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 Publishers, 
 
 HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO., Boston, 
 
THE 
 
 Autocrat of the Breakfast- 
 Table. 
 
 EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
 
 <!je Sfttoersftrt $re&, 
 1880. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON & SON, 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGBAPHY. 
 
 HE interruption referred to in the first 
 sentence of the first of these papers was 
 just a quarter of a century in duration. 
 Two articles entitled " The Autocrat 
 of the Breakfast-Table " will be found in The 
 New England Magazine," formerly published in 
 Boston by J. T. and E. Buckingham. The date 
 of the first of these articles is November, 1831, and 
 that of the second, February, 1832. When " The 
 Atlantic Monthly " was begun, twenty-five years 
 afterwards, and the author was asked to write for 
 it, the recollection of these crude products of his 
 uncombed literary boyhood suggested the thought 
 that it would be a curious experiment to shake the 
 same bough again, and see if the ripe fruit were 
 better or worse than the early windfalls. 
 
 So began this series of papers, which naturally 
 brings those earlier attempts to my own notice 
 
iv THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and that of some few friends who were idle enough 
 to read them at the time of their publication. The 
 man is father to the boy that was, and I am my 
 own son, as it seems to me, in those papers of the 
 New England Magazine. If I find it hard to par 
 don the boy's faults, others would find it harder. 
 They will not, therefore, be reprinted here, nor, as 
 I hope, anywhere. 
 
 But a sentence or two from them will perhaps 
 bear reproducing, and with these I trust the gen 
 tle reader, if that kind being still breathes, will be 
 contented. 
 
 It is a capital plan to carry a tablet with 
 you, and, when you find yourself felicitous, take 
 notes of your own conversation." 
 
 " When I feel inclined to read poetry I take 
 down my Dictionary. The poetry of words is 
 quite as beautiful as that of sentences. The au 
 thor may arrange the gems effectively, but their 
 shape and lustre have been given by the attrition 
 of ages. Bring me the finest simile from the whole 
 range of imaginative writing, and I will show you 
 a single word which conveys a more profound, a 
 more accurate, and a more eloquent analogy." 
 
 " Once on a time, a notion was started, that 
 if all the people in the world would shout at once, 
 it might be heard in the moon. So the projectors 
 agreed it should be done in just ten years. Some 
 thousand shiploads of chronometers were distribut 
 ed to the selectmen and other great folks of all the 
 different nations. For a year beforehand, nothing 
 
THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, v 
 
 else was talked about but the awful noise that was 
 to be made on the great occasion. When the time 
 came, everybody had their ears so wide open, to hear 
 the universal ejaculation of Boo, the word agreed 
 upon, that nobody spoke except a deaf man in 
 one of the Fejee Islands, and a woman in Pekin, 
 so that the world was never so still since the crea 
 tion/' 
 
 There was nothing better than these things, and 
 there was not a little that was much worse. A 
 young fellow of two or three and twenty has as 
 good a right to spoil a magazine-full of essays in 
 learning how to write, as an oculist like Wcnzel 
 had to spoil his hat-full of eyes in learning how to 
 operate for cataract, or an elegant like Brummel to 
 point to an armful of failures in the attempt to 
 achieve a perfect tie. This son of mine, whom I 
 have not seen for these twenty-five years, gener 
 ously counted, was a self-willed youth, always too 
 ready to utter his unchastised fancies. He, like 
 too many American young people, got the spur 
 when he should have had the rein. He therefore 
 helped to fill the market with that unripe fruit 
 which his father says in one of these papers abounds 
 in the marts of his native country. All these by 
 gone shortcomings he would hope are forgiven, 
 did he not feel sure that very few of his readers 
 know anything about them. In taking the old 
 name for the new papers, he felt bound to say that 
 
vi THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 he had uttered unwise things under that title, and 
 if it shall appear that his unwisdom has not di 
 minished by at least half while his years have 
 doubled, he promises not to repeat the experiment 
 if he should live to double them again and become 
 his own grandfather. 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 BOSTON, November 1, 1858. 
 
THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
THE AUTOCKAT 
 
 OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 I. 
 
 WAS just going to say, when I was 
 interrupted, that one of the* many ways 
 of classifying minds is under the heads 
 of arithmetical and algebraical intel 
 lects. All economical and practical wisdom is an 
 extension or variation of the following arithmet 
 ical formula : 2 -}- 2 = 4. Every philosophical 
 proposition has the more general character of the 
 expression a -f b = c. We are mere operatives, 
 empirics, and egotists, until we learn to think in 
 letters instead of figures. 
 
 They all stared. There is a divinity student 
 lately come among us to whom I commonly 
 address remarks like the above, allowing him to 
 take a certain share in the conversation, so far as 
 assent or pertinent questions are involved. He 
 i 
 
a THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 abused his liberty on this occasion by presuming 
 to say that Leibnitz had the same observation 
 No, sir, I replied, he has not. But he said a 
 mighty good thing about mathematics, that sounds 
 something like it, and you found it, not in the 
 original, but quoted by Dr. Thomas Reid. I will 
 tell the company what he did say, one of these 
 days. 
 
 If I belong to a Society of Mutual Ad 
 miration ? I blush to say that I do not at this 
 present moment. I once did, however. It was 
 the first association to which I ever heard the 
 term applied ; a body of scientific young men in 
 a great foreign city who admired their teacher, 
 and to some extent each other. Many of them 
 deserved it ; they have become famous since. It 
 amuses me to hear the talk of one of those beings 
 described by Thackeray 
 
 " Letters four do form his name " 
 
 about a social development which belongs to the 
 very noblest stage of civilization. All generous 
 companies of artists, authors, philanthropists, men 
 of science, are, or ought to be, Societies of Mu 
 tual Admiration. A man of genius, or any kind 
 of superiority, is not debarred from admiring the 
 same quality in another, nor the other from re 
 turning his admiration. They may even associate 
 together and continue to think highly of each 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 3 
 
 other. And so of a dozen such men, if any one 
 place is fortunate enough to hold so many. The 
 being referred to above assumes several false prem 
 ises. First, that men of talent necessarily hate 
 each other. Secondly, that intimate knowledge 
 or habitual association destroys our admiration 
 of persons whom we esteemed highly at a dis 
 tance. Thirdly, that a circle of clever fellows, 
 who meet together to dine and have a good time, 
 have signed a constitutional compact to glorify 
 themselves, and to put down him and the fraction 
 of the human race not belonging to their number. 
 Fourthly, that it is an outrage that he is not asked 
 to join them. 
 
 Here the company laughed a good deal, and the 
 old gentleman who sits opposite said, " That 's it ! 
 that 's it ! " 
 
 I continued, for I was in the talking vein. As 
 to clever people's hating each other, I think a little 
 extra talent does sometimes make people jealous. 
 They become irritated by perpetual attempts and 
 failures, and it hurts their tempers and dispo 
 sitions. Unpretending mediocrity is good, and 
 genius is glorious ; but a weak flavor of genius 
 in an essentially common person is detestable. 
 It spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace 
 character, as the rinsings of an unwashed wine 
 glass spoil a draught of fair water. No wonder 
 the poor fellow we spoke of, who always belongs 
 
4 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 to this class of slightly flavored mediocrities, is 
 puzzled and vexed by the strange sight of a dozen 
 men of capacity working and playing together in 
 harmony. He and his fellows are always fighting. 
 With them familiarity naturally breeds contempt. 
 If they ever praise each other's bad drawings, or 
 broken-winded novels, or spavined verses, nobody 
 ever supposed it was from admiration ; it was 
 simply a contract between themselves and a pub 
 lisher or dealer. 
 
 If the Mutuals have really nothing among them 
 worth admiring, that alters the question. But if 
 they are men with noble powers and qualities, let 
 me tell you, that, next to youthful love and family 
 affections, there is no human sentiment better than 
 that which unites the Societies of Mutual Admi 
 ration. And what would literature or art be 
 without such associations ? Who can tell what 
 we owe to the Mutual Admiration Society of 
 which Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson, and Beau 
 mont and Fletcher were members ? Or to that 
 of which Addison and Steele formed the centre, 
 and which gave us the Spectator ? Or to that 
 where Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Burke, and 
 Reynolds, and Beauclerk, and Boswell, most ad 
 miring among all admirers, met together ? Was 
 there any great harm in the fact that the Irvings 
 and Paulding wrote in company ? or any unpar 
 donable cabal in the literary union of Verplanck 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 5 
 
 and Bryant and Sands, and as many more as 
 they chose to associate with them? 
 
 The poor creature does not know what he is 
 talking about, when he abuses this noblest of in 
 stitutions. Let him inspect its mysteries through 
 the knot-hole he has secured, but not use that 
 orifice as a medium for his popgun. Such a soci 
 ety is the crown of a literary metropolis ; if a town 
 has not material for it, and spirit and good feeling 
 enough to organize it, it is a mere caravansary, fit 
 for a man of genius to lodge in, but not to live in. 
 Foolish people hate and dread and envy such an 
 association of men of varied powers and influence, 
 because it is lofty, serene, impregnable, and, by 
 the necessity of the case, exclusive. Wise ones 
 are prouder of the title M. S. M. A. than of all 
 their other honors put together. 
 
 All generous minds have a horror of what 
 
 are commonly called " facts." They are the 
 brute beasts of the intellectual domain. Who 
 does not know fellows that always have an ill- 
 conditioned fact or two which they lead after them 
 into decent company like so many bull-dogs, 
 ready to let them slip at every ingenious sugges 
 tion, or convenient generalization, or pleasant 
 fancy ? I allow no " facts " at this table. What ! 
 Because bread is good and wholesome and neces 
 sary and nourishing, shall you thrust a crumb 
 into my windpipe while I am talking ? Do not 
 
6 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 these muscles of mine represent a hundred loaves 
 of bread ? and is not my thought the abstract of 
 ten thousand of these crumbs of truth with which 
 you would choke off my speech ? 
 
 [The above remark must be conditioned and 
 qualified for the vulgar mind. The reader will 
 of course understand the precise amount of season 
 ing which must be added to it before he adopts it 
 as one of the axioms of his life. The speaker dis 
 claims all responsibility for its abuse in incompe 
 tent hands.] 
 
 This business of conversation is a very serious 
 matter. There are men that it weakens one to 
 talk with an hour more than a day's fasting would 
 do. Mark this that I am going to say, for it is as 
 good as a working professional man's advice, and 
 costs you nothing : It is better to lose a pint of 
 blood from your veins than to have a nerve tapped. 
 Nobody measures your nervous force as it runs 
 away, nor bandages your brain and marrow after 
 the operation. 
 
 There are men of esprit who are excessively ex 
 hausting to some people. They are the talkers 
 who have what may be called jerky minds. Their 
 thoughts do not run in the natural order of se 
 quence. They say bright things on all possible 
 subjects, but their zigzags rack you to death. 
 After a jolting half-hour with one of these jerky 
 companions, talking with a dull friend affords 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 7 
 
 great relief. It is like taking the cat in your lap 
 after holding a squirrel. 
 
 What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to 
 be sure, at times ! A ground-glass shade over a 
 gas-lamp does not bring more solace to our dazzled 
 eyes than such a one to our minds. 
 
 " Do not dull people bore you ? " said one of 
 the lady-boarders, the same that sent me her 
 autograph-book last week with a request for a few 
 original stanzas, not remembering that " The Pac- 
 tolian " pays me five dollars a line for everything 
 I write in its columns. 
 
 " Madam/' said I, (she and the century were in 
 their teens together,) "all men are bores, except 
 when we want them. There never was but one 
 man whom I would trust with my latch-key." 
 
 " Who might that favored person be ? " 
 
 " Zimmermann." 
 
 The men of genius that I fancy most have 
 
 erectile heads like the cobra-di-capello. You re 
 member what they tell of William Pinkney, the 
 great pleader ; how in his eloquent paroxysms the 
 veins of his neck would swell and his face flush 
 and his eyes glitter, until he seemed on the verge 
 of apoplexy. The hydraulic arrangements for sup 
 plying the brain with blood are only second in 
 importance to its own organization. The bulbous- 
 headed fellows that steam well when they are at 
 work are the men that draw big audiences and 
 
8 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 give us marrowy books and pictures. It is a good 
 sign to have one's feet grow cold when he is Avrit- 
 ing. A great writer and speaker once told me 
 that he often wrote with his feet in hot water ; 
 - but for this, all his blood would have run into his 
 head, as the mercury sometimes withdraws into 
 the ball of a thermometer. 
 
 You don't suppose that my remarks made 
 
 at this table are like so many postage-stamps, do 
 you, each to be only once uttered ? If you do, 
 you are mistaken. He must be a poor creature 
 that does not often repeat himself. Imagine the 
 author of the excellent piece of advice, " Know 
 thyself," never alluding to that sentiment again 
 during the course of a protracted existence ! Why, 
 the truths a man carries about with him are his 
 tools ; and do you think a carpenter is bound to 
 use the same plane but once to smooth a knotty 
 board with, or to hang up his hammer after it 
 has driven its first nail ? I shall never repeat a 
 conversation, but an idea often. I shall use the 
 same types when I like, but not commonly the 
 same stereotypes. A thought is often original, 
 though you have uttered it a hundred times. It 
 has come to you over a new route, by a new and 
 express train of associations. 
 
 Sometimes, but rarely, one may be caught 
 making the same speech twice over, and yet be held 
 blameless. Thus, a certain lecturer, after per- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 9 
 
 forming in an inland city, where dwells a Litttra- 
 trice of note, was invited to meet her and others 
 over the social teacup. She pleasantly referred to 
 his many wanderings in his new occupation. 
 " Yes," he replied, " I am like the Huma, the 
 bird that never lights, being always in the cars, as 
 he is always on the wing." Years elapsed. The 
 lecturer visited the same place once more for the 
 same purpose. Another social cup after the lec 
 ture, and a second meeting with the distinguished 
 lady. " You are constantly going from place to 
 place," she said. " Yes," he answered, " I am 
 like the Huma," and finished the sentence as 
 before. 
 
 What horrors, when it flashed over him that he 
 had made this fine speech, word for word, twice 
 over ! Yet it was not true, as the lady might per 
 haps have fairly inferred, that he had embellished 
 his conversation with the Huma daily during that 
 whole interval of years. On the contrary, he had 
 never once thought of the odious fowl until the 
 recurrence of precisely the same circumstances 
 brought up precisely the same idea. Ke ought 
 to have been proud of the accuracy of his mental 
 adjustments. Given certain factors, and a sound 
 brain should always evolve the same fixed product 
 with the certainty of Babbagc's calculating ma 
 chine. 
 
 What a satire, by the way, is that machine 
 
io THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 on the mere mathematician ! A Frankenstein- 
 monster, a thing without brains and without heart, 
 too stupid to make a hlunder ; that turns out re 
 sults like a corn-sheller, and never grows any wiser 
 or better, though it grind a thousand bushels of 
 them ! 
 
 I have an immense respect for a man of talents 
 plus " the mathematics." But the calculating- 
 power alone should seem to be the least human 
 of qualities, and to have the smallest amount of 
 reason in it ; since a machine can be made to do 
 the work of three or four calculators, and better 
 than any one of them. Sometimes I have been 
 troubled that I had not a deeper intuitive appre 
 hension of the relations of numbers. But the 
 triumph of the ciphering hand-organ has consoled 
 me. I always fancy I can hear the wheels click 
 ing in a calculator's brain. The power of dealing 
 with numbers is a kind of " detached lever " ar 
 rangement, which may be put into a mighty poor 
 watch. I suppose it is about as common as the 
 power of moving the ears voluntarily, which is a 
 moderately rare endowment. 
 
 Little localized powers, and little narrow 
 
 streaks of specialized knowledge, are things men 
 are very apt to be conceited about. Nature is very 
 wise ; but for this encouraging principle how many 
 small talents and little accomplishments would be 
 neglected ! Talk about conceit as much as you 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. n 
 
 like, it is to human character what salt is to the 
 ocean ; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable. 
 Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the 
 sea-fowl's plumage, which enables him to shed the 
 rain that falls on him and the wave in which he 
 dips. When one has had all his conceit taken out of 
 him, when he has lost all his illusions, his feathers 
 will soon soak through, and he will fly no more. 
 
 " So you admire conceited people, do you ? " 
 said the young lady who has come to the city to 
 be finished oft' for the duties of life. 
 
 I am afraid you do not study logic at your 
 school, my dear. It does not follow that I w r ish 
 to be pickled in brine because I like a salt-water 
 plunge at Nahant. I say that conceit is just as 
 natural a thing to human minds as a centre is to 
 a circle. But little-minded people's thoughts move 
 in such small circles that five minutes' conversation 
 gives you an arc long enough to determine their 
 whole curve. An arc in the movement of a large 
 intellect does not sensibly differ from a straight 
 line. Even if it have the third vowel as its cen 
 tre, it does not soon betray it. The highest 
 thought, that is, is the most seemingly imperson 
 al; it does not obviously imply any individual 
 centre. 
 
 Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it, 
 is always imposing. What resplendent beauty 
 that must have been which could have authorized 
 
i* THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Phryne to " peel " in the way she did ! What fine 
 speeches are those two : " Non omnis monar," and 
 " I have taken all knowledge to be my province " ! 
 Even in common people, conceit has the virtue of 
 making them cheerful ; the man who thinks his 
 wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and 
 himself severally unequalled, is almost sure to be a 
 good-humored person, though liable to be tedious 
 at times. 
 
 What are the great faults of conversation 1 
 
 Want of ideas, want of words, want of manners, 
 are the principal ones, I suppose you think. I 
 don't doubt it, but I will tell you what I have 
 found spoil more good talks than anything else ; 
 long arguments on special points between peo 
 ple who differ on the fundamental principles upon 
 which these points depend. No men can have sat 
 isfactory relations with each other until they have 
 agreed on certain ultimata of belief not to be dis 
 turbed in ordinary conversation, and unless they 
 have sense enough to trace the secondary ques 
 tions depending upon these ultimate beliefs to their 
 source. In short, just as a written constitution is 
 essential to the best social order, so a code of final 
 ities is a necessary condition of profitable talk be 
 tween two persons. Talking is like playing on 
 the harp ; there is as much in laying the hand on 
 the strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging 
 them to bring out their music. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 13 
 
 Do you mean to say the pun-question is 
 
 not clearly settled in your minds? Let me lay 
 down the law upon the subject. Life and lan 
 guage are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide 
 that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal re 
 sults to its legitimate meaning, which is its life 
 are alike forbidden. Manslaughter, which is the 
 meaning of the one, is the same as man's laugh 
 ter, which is the end of the other. A pun is primd 
 fade an insult to the person you are talking with. 
 It implies utter indifference to or sublime contempt 
 for his remarks, no matter how serious. I speak 
 of total depravity, and one says all that is written 
 on the subject is deep raving. I have committed 
 my self-respect by talking with such a person. I 
 should like to commit him, but cannot, because he 
 is a nuisance. Or I speak of geological convul 
 sions, and he asks me what was the cosine of 
 Noah's ark ; also, whether the Deluge was not a 
 deal huger than any modern inundation. 
 
 A pun does not commonly justify a blow in re 
 turn. But if a blow were given for such cause, 
 and death ensued, the jury would be judges both 
 of the facts and of the pun, and might,, if the lat 
 ter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict 
 of justifiable homicide. Thus, in a case lately de 
 cided before Miller, J., Doe presented Roe a sub 
 scription paper, and urged the claims of suffering 
 humanity. Roe replied by asking, When charity 
 
i 4 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 was like a top ? It was in evidence that Doe pre 
 served a dignified silence. Roe then said, " When 
 it begins to hum." Doe then and not till then 
 struck Roe, and his head happening to hit a 
 bound volume of the Monthly Rag-bag and Stolen 
 Miscellany, intense mortification ensued, with a 
 fatal result. The chief laid down his notions of 
 the law to his brother justices, who unanimously 
 replied "Jest so." The chief rejoined, that no 
 man should jest so without being punished for it > 
 and charged for the prisoner, who was acquitted, 
 and the pun ordered to be burned by the sheriff. 
 The bound volume was forfeited as a deodand, but 
 not claimed. 
 
 People that make puns are like wanton boys 
 that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They 
 amuse themselves and other children, but their lit 
 tle trick may upset a freight train of conversation 
 for the sake of a battered witticism. 
 
 I 'will thank you, B. F., to bring down two 
 books, of which I will mark the places on this 
 slip of paper. (While he is gone, I may say that 
 this boy, our landlady's youngest, is called BENJA 
 MIN FRANKLIN, after the celebrated philosopher of 
 that name. A highly merited compliment.) 
 
 I wished to refer to two eminent authorities. 
 Now be so good as to listen. The great moralist 
 says : " To trifle with the vocabulary which is the 
 vehicle of social intercourse is to tamper with the 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 15 
 
 currency of human intelligence. He who would 
 violate the sanctities of his mother tongue would 
 invade the recesses of the paternal till without re 
 morse, and repeat the banquet of Saturn without 
 an indigestion." 
 
 And, once more, listen to the historian. " The 
 Puritans hated puns. The Bishops were noto 
 riously addicted to them. The Lords Temporal 
 carried them to the verge of license. Majesty it 
 self must have its Royal quibble. < Ye be burly, 
 my Lord of Burleigh/ said Queen Elizabeth, < but 
 ye shall make less stir in our realm than my Lord 
 of Leicester/ The gravest wisdom and the high 
 est breeding lent their sanction to the practice. 
 Lord Bacon playfully declared himself a descend 
 ant of 'Og, the King of Bashan. Sir Philip Sid 
 ney, with his last breath, reproached the soldier 
 who brought him water, for wasting a casque full 
 upon a dying man. A courtier, who saw Othello 
 performed at the Globe Theatre, remarked, that the 
 blackamoor was a brute, and not a man. < Thou 
 hast reason/ replied a great Lord, according to 
 Plato his saying ; for this be a two-legged animal 
 with feathers.' The fatal habit became universal. 
 The language was corrupted. The infection spread 
 to the national conscience. Political double-deal 
 ings naturally grew out of verbal double mean 
 ings. The teeth of the new dragon were sown by 
 the Cadmus who introduced the alphabet of equiv- 
 
1 6 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 ocation. What was levity in the time of the 
 Tudors grew to regicide and revolution in the 
 age of the Stuarts." 
 
 Who was that boarder that just whispered some 
 thing about the Macaulay-flowers of literature ? 
 There was a dead silence. I said calmly, I shall 
 henceforth consider any interruption by a pun as a 
 hint to change my boarding-house. Do not plead 
 my example. If / have used any such, it has been 
 only as a Spartan father would show up a drunk 
 en helot. We have done with them. 
 
 If a logical mind ever found out anything 
 
 with its logic ? I should say that its most fre 
 quent work was to build a pons asinorum over 
 chasms which shrewd people can bestride without 
 such a structure. You can hire logic, in the shape 
 of a lawyer, to prove anything that you want to 
 prove. You can buy treatises to show that Napo 
 leon never lived, and that no battle of Bunker-hill 
 was ever fought. The great minds are those with 
 a wide span, which couple truths related to, but 
 far removed from, each other. Logicians carry 
 the surveyor's chain over the track of which these 
 are the true explorers. I value a man mainly for 
 his primary relations with truth, as I understand 
 truth, not for any secondary artifice in handling 
 his ideas. Some of the sharpest men in argument 
 are notoriously unsound in judgment. I should 
 not trust the counsel of a smart debater, any more 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. i 7 
 
 than that of a good chess-player. Either may of 
 course advise wisely, but not necessarily because 
 he wrangles or plays well. 
 
 The old gentleman who sits opposite got his 
 hand up, as a pointer lifts his forefoot, at the ex 
 pression, " his relations with truth, as I understand 
 truth," and when I had done, sniffed audibly, and 
 said I talked like a transcendentalism For his 
 part, common sense was good enough for him. 
 
 Precisely so, my dear sir, I replied ; common 
 sense, as you understand it. We all have to assume 
 a standard of judgment in our own minds, either 
 of things or persons. A man who is willing to 
 take another's opinion has to exercise his judg 
 ment in the choice of whom to follow, which is 
 often as nice a matter as to judge of things for 
 one's self. On the whole, I had rather judge 
 men's minds by comparing their thoughts with 
 my own, than judge of thoughts by knowing who 
 utter them. I must do one or the other. It does 
 not follow, of course, that I may not recognize an 
 other man's thoughts as broader and deeper than 
 my own ; but that does not necessarily change my 
 opinion, otherwise this would be at the mercy of 
 every superior mind that held a different one. 
 How many of our most cherished beliefs are like 
 those drinkiug-glasses of the ancient pattern, that 
 serve us well so long as we keep them in our hand, 
 but spill all if we attempt to set them down ! I 
 
 2 
 
i8 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 have sometimes compared conversation to the Ital 
 ian game of mora, in which one player lifts his 
 hand with so many fingers extended, and the other 
 gives the number if he can. I show my thought, 
 another his ; if they agree, well ; if they differ, we 
 find the largest common factor, if we can, but at 
 any rate avoid disputing about remainders and 
 fractions, which is to real talk what tuning an in 
 strument is to playing on it. 
 
 What if, instead of talking this morning, 
 
 I should read you a copy of verses, with critical 
 remarks by the author ? Any of the company can 
 retire that like. 
 
 ALBUM VERSES. 
 
 When Eve had led her lord away, 
 
 And Cain had killed his brother, 
 The stars and flowers, the poets say, 
 
 Agreed with one another 
 
 To cheat the cunning tempter's art, 
 
 And teach the race its duty, 
 By keeping on its wicked heart 
 
 Their eyes of light and beauty. 
 
 A million sleepless lids, they say, 
 
 Will be at least a warning 5 
 And so the flowers would watch by day, 
 
 The stars from eve to morning. 
 
 On hill and prairie, field and lawn, 
 
 Their dewy eyes upturning, 
 The flowers still watch from reddening dawn 
 
 Till western skies are burning. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 19 
 
 Alas ! each hour of daylight tells 
 
 A tale of shame so crushing, 
 That some turn white as sea-bleached shells, 
 
 And some are always blushing. 
 
 But when the patient stars look down 
 
 On all their light discovers, 
 The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown, 
 
 The lips of lying lovers, 
 
 They try to shut their saddening eyes, 
 
 And in the vain endeavor 
 We see them twinkling in the skies, 
 
 And so they wink forever. 
 
 What do you think of these verses my friends ? 
 Is that piece an impromptu ? said my landlady's 
 daughter. (^Et. 19+. Tender-eyed blonde. Long 
 ringlets. Cameo pin. Gold pencil-case on a chain. 
 Locket. Bracelet. Album. Autograph book. 
 Accordeon. Reads Byron, Tapper, and Sylvan us 
 Cobb, junior, while her mother makes the puddings. 
 Says, "Yes?" when you tell her anything.) 
 Oai et non, ma petite, Yes and no, my child. Five 
 of the seven verses were written off-hand ; the other 
 two took a week, that is, were hanging round 
 the desk in a ragged, forlorn, unrhymed condition 
 as long as that. All poets will tell you just such 
 stories. C'est le DERNIER pas qui coute. Don't 
 you know how hard it is for some people to get 
 out of a room after their visit is really over ? They 
 want to be off, and you want to have them off, but 
 they don't know how to manage it. One would 
 
20 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 think they had been built in your parlor or study, 
 and were waiting to be launched. I have con 
 trived a sort of ceremonial inclined plane for such 
 visitors, which being lubricated with certain smooth 
 phrases, I back them down, metaphorically speak 
 ing, stern-foremost, into their "native element," 
 the great ocean of out-doors. Well, now, there are 
 poems as hard to get rid of as these rural visitors. 
 They come in glibly, use up all the serviceable 
 rhymes, day, ray, beauty, duty, skies, eyes, other, brother, 
 mountain, fountain, and the like ; and so they go on 
 until you think it is time for the wind-up, and the 
 wind-up won't come on any terms. So they lie 
 about until you get sick of the sight of them, and 
 end by thrusting some cold scrap of a final couplet 
 upon them, and turning them out of doors. I sus 
 pect a good many " impromptus " could tell just 
 such a story as the above. Here turning to our 
 landlady, I used an illustration which pleased the 
 company much at the time, and has since been 
 highly commended. " Madam/' I said, " you can 
 pour three gills and three quarters of honey from 
 that pint jug, if it is full, in less than one minute; 
 but, Madam, you could not empty that last quarter 
 of a gill, though you were turned into a marble 
 Hebe, and held the vessel upside down for a thou 
 sand years. 
 
 One gets tired to death of the old, old vhymes, 
 such as you see in that copy of verses, which I 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. zi 
 
 don't mean to abuse, or to praise either. I always 
 feel as if I were a cobbler, putting new top-leathers 
 to an old pair of boot-soles and bodies, when I am 
 fitting sentiments to these venerable jingles. 
 
 youth 
 morning 
 
 truth 
 warning. 
 
 Nine tenths of the " Juvenile Poems " written 
 spring out of the above musical and suggestive co 
 incidences. 
 
 " Yes ? " said our landlady's daughter. 
 
 I did not address the following remark to her, 
 and I trust, from her limited range of reading, 
 she will never see it ; I said it softly to my next 
 neighbor. 
 
 When a young female wears a flat circular side- 
 curl, gummed on each temple, when she walks 
 with a male, not arm in arm, but his arm against 
 the back of hers, and when she says " Yes ? " 
 with the note of interrogation, you are generally 
 safe in asking her what wages she gets, and who 
 the " feller " was you saw her with. 
 
 " What were you whispering ? " said the daugh 
 ter of the house, moistening her lips, as she spoke, 
 in a very engaging manner. 
 
 " I was only laying down a principle of social 
 diagnosis." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
22 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 It is curious to see how the same wants 
 
 and tastes find the same implements and modes 
 of expression in all times and places. The young 
 ladies of Otaheite, as you may see in Cook's Voy~ 
 ages, had a sort of crinoline arrangement fully 
 equal in radius to the largest spread of our own 
 lady-baskets. When I fling a Bay-State shawl 
 over my shoulders, I am only taking a lesson 
 from the climate that the Indian had learned be 
 fore me. A blanket- shawl we call it, and not a 
 plaid ; and we wear it like the aborigines, and not 
 like the Highlanders. 
 
 We are the Romans of the modern world, 
 
 the great assimilating people. Conflicts and 
 conquests are of course necessary accidents with 
 us, as with our prototypes. And so we come to 
 their style of weapon. Our army sword is the 
 short, stiff, pointed gladius of the Romans; and 
 the American bowie-knife is the same tool, modi 
 fied to meet the daily wants of civil society. I 
 announce at this table an axiom not to be found 
 in Montesquieu or the journals of Congress : 
 
 The race that shortens its weapons lengthens 
 its boundaries. 
 
 Corollary. It was the Polish lance that left 
 Poland at last with nothing of her own to bound. 
 
 " Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear ! " 
 What business had Sarmatia to be fighting for 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 23 
 
 liberty with a fifteen-foot pole between her and the 
 breasts of her enemies ? If she had bat clutched 
 the old Roman and young American weapon, and 
 come to close quarters, there might have been a 
 chance for her ; but it would have spoiled the best 
 passage in the " Pleasures of Hope/' 
 
 Self-made men ? Well, yes. Of course 
 
 everybody likes and respects self-made men. It 
 is a great deal better to be made in that way than 
 not to be made at all. Are any of you younger 
 people old enough to remember that Irishman's 
 house on the marsh at Cambridgeport, which 
 house he built from drain to chimney-top with his 
 own hands ? It took him a good many years to 
 build it, and one could see that it was a little out 
 of plumb, and a little wavy in outline, and a little 
 queer and uncertain in general aspect. A regular 
 hand could certainly have built a better house; 
 but it was a very good house for a " self-made " 
 carpenter's house, and people praised it, and said 
 how remarkably well the Irishman had succeeded. 
 They never thought of praising the fine blocks of 
 houses a little farther on. 
 
 Your self-made man, whittled into shape with 
 his own jackknife, deserves more credit, if that is 
 all, than the regular engine turned article, shaped 
 by the most approved pattern, and French-polished 
 by society and travel. But as to saying that one 
 is every way the equal of the other, that is another 
 
2 4 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 matter. The right of strict social discrimination 
 of all things and persons, according to their merits, 
 native or acquired, is one of the most precious 
 republican privileges. I take the liberty to ex 
 ercise it, when I say, that, other things being equal, 
 in most relations of life I prefer a man of family. 
 
 What do I mean by a man of family ? O, I '11 
 give you a general idea of what I mean. Let us 
 give him a first-rate fit out ; it costs us nothing. 
 
 Four or five generations of gentlemen and 
 gentlewomen ; among them a member of his Ma 
 jesty's Council for the Province, a Governor or so, 
 one or two Doctors of Divinity, a member of 
 Congress, not later than the time of top-boots with 
 tassels. 
 
 Family portraits. The member of the Council, 
 by Smibcrt. The great merchant-uncle, by Cop 
 ley, full length, sitting in his arm-chair, in a vel 
 vet cap and flowered robe, with a globe by him, 
 to show the range of his commercial transactions, 
 and letters with large red seals lying round, one 
 directed conspicuously to The Honorable, etc., etc. 
 Great-grandmother, by the same artist; brown 
 satin, lace very fine, hands superlative ; grand old 
 lady, stiflfish, but imposing. Her mother, artist 
 unknown ; flat, angular, hanging sleeves ; parrot 
 on fist. A pair of Stuarts, viz., 1. A superb full 
 blown, mediaeval gentleman, with a fiery dash of 
 Tory blood in his veins, tempered down with that 
 
OF 'THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 25 
 
 of a fine old rebel grandmother, and warmed up 
 with the best of old India Madeira; his face is 
 one flame of ruddy sunshine; his ruffled shirt 
 rushes out of his bosom with an impetuous gener 
 osity, as if it would drag his heart after it ; and 
 his smile is good for twenty thousand dollars to 
 the Hospital, besides ample bequests to all rela 
 tives and dependants. 2. Lady of the same ; re 
 markable cap ; high waist, as in time of Empire ; 
 bust a la Josephine ; wisps of curls, like celery-tips, 
 at sides of forehead ; complexion clear and warm, 
 like rose-cordial. As for the miniatures by Mai- 
 bone, we don't count them in the gallery. 
 
 Books, too, with the names of old college-stu 
 dents in them, family names ; you will find 
 them at the head of their respective classes in the 
 days when students took rank on the catalogue 
 from their parents' condition. Elzevirs, with the 
 Latinized appellations of youthful progenitors, and 
 Hie liber est meus on the title-page. A set of 
 Hogarth's original plates. Pope, original edition, 
 15 volumes, London, 1717. Barrow on the lower 
 shelves, in folio. Tillotson on the upper, in a 
 little dark platoon of octo-decimos. 
 
 Some family silver ; a string of wedding and 
 funeral rings ; the arms of the family curiously 
 blazoned ; the same in worsted, by a maiden 
 aunt. 
 
 If the man of family has an old place to keep 
 
16 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 these things in, furnished with claw-footed chairs 
 and black mahogany tables, and tall bevel-edged 
 mirrors, and stately upright cabinets, his outfit is 
 complete. 
 
 No, my friends, I go (always, other things being 
 equal) for the man who inherits family traditions 
 and the cumulative humanities of at least four or 
 five generations. Above all things, as a child, he 
 should have tumbled about in a library. All men 
 are afraid of books, who have not handled them 
 from infancy. Do you suppose our dear didascalos 
 over there ever read Poll Synopsis, or consulted 
 Castelli Lexicon, while he was growing up to their 
 stature ? Not he ; but virtue passed through the 
 hem of their parchment and leather garments 
 whenever he touched them, as the precious drugs 
 sweated through the bat's handle in the Arabian 
 story. I tell you he is at home wherever he smells 
 the invigorating fragrance of Russia leather. No 
 self-made man feels so. One may, it is true, have 
 all the antecedents I have spoken of, and yet be 
 a boor or a shabby fellow. One may have none 
 of them, and yet be fit for councils and courts. 
 Then let them change places. Our social arrange 
 ment has this great beauty, that its strata shift up 
 and down as they change specific gravity, without 
 being clogged by layers of prescription. But I 
 still insist on my democratic liberty of choice, and 
 I go for the man with the gallery of family por- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 27 
 
 traits against the one with the twenty-five-cent 
 daguerrotype, unless I find out that the last is 
 the better of the two. 
 
 1 should have felt more nervous about the 
 
 late comet, if I had thought the world was ripe. 
 But it is very green yet, if I am not mistaken ; 
 and besides, there is a great deal of coal to use up, 
 which I cannot bring myself to think was made 
 for nothing. If certain things, which seem to me 
 essential to a millennium, had come to pass, I 
 should have been frightened; but they haven't. 
 Perhaps you would like to hear my 
 
 LATTER-DAY WARNINGS. 
 
 When legislators keep the law, 
 When banks dispense with bolts and locks, 
 
 When berries, whortle-, rasp-, and straw-, 
 Grow bigger downwards through the box, 
 
 When he that selleth house or land 
 Shows leak in roof or flaw in right, 
 
 When haberdashers choose the stand 
 Whose window hath the broadest light, 
 
 When preachers tell us all they think, 
 
 And party leaders all they mean, 
 When what we pay for, that we drink, 
 
 From real grape and coffee-bean. 
 
 When lawyers take what they would give, 
 And doctors give what they would take, 
 
 When city fathers eat to live, 
 Save when they fast for conscience' sake, 
 
ag THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 When one that hath a horse on sale 
 
 Shall bring his merit to the proof, 
 Without a lie for every nail 
 
 That holds the iron on the hoof, 
 
 W T hen in the usual place for rips 
 Our gloves are stitched with special care, 
 
 And guarded well the whalebone tips 
 Where first umbrellas need repair, 
 
 When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot 
 
 The power of suction to resist, 
 And claret-bottles harbor not 
 
 Such dimples as would hold your fist, 
 
 When publishers no longer steal, 
 
 And pay for what they stole before, 
 
 W T hen the first locomotive's wheel 
 Rolls through the Hoosac tunnel's bore ; 
 
 Till then let Gumming blaze away, 
 And Miller's saints blow up the globe ; 
 
 But when you see that blessed day, 
 Then order your ascension robe ! 
 
 The company seemed to like the verses 1 , and 
 I promised them to read others occasionally, if 
 they had a mind to hear them. Of course they 
 would not expect it every morning. Neither 
 must the reader suppose that all these things I 
 have reported were said at any one breakfast- 
 time. I have not taken the trouble to date them, 
 as Raspail, pre, used to date every proof he sent 
 to the printer ; but they were scattered over sev 
 eral breakfasts ; and I have said a good many 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 29 
 
 more things since, which I shall very possibly 
 print some time or other, if I am urged to do it. by 
 judicious friends. 
 
 I finished off with reading some verses of my 
 friend the Professor, of whom you may perhaps 
 hear more by and by. The Professor read them, 
 he told me, at a farewell meeting, where the 
 youngest of our great Historians met a few of his 
 many friends at their invitation. 
 
 Yes, we knew we must lose him, though friendship may 
 
 claim 
 
 To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame 5 
 Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, 
 'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown. 
 
 As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel, 
 As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, 
 As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, 
 He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring. 
 
 What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom 
 
 Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall 
 
 bloom, 
 
 While tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes 
 That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies ! 
 
 In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of time, 
 Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime, 
 There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, 
 There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue ! 
 
 Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed 
 From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed ! 
 Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, 
 Though he sweep tha black past like Van Tromp with his 
 broom ! 
 
30 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 The dream flashes by, for the west- winds awake 
 On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, 
 To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrink, 
 With incense they stole from the rose and the pine. 
 
 So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed 
 When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed : 
 THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING, the world holds him dear, 
 Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career 1 
 
OP" THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 31 
 
 n. 
 
 REALLY believe some people save their 
 bright thoughts, as being too precious 
 for conversation. What do you think 
 an admiring friend said the other day 
 to one that was talking good things, good enough 
 to print ? " Why/' said he, " you are wasting 
 merchantable literature, a cash article, at the rate, 
 as nearly as I can tell, of fifty dollars an hour." 
 The talker took him to the window and asked him 
 to look out and tell what he saw. 
 
 "Nothing but a very dusty street," he said, "and 
 a man driving a sprinkling-machine through it." 
 
 " Why don't you tell the man he is wasting that 
 water ? What would be the state of the highways 
 of life, if we did not drive our thought-sprinklers 
 through them with the valves open, sometimes'? 
 
 " Besides, there is another thing about this talk 
 ing, which you forget. It shapes our thoughts for 
 us ; the waves of conversation roll them as the 
 surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me modify 
 the image a little. I rough out my thoughts in 
 talk as an artist models in clay. Spoken language 
 is so plastic, you can pat and coax, and spread 
 
32 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick on 
 so easily, when you work that soft material, that 
 there is nothing like it for modelling. Out of it 
 come the shapes which you turn into marble or 
 bronze in your immortal books, if you happen to 
 write such. Or, to use another illustration, writ 
 ing or printing is like shooting with a rifle: you 
 may hit your reader's mind, or miss it; but talk 
 ing is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an 
 engine; if it is within reach, and you have time 
 enough, you can't help hitting it." 
 
 The company agreed that this last illustration 
 was of superior excellence, or, in the phrase used 
 by them, " Fust-rate." I acknowledged the compli 
 ment, but gently rebuked the expression. "Fust- 
 rate," " prime," " a prime article," " a superior 
 piece of goods," "a handsome garment," "a gent 
 in a flowered vest," all such expressions are final. 
 They blast the lineage of him or her who utters 
 them, for generations up and down. There is one 
 other phrase which will soon come to be decisive of 
 a man's social status, if it is not already : " That tells 
 the whole story." It is an expression which vulgar 
 and conceited people particularly affect, and which 
 well-meaning ones, who know better, catch from 
 them. It is intended to stop all debate, like the 
 previous question in the General Court. Only it 
 doesn't; simply because "that" does not usually 
 tell the whole, nor one half of the whole story. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 33 
 
 
 
 It is an odd idea, that almost all our people 
 
 have had a professional education. To become a 
 doctor a man must study some three years and hear 
 a thousand lectures, more or less. Just how much 
 study it takes to make a lawyer I cannot say, but 
 probably not more than this. Now most decent 
 people hear one hundred lectures or sermons (dis 
 courses) on theology every year, and this, twenty, 
 thirty, fifty years together. They read a great 
 many religious books besides. The clergy, how 
 ever, rarely hear any sermons except what they 
 preach themselves. A dull preacher might bo 
 conceived, therefore, to lapse into a state of quasi 
 heathenism, simply for want of religious instruc 
 tion. And, on the other hand, an attentive and 
 intelligent hearer, listening to a succession of wise 
 teachers, might become actually better educated in 
 theology than any one of them. We are all theo 
 logical students, and more of us qualified as doc 
 tors of divinity than have received degrees at any 
 of the universities. 
 
 It is not strange, therefore, that very good people 
 should often find it difficult, if not impossible, to 
 keep their attention fixed upon a sermon treating 
 feebly a subject which they have thought vigorously 
 about for years, and heard able men discuss scores 
 of times. I have often noticed, however, that a 
 hopelessly dull discourse acts inductively, as elec 
 tricians would say, in developing strong mental 
 3 
 
34 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 currents. I am ashamed to think with what ac 
 companiments and variations and fioriture I have 
 sometimes followed the droning of a heavy speaker, 
 not willingly, for my habit is reverential, 
 but as a necessary result of a slight continuous im 
 pression on the senses and the mind, which kept 
 both in action without furnishing the food they re 
 quired to work upon. If you ever saw a crow with 
 a king-bird after him, you will get an image of a 
 dull speaker and a lively listener. The bird in 
 sable plumage flaps heavily along his straight 
 forward course, while the other sails round him, 
 over him, under him, leaves him, comes back again, 
 tweaks out a black feather, shoots away once more, 
 never losing sight of him, and finally reaches the 
 crow's perch at the same time the crow does, hav 
 ing cut a perfect labyrinth of loops and knots and 
 spirals while the slow fowl was painfully working 
 from one end of his straight line to the other. 
 
 [I think these remarks were received rather cool 
 ly. A temporary boarder from the country, con 
 sisting of a somewhat more than middle-aged 
 female, with a parchment forehead and a dry little 
 'frisette " shingling it, a sallow neck with a neck 
 lace of gold beads, a black dress too rusty for re 
 cent grief and contours in basso-rilievo, left the 
 table prematurely, and was reported to have been 
 very virulent about what I said. So I went to my 
 good old minister, and repeated the remarks, as 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 35 
 
 nearly as I could remember them, to him. He 
 laughed good naturedly, and said there was con 
 siderable truth in them. He thought he could tell 
 when people's minds were wandering, by their 
 looks. In the earlier years of his ministry he had 
 sometimes noticed this, when he was preaching ; 
 very little of late years. Sometimes, when his 
 colleague was preaching, he observed this kind of 
 inattention ; but after all, it was not so very un 
 natural. I will say, by the way, that it is a rule 
 I have long followed, to tell my worst thoughts to 
 my minister, and my best thoughts to the young 
 people I talk with.] 
 
 1 want to make a literary confession now, 
 
 which I believe nobody has made before me. You 
 know very well that I write verses sometimes, be 
 cause I have read some of them at this table. 
 (The company assented, two or three of them 
 in a resigned sort of way, as I thought, as if they 
 supposed I had an epic in my pocket, and was go 
 ing to read half a dozen books or so for their ben 
 efit.) I continued. Of course I write some lines 
 or passages which are better than others ; some 
 which, compared with the others, might be called 
 relatively excellent. It is in the nature of things 
 that I should consider these relatively excellent 
 lines or passages as absolutely good. So much 
 must be pardoned to humanity. Now I never 
 wrote a " good " line in my life, but the moment 
 
3 6 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 after it was written it seemed a hundred years old. 
 Very commonly I had a sudden conviction that I 
 had seen it somewhere. Possibly I may have 
 sometimes unconsciously stolen it, but I do not 
 remember that I ever once detected any historical 
 truth in these sudden convictions of the antiquity 
 of my new thought or phrase. I have learned 
 utterly to distrust them, and never allow them to 
 bully me out of a thought or line. 
 
 This is the philosophy of it. (Here the number 
 of the company was diminished by a small seces 
 sion.) Any new formula which suddenly emerges 
 in our consciousness has its roots in long trains 
 of thought ; it is virtually old when it first makes 
 its appearance among the recognized growths of 
 our intellect. Any crystalline group of musical 
 words has had a long and still period to form in. 
 Here is one theory. 
 
 But there is a larger law which perhaps compre 
 hends these facts. It is this. The rapidity with 
 which ideas grow old in our memories is in a 
 direct ratio to the squares of their importance. 
 Their apparent age runs up miraculously, like the 
 value of diamonds, as they increase in magnitude. 
 A great calamity, for instance, is as old as the 
 trilobites an hour after it has happened. It stains 
 backward through all the leaves we have turned 
 over in the book of life, before its blot of tears or 
 of blood is dry on the page we are turning. For 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 37 
 
 this we seem to have lived ; it was foreshadowed 
 in dreams that we leaped out of in the cold sweat 
 of terror; in the "dissolving views" of dark day- 
 visions ; all omens pointed to it ; all paths led to 
 it. After the tossing half-forgetfulness of the first 
 sleep that follows such an event, it comes upon us 
 afresh, as a surprise, at waking ; in a few moments 
 it is old again, old as eternity. 
 
 [I wish I had not said all this then and there. 
 I might have known better. The pale schoolmis 
 tress, in her mourning dress, was looking at me, as 
 I noticed, with a wild sort of expression. All at 
 once the blood dropped out of her cheeks as the 
 mercury drops from a broken barometer-tube, and 
 she melted away from her seat like an image of 
 snow; a slung-shot could not have brought her 
 down better. God forgive me ! 
 
 After this little episode, I continued, to some 
 few that remained balancing teaspoons on the 
 edges of cups, twirling knives, or tilting upon the 
 hind legs of their chairs until their heads reached 
 the wall, where they left gratuitous advertisements 
 of various popular cosmetics.] 
 
 When a person is suddenly thrust into any 
 strange, new position of trial, he finds the place 
 fits him as if he had been measured for it. He 
 has committed a great crime for instance, and is 
 sent to the State Prison. The traditions, prescrip 
 tions, limitations, privileges, all the sharp condi- 
 
38 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 tions of his new life, stamp themselves upon his 
 consciousness as the signet on soft wax ; a single 
 pressure is enough. Let me strengthen the image 
 a little. Did you ever happen to see that most 
 soft-spoken and velvet-handed steam-engine at the 
 Mint ? The smooth piston slides backward and 
 forward as a lady might slip her delicate finger in 
 and out of a ring. The engine lays one of its fin 
 gers calmly, but firmly, upon a bit of metal ; it is 
 a coin now, and will remember that touch, and 
 tell a new race about it, when the date upon it is 
 crusted over with twenty centuries. So it is that 
 a great silent-moving misery puts a new stamp on 
 us in an hour or a moment, as sharp an impres 
 sion as if it had taken half a lifetime to engrave it. 
 It is awful to be in the hands of the wholesale 
 professional dealers in misfortune ; undertakers and 
 jailers magnetize you in a moment, and you pass 
 out of the individual life you were living into the 
 rhythmical movements of their horrible machinery. 
 Do the worst thing you can, or suffer the worst 
 that can be thought of, you find yourself in a cat 
 egory of humanity that stretches back as far as 
 Cain, and with an expert at your elbow who has 
 studied your case all out beforehand, and is wait 
 ing for you with his implements of hemp or ma 
 hogany. I believe, if a man were to be burned in 
 any of our cities to-morrow for heresy, there would 
 be found a master of ceremonies that knew just 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 39 
 
 how many fagots were necessary, and the best 
 way of arranging the whole matter. 
 
 So we have not won the Goodwood cup ; 
 
 au contralre, we were a " bad fifth," if not worse 
 than that ; and trying it again, and the third 
 time, has not yet bettered the matter. Now I am 
 as patriotic as any of my fellow-citizens, too 
 patriotic in fact, for I have got into hot water by 
 loving too much of my country ; in short, if any 
 man, whose fighting weight is not more than eight 
 stone four pounds, disputes it, I am ready to dis 
 cuss the point with him. I should have gloried 
 to see the stars and stripes in front at the finish. 
 I love my country, and I love horses. Stubbs's 
 old mezzotint of Eclipse hangs over my desk, and 
 Herring's portrait of Plenipotentiary, whom I 
 saw run at Epsom, over my fireplace. Did I 
 not elope from school to see Revenge, and Pros 
 pect, and Little John, and Peacemaker run over 
 the race-course where now yon suburban village 
 flourishes, in the year eighteen hundred and ever- 
 so-few ? Though I never owned a horse, have I 
 not been the proprietor of six equine females, of 
 which one was the prettiest little " Morgin " that 
 ever stepped ? Listen, then, to an opinion I have 
 often expressed long before this venture of ours in 
 England. Horse-racing is not a republican insti 
 tution ; horse-trotting is. Only very rich persons 
 can keep race-horses, and everybody knows they 
 
40 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 are kept mainly as gambling implements. All 
 that matter about blood and speed we won't dis 
 cuss ; we understand all that ; useful, very, of 
 course, great obligations to the Godolphin " Ara 
 bian/' and the rest. I say racing horses are essen 
 tially gambling implements, as much as roulette 
 tables. Now I am not preaching at this moment ; 
 I may read you one of my sermons some other 
 morning ; but I maintain that gambling, on the 
 great scale, is not republican. It belongs to two 
 phases of society, a cankered over-civilization, 
 such as exists in rich aristocracies, and the reck 
 less life of borderers and adventurers, or the semi- 
 barbarism of a civilization resolved into its primi 
 tive elements. Real Republicanism is stern and 
 severe ; its essence is not in forms of government, 
 but in the omnipotence of public opinion which 
 grows out of it. This public opinion cannot pre 
 vent gambling with dice or stocks, but it can and 
 does compel it to keep comparatively quiet. But 
 horse-racing is the most public way of gambling, 
 and with all its immense attractions to the sense 
 and the feelings, to which I plead very suscepti 
 ble, the disguise is too thin that covers it, and 
 everybody knows what it means. Its supporters 
 are the Southern gentry, fine fellows, no doubt, 
 but not republicans exactly, as we understand the 
 term, a few Northern millionnaires more or less 
 thoroughly millioned, who do not represent the 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 4I 
 
 real people, and the mob of sporting men, the best 
 of whom are commonly idlers, and the worst very 
 bad neighbors to have near one in a crowd, or to 
 meet in a dark alley. In England, on the other 
 hand, with its aristocratic institutions, racing is a 
 natural growth enough ; the passion for it spreads 
 downwards through all classes, from the Queen to 
 the costermonger. London is like a shelled corn 
 cob on the Derby day, and there is not a clerk who 
 could raise the money to hire a saddle with an old 
 hack under it that can sit down on his office-stool 
 the next day without wincing. 
 
 Now just compare the racer with the trotter for 
 a moment. The racer is incidentally useful, but 
 essentially something to bet upon, as much as the 
 thimble-rigger's " little joker." The trotter is es 
 sentially and daily useful, and only incidentally 
 a tool for sporting men. 
 
 What better reason do you want for the fact 
 that the racer is most cultivated and reaches his 
 greatest perfection in England, and that the trot 
 ting horses of America beat the world "? And why 
 should we have expected that the pick if it was 
 the pick of our few and far-between racing sta 
 bles should beat the pick of England and France ? 
 Throw over the fallacious time-test, and there was 
 nothing to show for it but a natural kind of patri 
 otic feeling, which we all have, with a thoroughly 
 provincial conceit, which some of us must plead 
 guilty to. 
 
42 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 We may beat yet. As an American, I hope we 
 shall. As a moralist and occasional sermonizer, I 
 am not so anxious about it. Wherever the trot 
 ting horse goes, he carries in his train brisk omni 
 buses, lively bakers* carts, and therefore hot rolls, 
 the jolly butcher's wagon, the cheerful gig, the 
 wholesome afternoon drive with wife and child, 
 all the forms of moral excellence, except truth, 
 which does not agree with any kind of horse-flesh. 
 The racer brings with him gambling, cursing, 
 swearing, drinking, the eating of oysters, and a 
 distaste for mob-caps and the middle-aged virtues. 
 
 And by the way, let me beg you not to call a 
 trotting-match a race, and not to speak of a " thor 
 ough-bred" as a "blooded" horse, unless he has 
 been recently phlebotomized. I consent to your 
 saying " blood horse/' if you like. Also, if, next 
 year, we send out Posterior and Posterioress, the 
 winners of the great national four-mile race in 
 7 18^, and they happen to get beaten, pay your 
 bets, and behave like men and gentlemen about 
 it, if you know how. 
 
 [I felt a great deal better after blowing off the 
 ill-temper condensed in the above paragraph. To 
 brag little, to show well, to crow gently, if in 
 luck, to pay up, to own up, and to shut up, if 
 beaten, are the virtues of a sporting man, and I 
 can't say that I think we have shown them in any 
 great perfection of late.] 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 43 
 
 Apropos of horses. Do you know how 
 
 important good jockeying is to authors ? Judi 
 cious management ; letting the puhlic see your an 
 imal just enough, and not too much ; holding him 
 up hard when the market is too full of him ; let 
 ting him out at just the right buying intervals; 
 always gently feeling his mouth ; never slacking 
 and never jerking the rein ; this is what I mean 
 by jockeying. 
 
 When an author has a number of books 
 
 out, a cunning hand will keep them all spinning, 
 as Signor Blitz does his dinner-plates ; fetching 
 each one up, as it begins to " wabble," by an ad 
 vertisement, a puff, or a quotation. 
 
 Whenever the extracts from a living writer 
 
 begin to multiply fast in the papers, without obvi 
 ous reason, there is a new book or a new edition 
 coming. The extracts are ground-bait. 
 
 Literary life is full of curious phenomena. 
 
 I don't know that there is anything more notice 
 able than what we may call conventional reputations. 
 There is a tacit understanding in every community 
 of men of letters that they will not disturb the 
 popular fallacy respecting this or that electro-gild 
 ed celebrity. There are various reasons for this 
 forbearance : one is old ; one is rich ; one is good- 
 natured ; one is such a favorite with the pit that it 
 would not be safe to hiss him from the manager's 
 box. The venerable augurs of the literary or sci- 
 
44 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 entific temple may smile faintly when one of the 
 tribe is mentioned ; but the farce is in general kept 
 up as well as the Chinese comic scene of entreat 
 ing and imploring a man to stay with you, with 
 the implied compact between you that he shall by 
 no means think of doing it. A poor wretch he 
 must be who would wantonly sit down on one of 
 these bandbox reputations. A Princc-Rupert's- 
 drop, which is a tear of unannealed glass, lasts in 
 definitely, if you keep it from meddling hands; 
 but break its tail off, and it explodes and resolves 
 itself into powder. These celebrities I speak of 
 are the Prince-Rupert's-drops of the learned and 
 polite world. See how the papers treat them ! 
 What an array of pleasant kaleidoscopic phrases, 
 which can be arranged in ever so many charming 
 patterns, is at their service ! How kind the " Crit 
 ical Notices " where small authorship comes to 
 pick up chips of praise, fragrant, sugary, and sap 
 py always are to them! Well, life would be 
 nothing without paper-credit and other fictions ; 
 so let them pass current. Don't steal their chips ; 
 don't puncture their swimming-bladders ; don't 
 come down on their pasteboard boxes ; don't break 
 the ends of their brittle and unstable reputations, 
 you fellows who all feel sure that your names will 
 be household words a thousand years from now. 
 
 " A thousand years is a good while," said the 
 old gentleman who sits opposite, thoughtfully. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST- TABLE. 45 
 
 Where have I been for the last three or 
 
 four days 1 Down at the Island, deer-shooting. 
 How many did I bag ? I brought home one buck 
 shot. The Island is where ? No matter. It is 
 the most splendid domain that any man looks upon 
 in these latitudes. Blue sea around it, and running 
 up into its heart, so that the little boat slumbers 
 like a baby in lap, while the tall ships are stripping 
 naked to fight the hurricane outside, and storm- 
 stay-sails banging and flying in ribbons. Trees, 
 in stretches of miles ; beeches, oaks, most numer 
 ous ; many of them hung with moss, looking like 
 bearded Druids ; some coiled in the clasp of huge, 
 dark-stemmed grape-vines. Open patches where 
 the sun gets in and goes to sleep, and the winds 
 come so finely sifted that they are as soft as swan's 
 down. Rocks scattered about, Storiehenge-like 
 monoliths. Fresh-water lakes ; one of them, Mary's 
 lake, crystal-clear, full of flashing pickerel lying 
 under the lily-pads like tigers in the jungle. Six 
 pounds of ditto killed one morning for breakfast. 
 EGO fecit. 
 
 The divinity-student looked as if he would like 
 to question my Latin. No, sir, I said, you need 
 not trouble yourself. There is a higher law in 
 grammar, not to be put down by Andrews and 
 Stoddard. Then I went on. 
 
 Such hospitality as that island has seen there 
 has not been the like of in these our New England 
 
46 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 sovereignties. There is nothing in the shape of 
 kindness and courtesy that can make life beautiful, 
 which has not found its home in that ocean-princi 
 pality. It has welcomed all who were worthy of 
 welcome, from the pale clergyman who came to 
 breathe the sea-air with its medicinal salt and 
 iodine, to the great statesman who turned his back 
 on the affairs of empire, and smoothed his Olym 
 pian forehead, and flashed his white teeth in merri 
 ment over the long table, where his wit was the 
 keenest and his story the best. 
 
 [I don't believe any man ever talked like that in 
 this world. I don't believe / talked just so ; but 
 the fact is, in reporting one's conversation, one 
 cannot help Blair-ing it up more or less, ironing 
 out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and 
 crimping and plaiting a little sometimes ; it is as 
 natural as prinking at the looking-glass.] 
 
 How can a man help writing poetry in such 
 
 a place ? Everybody does write poetry that goes 
 there. In the state archives, kept in the library 
 of the Lord of the Isle, are whole volumes of un 
 published verse, some by well-known hands, and 
 others quite as good, by the last people you would 
 think of as versifiers, men who could pension off 
 all the genuine poets in the country, and buy ten 
 acres of Boston common, if it was for sale, with 
 what they had left. Of course I had to write my 
 little copy of verses with the rest ; here it is, if you 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 47 
 
 will hear me read it. When the sun is in the west, 
 vessels sailing in an easterly direction look bright 
 or dark to one who observes them from the north 
 or south, according to the tack they are sailing 
 upon. Watching them from one of the windows 
 of the great mansion, I saw these perpetual changes^ 
 and moralized thus : 
 
 SUN AND SHADOW. 
 
 As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green, 
 
 To the billows of foam-crested blue, 
 Yon bai'k, that afar in the distance is seen, 
 
 Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue : 
 Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray 
 
 As the chaff in the stroke of the flail ; 
 Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way, 
 
 The sun gleaming bright on her sail, 
 
 Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun, 
 
 Of breakers that whiten and roar 5 
 How little he cares, if in shadow or sun 
 
 They see him that gaze from the shore ! 
 He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, 
 
 To the rock that is under his lee, 
 As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, 
 
 O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. 
 
 Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves 
 
 Where life and its ventures are laid, 
 The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves 
 
 May see us in sunshine or shade ; 
 Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark, 
 
 We '11 trim our broad sail as before, 
 And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, 
 
 Nor ask how we look from the shore ! 
 
48 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Insanity is often the logic of an accurate 
 
 mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ou;ht to 
 break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust 
 among them suddenly which tends to stop them or 
 reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accu 
 mulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often 
 saves a man from going mad. We frequently see 
 persons in insane hospitals, sent there in conse 
 quence of what are called religious mental disturb 
 ances. I confess that I think better of them than 
 of many who hold the same notions, and keep their 
 wits and appear to enjoy life very well, outside of the 
 asylums. Any decent person ought to go mad, if 
 he really holds such or such opinions. It is very 
 much to his discredit in every jx>int of view, if he 
 does not. What is the use of my saying what 
 some of these opinions are ? Perhaps more than 
 one of you hold such as I should think ought to 
 send you straight over to Somerville, if you have 
 any logic in your heads or any human feeling 
 in your hearts. Anything that is brutal, cruel, 
 heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most 
 of mankind and perhaps for entire races, any 
 thing that assumes the necessity of the extermina 
 tion of instincts which were given to be regulated, 
 no matter by what name you call it, no mat 
 ter whether a fakir, or a monk, or a deacon believes 
 it, if received, ought to produce insanity in every 
 well-regulated mind. That condition becomes a 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 49 
 
 normal one, under the circumstances. I am very 
 much ashamed of some people for retaining their 
 reason, when they know perfectly well that if they 
 were not the most stupid or the most selfish of 
 human beings, they would become non-compotes at 
 once. 
 
 [Nobody understood this but the theological 
 student and the schoolmistress. They looked in 
 telligently at each other ; but whether they were 
 thinking about my paradox or not, I am not 
 clear. It would be natural enough. Stranger 
 things have happened. Love and Death enter 
 boarding-houses without asking the price of board, 
 or whether there is room for them. Alas, these 
 young people are poor and pallid ! Love should 
 be both rich and rosy, but must be either rich or 
 rosy. Talk about military duty ! What is that 
 to the warfare of a married maid-of-all-work, with 
 the title of mistress, and an American female con 
 stitution, which collapses just in the middle third 
 of life, and comes out vulcanized India-rubber, if 
 it happen to live through the period when health 
 arid strength are most wanted ?] 
 
 Have I ever acted in private theatricals ? 
 
 Often. I have played the part of the " Poor Gen 
 tleman," before a great many audiences, more, 
 I trust, than I shall ever face again. I did not 
 wear a stage-costume, nor a wig, nor mustaches 
 of burnt cork ; but I was placarded and announced 
 4 
 
50 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 as a public performer, and at the proper hour I 
 came forward with the ballet-dancer's smile upon 
 my countenance, and made my bow and acted my 
 part. I have seen my name stuck up in letters 
 so big that I was ashamed to show myself in the 
 place by daylight. I have gone to a town with a 
 sober literary essay in my pocket, and seen myself 
 everywhere announced as the most desperate of 
 buffos, one who was obliged to restrain himself 
 in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential 
 considerations. I have been through as many 
 hardships as Ulysses, in the pursuit of my his 
 trionic vocation. I have travelled in cars until 
 the conductors all knew me like a brother. I have 
 run off the rails, and stuck all night in snow-drifts, 
 and sat behind females that would have the win 
 dow open when one could not wink without his 
 eyelids freezing together. Perhaps I shall give 
 yoa some of my experiences one of these days ; 
 I will not now, for I have something else for 
 you, 
 
 Private theatricals, as I have figured in them 
 in country lyceum-halls, are one thing, and pri 
 vate theatricals, as they may be seen in certain 
 gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are 
 another. Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen 
 and ladies, who do not think it necessary to mouth, 
 and rant, and stride, like most of our stage heroes 
 and heroines, in the characters which show off 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 51 
 
 their graces and talents ; most of all to see a fresh, 
 unrouged, unspoiled, highbred young maiden, with 
 a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice, acting in those 
 love-dramas which make us young again to look 
 upon, when real youth and beauty will play them 
 for us. 
 
 Of course I wrote the prologue I was 
 
 asked to write. I did not see the play, though. 
 I knew there was a young lady in it, and that 
 somebody was in love with her, and she was in 
 love with him, and somebody (an old tutor, I be 
 lieve) wanted to interfere, and, very naturally, the 
 young lad} 7 - was too sharp for him. The play of 
 course ends charmingly ; there is a general recon 
 ciliation, and all concerned form a line and take 
 each other's hands, as people always do after they 
 have made up their quarrels, and then the cur 
 tain falls, if it does not stick, as it commonly 
 does at private theatrical exhibitions, in which 
 case a boy is detailed to pull it down, which he 
 does, blushing violently. 
 
 Now, then, for my prologue. I am not going 
 to change my caesuras and cadences for anybody ; 
 so if you do not like the heroic, or iambic trime 
 ter brachy-catalectic, you had better not wait to 
 hear it. 
 
 THIS IS IT. 
 
 A Prologue ? Well, of course the ladies know ; 
 I have my doubts. No matter, here we go ! 
 
52, THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 What is a Prologue ? Let our Tutor teach : 
 Pro means beforehand ; logos stands for speech. 
 'T is like the harper's prelude on the strings, 
 The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings ; 
 Prologues in metre are to other pros 
 As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. 
 
 " The world 's a stage," as Shakespeare said, one day ; 
 
 The stage a world was what he meant to say. 
 
 The outside world 's a blunder, that is clear , 
 
 The real world that Nature meant is here. 
 
 Here every foundling finds its lost mamma ; 
 
 Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa ; 
 
 Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, 
 
 The cheats are taken in the traps they laid , 
 
 One after one the troubles all are past 
 
 Till the fifth act comes right side up at last, 
 
 When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all, 
 
 Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. 
 
 Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, 
 
 And black-bi'owed ruffians always come to grief, 
 
 When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, 
 And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, 
 
 Cries, " Help, kyind Heaven ! " and drops upon her knees 
 On the green baize, beneath the (canvas) trees, 
 See to her side avenging Valor fly : 
 " Ha ! Villain ! Draw ! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die ! " 
 
 When the poor hero flounders in despair, 
 Some dear lost uncle turns up millionnaire, 
 Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy, 
 
 Sobs on his neck, " My boy ! MY BOY ! ! MY BOY ! ! ! " 
 
 Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night. 
 Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. 
 Ladies, attend. While woful cares and doubt 
 Wrong the soft passion in the world without, 
 Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere, 
 One thing is certain : Love will triumph here I 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 53 
 
 Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule. 
 
 The world's great masters, when you 're out of school, 
 
 Learn the brief moral of our evening's play : 
 
 Man has his will, but woman has her way ! 
 
 While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire, 
 
 Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire, 
 
 The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves 
 
 Beats the black giant with his score of slaves. 
 
 All earthly powers confess your sovereign art 
 
 But that one rebel, woman's wilful heart. 
 
 All foes you master 5 but a woman's wit 
 
 Lets daylight through you ere you know you're hit. 
 
 So, just to picture what her art can do, 
 
 Hear an old story made as good as new. 
 
 Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, 
 
 Alike was famous for his arm and blade. 
 
 One day a prisoner Justice had to kill 
 
 Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. 
 
 Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, 
 
 Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. 
 
 His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam, 
 
 As the pike's armor flashes in the stream. 
 
 He sheathed his blade ; he turned as if to go ; 
 
 The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. 
 
 41 Why strikest not ? Perform thy murderous act," 
 
 The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) 
 
 " Friend, I have struck," the artist straight replied 5 
 
 " Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." 
 
 He held his snuff-box, " Now then, if you please I " 
 The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze, 
 Off his head tumbled, bowled along the floor, 
 Bounced down the steps ; the prisoner said no more ! 
 
 Woman ! thy falchion is a glittering eye ; 
 If death lurks in it, how sweet to die ! 
 Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head ; 
 We die with love, and never dream we 're dead ! 
 
54 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 The prologue went off very well, as I hear. 
 No alterations were suggested by the lady to whom 
 it was sent, so far as I know. Sometimes people 
 criticise the poems one sends them, and suggest 
 all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly 
 body that wanted Burns to alter " Scots wha hae," 
 so as to lengthen the last line, thus ? 
 
 " Edward ! '' Chains and slavery ! 
 
 Here is a little poem I sent a short time since 
 to a committee for a certain celebration. I under 
 stood that it was to be a festive and convivial oc 
 casion, and ordered myself accordingly. It seems 
 the president of the day was what is called a 
 " teetotaller." I received a note from him in the 
 following words, containing the copy subjoined, 
 with the emendations annexed to it. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, Your poem gives good satisfac 
 tion to the committee. The sentiments expressed 
 with reference to liquor are not, however, those 
 generally entertained by this community. I have 
 therefore consulted the clergyman of this place, 
 who has made some slight changes, which he 
 thinks will remove all objections, and keep the 
 valuable portions of the poem. Please to inform 
 me of your charge for said poem. Our means 
 are limited, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 " Yours with respect." 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 55 
 
 HERE IT IS, WITH THE SLIGHT ALTERATIONS! 
 
 Come ! fill a fresh bumper, for why should we go 
 
 logwood 
 While the nectar still reddens our cups as they flow ? 
 
 decoction 
 Pour out the rich juic'js still bright with the sun, 
 
 dye-stuff 
 Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubies shall run. 
 
 half-ripened apples 
 The purplj globad clusters their life-dews have bled j 
 
 taste sugar of lead 
 
 How sweet is the brotith of the fragrance they ahod ! 
 
 rank poisons wines ! ! ! 
 
 For summer's laot'rooQo lie hid in the wines, 
 
 stable-boys smoking long-nines. 
 That were garnered by maidojo who Iftughga-thre' the vinea. 
 
 scowl howl scoff sneer 
 
 Then a gmili*, and a gtee&, and a teast, and a cliovr 
 strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer 
 For all tho goo.l wine, and we've some of it hero-'. 
 In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, 
 
 Down, down, with the tyrant that masters us all I 
 Ltmg tivo the gay net'v f ttut that laugha f<T ua all I 
 
 The company said I had been shabbily treated, 
 and advised me to charge the committee double, 
 which I did. But as I never got my pay, I 
 don't know that it made much difference. I am 
 a very particular person about having all I write 
 printed as I write it. I require to see a proof, a 
 revise, a re-revise, and a double re-revise, or fourth- 
 proof rectified impression of all my productions, 
 
56 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 especially verse. A misprint kills a sensitive 
 author. An intentional change of his text mur 
 ders him. No wonder so many poets die young ! 
 I have nothing more to report at this time, ex 
 cept two pieces of advice I gave to the young 
 women at table. One relates to a vulgarism of 
 language, which I grieve to say is sometimes 
 heard even from female lips. The other is of 
 more serious purport, and applies to such as con 
 template a change of condition, matrimony in 
 fact. 
 
 The woman who calculates " is lost. 
 
 Put not your trust in money, but put 
 
 your money in trust. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 57 
 
 III. 
 
 j|HE " Atlantic" obeys the moon, and its 
 LUNIVERSARY has come round again. 
 I have gathered up some hasty notes 
 of my remarks made since the last high 
 tides, which I respectfully submit. Please to re 
 member this is talk ; just as easy and just as for 
 mal as I choose to make it.] 
 
 1 never saw an author in my life saving, 
 
 perhaps, one that did not purr as audibly as a 
 full-grown domestic cat (Fdis Catus, LINN.), on 
 having his fur smoothed in the right way by a 
 skilful hand. 
 
 But let me give you a caution. Be very careful 
 how you tell an author he is droll. Ten to one he 
 will hate you ; and if he does, be sure he can do 
 you a mischief, and very probably will. Say you 
 cried over his romance or his verses, and he will 
 love you and send you a copy. You can laugh 
 over that as much as you like in private. 
 
 Wonder why authors and actors are 
 
 ashamed of being funny ? Why, there are ob 
 vious reasons, and deep philosophical ones. The 
 clown knows very well that the women are not in 
 
58 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 love with him, but with Hamlet, the fellow in the 
 black cloak and plumed hat. Passion never laughs. 
 The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a 
 procession. 
 
 If you want the deep underlying reason, I must 
 take more time to tell it. There is a perfect con 
 sciousness in every form of wit, using that term 
 in its general sense, that its essence consists in a 
 partial and incomplete view of whatever it touches. 
 It throws a single ray, separated from the rest, 
 red, yellow, blue, or any intermediate shade, 
 upon an object ; never white light ; that is the prov 
 ince of wisdom. We get beautiful effects from wit, 
 all the prismatic colors, but never the object 
 as it is in fair daylight. A pun, which is a kind 
 of wit, is a different and much shallower trick in 
 mental optics ; throwing the shadows of two objects 
 so that one overlies the other. Poetry uses the 
 rainbow tints for special effects, but always keeps 
 its essential object in the purest white light of 
 truth. Will you allow me to pursue this subject 
 a little further ? 
 
 [They did n't allow me at that time, for some 
 body happened to scrape the floor with his chair 
 just then; which accidental sound, as all must 
 have noticed, has the instantaneous effect that the 
 cutting of the yellow hair by Iris had upon infelix 
 Dido. It broke the charm, and that breakfast was 
 over.] 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 59 
 
 Don't flatter yourselves that friendship 
 
 authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your 
 intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come 
 into a relation with a person, the more necessary 
 do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of 
 necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn 
 unpleasant truths from his enemies ; they are ready 
 enough to tell them. Good-breeding never forgets 
 that amour-propre is universal. When you read 
 the story ef the Archbishop and Gil Bias, you may 
 laugh, if you will, at the poor old man's delusion; 
 but don't forget that the youth was the greater 
 fool of the two, and that his master served such a 
 booby rightly in turning him out of doors. 
 
 You need not get up a rebellion against 
 
 what I say, if you find everything in my sayings 
 is not exactly new. You can't possibly mistake a 
 man who means to be honest for a literary pick 
 pocket. I once read an introductory lecture that 
 looked to me too learned for its latitude. On 
 examination, I found all its erudition was taken 
 ready-made from D'Israeli. If I had been ill-na 
 tured, I should have shown up the little great man, 
 who had once belabored me in his feeble way. But 
 one can generally tell these wholesale thieves easily 
 enough, and they are not worth the trouble of put 
 ting them in the pillory. I doubt the entire nov 
 elty of my remarks just made on telling unpleasant 
 truths, yet>I am not conscious of any larceny. 
 
60 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Neither make too much of flaws and occasional 
 overstatements. Some persons seem to think that 
 absolute truth, in the form of rigidly stated propo 
 sitions, is all that conversation admits. This is 
 precisely as if a musician should insist on having 
 nothing but perfect chords and simple melodies, 
 no diminished fifths, no flat sevenths, no flourishes, 
 on any account. Now it is fair to say, that, just 
 as music must have all these, so conversation must 
 have its partial truths, its embellished truths, its ex 
 aggerated truths. It is in its higher forms an artis 
 tic product, and admits the ideal element as much 
 as pictures or statues. One man who is a little too 
 literal can spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men 
 of esprit. " Yes," you say, " but who wants to 
 hear fanciful people's nonsense ? Put the facts to 
 it, and then see where it is ! " Certainly, if a man 
 is too fond of paradox, if he is flighty and empty, 
 if, instead of striking those fifths and sevenths, 
 those harmonious discords, often so much better 
 than the twinned octaves, in the music of thought, 
 if, instead of striking these, he jangles the chords, 
 stick a fact into him like a stiletto. But remem 
 ber that talking is one of the fine arts, the no 
 blest, the most important, and the most difficult, 
 and that its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by 
 the intrusion of a single harsh note. Therefore 
 conversation which is suggestive rather than argu 
 mentative, which lets out the most of each talker's 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 61 
 
 results of thought, is commonly the pleasantest 
 and the most profitable. It is not easy, at the 
 best, for two persons talking together to make 
 the most of each other's thoughts, there are so 
 many of them. 
 
 [The company looked as if they wanted an, 
 explanation.] 
 
 When John and Thomas, for instance, are talk^ 
 ing together, it is natural enough that among the 
 six there should be more or less confusion and 
 misapprehension. 
 
 [Our landlady turned pale ; no doubt she 
 thought there was a screw loose in my intellects, 
 and that involved the probable loss of a boarder. 
 A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish 
 cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the 
 melodrama, whom I understand to be the profes 
 sional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded, 
 with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down 
 of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping 
 voce di petto, to FalstafTs nine men in buckram. 
 Everybody looked up. I believe the old gentle 
 man opposite was afraid I should seize the carving- 
 knife ; at any rate, he slid it to one side, as it were 
 carelessly.] 
 
 I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin 
 Franklin here, that there are at least six personal 
 ities distinctly to be recognized as taking part in 
 that dialogue between John and Thomas. 
 
Three Johns. 
 
 62 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 1. The real John 5 known only to his 
 
 Maker. 
 
 2. John's ideal John , never the real one, 
 
 and often very unlike him. 
 
 3. Thomas's ideal John , never the real 
 
 John, nor John's John, but often 
 
 very unlike either. 
 ( 1. The real Thomas. 
 
 Three Thomases. -\ 2. Thomas's ideal Thomas. 
 \^3. John's ideal Thomas. 
 
 Only one of the three Johns is taxed ; only one 
 can be weighed on a platform-balance ; but the 
 other two are just as important in the conversa 
 tion. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, 
 and ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have 
 not conferred on men the gift of seeing themselves 
 in the true light, John very possibly conceives him 
 self to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and 
 talks from the point of view of this ideal. Thom 
 as, again, believes him to be an artful rogue, we 
 will say ; therefore he is, so far as Thomas's atti 
 tude in the conversation is concerned, an artful 
 rogue, though really simple and stupid. The same 
 conditions apply to the three Thomases. It fol 
 lows, that, until a man can be found who knows 
 himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees him 
 self as others see him, there must be at least six 
 persons engaged in every dialogue between two. 
 Of these, the least important, philosophically 
 speaking, is the one that we have called the real 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 63 
 
 person. No wonder two disputants often get an 
 gry, when there are six of them talking and lis 
 tening all at the same time. 
 
 [A very unphilosophical application of the above 
 remarks was made by a young fellow, answering 
 to the name of John, who sits near me at table. 
 A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little 
 known to boarding-houses, was on its way to me 
 via this unlettered Johannes. He appropriated the 
 three that remained in the basket, remarking that 
 there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him 
 that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, 
 but in the mean time he had eaten the peaches.] 
 
 The opinions of relatives as to a man's 
 
 powers are very commonly of little value; not 
 merely because they sometimes overrate their own 
 flesh and blood, as some may suppose ; on the 
 contrary, they are quite as likely to underrate those 
 whom they have grown into the habit of consider 
 ing like themselves. The advent of genius is like 
 what florists style the breaking of a seedling tulip 
 into what we may call high-caste colors, ten 
 thousand dingy flowers, then one with the divine 
 streak ; or, if you prefer it, like the coming up in 
 old Jacob's garden of that most gentlemanly little 
 fruit, the seckel pear, which I have sometimes seen 
 in shop-windows. It is a surprise, there is noth 
 ing to account for it. All at once we find that 
 twice two make five. Nature is fond of what are 
 
64 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 called " gift-enterprises." This little book of life 
 which she has given into the hands of its joint 
 possessors is commonly one of the old story-books 
 bound over again. Only once in a great while 
 there is a stately poem in it, or its leaves are illu 
 minated with the glories of art, or they enfold a 
 draft for untold values signed by the million-fold 
 millionnaire old mother herself. But strangers are 
 commonly the first to find the " gift " that came 
 with the little book. 
 
 It may be questioned whether anything can be 
 conscious of its own flavor. Whether the musk- 
 deer, or the civet-cat, or even a still more eloquent 
 ly silent animal that might be mentioned, is aware 
 of any personal peculiarity, may well be doubted. 
 No man knows his own voice ; many men do not 
 know their own profiles. Every one remembers 
 Carlyle's famous " Characteristics " article ; allow 
 for exaggerations, and there is a great deal in his 
 doctrine of the self-unconsciousness of genius. 
 It comes under the great law just stated. This 
 incapacity of knowing its own traits is often 
 found in the family as well as in the individual. 
 So never mind what your cousins, brothers, sisters, 
 uncles, aunts, and the rest say about that fine poem 
 you have written, but send it (postage-paid) to the 
 editors, if there are any, of the " Atlantic," 
 which, by the way, is not so called, because it is a 
 notion, as some dull wits wish they had said, but 
 are too late. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 65 
 
 Scientific knowledge, even in the most 
 
 modest persons, has mingled with it a something 
 which partakes of insolence. Absolute, peremp 
 tory facts are bullies, and those who keep company 
 with them are apt to get a bullying habit of mind ; 
 not of manners, perhaps ; they may be soft and 
 smooth, but the smile they carry has a quiet asser 
 tion in it, such as the Champion of the Heavy 
 Weights, commonly the best-natured, but not the 
 most diffident of men, wears upon what he very 
 inelegantly calls his " mug." Take the man, for 
 instance, who deals in the mathematical sciences. 
 There is no elasticity in a mathematical fact; if 
 you bring up against it, it never yields a hair's 
 breadth ; everything must go to pieces that comes 
 in collision with it. What the mathematician 
 knows being absolute, unconditional, incapable of 
 suffering question, it should tend, in the nature of 
 things, to breed a despotic way of thinking. So 
 of those who deal with the palpable and often un 
 mistakable facts of external nature ; only in a 
 less degree. Every probability and most of our 
 common, working beliefs are probabilities is pro 
 vided with buffers at both ends, which break the 
 force of opposite opinions clashing against it ; but 
 scientific certainty has no spring in it, no courtesy, 
 no possibility of yielding. All this must react oil 
 the minds which handle these forms of truth. 
 
 O, you need not tell me that Messrs. A. 
 
 S 
 
66 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 and B. are the most gracious, unassuming people 
 in the world, and yet pre-eminent in the ranges 
 of science I am referring to. I know that as well 
 as you. But mark this which I am going to say 
 once for all : If I had not force enough to project 
 a principle full in the face of the half-dozen most 
 obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would 
 think only in single file from this day forward. 
 A rash man, once visiting a certain noted insti 
 tution at South Boston, ventured to express the 
 sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old 
 woman who was an attendant in the Idiot School 
 contradicted the statement, and appealed to the 
 facts before the speaker to disprove it. The rash 
 man stuck to his hasty generalization, notwith 
 standing. 
 
 [ It is my desire to be useful to those with 
 
 whom I am associated in my daily relations. I 
 not unfrequently practise the divine art of music 
 in company with our landlady's daughter, who, as 
 I mentioned before, is the owner of an accordion. 
 Having myself a well-marked barytone voice of 
 more than half an octave in compass, I sometimes 
 add my vocal powers to her execution of 
 
 " Thou, thou reign'st in this bosom," 
 
 not, however, unless her mother or some other 
 discreet female is present, to prevent misinterpre 
 tation or remark. I have also taken a good deal 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 67 
 
 of interest in Benjamin Franklin, before referred 
 to, sometimes called B. F., or more frequently 
 Frank, in imitation of that felicitous abbreviation, 
 combining dignity and convenience, adopted by 
 some of his betters. My acquaintance with the 
 French language is very imperfect, I having never 
 studied it anywhere but in Paris, which is awk 
 ward, as B. F. devotes himself to it with the pecul 
 iar advantage of an Alsacian teacher. The boy, 
 I think, is doing well, between us, notwithstand 
 ing. The following is an uncorrected French ex 
 ercise, written by this young gentleman. His 
 mother thinks it very creditable to his abilities ; 
 though, being unacquainted with the French lan 
 guage, her judgment cannot be considered final. 
 
 LE RAT DES SALONS A. LECTURE. 
 
 Ce rat 91 est un animal fort singulier. Tl a deux 
 pattes de derriere sur lesquelles il marche, et deux 
 pattes de devant dont il fait usage pour tenir les jour- 
 naux. Get animal a la peau noire pour le plupart, et 
 porte un cercle blanchatre autour de son cou. On le 
 trouve tous les jours aux dits salons, ou il demeure, 
 digere, s'il y a de quoi dans son interieur, respire, 
 tousse, eternue, dort, et ronfle quelquefois, ayant tou- 
 jours le semblant de lire. On ne sait pas s'il a une 
 aulre gite que eela. II a Pair d'une bete tres stupide, 
 mais il est d'une sagacite et d'une vitesse extraordi 
 naire quand il s'agit de saisir un journal nouveau. 
 On ne suit pas pourquoi il lit, parcequ'il ne parait pas 
 avoir des idees. II vocalise rarement, mais en re- 
 
68 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 vanche, il fait des bruits nasaux divers. II porte un 
 crayon dans une de ses poches pectorales, avec lequel 
 il fait des marques sur les bords des journaux et des 
 livres, semblable aux suivans : ! ! ! Bah ! Pooh ! II 
 ne faut pas cependant les prendre pour des signes 
 d' intelligence. II ne vole pas, ordinairement; il fait 
 rarement meme des echanges de parapluie, et jamais 
 de chapeau, parceque son chapeau a toujours un 
 caractere specifique. On ne sait pas au juste ce dont 
 il ?e nourrit. Feu Cuvier e"tait d'avis que c'etait de 
 1'odeur du cuir des reliures; ce qu'on dit d'etre une 
 nourriture animale fort saine, et peu chere. II vit 
 bien longtems. Enfin il meure, en laissant a ses 
 he"ritiers une carte du Salon a Lecture ou il avait 
 exist^ pendant sa vie. On pretend qu'il revient 
 toutes les nuits, apres la mort, visiter le Salon. On 
 peut le voir, dit on, a minuit, dans sa place habituelle, 
 tenant le journal du soir, et ayant a sa main un 
 crayon de charbon. Le lendemain on trouve des 
 caracteres inconnus sur les bords du journal. Ce qui 
 prouve que le spiritualisme est vrai, et que Messieurs 
 les Professeurs de Cambridge sont des imbeciles qui 
 ne savent rien du tout, du tout. 
 
 I think this exercise, which I have not cor 
 rected, or allowed to be touched in any way, is 
 not discreditable to B. F. You observe that he is 
 acquiring a knowledge of zoology at the same 
 time that he is learning French. Fathers of fami 
 lies in moderate circumstances will find it profit 
 able to their children, and an economical mode of 
 instruction, to set them to revising and amending 
 this boy's exercise. The passage was originally 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 69 
 
 taken from the " Histoire Naturelle des Betes 
 Ruminans et Rongeurs, Bipedes et Autres," lately 
 published in Paris. This was translated into 
 English and published in London. It was re- 
 published at Great Pedlington, with notes and 
 additions by the American editor. The notes 
 consist of an interrogation-mark on page 53d, and 
 a reference (p. 127th) to another book "edited" 
 by the same hand. The additions consist of the 
 editor's name on the title-page and back, with a 
 complete and authentic list of said editor's honor 
 ary titles in the first of these localities. Our boy 
 translated the translation back into French. This 
 may be compared with the original, to be found 
 on Shelf 13, Division X, of the Public Library 
 of this metropolis.] 
 
 Some of you boarders ask me from time 
 
 to time why I don't write a story, or a novel, or 
 something of that kind. Instead of answering 
 each one of you separately, I will thank you to 
 step up into the wholesale department for a few 
 moments, where I deal in answers by the piece 
 and by the bale. 
 
 That every articulately-speaking human being 
 has in him stuff for one novel in three volumes 
 duodecimo has long been with me a cherished be 
 lief. It has been maintained, on the other hand, 
 that many persons cannot write more than one 
 novel, that all after that are likely to be failures. 
 
70 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Life is so much more tremendous a thing in its 
 heights and depths than any transcript of it can be, 
 that all records of human experience are as so 
 many bound herbaria to the innumerable glowing, 
 glistening, rustling, breathing, fragrance-laden, poi 
 son-sucking, life-giving, death-distilling leaves and 
 flowers of the forest and the prairies. All we can 
 do with books of human experience is to make 
 them alive again with something borrowed from 
 our own lives. We can make a book alive for us 
 just in proportion to its resemblance in essence or 
 in form to our own experience. Now an author's 
 first novel is naturally drawn, to a great extent, 
 from his personal experiences ; that is, is a literal 
 copy of nature under various slight disguises. 
 But the moment the author gets out of his person 
 ality, he must have the creative power, as well as 
 the narrative art and the sentiment, in order to 
 tell a living story; and this is rare. 
 
 Besides, there is great danger that a man's first 
 life-story shall clean him out, so to speak, of his 
 best thoughts. Most lives, though their stream 
 is loaded with sand and turbid with alluvial waste, 
 drop a few golden grains of wisdom as they flow 
 along. Oftentimes a single cradling gets them 
 all, and after that the poor man's labor is only 
 rewarded by mud and worn pebbles. All which 
 proves that I, as an individual of the human fam 
 ily, could write one novel or story at any rate, if 
 I would. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 71 
 
 Why don't I, then ? Well, there are 
 
 several reasons against it. In the first place, I 
 should tell all my secrets, and I maintain that 
 verse is the proper medium for such revelations. 
 Rhythm and rhyme and the harmonies of musical 
 language, the play of fancy, the fire of imagina 
 tion, the flashes of passion, so hide the nakedness 
 of a heart laid open, that hardly any confession, 
 transfigured in the luminous halo of poetry, is 
 reproached as self-exposure. A beauty shows 
 herself under the chandeliers, protected by the 
 glitter of her diamonds, with such a broad snow 
 drift of white arms and shoulders laid bare, that, 
 were she unadorned and in plain calico, she would 
 be unendurable, in the opinion of the ladies. 
 
 Again, I am terribly afraid I should show up 
 all my friends. I should like to know if all story 
 tellers do not do this ? Now I am afraid all my 
 friends would not bear showing up very well ; for 
 they have an average share of the common weak 
 ness of humanity, which I am pretty certain would 
 come out. Of all that have told stories among 
 us there is hardly one I can recall who has not 
 drawn too faithfully some living portrait that 
 might better have been spared. 
 
 Once more, I have sometimes thought it possi 
 ble I might be too dull to write such a story as I 
 should wish to write. 
 
 And finally, I think it very likely I shall write 
 
72 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 a story one of these days. J)on't be surprised at 
 any time, if you see me coming out with " The 
 Schoolmistress," or " The Old Gentleman Oppo 
 site/' [Oar schoolmistress and our old gentleman 
 that sits opposite had left the table before I said 
 this.] I want my glory for writing the same dis 
 counted now, on the spot, if you please. I will 
 write when I get ready. How many people live 
 on the reputation of the reputation they might 
 have made ! 
 
 1 saw you smiled when I spoke about the 
 
 possibility of my being too dull to write a good 
 story. I don't pretend to know what you meant 
 by it, but I take occasion to make a remark which 
 may hereafter prove of value to some among you. 
 
 When one of us who has been led by native 
 vanity or senseless flattery to think himself or her 
 self possessed of talent arrives at the full and final 
 conclusion that he or she is really dull, it is one 
 of the most tranquillizing and blessed convictions 
 that can enter a mortal's mind. All our failures, 
 our short-comings, our strange disappointments 
 in the effect of our efforts are lifted from our 
 bruised shoulders, and fall, like Christian's pack, 
 at the feet of that Omnipotence which has seen fit 
 to deny us the pleasant gift of high intelligence, 
 
 with which one look may overflow us in some 
 wider sphere of being. 
 
 How sweetly and honestly one said to ma 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 73 
 
 the other day, " I hate books ! " A gentleman, 
 singularly free from affectations, not learned, 
 of course, but of perfect breeding, which is often 
 so much better than learning, by no means 
 dull, in the sense of knowledge of the world and 
 society, but certainly not clever either in the arts 
 or sciences, his company is pleasing to all who 
 know him. I did not recognize in him inferiority 
 of literary taste half so distinctly as I did sim 
 plicity of character and fearless acknowledgment 
 of his inaptitude for scholarship. In fact, I think 
 there are a great many gentlemen and others, who 
 read with a mark to keep their place, that really 
 " hate books," but 'never had the wit to find it 
 out, or the manliness to own it. [Entre nous, I 
 always read with a mark.] 
 
 We get into a way of thinking as if what we 
 call an " intellectual man " was, as a matter of 
 course, made up of nine tenths, or thereabouts, of 
 book-learning, and one tenth himself. But even 
 if he is actually so compounded, he need not read 
 much. Society is a strong solution of books. It 
 draws the virtue out of what is best worth read 
 ing, as hot water draws the strength of tea- 
 leaves. If I were a prince, I would hire or buy a 
 private literary teapot, in which I would steep all 
 the leaves of new books that promised well. The 
 infusion would do for me without the vegetable 
 fibre. You understand me ; I would have a per- 
 
74 THE AUTOCRAT. 
 
 son whose sole business should be to read day and 
 night, and talk to me whenever I wanted him to. 
 I know the man I would have : a quick-witted 
 out-spoken, incisive fellow ; knows history, or at 
 any rate has a shelf full of books about it, which 
 he can use handily, and the same of all useful arts 
 and sciences; knows all the common plots of 
 plays and novels, and the stock company of char 
 acters that are continually coming on in new cos 
 tume ; can give you a criticism of an octavo in an 
 epithet and a wink, and you can depend on it ; 
 cares for nobody except for the virtue there is in 
 what he says ; delights in taking off big wigs and 
 professional gowns, and in the disembalming and 
 unbandaging of all literary mummies. Yet he is as 
 tender and reverential to all that bears the mark 
 of genius, that is, of a new influx of truth or 
 beauty, as a nun over her missal. In short, he 
 is one of those men that know everything except 
 how to make a living. Him would I keep on the 
 square next my own royal compartment on life's 
 chessboard. To him I would push up another 
 pawn, in the shape of a comely and wise young 
 woman, whom he would of course take to wife. 
 For all contingencies I would liberally provide. 
 In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive 
 phrase, " put him through " all the material part 
 of life ; see him sheltered, warmed, fed, button- 
 mended, and all that, just to be able to lay on his 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 75 
 
 talk when I liked, with the privilege of shutting 
 it off at will. 
 
 A Club is the next best thing to this, strung 
 like a harp, with about a dozen ringing intelligen 
 ces, each answering to some chord of the macro 
 cosm. They do well to dine together once in a 
 while. A dinner-party made up of such elements 
 is the last triumph of civilization ovr barbarism. 
 Nature and art combine to charm the senses ; the 
 equatorial zone of the system is soothed by well- 
 studied artifices ; the faculties are off duty, and 
 fall into their natural attitudes ; you see wisdom 
 in slippers and science in a short jacket. 
 
 The whole course of conversation depends on 
 how much you can take for granted. Vulgar 
 chess-players have to play their game out ; nothing 
 short of the brutality of an actual checkmate satis 
 fies their dull apprehensions. But look at two 
 masters of that noble game ! White stands well 
 enough, so far as you can see ; but Red says, 
 Mate in six moves ; White looks, nods ; 
 the game is over. Just so in talking with first- 
 rate men ; especially when they are good-natured 
 and expansive, as they are apt to be at table. 
 That blessed clairvoyance which sees into things 
 without opening them, that glorious license, 
 which, having shut the door and driven the re 
 porter from its key-hole, calls upon Truth, majes 
 tic virgin ! to get off from her pedestal and drop 
 
76 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 her academic poses, and take a festive garland and 
 the vacant place on the medius lectus, that car 
 nival-shower of questions and replies and com 
 ments, large axioms bowled over the mahogany 
 like bombshells from professional mortars, and ex 
 plosive wit dropping its trains of many-colored 
 fire, and the mischief-making rain of bon-bons 
 pelting everybody that shows himself, the pict 
 ure of a truly intellectual banquet is one which 
 the old Divinities might well have attempted to 
 reproduce in their 
 
 " Oh, oh, oh ! " cried the young fellow 
 
 whom they call John, " that is from one of 
 your lectures ! " 
 
 I know it, I replied, I concede it, I confess 
 it, I proclaim it. 
 
 " The trail of the serpent is over them all ! " 
 
 All lecturers, all professors, all schoolmasters, have 
 ruts and grooves in their minds into which their 
 conversation is perpetually sliding. Did you never, 
 in riding through the woods of a still June evening, 
 suddenly feel that you had passed into a warm stra 
 tum of air, and in a minute or two strike the chill 
 layer of atmosphere beyond ? Did you never, in 
 cleaving the green waters of the Back Bay, 
 where the Provincial blue-noses are in the habit 
 of beating the " Metropolitan " boat-clubs, find 
 yourself in a tepid streak, a narrow, local gulf- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 77 
 
 stream, a gratuitous warm-bath a little underdone, 
 through which your glistening shoulders soon 
 flashed, to bring you back to the cold realities 
 of full-sea temperature'* Just so, in talking with 
 any of the characters above referred to, one not 
 unfrequently finds a sudden change in the style of 
 the conversation. The lack-lustre eye, rayless as 
 a Beacon Street door-plate in August, all at once 
 fills with light ; the face flings itself wide open like 
 the church-portals when the bride and bridegroom 
 enter ; the little man grows in stature before your 
 eyes, like the small prisoner with hair on end, be 
 loved yet dreaded of early childhood ; you were 
 talking with a dwarf and an imbecile, you have 
 a giant and a trumpet-tongued angel before you ! 
 Nothing but a streak out of a fifty-dollar lect 
 ure. As when, at some unlooked-for moment, 
 
 the mighty fountain-column springs into the air be 
 fore the astonished passer-by, silver-footed, dia 
 mond-crowned, rainbow-scarfed, from the bosom 
 of that fair sheet, sacred to the hymns of quiet 
 batrachians at home, and the epigrams of a less 
 amiable and less elevated order of reptilia in other 
 latitudes. 
 
 Who was that person that was so abused 
 
 some time since for saying that in the conflict of 
 two races our sympathies naturally go with the 
 higher 1 No matter who he was. Now look at 
 what is going on in India, a white, superior 
 
7 8 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 " Caucasian " race, against a dark-skinned, inferior, 
 but still " Caucasian " race, and where are Eng 
 lish and American sympathies ? We can't stop 
 to settle all the doubtful questions ; all we know 
 is, that the brute nature is sure to come out most 
 strongly in the lower race, and it is the general law 
 that the human side of humanity should treat the 
 brutal side as it does the same nature in the inferior 
 animals, tame it or crush it. The India mail 
 brings stories of women and children outraged and 
 murdered ; the royal stronghold is in the hands of 
 the babe-killers. England takes down the Map of 
 the World, which she has girdled with empire, and 
 makes a correction thus : Dfit^f Dele. The civ 
 ilized world says, Amen. 
 
 Do not think, because I talk to you of 
 
 many subjects briefly, that I should not find it 
 much lazier work to take each one of them and 
 dilute it down to an essay. Borrow some of my 
 old college themes and water my remarks to suit 
 yourselves, as the Homeric heroes did with their 
 melas oinos, that black, sweet, sirupy wine (?) 
 which they used to alloy with three parts or more 
 of the flowing stream. [Could it have been melas- 
 ses, as Webster and his provincials spell it, or 
 Molossa's, as dear old smattering, chattering, would- 
 be- College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in the 
 " Magnalia " ? Ponder thereon, ye small antiqua 
 ries, who make barn-door-fowl flights of learning 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 79 
 
 in " Notes and Queries ! " ye Historical Societies, 
 in one of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend 
 the stream of time, while other hands tug at the 
 oars ! ye Amines of parasitical literature, who 
 pick up your grains of native-grown food with a 
 bodkin, having gorged upon less honest fare, until, 
 like the great minds Goethe speaks of, you have 
 " made a Golgotha " of your pages ! ponder 
 thereon !] 
 
 Before you go, this morning, I want to 
 
 read you a copy of verses. You will understand 
 by the title that they are written in an imaginary 
 character. I don't doubt they will fit some family- 
 man well enough. I send it forth as " Oak Hall " 
 projects a coat, on a priori grounds of conviction 
 that it will suit somebody. There is no loftier 
 illustration of faith than this. It believes that a 
 soul has been clad in flesh ; that tender parents 
 have fed and nurtured it; that its mysterious com- 
 pages or framework has survived its myriad expos 
 ures and reached the stature of maturity ; that the 
 Man, now self-determining, has given in his adhe 
 sion to the traditions and habits of the race in favor 
 of artificial clothing ; that he will, having all the 
 world to choose from, select the very locality where 
 this audacious generalization has been acted upon. 
 It builds a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, 
 and trusts that Nature will model a material shape 
 to fit it. There is a prophecy in every seam, and 
 
go THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 its pockets are full of inspiration. Now hear the 
 verses. 
 
 THE OLD MAN DREAMS. 
 
 for one hour of youthful joy ! 
 
 Give back my twentieth spring ! 
 I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy 
 
 Than reign a gray-beard king ! 
 
 Off with the wrinkled spoils of age ! 
 
 Away with learning's crown ! 
 Tear out life's wisdom-written page, 
 
 And dash its trophies down ! 
 
 One moment let my life-blood stream 
 
 From boyhood's fount of flame ! 
 Give me one giddy, reeling dream 
 
 Of life all love and fame ! 
 
 My listening angel heard the prayer, 
 And calmly smiling, said, 
 
 " If I but touch thy silvered hair, 
 Thy hasty wish hath sped. 
 
 " But is there nothing in thy track 
 
 To bid thee fondly stay, 
 While the swift seasons hurry back 
 
 To find the wished-for day ? " 
 
 Ah, truest soul of womankind ! 
 Without thee, what were life ? 
 
 One bliss I cannot leave behind : 
 I '11 take my precious wife ! 
 
 The angel took a sapphire pen 
 
 And wrote in rainbow dew, 
 " The man would be a boy again, 
 
 And be a husband too ! " 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 81 
 
 " And is there nothing yet unsaid 
 
 Before the change appears ? 
 Remember, all their gifts have fled 
 
 With those dissolving years ! " 
 
 Why, yes , for memory would recall 
 
 My fond paternal joys ; 
 I could not bear to leave them all ; 
 
 I T ll take my girl and boys ! 
 
 The smiling angel dropped his pen, 
 
 " Why this will never do 5 
 The man would be a boy again, 
 
 And be a father too ! " 
 
 And so I laughed, my laughter woke 
 
 The household with its noise, 
 ind wrote my dream, when morning broke, 
 
 To please the gray-haired boys. 
 
82 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 IV. 
 
 AM so well pleased with my boarding- 
 house that I intend to remain there, 
 perhaps for years. Of course I shall 
 have a great many conversations to re 
 port, and they will necessarily be of different tone 
 and on different subjects. The talks are like the 
 breakfasts, sometimes dipped toast, and some 
 times dry. You must take them as they come. 
 How can I do what all these letters ask me to ? 
 No. 1. wants serious and earnest thought. No. 2. 
 (letter smells of bad cigars) must have more jokes ; 
 wants me to tell a " good storey " which he has 
 copied out for me. (I suppose two letters before 
 the word " good " refer to some Doctor of Divinity 
 who told the story.) No. 3. (in female hand) 
 more poetry. No. ,4. wants something that would 
 be of use to a practical man. (Prahctical mahn 
 he probably pronounces it.) No. 5. (gilt-edged, 
 sweet-scented) " more sentiment," "heart's 
 
 outpourings. " 
 
 My dear friends, one and all, I can do nothing 
 but report such remarks as I happen to have made 
 at our breakfast-table. Their character will depend 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 83 
 
 on many accidents, a good deal on the particu 
 lar persons in the company to whom they were 
 addressed. It so happens that those which follow 
 were mainly intended for the divinity-student and 
 the school-mistress ; though others, whom I need 
 not mention, saw fit to interfere, with more or less 
 propriety, in the conversation. This is one of my 
 privileges as a talker ; and of course, if I was not 
 talking for our whole company, I don't expect all 
 the readers of this periodical to be interested in 
 my notes of what was said. Still, I think there 
 may be a few that will rather like this vein, 
 possibly prefer it to a livelier one, serious young 
 men and young women generally, in life's roseate 
 parenthesis from years of age to in 
 clusive. 
 
 Another privilege of talking is to misquote. 
 Of course it was n't Proserpina that actually cut 
 the yellow hair, but Iris. (As I have since told 
 you) it was the former lady's regular business, but 
 Dido had used herself ungenteelly, and Madame 
 d'Enfer stood firm on the point of etiquette. So 
 the bathycolpian Here Juno, in Latin sent 
 down Iris instead. But I was mightily pleased to 
 see that one of the gentlemen that do the heavy 
 articles for the celebrated " Oceanic Miscellany " 
 misquoted Campbell's line without any excuse. 
 " Waft us home the message " of course it ought to 
 be. Will he be duly grateful for the correction ? ] 
 
8 4 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 The more we study the body and the mind, 
 
 the more we find both to be governed, not by, but 
 according to laws, such as we observe in the larger 
 universe. You think you know all about walking, 
 
 don't you, now ? Well, how do you suppose 
 your lower limbs are held to your body ? They 
 are sucked up by two cupping vessels, (" cotyloid " 
 
 cup-like cavities,) and held there as long as 
 you live, and longer. At any rate, you think you 
 move them backward and forward at such a rate 
 as your will determines, don't you ? On the con 
 trary, they swing just as any other pendulums 
 swing, at a fixed rate, determined by their length. 
 You can alter this by muscular power, as you can 
 take hold of the pendulum of a clock and make it 
 move faster or slower; but your ordinary gait is 
 timed by the same mechanism as the movements 
 of the solar system. 
 
 [My friend, the Professor, told me all this, refer 
 ring me to certain German physiologists by the 
 name of Weber for proof of the facts, which, how 
 ever, he said he had often verified. I appropriated 
 it to my own use ; what can one do better than 
 this, when one has a friend that tells him anything 
 worth remembering ? 
 
 The Professor seems to think that man and the 
 general powers of the universe are in partnership. 
 Some one was saying that it had cost nearly half a 
 million to move the Leviathan onlv so far as they 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 85 
 
 had got it already. Why, said the Professor, 
 they might have hired an EARTHQUAKE for less 
 money ! ] 
 
 Just as we find a mathematical rule at the bot 
 tom of many of the bodily movements, just so 
 thought may be supposed to have its regular cy 
 cles. Such or such a thought comes round peri 
 odically, in its turn. Accidental suggestions, how 
 ever, so far interfere with the regular cycles, that 
 we may find them practically beyond our power 
 of recognition. Take all this for what it is worth, 
 but at any rate you will agree that there are cer 
 tain particular thoughts that do not come up once 
 a day, nor once a week, but that a year would 
 hardly go round without your having them pass 
 through your mind. Here is one which comes up 
 at intervals in this way. Some one speaks of it, 
 and there is an instant and eager smile of assent 
 in the listener or listeners. Yes, indeed; they 
 have often been struck by it. 
 
 All at once a conviction flashes through us that we 
 have been in the same precise circumstances as at the 
 present instant, once or many times before. 
 
 O dear, yes ! said one of the company, 
 everybody has had that feeling. 
 
 The landlady did n't know anything about such 
 notions ; it was an idee in folks' heads, she expected. 
 
 The schoolmistress said, in a hesitating sort of 
 way, that she knew the feeling well, and did n't like 
 
86 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 to experience it ; it made her think she was a ghost, 
 sometimes. 
 
 The young fellow whom they call John said he 
 knew all about it; he had just lighted a cheroot 
 the other day, when a tremendous conviction all at 
 once came over him that he had done just that 
 same thing ever so many times before. I looked 
 severely at him, and his countenance immediately 
 fell on the side toward me ; I cannot answer for 
 the other, for he can wink and laugh with either 
 half of his face without the other half's knowing it. 
 
 1 have noticed I went on to say the 
 
 following circumstances connected with these sud 
 den impressions. First, that the condition which 
 seems to be the duplicate of a former one is often 
 very trivial, one that might have presented itself 
 a hundred times. Secondly, that the impression is 
 very evanescent, and that it is rarely, if ever, re 
 called by any voluntary effort, at least after any 
 time has elapsed. Thirdly, that there is a disincli 
 nation to record the circumstances, and a sense of 
 incapacity to reproduce the state of mind in words. 
 Fourthly, I have often felt that the duplicate condi 
 tion had not only occurred once before, but that it 
 was familiar and, as it seemed, habitual. Lastly, 
 I have had the same convictions in my dreams. 
 
 How do I account for it ? Why, there are sev 
 eral ways that I can mention, and you may take 
 your choice. The first is that which the young 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 87 
 
 lady hinted at ; that these flashes are sudden rec 
 ollections of a previous existence. I don't believe 
 that ; for I remember a poor student I used to know- 
 told me he had such a conviction one day when he 
 was blacking his boots, and I can't think he had 
 ever lived in another world where they use Day 
 and Martin. 
 
 Some think that Dr. Wigan's doctrine of the 
 brain's being a double organ, its hemispheres work 
 ing together like the two eyes, accounts for it. One 
 of the hemispheres hangs fire, they suppose, and 
 the small interval between the perceptions of the 
 nimble and the sluggish half seems an indefinitely 
 long period, and therefore the second perception 
 appears to be the copy of another, ever so old. But 
 even allowing the centre of perception to be double, 
 I can see no good reason for supposing this indefi 
 nite lengthening of the time, nor any analogy that 
 bears it out. It seems to me most likely that the 
 coincidence of circumstances is very partial, but 
 that we take this partial resemblance for identity, 
 as we occasionally do resemblances of persons. A 
 momentary posture of circumstances is so far like 
 some preceding one that we accept it as exactly the 
 same, just as we accost a stranger occasionally, 
 mistaking him for a friend. The apparent similar 
 ity may be owing perhaps, quite as much to the 
 mental state at the time, as to the outward circum 
 stances. 
 
88 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Here is another of these curiously recur 
 ring remarks. I have said it, and heard it many 
 times, and occasionally met with something like it 
 in books, somewhere in Bulwer's novels, I think, 
 and in one of the works of Mr. Olmsted, I know. 
 
 Memory, imagination, old sentiments and associations, 
 are more readily reached through the sense of SMELL 
 than by almost any other channel. 
 
 Of course the particular odors which act upon 
 each person's susceptibilities differ. yes ! I 
 will tell you some of mine. The smell of phos 
 phorus is one of them. During a year or two of 
 adolescence I used to be dabbling in chemistry a 
 good deal, and as about that time I had my little 
 aspirations and passions like another, some of these 
 things got mixed up with each other: orange-col 
 ored fumes of nitrous acid, and visions as bright 
 and transient ; reddening litmus-paper, and blush 
 ing cheeks ; eheu ! 
 
 ** Soles occidere et re dire possunt," 
 
 but there is no reagent that will redden the faded 
 
 roses of eighteen hundred and spare them ! 
 
 But, as I was saying, phosphorus fires this train 
 of associations in an instant ; its luminous vapors 
 with their penetrating odor throw me into a trance ; 
 it comes to me in a double sense " trailing clouds of 
 glory." Only the confounded Vienna matches, ohm 
 phosphor-geruch, have worn my sensibilities a little. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 89 
 
 Then there is the marigold. When I was of 
 smallest dimensions, and wont to ride impacted 
 between the knees of fond parental pair, we would 
 sometimes cross the bridge to the next village-town 
 and stop opposite a low, brown, " gambrel-roofed " 
 cottage. Out of it would come one Sally, sister of 
 its swarthy tenant, swarthy herself, shady-lipped, 
 sad-voiced, and, bending over her flower-bed, would 
 gather a " posy/' as she called it, for the little boy. 
 Sally lies in the churchyard with a slab of blue 
 slate at her head, lichen-crusted, and leaning a little 
 within the last few years. Cottage, garden-beds, 
 posies, grenadier-like rows of seedling onions, 
 stateliest of vegetables, all are gone, but the 
 breath of a marigold brings them all back to me. 
 
 Perhaps the herb everlasting, the fragrant immor 
 telle of our autumn fields, has the most suggestive 
 odor to me of all those that set me dreaming. I 
 can hardly describe the strange thoughts and emo 
 tions that come to me as I inhale the aroma of its 
 pale, dry, rustling flowers. A something it has 
 of sepulchral spicery, as if it had been brought 
 from the core of some great pyramid, where it 
 had lain on the breast of a mummied Pharaoh. 
 Something, too, of immortality in the sad, faint 
 sweetness lingering so long in its lifeless petals. 
 Yet this does not tell why it fills my eyes with 
 tears and carries me in blissful thought to the 
 banks of asphodel that border the River of Life. 
 
9 o THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 1 should not have talked so much about 
 
 these personal susceptibilities, if I had not a re 
 mark to make about them which I believe is a new 
 one. It is this. There may be a physical reason 
 for the strange connection between the sense of 
 smell and the mind. The olfactory nerve so 
 my friend, the Professor, tells me is the only 
 one directly connected with the hemispheres of the 
 brain, the parts in which, as we have every reason 
 to believe, the intellectual processes are performed. 
 To speak more truly, the olfactory " nerve " is not 
 a nerve at all, he says, but a part of the brain, 
 in intimate connection with its anterior lobes. 
 Whether this anatomical arrangement is at the 
 bottom of the facts I have mentioned, I will not 
 decide, but it is curious enough to be worth re 
 membering. Contrast the sense of taste, as a source 
 of suggestive impressions, with that of smell. Now 
 the Professor assures me that you will find the 
 nerve of taste has no immediate connection with 
 the brain proper, but only with the prolongation 
 of the spinal cord. 
 
 [The old gentleman opposite did not pay much 
 attention, I think, to this hypothesis of mine. But 
 while I was speaking about the sense of smell he 
 nestled about in his seat, and presently succeeded 
 in getting out a large red bandanna handkerchief. 
 Then he lurched a little to the other side, and after 
 much tribulation at last extricated an ample round 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 91 
 
 snuffbox. I looked as he opened it and felt for the 
 wonted pugil. Moist rappee, and a Tonka-bean 
 lying therein. I made the manual sign understood 
 of all mankind that use the precious dust, and pres 
 ently my brain, too, responded to the long unused 
 
 stimulus. O boys, that were, actual papas 
 
 and possible grandpapas, some of you with 
 crowns like billiard-balls, some in locks of sa 
 ble silvered, and some of silver sabled, do you 
 remember, as you doze over this, those after-dinners 
 at the Trois Freres, when the Scotch-plaided snuff 
 box went round, and the dry Lundy-Foot tickled 
 its way along into our happy sensoria ? Then it 
 was that the Chambertin or the Clos Vougeot came 
 in, slumbering in its straw cradle. And one among 
 you, do you remember how he would have a bit 
 of ice always in his Burgundy, and sit tinkling it 
 against the sides of the bubble-like glass, saying 
 that he was hearing the cow-bells as he used to 
 hear them, when the deep-breathing kine came 
 home at twilight from the huckleberry pasture, 
 in the old home a thousand leagues towards the 
 sunset ?] 
 
 Ah me ! what strains and strophes of unwritten 
 verse pulsate through my soul when I open a cer 
 tain closet in the ancient house where I was born ! 
 On its shelves used to lie bundles of sweet-mar 
 joram and pennyroyal and lavender and mint and 
 catnip ; there apples were stored until their seeds 
 
92 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 should grow black, which happy period there were 
 sharp little milk-teeth always ready to anticipate ; 
 there peaches lay in the dark, thinking of the sun 
 shine they had lost, until, like the hearts of saints 
 that dream of heaven in their sorrow, they grew 
 fragrant as the breath 'of angels. The odorous 
 echo of a score of dead summers lingers yet in 
 those dim recesses. 
 
 Do I remember Byron's line about " strik 
 ing the electric chain " 1 To be sure I do. I 
 sometimes think the less the hint that stirs the 
 automatic machinery of association, the more easily 
 this moves us. What can be more trivial than that 
 old story of opening the folio Shakespeare that 
 used to lie in some ancient English hall and find 
 ing the flakes of Christmas pastry between its 
 leaves, shut up in them perhaps a hundred years 
 ago ? And, lo ! as one looks on these poor relics 
 of a bygone generation, the universe changes in the 
 twinkling of an eye ; old George the Second is back 
 again, and the elder Pitt is coming into power, and 
 General Wolfe is a fine, promising young man, and 
 over the Channel they are pulling the Sieur Da- 
 miens to pieces with wild horses, and across the 
 Atlantic the Indians are tomahawking Hirams and 
 Jonathans and Jonases at Fort William Henry ; all 
 the dead people who have been in the dust so long 
 even to the stout-armed cook that made the pas 
 try are alive again ; the planet unwinds a hun- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 93 
 
 dred of its luminous coils, and the precession of 
 the equinoxes is retraced on the dial of heaven J 
 And all this for a bit of pie-crust ! 
 
 1 will thank you for that pie, said the 
 
 provoking young fellow whom I have named re 
 peatedly. He looked at it for' a moment, and put 
 his hands to his eyes as if moved. I was think 
 ing, he said indistinctly 
 
 How * What is 't ? said our landlady. 
 
 1 was thinking, said he, who was king 
 
 of England when this old pie was baked, and it 
 made me feel bad to think how long he must have 
 been dead. 
 
 [Our landlady is a decent body, poor, and a 
 widow, of course ; cela va sans dire. She told me 
 her story once ; it was as if a grain of corn that had 
 been ground and bolted had tried to individualize 
 itself by a special narrative. There was the woo 
 ing and the wedding, the start in life, the dis 
 appointment, the children she had buried, the 
 struggle against fate, the dismantling of life, first 
 of its small luxuries, and then of its comforts, 
 the broken spirits, the altered character of the 
 one on whom she leaned, and at last the death 
 that came and drew the black curtain between her 
 and all her earthly hopes. 
 
 I never laughed at my landlady after she had 
 told me her story, but I often cried, not those 
 pattering tears that run off the eaves upon our 
 
9 4 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 neighbors' grounds, the stillicidium of self-con 
 scious sentiment, but those which steal noiselessly 
 through their conduits until they reach the cis 
 terns lying round about the heart ; those tears 
 that we weep inwardly with unchanging features ; 
 such I did shed for her often when the imps of 
 the boarding-house Inferno tugged at her soul with 
 their red-hot pincers.] 
 
 Young man, I said, the pasty you speak 
 lightly of is not old, but courtesy to those who 
 labor to serte us, especially if they are of the 
 weaker sex, is very old, and yet well worth re 
 taining. May I recommend to you the following 
 caution, as a guide, whenever you are dealing 
 with a woman, or an artist, or a poet, if you are 
 handling an editor or politician, it is superfluous 
 advice. I take it from the back of one of those 
 little French toys which contain pasteboard fig 
 ures moved by a small running stream of fine 
 sand ; Benjamin Franklin will translate it for 
 you : " Quoiqu'dle solt tres solidement montee, il faut 
 ne pas BRUTALISER la machine." I will thank 
 you for the pie, if you please. 
 
 [I took more of it than was good for me, as 
 much as 85, I should think, and had an indi 
 gestion in consequence. While I was suffering 
 from it, I wrote some sadly desponding poems, 
 and a theological essay which took a very melan 
 choly view of creation. When I got better I 
 
OP THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 95 
 
 labelled them all " Pie-crust," and laid them by 
 as scarecrows and solemn warnings. I have a 
 number of books on my shelves that I should 
 like to label with some such title ; but, as they 
 have great names on their title-pages, Doctors 
 of Divinity, some of them, it would n't do.] 
 
 My friend, the Professor, whom I have 
 
 mentioned to you once or twice, told me yester 
 day that somebody had been abusing him in some 
 of the journals of his calling. I told him that I 
 did n't doubt he deserved it ; that I hoped he did 
 deserve a little abuse occasionally, and would for 
 a number of years to come ; that nobody could do 
 anything to make his neighbors wiser or better 
 without being liable to abuse for it; especially 
 that people haled to have their little mistakes 
 made fun of, and perhaps he had been doing 
 something of the kind. The Professor smiled. 
 Now, said I, hear what I am going to say. It 
 will not take many years to bring you to the 
 period of life when men, at least the majority of 
 writing and talking men, do nothing but praise. 
 Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little 
 while before they begin to decay. I don't know 
 what it is, whether a spontaneous change, men 
 tal or bodily, or \vhether it is thorough experience 
 of the thanklessness of critical honesty, but it is 
 a fact, that most writers, except sour and unsuc 
 cessful ones, get tired of finding fault at about the 
 
96 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 time when they are beginning to grow old. A? a 
 general thing, I would not give a great deal for 
 the fair words of a critic, if he is himself an author, 
 over fifty years of age. At thirty we are all try 
 ing to cut our names in big letters upon the walls 
 of this tenement of life; twenty years later we 
 have carved it, or shut up our jackknives. Then 
 we are ready to help others, and care less to hin 
 der any, because nobody's elbows are in our way. 
 So I am glad you have a little life left; you will 
 be saccharine enough in a few years. 
 
 Some of the softening effects of advancing 
 age have struck me very much in what I have 
 heard or seen here and elsewhere. I just now 
 spoke of the sweetening process that authors un 
 dergo. Do you know that in the gradual passage 
 from maturity to helplessness the harshest char 
 acters sometimes have a period in which they are 
 gentle and placid as young children ? I have 
 heard it said, but I cannot be sponsor for its truth, 
 that the famous chieftain, Lochiel, was rocked in 
 a cradle like a baby, in his old age. An old man, 
 whose studies had been of the severest scholastic 
 kind, used to love to hear little nursery-stories 
 read over and over to him. One who saw the 
 Duke of Wellington in his last years describes 
 him as very gentle in his aspect and demeanor. I 
 remember a person of singularly stern and lofty 
 bearing who became remarkably gracious and 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 97 
 
 easy in all his ways in the later period of his 
 life. 
 
 And that leads me to say that men often re 
 mind me of pears in their way of coming to matu 
 rity. Some are ripe at twenty, like human Jar 
 gonelles, and must be made the most of, for their 
 day is soon over. Some come into their perfect 
 condition late, like the autumn kinds, and they 
 last better than the summer fruit. And some, 
 that, like the Winter-Nelis, have been hard and 
 uninviting until all the rest have had their season, 
 get their glow and perfume long after the frost 
 and snow have done their worst with the orchards. 
 Beware of rash criticisms ; the rough and stringent 
 fruit you condemn may be an autumn or a winter 
 pear, and that which you picked up beneath the 
 same bough in August may have been only its 
 worm-eaten windfalls. Milton was a Saint-Ger 
 main with a graft of the roseate Early-Catherine. 
 Rich, juicy, lively, fragrant, russet-skinned old 
 Chaucer was an Easter-Beurre ; the buds of a 
 new summer were swelling when he ripened. 
 
 There is no power I envy so much said 
 
 the divinity-student as that of seeing analogies 
 and making comparisons. I don't understand how 
 it is that some minds are continually coupling 
 thoughts or objects that seem not in the least re 
 lated to each other, until all at once they are put 
 in a certain light, and you wonder that you did 
 7 
 
98 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 not always see that they were as like as a pair of 
 twins. It appears to me a sort of miraculous gift. 
 
 [He is rather a nice young man, and I think has 
 an appreciation of the higher mental qualities re* 
 markable for one of his years and training. I try 
 his head occasionally as housewives try eggs, 
 give it an intellectual shake and hold it up to the 
 light, so to speak, to see if it has life in it, actual 
 or potential, or only contains lifeless albumen.] 
 
 You call it miraculous, I replied, tossing the 
 expression with my facial eminence, a little smartly, 
 I fear. Two men are walking by the polyphlres- 
 boean ocean, one of them having a small tin cup 
 with which he can scoop up a gill of sea-water 
 when he will, and the other nothing but his hands, 
 which will hardly hold water at all, -and you 
 call the tin cup a miraculous possession ! It is 
 the ocean that is the miracle, my infant apostle ! 
 Nothing is clearer than that all things are in all 
 things, and that just according to the intensity 
 and extension of our mental being we shall see the 
 many in the one and the one in the many. Did 
 Sir Isaac think what he was saying when he made 
 his speech about the ocean, the child and the 
 pebbles, you know ? Did he mean to speak slight 
 ingly of a pebble ? Of a spherical solid which stood 
 sentinel over its compartment of space before the 
 stone that became the pyramids had grown solid, 
 and has watched it until now ! A body which 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 99 
 
 knows all the currents of force that traverse the 
 globe; which holds by invisible threads to the ring 
 of Saturn and the belt of Orion ! A body from 
 the contemplation of which an archangel could in 
 fer the entire inorganic universe as the simplest of 
 corollaries ! A throne of the all-pervading Deity, 
 who has guided its every atom since the rosary of 
 heaven was strung with beaded stars ! 
 
 So, to return to our walk by the ocean, if 
 all that poetry has dreamed, all that insanity has 
 raved, all that maddening narcotics have driven 
 through the brains of men, or smothered passion 
 nursed in the fancies of women, if the dreams 
 of colleges and convents and boarding-schools, 
 if every human feeling that sighs, or smiles, or 
 curses, or shrieks, or groans, should bring all their 
 innumerable images, such as come with every hur 
 ried heart-beat, the epic which held them all, 
 though its letters filled the zodiac, would be but a 
 cupful from the infinite ocean of similitudes and 
 analogies that rolls through the universe. 
 
 [The divinity-student honored himself by the 
 way in which he received this. He did not swal 
 low it at once, neither did he reject it ; but he took 
 it as a pickerel takes the bait, and carried it off 
 with him to his hole (in the fourth story) to deal 
 with at his leisure.] 
 
 Here is another remark made for his espe 
 cial benefit. There is a natural tendency in many 
 
ioo THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 persons to run their adjectives together in triads, as I 
 have heard them called, thus : He was honorable, 
 courteous, and brave ; she was graceful, pleasing, 
 and virtuous. Dr. Johnson is famous for this ; I 
 think it was Bulwer who said you could separate a 
 paper in the " Rambler " into three distinct essays. 
 Many of our writers show the same tendency, 
 my friend, the Professor, especially. Some think 
 it is in humble imitation of Johnson, some that 
 it is for the sake of the stately sound only. I 
 don't think they get to the bottom of it. It is, I sus 
 pect, an instinctive and involuntary effort of the 
 mind to present a thought or image with the three 
 dimensions that belong to every solid, an uncon 
 scious handling of an idea as if it had length, 
 breadth, and thickness. It is a great deal easier 
 to say this than to prove it, and a great deal easier 
 to dispute it than to disprove it. But mind this : 
 the more we observe and study, the wider we find 
 the range of the automatic and instinctive princi 
 ples in body, mind, and morals, and the narrower 
 the limits of the self-determining conscious move 
 ment. 
 
 1 have often seen piano-forte players and 
 
 singers make such strange motions over their in 
 struments or song-books that I wanted to laugh at 
 them. " Where did our friends pick up all these 
 fine ecstatic airs 1 " I would say to myself. Then 
 I would remember My Lady in " Marriage a la 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 101 
 
 Mode," and amuse myself with thinking how 
 affectation was the same thing in Hogarth's time 
 and in our own. But one day I bought me a 
 Canary-bird and hung him up in a cage at my 
 window. By and by he found himself at home, 
 and began to pipe his little tunes ; and there he was, 
 sure enough, swimming and waving about, with 
 all the droopings and liftings and languishing side- 
 turnings of the head that I had laughed at. And 
 now I should like to ask, WHO taught him all 
 this 1 and me, through him, that the foolish head 
 was not the one swinging itself from side to side 
 and bowing and nodding over the music, but that 
 other which was passing its shallow and self-satis 
 fied judgment on a creature made of finer clay than 
 the frame which carried that same head upon its 
 shoulders ? 
 
 Do you want an image of the human will, 
 
 or the self-determining principle, as compared with 
 its prearranged and impassable restrictions? A 
 drop of water, imprisoned in a crystal ; you may 
 see such a one in any mineralogical collection. 
 One little fluid particle in the crystalline prism of 
 the solid universe ! 
 
 Weaken moral obligations ? No, not 
 
 weaken, but define them. When I preach that 
 sermon I spoke of the other day, I shall have to 
 lay down some principles not fully recognized in 
 some of your text-books. 
 
102 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 I should have to begin with one most formi 
 dable preliminary. You saw an article the other 
 day in one of the journals, perhaps, in which 
 some old Doctor or other said quietly that pa 
 tients were very apt to be fools and cowards. But 
 a great many of the clergyman's patients are not 
 only fools and cowards, but also liars. 
 
 [Immense sensation at the table. Sudden re 
 tirement of the angular female in oxidated bom 
 bazine. Movement of adhesion as they say in 
 the Chamber of Deputies on the part of the 
 young fellow they call John. Falling of the old- 
 gentleman-opposite's lower jaw (gravitation is 
 beginning to get the better of him.) Our land 
 lady to Benjamin Franklin, briskly, Go to 
 school right off, there 's a good boy ! School 
 mistress curious, takes a quick glance at di 
 vinity-student. Divinity-student slightly flushed 
 draws his shoulders back a little, as if a big false 
 hood or truth had hit him in the forehead. 
 Myself calm.] 
 
 I should not make such a speech as that, 
 
 you know, without having pretty substantial in 
 dorsee to fall back upon, in case my credit should 
 be disputed. Will you run up stairs, Benjamin 
 Franklin, (for B. F. had not gone right off, of 
 course,) and bring down a small volume from the 
 left upper corner of the right-hand shelves ? 
 
 [Look at the precious little black, ribbed-backed, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 103 
 
 clean-typed, vellum-papered 32mo. " DESIDERII 
 ERASMI COLLOQUIA. Amstelodami Typis Lu- 
 dovici Elzevirii. 1650/' Various names written 
 on title-page. Most conspicuous this : Gul. Cooke- 
 son E. Coll. Omn. Anim. 1725. Oxon. 
 
 O William Cookeson, of All-Souls College, 
 
 Oxford, then writing as I now write, now in 
 the dust, where I shall lie, is this line all that 
 remains to thee of earthly remembrance ? Thy 
 name is at least once more spoken by living men ; 
 
 is it a pleasure to thee ? Thou shalt share 
 with me my little draught of immortality, its 
 week, its month, its year, whatever it may be, 
 
 and then we will go together into the solemn 
 archives of Oblivion's Uncatalogucd Library !] 
 
 If you think I have used rather strong 
 
 language, I shall have to read something to you 
 out of the book of this keen and witty scholar, 
 the great Erasmus, who " laid the egg of the 
 Reformation which Luther hatched." 0, you 
 never read his Naufragium, or " Shipwreck," did 
 you ? Of course not ; for, if you had, I don't 
 think you would have given me credit or dis 
 credit for entire originality in that speech of 
 mine. That men are cowards in the contempla 
 tion of futurity he illustrates by the extraordinary 
 antics of many on board the sinking vessel ; that 
 they are fools, by their praying to the sea, and 
 making promises to bits of wood from the true 
 
104 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 cross, and all manner of similar nonsense ; that 
 they are fools, cowards, and liars all at once, by 
 this story : I will put it into rough English for 
 you. "I could n't help laughing to hear one fel 
 low bawling out, so that he might be sure to be 
 heard, a promise to St. Christopher of Paris the 
 monstrous statue in the great church there that 
 he would give him a wax taper as big as himself. 
 * Mind what you promise ! ' said an acquaintance 
 that stood near him, poking him with his elbow ; 
 ' you could n't pay for it, if you sold all your 
 things at auction.' i Hold your tongue, you don 
 key ! ' said the fellow, but softly, so that Saint 
 Christopher should not hear him, ' do you think 
 I 'm in earnest ? If I once get my foot on dry 
 ground, catch me giving him so much as a tallow 
 candle ! ' ' ; 
 
 Now, therefore, remembering that those who 
 have been loudest in their talk about the great 
 subject of which we were speaking have not neces 
 sarily been wise, brave, and true men, but, on the 
 contrary, have very often been wanting in one or 
 two or all of the qualities these words imply, I 
 should expect to find a good many doctrines cur 
 rent in the schools which I should be obliged to 
 call foolish, cowardly, and false. 
 
 So you would abuse other people's beliefs, 
 
 sir, and yet not tell us your own creed ! said 
 the divinity-student, coloring up with a spirit for 
 which I liked him all the better. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 105 
 
 1 have a creed, I replied ; none better, 
 
 and none shorter. It is told in two words, the 
 two first of the Paternoster. And when I say 
 these words I mean them. And when I compared 
 the human will to a drop in a crystal, and said I 
 meant to define moral obligations, and not weaken 
 them, this was what I intended to express : that 
 the fluent, self-determining power of human beings 
 is a very strictly limited agency in the universe. 
 The chief planes of its enclosing solid are, of 
 course, organization, education, condition. Or 
 ganization may reduce the power of the will to 
 nothing, as in some idiots ; and from this zero the 
 scale mounts upwards by slight gradations. Edu 
 cation is only second to nature. Imagine all the 
 infants born this year in Boston and Timbuctoo 
 to change places ! Condition does less, but " Give 
 me neither poverty nor riches " was the prayer 
 of Agur, and with good reason. If there is any 
 improvement in modern theology, it is in getting 
 out of the region of pure abstractions and taking 
 these every-day working forces into account. The 
 great theological question now heaving and throb 
 bing in the minds of Christian men is this : 
 
 No, I won't talk about these things now. My 
 remarks might be repeated, and it would give my 
 friends pain to see with what personal incivilities 
 I should be visited. Besides, what business has a 
 mere boarder to be talking about such things at a 
 
106 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 breakfast-table ? Let him make puns. To be 
 sure, he was brought up among the Christian 
 fathers, and learned his alphabet out of a quarto 
 " Concilium Tridentinum." He has also heard 
 many thousand theological lectures by men of 
 various denominations ; and it is not at all to 
 the credit of these teachers, if he is not fit by 
 this time to express an opinion on theological 
 matters. 
 
 I know well enough that there are some of you 
 who had a great deal rather see me stand on my 
 head than use it for any purpose of thought. Does 
 not my friend, the Professor, receive at least two 
 
 letters a week, requesting him to 
 
 , on the strength of some youthful antic 
 
 of his, which, no doubt, authorizes the intelligent 
 constituency of autograph-hunters to address him 
 as a harlequin ? 
 
 Well, I can't be savage with you for want 
 ing to laugh, and I like to make you laugh, well 
 enough, when I can. But then observe this : if the 
 sense of the ridiculous is one side of an impressible 
 nature, it is very well ; but if that is all there is in 
 a man, he had better have been an ape at once, and 
 so have stood at the head of his profession. Laugh 
 ter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the 
 same machinery of sensibility ; one is wind-power, 
 and the other water-power; that is all. I have 
 often heard the Professor talk about hysterics as 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 107 
 
 being Nature's cleverest illustration of the recipro 
 cal convertibility of the two states of which these 
 acts are the manifestations ; but you may see it 
 every day in children; and if you want to choke 
 with stifled tears at sight of the transition, as it 
 shows itself in older years, go and see Mr. Blake 
 play Jesse Rural. 
 
 It is a very dangerous thing for a literary man 
 to indulge his love for the ridiculous. People laugh 
 with him just so long as he amuses them; but if he 
 attempts to be serious, they must still have their 
 laugh, and so they laugh at him. There is in addi 
 tion, however, a deeper reason for this than would 
 at first appear. Do you know that you feel a lit 
 tle superior to every man who makes you laugh, 
 whether by making faces or verses ? Are you aware 
 that you have a pleasant sense of patronizing him, 
 when you condescend so far as to let him turn 
 somersets, literal or literary, for your royal de 
 light ? Now if a man can only be allowed to stand 
 on a dais, or raised platform, and look down on 
 his neighbor who is exerting his talent for him, O 
 it is all right ! first-rate performance ! and all 
 the rest of the fine phrases. But if all at once the 
 performer asks the gentleman to come upon the 
 floor, and, stepping upon the platform, begins to 
 talk down at him, ah, that was n't in the pro 
 gramme ! 
 I have never forgotten what happened when Syd- 
 
io8 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 ney Smith who, as everybody knows, was an 
 exceedingly sensible man, and a gentleman, every 
 inch of him ventured to preach a sermon on the 
 Duties of Royalty. The " Quarterly/' " so sav 
 age and tartarly," came down upon him in the 
 most contemptuous style, as " a joker of jokes/' a 
 " diner-out of the first water," in one of his own 
 phrases; sneering at him, insulting him, as noth 
 ing but a toady of a court, sneaking behind the 
 anonymous, would ever have been mean enough to 
 do to a man of his position and genius, or to any 
 decent person even. If I were giving advice to a 
 young fellow of talent, with two or three facets to 
 his mind, I would tell him by all means to keep 
 his wit in the background until after he had made 
 a reputation by his more solid qualities. And so 
 to an actor : Hamlet first, and Bob Logic afterwards, 
 if you like ; but don't think, as they say poor Lis- 
 ton used to, that people will be ready to allow that 
 you can do anything great with Macbeth's dagger 
 after flourishing about with Paul Pry's umbrella. 
 Do you know, too, that the majority of men look 
 upon all who challenge their attention, for a 
 while, at least, as beggars, and nuisances ? They 
 always try to get off as cheaply as they can ; and 
 the cheapest of all things they can give a literary 
 man pardon the forlorn pleasantry ! is the 
 funny-bone. That is all very well so far as it goes, 
 but satisfies no man, and makes a good many an 
 gry, as I told you on a former occasion. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 109 
 
 O, indeed, no ! I am not ashamed to 
 
 make you laugh, occasionally. I think I could 
 read you something I have in my desk which would 
 probably make you smile. Perhaps I will read it 
 one of these days, if you are patient with me when 
 I am sentimental and reflective ; not just now. The 
 ludicrous has its place in the universe ; it is not a 
 human invention, but one of the Divine ideas, illus 
 trated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys 
 long before Aristophanes or Shakespeare. How 
 curious it is that we always consider solemnity 
 and the absence of all gay surprises and encounter 
 of wits as essential to the idea of the future life of 
 those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties 
 and then call blessed! There are not a few who, 
 even in this life, seem to be preparing themselves 
 for that smileless eternity to which they look for 
 ward, by banishing all gayety from their hearts 
 and all joyousness from their countenances. I 
 meet one such in the street not unfrequently, a 
 person of intelligence and education, but who gives 
 me (and all that he passes) such a ray less and 
 chilling look of recognition, something as if he 
 were one of Heaven's assessors, come down to 
 " doom " every acquaintance he met, that I have 
 sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot, and gone 
 home with a violent cold, dating from that instant. 
 I don't doubt he would cut his kitten's tail off, if 
 he caught her playing with it. Please tell me, who 
 taught her to play with it ? 
 
I io THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 No, no ! give me a chance to talk to you, my 
 fellow-boarders, and you need not be afraid that I 
 shall have any scruples about entertaining you, if 
 I can do it, as well as giving you some of my se 
 rious thoughts, and perhaps my sadder fancies. I 
 know nothing in English or any other literature 
 more admirable than that sentiment of Sir Thomas 
 Browne : " EVERY MAN TRULY LIVES, so LONG AS 
 
 HE ACTS HIS NATURE, OR SOME WAY MAKES GOOD 
 THE FACULTIES OF HIMSELF." 
 
 I find the great thing in this world is, not so 
 much where we stand, as in what direction we are 
 moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must 
 sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against 
 it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at an 
 chor. There is one very sad thing in old friend 
 ships, to every mind that is really moving onward. 
 It is this : that one cannot help using his early 
 friends as the seaman uses the log, to mark his 
 progress. Every now and then we throw an old 
 schoolmate over the stern with a string of thought 
 tied to him, and look I am afraid with a kind 
 of luxurious and sanctimonious compassion to 
 see the rate at which the string reels off, while he 
 lies there bobbing up and down, poor fellow ! and 
 we are dashing along with the white foam and 
 bright sparkle at our bows ; the ruffled bosom 
 of prosperity and progress, with a sprig of dia 
 monds stuck in it! But this is only the senti- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. m 
 
 mental side of the matter ; for grow we must, if we 
 outgrow all that we love. 
 
 Don't misunderstand that metaphor of heaving 
 the log, I beg you. It is merely a smart way of 
 saying that we cannot avoid measuring our rate of 
 movement by those with whom we have long been 
 in the habit of comparing ourselves ; and when they 
 once become stationary, we can get our reckoning 
 from them with painful accuracy. We see just 
 what we were when they were our peers, and can 
 strike the balance between that and whatever we 
 may feel ourselves to be now. No doubt we may 
 sometimes be mistaken. If we change our last 
 simile to that very old and familiar one of a fleet 
 leaving the harbor and sailing in company for some 
 distant region, we can get what we want out of it. 
 There is one of our companions ; her streamers 
 were torn into rags before she had got into the 
 open sea, then by and by her sails blew out of the 
 ropes one after another, the waves swept her deck, 
 and as night came on we left her a seeming wreck, 
 as we flew under our pyramid of canvas. But lo ! 
 at dawn she is still in sight, it may be in advance 
 of us. Some deep ocean-current has been moving 
 her on, strong, but silent, yes, stronger than 
 these noisy winds that puff our sails until they are 
 swollen as the cheeks of jubilant cherubim. And 
 when at last the black steam-tug with the skeleton 
 arms, which comes out of the mist sooner or later 
 
ill THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 and takes us all in tow, grapples her and goes off 
 panting and groaning with her, it is to that harbor 
 where all wrecks are refitted, and where, alas ! we, 
 towering in our pride, may never come. 
 
 So you will not think I mean to speak lightly of 
 old friendships, because we cannot help instituting 
 comparisons between our present and former selves 
 by the aid of those who were what we were, but 
 are not what we are. Nothing strikes one more, 
 in the race of life, than to see how many give 
 out in the first half of the course. " Commence 
 ment day " always reminds me of the start for the 
 " Derby," when the beautiful high-bred three-year 
 olds of the season are brought up for trial. That 
 day is the start, and life is the race. Here we are 
 at Cambridge, and a class is just "graduating." 
 Poor Harry ! he was to have been there too, but he 
 has paid forfeit ; step out here into the grass back 
 of the church ; ah ! there it is : 
 
 " HUNC LAPIDEM POSUERUNT 
 SOCII M(ERENTES." 
 
 But this is the start, and here they are, coats 
 bright as silk, and manes as smooth as eau lustrale, 
 can make them. Some of the best of the colts are 
 pranced round, a few minutes each, to show their 
 paces. What is that old gentleman crying about ? 
 and the old lady by him, and the three girls, what 
 are they all covering their eyes for 1 0, that is 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 113 
 
 their colt which has just been trotted up on the 
 stage. Do they really think those little thin legs 
 can do anything in such a slashing sweepstakes as 
 is coming off in these next forty years ? O, this 
 terrible gift of second-sight that comes to some of 
 us when we begin to look through the silvered 
 rings of the areas senilis ! 
 
 Ten years gone. First turn in the race. A few 
 broken down ; two or three bolted. Several show 
 in advance of the ruck. Cassock, a black colt, 
 seems to be ahead of the rest ; those black colts 
 commonly get the start, I have noticed, of the 
 others, in the first quarter. Meteor has pulled up. 
 
 Twenty years. Second corner turned. Cassock 
 has dropped from the front, and Judex, an iron- 
 gray, has the lead. But look ! how they have thin 
 ned out ! Down flat, five, six, how many ? 
 They lie still enough ! they will not get up again 
 in this race, be very sure ! And the rest of them, 
 what a " tailing off " ! Anybody can see who is 
 going to win, perhaps. 
 
 Thirty years. Third corner turned. Dives, bright 
 sorrel, ridden by the fellow in a yellow jacket, be 
 gins to make play fast ; is getting to be the favorite 
 with many. But who is that other one that has 
 been lengthening his stride from the first, and now 
 shows close up to the front ? Don't you remember 
 the quiet brown colt Asteroid, with the star in his 
 forehead ? That is he ; he is one of the sort that 
 8 
 
ii4 THX AUTOCRAT 
 
 lasts ; look out for him ! The black " colt," as we 
 used to call him, is in the background, taking it 
 easily in a gentle trot. There is one they used to 
 call the Filly, on account of a certain feminine air 
 he had ; well up, you see ; the Filly is not to be 
 despised, my boy ! 
 
 Forty years. More dropping off, but places 
 much as before. 
 
 Fifty years. Race over. All that are on the 
 course are coming in at a walk ; no more running. 
 Who is ahead ? Ahead ? What ! and the win 
 ning-post a slab of white or gray stone standing 
 out from that turf where there is no more jockey 
 ing or straining for victory ! Well, the world 
 marks their places in its betting-book ; but be 
 sure that these matter very little, if they have run 
 as well as they knew how ! 
 
 Did I not say to you a little while ago 
 
 that the universe swam in an ocean of similitudes 
 and analogies ? I will not quote Cowley, or 
 Burns, or Wordsworth, just now, to show you 
 what thoughts were suggested to them by the 
 simplest natural objects, such as a flower or a 
 leaf; but I will read you a few lines, if you do 
 not object, suggested by looking at a section of 
 one of those chambered shells to which is given 
 the name of Pearly Nautilus. We need not 
 trouble ourselves about the distinction between 
 this and the Paper Nautilus, the Argonauta of tho 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. u 5 
 
 ancients. The name applied to both shows that 
 each has long been compared to a ship, as you 
 may see more fully in Webster's Dictionary, or 
 the " Encyclopaedia/' to which he refers. If you 
 will look into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, you 
 will find a figure of one of these shells, and a sec 
 tion of it. The last will show you the series of 
 enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by 
 the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built 
 in a widening spiral. Can you find no lesson in 
 this? 
 
 THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 
 
 This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 
 
 Sails the unshadowed main, 
 
 The venturous bark that flings 
 On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
 In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, 
 
 And coral reefe lie bare, 
 Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 
 
 Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl : 
 
 Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 
 
 And every chambered Cell, 
 Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
 As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 
 
 Before thee lies revealed, 
 Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 
 
 Year after year beheld the silent toil 
 
 That spread his lustrous coil ; 
 
 Still, as the spiral grew, 
 He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
 Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 
 
 Built up its idle door, 
 Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. 
 
u6 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 
 
 Child of the wandering sea, 
 
 Cast from her lap forlorn ! 
 From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
 Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 
 
 While on mine ear it rings, 
 
 Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that 
 sings : 
 
 Build thee more stately mansions, my soul, 
 
 As the swift seasons roll ! 
 
 Leave thy low- vaulted past ! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! 
 
OF TEE BREAKFAST-TABLE. n 7 
 
 V. 
 
 LYRIC conception my friend, the 
 Poet, said hits me like a bullet in 
 the forehead. I have often had the 
 blood drop from my cheeks when it 
 struck, and felt that I turned as white as death. 
 Then comes a creeping as of centipedes running 
 down the spine, then a gasp and a great jump 
 of the heart, then a sudden flush and a beating 
 in the vessels of the head, then a long sigh, 
 and the poem is written. 
 
 It is an impromptu, I suppose, then, if you 
 write it so suddenly, I replied. 
 
 No, said he, far from it. I said written, 
 but I did not say copied. Every such poem has 
 a soul and a body, and it is the body of it, or the 
 copy, that men read and publishers pay for. The 
 soul of it is born in an instant in the poet's soul. 
 It comes to him a thought, tangled in the meshes 
 of a few sweet words, words that have loved 
 each other from the cradle of the language, but 
 have never been wedded until now. Whether it 
 will ever fully embody itself in a bridal train of a 
 dozen stanzas or not is uncertain ; but it exists 
 
n8 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 potentially from the instant that the poet turns 
 pale with it. It is enough to stun and scare any 
 body, to have a hot thought come crashing into 
 his brain, and ploughing up those parallel ruts 
 where the wagon trains of common ideas were 
 jogging along in their regular sequences of as 
 sociation. No wonder the ancients made the 
 poetical impulse wholly external. Mrjviv aeidc 
 Oca Goddess, Muse, divine afflatus, some 
 thing outside always. / never wrote any verses 
 worth reading. 1 can't. I am too stupid. If I 
 ever copied any that were worth reading, I was 
 only a medium. 
 
 [I was talking all this time to our boarders, you 
 understand, telling them what this poet told 
 me. The company listened rather attentively, I 
 thought, considering the literary character of the 
 remarks.] 
 
 The old gentleman opposite all at once asked 
 me if I ever read anything better than Pope's 
 " Essay on Man " ? Had I ever perused McFin- 
 gal ? He was fond of poetry when he was a boy, 
 
 his mother taught him to say many little pieces, 
 
 he remembered one beautiful hymn ; and the 
 old gentleman began, in a clear, loud voice, for 
 his years, 
 
 " The spacious firmament on high, 
 With all the blue ethereal sky, 
 And spangled heavens," 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 119 
 
 He stopped, as if startled by our silence, and a 
 faint flush ran up beneath the thin white hairs 
 that fell upon his cheek. As I looked round, I 
 was reminded of a show I once saw at the Muse 
 um, the Sleeping Beauty, I think they called it. 
 The old man's sudden breaking out in this way 
 turned every face towards him, and each kept his 
 posture as if changed to stone. Our Celtic Bridg 
 et, or Biddy, is not a foolish fat scullion to burst 
 out crying for a sentiment. She is of the service 
 able, red-handed, broad-and-high-shouldered type; 
 one of those imported female servants who are 
 known in public by their amorphous style of 
 person, their stoop forwards, and a headlong and 
 as it were precipitous walk, the waist plunging 
 downwards into the rocking pelvis at every heavy 
 footfall. Bridget, constituted for action, not for 
 emotion, was about to deposit a plate heaped with 
 something upon the table, when I saw the coarse 
 arm stretched by my shoulder arrested, motion 
 less as the arm of a terra-cotta caryatid ; she 
 could n't set the plate down while the old gentle 
 man was speaking ! 
 
 He was quite silent after this, still wearing the 
 slight flush on his cheek. Don't ever think the 
 poetry is dead in an old man because his forehead 
 is wrinkled, or that his manhood has left him 
 when his hand trembles ! If they ever were there, 
 thev are there still! 
 
120 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 By and by we got talking again. Does a 
 
 poet love the verses written through him, do you 
 think, sir? said the divinity-student. 
 
 So long as they are warm from his mind, carry 
 any of his animal heat about them, / know he loves 
 them, I answered. When they have had time 
 to cool, he is more indifferent. 
 
 A good deal as it is with buckwheat cakes, 
 said the young fellow whom they call John. 
 
 The last words, only, reached the ear of the 
 economically organized female in black bomba 
 zine. Buckwheat is skerce and high, she 
 
 remarked. [Must be a poor relation sponging 
 on our landlady, pays nothing, so she must 
 stand by the guns and be ready to repel board 
 ers.] 
 
 I liked the turn the conversation had taken, for 
 I had some things I wanted to say, and so, after 
 waiting a minute, I began again. I don't think 
 the poems I read you sometimes can be fairly ap 
 preciated, given to you as they are in the green 
 state. 
 
 You don't know what I mean by the 
 
 green state? Well, then, I will tell you. Certain 
 things are good for nothing vmtil they have been 
 kept a long while ; and some are good for nothing 
 until they have been long kept and used. Of the 
 first, wine is the illustrious and immortal example. 
 Of those which must be kept and used I will 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 121 
 
 name three, meerschaum pipes, violins, and 
 poems. The meerschaum is but a poor affair 
 until it has burned a thousand offerings to the 
 cloud-compelling deities. It comes to us without 
 complexion or flavor, born of the sea-foam, like 
 Aphrodite, but colorless as pcdlida Mors herself. 
 The fire is lighted in its central shrine, and grad 
 ually the juices which the broad leaves of the 
 Great Vegetable had sucked up from an acre and 
 curdled into a drachm are diffused through its 
 thirsting pores. First a discoloration, then a 
 stain, and at last a rich, glowing, umber tint 
 spreading over the whole surface. Nature true to 
 her old brown autumnal hue, you see, as true 
 in the fire of the meerschaum as in the sunshine 
 of October ! And then the cumulative wealth of 
 its fragrant reminiscences ! he who inhales its va 
 pors takes a thousand whiffs in a single breath ; 
 and one cannot touch it without awakening the 
 old joys that hang around it as the smell of flow 
 ers clings to the dresses of the daughters of the 
 house of Farina ! 
 
 [Don't think I use a meerschaum myself, for 
 I do not, though I have owned a calumet since my 
 childhood, which from a naked Pict (of the Mo 
 hawk species) my grandsire won, together with a 
 tomahawk and beaded knife-sheath ; paying for 
 the lot with a bullet-mark on his right cheek. On 
 the maternal side I inherit the loveliest silver- 
 
122 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 mounted tobacco-stopper you ever saw. It is a 
 little box- wood Triton, carved with charming 
 liveliness and truth ; I have often compared it to 
 a figure in Raphael's " Triumph of Galatea/' It 
 came to me in an ancient shagreen case, how 
 old it is I do not know, but it must have been 
 made since Sir Walter Raleigh's time. If you are 
 curious, you shall see it any day. Neither will I 
 pretend that I am so unused to the more perish 
 able smoking contrivance that a few whiffs would 
 make me feel as if I lay in a ground-swell on the 
 Bay of Biscay. I am not unacquainted with that 
 fusiform, spiral-wound bundle of chopped stems 
 and miscellaneous incombustibles, the cigar, so 
 called, of the shops, which to " draw " asks the 
 suction-power of a nursling infant Hercules, and 
 to relish, the leathery palate of an old Silenus. 
 I do not advise you, young man, even if my illus 
 tration strike your fancy, to consecrate the flower 
 of your life to painting the bowl of a pipe, for, let 
 me assure you, the stain of a reverie-breeding nar 
 cotic may strike deeper than you think for. I 
 have seen the green leaf of early promise grow 
 brown before its time under such Nicotian regi 
 men, and thought the umbered meerschaum was 
 dearly bought at the cost of a brain enfeebled and 
 a will enslaved.] 
 
 Violins, too, the sweet old Amati ! the di 
 vine Stradivarius 1 Played on by ancient macstros 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 123 
 
 until the bow-hand lost its power and the flying 
 fingers stiffened. Bequeathed to the passionate 
 young enthusiast, who made it whisper his hidden 
 love, and cry his inarticulate longings, and scream 
 his untold agonies, and wail his monotonous de 
 spair. Passed from his dying hand to the cold 
 virtuoso, who let it slumber in its case for a gener 
 ation, till, when his hoard was broken up, it came 
 forth once more and rode the stormy symphonies 
 of royal orchestras, beneath the rushing bow of 
 their lord and leader. Into lonely prisons with 
 improvident artists ; into convents from which 
 arose, day and night, the holy hymns with which 
 its tones were blended ; and back again to orgies 
 in which it learned to howl and laugh as if a 
 legion of devils were shut up in it ; then again to 
 the gentle dilettante who calmed it down with easy 
 melodies until it answered him softly as in the 
 days of the old maestros. And so given into our 
 hands, its pores all full of music ; stained, like the 
 meerschaum, through and through, with the con 
 centrated hue and sweetness of all the harmonies 
 which have kindled and faded on its strings. 
 
 Now I tell you a poem must be kept and used, 
 like a meerschaum, or a violin. A poem is just as 
 porous as the meerschaum ; the more porous it 
 is the better. I mean to say that a genuine poem 
 is capable of absorbing an indefinite amount of the 
 essence of our own humanity, its tenderness, its 
 
124 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 heroism, its regrets, its aspirations, so as to be 
 gradually stained through with a divine secondary 
 color derived from ourselves. So you see it must 
 take time to bring the sentiment of a poem into 
 harmony with our nature, by staining ourselves 
 through every thought and image our being can 
 penetrate. 
 
 Then again as to the mere music of a new poem ; 
 why, who can expect anything more from that than 
 from the music of a violin fresh from the maker's 
 hands ? Now you know very well that there are 
 no less than fifty-eight different pieces in a violin. 
 These pieces are strangers to each other, and it 
 takes a century, more or less, to make them thor 
 oughly acquainted. At last they learn to vibrate in 
 harmony, and the instrument becomes an organic 
 whole, as if it were a great seed-capsule which had 
 grown from a garden-bed in Cremona, or elsewhere. 
 Besides, the wood is juicy and full of sap for fifty 
 years or so, but at the end of fifty or a hundred 
 more gets tolerably dry and comparatively resonant. 
 
 Don't you see that all this is just as true of a 
 poem ? Counting each word as a piece, there are 
 more pieces in an average copy of verses than in 
 a violin. The poet has forced all these words 
 together, and fastened them, and they don't under 
 stand it at first. But let the poem be repeated 
 aloud and murmured over in the mind's muffled 
 whisper often enough, and at length the parts 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 125 
 
 become knit together in such absolute solidarity 
 that you could not change a syllable without the 
 whole world's crying out against you for meddling 
 with the harmonious fabric. Observe, too, how the 
 drying process takes place in the stuff of a poem 
 just as in that of a violin. Here is a Tyrolese fid 
 dle that is just coming to its hundredth birthday, 
 (Pedro Klauss, Tyroli, fecit, 1760), the sap 
 is pretty well out of it. And here is the song of 
 an old poet whom Nea3ra cheated : 
 
 " Nox erat, et coelo fulgebat Luna sereno 
 
 Inter minora sidera, 
 
 Cum tu magnorum numen laesura deorum 
 In verba jurabas mea." 
 
 Don't you perceive the sonorousness of these old 
 dead Latin phrases ? Now I tell you that every 
 word fresh from the dictionary brings with it a cer 
 tain succulence ; and though I cannot expect the 
 sheets of the " Pactolian," in which, as I told you, 
 I sometimes print my verses, to get so dry as the 
 crisp papyrus that held those words of Horatius 
 Flaccus, yet you may be sure, that, while the sheets 
 are damp, and while the lines hold their sap, you 
 can't fairly judge of my performances, and that, if 
 made of the true stuff, they will ring better after a 
 while. 
 
 [There was silence for a brief space, after my 
 somewhat elaborate exposition of these self-evident 
 analogies. Presently a person turned towards me 
 
126 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 I do not choose to designate the individual 
 and said that he rather expected my pieces had 
 given pretty good " sahtisfahction." I had, up to 
 this moment, considered this complimentary phrase 
 as sacred to the use of secretaries of lyceums, and, 
 as it has been usually accompanied by a small 
 pecuniary testimonial, have acquired a certain rel 
 ish for this moderately tepid and unstimulating 
 expression of enthusiasm. But as a reward for 
 gratuitous services, I confess I thought it a little 
 below that blood-heat standard which a man's 
 breath ought to have, whether silent, or vocal and 
 articulate. I waited for a favorable opportunity, 
 however, before making the remarks which follow.] 
 
 There are single expressions, as I have told 
 
 you already, that fix a man's position for you be 
 fore you have done shaking hands with him. Al 
 low me to expand a little. There are several things, 
 very slight in themselves, yet implying other things 
 not so unimportant. Thus, your French servant 
 has devalise your premises and got caught. Excu- 
 sez, says the sergent-de-ville, as he politely relieves 
 him of his upper garments and displays his bust in 
 the full daylight. Good shoulders enough, a 
 little marked, traces of small-pox, perhaps, but 
 
 white Crac ! from the sergent-de-ville' s broad 
 
 palm on the white shoulder ! Now look ! Vogue 
 la galere ! Out comes the big red V, mark of the 
 hot iron ; he had blistered it out pretty nearly, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 127 
 
 had n't he ? the old rascal VOLEUR, branded 
 in the galleys at Marseilles ! [Don't ! What if he 
 has got something like this ? nobody supposes I 
 invented such a story.] 
 
 My man John, who used to drive two of those 
 six equine females which I told you I had owned, 
 
 for, look you, my friends, simple though I stand 
 here, I am one that has been driven in his " ker- 
 ridge," not using that term, as liberal shepherds 
 do, for any battered old shabby-genteel go-cart 
 which has more than one wheel, but meaning 
 thereby a four-wheeled vehicle with a pole, my 
 man John, I say, was a retired soldier. He retired 
 unostentatiously, as many of Her Majesty's modest 
 servants have done before and since. John told 
 me, that when an officer thinks he recognizes one 
 of these retiring heroes, and would know if he has 
 really been in the service, that he may restore him, 
 if possible, to a grateful country, he comes suddenly 
 upon him, and says, sharply, " Strap ! " If he has 
 ever worn the shoulder-strap, he has learned the 
 reprimand for its ill adjustment. The old word of 
 command flashes through his muscles, and his hand 
 goes up in an instant to the place where the strap 
 used to be. 
 
 [I was all the time preparing for my grand coup, 
 you understand ; but I saw they were not quite 
 ready for it, and so continued, always in illustra 
 tion of the general principle I had laid down.] 
 
128 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Yes, odd things come out in ways that nobody 
 thinks of. There was a legend that, when the 
 Danish pirates made descents upon the English 
 coast, they caught a few Tartars occasionally, in 
 the shape of Saxons, who would not let them go, 
 on the contrary, insisted on their staying, and, 
 to make sure of it, treated them as Apollo treated 
 Marsyas, or as Bartholinus has treated a fellow- 
 creature in his title-page, and, having divested them 
 of the one essential and perfectly fitting garment, 
 indispensable in the mildest climates, nailed the 
 same on the church-door as we do the banns of 
 marriage, in terrorem. 
 
 [There was a laugh at this among some of the 
 young folks ; but as I looked at our landlady, I 
 saw that " the water stood in her eyes," as it did in 
 Christiana's when the interpreter asked her about 
 the spider, and I fancied, but was n't quite sure that 
 the schoolmistress blushed, as Mercy did in the 
 same conversation, as you remember.] 
 
 That sounds like a cock-and-bull-story, said 
 the young fellow whom they call John. I ab 
 stained from making Hamlet's remark to Horatio, 
 and continued. 
 
 Not long since, the church-wardens were repair 
 ing and beautifying an old Saxon church in a 
 certain English village, and among other things 
 thought the doors should be attended to. One of 
 them particularly, the front-door, looked very badly, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 129 
 
 crusted, as it were, and as if it would be all the bet 
 ter for scraping. There happened to be a micro- 
 scopist in the village who had heard the old pirate 
 story, and he took it into his head to examine the 
 crust on this door. There was no mistake about 
 it; it was a genuine historical document, of the 
 Ziska drum-head pattern, a real cutis humana, 
 stripped from some old Scandinavian filibuster, 
 and the legend was true. 
 
 My friend, the Professor, settled an important 
 historical and financial question once by the aid 
 of an exceedingly minute fragment of a similar 
 document. Behind the pane of plate-glass which 
 bore his name and title burned a modest lamp, 
 signifying to the passers-by that at all hours of the 
 night the slightest favors (or fevers) were welcome. 
 A youth who had freely partaken of the cup which 
 cheers and likewise inebriates, following a moth- 
 like impulse very natural under the circumstances, 
 dashed his fist at the light and quenched the meek 
 luminary, breaking through the plate-glass, of 
 course, to reach it. Now I don't want to go into 
 minutice at table, you know, but a naked hand can 
 no more go through a pane of thick glass with 
 out leaving some of its cuticle, to say the least, 
 behind it, than a butterfly can go through a sau 
 sage-machine without looking the worse for it. The 
 Professor gathered up the fragments of glass, and 
 with them certain very minute but entirely satisfac- 
 9 
 
1 3 o THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 tory documents which would have identified and 
 hanged any rogue in Christendom who had parted 
 with them. The historical question, Who did it ? 
 and the financial question, Who paid for it? were 
 both settled before the new lamp was lighted the 
 next evening. 
 
 You see, my friends, what immense conclusions, 
 touching our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred 
 honor, may be reached by means of very insignifi 
 cant premises. This is eminently true of manners 
 and forms of speech ; a movement or a phrase often 
 tells you all you want to know about a person. 
 Thus, " How 's your health ? " (commonly pro 
 nounced haalth) instead of, How do you do ? or, 
 How are you ? Or calling your little dark entry a 
 " hall," and your old rickety one-horse wagon a 
 " kerridge." Or telling a person who has been try 
 ing to please you that he has given you pretty good 
 " sahtisfahction." Or saying that you " remember 
 of" such a thing, or that you have been "stoppin' " 
 at Deacon Somebody's, and other such expres 
 sions. One of my friends had a little marble statu 
 ette of Cupid, in the parlor of his country-house, 
 bow, arrows, wings, and all complete; A visitor, 
 indigenous to the region, looking pensively at the 
 figure, asked the lady of the house " if that was a 
 statoo of her deceased infant ? " What a delicious, 
 though somewhat voluminous biography, social, 
 educational, and aesthetic in that brief question ! 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 131 
 
 [Please observe with what Machiavellian astute 
 ness I smuggled in the particular offence which it 
 was my object to hold up to my fellow-boarders, 
 without too personal an attack on the individual 
 at whose door it lay.] 
 
 That was an exceedingly dull person who made 
 the remark, Ex pede Herculem. He might as well 
 have said, " From a peck of apples you may judge 
 of the barrel." Ex PEDE, to be sure ! Read, in 
 stead, Ex ungue minimi dicjiti pedis, Herculem, ejus- 
 que patrem, matrem, avos et proavos, Jilios, nepotes et 
 pronepotes ! Talk to me about your 8os TTOV oro> ! 
 Tell me about Cuvier's getting up a megatherium 
 from a tooth, or Agassiz's drawing a portrait of an 
 undiscovered fish from a single scale ! As the " O " 
 revealed Giotto, as the one word " moi " betrayed 
 the Stratford-atte-Bowe-taught Anglais, so all a 
 man's antecedents and possibilities are summed up 
 in a single utterance which gives at once the gauge 
 of his education and his mental organization. 
 
 Possibilities, sir? said the divinity-student; 
 can't a man who says Haow ? arrive at distinction ? 
 
 Sir, I replied, in a republic all things are 
 possible. But the man with a future has almost of 
 necessity sense enough to see that any odious trick 
 of speech or manners must be got rid of. Does n't 
 Sydney Smith say that a public man in England 
 never gets over a false quantity uttered in early 
 life ? Our public men are in little danger of this 
 
1 3 2, THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 fatal misstep, as few of them are in the habit of 
 introducing Latin into their speeches. for good 
 and sufficient reasons. But they are bound to 
 speak decent English, unless, indeed, they are 
 rough old campaigners, like General Jackson or 
 General Taylor; in which case, a few scars on 
 Priscian's head are pardoned to old fellows who 
 have quite as many on their own, and a constit 
 uency of thirty empires is not at all particular, 
 provided they do not swear in their Presidential 
 Messages. 
 
 However, it is not for me to talk. I have made 
 mistakes enough in conversation and print. I never 
 find them out until they are stereotyped, and then 
 I think they rarely escape me. I have no doubt I 
 shall make half a dozen slips before this breakfast 
 is over, and remember them all before another. 
 How one does tremble with rage at his own in 
 tense momentary stupidity about things he knows 
 perfectly well, and to think how he lays himself 
 open to the impertinences of the captatores verborum, 
 those useful but humble scavengers of the language, 
 whose business it is to pick up what might offend 
 or injure, and remove it, hugging and feeding on 
 it as they go ! I don't want to speak too slight 
 ingly of these verbal critics ; how can I, who am 
 so fond of talking about errors and vulgarisms of 
 speech ? Only there is a difference between those 
 clerical blunders which almost every man commits, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 133 
 
 knowing better, and that habitual grossness or 
 meanness of speech which is unendurable to edu 
 cated persons, from anybody that wears silk or 
 broadcloth. 
 
 [I write down the above remarks this morning, 
 January 26th, making this record of the date that 
 nobody may think it was written in wrath, on ac 
 count of any particular grievance suffered from the 
 invasion of any individual scaraboeus gmmmaticus.] 
 
 1 wonder if anybody ever finds fault with 
 
 anything I say at this table when it is repeated ? 
 I hope they do, I am sure. I should be very cer 
 tain that I said nothing of much significance, if 
 they did not. 
 
 Did you never, in walking in the fields, coma 
 across a large flat stone, which had lain, nobody 
 knows how long, just where you found it, with the 
 grass forming a little hedge, as it were, all round 
 it, close to its edges, and have you not, in obe 
 dience to a kind of feeling that told you it had 
 been lying there long enough, insinuated your stick 
 or your foot or your fingers under its edge and 
 turned it over as a housewife turns a cake, when 
 she says to herself, " It 's done brown enough by 
 this time " 7 What an odd revelation, and what 
 an unforeseen and unpleasant surprise to a small 
 community, the very existence of which you had 
 not suspected, until the sudden dismay and scatter 
 ing among its members produced by your turn- 
 
i 3 4 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 ing the old stone over ! Blades of grass flattened 
 down, colorless, matted together, as if they had been 
 bleached and ironed ; hideous crawling creatures, 
 some of them coleopterous or horny-shelled, 
 turtle-bugs one wants to call them ; some of them 
 softer, but cunningly > spread out and compressed 
 like Lepine watches (Nature never loses a crack 
 or a crevice, mind you, or a joint in a tavern bed 
 stead, but she always has one of her flat-pattern 
 live timekeepers to slide into it) ; black, glossy 
 crickets, with their long filaments sticking out like 
 the whips of four-horse stage-coaches ; motionless, 
 slug-like creatures, young Iarva3, perhaps more hor 
 rible in their pulpy stillness than even in the infernal 
 wriggle of maturity ! But no sooner is the stone 
 turned and the wholesome light of day let upon 
 this compressed and blinded community of creep 
 ing things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury 
 of legs and some of them have a good many 
 rush round wildly, butting each other and every 
 thing in their way, and end in a general stampede 
 for underground retreats from the region poisoned 
 by sunshine. Next year you will find the grass 
 growing tall and green where the stone lay ; the 
 ground-bird builds her nest where the beetle had 
 his hole ; the dandelion and the buttercup are grow 
 ing there, and the broad fans of insect-angels open 
 and shut over their golden disks, as the rhythmic 
 waves of blissful consciousness pulsate through 
 their glorified being. 
 
OF TEE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 135 
 
 The young fellow whom they call John 
 saw fit to say, in his very familiar way, at 
 which I do not choose to take offence, but which 
 1 sometimes think it necessary to repress, 
 that I was coming it rather strong on the butter 
 flies. 
 
 No, I replied ; there is meaning in each of those 
 images, the butterfly as well as the others. The 
 stone is ancient error. The grass is human nature 
 borne down and bleached of all its color by it. The 
 shapes which are found beneath are the crafty be 
 ings that thrive in darkness, and the weaker organ 
 isms kept helpless by it. He who turns the stone 
 over is whosoever puts the staff of truth to the old 
 lying incubus, no matter whether he do it with a 
 serious face or a laughing one. The next year 
 stands for the coming time. Then shall the na 
 ture which had lain blanched and broken rise in 
 its full stature and native hues in the sunshine. 
 Then shall God's minstrels build their nests in 
 the hearts of a new-born humanity. Then shall 
 beauty Divinity taking outlines and color 
 light upon the souls of men as the butterfly, 
 image of the beatified spirit rising from the dust, 
 soars from the shell that held a poor grub, which 
 would never have found wings, had not the stone 
 been lifted. 
 
 You never need think you can turn over any 
 old falsehood without a terrible squirming and 
 
I 3 6 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 scattering of the horrid little population that 
 dwells under it. 
 
 Every real thought on every real subject 
 
 knocks the wind out of somebody or other. As 
 soon as his breath comes back, he very probably 
 begins to expend it in hard words. These are 
 the best evidence a man can have that he has said 
 something it was time to say. Dr. Johnson was 
 disappointed in the effect of one of his pamphlets. 
 " I think I have not been attacked enough for it," 
 he said ; " attack is the reaction ; I never think 
 I have hit, hard unless it rebounds." 
 
 If a fellow attacked my opinions in print, 
 
 would I reply ? Not I. Do you think I don't 
 understand what my friend, the Professor, long 
 ago called the hydrostatic paradox of controversy ? 
 
 Don't know what that means ? Well, I will 
 tell you. You know, that, if you had a bent tube, 
 one arm of which was of the size of a pipe-stein, 
 and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water 
 would stand at the same height in one as in the 
 other. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men 
 in the same way, and the fools know it. 
 
 No, but I often read what they say about 
 
 other people. There are about a dozen phrases 
 which all come tumbling along together, like the 
 tongs, and the shovel, and the poker, and the 
 brush, and the bellows, in one of those domestic 
 avalanches that everybody knows. If you get 
 one, you get the whole lot. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 137 
 
 What are they? 0, that depends a good 
 deal on latitude and longitude. Epithets follow 
 the isothermal lines pretty accurately. Grouping 
 them in two families, one finds himself a clever, 
 genial, witty, wise, brilliant, sparkling, thoughtful, 
 distinguished, celebrated, illustrious scholar and 
 perfect gentleman, and first writer of the age ; or 
 a dull, foolish, wicked, pert, shallow, ignorant, 
 insolent, traitorous, black-hearted outcast, and 
 disgrace to civilization. 
 
 What do I think determines the set of phrases 
 a man gets ? Well, I should say a set of in 
 fluences something like these: 1st. Relation 
 ships, political, religious, social, domestic. 2d. 
 Oysters, in the form of suppers given to gentle 
 men connected with criticism. I believe in the 
 school, the college, and the clergy ; but my sover 
 eign logic, for regulating public opinion which 
 means commonly the opinion of half a dozen of 
 the critical gentry is the following Major propo 
 sition. Oysters au naturel. Minor proposition. The 
 
 same " scalloped." Conclusion. That (here 
 
 insert entertainer's name) is clever, witty, wise, 
 brilliant, and the rest. 
 
 No, it is n't exactly bribery. One man 
 
 has oysters, and another epithets. It is an ex 
 change of hospitalities ; one gives a " spread " on 
 linen, and the other on paper, that is all. Don't 
 you think you and I should be apt to do just 
 
138 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 so, if we were in the critical line ? I am sure I 
 could n't resist the softening influences of hospi 
 tality. I don't like to dine out, you know, I 
 dine so well at our own table, [our landlady looked 
 radiant,] and the company is so pleasant [a rus 
 tling movement of satisfaction among the board 
 ers] ; but if I did partake of a man's salt, with 
 such additions as that article of food requires to 
 make it palatable, I could never abuse him, and if 
 I had to speak of him, I suppose I should hang 
 my set of jingling epithets round him like a string 
 of sleigh-bells. Good feeling helps society to make 
 liars of most of us, not absolute liars, but such 
 careless handlers of truth that its sharp corners 
 get terribly rounded. I love truth as chiefest 
 among the virtues ; I trust it runs in my blood ; 
 but I would never be a critic, because I know I 
 could not always tell it. I might write a criticism 
 of a book that happened to please me; that is 
 another matter. 
 
 Listen, Benjamin Franklin ! This is for 
 
 you, and such others of tender age as you may 
 tell it to. 
 
 When we are as yet small children, long before 
 the time when those two grown ladies offer us the 
 choice of Hercules, there comes up to us a youth 
 ful angel, holding in his right hand cirbes like dice, 
 and in his left spheres like marbles. The cubes 
 are of stainless ivory, and on each is written in 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 139 
 
 letters of gold TRUTH. The spheres are veined 
 and streaked and spotted beneath, with a dark 
 crimson flush above, where the light falls on them, 
 and in a certain aspect you can make out upon 
 every one of them the three letters L, I, E. The 
 child to whom they are offered very probably 
 clutches at both. The spheres are the most con 
 venient things in the world; they roll with the 
 least possible impulse just where the child would 
 have them. The cubes will not roll at all ; they 
 have a great talent for standing still, and always 
 keep right side up. But very soon the young 
 philosopher finds that things which roll so easily 
 are very apt to roll into the wrong corner, and 
 to get out of his way when he most wants them, 
 while he always knows where to find the others, 
 which stay where they are left. Thus he learns 
 thus we learn to drop the streaked and spec 
 kled globes of falsehood and to hold fast the white 
 angular blocks of truth. But then comes Timid 
 ity, and after her Good-nature, and last of all 
 Polite-behavior, all insisting that truth must roll, 
 or nobody can do anything with it; and so the 
 first with her coarse rasp, and the second with her 
 broad file, and the third with her silken sleeve, do 
 so round off and smooth and polish the snow- 
 white cubes of truth, that, when they have got a 
 little dingy by use, it becomes hard to tell them 
 from the rolling spheres of falsehood. 
 
I 4 o THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 The schoolmistress was polite enough to say 
 that she was pleased with this, and that she would 
 read it to her little flock the next day. But she 
 should tell the children, she said, that there were 
 better reasons for truth than could be found in 
 mere experience of its convenience and the incon 
 venience of lying. 
 
 Yes, I said, but education always begins 
 through the senses, and works up to the idea of 
 absolute right and wrong. The first thing the 
 child has to learn about this matter is, that lying 
 is unprofitable, afterwards, that it is against 
 the peace and dignity of the universe. 
 
 Do I think that the particular form of 
 
 lying often seen in newspapers, under the title, 
 " From our Foreign Correspondent," does any 
 harm? Why, no, I don't know that it does. 
 I suppose it does n't really deceive people any 
 more than the " Arabian Nights " or " Gulliver's 
 Travels " do. Sometimes the writers compile too 
 carelessly, though, and mix up facts out of geog 
 raphies, and stories out of the penny papers, so 
 as to mislead those who are desirous of infor 
 mation. I cut a piece out of one of the pa 
 pers, the other day, which contains a number 
 of improbabilities, and, I suspect, misstatements. 
 I will send up and get it for you, if you 
 
 would like to hear it. Ah, this is it; it is 
 
 headed 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 141 
 " OUR SUMATRA CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 " This island is now the property of the Stam 
 ford family, having been won, it is said, in a 
 raffle, by Sir Stamford, during the stock- 
 gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme. The 
 history of this gentleman may be found in an in 
 teresting series of questions (unfortunately not yet 
 answered) contained in the < Notes and Queries.' 
 This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, 
 which here contains a large amount of saline sub 
 stance, crystallizing in cubes remarkable for their 
 symmetry, and frequently displays on its surface, 
 during calm weather, the rainbow tints of the 
 celebrated South-Sea bubbles. The summers are 
 oppressively hot, and the winters very probably 
 cold ; but this fact cannot be ascertained precisely, 
 as, for some peculiar reason, the mercury in these 
 latitudes never shrinks, as in more northern re 
 gions, and thus the thermometer is rendered use 
 less in winter. 
 
 " The principal vegetable productions of the 
 island are the pepper-tree and the bread-fruit tree. 
 Pepper being very abundantly produced, a benev 
 olent society was organized in London during the 
 last century for supplying the natives with vine 
 gar and oysters, as an addition to that delightful 
 condiment. [Note received from Dr. D. P.] It 
 is said, however, that, as the oysters were of the 
 
1 42 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 kind called natives in England, the natives of 
 Sumatra, in obedience to a natural instinct, re 
 fused to touch them, and confined themselves en 
 tirely to the crew of the vessel in which they were 
 brought over. This information was received 
 from one of the oldest inhabitants, a native him 
 self, and exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is 
 said also to be very skilful in the cuisine peculiar 
 to the island. 
 
 "During the season of gathering the pepper, 
 the persons employed are subject to various in- 
 commodities, the chief of which is violent and 
 long-continued sternutation, or sneezing. Such 
 is the vehemence of these attacks, that the unfor 
 tunate subjects of them are often driven backwards 
 for great distances at immense speed, on the well- 
 known principle of the seolipile. Not being able 
 to see where they are going, these poor creatures 
 dash themselves to pieces against the rocks or are 
 precipitated over the cliffs, and thus many valu 
 able lives are lost annually. As, during the whole 
 pepper-harvest, they feed exclusively on this stim 
 ulant, they become exceedingly irritable. The 
 smallest injury is resented with ungovernable rage. 
 A young man suffering from the pepper-fever, as 
 it is called, cudgelled another most severely for 
 appropriating a superannuated relative of trifling 
 value, and was only pacified by having a present 
 made him of a pig of that peculiar species of 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 143 
 
 swine called the Peccavi by the Catholic Jews, 
 who, it is well known, abstain from swine's flesh 
 in imitation of the Mahometan Buddhists. 
 
 " The bread-tree grows abundantly. Its branch 
 es are well known to Europe and America under 
 the familiar name of maccaroni. The smaller 
 twigs are called vermicelli. They have a decided 
 animal flavor, as may be observed in the soups 
 containing them. Maccaroni, being tubular, is 
 the favorite habitat of a very dangerous insect, 
 which is rendered peculiarly ferocious by being 
 boiled. The government of the island, therefore, 
 never allows a stick of it to be exported without 
 being accompanied by a piston with which its 
 cavity may at any time be thoroughly swept out. 
 These are commonly lost or stolen before the 
 maccaroni arrives among us. It therefore always 
 contains many of these insects, which, however, 
 generally die of old age in the shops, so that acci 
 dents from this source are comparatively rare. 
 
 " The fruit of the bread-tree consists principally 
 of hot rolls. The buttered-muffin variety is sup 
 posed to be a hybrid with the cocoa-nut palm, 
 the cream found on the milk of the cocoa-nut ex 
 uding from the hybrid in the shape of butter, just 
 as the ripe fruit is splitting, so as to fit it for 
 the tea-table, where it is commonly served up with 
 cold " 
 
 There, I don't want to read any more 
 
144 THE AUTOCRAT 
 of it. You see that many of these statements are 
 highly improbable. No, I shall not mention the 
 paper. No, neither of them wrote it, though it 
 reminds me of the style of these popular writers. 
 I think the fellow who wrote it must have been 
 reading some of their stories, and got them mixed 
 up with his history and geography. I don't sup 
 pose he lies ; he sells it to the editor, who knows 
 how many squares off "Sumatra" is. The edi 
 tor, who sells it to the public By the way, 
 
 the papers have been very civil have n't they ? 
 to the the what d' ye call it ? " Northern 
 Magazine," is n't it ? got up by some of those 
 Come-outers, down East, as an organ for their 
 local peculiarities. 
 
 The Professor has been to see me. Came 
 
 in, glorious, at about twelve o'clock, last night. 
 Said he had been with " the boys." On inquiry, 
 found that " the boys " were certain baldish and 
 'grayish old gentlemen that one sees or hears of 
 in various important stations of society. The 
 Professor is one of the same set, but he always 
 talks as if he had been out of college about ten 
 
 years, whereas [Each of these 
 
 dots was a little nod, which the company under 
 stood, as the reader will, no doubt.] He calls 
 them sometimes " the boys," and sometimes " the 
 old fellows." Call him by the latter title, and see 
 how he likes it. Well, he came in last night 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 145 
 
 glorious, as I was saying. Of course I don't 
 mean vinously exalted; he drinks little wine on 
 such occasions, and is well known to all the Peters 
 and Patricks as the gentleman who always has 
 indefinite quantities of black tea to kill any extra 
 glass of red claret he may have swallowed. But 
 the Professor says he always gets tipsy on old 
 memories at these gatherings. He was, I forget 
 how many years old when he went to the meet 
 ing; just turned of twenty now, he said. He 
 made various youthful proposals to me, including 
 a duet under the landlady's daughter's window. 
 He had just learned a trick, he said, of one of 
 " the boys," of getting a splendid bass out of a 
 door-panel by rubbing it with the palm of his 
 hand. Offered to sing " The sky is bright," ac 
 companying himself on the front-door, if I would 
 go down and help in the chorus. Said there 
 never was such a set of fellows as the old boys 
 of the set he has been with. Judges, mayors, 
 Congressmen, Mr. Speakers, leaders in science, 
 clergymen better than famous, and famous too, 
 poets by the half-dozen, singers with voices like 
 angels, financiers, wits, three of the best laughers 
 in the Commonwealth, engineers, agriculturists, 
 all forms of talent and knowledge he pretended 
 were represented in that meeting. Then he be 
 gan to quote Byron about Santa Croce, and main 
 tained that he could " furnish out creation " in all 
 
146 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 its details from that set of his. He would like to 
 have the whole boodle of them, (I remonstrated 
 against this word, but the Professor said it was a 
 diabolish good word, and he would have no other,) 
 with their wives and children, shipwrecked on a 
 remote island, just to see how splendidly they 
 would reorganize society. They could build a 
 city, they have done it; make constitutions and 
 laws ; establish churches and lyceums ; teach and 
 practise the healing art ; instruct in every depart 
 ment; found observatories; create commerce and 
 manufactures ; write songs and hymns, and sing 
 'em, and make instruments to accompany the 
 songs with ; lastly, publish a journal almost as 
 good as the " Northern Magazine," edited by the 
 Come-outers. There was nothing they were not 
 up to, from a christening to a hanging ; the last, 
 to be sure, could never be called for, unless some 
 stranger got in among them. 
 
 I let the Professor talk as long as he liked ; 
 
 it did n't make much difference to me whether it 
 was all truth, or partly made up of pale Sherry 
 and similar elements. All at once he jumped up 
 and said, 
 
 Don't you want to hear what I just read to the 
 boys ? 
 
 I have had questions of a similar character 
 asked me before, occasionally. A man of iron 
 mould might perhaps say, No ! I am not a man 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 147 
 
 of iron mould, and said that I should be de 
 lighted. 
 
 The Professor then read with that slightly 
 sing-song cadence which is observed to be com 
 mon in poets reading their own verses the fol 
 lowing stanzas ; holding them at a focal distance 
 of about two feet and a half, with an occasional 
 movement back or forward for better adjustment, 
 the appearance of which has been likened by some 
 impertinent young folks to that of the act of play 
 ing on the trombone. His eyesight was never 
 better; I have his word for it. 
 
 MARE RUBRUM. 
 
 Flash out a stream of blood-red wine ! 
 
 For I would drink to other days ; 
 And brighter shall their memory shine, 
 
 Seen flaming through its crimson blaze. 
 The roses die, the summers fade ; 
 
 But every ghost of boyhood's dream 
 By Nature's magic power is laid 
 
 To sleep beneath this blood-red stream. 
 
 It filled the purple grapes that lay 
 
 And drank the splendors of the sun 
 Where the long summer's cloudless day 
 
 Is mirrored in the broad Garonne ; 
 It pictures still the bacchant shapes 
 
 That saw their hoarded sunlight shed, 
 The maidens dancing on the grapes, 
 
 Their milk-white ankles splashed with red. 
 
 Beneath these waves of crimson lie, 
 
 In rosy fetters prisoned fast, 
 Those flitting shapes that never die, 
 
 The swift-winged visions of the past. 
 
148 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim, 
 Each shadow rends its flowery chain, 
 
 Springs in a bubble from its brim 
 And walks the chambers of the brain. 
 
 Poor Beauty ! time and fortune's wrong 
 
 No form nor featui-e may withstand, 
 Thy wrecks are scattered all along, 
 
 Like emptied sea-shells on the sand ; 
 Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain, 
 
 The dust restores each blooming girl, 
 As if the sea-shells moved again 
 
 Their glistening lips of pink and pearl. 
 
 Here lies the home of school-boy life, 
 
 With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, 
 And, scarred by many a truant knife, 
 
 Our old initials on the wall ; 
 Here rest their keen vibrations mute 
 
 The shout of voices known so well, 
 The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, 
 
 The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell. 
 
 Here, clad in burning robes, are laid 
 
 Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed ; 
 And here those cherished forms have strayed 
 
 We miss awhile, and call them dead. 
 What wizard fills the maddening glass ? 
 
 What soil the enchanted clusters grew, 
 That buried passions wake and pass 
 
 In beaded drops of fiery dew ? 
 
 Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine, 
 
 Our hearts can boast a warmer glow, 
 Filled from a vintage more divine, 
 
 Calmed, but not chilled by winter's snow ! 
 To-night the palest wave we sip 
 
 Rich as the priceless draught shall be 
 That wet the bride of Cana's lip, 
 
 The wedding wine of Galilee ! 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 149 
 
 VI. 
 
 IN has many tools, but a lie is the 
 handle which fits them all. 
 
 I think, sir, said the divinity- 
 student, you must intend that for 
 one of the sayings of the Seven Wise Men of 
 Boston you were speaking of the other day. 
 
 I thank you, my young friend, was my re 
 ply, but I must say something better than that, 
 before I could pretend to fill out the number. 
 
 The schoolmistress wanted to know how 
 
 many of these sayings there were on record, and 
 what, and by whom said. 
 
 Why, let us see, there is that one of 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, " the great Bostonian," after 
 whom this lad was named. To be sure, he said a 
 great many wise things, and I don't feel sure he 
 did n't borrow this, he speaks as if it were old. 
 But then he applied it so neatly ! 
 
 " He that has once done you a kindness will be 
 more ready to do you another than he whom you 
 yourself have obliged." 
 
 Then there is that glorious Epicurean paradox, 
 uttered by my friend, the Historian, in one of his 
 flashing moments : 
 
1 5 o THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 " Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dis 
 pense with its necessaries." 
 
 To these must certainly be added that other 
 saying of one of the wittiest of men : 
 
 " Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris." 
 
 The divinity-student looked grave at this, 
 
 but said nothing. 
 
 The schoolmistress spoke out, and said she 
 did n't think the wit meant any irreverence. It 
 was only another way of saying, Paris is a heav 
 enly place after New York or Boston. 
 
 A jaunty -looking person, who had come in with 
 the young fellow they call John, evidently a 
 stranger, said there was one more wise man's 
 saying that he had heard : it was about our place, 
 but he did n't know who said it. A civil curios 
 ity was manifested by the company to hear the 
 fourth wise saying. I heard him distinctly whis 
 pering to the young fellow who brought him to 
 dinner, Shall I tell it ? To which the answer was, 
 Go ahead ! Well, he said, this is what I 
 heard : 
 
 "Boston State-House is the hub of the solar 
 system. You could n't pry that out of a Boston 
 man, if you had the tire of all creation straight 
 ened out for a crowbar." 
 
 Sir, said I, I am gratified with your re 
 mark. It expresses with pleasing vivacity that 
 which I have sometimes heard uttered with ma- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 151 
 
 lignant dulness. The satire of the remark is es 
 sentially true of Boston, and of all other con 
 siderable and inconsiderable places with which 
 I have had the privilege of being acquainted. 
 Cockneys think London is the only place in the 
 world. Frenchmen you remember the line 
 about Paris, the Court, the World, etc. I recol 
 lect well, by the way, a sign in that city which 
 ran thus : " Hotel de TUnivers et des Etats Unis " ; 
 and as Paris is the universe to a Frenchman, of 
 course the United States are outside of it. " See 
 Naples and then die." It is quite as bad with 
 smaller places. I have been about, lecturing, you 
 know, and have found the following propositions 
 to hold true of all of them. 
 
 1. The axis of the earth sticks out visibly 
 through the centre of each and every town or 
 city. 
 
 2. If more than fifty years have passed since its 
 foundation, it is affectionately styled by the inhab 
 itants the "good old town of" (whatever its 
 
 name may happen to be.) 
 
 3. Every collection of its inhabitants that comes 
 together to listen to a stranger is invariably de 
 clared to be a "remarkably intelligent audience." 
 
 4. The climate of the place is particularly fa 
 vorable to longevity. 
 
 5. It contains several persons of vast talent lit 
 tle known to the world. (One or two of them, 
 
I 5 2 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 you may perhaps chance to remember, sent short 
 pieces to the " Pactolian " some time since, which 
 were " respectfully declined/') 
 
 Boston is just like other places of its size; 
 only perhaps, considering its excellent fish-market, 
 paid fire-department, superior monthly publica 
 tions, and correct habit of spelling the English 
 language, it has some right to look down on the 
 mob of cities. I '11 tell you, though, if you want 
 to know it, what is the real offence of Boston. It 
 drains a large water-shed of its intellect, and will 
 not itself be drained. If it would only send away 
 its first-rate men, instead of its second-rate ones, 
 (no offence to the well-known exceptions, of which 
 we are always proud,) we should be spared such 
 epigrammatic remarks as that which the gentle 
 man has quoted. There can never be a real me 
 tropolis in this country, until the biggest centre 
 can drain the lesser ones of their talent and wealth. 
 I have observed, by the way, that the people 
 who really live in two great cities are by no 
 means so jealous of each other, as are those of 
 smaller cities situated within the intellectual basin, 
 or suction-range, of one large one, of the pretensions 
 of any other. Don't you see why ? Because their 
 promising young author and rising lawyer and 
 large capitalist have been drained off to the neigh 
 boring big city, their prettiest girl has been ex 
 ported to the same market; all their ambition 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 153 
 
 points there, and all their thin gilding of glory 
 conies from there. I hate little toad-eating cities. 
 
 Would I be so good as to specify any par 
 ticular example "? O, an example ? Did you 
 ever see a bear-trap ? Never ? Well, should n't 
 you like to see me put my foot into one ? With 
 sentiments of the highest consideration I must 
 beg leave to be excused. 
 
 Besides, some of the smaller cities are charm 
 ing. If they have an old church or two, a few 
 stately mansions of former grandees, here and there 
 an old dwelling with the second story projecting, 
 (for the convenience of shooting the Indians knock 
 ing at the front-door with their tomahawks,) if 
 they have, scattered about, those mighty square 
 houses built something more than half a century 
 ago, and standing like architectural bowlders 
 dropped by the former diluvium of wealth, whose 
 refluent wave has left them as its monument, 
 if they have gardens with elbowed apple-trees that 
 push their branches over the high board-fence and 
 drop their fruit on the sidewalk, if they have a 
 little grass in the side-streets, enough to betoken 
 quiet without proclaiming decay, I think I could 
 go to pieces, after my life's work were done, in one 
 of those tranquil places, as sweetly as in any cra 
 dle that an old man may be rocked to sleep in. I 
 visit such spots always with infinite delight. My 
 friend, the Poet, says, that rapidly growing towns 
 
i 5 4 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 are most unfavorable to the imaginative and re 
 flective faculties. Let a man live in one of these 
 old quiet places, he says, and the wine of his soul, 
 which is kept thick and turbid by the rattle of busy 
 streets, settles, and, as you hold it up, you may 
 see the sun through it by day and the stars by 
 night. 
 
 Do I think that the little villages have the 
 
 conceit of the great towns ? I don't believe there 
 is much difference. You know how they read 
 Pope's line in the smallest town in our State of 
 Massachusetts ? Well, they read it 
 
 " All are but parts of one stupendous HULL ! " 
 
 Every person's feelings have a front-door 
 
 and a side-door by which they may be entered. 
 The front-door is on the street. Some keep it al 
 ways open ; some keep it latched ; some, locked ; 
 some, bolted, with a chain that will let you peep 
 in, but not get in ; and some nail it up, so that 
 nothing can pass its threshold. This front-door 
 leads into a passage which opens into an anteroom, 
 and this into the interior apartments. The side- 
 door opens at once into the sacred chambers. 
 
 There is almost always at least one key to this 
 side-door. This is carried for years hidden in a 
 mother's bosom. Fathers, brothers, sisters, and 
 friends, often, but by no means so universally, have 
 duplicates of it. The wedding-ring conveys a right 
 to one ; alas, if none is given with it ! 
 
OF THE. BREAKFAS T- TABLE. 1 5 5 
 
 If nature or accident has put one of these keys 
 into the hands of a person who has the torturing 
 instinct, I can only solemnly pronounce the words 
 that Justice utters over its doomed victim, The 
 Lord have mercy on your soul ! You will probably 
 go mad within a reasonable time, or, if you are 
 a man, run off and die with your head on a curb 
 stone, in Melbourne or San Francisco, or, if you 
 are a woman, quarrel and break your heart, or 
 turn into a pale, jointed petrifaction that moves 
 about as if it were alive, or play some real life- 
 tragedy or other. 
 
 Be very careful to whom you trust one of these 
 keys of the side-door. The fact of possessing one 
 renders those even who are dear to you very terri 
 ble at times. You can keep the world out from 
 your front-door, or receive visitors only when you 
 are ready for them ; but those of your own flesh 
 and blood, or of certain grades of intimacy, can 
 come in at the side-door, if they will, at any hour 
 and in any mood. Some of them have a scale of 
 your whole nervous system, and can play all the 
 gamut of your sensibilities in semitones, touch 
 ing the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes the 
 keys of his instrument. I am satisfied that there 
 are as great masters of this nerve-playing as Vieux- 
 temps or Thalberg in their lines of performance. 
 Married life is the school in which the most ac 
 complished artists in this department are found. 
 
156 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 A delicate woman is the best instrument ; she has 
 such a magnificent compass of sensibilities ! From 
 the deep inward moan which follows pressure on 
 the great nerves of right, to the sharp cry as the 
 filaments of taste are struck with a crashing sweep, 
 is a range which no other instrument possesses. 
 A few exercises on it daily at home fit a man won 
 derfully for his habitual labors, and refresh him 
 immensely as he returns from them. No stranger 
 can get a great many notes of torture out of a hu 
 man soul ; it takes one that knows it well, parent, 
 child, brother, sister, intimate. Be very careful to 
 whom you give a side-door key ; too many have 
 them already. 
 
 You remember the old story of the tender 
 hearted man, who placed a frozen viper in his bo 
 som, and was stung by it when it became thawed? 
 If we take a cold-blooded creature into our bosom, 
 better that it should sting us and we should die 
 than that its chill should slowly steal into our 
 hearts ; warm it we never can ! I have seen faces 
 of women that were fair to look upon, yet one 
 could see that the icicles were forming round these 
 women's hearts. I knew what freezing image lay 
 on the white breasts beneath the laces ! 
 
 A very simple intellectual mechanism answers 
 the necessities of friendship, and even of the most 
 intimate relations of life. If a watch tells us the 
 hour and minute, we can be content to carry it 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 157 
 
 about with us for a lifetime, though it has no sec 
 ond-hand and is not a repeater, nor a musical 
 watch, though it is not enamelled nor jewelled, 
 in short, though it has little beyond the wheels 
 required for a trustworthy instrument, added to a 
 good face and a pair of useful hands. The more 
 wheels there are in a watch or a brain, the more 
 trouble they are to take care of. The movements 
 of exaltation which belong to genius are egotistic 
 by their very nature. A calm, clear mind, not 
 subject to the spasms and crises which are so often 
 met with in creative or intensely perceptive na 
 tures, is the best basis for love or friendship. Ob 
 serve, I am talking about minds. I won't say, the 
 more intellect, the less capacity for loving ; for 
 that would do wrong to the understanding and 
 reason ; but, on the other hand, that the brain 
 often runs away with the heart's best blood, which 
 gives the world a few pages of wisdom or senti 
 ment or poetry, instead of making one other heart 
 happy, I have no question. 
 
 If one's intimate in love or friendship cannot or 
 does not share all one's intellectual tastes or pur 
 suits, that is a small matter. Intellectual com 
 panions can be found easily in men and books. 
 After all, if we think of it, most of the world's 
 loves and friendships have been between people 
 that could not read nor spell. 
 
 But to radiate the heat of the affections into a 
 
i 5 8 TIl^ AUTOCRAT 
 
 clod, which absorbs all that is poured into it, but 
 never warms beneath the sunshine of smile* or the 
 pressure of hand or lip, this is the great martyr 
 dom of sensitive beings, most of all in that per 
 petual auto da fe where young womanhood is the 
 sacrifice. 
 
 You noticed, perhaps, what I just said 
 
 about the loves and friendships of illiterate per 
 sons, that is, of the human race, with a few ex 
 ceptions here and there. I like books, I was 
 born and bred among them, and have the easy 
 feeling, when I get into their presence, that a stable- 
 boy has among horses. I don't think I undervalue 
 them either as companions or as instructors. But 
 I can't help remembering that the world's great 
 men have not commonly been great scholars, nor 
 its great scholars great men. The Hebrew pa 
 triarchs had small libraries, I think, if any ; yet 
 they represent to our imaginations a very com 
 plete idea of manhood, and, I think, if we could 
 ask in Abraham to dine with us men of letters 
 next Saturday, we should feel honored by his 
 company. 
 
 What I wanted to say about books is this : that 
 there are times in which every active mind feels 
 itself above any and all human books. 
 
 1 think a man must have a good opinion 
 
 of himself, sir, said the divinity-student, who 
 should feel himself above Shakespeare at any time. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 159 
 
 My young friend, I replied, the man who 
 is never conscious of a state of feeling or of intel 
 lectual effort entirely beyond expression by any 
 form of words whatsoever is a mere creature of 
 language. I can hardly believe there are any such 
 men. Why, think for a moment of the power of 
 music. The nerves that make us alive to it spread 
 out (so the Professor tells me) in the most sensi 
 tive region of the marrow just where it is wid 
 ening to run upwards into the hemispheres. It 
 has its seat in the region of sense rather than of 
 thought. Yet it produces a continuous and, as it 
 were, logical sequence of emotional and intellectual 
 changes ; but how different from trains of thought 
 proper ! how entirely beyond the reach of sym 
 bols ! Think of human passions as compared with 
 all phrases ! Did you ever hear of a man's grow 
 ing lean by the reading of " Romeo and Juliet," 
 or blowing his brains out because Desdemona was 
 maligned ? There arc a good many symbols, even, 
 that are more expressive than words. I remem 
 ber a young wife who had to part with her husband 
 for a time. She did not write a mournful poem ; 
 indeed, she was a silent person, and perhaps hard 
 ly said a word about it ; but she quietly turned of 
 a deep orange color with jaundice. A great many 
 people in this world have but one form of rhetoric 
 for their profoundest experiences, namely, to 
 waste away and die. When a man can read, his 
 
160 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 paroxysm of feeling is passing. When he can 
 read, his thought has slackened its hold. You 
 talk about reading Shakespeare, using him as an 
 expression for the highest intellect, and you won 
 der that any common person should be so presump 
 tuous as to suppose his thought can rise above the 
 text which lies before him. But think a moment. 
 A child's reading of Shakespeare is one thing, and 
 Coleridge's or Schlegel's reading of him is another. 
 The saturation-point of each mind differs from that 
 of every other. But I think it is as true for the 
 small mind which can only take up a little as for 
 the great one which takes up much, that the sug 
 gested trains of thought and feeling ought always 
 to rise above not the author, but the reader's 
 mental version of the author, whoever he may be. 
 
 I think most readers of Shakespeare sometimes 
 find themselves thrown into exalted mental condi 
 tions like those produced by music. Then they 
 may drop the book, to pass at once into the region 
 of thought without words. We may happen to 
 be very dull folks, you and I, and probably are, 
 unless there is some particular reason to suppose 
 the contrary. But we get glimpses now and then 
 of a sphere of spiritual possibilities, where we, dull 
 as we are now, may sail in vast circles round the 
 largest compass of earthly intelligences. 
 
 I confess there are times when I feel like 
 
 the friend I mentioned to you some time ago, I 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 161 
 
 hate the very sight of a book. Sometimes it 
 becomes almost a physical necessity to talk out 
 what is in the mind, before putting anything else 
 into it. It is very bad to have thoughts and feel 
 ings, which were meant to come out in talk, strike 
 in, as they say of some complaints that ought to 
 show outwardly. 
 
 I always believed in life rather than in books. 
 I suppose every day of earth, with its hundred 
 thousand deaths and something more of births, 
 with its loves and hates, its triumphs and defeats, 
 its pangs and blisses, has more of humanity in it 
 than all the books that were ever written, put 
 together. I believe the flowers growing at this 
 moment send up more fragrance to heaven than 
 was ever exhaled from all the essences ever dis 
 tilled. 
 
 Don't I read up various matters to talk 
 
 about at this table or elsewhere? No, that is 
 the last thing I would do. I will tell you my 
 rule. Talk about those subjects you have had 
 long in your mind, and listen to what others say 
 about subjects you have studied but recently. 
 Knowledge and timber should n't be much used 
 till they are seasoned. 
 
 Physiologists and metaphysicians have 
 
 had their attention turned a good deal of late to 
 the automatic and involuntary actions of the mind. 
 Put an idea into your intelligence and leave it 
 ii 
 
162 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 there an hour, a day, a year, without ever having 
 occasion to refer to it. When, at last, you return 
 to it, you do not find it as it was when acquired. 
 It has domiciliated itself, so to speak, become 
 at home, entered into relations with your other 
 thoughts, and integrated itself with the whole 
 fabric of the mind. Or take a simple and famil 
 iar example ; Dr. Carpenter has adduced it. You 
 forget a name, in conversation, go on talking, 
 without making any effort to recall it, and 
 presently the mind evolves it by its own involun 
 tary and unconscious action, while you were pur 
 suing another train of thought, and the name 
 rises of itself to your lips. 
 
 There are some curious observations I should 
 like to make about the mental machinery, but I 
 think we are getting rather didactic. 
 
 I should be gratified, if Benjamin Frank 
 lin would let me know something of his progress 
 in the French language. I rather liked that ex 
 ercise he read us the other day, though I must 
 confess I should hardly dare to translate it, for 
 fear some people in a remote city where I once 
 lived might think I was drawing their portraits. 
 
 - Yes, Paris is a famous place for societies. 
 I don't know whether the piece I mentioned from 
 the French author was intended simply as Natu 
 ral History, or whether there was not a little 
 malice in his description. At any rate, when I 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 163 
 
 gave my translation to B. F. to turn back again 
 into French, one reason was that I thought it 
 would sound a little bald in English, and some 
 people might think it was meant to have some 
 local bearing or other, which the author, of 
 course, did n't mean, inasmuch as he could not be 
 acquainted with anything on this side of the 
 water. 
 
 [The above remarks were addressed to the 
 schoolmistress, to whom I handed the paper after 
 looking it over. The divinity-student came and 
 read over her shoulder, very curious, apparently, 
 but his eyes wandered, I thought. Fancying that 
 her breathing was somewhat hurried and high, or 
 thoracic, as my friend, the Professor, calls it, I 
 watched her a little more closely. It is none of 
 my business. After all, it is the imponderables 
 that move the world, heat, electricity, love. 
 Habet ?] 
 
 This is the piece that Benjamin Franklin made 
 into boarding-school French, such as you see here ; 
 don't expect too much ; the mistakes give a 
 relish to it, I think. 
 
 LES SOCIETES POLYPHYSIOPHILOSOPHIQUES. 
 
 Ces Societe's la sont une Institution pour suppleer 
 aux besoins d'esprit et de coeur de ces individus qui 
 ont survecu a leurs Emotions a 1'egard du beau sexe, 
 et qui n'ont pas la distraction de 1'habitude de boire. 
 
 Pour devenir membre d'une de ces Socie'te's, on 
 
1 64 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 doit avoir le moins de chevenx possible. S'il y en 
 reste plusieurs qui resistent aux depilatoires natu- 
 relles et autres, on doit avoir quelques connabsances, 
 n'importe dans quel genre. Des le moment qu'on 
 ouvre la porte de la Societe", on a un grand inte'ret 
 dans tontes les choses dont on ne sait rien. Ainsi, un 
 microscopiste demontre un nouveau flexor du tarse 
 d'un melolontha vulgaris. Douze savans improvises, 
 portans des besides, et qui ne connaissent rien des 
 insectes, si ce n'est les morsures du culex, se pre*- 
 cipitent sur 1'instrument, et voient une grande 
 bulle d'air, dont ils s'emerveillent avec effusion. Ce 
 qui est un spectacle plein d'instruction pour ceux 
 qui ne sont pas de ladite Socie'te'. Tous les membres 
 regardent les chimistes en particulier avec un air 
 d'intelligence parfaite pendant qu'ils prouvent dans 
 un discours d'une demiheure que O 6 N 3 H 5 C 6 , etc., 
 font quelque chose qui n'est bonne a rien, mais qui 
 probablement a une odeur tres de*sagreable, selon 
 Tliabitude des produits chimiques. Apres cela vient 
 un mathe'maticien qui vous bourre avec des a -\- b et 
 vous rapporte enfin un x -j- y, dont vous n'avez pas 
 besoin et qui ne change imllement vos relations avec 
 la vie. Un natural iste vous parle des formations 
 spe'ciales des animaux excessivement inconnus, dont 
 vous n'avez jamais soupconne' 1'existence. Ainsi il 
 vous de"crit les follicules de lappendix vermiformis 
 d'jin dzigyuetai. Vous ne savez pas ce que c'est 
 qu'un folUcule. Vous ne savez pas ce que c'est 
 qu'un appendix vermiformis. Vous n'avez jamais 
 entendu parler du dzigyuetai. Ainsi vous gagnez 
 toutes ces connaissances a la fois, qui s'attachent a 
 votre esprit com me Peau adhere aux plumes d'un 
 canard. On connait toutes les langues ex ojfitio eu 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 165 
 
 devenant membre d'une de ces Socie'tes. Ainsi 
 quand on entend lire run Essai sur les dialectes, 
 Tchutchiens, on comprend toat cela de suite, et s'in- 
 struit e'norme'ment. 
 
 II y a deux especes d'individus qu'on trouve tou- 
 jours k ces Socie'tes: 1 Le membre a questions; 2 
 Le membre a " Bylaws." 
 
 La question est une spe'cialite'. Celui qui en fait 
 metier ne fait jamais des reponses. La question est 
 une maniere tres commode de dire les choses sui- 
 vantes: "Me vcila! Je ne suis pas fossil, moi, je 
 respire encore! J'ai des idees, voyez mon intelli 
 gence ! Vous re croyiez pas, vous a'utfes, que je 
 savais quelque chose de cela! Ah, nous avons un 
 pen de sagacite, voyez vous! Nous ne sommes nul- 
 lernent la bete qu'on pense! " Lefaiseu* de ques 
 tions donne pen d* attention aux rfyonses qu'on fait ; ce 
 n' est pas la dans sa specialite. 
 
 Le membre a " Bylaws" est le bouchon de toutes 
 les Emotions mousseuses et g^nereuses qui se montrent 
 dans la Societe". C'est un empereur manque, un 
 tyran a la troisieme trituration. C'est un esprit dtir, 
 born4, exact, grand darif, les petitesses, petit dans les 
 grandeurs, selon le mot du grand Jefferson. On ne 
 1'aiine pas dans la Societe, mais on le respecte et on 
 le craint. II n'y a qu'un mot pour ce membre au- 
 dessus de " Bylaws." Cu mot est pour lui ce que 
 rOm est aux Hindous. C'est sa religion; il n'y a 
 rien audela. Ce mot la c'est la CONSTITUTION! 
 
 Lesdites Socie'tes publient des feuilletons de terns 
 en terns. On les trouve abandonnes a sa porte, nus 
 cornme des enfans nouveaunes, faute de membrane 
 cutanee, ou meme papyracee. Si on aime le bota- 
 nique, on y trouve une memoire sur les coquilles; si 
 
1 66 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 on fait des etudes zoologiques, on trouve un grand 
 tas de q 1 */ 1, ce qui doit etre infiniment plus com 
 mode que les encyclope"dies. Ainsi il est clair comme 
 la me'taphysique qu'on doit devenir membre d'une 
 Societ^ telle que nous decrivons. 
 
 Recettepour le Depilatoire Physiophilosophique. 
 
 Chaux vive Ib. ss. Eau bouillante Oj. 
 
 Depilez avec. Polissez ensuite. 
 
 I told the boy that his translation into 
 
 French was creditable to him ; and some of the 
 company wishing to hear what there was in the 
 piece that made me smile, I turned it into English 
 for them, as well as I could, on the spot. 
 
 The landlady's daughter seemed to be much 
 amused by the idea that a depilatory could take 
 the place of literary and scientific accomplish 
 ments ; she wanted me to print the piece, so that 
 she might send a copy of it to her cousin in Miz- 
 zourah ; she did n't think he 'd have to do anything 
 to the outside of his head to get into any of the 
 societies ; he had to wear a wig once, when he 
 played a part in a tabullo. 
 
 No, said I, I shouldn't think of printing 
 that in English. I '11 tell you why. As soon as 
 you get a few thousand people together in a town, 
 there is somebody that every sharp thing you say 
 is sure to hit. What if a thing was written in 
 Paris or in Pekin ? that makes no difference. 
 Everybody in those cities, or almost everybody, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 167 
 
 has his counterpart here, and in all large places. 
 You never studied averages as I have had occasion 
 to. 
 
 I '11 tell you how I came to know so much 
 about averages. There was one season when I 
 was lecturing, commonly, five evenings in the 
 week, through most of the lecturing period. I 
 soon found, as most speakers do, that it was 
 pleasanter to work one lecture than to keep sev 
 eral in hand. 
 
 Don't you get sick to -death of one lecture ? 
 
 said the landlady's daughter, who had a new 
 dress on that day, and was in spirits for conver 
 sation. 
 
 I was going to talk about averages, I said, 
 but I have no objection to telling you about lec 
 tures, to begin with. 
 
 A new lecture always has a certain excitement 
 connected with its delivery. One thinks well of 
 it, as of most things fresh from his mind. After 
 a few deliveries of it, one gets tired and then dis 
 gusted with its repetition. Go on delivering it, 
 and the disgust passes off, until, after one has re 
 peated it a hundred or a hundred and fifty times, 
 he rather enjoys the hundred and first or hundred 
 and fifty-first time, before a new audience. But 
 this is on one condition, that he never lays the 
 lecture down and lets it cool. If he does, there 
 comes on a loathing for it which is intense, so 
 
1 68 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 that the sight of the old battered manuscript is 
 as bad as sea-sickness. 
 
 A new lecture is just like any other new tool. 
 We use it for a while with pleasure. Then it 
 blisters our hands, and we hate to touch it. By 
 and by our hands get callous, and then we have 
 no longer any sensitiveness about it. But if we 
 give it up, the calluses disappear ; and if we med 
 dle with it again, we miss the novelty and get the 
 blisters. The story is often quoted of Whitefield, 
 that he said a sermon was good for nothing until 
 it had been preached forty times. A lecture 
 does n't begin to be old until it has passed its hun 
 dredth delivery ; and some, I think, have doubled, 
 if not quadrupled, that number. These old lec 
 tures are a man's best, commonly ; they improve 
 by age, also, like the pipes, fiddles, and poems I 
 told you of the other day. One learns to make 
 the most of their strong points and to carry off 
 their weak ones, to take out the really good 
 things which don't tell on the audience, and put 
 in cheaper things that do. All this degrades him, 
 of course, but it improves the lecture for general 
 delivery. A thoroughly popular lecture ought to 
 have nothing in it which five hundred people can 
 not all take in a flash, just as it is uttered. 
 
 No, indeed, I should be very sorry to 
 
 say anything disrespectful of audiences. I have 
 been kindly treated by a great many, and may oc- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 169 
 
 casionally face one hereafter. But I tell you the 
 average intellect of five hundred persons, taken as 
 they come, is not very high. It may be sound 
 and safe, so far as it goes, but it is not very rapid 
 - or profound. A lecture ought to be something 
 which all can understand, about something which 
 interests everybody. I think, that, if any experi 
 enced lecturer gives you a different account from 
 this, it will probably be one of those eloquent or 
 forcible speakers who hold an audience by the 
 charm of their manner, whatever they talk about, 
 - even when they don't talk very well. 
 
 But an average, which was what I meant to 
 speak about, is one of the most extraordinary 
 subjects of observation and study. It is awful in 
 its uniformity, in its automatic necessity of action. 
 Two communities of ants or bees are exactly alike 
 in all their actions, so far as we can see. Two 
 lyceum assemblies, of five hundred each, are so 
 nearly alike, that they are absolutely undistin- 
 guishable in many cases by any definite mark, 
 and there is nothing but the place and time by 
 which one can tell the " remarkably intelligent 
 audience " of a town in New York or Ohio from 
 one in any New England town of similar size. 
 Of course, if any principle of selection has come 
 in, as in those special associations of young men 
 which are common in cities, it deranges the uni 
 formity of the assemblage. But let there be no 
 
1 7 o THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 such interfering circumstances, and one knows 
 pretty well even the look the audience will have, 
 before he goes. Front seats : a few old folks, 
 shiny-headed, slant up best ear towards the 
 speaker, drop off asleep after a while, when the 
 air begins to get a little narcotic with carbonic 
 acid. Bright women's faces, young and middle- 
 aged, a little behind these, but toward the front 
 (pick out the best, and lecture mainly to that.) 
 Here and there a countenance, sharp and scholar- 
 like, and a dozen pretty female ones sprinkled 
 about. An indefinite number of pairs of young 
 people, happy, but not always very attentive. 
 Boys, in the background, more or less quiet. Dull 
 faces here, there, in how many places ! I don't 
 say dull people, but faces without a ray of sympa 
 thy or a movement of expression. They are what 
 kill the lecturer. These negative faces with their 
 vacuous eyes and stony lineaments pump and suck 
 the warm soul out of him ; that is the chief 
 reason why lecturers grow so pale before the sea 
 son is over. They render latent any amount of 
 vital caloric ; they act on our minds as those 
 cold-blooded creatures I was talking about act on 
 our hearts. 
 
 Out of all these inevitable elements the audience 
 is generated, a great compound vertebrate, as 
 much like fifty others you have seen as any two 
 mammals of the same species are like each other. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 171 
 
 Each audience laughs, and each cries, in just the 
 same places of your lecture ; that is, if you make 
 one laugh or cry, you make all. Even those little 
 indescribable movements which a lecturer takes 
 cognizance of, just as a driver notices his horse's 
 cocking his ears, are sure to come in exactly the 
 same place of your lecture always. I declare to 
 you, that, as the monk said about the picture in 
 the convent, that he sometimes thought the liv 
 ing tenants were the shadows, and the painted 
 figures the realities, I have sometimes felt as if 
 I were a wandering spirit, and this great unchang 
 ing multivertebrate which I faced night after night 
 was one ever-listening animal, which writhed along 
 after me wherever I fled, and coiled at my feet 
 every evening, turning up to me the same sleep 
 less eyes which I thought I had closed with my 
 last drowsy incantation ! 
 
 O yes ! A thousand kindly and courte 
 ous acts, a thousand faces that melted individ 
 ually out of my recollection as the April snow 
 melts, but only to steal away and find the beds 
 of flowers whose roots are memory, but which 
 blossom in poetry and dreams. I am not un 
 grateful, nor unconscious of all the good feeling 
 and intelligence everywhere to be met with through 
 the vast parish to which the lecturer ministers. 
 But when I set forth, leading a string of rny 
 mind's daughters to market, as the country-folk 
 
1 72 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 fetch in their strings of horses Pardon me, that 
 was a coarse fellow who sneered at the sympathy 
 wasted on an unhappy lecturer, as if, because he 
 was decently paid for his services, he had there 
 fore sold his sensibilities. Family men get dread 
 fully homesick. In the remote and bleak village 
 the heart returns to the red blaze of the logs in 
 one's fireplace at home. 
 
 "There are his young barbarians all at play," 
 
 if he owns any youthful savages. No, the world 
 has a million roosts for a man, but only one nest. 
 
 It is a fine thing to be an oracle to which 
 
 an appeal is always made in all discussions. The 
 men of facts wait their turn in grim silence, with 
 that slight tension about the nostrils which the 
 consciousness of carrying a " settler " in the form 
 of a fact or a revolver gives the individual thus 
 armed. When a person is really full of informa 
 tion, and does not abuse it to crush conversation, 
 his part is to that of the real talkers what the in 
 strumental accompaniment is in a trio or quartette 
 of vocalists. 
 
 What do I mean by the real talkers ? 
 
 Why, the people with fresh ideas, of course, and 
 plenty of good warm words to dress them in. 
 Facts always yield the place of honor, in conver 
 sation, to thoughts about facts ; but if a false note 
 is uttered, down comes the finger on the key and 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 173 
 
 the man of facts asserts his true dignity. I have 
 known three of these men of facts, at least, who 
 were always formidable, and one of them was 
 tyrannical. 
 
 Yes, a man sometimes makes a grand ap 
 pearance on a particular occasion; but these men 
 knew something about almost everything, and 
 never made mistakes. He 1 Veneers in first-rate 
 style. The mahogany scales off now and then in 
 spots, and then you see the cheap light stuff. I 
 
 found very fine in conversational information, 
 
 the other day when we were in company. The 
 talk ran upon mountains. He was wonderfully 
 well acquainted with the leading facts about the 
 Andes, the Apennines, and the Appalachians; 
 he had nothing in particular to say about Ara 
 rat, Ben Nevis, and various other mountains that 
 were mentioned. By and by some Revolutionary 
 anecdote came up, and he showed singular famil 
 iarity with the lives of the Adamses, and gave 
 many details relating to Major Andre. A point 
 of Natural History being suggested, he gave an 
 excellent account of the air-bladder of fishes. He 
 was very full upon the subject of agriculture, but 
 retired from the conversation when horticulture 
 was introduced in the discussion. So he seemed 
 well acquainted with the geology of anthracite, 
 but did not pretend to know anything of other 
 kinds of coal. There was something so odd about 
 
I 7 4 TII1: AUTOCRAT 
 
 the extent and limitations of his knowledge, that 
 I suspected all at once what might be the meaning 
 of it, and waited till I got an opportunity. Have 
 you seen the " New American Cyclopaedia ? " said 
 I. I have, he replied ; I received an early copy. 
 How far does it go ? He turned red, and an 
 swered, To Araguay. O, said I to myself, 
 not quite so far as Ararat ; that is the reason he 
 knew nothing about it ; but he must have read all 
 the rest straight through, and, if he can remember 
 what is in this volume until he has read all those 
 that are to come, he will know more than I ever 
 thought he would. 
 
 Since I had this experience, I hear that some 
 body else has related a similar story. I did n't 
 borrow it, for all that. I made a comparison at 
 table some time since, which has often been quoted 
 and received many compliments. It was that of 
 the mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye ; the 
 more light you pour on it, the more it contracts. 
 The simile is a very obvious, and, I suppose I 
 may now say, a happy one ; for it has just been 
 shown me that it occurs in a Preface to certain 
 Political Poems of Thomas Moore's published long 
 before my remark was repeated. When a person 
 of fair character for literary honesty uses an image 
 such as another has employed before him, the pre 
 sumption is, that he has struck upon it indepen 
 dently, or unconsciously recalled it, supposing it 
 his own. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 175 
 
 It is impossible to tell, in a great many cases, 
 whether a comparison which suddenly suggests it 
 self is a new conception or a recollection. I told 
 you the other day that I never wrote a line of verse 
 that seemed to me comparatively good, but it ap 
 peared old at once, and often as if it had been 
 borrowed. But I confess I never suspected the 
 above comparison of being old, except from the 
 fact of its obviousness. It is proper, however, that 
 I proceed by a formal instrument to relinquish all 
 claim to any property in an idea given to the world 
 at about the time when I had just joined the class 
 in which Master Thomas Moore was then a some 
 what advanced scholar. 
 
 I, therefore, in full possession of my native hon 
 esty, but knowing the liability of all men to be 
 elected to public office, and for that reason feeling 
 uncertain how soon I may be in danger of losing 
 it, do hereby renounce all claim to being consid 
 ered the first person who gave utterance to a cer 
 tain simile or comparison referred to in the accom 
 panying documents, and relating to the pupil of 
 the eye on the one part and the mind of the bigot 
 on the other. I hereby relinquish all glory and 
 profit, and especially all claims to letters from au 
 tograph collectors founded upon my supposed prop 
 erty in the above comparison, knowing well, 
 that, according to the laws of literature, they who 
 speak first hold the fee of the thing said. I do 
 
176 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 also agree that all Editors of Cyclopedias and 
 Biographical Dictionaries, all Publishers of Re 
 views and Papers, and all Critics writing therein, 
 shall be at liberty to retract or qualify any opin 
 ion predicated on the supposition that I was the 
 sole and undisputed author of the above compari 
 son. But, inasmuch as I do affirm that the com 
 parison aforesaid was uttered by me in the firm 
 belief that it was new and wholly my own, and 
 as I have good reason to think that I had never 
 seen or heard it when first expressed by rne, and 
 as it is well known that different persons may in 
 dependently utter the same idea, as is evinced 
 by that familiar line from Donatus, 
 
 " Pereant illi qui ante nos nostra dixerunt," 
 
 now, therefore, I do request by this instrument 
 that all well-disposed persons will abstain from as 
 serting or implying that I am open to any accu 
 sation whatsoever touching the said comparison, 
 and, if they have so asserted or implied, that they 
 will have the manliness forthwith to retract the 
 same assertion or insinuation. 
 
 I think few persons have a greater disgust for 
 plagiarism than myself. If I had even suspected 
 that the idea in question was borrowed, I should 
 have disclaimed originality, or mentioned the coin 
 cidence, as I once did in a case where I had hap- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. i 77 
 
 pened to hit on an idea of Swift's. But what 
 shall I do about these verses I was going to read 
 you i I am afraid that half mankind would ac 
 cuse me of stealing their thoughts, if I printed 
 them. I am convinced that several of you, espe 
 cially if you are getting a little on in life, will rec 
 ognize some of these sentiments as having passed 
 through your consciousness at some time. I can't 
 help it, it is too late now. The verses are writ 
 ten, and you must have them. Listen, then, and 
 you shall hear 
 
 WHAT WE ALL THINK. 
 
 That age was older once than now, 
 
 In spite of locks untimely shed, 
 Or silvered on the youthful brow ; 
 
 That babes make love and children wed. 
 
 That sunshine had a heavenly glow, 
 
 Which faded with those " good old days," 
 
 When winters came with deeper snow, 
 And autumns with a softer haze. 
 
 That mother, sister, wife, or child 
 The " best of women " each has known. 
 
 Were school-boys ever half so wild ? 
 How young the grandpapas have grown. 
 
 That but for this our souls were free, 
 And but for that our lives were blest ; 
 
 That in some season yet to be 
 Our cares will leave us time to rest. 
 
 Whene'er we groan with ache or pain, 
 Some common ailment of the race, 
 
178 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Though doctors think the matter plain, 
 That ours is " a peculiar case." 
 
 That when like babes with fingers burned 
 We count one bitter maxim more, 
 
 Our lesson all the world has learned, 
 And men are wiser than before. 
 
 That when we sob o'er fancied woes, 
 The angels hovering overhead 
 
 Count every pitying drop that flows, 
 And love us for the tears we shed. 
 
 That when we stand with tearless eye 
 And turn the beggar from our door, 
 
 They still approve us when we sigh, 
 u Ah, had I but one thousand more ! " 
 
 That weakness smoothed the path of sin, 
 In half the slips our youth has known ; 
 
 And whatsoe'er its blame has been, 
 That Mercy flowers on faults outgrown. 
 
 Though temples crowd the crumbled brink 
 O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, 
 
 Their tablets bold with what we think, 
 Their echoes dumb to what we know i 
 
 That one unquestioned text we read, 
 All doubt beyond, all fear above, 
 
 Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed 
 Can burn or blot it : GOD is LOVB ! 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 179 
 
 VII. 
 
 HIS particular record is noteworthy 
 principally for containing a paper by 
 my friend, the Professor, with a poem 
 or two annexed or intercalated. I 
 would suggest to young persons that they should 
 pass over it for the present, and read, instead of 
 it, that story about the young man who was in 
 love with the young lady, and in great trouble for 
 something like nine pages, but happily married on 
 the tenth page or thereabouts, which, I take it for 
 granted, will be contained in the periodical where 
 this is found, unless it differ from all other publi 
 cations of the kind. Perhaps, if such young peo 
 ple will lay the number aside, and take it up ten 
 years, or a little more, from the present time, they 
 may find something in it for their advantage. 
 They can't possibly understand it all now.] 
 
 My friend, the Professor, began talking with me 
 one day in a dreary sort of way, I couid n't get 
 at the difficulty for a good while, but at last it 
 turned out that somebody had been calling him an 
 old man. He did n't mind his students calling 
 him the old man, he said. That was a technical 
 
i go THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 expression, and he thought that he remembered 
 hearing it applied to himself when he was about 
 twenty-five. It may be considered as a familiar 
 and sometimes endearing appellation. An Irish 
 woman calls her husband " the old man," and he 
 return;-! the caressing expression by speaking of 
 her as "the 'old woman." But now, said he, just 
 suppose a case like one of these. A young stran 
 ger is overheard talking of you as a very nice old 
 gentleman. A friendly and genial critic speaks 
 of your green old age as illustrating the truth of 
 some axiom you had uttered with reference to that 
 period of life. What / call an old man is a per 
 son with a smooth, shining crown and a fringe of 
 scattered white hairs, seen in the streets on sun 
 shiny days, stooping as he walks, bearing a cane, 
 moving cautiously and slowly ; telling old stories, 
 smiling at present follies, living in a narrow world 
 of dry habits ; one that remains waking when 
 others have dropped asleep, and keeps a little 
 night-lamp-flame of life burning year after year, 
 if the lamp is not upset, and there is only a care 
 ful hand held round it to prevent the puffs of 
 wind from blowing the flame out. That 's what I 
 call an old man. 
 
 Now, said the Professor, you don't mean to 
 tell me that I have got to that yet ? Why, bless 
 you, I am several years short of the time when 
 [I knew tvhat was coming, and could hardly keep 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 181 
 
 from laughing ; twenty years ago he used to quote 
 it as one of those absurd speeches men of genius 
 will make, and now he is going to argue from it] 
 
 several years short of the time when Balzac says 
 that men are most you know dangerous to 
 
 the hearts of in short, most to be dreaded by 
 duennas that have charge of susceptible females. 
 
 What age is that ? said I, statistically. Fifty- 
 two years, answered the Professor. Balzac ought 
 to know, said I, if it is true that Goethe said of him, 
 that each of his stories must have been dug out of 
 a woman's heart. But fifty-two is a high figure. 
 
 Stand in the light of the window, Professor, 
 said I. The Professor took up the desired posi 
 tion. You have white hairs, I said. Had 'cm 
 any time these twenty years, said the Professor. 
 And the crow's-foot, pes anserinus, rather. The 
 Professor smiled, as I wanted him to, and the folds 
 radiated like the ridges of a half-opened fan, from 
 the outer corner of the eyes to the temples. And 
 the calipers, said I. What are the calipers ? he 
 asked, curiously. Why, the parenthesis, said I. 
 Parenthesis ? said the Professor ; what 's that ? 
 Why, look in the glass when you are disposed to 
 laugh, and see if your mouth is n't framed in a 
 couple of crescent lines, so, my boy ( ) It 's 
 all nonsense, said the Professor; just look at my 
 biceps ; and he began pulling off his coat to show 
 me his arm. Be careful, said I ; you can't bear 
 
ig 2 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 exposure to the air, at your time of life, as you 
 could once. I will box with you, said the Pro 
 fessor, row with you, walk with you, ride with 
 you, swim with you, or sit at table with you, for 
 fifty dollars a side. Pluck survives stamina, I 
 answered. 
 
 The Professor went off a little out of humor. 
 A few weeks afterwards he came in, looking very 
 good-natured, and brought me a paper, which I 
 have here, and from which I shall read you some 
 portions, if you don't object. He had been think 
 ing the matter over, he said, had read Cicero 
 " De Senectute," and made up his mind to meet 
 old age half way. These were some of his reflec 
 tions that he had written down ; so here you have 
 
 THE PROFESSOR'S PAPER. 
 
 THERE is no doubt when old age begins. The 
 human body is a furnace which keeps in blast 
 threescore years and ten, more or less. It burns 
 about three hundred pounds of carbon a year, (be 
 sides other fuel,) when in fair working order, ac 
 cording to a great chemist's estimate. When the 
 fire slackens, life declines ; when it goes out, we 
 are dead. 
 
 It has been shown by some noted French exper 
 imenters, that the amount of combustion increases 
 up to about the thirtieth year, remains stationary 
 to about forty-five, and then diminishes. This 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 183 
 
 last is the point where old age starts from. The 
 great fact of physical life is the perpetual com 
 merce with the elements, and the fire is the meas 
 ure of it. 
 
 About this time of life, if food is plenty where 
 you live, for that, you know, regulates matri 
 mony, you may be expecting to find yourself a 
 grandfather some fine morning ; a kind of domestic 
 felicity that gives one a cool shiver of delight to 
 think of, as among the not remotely possible events. 
 
 I don't mind much those slipshod lines Dr. 
 Johnson wrote to'Thrale, telling her about life's 
 declining from thirty-Jive ; the furnace is in full blast 
 for ten years longer, as I have said. The Romans 
 came very near the mark ; their age of enlistment 
 reached from seventeen to forty-six years. 
 
 What is the use of fighting against the seasons, 
 or the tides, or the movements of the planetary 
 bodies, or this ebb in the wave of life that flows 
 through us ? We are old fellows from the mo 
 ment the fire begins to go out. Let us always be 
 have like gentlemen when we are introduced to 
 new acquaintance. 
 
 Incipit Allegoria Senectutis. 
 
 Old Age, this is Mr. Professor ; Mr. Professor, 
 this is Old Age. 
 
 Old Age. Mr. Professor, I hope to see you 
 well. I have known you for some time, though 
 
1 84 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 I think you did not know me. Shall we walk 
 down the street together 1 
 
 Professor (drawing back a little). We can 
 talk more quietly perhaps in my study. Will 
 you tell me how it is you seem to be acquainted 
 with everybody you are introduced to, though he 
 evidently considers you an entire stranger ? 
 
 Old Age. I make it a rule never to force 
 myself upon a person's recognition until I have 
 known him at least Jive years. 
 
 Professor. Do you mean to say that you have 
 known me so long as that ? 
 
 Old Age. I do. I left my card on you longer 
 ago than that, but I am afraid you never read it ; 
 yet T see you have it with you. 
 
 Professor. Where ? 
 
 Old Age. There between your eyebrows, 
 three straight lines running up and down ; all the 
 probate courts know that token, " Old Age, his 
 mark." Put your forefinger on the inner end of 
 one eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner 
 end of the other eyebrow ; now separate the fin 
 gers, and you will smooth out my sign-manual ; 
 that 's the way you used to look before I left my 
 card on you. 
 
 Professor. What message do people generally 
 send back when you first call on them ? 
 
 Old Age. Not at home. Then I leave a card 
 and go. Next year I call ; get the same answer; 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 185 
 
 leave another card. So for five or six, some 
 times ten years or more. At last, if they don't 
 let me in, I break in through the front door or 
 the windows. 
 
 We talked together in this way some time. 
 Then Old Age said again, Come, let us walk 
 down the street together, and offered me a cane, 
 an eye-glass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes. 
 No, much obliged to you, said I. I don't want 
 those things, and I had a little rather talk with 
 you here, privately, in my study. So I dressed 
 myself up in a jaunty way and walked out alone ; 
 got a fall, caught a cold, was laid up with a 
 lumbago, and had time to think over this whole 
 matter. 
 
 Explicit Allegoria Senectutis. 
 
 We have settled when old age begins. Like all 
 Nature's processes, it is gentle and gradual in its 
 approaches, strewed with allusions, and all its lit 
 tle griefs soothed by natural sedatives. But the 
 iron hand is not less irresistible because it wears 
 the velvet glove. The buttonwood throws off its 
 bark in large flakes, which one may find lying at 
 its foot, pushed out, and at last pushed off, by that 
 tranquil movement from beneath, which is too 
 slow to be seen, but too powerful to be arrested. 
 One finds them always, but one rarely sees them 
 fall. So it is our youth drops from us, scales 
 off, sapless and lifeless, and lays bare .the tender 
 
186 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 and immature fresh growth of old age. Looked 
 at collectively, the changes of old age appear as a 
 series of personal insults and indignities, termi 
 nating at last in death, which Sir Thomas Browne 
 has called " the very disgrace and ignominy of our 
 natures." 
 
 My lady's cheek can boast no more 
 
 The cranberry white and pink it wore ; 1 
 
 And where her shining locks divide, 
 
 The parting line is all too wide 
 
 No, no, this will never do. Talk ahout men, if 
 you will, but spare the poor women. 
 
 We have a brief description of seven stages of 
 life by a remarkably good observer. It is very 
 presumptuous to attempt to add to it, yet I have 
 been struck with the fact that life admits of a nat 
 ural analysis into no less than fifteen distinct pe 
 riods. Taking the five primary divisions, infancy, 
 childhood, youth, manhood, old age, each of these 
 has its own three periods of immaturity, complete 
 development, and decline. I recognize an old baby 
 at once, with its " pipe and mug," (a stick of 
 candy and a porringer,) so does everybody; 
 and an old child shedding its milk-teeth is only a 
 little prototype of the old man shedding his per 
 manent ones. Fifty or thereabouts is only the 
 childhood, as it were, of old age ; the graybeard 
 youngster must be weaned from his late suppers 
 now. So you will see that you have to make fif- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 187 
 
 teen stages at any rate, and that it would not be 
 hard to make twenty-five ; five primary, each with 
 five secondary divisions. 
 
 The infancy and childhood of commencing oM 
 age have the same ingenuous simplicity and de 
 lightful unconsciousness about them as the first 
 stage of the earlier periods of life shows. The 
 great delusion of mankind is in supposing that to 
 be individual and exceptional which is universal 
 and according to law. A person is always star 
 tled when he hears himself seriously called an old 
 man for the first time. 
 
 Nature gets us out of youth into manhood, as 
 sailors are hurried on board of vessels, in a state 
 of intoxication. We are hustled into maturity 
 reeling with our passions and imaginations, and 
 we have drifted far away from port before we 
 awake out of our illusions. But to carry us out 
 of maturity into old age, without our knowing 
 where we are going, she drugs us with strong opi 
 ates, and so we stagger along with wide-open eyes 
 that see nothing until snow enough has fallen on 
 our heads to rouse our comatose brains out of their 
 stupid trances. 
 
 There is one mark of age that strikes me more 
 than any of the physical ones ; I mean the for 
 mation of Habits. An old man who shrinks into 
 himself falls into ways that become as positive and 
 as much beyond the reach of outside influences as 
 
igg THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 if they were governed by clock-work. The animal 
 functions, as the physiologists call them, in distinc 
 tion from the organic, tend, in the process of deteri 
 oration to which age and neglect united gradually 
 lead them, to assume the periodical or rhythmical 
 type of movement. Every man's heart (this organ 
 belongs, you know, to the organic system) has a 
 regular mode of action ; but I know a great many 
 men whose brains, and all their voluntary exist 
 ence flowing from their brains, have a systole and 
 diastole as regular as that of the heart itself. Habit 
 is the approximation of the animal system to the 
 organic. It is a confession of failure in the high 
 est function of being, which involves a perpetual 
 self-determination, in full view of all existing cir 
 cumstances. But habit, you see, is an action in 
 present circumstances from past motives. It is 
 substituting a vis a tergo for the evolution of living 
 force. 
 
 When a man, instead of burning up three hun 
 dred pounds of carbon a year, has got down to 
 two hundred and fifty, it is plain enough he must 
 economize force somewhere. Now habit is a la 
 bor-saving invention which enables a man to get 
 along with less fuel, that is all ; for fuel is force, 
 you know, just as much in the page I am writing 
 for you as in the locomotive or the legs that carry 
 it to you. Carbon is the same thing, whether you 
 call it wood, or coal, or bread and cheese. A rev- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 189 
 
 erend gentleman demurred to this statement, as 
 if, because combustion is asserted to be the sine 
 qua non of thought, therefore thought is alleged to 
 be a purely chemical process. Facts of chemistry 
 are one thing, I told him, and facts of conscious 
 ness another. It can be proved to him, by a very 
 simple analysis of some of his spare elements, that 
 every Sunday, when he does his duty faithfully, 
 he uses up more phosphorus out of his brain and 
 nerves than on ordinary days. But then he had 
 his choice whether to do his duty, or to neglect it, 
 and save his phosphorus and other combustibles. 
 
 It follows from all this that the formation of hab 
 its ought naturally to be, as it is, the special char 
 acteristic of age. As for the muscular powers, 
 they pass their maximum long before the time 
 when the true decline of life begins, if we may 
 judge by the experience of the ring. A man is 
 " stale," I think, in their language, soon after 
 thirty, often, no doubt, much earlier, as gen 
 tlemen of the pugilistic profession are exceed 
 ingly apt to keep their vital fire burning with the 
 blower up. 
 
 So far without Tally. But in the mean 
 
 time I have been reading the treatise, " De Senec- 
 tute." It is not long, but a leisurely performance. 
 The old gentleman was sixty-three years of age 
 when he addressed it to his friend T. Pomponius 
 Atticus, Eq., a person of distinction, some two or 
 
I 9 o THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 three years older. We read it when we are school 
 boys, forget all about it for thirty years, and then 
 take it up again by a natural instinct, provided 
 always that we read Latin as we drink water, 
 without stopping to taste it, as all of us who ever 
 learned it at school or college ought to do. 
 
 Cato is the chief speaker in the dialogue. A 
 good deal of it is what would be called in vulgar 
 phrase " slow." It unpacks and unfolds incident 
 al illustrations which a modern writer would look 
 at the back of, and toss each to its pigeon-hole. 
 I think ancient classics and ancient people are 
 alike in the tendency to this kind of expansion. 
 
 An old doctor came to me once (this is literal 
 fact) with some contrivance or other for people 
 with broken kneepans. As the patient would be 
 confined for a good while, he might find it dull 
 work to sit with his hands in his lap. Reading, 
 the ingenious inventor suggested, would be an 
 agreeable mode of passing the time. He men 
 tioned, in his written account of his contrivance, 
 various works that might amuse the weary hour. 
 I remember only three, Don Quixote, Tom 
 Jones, and Watts on the Mind. 
 
 It is not generally understood that Cicero's 
 essay was delivered as a lyceum lecture (concio 
 popularis), at the Temple of Mercury. The jour 
 nals (papyri) of the day (" Tempora Quotidiana," 
 " Tribunus Quirinalis," " Prseco Komanus," 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 19 1 
 
 and the rest) gave abstracts of it, one of which I 
 have translated and modernized, as being a sub 
 stitute for the analysis I intended to make. 
 
 IV. Kal. Mart 
 
 The lecture at the Temple of Mercury, last 
 evening, was well attended by the elite of our 
 great city. Two hundred thousand sestertia were 
 thought to have been represented in the house. 
 The doors were besieged by a mob of shabby fel 
 lows (illotum vulgus), who were at length quieted 
 after two or three had been somewhat roughly 
 handled (gladio jugidati). The speaker was the 
 well-known Mark Tally, Eq., the subject Old 
 Age. Mr. T. has a lean and scraggy person, with 
 a very unpleasant excrescence upon his nasal 
 feature, from which his nickname of chick-pea, 
 (Cicero) is said by some to be derived. As a 
 lecturer is public property, we may remark, that 
 his outer garment (toga) was of cheap stuff and 
 somewhat worn, and that his general style and 
 appearance of dress and manner (habitus, vestitus- 
 que) were somewhat provincial. 
 
 The lecture consisted of an imaginary dialogue 
 between Cato and Lselius. We found the first 
 portion rather heavy, and retired a few moments 
 for refreshment (pocula qucedam vim). All want 
 to reach old age, says Cato, and grumble when 
 they get it ; therefore they are donkeys. The 
 lecturer will allow us to say that he is the donkey ; 
 
192 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 we know we shall grumble at old age, but we 
 want to live through youth and manhood, in spite 
 of the troubles we shall groan over. There was 
 considerable prosing as to what old age can do 
 and can't. True, but not new. Certainly, old 
 folks can't jump, break the necks of their thigh 
 bones (femorum cervices] if they do; can't crack 
 nuts with their teeth ; can't climb a greased pole 
 (malum inunctum scandere non possunt) ; but they 
 can tell old stories and give you good advice ; if 
 they know what you have made up your mind to 
 do when you ask them. All this is well enough, 
 but won't set the Tiber on fire (Tiberim accendere 
 nequaquam potest). 
 
 There were some clever things enough (dicta 
 hand inepta), a few of which are worth reporting. 
 
 Old people are accused of being forgetful ; 
 but they never forget where they have put their 
 money. Nobody is so old he does n't think he 
 can live a year. The lecturer quoted an ancient 
 maxim, Grow old early, if you would be old 
 long, but disputed it. Authority, he thought, 
 was the chief privilege of age. It is not great to 
 have money, but fine to govern those that have it. 
 
 Old age begins at forty-six years, according to 
 the common opinion. It is aot every kind of 
 old age or of wine that grows sour with time. 
 Some excellent remarks were made on immortal 
 ity, but mainly borrowed from and credited to 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 193 
 
 Plato. Several pleasing anecdotes were told. 
 Old Milo, champion of the heavy weights in his 
 day, looked at his arms and whimpered, " They 
 are dead." Not so dead as you, you old fool, 
 says Cato ; you never were good for anything 
 but for your shoulders and flanks. Pisistratus 
 asked Solon what made him dare to be so obsti 
 nate. Old age, said Solon. 
 
 The lecture was on the whole acceptable, and a 
 credit to our culture and civilization. The re 
 porter goes on to state that there will be no lec 
 ture next week, on account of the expected com 
 bat between the bear and the barbarian. Betting 
 (sponsio) two to one (duo ad unwn) on the bear. 
 
 After all, the most encouraging things I 
 
 find in the treatise, " DJ Senectute," are the 
 stories of men who have found new occupations 
 when growing old, or kept up their common pur 
 suits in the extreme period of life. Cato learned 
 Greek when he was old, and speaks of wishing to 
 learn the fiddle, or some such instrument (fidi- 
 bus), after the example of Socrates. Solon learned 
 something new, every day, in his old age, as he 
 gloried to proclaim. Cyrus pointed out with 
 pride and pleasure the trees he had planted with 
 his own hand. [I remember a pillar on the Duke 
 of Northumberland's estate at Alnwick, with an 
 inscription in similar words, if not the same. 
 13 
 
j 94 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 That, like other country pleasures, never wears 
 out. None is too rich, none too poor, none too 
 young, none too old to enjoy it.] There is a New 
 England story I have heard more to the point, 
 however, than any of Cicero's. A young farmer 
 was urged to set out some apple-trees. No, said 
 he, they are too long growing, and I don't want 
 to plant for other people. The young farmer's 
 father was spoken to about it, but he, with better 
 reason, alleged that apple-trees were slow and life 
 was fleeting. At last some one mentioned it to 
 the old grandfather of the young farmer. He had 
 nothing else to^do, so he stuck in some trees. 
 He lived long enough to drink barrels of cider 
 made from the apples that grew on those trees. 
 
 As for myself, after visiting a friend lately, 
 [Do remember all the time that this is the Profes 
 sor's paper.] I satisfied myself that I had better 
 concede the fact that my contemporaries are not 
 so young as they have been, and that, awk 
 ward as it is, science and history agree in telling 
 me that I can claim the immunities and must own 
 the humiliations of the early stage of senility. Ah ! 
 but we have all gone down the hill together. The 
 dandies of my time have split their waistbands 
 and taken to high-low shoes. The beauties of my 
 recollections where are they ? They have run 
 the gauntlet of years as well as I. First the years 
 pelted them with red roses till their cheeks were 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 195 
 
 all on fire. By and by they began throwing white 
 roses, and that morning flush passed away. At 
 last one of the years threw a snow-ball, and after 
 that no year let the poor girls pass without throw 
 ing snow-balls. And then came rougher missiles, 
 ice and stones ; and from time to time an ar 
 row whistled, and down went one of the poor girls. 
 So there are but few left ; and we don't call those 
 few girls, but 
 
 Ah me ! here am I groaning just as the old 
 Greek sighed At, at/ and the old Roman, Ehei.! 
 I have no doubt we should die of shame and grief 
 at the indignities offered us by age, if it were not 
 that we see so nmny others as badly or worse off 
 than ourselves. We always compare ourselves 
 with our contemporaries. 
 
 [I was interrupted in my reading just here. 
 Before I began at the next breakfast, I read them 
 these verses ; I hope you will like them, and get 
 a useful lesson from them.] 
 
 THE LAST BLOSSOM. 
 
 Though young no more, we still would dream 
 
 Of beauty's dear deluding wiles; 
 The leagues of life to graybeards seem 
 
 Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles. 
 
 Who knows a woman's wild caprice ? 
 
 It played with Goethe's silvered hair, 
 And many a Holy Father's " niece " 
 
 Has softly smoothed the papal chair. 
 
196 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 When sixty bids us sigh in vain 
 To melt the heart of sweet sixteen, 
 
 We think upon those ladies twain 
 Who loved so well the tough old Dean. 
 
 We see the Patriarch's wintry face, 
 The maid of Egypt's dusky glow, 
 
 And dream that Youth and Age embrace, 
 As April violets fill with snow. 
 
 Tranced in her Lord's Olympian -smile 
 His lotus-loving Memphian lies, 
 
 The musky daughter of the Nile 
 With plaited hair and almond eyes. 
 
 Might we but share one wild caress 
 Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall, 
 
 And Earth's brown, clinging lio^s impres3 
 The long cold kiss that waits us all ! 
 
 My bosom heaves, remembering yet 
 The morning of that blissful day 
 
 When Rose, the flower of spring, I met, 
 And gave my raptured soul away. 
 
 Flung from her eyes of purest blue, 
 A lasso, with its leaping chain 
 
 Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew 
 O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain. 
 
 Thou com'st to cheer my waning age, 
 Sweet vision, waited for so long ! 
 
 Dove that would seek the poet's cage 
 Lured by the magic breath of song ! 
 
 She blushes ! Ah, reluctant maid, 
 Love's drape.au rouge the truth has told ! 
 
 O'er girlhood's yielding barricade 
 Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold ! 
 
OP THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 197 
 
 Come to my arms ! love heeds not years 5 
 No frost the bu<l of passion knows. 
 
 Ha ! what is this my frenzy hears ? 
 A voice behind me uttered, Rose ! 
 
 Sweet was her smile, but not for me j 
 
 Alas, when woman looks too kind, 
 Just turn your foolish head and see, 
 
 Some youth is walking close behind ! 
 
 As to giving up because the almanac or the 
 Family-Bible says that it is about time to do it, I 
 have no intention of doing any such thing. I 
 grant you that I burn less carbon than some years 
 ago. I see people of my standing really good for 
 nothing, decrepit, effete, la levre inferieure deja pen- 
 dante, with what little life they have left mainly 
 concentrated in their epigastrium. But as the 
 disease of old age is epidemic, endemic, and spo 
 radic, and everybody that lives long enough is 
 sure to catch it, I am going to say, for the encour 
 agement of such as need it, how I treat the malady 
 in my own case. 
 
 First. As I feel, that, when I have anything to 
 do, there is less time for it than when I was young 
 er, I find that I give my attention more thorough 
 ly, and use my time more economically than ever 
 before ; so that I can learn anything twice as easily 
 as in my earlier days. I am not, therefore, afraid 
 to attack a new study. I took up a difficult lan 
 guage a very few years ago with good success, and 
 think of mathematics and metaphysics by and by. 
 
198 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Secondly. I have opened my eyes to a good 
 many neglected privileges and pleasures within my 
 reach, and requiring only a little courage to enjoy 
 them. You may well suppose it pleased me to 
 find that old Cato was thinking of learning to play 
 the fiddle, when I had deliberately taken it up in 
 my old age, and satisfied myself that I could get 
 much comfort, if not much music, out of it. 
 
 Thirdly. I have found that some of those active 
 exercises, which are commonly thought to belong 
 to young folks only, may be enjoyed at a much 
 later period. 
 
 A young friend has lately written an admirable 
 article in one of the journals, entitled, " Saints and 
 their Bodies/* Approving of his general doctrines, 
 and grateful for his records of personal experience, 
 I cannot refuse to add my own experimental con 
 firmation of his eulogy of one particular form of 
 active exercise and amusement, namely, boating. 
 For the past nine years, I have rowed about, dur 
 ing a good part of the summer, on fresh or salt 
 water. My present fleet on the river Charles con 
 sists of three row-boats. 1. A small flat-bottomed 
 skiff of the shape of a flat-iron, kept mainly to lend 
 to boys. 2. A fancy "dory" for two pairs of 
 sculls, in which I sometimes go out with my young- 
 folks, 3. My own particular water-sulky, a " skel 
 eton " or " shell " race-boat, twenty-two feet long, 
 with huge outriggers, which boat I pull with ten- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. i 99 
 
 foot sculls, alone, of course, as it holds but one, 
 and tips him out, if he does n't mind what he is 
 about. In this I glide around the Back Bay, 
 down the stream, up the Charles to Cambridge 
 and Watertown, up the Mystic, round the wharves, 
 in the wake of steamboats, which leave a swell af 
 ter them delightful to rock upon ; I linger under 
 the bridges, those " caterpillar bridges," as my 
 brother professor so happily called them ; rub 
 against the black sides of old wood-schooners ; 
 cool down under the overhanging stern of some 
 tall Indiaman ; stretch across to the Navy- Yard, 
 where the sentinel warns me off from the Ohio, 
 just as if I should hurt her by lying in her shadow ; 
 then strike out into the harbor, where the water 
 gets clear and the air smells of the ocean, till all 
 at once I remember, that, if a west wind blows up 
 of a sudden, I shall drift along past the islands, 
 out of sight of the dear old State-house, plate, 
 tumbler, knife and fork all waiting at home, but 
 no chair drawn up at the table, all the dear peo 
 ple waiting, waiting, waiting, while the boat is 
 sliding, sliding, sliding into the great desert, where 
 there is no tree and no fountain. As I don't want 
 my wreck to be washed up on one of the beaches 
 in company with devil's-aprons, bladder-weeds, 
 dead horse-shoes, and bleached crab-shells, I turn 
 about and flap my long, narrow wings for home. 
 When the tide is running out swiftly, I have a 
 
200 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 splendid fight to get through the bridges, but al 
 ways make it a rule to beat, though I have been 
 jammed up into pretty tight places at times, and 
 was caught once between a vessel swinging round 
 and the pier, until our bones (the boat's, that is) 
 cracked as if we had been in the jaws of Behemoth. 
 Then back to my moorings at the foot of the Com 
 mon, off with the rowing-dress, dash under the 
 green translucent wave, return to the garb of civi 
 lization, walk through my Garden, take a look at 
 my elms on the Common, and, reaching my habi 
 tat, in consideration of my advanced period of life, 
 indulge in the Elysian abandonment of a huge 
 recumbent chair. 
 
 When I have established a pair of well-pro 
 nounced feathering calluses on my thumbs, when 
 I am in training so that I can do my fifteen miles 
 at a stretch without coming to grief in any way, 
 w r hen I can perform my mile in eight minutes or 
 a little less, then I feel as if I had old Time's 
 head in chancery, and could give it to him at my 
 leisure. 
 
 I do not deny the attraction of walking. I 
 have bored this ancient city through and through 
 in my daily travels, until I know it as an old in 
 habitant of a Cheshire knows his cheese. Why, 
 it was I who, in the course of these rambles, dis 
 covered that remarkable avenue called Myrtle Street, 
 stretching in one long line from east of the Reser- 
 
OF Til!': BBEJnCfAST-TABLE. 201 
 
 voir to a precipitous mid rudely-paved cliff winch 
 looks down on tin-, ^rini alo<lc of Srienec, ;uid bc- 
 yond it to the far hills ; a promenade so delicious 
 in its repose, so cheerfully varied with glimpses 
 down the northern slope into busy Cambridge 
 Street with its iron river of the horse railroad, and 
 wheeled barges gliding baek and forward over it, 
 so delightfully dosing at its western extremity 
 in sunny courts and passages where I know peace, 
 and beauty, and virtue, arid serene old age must 
 be perpetual tenants, so alluring to all who de 
 sire to take their daily stroll, in the words of Dr. 
 Watts, 
 
 "Alike unknowing and unknown," 
 
 that nothing but a sense of duty would have 
 prompted me to reveal the secret of it 
 I concede, therefore, that walking is an immeasu 
 rably fine invention, of which old age ought con 
 stantly to avail itself. 
 
 Saddle-leather is in some respects even prefera 
 ble to sole-leather. The principal objection to it 
 is of a financial character. But you may be sure 
 that, Baron and Sydc.nham did not recommend it 
 for nothing. One's kcpar, or, in vulgar laiijjnajjc, 
 liver, a ponderous organ, weighing sonic, time, 
 or four pounds, goes up and down like the d:i-h- 
 er of a churn in the midst of the other vital ar 
 rangements, at. every step of tt trotting horse. The 
 
202 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 brains also are shaken up like coppers in a money 
 box. Riding is good, for those that are born with 
 a silver-mounted bridle in their hand, and can ride 
 as much and as often as they like, without think 
 ing all the time they hear that steady grinding 
 sound as the horse's jaws triturate with calm lat 
 eral movement the bank-bills and promises to pay 
 upon which it is notorious that the profligate ani 
 mal in question feeds day and night. 
 
 Instead, however, of considering these kinds of 
 exercise in this empirical way, I will devote a 
 brief space to an examination of them in a more 
 scientific form. 
 
 The pleasure of exercise is due first to a purely 
 physical impression, and secondly to a sense of 
 power in action. The first source of pleasure va 
 ries of course with our condition and the state of 
 the surrounding circumstances ; the second with 
 the amount arid kind of power, and the extent 
 and kind of action. In all forms of active exer 
 cise there are three powers simultaneously in ac 
 tion, the will, the muscles, and the intellect. 
 Each of these predominates in different kinds of 
 exercise. In walking, the will and muscles are so 
 accustomed to work together and perform their 
 task with so little expenditure of force, that the 
 intellect is left comparatively free. The mental 
 pleasure in walking, as such, is in the sense of 
 power over all our moving machinery. But in 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 203 
 
 riding, I have the additional pleasure of govern 
 ing another will, and my muscles extend to the 
 tips of the animal's ears and to his four hoofs, in 
 stead of stopping at my hands and feet. Now in 
 this extension of my volition and my physical 
 frame into another animal, my tyrannical instincts 
 and my desire for heroic strength are at once grat 
 ified. When the horse ceases to have a will of his 
 own and his muscles require no special attention 
 on your part, then you may live on horseback as 
 Wesley did, and write sermons or take naps, as 
 you like. But, you will observe, that, in riding 
 on horseback, you always have a feeling that, after 
 all, it is not you that do the work, but the animal, 
 and this prevents the satisfaction from being com 
 plete. 
 
 Now let us look at the conditions of rowing. I 
 won't suppose you to be disgracing yourself in 
 one of those miserable tubs, tugging in which is 
 to rowing the true boat what riding a cow is to 
 bestriding an Arab. Yon know the Esquimaux 
 kayak, (if that is the name of it,) don't you? 
 Look at that model of one over my door. Sharp, 
 rather? On the contrary, it is a lubber to the 
 one you and I must have; a Dutch fish-wife to 
 Psyche, contrasted with what I will tell you about. 
 Our boat, then, is something of the shape of a 
 pickerel, as you look down upon his back, he ly 
 ing in the sunshine just where the sharp edge of 
 
204 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 the water cuts in among the lily-pads. It is a 
 kind of a giant pod, as one may say, tight 
 everywhere, except in a little place in the middle, 
 where you sit. Its length is from seven to ten 
 yards, and as it is only from sixteen to thirty 
 inches wide in its widest part, you understand 
 why you want those " outriggers/' or projecting 
 iron frames with the rowlocKs in which the oars 
 play. My rowlocks are five feet apart; double 
 the greatest width of the boat 
 
 Here you are, then, afloat with a body a rod 
 and a half long, with arms, or wings, as you may 
 choose to call them, stretching more than twenty 
 feet from tip to tip ; every volition of yours ex 
 tending as perfectly into them as if your spinal 
 cord ran down the centre strip of your boat, and 
 the nerves of your arms tingled as far as the 
 broad blades of your oars, oars of spruce, bal 
 anced, leathered, and ringed under your own spe 
 cial direction. This, in sober earnest, is the near 
 est approach to flying that man has ever made or 
 perhaps ever will make. As the hawk sails with 
 out flapping his pinions, so you drift with the tide 
 when you will, in the most luxurious form of lo 
 comotion indulged to an embodied spirit. But if 
 your blood wants rousing, turn round that stake 
 in the river, which you see a mile from here ; and 
 when you come in in sixteen minutes, (if you do, 
 for we are old boys, and not champion scullers, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 205 
 
 you remember,) then say if you begin to feel a lit 
 tle warmed up or not ! You can row easily and 
 gently all day, and you can row yourself blind and 
 black in the face in ten minutes, just as you like. It 
 has been long agreed that there is no way in which 
 a man can accomplish so much labor with his mus 
 cles as in rowing. It is in the boat, then, that 
 man finds the largest extension of his volitional 
 and muscular existence ; and yet he may tax both 
 of them so slightly, in that most delicious of ex 
 ercises, that he shall mentally write his sermon, or 
 his poem, or recall the remarks he has made in 
 company and put them in form for the public, as 
 well as in his easy-chair. 
 
 I dare not publicly name the rare joys, the in 
 finite delights, that intoxicate me on some sweet 
 June morning, when the river and bay are smooth 
 as a sheet of beryl-green silk, and I run along rip 
 ping it up with my knife-edged shell of a boat, the 
 rent closing after me like those wounds of angels 
 which Milton tells of, but the seam still shining for 
 many a long rood behind me. To lie still over 
 the Flats, where the waters are shallow, and see 
 the crabs crawling and the sculpins gliding busily 
 and silently beneath the boat, to rustic in 
 through the long harsh grass that leads up some 
 tranquil creek, to take shelter from the sun 
 beams under one of the thousand-footed bridges, 
 and look down its interminable colonnades, crust- 
 
206 TUZ AUTOCRAT 
 
 ed with green and oozy growths, studded with 
 minute barnacles, and belted with rings of dark 
 muscles, while overhead streams and thunders that 
 other river whose every wave is a human soul 
 flowing to eternity as the river below flows to the 
 ocean, lying there moored unseen, in loneliness 
 so profound that the columns of Tadmor in the 
 Desert could not seem more remote from life, 
 the cool breeze on one's forehead, the stream 
 whispering against the half-sunken pillars, why 
 should I tell of these things, that I should live to 
 see my beloved haunts invaded and the waves 
 blackened with boats as with a swarm of water- 
 beetles ? What a city of idiots we must be not 
 to have covered this glorious bay with gondolas 
 and wherries, as we have just learned to cover the 
 ice in winter with skaters ! 
 
 I am satisfied that such a set of black-coat 
 ed, stiff-jointed, soft-muscled, paste-complexioned 
 youth as we can boast in our Atlantic cities never 
 before sprang from loins of Anglo-Saxon lineage. 
 Of the females that are the mates of these males 
 I do not here speak. I preached my sermon from 
 the lay-pulpit on this matter a good while ago. 
 Of course, if you heard it, you know my belief is 
 that the total climatic influences here are getting 
 up a number of new patterns of humanity, some 
 of which are not an improvement on the old 
 model. Clipper-built, sharp in the bows, long in 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 207 
 
 the spars, slender to look at, and fast to go, the 
 ship, which is the great organ of our national life 
 of relation, is but a reproduction of the typical 
 form which the elements impress upon its builder. 
 All this we cannot help ; but we can make the 
 best of these influences, such as they are. We 
 have a few good boatmen, no good horsemen 
 that I hear of, I cannot speak for cricketing, 
 but as for any great athletic feat performed by a 
 gentleman in these latitudes, society would drop 
 a man who should run round the Common in five 
 minutes. Some of our amateur fencers, single 
 stick players, and boxers we have no reason to 
 be ashamed of. Boxing is rough play, but not 
 too rough for a hearty young fellow. Anything 
 is better than this white-blooded degeneration to 
 which we all tend. 
 
 I dropped into a gentlemen's sparring exhibi 
 tion only last evening. It did my heart good to 
 see that there were a few young and youngish 
 youths left who could take care of their own heads 
 in case of emergency. It is a fine sight, that of 
 a gentleman resolving himself into the primitive 
 constituents of his humanity. Here is a delicate 
 young man now, with an intellectual countenance, 
 a slight figure, a sub-pallid complexion, a most 
 unassuming deportment, a mild adolescent in fkct, 
 that any Hiram or Jonathan from between the 
 ploughtails would of course expect to handle with 
 
ao8 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 perfect ease. O, he is taking off his gold-bowed 
 spectacles ! Ah, he is divesting himself of his 
 cravat ! Why, he is stripping off his coat ! Well, 
 here he is, sure enough, in a tight silk shirt, and 
 with two things that look like batter puddings in 
 the place of his fists. Now see that other fellow 
 with another pair of batter puddings, the big 
 one with the broad shoulders ; he will certainly 
 knock the little man's head off, if he strikes him. 
 Feinting, dodging, stopping, hitting, countering, 
 little man's head not off yet. You might as 
 well try to jump upon your own shadow as to hit 
 the little man's intellectual features. He need n't 
 have taken off the gold-bowed spectacles at all. 
 Quick, cautious, shifty, nimble, cool, he catches 
 all the fierce lunges or gets out of their reach, till 
 his turn comes, and then, whack goes one of the 
 batter puddings against the big one's ribs, and 
 bang goes the other into the big one's face, and, 
 staggering, shuffling, slipping, tripping, collaps 
 ing, sprawling, down goes the big one in a mis 
 cellaneous bundle. If my young friend, whose 
 excellent article I have referred to, could only in 
 troduce the manly art of self-defence among the 
 clergy, I am satisfied that we should have better 
 sermons and an infinitely less quarrelsome church- 
 militant. A bout with the gloves would let off 
 the ill-nature, and cure the indigestion, which, 
 united, have embroiled their subject in a bitter 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 209 
 
 controversy. We should then often hear that a 
 point of difference between an infallible and a 
 heretic, instead of being vehemently discussed in 
 a series of newspaper articles, had been settled by 
 a friendly contest in several rounds, at the close 
 of which the parties shook hands and appeared 
 cordially reconciled. 
 
 But boxing you and I are too old for, I am 
 afraid. I was for a moment tempted, by the con 
 tagion of muscular electricity last evening, to try 
 the gloves with tjie Benicia Boy, who looked in 
 as a friend to the noble art ; but remembering 
 that he had twice my weight and half my age, 
 besides the advantage of his training, I sat still 
 and said nothing. 
 
 There is one other delicate point I wish to 
 speak of with reference to old age. I refer to the 
 use of dioptric media which correct the diminished 
 refracting power of the humors of the eye, in 
 other words, spectacles. I don't use them. All 
 I ask is a large, fair type, a strong daylight or 
 gas-light, and one yard of focal distance, and my 
 eyes are as good as ever. But if your eyes fail, I 
 can tell you something encouraging. There is 
 now living in New York State an old gentleman 
 who, perceiving his sight to fail, immediately took 
 to exercising it on the finest print, and in this 
 way fairly bullied Nature out of her foolish habit 
 of taking liberties at five-and-forty, or thereabout. 
 14 
 
210 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 And now this old gentleman performs the most 
 extraordinary feats with his pen, showing that his 
 eyes must be a pair of microscopes. I should be 
 afraid to say to you how much he writes in the 
 compass of a half-dime, whether the Psalms or 
 the Gospels, or the Psalms and the Gospels, I 
 won't be positive. 
 
 But now let me tell you this. If the time comes 
 when you must lay down the fiddle and the bow, 
 because your fingers are too stiff, and drop the 
 ten-foot sculls, because your arms are too weak, 
 and, after dallying awhile with eye-glasses, come 
 at last to the undisguised reality of spectacles, 
 if the time comes when that fire of life we spoke 
 of has burned so low that where its flames rever 
 berated there is only the sombre stain of regret, 
 and where its coals glowed, only the white ashes 
 that cover the embers of memory, don't let your 
 heart grow cold, and you may carry cheerfulness 
 and love with you into the teens of your second 
 century, if you can last so long. As our friend, 
 the Poet, once said, in some of those old-fashioned 
 heroics of his which he keeps for his private read 
 ing, 
 
 Call him not old, whose visionary brain 
 Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. 
 For him in vain the envious seasons roll 
 Who bears eternal summer in his soul. 
 If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, 
 Spring with her birds, or children with their play 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 211 
 
 Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art 
 Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, ' 
 Turn to the record where his years are told, 
 Count his gray hairs, they cannot, make him old ! 
 End of the Professor's paper. 
 
 [The above essay was not read at one time, but 
 in several instalments, and accompanied by vari 
 ous comments from different persons at the table. 
 The company were in the main attentive, with the 
 exception of a little somnolence on the part of the 
 old gentleman opposite at times, and a few sly, 
 malicious questions about the " old boys " on the 
 part of that forward young fellow who has figured 
 occasionally, not always to his advantage, in these 
 reports. 
 
 On Sunday mornings, in obedience to a feeling 
 I am not ashamed of, I have always tried to give 
 a more appropriate character to our conversation. 
 I have never read them my sermon yet, and I 
 don't know that I shall, as some of them might 
 take my convictions as a personal indignity to 
 themselves. But having read our company so 
 much of the Professor's talk about age and other 
 subjects connected with physical life, I took the 
 next Sunday morning to repeat to them the follow 
 ing poem of his, which I have had by me some 
 time. He calls it I suppose, for his professional 
 friends THE ANATOMIST'S HYMN; but I shall 
 name it 1 
 
THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 THE LIVING TEMPLE. 
 
 Not in the world of light alone, 
 Where God has built his blazing throne, 
 Nor yet alone in earth below, 
 With belted seas that come and go, 
 And endless isles of sunlit green, 
 Is all thy Maker's glory seen : 
 Look in upon thy wondrous frame, 
 Eternal wisdom still the same ! 
 
 The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves 
 Flows murmuring through its hidden caves, 
 Whose streams of brightening purple rush 
 Fired with a new and livelier blush, 
 While all their burden of decay 
 The ebbing current steals away. 
 And red with Nature's flame they start 
 From the warm fountains of the heart. 
 
 No rest that throbbing slave may ask, 
 Forever quivering o'er his task, 
 While far and wide a crimson jet 
 Leaps forth to fill the woven net 
 Which in unnumbered crossing tides 
 The flood of burning life divides, 
 Then kindling each decaying part 
 Creeps back to find the throbbing heart. 
 
 But warmed with that unchanging flame 
 Behold the outward moving frame, 
 Its living marbles jointed strong 
 With glistening band and silvery thong, 
 And linked to reason's guiding reins 
 By myriad rings in trembling chains, 
 Each graven with the threaded zone 
 Which claims it as the master's own. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 213 
 
 See how yon beam of seeming white 
 Is braided out of seven-hued light, 
 Yet in those lucid globes no ray 
 By any chance shall break astray. 
 Hark how the rolling surge of sound, 
 Arches and spirals circling round, 
 Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear 
 With music it is heaven to hear. 
 
 Then mark the cloven sphere that holds 
 All thought in its mysterious folds. 
 That feels sensation's faintest thrill 
 And flashes forth the sovereign will ; 
 Think on the stormy world that dwells 
 Locked in its dim and clustering cells ! 
 The lightning gleams of power it sheds 
 Along its hollow glassy threads ! 
 
 O Father ! grant thy love divine 
 To make these mystic temples thine ! 
 When wasting age and wearying strife 
 Have sapped the leaning walls of life, 
 When darkness gathers over all, 
 And the last tottering pillars fall, 
 Take the poor dust thy mercy warms 
 And mould it into heavenly forms ! 
 
THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 VIII. 
 
 has come. You will find some 
 verses to that effect at the end of these 
 notes. If you are an impatient reader, 
 skip to them at once. In reading aloud, 
 omit, if you please, the sixth and seventh verses. 
 These are parenthetical and digressive, and, unless 
 your audience is of superior intelligence, will con 
 fuse them. Many people can ride on horseback 
 who find it hard to get on and to get off without 
 assistance. One has to dismount from an idea, 
 and get into the saddle again at every parenthe 
 sis.] 
 
 - The old gentleman who sits opposite, find 
 ing that spring had fairly come, mounted a white 
 hat one day, and walked into the street. It seems 
 to have been a premature or otherwise excep 
 tionable exhibition, not unlike that commemo 
 rated by the late Mr. Bayly. When the old gen 
 tleman came home, he looked very red in the face, 
 and complained that he had been " made sport of." 
 By sympathizing questions, I learned from him 
 that a boy had called him " old daddy/' and asked 
 him when he had his hat whitewashed. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 215 
 
 This incident led me to make some observations 
 at the table the next morning, which I here repeat 
 for the benefit of the readers of this record. 
 
 The hat is the vulnerable point of the arti 
 ficial integument. I learned this in early boyhood. 
 I was once equipped in a hat of Leghorn straw, 
 having a brim of much wider dimensions than were 
 usual at that time, and sent to school in that por 
 tion of my native town which lies nearest to this 
 metropolis. On my way I was met by a " Port- 
 chuck," as we used to call the young gentlemen 
 of that locality, and the following dialogue en 
 sued. 
 
 The Port-chuck. Hullo, Yon-sir, joo know th* 
 wuz gun-to be a race to-morrah ? 
 
 Myself. No. Who 's gon-to run, 'n' wherVt 
 gon-to be ? 
 
 The Port-chuck. Squire Mico 'n' Doctor Wil- 
 iams, round the brim o' your hat. 
 
 These two much-respected gentlemen being the 
 oldest inhabitants at that time, and the alleged 
 race-course being out of the question, the Port- 
 chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into 
 his cheek, I perceived that I had been trifled with, 
 and the effect has been to make me sensitive and 
 observant respecting this article of dress ever since. 
 Here is an axiom or two relating to it. 
 
 A hat which has been popped, or exploded by 
 being sat down upon, is never itself again after 
 wards. 
 
ai6 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to 
 believe the contrary. 
 
 Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic 
 as its hat. There is always an unnatural calm 
 ness about its nap, and an unwholesome gloss, 
 suggestive of a wet brush. 
 
 The last effort of decayed fortune is expended 
 in smoothing its dilapidated castor. The hat is the 
 ultimum moriens of " respectability." 
 
 The old gentleman took all these remarks 
 
 and maxims very pleasantly, saying, however, that 
 he had forgotten most of his French except the 
 word for potatoes, pummtes de tare. Ultimum 
 moriens, I told him, is old Italian, and signifies 
 last thing to die. With this explanation he was well 
 contented, and looked quite calm when I saw him 
 afterwards in the entry with a black hat on his 
 head and the white one in his hand. 
 
 1 think myself fortunate in having the Poet 
 
 and the Professor for my intimates. We are so 
 much together, that we no doubt think and talk a 
 good deal alike ; yet our points of view are in 
 many respects individual and peculiar. You know 
 me well enough by this time. I have not talked 
 with you so long for nothing, and therefore I don't 
 think it necessary to draw my own portrait. But 
 let me say a word or two about my friends. 
 
 The Professor considers himself, and I consider 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 217 
 
 him, a very useful and worthy kind of drudge. I 
 think he has a pride in his small technicalities. I 
 know that he has a great idea of fidelity ; and 
 though I suspect he laughs a little inwardly at 
 times at the grand airs " Science " puts on, as she 
 stands marking time, but not getting on, while the 
 trumpets are blowing and the big drums beating, 
 
 yet I am sure he has a liking for his specialty, 
 and a respect for its cultivators. 
 
 But I '11 tell you what the Professor said to the 
 Poet the other day. My boy, said he, I can Avork 
 a great deal cheaper than you, because I keep all 
 my goods in the lower story. You have to hoist 
 yours into the upper chambers of the brain, and 
 let them down again to your customers. I take 
 mine in at the level of the ground, and send them 
 off from my doorstep almost without lifting. I 
 tell you, the higher a man has to carry the raw 
 material of thought before he works it up, the 
 more it costs him in blood, nerve, and muscle. 
 Coleridge knew all this very well when he advised 
 every literary man to have a profession. 
 
 Sometimes I like to talk with one of them, 
 and sometimes with the other. After a while I 
 get tired of both. When a fit of intellectual dis 
 gust comes over me, I will tell you what I have 
 found admirable as a diversion, in addition to boat 
 ing and other amusements which I have spoken of, 
 
 that is, working at my carpenter's-bench. Some 
 
218 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 mechanical employment is the greatest possible 
 relief, after the purely intellectual faculties begin 
 to tire. When I was quarantined once at Mar 
 seilles, I got to work immediately at carving a 
 wooden wonder of loose rings on a stick, and got 
 so interested in it, that, when we were set loose, I 
 " regained my freedom with a sigh," because my 
 toy was unfinished. 
 
 There are long seasons when I talk only with 
 the Professor, and others when I give myself 
 wholly up to the Poet. Now that my winter's 
 work is over, and spring is with us, I feel natu 
 rally drawn to the Poet's company. I don't know 
 anybody more alive to life than he is. The pas 
 sion of poetry seizes on him every spring, he says, 
 
 yet oftentimes he complains, that, when he feels 
 most, he can sing least. 
 
 Then a fit of despondency comes over him. I 
 feel ashamed, sometimes, said he, the other day, 
 
 to think how far my worst songs fall below my 
 best. It sometimes seems to me, as I know it does 
 to others who have told me so, that they ought to 
 be all best, if not in actual execution, at least in 
 plan and motive. I am grateful he continued 
 
 for all such criticisms. A man is always 
 pleased to have his most serious efforts praised, 
 and the highest aspect of his nature get the most 
 sunshine. 
 
 Yet I am sure, that, in the nature of things, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 219 
 
 many minds must change their key now and then, 
 on penalty of getting out of tune or losing their 
 voices. You know, I suppose, he said, what 
 is meant by complementary colors 1 You know 
 the effect, too, which the prolonged impression of 
 any one color has on the retina. If you close your 
 eyes after looking steadily at a red object, you see 
 a green image. 
 
 It is so with many minds, I will not say with 
 all. After looking at one aspect of external na 
 ture, or of any form of beauty or truth, when they 
 turn away, the complementary aspect of the same 
 object stamps itself irresistibly and automatically 
 upon the mind. Shall they give expression to 
 this secondary mental state, or not? 
 
 When I contemplate said my friend, the Poet 
 the infinite largeness of comprehension belong 
 ing to the Central Intelligence, how remote the 
 creative conception is from all scholastic and ethi 
 cal formulae, I am led to think that a healthy mind 
 ought to change its mood from time to time, and 
 come down from its noblest condition, never, of 
 course, to degrade itself by dwelling upon what is 
 itself debasing, but to let its lower faculties have a 
 chance to air and exercise themselves. After the 
 first and second floor have been out in the bright 
 street dressed in all their splendors, shall not our 
 humble friends in the basement have their holiday, 
 and the cotton velvet and the thin-skinned jewelry 
 
220 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 simple adornments, but befitting the station of 
 those who wear them show themselves to the 
 crowd, who think them beautiful, as they ought 
 to, though the people up stairs know that they 
 are cheap and perishable ? 
 
 1 don't know that I may not bring the 
 
 Poet here, some day or other, and let him speak 
 for himself. Still I think I can tell you what he 
 says quite as well as he could do it. O, he 
 said to me, one day, I am but a hand-organ 
 man, say rather, a hand-organ. Life turns the 
 winch, and fancy or accident pulls out the stops. 
 I come under your windows, some fine spring 
 morning, and play you one of my adagio move 
 ments, and some of you say, This is good, 
 play us so always. But, dear friends, if I did 
 not change the stop sometimes, the machine would 
 wear out in one part and rust in another. How 
 easily this or that tune flows ! you say, there 
 must be no end of just such melodies in him. 
 
 I will open the poor machine for you one mo 
 ment, and you shall look. Ah ! Every note 
 marks where a spur of steel has been driven in. 
 It is easy to grind out the song, but to plant these 
 bristling points which make it was the painful task 
 of time. 
 
 I don't like to say it, he continued, but 
 poets commonly have no larger stock of tunes 
 than hand-organs ; and when you hear them pip- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2.21 
 
 ing up under your window, you know pretty well 
 what to expect. The more stops, the better. Do 
 let them all be pulled out in their turn ! 
 
 So spoke my friend, the Poet, and read me one 
 of his stateliest songs, and after it a gay chanson, 
 and then a string of epigrams. All true, he 
 said, all flowers of his soul ; only one with the 
 corolla spread, and another with its disk half 
 opened, and the third with the heart-leaves cov 
 ered up and only a petal or two showing its tip 
 through the calyx. The water-lily is the type of 
 the poet's soul, he told me. 
 
 What do you think, sir, said the divini- 
 
 ity-student, opens the souls of poets most fully ? 
 
 Why, there must be the internal force and the 
 external stimulus. Neither is enough by itself. 
 A rose will not flower in the dark, and a fern 
 will not flower anywhere. 
 
 What do I think is the true sunshine that opens 
 the poet's corolla ? I don't like to say. They 
 spoil a good many, I am afraid ; or at least they 
 shine on a good many that never come to any 
 thing. 
 
 Who are they? said the schoolmistress. 
 
 Women. Their love first inspires the poet, and 
 their praise is his best reward. 
 
 The schoolmistress reddened a little, but looked 
 pleased. Did I really think so ? I do think so ; 
 I never feel safe until I have pleased them ; I don't 
 
222 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 think they are the first to see one's defects, but 
 they are the first to catch the color and fragrance 
 of a true poem. Fit the same intellect to a man 
 and it is a bow-string, to a woman and it is a 
 harp-string. She is vibratile and resonant all 
 over, so she stirs with slighter musical tremblings 
 
 of the air about her. Ah me ! said my 
 
 friend the Poet, to me, the other day, what 
 color would it not have given to my thoughts, 
 and what thrice-washed whiteness to my words, 
 had I been fed on women's praises. I should 
 have grown like MarvelFs fawn, 
 
 " Lilies without ; roses within ! " 
 
 But then, he added, we all think, if so and so, 
 we should have been this or that, as you were say 
 ing, the other day, in those rhymes of yours. 
 
 1 don't think there are many poets in the 
 
 sense of creators ; but of those sensitive natures 
 which reflect themselves naturally in soft and me 
 lodious words, pleading for sympathy with their 
 joys and sorrows, every literature is full. Nature 
 carves with her own hands the brain which holds 
 the creative imagination, but she casts the over 
 sensitive creatures in scores from the same mould. 
 
 There are two kinds of poets, just as there are 
 two kinds of blondes. [Movement of curiosity 
 among our ladies at table. Please to tell us 
 about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.] 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 223 
 
 Why, there are blondes who are such simply by 
 deficiency of coloring matter, negative or washed 
 blondes, arrested by Nature on the way to be 
 come albinesses. There are others that are shot 
 through with golden light, with tawny or fulvous 
 tinges in various degree, positive or stained 
 blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and as un 
 like in their mode of being to the others as an 
 orange is unlike a snowball. The albino-style 
 carries with it a wide pupil and a sensitive retina. 
 The other, or the leonine blonde, has an opaline 
 fire in her clear eye, which the brunette can hard 
 ly match with her quick glittering glances. 
 
 Just so we have the great sun-kindled, construc 
 tive imaginations, and a far more numerous class 
 of poets who have a certain kind of moonlight- 
 genius given them to compensate for their imper 
 fection of nature. Their want of mental coloring- 
 matter makes them sensitive to those impressions 
 which stronger minds neglect or never feel at all. 
 Many of them die young, and all of them are 
 tinged with melancholy. There is no more beau 
 tiful illustration of the principle of compensation 
 which marks the Divine benevolence than the fact 
 that some of the holiest lives and some of the 
 sweetest songs are the growth of the infirmity 
 which unfits its subject for the^ rougher duties of 
 life. When one reads the life of Cowper, or of 
 Keats, or of Lucretia and Margaret Davidson, > 
 
22 4 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 of so many gentle, sweet natures, born to weak 
 ness, and mostly dying before their time, one 
 cannot help thinking that the human race dies 
 out singing, like the swan in the old story. The 
 French poet, Gilbert, who died at the Hotel Dieu, 
 at the age of twenty-nine, (killed by a key in 
 his throat, which he had swallowed when delirious 
 in consequence of a fall,) this poor fellow was 
 a very good example of the poet by excess of sen 
 sibility. I found, the other day, that some of my 
 literary friends had never heard of him, though I 
 suppose few educated Frenchmen do not know 
 the lines which he wrote, a week before his death, 
 upon a mean bed in the great hospital of Paris. 
 
 " Au banquet de la vie, infortune convive, 
 
 J'apparus un jour, et je meurs ; 
 Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, oa lentement j'arrive, 
 Nul ne viendra verser des plt-urs." 
 
 At life's gay banquet placed, a poor unhappy guest, 
 
 One day I pass, then disappear 5 
 I die, and on the tomb where I at length shall rest 
 
 No friend shall come to shed a tear. 
 
 You remember the same thing in other words 
 somewhere in Kirke White's poems. It is the 
 burden of the plaintive songs of all. these sweet 
 albino-poets. " I shall die and be forgotten, and 
 the world will go on just as if I had never been ; 
 and yet how I have loved ! how I have longed ! 
 how I have aspired ! " And so singing, their 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 225 
 
 eyes grow brighter and brighter, and their fea 
 tures thinner and thinner, until at last the veil of 
 flesh is threadbare, and, still singing, they drop it 
 and pass onward. 
 
 Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The 
 
 Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then 
 closes the case, and gives the key into the hand 
 of the Angel of the Resurrection. 
 
 Tic-tac ! tic-tac ! go the wheels of thought ; our 
 will cannot stop them ; they cannot stop them 
 selves ; sleep cannot still them ; madness only 
 makes them go faster; death alone can break 
 into the case, arid, seizing the ever-swinging pen 
 dulum, which we call the heart, silence at last 
 the clicking of the terrible escapement we have 
 carried so long beneath our wrinkled foreheads. 
 
 If we could only get at them, as we lie on our 
 pillows and count the dead beats of thought after 
 thought and image after image jarring through the 
 overtired organ ! Will nobody block those wheels, 
 uncouple that pinion, cut the string that holds 
 those weights, blow up the infernal machine with 
 gunpowder ? What a passion comes over us 
 sometimes for silence and rest ! that this dread- 
 ful mechanism, unwinding the endless tapestry of 
 time, embroidered with spectral figures of life and 
 death, could have but one brief holiday ! Who 
 can wonder that men swin themselves off from 
 
226 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 beams in hempen lassos ? that they jump off 
 from parapets into the swift and gurgling waters 
 beneath ? that they take counsel of the grim 
 friend who has but to utter his one peremptory 
 monosyllable and the restless machine is shivered 
 as a vase that is dashed upon a marble floor ? 
 Under that building which we pass every day 
 there are strong dungeons, where neither hook, nor 
 bar, nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which 
 a sharp fragment may be shattered, shall by any 
 chance be seen. There is nothing for it, when the 
 brain is on fire with the whirling of its wheels, but 
 to spring against the stone wall and silence them 
 with one crash. Ah, they remembered that, the 
 kind city fathers, and the walls are nicely pad 
 ded, so that one can take such exercise as he likes 
 without damaging himself on the very plain and 
 serviceable upholstery. If anybody would only 
 contrive some kind of a lever that one could thrust 
 in among the works of this horrid automaton and 
 check them, or alter their rate of going, what 
 would the world give for the discovery? 
 
 From half a dime to a dime, according to 
 
 the style of the place and the quality of the liquor, 
 said the young fellow whom they call John. 
 
 You speak trivially, but not unwisely, I said. 
 Unless the will maintain a certain control over 
 these movements, which it cannot stop, but can to 
 some extent regulate, men are very apt to try to 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 227 
 
 get at the machine by some indirect system of lev 
 erage or other. They clap on the brakes by means 
 of opium; they change the maddening monotony 
 of the rhythm by means of fermented liquors. It 
 is because the brain is locked up and we cannot 
 touch its movement directly, that we thrust these 
 coarse tools in through any crevice by which they 
 may reach the interior, and so alter its rate of 
 going for a while, and at last spoil the machine. 
 
 Men who exercise chiefly those faculties of the 
 mind which work independently of the will, 
 poets and artists, for instance, who follow their 
 imagination in their creative moments, instead of 
 keeping it in hand as your logicians and practical 
 men do with their reasoning faculty, such men 
 are too apt to call in the mechanical appliances to 
 help them govern their intellects. 
 
 He means they get drunk, said the young 
 
 fellow already alluded to by name. 
 
 Do you think men of true genius are apt to in 
 dulge in the use of inebriating fluids ? said the 
 divinity-student. 
 
 If you think you are strong enough to bear 
 what I am going to say, I replied, I will talk 
 to you about this. But mind, now, these are 
 the things that some foolish people call dangerous 
 subjects, as if these vices which burrow into 
 people's souls, as the Guinea-worm burrows into 
 the naked feet of West-Indian slaves, would be 
 
228 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 more mischievous when seen than out of sight. 
 Now the true way to deal with those obstinate 
 animals, which are a dozen feet long, some of 
 them, and no bigger than a horse hair, is to get a 
 piece of silk round their heads, and pull them out 
 very cautiously. If you only break them off, they 
 grow worse than ever, and sometimes kill the 
 person who has the misfortune to harbor one of 
 them. Whence it is plain that the first thing to 
 do is to find out where the head lies. 
 
 Just so of all the vices, and particularly of this 
 vice of intemperance. What is the head of it, 
 and where does it lie? For you may depend 
 upon it, there is not one of these vices that has 
 not a head of its own, an intelligence, a 
 meaning, a certain virtue, I was going to say, 
 but that might, perhaps, sound paradoxical. 
 I have heard an immense number of moral phy 
 sicians lay down the treatment of moral Gninea- 
 , worms, and the vast majority of them would al 
 ways insist that the creature had no head at all, 
 but was all body and tail. So I have found a 
 very common result of their method to be that the 
 string slipped, or that a piece only of the creature 
 was broken off, and the worm soon grew again, 
 as bad as ever. The truth is, if the Devil could 
 only appear in church by attorney, and make the 
 best statement that the facts would bear him out 
 in doing on behalf of his special virtues, (what we 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 229 
 
 commonly call vices,) the influence of good teach 
 ers would be much greater than it is. For the 
 arguments by which the Devil prevails are pre 
 cisely the ones that the Devil-queller most rarely 
 answers. The way to argue down a vice is, not 
 to tell lies about it, to say that it has no attrac 
 tions, when everybody knows that it has, but 
 rather to let it make out its case just as it cer 
 tainly will in the moment of temptation, and then 
 meet it with the weapons furnished by the Divine 
 armory. Ithuriel did not spit the toad on his 
 spear, you remember, but touched him with it, 
 and the blasted angel took the sad glories of 
 his true shape. If he had shown fight then, the 
 fair spirits would have known how to deal with 
 him. 
 
 That all spasmodic cerebral action is an evil is 
 not perfectly clear. Men get fairly intoxicated 
 with music, with poetry, with religious excite 
 ment, oftenest with love. Ninon de TEnclos 
 said she was so easily excited that her soup in 
 toxicated her, and convalescents have been made 
 tipsy by a beef-steak. 
 
 There are forms and stages of alcoholic ex 
 altation, which, in themselves, and without regard 
 to their consequences, might be considered as 
 positive improvements of the persons affected. 
 When the sluggish intellect is roused, the slow 
 speech quickened, the cold nature warmed, the 
 
230 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 latent sympathy developed, the flagging spirit 
 kindled, before the trains of thought become 
 confused, or the will perverted, or the muscles 
 relaxed, just at the moment when the whole 
 human zoophyte flowers out like a full-blown rose, 
 and is ripe for the subscription-paper or the con 
 tribution-box, it would be hard to say that a 
 man was, at that very time, worse, or less to be 
 loved, than when driving a hard bargain with all 
 his meaner wits about him. The difficulty is, 
 that the alcoholic virtues don't wash ; but until 
 the water takes their colors out, the tints are very 
 much like those of the true celestial stuff. 
 
 [Here I was interrupted by a question which I 
 am very unwilling to report, but have confidence 
 enough in those friends who examine these rec 
 ords to commit to their candor. 
 
 A person at table asked me whether I " went in 
 for rum as a steady drink ? " His manner made 
 the question highly offensive, but I restrained 
 myself, and answered thus : J 
 
 Rum I take to be the name which unwashed 
 moralists apply alike to the product distilled from 
 molasses and the noblest juices of the vineyard. 
 Burgundy "in all its sunset glow " is rum. Cham 
 pagne, " the foaming wine of Eastern France/' is 
 rum. Hock, which our friend, the Poet, speaks 
 of as 
 
 " The Rhine's breastmilk, gushing cold and bright, 
 Pale as the moon, and maddening as her light," 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 231 
 
 is rum. Sir, I repudiate the loathsome vulgarism 
 as an insult to the first miracle wrought by the 
 Founder of our religion ! I address myself to the 
 company. I believe in temperance, nay, almost 
 in abstinence, as a rule for healthy people. I 
 trust that I practise both. But let me tell you, 
 there are companies of men of genius into which 
 I sometimes go, where the atmosphere of intellect 
 and sentiment is so much more stimulating than 
 alcohol, that, if I thought fit to take wine, it 
 would be to keep me sober. 
 
 Among the gentlemen that I have known, few, 
 if any, were ruined by drinking. My few drunken 
 acquaintances were generally ruined before they 
 became drunkards. The habit of drinking is 
 often a vice, no doubt, sometimes a misfortune, 
 as when an almost irresistible hereditary propen 
 sity exists to indulge in it, but oftenest of all a 
 punishment. 
 
 Empty heads, heads without ideas in whole 
 some variety and sufficient number to furnish food 
 for the mental clockwork, ill-regulated heads, 
 where the faculties are not under the control of 
 the will, these are the ones that hold the brains 
 which their owners are so apt to tamper with, by 
 introducing the appliances we have been talking 
 about. Now, when a gentleman's brain is empty 
 or ill-regulated, it is, to a great extent, his own 
 fault ; and so it is simple retribution, that, while 
 
232 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 he lies slothfully sleeping or aimlessly dreaming, 
 the fatal habit settles on him like a vampyre, and 
 sucks his blood, fanning him all the while with its 
 hot wings into deeper slumber or idler dreams ! 
 I am not such a hard-souled being as to apply 
 this to the neglected poor, who have had no 
 chance to fill their heads with wholesome ideas, 
 and to be taught the lesson of self-government. I 
 trust the tariff of Heaven has an ad valorem scale 
 for them and all of us. 
 
 But to come back to poets and artists; if 
 they really are more prone to the abuse of stimu 
 lants, and I fear that this is true, the reason 
 of it is only too clear. A man abandons himself 
 to a fine frenzy, and the power which flows 
 through him, as I once explained to you, makes 
 him the medium of a great poem or a great pic 
 ture. The creative action is not voluntary at all, 
 but automatic ; we can only put the mind into 
 the proper attitude, and wait for the wind, that 
 blows where it listeth, to breathe over it. Thus 
 the true state of creative genius is allied to rev 
 erie, or dreaming. If mind and body were both 
 healthy and had food enough and fair play, I 
 doubt whether any men would be more temperate 
 than the imaginative classes. But body and mind 
 often flag, perhaps they are ill-made to begin 
 with, underfed with bread or ideas, overworked, 
 or abused in some way. The automatic action, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 233 
 
 by which genius wrought its wonders, fails. 
 There is only one thing which can rouse the 
 machine ; not will, that cannot reach it ; noth 
 ing but a ruinous agent, which hurries the wheels 
 awhile and soon eats out the heart of the mechan 
 ism. The dreaming faculties are always the dan 
 gerous ones, because their mode of action can be 
 imitated by artificial excitement; the reasoning 
 ones are safe, because they imply continued vol 
 untary effort. 
 
 I think you will find it true, that, before any 
 vice can fasten on a man, body, mind, or moral 
 nature must be debilitated. The mosses and 
 fungi gather on sickly trees, not thriving ones ; 
 and the odious parasites which fasten on the 
 human frame choose that which is already en 
 feebled. Mr. Walker, the hygeian humorist, de 
 clared that he had such a healthy skin it was 
 impossible for any impurity to stick to it, and 
 maintained that it was an absurdity to wash a 
 face which was of necessity always clean. I don't 
 know how much fancy there was in this ; but 
 there is no fancy in saying that the lassitude of 
 tired-out operatives, and the languor of imagina 
 tive natures in their periods of collapse, and the 
 vacuity of minds untrained to labor and discipline, 
 fit the soul and body for the germination of the 
 seeds of intemperance. 
 . Whenever the wandering demon of Drunken- 
 
234 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 ness finds a ship adrift, no steady wind in its 
 sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its course, 
 he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers 
 straight for the maelstrom. 
 
 1 wonder if you know the terrible smile ? 
 
 [The young fellow whom they call John winked 
 very hard, and made a jocular remark, the sense 
 of which seemed to depend on some double mean 
 ing of the word smile. The company was curious 
 to know what I meant.] 
 
 There are persons, I said, who no sooner 
 come within sight of you than they begin to smile, 
 with an uncertain movement of the mouth, which 
 conveys the idea that they are thinking about 
 themselves, and thinking, too, that you are think 
 ing they are thinking about themselves, and so 
 look at you with a wretched mixture of self-con 
 sciousness, awkwardness, and attempts to carry 
 off both, which are betrayed by the cowardly be 
 havior of the eye and the tell-tale weakness of the 
 lips that characterize these unfortunate beings. 
 
 Why do you call them unfortunate, sir 1 
 
 asked the divinity-student. 
 
 Because it is evident that the consciousness of 
 some imbecility or other is at the bottom of this 
 extraordinary expression. I don't think, however, 
 that these persons are commonly fools. I have 
 known a number, and all of them were intelligent 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 235 
 
 I think nothing conveys the idea of underbreeding 
 more than this self-betraying smile. Yet I think 
 this peculiar habit as well as that of meaningless 
 blushing may be fallen into by very good people 
 who meet often, or sit opposite each other at table. 
 A true gentleman's face is infinitely removed from 
 all such paltriness, calm-eyed, firm-mouthed. I 
 think Titian understood the look of a gentleman 
 as well as anybody that ever lived. The portrait 
 of a young man holding a glove in his hand, in 
 the Gallery of the Louvre, if any of you have 
 seen that collection, will remind you of what I 
 mean. 
 
 Do I think these people know the peculiar 
 
 look they have ? I cannot say ; I hope not ; I 
 am afraid they would never forgive me, if they 
 did. The worst of it is, the trick is catching; 
 when one meets one of these fellows, he feels a 
 tendency to the same manifestation. The Profes 
 sor tells me there is a muscular slip, a dependence 
 of the platysma myoides, which is called the risorius 
 Santonni. 
 
 Say that once more, exclaimed the young 
 
 fellow mentioned above. 
 
 The Professor says there is a little fleshy slip 
 called Santorini's laughing muscle. I would have 
 it cut out of my face, if I were born with one of 
 those constitutional grins upon it. Perhaps I am 
 uncharitable in my judgment of those sour-look* 
 
236 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 ing people I told you of the other day, and of 
 these smiling folks. It may be that they are born 
 with these looks, as other people are with more 
 generally recognized deformities. Both are bad 
 enough, but I had rather meet three of the scowl- 
 ers than one of the smilers. 
 
 There is another unfortunate way of look 
 ing, which is peculiar to that amiable sex we do 
 not like to find fault with. There are some very 
 pretty, but, unhappily, very ill-bred women, who 
 don't understand the law of the road with regard 
 to handsome faces. Nature and custom would, no 
 doubt, agree in conceding to all males the right of 
 at least two distinct looks at every comely female 
 countenance, without any infraction of the rules 
 of courtesy or the sentiment of respect. The first 
 look is necessary to define the person of the in 
 dividual one meets so as to avoid it in passing. 
 Any unusual attraction detected in a first glance 
 is a sufficient apology for a second, not a pro 
 longed and impertinent stare, but an appreciating 
 homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may inof 
 fensively yield to a passing image. It is astonish 
 ing how morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties 
 are to the slightest demonstration of this kind. 
 When a lady walks the streets, she leaves her 
 virtuous-indignation countenance at home ; she 
 knows well enough that the street is a picture- 
 gallery, where pretty faces framed in pretty bon- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 237 
 
 nets are meant to be seen, and everybody has a 
 right to see them. 
 
 When we observe how the same features 
 
 and style of person and character descend from 
 generation to generation, we can believe that some 
 inherited weakness may account for these peculiar 
 ities. Little snapping-turtles snap so the great 
 naturalist tells us before they are out of the egg 
 shell. I am satisfied, that, much higher up in the 
 scale of life, character is distinctly shown at the 
 age of 2 or 3 months. 
 
 My friend, the Professor, has been full of 
 
 eggs lately. [This remark excited a burst of hi 
 larity, which I did not allow to interrupt the course 
 of my observations.] He has been reading the 
 great book where he found 'the fact about the little 
 snapping-turtles mentioned above. Some of the 
 things he has told me have suggested several odd 
 analogies enough. 
 
 There are half a dozen men, or so, who carry in 
 their brains the ovarian eggs of the next genera 
 tion's or century's civilization. These eggs are 
 not ready to be laid in the form of books as yet ; 
 some of them are hardly ready to be put into the 
 form of talk. But as rudimentary ideas or in 
 choate tendencies, there they are ; and these are 
 what must form the future. A man's general no 
 tions are not good for much, unless he has a crop 
 of these intellectual ovarian eggs in his own brain, 
 
238 TI1Z AUTOCRAT 
 
 or knows them as they exist in the minds of oth 
 ers. One must be in the habit of talking with 
 such persons to get at these rudimentary germs of 
 thought ; for their development is necessarily im 
 perfect, and they are moulded on new patterns, 
 which must he long and closely studied. But 
 these are the men to talk with. No fresh truth 
 ever gets into a book. 
 
 A good many fresh lies get in, anyhow, 
 
 said one of the company. 
 
 I proceeded in spite of the interruption. All 
 uttered thought, my friend, the Professor, says, is 
 of the nature of an excretion. Its materials have 
 been taken in, and have acted upon the system, 
 and been reacted on by it ; it has circulated and 
 done its office in one mind before it is given out 
 for the benefit of others. It may be milk or ven 
 om to other minds ; but, in either case, it is some 
 thing which the producer has had the use of and 
 can part with. A man instinctively tries to get 
 rid of his thought in conversation or in print so 
 soon as it is matured ; but it is hard to get at it 
 as it lies imbedded, a mere potentiality, the germ 
 of a germ, in his intellect. 
 
 Where are the brains that are fullest of 
 
 these ovarian eggs of thought ? I decline men 
 tioning individuals. The producers of thought, 
 who are few, the "jobbers" of thought, who are 
 many, and the retailers of thought, who are num- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 239 
 
 berless, are so mixed up in the popular appre 
 hension, that it would be hopeless to try to sepa 
 rate them before opinion has had time to settle. 
 Follow the course of opinion on the great subjects 
 of human interest for a few generations or cen 
 turies, get its parallax, map out a small arc of its 
 movement, see where it tends, and then see who 
 is in advance of it or even with it ; the world 
 calls him hard names, probably ; but if you would 
 find the ova of the future, you must look into the 
 folds of his cerebral convolutions. 
 
 [The divinity-student looked a little puzzled at 
 this suggestion, as if he did not see exactly where 
 he was to come out, if he computed his arc too 
 nicely. I think it possible it might cut off a few 
 corners of his present belief, as it has cut off mar 
 tyr-burning and witch-hanging ; but time will 
 show, time will show, as the old gentleman 
 opposite says.] 
 
 O, here is that copy of verses I told 
 
 you about. 
 
 SPRING HAS COME. 
 Intra Maros. 
 
 The sunbeams, lost for half a year, 
 
 Slant through my pane their morning rays ; 
 
 For dry Northwesters cold and clear, 
 The East blows in its thin blue haze. 
 
 And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, 
 Then close against the sheltering wall 
 
 The tulip's horn of dusky green, 
 The peony's dark unfolding ball. 
 
240 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 The golden-chaliced crocus burns ; 
 
 The long narcissus-blades appear 5 
 The cone-beaked hyacinth returns, 
 
 And lights her blue-flamed chandelier. 
 
 The willow's whistling lashes, wrung 
 By the wild winds of gusty March, 
 
 With sallow leaflets lightly strung, 
 Are swaying by the tufted larch. 
 
 The elms have robed their slender spray 
 With full-blown flower and embryo leaf ; 
 
 Wide o'er the clasping arch of day 
 Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. 
 
 [See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, 
 
 That flames in glory for an hour, - 
 
 Behold it withering, then look up, 
 How meek the forest-monarch's flower ! . 
 
 When wake the violets, Winter dies ; 
 
 When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near ; 
 When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, 
 
 " Bud, little roses ! Spring is here ! "] 
 
 The windows blush with fresh bouquets, 
 Cut with the May-dew on their lips ; 
 
 The radish all its bloom displays, 
 Pink as Aurora's finger-tips. 
 
 Nor less the flood of light that showers 
 On beauty's changed corolla-shades, 
 
 The walks are gay as bridal bowers 
 With rows of many-petalled maids. 
 
 The scarlet shell-fish click and clash 
 In the blue barrow where they slide ; 
 
 The horseman, proud of streak and splash, 
 Creeps homeward from his morning ride. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 241 
 
 Here comes the dealer's awkward string, 
 With neck in rope and tail in knot, 
 
 Rough colts, with careless country-swing, 
 In lazy walk or slouching trot. 
 
 Wild filly from the mountain-side, 
 
 Doomed to the close and chafing thills, 
 
 Lend me thy long, untiring stride 
 To seek with thee thy western hills ! 
 
 I hear the whispering voice of Spring, 
 The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, 
 
 Like some poor bird with prisoned wing 
 That sits and sings, but longs to fly. 
 
 for one spot of living green, 
 One little spot where leaves can grow, 
 
 To love unblamed, to walk unseen, 
 To dream above, to sleep below ! 
 
 16 
 
THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 IX. 
 
 QUf estd encerrada el alma del licenciado 
 Pedro Garcias. 
 
 If I should ever make a little book 
 out of these papers, which I hope you 
 are not getting tired of, I suppose I ought to save 
 the above sentence for a motto on the title-page. 
 But I want it now, and must use it. I need not 
 say to you that the words are Spanish, nor that 
 they are to be found in the short Introduction 
 to " Gil Bias," nor that they mean, " Here lies 
 buried the soul of the licentiate Pedro Garcias." 
 
 I warned all young people off the premises 
 when I began my notes referring to old age. I 
 must be equally fair with old people now. They 
 are earnestly requested to leave this paper to 
 young persons from the age of twelve to that of 
 fourscore years and ten, at which latter period 
 of life I am sure that I shall have at least one 
 youthful reader. You know well enough what I 
 mean by youth and age ; something in the soul, 
 which has no more to do with the color of the 
 hair than the vein of gold in a rock has to do 
 with the grass a thousand feet above it. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 243 
 
 I am growing bolder as I write. I think it 
 requires not only youth, but genius, to read this 
 paper. I don't mean to imply that it required 
 any whatsoever to talk what I have here written 
 down. It did demand a certain amount of mem 
 ory, and such command of the English tongue 
 as is given by a common school education. So 
 much I do claim. But here I have related, at 
 length, a string of trivialities. You must have 
 the imagination of a poet to transfigure them. 
 These little colored patches are stains upon the 
 windows of a human soul ; stand on the outside, 
 they are but dull and meaningless spots of color ; 
 seen from within, they are glorified shapes with 
 empurpled wings and sunbright aureoles. 
 
 My hand trembles when I offer you this. 
 Many times I have come bearing flowers such as 
 my garden grew ; but now I offer you this poor, 
 brown, homely growth, you may cast it away as 
 worthless. And yet and yet it is something 
 better than flowers ; it is a seed-capsule. Many a 
 gardener will cut you a bouquet of his choicest 
 blossoms for small fee, but he does not love to let 
 the seeds of his rarest varieties go out of his own 
 hands. 
 
 It is by little things that we know ourselves ; a 
 soul would very probably mistake itself for an 
 other, when once disembodied, were it not for 
 individual experiences which differ from those of 
 
244 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 others only in details seemingly trifling. All of 
 us have been thirsty thousands of times, and felt, 
 with Pindar, that water was the best of things. 
 I alone, as I think, of all mankind, remember one 
 particular pailful of water, flavored with the white- 
 pine of which the pail was made, and the brown 
 mug out of which one Edmund, a red-faced and 
 curly-haired boy, was averred to have bitten a 
 fragment in his haste to drink ; it being then high 
 summer, and little full-blooded boys feeling very 
 warm and porous in the low-" studded " school 
 room where Dame Prentiss, dead and gone, ruled 
 over young children, many of whom are old 
 ghosts now, and have known Abraham for twenty 
 or thirty years of our mortal time. 
 
 Thirst belongs to humanity, everywhere, in all 
 ages ; but that white-pine pail, and that brown 
 mug belong to me in particular ; and just so of 
 my special relationships with other things and 
 with my race. One could never remember him 
 self in eternity by the mere fact of having loved 
 or hated any more than by that of having thirsted ; 
 love and hate have no more individuality in them 
 than single waves in the ocean ; but the acci 
 dents or trivial marks which distinguished those 
 whom we loved or hated make their memory our 
 own forever, and with it that of our own person 
 ality also. 
 
 Therefore, my aged friend of five-and-twenty, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 245 
 
 or thereabouts, pause at the threshold of this par 
 ticular record, and ask yourself seriously whether 
 you are fit to read such revelations as are to fol 
 low. For observe, you have here no splendid ar 
 ray of petals such as poets offer you, nothing 
 but a dry shell, containing, if you will get out 
 what is in it, a few small seeds of poems. You 
 may laugh at them, if you like. I shall never tell 
 you what I think of you for so doing. But if 
 you can read into the heart of these things, in the 
 light of other memories as slight, yet as dear to 
 your soul, then you are neither more nor less than 
 a POET, and can afford to write no more verses 
 during the rest of your natural life, which ab 
 stinence I take to be one of the surest marks of 
 your meriting the divine name I have just be 
 stowed upon you. 
 
 May I beg of you who have begun this paper, 
 nobly trusting to your own imagination and sensi 
 bilities to give it the significance which it does not 
 lay claim to without your kind assistance, may 
 I beg of you, I say, to pay particular attention to 
 the brackets which enclose certain paragraphs ? I 
 want my " asides/' you see, to whisper loud to 
 you who read my notes, and sometimes I talk a 
 page or two to you without pretending that I said 
 a word of it to our boarders. You will find a 
 very long " aside " to you almost as soon as you 
 begin to read. And so, dear young friend, fall to 
 
246 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 at once, taking such things as I have provided for 
 you ; and if you turn them, by the aid of your 
 powerful imagination, into a fair banquet, why, 
 then, peace be with you, and a summer by the 
 still waters of some quiet river, or by some yellow 
 beach, where, as my friend the Professor, says, 
 you can sit with Nature's wrist in your hand and 
 count her ocean-pulses.] 
 
 I should like to make a few intimate revelations 
 relating especially to my early life, if I thought 
 you would like to hear them. 
 
 [The schoolmistress turned a little in her chair, 
 and sat with her face directed partly towards me. 
 Half-mourning now ; purple ribbon. That 
 breastpin she wears has gray hair in it ; her moth 
 er's, no doubt ; I remember our landlady's 
 daughter telling me, soon after the schoolmis 
 tress came to board with us, that she had lately 
 " buried a payrent." That 's what made her look 
 so pale, kept the poor dying thing alive with 
 her own blood. Ah ! long illness is the real vam^ 
 pyrism ; think of living a year or two after one is 
 dead, by sucking the life-blood out of a frail young 
 creature at one's bedside ! Well, souls grow white, 
 as well as cheeks, in these holy duties ; one that 
 goes in a nurse, may come out an angel. God 
 bless all good women ! to their soft hands and 
 
 pitying hearts we must all come at last ! The 
 
 schoolmistress has a better color than when she 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 247 
 
 eame. Too late ! " It might have been." 
 
 Amen ! 
 
 How many thoughts go to a dozen heart 
 beats, sometimes ! There was no long pause after 
 my remark addressed to the company, but in that 
 time I had the train of ideas and feelings I have 
 just given flash through my consciousness sudden 
 and sharp as the crooked red streak that springs 
 out of its black sheath like the creese of a Malay 
 in his death-race, and stabs the earth right and left 
 in its blind rage. 
 
 I don't deny that there was a pang in it, 
 yes, a stab ; but there was a prayer, too, the 
 <f Amen" belonged to that. Also, a vision of 
 a four-story brick house, nicely furnished, I ac 
 tually saw many specific articles, curtains, sofas, 
 tables, and others, and could draw the patterns of 
 them at this moment, a brick house, I say, look 
 ing out on the water, with a fair parlor, and books 
 and busts and pots of flowers and bird-cages, all 
 complete ; and at the window, looking on the wa 
 ter, two of us. " Male and female created He 
 them." These two were standing at the window, 
 when a smaller shape that was playing near them 
 
 looked up at me with such a look that I 
 
 poured out a glass of water, drank it all down, 
 and then continued.] 
 
 I said I should like to tell you some things, such 
 as people commonly never tell, about my early rec' 
 ollections. Should you like to hear them 1 
 
248 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Should we like to hear them ? said the school 
 mistress ; no, but we should love to. 
 
 [The voice was a sweet one, naturally, and had 
 something very pleasant in its tone, just then. 
 The four-story brick house, which had gone out 
 like a transparency when the light behind it is 
 quenched, glimmered again for a moment ; parlor, 
 books, busts, flower-pots, bird-cages, all complete, 
 and the figures as before.] 
 
 We are waiting with eagerness, sir, said the 
 divinity-student. 
 
 [The transparency went out as if a flash of black 
 lightning had struck it.] 
 
 If you want to hear my confessions, the next 
 thing I said is to know whether I can trust 
 you with them. It is only fair to say that there 
 arc a great many people in the world that laugh 
 at such things. / think they are fools, but per 
 haps you don't all agree with me. 
 
 Here are children of tender age talked to as if 
 they were capable of understanding Calvin's " In 
 stitutes," and nobody has honesty or sense enough 
 to tell the plain truth about the little wretches : 
 that they are as superstitious as naked savages, 
 and such miserable spiritual cowards that is, if 
 they have any imagination that they will believe 
 anything which is taught them, and a great deal 
 more which they teach themselves. 
 
 I was born and bred, as I have told you twenty 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 249 
 
 times, among books and those who knew what was 
 in books. I was carefully instructed in things 
 temporal and spiritual. But up to a considerable 
 maturity of childhood I believed Raphael and Mi 
 chael Angelo to have been superhuman beings. 
 The central doctrine of the prevalent religious 
 faith of Christendom was utterly confused and neu 
 tralized in my mind for years by one of those too 
 common stories of actual life, which I overheard 
 repeated in a whisper. Why did I not ask ? you 
 will say. You don't remember the rosy pudency 
 of sensitive children. The first instinctive move 
 ment of the little creatures is to make a cache, and 
 bury in it beliefs, doubts, dreams, hopes, and ter 
 rors. I am uncovering one of these caches. Do 
 you think I was necessarily a greater fool and 
 coward than another ? 
 
 I was afraid of ships. Why, I could never tell. 
 The masts looked frightfully tall, but they were 
 not so tall as the steeple of our old yellow meet 
 ing-house. At any rate I used to hide my eyes 
 from the sloops and schooners that were wont to 
 lie at the end of the bridge, and I confess that 
 traces of this undefined terror lasted very long. 
 One other source of alarm had a still more fearful 
 significance. There was a great wooden HAND, 
 a glove-maker's sign, which used to swing and creak 
 in the blast, as it hung from a pillar before a cer 
 tain shop a mile or two outside of the city. Oh, 
 
a 5 o THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 the dreadful hand ! Always hanging there ready 
 to catch up a little boy, who would come home to 
 supper no more, nor yet to bed, whose porringer 
 would be laid away empty thenceforth, and his 
 half-worn shoes wait until his small brother grew 
 to fit them. 
 
 As for all manner of superstitious observances, 
 I used once to think I must have been peculiar in 
 having such a list of them, but I now believe that 
 half the children of the same age go through the 
 same experiences. No Roman soothsayer ever had 
 such a catalogue of omens as I found in the Sibyl 
 line leaves of my childhood. That trick of throw 
 ing a stone at a tree and attaching some mighty 
 issue to hitting or missing, which you will find 
 mentioned in one or more biographies, I well re 
 member. Stepping on or over "certain particular 
 things or spots, Dr. Johnson's especial weak 
 ness, I got the habit of at a very early age. I 
 won't swear that I have not some tendency to 
 these not wise practices even at this present date. 
 [How many of you that read these notes can say 
 the same thing ! ] 
 
 With these follies mingled sweet delusions, 
 which I loved so well I would not outgrow them, 
 even when it required a voluntary effort to put a 
 momentary trust in them. Here is one which I 
 cannot help telling you. 
 
 The firing of the great guns at the Navy-yard 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 251 
 
 is easily heard at the place where I was born and 
 lived. " There is a ship of war come in," they 
 used to say, when they heard them. Of course, I 
 supposed that such vessels came in unexpectedly, 
 after indefinite years of absence, suddenly as 
 falling stones ; and that the great guns roared in 
 their astonishment and delight at the sight of the 
 old war-ship splitting the bay with her cutwater. 
 Now, the sloop-of-war the Wasp, Captain Blakely, 
 after gloriously capturing the Reindeer and the 
 Avon, had disappeared from the face of the ocean, 
 and was supposed to be lost. But there was no 
 proof of it, and, of course, for a time, hopes were 
 entertained that she might be heard from. Long 
 after the last real chance had utterly vanished, I 
 pleased myself with the fond illusion that some 
 where on the waste of waters she was still floating, 
 and there were years during which I never heard 
 the sound of the great guns booming inland from 
 the Navy-yard without paying to myself, " The 
 Wasp has come ! " and almost thinking I could 
 see her, as she rolled in, crumpling the water be 
 fore her, weather-beaten, barnacled, with shattered 
 spars and threadbare canvas, welcomed by the 
 shouts and tears of thousands. This was one of 
 those dreams that I nursed and never told. Let 
 me make a clean breast of it now, and say, that, 
 so late as to have outgrown childhood, perhaps to 
 have got far on towards manhood, when the roar 
 
252 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 of the cannon has struck suddenly on my ear, I 
 have started with a thrill of vague expectation and 
 tremulous delight, and the long-unspoken words 
 have articulated themselves in the mind's dumb 
 whisper, The Wasp has come ! 
 
 Yes, children believe plenty of queer things. 
 
 I suppose all of you have had the pocket-book fe 
 ver when you were little ? What do I mean ? 
 Why, ripping up old pocket-books in the firm be 
 lief that bank-bills to an immense amount were 
 hidden in them. So, too, you must all remem 
 ber some splendid unfulfilled promise of somebody 
 or other, which fed you with hopes perhaps for 
 years, and which left a blank in your life which 
 nothing has ever filled up. 0. T. quitted our 
 household, carrying with him the passionate re 
 grets of the more youthful members. He was an 
 ingenious youngster ; wrote wonderful copies, and 
 carved the two initials given above with great skill 
 on all available surfaces. - I thought, by the way, 
 they were all gone; but the other day I found 
 them on a certain door which I will show you 
 some time. How it surprised me to find them so 
 near the ground ! I had thought the boy of no 
 trivial dimensions. Well, 0. T., when he went, 
 made a solemn promise to two of us. I was to 
 have a ship, and the other a martm-house (last 
 syllable pronounced as in the word tin). Neither 
 ever came ; but, O how many and many a time I 
 
OF TEE BREAKFAST-TABLE 253 
 
 have stolen to the corner, the cars pass close 
 by it at this time, and looked up that long 
 avenue, thinking that he must be coming now al 
 most sure, as I turned to look northward, that 
 there he would be, trudging toward me, the ship 
 in one hand and the maitm-house in the other ! 
 
 [You must not suppose that all I am going to 
 say, as well as all I have said, was told to the 
 whole company. The young fellow whom they 
 call John was in the yard, sitting on a barrel and 
 smoking a cheroot, the fumes of which came in, not 
 ungrateful, through the open window. The divin 
 ity-student disappeared in the midst of our talk. 
 The poor relation in black bombazine, who looked 
 and moved as if all her articulations were elbow- 
 joints, had gone off to her chamber, after waiting 
 with a look of soul-subduing decorum at the foot 
 of the stairs until one of the male sort had passed 
 her and ascended into the upper regions. This is 
 a famous point of etiquette in our boarding-house ; 
 in fact, between ourselves, they make such an aw 
 ful fuss about it, that I, for one, had a great deal 
 rather have them simple enough not to think of 
 such matters at all. Our landlady's daughter 
 said, the other evening, that she was going to 
 " retire " ; whereupon the young fellow called 
 John took up a lamp and insisted on lighting her 
 to the foot of the staircase. Nothing would induce 
 her to pass by him, until the schoolmistress, say- 
 
254 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 ing in good plain English that it was her bedtime 
 walked straight by them both, and not seeming to 
 trouble herself about either of them. 
 
 I have been led away from what I meant the 
 portion included in these brackets to inform my 
 readers about. I say, then, most of the boarders 
 had left the table about the time when I began 
 telling some of these secrets of mine, all of them, 
 in fact, but the old gentleman opposite and the 
 schoolmistress. I understand why a young woman 
 should like to hear these simple but genuine ex 
 periences of early life, which are, as I have said, 
 the little brown seeds of what may yet grow r to be 
 poems with leaves of azure and gold ; but when 
 the old gentleman pushed up his chair nearer to 
 me, and slanted round his best ear, and once, 
 when I was speaking of some trifling, tender rem 
 iniscence, drew a long breath, with such a tremor 
 in it that a little more and it would have been a 
 sob, why, then I felt there must be something of 
 nature in them which redeemed their seeming in 
 significance. Tell me, man or woman with whom 
 I am whispering, have you not a small store of 
 recollections, such as these I am uncovering, bur 
 ied beneath the dead leaves of many summers, per 
 haps under the unmelting snows of fast-returning 
 winters, a few such recollections, which, if you 
 should write them all out, would be swept into 
 some careless editor's drawer, and might cost a 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 255 
 
 scanty half-hour's lazy reading to his subscribers, 
 and yet, if Death should cheat you of them, you 
 would not know yourself in eternity ?] 
 
 1 made three acquaintances at a very ear 
 ly period of life, my introduction to whom was 
 never forgotten. The first unequivocal act of 
 wrong that has left its trace in my memory was 
 this ; refusing a small favor asked of me, noth 
 ing more than telling what had happened at school 
 one morning. No matter who asked it ; but there 
 were circumstances which saddened and awed me. 
 I had no heart to speak ; I faltered some miser 
 able, perhaps petulant excuse, stole away, and the 
 first battle of life was lost. What remorse fol 
 lowed I need not tell. Then and there, to the 
 best of my knowledge, I first consciously took Sin 
 by the hand and turned my back on Duty. Time 
 has led me to look upon my offence more lenient 
 ly ; I do not believe it or any other childish wrong 
 is infinite, as some have pretended, but infinitely 
 finite. Yet, O if 1 had but won that battle ! 
 
 The great Destroyer, whose awful shadow it 
 was that had silenced me, came near me, but 
 never, so as to be distinctly seen and remembered, 
 during my tender years. There flits dimly before 
 me the image of a little girl, whose name even I 
 have forgotten, a schoolmate whom we missed one 
 day, and were told that she had died. But what 
 death was I never had any very distinct idea, un- 
 
256 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 til one day I climbed the low stone wall of the old 
 burial-ground and mingled with a group that were 
 looking into a very deep, long, narrow hole, dug 
 down through the green sod, down through the 
 brown loam, down through the yellow gravel, and 
 there at the bottom was an oblong red box, and a 
 still, sharp, white face of a young man seen through 
 an opening at one end of it. When the lid was 
 closed, and the gravel and stones rattled down pell- 
 mell, and the woman in black, who was crying 
 and wringing her hands, went off with the other 
 mourners, and left him, then I felt that I had seen 
 Death, and should never forget him. 
 
 One other acquaintance I made at an earlier pe 
 riod of life than the habit of romancers authorizes, 
 Love, of course. She was a famous beauty 
 afterwards. I am satisfied that many children 
 rehearse their parts in the drama of life before they 
 have shed all their milk-teeth. I think I won't 
 tell the story of the golden blonde. I suppose 
 everybody has had his childish fancies ; but some 
 times they are passionate impulses, which antici 
 pate all the tremulous emotions belonging to a 
 later period. Most children remember seeing and 
 adoring an angel before they were a dozen years 
 old. 
 
 [The old gentleman had left his chair opposite 
 and taken a seat by the schoolmistress and myself, 
 a little way from the table. It 's true, it 's true, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 257 
 
 said the old gentleman. He took hold of a steel 
 watch-chain, which carried a large, square gold 
 key at one end and was supposed to have some 
 kind of timekeeper at the other. With some 
 trouble he dragged up an ancient-looking, thick, 
 silver, bull's-eye watch. He looked at it for a 
 moment, hesitated, touched the inner corner 
 of his right eye with the pulp of his middle finger, 
 
 looked at the face of the watch, said it was 
 getting into the forenoon, then opened the watch 
 and handed me the loose outside case without a 
 word. The watch-paper had been pink once, and 
 had a faint tinge still, as if all its tender life had 
 not yet quite faded out. Two little birds, a flower, 
 and, in small school-girl letters, a date, 17 . . 
 
 no matter. Before I was thirteen years old, 
 
 said the old gentleman. 1 don't know what 
 
 was in that young schoolmistress's head, nor why 
 she should have done it ; but she took out the 
 watch-paper and put it softly to her lips, as if she 
 were kissing the poor thing that made it so long 
 ago. The old gentleman took the watch-paper care 
 fully from her, replaced it, turned away and walked 
 out, holding the watch in his hand. I saw him pass 
 the window a moment after with that foolish white 
 hat on his head ; he could n't have been thinking 
 what he was about when he put it on. So the 
 schoolmistress and I were left alone. I drew my 
 chair a shade nearer to her, and continued.] 
 
 17 
 
258 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 And since I am talking of early recollections, I 
 don't knoAV why I should n't mention some others 
 that still cling to me, not that you will attach 
 any very particular meaning to these same images 
 so full of significance to me, but that you will find 
 something parallel to them in your own memory. 
 You remember, perhaps, what I said one day 
 about smells. There were certain sounds also 
 which had a mysterious suggestiveness to me, 
 not so intense, perhaps, as that connected with 
 the other sense, but yet peculiar, and never to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 The first was the creaking of the wood-sleds, 
 bringing their loads of oak and walnut from the 
 country, as the slow-swinging oxen trailed them 
 along over the complaining snow, in the cold, 
 brown light of early morning. Lying in bed and 
 listening to their dreary music had a pleasure in it 
 akin to the Lucretian luxury, or that which Byron 
 speaks of as to be enjoyed in looking on at a 
 battle by one " who hath no friend, no brother 
 there." 
 
 There was another sound, in itself so sweet, and 
 so connected with one of those simple and curious 
 superstitions of childhood of which I have spoken, 
 that I can never cease to cherish a sad sort of 
 love for it. Let me tell the superstitious fancy 
 first. The Puritan " Sabbath," as everybody 
 knows, began at " sundown " on Saturday even- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 259 
 
 ing. To such observance of it I was born and 
 bred. As the large, round disk of day declined, a 
 stillness, a solemnity, a somewhat melancholy 
 hush came over us all. It was time for work to 
 cease, and for playthings to be put away. The 
 world of active life passed into the shadow of an 
 eclipse, not to emerge until the sun should sink 
 again beneath the horizon. 
 
 It was in this stillness of the world without and 
 of the soul within that the pulsating lullaby of the 
 evening crickets used to make itself most distinctly 
 heard, so that I well remember I used to think 
 that the purring of these little creatures, which 
 mingled with the batrachian hymns from tha 
 neighboring swamp, was peculiar to Saturday 
 evenings. I don't know that anything could give 
 a clearer idea of the quieting and subduing effect 
 of the old habit of observance of what was consid 
 ered holy time, than this strange, childish fancy. 
 
 Yes, and there was still another sound which 
 mingled its solemn cadences with the waking and 
 sleeping dreams of my boyhood. It was heard 
 only at times, a deep, muffled roar, which rose 
 and fell, not loud, but vast, a whistling boy 
 would have drowned it for his next neighbor, but 
 it must have been heard over the space of a hun 
 dred square miles. I used to wonder what this 
 might be. Could it be the roar of the thousand 
 wheels and the ten thousand footsteps jarring and 
 
260 , THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 trampling along the stones of the neighboring city ? 
 That would be continuous ; but this, as I have 
 said, rose and fell in regular rhythm. I remem 
 ber being told, and I suppose this to have been 
 the true solution, that it was the sound of the 
 waves, after a high wind, breaking on the long 
 beaches many miles distant. I should really like 
 to know whether any observing people living ten 
 miles, more or less, inland from long beaches, 
 in such a town, for instance, as Cantabridge, in 
 the eastern part of the Territory of the Massachu 
 setts, have ever observed any such sound, and 
 whether it was rightly accounted for as above. 
 
 Mingling with these inarticulate sounds in the 
 low murmur of memory, are the echoes of certain 
 voices I have heard at rare intervals. I grieve to 
 say it, but our people, I think, have not generally 
 agreeable voices. The marrowy organisms, with 
 skins that shed water like the backs of ducks, with 
 smooth surfaces neatly padded beneath, and velvet 
 linings to their singing pipes, are not so common 
 among us as that other pattern of humanity with 
 angular outlines and plane surfaces, arid integu 
 ments, hair like the fibrous covering of a cocoa-nut 
 in gloss and suppleness as well as color, and voices 
 at once thin and strenuous, acidulous enough 
 to produce effervescence with alkalis, and stridu- 
 lous enough to sing duets with the katydids. I 
 think our conversational soprano, as sometimes 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 261 
 
 overheard in the cars, arising from a group of 
 young persons, who may have taken the train at 
 one of our great industrial centres, for instance, 
 young persons of the female sex, we will say, who 
 have bustled in full-dressed, engaged in loud stri 
 dent speech, and who, after free discussion, have 
 fixed on two or more double seats, which having 
 secured, they proceed to eat apples and hand 
 round daguerrotypes, I say, I think the con 
 versational soprano, heard under these circum 
 stances, would not be among the allurements the 
 old Enemy would put in requisition, were he get 
 ting up a new temptation of St. Anthony. 
 
 There are sweet voices among us, we all know, 
 and voices not musical, it may be, to those who 
 hear them for the first time, yet sweeter to us than 
 any we shall hear until we listen to some warbling 
 angel in the overture to that eternity of blissful 
 harmonies we hope to enjoy. But why should I 
 tell lies ? If my friends love me, it is because I 
 try to tell the truth. I never heard but two 
 voices in my life that frightened me by their 
 sweetness. 
 
 Frightened you ? said the schoolmis 
 tress. Yes, frightened me. They made me feel 
 as if there might be constituted a creature with 
 such a chord in her voice to some string in an 
 other's soul, that, if she but spoke, he would leave 
 all and follow her, though it were into the jaws of 
 
262 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Erebus. Our only chance to keep our wits is, 
 that there are so few natural chords between 
 others' voices and this string in our souls, and 
 that those which at first may have jarred a little 
 by and by come into harmony with it. But 1 
 tell you this is no fiction. You may call the 
 story of Ulysses and the Sirens a fable, but what 
 will you say to Mario and the poor lady who fol 
 lowed him ? 
 
 Whose were those two voices that ber 
 
 witched me so ? They both belonged to Ger 
 man women. One was a chambermaid, not other 
 wise fascinating. The key of my room at a cer- 
 ' tain great hotel was missing, and this Teutonic 
 maiden was summoned to give information re 
 specting it. The simple soul was evidently not 
 long from her mother-land, and spoke with sweet 
 uncertainty of dialect. But to hear her wonder 
 and lament and suggest, with soft, liquid inflec 
 tions, and low, sad murmurs, in tones as full of 
 serious tenderness for the fate of the lost key as 
 if it had been a child that had strayed from its 
 mother, was so winning, that,, had her features 
 and figure been as delicious as her accents, if 
 she had looked like the marble Clytie, for instance, 
 why, all I can say is 
 
 [The schoolmistress opened her eyes so wide, 
 that I stopped short.] 
 
 I was only going to say that I should have 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 263 
 
 drowned myself. For Lake Erie was close by, 
 and it is so much better to accept asphyxia, which 
 takes only three minutes by the watch, than a 
 mesalliance, that lasts fifty years to begin with, and 
 then passes along down the line of descent, (break 
 ing out in all manner of boorish manifestations of 
 feature and manner, which, if men were only as 
 short-lived as horses, could be readily traced back 
 through the square-roots and the cube-roots of the 
 family stem on which you have hung the armorial 
 bearings of the De Champignons or the De la 
 Monies, until one came to beings that ate with 
 knives and said " Haow ? ") that no person of right 
 feeling could have hesitated for a single moment. 
 
 The second of the ravishing voices I have heard 
 was, as I have said, that of another German wo 
 man. I suppose I shall ruin myself by saying 
 that such a voice could not have come from any 
 Americanized human being. 
 
 What was there in it ? said the school 
 mistress, and, upon my word, her tones were so 
 very musical, that I almost wished I had said three 
 voices instead of two, and not made the unpatri 
 otic remark above reported. O, I said, it had so 
 much woman in it, muliebrity, as well as femineity ; 
 no self-assertion, such as free suffrage introduces 
 into every word and movement; large, vigorous 
 nature, running back to those huge-limbed Ger 
 mans of Tacitus, but subdued by the reverential 
 
264 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 training and tuned by the kindly culture of fifty 
 generations. Sharp business habits, a lean soil, 
 independence, enterprise, and east winds, are not 
 the best things for the larynx. Still, you hear 
 noble voices among us, I have known families 
 famous for them, but ask the first person you 
 meet a question, and ten to one there is a hard, 
 sharp, metallic, matter-of-business clink in the ac 
 cents of the answer, that produces the effect of 
 one of those bells which small tradespeople con 
 nect with their shop-doors, and which spring upon 
 your ear with such vivacity, as you enter, that 
 your first impulse is to retire at once from the 
 precincts. 
 
 Ah, but I must not forget that dear little 
 
 child I saw and heard in a French hospital. Be 
 tween two and three years old. Fell out of her 
 chair and snapped both thigh-bones. Lying in 
 bed, patient, gentle. Rough students round her, 
 some in white aprons, looking fearfully business 
 like ; but the child placid, perfectly still. I spoke 
 to her, and the blessed little creature answered me 
 in a voice of such heavenly sweetness, with that 
 reedy thrill in it which you have heard in the 
 thrush's even-song, that I hear it at this moment, 
 while I am writing, so many, many years after 
 wards. C'esl tout comme un serin, said the French 
 student at my side. 
 
 These are the voices which struck the key-note 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 265 
 
 of my conceptions as to what the sounds we are to 
 hear in heaven will be, if we shall enter through 
 one of the twelve gates of pearl. There must be 
 other things besides aerolites that wander from 
 their own spheres to ours ; and when we speak of 
 celestial sweetness or beauty, we may be nearer 
 the literal truth than we dream. If mankind gen 
 erally are the shipwrecked survivors of some prc- 
 Adamitic cataclysm, set adrift in these little open 
 boats of humanity to make one more trial to reach 
 the shore, as some grave theologians have main 
 tained, if, in plain English, men are the ghosts 
 of dead devils who have " died into life/' (to bor 
 row an expression from Keats,) and walk the 
 earth in a suit of living rags which lasts three 
 or four score summers, why, there must have 
 been a few good spirits sent to keep them compa 
 ny, and these sweet voices I speak of must belong 
 to them. 
 
 1 wish you could once hear my sister's 
 
 voice, said the schoolmistress. 
 
 If it is like yours, it must be a pleasant one, 
 said I. 
 
 I never thought mine was anything, said the 
 schoolmistress. 
 
 How should you know? said I. People 
 never hear their own voices, any more than they 
 see their own faces. There is not even a looking- 
 glass for the voice. Of course, there is something 
 
266 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 audible to us when we speak ; but that something 
 is not our own voice as it is known to all our ac 
 quaintances. I think, if an image spoke to us in 
 our own tones, we should not know them in the 
 least. How pleasant it would be, if in another 
 state of being we could have shapes like our own 
 former selves for playthings, we standing out 
 side or inside of them, as we liked, and they being 
 to us just what we used to be to others ! 
 
 I wonder if there will be nothing like what 
 
 we call "play," after our earthly toys are broken, 
 said the schoolmistress. 
 
 Hush, said I, what will the divinity-student 
 say? 
 
 [I thought she was hit, that time ; but the 
 shot must have gone over her, or on one side of 
 her ; she did not flinch.] 
 
 O, said the schoolmistress, he must look 
 out for my sister's heresies ; I am afraid he will 
 be too busy with them to take care of mine. 
 
 Do you mean to say, said I, that it is your 
 sister whom that student 
 
 [The young fellow commonly known as John, 
 who had been sitting on the barrel, smoking, 
 jumped off just then, kicked over the barrel, gave 
 it a push with his foot that set it rolling, and 
 stuck his saucy-looking face in at the window so 
 as to cut my question off in the middle ; and the 
 schoolmistress leaving the room a few minutes 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 167 
 
 afterwards, I did not have a chance to finish 
 it. 
 
 The young fellow came in and sat down in a 
 chair, putting his heels on the top of another. 
 
 Pooty girl, said he. 
 
 A fine young lady, I replied. 
 
 Keeps a fust-rate school, according to accounts, 
 said he, teaches all sorts of things, Latin 
 and Italian and music. Folks rich once, smashed 
 up. She went right ahead as smart as if she 'd 
 been born to work. That 's the kind o' girl I go 
 for. I 'd marry her, only two or three other girls 
 would drown themselves if I did. 
 
 I think the above is the longest speech of this 
 young fellow's which I have put on record. I do 
 not like to change his peculiar expressions, for this 
 is one of those cases in which the style is the man, 
 as M. de Buftbn says. The fact is, the young fel 
 low is a good-hearted creature enough, only too 
 fond of his jokes, and if it were not for those 
 heat-lightning winks on one side of his face, I 
 should not mind his fun much.] 
 
 [Some days after this, when the company were 
 together again, I talked a little.] 
 
 1 don't think I have a genuine hatred for 
 
 anybody. I am well aware that I differ herein 
 from the sturdy English moralist and the stout 
 American tragedian. I don't deny that I hate the 
 
268 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 sight of certain people ; but the qualities which 
 make me tend to hate the man himself are such 
 as I am so much disposed to pity, that, except 
 under immediate aggravation, I feel kindly enough 
 to the worst of them. It is such a sad thing to 
 be born a sneaking fellow, so much worse than to 
 inherit a hump-back or a couple of club-feet, that 
 I sometimes feel as if we ought to love the crip 
 pled souls, if I may use this expression, with a 
 certain tenderness which we need not waste on 
 noble natures. One who is born with such con 
 genital incapacity that nothing can make a gentle 
 man of him is entitled, not to our wrath, but to 
 our profoundest sympathy. But as we cannot 
 help hating the sight of these people, just as we 
 do that of physical deformities, we gradually elim 
 inate 'them from our society, we love them, but 
 open the window and let them go. By the time 
 decent people reach middle age they have weeded 
 their circle pretty well of these unfortunates, un 
 less they have a taste for such animals ; in which 
 case, no matter what their position may be, there 
 is something, you may be sure, in their natures 
 akin to that of their wretched parasites. 
 
 The divinity-student wished to know what 
 
 I thought of affinities, as well as of antipathies ; 
 did I believe in love at first sight ? 
 
 Sir, said I, all men love all women. That 
 is the prima-facie aspect of the case. The Court 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 269 
 
 of Nature assumes the law to be, that all men do 
 so ; and the individual man is bound to show 
 cause why he does not love any particular woman. 
 A man, says one of my old black-letter law-books, 
 may show divers good reasons, as thus : He hath 
 not seen the person named in the indictment; she 
 is of tender age, or the reverse of that ; she hath 
 certain personal disqualifications, as, for instance, 
 she is a blackamoor, or hath an ill-favored counte 
 nance ; or, his capacity of loving being limited, his 
 affections are engrossed by a previous coiner ; and 
 so of other conditions. Not the less is it true that 
 he is bound by duty and inclined by nature to love 
 each and every woman. Therefore it is that each 
 woman virtually summons every man to show 
 cause why he doth not love her. This is not by 
 written document, or direct speech, for the 'most 
 part, but by certain signs of silk, gold, and other 
 materials, which say to all men, Look on me 
 and love, as in duty bound. Then the man plead- 
 eth his special incapacity, whatsoever that may be, 
 as, for instance, impecuniosity, or that he hath 
 one or many wives in his household, or that he is 
 of mean figure, or small capacity ; of which rea 
 sons, it may be noted, that the first is, according 
 to late decisions, of chiefest authority. So far 
 the old law-book. But there is a note from an 
 older authority, saving that every woman doth 
 also love each and every man, except there be 
 
2 7 o THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 some good reason to the contrary ; and a very ob 
 serving friend of mine, a young unmarried clergy 
 man, tells me, that, so far as his experience goes, 
 he has reason to think the ancient author had fact 
 to justify his statement. 
 
 I'll tell you how it is with the pictures of 
 women we fall in love with at first sight. 
 
 We ain't talking about pictures, said 
 
 the landlady's daughter, we're talking about 
 women. 
 
 I understood that we were speaking of love at 
 sight, I remarked, mildly. Now, as all a man 
 knows about a woman whom he looks at is just 
 what a picture as big as a copper, or a " nickel," 
 rather, at the bottom of his eye can teach him, I 
 think I am right in saying we are talking about 
 the pictures of women. Well, now, the reason 
 why a man is not desperately in love with ten 
 thousand women at once is just that which pre 
 vents all our portraits being distinctly seen upon 
 that wall. They all are painted there by reflec 
 tion from our faces, but because all of them are 
 painted on each spot, and each on the same sur 
 face, and many other objects at the same time, no 
 one is seen as a picture. But darken a chamber 
 and let a single pencil of rays in through a key 
 hole, then you have a picture on the wall. We 
 never fall in love with a w r oman in distinction 
 from women, until we can get an image of her 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 271 
 
 through a pin-hole ; and then we can see nothing 
 else, and nobody but ourselves can see the image 
 in our mental camera-obscura. 
 
 My friend, the Poet, tells me he has 
 
 to leave town whenever the anniversaries come 
 round. 
 
 What's the difficulty ? Why, they all want 
 him to get up and make speeches, or songs, or 
 toasts ; which is just the very thing he does n't 
 want to do. He is an old story, he says, and 
 hates to show on these occasions. But they tease 
 him, and coax him, and can't do without him, 
 and feel all over his poor weak head until they 
 get their fingers on the Jbntanelle, (the Professor 
 will tell you what this means, he says the one 
 at the top of the head always remains open in 
 poets,) until, by gentle pressure on that soft pul 
 sating spot, they stupefy him to the point of 
 acquiescence. 
 
 There are times, though, he says, when it is a 
 pleasure, before going to some agreeable meeting, 
 to rush out into one's garden and clutch up a 
 handful of what grows there, weeds and violets 
 together, not cutting them off, but pulling them 
 up by the roots with the brown earth they grow 
 in sticking to them. That 's his idea of a post 
 prandial performance. Look here, now. These 
 verses I am going to read you, he tells me, were 
 pulled up by the roots just in that way, the 
 
272 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 other day. Beautiful entertainment, names 
 there on the plates that flow from all English- 
 speaking tongues as familiarly as and or the ; 
 entertainers known wherever good poetry and 
 fair title-pages are held in esteem ; guest a kind- 
 hearted, modest, genial, hopeful poet, who sings 
 to the hearts of his countrymen, the British peo 
 ple, the songs of good cheer which the better days 
 to come, as all honest souls trust and believe, will 
 turn into the prose of common life. My friend, 
 the Poet, says you must not read such a string of 
 verses too literally. If he trimmed it nicely be 
 low, you would n't see the roots, he says, and he 
 likes to keep them, and a little of the soil clinging 
 to them. 
 
 This is the farewell of my friend, the Poet, 
 read to his and our friend, the Poet : 
 
 A GOOD TIME GOING! 
 
 Brave singer of the coming time, 
 
 Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, 
 Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, 
 
 The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, 
 Good by ! Good by ! Our hearts and hands, 
 
 Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, 
 Cry, God be with him, till he stands 
 
 His feet among the English daisies ! 
 
 'T is here we part 5 for other eyes 
 The busy deck, the fluttering streamer, 
 
 The dripping arms that plunge and rise, 
 The waves in foam, the ship in tremor, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 273 
 
 The kerchiefs waving from the pier, 
 
 The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him, 
 The deep blue desert, lone and drear, 
 
 With heaven above and home before him ! 
 
 His home ! the Western giant smiles, 
 
 And twirls the spotty globe to find it $ 
 This little speck the British Isles ? 
 
 'T is but a freckle, never mind it ! 
 He laughs, and all his prairies roll, 
 
 Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles, 
 And ridges stretched from pole to pole 
 
 Heave till they crack their iron knuckles ! 
 
 But memory blushes at the sneer, 
 
 And Honor turns with frown defiant, 
 And Freedom, leaning on her spear, 
 
 Laughs louder than the laughing giant : 
 " An islet is a world," she said, 
 
 u When glory with its dust has blended, 
 And Britain keeps her noble dead 
 
 Till earth and seas and skies are rended ! " 
 
 Beneath each swinging forest-bough 
 
 Some arm as stout in death reposes, 
 From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow 
 
 Her valor's life-blood runs in roses 5 
 Nay, let our brothers of the West 
 
 Write smiling in their florid pages, 
 One half her soil has walked the rest 
 
 In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages ! 
 
 Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp, 
 
 From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather, 
 The British oak with rooted grasp 
 
 Her slender handful holds together ; 
 With cliffs of white and bowers of green, 
 
 And Ocean narrowing to caress her, 
 And hills and threaded streams between, 
 
 Our little mother isle, God bless her ! 
 18 
 
a 7 4 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 In earth's broad temple where we stand, 
 
 Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us, 
 We hold the missal in our hand, 
 
 Bright with the lines our Mother taught us j 
 Where'er its blazoned page betrays 
 
 The glistening links of gilded fetters, 
 Behold, the half-turned leaf displays 
 
 Her rubric stained in crimson letters ! 
 
 Enough ! To speed a parting friend 
 
 'T is vain alike to speak and listen ; 
 Yet stay, these feeble accents blend 
 
 With rays of light from eyes that glisten. 
 Good by ! once more, and kindly tell 
 
 In words of peace the young world's story, 
 And say, besides, we love too well 
 
 Our mother's soil, our father's glory ! 
 
 When my friend, the Professor, found that my 
 friend, the Poet, had been coming out in this full 
 blown style, he got a little excited, as you may 
 have seen a canary, sometimes, when another 
 strikes up. The Professor says he knows he can 
 lecture, and thinks he can write verses. At any 
 rate, he has often tried, and now he was deter 
 mined to try again. So when some professional 
 friends of his called him up, one day, after a feast 
 of reason and a regular "freshet" of soul which 
 had lasted two or three hours, he read them these 
 verses. He introduced them with a few remarks, 
 be told me, of which the only one he remembered 
 was this : that he had rather write a single line 
 which one among them should think worth re- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 275 
 
 membering than set them all laughing with a 
 string of epigrams. It was all right, I don't 
 doubt ; at any rafe, that was his fancy then, and 
 perhaps another time he may be obstinately hila 
 rious ; however, it may be that he is growing 
 graver, for time is a fact so long as clocks and 
 watches continue to go, and a cat can't be a kit 
 ten always, as the old gentleman opposite said the 
 other day. 
 
 You. must listen to this seriously, for I think 
 the Professor was very much in earnest when he 
 wrote it. 
 
 THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 As Life's unending column pours, 
 Two marshalled hosts are seen, 
 
 Two armies on the trampled shores 
 That Death flows black between. 
 
 One marches to the drum-beat's roll, 
 The wide-mouthed clarion's bray, 
 
 And bears upon a crimson scroll, 
 " Our glory is to slay." 
 
 One moves in silence by the stream, 
 
 With sad. yet watchful eyes, 
 Calm as the patient planet's gleam 
 
 That walks the clouded skies. 
 
 Along its front no sabres shine, 
 
 No blood-red pennons wave ; 
 Its banners bear the single line, 
 
 u Our duty is to save." 
 
* 7 6 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 For those no death-bed's lingering shade j 
 
 At Honor's trumpet-call 
 With knitted brow and lifted blade 
 
 In Glory's arms they fall. 
 
 For these no clashing falchions bright, 
 
 No stirring battle-cry ; 
 The bloodless stabber calls by night, 
 
 Each answers, " Here am I ! " 
 
 For those the sculptor's laurelled bust, 
 
 The builder's marble piles, 
 The anthems pealing o'er their dust 
 
 Through long cathedral aisles. 
 
 For these the blossom-sprinkled turf 
 That floods the lonely graves, 
 
 When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf 
 In flowery-foaming waves. 
 
 Two paths lead upward from below, 
 
 And angels wait above, 
 Who count each burning life-drop's flow, 
 
 Each falling tear of Love. 
 
 Though from the Hero's bleeding breast 
 
 Her pulses Freedom drew, 
 Though the white lilies in her crest 
 
 Sprang from that scarlet dew, 
 
 While Valor's haughty champions wait 
 Till all their scars are shown, 
 
 Love walks unchallenged through the gate, 
 To sit beside the Throne ! 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 277 
 
 X. 
 
 j]HE schoolmistress came down with a 
 rose in her hair, a fresh June rose. 
 She has been walking early ; she has 
 brought back two others, one on 
 each cheek. 
 
 I told her so, in some such pretty phrase as I 
 could muster for the occasion. Those two blush- 
 roses I just spoke of turned into a couple of dam 
 asks. I suppose all this went through my mind, 
 for this was what I went on to say : ] 
 
 I love the damask rose best of all. The flowers 
 our mothers and sisters used to love and cherish, 
 those which grow beneath our eaves and by our 
 doorstep, are the ones we always love best. If the 
 Houyhnhnms should ever catch me, and, finding 
 me particularly vicious and unmanageable, send a 
 man-tamer to Kareyfy me, I '11 tell you what drugs 
 he would have to take and how he would have to 
 use them. Imagine yourself reading a number of 
 the Houyhnhnm Gazette, giving an account of 
 such an experiment. 
 
 " MAN-TAMING EXTRAORDINARY. 
 
 " The soft-hoofed semi-quadruped recently cap 
 tured was subjected to the art of our distinguished 
 
278 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 man-tamer in presence of a numerous assembly. 
 The animal was led in by two stout ponies, closely 
 confined by straps to prevent his sudden and dan 
 gerous tricks of shoulder-hitting and foot-striking. 
 His countenance expressed the utmost degree of 
 ferocity and cunning. 
 
 " The operator took a handful of budding lilac- 
 leaves, and crushing them slightly between his 
 hoofs, so as to bring out their peculiar fragrance, 
 fastened them to the end of a long pole and held 
 them towards the creature. Its expression changed 
 in an instant, it drew in their fragrance eagerly, 
 and attempted to seize them with its soft split 
 hoofs. Having thus quieted his suspicious sub 
 ject, the operator proceeded to tie a blue hyacinth to. 
 the end of the pole and held it out towards the 
 wild animal. The effect was magical. Its eyes 
 filled as if with rain-drops, and its lips trembled as 
 it pressed them to the flower. After this it was 
 perfectly quiet, and brought a measure of corn to 
 the man-tamer, without showing the least disposi 
 tion to strike with the feet or hit from the 
 shoulder." 
 
 That will do for the Houyhnhnm Gazette. 
 Do you ever wonder why poets talk so much 
 about flowers ? Did you ever hear of a poet who 
 did not talk about them ? Don't you think a 
 poem, which, for the sake of being original should 
 leave them out, would be like those verses where 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 279 
 
 the letter a or e or some other is omitted 7 No, 
 
 they will bloom over and over again in poems 
 as in the summer fields, to the end of time, always 
 old and always new. Why should we be more 
 shy of repeating ourselves than the spring be tired 
 of blossoms or the night of stars 7 Look at Na 
 ture. She never wearies of saying over her floral 
 pater-noster. In the crevices of Cyclopean walls, 
 
 in the dust where men lie, dust also, on the 
 mounds that bury huge cities, the wreck of Nin 
 eveh and the Babel-heap, still that same sweet 
 prayer and benediction. The Amen ! of Nature 
 is always a flower. 
 
 Are you tired of my trivial personalities, 
 those splashes and streaks of sentiment, sometimes 
 perhaps of sentimentality, which you may see 
 when I show you my heart's corolla as if it were a 
 tulip 7 Pray, do not give yourself the trouble to 
 fancy me an idiot whose conceit it is to treat him 
 self as an exceptional being. It is because you 
 are just like me that I talk and know that you 
 will listen. We are all splashed and streaked 
 with sentiments, not with precisely the same 
 tints, or in exactly the same patterns, but by the 
 same hand and from the same palette. 
 
 I don't believe any of you happen to have just 
 the same passion for the blue hyacinth which I 
 have, very certainly not for the crushed lilac- 
 leaf-buds ; many of you do not know how sweet 
 
280 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 they are. You love the smell of the sweet-fern 
 and the bay berry-leaves, I don't doubt ; but I 
 hardly think that the last bewitches you with 
 young memories as it does me. For the same 
 reason I come back to damask roses, after having 
 raised a good many of the rarer varieties. I like 
 to go to operas and concerts, but there are queer 
 little old homely sounds that are better than 
 music to me. However, I suppose it 's foolish to 
 tell such things. 
 
 It is pleasant to be foolish at the right 
 
 time, said the divinity-student ; saying it, 
 however, in one of the dead languages, which I 
 think are unpopular for summer-reading, and 
 therefore do not bear quotation as such. 
 
 Well, now, said I, suppose a good, clean, 
 wholesome-looking countryman's cart stops oppo 
 site my door. Do I want any huckleberries ? 
 If I do not, there are those that do. Thereupon 
 my soft-voiced handmaid bears out a large tin-pan, 
 and then the wholesome countryman, heaping the 
 peck-measure, spreads his broad hands around its 
 lower arc to confine the wild and frisky berries, 
 and so they run niir.bly along the narrowing chan 
 nel until they tumble rustling down in a black 
 cascade and tinkle on the resounding metal be 
 neath. I won't say that this rushing huckleberry 
 hail-storm has not more music for me than the 
 "Anvil Chorus." 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 281 
 
 1 wonder how my great trees are coming 
 
 on this summer. 
 
 Where are your great trees, sir ? said 
 
 the divinity-student. 
 
 O, all round about New England. I call all 
 trees mine that I have put my wedding-ring on, 
 and I have as many tree-wives as Brigham Young 
 has human ones. 
 
 One set 's as green as the other, ex 
 claimed a boarder, who has never been identified. 
 
 They 're all Bloomers, said the young fellow 
 called John. 
 
 [I should have rebuked this trifling with lan 
 guage, if our landlady's daughter had not asked 
 me just then what I meant by putting my wed 
 ding-ring on a tree.] 
 
 Why, measuring it with my thirty-foot tape, 
 my dear, said I, I have worn a tape almost 
 out on the rough barks of our old New England 
 elms and other big trees. Don't you want to 
 hear me talk trees a little now ? That is one of 
 my specialties. 
 
 [So they all agreed that they should like to hear 
 me talk about trees.] 
 
 I want you to understand, in the first place, that 
 I have a most intense, passionate fondness for trees 
 in general, and have had several romantic attach 
 ments to certain trees in particular. Now, if you 
 expect me to hold forth in a " scientific " way 
 
282 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 about my tree-loves, to talk, for instance, of the 
 Ulmus Americana, and describe the ciliated edges 
 of its samara, and all that, you are an anserine 
 individual, and I must refer you to a dull friend 
 who will discourse to you of such matters. What 
 should you think of a lover who should describe 
 the idol of his heart in the language of science, 
 thus : Class, Mammalia ; Order, Primates ; Ge 
 nus, Homo ; Species, Europeus ; Variety, Brown, 
 Individual, Ann Eliza ; Dental 
 
 .2 2 1 1 2 2 3 3 
 FormuJa, i^-^ c fHiJ> 2 2 TO 8= 3' and S ? 
 
 No, my friends, I shall speak of trees as we see 
 them, love them, adore them in the fields, where 
 they are alive, holding their green sun-shades over 
 our heads, talking to us with their hundred thou 
 sand whispering tongues, looking down on us with 
 that sweet meekness which belongs to huge, but 
 limited organisms, which one s'ees in the brown 
 eyes of oxen, but most in the patient posture, the 
 outstretched arms, and the heavy-drooping robes 
 of these vast beings endowed with life, but not witli 
 soul, which outgrow us and outlive us, but stand 
 helpless, poor things! while Nature dresses 
 and undresses them, like so many full-sized, but 
 under-witted children. 
 
 Did you ever read old Daddy Gilpin ? Slowest 
 of men. even of English men ; yet delicious in his 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 283 
 
 slowness, as is the light of a sleepy eye in woman. 
 I always supposed " Dr. Syntax " was written to 
 make fun of him. I have a whole set of his works, 
 and am very proud of it, with its gray paper, and 
 open type, and long (T, and orange-juice landscapes. 
 The Pere Gilpin had the kind of science I like in 
 the study of Nature, a little less observation than 
 White of Selborne, but a little more poetry. Just 
 think of applying the Linnsean system to an elm ! 
 Who cares how many stamens or pistils that little 
 brown flower, which comes out before the leaf, 
 may have to classify it by ? What we want is the 
 meaning, the character, the expression of a tree, as 
 a kind and as an individual. 
 
 There is a mother-idea in each particular kind 
 of tree, which, if well marked, is probably embod 
 ied in the poetry of every language. Take the 
 oak, for instance, and we find it always standing 
 as a type of strength and endurance. I wonder 
 if you ever thought of the single mark of suprem 
 acy which distinguishes this tree from all our 
 other forest-trees ? All the rest of them shirk the 
 work of resisting gravity ; the oak alone defies it. 
 It chooses the horizontal direction for its limbs, so 
 that their whole weight may tell, and then stretch 
 es them out fifty or sixty feet, so that the strain 
 may be mighty enough to be worth resisting. You 
 will find, that, in passing from the extreme down 
 ward droop of the branches of the weeping-willow 
 
284 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 to the extreme upward inclination of those of the 
 poplar, they sweep nearly half a circle. At 90 the 
 oak stops short ; to slant upward another degree 
 would mark infirmity of purpose ; to bend down 
 wards, weakness of organization. The American 
 elm betrays something of both ; yet sometimes, as 
 we shall see, puts on a certain resemblance to its 
 sturdier neighbor. 
 
 It won't do to be exclusive in our taste about 
 trees. There is hardly one of them which has not 
 peculiar beauties in some fitting place for it. I 
 remember a tall poplar of monumental proportions 
 and aspect, a vast pillar of glossy green, placed on 
 the summit of a lofty hill, and a beacon to all the 
 country round. A native of that region saw fit to 
 build his house very near it, and, having a fancy 
 that it might blow down some time or other, and 
 exterminate himself and any incidental relatives 
 who might be " stopping " or " tarrying " with 
 him, also laboring under the delusion that hu 
 man life is under all circumstances to be preferred 
 to vegetable existence, had the great poplar cut 
 down. It is so easy to say, " It is only a poplar ! " 
 and so much harder to replace its living cone than 
 to build a granite obelisk ! 
 
 I must tell you about some of my tree-wives. I 
 was at one period of my life much devoted to the 
 young lady population of Rhode Island, a small, 
 but delightful State in the neighborhood of Paw- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 285 
 
 tucket. The number of inhabitants being not 
 very large, I had leisure, during my visits to the 
 Providence Plantations, to inspect the face of the 
 country in the intervals of more fascinating stud 
 ies of physiognomy. I heard some talk of a great 
 elm a short distance from the locality just men 
 tioned. " Let us see the great elm," I said, 
 and proceeded to find it, knowing that it was 
 on a certain farm in a place called Johnston, if I 
 remember rightly. I shall never forget my ride 
 and my introduction to the great Johnston elm. 
 
 I always tremble for a celebrated tree when I 
 approach it for the first time. Provincialism has 
 no scale of excellence in man or vegetable ; it 
 never knows a first-rate article of either kind when 
 it has it, and is constantly taking second and third 
 rate ones for Nature's best. I have often fancied 
 the tree was afraid of me, and that a sort of shiver 
 came over it as over a betrothed maiden when 
 she first stands before the unknown to whom she 
 has been plighted. Before the measuring-tape the 
 proudest tree of them all quails and shrinks into 
 itself. All those stories of four or five men stretch 
 ing their arms around it and not touching each 
 other's fingers, of one's pacing the shadow at noon 
 and making it so many hundred feet, die upon its 
 leafy lips in the presence of the awful ribbon which 
 has strangled so many false pretensions. 
 
 As I rode along the pleasant way, watching ea- 
 
486 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 gerly for the object of my journey, the rounded 
 tops of the elms rose from time to time at the 
 roadside. Wherever one looked taller and fuller 
 than the rest, I asked myself, " Is this it ? " 
 But as I drew nearer, they grew smaller, or it 
 proved, perhaps, that two standing in a line had 
 , looked like one, and so deceived me. At last, all 
 at once, when I was not thinking of it, I de 
 clare to you it makes my flesh creep when I think 
 of it now, all at once I saw a great, green cloud 
 swelling in the horizon, so vast, so symmetrical, 
 of such Olympian majesty and imperial suprema 
 cy among the lesser forest growths, that my heart 
 stopped short, then jumped at my ribs as a hunter 
 springs at a five-barred gate, and I felt all through 
 me, without need of uttering the words, " This 
 is it ! " 
 
 You will find this tree described, with many 
 others, in the excellent Report upon the Trees and 
 Shrubs of Massachusetts. The author has given 
 my friend the Professor credit for some of his 
 measurements, but measured this tree himself, 
 carefully. It is a grand elm for size of trunk, 
 spread of limbs, and muscular development, 
 one of the first, perhaps the first, of the first class 
 of New England elms. 
 
 The largest actual girth I have ever found at 
 five feet from the ground is in the great elm lying 
 a stone's throw or two north of the main road 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 287 
 
 (if my points of compass are right) in Springfield, 
 But this has much 'the appearance of having been 
 formed by the union of two trunks growing side 
 by side. 
 
 The West Springfield elm and one upon North 
 ampton meadows, belong also to the first class of 
 trees. 
 
 There is a noble old wreck of an elm at Hat- 
 field, which used to spread its claws out over a 
 circumference of thirty-five feet or more before 
 they covered the foot of its bole up with earth. 
 This is the American elm most like an oak of any 
 1 have ever seen. 
 
 The Sheffield elm is equally remarkable for size 
 and perfection of form. I have seen nothing that 
 comes near it in Berkshire County, and few to 
 compare with it anywhere. I am not sure that I 
 remember any other first-class elms in New Eng 
 land, but there may be many. 
 
 What makes a first-class elm ? Why, 
 
 size, in the first place, and chiefly. Anything 
 over twenty feet of clear girth, five feet above the 
 ground, and with a spread of branches a hundred 
 feet across may claim that title, according to my 
 scale. All of them, with the questionable excep 
 tion of the Springfield tree above referred to, stop, 
 so far as my experience goes, at about twenty-two 
 or twenty-three feet of girth and a hundred and 
 twenty of spread. 
 
288 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Elms of the second class, generally ranging 
 from fourteen to eighteen feet,* are comparatively 
 common. The queen of them all is that glori 
 ous tree near one of the churches in Springfield. 
 Beautiful and stately she is beyond all praise. The 
 "great tree " on Boston Common comes in the 
 second rank, as does the one at Cohasset, which 
 used to have, and probably has still, a head as round 
 as an apple-tree, and that at Newburyport, with 
 scores of others which might be mentioned. These 
 last two have perhaps been over-celebrated. Both, 
 however, are pleasing vegetables. The poor old 
 Pittsfield elm lives on its past reputation. A wig of 
 false leaves is indispensable to make it presentable, 
 
 [I don't doubt there may be some monster-elm 
 or other, vegetating green, but inglorious, in some 
 remote New England village, which only wants a 
 sacred singer to make it celebrated. Send us 
 your measurements, (certified by the postmas 
 ter, to avoid possible imposition,) circumference 
 five feet from soil, length of line from bough-end 
 to bough-end, and we will see what can be done 
 for you.] 
 
 1 wish somebody would get us up the fol 
 lowing work : 
 
 SYLVA NOVANGLICA. 
 
 Photographs of New England Elms and other 
 Trees, taken upon the Same Scale of Magnitude. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 289 
 
 With Letter-Press Descriptions, by a Distinguished 
 
 Literary Gentleman. Boston : & Co. 
 
 185 . . 
 
 The same camera should be used, so far as 
 possible, at a fixed distance. Our friend, who 
 has given us so many interesting figures in his 
 " Trees of America," must not think this Pro 
 spectus invades his province; a dozen portraits, 
 with lively descriptions, would be a pretty com 
 plement to his larger work, which, so far as pub 
 lished, I find excellent. If my plan were carried 
 out, and another series of a dozen English trees 
 photographed on the same scale, the comparison 
 would be charming. 
 
 It has always been a favorite idea of mine to 
 bring the life of the Old and the New World face 
 to face, by an accurate comparison of their va 
 rious types of organization. We should begin 
 with man, of course ; institute a large and exact 
 comparison between the development of la pianta 
 umana, as Alfieri called it, in different sections of 
 each country, in the different callings, at different 
 ages, estimating height, weight, force by the dyna 
 mometer and the spirometer, and finishing off with 
 a series of typical photographs, giving the prin 
 cipal national physiognomies. Mr. Hutchinson 
 has given us some excellent English data to begin 
 with. 
 
 Then I would follow this up by contrasting the 
 '9 
 
290 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 various parallel forms of life in the two continents. 
 Our naturalists have often referred to this inciden 
 tally or expressly ; but the animus of Nature in 
 the two half globes of the planet is so momentous 
 a point of interest to our race, that it should be 
 made a subject of express and elaborate study. 
 Go out with me into that walk which we call the 
 Mall, and look at the English and American elms. 
 The American elm is tall, graceful, slender-sprayed, 
 and drooping as if from languor. The English 
 elm is compact, robust, holds its branches up, and 
 carries its leaves for weeks longer than our own 
 native tree. 
 
 Is this typical of the creative force on the two 
 sides of the ocean, or not? Nothing but a care 
 ful comparison through the whole realm of life 
 can answer this question. 
 
 There is a parallelism without identity in the 
 animal and vegetable life of the two continents, 
 which favors the task of comparison in an extraor 
 dinary manner. Just as we have two trees alike 
 in many ways, yet not the same, both elms, yet 
 easily distinguishable, just so we have a complete 
 flora and a fauna, which, parting from the same 
 ideal, embody it with various modifications. In 
 ventive power is the only quality of which the 
 Creative Intelligence seems to be economical ; just 
 as with our largest human minds, that is the di- 
 vinest of faculties, and the one that most exhausts 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 291 
 
 the mind which exercises it. As the same patterns 
 have very commonly been followed, we can see 
 which is worked out in the largest spirit, and de 
 termine the exact limitations under which the Cre 
 ator places the movement of life in all its manifes 
 tations in either locality. We should find ourselves 
 in a very false position, if it should prove that 
 Anglo-Saxons can't live here, but die out, if not 
 kept up by fresh supplies, as Dr. Knox and other 
 more or less wise persons have maintained. It 
 may turn out the other way, as I have heard one 
 of our literary celebrities argue, and though I 
 took the other side, I liked his best, that the 
 American is the Englishman reinforced. 
 
 Will you walk out and look at those elms 
 
 with me after breakfast ? I said to the school 
 mistress. 
 
 [I am not going to tell lies about it, and say 
 that she blushed, as I suppose she ought to 
 have done, at such a tremendous piece of gallan 
 try as that was for our boarding-house. On the 
 contrary, she turned a little pale, but smiled 
 brightly and said, Yes,- with pleasure, but she 
 must walk towards her school. She went for her 
 bonnet. The old gentleman opposite followed 
 her with his eyes, and said he wished he was a 
 young fellow. Presently she came down, looking 
 very pretty in her half-mourning bonnet, and car^ 
 a school-book in her hand.] 
 
^ 9 2 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 MY FIRST WALK WITH THE SCHOOLMISTRESS. 
 
 This is the shortest way, she said, as we came 
 to a corner. Then we won't take it, said I. 
 The schoolmistress laughed a little, and said she 
 was ten minutes early, so she could go round. 
 
 We walked under Mr. Paddock's row of Eng 
 lish elms. The gray squirrels were out looking 
 for their breakfasts, and one of them came toward 
 s in light, soft, intermittent leaps, until he was 
 close to the rail of the burial-ground. He was on 
 a grave with a broad blue-slate-stone at its head, 
 and a shrub growing on it. The stone said this 
 was the grave of a young man who was the son 
 Of an Honorable gentleman, and who died a hun 
 dred years ago and more. O yes, died, with a 
 small triangular mark in one breast, and another 
 smaller opposite, in his back, where another young 
 man's rapier had slid through his body ; and so 
 he lay down out there on the Common, and was 
 found cold the next morning, with the night-dews 
 and the death-dews mingled on his forehead. 
 
 Let us have one look at poor Benjamin's grave, 
 said I. His bones lie where his body was laid 
 so long ago, and where the stone says they lie, 
 which is more than can be said of most of the 
 tenants of this and several other burial-grounds. 
 
 [The most accursed act of Vandalism ever 
 committed within my knowledge was the uproot- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 293 
 
 ing of the ancient gravestones in three at least of 
 our city burial-grounds, and one at least just out 
 side the city, and planting them in rows to suit 
 the taste for symmetry of the perpetrators. Many 
 years ago, when this disgraceful process was going 
 on under my eyes, I addressed an indignant re 
 monstrance to a leading journal. I suppose it 
 was deficient in literary elegance, or too warm in 
 its language ; for no notice was taken of it, and 
 the hyena-horror was allowed to complete itself in 
 the face of daylight. I have never got over it. 
 The bones of my own ancestors, being entombed, 
 lie beneath their own tablet ; but the upright 
 stones have been shuffled about like chessmen, 
 and nothing short of the Day of Judgment will 
 tell whose dust lies beneath any of those records, 
 meant by affection to mark one small spot as sa 
 cred to some cherished memory. Shame ! shame ! 
 shame ! that is all I can say. It was on public 
 thoroughfares, under the eye of authority, that 
 this infamy was enacted. The red Indians would 
 have known better ; the selectmen of an African 
 kraal-village would have had more respect for their 
 ancestors. I should like to see the gravestones 
 which have been disturbed all removed, and the 
 ground levelled, leaving the flat tombstones ; epi 
 taphs were never famous for truth, but the old re 
 proach of " Here lies " never had such a wholesale 
 illustration as in these outraged burial-places, 
 
294 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 where the stone does lie above, and the bones 
 do not lie beneath.] 
 
 Stop before we turn away, and breathe a wo 
 man's sigh over poor Benjamin's dust. Love 
 killed him, I think. Twenty years old, and out 
 there fighting another young fellow on the Com 
 mon, in the cool of that old July evening ; yes, 
 there must have been love at the bottom of it. 
 
 The schoolmistress dropped a rose-bud she had 
 in her hand, through the rails, upon the grave of 
 Benjamin Woodbridge. That was all her com 
 ment upon what I told her. How women love 
 Love, said I ; but she did not speak. 
 
 We came opposite the head of a place or court 
 running eastward from the main street. Look 
 down there, I said. My friend the Professor 
 lived in that house at the left hand, next the far 
 ther corner, for years and years. He died out of 
 it, the other day. Died ? said the schoolmis 
 tress. Certainly, said I. We die out of 
 houses, just as we die out of our bodies. A com 
 mercial smash kills a hundred men's houses for 
 them, as a railroad crash kills their mortal frames 
 and drives out the immortal tenants. Men sicken 
 of houses until at last they quit them, as the soul 
 leaves its body when it is tired of its infirmities. 
 The body has been called " the house we live in " ; 
 the house is quite as much the body we live in. 
 Shall I tell you some things the Professor said the 
 other day ? Do ! said the schoolmistress. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 295 
 
 A man's body, said the Professor, is what 
 ever is occupied by his will and his sensibility. 
 The small room down there, where I wrote those 
 papers you remember reading, was much more a 
 portion of my body than a paralytic's senseless 
 and motionless arm or leg is of his. 
 
 The soul of a man has a series of concentric 
 envelopes round it, like the core of an onion, or 
 the innermost of a nest of boxes. First, he has 
 his natural garment of flesh and biood. Then, 
 his artificial integuments, with their true skin of 
 solid stuffs, their cuticle of lighter tissues, and their 
 variously-tinted pigments. Thirdly, his domicile, 
 be it a single chamber or a stately mansion. And 
 then, the whole visible world, in which Time but 
 tons him up as in a loose outside wrapper. 
 
 You shall observe, the Professor said, for, 
 like Mr. John Hunter and other great men, he 
 brings in that shall with great effect sometimes, 
 you shall observe that a man's clothing or series 
 of envelopes does after a certain time mould itself 
 upon his individual nature. We know this of our 
 hats, and are always reminded of it when we hap 
 pen to put them on wrong side foremost. We 
 soon find that the beaver is a hollow cast of the 
 skull, with all its irregular bumps and depressions. 
 Just so all that clothes a man, even to the blue 
 sky which caps his head, a little loosely, 
 shapes itself to fit each particular being beneath 
 
296 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 it. Farmers, sailors, astronomers, poets, lovers, 
 condemned criminals, all find it different, accord 
 ing to the eyes with which they severally look. 
 
 But our houses shape themselves palpably on 
 our inner and outer natures. See a householder 
 breaking up and you will be sure of it. There is 
 a shell-fish which builds all manner of smaller 
 shells into the walls of its own. A house is 
 never a home until we have crusted it with the 
 spoils of a hundred lives besides those of our own 
 past. See what these are and you can tell what 
 the occupant is. 
 
 I had no idea, said the Professor, until I 
 pulled up my domestic establishment the other 
 day, what an enormous quantity of roots I had 
 been making during the years I was planted there. 
 Why, there was n't a nook or a corner that some 
 fibre had not worked its way into ; and when I 
 gave the last wrench, each of them seemed to 
 shriek like a mandrake, as it broke its hold and 
 came away. 
 
 There is nothing that happens, you know, 
 which must not inevitably, and which does not 
 actually, photograph itself in every conceivable 
 aspect and in all dimensions. The infinite gal 
 leries of the Past await but one brief process and 
 all their pictures will be called out and fixed for 
 ever. We had a curious illustration of the great 
 fact on a very humble scale. When a certain 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 297 
 
 bookcase, long standing in one place, for which it 
 was built, was removed, there was the exact image 
 on the wall of the whole, and of many of its por 
 tions. But in the midst of this picture was an 
 other, the precise outline of a map which had 
 hung on the wall before the bookcase was built. 
 We had all forgotten everything about the map 
 until we saw its photograph on the wall. Then 
 we remembered it, as some day or other we may 
 remember a sin which has been built over and 
 covered up, when this lower universe is pulled 
 away from before the wall of Infinity, where the 
 wrong-doing stands self-recorded. 
 
 The Professor lived in that house a long time, 
 not twenty years, but pretty near it. When he 
 entered that door, two shadows glided over the 
 threshold ; five lingered in the doorway when he 
 passed through it for the last time, and one of 
 the shadows was claimed by its owner to be longer 
 than his own. What changes he saw in that 
 quiet place ! Death rained through every roof 
 but his ; children came into life, grew to maturity, 
 wedded, faded away, threw themselves away ; the 
 whole drama of life was played in that stock-com 
 pany's theatre of a dozen houses, one of which 
 was his, and no deep sorrow or severe calamity 
 ever entered his dwelling. Peace be to those 
 walls, forever, the Professor said, for the 
 many pleasant years he has passed within them J. 
 
298 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 
 
 The Professor has a friend, now living at a dis 
 tance, who has been with him in many of his 
 changes of place, and who follows him in imagina 
 tion with tender interest wherever he goes. In 
 that little court, where he lived in gay loneliness 
 so long, 
 
 in his autumnal sojourn by the Connecticut, 
 where it comes loitering down from its mountain 
 fastnesses like a great lord, swallowing up the 
 small proprietary rivulets very quietly as it goes, 
 until it gets proud and swollen and wantons in 
 huge luxurious oxbows about the fair Northamp 
 ton meadows, and at last overflows the oldest in 
 habitant's memory in profligate freshets at Hart 
 ford and all along its lower shores, up in that 
 caravansary on the banks of the stream where 
 Ledyard launched his log canoe, and the jovial 
 old Colonel used to lead the Commencement pro 
 cessions, where blue Ascutney looked down 
 from the far distance, and the hills of Beulah, 
 as the Professor always called them, rolled up the 
 opposite horizon in soft climbing masses, so sug 
 gestive of the Pilgrim's Heavenward Path that he 
 used to look through his old "Dollond" to see 
 if the Shining Ones were not within range of 
 sight, sweet visions, sweetest in those Sunday 
 walks which carry them by the peaceful common, 
 through the solemn village lying in cataleptic still 
 ness under the shadow of the rod of Moses, to the 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 299 
 
 terminus of their harmless stroll, the patulous 
 fage, in the Professor's classic dialect, the 
 spreading beech, in more familiar phrase, [stop 
 and breathe here a moment, for the sentence is 
 not done yet, and we have another long journey 
 before us,] 
 
 and again once more up among those other 
 hills that shut in the amber-flowing Housatonic, 
 dark stream, but clear, like the lucid orbs that 
 shine beneath the lids of auburn-haired, sherry- 
 wine-eyed demi-blondes, in the home overlook 
 ing the winding stream and the smooth, flat 
 meadow ; looked down upon by wild hills, where 
 the tracks of bears and catamounts may yet some 
 times be seen upon the winter snow ; facing the 
 twin summits which rise in the far North, the 
 highest waves of the great land-storm in all this 
 billowy region, suggestive to mad fancies of 
 the breasts of a half-buried Titaness, stretched 
 out by a stray thunderbolt, and hastily hidden 
 away beneath the leaves of the forest, in 
 that home where seven blessed summers were 
 passed, which stand in memory like the seven 
 golden candlesticks in the beatific vision of the 
 holy dreamer, 
 
 in that modest dwelling we were just looking 
 at, not glorious, yet not unlovely in the youth of 
 its drab and mahogany, full of great and little 
 boys' playthings from top to bottom, in all 
 
300 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 these summer or winter nests he was always at 
 home and always welcome. 
 
 This long articulated sigh of reminiscences, 
 this calenture which shows me the maple-shadowed 
 plains of Berkshire and the mountain-circled green 
 of Grafton beneath the salt waves which come 
 feeling their way along the wall at my feet, rest 
 less and soft-touching as blind men's busy fingers, 
 is for that friend of mine who looks into the wa 
 ters of the Fatapsco and sees beneath them the 
 same visions which paint themselves for me in the 
 green depths of the Charles. 
 
 Did I talk all this off to the schoolmis 
 tress ? Why, no, of course not. I have been 
 talking with you, the reader, for the last ten 
 minutes. You don't think I should expect any 
 woman to listen to such a sentence as that long 
 one, without giving her a chance to put in a 
 word ? 
 
 What did I say to the schoolmistress ? 
 
 Permit me one moment. I don't doubt your 
 delicacy and good-breeding; but in this particular 
 case, as I was allowed the privilege of walking 
 alone with a very interesting young woman, you 
 must allow me to remark, in the classic version 
 of a familiar phrase, used by our Master Benjamin 
 Franklin, it is nullum tui negotii. 
 
 When the schoolmistress and I reached the 
 school-room door, the damask roses I spoke of 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 301 
 
 were so much heightened in color by exercise that 
 I felt sure it would be useful to her to take a stroll 
 like this every morning, and made up my mind I 
 would ask her to let me join her again. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM MY PRIVATE JOURNAL. 
 
 ( To be burned unread. } 
 
 I am afraid I have been a fool ; for I have told 
 as much of myself to this young person as if she 
 were of that ripe and discreet age which invites 
 confidence and expansive utterance. I have been 
 low-spirited and listless, lately, it is coffee, I 
 think, (I observe that which is bought ready- 
 ground never affects the head,) and I notice that 
 I tell my secrets too easily when I am down 
 hearted. 
 
 There are inscriptions on our hearts, which, 
 like that on Dighton Rock, are never to be seen 
 except at dead-low tide. 
 
 There is a woman's footstep on the sand at the 
 side of my deepest ocean-buried inscription ! 
 
 O no, no, no ! a thousand times, no ! 
 
 Yet what is this which has been shaping itself in 
 my soul 1 Is it a thought ? is it a dream ? 
 is it a passion f Then I know what comes next. 
 
 The Asylum stands on a bright and breezy 
 
 hill ; those glazed corridors are pleasant to walk 
 in, in bad weather. But there are iron bars to all 
 
3 02 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 the windows. When it is fair, some of us can 
 stroll outside that very high fence. But I never 
 see much life in those groups I sometimes meet ; 
 and then the careful man watches them so 
 closely! How I remember that sad company I 
 used to pass on fine mornings, when I was a 
 school-boy ! B., with his arms full of yellow 
 weeds, ore from the gold-mines which he dis 
 covered long before we heard of California, Y., 
 born to millions, crazed by too much plum-cake 
 (the boys said), dogged, explosive, made a Poly 
 phemus of my weak-eyed schoolmaster, by a vi 
 cious flirt with a stick, (the multi-millionnaires 
 sent him a trifle, it was said, to buy another eye 
 with ; but boys are jealous of rich folks, and I 
 don't doubt the good people made him easy for 
 life, ) how I remember them all ! 
 
 I recollect, as all do, the story of the Hall of 
 Eblis, in " Vathek," and how each shape, as it 
 lifted its hand from its breast, showed its heart, 
 a burning coal. The real Hall of Eblis stands on 
 yonder summit. Go there on the next visiting- 
 day, and ask that figure crouched in the corner, 
 huddled up like those Indian mummies and skel 
 etons found buried in the sitting posture, to lift 
 its hand, look upon its heart, and behold, not 
 fire, but ashes. No, I must not think of such an 
 ending ! Dying would be a much more gentle 
 manly way of meeting the difficulty. Make a will 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 303 
 
 and leave her a house or two and some stocks, 
 and other little financial conveniences, to take 
 away her necessity for keeping school. I won 
 der what nice young man's feet would be in my 
 French slippers before six months were over ! 
 Well, what then 2 If a man really loves a wo 
 man, of course he wouldn't marry her for the 
 world, if he were not quite sure that he was the 
 best person she could by any possibility marry. 
 
 It is odd enough to read over what I have 
 
 just been writing. It is the merest fancy that 
 ever was in the world. I shall never be married. 
 JShe will , and if she is as pleasant as she has been 
 so far, I will give her a silver tea-set, and go and 
 take tea with her and- her husband, sometimes. 
 No coffee, I hope, though, it depresses me sadly. 
 I feel very miserably ; they must have been grind 
 ing it at home. Another morning walk will be 
 good for me, and I don't doubt the schoolmistress 
 will be glad of a little fresh air before school 
 
 The throbbing flushes of the poetical in 
 termittent have been coming over me from time to 
 time of late. Did you ever see that electrical ex 
 periment which consists in passing a flash through 
 letters of gold leaf in a darkened room, whereupon 
 some name or legend springs out of the darkness 
 in characters of fire ? 
 
 There are songs all written out in my soul, 
 
304 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 which I could read, if the flash might pass 
 through them, but the fire must come down 
 from heaven. Ah ! but what if the stormy nim 
 bus of youthful passion has blown by, and one 
 asks for lightning from the ragged cirrus of dis 
 solving aspirations, or the silvered cumulus of 
 sluggish satiety ? I will call on her whom the 
 dead poets believed in, whom living ones no 
 longer worship, the immortal maid, who, name 
 her what you will, Goddess, Muse, Spirit of 
 Beauty, sits by the pillow of every youthful 
 poet, and bends over his pale forehead until her 
 tresses lie upon his cheek and rain their gold into 
 his dreams. 
 
 MUSA. 
 
 my lost Beauty ! hast thou folded quite 
 
 Thy wings of morning light 
 
 Beyond those iron gates 
 
 Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates, 
 And Age upon his mound of ashes waits 
 
 To chill our fiery dreams, 
 Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams ? 
 
 Leave me not fading in these weeds of care, 
 
 Whose flowers are silvered hair ! 
 
 Have I not loved thee long, 
 
 Though my young lips have often done thee wrong 
 And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song ? 
 
 Ah, wilt thou yet return, 
 Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn ? 
 
 Come to me ! I will flood thy silent shrine 
 With my soul's sacred wine, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 305 
 
 And heap thy marble floors 
 As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores 
 In leafy islands walled with madrepores 
 
 An 1 lapped in Orient seas, 
 When all their feathery palms toss, plume-like, in the breeze. 
 
 Come to me ! thou shalt feed on honeyed words, 
 
 Sweeter than song of birds 5 
 
 No wailing bulbul's throat, 
 No melting dulcimer's melodious note, 
 When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float, 
 
 Thy ravished sense might soothe 
 With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth. 
 
 Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen, 
 
 Sought in those bowers of green 
 
 Where loop the clustered vines 
 And the close-clinging dulcamara twines, 
 Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines, 
 
 And Summer's fruited gems, 
 And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems. 
 
 Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves, 
 
 Or stretched by grass-grown graves, 
 
 Whose gray, high-shouldered stones, 
 Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns, 
 Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones 
 
 Still slumbering where they lay 
 While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away. 
 
 Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing ! 
 
 Still let me dream and sing, 
 
 Dream of that winding shore 
 
 Where scarlet cardinals bloom, for me no more, 
 The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor, 
 
 And clustering nenuphars 
 Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars ' 
 
 Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed .' 
 Come while the rose is red, 
 20 
 
306 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 While blue-eyed Summer smiles 
 On the green ripples round yon sunken piles 
 Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles, 
 
 A^nd on the sultry air 
 The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer 1 
 
 for thy burning lips to fire my brain 
 
 With thrills of wild, sweet pain ! 
 
 On life's autumnal blast, 
 
 Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion-flowers are cast, 
 Once loving thee, we love thee to the last ! 
 
 Behold thy new-decked shrine, 
 A.nd hear once more the voice that breathed " Forever thine ! " 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 307 
 
 XIr 
 
 HE company looked a little flustered 
 one morning when I came in, so 
 much so, that I inquired of my neigh 
 bor, the divinity-student, what had been 
 going on. It appears that the young fellow whom 
 they call John had taken advantage of my being a 
 little late (I having been rather longer than usual 
 dressing that morning) to circulate several ques 
 tions involving a quibble or play upon words, 
 in short, containing that indignity to the human 
 understanding, condemned in the passages from 
 the distinguished moralist of the last century and 
 the illustrious historian of the present, which I 
 cited on a former occasion, and known as a pun. 
 After breakfast, one of the boarders handed me a 
 small roll of paper containing some of the ques 
 tions and their answers. I subjoin two or three 
 of them, to show what a tendency there is to fri 
 volity and meaningless talk in young persons of a 
 certain sort, when not restrained by the presence 
 of more reflective natures. It was asked, " Why 
 tertian and quartan fevers were like certain short 
 lived insects." Some interesting physiological 
 
3o8 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 relation would be naturally suggested. The in 
 quirer blushes to find that the answer is in the 
 paltry equivocation, that they skip a day or two. 
 
 " Why an Englishman must go to the Conti 
 nent to weaken his grog or punch." The answer 
 proves to have no relation whatever to the temper 
 ance movement, as no better reason is given than 
 that island- (or, as it is absurdly written, He and] 
 water won't mix. But when I came to the next 
 question and its answer, I felt that patience ceased 
 to be a virtue. " Why an onion is like a piano " 
 is a query that a person of sensibility would be 
 slow to propose ; but that in an educated com 
 munity an individual could be found to answer it 
 in these words, " Because it smell odious," 
 (ftiasi, it 's melodious, is not credible, but too 
 true. I can show you the paper. 
 
 Dear reader, I beg your pardon for repeating 
 such things. I know most conversations reported 
 in books are altogether above such trivial details, 
 but folly will come up at every table as surely as 
 purslain and chickweed and sorrel will come up in 
 gardens. This young fellow ought to have talked 
 philosophy, I know perfectly well ; but he did n't, 
 
 he made jokes.] 
 
 I am willing, I said, to exercise your in 
 genuity in a rational and contemplative manner. 
 
 No, I do not proscribe certain forms of philo 
 sophical speculation which involve an approach to 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 309 
 
 the absurd or the ludicrous, such as you may find, 
 for example, in the folio of the Reverend Father 
 Thomas Sanchez, in his famous Disputations, 
 " De Sancto Matrimonio." I will therefore turn 
 this levity of yours to profit by reading you a 
 rhymed problem, wrought out by my friend the 
 Professor. 
 
 THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE : 
 OR THE WONDERFUL " ONE-HOSS SHAY." 
 
 A LOGICAL STORY. 
 
 Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss^ shay, 
 That was built in such a logical way 
 It ran a hundred years to a day, 
 
 And then, of a sudden, it ah, but stay, 
 
 I '11 tell you what happened without delay, 
 Scaring the parson into fits, 
 Frightening people out of their wits, 
 Have you ever heard of that, I say ? 
 
 Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. 
 Georgius Secundus was then alive, 
 Snuffy old drone from the German hive. 
 That was the year when Lisbon-town 
 Saw the earth open and gulp her down, 
 And Braddock's army was done so brown, 
 Left without a scalp to its crown. 
 It was on the terrible Earthquake-day 
 That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. 
 
 Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, 
 There is always somewhere a weakest spot, 
 In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, 
 In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, 
 
3 io THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, lurking still, 
 Find it somewhere you must and will, 
 Above or below, or within or without, 
 And that 's the reason, beyond a doubt, 
 A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out. 
 
 But the Deacon swore, (as Deacons do, 
 
 With an " I dew vum," or an " I tell ycow,") 
 
 He would build one shay to beat the taown 
 
 'n' the keounty 'a' all the kentry raoun' j 
 
 It should be so built that it could w' break daown : 
 
 " Fur," said the Deacon, u 't 's mighty plain 
 
 Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain j 
 
 'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, 
 
 Is only jest 
 T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." 
 
 So the Deacon inquired of the village folk 
 
 Where he could find the strongest oak, 
 
 That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, 
 
 That was for spokes and floor and sills ; 
 
 He sent for lancewood to make the thills ; 
 
 The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees ; 
 
 The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, 
 
 But lasts like iron for things like these ; 
 
 The hubs of logs from the " Settler's ellum," - 
 
 Last of its timber, they could n't sell 'em, 
 
 Never an axe had seen their chips, 
 
 And the wedges flew from between their lips, 
 
 Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips ; 
 
 Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, 
 
 Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, 
 
 Steel of the finest, bright and blue 5 
 
 Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide ; 
 
 Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide 
 
 Found in the pit when the tanner died. 
 
 That was the way he " put her through." 
 
 " There ! " said the Deacon, " naow she '11 dew." 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 31 1 
 
 Do ! I tell you, I rather guess 
 
 She was a wonder, and nothing less ! 
 
 Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, 
 
 Deacon and deaconess dropped away, 
 
 Children and grandchildren where were they ? 
 
 But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay 
 
 As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day ! 
 
 EIGHTEEN HUNDRED ; it came and found 
 The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. 
 Eighteen hundred increased by ten ; 
 " Hahnsum kerridge " they called it then. 
 Eighteen hundred and twenty came ; 
 Running as usual ; much the same. 
 Thirty and forty at last arrive, 
 And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE. 
 
 Little of all we value here 
 
 Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 
 
 Without both feeling and looking queer. 
 
 In fact there 's nothing that keeps its youth, 
 
 So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 
 
 (This is a moral that runs at large ; 
 
 Take it. You 're welcome. No extra charge.) 
 
 FIRST OF NOVEMBER, the Earthquake-day. 
 There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, 
 A general flavor of mild decay, 
 But nothing local, as one may say. 
 Th^re could n't be, for the Deacon's art 
 IJa 1 made it so like in every part 
 That there was n't a chance for one to start. 
 For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, 
 And the floor was just as strong as the sills, 
 And the panels just as strong as the floor, 
 And the whippletree neither less nor more, 
 And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, 
 And spring and axle and hub encore. 
 
312 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt 
 In another hour it will be worn out ! 
 
 First of November, 'Fifty-five ! 
 
 This morning the parson takes a drive. 
 
 Now, small boys, get out of the way ! 
 
 Here comes the wonderful one-boss shay, 
 
 Drawn by a rat tailed, ewe necked bay. 
 
 " Huddup ! " said the parson. Off went they. 
 
 The parson was working his Sunday's text, 
 Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed 
 At what the Moses was coming next. 
 All at once the horse stood still, 
 Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. 
 
 First a shiver, ami then a thrill, 
 Then something decidedly like a spill, 
 And the parson was sitting upon a rock, 
 
 At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock, 
 Just the hour of the Earthquake shock ! 
 
 What do you think the parson found, 
 When he got up and stared around ? 
 The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, 
 As if it had been to the mill and ground ! 
 You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce, 
 How it went to pieces all at once, 
 
 All at once, and nothing first, 
 Just as bubbles do when they burst. 
 
 End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. 
 Logic is logic. That 's all I say. 
 
 1 think there is one habit, I said to our 
 
 company a day or two afterwards, worse than 
 that of punning. It is the gradual substitution 
 of cant or flash terms for words which truly char- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 313 
 
 actcrize their objects. I have known several very 
 genteel idiots whose whole vocabulary had deli 
 quesced into some half-dozen expressions. All 
 things fell into one of two great categories, fast 
 or slow. Man's chief end was to be a brick. When 
 the great calamities of life overtook their friends, 
 these last were spoken of as being a good deal cut 
 up. Nine tenths of human existence were summed 
 up in the single word, bore. These expressions come 
 to be the algebraic symbols of minds which have 
 grown too weak or indolent to discriminate. They 
 are the blank checks of intellectual bankruptcy ; 
 you may fill them up with what idea you like ; it 
 makes no difference, for there are no funds in the 
 treasury upon which they are drawn. Colleges 
 and good-for-nothing smoking-clubs are the places 
 where these conversational fungi spring up most 
 luxuriantly. Don't think I undervalue the proper 
 use and application of a cant word or phrase. It 
 adds piquancy to conversation, as a mushroom 
 does to a sauce. But it is no better than a toad 
 stool, odious to the sense and poisonous to the in 
 tellect, when it spawns itself all over the talk of 
 men and youths capable of talking, as it some 
 times does. As we hear flash phraseology, it is 
 commonly the dishwater from the washings of 
 English dandyism, school-boy or full-grown, wrung 
 out of a three-volume novel which had sopped it 
 up, or decanted from the pictured urn of Mr. Ver- 
 
3 i4 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 dant Green, and diluted to suit the provincial cli 
 mate. 
 
 The young fellow called John spoke up 
 
 sharply and said, it was " rum " to hear me 
 " pitchin' into fellers " for " goin' it in the slang 
 line," when I used all the flash words myself just 
 when I pleased. 
 
 I replied with my usual forbearance. 
 
 Certainly, to give up the algebraic symbol, be 
 cause a or b is often a cover for ideal nihility, 
 would be unwise. I have heard a child laboring 
 to express a certain condition, involving a hither 
 to undescribed sensation, (as it supposed,) all of 
 which could have been sufficiently explained by 
 the participle bored. I have seen a country 
 clergyman, with a one-story intellect and a one- 
 horse vocabulary, who has consumed his valuable 
 time (and mine) freely, in developing an opinion 
 of a brother-minister's discourse which would have 
 been abundantly characterized by a peach-down- 
 lipped sophomore in the one word slow. Let 
 us discriminate, and be shy of absolute proscrip 
 tion. I am omniverbivorous by nature and train 
 ing. Passing by such words as are poisonous, I 
 can swallow most others, and chew such as I can 
 not swallow. 
 
 Dandies are not good for much, but they are 
 good for something. They invent or keep in 
 circulation those conversational blank checks or 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 315 
 
 counters just spoken of, which intellectual capital 
 ists may sometimes find it worth their while to 
 borrow of them. They are useful, too, in keep 
 ing up the standard of dress, which, but for them, 
 would deteriorate, and become, what some old 
 fools would have it, a matter of convenience, and 
 not of taste and art. Yes, I like dandies well 
 enough, on one condition. 
 
 What is that, sir ? said the divinity-stu 
 dent. 
 
 That they have pluck. I find that lies at 
 
 the bottom of all true dandyism. A little boy 
 dressed up very fine, who puts his finger in his 
 mouth and takes to crying, if other boys make 
 fun of him, looks very silly. m But if he turns red 
 in the face and knotty in the fists, and makes an 
 example of the biggest of his assailants, throwing 
 off his fine Leghorn and his thickly-buttoned jack 
 et, if necessary, to consummate the act of justice, 
 his small toggery takes on the splendors of the 
 crested helmet that frightened Astyanax. You re 
 member that the Duke said his dandy officers were 
 his best officers. The " Sunday blood," the super- 
 superb sartorial equestrian of our annual Fast- 
 day, is not imposing or dangerous. But such fel 
 lows as Brummel and D'Orsay and Byron are not 
 to be snubbed quite so easily. Look out for " la 
 main de fer sous le gant de velours," (which I 
 printed in English the other day without quota- 
 
3 i6 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 tion-marks, thinking whether any scarabceus criticus 
 would add this to his globe and roll in glory with 
 it into the newspapers, which he did n't do it, 
 in the charming pleonasm of the London language, 
 and therefore I claim the sole merit of exposing 
 the same.) A good many powerful and danger 
 ous people have had a decided dash of dandyism 
 about them. There was Alcibiades, the " curled 
 son of Clinias," an accomplished young man, but 
 what would be called a " swell " in these days. 
 There was Aristoteles, a very distinguished writer, 
 of whom you have heard, a philosopher, in 
 short, whom it took centuries to learn, centuries 
 to unlearn, and is now going to take a generation 
 or more to learn over again. Regular dandy, he 
 was. So was Marcus Antonius ; and though he 
 lost his game, he played for big stakes, and it 
 was n't his dandyism that spoiled his chance. 
 Petrarca was not to be despised as a scholar or a 
 poet, but he was one of the same sort. So was 
 Sir Humphrey Davy; so was Lord Palmerston, 
 formerly, if I am not forgetful. Yes, a dandy 
 is good for something as such ; and dandies such 
 as I was just speaking of have rocked this planet 
 like a cradle, ay, and left it swinging to this 
 day. Still, if I were you, I would n't go to the 
 tailor's, on the strength of these remarks, and run 
 up a long bill which will render pockets a super 
 fluity in your next suit. Elegans " nascitur, non 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 317 
 
 ft" A man is born a dandy, as he is born a 
 poet. There are heads that can't wear hats ; 
 there are necks that can't fit cravats ; there are 
 jaws that can't fill out collars (Willis touched 
 this last point in one of his earlier ambrotypes, if 
 I remember rightly) ; there are tournures nothing 
 can humanize, and movements nothing can sub 
 due to the gracious suavity or elegant languor or 
 stately serenity which belong to different styles of 
 dandyism. 
 
 We are forming an aristocracy, as you may ob 
 serve, in this country, not a gratia- Dei, nor a 
 jure-divino one, but a de-facto upper stratum of 
 being, which floats over the turbid waves of com 
 mon life like the iridescent film you may have 
 seen spreading over the water about our wharves, 
 very splendid, though its origin may have been 
 tar, tallow, train-oil, or other such unctuous com 
 modities. I say, then, we are forming an aristoc 
 racy ; and, transitory as its individual life often 
 is, it maintains itself tolerably, as a whole. Of 
 course, money is its corner-stone. But now ob 
 serve this. Money kept for two or three genera 
 tions transforms a race, I don't mean merely in 
 manners and hereditary culture, but in blood and 
 bone. Money buys air and sunshine, in which 
 children grow up more kindly, of course, than in 
 close, back streets ; it buys country-places to give 
 them happy and healthy summers, good nursing, 
 
3 i8 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 good doctoring, and the best cuts of beef and mut 
 ton. When the spring-chickens come to market 
 
 I beg your pardon, that is not what I was 
 
 going to speak of. As the young females of each 
 successive season come on, the finest specimens 
 among them, other things being equal, are apt to 
 attract those who can afford the expensive luxury 
 of beauty.' The physical character of the next 
 generation rises in consequence. It is plain that 
 certain families have in this way acquired an ele 
 vated type of face and figilre, and that in a small 
 circle of city connections one may sometimes find 
 models of both sexes which one of the rural coun 
 ties would find it hard to match from all its town 
 ships put together. Because there is a good deal 
 of running down, of degeneration and waste of 
 life, among the richer classes, you must not over 
 look the equally obvious fact I have just spoken 
 of, which in one or two generations more will 
 be, I think, much more patent than just now. 
 
 The weak point in our chryso-aristocracy is the 
 same I have alluded to in connection with cheap 
 dandyism. Its thorough manhood, its high-caste 
 gallantry, are not so manifest as the plate-glass of 
 its windows and the more or less legitimate her 
 aldry of its coach-panels. It is very curious to 
 observe of how small account military folks are 
 held among our Northern people. Our young 
 men must gild their spurs, but they need not win 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 319 
 
 them. The equal division of property keeps the 
 younger sons of rich people above the necessity 
 of military service. Thus the army loses an ele 
 ment of refinement, and the moneyed upper class 
 forgets what it is to count heroism among its vir 
 tues. Still I don't believe in any aristocracy with 
 out pluck as its backbone. Ours may show it 
 when the time comes, if it ever does come. 
 
 These United States furnish the greatest 
 
 market for intellectual green fruit of all the places 
 in the, world. I think so, at any rate. The de 
 mand for intellectual labor is so enormous and the 
 market so far from nice, that young talent is apt 
 to fare like unripe gooseberries, get plucked to 
 make a fool of. Think of a country which buys 
 eighty thousand copies of the " Proverbial Philos 
 ophy," while the author's admiring countrymen 
 have been buying twelve thousand ! How can one 
 let his fruit hang in the sun until it gets fully ripe, 
 while there are eighty thousand such hungry 
 mouths ready to swallow it and proclaim its prais 
 es 7 Consequently, there never was such a collec 
 tion of crude pippins and half-grown windfalls as 
 our native literature displays among its fruits. 
 There are literary green-groceries at every corner, 
 which will buy anything, from a button-pear to a 
 pine-apple. It takes a long apprenticeship to train 
 a whole people to reading and writing. The 
 temptation of money and fame is too great for 
 
3 20 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 young people. Do I not remember that glorious 
 
 moment when the late Mr. we won't say who, 
 
 editor of the we won't say what, offered me 
 
 the sum of fifty cents per double-columned quarto 
 page for shaking my young boughs over his fools 
 cap apron ? Was it not an intoxicating vision of 
 gold and glory 1 I should doubtless have revelled 
 in its wealth and splendor, but for learning that 
 ihejifty cents was to be considered a rhetorical em 
 bellishment, and by no means a literal expression 
 of past fact or present intention. 
 
 Beware of making your moral staple con 
 sist of the negative virtues. It is good to abstain, 
 and teach others to abstain, from all that is sinful 
 or hurtful. But making a business of it leads to 
 emaciation of character, unless one feeds largely 
 also on the more nutritious diet of active sympa 
 thetic benevolence. 
 
 1 don't believe one word of what you are 
 
 saying, spoke up the angular female in black 
 bombazine. 
 
 I am sorry you disbelieve it, madam, I said, 
 and added softly to my next neighbor, but you 
 prove it. 
 
 The young fellow sitting near me winked ; and 
 the divinity-student said, in an undertone, Op- 
 time dictum. 
 
 Your talking Latin, said I, reminds me of 
 an odd trick of one of my old tutors. He read so 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 323 
 
 thirst and lets them die. The mountains have a 
 grand, stupid, loveable tranquillity ; the sea has a 
 fascinating, treacherous intelligence The moun 
 tains lie about like huge ruminants, their broad 
 backs awful to look upon, but safe to handle. The 
 sea smooths its silver scales, until you cannot see 
 their joints, but their shining is that of a snake's 
 belly, after all. In deeper suggestiveness I find 
 as great a difference. The mountains dwarf man 
 kind and foreshorten the procession of its long 
 generations. The sea drowns out humanity and 
 time ; it has no sympathy with either ; for it be 
 longs to eternity, and of that it sings its monoto 
 nous song for ever and ever. 
 
 Yet I should love to have a little box by the 
 sea-shore. I should love to gaze out on the wild 
 feline element from a front window of my own, 
 just as I should love to look on a caged panther, 
 and see it stretch its shining length, and then curl 
 over and lap its smooth sides, and by and by begin 
 to lash itself into rage and show its white teeth and 
 spring at its bars, and howl the cry of its mad, but, 
 to me, harmless fury. And then, to look at it 
 with that inward eye, who does not love to shuf 
 fle off time and its concerns, at intervals, to for 
 get who is President and who is Governor, what 
 race he belongs to, what language he speaks, 
 which golden-headed nail of the firmament his par 
 ticular planetary system is hung upon, and listen 
 
324 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 to the great liquid metronome as it beats its sol 
 emn measure, steadily swinging when the solo or 
 duet of human life began, and to swing just as 
 steadily after the human chorus has died out and 
 man is a fossil on its shores ? 
 
 What should decide one, in choosing a 
 
 summer residence? Constitution, first of all. 
 How much snow could you melt in an hour, if 
 you were planted in a hogshead of it ? Comfort 
 is essential to enjoyment. All sensitive people 
 should remember that persons in easy circumstan 
 ces suffer much more from cold in summer that 
 is, the warm half of the year than in winter, or 
 the other half. You must cut your climate to 
 your constitution, as much as your clothing to 
 your shape. After this, consult your taste and 
 convenience. But if you would be happy in Berk 
 shire, you must carry mountains in your brain ; 
 and if you would enjoy Nahant, you must have an 
 ocean in your soul. Nature plays at dominos 
 with you ; you must match her piece, or she will 
 never give it up to you. 
 
 The schoolmistress said, in a rather mis 
 chievous way, that she was afraid some minds or 
 souls would be a little crowded, if they took in the 
 Rocky Mountains or the Atlantic. 
 
 Have you ever read the little book called " The 
 Stars and the Earth ? " said I. Have you seen 
 the Declaration of Independence photographed in 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 325 
 
 a surface that a fly's foot would cover 1 The forms 
 or conditions of Time and Space, as Kant will tell 
 you, are nothing in themselves, only our way 
 of looking at things. You are right, 1 think, how 
 ever, in recognizing the category of Space as be 
 ing quite as applicable to minds as to the outer 
 world. Every man of reflection is vaguely con 
 scious of an imperfectly-defined circle which is 
 drawn about his intellect. He has a perfectly 
 clear sense that the fragments of his intellectual 
 circle include the curves of many other minds of 
 which he is cognizant. He often recognizes these 
 as manifestly concentric with his own, but of less 
 radius. On the other hand, when we find a por 
 tion of an arc on the outside of our own, we say 
 it intersects ours, but are very slow to confess or to 
 see that it circumscribes it. Every now and then a 
 man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, 
 and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. 
 After looking at the Alps, I felt that my mind had 
 been stretched beyond the limits of its elasticity, 
 and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that 
 I had to spread these to fit it. 
 
 If I thought I should ever see the Alps ! 
 
 said the schoolmistress. 
 
 Perhaps you will, some time or other, I said. 
 
 It is not very likely, she answered. I have 
 had one or two opportunities, but I had rather be 
 anything than governess in a rich family. 
 
326 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 [Proud, too, you little soft- voiced woman ! Well, 
 I can't say I like you any the worse for it. How 
 long will school-keeping take to kill you ? Is it 
 possible the poor thing works with her needle, 
 too ? I don't like those marks on the side of her 
 forefinger. 
 
 Tableau. Chamouni. Mont Blanc in full view. 
 Figures in the foreground ; two of them standing 
 
 apart ; one of them a gentleman of oh, ah, 
 
 yes ! the other a lady in a white cashmere, 
 leaning on his shoulder. The ingenuous reader 
 will understand that this was an internal, private, 
 personal, subjective diorama, seen for one instant 
 on the background of my own consciousness, and 
 abolished into black nonentity by the first question 
 which recalled me to actual life, as suddenly as if 
 one of those iron shop-blinds (which I always pass 
 at dusk with a shiver, expecting to stumble over 
 some poor but honest shop-boy's head, just taken 
 off by its sudden and unexpected descent, and left 
 outside upon the sidewalk) had come down in 
 front of it " by the run."] 
 
 Should you like to hear what moderate 
 
 wishes life brings one to at last ? I used to be 
 very ambitious, wasteful, extravagant, and lux 
 urious in all my fancies. Read too much in the 
 " Arabian Nights." Must have the lamp, 
 could n't do without the ring. Exercise every 
 morning on the brazen horse. Plump down into 
 
OF THE BRF:AKF AST-TABLE. 33 i 
 
 recognize, proclaims the fact that she comes not 
 merely of low blood, but of bad blood. Con 
 sciousness of unquestioned position makes people 
 gracious in proper measure to all ; but if a woman 
 * puts on airs with her real equals, she has some 
 thing about herself or her family she is ashamed 
 of, or ought to be. Middle, and more than mid 
 dle-aged people, who know family histories, gen 
 erally see through it. An official of standing was 
 rude to me once. O, that is the maternal grand 
 father, said a wise old friend to me, he was a 
 boor. Better too few words, from the woman 
 we love, than too many : while she is silent, Na- ' 
 ture is working for her ; while she talks, she is 
 working for herself. Love is sparingly soluble in 
 the words of men ; therefore they speak much of 
 it ; but one syllable of woman's speech can dis 
 solve more of it than a man's heart can hold. 
 
 Whether I said any or all of these things 
 
 to the schoolmistress, or not, whether I stole 
 them out of Lord Bacon, whether I cribbed 
 them from Balzac, whether I dipped them from 
 the ocean of Tupperian wisdom, or whether I 
 have just found them in my head, laid there by 
 that solemn fowl, Experience, (who, according to 
 my observation, cackles oftener than she drops 
 real live eggs,) I cannot say. Wise men have 
 said more foolish things, and foolish men, I 
 don't doubt, have said as wise things. Anyhow, 
 
33* THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 the schoolmistress and I had pleasant walks and 
 long talks, all of which I do not feel bound to 
 report. 
 
 You are a stranger to me, ma'am. I 
 
 don't doubt you would like to know all I said * 
 to the schoolmistress. I sha'n't do it; I had 
 rather get the publishers to return the money you 
 have invested in this. Besides, I have forgotten 
 a good deal of it. I shall tell only what I like 
 of what I remember. 
 
 My idea was, in the first place, to search 
 
 out the picturesque spots which the city affords a 
 sight of, to those who have eyes. I know a good 
 many, and it was a pleasure to look at them in 
 company with my young friend. There were the 
 shrubs and flowers in the Franklin Place front- 
 yards or borders ; Commerce is just putting his 
 granite foot upon them. Then there are certain 
 small seraglio-gardens, into which one can get a 
 peep through the crevices of high fences, one in 
 Myrtle Street, or backing on it, here and there 
 one at the North and South Ends. Then the 
 great elms in Essex Street. Then the stately 
 horse-chestnuts in that vacant lot in Chambers 
 Street, which hold their outspread hands over 
 your head, (as I said in my poem the other day,) 
 and look as if they were whispering, " May grace, 
 mercy, and peace be with you ! " and the rest of 
 that benediction. Nay, there are certain patches 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 333 
 
 of ground, which, having lain neglected for a time, 
 Nature, who always has her pockets full of seeds, 
 and holes in all her pockets, has covered with hun 
 gry plebeian growths, which fight for life with each 
 other, until some of them get hroad-leaved and 
 succulent, and you have a coarse vegetable tapes 
 try which Raphael would not have disdained to 
 spread over the foreground of his masterpiece. 
 The Professor pretends that he found such a one 
 in Charles Street, which, in its dare-devil impu 
 dence of rough-and-tumble vegetation, beat the 
 pretty-behaved flower-beds of the Public Garden 
 as ignominiously as a group of young tatterde 
 malions playing pitch-and-toss beats a row of Sun 
 day-school boys with their teacher at their head. 
 
 But then the Professor has one of his burrows 
 in that region, and puts everything in high colors 
 relating to it. That is his way about everything. 
 
 1 hold any man cheap, he said, of whom 
 
 nothing stronger can be uttered than that all his 
 
 geese are swans. How is that, Professor? 
 
 said I ; I should have set you down for one of 
 
 that sort. Sir, said he, I am proud to say, 
 
 that Nature has so far enriched me, that I cannot 
 own so much as a duck without seeing in it as pret 
 ty a swan as ever swam the basin in the garden 
 of the Luxembourg. And the Professor showed 
 the whites of his eyes devoutly, like one returning 
 thanks after a dinner of many courses. 
 
334 TIIL: AUTOCRAT 
 
 I don't know anything sweeter than this leaking 
 in of Nature through all the cracks in the walls 
 and floors of cities. You heap up a million tons 
 of hewn rocks on a square mile or two of earth 
 which was green once. The trees look down from 
 the hillsides and ask each other, as they stand on. 
 tiptoe, " What are these people about ? " And 
 the small herbs at their feet look up and whisper 
 back, " We will go and see." So the small herbs 
 pack themselves up in the least possible bundles, 
 and wait until the wind steals to them at night 
 and whispers, "Come with me." Then they 
 go softly with it into the great city, one to a 
 cleft in the pavement, one to a spout on the roof, 
 one to a seam in the marbles over a rich gentle 
 man's bones, and one to the grave without a stone 
 where nothing but a man is buried, and there 
 they grow, looking down on the generations of 
 men from mouldy roofs, looking up from between 
 the less-trodden pavements, looking out through 
 iron cemetery-railings. Listen to them, when 
 there is only a light breath stirring, and you will 
 hear them saying to each other, " Wait awhile ! " 
 The words run along the telegraph of those nar 
 row green lines that border the roads leading from 
 the city, until they reach the slope of the hills, and 
 the trees repeat in low murmurs to each other, 
 " Wait awhile ! " By and by the flow of life in 
 the streets ebbs, and the old leafy inhabitants 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 335 
 
 the smaller tribes always in front saunter in, 
 one by one, very careless seemingly, but very te 
 nacious, until they swarm so that the great stones 
 gape from each other with the crowding of their 
 roots, and the feldspar begins to be picked out of 
 the granite to find them food. At last the trees 
 take up their solemn line of march, and never rest 
 until they have encamped in the market-place. 
 Wait long enough and you will find an old doting 
 oak hugging a huge worn block in its yellow un 
 derground arms ; that was the corner-stone of the 
 State-House. O, so patient she is, this imperturb 
 able Nature ! 
 
 Let us cry ! 
 
 But all this has nothing to do with my walks 
 and talks with the schoolmistress. I did not say 
 that I would not tell you something about them. 
 Let me alone, and I shall talk to you more than I 
 ought to, probably. We never tell our secrets to 
 people that pump for them. 
 
 Books we talked about, and education. It was 
 her duty to know something of these, and of course 
 she did. Perhaps I was somewhat more learned 
 than she, but I found that the difference between 
 her reading and mine was like that of a man's 
 and a woman's dusting a library. The man flaps 
 about with a bunch of feathers ; the woman goes 
 to work softly with a cloth. She does not raise 
 half the dust, nor fill her own mouth and eyes 
 
33 6 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 with it, but she goes into all the corners, and 
 attends to the leaves as much as the covers. 
 Books are the negative pictures of thought, and the 
 more sensitive the mind that receives their images, 
 the more nicely the finest lines are reproduced. A 
 woman, (of the right kind,) reading after a man, 
 follows him as Ruth followed the reapers of Boaz, 
 and her gleanings are often the finest of the wheat. 
 
 But it was in talking of Life that we came most 
 nearly together. I thought I knew something 
 about that, that I could speak or write about 
 it somewhat to the purpose. 
 
 To take up this fluid earthly being of ours as a 
 sponge sucks up water, to be steeped and soaked 
 in its realities as a hide fills its pores lying seven 
 years in a tan-pit, to have winnowed every wave 
 of it as a mill-wheel works up the stream that 
 runs through the flume upon its float-boards, to 
 have curled up in the keenest spasms and flattened 
 out in the laxest languors of this breathing-sick 
 ness, which keeps certain parcels of matter uneasy 
 for three or four score years, to have fought all 
 the devils and clasped all the angels of its de 
 lirium, and then, just at the point when the 
 white-hot passions have cooled down to cherry- 
 red, plunge our experience into the ice-cold stream 
 of some human language or other, one might 
 think would end in a rhapsody with something 
 of spring and temper in it. All this I thought 
 my power and province 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 337 
 
 The schoolmistress had tried life, too. Once in 
 a while one meets with a single soul greater than 
 all the living pageant which passes before it. As 
 the pale astronomer sits in his study with sunken 
 eyes and thin fingers, and weighs Uranus or Nep 
 tune as in a balance, so there are meek, slight wo 
 men who have weighed all which this planetary 
 life can offer, and hold it like a bawble in the palm 
 of their slender hands. This was one of them. 
 Fortune had left her, sorrow had baptized her; 
 the routine of labor and the loneliness of almost 
 friendless city life were before her. Yet, as I 
 looked upon her tranquil face, gradually regain 
 ing a cheerfulness which was often sprightly, as 
 she became interested in the various matters we 
 talked about and places we visited, I saw that eye 
 and lip and every shifting lineament were made 
 for love, unconscious of their sweet office as 
 yet, and meeting the cold aspect of Duty with the 
 natural graces which were meant for the reward 
 of nothing less than the Great Passion. 
 
 1 never addressed one word of love to the 
 
 schoolmistress in the course of these pleasant 
 walks. It seemed to me that we talked of every 
 thing but love on that particular morning. There 
 was, perhaps, a little more timidity and hesitancy 
 on my part than I have commonly shown among 
 our people at the boarding-house. In fact, I con 
 sidered myself the master at the breakfast-table; 
 22 
 
33 8 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 but, somehow, I could not command myself just 
 then so well as usual. The truth is, I had secured 
 a passage to Liverpool in the steamer which was 
 to leave at noon, with the condition, however, 
 of being released in case circumstances occurred 
 to detain me. The schoolmistress knew nothing 
 about all this, of course, as yet. 
 
 It was on the Common that we were walking. 
 The mall, or boulevard of our Common, you know, 
 has various branches leading from it in different 
 directions. One of these runs down from oppo 
 site Joy Street southward across the whole length 
 of the Common to Boylston Street. We called it 
 the long path, and were fond of it. 
 
 I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably 
 robust habit) as we came opposite the head of this 
 path on that morning. I think I tried to speak 
 twice without making myself distinctly audible. 
 
 At last I got out the question, Will you take 
 
 the long path with me ? Certainly, said the 
 
 schoolmistress, with much pleasure. Think, 
 
 I said, before you answer ; if you take the 
 long path with me now, I shall interpret it that 
 
 we are to part no more ! The schoolmistress 
 
 stepped back with a sudden movement, as if an 
 arrow had struck her. 
 
 One of the long granite blocks used as seats was 
 hard by, the one you may still see close by the 
 Gingko-tree. Pray, sit down, I said. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 339 
 
 No, no, she answered, softly, I will walk the 
 long path with you ! 
 
 The old gentleman who sits opposite met 
 
 us walking, arm in arm, about the middle of the 
 long path, and said, very charmingly, " Good 
 morning, my dears '. " 
 
340 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 XII. 
 
 DID not think it probable that I should 
 have a great many more talks with our 
 company, and therefore I was anxious 
 to get as much as I could into every 
 conversation. That is the reason why you will 
 find some odd, miscellaneous facts here, which I 
 wished to tell at least once, as I should not have 
 a chance to tell them habitually, at our breakfast- 
 table. We 're very free and easy, you know ; we 
 don't read what we don't like. Our parish is so 
 large, one can't pretend to preach to all the pews 
 at once. One can't be all the time trying to do 
 the best of one's best ; if a company works a steam 
 fire-engine, the firemen need n't be straining them 
 selves all day to squirt over the top of the flag 
 staff. Let them wash some of those lower-story 
 windows a little. Besides, there is no use in our 
 quarrelling now, as you will find out when you 
 get through this paper.] 
 
 Travel, according to my experience, does 
 
 not exactly correspond to the idea one gets of it 
 out of most books of travels. I am thinking of 
 travel as it was when I made the Grand Tour, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 341 
 
 especially in Italy. Memory is a net ; one finds 
 it full of fish when he takes it from the brook ; buf 
 a dozen miles of water have run through it without 
 sticking. I can prove some facts about travelling 
 by a story or two. There are certain principles 
 to be assumed, such as these : He who is car 
 ried by horses must deal with rogues. To-day's 
 dinner subtends a larger visual angle than yester 
 day's revolution. A mote in my eye is bigger to 
 me than the biggest of Dr. Gould's private plan 
 ets. Every traveller is a self-taught entomologist. 
 Old jokes are dynamometers of mental tension ; 
 an old joke tells better among friends travelling 
 than at home, which shows that their minds 
 are in a state of diminished rather than increased 
 vitality. There was a story about " strahps to 
 your pahnts," which was vasdy funny to us fel 
 lows on the road from Milan to Venice. Cce- 
 lum non animum, travellers change their guineas, 
 but not their characters. The bore is the same, 
 eating dates under the cedars of Lebanon, as over 
 a plate of baked beans in Beacon Street. Parties 
 of travellers have a morbid instinct for " establish 
 ing raws " upon each other. A man shall sit 
 down with his friend at the foot of the Great Pyr 
 amid and they will take up the question they had 
 been talking about under " the great elm/' and 
 forget all about Egypt. When I was crossing the 
 Po, we were all fighting about the propriety of one 
 
342 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 fellow's telling another that his argument was ab 
 surd ; one maintaining it to be a perfectly admis 
 sible logical term, as proved by the phrase " re- 
 ductio ad absurdum " ; the rest badgering him as 
 a conversational bully. Mighty little we troubled 
 ourselves for Padus, the Po, " a river broader and 
 more rapid than the Rhone," and the times when 
 Hannibal led his grim Africans to its banks, and 
 his elephants thrust their trunks into the yellow 
 waters over which that pendulum ferry-boat was 
 swinging back and forward every ten minutes ! 
 
 Here are some of those reminiscences, with 
 
 morals prefixed, or annexed, or implied. 
 
 Lively emotions very commonly do riot strike 
 us full in front, but obliquely from the side ; a 
 scene or incident in undress often affects us more 
 than one in full costume. 
 
 " Is this the mighty ocean ? is this all ? " 
 
 says the Princess in Gebir. The rush that should 
 have ilooded my soul in the Coliseum did not 
 come. But walking one day in the fields about 
 the city, I stumbled over a fragment of broken 
 masonry, and lo ! the World's Mistress in her 
 stone girdle alia mznia Rome rose before me 
 and whitened my cheek with her pale shadow as 
 never before or since, 
 
 I used very often, when coming home from my 
 morning's work at one of the public institutions 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 343 
 
 of Paris, to stop in at the dear old church of St. 
 Eticnne du Mont. The tomb of St. Gencvieve, 
 surrounded by burning candles and votive tablets, 
 was there ; the mural tablet of Jacobus Benignus 
 Winslow was there ; there was a noble organ with 
 carved figures ; the pulpit was borne on the oaken 
 shoulders of a stooping Samson ; and there was a 
 marvellous staircase like a coil of lace. These 
 things I mention from memory, but not all of 
 them together impressed me so much as an in 
 scription on a small slab of marble fixed in one of 
 the walls. It told how this church of St. Stephen 
 was repaired and beautified in the year 16**, and 
 how, during the celebration of its reopening, two 
 girls of the parish (filles de la paroisse) fell from 
 the gallery, carrying a part of the balustrade with 
 them, to the pavement, but by a miracle escaped 
 uninjured. Two young girls, nameless, but real 
 presences to my imagination, as much as when 
 they came fluttering down on the tiles with a 
 cry that outscreamed the sharpest treble in the 
 Te Deum. (Look at Carlyle's article on Boswell, 
 and see how he speaks of the poor young woman 
 Johnson talked with in the streets one evening ) 
 All the crowd gone but these two " filles de la 
 paroisse," gone as utterly as the dresses they 
 wore, as the shoes that were on their feet, as 
 the bread and meat that were in the market on 
 that day. 
 
344 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Not the great historical events, but the personal 
 incidents that call up single sharp pictures of 
 some human being in its pang or struggle, reach 
 us most nearly. I remember the platform at 
 Berne, over the parapet of which Theobald Wein- 
 zapfli's restive horse sprung with him and landed 
 him more than a hundred feet beneath in the 
 lower town, not dead, but sorely broken, and no 
 longer a wild youth, but God's servant from that 
 day forward. I have forgotten the famous bears, 
 and all else. I remember the Percy lion on the 
 bridge over the little river at Alnwick, the 
 leaden lion with his tail stretched out straight 
 like a pump-handle, and why ? Because of the 
 story of the village boy who must fain bestride 
 the leaden tail, standing out over the water, 
 which breaking, he dropped into the stream far 
 below, and was taken out an idiot for the rest of 
 his life. 
 
 Arrow-heads must be brought to a sharp point, 
 and the guillotine-axe must have a slanting edge. 
 Something intensely human, narrow, and definite 
 pierces to the seat of our sensibilities more readily 
 than huge occurrences and catastrophes. A nail 
 will pick a lock that defies hatchet and hammer. 
 '< The Royal George " went down with all her 
 crew, and Cowper wrote an exquisitely simple 
 poem about it ; but the leaf which holds it is 
 smooth, while that which bears the lines on his 
 mother's portrait is blistered with tears. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 345 
 
 My telling these recollections sets me thinking 
 of others of the same kind which strike the imag 
 ination, especially when one is still young. You 
 remember the monument in Devizes market to the 
 woman struck dead with a lie in her mouth. I 
 never saw that, but it is in the books. Here is 
 one I never heard mentioned ; if any of the 
 " Note and Query " tribe can tell the story, I 
 hope they will. Where is this monument ? I 
 was riding on an English stage-coach when we 
 passed a handsome marble column (as I remem 
 ber it) of considerable size and pretensions. 
 What is that ? I said. That, answered the 
 coachman, is the hangman s pillar. Then he 
 told me how a man went out one night, many 
 years ago, to steal sheep. He caught one, tied its 
 legs together, passed the rope over his head, and 
 started for home. In climbing a fence, the rope 
 slipped, caught him by the neck, and strangled 
 him. Next morning he was found hanging dead 
 on one side of the fence and the sheep on the 
 other ; in memory whereof the lord of the manor 
 caused this monument to be erected as a warning 
 to all who love mutton better than virtue. I will 
 send a copy of this record to him or her who 
 shall first set me right about this column and 
 its locality. 
 
 And telling over these old stories reminds me 
 that I have something which may interest archi- 
 
346 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 tects and perhaps some other persons. I once 
 ascended the spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which 
 is the highest, I think, in Europe. It is a shaft 
 of stone filigree-work, frightfully open, so that the 
 guide puts his arms behind you to keep you from 
 falling. To climb it is a noonday nightmare, 
 and to think of having climbed it crisps all the 
 fifty-six joints of one's twenty digits. While I 
 was on it, " pinnacled dim in the intense inane," 
 a strong wind was blowing, and I felt sure that 
 the spire was rocking. It swayed back and for 
 ward like a stalk of rye or a cat-o'-nine-tails (bul 
 rush) with a bobolink on it. I mentioned it to 
 the guide, and he said that the spire did really 
 swing back and forward, I think he said some 
 feet. 
 
 Keep any line of knowledge ten years and some 
 other line will intersect It. Long afterwards I was 
 hunting out a paper of Dumerirs in an old jour 
 nal, the " Magazin Encyclopedique " for Van 
 troisitme, (1795,) when I stumbled upon a brief 
 article on the vibrations of the spire of Strasburg 
 Cathedral. A man can shake it so that the move 
 ment shall be shown in a vessel of water nearly 
 seventy feet below the summit, and higher up the 
 vibration is like that of an earthquake. I have 
 seen one of those wretched wooden spires with 
 which we very shabbily finish some of our stone 
 churches (thinking that the lidless blue eye of 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 347 
 
 heaven cannot tell the counterfeit we try to pass 
 on it) swinging like a reed in a wind, but one 
 would hardly think of such a thing's happening in 
 a stone spire. Does the Bunker-Hill Monument 
 bend in the blast like a blade of grass ? I sup 
 pose so. 
 
 You see, of course, that I am talking in a cheap 
 way ; perhaps we will have some philosophy by 
 and by ; let me work out this thin mechanica' 
 vein. I have something more to say about trees. 
 I have brought down this slice of hemlock to show 
 you. Tree blew down in my woods (that were) 
 in 1852. Twelve feet and a half round, fair girth ; 
 nine feet, where I got my section, higher up. 
 This is a wedge, going to the centre, of the gen 
 eral shape of a slice of apple-pie in a large and 
 not opulent family. Length, about eighteen 
 inches. I have studied the growth of this tree 
 by its rings, and it is curious. Three hundred 
 and forty-two rings. Started, therefore, about 
 1510. The thickness of the rings tells the rate at 
 which it grew. For five or six years the rate was 
 slow, then rapid for twenty years. A little 
 before the year 1550 it began to grow very slowly, 
 and so continued for about seventy years. In 
 1620 it took a new start and grew fast until 1714, 
 then for the most part slowly until 1786, when it 
 started again and grew pretty well and uniformly 
 until within the last dozen years, when it seems to 
 have got on sluggishly. 
 
348 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Look here. Here are some human lives laid 
 down against the periods of its growth, to which 
 they corresponded. This is Shakespeare's. The 
 tree was seven inches in diameter when he was 
 born ; ten inches when he died. A little less 
 than ten inches when Milton was born ; seven 
 teen when he died. Then comes a long interval, 
 and this thread marks out Johnson's life, during 
 which the tree increased from twenty-two to twen 
 ty-nine inches in diameter. Here is the span of 
 Napoleon's career ; the tree does n't seem to 
 have minded it. 
 
 I never saw the ma a yet who was not startled 
 at looking on this section. I have seen many 
 wooden preachers, never one like this. How 
 much more striking would be the calendar count 
 ed en the rings of one of those awful trees which 
 were standing when Christ was on earth, and 
 where that brief mortal life is chronicled with the 
 stolid apathy of vegetable being, which remembers 
 all human history as a thing of yesterday in its 
 own dateless existence ! 
 
 I have something more to say about elms. A 
 relative tells me there is one of great glory in An- 
 dover, near Bradford. I have some recollections 
 of the former place, pleasant and other. [I won 
 der if the old Seminary clock strikes as slowly as 
 it used to. My room-mate thought, when he first 
 came, it was the bell tolling deaths, and people's 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 349 
 
 ages, as they do in the country. He swore 
 (ministers' sons get so familiar with good words 
 that they are apt to handle them carelessly) 
 that the children were dying by the dozen, of all 
 ages, from one to twelve, and ran off next day in 
 recess, when it began to strike eleven, but was 
 caught before the clock got through striking.] 
 At the foot of " the hill," down in town, is, or 
 was, a tidy old elm, which was said to have been 
 hooped with iron to protect it from Indian toma 
 hawks, (Credat Hahnemannus,) and to have grown 
 round its hoops and buried them in its wood. Of 
 course this is not the tree my relative means. 
 
 Also, I have a very pretty letter from Norwich, in 
 Connecticut, telling me of two noble elms which 
 are to be seen in that town. One hundred and 
 twenty-seven feet from bough-end to bough-end ! 
 What do you say to that ? And gentle ladies be 
 neath it, that love it and celebrate its praises ! 
 And that in a town of such supreme, audacious, 
 Alpine loveliness as Norwich ! Only the dear 
 people there must learn to call it Norridge, and 
 not be misled by the mere accident of spelling. 
 
 'Norwich. 
 
 Porc/imouth. 
 
 Cincinnati. 
 What a sad picture of our civilization ! 
 
 I did not speak to you of the great tree on what 
 used to be the Colman farm, in Deerfield, simply 
 
350 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 because I had not seen it for many years, and did 
 not like to trust my recollection. But I had it in 
 memory, and even noted down, as one of the finest 
 trees in symmetry and beauty I had ever seen. I 
 have received a document, signed by two citizens 
 of a neighboring town, certified by the postmaster 
 and a selectman, and these again corroborated, 
 reinforced, and sworn to by a member of that 
 extraordinary college-class to which it is the good 
 fortune of my friend the Professor to belong, who, 
 though he has formerly been a member of Con 
 gress, is, I believe, fully worthy of confidence. 
 The tree " girts " eighteen and a half feet, and 
 spreads over a hundred, and is a real beauty. I 
 hope to meet my friend under its branches yet ; 
 if we don't have "youth at the prow," we will 
 have " pleasure at the 'elm." 
 
 And just now, again, I have got a letter about 
 some grand willows in Maine, and another about 
 an elm in Wayland, but too late for anything but 
 thanks. 
 
 [And this leads me to say, that I have received 
 a great many communications, in prose and verse, 
 since I began printing these notes. The last 
 came this very morning, in the shape of a neat 
 and brief poem, from New Orleans. I could not 
 make any of them public, though sometimes re 
 quested to do so. Some of them have given me 
 great pleasure, and encouraged me to believe I 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 351 
 
 had friends whose faces I had never seen. If you 
 are pleased with anything a writer says, and 
 doubt whether to tell him of it, do not hesitate ; 
 a pleasant word is a cordial to one, who perhaps 
 thinks he is tiring you, and so becomes tired 
 himself.' I purr very loud over a good, honest 
 letter that says pretty things to me.J 
 
 Sometimes very young persons send com 
 
 munications which they want forwarded to edi 
 tors ; and these young persons do not always 
 Becm to have right conceptions of these same edi 
 tors, and of the public, and of themselves. Here 
 is a letter I wrote to one of these young folks, 
 but, on the whole, thought it best not to send. 
 It is not fair to single out one for such sharp 
 advice, where there are hundreds that are in 
 need of it. 
 
 DEAR SIR, You seem to be somewhat, but 
 not a great deal, wiser than I was at your age. 
 I don't wish to be understood as saying too much, 
 for I think, without committing myself to any 
 opinion on my present state, that I was not a 
 Solomon at that stage of development. 
 
 You long to " leap at a single bound into celeb 
 rity." Nothing is so commonplace as to wish to 
 be remarkable. Fame usually comes to those 
 who are thinking about something else, very 
 varely to those who say to themselves, " Go to, 
 
352 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 now, let us be a celebrated individual ! " The 
 struggle for fame, as such, commonly ends in 
 notoriety; that ladder is easy to climb, but it 
 leads to the pillory which is crowded with fools 
 who could not hold their tongues and rogues who 
 could not hide their tricks. 
 
 If you have the consciousness of genius, do 
 something to show it. The world is pretty quick, 
 now-a-days, to catch the flavor of true originality ; 
 if you write anything remarkable, the magazines 
 and newspapers w r ill find you out, as the school 
 boys find out where the ripe apples and pears are. 
 Produce anything really good, and an intelligent 
 editor will jump at it. Don't flatter yourself that 
 any article of yours is rejected because you are 
 unknown to fame. Nothing pleases an editor 
 more than to get anything worth having from a 
 new hand. There is always a dearth of really 
 fine articles for a first-rate journal ; for, of a hun 
 dred pieces received, ninety are at or below the 
 sea-level ; some have water enough, but no head ; 
 some head enough, but no water; only two or 
 three are from full reservoirs, high up that hill 
 which is so hard to climb. 
 
 You may have genius. The contrary is of 
 course probable, but it is not demonstrated. If 
 you have, the world wants you more than you 
 want it. It has not only a desire, but a passion, 
 for every spark of genius that shows itself among 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 353 
 
 us ; there is not a bull-calf in our national pasture 
 that can bleat a rhyme but it is ten to one, among 
 his friends, and no takers, that he is the real, 
 genuine, no-mistake Osiris. 
 
 Qa'est ce qu'il a fait? What has he done? 
 That was Napoleon's test. What have you done ? 
 Turn up the faces of your picture-cards, my boy ! 
 You need not make mouths at the public because 
 it has not accepted you at your own fancy-valu 
 ation. Do the prettiest thing you can, and wait 
 your time. 
 
 For the verses you send me, I will not say they 
 are hopeless, and I dare not affirm that they show 
 promise. I am not an editor, but I know the 
 standard of some editors. You must not expect 
 to " leap with a single bound " into the society of 
 those whom it is not flattery to call your betters. 
 When " The Pactolian " has paid you for a copy 
 of verses, (I can furnish you a list of alliter 
 ative signatures, beginning with Annie Aureole 
 and ending with Zoe Zenith,) when " The 
 Rag-bag " has stolen your piece, after carefully 
 scratching your name out, when " The Nut 
 cracker " has thought you worth shelling, and 
 strung the kernel of your cleverest poem, then, 
 and not till then, you may consider the presump 
 tion against you, from the fact of your rhyming 
 tendency, as called in question, and let our friends 
 hear from you, if you think it worth while. You 
 23 
 
354 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 may possibly think me too candid, and even ac 
 cuse me of incivility ; but let me assure you that 
 I am not half so plain-spoken as Nature, nor half 
 so rude as Time. If you prefer the long jolting 
 of public opinion to the gentle touch of friendship, 
 try it like a man. Only remember this, that, 
 if a bushel of potatoes is shaken in a market-cart 
 without springs to it, the small potatoes always 
 get to the bottom. Believe me, etc., etc. 
 
 I always think of verse-writers, when I am in 
 this vein ; for these are by far the most exacting, 
 eager, self-weighing, restless, querulous, unreason 
 able literary persons one is like to meet with. Is 
 a young man in the habit of writing verses ? 
 Then the presumption is that he is an inferior 
 person. For, look you, there are at least nine 
 chances in ten that he writes poor verses. Now 
 the habit of chewing on rhymes without sense and 
 soul to match them is, like that of using any other 
 narcotic, at once a proof of feebleness and a debil 
 itating agent. A young man can get rid of the 
 presumption against him afforded by his writing 
 verses only by convincing us that they are verses 
 worth writing. 
 
 All this sounds hard and rough, but, observe, 
 it is not addressed to any individual, and of course 
 does not refer to any reader of these pages. I 
 would always treat any given young- person pass- 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 355 
 
 ing through the meteoric showers which rain down 
 on the brief period of adolescence with great ten 
 derness. God forgive us if we ever speak harshly 
 to young creatures on the strength of these ugly 
 truths, and so, sooner or later, smite some tender- 
 souled poet or poetess on the lips who might have 
 sung the world into sweet trances, had we not 
 silenced the matin-song in its first low breathings ! 
 Just as my heart yearns over the unloved, just so 
 it sorrows for the ungifted who are doomed to the 
 pangs of an undeceived self-estimate. I have al 
 ways tried to be gentle with the most hopeless 
 cases. My experience, however, has not been en 
 couraging. 
 
 X. Y., a3t. 18, a cheaply-got-up youth, 
 
 with narrow jaws, and broad, bony, cold, red 
 hands, having been laughed at by the girls in his 
 village, and " got the mitten " (pronounced mit- 
 ttn) two or three times, falls to souling and con 
 trolling, and youthing and truthing, in the news 
 papers. Sends me some strings of verses, candi 
 dates for the Orthopedic Infirmary, all of them, 
 in which I learn for the millionth time one of the 
 following facts; either that something about a 
 chime is sublime, or that something about time is 
 sublime, or that something about a chime is con 
 cerned with time, or that something about a 
 rhyme is sublime or concerned with time or with 
 a chime. Wishes my opinion of the same, with 
 advice as to his future course. 
 
356 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 What shall I do about it ? Tell him the whole 
 truth, and send him a ticket of admission to the 
 Institution for Idiots and Feeble-minded Youth ? 
 One does n't like to be cruel, and yet one hates 
 to lie. Therefore one softens down the ugly cen 
 tral fact of donkeyism, recommends study of 
 good models, that writing verse should be an 
 incidental occupation only, not interfering with 
 the hoe, the needle, the lapstone, or the ledger, 
 and, above all, that there should be no hurry in 
 printing what is written. Not the least use in all 
 this. The poetaster who has tasted type is done 
 for. He is like the man who has once been a 
 candidate for the Presidency. He feeds on the 
 madder of his delusion all his days, and his very 
 bones grow red with the glow of his foolish fancy. 
 One of these young brains is like a bunch of 
 India crackers ; once touch fire to it and it is best 
 to keep hands off until it has done popping, if 
 it ever stops. I have two letters on file ; one is a 
 pattern of adulation, the other of impertinence. 
 My reply to the first, containing the best advice 
 I could give, conveyed in courteous language, had 
 brought out the second. There was some sport 
 in this, but Dulness is not commonly a game fish, 
 and only sulks after he is struck. You may set 
 it down as a truth which admits of few exceptions, 
 that those who ask your opinion really want your 
 praise, and will be contented with nothing less. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 357 
 
 There is another kind of application to which 
 editors, or those supposed to have access to them, 
 are liable, and which often proves trying and 
 painful. One is appealed to in behalf of some 
 person in needy circumstances who wishes to 
 make a living by the pen. A manuscript accom 
 panying the letter is offered for publication. It 
 is not commonly brilliant, too often lamentably 
 deficient. If Rachel's saying is true, that " for 
 tune is the measure of intelligence," then poverty 
 is evidence of limited capacity, which it too fre 
 quently proves to be, notwithstanding a noble 
 exception here and there. Now an editor is a 
 person under a contract with the public to furnish 
 them with the best things he can afford for his 
 money. Charity shown by the publication of an 
 inferior article would be like the generosity of 
 Claude Duval and the other gentlemen highway 
 men, who pitied the poor so much they robbed 
 the rich to have the means of relieving them. 
 
 Though I am not and never was an editor, I 
 know something of the trials to which they are 
 submitted. They have nothing to do but to de 
 velop enormous calluses at every point of contact 
 with authorship. Their business is not a matter 
 of sympathy, but of intellect. They must reject 
 the unfit productions of those whom they long to 
 befriend, because it would be a profligate charity 
 to accept them. One cannot burn his house down 
 
35 8 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 to warm the hands even of the fatherless and the 
 widow. 
 
 THE PROFESSOR UNDER CHLOROFORM. 
 
 You haven't heard about my friend the 
 
 Professor's first experiment in the use of anaes 
 thetics, have you ? 
 
 He was mightily pleased with the reception of 
 that poem of his about the chaise. He spoke to 
 me once or twice about another poem of similar 
 character he wanted to read me, which I told him 
 I would listen to and criticise. 
 
 One day, after dinner, he came in with his face 
 tied up, looking very red in the cheeks and heavy 
 about the eyes. Hy'r'ye ? he said, and made 
 for an arm-chair, in which he placed first his hat 
 and then his person, going smack through the 
 crown of the former, as neatly as they do the trick 
 at the circus. The Professor jumped at the ex 
 plosion as if he had sat down on one of those 
 small calthrops our grandfathers used to sow round 
 in the grass when there were Indians about, 
 iron stars, each ray a rusty thorn an inch and a 
 half long, stick through moccasins into feet, 
 cripple 'em on the spot, and give 'em lockjaw in a 
 day or two. 
 
 At the same time he let off one of those big 
 words which lie at the bottom of the best man's 
 vocabulary, but perhaps never turn up in his life, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 359 
 
 just as every man's hair may stand on end, but 
 in most men it never does. 
 
 After he had got calm, he pulled out a sheet or 
 two of manuscript, together with a smaller scrap, 
 on which, as he said, he had just been writing an 
 introduction or prelude to the main performance. 
 A certain suspicion had come into my mind that 
 the Professor was not quite right, which was con 
 firmed by the way he talked ; but I let him begin. 
 This is the way he read it : 
 
 Prelude. 
 
 I 'M the fellah that tole one day 
 The tale of the won'erful one-boss shay. 
 Wan' to hear another ? Say. 
 
 Funny, was n'it ? Made me laugh, 
 I 'ra too modest, I am, by half, 
 Made me laugh 's though I sh'd split, 
 Cahn' a fellah like fellah's own wit ? 
 
 Fellahs keep sayin', " Well, now that 's nicfr ; 
 Did it once, but cahn' do it twice." 
 
 Don' you b'lieve the 'z no more fat j 
 Lots in the kitch'n 'z good 'z that. 
 Fus'-rate throw, 'n' no mistake, 
 Han' us the props for another shake ; 
 Know I Ml try, 'n' guess I '11 win ; 
 Here sh' goes for hit 'm ag'in ! 
 
 Here I thought it necessary to interpose. Pro 
 fessor, I said, you are inebriated. The style 
 of what you call your " Prelude " shows that it was 
 written under cerebral excitement. Your articu 
 lation is confused. You have told me three times 
 
3 6o THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 in succession, in exactly the same words, that I 
 was the only true friend you had in the world that 
 you would unbutton your heart to. You smell 
 distinctly and decidedly of spirits. I spoke, and 
 paused ; tender, but firm. 
 
 Two large tears orbed themselves beneath the 
 Professor's lids, in obedience to the principle of 
 gravitation celebrated in that delicious bit of blad 
 dery bathos, " The very law that moulds a tear," 
 with which the "Edinburgh Review " attempted 
 to put down Master George Gordon when that 
 young man was foolishly trying to make himself 
 conspicuous. 
 
 One of these tears peeped over the edge of the 
 lid until it lost its balance, slid an inch and 
 waited for reinforcements, swelled again, 
 rolled down a little further, stopped, moved 
 on, and at last fell on the back of the Profes 
 sor's hand. He held it up for me to look at, and 
 lifted his eyes, brimful, till they met mine. 
 
 I could n't stand it, I always break down 
 when folks cry in my face, so I hugged him, 
 and said he was a dear old boy, and asked him 
 kindly what was the matter with him, and what 
 made him smell so dreadfully strong of spirits. 
 
 Upset his alcohol lamp, he said, and spilt 
 the alcohol on his legs. That was it. But what 
 had he been doing to get his head into such a 
 state ? had he really committed an excess ? 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 361 
 
 What was the matter ? Then it came out that 
 he had been taking chloroform to have a tooth 
 out, which had left him in a very queer state, in 
 which he had written the " Prelude " given above, 
 and under the influence of which he evidently was 
 still. 
 
 I took the manuscript from his hands and read 
 the following continuation of the lines he had be 
 gun to read me, while he made up for two or three 
 nights' lost sleep as he best might. 
 
 PAKSON TURELL'S LEGACY: 
 OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR. 
 
 A MATHEMATICAL STORY. 
 
 FACTS respecting an old arm-chair. 
 At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there. 
 Beems but little the worse for wear. 
 That 's remarkable when I say 
 It was old in President Holyoke's day. 
 (One of his boys, perhaps you know, 
 Died, at one hundred, years ago.) 
 He took lodging for rain or shine 
 Under green bed-clothes in '69. 
 
 Know Old Cambridge ? Hope you do. 
 Born there ? Don't say so ! I was, too. 
 (Born in a house with a gambrel-roof, 
 Standing still, if you must have proof. 
 " Gambrel ? Gambrel ? " Let me beg 
 You '11 look at a horse's hinder leg, 
 First great angle above the hoof, 
 That 's the gambrel ; hence gambrel-roof.) 
 Nicest place that ever was seen, 
 
362 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 Colleges red and Common green, 
 Sidewalks brownish with trees between. 
 Sweetest spot beneath the skies 
 When the canker-worms don't rise, 
 When the dust, that sometimes flies 
 Into your mouth and ears and eyes, 
 In a quiet slumber lies, 
 Not in the shape of unbaked pies 
 Such as barefoot children prize. 
 
 A kind of harbor it seems to be, 
 Facing the flow of a boundless sea. 
 Rows of gray old Tutors stand 
 Ranged like recks above the sand ; 
 Rolling beneath them, soft and green, 
 Breaks the tide of bright sixteen, 
 One wave, two waves, three waves, four, 
 Sliding up the sparkling floor ; 
 Then it ebbs to flow no more, 
 Wandering off from shore to shore 
 With its freight of golden ore ! 
 Pleasant place for boys to play ; 
 Better keep your girls away ; 
 Hearts get rolled as pebbles do 
 Which countless fingering waves pursue, 
 And every classic beach is str,own 
 With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone. 
 
 But this is neither here nor there ; 
 I 'm talking about an old arm-chair. 
 You 've heard, no doubt, of PARSON TCRELL 
 Over at Medford he used to dwell , 
 Married one of the Mathers' folk , 
 Got with his wife a chair of oak, 
 Funny old chair, with seat like wedge, 
 Sharp behind and broad front edge, 
 One tif the oddest of human things, 
 Turned all over with knobs and rings, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 363 
 
 But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand, 
 
 Fit for the worthies of the land, 
 
 Chief-Justice Sewall a cause to try in, 
 
 Or Cotton Mather to sit and lie in. 
 
 Parson Turell bequeathed the same 
 
 To a certain student, SMITH by name ; 
 
 These were the terms, as we are told : 
 
 " Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde ; 
 
 When he doth graduate, then to passe 
 
 To ye oldest Youth in ye Senior Classe. 
 
 On Payment of " (naming a certain sum) 
 
 "By him to whom ye Chaire shall come ; 
 
 He to ye oldest Senior next, 
 
 And soe forever," (thus runs the text,) 
 
 But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime, 
 
 That being his Debte for use of same." 
 
 Smith transferred it to one of the BROWNS, 
 And took his money, five silver crowns. 
 Brown delivered it up to MOORE, 
 Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. 
 Moore made over the chair to LEE, 
 Who gave him crowns of silver three. 
 Lee conveyed it unto DREW, 
 And now the payment, of course, was two. 
 Drew gave up the chair to DUNN, 
 All he got. as you see, was one. 
 Dunn released the chair to HALL, 
 And got by the bargain no crown at all. 
 
 And now it passed to a second BROWS, 
 -Who took it, and likewise claimed a crown. 
 When Brown conveyed it unto WARE, 
 Having had one crown, to make it fair, 
 He paid him two crowns to take the chair ; 
 And Ware, being honest, (as all Wares be,) 
 He paid one POTTER, who took it, three. 
 Four got ROBINSON , five got Dix 5 
 JOHNSON primus demanded six ; 
 
364 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 And so the sum kept gathering still 
 Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill. 
 
 When paper money became so cheap, 
 Folks would n't count it, but said " a heap," 
 A certain RICHARDS, the books declare, 
 (A. M. in '90 ? I 've looked with care 
 Through the Triennial, name not there,} 
 This person, Richards, was offered then 
 Eight score pounds, but would have ten ; 
 Nine, I think, was the sum he took, 
 
 Not quite certain, but see the book. 
 By and by the wars were still, 
 But nothing had altered the Parson's will. 
 The old arm-chair was solid yet, 
 But saddled with such a monstrous debt '. 
 Things grew quite too bad to bear, 
 Paying such sums to get rid of the chair ! 
 But dead men's fingers hold awful tight, 
 And there was the will in black and white, 
 Plain enough for a child to spell. 
 What should be done no man could tell, 
 For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse, 
 And every season but made it worse. 
 
 As a last resort, to clear the douov, 
 They got old GOVERNOR HANCOCK out. 
 The Governor came, with his Light-horse Troop 
 And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop ; 
 Halberds glittered and colors flew, 
 French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, 
 The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth 
 And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath ; 
 So he rode with all his band, 
 Till the President met him, cap in hand. 
 
 The Governor " hefted " the crowns, and said, - 
 " A will is a will, and the Parson's dead." 
 
 The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he, 
 " There is your p'int. And here 'a my fee. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 365 
 
 These are the terms you must fulfil, 
 
 On such conditions I BREAK THE WILL ! " 
 
 The Governor mentioned what these should be. 
 
 (Just wait a minute and then you '11 see.) 
 
 The President prayed. Then all was still, 
 
 And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL ! 
 
 " About those conditions ? " Well, now you go 
 
 And do as I tell you, and then you '11 know. 
 
 Once a year, on Commencement-day, 
 
 If you '11 only take the pains to stay, 
 
 You '11 see the President in the CHAIR, 
 
 Likewise the Governor sitting there. 
 
 The President rises ; both old and young 
 
 May hear his speech in a foreign tongue, 
 
 The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, 
 
 Is this -. Can I keep this old arm-chair ? 
 
 And then his Excellency bows, 
 
 As much as to say that he allows. 
 
 The Vice-Gub. next is called by name ; 
 
 He bows like t' other, which means the same,, 
 
 And all the officers round 'em bow, 
 
 As much as to say that they allow. 
 
 And a lot of parchments about the chair 
 
 Are handed to witnesses then and there, 
 
 And then the lawyers hold it clear 
 
 That the chair is safe for another year. 
 
 God bless you, Gentlemen ! Learn to give 
 Money to colleges while you live. 
 Don't be silly and think you '11 try 
 To bother the colleges when you die, 
 With codicil this, and codicil that, 
 That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat j 
 For there never was pitcher that would n't spill, 
 And there 's always a flaw in a donkey's will ! 
 
 Hospitality is a good deal a matter of lati 
 tude, I suspect. The shade of a palm-tree serves 
 
366 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 an African for a hut ; his dwelling is all door and 
 no walls ; everybody can come in. To make a 
 morning call on an Esquimaux acquaintance, one 
 must creep through a long tunnel ; his house is 
 all walls and no door, except such a one as an 
 apple with a worm-hole has. One might, very 
 probably, trace a regular gradation between these 
 two extremes. In cities where the evenings are 
 generally hot, the people have porches at their 
 doors, where they sit, and this is, of course, a 
 provocative to the interchange of civilities. A 
 good deal, which in colder regions is ascribed to 
 mean dispositions, belongs really to mean tem 
 perature. 
 
 Once in a while, even in our Northern cities, at 
 noon, in a very hot summer's day, one may real 
 ize, by a sudden extension in his sphere of con 
 sciousness, how closely he is shut up for the most 
 part. Do you not remember something like this ? 
 July, between 1 and 2, p. M., Fahrenheit 96, or 
 thereabout. Windows all gaping, like the mouths 
 of panting dogs. Long, stinging cry of a locust 
 comes in from a tree, half a mile off; had forgot 
 ten there was such a tree. Baby's screams from 
 a house several blocks distant ; never knew 
 there were any babies in the neighborhood before. 
 Tinman pounding something that clatters dread 
 fully, very distinct, but don't remember any 
 tinman's shop near by. Horses stamping on 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 367 
 
 pavement to get off flies. When you hear these 
 four sounds, you may set it down as a warm day. 
 Then it is that one would like to imitate the mode 
 of life of the native at Sierra Leone, as somebody 
 has described it : stroll into the market in natural 
 costume, buy a water-melon for a halfpenny, 
 split it, and scoop out the middle, sit down in 
 one half of the empty rind, clap the other on one's 
 head, and feast upon the pulp. 
 
 1 see some of the London journals have 
 
 been attacking some of their literary people for 
 lecturing, on the ground of its being a public 
 exhibition of themselves for money. A popular 
 author can print his lecture ; if he deliver it, it 
 is a case of qucestum corpore, or making profit of 
 his person. None but " snobs " do that. Ergo, 
 etc. To this I reply, Negatur minor. Her Most 
 Gracious Majesty, the Queen, exhibits herself 
 to the public as a part of the service for which 
 she is paid. We do not consider it low-bred in 
 her to pronounce her own speech, and should 
 prefer it so to hearing it from any other person, 
 or reading it. His Grace and his Lordship ex 
 hibit themselves very often for popularity, and 
 their houses every day for money. No, if a man 
 shows himself other than he is, if he belittles him 
 self before an audience for hire, then he acts un 
 worthily. But a true word, fresh from the lips of 
 a true man, is worth paying for, at the rate of 
 
3 68 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 eight dollars a day, or even of fifty dollars a lec 
 ture. The taunt must be an outbreak of jealousy 
 against the renowned authors who have the au 
 dacity to be also orators. The sub-lieutenants (of 
 the press) stick a too popular writer and speaker 
 with an epithet in England, instead of with a 
 rapier, as in France. Poh ! All England is 
 one great /menagerie, and, all at once, the jackal, 
 who admires the gilded cage of the royal beast, 
 must protest against the vulgarity of the talking- 
 bird's and the nightingale's being willing to be 
 come a part of the exhibition ! 
 
 THE LONG PATH. 
 
 (Last of the Parentheses.) 
 
 Yes, that was my last walk with the school 
 mistress. It happened to be the end of a term ; 
 and before the next began, a very nice young 
 woman, who had been her assistant, was an 
 nounced as her successor, and she was provided 
 for elsewhere. So it was no longer the school 
 mistress that I walked with, but Let us not 
 
 be in unseemly haste. I shall call her the school 
 mistress still ; some of you love her under that 
 name. 
 
 When it became known among the boarders 
 
 that two of their number had joined hands to 
 walk down the long path of life side by side, 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TARLE. 369 
 
 there was, as you may suppose, no small sen 
 sation. I confess I pitied our landlady. It took 
 her all of a suddin, she said. Had not known 
 that we was keepin company, and never mistrusted 
 anything partic'lar. Ma'am was right to better 
 herself. Did n't look very rugged to take care of 
 a femily, but could get hired haalp, she calc'lated. 
 The great maternal instinct came crowding up 
 in her soul just then, and her eyes wandered until 
 they settled on her daughter. 
 
 No, poor, dear woman, that could not 
 
 have been. But I am dropping one of my inter 
 nal tears for you, with this pleasant smile on my 
 face all the time. 
 
 The great mystery of God's providence is the 
 permitted crushing out of flowering instincts. 
 Life is maintained by the respiration of oxygen 
 and of sentiments. In the long catalogue of sci 
 entific cruelties there is hardly anything quite so 
 painful to think of as that experiment of putting 
 an animal under the bell of an air-pump and ex 
 hausting the air from it. [I never saw the ac 
 cursed trick performed. Laus Deo !] There comes 
 a time when the souls of human beings, women, 
 perhaps, more even than men, begin to faint for the 
 atmosphere of the affections they were made to 
 breathe. Then it is that Society places its trans 
 parent bell-glass over the young woman who is to 
 be the subject of one of its fatal experiments. The 
 24 
 
370 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 element by which only the heart lives is sucked 
 out of her crystalline prison. Watch her through 
 its transparent walls; her bosom is heaving; 
 but it is in a vacuum. Death is no riddle, com 
 pared to this. I remember a poor girl's story in 
 the " Book of Martyrs." The " dry-pan and the 
 gradual fire " were the images that frightened her 
 most. How many have withered and wasted un 
 der as slow a torment in the walls of that larger 
 Inquisition which we call Civilization ! 
 
 Yes, my surface-thought laughs at you, you fool 
 ish, plain, overdressed, mincing, cheaply-organized, 
 self-saturated young person, whoever you may be, 
 now reading this, little thinking you are what I 
 describe, and in blissful unconsciousness that you 
 are destined to the lingering asphyxia of < soul 
 which is the lot of such multitudes worthier than 
 yourself. But it is only my surface-thought which 
 laughs. For that great procession of the UNLOVED, 
 who not only wear the crown of thorns, but must 
 hide it under the locks of brown or gray, under 
 the snowy cap, under the chilling turban, hide 
 it even from themselves, perhaps never know 
 they wear it, though it kills them, there is no 
 depth of tenderness in my nature that Pity has 
 not sounded. Somewhere, somewhere, love 
 is in store for them, the universe must not be 
 allowed to fool them so cruelly. What infinite 
 pathos in the small, half-unconscious artifices by 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 371 
 
 which unattractive young persons seek to recom 
 mend themselves to the favor of those towards 
 whom our dear sisters, the unloved, like the rest, 
 are impelled by their God-given instincts ! 
 
 Read what the singing-women one to ten thou 
 sand of the suffering women tell us, and think 
 of the griefs that die unspoken ! Nature is in ear 
 nest when she makes a woman ; and there are 
 women enough lying in the next churchyard with 
 very commonplace blue slate-stones at their head 
 and feet, for whom it was just as true that " all 
 sounds of life assumed one tone of love," as for 
 Letitia Landon, of whom Elizabeth Browning said 
 it ; but she could give words to her grief, and they 
 could not. Will you hear a few stanzas of mine ? 
 
 THE VOICELESS. 
 
 WE count the broken lyres that rest 
 
 Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, 
 But o'er their silent sister's breast 
 
 The wild flowers who will stoop to number ? 
 A few can touch the magic string, 
 
 And noisy Fame is proud to win them ; 
 Alas for those that never sing, 
 
 But die with all their music in them ! 
 
 Nay, grieve not for the dead alone 
 
 Whose song has told their hearts' sad story, 
 Weep for the voiceless, who have known 
 
 The cross without the crown of glory ! 
 Not where Leucadian breezes sweep 
 
 O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, 
 But where the glistening night-dews weep 
 
 On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. 
 
372 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 hearts that break and give no sign 
 
 Save whitening lip and fading tresses, 
 Till death pours out his cordial wine 
 
 Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses, 
 If singing breath or echoing chord 
 
 To every hidden pang were given, 
 What endless melodies were poured, 
 
 As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven ! 
 
 I hope that our landlady's daughter is not so 
 badly off, after all. That young man from an 
 other city who made the remark which you re 
 member about Boston State-house and Boston 
 folks, has appeared at our table repeatedly of late, 
 and has seemed to me rather attentive to this 
 young lady. Only last evening I saw him lean 
 ing over her while she was playing the accordion, 
 
 indeed, I undertook to join them in a song, and 
 got as far as " Come rest in this boo-oo," when, 
 my voice getting tremulous, I turned off, as one 
 steps out of a procession, and left the basso and 
 soprano to finish it. I see no reason why this 
 young woman should not be a very proper match 
 for a man that laughs about Boston State-house. 
 He can't be very particular. 
 
 The young fellow whom I have so often men 
 tioned was a little free in his remarks, but very 
 good-natured. Sorry to have you go, he said. 
 
 Schoolma'am made a mistake not to wait for 
 me. Have n't taken anything but mournin' fruit at 
 breakfast since I heard of it. Mourning fruity 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 373 
 
 said I, what 's that ? Huckleberries and 
 
 blackberries, said he ; could n't eat in colors, 
 raspberries, currants, and such, after a solemn 
 thing like this happening. The conceit seemed 
 to please the young fellow. If you will believe it, 
 when we came down to breakfast the next morn 
 ing, he had carried it out as follows. You know 
 those odious little " saas-plates " that figure so 
 largely at boarding-houses, and especially at tav 
 erns, into which a strenuous attendant female 
 trowels little dabs, sombre of tint and heterogene 
 ous of composition, which it makes you feel home 
 sick to look at, and into which you poke the elas 
 tic coppery teaspoon with the air of a cat dipping 
 her foot into a wash-tub, (not that I mean to 
 say anything against them, for when they are of 
 tinted porcelain or starry many-faceted crystal, and 
 hold clean bright berries, or pale virgin honey, or 
 "lucent syrups tinct w r ith cinnamon," and the 
 teaspoon is of white silver, with the Tower-stamp, 
 solid, but not brutally heavy, as people in the 
 green stage of millionism will have them, I can 
 dally with their amber semi-fluids or glossy spher 
 ules without a shiver,) you know these small, 
 deep dishes, I say. When we came down the 
 next morning, each of these (two only excepted) 
 was covered with a broad leaf. On lifting this, 
 each boarder found a small heap of solemn black 
 huckleberries. But one of those plates held red 
 
374 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 currants, and was covered with a red rose ; the 
 other held white currants, and was covered with a 
 white rose. There was . a laugh at this at first, 
 and then a short silence, and I noticed that her lip 
 trembled, and the old gentleman opposite was in 
 trouble to get at his bandanna handkerchief. 
 
 "What was the .use in waiting? We 
 
 should be too late for Switzerland, that season, 
 if we waited much longer." The hand I held 
 trembled in mine, and the eyes fell meekly, as 
 Esther bowed herself before the feet of Ahasuerus. 
 She had been reading that chapter, for she 
 looked up, if there was a film of moisture over 
 her eyes there was also the faintest shadow of a 
 distant smile skirting her lips, but not enough to 
 accent the dimples, and said, in her pretty, still 
 way, " If it please the king, and if I have found 
 favor in his sight, and the thing seem right before 
 the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes " 
 
 I don't remember what King Ahasuerus did or 
 said when Esther got just to that point of her soft, 
 humble words, but I know what I did. That 
 quotation from Scripture was cut short, anyhow. 
 We came to a compromise on the great question, 
 and the time was settled for the last day of sum 
 mer. 
 
 In the mean time, I talked on with our board 
 ers, much as usual, as you may see by what I 
 have reported. I must say, I was pleased with a 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 375 
 
 certain tenderness they all showed toward us, after 
 the first excitement of the news was over. It came 
 out in trivial matters, but each one in his, or 
 her way, manifested kindness. Our landlady, for 
 instance, when we had chickens, sent the liver in 
 stead of the gizzard, with the wing, for the school 
 mistress. This was not an accident ; the two are 
 never mistaken, though some landladies appear as 
 if they did not know the difference. The whole 
 of the company were even more respectfully at 
 tentive to my remarks than usual. There was no 
 idle punning, and very little winking on the part 
 of that lively young gentleman who, as the reader 
 may remember, occasionally interposed some play 
 ful question or remark, which could hardly be con 
 sidered relevant, except when the least allusion 
 was made to matrimony, when he would look at 
 the landlady's daughter, and wink with both sides 
 of his face, until she would ask what he was 
 pokin' his fun at her for, and if he was n't ashamed 
 of himself. In fact, they all behaved very hand 
 somely, so that I really felt sorry at the thought 
 of leaving my boarding-house. 
 
 I suppose you think, that, because I lived at a 
 plain widow-woman's plain table, I was of course 
 more or less infirm in point of worldly fortune. 
 You may not be sorry to learn, that, though not 
 what great merchants call very rich, I was comfort 
 able, comfortable, so that most of those mod- 
 
376 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 erate luxuries I described in my verses on Content 
 ment most of them, I say were within our reach, 
 if we chose to have them. But I found out that 
 the schoolmistress had a vein of charity about her, 
 which had hitherto been worked on a small silver 
 and copper basis, which made her think less, per 
 haps, of luxuries than even I did, modestly as I 
 have expressed my wishes. 
 
 It is a rather pleasant thing to tell a poor young 
 woman, whom one has contrived to win without 
 showing his rent-roll, that she has found what the 
 world values so highly, in following the lead of 
 her affections. That was an enjoyment I was now 
 ready for. 
 
 I began abruptly : Do you know that you are 
 a rich young person ? 
 
 I know that I am very rich, she said. 
 Heaven has given me more than I ever asked ; 
 for I had not thought love was ever meant for 
 me. 
 
 It was a woman's confession, and her voice fell 
 to a whisper as it threaded the last words. 
 
 I don't mean that, I said, you blessed little 
 saint and seraph ! if there 's an angel missing in 
 the New Jerusalem, inquire for her at this board 
 ing-house ! I don't mean that! I mean that I 
 that is, you am are confound it ! I 
 mean that you '11 be what most people call a lady 
 of fortune. And I looked full in her eyes for the 
 effect of the announcement. 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 377 
 
 There was n't any. She said she was thankful 
 that I had what would save me from drudgery, 
 and that some other time I should tell her about 
 it. I never made a greater failure in an attempt 
 to produce a sensation. 
 
 So the last day of summer came. It was our 
 choice to go to the church, but we had a kind of 
 reception at. the boarding-house. The presents 
 were all arranged, and among them none gave 
 more pleasure than the modest tributes of our fel 
 low-boarders, for there was not one, I believe, 
 who did not send something. The landlady would 
 insist on making an elegant bride-cake, with her 
 own hands ; to which Master Benjamin Frank 
 lin wished to add certain embellishments out of 
 his private funds, namely, a Cupid in a mouse 
 trap, done in white sugar, and two miniature flags 
 with the stars and stripes, which had a very pleas 
 ing effect, I assure you. The landlady's daughter 
 sent a richly bound copy of Tupper's Poems. On 
 a blank leaf was the following, written in a very 
 delicate and careful hand : 
 
 Presented to ... by ... 
 On the eve ere her union in holy matrimony. 
 May sunshine ever beam o'er her ! 
 
 Even the poor relative thought she must do some 
 thing, and sent a copy of " The Whole Duty of 
 Man," bound in very attractive variegated sheep 
 skin, the edges nicely marbled. From the divin- 
 
378 THE AUTOCRAT 
 
 ity-student came the loveliest English edition of 
 Keble's " Christian Year." I opened it, when it 
 came, to the Fourth Sunday in Lent, and read that 
 angelic poem, sweeter than anything I can remem 
 ber since Xavier's " My God, I love thee." I 
 
 am not a Churchman, I don't believe in plant 
 ing oaks in flower-pots, but such a poem as 
 " The Rosebud " makes one's heart a proselyte 
 to the culture it grows from. Talk about it as 
 much as you like, one's breeding shows itself 
 nowhere more than in his religion. A man 
 should be a gentleman in his hymns and prayers ; 
 the fondness for " scenes," among vulgar saints, 
 contrasts so meanly with that 
 
 *' God only and good angels look 
 Behind the blissful scene," 
 
 and that other, 
 
 " He could not trust his melting soul 
 But in his Maker's sight," 
 
 that I hope some of them will see this, and read 
 the poem, and profit by it. 
 
 My laughing and winking young friend under 
 took to procure and arrange the flowers for the 
 table, and did it with immense zeal. I never saw 
 him look happier than when he came in, his hat 
 saucily on one side, and a cheroot in his mouth, 
 with a huge bunch of tea-roses, which he said 
 were for " Madam." 
 
OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 379 
 
 One of the last things that came was an old 
 square box, smelling of camphor, tied and sealed. 
 It bore, in faded ink, the marks, " Calcutta, 
 1805." On opening it, we found a white Cash 
 mere shawl, with a very brief note from the dear 
 old gentleman opposite, saying that he had kept 
 this some years, thinking he might want it, and 
 many more, not knowing what to do with it, 
 that he had never seen it unfolded since he was a 
 young supercargo, and now, if she would spread 
 it on her shoulders, it would make him feel young 
 to look at it. 
 
 Poor Bridget, or Biddy, our red-armed maid of 
 all work ! What must she do but buy a small 
 copper breast-pin and put it under " School- 
 ma'am's " plate that morning, at breakfast ? 
 And Schoolma'am would wear it, though I 
 made her cover it, as well as I could, with a 
 tea-rose. 
 
 It was my last breakfast as a boarder, and I 
 could not leave them in utter silence. 
 
 Good-by, I said, my dear friends, one and 
 all of you ! I have been long with you, and I 
 find it hard parting. I have to thank you for a 
 thousand courtesies, and above all for the patience 
 and indulgence with which you have listened to 
 me when I have tried to instruct or amuse you. 
 My friend the Professor (who, as well as my 
 friend the Poet, is unavoidably absent on this 
 
380 THE AUTOCRAT. 
 
 interesting occasion) has given me reason to sup 
 pose that he would occupy my empty chair about 
 the first of January next. If he comes among 
 you, be kind to him, as you have been to me. 
 May the Lord bless you all! And we shook 
 hands all round the table. 
 
 Half an hour afterwards the breakfast "things 
 and the cloth were gone. I looked up and down 
 the length of the bare boards over which I had so 
 often uttered my sentiments and experiences 
 and Yes, I am a man, like another. 
 
 All sadness vanished, as, in the midst of these 
 old friends of mine, whom you know, and others 
 a little more up in the world, perhaps, to whom I 
 have not introduced you, I took the schoolmistress 
 before the altar from the hands of the old gentle 
 man who used to sit opposite, and who would 
 insist on giving her away. 
 
 And now we two are walking the long path in 
 peace together. The " schoolmistress " finds her 
 skill in teaching called for again, without going 
 abroad to seek little scholars. Those visions of 
 mine have all come true. 
 
 I hope you all love me none the less for any 
 thing I have told you. Farewell ! 
 
INDEX. 
 

 INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 ABUSE, all good attempts get, 
 95. 
 
 ^ESTIVATION, 321. 
 
 AFFINITIES and antipathies, 
 268. 
 
 AGE, softening effects of, 96 ; 
 begins when fire goes down, 
 182 ; Roman age of enlist 
 ment, 183 ; its changes a 
 string of insults, 186. 
 
 A GOOD TIME GOING, 272. 
 
 AIR-PUMP, animal under, 369. 
 ALBUM VERSES, 18. 
 ALPS, effect of looking at, 325. 
 AMERICAN, the Englishman 
 
 reinforced, (a noted person 
 
 thinks,) 291. 
 ANALOGIES, power of seeing, 
 
 97. 
 
 ANATOMIST'S HYMN, THE, 211. 
 ANGLO-SAXONS die out iu 
 
 America,(Dr.Knox thinks,) 
 
 291. 
 ANNIVERSARIES dreaded by 
 
 the Professor, and why, 271. 
 ARGUMENTS, what are those 
 
 which spoil conversation, 
 
 12. 
 ARISTOCRACY, the forming 
 
 American, 317 ; pluck the 
 
 back-bone of, 319. 
 ARTISTS apt to act mechani 
 cally on their brains, 227. 
 
 ASSESSORS, Heaven's, effect ot 
 meeting one of them, ]09. 
 
 ASYLUM, the, 301. 
 
 AUDIENCE, average intellect 
 of, 169 ; aspect of, 170 j a 
 compound vertebrate, 170. 
 
 AUDIENCES very nearly alike, 
 169 5 good feeling and in 
 telligence of, 171. 
 
 AUTHOR does not hate any 
 body, 267. 
 
 AUTHORS, jockeying of, 43 ; 
 purr if skilfully handled, 
 57 ; ashamed of being fun 
 ny, 57 j hate those who 
 call them droll, 57 ; always 
 praise after fifty, 96. 
 
 AUTOMATIC principles appear 
 more prevalent the more 
 we study, 100 ; mental 
 actions, 161. 
 
 AVERAGES, their awful uni 
 formity, 169. 
 
 B. 
 
 BABIES, old, 186. 
 
 BACON, Lord, 331. 
 
 BALZAC, 181, 331. 
 
 BEAUTIES, vulgar, their virtu 
 ous indignation on being- 
 looked at, 236. 
 
 BELIEFS like ancient drink- 
 ing-glasses, 17. 
 
384 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 BELL-GLASS, young woman 
 under, 369. 
 
 BBNICIA BOY, not challenged 
 by the Professor, and why, 
 209. 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, the 
 landlady's son, 14, 61, 67, 
 94, 102, 162, 163, 300, 361. 
 
 BERKSHIRE, 287, 300, 324. 
 
 BERNE, leap from the plat 
 form at, 344. 
 
 BLAKE, Mr., his Jesse Rural. 
 107 
 
 BLONDES, two kinds of, 222. 
 
 "BLOODED" horses, 42. 
 
 BOAT, the Professor's own, 
 description of, 203. 
 
 BOATING, the Professor de 
 scribes his, 199. 
 
 BOATS, the Professor's fleet 
 of, 198. 
 
 BOOKS, hating, 73 ; society a 
 strong solution of, 73 5 the 
 mind sometimes feels above 
 them, 158 ; a man's and a 
 woman's reading, 335. 
 
 BORES, all men are, except 
 when we want them, 7. 
 
 BOSTON, seven wise men of, 
 their sayings, 149. 
 
 EOWIE-KNIFE, the Roman gla- 
 dius modified, 22. 
 
 BRAIN, upper and lower sto 
 ries of, 217 5 attempts to 
 reach mechanically. 227. 
 
 BRAINS, seventy-year clocks, 
 225 j containing ovarian 
 eggs, how to know them, 
 238. 
 
 BRIDGET becomes a caryatid, 
 119 5 presents a breast-pin, 
 379. 
 
 BROWNE, Sir Thomas, admi 
 rable sentiment of, 110. 
 
 BROWNING, Elizabeth, 371. 
 
 BRCCE'S Address, alteration 
 of, 54 
 
 BrLBOUS-HEADKD people, 7. 
 
 BUNKER-HILL monument, 
 rocking of, 347. 
 
 BYRON, his line about strik 
 ing the electric chain, 92. 
 
 C. 
 
 CACHE, children make in 
 stinctively, 249. 
 
 CALAMITIES, grow old rapid 
 ly in proportion to their 
 magnitude, 36 ; the rec 
 ollection of, returns after 
 the first sleep as if new, 
 37. 
 
 CALCULATING machine, 9 ; 
 power least human of qual 
 ities, ]0 
 
 CALL HIM NOT OLD, 210. 
 
 CAMPBELL, misquotation of, 
 83. 
 
 CANARY-BIRD, swimming 
 movements of, 101. 
 
 CANT terms, use of, 312. 
 
 CARLYLE, his article on Bos- 
 well, 343. 
 
 CARPENTER'S bench, Author 
 works at, 217. 
 
 CHAMBERS Street, 332. 
 
 CHAMOUNI, 326. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS, Carlyle's 
 article, 64. 
 
 CHARLES Street, 333. 
 
 CHAUCER compared to an 
 Easter-Beurre, 97 
 
 CHESS-PLAYING, conversation 
 compared to, 75. 
 
 CHILDREN, superstitious little 
 wretches and spiritual 
 cowards, 248. 
 
 CHLOROFORM, Professor, the, 
 under, 358. 
 
 CHRYSO-ARISTOCRACY, our, 
 the weak point in, 318. 
 
 CICERO de Scnectute, Pro- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 385 
 
 f?ssor reads, 182; his trea 
 tise de Senectute, 189. 
 
 CINCINNATI, how not to pro 
 nounce, 349. 
 
 CIRCLES, intellectual, 325. 
 
 CITIES, some of the smaller 
 ones charming, 153 ; leak 
 ing of nature into, 334 
 
 CLERGY rarely hear sermons, 
 33. 
 
 CLERGYMEN, their patients 
 not always truthful, 102. 
 
 CLOJK of the Andover Semi 
 nary, 348. 
 
 CLOJST full of sweet smells, 91. 
 
 CLUB5, advantages of, 75. 
 
 COAT, constructed on a priori 
 grounds, 79. 
 
 COTJR, Sylvanus, Jr., 19 
 
 CORVEE,' 301, 303. 
 
 COLD-BLOODED creatures, 15*5. 
 
 COLERIDGE, his remark on 
 literary men's needing a 
 profession, 217. 
 
 COLISEUM, visit to, 342. 
 
 COMET, th.3 late, 27- 
 
 COMMENCEMENT day, like the 
 start for the Darby, 112 
 
 COMMON sense, as we under 
 stand it, 17. 
 
 COMMUNICATIONS received by 
 the Author, 350 
 
 COMPANY, the sad, 302 
 
 CONCEIT br^d by little local 
 ized powers and narrow 
 streaks of knowledge, 10; 
 natural to the mind as a 
 centre to a circle, 11 , uses 
 of, 11 5 makes a people 
 cheerful, 12 
 
 CONSTITUTION, American fe 
 male, 49 ; in choice of sum 
 mer residence, 324. 
 
 CONTENTMENT, 327. 
 
 CONTROVERSY, hydrostatic 
 paradox of, 136 
 
 CONUNDRUMS indulged in by 
 25 
 
 the company, 307 ; rebuked 
 by the Author, 303. 
 
 CONVERSATION, very serious 
 matter, 6 ; with some per 
 sons weakening, 6 ; great 
 faults of, 12 ; spoiled by 
 certain kinds of argument, 
 12 5 a code of finalities ne 
 cessary to, 12 ; com pared to 
 Italian game of mora, 18 
 shapes our thoughts, 31 
 Blair-ing of reported, 46 
 one of the fine arts, 60 
 compared to chess-playing 
 75 , depends on how much 
 is taken for granted, 75 ', 
 of Lecturers, 76. 
 
 COOKESON, William, of All- 
 Souls' College, 103. 
 
 COPLEY, his portrait of the 
 merchant-uncle, 24 ; of the 
 great-grandmother, 24. 
 
 "CORRESPONDENT, our For 
 eign," 140 
 
 COUNTERPARTS of people in 
 many different cities, 167. 
 
 COWPER, 223 ; his lines on 
 his mother's portrait, 344 -, 
 his lines on the "Royal 
 G-orge,-'344. 
 
 CREED, the Author's, 105. 
 
 CRINOLINE, Otaheitan, 22. 
 
 CROW and king-bird, 34. 
 
 CURLS, flat circular on tem 
 ples, 21. 
 
 D. 
 
 DANDIES, uses of, 314 ; illus 
 trious ones, 315, 316 ; men 
 are born, 317. 
 
 DAVIDSON, Lucretia and Mar 
 garet, 223. 
 
 DEACON'S MASTERPIECE, THE, 
 309. 
 
 DEATH as a form of rhetoric, 
 159 ; introduction to, 255. 
 
3 86 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 DEERFIELD, elm in, 349. 
 DEVIZES, woman struck dead 
 
 at, 345. 
 DIGHTON ROCK, inscription 
 
 on, 301. 
 DIMENSIONS, three of solids, 
 
 handling ideas as if they 
 
 had, 100. 
 DIVINITY, doctors of, many 
 
 people qualified to be, 33. 
 DIVINITY STUDENT, the, 1, 49, 
 
 97, 99, 102, 104, 120, 131, 
 
 149, 150, 158, 163, 221, 227, 
 
 234, 239, 248, 268, 280, 281, 
 
 307, 315, 320, 377. 
 DOCTOR, old, his catalogue of 
 
 books for light reading, 190. 
 DRINKING-GLASSES, ancient, 
 
 beliefs like, 17. 
 DROLL, authors dislike to be 
 
 called, 57. 
 
 DRUNKENNESS often a punish 
 ment, 231. 
 DULL persons great comforts 
 
 at times, 7 ; happiness of 
 
 finding we are, 72. 
 
 EARS, voluntary movement of, 
 10. 
 
 EARTH, not ripe yet, 27. 
 
 EARTHQUAKE, to launch Levi 
 athan, 85. 
 
 EBLIS, hall of, 302. 
 
 EDITORS, appeals to their be 
 nevolence, 357 5 must get 
 calluses, 357. 
 
 EDUCATION, professional, most 
 of our people have had, 33. 
 
 EGGS, Ovarian, intellectual, 
 237. 
 
 ELM, American, 284; the great 
 Johnston, 285 ; Hatfield, 
 287 ; Sheffield, 287 ; West 
 Springfield, 287 ; IMttsfield, 
 
 288 ; Newburyport, 288 ; 
 Cohasset, 288 ; English and 
 American, comparison of, 
 290. 
 
 ELMS, Springfield, 286 ; first 
 class, 287 ; second class, 
 288 ; Mr. Paddock's row 
 of, 292 ; in Andover, 348, 
 349; in Norwich. 349; in 
 Deerfield, 349 ; in Lancas 
 ter, two very large ones. 
 See LANCASTER 
 
 EMOTIONS strike us obliquely, 
 342. 
 
 EPITHETS follow isothermal 
 lines, 137. 
 
 ERASMUS, colloquies of, 103 ; 
 naufragium or shipwreck 
 of, 103. 
 
 ERECTILE heads, men of gen 
 ius with, 7. 
 
 ESSAYS, diluted, 78. 
 
 ESSEX STREET, 332. 
 
 ESTHER, Queen, and Ahasue- 
 rus, 374. 
 
 ETERNITY, remembering one's 
 self in, 244. 
 
 EVERLASTING, the herb, its 
 suggestions, 89. 
 
 EXERCISE, scientifically ex 
 amined, 202. 
 
 Ex PEDE HRRCULEM, 131. 
 
 EXPERIENCE, a solemn fowl ; 
 her eggs, 331. 
 
 EXPERTS in crime and suffer 
 ing, 38. 
 
 FACES, negative, 170. 
 
 FACTS, horror of generous 
 minds for what are com 
 monly called, 5 ; the brute 
 beasts of the intelligence, 
 5 ; men of, 172. 
 
 FAMILY, man of, 24 
 
 FANCIES, youthful, 326. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 387 
 
 FAREWELL, the Author's, 380. 
 
 FAULT found with everything 
 worth saying, 133. 
 
 FEELING that we have been 
 in the same condition be 
 fore, 85 5 modes of explain 
 ing it, 86, 87. 
 
 FEELINGS, every person's, 
 have a front-door and a 
 side-door, 154. 
 
 FIFTY cents, a figure of rheto 
 ric, 320. 
 
 FLASH phraseology, 312, 313. 
 
 FLAVOR, nothing knows its 
 own, 6t. 
 
 FLEET of our companions, 111. 
 
 FLOWERS, wny pjets talk so 
 much of, 278. 
 
 FRANKLIN-PLACE, front-yards 
 in, 332. 
 
 FRENCH exercise, Benjamin 
 Franklin's, 67, 163. 
 
 FRIENDS, shown up by story 
 tellers, 71. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP does not author 
 ize one to say disagreeable 
 things, 59. 
 
 FRONT-DOOR and side-door to 
 our feelings, 151. 
 
 FRUIT, green, intellectual, 
 these United States a great 
 market for, 319 ; mourn 
 ing, 372. 
 
 FUEL, carbon and bread and 
 cheese are equally, 188. 
 
 FUNNY, authors ashamed of 
 being, 57. 
 
 "'FUST-RATE" and other vul 
 garism, 32. 
 
 G. 
 
 GEESE for swans, 333. 
 GENIUS, a weak flavor of, 3 5 
 
 the advent of, a surprise, 63. 
 GIFT-ENTERPRISES, Nature's, 
 
 63, 64. 
 
 GILBERT, 'the French poet, 
 224. 
 
 GIL BLAS, the archbishop 
 served him right, 59 5 mot 
 to from, 242. 
 
 GILPIN, Daddy, 283. 
 
 GIRLS' story in " Book of 
 Martyrs," 370 , two young, 
 their fall from gallery, 343. 
 
 GIZZARD and Liver never con 
 founded, 375. 
 
 GOOD-BY, the Author's, 379. 
 
 GRAMMAR, higher law in, 45. 
 
 GRAVESTONES, transplanting 
 of, 292. 
 
 GREEN fruit, intellectual, 319. 
 
 GROUND-BAIT, literary, 43. 
 
 H. 
 
 HABIT, what its essence is, 
 188. 
 
 HAND, the great wooden, 249. 
 
 " HA.OW ? " whether final, 
 131. 
 
 HAT, the old gentleman oppo- 
 site's white, 214 5 the au 
 thor's youthful Leghorn, 
 215. 
 
 HATS, aphorisms concerning, 
 215. 
 
 HEARTS, inscriptions on, 301. 
 
 HERESY, burning for, experts 
 in, would be found in any 
 large city, 38. 
 
 HISTORIAN, the quotation 
 from, on punning, 15. 
 
 HONEY, emptying the jug of, 
 20. 
 
 HORSES, what they feed on, 
 202. 
 
 HOSPITALITY depends on lati 
 tude, 365. 
 
 HOT day, sounds of, 366. 
 
 Hotel de PUnivers et des 
 Etats Unis, 151. 
 
388 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 HOUSATONIC, the Professor's 
 dwelling by, 299. 
 
 HOUSES, dying out of, 294 ; 
 killed by commercial 
 smashes, 294 ; shape them 
 selves upon our natures, 
 296. 
 
 HOUSE, the body we live in, 
 294 5 Irishman's at Cam- 
 bridgeport, 23. 
 
 HOUYNHNM Gazette, 277. 
 
 HUCKLEBERRIES, hail-storm 
 of, 280. 
 
 HULL, how Pope's line is read 
 there, 154. 
 
 HUMA, story of, 9. 
 
 HUMANITIES, cumulative, 26. 
 
 HYACINTH, blue, 278, 279. 
 
 HYSTERICS, 106. 
 
 I. 
 
 ICE in wine-glass, tinkling 
 like cow-bells, 91. 
 
 IDKAS, age of, in our memo 
 ries, 36 5 handling them as 
 if they had the three dimen 
 sions of solids, 100. 
 
 IMPONDERABLES move the 
 world, 163. 
 
 IMPROMPTUS, 19. 
 
 INHERITED traits show very 
 early, 237. 
 
 INSANITY, the logic of an ac 
 curate mind overtasked, 
 48 ; becomes a duty un 
 der certain circumstances, 
 48. 
 
 INSTINCTS, crushing out of, 
 369. 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, the Author 
 discourses of, 228. 
 
 INTERMITTENT, poetical, 303. 
 
 INVENTIVE Power, economi 
 cally used, 290. 
 
 IRIS, cut the yellow hair, 83. 
 
 IRISHMAN'S house at Cam- 
 
 bridgeport, 23. 
 ISLAND, the, 45. 
 
 J. 
 
 JAILERS and undertakers 
 magnetize people, 38. 
 
 JAUNDICE, as a token of affec 
 tion, 159. 
 
 JOHN and Thomas, their dia 
 logue of six persons, 61. 
 
 JOHN, the young fellow called, 
 63, 76, 86, 93, 120, 135, 211, 
 226, 234, 235, 253, 266, 281, 
 307, 314, 320, 372, 378. 
 
 JOHNSON, Dr., his remark on 
 attacks, 136 ; lines to 
 Thrale, 183. 
 
 JUDGMENT, standard of, how 
 to establish, 17. 
 
 K. 
 
 KEATS, 223. 
 
 KEBLE, his poem, 378. 
 
 "KERRIDGE," and other char 
 acteristic expressions, 130. 
 
 KIRKE WHITE, 224. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE, little streaks of 
 specialized, breed conceit, 
 10. 
 
 KNUCKLES, marks of on brok 
 en glass, 129. 
 
 LADY, the real, not sensitive 
 if looked at, 236. 
 
 LADY-BOARDER, the, with au 
 tograph-book, 7. 
 
 LANDLADY, 61, 93, 128, 369, 
 377. 
 
 LANDLADY'S daughter, 19, 21, 
 
66, 166, 167, 270, 231, 372, 
 377. 
 
 LATTER-DAY WARNINGS, 27. 
 
 LAUGHTER and tears, wind 
 and water-power, 106. 
 
 LECTURERS, grooves in their 
 minds, 76 ; talking in 
 streaks out of their lec 
 tures, 77 ; get homesick, 
 172 ; attacks upon, 367. 
 
 LECTURES, feelings connected 
 with their delivery, 167 ; 
 popular, what they shoull 
 have, 168 ; old, 168 ; what 
 thay ought to be, 169. 
 
 LEIBNITZ, remark of, 2. 
 
 Les Societes Polyphysio- 
 philosophiques, 163. 
 
 LETTER to an ambitious young 
 man, 351. 
 
 LETTERS with various re 
 quests, 82. 
 
 LEVIATHAN, launch of, 84. 
 
 LIFE, compared to transcript 
 of it, 70 ; compared to 
 books, 161 ; divisible into 
 fifteen periods, 186 5 early, 
 revelations concerning, 246; 
 its experiences, 336, 337. 
 
 LILAC leaf-buds, 278, 279. 
 
 LION, the leaden one at Aln- 
 wick, 344. 
 
 LISTON thought himself a 
 tragic actor, 108. 
 
 LITERARY pickpockets, 59. 
 
 LIVING TEMPLE, THE. 212. 
 
 LOCHIEL rocked in cradle 
 when old, 96. 
 
 LOG, using oil schoolmates 
 as, to mark our rate of 
 sailing, 110. 
 
 LOGICAL minds, what they do, 
 16. 
 
 LONG path, the, 368 ; walking 
 together, 380. 
 
 LANDON, Letitia, 371. 
 
 LOVE-CAPACITY, 330. 
 
 INDEX. 389 
 
 LOVE, introduction to, 256; 
 
 its relative solubility in the 
 
 speech of men and women, 
 
 331. 
 LUDICROUS, a divine idea, 
 
 109. 
 
 LUNIVERSARY, return of, 57. 
 LYRIC conception hits like a 
 
 bullet, 117. 
 
 M. 
 
 MACAULAY-FLOWERS of Liter 
 ature, 16. 
 
 " MAGAZINE, Northern,-' got 
 up by the " Come-Outers," 
 144. 
 
 MAINE, willows in, 350. 
 
 MAN of family, 24. 
 
 MAP, photograph of, on the 
 wall, 237. 
 
 MARE RUBRUM, 147. 
 
 MARIGOLD, its suggestions, 
 83. 
 
 MATHSR, Cotton, 78, 363. 
 
 MEERSCHAUMS and poems 
 must be kept and used, 
 121, 123. 
 
 MEN, self-made, 23 ; all, love 
 all women, 268. 
 
 Mesalliance, dreadful con 
 sequences of, 263. 
 
 MIDDLE-AGED female, takes 
 offence, 34. 
 
 MILLIONISM, green stage of, 
 373. 
 
 MILTON compared to a Saint- 
 Germain p^ar, etc., 97. 
 
 MIND, automatic actions of, 
 162. 
 
 MINDS, classification of, 1 , 
 jerky ones fatiguing, 6; log 
 ical, what they do, 16 ; 
 calm and clear best basis 
 for love and friendship, 157 j 
 saturation-point of, 160. 
 
39 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 MINISTER, my old, his remarks 
 on want of attention, 35. 
 
 MISERY, a great one puts a 
 new stamp on us, 38. 
 
 MISFORTUNE, professional 
 dealers in, 38. 
 
 MISPRINTS, 56. 
 
 MOLASSES, Melasses, or Mo- 
 lossa's, 78. 
 
 MORA, Italian game of con 
 versation compared to, 18. 
 
 MORALIST, the great, quota 
 tion from on punning, 15. 
 
 MOUNTAINS and sea, 322. 
 
 MOURNING fruit, 372. 
 
 MUG, the bitten, 244. 
 
 MULIEBRITY and femineity in 
 voice, 263. 
 
 MUSA, 304. 
 
 MUSCULAR powers, when they 
 decline, 189. 
 
 MUSE, the, 304. 
 
 MUSICIANS, odd movements of, 
 100. 
 
 Music, its effects different 
 from thought, 159. 
 
 MUTUAL Admiration, Society 
 of, 2. 
 
 MY LADY'S CHEEK, (verse,) 
 186. 
 
 MYRTLE STREET, discovered 
 by the Professor, 200 ; de 
 scription of, 201 ; garden 
 in, 332, 
 
 N. 
 
 NAHANT, 324. 
 
 NATURE, Amen of, 279 5 leak 
 ing of, into cities, 334. 
 
 NAUTILUS, THE CHAMBERED, 
 115. 
 
 NERVE-PLAYING, masters of, 
 155. 
 
 NERVE-TAPPING, 6 
 
 NERVE, olfactory, connection 
 of, with brain, 90. 
 
 NEWTON, his speech about the 
 
 child and the pebbles, 98. 
 NORWICH, elms in, 349 ; how 
 
 not to pronounce, 349. 
 NOVEL, one, everybody has 
 
 stuff for, 69 ; why I do not 
 
 write, 69. 
 
 0. 
 
 OAK, its one mark of suprem 
 acy, 283. 
 
 OCEAN, the, two men walking 
 by, 98. 
 
 OLD AGE, starting point of, 
 183 5 allegory of, 183 -, ap 
 proach of, 185 5 habits the 
 great mark of, 187 5 how 
 nature cheats us into, 187 ; 
 in the Professor's contem 
 poraries, 194 5 remedies for, 
 197 ; excellent remedy for, 
 210. 
 
 OLD GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE, 
 the, 3, 61, 72,102,118, 211, 
 214, 216, 239, 254, 256, 379, 
 380. 
 
 OLD MAN, a person startled 
 when he first hears himself 
 called so, 187. 
 
 OLD MEN, always poets if they 
 ever have been, 119. 
 
 OMENS, of childhood, 250 
 
 ONE-HOSS SHAY, THE WON 
 DERFUL, 309. 
 
 "OUR SUMATRA CORRESPOND 
 ENCE," 141. 
 
 P. 
 
 PAIL, the white pine, of water, 
 244. 
 
 PARALLELISM, without iden 
 tity, in Oriental and Occi 
 dental nature, 290. 
 
 PARENTHESES, dismount the 
 reader, 214. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 39 1 
 
 PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY, 
 361. 
 
 PATH, the long, 338. 
 
 PEARS, men are like, in com 
 ing to maturity, 97. 
 
 PHOSPHORUS, its suggestions, 
 88. 
 
 PHOTOGRAPHS of the Past, 296. 
 
 PHRASES, complimentary, ap 
 plied to authors, what de 
 termines them, 137. 
 
 PIE, the young fellow treats 
 disrespectfully, 93 ; the 
 Author takes too large a 
 piece of, 94. 
 
 PIECRUST, poems, etc., writ 
 ten under influence of, 94. 
 
 PILLAR, the Hangman's, 345. 
 
 PINKNEY, William, 7. 
 
 PIRATES, Danish, their skins 
 on church doors, 128 
 
 PLAGIARISM, Author's virtu 
 ous disgust for, 176. 
 
 POCKET-BOOK fever, 252. 
 
 POEM with the slight al 
 terations, 55. 
 
 POEMS, alterations of, 54 , 
 have a body and a soul, 
 117 ; green state of, 120 ; 
 porous like meerschaums, 
 123 ; post-prandial, the 
 Professor's idea of, 271 
 
 POET, my friend, the, 117, 
 153, 210, 216 et seq., 222, 
 271, 272, 274. 
 
 POETS love verses while warm 
 from their minds, 120 5 two 
 kinds of, 222 ; apt to act 
 mechanically on their 
 brains, 227 
 
 POETS and artists, why like 
 to be prone to abuse of 
 stimulants, 232 
 
 POETASTER who has tasted 
 type, 356. 
 
 POETICAL impulse external. 
 118. 
 
 POETRY uses white light for 
 its main object, 58. 
 
 POLISH lance, 22. 
 
 POOR relation in black bom 
 bazine, 34, 102, 120, 253, 
 320, 377. 
 
 POPLAR, murder of one, 284. 
 
 PORT-CHUCK, his vivacious 
 sally, 215. 
 
 PORTSMOUTH, how not to pro 
 nounce, 340. 
 
 POWERS, little localized, breed 
 conceit, 10. 
 
 PREACHER, dull, might lapse 
 into quasi heathenism, 33 
 
 "PRELUDE," the Professor's, 
 359. 
 
 PRENTISS, Dame, 244. 
 
 PRIDE in a woman, 330 
 
 PRINCE Rupert's drops of lit 
 erature, 44 
 
 PRINCIPLE, against obvious 
 facts, 66. 
 
 PRIVATE Journal, extract from 
 my, 301. 
 
 PRIVATE theatricals, 49. 
 
 PROBABILITIES provided with 
 buffers, 65. 
 
 PROFESSION, literary men 
 should have a, 217. 
 
 PROFESSOR, my friend the, 28, 
 84, 95, 106, 129, 136, 144, 
 179 et seq., 211, 216 et 
 seq., 235, 237, 238, 274, 294 
 et seq., 309, 358 et seq. 
 
 PROLOGUE, 51. 
 
 PUBLIC Garden, 333. 
 
 PUGILISTS, when " stale," 189. 
 
 PUNNING, quotations respect 
 ing, 15. 
 
 PUNS, law respecting, 13 5 
 what they consist in, 58 , 
 surreptitiously circulated 
 among the company, 307. 
 
 PUPIL of the eye, simile con 
 cerning, the Author dis 
 gorges, 174. 
 
39* 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 QUANTITY, false, Sidney 
 Smith's remark on, 131. 
 
 R- 
 
 RACE of life, the, report of 
 
 running in, 113. 
 RACES, our sympathies go 
 
 naturally with higher, 77. 
 RACING, not republican, 39. 
 RAPHAEL and Michael Angelo, 
 
 249. 
 
 RASPAIL'S proof-sheets, 28, 
 Rat d&s Salons d Lecture, 
 
 67. 
 READING for the sake of talk 
 
 ing, 161 ; a man's and a 
 
 woman's, 335. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS, trivial, es 
 sential to our identity, 243. 
 RELATIVES, opinions of as to 
 
 a man's powers, 63. 
 REPEATING one's self, 8. 
 REPUTATION, living on contin 
 
 gent, 72. 
 REPUTATIONS, conventional, 
 
 43. 
 
 "RETIRING" at night, eti 
 quette of, 253. 
 RHODE-ISLAND, near what 
 
 place, 284. 
 RHYMES, old, we get tired of, 
 
 20 -, bad to chew upon, 354. 
 RIDICULOUS, love of, danger 
 ous to literary men, 107. 
 ROSES, damask, 277, 280. 
 ROWING, nearest approach to 
 
 flying, 204 5 its excellences, 
 
 205 ; its joys, 205. 
 *' ROYAL GEORGE," the, Cow 
 
 pers poem on, 344 
 RUM, the term applied by 
 
 low people to noble fluids, 
 
 230. 
 
 SAAS-PLATES, 373. 
 
 SADDLE-LEATHER compared to 
 sole-leather, 201. 
 
 ;< SAHTISFAIICTION," a tepid 
 expression, 126. 
 
 SAINT Genevieve, visit to 
 tomb of, 343, 
 
 "SAINTS and their bodies,'' 
 an admirable Essay, 198. 
 
 SANTOKINI-S laughing-muscle, 
 235. 
 
 SAVING one's thoughts, 31. 
 
 SCHOOLMISTRESS, the, 37, 49, 
 72, 85, 102, 128, 140, 149, 
 150, 163, 221, 222, 246, 248, 
 253, 256 et seq., 277, 291, 
 292, 300 et seq , 325, 375 
 et seq., 380. 
 
 "SCIENCE," the Professor's 
 inward smile at her airs, 
 217- 
 
 SCIENTIFIC certainty has no 
 spring in it, 65. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC knowledge par 
 takes of insolence, 65. 
 
 SCRAPING the floor, effect of, 
 58. 
 
 SEA and Mountains, 322. 
 
 SEED capsule (of poems,) 
 243. 
 
 SELF-DETERMINING power, 
 limitation of, 105, 
 
 SELF-ESTEEM, with good 
 ground is imposing, 11. 
 
 SELF-MADE men, 23. 
 
 SERMON, proposed, of the 
 Author, 10]. 
 
 SERMONS, feeble, hard to lis 
 ten to, but may act induc 
 tively, 33 
 
 SENTIMENTS, all splashed and 
 streaked with, 277 
 
 SEVEN Wise Men of Boston, 
 their sayings, 149. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE, old copy, with 
 
INDEX. 
 
 393 
 
 flakes of pie-crust between 
 its leaves, 92. 
 
 SHAWL, the Indian blanket, 
 22. 
 
 SHORTENING weapons and 
 lengthening boundaries, 22. 
 
 SHIP, the, and martin-house, 
 252. 
 
 SHIPS, afraid of, 249. 
 
 SHOP-BLINDS, iron, produce a 
 shiver, 326. 
 
 SIERRA LEONE, native of, en 
 joying himself, 367. 
 
 SIGHT, pretended failure of, in 
 old persons, 209. 
 
 SIMILITUDE and analogies, 
 ocean of, 99. 
 
 SIN, its tools and their han 
 dle, 149 : introduction to, 
 255. 
 
 SMELL, as connected with the 
 memory, etc., 88. 
 
 SMILE, the terrible, 234. 
 
 SMITH, Sidney, abused by 
 London Quarterly Review, 
 108. 
 
 SNEAKING fellows to be re 
 garded tenderly, 268. 
 
 SOCIETIES of mutual admira 
 tion, 2 
 
 SOUL, its concentric envelopes, 
 295. 
 
 SOUNDS, suggestive ones, 258, 
 259. 
 
 SPARRING, the Professor sees 
 a little, and describes it, 
 207. 
 
 SPOKEN language plastic, 31. 
 
 SPORTING men, virtues of, 
 42. 
 
 SPRING HAS COME, 239. 
 
 SQUIRMING when old false 
 hoods are turned over, 135. 
 
 STAGE-RUFFIAN, the, 61. 
 
 "STARS, the, and the Earth," 
 a little book, referred to, 
 324. 
 
 STATE HOUSE, Boston, the 
 
 hub of the solar system, 
 
 150. 
 
 STATOO of deceased infant," 
 
 130. 
 
 STILLICIDIUM, sentimental, 94. 
 STONE, flat, turning over of, 
 
 133. 
 STRANGER, who came with 
 
 young fellow called John, 
 
 150, 372. 
 " STRAP ! " my man John's 
 
 story, 127. 
 STRASBURG Cathedral, rocking 
 
 of its spire, 346. 
 STRIKING in of thoughts and 
 
 feelings, 161. 
 STUART, his two portraits, 
 
 24 
 SUMMER, residence, choice of, 
 
 324 
 
 SUN AND SHADOW, 47. 
 SUNDAY mornings, how the 
 
 Author shows his respect 
 
 for, 211. 
 SWANS, taking his ducks for, 
 
 333. 
 SWIFT, property restored to, 
 
 176. 
 
 SWORDS, Roman and Ameri 
 can, 22. 
 
 SYLVA NOVANGLICA, 288. 
 SYNTAX, Dr., 283. 
 
 TALENT, a little makes people 
 jealous, 3. 
 
 TALKERS, real, 172. 
 
 TALKING like playing at a 
 mark with an engine, 32 j 
 one of the fine arts, 60. 
 
 TEAPOT, literary, 73. 
 
 THE LAST BLOSSOM, 195 
 
 THE OLD MAN DREAMS, 80. 
 
 THE TWO ARMIES, 275. 
 
394 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 THE VOICELESS, 371. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL students, we all 
 are, 33. 
 
 THOUGHT revolves in cycles, 
 85 5 if uttered, is a kind of 
 excretion, 238. 
 
 THOUGHTS may be original, 
 though often before uttered, 
 8 ; saving, 31 -, shaped in 
 conversation, 31 ; tell worst 
 to minister and best to 
 young people, 35 , my best 
 seem always old, .36 ; real, 
 knock out somebody's wind, 
 136. 
 
 THOUGHT-SPRINKLERS, 31. 
 
 TIME and space, 325 
 
 TOBACCO-STAIN may strike 
 into character, 122. 
 
 TOBACCO-STOPPER, lovely one, 
 121. 
 
 TOWNS, small, not more mod 
 est than cities, 151 
 
 TOY, author carves a wonder 
 ful at Marseilles, 218. 
 
 TOYS moved by sand, caution 
 from one, 94 
 
 TRAVEL, maxims relating to, 
 341 ; recollections of, 341. 
 
 TREE, growth of, as shown by 
 rings of wood, 347 ; slice of 
 a hemlock, 347 ; its growth 
 compared to human lives, 
 348. 
 
 TREES, great, 281 ; mother- 
 idea in each kind of, 283 ; 
 afraid of measuring-tape, 
 285 , Mr. Emerson's report 
 on, 286 ; of America, our 
 friend's interesting work 
 on, 289. 
 
 TREE-WIVES, 281 
 
 TRIADS, writing in, 100. 
 
 TROIS Freres, dinners at the, 
 91. 
 
 TROTTING, democratic and fa 
 vorable to many virtues, 
 
 42 5 matches not races, 
 
 42. 
 TRUTH, primary relations 
 
 with, 16. 
 TRUTHS and lies compared to 
 
 cubes and spheres, 138. 
 TUPPER, 19, 377r 
 TUPPERIAN wisdom, 331. 
 TUTOR, my late Latin, hia 
 
 verses, 321. 
 
 U. 
 
 UNLOVED, the, 370. 
 
 V. 
 
 VENEERING in conversation, 
 173. 
 
 VERSE, proper medium for 
 revealing our secrets, 71. 
 
 VERSES, album, 18 ; absti 
 nence from writing, the 
 mark of a poet, 245. 
 
 VERSE-WRITERS', their peculi 
 arities, 354. 
 
 VIOLINS, soaked in music, 
 123 5 take a century to dry, 
 124 
 
 VIRTUES, negative, 320. 
 
 VISITORS, getting rid of, when 
 their visit is over, 20. 
 
 VOICE, the Teutonic maiden's, 
 262 ; the German woman's, 
 263; the little child's in 
 the hospital, 264. 
 
 VOICES, certain female, 260, 
 261 ; fearfully sweet ones, 
 261 ; hard and sharp, 264 ; 
 people do not know their 
 own, 265 ; sweet must be 
 long to good spirits, 265. 
 
 Voleur, brand of, on galley 
 rogues, 126. 
 
 VOLUME, man of one, 173. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 395 
 
 WALKING arm against arm, 
 21 ; laws of, 84 5 sanctioned, 
 200 ; riding and rowing 
 compared, 203. 
 
 WASP, sloop of war, 251. 
 
 WATCH-PAPER, the old gen 
 tleman's, 257. 
 
 WATER, the white-pine pail 
 of, 244. 
 
 WEDDING, the, 380. 
 
 WEDDING-PRESENTS, the, 377. 
 
 WELLINGTON, gentle in his 
 old age, 96. 
 
 WHAT WE ALL THINK, 177. 
 
 WILL, compared to a drop of 
 water in a crystal, 101- 
 
 WILLOWS in Maine, 350. 
 
 WINE of ancients, 78. 
 
 WIT takes imperfect views 
 of things, 58. 
 
 WOMAN, an excellent instru 
 ment for a nerve-player, 
 156 ; to love a, must see 
 her through a pin-hole, 
 271 ; must be true as death, 
 330 ; marks of low and bad 
 blood in, 330 ; love-ca 
 pacity in, 330 ; pride in, 
 330; why she should not 
 say too much, 331. 
 
 WOMEN, young, advice to, 
 56 ; inspire poets, 221 ; 
 their praise the poet's re 
 
 ward, 221 ; first to detect 
 a poet, 222 , all men love 
 all, 268 ; all, love all men, 
 269 5 pictures of, 270 ; who 
 have weighed all that life 
 can offer, 337. 
 
 WOODBRIDGE, Benjamin, his 
 grave, 292, 294. 
 
 WORLD, old and new, com 
 parison of their types of 
 organization, 289 
 
 WRITING with feet in hot 
 water, 8 ; like shooting with 
 a rifle, 32. 
 
 Y. 
 
 YES ? in conversation, 21. 
 
 YOUNG FELLOW called John, 
 63, 76, 86, 93, 120, 135, 211, 
 226, 234, 235 253, 266, 281, 
 307, 314, 320, 372, 378. 
 
 YOUNG LADY come to be fin 
 ished off, 11. 
 
 YOUTH, flakes off like button- 
 wood bark, 185 5 American, 
 not perfect type of physical 
 humanity, 206 ; and age, 
 what Author means by, 
 242 
 
 Z. 
 
 ZlMMERMANN, 7. 
 
 Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by John Wilson & Son. 
 
PS