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 THE COMPLETE WRITINGS OF 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AND FACSIMILES 
 
 IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES 
 VOLUME II
 
 Dr. Holmes in 1859
 
 THE PROFESSOR 
 
 AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE 
 
 WITH THE STORY OF IRIS 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 Etoermfce 
 
 1904
 
 Copyright, 1859, 1887, and 1891, 
 Bv OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 Copyright, 1892, 
 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFL1N & CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 Tkt Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
 
 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 
 
 THE reader of to-day will not forget, I trust, that 
 it is nearly a quarter of a century since these papers 
 were written. Statements which were true then are 
 not necessarily true now. Thus, the speed of the trot 
 ting horse has been so much developed that the record 
 of the year when the fastest time to that dAte was 
 given must be very considerably altered, as may be 
 seen by referring to a note on page 49 of the "Auto 
 crat."' No doubt many other statements and opinions 
 might be more or less modified if I were writing to 
 day instead of having written before the war, when 
 the world and I were both more than a score of years 
 younger. 
 
 These papers followed close upon the track of the 
 "Autocrat." They had to endure the trial to which 
 all second comers are subjected, which is a formidable 
 ordeal for the least as well as the greatest. Paradise 
 Regained and the Second Part of Faust are examples 
 which are enough to warn every one who has made a 
 single fair hit with his arrow of the danger of missing 
 when he looses "his fellow of the selfsame flight." 
 
 There is good reason why it should be so. The first 
 juice that runs of itself from the grapes comes from 
 the heart of the fruit, and tastes of the pulp only; 
 when the grapes are squeezed in the press the flow be 
 trays the flavor of the skin. If there is any freshness
 
 vi PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 
 
 in the original idea of the work, if there is any indi 
 viduality in the method or style of a new author, or 
 of an old author on a new track, it will have lost 
 much of its first effect when repeated. Still, there 
 have not been wanting readers who have preferred 
 this second series of papers to the first. The new pa 
 pers were more aggressive than the earlier ones, and 
 for that reason found a heartier welcome in some 
 quarters, and met with a sharper antagonism in oth 
 ers. It amuses me to look back on some of the at 
 tacks they called forth. Opinions which do not ex- 
 cite the faintest show of temper at this time from 
 those who do not accept them were treated as if they 
 were Ae utterances of a nihilist incendiary. It re 
 quired the exercise of some forbearance not to recrim 
 inate. 
 
 How a stray sentence, a popular saying, the maxim 
 of some wise man, a line accidentally fallen upon and 
 remembered, will sometimes help one when he is all 
 ready to be vexed or indignant! One day, in the 
 time when I was young or youngish, I happened to 
 open a small copy of "Tom Jones," and glance at the 
 title-page. There was one of those little engravings 
 opposite, which bore the familiar name of "T. Uwins," 
 as I remember it, and under it the words " Mr. Par 
 tridge bore all this patiently." How many times, 
 when, after rough usage from ill-mannered critics, my 
 own vocabulary of vituperation was simmering in such 
 a lively way that it threatened to boil and lift its lid 
 and so boil over, those words have calmed the small 
 internal effervescence ! There is very little in them 
 and very little of them ; and so there is not much in 
 a linchpin considered by itself, but it often keeps a 
 wheel from coming off and prevents what might be a
 
 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. Vll 
 
 catastrophe. The chief trouble in offering such pa 
 pers as these to the readers of to-day is that their her 
 esies have become so familiar among intelligent people 
 that they have too commonplace an aspect. All the 
 light-houses and land-marks of belief bear so differ 
 ently from the way in which they presented them 
 selves when these papers were written that it is hard 
 to recognize that we and our fellow-passengers are 
 still in the same old vessel sailing the same unfathom 
 able sea and bound to the same as yet unseen harbor. 
 But after all, there is not enough theology, good or 
 bad, in these papers to cause them to be inscribed on 
 the protestant Index Expurgatorius ; and if they are 
 medicated with a few questionable dogmas or anti- 
 dogmas, the public has become used to so much 
 rougher treatment that what was once an irritant may 
 now act as an anodyne, and the reader may nod over 
 pages which, when they were first written, would have 
 waked him into a paroxysm of protest and denuncia 
 tion. 
 
 November, 1882.
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 THIS book is one of those which, if it lives for a 
 number of decades, and if it requires any Preface at 
 all, wants a new one every ten years. The first Pre 
 face to a book is apt to be explanatory, perhaps apol 
 ogetic, in the expectation of attacks from various 
 quarters. If the book is in some points in advance of 
 public opinion, it is natural that the writer should try 
 to smooth the way to the reception of his more or less 
 aggressive ideas. He wishes to convince, not to 
 offend, to obtain a hearing for his thought, not to 
 stir up angry opposition in those who do not accept it. 
 There is commonly an anxious look about a first Pre 
 face. The author thinks he shall be misapprehended 
 about this or that matter, that his well-meant expres 
 sions will probably be invidiously interpreted by those 
 whom he looks upon as prejudiced critics, and if he 
 deals with living questions that he will be attacked as 
 a destructive by the conservatives and reproached for 
 his timidity by the noisier radicals. The first Pre 
 face, therefore, is likely to be the weakest part of a 
 work containing the thoughts of an honest writer. 
 
 After a time the writer has cooled down from his ex 
 citement, has got over his apprehensions, is pleased to 
 find that his book is still read, and that he must write 
 a new Preface. He comes smiling to his task. How 
 many things have explained themselves in the ten or
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. IX 
 
 twenty or thirty years since he came before his untried 
 public in those almost plaintive paragraphs in which 
 he introduced himself to his readers, for the Pre 
 face writer, no matter how fierce a combatant he may 
 prove, comes on to the stage with his shield on his 
 right arm and his sword in his left hand. 
 
 The Professor at the Breakfast-Table came out in 
 the "Atlantic Monthly " and introduced itself without 
 any formal Preface. A quarter of a century later the 
 Preface of 1882, which the reader has just had laid 
 before him, was written. There is no mark of worry, 
 I think, in that. Old opponents had come up and 
 shaken hands with the author they had attacked or 
 denounced. Newspapers which had warned their sub 
 scribers against him were glad to get him as a con 
 tributor to their columns. A great change had come 
 over the community with reference to their beliefs. 
 Christian believers were united as never before in the 
 feeling that, after all, their common object was to 
 elevate the moral and religious standard of humanity. 
 But within the special compartments of the great 
 Christian fold the marks of division have pronounced 
 themselves in the most unmistakable manner. As an 
 example we may take the lines of cleavage which have 
 shown themselves in the two great churches, the Con 
 gregational and the Presbyterian, and the very distinct 
 fissure which is manifest in the transplanted Angli 
 can church of this country. Recent circumstances 
 have brought out the fact of the great change in the 
 dogmatic communities which has been going on 
 silently but surely. The licensing of a missionary, 
 the transfer of a Professor from one department to 
 another, the election of a Bishop, each of these 
 movements furnishes evidence that there is no such 
 thing as a.n air-tight reservoir of doctrinal finalities.
 
 X PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 The folding-doors are wide open to every Protestant 
 to enter all the privileged precincts and private apart 
 ments of the various exclusive religious organizations. 
 We may demand the credentials of every creed and 
 catechise all the catechisms. So we may discuss the 
 gravest questions unblamed over our morning coffee- 
 cups or our evening tea-cups. There is no rest for 
 the Protestant until he gives up his legendary anthro 
 pology and all its dogmatic dependencies. 
 
 It is only incidentally, however, that the Professor 
 at the Breakfast-Table handles matters which are the 
 subjects of religious controversy. The reader who is 
 sensitive about having his fixed beliefs dealt with as if 
 they were open to question had better skip the pages 
 which look as if they would disturb his complacency. 
 "Faith" is the most precious of possessions, and it 
 dislikes being meddled with. It means, of course, 
 self -trust, that is, a belief in the value of our own 
 opinion of a doctrine, of a church, of a religion, of a 
 Being, a belief quite independent of any evidence that 
 we can bring to convince a jury of our fellow beings. 
 Its roots are thus inextricably entangled with those 
 of self-love and bleed as mandrakes were said to, when 
 pulled up as weeds. Some persons may even at this 
 late day take offence at a few opinions expressed in 
 the following pages, but most of these passages will 
 be read without loss of temper by those who disagree 
 with them, and by-and-by they may be found too 
 timid and conservative for intelligent readers, if they 
 are still read by any. 
 
 O. W. H. 
 
 BEVERLY FAUMS, MASS., June IS, 1891.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AT THE AGE- OF 50. FROM A 
 
 PHOTOGRAPH BY WARREN Frontispiece 
 
 " IN WHICH THEY USED TO LOOK AT THEIR RED COATS " . 188 
 
 "As THEY RUSTLED IN THROUGH THE AISLES " 232 
 
 " IT WAS IRIS " 266 
 
 " DAY AFTER DAY SHE KEPT HER PLACE BY THE PILLOW " 274 
 
 The above illustrations are by H. M. Brock.
 
 THE PROFESSOR 
 
 AT THE 
 
 BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 What he said, what he heard, and what he saw. 
 
 I. 
 
 I INTENDED to have signalized my first appearance 
 by a certain large statement, which I flatter myself is 
 the nearest approach to a universal formula of life 
 yet promulgated at this breakfast-table. It would 
 have had a grand effect. For this purpose I fixed my 
 eyes on a certain divinity-student, with the intention 
 of exchanging a few phrases, and then forcing my 
 court-card, namely, .The great end of being. I will 
 thank you for the sugar, I said. Man is a de 
 pendent creature. 
 
 It is a small favor to ask, said the divinity- stu 
 dent, and passed the sugar to me. 
 
 Life is a great bundle of little things, I 
 said. 
 
 The divinity-student smiled, as if that were the con 
 cluding epigram of the sugar question. 
 
 You smile, I said. Perhaps life seems to you a 
 little bundle of great things? 
 
 The divinity-student started a laugh, but suddenly 
 reined it back with a pull, as one throws a horse on
 
 2 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 his haunches. Life is a great bundle of great things, 
 he said. 
 
 (Now, then /) The great end of being, after all, 
 is 
 
 Hold on ! said my neighbor, a young fellow whose 
 name seems to be John, and nothing else, for that 
 is what they all call him, hold on ! the Sculpin is 
 go'n' to say somethin'. 
 
 Now the Sculpin (Cottus Virginianus) is a little 
 water-beast which pretends to consider itself a fish, 
 and, under that pretext, hangs about the piles upon 
 which West-Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the 
 bait and hook intended for flounders. On being 
 drawn from the water, it exposes an immense head, 
 a diminutive bony carcass, and a surface so full of 
 spines, ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists 
 have not been able to count them without quarrelling 
 about the number, and that the colored youth, whose 
 sport they spoil, do not like to touch them, and espe 
 cially to tread on them, unless they happen to have 
 shoes on, to cover the thick white soles of their broad 
 black feet. 
 
 When, therefore, I heard the young fellow's ex 
 clamation, I looked round the table with curiosity to 
 see what it meant. At the further end of it I saw a 
 head, and a small portion of a little deformed body, 
 mounted on a high chair, which brought the occupant 
 up to a fair level enough for him to get at his food. 
 His whole appearance was so grotesque, I felt for a 
 minute as if there was a showman behind him who 
 would pull him down presently and put up Judy, or 
 the hangman, or the Devil, or some other wooden per 
 sonage of the famous spectacle. I contrived to lose 
 the first of his sentence, but what I heard began so -.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 3 
 
 by the Frog - Pond, when there were frogs in 
 it, and the folks used to come down from the tents on 
 'Lection and Independence days with their pails to 
 get water to make egg- pop with. Born in Boston; 
 went to school in Boston as long as the boys would let 
 me. The little man groaned, turned, as if to look 
 round, and went on. Ran away from school one day 
 to see Phillips hung for killing Denegri with a logger 
 head. That was in flip days, when there were always 
 two or^three loggerheads in the fire. I 'm a Boston 
 boy, I tell you, born at North End, and mean to be 
 buried 6n Copp's Hill, with the good old underground 
 people, the Worthylakes, and the rest of 'em. Yes, 
 Sir, up on the old hill, where they buried Captain 
 Daniel Malcolm in a stone grave, ten feet deep, to 
 keep him safe from the red-coats, in those old times 
 when the world was frozen up tight and there wasn't 
 but one spot open, and that was right over Faneuil 
 Hall, and black enough it looked, I tell you ! 
 There 's where my bones shall lie, Sir, and rattle away 
 when the big guns go off at the Navy Yard opposite ! 
 You can't make me ashamed of the old place ! Full 
 of crooked little streets ; I was born and used to run 
 round in one of 'em 
 
 I should think so, said that young man whom 
 I hear them call "John," softly, not meaning to 
 be heard, nor to be cruel, but thinking in a half- 
 whisper, evidently. I should think so ; and got 
 kinked up, turnin' so many corners. The little man 
 did not hear what was said, but went on, 
 
 full of crooked little streets ; but I tell you 
 Boston has opened, and kept open, more turnpikes 
 that lead straight to free thought and free speech and 
 free deeds than any other city of live men or dead
 
 4 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 men, I don't care how broad their streets are, nor 
 how high their steeples ! 
 
 How high is Bosting meet'n'-house? said a 
 person with black whiskers and imperial, a velvet 
 waistcoat, a guard-chain rather too massive, and a 
 diamond pin so very large that the most trusting na 
 ture might confess an inward suggestion, of course, 
 nothing amounting to a suspicion. For this is a gen 
 tleman from a great city, and sits next to the land 
 lady's daughter, who evidently believes in him, and is 
 the object of his especial attention. 
 
 How high? said the little man. As high as the 
 first step of the stairs that lead to the New Jerusalem, 
 Is n't that high enough? 
 
 It is, I said. The great end of being is to har 
 monize man with the order of things, and the church 
 has been a good pitch-pipe, and may be so still. But 
 who shall tune the pitch-pipe? Quis cus (On the 
 whole, as this quotation was not entirely new, and, 
 being in a foreign language, might not be familiar to 
 all the boarders, I thought I would not finish it.) 
 
 Go to the Bible ! said a sharp voice from a 
 sharp-faced, sharp-eyed, sharp-elbowed, strenuous- 
 looking woman in a black dress, appearing as if it be 
 gan as a piece of mourning and perpetuated itself as 
 a bit of economy. 
 
 You speak well, Madam, I said; yet there is 
 room for a gloss or commentary on what you say. 
 "He who would bring back the wealth of the Indies 
 must carry out the wealth of the Indies." What you 
 bring away from the Bible depends to some extent on 
 what you carry to it. Benjamin Franklin ! Be so 
 good as to step up to my chamber and bring me down 
 the small uncovered pamphlet of twenty pages which
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 5 
 
 you will find lying under the "Cruden's Concordance." 
 [The boy took a large bite, which left a very perfect 
 crescent in the slice of bread-and-butter he held, and 
 departed on his errand, with the portable fraction of 
 his breakfast to sustain him on the way.] 
 
 Here it is. "Go to the Bible. A Dissertation, 
 etc., etc. By J. J. Flournoy. Athens, Georgia, 
 1858." 
 
 Mr. Flournoy, Madam, has obeyed the precept 
 which you have judiciously delivered. You may be 
 interested, Madam, to know what are the conclusions 
 at which Mr. J. J. Flournoy of Athens, Georgia, has 
 arrived. You shall hear, Madam. He has gone to 
 the Bible, and he has come back from the Bible, 
 bringing a remedy for existing social evils, which, if 
 it is the real specific, as it professes to be, is of great 
 interest to humanity, and to the female part of hu 
 manity in particular. It is what he calls trigamy, 
 Madam, or the marrying of three wives, so that 
 "good old men" may be solaced at once by the com 
 panionship of the wisdom of maturity, and of those 
 less perfected but hardly less engaging qualities which 
 are found at an earlier period of life. He has fol 
 lowed your precept, Madam; I hope you accept his 
 conclusions. 
 
 The female boarder in black attire looked so puz 
 zled, and, in fact, "all abroad," after the delivery of 
 this "counter" of mine, that I left her to recover her 
 wits, and went on with the conversation, which I was 
 beginning to get pretty well in hand. 
 
 But in the mean time I kept my eye on the female 
 boarder to see what effect I had produced. First, 
 she was a little stuimed at having her argument 
 knocked over. Secondly, she was a little shocked at
 
 6 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 the tremendous character of the triple matrimonial 
 suggestion. Thirdly. I don't like to say what 
 I thought. Something seemed to have pleased her 
 fancy. Whether it was, that, if trigamy should come 
 into fashion, there would be three times as many 
 chances to enjoy the luxury of saying, "No! " is more 
 than I can tell you. I may as well mention that B. 
 F. came to me after breakfast to borrow the pamphlet 
 for "a lady," one of the boarders, he said, look 
 ing as if he had a secret he wished to be relieved of. 
 
 I continued. If a human soul is necessarily 
 to be trained up in the faith of those from whom it 
 inherits its body, why, there is the end of all reason. 
 If, sooner or later, every soul is to look for truth with 
 its own eyes, the first thing is to recognize that no 
 presumption in favor of any particular belief arises 
 from the fact of our inheriting it. Otherwise you 
 would not give the Mahometan a fair chance to be 
 come a convert to a better religion. 
 
 The second thing would be to depolarize every fixed 
 religious idea in the mind by changing the word which 
 stands for it. 
 
 I don't know what you mean by "depolarizing" 
 an idea, said the divinity-student. 
 
 I will tell you, I said. When a given symbol 
 which represents a thought has lain for a certain 
 length of time in the mind, it undergoes a change like 
 that which rest in a certain position gives to iron. It 
 becomes magnetic in its relations, it is traversed by 
 strange forces which did not belong to it. The word, 
 and consequently the idea it represents, is polarized. 
 
 The religious currency of mankind, in thought, in 
 speech, and in print, consists entirely of polarized 
 words. Borrow one of these from another language
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 7 
 
 and religion, and you will find it leaves all its mag- 
 netism behind it. Take that famous word, O'm, of 
 the Hindoo mythology. Even a priest cannot pro 
 nounce it without sin ; and a holy Pundit would shut 
 his ears and run away from you in horror, if you 
 should say it aloud. What do you care for O'm? If 
 you wanted to get the Pundit to look at his religion 
 fairly, you must first depolarize this and all similar 
 words for him. The argument for and against new 
 translations of the Bible really turns on this. Skep 
 ticism is afraid to trust its truths in depolarized 
 words, and so cries out against a new translation. I 
 think, myself, if every idea our Book contains could 
 be shelled out of its old symbol and put into a new, 
 clean, unmagnetic word, we should have some chance 
 of reading it as philosophers, or wisdom-lovers, ought 
 to read it, which we do not and cannot now any 
 more than a Hindoo can read the "Gayatri " as a fair 
 man and lover of truth should do. When society has 
 once fairly dissolved the New Testament, which it 
 never has done yet, it will perhaps crystallize it over 
 again in new forms of language. 
 
 I did n't know you was a settled minister over 
 this parish, said the young fellow near me. 
 
 A sermon by a lay-preacher may be worth listening 
 to, I replied, calmly. It gives the parallax of 
 thought and feeling as they appear to the observers 
 from two very different points of view. If you wish 
 to get the distance of a heavenly body, you know that 
 you must take two observations from remote points of 
 the earth's orbit, in midsummer and midwinter, for 
 instance. To get the parallax of heavenly truths, you 
 must take an observation from the position of the laity 
 as well as of the clergy. Teachers and students of
 
 8 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 theology get a certain look, certain conventional tones 
 of voice, a clerical gait, a professional neckcloth, and 
 habits of mind as professional as their externals. 
 They are scholarly men and read Bacon, and know 
 well enough what the "idols of the tribe" are. Of 
 course they have their false gods, as all men that fol 
 low one exclusive calling are prone to do. The 
 clergy have played the part of the fly-wheel in our 
 modern civilization. They have never suffered it to 
 stop. They have often carried on its movement, when 
 other moving powers failed, by the momentum stored 
 in their vast body. Sometimes, too, they have kept it 
 back by their vis inertice, when its wheels were like to 
 grind the bones of some old canonized error into fer 
 tilizers for the soil that yields the bread of life. But 
 the mainspring of the world's onward religious move 
 ment is not in them, nor in any one body of men, let 
 me tell you. It is the people that makes the clergy, 
 and not the clergy that makes the people. Of course, 
 the profession reacts on its source with variable energy. 
 But there never was a guild of dealers or a com 
 pany of craftsmen that did not need sharp looking 
 after. 
 
 Our old friend, Dr. Holyoke, whom we gave the 
 dinner to some time since, must have known many 
 people that saw the great bonfire in Harvard College 
 yard. 
 
 Bonfire? shrieked the little man. The bon 
 fire when Eobert Calef's book was burned? 
 
 The same, I said, when Robert Calef the Bos 
 ton merchant's book was burned in the yard of Har 
 vard College, by order of Increase Mather, President 
 of the College and Minister of the Gospel. You 
 remember the old witchcraft revival of '92, and how
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 9 
 
 stout Master Robert Calef, trader of Boston, had the 
 pluck to tell the ministers and judges what a set of 
 fools and worse than fools they were 
 
 Remember it? said the little man. I don't 
 think I shall forget it, as long as I can stretch this 
 forefinger to point with, and see what it wears. 
 There was a ring on it. 
 
 May I look at it? I said. 
 
 Where it is, said the little man ; it will never 
 come off, till it falls off from the bone in the darkness 
 and in the dust. 
 
 He pushed the high chair on which he sat slightly 
 back from the table, and dropped himself, standing, 
 to the floor, his head being only a little above the 
 level of the table, as he stood. With pain and labor, 
 lifting one foot over the other, as a drummer handles 
 his sticks, he took a few steps from t his place, his 
 motions and the deadbeat of the misshapen boots 
 announcing to my practised eye and ear the malfor 
 mation which is called in learned language talipes 
 varus, or inverted club-foot. 
 
 Stop ! stop ! I said, let me come to you. 
 
 The little man hobbled back, and lifted himself by 
 the left arm, with an ease approaching to grace which 
 surprised me, into his high chair. I walked to his 
 side, and he stretched out the forefinger of his right 
 hand, with the ring upon it. The ring had been put 
 on long ago, and could not pass the misshapen joint. 
 It was one of those funeral rings which used to be 
 given to relatives and friends after the decease of 
 persons of any note or importance. Beneath a round 
 bit of glass was a death's head. Engraved on one 
 side of this, "L. B. Mi. 22," on the other, "Ob. 
 1692."
 
 10 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 My grandmother's grandmother, said the little 
 man. Hanged for a witch. It does n't seem a great 
 while ago. I knew my grandmother, and loved her. 
 Her mother was daughter to the witcn that Chief 
 Justice Sewall hanged and Cotton Mather delivered 
 over to the Devil. That was Salem, though, and not 
 Boston. No, not Boston. Robert Calef, the Boston 
 merchant, it was that blew them all to 
 
 Never mind where he blew them to, I said ; 
 for the little man was getting red in the face, and I 
 did n't know what might come next. 
 
 This episode broke me up, as the jockeys say, out 
 of my square conversational trot; but I settled down 
 to it again. 
 
 A man that knows men, in the street, at their 
 work, human nature in its shirt- sleeves, who makes 
 bargains with deacons, instead of talking over texts 
 with them, a man who has found out that there are 
 plenty of praying rogues and swearing saints in the 
 world, above all, who has found out, by living into 
 the pith and core of life, that all of the Deity which 
 can be folded up between the sheets of any human 
 book is to the Deity of the firmament, of the strata, 
 of the hot aortic flood of throbbing human life, of 
 this infinite, instantaneous consciousness in which the 
 soul's being consists, an incandescent point in the 
 filament connecting the negative pole of a past eter 
 nity with the positive pole of an eternity that is to 
 come, that all of the Deity which any human book 
 can hold is to this larger Deity of the working battery 
 of the universe only as the films in a book of gold-leaf 
 are to the broad seams and curdled lumps of ore that 
 lie in unsunned mines and virgin placers, Oh ! I 
 was saying that a man who lives out-of-doors, among
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 11 
 
 live people, gets some things into his head he might 
 not find in the index of his "Body of Divinity." 
 
 I tell you what, the idea of the professions' dig 
 ging a moat round their close corporations, like that 
 Japanese one at Jeddo, on the bottom of which, if 
 travellers do not lie, you could put Park Street 
 Church and look over the vane from its side, and try 
 to stretch another such spire across it without span 
 ning the chasm, that idea, I say, is pretty nearly 
 worn out. Now when a civilization or a civilized cus 
 tom falls into senile dementia, there is commonly a 
 judgment ripe for it, and it comes as plagues come, 
 from a breath, as fires come, from a spark. 
 
 Here, look at medicine. Big wigs, gold-headed 
 canes, Latin prescriptions, shops full of abominations, 
 recipes a yard long, "curing" patients by drugging 
 as sailors bring a wind by whistling, selling lies at a 
 guinea apiece, a routine, in short, of giving unfor 
 tunate sick people a mess of things either too odious 
 to swallow or too acrid to hold, or, if that were possi 
 ble, both at once. 
 
 You don't know what I mean, indignant and not 
 unintelligent country-practitioner? Then you don't 
 know the history of medicine, and that is not my 
 fault. But don't expose yourself in any outbreak of 
 eloquence; for, by the mortar in which Anaxarchus 
 was pounded! I did not bring home Schenckius and 
 Forestus and Hildanus, and all the old folios in calf 
 and vellum I will show you, to be bullied by the pro 
 prietor of a "Wood and Bache," and a shelf of pep 
 pered sheepskin reprints by Philadelphia Editors. 
 Besides, many of the profession and I know a little 
 something of each other, and you don't think I am 
 such a simpleton as to lose their good opinion by say-
 
 12 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 ing what the better heads among them would condemn 
 as unfair and untrue? Now mark how the great 
 plague came on the generation of drugging doctors, 
 and in what form it fell. 
 
 A scheming drug-vender, (inventive genius,) an ut 
 terly untrustworthy and incompetent observer, (pro 
 found searcher of Nature,) a shallow dabbler in eru 
 dition, (sagacious scholar,) started the monstrous 
 fiction (founded the immortal system) of Homoeopathy. 
 I am very fair, you see, you can help yourself to 
 either of these sets of phrases. 
 
 All the reason in the world would not have had so 
 rapid and general an effect on the public mind to 
 disabuse it of the idea that a drug is a good thing in 
 itself, instead of being, as it is, a bad thing, as was 
 produced by the trick (system) of this German char 
 latan (theorist). Not that the wiser part of the pro 
 fession needed him to teach them; but the routinists 
 and their employers, the "general practitioners," 
 who lived by selling pills and mixtures, and their 
 drug-consuming customers, had to recognize that peo 
 ple could get well, unpoisoned. These dumb cattle 
 would not learn it of themselves, and so the murrain 
 of Homoeopathy fell on them. 
 
 You don't know what plague has fallen on the 
 practitioners of theology? I will tell you, then. It 
 is Spiritualism. While some are crying out against 
 it as a delusion of the Devil, and some are laughing 
 at it as an hysteric folly, and some are getting angry 
 with it as a mere trick of interested or mischievous 
 persons, Spiritualism is quietly undermining the tra 
 ditional ideas of the future state which have been and 
 are still accepted, not merely in those who believe 
 in it, but in the general sentiment of the community,
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 13 
 
 to a larger extent than most good people seem to be 
 aware of. It need n't be true, to do this, any more 
 than Homosopathy need, to do its work. The Spirit 
 ualists have some pretty strong instincts to pry over, 
 which no doubt have been roughly handled by theolo 
 gians at different times. And the Nemesis of the pul 
 pit comes, in a shape it little thought of, beginning 
 with the snap of a toe- joint, and ending with such a 
 crack of old beliefs that the roar of it is heard in all 
 the ministers' studies of Christendom! Sir, you can 
 not have people of cultivation, of pure character, sen 
 sible enough in common things, large-hearted women, 
 grave judges, shrewd business-men, men of science, 
 professing to be in communication with the spiritual 
 world and keeping up constant intercourse with it, 
 without its gradually reacting on the whole conception 
 of that other life. It is the folly of the world, con 
 stantly, which confounds its wisdom. Not only out 
 of the mouths of babes and sucklings, but out of the 
 mouths of fools and cheats, we may often get our tru 
 est lessons. For the fool's judgment is a dog-vane 
 that turns with a breath, and the cheat watches the 
 clouds and sets his weathercock by them, so that 
 one shall often see by their pointing which way the 
 winds of heaven are blowing, when the slow-wheeling 
 arrows and feathers of what we call the Temples of 
 Wisdom are turning to all points of the compass. 
 
 Amen! said the young fellow called John 
 Ten minutes by the watch. Those that are unani 
 mous will please to signify by holding up their left 
 foot! 
 
 I looked this young man steadily in the face for 
 about thirty second*, His countenance was as calm 
 as that of a reposing infant. I think it was simpli-
 
 14 THE PEOFES8OR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 city, rather than mischief, with perhaps a youthful 
 playfulness, that led him to this outbreak. I have 
 often noticed that even quiet horses, on a sharp No 
 vember morning, when their coats are beginning to 
 get the winter roughness, will give little sportive demi- 
 kicks, with slight sudden elevation of the subsequent 
 region of the body, and a sharp short whinny, by EO 
 means intending to put their heels through the dasher, 
 or to address the driver rudely, but feeling, to use a 
 familiar word, frisky. This, I think, is the physiolo 
 gical condition of the young person, John. I noticed, 
 however, what I should call a palpebral spasm, affect 
 ing the eyelid and muscles of one side, which, if it 
 were intended for the facial gesture called a wink, 
 might lead me to suspect a disposition to be satirical 
 on his part. 
 
 Resuming the conversation, I remarked, I 
 am, ex officio, as a Professor, a conservative. For I 
 don't know any fruit that clings to its tree so faith 
 fully, not even a "froze-'n'-thaw" winter-apple, as a 
 Professor to the bough of which his chair is made. 
 You can't shake him off, and it is as much as you can 
 do to pull him off. Hence, by a chain of induction I 
 need not unwind, he tends to conservatism generally. 
 
 But then, you know, if you are sailing the Atlantic, 
 and all at once find yourself in a current, and the sea 
 covered with weeds, and drop your Fahrenheit over 
 the side and find it eight or ten degrees higher than 
 in the ocean generally, there is no use in flying in the 
 face of facts and swearing there is no such thing as a 
 Gulf -Stream, when you are in it. 
 
 You can't keep gas in a bladder, and you can't 
 keep knowledge tight in a profession. Hydrogen will 
 leak out, and air will leak in, through India-rubber;
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 15 
 
 and special knowledge will leak out, and general 
 knowledge will leak in, though a profession were cov 
 ered with twenty thicknesses of sheepskin diplomas. 
 By Jove, Sir, till common sense is well mixed up 
 with medicine, and common manhood with theology, 
 and common honesty with law, We the people, Sir, 
 some of us with nut-crackers, and some of us with 
 trip-hammers, and some of us with pile-drivers, and 
 some of us coming with a whish ! like air-stones out 
 of a lunar volcano, will crash down on the lumps of 
 nonsense in all of them till we have made powder of 
 them like Aaron's calf ! 
 
 If to be a conservative is to let all the drains of 
 thought choke up and keep all the soul's windows 
 down, to shut out the sun from the east and the 
 wind from the west, to let the rats run free in the 
 cellar, and the moths feed their fill in the chambers, 
 and the spiders weave their lace before the mirrors, 
 till the soul's typhus is bred out of our neglect, and 
 we begin to snore in its coma or rave in its delirium, 
 I, Sir, am a bonnet-rouge, a red cap of the barri 
 cades, my friends, rather than a conservative. 
 
 Were you born in Boston, Sir? said the little 
 man, looking eager and excited. 
 
 I was not, I replied. 
 
 It 's a pity, it 's a pity, said the little man ; - 
 it 's the place to be born in. But if you can't fix it 
 so as to be born here, you can come and live here. 
 Old Ben Franklin, the father of American science 
 and the American Union, was n't ashamed to be born 
 here. Jim Otis, the father of American Indepen 
 dence, bothered about in the Cape Cod marshes 
 awhile, but he came to Boston as soon as he got big 
 enough. Joe Warren, the first bloody ruffled-shirt of
 
 16 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 the Revolution, was as good as born here. Parson 
 Channing strolled along this way from Newport, and 
 stayed here. Pity old Sam Hopkins hadn't come, 
 
 too; we 'd have made a man of him, poor, dear, 
 
 good old Christian heathen I There he lies, as peace 
 ful as a young baby, in the old burying-ground ! I 've 
 stood on the slab many a time. Meant well, meant 
 well. Juggernaut. Parson Channing put a little 
 oil on one linchpin, and slipped it out so softly, the 
 first thing they knew about it was the wheel of that 
 side was down. T' other fellow 's at work now, but 
 he makes more noise about it. When the linchpin 
 comes out on his side, there '11 be a jerk, I tell you! 
 Some think it will spoil the old cart, and they pretend 
 to say that there are valuable things in it which may 
 get hurt. Hope not, hope not. But this is the 
 great Macadamizing place, always cracking up 
 something. 
 
 Cracking up Boston folks, said the gentleman 
 with the diamond-yin, whom, for convenience' sake, 
 I shall hereafter call the Koh-i-noor. 
 
 The little man turned round mechanically towards 
 him, as Maelzel's Turk used to turn, carrying his 
 head slowly and horizontally, as if it went by cog 
 wheels. Cracking up all sorts of things, native 
 and foreign vermin included, said the little man. 
 
 This remark was thought by some of us to have a 
 hidden personal application, and to afford a fair open 
 ing for a lively rejoinder, if the Koh-i-noor had been 
 so disposed. The little man uttered it with the dis 
 tinct wooden calmness with which the ingenious Turk 
 used to exclaim, JK-chec I so that it must have been 
 heard. The party supposed to be interested in the 
 remark was, however, carrying a large knife-blade-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 17 
 
 ful of something to his month just then, which, no 
 doubt, interfered with the reply he would have made. 
 My friend who used to board here was accus 
 tomed sometimes, in a pleasant way, to call himself 
 the Autocrat of the table, meaning, I suppose, that 
 he had it all his own way among the boarders. I 
 think our small boarder here is like to prove a refrac 
 tory subject, if I undertake to use the sceptre my 
 friend meant to bequeath me, too magisterially. I 
 won't deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I 
 have been in company with gentlemen who preferred 
 listening, I have been guilty of the same kind of usur 
 pation which my friend openly justified. But I main 
 tain, that I, the Professor, am a good listener. If a 
 man can tell me a fact which subtends an appreciable 
 angle in the horizon of thought, I am as receptive as 
 the contribution-box in a congregation of colored 
 brethren. ' If, when I am exposing my intellectual 
 dry-goods, a man will begin a good story, I will have 
 them all in, and my shutters up, before he has got to 
 the fifth "says he," and listen like a three-years' child, 
 as the author of the "Old Sailor " says. I had rather 
 hear one of those grand elemental laughs from either 
 of our two Georges, (fictitious names, Sir or Madam,) 
 or listen to one of those old playbills of our College 
 days, in which "Tom and Jerry" ("Thomas and Jer 
 emiah," as the old Greek Professor was said to call 
 it,) was announced to be brought on the stage with 
 the whole force of the Faculty, read by our Frederick, 
 (no such person, of course,) than say the best things I 
 might by any chance find myself capable of saying. 
 Of course, if I come across a real thinker, a sugges 
 tive, acute, illuminating, informing talker, I enjoy the 
 luxury of sitting still for a while as much as another.
 
 18 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Nobody talks much that does n't say unwise things, 
 
 things he did not mean to say; as no person plays 
 much without striking a false note sometimes. Talk, 
 to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of 
 thought. I can't answer for what will turn up. If 
 I could, it wouldn't be talking, but "speaking my 
 piece." Better, I think, the hearty abandonment of 
 one's self to the suggestions of the moment at the risk 
 of an occasional slip of the tongue, perceived the in 
 stant it escapes, but just one syllable too late, than the 
 royal reputation of never saying a foolish thing. 
 
 What shall I do with this little man? There 
 is only one thing to do, and that is to let him talk 
 when he will. The day of the "Autocrat's" mono 
 logues is over. 
 
 My friend, said I to the young fellow whom, 
 as 1 have said, the boarders .call "John," My friend, 
 
 I said, one morning, after breakfast, can you give 
 me any information respecting the deformed person 
 who sits at the other end of the table? 
 
 What! the Sculpin? said the young fellow. 
 
 The diminutive person, with angular curvature of 
 the spine, I said, and double talipes varus, I 
 beg your pardon, with two club-feet. 
 
 Is that long word what you call it when a fellah 
 walks so? said the young man, making his fists re 
 volve round an imaginary axis, as you may have seen 
 youth of tender age and limited pugilistic knowledge, 
 when they show how they would punish an adversary, 
 themselves protected by this rotating guard, the 
 middle knuckle, meantime, thumb-supported, fiercely 
 prominent, death-threatening. 
 
 It is, said I. But would you have the kindness 
 to tell me if you know anything about this deformed 
 person?
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 19 
 
 About the Sculpin ? said the young fellow. 
 
 My good friend, said I, I am sure, by your 
 countenance, you would not hurt the feelings of one 
 who has been hardly enough treated by Nature to be 
 spared by his fellows. Even in speaking of him to 
 others, I could wish that you might not employ a term 
 which implies contempt for what should inspire only 
 pity. 
 
 A fellah 's no business to be so crooked, said 
 
 the young man called John. 
 
 Yes, yes, I said, thoughtfully, the strong hate 
 the weak. It 's all right. The arrangement has 
 reference to the race, and not to the individual. In 
 firmity must be kicked out, or the stock run down. 
 Wholesale moral arrangements are so different from 
 retail ! I understand the instinct, my friend, it is 
 cosmic, it is planetary, it is a conservative prin 
 ciple in creation. 
 
 The young fellow's face gradually lost its expres 
 sion as I was speaking, until it became as blank of 
 vivid significance as the countenance of a gingerbread 
 rabbit with two currants in the place of eyes. He 
 had not taken my meaning. 
 
 Presently the intelligence came back with a snap 
 that made him wink, as he answered, Jest so. All 
 right. A 1. Put her through. That 's the way to 
 talk. Did you speak tome, Sir? Here the young 
 man struck up that well-known song which I think 
 they used to sing at Masonic festivals, beginning, 
 "Aldiborontiphoscophornio, Where left you Chro- 
 nonhotonthologos? " 
 
 I beg your pardon, I said ; all I meant was, 
 that men, as temporary occupants of a permanent 
 abode called human life, which is improved or injured
 
 20 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 by occupancy, according to the style of tenant, have 
 a natural dislike to those who, if they live the life of 
 the race as well as of the individual, will leave lasting 
 injurious effects upon the abode spoken of, which is 
 to be occupied by countless future generations. This 
 is the final cause of the underlying brute instinct 
 which we have in common with the herds. 
 
 The gingerbread-rabbit expression was coming 
 on so fast, that I thought I must try again. It 's a 
 pity that families are kept up, where there are such 
 hereditary infirmities. Still, let us treat this poor 
 man fairly, and not call him names. Do you know 
 what his name is? 
 
 I know what the rest of 'em call him, said the 
 young fellow. They call him Little Boston. 
 There 's no harm in that, is there? 
 
 It is an honorable term, I replied. But why 
 Little Boston, in a place where most are Bostonians? 
 
 Because nobody else is quite so Boston all over as 
 he is, said the young fellow. 
 
 "L. B. Ob. 1692." Little Boston let him be, 
 when we talk about him. The ring he wears labels 
 him well enough. There is stuff in the little man, or 
 he would n't stick so manfully by this crooked, crotch 
 ety old town. Give him a chance. You will drop 
 the Sculpin, won't you? I said to the young fellow. 
 
 Drop him? he answered, I ha'n't took him up 
 yet. 
 
 No, no, the term, I said, the term. Don't 
 call him so any more, if you please. Call him Little 
 Boston, if you like. 
 
 All right, said the young fellow. I would n't be 
 hard on the poor little 
 
 The word he used was objectionable in point of sig-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 21 
 
 nificance and of grammar. It was a frequent termina 
 tion of certain adjectives among the Romans, as of 
 those designating a person following the sea, or given 
 to rural pursuits. It is classed by custom among the 
 profane words ; why, it is hard to say, but it is 
 largely used in the street by those who speak of their 
 fellows in pity or in wrath. 
 
 I never heard the young fellow apply the name of 
 the odious pretended fish to the little man from that 
 day forward. 
 
 Here we are, then, at our boarding - house. 
 First, myself, the Professor, a little way from the 
 head of the table, on the right, looking down, where 
 the "Autocrat" used to sit. At the further end sits 
 the Landlady. At the head of the table, just now, the 
 Koh-i-noor, or the gentleman with the diamond. Op 
 posite me is a Venerable Gentleman with a bland coun 
 tenance, who as yet has spoken little. The Divinity 
 Student is my neighbor on the right, and further 
 down, that Young Fellow of whom I have repeatedly 
 spoken. The Landlady's Daughter sits near the 
 Koh-i-noor, as I said. The Poor Relation near the 
 Landlady. At the right upper corner is a fresh-look 
 ing youth of whose name and history I have as yet 
 learned nothing. Next the further left-hand corner, 
 near the lower end of the table, sits the deformed per 
 son. The chair at his side, occupying that corner, 
 is empty. I need not specially mention the other 
 boarders, with the exception of Benjamin Franklin, 
 the landlady's son, who sits near his mother. We aro 
 a tolerably assorted set, difference enough and like 
 ness enough; but still it seems to me there is some 
 thing wanting. The Landlady's Daughter is the 
 prima donna in the way of feminine attractions. I
 
 22 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 am not quite satisfied with this young lady. She 
 wears more "jewelry," as certain young ladies call 
 their trinkets, than I care to see on a person in her 
 position. Her voice is strident, her laugh too much 
 like a giggle, and she has that foolish way of dancing 
 and bobbing like a quill-float with a "minnum" biting 
 the hook below it, which one sees and weeps over 
 sometimes in persons of more pretensions. I can't 
 help hoping we shall put something into that empty 
 chair yet which will add the missing string to our 
 social harp. I hear talk of a rare Miss who is ex 
 pected. Something in the schoolgirl way, I believe. 
 We shall see. 
 
 My friend who calls himself The Autocrat has 
 given me a caution which I am going to repeat, with 
 my comment upon it, for the benefit of all concerned. 
 
 Professor, said he, one day, don't you think 
 your brain will run dry before a year 's out, if you 
 don't get the pump to help the cow? Let me tell you 
 what happened to me once. I put a little money into 
 a bank, and bought a check-book, so that I might 
 draw it as I wanted, in sums to suit. Things went on 
 nicely for a time ; scratching with a pen was as easy 
 as rubbing Aladdin's Lamp; and my blank check-book 
 seemed to be a dictionary of possibilities, in which I 
 could find all the synonymes of happiness, and realize 
 any one of them on the spot. A check came back to 
 me at last with these two words on it, No funds. 
 My check-book was a volume of waste-paper. 
 
 Now, Professor, said he, I have drawn some 
 thing out of your bank, you know ; and just so sure 
 as you keep drawing out your soul's currency without 
 making new deposits, the next thing will be, No
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 23 
 
 funds, and then where will you be, my boy? These 
 little bits of paper mean your gold and your silver and 
 your copper, Professor ; and you will certainly break 
 up and go to pieces, if you don't hold on to your me 
 tallic basis. 
 
 There is something in that, said I. Only I 
 rather think life can coin thought somewhat faster 
 than I can count it off in words. What if one shall 
 go round and dry up with soft napkins all the dew 
 that falls of a June evening on the leaves of his gar 
 den? Shall there be no more dew on those leaves 
 thereafter? Marry, yea, many drops, large and 
 round and full of moonlight as those thou shalt have 
 absterged I 
 
 Here am I, the Professor, a man who has lived 
 long enough to have plucked the flowers of life and 
 come to the berries, which are not always sad-col 
 ored, but sometimes golden-hued as the crocus of 
 April, or rosy-cheeked as the damask of June ; a man 
 who staggered against books as a baby, and will totter 
 against them, if he lives to decrepitude ; with a brain 
 as full of tingling thoughts, such as they are, as a 
 limb which we call "asleep," because it is so particu 
 larly awake, is of pricking points ; presenting a key 
 board of nerve-pulps, not as yet tanned or ossified, to 
 the finger-touch of all outward agencies; knowing 
 something of the filmy threads of this web of life in 
 which we insects buzz awhile, waiting for the gray old 
 spider to come along; contented enough with daily 
 realities, but twirling on his finger the key of a pri 
 vate Bedlam of ideals ; in knowledge feeding with the 
 fox of tener than with the stork, loving better the 
 breadth of a fertilizing inundation than the depth of 
 a narrow artesian well ; finding nothing too small for
 
 24 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 his contemplation in the markings of the grammato- 
 pkora subtilissima, and nothing too large in the move 
 ment of the solar system towards the star Lambda of 
 the constellation Hercules ; and the question is, 
 whether there is anything left for me, the Professor, 
 to suck out of creation, after my lively friend has had 
 his straw in the bung-hole of the Universe ! 
 
 A man's mental reactions with the atmosphere of 
 life must go on, whether he will or no, as between his 
 blood and the air he breathes. As to catching the re 
 siduum of the process, or what we call thought, the 
 gaseous ashes of burned-out thinking, the excretion 
 of mental respiration, that will depend on many 
 things, as, on having a favorable intellectual tempera 
 ture about one, and a fitting receptacle. I sow more 
 thought-seeds in twenty-four hours' travel over the 
 desert- sand along which my lonely consciousness paces 
 day and night, than I shall throw into soil where it 
 will germinate, in a year. All sorts of bodily and 
 mental perturbations come between us and the due 
 projection of our thought. The pulse-like "fits of 
 easy and difficult transmission " seem to reach even 
 the transparent medium through which our souls are 
 seen. We know our humanity by its often inter 
 cepted rays, as we tell a revolving light from a star 
 or meteor by its constantly recurring obscuration. 
 
 An illustrious scholar once told me, that, in the first 
 lecture he ever delivered, he spoke but half his allotted 
 time, and felt as if he had told all he knew. Braham 
 came forward once to sing one of his most famous and 
 familiar songs, and for his life could not recall the 
 first line of it ; he told his mishap to the audience, 
 and they screamed it at him in a chorus of a thousand 
 voices. Milton could not write to suit himself, except
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 25 
 
 from the autumnal to the vernal equinox. One in the 
 clothing-business, who, there is reason to suspect, may 
 have inherited, by descent, the great poet's impressi 
 ble temperament, let a customer slip through his fin 
 gers one day without fitting him with a new garment. 
 "Ah! " said he to a friend of mine, who was standing 
 by, " if it had n't been for that confounded headache 
 of mine this morning, I 'd have had a coat on that 
 man, in spite of himself, before he left the store." 
 A passing throb, only, but it deranged the nice 
 mechanism required to persuade the accidental hu 
 man being, #, into a given piece of broadcloth, a. 
 
 We must take care not to confound this frequent 
 difficulty of transmission of our ideas with want of 
 ideas. I suppose that a man's mind does in time 
 form a neutral salt with the elements in the universe 
 for which it has special elective affinities. In fact, I 
 look upon a library as a kind of mental chemist's 
 shop, filled with the crystals of all forms and hues 
 which have come from the union of individual thought 
 with local circumstances or universal principles. 
 
 When a man has worked out his special affinities 
 in this way, there is an end of his genius as a real 
 solvent. No more effervescence and hissing tumult 
 as he pours his sharp thought on the world's biting 
 alkaline unbeliefs! No more corrosion of the old 
 monumental tablets covered with lies! No more 
 taking up of dull earths, and turning them, first into 
 clear solutions, and then into lustrous prisms ! 
 
 I, the Professor, am very much like other men. I 
 shall not find out when I have used up my affinities. 
 What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she in 
 vented, manufactured, and patented her authors, con 
 trived to make critics out of the chips that were left I
 
 .26 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Painful as the task is, they never fail to warn tho 
 author, in the most impressive manner, of the proba 
 bilities of failure in what he has undertaken. Sad 
 as the necessity is to their delicate sensibilities, they 
 never hesitate to advertise him of the decline of his 
 powers, and to press upon him the propriety of retir 
 ing before he sinks into imbecility. Trusting to their 
 kind offices, I shall endeavor to fulfil 
 
 Bridget enters and begins clearing the table. 
 
 The following poem is my (The Professor's) 
 only contribution to the great department of Ocean- 
 Cable literature. As all the poets of this country will 
 be engaged for the next six weeks in writing for the 
 premium offered lay the Crystal-Palace Company for 
 the Burns Centenary, (so called, according to our 
 Benjamin Franklin, because there will be na'ry a cent 
 for any of us,) poetry will be very scarce and dear. 
 Consumers may, consequently, be glad to take the 
 present .article, which, by the aid of a Latin tutor -and 
 a Professor of Chemistry, will be found intelligible to 
 the educated classes. 
 
 DE SAUTY. 
 
 AX ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE. 
 
 Professor. Blue-Nose. 
 
 PROFESSOR. 
 
 Tell me, O Provincial ! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal ! 
 Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, 
 Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, 
 Holding talk with nations ?
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 27 
 
 Is there a De Sauty, ambulant on Tellus, 
 Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in night-cap, 
 Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature 
 Three times daily patent ? 
 
 Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal ? 
 Or is he a mythus, ancient word for " humbug," 
 Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed 
 Romulus and Remus ? 
 
 Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty ? 
 Or a living product of galvanic action, 
 Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint-solution ? 
 Speak, thou Cyano-Rhiual ! 
 
 BLUE-NOSE. 
 
 Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, 
 Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster I 
 Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, 
 Thou shalt hear them answered. 
 
 When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, 
 At the polar focus of the wire electric 
 Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us : 
 Called himself "Ds SAUTY." 
 
 As the small opossum held in pouch maternal 
 Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, 
 So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, 
 Sucking in the current. 
 
 When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced 
 
 stranger, 
 
 Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy, 
 And from time to time, in sharp articulation, 
 Said, " AU right I DE SAUTY." 
 
 From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading 
 Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples
 
 28 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Till the land was filled with loud reverberations 
 Of " All right ! DE SAUTY." 
 
 When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stranger, - 
 Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker, 
 Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odor 
 Of disintegration. 
 
 Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, 
 Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, 
 Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended, 
 There was no De Sauty. 
 
 Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, 
 C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, 
 Calc. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang. (?) Alumin. (?) Cu 
 prum, (?) 
 Such as man is made of. 
 
 Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished ! 
 There is no De Sauty now there is no current ! 
 Give us a new cable, then again we '11 hear him 
 Cry, " All right 1 DE SAUTY.' ' 
 
 n. 
 
 Back again ! A turtle which means a tortoise 
 is fond of his shell; but if you put a live coal on 
 his back, he crawls out of it. So the boys say. 
 
 It is a libel on the turtle. He grows to his shell, 
 and his shell is in his body as much as his body is in 
 his shell. I don't think there is one of our boarders 
 quite so testudineous as I am. Nothing but a combi 
 nation of motives, more peremptory than the coal on 
 the turtle's back, could have got me to leave the shel 
 ter of my carapace ; and after memorable interviews, 
 and kindest hospitalities, and grand sights, and huge
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 29 
 
 influx of patriotic pride, for every American owns 
 all America, 
 
 " Creation's heir, the world, the world is " 
 
 his, if anybody's, I come back with the feeling 
 which a boned turkey might experience, if, retaining 
 his consciousness, he were allowed to resume his skel 
 eton. 
 
 Welcome, O Fighting Gladiator, and Recumbent 
 Cleopatra, and Dying Warrior, whose classic outlines 
 (reproduced in the calcined mineral of Lutetia) crown 
 my loaded shelves! Welcome, ye triumphs of pic 
 torial art (repeated by the magic graver) that look 
 down upon me from the walls of my sacred cell ! Ve- 
 salius, as Titian drew him, high-fronted, still-eyed, 
 thick-bearded, with signet-ring, as beseems a gentle 
 man, with book and carelessly-held eyeglass, marking 
 him a scholar; thou, too, Jan Kuyper, commonly 
 called Jan Praktiseer, old man of a century and seven 
 years besides, father of twenty sons and two daugh 
 ters, cut in copper by Houbraken, bought from a port 
 folio on one of the Paris quais ; and ye Three Trees 
 of Rembrandt, black in shadow against the blaze of 
 sunlight ; and thou Rosy Cottager of Sir Joshua, 
 thy roses hinted by the peppery burin of Bartolozzi ; 
 ye, too, of lower grades in nature, yet not unlovely 
 nor unrenowned, Young Bull of Paulus Potter, and 
 Sleeping Cat of Cornelius Visscher; welcome once 
 more to my eyes ! The old books look out from the 
 shelves, and I seem to read on their backs something 
 besides their titles, a kind of solemn greeting. 
 The crimson carpet flushes warm under my feet. The 
 arm-chair hugs me ; the swivel-chair spins round with 
 me, as if it were giddy with pleasure; the vast recum-
 
 30 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 bent fauteuil stretches itself out under my weight, 
 as one joyous with food and wine stretches in after- 
 dinner laughter. 
 
 The boarders were pleased to say that they were 
 glad to get me back. One of them ventured a com 
 pliment, namely, that I talked as if I believed what 
 I said. This was apparently considered something 
 unusual, by its being mentioned. 
 
 One who means to talk with entire sincerity, I 
 said, always feels himself in danger of two things, 
 namely, an affectation of bluntness, like that of 
 which Cornwall accuses Kent in "Lear," and actual 
 rudeness. What a man wants to do, in talking with 
 a stranger, is to get and to give as much of the best 
 and most real life that belongs to the two talkers as the 
 time will let him. Life is short, and conversation apt 
 to run to mere words. Mr. Hue I think it is, who tells 
 us some very good stories about the way in which two 
 Chinese gentlemen contrive to keep up a long talk 
 without saying a word which has any meaning in it. 
 Something like this is occasionally heard on this side 
 of the Great Wall. The best Chinese talkers I know 
 are some pretty women whom I meet from time to 
 time. Pleasant, airy, complimentary, the little flakes 
 of flattery glimmering in their talk like the bits of 
 gold-leaf in eau-de-vie de Dantzic; their accents flow 
 ing on in a soft ripple, never a wave, and never a 
 calm ; words nicely fitted, but never a colored phrase 
 or a highly -flavored epithet ; they turn air into sylla 
 bles so gracefully, that we find meaning for the music 
 they make as we find faces in the coals and fairy pal 
 aces in the clouds. There is something very odd, 
 though, about this mechanical talk. 
 
 You have sometimes been in a train on the railroad
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 31 
 
 when the engine was detached a long way from the 
 station you were approaching? Well, you have no 
 ticed how quietly and rapidly the cars kept on, just as 
 if the locomotive were drawing them? Indeed, you 
 would not have suspected that you were travelling on 
 the strength of a dead fact, if you had not seen the 
 engine running away from you on a side-track. Upon 
 my conscience, I believe some of these pretty women 
 detach their minds entirely, sometimes, from their 
 talk, and, what is more, that we never know the 
 difference. Their lips let off the fluty syllables just 
 as their fingers would sprinkle the music-drops from 
 their pianos; unconscious habit turns the phrase of 
 thought into words just as it does that of music into 
 notes. Well, they govern the world for all that, 
 these sweet-lipped women, because beauty is the 
 index of a larger fact than wisdom. 
 
 The Bombazine wanted an explanation. 
 Madam, said I, wisdom is the abstract of the 
 
 past, but beauty is the promise of the future. 
 
 All this, however, is not what I was going to 
 say. Here am I, suppose, seated we will say at a 
 dinner-table alongside of an intelligent Englishman. 
 We look in each other's faces, we exchange a dozen 
 words. One thing is settled : we mean not to offend 
 each other, to be perfectly courteous, more than 
 courteous; for we are the entertainer and the enter 
 tained, and cherish particularly amiable feelings to 
 each other. The claret is good ; and if our blood red 
 dens a little with its warm crimson, we are none the 
 less kind for it. 
 
 I don't think people that talk over their victuals 
 are like to say anything very great, especially if they 
 get their heads muddled with strong drink before they 
 begin jabberin'.
 
 32 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 The Bombazine uttered this with a sugary sourness, 
 as if the words had been steeped in a solution of 
 acetate, of lead. The boys of my time used to call a 
 hit like this a "side-winder." 
 
 I must finish this woman. 
 
 Madam, I said, the Great Teacher seems to 
 have been fond of talking as he sat at meat. Because 
 this was a good while ago, in a far-off place, you for 
 get what the true fact of it was, that those were 
 real dinners, where people were hungry and thirsty, 
 and where you met a very miscellaneous company. 
 Probably there was a great deal of loose talk among 
 the guests; at any rate, there was always wine, we 
 may believe. 
 
 Whatever may be the hygienic advantages or disad 
 vantages of wine, and I for one, except for certain 
 particular ends, believe in water, and, I blush to say 
 it, in black tea, there is no doubt about its being 
 the grand specific against dull dinners. A score of 
 people come together in all moods of mind and body. 
 The problem is, in the space of one hour, more or less, 
 to bring them all into the same condition of slightly 
 exalted life. Food alone is enough for one person, per 
 haps, talk, alone, for another ; but the grand equal 
 izer and fraternizer, which works up the radiators to 
 their maximum radiation, and the absorbents to their 
 maximum receptivity, is now just where it was when 
 
 The conscious water saw its Lord and blushed, 
 
 when six great vessels containing water, the whole 
 amounting to more than a hogshead-full, were changed 
 into the best of wine. I once wrote a song about 
 wine, in which I spoke so warmly of it, that I was 
 afraid some would think it was written inter pocula ;
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 33 
 
 whereas it was composed in the bosom of my family, 
 under the most tranquillizing domestic influences. 
 
 The divinity-student turned towards me, looking 
 mischievous. Can you tell me, he said, who 
 wrote a song for a temperance celebration once, of 
 which the following is a verse ? 
 
 Alas for the loved one, too gentle and fair 
 The joys of the banquet to chasten and share ! 
 Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, 
 And the rose of her cheek was dissolved hi his wine f 
 
 /did, I answered. What are you going to do 
 about it? I will tell you another line I wrote long 
 ago: 
 
 Don't be "consistent," but be simply true. 
 
 The longer I live, the more I am satisfied of two 
 things : first, that the truest lives are those that are 
 cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many facets answering 
 to the many- planed aspects of the world about them; 
 secondly, that society is always trying in some way or 
 other to grind us down to a single flat surface. It is 
 hard work to resist this grinding-down action. Now 
 give me a chance. Better eternal and universal ab 
 stinence than the brutalities of those days that made 
 wives and mothers and daughters and sisters blush for 
 those whom they should have honored, as they came 
 reeling home from their debauches ! Yet better even 
 excess than lying and hypocrisy; and if wine is upon 
 all our tables, let us praise it for its color and fra 
 grance and social tendency, so far as it deserves, and 
 not hug a bottle in the closet and pretend not to know 
 the use of a wine-glass at a public dinner! I think 
 you will find that people who honestly mean to be 
 true really contradict themselves much more rarely
 
 34 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 than those who try to be "consistent." But a great 
 many things we say can be made to appear contradic 
 tory, simply because they are partial views of a truth, 
 and may often look unlike at first, as a front view of 
 a face and its profile often do. 
 
 Here is a distinguished divine, for whom I have 
 great respect, for I owe him a charming hour at one 
 of our literary anniversaries, and he has often spoken 
 noble words; but he holds up a remark of my friend 
 the "Autocrat," which I grieve to say he twice 
 misquotes, by omitting the very word which gives it its 
 significance, the word fluid, intended to typify the 
 mobility of the restricted will, holds it up, I say, 
 as if it attacked the reality of the self -determining 
 principle, instead of illustrating its limitations by an 
 image. Now I will not explain any farther, still less 
 defend, and least of all attack, but simply quote a few 
 lines from one of my friend's poems, printed more 
 than ten years ago, and ask the distinguished gentle 
 man where he has ever asserted more strongly or abso 
 lutely the independent will of the "subcreative centre," 
 as my heretical friend has elsewhere called man. 
 
 Thought, conscience, will, to make them all thy own 
 He rent a pillar from the eternal throne ! 
 
 Made in His image, thou must nobly dare 
 The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. 
 
 Think not too meanly of thy low estate ; 
 Thou hast a choice ; to choose is to create ! 
 
 If he will look a little closely, he will see that the 
 profile and the full-face views of the will are both 
 true and perfectly consistent. 1 
 
 1 The more I have observed and reflected, the more limited 
 seems to me the field of action of the human will. Every act 
 of choice involves a special relation between the ego and the con-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 35 
 
 Now let us come back, after this long digression, 
 to the conversation with the intelligent Englishman. 
 We begin skirmishing with a few light ideas, test 
 ing for thoughts, as our electro -chemical friend, De 
 Sauty, if there were such a person, would test for his 
 current; trying a little litmus-paper for acids, and 
 then a slip of turmeric-paper for alkalies, as chemists 
 do with unknown compounds ; flinging the lead, and 
 looking at the shells and sands it brings up to find out 
 whether we are like to keep in shallow water, or shall 
 have to drop the deep-sea line ; in short, seeing what 
 we have to deal with. If the Englishman gets his H's 
 pretty well placed, he comes from one of the higher 
 grades of the British social order, and we shall find 
 him a good companion. 
 
 But, after all, here is a great fact between us. 
 We belong to two different civilizations, and, until we 
 recognize what separates us, we are talking like Pyra- 
 mus and Thisbe, without any hole in the wall to talk 
 through. Therefore, on the whole, if he were a su 
 perior fellow, incapable of mistaking it for personal 
 conceit, I think I would let out the fact of the real 
 American feeling about Old- World folks. They are 
 children to us in certain points of view. They are 
 playing with toys we have done with for whole-genera- 
 
 ditions before it. But no man knows what forces are at work 
 in the determination of his ego. The bias which decides his 
 choice between two or more motives may come from some un 
 suspected ancestral source, of which he knows nothing at all. 
 He is automatic in virtue of that hidden spring of reflex action, 
 all the time having the feeling that he is self-determining. The 
 story of Elsie Venner, written soon after this book was pub 
 lished, illustrates the direction in which my thought was moving. 
 The imaginary subject of the story obeyed her will, but her will 
 obeyed the mysterious ante-natal poisoning influence.
 
 36 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 tions. That silly little dram they are always beating 
 on, and the trumpet and the feather they make so 
 much noise and cut such a figure with, we have not 
 quite outgrown, but play with much less seriously and 
 constantly than they do. Then there is a whole mu 
 seum of wigs, and masks, and lace-coats, and gold- 
 sticks, and grimaces, and phrases, which we laugh at 
 honestly, without affectation, that are still used in the 
 Old- World puppet-shows. I don't think we on our 
 part ever understand the Englishman's concentrated 
 loyalty and specialized reverence. But then we do 
 think more of a man, as such, (barring some little dif 
 ficulties about race and complexion which the Eng 
 lishman will touch us on presently,) than any people 
 that ever lived did think of him. Our reverence is a 
 great deal wider, if it is less intense. We have caste 
 among us, to some extent, it is true ; but there is never 
 a collar on the American wolf-dog snch as you often 
 see on the English mastiff, notwithstanding his robust, 
 hearty individuality. 
 
 This confronting of two civilizations is always a 
 grand sensation to me ; it is like cutting through the 
 isthmus and letting the two oceans swim into each oth 
 er's laps. The trouble is, it is so difficult to let out 
 the whole American nature without its self-assertion 
 seeming to take a personal character. But I never 
 enjoy the Englishman so much as when he talks of 
 church and king like Manco Capac among the Peru 
 vians. Then you get the real British flavor, which 
 the cosmopolite Englishman loses. 
 
 How much better this thorough interpenetration of 
 ideas than a barren interchange of courtesies, or a 
 bush-fighting argument, in which each man tries to 
 cover as much of himself and expose as much of his
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 37 
 
 opponent as the tangled thicket of the disputed ground 
 will let him ! 
 
 My thoughts flow in layers or strata, at least 
 three deep. I follow a slow person's talk, and keep a 
 perfectly clear under-current of my own beneath it. 
 Under both runs obscurely a consciousness belonging 
 to a third train of reflections, independent of the two 
 others. I will try to write out a Mental movement in 
 three parts. 
 
 A. First voice, or Mental Soprano, thought 
 follows a woman talking. 
 
 B. Second voice, or Mental Barytone, my run 
 ning accompaniment. 
 
 C. Third voice, or Mental Basso, low grumble 
 of an importunate self -repeating idea. 
 
 A. White lace, three skirts, looped with flowers, 
 wreath of apple-blossoms, gold bracelets, diamond pin 
 and ear-rings, the most delicious berthe you ever saw, 
 white satin slippers - 
 
 B. Deuse take her ! What a fool she is I Hear 
 her chatter I (Look out of window just here. Two 
 pages and a half of description, if it were all written 
 out, in one tenth of a second.) Go ahead, old lady! 
 (Eye catches picture over fireplace.) There 's that in 
 fernal family nose! Came over in the "Mayflower" 
 on the first old fool's face. Why don't they wear a 
 ring in it? 
 
 C. You '11 be late at lecture, late at lecture, 
 late, late, late 
 
 I observe that a deep layer of thought sometimes 
 makes itself felt through the superincumbent strata,
 
 38 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 thus : The usual single or double currents shall flow 
 on, but there shall be an influence blending with them, 
 disturbing them in an obscure way, until all at once I 
 say, Oh, there ! I knew there was something trou 
 bling me, and the thought which had been working 
 through comes up to the surface clear, definite, and 
 articulates itself, a disagreeable duty, perhaps, or 
 an unpleasant recollection. 
 
 The inner world of thought and the outer world of 
 events are alike in this, that they are both brimful. 
 There is no space between consecutive thoughts, or 
 between the never-ending series of actions. All pack 
 tight, and mould their surfaces against each other, so 
 that in the long run there is a wonderful average uni 
 formity in the forms of both thoughts and actions, 
 just as you find that cylinders crowded all become 
 hexagonal prisms, and spheres pressed together are 
 formed into regular polyhedra. 
 
 Every event that a man would master must be 
 mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the reins 
 of a thought except as it galloped by him. So, to 
 carry out, with another comparison, my remark about 
 the layers of thought, we may consider the mind as it 
 moves among thoughts or events, like a circus-rider 
 whirling round with a great troop of horses. He can 
 mount a fact or an idea, and guide it more or less 
 completely, but he cannot stop it. So, as I said in 
 another way at the beginning, he can stride two or 
 three thoughts at once, but not break their steady 
 walk, trot, or gallop. He can only take his foot from 
 the saddle of one thought and put it on that of an 
 other. 
 
 What is the saddle of a thought? Why, a 
 word, of course Twenty years after you have dis-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 39 
 
 missed a thought, it suddenly wedges up to you 
 through the press, as if it had been steadily galloping 
 round and round all that time without a rider. 
 
 The will does not act in the interspaces of thought, 
 for there are no such interspaces, but simply steps 
 from the back of one moving thought upon that of 
 another. 
 
 I should like to ask, said the divinity-student, 
 since we are getting into metaphysics, how you can 
 admit space, if all things are in contact, and how you 
 can admit time, if it is always now to something? 
 
 I thought it best not to hear this question. 
 
 I wonder if you know this class of philosophers 
 in books or elsewhere. One of them makes his bow 
 to the public, and exhibits an unfortunate truth ban 
 daged up so that it cannot stir hand or foot, as help 
 less, apparently, and unable to take care of itself, as 
 an Egyptian mummy. He then proceeds, with the 
 air and method of a master, to take off the bandages. 
 Nothing can be neater than the way in which he does 
 it. But as he takes off layer after layer, the truth 
 seems to grow smaller and smaller, and some of its 
 outlines begin to look like something we have seen be 
 fore. At last, when he has got them all off, and the 
 truth struts out naked, we recognize it as a diminutive 
 and familiar acquaintance whom we have known in the 
 streets all our lives. The fact is, the philosopher has 
 coaxed the truth into his study and put all those ban 
 dages on; of course it is not very hard for him to 
 take them off. Still, a great many people like to 
 watch the process, he does it so neatly ! 
 
 Dear ! dear 1 I am ashamed to write and talk, some 
 times, when I see how those functions of the large- 
 brained, thumb-opposing plantigrade are abused by
 
 40 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 my fellow -vertebrates, perhaps by myself. How 
 they spar for wind, instead of hitting from the shoul 
 der ! 
 
 The young fellow called John arose and placed 
 himself in a neat fighting attitude. Fetch on the 
 fellah that makes them long words ! he said, and 
 planted a straight hit with the right fist in the con 
 cave palm of the left hand with a click like a cup and 
 ball. You small boy there, hurry up that " Web 
 ster's Unabridged ! " 
 
 The little gentleman with the malformation, before 
 described, shocked the propriety of the breakfast-table 
 by a loud utterance of three words, of which the two 
 last were "Webster's Unabridged," and the first was 
 an emphatic monosyllable. Beg pardon, he added, 
 forgot myself. But let us have an English diction 
 ary, if we are to have any. I don't believe in clip 
 ping the coin of the realm, Sir ! If I put a weather 
 cock on my house, Sir, I want it to tell which way 
 the wind blows up aloft, off from the prairies to 
 the ocean, or off from the ocean to the prairies, or 
 any way it wants to blow ! I don't want a weather 
 cock with a winch in an old gentleman's study that he 
 can take hold of and turn, so that the vane shall point 
 west when the great wind overhead is blowing east 
 with all its might, Sir ! Wait till we give you a 
 dictionary, Sir ! It takes Boston to do that thing, 
 Sir! 
 
 Some folks think water can't run down-hill any 
 where out of Boston, remarked the Koh-i-noor. 
 
 I don't know what some folks think so well as 
 I know what some fools say, rejoined the Little 
 Gentleman. If importing most dry goods made the 
 best scholars, I dare say you would know where to
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 41 
 
 look for 'em. Mr. Webster could n't spell, Sir, or 
 would n't spell, Sir, at any rate, he did n't spell; 
 and the end of it was a fight between the owners of 
 some copyrights and the dignity of this noble lan 
 guage which we have inherited from our English fa 
 thers. Language ! the blood of the soul, Sir ! into 
 which our thoughts run and out of which they grow ! 
 We know what a word is worth here in Boston. 
 Young Sam Adams got up on the stage at Commence 
 ment, out at Cambridge there, with his gown on, the 
 Governor and Council looking on in the name of his 
 Majesty, King George the Second, and the girls look 
 ing down out of the galleries, and taught people how 
 to spell a word that was n't in the Colonial dictiona 
 ries ! J?-e, re, s-i-s, sis, t-a-n-c-e, tance, Resistance I 
 That was in '43, and it was a good many years before 
 the Boston boys began spelling it with their muskets ; 
 but when they did begin, they spelt it so loud that 
 the old bedridden women in the English almshouses 
 heard every syllable ! Yes, yes, yes, it was a good 
 while before those other two Boston boys got the class 
 so far along that it could spell those two hard words, 
 Independence and Union 1 I tell you what, Sir, there 
 are a thousand lives, aye, sometimes a million, go to 
 get a new word into a language that is worth speaking. 
 We know what language means too well here in Bos 
 ton to play tricks with it. We never make a new word 
 till we have made a new thing or a new thought, Sir I 
 When we shaped the new mould of this continent, we 
 had to make a few. When, by God's permission, we 
 abrogated the primal curse of maternity, we had to 
 make a word or two. The cutwater of this great Le* 
 viathan clipper, the OCCIDENTAL, this thirty-masted 
 wind-and-steam wave-crusher, must throw a little
 
 42 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 spray over the human vocabulary as it splits the wa 
 ters of a new world's destiny ! 
 
 He rose as he spoke, until his stature seemed to 
 swell into the fair human proportions. His feet must 
 have been on the upper round of his high chair ; 
 that was the only way I could account for it. 
 
 Puts her through fust-rate, said the young fellow 
 whom the boarders call John. 
 
 The venerable and kind-looking old gentleman who 
 sits opposite said he remembered Sam Adams as Gov 
 ernor. An old man in a brown coat. Saw him take 
 the Chair on Boston Common. Was a boy then, and 
 remembers sitting on the fence in front of the old 
 Hancock house. Recollects he had a glazed 'lection- 
 bun, and sat eating it and looking down on to the 
 Common. Lalocks flowered late that year, and he 
 got a great bunch off from the bushes in the Hancock 
 front-yard. 
 
 Them 'lection-buns are no go, said the young 
 man John, so called. I know the trick. Give a 
 fellah a fo'penny bun in the mornin', an' he downs 
 the whole of it. In about an hour it swells up in his 
 stomach as big as a football, and his feedin' 's sp'ilt 
 for that day. That 's the way to stop off a young one 
 from eatin' up all the 'lection dinner. 
 
 Salem ! Salem ! not Boston, shouted the little 
 man. 
 
 But the Koh-i-noor laughed a great rasping laugh, 
 and the boy Benjamin Franklin looked sharp at his 
 mother, as if he remembered the bun-experiment as a 
 part of his past personal history. 
 
 The Little Gentleman was holding a fork in his left 
 hand. He stabbed a boulder of home-made bread 
 with it, mechanically, and looked at it as if it ought
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 43 
 
 to shriek. It did not, but he sat as if watch 
 ing it. 
 
 Language is a solemn thing, I said. It 
 grows out of life, out of its agonies and ecstasies, its 
 wants and its weariness. Every language is a temple, 
 in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined,, 
 Because time softens its outlines and rounds the sharp 
 angles of its cornices, shall a fellow take a pickaxe to 
 help time? Let me tell you what comes of meddling 
 with things that can take care of themselves. A 
 friend of mine had a watch given him, when he was a 
 boy, a "bull's eye," with a loose silver case that 
 came off like an oyster-shell from its contents; you 
 know them, the cases that you hang on your thumb, 
 while the core, or the real watch, lies in your hand as 
 naked as a peeled apple. Well, he began with taking 
 off the case, and so on from one liberty to another, 
 until he got it fairly open, and there were the works, 
 as good as if they were alive, crown-wheel, balance- 
 wheel, and all the rest. All right except one thing, 
 there was a confounded little hair had got tangled 
 round the balance-wheel. So my young Solomon got 
 a pair of tweezers, and caught hold of the hair very 
 nicely, and pulled it right out, without touching any 
 of the wheels, when, buzzzZZZ ! and the watch 
 had done up twenty -four hours in double magnetic- 
 telegraph time ! The English language was wound 
 up to run some thousands of years, I trust; but if 
 everybody is to be pulling at everything he thinks is 
 a hair, our grandchildren will have to make the dis 
 covery that it is a hair-spring, and the old Anglo- 
 Norman soul's-timekeeper will run down, as so many 
 other dialects have done before it. I can't stand this 
 meddling any better than you, Sir. But we have a
 
 44 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKTAST-TABLE. 
 
 great deal to be proud of in the lifelong labors of 
 that old lexicographer, and we must n't be ungrateful. 
 Besides, don't let us deceive ourselves, the war of 
 the dictionaries is only a disguised rivalry of cities, 
 colleges, and especially of publishers. After all, it is 
 likely that the language will shape itself by larger 
 forces than phonography and dictionary-making. You 
 may spade up the ocean as much as you like, and har 
 row it afterwards, if you can, but the moon will 
 still lead the tides, and the winds will form their 
 surface. 
 
 Do you know Richardson's Dictionary? I said 
 to my neighbor the divinity-student. 
 
 Haow? said the divinity-student. He colored, 
 as he noticed on my face a twitch in one of the mus 
 cles which tuck up the corner of the mouth, (zygoma- 
 ileus major,') and which I could not hold back from 
 making a little movement on its own account. 
 
 It was too late. A country-boy, lassoed when he 
 was a half -grown colt. Just as good as a city-boy, 
 and in some ways, perhaps, better, but caught a 
 little too old not to carry some marks of his earlier 
 ways of life. Foreigners, who have talked a strange 
 tongue half their lives, return to the language of their 
 childhood in their dying hours. Gentlemen in fine 
 linen, and scholars in large libraries, taken by sur 
 prise, or in a careless moment, will sometimes let slip 
 a word they knew as boys in homespun and have not 
 spoken since that time, but it lay there under all 
 their culture. That is one way you may know the 
 country-boys after they have grown rich or cele 
 brated ; another is by the odd old family names, par 
 ticularly those of the Hebrew prophets, which the 
 good old people have saddled them with.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 45 
 
 Boston has enough of England about it to 
 make a good English dictionary, said that fresh- 
 looking youth whom I have mentioned as sitting at 
 the right upper corner of the table. 
 
 I turned and looked him full in the face, for the 
 pure, manly intonations arrested me. The voice was 
 youthful, but full of character. I suppose some 
 persons have a peculiar susceptibility in the matter of 
 voice. Hear this. 
 
 Not long after the American Revolution, a young 
 lady was sitting in her father's chaise in a street of 
 this town of Boston. She overheard a little girl talk 
 ing or singing, and was mightily taken with the tones 
 of her voice. Nothing would satisfy her but she must 
 have that little girl come and live in her father's 
 house. So the child came, being then nine years old. 
 Until her marriage she remained under the same roof 
 with the young lady. Her children became succes 
 sively inmates of the lady's dwelling; and now, sev 
 enty years, or thereabouts, since the young lady 
 heard the child singing, one of that child's children 
 and one of her grandchildren are with her in that 
 home, where she, no longer young, except in heart, 
 passes her peaceful days. Three generations linked 
 together by so light a breath of accident ! 
 
 I liked the sound of this youth's voice, I said, and 
 his look when I came to observe him a little more 
 closely. His complexion had something better than 
 the bloom and freshness which had first attracted me ; 
 it had that diffused tone which is a sure index of 
 wholesome, lusty life. A fine liberal style of nature 
 it seemed to be: hair crisped, moustache springing 
 thick and dark, head firmly planted, lips finished, as 
 one commonly sees them in gentlemen's families, a
 
 46 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 pupil well contracted, and a mouth that opened 
 frankly with a white flash of teeth that looked as if 
 they could serve him as they say Ethan Allen's used to 
 serve their owner, to draw nails with. This is the 
 kind of fellow to walk a frigate's deck and bowl his 
 broadsides into the "Gadlant Thudnder-bomb," or 
 any forty - portholed adventurer who would like to 
 exchange a few tons of iron compliments. I don't 
 know what put this into my head, for it was not till 
 some time afterward I learned the young fellow had 
 been in the naval school at Annapolis. Something 
 had happened to change his plan of life, and he was 
 now studying engineering and architecture in Boston. 
 
 When the youth made the short remark which drew 
 my attention to him, the little deformed gentleman 
 turned round and took a long look at him. 
 
 Good for the Boston boy ! he said. 
 
 I am not a Boston boy, said the youth, smiling, 
 . I am a Marylander. 
 
 I don't care where you come from, we '11 make 
 a Boston man of you, said the little gentleman. 
 Pray, what part of Maryland did you come from, and 
 how shall I call you? 
 
 The poor youth had to speak pretty loud, as he was 
 at the right upper corner of the table, and the little 
 gentleman next the lower left-hand corner. His face 
 flushed a little, but he answered pleasantly, telling 
 who he was, as if the little man's infirmity gave him 
 a right to ask any questions he wanted to. 
 
 Here is the place for you to sit, said the little 
 gentleman, pointing to the vacant chair next his own, 
 at the corner. 
 
 You 're go'n' to have a young lady next you, if you 
 wait till to-morrow, said the landlady to him.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 47 
 
 He did not reply, but I had a fancy that he changed 
 color. It can't be that he has susceptibilities with 
 reference to a contingent young lady! It can't be 
 that he has had experiences which make him sensitive ! 
 Nature could not be quite so cruel as to set a heart 
 throbbing in that poor little cage of ribs ! There is 
 no use in wasting notes of admiration. I must ask 
 the landlady about him. 
 
 These are some of the facts she furnished. Has 
 not been long with her. Brought a sight of furniture, 
 
 could n't hardly get some of it upstairs. Hasn't 
 seemed particularly attentive to the ladies. The Bom 
 bazine (whom she calls Cousin something or other) has 
 tried to enter into conversation with him, but retired 
 with the impression that he was indifferent to ladies' 
 society. Paid his bill the other day without saying 
 a word about it. Paid it in gold, had a great 
 heap of twenty-dollar pieces. Hires her best room. 
 Thinks he is a very nice little man, but lives dreadful 
 lonely up in his chamber. Wants the care of some 
 capable nuss. Never pitied anybody more in her life 
 
 never see a more interestin' person. 
 
 My intention was, when I began making these 
 notes, to let them consist principally of conversations 
 between myself and the other boarders. So they will, 
 very probably ; but my curiosity is excited about this 
 little boarder of ours, and my reader must not be dis 
 appointed, if I sometimes interrupt a discussion to 
 give an account of whatever fact or traits I may dis 
 cover about him. It so happens that his room is next 
 to mine, and I have the opportunity of observing 
 many of his ways without any active movements of cu 
 riosity. That his room contains heavy furniture, that 
 he is a restless little body and is apt to be up late,
 
 48 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 that he talks to himself, and keeps mainly to himself, 
 is nearly all I have yet found out. 
 
 One curious circumstance happened lately which I 
 mention without drawing an absolute inference. 
 Being at the studio of a sculptor with whom I am 
 acquainted, the other day, I saw a remarkable cast of 
 a left arm. On my asking where the model came 
 from, he said it was taken direct from the arm of a 
 deformed person, who had employed one of the Italian 
 moulders to make the cast. It was a curious case, it 
 should seem, of one beautiful limb upon a frame oth 
 erwise singularly imperfect I have repeatedly no 
 ticed this little gentleman's use of his left arm. Can 
 he have furnished the model I saw at the sculptor's? 
 
 So we are to have a new boarder to-morrow. 
 I hope there will be something pretty and pleasing 
 about her. A woman with a creamy voice, and fin 
 ished in alto rilievo, would be a variety in the board 
 ing-house, a little more marrow and a little less 
 sinew than our landlady and her daughter and the 
 bombazine-clad female, all of whom are of the turkey- 
 drumstick style of organization. I don't mean that 
 these are our only female companions; but the rest 
 being conversational non-combatants, mostly still, sad 
 feeders, who take in their food as locomotives take in 
 wood and water, and then wither away from the table 
 like blossoms that never come to fruit, I have not yet 
 referred to them as individuals. 
 
 I wonder what kind of young person we shall see 
 in that empty chair to-morrow! 
 
 I read this song to the boarders after breakfast 
 the other morning. It was written for our fellows ; 
 you know who they are, of course.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 49 
 
 THE BOYS. 
 
 Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys ? 
 If there has, take him out, without making a noise ! 
 Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite t 
 Old Time is a liar ! We 're twenty to-night ! 
 
 We 're twenty ! We 're twenty ! Who says we are more ? 
 He 's tipsy, .young jackanapes ! show him the door ! 
 " Gray temples at twenty ? " Yes ! white, if we please ; 
 Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there 's nothing can freeze ! 
 
 Was it snowing I spoke of ? Excuse the mistake ! 
 Look close, you will see not a sign of a flake ; 
 We want some new garlands for those we have shed, 
 And these are white roses in place of the red ! 
 
 We 've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, 
 Of talking (in public) as if we were old ; 
 That boy we call " Doctor," 1 and this we call " Judge ; 2 
 It 's a neat little fiction, of course it 's all fudge. 
 
 That fellow 's the " Speaker," 8 the one on the right ; 
 " Mr. Mayor," * my young one, how are you to-night ? 
 That 's our " Member of Congress," 6 we say when we chaff ; 
 There 's the " Reverend " 6 What 's his name ? don't make me 
 laugh ! 
 
 That boy with the grave mathematical look 7 
 Made believe he had written a wonderful book, 
 And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true I 
 So they chose him right in ; a good joke it was, too. 
 
 There 's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker-brain, 
 That could harness a team with a logical chain ; 
 
 1 Francis Thomas. 3 George Tyler Bigelow. 
 
 8 Francis Boardman Crowninshield. 
 * G. W. Richardson. 6 George Thomas Davis.. 
 
 8 James Freeman Clarke. * Benjamin Peirce.
 
 50 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, 
 
 We called him " The Justice," but now he 's " The Squire." ' 
 
 And there 's a nice youngster of excellent pith, 2 
 Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith, 
 But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, 
 Just read on his medal, " My country, of thee ! " 
 
 You hear that boy laughing ? you think he 's all fun, 
 But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done ; 
 The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, 
 And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all ! * 
 
 Yes, we 're boys, always playing with tongue or with pen, 
 And I sometimes have asked, Shall we ever be men ? 
 Shall we always be youthful and laughing and gay, 
 Till the last dear companion drops smiling away ? 
 
 Then here 's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray ! 
 The stars of its Winter, the dews of its May ! 
 And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, 
 Dear Father, take care of thy children, the Boys ! 
 
 m. 
 
 [The Professor talks with the Reader. He tells a 
 Young Girl's Story.~\ 
 
 When the elements that went to the making of the 
 first man, father of mankind, had been withdrawn 
 from the world of unconscious matter, the balance of 
 creation was disturbed. The materials that go to the 
 making of one woman were set free by the abstraction 
 from inanimate nature of one man's-worth of mascu 
 line constituents. These combined to make our first 
 mother, by a logical necessity involved in the previous 
 
 1 Benjamin Bobbins Curtis. * Samuel Francis Smith. 
 8 Slat nominis umbra.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 51 
 
 creation of our common father. All this, mythically, 
 illustratively, and by no means doctrinally or polemi 
 cally. 
 
 The man implies the woman, you will understand. 
 The excellent gentleman whom I had the pleasure of 
 setting right in a trifling matter a few weeks ago be 
 lieves in the frequent occurrence of miracles at the 
 present day. So do I. I believe, if you could find 
 an uninhabited coral-reef island, in the middle of the 
 Pacific Ocean, with plenty of cocoa-palms and bread 
 fruit on it, and put a handsome young fellow, like our 
 Marylander, ashore upon it, if you touched there a 
 year afterwards, you would find him walking under 
 the palm-trees arm in arm with a pretty woman. 
 
 Where would she come from? 
 
 Oh, that 's the miracle ! 
 
 I was just as certain, when I saw that fine, 
 high-colored youth at the upper right-hand corner 
 of our table, that there would appear some fitting 
 feminine counterpart to him, as if I had been a clair 
 voyant, seeing it all beforehand. 
 
 I have a fancy that those Marylanders are just 
 about near enough to the sun to ripen well. How 
 some of us fellows remember Joe and Harry, Baltimo- 
 reans, both! Joe, with his cheeks like lady-apples, 
 and his eyes like black-heart cherries, and his teeth 
 like the whiteness of the flesh of cocoanuts, and his 
 laugh that set the chandelier-drops rattling overhead, 
 as we sat at our sparkling banquets in those gay 
 times ! Harry, champion, by acclamation, of the col 
 lege heavy-weights, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, 
 square- jawed, six feet and trimmings, a little science, 
 lots of pluck, good-natured as a steer in peace, formid 
 able as a red-eyed bison in the crack of hand-to-hand
 
 52 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 battle! Who forgets the great muster-day, and the 
 collision of the classic with the democratic forces? 
 The huge butcher, fifteen stone, two hundred and 
 ten pounds, good weight, steps out like Telamo 
 nian Ajax, defiant. No words from Harry, the BaL 
 timorean, one of the quiet sort, who strike first, 
 and do the talking, if there is any, afterwards. No 
 words, but, in the place thereof, a clean, straight, 
 hard hit, which took effect with a spank like the ex 
 plosion of a percussion-cap, knocking the slayer of 
 beeves down a sand-bank, followed, alas ! by the too 
 impetuous youth, so that both rolled down together, 
 and the conflict terminated in one of those inglorious 
 and inevitable Yankee clinches, followed by a general 
 melee, which make our native fistic encounters so dif 
 ferent from such admirably-ordered contests as that 
 which I once saw at an English fair, where everything 
 was done decently and in order, and the fight began 
 and ended with such grave propriety, that a sporting 
 parson need hardly have hesitated to open it with a 
 devout petition, and, after it was over, dismiss the 
 ring with a benediction. 
 
 I can't help telling one more story about this great 
 field-day, though it is the most wanton and irrelevant 
 digression. But all of us have a little speck of fight 
 underneath our peace and good-will to men, just 
 a speck, for revolutions and great emergencies, you 
 know, so that we should not submit to be trodden 
 quite flat by the first heavy -heeled aggressor that came 
 along. You can tell a portrait from an ideal head, 
 I suppose, and a true story from one spun out of the 
 writer's invention. See whether this sounds true or 
 not. 
 
 Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin sent out two fine blood*
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 53 
 
 horses, Barefoot and Serab by name, to Massachu 
 setts, something before the time I am talking of. 
 With them came a Yorkshire groom, a stocky little 
 fellow, in velvet breeches, who made that mysterious 
 hissing noise, traditionary in English stables, when he 
 rubbed down the silken-skinned racers, in great per 
 fection. After the soldiers had come from the muster 
 field, and some of the companies were on the village- 
 common, there was still some skirmishing between a 
 few individuals who had not had the fight taken out 
 of them. The little Yorkshire groom thought he 
 must serve out somebody. So he threw himself into 
 an approved scientific attitude, and, in brief, emphatic 
 language, expressed his urgent anxiety to accommo 
 date any classical young gentleman who chose to con 
 sider himself a candidate for his attentions. I don't 
 suppose there were many of the college boys that 
 would have been a match for him in the art which 
 Englishmen know so much more of than Americans, 
 for the most part. However, one of the Sophomores, 
 a very quiet, peaceable fellow, just stepped out of the 
 crowd, and, running straight at the groom, as he stood 
 there, sparring away, struck him with the sole of his 
 foot, a straight blow, as if it had been with his fist, 
 and knocked him heels over head and senseless, so 
 that he had to be carried off from the field. This 
 ugly way of hitting is the great trick of the French 
 savate, which is not commonly thought able to stand 
 its ground against English pugilistic science. 1 These 
 are old recollections, with not much to recommend 
 them, except, perhaps, a dash of life, which may be 
 worth a little something. 
 
 1 There are two sides to this question. See Larousse, Grand 
 Dictionnaire Universel du XIX Siecle, article " Boxe."
 
 54 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 The young Marylander brought them all up, you 
 may remember. He recalled to my mind those two 
 splendid pieces of vitality I told you of. Both have 
 been long dead. How often we see these great red 
 flaring flambeaux of life blown out, as it were, by a 
 puff of wind, and the little, single-wicked night- 
 lamp of being, which some white-faced and attenuated 
 invalid shades with trembling fingers, flickering on 
 while they go out one after another, until its glimmer 
 is all that is left to us of the generation to which it 
 belonged ! 
 
 I told you that I was perfectly sure, beforehand, we 
 should find some pleasing girlish or womanly shape to 
 fill the blank at our table and match the dark-haired 
 youth at the upper corner. 
 
 There she sits, at the very opposite corner, just as 
 far off as accident could put her from this handsome 
 fellow, by whose side she ought, of course, to be sit 
 ting. One of the "positive" blondes, as my friend, 
 you may remember, used to call them. Tawny -haired, 
 amber-eyed, full-throated, skin as white as a blanched 
 almond. Looks dreamy to me, not self-conscious, 
 though a black ribbon round her neck sets it off as a 
 Marie- Antoinette's diamond-necklace could not do. 
 So in her dress, there is a harmony of tints that looks 
 as if an artist had run his eye over her and given a 
 hint or two like the finishing touch to a picture. I 
 can't help being struck with her, for she is at once 
 rounded and fine in feature, looks calm, as blondes are 
 apt to, and as if she might run wild, if she were trifled 
 with. It is just as I knew it would be, and any 
 body can see that our young Marylander will be dead 
 in love with her in a week. 
 
 Then if that little man Would only turn out im-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 55 
 
 mensely rich and have the good-nature to die and leave 
 them all his money, it would be as nice as a three-vol 
 ume novel. 
 
 The Little Gentleman is in a flurry, I suspect, with 
 the excitement of having such a charming neighbor 
 next him. I judge so mainly by his silence and by a 
 certain rapt and serious look on his face, as if he were 
 thinking of something that had happened, or that 
 might happen, or that ought to happen, or how 
 beautiful her young life looked, or how hardly Nature 
 had dealt with him, or something which struck him 
 silent, at any rate. I made several conversational 
 openings for him, but he did not fire up as he often 
 does. I even went so far as to indulge in a fling at 
 the State House, which, as we all know, is in truth a 
 very imposing structure, covering less ground than St. 
 Peter's, but of similar general effect. The little man 
 looked up, but did not reply to my taunt. He said to 
 the young lady, however, that the State House was the 
 Parthenon 'of our Acropolis, which seemed to please 
 her, for she smiled, and he reddened a little, so I 
 thought. I don't think it right to watch persons who 
 are the subjects of special infirmity, but we all do it. 
 
 I see that they have crowded the chairs a little at 
 that end of the table, to make room for another new 
 comer of the lady sort. A well-mounted, middle-aged 
 preparation, wearing her hair without a cap, pretty 
 wide in the parting, though, contours vaguely 
 hinted, features very quiet, says little as yet, but 
 seems to keep her eye on the young lady, as if having 
 some responsibility for her - 
 
 My record is a blank for some days after this. In 
 the mean tune I have contrived to make out the per-
 
 56 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 son and the story of our young lady, who, according 
 to appearances, ought to furnish us a heroine for a 
 boarding-house romance before a year is out. It is 
 very curious that she should prove connected with a 
 person many of us have heard of. Yet, curious as it 
 is, I have been a hundred times struck with the cir= 
 cumstance that the most remote facts are constantly 
 striking each other ; just as vessels starting from ports 
 thousands of miles apart pass close to each other in 
 the naked breadth of the ocean, nay, sometimes even 
 touch, in the dark, with a crack of timbers, a gurgling 
 of water, a cry of startled sleepers, a cry mysteri 
 ously echoed in warning dreams, as the wife of some 
 Gloucester fisherman, some coasting skipper, wakes 
 with a shriek, calls the name of her husband, and 
 sinks back to uneasy slumbers upon her lonely pillow, 
 a widow. 
 
 Oh, these mysterious meetings! Leaving all the 
 vague, waste, endless spaces of the washing desert, 
 the ocean-steamer and the fishing-smack sail straight 
 towards each other as if they ran in grooves ploughed 
 for them in the waters from the beginning of creation ! 
 Not only things and events, but our own thoughts, are 
 so full of these surprises, that, if there were a reader 
 in my parish who did not recognize the familiar occur 
 rence of what I am now going to mention, I should 
 think it a case for the missionaries of the Society for 
 the Propagation of Intelligence among the Comfortable 
 Classes. 
 
 There are about as many twins in the births of 
 thought as of children. For the first time in your 
 lives you learn some fact or come across some idea. 
 Within an hour, a day, a week, that same fact or idea 
 strikes you from another quarter. It seems as if it
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 57 
 
 had passed into space and bounded back upon you as 
 an echo from the blank wall that shuts in the world of 
 thought. Yet no possible connection exists between 
 the two channels by which the thought or the fact 
 arrived. Let me give an infinitesimal illustration. 
 
 One of the Boys mentioned, the other evening, in 
 the course of a very pleasant poem he read us, a little 
 trick of the Commons-table boarders, which I, nour 
 ished at the parental board, had never heard of. 
 Young fellows being always hungry Allow me to 
 stop dead-short, in order to utter an aphorism which 
 has been forming itself in one of the blank interior 
 spaces of my intelligence, like a crystal in the cavity 
 of a geode. 
 
 Aphorism by the Professor. 
 
 In order to know whether a human being is young or 
 old, offer it food of different kinds at short intervals. 
 If young, it will eat anything at any hour of the day 
 or night. If old, it observes stated periods, and you 
 might as well attempt to regulate the time of high- 
 water to suit a fishing-party as to change these periods. 
 
 The crucial experiment is this. Offer a bulky and 
 boggy bun to the suspected individual just ten minutes 
 before dinner. If this is eagerly accepted and de 
 voured, the fact of youth is established. If the sub 
 ject of the question starts back and expresses surprise 
 and incredulity, as if you could not possibly be in 
 earnest, the fact of maturity is no less clear. 
 
 Excuse me, I return to my story of the Com 
 mons-table. Young fellows being always hungry, 
 and tea and dry toast being the meagre fare of the 
 evening meal, it was a trick of some of the Boys to
 
 58 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 impale a slice of meat upon a fork, at dinner-time, 
 and stick the fork holding it beneath the table, so 
 that they could get it at tea-time. The dragons that 
 guarded this table of the Hesperides found out the 
 trick at last, and kept a sharp look-out for missing 
 forks ; they knew where to find one, if it was not in 
 its place. Now the odd thing was, that, after wait 
 ing so many years to hear of this college trick, I 
 should hear it mentioned a second time within the 
 same twenty -four hours by a college youth of the pres 
 ent generation. Strange, but true. And so it has 
 happened to me and to every person, often and often, 
 to be hit in rapid succession by these twinned facts or 
 thoughts, as if they were linked like chain-shot. 
 
 I was going to leave the simple reader to wonder 
 over this, taking it as an unexplained marvel. I 
 think, however, I will turn over a furrow of subsoil in 
 it. The explanation is, of course, that in a great 
 many thoughts there must be a few coincidences, and 
 these instantly arrest our attention. Now we shall 
 probably never have the least idea of the enormous 
 number of impressions which pass through our con 
 sciousness, until in some future life we see the photo 
 graphic record of our thoughts and the stereoscopic 
 picture of our actions. There go more pieces to 
 make up a conscious life or a living body than yon 
 think for. Why, some of you were surprised when 
 a friend of mine told you there were fifty-eight sep 
 arate pieces in a fiddle. How many "swimming 
 glands " solid, organized, regularly formed, rounded 
 disks taking an active part in all your vital processes, 
 part and parcel, each one of them, of your corporeal 
 being do you suppose are whirled along, like peb 
 bles in a stream, with the blood which warms your
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 59 
 
 frame and colors your cheeks? A noted German 
 physiologist spread out a minute drop of blood, under 
 the microscope, in narrow streaks, and counted the 
 globules, and then made a calculation. The counting 
 by the micrometer took him a week. You have, my 
 full-grown friend, of these little couriers in crimson 
 or scarlet livery, running on your vital errands day 
 and night as long as you live, sixty-five billions, five 
 hundred and seventy thousand millions. Errors ex- 
 cepted. Did I hear some gentleman say, "Doubt 
 ed?" I am the Professor. I sit in my chair with a 
 petard under it that will blow me through the sky 
 light of my lecture-room, if I do not know what I am 
 talking about and whom I am quoting. 
 
 Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands 
 to your foreheads, and saying to yourselves that you 
 feel a little confused, as if you had been waltzing un 
 til things began to whirl slightly round you, is it pos 
 sible that you do not clearly apprehend the exact con 
 nection of all that I have been saying, and its bearing 
 on what is now to come? Listen, then. The number 
 of these living elements in our bodies illustrates the 
 incalculable multitude of our thoughts ; the number of 
 our thoughts accounts for those frequent coincidences 
 spoken of; these coincidences in the world of thought 
 illustrate those which we constantly observe in the 
 world of outward events, of which the presence of the 
 young girl now at our table, and proving to be the 
 daughter of an old acquaintance some of us may re 
 member, is the special example which led me through 
 this labyrinth of reflections, and finally lands me at 
 the commencement of this young girl's story, which, 
 as I said, I have found the time and felt the interest 
 to learn something of, and which I think I can tell
 
 60 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 without wronging the unconscious subject of my brief 
 delineation. 
 
 IRIS. 
 
 You remember, perhaps, in some papers published 
 awhile ago, an odd poem written by an old Latin 
 tutor? He brought up at the verb amo, I love, as all 
 of us do, and by and by Nature opened her great liv= 
 ing dictionary for him at the word filia, a daughter. 
 The poor man was greatly perplexed in choosing a 
 name for her. Lucretia and Virginia were the first 
 that he thought of; but then came up those pictured 
 stories of Titus Livius, which he could never read 
 without crying, though he had read them a hundred 
 times. 
 
 Lucretia sending for her husband and her father, 
 each to bring one friend with him, and awaiting them 
 in her chamber. To them her wrongs briefly. Let 
 them see to the wretch, she will take care of herself. 
 Then the hidden knife flashes out and sinks into her 
 heart. She slides from her seat, and falls dying. 
 "Her husband and her father cry aloud." No, 
 not Lucretia. 
 
 Virginius, a brown old soldier, father of a nice 
 girl. She engaged to a very promising young man. 
 Decemvir Appius takes a violent fancy to her, must 
 have her at any rate. Hires a lawyer to present the 
 arguments in favor of the view that she was another 
 man's daughter. There used to be lawyers in Kome 
 that would do such things. All right. There are 
 two sides to everything. Audi alteram partem. 
 The legal gentleman has no opinion, he only states 
 the evidence. A doubtful case. Let the young lady 
 be under the protection of the Honorable Decemvir
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 61 
 
 until it can be looked up thoroughly. Father thinks 
 it best, on the whole, to give in. Will explain the 
 matter, if the young lady and her maid will step this 
 way. That is the explanation, a stab with a butch 
 er's knife, snatched from a stall, meant for other lambs 
 than this poor bleeding Virginia ! 
 
 The old man thought over the story. Then he must 
 have one look at the original. So he took down the 
 first volume and read it over. When he came to that 
 part where it tells how the young gentleman she was 
 engaged to and a friend of his took up the poor girl's 
 bloodless shape and carried it through the street, and 
 how all the women followed, wailing, and asking if that 
 was what their daughters were coming to, if that 
 was what they were to get for being good girls, he 
 melted down into his accustomed tears of pity and 
 grief, and, through them all, of delight at the charm 
 ing Latin of the narrative. But it was impossible to 
 call his child Virginia. He could never look at her 
 without thinking she had a knife sticking in her bosom. 
 
 Dido would be a good name, and a fresh one. She 
 was a queen, and the founder of a great city. Her 
 story had been immortalized by the greatest of poets, 
 for the old Latin tutor clove to "Virgilius Maro," 
 as he called him, as closely as ever Dante did in his 
 memorable journey. So he took down his Virgil, 
 it was the smooth-leafed, open-lettered quarto of Bas- 
 kerville, and began reading the loves and mishaps 
 .of Dido. It would n't do. A lady who had not 
 learned discretion by experience, and came to an evil 
 end. He shook his head, as he sadly repeated, 
 
 " misera ante diem, subitoque accensa furore ; " 
 
 but when he came to the lines.
 
 62 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 " Ergo Iris croceis per ccelum roscida pennis 
 Mille trahens varies adverse Sole colores," 
 
 he jumped up with a great exclamation, which the 
 particular recording angel who heard it pretended not 
 to understand, or it might have gone hard with the 
 Latin tutor some tune or other. 
 
 "Iris shall be her name!" he said. So her 
 name was Iris. 
 
 The natural end of a tutor is to perish by star 
 vation. It is only a question of time, just as with the 
 burning of college libraries. These all burn up sooner 
 or later, provided they are not housed in brick or 
 stone and iron. I don't mean that you will see in the 
 registry of deaths that this or that particular tutor 
 died of well-marked, uncomplicated starvation. They 
 may, even, in extreme cases, be carried off by a thin, 
 watery kind of apoplexy, which sounds very well in 
 the returns, but means little to those who know that it 
 is only debility settling on the head. Generally, how 
 ever, they fade and waste away under various pre 
 texts, calling it dyspepsia, consumption, and so on, 
 to put a decent appearance upon the case and keep up 
 the credit of the family and the institution where they 
 have passed through the successive stages of inanition. 
 
 In some cases it takes a great many years to kill a 
 tutor by the process in question. You see they do 
 get food and clothes and fuel, in appreciable quanti 
 ties, such as they are. You will even notice rows of 
 books in their rooms, and a picture or two, things 
 that look as if they had surplus money ; but these su 
 perfluities are the water of crystallization to scholars, 
 and you can never get them away till the poor fellows 
 effloresce into dust. Do not be deceived. The tutor 
 breakfasts on coffee made of beans, edulcorated with
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 63 
 
 milk watered to the verge of transparency ; his mutton 
 is tough and elastic, up to the moment when it becomes 
 tired out and tasteless ; his coal is a sullen, sulphurous 
 anthracite, which rusts into ashes, rather than burns, 
 in the shallow grate ; his flimsy broadcloth is too thin 
 for winter and too thick for summer: The greedy 
 lungs of fifty hot-blooded boys suck the oxygen from 
 the air he breathes in his recitation-room. In short, 
 he undergoes a process of gentle and gradual starva 
 tion. 
 
 The mother of little Iris was not called Elec- 
 tra, like hers of the old story, neither was her grand 
 father Oceanus. Her blood-name, which she gave 
 away with her heart to the Latin tutor, was a plain 
 old English one, and her water-name was Hannah, 
 beautiful as recalling the mother of Samuel, and ad 
 mirable as reading equally well from the initial let 
 ter forwards and from the terminal letter backwards. 
 The poor lady, seated with her companion at the chess 
 board of matrimony, had but just pushed forward her 
 one little white pawn upon an empty square, when the 
 Black Knight, that cares nothing for castles or kings 
 or queens, swooped down upon her and swept her from 
 the larger board of life. 
 
 The old Latin tutor put a modest blue stone at the 
 head of his late companion, with her name and age 
 and Eheu ! upon it, a smaller one at her feet, with 
 initials; and left her by herself, to be rained and 
 snowed on, which is a hard thing to do for those 
 whom we have cherished tenderly. 
 
 About the time that the lichens, falling on the 
 stone, like drops of water, had spread into fair, round 
 rosettes, the tutor had starved into a slight cough. 
 Then he began to draw the buckle of his black trou-
 
 64 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 sers a little tighter, and took in another reef in his 
 never-ample waistcoat. His temples got a little hol 
 low, and the contrasts of color in his cheeks more 
 vivid than of old. After a while his walks fatigued 
 him, and he was tired, and breathed hard after going 
 up a flight or two of stairs. Then came on other 
 marks of inward trouble and general waste, which he 
 spoke of to his' physician as peculiar, and doubtless 
 owing to accidental causes; to all which the doctor 
 listened with deference, as if it had not been the old 
 story that one in five or six of mankind in temperate 
 climates tells, or has told for him, as if it were some 
 thing new. As the doctor went out, he said to him 
 self, " On the rail at last. Accommodation train. 
 A good many stops, but will get to the station by and 
 by." So the doctor wrote a recipe with the astrologi 
 cal sign of Jupiter before it, (just as your own physi 
 cian does, inestimable reader, as you will see, if you 
 look at his next prescription,) and departed, saying 
 he would look in occasionally. After this, the Latin 
 tutor began the usual course of "getting better," until 
 he got so much better that his face was very sharp, 
 and when he smiled, three crescent lines showed at 
 each side of his lips, and when he spoke, it was in a 
 muffled whisper, and the white of his eye glistened as 
 pearly as the purest porcelain, so much better, that 
 
 he hoped by spring he might be able to 
 
 attend to his class again. But he was 
 
 recommended not to expose himself, and so kept his 
 chamber, and occasionally, not having anything to do, 
 his bed. The unmarried sister with whom he lived 
 took care of him ; and the child, now old enough to be 
 manageable and even useful in trifling offices, sat in 
 the chamber, or played about.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 65 
 
 Things could not go on so forever, of course. One 
 morning his face was sunken and his hands were very, 
 very cold. He was "better," he whispered, but sadly 
 and faintly. After a while he grew restless and 
 seemed a little wandering. His mind ran on his clas 
 sics, and fell back on the Latin grammar. 
 
 "Iris!" he said, "filiola meaf" The child 
 knew this meant my dear little daughter as well as if 
 it had been English. "Rainbow! " for he would 
 translate her name at times, "come to me, veni " 
 and his lips went on automatically, and mur 
 mured, " vel venito / " The child came and sat by his 
 bedside and took his hand, which she could not warm, 
 but which shot its rays of cold all through her slender 
 frame. But there she sat, looking steadily at him. 
 Presently he opened his lips feebly, and whispered, 
 " Moribundus." She did not know what that meant, 
 but she saw that there was something new and sad. 
 So she began to cry; but presently remembering an 
 old book that seemed to comfort him at times, got up 
 and brought a Bible in the Latin version, called the 
 Vulgate. "Open it," he said, "I will read, 
 segnius irritant, don't put the light out, ah ! 
 Jweret lateri, I am going, vale, vale, vale, good 
 bye, good-bye, the Lord take care of my child ! 
 Domine, audi vel audito!" His face whitened 
 suddenly, and he lay still, with open eyes and mouth. 
 He had taken his last degree. 
 
 Little Miss Iris could not be said to begin life 
 with a very brilliant rainbow over her, in a worldly 
 point of view. A limited wardrobe of man's attire, 
 such as poor tutors wear, a few good books, princi 
 pally classics, a print or two, and a plaster model 
 of the Pantheon, with some pieces of furniture which
 
 66 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 had seen service, these, and a child's heart full of 
 tearful recollections and strange doubts and questions, 
 alternating with the cheap pleasures which are the 
 anodynes of childish grief; such were the treasures 
 she inherited. No, I forgot. With that kindly 
 sentiment which all of us feel for old men's first chil 
 dren, frost-flowers of the early winter season, 
 the old tutor's students had remembered him at a time 
 when he was laughing and crying with his new paren 
 tal emotions, and running to the side of the plain crib 
 in which his alter ego, as he used to say, was swing 
 ing, to hang over the little heap of stirring clothes, 
 from which looked the minute, red, downy, still, round 
 face, with unfixed eyes and working lips, in that 
 unearthly gravity which has never yet been broken 
 by a smile, and which gives to the earliest moon-year 
 or two of an infant's life the character of a first old 
 age, to counterpoise that second childhood which there 
 is one chance in a dozen it may reach by and by. 
 The boys had remembered the old man and young fa 
 ther at that tender period of his hard, dry life. There 
 came to him a fair, silver goblet, embossed with clas 
 sical figures, and bearing on a shield the graver words, 
 Ex dono pupillorum. The handle on its side showed 
 what use the boys had meant it for; and a kind letter 
 -in it, written with the best of feeling, in the worst of 
 Latin, pointed delicately to its destination. Out of 
 this silver vessel, after a long, desperate, strangling 
 cry, which marked her first great lesson in the reali 
 ties of life, the child took the blue milk, such as poor 
 tutors and their children get, tempered with water, 
 and sweetened a little, so as to bring it nearer the 
 standard established by the touching indulgence and 
 partiality of Nature, who has mingled an extra
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 67 
 
 allowance of sugar in the blameless food of the child 
 at its mother's breast, as compared with that of its 
 infant brothers and sisters of the bovine race. 
 
 But a willow will grow in baked sand wet with rain 
 water. An air-plant will grow by feeding on the 
 winds. Nay, those huge forests that overspread great 
 continents have built themselves up mainly from the 
 air-currents with which they are always battling. 
 The oak is but a foliated atmospheric crystal deposited 
 from the aerial ocean that holds the future vegetable 
 world in solution. The storm that tears its leaves has 
 paid tribute to its strength, and it breasts the tornado 
 clad in the spoils of a hundred hurricanes. 
 
 Poor little Iris! What had she in common with 
 the great oak in the shadow of which we are losing 
 sight of her? She lived and grew like that, this 
 was all. The blue milk ran into her veins and filled 
 them with thin, pure blood. Her skin was fair, with a 
 faint tinge, such as the white rosebud shows before it 
 opens. The doctor who had attended her father was 
 afraid her aunt would hardly be able to "raise " her, 
 
 "delicate child," hoped she was not consumptive, 
 
 thought there was a fair chance she would take 
 after her father. 
 
 A very forlorn -looking person, dressed in black, 
 with a white neckcloth, sent her a memoir of a child 
 who died. at the age of two years and eleven months, 
 after having fully indorsed all the doctrines of the 
 particular persuasion to which he not only belonged 
 himself, but thought it very shameful that everybody 
 else did not belong. What with foreboding looks and 
 dreary death-bed stories, it was a wonder the child 
 made out to live through it. It saddened her early 
 years, of course, - it distressed her tender soul with
 
 68 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 thoughts which, as they cannot be fully taken in, 
 should be sparingly used as instruments of torture to 
 break down the natural cheerfulness of a healthy 
 child, or, what is infinitely worse, to cheat a dying 
 one out of the kind illusions with which the Father of 
 All has strewed its downward path. 
 
 The child would have died, no doubt, and, if prop 
 erly managed, might have added another to the long 
 catalogue of wasting children who have been as cruelly 
 played upon by spiritual physiologists, often with the 
 best intentions, as ever the subject of a rare disease 
 by the curious students of science. 
 
 Fortunately for her, however, a wise instinct had 
 guided the late Latin tutor in the selection of the part 
 ner of his life, and the future mother of his child. 
 The deceased tutoress was a tranquil, smooth woman, 
 easily nourished, as such people are, a quality which 
 is inestimable in a tutor's wife, and so it happened 
 that the daughter inherited enough vitality from the 
 mother to live through childhood and infancy and 
 fight her way towards womanhood, in spite of the ten 
 dencies she derived from her other parent. 
 
 Two and two do not always make four, in this 
 matter of hereditary descent of qualities. Sometimes 
 they make three, and sometimes five. It seems as if 
 the parental traits at one time showed separate, at 
 another blended, that occasionally the force of two 
 natures is represented in the derivative one by a 
 diagonal of greater value than either original line of 
 living movement, that sometimes there is a loss of 
 vitality hardly to be accounted for, and again a for 
 ward impulse of variable intensity in some new and 
 unforeseen direction. 
 
 So it was with this child. She had glanced off from
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 69 
 
 her parental probabilities at an unexpected angle. 
 Instead of taking to classical learning like her father, 
 or sliding quietly into household duties like her mother, 
 she broke out early in efforts that pointed in the direc 
 tion of Art. As soon as she could hold a pencil she 
 began to sketch outlines of objects round her with a 
 cert '.in air and spirit. Very extraordinary horses, but 
 their legs looked as if they could move. Birds un 
 known to Audubon, yet flying, as it were, with a rush. 
 Men with impossible legs, which did yet seem to have 
 a vital connection with their most improbable bodies. 
 By-and-by the doctor, on his beast, an old man 
 with a face looking as if Time had kneaded it like 
 dough with his knuckles, with a rhubarb tint and 
 flavor pervading himself and his sorrel horse and all 
 their appurtenances. A dreadful old man ! Be sure 
 she did not forget those saddle-bags that held the 
 detestable bottles out of which he used to shake those 
 loathsome powders which, to virgin childish palates 
 that find heaven in strawberries and peaches, are 
 Well, I suppose I had better stop. Only she wished 
 she was dead sometimes when she heard him coming. 
 On the next leaf would figure the gentleman with the 
 black coat and white cravat, as he looked when he 
 came and entertained her with stories concerning the 
 death of various little children about her age, to 
 encourage her, as that wicked Mr. Arouet said about 
 shooting Admiral Byng. Then she would take her 
 pencil, and with a few scratches there would be the 
 outline of a child, in which you might notice how one 
 sudden sweep gave the chubby cheek, and two dots 
 darted at the paper looked like real eyes. 
 
 By-and-by she went to school, and caricatured the 
 schoolmaster on the leaves of her grammars and geo-
 
 70 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 graphies, and drew the faces of her companions, and, 
 from time to time, heads and figures from her fancy, 
 with large eyes, far apart, like those of Raffaelle's 
 mothers and children, sometimes with wild floating 
 hair, and then with wings and heads thrown back in 
 ecstasy. This was at about twelve years old, as the 
 dates of these drawings show, and, therefore, three or 
 four years before she came among us. Soon after this 
 time, the ideal figures began to take the place of por 
 traits and caricatures, and a new feature appeared 
 in her drawing-books in the form of fragments of 
 verse and short poems. 
 
 It was dull work, of course, for such a young girl 
 to live with an old spinster and go to a village school. 
 Her books bore testimony to this ; for there was a look 
 of sadness in the faces she drew, and a sense of weari 
 ness and longing for some imaginary conditions of 
 blessedness or other, which began to be painful. She 
 might have gone through this flowering of the soul, 
 and, casting her petals, subsided into a sober, human 
 berry, but for the intervention of friendly assistance 
 and counsel. 
 
 In the town where she lived was a lady of honorable 
 condition, somewhat past middle age, who was pos 
 sessed of pretty ample means, of cultivated tastes, of 
 excellent principles, of exemplary character, and of 
 more than common accomplishments. The gentleman 
 in black broadcloth and white neckerchief only echoed 
 the common voice about her, when he called her, after 
 enjoying, beneath her hospitable roof, an excellent 
 cup of tea, with certain elegancies and luxuries he was 
 unaccustomed to, "The Model of all the Virtues." 
 
 She deserved this title as well as almost any woman. 
 She did really bristle with moral excellences. Men-
 
 THE PKOFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 71 
 
 tion any good thing she had not done ; I should like to 
 see you try ! There was no handle of weakness to take 
 hold of her by; she was as unseizable, except in her 
 totality, as a billiard-ball; and on the broad, green, 
 terrestrial table, where she had been knocked about, 
 like all of us, by the cue of Fortune, she glanced from 
 every human contact, and "caromed" from one rela- 
 .tion to another, and rebounded from the stuffed cush= 
 ion of temptation, with such exact and perfect angular 
 movements, that the Enemy's corps of Reporters had 
 long given up taking notes of her conduct, as there 
 was no chance for their master. 
 
 What an admirable person for the patroness and 
 directress of a slightly self-willed child, with the light 
 ning zigzag line of genius running like a glittering 
 vein through the marble whiteness of her virgin na 
 ture! One of the lady-patroness's peculiar virtues 
 was calmness. She was resolute and strenuous, but 
 still. You could depend on her for every duty ; she 
 was as true as steel. She was kind-hearted and ser 
 viceable in all the relations of life. She had more 
 sense, more knowledge, more conversation, as well as 
 Tnore goodness, than all the partners you have waltzed 
 Jtdth this winter put together. 
 
 Yet no man was known to have loved her, or even 
 to have offered himself to her in marriage. It was 
 a great wonder. I am very anxious to vindicate my 
 character as a philosopher and an observer of Nature 
 by accounting for this apparently extraordinary fact. 
 
 You may remember certain persons who have the 
 misfortune of presenting to the friends whom they 
 meet a cold, damp hand. There are states of mind 
 in which a contact of this kind has a depressing effect 
 on the vital powers that makes us insensible to all the
 
 72 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 virtues and graces of thp proprietor of one of these 
 life- absorbing organs. When they touch us, virtue 
 passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had 
 been drained by a powerful negative battery, carried 
 about by an overgrown human torpedo. 
 
 "The Model of all the Virtues" had a pair of 
 searching eyes as clear as Wenham ice ; but they were 
 slower to melt than that fickle jewelry. Her features 
 disordered themselves slightly at times in a surface- 
 smile, but never broke loose from their corners and 
 indulged in the riotous tumult of a laugh, which, 
 I take it, is the mob-law of the features, and pro 
 priety the magistrate who reads the riot-act. She 
 carried the brimming cup of her inestimable virtues 
 with a cautious, steady hand, and an eye always on 
 them, to see that they did not spill. Then she was an 
 admirable judge of character. Her mind was a per 
 fect laboratory of tests and reagents ; every syllable 
 you put into breath went into her intellectual eudiom 
 eter, and all your thoughts were recorded on litmus- 
 paper. I think there has rarely been a more admi 
 rable woman. Of course, Miss Iris was immensely and 
 passionately attached to her. Well, these are two 
 highly oxygenated adverbs, grateful, suppose we 
 say, yes, grateful, dutiful, obedient to her wishes 
 for the most part, perhaps not quite up to the con 
 cert pitch of such a perfect orchestra of the virtues. 
 
 We must have a weak spot or two in a character 
 before we can love it much. People that do not 
 laugh or cry, or take more of anything than is good 
 for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are 
 admirable subjects for biographies. But we don't 
 always care most for those flat-pattern flowers that 
 press best in the herbarium.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 73 
 
 This immaculate woman, why could n't she have 
 a fault or two? Is n't there any old whisper which 
 will tarnish that wearisome aureole of saintly perfec 
 tion? Does n't she carry a lump of opium in her 
 pocket? Is n't her cologne -bottle replenished oftener 
 than its legitimate use would require? It would be 
 such a comfort! 
 
 Not for the world would a young creature like Iris 
 have let such words escape her, or such thoughts 
 pass through her mind. Whether at the bottom of 
 her soul lies any uneasy consciousness of an oppres 
 sive presence, it is hard to say, until we know more 
 about her. Iris sits between the Little Gentleman 
 and the "Model of all the Virtues," as the black- 
 coated personage called her. I will watch them all. 
 
 Here I stop for the present. What the Pro 
 fessor said has had to make way this time for what he 
 saw and heard. 
 
 And now you may read these lines, which were 
 written for gentle souls who love music, and read in 
 even tones, and, perhaps, with something like a smile 
 upon the reader's lips, at a meeting where these musi 
 cal friends had gathered. Whether they were written 
 with smiles or not, you can guess better after you have 
 read them. 
 
 THE OPENING OF THE PIANO. 
 
 In the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen 
 With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the 
 
 green, 
 
 At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, 
 Stood the London-made piano I tim dreaming of to-night.
 
 74 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Ah me ! how I remember the evening when it came ! 
 
 What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, 
 
 When the wondrous box was opened that had come from over 
 
 seas, 
 With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys ! 
 
 Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy, 
 For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy, 
 Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way, 
 But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, " Now, Mary, 
 play." 
 
 For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm ; 
 She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, 
 In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, 
 Or carolling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills. 
 
 So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, 
 Sat down to the new " dementi," and struck the glittering keys. 
 Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, 
 As, floating from lip and finger, arose the " Vesper Hymn." 
 
 Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, 
 (Wedded since, and a widow, something like ten years dead,) 
 Hearing a gush of music such as none before, 
 
 Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door. 
 
 Just as the " Jubilate " in threaded whisper dies, 
 
 " Open it ! open it, lady ! " the little maiden cries, 
 
 (For she thought 't was a singing creature caged in a box she 
 
 heard,) 
 " Open it ! open it, ladj ! and let me see the bird I " 
 
 IT. 
 
 I don't know whether our literary or professional 
 people are more amiable than they are in other places, 
 but certainly quarrelling is out of fashion among them. 
 This could never be, if they were in the habit of secret
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 75 
 
 anonymous puffing of each other. That is the kind 
 of underground machinery which manufactures false 
 reputations and genuine hatreds. On the other hand, 
 I should like to know if we are not at liberty to have a 
 good time together, and say the pleasantest things we 
 can think of to each other, when any of us reaches his 
 thirtieth or fortieth or fiftieth or eightieth birthday. 
 
 We don't have "scenes," I warrant you, on these 
 occasions. No "surprise" parties! You understand 
 these, of course. In the rural districts, where scenic 
 tragedy and melodrama cannot be had, as in the city, 
 at the expense of a quarter and a white pocket-hand 
 kerchief, emotional excitement has to be sought in the 
 dramas of real life. Christenings, weddings, and 
 funerals, especially the latter, are the main depen 
 dence; but babies, brides, and deceased citizens can 
 not be had at a day's notice. Now, then, for a sur 
 prise-party! 
 
 A bag of flour, a barrel of potatoes, some strings 
 of onions, a basket of apples, a big cake and many 
 little cakes, a jug of lemonade, a purse stuffed with 
 bills of the more modest denominations, may, perhaps, 
 do well enough for the properties in one of these pri 
 vate theatrical exhibitions. The minister of the par 
 ish, a tender-hearted, quiet, hard-working man, living 
 on a small salary, with many children, sometimes 
 pinched to feed and clothe them, praying fervently 
 every day to be blest in his "basket and store," but 
 sometimes fearing he asks amiss, to judge by the 
 small returns, has the first role, not, however, by 
 his own choice, but forced upon him. The minister's 
 wife, a sharp-eyed, unsentimental body, is first lady; 
 the remaining parts by the rest of the family. If 
 only had a playbill, it would run thus :
 
 76 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 ON TUESDAY NEXT 
 WILL BE PRESENTED 
 
 THE AFFECTING SCENE 
 
 CALLED 
 
 THE SURPRISE-PARTY, 
 
 OB 
 
 THE OVERCOME FAMILY; 
 
 WITH THE FOLLOWING STRONG CAST OF CHARACTERS. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Overcome, by the Clergyman of this 
 Parish. 
 
 Mrs. Overcome, by his estimable lady. 
 
 Masters Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Over 
 come, 
 
 Misses Dorcas, Tabitha, Rachel, and Hannah 
 Overcome, by their interesting children. 
 
 Peggy, by the female help. 
 
 The poor man is really grateful ; it is a most wel 
 come and unexpected relief. He tries to express his 
 thanks, his voice falters, he chokes, and bursts 
 into tears. That is the great effect of the evening. 
 The sharp-sighted lady cries a little with one eye, and 
 counts the strings of onions, and the rest of the things, 
 with the other. The children stand ready for a spring 
 at the apples. The female help weeps after the noisy 
 fashion of untutored handmaids. 
 
 Now this is all very well as charity, but do let the 
 kind visitors remember they get their money's worth. 
 If you pay a quarter for dry crying, done by a second- 
 rate actor, how much ought you to pay for real hot, 
 wet tears, out of the honest eyes of a gentleman who 
 is not acting, but sobbing in earnest?
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 77 
 
 All I meant to say, when I began, was, that this 
 was not a surprise-party where I read these few lines 
 that follow : 
 
 We will not speak of years to-night ; 
 
 For what have years to bring, 
 But larger floods of love and light 
 
 And sweeter songs to sing ? 
 
 We will not drown in wordy praise 
 
 The kindly thoughts that rise ; 
 If friendship owns one tender phrase, 
 
 He reads it in our eyes. 
 
 We need not waste our schoolboy art 
 
 To gild this notch of time ; 
 Forgive me, if my wayward heart 
 
 Has throbbed in artless rhyme. 
 
 Enough for him the silent grasp 
 
 That knits us hand in hand, 
 And he the bracelet's radiant clasp 
 
 That locks our circling band. 
 
 Strength to his hours of manly toil ! 
 
 Peace to his starlit dreams ! 
 Who loves alike the furrowed soil, 
 
 The music-haunted streams 1 
 
 Sweet smiles to keep forever bright 
 
 The sunshine on his lips, 
 And faith, that sees the ring of light 
 
 Round Nature's last eclipse ! 
 
 One of our boarders has been talking in such 
 strong language that I am almost afraid to report it. 
 However, as he seems to be really honest and is so 
 very sincere in his local prejudices, I don't believe 
 anybody will be very angry with him.
 
 78 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 It is here, Sir ! right here ! said the little deformed 
 gentleman, in this old new city of Boston, this 
 remote provincial corner of a provincial nation, that 
 the Battle of the Standard is fighting, and was fight 
 ing before we were born, and will be fighting when 
 we are dead and gone, please God ! The battle goes 
 on everywhere throughout civilization ; but here, here, 
 here is the broad white flag flying which proclaims, 
 first of all, peace and good-will to men, and, next to 
 that, the absolute, unconditional spiritual liberty of 
 each individual immortal soul ! The three -hilled city 
 against the seven -hilled city ! That is it, Sir, no 
 thing less than that ; and if you know what that means, 
 I don't think you '11 ask for anything more. I swear 
 to you, Sir, I believe that these two centres of civili 
 zation are just exactly the two points that close the 
 circuit in the battery of our planetary intelligence ! 
 And I believe there are spiritual eyes looking out from 
 Uranus and unseen Neptune, ay, Sir, from the sys 
 tems of Sirius and Arcturus and Aldebaran, and as 
 far as that faint stain of sprinkled worlds confluent in 
 the distance that we call the nebula of Orion, look 
 ing on, Sir, with what organs I know not, to see 
 which are going to melt in that fiery fusion, the acci 
 dents and hindrances of humanity or man himself, Sir, 
 the stupendous abortion, the illustrious failure that 
 he is, if the three-hilled city does not ride down and 
 trample out the seven -hilled city ! 
 
 Steam's up! said the young man John, so 
 called, in a low tone. Three hundred and sixty -five 
 tons to the square inch. Let him blow her off, or 
 he '11 bu'st his b'iler. 
 
 The divinity-student took it calmly, only whisper 
 ing that he thought there was a little confusion of
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 79 
 
 images between a galvanic battery and a charge of 
 cavalry. 
 
 But the Koh-i-noor the gentleman, you remem 
 ber, with a very large diamond in his shirt-front 
 laughed his scornful laugh, and made as if to speak. 
 
 Sail in, Metropolis ! said that same young man 
 John, by name. And then, in a lower lone, not 
 meaning to be heard, Now, then, Ma'am Allen ! 
 
 But he was heard, and the Koh-i-noor's face 
 turned so white with rage, that his blue-black mous 
 tache and beard looked fearful, seen against it. He 
 grinned with wrath, and caught at a tumbler, as if he 
 would have thrown it or its contents at the speaker. 
 The young Marylander fixed his clear, steady eye upon 
 him, and laid his hand on his arm, carelessly almost, 
 but the Jewel found it was held so that he could not 
 move it. It was of no use. The youth was his mas 
 ter in muscle, and in that deadly Indian hug in which 
 men wrestle with their eyes; over in five seconds, 
 but breaks one of their two backs, and is good for 
 threescore years and ten ; one trial enough, set 
 tles the whole matter, just as when two feathered 
 songsters of the barnyard, game and dunghill, come 
 together, after a jump or two at each other, and 
 a few sharp kicks, there is the end of it ; and it is, 
 Apres vous, Monsieur, with the beaten party in all the 
 social relations for all the rest of his days. 
 
 I cannot philosophically account for the Koh-i- 
 noor's wrath. For though a cosmetic is sold, bearing 
 the name of the lady to whom reference was made by 
 the young person John, yet, as it is publicly asserted 
 in respectable prints that this cosmetic is not a dye, I 
 see no reason why he should have felt offended by any 
 suggestion that he was indebted to it or its authoress.
 
 80 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 I have no doubt that there are certain exceptional com 
 plexions to which the purple tinge, above alluded to, 
 is natural. Nature is fertile in variety. I saw an 
 albiness in London once, for sixpence, (including the 
 inspection of a stuffed boa-constrictor,) who looked as 
 if she had been boiled in milk. A young Hottentot 
 of my acquaintance had his hair all in little pellets of 
 the size of marrowfat peas. One of my own class 
 mates has undergone a singular change of late years, 
 his hair losing its original tint, and getting a re 
 markable discolored look; and another has. ceased to 
 cultivate any hair at all over the vertex or crown of 
 the head. So I am perfectly willing to believe that 
 the purple-black of the Koh-i-noor's moustache and 
 whiskers is constitutional and not pigmentary. But 
 I can't think why he got so angry. 
 
 The intelligent reader will understand that all this 
 pantomime of the threatened onslaught and its sup 
 pression passed so quickly that it was all over by the 
 time the other end of the table found out there was a 
 disturbance ; just as a man chopping wood half a mile 
 off may be seen resting on his axe at the instant you 
 hear the last blow he struck. So you will please to 
 observe that the Little Gentleman was not interrupted 
 during the time implied by these ex-post-facto remarks 
 of mine, but for some ten or fifteen seconds only. 
 
 He did not seem to mind the interruption at all, 
 for he started again. The " Sir " of his harangue was 
 no doubt addressed to myself more than anybody else, 
 but he often uses it in discourse as if he were talking 
 with some imaginary opponent. 
 
 America, Sir, he exclaimed, is the only 
 place where man is full-grown ! 
 
 He straightened himself up, as he spoke, standing
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 81 
 
 on the top round of his high chair, I suppose, and so 
 presented the larger part of his little figure to the 
 view of the boarders. 
 
 It was next to impossible to keep from laughing. 
 The commentary was so strange an illustration of the 
 text ! I thought it was time to put in a word ; for I 
 have lived in foreign parts, and am more or less cos 
 mopolitan. 
 
 I doubt if we have more practical freedom in Amer 
 ica than they have in England, I said. An Eng 
 lishman thinks as he likes in religion and politics. 
 Mr. Martineau speculates as freely as ever Dr. Chan- 
 ning did, and Mr. Bright is as independent as Mr. 
 Seward. 
 
 Sir, said he, it isn't what a man thinks or 
 says, but when and where and to whom he thinks and 
 says it. A man with a flint and steel striking sparks 
 over a wet blanket is one thing, and striking them over 
 a tinder-box is another. The free Englishman is born 
 under protest ; he lives and dies under protest, a 
 tolerated, but not a welcome fact. Is nok freethinker a 
 term of reproach in England? The same idea in the 
 soul of an Englishman who struggled up to it and still 
 holds it antagonistically, and in the soul of an Amer 
 ican to whom it is congenital and spontaneous, and 
 often unrecognized, 'except as an element blended with 
 all his thoughts, a natural movement, like the drawing 
 of his breath or the beating of his heart, is a very dif 
 ferent thing. You may teach a quadruped to walk on 
 his hind legs, but he is always wanting to be on all- 
 fours. Nothing that can be taught a growing youth 
 is like the atmospheric knowledge he breathes from his 
 infancy upwards. The American baby sucks in free 
 dom with the milk of the breast at which he hangs.
 
 82 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 That 's a good joke, said the young fellow 
 John, consider-in' it commonly belongs to a female 
 Paddy. 
 
 I thought I will not be certain that the Little 
 Gentleman winked, as if he had been hit somewhere 
 
 as I have no doubt Dr. Darwin did when the 
 wooden-spoon suggestion upset his theory about why, 
 etc. If he winked, however, he did not dodge. 
 
 A lively comment ! he said. But Rome, in her 
 great founder, sucked the blood of empire out of the 
 dugs of a brute, Sir ! The Milesian wet-nurse is only 
 a convenient vessel through which the American in 
 fant gets the life-blood of this virgin soil, Sir, that is 
 making man over again, on the sunset pattern ! You 
 don't think what we are doing and going to do here. 
 Why, Sir, while commentators are bothering them 
 selves with interpretation of prophecies, we have got 
 the new heavens and the new earth over us and under 
 us ! Was there ever anything in Italy, I should like 
 to know, like a Boston sunset? 
 
 This time there was a laugh, and the little man 
 himself almost smiled. 
 
 Yes, Boston sunsets ; perhaps they 're as good 
 in some other places, but I know 'em best here. Any 
 how, the American skies are different from anything 
 they see in the Old World. Yes, and the rocks are 
 different, and the soil is different, and everything that 
 comes out of the soil, from grass up to Indians, is dif 
 ferent. And now that the provisional races are dying 
 out 
 
 What do you mean by the provisional races, Sir? 
 
 said the divinity-student, interrupting him. 
 Why, the aboriginal bipeds, to be sure, he an 
 swered, the red-crayon sketch of humanity laid on
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 83 
 
 the canvas before the colors for the real manhood 
 were ready. 
 
 I hope they will come to something yet, said the 
 divinity-student. 
 
 Irreclaimable, Sir, irreclaimable ! said the Lit 
 tle Gentleman. Cheaper to breed white men than 
 domesticate a nation of red ones. When you can get 
 the bitter out of the partridge's thigh, you can make 
 an enlightened commonwealth of Indians. A provi 
 sional race, Sir, nothing more. Exhaled carbonic 
 acid for the use of vegetation, kept down the bears 
 and catamounts, enjoyed themselves in scalping and 
 being scalped, and then passed away or are passing 
 away, according to the programme. 
 
 Well, Sir, these races dying out, the white man has 
 to acclimate himself. It takes him a good while ; but 
 he will come all right by-and-by, Sir, as sound as a 
 woodchuck, as sound as a musquash ! 
 
 A new nursery, Sir, with Lake Superior and Hu 
 ron and all the rest of 'em for wash-basins ! A new 
 race, and a whole new world for the new-born human 
 soul to work in ! And Boston is the brain of it, and 
 has been any time these hundred years ! That 's all 
 I claim for Boston, that it is the thinking centre 
 of the continent, and therefore of the planet. 
 
 And the grand emporium of modesty, said the 
 divinity-student, a little mischievously. 
 
 Oh, don't talk to me of modesty! answered the 
 Little Gentleman, I'm past that! There isn't a 
 thing that was ever said or done in Boston, from 
 pitching the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie 
 it tore into tatters and flung into the dock, that 
 was n't thought very indelicate by some fool or tyrant 
 or bigot, and all the entrails of commercial and spir-
 
 84 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 itual conservatism are twisted into colics as often as this 
 revolutionary brain of ours has a fit of thinking come 
 over it. No, Sir, show me any other place that 
 is, or was since the megalosaurus has died out, where 
 wealth and social influence are so fairly divided be 
 tween the stationary and the progressive classes! 
 Show me any other place where every other drawing- 
 room is not a chamber of the Inquisition, with papas 
 and mammas for inquisitors, and the cold shoulder, 
 instead of the "dry pan and the gradual fire," the 
 punishment of "heresy" ! 
 
 We think Baltimore is a pretty civilized kind of 
 a village, said the young Marylander, good-na 
 turedly. But I suppose you can't forgive it for 
 always keeping a little ahead of Boston in point of 
 numbers, tell the truth now. Are we not the cen 
 tre of something? 
 
 Ah, indeed, to be sure you are. You are the gas 
 tronomic metropolis of the Union. Why don't you 
 put a canvas-back duck on the top of the Washington 
 column? Why don't you get that lady off from Bat 
 tle Monument and plant a terrapin in her place? 
 Why will you ask for other glories when you have 
 soft crabs? No, Sir, you live too well to think as 
 hard as we do in Boston. Logic comes to us with the 
 salt-fish of Cape Ann ; rhetoric is born of the beans 
 of Beverly; but you if you open your mouths to 
 speak, Nature stops them with a fat oyster, or offers 
 a slice of the breast of your divine bird, and silences 
 all your aspirations. 
 
 And what of Philadelphia? said the Marylander. 
 
 Oh, Philadelphia? Waterworks, killed by the 
 Croton and Cochituate \ Ben Franklin, borrowed 
 from Boston ; David Rittenhouse, made an or-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 85 
 
 rery ; Benjamin Rush, made a medical system ; 
 
 both interesting to antiquarians ; great Red-river 
 raft of medical students, spontaneous generation of 
 professors to match ; more widely known through 
 the Moyamensing hose-company, and the Wistar par 
 ties; for geological section of social strata, go to 
 The Club. Good place to live in, first-rate mar 
 ket, tip-top peaches. What do we know about 
 Philadelphia, except that the engine-companies are 
 always shooting each other? 
 
 And what do you say to Ne' York? asked the 
 Koh-i-noor. 
 
 A great city, Sir, replied the Little Gentleman, 
 
 a very opulent, splendid city. A point of transit 
 of much that is remarkable, and of permanence for 
 much that is respectable. A great money-centre. 
 San Francisco with the mines above-ground, and 
 some of 'em under the sidewalks. I have seen next 
 to nothing grandiose, out of New York, in all our 
 cities. It makes 'em all look paltry and petty. Has 
 many elements of civilization. May stop where Ven 
 ice did, though, for aught we know. The order of 
 its development is just this : Wealth ; architecture ; 
 upholstery ; painting ; sculpture. Printing, as a me 
 chanical art, just as Nicholas Jenson and the Aldi, 
 who were scholars too, made Venice renowned for it. 
 Journalism, which is the accident of business and 
 crowded populations, in great perfection. Venice got 
 as far as Titian and Paul Veronese and Tintoretto, 
 
 great colorists, mark you, magnificent on the flesh- 
 and-blood side of Art, but look over to Florence 
 and see who lie in Santa Croce, and ask out of whose 
 loins Dante sprung! 
 
 Oh, yes, to be sure, Venice built her Ducal Palace,
 
 86 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 and her Church of St. Mark, and her Casa d' Oro, 
 and the rest of her golden houses ; and Venice had 
 great pictures and good music ; and Venice had a 
 Golden Book, in which all the large tax-payers had 
 their names written ; but all that did not make Ven 
 ice the brain of Italy. 
 
 I tell you what, Sir, with all these magnificent 
 appliances of civilization, it is time we began to heai 
 something from ihejeunesse doree whose names are on 
 the Golden Book of our sumptuous, splendid, marble- 
 palaced Venice, something in the higher walks of 
 literature, something in the councils of the nation. 
 Plenty of Art, I grant you, Sir; now, then, for vast 
 libraries, and for mighty scholars and thinkers and 
 statesmen, five for every Boston one, as the popula 
 tion is to ours, ten to one more properly, in virtue 
 of centralizing attraction as the alleged metropolis, 
 and not call our people provincials, and have to come 
 begging to us to write the lives of Hendrik Hudson 
 and Gouverneur Morris ! 
 
 The Little Gentleman was on his hobby, exalting 
 his own city at the expense of every other place. I 
 have my doubts if he had been in either of the cities 
 he had been talking about. I was just going to say 
 something to sober him down, if I could, when the 
 young Marylander spoke up. 
 
 Come, now, he said, what's the use of these 
 comparisons? Did n't I hear this gentleman saying, 
 the other day, that every American owns all Amer 
 ica? If you have really got more brains in Boston 
 than other folks, as you seem to think, who hates you 
 for it, except a pack of scribbling fools? If I like 
 Broadway better than Washington Street, what then ? 
 I own them both, as mucb as anybody owns either.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 87 
 
 I am an American, and wherever I look up and see 
 the stars and stripes overhead, that is home to me ! 
 
 He spoke, and looked up as if he heard the embla 
 zoned folds crackling over him in the breeze. We 
 all looked up involuntarily, as if we should see the 
 national flag by so doing. The sight of the dingy 
 ceiling and the gas-fixture depending therefrom dis 
 pelled the illusion. 
 
 Bravo ! bravo ! said the venerable gentleman on 
 the other side of the table. Those are the sentiments 
 of Washington's Farewell Address. Nothing better 
 than that since the last chapter in Revelations. Five- 
 and-forty years ago there used to be Washington soci 
 eties, and little boys used to walk in processions, each 
 little boy having a copy of the Address, bound in red, 
 hung round his neck by a ribbon. Why don't they 
 now? Why don't they now? I saw enough of hat 
 ing each other in the old Federal times; now let's 
 love each other, I say, let 's love each other, and 
 not try to make it out that there is n't any place fit 
 to live in except the one we happen to be born in. 
 
 It dwarfs the mind, I think, said I, to feed it 
 on any localism. The full stature of manhood is 
 shrivelled 
 
 The color burst up into my cheeks. What was 
 I saying, I, who would not for the world have 
 pained our unfortunate little boarder by an allusion? 
 
 I will go, he said, and made a movement with 
 his left arm to let himself down from his high chair. 
 
 No, no, he doesn't mean it, you must not 
 go, said a kind voice next him ; and a soft, white 
 hand was laid upon his arm. 
 
 Iris, my dear ! exclaimed another voice, as of a 
 female, in accents that might be considered a strong
 
 88 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 atmospheric solution of duty with very little flavor of 
 grace. 
 
 She did not move for this address, and there was a 
 tableau that lasted some seconds. For the young girl, 
 in the glory of half -blown womanhood, and the dwarf, 
 the cripple, the misshapen little creature covered 
 with Nature's insults, looked straight into each other's 
 eyes. 
 
 Perhaps no handsome young woman had ever 
 looked at him so in his life. Certainly the young 
 girl never had looked into eyes that reached into her 
 soul as these did. It was not that they were in them 
 selves supernaturally bright, but there was the sad 
 fire in them that flames up from the soul of one who 
 looks on the beauty of woman without hope, but, alas ! 
 not without emotion. To him it seemed as if those 
 amber gates had been translucent as the brown water 
 of a mountain brook, and through them he had seen 
 dimly into a virgin wilderness, only waiting for the 
 sunrise of a great passion for all its buds to blow and 
 all its bowers to ring with melody. 
 
 That is my image, of course, not his. It was not 
 a simile that was in his mind, or is in anybody's at 
 such a moment, it was a pang of wordless passion, 
 and then a silent, inward moan. 
 
 A lady's wish, he said, with a certain gallantry 
 of manner, makes slaves of us all. And Nature, 
 who is kind to all her children, and never leaves the 
 smallest and saddest of all her human failures without 
 one little comfit of self-love at the bottom of his poor 
 ragged pocket, Nature suggested to him that he had 
 turned his sentence well; and he fell into a reverie, 
 in which the old thoughts that were always hovering 
 just outside the doors guarded by Common Sense, and
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 89 
 
 watching for a chance to squeeze in, knowing perfectly 
 well they would be ignominiously kicked out again as 
 soon as Common Sense saw them, flocked in pell-mell, 
 misty, fragmentary, vague, half -ashamed of them 
 selves, but still shouldering up against his inner con 
 sciousness till it warmed with their contact : John 
 Wilkes's the ugliest man's in England saying, 
 that with half-an-hour's start he would cut out the 
 handsomest man in all the land in any woman's good 
 graces; Cadenus old and savage leading captive 
 Stella and Vanessa ; and then the stray line of a bal 
 lad, "And a winning tongue had he," as much as 
 to say, it is n't looks, after all, but cunning words, that 
 win our Eves over, just as of old when it was the 
 worst-looking brute of the lot that got our grand 
 mother to listen to his stuff and so did the mischief. 
 
 Ah, dear me ! We rehearse the part of Hercules 
 with his club, subjugating man and woman in our 
 fancy, the first by the weight of it, and the second by 
 our handling of it, we rehearse it, I say, by our 
 own hearth-stones, with the cold poker as our club, 
 and the exercise is easy. But when we come to real 
 life, the poker is in the fire, and, ten to one, if we 
 would grasp it, we find it too hot to hold; lucky 
 for us, if it is not white-hot, and we do not have to 
 leave the skin of our hands sticking to it when we 
 fling it down or drop it with a loud or silent cry ! 
 
 I am frightened when I find into what a laby 
 rinth of human character and feeling I am winding. 
 I meant to tell my thoughts, and to throw in a few 
 studies of manner and costume as they pictured them 
 selves for me from day to day. Chance has thrown 
 together at the table with me a number of persons 
 who are worth studying, and I mean not only to look
 
 90 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 on them, but, if I can, through them. You can get 
 any man's or woman's secret, whose sphere is circum 
 scribed by your own, if you will only look patiently on 
 them long enough. Nature is always applying her 
 reagents to character, if you will take the pains to 
 watch her. Our studies of character, to change the 
 image, are very much like the surveyor's triangulation 
 of a geographical province. We get a base-line in 
 organization, always; then we get an angle by sight 
 ing some distant object to which the passions or aspi 
 rations of the subject of our observation are tending; 
 then another ; and so we construct our first triangle. 
 Once fix a man's ideals, and for the most part the rest 
 is easy. A wants to die worth half a million. Good. 
 B (female) wants to catch him, and outlive him. 
 All right. Minor details at our leisure. 
 
 What is it, of all your experiences, of all your 
 thoughts, of all your misdoings, that lies at the very 
 bottom of the great heap of acts of consciousness 
 which make up your past life? What should you 
 most dislike to tell your nearest friend? Be so good 
 as to pause for a brief space, and shut the volume you 
 hold with your finger between the pages. Oh, that 
 is it! 
 
 What a confessional I have been sitting at, with 
 the inward ear of my soul open, as the multitudinous 
 whisper of my involuntary confidants came back to me 
 like the reduplicated echo of a cry among the craggy 
 bills! 
 
 At the house of a friend where I once passed the 
 night was one of those stately upright cabinet desks 
 and cases of drawers which were not rare in prosperous 
 families during the last century. It had held the 
 clothes and the books and the papers of generation
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 91 
 
 after generation. The hands that opened its drawers 
 had grown withered, shrivelled, and at last been 
 folded in death. The children that played with the 
 lower handles had got tall enough to open the desk, 
 to reach the upper shelves behind the folding-doors, 
 grown bent after a while, and then followed 
 those who had gone before, and left the old cabinet to 
 be ransacked by a new generation. 
 
 A boy of ten or twelve was looking at it a few years 
 ago, and, being a quick-witted fellow, saw that all the 
 space was not accounted for by the smaller drawers in 
 the part beneath the lid of the desk. Prying about 
 with busy eyes and fingers, he at length came upon a 
 spring, on pressing which, a secret drawer flew from 
 its hiding-place. It had never been opened but by 
 the maker. The mahogany shavings and dust were 
 lying in it as when the artisan closed it, and when 
 I saw it, it was as fresh as if that day finished. 
 
 Is there not one little drawer in your soul, my 
 sweet reader, which no hand but yours has ever 
 opened, and which none that have known you seem to 
 have suspected? What does it hold? A sin? I 
 hope not. 
 
 What a strange thing an old dead sin laid away in 
 a secret drawer of the soul is ! Must it some time or 
 other be moistened with tears, until it comes to life 
 again and begins to stir in our consciousness, as 
 the dry wheel-animalcule, looking like a grain of dust, 
 becomes alive, if it is wet with a drop of water? 
 
 Or is it a passion? There are plenty of withered 
 men and women walking about the streets who have 
 the secret drawer in their hearts, which, if it were 
 opened, would show as fresh as it was when they were 
 in the flush of youth and its first trembling emotions.
 
 92 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 What it held will, perhaps, never be known, until 
 they are dead and gone, and some curious eye lights 
 on an old yellow letter with the fossil footprints of 
 the extinct passion trodden thick all over it. 
 
 There is not a boarder at our table, I firmly be 
 lieve, excepting the young girl, who has not a story of 
 the heart to tell, if one could only get the secret 
 drawer open. Even this arid female, whose armor of 
 black bombazine looks stronger against the shafts of 
 love than any cuirass of triple brass, has had her sen 
 timental history, if I am not mistaken. I will tell 
 you my reason for suspecting it. 
 
 Like many other old women, she shows a great ner 
 vousness and restlessness whenever I venture to ex 
 press any opinion upon a class of subjects which can 
 hardly be said to belong to any man or set of men 
 as their strictly private property, not even to the 
 clergy, or the newspapers commonly called "reli 
 gious." Now, although it would be a great luxury to 
 me to obtain my opinions by contract, ready-made, 
 from a professional man, and although I have a con 
 stitutional kindly feeling to all sorts of good people 
 which would make me happy to agree with all their 
 beliefs, if that were possible, still I must have an idea, 
 now and then, as to the meaning of life ; and though 
 the only condition of peace in this world is to have no 
 ideas, or, at least, not to express them, with reference 
 to such subjects, I can't afford to pay quite so much 
 as that even for peace. 
 
 I find that there is a very prevalent opinion among 
 the dwellers on the shores of Sir Isaac Newton's 
 Ocean of Truth, that salt fish, which have been taken 
 from it a good while ago, split open, cured and dried, 
 are the only proper and allowable food for reasonable
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 93 
 
 people. I maintain, on the other hand, that there are 
 a number of live fish still swimming in it, and that 
 every one of us has a right to see if he cannot catch 
 some of them. Sometimes I please myself with the 
 idea that I have landed an actual living fish, small, 
 perhaps, but with rosy gills and silvery scales. Then 
 I find the consumers of nothing but the salted and 
 dried article insist that it is poisonous, simply because 
 it is alive, and cry out to people not to touch it. I 
 have not found, however, that people mind them much. 
 The poor boarder in bombazine is my dynamome 
 ter. I try every questionable proposition on her. If 
 she winces, I must be prepared for an outcry from the 
 other old women. I frightened her, the other day, 
 by saying thai faith, as an intellectual state, was self- 
 reliance, which, if you have a metaphysical turn, you 
 will find is not so much of a paradox as it sounds at 
 first. So she sent me a book to read which was to 
 cure me of that error. It was an old book, and looked 
 as if it had not been opened for a long time. What 
 should drop out of it, one day, but a small heart- 
 shaped paper, containing a lock "of that straight, 
 coarse, brown hair which sets off the sharp faces of so 
 many thin-flanked, large-handed bumpkins! I read 
 upon the paper the name "Hiram." Love! love! 
 love ! everywhere ! everywhere ! under diamonds 
 and housemaids' "jewelry," lifting the marrowy 
 camel 's-hair, and rustling even the black bombazine! 
 No, no, I think she never was pretty, but she 
 was young once, and wore bright ginghams, and, per 
 haps, gay merinos. We shall find that the poor little 
 crooked man has been in love, or is in love, or will be 
 in love before we have done with him, for aught that 
 I know I
 
 94 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Romance ! Was there ever a boarding-house in the 
 world where the seemingly prosaic table had not a liv 
 ing fresco for its background, where you could see, if 
 you had eyes, the smoke and fire of some upheaving 
 sentiment, or the dreary craters of smouldering or 
 burnt-out passions? You look on the black bomba 
 zine and high-necked decorum of your neighbor, and 
 no more think of the real life that underlies this de 
 spoiled and dismantled womanhood than you think of 
 a stone trilobite as having once been full of the juices 
 and the nervous thrills of throbbing and self-conscious 
 being. There is a wild creature under that long yel 
 low pin which serves as brooch for the bombazine 
 cuirass, a wild creature, which I venture to say 
 would leap in his cage, if I should stir him, quiet as 
 you think him. A heart which has been domesticated 
 by matrimony and maternity is as tranquil as a tame 
 bulfinch ; but a wild heart which has never been fairly 
 broken in flutters fiercely long after you think time 
 has tamed it down, like that purple finch I had the 
 other day, which could not be approached without 
 such palpitations' and frantic flings against the bars 
 of his cage, that I had to send him back and get a lit 
 tle orthodox canary which had learned to be quiet and 
 never mind the wires or his keeper's handling. I will 
 tell you my wicked, but half involuntary experiment 
 on the wild heart under the faded bombazine. 
 
 Was there ever a person in the room with you, 
 marked by any special weakness or peculiarity, with 
 whom you could be two hours and not touch the infirm 
 spot? I confess the most frightful tendency to do 
 just this thing. If a man has a brogue, I am sure to 
 catch myself imitating it. If another is lame, I fol 
 low him, or, worse than that, go before him, limping.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 95 
 
 I could never meet an Irish gentleman if it had 
 been the Duke of Wellington himself without stum 
 bling upon the word "Paddy,"- which I use rarely 
 in my common talk. 
 
 I have been worried to know whether this was ow 
 ing to some innate depravity of disposition on my 
 part, some malignant torturing instinct, which, under 
 different circumstances, might have made a Fijian 
 anthropophagus of me, or to some law of thought for 
 which I was not answerable. It is, I am convinced, 
 a kind of physical fact like endosmosis, with which 
 some of you are acquainted. A thin film of polite 
 ness separates the unspoken and unspeakable current 
 of thought from the stream of conversation. After a 
 time one begins to soak through and mingle with the 
 other. 
 
 We were talking about names, one day. Was 
 there ever anything, I said, like the Yankee for 
 inventing the most uncouth, pretentious, detestable 
 appellations, inventing or finding them, since the 
 time of Praise-God Barebones? I heard a country- 
 boy once talking of another whom he called Elpit, as 
 I understood him. Elbridge, is common enough, but 
 this sounded oddly. It seems the boy was christened 
 Lord Pitt, and called for convenience, as above. 
 I have heard a charming little girl, belonging to an 
 intelligent family in the country, called Anges inva 
 riably; doubtless intended for Agnes. Names are 
 cheap. How can a man name an innocent new-born 
 child, that never did him any harm, Hiram ? The 
 poor relation, or whatever she is, in bombazine, turned 
 toward me, but I was stupid, and went on. To think 
 of a man going through life saddled with such an 
 abominable name as that ! The poor relation grew
 
 96 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 very uneasy. I continued ; for I never thought of 
 all this till afterwards. I knew one young fellow, a 
 good many years ago, by the name of Hiram 
 
 What 's got into you, Cousin, said our land 
 lady, to look so ? There ! you 've upset your tea 
 cup! 
 
 It suddenly occurred to me what I had been doing, 
 and I saw the poor woman had her hand at her throat ; 
 she was half -choking with the "hysteric ball," a 
 very odd symptom, as you know, which nervous 
 women often complain of. What business had I to 
 be trying experiments on this forlorn old soul? I 
 had a great deal better be watching that young girl. 
 
 Ah, the young girl ! I am sure that she can hide 
 nothing from me. Her skin is so transparent that one 
 can almost count her heart-beats by the flushes they 
 send into her cheeks. She does not seem to be shy, 
 either. I think she does not know enough of danger 
 to be timid. She seems to me like one of those birds 
 that travellers tell of, found in remote, uninhabited 
 islands, who, having never received any wrong at the 
 hand of man, show no alarm at and hardly any partic 
 ular consciousness of his presence. 
 
 The first thing will be to see how she and our little 
 deformed gentleman get along together ; for, as I have 
 told you, they sit side by side. The next thing will 
 be to keep an eye on the duenna, the "Model " and 
 so forth, as the white-neck-cloth called her. The in 
 tention of that estimable lady is, I understand, to 
 launch her and leave, her. I suppose there is no help 
 for it, and I don't doubt this young lady knows how 
 to take care of herself, but I do not like to see young 
 girls turned loose in boarding-houses. Look here 
 now ! There is that jewel of his race, whom I have
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 97 
 
 called for convenience the Koh-i-noor, (you under 
 stand it is quite out of the question for me to use the 
 family names of our boarders, unless I want to get 
 into trouble,) I say, the gentleman with the dia 
 mond is looking very often and very intently, it seems 
 to me, down toward the farther corner of the table, 
 where sits our amber -eyed blonde. The landlady's 
 daughter does not look pleased, it seems to me, at 
 this, nor at those other attentions which the gentle 
 man referred to has, as I have learned, pressed upon 
 the newly-arrived young person. The landlady made 
 a communication to me, within a few days after the 
 arrival of Miss Iris, which I will repeat to the best 
 of my remembrance. 
 
 He, (the person I have been speaking of,) she 
 said, seemed to be kinder hankerin' round after that 
 young woman. It had hurt her daughter's feelin's a 
 good deal, that the gentleman she was a-keepin' com 
 pany with should be offerin' tickets and try in' to send 
 presents to them that he 'd never know'd till jest a lit 
 tle spell ago, and he as good as merried, so fur as 
 solemn promises went, to as respectable a young lady, 
 if she did say so, as any there was round, whosomever 
 they might be. 
 
 Tickets ! presents ! said I. What tickets, what 
 presents has he had the impertinence to bs offering to 
 that young lady ? 
 
 Tickets to the Museum, said the landlady. 
 There is them that 's glad enough to go to the Mu 
 seum, when tickets is given 'em; but some of 'em 
 ha'n't had a ticket sence Cenderilla was played, 
 and now he must be offerin' 'em to this ridiculous 
 young paintress, or whatever she is, that 's come to 
 make more mischief than her board 's worth. But it
 
 98 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 a'n't her fault, said the landlady, relenting ; and 
 that aunt of hers, or whatever she is, served him right 
 enough. 
 
 Why, what did she do? 
 
 Do ? Why, she took it up in the tongs and dropped 
 it out o' winder. 
 
 Dropped ? dropped what ? I said. 
 
 Why, the soap, said the landlady. 
 
 It appeared that the Koh-i-noor, to ingratiate him 
 self, had sent an elegant package of perfumed soap, 
 directed to Miss Iris, as a delicate expression of a 
 lively sentiment of admiration, and that, after having 
 met with the unfortunate treatment referred to, it was 
 picked up by Master Benjamin Franklin, who appro 
 priated it, rejoicing, and indulged in most unheard-of 
 and inordinate ablutions in consequence, so that his 
 hands were a frequent subject of maternal congratu 
 lation, and he smelt like a civet-cat for weeks after 
 his great acquisition. 
 
 After watching daily for a time, I think I can see 
 clearly into the relation which is growing up between 
 the little gentleman and the young lady. She shows 
 a tenderness to him that I can't help being interested 
 in. If he was her crippled child, instead of being 
 more than old enough to be her father, she could not 
 treat him more kindly. The landlady's daughter said, 
 the other day, she believed that girl was settin' her 
 cap for the Little Gentleman. 
 
 Some of them young folks is very artful, said her 
 mother, and there is them that would merry Laza 
 rus, if he 'd only picked up crumbs enough. I don't 
 think, though, this is one of that sort; she's kinder 
 childlike, said the landlady, and maybe never had 
 any dolls to play with; for they say her folks was poor
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 99 
 
 before Ma'am undertook to see to her teachin' and 
 board her and clothe her. 
 
 I could not help overhearing this conversation. 
 "Board her and clothe her!" speaking of such a 
 young creature ! Oh, dear ! Yes, she must be 
 fed, just like Bridget, maid-of -all -work at this es 
 tablishment. Somebody must pay for it. Somebody 
 has a right to watch her and see how much it takes to 
 "keep " her, and growl at her, if she has too good an 
 appetite. Somebody has a right to keep an eye on 
 her and take care that she does not dress too prettily. 
 No mother to see her own youth over again in those 
 fresh features and rising reliefs of half-sculptured 
 womanhood, and, seeing its loveliness, forget her les 
 sons of neutral-tinted propriety, and open the cases 
 that hold her own ornaments to find for her a neck 
 lace or a bracelet or a pair of ear-rings, those 
 golden lamps that light up the deep, shadowy dim 
 ples on the cheeks of young beauties, swinging in 
 a semibarbaric splendor that carries the wild fancy to 
 Abyssinian queens and musky Odalisques! I don't 
 believe any woman has utterly given up the great 
 firm of Mundus & Co. , so long as she wears ear-rings. 
 
 I think Iris loves to hear the Little Gentleman 
 talk. She smiles sometimes at his vehement state 
 ments, but never laughs at him. When he speaks to 
 her, she keeps her eye always steadily upon him. 
 This may be only natural good-breeding, so to speak, 
 but it is worth noticing. I have often observed that 
 vulgar persons, and public audiences of inferior col 
 lective intelligence, have this in common: the least 
 thing draws off their minds, when you are speaking to 
 them. I love this young creature's rapt attention 
 to her diminutive neighbor while he is speaking.
 
 100 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 He is evidently pleased with it. For a day or two 
 after she came, he was silent and seemed nervous and 
 excited. Now he is fond of getting the talk into* his 
 own hands, and is obviously conscious that he has at 
 least one interested listener. Once or twice I have seen 
 marks of special attention to personal adornment, 
 a ruffled shirt-bosom, one day, and a diamond pin in 
 it, not so very large as the Koh-i-noor's, but more 
 lustrous. I mentioned the death's-head ring he wears 
 on his right hand. I was attracted by a very hand 
 some red stone, a ruby or carbuncle or something of 
 the sort, to notice his left hand, the other day. It 
 is a handsome hand, and confirms my suspicion that 
 the cast mentioned was taken from his arm. After 
 all, this is just what I should expect. It is not very 
 uncommon to see the upper limbs, or one of them, 
 running away with the whole strength, and, therefore, 
 with the whole beauty, which we should never have 
 noticed, if it had been divided equally between all four 
 extremities. If it is so, of course he is proud of his 
 one strong and beautiful arm; that is human nature. 
 I am afraid he can hardly help betraying his favorit 
 ism, as people who have any one showy point are apt 
 to do, especially dentists with handsome teeth, who 
 always smile back to their last molars. 
 
 Sitting, as he does, next to the young girl, and next 
 but one to the calm lady who has her in charge, he 
 cannot help seeing their relations to each other. 
 
 That is an admirable woman, Sir, he said to me 
 one day, as we sat alone at the table after breakfast, 
 an admirable woman, Sir, and I hate her. 
 
 Of course, I begged an explanation. 
 
 An admirable woman, Sir, because she does good 
 things, and even kind things, takes care of this
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 101 
 
 this young lady we have here, talks like a sensi 
 ble person, and always looks as if she was doing her 
 duty with all her might. I hate her because her voice 
 sounds as if it never trembled and her eyes look as 
 if she never knew what it was to cry. Besides, she 
 looks at me, Sir, stares at me, as if she wanted to get 
 an image of me for some gallery in her brain, and 
 we don't love to be looked at in this way, we that 
 have I hate her, I hate her, her eyes kill me, 
 it is like being stabbed with icicles to be looked at 
 so, the sooner she goes home, the better. I don't 
 want a woman to weigh me in a balance ; there are 
 men enough for that sort of work. The judicial char 
 acter isn't captivating in females, Sir. A woman 
 fascinates a man quite as often by what she overlooks 
 as by what she sees. Love prefers twilight to day 
 light; and a man doesn't think much of, nor care 
 much for, a woman outside of his household, unless he 
 can couple the idea of love, past, present, or future, 
 with her. I don't believe the Devil would give half 
 as much for the services of a sinner as he would for 
 those of one of these folks that are always doing vir 
 tuous acts in a way to make them unpleasing. That 
 young girl wants a tender nature to cherish her and 
 give her a chance to put out her leaves, sunshine, 
 and not east winds. 
 
 He was silent, and sat looking at his handsome 
 left hand with the red stone ring upon it. Is he 
 going to fall in love with Iris ? 
 
 Here are some lines I read to the boarders the other 
 day.
 
 102 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 THE CROOKED FOOTPATH. 
 
 Ah, here it is ! the sliding rail 
 
 That marks the old remembered spot, 
 The gap that struck our schoolboy trail, 
 
 The crooked path across the lot. 
 
 It left the road by school and church, 
 A pencilled shadow, nothing more, 
 
 That parted from the silver birch 
 And ended at the farmhouse door. 
 
 No line or compass traced its plan ; 
 
 With frequent bends to left or right, 
 In aimless, wayward curves it ran, 
 
 But always kept the door in sight. 
 
 The gabled porch, with woodbine green, 
 The broken millstone at the sill, 
 
 Though many a rood might stretch between, 
 The truant child could see them still. 
 
 No rocks across the pathway lie, 
 No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown, 
 
 And yet it winds, we know not why, 
 And turns as if for tree or stone. 
 
 Perhaps some lover trod the way 
 
 With shaking knees and leaping heart, 
 
 And so it often runs astray 
 
 With sinuous sweep or sudden start. 
 
 Or one, perchance, with clouded brain 
 From some unholy banquet reeled, 
 
 And since, our devious steps maintain 
 His track across the trodden field. 
 
 Nay, deem not thus, no earthborn will 
 Could ever trace a faultless line ; 
 
 Our truest steps are human still, 
 To walk unswerving were divine 1
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 103 
 
 Truants from love, we dream of wrath ; 
 
 Oh, rather let us trust the more ! 
 Through all the wanderings of the path, 
 
 We still can see our Father's door ! 
 
 V. 
 
 The Prof essor finds a Fly in his Teacup. 
 
 I have a long theological talk to relate, which must 
 be dull reading to some of my young and vivacious 
 friends. I don't know, however, that any of them 
 have entered into a contract to read all that I write, 
 or that I have promised always to write to please them. 
 What if I should sometimes write to please myself ? 
 
 Now you must know that there are a great many 
 things which interest me, to some of which this or that 
 particular class of readers may be totally indifferent. 
 I love Nature, and human nature, its thoughts, affec 
 tions, dreams, aspirations, delusions, Art in all its 
 forms, virtu in all its eccentricities, old stories 
 from black-letter volumes and yellow manuscripts, and 
 new projects out of hot brains not yet imbedded in the 
 snows of age. I love the generous impulses of the 
 reformer; but not less does my imagination feed it 
 self upon the old litanies, so often warmed by the hu 
 man breath upon which they were wafted to Heaven 
 that they glow through our frames like our own heart's 
 blood. I hope I love good men and women ; I know 
 that they never speak a word to me, even if it be of 
 question or blame, that I do not take pleasantly, if it is 
 expressed with a reasonable amount of human kindness. 
 
 I have before me at this time a beautiful and affect 
 ing letter, which I have hesitated to answer, though
 
 104 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 the postmark upon it gave its direction, and the name 
 is one which is known to all, in some of its represen 
 tatives. It contains no reproach, only a delicately- 
 hinted fear. Speak gently, as this dear lady has 
 spoken, and there is no heart so insensible that it does 
 not answer to the appeal, no intellect so virile that it 
 does not own a certain deference to the claims of age, 
 of childhood, of sensitive and timid natures, when they 
 plead with it not to look at those sacred things by the 
 broad daylight which they see in mystic shadow. 
 How grateful would it be to make perpetual peace 
 with these pleading saints and their confessors, by the 
 simple act that silences all complainings! Sleep, 
 sleep, sleep ! says the Arch-Enchantress of them all, 
 and pours her dark and potent anodyne, distilled 
 over the fires that consumed her foes, its large, 
 round drops changing, as we look, into the beads of 
 her convert's rosary! Silence! the pride of reason! 
 cries another, whose whole life is spent in reasoning 
 down reason. 
 
 I hope I love good people, not for their sake, but 
 for my own. And most assuredly, if any deed of 
 wrong or word of bitterness led me into an act of dis 
 respect towards that enlightened and excellent class of 
 men who make it their calling to teach goodness and 
 their duty to practise it, I should feel that I had done 
 myself an injury rather than them. Go and talk with 
 any professional man holding any of the mediaeval 
 creeds, choosing one who wears upon his features the 
 mark of inward and outward health, who looks cheer 
 ful, intelligent, and kindly, and see how all your pre 
 judices melt away in his presence ! It is impossible to 
 come into intimate relations with a large, sweet nature, 
 such as you may often find in this class, without
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 105 
 
 ing to be at one with it in all its modes of being and 
 believing. But does it not occur to you that one may 
 love truth as he sees it, and his race as he views it, 
 better than even the sympathy and approbation of 
 many good men whom he honors, better than sleep 
 ing to the sound of the Miserere or listening to the 
 repetition of an effete Confession of Faith? 
 
 The three learned professions have but recently 
 emerged from a state of quasi barbarism. None of 
 them like too well to be told of it, but it must be 
 sounded in their ears whenever they put on airs. 
 When a man has taken an overdose of laudanum, the 
 doctors tell us to place him between two persons who 
 shall make him walk up and down incessantly ; and if 
 he still cannot be kept from going to sleep, they say 
 that a lash or two over his back is of great assistance. 
 
 So we must keep the doctors awake by telling them 
 that they have not yet shaken off astrology and the 
 doctrine of signatures, as is shown by the form of 
 their prescriptions, and their use of nitrate of silver, 
 which turns epileptics into Ethiopians. If that is not 
 enough, they must be given over to the scourgers, who 
 like their task and get good fees for it. A few score 
 years ago, sick people were made to swallow burnt 
 toads and powdered earthworms and the expressed 
 juice of wood-lice. The physician of Charles I. and 
 II. prescribed, abominations not to be named. Bar 
 barism, as bad as that of Congo or Ashantee. Traces 
 of this barbarism linger even in the greatly improved 
 medical science of our century. So while the solemn 
 farce of over -drugging is going on, the world over, 
 the harlequin pseudo-science jumps on to the stage, 
 whip in hand, with half-a-dozen somersets, and begins 
 laying about him.
 
 106 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 In 1817, perhaps you remember, the law of wager 
 by battle was unrepealed, and the rascally murderous, 
 and worse than murderous, clown, Abraham Thornton, 
 put on his gauntlet in open court and defied the appel 
 lant to lift the other which he threw down. It was 
 not until the reign of George II. that the statutes 
 against witchcraft were repealed. As for the English 
 Court of Chancery, we know that its antiquated 
 abuses form one of the staples of common proverbs 
 and popular literature. So the laws and the lawyers 
 have to be watched perpetually by public opinion as 
 much as the doctors do. 
 
 I don't think the other profession is an exception. 
 When the Reverend Mr. Cauvin and his associates 
 burned my distinguished scientific brother, he was 
 burned with green fagots, which made it rather slow 
 and painful, it appears to me they were in a state 
 of religious barbarism. The dogmas of such people 
 about the Father of Mankind and his creatures are of 
 no more account in my opinion than those of a council 
 of Aztecs. If a man picks your pocket, do you not 
 consider him thereby disqualified to pronounce any 
 authoritative opinion on matters of ethics ? If a man 
 hangs my ancient female relatives for sorcery, as they 
 did in this neighborhood a little while ago, or burns 
 my instructor for not believing as he does, I care no 
 more for his religious edicts than I should for those of 
 any other barbarian. 
 
 Of course, a barbarian may hold many true opin 
 ions; but when the ideas of the healing art, of the 
 administration of justice, of Christian love, could not 
 exclude systematic poisoning, judicial duelling, and 
 murder for opinion's sake, I do not see how we can 
 trust the verdict of that time relating to any subject
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 107 
 
 which involves the primal instincts violated in these 
 abominations and absurdities. What if we are even 
 now in a state of semi-barbarism? 
 
 Perhaps some think we ought not to talk at table 
 about such things. I am not so sure of that. Reli 
 gion and government appear to me the two subjects 
 which of all others should belong to the common talk 
 of people who enjoy the blessings of freedom. Think, 
 one moment. The earth is a great factory-wheel, 
 which, at every revolution on its axis, receives fifty 
 thousand raw souls and turns off nearly the same 
 number worked up more or less completely. There 
 must be somewhere a population of two hundred thou 
 sand million, perhaps ten or a hundred times as many, 
 earth-born intelligences. Life, as we call it, is no 
 thing but tho edge of the boundless ocean of existence 
 where it comes on soundings. In this view, I do not 
 see anything so fit to talk about, or half so interesting, 
 as that which relates to the innumerable majority of 
 our fellow-creatures, the dead-living, who are hun 
 dreds of thousands to one of the live -living, and with 
 whom we all potentially belong, though we have got 
 tangled for the present in some parcels of fibrine, al 
 bumen, and phosphates, that keep us on the minority 
 side of the house. In point of fact, it is one of the 
 many results of Spiritualism to make the permanent 
 destiny of the race a matter of common reflection and 
 discourse, and a vehicle for the prevailing disbelief of 
 the Middle- Age doctrines on the subject. I cannot 
 help thinking, when I remember how many conversa 
 tions my friend and myself have reported, that it 
 would be very extraordinary, if there were no mention 
 of that class of subjects which involves all that we 
 have and all that we hope, not merely for ourselves,
 
 108 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 but for the dear people whom we love best, noble 
 men, pure and lovely women, ingenuous children, 
 about the destiny of nine tenths of whom you know 
 the opinions that would have been taught by those old 
 man-roasting, woman-strangling dogmatists. How 
 ever, I fought this matter with one of our boarders the 
 other day, and I am going to report the conversation. 
 
 The divinity-student came down, one morning, 
 looking rather more serious than usual. He said lit 
 tle at breakfast-time, but lingered after the others, 
 so that I, who am apt to be long at the table, found 
 myself alone with him. 
 
 When the rest were all gone, he turned his chair 
 round towards mine, and began. 
 
 I am afraid, he said, you express yourself a 
 little too freely on a most important class of subjects. 
 Is there not danger in introducing discussions or al 
 lusions relating to matters of religion into common 
 discourse ? 
 
 Danger to what ? I asked. 
 
 Danger to truth, he replied, after a slight pause. 
 
 I did n't know Truth was such an invalid, I said. 
 How long is it since she could only take the air in 
 a close carriage, with a gentleman in a black coat on 
 the box? Let me tell you a story, adapted to young 
 persons, but which won't hurt older ones. 
 
 There was a very little boy who had one of those 
 balloons you may have seen, which are filled with light 
 gas, and are held by a string to keep them from run 
 ning off in aeronautic voyages on their own account. 
 This little boy had a naughty brother, who said to 
 him, one day, Brother, pull down your balloon, so 
 that I can look at it and take hold of it. Then the
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 109 
 
 little boy pulled it down. Now the naughty brother 
 had a sharp pin in his hand, and he thrust it into 
 the balloon, and all the gas oozed out, so that there 
 was nothing left but a shrivelled skin. 
 
 One evening, the .little boy's father called him to 
 the window to see the moon, which pleased him very 
 much ; but presently he said, Father, do not pull the 
 string and bring down the moon, for my naughty 
 brother will prick it, and then it will all shrivel up 
 and we shall not see it any more. 
 
 Then his father laughed, and told him how the 
 moon had been shining a good while, and would shine 
 a good while longer, and that all we could do was to 
 keep our windows clean, never letting the dust get too 
 thick on them, and especially to keep our eyes open, 
 but that we could not pull the moon down with a 
 string, nor prick it with a pin. Mind you this, too, 
 the moon is no man's private property, but is seen 
 from a good many parlor-windows. 
 
 Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bub 
 ble, at a touch ; nay, you may kick it about all day, 
 like a football, and it will be round and full at even 
 ing. Does not Mr. Bryant say, that Truth gets well 
 if she is run over by a locomotive, while Error dies of 
 lockjaw if she scratches her finger? I never heard 
 that a mathematician was alarmed for the safety of a 
 demonstrated proposition. I think, generally, that 
 fear of open discussion implies feebleness of inward 
 conviction, and great sensitiveness to the expression 
 of individual opinion is a mark of weakness. 
 
 I am not so much afraid for truth, said the 
 divinity-student, as for the conceptions of truth in 
 the minds of persons not accustomed to judge wisely 
 the opinions uttered before them.
 
 110 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Would you, then, banish all allusions to matters 
 of this nature from the society of people who come 
 together habitually ? 
 
 I would be very careful in introducing them, said 
 the divinity-student. 
 
 Yes, but friends of yours leave pamphlets in peo- 
 pie's entries, to be picked up by nervous misses and 
 hysteric housemaids, full of doctrines these people do 
 not approve. Some of your friends stop little chil 
 dren in the street, and give them books, which their 
 parents, who have had them baptized into the Chris 
 tian fold and give them what they consider proper 
 religious instruction, do not think fit for them. One 
 would say it was fair enough to talk about matters 
 thus forced upon people's attention. 
 
 The divinity-student could not deny that this was 
 what might be called opening the subject to the dis 
 cussion of intelligent people. 
 
 But, he said, the greatest objection is this, 
 that persons who have not made a professional study 
 of theology are not competent to speak on such sub 
 jects. Suppose a minister were to undertake to ex 
 press opinions on medical subjects, for instance, would 
 you not think he was going beyond his province? 
 
 I laughed, for I remembered John Wesley's 
 <c sulphur and supplication," and so many other cases 
 where ministers had meddled with medicine, some- 
 tunes well and sometimes ill, but, as a general rule, 
 with a tremendous lurch to quackery, owing to their 
 very loose way of admitting evidence, that I could 
 not help being amused. 
 
 I beg your pardon, I said, I do not wish to be 
 impolite, but I was thinking of their certificates to 
 patent medicines. Let us look at this matter.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. Ill 
 
 If a minister had attended lectures on the theory 
 and practice of medicine, delivered by those who had 
 studied it most deeply, for thirty or forty years, at the 
 rate of from fifty to one hundred a year, if he had 
 been constantly reading and hearing read the most 
 approved text-books on the subject, if he had seen 
 medicine actually practised according to different 
 methods, daily, for the same length of tune, I should 
 think, that if a person of average understanding, he 
 was entitled to express an opinion on the subject of 
 medicine, or else that his instructors were a set of 
 ignorant and incompetent charlatans. 
 
 If, before a medical practitioner would allow me 
 to enjoy the full privileges of the healing art, he 
 expected me to affirm my belief in a considerable 
 number of medical doctrines, drugs, and formulae, 
 I should think that he thereby implied my right to 
 discuss the same, and my ability to do so, if I knew 
 how to express myself in English. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, the Medical Society should 
 refuse to give us an opiate, or to set a broken limb, 
 until we had signed our belief in a certain number 
 of propositions, of which we will say this is the 
 first : 
 
 I. All men's teeth are naturally in a state of total 
 decay or caries, and, therefore, no man can bite until 
 every one of them is extracted and a new set is in 
 serted according to the principles of dentistry adopted 
 by this Society. 
 
 I, for one, should want to discuss that before sign 
 ing my name to it, and I should say this : Why, 
 no, that is n't true. There are a good many bad teeth, 
 we all know, but a great many more good ones. You 
 must n't trust the dentists ; they are all the time look-
 
 112 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 ing at the people who have bad teeth, and such as are 
 suffering from toothache. The idea that you must 
 pull out every one of every nice young man and young 
 woman's natural teeth! Poh, poh! Nobody believes 
 that. This tooth must be straightened, that must be 
 filled with gold, and this other perhaps extracted, but 
 it must be a very rare case, if they are all so bad as 
 to require extraction; and if they are, don't blame the 
 poor soul for it! Don't tell us, as some old dentists 
 used to, that everybody not only always has every 
 tooth in his head good for nothing, but that he ought 
 to have his head cut off as a punishment for that mis 
 fortune! No, I can't sign Number One. Give us 
 Number Two. 
 
 II. We hold that no man can be well who does not 
 agree with our views of the efficacy of calomel, and 
 who does not take the doses of it prescribed in our 
 tables, as there directed. 
 
 To which I demur, questioning why it should be so, 
 and get for answer the two following : 
 
 III. Every man who does not take our prepared 
 calomel, as prescribed by us in our Constitution and 
 By-Laws, is and must be a mass of disease from head 
 to foot ; it being self-evident that he is simultaneously 
 affected with Apoplexy, Arthritis, Ascites, Asphyxia, 
 and Atrophy; with Borborygmus, Bronchitis, and 
 Bulimia ; with Cachexia, Carcinoma, and Cretinismus ; 
 and so on through the alphabet, to Xerophthalmia and 
 Zona, with all possible and incompatible diseases 
 which are necessary to make up a totally morbid state \ 
 and he will certainly die, if he does not take freely of 
 our prepared calomel, to be obtained only of one of 
 our authorized agents. 
 
 IV. No man shall be allowed to take our prepared
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 113 
 
 calomel who does not give in his solemn adhesion 
 to each and all of the above-named and the following 
 propositions (from ten to a hundred) and show his 
 mouth to certain of our apothecaries, who have not 
 studied dentistry, to examine whether all his teeth 
 have been extracted and a new set inserted according 
 to our regulations. 
 
 Of course, the doctors have a right to say we sha'n't 
 have any rhubarb, if we don't sign their articles, and 
 that, if, after signing them, we express doubts (in pub 
 lic, about any of them, they will cut us off from our 
 jalap and squills, but then to ask a fellow not to 
 discuss the propositions before he signs them is what 
 I should call boiling it down a little too strong ! 
 
 If we understand them, why can't we discuss them? 
 If we can't understand them, because we have n't 
 taken a medical degree, what the Father of Lies do 
 they ask us to sign them for? 
 
 Just so with the graver profession. Every now and 
 then some of its members seem to lose common sense 
 and common humanity. The laymen have to keep 
 setting the divines right constantly. Science, for 
 instance, in other words, knowledge, < is not the 
 enemy of religion; for, if so, then religion would 
 mean ignorance. But it is often the antagonist of 
 school-divinity. 
 
 Everybody knows the story of early astronomy and 
 the school-divines. Come down a little later, Arch 
 bishop Usher, a very learned Protestant prelate, tells 
 us that the world was created on Sunday, the twenty- 
 third of October, four thousand and four years before 
 the birth of Christ. Deluge, December 7th, two 
 thousand three hundred and forty -eight years B. C. 
 Yes, and the earth stands on an elephant, and the
 
 114 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 elephant on a tortoise. One statement is as near the 
 truth as the other. 
 
 Again, there is nothing so brutalizing to some na 
 tures as moral surgery. I have often wondered that 
 Hogarth did not add one more picture to his four 
 stages of Cruelty. Those wretched fools, reverend 
 divdnes and others, who were strangling men and 
 women for imaginary crimes a little more than a cen 
 tury ago among us, were set right by a layman, and 
 very angry it made them to have him meddle. 
 
 The good people of Northampton had a very re 
 markable man for their clergyman, a man with a 
 brain as nicely adjusted for certain mechanical pro 
 cesses as Babbage's calculating machine. The com 
 mentary of the laymen on che preaching and practis 
 ing of Jonathan Edwards was, that, after twenty -three 
 years of endurance, they turned him out by a vote of 
 twenty to one, and passed a resolve that he should 
 never preach for them again. A man's logical and 
 analytical adjustments are of little consequence, com 
 pared to his primary relations with Nature and truth; 
 and people have sense enough to find it out in the 
 long run; they know what "logic" is worth. 
 
 In that miserable delusion referred to above, the rev 
 erend Aztecs and Fijians argued rightly enough from 
 their premises, no doubt, for many men can do this. 
 But common sense and common humanity were unfor 
 tunately left out from their premises, and a layman 
 had to supply them. A hundred more years and 
 many of the barbarisms still lingering among us will, 
 of course, have disappeared like witch-hanging. But 
 people are sensitive now, as they were then. You will 
 see by this extract that the Rev. Cotton Mather did 
 not like intermeddling with his business very welL
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 115 
 
 "Let the Levites of the Lord keep close to their In 
 structions," he says, "and God will smite thro' the 
 loins of those that rise up against them. I will re 
 port unto you a Thing which many Hundreds among 
 us know to be true. The Godly Minister of a certain 
 Town in Connecticut, when he had occasion to be 
 absent on a Lord's Day from his Flock, employ 'd an 
 honest Neighbour of some small Talents for a Mechan- 
 ick, to read a /Sermon out of some good Book unto 
 'em. This Honest, whom they ever counted also a 
 Pious Man, had so much conceit of his Talents, that 
 instead of Reading a Sermon appointed, he to the 
 fturprize of the People, fell to preaching one of his 
 own. For his Text he took these Words, 'Despise 
 not Prophecyings ' / and in his Preachment he betook 
 himself to bewail the Envy of the Clergy in the Land, 
 in that tjiey did not wish all the Lord's People to be 
 Prophets, and call forth Private Brethren publickly 
 to prophesie. While he was thus in the midst of his 
 Exercise, God smote him with horrible Madness ; he 
 was taken ravingly distracted; the People were forc'd 
 with violent Hands to carry him home. ... I will 
 not mention his Name: He was reputed a Pious 
 Man." This is one of Cotton Mather's "Remark 
 able Judgments of God, on Several Sorts of Offen 
 ders," and the next cases referred to are the Judg 
 ments on the "Abominable Sacrilege" of not paying 
 the Ministers' Salaries. 
 
 This sort of thing does n't do here and now, you see, 
 my young friend ! We talk about our free institu 
 tions ; they are nothing but a coarse outside ma 
 chinery to secure the freedom of individual thought. 
 The President of the United States is only the engine- 
 driver of our broad-gauge mail -train ; and every hon-
 
 116 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 est, independent thinker has a seat in the first-class 
 cars behind him. 
 
 There is something in what you say, replied 
 the divinity-student ; and yet it seems to me there 
 are places and times where disputed doctrines of reli^ 
 gion should not be introduced. You would not at 
 tack a church dogma say Total Depravity in a 
 lyceum-lecture, for instance? 
 
 Certainly not ; I should choose another place, I 
 answered. But, mind you, at this table I think it 
 is very different. I shall express my ideas on any 
 subject I like. The laws of the lecture-room, to which 
 my friends and myself are always amenable, do not 
 hold here. I shall not often give arguments, but 
 frequently opinions, I trust with courtesy and pro 
 priety, but, at any rate, with such natural forms of 
 expression as it has pleased the Almighty to bestow 
 upon me. 
 
 A man's opinions, look you, are generally of much 
 more value than his arguments. These last are made 
 by his brain, and perhaps he does not believe the prop 
 osition they tend to prove, as is often the case with 
 paid lawyers ; but opinions are formed by our whole 
 nature, brain, heart, instinct, brute life, everything 
 all our experience has shaped for us by contact with 
 the whole circle of our being. 
 
 There is one thing more, said the divinity-stu= 
 dent, that I wished to speak of ; I mean that idea 
 of yours, expressed some time since, of depolarizing 
 the text of sacred books in order to judge them fairly. 
 May I ask why you do not try the experiment your 
 self? 
 
 Certainly, I replied, if it gives you any pleas 
 ure to ask foolish questions. I think the ocean tele-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 117 
 
 graph-wire ought to be laid and will be laid, but I 
 don't know that you have any right to ask me to go 
 and lay it. But, for that matter, I have heard a good 
 deal of Scripture depolarized in and out of the pulpit. 
 I heard the Rev. Mr. F. once depolarize the story 
 of the Prodigal Son in Park-Street Church. Many 
 years afterwards, I heard him repeat the same or a 
 similar depolarized version in Rome, New York. I 
 heard an admirable depolarization of the story of the 
 young man who " had great possessions " from the 
 Rev. Mr. H. in another pulpit, and felt that I had 
 never half understood it before. All paraphrases are 
 more or less perfect depolarizations. But I tell you 
 this : the faith of our Christian community is not ro 
 bust enough to bear the turning of our most sacred 
 language into its depolarized equivalents. You have 
 only to look back to Dr. Channing's famous Balti 
 more discourse and remember the shrieks of blas 
 phemy with which it was greeted, to satisfy yourself 
 on this point. Time, time only, can gradually wean 
 us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritual 
 izing our ideas of the thing signified. Man is an idol 
 ater or symbol-worshipper by nature, which, of course, 
 is no fault of his ; but sooner or later all his local and 
 temporary symbols must be ground to powder, like 
 the golden calf, word-images as well as metal and 
 wooden ones. Rough work, iconoclasm, but the 
 only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that 
 quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons for Sleep 
 ers," hath it, "no doubt a thankless office, and a verie 
 unthriftie occupation; veritas odium parit, truth 
 never goeth without a scratcht face ; he that will be 
 busie with vce vobis, let him looke shortly for coram 
 no&is."
 
 118 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 The very aim and end of our institutions is just 
 this : that we may think what we like and say what 
 we think. 
 
 Think what we like ! said the divinity-student ; 
 think what we like! What! against all human 
 and divine authority? 
 
 Against all human versions of its own or any other 
 authority. At our own peril always, if we do not 
 like the right, but not at the risk of being hanged 
 and quartered for political heresy, or broiled on green 
 fagots for ecclesiastical treason ! Nay, we have got so 
 far, that the very word heresy has fallen into compar 
 ative disuse among us. 
 
 And now, my young friend, let us shake hands and 
 stop our discussion, which we will not make a quarrel. 
 I trust you know, or will learn, a great many things 
 in your profession which we common scholars do not 
 know; but mark this: when the common people of 
 New England stop talking politics and theology, it 
 will be because they have got an Emperor to teach 
 them the one, and a Pope to teach them the other ! 
 
 That was the end of my long conference with the 
 divinity-student. The next morning we got talking 
 a little on the same subject, very good-naturedly, as 
 people return to a matter they have talked out. 
 
 You must look to yourself, said the divinity-stu 
 dent, if your democratic notions get into print. 
 You will be fired into from all quarters. 
 
 If it were only a bullet, with the marksman's name 
 on it! I said. I can't stop to pick out the peep- 
 shot of the anonymous scribblers. 
 
 Right, Sir! right! said the Little Gentleman. 
 The scamps! I know the fellows. They can't give 
 fifty cents to one of the Antipodes, but they must
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 119 
 
 have it jingled along through everybody's palms all 
 the way, till it reaches him, and forty cents of it 
 gets spilt, like the water out of the fire-buckets passed 
 along a " lane " at a fire ; but when it comes to anon 
 ymous defamation, putting lies into people's mouths, 
 and then advertising those people through the country 
 as the authors of them, oh, then it is that they let 
 not their left hand know what their right hand doeth ! 
 
 I don't like Ehud's style of doing business, Sir. 
 He conies along with a very sanctimonious look, Sir, 
 with his "secret errand unto thee," and his " message 
 from God unto thee," and then pulls out his hidden 
 knife with that unsuspected hand of his, (the Little 
 Gentleman lifted his clenched left hand with the blood- 
 red jewel on the ring-finger,) and runs it, blade and 
 haft, into a man's stomach! Don't meddle with 
 these fellows, Sir. They are read mostly by persons 
 whom you would not reach, if you were to write ever 
 so much. Let 'em alone. A man whose opinions 
 are not attacked is beneath contempt. 
 
 I hope so, I said. I got three pamphlets and 
 innumerable squibs flung at my head for attacking one 
 of the pseudo-sciences, in former years. When, by 
 the permission of Providence, I held up to the pro 
 fessional public the damnable facts connected with the 
 conveyance of poison from one young mother's cham 
 ber to another's, for doing which humble office I 
 desire to be thankful that I have lived, though no 
 thing else good should ever come of my life, I had 
 to bear the sneers of those whose position I had as 
 sailed, and, as I believe, have at last demolished, so 
 that nothing but the ghosts of dead women stir among 
 the ruins. What would you do, if the folks without 
 names kept at you, trying to get a San Benito on to
 
 120 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 your shoulders that would fit you? Would you 
 stand still in fly-time, or would you give a kick now 
 and then? 
 
 Let 'em bite ! said the Little Gentleman, let 
 'em bite! It makes 'em hungry to shake 'em off, and 
 they settle down again as thick as ever and twice as 
 savage. Do you know what meddling with the folks 
 without names, as you call 'em, is like ? It is like 
 riding at the quintain. You run full tilt at the 
 board, but the board is on a pivot, with a bag of sand 
 on an arm that balances it. The board gives way as 
 soon as you touch it ; and before you have got by, the 
 bag of sand comes round whack on the back of your 
 neck. "Ananias," for instance, pitches into your lec 
 ture, we will say, in some paper taken by the people 
 in your kitchen. Your servants get saucy and neg 
 ligent. If their newspaper calls you names, they need 
 not be so particular about shutting doors softly or 
 boiling potatoes. So you lose your temper, and come 
 out in an article which you think is going to finish 
 "Ananias," proving him a booby who doesn't know 
 enough to understand even a lyceum-lecture, or else L 
 person that tells lies. Now you think you 've got 
 him! Not so fast. "Ananias " keeps still and winks 
 to "Shimei," and "Shimei" comes out in the paper 
 which they take in your neighbor's kitchen, ten times 
 worse than t' other fellow. If you meddle with 
 "Shimei," he steps out, and next week appears 
 "Rab-shakeh," an unsavory wretch; and now, at any 
 rate, you find out what good sense there was in Heze- 
 kiah's "Answer him not." No, no, keep your 
 temper. So saying, the Little Gentleman doubled 
 his left fist and looked at it as if he should like to 
 hit something or somebody a most pernicious punch 
 with it.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 121 
 
 Good ! said I. Now let me give you some ax 
 ioms I have arrived at, after seeing something of a 
 great many kinds of good folks. 
 
 Of a hundred people of each of the different 
 leading religious sects, about the same proportion will 
 be safe and pleasant persons to deal and to live with. 
 
 There are, at least, three real saints among the 
 women to one among the men, in every denomination. 
 
 The spiritual standard of different classes I would 
 reckon thus : 
 
 1. The comfortably rich. 
 
 2. The decently comfortable. 
 
 3. The very rich, who are apt to be irreligious. 
 
 4. The very poor, who are apt to be immoral. 
 
 The cut nails of machine-divinity may be driven 
 in, but they won't clinch. 
 
 The arguments which the greatest of our school 
 men could not refute were two : the blood in men's 
 veins, and the milk in women's breasts. 
 
 Humility is the first of the virtues for other 
 people. 
 
 Faith always implies the disbelief of a lesser fact 
 in favor of a greater. A little mind often sees the 
 unbelief, without seeing the belief of a large one. 
 
 The Poor Relation had been fidgeting about and 
 working her mouth while all this was going on. She 
 broke out in speech at this point. 
 
 I hate to hear folks talk so. I don't see that you 
 are any better than a heathen. 
 
 I wish I were half as good as many heathens have 
 been, I said. Dying for a principle seems to me 
 a higher degree of virtue than scolding for it ; and the 
 history of heathen races is full of instances where men 
 have laid down their lives for the love of their kind,
 
 122 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 of their country, of truth, nay, even for simple man 
 hood's sake, or to show their obedience or fidelity. 
 What would not such beings have done for the souls 
 of men, for the Christian commonwealth, for the King 
 of Kings, if they had lived in days of larger light? 
 Which seems to you nearest heaven, Socrates drink 
 ing his hemlock, Regulus going back to the enemy's 
 camp, or that old New England divine sitting com-, 
 fortably in his study and chuckling over his conceit 
 of certain poor women, who had been burned to death 
 in his own town, going "roaring out of one fire into 
 another"? 
 
 I don't believe he said any such thing, replied 
 the Poor Relation. 
 
 It is hard to believe, said I, but it is true for 
 all that. In another hundred years it will be as in 
 credible that men talked as we sometimes hear them 
 now. 
 
 Pectus est quodfacit theologum. The heart makes 
 the theologian. Every race, every civilization, either 
 has a new revelation of its own or a new interpreta 
 tion of an old one. Democratic America has a dif 
 ferent humanity from feudal Europe, and so must 
 have a new divinity. See, for one moment, how in 
 telligence reacts on our faiths. The Bible was a 
 divining-book to our ancestors, and is so still in the 
 hands of some of the vulgar. The Puritans went to 
 the Old Testament for their laws ; the Mormons go 
 to it for their patriarchal institution. Every gener 
 ation dissolves something new and precipitates some 
 thing once held in solution from that great storehouse 
 of temporary and permanent truths. 
 
 You may observe this: that the conversation of 
 intelligent men of the stricter sects is strangely in
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 123 
 
 advance of the formulae that belong to their organiza 
 tions. So true is this, that I have doubts whether a 
 large proportion of them would not have been rather 
 pleased than offended, if they could have overheard 
 our talk. For, look you, I think there is hardly a 
 professional teacher who will not in private conversa 
 tion allow a large part of what we have said, though 
 it may frighten him in print ; and I know well what 
 an under-current of secret sympathy gives vitality to 
 those poor words of mine which sometimes get a hear 
 ing. 
 
 I don't mind the exclamation of any old stager who 
 drinks Madeira worth from two to six Bibles a bottle, 
 and burns, according to his own premises, a dozen 
 souls a year in the cigars with which he muddles his 
 brains. But as for the good and true and intelli 
 gent men whom we see all around us, laborious, self- 
 denying, hopeful, helpful, men who know that the 
 active mind of the century is tending more and more 
 to the two poles, Rome and Reason, the sovereign 
 church or the free soul, authority or personality, God 
 in us or God in our masters, and that, though a man 
 may by accident stand half-way between these two 
 points, he must look one way or the other, I don't 
 believe they would take offence at anything I have 
 reported of our late conversation. 
 
 But supposing any one do take offence at first sight, 
 let him look over these notes again, and see whether 
 he is quite sure he does not agree with most of these 
 things that were said amongst us. If he agrees with 
 most of them, let him be patient with an opinion he 
 does not accept, or an expression or illustration a lit 
 tle too vivacious. I don't know that I shall report 
 any more conversations on these topics; but I do in-
 
 124 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 sist on the right to express a civil opinion on this class 
 of subjects without giving offence, just when and 
 where I please, unless, as in the lecture-room, there 
 is an implied contract to keep clear of doubtful mat 
 ters. You did n't think a man could sit at a break 
 fast-table doing nothing but making puns every morn 
 ing for a year or two, and never give a thought to the 
 two thousand of his fellow-creatures who are passing 
 into another state during every hour that he sits talk 
 ing and laughing. Of course, the one matter that a 
 real human being cares for is what is going to become 
 of them and of him. And the plain truth is, that a 
 good many people are saying one thing about it and 
 believing another. 
 
 How do I know that ? Why, I have known and 
 loved to talk with good people, all the way from Rome 
 to Geneva in doctrine, as long as I can remember. 
 Besides, the real religion of the world comes from 
 women much more than from men, from mothers 
 most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their 
 bosoms. It is in their hearts that the "sentimental" 
 religion some people are so fond of sneering at has its 
 source. The sentiment of love, the sentiment of ma 
 ternity, the sentiment of the paramount obligation of 
 the parent to the child as having called it into exis 
 tence, enhanced just in proportion to the power and 
 knowledge of the one and the weakness and ignorance 
 of the other, these are the "sentiments " that have 
 kept our soulless systems from driving men off to die 
 in holes like those that riddle the sides of the hill op 
 posite the Monastery of St. Saba, where the miserable 
 victims of a falsely -interpreted religion starved and 
 withered in their delusion. 
 
 I have looked on the face of a saintly woman this
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 125 
 
 very day, whose creed many dread and hate, but 
 whose life is lovely and noble beyond all praise. 
 When I remember the bitter words I have heard 
 spoken against her faith, by men who have an In 
 quisition which excommunicates those who ask to leave 
 their communion in peace, and an Index Expurgato- 
 rius on which this article may possibly have the honor 
 of figuring, and, far worse than these, the reluctant, 
 pharisaical confession, that it might perhaps be pos 
 sible that one who so believed should be accepted of 
 the Creator, and then recall the sweet peace and 
 love that show through all her looks, the price of un 
 told sacrifices and labors, and again recollect how 
 thousands of women, filled with the same spirit, die, 
 without a murmur, to earthly life, die to their own 
 names even, that they may know nothing but their 
 holy duties, while men are torturing and denoun 
 cing their fellows, and while we can hear day and 
 night the clinking of the hammers that are trying, 
 like the brute forces in the "Prometheus," to rivet 
 their adamantine wedges right through the breast of 
 human nature, I have been ready to believe that we 
 have even now a new revelation, and the name of its 
 Messiah is WOMAN ! 
 
 I should be sorry, I remarked, a day or two 
 afterwards, to the divinity-student, if anything I 
 said tended in any way to foster any jealousy between 
 the professions, or to throw disrespect upon that one 
 on whose counsel and sympathies almost all of us lean 
 in our moments of trial. But we are false to our 
 new conditions of life, if we do not resolutely main 
 tain our religious as well as our political freedom, in 
 the face of any and all supposed monopolies. Certain 
 men will, of course, say two things, if we do not take
 
 126 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 their views : first, that we don't know anything about 
 these matters; and, secondly, that we are not so good 
 as they are. They have a polarized phraseology for 
 saying these things, but it comes to precisely that. 
 To which it may be answered, in the first place, that 
 we have good authority for saying that even babes and 
 sucklings know something; and, in the second, that, 
 if there is a mote or so to be removed from our prem 
 ises, the courts and councils of the last few years have 
 found beams enough in some other quarters to build a 
 church that would hold all the good people in Boston 
 and have sticks enough left to make a bonfire for all 
 the heretics. 
 
 As to that terrible depolarizing process of mine, of 
 which we were talking the other day, I will give you a 
 specimen of one way of managing it, if you like. I 
 don't believe it will hurt you or anybody. Besides, I 
 had a great deal rather finish our talk with pleasant 
 images and gentle words than with sharp sayings, 
 which will only afford a text, if anybody repeats 
 them, for endless relays of attacks from Messrs. An 
 anias, Shimei, and Rab-shakeh. 
 
 [I must leave such gentry, if any of them show 
 themselves, in the hands of my clerical friends, many 
 of whom are ready to stand up for the rights of the 
 laity, and to those blessed souls, the good women, 
 to whom this version of the story of a mother's hidden 
 hopes and tender anxieties is dedicated by their peace" 
 ful and loving servant.J
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 127 
 
 A MOTHER'S SECRET. 
 
 How sweet the sacred legend if unblamed 
 In my slight verse such holy things are named 
 Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy, 
 Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy 1 
 Ave, Maria ! Pardon, if I wrong 
 Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song ! 
 
 The choral host had closed the angel's strain 
 Sung to the midnight watch on Bethlehem's plain ; 
 And now the shepherds, hastening on their way, 
 Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay. 
 They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled o'er, 
 They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor 
 Where Moab's daughter, homeless and forlorn, 
 Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn ; 
 And some remembered how the holy scribe, 
 Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe, 
 Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son 
 To that fair alien, bravely wooed and won. 
 So fared they on to seek the promised sign 
 That marked the anointed heir of David's line. 
 
 At last, by forms of earthly semblance led, 
 They found the crowded inn, the oxen's shed. 
 No pomp was there, no glory shone around 
 On the coarse straw that strewed the reeking ground 
 One dim retreat a flickering torch betrayed, 
 In that poor cell the Lord of Life was laid ! 
 
 The wondering shepherds told their breathless tale 
 Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping vale ; 
 Told how the skies with sudden glory flamed ; 
 Told how the shining multitude proclaimed 
 Si Joy, joy to earth ! Behold the hallowed morn ! 
 In David's city Christ the Lord is born ! 
 1 Glory to God ! ' let angels shout on high, 
 ' Good-will to men ! ' the listening Earth reply ! " 
 
 They spoke with hurried words and accents wild ; 
 Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. 
 No trembling word the mother's joy revealed, 
 One sigh of rapture, and her lips were sealed ;
 
 128 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart, 
 But kept their words to ponder in her heart. 
 
 Twelve years had passed ; the boy was fair and tall, 
 Growing in wisdom, finding grace with all. 
 The maids of Nazareth, as they trooped to fill 
 Their balanced urns beside the mountain-rill, 
 The gathered matrons, as they sat and spun, 
 Spoke in soft words of Joseph's quiet son. 
 No voice had reached the Galilean vale 
 Of star-led kings or awe-struck shepherds' tale ; 
 In the meek, studious child they only saw 
 The future Rabbi, learned in Israel's law. 
 
 So grew the boy ; and now the feast was near, 
 When at the holy place the tribes appear. 
 Scarce had the home-bred child of Nazareth seen 
 Beyond the hills that girt the village-green, 
 Save when at midnight, o'er the star-lit sands, 
 Snatched from the steel of Herod's murdering bands, 
 A babe, close-folded to his mother's breast, 
 Through Edom's wilds he sought the sheltering West. 
 
 Then Joseph spake : " Thy boy hath largely grown j 
 Weave him fine raiment, fitting to be shown ; 
 Fair robes beseem the pilgrim, as the priest : 
 Goes he not with us to the holy feast ? " 
 
 And Mary culled the flaxen fibres white ; 
 Till eve she spun ; she spun till morning light. 
 The thread was twined ; its parting meshes through 
 From hand to hand her restless shuttle flew, 
 Till the full web was wound upon the beam, 
 Love's curious toil, a vest without a seam ! 
 
 They reach the holy place, fulfil the days 
 To solemn feasting given, and grateful praise. 
 At last they turn, and far Moriah's height 
 Melts in the southern sky and fades from sight. 
 All day the dusky caravan has flowed 
 In devious trails along the winding road, 
 (For many a step their homeward path attends, 
 And all the sons of Abraham are as friends.) 
 Evening has come, the hour of rest and joy ; 
 Hush ! hush ! that whisper, " Where is Mary's boy ? *
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 129 
 
 O weary hour ! O aching days that passed 
 Filled with strange fears, each wilder than the last : 
 The soldier's lance, the fierce centurion's sword, 
 The crushing wheels that whirl some Roman lord, 
 The midnight crypt that sucks the captive's breath, 
 The blistering sun on Hinnom's vale of death ! 
 
 Thrice on his cheek had rained the morning light, 
 Thrice on his lips the mildewed kiss of night, 
 Crouched by some porphyry column's shining plinth, 
 Or stretched beneath the odorous terebinth. 
 
 At last, in desperate mood, they sought once more 
 The Temple's porches, searched in vain before ; 
 They found him seated with the ancient men, 
 The grim old rufflers of the tongue and pen, 
 Their bald heads glistening as they clustered near, 
 Their gray beards slanting as they turned to hear, 
 Lost in half-envious wonder and surprise 
 That lips so fresh should utter words so wise. 
 
 And Mary said, as one who, tried too long, 
 Tells all her grief and half her sense of wrong, 
 " What is this thoughtless thing which thou hast done ? 
 Lo, we have sought thee sorrowing, O my son ! " 
 Few words he spake, and scarce of filial tone, 
 Strange words, their sense a mystery yet unknown ; 
 Then turned with them and left the holy hill, 
 To all their mild commands obedient still. 
 
 The tale was told to Nazareth's sober men, 
 And Nazareth's matrons told it oft again ; 
 The maids retold it at the fountain's side ; 
 The youthful shepherds doubted or denied ; 
 It passed around among the listening friends, 
 With all that fancy adds and fiction lends, 
 Till newer marvels dimmed the young renown 
 Of Joseph's son, who talked the Rabbis down. 
 
 But Mary, faithful to its lightest word, 
 Kept in her heart the sayings she had heard, 
 Till the dread morning rent the Temple's veil, 
 And shuddering Earth confirmed the wondrous tale. 
 
 Youth fades ; love droops ; the leaves of friendship fall 
 A mother's secret hope outlives them all.
 
 130 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 VI. 
 
 You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you 
 did a while back. Bloated some, I expect. 
 
 This was the cheerful and encouraging and elegant 
 remark with which the Poor Relation greeted the di 
 vinity-student one morning. 
 
 Of course every good man considers it a great sacri 
 fice on his part to continue living in this transitory, 
 unsatisfactory, and particularly unpleasant world. 
 This is so much a matter of course, that I was sur 
 prised to see the divinity-student change color. He 
 took a look at a small and uncertain -minded glass 
 which hung slanting forward over the chapped side 
 board. The image it returned to him had the color 
 of a very young pea somewhat over-boiled. The scen 
 ery of a long tragic drama flashed through his mind 
 as the lightning-express-train whishes by a station: 
 the gradual dismantling process of disease; friends 
 looking on, sympathetic, but secretly chuckling over 
 their own stomachs of iron and lungs of caoutchouc; 
 nurses attentive, but calculating their crop, and think 
 ing how soon it will be ripe, so that they can go to 
 your neighbor, who is good for a year or so longer ; 
 doctors assiduous, but giving themselves a mental 
 shake, as they go out of your door, which throws off 
 your particular grief as a duck sheds a raindrop from 
 his oily feathers; undertakers solemn, but happy; 
 then the great subsoil cultivator, who plants, but never 
 looks for fruit in his garden ; then the stone-cutter, 
 who puts your name on the slab which has been wait 
 ing for you ever since the birds or beasts made their 
 tracks on the new red sandstone ; then the grass and
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 131 
 
 the dandelions and the buttercups, Earth saying 
 to the mortal body, with her sweet symbolism, "You 
 have scarred my bosom, but you are forgiven " ; then 
 a glimpse of the soul as a floating consciousness with 
 out very definite form or place, but dimly conceived 
 of as an upright column of vapor or mist several tunes 
 larger than life-size, so far as it could be said to have 
 any size at all, wandering about and living a thin and 
 half -awake life for want of good old-fashioned solid 
 matter to come down upon with foot and fist, in 
 fact, having neither foot nor fist, nor conveniences 
 for taking the sitting posture. 
 
 And yet the divinity-student was a good Christian, 
 and those heathen images which remind one of the 
 childlike fancies of the dying Adrian were only the 
 efforts of his imagination to give shape to the form 
 less and position to the placeless. Neither did his 
 thoughts spread themselves out and link themselves 
 as I have displayed them. They came confusedly into 
 his mind like a heap of broken mosaics, sometimes 
 a part of the picture complete in itself, sometimes 
 connected fragments, and sometimes only single sev 
 ered stones. 
 
 They did not diffuse a light of celestial joy over his 
 countenance. On the contrary, the Poor Relation's re 
 mark turned him pale, as I have said ; and when the 
 terrible wrinkled and jaundiced looking-glass turned 
 him green in addition, and he saw himself in it, it 
 seemed to him as if it were all settled, and his book 
 of life were to be shut not yet half -read, and go 
 back to the dust of the under-ground archives. He 
 coughed a mild short cough, as if to point the direc 
 tion in which his downward path was tending. It 
 was an honest little cough enough, so far as appear-
 
 132 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 ances went. But coughs are ungrateful things. You 
 find one out in the cold, take it up and nurse it and 
 make everything of it, dress it up warm, give it all 
 sorts of balsams and other food it likes, and carry it 
 round in your bosom as if it were a miniature lapdog. 
 And by-and-by its little bark grows sharp and savage, 
 and confound the thing! you find it is a wolf 's 
 whelp that you have got there, and he is gnawing in 
 the breast where he has been nestling so long. The 
 Poor Relation said that somebody's surrup was good 
 for folks that were gettin' into a bad way. The 
 landlady had heard of desperate cases cured by cherry- 
 pictorial. 
 
 Whiskey 's the fellah, said the young man John. 
 Make it into punch, cold at dinner-time 'n' hot at 
 bed-time. I '11 come up 'n' show you how to mix it. 
 Have n't any of you seen the wonderful fat man 
 exhibitin' down in Hanover Street? 
 
 Master Benjamin Franklin rushed into the dialogue 
 with a breezy exclamation, that he had seen a great 
 picter outside of the place where the fat man was ex 
 hibitin'. Tried to get in at half-price, but the man 
 at the door looked at his teeth and said he was 
 more 'n ten year old. 
 
 It is n't two years, said the young man John, 
 since that fat fellah was exhibitin' here as the Livin' 
 Skeleton. Whiskey that's what did it, real 
 Burbon 's the stuff. Hot water, sugar, 'n' jest a 
 little shavin' of lemon-skin in it, skin, mind you, 
 none o' your juice; take it off thin, shape of one 
 of them flat curls the factory -girls wear on the sides 
 of their foreheads. 
 
 But I am a teetotaller, said the divinity-student 
 in a subdued tone ; not noticing the enormous length 
 of the bow-string the young fellow had just drawn.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 133 
 
 He took up his hat and went out. 
 
 I think you have worried that young man more than 
 you meant, I said. I don't believe he will jump 
 off one of the bridges, for he has too much principle ; 
 but I mean to follow him and see where he goes, for 
 he looks as if his mind were made up to something. 
 
 I followed him at a reasonable distance. He 
 walked doggedly along, looking neither to the right 
 nor the left, turned into State Street, and made for 
 a well-known Life-Insurance Office. Luckily, the 
 doctor was there and overhauled him on the spot. 
 There was nothing the matter with him, he said, and 
 he could have his life insured as a sound one. He 
 came out in good spirits, and told me this soon after. 
 
 This led me to make some remarks the next morn 
 ing on the manners of well-bred and ill-bred people. 
 
 I began, The whole essence of true gentle-breed 
 ing (one does not like to say gentility) lies in the wish 
 and the art to be agreeable. Good-breeding is sur 
 face- Christianity. Every look, movement, tone, ex 
 pression, subject of discourse, that may give pain to 
 another is habitually excluded from conversational 
 intercourse. This is the reason why rich people are 
 apt to be so much more agreeable than others. 
 
 I thought you were a great champion of equality, 
 said the discreet and severe lady who had accompa 
 nied our young friend, the Latin Tutor's daughter. 
 
 I go politically for equality, I said, and so 
 cially for the quality. 
 
 Who are the "quality," said the Model, etc., 
 in a community like ours? 
 
 I confess I find this question a little difficult to an 
 swer, I said. Nothing is better known than the
 
 134 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 distinction of social ranks which exists in every com 
 munity, and nothing is harder to define. The great 
 gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords 
 and masters and mistresses; they are the quality, 
 whether in a monarchy or a republic; mayors and 
 governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents 
 are nothing to them. How well we know this, and 
 how seldom it finds a distinct expression ! Now I tell 
 you truly, I believe in man as man, and I disbelieve 
 in all distinctions except such as follow the natural 
 lines of cleavage in a society which has crystallized 
 according to its own true laws. But the essence of 
 equality is to be able to say the truth ; and there is 
 nothing more curious than these truths relating to the 
 stratification of society. 
 
 Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold 
 of immortality, there is not one so intensely real, per 
 manent, and engrossing as this of social position, as 
 you see by the circumstances that the core of all the 
 great social orders the world has seen has been, and is 
 still, for the most part, a privileged class of gentlemen 
 and ladies arranged in a regular scale of precedence 
 among themselves, but superior as a body to all else. 
 
 Nothing but an ideal Christian equality, which we 
 have been getting farther away from since the days of 
 the Primitive Church, can prevent this subdivision of 
 society into classes from taking place everywhere, 
 in the great centres of our republic as much as in old 
 European monarchies. Only there position is more 
 absolutely hereditary, here it is more completely 
 elective. 
 
 Where is the election held? and what are the 
 qualifications? and who are the electors? said the 
 Model.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 135 
 
 Nobody ever sees when the vote is taken; there 
 never is a formal vote. The women settle it mostly ; - 
 and they know wonderfully well what is presentable, 
 and what can't stand the blaze of the chandeliers and 
 the critical eye and ear of people trained to know a 
 staring shade in a ribbon, a false light in a jewel, an 
 ill-bred tone, an angular movement, everything that 
 betrays a coarse fibre and cheap training. As a gen 
 eral thing, you do not get elegance short of two or 
 three removes from the soil, out of which our best 
 blood doubtless comes, quite as good, no doubt, as 
 if it came from those old prize-fighters with iron pots 
 on their heads, to whom some great people are so fond 
 of tracing their descent through a line of small arti 
 sans and petty shopkeepers whose veins have held 
 "base " fluid enough to fill the Cloaca Maxima! 
 
 Does not money go everywhere ? said the Model. 
 
 Almost. And with good reason. For though 
 there are numerous exceptions, rich people are, as I 
 said, commonly altogether the most agreeable com 
 panions. The influence of a fine house, graceful fur 
 niture, good libraries, well-ordered tables, trim ser 
 vants, and, above all, a position so secure that one 
 becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmony and re 
 finement to the character and manners which we feel, 
 if we cannot explain their charm. Yet we can get at 
 the reason of it by thinking a little. 
 
 All these appliances are to shield the sensibility 
 from disagreeable contacts, and to soothe it by va 
 ried natural and artificial influences. In this way the 
 mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just as 
 the hands grow white and soft when saved from toil 
 and incased in soft gloves. The whole nature becomes 
 subdued into suavity. I confess I like the quality-
 
 136 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 ladies better than the common kind even of literary 
 ones. They have n't read the last book, perhaps, but 
 they attend better to you when you are talking to 
 them. If they are never learned, they make up for it 
 in tact and elegance. Besides, I think, on the whole, 
 there is less self-assertion ip diamonds than in dog 
 mas. I don't know where you will find a sweeter 
 portrait of humility than in Esther, the poor play-girl 
 of King Ahasuerus ; yet Esther put on her royal ap 
 parel when she went before her lord. I have no doubt 
 she was a more gracious and agreeable person than 
 Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the story 
 of Sisera. The wisest woman you talk with is igno 
 rant of something that you know, but an elegant wo 
 man never forgets her elegance. 
 
 Dowdyism is clearly an expression of imperfect 
 vitality. The highest fashion is intensely alive, not 
 alive necessarily to the truest and best things, but with 
 its blood tingling, as it were, in all its extremities and 
 to the farthest point of its surface, so that the feather 
 in its bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a fighting- 
 cock, and the rosette on its slipper as clean-cut and 
 pimpant (pronounce it English fashion, it is a good 
 word) as a dahlia. As a general rule, that society 
 where flattery is acted is much more agreeable than 
 that where it is spoken. Don't you see why? At 
 tention and deference don't require you to make fine 
 speeches expressing your sense of unworthiness (lies) 
 and returning all the compliments paid you. This is 
 one reason. 
 
 A woman of sense ought to be above flattering 
 any man, said the Model. 
 
 \My reflection. Oh! oh! no wonder you didn't 
 get married. Served you right.] My remark.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 137 
 
 Surely, Madam, if you mean by flattery telling peo 
 ple boldly to their faces that they are this or that, 
 which they are not. But a woman who does not carry 
 about with her wherever she goes a halo of good feel 
 ing and desire to make everybody contented, an at 
 mosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six 
 feet radius, which wraps every human being upon 
 whom she voluntarily bestows her presence, and so 
 flatters him with the comfortable thought that she is 
 rather glad he is alive than otherwise, is n't worth the 
 trouble of talking to, as a woman ; she may do well 
 enough to hold discussions with. 
 
 I don't think the Model exactly liked this. She 
 said, a little spitefully, I thought, that a sensible 
 man might stand a little praise, but would of course 
 soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit of getting 
 much. 
 
 Oh, yes, I replied, just as men get sick of to 
 bacco. It is notorious how apt they are to get tired 
 of that vegetable. 
 
 That 's so ! said the young fellow John, I 've 
 got tired of my cigars and burnt 'em all up. 
 
 I am heartily glad to hear it, said the Model, 
 I wish they were all disposed of in the same way. 
 
 So do I, said the young fellow John. 
 
 Can't you get your friends to unite with you in com 
 mitting those odious instruments of debauchery to the 
 flames in which you have consumed your own ? 
 
 I wish I could, said the young fellow John. 
 
 It would be a noble sacrifice, said the Model, 
 and every American woman would be grateful to you. 
 Let us burn them all in a heap out in the yard. 
 
 That a'n't my way, said the young fellow John; 
 1 burn 'em one 't' time, little end in my mouth 
 and big end outside.
 
 138 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 I watched for the effect of this sudden change of 
 programme, when it should reach the calm stillness 
 of the Model's interior apprehension, as a boy watches, 
 for the splash of a stone which he has dropped into a 
 well. But before it had fairly reached the water, 
 poor Iris, who had followed the conversation with a 
 certain interest until it turned this sharp corner, 
 (for she seems rather to fancy the young fellow John,) 
 laughed out such a clear, loud laugh, that it started 
 us all off, as the locust-cry of some full-throated so 
 prano drags a multitudinous chorus after it. It was 
 plain that some dam or other had broken in the soul 
 of this young girl, and she was squaring up old scores 
 of laughter, out of which she had been cheated, with 
 a grand flood of merriment that swept all before it. 
 So we had a great laugh all round, in which the 
 Model who, if she had as many virtues as there 
 are spokes to a wheel, all compacted with a personal 
 ity as round and complete as its tire, yet wanted 
 that one little addition of grace, which seems so 
 small, and is as important as the linchpin in trun 
 dling over the rough ways of life had not the tact 
 to join. She seemed to be "stuffy" about it, as the 
 young fellow John said. In fact, I was afraid the 
 joke would have cost us both our new lady -boarders. 
 It had no effect, however, except, perhaps, to hasten 
 the departure of the elder of the two, who could, on 
 the whole, be spared. 
 
 I had meant to make this note of our conversa 
 tion a text for a few axioms on the matter of breeding. 
 But it so happened, that, exactly at this point of my 
 record, a very distinguished philosopher, whom several 
 of our boarders and myself go to hear, and whom no 
 doubt many of my readers follow habitually, treated
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 139 
 
 this matter of manners. Up to this point, if I have 
 been so fortunate as to coincide with him in opinion, 
 and so unfortunate as to try to express what he has 
 more felicitously said, nobody is to blame ; for what 
 has been given thus far was all written before the lec 
 ture was delivered. But what shall I do now ? He 
 told us it was childish to lay down rules for deport 
 ment, but he could not help laying down a few. 
 
 Thus, Nothing so vulgar as to be in a hurry. 
 True, but hard of application. People with short legs 
 step quickly, because legs are pendulums, and swing 
 more times in a minute the shorter they are. Gener 
 ally a natural rhythm runs through the whole organiza 
 tion : quick pulse, fast breathing, hasty speech, rapid 
 trains of thought, excitable temper. /Stillness of per 
 son and steadiness of features are signal marks of 
 good-breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or, at 
 least, they must work their limbs or features. 
 
 Talking of one's own ails and grievances. Bad 
 enough, but not so bad as insulting the person you 
 talk with by remarking on his ill-looks, or appearing 
 to notice any of his personal peculiarities. 
 
 Apologizing. A very desperate habit, one that 
 is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side 
 out. Nine times out of ten, the first thing a man's 
 companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apol 
 ogy. It is mighty presumptuous on your part to sup 
 pose your small failures of so much consequence that 
 you must make a talk about them. 
 
 Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips 
 that can wait, and eyes that do not wander, shyness 
 of personalities, except in certain intimate commu 
 nions, to be light in hand in conversation, to have 
 ideas, but to be able to make talk, if necessary, with-
 
 140 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 out them, to belong to the company you are in, and 
 not to yourself, to have nothing in your dress or 
 furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil it 
 and get another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies, 
 throughout your person and dwelling: I should say 
 that this was a fair capital of manners to begin with. 
 Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies 
 very commonly an overestimate of our special individ 
 uality, as distinguished from our generic humanity. 
 It is just here that the very highest society asserts its 
 superior breeding. Among truly elegant people of 
 the highest ton, you will find more real equality in 
 social intercourse than in a country village. As nuns 
 drop their birth-names and become Sister Margaret 
 and Sister Mary, so high-bred people drop their per 
 sonal distinctions and become brothers and sisters of 
 conversational charity. Nor are fashionable people 
 without their heroism. I believe there are men who 
 have shown as much self-devotion in carrying a lone 
 wall-flower down to the supper-table as ever saint or 
 martyr in the act that has canonized his name. There 
 are Florence Nightingales of the ballroom, whom no 
 thing can hold back from their errands of mercy. 
 They find out the red-handed, gloveless undergradu 
 ate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms in his corner, 
 and distil their soft words upon him like dew upon 
 the green herb. They reach even the poor relation, 
 whose dreary apparition saddens the perfumed atmos= 
 phere of the sumptuous drawing-room. I have known 
 one of these angels ask, of her own accord, that a des 
 olate middle-aged man, whom nobody seemed to know, 
 should be presented to her by the hostess. He wore 
 no shirt-collar, he had on black gloves, and was 
 flourishing a red bandanna handkerchief ! Match me
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 141 
 
 this, ye proud children of poverty, who boast of your 
 paltry sacrifices for each other ! Virtue in humble 
 life ! What is that to the glorious self -renunciation of 
 a martyr in pearls and diamonds ? As I saw this no 
 ble woman bending gracefully before the social men- 
 dicant, the white billows of her beauty heaving un 
 der the foam of the traitorous laces that half revealed 
 them, I should have wept with sympathetic emo 
 tion, but that tears, except as a private demonstration, 
 are an ill-disguised expression of self-consciousness 
 and vanity, which is inadmissible in good society. 
 
 I have sometimes thought, with a pang, of the po 
 sition in which political chance or contrivance might 
 hereafter place some one of our fellow-citizens. It 
 has happened hitherto, so far as my limited knowledge 
 goes, that the President of the United States has 
 always been what might be called in general terms a 
 gentleman. But what if at some future time the 
 choice of the people should fall upon one on whom 
 that lofty title could not, by any stretch of charity, be 
 bestowed ? This may happen, how soon the future 
 only knows. Think of this miserable man of coming 
 political possibilities, an unpresentable boor sucked 
 into office by one of those eddies in the flow of popu 
 lar sentiment which carry straws and chips into the 
 public harbor, while the prostrate trunks of the mon- 
 archs of the forest hurry down on the senseless stream 
 to the gulf of political oblivion I Think of him, I say, 
 and of the concentrated gaze of good society through 
 its thousand eyes, all confluent, as it were, in one great 
 burning-glass of ice that shrivels its wretched object 
 in fiery torture, itself cold as the glacier of an un- 
 sunnjkd cavern ! No, there will be angels of good- 
 breeding then as now, to shield the victim of free in-
 
 142 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 stitutions from himself and from his torturers. I can 
 fancy a lovely woman playfully withdrawing the knife 
 which he would abuse by making it an instrument for 
 the conveyance of food, or, failing in this kind ar 
 tifice, sacrificing herself by imitating his use of that 
 implement; how much harder than to plunge it into 
 her bosom, like Lucretia ! I can see her studying in 
 his provincial dialect until she becomes the Champol- 
 lion of New England or Western or Southern barba 
 risms. She has learned that Jiaow means what ; that 
 think/in* is the same thing as thinking, or she has 
 found out the meaning of that extraordinary mono 
 syllable, which no single-tongued phonographer can 
 make legible, prevailing on the banks of the Hudson 
 and at its embouchure, and elsewhere, what they 
 say when they think they say first, (fe-eest, fe as 
 in the French le), or that cheer means chair, or 
 that urritation means irritation, and so of other 
 enormities. Nothing surprises her. The highest 
 breeding, you know, comes round to the Indian stand 
 ard, to take everything coolly, nil admirari, 
 if you happen to be learned and like the Roman 
 phrase for the same thing. 
 
 If you like the company of people that stare at you 
 from head to foot to see if there is a hole in your coat, 
 or if you have not grown a little older, or if your 
 eyes are not yellow with jaundice, or if your complex 
 ion is not a little faded, and so on, and then convey 
 the fact to you, in the style in which the Poor Rela 
 tion addressed the divinity-student, go with them as 
 much as you like. I hate the sight of the wretches. 
 Don't for mercy's sake think I hate them ; the dis 
 tinction is one my friend or I drew long ago. No 
 matter where you find such people ; they are clowns.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 143 
 
 The rich woman who looks and talks in this way is 
 not half so much a lady as her Irish servant, whose 
 pretty "saving your presence," when she has to say 
 something which offends her natural sense of good man 
 ners, has a hint in it of the breeding of courts, and 
 the blood of old Milesian kings, which very likely 
 runs in her veins, thinned by two hundred years of 
 potato, which, being an underground fruit, tends to 
 drag down the generations that are made of it to the 
 earth from which it came, and, filling their veins with 
 starch, turn them into a kind of human vegetable. 
 
 I say, if you like such people, go with them. But 
 I am going to make a practical application of the ex 
 ample at the beginning of this particular record, which 
 some young people who are going to choose profes 
 sional advisers by-and-by may remember and thank 
 me for. If you are making choice of a physician, 
 be sure you get one, if possible, with a cheerful and 
 serene countenance. A physician is not at least, 
 ought not to be an executioner ; and a sentence of 
 death on his face is as bad as a warrant for execution 
 signed by the Governor. As a general rule, no man 
 has a right to tell another by word or look that he is 
 going to die. It may be necessary in some extreme 
 cases ; but as a rule, it is the last extreme of imperti 
 nence which one human being can offer to another. 
 "You have killed me," said a patient once to a phy 
 sician who had rashly told him he was incurable. He 
 ought to have lived six months, but he was dead in six 
 weeks. If we will only let Nature and the God of 
 Nature alone, persons will commonly learn their con 
 dition as early as they ought to know it, and not be 
 cheated out of their natural birthright of hope of re 
 covery, which is intended to accompany sick people as
 
 144 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 long as life is comfortable, and is graciously replaced 
 by the hope of heaven, or at least of rest, when life 
 has become a burden which the bearer is ready to let 
 fall. 
 
 Underbred people tease their sick and dying friends 
 to death. The chance of a gentleman or lady with a 
 given mortal ailment to live a certain time is as good 
 again as that of the common sort of coarse people. 
 As you go down the social scale, you reach a point at 
 length where the common talk in sick rooms is of 
 churchyards and sepulchres, and a kind of perpetual 
 vivisection is forever carried on, upon the person of 
 the miserable sufferer. 
 
 And so, in choosing your clergyman, other things 
 being equal, prefer the one of a wholesome and cheer 
 ful habit of mind and body. If you can get along 
 with people who carry a certificate in their faces that 
 their goodness is so great as to make them very mis 
 erable, your children cannot. And whatever offends 
 one of these little ones cannot be right in the eyes of 
 Him who loved them so well. 
 
 After all, as you are a gentleman or a lady, you 
 will probably select gentlemen for your bodily and 
 spiritual advisers, and then all will be right. 
 
 This repetition of the above words, gentleman 
 and lady, which could not be conveniently avoided, 
 reminds me what strange uses are made of them by 
 those who ought to know what they mean. Thus, at 
 a marriage ceremony, once, of two very excellent per 
 sons who had been at service, instead of, Do you take 
 this man, etc. ? and, Do you take this woman ? how 
 do you think the officiating clergyman put the ques 
 tions? It was, Do you, Miss So and So, take this 
 GENTLEMAN? and, Do you, MR. This or That, take
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 145 
 
 this LADY ? ! What would any English duchess, ay, 
 or the Queen of England herself, have thought, if 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury had called her and her 
 bridegroom anything but plain woman and man at 
 such a time? 
 
 I don't doubt the Poor Relation thought it was all 
 very fine, if she happened to be in the church ; but 
 if the worthy man who uttered these monstrous words 
 monstrous in such a connection had known the 
 ludicrous surprise, the convulsion of inward disgust 
 and contempt, that seized upon many of the persons 
 who were present, had guessed what a sudden flash 
 of light it threw on the Dutch gilding, the pinchbeck, 
 the shabby, perking pretension belonging to certain 
 social layers, so inherent in their whole mode of 
 being, that the holiest offices of religion cannot ex 
 clude its impertinences, the good man would have 
 given his marriage-fee twice over to recall that su 
 perb and full-blown vulgarism. Any persons whom 
 it could please could have no better notion of what 
 the words referred to signify than of the meaning of 
 apsides and asymptotes. 
 
 MAN! Sir! WOMAN! Sir! Gentility is a fine 
 thing, not to be undervalued, as I have been trying to 
 explain; but humanity comes before that. 
 
 " When Adam delved and Eve span, 
 Who was then the gentleman ? " 
 
 The beauty of that plainness of speech and manners 
 .which comes from the finest training is not to be un 
 derstood by those whose habitat is below a certain 
 level. Just as the exquisite sea-anemones and all the 
 graceful ocean-flowers die out at some fathoms below 
 the surface, the elegances and suavities of life die out
 
 146 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 one by one as we sink through the social scale. For 
 tunately, the virtues are more tenacious of life, and 
 last pretty well until we get down to the mud of ab 
 solute pauperism, where they do not flourish greatly. 
 
 I had almost forgotten about our boarders. As 
 the Model of all the Virtues is about to leave us, I 
 find myself wondering what is the reason we are not 
 all very sorry. Surely we all like good persons. 
 She is a good person. Therefore we like her. Only 
 we don't. 
 
 This brief syllogism, and its briefer negative, in 
 volving the principle which some English conveyancer 
 borrowed from a French wit and embodied in the lines 
 by which Dr. Fdl is made unamiably immortal, 
 this syllogism, I say, is one that most persons have 
 had occasion to construct and demolish, respecting 
 somebody or other, as I have done for the Model. 
 "Pious and painefull." Why has that excellent old 
 phrase gone out of use? Simply because these good 
 painefull or painstaking persons proved to be such 
 nuisances in the long run, that the word "painefull" 
 came, before people thought of it, to mean paingiv- 
 ing instead of painstaking. 
 
 So, the old fellah 's off to-morrah, said the 
 young man John. 
 
 Old fellow? said I, whom do you mean? 
 Why, the one that came with our little beauty, 
 the old fellah in petticoats. 
 
 Now that means something, said I to myself. 
 These rough young rascals very often hit the nail 
 on the head, if they do strike with their eyes shut. A 
 real woman does a great many things without knowing 
 why she does them ; but these pattern machines mix 
 up their intellects with everything they do, just like
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 147 
 
 men. They can't help it, no doubt; but we can't 
 help getting sick of them, either. Intellect is to a 
 woman's nature what her watch-spring skirt is to her 
 dress ; it ought to underlie her silks and embroider 
 ies, but not to show itself too staringly on the outside. 
 You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell you; 
 the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and 
 the heart the reddest. Whatever comes from the 
 brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and 
 whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and 
 color of its birthplace. 
 
 The young man John did not hear my soliloquy, of 
 course, but sent up one more bubble from our sinking 
 conversation, in the form of a statement, that she was 
 at liberty to go to a personage who receives no visits, 
 as is commonly supposed, from virtuous people. 
 
 Why, I ask again, (of my reader,) should a person 
 who never did anybody any wrong, but, on the con 
 trary, is an estimable and intelligent, nay, a particu 
 larly enlightened and exemplary member of society, 
 fail to inspire interest, love, and devotion? Because 
 of the reversed current in the flow of thought and emo 
 tion. The red heart sends all its instincts up to the 
 white brain to be analyzed, chilled, blanched, and so 
 become pure reason, which is just exactly what we do 
 not want of woman as woman. The current should 
 run the other way. The nice, calm, cold thought, 
 which in women shapes itself so rapidly that they 
 hardly know it as thought, should always travel to the 
 lips via the heart. It does so in those women whom 
 all love and admire. It travels the wrong way in the 
 Model. That is the reason why the Little Gentleman 
 said "I hate her, I hate her." That is the reason why 
 the young man John called her the "old fellah," and
 
 148 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 banished her to the company of the great Unpresent 
 able. That is the reason why I, the Professor, am 
 picking her to pieces with scalpel and forceps. That 
 is the reason why the young girl whom she has be 
 friended repays her kindness with gratitude and re~ 
 spect, rather than with the devotion and passionate 
 fondness which lie sleeping beneath the calmness of 
 her amber eyes. I can see her, as she sits between 
 this estimable and most correct of personages and the 
 misshapen, crotchety, often violent and explosive lit 
 tle man on the other side of her, leaning and sway 
 ing towards him as she speaks, and looking into his 
 sad eyes as if she found some fountain in them at 
 which her soul could quiet its thirst. 
 
 Women like the Model are a natural product of a 
 chilly climate and high culture. It is not 
 
 " The frolic wind that breathes the spring, 
 Zephyr with Aurora playing," 
 
 when the two meet 
 
 " on beds of violets blue, 
 
 And fresh-blown roses washed in dew," 
 
 that claim such women as their offspring. It is rather 
 the east wind, as it blows out of the fogs of Newfound 
 land, and clasps a clear-eyed wintry noon on the chill 
 bridal couch of a New England ice-quarry. Don't 
 throw up your cap now, and hurrah as if this were 
 giving up everything, and turning against the best 
 growth of our latitudes, the daughters of the soil. 
 The brain-women never interest us like the heart- 
 women; white roses please less than red. But our 
 Northern seasons have a narrow green streak of 
 spring, as well as a broad white zone of winter,*
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 149 
 
 they have a glowing band of summer and a golden 
 stripe of autumn in their many -colored wardrobe ; and 
 women are born to us that wear all these hues of earth 
 and heaven in their souls. Our ice-eyed brain-women 
 are really admirable, if we only ask of them just what 
 they can give, and no more. Only compare them, 
 talking or writing, with one of those babbling, chat 
 tering dolls, of warmer latitudes, who do not know 
 enough even to keep out of print, and who are inter 
 esting to us only as specimens of arrest of develop 
 ment for our psychological cabinets. 
 
 Good-bye, Model of all the Virtues! We can 
 spare you now. A little clear perfection, undiluted 
 with human weakness, goes a great way. Go! be 
 useful, be honorable and honored, be just, be charita 
 ble, talk pure reason, and help to disenchant the world 
 by the light of an achromatic understanding. Good 
 bye! Where is my Be ranger? I must read a verse 
 or two of "Fretillon." 
 
 Fair play for all. But don't claim incompatible 
 qualities for anybody. Justice is a very rare virtue 
 in our community. Everything that public sentiment 
 cares about is put into a Papin's digester, and boiled 
 under high pressure till all is turned into one homo 
 geneous pulp, and the very bones give up their jelly. 
 What are all the strongest epithets of our dictionary 
 to us now? The critics and politicians, and especially 
 the philanthropists, have chewed them, till they are 
 mere wads of syllable-fibre, without a suggestion of 
 their old pungency and power. 
 
 Justice ! A good man respects the rights even of 
 brute matter and arbitrary symbols. If he writes the 
 same word twice in succession, by accident, he always 
 erases the one that stands second; has not the first-
 
 150 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 comer the prior right? This act of abstract justice, 
 which I trust many of my readers, like myself, have 
 often performed, is a curious anti-illustration, by the 
 way, of the absolute wickedness of human disposi 
 tions. Why does n't a man always strike out the first 
 of the two words, to gratify his diabolical love of in 
 justice ? 
 
 So, I say, we owe a genuine, substantial tribute of 
 respect to these filtered intellects which have left their 
 womanhood on the strainer. They are so clear that it 
 is a pleasure at times to look at the world of thought 
 through them. But the rose and purple tints of richer 
 natures they cannot give us, and it is not just to them 
 to ask. it. 
 
 Fashionable society gets at these rich natures very 
 often in a way one would hardly at first think of. It 
 loves vitality above all things, sometimes disguised by 
 affected languor, always well kept under by the laws 
 of good-breeding, but still it loves abundant life, 
 opulent and showy organizations, the spherical 
 rather than the plane trigonometry of female architec 
 ture, plenty of red blood, flashing eyes, tropical 
 voices, and forms that bear the splendors of dress 
 without growing pale beneath their lustre. Among 
 these you will find the most delicious women you will 
 ever meet, women whom dress and flattery and the 
 round of city gayeties cannot spoil, talking with 
 whom, you forget their diamonds and laces, and 
 around whom all the nice details of elegance, which 
 the cold-blooded beauty next them is scanning so 
 nicely, blend in one harmonious whole, too perfect to 
 be disturbed by the petulant sparkle of a jewel, or the 
 yellow glare of a bangle, or the gay toss of a feather. 
 
 There are many things that I, personally, love bet-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 151 
 
 ter than fashion or wealth. Not to speak of those 
 highest objects of our love and loyalty, I think I love 
 ease and independence better than the golden slavery 
 of perpetual matinees and soirees, or the pleasures of 
 accumulation. 
 
 But fashion and wealth are two very solemn reali 
 ties, which the frivolous class of moralists have talked 
 a great deal of silly stuff about. Fashion is only the 
 attempt to realize Art in living forms and social in 
 tercourse. What business has a man who knows no 
 thing about the beautiful, and cannot pronounce the 
 word view, to talk about fashion to a set of people 
 who, if one of the quality left a card at their doors, 
 would contrive to keep it on the very top of their heap 
 of the names of their two-story acquaintances, till it 
 was as yellow as the Codex Vaticanus? 
 
 Wealth, too, what an endless repetition of the 
 same foolish trivialities about it! Take the single 
 fact of its alleged uncertain tenure and transitory 
 character. In old times, when men were all the time 
 fighting and robbing each other, in those tropical 
 countries where the Sabeans and the Chaldeans stole 
 all a man's cattle and camels, and there were fright 
 ful tornadoes and rains of fire from heaven, it was 
 true enough that riches took wings to themselves not 
 unfrequently in a very unexpected way. But, with 
 common prudence in investments, it is not so now. 
 In fact, there is nothing earthly that lasts so well, on 
 the whole, as money. A man's learning dies with 
 him; even his virtues fade out of remembrance, but 
 the dividends on the stocks he bequeaths to his chil 
 dren live and keep his memory green. 
 
 I do not think there is much courage or originality 
 in giving utterance to truths that everybody knows,
 
 152 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 but which get overlaid by conventional trumpery. 
 The only distinction which it is necessary to point out 
 to feeble-minded folk is this: that, in asserting the 
 breadth and depth of that significance which gives to 
 fashion and fortune their tremendous power, we do 
 not indorse the extravagances which often disgrace the 
 one, nor the meanness which often degrades the other, 
 
 A remark which seems to contradict a universally 
 current opinion is not generally to be taken "neat," 
 but watered with the ideas of common-sense and com 
 monplace people. So, if any of my young friends 
 should be tempted to waste their substance on white 
 kids and "all-rounds," or to insist on becoming mil- 
 lionnaires at once, by anything I have said, I will give 
 them references to some of the class referred to, well 
 known to the public as providers of literary diluents, 
 who will weaken any truth so that there is not an 
 old woman in the land who cannot take it with perfect 
 impunity. 
 
 I am afraid some of the blessed saints in diamonds 
 will think I mean to flatter them. I hope not ; if I 
 do, set it down as a weakness. But there is so much 
 foolish talk about wealth and fashion, (which, of 
 course, draw a good many heartless and essentially 
 vulgar people into the glare of their candelabra, but 
 which have a real respectability and meaning, if we 
 will only look at them stereoscopically, with both 
 eyes instead of one,) that I thought it a duty to speak 
 a few words for them. Why can't somebody give us 
 a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody 
 says, and another list of things that everybody says 
 and nobody thinks ? 
 
 Lest my parish should suppose we have forgotten
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 153 
 
 graver matters in these lesser topics, I beg them to 
 drop these trifles and read the following lesson for the 
 day. 
 
 THE TWO STREAMS. 
 
 Behold the rocky wall 
 That down its sloping sides 
 
 Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, 
 In rushing river-tides ! 
 
 Yon stream, whose sources run 
 Turned by a pebble's edge, 
 Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun 
 Through the cleft mountain-ledge. 
 
 The slender rill had strayed, 
 But for the slanting stone, 
 To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid 
 Of foam-flecked Oregon. 
 
 So from the heights of Will 
 Life's parting stream descends, 
 And, as a moment turns its slender rill, 
 Each widening torrent bends, 
 
 From the same cradle's side, 
 From the same mother's knee, 
 One to long darkness and the frozen tide, 
 One to the Peaceful Sea ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 Our landlady's daughter is a young lady of some 
 pretensions to gentility. She wears her bonnet well 
 back on her head, which is known by all to be a mark 
 of high breeding. She wears her trains very long, as 
 the great ladies do in Europe. To be sure, their 
 dresses are so made only to sweep the tapestried floors
 
 154 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 of chateaux and palaces ; as those odious aristocrats 
 of the other side do not go draggling through the mud 
 in silks and satins, but, forsooth, must ride in coaches 
 when they are in full dress. It is true, that, consid 
 ering various habits of the American people, also the 
 little accidents which the best-kept sidewalks are lia 
 ble to, a lady who has swept a mile of them is not ex 
 actly in such a condition that one would care to be her 
 neighbor. But then there is no need of being so hard 
 on these slight weaknesses of the poor, dear women 
 as our little deformed gentleman was the other day. 
 
 There are no such women as the Boston women, 
 Sir, he said. Forty -two degrees, north latitude, 
 Rome, Sir, Boston, Sir! They had grand women in 
 old Rome, Sir, and the women bore such men 
 children as never the world saw before. And so it was 
 here, Sir. I tell you, the revolution the Boston boys 
 started had to run in woman's milk before it ran in 
 man's blood, Sir ! 
 
 But confound the make-believe women we have 
 turned loose in our streets ! where do they come 
 from? Not out of Boston parlors, I trust. Why, 
 there is n't a beast or a bird that would drag its tail 
 through the dirt in the way these creatures do their 
 dresses. Because a queen or a duchess wears long 
 robes on great occasions, a maid-of -all-work or a fac 
 tory-girl thinks she must make herself a nuisance by 
 trailing through the street, picking up and carrying 
 
 about with her pah ! that 's what I call getting 
 
 vulgarity into your bones and marrow. Making be 
 lieve be what you are not is the essence of vulgarity.' 
 Show over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. 
 If any man can walk behind one of these women and 
 see what she rakes up as she goes, and not feel squeam-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 155 
 
 ish, he has got a tough stomach. I would n't let one 
 of 'em into my room without serving 'em as David 
 served Saul at the cave in the wilderness, cut off 
 his skirts, Sir ! cut off his skirts ! 
 
 I suggested, that I had seen some pretty stylish 
 ladies who offended in the way he condemned. 
 
 Stylish women, I don't doubt, said the Little 
 Gentleman. Don't tell me that a true lady ever sac 
 rifices the duty of keeping all about her sweet and 
 clean to the wish of making a vulgar show. I won't 
 believe it of a lady. There are some things that no 
 fashion has any right to touch, and cleanliness is one 
 of those things. If a woman wishes to show that her 
 husband or her father has got money, which she wants 
 and means to spend, but doesn't know how, let her 
 buy a yard or two of silk and pin it to her dress when 
 she goes out to walk, but let her unpin it before she 
 goes into the house ; there may be poor women that 
 will think it worth disinfecting. It is an insult to a 
 respectable laundress to carry such things into a 
 house for her to deal with. I don't like the Bloomers 
 any too well, in fact, I never saw but one, and she 
 or he, or it had a mob of boys after her, or what 
 ever you call the creature, as if she had been a 
 
 The Little Gentleman stopped short, flushed 
 somewhat, and looked round with that involuntary, 
 suspicious glance which the subjects of any bodily 
 misfortune are very apt to cast round them. His 
 eye wandered over the company, none of whom, ex 
 cepting myself and one other, had, probably, noticed 
 the movement. They fell at last on Iris, his next 
 neighbor, you remember. 
 
 We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at 
 a person, if that person's eyes have been fixed on us.
 
 156 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 
 
 Sometimes we are conscious of it before we turn so 
 as to see the person. Strange secrets of curiosity, of 
 impertinence, of malice, of love, leak out in this way. 
 There is no need of Mrs. Felix Lorraine's reflection 
 in the mirror, to tell us that she is plotting evil for us 
 behind our backs. . We know it, as we know by the 
 ominous stillness of a child that some mischief or other 
 is going on. A young girl betrays, in a moment, 
 that her eyes have been feeding on the face where you 
 find them fixed, and not merely brushing over it with 
 their pencils of blue or brown light. 
 
 A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, 
 you may also observe, to that upon which we look. 
 Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops to gather 
 them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow. 
 When we look at a vast landscape, our chests expand 
 as if we would enlarge to fill it. When we examine 
 a minute object, we naturally contract, not only our 
 foreheads, but all our dimensions. If I see two men 
 wrestling, I wrestle too, with my limbs and features. 
 When a country-fellow comes upon the stage, you 
 will see twenty faces in the boxes putting on the 
 bumpkin expression. There is no need of multiply 
 ing instances to reach this generalization ; every per 
 son and thing we look upon puts its special mark 
 upon us. If this is repeated often enough, we get a 
 permanent resemblance to it, or, at least, a fixed as 
 pect which we took from it. Husband and wife come 
 to look alike at last, as has often been noticed. It is 
 a common saying of a jockey, that he is "all horse"; 
 and I have often fancied that milkmen get a stiff, up 
 right carriage, and an angular movement of the arm, 
 that remind one of a pump and the working of its 
 handle.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 157 
 
 All this came in by accident, just because I hap 
 pened to mention that the Little Gentleman found 
 that Iris had been looking at him with her soul in her 
 eyes, when his glance rested on her after wandering 
 round the company. What he thought, it is hard to 
 say ; but the shadow of suspicion faded off from his 
 face, and he looked calmly into the amber eyes, rest 
 ing his cheek upon the hand that wore the red jewel. 
 
 If it were a possible thing, women are such 
 strange creatures ! Is there any trick that love and 
 their own fancies do not play them? Just see how 
 they marry ! A woman that gets hold of a bit of 
 manhood is like one of those Chinese wood-carvers who 
 work on any odd, fantastic root that comes to hand, 
 and, if it is only bulbous above and bifurcated below, 
 will always contrive to make a man such as he is 
 out of it. I should like to see any kind of a man, 
 distinguishable from a Gorilla, that some good and 
 even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. 
 
 A child, yes, if you choose to call her so, 
 but such a child ! Do you know how Art brings all 
 ages together? There is no age to the angels and 
 ideal human forms among which the artist lives, and 
 he shares their youth until his hand trembles and his 
 eye grows dim. The youthful painter talks of white- 
 bearded Leonardo as if he were a brother, and the 
 veteran forgets that Raphael died at an age to which 
 his own is of patriarchal antiquity. 
 
 But why this lover of the beautiful should be so 
 drawn to one whom Nature has wronged so deeply 
 seems hard to explain. Pity, I suppose. They say 
 that leads to love. 
 
 I thought this matter over until I became excited 
 and curious, and determined to set myself more seri-
 
 158 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 ously at work to find out what was going on in these 
 wild hearts and where their passionate lives were drift 
 ing. I say wild hearts and passionate lives, because 
 I think I can look through this seeming calmness of 
 youth and this apparent feebleness of organization, 
 and see that Nature, whom it is very hard to cheat, 
 is only waiting as the sapper waits in his mine, 
 knowing that all is in readiness and the slow-match 
 burning quietly down to the powder. He will leave 
 it by-and-by, and then it will take care of itself. 
 
 One need not wait to see the smoke coming through 
 the roof of a house and the flames breaking out of the 
 windows to know that the building is on fire. Hark ! 
 There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, 
 but very knowing little creeping crackle that is toler 
 ably intelligible. There is a whiff of something float 
 ing about, suggestive of toasting shingles. Also a 
 sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings 
 one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on. 
 Oh, oh, oh ! do you know what has got hold 
 of you? It is the great red dragon that is born of the 
 little red eggs we call sparks, with his hundred blow 
 ing red manes, and his thousand lashing red tails, and 
 his multitudinous red eyes glaring at every crack and 
 key-hole, and his countless red tongues lapping the 
 beams he is going to crunch presently, and his hot 
 breath warping the panels and cracking the glass and 
 making old timber sweat that had forgotten it was 
 ever alive with sap. Run for your life ! leap ! or 
 you will be a cinder in five minutes, that nothing but 
 a coroner would take for the wreck of a human being ! 
 
 If any gentleman will have the kindness to stop this 
 run-away comparison, I shall be much obliged to him. 
 All I intended to say was, that we need not wait for
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 159 
 
 hearts to break out in flames to know that they are full 
 of combustibles and that a spark has got among them. 
 I don't pretend to say or know what it is that brings 
 these two persons together; and when I say to 
 gether, I only mean that there is an evident affinity 
 of some kind or other which makes their commonest 
 intercourse strangely significant, as that each seems to 
 understand a look or a word of the other. When the 
 young girl laid her hand on the Little Gentleman's 
 arm, which so greatly shocked the Model, you may 
 remember, I saw that she had learned the lion- 
 tamer's secret. She masters him, and yet I can see 
 she has a kind of awe of him, as the man who goes 
 into the cage has of the monster that he makes a 
 baby of. 
 
 One of two things must happen. The first is love, 
 downright love, on the part of this young girl, for the 
 poor little misshapen man. You may laugh, if you 
 like. But women are apt to love the men who they 
 think have the largest capacity of loving; and who 
 can love like one that has thirsted all his life long for 
 the smile of youth and beauty, and seen it fly his 
 presence as the wave ebbed from the parched lips of 
 him whose fabled punishment is the perpetual type of 
 human longing and disappointment? What would 
 become of him, if this fresh soul should stoop upon 
 him in her first young passion, as the flamingo drops 
 out of the sky upon some lonely and dark lagoon in 
 the marshes of Cagliari, with a flutter of scarlet feath 
 ers and a kindling of strange fires in the shadowy 
 waters that hold her burning image? 
 
 -Marry her, of course? Why, no, not of 
 course. I should think the chance less, on the whole, 
 that he would be willing to marry her than she to 
 marry him.
 
 160 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 There is one other thing that might happen. If 
 the interest he awakes in her gets to be a deep one, 
 and yet has nothing o love in it, she will glance off 
 from him into some great passion or other. All ex 
 citements run to love in women of a certain let us 
 not say age, but youth. An electrical current passing 
 through a coil of wire makes a magnet of a bar of 
 iron lying within it, but not touching it. So a 
 woman is turned into a love-magnet by a tingling cur 
 rent of life running round her. I should like to see 
 one of them balanced on a pivot properly adjusted, 
 and watch if she did not turn so as to point north and 
 south, as she would, if the love-currents are like 
 those of the earth our mother. 
 
 Pray, do you happen to remember Wordsworth's 
 "Boy of Windermere"? This boy used to put his 
 hands to his mouth, and shout aloud, mimicking the 
 hooting of the owls, who would answer him 
 
 " with quivering peals, 
 
 And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud 
 Redoubled and redoubled." 
 
 When they failed to answer him, and he hung lis 
 tening intently for their voices, he would sometimes 
 catch the faint sound of far distant waterfalls, or 
 the whole scene around him would imprint itself with 
 new force upon his perceptions. Read the sonnet, if 
 you please ; it is Wordsworth all over, trivial in 
 subject, solemn in style, vivid in description, prolix 
 in detail, true metaphysically, but immensely sugges 
 tive of "imagination," to use a mild term, when re 
 lated as an actual fact of a sprightly youngster. 
 
 All I want of it is to enforce the principle, that, 
 when the door of the soul is once opened to a guest, 
 there is no knowing who will come in next.
 
 1 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 161 
 
 Our young girl keeps up her early habit of 
 sketching heads and characters. Nobody is, I should 
 think, more faithful and exact in the drawing of the 
 academical figures given her as lessons, but there is a 
 perpetual arabesque of fancies that runs round the 
 margin of her drawings, and there is one book which 
 I know she keeps to run riot in, where, if anywhere, 
 a shrewd eye would be most likely to read her 
 thoughts. This book of hers I mean to see, if I can 
 get at it honorably. 
 
 I have never yet crossed the threshold of the Little 
 Gentleman's chamber. How he lives, when he once 
 gets within it, I can only guess. His hours are late, 
 as I have said; often, on waking late in the night, I 
 see the light through cracks in his window-shutters on 
 the wall of the house opposite. If the times of witch 
 craft were not over, I should be afraid to be so close 
 a neighbor to a place from which there come such 
 strange noises. Sometimes it is the dragging of some 
 thing heavy over the floor, that makes me shiver to 
 hear it, it sounds so like what people that kill other 
 people have to do now and then. Occasionally I hear 
 very sweet strains of music, whether of a wind or 
 stringed instrument, or a human voice, strange as it 
 may seem, I have often tried to find out, but through 
 the partition I could not be quite sure. If I have not 
 heard a woman cry and moan, and then again laugh 
 as though she would die laughing, I have heard sounds 
 so like them that I am a fool to confess it I have 
 covered my head with the bedclothes ; for I have had 
 a fancy in my dreams, that I could hardly shake off 
 when I woke up, about that so-called witch that was 
 his great-grandmother, or whatever it was, a soit 
 of fancy that she visited the Little Gentleman, a
 
 162 THE PROFESSOE AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 young woman in old-fashioned dress, with a red ring 
 round her white neck, not a neck-lace, but a dull 
 stain. 
 
 Of course you don't suppose that 1 have any foolish 
 superstitions about the matter, I, the Professor, 
 who have seen enough to take all that nonsense out of 
 any man's head ! It is not our beliefs that frighten 
 us half so much as our fancies. A man not only be 
 lieves, but knows he runs a risk, whenever he steps 
 into a railroad car; but it doesn't worry him much. 
 On the other hand, carry that man across a pasture a 
 little way from some dreary country -village, and show 
 him an old house where there were strange deaths a 
 good many years ago, and there are rumors of ugly 
 spots on the walls, the old man hung himself in the 
 garret, that is certain, and ever since the country -peo 
 ple have called it "the haunted house," the owners 
 have n't been able to let it since the last tenants left 
 on account of the noises, so it has fallen into sad 
 decay, and the moss grows on the rotten shingles of 
 the roof, and the clapboards have turned black, and 
 the windows rattle like teeth that chatter with fear, 
 and the walls of the house begin to lean as if its knees 
 were shaking, take the man who didn't mind the 
 real risk of the cars to that old house, on some dreary 
 November evening, and ask him to sleep there alone, 
 how do you think he will like it? He doesn't be 
 lieve one word of ghosts, but then he knows, that, 
 whether waking or sleeping, his imagination will peo 
 ple the haunted chambers with ghostly images. It is 
 not what we believe, as I said before, that frightens 
 us commonly, but what we conceive. A principle that 
 reaches a good way if I am not mistaken. I say, 
 then, that, if these odd sounds coming from the Little
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 163 
 
 Gentleman's chamber sometimes make me nervous, so 
 that I cannot get to sleep, it is not because I suppose 
 he is engaged in any unlawful or mysterious way. 
 The only wicked suggestion that ever came into my 
 head was one that was founded on the landlady's story 
 of his having a pile of gold ; it was a ridiculous fancy ; 
 besides, I suspect the story of sweating gold was only 
 one of the many fables got up to make the Jews odious 
 and afford a pretext for plundering them. As for the 
 sound like a woman laughing and crying, I never said 
 it was a woman's voice; for, in the first place, I could 
 only hear indistinctly ; and, secondly, he may have an 
 organ, or some queer instrument or other, with what 
 they call the vox humana stop. If he moves his bed 
 round to get away from the window, or for any such 
 reason, there is nothing very frightful in that simple 
 operation. Most of our foolish conceits explain them 
 selves in some such simple way. And yet, for all 
 that, I confess, that, when I woke up the other even 
 ing, and heard, first a sweet complaining cry, and 
 then footsteps, and then the dragging sound, no 
 thing but his bed, I am quite sure, I felt a stirring 
 in the roots of my hair as the feasters did in Keats 's 
 terrible poem of "Lamia." 
 
 There is nothing very odd in my feeling nervous 
 when I happen to lie awake and get listening for 
 sounds. Just keep your ears open any time after 
 midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic 
 of a dark night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, 
 unaccountable noises you will hear ! The stillness of 
 night is a vulgar error. All the dead things seem to 
 be alive. Crack ! That is the old chest of drawers ; 
 you never hear it crack in the daytime. Creak ! 
 There 's a door ajar; you know you shut them all.
 
 164 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Where can that latch be that rattles so? Is anybody 
 
 trying it softly? or, worse than any body, is ? 
 
 (Cold shiver.) Then a sudden gust that jars all the 
 windows ; very strange ! there does not seem to 
 be any wind about that it belongs to. When it stops, 
 you hear the worms boring in the powdery beams 
 overhead. Then steps outside, a stray animal, no 
 doubt. All right, but a gentle moisture breaks out 
 all over you ; and then something like a whistle or a 
 cry, another gust of wind, perhaps ; that accounts 
 for the rustling that just made your heart roll over 
 and tumble about, so that it felt more like a live rat 
 under your ribs than a part of your own body ; then 
 a crash of something that has fallen, blown over, 
 
 very likely Pater noster, qui es in codis ! for 
 
 you are damp and cold, and sitting bolt upright, and 
 the bed trembling so that the death-watch is fright 
 ened and has stopped ticking ! 
 
 No, night is an awful time for strange noises and 
 secret doings. Who ever dreamed, till one of our 
 sleepless neighbors told us of it, of that Walpurgis 
 gathering of birds and beasts of prey, foxes, and 
 owls, and crows, and eagles, that come from all the 
 country round on moonshiny nights to crunch the 
 clams and muscles, and pick out the eyes of dead 
 fishes that the storm has thrown on Chelsea Beach? 
 Our old mother Nature has pleasant and cheery tones 
 enough for us when she comes in her dress of blue and 
 gold over the eastern hill -tops; but when she follows 
 us up-stairs to our beds in her suit of black velvet and 
 diamonds, every creak of her sandals and every whis 
 per of her lips is full of mystery and fear. 
 
 You understand, then, distinctly, that I do not be 
 lieve there is anything about this singular little neigh-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 165 
 
 bor of mine which is as it should not be. Probably 
 a visit to his room would clear up all that has puzzled 
 me, and make me laugh at the notions which began, 
 I suppose, in nightmares, and ended by keeping my 
 imagination at work so as almost to make me uncom 
 fortable at times. But it is not so easy to visit him 
 as some of our other boarders, for various reasons 
 which I will not stop to mention. I think some of 
 them are rather pleased to get "the Professor" under 
 their ceilings. 
 
 The young man John, for instance, asked me to 
 come up one day and try some "old Burbon," which 
 he said was A 1. On asking him what was the nunv 
 ber of his room, he answered, that it was forty-'leven, 
 sky -parlor floor, but that I should n't find it, if he 
 did n't go ahead to show me the way. I followed him 
 to his habitat, being very willing to see in what kind 
 of warren he burrowed, and thinking I might pick up 
 something about the boarders who had excited my 
 curiosity. 
 
 Mighty close quarters they were where the young 
 man John bestowed himself and his furniture; this 
 last consisting of a bed, a chair, a bureau, a trunk, and 
 numerous pegs with coats and "pants" and "vests," 
 as he was in the habit of calling waist-coats and 
 pantaloons or trousers, hanging up as if the owner 
 had melted out of them. Several prints were pinned 
 up unf ramed, among them that grand national por 
 trait-piece, "Barnum presenting Ossian E. Dodge to 
 Jenny Land," and a picture of a famous trot, in which 
 I admired anew the cabalistic air of that imposing 
 array of expressions, and especially the Italicized 
 word, "Dan Mace names b. h. Major Slocum," and 
 " Hiram Woodruff names g. m. Lady Smith." 
 " Best three in five. Time: 2.40, 2.46, 2.50."
 
 166 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 That set me thinking how very odd this matter of 
 trotting horses is, as an index of the mathematical 
 exactness of the laws of living mechanism. I saw 
 Lady Suffolk trot a mile in 2.26. Flora Temple has 
 trotted close down to 2.20; and Ethan Allen in 2.25, 
 or less. Many horses have trotted their mile under 
 2.30; none that I remember in public as low down as 
 2.20. 1 From five to ten seconds, then, in about a hun 
 dred and sixty is the whole range of the maxima of 
 the present race of trotting horses. The same thing 
 is seen in the running of men. Many can run a mile 
 in five minutes ; but when one comes to the fractions 
 below, they taper down until somewhere about 4. 30 the 
 maximum is reached. Averages of masses have been 
 studied more than averages of maxima and minima. 
 We know from the Registrar-General's Reports, that 
 a certain number of children say from one to two 
 dozen die every year in England from drinking hot 
 water out of scouts of teakettles. We know, that, 
 among suicides, women and men past a certain age 
 almost never use fire-arms. A woman who has made 
 up her mind to die is still afraid of a pistol or a gun. 
 Or is it that the explosion would derange her costume? 
 
 1 1 will let these numbers stand as printed thirty years ago. 
 Mr. Henry Sturgis Russell, than whom there is no better author 
 ity, has furnished me the following list : 
 
 " Lady Suffolk 2.26^ 
 
 Flora Temple 2.19 
 
 Dexter 2.17$ 
 
 Goldsmith Maid 2.14 
 
 Maud S 2.08f 
 
 are the official records and show as clearly as any the progress 
 made." 
 
 There are those who believe that the record will come down 
 to two minutes.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 167 
 
 I say, averages of masses we have, but our tables 
 of maxima we owe to the sporting men more than to 
 the philosophers. The lesson their experience teaches 
 is, that Nature makes no leaps, does nothing per 
 saltum. The greatest brain that ever lived, no doubt, 
 was only a small fraction of an idea ahead of the sec 
 ond best. Just look at the chess-players. Leaving 
 out the phenomenal exceptions, the nice shades that 
 separate the skilful ones show how closely their brains 
 approximate, almost as closely as chronometers. 
 Such a person is a "&mgrA-player," he must have 
 that piece given him. Another must have two pawns. 
 Another, "pawn and two," or one pawn and two 
 moves. Then we find one who claims "pawn and 
 move," holding himself, with this fractional advantage, 
 a match for one who would be pretty sure to beat him 
 playing even. So much are minds alike; and you 
 and I think we are "peculiar," that Nature broke 
 her jelly -mould after shaping our cerebral convolu 
 tions. So I reflected, standing and looking at the 
 picture. 
 
 I say, Governor, broke in the young man 
 John, them hosses '11 stay jest as well, if you '11 only 
 set down. I 've had 'em this year, and they have n't 
 stirred. He spoke, and handed the chair towards 
 me, seating himself, at the same time, on the end 
 of the bed. 
 
 You have lived in this house some time? I said, 
 with a note of interrogation at the end of the state 
 ment. 
 
 Do I look as if I 'd lost much flesh said he, 
 answering my question by another. 
 
 No, said I ; for that matter, I think you do 
 credit to "the bountifully furnished table of the excel-
 
 168 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 lent lady who provides so liberally for the company 
 that meets around her hospitable board." 
 
 [The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of 
 those disinterested editorials in small type, which I 
 suspect to have been furnished by a friend of the 
 landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. This 
 impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the 
 establishment and its head attracted a number of ap 
 plicants for admission, and a couple of new boarders 
 made a brief appearance at the table. One of them 
 was of the class of people who grumble if they don't 
 get canvas-backs and woodcocks every day, for three- 
 fifty per week. The other was subject to somnambu 
 lism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have 
 been asleep in his bed. In this state he walked into 
 several of the boarders' chambers, his eyes wide open, 
 as is usual with somnambulists, and, from some odd 
 instinct, or other, wishing to know what the hour was, 
 got together a number of their watches, for the pur 
 pose of comparing them, as it would seem. Among 
 them was a repeater, belonging to our young Mary- 
 lander. He happened to wake up while the somnam 
 bulist was in his chamber, and, not knowing his in 
 firmity, caught hold of him and gave him a dreadful 
 shaking, after which he tied his hands and feet, and 
 so left him till morning, when he introduced him to 
 a gentleman used to taking care of such cases of som 
 nambulism.] 
 
 If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, 
 over this parenthesis, you will come to our conversa 
 tion, which it has interrupted. 
 
 It a'n't the feed, said the young man John, 
 it 's the old woman's looks when a fellah lays it in too 
 strong. The feed 's well enough. After geese have
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 169 
 
 got tough, 'n' turkeys have got strong, 'n' lamb 's got 
 old, 'n' veal 's pretty nigh beef, 'n' sparragrass 's grow- 
 in' tall 'n' slim 'n' scattery about the head, 'n' green 
 peas are gettin' so big 'n' hard they 'd be dangerous if 
 you fired 'em out of a revolver, we get hold of all 
 them delicacies of the season. But it 's too much like 
 feedin' on live folks and devourin' widdah's sub 
 stance, to lay yourself out in the eatin' way, when a 
 fellah 's as hungry as the chap that said a turkey was 
 too much for one 'n' not enough for two. I can't 
 help lookin' at the old woman. Corned -beef -days 
 she 's tolerable calm. Roastin'-days she worries some, 
 'n' keeps a sharp eye on the chap that carves. But 
 when there 's anything in the poultry line, it seems 
 to hurt her feelin's so to see the knife goin' into the 
 breast and joints comin' to pieces, that there 's no 
 comfort in eatin'. When I cut up an old fowl and 
 help the boarders, I always feel as if I ought to say, 
 Won't you have a slice of widdah? instead of 
 chicken. 
 
 The young man John fell into a train of reflections 
 which ended in his producing a Bologna sausage, a 
 plate of "crackers," as we Boston folks call certain 
 biscuits, and the bottle of whiskey described as being 
 Al. 
 
 Under the influence of the crackers and sausage, 
 he grew cordial and communicative. 
 
 It was time, I thought, to sound him as to those of 
 our boarders who had excited my curiosity. 
 
 What do you think of our young Iris ? I began. 
 
 Fust-rate little filly; he said. Pootiest and 
 nicest little chap I 've seen since the schoolma'am left. 
 Schoolma'am was a brown-haired one, eyes coffee- 
 color. This one has got wine-colored eyes, 'n'
 
 170 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 that 's the reason they turn a fellah's head, I sup 
 pose. 
 
 This is a splendid blonde, I said, the other 
 was a brunette. Which style do you like best? 
 
 Which do I like best, boiled mutton or roast mut= 
 ton? said the young man John. Like 'em both, 
 it a'n't the color of 'em makes the goodness. I 've 
 been kind of lonely since schoolma'am went away. 
 Used to like to look at her. I never said anything 
 particular to her, that I remember, but 
 
 I don't know whether it was the cracker and sau 
 sage, or that the young fellow's feet were treading on 
 the hot ashes of some longing that had not had time 
 to cool, but his eye glistened as he stopped. 
 
 I suppose she would n't have looked at a fellah like 
 me, he said, but I come pretty near tryin'. If 
 she had said, Yes, though, I shouldn't have known 
 what to have done with her. Can't marry a woman 
 now-a-days till you 're so deaf you have to cock your 
 head like a parrot to hear what she says, and so long 
 sighted you can't see what she looks like nearer than 
 arm's-length. 
 
 Here is another chance for you, I said. What 
 do you want nicer than such a young lady as Iris? 
 
 It 's no use, he answered. I look at them girls 
 and feel as the fellah did when he missed catchin' the 
 trout. 'To'od 'a' cost more butter to cook him 'n' 
 he 's worth, says the fellah. Takes a whole piece 
 o' goods to cover a girl up now-a-days. I 'd as lief 
 undertake to keep a span of elephants, and take 
 an ostrich to board, too, as to marry one of 'em. 
 What 's the use? Clerks and counter-jumpers ain't 
 anything. Sparragrass and green peas a'n't for 
 them, not while they 're young and tender. Hoss-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 171 
 
 back-ridin' a'n't for them, except once a year, 
 on Fast-day. And marryin' a'n't for them. Some 
 times a fellah feels lonely, and would like to have a 
 nice young woman, to tell her how lonely he feels. 
 And sometimes a fellah, here the young man John 
 looked very confidential, and, perhaps, as if a little 
 ashamed of his weakness, sometimes a fellah would 
 like to have one o' them small young ones to trot on 
 his knee and push about in a little wagon, a kind 
 of a little Johnny, you know ; it 's odd enough, but, 
 it seems to me, nobody can afford them little articles, 
 except the folks that are so rich they can buy every 
 thing, and the folks that are so poor they don't want 
 anything. It makes nice boys of us young fellahs, 
 no doubt ! And it 's pleasant to see fine young girls 
 sittin', like shopkeepers behind their goods, waitin', 
 and waitin', and waitin', 'n' no customers, and the 
 men lingerin' round and lookin' at the goods, like 
 folks that want to be customers, but haven't the 
 money ! 
 
 Do you think the deformed gentleman means to 
 make love to Iris? I said. 
 
 What ! Little Boston ask that girl to marry him ! 
 Well, now, that 's comin' of it a little too strong. 
 Yes, I guess she will marry him and carry him round 
 in a basket, like a lame bantam: Look here! he 
 said, mysteriously; one of the boarders swears 
 there 's a woman comes to see him, and that he has 
 heard her singin' and screechin'. I should like to 
 know what he 's about in that den of his. He lays 
 low 'n' keeps dark, and, I tell you, there 's a good 
 many of the boarders would like to get into his cham 
 ber, but he don't seem to want 'em. Biddy could 
 tell somethin' about what she 's seen when she 's been
 
 172 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 to put his room to rights. She 's a Paddy 'n' a fool, 
 but she knows enough to keep her tongue still. All 
 I know is, I saw her crossin' herself one day when 
 she came out of that room. She looked pale enough, 
 ii' I heard her mutterin' somethin' or other about the 
 Blessed Virgin. If it had n't been for the double 
 doors to that chamber of his, I 'd have had a squint 
 inside before this; but, somehow or other, it never 
 seems to happen that they 're both open at once. 
 
 What do you think he employs himself about? 
 said I. 
 
 The young man John winked. 
 
 I waited patiently for the thought, of which this 
 wink was the blossom, to come to fruit in words. 
 
 I don't believe in witches, said the young man 
 John. 
 
 Nor I. 
 
 We were both silent for a few minutes. 
 
 Did you ever see the young girl's drawing-books, 
 I said, presently. 
 
 All but one, he answered ; she keeps a lock on 
 that, and won't show it. Ma'am Allen, (the young 
 rogue sticks to that name, in speaking of the gentle 
 man with the diamond,} Ma'am Allen tried to peek 
 into it one day when she left it on the sideboard. 
 "If you please," says she, 'n' took it from him, 
 'n' gave him a look that made him curl up like a cat 
 erpillar on a hot shovel. I only wished he hadn't, 
 and had jest given her a little saas, for I 've been 
 takin' boxin' -lessons, 'n' I 've got a new way of 
 counterin' I want to try on to somebody. 
 
 The end of all this was, that I came away from 
 the young fellow's room, feeling that there were two
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 173 
 
 principal things that I had to live for, for the next 
 six weeks or six months, if it should take so long. 
 These were, to get a sight of the young girl's drawing- 
 book, which I suspected had her heart shut up in it, 
 and to get a look into the Little Gentleman's room. 
 
 I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I 
 should trouble myself about these matters. You tell 
 me, with some show of reason, that all I shall find in 
 the young girl's book will be some outlines of angels 
 with immense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, 
 and caricatures, among which I shall probably have 
 the pleasure of seeing my own features figuring. 
 Very likely. But I '11 teU you what /think I shall 
 find. If this child has idealized the strange little bit 
 of humanity over which she seems to have spread her 
 wings like a brooding dove, if , in one of those wild 
 vagaries that passionate natures are so liable to, she 
 has fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, 
 as the sea-flowers fold about the first stray shell-fish 
 that brushes their outspread tentacles, depend upon 
 it, I shall find the marks of it in this drawing-book 
 of hers, if I can ever get a look at it, fairly, of 
 course, for I would not play tricks to satisfy my curi 
 osity. 
 
 Then, if I can get into this Little Gentleman's 
 room under any fair pretext, I shall, no doubt, sat 
 isfy myself in five minutes that he is just like other 
 people, and that there is no particular mystery about 
 him. 
 
 The night after my visit to the young man John, I 
 made all these and many more reflections. It was 
 about two o'clock in the morning, bright starlight, 
 so light that I could make out the time on my 
 alarm-clock, when I woke up trembling and very
 
 174 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 moist. It was the heavy dragging sound, as I had 
 often heard it before that waked me. Presently a 
 window was softly closed. I had just begun to get 
 over the agitation with which we always awake from 
 nightmare dreams, when I heard the sound which 
 seemed to me as of a woman's voice, the clearest, 
 purest soprano which one could well conceive of. It 
 was not loud, and I could not distinguish a word, if 
 it was a woman's voice; but there were recurring 
 phrases of sound and snatches of rhythm that reached 
 me, which suggested the idea of complaint, and some 
 times, I thought, of passionate grief and despair. It 
 died away at last, and then I heard the opening of 
 a door, followed by a low, monotonous sound, as of 
 one talking, and then the closing of a door, and 
 presently the light on the opposite wall disappeared 
 and all was still for the night. 
 
 By George ! this gets interesting, I said, as I got 
 out of bed for a change of night-clothes. 
 
 I had this in my pocket the other day, but thought 
 I would n't read it at our celebration. So I read it 
 to the boarders instead, and print it to finish off this 
 record with. 
 
 ROBINSON OF LEYDEN. 
 
 He sleeps not here ; in hope and prayer 
 His wandering flock had gone before, 
 
 But he, the shepherd, might not share 
 Their sorrows on the wintry shore. 
 
 Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, 
 Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, 
 
 While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, 
 The pastor spake, and thus he said :
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 175 
 
 " Men, brethren, sisters, children dear ! 
 God calls you hence from over sea ; 
 Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, 
 Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. 
 
 " Ye go to bear the saving word 
 
 To tribes unnamed and shores untrod : 
 Heed well the lessons ye have heard 
 From those old teachers taught of God. 
 
 " Yet think not 'unto them was lent 
 
 All light for all the coming days, 
 And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent 
 In making straight the ancient ways. 
 
 ** The living fountain overflows 
 
 For every flock, for every lamb, 
 Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose 
 With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam. " 
 
 He spake ; with lingering, long embrace, 
 
 With tears of love and partings fond, 
 They floated down the creeping Maas, 
 
 Along the isle of Ysselmond. 
 
 They passed the frowning towers of Briel, 
 The " Hook of Holland's " shelf of sand, 
 
 And grated soon with lifting keel 
 The sullen shores of Fatherland. 
 
 No home for these ! too well they knew 
 The mitred king behind the throne ; 
 
 The sails were set, the pennons flew, 
 And westward ho ! for worlds unknown. 
 
 And these were they who gave us birth, 
 
 The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, 
 Who won for us this virgin earth, 
 
 And freedom with the soil they -gave.
 
 176 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 The pastor slumbers by the Rhine, 
 
 In alien earth the exiles lie, 
 Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, 
 
 His'words our noblest battle-cry ! 
 
 Still cry them, and the world shall hear, 
 Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea ! 
 
 Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, 
 Nor on the laud-locked Zuyder-Zee ! 
 
 vin. 
 
 There has been a sort of stillness in the atmosphere 
 of our boarding-house since my last record, as if 
 something or other were going on. There is no par 
 ticular change that I can think of in the aspect of 
 things ; yet I have a feeling as if some game of life 
 were quietly playing and strange forces were at work, 
 underneath this smooth surface of every -day boarding- 
 house life, which would show themselves some fine 
 morning or other in events, if not in catastrophes. 
 I have been watchful, as I said I should be, but have- 
 little to tell as yet. You may laugh at me, and very 
 likely think me foolishly fanciful to trouble myself 
 about what is going on in a middling-class household 
 like ours. Do as you like. But here is that terrible 
 fact to begin with, a beautiful young girl, with the 
 blood and the nerve-fibre that belong to Nature's 
 women, turned loose among live men. 
 
 - Terrible fact? 
 
 Very terrible. Nothing more so. Do you forget 
 the angels who lost heaven for the daughters of men? 
 Do you forget Helen, and the fair women who made 
 mischief and set nations by the ears before Helen was 
 born? If jealousies that gnaw men's hearts out of
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 177 
 
 their bodies, if pangs that waste men to shadows 
 and drive them into raving madness or moping mel 
 ancholy, if assassination and suicide are dreadful 
 possibilities, then there is always something frightful 
 about a lovely young woman. I love to look at this 
 "Rainbow," as her father used sometimes to call her, 
 of ours. Handsome creature that she is in forms and 
 colors, the very picture, as it seems to me, of that 
 "golden blonde" my friend whose book you read last 
 year fell in love with when he was a boy, (as you re 
 member, no doubt,) handsome as she is, fit for a 
 sea-king's bride, it is not her beauty alone that holds 
 my eyes upon her. Let me tell you one of my fan 
 cies, and then you will understand the strange sort of 
 fascination she has for me. 
 
 It is in the hearts of many men and women let 
 me add children that there is a Great Secret wait 
 ing for them, a secret of which they get hints now 
 and then, perhaps oftener in early than in later years. 
 These hints come sometimes in dreams, sometimes in 
 sudden startling flashes, second wakings, as it were, 
 a waking out of the waking state, which last is very 
 apt to be a half-sleep. I have many times stopped 
 short and held my breath, and felt the blood leaving 
 my cheeks, in one of these sudden clairvoyant flashes. 
 Of course I cannot tell what kind of a secret this is, 
 but I think of it as a disclosure of certain relations of 
 our personal being to time and space, to other intelli 
 gences, to the procession of events, and to their First 
 Great Cause. This secret seems to be broken up, as 
 it were, into fragments, so that we find here a word 
 and there a syllable, and then again only a letter of 
 it ; but it never is written out for most of us as a com 
 plete sentence, in this life. I do not think it could
 
 178 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 be; for I am disposed to consider our beliefs about 
 such a possible disclosure rather as a kind of premo 
 nition of an enlargement of our faculties in some future 
 state than as an expectation to be fulfilled for most of 
 us in this life. Persons, however, have fallen into 
 trances, as did the Reverend William Tennent, 
 among many others, and learned some things which 
 they could not tell in our human words. 
 
 Now among the visible objects which hint to us frag 
 ments of this infinite secret for which our souls are 
 waiting, the faces of women are those that carry the 
 most legible hieroglyphics of the great mystery. 
 There are women's faces, some real, some ideal, 
 which contain something in them that becomes a posi 
 tive element in our creed, so direct and palpable a 
 revelation is it of the infinite purity and love. I re 
 member two faces of women with wings, such as they 
 call angels, of Fra Angelico, and I just now came 
 across a print of Raphael's Santa Apollina, with some 
 thing of the same quality, which I was sure had 
 their prototypes in the world above ours. No won 
 der the Catholics pay their vows to the Queen of 
 Heaven ! The unpoetical side of Protestantism is, 
 that it has no women to be worshipped. 
 
 But mind you, it is not every beautiful face that 
 hints the Great Secret to us, nor is it only in beautiful 
 faces that we find traces of it. Sometimes it looks 
 out from a sweet sad eye, the only beauty of a plain 
 countenance ; sometimes there is so much meaning in 
 the lips of a woman, not otherwise fascinating, that we 
 know they have a message for us, and wait almost 
 with awe to hear their accents. But this young girl 
 has at once the beauty of feature and the unspoken 
 mystery of expression. Can she tell me anything?
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 179 
 
 Is her life a complement of mine, with the missing 
 element in it which I have been groping after through 
 so many friendships that I have tired of, and through 
 
 Hush ! Is the door fast? Talking loud is a bad 
 trick in these curious boarding-houses. 
 
 You must have sometimes noted this fact that I am 
 going to remind you of and to use for a special illus 
 tration. Riding along over a rocky road, suddenly 
 the slow monotonous grinding of the crushing gravel 
 changes to a deep heavy rumble. There is a great 
 hollow under your feet, a huge unsunned cavern. 
 Deep, deep beneath you in the core of the living rock, 
 it arches its awful vault, and far away it stretches its 
 winding galleries, their roofs dripping into streams 
 where fishes have been swimming and spawning in the 
 dark until their scales are white as milk and their 
 eyes have withered out, obsolete and useless. 
 
 So it is in life. We jog quietly along, meeting 
 the same faces, grinding over the same thoughts, 
 the gravel of the soul's highway, now and then 
 jarred against an obstacle we cannot crush, but must 
 ride over or round as we best may, sometimes bringing 
 short up against a disappointment, but still working 
 along with the creaking and rattling and grating and 
 jerking that belong to the journey of life, even in 
 the smoothest-rolling vehicle. Suddenly we hear the 
 deep underground reverberation that reveals the un 
 suspected depth of some abyss of thought or passion 
 beneath us. 
 
 I wish the girl would go. I don't like to look at 
 her so much, and yet I cannot help it. Always that 
 same expression of something that I ought to know, 
 
 something that she was made to tell and I to hear, 
 
 lying there ready to fall off from her lips, ready to
 
 180 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 leap out of her eyes and make a saint of me, or a devil 
 or a lunatic, or perhaps a prophet to tell the truth and 
 be hated of men, or a poet whose words shall flash 
 upon the dry stubble-field of worn-out thoughts and 
 burn over an age of lies in an hour of passion. 
 
 It suddenly occurs to me that I may have put you 
 on the wrong track. The Great Secret that I refer to 
 has nothing to do with the Three Words. Set your 
 mind at ease about that, there are reasons I could 
 give you which settle all that matter. I don't won 
 der, however, that you confounded the Great Secret 
 with the Three Words. 
 
 I LOVE YOU is all the secret that many, nay, most 
 women have to tell. When that is said, they are like 
 China-crackers on the morning of the fifth of July. 
 And just as that little patriotic implement is made 
 with a slender train which leads to the magazine in its 
 interior, so a sharp eye can almost always see the 
 train leading from a young girl's eye or lip to the "I 
 love you " in her heart. But the Three Words are 
 not the Great Secret I mean. No, women's faces are 
 only one of the tablets on which that is written in its 
 partial, fragmentary symbols. It lies deeper than 
 Love, though very probably Love is a part of it. 
 Some, I think, Wordsworth might be one of them, 
 spell out a portion of it from certain beautiful nat 
 ural objects, landscapes, flowers, and others. I can 
 mention several poems of his that have shadowy hints 
 which seem to me to come near the region where I 
 think it lies. I have known two persons who pur 
 sued it with the passion of the old alchemists, all 
 wrong evidently, but infatuated, and never giving up 
 the daily search for it until they got tremulous and 
 feeble, and their dreams changed to visions of things
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 181 
 
 that ran and crawled about their floor and ceilings, 
 and so they died. The vulgar called them drunkards. 
 
 I told you that I would let you know the mystery 
 of the effect this young girl's face produces on me. 
 It is akin to those influences a friend of mine has 
 described, you may remember, as coming from certain 
 voices. I cannot translate it into words, only into 
 feelings; and these I have attempted to shadow by 
 showing that her face hinted that revelation of some 
 thing we are close to knowing, which all imaginative 
 persons are looking for either in this world or on the 
 very threshold of the next. 
 
 You shake your head at the vagueness and fanciful 
 incomprehensibleness of my description of the expres 
 sion in a young girl's face. You forget what a mis 
 erable surface-matter this language is in which we try 
 to reproduce our interior state of being. Articulation 
 is a shallow trick. From the light Poh ! which we 
 toss off from our lips as we fling a nameless scrib 
 bler's impertinence into our waste-baskets, to the 
 gravest utterances which comes from our throats in 
 our moments of deepest need, is only a space of some 
 three or four inches. Words, which are a set of 
 clickings, hissings, lispings, and so on, mean very 
 little, compared to tones and expression of the fea 
 tures. I give it up ; I thought I could shadow forth 
 in some feeble way, by their aid, the effect this young 
 girl's face produces on my imagination; but it is of 
 no use. No doubt your head aches, trying to make 
 something of my description. If there is here and 
 there one that can make anything intelligible out of 
 my talk about the Great Secret, and who has spelt 
 out a syllable or two of it on some woman's face, dead 
 or living, that is all I can expect. One should see
 
 182 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 the person with whom he converses about such mat 
 ters. There are dreamy-eyed people to whom I 
 should say all these things with a certainty of being 
 understood; 
 
 That moment that his face I see, 
 I know the man that must hear me : 
 To him my tale I teach. 
 
 I am afraid some of them have not got a spare 
 quarter of a dollar for this August number, so that 
 they will never see it. 
 
 Let us start again, just as if we had not made 
 this ambitious attempt, which may go for nothing, 
 and you can have your money refunded, if you will 
 make the change. 
 
 This young girl, about whom I have talked so un 
 intelligibly, is the unconscious centre of attraction to 
 the whole solar system of our breakfast-table. The 
 Little Gentleman leans towards her, and she again 
 seems to be swayed as by some invisible gentle force 
 towards him. That slight inclination of two persons 
 with a strong affinity towards each other, throwing 
 them a little out of plumb when they sit side by side, 
 is a physical fact I have often noticed. Then there is 
 a tendency in all the men's eyes to converge on her; 
 and I do firmly believe, that, if all their chairs were 
 examined, they would be found a little obliquely 
 placed, so as to favor the direction in which their 
 occupants love to look. 
 
 That bland, quiet old gentleman, of whom I have 
 spoken as sitting opposite to me, is no exception to 
 the rule. She brought down some mignonette one 
 morning, which she had grown in her chamber. She 
 gave a sprig to her little neighbor, and one to the
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 183 
 
 landlady, and sent another by the hand of Bridget to 
 this old gentleman. 
 
 Sarvant, Ma'am! Much obleeged, he said, 
 and put it gallantly in his button-hole. After break 
 fast he must see some of her drawings. Very fine per 
 formances, very fine ! truly elegant productions, 
 truly elegant! Had seen Miss Linwood's needle 
 work in London, in the year (eighteen hundred and 
 little or nothing, I think he said,) patronized by 
 the nobility and gentry, and Her Majesty, elegant, 
 truly elegant productions, very fine performances; 
 these drawings reminded him of them; wonderful 
 resemblance to Nature; an extraordinary art, paint 
 ing; Mr. Copley made some very fine pictures that 
 he remembered seeing when he was a boy. Used to 
 remember some lines about a portrait written by Mr. 
 Cowper, beginning, 
 
 " Oh that those lips had language ! Life has pass'd 
 With me but roughly since I heard thee last." 
 
 And with this the old gentleman fell to thinking 
 about a dead mother of his that he remembered ever 
 so much younger than he now was, and looking, not 
 as his mother, but as his daughter should look. The 
 dead young mother was looking at the old man, her 
 child, as she used to look at him so many, many years 
 ago. He stood still as if in a waking dream, his eyes 
 fixed on the drawings till their outlines grew indistinct 
 and they ran into each other, and a pale, sweet face 
 shaped itself out of the glimmering light through 
 which he saw them. What is there quite so pro 
 foundly human as an old man's memory of a mother 
 who died in his earlier years? Mother she remains 
 till manhood, and by-and-by she grows to be as a
 
 184 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 sister; and at last, when, wrinkled and bowed and 
 broken, he looks back upon her in her fair youth, 
 he sees in the sweet image he caresses, not his parent, 
 but, as it were, his child. 
 
 If I had not seen all this in the old gentleman's 
 face, the words with which he broke his silence 
 would have betrayed his train of thought. 
 
 If they had only taken pictures then as they do 
 now ! he said. All gone ! all gone ! nothing but 
 her face as she leaned on the arms of her great chair ; 
 and I would give a hundred pound for the poorest lit 
 tle picture of her, such as you can buy for a shilling 
 of anybody that you don't want to see. The old gen 
 tleman put his hand to his forehead so as to shade his 
 eyes. I saw he was looking at the dim photograph of 
 memory, and turned from him to Iris. 
 
 How many drawing-books have you filled, I said, 
 
 since you began to take lessons? This was the 
 first, she answered, since she was here ; and it 
 was not full, but there were many separate sheets of 
 large size she had covered with drawings. 
 
 I turned over the leaves of the book before us. 
 Academic studies, principally of the human figure. 
 Heads of sibyls, prophets, and so forth. Limbs 
 from statues. Hands and feet from Nature. What 
 a superb drawing of an arm ! I don't remember it 
 among the figures from Michel Angelo, which seem 
 to have been her patterns mainly. From Nature, I 
 think, or after a cast from Nature. Oh ! 
 
 Your smaller studies are in this, I suppose, I 
 said, taking up the drawing-book with a lock on it 
 
 Yes, she said. I should like to see her style of 
 working on a small scale. There was nothing in it 
 worth showing, she said ; and presently I saw her
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 185 
 
 try the lock, which proved to be fast. We are all 
 caricatured in it, I have n't the least doubt. I think, 
 though, I could tell by her way of dealing with us 
 what her fancies were about us boarders. Some of 
 them act as if they were bewitched with her, but she 
 does not seem to notice it much. Her thoughts seem 
 to be on her little neighbor more than on anybody else. 
 The young fellow John appears to stand second in her 
 good graces. I think he has once or twice sent her 
 what the landlady's daughter calls bo-kays of flowers, 
 somebody has, at any rate. I saw a book she 
 had, which must have come from the divinity-student. 
 It had a dreary title-page, which she had enlivened 
 with a fancy portrait of the author, a face from 
 memory, apparently, one of those faces that small 
 children loathe without knowing why, and which give 
 them that inward disgust for heaven so many of the 
 little wretches betray, when they hear that these are 
 "good men," and that heaven is full of such. The 
 gentleman with the diamond the Koh-i-noor, so 
 called by us was not encouraged, I think, by the 
 reception of his packet of perfumed soap. He pulls 
 his purple moustache and looks appreciatingly at Iris, 
 who never sees him, as it should seem. The young 
 Mary lander, who I thought would have been in love 
 with her before this time, sometimes looks from his 
 corner across the long diagonal of the table, as much 
 as to say, I wish you were up here by me, or I were 
 down there by you, which would, perhaps, be a 
 more natural arrangement than the present one. But 
 nothing comes of all this, and nothing has come of 
 my sagacious idea of finding out the girl's fancies by 
 looking into her locked drawing-book. 
 
 Not to give up all the questions I was determined
 
 186 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 to solve, I made an attempt also to work into the 
 Little Gentleman's chamber. For this purpose, I 
 kept him in conversation, one morning, until he was 
 just ready to go up-stairs, and then, as if to continue 
 the talk, followed him as he toiled back to his room. 
 He rested on the landing and faced round toward me. 
 There was something in his eye which said, Stop 
 there ! So we finished our conversation on the land 
 ing. The next day, I mustered assurance enough to 
 knock at his door, having a pretext ready. No an 
 swer. Knock again. A door, as if of a cabinet, was 
 shut softly and locked, and presently I heard the pecul 
 iar dead beat of his thick-soled, misshapen boots. 
 The bolts and the lock of the inner door were unfas 
 tened, with unnecessary noise, I thought, and he 
 came into the passage. He pulled the inner door 
 after him and opened the outer one at which I stood. 
 He had on a flowered silk dressing-gown, such as 
 "Mr. Copley "used to paint his old-fashioned mer 
 chant-princes in; and a quaint-looking key in his 
 hand. Our conversation was short, but long enough 
 to convince me that the Little Gentleman did not 
 want my company in his chamber, and did not mean 
 to have it. 
 
 I have been making a great fuss about what is no 
 mystery at all, a schoolgirl's secrets and a whimsi 
 cal man's habits. I mean to give up such nonsense 
 and mind my own business. Hark ! What the 
 deuse is that odd noise in his chamber? 
 
 I think I am a little superstitious. There were 
 two things, when I was a boy, that diabolized my im 
 agination, I mean, that gave me a distinct appre 
 hension of a formidable bodily shape which prowled 
 round the neighborhood where I was born and bred.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 187 
 
 The first was a series of marks called the "Devil's 
 footsteps." These were patches of sand in the pas 
 tures, where no grass grew, where the low -bush black 
 berry, the "dewberry," as our Southern neighbors 
 call it, in prettier and more Shakspearian language, 
 did not spread its clinging creepers, where even the 
 pale, dry, sadly-sweet "everlasting" could not grow, 
 but all was bare and blasted. The second was a mark 
 in one of the public buildings near my home, the 
 college dormitory named after a Colonial Governor. 
 I do not think many persons are aware of the exist 
 ence of this mark, little having been said about the 
 story in print, as it was considered very desirable, for 
 the sake of the Institution, to hush it up. In the 
 northwest corner, and on the level of the third or 
 fourth story, there are signs of a breach in the walls, 
 mended pretty well, but not to be mistaken. A 
 considerable portion of that corner must have been 
 carried away, from within outward. It was- an un 
 pleasant affair ; and I do not care to repeat the partic 
 ulars; but some young men had been using sacred 
 things in a profane and unlawful way, when the oc 
 currence, which was variously explained, took place. 
 The story of the Appearance in the chamber was, I 
 suppose, invented afterwards ; but of the injury to the 
 building there could be no question ; and the zig-zag 
 line, where the mortar is a little thicker than before, 
 is still distinctly visible. The queer burnt spots, 
 called the "Devil's footsteps," had never attracted 
 attention before this time, though there is no evidence 
 that they had not existed previously, except that of 
 the late Miss M., a "Goody," so called, or sweeper, 
 who was positive on the subject, but had a strange 
 horror of referring to an affair of which she was
 
 188 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 thought to know something. I tell you it was not so 
 pleasant for a little boy of impressible nature to go up 
 to bed in an old gambrel-roofed house, with unten- 
 anted, locked upper-chambers, and a most ghostly 
 garret, with the "Devil's footsteps " in the fields 
 behind the house and in front of it the patched dor 
 mitory where the unexplained occurrence had taken 
 place which startled those godless youths at their mock 
 devotions, so that one of them was epileptic from that 
 day forward, and another, after a dreadful season of 
 mental conflict, took holy orders and became renowned 
 for his ascetic sanctity. 
 
 There were other circumstances that kept up the 
 impression produced by these two singular facts I have 
 just mentioned. There was a dark storeroom, on 
 looking through the key-hole of which, I could dimly 
 see a heap of chairs and tables, and other four-footed 
 things, which seemed to me to have rushed in there, 
 frightened, and in their fright to have huddled to 
 gether and climbed up on each other's backs, as the 
 people did in that awful crush where so many were 
 killed, at the execution of Holloway and Haggerty. 
 Then the Lady's portrait, up-stairs, with the sword- 
 thrusts through it, marks of the British officers' ra 
 piers, and the tall mirror in which they used to look 
 at their red coats, confound them for smashing its 
 mate ! and the deep, cunningly wrought arm-chair 
 in which Lord Percy used to sit while his hair was 
 dressing ; he was a gentleman, and always had it 
 covered with a large peignoir, to save the silk covering 
 my grandmother embroidered. Then the little room 
 down-stairs from which went the orders to throw up 
 a bank of earth on the hill yonder, where you may 
 now observe a granite obelisk, " the study " in my
 
 In which they used to look at their red coats
 
 to look. a>t
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 189 
 
 father's time, but in those days the council-chamber 
 of armed men, sometimes filled with soldiers ; 
 come with me, and I will show you the "dents" left 
 by the butts of their muskets all over the floor. 
 With all these suggestive objects round me, aided by 
 the wild stories those awful country-boys that came 
 to live in our service brought with them, of con 
 tracts written in blood and left out over night, not 
 to be found the next morning, (removed by the Evil 
 One, who takes his nightly round among our dwell 
 ings, and filed away for future use,) of dreams 
 coming true, of death-signs, of apparitions, 
 no wonder that my imagination got excited, and I was 
 liable to superstitious fancies. 
 
 Jeremy Bentham's logic, by which he proved that 
 he could n't possibly see a ghost is all very well in 
 the day-time. All the reason in the world will never 
 get those impressions of childhood, created by just 
 such circumstances as I have been telling, out of a 
 man's head. That is the only excuse I have to give 
 for the nervous kind of curiosity with which I watch 
 my little neighbor, and the obstinacy with which I lie 
 awake whenever I hear anything going on in his 
 chamber after midnight. 
 
 But whatever further observations I may have made 
 must be deferred for the present. You will see in 
 what way it happened that my thoughts were turned 
 from spiritual matters to bodily ones, and how I got 
 my fancy full of material images, faces, heads, fig 
 ures, muscles, and so forth, in such a way that I 
 should have no chance in this number to gratify any 
 curiosity you may feel, if I had the means of so doing. 
 
 Indeed, I have come pretty near omitting my peri 
 odical record this time. It was all the work of a
 
 190 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 friend of mine, who would have it that I should sit to 
 him for my portrait. When a soul draws a body in 
 the great lottery of life, where every one is sure of 
 a prize, such as it is, the said soul inspects the said 
 body with the same curious interest with which one 
 who has ventured into a "gift enterprise" examines 
 the "massive silver pencil-case" with the coppery 
 smell and impressible tube, or the "splendid gold 
 ring" with the questionable specific gravity, which it 
 has been his fortune to obtain in addition to his pur 
 chase. 
 
 The soul, having studied the article of which it finds 
 itself proprietor, thinks, after a time, it knows it 
 pretty well. But there is this difference between its 
 view and that of a person looking at us : we look 
 from within, and see nothing but the mould formed 
 by the elements in which we are incased ; other obser 
 vers look from without, and see us as living statues. 
 To be sure, by the aid of mirrors, we get a few 
 glimpses 'of our outside aspect; but this occasional 
 impression is always modified by that look of the soul 
 from within outward which none but ourselves can 
 take. A portrait is apt, therefore, to be a surprise 
 to us. The artist looks only from without. He sees 
 us, too, with a hundred aspects on our faces we are 
 never likely to see. No genuine expression can be 
 studied by the subject of it in the looking-glass. 
 
 More than this ; he sees us in a way in which many 
 of our friends or acquaintances never see us. With 
 out wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have 
 a special face for each friend. For, in the first place, 
 each puts a special reflection of himself upon us, on 
 the principle of assimilation you found referred to in 
 my last record, if you happened to read that docu-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 191 
 
 ment. And secondly, each of our friends is capable 
 of seeing just so far, and no farther, into our face, 
 and each sees in it the particular thing that he looks 
 for. Now the artist, if he is truly an artist, does 
 not take any one of these special views. Suppose he 
 should copy you as you appear to the man who wants 
 your name to a subscription-list, you could hardly ex 
 pect a friend who entertains you to recognize the like 
 ness to the smiling face which sheds its radiance at his 
 board. Even within your own family, I am afraid 
 there is a face which the rich uncle knows, that is not 
 so familiar to the poor relation. The artist must take 
 one or the other, or something compounded of the two, 
 or something different from either. What the da 
 guerreotype and photograph do is to give the features 
 and one particular look, the very look which kills all 
 expression, that of self-consciousness. The artist 
 throws you off your guard, watches you in movement 
 and in repose, puts your face through its exercises, 
 observes its transitions, and so gets the whole range 
 of its expression. Out of all this he forms an ideal 
 portrait, which is not a copy of your exact look at any 
 one time or to any particular person. Such a portrait 
 cannot be to everybody what the ungloved call "as 
 nat'ral as life." Every good picture, therefore, must 
 be considered wanting in resemblance by many per 
 sons. 
 
 There is one strange revelation which comes out, 
 as the artist shapes your features from his outline. 
 It is that you resemble so many relatives to whom you 
 yourself never had noticed any particular likeness in 
 your countenance. 
 
 He is at work at me now, when I catch some of 
 these resemblances, thus :
 
 192 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 There ! that is just the look my father used to have 
 sometimes ; I never thought I had a sign of it. The 
 mother's eyebrow and grayish-blue eye, those I knew 
 I had. But there is a something which recalls a 
 smile that faded away from my sister's lips how 
 many years ago ! I thought it so pleasant in her, 
 that I love myself better for having a trace of it. 
 
 Are we not young ? Are we not fresh and bloom 
 ing? Wait a bit. The artist takes a mean little 
 brush and draws three fine lines, diverging outwards 
 from the eye over the temple. Five years. The 
 artist draws one tolerably distinct .and two faint lines, 
 perpendicularly between the eyebrows. Ten years. 
 The artist breaks up the contours round the mouth, 
 so that they look a little as a hat does that has been 
 sat upon and recovered itself, ready, as one would 
 say, to crumple up again in the same creases, on smil 
 ing or other change of feature. Hold on ! Stop 
 that ! Give a young fellow a chance ! Are we not 
 whole years short of that interesting period of life 
 when Mr. Balzac says that a man, etc., etc., etc.? 
 
 There now ! That is ourself , as we look after fin 
 ishing an article, getting a three-mile pull with the 
 ten-foot sculls, redressing the wrongs of the toilet, 
 and standing with 'the light of hope in our eye and 
 the reflection of a red curtain on our cheek. Is he 
 not a POET that painted us? 
 
 " Blest be the art that can immortalize ! " 
 
 COWPEK. 
 
 Young folks look on a face as a unit; children 
 who go to school with any given little John Smith see 
 in his name a distinctive appellation, and in his fea 
 tures as special and definite an expression of his sole
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 193 
 
 individuality as if he were the first created of his race. 
 As soon as we are old enough to get the range of three 
 or four generations well in hand, and to take in large 
 family histories, we never see an individual in a face 
 of any stock we know, but a mosaic copy of a pattern, 
 with fragmentary tints from this and that ancestor. 
 The analysis of a face into its ancestral elements re 
 quires that it should be examined in the very earliest 
 infancy, before it has lost that ancient and solemn look 
 it brings with it out of the past eternity ; and again in 
 that brief space when Life, the mighty sculptor, has 
 done his work, and Death, his silent servant, lifts 
 the veil and lets us look at the marble lines he 
 has wrought so faithfully ; and lastly, while a painter 
 who can seize all the traits of a countenance is build 
 ing it up, feature after feature, from the slight outline 
 to the finished portrait. 
 
 I am satisfied, that, as we grow older, we learn 
 to look upon our bodies more and more as a tempo 
 rary possession and less and less as identified with our 
 selves. In early years, while the child "feels its life 
 in every limb," it lives in the body and for the body 
 to a very great extent. It ought to be so. There 
 have been many very interesting children who have 
 shown a wonderful indifference to the things of earth 
 and an extraordinary development of the spiritual 
 nature. There is a perfect literature of their biogra 
 phies, all alike in their essentials; the same "disin 
 clination to the usual amusements of childhood " ; the 
 same remarkable sensibility; the same docility; the 
 same conscientiousness; in short, an almost uniform 
 character, marked by beautiful traits, which we look 
 at with a painful admiration. It will be found that 
 most of these children are the subjects of some con-
 
 194 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 stitutional unfitness for living, the most frequent of 
 which I need not mention. They are like the beauti 
 ful, blushing, half -grown fruit that f alls xbef ore its 
 time because its core is gnawed out. They have their 
 meaning, they do not live in vain, but they are 
 windfalls. I am convinced that many healthy children 
 are injured morally by being forced to read too much 
 about these little meek sufferers and their spiritual 
 exercises. Here is a boy that loves to run, swim, 
 kick football, turn somersets, make faces, whittle, fish, 
 tear his clothes, coast, skate, fire crackers, blow squash 
 "tooters," cut his name on fences, read about Robinson 
 Crusoe and Sinbad the Sailor, eat the widest-angled 
 slices of pie and untold cakes and candies, crack nuts 
 with his back teeth and bite out the better part of 
 another boy's apple with his front ones, turn up cop 
 pers, "stick" knives, call names, throw stones, knock 
 off hats, set mousetraps, chalk doorsteps, "cut be 
 hind " anything on wheels or runners, whistle through 
 his teeth, "holler" Fire! on slight evidence, run 
 after soldiers, patronize an engine-company, or, in his 
 own words, "blow for tub No. 11," or whatever it 
 may be; isn't that a pretty nice sort of a boy, 
 though he has not got anything the matter with him 
 that takes the taste of this world out? Now, when 
 you put into such a hot-blooded, hard-fisted, round- 
 cheeked little rogue's hand a sad-looking volume or 
 pamphlet, with the portrait of a thin, white-faced 
 child, whose life is really as much a training for death 
 as the last month of a condemned criminal's existence, 
 what does he find in common between his own over 
 flowing and exulting sense of vitality and the expe 
 riences of the doomed offspring of invalid parents? 
 The time comes when we have learned to understand
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 195 
 
 the music of sorrow, the beauty of resigned suffering, 
 the holy light that plays over the pillow of those who 
 die before their time, in humble hope and trust. But 
 it is not until he has worked his way through the 
 period of honest hearty animal existence, which every 
 robust child should make the most of, not until he 
 has learned the use of his various faculties, which is 
 his first duty, that a boy of courage and animal vigor 
 is in a proper state to read these tearful records of 
 premature decay. I have no doubt that disgust is im 
 planted in the minds of many healthy children by early 
 surfeits of pathological piety. I do verily believe 
 that He who took children in His arms and blessed 
 them loved the healthiest and most playful of them 
 just as well as those who were richest in the tubercu 
 lous virtues. I know what I am talking about, and 
 there are more parents in this country who will be 
 willing to listen to what I say than there are fools to 
 pick a quarrel with me. In the sensibility and the 
 sanctity which often accompany premature decay I see 
 one of the most beautiful instances of the principle of 
 compensation which marks the Divine benevolence. 
 But to get the spiritual hygiene of robust natures out 
 of the exceptional regimen of invalids is just simply 
 what we Professors call "bad practice"; and I know 
 by experience that there are worthy people who not 
 only try it on their own children, but actually force 
 it on those of their neighbors. 
 
 Having been photographed, and stereographed, 
 and chromatographed, or done in colors, it only re 
 mained to be phrenologized. A polite note from 
 Messrs. Bumpus and Crane, requesting our attend 
 ance at their Physiological Emporium, was too tempt 
 ing to be resisted. We repaired to that scientific 
 Golgotha.
 
 196 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Messrs. Bumpus and Crane are arranged on the 
 plan of the man and the woman in the toy called 
 a "weather-house," both on the same wooden arm 
 suspended on a pivot, so that when one comes to 
 the door, the other retires backwards, and vice versa. 
 The more particular speciality of one is to lubricate 
 your entrance and exit, that of the other to polish 
 you off phrenologically in the recesses of the establish 
 ment. Suppose yourself in a room full of casts and 
 pictures, before a counterful of books with taking 
 titles. I wonder if the picture of the brain is there, 
 "approved" by a noted Phrenologist, which was 
 copied from my, the Professor's, folio plate in the 
 work of Gall and Spurzheim. An extra convolution, 
 No. 9, Destructiveness, according to the list beneath, 
 which was not to be seen in the plate, itself a copy of 
 Nature, was very liberally supplied by the artist, to 
 meet the wants of the catalogue of "organs." Pro 
 fessor Bumpus is seated in front of a row of women, 
 horn-combers and gold-beaders, or somewhere 
 about that range of life, looking so credulous, that, 
 if any Second- Advent Miller or Joe Smith should 
 come along, he could string the whole lot of them on 
 his cheapest lie, as a boy strings a dozen "shiners" 
 on a stripped twig of willow. 
 
 The Professor (meaning ourselves) is in a hurry, 
 as usual ; let the horn-combers wait, he shall be 
 bumped without inspecting the antechamber. 
 
 Tape round the head, 22 inches. (Come on, old 
 23 inches, if you think you are the better man !) 
 
 Feels thorax and arm, and nuzzles round among 
 muscles as those horrid old women poke their fingers 
 into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls at the Quincy 
 Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 197 
 
 other. Victuality, (organ at epigastrium,) some 
 other number equally significant. 
 
 Mild champooing of head now commences. Ex 
 traordinary revelations ! Cupidiphilous, 6 ! Hymeni- 
 philous, 6 + ! Paediphilous, 5 ! Deipniphilous, 6 ! 
 Gelasmiphilous, 6! Musikiphilous, 5! Uraniphi- 
 lous, 5 ! Glossiphilous, 8 ! ! and so on. Meant for 
 a linguist. Invaluable information. Will invest 
 in grammars and dictionaries immediately. I have 
 nothing against the grand total of my phrenological 
 endowments. 
 
 I never set great store by my head, and did not 
 think Messrs. Bumpus and Crane would give me so 
 good a lot of organs as they did, especially consider 
 ing that I was a dead-head on that occasion. Much 
 obliged to them for their politeness. They have been 
 useful in their way by calling attention to important 
 physiological facts. (This concession is due to our 
 immense bump of Candor.) 
 
 A short Lecture on Phrenology, read to the Board&rs 
 at our Breakfast- Table. 
 
 I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a 
 Pseudo-science. A Pseudo-science consists of a no 
 menclature, with a self-adjusting arrangement, by 
 which all positive evidence, or such as favors its doc 
 trines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such 
 as tells against it, is excluded. It is invariably con 
 nected with some lucrative practical application. Its 
 professors and practitioners are usually shrewd people ; 
 they are very serious with the public, but wink and 
 laugh a good deal among themselves. The believing 
 multitude consists of women of both sexes, feeble-
 
 198 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 minded inquirers, poetical optimists, people who al 
 ways get cheated in buying horses, philanthropists 
 who insist on hurrying up the millennium, and others 
 of this class, with here and there a clergyman, less 
 frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician, and al 
 most never a horse-jockey or a member of the detec 
 tive police. I do not say that Phrenology was one 
 of the Pseudo-sciences. 
 
 A Pseudo-science does not necessarily consist wholly 
 of lies. It may contain many truths, and even valu 
 able ones. The rottenest bank starts with a little 
 specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay on 
 the strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very 
 commonly a good one. The practitioners of the Pseu 
 do-sciences know that common minds, after they have 
 been baited with a real fact or two, will jump at the 
 merest rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When 
 we have one fact found us, we are very apt to supply 
 the next out of our own imagination. (How many 
 persons can read Judges xv. 16 correctly the first 
 time?) The Pseudo-sciences take advantage of this. 
 I did not say that it was so with Phrenology. 
 
 I have rarely met a sensible man who would not 
 allow that there was something in Phrenology. A 
 broad, high forehead, it is commonly agreed, prom 
 ises intellect; one that is "villanous low" and has a 
 huge hind-head back of it, is wont to mark an animal 
 nature. I have as rarely met an unbiassed and sen 
 sible man who really believed in the bumps. It is 
 observed, however, that persons with what the Phren 
 ologists call "good heads " are more prone than others 
 toward plenary belief in the doctrine. 
 
 It is so hard to prove a negative, that, if a man 
 should assert that the moon was in truth a green 

 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 199 
 
 cheese, formed by the coagulable substance of the 
 Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary, 
 I might be puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton 
 of this lunar cheese, I call on him to prove the truth of 
 the caseous nature of our satellite, before I purchase. 
 
 It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phren 
 ological statement. It is only necessary to show that 
 its truth is not proved, and cannot be, by the common 
 course of argument. The walls of the head are 
 double, with a great air-chamber between them, over 
 the smallest and most closely crowded "organs." Can 
 you tell how much money there is in a safe, which also 
 has thick double walls, by kneading its knobs with 
 your fingers ? So when a man fumbles about my fore 
 head, and talks about the organs of Individuality, 
 Size, etc. , I trust him as much as I should if he felt of 
 the outside of my strong-box and told me that there 
 was a five-dollar or a ten-dollar-bill under this or that 
 particular rivet. Perhaps there is; only he doesn't 
 know anything about it. But this is a point that I, 
 the Professor, understand, my friends, or ought to, 
 certainly, better than you do. The next argument 
 you will all appreciate. 
 
 I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting 
 mechanism of Phrenology, which is very similar to 
 that of the Pseudo-sciences. An example will show 
 it most conveniently. 
 
 A. is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and 
 Crane examine him and find a good-sized organ of 
 Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology. 
 Casts and drawings of A. are multiplied, and the 
 bump does not lose in the act of copying. I did not 
 say it gained. What do you look so for ? (to the 
 boarders.)
 
 200 THE PROCESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Presently B. turns up, a bigger thief than A. But 
 B. has no bump at all over Acquisitiveness. Nega 
 tive fact ; goes against Phrenology. Not a bit of it. 
 Don't you see how small Conscientiousness is? 
 That 's the reason B. stole. 
 
 And then comes C., ten times as much a thief as 
 either A. or B., used to steal before he was weaned, 
 and would pick one of his own pockets and put its 
 contents in another, if he could find no other way of 
 committing petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a 
 hollow, instead of a bump, over Acquisitiveness. Ah, 
 but just look and see what a bump of Alimentiveness ! 
 Did not C. buy nuts and gingerbread, when a boy, 
 with the money he stole? Of course you see why he 
 is a thief, and how his example confirms our noble 
 science. 
 
 At last comes along a case which is apparently a 
 settler, for there is a little brain with vast and varied 
 powers, a case like that of Byron, for instance. 
 Then comes out the grand reserve-reason which cov 
 ers everything and renders it simply impossible ever 
 to corner a Phrenologist. "It is not the size alone, 
 but the quality of an organ, which determines its 
 degree of power." 
 
 Oh ! oh ! I see. The argument may be briefly 
 stated thus by the Phrenologist: "Heads I win, tails 
 you lose." Well, that 's convenient. 
 
 It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain 
 resemblance to the Pseudo-sciences. I did not say it 
 was a Pseudo-science. 
 
 I have often met persons who have been altogether 
 struck up and amazed at the accuracy with which 
 some wandering Professor of Phrenology had read 
 their characters written upon their skulls. Of course
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 201 
 
 the Professor acquires his information solely through 
 his cranial inspections and manipulations. What 
 are you laughing at? (to the boarders.) But let us 
 just suppose, for a moment, that a tolerably cunning 
 fellow, who did not know or care anything about 
 Phrenology, should open a shop and undertake to read 
 off people's characters at fifty cents or a dollar apiece. 
 Let us see how well he could get along without the 
 "organs." 
 
 I will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I 
 would invest one hundred dollars, more or less, in 
 casts of brains, skulls, charts, and other matters that 
 would make the most show for the money. That 
 would do to begin with. I would then advertise my 
 self as the celebrated Professor Brainey, or whatever 
 name I might choose, and wait for my first customer. 
 My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at 
 him, ask him a question or two, so as to hear him 
 talk. When I have got the hang of him, I ask him 
 to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull, dictating 
 as follows : 
 
 SCALE FROM 1 TO 10. 
 
 LIST OP FACULTIES FOB PRIVATE NOTES FOR MY 
 
 CUSTOMER. PUPIL. 
 
 Each to be accompanied with 
 a wink. 
 
 Amativeness, 7. Most men love the conflicting 
 
 sex, and all men love to be told 
 they do. 
 
 Alimentiveness, 8. Don't you see that he has burst 
 
 off his lowest waistcoat-button 
 with feeding, hey ? 
 
 Acquisitiveness, 8. Of course. A middle-aged 
 
 Yankee.
 
 202 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Approbativeness, 1 -J-. Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. 
 
 Mark the effect of that plus sign. 
 
 Self-esteem, 6. His face shows that. 
 
 Benevolence, 9. That '11 please him. 
 
 Conscientiousness, 8^. That fraction looks first-rate. 
 
 Mirthfulness, 7. Has laughed twice since he 
 
 came in. 
 
 Ideality, 9. That sounds well. 
 
 Form, Size, Weight, Color, Lo- ) 4 to 6. Average every- 
 cality, Eventuality, etc., etc., ) thing that can't be guessed. 
 
 And so of the other faculties. 
 
 Of course, you know, that isn't the way the Phren 
 ologists do. They go only by the bumps. What do 
 you keep laughing so for? (to the boarders.) I only 
 said that is the way /should practise "Phrenology" 
 for a living. 
 
 End of my Lecture. 
 
 The Reformers have good heads, generally. 
 Their faces are commonly serene enough, and they 
 are lambs in private intercourse, even though their 
 voices may be like 
 
 The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore, 
 when heard from the platform. Their greatest spir 
 itual danger is from the perpetual flattery of abuse to 
 which they are exposed. These lines are meant to 
 caution them. 
 
 SAINT ANTHONY THE REFORMER. 
 
 HIS TEMPTATION. 
 
 No fear lest praise should make us proud I 
 We know how cheaply that is won ; 
 
 The idle homage of the crowd 
 Is proof of tasks as idly done.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 A surface-smile may pay the toil 
 
 That follows still the conquering Right, 
 
 With soft, white hands to dress the spoil 
 That sunbrowued valor clutched in fight. 
 
 Sing the sweet song of other days, 
 
 Serenely placid, safely true, 
 And o'er the present's parching ways 
 
 Thy verse distils like evening dew. 
 
 But speak in words of living power, 
 They fall like drops of scalding rain 
 
 That plashed before the burning shower 
 Swept o'er the cities of the plain ! 
 
 Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale, 
 Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring, 
 
 And, smitten through their leprous mail, 
 Strike right and left in hope to sting. 
 
 If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath, 
 Thy feet on earth, thy heart above, 
 
 Canst walk in peace thy kingly path, 
 Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love, 
 
 Too kind for bitter words to grieve, 
 
 Too firm for clamor to dismay, 
 When Faith forbids thee to believe, 
 
 And Meekness calls to disobey, 
 
 Ah, then beware of mortal pride ! 
 
 The smiling pride that calmly scorns 
 Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed 
 
 In laboring on thy crown of thorns ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 One of our boarders perhaps more than one was 
 soncerned in it sent in some questions to me, the
 
 204 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 other day, which, trivial as some of them are, I felt 
 bound to answer. 
 
 1. Whether a lady was ever known to write a 
 letter covering only a single page? 
 
 To this I answered, that there was a case on record 
 where a lady had but half a sheet of paper and no 
 envelope; and being obliged to send through the 
 post-office, she covered only one side of the paper 
 (crosswise, lengthwise, and diagonally). 
 
 2. What constitutes a man a gentleman? 
 
 To this I 'gave several answers, adapted to particu 
 lar classes of questioners. 
 
 a. Not trying to be a gentleman. 
 
 b. Self-respect underlying courtesy. 
 
 c. Knowledge and observance of the fitness of 
 things in social intercourse. 
 
 d. . s. d. (as many suppose.) 
 
 3. Whether face or figure is most attractive in 
 the female sex? 
 
 Answered in the following epigram, by a young 
 man about town : 
 
 Quoth Tom, " Though fair her features be, 
 
 It is her figure pleases me." 
 " What may her figure be ? " I cried. 
 " One hundred thousand ! " he replied. 
 
 When this was read to the boarders, the young man 
 John said he should like a chance to "step up " to a 
 figger of that kind, if the girl was one of the right 
 sort. 
 
 The landlady said them that merried for money 
 didn't deserve the blessin' of a good wife. Money 
 was a great thing when them that had it made a good 
 use of it. She had seen better days herself, and 
 knew what it was never to want for anything. One
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 205 
 
 of her cousins merried a very rich old gentleman, and 
 she had heerd that he said he lived ten year longer 
 than if he 'd staid by himself without anybody to take 
 care of him. There was nothin' like a wife for nus- 
 sin' sick folks and them that couldn't take care of 
 themselves. 
 
 The young man John got off a little wink, and 
 pointed slyly with his thumb in the direction of our 
 diminutive friend, for whom he seemed to think this 
 speech was intended. 
 
 If it was meant for him, he did n't appear to know 
 that it was. Indeed, he seems somewhat listless of 
 late, except when the conversation falls upon one of 
 those larger topics that specially interest him, and 
 then he grows excited, speaks loud and fast, some 
 times almost savagely, and, I have noticed once or 
 twice, presses his left hand to his right side, as if there 
 were something that ached, or weighed, or throbbed 
 in that region. 
 
 While he speaks in this way, the general conversa 
 tion is interrupted, and we all listen to him. Iris 
 looks steadily in his face, and then he will turn as if 
 magnetized and meet the amber eyes with his own 
 melancholy gaze. I do believe that they have some 
 kind of understanding together, that they meet else 
 where than at our table, and that there is a mystery, 
 which is going to break upon us all of a sudden, in 
 volving the relations of these two persons. From the 
 very first, they have taken to each other. The one 
 thing they have in common is the heroic will. In 
 him, it shows itself in thinking his way straightfor 
 ward, in doing battle for "free trade and no right of 
 search ' ' on the high seas of religious controversy, and 
 especially in fighting the battles of his crooked old
 
 206 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 city. In her, it is standing up for her little friend 
 with the most queenly disregard of the code of board 
 ing-house etiquette. People may say or look what 
 they like, she will have her way about this sentiment 
 of hers. 
 
 The Poor Relation is in a dreadful fidget whenever 
 the Little Gentleman says anything that interfere-, 
 with her own infallibility. She seems to think Faith 
 must go with her face tied up, as if she had the tooth 
 ache, and that if she opens her mouth to the quar 
 ter the wind blows from, she will catch her "death o' 
 cold." 
 
 The landlady herself came to him one day, as I 
 have found out, and tried to persuade him to hold his 
 tongue. The boarders was gettin' uneasy, she 
 said, and some of 'em would go, she mistrusted, if 
 he talked any more about things that belonged to the 
 ministers to settle. She was a poor woman, that had 
 known better days, but all her livin' depended on her 
 boarders, and she was sure there was n't any of 'em 
 she set so much by as she did by him ; but there was 
 them that never liked to hear about sech things, 
 except on Sundays. 
 
 The Little Gentleman looked very smiling at the 
 landlady, who smiled even more cordially in return, 
 and adjusted her cap-ribbon with an unconscious 
 movement, a reminiscence of the long-past pairing- 
 time, when she had smoothed her locks and softened 
 her voice, and won her mate by these and other bird- 
 like graces. My dear Madam, he said, I will 
 remember your interests, and speak only of matters 
 to which I am totally indifferent. I don't doubt he 
 meant this; but a day or two after, something stirred 
 him up, and I heard his voice uttering itself aloud, 
 thus:
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 207 
 
 It must be done, Sir ! he was saying, it must 
 be done! Our religion has been Judaized, it has 
 been Romanized, it has been Orientalized, it has been 
 Anglicized, and the time is at hand when it must be 
 AMERICANIZED ! Now, Sir, you see what American 
 izing is in politics ; it means that a man shall have 
 a vote because he is a man, and shall vote for 
 whom he pleases, without his neighbor's interference. 
 If he chooses to vote for the Devil, that is his look 
 out ; perhaps he thinks the Devil is better than the 
 other candidates; and I don't doubt he 's often right, 
 Sir. Just so a man's soul has a vote in the spiritual 
 community; and it doesn't do, Sir, or it won't do 
 long, to call him "schismatic" and "heretic" and 
 those other wicked names that the old murderous In 
 quisitors have left us to help along "peace and good 
 will to men " ! 
 
 As long as you could catch a man and drop him 
 into an oubliette, or pull him out a few inches longer 
 by machinery, or put a hot iron through his tongue, 
 or make him climb up a ladder and sit on a board at 
 the top of a stake so that he should be slowly broiled 
 by the fire kindled round it, there was some sense in 
 these words; they led to something. But since we 
 have done with those tools, we had better give up 
 those words. I should like to see a Yankee advertise 
 ment like this! (the Little Gentleman laughed 
 fiercely as he uttered the words, ) 
 
 Patent thumb-screws, will crush the bone in 
 three turns. 
 
 The cast-iron boot, with wedge and mallet, 
 only five dollars ! 
 
 The celebrated extension-rack, warranted to 
 stretch a man six inches in twenty minutes, money 
 returned, if it proves unsatisfactory.
 
 208 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 I should like to see such an advertisement, I say, 
 Sir! Now, what's the use of using the words that 
 belonged with the thumb-screws, and the Blessed 
 Virgin with the knives under her petticoats and 
 sleeves and bodice, and the dry pan and gradual fire^ 
 if we can't have the things themselves, Sir? What 's 
 the use of painting the fire round a poor fellow, when 
 you think it won't do to kindle one under him, as 
 they did at Valencia or Valladolid, or wherever it was? 
 
 What story is that? I said. 
 
 Why, he answered, at the last auto-da-fe, in 
 1824 or '5, or somewhere there, it's a traveller's 
 story, but a mighty knowing traveller he is, they 
 had a "heretic" to use up according to the statutes 
 provided for the crime of private opinion. They 
 could n't quite make up their minds to burn him, so 
 they only hung him in a hogshead painted all over 
 with flames ! 
 
 No, Sir ! when a man calls you names because you 
 go to the ballot-box and vote for your candidate, or 
 because you say this or that is your opinion, he for 
 gets in which half of the world he was born, Sir! 
 It won't be long, Sir, before we have Americanized 
 religion as we have Americanized government; and 
 then, Sir, every soul God sends into the world will be 
 good in the face of all men for just so much of His 
 "inspiration" as "giveth him understanding"! 
 None of my words, Sir ! none of my words ! 
 
 If Iris does not love this Little Gentleman, what 
 does love look like when one sees it? She follows 
 him with her eyes, she leans over toward him when he 
 speaks, her face changes with the changes of his 
 speech, so that one might think it was with her aa 
 with Christabel,
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 209 
 
 That all her features were resigned 
 To this sole image iu her mind. 
 
 But she never looks at him with such intensity of 
 devotion as when he says anything about the soul and 
 the soul's atmosphere, religion. 
 
 Women are twice as religious as men; all the 
 world knows that. Whether they are any better, in 
 the eyes of Absolute Justice, might be questioned ; for 
 the additional religious element supplied by sex hardly 
 seems to be a matter of praise or blame. But in all 
 common aspects they are so much above us that we 
 get most of our religion from them, from their 
 teachings, from their example, above all, from their 
 pure affections. 
 
 Now this poor little Iris had been talked to 
 strangely in her childhood. Especially she had been 
 told that she hated all good things, which every sen 
 sible parent knows well enough is not true of a great 
 many children, to say the least. I have sometimes 
 questioned whether many libels on human nature had 
 not been a natural consequence of the celibacy of the 
 clergy, which was enforced for so long a period. 
 
 The child had met this and some other equally 
 encouraging statements as to her spiritual conditions, 
 early in life, and fought the battle of spiritual inde 
 pendence prematurely, as many children do. If all 
 she did was hateful to God, what was the meaning 
 of the approving or else the disapproving conscience, 
 when she had done " right " or " wrong " ? No " shoul 
 der-striker " hits out straighter than a child with its 
 logic. Why, I can remember lying in my bed in the 
 nursery and settling questions which all that I have 
 heard since and got out of books has never been able 
 to raise again. If a child does not assert itself in this
 
 210 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 way in good season, it becomes just what its parents 
 or teachers were, and is no better than a plastic 
 image. How old was I at the time? I suppose 
 about 5823 years old, that is, counting from Arch 
 bishop Usher's date of the Creation, and adding the 
 life of the race, whose accumulated intelligence is a 
 part of my inheritance, to my own. A good deal 
 older than Plato, you see, and much more experienced 
 than my Lord Bacon and most of the world's teachers.- 
 Old books, as you well know, are books of the 
 world's youth, and new books are fruits of its age. 
 How many of all these ancient folios round me are 
 like so many old cupels ! The gold has passed out of 
 them long ago, but their pores are full of the dross 
 with which it vras mingled. 
 
 And so Iris having thrown off that first lasso 
 which not only fetters, but choices those whom it can 
 hold, so that they give themselves up trembling and 
 breathless to the great soul-subduer, who has them bj. 
 the windpipe had settled a brief creed for herself, 
 in which love of the neighbor, whom we have seen, 
 was the first article, and love of the Creator, whom 
 we have not seen, grew out of this as its natural de 
 velopment, being necessarily second in order of time 
 to the first unselfish emotions which we feel for the 
 fellow-creatures who surround us in our early years. 
 
 The child must have some place of worship. What 
 would a young girl be who never mingled her voice 
 with the songs and prayers that rose all around her 
 with every returning day of rest? And Iris was free 
 to choose. Sometimes one and sometimes another 
 would offer to carry her to this or that place of wor 
 ship; and when the doors were hospitably opened, 
 she would often go meekly in by herself. It was a
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 211 
 
 curious fact, that two churches as remote from each 
 other in doctrine as could well be divided her affec 
 tions. 
 
 The Church of Saint Polycarp had very much the 
 look of a Roman Catholic chapel. I do not wish to 
 run the risk of giving names to the ecclesiastical fur 
 niture which gave it such a Romish aspect ; but there 
 were pictures, and inscriptions in antiquated charac 
 ters, and there were reading-stands, and flowers on 
 the altar, and other elegant arrangements. Then 
 there were boys to sing alternately in choirs respon 
 sive to each other, and there was much bowing, with 
 very loud responding, and a long service and a short 
 sermon, and a bag, such as Judas used to hold in the 
 old pictures, was carried round to receive contribu 
 tions. Everything was done not only "decently and 
 in order," but, perhaps one might say, with a certain 
 air of magnifying their office on the part of the dig 
 nified clergymen, often two or three in number. 
 The music and the free welcome were grateful to Iris, 
 and she forgot her prejudices at the door of the chapel. 
 For this was a church with open doors, with seats for 
 all classes and all colors alike, a church of zealous 
 worshippers after their faith, of charitable and ser 
 viceable men and women, one that took care of its 
 children and never forgot its poor, and whose people 
 were much more occupied in looking out for their own 
 souls than in attacking the faith of their neighbors. 
 In its mode of worship there was a union of two qual 
 ities, the taste and refinement, which the educated 
 require just as much in their churches as elsewhere, 
 and the air of stateliness, almost of pomp, which im 
 presses the common worshipper, and is often not with 
 out its effect upon those who think they hold outward
 
 212 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 forms as of little value. Under the half -Romish as 
 pect of the Church of Saint Polycarp, the young girl 
 found a devout and loving and singularly cheerful 
 religious spirit. The artistic sense, which betrayed 
 itself in the dramatic proprieties of its ritual, harmo 
 nized with her taste. The mingled murmur of the 
 loud responses, in those rhythmic phrases, so simple., 
 yet so fervent, almost as if every tenth heart-beat? 
 instead of its dull tic-tac, articulated itself as "Good 
 Lord, deliver us! " the sweet alternation of the two 
 choirs, as their holy song floated from side to side, 
 the keen young voices rising like a flight of singing- 
 birds that passes from one grove to another, carrying 
 its music with it back and forward, why should she 
 not love these gracious outward signs of those inner 
 harmonies which none could deny made beautiful the 
 lives of many of her fellow-worshippers in the humble, 
 yet not inelegant Chapel of Saint Polycarp? 
 
 The young Marylander, who was born and bred 
 to that mode of worship, had introduced her to the 
 chapel, for which he did the honors for such of our 
 boarders as were not otherwise provided for. I saw 
 them looking over the same prayer-book one Sunday, 
 and I could not help thinking that two such young 
 and handsome persons could hardly worship together 
 in safety for a great while. But they seemed to mind 
 nothing but their prayer-book. By-and-by the silken 
 bag was handed round. I don't believe she will; 
 so awkward, you know ; besides, she only came by 
 invitation. There she is, with her hand in her pocket, 
 though, and sure enough, her little bit of silver tin 
 kled as it struck the coin beneath. God bless her ! 
 she has n't much to give ; but her eye glistens when 
 she gives it, and that is all Heaven asks. That was
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 213 
 
 the first time I noticed these young people together, 
 and I am sure they behaved with the most charming 
 propriety, in fact, there was one of our silent lady- 
 boarders with them, whose eyes would have kept Cu 
 pid and Psyche to their good behavior. A day or 
 two after this I noticed that the young gentleman had 
 left his seat, which you may remember was at the cor 
 ner diagonal to that of Iris, so that they have been as 
 far removed from each other as they could be at the 
 table. His new seat is three or four places farther 
 down the table. Of course I made a romance out of 
 this, at once. So stupid not to see it ! How could it 
 be otherwise? Did you speak, Madam? I beg your 
 pardon. (To my lady-reader.) 
 
 I never saw anything like the tenderness with which 
 this young girl treats her little deformed neighbor. 
 If he were in the way of going to church, I know 
 she would follow him. But his worship, if any, is not 
 with the throng of men and women and staring chil 
 dren. 
 
 I, the Professor, on the other hand, am a regular 
 church-goer. I should go for various reasons if I 
 did not love it; but I am happy enough to find great 
 pleasure in the midst o| devout multitudes, whether 
 I can accept all their creeds or not. One place of 
 worship comes nearer than the rest to my ideal stand 
 ard, and to this it was that I carried our young girl. 
 
 The Church of the Galileans, as it is called, is even 
 humbler in outside pretensions than the Church of 
 Saint Polycarp. Like that, it is open to all comers. 
 The stranger who approaches it looks down a quiet 
 street and sees the plainest of chapels, a kind of 
 wooden tent, that owes whatever grace it has to its 
 pointed windows and the high, sharp roof, traces,
 
 214 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 both, of that upward movement of ecclesiastical archi 
 tecture which soared aloft in cathedral-spires, shoot 
 ing into the sky as the spike of a flowering aloe from 
 the cluster of broad, sharp-wedged leaves below. 
 This suggestion of mediaeval symbolism, aided by a 
 minute turret in which a hand-bell might have hung 
 and found just room enough to turn over, was all of 
 outward show the small edifice could boast. Within 
 there was very little that pretended to be attractive. 
 A small organ at one side, and a plain pulpit, showed 
 that the building was a church ; but it was a church 
 reduced to its simplest expression. 
 
 Yet when the great and wise monarch of the East sat 
 upon his throne, in all the golden blaze of the spoils 
 of Ophir and the freights of the navy of Tarshish, his 
 glory was not like that of this simple chapel in its 
 Sunday garniture. For the lilies of the field, in their 
 season, and the fairest flowers of the year, in due suc 
 cession, were clustered every Sunday morning over the 
 preacher's desk. Slight, thin-tissued blossoms of pink 
 and blue and virgin white in early spring, then the 
 full-breasted and deep-hearted roses of summer, then 
 the velvet-robed crimson and yellow flowers of autumn, 
 and in the winter delicate exotics that grew under 
 skies of glass in the false summers of our crystal pal 
 aces without knowing that it was the dreadful winter 
 of New England which was rattling the doors and 
 frosting the panes, in their language the whole year 
 told its history of life and growth and beauty from 
 that simple desk. There was always at least one good 
 sermon, this floral homily. There was at least one 
 good prayer, that brief space when all were silent, 
 after the manner of the Friends at their devotions. 
 
 Here, too, Iris found an atmosphere of peace and
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 215 
 
 love. The same gentle, thoughtful faces, the same 
 cheerful but reverential spirit, the same quiet, the 
 same life of active benevolence. But in all else how 
 different from the Church of Saint Poly carp! No 
 clerical costume, no ceremonial forms, no carefully 
 trained choirs. A liturgy they have, to be sure, which 
 does not scruple to borrow from the time-honored 
 manuals of devotion, but also does not hesitate to 
 change its expressions to its own liking. 
 
 Perhaps the good people seem a little easy with 
 each other; they are apt to nod familiarly, and 
 have even been known to whisper before the minister 
 came in. But it is a relief to get rid of that old Sun 
 day no, Sabbath face, which suggests the idea 
 that the first day of the week is commemorative of 
 some most mournful event. The truth is, these 
 brethren and sisters meet very much as a family does 
 for its devotions, not putting off their humanity in the 
 least, considering it on the whole quite a delightful 
 matter to come together for prayer and song and good 
 counsel from kind and wise lips. And if they are 
 freer in their demeanor than some very precise con 
 gregations, they have not the air of a worldly set of 
 people. Clearly they have not come to advertise their 
 tailors and milliners, nor for the sake of exchanging 
 criticisms on the literary character of the sermon they 
 may hear. There is no restlessness and no restraint 
 among these quiet, cheerful worshippers. One thing 
 that keeps them calm and happy during the season so 
 evidently trying to many congregations is, that they 
 join very generally in the singing. In this way they 
 get rid of that accumulated nervous force which es 
 capes in all sorts of fidgety movements, so that a min 
 ister trying to keep his congregation still reminds one
 
 216 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 of a boy with his hand over the nose of a pump which 
 another boy is working, this spirting impatience of 
 the people is so like the jets that find their way 
 through his fingers, and the grand rush out at the 
 final Amen ! has such a wonderful likeness to the gush 
 that takes place when the boy pulls his hand away, 
 with immense relief, as it seems, to both the pump 
 and the officiating youngster. 
 
 How sweet is this blending of all voices and all 
 hearts in one common song of praise! Some will 
 sing a little loud, perhaps, and now and then an 
 impatient chorister will get a syllable or two in ad 
 vance, or an enchanted singer so lose all thought of 
 time and place in the luxury of a closing cadence that 
 he holds on to the last semi-breve upon his private 
 responsibility; but how much more of the spirit of 
 the old Psalmist in the music of these imperfectly 
 trained voices than in the academic niceties of the 
 paid performers who take our musical worship out of 
 our hands ! 
 
 I am of the opinion that the creed of the Church of 
 the Galileans is not laid down in as many details as 
 that of the Church of Saint Polycarp. Yet I sus 
 pect, if one of the good people from each of those 
 churches had met over the bed of a suffering fellow- 
 creature, or for the promotion of any charitable ob 
 ject, they would have found they had more in com 
 mon than all the special beliefs or want of beliefs that 
 separated them would amount to. There are always 
 many who believe that the fruits of a tree afford a 
 better test of its condition than a statement of the 
 composts with which it is dressed, though the last 
 has its meaning and importance, no doubt. 
 
 Between these two churches, then, our young Iris
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 217 
 
 divides her affections. But I doubt if she listens to 
 the preacher at either with more devotion than she does 
 to her little neighbor when he talks of these matters. 
 
 What does he believe? In the first place, there is 
 some deep-rooted disquiet lying at the bottom of his 
 soul, which makes him very bitter against all kinds of 
 usurpation over the right of private judgment. Over 
 this seems to lie a certain tenderness for humanity in 
 general, bred out of life-long trial, I should say, but 
 sharply streaked with fiery lines of wrath at various 
 individual acts of wrong, especially if they come in 
 an- ecclesiastical shape, and recall to him the days 
 when his mother's great-grandmother was strangled 
 on Witch Hill, with a text from the Old Testament 
 for her halter. With all this, he has a boundless be 
 lief in the future of this experimental hemisphere, 
 and especially in the destiny of the free thought of its 
 northeastern metropolis. 
 
 A man can see further, Sir, he said one day, 
 from the top of Boston State House, and see more 
 that is worth seeing, than from all the pyramids and 
 turrets and steeples in all the places in the world! 
 No smoke, Sir ; no fog, Sir ; and a clean sweep from 
 the Outer Light and the sea beyond it to the New 
 Hampshire mountains ! Yes, Sir, and there are 
 great truths that are higher than mountains and 
 broader than seas, that people are looking for from 
 the tops of these hills of ours, such as the world 
 never saw, though it might have seen them at Jeru 
 salem, if its eyes had been open ! Where do they 
 have most crazy people ? Tell me that, Sir ! 
 
 I answered, that I had heard it said there were 
 more in New England than in most countries, perhaps 
 more than in any part of the world.
 
 218 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Very good, Sir, he answered. When have 
 there been most people killed and wounded in the 
 course of this century? 
 
 During the wars of the French Empire, no doubt, 
 
 I said. 
 
 That 's it! that 's it! said the Little Gentleman; 
 
 where the battle of intelligence is fought, there are 
 most minds bruised and broken ! We 're battling for 
 a faith here, Sir. 
 
 The divinity-student remarked, that it was rather 
 late in the world's history for men to be looking out 
 for a new faith. 
 
 I didn't say a new faith, said the Little Gentle 
 man; old or new, it can't help being different here 
 in this American mind of ours from anything that 
 ever was before; the people are new, Sir, and that 
 makes the difference. One load of corn goes to the 
 sty, and makes the fat of swine, another goes to the 
 farm-house, and becomes the muscle that clothes the 
 right arms of heroes. It is n't where a pawn stands 
 on the board that makes the difference, but what the 
 game round it is when it is on this or that square. 
 
 Can any man look round and see what Christian 
 countries are now doing, and how they are governed, 
 and what is the general condition of society, without 
 seeing that Christianity is the flag under which the 
 world sails, and not the rudder that steers its course? 
 No, Sir! There was a great raft built about two 
 thousand years ago, call it an ark, rather, the 
 world's great ark ! big enough to hold all mankind, 
 and made to be launched right out into the open 
 waves of life, and here it has been lying, one end 
 on the shore and one end bobbing^up and down in the 
 water, men fighting all the time as to who should be
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 219 
 
 captain and who should have the state-rooms, and 
 throwing each other over the side because they could 
 not agree about the points of compass, but the great 
 vessel never getting afloat with its freight of nations 
 and their rulers; and now, Sir, there is and has 
 been for this long time a fleet of "heretic" lighters 
 sailing out of Boston Bay, and they have been saying, 
 and they say now, and they mean to keep saying, 
 "Pump out your bilge-water, shovel over your loads 
 of idle ballast, get out your old rotten cargo, and we 
 will carry it out into deep waters and sink it where 
 it will never be seen again ; so shall the ark of the 
 world's hope float on the ocean, instead of sticking in 
 the dock-mud where it is lying! " 
 
 It 's a slow business, this of getting the ark launched. 
 The Jordan wasn't deep enough, and the Tiber 
 wasn't deep enough, and the Rhone wasn't deep 
 enough, and the Thames was n't deep enough, and 
 perhaps the Charles isn't deep enough; but I don't 
 feel sure of that, Sir, and I love to hear the workmen 
 knocking at the old blocks of tradition and making 
 the ways smooth with the oil of the Good Samaritan. 
 I don't know, Sir, but I do think she stirs a little, 
 I do believe she slides ; and when I think of what 
 a work that is for the dear old three-breasted mother 
 of American liberty, I would not take all the glory of 
 all the greatest cities in the world for my birthright 
 in the soil of little Boston ! 
 
 Some of us could not help smiling at this burst 
 of local patriotism, especially when it finished with 
 the last two words. 
 
 And Iris smiled, too. But it was the radiant smile 
 of pleasure which always lights up her face when her 
 little neighbor gets excited on the great topics of pro-
 
 220 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 gress in freedom and religion, and especially on the 
 part which, as he pleases himself with believing, his 
 own city is to take in that consummation of human 
 development to which he looks forward. 
 
 Presently she looked into his face with a changed 
 expression, the anxiety of a mother that sees her 
 child suffering. 
 
 You are not well, she said. 
 
 I am never well, he answered. His eyes fell 
 mechanically on the death's-head ring he wore on his 
 right hand. She took his hand as if it had been a 
 baby's, and turned the grim device so that it should 
 be out of sight. One slight, sad, slow movement of 
 the head seemed to say, "The death-symbol is still 
 there!" 
 
 A very odd personage, to be sure ! Seems to know 
 what is going on, reads books, old and new, has 
 many recent publications sent him, they tell me,~ 
 but, what is more curious, keeps up with the every 
 day affairs of the world, too. Whether he hears 
 everything that is said with preternatural acuteness, 
 or whether some confidential friend visits him in a 
 quiet way, is more than I can tell. I can make no 
 thing more of the noises I hear in his room than my 
 old conjectures. The movements I mention are less 
 frequent, but I often hear the plaintive cry, I ob 
 serve that it is rarely laughing of late ; I never have 
 detected one articulate word, but I never heard such 
 tones from anything but a human voice. 
 
 There has been, of late, a deference approaching to 
 tenderness, on the part of the boarders generally so 
 far as he is concerned. This is doubtless owing to 
 the air of suffering which seems to have saddened his 
 look of late. Either some passion is gnawing at him
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 221 
 
 inwardly, or some hidden disease is at work upon 
 him. 
 
 What's the matter with Little Boston? said 
 the young man John to me one day. There a'n't 
 much of him, anyhow; but 't seems to me he looks 
 peakeder than ever. The old woman says he 's in a 
 bad way, 'n' wants a nuss to take care of him. 
 Them nusses that take care of old rich folks marry 
 'em sometimes, 'n' they don't commonly live a 
 great while after that. JVb, Sir! I don't see what 
 he wants to die for, after he 's taken so much trouble 
 to live in such poor accommodations as that crooked 
 body of his. I should like to know how his soul 
 crawled into it, 'n' how it 's goin' to get out. What 
 business has he to die, I should like to know? Let 
 Ma'am Allen (the gentleman with the diamond) die, 
 if he likes, and be (this is a family-magazine); but 
 we a'n't goin' to have him dyin'. Not by a great 
 sight. Can't do without him anyhow. A'n't it fun 
 to hear him blow off his steam? 
 
 I believe the young fellow would take it as a per 
 sonal insult, if the Little Gentleman should show any 
 symptoms of quitting our table for a better world. 
 
 In the mean time, what with going to church in 
 company with our young lady, and taking every 
 chance I could get to talk with her, I have found my 
 self becoming, I will not say intimate, but well ac 
 quainted with Miss Iris. There is a certain frankness 
 and directness about her that perhaps belong to her 
 artist nature. For, you see, the one thing that marks 
 the true artist is a clear perception and a firm, bold 
 hand, in distinction from that imperfect mental vision 
 and uncertain touch which give us the feeble pictures 
 and the lumpy statues of the mere artisans on canvas
 
 222 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 or in stone. A true artist, therefore, can hardly fail 
 to have a sharp, well-defined mental physiognomy. 
 Besides this, many young girls have a strange auda 
 city blended with their instinctive delicacy. Even in 
 physical daring many of them are a match for boys ; 
 whereas you will find few among mature women, and 
 especially if they are mothers, who do not confess, and 
 not ^infrequently proclaim, their timidity. One of 
 these young girls, as many ot us hereabouts remember, 
 climbed to the top of a jagged, slippery rock lying out 
 in the waves, an ugly height to get up, and a worse 
 one to get down, even for a bold young fellow of six 
 teen. Another was in the way of climbing tall trees 
 for crows' nests, and crows generally know about 
 how far boys can "shin up," and set their household 
 establishments above that high-water mark. Still 
 another of these young ladies I saw for the first time 
 in an open boat, tossing on the ocean ground-swell, a 
 mile or two from shore, off a lonely island. She lost 
 all her daring, after she had some girls of her own to 
 look out for. 
 
 Many blondes are very gentle, yielding in charac 
 ter, impressible, unelastic. But the positive blondes, 
 with the golden tint running through them, are often 
 full of character. They come, probably enough, from 
 those deep-bosomed German women that Tacitus por 
 trayed in such strong colors. The negative blondes, 
 or those women whose tints have faded out as their 
 line of descent has become impoverished, are of vari 
 ous blood, and in them the soul has often become pale 
 with that blanching of the hair and loss of color in 
 the eyes which makes them approach the character of 
 Albinesses. 
 
 I see in this young girl that union of strength and
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 223 
 
 sensibility which, when directed and impelled by the 
 strong instinct so apt to accompany this combination 
 of active and passive capacity, we call genius. She 
 is not an accomplished artist, certainly, as yet; but 
 there is always an air in every careless figure she 
 draws, as it were of upward aspiration, the elan of 
 John of Bologna's Mercury, a lift to them, as if 
 they had on winged sandals, like the herald of the 
 Gods. I hear her singing sometimes ; and though she 
 evidently is not trained, yet is there a wild sweetness 
 in her fitful and sometimes fantastic melodies, such 
 as can come only from the inspiration of the moment, 
 strangely enough, reminding me of those long pas 
 sages I have heard from my little neighbor's room, 
 yet of different tone, and by no means to be mistaken 
 for those weird harmonies. 
 
 I cannot pretend to deny that I am interested in the 
 girl. Alone, unprotected, as I have seen so many 
 young girls left in boarding-houses, the centre of all 
 the men's eyes that surround the table, watched with 
 jealous sharpness by every woman, most of all by that 
 poor relation of our landlady, who belongs to the class 
 of women that like to catch others in mischief when 
 they themselves are too mature for indiscretions, (as 
 one sees old rogues turn to thief -catchers,) one of Na 
 ture's gendarmerie, clad in a complete suit of wrin 
 kles, the cheapest coat-of-mail against the shafts of 
 the great little enemy, so surrounded, Iris spans 
 this commonplace household-life of ours with her arch 
 of beauty, as the rainbow, whose name she borrows, 
 looks down on a dreary pasture with its feeding flocks 
 and herds of indifferent animals. 
 
 These young girls that live in boarding-houses can 
 do pretty much as they will. The female gendarmes
 
 224 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 are off guard occasionally. The sitting-room has its 
 solitary moments, when any two boarders who wish to 
 meet may come together accidentally, (accidentally, I 
 said, Madam, and I had not the slightest intention of 
 Italicizing the word,) and discuss the social or polit 
 ical questions of the day, or any other subject that 
 may prove interesting. Many charming conversations 
 take place at the foot of the stairs, or while one of the 
 parties is holding the latch of a door, in the shadow 
 of porticoes, and especially on those outside balconies 
 which some of our Southern neighbors call "stoops," 
 the most charming places in the world when the moon 
 is just right and the roses and honeysuckles are in full 
 blow, as we used to think in eighteen hundred and 
 never mention it. 
 
 On such a balcony or " stoop," one evening, I walked 
 with Iris. We were on pretty good terms now, and 
 I had coaxed her arm under mine, my left arm, of 
 course. That leaves one's right arm free to defend 
 the lovely creature, if the rival odious wretch ! 
 attempt, to ravish her from your side. Likewise if 
 one's heart should happen to beat a little, its mute 
 language will not be without its meaning, as you will 
 perceive when the arm you hold begins to tremble, 
 a circumstance like to occur, if you happen to be a 
 good-looking young fellow, and you two have the 
 "stoop" to yourselves. 
 
 We had it to ourselves that evening. The Koh-i- 
 noor, as we called him, was in a corner with our land 
 lady's daughter. The young fellow John was smok 
 ing out in the yard. The gendarme was afraid of the 
 evening air, and kept inside. The young Mary- 
 lander came to the door, looked out and saw us walk 
 ing together, gave his hat a pull over his forehead and
 
 THE PEOFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 225 
 
 stalked off. I felt a slight spasm, as it were, in the 
 arm I held, and saw the girl's head turn over her 
 shoulder for a second. What a kind creature this is ! 
 She has no special interest in this youth, but she does 
 not like to see a young fellow going off because he 
 feels as if he were not wanted. 
 
 She had her locked drawing-book under her arm. 
 
 Let me take it, I said. 
 She gave it to me to carry. 
 
 This is full of caricatures of all of us, I am sure, 
 
 said I. 
 
 She laughed, and said, No, not all of you. 
 
 I was there, of course? 
 
 Why, no, she had never taken so much pains with 
 me. 
 
 Then she would let me see the inside of it? 
 
 She would think of it. 
 
 Just as we parted, she took a little key from her 
 pocket and handed it to me. This unlocks my 
 naughty book, she said, you shall see it. I am 
 not afraid of you. 
 
 I don't know whether the last words exactly pleased 
 me. At any rate, I took the book and hurried with 
 it to my room. I opened it, and saw, in a few 
 glances, that I held the heart of Iris in my hand. 
 
 I have no verses for you this month, except these 
 few lines suggested by the season. 
 
 
 
 MIDSUMMER. 
 
 Here ! sweep these foolish leaves away, 
 I will not crush my brains to-day ! 
 Look ! are the southern curtains drawn ? 
 Fetch me a fan, and so begone I
 
 226 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Not that, the palm-tree's rustling leaf 
 Brought from a parching coral-reef ! 
 Its breath is heated ; I would swing 
 The broad gray plumes, the eagle's wing. 
 
 I hate these roses' feverish blood ! 
 Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, 
 A long-stemmed lily from the lake, 
 Cold as a coiling water-snake. 
 
 Bain me sweet odors on the air, 
 And wheel me up my Indian chair, 
 And spread some book not overwise 
 Flat out before my sleepy eyes. 
 
 Who knows it not, this dead recoil 
 Of weary fibres stretched with toil, 
 The pulse that flutters faint and low 
 When Summer's seething breezes blow ? 
 
 O Nature ! bare thy loving breast 
 And give thy child one hour of rest, 
 One little hour to lie unseen 
 Beneath thy scarf of leafy green ! 
 
 So, curtained by a singing pine, 
 
 Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine;, 
 
 Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay 
 
 In sweeter music dies away. 
 
 X. 
 
 I pray thee by the soul of her that bore thee, 
 By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee, 
 Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee ! 
 
 For Iris had no mother to infold her, 
 
 Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder, 
 
 Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 227 
 
 She had not learned the mystery of awaking 
 Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's aching, 
 Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were breaking. 
 
 Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token I 
 Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken, 
 Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken ? 
 
 She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies, 
 
 Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances, 
 
 And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances. 
 
 Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing, 
 
 Sometimes a flashing falcon in her daring, 
 
 Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing. 
 
 Questioning all things : Why her Lord had sent her ? 
 What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her ? 
 Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor. 
 
 And then all tears and anguish : Queen of Heaven, 
 Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven, 
 Save me ! oh, save me ! Shall I die forgiven ? 
 
 And then Ah, God ! But nay, it little matters : 
 
 Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters, 
 The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters ! 
 
 If she had Well ! She longed, and knew not wherefore 
 
 Had the world nothing she might live to care for ? 
 No second self to say her evening prayer for ? 
 
 She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming, 
 Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses streaming 
 Showed not unlovely to her simple seeming. 
 
 Vain ? Let it be so ! Nature was her teacher. 
 
 What if a lonely and unsistered creature 
 
 Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature,
 
 228 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Saying, unsaddened, This shall soon be faded, 
 And double-hued the shining tresses braided, 
 And all the sunlight of the morning shaded ? 
 
 This her poor book is full of saddest follies, 
 
 Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies, 
 With summer roses twined and wintry hollies. 
 
 In the strange crossing of uncertain chances, 
 Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances 
 May fall her little book of dreams and fancies. 
 
 Sweet sister ! Iris, who shall never name thee, 
 Trembling for fear her open heart may shame thee, 
 Speaks from this vision-haunted page to claim thee. 
 
 Spare her, I pray thee ! If the maid is sleeping, 
 Peace with her 1 she has had her hour of weeping. 
 No more ! She leaves her memory in thy keeping. 
 
 These verses were written in the first leaves of the 
 locked volume. As I turned the pages, I hesitated 
 for a moment. Is it quite fair to take advantage of 
 a generous, trusting impulse to read the unsunned 
 depths of a young girl's nature, which I can look 
 through, as the balloon-voyagers tell us they see from 
 their hanging-baskets through the translucent waters 
 which the keenest eye of such as sail over them in 
 ships might strive to pierce in vain? Why has the 
 child trusted me with such artless confessions, self- 
 revelations, which might be whispered by trembling 
 lips, under the veil of twilight, in sacred confessionals, 
 but which I cannot look at in the light of day without 
 a feeling of wronging a sacred confidence? 
 
 To all this the answer seemed plain enough after a 
 little thought. She did not know how fearfully she 
 had disclosed herself; she was too profoundly inno-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 229 
 
 cent. Her soul was no more ashamed than the fair 
 shapes that walked in Eden without a thought of over- 
 liberal loveliness. Having nobody to tell her story 
 to, having, as she said in her verses, no musical 
 instrument to laugh and cry with her, nothing, in 
 short, but the language of pen and pencil, all the 
 veinings of her nature were impressed on these pages 
 as those of a fresh leaf are transferred to the blank 
 sheets which inclose it. It was the same thing which 
 I remember seeing beautifully shown in a child of some 
 four or five years we had one day at our boarding- 
 house. The child was a deaf mute. But its soul had 
 the inner sense that answers to hearing, and the shap 
 ing capacity which through natural organs realizes 
 itself in words. Only it had to talk with its face 
 alone; and such speaking eyes, such rapid alterna 
 tions of feeling and shifting expressions of thought as 
 flitted over its face, I have never seen in any other 
 human countenance. 
 
 I wonder if something of spiritual transparency is 
 not typified in the golden-6/on^e organization. There 
 are a great many little creatures, many small fishes, 
 for instance, which are literally transparent, with 
 the exception of some of the internal organs. The 
 heart can be seen beating as if in a case of clouded 
 crystal. The central nervous column with its sheath 
 runs as a dark stripe through the whole length of the 
 diaphanous muscles of the body. Other little crea 
 tures are so darkened with pigment that we can see 
 only their surface. Conspirators and poisoners are 
 painted with black, beady eyes and swarthy hue; 
 Judas, in Leonardo's picture, is the model of them 
 all. 
 
 However this may be, I should say there never had
 
 230 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 been a book like this of Iris, so full of the heart's 
 silent language, so transparent that the heart itself 
 could be seen beating through it. I should say there 
 never could have been such a book, but for one recol 
 lection, which is not peculiar to myself, but is shared 
 by a certain number of my former townsmen. If 
 you think I overcolor this matter of the young girl's 
 book, hear this, which there are others, as I just said, . 
 besides myself, will tell you is strictly true. 
 
 The Book of the Three Maiden Sisters. 
 
 In the town called Cantabridge, now a city, water- 
 veined and gas windpiped, in the street running down 
 to the Bridge, beyond which dwelt Sally, told of in a 
 book of a friend of mine, was of old a house inhabited 
 by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I be 
 lieve ; whether they did or not, I have no ill to speak 
 of them; for they lived and died in all good report 
 and maidenly credit. 'The house they lived in was of 
 the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the 
 shape of Esquires' houses, but after the size of the 
 dwellings of handicraftsmen. The lower story was 
 fitted up as a shop. Specially was it provided with 
 one of those half -doors now so rarely met with, which 
 are to whole doors as spencers worn by old folk are 
 to coats. They speak of limited commerce united 
 with a social or observing disposition on the part of 
 the shopkeeper, allowing, as they do, talk with pass 
 ers-by, yet keeping off such as have not the excuse 
 of business to cross the threshold. On the door-posts, 
 at either side, above the half -door, hung certain per 
 ennial articles of merchandise, of which my memory 
 still has hanging among its faded photographs a kind
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 231 
 
 of netted scarf and some pairs of thick woollen stock 
 ings. More articles, but not very many, were stored 
 inside; and there was one drawer, containing chil 
 dren's books, out of which I once was treated to a 
 minute quarto ornamented with handsome cuts. This 
 was the only purchase I ever knew to be made at the 
 shop kept by the three maiden ladies, though it is 
 probable there were others. So long as I remember 
 the shop, the same scarf and, I should say, the same 
 stockings hung on the door-posts. [You think I am 
 exaggerating again, and that shopkeepers would not 
 keep the same article exposed for years. Come to 
 me, the Professor, and I will take you in five minutes 
 to a shop in this city where I will show you an article 
 hanging now in the very place where more than thirty 
 years ago I myself inquired the price of it of the pres 
 ent head of the establishment. 1 ] 
 
 The three maidens were of comely presence, and one 
 of them had had claims to be considered a Beauty. 
 When I saw them in the old meeting-house on Sun 
 days, as they rustled in through the aisles in silks and 
 satins, not gay, but more than decent, as I remember 
 them, I thought of My Lady Bountiful in the history 
 of "Little King Pippin," and of the Madam Blaize of 
 Goldsmith (who, by the way, must have taken the hint 
 of it from a pleasant poem, "Monsieur de la Palisse," 
 attributed to De la Monnoye, in the collection of 
 French songs before me). 2 There was some story of 
 an old romance in which the Beauty had played her 
 part. Perhaps they all had had lovers ; for r as I said, 
 
 1 This was a glass alembic, which hung up in Daniel Hench 
 man's apothecary shop, corner of Cambridge and Chambers 
 streets. 
 
 9 Vide Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.
 
 232 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 they were shapely and seemly personages, as I remem 
 ber them ; but their lives were out of the flower and 
 in the berry at the time of my first recollections. 
 
 One after another they all three dropped away, ob 
 jects of kindly attention to the good people round, 
 leaving little or almost nothing, and nobody to in 
 herit it. Not absolutely nothing, of course. There 
 must have been a few old dresses perhaps some bits 
 of furniture, a Bible, and the spectacles the good old 
 souls read it through, and little keepsakes, such as 
 make us cry to look at, when we find them in old 
 drawers ; such relics there must have been. But 
 there was more. There was a manuscript of some 
 hundred pages, closely written, in which the poor 
 things had chronicled for many years the incidents of 
 their daily life. After their death it was passed round 
 somewhat freely, and fell into my hands. How I 
 have cried and laughed and colored over it ! There 
 was nothing in it to be ashamed of, perhaps there 
 was nothing in it to laugh at, but such a picture of the 
 mode of being of poor simple good old women I do 
 believe was never drawn before. And there were all 
 the smallest incidents recorded, such as do really 
 make up humble life, but which die out of all mere 
 literary memoirs, as the houses where the Egyptians 
 or the Athenians lived crumble and leave only their 
 temples standing. I know, for instance, that on a. 
 given day of a certain year, a kindly woman, herself 
 a poor widow, now, I trust, not without special mer 
 cies in heaven for her good deeds, for I read her 
 name on a proper tablet in the churchyard a week ago, 
 sent a fractional pudding from her own table to the 
 Maiden Sisters, who, I fear, from the warmth and 
 detail of their description, were fasting, or at least on
 
 As they rustled in through the aisles
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 233 
 
 short allowance, about that time. I know who sent 
 them the segment of melon, which in her riotous fancy 
 one of them compared to those huge barges to which 
 we give the ungracious name of mudscows. But why 
 should I illustrate further what it seems almost a 
 breach of confidence to speak of? Some kind friend, 
 who could challenge a nearer interest than the curious 
 strangers into whose hands the book might fall, at 
 last claimed it, and I was glad that it should be 
 henceforth sealed to common eyes. I learned from it 
 that every good and, alas ! every evil act we do may 
 slumber unforgotten even in some earthly record. I 
 got a new lesson in that humanity which our sharp 
 race finds it so hard to learn. The poor widow, fight 
 ing hard to feed and clothe and educate her children, 
 had not forgotten the poorer ancient maidens. I re 
 membered it the other day, as I stood by her place of 
 rest, and I felt sure that it was remembered elsewhere. 
 I know there are prettier words than pudding, but 
 I can't help it, the pudding went upon the record, I 
 feel sure, with the mite which was cast into the treas 
 ury by that other poor widow whose deed the world 
 shall remember forever, and with the coats and gar 
 ments which the good women cried over, when Tab- 
 itha, called by interpretation Dorcas, lay dead in the 
 upper chamber, with her charitable needlework 
 strewed around her. 
 
 Such was the Book of the Maiden Sisters. You 
 will believe me more readily now when I tell you that 
 I found the soul of Iris in the one that lay open be 
 fore me. Sometimes it was a poem that held it, some 
 times a drawing, angel, arabesque, caricature, or a
 
 234 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 mere hieroglyphic symbol of which I could make no 
 thing. A rag of cloud on one page, as I remember, 
 with a streak of red zigzagging out of it across the 
 paper as naturally as a crack runs through a China 
 bowl. On the next page a dead bird, some little 
 favorite, I suppose; for it was worked out with a 
 special love, and I saw on the leaf that sign with 
 which once or twice in my life I have had a letter 
 sealed, a round spot where the paper is slightly 
 corrugated, and, if there is writing there, the letters 
 are somewhat faint and blurred. Most of the pages 
 were surrounded with emblematic traceries. It was 
 strange to me at first to see how often she introduced 
 those homelier wild -flowers which we call weeds, for 
 it seemed there was none of them too humble for her 
 to love, and none too little cared for by Nature to be 
 without its beauty for her artist eye and pencil. By 
 the side of the garden-flowers, of Spring's curled 
 darlings, the hyacinths, of rosebuds, dear to sketching 
 maidens, of flower-de-luces and morning-glories, 
 nay, oftener than these, and more tenderly caressed 
 by the colored brush "that rendered them, were those 
 common growths which fling themselves to be 
 crushed under our feet and our wheels, making them 
 selves so cheap in this perpetual martyrdom that we 
 forget each of them is a ray of the Divine beauty. 
 
 Yellow japanned buttercups and star-disked dande 
 lions, just as we see them lying in the grass, like 
 sparks that have leaped from the kindling sun of 
 summer; the profuse daisy -like flower which whitens 
 the fields, to the great disgust of liberal shepherds, 
 yet seems fair to loving eyes, with its button-like 
 mound of gold set round with milk-white rays; the 
 tall-stemmed succory, setting its pale blue flowers
 
 THE PKOFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 235 
 
 aflame, one after another, sparingly, as the lights are 
 kindled in the candelabra of decaying palaces where 
 the heirs of dethroned monarchs are dying out; the 
 red and white clovers, the broad, flat leaves of the 
 plantain, "the white man's foot," as the Indians 
 called it, the wiry, jointed stems of that iron creep 
 ing plant which we call "knot-^rrass," and which loves 
 its life so dearly that it is next to impossible to mur 
 der it with a hoe, as it clings to the cracks of the 
 pavement; all these plants, and many more, she 
 wove into her fanciful garlands and borders. On 
 one of the pages were some musical notes. I touched 
 them from curiosity on a piano belonging to one of 
 our boarders. Strange! There are passages that I 
 have heard before, plaintive, full of some hidden 
 meaning, as if they were gasping for words to inter 
 pret them. She must have heard the strains that have 
 so excited my curiosity, coming from my neighbor's 
 chamber. The illuminated border she had traced 
 round the page that held these notes took the place of 
 the words they seemed to be aching for. Above, a 
 long monotonous sweep of waves, leaden-hued, anx 
 ious and jaded and sullen, if you can imagine such an 
 expression in water. On one side an Alpine needle, 
 as it were, of black basalt, girdled with snow. On 
 the other a threaded waterfall. The red morning-tint 
 that shone in the drops had a strange look, one 
 would say the cliff was bleeding ; perhaps she did 
 not mean it. Below, a stretch of sand, and a solitary 
 bird of prey, with his wings spread over some unseen 
 object. And on the very next page a procession 
 wound along, after the fashion of that on the title- 
 page of Fuller's "Holy War," in which I recognized 
 without difficulty every boarder at our table in all
 
 236 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 the glory of the most resplendent caricature three 
 only excepted, the Little Gentleman, myself, and 
 one other. 
 
 I confess I did expect to see something that would 
 remind me of the girl's little deformed neighbor, if 
 not portraits of him. There is a left arm again, 
 though; no, that is from the "Fighting Gladi 
 ator," the "Jeune Heros combattant" of the 
 Louvre; there is the broad ring of the shield. 
 From a cast, doubtless. [The separate casts of the 
 "Gladiator's" arm look immense; but in its place 
 the limb looks light, almost slender, such is the per 
 fection of that miraculous marble. I never felt as if 
 I touched the life of the old Greeks until I looked on 
 that statue.] Here is something very odd, to be 
 sure. An Eden of all the humped and crooked crea 
 tures ! What could have been in her head when she 
 worked out such a fantasy? She has contrived to 
 give them all beauty or dignity or melancholy grace. 
 A Bactrian camel lying under a palm. A dromedary 
 flashing up the sands, spray of the dry ocean sailed 
 by the "ship of the desert." A herd of buffaloes, 
 uncouth, shaggy-maned, heavy in the forehand, light 
 in the hind-quarter. [The buffalo is the lion of the 
 ruminants.] And there is a Norman horse, with his 
 huge, rough collar, echoing, as it were, the natural 
 form of the other beast. And here are twisted ser 
 pents; and stately swans, with answering curves in 
 their bowed necks, as if they had snake's blood under 
 their white feathers ; and grave, high-shouldered her 
 ons standing on one foot like cripples, and looking 
 at life round them with the cold stare of monumen 
 tal effigies. A very odd page indeed ! Not a crea^ 
 ture in it without a curve or a twist, and not one of
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 287 
 
 them a mean figure to look at. You can make your 
 own comment; I am fanciful, you know. I believe 
 she is trying to idealize what we vulgarly call deform 
 ity, which she strives to look at in the light of one of 
 Nature's eccentric curves, belonging to her system of 
 beauty, as the hyperbola and parabola belong to the 
 conic sections, though we cannot see them as symmet 
 rical and entire figures, like the circle and ellipse. 
 At any rate, I cannot help referring this paradise of 
 twisted spines to some idea floating in her head con 
 nected with her friend whom Nature has warped in 
 the moulding. That is nothing to another transcen 
 dental fancy of mine. I believe her soul thinks it 
 self in his little crooked body at times, if it does not 
 really get freed or half freed from her own. Did you 
 ever see a case of catalepsy? You know what I mean, 
 transient loss of sense, will, and motion ; body and 
 limbs taking any position in which they are put, as if 
 they belonged to a lay -figure. She had been talking 
 with him and listening to him one day when the board 
 ers moved from the table nearly all at once. But she 
 sat as before, her cheek resting on her hand, her 
 amber eyes wide open and still. I went to her, she 
 was breathing as usual, and her heart was beating 
 naturally enough, but she did not answer. I bent 
 her arm ; it was as plastic as softened wax, and kept 
 the place 1 gave it. This will never do, though, 
 and I sprinkled a few drops of water on her fore 
 head. She started and looked round. I have been 
 in a dream, she said ; I feel as if all my strength 
 were in this arm ; give me your hand ! She took 
 my right hand in her left, which looked soft and 
 white enough, but Good Heaven! I believe she 
 will crack my bones I All the nervous power in her
 
 238 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 body must have flashed through those muscles; as 
 when a crazy lady snaps her iron window-bars, she 
 who could hardly glove herself when in her common 
 health. Iris turned pale, and the tears came to her 
 eyes ; she saw she had given pain. Then she trem 
 bled, and might have fallen but for me ; the pool 
 little soul had been in one of those trances that belong 
 to the spiritual pathology of higher natures, mostly 
 those of women. 
 
 To come back to this wondrous book of Iris. Two 
 pages faced each other which I took for symbolical 
 expressions of two states of mind. On the left hand, 
 a bright blue sky washed over the page, specked with 
 a single bird. No trace of earth, but still the winged 
 creature seemed to be soaring upward and upward. 
 Facing it, one of those black dungeons such as Pira- 
 nesi alone of all men has pictured. I am sure she 
 must have seen those awful prisons of his, out of which 
 the Opium-Eater got his nightmare vision, described 
 by another as "cemeteries of departed greatness, 
 where monstrous and forbidden things are crawling 
 and twining their slimy convolutions among moulder 
 ing bones, broken sculpture, and mutilated inscrip 
 tions." Such a black dungeon faced the page that 
 held the blue sky and the single bird ; at the bottom 
 of it something was coiled, what, and whether meant 
 for dead or alive, my eyes could not make out. 
 
 I told you the young girl's soul was in this book. 
 As I turned over the last leaves I could not help start 
 ing. There were all sorts of faces among the ara 
 besques which laughed and scowled in the borders 
 that ran round the pages. They had mostly the out 
 line of childish or womanly or manly beauty, without 
 very distinct individuality. But at last it seemed to
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 239 
 
 me that some of them were taking on a look not 
 wholly unfamiliar to me; there were features that did 
 not seem new. Can it be so? Was there ever such 
 innocence in a creature so full of life? She tells her 
 heart's secrets as a three-years-old child betrays itself 
 without need of being questioned ! This was no com 
 mon miss, such as are turned out in scores from the i 
 young-lady-factories, with parchments warranting 
 them accomplished and virtuous, in case anybody 
 should question the fact. I began to understand 
 her ; and what is so charming as to read the secret 
 of a real femme incomprise ? for such there are, 
 though they are not the ones who think themselves 
 uncomprehended women. 
 
 Poets are never young, in one sense. Their deli 
 cate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which 
 coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years 
 before their dull sense is touched by them. A mo 
 ment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. 
 I have frequently seen children, long exercised by 
 pain and exhaustion, whose features had a strange 
 look of advanced age. Too often one meets such in 
 our charitable institutions. Their faces are saddened 
 and wrinkled, as if their few summers were threescore 
 years and ten. 
 
 And so, many youthful poets have written as if 
 their hearts were old before their time ; their pensive 
 morning twilight has been as cool and saddening as 
 that of evening in more common lives. The pro 
 found melancholy of those lines of Shelley, 
 
 " I could lie down like a tired child 
 And weep away the life of care 
 Which I have borne and yet must bear " 
 
 came from a heart, as he says, "too soon grown old,"
 
 240 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 at twenty-six years, as dull people count time, even 
 when they talk of poets* 
 
 I know enough to be prepared for an exceptional 
 nature, only this gift of the hand in rendering 
 every thought in form and color, as well as in words, 
 gives a richness to this young girl's alphabet of feeling 
 and imagery that takes me by surprise. And then 
 besides, and most of all, I am puzzled at her sudden 
 and seemingly easy confidence in me. Perhaps I owe 
 it to my Well, no matter ! How one must love the 
 editor who first calls him the venerable So-and-So ! 
 
 I locked the book and sighed as I laid it down. 
 The world is always ready to receive talent with open 
 arms. Very often it does not know what to do with 
 genius. Talent is a docile creature. It bows its 
 head meekly while the world slips the collar over it. 
 It backs into the shafts like a lamb. It draws its 
 load cheerfully, and is patient of the bit and of the 
 whip. But genius is always impatient of its harness; 
 its wild blood makes it hard to train. 
 
 Talent seems, at first, in one sense, higher than 
 genius, namely, that it is more uniformly and abso 
 lutely submitted to the will, and therefore more dis 
 tinctly human in its character. Genius, on the other 
 hand, is much more like those instincts which govern 
 the admirable movements of the lower creatures, and 
 therefore seems to have something of the lower or 
 animal character. A goose flies by a chart which the 
 Royal Geographical Society could not mend. A poet, 
 like the goose, sails without visible landmarks to 
 unexplored regions of truth, which philosophy has 
 yet to lay down on its atlas. The philosopher gets his 
 track by observation; the poet trusts to his inner 
 sense, and makes the straighter and swifter line.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 241 
 
 And yet, to look at it in another light, is not even 
 the lowest instinct more truly divine than any volun 
 tary human act done by the suggestion of reason? 
 What is a bee's architecture but an wwobstructed 
 divine thought? what is a builder's approximative 
 rule but an obstructed thought of the Creator, a muti 
 lated and imperfect copy of some absolute rule Divine 
 Wisdom has established, transmitted through a hu 
 man soul as an image through clouded glass? 
 
 Talent is a very common f amily -trait ; genius be 
 longs rather to individuals; just as you find one 
 giant or one dwarf in a family, but rarely a whole 
 brood of either. Talent is often to be envied, and 
 genius very commonly to be pitied. It stands twice 
 the chance of the other of dying in hospital, in jail, 
 in debt, in bad repute. It is a perpetual insult to 
 mediocrity ; its every word is a trespass against some 
 body's vested ideas, blasphemy against somebody's 
 O'm, or intangible private truth. 
 
 What is the use of my weighing out antitheses 
 in this way, -like a rhetorical grocer? You know 
 twenty men of talent, who axe making their way in 
 the world; you may, perhaps, know one man of ge 
 nius, and very likely do not want to know any more. 
 For a divine instinct, such as drives the goose south 
 ward and the poet heavenward, is a hard thing to 
 manage, and proves too strong for many whom it pos 
 sesses. It must have been a terrible thing to have a 
 friend like Chatterton or Burns. And here is a being 
 who certainly has more than talent, at once poet and 
 artist in tendency, if not yet fairly developed, a 
 woman, too ; and genius grafted on womanhood 
 is like to overgrow it and break its stem, as you may 
 see a grafted fruit-tree spreading over the stock which 
 cannot keep pace with its evolution.
 
 242 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 I think now you know something of this young 
 person. She wants nothing but an atmosphere to 
 expand in. Now and then one meets with a nature 
 for which our hard, practical New England life is ob 
 viously utterly incompetent. It comes up, as a South 
 ern seed, dropped by accident in one of our gardens, 
 finds itself trying to grow and blow into flower among 
 the homely roots and the hardy shrubs that surround 
 it. There is no question that certain persons who are 
 born among us find themselves many degrees too far 
 north. Tropical by organization, they cannot fight 
 for life with our eastern and northwestern breezes with 
 out losing the color and fragrance into which their 
 lives would have blossomed in the latitude of myrtles 
 and oranges. Strange effects are produced by suffer 
 ing any living thing to be developed under conditions 
 such as Nature had not intended for it. A French 
 physiologist confined some tadpoles under water in the 
 dark. Removed from the natural stimulus of light, 
 they did not develop legs and arms at the proper 
 period of their growth, and so become frogs; they 
 swelled and spread into gigantic tadpoles. I have 
 seen a hundred colossal human tadpoles, over 
 grown larvae or embryos ; nay, I am afraid we Prot 
 estants should look on a considerable proportion of 
 the Holy Father's one hundred and thirty-nine mil 
 lions as spiritual larvce, sculling about in the dark by 
 the aid of their caudal extremities, instead of stand 
 ing on their legs, and breathing by gills, instead of 
 taking the free air of heaven into the lungs made to 
 receive it. Of course we never try to keep young 
 souls in the tadpole state, for fear they should get 
 a pair or two of legs by-and-by and jump out of the 
 pool where they have been bred and fed ! Never J 
 Never. Never?
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 243 
 
 Now to go back to our plant. You may know, 
 that, for the earlier stages of development of almost 
 any vegetable, you only want air, water, light, and 
 warmth. But by-and-by, if it is to have special com 
 plex principles as a part of its organization, they must 
 be supplied by the soil; your pears will crack, if 
 the root of the tree gets no iron, your asparagus- 
 bed wants salt as much as you do. Just at the period 
 of adolescence, the mind often suddenly begins to 
 come into flower and to set its fruit. Then it is that 
 many young natures, having exhausted the spiritual 
 soil round them of all it contains of the elements they 
 demand, wither away, undeveloped and uncolored, 
 unless they are transplanted. 
 
 Pray for these dear young souls ! This is the sec 
 ond natural birth ; for I do not speak of those pe 
 culiar religious experiences which form the point of 
 transition in many lives between the consciousness of 
 a general relation to the Divine nature and a special 
 personal relation. The litany should count a prayer 
 for them in the list of its supplications ; masses should 
 be said for them as for souls in purgatory ; all good 
 Christians should remember them as they remember 
 those in peril through travel or sickness or in war 
 fare. 
 
 I would transport this child to Kome at once, if I 
 had my will. She should ripen under an Italian sun. 
 She should walk under the frescoed vaults of palaces, 
 until her colors deepened to those of Venetian beau 
 ties, and her forms were perfected into rivalry with 
 the Greek marbles, and the east wind was out of her 
 soil. Has she not exhausted this lean soil of the ele 
 ments her growing nature requires? 
 
 I do not know. The magnolia grows and comes into
 
 244 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 full flower on Cape Ann, many degrees out of its 
 proper region. I was riding once along that delicious 
 road between the hills and the sea, when we passed a 
 thicket where there seemed to be a chance of finding 
 it. In five minutes I had fallen on the trees in full 
 blossom, and filled my arms with the sweet, resplen 
 dent flowers. I could not believe I was in our cold, 
 northern Essex, which, in the dreary season when I 
 pass its slate-colored, unpainted farm-houses, and 
 huge, square, windy, 'squire-built " mansions," looks 
 as brown and unvegetating as an old rug with its pat 
 terns all trodden out and the colored fringe worn from 
 all its border. 
 
 If the magnolia can bloom in northern New Eng 
 land, why should not a poet or a painter come to his 
 full growth here just as well? Yes, but if the gor 
 geous tree-flower is rare, and only as if by a freak of 
 Nature springs up in a single spot among the beeches 
 and alders, is there not as much reason to think the 
 perfumed flower of imaginative genius will find it 
 hard to be born and harder to spread its leaves in the 
 clear, cold atmosphere of our ultra-temperate zone of 
 humanity ? 
 
 Take the poet. On the one hand, I believe that a 
 person with the poetical faculty finds material every 
 where. The grandest objects of sense and thought 
 are common to all climates and civilizations. The 
 sky, the woods, the waters, the storms, life, death, 
 love, the hope and vision of eternity, these are im 
 ages that write themselves in poetry hi every soul 
 which has anything of the divine gift. 
 
 On the other hand, there is such a thing as a lean, 
 impoverished life, in distinction from a rich and sug 
 gestive one. Which our common New England life
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 245 
 
 might be considered, I will not decide. But there are 
 some things I think the poet misses in our western 
 Eden. I trust it is not unpatriotic to mention them 
 in this point of view as they come before us in so 
 many other aspects. 
 
 There is no sufficient flavor of humanity in the soil 
 out of which we grow. At Cantabridge, near the sea, 
 I have once or twice picked up an Indian arrowhead 
 in a fresh furrow. At Canoe Meadow, in the Berk 
 shire Mountains, I have found Indian arrowheads. 
 So everywhere Indian arrowheads. Whether a hun 
 dred or a thousand years old, who knows? who cares? 
 There is no history to the red race, there is hardly 
 an individual in it ; a few instincts on legs and hold 
 ing a tomahawk there is the Indian of all time. 
 The story of one red ant is the story of all red ants. 
 So, the poet, in trying to wing his way back through 
 the life that has kindled, flitted, and faded along our 
 watercourses and on our southern hillsides for un 
 known generations, finds nothing to breathe or fly in ; 
 he meets 
 
 " A vast vacuity ! all unawares, 
 
 Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops 
 
 Ten thousand fathom deep." 
 
 But think of the Old World, that part of it 
 which is the seat of ancient civilization ! The stakes 
 of the Britons' stockades are still standing in the bed 
 of the Thames. The ploughman turns up an old 
 Saxon's bones, and beneath them is a tessellated pave 
 ment of the time of the Caesars. In Italy, the works 
 of mediaeval Art seem to be of yesterday, Rome, 
 under her kings, is but an intruding new-comer, as we 
 contemplate her in the shadow of the Cyclopean walls 
 of Fiesole or Volterra. It makes a man human to
 
 246 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 live on these old humanized soils. He cannot help 
 marching in step with his kind in the rear of such a 
 procession. They say a dead man's hand cures swell 
 ings, if laid on them. There is nothing like the dead 
 cold hand of the Past to take down our tumid egotism 
 and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our 
 race. Rousseau came out of one of his sad self -tor 
 turing fits, as he cast his eye on the arches of the old 
 Roman aqueduct, the Pont du Gard. 
 
 I am far from denying that there is an attraction 
 in a thriving railroad village. The new "depot," the 
 smartly -painted pine houses, the spacious brick hotel, 
 the white meeting-house, and the row of youthful and 
 leggy trees before it, are exhilarating. They speak of 
 progress, and the tune when there shall be a city, 
 with a His Honor the Mayor, in the place of their 
 trim but transient architectural growths. Pardon me, 
 if I prefer the pyramids. They seem to me crystals 
 formed from a stronger solution of humanity than the 
 steeple of the new meeting-house. I may be wrong, 
 but the Tiber has a voice for me, as it whispers to 
 the piers of the Pons .ZElius, even more full of mean 
 ing than my well-beloved Charles eddying round the 
 piles of West Boston Bridge. 
 
 Then, again, we Yankees are a kind of gypsies, a 
 mechanical and migratory race. A poet wants a home. 
 He can dispense with an apple-parer and a reaping- 
 machine. I feel this more for others than for myself, 
 for the home of my birth and childhood has been as 
 yet exempted from the change which has invaded 
 almost everything around it. 
 
 Pardon me a short digression. To what small 
 
 1 It is now gone, and there is nothing to mark the place where 
 it stood.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 247 
 
 things our memory and our affections attach them 
 selves ! I remember, when I was a child, that one of 
 the girls planted some Star-of -Bethlehem bulbs in the 
 southwest corner of our front-yard. Well, I left the 
 paternal roof and wandered in other lands, and learned 
 to think in the words of strange people. But after 
 many years, as I looked on the little front-yard again, 
 it occurred to me that there used to be some Star~of- 
 Bethlehems in the southwest corner. The grass was 
 tall there, and the blade of the plant is very much like 
 grass, only thicker and glossier. Even as Tully 
 parted the briers and brambles when he hunted for the 
 sphere-containing cylinder that marked the grave of 
 Archimedes, so did I comb the grass with my fingers 
 for my monumental memorial-flower. Nature had 
 stored my keepsake tenderly in her bosom ; the glossy, 
 faintly streaked blades were there ; they are there still, 
 though they never flower, darkened as they are by the 
 shade of the elms and rooted in the matted turf. 
 
 Our hearts are held down to our homes by innu 
 merable fibres, trivial as that I have just recalled ; but 
 Gulliver was fixed to the soil, you remember, by 
 pinning his head a hair at a time. Even a stone with 
 a whitish band crossing it, belonging to the pavement 
 of the back-yard, insisted on becoming one of the tal 
 ismans of memory. This intussusception of the ideas 
 of inanimate objects, and their faithful storing away 
 among the sentiments, are curiously prefigured in the 
 material structure of the thinking centre itself. In 
 the very core of the brain, in the part where Des 
 Cartes placed the soul, is a small mineral deposit, 
 consisting, as I have seen it in the microscope, of 
 grape-like masses of crystalline matter. 
 
 But the plants that come up every year in the same
 
 248 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 place, like the Star-of-Bethlehems, of all the lesser 
 objects, give me the liveliest home-feeling. Close to 
 our ancient gambrel-roofed house is the dwelling of 
 pleasant old Neighbor Walrus. I remember the 
 sweet honeysuckle that I saw in flower against the wall 
 of his house a few months ago, as long as I remember 
 the sky and stars. That clump of peonies, butting 
 their purple heads through the soil every spring in just 
 the same circle, and by-and-by unpacking their hard 
 balls of buds in flowers big enough to make a double 
 handful of leaves, has come up in just that place, 
 Neighbor Walrus tells me, for more years than I have 
 passed on this planet. It is a rare privilege in our 
 nomadic state to find the home of one's childhood and 
 its immediate neighborhood thus unchanged. Many 
 born poets, I am afraid, flower poorly in song, or not 
 at all, because they have been too often transplanted. 
 Then a good many of our race are very hard and 
 unimaginative ; their voices have nothing caressing ; 
 their movements are as of machinery without elasticity 
 or oil. I wish it were fair to print a letter a young 
 girl, about the age of our Iris, wrote a short time 
 since. "I am *** *** ***," she says, and tells her 
 whole name outright. Ah! said I, when I read 
 that first frank declaration, you are one of the right 
 sort! She was. A winged creature among close- 
 clipped barn door fowl. How tired the poor girl was 
 of the dull life about her, the old woman's "skele 
 ton hand " at the window opposite, drawing her cur 
 tains, "Ma'am shooing away the hens," the 
 
 vacuous country eyes staring at her as only country 
 eyes can stare, a routine of mechanical duties, 
 and the soul's half -articulated cry for sympathy, with 
 out an answer! Yes, pray for her, and for all
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 249 
 
 such! Faith often cures their longings; but it is so 
 hard to give a soul to heaven that has not first been 
 trained in the fullest and sweetest human affections ! 
 Too often they fling their hearts away on unworthy 
 objects. Too often they pine in a secret discontent, 
 which spreads its leaden cloud over the morning of 
 their youth. The immeasurable distance between one 
 of these delicate natures and the average youths 
 among whom is like to be her only choice makes one's 
 heart ache. How many women are born too finely 
 organized in sense and soul for the highway they must 
 walk with feet unshod ! Life is adjusted to the wants 
 of the stronger sex. There are plenty of torrents to 
 be crossed in its journey; but their stepping-stones 
 a.re measured by the stride of man, and not of woman. 
 
 Women are more subject than men to atrophy of 
 the heart. So says the great medical authority, Laen- 
 nec. Incurable cases of this kind used to find their 
 hospitals in convents. We have the disease in New 
 England, but not the hospitals. I don't like to 
 think of it. I will not believe our young Iris is going 
 to die out in this way. Providence will find her some 
 great happiness, or affliction, or duty, and which 
 would be best for her, I cannot tell. One thing is 
 sure : the interest she takes in her little neighbor is 
 getting to be more engrossing than ever. Something 
 is the matter with him, and she knows it, and I think 
 worries herself about it. 
 
 I wonder sometimes how so fragile and distorted a 
 frame has kept the fiery spirit that inhabits it so long 
 its tenant. He accounts for it in his own way. 
 
 The air of the Old World is good for nothing, 
 he said, one day. Used up, Sir, breathed over 
 and over again. You must come to this side, Sir,
 
 250 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 for an atmosphere fit to breathe nowadays. Did not 
 worthy Mr. Higginson say that a breath of New Eng 
 land's air is better than a sup of Old England's ale? 
 I ought to have died when I was a boy, Sir; but I 
 could n't die in this Boston air, and I think I shall 
 have to go to New York one of these days, when it 's 
 time for me to drop this bundle, or to New Orleans, 
 where they have the yellow fever, or to Philadel 
 phia, where they have so many doctors. 
 
 This was some time ago ; but of late he has seemed, 
 as I have before said, to be ailing. An experienced 
 eye, such as I think I may call mine, can tell com 
 monly whether a man is going to die, or not, long 
 before he or his friends are alarmed about him. I 
 don't like it. 
 
 Iris has told me that the Scottish gift of second-sight 
 runs in her family, and that she is afraid she has it. 
 Those who are so endowed look upon a well man and 
 see a shroud wrapt about him. According to the de 
 gree to which it covers him, his death will be near or 
 more remote. It is an awful faculty; but science 
 gives one too much like it. Luckily for our friends, 
 most of us who have the scientific second-sigh^; school 
 ourselves not to betray our knowledge by word or 
 look. 
 
 Day by day, as the Little Gentleman comes to the 
 table, It seems to me that the shadow of some ap 
 proaching change falls darker and darker over his 
 countenance. Nature is struggling with something, 
 and I am afraid she is under in the wrestling-match. 
 You do not care much, perhaps, for my particular con 
 jectures as to the nature of his difficulty. I should 
 say, however, from the sudden flushes to which he is 
 subject, and certain other marks which, as an expert,
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 251 
 
 I know how to interpret, that his heart was in trou 
 ble ; but then he presses his hand to the right side, as 
 if there were the centre of his uneasiness. 
 
 When I say difficulty about the heart, I do not 
 mean any of those sentimental maladies of that organ 
 which figure more largely in romances than on the 
 returns which furnish our Bills of Mortality. I mean 
 some actual change in the organ itself, which may 
 carry him off by slow and painful degrees, or strike 
 him down with one huge pang and only time for a 
 single shriek, as when the shot broke through the 
 brave Captain Nolan's breast, at the head of the Light 
 Brigade at Balaklava, and with a loud cry he dropped 
 dead from his saddle. 
 
 I thought it only fair to say something of what I 
 apprehended to some who were entitled to be warned. 
 The landlady's face fell when I mentioned my fears. 
 
 Poor man ! she said. And will leave the best 
 room empty ! Has n't he got any sisters or nieces 
 or anybody to see to his things, if he should be took 
 away? Such a sight of cases, full of everything ! 
 Never thought of his failin' so suddin. A compli 
 cation of diseases, she expected. Liver-complaint 
 one of 'em? 
 
 After this first involuntary expression of the too 
 natural selfish feelings, (which we must not judge very 
 harshly, unless we happen to be poor widows our 
 selves, with children to keep filled, covered, and 
 taught, rents high, beef eighteen to twenty cents 
 per pound,) after this first squeak of selfishness, fol 
 lowed by a brief movement of curiosity, so invariable 
 in mature females, as to the nature of the complaint 
 which threatens the life of a friend or any person who 
 may happen to be mentioned as ill, the worthy
 
 252 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 soul's better feelings struggled up to the surface, and 
 she grieved for the doomed invalid, until a tear or two 
 came forth and found their way down a channel worn 
 for them since the early days of her widowhood. 
 
 Oh, this dreadful, dreadful business of being the 
 prophet of evil ! Of all the trials which those who 
 take charge of others' health and lives have to un 
 dergo, this is the most painful. It is all so plain to 
 the practised eye ! and there is the poor wife, the 
 doting mother, who has never suspected anything, or 
 at least 'has clung always to the hope which you are 
 just going to wrench away from her ! I must tell Iris 
 that I think her poor friend is in a precarious state. 
 She seems nearer to him than anybody. 
 
 I did tell her. Whatever emotion it produced, she 
 kept a still face, except, perhaps, a little trembling 
 of the lip. Could I be certain that there was any 
 mortal complaint ? Why, no, I could not be certain ; 
 but it looked alarming to me. He shall have some 
 of my life, she said. 
 
 I suppose this to have been a fancy of hers, or a 
 kind of magnetic power she could give out ; at any 
 rate, I cannot help thinking she wills her strength 
 away from herself, for she has lost vigor and color 
 from that day. I have sometimes thought he gained 
 the force she lost; but this may have been a whim, 
 very probably. 
 
 One day she came suddenly to me, looking deadly 
 pale. Her lips moved, as if she were speaking; but 
 I could not at first hear a word. Her hair looked 
 strangely, as if lifting itself, and her eyes were full of 
 wild light. She sunk upon a chair, and I thought was 
 falling into one of her trances. Something had frozen 
 her blood with fear; I thought, from what she said,
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 253 
 
 half audibly, that she believed she had seen a shrouded 
 figure. 
 
 That night, at about eleven o'clock, I was sent for 
 to see the Little Gentleman, who was taken suddenly 
 ill. Bridget, the servant, went before me with a 
 light. The doors were both unfastened, and I found 
 myself ushered, without hindrance, into the dim light 
 of the mysterious apartment I had so longed to enter, 
 
 I found these stanzas in the young girl's book 
 among many others. I give them as characterizing 
 the tone of her sadder moments. 
 
 UNDER THE VIOLETS. 
 
 Her hands are cold ; her face is white ; 
 
 No more her pulses come and go ; 
 Her eyes are shut to life and light ; 
 
 Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, 
 
 And lay her where the violets blow. 
 
 But not beneath a graven stone, 
 
 To plead for tears with alien eyes ; 
 A slender cross of wood alone 
 
 Shall say, that here a maiden lies 
 
 In peace beneath the peaceful skies. 
 
 And gray old trees of hugest limb 
 
 Shall wheel their circling shadows round 
 
 To make the scorching sunlight dim 
 
 That drinks the greenness from the ground. 
 And drop their dead leaves on her mound. 
 
 When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, 
 And through their leaves the robins call, 
 
 And, ripening in the autumn sun, 
 The acorns and the chestnuts fall, 
 Doubt not that she will heed them all.
 
 254 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 For her the morning choir shall sing 
 Its matins from the branches high, 
 
 And every minstrel voice of spring, 
 That trills beneath the April sky, 
 Shall greet her with its earliest cry. 
 
 When, turning round their dial-track, 
 Eastward the lengthening shadows pasg> 
 
 Her little mourners, clad in black, 
 
 The crickets, sliding through the grass, 
 Shall pipe for her an evening mass. 
 
 At last the rootlets of the trees 
 
 Shall find the prison where she lies, 
 
 And bear the buried dust they seize 
 In leaves and blossoms to the skies. 
 So may the soul that warmed it rise ! 
 
 If any, born of kindlier blood, 
 
 Should ask, What maiden lies below ? 
 
 Say only this : A tender bud, 
 
 That tried to blossom in the snow, 
 Lies withered where the violets blow. 
 
 XI. 
 
 You will know, perhaps, in the course of half an 
 hour's reading, what has been haunting my hours of 
 sleep and waking for months. I cannot tell, of course, 
 whether you are a nervous person or not. If, how 
 ever, you are such a person, if it is late at night, 
 
 if all the rest of the household have gone off to bed, 
 
 if the wind is shaking your windows as if a human 
 hand were rattling the sashes, if your candle or 
 lamp is low and will soon burn out, let me advise 
 you to take up some good quiet sleepy volume, or at 
 tack the "Critical Notices" of the last Quarterly and
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 255 
 
 leave this to be read by daylight, with cheerful voices 
 round, and people near by who would hear you, if you 
 slid from your chair and came down in a lump on the 
 floor. 
 
 I do not say that your heart will beat as mine did, 
 I am willing to confess, when I entered the dim 
 chamber. Did I not tell you that I was sensitive and 
 imaginative, and that I had lain awake with thinking 
 what were the strange movements and sounds which I 
 heard late at night in my little neighbor's apartment? 
 It had come to that pass that I was truly unable to 
 separate what I had really heard from what I had 
 dreamed in those nightmares to which I have been sub 
 ject, as before mentioned. So, when I walked into 
 the room, and Bridget, turning back, closed the door 
 and left me alone with its tenant, I do believe you 
 could have grated a nutmeg on my skin, such a 
 "goose-flesh " shiver ran over it. It was not fear, but 
 what I call nervousness, unreasoning, but irresist 
 ible; as when, for instance, one looking at the sun 
 going down says, "I will count fifty before it disap 
 pears " ; and as he goes on and it becomes doubtful 
 whether he will reach the number, he gets strangely 
 flurried, and his imagination pictures life and death 
 and heaven and hell as the issues depending on the 
 completion or non-completion of the fifty he is count 
 ing. Extreme curiosity will excite some people as 
 much as fear, or what resembles fear, acts on some 
 other less impressible natures. 
 
 I may find myself in the midst of strange facts in 
 this little conjurer's room. Or, again, there may be 
 nothing in this poor invalid's chamber but some old 
 furniture, such as they say came over in the May 
 flower. All this is just what I mean to find out while
 
 256 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 I am looking at the Little Gentleman, who has sud 
 denly become my patient. The simplest things turn 
 out to be unfathomable mysteries ; the most mysterious 
 appearances prove to be the most commonplace objects 
 in disguise. 
 
 I wonder whether the boys who live in B-oxbury and 
 Dorchester are ever moved to tears or filled with silent 
 awe as they look upon the rocks and fragments of 
 " puddingstone " abounding in those localities. I 
 have my suspicions that those boys "heave a stone " 
 or "fire a brickbat," composed of the conglomerate 
 just mentioned, without any more tearful or philo 
 sophical contemplations than boys of less favored re 
 gions expend on the same performance. Yet a lump 
 of puddingstone is a thing to look at, to think about, 
 to study over, to dream upon, to go crazy with, to beat 
 one's brains out against. Look at that pebble in it. 
 From what cliff was it broken ? On what beach rolled 
 by the waves of what ocean? How and when imbed 
 ded in soft ooze, which itself became stone, and by- 
 and-by was lifted into bald summits and steep cliffs, 
 such as you may see on Meetinghouse-Hill any day 
 yes, and mark the scratches on their faces left when 
 the boulder-carrying glaciers planed the surface of the 
 continent with such rough tools that the storms have 
 not worn the marks out of it with all the polishing of 
 ever so many thousand years? 
 
 Or as you pass a roadside ditch or pool in spring 
 time, take from it any bit of stick or straw which has 
 lain undisturbed for a time. Some little worm-shaped 
 masses of clear jelly containing specks are fastened to 
 the stick: eggs of a small snail-like shell-fish. One 
 of these specks magnified proves to be a crystalline 
 sphere with an opaque mass in its centre. And while
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 257 
 
 you are looking, the opaque mass begins to stir, and 
 by-and-by slowly to turn upon its axis like a forming 
 planet, life beginning in the microcosm, as in the 
 great worlds of the firmament, with the revolution that 
 turns the surface in ceaseless round to the source of 
 life and light. 
 
 A pebble and the spawn of a mollusk ! Before you 
 have solved their mysteries, this earth where you first 
 saw them may be a vitrified slag, or a vapor diffused 
 through the planetary spaces. Mysteries are common 
 enough, at any rate, whatever the boys in Roxbury 
 and Dorchester think of "brickbats" and the spawn 
 of creatures that live in roadside puddles. 
 
 But then a great many seeming mysteries are rela 
 tively perfectly plain, when we can get at them so as 
 to turn them over. How many ghosts that "thick 
 men's blood with cold " prove to be shirts hung out to 
 dry ! How many mermaids have been made out of 
 seals! How many times have horse-mackerels been 
 taken for the sea-serpent ! 
 
 Let me take the whole matter coolly, while I see 
 what is the matter with the patient. That is what 
 I say to myself, as I draw a chair to the bedside. 
 The bed is an old-fashioned, dark mahogany four- 
 poster. It was never that % which made the noise of 
 something moving. It is too heavy to be pushed 
 about the room. The Little Gentleman was sitting, 
 bolstered up by pillows, with his hands clasped and 
 their united palms resting on the back of the head, 
 one of the three or four positions specially affected by 
 persons whose breathing is difficult from disease of the 
 heart or other causes. 
 
 Sit down, Sir, he said, sit down ! I have come 
 to the hill Difficulty, Sir, and am fighting my way up. 
 < His speech was laborious and interrupted.
 
 258 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Don't talk, I said, except to answer my ques 
 tions. And I proceeded to "prospect" for the 
 marks of some local mischief, which you know is at 
 the bottom of all these attacks, though we do not 
 always find it. I suppose I go to work pretty much 
 like other professional folks of my temperament., 
 Thus: 
 
 Wrist, if you please. I was on his right side, but 
 he presented his left wrist, crossing it over the other. 
 
 I begin to count, holding watch in left hand. 
 One, two, three, four, - What a handsome hand ! 
 wonder if that splendid stone is a carbuncle. One, 
 two, three, four, five, six, seven, Can't see much, 
 it is so dark, except one white object. One, two, 
 three, four, Hang it ! eighty or ninety in the min 
 ute, I guess. Tongue, if you please. Tongue is 
 put out. Forget to look at it, or, rather, to take 
 any particular notice of it ; but what is that white 
 object, with the long arm stretching up as if pointing 
 to the sky, just as Vesalius and Spigelius and those 
 old fellows used to put their skeletons? I don't 
 think anything of such objects, you know; but what 
 should he have it in his chamber for ? As I had 
 found his pulse irregular and intermittent, I took out 
 a stethoscope, which is a pocket-spyglass for looking 
 into people's chests with your ears, and laid it over 
 the place where the heart beats. I missed the usual 
 beat of the organ. How is this ? I said, where 
 is your heart gone to ? He took the stethoscope and 
 shifted it across to the right side ; there was a dis 
 placement of the organ. I am ill-packed, he said; 
 
 there was no room for my heart in its place as it 
 is with other men. God help him ! 
 
 It is hard to draw the line between scientific curios-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 259 
 
 ity and the desire for the patient's sake to learn all 
 the details of his condition. I must look at this 
 patient's chest, and thump it and listen to it. For 
 this is a case of ectopia cordis, my boy, displacement 
 of the heart; and it isn't every day you get a chance 
 to overhaul such an interesting malformation. And so 
 I managed to do my duty and satisfy my curiosity at 
 the same time. The torso was slight and deformed: 
 the right arm attenuated, the left full, round, and 
 of perfect symmetry. It had run away with the life 
 of the other limbs, a common trick enough of Na 
 ture's, as I told you before. If you see a man with 
 legs withered from childhood, keep out of the way of 
 his arms, if you have a quarrel with him. He has the 
 strength of four limbs in two; and if he strikes you, 
 it is an arm-blow plus a kick administered from the 
 shoulder instead of the haunch, where it should have 
 started from. 
 
 Still examining him as a patient, I kept my eyes 
 about me to search all parts of the chamber and went 
 on with the double process, as before. Heart hits as 
 hard as a fist, bellows-sound over mitral valves (pro 
 fessional terms you need not attend to). What the 
 deuse is that long case for? Got his witch grand 
 mother mummied in it? And three big mahogany 
 presses, hey ? A diabolical suspicion came over 
 me which I had had once before, that he might be 
 one of our modern alchemists, you understand, 
 make gold, you know, or what looks like it, sometimes 
 with the head of a king or queen or of Liberty to 
 embellish one side of the pieo- Don't I remember 
 hearing him shut a door and lock it once ? What do 
 you think was kept under that lock ? Let 's have an 
 other look at his hand,, to see if there are any calluses.
 
 260 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 One can tell a man's business, if it is a handicraft, 
 very often by just taking a look at his open hand. 
 Ah ! Four calluses at the end of the fingers of the 
 right hand. None on those of the left. Ah, ha ! 
 What do those mean? 
 
 All this seems longer in the telling, of course, than 
 it was in fact. While I was making these observa 
 tions of the objects around me, I was also forming my 
 opinion as to the kind of case with which I had to 
 deal. 
 
 There are three wicks, you know, to the lamp of a 
 man's life : brain, blood, and breath. Press the brain 
 a little, its light goes out, followed by both the others. 
 Stop the heart a minute and out go all three of the 
 wicks. Choke the air out of the lungs, and presently 
 the fluid ceases to supply the other centres of flame, 
 and all is soon stagnation, cold, and darkness. The 
 "tripod of life" a French physiologist called these 
 three organs. It is all clear enough which leg of the 
 tripod is going to break down here. I could tell you 
 exactly what the difficulty is ; which would be as 
 intelligible and amusing as a watchmaker's descrip 
 tion of a diseased timekeeper to a ploughman. It 
 is enough to say, that I found just what I expected 
 to, and that I think this attack is only the prelude 
 of more serious consequences, which expression 
 means you very well know what. 
 
 And now the secrets of this life hanging on a thread 
 must surely come out. If I have made a mystery 
 where there was none, my suspicions will be shamed, 
 as they have often been before. If there is anything 
 strange, my visits will clear it up. 
 
 I sat an hour or two by the side of the Little Gen 
 tleman's bed, after giving him some henbane to quiet
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 261 
 
 his brain, and some foxglove, which an imaginative 
 French prof essor has called the "Opium of the Heart." 
 Under their influence he gradually fell into an uneasy, 
 half -waking slumber, the body fighting hard for every 
 breath, and the mind wandering off in strange fancies 
 and old recollections, which escaped from his lips in 
 broken sentences. 
 
 The last of 'em, he said, the last of 'em all, 
 
 thank God ! And the grave he lies in will look 
 just as well as if he had been straight. Dig it deep, 
 old Martin, dig it deep, and let it be as long as 
 other folks' graves. And mind you get the sods flat, 
 old man, flat as ever a straight-backed young fel 
 low was laid under. And then, with a good tall slab 
 at the head, and a foot-stone six foot away from it, 
 it '11 look just as if there was a man underneath. 
 
 A man ! Who said he was a man ? No more men 
 of that pattern to bear his name ! Used to be a good- 
 looking set enough. Where 's all the manhood and 
 womanhood gone to since his great-grandfather was 
 the strongest man that sailed out of the town of Bos 
 ton, and poor Leah there the handsomest woman in 
 Essex, if she was a witch ? 
 
 Give me some light, he said, more light. 
 I want to see the picture. 
 
 He had started either from a dream or a wandering 
 reverie. I was not unwilling to have more light in 
 the apartment, and presently had lighted an astral 
 lamp that stood on a table. He pointed to a portrait 
 hanging against the wall. Look at her, he said, 
 
 look at her! Wasn't that a pretty neck to slip a 
 hangman's noose over? 
 
 The portrait was of a young woman, something 
 more than twenty years old, perhaps. There were
 
 262 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 few pictures of any merit painted in New England be* 
 fore the time of Smibert, and I am at a loss to know 
 what artist could have taken this half-length, which 
 was evidently from life. It was somewhat stiff and 
 flat, but the grace of the figure and the sweetness of 
 the expression reminded me of the angels of the early' 
 Florentine painters. She must have been of some 
 consideration, for she was dressed in paduasoy and 
 lace with hanging sleeves, and the old carved frame 
 showed how the picture had been prized by its former 
 owners. A proud eye she had, with all her sweetness. 
 I think it was that which hanged her, as his strong 
 arm hanged Minister George Burroughs ; but it may 
 have been a little mole on one cheek, which the artist 
 had just hinted as a beauty rather than a deformity. 
 You know, I suppose, that nursling imps addict them 
 selves, after the fashion of young opossums, to these 
 little excrescences. "Witch-marks" were good evi 
 dence that a young woman was one of the Devil's wet- 
 nurses ; I should like to have seen you make fun of 
 them in those days ! Then she had a brooch in her 
 bodice, that might have been taken for some devilish 
 amulet or other ; and she wore a ring upon one of her 
 fingers, with a red stone in it, that flamed as if the 
 painter had dipped his pencil in fire; who knows 
 but that it was given her by a midnight suitor fresh 
 from that fierce element, and licensed for a season to 
 leave his couch of flame to tempt the unsanctified 
 hearts of earthly maidens and brand their cheeks with 
 the print of his scorching kisses ? 
 
 She and I, he said, as he looked steadfastly at 
 the canvas, she and I are the last of 'em. She 
 will stay, and I shall go. They never painted me, 
 - except when the boys used to make pictures of me
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 263 
 
 with -chalk on the board-fences. They said the doc 
 tors would want my skeleton when I was dead. You 
 are my friend, if you are a doctor, a'n't you? 
 
 I just gave him my hand. I had not the heart to 
 speak. 
 
 I want to lie still, he said, after I am put to 
 bed upon the hill yonder. Can't you have a great 
 stone laid over me, as they did over the first settlers 
 in the old burying-ground at Dorchester, so as to keep 
 the 'wolves from digging them up? I never slept easy 
 over the sod; I should like to lie quiet under it. 
 And besides, he said, in a kind of scared whis 
 per, I don't want to have my bones stared at, as 
 my body has been. I don't doubt I was a remarkable 
 case ; but, for God's sake, oh, for God's sake, don't 
 let 'em make a show of the cage I have been shut 
 up in and looked through the bars of for so many 
 years ! 
 
 I have heard it said that the art of healing makes 
 men hard-hearted and indifferent to human suffering. 
 I am willing to own that there is often a professional 
 hardness in surgeons, just as there is in theologians, 
 only much less in degree than in these last. It does 
 not commonly improve the sympathies of a man to be 
 in the habit of thrusting knives into his fellow-crea 
 tures and burning them with red-hot irons, any more 
 than it improves them to hold the blinding-white cau 
 tery of Gehenna by its cool handle and score and crisp 
 young souls with it until they are scorched into the 
 belief of - Transubstantiation or the Immaculate 
 Conception. And, to say the plain truth, I think 
 there are a good many coarse people in both callings. 
 A delicate nature will not commonly choose a pursuit 
 which implies the habitual infliction of suffering, so
 
 264 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 readily as some gentler office. Yet, while I am-writ- 
 ing this paragraph, there passes by my window, on 
 his daily errand of duty, not seeing me, though I 
 catch a glimpse of his manly features through the 
 oval glass of his chaise, as he drives by, a surgeon of 
 skill and standing, so friendly, so modest, so tender 
 hearted in all his ways, that, if he had not approved 
 himself at once adroit and firm, one would have said 
 he was of too kindly a mould to be the minister of 
 pain, even if he were saving pain. 1 
 
 You may be sure that some men, even among those 
 who have chosen the task of pruning their fellow- 
 creatures, grow more and more thoughtful and truly 
 compassionate in the midst of their cruel experience. 
 They become less nervous, but more sympathetic. 
 They have a truer sensibility for others' pain, the 
 more they study pain and disease in the light of sci 
 ence. I have said this without claiming any special 
 growth in humanity for myself, though I do hope I 
 grow tenderer in my feelings as I grow older. At any 
 rate, this was not a time in which professional habits 
 could keep down certain instincts of older date than 
 these. 
 
 This poor little man's appeal to my humanity 
 against the supposed rapacity of Science, which he 
 feared would have her "specimen," if his ghost 
 should walk restlessly a thousand years, waiting for 
 his bones to be laid in the dust, touched my heart. 
 But I felt bound to speak cheerily. 
 
 We won't die yet awhile, if we can help it, I 
 said, and I trust we can help it. But don't be 
 afraid ; if I live longest, I will see that your resting- 
 
 1 The surgeon referred to was the late Solomon Davis Towns- 
 end, M. D.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 265 
 
 place is kept sacred till the dandelions and buttercups 
 blow over you. 
 
 He seemed to have got his wits together by this 
 time, and to have a vague consciousness that he might 
 have been saying more than he meant for anybody's 
 ears. I have been talking a little wild, Sir, eh? 
 he said. There is a great buzzing in my head with 
 those drops of yours, and I doubt if my tongue has 
 not been a little looser than I would have it, Sir. 
 But I don't much want to live, Sir; that 's the truth 
 of the matter, and it does rather please me to think 
 that fifty years from now nobody will know that the 
 place where I lie does n't hold as stout and straight a 
 man as the best of 'em that stretch out as if they were 
 proud of the room they take. You may get me well, 
 if you can, Sir, if you think it worth while to try; 
 but I tell you there has been no time for this many a 
 year when the smell of fresh earth was not sweeter to 
 me than all the flowers that grow out of it. There 's 
 no anodyne like your good clean gravel, Sir. But 
 if you can keep me about awhile, and it amuses you 
 to try, you may show your skill upon me, if you like. 
 There is a pleasure or two that I love the daylight 
 for, and I think the night is not far off, at best. I 
 believe I shall sleep now; you may leave me, and 
 come, if you like, in the morning. 
 
 Before I passed out, I took one more glance round 
 the apartment. The beautiful face of the portrait 
 looked at me, as portraits often do, with a frightful 
 kind of intelligence in its eyes. The drapery flut 
 tered on the still outstretched arm of the tall object 
 near the window ; a crack of this was open, no 
 doubt, and some breath of wind stirred the hanging 
 folds. In my excited state, I seemed to see some-
 
 266 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 thing ominous in that arm pointing to the heavens. I 
 thought of the figures in the Dance of Death at Basle, 
 and that other on the panels of the covered Bridge at 
 Lucerne, and it seemed to me that the grim mask 
 who mingles with every crowd and glides over every 
 threshold was pointing the sick man to his far home, 
 and would soon stretch out his bony hand and lead 
 him or drag him on the unmeasured journey to 
 wards it. 
 
 The fancy had possession of me, and I shivered again 
 as when I first entered the chamber. The picture and 
 the shrouded shape; I saw only these two objects. 
 They were enough. The house was deadly still, and 
 the night-wind, blowing through an open window, 
 struck me as from a field of ice, at the moment I 
 passed into the creaking corridor. As I turned into 
 the common passage, a white figure, holding a lamp, 
 stood full before me. I thought at first it was one of 
 those images made to stand in niches and hold a light 
 in their hands. But the illusion was momentary, and 
 my eyes speedily recovered from the shock of the 
 bright flame and snowy drapery to see that the figure 
 was a breathing one. It was Iris, in one of her statue- 
 trances. She had come down, whether sleeping or 
 waking, I knew not at first, led by an instinct that 
 told her she was wanted, or, possibly, having over 
 heard and interpreted the sound of our movements, 
 or, it may be, having learned from the servant that 
 there was trouble which might ask for a woman's 
 hand. I sometimes think women have a sixth sense, 
 which tells them that others, whom they cannot see or 
 hear, are in suffering. How surely we find them at 
 the bedside of the dying! How strongly does Nature 
 plead for them, that we should draw our first breath
 
 // was Iris
 
 It
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 267 
 
 in their arms, as we sigh away our last upon their 
 faithful breasts ! 
 
 With white, bare feet, her hair loosely knotted, 
 clad as the starlight knew her, and the morning when 
 she rose from slumber, save that she had twisted a 
 scarf round her long dress, she stood still as a stone 
 before me, holding in one hand a lighted coil of wax- 
 taper, and in the other a silver goblet. I held my 
 own lamp close to her, as if she had been a figure of 
 marble, and she did not stir. There was no breach 
 of propriety then, to scare the Poor Relation with 
 and breed scandal out of. She had been "warned in 
 a dream," doubtless suggested by her waking know 
 ledge and the sounds which had reached her exalted 
 sense. There was nothing more natural than that 
 she should have risen and girdled her waist, and 
 lighted her taper, and found the silver goblet with 
 "Ex dono pupillorum" on it, from which she had 
 taken her milk and possets through all her childish 
 years, and so gone blindly out to find her place at 
 the bedside, a Sister of Charity without the cap 
 and rosary; nay, unknowing whither her feet were 
 leading her, and with wide blank eyes seeing nothing 
 but the vision that beckoned her along. Well, I 
 must wake her from her slumber or trance. I called 
 her name, but she did not heed my voice. 
 
 The Devil put it into my head that I would kiss one 
 handsome young girl before I died, and now was my 
 chance. She never would know it, and I should carry 
 the remembrance of it with me into the grave, and a 
 rose perhaps grow out of my dust, as a brier did out 
 of Lord Level's, in memory of that immortal mo 
 ment ! Would it wake her from her trance? and 
 would she see me in the flush of my stolen triumph,
 
 268 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 and hate and despise me ever after ? Or should I 
 carry off my trophy undetected, and always from that 
 time say to myself, when I looked upon her in the glory 
 of youth and the splendor of beauty, "My lips have 
 touched those roses and made their sweetness mine 
 forever " ? You think my cheek was flushed, perhaps, 
 and my eyes were glittering with this midnight flash 
 of opportunity. On the contrary, I believe I was 
 pale, very pale, and I know that I trembled. Ah, it 
 is the pale passions that are the fiercest, it is the 
 violence of the chill that gives the measure of the 
 fever ! The fighting-boy of our school always turned 
 white when he went out to a pitched battle with the 
 bully of some neighboring village ; but we knew what 
 his bloodless cheeks meant, the blood was all in his 
 stout heart, he was a slight boy, and there was not 
 enough to redden his face and fill his heart both at 
 once. 
 
 Perhaps it is making a good deal of a slight matter, 
 to tell the internal conflicts in the heart of a quiet 
 person something more than juvenile and something 
 less than senile, as to whether he should be guilty of 
 an impropriety, and, if he were, whether he would get 
 caught in his indiscretion. And yet the memory of 
 the kiss that Margaret of Scotland gave to Alain 
 Chartier has lasted four hundred years, and put it into 
 the head of many an ill-favored poet, whether Victo 
 ria, or Eugenie, would do as much by him, if she hap 
 pened to pass him when he was asleep. And have we 
 ever forgotten that the fresh cheek of the young John 
 Milton tingled under the lips of some high-born Ital 
 ian beauty, who, I believe, did not think to leave her 
 card by the side of the slumbering youth, but has be 
 queathed the memory of her pretty deed to all coming
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 269 
 
 time ? The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a 
 cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer. 
 
 There is one disadvantage which the man of philo 
 sophical habits of mind suffers, as compared with the 
 man of action. While he is taking an enlarged and 
 rational view of the matter before him, he lets his 
 chance slip through his fingers. Iris woke up, of her 
 own accord, before I had made up my mind what I 
 was going to do about it. 
 
 When I remember how charmingly she looked, I 
 don't blame myself at all for being tempted; but if I 
 had been fool enough to yield to the impulse, I should 
 certainly have been ashamed to tell of it. She did 
 not know what to make of it, finding herself there 
 alone, in such guise, and me staring at her. She 
 looked down at her white robe and bare feet, and col 
 ored, then at the goblet she held in her hand, 
 then at the taper ; and at last her thoughts seemed to 
 clear up. 
 
 I know it all, she said. He is going to die, and 
 1 must go and sit by him. Nobody will care for him 
 as I shall, and I have nobody else to care for. 
 
 I assured her that nothing was needed for him that 
 night but rest, and persuaded her that the excitement 
 of her presence could only do harm. Let him sleep, 
 and he would very probably awake better in the morn 
 ing. There was nothing to be said, for I spoke with 
 authority ; and the young girl glided away with noise 
 less step and sought her own chamber. 
 
 The tremor passed away from my limbs, and the 
 blood began to burn in my cheeks. The beautiful 
 image which had so bewitched me faded gradually 
 from my imagination, and I returned to the still per 
 plexing mysteries of my little neighbor's chamber.
 
 270 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 All was still there now. No plaintive sounds, no 
 monotonous murmurs, no shutting of windows and 
 doors at strange hours, as if something or somebody 
 were coming in or going out, or there was something 
 to be hidden in those dark mahogany presses. Is there 
 an inner apartment that I have not seen? The way 
 in which the house is built might admit of it. As I 
 thought it over, I at once imagined a Bluebeard's cham 
 ber. Suppose, for instance, that the narrow book 
 shelves to the right are really only a masked door, 
 such as we remember leading to the private study of 
 one of our most distinguished townsmen, who loved 
 to steal away from his. stately library to that little 
 silent cell. If this were lighted from above, a person 
 or persons might pass their days there without at 
 tracting attention from the household, and wander 
 where they pleased at night, to Copp's-Hill burial- 
 ground, if they liked, I said to myself, laughing, 
 and pulling the bed-clothes over my head. There is 
 no logic in superstitious fancies any more than in 
 dreams. A she-ghost wouldn't want an inner cham 
 ber to herself. A live woman, with a valuable so 
 prano voice, wouldn't start off at night to sprain her 
 inkles over the old graves of the North-End cemetery. 
 It is all very easy for you, middle-aged reader, sit 
 ting over this page in the broad daylight, to call me 
 by all manner of asinine and anserine unchristian 
 names, because I had these fancies running through 
 my head. I don't care much for your abuse. The 
 question is not, what it is reasonable for a man to 
 think about, but what he actually does think about, 
 in the dark, and when he is alone, and his whole 
 body seems but one great nerve of hearing, and he 
 sees the phosphorescent flashes of his own eyeballs as
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 271 
 
 they turn suddenly in the direction of the last strange 
 noise, what he actually does think about, as he lies 
 and recalls all the wild stories his head is full of, his 
 fancy hinting the most alarming conjectures to account 
 for the simplest facts about him, his common-sense 
 laughing them to scorn the next minute, but his mind 
 still returning to them, under one shape or another, 
 until he gets very nervous and foolish, and remembers 
 how pleasant it used to be to have his mother come 
 and tuck him up and go and sit within call, so that 
 she could hear him at any minute, if he got very much 
 scared and wanted her. Old babies that we are ! 
 
 Daylight will clear up all that lamp-light has left 
 doubtful. I longed for the morning to come, for I 
 was more curious than ever. So, between my fancies 
 and anticipations, I had but a poor night of it, and 
 came down tired to the breakfast-table. My visit 
 was not to be made until after this morning hour ; 
 there was nothing urgent, so the servant was ordered 
 to tell me. 
 
 It was the first breakfast at which the high chair at 
 the side of Iris had been unoccupied. You might 
 jest as well take away that chair, said our landlady, 
 he '11 never want it again. He acts like a man 
 that 's struck with death, 'n' I don't believe he '11 ever 
 come out of his chamber till he 's laid out and brought 
 down a corpse. These good women do put things 
 so plainly ! There were two or three words in her 
 short remark that always sober people, and suggest 
 silence or brief moral reflections. 
 
 Life is dreadful uncerting, said the Poor Re 
 lation, and pulled in her social tentacles to concen 
 trate her thoughts on this fact of human history. 
 
 If there was anything a fellah could do, said
 
 272 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 the young man John, so called, a fellah 'd like the 
 chance o' helpin' a little cripple like that. He looks 
 as if he couldn't turn over any handier than a turtle 
 that 's laid on his back ; and I guess there a'n't many 
 people that know how to lift better than I do. Ask 
 him if he don't want any watchers. I don't mind 
 settin' up any more 'n a cat-owl. I was up all night 
 twice last month. 
 
 [My private opinion is, that there was no small 
 amount of punch absorbed on those two occasions, 
 which I think I heard of at the tune ; but the offer 
 is a kind one, and it isn't fair to question how he 
 would like sitting up without the punch and the com 
 pany and the songs and smoking. He means what 
 he says, and it would be a more considerable achieve 
 ment for him to sit quietly all night by a sick man 
 than for a good many other people. I tell you this 
 odd thing: there are a good many persons, who, 
 through the habit of making other folks uncomfort 
 able, by finding fault with all their cheerful enjoy 
 ments, at last get up a kind of hostility to comfort in 
 general, even in their own persons. The correlative 
 to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves 
 as we hate our neighbors. Look at old misers ; first 
 they starve their dependants, and then themselves. 
 So I think it more for a lively young fellow to be 
 ready to play nurse than for one of those useful but 
 forlorn martyrs who have taken a spite against them 
 selves and love to gratify it by fasting and watching.] 
 
 ; The time came at last for me to make my visit. 
 I found Iris sitting by the Little Gentleman's pillow. 
 To my disappointment, the room was darkened. He 
 did not like the light, and would have the shutters 
 kept nearly closed. It was good enough for me j
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 273 
 
 what business had I to be indulging my curiosity, 
 when I had nothing to do but to exercise such skill as 
 I possessed for the benefit of uiy patient? There was 
 not much to be said or done in such a case; but I 
 spoke as encouragingly as I could, as I think we are 
 always bound to do. He did not seem to pay any 
 very anxious attention, but the poor girl listened as if 
 her own life and more than her own life were depend 
 ing on the words I uttered. She followed me out of 
 the room, when I had got through my visit. 
 
 How long? she said. 
 
 Uncertain. Any time ; to-day, next week, 
 next month, I answered. One of those cases 
 where the issue is not doubtful, but may be sudden 
 or slow. 
 
 The women of the house were kind, as women al 
 ways are in trouble. But Iris pretended that nobody 
 could spare the time as well as she, and kept her 
 place, hour after hour, until the landlady insisted that 
 she 'd be killin' herself, if she begun at that rate, 'n' 
 haf to give up, if she did n't want to be clean beat out 
 in less 'n a week. 
 
 At the table we were graver than common. The 
 high chair was set back against the wall, and a gap 
 left between that ot the young girl and her nearest 
 neighbor's on the right. But the next morning, to 
 our great surprise, that good-looking young Mary- 
 lander had very quietly moved his own chair to the 
 vacant place. I thought he was creeping down that 
 way, but I was not prepared for a leap spanning such 
 a tremendous parenthesis of boarders as this change 
 of position included. There was no denying that the 
 youth and maiden were a handsome pair, as they sat 
 side by side. But whatever the young girl may have
 
 274 THE PROFESSOR AT THE fiREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 thought of her new neighbor she never seemed for a 
 moment to forget the poor little friend who had been 
 taken from her side. There are women, and even 
 girls, with whom it is of no use to talk. One might 
 as well reason with a bee as to the form of his cell, or 
 with an oriole as to the construction of his swinging 
 nest, as try to stir these creatures from their own way 
 of doing their own work. It was not a question with 
 Iris, whether she was entitled by any special relation 
 or by the fitness of things to play the part of a nurse. 
 She was a wilful creature that must have her way in 
 this matter. And it so proved that it called for much 
 patience and long endurance to carry through the 
 duties, say rather the kind offices, the painful pleasures, 
 which she had chosen as her share in the household 
 where accident had thrown her. She had that genius 
 of ministration which is the special province of certain 
 women, marked even among their helpful sisters by a 
 soft, low voice, a quiet footfall, a light hand, a cheer 
 ing smile, and a ready self -surrender to the objects of 
 their care, which such trifles as their own food, sleep, 
 or habits of any kind never presume to interfere with. 
 
 Day after day, and too often through the long 
 watches of the night, she kept her place by the pillow. 
 That girl will kill herself over me, Sir, said the 
 poor Little Gentleman to me, one day, she will kill 
 herself, Sir, if you don't call in all the resources of 
 your art to get me off as soon as may be. I shall 
 wear her out, Sir, with sitting in this close chamber 
 and watching when she ought to be sleeping, if you 
 leave me to the care of Nature without dosing me. 
 
 This was rather strange pleasantry, under the cir 
 cumstances. But there are certain persons whose 
 existence is so out of parallel with the larger laws in
 
 Day after day she kept her place by the pillow
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 275 
 
 the midst of which it is moving, that life becomes to 
 them as death and death as life. How am I get 
 ting along ? he said, another morning. He lifted his 
 shrivelled hand, with the death's-head ring on it, and 
 looked at it with a sad sort of complacency. By this 
 one movement, which I have seen repeatedly of late, I 
 know that his thoughts have gone before to another 
 condition, and that he is, as it were, looking back on 
 the infirmities of the body as accidents of the past. 
 For, when he was well, one might see him often 
 looking at the handsome hand with the flaming jewel 
 on one of its fingers. The single well-shaped limb 
 was the source of that pleasure which in some form or 
 other Nature almost always grants to her least richly 
 endowed children. Handsome hair, eyes, complex 
 ion, feature, form, hand, foot, pleasant voice, 
 strength, grace, agility, intelligence, how few there 
 are that have not just enough of one at least of these 
 gifts to show them that the good Mother, busy with 
 her millions of children, has not quite forgotten them ! 
 But now he was thinking of that other state, where, 
 free from all mortal impediments, the memory of his 
 sorrowful burden should be only as that of the case he 
 has shed to the insect whose "deep-damasked wings" 
 beat off the golden dust of the lily -anthers, as he flut 
 ters in the ecstasy of his new life over their full-blown 
 summer glories. 
 
 No human being can rest for any time in a state of 
 equilibrium, where the desire to live and that to 
 depart just balance each other. If one has a house, 
 which he has lived and always means to live in, he 
 pleases himself with the thought of all the conven 
 iences it offers him, and thinks little of its wants and 
 imperfections. But once having made up his mind to
 
 276 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 move to a better, every incommodity starts out upon 
 him, until the very ground-plan of it seems to have 
 changed in his mind, and his thoughts and affections, 
 each one of them packing up its little bundle of cir 
 cumstances, have quitted their several chambers and 
 nooks and migrated to the new home, long before its 
 apartments are ready to receive their coming tenant. 
 It is so with the body. Most persons have died be 
 fore they expire, died to all earthly longings, so that 
 the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the 
 door of the already deserted mansion. The fact of 
 the tranquillity with which the great majority of 
 dying persons await this locking of those gates of life 
 through which its airy angels have been going and 
 coming, from the moment of the first cry, is familiar 
 to those who have been often called upon to witness 
 the last period of life. Almost always there is a prep 
 aration made by Nature for unearthing a soul, just as 
 on the smaller scale there is for the removal of a milk- 
 tooth. The roots which hold human life to earth are 
 absorbed before it is lifted from its place. Some of 
 the dying are weary and want rest, the idea of which 
 is almost inseparable in the universal mind from 
 death. Some are in pain, and want to be rid of it, 
 even though the anodyne be dropped, as in the le 
 gend, from the sword of the Death- Angel. Some are 
 stupid, mercifully narcotized that they may go to 
 sleep without long tossing about. And some are 
 strong in faith and hope, so that, as they draw near 
 the next world, they would fain hurry toward it, as 
 the caravan moves faster over the sands when the fore 
 most travellers send word along the file that water is 
 in sight. Though each little party that follows in a 
 foot-track of its own will have it that the water to
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 277 
 
 which others think they are hastening is a mirage, not 
 the less has it been true in all ages and for human 
 beings of every creed which recognized a future, that 
 those who have fallen worn out by their march through 
 the Desert have dreamed at least of a River of Life, 
 and thought they heard its murmurs as they lay dying. 
 
 The change from the clinging to the present to the 
 welcoming of the future comes very soon, for the most 
 part, after all hope of life is extinguished, provided 
 this be left in good degree to Nature, and not inso 
 lently and cruelly forced upon those who are attacked 
 by illness, oh the strength of that odious foreknow 
 ledge often imparted by science, before the white fruit 
 whose core is ashes, and which we call death, has set 
 beneath the pallid and drooping flower of sickness. 
 There is a singular sagacity very often shown in a pa 
 tient's estimate of his own vital force. His physician 
 knows the state of his material frame well enough, 
 perhaps, that this or that organ is more or less 
 impaired or disintegrated ; but the patient has a sense 
 that he can hold out so much longer, sometimes that 
 he must and will live for a while, though by the logic 
 of disease he ought to die without any delay. 
 
 The Little Gentleman continued to fail, until it 
 became plain that his remaining days were few. I 
 told the household what to expect. There was a good 
 deal of kind feeling expressed among the boarders, 
 in various modes, according to their characters and 
 style of sympathy. The landlady was urgent that he 
 should try a certain nostrum which had saved some 
 body's life in jest sech a case. The Poor Relation 
 wanted me to carry, as from her, a copy of "Allein's 
 Alarm," etc. I objected to the title, reminding her 
 that it offended people of old, so that more than twice
 
 278 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 as many of the book were sold when they changed the 
 name to "A Sure Guide to Heaven." The good old 
 gentleman whom I have mentioned before has come to 
 the time of life when many old men cry easily, and 
 forget their tears as children do. He was a worthy 
 gentleman, he said, a very worthy gentleman, but 
 unfortunate, very unfortunate. Sadly deformed 
 about the spine and the feet. Had an impression that 
 the late Lord Byron had some malformation of this 
 kind. Had heerd there was something the matter 
 with the ankle- j'ints of that nobleman, but he was a 
 man of talents. This gentleman seemed to be a man 
 of talents. Could not always agree with his state 
 ments, thought he was a little over-partial to this 
 city, and had some free opinions; but was sorry to 
 lose him, and if there was anything he - 
 
 could . In the midst of these kind 
 
 expressions, the gentleman with the diamond, the 
 Koh-i-noor, as we called him, asked, in a very un 
 pleasant sort of way, how the old boy was likely to 
 cut up, meaning what money our friend was going 
 to leave behind. 
 
 The young fellow John spoke up, to the effect that 
 this was a diabolish snobby question, when a man 
 was dying and not dead. To this the Koh-i-noor re 
 plied, by asking if the other meant to insult him. 
 Whereto the young man John rejoined that he had no 
 particul'r intentions one way or t'other. The Koh- 
 i-noor then suggested the young man's stepping out 
 into the yard, that he, the speaker, might "slap his 
 chops." Let 'em alone, said young Maryland, 
 it '11 soon be over, and they won't hurt each other 
 much. So they went out. 
 
 The Koh-i-noor entertained the very common idea,
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 279 
 
 that, when one quarrels with another, the simple thing 
 to do is to knock the man down, and there is the end 
 of it. Now those who have watched such encounters 
 are aware of two things : first, that it is not so easy to 
 knock a man down as it is to talk about it ; secondly, 
 that, if you do happen to knock a man down, there is 
 a very good chance that he will be angry, and get up 
 and give you a thrashing. 
 
 So the Koh-i-noor thought he would begin, as soon 
 as they got into the yard, by knocking his man down, 
 and with this intention swung his arm round after the 
 fashion of rustics and those unskilled in the noble art, 
 expecting the young fellow John to drop when his fist, 
 having completed a quarter of a circle, should come 
 in contact with the side of that young man's head. 
 Unfortunately for this theory, it happens that a blow 
 struck out straight is as much shorter, and therefore 
 as much quicker than the rustic's swinging blow, as 
 the radius is shorter than the quarter of a circle. The 
 mathematical and mechanical corollary was, that the 
 Koh-i-noor felt something hard bring up suddenly 
 against his right eye, which something he could have 
 sworn was a paving-stone, judging by his sensations ; 
 and as this threw his person somewhat backwards, 
 and the young man John jerked his own head back a 
 little, the swinging blow had nothing to stop it ; and 
 as the Jewel staggered between the hit he got and the 
 blow he missed, he tripped and "went to grass," so 
 far as the back-yard of our boarding-house was pro 
 vided with that vegetable. It was a signal illustra 
 tion of that fatal mistake, so frequent in young and 
 ardent natures with inconspicuous calves and negative 
 pectorals, that they can settle most little quarrels on 
 the spot by "knocking the man down."
 
 280 THE PEOFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 We are in the habit of handling our faces so care 
 fully, that a heavy blow, taking effect on that portion 
 of the surface, produces a most unpleasant surprise, 
 which is accompanied with odd sensations, as of see 
 ing sparks, and a kind of electrical or ozone-like odor, 
 half -sulphurous in character, and which has given rise 
 to a very vulgar and profane threat sometimes heard 
 from the lips of bullies. A person not used to pugil 
 istic gestures does not instantly recover from this sur 
 prise. The Koh-i-noor, exasperated by his failure, 
 and still a little confused by the smart hit he had re 
 ceived, but furious, and confident of victory over a 
 young fellow a good deal lighter than himself, made 
 a desperate rush to bear down all before him and 
 finish the contest at once. That is the way all angry 
 greenhorns and incompetent persons attempt to settle 
 matters. It doesn't do, if the other fellow is only 
 cool, moderately quick, and has a very little science. 
 It didn't do this time; for, as the assailant rushed in 
 with his arms flying everywhere, like the vans of a 
 windmill, he ran a prominent feature of his face 
 against a fist which was travelling in the other direc 
 tion, and immediately after struck the knuckles of the 
 young man's other fist a severe blow with the part of 
 his person known as the epigastrium to one branch of 
 science and the bread-basket to another. This second 
 round closed the battle. The Koh-i-noor had got 
 enough, which in such cases is more than as good as 
 a feast. The young fellow asked him if he was sat 
 isfied, and held out his hand. But the other sulked, 
 and muttered something about revenge. Jest as ye 
 like, said the young man John. Clap a slice o' 
 raw beefsteak on to that mouse o' yours 'n' 't '11 take 
 down the swellin'. (Mouse is a technical term for a
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 281 
 
 bluish, oblong, rounded elevation occasioned by run 
 ning one's forehead or eyebrow against another's 
 knuckles.) The young fellow was particularly pleased 
 that he had had an opportunity of trying his profi 
 ciency in the art of self-defence without the gloves. 
 The Koh-i-noor did not favor us with his company for 
 a day or two, being confined to his chamber, it was 
 said, by a slight feverish attack. He was chop-fallen 
 always after this, and got negligent in his person. 
 The impression must have been a deep one; for it 
 was observed, that, when he came down again, his 
 moustache and whiskers had turned visibly white 
 about the roots. In short, it disgraced him, and ren 
 dered still more conspicuous a tendency to drinking, 
 of which he had been for some time suspected. This, 
 and the disgust which a young lady naturally feels 
 at hearing that her lover has been "licked by a fel 
 lah not half his size," induced the landlady's daugh 
 ter to take that decided step which produced a change 
 in the programme of her career I may hereafter al 
 lude to. 
 
 I never thought he would come to good, when I 
 heard him attempting to sneer at an unoffending city 
 so respectable as Boston. After a man begins to 
 attack the State-House, when he gets bitter about the 
 Frog-Pond, you may be sure there is not much left of 
 him. Poor Edgar Poe died in the hospital soon after 
 he got into this way of talking ; and so sure as you 
 find an unfortunate fellow reduced to this pass, you 
 had better begin praying for him, and stop lending 
 him money, for he is on his last legs. Eemember 
 poor Edgar! He is dead and gone; but the State- 
 House has its cupola fresh-gilded, and the Frog-Pond 
 has got a fountain that squirts up a hundred feet into
 
 282 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 the air and glorifies that humble sheet with a fine dis 
 play of provincial rainbows. 
 
 I cannot fulfil my promise in this number. I 
 expected to gratify your curiosity, if you have be 
 come at all interested in these puzzles, doubts, fancies, 
 whims, or whatever you choose to call them, of mine. 
 Next month you shall hear all about it. 
 
 It was evening, and I was going to the sick- 
 chamber. As I paused at the door before entering, I 
 heard a sweet voice singing. It was not the wild 
 melody I had sometimes heard at midnight : no, this 
 was the voice of Iris, and I could distinguish every 
 word. I had seen the verses in her book ; the melody 
 was new to me. Let me finish my page with them. 
 
 HYMN OF TRUST. 
 
 O Love Divine, that stooped to share 
 Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, 
 
 On Thee we cast each earthboru care, 
 We smile at pain while Thou art near ! 
 
 Though long the weary way we tread, 
 And sorrow crown each lingering year, 
 
 No path we shun, no darkness dread, 
 
 Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near ! 
 
 When drooping pleasure turns to grief, 
 And trembling faith is changed to fear, 
 
 The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf 
 Shall softly tell us, Thou art near ! 
 
 On Thee we fling our burdening woe, 
 
 O Love Divine, forever dear, 
 Content to suffer, while we know, 
 
 Living and dying, Thou art near !
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 283 
 
 xn. 
 
 A young fellow, born of good stock, in one of the 
 more thoroughly civilized portions of these United 
 States of America, bred in good principles, inheriting 
 a social position which makes him at his ease every 
 where, means sufficient to educate him thoroughly 
 without taking away the stimulus to vigorous exer 
 tion, and with a good opening in some honorable path 
 of labor, is the finest sight our private satellite has had 
 the opportunity of inspecting on the planet to which 
 she belongs. In some respects it was better to be 
 a young Greek. If we may trust the old marbles, 
 my friend with his arm stretched over my head, above 
 there, (in plaster of Paris,) or the discobolus, whom 
 one may see at the principal sculpture gallery of this 
 metropolis, those Greek young men were of su 
 preme beauty. Their close curls, their elegantly set 
 heads, column-like necks, straight noses, short, curled 
 lips, firm chins, deep chests, light flanks, large mus 
 cles, small joints, were finer than anything we ever see. 
 It may well be questioned whether the human shape 
 will ever present itself again in a race of such perfect 
 symmetry. But the life of the youthful Greek was 
 local, not planetary, like that of the young American. 
 He had a string of legends, in place of our Gospels. 
 He had no printed books, no newspaper, no steam 
 caravans, no forks, no soap, none of the thousand 
 cheap conveniences which have become matters of ne 
 cessity to our modern civilization. Above all things, 
 if he aspired to know as well as to enjoy, he found 
 knowledge not diffused everywhere about him, so that 
 a day's labor would buy him more wisdom than a year
 
 284 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 could master, but held in private hands, hoarded in 
 precious manuscripts, to be sought for only as gold is 
 sought in narrow fissures, and in the beds of brawling 
 streams. Never, since man came into this atmosphere 
 of oxygen and azote, was there anything like the con 
 dition of the young American of the nineteenth cen 
 tury. Having in possession or in prospect the best 
 part of half a world, with all its climates and soils to 
 choose from ; equipped with wings of fire and smoke 
 that fly with him day and night, so that he counts his 
 journey not in miles, but in degrees, and sees the sea 
 sons change as the wild fowl sees them in his annual 
 flights ; with huge leviathans always ready to take him 
 on their broad backs and push behind them with their 
 pectoral or caudal fins the waters that seam the con 
 tinent or separate the hemispheres; heir of all old 
 civilizations, founder of that new one which, if all the 
 prophecies of the human heart are not lies, is to be 
 the noblest, as it is the last; isolated in space from 
 the races that are governed by dynasties whose divine 
 right grows out of human wrong, yet knit into the 
 most absolute solidarity with mankind of all times and 
 places by the one great thought he inherits as his 
 national birthright ; free to form and express his opin 
 ions on almost every subject, and assured that he will 
 soon acquire the last franchise which men withhold 
 from man, that of stating the laws of his spiritual 
 being and the beliefs he accepts without hindrance 
 except from clearer views of truth, he seems to want 
 nothing for a large, wholesome, noble, beneficent life. 
 In fact, the chief danger is that he will think the whole 
 planet is made for him, and forget that there are some 
 possibilities left in the debris of the old-world civili 
 zation which deserve a certain respectful consideration 
 at his hands.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 285 
 
 The combing and clipping of this shaggy wild con 
 tinent are in some measure done for him by those who 
 have gone before. Society has subdivided itself 
 enough to have a place for every form of talent. 
 Thus, if a man show the least sign of ability as a 
 sculptor or a painter, for instance, he finds the means 
 of education and a demand for his services. Even a 
 man who knows nothing but science will be provided 
 for, if he does not think it necessary to hang about 
 his birthplace all his days, which is a most un- 
 American weakness. The apron-strings of an Amer 
 ican mother are made of India-rubber. Her boy 
 belongs where he is wanted; and that young Mary- 
 lander of ours spoke for all our young men, when he 
 said that his home was wherever the stars and stripes 
 blew over his head. 
 
 And that leads me to say a few words of this young 
 gentleman, who made that audacious movement lately 
 which I chronicled in my last record, jumping over 
 the seats of I don't know how many boarders to put 
 himself in the place which the Little Gentleman's 
 absence had left vacant at the side of Iris. When a 
 young man is found habitually at the side of any one 
 given young lady, when he lingers where she stays, 
 and hastens when she leaves, when his eyes follow 
 her as she moves and rest upon her when she is still, 
 when he begins to grow a little timid, he who was 
 so bold, and a little pensive, he who was so gay, when 
 ever accident finds them alone, when he thinks 
 very often of the given young lady, and names her 
 very seldom, 
 
 What do you say about it, my charming young 
 expert in that sweet science in which, perhaps, a long 
 experience is not the first of qualifications?
 
 286 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 But we don't know anything about this young 
 man, except that he is good-looking, and somewhat 
 high-spirited, and strong-limbed, and has a gener 
 ous style of nature, all very promising, but by 
 no means proving that he is a proper lover for Iris, 
 whose heart we turned inside out when we opened that 
 sealed book of hers. 
 
 Ah, my dear young friend ! When your mamma 
 then, if you will believe it, a very slight young lady, 
 with very pretty hair and figure came and told her 
 
 mamma that your papa had had asked No, 
 
 no, no! she could n't say it; but her mother oh the 
 depth of maternal sagacity ! guessed it all without 
 another word ! When your mother, I say, came and 
 told her mother she was engaged, and your grand 
 mother told your grandfather, how much did they 
 know of the intimate nature of the young gentleman 
 to whom she had pledged her existence ? I will not 
 be so hard as to ask how much your respected mamma 
 knew at that time of the intimate nature of your 
 respected papa, though, if we should compare a young 
 girl's man-as-she-thinks-him with a forty-summered 
 matron's man-as-she-finds-him, I have my doubts as 
 to whether the second would be a facsimile of the first 
 in most cases. 
 
 The idea that in this world each young person is to 
 wait until he or she finds that precise counterpart who 
 alone of all creation was meant for him or her, and 
 then fall instantly in love with it, is pretty enough, 
 only it is not Nature's way. It is not at all essential 
 that all pairs of human beings should be, as we some 
 times say of particular couples, "born for each other." 
 Sometimes a man or a woman is made a great deal 
 better and happier in the end for having had to con-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 287 
 
 quer the faults of the one beloved, and make the fit 
 ness not found at first, by gradual assimilation. There 
 is a class of good women who have no right to marry 
 perfectly good men, because they have the power of 
 saving those who would go to ruin but for the guid 
 ing providence of a good wife. I have known many 
 such cases. It is the most momentous question a 
 woman is ever called upon to decide, whether the 
 faults of the man she loves are beyond remedy and 
 will drag her down, or whether she is competent to be 
 his earthly redeemer and lift him to her own level. 
 
 A person of genius should marry a person of char 
 acter. Genius does not herd with genius. The musk- 
 deer and the civet-cat are never found in company. 
 They don't care for strange scents, they like plain 
 animals better than perfumed ones. Nay, if you will 
 have the kindness to notice, Nature has not gifted my 
 lady musk-deer with the personal peculiarity by which 
 her lord is so widely known. 
 
 Now when genius allies itself with character, the 
 world is very apt to think character has the best of the 
 bargain. A brilliant woman marries a plain, manly 
 fellow, with a simple intellectual mechanism; we 
 have all seen such cases. The world often stares a 
 good deal and wonders. She should have taken that 
 other, with a far more complex mental machinery. 
 She might have had a watch with the philosophical 
 compensation-balance, with the metaphysical index 
 which can split a second into tenths, with the musical 
 chime which can turn every quarter of an hour into 
 melody. She has chosen a plain one, that keeps good 
 time, and that is all. 
 
 Let her alone! She knows what she is about. 
 Genius has an infinitely deeper reverence for character
 
 288 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 than character can have for genius. To be sure, ge 
 nius gets the world's praise, because its work is a tan 
 gible product, to be bought, or had for nothing. It 
 bribes the common voice to praise it by presents of 
 speeches, poems, statues, pictures, or whatever it can 
 please with. Character evolves its best products for 
 home consumption; but, mind you, it takes a deal 
 more to feed a family for thirty years than to make a 
 holiday feast for our neighbors once or twice in our 
 lives. You talk of the fire of genius. Many a blessed 
 woman, who dies unsung and unremembered, has 
 given out more of the real vital heat that keeps the 
 life in human souls, without a spark flitting through 
 her humble chimney to tell the world about it, than 
 would set a dozen theories smoking, or a hundred odes 
 simmering, in the brains of so many men of genius. 
 It is in latent caloric, if I may borrow a philosophical 
 expression, that many of the noblest hearts give out 
 the life that warms them. Cornelia's lips grow white, 
 and her pulse hardly warms her thin fingers, but 
 she has melted all the ice out of the hearts of those 
 young Gracchi, and her lost heat is in the blood of 
 her youthful heroes. We are always valuing the 
 soul's temperature by the thermometer of public deed 
 or word. Yet the great sun himself, when he pours 
 his noonday beams upon some vast hyaline boulder, 
 rent from the eternal ice-quarries, and floating toward 
 the tropics, never warms it a fraction above the thirty- 
 two degrees of Fahrenheit that marked the moment 
 when the first drop trickled down its side. 
 
 How we all like the spirting up of a fountain, 
 seemingly against the law that makes water everywhere 
 slide, roll, leap, tumble headlong, to get as low as the 
 earth will let it ! That is genius. But what is this
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 289 
 
 transient upward movement, which gives us the glitter 
 and the rainbow, to that unsleeping, all-present force 
 of gravity, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, 
 (if the universe be eternal,) the great outspread 
 hand of God himself, forcing all things down into 
 their places, and keeping them there? Such, in 
 smaller proportion, is -the force of character to the fife- 
 ful movements of genius, as they are or have been 
 linked to each other in many a household, where one 
 name was historic, and the other, let me say the no 
 bler, unknown, save by some faint reflected ray, bor 
 rowed from its lustrous companion. 
 
 Oftentimes, as I have lain swinging on the water, 
 in the swell of the Chelsea ferry-boats, in that long, 
 sharp-pointed, black cradle in which I love to let the 
 great mother rock me, I have seen a tall ship glide by 
 against the tide, as if drawn by some invisible tow- 
 line, with a hundred strong arms pulling it. Her 
 sails hung unfilled, her streamers were drooping, she 
 had neither side-wheel nor stern- wheel ; still she moved 
 on, stately, in serene triumph, as if with her own life. 
 But I knew that on the other side of the ship, hidden 
 beneath the great hulk that swam so majestically, 
 there was a little toiling steam-tug, with heart of fire 
 and arms of iron, that was hugging it close and drag 
 ging it bravely on; and I knew, that, if the little 
 steam-tug untwined her arms and left the tall ship, it 
 would wallow and roll about, and drift hither and 
 thither, and go off with the refluent tide, no man 
 knows whither. And so I have known more than one 
 genius, high-decked, full-freighted, wide-sailed, gay- 
 pennoned, that, but for the bare toiling arms, and 
 brave, warm, beating heart of the faithful little wife, 
 that nestled close in his shadow, and clung to him,
 
 290 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 so that no wind or wave could part them, and dragged 
 him on against all the tide of circumstance, would 
 soon have gone down the stream and been heard of no 
 more. No, I am too much a lover of genius, I some 
 times think, and too often get impatient with dull 
 people, so that, in their weak talk, where nothing is 
 taken for granted, I look forward to some future 
 possible state of development, when a gesture pass 
 ing between a beatified human soul and an archan 
 gel shall signify as much as the complete history of 
 a planet, from the time when it curdled to the time 
 when its sun was burned out. And yet, when a 
 strong brain is weighed with a true heart, it seems 
 to me like balancing a bubble against a wedge of 
 gold. 
 
 It takes a very true man to be a fitting compan 
 ion for a woman of genius, but not a very great one. 
 I am not sure that she will not embroider her ideal 
 better on a plain ground than on one with a brilliant 
 pattern already worked in its texture. But as the 
 very essence of genius is truthfulness, contact with 
 realities, (which are always ideas behind shows of form 
 or language,) nothing is so contemptible as falsehood 
 and pretence in its eyes. Now it is not easy to find 
 a perfectly true woman, and it is very hard to find a 
 perfectly true man. And a woman of genius, who has 
 the sagacity to choose such a one as her companion, 
 shows more of the divine gift in so doing than in her 
 finest talk or her most brilliant work of letters or of 
 art. 
 
 I have been a good while coming at a secret, for 
 which I wished to prepare you before telling it. I 
 think there is a kindly feeling growing up between
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 291 
 
 Iris and our young Marylander. Not that I suppose 
 there is any distinct understanding between them, but 
 that the affinity which has drawn him from the remote 
 corner where he sat to the side of the young girl is 
 quietly bringing their two natures together. Just 
 now she is all given up to another; but when he no 
 longer calls upon her daily thoughts and cares, I warn 
 you not to be surprised, if this bud of friendship open 
 like the evening primrose, with a sound as of a sud 
 den stolen kiss, and lo ! the flower of full-blown love 
 lies unfolded before you. 
 
 And now the days had come for our little friend, 
 whose whims and weaknesses had interested us, per 
 haps, as much as his better traits, to make ready for 
 that long journey which is easier to the cripple than 
 to the strong man, and on which none enters so will 
 ingly as he who has borne the life-long load of infirm 
 ity during his earthly pilgrimage. At this point, 
 under most circumstances, I would close the doors and 
 draw the veil of privacy before the chamber where the 
 birth which we call death, out of life into the unknown 
 world, is working its mystery. But this friend of 
 ours stood alone in the world, and, as the last act of 
 his life was mainly in harmony with the rest of its 
 drama, I do not here feel the force of the objection 
 commonly lying against that death-bed literature 
 which forms the staple of a certain portion of the 
 press. Let me explain what I mean, so that my read 
 ers may think for themselves a little, before they 
 accuse me of hasty expressions. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church has certain formulae 
 for its dying children, to which almost all of them at 
 tach the greatest importance. There is hardly a crim-
 
 292 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 inal so abandoned that he is not anxious to receive the 
 "consolations of religion " in his last hours. Even if 
 he be senseless, but still living, I think that the form 
 is gone through with, just as baptism is administered 
 to the unconscious new-born child. Now we do not 
 quarrel with these forms. We look with reverence 
 and affection upon all symbols which give peace and 
 comfort to our fellow-creatures. But the value of the 
 new-born child's passive consent to the ceremony is 
 null, as testimony to the truth of a doctrine. The 
 automatic closing of a dying man's lips on the conse 
 crated wafer proves nothing in favor of the Real Pres 
 ence, or any other dogma. And, speaking generally, 
 the evidence of dying men in favor of any belief is to 
 be received with great caution. 
 
 They commonly tell the truth about their present 
 feelings, no doubt. A dying man's deposition about 
 anything he knows is good evidence. But it is of 
 much less consequence what a man thinks and says 
 when he is changed by pain, weakness, apprehension, 
 than what he thinks when he is truly and wholly him 
 self. Most murderers die in a very pious frame of 
 mind, expecting to go to glory at once ; yet no man 
 believes he shall meet a larger average of pirates and 
 cut-throats in the streets of the New Jerusalem than 
 of honest folks that died in their beds. 
 
 Unfortunately, there has been a very great tendency 
 to make capital of various kinds out of dying men's 
 speeches. The lies that have been put into their 
 mouths for this purpose are endless. The prune min 
 ister, whose last breath was spent in scolding his 
 nurse, dies with a magnificent apothegm on his lips, 
 manufactured by a reporter. Addison gets up a ta 
 bleau and utters an admirable sentiment, or some-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 293 
 
 body makes the posthumous dying epigram for him. 
 The incoherent babble of green fields is translated 
 into the language of stately sentiment. One would 
 think, all that dying men had to do was to say the 
 prettiest thing they could, to make their rhetorical 
 point, and then bow themselves politely out of the 
 world. 
 
 Worse than this is the torturing of dying people 
 to get their evidence in favor of this or that favorite 
 belief. The camp-followers of proselyting sects have 
 come in at the close of every life where they could get 
 in, to strip the languishing soul of its thoughts, and 
 carry them off as spoils. The Roman Catholic or 
 other priest who insists on the reception of his formula 
 means kindly, we trust, and very commonly succeeds 
 in getting the acquiescence of the subject of his spir 
 itual surgery, but do not let us take the testimony of 
 people who are in the worst condition to form opinions 
 as evidence of the truth or falsehood of that which 
 they accept. A lame man's opinion of dancing is not 
 good for much. A poor fellow who can neither eat 
 nor drink, who is sleepless and full of pains, whose 
 flesh has wasted from him, whose blood is like water, 
 who is gasping for breath, is not in a condition to 
 judge fairly of human life, which in all its main ad 
 justments is intended for men in a normal, healthy 
 condition. It is a remark I have heard from the wise 
 Patriarch of the Medical Profession among us, that 
 the moral condition of patients with disease above the 
 great breathing-muscle, the diaphragm, is much more 
 hopeful than that of patients with disease below it, in 
 the digestive organs. Many an honest ignorant man 
 has given us pathology when he thought he was giving 
 us psychology. With this preliminary caution I shall
 
 294 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 proceed to the story of the Little Gentleman's leav 
 ing us. 
 
 When the divinity-student found that our fellow- 
 boarder was not likely to remain long with us, he, 
 being a young man of tender conscience and kindly 
 nature, was not a little exercised on his behalf. It 
 was undeniable that on several occasions the Little 
 Gentleman had expressed himself with a good deal of 
 freedom on a class of subjects which, according to the 
 divinity- student, he had no right to form an opinion 
 upon. He therefore considered his future welfare in 
 jeopardy. 
 
 The Muggletonian sect have a very odd way of 
 dealing with people. If I, the Professor, will only 
 give in to the Muggletonian doctrine, there shall be 
 no question through all that persuasion that I am com 
 petent to judge of that doctrine; nay, I shall be 
 quoted as evidence of its truth, while I live, and cited, 
 after I am dead, as testimony in its behalf. But if 
 I utter any ever so slight Anti-Muggletonian senti 
 ment, then I become incompetent to form any opinion 
 on the matter. This, you cannot fail to observe, is 
 exactly the way the pseudo-sciences go to work, as 
 explained in my Lecture on Phrenology. Now I hold 
 that he whose testimony would be accepted in behalf 
 of the Muggletonian doctrine has a right to be heard 
 against it. Whoso offers me any article of belief for 
 my signature implies that I am competent to form an 
 opinion upon it; and if my positive testimony in its 
 favor is of any value, then my negative testimony 
 against it is also of value. 
 
 I thought my young friend's attitude was a little 
 too much like that of the Muggletonians. I also re 
 marked a singular timidity on his part lest somebody
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 295 
 
 should "unsettle" somebody's faith, as if faith did 
 not require exercise as much as any other living 
 thing, and were not all the better for a shaking up 
 now and then. I don't mean that it would be fair 
 to bother Bridget, the wild Irish girl, or Joice Heth, 
 the centenarian, or any other intellectual non-combat 
 ant; but all persons who proclaim a belief which 
 passes judgment on their neighbors must be ready to 
 have it "unsettled," that is, questioned, at all times 
 and by anybody, just as those who set up bars 
 across a thoroughfare must expect to have them taken 
 down by every one who wants to pass, if he is strong 
 enough. 
 
 Besides, to think of trying to water-proof the 
 American mind against the questions that Heaven 
 rains down upon it shows a misapprehension of our 
 new conditions. If to question everything be unlaw 
 ful and dangerous, we had better undeclare our inde 
 pendence at once; for what the Declaration means 
 is the right to question everything, even the truth of 
 its own fundamental proposition. 
 
 The old-world order of things is an arrangement of 
 locks and canals, where everything depends on keep 
 ing the gates shut, and so holding the upper waters at 
 their level; but the system under which the young 
 republican American is born trusts the whole unim 
 peded tide of life to the great elemental influences, as 
 the vast rivers of the continent settle their own level 
 in obedience to the laws that govern the planet and 
 the spheres that surround it. 
 
 The divinity-student was not quite up to the idea of 
 the commonwealth, as our young friend the Mary- 
 lander, for instance, understood it. He could not get 
 rid of that notion of private property in truth, with
 
 296 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 the right to fence it in, and put up a sign-board, 
 thus: 
 
 B^p ALL TRESPASSERS ARE WARNED OFF THESE 
 GROUNDS ! 
 
 He took the young Marylander to task for going to 
 the Church of the Galileans, where he had several 
 times accompanied Iris of late. 
 
 I am a Churchman, the young man said, by 
 education and habit. I love my old Church for many 
 reasons, but most of all because I think it has edu 
 cated me out of its own forms into the spirit of its 
 highest teachings. I think I belong to the "Broad 
 Church," if any of you can tell what that means. 
 
 I had the rashness to attempt to answer the question 
 myself. Some say the Broad Church means the 
 collective mass of good people of all denominations. 
 Others say that such a definition is nonsense; that 
 a church is an organization, and the scattered good 
 folks are no organization at all. They think that men 
 will eventually come together on the basis of one or 
 two or more common articles of belief, and form a 
 great unity. Do they see what this amounts to? It 
 means an equal division of intellect! It is mental 
 agrarianism! a thing that never was and never will 
 be until national and individual idiosyncrasies have 
 ceased to exist. The man of thirty-nine beliefs holds 
 the man of one belief a pauper ; he is not going to give 
 up thirty-eight of them for the sake of fraternizing 
 with the other in the temple which bears on its front, 
 "Deo erexit Voltaire" A church is a garden, I have 
 heard it said, and the illustration was neatly handled. 
 Yes, and there is no such thing as a broad garden. 
 It must be fenced in, and whatever is fenced in is
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 297 
 
 narrow. You cannot have arctic and tropical plants 
 growing together in it, except by the forcing system, 
 which is a mighty narrow piece of business. You 
 can't make a village or a parish or a family think 
 alike, yet you suppose that you can make a world 
 pinch its beliefs or pad them to a single pattern! 
 Why, the very life of an ecclesiastical organization is 
 a life of induction, a state of perpetually disturbed 
 equilibrium kept up by another charged body in the 
 neighborhood. If the two bodies touch and share 
 their respective charges, down goes the index of the 
 electrometer ! 
 
 Do you know that every man has a religious belief 
 peculiar to himself? Smith is always a Smithite. 
 He takes in exactly Sniith's-worth of knowledge, 
 Smith's-worth of truth, of beauty, of divinity. And 
 Brown has from time immemorial been trying to burn 
 him, to excommunicate him, to anonymous-article 
 him, because he did not take in Brown 's-worth of 
 knowledge, truth, beauty, divinity. He cannot do it, 
 any more than a pint-pot can hold a quart, or a quart- 
 pot be filled by a pint. Iron is essentially the same 
 everywhere and always; but the sulphate of iron is 
 never the same as the carbonate of iron. Truth is 
 invariable; but the Smithate of truth must always 
 differ from the Brownate of truth. 
 
 The wider the intellect, the larger and simpler the 
 expressions in which its knowledge is embodied. The 
 inferior race, the degraded and enslaved people, the 
 small-minded individual, live in the details which to 
 larger minds and more advanced tribes of men reduce 
 themselves to axioms and laws. As races and indi 
 vidual minds must always differ just as sulphates and 
 carbonates do, I cannot see ground for expecting the
 
 298 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 Broad Church to be founded on any fusion of intel 
 lectual beliefs, which of course implies that those who 
 hold the larger number of doctrines as essential shali 
 come down to those who hold the smaller number. 
 These doctrines are to the negative aristocracy what 
 the quarterings of their coats are to the positive orders 
 of nobility. 
 
 The Broad Church, I think, will never be based on 
 anything that requires the use of language. Freema 
 sonry gives an idea of such a church, and a brother is 
 known and cared for in a strange land where no word 
 of his can be understood. The apostle of this church 
 may be a deaf mute carrying a cup of cold water to a 
 thirsting fellow-creature. The cup of cold water does 
 not require to be translated for a foreigner to under 
 stand it. I am afraid the only Broad Church possi 
 ble is one that has its creed in the heart, and not in 
 the head, that we shall know its members by their 
 fruits, and not by their words. If you say this com 
 munion of well-doers is no church, I can only answer, 
 that all organized bodies have their limits of size, and 
 that when we find a man a hundred feet high and 
 thirty feet broad across the shoulders, we will look 
 out for an organization that shall include all Chris 
 tendom. 
 
 Some of us do practically recognize a Broad Church 
 and a Narrow Church, however. The Narrow Church 
 may be seen in the ship's boats of humanity, in the 
 long boat, in the jolly boat, in the captain's gig, lying 
 off the poor old vessel, thanking God that they are safe, 
 and reckoning how soon the hulk containing the mass 
 of their fellow-creatures will go down. The Broad 
 Church is on board, working hard at the pumps, and 
 very slow to believe that the ship will be swallowed
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 299 
 
 up with so many poor people in it, fastened down 
 under the hatches ever since it floated. 
 
 All this, of course, was nothing but my poor 
 notion about these matters. I am simply an "out 
 sider," you know; only it doesn't do very well for a, 
 nest of Hingham boxes to talk too much about out 
 siders and insiders! 
 
 After this talk of ours, I think these two young 
 people went pretty regularly to the Church of the 
 Galileans. Still they could not keep away from the 
 sweet harmonies and rhythmic litanies of Saint Poly- 
 carp on the great Church festival-days; so that, be 
 tween the two, they were so much together, that the 
 boarders began to make remarks, and our landlady 
 said to me, one day, that, though it was noon of her 
 business, them that had eyes could n't help seein' that 
 there was somethin' goin' on between them two young 
 people ; she thought the young man was a very likely 
 young man, though jest what his prospecs was was un 
 beknown to her; but she thought he must be doing 
 well, and rather guessed he woidd be able to take care 
 of a femily, if he didn't go to takin' a house; for a 
 gentleman and his wife could board a great deal 
 cheaper than they could keep house ; but then that 
 girl was nothin' but a child, and would n't think of 
 bein' married this five year. They was good board 
 ers, both of 'em, paid regular, and was as pooty a 
 couple as she ever laid eyes on. 
 
 To come back to what I began to speak of be 
 fore, the divinity-student was exercised in his mind 
 about the Little Gentleman, and, in the kindness of 
 his heart, for he was a good young man, and in 
 the strength of his convictions, for he took it for 
 granted that he and his crowd were right, and other
 
 300 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 folks and their crowd were wrong, he determined 
 to bring the Little Gentleman round to his faith be 
 fore he died, if he could. So he sent word to the sick 
 man, that he should be pleased to visit him and have 
 some conversation with him; and received for answer 
 that he would be welcome. 
 
 The divinity-student made him a visit, therefore., 
 and had a somewhat remarkable interview with him, 
 which I shall briefly relate, without attempting to 
 justify the positions taken by the Little Gentleman. 
 He found him weak, but calm. Iris sat silent by his 
 pillow. 
 
 After the usual preliminaries, the divinity-student 
 said, in a kind way, that he was sorry to find him in 
 failing health, that he felt concerned for his soul, and 
 was anxious to assist him in making preparations for 
 the great change awaiting him. 
 
 I thank you, Sir, said the Little Gentleman, 
 permit me to ask you, what makes you think I am 
 not ready for it, Sir, and that you can do anything to 
 help me, Sir? 
 
 I address you only as a fellow-man, said the 
 divinity-student, and therefore a fellow-sinner. 
 
 I am not a man, Sir ! said the Little Gentleman. 
 I was born into this world the wreck of a man, and 
 I shall not be judged with a race to which I do not 
 belong. Look at this! he said, and held up his 
 withered arm. See there ! and he pointed to his 
 misshapen extremities. Lay your hand here ! and 
 he laid his own on the region of his misplaced heart. 
 I have known nothing of the life of your race. 
 When I first came to my consciousness, I found my 
 self an object of pity, or a sight to show. The first 
 strange child I ever remember hid its face and would
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 301 
 
 not come near me. I was a broken-hearted as well as 
 broken-bodied boy. I grew into the emotions of 
 ripening youth, and all that I could have loved shrank 
 from my presence. I became a man in years, and 
 had nothing in common with manhood but its long 
 ings. My life is the dying pang of a worn-out race, 
 and I shall go down alone into the dust, out of this 
 world of men and women, without ever knowing the 
 fellowship of the one or the love of the other. I will 
 not die with a lie rattling in my throat. If another 
 state of being has anything worse in store for me, I 
 have had a long apprenticeship to give me strength 
 that I may bear it. I don't believe it, Sir! I have 
 too much faith for that. God has not left me wholly 
 without comfort, even here. I love this old place 
 where I was born; the heart of the world beats 
 under the three hills of Boston, Sir ! I love this great 
 land, with so many tall men in it, and so many good, 
 noble women. His eyes turned to the silent figure 
 by his pillow. I have learned to accept meekly what 
 has been allotted to me, but I cannot honestly say 
 that I think my sin has been greater than my suffer 
 ing. I bear the ignorance and the evil-doing of whole 
 generations in my single person. I never drew a 
 breath of air nor took a step that was not a punish 
 ment for another's fault. I may have had many 
 wrong thoughts, but I cannot have done many wrong 
 deeds, for my cage has been a narrow one, and I 
 have paced it alone. I have looked through the bars 
 and seen the great world of men busy and happy, but 
 I had no part in their doings. I have known what it 
 was to dream of the great passions; but since my 
 mother kissed me before she died, no woman's lips 
 have pressed my cheek, nor ever will.
 
 302 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 The young girl's eyes glittered with a sudden 
 film, and almost without a thought, but with a warm 
 human instinct that rushed up into her face with her 
 heart's blood, she bent over and kissed him. It was 
 the sacrament that washed out the memory of long 
 years of bitterness, and I should hold it an unworthy 
 thought to defend her. 
 
 The Little Gentleman repaid her with the only tear 
 any of us ever saw him shed. 
 
 The divinity-student rose from his place, and, turn 
 ing away from the sick man, walked to the other side 
 of the room, where he bowed his head and was still. 
 All the questions he had meant to ask had faded from 
 his memory. The tests he had prepared by which to 
 judge of his fellow-creature's fitness for heaven seemed 
 to have lost their virtue. He could trust the crippled 
 child of sorrow to the Infinite Parent. The kiss of 
 the fair-haired girl had been like a sign from heaven, 
 that angels watched over him whom he was presuming 
 but a moment before to summon before the tribunal of 
 his private judgment. 
 
 Shall I pray with you? he said, after a pause. 
 A little before he would have said, Shall I pray far 
 you? The Christian religion, as taught by its 
 Founder, is full of sentiment. So we must not 
 blame the divinity-student, if he was overcome by 
 those yearnings of human sympathy which predomi 
 nate so much more in the sermons of the Master than 
 in the writings of his successors, and which have made 
 the parable of the Prodigal Son the consolation of 
 mankind, as it has been the stumbling-block of all 
 exclusive doctrines. 
 
 Pray ! said the Little Gentleman. 
 
 The divinity -student prayed, in low, tender tones,
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 303 
 
 that God would look on his servant lying helpless at 
 the feet of his mercy; that He would remember his 
 long years of bondage in the flesh; that He would 
 deal gently with the bruised reed. Thou hast vis 
 ited the sins of the fathers upon this their child. Oh, 
 turn away from him the penalties of his own transgres 
 sions! Thou hast laid upon him, from infancy, the 
 cross which thy stronger children are called upon to 
 take up; and now that he is fainting under it, be 
 Thou his stay, and do Thou succor him that is 
 tempted ! Let his manifold infirmities come between 
 him and Thy judgment; in wrath remember mercy! 
 If his eyes are not opened to all Thy truth, let Thy 
 compassion lighten the darkness that rests upon him, 
 even as it came through the word of thy Son to blind 
 Bartimeus, who sat by the wayside, begging ! 
 
 Many more petitions he uttered, but all in the 
 same subdued tone of tenderness. In the presence of 
 helpless suffering, and in the fast-darkening shadow 
 of the Destroyer, he forgot all but his Christian hu 
 manity, and cared more about consoling his fellow- 
 man than making a proselyte of him. 
 
 This was the last prayer to which the Little Gentle 
 man ever listened. Some change was rapidly coming 
 over him during this last hour of which I have been 
 speaking. The excitement of pleading his cause be 
 fore his self -elected spiritual adviser, the emotion 
 which overcame him, when the young girl obeyed the 
 sudden impulse of her feelings and pressed her lips to 
 his cheek, the thoughts that mastered him while the 
 divinity-student poured out his soul for him in prayer, 
 might well hurry on the inevitable moment. When 
 the divinity-student had uttered his last petition, com 
 mending him to the Father through his Son's interces-
 
 304 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 sion, he turned to look upon him before leaving his 
 chamber. His face was changed. There is a lan 
 guage of the human countenance which we all under 
 stand without an interpreter, though the lineaments 
 belong to the rudest savage that ever stammered in an 
 unknown barbaric dialect. By the stillness of the 
 sharpened features, by the blankness of the tearless 
 eyes, by the fixedness of the smileless mouth, by the 
 deadening tints, by the contracted brow, by the dilat 
 ing nostril, we know that the soul is soon to leave its 
 mortal tenement, and is already closing up its windows 
 and putting out its fires. Such was the aspect of the 
 face upon which the divinity-student looked, after the 
 brief silence which followed his prayer. The change 
 had been rapid, though not that abrupt one which is 
 liable to happen at any moment in these cases. The 
 sick man looked towards him. Farewell, he said, 
 
 I thank you. Leave me alone with her. 
 
 When the divinity-student had gone, and the Little 
 Gentleman found himself alone with Iris, he lifted his 
 hand to his neck, and took from it, suspended by a 
 slender chain, a quaint, antique-looking key, the 
 same key I had once seen him holding. He gave this 
 to her, and pointed to a carved cabinet opposite his 
 bed, one of those that had so attracted my curious eyes 
 and set me wondering as to what it might contain. 
 
 Open it, he said, and light the lamp. The 
 young girl walked to the cabinet and unlocked the 
 door. A deep recess appeared, lined with black vel 
 vet, against which stood in white relief an ivory cruci 
 fix. A silver lamp hung over it. She lighted the 
 lamp and came back to the bedside. The dying man 
 fixed his eyes upon the figure of the dying Saviour. 
 
 Give me your hand, he said ; and Iris placed her
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 305 
 
 right hand in his left. So they remained, until pres 
 ently his eyes lost their meaning, though they still re 
 mained vacantly fixed upon the white image. Yet he 
 held the young girl's hand firmly, as if it were leading 
 him through some deep-shadowed valley and it was all 
 he could cling to. But presently an involuntary mus 
 cular contraction stole over him, and his terrible dying 
 grasp held the poor girl as if she were wedged in an 
 engine of torture. She pressed her lips together and 
 sat still. The inexorable hand held her tighter and 
 tighter, until she felt as if her own slender fingers 
 would be crushed in its gripe. It was one of the tor 
 tures of the Inquisition she was suffering, and she 
 could not stir from her place. Then, in her great an 
 guish, she, too, cast her eyes upon that dying figure, 
 and, looking upon its pierced hands and feet and side 
 and lacerated forehead, she felt that she also must 
 suffer uncomplaining. In the moment of her sharpest 
 pain she did not forget the duties of her tender office, 
 but dried the dying man's moist forehead with her 
 handkerchief, even while the dews of agony were glis 
 tening on her own. How long this lasted she never 
 could tell. Time and thirst are two things you and 
 I talk about; but the victims whom holy men and 
 righteous judges used to stretch on their engines knew 
 better what they meant than you or I ! What is that 
 great bucket of water for? said the Marchioness de 
 Brinvilliers, before she was placed on the rack. For 
 you to drink, said the torturer to the little woman. 
 She could not think that it would take such a flood 
 to quench the fire in her and so keep her alive for her 
 confession. The torturer knew better than she. 
 
 After a time not to be counted in minutes, as the 
 clock measures, without any warning, there came
 
 306 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 a swift change of his features ; his face turned white, 
 as the waters whiten when a sudden breath passes 
 over their still surface ; the muscles instantly relaxed, 
 and Iris, released at once from her care for the suf 
 ferer and from his unconscious grasp, fell senseless, 
 with a feeble cry, the only utterance of her long 
 agony. 
 
 Perhaps you sometimes wander in through the iron 
 gates of the Copp's Hill burial-ground. You love to 
 stroll round among the graves that crowd each other 
 in the thickly peopled soil of that breezy summit. 
 You love to lean on the freestone slab which lies over 
 the bones of the Mathers, to read the epitaph of 
 stout William Clark, " Despiser of Sorry Persons and 
 little Actions," to stand by the stone grave of sturdy 
 Daniel Malcolm and look upon the splintered slab 
 that tells the old rebel's story, to kneel by the 
 triple stone that says how the three Worthylakes, 
 father, mother, and young daughter, died .on the same 
 day and lie buried there; a mystery; the subject of a 
 moving ballad, by the late BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 
 as may be seen in his autobiography, which will ex 
 plain the secret of the triple gravestone ; though the 
 old philosopher has made a mistake, unless the stone 
 is wrong. 
 
 Not very far from that you will find a fair mound, 
 of dimensions fit to hold a well-grown man. I will 
 not tell you the inscription upon the stone which 
 stands at its head ; for I do not wish you to be sure 
 of the resting-place of one who could not bear to 
 think that he should be known as a cripple among the 
 dead, after being pointed at so long among the living. 
 There is one sign, it is true, by which, if you have
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 307 
 
 been a sagacious reader of these papers, you will at 
 once know it; but I fear you read carelessly, and 
 must study them more diligently before you will detect 
 the hint to which I allude. 
 
 The Little Gentleman lies where he longed to lie, 
 among the old names and the old bones of the old 
 Boston people. At the foot of his resting-place is the 
 river, alive with the wings and antennae of its colossal 
 water-insects; over opposite are the great war-ships, 
 and the heavy guns, which, when they roar, shake the 
 soil in which he lies; and in the steeple of Christ 
 Church, hard by, are the sweet chimes which are the 
 Boston boy's Ranz des Vaches, whose echoes follow 
 him all the world over. 
 
 In Pace ! 
 
 I told you a good while ago that the Little Gen 
 tleman could not do a better thing than to leave all 
 his money, whatever it might be, to the young girl 
 who has since that established such a claim upon him. 
 He did not, however. A considerable bequest to one 
 of our public institutions keeps his name in grateful 
 remembrance. The telescope through which he was 
 fond of watching the heavenly bodies, and the move 
 ments of which had been the source of such odd fan 
 cies on my part, is now the property of a Western 
 College. You smile as you think of my taking it for 
 a fleshless human figure, when I saw its tube pointing 
 to the sky, and thought it was an arm, under the white 
 drapery thrown over it for protection. So do I smile 
 now; I belong to the numerous class who are prophets 
 after the fact, and hold my nightmares very cheap by 
 daylight. 
 
 I have received many leters of inquiry as to the
 
 SOS THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 sound resembling a woman's voice, which occasioned 
 me so many perplexities. Some thought there was no 
 question that he had a second apartment, in which he 
 had made an asylum for a deranged female relative. 
 Others were of opinion that he was, as I once sug 
 gested, a "Bluebeard" with patriarchal tendencies, 
 and I have even been censured for introducing so 
 Oriental an element into my record of boarding-house 
 experience. 
 
 Come in and see me, the Professor, some evening 
 when I have nothing else to do, and ask me to play 
 you Tartini's Devil's Sonata on that extraordinary 
 instrument in my possession, well known to amateurs 
 as one of the masterpieces of Joseph Guarnerius. 
 The vox humana of the great Haerlem organ is very 
 lifelike, and the same stop in the organ of the Cam 
 bridge chapel might be mistaken in some of its tones 
 for a human voice ; but I think you never heard any 
 thing come so near the cry of a prima donna as the A 
 string and the E string of this instrument. A single 
 fact will illustrate the resemblance. I was executing 
 some tours deforce upon it one evening, when the 
 policeman of our district rang the bell sharply, and 
 asked what was the matter in the house. He had 
 heard a woman's screams, he was sure of it. I had 
 to make the instrument sing before his eyes before 
 he could be satisfied that he had not heard the cries 
 of a woman. The instrument was bequeathed to me 
 by the Little Gentleman. Whether it had anything 
 to do with the sounds I heard coming from his cham 
 ber, you can form your own opinion; I have no 
 other conjecture to offer. It is not true that a second 
 apartment with a secret entrance was found ; and the 
 story of the veiled lady is the invention of one of the 
 Reporters.
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 309 
 
 Bridget, the housemaid, always insisted that he died 
 a Catholic. She had seen the crucifix, and believed 
 that he prayed on his knees before it. The last cir 
 cumstance is very probably true ; indeed, there was a 
 spot worn on the carpet just before this cabinet which 
 might be thus accounted for. Why he, whose whole 
 life was a crucifixion, should not love to look on that 
 divine image of blameless suffering, I cannot see; on 
 the contrary, it seems to me the most natural thing in 
 the world that he should. But there are those who 
 want to make private property of everything, and 
 can't make up their minds that people who don't think 
 as they do should claim any interest in that infinite 
 compassion expressed in the central figure of the 
 Christendom which includes us all. 
 
 The divinity-student expressed a hope before the 
 boarders that he should meet him in heaven. The 
 question is, whether he '11 meet you, said the young 
 fellow John, rather smartly. The divinity-student 
 had n't thought of that. 
 
 However, he is a worthy young man, and I trust I 
 have shown him in a kindly and respectful light. He 
 will get a parish by-and-by; and, as he is about to 
 marry the sister of an old friend, the Schoolmistress, 
 whom some of us remember, and as all sorts of ex 
 pensive accidents happen to young married ministers, 
 he will be under bonds to the amount of his salary, 
 which means starvation, if they are forfeited, to think 
 all his days as he thought when he was settled, un 
 less the majority of his people change with him or in 
 advance of him. A hard case, to which nothing 
 could reconcile a man, except that the faithful dis 
 charge of daily duties in his personal relations with 
 his parishioners will make him useful enough in his
 
 310 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 way, though as a thinker he may cease to exist before 
 he has reached middle age. 
 
 Iris went into mourning for the Little Gentle 
 man. Although, as I have said, he left the bulk of 
 his property, by will, to a public institution, he added 
 a codicil, by which he disposed of various pieces of 
 property as tokens of kind remembrance. It was in 
 this way I became the possessor of the wonderful in 
 strument I have spoken of, which had been purchased 
 for him out of an Italian convent. The landlady was 
 comforted with a small legacy. The following extract 
 
 relates to Iris: " in consideration of her manifold 
 
 acts of kindness, but only in token of grateful remem 
 brance, and by no means as a reward for services 
 which cannot be compensated, a certain messuage, 
 with all the land thereto appertaining, situated in 
 
 Street, at the North End, so called, of Boston, 
 
 aforesaid, the same being the house in which I was 
 born, but now inhabited by several families, and 
 known as 'the Rookery.' ' Iris had also the crucifix, 
 the portrait, and the red-jewelled ring. The funeral 
 or death's-head ring was buried with him. 
 
 It was a good while, after the Little Gentleman was 
 gone, before our boarding-house recovered its wonted 
 cheerfulness. There was a flavor in his whims and 
 local prejudices that we liked, even while we smiled 
 at them. It was hard to see the tall chair thrust 
 away among useless lumber, to dismantle his room, to 
 take down the picture of Leah, the handsome Witch 
 of Essex, to move away the massive shelves that held 
 the books he loved, to pack up the tube through which 
 he used to study the silent stars, looking down at him 
 like the eyes of dumb creatures, with a kind of stupid 
 half -consciousness that did not worry him as did the
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 311 
 
 eyes of men and women, and hardest of all to dis 
 place that sacred figure to which his heart had always 
 turned and found refuge, in the feelings it inspired, 
 from all the perplexities of his busy brain. It was 
 hard, but it had to be done. 
 
 And by-and-by we grew cheerful again, and the 
 breakfast-table wore something of its old look. The 
 Koh-i-noor, as we named the gentleman with the dia 
 mond, left us, however, soon after that "little mill," 
 as the young fellow John called it, where he came off 
 second best. His departure was no doubt hastened by 
 a note from the landlady's daughter, inclosing a lock 
 of purple hair which she "had valued as a pledge of 
 affection, ere she knew the hollo wness of the vows he 
 had breathed," speedily followed by another, inclosing 
 the landlady's bill. The next morning he was miss 
 ing, as were his limited wardrobe and the trunk that 
 held it. Three empty bottles of Mrs. Allen's cele 
 brated preparation, each of them asserting, on its 
 word of honor as a bottle, that its former contents 
 were "not a dye," were all that was left to us of the 
 Koh-i-noor. 
 
 From this time forward, the landlady's daughter 
 manifested a decided improvement in her style of 
 carrying herself before the boarders. She abolished 
 the odious little flat, gummy side-curl. She left off 
 various articles of "jewelry." She began to help her 
 mother in some of her household duties. She became 
 a regular attendant on the ministrations of a very 
 worthy clergyman, having been attracted to his meet- 
 in' by witnessing a marriage ceremony in which he 
 called a man and a woman a "gentleman" and a 
 "lady,"- a stroke of gentility which quite overcame 
 her. She even took a part in what she called a Sab-
 
 312 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 bath school, though it was held on Sunday, and by no 
 means on Saturday, as the name she intended to utter 
 implied. All this, which was very sincere, as I be 
 lieve, on her part, and attended with a great improve 
 ment in her character, ended in her bringing home a 
 young man, with straight, sandy hair, brushed so as to 
 stand up steeply above his forehead, wearing a pair 
 of green spectacles, and dressed in black broadcloth. 
 His personal aspect, and a certain solemnity of coun 
 tenance, led me to think he must be a clergyman; 
 and as Master Benjamin Franklin blurted out before 
 several of us boarders, one day, that " Sis had got a 
 beau," I was pleased at the prospect of her becoming 
 a minister's wife. On inquiry, however, I found 
 that the somewhat solemn look which I had noticed 
 was indeed a professional one, but not clerical. He 
 was a young undertaker, who had just succeeded to a 
 thriving business. Things, I believe, are going on 
 well at this time of writing, and I am glad for the 
 landlady's daughter and her mother. Sextons and 
 undertakers are the cheerfullest people in the world 
 at home, as comedians and circus-clowns are the most 
 melancholy in their domestic circle. 
 
 As our old boarding-house is still in existence, I do 
 not feel at liberty to give too minute a statement of 
 the present condition of each and all of its inmates. 
 I am happy to say, however, that they are all alive 
 and well, up to this time. That amiable old gentle 
 man who sat opposite to me is growing older, as old 
 men will, but still smiles benignantly on all the board 
 ers, and has come to be a kind of father to all of 
 them, so that on his birthday there is always some 
 thing like a family festival. The Poor Relation, even, 
 has warmed into a filial feeling towards him, and on
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 313 
 
 his last birthday made him a beautiful present, namely, 
 a very handsomely bound copy of Blair's celebrated 
 poem, "The Grave." 
 
 The young man John is still, as he says, "in fust- 
 rate fettle." I saw him spar, not long since, at a pri 
 vate exhibition, and do himself great credit in a set-to 
 with Henry Finnegass, Esq., a professional gentle 
 man of celebrity. I am pleased to say that he has 
 been promoted to an upper clerkship, and, in conse 
 quence of his rise in office, has taken an apartment 
 somewhat lower down than number "forty-'leven," as 
 he facetiously called his attic. Whether there is any 
 truth, or not, in the story of his attachment to, and 
 favorable reception by, the daughter of the head of an 
 extensive wholesale grocer's establishment, I will not 
 venture an opinion; I may say, however, that I have 
 met him repeatedly in company with a very well-nour 
 ished and high-colored young lady, who, I understand, 
 is the daughter of the house in question. 
 
 Some of the boarders were of opinion that Iris did 
 not return the undisguised attentions of the handsome 
 young Marylander. Instead of fixing her eyes stead 
 ily on him, as she used to look upon the Little Gen 
 tleman, she would turn them away, as if to avoid his 
 own. They often went to church together, it is true ; 
 but nobody, of course, supposes there is any relation 
 between religious sympathy and those wretched "sen 
 timental" movements of the human heart upon which 
 it is commonly agreed that nothing better is based 
 than society, civilization, friendship, the relation of 
 husband and wife, and of parent and child, and 
 which many people must think were singularly over 
 rated by the Teacher of Nazareth, whose whole life, 
 as I said before, was full of sentiment, loving this or
 
 314 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 that young man, pardoning this or that sinner, weep 
 ing over the dead, mourning for the doomed city, 
 blessing, and perhaps kissing, the little children, 
 so that the Gospels are still cried over almost as often 
 as the last work of fiction ! 
 
 But one fine June morning there rumbled up to the 
 door of our boarding-house a hack containing a lady 
 inside and a trunk on the outside. It was our friend 
 the lady -patroness of Miss Iris, the same who had been 
 called by her admiring pastor "The Model of all the 
 Virtues." Once a week she had written a letter, in 
 a rather formal hand, but full of good advice, to her 
 young charge. And now she had come to carry her 
 away, thinking that she had learned all she was likely 
 to learn under her present course of teaching. The 
 Model, however, was to stay awhile, a week, or 
 more, before they should leave together. 
 
 Iris was obedient, as she was bound to be. She 
 was respectful, grateful, as a child is with a just, but 
 not tender parent. Yet something was wrong. She 
 had one of her trances, and became statue-like, as 
 before, only the day after the Model's arrival. She 
 was wan and silent, tasted nothing at table, smiled 
 as if by a forced effort, and often looked vaguely away 
 from those who were looking at her, her eyes just 
 glazed with the shining moisture of a tear that must 
 not be allowed to gather and fall. Was it grief at 
 parting from the place where her strange friendship 
 had grown up with the Little Gentleman? Yet she 
 seemed to have become reconciled to his loss, and 
 rather to have a deep feeling of gratitude that she had 
 been permitted to care for him in his last weary days. 
 
 The Sunday after the Model's arrival, that lady had 
 an attack of headache, and was obliged to shut her-
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 315 
 
 self up in a darkened room alone. Our two young 
 friends took the opportunity to go together to the 
 Church of the Galileans. They said but little go 
 ing, "collecting their thoughts" for the service, I 
 devoutly hope. My kind good friend the pastor 
 preached that day one of his sermons that make us all 
 feel like brothers and sisters, and his text was that 
 affectionate one from John, "My little children, let 
 us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed 
 and in truth." When Iris and her friend came out of 
 church, they were both pale, and walked a space with 
 out speaking. 
 
 At last the young man said, You and I are not 
 little children, Iris! 
 
 She looked in his face an instant, as if startled, for 
 there was something strange in the tone of his voice. 
 She smiled faintly, but spoke never a word. 
 
 In deed and in truth, Iris, 
 
 What shall a poor girl say or do, when a strong 
 man falters in his speech before her, and can do no 
 thing better than hold out his hand to finish his 
 broken sentence? 
 
 The poor girl said nothing, but quietly laid her un 
 gloved hand in his, the little soft white hand which 
 had ministered so tenderly and suffered so patiently. 
 
 The blood came back to the young man's cheeks, as 
 he lifted it to his lips, even as they walked there in 
 the street, touched it gently with them, and said, 
 "It is mine!" 
 
 Iris did not contradict him. 
 
 The seasons pass by so rapidly, that I am startled 
 to think how much has happened since these events I
 
 316 THE PKOFE&SOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 was describing. Those two young people would in 
 sist on having their own way about their own affairs, 
 notwithstanding the good lady, so justly called the 
 Model, insisted that the age of twenty-five years was 
 as early as any discreet young lady should think of 
 incurring the responsibilities, etc., etc. Long before 
 Iris had reached that age, she was the wife of a young 
 Maryland engineer, directing some of the vast con 
 structions of his native State, where he was grow 
 ing rich fast enough to be able to decline that famous 
 Russian offer which would have made him a kind of 
 nabob in a few years. Iris does not write verse often, 
 nowadays, but she sometimes draws. The last sketch 
 of hers I have seen in my Southern visits was of two 
 children, a boy and girl, the youngest holding a silver 
 goblet, like the one she held that evening when I 
 I was so struck with her statue-like beauty. If in 
 the later summer months you find the grass marked 
 with footsteps around that grave on Copp's Hill I 
 told you of, and flowers scattered over it, you may be 
 sure that Iris is here on her annual visit to the home 
 of her childhood and that excellent lady whose only 
 fault was, that Nature had written out her list of 
 virtues on ruled paper, and forgotten to rub out the 
 lines. 
 
 One thing more I must mention. Being on the 
 Common, last Sunday, I was attracted by the cheerful 
 spectacle of a well-dressed and somewhat youthful 
 papa wheeling a very elegant little carriage containing 
 a stout baby. A buxom young lady watched them 
 from one of the stone seats, with an interest which 
 could be nothing less than maternal. I at once recog 
 nized my old friend, the young fellow whom we called 
 John. He was delighted to see me, introduced me to
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 317 
 
 "Madam," and would have the lusty infant out of 
 the carriage, and hold him up for me to look at. 
 
 Now, then, he said to the two-year-old, show 
 the gentleman how you hit from the shoulder. 
 Whereupon the little imp pushed his fat fist straight 
 into my eye, to his father's intense satisfaction. 
 
 Fust-rate little chap, said the papa. Chip of 
 the old block. Regl'r little Johnny, you know. 
 
 I was so much pleased to find the young fellow 
 settled in life, and pushing about one of "them little 
 articles " he had seemed to want so much, that I took 
 my "punishment" at the hands of the infant pugilist 
 with great equanimity. And how is the old board 
 ing-house ? I asked. 
 
 A 1, he answered. Painted and papered as 
 good as new. Gahs in all the rooms up to the sky- 
 parlors. Old woman 's layin' up money, they say. 
 Means to send Ben Franklin to college. Just then 
 the first bell rang for church, and my friend, who, I 
 understand, has become a most exemplary member of 
 society, said he must be off to get ready for meetin', 
 and told the young one to "shake dada," which he did 
 with his closed fist, in a somewhat menacing manner. 
 And so the young man John, as we used to call him, 
 took the pole of the miniature carriage, and pushed 
 the small pugilist before him homewards, followed, in 
 a somewhat leisurely way, by his pleasant-looking 
 lady-companion, and I sent a sigh and a smile after 
 him. 
 
 That evening, as soon as it was dark, I could not 
 help going round by the old boarding-house. The 
 "gahs" was lighted, but the curtains, or more prop 
 erly, the painted shades, were not down. And so I 
 stood there and looked in along the table where the
 
 318 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 boarders sat at the evening meal, our old break 
 fast-table, which some of us feel as if we knew so 
 well. There were new faces at it, but also old and 
 familiar ones. The landlady, in a wonderfully smart 
 cap, looking young, comparatively speaking, and as if 
 half the wrinkles had been ironed out of her forehead. 
 Her daughter, in rather dressy half -mourning, with 
 a vast brooch of jet, got up, apparently, to match the 
 gentleman next her, who was in black costume and 
 sandy hair, the last rising straight from his fore 
 head, like the marble flame one sometimes sees at the 
 top of a funeral urn. The Poor Relation, not in 
 absolute black, but in a stuff with specks of white; as 
 much as to say, that, if there were any more Hirams 
 left to sigh for her, there were pin-holes in the night 
 of her despair, through which a ray of hope might find 
 its way to an adorer. Master Benjamin Franklin, 
 grown taller of late, was in the act of splitting his 
 face open with a wedge of pie, so that his features 
 were seen to disadvantage for the moment. The 
 good old gentleman was sitting still and thoughtful. 
 All at once he turned his face toward the window 
 tvhere I stood, and, just as if he had seen me, smiled 
 his benignant smile. It was a recollection of some 
 past pleasant moment; but it fell upon me like the 
 blessing of a father. 
 
 I kissed my hand to them all, unseen as I stood in 
 the outer darkness; and as I turned and went my 
 way, the table and all around it faded into the realm 
 of twilight shadows and of midnight dreams. 
 
 And so my year's record is finished. The Profes 
 sor has talked less than his predecessor, but he has
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 319 
 
 heard and seen more. Thanks to all those friends 
 who from time to time have sent their messages of 
 kindly recognition and fellow-feeling! Peace to all 
 such as may have been vexed in spirit by any utter 
 ance these pages have repeated ! They will, doubtless, 
 forget for the moment the difference in the hues of 
 truth we look at through our human prisms, and join 
 in singing (inwardly) this hymn to the Source of the 
 light we all need to lead us, and the warmth which 
 alone can make us all brothers. 
 
 A SUN-DAY HYMN. 
 
 Lord of all being ! throned afar, 
 Thy glory flames from sun and star, 
 Centre and soul of every sphere, 
 Yet to each loving heart how near ! 
 
 Sun of our life, thy quickening ray 
 Sheds on our path the glow of day ; 
 Star of our hope, thy softened light 
 Cheers the long watches of the night. 
 
 Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn; 
 Our noontide is thy gracious dawn ; 
 Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign ; 
 AH> save the clouds of sin, are thine I 
 
 Lord of all life, below, above, 
 
 Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, 
 
 Before thy ever-blazing throne 
 
 We ask no lustre of our own. 
 
 Grant us thy truth to make us free, 
 And kindling hearts that burn for thee, 
 Till all thy living altars claim 
 One holy light, one heavenly flame.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ABORIGINES, called the provisional races, 
 82. See alto Indians. 
 
 Abstinence, total, better than brutali 
 ties, 33. 
 
 Abuse, flattery of, 202. 
 
 Acts, good and bad, may not be forgot 
 ten, 233. 
 
 Adams, Samuel, at Commencement, 41 ; 
 as governor, 42. 
 
 Addison's dying sentiment, 292. 
 
 Advertisement, imaginary, of imple 
 ments of torture, 207. 
 
 Affections, need of the soul for, 249. 
 
 Affinity in love, 159 ; manifestations of, 
 182, 291. 
 
 Age, impressions of, in poets and chil 
 dren, 239. 
 
 Agreeable, the wish to be, is essence of 
 gentle breeding, 133. 
 
 Ails and grievances, talking of, 139. 
 
 Air of Old World used up, 249 ; New 
 England's air better than Old Eng 
 land's ale, 250. 
 
 Albiness, 80. 
 
 Aldiborontiphoscophornio, 19. 
 
 Alembic, in Henchman's shop, 231. 
 
 Allein's "Alarm," 277. 
 
 Allen, Ethan, strength of teeth, 46. 
 
 Allen, Mrs., her hair-restorer, 79, 311. 
 
 American, every, owns all America, 86. 
 
 American idea of freedom is congenital, 
 81. 
 
 American young man, opportunities of, 
 283. 
 
 Americanization of religion, 207. 
 
 Ananias, supposed critic of lecture, 120. 
 
 Anges, a vulgar error for Agnes, 95. 
 
 Animals, eccentrically formed, 236. 
 
 Anonymous scribblers, 118. 
 
 Ant, red, 245. 
 
 Aphorism, by the Professor, 57. 
 
 Apologizing, egotism wrong side out, 
 139. 
 
 Apron strings of American mother made 
 of India rubber, 285. 
 
 Archimedes, grave of, 247. 
 
 Architecture, an imperfect copy of some 
 divine rule, 241. 
 
 Ark, Christianity compared to an, 218. 
 
 Arm, beautiful cast of, 48 ; fine ami of 
 cripple, 100, 259 ; sketch of fine, 236 ; 
 strength momentarily centred in, 237. 
 
 Arrowheads, Indian, 245. 
 
 Artistic nature, frankness of, 221. 
 
 Artist's method of securing portrait, 
 191. 
 
 Assimilation of ourselves to external 
 object of interest, 156 ; further illus 
 tration of, 190. 
 
 Atmosphere, moral effects upon char 
 acter, 242. 
 
 Atrophy of heart, women subject to, 
 249. 
 
 Audacity, in young girls, 222. 
 
 Auto-da-fe, the last, 208. 
 
 Autocrat, 17, 18, 21, 22. 
 
 Averages, close law of, 166. 
 
 Balaklava, Capt. Nolan at, 251. 
 
 Balloon, toy, 108. 
 
 Balloon-voyagers, 228. 
 
 Baltimore, called the gastronomic me 
 tropolis of the Union, 84. 
 
 Barbarisms in medicine, 105 ; in law, 
 106 ; in religion, 106. 
 
 Barnum presenting Ossian E. Dodge to 
 Jenny Li ml, picture of, 165. 
 
 Bartolozzi's peppery burin, 29. 
 
 Baskerville quarto of Virgil, 61. 
 
 Basle, Dance of Death at, 266. 
 
 Battle of the Standard for liberty to 
 each soul, 78. 
 
 Beauty, human, 283. 
 
 Bee's architecture, 241. 
 
 Being, great end of, 1, 4. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, the Landlady's son, 
 4, 21, etc. 
 
 Bentham's logic against ghosts, 189. 
 
 Berkshire mountains, 245. 
 
 Bible, a seeming defense of right to have 
 three wives derived from, 5 ; scepti 
 cism afraid of new translations, 7 ; re 
 sorted to from different motives, 122. 
 
 Bigelow, George Tyler, 49. 
 
 Billiard-ball, the Model of all the Vir. 
 tues compared to, 71.
 
 322 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Birds, which have no fear, 96 ; sketch 
 of solitary, 238. 
 Canary, 94. 
 Heron, 236. 
 Purple finch, 294. 
 Birth, a second natural, 243. 
 Biscuit, called " crackers " in Boston, 
 
 169. 
 
 Blackberry, low bush, 187. 
 Blessed Virgin, torturing-implement, 
 
 208. 
 
 Blondes, " positive " variety of, 54, 222 ; 
 the " negative " variety, 222 ; spiritual 
 transparency of, 229. 
 Blood, enormous number of swimming 
 
 glands in, 59. 
 Bloomer costume, 155. 
 Boarders, peculiar, 168. 
 Boarding-house, the, arrangements of 
 boarders in, 21 ; unprotected girls in, 
 223. 
 Boarding-house fare, 168 ; limitations as 
 
 to quantity, 169. 
 Bodies, looked on only as a temporal 
 
 possession, 193. 
 Bombazine, a sobriquet for the Poor 
 
 Relation, which see. 
 Book of the three maiden sisters, 230. 
 Books, their greeting, 29 ; old books, 
 
 210. 
 
 Boot, cast-iron, 207. 
 
 Boston, the Little Gentleman's pride in, 
 3 ; has opened turnpikes to free 
 thought and speech, 3 ; early patriots 
 in, 15; great macadamizing place, 16; 
 has much of England about it, 45 ; the 
 battle of the three-hilled against the 
 seven-hilled city, 78 ; sunsets in, 82 ; 
 thinking centre of the planet, 83; 
 wealth and influence in, fairly divided, 
 84; evil results of sneering at, 281; 
 heart of the world under it, 301. 
 Localities mentioned : 
 Christ Church, 307. 
 Common, 42, 316. 
 Copp's Hill burying-ground, 3, 306, 
 
 316. 
 
 Faneuil Hall, 3. 
 Frog-pond, 3. 
 Hancock house, 42. 
 North End, 3. 
 Park Street Church, 11. 
 Quincy Market, 196. 
 State House, 55, 217. 
 West Boston Bridge, 2. 
 Boy, a healthy, finds nothing in com 
 mon with child of weakened vitality, 
 194. 
 "Boy of Windennere," Wordsworth's, 
 
 ICO. 
 
 Boys, The, 49. 
 Braham, anecdote of his forgetting a 
 
 song, 24. 
 
 Brain, possibility of running dry, 22; 
 Byron's small brain, 200 ; soul in core 
 of, according to Descartes, 247 ; a 
 wick of the lamp of life, 260. 
 
 Brainey, Professor, his phrenological 
 analysis of faculties, 201. 
 
 Brains, close resemblance, 167. 
 
 Breathing, difficult hi heart disease, 
 257. 
 
 Breeding, gentle, lies in the wish to be 
 agreeable, 133 ; takes everything cool 
 ly, 142. 
 
 Bridget, maidservant in Boarding-house, 
 insists that Little Gentleman was a 
 Catholic, 309. 
 
 Brinvilliers, Marchioness de, 305. 
 
 Britons' stockades, 245. 
 
 Broad church, 296 ; must have its creed 
 in the heart and not in head, 298. 
 
 Bryant, 109. 
 
 Buffaloes, 236. 
 
 Bumps. See Phrenology. 
 
 Bui up us and Crane, Messrs., their Phy 
 siological emporium of phrenology, 
 196. 
 
 Bun, 'lection, 42 ; offered before dinner 
 as a test of age, 57. 
 
 Burns, 241. 
 
 Burns centenary, 26. 
 
 Burroughs, George, 262. 
 
 Buttercups, 231. 
 
 Byron's small brain, 200 ; his deformity, 
 278. 
 
 Cabinet, mysterious, contents of, 304. 
 
 Cabinet desk, discovery of a secret 
 drawer in, 91. 
 
 Cadeuus, captivating Stella and Vanessa, 
 89. 
 
 Calef, Robert, burning of his book on 
 witchcraft, 8. 
 
 Callouses, 259. 
 
 Calomel, efficacy in creed of supposed 
 medical society, 112. 
 
 Calvin, in a state of religious barbarism, 
 106. 
 
 Camel, 236. 
 
 Canoe Meadow, in Berkshire mountains, 
 245. 
 
 Cantabridge, three maiden sisters at, 
 230 ; arrowheads found there, 245. 
 
 Cape Ann, magnolia on, 244. 
 
 Caravan hastening over desert, dying 
 compared to, 276. 
 
 Catalepsy, 237. 
 
 Cavern, sunless, under road, 179. 
 
 Chamber, the Little Gentleman's, the 
 Professor's entrance into, 255; solu 
 tion of the mysteries in, 307-309. 
 
 Chancery, court of, 106. 
 
 Channing, 16 ; his Baltimore discourse, 
 117. 
 
 Character, must have a weak spot or 
 two before we can love it, 72 ; study 
 of by triangulation, 90 ; genius should 
 marry, 287 ; its force to life, 288. 
 
 Charles River, 246. 
 
 Charter, Alain, kiss given, 268. 
 
 Chatterton, 241. 
 
 Check-book, Autocrat's experience with, 
 22.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 323 
 
 Cheerfulness, desirable in a doctor, 143 ; 
 iii a clergyman, 144. 
 
 Chelsea beach, gathering of animals on, 
 164. 
 
 Chelsea ferry-boats, 289. 
 
 Chemist's shop, library compared to, 25. 
 
 Chess-players, evenly matched, 167. 
 
 Childhood, impressions of, 186-189. 
 
 Children, their disgust for heaven, 185 ; 
 indifference to earthly things, 193; 
 some are like windfalls, 194 ; disgust 
 excited in healthy childhood by in 
 stances of early spiritual development, 
 194, 195; directness of logic, 209; 
 aged features in some, 239. 
 
 Chinese gentlemen, talking without 
 meaning, 30. 
 
 Christ, his fondness for talking at meat, 
 32 ; loved healthy as well as sickly 
 children, 195 ; life full of sentiment, 
 313. 
 
 Christ Church, Boston, 307. 
 
 Christabel, Coleridge's, quoted, 208. 
 
 Christian equality, alone can prevent 
 social divisions, 134. 
 
 Christianity, compared to an ark, 218 ; 
 slow work launching it, 219 ; full of 
 sentiment, 302. 
 
 Church, impossibility of a universal, 
 296 ; compared to a garden, 296. 
 
 Church of Saint Pplycarp, 211. 
 
 Church of the Galileans, its simple wor 
 ship, 213. 
 
 Cigars, 137. 
 
 Cities, American, comparisons of, 84-87. 
 
 Civilization, as influenced by clergy, 8 ; 
 in danger of senile dementia, 11 ; con 
 fronting of two civilizations, 36 ; ne 
 cessities of modern, 283. 
 
 Clark, William, his epitaph, 306. 
 
 Clarke, Jamee Freeman, 49. 
 
 Classes, spiritual standard of different, 
 121. 
 
 Clergy, their part in civilization, 8 ; re 
 spect expressed for, 104; should be 
 cheerful, 144. See also Ministers. 
 
 Clowns, melancholy people, 312. 
 
 Club-foot, 9. 
 
 Coarse people in the professions, 263. 
 
 Coffin, Admiral Sir Isaac, 52. 
 
 Coincidences, 56; curious instance of, 
 58. 
 
 Coleridge's Christabel quoted, 208. 
 
 College dormitory, strange breach in 
 walls of, 187. 
 
 College libraries, fated to burn up, 62. 
 
 College theatricals, 17. 
 
 College trick, 58. 
 
 Comedians, melancholy people, 312. 
 
 Common sense, watchfulness of, 89. 
 
 Commons boarders at Harvard College, 
 a trick of, 58. 
 
 Comparison of merits in American cit 
 ies, 86. 
 
 Compensation, an instance of, in the sen 
 sibility accompanying early decay, 
 195. 
 
 Complexion, fresh, 45. 
 Congregational singing, 215 ; imperfec 
 tions of, 216. 
 Conscience, its approval or disapproval, 
 
 209. 
 
 Conservative, a bad sort portrayed, 15. 
 Consistent people apt to contradict 
 
 themselves, 34. 
 Consolations of religion, 292. 
 Conspirators painted of dark hue, 229. 
 Contagion in sickness, 119. 
 Contracts written in blood, 189. 
 Conversation, with a stranger, 30 ; me 
 chanical talk of pretty women, 30 ; 
 
 women can keep their minds detached 
 
 from their talk, 31 ; skirmishing at 
 
 beginning of, 35 ; easiness in, 139. 
 
 See also Talking. 
 Copley, 183 ; dressing-gown affected in 
 
 his pictures, 186. 
 
 Copp's Hill burying-ground, 3, 306, 316. 
 Coral-reef island, if inhabited by one 
 
 man, pretty woman would soon appear 
 
 upon, 51. 
 
 Cosmetic, Mrs. Allen's, 79. 
 Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, 288. 
 Coughs, ingratitude of, 132. 
 Counterpart, precise, not necessary for 
 
 marriage, 287. 
 Counting on time excites nervousness, 
 
 255. 
 Country boy, apt to betray his early 
 
 ways of life, 44. 
 Cowper quoted, 183. 
 "Crackers," word used in Boston for 
 
 biscuit, 169. 
 Crazy people, most of them found where 
 
 the battle of intelligence is fought, 
 
 218. 
 Creation, Usher's precise date of, 113, 
 
 210. 
 Creatures, an Eden of humped and 
 
 crooked, 236. 
 Creed, a child's, 210 ; all have much in 
 
 common, 216 ; of the heart, 298. 
 Creed of supposed medical society, 111, 
 
 112. 
 Critics, the chips left after authors were 
 
 manufactured, 25 ; their painful duty 
 
 of reminding authors of their decline 
 
 of power, 26. 
 Crooked Footpath, 102. 
 Crowninshield, Francis Boardman, 49. 
 Crows' nests, 222. 
 Crucifix, ivory, 304. 
 Curiosity, invariable in mature females, 
 
 252 ; resembles fear, 255. 
 Curtis, Benjamin Bobbins, 1809-1874, 50. 
 
 Daguerreotype, (rive features one par 
 ticular look, 191. 
 Daisies, 234. 
 
 Dance of Death at Basle, 266. 
 Dandelions, 231. 
 
 Dark, its effect upon tadpoles, 242. 
 Darwin, Dr., 82. 
 Davis, George Thomas, 49.
 
 324 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Dead, the, interest in their destiny, 
 107. 
 
 Dead man's hand, swelling cured by, 
 246. 
 
 Deaf mute child, 229. 
 
 Death, idea of rest inseparable from, 
 276 ; making ready for, 291-293 ; pres 
 ence of, 304. 
 
 Death-bed literature, 291. 
 
 Death of Latin tutor, 65. 
 
 Deborah, less agreeable than Queen 
 Esther, 136. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, meaning 
 of, 295. 
 
 Deformity, idealization of, 236 ; life-long 
 suffering from, 263, 265, 301. 
 
 Deity, human life as compared to, 10. 
 
 Dentists, 112. 
 
 Depolarization, of religious thought, 
 6 ; of sacred books, 117 ; further men 
 tioned, 126. 
 
 De Quincey's Opium-Eater, 238. 
 
 De Sauly, 26. 
 
 Descartes, his location of the soul, 247. 
 
 " Devil's footsteps " in pastures, 187. 
 
 Dewberry, 187. 
 
 Diagnosis, the Professor's, of the Little 
 Gentleman, 258. 
 
 Diaphragm, moral effects of disease 
 above and below, 293. 
 
 Diary, pathetic minuteness of a, 232. 
 
 Dictionaries, English, "Webster's Un 
 abridged," 40 ; rivalry of various, 44. 
 
 Dido, 61. 
 
 Dinners, wine a specific against dull, 32. 
 
 Discobolus, 283. 
 
 Discussion, fear of, 109. 
 
 Disease, dismantling process of, 130. 
 
 Distinctions, social, 134. 
 
 Divinity student, a character who gen 
 erally argues with the Professor more 
 abstruse questions which arise at the 
 Boarding-house table ; prays with the 
 Little Gentleman while dying, 302 ; 
 finally engaged to marry the sister of 
 the Schoolmistress, 309. 
 
 Doctor, childish fear of a, 69 ; should 
 always inspire hope, 143. 
 
 Dorcas, death of, 233. 
 
 Dorchester burying-ground, 263. 
 
 Dorchester, pudding-stone at, 256. 
 
 Dowdyism, an expression of imperfect 
 vitality, 136. 
 
 Dragon, fire compared to, 158. 
 
 Drawing, early childish efforts of Iris, 
 69. 
 
 Drawing-book of Iris, 173, 184 ; disclos 
 ure of its contents, 228. 
 
 Dromedary, 236. 
 
 Drugs, a bad thing, 12. 
 
 Dry crying, 76. 
 
 Dull people, 290. 
 
 Dying, compared to moving, 276 ; much 
 sagacity shown in patient's estimate 
 of his condition, 277. See also Death. 
 
 Dying, the, testimony of, to be received 
 with caution, 292 ; torturing for e vi- 
 
 dence in favor of certain belief, 293 ; 
 in the worst position to give opinions, 
 293. See also Death. 
 
 Ear-rings, 99. 
 
 Early piety, instance of, 67. 
 
 Earth, sweet smell of fresh, 265. 
 
 Eating, readiness for, at any hour, a test 
 
 of youth, 57. 
 
 Eccentrically formed animals, 236. 
 Ectopia cordis, 259. 
 Eden, an, of humped and crooked crea- 
 
 tures, 236. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, the elder, 114. 
 Egg-pop, on holidays in Boston, 3. 
 Ehud, 119. 
 Election bun, 42. 
 
 Elective character of social position, 135. 
 Elpit, a boy christened Lord Pitt, called, 
 
 95. 
 Elsie Venner, illustrates author's theory 
 
 of the will, 35 n. 
 Engagements, 286. 
 Englishman, lives and dies under pro 
 
 test, 81. 
 
 Epileptics, nitrate of silver for, 105. 
 Equality and the quality, 133 ; only ai 
 
 ideal Christian equality can prevent 
 
 social divisions, 134. 
 Equilibrium, human beings cannot long 
 
 rest in state of, 275. 
 Essex county, 244. 
 Esther, queen, 136. 
 Everlasting, herb, 187. 
 Evil, prophet of, dreadful business of 
 
 being, 252. 
 Execution of Holloway and Haggerty, 
 
 crush at, 188. 
 Eyes of a cripple, 88. 
 
 Faces, some women's, a revelation of a 
 great secret, 178 ; influence of a girl's 
 face, 181 ; we have different ones for 
 different persons, 191 ; analysis of, in 
 ancestral elements, 193 ; face or figure, 
 which the more attractive, 204 ; 
 sketched on borders of drawing-book, 
 238. 
 
 Pacts, remote, collision of, 56. 
 
 Fair, English, properly conducted figh j 
 at, 52. 
 
 Faith, is self-reliance, 93. 
 
 Fancies, beliefs frighten less than, 162. 
 
 Fashion, intensely alive, 136, 150 ; an 
 attempt to realize art in living forms, 
 151 ; foolish talk about, 152. See also 
 Society. 
 
 Fashionable people. See Society. 
 
 Fat man, 132. 
 
 Fear, resemblance of nervousness tog 
 255. 
 
 Ferry-boats, Chelsea, 289. 
 
 Fight, between a Marylander and a 
 butcher, 51 ; well-conducted fight at 
 English fair, 52 ; all of us have a little 
 speck of, 52 ; between John and the 
 Koh-i-noor, 279.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 325 
 
 Fighting-boy of school, his paleness 
 before contest, 2t>8. 
 
 Fighting gladiator, '2'M. 
 
 Figure or face, which the more attrac 
 tive, 204. 
 
 Finch, purple, in cage, 94. 
 
 Finnegass, Henry, Esq., 313. 
 
 Fire, compared to a dragon, 158. 
 
 First old age, an infant's life has char 
 acter of, 06. 
 
 Fishes, in sunless cavern, 179 ; trans 
 parency of small kinds, 229. 
 
 Fists, rotary motion of, 18. 
 
 Flattery, more agreeable when acted 
 than when spoken, 13C ; a woman's 
 subtle method of, 137 ; of abuse, 202. 
 
 Florence, 85. 
 
 Flournoy, J. J., his dissertation on the 
 marrying of three wives, 5. 
 
 Flowers in church, 214 ; sketches of in 
 drawing-book, 234 ; in old garden, 248. 
 Flowers and plants, namely : 
 Blackberry, 187. 
 Buttercups, 231. 
 Daisies, 234. 
 Dandelions, 231. 
 Honeysuckle, 248. 
 Mignonette, 182. 
 
 Fluid as typifying the mobility of re 
 stricted will, 34. 
 
 Folly often teaches wisdom, 13. 
 
 Forests, built up mainly from air cur 
 rents, 67. 
 
 Fork, trick of impaling meat with, at 
 Harvard Commons table, 58. 
 
 Fountain, genius compared to, 288. 
 
 Foxglove, 261. 
 
 Fra Angelico, two faces by, 178. 
 
 Franklin, not ashamed to be born in 
 Boston, 15; ballad by, mentioned, 
 306. 
 
 Free thought and speech, Boston's in 
 fluence for, 3. 
 
 Freedom, in America and England, 81 ; 
 religious and political must be main 
 tained, 125. 
 
 Freemasonry, 298. 
 
 Freethinker, a term of reproach in Eng 
 land, 81. 
 
 Frog-pond, 3, 281. 
 
 Fuller's " Holy War," 235. 
 
 "Gahs," Boarding-house lighted with, 
 317. 
 
 Gambrel-roofed house, 188 ; mention of 
 another, 230. 
 
 Genius, an end of, when its special af 
 finities are worked out, 25 ; a union of 
 strength and sensibility, 223; com 
 pared with talent, 240 ; should marry 
 character, 287 ; wife of, compared to 
 tug invisibly drawing tall ship, 289 ; 
 truthfulness is essence of, 290. 
 
 Gentility, humanity comes before, 145 ; 
 pretensions to, 153. 
 
 Gentleman, misuse of the word, 144 ; 
 what constitutes, 204. 
 
 Ghosts, Bentham's logic against, 189; 
 false, 257. 
 
 Girls, a beautiful girl is a terrible fact, 
 176 ; influence of a girl's face, 181 ; 
 strange audacity often blended with 
 delicacy in young girls, 222 ; unpro 
 tected girls in boarding-houses, 223; 
 depths of their nature, 228 ; revela 
 tions of soul of a girl through her 
 poems and drawings, 229-240. 
 
 Goldsmith's Madam Blaize borrowed 
 from the French, 231. 
 
 Golden book of Venice, 86. 
 
 Gracchi, 288. 
 
 Gravel, clean, an anodyne, 265. 
 
 Great secret, a, intimations of in many 
 person, 177 ; it is not the secret of 
 love, 180. 
 
 Great Teacher, the, 32. 
 
 Greek young men, beauty of, 283. 
 
 Groom, Yorkshire, fight with sophomore, 
 53. 
 
 Guarnerius violin, 308. 
 
 Gulf Stream, 14. 
 
 Gulliver, 247. 
 
 Hair, variety of, 80. 
 
 Hairspring of watch, meddling with, 43. 
 
 Hancock house, Boston, 42. 
 
 Hand, influence of a cold, damp, 71 ; of 
 dead man cures swellings, 246. 
 
 Harry, a handsome Marylander, 51 ; in 
 fight with butcher on muster-day, 52. 
 
 Harvard College, burning of Calef's 
 book in yard, 8 ; Samuel Adams at 
 Commencement, 41 ; trick at Com 
 mons table, 58 ; mysterious breach in 
 wall of dormitory, 187. 
 
 Haunted house, fear of, 162. 
 
 Head, double walls of, unfavorable to 
 phrenology, 199. 
 
 Healing art, its professional hardness, 
 263. 
 
 Heart, wild, hidden under outer deco 
 rum, 94, 158 ; full of combustibles, 
 159 ; our own hearts held to home 
 by innumerable fibres, 247 ; a wick of 
 lamp of life, 260 ; women subject to 
 atrophy of, 249 ; displacement of, 259 ; 
 creed of the heart, 298. 
 
 Heart disease, 251 ; difficult breathing 
 in, 257. 
 
 Heathen, goodness of, 12. 
 
 Heaven, inward disgust for, in children, 
 185. 
 
 Henchman's apothecary shop, 231. 
 
 Hercules, 89. 
 
 Heredity, some qualities not easily ac 
 counted for in, 68. 
 
 Heresy, a word fallen into disuse, 118. 
 
 Heretic hung in painted hogshead, 208. 
 
 Heroic will, the, 205. 
 
 Heroism of fashionable people, 140. 
 
 Herons, 236. 
 
 Hezekiah's advice, 23. 
 
 Higginson, Francis, saying of 250 
 
 Hiughaiu boxes, 299.
 
 326 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 "Hiram," name written on old piece 
 of paper, 93; uncouthuess of name, 
 95. 
 
 Hollow beneath a road, 179. 
 
 Holloway and Haggerty, crush at execu 
 tion of, 188. 
 
 Holmes house in Cambridge, 188. 
 
 Holyoke, Dr., 8. 
 
 Home, poets want a, 246 ; associations 
 with, 247. 
 
 Homoeopathy, 12. 
 
 Honeysuckle, 248. 
 
 Hopkins, Samuel, 16. 
 
 Horse-mackerel, taken for sea-serpent, 
 257. 
 
 Horses, friskiness of, in cool morning, 
 14 ; two sent to Massachusetts by Ad 
 miral Coffin, 53 ; close average of fast 
 time in trotters, 166 ; list of official 
 records, 166 n. ; Norman breed, 236. 
 Dexter, 166 n. 
 Ethan Allen, 166. 
 Flora Temple, 166. 
 Goldsmith Maid, 166n. 
 Lady Suffolk, 166. 
 Maud S., 166 n. 
 
 Hottentot, peculiar hair of, 80. 
 
 Houbraken, print by, 29. 
 
 House, oldgambrel-roofed, 188 ; another, 
 230 ; fear of the old house, 262. 
 
 House on fire, 158. 
 
 Hue's anecdote of Chinese gentleman, 
 30. 
 
 Human being, to tell whether it is young 
 or old, 57. 
 
 Humanity, America has a different one 
 from Europe, 122 ; comes before gen 
 tility, 145 ; tenderness for, 217. 
 
 Hurry, vulgar to be in a, 139. 
 
 Husbands and wives grow to look alike, 
 156 ; the sort of men women take for, 
 157 ; those of women of genius must 
 be true, not great men, 290. 
 
 Hyperbola, 237. 
 
 Hymn of Trust, 282. 
 
 Hysteric ball, 96. 
 
 " I lore you," all that many women have 
 
 to tell, 180. 
 
 Iceberg, slight effect of sun on, 288. 
 Iconoclasm, only way to get at truth, 
 
 117. 
 Ideas, difficulty of transmission does 
 
 not imply lack of, 25 ; interpenetra- 
 
 tion of, better than mere courtesy, 
 
 36. 
 Impressions, enormous number of, 58 ; 
 
 of childhood, 18C-189. 
 Independence and Union, two hard 
 
 words to spell, 41 . 
 Indians, only a provisional race, 83 ; no 
 
 individuality hi their history, 245. 
 Individuality, good breeding does not 
 
 overestimate, 140 ; none in history of 
 
 Indians, 245. 
 
 Infirmity, liable to leave injurious ef 
 fects on the race, 20. 
 
 Insanity, great amount of, wherever the 
 battle of intelligence is fought, 218. 
 
 Instinct, more divine than reason, 241. 
 
 Intellect in a woman should travel to 
 lips through the heart, 147 ; no fusion 
 of, likely, 297. 
 
 Interpenetration of ideas, better than 
 mere courtesy, 36. 
 
 Iris, daughter of the Latin tutor ; a de 
 scription of, 54 ; her story told by 
 Professor, 60-73 ; John's summary of 
 her character, 169 ; her drawing-book, 
 173 ; the Marylander tells his love to 
 her, 315. 
 
 Iris, her Book, 226. 
 
 Irish servant, good manners of, 143. 
 
 Italy, 245. 
 
 Jeddo, moat at, 11. 
 
 Jewelry, a mother's, 99. 
 
 Jews, fable of their sweating gold, 163. 
 
 Joe, a handsome Marylander, 51. 
 
 John, a character who interjects re 
 marks, usually somewhat disrespect 
 ful ; invites the Professor to his room, 
 165 ; fight with the Koh-i-noor, 279 ; 
 his wife and baby, 316. 
 
 Judas, Leonardi's picture of, 229. 
 
 Justice, a rare virtue, 149 ; respect of 
 good man for, 150. 
 
 Keats's Lamia, 163. 
 
 Kisses, a stolen one meditated, 267; mem 
 orable ones, 268 ; Iris kisses the Little 
 Gentleman when he is dying, 302. 
 
 Knife, as an instrument for conveyance 
 of food, 142. 
 
 Knights, called " prize-fighters with 
 iron pots on their heads," 135. 
 
 Knocking a man down, difficulty of 
 carrying out the threat, 279. 
 
 Knot-grass, 235. 
 
 Knowledge cannot be confined by pro 
 fessions, 15. 
 
 Koh-i-noor, a vulgarly dressed charac- 
 
 * ter, who wears a large diamond (?) pin, 
 4; his fight with John, 279; leaves 
 the Boarding-house in disgrace, 311. 
 
 Kuyper, Jan, 29. 
 
 " L. B.," 9, 20. See also Leah. 
 
 Ladies, of "the quality," preferred, 
 136. 
 
 Lady, misuse of word, 144. 
 
 Lady's portrait with sword-thrusts 
 through it, 188. 
 
 Laennec, 249. 
 
 Lamia, Keats's, 163. 
 
 La Monnoye's Monsieur de la Palisse, 
 231. 
 
 Landlady's daughter, is thought to favor 
 the company of the Koh-i-noor ; after 
 his thrashing by John, she discards 
 him, 311 ; is to marry a young under 
 taker, 312. 
 
 Language, the blood of the soul, 41 ; 
 grows out of life, 43 ; compared to a
 
 INDEX. 
 
 327 
 
 watch, with hair-spring, 43; its in 
 effectiveness at times, 181. 
 
 Larv;B, spiritual, Roman Catholics con 
 sidered as, 242. 
 
 Latent caloric of character, 288. 
 
 Latin tutor, the father of Iris; his se 
 lection of her name, 60-62 ; hia wife, 
 63; death, 65. 
 
 Laudanum, overdose of, 105. 
 
 Laugh, grand, elemental, 17 ; the mob- 
 law of the features, 72 ; of a girl, 
 138, 
 
 Launching of the ark of Cnristianity, 
 219. 
 
 Law, barbarisms of, 106. 
 
 Lay - sermon, gives the parallax of 
 thought and feeling, 7 ; punishment 
 of mechanic for preaching one, 115. 
 
 Leah, the witch ancestor of Little Gen 
 tleman, 261; her portrait, 262. See 
 also L. B. 
 
 Lecture, exhaustion of ideas by a schol 
 ar when half delivered, 24 ; supposed 
 effect of adverse criticism of, by 
 Ananias and Shimei, 120. 
 
 Leonardo's picture of Judas, 229. 
 
 Letter, case of lady who used only one 
 page in writing a, 204. 
 
 Letter to the Professor expressing fear 
 as to his opinions, 104. 
 
 Liberty, spiritual, battle for, 78. 
 
 Libraries, college, fated to burn up, 62. 
 
 Library, a sort of mental chemist's 
 shop, 25. 
 
 Life, a great bundle of little things, 1 ; 
 getting into the pith and core of, 10 ; 
 only the edge of the ocean of exist 
 ence, 107 ; obstacles in, 179 ; as a 
 mighty sculptor, 193; in New Eng 
 land, may be lean and impoverished, 
 244 ; better adjusted to wants of men, 
 249 ; three wicks to lamp of, 260 ; op 
 portunities in America for large, noble, 
 284 ; the dying not in condition to 
 judge fairly of, 293. 
 
 Linwood's, Miss, needlework, 183. 
 
 Listener, a good, 17. 
 
 Literary people, amiable relations be 
 tween, 75. 
 
 Little Boston, a nickname of the Little 
 Gentleman, which see. 
 
 Little Gentleman, a cripple, who ac 
 tively defends Boston and Boston 
 ways ; mysterious noises in his room, 
 161 ; attempt of Professor to visit his 
 room, 186 ; his dying hours, 301-306 ; 
 his burial place, 306, 307. 
 
 " Little King Pippin," 231. 
 
 Lives, the truest, cut with many facets, 
 33. 
 
 Localism, dwarfing to mind, 87. 
 
 Lord Level's grave, 267. 
 
 Love, the universal experience, 93 ; 
 women's choice in, 159 ; at certain 
 age all excitements run to, in women, 
 160; is the one secret most women 
 have to tell, 180 ; indications of, 285 ; 
 
 not essential that all pairs should be 
 
 " born for each other," 286. 
 Loyalty of English not understood by 
 
 Americans, 'M. 
 Lucerne, bridge at, 266. 
 Lucretia, 60. 
 Lungs, one wick of the lamp of life, 
 
 Ma'am Allen, nickname for character 
 
 usually called the Koh-i-noor, 1'J. 
 Madam Blaize, 231. 
 Madeira wine, 123. 
 Maelzel's Turk, 16. 
 Magnolia on Cape Ann, 244. 
 Malcolm, Capt. Daniel, his grave on 
 
 Copp's Hill, 3, 306. 
 Margaret of Scotland, her kissing Alain 
 
 Chartier, 268. 
 Man as man, so thought of in America, 
 
 36 ; man is a symbolic worshipper by 
 
 nature, 117. 
 Manners, a few points of, taken up, 139 ; 
 
 among the highly bred, 140; vulgar, 
 
 142. 
 Marriage, difficulties in the way of .for a 
 
 young man, 170; for money, Land 
 lady's opinion of, 204. 
 Marriage service, vulgar alteration in, 
 
 145. 
 Marylander, the, gradually becomes the 
 
 lover of Iris ; his looks, 45 ; tells his 
 
 love, 315. 
 Marylanders, two manly specimens of, 
 
 51. 
 Mather, Cotton, quotation from one of 
 
 his sermons, 115. 
 Mather, Increase, orders Calef 's book to 
 
 be burnt, 8. 
 
 Mathers, grave of the, 306. 
 Mechanical talk of women, 30. 
 Medical society, supposed creed of, 111. 
 Medicine, errors of, 11-13; barbarisms 
 
 in, 105 ; Ministers' opinion about, 110 ; 
 
 effect upon the sympathies, 263. See 
 
 also Homoeopathy. 
 Mediocrity, genius an insult to, 241. 
 Meeting-house Hill at Dorchester, 256. 
 Meetings, mysterious, 56. 
 Men, life adjusted to wants of, 249. 
 Mental soprano, barytone, and basso, 
 
 37. 
 
 Mermaids, 257. 
 Messiah of a new revelation, woman is, 
 
 125. 
 
 Microcosm, beginning of life in, 257. 
 Midsummer, 225. 
 Mignonette, 182. 
 Milkmen, pump-like movement of their 
 
 arms, 156. 
 Milton, his season for writing, 24 ; kisses 
 
 given him, 268. 
 
 Mind, with thoughts, compared to cir 
 cus-rider with horses, 38. 
 Minister, underpaid, emotion at surprise 
 
 party, 76; should be cheerful, 144. 
 
 See also Clergy.
 
 328 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ministers, opinion about medicine, 110. 
 
 Ministration, genius of, among women, 
 274. 
 
 Ministry, barbarisms in, 106. 
 
 Model of all the virtues, a lady who 
 brought up Iris ; of many but irrita 
 ting excellences, 70 ; hatred expressed 
 for her merits, 101 ; reasons why not 
 lovable, 146-149 ; return to the Board 
 ing house, 314. 
 
 Mollusk, spawn of, 257. 
 
 Money, power of, 135 ; nothing earthly 
 lasts so well, 151. 
 
 Monsieur de la Palisse, of De la Mon- 
 noye, 231. 
 
 Moon, boy's idea of, 109. 
 
 Moral surgery, its brutality, 114. 
 
 Mother, young, memory of an old man 
 for, 183; apron strings of American 
 mother made of India rubber, 2S5. 
 
 Mother's secret, A, 127. 
 
 Motivation of human will, 35 n. 
 
 Mouse, technical term in pugilism, 280. 
 
 Moving from a house compared to dying, 
 276. 
 
 Muggletouian sect, 291. 
 
 Murderers, pious frame of mind at 
 death, 292. 
 
 Musk-deer, 287. 
 
 My Lady Bountiful, 231. 
 
 Mysteries, common everywhere, 257. 
 
 Names, uncouth, 95. 
 
 Narrow church, 298. 
 
 Natural selection, conservative principle 
 in creation, 19. 
 
 Nature, fertile in variety, 80 ; in her 
 mysterious moods, 104; makes no 
 leaps, 1C7. 
 
 Navy Yard, Charlestown, 3. 
 
 Needlework, Miss Linwood's, 183. 
 
 Neighbor Walrus, his garden, 248. 
 
 Nervousness, its resemblance to fear, 
 255. 
 
 New England, women of, 148; large 
 
 . number of crazy people in, 217 ; effect 
 of its moral atmosphere upon sensi 
 tive characters, 242 ; has an insuffi 
 cient flavor of humanity, 245 ; its air 
 better than Old England's ale, 250. 
 
 New Englanders, many of them hard 
 and unimaginative, 248. 
 
 New York, compared to Venice, 85 ; 
 something higher demanded of it, 86. 
 
 New Yorkers, peculiar pronunciation of, 
 142. 
 
 Night, noises in, 163. 
 
 Nitrate of silver for epileptics, 105. 
 
 Noises in the night, 163. 
 
 Nolan, Captain, at Balaklava, 251. 
 
 Norman horse, 236. 
 
 Northampton, its experience with Jona 
 than Edwards, 114. 
 
 Nursery, America a new, for the race, 83. 
 
 Oak, 67. 
 
 Ocean cable literature, 26. 
 
 Old age, an infant's life has the charac 
 ter of a first, 66 ; appearance of, pro 
 duced by a few lines in face, 192. 
 
 Old Gentleman opposite. See Venerable 
 Gentleman. 
 
 Old house, fear of, 262. 
 
 Old men's first children, 66. 
 
 Old World folks, American feeling about, 
 35 ; seem childlike, 36. 
 
 Old World, evidences of the past in, 
 245 ; air of, good for nothing, 249 j 
 its system one of intellectual locks 
 and canals, 295. 
 
 O'm, sacred word of Hindoo mythology, 
 7, 241. 
 
 Opening of the Piano, 73. 
 
 Opinions, of more value than arguments, 
 116; if unattacked, beneath con 
 tempt,!^; right to hold one's own 
 opinion defended, 123, 124. 
 
 Opium of the heart, foxglove called, 
 261. 
 
 Opium-Eater, De Quincey's, 238. 
 
 Orion, nebula of, 78. 
 
 Otis, James, 15. 
 
 Overcome family, their r81es in the af 
 fecting scene called the Surprise par 
 ty, 76. 
 
 "Paddy," liability of using the word 
 before an Irish gentleman, 95 
 
 Paduasoy,262. 
 
 Paleness of fighting-boy before contest. 
 268. 
 
 Papin's digester, 149. 
 
 Parabola, 237. 
 
 Parallax of thought given by lay-ser. 
 mons, 7. 
 
 Park Street Church, 11. 
 
 Passions, secret, 91 ; the pale ones the 
 fiercest, 268. 
 
 Past, effect of the, 246. 
 
 Peculiarity, tendency to touch upon 
 another's, 94. 
 
 Peirce, Benjamin, 49. 
 
 Peonies, 248. 
 
 Percy, Lord, arm-chair in which he used 
 to sit, 188. 
 
 Philadelphia, 84. 
 
 Phillips, hanging of, 3. 
 
 Philosophers, class of, who exhibit a 
 small truth bandaged to look large, 
 39. 
 
 Photograph, give features one particu 
 lar look, 191. 
 
 Phrenology, visit to emporium of, 195; 
 result of examination, 197 ; short lec 
 ture on phrenology and its resem 
 blance to a pseudo-science, 197 ; its 
 truth cannot be proved by reason of 
 the double walls of head, 199 ; cases 
 which prove nothing, 200. 
 
 Physicians. See Doctors. 
 
 Pigment, dark, of certain animals, 229. 
 
 " Pious and painefull," 146. 
 
 Plainness of speech and manners, 145. 
 
 Plantain, 235.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 329 
 
 Poe, Edgar A., 281 
 
 Poets, uever young in a sense, 239 ; 
 flight unerring like that of goose, 
 240 ; find material everywhere, 244 ; 
 want a home, 246. 
 
 Poisoners, painted of dark hue, 229. 
 
 Politics, common people of New Eng 
 land will not stop talking, 118 ; Amer 
 icanized, 207, 208. 
 
 Poor Relation of the Landlady, a woman 
 past youth, and of pronounced opin 
 ions usually counter to others, 21, etc. 
 
 Poor relations, social attentions to, 140. 
 
 Population of earth-born intelligences, 
 107. 
 
 Portrait, lady's, with sword - thrust 
 through it, 188 ; one's own apt to be 
 a surprise to him, 190 ; artist's method 
 of securing, 191 ; resemblances to va 
 rious relatives, 192; of Leah the 
 witch, 2G2. 
 
 Position. See Social position. 
 
 Potter, Paulus, 29. 
 
 Prayer for the dying, 303. 
 
 President of the United States, 115; 
 supposed case of one who is not a gen 
 tleman, 141. 
 
 Principle, dying for a, higher than scold 
 ing for it, 121. 
 
 Privileged class of gentlemen and ladies, 
 inevitable, 134. 
 
 " Prize-fighters with iron pots on their 
 heads," knights called, 135. 
 
 Prodigal son, sermon on, 117 ; consola 
 tion of parable, 302. 
 
 Professions, digging a moat round their 
 corporations, 11 ; knowledge cannot be 
 limited by, 14 ; the learned, 105. 
 
 Pronunciation, peculiar, in New York, 
 142. 
 
 Professor, a, tends towards conserva 
 tism, 14. 
 
 Prophet of evil, dreadful business of 
 being, 252. 
 
 Protestantism, the having no woman to 
 be worshipped makes it unpoetical, 
 178. ' 
 
 Provisional races, aborigines called, 82. 
 
 Pseudo-science, definition of, 197 ; not 
 wholly a lie, 198. 
 
 Pudding, sent by widow to some elderly 
 ladies, 232. 
 
 Pudding-stone, 256. 
 
 Puffing, anonymous, 75. 
 
 Pugilistic encounter, 279. 
 
 Pulpit, spiritualism as a Nemesis of the, 
 13. 
 
 Pump, a full, impatience of a congrega 
 tion compared to restraint placed on, 
 216. 
 
 Punch, whiskey, 132. 
 
 Pundit, his awe of word O'm, 7. 
 
 Pyramids, preferable to railroad village, 
 246. 
 
 Quality, the, definition of, 133 ; quality- 
 ladies preferred, 136. 
 
 Questions submitted to the Professor, 
 
 203. 
 
 Quiiiry Market, 196. 
 Quintain, riding at the, 120. 
 
 Rack, 207. 
 
 Railroad village, attractiveness of, 246. 
 
 Raphael, early death of, 157 ; his Santa 
 Apollina, 178. 
 
 Reformers, their danger is from the 
 flattery of abuse, 202. 
 
 Religion, its currency consists of polar* 
 ized words, 6 ; should belong to the 
 common people, 107 ; science not an 
 enemy of, 113 ; women more religious 
 than men, 124, 209 ; time for it to be 
 Americanized, 207. See also Creed; 
 Soul ; Spiritualism. 
 
 Religious opinions, difficulty of holding 
 one's own, 92; each man has some 
 peculiar to himself, 297. 
 
 Religious spirit, 212. 
 
 Regulus returning to Carthage, 122. 
 
 " Remarkable judgment," quoted from 
 Cotton Mather, 115. 
 
 Rembrandt, 29. 
 
 Resistance, Sam. Adams's word, 41. 
 
 Rest, idea of, inseparable from death, 
 276. 
 
 Reversed current in flow of mind, 147. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 29. 
 
 Rich people, more apt to be agreeable 
 than others, 133; their refinement 
 and delicacy, 135. 
 
 Richardson, G. W., 49. 
 
 Ring, once property of a Salem witch, 9. 
 
 River of Life, dreamed of by the dying, 
 277. 
 
 Robinson of Leyden, 174. 
 
 Roman Catholic church, its consolations, 
 291. 
 
 Roman Catholics, looked upon by Prot 
 estants as spiritual larvae, 242. 
 
 Romance, materials for, in boarding- 
 house, 94. 
 
 Rome, battle of three-hilled city, against 
 seven-hilled city, 78 ; active mind of 
 century tending either to Rome or 
 Reason, 128 ; age of, 245. 
 
 Romulus, 82. 
 
 " Rookery, The," 310. 
 
 Rousseau, effect of the past upon, 246. 
 
 Roxbury pudding-stone, 256. 
 
 Russell, Henry Sturgis, 166. 
 
 Sabbath, word misused for Sunday, 312. 
 Sabbath face, mournful suggestions of, 
 
 215. 
 
 Saint Anthony the reformer, 202. 
 Saints, three among women to one 
 
 among men, 121. 
 Saltfish, constant diet of, compared to 
 
 fixity of opinions in some people, 93. 
 Savate, French method of boxing, 53. 
 Schoolmistress, the, 309. 
 Science not the enemy of religion, 113. 
 Scribblers, anonymous, 118.
 
 330 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bculpin, a nickname for the cripple, 
 usually called the Little Gentleman, 
 which see ; the fish, described, 2. 
 
 Sea-anemones, 145. 
 
 Sea-serpent, horse-mackerel taken for, 
 257. 
 
 Second childhood, counterpoised by a 
 first old age, 66. 
 
 Second sight, 250. 
 
 Second natural birth, 243. 
 
 Secret, any one's, is open, if waited for 
 long enough, 90. 
 
 Secret drawer, discovery of, in old cabi 
 net desk, 91. 
 
 Secret, a great, intimation of among 
 many persons, 177 ; it is not the se 
 cret of love, 180. 
 
 Seed, southern, in northern soil, 242. 
 
 Self-assertion, little of among ladies, 136. 
 
 Seminaries, called young-lady factories, 
 239. 
 
 Senile dementia of civilization, 11. 
 
 Sentiment defended, 124; Christianity 
 full of, 302; Christ's life animated 
 with, 313. 
 
 Sermons, hearers of, entitled to opinions 
 on theology, 111 ; a few famous, 117. 
 See also Lay sermon. 
 
 Sextons, cheerful people, 312. 
 
 Shell-fish, very minute eggs of, 257. 
 
 Shelley, lines of, quoted, 239. 
 
 Shimei, supposed critic of lecture, 120. 
 
 Ship drawn by tug, compared to hus 
 band and wife, 289. 
 
 Shop, displaying perennial articles for 
 sale, 231. 
 
 Sick-rooms, conduct of the underbred in, 
 144. 
 
 Sin, old dead, in secret drawer of soul, 
 91. 
 
 Sincerity, dangers of, 30. 
 
 Singing, congregational, 215 ; imperfec 
 tions of, 216. 
 
 Sixth sense in women, 266. 
 
 Smibert, 262. 
 
 Smith, Samuel Francis, 50. 
 
 Smithate of truth, 297. 
 
 Suiithite, Smith is always a, 297. 
 
 Soap, perfumed, 98. 
 
 Social position, 134; elective character 
 of, 134 ; settled mostly by women, 
 135. 
 
 Society for the propagation of intelli 
 gence among the comfortable classes, 
 56. 
 
 Society, tries to grind lives to single flat 
 surface, 33 ; high society contains 
 much real equality, 140 ; heroism 
 in, 140 ; its love for abundant vitality, 
 150 ; has place for every form of tal 
 ent, 285. 
 
 Socrates, drinking his hemlock, 122. 
 
 Solomon, 214. 
 
 Somnambulist boarder, 168. 
 
 Song for a temperance celebration, 33. 
 
 Soul, is to look for truth with its own 
 eyes, 6 ; its being an infinite, instan 
 
 taneous consciousness, 10 ; a little se 
 cret drawer in, 91 ; conception of how 
 it appears, 131 ; it thinks to know the 
 body it inhabits, 190 ; disquiet in, 217 ; 
 need of transplanting some souls, 243 ; 
 according to Descartes, is in the core 
 of the brain, 247. 
 
 Speeches of dying men, little value of, 
 292, 293. 
 
 Spiritual transparency of golden blondes, 
 229. 
 
 Spiritual standard of different classes, 
 121. 
 
 Spiritualism, is undermining accepted 
 ideas, 12 ; as a Nemesis of the pulpit, 
 13 ; has made the destiny of the race 
 a matter of common reflection, 107. 
 
 Star-of-Bethlehem, flower, 247. 
 
 Stars and stripes, 87. 
 
 Starvation the natural end of tutors, 62. 
 
 State House, Boston, 55, 281 ; view from, 
 217. 
 
 Steam-tug. See Tug. 
 
 Stillness, vulgar persons cannot pre 
 serve it, 139. 
 
 Stockings, perennially displayed for sale, 
 231. 
 
 Stone, with whitish band, 247 ; large, to 
 keep wolves from graves, 263. 
 
 Stoops, charms of. 224. 
 
 Store-room, dark, 188. 
 
 Strong, the, hate the weak, 19. 
 
 Stylish women, 155. 
 
 Succory, 234. 
 
 Suffering, professional hardness to, 263. 
 
 Suicides, 166. 
 
 "Summons, A, for sleepers," sermon, 
 quoted, 117. 
 
 Sun, slight effect on iceberg, 288. 
 
 Sun-day hymn, 319. 
 
 Sunsets in Boston, 82. 
 
 Superstitions, 186, 270. 
 
 Surface-Christianity, good breeding is, 
 133. 
 
 Surgeon, hardness in a, 263 ; a tender 
 hearted instance, 264. 
 
 Surgery, moral, its brutality, 114. 
 
 Surprise party, description of, 75. 
 
 Swans, 236. 
 
 Sweating gold, fable of the Jews', 163. 
 
 Swellings, cured by dead man's hand, 
 246. 
 
 Swift, as Cadenus, 89. 
 
 Swimming glands in blood, 58. 
 
 Symbols, reverence for, 292. 
 
 Sympathies of surgeons, compared with 
 those of theologians, 263. 
 
 Tadpoles, effect of dark upon, 242. 
 
 Talent and genius compared, 240; so 
 ciety has place for every form of, 285. 
 
 Talipes varus, 9. 
 
 Talkers, apt to say unwise things, 18. 
 
 Talking, uselessness of, with some 
 women, 274. See also Conversation. 
 
 Tartini's " Devil's sonata," 308. 
 
 Tea-kettle, death of children from
 
 INDEX. 
 
 331 
 
 drinking hot water from spouts of, 
 166. 
 
 Teeth, 46 ; supposed article of a medi 
 cal creed concerning, 111. 
 
 Temperance, excess better than hypoc 
 risy, 33. 
 
 Temperance celebration, song for, 33. 
 
 Teunent, Rev. William, trance of, 178. 
 
 Testimony of the dying to be received 
 with caution, 292. 
 
 Thames, Briton's stockades in, 245. 
 
 Theatricals, college, 17. 
 
 Thirst, in torture, 305. 
 
 Thomas, Francis, 49. 
 
 Thornton, Abraham, claims wager by 
 battle, 106. 
 
 Thought, the excretion of mental res 
 piration, 24 ; runs in layers, 37 ; 
 scheme of movement of three inde 
 pendent consciousnesses in one mind 
 at once, 37 ; continuity of thought 
 and action, 38 ; mind among thoughts 
 compared to circus-rider with horses, 
 38 ; a word the saddle of, 38 ; recur 
 rence of same thoughts, 56 ; multitude 
 of, compared with blood globules, 
 59. 
 
 Three maiden sisters, the book of, 230. 
 
 Three Words, The, 180. 
 
 Thumbscrews, 207. 
 
 Tiber, 246. 
 
 Time and space, 39. 
 
 Tobacco, 137. 
 
 Torture, implements and methods of, 
 207 ; thirst excited by, 305. 
 
 Torturing instinct, 95. 
 
 Townsend, Solomon Davis, 264 n. 
 
 Traceries in margin of drawing-book, 
 234. 
 
 Tracts, religious, 110. 
 
 Trains to dresses, vulgar use of, 154. 
 
 Trance, 237 ; mostly peculiar to women, 
 238 ; instance of, 267. 
 
 Transparency, spiritual, of golden- 
 blondes, 229. 
 
 Transplanting, necessary for souls as 
 for plants, 243. 
 
 Trigamy, seemingly advocated in the 
 Bible, 5. 
 
 Trilobite, fossil, 94. 
 
 Tripod of life, the brain, heart, and 
 lungs, 260. 
 
 Trot, picture of a, 165. 
 
 Trotting horses. See Horses. 
 
 Trust, Hymn of, 282. 
 
 Truth, soul must look for, with its own 
 eyes, 6 ; is tough, 109 ; iconoclasm, 
 only way to get at, 117 ; private prop 
 erty in, 295. 
 
 Tug, ship drawn by, compared to hus 
 band and wife, 289. 
 
 Turk, Maelzel's, 16. 
 
 Turtle, and his shell, 28. 
 
 Tutor, starvation is natural end of a, 
 62. 
 
 Twins, in the birth of thought, 56. 
 
 Two Streams, The, 153. 
 
 Uncomfortable people, finally take spite 
 against themselves, 272. 
 
 Under the violets, 253. 
 
 Underbred people, their conduct to 
 wards the sick, 144. 
 
 Undertaker, the young, 312, 318. 
 
 Undertakers, cheerful people, 312. 
 
 Unwise things apt to be said by talkers, 
 18. 
 
 Usher, Archbishop, precise date of cre 
 ation given by, 113, 210. 
 
 Variety, Nature fertile in, 80. 
 Venerable Gentleman, a character who 
 
 has had a past romance, 21, etc. 
 Venice, New York compared to, 85. 
 Vesalius, 29. 
 Vessels, collision of, 56. 
 Village, railroad, attractiveness of, 246. 
 Violin, Guaraerius, 308. 
 Virgil, 61. 
 
 Virginia's death, 60. 
 Visscher, Cornelius, 29. 
 Vitality, fashion full of, 136 ; fondness 
 
 of society for, 150. 
 Voice, potent influence of a child's, 45 ; 
 
 mysterious woman's voice heard in 
 
 night, 174 ; proves to be a violin, 308. 
 Voltaire, called " wicked Mr. Arouet," 
 
 69. 
 
 Voting, independent, 207. 
 Vox-humana of the organ, 308. 
 Vulgar people. See Underbred people. 
 Vulgarity, making believe to be what 
 
 you are not, is essence of, 154. 
 
 Wager by battle, 106. 
 
 Wall-flowers, kindness to, 140. 
 
 Walpurgis night, 164. 
 
 Walrus, Neighbor, his garden, 248. 
 
 Warren, Joseph, 15. 
 
 Washington's Farewell address, 87. 
 
 Washington societies, 87. 
 
 Watch, meddling with hairspring of, 
 43. 
 
 Watching with sick, 272. 
 
 We will not speak of tears to-night, 77. 
 
 Weak, the, hated by the strong, 19. 
 
 Wealth, durability of, 151 ; foolish talk 
 about, 152. 
 
 Webster, Noah, his spelling, 41 ; grati 
 tude owed him, 44. 
 
 Webster's Unabridged, criticised, 40. 
 
 Weeds, not too humble for artist's eye, 
 234. 
 
 Wesley's " sulphur and supplication," 
 110. 
 
 Whiskey punch, 132. 
 
 " White man's foot," Indian name for 
 plantain, 235. 
 
 Wicks, three, to lamp of life, 260. 
 
 Widow's pudding, a, sent to some el 
 derly ladies, 232. 
 
 Wife, faithful little, of genius, compared 
 to tug drawing tall ship, 289. 
 
 Wild creature dormant in each heart, 
 94.
 
 332 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Wilkes, John, his saying about cutting 
 out the handsomest man, 89. 
 
 Will, misunderstandings in regard to the 
 limitations of, 34 ; bias decides choice 
 in motivation, 35 . ; steps from one 
 moving thought to another, 39. 
 
 Wine, a specific against dull dinners, 
 32 ;' its use should be open, 33. 
 
 Wink, called a palpebral spasm, 14. 
 
 Wisdom, often learned by folly, 13. 
 
 Witch, portrait of, 262. 
 
 Witch-marks, 262. 
 
 Witchcraft, Calef's book on, 8 ; sou 
 venir, 9 ; repeal of statutes against, 
 106; clergymen rejoicing in the de 
 lusion, 122. 
 
 Wives, the marrying of three, seemingly 
 advocated in the Bible, 5. 
 
 Wolves, great stone on graves to keep 
 them away, 263. 
 
 'Woman's voice, heard in the night, 17* ; 
 proved to be a Guarnerius violin, 308. 
 
 Women, some are mechanical talkers, 
 30 ; can keep their minds detached 
 from their talk, 31 ; creation of, 50 ; 
 judicial character not captivating in, 
 101 ; three saints among, to one among 
 men, 121 ; the messiah of a new reve 
 lation, 125 ; they mostly settle matters 
 of social position, 135; intellectual 
 process should not be too evident in, 
 147 ; brain-women do not interest like 
 heart-women, 148; elegance of, 150; 
 stylish, 155 ; the men wbcm they 
 marry, 157 ; their choice of love, 159 ; 
 love-magnets, 160 ; the.t- effect upon 
 men, 177 ; faces sometimes portray a 
 great secret, 178 ; often their one se 
 cret is " I love you," 180 ; more reli 
 gious than men, 209 ; effect of genius 
 in, 241 ; more subject to atrophy of 
 heart, 249 ; immovability of some, 
 274 ; some good ones have no right to 
 
 marry perfectly good men, 287 ; hap 
 piness of marriage of women of gen 
 ius with truthful, simple men, 287. 
 Word, the saddle of a thought, 38; 
 worth of words, 41 ; words, not looks, 
 win women, 89 ; mean little as com 
 pared to features, 181. 
 Words and phrases, namely : 
 BoTiays. 185. 
 
 Bread-basket, technical term in pu 
 gilism, 280. 
 Carapace, 28. 
 Cherry-pictorial, 132. 
 Cuss, 21. 
 
 Dynamometer, 93. 
 Edulcorated, 62. 
 Endosmosis, 95. 
 Epeplatry, 117. 
 Eudiometer, 72. 
 Haow, 44. 
 Museum, 97. 
 
 Palpebral spasm, a wink, 14. 
 Pimpant, 136. 
 Shooing hens, 248. 
 Straw in the bung-hole of the uni 
 verse, 24. 
 
 Wordsworth, his Boy of Windermerc, 
 160 ; seems to have solved some of the 
 great secrets of life, 180. 
 Works of art in Professor's room enu 
 merated, 29. 
 
 Worthylakes, graves of the, 3, 306. 
 Wrinkles, cheapest coat-of-mail against 
 Cupid, 223. 
 
 Yankee appellations, 95. 
 
 Yankees are a kind of gypsies, 246. 
 
 Yorkshire groom, fight with a sopho 
 more, 53. 
 
 Young fellow. See John. 
 
 Young-lady factories, 239. 
 
 Young men, American, opportunities of, 
 283; Wauty of Greek, 283. 
 
 *-. ^r
 
 
 XX S