept many in absolute idleness, and many more working 
 for wages, as a mere temporary expedient until they 
 should get land thus, instead of contracting for a share 
 of the crops. There is no doubt that this expectation of 
 confiscation wrought untold evil on the freedmen ; but 
 the Southerners themselves are responsible for it, not the 
 Bureau. They talked confiscation all through the war, 
 in hearing of their slaves, as a bete noir to frighten each 
 other to do desperate battle for their homes. But many 
 of the agents sinned in this, that they did not take enough 
 pains, or took none at all, to assure the negroes beyond all 
 doubt that no confiscation would take place. I doubt if 
 any agent ever actually encouraged the negroes to expect 
 land. 
 
 In needlessly prolonging the dole of rations, the Bureau 
 encouraged beggary. With all its hideous wickedness, 
 slavery never encouraged the negro to beg, tobacco alone 
 excepted. 
 
 IV. To recapitulate : Slavery practically taught all 
 negroes to steal ; the Bureau taught many to beg. Slavery 
 made the race very fruitful, for its own profit ; the Bureau 
 removed its restraints, without being able to cure their 
 inherent licentiousness. Slavery drugged the slave with 
 a few moral maxims, which were, for the most part, of no 
 effect whatever ; the Bureau awakened an unprecedented 
 desire for learning, as a fashion. Slavery treated the 
 negro as an animal, and, as an animal merely, he was 
 happier then than after he was liberated; the Bureau 
 
360 HISTORICAL. 
 
 lifted him to the level of a man, and gave him the keen 
 pangs and the keen transports which attend all higher 
 life. Slavery developed the negro downward, and at 
 tached him to the soil ; the Bureau opened his eyes to a 
 self-understanding, to freedom, to restlessness, to ambi 
 tions which can never be fulfilled so long as he remains 
 among the whites, and thus planted the greatest amount 
 of seed for Liberian colonization which has ever been 
 scattered in the South. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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